Birthdays, Rugby and yet another new project

Yesterday my baby was 11

I can't believe all those years have gone by - at birth she was the sweetest little doll you can imagine and is still a blue eyed blond haired little doll now

Unfortunately her birthday just happened to clash with Sarah's first regional rugby match so having to go along and watch that, or rather sit in the car for several hours reading a book, wasn't really how she wanted to spend her birthday - still next Saturday will be the day she actually has her birthday treat - we're taking her and a friend to do grown up things like Hot Chocolate and cakes in Starbucks followed by a visit to a 'paint your own pottery' studio - right up her street, arts and crafts, - then home for tea and videos for a sleepover. She is very understanding thank goodness.

Sarah had a very mixed day at the rugby yesterday! I'll apologise to those of you who this is all complete Greek! If you're not into rugby scroll on down to the pictures again

She got to play as replacement second row for most of match 1 against Thames Valley which her team won 10-5 (two tries to one all in the corners so no successful conversions)

Sarah found playing at 4 very frustrating as she couldn't easily get out of the scrum and munch whoever of the opposition had the ball - a skill she has when playing 7 (flanker on the side of the scrum) or 9 (scrum half behind the scrum) - she can often snipe out and tackle one girl and be back up and tackling the girl who the ball's been offloaded to before any of her club team-mates have even got there - she's a natural flanker to be honest although seldom gets to play it at club level as most of the opposing teams can't put out a full 15 so the 6 & 7 flanker positions are the first to go.

Then when they went straight back on for their second game against South West North (her old regional side which has lots of girls she knows and with whom she has old scores to settle from club matches) she asked the coach if she and another Sarah who was at 7 could swap as the other Sarah is usually playing at second row! - Go figure why they weren't put in their comfortable positions??? - but of course all the coaches were Devon and Cornwall coaches so don't know the Somerset girls as well as their own - they were even playing a Devon winger as first on flanker before putting out my Sarah who plays that position often - no wonder the poor winger didn't know what to do in that position

All fine and dandy until 10 minutes in when she tackled someone near to her own try line and one of her own players came in behind totally accidentally with her knee against Sarah's right elbow and dislocated it. Fortunately as the elbow was up against the tacklee it popped straight back in again but she was understandably in great pain and came off to miss the rest of the match. However they did win by 14 points to 7 which was a very sweet victory against this particular side. The girls she has old issues with all play for club sides which Sarah's club have never managed to beat yet - it's been pretty close a few times but not quite so as you can imagine the girls and particularly Sarah and her Taunton team-mates were ecstatic at the close with this victory.

Dosed up to the eyeballs the pain didn't seem too bad after the match but she's very bruised and sore this morning especially when she extends her arm to reach for something like turning on a tap - it's also her right (writing) arm - but thankfully isn't too bad when she writes and uses the computer mouse which is a blessing as she has a very important GCSE Food Technology project to finish (remember all those gorgeous food labels lots of you sent her) and hand in by this Friday with a substantial amount of work still to do. Oddly enough she finds it really difficult to use a pair of scissors - must use certain muscles and tendons in her arm - so guess what? Mum was doing the 'Blue Peter' cutting and glueing bit for her on the project last night! Not strictly acceptable but as I wasn't actually adding any input to her work and was only sticking things where she told me to we won't worry about it.

She won't be training this Wednesday or playing on Sunday for the club side and I think her elbow might need strapping up for a bit to stop a repeat 'pop-out'

Still it's only the second real injury she's had - the other was a sprained ankle in almost 4 years of playing so I guess it's about her time

Hey-ho - the joys of being a 'supporter mum'

As the camera is particularly unhappy at present being separated from its umbilical cord (the power cable) as it's unable or unwilling to keep a charge for very long I didn't take any photos which is a shame as it was a beautiful mild sunny day - I can feel a major capital expenditure purchase for a new camera coming up rapidly on the horizon!

Here's a picture of her (she's the one with the bun with her arm outstretched awaiting a kick off) at her last County match - she's not going to be stretching that arm out like that for a few days that's for sure.

And onto something quilty - Nick's off school today after being violently sick at 11.30 last night from the top of his loft bed to the floor - you would not believe how much clearing up that took us both - fortunately Nigel's stomach is considerably stronger than mine - so I'm at home with him today and didn't get to my usual quilting group.

This morning I had a quick look at the Four Seasons Quilt Swap blog and I found that Margaret is running a 'Spring Fling Mini Quilt Round Robin'

I've emailed her to ask to be included - hopefully I'm not too late.

Anyway - filled with inspiration, coupled with a morning staffing Emergency Ward 10 here I set too and made my centre. If I'm too late to be included I'll use it for something else but it was fun to do

This is a sneak preview.

Back to work tomorrow, Nick should be okay by then - budgetting for two days at the end of the week so lots to do in preparation and then Friday sees us all (well apart from Daddy that is) breaking up for a week's holiday for half term - yippee!!!!!