Ay Up Me Duck: What Angelina Jolie and I have in common!!

I just read that Angelina Jolie greeted a Brit actor at a Hollywood Film Award ceremony last week with the words Ay up me duck!!! Jack O'Connell, actor, hails from Derbyshire, the next county to mine and part of the East Midlands which is where Nottingham is. Sorry Angelina, I got there first with naming my blog over a week ago. Sweetie, you got Brad. you just can't have everything lol !

Talking about blogs, I have been sadly remiss in not posting more frequently. I have been on this side of the pond for nearly a month now. Time has flown by incredibly fast and now I'm playing catch up.

When I flew into Heathrow I had an incredible bus journey to Nottingham.It should have taken 3 hours
but between the bus breaking down and a serious accident on the M1 motorway, it took 8 hours!! I was beginning to feel I was on The Voyage of the Damned, no end in sight. Within 3 hours of arriving home I realised my poor mama was in congestive cardiac failure, short of breath, cyanotic around the lips and massive bilateral leg oedema. So….. 999 (Brit equivalent of 911) was called and the EMT's whisked us off to the local ER (or Accident and Emergency). One Chest X ray and Lasix 20mg po (I was told they don't give IV Lasix!!!) and after 6 hours I whisked her home in a taxi and tucked her back into bed!!!

This is what she looked like in ER:

And this is what happened after a few days of TLC at home:

Great looking for 94 years young!! I hope the genes get passed to me!!

Needless to say I have been busy but have also been doing some fun stuff in between. I did have a trip booked for Ireland this weekend but had to cancel for several reasons,one of which was this:

No, not MY foot!! My sister finally had her foot surgery last week, on one day's notice.

In between, the live in carer had to go back to Poland unexpectedly and sadly, I had two funerals to attend on my arrival here. So life has been full but I did manage to meet up with friends (all members of the Lost Souls Girl's Society). We had a lovely lunch and catch up session at Squares restaurant in Nottingham and planned some neat things to do in the New Year.

This is what hit me in the face when I came out of the washroom (the loo!):

I couldn't have said it better myself!!!

I'll give you a little taster of my home town Nottingham. I always go for walks whenever I can and am fortunate to have some beautiful places close by.

This place is just across the road from my home. It dates from Elizabethan times and was owned by the

Willoughby family and now owned by the City of Nottingham and open to the public. As kids we spent many Sundays picnicking here and my own kids have visited it on numerous occasions.