In disguise...

with glasses!

Lisa says I may have new career?

... as a midwife?!

If you are follower of my story.. all 3 of you!.. you may know that we went to Poland last summer for the wedding of Pawel and Agnes. Well, Pawel works with us and we in the STS office have enjoyed following the story of their pregnancy.. baby is due on 4 June. They have had the usual ups and downs, went for a 4-D scan, so Pawel could check the baby was good looking.. and with 4 weeks to go the 'little Spartan' weighed 7lbs 1oz already.

I just love everything about babies, having been lucky enough to have uneventful pregnancies and 4 home births, (but I think there was more normality to it way back when.. 1986-97!) so I am slightly talking with memories seen thro' rose tinted glasses! ..I reckon boys are always a longer wait, and harder to extract, but the girls are just always in a hurry to get into the world and get at it! (well that was my experience)

So with me giving him my tenpenneth every now and then Pawel has got me on his list as medical fountain of all pregnancy knowledge and now he wants me to go along to the hospital with them....on the day! .. or night he just tells me! I thought it was a joke, but it seems it is the case, and he wants me to be there to 'translate the doctors information into Pawel-speak' so I have said I will be available and consequently have not had even a small port since last Sunday!

(My only real worry is that dear child will decide to make his entrance on 6th June when I have a long awaited extended day at Just Scrapbooking' in Newlyn!..does that just show my love of scrapping or what..)

But I am hoping to be there, getting sorted and finding those special phtos for GlimmerMisting....but right now tidying my scrap room seems to be a bigger job than actually doing the layouts, but how great to have the dumping room eh?

About the boys!

What a mottley crew!

Zac and his 'new best friend' Tom (who also happens to be the son-in-law!) have created a great paintball area (they tell me it's an 'arena') down in one of our fields. Days of planning, more days of digging, with and without a digger, and lots of hours testing guns and sights have taken place.

They take it all very seriously and I'm sure it is the culmination of years playing Xbox games and the base-making habit Zac had as a kid.

Rain (and hangover) stopped play last weekend, but I am assured this Sunday they have 6 players and it's going to be a full-on session. Uncle Bill took some great shots while he was here, we hope maybe this will lure his son Graham over from the States for a shoot-out! .. though Zac may be in the States soon himself if he gets the stuntman job he looks like applying for in this staged shot!

The family is one of nature's masterpieces....

.......the Quote for today, and how very fitting after the wonderful outpouring of family feeling we have been a part of the past ten days.

Col's lovely mum Jean passed away on 2nd May, after a three year struggle with ill health. She was loved by so many, family, friends and colleagues from near and far and it pains us all to think of his beloved Dad losing his mate of over 50 years. Her dry sense of humour, probably a product of a hard childhood spent in wartime Liverpool , was remembered by lots of people, and Ken says she was 'Simply the Best'

Jean's brother, our Uncle Bill has been here for a week and we have talked so much, late into the nights, and deep inside, but I think we have all grown from the experience, and are thankful for her life and for the fantastic family legacy she has left us with. She and Ken were determined to give Colin and his brother Graham a great start in life and they sure did that!

For me it is so poignant, you feel your position in the family changing and growing as these experiences come and go, like last year at their Golden Wedding when I presented them with their Anniversary Scrapbook, a tribute to them as Col and I took on the mantle of family party organisers, and became grandparents to little Lilly..... the same album was a great tribute to Jean as we gathered to remember her on Monday, and you feel the same desire to make life as good for your own family, that they will have relationships to treasure and rely on when needed.

Lovely too to take Ken and Bill to St. Levan churchyard yesterday where Mum and Dad are, and place her flowers with them... a truly special place, and aptly at the end of a road, out in God's country..xxxx

My default face!

It's a secret yet so I can't put a pic on here until after Saturday...but I promised Linda that I would do a 'me page' for our group album...we have kind of lapsed a little and were not sure who's turn it was, so I said I'd have something done for Saturday.

Always hard to make pages about myself, I have lots of photos, some I like, others I loathe (and generally delete before public viewing.. these normally give a true and accurate depiction of my belly, but who wants that eh?) ....and it's always easier focussing on someone else anyway isn't it! So after some thought I have made the page up and tried to give a flavour of what / who I am and also the kind of scrapping I produce. It's turned out nice as I have..... well, wait & see.

I can however tell the story of my 'default face'...It seems I have an expression which I have when thinking or listening, (or perhaps not listening), which Linda says it is unnerving as it makes her feel like I am thinking 'this is rubbish' about whatever is happening...I promise it's not, I blame it on the fact that I am normally so noisy / animated / gossiping that it is so unusual for me to be still!

The amazing thing is that it is only Linda who has ever mentioned this 'look', I was oblivious....in fact my eldest daughter apparently has the same look at times and for two decades I have been blaming the out-lawed side of the family for it!

Anyways...on the way home from holiday Jordan took a photo of me.. and I swear it is proof of the 'default face'....and being true to self and scrapbooking I didn't delete it..and have even included it in the page..not the main photo (of course), but please, how true can I be!

PS The other sad thing I realised whilst planning the 'me page', was that JB and I spend so much time taking pics, ....her and Col, me and Col, me and Kate, her and Kate, but I have hardly any of us two together...I put it down to the fact that Kate is still joined to me at the hip as I have never had to 'pass her on' to Colin the way you do when you have the next baby!

....so, note to self, have photos taken with Jordan, and encourage Kate to be more independent...however her request to go to Club 2K under-16 night tomorrow at the tender age of 12 and 2 months is almost too soon and too much to bear..but I have agreed and will collect the gaggle of girlies at ten, and revisit the twilight world of taxi-ing the teens!


<< Well okay, just a peek! Prizes for anyone who can spot the backing paper I used..