One day in August.

This post is for week 25 of The Gallery. This weeks prompt is One Day in August. The prompt is in honour of three parent bloggers, Josie, Sian and Eva who are flying out to Bangladesh to raise awareness of the work Save the Children are doing to improve the lives of millions of children in this poverty-stricken region. They flew to Bangladesh on Sunday 29th August.

For this prompt, we were required to take a photograph on this same day. The photograph can be of anything, it just had to be taken on this day. I imagined photographs of children in the garden, maybe a picnic in the park. Unfortunately, I had to work on Sunday 29th August and I was there from 7.30 in the morning until 20.00 so I had little choice but to take a photograph at work, as it's already dark when I get home.

I don't really discuss what I do for a living on this blog, or on Twitter (no, I'm not an MI5 agent). It's not top-secret, it's just that I don't feel that it's appropriate and I have to be careful what I say so that I don't breach my professional Code of Conduct or confidentiality.

I am a Neonatal Nurse. If you're not familiar with that term, it means that I work on a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and I look after very sick and/or premature babies. It's a misconception that we only look after premature babies. Term babies get sick too. I would have loved to have taken a photograph of one of our tiniest patients, maybe even just a tiny foot, but I need permission to do that. 

This is a Resusitaire. This is the first piece of life saving equipment a baby who is unwell at birth or preterm will come into contact with. Those of you who have had a hospital birth may recognise it, as one resides in the corner of every delivery room in this country. It serves as a platform for staff (hopefully a Neonatal team) to place a newborn and assess and administer life support (if necessary). In the unit where I work, we also use it to transfer the baby up to the Neonatal Unit.

Sunday 29th August was a busy day. We had two admissions arrive simultaneously. I took this photograph after one of the babies (born at 29 weeks) had been safely settled onto the unit. Believe it or not, the plastic bag is an excellent insulator. These resustitaires cost somewhere in the region of £20,000 pounds each. It's very unlikely that hospitals in Bangladesh have equipment like this, especially not in every delivery room. I very much doubt that babies born at 29 weeks in Bangladesh even survive. 

People complain about the NHS, but we really are very lucky to have access to such a good standard of healthcare in this country.

  

Now we are Three............

My baby is three. I can hardly believe it. Three years since I brought a pink wrinkly baby (with enormous tootsies) home. The first year went quite quickly, the second even quicker and the third...............well. Unbelievable. Here at the Nudie Palace, we had a wee celebration for the Little Prince in a Pirate stylee.

 No, we didn't only buy him a toothbrush for his birthday. But he was super excited about this anyway, after he nagged us every time we went to Waitrose about the 'Letric Spiderman Toothbrush'. The customary response was, 'You can have it when you're three' (because that's what it says on the back of the packet you see). Naturally, it seemed apt to buy him the sodding thing for his third birthday.

 This is his real present. A rather nifty Micro-Scooter. Watch your backs on the seafront, Grannies............

 Setting the scene for the party. Never let it be said that I don't pay attention to detail.

 The Cannon, built by the Talented Mr Nudie. It fired and everything.

 The target, a Galleon of course.

 A little Pirates den at the bottom of the garden.

Treasure chest cake. No, I didn't bake it myself. I'm good, but I'm not that good.

 Digging for treasure, well piratey bubbles if you must know, but the wee shipmates seemed happy enough.

 We be Pirates too 'Aaaargh', erm woof. Whatever....

 One very happy little piratey prince at the end of his party. Happy days. Still can't believe he's Three though.

Memories are made of this.......

This post is for week 23 of Tara Cains Gallery. The prompt this week is Memories. So many images I could have chosen that represent an important memory for me; photographs from my childhood; my time at university; my early adulthood spent living in London. All of these periods in my life have shaped the person I am today, but none as much as becoming a Mother. Every moment spent with my wee Prince is a future memory in the making.

The memories started before he was even born. The first glimpse of him on the scan. The first time I felt him move. All precious and stored away in those memory banks.

The images below are of moments etched firmly in my memories. The first time I realised I might be carrying a boy (we chose not to know the sex of the baby) was during my 20 week scan. A huge foot loomed out of the darkness at the bottom of the screen. 'There's no way that foot belongs to a girl', I had said to Mr Nudie. I was right.

When the Little Prince finally emerged, one of the first things I did (after I'd seen his dangly bits) was look at his feet. As I suspected, they were huge. They still are. This photograph has pride of place in our house because it represents one of my first significant memories of Motherhood.

The Talented Mr Nudie.

This time it's all about Mr Nudie, well all about what a bloody brilliant Dad he is to my Little Prince anyway. Not only does he have seemingly endless patience and the enduring ability to get up with the little darling at five-ish most mornings while I pretend to be asleep I mean, snooze. He is the inventor of all manner of cool stuff and games for little boys. I can't even begin to kid myself that I am as much fun to hang out with. Sorry, Little Prince. 

Mr Nudie is a 'Dangerous Book for Boys' kind of Dad. Always making stuff from bits and pieces he has lying around and foraging for beasties in the garden. All that's missing is a mad inventors moustache.......maybe that would be a step too far, despite his dedication to the cause.

Anyway, I want to share with you Mr Nudies piece de resistance. The Little Princes playhouse. It was borne from a small idea one weekend. The next thing, Mr Nudie's drawing proper fancy-pants plans and everything. It took him, with a little help from the boy just one weekend to build this.

It's the perfect spot to hang out, whilst creating a masterpiece.

Or just to chill and enjoy a little snackette.

This is the Little Princes space, and with it Play time has taken on a whole new meaning.

This post is for week 22 of Tara Cains Gallery. The prompt this week is Playtime. Don't forget to go and look at all the other entries.

Another ten things you didn't know about me....

I have been tagged in another one of those Spanish Inquistion/ Spill your guts type memes. They're a nosey lot the blogging community. Anyway, this time I was tagged by the rather gorgeous Miss Cherry Red. Sorry, Amy for dragging my lazy arse heels about writing this. Here are the ten questions I've been asked this time...

1. Are you a meticulous planner?

In a word, no. I wish I was. I've always been disorganised, lazy even and I leave everything to the last minute. This also means that I'm nearly always late for everything (except work, I seem to manage to be punctual for that). Including my own wedding. I was forty five minutes late. Instead of gazing lovingly down at me and telling me how beautiful I looked, Mr Nudie simply grunted 'You made it then'.

2. Do you wear make up and if so how much and how often?
I wear as little as I can possibly get away with. You've read my answer to the previous question. How much later do you think I would be if I needed to apply layers of war paint every morning? Admittedly, as I'm getting older it's harder to get away with a completely bare face and I wouldn't dream of going to work without Mascara (I get up at 05.15 people, do you want me to scare the children?).

I've just never particularly liked the overly made-up look. I was blessed with a clear complexion and it always seemed a shame to cover it up. These days though, with three years of sleep deprivation and early starts behind me, I think I need to up my game.

3. What, if anything, do you wear in bed?
Hey?! What's my name? I wear nothing in bed. Nada, zilch, zero. Nudie

4. Look over your right shoulder, what do you see?

My garden. The computer is in one of the bedrooms at the back of the house, and the desk is next to the window. I can also see into my next door neighbours garden. Not so nice. He's a right lazy bastard and it's a bit of a mess, quite frankly.

5. If you had to take a random item to an interview to help describe you, what would it be?I have thought long and hard about this and I can't think of a single thing worth writing down. Next!


6. What film would you have liked a starring role in?
Debbie does Dallas? Kidding. Something with a hot male lead in it, so I could do rumpy pumpy with him. Has Rupert Penry Jones been in any films? Whatever that film was then. With lots of extra love scenes please.

7. Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant?
Hmm. I think Cary Grant was probably the better looking of the two. He had a rather fetching dimple on his chin. I like those. He was however, rumoured to be Bi-sexual.

8. Do you swear in front of children?
Oops. Have you read my post 'Shit my kids says?' I have a potty mouth, I won't deny it but I do try and curb my language in front of the Little Prince. He's a little Parrot at the moment, so I have to be careful. Clearly, one or two swears may have slipped out.........For example, he plays with my iphone a lot and it's not uncommon for him to be navigating his way round it, not find what he wants and exclaim 'Oh, for Foxes sake'.....

9. Do you knit or sew or do any other ‘womanly’ craft?
I bake cakes on occasion, does that count? I only really do that because I LOVE CAKE. Ahem.

10. Twitter or Facebook?

Twitter, without question. I have a Facebook account, but I really only use it to keep in touch with the friends I left behind in London and because I have family in Ireland and Australia that require regular updates on the Little Prince.

I read a tweet last night that is doing the rounds on Twitter at the moment. It went something like this: 'Facebook is for friends who have become strangers. Twitter is for strangers who have become friends'. 

So true.
Alternatively, another way of putting it, I spotted this tweet by the enduringly eloquent @LarneLoudmouth 'Facebook is a quick wank. Twitter is a fucking great blowjob'.

Thats it. Another ten things you didn't know about me before today. In the true spirit of a meme I must tag a couple of other bloggers to answer ten questions of my choice. I tag:

Ria over at Continental Fairy

Jenny over at Mummy Mishaps

Ok Ladies, here are your questions:

1. What is your porn star name?(Name of your first pet & your Mothers maiden name).

2. Your most delectable piece of lingerie?

3. Be a famous person for a day - who and why?

4. Your neighbour's dog chews up your prized, and very expensive, Manolos. What do you do?

5. If you could only eat three things for the rest of your life, what would they be?

6. Caught speeding. How do you get out of it?

7. Secret crush as an adult?

8. Which side of the bed do you sleep on?

9. Snog, Marry, Avoid?

10. Rudest word you have in your (child-free) vocabulary?

 I'm not going to pretend I thought of these myself. Most of these are the questions London City Mum set me the first time I did this meme. I just think they ellicit answers that are way funnier than the ones above. What are you waiting for? Off you go!

Red Dog.

I'm dedicating this post to my beautiful, daft and utterly adorable Ginger Dog. We found him at Battersea Dogs Home four years ago this September. We had been thinking about getting a Dog for ages, and I would personally rather rehome an unwanted or abandoned animal than buy a puppy. I had previously wanted a Rhodesian Ridgeback, handsome, majestic Dogs that they are. Red, with a dark muzzle. Huge. They are also about nine hundred quid to buy as puppies and rarely come up for rescue. Scrap that plan then.

So, we turned up at Battersea one Tuesday morning. I was taking my time, looking at every single Dog and breaking my heart along the way. Mr Nudie excitedly beckoned me over to a kennel on the opposite side of the corridor 'Come here, NOW'. I went over to see what he was so excited about. This is what I saw. A puppy, Red, with a dark muzzle......

This is Ginger Dog. Not his real name of course, but a name we have come to call him on account of his erm, Gingerness. He is a Red Staffordshire Bull Terrier and is quite the daftest, most affectionate creature I have ever come across. He is also the most handsome Dog I have ever seen, and someone didn't want him.

Ginger Dog was found as a stray. We know nothing of his history, but I suspect he skipped through the streets of South London jumping up at random strangers saying 'Love me! Love me!' with his big brown eyes until someone took pity on him and he was taken to a Police station. They took him to Battersea and we found him. The rest is history.

He is a simple creature. His preferences, in no particular order are; eating, sleeping, cuddling, eating, sleeping, woofing at monsters in the garden, eating, sleeping, cuddling. Oh, and boy does this Dog stink. The smells that eminate from his bottom at times are like nothing on this earth. But I love him. He's my beautiful, stinky Red Dog.

This post was written for Tara Cains Gallery. This weeks prompt is A Novel Idea- find a photograph that represents a favourite book and write about it. I am a huge fan of Louis de Bernieres. This book is about a loveable, stray, stinky Red Dog just like mine. I would have photographed the actual book, but he ate it. I shit you not...............

Blog of Substance award.

Very surprised I was to receive this Blog of Substance award from the delectable Mrs LJHall.  Especially given the fact that I have been even more slovenly than usual and have posted absolutely nothing for three weeks, for various reasons *slaps wrist*.

Anyway, here's what I'm supposed to do........

THE RULES:
1) Give groveling gratitude filled thanks to the blogger who awarded you.

2) Share your five word blogging philosophy.
3) Nominate further bloggers of substance.

Blimey. Well, I've never really stopped to think about what my 'blogging philosophy' might be. I only started this blog in May, and I don't take it very seriously really. It's just for fun. That can't be my philosophy though, it's only four words. I would say 'shit my kid says' as that's the main reason I started this blog in the first place, but again, four words. I can't even say 'I tell it like it is', because although I definately do, that is what Lisa herself wrote as her philosophy damn her.

So, I leave you with this,

I write from the heart

I do. There's not a great deal of deep thought that goes into some of the stuff I write in here, no elegant prose. I just write what I feel. Sometimes it will be amusing and sometimes it won't. That's it really. Simple. Much like myself.

Now I need to pass this award on to fellow bloggers that I feel write a blog of substance. Tricky one this, as there are so many great blogs out there. Without further ado, I nominate:

Another Goldfish Very new to blogging, this lady also writes from the heart, so go and show her little blog some love.
Mumrablog Still fairly new to blogging, like me, but she's much better at it. Go and check her out.
Miss Cherry Red Not new to blogging, but Amy writes a great blog and I heart her and her tweets a lot.

That's it!