Hijack a Holiday!

HAPPY THANKS GIVING!!

To one and all but especially those across the pond!

Remembering how lucky we are is always a good thing but turkey and pumpkin pie will not be on my list of good things...bleuch!

Live and unleashed!

Click here for the link to BBC Scotland iPlayer and we're about 45 minutes in...I'm not sure if people outside the UK can see it but this was our four minutes of fame! Feel free to laugh, cry and comment - it's only up until 28th November so don't say I didn't warn you.

I'll not let it go to my head......

Had a call from the BBC. Our producer spoke to Press Office and now they want to use us for the advertisements for Children in Need.

Tesco shopping will never be the same again

- "Do I know you?"
- "Oh you may have seen me on the telly...."

Can you imagine it?? Oh this is just so funny!!

One neighbour is in on the reality TV joke and is primed to confirm if asked by the one who "happened to walk by" when we had our day filming. I'll let you know if it comes off, well, I'll get my people to tell your people.....

Confessions of a rotten mother

Scrumpy is very seldom naughty, and when she is it's short lived, but yesteray I went to check on her in her room to find that not only had she moved her pine double bed across the room in an attempt to get it out the door (again) she had also detached the head board. The bed is dead.

I sort of lost it. I didn't shout, but I dished out the punishment big time. It was the ultimate and in retrospect it was maybe a little heavy handed. I confiscated the video remote control for two sleeps.

She cried.

For about an hour, she cried. A little puffy face came and said "Control disappeared"

"Yes" I said but as the word left my mouth I realised all too late what I'd said and she crumpled again - "Disappeared" means gone for good. I tried my best to convince her, to get her to understand it was not disappeared just gone for two sleeps (a concept she can understand) but the sobbing kept getting in the way. We went through all our usual comfort things, reassurance things, what's happening things - including the return of the remote - I did all I could do.

I am a bad mother.

She cried herself to sleep. Scrumpy never cries, and I made her cry herself to sleep. I'm hoping I have done the right thing in sticking to my original plan and not caving (which I really wanted to do!) but only time will tell. Tomorrow the ordeal will be over.

Fame at Last!

As you know, our girls get to go to holiday club and after school club run by a charity and although we pay for them to go , places are heavily subsidised to maintain the right staff ratios. It works brilliantly and provides a lifeline to a lot of families, sometimes it's the only form of respite they get.

The charity got a large donation form BBC Children in Need and to cut a long story short we got asked to do one of those "Why we still need your money" slots they show on the fund raising nights. By the way, Children in Need is 20th November this year.

Yesterday, after a multitude of questions over several long phone conversations with the researcher we spent from 9.30 to 5.30 filming with the BBC. What a day!

First they filmed us arriving at the holiday club venue with the girls. Scrumpy was good and walked in with Hot Hubby but Bear decided to go all camera shy and locked her arms around my neck saying "Hug you! Hug you!" so I had to walk her backwards to wards the door. Once in she took a moment to get her bearings and then she was off. Phase one (for us) complete, they continued to film the girls doing activities while we dashed home to have a meeting with the speech therapist and some of our support staff.

Just as we finished with the therapist, the film crew arrived and we barely had time to wee before they had us interviewing outside the house. We were really nervous but the crew were really good at putting us more at our ease and encouraging us to stick with it. Not sure what the neighbours thought but I did see one lot "happen to walk past" - we're going to kid them on it's for a reality TV show.

From the outside slot we moved in to the house and I had to do a little talk about each of the rooms we have specifically for the girls - wet room, Bear's chill out room, that kind of thing, followed by the "Oh yes, and here we have one of our many keypad locks....."

We then had to do sit down interview and got asked all sorts of questions about what autism means (hope I did it justice, I managed to get in that what it means to us is different to what it means to other families but I laid in bed last night and thought of so much more I wanted to say!) and what the funding from Children in Need means to us and the charity.

We just about had time to stuff back some lunch before collecting the girls and heading home to be met by the crew who filmed for another two hours - you know that chaotic time between coming home from school and tea? That's what they got.

All in all, it was an exciting, exhausting experience. Considering the finished article will only be a 4 minute slot there'll be an awful lot of us on the cutting room floor. I certainly wasn't prepared for it to be as full-on as it was and I'm not sure I'd want to do it again - for one thing Bear would DEFINITELY get the hairy sound thing, it just escaped this time....but next time.....

We will get a DVD of the final film after they show it on 20th November, BBC Scotland. I will post a linky thing if possible.

Twenty years and counting!

On 7th October 2009, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary (yes, I was a child bride!) and to mark the occasion we had a great big idea to go camping and have special meal out. We stuck to the plan right up to the point we saw the forecast was for high winds and lows of freezing. We would have still gone but our nights of total respite (both girls in at the same time) are precious and as we were both already tired we decided to ditch the adventure in favour of a bit of luxury.

Heaven is an hour and a half north in Helmsdale!

We booked into the Bridge Hotel in Helmsdale and had the most amazing food ever. Hot Hubs and I are partial to seafood and chose, after long deliberation with a G&T, lobster and crab to start. They get them from the harbour at Helmsdale and keep them live in tanks. (Anonymous stop reading NOW!) we were shown our lobster prior to cooking so it really was just about as fresh as you can get. It was just amazing. We absolutely stuffed ourselves on beautifully cooked starters and had barely any room left for our main courses. Hot Hubby stayed with seafood and had his ultimate favourite of queen scallops and I had a roe deer dish which was cooked with an array of mushrooms and was just divine. The dessert list looked great but sadly there was no way either of us could even contemplate it.

We retired to our suite(!) to veg on the sofa and watch a film with the end of our wine and a coffee. No children, nothing to do, just us.

We were woken in the morning by the clock tower chiming outside and (some of) you will have no idea the luxury it was to lay there knowing we didn't have to get up and no one was going to leap on us or drag us out of bed by the ankles (thank you "Lady & the Tramp").

We wandered downstairs for a spot of breakfast just after nine (scrambled eggs and I didn't have to wash the pan!) and hit the winding road home just after 10am. We took a back road which had been recommended for the stunning scenery and we weren't disappointed. We did wish at a couple of points we took the Landrover instead of the Mazda but it was good fun and we were back in time to relax before the girls were home ready for the holidays.

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Love
Amanda