What a crazy two weeks!!!

The title really does say it all; it's crazy all that has occurred in the last two weeks and we're not out of the woods yet. However, the workmen were back today so I'm going to update everything that has happened, and catch up to today. I'll try and keep it to a sensible length as I'm very tired and want to sleep so I don't get sick again... yes, again...

Anyway...

Rosie taking Louise for a walk

Beautiful autumn evening

Rosie looking at the river from the headland

Running down to the tower

Having fun by the tower

Looking across the valley

By the new gas pipe, lots of echoes!

She loves that trampoline

Thinking back two weeks and Rosie started a wonderful thing, asking to take the puppies for a walk every day and I was very much more than happy to oblige her. We went for multiple really enjoyable walks as the weather was lovely, though we didn't always have lots of time so some were shorter than others. Above is a collection of pictures from these walks culminating in the one ten days ago on Saturday, but more of what happened next a bit later on. We went to various locations, via different routes. She was always wanting to see one of the towers and we headed over to the headland a couple of times. I don't know if you remember last time we were walking she was very wedded to a single route and refused to try something new; this time she was determined to go to new places. Just awesome. Always Rosie was holding Louise and I was holding Thelma. She walked pretty much every step, and kept such good control and patience with Louise. Man we are proud of that girl! The walk on Saturday morning we headed up the hill and went past the new gas pipeline. Rosie shouted "mummy!" into the pipe but got a little bit overwhelmed by how much it echoed. She was very brave but when we walked back past on the way down again she said "shush!" before we got to the pipe and was quiet as we walked past.

Early morning mist through the trees

Autumn flowers bloom

Trees on the turn across the valley

Mist clinging on below us

Linden tree turning gold

A beautiful sunrise - just stunning!

It has very much turned into autumn around here over the past couple of weeks, and while we have had some rainy days and some cold days (I've even had the fire lit in Room 13 multiple times) we have been blessed with some truly glorious weather as well; this weather allowed the walks talked about above but also gave some beautiful sunrises and views. We are truly blessed to live here.

High temperature on being admitted

Yummy sandwiches made by daddy

We escaped to the cafe!

Running through the leaves

Definitely feeling a lot better

Proud on the top rung of the climbing frame

About to go home! YAY!

But what is so crazy about that two weeks, I hear you cry. Well... after our lovely walk on Saturday Rosie started to be a little unwell, she was sick and then got a temperature and on Sunday was quite poorly. On the Monday she rallied and seemed to be getting better (and we thought she had a stomach bug that was going round a few kids near us) however Monday night she was much worse. A trip to the doctors on Tuesday resulted in her being admitted to hospital with serious pneumonia on one lung and this meant that Angela had to stay in with her all week. It was not the most pleasant of experiences at all, however Rosie was getting treated and was recovering very fast. I had to bring them food as their was basically nothing provided in the residential ward and they were not allowed out. Initially I got to see them for ten minutes a visit, three times a day but then they arranged a single hour long visit which was much more lovely. We got to go into the park (rather than sitting in the bleak foyer by the lifts) and run around and Angela got to relax and get half an hour head space while I played with Rosie. Still, the stress and worry and concern on both of us was huge. Finally on Sunday we were able to get her discharged and now we are able to medicate at home but now I was sick yesterday and today Angela is feeling very unwell also. We are sure we picked something up in the hospital and hopefully Angela will recover as quickly as I do.

Crazy!

Such a stunning beautiful start to today

Golden light in the morning

Bekir lifts the spare boiler in

That's why it won't work

Cleaning out the damaged boiler

Putting pegs in to hang shelving uprights off

And so we get to today. The men actually popped past briefly yesterday to try and fix our boiler which stopped making hot water over this most recent weekend (it really has been one of those times) but they couldn't fix it so first thing today they were in to remove the old boiler and replace it with the one we removed from outside Room 13. I should add that they were absent for the entire two weeks because Halil was very unwell and thank goodness he is fully recovered now and looking healthy again. Anyway, they did manage to swap the boiler and then took the broken one apart and found that not only was it full of nasty sediment, the element was actually cracked. Over lunch they headed into town and picked us up a new element then cleaned out all the crud and fitted the new element into the boiler. We still have the slightly smaller boiler fitted but at least we have hot water and they can swap this one back in relatively quickly another day. It started raining a lot over lunch and so rather than go onto the roof terrace I asked them to go back into the games room and put up some more shelf supports, which they did. I now have more black plastic shelves that I can use to really start organising the roof space. When I get time.

Bed time story with an audience

And there it is. It is SO good to have Angela and Rosie home, it was so horrible again on my own and the hugest relief is Rosie recovering so now we have to hope for the same for Angela. This last picture was last night, bed time story where Louise snuggled up and me while I read, Thelma demanded to be played with (as usual) and Rosie was loving making me give different names to the characters in her books so I have to remember that they aren't called what it says in the book, but something else. This is family; this is what matter. Thank you, Angela, for taking the picture!!! It's so good to be back together.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Hopefully back tomorrow with a more "normal" update.