Time is shooting past isn’t it.  Danella, aka The Official Photographer, went back into hospital and finally, almost eleven months after the initial accident had all the screws,  broken and entire, removed from her leg.  The steel plates however are left in.

Due to the extraordinarily long wait period, Danella was booked into a private hospital.  We reported to Mercy Hospital  at 9 am on the 21st and she was  checked in and ready to go off with her handsome American surgeon within the hour.

I received a call from said handsome American surgeon an hour and a half later, immediately following the surgery and given full details of what had been done.  We had a prolonged and congenial discussion about whether he was a surgeon or a car mechanic after he described having difficulty getting one of the screws out from behind the metal plate and having to use his screwdriver to ‘ping it up’.

It was an almost shocking juxtaposition from the event a year earlier when the Dunedin Hospital had lost my daughter for two hours and no-one could tell me where she was or what was happening to her, followed by the lack of communication over what had been done to her in surgery.

I was incredibly impressed with the quality of care and attention given by the nursing staff at Mercy and by the calm, serene ambience of the reception and the ward.   She was well tended to by her nurse throughout the day and I was encouraged to be there, and  be fully  informed throughout the process.  By 4 pm that day I was driving Danella back home and tucking her in.  Within two days she was up and about and caring totally for herself and was back at work a week later, having been at my place the day before cleaning my hard to reach windows.  🙂  It was, all in all, a really great experience.  I do love it when life serves us up the very best possible outcome and puts bells on it too.

We’ve been enjoying some lovely weather.   Siddy and I took it into out heads to take an extra walk in the evenings as dusk was falling and the streets were a bit quieter so he could practise his off leash walking.  Orlando took it into his head to come with us, each night coming a little further.  So there we were last night, all three of us, heading off for a stroll round the block.

I say ‘stroll’, but the thing that got me was that the puppy became quite serious when he saw that the cat stayed with him.  He didn’t stop to pick up or leave messages as usual, but trotted along, not deviating from the path as is his usual style, as if he needed to get his kitty back home safely as soon as possible.  The kitty trotted along just behind Siddy, tail held high and clearly not bothered.  I was quite puffed as we completed the block in record time.   I’m kind of hoping it doesn’t become a regular occurrence and I kind of wished The Official Photographer could have accompanied us, it must have been quite a sight.

I’m still managing to create at least one card every day and a series gets completed in about three days.  Here’s a few of them.  I do love my owlsThese are fun and will appeal to certain people in my circle of friends and familyThis one isn’t a card, I made it for me to put on the fridge just to remind me I don’t need to buy any more crafting supplies – I gave myself an intervention  🙂   I’m not sure if it’s worked…..I designed a Christmas card and blinged them up with an increasing amount of diamantes and glitter, which you can’t see here, but believe me they sparkle and shine  – these are just the first two, there’s several more….Then, with the next series, the pets got in on the actSomewhere along the line I found some unused inky splatter backgrounds and added these gnomes to them  – this made me happy!  They are so useless and cute and I must make moreAnd to finish a design still in process That’s it, that’s October almost done and dusted.  Is it seven weeks til Christmas?

Here’s Siddy getting his aunty Jo’s bed ready for her Christmas visit.  If you look closely you might catch a glimpse of his ‘Superdog’ harness.  He’s looking a little porky on account of too many treats, so not really capable of flying ……… Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did.