"C" is for Coralie

Day 3 of the A- Z challenge so it is the letter “C”. Seeing as I have been thinking so much about blessings recently, I have decided to keep this easy today. I am also aiming to make it shorter as apparently that is good!.

“C” is for Coralie. Coralie is my 2^nd child and eldest daughter. She is an incredible woman who I am terribly proud of. Many of you know that she hasn't had the easiest of rides with her health.

She suffered for many years with all kinds of women’s problems and other stomach issues. This culminated last year when she was very ill and had several lots of major surgery. Some of you know the details. I won't go into it all here.

The wonderful news is that she is finally back to full health and ready for anything. In her words “I feel like I can do anything now” I know that she can.

One of her many pursuits is cycling. She got into it seriously a few years back. She has done quite a few rides for charity. This October is her biggest yet. She is doing the “Cycle Africa Challenge” in aid of women’s cancer charities. They are Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, Breast Cancer Care and Ovarian Cancer Action. It is a huge challenge. I am so proud of her. Did I say that already?

Here are a few photos of her on her bike.

 

 

 

If anyone would like to donate a few pennies to this cause then you can visit her Just Giving page here: https://www.justgiving.com/coralie-c-huson/

At the bottom of this blog post I have copied Coralie's own words from her page. (in Pink)

Children are one of the biggest blessings a person can have and I have been blessed 5 times. Coralie is one of those blessings.

Story

I read recently that 1:4 people will encounter cancer at some point in their lifetime. I don’t know how such a statistic is calculated but it is scary. I am one of 5 children, that means one of us will be affected by cancer, or one of my 5 nieces and nephews. What a thought. I figure we all need to pitch in and do something about it.

Some clever people carry out research into medicines and procedures, some people wear a ribbon or a band in support of a charity, some donate monthly or put coins in a collecting tin. Me? I am going to cycle many long and sweaty miles across Tanzania to raise money for women’s cancer charities.

 

Many of you know how much I love my bike, how much I enjoy being out on the road. But make no mistake, this is a big challenge. 9 days away from my boys, 9 days of heat, (I hate being hot!) and six solid days of cycling in a different climate, on different terrain, with a group of women I have yet to meet! I can't wait, but what a challenge!!!

Thanks for taking the time to visit my Just Giving page.

Donating through Just Giving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with Just Giving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

I am thankful for whatever pennies and pounds you are able to donate. They are going to a good cause.

THANK YOU.

Jilly

B i s for Blessings and Beaine Boy.

I must be on a blogging roll. I managed 2 yesterday and now here I am ready to do day 2 of the A-Z challenge.

I think mainly it is because today is an easy one, it is the letter B. Now when I restarted my blog last week I was doing some posts on blessings which begins with a B. There is another that begins with B and that is Beanie.

Beanie is our newly adopted dog. He first came into our lives back in December 2014 when he came into the care of the Three Counties Dog Rescue where both Simon and I do volunteer work.

He was a very sad boy. He came from a very poor background. A family who did not love him or care for him and in fact kept him in a state of dreadful neglect and illness. He lived permanently outside in a concrete yard in all weathers.

It is a long story of how he came to be handed over to Three Counties and one that serves no purpose to be shared here. He was in such a dreadful state that he went straight into the hospital unit at our Vets where Michelle the head Vet diagnosed demodectic mange and severe malnutrition. He spent 6 weeks in the hospital under the care of the wonderful Vets and nurses and they got him back on his feet so he could come to the kennels.

Simon loved him straight away. Here are some photos form that first day.

 

 

 

As many of you will know already we lost our beloved Loulou in January on the same day as the dreadful fire at the kennels. It was an awful time for us.

We always knew that we would take another dog into our home very quickly as we can't bare being without a doggy companion. Not to mention that we have a home and love to give and there are all those dogs just waiting for someone to come along for them.

We had also promised ourselves that when the time came we would take either one of the oldies or one of the long termers. For all kinds of reasons it didn’t work out like that and Beanie was neither. However it has helped to heal our consciences to know that he almost certainly would have become a long termer as he is a Staffy cross and he is white. People don’t want Staffies and they don’t like white dogs. Sounds funny that, doesn’t it? Trust me it's true.

So on the 23^rd of January 2015 Beanie came home with us. As I said previously he is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross, the Vet believes he is crossed with an English Bull Terrier but without DNA testing we won't ever really know. It doesn’t matter.

He was around a year old when he came to us in January but sadly we do not know his actual date of birth so his birthday will be celebrated each year on the day he came home.

Here are some photos from that first day at home.

 

 

 

 

 

We have now had him for 10 weeks and it seems like he has always been here. He is truly a blessing. He has made it a little easier to bare the loss of our Loulou although I still miss her every single day as I do our others that went before her. Buick, Sandy, Rosie and Alfie were all true blessings.

Beanie is adorable, he loves to play and his favourite toy is a very chewed up rugby ball.

 

He loves every single person that he meets but sadly he is very nervous around other dogs. We are working on that but given his background he may always be that way.

We are so grateful to Burghley Vets for getting him back to health and to Three Counties for allowing us to adopt him. We are truly blessed.

More photos:

 

 

 

Assuming I am able to keep up my blogging habit you can expect to see many more photos of Beanie over the coming weeks!

Jilly

Blessings - Shafiq Morra Usman Abdullahi

Phew, just managed to make it here. That's 3 days in a row. Simon has finished now for the Easter holidays. He will be at home for 18 days so it is a good long break for him.

We have had a relatively lazy day. This morning we were sorting out Tallulah ready for next week. Simon had to change a fuse which had blown on our last trip and stopped the heating working. It took a bit of figuring out. I gave her a thorough vacuum to make sure she is spick and span for her next adventure. I also loaded in some new food supplies and got all Beanie's food sorted and stored.

With that job done, I set about doing some online banking whilst Simon got our potatoes planted. We already have onions and garlic in that have overwintered. We just ordered some seed today. This year we would like to grow some of our bedding and basket flowers from seed.

This afternoon we paid a visit to the kennels to drop off a load of stuff for the market tomorrow. We are not able to go this month as it is Morra's 1^st birthday party tomorrow.

Speaking of Morra gets me back to my theme of blessings. Morra is Saskia's little one. All our grandchildren are wonderful blessings and all very special. Morra came to us at a time of great sadness and he bought such joy and happiness with him. He was born just 4 days after we lost my Dad.

The day Dad died, I travelled with Verity and Jackson to Saskia in Leicester. Because she was so close to giving birth she was not able to be with us at the hospital. We could not tell her that her Granddad had gone over the phone, so we had to go to her. I will always remember that journey and Saskia's reaction. We were all so upset that Dad never got to meet little Morra. Every time I visited him in those last weeks, the first thing he asked was “how is Saskia doing”?

Morra was born on the 23^rd of March. He should have been born at home and Saskia had Coralie there with her but in the event, due to his heart beat dropping very low, she was swiftly moved to the hospital and he came shortly after. What a gift he was too. I can't tell you how much he raised our spirits. It was good to have something to smile about even though my every thought at that point was tinged with sorrow. I would have given anything for Dad to have been able to see him. I am sure that Dad knew that he was at the funeral service with everyone else despite being just a few days old.

He was quite a small baby but grew rapidly. We think that Mummy’s milk was gold top! Now at a year old he is about average, although on the tall side. His Daddy is tall. It's hard to say who he looks like but in the most recent photos, I can see the Sansum in him.

I can't believe he is already a year old. I have no idea where that year went to. He is walking now and I am looking forward to seeing that tomorrow. I have seen videos and he was nearly there last time we saw him.

His party is tomorrow and all the family will be there except Sam, Lisa and the girls as they are currently in France. I am so looking forward to it. I love the occasions when we are all together. To have a large and close knit family is another blessing. Doesn't mean they don’t get on my nerves sometimes! LOL.

Here are some photo's from Morra's first year.

 

 I love this one of Ellie.  It was the first time they met.  The eldest and the youngest!

 

 Three of my four boys.

 

I will post some photos from his party after tomorrow.

Have a great weekend.

Jilly

Blessings - My Dad.

Righty ho, I said I would blog so here I am blogging. Trouble is I am limited for time today as I have a fair few jobs to get done this morning as I want to go to the big city this afternoon for some shopping. I need to buy a present for my little Grandson's birthday.

I have to use public transport to go anywhere as we only have the one car and Simon uses that for work. The buses from my village go once an hour and it takes around an hour to get to the city. I have to change buses in the nearby town of Bourne and then I can get a bus to Peterborough which is the nearest big place with decent shops. It is a bit of a trek so I don’t do it very often! However going today I can come back with Simon in the car so that makes it better.

Anyway, where was I? See I am already waffling on. I can't just write a blog without some waffle. Yesterday I mentioned that despite recent sadness we are also very blessed. So I think I will restart my blogging habit by talking about some of my blessings.

I am going to start with my Dad. He was the most wonderful man and one year on I still miss him terribly. I think of him every single day and talk to him too.

He was born in the East End of London on the 13^th of December 1926. The 2^nd child and 2^nd son of Harry and Edith Sansum. He eventually had 4 more siblings, another brother and 3 sisters. They were a typical East End family of that time. They were very poor and eked out an existence. His Dad liked the drink a bit too much so although he worked, the family didn’t see too much of his earnings. His Mum was a very strong, sensible lady with good morals and I think it was her influence that made my Dad the man he was.

1951. Great Yarmouth

He was kind, patient, honest, hard working, and devoted to my Mum. Many of you will know how hard it was for our family once the Alzheimers took over my Mum. Dad never faltered in his love and care for her right until the end. Once Mum had gone we thought he wouldn't be long after her but in fact he enjoyed 2 more years.

They were good years. He once again became fully engaged with all of the family. He adored his great grandchildren and we had many family occasions where he had the best time. He also started to visit us every school holiday. He had never done that while Mum was still alive because he would never leave her. He really looked forward to coming to stay and in fact he always knew when the next holiday was due.

This was taken on his 87th birthday and is the last photo of him with his Great Grandchildren.

So we were both eagerly looking forward to the February half term break last year. I had various plans of things we were going to do together. Little did either of us know that it wasn't to be.

Dad suffered a stroke at the end of January. In the first few hours the news coming from my sister was that it might not be too bad. After all he had been out doing his shopping and had walked to his doctor himself because he didn't feel so good. However over the next few days we realised that actually it was the very worst kind of stroke. It had occurred at the back, right in the centre so had effected not just his ability to walk but also things such as his swallowing reflex.

He was in the Lister hospital in Stevenage and over the following weeks they tried hard to do some physiotherapy with him but he was very down. He also had an operation to insert a permanent feeding port as it seemed that he would never regain his swallow. After around a month they moved him to a rehabilitation unit in Old Welwyn. They seemed positive that they would get him back on his feet. To be honest, I always had doubts, I just couldn’t ever see him making it home. I did try to have hope though.

Sadly from the very first day there things went wrong. He contracted some kind of infection and was in a lot of pain and discomfort. They could not begin his rehabilitation as he couldn’t move from the bed. This went on for several weeks during which time they had him in isolation as they were not sure what the infection was. It was a miserable existence for him and he told me on several occasions that he didn’t want to be here, he wanted to be with Mum. That is very hard to hear but I did understand.

Finally after several weeks he got pneumonia and they decided that he needed to be transferred back to the hospital at Stevenage. They moved him on he Monday night. I went up to see him on the Tuesday. I was shocked. I knew then he was never going home. He had on an oxygen mask but he kept fighting to take it off. It was hard to hear and understand what he was saying with it on. He did remove it briefly to say he loved me. I will always remember that.

I had a long journey home and didn't get in until around 8.30pm. I rang my children to let them know that he really was very poorly. I knew it wasn’t going to be long. I didn’t however expect it to be a matter of hours. I got a phone call around half an hour after I got home from my sister to say that the hospital had phoned for them to go in as he was asking for them. At around midnight she phoned to say I should return.

Simon and I were straight in the car. Once we were there the doctor came and spoke to us. Dad had made up his own mind that it was time. He refused all further treatment and the doctor told him that without it he would die that day. She asked if that was what he wanted and he told her yes. She asked my sister and I if we agreed. We had to say yes. It wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted my Dad back. I didn’t want to lose him. However I did understand that he wasn’t going to get better and that he had simply had enough. It was time to go and be with Mum.

They switched of all the machines and removed everything from him. We were moved into a private room as by this time most of the family were there. He died about 20 minutes later. It was very peaceful and he knew we were all there. He even had his youngest great-grandson Jackson, sitting on the bed holding his hand. Jackson was just 1 year old. We asked Dad if he knew Jackson was holding his hand and he nodded yes! A few minutes later the light went out on my world.

I found it incredibly hard. I was inconsolable. Even now I cannot write this without the tears streaming down my face.

And now a whole year has passed without him. The last one of the “first anniversaries” has passed. It isn’t any easier. So many times there is stuff that I want to tell him. On several occasions I have actually picked up the phone and dialled the number before my brain has reminded me that he won't be answering.

I wonder what he would make of it all? I know what he would tell me. “Life goes on and you must pick yourself up and get on with it”. He once told me that my sister Julie had described me as pragmatic. He said “I don’t know what that actually means but I know you will be OK because you are e a coper. You deal with things”. He is right. I am dealing with it. One of my ways of doing that is to try and live by the mantra of always remember the good times and also to always count my blessing every single day.

My Dad was one of the biggest blessings of my life. I was so blessed to have such a wonderful man as my father. A man who showed me how to be the best that I can. A man who taught me that no matter what, family are the most important thing. He will always be a blessing.

I love you Dad.

PS. I hope I haven’t made anyone feel down with this blog. As I wrote it, I got quite upset. It's OK to be upset. You know, my sister is right, I am pragmatic. I am a coper. As far as I can see there is no other choice. Whatever life throws at us, all we can do is carry on. I have my tears and my sad times, but then in the words of my grandson Evan, I “give myself a talking to” and then I follow my road.

My friend Deb will understand the reference to following the road.

Count your blessings every single day and whatever happens follow your road.

Jilly