Lands End to John O'Groats, via Facebook.

 605 miles (if you go in a straight line), a virtual race, with postcards every 50 real miles. Mostly exercise biked, often whilst watching television in the evening, but also walking this beautiful countryside with a friend and her mad chaos beasts.

 Old English churches

 Radley Lakes

 Mad chaos beasts of mud and destruction and maypole dancing.

 Nearly there!

 A farewell to Didcot Power Station, due for demolition this weekend.

 A final walk in the woods

 And the view from my 605th mile (and yes, those are neck high nettles)!

 

My medal (hanging from the trusty steed). 

605 miles, through virtual countryside via postcards, and through all too real and muddy countryside, but never through the rain. It's been fun, and motivating, and now I need the next challenge to keep me from sitting still.

12.

Twelve years since you made your entrance into this world. Twelve years since you first threw the unexpected at those who loved you the most. Twelve years since the first doctor first declared you'd have to make your own mind up about when to wake up. Twelve years since those first moments of joy and despair mixed, of wondering who and how you would become the person you are. 

I didn't know you then. But I've been here for every birthday ever since. And I know that joy and desolation, hope and fear, love and sorrow and blessing that you carry. 

There were times earlier this year when I didn't think we'd make it this far. You, so tired, throwing ever more complications our way. And yet, here you are, wide awake and singing at 5am. Genuinely, delightedly, excited for the day ahead. Laughing in anticipation, awake still when your sister was up, ready to open presents four or more hours earlier than your usual start to the day. 

Later, helping to blow out candles, choosing cuddles, taking your nurses for a walk to the cafe and drinking coffee with them. 

Family parties later still, and precious friends here the week before. A quieter birthday than last year's. But a beautifully gently perfect one nevertheless. 

Happy, happy Birthday my precious one. 

Dragonfly day.

Everywhere we stepped, blue damsel flies underfoot. 

A cuckoo in the trees

Big green and brown dragonflies, iridescent black and blue ones, 

Swans and cygnets, geese and goslings, boats gently chugging, and the gentle hum of insects whenever we walked away from the water. 

Blue skies, a buzzing haze, water lilies and shoals of nervous fish. 

Happy dogs, wet dogs, tired out ancient dogs, and wildly over enthusiastic bouncy teenage dogs in search of the perfect stick. 

Lunch with this view, and a lazy amble home again. A beautiful gentle life-filled ramble. 

At one point, surrounded by neck high nettles, I took picture two. 

I lift my eyes up, where does my help come from. 

Tia. 

Gulp

I can: 

Break open glass ampoules without shredding my thumb (now someone has shown me which way to hold them). 

Squirt medication into cheeks and tubes (and unmentionables). 

Assess which medication might be best to give first, tweak a cocktail of meds to make a child more comfortable, draw up morphine whilst holding a discussion with another child about Peppa Pig and recorders. 

I can reposition aching limbs, bind up pressure sores, hook up non invasive ventilators, Hoover secretions out of airways, and cobble together broken wheelchairs. 

I can tube feed whilst nagging a child to drink. I can lose my temper and apologise for it. I can watch scoliosis ravage a spine, whilst planning a second op to fix another child's spine. 

I can bake strawberry cakes whilst giving nebs, cuddle children who either don't bend or bend in the wrong way, and play 20 questions to work out what a child would like for her upcoming birthday. 

But it turns out, I can't listen to a child singing along to the Downing Family's "When I Wake Up To Sleep No More." Not when that child then starts crying, and 20 questions reveals she is sad because she feels so poorly. 

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/window/media/page/0,,7672954-21087395,00.html

"Glory to God I'll have a new body/changed in the twinkling of an eye/When I wake up to sleep no more. With the redeemed of all the ages/praising the one whom I adore/When I wake up to sleep no more."

Not without crying too, anyway. 

Tia

14

Fourteen years ago this week, I was making cheese and potato pie to a recipe from the cook at a local children's home. 

I was shuffling mountains of easy care clothing (all from one shop, mostly one style in various assorted colours) into suddenly too small drawers. 

Working out how best to fit everything into the lift at once without tripping the sensors. And learning where exactly to leave the hoist so the cabling didn't strangle me. 

Saying goodbye to a breathtakingly beautiful boy who had shared my life for the past six months, and opening my home to a tangle octopus of a girl, with long dancing fingers and a habit of partying most nights. 

Out with the dungarees, and in with the hair bands. Out with the puddle jumping, and in with a wheelchair. Out with Teletubbies, and bring on the Three Little Pigs. And Elmo. And a large extended family. 

Imi is now the same age as Goldie was when she moved in. And this week, Imi is the same weight as Goldie was once she'd had a few months of eating my own version of cheese and 'atato pie. And choc-oh-late cayke. And chips. And oranges and raisins and the corners of more Ladybird books than you might think existed. 

My great big Goldie was in fact substantially smaller than Imogen when she was the same age. 

Goldie lived with us and shared our lives for just half of these past 14 years. Today, Amana has been with me for the same length of time that Goldie lived under our roof. And Goldie has very nearly been gone for more time than she was with us. 

Seven years go this week, Goldie moved into her own home. A bright new future, with 1:1 staffing so she could lead her own life, be independent, go out and do things she was interested in doing, be entertained, and busy. 

We visited daily in those early days. Taught staff how to make cheese and potato pie and porridge and crumble and custard and a cup of tea at just the perfect temperature. Trained staff in the importance of always having batteries for Elmo and how to avoid the books being eaten and why it was important to keep reading the stories. 

Today I cleared out one of the darker corners of Amana's bedroom. And two forgotten Elmos lay staring up at me, wide mouths silently shaping the ABC song, always and only the ABC song. One plus and shiny, sourced from eBay at huge cost, ready to replace a failing one once it had been chewed to death. And one ancient and beloved, singing stomach removed (that'll be the insert on the top shelf in the sitting room then, waiting patiently still for the new batteries which were never needed. 

Elmos, always. 

Fourteen years since I first spent a night hearing Elmo sing his ABCs whilst a small girl rocked her bed until I moved it away from the walls and willed her to sleep. 

And seven years since she last needed his comforting sameness.