Fracture Clinic

Today was the day I had to go back to the fracture clinic with my 15yr old daughter(middle daughter), to have her temporary cast removed and replaced by a firmer cast which she will wear for the next 6 weeks or so.
The clinic waiting room was full of people, however the wait went much quicker than I expected. (This may have been because I happened to meet a nurse at the reception desk who recognised me as being from the same area as herself! Not that I asked or anything, but a wait of only 15 minutes to be called is unheard of.... Just sayin'...)

Daughter got a bright pink cast and we left the hospital within an hour. Daughter is not very impressed with the need to wear a cast, but it is indeed a necessary fact of life that when you crack your radius, you need to wear a cast. Daughter has a State exam coming up in June, the Junior Certificate exams. She cannot write at the moment, so I just have to write a letter to the school next week explaining the situation and hope that daughter gets something out of the school day, even if she cannot write. I may not like the situatiion, but there really is nothing I can do to change things so we just have to accept things and battle on.

The weather in Ireland is real April weather, showery, a bit cold, bright sun, followed by huge dark clouds and showers of biting rain, or hail.

Son loves his new red and black bike, and is cycling it like a pro, using no stabilisers. He had a great birthday, even if I say so myself.

Eldest daughter earned a Special Merit in the Texaco Art competition for children. She will not be able to attend the awards ceremony, unfortunately, as it clashes with her Transition year Graduation Evening in school.

Third daughter will have her confirmation at the end of May. So food will have to be ordered and clothes bought. Hopefully we will have a good day, both weather-wise and fun-wise!

Easter Holidays are nearly done, I've still some more things to do here, car to go to mechanic, dental appointments, collecting my new glasses, getting my knitting machine serviced and finally working here at home, knitting up more of my stash, figuring out why my spinning wheel is not doing as I want it to do right now, oh and getting sorted for school next week, of course....bleurgh....
Hoppas att ni har det bra allihopa som läser detta,
hoppas att våren har kommit till er som bor i norra halvklotet,
ha det så bra allihopa!
special greetings to all who have visited from Ravelry!
liz

Easter Saturday and spring-cleaning

Back to the old Google interface for me today,as I just can't find my way around the new interface as easily as the old.
My daughter's first cast came off her arm, when the swelling went down, I suppose. So we had to go back to the doctor and then the hospital, to have another cast put on. So that was another chunk of a day given over to hospitals etc.
It was Good Friday yesterday, Langfredag in Swedish. Years ago, when I was a kid, the shops were all closed, and it used to be a day for staying at home, eating a fish dinner, then ceremonies in the church at 3pm. Times have changed, yesterday on the way back from the hospital, we called in to a large shopping centre, and it was full of people. On the otherhand I would say that attendances at the Easter cceremonies have gone down....
Today is Easter Saturday, tomorrow Easter Sunday. You can be sure that my children are only thinking of how many Easter eggs they might get.
On Monday, it will be my son's 6th birthday! He learned to cycle his bike without stabilisers/training wheels, and he has also had a growth spurt so he may be getting a new bicycle for his birthday(!) I have cleared out his clothes and today I am giving away 4 bags of clothes he has outgrown to 4 friends. Luckily I was given a lot of clothes by friends as my son was growing up, so I feel I want to pass on the clothes to others when he is finished with them.
There is plenty more to declutter! Spring-cleaning here I come....!

a day well spent...!

April, and Easter Holidays... a blessed 2 weeks off school, not worrying about uniforms, or hoemwork, or housework or lunches....
Today however my plans to tidy up this house came to nothing. First I had an appointment for the NCT (national car test) in Limerick city at 8.40am. Sad to say, my van failed, so I will have to take it to the mechanic and have the brakes checked. Then home to rouse the slumbering darlings.
One slumbering darling had hurt her hand last night in a Gaelic Football match and it had developed a small bump last night, plus more bruising today, so off to the doctor with her. It took 1 and a half hours to be seen at the doctor, and then, well, it was as I feared/realised, we were sent to the hospital in Limerick city for an x-ray as the doctor thought that there was a fracture.

Almost 3 hours later, after an x-ray and some waiting, we were told daughter had indeed a small fracture and they put a cast on her, and we could leave. I still had to go by a shop to get some food, no point in arriving home to 3 starving kids and having to venture out again to buy food, so we went by Lidl and bought some food.

By the time I got home at 4.30, I was wrecked tired. My (late) lunch and hot cup of tea was delicious and all I could manage. I am now propped up in bed, writing this. The weather is cold, apparently the wind is from the North. Scotland had temperatures up to 23degrees Centigrade last week and today had 18cm of snow....! Ireland had temperatures up to 20 degrees and today we have hail showers and it is blowing cold and bitter from the North.

Holidays are great, but all too short. I am cramming in appointments, such as a clinic check-up yesterday, the NCT today, an eye-test tomorrow, a service for the knitting machine on Friday morning, a dental check up for me and one daughter next week, and I have to sort hairdresser appointments also. Now I will have a visit to a Fracture clinic next Tuesday, as well.I also want to get some spring-cleaning and decluttereing done, it is impossible with 4 children and work to keep the house streamlined and spartan. I need to move on the clothes and stuff that the children have outgrown. I also need to recycle the items that require a trip to the Recycling centre. I just hope I can get it all done by 15th April!

Spinning and knitting are going well, I gave a spinning demo in the Community Centre for our local Community Expo back in February. I enjoyed it enormously, people were fascinated, I think , and the organisers were delighted. I am daft enough to have started looking for a second spinning wheel, where will I fit that, I ask myself!

I am knitting a scarf using a stitch which I read about in a Swedish craft magazine Hemslöjden, the stitch involves yarn+overs and slip stitches, and it gives a woven look, which is very suitable for the wool I am using, which has various colours in it, so the stitch brings out rows of different colours. I guess I should photograph the scarf and put it up here, later, maybe, when I get up again....

Best wishes to you all out there, thanks very much to the people who come by and visit this blog often, I appreciate seeing the visitors views increase and seeing your locations all over the world.

regards
liz
ps sorry that there are no paragraphs in this, I have no idea why the new Blogger layout does not recognise my paragraph spacing when i write a blogpost.
pps, went back to the old interface and edited this post , so now it has paragraphs!

Spring is in the air

Hej på er allihopa, Hi everyone! Spring is in the air here in Ireland. So far we have escaped the chilly weather that struck Europe recently, and we have daytime temperatures of around 8 degrees Celsius. I got a photos of these snowdrops near my grandaunt's house, I cannot believe that these are nearly dying back already! I thought I had plenty of time to get a shot of them.

I have seen daffodils blooming and even primroses, (vårviva, i think), but not in a place where I could safely stop and take a photo. I have been spinning on my trusty Dutch spinning wheel, Birgitte. I finally got this spun up and plied, Phaeleonopsis, it's called, which refers to the Orchid flower. I love the green and pink.

Then I did some quick samples of Renee's wool, Renee lives in Jämtland in Sweden and keeps sheep. She also spins and has a webshop where she sells her wool and other wool that she buys in UK and other places. Her webste is called enuldenaffaer.dk and it's in Danish mostly. Here is a yarn with some pink and grey and black , as well as a Merino with mustard and olive green tones, plied with dark grey.

Then I spun up this Merino called Stormy Day. I am afraid it will be a bit too brown and dull in patches when I ply it, but I am going to ply it and see how it goes.

This lovely week off is almost over, and what have I achieved? well i have nursed a terrible cold and improved thankfully. I cleaned the bathroom this morning, down-on-my-knees-scrubbing clean. I have refreshed my head and can face another 6 weeks of work, and then it will be Easter holidays, I think. Then it's the home stretch after that, then Summer! Hope you are experiencing some sort of Spring wherever you are, unless you are in Oz and New Zealand/rest of Southern hemisphere, in which case you will have Autumn now. Bye from me for now,

Spring walk

God Morgon! G'Morn! Morning! Morning! It's a beautiful Spring morning, and I am free, we have a week off school. My 2 little ones have school, which means we wake up at 8am. This is a good thing, as it means I am up and out and ready to do stuff at 9am, when the two littlies go in to school. This morning I went for a wlk along my road, it's a small little country road. I love it. I saw these daffodils and this view.

I hope you all have a wonderful St Valentiine's Day, and that you get to enjoy the nature at some point today!

my neglected Blog and the joys of living in Ireland

Oh my poor neglected blog,and you wonderful people who keep coming back in here! January came and went, and already it is 5th of February! We are so lucky here in Ireland not to be suffering the very cold temperatures the rest of Europe is currently struggling with. Today we had a mild damp day. Three important matches were played today. My 14 r old's soccer team had a draw in their match this morning, my 11 yr old's soccer team lost and Ireland lost their rugby match against Wales. Still, I give thanks that we were under damp Irish skies, and not looking out on frozen landscapes and snow as a lot of people in Europe have to do these last 10 days. Work and Housework takes all my time, apologies to the poor people who pop in here hoping for an update and there never is one! Livet går vidare, vi får snart en hel veckas ledighet, det är jag väldigt glad för, då ska det här städas, och putsas, och rensas bland kläder och böcker, och då ska jag läsa och sticka och ta promenader.... minsann... Life goes on, next week I have one whole week off, Yippee!! I plan to knit and read and spring clean, and declutter clothes and books and toys and take walks, yes sirree, that's the plan!!! Have a good February , I hope the weather is kind to you, wherever you are, regards liz

A wedding, 2 parties and a New Year.

So the brother's wedding went great, a fun day was had by all, and brother and his new wife are now relaxing in Lanzarote on their honeymoon.
We came home tired but happy on Friday afternoon. After a long sleep on Friday night we were ready to face the world again. I went to town on Saturday to return my son's hired pageboy suit and to have a little peep at the sales in the yarn shops in Limerick. My 'yarn-diet' starts on 1st January so I figured I was still allowed to go yarn shopping on 31st of December. Which I duly did, managing to purchase about 16 different skeins of yarn between the 3 yarn shops.
All good diets start with a binge the day before, right???!

Last night, New Year's Eve, another brother invited us to his house for a party to see in the New Year. My children and husband stayed home, due to various prior engagements or assorted coughs, but I went to the party and had a great time! Lots of my own family there as well as my brother's in-laws, so plenty of chat. Plus Yummy food, tasty desserts, a chocolate fountain, (I didn't taste the chocolate and marshmallows, just admired them from a distance) and then a countdown at 12 midnight and champagne or in my case, Sprite! Home by 1pm, to husband and crisp-eating children.
My middle daughter had complained yesterday of a strange and sharp pain in her ribs when she took a breath. Thankfully, this potential 'chest-infection' had gone by this morning, probably just a pulled muscle. Phew.....
And today, off to another party, this time a 50th Birthday celebration for a good friend, and once again the children stayed home together with another friend. They had pizzas and chips, we went to the party and had Jambalaya, Prawn stir-fry, and more delicious desserts.
So now I am feeling very satisified, I have had a very sociable Christmas and New Year. And it is not over yet, there is a niece's birthday on this week and we got an invitation to another very good friend next weekend! Yoohoo!
And now it is 2012. It will take some time to get used to writing the correct date on the blackboard when I go back to school in a week's time.
It is 2 years since I started blogging. I am still here, still blogging away.
I apologise for not having so many photos as I would like, let's see if I can snaffle some photos from Hubbby's camera to add to this post.
To all of you I wish a Happy New year!
Gott Nytt År!
Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir!