BMS Conference!

Well I was in Birmingham on Monday and Tuesday at the British Microcirculation Society conference. It was a great meeting which was well attended with lots of interesting talks. I had to present two posters myself (in the photo), while my research team presented another three posters and I gave an oral presentation.... a pretty good showing from my lab! It was a conference of two firsts for me, the first time I have given an oral presentation at a national conference since Alex was born, and the first night I have spent away from him since he was born. Needless to say I was rather concerned about how Tim and Alex would cope, but they managed very well although Tim was exhausted by it. Alex was by all accounts a star asking for me, but then repeating 'Mummy work' as though he understood. I even spoke to him briefly on the phone and he was very happy which was a great relief. Alex was also telling Tim what to do in the morning 'food, tellas (shreddies), nappy, trousers, top, socks, nursery', which was fun.

On Monday night we went to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham for the society dinner, which was delicious, and were entertained by a latin Jazz band which were very good, if a little loud!

Everyone had a good time relaxing,

chatting, having fun ...and my boss received an award for his clinical lecture (for which I provided him with a lot of the slides!). I was exhausted when I got home at 8.20 last night. As Alex was already asleep in bed I had to wait until this morning for my cuddles! He has been a complete star and took the whole thing in his stride so thank you to everyone who has been praying for us...the prayers were definitely answered. We have had a lovely evening together playing with his cars, dancing, chatting (non-stop!) and having a very wet and splashy bath. It is so nice to have lots of cuddles and giggles again. I have had the day off work today to spend some quality time with Tim while Alex is at nurseryand I have had lots of opportunity for crafting as a result which is wonderful. I have made the final bookmark for the swap, which is another Oriental one with the geisha on one side (not shown) and a dragon on the other, both of which have been highlighted with sakura stardust, edged with silver peel offs, stamped with an Oriental writing stamp and finished off with a silver eyelet and blue ribbon. As Alex's second birthday is this week, I have made his card using an image of the Gruffalo (his favourite book) and layered over some textured paper which I cut into the tree and grass. I finished this off with a lot of balloon stickers and the gold peel offs for the sentiment. My mother in laws birthday is also fast approaching so I made a card following the sketch from CPS, my new nestabilities labels one, laura ashley ribbon, K&Co paper and a Cuttlebug butterfly which I coloured with chalks and sakura stardust and finished off with the pearl stickers. I have also joined in a fat book page swap where I have to make 10 fat book pages with the theme of nursery rhymes. I have a way to go with this one, but have now made a start with these four pages. I decided to go for a slight vintage theme to the pages as all the nursery rhymes were written before the Victorian era so I brayered over the white card in Adirondack butterscotch ink and used a mixture of Purple Onion and Stamps Away stamps with ginger ink for the borders/edges. I then added extra embellishments in the form of hand drawn paw prints, stitching and mice, or sticker eggs and music notes, and in most cases decorupaged part of the image. For the back of these pages I wrote out the complete nursery rhymes and associated them with an appropriate image and then stamped round the edges and filled in my details. I am quite pleased with how these have turned out and would love to know what you all think. Have a good rest of the week.

Love,

Caro

x