I can't believe I've waited this long to post about last Friday!

As mentioned in the last post, last Friday was The Bubblegum Club's annual Garden Party at Durrow Castle. This is an event put on for kids in Ireland who've had a bit of a shitty time of it recently, and there were a good couple of hundred kids going. We hadn't told Ciara anything special was happening, she just seemed to be happy being away from her baby brother for a bit and have mum and dad to herself. While driving there, Ciara did ask if we were lost and if she could help find the way.


There's one thing that really presses Ciara's happy buttons, and it's something she rarely gets to have a go on, and that's bouncy castles. When we got to Durrow Castle, Peter Harris of the Bubblegum Club found us and walked us down to the party, where there waiting at least six bouncy castles! Nothing could get in the way of Ciara getting on those castles...apart from Jungle Dave! He had many baby dinosaurs that Ciara needed to look at (lizards to you and me) plus all manner of snakes, tarantulas, scorpions and other wild creatures. But after the lizards, and the donning of the t-shirt and name badge, Ciara was off on the castles. After being drenched that morning in Athy, we were well prepared with wellies and umbrellas. We've had such rubbish weather this Summer, but we were blessed with a beautiful (well, dry at least), day in Durrow.

After about an hour of castles, clowns, balloon animals and magicians, we made our way down to a playing field adjacent to the hotel grounds, where waiting for us were seven or eight helicopters. Ciara was at the front of the queue and couldn't wait to get up, and after some larking around with the clown Gardai (did you hear about the garda who lost his arm in a helicopter acident, it happened when he reached up to put the blue light on the roof), Ciara was off to her helicopter with her mum. The helicopter she was in was a five seater but as it was fully loaded with fuel, the pilot wanted to just carry four people for the first trip, so I stayed behind to film the take off and landing. Watching eight helicopters start up and take off at once at close range is quite a sight and got my heart racing. It easily made up for missing the flight and I've already been on one anyway so no great loss. Ciara loved the flight and would have been happy to fly around all day. While Yvonne also enjoyed it, I think she was glad to return to terra firma.


Back up to the party and more castle bouncing, lizards, clowns, etc. Ciara took a couple of spins in the go-carts, and turned out to be quite a good driver...when she was looking were she was going. All other manner of events were put on including t-shirt and mask making, a bucking-bronko and a laser quest type thingy. After a fab lunch and some face painting, a show was put on by a couple of fellas calling themselves the Other Brothers, who had a pretty cool act considering it was aimed at kids. During the show, the army did a helicopter flypast, scaring the crap out of most of us below, and a bit later the Irish Air Corp did fly past.

All-in-all a totally fantastic day the completely blew Ciara (and myself and Yvonne) away. The organisation involved in putting this on must be immense! It was such a successful (and dry!) day. Huge thanks go to Peter and everyone at the Bubblegum Club for putting on such as cracking event. After the party, we had a three and a half hour trip up to Warrenpoint, would you believe that Ciara slept in the car?

Miss-fire at Summer Camp

It's been eighteen months since Ciara went to any kind of school. When she was 3, she started going to Athy's Montessori. One of the last days she attended was way back in December 2006, when she performed at the Christmas show. Little did we know that she was riddled with Cancer and must have been in a lot of pain. It was about then that I started keeping a record of what was going on and it's startling to re-read some of the emails I sent. Here's a quote from 7th Jan 2007, after spending most of Christmas and New Year in hospital and, of course, having no idea what was really causing the pain. We were told back then it was Irritable Hip!

Ciara's not been in too good shape this weekend. We thought she was on the mend last week but has been in pain for thursday,friday and saturday night and hasn't got any sleep (and nor have we!). We decided to take her back in on saturday so packed bags for an extended stay in the hospital. They checked her over and reassured us that it's going to take a good few weeks for her to recover and pain will go up and down in that time.

What a load of rubbish! We knew nothing. Well back to more recent times, a couple of weeks ago (FTR: 2/Jul/08), after waiting the six or so months required after her bone marrow transplant, Ciara went back to Montessori in it's summer guise as Summer Camp. The plan was to get her prepared for Big School in September and to get her interacting again. We'd warned the staff there to alert us if anyone was sick as, even though she's in pretty good shape now, Ciara is still vulnerable to things like Chicken Pox. The next day, we get a call from the school: one of the kids in her class has come down with Chicken Pox. Big panic! The last time this kind of thing happened, Ciara spent five days in hospital being given preventative medication in case she did get the pox herself. Ciara hasn't stayed over hospital since February, it would be terrible for her to go back just because she'd gone to school!

It turns out it wasn't so bad. I called the hospital asking what to do, expecting them to tell us to pack our bags. But no, her consultant is pretty happy with her progress and isn't overly concerned. We were told start watching for signs after 20 days, Chicken Pox's incubation period, and to tell them if anything shows up. Unfortunately, the case was not isolated at the school so they advised her to steer clear for the time being. So, she's had one half day at school in 18 months!

September is going to be interesting, she starts at big school in Athy, and being English in Ireland, I can't pronounce the school name - a good start! Ciara's good with other kids, all things considered, but I think it's going to come as a shock to her when other 5 year olds are doing 5 year old's things, as she's a bit short on 5 year old street smarts. She's a clever cookie though, and she'll work it out. If anything it will be tougher on her mum and dad.

This Friday is a treat day. The Bubblegum Club, who organised last year's trip to London, are holding a Garden Party this Friday (18th July), with lots of cool and groovy things going on - she may even get a helicopter ride. Will post photos and vids of the day of course.