Kearney Village

 

Day out at Kearney Village, Co Down.

Kearney village is as pretty as ever, and probably our favourite place to go. If you ask about what is there, well there is nothing, that is the charm of the village.

A couple weeks ago we were having a heatwave, perfect for going down the coast. Of course the day we picked was overcast and heavy mist was down due to the heat. Anyway, we didn't let the weather put us off after all it rains 95% of the time in our country so the mist was a piece of cake.

As the day wore on the mist lifted and it turned out pretty good. The kids paddled about in the water catching shrimps and crabs. We also decided to also to try take the dog of the lead properly for the first time. She did good and walked along the coast with us, filling us with confidence for the time she can be trusted to be off the lead at home.

 

 

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Turbine Views

There's a wind turbine near us, it's located in some woodland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nothing In Sight

I'm really sad. Sol's surgery the first week looked great. Sol's eye healed well and she looked fabulous. On day eight I looked at her and her left eye had drifted outward. Then a while later it happened agin, and again. Her vision tests indicate that her sight is considerably worse than before the surgery and she has a certain amount of double vision. Gutted, to say the least. Unfortunately there's not much you can do, it takes a month before you can see the final results and its only been two weeks.

 

Please keep Sol in your thoughts.

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Amazing

The weather this past few days has been glorious. The photos that follow are from the village where I live, I might be biased but I feel I am very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

 

 

 

 

Sol found a caterpillar down by the beach, she brought it home and called it wriggly.

Seb and Sol made a tent, complete with camping stove.

Movie mania came to town. Gillian Anderson and Ben Kingsley are in a movie and its being filmed near where I live. They turned the street with period houses into a run down road with an upturned car and stuff laying around.

This is the make up trailers.

 

Sol got up to mischief one night when she was supposed to be going to bed.

 

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Made It In One Piece

Well, it's over. The surgery for Sol that is. All those years, all that worrying and it feels like strange that its finally done. Sol did great, she's a little trooper. We arrived at 8 am and she was anaesthetised by 9am. The surgery lasted 90 minutes and it took Sol another hour to come round. There wasn't a single tear, no complaining, the medical staff all commented on how she's been the best behaved child they have operated on in a long time. :D

 

Her eye looks surprisingly good, the white is red and sore looking but there isn't the bruising that I was expecting. To be honest I am not sure what I expected, whatever it just went really smoothly. The orthoptic person said they are very happy with the results.

 

At the weekend, prior to Sol's surgery we took a little trip into Bangor to the marina, and along to the splash park. Hardly weather for splashing but the children had fun all the same. It was nice to do something fun before Sol was in hospital, not knowing how long Sol would be laid up for instigated it too.

 

 

Oh, and totally off topic ...

my apple trees have gorgeous blossoms right now.

 

 

 

 

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Waves And Eyes On Me

Today was busy! Mags had an English exam to go sit in the city. We had to leave around 7:30am in order to beat the morning rush. I had been wondering the last few days what I would do with the other children while we hung around waiting for the exam to be over. There wasn't enough time to drive home then go back up again, and there's only so much time you can kill with three youngsters in tow. I decided to take them swimming. The pool I chose for them had a wave machine and it's a lot of fun. We spent 90 minutes in the water, I swear we were all wrinkly when we got out. This was the first time they had experienced the wave machine and the children are now all very eager to go back again as soon as possible.

 

Apart from the fun stuff I've been having a few thoughtful moments this week. Sol has surgery next week to straighten her eyes. It's been a long road. Sol has been left with a blind spot in the centre of her left eye and some other difficulties with her vision. So I was thinking, wondering if I was doing the right thing by permitting this surgery to go ahead. What if it goes wrong? What if her eyes turn out wards after the surgery, and that is one of the main risks that has meant it's taken so long to make the decisions to operate. All this while I am a member of a forum which discusses such issues. The adults who had surgery often need further surgery, this scares me. But the biggest emotional tug of all are those who never had surgery, those people whose parents either didn't push for it, or couldn't afford it, or were simply too frightened like me ... those people are the ones who have the regrets. I can't imagine spending years hiding your eyes by dipping your head low or wearing your hair across your face - I do not want that for my daughter.

And as if someone spoke to me while I was having these thoughts I came across these photos of my little girl, these photos are the deal breaker for me. We have to try, at least give it our best shot. What do you think?

 

 

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Nose No Trouble

This has been an eventful week indeed!

Our poor wee puppy got bitten by another dog. The other dog was a Blue Staffordshire and decided to take a dislike to Olivia while I had her out for a walk. The other dog bit Olivia and left a nasty wound on her nose.

She bled profusely and for a few minutes it was really hard to stem the bleeding. The children were crying and the owner of the other dog was absolutely mortified that this had happened. We had to take Olivia to the vet and sadly they were unable to do any plastic surgery as the flesh had been torn away. The vet gave my pup antibiotics and an anti inflammatory pain medicine to assist the healing process. It could have been a lot worse, I know we are lucky. It was also an awkward situation, however I am thankfull that the lady was happy to pay the vet bill, otherwise things would have been really different to deal with.

A few days on and my puppy's nose wound has dried up a bit and the swelling subsided. If anything it looks worse but it is healing well despite that. Olivia will always have the fleshy curly part of her nostril missing, I guess that's going to be her bravery story.

 

 

 

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