2014

It went fast as I'm sure 2015 will too or is that just because every year seems to fly by when we get older?

So how was it for you?

For me it was mostly a good one. 

The main events in our year happened in August and September. 

My brother got married at long last and my daughter and youngest son were bridesmaid and pageboy.  The other boys chose not to do the whole penguin suit thing.

me with 3 out of the 4 of them. I think the earth would implode if we actually ever got a photo with all of us looking at the camera properly.

 

 

Following that was exam results - both GCSE and A Level. My boys did well. The  younger of them has faced a lot of medical obstacles in his life and his achievement of all grade C or above in every single subject is something we couldn't have expected when he was younger.  My elder son also excelled and put his mind to getting the right grades to get into the university of his choice to study maths. We visited a lot of universities last year and again this year. The grade requirements varied so much and he could have done badly and still got in at some places.  He made the decision that that wasn't the sort of place he wanted to be studying and pushed himself to get into one with high requirements and succeeded. 

September brought his journey away from home and the learning curve that is university. Lots of tears (by us not him) later, a couple of visits up to see him, a broken phone and things a mum doesn't need to know about and his first term was over and he was home for Christmas. 

His younger brother started college and AS Levels. It hasn't been plain sailing and courses have been changed but I think he is now on track. He does make me laugh though. He's doing Law and his autistic brain has now stored so many laws that he keeps repeating.

I couldn't be prouder of my daughter. She graduates next month for her post graduate teaching degree. Teaching courses finish too late in the summer at the university she attended  for students to graduate in July so they do it in January.  She  got a teaching job quite soon after finishing uni and started in September as an NQT in a secondary school. She made her classroom her own over the summer holidays ready for lessons to begin. She even has her own form group. Very proud mum. 

We celebrated a big wedding anniversary in May with a holiday at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest.

 

 

The youngest decided he was ready to join a rugby team. He's trained for a couple of years but was lacking the confidence he needed. He joined in June and hasn't looked back. Our last few months have tripled the training sessions he attends and there is also match day. He really struggles with personal space so it has been interesting to see how he copes. He still has issues with people in his face but overall he says he can block it out and focus on what he's doing. I wish he could apply that focus to the rest of his life but it's all baby steps

 

 

The husband ran his first marathon and other races he did included the great north run. Proud wife time but oh my god we had some arguments about his training schedule. He had to do it before work so got up at stupid o'clock. The dogs barked like mad as soon as he left the house and I ended up being up at stupid o'clock too. Didn't go down well day after day after day I'll tell you. 

My crafty life went down the route of tons of knitting and crochet - more crochet than anything if truth be known. I haven't done a scrapbook layout for months and gave my place up at punky scraps. Unfortunately it is no more anyway. I have had the urge a little bit lately so may get back into it in 2015.

A huge part of our lives for the last six months has of course been Percival. He has made sure that everybody loves him in record time. 

 

 

 

 

The allotment - not much to say about that to be honest.  It wasn't a particularly productive year. The slugs ate just about everything I planted. I wanted to be good and use anything other than slug pellets but in the end they were the only thing that worked and it was too late for most things.  We had our first lot of apples from the tree we planted as soon as we got the plot, a sunflower grew, we got parsnips for the Christmas dinner and lots of flowers bloomed to brighten the place up.  It is definitely a work in progress which will hopefully produce more in 2015.

I've also had some crap thrown my way (even this past week) in the form of online piss taking by people I know in real life which made me realise once and for all they are not and have never been nice people to be around. I've been party to real life conversations in the past that I found uncomfortable and raised my suspicions.  Taking the piss out of somebody online in plain sight is no different to talking about them behind their back in the playground. Bullying plain and simple by people who think they are clever but actually have made themselves look like the nasty low lives they are.  I don't even know why I am giving this blog space to be honest but it happened and needs saying so I can draw a line under it put it to bed once and for all.  I'm well and truly over any kind of friendship with people like that. Karma will play out in the end.

 

Lots of other good things happened in 2014 and there is probably something big I have forgotten but as the saying goes - that's all folks.

 

Hope you had a good 2014 and that 2015 brings you health, wealth and happiness.