Tuesday 29 January 2013

You have got to love facebook.....

 I am back in Denmark again and today I was back at work. I arrived home yesterday (Monday) late afternoon. It was great to see Kritian, Andrew and Leah again and to chat with Sara. It was also lovely to see Laura and Mia (our neighbours) again. I missed them all.

Off course it was hard leaving dad but it helped that he had improved so much the last few days that I was there.

Saturday afternoon my Aunt Kathleen and Gillian came to visit him. Aunt Kathleen came a little earlier and met me for lunch. We had our traditional fish and chip lunch. (Well, Aunt Kathleen gets a pastie, I get the fish!) 

The week I spent in Ireland was just spent at the hospital with dad, I had not once gone shopping in Belfast. However on the Saturday morning I woke up with something on my mind. I knew Gillian had a birthday sometime in January and I thought it was either the 23rd (which would have meant that I had missed it) or it was the 28th which would have been Monday. 

As I lay there wondering I thought of facebook. It always tells you when people have a birthday so it was off to check the computer. It was then I discovered that her birthday was that very day! I jumped out of bed! I had two hours to get something organised. So after a quick shower, I was then heading into Belfast city center to pick up a few presents to surprise her.



I rang dad and told him I would pick up a card that he could give to her. We then made the plan. When Gillian got to the hospital dad would talk away to her, then he would ask her if she had a birthday this month because he thought she had one sometime in January and when was it. We know Gillian hates to make a fuss about her birthday and we knew she would try and blow it off and not say anything. 

We decided that when she told us that it was that very day, Dad and I would sigh, look surprised and say "Ah Gillian....(be a bit dramatic on the facial expressions, like we were sooo disappointed to have missed her birthday and try and look annoyed that she hadn´t said anything.) Then I woud say "well then it´s a good job I got a cake and pressents for you!" and then bring out all the surprises. 

I could hardly wait!

I bought a cake, paper plates, paper cups, ginger ale, a big birthday badge for her wear and her presents.


 The whole thing worked out as planned. When dad asked her about her birthday she just smiled and said  "Don´t you be worrying about my birthday, never worry, I forget about it now days..etc" but dad kept on and she finally caved and said "it´s today, but don´t worry you know I don´t worry about birthdays"


 You should have seen her face when I pulled out the cake, paper plates, spoons, cups, ginger ale and presents. It was just brilliant!! We had a lovely wee party by the side of dad`s bed and all the other patients joined in. They all got cake, even their visitors, there was loads for everyone. It was so much fun!
 
 When I arrived home last night my neighbour Laura came over with dinner for us all! It was sooo delicious and I enjoyed not having to come straight home and make food.

Later on a note appeared on my kitchen window. This happens sometimes and I love it! At 8 o´clock she and Mia came over with dessert and we had a cosy half hour together.


Friday 25 January 2013

More about dad....

It sure has been a few rough weeks for dad.

Yesterday the doctors decided to try giving dad steroids to help with his pain, swollen spleen and appetite. So 4 steroids were given to him yesterday morning and I could not believe the change in him. As soon as I went in to see him he looked like a different man. His eyes were clear, he was wide awake and his pain was totally gone. I was so happy to see him like this as he has suffered so much pain over the last few weeks.

Today he needed blood so two units were given to him as well as more fluid. He seemed a little more tired today than yesterday but still there was a big improvement compared to the first few days that I was here.

Lets hope he continues to improve. I will keep you all posted.

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Dad....


Dad is still feeling weak. 

When dad was admitted into the hospital he had a very high fever. They have been treating him for it and now seem to have it under control. 

He was also in a lot of pain and still is, so pain killers every few hours are helping to give him some ease. The doctor seems to think the pain is coming from his spleen. It is enlarged and is probably one of the effects of the leukemia. The enlarged spleen also effects his appetite so he hasn´t been eating very much.  

Today he was given 2 litres of Potassium and Sodium Chloride,  along with a few litres of fluid to help with his dehydration.  So he is getting all the help he can. 

Tomorrow they hope to start dad on steriods. This should help his spleen, appetite and I also think the doctor said it should help with the pain. I really hope it does help him. He really is not himself. He has no interest in reading, hearing preachers on his mp3 or even watching a DVD on his DVD machine. He can´t concentrate on much and gets tired very easily. 

Monday 21 January 2013

Hillsongs, Primark and Donny.....

....can a day get much better than this?

So the day started with us heading off to Hillsongs London. I discovered I knew a few people there - Danes. About 4 or 5 past pupils from my school were there so it was fun to chat with them. I heard that there were two guests there that Sunday, Christine Caine and Lisa Harper. I know Christine Caine and love to listen to her preach but I had never heard of Lisa Harper. They wouldn´t tell us at the start who was preaching, just that it would be one of them. I was hoping it would be Christine but in fact it turned out to be Lisa Harper and what a great message she gave about the compassion of Jesus. She was really good, so I was actually glad to get to hear her. Christine would speak at the following service at 1.15pm. It was a wonderful church service, one we both enjoyed.

 After church we found a lovely sandwich shop and had really delicious sandwiches for lunch while having a great conversation about what we had heard at church.  We then walked along Oxford Street exploring the place and discovered a Primark!!! It was huge and really lovely. My girls would have loved it. I didn´t buy anything - oops I did, a new purse for myself! My other purse was an embrasssement, it was falling to pieces!


 After exploring Oxford Street for a few hours we headed back to the hotel to warm up! It was freezing outside! We once again ate dinner in the hotel´s restaurant. The food was good and wasnt exspensive. Then it was off to the Donny and Maire show in the O2 arena.



 We were sooo excited and happy to be seeing Donny! 

It was a fantastic concert but it was all over too quickly. It was a dream come true to see Donny live, so we were on a bit of a high after the concert!

I didn´t stay high too long. When I got back to the hotel my sister-in-law had sent an email to say Dad was not doing well. Since 1st January dad has been complaining of pain. At first we thought he was getting the flu but the pains got worse and started to move about his body. He got pain killers but they didn´t seem to help. When I talked to him on Friday he sounded weary and tired and the pain was worse. Gillian confirmed to me what I had feared....Dad was going down hill. What should I do? I made a decision - I would fly home to Belfast from London instead of going back to Denmark.

 Dad is in the hospital now. He is not doing good, I can see a change in him from the last time I saw him one month ago. He slept most of the time that I was there with him this evening. I, hopefully, will get to talk to some Doctor tomorrow and hear more about what to expect etc.  

Saturday 19 January 2013

A Saturday in London

 We were up, ready and down for breakfast by around 9am. An hour later and we were ready to go and explore the city of London.

Our first stop was Leicester Square. There are ticket offices there for the theatres. The tickets can be got at a good discount. We wanted to see Rock of Ages, or The Body Guard or The Lion King or Billy Elliot. However all of these, even with the discount were way above our budget. We were about to give up when we found one more ticket office. The guy in here was actually from Northern Ireland. He used to go with his mum and dad to do shopping in Sandy Row and he went to the school of music down Donegall Pass. How funny is that! 

So we explained our situation to him and how we only had so much money to spend on the musical, so he went through the different musicals and showed us which musicals he could probably get us tickets for at that price. He got us fantastic seat for the musical Shrek. We took it. He was just so helpful and we enjoyed chatting to a really helpful person from the homeland.

It was then out to explore. We went to see the Parliament buildings and Big Ben. It was then that I discovered that I had forgotten the card for my camera!!! Argghhhhh how stupid am I?!!! I had left it in my computer and it was in the hotel room!!! I found a wee shop and bought a new card - the day was saved!

We then decided we wanted to see Westminster Abbey. We found the exit we needed to go out of to get to the Abbey. We were sure we understood the map. It said the Abbey was straight ahead. So we went out and walked straight ahead. We walked and we walked but we weren´t seeing any Abbey!! We did however discover Downing Street.


 We walked and walked and still there was no Westminster Abbey. We heard church bells and we were sure that they must be coming from Westminster. We walked and walked again and ended at Trafalgar Street.


 We saw a church over to the right and thought that must be Westminster Abbey....(how stupid are we?!!) It turned out not to be!! What a shock we got - how could we miss seeing a big church. Totally baffled we went for lunch. It was then that a sweet fella, overhearing us talking about where the Abbey had disappeared too, came to the rescue and told us how to get there. We had to go back the way we came. It was then we discovered that instead of walking straight out from the tube we should have turned around -Westminster Abbey was in full view!! Why didn´t we do that??!! Us two and reading maps, we are just not good at that! Anyway we got to see Downing Street and Trafalgar Square.

It was then off to visit the Queen. It was so cold and she didn´t even invite us in for tea! Very disappointed!!


We had a bit of a wee dance outside the palace. It was then home to get warmed up. We ate dinner at the hotel´s restaurant and then we got ready to head out again to the theatre to see Shrek.


The musical was absolutely fantastic. We sooo enjoyed it.

It was then home to our lovely warm hotel room. It was so cold out. We are so exhausted now, our legs ache. London is so big and there are so many people on the tube. It´s a wonderful City but I am so glad that I don´t live here and have to use the tubes every day with all those people! 

Tomorrow we are heading into Hillsongs of London, I am really lookng forward to see how they do church. Then we think we will check out Convent Gardens before heading out to see Donny.

Friday 18 January 2013

Hello London

We have arrived!

Everything went great. Helen was waiting on me at arrivals. We got the train to Liverpool station and then the tube out to the hotel.
The hotel is lovely. Clean and cosy. On arrival we were hungry but the hotel kitchen had just closed. However they were kind enough to order a couple of pizzas for us. 




 It´s lovely seeing Helen again and catching up with her and her life.  Soon we are going to plan our day tomorrow and then head to bed for hopefully, a good nights sleep. I really hope I don´t keep Helen awake all night with my snoring.

Thursday 17 January 2013

Packing again and soon on the move.....

....this time to London!!!

On 6th June 2012 I discovered that Donny Osmond was doing a UK tour in January 2013. He would be in Belfast the last Wednesday in January.  This was unfortunate as I only had 1 holiday day left to use and I couldn´t make it over and back in one day. Then I noticed he was in London on the Sunday. This was much better. I could use my last holiday day on the Monday so I could travel home. 

I asked Kristian if he fancied going to London with me to see Donny. He was NOT interested! He told me to ask some of my girlfriends and see if they would go along. He then added that if I absolutely couldn´t get anyone to go, he would go with me. (Isn´t he a gem! I think he really is a secret Donny fan!



So I put as my facebook status: "Anybody want to go and see Donny Osmond in London with me in January?"  Many of my friends said NO THANKYOU!!! haha (They were not big Donny fans, or maybe it was a weekend with me in London that didn´t appeal to them!.-) 

Just when I thought no one was interested and was about to give up, Helen, an old friend from school wrote to me. She would love to go to the concert with me. She thought a girls weekend away in London sounded like fun. So that night we bought the tickets, booked the flights and we were set to go to London in January!

The last time Helen and I saw each other was about 18 or 19 years ago. We were great friends at school and we kept in touch a few years after leaving school. When I came to Denmark we kept in touch the first few years that I was here, but then we lost touch with each other. It was only last year, when she appeared on facebook, that we re-kindled the friendship.

So tomorrow (Friday18th) after work I head to the airport and fly to London Stansted to meet Helen. We will then travel to Greenwich to our hotel and spend the weekend exploring London, finishing with a Donny concert on Sunday evening. We fly home Monday afternoon.  I am now getting really excited about it all. Just praying for no snow!!! I know the UK goes to a stand still in snow and Helen has the tickets for the concert. If she can´t fly then I am on my own for a weekend in London without getting to see Donny:-(

So the night before my big trip my friend and neighbour, Laura and her daughter Mia, came over to say goodbye. She had baked a delicious hot fudge chocolate cake - boy was it good! I supplied the tea and coffee. I went into the kitchen to get the tea and when I came back into the living room again Leah, Mia, and Laura were sitting on the sofa with posters of Donny in front of their faces. They started to sing "And they called it Puppy love!" adding their own words as they went along as they didn´t really know the song! Sooo crazy and sooo much fun. I had to laugh! 

Monday 14 January 2013

A weekend with family and friends....

 On Saturday afternoon we had Kristian´s mum visiting. She came for coffee and cake and stayed on for dinner. We had such a lovely afternoon. 

The evening was spent watching old home movies from when the kids were small. They were so cute! 
Then we watched Handball on TV.  Denmark is taking part in the World Championships so we had to see their first match - they won!

 It was lovely to have the afternoon and evening with my mother-in-law. All the horrible stories about mother-in-laws do not apply to mine....I have been blessed with a very special lady!

On Sunday afternoon our friends Jette and Filip came to visit wth their two children. It has been ages since we last saw them. It was the first time for Filip to see our new place. I think he liked it! (Jette has been here a few times with the kids.) 

Kristian and him love music. Filip plays the drums, Kristian plays the sax and they both seem to have the same taste in music. They are forever listening to all types of (weird) music when they get together! Jette and I do NOT share their taste in music. So we just enjoy hanging out together talking, laughing and dreaming!

The kids loved being with Andrew and Leah. They played games with them all afternoon. One big hit was hide and seek. It was fun to see my two big kids try and find hiding places around the house. Its been years since they did that! Another big hit was the computer! Andrew and Jonathan got creative doing some painting on there.



Filip also got to play computer. He got to try out some of Kristian´s racing games. 


All in all it was a lovely weekend. Productive and yet relaxing!

Today (Monday) when I woke it was snowing!!! Oh NOOOOO !!! I didn´t want anymore snow. Snow is only for December!! Ah well it wasn´t too bad driving to work but it did snow all morning, so by the time I was finished there was a good bit of snow about the place. 

It has been snowing all evening so I am so thankful for our warm cosy home. I am about to climb into my PJs and get into bed with a good book. Ahhh nothing better than that on a cold winters night:-)

Thursday 10 January 2013

Date night...

with my hubby! 

We decided we would use our gift card to the cinema. There is a French film called "The Intouchables" and it is getting great reviews over here, so we decided to go and check it out. 

A French film with Danish subtitles, now that is culture!

The film started at 6.45pm. As soon as Kristian got home from work we left. We drove by McDonalds and got ourselves a burger. We would have loved to have had something a little bit nicer but time was tight.  We just about made it in time for the film. We arrived a few minutes before it started. 

So what did we think? We LOVED it. We were not disappointed, the reviews were right. It was a great film. (plus I got to hear French for over an hour!!!)

(By the way, I have started my French lessons. The first one was Monday morning and I have had one every morning since. They start at 6.30am  in my car and they end at 6.55am when I arrive at work!  Then they continue again at 2.30pm till I arrive home! It´s great, I am actually learning something!I just have to make sure I do it every day, otherwise I will forget everything!)

Anyway, it has been a lovely evening out with my hubby. I didn´t  get to see too much of  him yesterday. I had to leave to meet Genny before he got home from work. Then when I got home it was late, so it was great to spend time with him this evening. I love our date nights even after almost 23 years of them!





Wednesday 9 January 2013

Food glorious food.....

A quick update. It´s late and I`m tired but I just wanted to type a few lines about what I did this evening just for the record.

Tonight I went to our local Mexican restaurant to meet up with my friend Genny. We tried to work out when we had last seen each other. (We usually meet 4 times a year, Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.) Well, tonight we couldn´t remember when we last had been out, we thought it might have been at the end of March last year. When I came home I checked my blog and it was actually 8th February last year!!! (Hence why I want to make a record of tonights Mexican date!)

So no wonder the night just flew by. We had soooo much to catch up on! We ate so much delicious food and had a good laugh like we usually do, and we talked sooo much!! It was one great night!

Saturday 5 January 2013

Guests.....

 ...and this time our guests were not sick and they didn´t need to cancel! Yeah!  We had Anne and her family over for the afternoon and evening 

We started the afternoon by going for a walk. The weather wasn´t the best but we enjoyed the walk.

 Leah invited Mia along too.



 It was home to cake and coffee. A while later and we made dinner together. The rest of the evening was spent eating and chatting. Later in the evening we also played a game of Bingo with silly gifts for the winners. Great fun!

Leah and Mia had a great time playing with David.



Anne also enjoyed playing with David!


    It was a great evening. We were together 9 hours and it felt like 2!! It went too quickly. Anne´s husband Peter and Kristian get on great and they actually talk more than us. I honestly don´t think they stopped talking in those 9 hours, we couldn´t get a word in with them and they weren´t too happy that they had to stop talking to play Bingo!! haha (They were worse than us women!)
(Peter and Kristian -  deep in conversation from the time they met till the time they left! 
Anne, I think, looks a bit fed up from all their talking! haha)

Friday 4 January 2013

Every week....

......should be like this week, as I only had to work Thursday and Friday -WONDERFUL! ( You probably think that I don´t like my job, that is not the case, I love it but I also love my holidays!:-)

I have a confession to make. Already I have failed in my healthy eating lifestyle! (I know, embrassing that it has happened already!)

Day 2, 2nd January I blew it big time. Kristian was at work and I was alone home. I found an open bag of sour cream and onion crisps and the temptation was too much. I scoffed the lot!  Then I went out with the rubbish and saw a bottle of ginger ale that we had put outside to keep cold, once again I gave into temptation. Then I found a bag of sweets in the cupboard and before long they were in my tummy too.

Day 3 started good and then slowly went down hill! I started work and I actually did well until I went to visit my old lady friend after work. She had bought me a box of chocolates and she insisted that I took them home. (I wanted to leave them at her house and eat 1 each time I visited, but she was having none of that!) So I came home and stuffed myself all evening with chocolates. 

Then I went over to see Laura and she gave me a glass of caramel cream.(It tasted just like banoffee!!!) She had eaten half the glass that afternoon. She was disgusted with herself so she wanted me to have the leftovers. I didn´t want the leftovers!! I knew I couldn`t be trusted, it was too delicious, but she somehow got me to take it. Guess what I did? I went home and got out a spoon and stood eating spoonfuls of it. It was so delicious but oh so fattening!!!



Day 4 and I was determined this healthy eating thing was going to happen today!! And it did - till I got to work! My colleague had a birthday and she had ordered a huge cake for everyone! I couldn´t say NO to that! And believe me I didn´t - 3 slices throughout the day. Then home to the remaining chocolates from my old lady friend. I shared these with Laura who popped over to say Hi. We were both so fed up with our bad behaviour that we had to drown our sorrows with more chocolate!! (WHAT???!!!!)

Anyway I am determined Monday is going to be a better day!!! Next week everything is going to be perfect!!! (Well just let me think that for the time being!)

Tuesday 1 January 2013

Another quick update......


I have been listening to the song below this evening and just been thinking about the words. I think it´s an appropriate song to start the year with. Just to take the time to say to God that He really is the reason that I live. Even though so many other things in life try to take my focus and attention, He is the reason that I  live. All the other things do not give me the peace and joy that He gives. And I love that no matter what happens - through the tears and joy - I can trust in Him. Who knows what tears or joys will come in 2013 but it is just great to know God is there and I can trust Him through everything.



Today Kristian´s mum and her friend Ellen were meant to come for coffee and cake. Unfortunately Ellen got sick so they had to cancel. 

That meant we had yet another day to relax. I got some washing done, I got a menu plan started for my healthy eating lifestyle and I actually started it. Boy it has been hard! I have craved food all day, especially chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks! I have only drunk water all day and I have had such a sore head since late afternoon. It´s withdrawal symptoms. 

I took some time this afternoon to go out and train on Andrews row machine. It nearly killed me and I only did 10 minutes!! Funny thing was Laura walked passed the garage as I was training and she looked in, she got such a shock seeing me on the row machine, usually it is Andrew out training! 

We then spent the evening watching films. Kristian got a film at Christmas that we hadn´t seen called "RED". It was good, typical Bruce Willis film with lots of action, fighting and shooting. 

Then I settled down to watch a movie Leah got called "We bought a Zoo" - what a sweet movie. I really enjoyed it and shed a few tears. 

Kristian starts back to work tomorrow and I have only one more day at home but only 6 weeks until the next holiday:-)

5 Years old today....

...is my blog. I started my blog 1st January 2008 and I suppose I didn´t really believe it would last too long. My reason for starting was to keep a sort of journal or diary of my life. A place to record what we had been up to as a family, a place to record thoughts and dreams. 

 Every year (for as long as I can remember) at the start of January I would try to keep a journal but because it was always handwritten it never lasted long - I hate to write but LOVE to type. So way back in January 2008 when I started this blog I wondered if it would last. 

Was hating to write really the reason I never kept up with my journal, maybe I wasn´t really the type to keep a journal?!  Well now I know that I do enjoy keeping a journal and all along it was the writing that kept me from it. I love to sit down in the evenings and type about my day or week. It is really wonderful to have a record of the things we have done over the last 5 years. 

Sometimes I pick a date out and say to Kristian "What do you think we were doing in the month of April 2010? "  He has no idea and I always try to guess. (Usually I guess wrong) Then we go in and check out the blog! Usually we have done something that I have long ago forgot about, a walk by a lake or a trip out for an ice cream, then all the memories come flooding back. I can highly recommend it. 

So even if no one visits and no one reads this blog, I don´t mind. It´s my record of my life. Who knows maybe in the year 2089 someone will discover it and enjoy following my life, way back in the good old days!

Happy New Year:-

Another new year with new goals and dreams. Must admit I have been getting a bit worried lately. A few years back after seeing the film "The Bucket List"  I made a bucket list, you know the list of things you want to do before you die (kick the bucket). Well not so long ago I looked at this list and I realised that alot of my wishes have now been ticked!! What does that mean?? Am I going to kick the bucket soon? haha Hope not - although the thought of going home to heaven is rather appealing! Maybe it means I just need to make a longer list! haha I`ll go with the last one!

So 2013 is here. My first goal is to get back into shape. In 2008 I achieved that. I lost 16kg within 4 months! I kept the weight off for a while but over the last 2 years I have put 10kg back on! 

So today starts a new life style for me. No more unhealthy eating, lots more exercise and hopefully in a few months time I will be 10kg lighter.

Last night we had a lovely quiet new year together here at home.We are not big "New Year Party" people. I love to be home and think about the old year and make plans for the new. Kristian and I had planned a bit of a date night at home.Leah was going to a party at the church and we thought Andrew  was going out with some friends. However Andrew decided he would rather spend New Year at home. (He is like us - not a big party person!) So it ended up just being us 3.

I made some nice food.....


 A starter that was so big it nearly filled us up! It was delicious. Smoked salmon wraps with cream cheese, dild and avacado. A tuna mousse and a delicious prawn salad.:-) Rather yummie!


 The evening was spent being together. It was lovely.

Just before midnight we logged unto Skype and got in touch with my dad. He was able to toast the New Year in with us via video call. It was nearly as good as him being here with us.