Good Friday update

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Three blogs in 24 hours, what a treat for y’all, bearing in mind the last two were about our summer holiday last year the last real update was from Christmas and concerned Ella’s arrival so what’s happened in 2012?

Let’s start off with the negatives and although past performance is not an indicator towards future returns you will not be surprised to hear that Fiona has been poorly again, 2012 has not been her friend.

She was suffering from severe stomach pain in the early part of the year and had a sever bout of pain through the night in January, she was in agony with what we suspected was gall stones. She had an appointment on the 29^th of February for a scan that confirmed this but the morning before the scan, the 28^th of February 2012 AKA – Fiona’s 30^th birthday, she had a major attack which resulted in an ambulance coming to the house and Fiona receiving morphine injections on our driveway…

I got up early that day and made breakfast, got the kids ready and gave Fiona her presents before I headed into work. I was in the middle of a major project and was interrupted during a meeting to come out and take a phone call from one of Fiona’s friends who told me what was going on. Fiona had called her in agony to say she was having an attack and could she come around and look after the kids, once there the decision was made to call an ambulance which resulted in the morphine.

This was the fourth time I’ve been pulled out of a meeting to be told my wife is in the back on an ambulance on the way to hospital, and people wonder I’m going grey??

Fiona didn’t go into hospital after all, she sat in the back on an ambulance for an hour after which Fiona was conformable and slept off the morphine, the next day was the scan and confirmation of gall stones and a surgical consult on the 14^th of May to plan the removal of the gall bladder.

Obviously this didn’t go according to plan…. On the night of Sunday 18^th March, AKA Mothers Day, Fiona had another major attack and another visit from the ambulance to administer morphine. Fiona didn’t respond well this time so I took her into the doctors the next morning who said it didn’t look good and the gall stones may be infected so she had to go into hospital ASAP to have it looked at it, we went into hospital at lunchtime on Monday and Fiona stayed in for five days having her gall bladder removed on the Wednesday. This was a brutal week for us all, with many conflicting Dr’s opinions which resulted in me basically losing the plot with one Doctor who tried to send Fiona home on the Tuesday night, Fiona was still feeding Ella so that was far from easy to work around but we got there in the end and she’s now recovering at home from the keyhole surgery.

Seriously I’m starting to get concerned that people will start investigating me and checking if I’m putting excess salt in her food or something…

Now on the to the positives, Ella is nearly seven months old now and is thriving – she’s so big compared to little Lois at 6 months but little Lois is not longer little, in fact she’s mahoosive, far taller than all in her playgroup and friends.

Lois was 3 in February and is a wonderful, if a bit sensitive, little girl, she’s become far more independent since the arrival of her sister, who she calls “Bee”, in fact we’ve all started calling the baby formerly known as “Ella Bella Bee” simply “Bee” now, I’ve got a feeling it will stick.

Lois is at playgroup three afternoons a week and her reports have been great, she starts nursery five half-days in August and is looking forward to that too, just about then Fiona will return to work after a year on maternity leave and I’ll just continue as normal, still in the same job since I came back from travelling, still supporting the World Famous Dundee United FC, still a poster boy for good health and slightly greater than average alcohol consumption… Oh, I’ve also started a new band, just to add something else to my plate as I’m not quite busy enough, our first gig is June 23^rd – the day before we go on holiday.

I’m also off on my annual pilgrimage to Aintree for the Grand National next Friday and can’t wait for that, my outfit is “country gent” this year, I bought trousers yesterday and when I asked Fiona to describe the colour she went for “dusky pink”, skinny fit trews with a tweed checked jacket and a tattersalls shirt, not sure on shoes yet, bang tidy.

So, that’s us up to date – we’re booked up for our summer holiday to Italy this year, a country none of us (well Lois is adamant she’s been there but I’m not convinced) have been to, it’ll also be Ella’s first trip abroad so we’re all looking forward to it.

We’re flying into Venice then touring along the Venetian coast up to the Croatian border for the first week then driving across the North of Italy through Verona to Lake Garda for the second week then flying home from Milan. I’m really looking forward to a pasta/pizza/Peroni filled fortnight.

Unbeknown to Fiona (well she’ll know now…) our holiday coincides with the European Championships, from the quarter finals on we’ll be in Italia so hopefully the Azurri will be there or there abouts come the closing stages, a potential final with England would go down nicely with this dog.

That’ll probably be the next update from us, post summer holiday blues in August so until then take care of yourself and remember #weareallsamanthamumba.

Love and hugs,


The Mudpies (4 and counting).

PS - I've just noticed the blog count is up to 100,438 views, didn't I say that I would do something about turning this into a book when I got over 100k views?

Hmmmnnn.

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