How Does My Garden Grow?

Well, exceptionally well actually!!!

We have harvested our first radishes (nice long white ones!!) and, more excitingly (because less face it, how many radishes can you eat and who hasn't tried them in the past?!?) TURNIPS!

Now, alot of people may consider the humble turnip medieval fodder - woody turnips to stave off hunger, not a "delicious" (which seems to be the latest buzz word) delectable, gourmet meal. But I beg to differ! I love root veg - they are amazingly versatile and SO satisfying to grow. Just pick em young!!! They were lovely: I roasted them in olive oil. Yum Yum Yum!! I am going to make root veg soup tonight with the leftover veg (did some extra).

Last Post

Hmmm Having trouble with that link! I think you have to be a member to see that page. If you have a child with liver disease and dowant to become a member start at http://www.classkids.org

For those of you who haven't seen it, here it is:


Molly was born in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, UK in May 2003 by c-section (planned). She had an apgar score of 9 across the board and was a great 7lb, 13oz - a very content little dark-haired baby.

Molly became slightly jaundiced on day 2 and by day 5 was pretty orange! It turned out she had ABO incompatibility, which I cursed at the time. So she had intensive therapy and a spell in SCBU on a drip for fluids.

On day 9 we were sent home with her bili levels coming down nicely. Our consultant was continuing to monitor her, but the consensus was that Molly had "sludging" of old blood cells clogging up her system, remnants from the ABO problem. However, her bili levels were changing and the "conjugated" part was being stubborn. Her stools were pale, but this was only picked up by me and not brought to their attention early enough.

One week later, the levels did not come down at all so on the following Monday we went up to Kings College Hospital in London for a good investigation. It was pretty clear from the outset that they suspected biliary atresia even though Molly was hardly jaundiced and had not lost weight at all. They even gave us the paperwork! We returned the next day for a liver biopsy. The results came through on the Thursday and we went up on Saturday.

Molly had her Kasai on the next Monday. The operation took 6½ hours and, although I thought we would be nervous wrecks, it was more of a relief to get it done - it was, after all, the only option. When we spoke to the surgeon, Mr. Davenport, it seems that she had classic biliary atresia - her gall bladder was a little lump rather than a bag and her bile duct system was shriveled. However, there was only minor damage to the liver, "nothing irretrievable" were his words. We were really happy - in fact I was ecstatic! It was the outcome I didn't dare hope for.

Molly recovered amazingly well, with no setbacks, and we came home the following Tuesday. She started regaining weight well although she was a little reluctant to finish her feeds, so we came back with an NG tube to "top her up." It became very useful for her medicines that she hated so much. The tube came out that weekend.

We had a check-up 1 months post Kasai and Molly's billi levels were at 87 and she was still visibly yellowish. I know the way these units are measured differs here in the UK. She was 168 at the time of the op and Mr. Davenport, the surgeon, says that children whose levels are around 20-30 do really well with their own livers. We go for our next check up in November, which will be 6 months post Kasai, and we hope that her levels will have settled by then. The surgeon was extremely happy with her and since then she is nearly always "pink" and her nappies are looking pretty normal most of the time. Fingers crossed for good levels in November!

She continues to do really well and is putting on weight steadily. She is a little below weight, but not much. She just needs to regain the weight she lost when she had the op (going nil by mouth tends to do that!).

Molly is currently getting over chickenpox - which she has taken in her stride. She is a really happy little girl and my other daughter, (Daisy age 4) absolutely adores her. Molly very rarely cries and although she doesn't sleep through the night she feeds quickly, winds, and goes back to sleep without any fuss - 10 minutes max!! I think I can cope with that........

Reading this it seems amazing that it was almost 4 years ago! Molly has her 4th birthday in just a few weeks. The "coping no sleep" makes me laugh - that no sleep lasted 3 years!!!! And yes, I coped, but it was getting pretty desperate!!

And I am SO glad she got chickenpox. I couldn't have realised how important it was, but if she HADNT caught it before transplant we would have been in a more precarious situation. Her antibodies are strong and she has come through two major chickenpox outbreaks with no sign of spots. Fingers crossed she continues to do so and doesn't ever develop it again, otherwise its straight into hospital and we have avoided that for.... over a year!!!!!

New Link

Was just mailing with a lady from France who also has a little boy with BA and I realised I never linked to Molly's ClassKids page. It hasn't been updated since she was about 4 months old, but it was good to read "the beginning" again and I thought it would be good to add a link to it.

If anyone has any problems accessing the links, please let me know.

lu xx

Weed em and Reap!

Yay! Spring is just around the corner and things are getting exciting! Its been a slow wet winter, with so many jobs to do and not enough time or nice weather to do them. BUT the greenhouse is now up and running, the beds marked out and being sorted. Things are GROWING in my fabulous Garden! And we did it ourselves! We broke the ground and ..... ta da!!!

<---- our veggie patch!

Top left: poly tunnel, garlic and spring onions

Top right: spuds, first earlies (3 rows now)

Bottom left: Fruit trees - gooseberry, redcurrent, blackcurrent, boysenberry

Bottom right: sifted soil, now moved over to the right hand side of the bed to create a raised bed for carrots and radish.

Greenhouse! Containing lots of seedlings from tomatoes, sweetcorn, to various beans and herbs. I am really excited about it all. I blimmin LOVE living here. The kids are healthy and happy, and so are we! I am so proud of what we have achieved so far and this is only the start. So here are some piccies. Since I took these, we have moved the soil in the bottom right bed to create a raised bed. The soil was stuff Shaun sifted and moved from behind the shed, so its beautiful and I have sown carrot seed and long icicle radish seed there. We can't grow carrots in our other beds as the soil is SO hard you can't crumble it in your hands - the long rooted stuff would never make it. The little mini poly tunnel is fab and 3 days ago I planted peas, petit pois, turnips, salsify and savoy cabbage. I had a look today and there is growth! Now - whose going to place bets? I can't decide yet whether they are opportunistic weeds or actually little seedlings!!! Its a bit "row-like" to be weeds, but hey, how clever ARE weeds?!? Daisy is riding her bike! She does have stabilizers, but they point out the back! She won't let us take them off, even though they are of absolutely no use to her. lol!!! Anyway, here are the photos - enjoy!!















<---- Garlic growing in one of the main beds - look how hard the "soil" is!!

<---- Peas! Sown in the greenhouse in the discarded edge protection that came with MIL's kitchen worktops! The idea is to just SLIDE the seedlings off into the main beds. We'll see whether SLIDE actually works or not!!

<--- greenhouse seedlings popping up!

Dispatch....Display

Have sent the picture off in the post - da da! Special Delivery which is ridiculous, but I am kind of attached to it and want it back - only because its not often that I ever really spend any time on a painting! The only other time was when I entered two of my "sheep" pictures into the Horsham Arts Council exhibition - again, felt a fraud, but they sold! Then I thought, Oh, I don't have them anymore! So I painted them on Daisy's old bedroom wall and imortalized them in a cross stitch pattern. Fame indeed.

So picture is sent - mind you as I said to my Mum, the only box I could find to send it in that was big enough was a Toilet Seat box... hmm maybe that's trying to tell me something!!!

AND I have put up my Lawnmowing poster in the local shop window - scary. God, I hope someone doesn't phone up with 20 acres to mow, all in lovely intricate windy paths etc. aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhh

Its Been a Long Time....

I know, I know and I am sorry. Really. Honestly. Ok, maybe not, but I've BIN BIZZY!!

We have settled into Devon like we have never been anywhere else. The job list appears as long, but things are slowly getting done and sliding into place. The girls are really happy and busy, and I actually have a social life which is amazing!

I continue to be a member of the WI which I love - its brilliant and mostly good fun. We have a few projects/competitions going which I enjoy. I just painted a picture for the St Georges Day Cup which is a Devon-wide thing. Stupidly I am nervous about it! I don't know why, cos I don't have expectations of winning - I just wanted to take part and have my picture up with the rest. But now I feel a bit of an imposter among artists, if you get my drift! There were 3 themes, Air, Sea or Earth and I chose Sea. God knows why, cos I never have been able to paint water! But apparently I felt inspired. Did'nt finish the first canvas, but finally finished the second one last night, in time to post tomorrow. Here it is, comments very very welcome! Its supposed (!) to represent the push and pull of the moon. I know, its not the greatest, but I am pleased with it, just a bit shy about it cos I know its not great but then, if I am pleased with it, what the hell?!

I have also decided to start up a lawn mowing venture! It came about as my next door neighbour said there was a job going, but found out today I dipped out on that one, so decided to do something about it and do some posters and cards etc!! So I have..... and will be putting one in the shop. I shall be dimocking all over the place! lol - I am going to be SO scared! Got a new petrol mower (which I can only just start up - I think you are supposed to have arms as long as an orangutan's) and our friends from Sussex brought our old OLD landrover down so I can potter about in that. I DO fancy working outside and I know I should be able to mow a lawn and trim the edges etc. Well, I can bluff it and hope I learn fast..... ARGH!!!


What else? Well, still helping out with the jumble sales which is a right hoot - what a laugh! Was on books last time, which was a bit tame to be honest, but have graduated to Clothes which is a massive free for all - its the funniest thing in the world!! God everyone gets so serious and competitive and I usually have a massive grin on my face - unless they are quibbling about the price, and then I just get STUBBORN cos its PENNIES. I get bargains to boot (well, not boots this time, but a school fleece which has just saved me £12 so I am happy!).

The veggy patch is coming on FAB. We got the greenhouse up last weekend. The ground is an absolute SOD to dig - rock hard, full of rocks and, like rocks, no nutrients to speak of. So we have a lovely, georgeous huge mound of cow poo which we are liberally spreading around over it. Also a mountain of wood chip from when we took the trees down. Shaun has dug one square of the four and dug in the compost too. I added wood chip. This is our first main veg bed. Another bed has cow poo on it, no digging yet. We are going to bung spuds and Jerusalem Artichokes in there and let them do the hard work. The third bed we have just planted up with all our fruit trees - lots of gooseberries, blackcurrent and a boysenberry. The fourth bed is sitting there and I may well "green compost" it by planting comfrey to later dig in.

I have sewn ALL SORTS of seeds in the greenhouse and am avidly waiting for little green shoots to appear! I have put in garlic and the first batch of spring onions in the first bed - but then its absolutely lashed it down all day so I wouldn't be surprised if the seeds are all washed away.......

We had friends over for late sunday lunch today - game casserole (goose and phesant- sort of game casserole) with baby turnips, celery, carrot - lovely and I was really pleased with it. Kids had a blast together too. I was showing Gabby some old photos - they didn't see us while we were going through the mill with Molly. It made me realise how far we had come. shes a little handful now and its FAB. There were a lot of happy memories in the photo album tho -lots of milestones. I love this blog too - its nice to look back.

Festivals! We are going to TWO this year and its brilliant. I am SO excited its stupid! Need to tart up the caravan a bit and shaun needs to fix the brake. We are going to the sunrise festival in June and the Big Green in August. Amazing! Brilliant! Fab!!! Taking the kids too which will be great - I can just see them jigging about in the sunshine!

Oh, I am doing Yoga again which is brilliant fun. She certainly gets us stretching and I do get the giggles a fair bit!

You know, I couldn't possibly tell you everything that has been happening over the last few months. Life is so good.