Trip to Ward Park, Bangor

We went to Ward Park in Bangor today.
Ward Park is lovely, water, birds, trees, play area, what more do you need for the children to enjoy. This post is all photos, there is not much to say about the day except that we had a lot of fun.
Oh and we tried to find a geocache there too but we we could not get the GPS to work, better luck next time I guess.

 having a little chat.

Seems it was easier to carry the scooter.

The Peacock was showing off to his potential mate, and she was taking no notice. (women are good at that)

Feeding the ducks, well trying to as the ducks already had their lunch by the time we got there.

A debate about where to go next?

I love this weather vane!

A week in photos - Helicopters and Snow

Well this is it the start back to a normal life - almost that is. Poor Mag he has been in the wars, from having appendicitis and getting emergency surgery to having a kinked bowel in the days that followed. Now Mag has a painful condition called gastritis -which is inflammation of the lining of the stomach and intestines.

We did however manage to get out last weekend before his latest condition got bad - on Saturday Mag and I went to the shopping centre while Roy took the other children swimming. While we were there we noticed a helicopter outside, and a very cold man guarding it! They were doing a prize draw thing for a free ride on Valentine's day. We got talking to the man and he seemed a nice chap - so we went and got him a big mug of hot chocolate to warm him up. He was really grateful and allowed Mag to sit in the helicopter in return, it made hiss day and after all he had been through was nice for him.

On the Sunday we were going to head to the retail village but the weather reports suggested that we should not risk the journey. It was snowing so we took a drive a couple of miles up the coast to Crawfordsburn Country Park. There was snow on the beach!

We stopped off at Grey Point Fort

For the virtual visit click here ...

http://www.virtualvisit-northernireland.com/gallery.aspx?dataid=45801&id=869&title=Museums+and+Galleries

Otherwise you can enjoy our photos!

Situated within Crawfordsburn Country Park, on the headland to the east stands a wartime relic, Grey Point Fort, a most interesting and unusual visitor attraction with great surrounding views. This gun site was built to protect the mouth of the Belfast Lough from enemy invasion and now houses a little military museum. Centrepiece is a 12ft by six inch diameter naval gun which was installed in 1992. It is nearly a century old and was brought from Spike Island in Cork Harbour which also had a defensive fort. Grey Points two guns were sold for scrap in 1957 after the disbanding of the coastal artillery. (source visitbritain.com)

Other than the trips out last weekend we have been virtually house bound since then. Waiting for a break in the weather and waiting very patiently for Mag to get better.

They would get you into trouble ...

Kids that is, they would get you in so deep if you were not careful.

This evening I popped out for an hour. I needed to go stick my head round the door of  Mag's Boys Brigade club because they were kind enough to send him a card last week. I wanted to talk to them about what Mag can and cannot do when he starts back. Mag came with me to get out of the house, we had not planned on being out long but we ended up making a pit stop at the local shop on the way home.

While we were gone Roy was dealing with Seb, Toni and Sol were already in bed so no issues there. Seb is a different matter, for anyone who knows Seb he is an active, chirpy sometimes quirky boy. You cant leave him, he just is always on the go.

Seb was getting his pyjamas on while Roy ran up the stairs to switch on his computer and put the little heater on. He must have been gone for just a couple of minutes, when he came down stairs again he was in for a shock. In the dining room stood a very good friend of ours, he happens to be a neighbour too. He had popped over the wall to get something of his daughter's that was left in our house this morning when I was looking after her. Seb 'explained' to our neighbour that daddy was not there and that daddy had left without giving him kisses. On further quizzing Seb had announced that mummy wasn't there either. So our neighbour was stood there feeling a bit flummoxed by this, he was just wondering what to do when Roy appeared back down the stairs.

The Boy is Home

Mag is home at last. I want to thank all of my friends on line and in real life for the messages of kindness given to us during this week.

Mag, as you have read earlier in the week, had his appendix removed last Sunday. Mag then suffered post op complications with a kinked bowel and some infection in his wound. Anyway after a few hard days he turned the corner and yeserday he was allowed to come home.

Mag now is still pretty sore, he is tired and not on full strength but this is all to be expected.

He has had some surprising restrictions put on him, he is not allowed to do contact sports or anything strenuous for six months. He is allowed to resume 'gentle' sports after three months so at least he wont be curtailed for too long. The weather is too cold for him to be out cycling or trampolining anyway. He is also disappointed that he has had to cancel his climbing wall course and not go swimming with the other children but I guess it is a small price to pay compared to what would have happened had he not got the surgery.

We have been overwhelmed with the kindness shown to him by virtually everyone we know. The cards and calls have flooded in from his various clubs and activities, even people who we had not told directly got to find out about him being laid up. It just shows what a popular boy he is, and I would imagine if the same happened to me I would struggle to have the same following.

Mag is ill! Appendicitis

Mag has not been well. He was sick unexpectedly during last week and then he was 'ok'. On Saturday he was quite poorly, had a sore belly and was sick so we all assumed he had a tummy bug. The scary thing is on Saturday night I had a dream that Mag died - my instinct was screaming at me to get him seen to. Sunday morning Roy left very early to get a flight to Scotland - so leaving me alone with 4 children including one with a suspected tummy bug. I wanted to lie in but could not settle for worrying about Mag. So I got up early that morning to check on him and discovered a very ill Mag. He just looked awful and his tummy was hard. Long story short I got the three kids farmed out to the neighbours ...and we went off to the local hospital (all before 9am!).

I 'knew' by then what was wrong. The doctor examined him and looked at me, I said "is it what I think it is?" He nodded and gave us a referral letter for the Ulster Hospital.

Got to the Ulster hospital and did all the booking in palaver which takes forever especially when you are sick. First off the triage nurse was saying "has he got sickness?", "has anyone in your family got a tummy bug?" *sigh* I was just wanting him seen but you still have to do all that elimination. Eventually they came to the same diagnosis. They said they could not deal with him as he was sick and that they did not have an ambulance so I reluctantly agreed to take him in the car to the Royal. I got Mag stood up and promptly collapsed - he got his ambulance! I was glad when I saw the ramp and steps up to the other hospital entrance, there would have been no way he could have walked up himself.

I followed the ambulance, got to the hospital and we did all the signing in rigmarole again.
He was getting iller (if there is a word) by the minute and they couldn't even give him any pain relief. In the end he got onto the surgical ward and eventually after 20 million consent forms etc he got into theatre. He was so ill by then they had to slide him on the bed with one of those roller blanket things like they have on the TV. I stayed with him until he was unconscious from the anaesthetic. Mag had a hole in his appendix, the operation took two hours. He was very lucky boy another few hours and he would have been dead.

His recovery has not been as smooth as we would have liked, he is still a very sick boy. Ashley's bowel has kinked and he has had to have further treatment including an unpleasant procedure involving putting a tube into his tummy. He is still hooked up to the morphine, IV antibiotics and fluids as well as having his stomach drained.

I shall update on his progress as I am able.

Here he is ...

Baking day - Saturday 24th

I am back dating blogging LOL. Today is actually Wednesday not Saturday but I wanted to post these photos before I share this weeks events.

Baking biscuits - Toni got an Angelina Ballerina cook book for Christmas so she decided to give one of the recipes a whirl.

The biscuits looked 'ok' but they did not taste so good.

So we made another batch and they turned out delicious.

The tooth fairy came to our house last week too!

POST-IT NOTES and starfish

Nothing much to report today, well I am sure there is loads but quite frankly I am too tired this evening to write about it all. We went to W5 today, well three of the children went one stayed at home with daddy. My three year old wasn't too hot so I thought it best she stick close to home, I was so tied between her and going to W5 but I guess I did not want to spoil the day for everyone else.

We watched a couple of the demonstrations as well as looking at all the exhibits. Here is Toni enjoying part of the show.


I do have to share something else funny...
On our way back we stopped at Tesco, we found this car in the car park which had the windows covered in post-it notes. I wonder why they were put there, I wonder how long they took to stick on, and I wonder what will happen when the owner finds the car decorated like this.