Tuesday 22 January 2008

Getting up to mischief

'Quick Bella, if you undo his other shoelace we could make a fortune on You've been Framed'

Murphy and the Gnomes

'Why don't those funny little people in their pointy hats ever move?'

Out in the cold

'OK Bella I give in, where do I have to sniff to get the door to open?'

Murphy gets enthusiastic


'Well if it's that bloody good why don't I drag the whole pot indoors!!!'

Bella finds some herbs

'This is rosemary Murphy, we ladies eat it to freshen our breath'

There is just so much to explore

'OK so who lives in here'

More Puppy Pics

'This gardening business is a breeze - weeding is sooo much fun!'

This is the last one -I promise

Makes you feel glad to be alive!!

Every minute the sky was different

I couldn't believe how beautiful a morning could be

Winter Sunrise

Look what you can see in the garden if you are up early enough

Dave's Home

It's 6.43am and I have just published Episode 5 of Spanish Steps.

The house is quiet at the moment. Dave and James are still asleep and the puppies don't seem to have realised that I am up. When they do, it will be the usual chaotic scrambling of trying to mop the floor of 'little accidents' while trying to get their food out before they trip me up in their rush to eat. ( the puppies I mean - not Dave and James)

I can't believe that it's only just over a week since Dave was rushed into hospital. That has to have been the longest week in history, but thanks to the diligence of our GP and the professionalism of Warrington and Broadgreen Hospitals he is now home ands well on the way to fighting fitness after having an angioplasty and stent fitted following his heart attack.

What a frightening phrase - heart attack - it sounds so scary. It conjures up visions of episodes of Casualty with crash trollies and chest thumping when in actual fact Dave's attack was more like a very bad dose of heartburn. It was only my nagging last Monday that made him go to the GP. He was convinced the pain was from acid reflux!

Knocking the NHS seems to be a national sport at the moment, well at least in the 'popular press' (and we all know my views on those bastards) but in an emergency you can't fault the system.

So thank you Dr Morgan for second checking the ECG that you ran in the health centre, thank you to all the staff in Warrington Hospital Cardiac Care Unit for all the tests you ran and the care you took of him and thank you Broadgreen Hospital Cardiothorasic Centre for carrying out the angioplasty less than 12 hours after getting the results from the angiogram carried out in Warrington. And not forgetting in this list of thank yous the staff of the Ambulance Service who were faultless - did you know for the whole of the Warrington, Runcorn, Lymme and Northwich area there are only 2.5 dedicated ambulances - now that is scary.

Monday 14 January 2008

You want to come in here?


'If I stop chewing his shoe laces can I come back in?'

Bella is trying to be patient with him

'Just turn around and have you picture taken, otherwise that daft woman will be clicking away all day'

Double Trouble

'Murphy that's my teddy!!'

Life is too short to use the doorway


'Why get into bed the easy way when I can climb over the top'

Murphy likes to play

Murphy just doesn't have the time to pose for photographs

Then there were two

And if that wasn't enough - we went and got another one

Here she is again

I'm ready for my close up

we've got puppies!!!!

Meet Bella - she's a ten week old golden retriever puppy

Friday 4 January 2008

Spanish Steps

Spanish Steps

http://e-soap-live.blogspot.com

Are you suffering from the post Christmas blues?
Is this awful weather getting you down?
Then why not brighten your day with the Internet's first online soap.

Starting on 8th January and published every Tuesday and Thursday you can follow the lives of Fliss and her friends as they try to make a new life for themselves in southern Spain. e-soap-live is the home of the interactive soap. It's so easy, just by using the comments link you can have conversations with the characters, suggest future story lines or even make new friends with other readers.

Forget the January Sales, Spanish Steps is FREE and available all year.

Click on the link to catch a sneak preview of the very first episode of
Spanish Steps - the soap everyone will be talking about

Happy New Year

Dave and I ran away for New Years Eve this year, Lesley was partying with her friends and James was working, so we thought that we would treat ourselves and spend the night in a swanky hotel in London and see in the New Year watching the fireworks on the Thames.

Unfortunately with the problems on the trains we had to drive down but we were able to give Lesley and Lawrence a lift to their party otherwise we would all have had to have left home on Boxing Day to guarantee getting through Birmingham by New Years Eve ( or so the BBC news implied). Luckily there wasn't much traffic on the motorways so we had good trips both ways and even managed to get a parking space at the hotel.

Unfortunately Lesley was down with the Winter Vomiting Virus (nasty name for a nasty virus) which half the country seems to have caught. So her party night was spent curled up on Lily's sofa watching everyone else have a good time!

Dave and I, oblivious to our daughter's illness, had a lovely time. We walked for miles looking at all the brilliant Christmas lights, the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, stopping along the way for a drink or two and the rounding it all off with a nice meal at a really fun Turkish (I think) restaurant near Covent Garden.

The fireworks at midnight were fab and luckily we didn't have too far to stagger back to the hotel.