Happy Birthday Freya!

Can you believe this little little hairy monster is 11 today cos I can't! Off to have a little tea party and contemplate how fast time is passing by.......secondary school this year......WAY TOO SCARY!

RANT!

OK, so ...... broken hose...fixed, blown head gasket...fixed, radiator replaced, new set of glow plugs done......back to fix the cigarette lighter and windows that were working and then weren't...done. So tell me.....after 5 visits to the garage and another by the AA....WHY MY BASTARD CAR NOW WILL NOT WORK AT ALL! AA coming again...if it turns out after all this to be a flat battery...someones f***ing head WILL ROLL!

The Long Good Sunday

Anyone that knows me, knows fully well that I don't 'do' mornings. In fact I hate mornings. I wish I was one of these people that can get out of bed with a spring in their step, however it takes me at least an hour to get out of grumpy, snappy and downright miserable mood in the morning. I can't remember the last time I was awake at 5.45am and it wasn't easy.....especially as the heating doesn't come on til 6.30 and opening the bathroom door it felt like I was stepping into an ice box.

However, we managed to get the car full of everything we needed to take (far too much in retrospect) and met the coach and after three hours headed into the gates at Butlins, Minehead. The most beautiful sight I had ever seen greeted us. I love the sight of a rainbow but had never seen anything like this one. Over the sea front and disappearing into the sea at both ends, you could really see both ends of the rainbow.....of course, stupid me had packed the camera away in the hold of the coach and therefore didn't get to take a snap of it, but trust me when i say it was stunning.
The kids didn't take as long as me to feel with it and after an hour of humpting around bags (why doesn't Butlins have a locker for day guests....maybe should've filled out a suggestion card...or maybe should not have attempted to be some freaky human buckaroo just waiting for one of the kids to pull me in a direction which resulted in me falling in a heap on the floor) we settled down in the Skyline and watched some of the entertainment going on.

Bob the Builder, Pingu, Billy Bear and Friends and the Skyline Gang certainly kept the little ones entertained whilst Rob and Freya buggared off to the pool and go crazy on the go karts. Seven hours passed incredibly quickly. Inbetween shows on the stage there were the visits to the Puppet Castle, which was definately Emily's favourite as she was going on about it from the moment we arrived.

We then went into the little ones amusement park to attack the rides there. One thing I've learnt is that I really have to practice a bit more with the settings on the camera as I didn't manage to get many action shots, most were really blurred or the focus was in completely the wrong place. That'll teach me for ignoring the poor camera for such a long time. Will have to brush up again on the manual settings......and put a new lens down on the wish list for Xmas!

It was lovely to meet some more family members from HMS Torbay and have more cuddles with babies to satisfy my ever broody womb! The kids were non stop and loved it and I reverted back to headless chicken mode trying to figure out where they all were and rounding them up like some demented shepherd......really I have to learn to chill out a bit more I think.

The hardest part was being there without Pete. It's been a place for family holidays over the past five years and part of me kept expecting him to come over to the table where I was sat carrying a coffee and diet coke and ask where the kids had disappeared to now! A part of me kept looking over my shoulder hoping to see him, which of course wasn't going to happen but I made the most of it and by the time we got onto the coach at 6pm (wet and very cold) I was wishing I was in bed snuggled up to him watching Sky Sports News before disappearing off to the land of Nod.

The girls were asleep before their heads hit the pillows and now it's back to having a deep clean in the house ready for another week. Another week closer to hearing from Pete, another week closer to him coming home and another week closer to him going away again.......ever the pessimist me!

One last thing

ignore the screaming bits or whatever as this is a clip i've just got from YOUTUBE. I'm a big fan of P!nk and have been lucky enough to see her in concert a couple of times but unfortunately the new tour won't be heading down this way (mind you when you see the size of the set you can understand that there's no way they were going to get that in the piddly Pavillions!).

But this.....is simply beautiful.



Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands?
Closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted
Have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face
And said I just don’t care

It’s only half past the point of no return
The tip of the iceberg
The sun before the burn
The thunder before lightning
The breathe before the phrase
Have you ever felt thIs way?

Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?
You’re whole life waiting on the ring to prove you’re not alone
Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?
Have you ever invited a stranger to come inside?

It’s only half past the point of oblivion
The hourglass on the table
The walk before the run
The breathe before the kiss
And the fear before the flames
Have you ever felt this way?

There you are, sitting in the garden
Clutching my coffee,
Calling me sugar
You called me sugar

Have you ever wished for an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight
Have you ever held your breathe and asked yourself will it ever get better than tonight?

If you don't have anything good to say........

The last month has been somewhat of a stress inducing blur. I was beginning to think that the 'big man' has it in for me for some reason as everything that could go wrong has (oops tempting fate there i think!) and the world seems to be falling down around my ears. I seem to spend most of the day in tears or in a foul mood, hence no update as even I was beginning to get pissed off with hearing me moaning.

Don't want to bore everyone with the details but suffice to say that when Pete comes home he will have to seriously take some weight off my rather broad shoulders. Theres been damage, illness, breakdown (both mechanically and emotionally) and those feelings of despair that nothing will ever go right. But i'm determined to draw a line under it all and battle on.....at least til Pete is home. Even the good old RN has managed to completely balls everything up as per usual. Pete was originally away at sea until mid June, now he's coming home early......so that he can go back to sea a few weeks later for another five months. I'm beginning to think my marriage is a figment of my imagination. That's over nine months seperation this year alone ontop of the nine months last year and that doesn't even include the two sometimes three duties he does when they're alongside!

It's also ballsed up holiday plans and for the second year on the trot we've lost a holiday because of date changes.

At least there has been so much going on that i've not had too much time to sit down and let it get to me THAT much. There has been a few fabulous trips organised for the families of the boat this time, even one just for the ladies which will be next Saturday and i can't wait to let off some steam at that one.

The girls have been the usual mix of gorgeous, tiring, loud, loving and downright pain in the arses and i adore them for it. Even at the stage where i'm losing patience with them, they manage to make me feel like there's a reason for all the hassle.

On Valentines Day, to keep our minds off being alone, the ladies of Torbay with a mountain of kids descended on Jump to knacker out said kids and it was great to meet so many new faces and just have a chill and moan about the good old 'silent service'. The kids were bushed when they got back and a good time was had by all. I also received a lovely delivery from interflora which made me smile as i pushed the credit card statement out of my mind!

I'm saving the champers til he gets back though!

The following week we went to the Plymstock Naval Families Centre. It's the first time i've ever been anywhere like that. Ive always shyed away from getting involved in the naval family community as it's always struck me as a bit clicky and although it can be, i made some more new friends and the girls enjoyed a critter demonstration from one of the workers at Sparkwell Zoo, a disco and buffet. Giant snails, hissing cockroaches, millipeeds and giant stick insects....Emily was in her element! Dancing and Music...well that was Natasha sorted and the buffet......well, i think Freya was trying to work through the tables rather than her plate...how that girl is not 100 stone is beyond me! Unfortunately i didn't get any great photos as it was difficult trying to herd the little ones and take loads of photos.

Freya has joined a new drama group as i just could no longer afford Stagecoach, so she's joined a local group who put on performances each xmas and new year. It was her first time this week and she really enjoyed it. She's also in the district schools production of Alice in Wonderland and will aptly play the Mad Hatter although that isn't until sometime in the early summer and she hasn't even got her lines for that yet. She's also had confirmation about her secondary school and is nervously looking forward to it....she probably thinks it's going to be like High School Musical. Dreading how much the uniform is going to cost especially as it's all got the school logo on.

Emilys school had a 'come to school dressed as a book character' on Thursday as part of World Book Day and we managed to get this bargain of a costume in ASDA for £8. I knew that virtually every girl would go as a Disney Princess of some sort so decided she should do something different and go as Little Miss Sunshine. She was so chuffed that she was the only person with that costume on!

I have been busy doing some scrapping this week believe it or not. I'm working on a few projects at the moment for something but thought i could share one of them seeing as i haven't put any work on here for ages. Its a digi for a change, I don't often do digi work but i'm trying to get to grips with some new techniques on there and having fun playing around in PSE. I've found some lovely freebie kits. This one was made using Foxy Lady by Peppermint Creative, I would link it but unfortunately their website is down at the moment.

Been doing a lot of browsing through blogs lately as i lost all my favourites when the hard drive died on this thing before christmas and i've found some great ones that i've not had the pleasure to come across before.

Although i'm not a big card person, I adore these on this blog called LilyBeans Paperie. No idea what the lady is called but some of them are stunning. Another site is a kit site with some gorgeous step by step projects on which is Scrap Magie. Again some lovely stuff on there.

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things again on the scrapping front although I very rarely go on UKS anymore, not since they changed the software......i find the new forum too confusing...doesn't take much does it! I had a little catch up on the Smack Blog though over the past few weeks. I can completely understand why people would be upset if they were smacked on there, especially as some of the comments can get quite personal but I do fully understand the need for the blog. UKS has become more and more like Big Brother where you are always worried about what you can and can't say. It can be a great source of inspiration and a great place to make 'friends' however it can also be very false.

The smackblog on the other hand is NOT a place to make friends LOL! I do find some of the discussions interesting on there and some good info on non UKS sponsors, sponsors to avoid, retreats to avoid etc. It's hard though when you know someone getting smacked especially when you don't feel what's being said is right. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion though and i've seen some very well deserved 'smacks'.

Anyway, i'm off to the land of nod as I have a ridiculously early morning ahead of me as me and the whole tribe are off to Butlins for the day some of the other families from the boat....packed lunches done, camera batteries charged and dvd recorder charged....let's see how long it is before i lose at least one of the four kids!

It's getting better!

The last few weeks have been the hardest that I've been through in an awful long time. With Pete due to sail, there seemed to be no end of problems keeping them from doing so. For those of you who don't have the pleasure of being a submariners wife, you may be thinking 'oh well, a few more days home'. But i can assure you that it isn't a good feeling. When it comes to long trips, the hardest thing is saying goodbye...it's both physically and mentally exhausting. Really hard. You prepare for a few weeks before hand and when it comes it's like someone punching you in the stomach. Well, imagine doing that three times in the space of a week. It starts to feel like the world has spun off it's axis! Thankfully they've now gone and are hard at work doing 8 on, 8 off and as they settle into their routine, so I must settle back into the 'away' routine. Got this proof of one of the other wives that they'd actually managed to get out this last time. Have no idea how some people can watch the boat go out.....would break my heart even more!

The first week that they're gone you're down and moody, but once you get to grips with that, you throw yourself into everything else and try not to think about him. Unfortunately the past two weeks have thrown up some crap that hasn't enabled me to do that though. After being without the car for two weeks, I was then informed that not only was the headgasket gone, so was the radiator! In total, sorting the car out cost me £847 and man, was that £847 we just didn't have.

It's been beg, steal and borrow as Pete managed to well and truly balls up the bank account before leaving. Problem was, i'm not on the account and can't do anything about it. Over £400 of bank charges which is going to mean that the account isn't going to clear all the direct debits again this month, probably leading to more of the same every month until he comes back. At the moment I'm panicking that he may not even have a bloody house to come back to! I'm just praying that his back pay will go in the end of February to avoid complete disaster. Doesn't help when the 3 week old PS3 that the kids bought with their Xmas money was broken by Natasha last week. With the power off, she couldn't understand why the game wasn't loading that she'd put in....so she put in another....and another.....and another. Yup, four discs rammed into the disc drive does not a happy PS3 make! It's knackered the drive anyway. Luckily my household insurance has covered that little gem, however with £100 excess to find, the girls may find themselves without that baby for a while.

All of this going from pillar to post, credit car company to bank, NPFS to SSAFA, has taken it's toll and I've been really down. It's not the greatest feeling though to have family services come round to drop off an emergency £100 loan just so you can feed the kids! However, i've now done all that I can do, the rest is out of my hands.

So things are starting to settle down and I'm just getting by on an exceedingly tight budget for the next few months. One good thing to happen though is that when I put my memory card from my camera in the PC this morning, I found a few more photos that I thought had been lost after the great PC hardrive failure. This included some photos from Emilys first Nativity where she was a donkey! Funny how no matter how loud the kids sang in reception.....her voice could be heard above EVERYONES!

She absolutely thriving at school and loves it there. She's even managed to read 57 books since she started, not including ones that she reads at home. Tonight she's going to try and write her first ever letter to daddy! Next Friday, she has the valentines disco and will probably be hanging out with Christopher. I'm not allowed to call Christopher her 'friend', it HAS to be 'Boyfriend' or else I get told off.

He came round for tea last week and Emily just wouldn't leave him alone! Think I'm gonna have to watch this girl of mine with the boys.

Natasha is now at nursery three half days and one full day a week. I've got to say it's such a relief to get some time to wind down from it all, especially with Pete away. Just as Emily's whinging phase has finished, Natasha takes up the baton. They are all such loving girls but blimey Natasha is manic at the moment. She did manage to do her first 'letter' to daddy though....what a work of art eh?

Freya seems to have settled down a lot more since Christmas, at least she's starting to buck her ideas up after a rather frustrating six months. Whether it be hormones, the fall out from her dad not going, or just being scared of me killing her (a distinct possibility a couple months back) she's starting to take more responsibility for her actions. She's just joined a new joint schools drama class and they're putting on Alice in Wonderland in the Summer, she's got a school trip to the Scilly Isles to look forward to this year and has just started playing rugby for which her grandad took her into town on Sunday and got her boots. I know when she starts at the secondary school in September she's probably going to be trying to do every club under the sun.

Talking of sun....after an aptly timed snow fall at 8 this morning, it's now beautiful outside. With all the snow chaos everywhere else in the country, I was hoping for at least a full days snow.....or at least the girls were. But they made the most of it by running around like loons for an hour before school. It had already started to disappear by the time they all got off to their respective school gates though.

Still haven't done any scrapping though. Keep saying i'll do it this weekend, and never get round to it but with everything going on i've had a good excuse. So, i'm definately going to do some tonight.......just have to do the shopping first.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse.....

.......i shouldn't have opened my mouth! There I was, all excited at having the PC back...true, it took three days to reinstall all the software and drivers but I'd 'only' lost a months worth of photos so I was thankful for the mercy of that one. But then yesterday I get a call from Pete who by that time should have been home saying that the car had broken down again. Luckily (or unluckily, depends on glass half empty/full type of thing) he managed to get it to the garage who fixed it last time just as they were closing.

Well, they called this afternoon and it's the head gasket.....which to be honest...once it's gone, it'll probably go again. With an estimate of 'at least £600' we're now in a quandry. The last MOT cost over £400, it cost another £150 to get it mended before Xmas and now this. We don't have £600 to fix it, let alone thousands to buy a new car so it looks likely that we're gonna have to see if we can find a Bongo dealer who'll take it off our hands with a knackered head gasket.

Now that the girls are at school and nursery most days, it's not a major problem being without wheels except for getting to church. Bus routes over here are notoriously bad and the thought of dragging four kids on the bus with me isn't one that I relish. So tomorrow when Pete gets home from work there will be a lot of thinking to do about what to do. Thing is, with Pete just about to go away for five odd months it's easier for him to say we can go without without him actually realising the hassle it causes.

On a strange note though, i was asked for ID in the local Spar shop this morning to buy cigarettes........I laughed at the woman behind the counter.....she didn't laugh back. Luckily, I had my driving licence with me, however I did make a remark about the fact that I was almost twice the legal age limit!

So it's not been a good week here in the Farrell household....the only thing making me laugh is this.....





For the unfamiliar among you, this is my sister and my husband at 4 am New Years Day after welcoming in the new year. In their defence, they were hammered by this point!

I have a good excuse

for such a long abscence as i don't currently have a PC and trying to wrestle either the kids or pete's laptop isn't easy! A few days before Xmas the PC went pop along with over a months worth of photos which to me was the worst bit. This was on top of the car breaking down so it wasn't really the best thing to happen. But just to put the icing on the cake, the following day the monitor on the girls PC also gave up the ghost!

It has however been a wonderful Xmas although i'm suffering big time with sleep deprivation. It's been one celebration after another, one party followed by another and one drunken night on the sing star after another! I'm surprised at the moment that i can even talk. I'm going to try to work out how to upload video to you tube and show some embarressing clips from New year. Anyway, I hope that you all had a lovely Xmas and a wonderful new year. God Bless and heres to a fantastic 2009!

Ooops!

Well i didn't think it had been THIS long since I last blogged but to be honest the past few weeks have been a complete blur, not really what you want when the time I have with Pete home is as precious as it currently is. The main reason for the strange time vacuum i've been in is Pete's board. Building up for the last nine months and culminating in having to physically check that he did actually come home from sea over the past few weeks because he'd been buried under reams of paper and stuck to his laptop. However, all the work was worth it as he passed his board last week. He looks at least five years younger than he has done over the past year just through finally letting go of the stress!

It's funny to think that he's now addressed onboard as Mr Farrell or 'Sir'....sounds so bloody formal doesn't it. I did try it at home for a few days but got bored quite quickly! And now the rush that is Xmas begins. Doesn't help with different kids at different schools as there seems to be no time to breathe! Freya had a concert last night with her choir, another for the district choir and orchestra tonight and her school performance next week aswell as her one for Stagecoach coming up. Emily also has one at school next week (she plays a donkey! LOL) and I'm sure Natasha will have one with the nursery so it's keeping us all really busy. Thank goodness Pete is on leave next weekend.

We had our first parents evening with Emily and the girl is a genius, which we kind of knew already LOL! She's doing work with the year one children and whilst some of the other reception class kids are still practicing their names, she's writing sentences! Although they aren't grammatically correct, they make sense when you read them. Her entry in her school weekend diary after the remembrance service said 'my mummy took me to see the dead soldiers!' which raised a few eyebrows! I can't believe how well she's thriving at school and she has this constant demand to be learning all the time. I guess you just have to encourage it to continue.

Talking of Em, it was her fifth birthday last weekend. She had also been invited to a birthday party down at Tamar Valley Donkey Park in the afternoon so that saved a few pennies on a party! We did however, splash out on a cake and had some family round later in the evening. I just love the cakes at Waitrose and with four kids I don't think it'll be long til I've had everyone in the catalogue.

She loved her cake and her new bike without stabilisers......daddy will finally get a chance to get her out on it this evening if it isn't too dark. I'm hoping he can get her comfortable on it before he returns to sea because i'm useless at that sort of stuff!

I've got the dates for next year now and it's going to be a harder trip than i first thought..... 5 and a half months at sea! With Natasha starting her funded nursery sessions in January that should help me get a little escape time but it's certainly going to be hard, especially with so little contact. I'm still umming and ahhhing about flying out to Dubai where they have an extended port visit about half way through, but the costs involved may prohibit that, plus it would be so difficult to get on a plane to come home with the kids wondering why daddy can't come back with us.

So the house is now getting back to normal and Pete is duty tomorrow night so i'm hoping to get some papers and scissors out. It will be the first time over two months and i'm looking forward to it. Freya wants to make some cards for Xmas too so there will probably be glue and paint everywhere....YIPPEE!

Busy busy busy!

Daddy is finally home! Well, he's actually been home for almost a week now, but there's been hardly any time to do anything in that week! He got back to Plymouth on Tuesday night....I was going to lie to the girls and say he'd be home in the morning as I knew that once they saw him i'd struggle to get them into bed....not great for a school day! However, I had a change of heart and we drove down to Devonport Dockyard and all three girls ran at him as soon as he got off the coach!

Must have been a bit of a culture shock to come home from hot, hot, hot Dubai to wet and windy Cornwall. It looks quite funny that he's walking around with peeling skin! NICE! Wednesday night we went to the Fireworks display at HMS Raleigh and luckily the rain held off. Turns out Natasha isn't as much a fan of the fireworks as the rest of us and kept huddling against Pete when they looked like they were coming straight for us. Friday I had a girls night out, Saturday was the High School Musical stage show in Plymouth with Freya and then yesterday, Pete and a few others home from the boat took part in the Remembrance Day service in Torquay.

It was an early morning to get up there and bloody hell was it windy? However, the boys did us proud and for a bunch of matelots their marching wasn't as bad as we all thought it would be......helped that they were marching along some of the cadets which kind of made them look better!

Despite the weather and the huge black clouds that loomed overhead, the turnout was huge and the rain held off until we were on our way back home. The service was as emotional as expected and the kids were proud to see their dad in his finery. You can't help but love a man in uniform!


First thing most of them did once they'd finished the service and the march along Torquay seafront was get the fags out! LOL

So Pete is now gripped with studying for his board in a couple weeks. It's going to be a pretty stressful time for him but i've every faith that he can do it. Not done any scrapping at all, too much else on. But i'm hoping that I can get the house straight enough to do so guilt free by the weekend.