Mrs Birks Blogs

Dear Jon, Last night when I couldn't sleep I started thinking about writing to you.  Tomorrow will be your 50th birthday and of all the 'anniversaries' since your death, this one seems particularly hard.  You were always better at writing the soppy stuff than me.  Even though your handwriting and spelling was terrible, you always used to write the loveliest messages to me in birthday and anniversary cards.  I write the occasional blog, but you were always so much better at expressing your love for me and the children in writing.   I wish I had trusted that love more. When I read those cards back now, I can see that your love was constant and uncomplicated.  You were proud to be my husband and proud to be a father.   I wish I had seen that and just enjoyed it.  I was wrapped up in the everyday and I was insecure.  I questioned our relationship.  I didn't need to.   You loved me the way that I am, you chose me, you liked me...

I didn't really want to write this post and have been putting it off for ages but I feel I must finish our cancer story which ends pretty much in the way you'd expect.  Mr Birks has gone.  'Gone' is a pretty rubbish way to put it considering my last post which mentioned the language of cancer but there's no easy way to say that someone has died.  6 months after diagnosis and 6 weeks after writing my previous blog post, Jonathan Birks, the funniest man in the world, died in the Tapping House Hospice, Norfolk. We never did get our pain free time in the end.  Although Jon always claimed it was more discomfort than pain, he wasn't able to sit properly or sleep or eat, it completely restricted his life and took the joy out of everything.  He went from being relatively mobile to unable to get out of bed by himself very quickly and his final deterioration was shockingly quick.  If you've never seen death close up, like I hadn't, every little change comes as a...

I haven't posted on my blog for quite some time and it's not just because of my usual tardiness.  I usually post about nice things on here, things I enjoy, things that make me happy but since my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer it has been hard to find anything that brings me joy. When my husband told me that he had found a lump, my first reaction was 'I hope it's not cancer'.  His Mum and Dad both died of cancer a few years previously and within one year of each other, so in our family cancer means death.  No survivors, no fighters who have won, just beautiful people that have left us too early.  When he went for his second biopsy, I knew it was cancer.  By this time, my optimism that it could be something else had disappeared and I was beginning to think through practicalities - How would he cope with treatment?  How would he eat?  How would he talk?  Even with our experiences of cancer, I still hadn't faced the idea that he might di...

Looking back over this blog, I find it VERY difficult to believe that I have never written about Harry Potter before.  In fact, I did start writing a post last year but looking back it only contained one sentence, so no wonder I didn't post it! Anyway, the daughter and I are HUGE fans of Harry Potter.  I couldn't wait until she was old enough to 'get into' Potter and now she is like a walking encyclopedia.  We have loads of the books - original, illustrated and Kindle in Motion version, plus house colours (Ravenclaw) and an American Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I have a Hogwarts and Slytherin 'goblet' from the original WB store and we were given the original Lego Hogwarts and Hagrid's Hut.  As I write this, I'm in my Hogwarts hoodie and I'm being to see how obsessed we seem... But before this turns into a list of stuff, this post is all about indulging in your Potter addiction by visiting some of the best Potter attractions.  Now h...

Everyone knows that I do like a bit of upcycling.  In fact recently, we upcycled our very old and very grotty Ikea table.  I mention that it's an Ikea one so that you all know that I didn't destroy a fantastic, retro piece of furniture with glue and paint.  It was already a grotty looking thing that had started yellowing pretty badly, so we had nothing to lose by upcycling in a slightly experimental way. When we cleared out my in-laws house we kept some of their old maps - I had a vague notion of doing something crafty with them.  What we hadn't noticed when Barbara and Nick were alive was that everytime we had moved house (and we have moved house a lot) they had bought an Ordnance Survey map of that area.  The husband and I were both really touched by this, so the maps felt even more special and we thought we might want some of them 'out' to look at.  Queue perfect marriage of table that needs a tidy up and maps of special places we have been. I p...

Last year I bought 4 new (old) chairs so that I would have enough to host my daughter's birthday party.  Our old chairs were looking a bit shabby and two of them had developed a wobble so after the party, the plan was to get rid of the old chairs and upcycle the new (old) ones.  Skip to one year later and we have finally upcycled our chairs and they look pretty special (although don't look too closely) Before the upcycle they looked like this: These are the chairs after some sanding down, shortly after we collected them.  We bought them through eBay for £20 - a bargain at £5 per chair and collected from about 10 minutes away from our house.  They then sat in our shed for a number of months... Here they are after the upcycle: We used some chalk paints from B&Q - some little tester pots to get different colours and a top coat by Frenchic (which looked suspiciously like watered down PVA).  The top coat gave the finished chairs a nice 'feel' a...

So, it's Summer again. Readers of this blog will know that the summer fills me with joy! It doesn't matter about the weather or what we get up to, just the feeling of having free time and being able to cuddle the children when I like is enough...although the odd bonus nap is always appreciated too! We have been lucky this year in that family members have treated us to several weekends away - Centre Parcs (my goodness, I was excited!) and a lovely stable conversion in Ross-on-Wye - so I don't really feel like we're missing out by not going away for weeks on end, despite all the hotdog leg pictures on Facebook! (Ok, maybe I am a bit jealous).  What we are doing is spending a very exciting week in London being total tourists.   We are staying in Greenwich, house sitting for my Sister-in-Law whilst she is away (not that she really needs us to!).  From such a fantastic location we should be able to get out and about without having to make sure we get back in time to ...

And so Ouse Fest has finished for this year but not before we went two more local events: Mepal Outdoor Centre Family Fun Day and Denver Sluice Fun Day. Mepal Fun Day With oddly hot/cold weather the family fun day started for us with a picnic whilst looking at some crazy kids doing the high ropes.  Our oldest was too young to have a go at this but did instead sign up for the Trust Trail which involved a hard hat, a blind fold and a trail of obstacles.  Two dirty knees later and a trek through the woods, she had a sense of satisfaction having crawled through tiny spaces following a rope wire around the assault course. For our youngest, who was too young for almost everything, the bouncy castle was his favourite activity and because it wasn't hugely busy when we got to it, he was able to spend a good while bouncing about.  He did listen to some of the storytelling and watched the Morris Dancing but as an active young man he found it hard to keep still which meant he ke...

You will notice that some of these posts will have a water based theme over the next few weeks, this is because it's Ouse Fest.  What?  You don't know what Ouse Fest is?  Well let me inform you - it's a celebration of the 'Ouse Washes landscapes and communities'  Ok, I'll admit I had to look that up but  you can find out more about it here So as part of the Ouse River Festival Fortnight, Welney Wetlands Centre (about 15 minutes drive from our house) had a kids go free day.  A great opportunity to discover some local wildlife and make the most of the good weather (not sunny but dry at least!).  It cost £8.99 for me to take the kids and would normally be £3.90 for children (under 4s are free) which includes gift aid, so you feel like you're doing some good for the environment. The first thing that strikes you at WWT is the peace and quiet - well apart from the tractors going by but then that's another attraction for the kids.  The pathway to...

As many of you know, I have moved house quite a lot.  And not just moved house but moved counties several times.  I think my friends and family probably think I'm addicted to moving house (I'm not - who would be?) but actually, I've just moved to be closer to work - even if that work has been all over the country.  Anyway, my husband and I have decided that we won't be moving again for quite some time, so it's time to find out more about the County where we intend to settle for a while. Before we moved to Norfolk, neither of us had visited it or really even considered it as a holiday destination but the town where we live has loads of attractions on the doorstep - beaches less than an hour away, forests and nature reserves and nice easy cycle tracks, plus lots of events for kids and train connection to the big cities - what more could a family of four want? One of our first adventures into the local area was to Thetford Forest.  We were looking...

I  know I haven't been here for ages but let's not dwell on that! Today, I want to talk about CBeebies Land, so this is really one for the Mums and Dads - feel free to tune out now if that's not you. We are all big fans of CBeebies in our house, even our 6 year old will still watch the occasional programme when there's nothing on CITV. Our 2 year old loves Night Garden and Teletubbies but will also have a glance at most things that pop up. With this in mind, I booked a trip to CBeebies Land at Alton Towers way back in January.  We took advantage of the special offers available which included 2nd day free and 35% off an overnight stay.  I had also found out about the indoor water park, which I knew my daughter would love - so for just over £230 we got tickets to Alton Towers, the Water Park and a stay at the Splash Landings Hotel - not bad considering our holiday this year would mainly consist of a staycation.   For some, theme parks can be hellish. ...