New Baby

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.