Out of Touch

So yesterday's Times2 supplement ran an article on emo's. It highlighted how out of touch I am with youth culture -- and therefore middle-aged and old -- as I hadn't heard the term emo before.

Apparently emo's are all emotional and are basically goths with frills and an internet connection: Boy emo's pretend to be gay. Girl emo's wear polka-dots and animal prints in addition to the black drain-pipe jeans and wide rubber, cut-disguising, bracklets on their wrists.

Ask an emo, Family Fortunes style, what a razor is used for and their response will be:

1) Cutting yourself whilst listening to Joy Division or some internet band nobody's heard of outside of MySpace
2) Ummmmmm.... Having a shave?

Of course teenage-angst, and dressing up like the Manic Street Preachers, is nothing new: Ironically the term emo is almost identical to the brief emu youth sub-culture that was spawned in the UK after this self-harming skin-cutting 1999 tragedy.

Play those Radiohead albums emu.

Small Things Give Us Pleasure

Before the match I'd hoped for a last minute Ronaldo miss to level things, resulting in him crying his greasy eyes out.

There is a god.

And he waved his offside flag.

I had to wait 2 minutes before the local TV broadcaster showed the grease ball sobbing away, but it was a wonderfully uplifting sight, if not the highlight of the World Cup.

Recommended Podcast: Baddiel and Skinner's "The Britishers are Coming Home", chapter 8, 10-11 mins in.

iCandy

"Mummy, can I have an iPod... for my birthday?" -- India, aged 2 and 3 quarters.

Hello World

Elliot Ethan arrived at 04.34 Friday morning 10th March 2006, safe and well. He weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs 1 oz, bearing a striking resemblence to his big sister: a shock of black hair and facial features that are so similar, he could be India's twin. India had longer legs, but Elliot has larger hands and feet. Overall, he's a pretty boy.

Labour was a mere 4 hours: half the length of India's, and Vic did brilliantly. Once again she did it with no pain relief and frankly made it look easy. She stayed focussed and calm, and importantly listened to the midwife and pushed at all the right times. I'm very proud of her. The short labour time has already helped Vic's post birth recovery, as she is far less drained than with India. No stitches either. As a result, she was able to discharge herself yesterday morning, so Elliot and mummy have been home for a day and a half now.

So far so good too. Last night wasn't too bad. Elliot is a very hungry boy and wants attention all the time. With the milk yet to arrive in earnest, he's wanting a feed every hour or two, so we had a broken nights sleep -- which is less than ideal when you're knackered anyway... but it was certainly better for Vic, if not for me, than her being in hospital.

Vic and I are both very happy. It's a natural high. I've forgotten how amazing the whole baby-parent thing is. We're all in a sleep-deprived daze of course, but it's so worth it.

India's reaction yesterday wasn't quite as me had hoped. Despite being primed via numerous books and explanations, she didn't like hospital and was very quite when introduced to Elliot. Some clear jealous has popped up whenever Elliot is being fed or cuddled by mummy. Things are improved today though, she's been helping daddy look after Elliot and hasn't freaked as much as yesterday. She's wearing her "i'm the big sister" T shirt with pride.

I have the week off, we're being looked after by the mother-in-law, and I'm loving it.

Hot Thai Food

No sign of any baby movements. We're going out for some hot thai food tonight in an attempt to flush the little blighter out. Vic's "bored" with being at home with nothing to do now that all rooms have been cleaned at least twice this week already.


Know Your Enemy, Mister Weasel

Hello to all my colleagues who shouldn't be reading this. Now go away. Leave this site. You are not welcome at this blog.

Here's the story:

I update on the Tuesday. On the Wednesday there is a print-out of my blog front page on the office printer. Not my printer though, it's on the management printer. I've not printed it and asking my line manager and the Finance Director, they haven't printed it either. Nor have the only other three individuals who regularly use that printer.

To be honest, I'm shocked that it's been printed at all: nobody at work should know of it's existence. Clearly someone at work has discovered my blog and decided to print it off in order to embarass me...

But how have they discovered the blog? It's written in a pseud, with no references that could be google'd up, unless you're really clever and persistent. Having checked with IT, internet logs are not viewed by IT, so it wasn't them. So either the individual has seen me writing the blog in the office -- not possible -- or I have to conclude they have physically gone onto my laptop and taken a look at my internet history.

Option 2 is pretty serious stuff considering that there were also a few company confidential links surfed that day, as well as numerous confidential spreadsheets that I'd opened too. The misconduct box is pretty much ticked there. The FD wasn't inpressed when I explain the scenario.

On Thursday I catch a couple of members of IT viewing this blog on line. Caught redhanded.

So now did IT get the link?

Well I have to conclude that the same individual who printed-off the blog also decided it would be great fun to email the link to their chum in IT. A great opportunity to nose into my private life, have a titter behind my back, etc.

They must think I'm an idiot.

I'm f**king furious that's what I am. Seething with contempt. This blog is for close friends, fellow bloggers, community friends, and complete strangers. I don't want Tom, Dick and IT reading it.

It's not difficult to piece two and two together. I don't even need the printer log or internet log from the Wednesday to finger the perp. I don't even need to check my Site Monitor for their IP address. I know actually who I cannot trust by their reaction on Friday to my cold shoulder.

Be disgusted with yourself.

a fraughtnight to go

So we're down to just 2 weeks before delivery day.

Stress fractures are starting to appear.

Our wonderful midwife Norma, in whom Vic has the upmost confidence, is away for a weeks holiday, and as a result Vic is nervous and unreceptive to jokes, jibes or insensitive husbands. Vic is worried that the baby is going to arrive before Norma returns from holiday and she is going to be left in the hands of a less-able, or rather less-known, midwife. I was wrapped up in my own little world last night and managed to upset my wife with a couple of ill judged comments that failed to take into account her underlying fears into account.

Of course, their OUR fears, but for some reason I've switched off to so many of the concerns that we had first time round with India. I've almost sleepwalked into the position we now find ourselves: just 2 weeks away from a new baby, and to quote Vic, "the most painful experience of my life... thanks."

I've been thinking it's going to be like last time, but need to wake up fast to the fact that anything could happen. It's clicked that I've not been half as supportive as last time, or as I should have been.

I've been rolling in the barrel, gently floating downstream. I need to start paddling. I see a crocodile.


Reflective of my lack of support/communication, is the fact the name game continues. We still haven't collaborated on a middle name. I've at long last started viewing the baby name books for something unusual, cool, but suitable. I've discovered a middle name that has a family connection, but know it would just make Vic's mum and dad laugh: it's Vic's place of birth...


And finally, something that's been causing me frustration for about 3 months: I bought Vic the complete season of Lost on DVD from the US. And then is just disappeared. We couldn't find it anywhere. Seriously, I was staring to think it had evaporated/been stolen by a ghost. It was really lost and doing my nut in. Discovered it last night behind the playroom shelving unit. Looking forward to finding out what all the fuss is about by watching it at 2.00 am in a fortnight...

Make Way for Noddy

So we're now just four weeks away from delivery day. Vic gave up work last week and has been in nesting mode for some time: We've been rushing around turning our house into a proper home. New bathrooms, new carpets, new kitchen floor, and the dreaded Clown Room has been transformed into a tranquil nursery for Noddy.

As part of the acclimatisation process, we asked India whether we were having a boy or a girl and what India would like to call him or her.

She has decided that she is having a baby sister who is called Noddy. Despite telling her otherwise, she is convinced that when we visit Mummy in hospital there will be a baby who looks like the character Noddy, complete with blue hat and jingly bell. Whenever we use an alternative name for the bump -- which is rarely -- India gets most upset.

As mentioned, Noddy's room has been stripped out and redecorated. The clown wallpaper and raspberry carpet has been replaced by a new wooden floor and Kelp paint. If you take a look at the Dulux Editions colour charts you will see that Kelp is a beautiful and serene sea-green. Ideal for a tranquil nursery, and sufficiently neutral to suit either a baby girl or boy.

The paint went on as a nasty sage green colour and then dried to a colour that can only be described as

Baby Boy Powder Blue

...with no hint of green in it at all.

With no time to repaint it -- I've got bags of other jobs to do still -- Noddy, whether a boy or girl, will have to live with it.

Read into that as you will.

Hi-5

So the great novel-writing in a month marathon is over and you must be desperate to know how I've got on. The fact that I've no updated this blog for a month gives you a good idea of how much writing I've done on Fish in a Cold Dish (provisional title only).

I actually forgot about the whole thing for days 1 and 2, but managed to write the complete opening chapter on day 3 and didn't looked back after that.

The final word count, which you can compare against the target of FIFTY THOUSAND, is a massive four hundred and eighty three words.

Well done Nobby.

Why no finish?

Well, I wasn't organised or motivated. And I've had the kitchen tiling to do. And Brian Lara's cricket on PS2. And Hi-5 to watch.

My aussie reader, and any dad's who happen to watch Channel 5 at 7.15 in the morning, probably know all about Hi-5. It's a great aussie kids show that features five smiling guys (2) and gals (3) singing, dancing and performing bad acting for the cameras. You if want to get up in the morning, I recommend watching it for Kathleen alone.

Whoa. She's hot.

Another Day, Another Doomsday

I love Doomsday scenarios. Documentaries on super-volcanoes eradicating North America and causing a nuclear winter; asteriods wiping us out with no warning; the Canary Islands falling into the sea and cauing a tsunami big enough to swamp the East Coast; terrorists detonating WMDs; and of course, Global Warming. All things that frankly we can't really do much about, so all you can do is shrug your shoulders, accept the risks and get on with life.

However, this article from the weekend's Sunday Times Magazine has really got to me.

Go read it. It's damn scary. Oil could run out within 10 years according to one Swedish University. The most optimistic professional assessment of oil stocks gives us 40 years.

Then check out the latest business pages from the BBC or whatever news site you use. Read about how increasing oil prices are pushing up US inflation at incredible rates, right now. Increased inflation means increased interest rates. It doesn't take a fool to realise that our mortgage repayments will be going through the roof, that our banked savings will become worthless, that saving for a pension becomes a waste of time.

Add in the fact that long before the oil actual runs dry, you won't be able to afford to drive to work, what are you going to do? Work locally? Same thing for food. It's too expensive to distribute by truck, so you need to find locally produced foodstuff. Businesses will fold. Society will break down faster than New Orleans.

You need to:

Learn survival skills
Learn to ride a horse
Learn martial arts
Buy a gun and learn how to use it
Buy a moutain bike
Buy an archery set and learn how to use it
Dig up the backgarden and plant vegetables and fruit trees
Fortify your property
Stockpile canned food, drinking water and medicine
Be prepared to kill someone for a can of dog food

Welcome to the Mad Max Scenario.
I am seriously freaked out!

Total Football: Come on you Herons!

My nephew Jacob is playing his first season of competitive football. If you'd like a new team to support, please let me introduce you to Hernhill Herons, sponsored by Dawes, who play in the Faversham & District Under 7's friendly league. They have their own stats page -- complete with match reports -- on the Football Association Fulltime website [You need to pull down the Division tab to show Under 7's]. Jacob, George and Joe represent the spine of the team, and are Hernhill's very own Terry, Lampard and Rooney. My brother is the coach and tactical mastermind behind the teams early success. I for one will be avidly reading the Heron's results on a Monday morning for the rest of the season.

Top of the league after two matches! C'mon!

Miracle Cure

On Monday morning I felt as if I might die from my asthma. Eight puffs of my magic new inhaler later, I feel on top of the world. I can breathe!


India's New Bed

Took Steph to Ikea on Saturday, so she could check out sofas and stuff for her new flat in Stone -- she has finally bought a place of her own (a mere £115,000/$201,000 for 1 bedroom) -- and so the we could purchase India a full-sized "big girls" daybed.

We were a little concerned at how she might react to being in a proper bed. You automatically assume that two-year olds will be falling out of bed in their sleep, or getting out of bed in the middle of the night and refusing to get back in, or jumping out of bed at six in the morning in order to walk downstairs and out of the front door whilst the parents snooze on unawares.

So far, so good.

She was very excited on Saturday when I was building the bed-frame and couldn't wait to get in. No tantrums at seeing her cot removed to the spare room. And over the course of four nights, she hasn't budged once from her bed. She seems very comfortable, and from her behaviour during the day, we think she's getting a better nights rest. Vic and I certainly are too -- we're not having to get up continously to retrieve dummies.

We have also noticed a lack of pee pee in her night nappies the last two mornings. Previously they were completely saturated, but all of a sudden they are almost dry. Theory? She's just sleeping deeply throughout the night and not peeing. This bodes well for the next great hurdle of potty training and no nappies.

Draw a target on my back

I've been poorly with my asthma over the last few weeks. I couldn't even read India a story over the weekend without struggling for breath and coughing.

I picked up a new asthma inhaler at lunchtime. A heavy-duty combo preventer/reliever called Seretide 250. India will love it because it's the colour purple, like Tinkywinky and my new car. It's a serious medicine. the Emperor of Inhalers, and gives you an idea of how bad my asthma has become. Seretide represents the last real chance to combat my asthma through an inhaler.


The lady at the chemists give me my new kit in a bag featuring a one-eyed monster bug-thingy with loads of teeth. I quote from the bag:

"The flu virus is a lot nastier than a cold. It can leave you weak and vulnerable to other more serious illnesses such as pneumonia and bronchitis.
If you have serious heart, kidney or liver disease, diabetes, respiratory problems like severe asthma, have a lowered immunity or you're 65 or over, you may not be strong enough to fight the effects of flu. Even if you had the jab last year, you'll need a new one this winter.
Contact your GP for your free flu jab now."

I'm having a flu jab a week next Saturday.

If Bird Flu ever transfers to humans in the UK (actually that should read WHEN), I'm a dead man walking.

Time for a multiple post:

The Witching Hour

Vic is taking India to a Room with a Broom, Witches Party at nursery this afternoon. In order to get in the mood, Vic is forcing India to wear a 99p witches hat from Woolworths. Obviously Vic doesn't need to dress up.


Land of the Dead

Nothing beats a zombie movie and Land of the Dead is a good one. The bit where the mall-rampaging zombie gets stuck under a cafe table parasol is worth the ticket price alone. The film also features the stock zombie movie characters of Zombie Bride, Zombie Clown and Zombie Schoolboy. Much to Rob's chagrin, Zombie Babies were missing.

Imagine the cracked nipples.


NaNoWriMo

Wicked Imp is promoting the write a book in a month fest again. I've signed up. There is even a dedicated Regional Writing Group and Forum for Oxfordshire (one of the few hubs for the UK). There is absolutely no way that time will allow me to write 50,000 words in the month of November, but I'll use the exercise to write the first few chapters of some rubbish pulp fiction*. You've got to be on the writing train to enjoy the ride, as I might say in my nanowrimo entry.

* I think I'll call my first book Train Cops. The central characters will be a fiesty red-haired wonder woman detective, ala Ginger Woman, and her laid back partner. Think Mulder and Scully but with more action...

Stolen: My Identity

You may have heard of someone who has had their identity stolen. You can now change that to definitely heard of someone who has had their identity stolen.

We've been away for a week's holiday in Devon and Cornwall. On Monday we were called by a DC Scullett [made-up name] from Midsomershire police force who told us the following:

Some burglar crim had been nicked in Oxford on a job.
He had a load of documents on his person/in his car.
One of those documents was a typed up A4 sheet with Vic and my details on it.
We must have been broken into at Chinnor Road last August -- the day Vic's new passport was "delivered" but never received by us and around the time our address book mysteriously went missing.

Looks as if the passport courier tipped off the crim who then carded our front door and rummaged through our personal and financial details... and left without leaving any sign of forced entry.

Vic was obviously very upset at the news. I was quite cool.
But then we got home on Saturday to find witness statements for us to fill in, together with a photocopy of the notes the crim had on us.

And this is scary stuff:

All our bank account numbers and overdraft limits.
Credit card details and credit limits.
Our places of work.
National Insurance numbers.
My salary figure.
Dates of birth (although mine was a year out).
Our old home address.
Vic's mobile number.
Our parents names and addresses and ex-directory telephone numbers.
Vic's old hotmail account (misspelt) and password.

This would account for the dodgy transaction on my credit card in May.

Fortunately for us, they have neither our new address nor our mother's maiden names. The maiden names would open the flood gates of security by-passes...

The good news is that the crim is banged up and apart from one transaction we haven't been hit too hard (yet). The bad news is I'm left wondering how many other crims out there have our details.

And then we have more:

DC Scullett phones me up this morning to tell me that the police searched the crim's house over the weekend and found two email addresses with Vic and my names in them -- with passwords -- written on a piece of paper.

I ventured into vic_dobscrubandco to discover an empty hotmail account but a contact address in Montpellier, France. It would appear as if the crim has set up a phoney company / mail-forwarding address in Vic's name and has used it, or one similar to it -- to pick up some hot goods to return to the UK: DC Scullet (who clearly cannot use the internet) got quite excited when I told him of the address in Montpellier... apparently he found a big stash of plates and dishes, all from Montpellier, in the crim's house.

I shall enjoy my day in court.

Now go and buy yourself a shredder and a burglar alarm and never believe things simply get "lost" in the post.

Chocolate is Sport

Part of my job involves travelling to Brussels to meet my Belgian paymasters. My boss' boss ("Capo di capo"?) is a Dutch guy who lives and works in Brussels. Belgium is known for three things:

Leonardo da Vinci ("O Draconian Devil!")
Tin Tin and Snowy*
Chocolates / Pralines

As one of my Belgian colleagues told me:
"In England your national sport is football. In Belgian it is chocolate."

So each trip to Brussels now means:

A waffle
A few pints of Hoegaarden
A 500g box of Belgian's finest choccies as a pressie for Vic

Unfortunately THE BEST Belgian chocs are made by neuhaus -- they are worth their weight in gold -- and consist of loads of butter and cream covered in top-notch choccy.

Vic is dairy intolerent remember.

What a shame....

[Snort, snort, oink, oink, sound of troughing]



* Hard-backed French language Tin Tin books retail at 8 euros. Soft-backed English language Tin Tin books -- in the same shop -- retail at 11 euros! Inferior product, higher price. Further proof that the rest of the EU hate us English: The translation and lower-print run cost argument doesn't add up either. Can you imagine the uproar in Brussels if French-language DVDs cost more than English-language DVDs?!!

Is it me you're looking for?

Hello.

I'm not dead.

I've just been hibernating.

Like a big grizzly bear.

Stretch. Yawn. Rah!

I can't believe I last posted in May.

I've been concentrating on other things -- like my new job and our new house -- and have made an effort to do some stuff that I either haven't done for ages, or I'm a complete virgin at. For example, I've been playing tennis and have joined the local snooker club. On the flipside, the blogging has died and I've officially retired from magic: I've not missed either.

I need to warm back up to this writing lark (I've obviously not been writing any magic articles either), so I'll just tell you want my new job is:

Financial Analyst
For a company that experiments on giant mutant albino rats and other cute animals.
The office is surrounded by razorwire.
The office is in Slough*.
The razorwire is there because of the threat from animal rights extremists, rather than just because the office is in Slough.
It is the same company that made my brother-in-law redundant.
I have a company car. It is grey, although India insists that it is purple and gets upset when told it isn't.

Other stuff:

India turned 2 years old yesterday.
We are expecting for mid March.
Any name suggestions -- boy or girl -- in the comments please.

I feel much better.


* It's just around the corner from THE OFFICE. Our local pub is THE PUB from THE OFFICE.

37-3-21-3-3-3-2

India's chicken spots have scabbed over and she's over the pox for all intents. The total number of spots counted on her face and body was 37. She has had just one bad spot -- on her cheek -- which may or may not leave a small scar, apart from that she (and we) got off pretty lightly.

I'm seeing my solicitor later to discuss an offer of three months "gardening leave" that has been put on the table by my company. There's obviously a fine line between gardening leave, redundacy and unfair/constructive dismissal, but on the whole I'm happy with the offer:

I'm going anyway, so why not take the potential to earn "double wages" for a month or two, as long as I can secure another job within the next 13 weeks?

That's the gamble, but I'm confident in my abilities to find a decent position in the job marketplace at the moment.

The offer would also free up some time in which to assault the house with a second wave of decorating.

And finally...

What a night.

James Hussey summed it up in his one word text message after the game:

Unfuckingbelievable.

What a night of football.

Dudek's crazy Grobbo legs were the icing on the cake.

Love is all around us

You may have noticed that I've updated my profile recently.

I added Jesus and Cement to my Interests.

You and I both know that have no real interest in Jesus, but people keep telling me that Jesus is all around me. If you click the link, you'll find hundreds of thousands of bloggers who include Jesus as one of their interests. Clearly most of them THINK Jesus is all around me.

Compare this to cement.

I KNOW that cement is all around me, and yet when you click the cement link, you'll find only FIVE bloggers in the world include this versatile building material in their list of interests. And three of these are clear comedy hits.

Makes you think doesn't it.

Ironically it was Madonna who told us that we are living in a material world, but the interests of bloggers just don't reflect this...

iPox

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago. Rob arrived with a belated, and very generous, present from Chicago for me last week.

An iPod mini.

This makes me happy!

I'll be tuning it up this weekend, which is lucky, as apart from the FA Cup final, we won't be doing much else, because India has come down with chicken pox.

This morning's tally of spots was five little pin-pricks. I predict that her face and body will look like a plate of baked beans by Sunday.

Star Wars may have to wait.

Other news:
Rob came back for his mum and dad's 40th [ruby] wedding anniversary. They hosted a wonderful afternoon party, blessed by the weather, great live jazz and a top-notch BBQ. James and I were the grillmen and so far so good, no reports of any food poisoning. There were of course some bitter-sweet moments: When Rob's mum and dad "first" danced after the champagne toast, I couldn't help but feel very sorry for their tragic situation.

Larry treated me to a day out at the Zurich Premiership rugby final at Twickenham last Saturday. Great day out. Friendly atmosphere, some great rugby -- highlight being the half-time rubber-suited mascot seven's game. Twickers was an impressive venue too: You're close to the action and it's got a real cauldron feel. Thanks Lazza!

Quiet on the job front. Saw the recruitment agency on Friday, have gone on a couple of OK short-lists, now have to wait and see what happens.

A Kick in the Balls

I have an interview with a recruitment agency tomorrow. The ball is rolling. A couple of people have mailed me to ask if I'm alright. The answer is yes, but slightly stressed and bemused by things. The atmosphere here at work is polite and professional. Yesterday I used my rights under the Data Protection Act to access my personnel file, and low and behold discovered that I am officially being paid under the market rate for my job -- something my managers have insisted wasn't the case for 18 months...

With a job change imminent, I'm taking the opportunity to channel the winds of change in the direction of my fitness too. I went for a run last night and managed to complete the moderate course without dying. Due to an endless cycle of chest infections and complaints, it was the first proper exercise I've done in almost two years. Although the lungs stood up to the test, there was an unsurprising lack of power in my legs. Every time I tried to pick up the pace to something kin to our Paula, there was no response. Bottom of the thighs and backs of the calves are a little tender today: An indication of just how unfit I've become.

After my run I shared India's bath. India got out first and whilst she was towelled down, Vic asked her the fateful question:

"Where's Daddy's balls?"

To which India correctly pointed at them and replied:

"Kick! Kick!"

Talk about storing up trouble.

The Pundits Say It's a Boy

Tamsin, my lovely sister-in-law, went into hospital this morning at 7.30 for her inducement. By the time you read this Vic and I may well have another nephew or niece.

Although we don't know for certain, we have read between the lines and reckon it's going to be a boy.

Either way, we wish Tam and Gav all the best for today. We understand that Tam was 6 cm dilated last night -- she's been suffering with pains and contractions since last weekend! -- but the hospital still plan to induce. And any lady who has been induced will tell you what a shit and painful experience it is...

Hopefully the new kid will arrive on the block today, as if he or she arrives tomorrow, they will forever clash with Vic's birthday.

Happy birthday Vic!

I Say, I Say, I Say

How do you manage to lock your car keys in a central-locking car?
Together with your mobile [cell] phone, house keys...
...and 18 month-old daughter?

How do you explain to your husband, who is a 30 minute drive away, that you've managed the above and could he go home immediately to pick up the spare car keys?

Answers on a postcard please to my wife.

Thankfully India slept through the whole event, and apart from one upset and panicky Vicster -- who also managed to phone the police (who couldn't help) -- and one annoyed Nobby, no harm was done.

I'm sure in a few years time, we'll all look back and laugh about it.


[As an aside, this wasn't my Ginger Woman-esque superhero moment]

Life Can Change in a Day

We moved. The packers were excellent and made it a pretty stress-free experience. I'll give you a virtual tour tomorrow. Think 1989 Travelodge meets the Circus of Death wallpaper -- in every room. We still have rooms full of boxes. India didn't freak out -- she postively loves the extra space in which she can race dolly's pushchair around / play football in.

I am back on the Sports and Social committee at work.

It is our 4th wedding anniversary today. Feels like yesterday we got married. I love my wife more and more everyday, blah, blah, blurg. Happy anniversary dear.

Rob's back from Chicago. Last week his Dad was admitted to hospital with blurred vision, dizzyness and slightly slurred speech. It wasn't alcohol. It's a brain tumour. The prognosis isn't good either. Rob was expecting the very worst news to be "your Dad only has 12 months", but having been through cancer with Gran last year, I suspected that it might be quicker than that. The doctors have predicted he only has months. Rob's Dad is going to have a course of radiotherapy and look at some other alternative therapy options, so there's still some hope, but that is one mighty big clock ticking. Rob is still in shock -- none of the family can quite believe it, as his Dad's symptoms have come out of the blue. It's so difficult to find the right words to comfort Rob -- it is impossible to put any positive spin on a desperate situation like this and there's nothing you can do to make things better.

I'm just so sorry for his Dad and the whole family.

Quick Fire

It's my financial year end, so I'm busy, busy, busy.
Here are some headlines:

We move tomorrow. The packers are in today and have boxed up our life in less than 6 hours. The oven at our new house is bust apparently and the kitchen will have to be ripped apart in order to repair it. We can have £250 to the repair cost though.

In an attempt to move away from the "no-trainers, I like Buena Vista Social Club" grey man stereotype, I am wallowing in the sound that those kids like -- rock, hard rock. Those Queens of the Stone Age rock man.

I am more of a local superhero than even Ginger Woman -- more on this once we've moved.

I hate my job. My bosses are cretins.

India's words include "turtle" and "daddy, your bosses are fuckwits". I don't know how she will cope come tomorrow's move: she will freak out that our house has changed.

iPod therefore I am

We finally exchanged contracts on the houses a week last Friday. I can't express how much of a relief it was. We got screwed by both ends of the chain at the last moment, tarnishing the whole process, but Vic and I are both settling into the idea that we're moving.
Things have been hectic. Although we're not moving until the 7th of April, we've been busy booking removal firms and spending time and money on new sofas, bedroom furniture and kitchen quotes. It's an expensive business moving house...

I'm currently burying my head in colour charts -- I can't wait to strip off all the hideous decor at our new place and start licking the walls with Apple Meadow, Chocolate Contessa and Almond White. Mmmmmm, right tasty.

Unfortunately, our buyer gazundered us at the last minute, meaning we don't have £3,500 to spend on things round the house and the odd treat or two.

One of those treats may well have been a mini iPod, as a handful of buddies have been singing the praises of the little babies. In order to assess the functionality and appeal of these new whizzy gadgets, I borrowed [work] Lynn's new iPod and got it up and running for her. Took a bit of tweaking and general head-scratching, but now it's churning out the crystal clear digital music, I'm loathed to hand it back.

Here's hoping she hates it and decides to give it to me.

I want one.


[note to readers: this should have been posted 2 weeks ago]

Nobby the talking clock

"Nobby recognises some voices better than others and works best when you talk to him at a distance of 1m. Don't shout or swear at him as he gets offended - he accused our testers of getting out of bed the wrong side when they barked out a question to him."

Uncanny.

Another 100 points

Some things you just don't blog.

For example, you'd be wise not to blog if you murder someone. Or have an affair. Or you're a gentleman who enjoys wearing ladies clothing at the weekend.

One thing I didn't blog last time was the first 12 weeks of our pregnancy with India. You can't be too careful can you...

So it made sense not to blog our pregnancy this time either.

Unfortunately -- as about one third of the people who read this already know -- we suffered a miscarriage two weeks ago. An emergency scan showed that at ten weeks, our pregnancy had not developed past the six week stage and there was no sign of a heart beat. A few days later Vic suffered some terrible and extremely scary bleeding, that saw us rush her into A&E at three in the morning. It hit her hard.

Things have settled down now. Vic's bleeding has stopped and, despite a few tearful moments, we're OK.

I've had a week off work with a chest infection. I badly needed it as the events of the last few months (two deaths, exams, house move, lost buyer, miscarriage) caught up with me last Thursday and in a fit of exhaustion, I felt on the brink of a depression. Completely drained physically and mentally. I felt as if I was in a little boat -- that had sprung a leak -- on a great boiling black sea. After some proper rest, things don't seem quite so bleak now.

Mission Accomplished

I passed my final CIMA exam!
I'm fully qualified (bar completing my statement of experience).
No more exams!
I have my life back!
Life is sweet!!!

Better News

We've received an offer on our house this lunch time. A low offer, but it's proceedable and from a serious buyer. We also have a third viewing booked in tomorrow from the girl who offered on day 1 of the house going on the market. She's still looking and keen. Fingers crossed we'll get another grand or two on the offers, then it will be back to the stress of waiting to exchange. The good news is that although it's going to costs us, we shouldn't lose the house we're buying.


Ainsley Harriot's Cup Soup is Crap

I wrote a letter to Ainsley today. Once I find his address, I'll be posting it to him. can you spot which bits are serious and which are not?! His wife is called Clare btw. Silvana is his food stylist.


Dear Ainsley,

I think you are a marvellous man and love your food. I own all of your cookbooks and use them everyday. I particularly enjoy putting your barbecue recipes into practice. There’s nothing like giving your meat a good spicy rub before sticking it on hot coals.

However, my wife says I’m a bit fat, so I’m off the pork chops and sausages and eating low fat food. I’m also taking sandwiches to work for lunch, but like you, I’m a big chap and they don’t really fill me up. In desperation, I’ve turned to cup soups. Normally I like Batchelors Chicken Noodle Cup a Soup, but during my weekly visit to Asda last week, I spotted your handsome face on a different brand and decided to purchase your Ainsley Harriott Wonderfully Wild Mushroom Cup Soup. We all like a nice drop of soup don’t we, and I noticed from the packaging that your Wonderfully Wild Mushroom Cup Soup is low in fat and therefore perfect for my diet.

I made up the soup according to the instructions on the packaging and was looking forward to having my tastebuds tickled by "the most sensational cup soup we’ve ever created!"

Frankly Ainsley, I was very disappointed by the soup. It’s like sludge. All starchy and with no taste. I asked my colleague at work what flavour she thought it was and she said asparagus, because it smelt of earth. She is German. I have analysed the ingredients and was shocked to discover that there is more Suzy salt and sugar in the product than mushrooms and cream, despite the fact the packaging calls the soup "dreamy creamy".

I feel like you’ve personally let me down Ainsley. This soup is dreadful and undeserving of your beautiful face adorning it. Even the recipe idea – which I can’t tell if you have endorsed or not – for steak sauce made from two sachets of the soup is crap. All of your fans will be weeping into their cups whilst this Cup a Sludge is still on the market.

In the meantime, I wish you and your lovely wife Silvana well. I watched Silvana on The Best and thought she was scrummy! Please could you send me a signed photo of you and her together, so I can hang it in my kitchen and gain inspiration from it.

Yours sincerely,
Nobby

The Timewaster Letters

As expected the bitch dropped us yesterday. In a rage of frustration, I disobeyed a direct order from Vic and emailed Dr. HP (the bitch) for some feedback from the horse's mouth.

My email:

I'm disappointed and distressed to learn from Paul of [Our Estate Agents] that you've offered on another property and withdrawn from our sale, when we were just a few days away from being able to exchange contracts on Nobby's House.

Paul has given me feedback on your reasons for pulling out:
a) Had time to think / reconsider.
b) Concerned about legal right of way.
c) Concerned about the [lack of] damp-proofing.
d) Answers to outstanding queries have not been forthcoming.

Frankly, I'm surprised at these reasons:
b) In almost four years we have never had any problem with using the access to our property's back garden. Our neighbour, Mrs. Kim has always allowed us access, as is our legal right. There has never been an issue of any sort. She has provided us with a key to the new gate lock she installed last year. She has offered us the use of the side passage for bike storage, etc. We use the access every week in the winter and more often in the summer.

c) We instructed an independent third-party surveyor (Peter Cox Ltd) to give a clearer idea of the true extent of the damp and costs of treating it on the 4th of January. Their report was available to you on Friday evening, but you have not requested a copy of that report. In summary, the cost of a new damp-proof course is just £400 (inc. VAT) and all work could be done externally -- i.e. no internal mess. As all of the internal walls downstairs -- apart from the hallway -- have been replastered in water-proofed cement sand render within the last two years, it is highly likely that no replastering apart from patches in the hallway will ever be necessary. The estimated cost of replastering the hallway is £250. The surveyor described our property as "being in good condition".

d) Our answers to all of your outstanding queries were available from our solicitor on Friday evening.

Considering that the cost of the damp-proof treatment was going to be no more than £650, our invitation to you to make a new offer at £201,500 was a fair and generous one.

That offer is still on the table, if you are inclined to reconsider.

Sincerely yours,
Nobby

I thought she'd reply "fuck off", but in fact I got the following:

Dear Nobby,
I am sorry you are disappointed and I appreciate that my decision will
cause you some delay in moving on, but I believe I have made the right
decision in buying another house.

I have had some concerns all along about no 79 and its suitability for
my family, but your house was the one I liked best from those available
when I was looking in November, and due to my need to move quickly, I
decided to go ahead with the purchase despite my concerns.

I'm sure Paul has outlined these to you, but in case he has not provided
you with the details, I will do so.

> b) Concerned about legal right of way.
I am glad you have had no issues with your neighbour. I spoke to her
twice and while she acknowledged the legal right of way, she made it
very clear that she does not want people to use the access that crosses
her back garden, especially in the summer, when she might be using her
garden, and at night, when she would find it understandably frightening
for people to walk past her window. Moreover, the passageway is full of
dustbins etc, which make it very difficult to pass through with
bicycles. As an alternative, she suggested we took rubbish, garden waste
etc through the house, which she said had always been done before.
This arrangement does not suit us because of (a) the very nice cream
carpets in the dining area, (b) the fact that we regularly go for bike
rides in the summer, and most importantly (c) because my teenage
daughter cycles to work in the evenings and would need to store her bike
safely on coming home. Your neighbour kindly offered us the possibility
of storing one bike in the passageway, under the condition that we did
not then use the back access but always used the front door; this
alleviates my latter concern somewhat, but doesn't allay my concerns
about freedom of access more generally.

> c) Concerned about the [lack of] damp-proofing.
> d) Answers to outstanding queries have not been forthcoming.

Both my solicitors and myself have been surprised at the unnecessary
delay in your solicitors' responses since the middle of December, given
that you knew I was hoping for a very quick purchase. I was
particularly disappointed by your initial refusal to negotiate on the
costs raised by the surveyor's report in order to organise the work
yourself, despite my hurry to move, and then hearing more than 3 weeks
later that you had not arranged for the work to be done but had simply
got a second quote for the work. This caused unnecessary delay in the
purchase, as we could have agreed a figure in mid-December. The fact
that you now wish to negotiate a figure for the work on the basis of
this second quote was not passed on to me until earlier this week, by
which time I had come across a property that I think is more suited to
us. I hardly need point out that if you had agreed a figure for the work
in December, we would have exchanged before this week, and this
situation would not have arisen.

I hope these facts clarify my decision . I hope you and your family find
a new purchaser very quickly - you have a lovely home and I am sure it
won't take too long.
Yours,
Dr HP


Which is lovely, except she's talking bollocks. "Facts" my arse. So I replied:

Thank you for your reply and frankness.
I shall be taking up the access right of way with my neighbour and solicitor.

However, I am very unhappy about your approach to the damp-proofing.
Your survey was NOT an estimate or quote of costs. The £2,500 retention was a joke and the surveyor recommended a specialist report. We commissioned that specialist report. You did not ask us to carry out any works. You offered a reduction of £4,000 on the purchase price -- a joke considering the work required. We could not get any work done in that "3 week" period because, as you are fully aware, it was Christmas and New Year -- how and who was going to do this work?! And why would we get work done without a quote first? How could we negotiate "in December" when our solicitor didn't receive your joke offer until the 23rd of December and we had no idea of the true cost of works on which to base any renegotiation? YOU wanted guarantees and work carried out by a specialist company -- the 4th of January was the earliest day ANY damp-proofing company in Oxon and Bucks could get out to assess things.

You clearly live on a different planet to the rest of us. You are a timewaster and with the beauty of hindsight I can see we are better-off without you as our buyer.

[End of communication]


I'm expecting a "fuck off" reply now, but so far, no sign.
I know it's childish, but the exchange has made me feel much better about things.
Vic is completely unimpressed, but an exchange of emails is far more civilised than an exchange of firebombs...

Bitch

The fucking time-wasting, untrustworthy, nit-picking, indecisive, psycho bitch has offered on another property that has just come to market. Fucking bitch.

We now have to wait to see whether her -- low -- offer is accepted. If so, we'll be dropped like a hot potato, and Vic will go knocking on her door and kill her. If not, we might be still on.

[2 min later update]
I've just told Vic and I quote "I'm going to go round and firebomb her house".
Followed by tears.

Fucking bitch.

The Doomsday Clock Tick Tick Tocks

The dread hands of human bone click silently on towards the midnight hour.

We're expecting a call any minute from our estate agents telling us whether or not we have lost our [house] buyer. On Friday she phoned up Lightfoots for "an update" -- things are progressing, we're addressing all your queries and £4,000 offer reduction* -- and finished the call by telling our agent that she would like to view some other houses. Probably a crude attempt to hurry things along and put some pressure on the chain. Oops. Big mistake lady, as by asking to view other properties you give our agent no option other than to tell us to put our house back on the market -- it has to work both ways our agent said (and he's right).

"Fine" was her response.

* Her offer was reduced in light of her survey that showed an area of damp in the hallway, and her concerns at the lack of guarantees on the damp-proof course. £4,000? When a new DPC costs £400 including the VAT?

"Why don't you go fuck yourself." is what I'd like to tell her. But instead we've offered a generous £1,000 discount off the original purchase price (which was too low anyway), with the tagline that it is a take-it or leave-it counter-offer.

Now we await her response. She's been thinking about it overnight. I guess she might make the call over lunch time.

The doomsday clock is ticking.

Fingers crossed it doesn't chime.

Waterlogged Pitch

Carlisle United's football ground is under 4ft of water. Irthington is on higher ground and far enough away from the River Eden to have escaped with just a soaking and a storm-battering. However, Ann and David are without power, heating or much food. David is planning to BBQ random meat out of their defrosting freezer indoors tonight -- he can't do it outdoors as the village is completely pitch-black. You might use the words "flood disaster zone" in normal circumstances.

The Daily Mail blames global warming.

When asked why she couldn't use her anti-terrorism stash of consumables and food-stuffs that she had been going on about for six months (at the same time telling us that we need one), Ann revealed that it has absolutely nothing in it. At least nothing that doesn't have to be cooked in the oven / on the hob. In fact their emergency provisions seem to consist of a slab of beers and a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay.

The Year of the Nobby

Welcome to 2005 people. I didn't post anything over the holiday period because we didn't do anything of interest over the holiday period. Which was great. India loved her plastic pirate ship -- she has already perfected a decent pirate "Ahaar!" -- and I got my classic King Kong movie poster*, so we were all happy.

* King Kong is coming out of the jungle, surrounded by scantily-clad, screaming ladies. He is currently being framed up at Bob's gallery, ready for his hanging in our new Art Deco style bathroom, when we eventually move**. It'll scare the hebe-gebe's out of India.

** Our buyer is pissing us around again. She's worried about the lack of damp-proof course guarantees and has reduced her offer by £4,000. As I told our estate agent, she can shove that up her damp course. We've had an independent surveyor out yesterday to give us a realistic report and quote on it. I reckon £1,000 and we'll offer to split this 50-50 with her in the form of a £500 discount on the price. TBC on receipt of the report. Her messing is also pushing the exchange date back -- and she was the one who wanted to move asap too... Earliest moving date is probably going to be the 28th of January now.

A Summary of Recent Life Changes:

1) I have cut my fizzy pop consumption down to one can a day for over 100 days now. I have therefore avoided almost 4 kilos of sugar. 4 kgs! No wonder I've lost weight.
2) I haven't worn a watch for four months. I am no longer ruled by time and don't get stressed when I'm running late. My time-keeping is actually better than it's ever been.
3) India is now longer a baby. She is a toddler.
4) The house move is progressing slowly, but is on course for the last week of January.
5) Last Christmas I had three grandparents, this year I have none.


Targets for Next Year:

1) New house.
2) New job, with a salary sufficient to pay the new mortgage.
3) Pass CIMA exams, if end of January's results are a disappointment.
4) Write a book -- this may well be the complete memoirs of my granddad.
5) Produce a brother/sister/tag-team wrestler for India.


Other Notes:

1) Friends seem to be producing babies all over the place.
2) We are starting to catch up with people we haven't seen in a while (due to the traumas of the last few months): Met Lazza and Cazza's Finlay and Sara and Stasher's Rory a fortnight ago. Saw Matt and Sam Jenkins -- who are pregnant -- for the first time in four (?) years. Saw Rachel and Robin's Daisy last night for the first time since April.
3) India hasn't pulled over the Christmas tree.

Best wishes to everyone for the holidays. Happy Christmas.

Side Track

It took us ages to get into the city last night. It's nice to know that Americans have to suffer traffic queues like we do. By the time we got to Jen and Mike's it was 9:00. Boy Town was jammed and it took us 30 mins to park. We then discovered the restaurant had valet parking.

Yoshi's Cafe is Japanese-Western fusion. It's also a "proper" restaurant -- as are the prices. Jen and I had a grilled teriyaki salmon fillet on a bed of risotto cake and fresh asparagus. Rob and Mike went for the MEAT option.

Then we hit Side Track: wall-to-wall guys. Jen was the only lady in there for the first beer. The place was cool. Nothing freaky. Except for the total lack of ladies. Compare this to a gay village in the UK where there are plenty of straights out too. There weren't even any gay girls there! Only tough moment for me was the visit to the gents. Stood next to a MASSIVE black guy. I was worried for my cheeks. Then he started singing along to the Madonna video playing over the speakers in a Judy Garland / Wizard of Oz voice. Same thing with the big butch barman... a tiny squeaky voice.

By the time we checked the clock it was midnight. Back home for one. I was knackered anyhow, so when the alarm went off this morning I felt terrible.

Still don't feel right -- despite throwing up half my Berry Blast fruit smoothie mid-morning [oh yes]. My sinuses are congested too -- I guess from the smoke in the bar.

Last night tonight. It's going to be a quiet one.

Motorola Is Go!

Rob's reflashed my mobile and my UK sim card seems to be working again.
I'm back online for text messages.
Lost my photos and ring tones, but gained a host of games.
The games will come in useful at Heathrow on Saturday morning, waiting for the flight to Newcastle...

Situation Update / Boy Town

1 inch of snow. Icy not soft.
Thai food from the Bangkok Cafe was excellent.
Exchanged sweater for India.
Naboo was destroyed by the Deathstar. The Force is with us!

Work has been better today (could it be any worse?). Got some things done and helped others to do the same. Chicken casaer salad for lunch was yummy. As were the Dunkin Donuts. A couple of the american ladies want me to stay here forever: they like my "easy going nature" and reckon I'd fit right in. [ooer]

Tonight Rob and I are going downtown into the city with Jen -- an asia colleague of Rob's who visited our house in the summer. We're going to "Boy Town". Look out fellas! Hopefully we'll have chance to do some lightning sightseeing and ride to the top of the Hancock Building [another Freudian?].

The Stench of Meat

I stink of meat.
I have greasy skin.
Five days into my trip and I'm desperate for some fresh fruit and vegetables.
Too much sugar. Too much lard. Too much meat...

Steak tonight I think...

Snow

It's starting to snow.

I've come out without my jacket.

Having Fun?

Yesterday was completely unproductive: Everything that could go wrong with my laptop and the other IT systems did so. I got home stressed that my Transatlantic trip was turning into a nightmarish waste of time.

Today started the same, just cranked-up a notch. Things got even better at lunch time, when out-of-the-blue over our Chicago deep-pan pizza, Amy (the Finance Mgr here) announced that she is quitting at the end of next week due to "personal reasons".

I wish I'd taken a camera to capture the picture of her seven direct reports faces. Stunned. White. Ghostly. Jaws dropped.

Nobody said a thing.

Amy burst into tears and left the table. As the most remote person there, I followed -- I like Amy and hate seeing people upset -- she was OK, just needed a breather. When she got back to the table, it was really weird: Still nobody said a thing, they just got on with lunch as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Back at the office, I have an email from the UK, asking me to call my managers home. He asks if I'd like to stay on for another week in Chicago to help support the remaining Finance Team and soften the blow of Amy's sudden departure.

Hello Graeme, I have my grandfather's funeral on Monday!

So not only have I done f-all work so far, I'm now the go between agent for Amy and my Director back in the UK. Caught in the crossfire. Fantastic! Best thing is they'll probably offer me the job for the end of January. Too late folks -- we're buying a new house!

[Sigh]

Last night's food & entertainment was:
California Pizza Kitchen pizza (1x pepperoni, 1x pear and blue cheese)
2nd Qtr of Green Bay v St Louis
2 hours of Star Wars Battefront on the PS2.

Tonight's food and entertainment is:
Food unknown
Shopping
More Star Wars probably

Like Any Other Grey Monday Morning

After a great weekend, my work here has begun.
Or rather it hasn't -- it's taken all morning to get the IT systems running.
It's already clear that my week is not going to be easy. The sales database is screwed and nothing seems to be working as it should be. I didn't think I was jetlagged, but it's just approaching lunch time and I'm dizzy, flushed and headachy. And tired. I'm looking forward to my chicken casear pitta sandwich with onion rings side order...

The office is like all small manufacturing facilities around the globe. Grey. Dull. It even has the standard sweater-wearing scientists and techies. Open Univeristy 1970's stylee. They live.

It feels like any other Monday morning.

My Kind of Town

Hello from Chicago!

I arrived yesterday afternoon, after an uneventful eight hour flight, to be picked up by Rob in his Soccer Mom-bile. A light dusting of snow covered the ground -- an exciting sight as we came into land. Unfortunately we had rain overnight and all the snowmen have been washed away.

A glass of champagne and a couple of beers also washed my jetlag away. Last night we ordered pizza in and played some boardgames with Mark, Dave and Kate. An easy first night. The guys were a little surprised to see me still up at ten -- it was a 23 hour for me -- but whereas in the past I might have been a mess, India has trained me to survive on a lot less sleep than before.

In flight movies were:
The Bourne Supremacy -- pretty good.
Dodgeball -- really funny.

After a good night's sleep -- I only woke up once at six (just like home!) -- I cooked breakfast and we headed out to Gameworks for some video game acton and then a movie; National Treasure -- it's mediocre and anti-British (as usual these days with Hollywood).

Tonight is Tapas in Arlington Heights -- the original plan had been La Baton (go search on google) or the KitKat Club but they were booked up (my Gay Night out will have to wait until midweek) -- followed by drinks at the local sports bar.

It's not a holiday though...

Other notes:
Rob's apartment is very cool. Lots of floorspace and nicely decorated. Certainly might steal an idea or two for our new home.
I'm missing my wife and baby already.

Big kisses from the Windy City.

House News

We've accepted an offer on our house -- £202,500, a little below our "minimum acceptable" -- but only because we have offered (and had accepted) an offer on a large four bed detached house on the modern part of Thame's estate. Our purchase is a bargain and will set us up for a long time: the house represents 2 steps up on the property ladder for us. We are excited, and it ticks all of our boxes and more.

Mum is helping us with the Stamp Duty and moving costs -- the only reason we can afford this leap up.

The ball is now rolling and if everything goes smoothly, then with luck we may well complete the sale mid January: the chain is our cash buyer, us, our vendor who is going into rented -- i.e. a good short chain.

Fingers crossed.

Black Friday

I was going to update this last Thursday, but thanks to a nasty little virus passed on by India (she was poorly for 2 weeks), I was off work again with ANOTHER chest infection. Hardly the best preparation for my exam tomorrow.

But it was to get worse on Friday.

We had been looking forward to receiving news of Sara and Stashers new arrival: Sara was booked in for a cesaer.

Instead I got news that my grandad had dropped dead.

Seven weeks after his wife had died, my gramp seems to have died of a broken heart. You hear of these things all the time when elderly people suddenly lose their life-long loves and partners, but having seen gramp doing so well over the last week -- he seemed to be back to his normal self according to my mum -- the fact he's gone is a real shock. I can't believe it really. No chance to say goodbye. No chance to help me get over gran's loss by talking things through with him. Quite simply a terrible blow.

We await the Coroner's post-mortem report tomorrow: As gramp hadn't seen a Doctor since gran's death, and his collapse was so sudden (he had spoken to his neighbour five minutes before he was found dead), a post-mortem is required.

Frankly, this year has been dreadful, with all three of my surviving grandparents dying. The only consolidation I can take from gramp's death is that he is now where he wanted to be.

The silver-lining of the day was the good news from Sara and Stasher that tempered our tragedy suffered:

Rory Edward Neville was born fit and healthy. 5 lbs, 12 oz

Congratulations Mum and Dad!

Edward was my gramps name...

Confidence Evaporates

I had been confident that we'd be celebrating the sale of our house -- at it's full asking price -- within a matter of days. Unfortunately this hasn't happened. We had the one viewing on Saturday and the feedback was:

"He liked it... but thought that the living room was too small. He won't be putting in an offer."

WTF did he expect?! It's a Victorian Terrace house. ALL the reception rooms are small. If he's that worried, then knock the internal wall down... Nevermind.

And after speaking with our agent about the girl who put in the laughably low offers, it's clear she was taking a punt on things: Apparently she DOES have the money, as she's been looking at up to £225,000...

Going into this week we now have ZERO potential buyers lined up. Not good.

Of course we looked at 3 properties ourselves over the weekend.

Property 1 is good enough that we're going to offer on it tomorrow, despite the fact there are already 2 bids for it on the table and we haven't sold. Asking price is £249,950 and we'll have to offer that I think.

Property 2 was a 35 min round trip due to road works. The agent turned up 5 mins late... with the WRONG KEYS. F*ckwit. As the house is right next door to a pub with a kebab van in it, we won't be going back for another look.

Property 3 was OK, but outside our budget once you added on the fees and the work we'd want to do to it.

So property 1 it is then... It's not in Thame though, it's in Stone.

Inertia Creeps

She has just come back with an increased offer of £200,000.
I didn't need to say anything to our agent...
I'm half expecting her to now come back with £202,500 -- which will be her top offer and one that will still be instantly rejected.

I think we can safely write this first potential buyer off now.

Dream On

Tried to blog some of this yesterday, but Blogger was clearly crippled under the strain of millions of Americans voicing their dismay and fury at George W Bush getting in again...

We had a viewing on our house at lunch time yesterday and she was keen enough to book a second viewing. with her mum and dad, at half past five last night. According to the agent she's a first time buyer who has missed out on a house on our road before -- I'm guessing Ben and Sharyn's two doors down.

I've been waiting on an offer coming in all morning and have just received it: £195,000.

I actually laughed at the agent. What a joke. Dream on lady. I told the agent to tell her that if she was a serious buyer, and wanted to seal a deal before the house is advertising in the local papers, then she would be offering the asking price. After all, Ben and Sharyn's went for £193,000 and it has one less bedroom and isn't as nice.

I think she's watched too many of those property TV shows where peeps offer way below the asking price as their opening bid. Unfortunately for her, we're not desperate to move and the asking price is aggressive to realistic.

Now we'll wait to see her response: Vic doesn't think she's got the money for a much higher bid...

Wiggle It Just a Little Bit

We've put our house on the market (yesterday). American readers may be a little surprised that the asking price for a Victoria terrace property in a provincial SE market town, with just 3 bedrooms and 2 reception rooms, is £207,500 -- that's a round $370,000. Frankly £207,500 is a bargain: we've looked at a host of local properties recevtly and you won't find a nicer home in Thame until you get to the £275,000 mark.

Of course, it what you DON'T get for £207,500 that's the key: no garage or off-street parking, and no escape from the next door neighbours attached on both sides. Seriously, we're looking at houses up to the £250,000 stamp duty threshold and we'll get less floor-space, a kitchen and bathroom that will need refitting, nasty sticky carpets, BUT a garage and a cloakroom for our extra £40 grand.

Feel free to make us an offer, although Australian dollars will not be accepted.

Why are we moving? You'll know why from previous blog entries if you've kept a sharp eye on things and read between the lines. We just need to start afresh with a new project too. The possibility of relocating -- places like Kent and Chicago -- has cropped up in conversation, although Thame is still our current preferred location.

We actually put an offer in on a property just around the corner from us last week but it got rejected in favour of the cash buyer. Which is why we've bitten the bullet and put ours up for sale.

I'll blog what happens daily I think.

Today's House News:
No calls from the estate agent.
No viewings on our house.
No viewings made by us.
Viewings in the book:
None on our property.
We're looking at 1 on Friday and 1 on Saturday.

Haiku

I'll tell you about my gran's funeral when I remember to take the reading I performed [I can't find the right word here -- I was going to write "read", but that sounds lame] during the service out of my jacket pocket.

Work is getting me down. It's just not any fun. During a net-trawl I stumbled on some really nice Haiku, and I've been filling my waiting-for-an-accounts-download-time with writing Haiku rather than doodling.

Classic Haiku poetry is about nature and strictly fits the rule of three lines, first line five syllables, second line seven syllables, third line five syllables. An example of one of mine would be:

Leaves press against glass;
Yearning to break the prison
and taste a new day.
"Houseplant" - Nobby (c) 2004

...which is about the Ikea plant I've got sat on the windowsill next to my desk.

Senryu poetry is in the same format, but can be about any subject. Most of my attempts are lame but give you an idea of how I'm feeling -- the words seem to form themselves.

Smothered by grey dregs,
a beating heart crushed under
the feet of dull drones.


Rising up through black
sodden earth, angry beetles
bite at my spirit.

Call me Nobbysan.

Alice Bull

My gran died at 4.30 pm on Saturday afternoon. It wasn't a shock -- it was inevitable. I managed to see her on Friday afternoon for a while and say all the things I needed to -- not just for me, but for Vic, India, my brother and my best mate Rob who has always regarded gran as his own. She was tired and lost in a fog of morphine, but I hope she heard what I told her. My brother arrived five minutes topo late to speak to her himself on Saturday -- but as I told him yesterday, I'd said what needed to be said for both of us and it's not about the last five minutes, or the last few weeks, it is all about the last 33 years.

It was a rapid decline for my gran. Two weeks ago I thought she would make Christmas, but over the course of the fortnight expectations of her survival time dropped first to a few weeks, then a few days, and by Friday it was down to a few hours. In the end she lost the fight, but it was one she couldn't win.

I'm going to miss her. She was a brilliant gran -- the best a grandson could hope for -- and a lovely person.

A Link For the Sake of It

For some reason google has dropped the links to our Oxford magic club sites, so I'm creating one here for the sake of it.

It will act as a useful reminder that this blog is not here to entertain.

NaNoWriMo

I know at least two friends who read this blog who reckon they have a novel ready to go inside of them. NaNoWriMo -- a US writing month challenge championed by at least one other reader of this site (hello Kate) -- kicks off on the 1st of November and is an excellent motivational tool to get on and write that novel. I myself am very keen to sign up, but unfortunately my final CIMA exam is scheduled for the 23rd of November, making it an impossibility.

Uber Violence

India and Thomas are effectively exactly the same age: Although Thomas popped out over a week later than India, they were both due on the same day.

The two of them are as thick as thieves. Many of the ante/post-natal parents reckon they're like a married couple. But it's turning into a love-hate relationship.

On Friday they went swimming together and Thomas managed to bite India on the arm. An entirely deliberate act that left India with red teeth marks on her pale skin and a bruise. On Sunday India got her revenge, running Thomas down -- Duel style -- with her walker and then throwing up milky sick over his toy piano. In response, Thomas picked up a Noddy toy car -- a blunt and heavy weapon -- and waved it menacingly at her. India cut loose and grabbed a plastic hammer -- the sort that make a squeak when you bash anything with it -- and we were left with a Mexican stand-off, each baby grimacing, determined to face the other down.

I am now calling the two of them Itchy and Scratchy.

I had to warn the nursery this morning that the two of them had to be closely watched...

Caffine Free

Apart from a single cup of coffee, I've not had any caffine for 25 days now. My 3 days of sickness at the start of my holiday kciked the habit and covered the cold turkey. Where I was pretty much addicted to 2 cans of Coke a day before, I'm now devoid of the urge to crack open a can of the brown.

According to Ronan Keating, Life is a Rollercoaster

It's been a week (and a bit) of troughs and peaks:

I didn't win the flavour text vote.

India has had REAL BAD nappy rash and a cold.

Last Wednesday evening my car broke down on the way home from work. The thermostat gave up the ghost, closing the air coolant value, causing the pressure to build up to such an extent that the radiator burst. It took 2 hours for the RAC to reach me, plus an extra hour to figure out that the problem wasn't repairable at the roadside and tow me home. The bill for the new radiator was £410 -- money that we don't have -- and that made last Thursday an equally brilliant day.

Friday featured my mum and dad telling me that gran won't make Christmas. I saw her on Sunday morning and they're right. I'm not coping too well with this fact.

On Saturday we went along to the Rectory Homes launch of the new properties being built just down the road from us. They had one three bed house in our budget. It had no garage, less floor space and garden that our existing house, no dining room (ie. one less reception) and was badly overlooked. Completely depressing and zero value for money. It's getting me down how little even the top of our budget will buy.

Saturday night we went out for dinner to celebrate Lucy's 30th and even that was frustrating: Sara and Gareth decided to go to war over how bad the Eden Project is (when it's actually a fantastic achievement and day out), Sara spent the whole meal sat forward, cutting the rest of the table out from me (we were sat on the end), and a chap at the other end of the table who cannot tell the difference between a fillet steak and a sirloin, ate MY fillet steak. I got the slice of old boot. Horror of horrors.

But things haven't been all bad, and indeed have been pretty darn good over the last few days:

India was bought her first pair of proper shoes and is now steady enough on her feet that she is walking unaided up to nine steps at a time*.
Last Thursday Vic and I went dry-slope skiing for the first time ever. Really enjoyed it.
We got together for a curry with ante natal James and Rachel on Friday night and had a great afternoon on Sunday celebrating Alex's first birthday at Matt and Martina's.
My dad has conjured up a cheque for £400 -- no strings attached.
We are off to see a house tomorrow that seems to tick all our boxes.
Vic bought me the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. India watched the first five minutes with me and loved it.
I've had my business trip to Chicago confirmed and booked for the end of November -- I'll be spending the week at my best mate Rob's apartment. I'm very pleased and excited.
Larry and Carole have a baby boy! Finlay was born on Saturday and weighs a healthy 8 lbs 14 oz. He has more hair than his dad. Congratulations to Lazza and Cazza. We're chuffed for them!


* Many of India's little friends are now walking. Collectively they resemble little zombies, shuffling slightly off-balance and awkwardly, mouths open and groaning, towards you.

A World of Spain

How was the holiday?

Hmmmm... We were due to fly out Tuesday lunch time, but things didn't go to plan. India was repeatedly sick (and we're talking big person's sick) on the Friday night beforehand. I got it at 1.38 am Tuesday morning. And I got it bad. Hours of puking up replaced sleep. My body was wrecked. At 10.00 am the rest of my family departed for the airport, leaving me on the bathrrom floor. I managed to fly out Wednesday evening, keeping a firm grip on my bowels. Air pressure can do horrible things to a man who has a body that wants to expunge its gizzards by whatever outlet possible.

Vic came down with it on the Thursday and didn't leave the apartment for two and a half days.

Great start to a ten day holiday...

Apart from that things were good: The weather -- that can be very changable this time of year -- held out for all but one day. We were hit by four nights of electrical storms however -- amazing events, as L'Escala lies on a bay surrounded by hills, meaning that once a thunderstorm gets caught in the bay, it never escapes. It was like watching some sort of immense ethereal naval battle. At times the night sky was light up like the middle of the day.

Visted the Dali museum at Figueres -- his fine art is surprisingly superb. I'm used to seeing his cliched rubbery clocks and elephants on stilts and was pleasantly surprised by the vast scope of his other work. The gold gorilla skeleton by his bed was quite freaky. We also visited the sprawling Roman and Greek ruins of Empuiries too: I still don't get why the ancients were so obsessed with willies. If they weren't drinking out of willy-shaped goblets, their stonemasons were chiselling willy images into city walls.

We managed to catch up with some old friends who I hadn't seen for 6 and *12* years respectively. It's scary how people don't change: I few pounds heavier, different hair, wives and children, but that's it.

Flava Text

OK, here's a blog-rule-breaking Magic-related post for you.

I can't tell you how excited I am!

Some Magic cards have what's called "flavour text" on them. The idea is to give depth to the card and add colour to the game. Some flavour text is ripped from classic literature. Some is created by the Magic R&D team -- it usually has an element of imaginary game character saying "blah, blah, D&D crap, blah, blah...". The classic quotes are always so much better...

Anway, for the second year running, Wizards of the Coasts have run an online competition for players of the game to submit their own ideas for flavour text to Magic R&D for inclusion in the next Core Set of the game due for release next year.

They put up three cards -- Fear, Naturalize and Shock -- for the great unwashed game-playing masses to submit on.

I've got to say that all three of my submissions seriously kicked ass.

To continue the story I shall now quote directly from the Magic article that was posted up today:

"For the final vote of the promotion, we have the ten finalists for each card in the flavor text competition. The readers of magicthegathering.com sent us nearly 10,000 entries, and narrowing them all down to this list of finalists was no simple task (and not just because of the numbers involved). So here, to close out our promotion, are the final three votes of Selecting Ninth Edition. Pick your favorites and make sure to check back next week for the results as well as a complete wrap-up of all the other votes as well."

Guess who made the shortlist for Fear? From 10,000 submissions!
[Smile]

If you'd like to vote on my submission -- so I can have my flavour text live forever -- you can vote for it here. You'll need to register with the site first. (Do it!)

And you need to vote for #6:
"Hold on to your sword, your nerve, and your bowels."

Frankly it pisses on all the other submissions, but every vote counts as they say...

Bon Anniversary

It's September and that means three things:

1) We're off on holiday to Spain for ten days.

2) Whilst we're away it's India's first birthday! Happy Birthday for the 13th! (I can't believe how quickly the last 12 months have gone)

3) This blog becomes two years old on the 11th. This is pretty amazing for me, as the previous diaries I've written have at most lasted all of 5 weeks. Thank you for reading.

See you when we get back from Espana!

I Hate Caravans

One negative thing about travelling up and back to Carlisle is the high number of trundling caravans you have to fight past on the M6. The Lake District is like a candle for these moths. They should be banned from using motorways. The only silver-lining of having them block up the road, is the ability to laugh at the manufacturer's names given to the boxes of scrap metal on wheels.

My favourite model from this trip was the "Marauder".

Bizarrely, it was being driven by a guy dressed in a black desert nomad costume and wielding a great curved sword.

The Dance of Death

We went up to Carlisle at the weekend to see Vic’s mum and dad. Nelson the dog has pretty much got over his psycho paw gnawing and was pleasantly surprised to see us arrive. As usual his little willy popped out to greet us at the door.

Day 1 saw Nelson over-excited about having a mini human in his midst. India was unsure of what to make of him. A muscular mass of black hair with big teeth and lots of salvia wasn’t something she wanted up close and personal in her face. Frantic pointing at the dog and cuddling up close to mummy was about as adventurous as it got.

Day 2 saw a gradual coming together of the two naughty monkeys: they were both excited, but not crazily so.

Day 3 was the complete reverse of day 1, with India squealing in delight at the dog and trying to grab his tail / pat his back / stick her hands in his mouth. Of course, as soon as Nelson was aware of tiny hands grabbing at him, he would spin round to challenge the 2ft tall energetic bundle of nuisance. Slow motion boxing-style replays of his spinning would probably have shown beads of dog salvia being thrown from the thrashing beast. India didn’t like this, and would retreat into our arms in an instant, laughing maniacally as she did so. Then her brow would furrow and our devilish child would wait for the unsuspecting dog to turn away before pounching once more. Repeat until either dog, dad or mum got bored.

The three days played out like some great Dance of Death, with the two participants gleefully taunting each other and being forcibly separated by the adults of the house when things looked as if they were getting out of hand.

No wounds administered by either dancer, but next time we go up – when India should be fully mobile – I think we can expect fireworks.

Especially if it’s the first weekend of November.

Excerpt: Life of a Tackley Lad

The writing up of Gramp's memoirs continues at a snail's pace. As I've not got time to write anything original today, here is an excerpt that I prepared earlier. Gives a good idea of the generally tone and spirit of Volume 1:

"At the top of the back garden were the pigsties. One belonged to us, the other to Tommy Smith who lived next door. My dad usually kept two pigs at a time. When they weighed about sixteen score, one was sold for cash and the other was slaughtered outside the sty, with the meat retained for our use. Pig killing day was always exciting for the young boys in the village. A little streak of sadism seemed to lurk in us. Many of us used to hold the rope that secured the pig to the killing stool. The slaughter was always a gory task. A small sharp blade was inserted into the pig throat and the animal would bleed to death. It soon became law that all animals had to be shot before being cut.

My Uncle Harold Harris used to do the killing. He used to enjoy it. After despatching the pig he would hang it in our back shed overnight and then return the next day to butcher it. Nothing at all was wasted. The intestines were removed, cleaned, salted and used for a nice pan of ‘chitterlings’. Beautiful home-cured lard, seasoned with a little fresh rosemary from the garden, was made out of the pig flear. We had a lead trough in the back shed in which all the salting was performed. This is how we made our bacon and cured the ham. My dad used to make his own curing brine, using salt, treacle and a few selected spices. His secret ingredient was a drop of old ale. It worked wonders.

After they were cured, the bacon sides and hams were brought into the house. Hams were hung on the wall at the side of fire, and the sides hung from the ceiling in a rack. There they were left to mature until they developed an intense flavour that has no equal today."

Blind Man's Duff

When reaching into my "manbag" for my asthma inhalers, what should I find but my glasses, safe and sound in their case...

What a wally. At least I won't have to drive home squinting...

My Eyes!

Vic and I are exchanging cars everyday at the moment, a result of only having a single car seat for India. Today I drove Vic's car into work blind. I left my glasses in my car, which Vic had already departed in. With no vision correctors on, the drive to work was hair-raising. The world was a blur and I struggled to judge speed and distance. I felt I was wearing a goldfish bowl on my head. It was scary.

And I've got the return trip to look forward to later...

Athens

The Sunday Times Style magazine reports that the Greeks have ordered 130,000 condoms for the 17,000 athletes living in the Olympic Village over the next couple of weeks. A former athlete describes what goes on during the games as a 'f***fest'.

Now, these are purely my calculations, but figure 1 teaspoon of semen per condom. That's 5 ml times 130,000 condoms = 650 litres, or 1300 pints, of semen.

Almost enough for Ian Thorpe to swim in.

Crash Bang Wallop What a Big One

Somebody left the skylight to our bedroom opened yesterday. They knew that there was a chance of showers, but didn't expect the Summer Storm of the Decade to hit. I returned home to discover that the two inch gap at the top of the window had allowed buckets of water to soak the carpet and the bed. The rain had descended through layers of duvet, sheets, more sheets, a sleeping bag, and porous rock to soak the mattress. The carpet was drenched, and despite sponging with old towels, it was still wet this morning.

It was me who left the window open.

The lovely Falcon pub -- 200 yards down the road -- had a fire engine pumping its cellars out all night.

Good storm.


Out of Hospital

Gran came out of the JR yesterday. She's back at home and pleased to be sleeping in her own bed.


A House Divided

Vic went back to work on Monday for her first three day week. India was at the nursery on Monday and today. Yesterday she was looked after by my mum and dad. As expected, Vic hates it.

Electrical Storm

As I write this we are currently in the middle of the best electrical storm I've experienced for ages. Being at the top of the High Wycombe valley, I have a panoramic view of the lightning striking down around us. The office is slowly being flooded. So much rain has fallen that the gutters and roof can't cope. Water is pouring in through the window seals, soaking the carpets and cascading over power lines. At any moment I might lose this posting. It's very exciting. One of our 'Crisis Team' has just told me -- in his best Hollywood action movie voice -- that they've had to "cut the power on the other side of the building!". I am expecting us to be evacuated any second.

To top things off, our dimwitted HR Fools decided to force our Facilities Manager to resign last week, and he's out of the office today on gardening/beer leave. Instant Karma again (Kate). He's going to be soooo eager to fix the office tomorrow...

And now I'm hearing that (as usual) the freak weather is causing the closure of most of Wycombe's roads through flooding. There is also an accident on the M40 back to Oxford. Time to leave I think...

A Murder Mystery

Saturday night sees us celebrate Rob's birthday with a Murder Mystery Dinner. The scenario is 1930's India, with the characters being a motley crew of British Army Colonel's, Muslim playboys and Indian Independence activists. It is a boxed game, rather than one I've written myself. I've played four or five of these games now and they can go one of two ways: 1) Complete disasters as people drink too much and get confused about what's going on/fail to reveal their information correctly. 2) People get in character, stay sober and concentrate on the game, reveal what they need to and ask the right questions, resulting in a smooth evening.
Apart from the time Rob and I had to dress up in drag, most of our MMG's have ended up as disasters... I'm hoping that as three of the six won't be drinking more than a glass of wine, we'll be OK this time out.

I'm off to locate some props this afternoon: Stuffed tiger, croquet mallet (the murder weapon), Colonel's hat and false moustache, medals, books on the Boer War (Robin is playing a South African businessman/rugby player), blunderbuss, etc.

I have no doubt that it will be me who turns out to have done the dirty deed: caving the skull in of one of my officers... with a croquet mallet.

 

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Exam Results

I've just received my exam results. The email, sent by the CIMA Doomgoblins and made of lead, arrived with the accompanying sound of the London Lloyds Bell announcing the tragic news that another ship had been lost to the cruel sea.

You may well remember that I came out of both exams feeling very upset and frustrated. I'd put in a lot of hardwork and feared my poor performances on the day had thoroughly rotted the fruits of my labours. I was expecting to be acutely embarrassed by the results -- I know what is expected of me in these exams now and have been predicting nothing more than a 30-35% score in both.

So imagine my surprise and shock at scoring 47% and 50%, meaning a near-miss in the Financial Strategy and a very important scraped pass in the Case Study.

I'm stunned and can only think that the exams must have been overly difficult and CIMA had to bump up the marks*. There is no way that I scored anywhere near those marks on the day.

Vic and I are going to get pissed on champagne tonight.
I didn't embarass myself!
I've only got one more of the friggin' things to pass!
Put out the bunting!
Roll on the November retake!

 
* CIMA claim that they don't do this, but we all know that they do really...

A Little Tip for You: Don't Point the Finger

My dad sliced the tip of his finger off yesterday with a pair of garden shears. He was pruning the waterlillies. Mum said she found the tip on the blades, looking like half a baked bean. The finger bled for England, so they visited the JR's A&E. Unfortunately the chopped off end was too small for them to sew back on, so dad will presumably have a stubby finger now for the rest of his years.

The Biotic Man

We're using Thame's library again after a long break; driven by the need to feed India an ever-changing selection of books. She loves books.

I'm currently reading Rubicon ('The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic') by Tom Holland -- a rip-snorter of a history book, with colourful shocks on every page -- and Jack Heffron's Ideas for Writers.

Since the demise of starlines, I've avoided "how to write" articles, but Heffron's opening two chapters has already fuelled my desire to put pen to paper. He lists the top ten enemies of writing, and top of that list is the Procastinator -- a costume that I often wear. Taking Heffron's advice to 'just write', I've discarded my procastinator mask and have flung myself back into Writing Project 1: Typing up my grandad's memoirs.

The Life of a Tackley Lad is now being typed up and edited at the rate of 1000 words a day -- hardly speedy, but at least it's being done and I'm getting satisfaction from doing it. Hopefully it will cheer me gramp up a bit -- gran is still in the JR hospital.

The shift back to this outstanding project corresponds with a few other subtle changes: I am taking vitamins and eating dried nuts, seeds and fruit to combat an apparent vitamin B complex deficit. I am sipping Danone probiotic goo to give my body some friendly bacteria and a boost after all those antibiotic courses. I am doing the odd sit-up, and drinking gin and tonic rather than beer, to get my unsightly blubber belly in check.

Better body, better application of the mind.

The Naming Party

Thank you to everyone who joined us for India's naming party yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It was great for me! The afternoon went quicker than even our wedding day, and I was conscious of the fact that most people got all of 5 minutes (if they were lucky) talk time. Sorry! It was a blur, but I did my best. Thank you again for coming and your kind gifts for India. And the booze of course. It was a suitable celebration of India's arrival into the world.

A summary for those who didn't make it:

We'd booked the Barns Centre for 12:30. We got there early -- we had lots to set-up.. The Centre Manager forgot our booking. Vic was stressing at 12:35 that he wasn't going to turn up and all the food that she and her mum had been preparing for 3 days was going to cook in the back of the car. At 12:45 I managed to locate John Thomas (real name) the Barns Centre Mgr and he opened the hall for us 5 minutes later. Tears from Vic were averted. My bollocks were saved from getting cut off with the bread knife. With all hands on deck we managed to get set-up and rolling just as the first guests arrived.

The day was sweaty. Very humid. Great for those who wished to sit out on the grass and catch some rays, but bad for those of us who were stressed at not having a venue / 5 minutes to set-up the place. Many guests had the pleasure of having my salty sticky cheek pressed against their face on arrival. Not great for the armpits either when you've -- as usual -- not written your speech and are trying to jot down a few notes on the back of a stamp.

The food was great.

Uncle Stasher -- more formally known as Andrew -- played a perfect piece [The Swan] on his cello to open the ceremony. The babies were enthralled.

The four godparents/cheque-bringers -- Rob, Emma, Stasher and Steph -- behaved themselves and nodded when required.

India was oblivious to the fact that it was her party and she was the centre of attention.