Sweet Memories

When I was in hospital for my surgery I made sure I took some nice shower gel with me as I knew that the soap they supplied could be yucky stuff, even if it was a private hospital.

Luckily a few days before going in I found a nice little gift sample package of mango shower gel and body lotion from the Body Shop in the back of my bathroom cabinet. Sure my Sister in Law must have gifted it too me a few years back when she worked there.
It was perfect to take with me, a nice refreshing fruity wash, just what I knew I would need in those first few days post surgery, and it worked too.

Mum stayed with Steve and the boys for the days I was in hospital, helping out, doing school runs and generally just being there so Steve had the freedom to come to the hospital to be with me if required without having to worry about the boys. It was a great help and we are eternally grateful that we have a Grandma that is such an important part of our sons lives.

On the Friday, mum brought the boys to the hospital to see me straight from school. She was leaving that afternoon and so we decided the boys could sit with me in the hospital for an hour or so, watching tv (obviously!) until Steve finished work and would collect them.
Alex looked like he had joined the mud wrestling team when he arrived at the hospital, so we decided to put him in the shower real quick. Joy of having your own private room, oh and the fact the nurses were leaving me alone as I could have actually gone home that day but decided to stay and have just one more day of rest before going home.

Now my 2 boys don't like showers, they love them.
They will happily while away 20-30 mins in the shower with the warm water running down and lots of bubbles from the shower gel.
Alex did just this at the hospital, it was a whole room shower with a wet floor, so we closed the door to the room and left him to it. Mum got a little concerned after 10 mins that he was taking so long having a 'quick shower' so she opened the door and all we got was this huge waft of hot sweet fruity mango come our way as Alex was happily having a shower covering himself in my shower gel.

He snuggled with me afterwards when he was all warm and sweet smelling, just a perfect snuggle to have whilst in hospital recovering.
Thanks Alex for the sweet memories.

17

This past weekend I found some new blogs, this all came about because Rinda, who organised the scavenger hunt I am currently undertaking, did a catch up
This allowed us (all 70 of us) to link up with her and go and view what the others had been photographing for the hunt.

One blog I got to reading mentioned about being 17, at the time she was 17 but everyone else that linked up to the post were writing about when they were 17.
This got me thinking to when I was 17, to when I turned 17, which if I have to be honest is just coming up to 25 years ago! Yes I turned 17 in 1987.

When I turned 17 my parents were living in America in Ohio.
My brother was with them going to Junior High and I was in England at boarding school on my own.
I was just starting my last year of my O Levels, yes I was in the group of students who were the last to complete O Levels, everyone after us took GCSE’s.

I was loving life and having a lot of fun. I was loving school where I was taking my normal courses plus singing in the choir, playing the clarinet. I remember during this year going on choir trips to other schools to sing evensong.

I remember that when I flew back to school after Christmas I got stranded at Newark Airport about an hour before my flight was due to leave. It had started to snow and the flight from the day before had been cancelled. I was not a happy traveller when I managed to get in touch with my dad before my flight left.

The Easter after I turned 17 my parents were not sure if they were going to be in the US so I stayed in England for the holidays on my own and travelled around to stay with relatives and friends. I got to stay wherever I wanted, I planned my itinerary and had a wonderful time travelling between people and staying a few days.

When the school year finally ended my parents were still in America so I flew over there ready to go to High School. I got to go to Band Camp ready to start the new school year and had a great summer hanging out with friends I already knew in the small town we lived in.
Sadly I never made it to High School, immigration caught up with my dad and gave us 7 days to leave the country. It was a great 7 days too.

So there is a sneaky view of my life coming up to 25 years ago.

Memories

Has the Olympics sparked any memories for you?
One of the events I love in the summer Olympics (and I don't like many as I love the winter Olympics much more) is the equestrian events.
The show jumping and the cross country in the 3-day event is enough to have me glued to the tv for the entire event.

They actually do a 3-day event in Auckland at the beginning of December. Steve and I have been once or twice, think we may have to go again one year and take the boys. It is such fun.

Anyhow, back to my memories......the equestrian events make me think of an amazing film that I loved as a child, must have been a child as it was made in 1978.

 International Velvet

That wonderful sequel to National Velvet

I was never into National Velvet, although when you look at it today and see the wonderful cast involved, I am amazed at who was in it Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Angela Landsbury all as young children.

However I loved the sequel International Velvet. The story of a young girl Sarah, who is orphaned by a car accident and goes to live with her aunt, Velvet Brown (yes a now grown up). She still has her famous horse Pi and when a foal is born of Pi's Sarah falls in love with the foal and names him Arizona Pi and what follows is her story of horse riding and eventually attending the Olympics for the British Team.

It contains some amazing actors:
Nanette Newman plays the aunt, Velvet Brown

Her partner in the movie is non other than a young Christopher Plumber

The other main character is Captain Johnson, the horse riding coach who is played by the wonderful Anthony Hopkins, a very young Hopkins I might add

The young niece, Sarah is played by Tatum O'Neal and she does a great job, seeing as the whole movie is based around her.

Now you do have to remember, if you ever get the chance to watch this movie, that it was made in England in 1978, it is old and will show in the style of movie and the acting. However it is a lovely story and will sadly be one that you require a box of tissues for, because even though there are sad parts the happy parts will have you reaching for a tissue just as fast. It is heart warming.

Librarys and Memories

We are lucky enough to have a good public library system within our town.
We have 1 main central library and then 4 smaller suburb locations.
These are all the same company and so we have the pleasure of being able to visit any of the sites to return, order and borrow our books.

We have the normal library charges, you pay to reserve a book, there is a small fine if you are late returning a book, you pay a small charge to borrow DVD's and movies etc and they also have the latest books available on 1 week hire at $5 as they are the most popular ones. There is no charge to borrow the books.

So we use the library a lot, the boys love going there and they have a love of books, well they like the books but I know their love for them is growing and this I am grateful for. I want them to understand the joy books can bring into your life, I want them to know that reading is a great thing to be able to do.

However last week the City Council were discussing how they could save millions of dollars and one area they looked at was the library service.
They wanted to put a charge on all books borrowed, they want to close the libraries on a Monday and they want to reduce the already scant staff to even less.
They feel this would save plenty of money and no one would mind!
I think not, the library is somewhere people can go when they have 30 minutes spare in town, I love the fact people can borrow books free and given this current life at present I like that fact people are still reading books when they can't afford to buy them.

So do I like this idea? Not one little bit.

I am also lucky enough to have a great medical library at the hospital. Now I wasn't sure how important this was going to be to me until I started my study this year when I realised that they had the books that would help me answer my essay questions.
They don't have any charges and even email you when books are due back, in fact they will even email you and let you know that as no one is waiting for the books then they have renewed them and they are now due on the new date. All without you asking them too do this! I am truely thankful for that, because this week they let me know I had books outstanding and I was pretty sure I had returned them 2 weeks ago after finishing my essay, but a little check at home proved this wrong and hey presto I had 4 books of theirs.
Really thank ful to them for checking with me.

My memory of libraries takes me all the way back to when I was about 9 or 10. We lived in Kuwait at the time and I was going to the local (only) English School.
We had a little library at the end of the hall that was seperated by a curtain.
One day I had to go to the library to find a book and at the time I decided that I would just stand on the bottom shelf to reach the book I wanted instead of getting a little chair.
Well unfortunately the shelf collapsed and all the book fell off!
I got sent to the Headmistress who had me retell her what had happened and how it was going to get fixed.
I remember feeling about this big and a little less more in front of Mrs Bird, whilst I stood there and said sorry for breaking the shelf.

So even though I still use libraries, I have learnt that if you can't reach a book, then get a chair or someone else to reach it instead.

Memories

Since re joining Facebook in January, I have hooked up with several really old friends from long ago.
We are talking about friends from over 20 years ago.
And so the memories have been flying around in my head for the last month or so.

I am having my own little party, in my head, remembering all the fun times I had in my youth.

Things like.....

1. Wapak State Fair
2. Walking in the rain
3. Friends Wedding that I went to the US for
4. Visiting OSU
5. Happenings at school (I went to a boarding school, so lots of things to remember)
6. Trip to Jersey
7. Funerals
8. and many many more things

I am having a great time at the moment!

Blood

We had our first taste of blood with little boys this weekend.
First Ben came over, crying in his panic state to show me he had cut his finger. With the noise you would have expected to find his finger hanging off! But no, just a little surface cut, but of course we had to have a bandaid.

Then Alex got hit in the face with a swing ball racket, didn't actually see this one happen, just saw him running to me with blood coming from his nose. All dealt with quite calmly, and that one got fixed with a cold cloth and an ice block from the store!

Then just as we were leaving, Ben, Alex and their friend Michael were playing jungle in the bush and Ben caught his toe on something. Again you would have thought the world had ended the way Ben went on! But no, just a small scrap by his toe, lots of blood and one little boy who panics at anything and everything!

So a fun time, Alex even managed to get blood drips on the deck, so now the caravan has been stained with the first childhood memories of fun in the sun.