Pregnancy, Grandchildren and Barbecues.

Hey ya!

Hope everyone is fine and dandy.

As any regular readers will know, I tend to use this blog as a diary for myself but I also like to share the ups and downs of life. I try to be honest and I try, mostly, to remain upbeat and positive and today will be no exception despite extreme provocation.

It has been another busy week in the life of this Nanny and Mummy and one that will live long in my memory. Here goes....

I woke on Monday morning feeling excited because, finally, I was going to be able to share the news that my eldest daughter was pregnant. I had known for weeks but had been asked not to tell anyone because the parents to be wanted to have the 12 week scan before announcing anything. My daughter has been suffering dreadful sickness and wanted to be sure that everything was ok. The scan was nice and early and so I busied myself with morning chores while waiting for the phone to ring.
The phone call came and I was assured that all was well. In fact I was assured that both babies were doing well! Yes, my daughter and her husband are expecting twins in Feb 2016.
This is happy, exciting and delightful news and news that has been received by all with nothing but positivity, kindness and good wishes for the couple.
I have been asked to not go into too much detail or share pictures of the scan and so I can't really say much more at the moment but I will update when necessary. I'm bubbling over with excitement but then that's just how I am.

What I will say is that, nearly 32 years ago, I gave birth to my first child. After a difficult start in life, her Dad and I were told that our little girl may not ever walk, talk or go to mainstream school. The very fact that that same little girl is now happily married and pregnant with twins is miraculous and is something that I am eternally grateful for.

The news of the twin pregnancy spread far and wide, I spoke to family and friends at length about it and I probably got over excited there for a while but life goes on and so....

.....on Wednesday I picked up three of my four grandchildren, gathered up their scooters and coats, bundled them into the car and off we went to a place run by the Forestry Commission called Alice Holt. I had never been there before but had heard good things.
Well, Alice Holt is wonderful and a great place to take children of all ages. There is a cafe and an ice cream stall, there are little walks and longer walks, you can hire bikes, you can take scooters and you can picnic. It was perfect for us and it was free. I only had to pay for the car parking and the ice cream!

The weather over the following days was dreadful and we had a bbq planned for the Saturday, the first proper bbq that we have had at our new house. As the rain came down over the next few days I seriously began to doubt that the bbq would happen and was already thinking that we would all have to stay indoors.....

....however, the forecast was quite good so we carried on the preparations and hoped for the best. We had no idea how many of the invited guests would be able to come and we had to cater for every eventuality including vegetarians, little people and allergies etc.
My youngest daughter, who is a good little cook on the quiet, spent the Friday night preparing her pulled pork which was delicious. She has her own blog so if you'd like to check it out go to

http://mytwentysomethingkitchen.blogspot.co.uk/

 Here she is 'cooking'...

... and I made pork scratchings for the first time which were yummy!

Saturday arrived. The weather looked promising. The pulled pork had been cooking all night by mistake but was fine. The barbecue was cleaned. I put up the gazebo which made me realise how small our garden is compared to what we had at our old house and the furniture was moved about. Homemade coleslaw was prepared, drinks put in the cooler and then people started arriving.

We had a lovely mix of people. Family and friends came and, while it was not the huge gathering and late night partying of our old kind of barbecues, everything went really well and it was great that so many people made the effort to come along. It also meant that we were all in bed by 11pm and I was able to get up and function on Sunday morning. There's a novelty!

Sunday teatime saw another bbq as we had lots of food left over from the day before and I handled it all myself much to hubby's frustration! He likes to think he is the barbecue king and I rarely get a look in.

So that's my week in a nutshell and no mention of Frank!!!!

Enjoy your week everyone.

xxxx