Outtakes.

Thought I’d share some snippets, some I might have shared before, some not! some funny, some serious. Here you are!

Before we had the windows and front door replaced, I got locked in the bathroom because the lock on the door broke and locked me in. I was on one side, I think the kids were on the other and Chris was locked outside. Chris had to climb in through the bathroom window and break the lock on the bathroom door :D. It makes me smile now, but not so much at the time!

Also, about a year ago, we all got locked inside the house because a screw on the new door came loose and wedged the front door shut. (We only have one door in the house.) Chris again, managed to get it open and fix it. We were on our way to the church Christmas party, we were late. Again, weird feeling, being locked in.

When Chris first got the tractor, when he first started going on the field on it, he got it firmly stuck a few times and we had to pull the tractor out of the mud with the Jimny. It was good fun! For me anyway (I was driving the Jimny).

I bought a scratch card from a petrol station in Northern Ireland by accident because I said the number of my petrol pump and she gave me the number of the scratch card and I didn’t dare say anything. I then mumbled the amount of petrol I’d got, paid and ran off, with my scratch card.

A neighbour visited unannounced, started to open the front door and I was just getting out of the plaster bath in the kitchen (which is just in front of the front door), having just had a bath (basically naked). I had to disappear quickly into the bathroom (which then had no bath), and then sidle past grinning, wearing just a towel. Leaving Chris to it.

If we don’t watch the dog, he runs off, often to a neighbour and will go into the kitchen with her. They don’t bat an eyelid. Although I try to keep a close eye on him and try to keep him with me (more successfully recently).

I’ve had to steri strip littlest’s forehead twice over the last six months, both times he’s fallen onto stones on the driveway. Both times they’ve healed well. I just leave the strips on for a week (ish), if it’s bled, it’s clean… It is always that difficult decision, do I take them to hospital? You just have to make the call. I also monitor him closely if anything happens. There are lots of things to take into consideration, previous nursing experience is a definite bonus. It’s always a shock though to see blood running down your child’s face…! previous nurse or not!

(The spare room was mainly filled with Chris’s aeroplanes, which is why we couldn’t move into it for ages.)

J was only 3, nearly 4 when my dad died. He came in one day, a little while after, saying my dad had been on the phone and said to tell me that he was fine.

On the night my dad died, around the same time as it happened, J woke up and asked me to come into bed with him because he was scared. It is actually a very special thing to remember in a strange way.

When we had a plasterer here for quite a while, doing the downstairs ceilings. J followed him around constantly, continually talking to him and asking questions. The plasterer was amazing with him, seemed to really like him and was really patient and funny.

A farmer who lives further up the road, more into the mountains, had been saying he would come and split some wood for us. One day not long ago, he did, he just turned up with his log splitter attached to his tractor and split a load of the fresher wood that Chris had cut down earlier on in the year. It seems it was just because he wanted to do it, which was awesome. He was here for hours. The same farmer gave us the panels for the chicken shelter.

There’s a mobile butcher who drives around the area in a van on Friday evenings, we’ve started getting most of our meat from him. It’s a very snazzy set up in the back of that van!

I have often had bruises from logs flying out when I’m chopping them up and thumping into my shin (usually in the same place). I’m getting a little more adept now at avoiding that (hopefully). Although one occasion was different because Chris threw one in my general direction not realising I was there.

We don’t really like eating the chickens we’ve killed. Don’t know why, there’s just a ‘thing’ about it that’s weird. Last time, Chris asked me to hide it in a curry.

I have to bribe the littlest to go outside at the moment. Usually with the promise to look for bats. He refuses hats, coats and gloves usually and then gets cold and wants to go back in quickly. I can remember J going through a similar phase.

A recent one, I went to An Post the other day to send the Christmas parcels, it came to the time to pay and I just stood there having gone completely and utterly blank. I could not remember my pin number. I stood there for what seemed like 5 years just looking between the card and the cashiers face with tears welling up and then kept thinking of my British card’s number, so I used that instead. I’m glad I thought of it! Extreme reaction for forgetting my pin I know….I hadn’t used it for probably two or three months because we haven’t been anywhere…

Finally, we are still holiday eating even though we’ve been here two years (although actually not nearly as bad as in the first year and we’re now calling it Christmas eating).

Finally, finally, I’ve got to go because I’ve just realised that littlest has ripped some of the salt dough ornaments that we’ve made, in two, including J’s snowman (which he’s a tad upset about)… hot glue is on and heating up…bye!

God is good.