It's Too Soon!

So much has changed since I started this blog. We've moved 3 times,  got married and been on our first family holiday abroad but the biggest change by far has been in Emma. Our little baby has gone and the child in her place is barely recognisable.
It wasn't that long ago that we would walk to school hand in hand and she would look to me as if I had all the answers.  Sadly,  beginning secondary school life and the appearance of hair in strange places has led her to believe that she is now a woman and, as such, is far wiser than those of us who brought her into the world! 

Where can I find the chapter on puberty in the parenting handbook?  Walking to school must be done with her mates,  heaven forbid she should be seen with me.  Don't get me wrong,  there are still times when she reverts to being our babe and wants kissing goodnight or cuddles on the sofa and we'll always have football,  but these occasions become more rare with each passing day.

It's all snap chat, Facebook and YouTube these days,  in between the xbox and doing "stuff" with her mates. One thing I can say is that she's still a star at school and has done all her homework without being asked so I try not to feel completely despondent.  I suppose I feel the same way as parents the world over but it's so hard. You can't help feeling like the years are passing too quickly which,  in turn,  leads you to the realisation that you are getting old.

Having freedom to do more myself now that Emma is more independent is nice. It's just a shame that we can't have the best of both worlds.  We're lucky with her,  I know,  and love her dearly but it's sad. Hopefully,  by now,  we've taught her enough and raised her well enough to give her a good foundation for this part of her life.

What more can we do? Our child is growing up no matter how hard I try to stop it

It's A Nice Day For A ....... Yellow Wedding?!

So, it was around this time 2 years ago that Mark finally asked me to marry him. We've been through a lot together since our first date on 2nd October 2001 so we can definitely say we knew each other inside out before we took the plunge,  as they say.  The funny thing is, I never realised how much I wanted to get married until he asked me.

I would love to sit here and say I wasn't like every other woman in the world who turns into a crazy person when planning a wedding but I can't because I was an absolute mental case! Far too much money was spent on wedding magazines and hours wasted on wedding programmes when,  at the end of the day,  we had no intention of following the crowd in any way. 

The choice of venue was a no-brainer. It had to be the Torquay United Stadium. Football is our religion and Plainmoor is our Church,  you get the picture. Not people to do things by halves,  we immersed ourselves in the Torquay United theme and so everything was yellow and blue.
Abbot Coach Travel were great and gave us a deal on a coach for our guests and car for me. Don't ask me what model of car as I have no idea but I can tell you it was a fancy silver one, with yellow ribbon obviously.  From the start I'd decided on a yellow dress and we wanted blue suits with yellow waistcoats and ties. Yellow button holes,  yellow handkerchiefs,  yellow and blue posies and bouquet etc etc. My friends were very helpful and made my invites with me - yellow outside,  blue inside,  blue ribbon. They also got roped in to the favour making - some yellow bags, some blue,  blue chocolate balls and yellow rock with either Mr & Mrs or Just Married on them. Mark and I made our own 3 tier cake decorated with icing footballs and boots and little yellow and blue flowers then wrapped yellow and blue strips of ribbon around each tier. The cake topper was fun with the bride and groom playing football.
Name cards and table labels were all on yellow card in the shape of football shirts, with the table names being different Torquay players. The top table was the Directors Box, naturally.  Our table plan was a green pitch with the yellow footie kits representing the tables. Even I was impressed by how cool that looked. Hanging on the door was a Torquay Shirt with Mark & Vicki 15-06-13 printed on the back. 

When you watch all these shows on tv, the brides are always stressy but I wasn't at all. Everything went smoothly.  Palm FM mentioned us on air in the morning which was really cool actually.  Our daughter,  Emma,  and my sister,  Emily,  looked gorgeous in their blue bridesmaid's dresses.  Emma was brilliant because she had a reading to do during the ceremony and recited it by heart as the registrar had forgotten the book! Emma walked me down the aisle to Amazed  by Lonestar.

Of course we had our group photos in the stands then just the wedding party on the pitch. The photos did go on a little long though because we had our own photographer and the Torquay United photographer asking us to do different shots but nothing could ruin our day.
Callum, the Torquay chef, did a fabulous job on the buffet and setting up the tables etc as we ate in the same room that we had the ceremony.  Yes,  you guessed it, the seat covers had yellow ribbon apart from our chairs that had blue.

We weren't terribly original with our first dance - Still the One by Shania Twain but it fit us well.  Chris,  the best man,  made a good speech then Mark did one which was really lovely. Then we got drunk and partied!

The coach came and picked up all the guests at midnight so that Mark and I could wander down the road to spend the night at the Seabury. By the way that was a marvellous b&b that did a decent breakfast in the morning. 

Everything about the day was absolutely perfect.  I didn't even care that my parents and my mom's family decided not to come. Everyone that mattered was there. Plus the Herald Express did an article on our wedding because it was the first at Plainmoor and we get to see pictures on the big screen every home game as they use them for events publicity.

Hands down best day ever!

All Aboard The Ark!

So, it's been an awfully long time since I last posted but I have been incredibly busy. Most importantly,  I finally rejoined the working world! I think I had applied for literally every job available and been rejected when one of my best friends suggested that I work for her.  Now, she had mentioned before that she would give me a job but I honestly didn't think that I would be able to do it.  At this point though there wasn't really a choice, I couldn't spend another day at home feeling sorry for myself!

Ark Home Health Care are a national company,  my friend is south west regional manager. At the time she was still only the branch manager in Torbay.  Well,  after doing a week of Induction training I went off shadowing one of the other care workers and haven't looked back since.  I absolutely love my job! 

Care work isn't for everybody but, in it, I have found my niche.  My start was a rocky one,  however.  One particular lady took a dislike to me from the get go, insisting that I was an uneducated (being as I was new), immoral ( having a daughter whilst unmarried), gold-digger ( saying Mark was in his 50s and I was in my 20s). I felt the need to point out that I was, in fact, very well educated, had been with my partner for 11 years and that  I was was 30 and my partner was 47. She phoned the office the next day claiming that I had poured acid on her face! Then another woman slapped me around the face and spat on me. There was an incident which ended up with me being covered head to toe in diarrhea, which was probably an all time low, but I've lived to tell the tale!

I suppose that it's like any other job involving the public in that you meet some wonderful people as well as some rude ones but thankfully we don't have too many of the latter. My regular service users are all fab, of course.

From fairly early on I realised that I wanted to make social care my career rather than just a job and enrolled in NVQ level 3. It's called QCF now but no one ever gets what I'm talking about if I tell them that.  Linda, the assessor, visited today to pick up two assignments i had completed and give me a couple more to do. Learning is so much fun when it's something you're interested in and it's your personal choice to do it. Linda loves me, she tells me how great my work is all the time, which is always a good boost for the confidence. 

For the past 3 weeks,  most of my time has been spent in the office going through every scrap of paper work to either file it correctly or archive it. You have no idea how time consuming that is! Anything over 5 years old can go in the confidential waste bin and I filled it and had to call for collection several times so far. Archiving has to be boxed and a list made of everything that's in there if we should need to produce it for the CQC (Care Quality Commission) or for any legal proceedings so it's all numbered. I honestly have no idea how I ended up being roped in but I don't mind because being in the office has been a nice change.

Our Care Co-ordinator, Becky,  is going on maternity leave soon and last week a letter was sent advertising the job to cover her while she's off. After much debate with Esa, my boss, and a lot of internal contemplation I decided I would apply. 
It occurred to me that I know all the carers in Brixham as well as the service users, I get on really well with the office staff and I can learn to use the computer system so I may as well have a go.
Everyone thought that loads of the care workers would apply but there were 2 external candidates,  me and a woman who only started working for Ark a few months ago when we took over the Guinness care company.

My interview is next Monday at 2pm.  Wish me luck!