two of our favourite houses

This is one of our favourite houses in Arad. It's in need of a little tender loving care, but we think it's still beautiful ...

... and this is Rosanna's and Yasmina's favourite house in the snow!

let it snow, let it snow ...

After two winters with very little snow this year made up for it! We have had snow all through January and February and it was trying to snow again today. Of course snow also means that it's cold ... but most people agree that it's better than rain. I was back in the UK for a few days and it rained non-stop and was so windy that I was freezing all the time. I didn't take warm clothes because I knew it was a good few degrees 'warmer' in the UK that in Romania ... I forgot the wind and damp factors!

The picture above is the view out the back from our 'loft apartment' (some of you might have seen a very similar view on a Christmas card a couple of years ago) and the photo on the right is the view out of the other side looking out over the courtyard ... take a look at those icicles, amazing or what?

Our husky, Roxi loves the snow. We hate having to tie her up but the neighbours didn't appreciate her chasing their chickens and she's a great escape artist so we had no other choice! The fabulous snowman sitting with Rosie is Philip's handiwork. Being an Aussie, it's his first attempt ... not bad eh?
Arad city centre was snowed under too and our day centre the 'Secret Garden' looked even lovelier than usual, see right.

An armfull of kittens!

While looking through some photos to put on the Vis de Copil (A Child's Dream) blog I came across these and thought I'd share them ... aren't they sweet? Their mummy is Kesara, our Birman and the daddy an unknown visitor to the garden ... hmm! All four kittens looked very like their mum, though sadly one died just after birth. We gave one away and kept two, one for Johanna and Philipand one for us, but we ended up keeping them both as Johanna and Philip just took one of our 'outside' cats, tiger Lily and didn't want another after all. Their Westie, Hamish loves the kittens although at first he was a bit scared expecially when they did the hissing and fur on end thing, like in the Aristocats ... hilarious!
The two we kept (don't ask which ones they are in the picture) are now called Mia and Kara and are very sweet, loving cats who like nothing better than to sit on someone's knee and be petted. Kenneth likes to pretend he's a tough guy and always refers to them as 'stupid cats' or some such endearment, but look at the photo for the truth!

Maybe you've heard of the 'Andrex puppy'? These are the Andrex kittens, though truth be told, we can't afford andrex, so it's just a cheapie brand, but they don't care, it unravels just as easily and is such good fun to drape around the house and shred into bits ...

Kenny 21 tomorrow!

Wow ... just looked at my blogs and saw that I haven't updated for almost a month ... where did the time go? The lead up to Christmas was pretty frantic as always but not in the British sense of running around buying heaps of Christmas presents and too much food and drink. We had the builders in at the day centre right up til the 23rd and we were also trying to distribute clothing to poor families and street folk.

On top of all that Kenny had his concussion and broken hand and Amy had an operation to remove her tonsils. Kenneth was working evenings and weekends at Johanna and Philip's house trying to get it habitable for them to move in for Christmas. To cut a long story short, they did move in the week before Christmas and host Christmas day for all the family and a few friends - 22 in all. They still have no bathroom and just the outside earth closet ... life in the country eh!!! Will write more about Christmas and post some photos soon ...

In the meantime it's Kenny's 21st birthday tomorrow and the poor soul has nothing planned - no presents, no parties, no nothing and he's feeling a wee bit down ... need to see what we can do!

broken knuckles

I spoke to Kenny this evening on the phone and I obviously missed something when I talked to him yesterday - I thought he'd said he was just bruised, nothing broken, but in fact he has two broken knuckles so his hand is strapped up. Amy's feeling worse today, she said it feels like there's broken glass in her throat but she's still glad she had the op. 

We had another interesting donation today. Just at the end of the day as we were about to leave the day centre we had a phone call offering us 100kg of pastries. The downside? We had to collect them right away. Most have gone into the freezer but some were defrosted and needed cooked straight away - we'll give them out tomorrow. By the time we spent all evening cooking pastries we had no desire to cook dinner, so guess what we had? 

Traumatic week and it's only Wednesday!

Well, I suppose most weeks seem to have their trauma but it's only Wednesday and this week has seen more than enough for our family. Amy had an operation on Monday to remove her tonsils - after frequent severe bouts of tonsilitis for over 5 years the ENT department finally agreed to operate. Amy's form teacher is very concerned as this is Bacalaureat year and Amy can't afford to keep missing school. The operation was done under local anaesthetic and was quite an ordeal for Amy, I don't think I could have done it! She is still off school and in a lot of pain but she's looking forward to a tonsilitis-free winter.

Today I had a text message from Kenny saying that he'd been beaten up last night and ended up in casualty. He says he was checked over and x-rayed and apart from bruising and concussion he's ok and actually attended lectures today - very dedicated of him, but I don't know how wise given the concussion!

Otherwise life is busy and more than a little stressful. Renovation work at the day centre is nearing completion, we have paint colour and tiles to pick and it should be finished by the wend of next week. When it's over we have the daunting prospect of tidying up and sorting through all the aid which all had to be piled into a huge mountain in one of the activity rooms. Add to it all this evening's unannounced arrival of 1000 shoeboxes and you can see why we're a bit stressed.

Johanna's graduation

Seems like I'm doing this blog backwards these days. I didn't have time to write about Johanna's graduation at the time as we had a team here working on the day centre courtyard and we were really busy. it was hard enough for both of us to take the day out for the graduation never mind actually finding time to update my blog!

On the day Kenneth and I and Helen, along with Johanna and Philip and of course Yasmina, all piled into the minibus and set off for Timisoara. Granny unfortunately couldn't make it because she was having a lot of back pain and still recovering from her fall in Turkey (she has since had an MRI and has two badly herniated discs).

The ceremony was actually not too bad even though there were several speeches! The students all recited the hippocratic oath together and sang a Latin song -not all that different from Romanian really ... if I'd worked harder on my Latin at school I'd have learned Romanian much easier!

After the ceremony there were the usual endless photos, we took a few of course. Pictured here is Johanna with her group - each year is split into sections and each section has several groups. Johanna began her studies in the English section of the university along with many other foreign students including Indian, Saudi Arabian, American, Greek and many other nationalities. In final year Johanna transferred into a Romanian section as by then she was fluent enough to study in her second language. it has been a hard year, especially taking exams in Romanian but we are all very proud of her for succeeding.

stop press ...

We just arrived home and Amy and Kate started cooking dinner for everyone. Kate dropped a heavy glass jar on her foot which immediately turned blue adn swelled up. Johanna said a trip to the hospital was indicated. At that point the phone rang and Amy answered. it was one of the street boys to let us know that one of the boys has been found dead on the streets. he doesn't know any more, so when we go to the hospital, Kenneth will go to the morgue to try and find out if it's true and more details.

Johanna and Philip's wedding ... some photos at last!

Well, the great day dawned at last ... Kenneth and I were too exhausted to even realise that the wedding day had arrived. During the days leading up to the wedding we discovered all kinds of things which we had thought were done and in fact weren't ... I suppose that's completely normal for weddings. here are just a few snapshots of the day, when we get the "proper" photos I'll post some - Johanna and Philip are in Australia right now so we won't get to see the oficial photos until their return.

Most of the wedding guests from overseas had opted to stay in hotels in Arad but a few were brave enough to stay with us at the house ... poor fools, they didn't know what they were letting themselves in for. Old friends (In time not their ages!)Jane, Steve and Maureeen, brother Tom and our dear sister-in-law Susan and niece Deborah saved the day in more ways than one! There they are in the photos (Maureen is the one on her own ... not Intentional maureen!) My friend Mariana helped me in the week before they arrived to clear space for them in which to sleep - we had several large donations of clothing and food and I did wonder where people would sleep, but Mariana and Amy worked hard and we managed to find a bed of sorts for everyone!

Kenny was DJ for the day, helped by his girlfriend Alina. Poor Kenny got forgotten about and was only taken to the hotel with his equipment half an hour before the wedding service was due to start! He then dashed off for the service and rushed back to the hotel as soon as possible but ended up having to do his sound testing when all the guests had already arrived ... not an easy task, especially as there was a good number of children running around the dance floor!

The marriage ceremony was held at the Lutheran church, known as the Red Church on Bulevardul Revolutiei, the main road which runs through the city centre (you can just about see the church on this photo, tucked in behind the Primaria, town hall). It was a lovely service conducted by old friend and former elder at our church in Glasgow, David Harvey. We upheld the tradition of the bride being late ... and the bride's parents, uncle, aunt, cousin, bridesmaids, brother and all our house guests ... it's a long story involving a fair amount of stress and too much to do in one morning! The marriage service was lovely with three beautiful hymns and a moving solo by Michael Abubakar.

The reception was held in the panoramic suite on the 11th floor of the Hotel Continental also on Bulevardul Revolutiei. It is an amazing venue with balconies all round and lovely views of Arad, as you can see.

The food was fantastic, a cold buffet followed by a hot buffet, with a large selection of dishes. Our visitors from abroad all praised the food, Romanian buffets are always great. Main courses were followed by platefuls of delicious cakes, not that I saw any of them, in fact I ate very little as I was too busy trying to make sure everyone was all right. To finish it all off the wedding cake was huge, something like 15kg made from chocolate sponge and black cherries and as you can see from the photos was a little unusual.

Kenneth's speech was totally unrehearsed as he simply didn't get chance to prepare anything - he had planned to show photos of Johanna when she was small and stroppy ... now she's all grown up but just as stroppy! (She's in Australia right now so i can say what I want!)

Kenny did a good job of the DJ-ing and we had a nice mix of different types of music and dancing including a little Romanian folk music and of course a few Scottish dances ... and what a laugh that was! The photo shows me trying to show Mariana's husband Nelu a "St Bernard's waltz" - actually he was very good. We also did a couple of other dances including a "Strip the Willow" which to some of our Romanian friends will forever be known as "Strip the Widow"!

Travel cots are such handy things ... this one, donated in the summer by a kind friend at PCF church in wolverhampton was invaluable on the wedding day for both Yasmina and Irina's wee girl Daniela to have naps! Aunties are also pretty invaluable and auntie Jane and auntie Maureen did a wonderful job of looking after Yasmina for us. Mustn't forget the uncles ... uncle Tom and uncle Steve did a great job of being the taxi drivers!

still too busy to write ...

Since our return from the UK life has been rather more frantic than usual ... is this possible you ask? Well, it must be because it has been!

Firstly we had my mum's accident and all the worry that went with it, which included Amy being in somewhat of a state of shock for a few days when she returned from Turkey. Then we had Johanna sitting her final medical exams and all the stress that involved for us all (!) followed by graduation which was obviously a very special day for us all ... for photos see my mum's blog (www.rose-mynewlifeinromania.blogspot.com) as I don't know when I will manage to find the time! Then immediately after graduation it was the WEDDING ... and how we survived that I don't know ... not the wedding itself but all the preparations and strain and stress. We had lots of visitors from overseas which was lovely and so far the feedback about the wedding has been extrelely positive, everyone having enjoyed the day immensely. When I get chance I will write about it and post photos ... but keep checking my mum's blog because she's sure to beat me to it!!! Johanna and Philip are on honeymoon in France and next week we will join them and some Scottish friends for a few days (if we manage to get everything here organised that is!) We have to close the day centre for a couple of weeks as Irina is having a few problems and we won't be able to leave her in charge. When we get back from France we begin renovation work on the kitchen and dining room, so it will be all go!

back to reality!

After a feew weeks away in the UK Kenneth and I were glad to get home. We missed the family, only Yasmina came with us as everyone else had commitments. I hated being without all of my own, just the littlest, it wasn't the same at all but such is life when one's children grow up! We finished our time with a lovely weekend in Wales with PCF church in Wolverhampton. On our return last Thursday evening we truly felt ready for anything ... but less than a week later the only thing we feel ready for is running away! In the early hours of Friday morning Kenneth had a phone call from Amy on holiday in Turkey with my mum. Mum had fallen, banged her head quite badly and been taken by ambulance to hospital. Poor Amy was in a panic and really distressed, with no one to help her. To cut a long story short, both are now back in Arad, mum with a broken nose and nasty bruising and feeling generally very rough and Amy, I think still suffering from shock and having bad dreams about seeing granny lying on the floor unconscious.

Enough for now ... Yasmina is complaining - bed time I think and anyway I think I'll have an early night, we have a busy day tomorrow with eye testing in the day centre and also a performing arts team who are with us for a few days.

Trip to the UK

Well, we finally managed to find a few weeks in which to visit the UK. Last year we didn't manage at all, there wasn't a week without a team or other visitors. Only Kenneth and I and baby Yasmina have come away as everyone else was too busy ... Johanna with wedding plans and exams, Kenny with doctor's visits and DJ-ing/MC-ing at the Strand each weekend and Amy with planning a surprise party for her best friend's 18th and also driving lessons. Johanna is looking after Rosie and Amy is keeping an eye on the day centre and Irina. Hopefully I'll get some time to update my blogs while we're away ... but don't hold your breath!