2018-04-22 Easter Holidays

This is out of order chronologically, but I wanted to write a post about Easter to complete the process of bringing you up to speed with what we’ve been up to.

It feels like a long time ago now, but Easter Sunday started for the girls with an egg hunt. There were clues hidden around the garden which then had to be unscrambled to lead to the next location. There they found this:

Fortunately for them, they were then directed on to discover this:

In case you’ve forgotten by now, Easter Sunday fell on April 1st this year for the first time in a very long time! And you’ll be relieved to know that the girls ended up with plenty of chocolate 😅😂

Over the Easter holiday the girls managed to see and spend time with all of their cousins! That’s 8 cousins from 4 family groups, aged from 6 months to 16 years old (none of whom live in Shrewsbury) and the girls love being with all of them 🤗

We spent three days away with Lorraine’s side of the family at a place (of my choosing) that I’d never been. Milton Keynes! Yes, Milton Keynes – not the most obvious holiday choice but easy for us all to get to, and turned out to be perfectly good for a couple of nights (and heaven if you’re a roundabout lover I should think!). We stayed at a Premier Inn (the girls love their breakfasts!) right by a lake, and had the usual cinemas, shopping centres, restaurants, etc. to keep us busy if the weather hadn’t have been good.

As it was, we had sunshine on the Saturday and spent the day visiting Bletchley Park (secret base of the World War 2 codebreakers, including Alan Turing as featured in The Imitation Game film). I expected a few huts and displays etc. but it was excellent and we ended up spending the whole day there and learnt lots!

We also all went to see The Greatest Showman – it was Lula’s fourth viewing (to her delight) and she knows pretty much all the words! 😀

I think that’ll be all the blogs to catch up. I anticipate I’ll return to a more manageable rate (maybe one a week) for the near future.

Speak soon, and thanks for your messages of support – it’s nice to know someone actually reads this stuff! Keep checking back 🙂

Matt xx

2018-04-21 Kapow-ed!

Fabulous to have had some sunshine (at last!) this week. And great weather for the event today. Here are the pictures … before, during, and after!

And a medal that I think I’ll add to Lorraine’s collection as I wouldn’t have it if it hadn’t been for her … 🤗

Matt xx

2018-04-20 Kapow!

This is what we’ll be doing tomorrow!

Search google or Facebook for ‘Severn Hospice Kapow’ and you can see a sneak peek of what it entails – 5km and 10 giant inflatables! A bit of fun for the four of us, (disguised) exercise (😉), and raising some money at the same time for the Severn Hospice. Win-win-win! 😃

Apparently my girls will be tackling the course with none other than Superman! Pictures to follow on completion…

Matt xx

2018-04-18 Till Death Us Do Part

Queen Elizabeth II said; “grief is the price we pay for love”. Tennyson said; “it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all”. I agree with both.

20 years ago today – 18th April 1998 – a couple in their 20’s stood in Christchurch Harrow and said “I do” to each other. Frankly, I can’t remember the exact wording of all the vows, but we promised to remain faithful “till death do us part”.

And now it has.

Yes, I miss you every day Lorraine, but I am grateful that we got to have 20 years together. It is indeed better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. My life has been richer for having you in it. Thank you, and Happy Anniversary 🤗

X❤️X

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LorrainePattisonfamilyandfriends

2018-04-17 Rodington Charity Fun Day

The first main fundraising event we are doing is a village fun day which raises money for different charities each year.

It is special to us for a number of reasons. Rodington is a small village between Shrewsbury and Telford, just a couple of miles from Upton Magna where we used to live, and where all 3 girls attended St Lucia’s Primary School. A number of their school friends lived in Rodington and Lorraine also used to run and cycle around the lanes in the area. Additionally, Graham – the main organiser of the Fun Day – got to know Lorraine through The Shrewsbury Club and did lots of work for us landscaping our garden. Therefore he wanted to raise money for the hospice this year in her memory.

The Fun Day is being held on Saturday 12th May – which is extra special as it would have been Lorraine’s 48th birthday! As part of the day, the girls and I have organised to do an ‘Ironman triathlon on-the-spot’. The Shrewsbury Club are bringing along some spin bikes and a rowing machine (to take the place of the swim part of the triathlon!) and we will also measure out a course for people to walk (or run). The idea is that each person pays a pound and completes a mile (either bike, row, or walk/run) and between us we cover the full Ironman distance of 140 miles. Participants who do a mile for us will also be entered into a prize draw at the end of the day.

These are the flyers advertising the event. On the second page you may also spot that at 2.48pm the whole event will pause and we will spend a moment remembering Lorraine. Graham’s idea was that this would be done through 48 seconds applause and the release of 48 balloons. I am delighted with this as it will be a lovely tribute and after Lorraine’s memorial service the one thing I would have done differently would have been to finish off the service with a minutes applause to celebrate a life well lived.

If you are able to come to Rodington on the 12th May we’d love to see you (and more volunteers are welcome to help with various bits on the day still!). If not, you can still donate via Lorraine’s Just Giving Page:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LorrainePattisonfamilyandfriends

You can also search Facebook for the Rodington Community Charity Event site.

This is one of the photos taken for the local paper showing some of the auction prizes up for grabs on the day:

Please pray for a sunny day!

Thanks, Matt xx

2018-04-16 The Shrewsbury Club

The Shrewsbury Club (TSC) was Lorraine’s second home for many years and they’ve been magnificent to us as a family over the last six months. Back on the 14th November I blogged that after the refurbishment that was going on at the time was complete they wanted to have a lasting tribute to Lorraine at the club.

A number of the changes that have been made during the revamp were as a direct result of the many conversations that Lorraine had with Dave Courteen (managing director of the group that runs TSC).

I’m pleased to say that one of Lorraine’s paintings now hangs in the new foyer – the very spot where she stood at 6am every day (along with a few other “nutters” as she called them) waiting for the club to open.

There is also more info on their website ‘news’ section. This should be the link:

https://www.theshrewsburyclub.co.uk/news/view/lorraine-s-painting-takes-pride-of-place/

Pop in and see it if you’re local 😃

Matt xx

2018-04-15 Fundraising (part 1)

As mentioned previously, as a family we are going to do two fundraising events this year to generate funds for Severn Hospice in memory of Lorraine.

Separate blog posts will follow on the Rodington Community Fun Day (12th May) and the Hospice Colour Run (10th June) but I wanted to highlight the fact that I have set up a Just Giving page which can be used by anyone wanting to donate (for any event/reason, not just the Colour Run which is specifically mentioned on there).

You can search the Just Giving website using my name or Lorraine’s (check surname spelling!) and it should come up (with a picture of her holding a medal). Or this should be the address:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LorrainePattisonfamilyandfriends

Please take a look!

Not all the money we raise will show on the Just Giving page and if you’d prefer to donate in another way that’s fine (just let me know). An example of this is that I started playing cricket again a couple of years ago (after a break of over 15 years!) and at the last AGM the members very generously decided to make a donation of £500 from club funds to the hospice. Thanks guys!

Pictured below is Quayside Cricket Club captain Richard Spry handing over the cheque (apologies for poor quality photo!). He was a relatively new captain when I first started playing, and even came to our wedding 20 years ago!

2018-04-14 March Highlights

After the slog of January & February, March had a couple of notable highlights.

Mother’s Day could have been a very difficult day but thanks to the thoughtfulness of a lady called Natascha who I know through work, and the kindness of the British Gymnastics Foundation charity, it turned out to be an excellent weekend.

We were given 4 tickets to the British Gymnastics championships in Liverpool where we saw top-quality gymnasts like Nile Wilson and Alice Kinsella (who both won gold medals at the Commonwealth Games last week). We hung around after and the girls even got a photo with Olympic gold medalist Max Whitlock (see below)😀. Then we stayed over and spent the Sunday shopping in Liverpool.

A week or so later it was Lula’s birthday. She had a great day (Katie made the cake) and also a fab time the following weekend when I took her and 5 school-friends to a trampoline park, followed by a sleepover (without the sleep!).

I am very fortunate to have 3 fantastic daughters 🤗. This time next year I’ll have 3 teenagers! 😱 Should I go and make a start on the construction of a secret escape tunnel?!

Matt xx

2018-04-13 We’re still here!

Spring has sprung (allegedly!) and the blog is coming out of hibernation and back to life! January / February is always a tough time of year with the cold and the dark and while I intended to keep you up to date with what we’ve been up to, sitting down and writing this never quite made it to the top of the to-do pile.

So, a belated Happy Easter to you all and thanks for the continued support. It’s incredible that it is already 6 months since Lorraine passed away. There will be a flurry of blog posts to get you up to speed with events so please can you share them with people who may be interested. And you are welcome to keep using the email address in the blog (pattison2017@btinternet.com) to keep in touch with us 😀

You may have seen from Facebook but back in February we went to the Hospice to give them a donation from us as a family. The money was part of that which we received from the Life Cover that Lorraine had. Here is the post and the photo that went with it:

“Matthew and his three daughters Emma, Katie and Lula made a special trip to our Bicton hospice to present a cheque for £15,000 to us in memory of wife and mother, Lorraine Pattison. Presented to Jean Dorsett one of our staff nurses, this incredibly generous gift is in addition to donations instead of flowers at Lorraine’s funeral in October totaling £2810.50.

Thank you to Matthew and his family and friends for these enormously generous gifts, Matthew told us “it was our way of saying thank you for the excellent care Lorraine received as an inpatient last year.” #thankyouthursday ”

Matt xx

2018-01-27

Hello friends,

After Lorraine’s death many people asked if there was anything they could do to help us and/or expressed an interest in raising funds for the hospice. If you were one of those, here’s some good news!

I stated at Lorraine’s Memorial Service that we’d like to raise enough money to effectively cover the cost of her time there – roughly £15,000. We have already raised around £4,000 (including gift aid) and as a family we will be participating in two further events this year.

The first is an annual village fun day which raises money for charities. It takes place in Rodington – near Upton Magna where we used to live, and where all the girls went to Primary School. Some of the organisers of the event knew Lorraine and so they asked me if they could raise funds for the hospice in her memory this year. I went to the initial planning meeting last week and agreed to get involved.

The Rodington Community Charity Event will be 1-5pm on the afternoon of Saturday 12th May – Lorraine’s birthday! – which I think will make it extra special for us. I’m glad that the girls and I will be able to spend the day doing something positive in her memory and, hopefully, catch up with friends.

We haven’t decided exactly what we’ll do yet, but I think it’ll be a fun, family-friendly, fitness-related activity – loosely based on a triathlon – as a way of raising money.

What can you do? It’s as easy as a,b,c!

A. Come along on the day (and bring a few pennies!)

B. Help with practical stuff like setting up/packing away, collecting donations, manning a stall, serving drinks etc. if you are able

C. Supply items for the charity auction that they hold. If you can offer a prize – goods that you make or services that you supply, or if you can source something that would be suitable – please get in touch with me

Please could you also help raise awareness of our fundraising by sharing this post (social media/email/word of mouth!) as widely as possible. [And have a look yourself by searching ‘Rodington Community Charity Event’ on Facebook.]

The second event that we will be supporting is The Severn Hospice’s Colour Run. This year it takes place at Telford Town Park on Sunday 10th June and is a 5km (3 mile) walk (run if you like) event where participants end up covered in a variety of colours of paint! We’ve never done one before but the pictures on social media and the website look great! So far, we have about 15 family members signed up to do it and a dozen friends, but it would be great to have a HUGE turn-out in memory of Lorraine (and get loads of sponsorship).

The Shrewsbury Club have kindly offered to help with promotion, co-ordinating sponsorship, getting ‘Team Lorraine’ t-shirts printed, and they will also block-book some spaces too. Places at the event do sell out so either look out for info from The Club if you’re a member, or book yourself in soon via the Severn Hospice website (and let me know you’re doing it).

Whether you can make it in the day or not, you can be a help to us by raising sponsorship for anyone who does it, and by promoting the event (as before). More details on these events to follow in due course.

Hope that’s some positive news that will honour Lorraine’s memory – and give you a couple of dates to look forward to in the year. They’ll be here before we know it!

Thanks in advance for your help and support!

Matt, Emma, Katie & Lula