Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Does it though?  Did you miss me?

Well, never mind.  I'm back now!  It has been a truely horrible week and a half. Not one I would like to repeat............ever.

I was due to fly out to the UK on Monday but on Saturday my dd phones me in hysterics.  It looked like she was having a miscarriage.  She is diabetic and it brings a whole load more risks and dangers to pregnancy which is bad enough at the best of times.  As a result I booked an emergency flight out on the Sunday (thank you Ryan air for charging me more for that single ticket than three lots of the returns I had already paid for.  Cheers mate!).  I got there a few hours after they had taken my daughter for a scan.

Her brother lives in Derby too so he had been there with her for a lot of it as her partner was up North but she had sent him away before the scan.   It broke my heart to think she was facing this alone, especially if the scan was to give her the worse news.

Thank God it didn't.  Baby was still there and apparently was quite lively.  So that was something to be greatful for.  As soon as I arrived though there were other family issues which raised their ugly heads and it meant the whole week was extrememly stressful but I'm so glad I was able to be there for my children who are just amazing people.  I left on a high though, with things on the way to being sorted out.

As  a result though I was and am shattered.  My daughter took me to Hobby Craft the day before I came back and I was even too tired to buy anything there despite craft shops being like an Aladdin's cave normally.

I didn't take my laptop with me so I couldn't work and I didn't get a stitch stitched.

It wasn't all bad though.  Elaine messaged me to say Humble Bumble was stitched and ready to be shown off...excuse the photos..same old problem as always lol

 

I got a chance to meet up with an old school friend, Annie.  That is her on the right, talking to my daughter about shoes of all things.  Seriously: shoes, for an hour!

When my daughter was resting, my lovely son took me around Derby. I love old buildings...and anything historic!

Try to ignore the Costa underneath such a historic building.  I did!

My son is house sharing and on the way to showing me his 'Men Behaving Badly' batchelor pad, we walked past this.  A tree completely surrounded by heads!

But me being me, I needed to see something green, so he took me to his favourite spot right in the heart of Derby. The river has been transformed into a wildfowl haven and a perfect spot for a bit of a picnic!

Canada geese, ducks, swans flying in the back ground and pigeons, lots of pigeons.  Chemo brain hit though because I really wanted to sing the 'feed the birds' song from Mary Poppins.  Could I remember it?  Not a chance...now I'm home however, I can't get it out of my head.

Then we came to another gorgeous house, one owned by this guy!

Not sure I would have wanted a man fiddling with my bits in the 1600s!

 Gorgeous house though!
Then we came to Derby's famous speaking corner, but the kid's wouldn't let me stand on my soap box and put the world to rights...maybe next time when they aren't with me and can't act like my parents!

And then, on our way home on Saturday we came across people carrying fish.  I think they were on their way to the theatre to put on a puppet performance of Shark Tales.

I don't have any good memories of Derby from when I lived there for a short time as a teenager but I have to say I was very impressed with it this time around. The people were as friendly as they were when I lived there 25 years ago and meeting up with Annie meant we could drive around a bit and visit our old haunts, bringing some long-lost memories up with were actually very nice.  I will be going back in a few weeks but right now I have to catch up with work!  And I may have some great news about that soon as well!

Thanks for reading if you got this far.  I will catch up on my own blog reading at the weekend xxx Keep busy and keep those needles flying!