Naomi
Christmas is just around the corner and we have just had our first fire of the year. This may seem a bit late but with the new arrival we just haven’t had time to light up before today!
Naomi is doing well – apart from her first cold which she caught off her mother last week – and she’s growing every day. She sped past her birth weight in double quick time and now is over 7lbs. (Considering she was 5lbs 11oz at birth that’s not too shabby!)
Everyone keeps telling me to take lots of photos because “they grow up so fast”. Well, I have and not only that I have taken a photo in the same chair each week, a task which I am intending to do over a year to get 52 photo’s. I’ll put them together in some form of montage if I manage to keep it up for that long.
I have had mixed blessings at work at the moment. I finished in Zurich after Naomi arrived 4 weeks early – I had to cancel flights and hotels as I was due to go out for another week. It all got quite hectic. I’m glad I left it behind – I enjoyed the work but it was a difficult project and it was beginning to take my focus away from what was really important – my wife and my unborn child. I’ve not managed to get a project since so I am now in a tricky situation. No project means I spend all day at home and spend loads of time with Naomi and Kathy but it also doesn’t leave me in a strong position for the end of year reviews which are taking place now. With the current economic climate I am getting nervous about the whole situation. I guess I should be grateful to spend that amount of time with my new baby – I’ve had 5 weeks at home so far! I’ll try and put thoughts of work uncertainty to the back of my mind until after Christmas.
We have written the Christmas cards today – which double as thank you cards for all the gifts and cards we got for Naomi – it’s taken a long time! Next is the decorations and it will really feel like Christmas. I have been growing my own tree in a pot since I got it free from an IBM conference on the green agenda – this year it will make its modest debut as our tree – it’s only 18 inches high! We have to be sensible as we are off back to Hereford for a week and a 6 foot high tree would be a bit of a waste. Besides, I can be smug and green with a tree that will not be thrown away at the end of the year!
I want to try and meet up with a few people around the 29th of December – so if you’re reading this and around Wokingham for the festive season (ok – I’m probably only talking to Andrew here but hey!) lets meet up.
Right – the baby needs changing and I need another glass of wine to get me through the Strictly semi final that I find myself watching… Cheerio for now….
1. Err…nope I can’t think of a single thing to write about – no – wait – will this do?
Mini-Timmy on its way….
Filed under: Random Thoughts
While discussing CocoPops at lunch the subject of ‘Magic Straws’ came up. To settle an argument as to whether the straws were edible or not I stumbled upon this website:
http://www.snackspot.org.uk/index.php
A horrible looking website but give it a chance! Some of the exchanges between people about the relative merits of certain confectionary is both engaging and laughable. I would say people have far too much time on their hands but seeing as I spent 10 minutes reading it I am probably not in a position to criticise…
By the way there are 2 types of magic straws so we were both right.
Kellog’s CocoPops Straws are edible and Nesquik Magic Straws are not.
Snackspot reports on both are amusing – I especially like the way that the reviewer tried Milk, Tea, Lemonade and beer (!) on the CocoPops Straws.
Filed under: Random Thoughts
‘Sir Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Steven Gerrard, Craig Charles, Jimmy Tarbuck, Mel Chisholm, Cilla Black – can you hear me Cilla? Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!’
Filed under: Random Thoughts
Check this out:
http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/speed_test.htm
It tests the speed of your broadband so you can complain to the providers. Well worth it. I love a good moan. 
I shall test mine out when I get home…
Although I can’t really complain that I’m not getting my money’s worth as I don’t pay for it – it’s for work so they foot the bill…
Royal Leamington Spa may sometimes have it’s detractors but I’m making a point of enjoying the proximety of certain things over the next few weeks – I’ve a feeling that we may move back to Reading in a couple of months as certain squabbles about the location of the Global Team have been resolved.
The first of these is my Aunty – she’s cooking me dinner tonight. This makes a change from Sainsbury’s pitta bread and random filling which is my usual night-time fodder. It will be good to catch up as well as I only got to say a few words to her on the wedding day.
Another thing that’s caught my eye is the Tamworth Snowdome. While it may be quite modest compared to a real slope I think that a few nights on the slope will be better than drinking beer and watching football. Also I haven’t had my yearly fix of snowboarding for over 2 years so I think it’s a good substitute. The prices seemed quite reasonable as well – £30 for 3 hours at a peak time – less if I become a member…
We’re also near Stratford-upon-Avon – I can catch a few of the history cycle plays as they are doing them all this season. (The history cycle plays are Shakespeare’s plays about Henrys and Richards.) I particularly want to see Henry V and that speech… (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…that are facing certain death and will, only barring a sheer bloody miracle, be pushing up daisies before the day is done, should be proud of the fact that we have balls and in the future people back at home will talk about us (probably in French) and wish that they were here as well. On St Crispans day. ” (I paraphrased a bit there but Shakespeare goes on a bit if you ask me…) .
We’re also doing a Ghostwalk on Wednesday night – wannabe actors hamming it up with sheets over their heads for the benefit of American Tourists….I can’t wait.
Filed under: Random Thoughts
Having viewed the clips posted on Andrew’s blog I was quite keen to see an episode of this show… Being away during the week (I’m sitting on my hotel room bed right now and using the free broadband…) I don’t have a chance to catch it on digital telly so I ordered it off Amazon.
I’m so glad I did – there’s not many shows that make me laugh out loud when I’m on my own but this did.
I was worried that the songs would be all that was funny about the show but I was wrong…
<Talking about Fleetwood Mac>“Mind you they did make some of their best music back then…”
“Rumours?”
“No, it’s all true.”
Genius….
Filed under: Random Thoughts
(No posts for several months now – sorry. Getting married took precedence!)
I just read something on the BBC about the government’s new plans to charge for waste disposal (By the way, this post isn’t about the merits or otherwise of that idea - that’s a whole new post in itself…) and I was doing some thinking about our recycling. I know we have 2 black boxes and 1 is for paper and 1 is for plastic and metal but we’ve always been a bit unclear on what can and can’t be recycled. So I found a site that is clear:
This lead me to this other site (I think they call that surfing…):
http://www.recycle-more.co.uk/
This was interesting reading – especially on plastics and what can be recycled and what can’t be and the reasons why.
We’ve always been very diligent and recycled anything vaguely resembling plastic – but we shouldn’t. Only plastic bottles are OK, apparently.
So if I can’t recycle the plastic meat containers, the yoghurt pots, margerine tubs and the like I will have to throw them. Which means I will get charged more by the council in the future!
I don’t know where I’m going with this – apart from saying that it’s not easy to recycle everything. I think there should be much more pressure on supermarkets to deliver food without packaging that can’t be recycled and that if that pressure has to come from disgruntled homeowners being charged for rubbish collection then I’m all for it.
I think I should write a letter to my local supermarket to ask them why they can’t do more…
It’s never a nice place to go, even just visiting - my mum’s just had her hip replaced and she has spent the last few days in hospital. I’ve been going in everyday to have lunch with her like a good little son.
She’s better now but was quite weak after the operation; it was distressing to see her so fragile. Her recovery has been quite speedy and her spirit has been for the most part excellent so I was angry to find out that she had been mistreated by Bupa last night.
She had been granted an initial 5 day stay in hospital – I was in the room yesterday when the surgeon had told her that Wednesday was the most likely day that she could go home – depending on a favourable report from the physio. The admin person in the hospital then rang Bupa to get permission for an extra day’s stay.
Bupa gave the admin person a hard time and the admin came back to my mum at 10pm (!) and told her that she had to leave the next day! Obviously she had nothing organised; my sister was in London due to come down tomorrow to look after her at home. This upset my mum greatly – she was awake with worry all night and in tears this morning on the phone. Surely not the best state of mind for a person recovering from an operation.
Just as I was about to leap in my car and come down to pick her up from hospital my mum got told she could stay the extra night after all. All that worry for nothing.
Needless to say I am going to the hospital today to politely enquire about the fiasco.
Finally, and just because I don’t like totally negative posts, some of the technology in hospitals makes me chuckle. To make sure that a patient’s circulation is maintained while in bed they attach these slipper things to your feet – they pump up with air every couple of minutes to automatically massage the feet and keep the blood flowing! There was also machine that pumped a small amount of local anesthetic every couple of minutes into the hip – how cool is that?
I don’t think the nurse was impressed when I asked for the machine that goes ping!
“Aah! I see you have the machine that goes ‘ping’. This is my favourite. You see, we lease this back from the company we sold it to, and that way, it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.”
