Hello Everyone,

Sorry it has been sooooo long since I wrote a blog post. I actually have several half finished blog entries in word documents that may or may not eventually end up here. The past 2 months have been very busy – including lots of traveling! Here is what I’ve been up to:

I never mentioned the great soot/dust disaster of 2011 so I suppose it should be mentioned as it caused a lot of frustration and extra work for me. It happened on Tuesday April 12th. We were told about an hour ahead of time that people were coming to replace the windows in my room, Melissa’s room and the window in the upstairs closet. My windows were leaky so they did need to be replaced and they had been looked at but had not been told when they would be replaced. It was tricky because the flat we live in is owned by the sisters’ but the flat below us in Council Housing so there is some rule about the Council actually owning the frame on the house and therefore responsible for the roof/windows in the roof so we had to wait for the Council to send people to fix them instead of hiring a private contractor to do the job. When we found out they were coming I was on my way out the door to go to Common Ground but decided I would take everything off my desk and dresser so it wouldn’t get dusty and boy am I glad I did! I was expecting a mess when I got back that evening but nothing close to how extremely dirty it was! It was so disgusting! Every surface was covered in a think black dust/soot type powder!! There was even dust and plaster chucks between my bed sheets! Everything under my bed was covered as well and some dust also made it into my closet! There were apparently tarps over my bed and other parts of my room but I have a hard time believing that! I spent hours that evening cleaning my room (with Abby’s help) and even though it wasn’t close to being clean we decided to stop for the day. I spent the next few days sleeping in the living room while the dust finished settling and it could be cleaned enough that my feet didn’t turn black when I walk in my room. I have yet to use a deep cleaning vacuum to get the carpets really clean and the walls need to be washed.

The Easter Holidays were 2 full weeks plus a Bank Holiday Monday so Melissa, Abby and I took advantage of this time off to do some traveling. I went and visited a good friend, Michelle, in France before meeting up with the others in Rome for Easter. From there I went to visit another friend, Emeline, in Pienza while the others went to Naples. I met back up with them in Florence and from there we went to Venice. It was a fantastic trip filled with lots of great food, wonderful sights and lots of laughs! I plan on writing a separate entry about this trip.

Once we got back to Newcastle I had a very busy week and a half before Mom, Dad and Patrick arrived to travel around the UK for just over 2 weeks. I met them at the airport in Edinburgh where we visited for a few days before heading down to Newcastle. It was great to be able to show them around the area as well as Kids Kabin and Common Ground – now when I talk about these places they will know what I’m talking about which is great! We also went to Durham, Tynemouth, Bath, London and Canterbury. It was great to get to spend 2 weeks with my family! Again, this really deserves a separate entry.
This past week was another half term so the kids had school off and Kids Kabin ran some camping trips. I went on one of the camping trips and we went up to Rupert’s Wood (I went to Rupert’s Wood once before in February to help with some projects). We took a group of the young volunteers (kids over 12 who come to training once a week and then can help run sessions at Kids Kabin) and for the most part it went well. The girls were more problematic than the boys but that was definitely expected! They couldn’t seem to keep their rubbish in their bags or put it in the rubbish bag and didn’t want to help with the community project we were doing at Rupert’s Wood. Even though there attitudes could have been better they did really enjoy running around the woods, playing in the pond catching tadpoles and just being kids. The boys were very focused the entire time because they were making a fort to sleep in and were in heaven being outdoors. Their fort turned out very nice and they actually slept in it overnight! When we were getting ready to leave the next morning they all begged to stay another night so I know they enjoyed themselves which is good! It was a pretty quick trip as we left around noon on Tuesday and got back at 1 pm on Wednesday but I think it is better to have it a little shorter and have them wanted it to be longer instead of it being too long and getting bored at the campsite which would lead to them causing problems and fighting with each other.

Thursday was a particularly quiet day at Common Ground and my guess is that everyone was out enjoying the beautiful weather! Many people come to Common Ground on days when they don’t need any help with their case just to socialize and have somewhere to go but being such a nice day I’m guessing they took advantage of it spent the day outside.

Today was a staff training day at Kids Kabin. We started out with almost 3 hours of spring cleaning (even though it is June) which was really good to do and then had about 4 hours of a meeting to discuss various topics.

I can’t believe how extremely fast the time is going! I have 6 weeks left and there is still so much I want to do! I need to come up with some goals for the time I have left and just make sure I get the most out of my remaining time here.