The Devil Wears Prada syndrome....

So that scene in the film.... 

Anne Hathaway has to source Meryl Streep a flight home in a hurricane. Meryl Streep won't take no as an answer, Anne Hathaway has no idea where to start or what to do and the sense of panic is rising... Welcome to my life on a daily basis.

This damn holiday cannot come soon enough and I swear if they cancel me.... God help them!!

I'll keep you posted, TTFN Sammy xx

The holiday curse...

Have I ever told you about our holiday curse?  What can I say other than we’re due to go on holiday mid September to Turkey, loosely translated as don’t book any holidays for that period or consider travelling to Turkey!

 

It is a running joke that every holiday we book ends in disaster, its not strictly true, its not every holiday - just most!

 

We have been cancelled, delayed, stuck in other countries, attacked by giant bugs, the list is endless!  Don’t get me wrong – we’ve had some fabulous holidays, but its got to the point where it is a standing joke between friends and family. 

 

We’ve been cancelled due to rioting in Egypt – but ended up in a fabulous holiday in Rome and Venice.  We were cancelled due to the ash cloud – but ended up in Amsterdam for a weekend for compensation.  We were cancelled because our hotel was flooded by a massive hurricane in Cuba – we waited and went the following year!  We had a holiday from hell on our honeymoon and flew home a week early, we then flew to Dublin for the remaining week and got stuck there because the planes engines failed – the list is not exhaustive.  So as you can see, it all happens to us!

 

So it is with trepidation that I get down from the loft and dust off my suitcase for our next adventure to Turkey – do wish me luck!  And you've been warned... Don't book anything for when were away or for the country were going to!

 

TTFN, Sammy xx

A few things IBS sufferers might identify with...

So I've touched on it before, but I've suffered with chronic IBS since 2007.  I suffer with IBS-D, (diarrhoea problems), but there I'd also IBS-C (constipation) or IBS-A (alternating). Have been having a major relapse of late and am trying to see the funny side of it, so thought I'd come up with a list some people might identify with!

1. Wind.

Why am I always so full of wind! The problem isn't necessarily it coming out (either end... Both as embarrasing as each other), but the noises it makes rumbling around my tummy and the size I can swell up to is just amazing.  The problem with it coming out is not being sure if you should do it in the loo... Just in case!

2. Bread is the enemy.

As is most of everything else, pastry, onions, pasta, peppers, rice, cheese, milk... god I'm so bored of avoiding everything.

3. Always wearing trousers/skirts a size too big.

The possibility of them falling down is very real, but I need that extra size for when point #1 rears it's ugly head. My tummy has the most amazing swelling ability and I need the room just in case!

4. Always needing to know where the nearest loo is.

Being stuck in traffic on a motorway can be a close to the wind emergency situation, it sucks.  Not knowing where the loo is leads to all kinds of anxiety and makes the sitch worse I swear!  At cinemas I need to sit on the end seat so I can get out easily, same for plane journeys etc. it's just not worth not knowing where that nearest loo is!

5. The pain.

Oh god, why didn't anyone tell me about the pain? At time I feel like sometimes the scene from alien is occurring in my tummy. The faces I pull can be second to none and the groaning, well don't even get me started!  The pain cam keep me awake at night, can have me doubled over and can make me cry, it's just not fun.

6. Over sharing.

TMI at times, I know. I start with the... 'I suffer with my digestive system' and it ends up with 'awful upset stomach with such bad pain and constant vomit inducing feeling', and that's just for starters!  When I was younger it was so uncool to talk about your toilet habits, nowadays anyone that listens get to know!!

7. Hot flushes.

Sadly these aren't the power surges I've heard about. These are heart hammering, sweat beading on your top lip, bright red faced hot flushes that accompany the pain, bloating and the immediate need to rush to the loo.

8. The drs trips.

Well isn't going to the drs always fun, especially when they have absolutely no idea what to do with you. I spent a year going in once a week, convinced I was dying and no bugger would believe me. It wasn't until the end of that year did a dr actually take me seriously and send me for a colonoscopyto finally diagnose me with IBS.  He then retired and I'm back to the internet for cures!

9. Taking so many drugs I rattle.

I am now quite under control with my IBS, (apart from my current flare up) however to feel like this I take 3 prescription drugs a day (used to be 4 but a dodgy heartbeat put paid to the really good anti sickness pills 😔).  Living on Imodium is just amazing and if I don't take my cocktail of medicines, life is a very dark place indeed.  I am luckier than some, I know this, but oh to live drug free! 

10. Anxiety.

I am just anxious all the time, am I close enough to a loo? Does that gurgling mean the world is about to fall out of my bottom? Can I manage a coach trip or even a short journey in a car someone else is driving?

11. Exhaustion.

Being up all night in pain, up all morning with an upset tummy, feeling sick for the remainder of the day really wears me out.  I'm so tired my bones hurt.

There's loads of other points, I'm well aware... These are what just popped in to my head. High five if you're a sufferer like me or live with one or sympathise with one. Yes there are iller people out there, yes I should be more grateful I'm alive, trust me I am, but IBS can really get you down at times.

Thanks for reading, ttfn Sammy xx

The Rowan's Hospice Moonlit Memories Walk

Well today seems a poignant day to write this blog.  Today is Jason’s birthday, the first birthday he hasn’t seen after passing away last year, he is 42 today.

 

On Saturday night (21/06) a group of us completed the Moonlight Memories walk around Southsea/Old Portsmouth to raise money for The Rowans Hospice.  It is a 6 or a 12 mile walk (we did 6 miles – there was a reason we weren’t just being lazy!) through part of the night starting at 11pm.

 

My friend’s husband Jason, sadly passed away at The Rowan’s Hospice in December last year.  He was diagnosed with a brain tumour in early December 2013 and was moved to The Rowan’s Hospice shortly afterwards; where he spent his last 4 days very peacefully with his family surrounding him before he passed away on 15^th December 2013.

 

The Rowan’s really are an amazing charity, and will do anything they can to help.  There was nothing that Jason, his family or friends wanted for in the time he was there, they accommodated his wife and daughter to stay with him over night and even made up a room for his sister who flew over from Canada to be with her brother.  They also provide bereavement care after death and everything in between.

 

The Rowan’s Hospice is an amazing place and I could waffle on for pages, but if you would like to know more please visit their website – www.therowanshospice.co.uk 

 

The Rowan’s survives almost entirely on donations from the general public to provide their essential services and this costs them a whopping £11,000 a day, so to give something back we took part in the walk to raise some funds for them.  Now we aren’t lazy, we would have liked to have done the 12 miles, but we have a few challenges among us including; rheumatoid arthritis, an enthusiastic young one who should be in bed and my very short legs! So we plumped for 6 miles. 

 

There was 6 of us altogether, my friend Trina, her daughter and my god daughter Shannon, Trina’s mum Jill and Trina’s two sisters Chantelle and Sarah and little old me.  I was very ill Saturday afternoon with some kind of tummy bug/touch of food poisoning and there was quite a while on Saturday when I was as a white as a sheet and didn’t think I was going to be able to make it.  Somehow I managed to take enough anti sickness tablets and immodium to manage a few hours sleep and go out for the walk!

We donned our Jason T-shirts and hats and went for it.  All in all we had a lovely night, we stopped at Portsmouth Cathedral to write down a memory of Jason to stick to their wall and light a candle of remembrance for him.

Sarah and Chantelle shook their hats at every passer by and gained an extra £45 worth of donations on the night, and despite being young and getting very tired, Shannon did amazingly, she took it all in her stride and completed the 6 miles with hardly any complaint.

We completed the walk in around 2 and a half hours, including our toilet stops, Cathedral stop and hassling poor unsuspecting people of Portsmouth stops.  Once finished we de-registered and collected our bacon buttys and cups of tea and waited for our lift home after having raised nearly £1200.

Crossing the finish line

Medals ahoy!

So that is it, another event over with for the year.  It is an amazing event and I would suggest everyone gives it a go, this was their 7^th year of running it.  It is an amazing charity to raise funds for and this year they had just under 1000 entrants, but they are hoping to have raised just over £95,000.

 

We are still collecting donations and if you would like to sponsor us or could spare some money for a donation we would be eternally grateful, even if it is £1 - every little helps! 

 

Here is our just giving website -  https://www.justgiving.com/JasonsWobblyWanderers/you can also sponsor us by sending a text to 70070 typing the code JHWW72 and £(amount you wish to pledge) in the body of the text (I believe they then add it to your phone bill) or I am collecting cash with a sponsor form.

 

Thank you to all our sponsors near and far – you are every bit amazing.  Jason – we did this for you (even though you would wonder why we were wasting valuable drinking time!) you are so dearly missed and your lovely wife and beautiful daughter you have left behind are just so amazingly strong.

 

Rest in peace Jas, much love, Sammy xx

 

*************************************************************************

Peregrine news...

So our parent peregrines had a baby! Just the one, but one nonetheless.  My mum watched (she's a few doors down from us) as the baby came out of his nest and sat on our pylon the first time.  He has now fledged and does a bit of flying, what a legend he is!

He returns (we think he returns - he could still be sleeping here) every morning and his parents come back and feed him, yesterday he spent nearly all day here trying out different levels of the pylon and it is just brilliant.  He even found his way into my nephews homework, with what he'd seen in the garden at Nanny's!

Mum has been in touch with some peregrine watching/community/action type group from London and they gave passed on mums contact details to the Hampshire division with whim mum has now spoken.  We think Our peregrines aren't a young couple as we once thought, apparently 'pylon birds' usually only raise one baby, maybe because of the space? Who knows. But nest boxes and other environments are more conducive to larger numbers of chicks.  They think our pair are a pair that had already been identified, but had gone missing this year. They usually nest on a pylon a few pylons over, but this year have gone for a ours, lucky us! 😊

It's so lovely to have them here, not least because they are keeping the awful, noisy Rooks away, it's so lovely to see them.  They are relatively rare, there are only 1500 breeding pairs left in the UK and at one point were close to extinction.  They share the same status protection as the giant panda and tiger - how cool is that!

If you want to have a read and learn more, here is a link to the RSPB.... http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/p/peregrine/index.aspx 

Anyway, here's a few pics from yesterday.

TTFN xxx

Welcome to my garden!

Well the last few years I've flirted with gardening, but it's no big secret that my fingers aren't as green as I think they should be! When Nan was here, we spent every Saturday going to a garden centre, it did involve tea and cake too, but we also spent time planning our gardens, buying things to plant and finding unusual things to look at.

We are very lucky, our garden us massive! We have a pylon in our garden (well 3 legs) and lots and lots of space. Over the years I've mainly grown veggies and a few flowers here and there and I even have two raised beds now!

A very unsunny picture!

The year Nan died, I did nothing with our garden at all, I wasn't enamoured by it and didn't want to spend any time out there. But last year, I relented a little, did a couple of hanging baskets and planted some strawberries.

This year I've grown some bits from seed, courgettes, squash and cucumber. Sown some carrots, parsnips and beetroot seeds, and planted a few flowers here and there. 

Strawberries in the bed (that needs a bit of DIY!), beetroot in the whiskey barrel and a courgette in the pot.

Lettuce in the window basket, some courgettes in the tray and flowers in the head!

Some cucumbers by the greenhouse.

Some flowers by the water butt!

I've not done any baskets this year, but I have managed to plant all my shrubs, to hide the wheelie bins (front garden) in the ground rather than them languishing in their pots, with the help of my lovely mum.

Half way through....

The finished article! 

I've managed to keep these plants alive for a few years now! The evergreen was a tiny 6 inch tall tree when I bought it!

Although the best thing about my garden currently is these.... 

We have a breeding pair of peregrine falcons on our pylon! They have babies and everything! 

We are becoming very boring about our birds (now named Fred and Wilma), we've been learning loads about them and have discovered there's only 1500 breeding pairs left in the UK.  We have our eyes trained on the pylon at all times and even mum and dad from their house have their binoculars trained on our pylon!  We are all self confessed twitchers!

We can't wait to see the babies fledge and are so pleased they have picked our pylon to nest in!

I'll keep you posted!

TTFN, Sammy xx

Change of plans...

Well it happens doesn't it, plans change all the time.  We change them; we don't stick to them (WW for me this week), we sabotage them, people sabotage them for us and then sadly at times, life cruelly dashes them.

This last week or so has served to remind us all that once again, life is too short to be too serious about these plans.  

Yes it's important to have them, yes they help us on our way, yes they keep us in check, but we also need to recognise that sometimes our plans are transformed back into a blank canvas, either by choice or not.

I was told by a very brave, inspiring and courageous friend this week; that her newly heartbreakingly blank canvas that she is suddenly faced with, will be just fine.  Just fine because she knows whatever happens, her blank canvas will be full of love and laughter no matter which direction life took next.  Maybe it's something we should all remember.  

Life is what we make of it, no matter what is thrown at us, no matter how many curveballs we're thrown or create.  

Keep going.  

For some people sadly don't get this chance.

Rest in peace to those we've lost these last few weeks, you will be sadly missed. To those we miss daily but have been gone a while, we've not forgotten.  

"Those we love don’t go away,

They walk beside us every day,

Unseen, unheard, but always near,

Still loved, still missed, and very dear.”

Much love, Sammy xx