Sunday Update

 Listening to : Will young - I LOVE "Jealousy" can't stop singing it.

 Also Listening to : pre release of "Blackout the Sun" WOW! I am also in love with "Blood stained heart"

And getting excited about going to see him (Darren Hayes-Just in-case you didn't know) on October 19th

 Watching new series of Waterloo Road. Not sure about that new Head!!

 Finally got to see this film last night. Derek wasn't keen to start with , it being set in 30's- We both loved it.

Just over halfway though reading this book - already shed loads of tears!! I LOVE this author, hope she writes some more soon. Lots of mystery with a twist.

VERY Proud of my Sister Annette who ran 10K Hyde-park charity walk yesterday and raised £970 for mouth Cancer. You can still donate HERE if you would like to help her reach her target of £1000.

Well, thats my week. Back to normal at school, already been to one college parents evening (For Meg), playing catch up with the washing again. Signing letters for trips out, making what feels like hundreds of packed lunches a week ! 

Love Soojay xxx

Today's the Day

That my Fabby sister is running/walking for Mouth Cancer. I am So proud of her as she has almost reached her Target of £1000 - just £90 to go :)
Anyone wanting to donate can HERE

She's doing it for our Sister Steph and I wish her good luck and no blisters :)



Love Soojay xxx

Cavell

Would have been 24 today .

And back to "Manic" Mode again.

First day back at work - no kids in till Wednesday though.
Meg starts college tomorrow and scared and grumpy. I have been getting everything ready for her (lazy girl!). I am worried that she will look after her self and take regular blood tests.
Natalie is off to Butlins on Friday with a group of friends and can talk of nothing else. So lots of organizing going on at the moment.
Two nice things to look forward to ( for me :)) are : A seaside crop on Saturday with friends. Not been to a crop for AGES!
And tickets booked to see the GORGEOUS Darren Hayes in London on 19th October ...sigh- They arrived on Friday :)
PLEASE READ THIS BIT.
I do need to tell you about two of my sisters: Steph ( second in line - with me being the eldest) has been suffering for sometime now with Throat Cancer.SO NOT FAIR!! She had a big op last year and Chemo but they couldn't find the primary cause. Unfortunately earlier this year they did and she had another bout of Chemo which didn't help. Now she is waiting to start a trial at the end of this month. I won't go into all details, mostly as I don't really understand it all and it is personal to her. Now I want to tell you about  my other sister Annette or No.3 as we sometimes call her.
She is taking part in a fundraising walk in Hyde park on 17th September for mouth cancer- It IS a walk but being Annette, she likes to do things her own way and will be running for quite a bit of the 10K !! She set herself a modest target of £500 which of course she has achieved so, she has raised the bar to £750 and with two weeks(ish) left, I am sure she will get there. Here is the all important linky thing to her "Just Giving page "so you can donate if you can : ANNETTE'S PAGE  .
If you did, may I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I Love all my sisters dearly , they are my best friends, caring , would do anything to help and I am so proud of them all.


Love Soojay xxxx

Look!!!

Darren Hayes


I Love this one!



Love soojay xxx

Megan

This picture of Meg was taken on the last day of school. Took a little while to get her to smile. To say that she found school difficult at times is an understatement. At five years old we found out that she was diabetic .We already knew that she had speech problems and learning difficulties. She was seen by the school Ed Psych. who said that she has an IQ of 48. She spent primary school in the area support class with a great TA. High school was also differentiated for her. She had a statement of educational needs, a school care plan and 20 hours of support (shared though) a week in a small class.
Today we went to get her results. She sat exams but only one was GCSE - Art . She was disappointed that she got an F, she thought it meant fail. Not only is it NOT a fail, it is not the lowest grade. She has done it all by herself, she didn't get any support at all in her Art class. She had a sweet art teacher but she found it hard to understand all of what was expected of her. I don't think she realizes how proud I am of her .
She already has a place at College - doing a life skills course. The tutors there taught her sister Natalie a few years ago. I know that she is scared but I have no doubt that she will love it .
Anyway just wanted to share

Love Soojay xx

Lazy Day

Yesterday was dark and wet - not a nice day at all - I am one of those people that NEED sunlight to be energized to do "stuff" and there was none. So, as I was on holiday and have been reasonably busy most of the time, I took the day off from the world and read Afterwards. I LOVED it and highly recommend it. You do need a day to yourself as it's un put downable!
Rosamund Lupton has only written two book so far and this is her second - I HAVE to read the first one now- appropriately called "sister" - Lets hope I can get it and read it before I go back to school.

Love Soojay xxx

Weekend Stuff

 Yesterday Nets and Rosie popped in. Not seen them for a few weeks.

Rosie brought her Hamma Beads to play with but I think nets enjoyed them more!

 

 Dan stayed at his friends for the night and the rest of us stayed up and watched the Inbetweeners season 3 on DVD. 

Today  Derek made bacon, egg and pancakes for breakfast ...yummmm.

I read a book - started Friday night and finished it this morning - Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin. I have ordered the sequel from Amazon .

love Soojay xxx

Happy Birthday Mum .

Aldeburgh Festival

 Warning - picture heavy!

I went to watch Natalie take part in the Festival on Monday.

She had been away at Sizewell for the weekend at a place called Wardens , which is a trust for disabled people. Nats  goes most years. Thankfully it was a lovely sunny warm day.

The beach although stony at Aldeburgh , looked quite nice.

 There was a competition for the best dressed house - I liked this one.

 The start of the parade. There were THOUSANDS of people lining the streets and loads of floats, dressed cars and people taking part. The theme was "films". I saw a few hundred Dorothy's and Alice's.

 I did like the Avetar girls.

 Natalie decorated her t shirt and the people at Wardens all made hats and banners.

 Loved the car. Check out the kids sitting on top of the bus shelter :)

 Very sensibly carrying a bottle of water with her as it got very hot.

 There were dancers too.

She had a lovely day. We didn't stay until the very end but there was a bar b q and fireworks on the beach later. Two fun fairs and stalls all along the beach.

Love Soojay xxx

Tonight's Dessert

 We had cottage pie for tea - nice but not worthy of a photograph.

I made a plain old ordinary swiss roll for desert. Just flour,eggs and sugar- nothing fancy-whip up a little cream and add some juicy strawberries and this is what you get.

Gone in 10 mins!!

Love Soojay xx

Ahhhhhhhhhh Teenagers!!

Mine have been well and truly lectured, not sure HOW much good it has done though. They had got into a very bad habit of staying up really late (mostly watching rubbish films on late night TV and facebook, they don't go out after 10pm and there is no where for them to go anyway). This led to them sleeping till very VERY late the next day. In one way, this is quite nice because its quiet here.....BUT Meg is diabetic and Dan on meds for nocturnal epilepsy and getting up at 4pm is not good ! Its messing up Meg's injections and I am worried that Dan might start "fitting" again.
So, last night they were only allowed to watch TV downstairs with us and EVERYthing had to be switched off when I went to bed at 11.30. They still slept in till lunch (they are teens after all!) And it meant we had a few hours peace in the morning - Derek and I  went to a nearby garden centre for breakfast and to buy a cane to support Derek's Sunflower( I have no idea where it came from) .
 Well this afternoon I have ranted most of the afternoon about them bickering- I WAS going to get them helping me in the garden but its been raining.
They are, at this moment, laying about in the living room watching Harry Potter AND WWE at the same time- I can hear them negotiating when to turn over. Horrible!! Anyway, after warning them the TV's, Laptops and any trips out will be taken away, they seem to have settled a bit.
Its almost tea time but , for once, I am not cooking , Derek is :D ...I am off to meet a friend for tea and a chat .

Love Soojay xxx

The boys are back

 And peace is shattered! 

I have been baking (to try and fill them up) 

The FABULOUS Debbie made these cupcakes for us at Debden a few weeks ago

 My Frosting tastes ok but it no where as pretty as hers.

Inside is a surprise Oreo.

They went down very well - I had to hide a few away for tomorrow!

Love Soojay xx

Decorating

 Megs Room- This is the smallest room in the house. We have tried all sorts of ways to furnish it. We bought her a high bed with a desk underneath it- It was a bit too high for me to change (being so short) but, worse than that, it wasn't easy to check on her in the night in case of hypo's - she has diabetes.
We bought a pretty metal framed bed- she jumped on it and bent the struts. Anyway over the years it has been dark pink and lemon yellow. It was well overdue to be decorated but she still wanted pink. There was photos of the "before" but she deleted them from my camera ( probably too ashamed of the writing on the wall and the torn paper). the radiator and skirting boards used to be purple - so needed a couple of coats.

 There is very little furniture in the room (to try and de clutter it) I also need to hang the photo frame and noticeboard. Curtains and bedding and storage boxes from next. Wallpaper, from B and Q.
Carpet from a lovely cheap online store that delivered the next day free of postage :)

Hopefully she will keep it tidy --------I doubt it though!

Love Soojay xxx

Harry potter 3D - WOW!

I Did not want to see it in 3D, I remember those glasses we got in comics when I was MUCH younger, I could never get on with them. You know the cardboard ones with one green and one red lens?

Being short sighted and wearing glasses anyway, I just couldn't see with them properly. I also could never see those "Magic " pictures that people raged about in the early 90's.  

Anyway , when we arrived at the cinema yesterday we managed to catch a slightly earlier showing than we had arranged ( cost a fortune, but I don't go that often so didn't think that much , except I am glad I don't get many chances as I can't afford it!). When we went though to hand in the tickets we were given flipping great big specs to wear. Wow. Wow. I loved it and now need a 3D TV!! The big specs are also quite good for hiding the odd tear too ;)

Love Soojay xxx

An Upate

 As its been so long! End of term is always manic at school. As well as behaviour/pastoral care , i also co ordinate all the Eco projects in the school and look after ( badly) the Eco blog. here is one of our year 10 (11 soon!) pupils filling up the new pond in the wildlife garden. We also have a bigger pond project under way in another part of the school. This little pond will also have a waterfall when it is finished.

 I took a few photos for the school blog of some of the flowers and plants in the garden.

There were lots of people leaving this year for various reasons. Unfortunately there were also redundancies.

One of my favourite teachers left this year and we took her out for a "goodbye" meal at the local pub.

 I went to two proms ( and danced the night away at both !) The photo above is of some of the year 13 students. Their prom was at the FAB Caister hall Hotel in Norwich.

 It was our Sports day and MOST of it was sunny ( chucked it down in the afternoon). i managed to get out to see the beginning( I missed it last year). We had cheerleaders ( my niece is the one on the far left with black plimsolls ) and an opening ceremony with mascots, flags and dancers....not like sports day used to be!! It looked SO much more fun and there was something for EVERYONE to do.

The year 11 prom seemed like Ages ago now! 

Quite a few of the pupils are coming back for sixth form next year which is nice.

In other news, day four of my holiday, I have definitely caught up on sleep :D . Managed to catch up with most of the laundry, hired a skip for sorting out the VERY overgrown ( mostly stinging nettles) garden. 

Have got everything (except new carpet- still need to do that) for redecorating Megs room next week.

Am slowly getting though all paperwork for College (Meg and Dan ) trips away (Nats) and normal boring stuff. I have been making loads of cards ( see other Blog)

Ohh off to see Harry Potter with a friend from work this afternoon and running a small craft class tomorrow afternoon for another friend and her children.

Derek and Dan are off to Wales for a few days on Sunday , So I shall get stuck into decorating (and enjoy a little quite;))

Love Soojay xx

A wonderful weekend

At Debden House this weekend. It went FAR too fast! This is the sight that greeted us when we arrived in the craft room. Even the water bottles were decorated beautifully. That big jar at the back is filled with gorgeous home made lemonade. There were adorable goody boxes and cupcakes to die for with an Oreo in the bottom of each one.

yummmmmmmmmm i can still taste them.

I am not going to talk about this beautiful cake.

Then on another beautifully decorated table were the sweets! This photograph doesn't do it any justice at all.
We had a rather large TV in the scrapping room so some stopped to watch rather noisey motor racing..they hid the remote so we couldn't mute it!

My work station...I did do SOME :)

Ann opening her Birthday Card

The fab Ginge

Sunday lunch..Nearly time to go home ..sob!

We had roast beef and then bread pud.

I can't believe I had to get my own brekki this morning AND wash up afterwards!

Better go unpack :(

Love Soojay xx

Missing in Action

Off To Debden House for the weekend with a group of wonderful friends to craft (possibly) and chat and have loads of fun.

Its been a manic week ( yet again) I have been to Yr 11 and Yr 13 Proms and we have also had our sports day - most of it out of the rain..when i get a min, i will upload some photos.

Bye for now

Love Soojay xxx

If Anyone reads this...........

.........................my friend's son is almost at the end of a John O'Groates to Lands End bike trip with three friends. They are raising money for Macmillan Cancer Care. Most of us know someone who has needed their support at sometime or other. My own dear Sis has three at the moment. It's a great cause.

If you have a few spare £'s their giving page is HERE

And you can read about their journey HERE Its almost over, as I type they are resting in Weston- Super- Mare.

Love Soojay xx

for Dad

for Cav