Up The Farway Tree

Butterfly Trust Auction

Mum's charity auction last week in aid of The Butterfly Trust was a huge success raising over £2,300 on the night! Everyone had a great time and the double act between Carol Ann (auctioneer) and her mum, my aunty Agnes, was first class as always. The night really would not exist without them. There was also of course a stampede for mums tablet (with Granny Monaghan's famous recipe) and mums well known fruit loaves - hands were flying up all over the place trying to get some :-) I had made lots of cards so raised nearly £90 from selling those and another £100 from the butterfly charms - although we managed to sell most of those before the night. We also had a raffle with Watson the Hawick Cashmere teddy bear as first prize. I have had my eye on Watson since the day I first saw him via email - a photo of a lonely (but rather expensive) little bear in need of a very good home. I joked all night about how mummy had come to take him home and bought a good few raffle tickets - the only thing stopping me buying more being the fact we had run out! Helen the Butterfly Trust chairman drew out the ticket - which gave first prize of Watson to my mother in law who promptly handed him over to his rightful owner. Me :-) Anne, I can assure you that he is being very well looked after and it well out of Sebs reach. Oh how Seb would love to get his paws on such a squishy soft teddy bear! I know he is a posh dog but he isn't quite posh enough for a cashmere teddy quite yet...

Watson

Speaking of Seb and his teddy bears. After the demise of 'Mr Moose' which he chewed the face off he now has a floppy rabbit I got in some pound (euro) shop in Berlin. He LOVES this rabbit. Well, in a chew to death, jump on top off, shake the stuffing out of kind of way. I came into the living room the other day and saw the poor thing lying on the carpet and seriously thought 'that does actually look like road kill lying on my good rug.' I have been hunting for a replacement and have found 2 different toys for his Christmas which I think might fit the bill - I stood there in the shop squeezing them for 'pad-a-bility' factor (where he pads on the thing like he is performing CPR -for those who missed it first time round click HERE), shake-ability and likelihood of head to fall off. I do these tests quite surreptitiously.

Seb's bunny road kill

I have been offered my own PBL group to facilitate at the university for the next block which runs from Dec to end of Jan. I am really pleased as casual facilitators don't often get to take their own group (we usually just fill in) so it will give me a chance to work at getting to know a group, how to organise this group and also carrying out their assessments at the end. Unfortunately the block is on 'Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Renal Systems' which, apart from maybe respiratory, I have forgotten a lot about - and to be honest i am not sure I even got 'kidneys' the first time round ;-) It is however twice a week on my two days off so I will be working every day until end of Jan - oh how I will regret this on the cold mornings! It will be good to see how I cope with this level of work though and it is only in the mornings so I am still factoring in plenty time for coffee meetings and shopping. Got to keep things in perspective...

So off to another party this weekend and then I think we might finally have a weekend in our own house - can't wait! Just in time for me starting my Christmas preparations......40 sleep to go :-)