Snow in Sheffield

I'll  write  a lengthy  blog  post about  Christmas  in Ireland  soon,  but  in the  meantime,  here's  Vera  enjoying  the  snow  in Sheffield

Nativity

Vera's  nursery had  a  traditional  Nativity  on  Friday  at  3.30  and  both  Mark and I  was  lucky to be able to  attend.  Their  amazing  drama  teacher had  done a  great  job with  all the  costumes  and  planning and  practicing  songs.  They  sang a special  version of  twinkle  twinkle  special  star and  there  were  two  Marys  and  Vera was  one of them.  She  did a great  job  with  her  lines  and  acted  surprised  when  she  found  out that  she  was  carrying  baby  Jesus  ;-)
In  the  middle of the  performance  she  shouted  "I love you  Daddy !,  swiftly  followed by  "Mamma!  I'm  hungry! "
All in  all,  a great  performance  and  we were  very  proud of  her  and  all the  other  little  performers.

Writing Christmas Cards to my friends at nursery

Weekend

One weekend

This has been one busy weekend. On Friday after work I went to the hair dresser's. It's hard squeezing in hair appointments when working full time, so I'm pleased that they were open til 8pm so that I could have my roots done :-). It's hard to stay blonde I can tell you!

On Saturday morning Vera went to her ballet and tap as usual and Mark and I had a leisurely coffee next door. In the afternoon, Vera and I went to my friend Ulrica's for a Swedish lucia celebration. I brought the saffron buns I had baked and we had a great time drinking glogg and chatting. The children were decorating ginger bread and it was lovely to spend Lucia with fellow Swedes.

In the evening I was invited to my new company's Christmas party at Cutler's Hall
http://www.cutlershall.co.uk/
I was very apprehensive as I had only met the three people who interviewed me and as I arrived in the venue, I didn't actually know who I was waiting for! Luckily the lady who had organised the party spotted me and looked after me and I sat at a nice table during the dinner, chatting away to my future colleagues. I'm really glad I went and pleased to be invited, as it will make it less daunting on my first day. The venue was complete with a smooth DJ and we had a bit of a boogie, before I shared a taxi home with a (future) colleague who lives near me in Woodseats.

Today we spent the morning in a very chilly and blustery Millhouses Park, where Vera ran around in her waterproofs and the we went home to have some home made roast butternut squash soup followed by Vera's current favourite, hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.

I spent the afternoon with housework and wrapping all the Christmas gifts and then headed to Castleton to meet Jacquie to go to the Peak Cavern, also known as the Devil's Arse (it was apparently renamed to Peak Cavern so as not to offend Queen Victoria when she visited!) to sing along to Christmas Carols and listen to a brass band. It's a lovely thing today, albeit cold, and a bit of a tradition since we went last year with my parents.

All in all, a very busy weekend! One more week at work (yipee) before I finish up and we have our Christmas holidays.

The Dreams of a 3,5 Year Old

The other morning Vera said, “I was dreaming mamma when you woke me up” (yes I have to wake her every morning at 07:15, she’s a sleepy head like me!). “Oh” I said, “What were you dreaming about”.

“I was playing football with Isac at nursery. All the grown ups were watching. I was running so fast and jumping so high. And I didn’t fall over once! Everyone was so happy. I won”

Christmas build up

Sorrow

Where does one start. November was a month of utter sorrow, sadness and disbelief. We experienced the loss of Mark’s parents, within twelve days of each other and Mark spent most of November in Ireland, both at home, at the hospital in Sligo and at the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

Vera and I flew over twice to attend two very sad, but beautiful funerals. It has been really hard to come to terms with it and there has been a lot of tears.

The only silver lining on this very black cloud has been family. Mark has a wonderful, caring and loving family and this has certainly brought all of us together.

Bereavement also allows you, or forces you to re-assess what is important in life. During the week after Mark’s dad’s funeral and when Mark’s mum was seriously ill, I had the worst week at work in my whole working life. I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to leave and go somewhere else, but this truly was the nail in the coffin. Luckily I had already started to pursue some new opportunities and had a few interviews and I was lucky to be offered two jobs. I have now accepted a role as a Sales Operations Manager, starting 5th January. Here's to a more successful and happier 2015

 

Vera is great and her language is coming on leaps and bounds. She is very affectionate these days, tells us she loves us at least five times every day and wants lots of hugs. I am enjoying this for as long as it lasts.

She has been absolutely brilliant with all the recent travelling and constant change of scenery.

She was  so good and mature in the airport, with all the queuing, security checks, car rentals etc. I was very proud of her.

I'm just back this evening from a parent's evening with her key worker Tracey. Everything was absolutely fine. She is very sociable, loves arts and crafts and helping out. She has a good group of friends and talks a lot about home life, her cousins in Sweden and her cousins in Ireland.

 

Christmas is coming faster than we know it. When we came back from Ireland we went straight into Christmas mode, bought and decorated our Christmas tree, decorated the tree and I've gone all out with Swedish Christmas baking. We're very much looking forward to our Christmas in Ireland, which will be full of family, memories as well as sadness for two dearly loved people who are not going to be there.

On a different note, I am thinking of password protecting this blog, so for those of you out there who may read from time to time, and would like to continue reading my ramblings, drop me a line!