I'm still here but not for long!

I've had a few emails asking why I'm not blogging so much lately. I am blogging, it's just that I'm blogging on my private blog as I have a lot of things that I don't want to share publicly. Andy and I are fine though...in fact we're off to Norway tomorrow...yay! Will catch up with you all in a couple of weeks :)

Why?

I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes and wondering "why"? The reason is this news report here.

Warning - video contains some information which you may find distressing (in fact I hope you do...this needs to stop!).

The sad thing is that I am not surprised by this at all. Many of you know that I used to be a nurse before I changed careers and I saw this kind of thing go on all the time - albeit on a more subtle level. It's a disgrace - it was then too. And the worst thing is nobody is/was interested! I remember at one point I did some agency nursing which saw me working night shifts as the only qualified person in the care homes. One morning I walked past one resident's room to hear a shouting match going on (a one sided one at that). fearing for the resident's safety I entered the room to find one of the care assistants standing over the resident shouting at her....and I mean PROPER shouting. I made her leave the room and reported my concerns.....nobody was interested. Personally I was horrified and the next time I had to work with her I put her on mostly laundry duty so that she wouldn't be near the residents. I was terrified at the thought of leaving her with them - especially knowing that I'd be to blame being the person in charge.

I just don't get it - I honestly don't. These are people's family, people (adult) children, the most PRECIOUS "thing" in somebody's life. You bet I feel angry! You see it's a job to them (not ALL obviously) - they don't see the privileged position they are in, the way that they have access to people's lives like nobody else. One day I hope they realise before it's too late.

Wentworth Castle & Gardens

When Andy and I were in Scotland we started thinking about all the great days out that were on our own door step. You know? We think nothing of driving a few hundred miles to go see a Scottish castle or public gardens - yet we have an abundance of things like that here in Yorkshire! So when we came home we decided to make a point of visiting some of Yorkshire's own attractions and began our quest to find cheap days out locally. Unfortunately we weren't able to make good use of any discounts as the best discounts (in fact the ONLY discounts I could find) were for families...which is usually the case here. Anyway...I'm digressing....

So today we arrived at Wentworth Castle & Gardens - a large estate which thanks to English Heritage is now mostly open to the public. The estate is 50 acres and is actually mainly open to the public free of charge (although you do have to pay £3 parking fees). However, we chose to pay £4.95 each which allowed us entry in to the Victorian flower garden and other landscaped & oriental gardens (an includes the parking fee too). Personally I did think it was a little on the expensive side, as with all English Heritage sites in my opinion, but I have no doubt that the maintenance charges on this place must be astronomical!

You can find out more about Wentworth Castle and gardens here, but the main thing to realise when you see the photos is that it isn't actually a defensive medieval castle (like you'd normally think of when you hear the word castle) so much as a large country house. Also, the castle like structure in the photos is actually a "folly" which is what rich people of the past used to build in order to show their wealth. Follies are all over the world but here in the UK they're (almost) on every street corner*

*Possibly a slight over exaggeration

Anyway, enjoy the pics of my little slice of Yorkshire :)

This beautiful Victorian conservatory is currently being restored

Victorian flower garden

views of Yorkshire

the old public road used to enter the estate here

some monument

a folly - built for the kids to play in!

grounds at the back of the folly

Lady Lucy's Walk - Lucy was one of the owner's children and was said to have died of a broken heart as she couldn't marry the person that she loved. She is said to haunt this lime tree walk...no we didn't see her.

A few more pics

Here are a few more pics from Scotland...

the hotel

NOT the hotel :)     Actually it's Inverary Castle!

more from Inverary Castle

first signs of spring - don't you just love daffs?

some road on the way to Inverary - did you know "inver" means mouth? Well you do now :)

view from our hotel room window - isn't it great?

I have spent much of the week sorting out things for the course which I just found out that I have got a place on. I had to fill in forms for course fees - our company pay the fees up to £5,000 a year which is a BIG help to me. The form was pretty huge and I'm almost done with it except for negotiating some time off work to attend the lectures - only 3 days every 6 weeks. I am aiming to not have to work any of it back because having a rubbish memory and dyslexia makes it hard enough to learn without having to work extra hours at work as well. So far the company offer isn't acceptable to me so I'm still negotiating.

Other forms include applying for DSA (Disabled Students Allowance) as I need a new needs assessment and I need to see if the LEA (education authority) will give me permission to have one - and anything which the needs assessor thinks I need. I'm not sure I'm eligible as I've had the grant before but I have been told to apply anyway....what's another 30 page form on top of the others though eh? The allowance covers things like any software that I'll need such as things like speech to text software and dictaphones etc. I still have  a bunch of stuff from my last course so as long as it all works with Vista then I shouldn't need anything new at all....just the £400+ for the needs assessment.  I expect to have support in place in 6 months time....no kidding...it takes forever! So this weekend I will be busy finding all my old educational psychology assessments and stuff to apply for that.....looks like I'll be setting up camp by the scanner scanning everything in....must have about 100 pages to scan in so far!

Well I'll leave it there.....more photos later perhaps :)

Have a fun weekend everyone!

Oh heck what have I done?

Well I applied for course I mentioned in my previous post and today I found out I have been accepted onto it pending my references and proof of my previous degree result. So basically I am on the course! Oh heck what have I done? Help?!

So those plans I mentioned previously will need to be set in stone now. I know some people won't be happy but seriously I am not super human so I'm not even going to TRY and keep up with everything. I have learnt my lesson in the past and I refuse to make myself sick again. So starting after my trip to Norway next month I will be working a reduced schedule of work (note I said REDUCED not NON EXISTANT). I will still be doing all my usual activities but just less of it.

Anyway onto other things - I have a few more pics to share from my recent trip to Scotland...

Ok we all know I don't do photos so apologies for the stupid face! But I was told you wanted more pics of me...for some INSANE reason LOL. I've had my hair done since this pic though...

That's it for now but I'll share more later :)