watervole | Entries tagged with family

Theo Pendragon Proctor

The Pendragon (which I like) is a nod to 'Pending'. A friend misheard it as 'Pendragon' and my son's middle name is Arthur, so it's rather a nice fit.

Can anyone recommend a good modern collection of the Arthurian stories? I'd like to get Oswin that for Xmas. (She's 10, but reads at a higher level)

My son and my daughter in law left for the hospital a couple of hours ago. Pending appears to be pretty much on time. His official due date was tomorrow. Depending on the length of the labour, Oswin (Pending's cousin) may win the unofficial sweepstake. She plumped for Halloween. Nobody actually took today! (I went for November 4th, as first babies are often a little later).

Here's hoping everything goes well.

We've waited a long time for this grandson we thought we'd never have. (One of each feels nice. Oswin's really looking forward to meeting him as well. At age 10, she's about the age I was when my little twin sisters were born, and myself and my closest sister were able to help with feeding them and other things. Oswin's hoping she'll be able to spend time getting to know Pending and playing with him, etc.

All three families live within walking distance, if you're fit - cycling distance or car if you're my age...

Hopefully, my next post, whenever it is, will be to say that he's arrived safely, and has got his new name for the rest of his life.

I haven't been here for a while, becuase I had horrible sciatica.

I'm pretty much a sciatica specialist this days...

I've had identical pain in the leg (If you've ever had sciatica, then you'll know just how painful this is. If you haven't - I hope you never do) caused by multiple causes. Pressure on the sciatic nerve from a herniated disc in the spine, an inflamed bursa pressing on the nerve, and a tight piriformis nerve pressing on the nerve. Only an expert can tell which cause it actually is, and even they may need an MRI scan to confirm it.

Thank heaven, I know a really good physiotherapist... Manfred had the right diagnosis when I had bursitis, and I trusted him enough even than to see a second doctor when the first one insisted it wasn't bursitis. The second doctor (I find young doctors are useful when you want them to accept a physio's diagnosis) agreed. I arranged for a jab in the bursa (can be done in a doctor's surgery) which removed the pain in around 60 seconds...

Manfred was away when I first went down with pain this time (he goes to the Netherlands a lot, as he has an elderly mother who needs help), so I saw three other physios who all agreed that the problem was a herniated disc in my spine pressing on the sciatic nerve and giving me horrendous pain in my leg.

I wasn't surprised, as I've had that before, and was successfully treated for it with an epidural injection in the damaged disc - which was a magical treatment that made half a year of pain vanish in about 60 seconds. I joined the waiting list for an MRI scan (long) and went to see Manfred when he returned in the hope that he could help a little.

I hobbled in with my walking stick, couldn't walk without it at that point. I expected him to say 'Herniated disc' He didn't. Well, I trust him. His diagnosis was a lot of very tight muscles in my back (caused by sleeping on very uneven ground while fighting the Civil War - faulty airbed - carrying heavy boxes, and a very long train journey.)

That session reduced the pain enough for me to ditch the walking stick, and weekly visits since then have improved thing much more. I'm back dancing again. Still a little bit of progress to go, as there's some tightness to exercise/massage out, but I can now sit down long enough to play a board game and write to you all.

Basically, if other experts disagree with Manfred, I'll back him every time!

I've said a massive thank you to him. My first grandson will be born sometime in the next three weeks. I now know that I will be able to sit and cuddle him, walk round carrying him, and smile at him without pain.

There is no greater gift.

My son, Henry, and his wife are expecting their first child in late October. Nursery school provision in our area is booked up well in advance, so they are scouting places out now in order to have a place when they need it.

This requires filling in many forms. All of which ask for the child's name...

This was before they knew the gender of the forthcoming sprog.

So, the first box was filled in with 'Pending'.

'Pending' Proctor has now become the nickname of my grandson to be. I suspect it may occasionally emerge even when he has an official name.

It's been an interesting week...

I have one dearly loved grandchild who has just turned ten - Oswin. Her mama had such a bad pregnancy that another kid was out of the question.

Oswin's uncle married a lovely lady who didn't want children. He would have loved children, but she really is a lovely woman and was perfect for him in every other regard, so he married her, accepting that condition.

I, in turn, accepted that I would never have another grandchild - put hope out of my mind. Hope can corrode away at you when no result comes from it, and can also encourage you to pester people.

But times change. It's been a long wait, but earlier this week, my son reduced me to instant tears by showing me an ultrasound scan of a tiny baby!

I can't wait for late October!

Life changes, both in good ways and in bad.

I step onto the landing and it's so strange to look at my son's room and see nothing in it. The house seems so empty. I'll miss him, but I'll get over it.

The good news is that he's bought a house with the woman he loves and moved into it on Saturday. He's living within 40 mins walk and 15 mins cycle ride and we'll still see each other at least twice a week what with morris dancing and board games.

It's been a long haul. He's spent a year and a half travelling to Aberystwyth every other weekend without fail. He met C through Anonymous Morris and then she got a university contract in Aberystwyth and left Dorset.

Henry takes after his father. Proctor men don't give up easily when they fall in love. His father spent two years commuting to Norwich every weekend during term time to be with me - he graduated two years before I did.

C is a lovely person. Intelligent, great dancer, enjoys board games, friendly, helpful - perfect for him, and watching the two of them together never fails to make me smile.

They're engaged and will probably get married next Spring.

That's both the children settled in homes close by - I know I'm fortunate in that. My kids both wanted to work locally and to keep in close contact. We're a close knit family - may have something to do with all those family board games, or the influence of our respective parents, or pure luck.

Crossposts: https://watervole.livejournal.com/663869.html

Here's Oswin sitting in front of her great-grandad behind the engine her great-great-grandad made. (With granny - me in purple trousers, and grandad - Richard sitting on the bench, in the background)

Crossposts: http://watervole.livejournal.com/619518.html

I've been rooting through a load of old family documents. AuntyGillian has offered to try and sort out the family tree and put it online. I had a go at it when my children were small and made a lot of progress, but that was pre-Internet days. Now, it makes much better sense to link family members by proper links than by page references. And documents can now be scanned, which means that all of the family will have access to things.

I've found some documents that I'd thought were lost. Letters written from the trenches in 1917 by my great uncle. A letter from my grandfather to my grandmother telling her about the bombing in Manchester. My great-grandfather's battle with the Carnegie Trust over some property in Dunfermline. A random selection of lives -mostly determined by what my grandmother chose to keep.

A whole pile of photographs, many sadly unlabelled. Who is the young woman with long, dark, curly hair who chose to fancy-dress as a gypsy for the photographer? Or the distinguished man with the Victorian beard?

What will future generations choose to keep of us?

Why does a handwritten letter convey so much more than an old email?

How ephemeral is the Internet?

Crossposts: http://watervole.livejournal.com/549702.html

vjezkova , read this and weep! The poem is perfectly correct English, just evilly uses lots of words that are spelt and pronounced in different ways. (Thanks to

happydisciple for pointing out the site)

I couldn't read it at my normal speed. My brain kept having to slow down as it encountered too many variant spelling rules all at once.

I suddenly have great sympathy with my half great great uncle Herbert...

I knew only two things about him. One was that he was a friend of HG Wells and the other that he was a professor of History at University College, Cardiff.

Out of curiosity, I once entered Herbert Bruce and HG Wells into Google - I found this page. They were both members of the Society for Simplified Spelling - which is where the above poem is to be found.

It's a small world.

Do I admit that this is my son..( Click here... )

My brother-in-law, Simon Proctor, has his own Wikipedia page. It's not exactly fame, but it's still nice in an odd sort of way.

He is a composer, and he specialises in composing music for unusual instruments. One of the reasons I decided to embroider a serpent was because he composes music for serpents. A serpent is an extremely old English instrument, which is black and bendy and does indeed look a little bit like a snake.

I went to visit my parents last week. Both had disclaimed any family history of Dupuytren's. However, when I took a look at their hands, it became evident that my mother definitely has it. She has a couple of lumps, and growth along one tendon (less developed than mine, but unmistakably Dupuytren's). My father has a lump in exactly the right place - the twin to one of my lumps, but no growth yet. (hence, probably Dupuytren's, but one wouldn't say for certain without an ultrasound scan).

This double parental factor probably helps explain why I developed the disease at a relatively early age. It normally affects people in their sixties and seventies - if you talk to someone in that age range, it is pretty well guaranteed that they will know someone who has it.

I've finished the radiotherapy sessions now. I'll be getting a follow-up appointment in a few months to see how effective it's been.

I think I'm falling in love with Sheffield...

I've been away visiting my parents near Manchester, but I discovered that my cheapest option for the journey actually involved going home via Sheffield and Cambridge (taking in the Sheffield SF pub meet and the Cambridge ZZ9 party en route). This was very handy as one of my sisters lives in Sheffield.

( Pretty pictures (not taken by me) )

exalted_mugwump is back from university and

micavity is round for the day. We've been playing board games, singing songs and trying to manage tunes on mouth organs. Kelvin and I have pretty much equal skills here. I think he probably won by one tune as his rendition of 'Good King Wenceslas' was just about recognisable, and Henry worked out he was playing 'Wild Rover' even if I failed to recognise it. However, although my stab at 'The Keel Row' was recognised eventually, 'Dirty Old Town' failed to make it to the recognition level.

Methinks we both have a fair way to go with the harmonica! (Recorders, bowed psaltry and concertina I can manage - mouth organs are a new venture and very different to play...)

My parents invited all their children and grandchildren to help celebrate their Golden Wedding anniversary this weekend. We all stayed in some chalets in Darwin Country Park in Derbyshire which was a lovely venue for a family get together. We spent some time in smaller groups - some of us going shopping/cycling/visting steam railways/going to look at rocks/etc, while others took other choices from the list. Then we all got together in the evenings and chatted/played games/went swimming/played with the two smallest children/embroidered/watched DVDs.

I greatly enjoyed simple things like going shopping in BAkewell with my mother and my sister CArolyn. It's so rare that we can be together and just do something relaxing that we will enjoy together. We browsed charity shops (got a great dress for my sister and a book on plant names for me) and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill (lots of cheap CDs including duplicates of Roger Whittacker, Stanley Holloway and Paul Robeson - it's surprising how similar our tastes are) and a pair of cord trousers for me. We had lunch in a shop that sold the most fantastic glassware. Luckily, I have nowhere suitable to put that kind of stuff, otherwise I might have been tempted to spend a fortune.

It poured with rain. As I was just wearing a thing silk top and trousers that I knew would dry out in no time and I didn't have any shoes on (as per normal this summer), I took great delight in waltzing down the middle of the cobbled street getting happily wet and dancing in the puddles and smiling at all the people huddled in doorways!

WE spent a very long time in the most fantastic embroidery shop I have ever been in. Fantastic stock and incredibly helpful staff who really know their stock and who all, obviously stitch themselves (including the bloke). http://www.wye.co.uk/ THey were able to answer my questions on all sorts of things and are mail ordering me some small kits I wanted that they didn't currently have in stock. They also told me where my best chance of finding a pattern I wanted that had just gone out of print was. (ie. Really helpful even when they can't sell it to me themselves) I'd recommend them very highly for cross-stitch/needlepoint/drawn-thread work/crewel work information/materials/kits.

On Sunday, went cycling with

waveney and my sister Gillian. We went along the route of the old CRomford and High Peak railway which is now a cycle trail with wonderful butterflies and wild flowers. http://www.derbyshire-peakdistrict.co.uk/thehighpeaktrail.htm The pictures here really don't do it justice.

I also went swimming with my sons and my brothers-in-law and my two nephews. Also had fun playing fribees with nephews and reading stories and playing other games and generally doing auntie things. Kids have masses of energy when they're 2 and 4 respectively, but they're great fun.

Can you tell that I had a good time? Happy smile.

Here's the five questions I was asked by

dougs. If you want me to interview you, leave a note in the comments.

1. Often, when something good happens, some group of worthy people gets casually omitted when the credit gets handed out. Pick one such good thing, one such uncredited group, and praise them.

2. Default behaviour on this meme is to ask questions which draw the victim out on their favoured topics. In this case, the strong temptation is to ask questions about the environment. Which questions do you often itch to be asked, but which never arise because people ask you questions about the environment instead?

3. Intermittent voice trouble, intermittent shoulder trouble. You have to choose -- you could pick a complete and permanent cure for one of them, in exchange for constant serious problems with the other. Which way round do you make the choice?

4. Imagine you'd had two daughters instead of two sons. Describe your life.

5. You're well known for your activities in B7 and SG fandoms. What are your other fannish obsessions? Any other shows you'd eagerly recommend to someone with time on their hands?

( my answers )

micavity came to visit.

entorien kindly parted with

micavity for a weekend. We went for a couple of walks, played a few board games, watched Galaxyquest and I went down to the bus station with him. WE had an enjoyable time and it helped to ease my

exalted_mugwump withdrawal symptoms. I look forward too seeing him again before long.

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Judith Proctor

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Judith Proctor's Journal

Ramblings on morris dancing, 17th century re-enactment, and gardening

Entries tagged with family

Theo Pendragon Proctor

My first (and probably only) grandson

Baby on the way

Back again

Forthcoming grandchild

Family

Life changes

Puffer and family

Family history

English is Evil

Mother of the zombie

Almost famous

Dupuytren's in the family

Sheffield

Today is a good day - got both my boys for once

(no subject)

Interview meme

The weekend

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