Wallys world

New Baby

2010-12-02T13:14:00.000-08:00

We're having another baby!!!! We're absolutely delighted to say that we're due to have our second baby on April 21st 2011. We had our 20 week scan today and all is good.
It's fantastic news but also it's time we tightened our purse strings. We've already sat down and worked out our expenditure and income. We're now saving for next November when we plan to put Grace and the new baby into nursery together. When did i become so organised and planned so far ahead! Oh yeah i got married and grew up!
We decided not to find out the sex, basically because we like the surprise! We did come very close to deciding to find out which the sex but in the end decided against it.
The basic plan is not to buy anything extra for the new baby. The only thing we've bought is an extra chest of drawers. This Christmas Grace is getting bed trained so we can put the cot into the 3 room. Not too sure how this is going to go, we've had her new bed in her room for the past few weeks and she seems to think it's just something to play and bounce on! Well it's going to an interesting Christmas break for Biffy that's all i'll say! Clothes and toys wise we're covered, well unless its a boy and then it's still going to wear pink baby-grows unless someone buys us blue ones!
Biffy is now 21 weeks gone. The bump is showing now in very much the same way that Grace did. Small and perfectly formed! Biffy's feeling generally OK, tired but as her work tires her out alone this is no surprise. Again she was very lucky that the morning sickness didn't really happen as she wasn't sick at all just felt a bit rubbish. My personal opinion is that she is perfectly made to make babies. Yes she's small but generally (fingers crossed no complications happen after this!) she has no problems with her health or the babies. The birth of Grace was long but happened without any complications and her body recovered very well and very quickly! Sorry i'll stop bragging about how great my wife is now.
We've got another scan on 36 weeks so i'll let you know how that goes then!
TTFN!

Holiday

2010-08-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Last month we went on holiday. Biffy, myself, Grace, Helen, James, Ian and Angela all came. We went to Polenca, Majorca.
It was the 1st time we had flown with Grace and we approached it with a little apprehension.It didn't start well. All flights were delayed when we arrived at Luton. Apparently a silly person on their way to Poland was trying to take something on board a flight so corrosive it actually melted the floor. Well anyway, after much waiting, queuing, and walking around the terminal we finally checked in and made our way to plane. Well we had to leg it actually, nowadays with check in times and departure times they don't leave you much time to do anything but check in and then get on board. So after very quickly grabbing a sarnie we got on board and took off. Grace was ok for the entire flight, just a little wriggly and didn't want to sit quietly (no change there then!).
Well after the flight and a small tour of the airport to find our cars we made our way to the villa. We had asked for a secluded villa, but this really took the biscuit. After winding our way down very small roads, we eventually found our way to the villa. It was beautiful, just what we needed.
The Villa had 4 bedrooms, 2 up 2 down. We took the 2 downstairs, 1 for us 1 for Grace. The idea was so when Grace woke up early we would be able to get up and not wake anyone else up, sadly that didn't really happen.
The first few days, the weather were average, perfectly fine but not exceptionally sunny. Then it started to warm up, phew it got hot! So hot in fact that we couldn't walk on the patio as the slabs were too hot. Grace found this out too and stayed in the shadows from then on.
We had decided to eat out occasionally and decided to do this on our 1st day. We went to Port de Polenca. A lovely if not touristy town, we walked along the sea front looking for a place to eat. Grace saw a shop selling balls, so being in a nice relaxed holiday mood bought her one. Oops that was a mistake, she became obsessed by the bloody thing. "ball" was the word of the holiday from then on. That evening we heard that word a lot, so much in fact that during dinner we had to hide it. The discovery of the table tennis balls at the villa was another thing, she loved these, no problem there, apart from the fact that she also loved throwing them into the hedge!
We had some great food. Paella twice, bbq fish twice, and tapas! My kind of food. We even got take away Paella, what an idea! You pay per how many people are eating it plus a deposit for the dish which you have to return (apart from we didn't do this as it was our last night and we took our own!).
Blood mosquito's, if there was a god, why in all that is holly did you create these absolute bastards my lord? I was not really bitten to death, more massacred. It started the 1st evening. Just a little bite on the arm, then by morning i had some across my shoulder, then later on the other shoulder and eventually the next morning i had a line starting at one bicep going up to my shoulder along my back then down to my other bicep. You really could have had a great game of dot to dot on me. Everyone was very happy i was being bitten as i seemed to be taking them all for the team, i think it wasn't until the penutimate day that they stopped bothering with me as all was left by then was my rotting bones anyway. Oh and then the ants got me instead.
We had a lovley time and really can't wait to go on holiday again. Shame we've got a year to wait eh?

patio

2010-08-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Hi,

The patio is nearly complete! Here's a few pics of the completed patio, just a small matter of unloading 3 bulk bags of top soil into the new borders!
Once that small task has been achieved, Biffy will start sorting the rockery and I can finally start buying and planting some plants!

A holiday blog will continue this post very soon!

Bye for now.

New Garden, old problems

2010-04-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

My new garden is great. Apart from the fact it needs major work. New patio, cut down trees, new borders, transplant old plants.
First the patio, well as you can see it's been hard work this weekend. We've removed all hardcore now, that includes the rockery, well more like the rubblery! It had massive rocks in it, but now they are all in the skip, well some of them are, we've actually run out of room in that skip so the rest of the rocks and slabs are currently in the front garden waiting for the next skip to arrive.
This week it's moving the rest when we can, unfortunately I'm working most days this week and the builders are coming on Monday! The builders will finish the job off, but doing what we've done has meant we've saved hopefully at least 3-4 days worth of labour costs.
Tree wise we've taken out the large fur tree, myself and Ian spent a day taking it down. We chopped it up and made a lot logs which now are drying off in front of shed, making it look like a log cabin somewhere in the alps!
The hawthorn trees have had a major cut back, two have gone completely and one has been chopped back, this means we at least have some sun coming into the garden.
Border wise, we've started but a lot more to do, come 20th June when we go to Gardners world live we will be coming back with lots of new plants all wanting a new home. We've decided this year is a transition year so it's going to be a little messy and not quite up to standard this year but everything will be put in place for next year this summer.
Anyway, that's all for now.
See you soon.

American TV

2010-04-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

American's certainly know how to make a TV programme. Unfortunalty they don't know when to stop either. Look at the evidence. Lost, great start, got a bit wierd, then stupid, then really odd, then i fell asleep, then the 2nd series began...... 24 is superb, gripping, great script, but yet again they seemed to have continued making series after series well after it started bringing virtually every character they've killed off back from the mortal coils. I can tolerate a couple of people coming back from the dead, but when they start bringing back people who we see shot in the face and are quite clearly dead i start loosing interest.
Enough with the complaining. If you haven't watched Mad Men you are seriously missing out an THE BEST TV programmme on TV right now, if not of all time. It really is that good. Don Draper is an absolute gem of a character. I don't think i've come across a character with such depth in a TV show before. The way he one minute is jumping into bed with his latest mistress, the next revealing all about his poor deprived upbringing to his beautiful wife Betty. He seems to be a cool as a freeze dried cucumber on a very cold day, he reminds me a lot of Steve McQueen, he can say one line and it mean a hundred of them, something McQueen was a master at.
The pace of the show is so laid back it sometimes seems not to be moving at all, and that's one of reasons why i love it so.
Series 3 is about to finish on Wednesday, i can't wait till the next one, let's just hope the poor American viewing ratings don't mean it gets binned like the fantastic Studio 54 on the Sunset Strip did.
Keep writing Uncle Sam, I love what you do, sometimes.

House joy!

2010-01-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Well! We've finally moved in! We completed on 21st December. So Christmas was sort of different, apart from having Grace with us for the 1st time, we were also decorating at every possible moment. We would have a lunch with family or friends booked so when Grace would go for her morning nap we would go to the new house to strip walls, paint skirting etc. then head on back for lunch. Oh and just cos we love it so much, we would sometimes head back to the house for more work after lunch!
We moved in on Sunday 3rd. Many thanks to James, Helen, Jonathan, my dad, Ian, Matt, Lucy and Angela. They all helped us move our boxes and furniture plus clean and sort out our stuff once we had everything in.
Today we had the plasterers in. Our dining room is now beautifully plastered. They are back tomorrow to sort out Grace's room. Grace is currently in the 3rd bedroom, sound asleep and seemingly quite settled!
The sitting room is nearly sorted, just need to make some shelves to put some ornaments and what not on at the weekend. Once the plaster is dried in the dining room, we need to paint it and then sort that out. Kitchen done. Our bedroom is sorted apart from no carpet. All 3 bedrooms are currently awaiting new carpets. Just waiting for them to be ready. Oh and the attic is tidy, soon i will start turning it into my boys room!
Once we have the house sorted then i will start on the garden, but that's another blog.
TTFN.

Grace

2009-12-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hi, Sorry i haven't had much to say lately.
Thought I'd update you all on Grace. She is now very nearly crawling, but also is getting better and better at walking too! She can get into the correct position for crawling, but instead of moving her knees forward she pushes them backwards so she collapses on the floor! This has been her trick for about a month or so now, she's the only one in our swimming group who can't crawl so when it comes to an exercise which involves crawling across a large float and then diving into the water she has to do a different exercise, I'm very embarrassed. I know i shouldn't be but "Dad envy" seems uncontrollable. I want her to be the best at everything but as she's small for her age she isn't as strong as other babies and i know i should just except the fact that she will eventually crawl,walk, get more hair, get teeth (that's Biffys fault, she didn't have any until past 1 year!) i can't help but feel dissapointed! I'm bloody awful! I can't believe i've become a competitive dad already! What am i going to be like when she starts at school!
Anyway, walking is her thing now, she is starting to walk around the furniture, she thinks she can walk on her own now which obviously leads to problems when we try and get her to walk to us across the room, she doesn't want to hold our hands which means she just falls over or cries uncontrollably! We have Biffys old baby walker which unfortunatly is too tall for her right now but as she seems to be continuing on her growth spurt she may well be ready for that soon!
Her hair is growing, from the back forward. She is getting quite a nice bit of hair back there, just not at the front yet!
No teeth to speak of, but as i said earlier, thats Biffys fault.
Biffy went and bought a new car seat today, Grace will now be facing forward on journeys!
That's about it for now, Grace is a fantastic addition to my family, she's very happy, has a great little laugh, is very beautiful (well she is MY daughter), quite frankly i couldn't ask for a better child.

House misery

2009-11-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

Well after months of faffing we are finally moving out. The problem is we have nowhere to move into. Well actually we are going to move into Biffys parents but the house we are buying is still occupied as our sellers have had to pull out of the house they were buying due to a greedy man who wanted £60k more for the house suddenly so they had no choice but to back out. This now means we are asking them to find rented accomodation so that we can move in. This is still in early negotiations as this all happened last week so we don't even know if they are now thinking about just staying put or what. I think whatever happens we are definatly not going to be in our new house for Christmas or new year, maybe not even Easter, who knows.
So at the moment we move out of our house in the next week or two and then live with Biffys parents for the indefinate future.
Ho hum......

I was born in the wrong era

2009-10-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

I have decided i was born in the wrong era. My music tastes, my favourite films, the fact that I have an allotment, use a handkerchief, etc might just have something to do with it.

My favourite film, The Great Escape made in 1963, my favourite song, "Let there be love" by Nat King Cole, first released in 1961. I should have been born in the 40's so therefore to enjoy all these great things when they first came out.

My favourite artistes are Frank Sinatra, BB King and Nat King Cole. Steve McQueen is my icon, Marylin Monroe my favourite female movie star.

My fashion taste has never really been current. I must admit i don't actually wear clothes from the 60's but i don't really pay much attention to the current fashions. You won't find me wearing low slung jeans, or the latest trainers, probably a free show t-shirt and a pair of comfy boots!

I do want a cardigan for Christmas and yes i do wear slippers at home, actually thinking about it I would quite like a rocking chair too, I don't think i will go the whole hog and get a pipe yet though!

Yes I have an allotment, something that up till recently only old fellas had. Well I don't really think this is relevant in this blog, one of my neighbours is about 30 and he looks kinda cool and trendy. Gardening is very trendy at the moment, which means for once in my life I'm actually trendy but hardly Stella McCartney! (just to show you how uncool i am i nearly wrote Linda not Stella, she does (did) make very good veggie sausages!)

You might be saying that writing a blog is hardly old school, but actually it's kinda like writing a diary and people have been doing that for centuries!!

Toodle pip.

Every allotment needs a "Ted"

2009-10-03T00:48:00.000-07:00

Every Allotment needs a man called Ted.
On my allotment we have a man called Ted, he's brilliant. He is the quintesential british allotmenteer. He has been on the plot for over 30 years, has about 5 different plots, knows everybody, makes fantastic tea and is always smiling.
From what i can gather Ted used to be the caretaker for the allotments (i'm on the new part but he's on the old, together there are over 15 acres!), but ill health stopped him. It certainly didn't stop him from growing veg though! Teds plots are emaculate. Rows upon rows of every veg you can imagine. I don't know what he does with it all but none the less it doesn't seem to stop him from growing more!
He is always the first person you see in the morning, and at every 11,1,3, and 5 o'clock the hooter sounds and he's making a brew for whoever wants one at the allotment tea hut.
I've got a few friends on other allotments and they all too seem to have a man called Ted on their plots too. I'm not sure if these other "Teds" are as good as mine but none the less it seems to me that if you want a good allotment, don't just make sure the soil is good, the position with the sun seems right or how far it is from your house, just make there is a man called Ted on the allotment somewhere, then you'll know the plot is right for you.

Some of bird pics

2009-09-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

X factor

2009-09-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

I hate X Factor. I hate everything about it. I hate the way it exploits people, I hate the way it makes fun of people and I hate the whole pointlessness of it all. I know most of you are probably fans of X Factor. Well just bear with me.

When did it become OK to publicly humiliate people on national TV? I know most of the people going on the show understand what they are getting themselves in to but there is also the very small amount people who are completely deluded. These poor people are thrust in front of the cameras, encouraged to perform then shot down my that absolute wanker Simon Cowell. Would you laugh in someones face if they had been asked to perform in front of you and they were crap? No you wouldn't, because it's just plain rude. It's at if we've been taken back hundreds of years to Roman times and we're all the emperors giving them the thumbs down so we can throw them to the lions!
Another pointless thing about X Factor is the actually prize. Nobody watches X factor because they want to see the next big thing. I admit there are the occasional ones that become successful, but on the whole, they go to number one at Christmas(if they win) or they release one song and then are suddenly dropped by the record company. There is a reason why these people haven't been found by record companies before, it's because generally they aren't really that good!
Please everyone read Ben Eltons Chart Throb. It is hilarious and absolutely rips apart the whole X Factor wonderfully.
I could go on and on but I'm sure by now you've already stopped reading.
Tara for now.

Allotment

2009-09-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about my allotment yet! What have I been doing!
Well to start at the beginning. I got my plot June 2008. It was very overgrown and in need of much love and attention. So I started hacking and chopping to my hearts content. And then I continued hacking, chopping but also digging. (I officially hate dock, it's a weed for those of you who think I'm being horrible to someone I know called dock, I don't know anyone called dock, er where was I?) I suppose it took me and my family (thankyou all) only about 2 weeks to clear all the weeds.
I then started to draw a plan of what my plot would look like. As it's very long and narrow I thought it best to have a path straight down the middle with beds on either side. I wanted a few fruit trees and maybe a fruit patch too so decided to make the beds go only three quaters of the way down the plot. The last quater I decided was going to have berries, rhubarb, fruit trees, my compost bins and most importantly my shed!!
Now the next task was to find enough wood to make my beds. Fortunatly Biffys Grandad had loads of old wood in his garage. I think the wood I got from him made about 4 of my planned 9 beds. Oh and also I managed to get some old windows and a glass door which I made into my cold frame. I think the best bit of wood foraging I did was when I saw loads of planks in a skip. They looked to have been from a roof as one side was painted with black tar stuff. I asked the bloke who I knew the skip belonged to if it was OK to have the wood and he was more than happy for me to take it!
So I eventually got all the beds made. I think it was about January when I finshed them.
In October I had got my first produce in the ground, Onions! This meant I would have Onions for Spring/Summer.
I ordered all my seeds through the allotment seed scheme where you're given a catalogue and choose your seeds, then order them through the allotment trust, this is cheaper for me and I believe the trust gets some money from it.
My choices were: Potatoes; Red King Duke of York, Cara, and Kestrel. Tomatoes; Gardeners delight and Golden Sunrise. Sweetcorn, Beetroot, Runner Beans, French Dwarf beans, Parsnips, Leeks, and Celery. I also bought from garden centres Rhubarb, Blackcurrants and Autumn Raspberries. Plus I had leftover seeds from the previous year (from my small patch at home), they included Carrots, Thyme, Courgettes, Squash and Rocket. Blimey that's a lot of stuff!
I realise I'm wittering on here so i'll stop for now and continue another time, where I'll tell you all about the how I got my shed, my turf and fruit trees all for free!
Ta ta for now.

Kit Kats

2009-09-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

Has anyone tried the new kit kat? It's caramel, well it's supposed to be. That's my problem. Whats the point in caramel flavour? Caramel is hardly difficult to make and it's probably more trouble to make a flavour and than just to put in a layer of tasty caramel in between the wafer and chocolate!
Oh if you hadn't guessed, i am severly dissapointed with the new kit kat.
What's next? Bringing back the marvelous whisper gold but only caramel flavoured? (probably not actually, whisper is made by the great cadburys not by the rubbish nestle which makes kitkat). Oh and on that note, bring back whisper golds!
This is nuts, i'm not even that much into chocolate!

House update

2009-09-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it's all been go the last few days! Our 2nd offer was accepted on wednesday and now we can start thinking about moving! Well actually we've got a long way to go before then. We have the sale of our house first, then sorting out a mortgage, more than likely move out and into Biffys parents, sort out storage, get a surveyor in, and then finally move in! Wow that's a lot to do and hopefully all before christmas!
See I told you the saying was rubbish!

Feet

2009-09-06T13:04:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favourite pics of Grace and Biffy.

Simplez.

House buying

2009-09-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Well, today we think we've found our new house. It's pretty much exactly what we've been looking for. 3 beds, all good sizes, off-road parking, in berko, etc. Tomorrow i shall phone the estate agents and put an offer in!

Our search for a new house started about 3 months ago. We went through the usual houses, too small, too much, too much interest!
Finding a house is a funny thing, you work out what you want and how much you can afford and then go searching! Our first few houses were completely wrong for us, but then we saw an absolute gem. Unfortunately so did a load of property developers. So we canned that one quickly. After another few wrong'uns we found one that might just do, unfortunately it had a downstairs bathroom and a north facing garden. So again no winner. Then all went very quiet. Then suddenly we sold our house! Shock horror, after about 20 viewings and about 20 people saying that our house was lovely but our 2ND bedroom was too small someone finally saw the light the said sod the 2ND bedroom I'll have it! Thank the lord!!!!
So tomorrow we will put in an offer and wait and see. We're being very reserved and not holding out too much hope but hopefully they will say yes it's yours! Bloody stamp duty will be a real issue with the offer. We can actually afford more than the guide price but with Grace and other expenses we don't want to take a mortgage like that.
So tomorrow it all starts, they say you always lose your first house, but lets hope that's bollocks eh?

Fatherhood

2009-09-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

Well, in my first blog i thought I'd write about fatherhood and babies. (very manly)
When Biffy and I found out we were going to have a baby I felt very excited but nothing really changed then. It was a great day too as i got my allotment that day!
It wasn't really until the birth that it hit me that my life was about to change. The birth was amazing, all men out there, if you're there at the birth and can stomach it, go and see the business end because it is phenomenal. I won't go into detail but I will say that I TOTALLY respect every woman who gives birth.
The night Grace was born was surreal. I didn't know what to do with myself. I emailed my family, friends, looked at the pics on the camera, I was buzzing. I was in awe of Biffy for what she had just done and how amazing Grace was.
The first few weeks were intense. I was off for two weeks then back to work for one then off again! They say having a baby changes your life, it does. But for the better. Yes we were very tired, yes it was hard work, yes we didn't know what we were doing but we loved every minute of it.
Biffys parents were truly amazing, we can't thank them enough. My mum arrived when Grace was about 2 months old. (my mum lives in Thailand most of the time, i will write about her another time) She has been very supportive too. (thank you to all our families, we understand you can't help as much as Biffys parents do, they do only live around the corner!)
Anyways, Grace has always been a chilled out baby. She rarely cries and when she does it's usually for good reason! I remember the very first time i fed her. It was amazing, i was providing directly for my daughter. It was a great feeling.
Our first holiday was a challenge. We didn't really expect Grace to impact too much on what we wanted to do. Unfortunatly she did. Not her fault, she's only a baby. After the first 2 days we were wiped out. We had tried to do the usual things we do on holiday. See the sites, go walking, go for a drink, but Grace had other ideas. It was a complete oversite on our part. Grace didn't want to be carted around in her buggy for 3 hours while we looked at the sites. She got bored of being in the back carrier after a while too. So on day 3 we just started taking everyday as it came. We only did one thing a day, and it worked.
Jeez, i've written a lot. I better sign off now.
One last thing I want to say is to anyone thinking of having a baby, do it, but don't expect your life to be the same again. It's the greatest feeling to know that you "work" and have helped bring a living thing into this world.
Bye for now, see you soon.

Hello

2009-09-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

Hello, i've always thought that having a blog was a bit geeky. Well i still think that a little but thought it might be a bit of a laugh. I'm married to the fantastic Biffy and a beautiful daughter Grace. I work as a theatre technician in london. I'm very interested in photography. This blog will be my thoughts on life. I might even put a picture or two up now and again. Anyways speak soon.