Throwback Thursday - Meeting Will Young

Sometime towards the end of May this year, my dream came true (well kind of) and I met Will Young!

 It wasn't quite like I imagined it would be, but I met him never the less!

Will was doing an album signing at the Manchester Arndale branch of HMV.

 I found out about it, literally last minute, a couple of hours before he was due there. It was a bank holiday Monday and we had stayed in and not been up to anything. It seemed crazy rushing out to Manchester, especially as it was via public transport but this was the first actual chance I'd had to meet him and I've wanted to since I was a young teenager, when he sang his way into the nations hearts on pop idol, all those years ago.

Luckily once at the train station, a train only takes about 7 minutes from where we are to the city center and once in the center I carried Grace as quickly as I could to the Arndale Center. I got horribly over heated, didn't feel very well, was in an awful outfit, definately having a bad face day (if there ever are good ones) and Grace was dressed in an outfit that resembled pyjamas.

I've never queued up with Grace to meet a famous person, infact I've never really queued up to meet a famous person at all, but it's definately not something I'd put her through regularly. We were at the end of the queue and when we got there she was really excited, dancing about to his music and happy. By the time we were nearing the front she was totally fed up and I was stressed!

When it was our turn he went to greet Grace and she'd gone from being excited to meet him to being incredibly shy and hiding behind me. Will crouched down to try and chat to her but she kept hiding away. He won her over by talking about her cat top and shoes, he was lovely with her.
Instead of saying anything of interest I blurted out a load of rubbish and probably come over totally loopy! Not the way I would have liked it to go. After a chat we had a photo with him and he offered to pick Grace up and hold her for it but she got all shy again so I held her instead.

It topped the moment of meeting Derren Brown, but I didn't really attempt much conversation with him, except about him taking my sister on stage.
I was still over the moon to meet Will Young but I do wish I'd been able to think straight when actaully talking to him!

Throwback Thursday - Helping at the Animal Sanctuary

 Here I am socialising with the residents at Wilmslow animal sanctuary.

These are photo's from a couple of times I went to help out in 2010. The first time I cleaned out the chicken coops as well as socialising with the cats. The next time my sister and nephew came and the time after my brother.

During the visits with my family the animal sanctuary had been helping us out with a neglected cat (Theo) we had rescued. They are a wonderful organisation who are funded by donations. My sister started donating there on my first visit and continued for a few years.

Theo

If you live in the area and are looking to get a pet please consider a visit to the sanctuary. If you are lucky enough to have some spare pennies you are considering donating to a charity and you're an animal lover, this might be the one for you.

I was hoping to help at the sanctuary again however it hasn't worked out. If it was easy to get to I'd be there every week!

Have you ever volunteered anywhere? Where would you if just for the day?

Throwback Thursday - A stay at the castle

Piano playing with Uncle Matt

Fire the canons!

Throwback Thursdays - Halloween

I think these photo's are from 8 years ago which terrifies me! A Halloween night out at University. I love a bit of fancy dress.

It was at one of our favourite haunts in Concert Square Liverpool. I really miss these days.



Happy Halloween everyone! 

Throw back Thursday - Good Friends

This week's Throw back Thursday is one of me and my uni friends. People who I've met in the last couple of years wouldn't even recognise me here! I will get back to this eventually (except a bit older looking).
These are three of the five girls I lived for 2 to 3 years at uni and this is from when we met up a year or so after we'd finished. Another of them is behind the camera. It was 10 years after we first met this September and we are all still really good friends and planning our next meet up soon.

Throwback Thursday The Countdown to Labour part1 Antenatal Class

This weeks TBT is a post from my previous blog. July 2011

Monday was my fourth iron infusion and our first antenatal class. Ashley came with me to the infusion after that I went to get us some dinner before the class. I bumped into a few of my work friends whilst I was there. It was really good to see them as I've been missing them and feeling very unsocial at points whilst I've been away.

What I expected

Our class had a lovely young midwife called Rebecca running it who I'd met before in the Maternity Assessment Center. It was not how I expected, not like the one's I'd seen in the movies with women sat between their partners legs practicing breathing techniques. I think they had separate 'Active Birth' classes for that which I'd been misinformed about.
Instead the first class was a talk through of labour and giving birth, what exactly happens in each stage, how to deal with the situation, when to get in touch with the hospital, pain relief options and so on.

                                                                                                                                                                   

Doesn't look fun

I knew roughly what I needed to about the stages but it was good to go through it in more detail and feel more prepared.
The one thing I hadn't ever thought so much about though, is the part after your cervix is fully dilated....when you've got past that pain, you then have to fit this baby through your birth canal! Whenever I'd thought about the terrifying prospect of giving birth before pregnancy, I always just related the cervix and the birth canal together, thinking they both widened and opened up. I suppose I'd just never thought about it properly. So talking about the actual giving birth, the 'pushing the baby out' part of labour in the class and solidifying the idea into my head, I did feel that fear coming back. It just seems physically impossible to me!

The main thing that got to me in the class besides that was talking about epidurals. Dear god I am NOT having one of those! I know you can never predict what will happen but the thought of that huge needle...and mainly the location where it goes (....it could so easily paralyze you if it was done wrong) are what put me off! My naivety again became apparent to myself as I didn't realise a needle is left in to control and keep the dosage going. Whilst the midwife was talking through this my blood pressure was dropping and I came close to passing out. My very real needle phobia took over. You would think I'd be long over them by now but no!

After the talk she took us to see the Delivery Suite rooms. There were two types, one being a bit more homely with a separate room with a massive bath, which I would prefer if I get to choose when the time comes.

Giving birth - a scary thought?

Its funny, since becoming pregnant my feelings towards giving birth have changed a lot. Previously I had a morbid fear of child birth, I used to think that I couldn't do it and I would have to have a C - section and if not definitely an epidural.  Now they are the LAST two things I want!
During most of this pregnancy the thought of giving birth hadn't scared me at all. I think I was so in love with this new life I'd created and the excitement about meeting her, the worry and fear didn't factor in anymore.  You make the connection and your focus changes.
 I have to say though, now that I'm counting down the final days until my due date (9 days left at the time of writing) I am getting a bit nervous. I still partly can't imagine/believe it's actually going to happen, but with the back pains and what I assume are braxton hicks that I have been getting the past couple days it is starting to feel more real. 

Throwback Thursdays 9/10/14 Graduation - the man who got me there

I became ill with Crohn's disease and other complications at 19, after my first amazing year of uni (educationally and socially), my first festival (working for charity at Glastonbury), a good holiday job at a pharmacy management company and a great family holiday in Spain. Everything came crashing down.
Becoming ill in the way I did completely turned my life upside down. I massively struggled to get through the day. Back at uni after a year deferred I was still massively struggling. It was often a huge psychological battle just to be able to leave the house. It often still is.

This photo is on my graduation day with my tutor Terry ...without him I wouldn't have made it through, I wouldn't have graduated, I wouldn't have made it through another day or week there.

Throwback Thursdays - Go Ape!

This throw back Thursday is from June 2013 from one of my best friends hen weekends in York. I was so happy to go to this as I'd already missed two of my friends hen do's from illness or bad circumstances and now I'd actually made it to one and not had to let someone down.

Part of the weekend was a trip to Dalby forest for Go Ape. This was one of the most terrifying yet brilliant experiences I've done. It was a psychological battle with me having a severe fear of heights and I suffer from vertigo if high up. If I'd let myself look down I would have been done for!

That's me climbing the net after crashing into it from a zip wire. I found strength I didn't know I had...probably from the adrenaline and scaled it pretty quick to the next platform where I felt a little safer until the wind started making the tree's move!

My friend Hannah perfectly composed on a zip wire

My friend Lauren on the platform and me on the net

Have you ever done Go Ape? If not would you?

Throw Back Thursday - My anomaly scan, half way through my pregnancy journey

This week for Throwback Thursday I thought I'd do a post from my old blog. One from my pregnancy. So I hope no one gets confused as I'm not currently pregnant. Hopefully I will be again at some point in the future when in a better situation so I can give my little girl a sibling. For now however here is my post from when I'd had my anomaly scans whilst pregnant with G.



I'm sat here with my sweet affectionate little cat all cuddled up on my knee.....just wishing she'd blooming move! I really need to switch positions because of my horrible back ache.
Although I know my biology and have a degree, it turns out there's a lot you just don't know about pregnancy until you go through it yourself. Like for example the hormones soften your spine and make you more prone to getting achey.

I have quite a few ups and downs already and I am only 23 weeks 6 days. I was really starting to think I hated this processwhole pregnancy lark until a few weeks ago when I finally felt my baby move.

I thought I'd felt something a few days previous, but then ruled it out as my stomach doing strange things, but as I sat at work doing some data entry, chatting to a colleague, I experienced what felt like a little kick, then another knock, then some kind of wriggling movement and another kick!
At first I didn't say anything to anyone I was just in amazement and sat there with a massive smile on my face, almost laughing as I carried on typing and every now and then over the next ten minutes I would feel my baby move about.
Since then I have been able to feel the movements and that day it just pushed all the naff pregnancy experiences so far into the background and made me remember its all worth it.

My lovely sis got me one of these soon after to keep my mind at rest.

I left telling many of my friends for a while, because I found the majority of my first half of pregnancy pretty scary. It's a good job I was ignorant to the life growing inside me for the first ten weeks or I would have been a nervous wreck. I am a bit of a worrier in the first place but to make things worse my antenatal care was all over the place because of moving house and incompetent staff. Add that to a pre existing medical condition and you have a stressed young lady! I had to fight to get my blood tests done at the anti natal clinic and try and sort many things out by myself with no midwife to guide me. Finally I got a new one at my new GP's, I'm not sure how good she is, but when she used a doppler and let me know my baby was ok by letting me hear my babies heart beat for the first time, she was my hero. It was such a relief that I ended up posting on facebook.....and that is how many of my friends found out, besides the lucky few who had known pretty much from the start.

 One of my worries about how my baby was doing was due to my lack of bump ....sometimes it seemed like one, but my period of awful pregnancy bloating was usually the cause and my stomach would be mostly flat without it. I knew people developed differently but seeing my friend Taz's bump at work and seeing Mel's progress online with her lovely bump, I got a bit paranoid, despite my sister telling me she'd been the same and didn't show at all at 17 weeks. Then three weeks later this popped out of nowhere:

             
 I finally had a baby bump!


 Its grown rapidly since then so I really need to take some new pics so I've got something to remember it by.

My baby is very lively and moves about alot. It always makes me smile when I feel it, especially a few days ago when in the bath there was a kick and I saw my belly move. I was sat laughing to myself as I watched it happen

I was a happy bunny =) but not as happy as the day I had my anatomy scan, two weeks ago this Thursday.

I was so excited that morning, I felt like it was my birthday or Christmas and I only got a few last minute niggles as Ash and I were sat in the ultra sound waiting area before the sonographer called us in.
Seeing my baby on the screen was amazing but also a little scary as she was doing the measurements ( or attempting to when my baby kept wriggling off ....she's an active one apparently) and zooming in at everything. When she finally told me everything was just fine I felt a heavy weight just lift, the stress just evaporated from me. Then we got shown our babies tiny feet and and arms and hands and as she zoomed in on the face, our baby was yawning. Baby then stretched and we saw it's arms and tiny hands going up to it's face, it was magical, I felt so unbelievably happy and amazed.

Then, as I'd decided several weeks before I wanted to know if it was a girl or a boy (although I really didn't mind by this point as I was so blown away) it was time to find out the gender.
I think baby was getting a bit tired or maybe just a bit shy as after lots of prodding and shaking he or she still wouldn't open their legs. The sonographer was lovely though and told me to go for a wee and it would be less pressurised and maybe we'd get a result then. However after more gentle wriggling of the babies legs it was still a no show. She didn't give up on us and told me to sit up to let baby move about and she'd go write up the notes and try again. Ash talked to my stomach in the hope baby would be listening =)
Baby must have been as on the final try the sonographer managed it and we heard the news that baby is a GIRL.

 And here she is: 

 

  

I started my baby shopping after this, but that along with everything else will have to wait for another post.

Throwback Thursdays - Meeting Derren Brown

I may not be in this photo but it's me he's smiling at! :p

#TBT Meeting Derren Brown, Buxton Opera Theatre 2010

I thought I'd start a throw back Thursday post. I have so many photo's I never look at or haven't had chance to print out so I thought this would be good for memories and to get some use out of the photo's.
Plus anyone reading can get to know a bit more about me each week I post one.

I planned to post just one photo but I think it will vary each week. This post is a few....

Me and my sister

My brother and sister

I love this man

Whatever kind hearted stranger took these must have had very shaky hands

Not the best photo but still....