Mug shot

It’s great excitement in TKOE this weekend. We’ve had our first assignment of our mugs. They are going into our webshop soon and we have the craft fair at The Fold, Bransford, Worcestershire next weekend.

They are fine bone china and are lovely. And they bring a smile to our faces when we look at what is on them. Thank you very much indeed Chris, for the idea; Designer Mike for the design; and Mug Man David for doing them so beautifully. Oh, and not forgetting brilliant Rosie for coming up with the quote in the first place, which we know helps a lot of people get through tricky days and things.

 

Jo xxx

Twenty Months

Yesterday was the 20 month anniversary. 20 months. I’m finding that quite hard to consider. When I settled down to write this post I wasn’t feeling particularly different. I suppose it is seeing it in print.

anyway we spent the day with Cal and had a slightly drizzly time on a walk along the shore to a cafe and the a steam train back again. Cal was brilliantly normal so that was a good way to spend a sad day.

i think I will have to go and look at a Rosie video now.

will post again tomorrow.

Jo xx

Lazy Days

This, dear blog readers, is my 80 year old mother about to fly off in a glider. Last weekend’s excitement to top off the big cheque on Friday. This was the grandchildren’s present to her, so Sylvie very nobly represented them as they are all off doing different things at the moment.

The picture is the point at which the pilot was showing her how the controls work, whilst she was actually more concerned with fastening her sick bag to her parachute strap. My dad is checking up on the pilot.

She flew it from 2000 to 900 ft and then arrived back.

Been busy with work and all this week, which is why it’s been a bit quiet on here. However, some TKOE news…

Firstly, thanks to Tim Gilligan for your brilliant donation. I need to start another totaliser now I think.

Secondly we are about to unveil some TKOE/Rosie Kilburn fine bone china mugs. For those nice cup of tea days. And some TKOE hoodies which topped the  TKOE poll of items to buy.

And finally – it’s the Race for Life season again. REMEMBER – you can buy TKOE mixed packs of tshirts at special price if there’s several of you doing it, or just buy one and you’re supporting the cause too.

Just wander on over to the shop – which did have an evil spirit in it last weekend, but the TKOE elf sorted it out – and it’ll be in the post before you can say ‘Race for Life’.

http://theknockoneffect.co.uk

Jo xx

Knock on Effecting

I wasn’t expecting yesterday to carry on as it did when I wrote the blog.

Rosie was pretty much filling up our minds as we left the YPU yesterday. The trickiest bit was passing the room where she’d got her ‘terminal’ diagnosis and, for some reason, seeing the clock tower which was, I suppose, the iconic symbol of yet another bad news visit to QE. On the other hand, and far outweighing the bad feelings, it was brilliant to see people again and to see how the YPU is doing.

Anyway, on the way home, as I was idly looking at Twitter, there was a Tweet from our friends at Hope Support about a 19 year old called William Henderson, who comes from Gloucestershire, who is doing a skydive for McMillan.

So had a bit of a wander over to his Twitter and followed the link. And found this brilliant person, Cal’s age, who’s set up this http://ourmichelle.co.uk/

What a star he is. So Chris, Cal, Sylv, Rosie and I have helped him a bit with his fundraising – it would be good if you can put a shout out for him too. And…..he’s written a bit about Rosie and he’s going to wear a TKOE tshirt with pride on his skydive.

See, knock on effects in action.

Jo xx

Look what Team Kilburn’s done

Look! Finally we did the official presentation this afternoon to the Birmingham Young Person’s Unit of a £5000 cheque, on behalf of TKOE and the £20k c hallenge .

This is me with a handy large  cheque (or ‘whopping’ as the papers would have it) , with Helen, the Clic Sergeant social worker, who sorted out some funding for Rosie’s first laptop which set her off on her blog stardom and was the powerhouse for TKOE; and who also sorted Rosie and Toby’s trip to the Harry Potter film set. Chris is behind the camera and we are in the YPU.

And they all said thank you so much to TKOE.

And we say thank you so much to TKOE too.

Yay!

Jo xx

Sylvie’s birthday

She’s 14 today! I don’t know where that time went, but I remember very clearly being in Tesco in Blandford Forum at 2.00pm this afternoon and going into labour and wondering if it was true that you got a year’s supply of nappies if your waters broke. They didn’t and I didn’t ever find out. But that really does seem only like yesterday.

As does me coming home the following day with Rosie and Cal’s new sister, to find that Rosie had decided that she would rather go to her friend’s house for tea than meet her. She always was one for partying.

So, we’ve had a sleepover in the garden, an epic number of pancakes,and the only thing which kept us up were the cats who kept screaming at the door to be let in because the garden was full of people.

And the TKOE bloodometer has zoomed up to 5. Thank you to Morag and Maddie – well done for your first go Maddie.

And TKOE is going to the arts and craft market at The Fold at Bransford, near Worcester on 26 May. Our first of the season and we’re looking forward to it. Mags – any Mags Bags to go on it? Come and see us if you fancy a trip out – there’s a good cafe and some really interesting regular stalls there. As well as TKOE of course

Jo xx

P.S – that’s a message to all blog readers at the end there, not just Mags.

Friday night

>Pleasant drive home from work; teenage girls getting house ready for Sylv’s 14th on Sunday; pub whilst waiting to pick up Chinese take away; phone call from Cal about his first week of food preparation (I had loads of apples Mummy and a paella) and sharing more widely a lovely photo of Rosie.

Perrrfect.

Jo xx

Giddy

Giddy is the only word to describe Cal on his return to Foxes yesterday. If we ever had any doubt that he was happy there, his joyous shouts of excitement the length of the motorway dispelled that.

We need some pictures of him for a visa so we stopped on the way. He was so excited he couldn’t stop laughing to look serious. That’s why he’s got his hand over his mouth, in an attempt to pose in the accepted way. 15 mins it took us to coach him for the serious look.

Like the 15 mins it took to change the clock in my car today. Why is it so difficult??

And we had £44 from TKOE cake sales. YAY!!

Jo xx

I’ll tell you what’s brave…

THIS is brave. This is people skydiving for Hope Support. Would you do that? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I need holding firmly by both hands and marched onto a plane going on holiday. You can still donate for them. Just wander over here.

http://www.hopesupport.org.uk/events.html

Sylv ate this. Any guesses? Answer at the bottom of the page

This panda isn’t being brave. He’s just smiling as he chomps his weight in bamboo whilst his girlfriend paces angrily outside

Now, I might have the wrong picture here because I can’t see what I’m writing under. I think this is Cal being slightly brave, if pensive, before striding up Arthur’s Seat, the volcano (okay, okay, it’s extinct, but we didn’t tell Sylv that initially). This was the morning we got up to find our apartment surrounded by police tape, following an incident. Which we slept through. All five of us. We didn’t assist police with their enquiries.

And if I’m correct, this is me being brave taking a photo of a penguin from an alien orange disc-eyed colony. Good eyebrows though.

And if I’ve got these the wrong way round, you know what you have to do. Because, you know what. I’m not going to change them round. Because I’m that way out tonight.

Fab time in Scotland last week. And then we came home and I stayed in bed from Saturday night until this morning with raging tonsillitis. Cal became my nurse and announced that I had a sore throat because I had swallowed the food. He then reassessed his diagnosis and declared it was because I had swallowed my mouth. Autistic brains are verrrrry interesting. I asked for a second opinion.

Must go and recover some more.

Jo xx

Answers to the photo quiz: a deep fried Mars bar from the fish and chip shop frequented by the Queen. She wasn’t there.

Bravery

On this cold cold night Sylv is about to do something very brave. It involves some effort from the rest of the family. I will attempt to post a picture tomorrow.

Old friends, Botanic Gardens and hide and seek today.

Jo