Jill and Nathan stepping out

It's been a crazy few weeks, and there is no sign of a let up for at least another week. I forgot to mention that we'd had fun at the end of October at the ploughing match, which was like heaven for Nathan. A big collection of vintage tractors in a field just at the edge of Wetherby on a bright autumn morning. Nathan was doing his cool dude routine with his sunglasses on, and didn't know where to look.


Emma Davenport got a lot of attention

I was amusing by the old timers who were watching a young lady ploughing the field, and looking good at it, and making all these comments about how great it was to see a family tradition being carried on. However, it did look a little like they were having a good oggle too.


A tram at Birkenhead

The next weekend, we went to see Jill's parents in Birkenhead. The big expedition here was to a model railway exhibition with Nathan's Grandad, which Nathan seemed to enjoyed. I din't find it that exciting, as some of the displays were fantastically detailed but – in honesty – pretty boring. However, small boys and trains is always a good mix! Once we finsihed at the show, we headed out to the transport museum on a tram. This went via the Woodside Ferry landing (for 'Ferries across the Mersey') which has recently gained a German WW2 U-Boat. Nathan loved the trip, and got quite excited by the museum full of old vehicles and trams too. Great fun, overall.



Last weekend was Firework Night, and Wetherby had it's usual big display on the Ings (the flood plain by the River Wharfe where the old racecourse was). Nathan got all dressed up for the trip out in the cold, finally conceding the week-long battle and wearing his new coat. There was a Thomas the Tank Engine fairground ride at the display, so I'm sure you can guess what he liked most about the trip out. He did seem to like the fireworks though, and it I get a few minutes I may YouTube some of the video.

The Sunday that followed had a 'TomCon', one of our regular gaming get togethers. I was spoiled for choice in games; either Traveller (my favourite of old) run by Graham or Wordplay (the new game which I laid out) in a Cyberpunk setting by Newt Newport. I was more than happy to play either, so held back to let those who were more bothered go first. I ended up in the Cyberpunk game, which was great fun, taking me back to some of my 80s gaming roots. Yet again, Elaine and I ended up with characters who just didn't get on! I also swiped the fantastic slow cook curry recipe from Tom, our host.

This weekend just gone involved an evening out for Jill and I. One of my team at work has recently completed 25 years service and I was hosting at our Long Service Dinner. This was held at Hazlewood Castle, which is a great venue, and we had a great time. The only semi-dubious thing was the Swing singer; he was very good, but it really wasn't quite what I expected, and I'm pretty certain Jill hadn't expected a serenade and a kiss. At least she didn't get "The Lady is a Tramp" dedicated to her, which was what happened to the event organiser! Paula and Mark – Jill's sister and her fiancé – kindly looked after Nathan for us so we could go out and be grown-ups for once.

Lots of other things happening at work, and over the weekends, but this was just a flavour...

Currently feeling: Happy
Currently listening to: Timmy Time
Currently reading: The Dumas Club plus Mouseguard RPG

Well, it's Halloween, and we're off to see Jill's parents to take Nathan out for a trip. That means we'll miss most of the "trick or treat" fun and games, and I'm not certain whether that leaves Nathan missing out on much or not. We weren't going to take him out, but I suspect we'd have dressed him up the the delightful pumpkin outfit that he has got to meet the people at the door. He's certainly got into the spirit of things over the week at Nursery, making pumpkin lanterns and spiders with pipecleaner (remember them?) legs.

I've had a bit of an up and down week, ending up working from home for two days as I was running a temperature and a headache and, looking at my diary, I had virtually no meetings I had to be on site for. I'm glad I did that, as I feel a lot better now, and the last thing I want to do is end up with Bronchitis like I did last time I ignored the warning signs. I also probably got more done workwise staying at home. Getting Nathan to sleep through better has also helped, the results of a combination of socks in bed, plus switching all the lights out except for a nightlight. I should stress that the socks were for Nathan, not me, as we think the way he kicks off his covers at night ends up with cold feet, cold feet lead to waking up, and waking up leads to a bad night for Mummy and Daddy.

Jill was in London for two days with work, leaving Nathan and I home alone, something that went a lot smoother than I anticipated. Unfortunately the little mite managed to fall asleep when waiting to collect Jill from the train, thus missing a chance to go and get excited at "Annie & Clarabel" (train coaches, for all the non-Thomas afficionados). She didn't have a great trip, sleep disturbed by trains and a course that wasn't the most dynamic or effectively run. However, on a plus not she did get to go to the cinema, something we haven't done in months!

The next few weeks are going to be pretty manic, with all sorts of trips and things on for both Jill & I at work. I hate to say it, as it seems to be wishing my life away, but I'll be glad when I hit the end of November, as things should slow down then, just in time for the Christmas rush.

On Thursday night I had quite an exciting rush as I opened up the Scrivener file for "Singularities", the science-fiction setting which I have written as a theme for Wordplay, for the first time in a few months. I modified the file structure in the project so I now have an existing set of folders for the theme version for Wordplay Deluxe, and a new, virgin, set of folders with some placeholders / synopses for the likely chapters of a full, expanded and standalone version. The nicely offset that fact that Royal Mail had generously bent my full release copy of core Wordplay in half in their distribution system. Grrr!

Friday saw everyone else having an early night, so I caught up with a few films I wanted to see, and still managed to be asleep earlier than usual. Next big thing I need to sort is reading Monsters and Other Childish Things (an RPG) before the 8th November so I can give it back to Elaine.

Currently feeling: Positive
Currently listening to: The hum of the NAS
Currently reading: Stop Stealing Sheep & Learn how Type works plus Mouseguard RPG

I thought I'd just do a quick update for the weekend past.

Thursday and Friday were an interesting change of pace for me, as I had a team away day, which seemed to go quite well. I picked up Nathan as a result, which confused him a little. We had a pretty chilled evening which I rounded off by reading Bryan Talbot's new graphic novel, "Grandville" which was excellent both artistically and story-wise. The only criticism I could level was that the level of violence was not necessary, but it never reached the level of complete gratuity. Saturday morning was spent with a crash tidy up and out to Waterbabies with Nathan in advance of my parents arriving. They'd come over to babysit while Jill and I went out to a party with one of her friends from work.

The party was held in a dance studio in darkest Huddersfield, and was a bit strange as the only people we would have known apart from the hostess didn't turn up. However, we didn't let that deter us and enjoyed the food and drink and the dancing. I reacquainted myself with Salsa (passable), mashed up the Merenge (?) (awful) and failed dismally at the Lambada, but it was all great fun.

Sunday was spent with family, with a variaty of different things. My mum and I finally (after 4 years) started to play "Hammer of the Scots", only to be thwarted 3 game years and 15 turns in when Nathan went all Magpie and started grabbing pieces. As the strength of a piece is based upon which side it is standing on, this spelt disaster for our game. However, we both seemed to enjoy it (me as the rebellious Scots, my mum as the English) and we may well have another go at some point. I was having fun raising merry hell in the highlands and norhern reaches of Scotland with William Wallace, but just getting a bit nervous with Edward the First camped in Selkirk forest. The fog of war effect with Columbia's Block Games is fantastic.

Worked too late on Sunday, plus Nathan wouldn't go to sleep because he had napped too late. Monday passed with lots of emails/SMS and telecons with work, plus a trip to the "Swings & Slides". Small fellow wasn't up to much more and was alternatively happy and then grumpy, probably due to sleep problems the night before. Gave up on work at 2245 as the XP laptop was struggling to connect by VPN and kept crashing. Work tomorrow, but some big exercises later in the week.

Currently feeling: Ready for bed, post Scotch
Currently listening to: The Pogues / Ultravox / Simple Minds (mostly early stuff)
Currently reading: Stop Stealing Sheep & Learn how Type works plus Making Money (Terry Pratchett)

Nathan and Jill spot a tractor in Ullswater

I promised to write this up some time ago, but I've been waiting to get my Flickr feed updated. Anyway, that was fixed at the weekend when I upgraded the plugin that I use in iPhoto to upload pictures.

We spent my birthday weekend in Centre Parcs at Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, with a group of friends. It came about from a quick aside that I through out to Jill wehen she asked for ideas of what to do for my birthday, and all of a sudden we were booked. It didn't turn out as big as we imagined (too many people had prior commitments) but we had a nice chalet for the long weekend and a group of friends who we had not seen for quite some time.

With us were the Mawhinneys, old friends from Ellesmere Port who I originally met through roleplaying, and the Francises, who we met through work when Jill and I were both based in Port Sunlight. Phill Francis is Nathan's godfather.

We had a great weekend relaxing, eating and drinking too much and enjoying the facilities. Nathan and Caitlin (Richard and Allison's daughter) hit it off really well, despite an age difference, and happily shared a room. We had fun in the pool complex (the nearest thing I've done for exercise since my operation), at the adventure playground, and in the restaurants. In fact, Richard and I rediscovered why soft play areas in pubs are a *good* idea as we enjoyed a pint while the kids scrambled around. One evening, Nathan enjoyed the 'Animal Magic' show with lots of small animals including Lottie the Polar Bear (in reality, a West Highland Terrier).

We finished off the weekend with a quick trip to Ullswater in the Lake District, where Nathan's day was made with hugh numbers of tractors moving sillage before returning back across the A66 and Pennines to Yorkshire.

We had a lovely time and would love to do it again.

I've not posted much for the last few weeks because I've be pretty much swamped by a number of projects at work and home, most of which have been completed this week. The two biggies were a huge safety report for work and completing the layout draft of Wordplay for Graham Spearing. The first project left me very proud of my team who had pulled out all the stops over the last 6 weeks to turn around a lot of detail whilst holding the fort for normal operations.


The cover of Wordplay screenshot in the Preview Window.

Laying out Wordplay was a real personal challenge, as I've owned the Adobe InDesign package for about two years so far, but only really used it for one serious project (some posters and leaflets for the Church Refurbishment campaign). I offered to lay out Wordplay for Graham because it was a chance to learn how to use the package in more details – with an aim being to offer it for BITS – and also to help a friend produce a book of a game I've been really impressed with. It will be released in 2 weeks at the Furnace RPG convention in Sheffield, assuming Lulu delivers the goods on time to Graham. Although frustrating at times, I've learnt a lot that I don't want to loose. Plus I think the finished result looks good; however, I'll wait for the judgement of others once it starts getting purchased.

So, the work project finished on Friday, and Wordplay was completed on Sunday. The rest of the weekend was the usual stuff, but brilliant all the same. Haircut in the morning first thing to get rid of the grey and reveal the ears, and then on to swimming with Nathan. He is being a little reluctant jumping in at the moment, but was doing fine by the end of the session. We headed back, only to find him fast asleep as we reached home. Jill headed off to the 'Auction of Promises' supporting the Church Refurbishment, and we came away with a week's holiday in the Lakes and a weekend in Filey. So that's some holidays sorted for next year. Once Nathan woke up, we went to Sainsburys to get supplies; we also managed to end up with quite a few new items of clothes for Nathan as he has got longer and leaner. We measured him recently, and he was 94cm tall, a jump of 7cm over three months.

A quiet evening, and then a packed Sunday finished, with the Harvest Festival, a return trip to Sainsburys to swap something that was damaged, and some other fun. An early night on Sunday night, only to be woken by Nathan's bad dream. This resulted in him oversleeping until 9.50 am, the latest that he has slept in for a long time. The morning was spent playing, and then after fish fingers, chips and peas for lunch we headed down to Wetherby, visiting the swings and slides, and then collecting conkers. I'm typing this sitting on the sofa while Nathan chills to 'Chuggington'. A Great Weekend...

I should mention my birthday weekend here, but I'll return to that later. Maybe...

I’m back home now from the hospital following my hernia operation, a day later than expected. I was only meant to be in for the day itself (I was in for “day surgery” ) but there were a number of complications during the operation and afterwards.

I was first into the theatre that day, and it looks like I may have taken a hour longer than planned, as I went in on time, and the chap following me was delayed by a hour for his operation. Apparently, the hernia was larger than they expected from the pre-operative assessments. Anyway, the operation went well, and I’m patched with mesh. I was all set to go home the same day, when we discovered that the top of my leg didn’t want to work.

It was a very strange feeling; although there was some sensation at the bottom of my leg, the top and sides were completely numb, and as a result I had no muscle power there. So, although I could move my lower leg, wiggle my toes etc. I couldn’t actually put any weight on the leg without going down like a sack of potatoes. Long and short of it was that I was kept in day surgery for as long as possible, and when there was still no sign of an improvement I was transferred to a ward for an overnight stay.

Fortunately, the next morning, muscle power and some sensation had recovered. When the medics who had carried out the operation came around on their rounds they had a debate whether it was the anesthetist’s fault or theirs (ie the general or local anesthetic), and came to the conclusion that the local was the probably cause.


Mandanol: Paracetamol for real men and man-flu!

Anyway, I’m now back at home, and taking it easy. I have a selection of pain killers, ranging from the delightfully named ‘mandanol’, which is paracetamol (for man-flu?) through to some stronger things that will knock me flat if things aren’t too good. At the moment, it’s bearable and the mandanol is fine. As Jill has pointed out, the incision I’ve had (as the operation wasn’t keyhole) is probably the closest thing I could have to a c-section.

I’m taking it easy, reading, listening to music and generally not overdoing it; I also managed to watch the end of Life of Mars Series 2, which was excellent. Also had first shower and shave post operation, which was a delight.

The big challenge will be when Nathan gets back home, as I’m not allowed to lift him for at least two weeks. How do you explain that to a two and half year old?

Currently feeling: Sore and achy but glad to be home.
Currently listening to: 13th Star (Fish)
Currently reading: Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear (Dan Gardner )

Taken from the Harrogate website

I’m starting to wonder if I need a season ticket Harrogate District Hospital after the last week of fun; and it all started so innocuously!


Out on our ride

Monday was a great day as usual. I’d done my work the night before and was able to play with Nathan with full concentration. We played trains, watched favourites on TV, and played in the garden with his toy diggers and push-around car. Then we went for another bike ride to Spofforth like the one from the day before. I remembered to take a drink and snack this time, and we stopped along the way. Nathan was very insistent that he gave his toy bunny some juice.


Bunny wants Juice

After the ride, it was back to the house for more play with diggers until Jill returned home, coincidentally from her first day at her new job. When she did, a certain young man decided to start playing up and ended up on the ‘naughty step’. Whilst this was happening, I went to get his Bunny for afterwards, which was when it all got very complicated.

I stepped out of the back door, straight onto a nice round stone from the water feature which Nathan had been using to play with his diggers. Grey-on-grey, I didn’t see it, something I regret as my ankle went both ways, and I fell over. The first part of me to land, my left hand, hit hard against the concrete manhole cover we have in the back garden. It hurt somewhat, and the ‘S shape’ my finger was in suggested that something was wrong and a trip to the local A&E was in order.

We left Nathan with the next door neighbours, and headed to A&E where, after two X rays, some prodding, squeezing and pulling, my double dislocated and fractured finger was back in place and strapped up. I must praise how professional and caring the staff were, even though what I had was pretty trivial compared to what they must see day to day. The only stomach turning bit was when Jill and I were sitting in the cubicle, and Jill overheard the Doctor talking to the Ward Sister and discussing what kind of tug my finger needed to sort out the dislocation. Jill was greatly amused by this!

I must also make a note to hurt myself on a Monday night in future, as it was very quiet! Jill had gone back home to get Nathan fed and to bed, so I had a short wait before she could come back, which I spent reading Le Carré’s excellent “A Most Wanted Man” I had came prepared for a long wait with iPod and book. It was actually quite restful after I resolved my coffee cravings.

Tuesday saw a return to the hospital for the fracture clinic. This was a little traumatic, as I though (despite being nearly 30 min early) that I wasn’t going to get there on time because of the queue of cars for the car park. Fortunately, I made it in with a few minutes to spare after 25 minutes of waiting, and got to the clinic in time. It looks like my finger will be strapped for at least two weeks. I got a good look at the sexy digital X-ray system display when I was in the clinic, and I’m impressed how far things have gone since I was a kid. There’s no developing time now; they take the X-ray and check it when you’re in the room, and the medics can just pull it up in the computer screen. Cool.

My final trip of the week to Harrogate District Hospital was on Thursday night, when I went for my pre-op assessment for a hernia repair I’m having later this month. All went smoothly, although I ended up with another unneeded ECG, thanks to the super-powered hearing of a BNFL doctor nearly 19 years ago.


Muse Ale and Wine Bar (stolen from their website)

Nathan had a few days away with his Grandma and Poppy (who has become “Pops” at the moment, but we’re working on fixing that) going to a Shire Horse Centre and having lots of fun. He came back with another toy tractor. In case it’s as important to you as it is for him, it’s a John Deere. Jill and I took advantage of this to go out for a meal at the Muse, which is one of our favourite haunts, but somewhere we’ve been to far too little post-childbirth! It was a lovely meal, and we got to just chat, something which we miss too often in the rush of day to day life.

The weekend has been spent with my parents here in Wetherby, working on clearing the loft in preparation for some work there. It’s amazing how much stuff accumulates so quickly. I can see why my dad has said he dreads doing their loft! We managed to complete the work on Sunday morning; Saturday had been like a sauna up there, so we started early to avoid the heat on Sunday. Aside from that, the garden had some maintenance; a quick lawn cut, then some general thinning and lifting of the somewhat overgrown trees and bushes to try and save some of the grass by allowing water and light through. Aside from that, we visited the Farmer’s Market and relaxed in the sunshine.

Currently feeling: Chilled, with a hurty ankle and strapped fingers.
Currently listening to: Numberjacks (CBeebies...)
Currently reading: Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear (Dan Gardner )

The Harland Way, site of our bike ride

We had a good weekend, with Nathan on form as ever.

We’re enjoying the joys of potty training, and overall he’s doing very well and catching on to the idea. I’m not 100% certain about him running back into rooms when we’re out in company and yelling “I’VE DONE A BIG ONE” with a big grin, but he seems to be enjoying it and it does generally get a lot of smiles!

We went out on the bikes on Sunday afternoon, Jill on hers, and Nathan and I on mine. He’s got a purpose built carrier mounted on my bike which was a kind gift from our next door neighbours when they were thinking of throwing it away because their son was too big for it. I learned a number of things about my bike, including that things get a lot easier if you have the tyres near their correct pressure. I’d always done it by hand as it has the non-car style high pressure valves and as I couldn’t find a gauge to fit it was always a bit of guesswork. Anyway, I found I was getting 30psi and it should have been 60psi. It was a bit of a struggle to get there, as the adapter for the car footpump bleeds a lot of air from 50psi on, but it made a lot of difference out in use.

We travelled for about 8 miles on the old railway track which runs from near our house to Spofforth. Nathan kept a beady eye out for tractors (none spotted) and was very pleased when he saw the windmill at the farm on the ride about Spofforth. He started to yell “Look, Windy Miller!”. If that pop culture reference passes you buy, go immediately to this page on Amazon and travel to Trumptonshire! On the way back home I felt a strange knocking on my back, looking around to find out that he had gone to sleep! In reality, he was dozing, and everytime I stopped he muttered “Ride, Daddy”, which was a bit of a change from his earlier demands of “Go Faster, Daddy”.


Having watched the first series when we were away on holiday, Jill and I got out ourcopy of “Life on Mars” Series 2 this weekend. We watched two episodes, and it’s just as good as the first series. We’re looking forward to working our way through this one.


In other film and TV news, I watched “Watchmen” this week, which was great. It kept pretty faithfully to the original graphic novel, both in plot and visuals, and was done very well. The ending was changed, but was actually improved it from my perspective, as it made it far more believeable. I can imagine that the multilayered nature of the plot would be pretty challenging to follow if you hadn’t read the original. It’s far less approachable than some of Alan Moore’s other works like “V for Vendetta”, but a worthy adaption all the same. The only criticism I could have is the level of violence, but again, that matches the source. Worth a look if you like more complex and dark stories.

Currently feeling: Tired, bad night’s sleep, but happy.
Currently listening to: Big Cook, Little Cook (CBeebies...) & Beowulf (Seamus Heaney)
Currently reading: A Most Wanted Man (John le Carré )

You may, or may not, have noticed the update from our holiday that slipped in below. If you didn’t feel free to go there first! This video (besides being the first I uploaded to YouTube and being taken with my Flip Ultra Camcorder) shows the approach to the place we stayed, which gives a great feel for the time we had.

I hope you enjoy it!

I’m typing this, hidden in the corner of the room that we are sharing with Nathan in a B&B in West Bay, just outside Bridport in Dorset. The lights are out and I can only praise the backlit keyboard on the MacBook, and cringe at the click that the spacebar makes in comparison to all the other keys! The reason for the stealth is the attempt to get Nathan to sleep.

We’re down here for a long weekend to celebrate the wedding of one of my friends from University. It scares me to think that it must be 18 years or so ago that we met as fresh-faced, somewhat naive youths in Southampton, truly half a lifetime. Anyway, Jamie was on the same course as me, although I think I first met him through friends at the adjacent Hall of Residence (Chamberlain) to the one that I was staying at (Glen Eyre: Terrace) rather than on the Mechanical Engineering course itself. We shared a house in our fourth year, and our paths continued to cross as we both moved in FMCG and nuclear circles.

Anyway, around the time that Nathan was born, Jamie fell off the face of the world, and I assumed that it was due to my inability to keep in touch with everyone and juggle work and home life which I was going through. However, at the end of last year, I learnt the real reason that he had fallen out of contact. He had met a lady, the love of his life, Alex. He dropped me an email to announce his engagement, much to our surprise and delight.

Anyway, I didn’t make the stag do (which was at Le Mans) because we were already booked on holiday in France (more of which will appear once I’ve finalised the missing entry for June), but we were invited to the wedding. Only downside to this being the fact that it is in Dorset, on the coast. (Think equidistant between Southampton and Exeter). The Sat Nav predicted 5 hours, the reality was 8 and a half, as the M1 was closed, and the M5 had a major smash, and we got stuck behind a Morrisons lorry which refused to get out of crawler gear in the back roads for far too long. Fortunately, we planned the long weekend and came down a day in advance, and even more fortunately, we had no issues beyond annoying the B&B owners. Some of the other guests arrived at their B&B to find that they had cancelled the booking on them and had to go hunting for alternative accommodation.

On the morning of the wedding day, we went into Bridport, which proved a challenge parking-wise as part of the town was shut off due to charter celebrations. Whom should we meet but Jamie and John, his best man, heading off to the registery office for the ceremony!? We headed back to the B&B, and got ready for the reception. Nathan looked especially cute in his suit. The reception was held at the Riverside Restaurant in West Bay, which has very good reviews, and they did Jamie and Alex proud. The drinks reception swayed to the sound of a steel band, whilst the sun shone and the ducks floated on the river. The meal was fantastic, and the staff very helpful, especially as we were on the “noisy” table with all the small kids. Nathan made friends with Ben and Reese, and they had great fun playing. John’s best man speech was excellent; it teetered towards the edge but always pulled back.



What was especially nice on the day was to catch up with a number of people I’d lost touch with; James & Jo, Chris H, Fiona, Chris H-S, Nick, Jack to name a few. I hope to do a better job this time to stay in contact! Anyway, Nathan was full of beans most of the evening, finally running out of batteries around 10:30 pm and asking to be taken home to bed! Until then he had been telling us he wanted to stay up!

It was a great day, with the final, huge, shock being Jamie and Alex’s plans to emigrate to Canada. Well, they have all our best wishes, but I’ll miss him being in the same country. At least the internet will help with that.

We spent today out doing stuff. Nathan latched onto a leaflet on “The Tank Museum” in Bovington, and announced several times he wanted to go there, so we set out pretty quickly in the morning. It was great, although the size of the machines, and the sound effects, did occasionally overwhelm him. A good day out, and made interesting because of the historical stories, machinery and the personal link of my maternal Grandfather having served in the Desert Rats in armoured cars in the Second World War.

On the way back, Jill and Nathan fell asleep, so I diverted to Maiden Castle, a huge iron age hill fort conquered by the Romans in the first half of the first century AD when they came to Britain. Physically, it is very impressive, as the ramparts are still there. I left the sleeping duo in the car and made a rapid transit to the top (which did get me out of breath!) at which point I realised my mistake! I underestimated the size of the place, probably mentally drawing comparisons to the Roman Fort on the Hardknott Pass in Cumbria. That was dwarfed by Maiden Castle. I took some pictures, but probably only saw 25% of the top before I headed back down to the sleeping beauties! I’d like to come back some time when I can spend a bit longer looking around.

We then headed west of Bridport in search of a beach, and found a pebbled one at Seatown, which was nice. However, it was windy and the breakers scared Nathan a little, so after we spent some time throwing stones at the water, we returned to the car. We then went further rest to Lyme Regis for no other reason than neither Jill or I had visited the town, and did a drive through to see what it was like. It looked nice for a visit, and is another place noted as having potential for the future.

We returned back to West Bay for fish and chips, and then an early-ish bed for Nathan before the long drive tomorrow. An excellent long weekend, just hoping that the drive back will be better.

Even the Wet Days were fun...

I’m writing this far too long after our lovely holiday in France, so I’ll keep it short! We had a great two weeks in the west of France, near La Gironde in the company of my parents. It was a relaxing stay, and Nathan travelled very well, both on the ferry and in the car, which was good news as some of the driving took five to six hours.


The Church at Talmont


The Churchyard

We spent a lot of time in a small town called Talmont, and caught up with some wine we enjoyed the last time we were over here.


Nathan and I in the pool

We had fun in the pool, and Nathan’s swimming skills came on a long way. He was swimming all around the pool on his own with only a woggle for support.


The views from the breakfast table.

The holiday was set in beautiful countryside.

The time went far too quickly, but it reminded me that two weeks away is much more relaxing than a single week!

Jill and Nathan chilling on the train ride to see Ivor.

It’s been a funny old weekend, as some plans fell apart, but all in all it was good fun. On Saturday, we took Nathan to his Waterbabies classes for the first time in 6 weeks due to holiday and his Chicken Pox, and it went well. He didn’t seem to be phased at all by the return to the pool and diving in etc. except for swimming on his back, which is one of those things that he’s never really liked. Good fun really.

In the afternoon, we went to the National Model Engineering Show at the Yorkshire Showground. This was a bit more machine tool and component driven than we expected, but – sure enough – there were a number of displays of trains and boats which Nathan loved. Suffice it to say that the Flip Ultra was used, and we now have a variety of train videos for him to watch rather than the two that he has had since the last show Jill took him to. I may post one to YouTube to give a feel if I have a moment.

One of the funniest things that happened involved ice cream. Now, Nathan is fond of ice cream, but he’s even more fond of the wafers used to make a cone. We usually get him a small tub rather than a cone, as the first thing he does with one of those is to invert it and eat the wafer. Well, we did this, and he was eating the ice cream well until he decided to blag his mothers (or should that be swipe it?) and the resulting chocolate ice cream face and grin were quite something to behold.

There was a cool little stall there selling candle powered tin boats. Wax, string and a flame was used to make a boat that is self propelled, apparently something that dates back to Victorian days. I can imagine it giving some people health and safety palpitations, but I think that’s an over reaction.

Sunday saw a trip to the Farmer’s Market – unplanned in my case as I was originally going to be at TomCon, the missing of which was the low I mention in the title – and Nathan swiping a chunk of a buffalo burger I’d bought. There was a cool cupcake stall and all the usuals. Mmm. Cake...

Also went to work to get some stuff sorted for the busy week which is about to hit...

Finally, I watched the recent film of “Beowulf”, co-scripted by Neil Gaiman, today and wasn’t disappointed. It was certainly above average, even with the CGI. It does take some liberties with the story, but it makes a more coherent narrative for the movie. And there are definitely things there to steal for RPGs. Hopefully I’ll finally ready the Beckett version this summer, something I keep on putting off.


Ivor the Engine at Embsay Station.


I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but we had a fun time last weekend as Nathan was finally back to normal, and we went to see Ivor the Engine, which was great fun! It was cold and blowy, but far less crowded than the Thomas day, and a good return to normality for the tiny tinker. Although I’m not allowed to call him “Tinker” anymore. To quote; “No Daddy, I’m Nathan, not Tinker”.

Currently feeling: Content .
Currently listening to: Humphrey Lyttelton (Jazz, Nice...)
Currently reading: Hellfrost (Savage Worlds),
The White People and other stories (Arthur Machen/Chaosium horror collection)

... and Leeds City Council are collaborating!



There’s a relamping programme underway, and the new, taller, lamps look very intimidating in a HG Wells-ian way! This a quick picture taken of the one outside our front garden the other night.

It’s been a quiet weekend, as we couldn’t really go anywhere as Nathan has the lurgy, but I think that it was a nice one. All the usual stuff happened, with the exception of swimming, and a few other things got sorted as well. Oh yes, that’s how Nathan confesses to having done something: “Happened Daddy, Happened!”. I digress; more flatpack was built, and the new turf in the garden watered. In the latter case, the heavens have been doing their own bit to help the last 24 hours. We seem to be into rain and overcast from the glorious sun of last week.

One pleasing thing was that Jill brought back the final copies of the leaflet and poster that I’d prepared, and they look pretty good. Certainly, they look as I hoped they would and as the preview suggested. Always a good thing. So I’ve now taken an InDesign CS4 file from concept to print, which is a good thing (tm) if I’m to have a hope of preparing Wordplay properly. I know where the bodies were buried (mainly to do with discipline around paragraph styles) and used some functions I didn’t expect to (object styles). All in all, a good experience.

Nathan is bearing up well, and likely to get a trip to his grandparents to allow me to deal with some work things that I need to be in for. Jill is away on a training course in the Big Smoke, so it may end up feeling very quiet and empty around here pretty quickly. All in all, the week promises to be interesting.

Oh yes, and I’ve experimentally enabled comments on the blog!

A dedicated follower of fashion, Nathan has decided that having Chicken Pox once was not enough. He has caught it again, which bodes well for the next week! It seems either he had a different virus last time, or that it was too mild. Camomile lotion, here we come! Chicken Pox has been going around the nursery the last month, and also in wider circles as at least one of our friends’ little boy has had it.

EDIT: This is the poster I’ve been mentioning. I’m pretty pleased with it digitally, but await the printed version nervously:



I also know the proof copy has been approved by the senior steward at the church, but I haven’t seen a final copy yet. I managed to suss out the way to do full bleed (ie pictures to the edge of the paper) and confirmed my suspicions that, despite what the Adobe website says, InDesign CS3 cannot open .INDD files from InDesign CS4 well. Luckily I did .INX and .PDF too...

EDIT: The bit I forgot. I picked up a French CD and textbook today in the hope that I can get myself some confidence back in the language before we visit the country on holiday!

Finally, I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Happy Birthday Phill (Nathan’s Godfather)! (St George’s Day, which is why it’s a birthday I am better at remembering.)

It’s time for a short update...

Since the last time I wrote, Nathan has been fine, with no reoccurrence of the symptoms that sent him to hospital and no sign of any after effects. Long may this continue. As usual, he’s been bright as a button, and continues to set the pace of our lives.



He’s had a few special days recently, with the best probably being the Thomas Day out at the Bolton Abbey and Embsay Railway. The steam engines were all dressed up as Thomas, as was Nathan (he had his best Tank Engine outfit on and looked delightfully cute). It was Jill’s birthday, and we spent most of the day in and around the steam trains with a very excited little boy. We had a great time, and I’d recommend the day out, albeit a quite expensive one.

The other really big change is that my mum is finally out of hospital; she came out just after her birthday at the start of April, and looks a lot better for it. It’s really good to see her home, but I suspect that it’s equally hard work for my dad at the moment until mum gets some more mobility back and recovers her stamina. It’ll be a long road, but it’s great to see her out of hospital and back with us after 3 months or so away.



We’ve had to re-gravel the drive after 6 years, partly because one of our neighbours insists in treating the shared section as the starting position for a 0-60 drag race in a very Demon Tweeks fashion. Anyway, after two big bags, it looks pretty good. Nathan was a star and ran and got his buckets and spades the moment that he saw the bags. I do assure you that we didn’t use child labour for this, no matter what the picture may suggest. He was also very taken with the “crane-lorry” that delivered the big bags.



Of course, from a personal position, the picture of the little lad above is the best achievement we can do. Wear him out with a life of fun and games!

I’ve had some fun gaming recently, including a run out of Singularities setting I mentioned some posts ago, for Graham’s Wordplay RPG. This went well, but prompted some questions to do with how one of the mechanics worked. Interestingly, I used my Flip Ultra to try a tutorial to explain the changes we were thinking of and it seemed to work well. I think we’ll be doing some of this kind of stuff once Wordplay is boxed off to go on the website. It has to be said that Tom Zunder played his character absolutely fantastically, double dealing and out for a quick profit in a way that really added to the fun of the game.

Work have given me a Blackberry, which I’ve yet to decide if it is a benefit or a curse. Mad busy otherwise with a major safety report.

I’ve been using InDesign CS4 in anger for the first time this last week as I have been producing some leaflets and posters for the local church. I’m on tenterhooks to know what the final result will look like as the project I’ve produced has been quite ambitious. I’ve been very impressed with the changes from CS2, and the whole workflow was much better. How much that ties to having a faster computer too, I don’t know.

We have followed up the success of the IMechE Annual Dinner in Merseyside and North Wales, held in Chester, with the IMechE Yorkshire Region’s version which Jill was key in organising. It was a more initimate affair (60-70 people rather than 250), but a great kick off for the event. The speech by Colin Brown, the IMechE’s technical director, was very good (by far the best that I’ve seen by someone in the Institution and better than the professional at Chester) and it was superb to actually see our professional body taking some steps to have a view and take a position. I took a lot of pictures, and used the Flip for the speech, and I was happy with the results. Would have been better with more notice, but you can’t win them all!

I’ve been too quiet here of late, mainly due to those black-holes of time, Facebook and Twitter. I joined Facebook a while ago, and followed up with Twitter recently, mainly to keep track of friends who use the net (a fair few don’t) a lot.

I enjoy them both, in the sense that they’re a good way to while away some slack time, but do I need them? I suspect not, as I forever tell myself that I haven’t enough time. That was until I discovered Eventbox, which is an OS X RSS reader style tool for social networks, and seems to deliver much the same functionality.

“What’s an RSS reader?” you may ask. In a nutshell, it’s a program a little like a browser that allows you to subscribe to certain websites and get summary updates on new posts. Very useful, and very time-saving. I use one called Newsfire which is pretty and effective and changed my online life. Others exist, and I believe Google has a similar tool. Eventbox promises to do the same for Social Networks. I can quickly scan all the feeds and home in on details if I want to now. Very nice, and very useful.

Eventbox came as a free program (in my case) from the recent MacHeist 3 promotion. I had written a long and rambling rant about certain individual’s response to MacHeist (James Wallis, you know who you are!) and its somewhat innovative promotion techniques, but I’ve decided that it wasn’t worth it. I followed one of the two best bits of advice a former manager game me, namely to “Save as Draft, and see if you feel the same in the morning”. I did, and I didn’t, so it’s gone.

(The other was “In projects, the key thing is to identify your long lead items and deal with them first”, but that’s a bit more specific).

Anyway, I’m hoping that this will a new start...

Shattered, after shopping and feeding the ducks in Wetherby on Monday

We had a very scary experience on Thursday night with Nathan. He’d been a bit funny all week, slightly off his food and also snotty, but otherwise fine. On Thursday night, he came home from nursery (where he’d eaten very little) and wasn’t interested in food or play, instead sitting on Jill’s lap and watching ‘In the Night Garden’ or ‘Piggle-Garden’ as he calls it. I’d just taken his temperature (which was high) and gave him some Calpol to return to the room and find him shaking and going blue around the lips. He also didn’t seem to be breathing (we thought he was choking and asleep). So, we took him to the kitchen, and gave him the pats on his back to clear his throat, and he came out of it. He was very glazed, and we decided to head straight to Harrogate for the out of hours surgery.

We talked to the out-of-hours team on the way and they sent us to A&E, and then he was admitted to the Woodlands Children’s Ward for observation. Predictably, he found this a reason to perk up, especially when he saw the toy car transporter and the train set. He was kept in for the night, and Jill stayed with him. By the morning, one of the trains on the set was being referred to as “My New Train”. We were all set to go home with him on Friday, when he woke from a sleep with an even higher temperature, so had another shot of Calpol and was kept back for a little longer to see if it dropped back. By the time that happened, the lunch trolley (or rather Thomas the Tank Engine Trolley) arrived with Fish and Chips, which he enjoyed.

Long and short of it was that the medics think that he either had a febrile seizure (which is apparently quite common until children’s brains fully develop) or some form of rigors. Very scary, but also (apparently) very common. He only really got back to normal on Sunday night, and I’m glad that I missed Travcon to stay with him and Jill.

Today he’s been a star, enjoying feeding the ducks, eating lemon cake and generally being a tinker!

I was torn on whether to use Shakespeare (as above) or to use something equally sharp as I started to write this. The classics won. I should warn you that this is a rant, so you may want to change channels now.

I’m getting increasingly fed up with the whole economic situation here in the UK – particularly as I watch companies which are fundamentally sound collapse as their markets collapse and funds to transition don’t exist (*) – and the finger pointing about who is most ‘sorry’ for the situation. That misses the whole point; rather than being ‘sorry’, why not put some substantive plans together on how you’d resolve it?

(*)unless you’re a failing bank, in which case the approach seems to be ‘have a blank cheque’ and ‘fill in number of billions that you want’.

Let’s be honest, the issue with the economy sits squarely in both the Tory and Labour houses for different reasons.

Labour cosied up with the big finance institutions as they were an excellent revenue stream (and avoided the need to try and fix manufacturing by actually, god forbid, encouraging it) and fell asleep on the job of regulation and oversight. Well, I suspect that ‘light touch’ regulation is gone for a generation at least (as it has related to safety since Buncefield), which is probably no bad thing.

Labour’s record with things financial isn’t that good, in reality. Anyone with an ounce of sense – or project management experience – could point out that just pumping billions into the NHS, education and public sectors was not going to be efficient, as the institutions had been cut to the bone and lacked the people and systems to manage the massive flow of cash. Inefficiency and waste was an inevitable sacrifice on the altar of improving public services quickly. That’s not to say that things haven’t improved, it’s just that things could have been done so much more effectively. I suspect that a lot of the systems are there now, but the horse has left the stable.

Were the years of growth real, or has it been one big financial bubble? If we find ourself in a depression like the 1930s then the latter is probably the case.

The Tories don’t get away with this blame free either; I can still remember the economics wunderkind I spent an hour arguing with on the train back from my interview at Cambridge. He was espousing the arch-Thatcherite stance that ‘manufacturing doesn’t matter, it’s financial services where the money is made’. He could never answer the question of where it came from in the first place; if I was being trite I’d say that we all know that now, as the Bank of England just prints some more.

He missed the point that even if money is an abstract concept, somewhere it needs to relate to the real economy. By ‘real economy’ I mean the economy where something is made, or extracted, that is physical and tangible. There may not be a direct link, but manufacturing underpins all this and the whole house of cards links back to it somewhere. That argument on the then-British Rail train was nearly two decades ago, and as a nation we’ve been tied to that view at high levels ever since. I suspect that people like that guy on the train, now in his mid-late thirties, are part of the reason we’re where we are.

Getting back to the Tories; they haven’t been consistent, have they? Their position started to change as Northern Rock happened to just find anything that opposed the government. Hypocrisy, position changes back and forth, none of this mattered so long as dirt could be thrown at Labour. Criticism, rather than ideas or solutions, is the order of the day. There’s not even the ideological approach of the Thatcherites; no vision, no solution.

I get really angry when I see politicians implying that manufacturing companies need to sort their own houses out, as Mandleson seems to think that the problem lies with inefficiencies and is the companies own fault? But how many companies can handle a 50, 60, 70% fall in demand overnight? How many places have dropped from a 7 day operational week to 5, 4, 3 and in some cases no-day week? The collapse in confidence of the banks has sent consumer confidence over the cliff edge, and sent a shock-wave through the real economy.

If you operate globally, can you also handle the exchange rate with the €uro and Dollar$ collapsing by 25 to 30%? You probably source from overseas somewhere, which means that you’ll be stung when getting raw materials. The devaluation of the pound is great for exports, but did I forget to mention that all the other major economies are in the same boat so the markets aren’t there? Even places like Germany, the European watchword for prudence and caution in finance, have been sucked into this situation. The vast financial house profits in the USA and London meant that the German banks wanted a piece of the action, and used their subsidiaries to bypass the regulations at home. Money moved to the Anglo-Saxon markets, and has gone with them. Talking to German friends and colleagues, many of them are furious about the situation.

I’m not recommending that subsidies are the way forward, but there have to be some clever options. Things like the German government’s payments for scrapping old, inefficient cars which are promoting demand. Things about finding finance to restructure, or some kind of support when short time working is needed over a period. If we don’t find something soon, then we’ll all be working in call centres which will then be outsourced to India or Eastern Europe because there will be nothing left.

I also think that in many ways, we’re to blame as well. The Great British public. The Lib-Dems and others warning on the credit levels, but as a nation, we ignored it, blindly believing the spin that everything was hunky-dory and the good times would roll. We should have spent a little less and saved a little more, and questioned more about what was going on, especially the rumours that used to go around about mortgage operators dubious actions. We all counted our paper gains on mortgages and felt good, rather than wondering why the prices were exploding upwards so quickly. The growth in the economy – or even in the population – couldn’t be the core driver but we ignored that because it was an inconvenient truth. The government bottled a reorganisation of the housing markets towards the more robust Scottish model, probably because of lobbying, and we all laughed all the way to our paper thousands while our youth couldn’t afford to buy a house.

We need to step up and take that responsibility. To manage our own houses, and pray that the political classes get their act together and stop a recession becoming a long term slump. We need to carefully consider who we vote for, because that will have the biggest impact on where things go longer term. I’m not convinced that we presently have a good option, so it may be the ‘least worst’ choice. But voting is important, as it our way to express our choice and authority. Robert Heinlein had it right in Starship Troopers (the book, not the near spoof neo-fascist movie) in that we have to take responsibility and do our part.

Normal service may be resumed. Thank you for listening.

007 wasn’t there, but we had the Tuxedos and the Casino. You can find him here.

Friday night was great, as we caught up with some old friends from the North-West when Jill & I attended the IMechE (the Mechanical Engineering Professional Institution for those who aren’t in the know) Annual Dinner for Merseyside & North Wales, held in Chester. It’s one of those James Bond style events, with black tie and fancy frocks, a formal meal, and then the fun casino (which Jill has won on two of the last three years).

We caught up with some old friends from work and beyond, and had a good gossip. Jill looked really glamourous (as she always does on these events) in her ball gown, and I did my best to accessorise to her!

The speeches on the night were okay, rather than outstanding. I was originally going to be a bit scathing about the local MP who was the second act on, but then I thought it was a little unfair. She’s a historian by education, and has worked in libraries and then for charities before becoming a politician, and now works in children’s affairs. That considered, she made a valiant attempt at engaging with the audience and being relevant, with only small one gaffe(*). I certainly enjoyed her more than the main speaker, the former football referee Dermott Gallagher.

In previous years, the after dinner speaker had been a cricketer (Geoff “Dusty” Miller) and a radio sports presenter (Gary Richardson recently famous for his under-the-stairs broadcast during the snow for Radio 4’s Today). Both managed to be funny, tailor their speech to the event, and clean throughout. Gallagher’s speech was somewhat disappointing in comparison. It was crude, lacking in depth, and the anecdotes were, to be honest, not very interesting. Better luck next time, I hope. I only wonder if I would have found it better if I had been drinking, and not stone cold sober? I suspect not, as most of the anecdotes just served to confirm that football is not a gentleman’s game.

The Casino went well, but we didn’t win this year! We deployed ‘the system’ again, but didn’t accumulate quite as fast as previous years as the variant of Craps that was being played was slightly more in favour of the house than in past years. We did build up quite a large stash, but then decided to blow it pretty spectacularly in a slightly mad-cap attempt to take the prize for best overall gambler. Ironically, the winner wasn’t too far ahead of us when we started to do this, so perhaps we should have stayed slow and steady! However, it was a bit of fun, and we’re both aware that the system wouldn’t work on a real table, as the statistics are somewhat less in favour.

All of a sudden it was nearly 1AM, and I’d managed to miss several of the people that I wanted to have a talk to, and not talk to others as much as I would have wanted, such as Brian, the production engineer I worked with closely on my very first job after graduating. I drove us back, and we were home for 2AM, and soon asleep. Nathan woke at 7AM, but fortunately my father played trains with him so we got a bit more of a lie in.

All in all, a great night out!

(*) She argued that engineers should have some formal protection for the use of the term ‘engineer’, something that the PM’s office was somewhat luke-warm about when e-Petitioned about this at the start of 2008.

Where on earth has the last month gone? It feels like someone has stuck the accelerator pedal to the floor, especially now that life is returning to normal with the usual round of work, weekends and swimming for Nathan.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, when we are at a formal meal with some old friends, which should be great fun. We’ll also get some good family stuff done as well. I may even try and get a little of “This Fear of Gods” prepared for Travcon, but that really depends on how much I can stand being at the keyboard and computer (like it has been a problem before!).

RANT
Getting really annoyed with all the stuff about Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension, especially the posturing by Ms Harman. To start to threaten to change laws or work outside them to nobble someone, no matter how odious their attitude, is really dangerous and a slippery slope. They should have got it right when they got rid of him in the first place. And if the RBS board misled them, which is being implied, then they should remove the individuals involved and make sure that they loose out appropriately. Lynch mobs to public disquiet is not where we should be.

I’m also getting annoyed about the fact that it’s okay to bail out banks to the tune of tens of billions, but when a manufacturer enquires about loans to enable restructuring of several million (made necessary by the bank’s failures crashing the market and the lack of available money from them), then it’s time for macho posturing about not bailing out failing businesses from Mandleson and friends. Hmm. Isn’t that what RBS, Bradford & Bingley etc. were? Failing businesses? I think that the government will pay for this at the next election, and we will be paying for it as taxpayers for years to come. However, I don’t see much in the way of options, or much in the way of difference between the alternatives. They’re all pretty much complicit in this.
/RANT

Thank you! Normal service now resumes!

Nathan is being a bundle of fun at the moment, and his language is really developing, which can be quite disconcerting at times. He’s also getting very bossy, a point that Jill and I point the finger jokingly at each other as being genetically at fault for. He’s also become much less clingy when I drop him off to nursery, especially when he sees his friends!

(Okay, so I was a month out with this and have updated the heading!)

Snow at the start of February

The last few weeks have been pretty busy; Saturdays are dominated by Nathan's Waterbabies (probably setting the scene for Mum and Dad's taxi for the next decade and a half), and then Sunday seems to come around too fast. I'm working from home on Mondays at the moment with my Mum in hospital, so spend Sunday night and Monday night doing work so I only need to deal with phone calls on Monday day when I'm looking after Nathan.

Mum is doing well, especially considering she has had her third hip replacement on her left leg following the fall and break. In some ways, it was a blessing in disguise where she damaged her leg, as she has had to have a new replacement – quite a beefy, robust one – rather than wait months to have it heal naturally. We're hoping she'll be out this week, which will take some of the strain off Dad with the travel to see her along with everything else. Of course, that depends on the all clear being given.


Out in the Cold

Nathan enjoyed the recent snow, especially on the worst day when he had Mummy and Daddy home with him due to travel issues. However, he did seem to think that it was a bit too cold and wet!


Unwrapping presents

Nathan also had his second birthday and party in January, and seemed to enjoy it a lot, especially opening the presents that he was lucky enough to get. The wrapping paper proved a big attraction as usual, and some of the toys are big favourites now!

There are a fair few new pictures on my Flickr page which you can get to from this page or directly by clicking on the pictures above.

"Lovable Spot"

So, there he is, the stuff of my current nightmares, "Spot the Dog". As with most children, Nathan tends to get a little obsessive about certain programmes that he has seen. The first big hit was probably "Thomas and Friends" (from which we are having a sabbatical after James and Gordon had a crash which Nathan didn't like) followed by "Trumpton" and "Camberwick Green". And then came "Spot the Dog". Now, Spot is great in small doses, and his educational DVD is really good, especially 'Spot's ABC', but when it's the only thing that your two year old wants to see it becomes... somewhat wearing.

Anyway, we're now on our fourth day of avoiding Spot, and it seems to be going well. Nathan has discovered the CBeebies bedtime hour, and loves "In the Night Garden", which he has heard in stories at Nursery, "Third & Bird" (which is fantastic, especially Muffin!) and "Charlie and Lola" (which has the best pseudo 70s soundtrack ever)!

We've also rediscovered lots of books and the train-set, which is great fun

Well, here we are well into 2009 already, and me without any updates. The first excuse which I have is that the active FTP that Pipex foisted on us when they moved to M$ boxes for their servers doesn't communicate well through my parent's firewall, but that doesn't excuse the silence since. The main reason for that is the fact that most of my geek time has been spent building a new iMac up to replace the one that died. That's all done now, so normality starts to return.


Walking at Tatton Park

Christmas
Christmas was lovely, as we spent a relaxing few days with my mum and dad. Nathan was really aware of the whole thing this year, and – to be frank – some of it nearly overwhelmed him. We ended up on a present break as he just wasn't interested by Christmas Day afternoon. Too much choice and noise.

Whilst there, I got to read some, play with the computer writing a short book review, watch and curse at clumsiness inherent in Russell T Davies' Doctor Who Christmas Special, eat too much and generally chill out. We had a great time. Jill and I also watched The Clone Wars and The Revenge of the Sith for a Sci-Fi fix.

We spent a great day with the in-laws and Jill's sister and fiancé, whom Nathan charmed as ever! All 4 of his grandparents now have names – Ma-Ma, Poppy, Nanna and Dad-Dad. Lovely stuff! Also went out with the dog and got some nice pictures.


Sunset at Shakerley Mere

New Year
New Year was quiet, as we were home with Nathan, so we passed part of it with Jools Holland and some Champagne. Much better than last year when we were all very ill with the vomiting virus which was going around. Spent a lot of time from 31st building the new iMac and making myself feel somewhat unclean by installing a virtualised version of XP on it so I could run some PC-specific star-mapping software.

Work
Been back a week, and it's already starting to feel longer. However, at least I feel like we're moving forward rather than on the back-foot.

Music - been listening to The Killers, Marillion, Matinee Club (aka The Modern) and the theme from Stardust on the iPod a lot recently, especially now it talks to my car speakers!

So, to conclude: We hope you all had a happy New Year, and that this year is prosperous and better than the last!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for all your kind wishes, cards and presents!

For those that are interested in such things, I've posted a review of one of the books that I've been reading here for your entertainment.

Dom, Jill and Nathan! xxx

I'm feeling pretty excited, as Nathan is coming home today. He's been with my parents for the last week whilst Jill and I have been getting over the lurgy. I'm pretty much recovered now, and Jill is nearly there too, except for a hacking cough with nothing to cough up. I've missed him lots, and loved being able to use iChat and Skype Video to see him during the week. I'm fully expecting to be shocked on how tall he looks, and on his vocabulary having grown. My mum and dad have been absolute troopers looking after him, and Nathan seems to have had a good time to.

I'm trying to get the writing habit back together at the moment, as I've far too many unfinished projects at the moment. The key for me to do this is to start to do a little and often. I guess it's the old 'eating the elephant one bite at a time' analogy (not that I really feel like eating Nelly)! I had a bit of a panic when I started up working on my Traveller scenario for BITS, This Fear of Gods, as whole sections of the draft had disappeared from the binder in Scrivener. Fortunately, I realised that the files were there in the program's trash folder, and that the cause was an artifact of the program that I use to synchronise the folder archive between the iMac and PowerBook. I think this confirms that I'm going to be completing the first draft on my laptop.

Heard something disturbing this morning on the home of the chattering classes, Radio 4. The Today Programme had an article about proposed changes to legal aid. These include means testing access to legal aid (hmm), the option to recover legal aid if the defendant is convicted (okay, can understand this) and the removal of the right to be awarded the legal costs back if the defendant wins the case. Now, the bit here that concerns me is the last one. This gives the state the route to maliciously prosecute – and financially ruin – someone, should they wish too. Another step down the slippery slope. I'll keep an eye on the BBC News site to see if this gets fleshed out, as there was nothing there when I looked just now.

According to Robin Law's quiz, I am a storyteller gamer...

Over the weekend, whilst I was laid up, i worked my way through Halting State, a near future SF novel by Charles Stross. It's very much in the style of a noir-thriller with cyberspace trimmings as originally launched upon the world by William Gibson in the seminal SF cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. Anyway, some of the discussion with the author at the end of the book set me thinking. Stross made an aside about how, by setting the novel in 2012 onwards, he could easily have characters who have never known a world without You Tube and MySpace, Facebook and GPS. I latched onto this, and starting thinking. On Monday, Nathan was playing with my dad and I before going to bed, and I started to think about the gulf in assumptions between my father's birth in 1941, mine in 1971, and Nathan's in 2007.

When my dad was born, assumptions were thus;

*The high end power technology was oil fired, and fast propulsion was via propeller driven aircraft (soon to be obsolete).
*Fast mass transport was by rail or ship.
*High end communication was radio (I'm too lazy to check if FM was deployed yet), and the telegram and telephone happily co-existed. Early black & white TV existed, but had been switched off during the war.
*Early computers were being born in Bletchley park to crack the Enigma and other codes.
*Theoretical nuclear power and weapons designs were in development.
*Spaceflight had not yet been achieved.
*Slide-rules and log tables are common.
*B&W film was the norm, and mass market photography was starting to be established

When I was born, assumptions had changed further:

*High end power technology was nuclear fission, with experimental fusion and fast reactors.
*Fast propulsion is by turbofan (aircraft) and jet (military).
*Fast mass transport is by car (petrol or diesel) or aircraft (and rail if you are on mainland Europe).
*High end communication is still radio, but phones have become ubiquitous. Telegram is dying. The first versions of what will become the internet are being developed by the military.
*Colour TV is about to be rolled out.
*Computers were mainframes or min-systems, with dumb terminals.
*Nuclear power is used globally, and weapons are causing tension between East and West.
*Man had landed on the moon, and NASA was working on a re-usable launcher (The Shuttle).
*LED electronic calculators had appeared, some with the tables in log books included.
*35mm film technology was the most common form of photography.

So, what did Nathan arrive to?
*High end power technology is nuclear fission, with experimental fusion and fast reactors. The use of renewables is increasing again.
*Fast propulsion is by turbofan (aircraft) and jet (military). Hybrid power-trains are being deployed on cars.
*Fast mass transport is by car (petrol or diesel) or aircraft (and rail if you are on mainland Europe).
*High end communication is still radio, but digital mobile phones have become ubiquitous and starting to challenge the landline network. The internet is everywhere, and also threatening to merge data and voice services through VOIP such as Skype.
*Colour TV is ubiquitous, and digital transmissions are becoming commonplace. Higher definition standards are being developed and the CRT is dying.
*Computers are commonplace, and laptops are becoming the preferred format. Convergence is occurring with a number of digital devices such as cameras, phones, laptops, PDAs...
*Nuclear power is in decline.
*The Shuttle is close to the end of its life with no defined replacement identified. The International Space Station is the main focus of manned space-flight, and long range observations by Hubble and probes are the focus for unmanned flight.
*Satellite navigation is now common.
*Digital photography is now the norm.

Some changes there!

We've all got the lurgy at the moment. Nathan started us off the end of last week with a vomiting virus (lovely!) which resulted in Jill and myself running on a series sleep deficit. I then joined in on Friday night, having spent the day looking after the sick little man, with a fever and tight chest and vicious cough. I limited through the weekend and, somewhat foolishly, went into work on Monday when my mum and dad were here with Nathan. I regretted it by the time I got in, and decided that I wasn't going back into work the next day at least and would work from home if I felt okay. Anyway, got back to find that Nathan had decided to develop a cough and cold too, having been clear of bugs for perhaps 12 hours. Anyway, Tuesday saw the pair of us at the Doctors who diagnosed me as having bronchitis (and being told that I shouldn't be in work for the week) and Nathan as having 'yet another' virus!

Jill had also left us a note when she went out saying she was feeling like she had the same thing as me. She saw the Doctors late afternoon, and they confirmed she had a chest infection too. So, as I write this, Jill is sleeping it off having been sent home by her boss, and Nathan and I are sitting on the sofa, wrapped up well, and watching children's classics on the TV. Trumption, at the moment.

So it's very much the 'House of the Lurgy' with Lemsips all round for the adults, and Calpol for the small one. Normal service should be restored at some point!

Marillion at Leeds

Well, I went to see my favouritest band in the whole wide world on Thursday, and really enjoyed myself. Thanks to a scheduling snafu, and some confusion, Jill couldn't make it and my friend who I'd hoped could come couldn't either. So it was pretty strange, going out on my own for the first time in years. Even stranger going to a gig on my own for the first time ever!

However, it was great! Marillion always do a great show, and this was no exception. The core of the concert was the new double album, Happiness is the Road, which is only available from their website [if you're interested what they sound like, click the link and go there and they'll send you a free sampler CD or download], with strong elements of the awesome Marbles, and some older bits and pieces. Nothing Fish era, which may disappoint some people, but you can go and see Fish for that!

The album is starting to grow on me, more slowly than I'd have liked. However, that's more a reflection of the 110 minute length, which is much harder to assimilate than a single disc. The gig really showcased the new release, and I left with the anthem-like title-track Happiness is the Road ringing in my ears. If you want to hear the concert, it was recorded and you can get the MP3 download here.

I had a great night, only marred slightly by the fact I wasn't with friends. (How hard can it be to give away a ticket!?)

Currently feeling: Happy
Currently listening to: Woke Up (Happiness is the Road – Marillion (live at LMUSU))
Currently reading: The Second Book of Lankhmar (Fritz Leiber, still!)

Nathan says hello to his Grandad (Jill's Dad) when we visited them at their holiday flat for their 40th Wedding Anniversary at the weekend. There are more pictures on my Flickr pages.

The answer's here!


Grump

Nathan decided that – despite going to bed an hour and a half late and having everything slightly late including his dinner yesterday – that he'd not switch to GMT with the rest of the family as we came out of summer time last night. No, instead, he decided that the best thing to do was to wake up at the usual early time he had been. We love 5:00 AM!


A Contrast

I updated the photos here they seemed more appropriate. The cute original one remains here.

Nathan likes to paint...

Wetherby Bookshop by Katya Shipster, on Picasa, all rights reserved, click image to see original

The Wetherby Bookshop has changed hands this week, marking the end of an era. One of my favourite places to visit, the owner, Penny, has retired and sold up to a younger lady. I went in today and collected some books I'd ordered for Nathan (for longer term) and it was a little more chaotic than usual, but hopefully the serene calm will come back and the selection of books remain as good once the new owner settles down.

I'll miss Penny, and the fantastic service she provided. I visited most weekends when we went into town and always bought from the shop if I only wanted a single book as it was no more expensive than Amazon once you factored in the postage. I hope she has a happy retirement. As she said, this will be one of the first Saturday's that she has had off in thirty years, and I hope she enjoyed it.

The important thing here is to remember to support your Friendly Local Book Shop!

Been a strange few days, with Nathan 'suffering' from Chicken Pox, and me adjusting to Jill not working at the same place as me for the first time since we started going out. I've also had some time to consider the gaming session which I had just over a week ago, which was good.

Firstly, Nathan. In some ways, aside from a few small spots, you'd never know he was unwell. He's been a riot of energy today, and Jill was quite worn out tonight when I got home. The picture below is during a short walk we took him on to get some fresh air as he was getting frustrated being cooped up. You'd never know he had the lurgy...



Hopefully, he'll be back up to normal soon.

Jill not being at work is taking a bit of getting used to. I expected it to be strange, but I'm missing the company at lunch. Got pretty annoyed at the weekend, as I got called by someone from work with questions about stuff I haven't done in four years. Thing is, it was Jill's remit before we restructured and I think it was pretty insensitive and out of line to be making that kind of call. Anyway, I helped as graciously as I could and discussed it with the individual involved today, putting across my feelings and pointing out that there are other people in place to handle that kind of call. I hope that is now sorted.

We're just working our way through the fourth season of the new Battlestar Galactica. The problem is that, thanks to the US Writer's strike, the series ends at episode 10, and we've probably got another year to wait until we see the last 15 episodes. Quite frustrating really.

I mentioned running Sufficiently Advanced at TomCon September 2008. It was very different, and great fun. I've decided to do it again at Furnace later this month. It was strange to have a game which started to shift into a philosophical debate more than an action adventure, but I think that's very reflective of the best hard SF, which the game is meant to feel like stylistically.

I'm also being very impressed with Slipstream at the moment. This is a plot-point campaign for Savage Worlds, which is one of my favourite crunchy systems at the moment, and is a pure Flash Gordon serial style fun, and a total contrast to Traveller or Sufficiently Advanced! I also read Greg Stolze's Film Noir RPG, A Dirty World, which finally delivers something with the ORE system that I want to play, unlike Reign.

On a final note, I've really been enjoying listening to Fish's latest album, 13th Star, over the last few weeks. It is definitely a return to form, and possibly his best since Suits or Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors. I'm also getting excited that Happiness is the Road, the 15th Marillion album, is due in the next fortnight. Can't wait for my pre-order!

Currently feeling: Relaxed
Currently listening to: Flash Gordon (Queen) Blame Slipstream!.
Currently reading: The Second Book of Lankhmar (Fritz Leiber) & Slipstream (RPGs).

Nathan has Chicken Pox, caught from one of his compatriots at nursery. The poor little-love had a lousy night last night and woke up around 2am, not getting back to sleep until after 6am (ditto Mummy and Daddy). He's seen the doctor and I guess we're lucky that it's happened when Jill is off, waiting to start her new job. Fortunately, we've both had it.

Looking Coy

My birthday passed without quite the level of dark news and comment that I've come to expect since my 30th on 9/11. I'm not sure if the various items of doom and gloom about the financial markets made the old news of the Al-Qaida attack on US fade away, but it was a welcome change.

We had a great day; Jill & I both took the day off, and Nathan went into nursery for the day so we had some time to ourselves. We spent the afternoon in the Royal Armouries in Leeds, partly on a scouting visit for the IMechE Regional Dinner, and partly as something different to do. I wanted to see the 'Weapons from the Movies' show, which had a lot of weapons and armour created by WETA for films such as The Lord of the Rings, The Last Samurai, and the Narnia films. It was very impressive, especially as entry was free. It was great spending time with Jill as a couple rather than having the parents bit dominating, albeit I was a little distracted by the gadget she had got me for my birthday with my mum and dad, a Palm Centro phone. However, Jill does tend to say that the odd gadget keeps me quiet!

We picked up Nathan, and had a chilled evening. A very mellow birthday, but lovely.

UPDATE: I now have a challenge - someone who knows I like gadgets has bought me a missile firing USB connected launcher for the computer, but the package and contents have no clue who it is from. So if you bought it for me, thank you very much, but let me know!

Just in case you've been pining for him, Nathan on the Bank Holiday Weekend.

I realised we hadn't posted many pictures of the little tyke recently, so here's one you'll have missed if you don't look at my Flickr photostream. It was a weekend with him full of energy until his batteries ran out, and then he recharged with a nap or a snack...

Of course, the big challenge this Monday is whether he will give his Grandma a kiss, or just stick to his Grandpoppy!

We saw the picture above when travelling on the East Coast Main Line railway, and were quite bemused by it! Does anyone know what this is in modern terms?

UPDATE: Sadly, my dad has shattered all my wild imaginings of ogre like beasts enslaved by the railway companies. You can find the full details of what a BRUTE is here on wikipedia.

disarray (noun)
the state of being confused and lacking in organization or of being untidy

Has anyone else noticed how this is the latest political buzzword? It's being horribly over-used in political briefings and statements, and really starting to annoy me, especially as I think all the parties in the UK are in the same state of disarray! People in glass houses...

We've just had a lovely week away in the Southern-most part of Devon, the South Hams. We stayed in a bijou chocolate box cottage in Galmpton, just outside Hope Cove.


Elliots Cottage, our home for the week.

Nathan had his first visit to the beach, and loved it. Thanks to Water-Babies, he wasn't scared of the water; however, he was unsure of the waves when the sea was a bit choppy.


Hope Cove adventures.

We generally chilled out – as much as one can do with an energetic 17 month old – and visited the beach everyday, and had a few trips to Salcombe and Kingsbridge. The weather was glorious, aside from the day we arrived when we were greeted by a thunder and hail storm.


Having fun at Hope Cove.

I read much less than usual (only 4 books), but did a bit of work on a secret RPG project (tm) which was good, and got me back into writing stuff. It was a real shame to have to head back home, and if I have one regret it was that we only had 7 days there.


Rock Pool fun.

The South Hams are a lovely part of the world, and I spent a lot of time there as a child as my parents regularly took a cottage there as our main holiday. I'd recommend it wholeheartedly. Nathan loved it!


Loving it!

The journey back and forth got spread over three days each time to ease things on Nathan, and we stayed at my parents' house in Cheshire and my aunt (and godmother) and uncle's house in Somerset. With the exception of one leg, he was as good as gold! Our only worry on the journey was whether we'd be able to get fuel with the Shell Tanker driver's strike, but we didn't have a problem.

All in all, a lovely break away from things (especially as the mobile signal was poor!).

Currently feeling: Tired but relaxed
Currently listening to: Nothing.
Currently reading: The Wellstone (Wil McCarthy).

Okay, it's been over a month since I last properly put some posts together, but life (at work and home) has been busy, and we've been away to Devon (more on that later, as I'm waiting for the photos to complete uploading to Flickr) on holiday and visiting as well. I'll remedy this drought over the next few days, honest.

I've been pondering something over the last few days; why do I prefer writing stuff on the PowerBook, when I have a gorgeous 20" screen on the iMac G4 coupled with a very nice keyboard? I don't know what it is, but nothing has come close to the tactical feel and focus I get tapping away on either of my PowerBooks over the last decade. The iBook didn't quite match either of them for the same urge to type away.

I've also realise how much little tweaks to your user interface can significantly improve your workflow. I was helping my Dad out with his iMac G5 to try and resolve an email related issue, and although he's on the exactly the same version of the OS as me, I kept on getting frustrated. The big differences were little things – I have Exposé set to my top screen corners to either clear the screen, or drop to all windows available, and the mouse I have (a gorgeous Micro$oft Intellimouse 5) has different set ups with the extra buttons. It's amazing how much difference it makes. Anyway, we fixed the issue, and started the process that will allow him to break free from his current ISP if he needs to.

We had a lovely weekend in the wilds of Wales, with no modern communications, staying at one of my University friends' cottage. Ceri and Nick kindly looked after us for the weekend, and Jon and Becky also came along. We celebrated Jon's birthday, and had a great time relaxing.


Ceri, Nick & Nathan.


Jon, Becky and Nathan.


Ghost Baby - I loved the reflection here.


Jill and Nathan, on a train. Can you spot the tired one?

I got home from work on Wednesday, after one of those days when you're really happy to be away from the place, and was greeted by Nathan who managed to put a smile back on my face pretty quickly. As I got to the door, I was surprised to find him wearing his cardigan and looking very excited. Apparently, he'd demanded that Jill put it on him a few minutes before I got home!

Anyway, on seeing me, he squealed in excitement, and rushed to the side of the room where his reins had been put. Now, we'd had these less than two weeks, but already he associates them with going for a walk. He demanded – vociferously, saying 'Da' – that I put them on him and then took him out for a walk in the close. We were out for 40 minutes and ranged a fair distance. He was determined that he was going to walk, and that he was not going to be picked up.

One of the highlights was Nathan yelling 'hiya' and waving at the next door neighbours when they arrived home from their walk, and the look of surprise on their face as they waved back. It still brings a big grin to my face now!

I'm not sure why, but I realised that I'd not bothered to take off photos from my FZ50 since Easter Sunday. It was quiet a pleasant surprise when I did upload them to iPhoto yesterday, as I'd forgotten some of them completely.

First of all, I'd forgotten we had snow on Easter Day, and I got some lovely pictures of Nathan discovering it properly for the first time. Needless to say he was fascinated!


Nathan and I in the snow.

Jill was far more sensible and avoided actually getting her feet cold and wet!

Nathan running to me from Jill.

He loved it, and was fascinate about the feel of it with his hands. I think that it's great watching him learn how things work and copying. It reminds me what we loose as we get older. If you could bottle it, then you'd make a fortune!

Anyway, later in the afternoon he saw 'The Wizard of Oz' on the television and was transfixed by it! I'd not seen the film for a long time, and I can see why it was a favourite with kids of all ages. Nathan loved it, especially the singing. No doubt he'd love Bollywood films as well as traditional musicals!


Off to see the Wizard...

Last week was pretty good – I came out of it feeling far more positive about life than I have for quite some time.It was a combination of Jill's birthday, and a couple of good days at work when I actually felt I was getting somewhere for the first time in a while. I'd talked to our former next-door neighbour, Vicky, and arranged for her to babysit on Friday whilst I took Jill out. We went to an old haunt – The Muse Ale and Wine Bar – and had a lovely birthday meal. It was one of the first times we'd done this for a long time, and well worth it. We'd stopped going for a while after their letter back to Nathan saying that kid's aren't part of their 'mission statement', but we were just a couple out together, and it was not too far from home. All in all, we were only out for two and a half hours, but it seemed much longer in a good way. We had a great bottle of Pinotage too! A great week, and good for the two of us.

Currently feeling: Chilled out.
Currently listening to: The PowerBook G4 fan.
Currently reading: The Complete Chronicles of Conan (Robert E Howard).

Pretty annoyed, as I've just found out that some bugger has hacked one of the websites that I maintain, and put in a link to a trojan etc. Not seen it myself, as the Mac tends to be blasé about PC viruses and as I've not been asked to do any updates I've had very little reason to visit the site. I do have anti-virus installed, but if the attack doesn't break the firewall, or affect a Mac it doesn't alarm by default. Anyway, I've replaced the corrupted files, and also gone and hardened the site password significantly (not that it was that weak in the first place), but it's still annoying!

As an aside, Rapidweaver has been upgraded to v3.6.7, which is the last non-bugfix version for Tiger. It's improved the export times somewhat, especially with the bigger sites I have. I'm still mulling over whether it's worth switching to OS X 10.5 Leopard or staying with Tiger (OS X 10.4). I never rush to new versions of the OS (because it often takes 2 or 3 patches to get everything to a stable enough level), but there are a couple of big questions I need to answer:

1) Is there a significant speed hit with a G4 processor (1.25GHz+ and 1GB RAM+)?
2) Does Creative Suite CS2 work with Leopard (or it's a £500 premium to upgrade to CS3!)?

Pretty much everything else is clear. Most of my other apps are all Leopard compatible, and those that aren't won't be a big loss. It'd have been nice if the various Mac publications actually covered these kind of questions!

We had a great day today – Nathan was on form, and we took him to the local fish and chip restaurant in Wetherby where he had fish (no batter) and some chips, and stole bread and butter. He really likes the fish! After that, he entertained the shop assistants for 30 mins in one shop (opening every cupboard he could find and generally being cuite) before we went to Harrogate and had more fun in Mothercare.

Currently feeling: Annoyed.
Currently listening to: Suits (Fish)
Currently reading: Yvgenie (CJ Cherryh) (resisting Asher's Hilldiggers!).

Picture swiped from amazon.co.uk, where you can buy a copy!

The last week has seen a number of the great and good pass on, but the one that resonated with me was the news of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's death at the age of 90. Clarke was one of the great visionaries of the 20th Century, and many things that he envisaged have come to pass including geosynchronous satellites, sat-nav, a number of space transport maneuvers, and plenty more – such as the space elevator – sit there in development or as tremendous concepts. Clarke also popularised science, and gave the story that became one of the most acclaimed SF films of all time, 2001 A Space Odyssey. Personally, the latter bored me silly although I admired the imagery.

Anyway, Clarke has great significance to me, along with Andre Norton and Isaac Azimov, as his writings shaped my interest in Science Fiction (especially hard SF) at a young age. I was introduced to him by my Australian second cousin, Kathy Finlay, who bought me a copy of Rendezvous with Rama when I was still a young lad. I loved the tale of scientific exploration, adventure and technology, combined with the shear sense of wonder of first contact with an alien artifact. Sadly, the later sequels didn't match up to the first book, but – like the Highlander films – one can always pretend that the later versions don't exist! This sense of wonder had me reading more of his books, then moving on to other authors and genres. Over Christmas, I re-read a number of his older works and they're still valid today.

I got quite annoyed listening to some of the literary intelligentsia harping on about how he was important, but really 'not very good as a writer'. It seems you have to write turgidly like Atwood's (apparently non-SF) post-apocalyptic novel, Oryx and Crake, to be a good writer. I think that time will prove them wrong, and that his significance will be more recognised as the distance grows.

So, rest well, Sir Arthur, wherever you are.

I'm sitting on the bed on Sunday morning as I type this on the PowerBook, with a storm of energy and excitement running around yelling 'hiya', with the telephone handset clutched against his ear. Fortunately, the phones can be locked, so we're not getting knocks on the door and complaints!

I went to Portugal for three days (or more accurately, I went to Portugal for a day and spent the two days either side travelling) and was shattered when I got back. This was a combination of not sleeping well the first night in a strange bed (which is something I've always suffered with at hotels) and then an 04:30 hr check in at Lisbon Airport the next night. Fortunately, my flight back to Manchester was already off by the time the muppet ran onto the runway with a backpack on, so the travel didn't get extended even more.

Anyway, when I got back, I went to sleep for an hour and was woken by Jill calling me as she got in. I got to the top of the stairs to see Nathan holding the stair-gate and rattling it. When he saw me he yelled 'hiya dada', which made my heart jump! I couldn't believe how much he'd grown in the four days since I'd seen him last. I guess it's something that all parents have to get used to.

I promised some more pictures in the last post, so here they are:


Conducting an imaginary orchestra.


Arriving at his Grandad and Nana's house.


Toddling and running!


With his Grandad!


Holding Court...

As usual, if you click through, there are more pictures on Flickr.

Currently feeling: Relaxed.
Currently listening to: Broadcasting House (Radio 4)
Currently reading: Chernevog (CJ Cherryh).

Bit of a palava today. I was due to fly to Portugal with work, and it all went pear shaped at Manchester when the BA desk told me that my connecting flight from Heathrow to Lisbon was suspended and likely to be cancelled, and that they recommended that I didn't travel down on the shuttle flight. So I turned around, with perhaps 6 hours of the day wasted in getting ready, travelling on the M62 and waiting. What particularly annoys me is that we booked the flight 3 hours before I got there and we got no warning from work's travel broker. And I'm probably going to have to try again tomorrow or the day after. The real downside is that going to Portugal means that I'm going to have to miss TravCon08, which I was really looking forward to.


The view from iChat

Nathan's at his grandpop and grandma's tonight, which is a strange feeling. We watched him on the iSight camera using iChat earlier today, which was cool, even if he was somewhat unimpressed by us doing so! He's back tomorrow for his swimming lesson. He does seem to be enjoying himself at the moment, and is toddling about all over the place causing chaos as he has fun. One of his latest tricks is grabbing a phone, almost saying "hiya" – or at least a very close approximation of it – and then handing it to you with a grin and a giggle.

The weekend was good. On Friday, we went to the Merseyside and North Wales Engineering Dinner, which is organised by Jill and my professional institution, the IMechE, in conjunction with the IChemE. Meeting with the M&NW team is always refreshing, as it gives us new heart in what the engineering institutions can be. That's something we find lacking at the moment in the Yorkshire Region, where there are too many people stopping things moving forward with a negative attitude that is very hard to push against.

Jill and I launched our assault on the craps table in the fun casino, helped by the croupier (?) who had inadvertently set the odds of 30:1 coming up 1 in 6 times. We used our usual system and ended up with even higher than normal returns, ending up top gamblers of the night with a fortune in excess of £500 million. Sadly, it wasn't for real, but we did walk away with a water pistol, a bottle of red, a bottle of champagne (drunk) and a 2 hours session in a Ferrari or a Porsche! Naturally, Jill is getting the driving session as she had the faster car before we became sensible and swapped the Corolla T-Sport and MG ZS for the Avensis estate.


The Dee Estuary Marshes at Parkgate, more if you click through...

We spent the night, and a big chunk of the next day with Phill and Linda, Nathan's Godfather. It was lovely to see them and exchange gossip. I think Jill would have got me to sneak their new kitchen in the car if it was possible, but to no avail! After that, it was Parkgate for ice cream on a windswept, bright and stormy day, then back to my parents in Cheshire before returning to the Wirral on Sunday with Nathan to see his Nana and Grandad. We also saw Nathan's Aunty Paula (Jill's sister) and Phill came to see his Godson. Lunch was a nice meal at The Country Mouse at Brimstage Hall craft centre; good plain fayre that Nathan loved. We had a great time with my in-laws, and it was a shame to leave when we did (around 19:30 or so). The only disappointment I discovered was that Jill's mum escaped from all the photos I took. I'll have to remedy that next time. there are some really nice shots, which I'll upload to Flickr soon.

Currently feeling: Tired, and fed up of motorways.
Currently listening to: The cat purring.
Currently reading: Rusalka (CJ Cherryh).

... or "Dominic, Ready, Go!".

On Tuesday, Jill was on a training course, so wasn't on her usual day off with Nathan. This meant I got to step into the breach with our young swimmer and go to Waterbabies with him. This was quite a daunting prospect, but thanks to some expert advance tuition by Jill using a teddy bear to demonstrate, and Nathan's patience, I survived! The other thing that helped was that the other people on the session had cried off as they were either very pregnant, or their child had a broken limb, so we had 1:2 tuition from the instructor.

Nathan was, as ever, a little star in the water and full of excitement and enthusiasm to chase the little rubber fish they use for encouragement. Me? I was knackered by the end of it, especially when I discovered that the water was far more shallow than I anticipated and as a result I got a great workout. I really enjoyed it, and it was worth the day off! It's a shame I have no pictures of the session.

Here's a shot of the moon I took on a cold windy night on the road between Little Ribston and Spofforth;


The night of the Eclipse.
This is the same location in daylight, some weeks earlier;


Into the mist.
I loved the way the mist created layers into the distance. It also created some nice views of the trees when the sun broke through;


Stand of Trees in Cold Winter Sunshine.

Finally, in case you've been pining for a certain young man to appear here;

In my entry on the Christmas break back in January, I mentioned that I hoped to add some photos into the narrative. I've finally uploaded them into Flickr, and as the entry is so long ago, I've decided that I'd give them their own entry here;


Jill at Horse Guards


The New Model Terracotta Army


The British Museum


Parliament Silhouetted

Clicking through any of these links gets you into the photostream where you can see the other pictures.

Nathan has just got his first pair of proper shoes (size 3G, Start*Rite) rather than his Robeez moccasin style shoes. He looks scarily grown up in them, and is starting to take some tottering steps around with increasing confidence! It's scary how fast he's changing. I most get the Flickr site updated so you can all see.



His shoes are just like this, but navy blue! Image from the Start*Rite site.

The weekend just gone was a fun one, as I got to play games for the first time this year (in honesty, for the first time since I went to Furnace last year). Tom kindly hosted a weekend of gaming, starting with the boardgame Twilight Imperium (second edition) on the Saturday, and following up with me running my Savage 2300AD RPG conversion for the second time. It was great fun, and I really hope to make several of these weekends over the next year, even if it's only for a day at a time.


From Tom's Gaming Weekend album...

The position above (taken by Tom) shows where we where at the start of the End Game period. At this point, Tom's son Matt (white colour) and I (red colour) both started major aggressive moves against our neighbours. The end result was that I won, but only because my technology and trade base outstripped Matt's more expansive empire.

I last played the game around 2000, with Andy Lilly and some of the BITS crew after a Dragonmeet. It was great fun then (except for the fact that I was knocked out very quickly in that game). I'd traded up to 2nd edition after the game, but it had sat around gathering dust for the last five or so years. I'm glad that I got to play it, and would love to do it again. It combines politicking with trade and resource building and major space battles. What more could an SF fan ask for?!

The 2300AD game was also fun, but felt somewhat more like a dungeon crawl than the last time. I'm not certain if that was me, but the more times I've run the scenario, the more frustrated I've become with it. Savage worked like a dream and I was really happy running it.

Tom discusses this some more on his blog if it interests you for a second opinion! He and his wife Ann were absolutely gracious hosts, and I came home feeling more relaxed than I have for a while. It was a great escape from work etc. Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that Jill's friends finally agree a date for their pamper weekend so she can get away too!

Currently feeling: Happy.
Currently listening to: The Fan on the G4 PowerBook.
Currently reading: Avenues & Alleyways (a|state RPG) and LA Confidential (James Ellroy).

I don't think Jill or I have had so many different colds and infections for a long time! Ever since Nathan has been to nursery, we seem to be magnets for the latest bugs that are going around. The usual cycle is Nathan to Jill to me, and it's been the same with the latest thing. We had two weeks with him off nursery with initially a cold and ear infection and conjunctivitis. The cold and ear infection escalated (by which time Jill had caught the conjunctivitis, also shared with his grandma) and Nathan was sent to hospital, but discharged pretty quickly. He was offered a role as ward mascot as he was ineffably cheerful when he was there. The initial infection was diagnosed as bronchiolitis, but on the wane. He does have a really nasty cough with it.


Nathan at Christmas, ignoring his cold and teething.

Since Monday's hospital visit, Jill has developed the chest infection, and I've developed the conjunctivitis. That's quite annoying, as I've done my best to avoid it so far, including wearing my glasses for most of the week. I suspect that we'll have a weekend of early nights as a result.

Jill's mum and dad are also ill, with nasty flu-like symptoms which sound horrible. As mentioned, my mum has the conjunctivitis badly, but is also suffering with her hip, which seems to have been overloaded following her knee operation. The hospital managed to forget to give her a 3 month follow up appointment (which should have happened) but after some chasing she seems to have finally got a date mid-Feb to see what the damage is and how her knee replacement is doing. I can't wait for this as she's obviously in a lot of pain.

My friend Tom is also on the mend, which gladdens meas otherwise I'd feel like a bit of a Jonah for him. Why so, you ask? Well, every time we try to organise a roleplaying game session something goes badly wrong. We've flooded Sheffield on one occasion to stop a session by Skype, and this time (a planned face-to-face session) he has been struck by a palsy. Fortunately, he seems to be on the mend and has been discharged from hospital. As I couldn't get down to see him, I've sent him some books to read. They're both favourites of mine from recent times - Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space, and Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the Mist. I hope he enjoys they as much as I have.

Christmas and New Year was a great break for us, with two weeks of freedom from the daily grind. It's something I was really looking forward to after the last three months, which have been pretty hectic.

We spend the days either side of Christmas at my parents' house, with a brief visit to the Wirral to see some friends (Nathan's godfather) and Jill's parents. It was very relaxing, except for the fact that Nathan started to teeth on some of his back teeth and he really let us know it. It was pretty tiring, but at least it wasn't when we were at work. Fortunately, being at my parents meant that we could pass him on and catch some sleep after we'd been up a lot of the night. On a plus note, I used the late night play sessions to catch up on a number of films on DVD which I hadn't thought I'd get to.


Oops! Did I do that? Nathan discovers his Gran's tuperware cupboard!

Not unsurprisingly, Nathan was as excited with the wrapping paper as he was with his presents. He was a very lucky boy, and I was very glad I had the roofbox on the Avensis when we headed home or we wouldn't have fitted everything in. Amazing how much 'stuff' a small boy has. He had a number of presents he was very taken with, and the simple wooden ones certainly competed strongly with the electronic, noisy ones. I'm sure this will change with time.

Before we left my parents, we had a great little early party for Nathan's birthday on the 9th January as all his cousins were there. Although Sam is in Afghanistan, Alix had brought the kids over from Germany to the UK at Christmas. Pretty brave, doing this on her own, but she does approach it like a military operation which is probably the only way you can do this with 4 kids and remain sane. It was fantastic seeing them all. They travelled over from Germany on the Chunnel on Christmas Day, having done presents etc. inthe German tradition on Christmas Eve. The kids had a special surprise as Sam managed to be back in the UK for 24 hours and turned up to see them unannounced. A brilliant Christmas present for them! As well as Alix, Jill's parents and sister came as well and brought a lovely cake which Nathan was very taken with because of the chocolate buttons it had on it. He's very taken with chocolate buttons and grabbed a handful!

New Year was grim as Nathan announced he had the vomiting virus by being sick over my bedside cabinet and Jill and I both subsequently came down with it. Although it wiped the pair of us out like 'flu, Nathan seemed to weather it far better than we did and recovered far more quickly. It appears to have gone through the family as my dad has had it since, as have some of Alix's kids.

My Dad having it was a bit touch and go, as Jill had some business with the IMechE related to our Region, and went down for a meeting in the started of the New Year. My mum and dad had offered to babysit for us, so we had a long weekend in London for our wedding anniversary. We were getting pretty nervous that my mum and dad wouldn't make it with the virus, but it all ended happily. It was great to get some time together, marred only by the fact that we were so tired after being ill! We stayed at the ever faithful County Hall Premier Inn (where we had the experience of a fire alarm one night) and did some touristy things. We also had a lovely meal for our anniversary at the Italian restaurant – Locale – opposite the County Hall. This showed that we'd become alcohol light-weights as we failed to finish a bottle of nice wine that night!

A highlight of the trip was the visit to The First Emperor at the British Museum. We couldn't pre-book tickets (they've sold out until April when it closes!) so we found ourselves standing in a queue at 9.05 am on the Saturday to hopefully get some of the 500 tickets that they release each day. The queue started to move at 9.15, and by 9.25 when we got to the front the earliest tickets we could get were for 17.10! We took these and the wait was definitely worthwhile. We had a quick look around another gallery, then headed back to go somewhere else. I was also pretty chuffed that I found a games shop immediately opposite the museum, and managed to find some things that I'd been after for a while!

Somewhere Else was the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum (rather than the last Marillion album!) which was absolutely superb. It really gave a feeling of what the place must have been like in the Blitz and beyond, and I learned far more than I ever expected about Churchill. We happily spent three hours there and I'd recommend it. I found it particularly relevant as I'm involved in playtesting a new game set in the 1960s assuming the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone nuclear; looking at the kind of facility used to run the government was very helpful to get the feel in my head for this.

Anyway, The First Emperor was absolutely excellent. It had less in it than the Persian exhibition we'd seen some years before at the British Museum, but less was definitely more. There was a far stronger narrative here, and less of a feeling that you were looking at a massive collection of bling from ancient times. I'd read a little on Qin, the state that the first Emperor had expanded and used to create the first iteration of China from, ironically in an RPG, and that taster made the exhibition even more worthwhile. I'd love to see it again if I got the chance, but I suspect that won't happen. The follow on exhibition on the Roman Emperor Hadrian looks pretty interesting too, but somehow I can't imagine it being as popular.

So, the Christmas and New Year Break was a good one for us, and we went back to work feeling refreshed. If we didn't catch you at the time, then we'd like to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Note: I'd hoped to have some pictures here with this, but I may well add them later when I get the connection back up properly as I can't upload anything substantial.

Well, we're off for Christmas now, and it's a great feeling! I'm glad that this year is nearly over with its incredible highs, and terrible lows. It'll be our first Christmas with Nathan, and we intend to enjoy it as much as we can.

The only downside today is the fact that I'm absolutely knackered, as Nathan did not sleep at all well last night. I was up from 1:30 to 5:30 with him and I'm feeling pretty drawn as a result. He just couldn't settle, and it looks like he's threatening another cold

But, looking on the bright side of things, I've even managed to wrap some presents!

We've been quiet here the last three weeks because we've all been poorly sick. Thought we were over it, but then we've all developed tonsillitis. It looks like Nathan is going to miss another week at nursery. He's trying to be happy, but his horrible cough is getting to him. We're all pretty frazzled from lack of sleep.



However, it's not quite this bad... (Man Flu)



However, I do recommend the following solution if you are an adult. Worked for me when I was at home and still does!

My Mum's Kill or Cure Recipe
Ribena
Hot Water
Honey
2 crushed paracetamol (follow dosage instructions), alternatively use a blackcurrant Lemsip.
Shot of Scotch (optional)

1. Put Ribena in mug.
2. Spoonful of honey into the mug.
3. Add Scotch (if needed).
4. Add hot water.
5. Stir well.
6. Mix in paracetamol.

Enjoy. Great for sore throats and fevers!

Currently feeling: Shattered.
Currently listening to: The Silence.
Currently reading: Trail of Cthulhu (RPG) and The Mission Song (John Le Carré.

This is Nathan, dressed up ready for action at a party he went to. It seemed that his cowboy outfit was appropriate, as he decided to snaffle a mini-Jaffa Cake the same weekend and ended up with big grin –and chocolate – all over his face.

I'm going through one of those phases at the moment where I'm getting slightly obsessive about organising things. It's something that has happened over the last few years, mainly as I get busier and have ended up spinning more plates. A number of different things have caught my eye - a combination of articles, software and solutions. I really enjoyed one of the articles on 43folders on managing a paperless office, which resonated with me because I'd previously (about 10 years ago) tried something similar with the then new and trendy Visioneer Paperport scanner. That failed, mainly as the scanner was pretty limited in what and how it handled, and the OCR capabilities around at the time were pretty bad. However, I'm wondering if it may be the time to revisit this, as the filing cabinet is getting far to full.


If your desktop looks like this, then have a look at the article on Kinkless.com linked below.

I also really liked the article on Kinkless.com on ways to avoid a massively cluttered desktop. I just wish that there was a way that I could establish this easily on the work PC (but I guess that I should just be grateful that it's finally working normally again), but the tools beyond the basics are all for OS X. However, i went some way towards this over the weekend with a general clean up of the iMac HDD.

One of my friends refers to this kind of stuff as 'productivity pr0n', as you need to be very careful that you don't just get obsessed with fiddling with new systems. I agree with this up to a point, but I do think you need to try out the various options to see what works for you. I'll probably post some more links and software notes over the next few weeks.

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The lad I'm missing.

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About a week ago I mused on the UK government's inability to green light civil nuclear power while they remained happy to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. Seems like they finally got around to moving this forward in the Queen's speech this week.

The BBC reported:

Energy, planning and climate change bills in the Queen's Speech pave the way for new UK nuclear power stations.

Looks like the ball is firmly in EdF and Eon's hands now to see what they can do.


Currently feeling: Chilled.
Currently listening to: The wind outside the house.
Currently reading: Mob Justice (RPG).

Nathan on a walk into Wetherby.

Needless to say, I've added more pictures onto the Flickr account, mainly of Nathan. You can go via the direct link or through the last few thumbnails here. It's a funny time of year, with the mix of young kids getting excited about 'trick-or-treat' and fireworks, and the slightly older kids getting nutty with fireworks. The cat is cowering under the bed (unless we are around, when he snuggles up to us) during the nightly bombardment of fireworks, and Nathan has been woken once or twice.

Never-the-less, I love this time of year, especially as we actually have an autumn (even if it has temporarily gone on hold for a week of abnormally high temperatures). I don't know what it is about autumn, the falling leaves, the damp and crisp mornings and the mists, but it is one of my favourite times of year. I guess I should really try and get some pictures before everything has fallen.

We've just had a great weekend, especially as both Jill and I are pretty tired. Jill's tired because I've not been giving her the support she normally gets as work has been pretty frantic and she's not been well. I've been doing my first proper academic qualification for quite some time, and have spent two weeks in lectures for the NEBOSH General Certificate (a UK Safety Qualification) and then a day in exams. They've been long days, with a fair bit of commitment (the day itself tops out around 12 hours when the bus ride into Leeds is included, and then there's revision and homework after Nathan has gone to bed). On top of this, I've had another two nights out with work (an offsite meeting, and a leaving do) and have also been dealing with my first crisis in my new expanded role. So Jill has been feeling somewhat neglected.

So, we've had a quiet weekend, a shopping trip to Harrogate, Sunday Lunch at the Scott Arms in Sickinghall, and reasonably quiet times and early beds. I'm hoping that the next week at work will be reasonably sane and that things can get back to normal. Fingers crossed, eh?



Currently feeling: Relaxed.
Currently listening to: Nathan snoring (but the last CD was the new Eagles album).
Currently reading: Granbreton (Hawkmoon RPG). Making my mind up what novel to read next.

Just musing here, but how come the UK has a government happy to commit to building new nuclear bombs for the next 30 years, but not new nuclear power stations, but at the same time claims that climate change is one of the big things they are concerned about! Surely a nuclear / renewable future makes sense if that's your big concern...?

Confused.

Letter from The Wetherby News.

Nathan has been campaigning for infant's rights, or more specifically, for infant's changing facilities here in Wetherby. In reality, with the exceptions of the new Costa Coffee, the Morrisons Café, and Café Aprés (in Boston Spa) none of the local cafés and eateries have decent changing facilities. When asked, there was quite a variety of responses from the landlords and owners; The Scott Arms in Sicklinghall already have a changing mat and great child facilities, but are considering a proper changing stand. Thr3 in Wetherby is also planning to get a changing stand.


Our Campaigner Out and About in Wetherby.

The Muse was less forthcoming – apparently, children are not in their mission statement and not wanted. Le Bon Appetit, whilst a great place for a meal, have the view that you can change the baby on the floor. That's the floor which is filthy, with no mat and generally very low hygiene standards.

To put this in context, a proper changing stand takes very little space, and can be fitted into most existing rooms. They aren't expensive, only £150 or so. Nathan plans to continue his campaign so we'll report if the places that promised better facilities have delivered.

I didn't really get a chance to finish updating this while we were away, so I'll quickly summarise the rest of the holiday here.

On Tuesday, we went on the Eskdale and Ravenglass Railway, otherwise known locally as La'al Ratty. It's a small steam line (3 foot gauge) which runs up the Esk Valley and conveniently stops just down the road from Boot. We got Nathan into his new Bush Baby carrier and headed off on our expedition to Ravenglass. The first 25 minutes of him in the carrier were killers, as I rediscovered muscles that I haven't used for a long time.


Nathan waiting for the train to start.

I'd taken the OS maps of the area with me (more awkward than usual as the valley runs on the edge of two maps) and followed the journey as we went. It was great fun, although I recommend a jumper if you are in an open coach! The views were great.


Arriving in Ravenglass.

Jill was looking for Thomas the Tank Engine when she took the picture above! Once we arrived in Ravenglass, we headed off out of town along the road to the Roman Bath House Ruin that's there, at the edge of the site of an old fort. Back in Roman Britain, Ravenglass was quite an active port. Nathan had great fun as we went along, grabbing my shoulders and trying to steer me along.


Nathan riding his Daddy's back!

The bath house was quite a substantial ruin, in a state similar to some older castles I've visited in the past, but beyond a plaque and a space to walk about there wasn't an awful lot to do except use your imagination. Now, Roman times were one of the periods of history that fascinated me (I'd have done a Classics A-Level had the school not stopped me) so it wasn't too hard to do, especially as you could clearly see the edge of the old fort from the trench and rampart that ran around it in the adjacent field. However, it was the kind of place that you spend thirty minutes at (maybe more with a picnic) rather than the full on Roman experience like Herculaneum or even the fort in the Hardknott Pass.


This picture shows all the ruins of the Roman Bath House.

The trip back was great, and Nathan managed to fall asleep. We were sitting just in front of a group of rail enthusiasts who were cycling the old rail routes to see where everything used to go. I was fascinated to hear some of the technical details. They also took a lovely picture of Nathan showing his new interest in ice cream.


Moments after he made a grab for my Magnum Classic!

The next day saw us travelling across to Windermere, via Sawtry and Beatrix Potter's old farm Hill Top, and the ferry. When we got to Bowness we visited the Beatrix Potter Experience, which was great and is definitely the place that I would recommend if you;ve got children who are into Beatrix Potter. Fortunately, Nathan and I managed to guide Jill through without her getting too excited. The café here was much better that the one on the railway, although the setting was a little less attractive.

Thursday saw us in Whitehaven, which was my old stamping ground when I was up in the Lakes working. It isn't much to look at, and even the improvement activities seem to have gone a little shabby, but there are real gems here. The place used to be one of the major ports in the UK (indeed, Cunard started here and moved to Liverpool later) and it's one of the few places to have been attacked by a foreign power in the guise of the US Navy during the War of Independence. One of their great heroes, John Paul Jones, led the raid here. There are other links, but you need to look below the surface rather than take the place at face value. I'm guessing the closure of one of the town's two main employers in 2005 hasn't helped the place.


An old Churchyard in Whitehaven, showing the spiral created for the Millennium celebrations.

Anyway, the really good reason to visit Whitehaven still remains; Michael Moon's Antiquarian bookshop on Lowther Street. The place is fantastic, a deceptive in size like Doctor Who's TARDIS. If you like books, you should visit this place. There's a great review of it here in Sam Jordison's blog. After we finished at Michael Moon's we went for a walk around Whitehaven, and then we headed out of town to nearby Cleator Moor, where we met up with some old friends, Howard, Paula and their daughter Mary-Jane. They're a little ahead of us (MJ is 16 months old), so we had a great time catching up and exchanging tips. Nathan behaved himself, and we got him into the car asleep when we headed back to the cottage and the effective end of the enjoyable holiday.


The Ulpha Fell road on the way back to Yorkshire.

It's worth mentioning that we had two very nice meals on the journey from and to home at a pub called The Plough, at Lupton. This is the end of the A65 just between Kirkby Lonsdale and the M6, near Kendal.

Well, it's Day 3 in the Boot Village House, sorry, Cottage and much has happened. Sunday dawned overcast after heavy rain during the night, but we didn't let that put us off! It was Roy's (Jill's father) 60th Birthday and we'd booked a table across the road at the Boot Inn for a slap up lunch to celebrate. However, before that we started with cards and dangly 60th birthday signs that Nathan loved. He loved them for perhaps the wrong reason (for pulling off the numbers when he was on his walker) but he loved them never-the-less.


Roy's 60th Cake supervised by Nathan and his Aunty Paula.

The meal was fantastic, with high points being Nathan singing, Nathan being introduced to Simba the Ginger Cat, and the meal itself. Mine – the infamous Boot Pie – nearly didn't make it as it tumbled to the floor on the way to our table, but fortunately, they had one in reserve. I took pictures, but had the usual challenge with Jill's family all trying to avoid the camera and the chance of a decent group shot was somewhat minimal. The food was fantastic, with great taste, flavour and serving size, and fine beer to accompany it. I was nearly in trouble when I bought Roy a half of Guinness as well as his Sherry, but fortunately it dodn't set his stomach off.


Eskdale Mill in Boot Village.

After the meal, we went for a walk to Eskdale Mill, which is a working flour mill driven by water just up the road from the cottage. It was fascinating, as the technology is pretty much as it was a hundred years ago. The Miller was scathing about the National Trust's approach to preservation – preferring a working route himself – and the fact that teachers seem to want to take kids around places like this. Personally, I thought it was great, but I can understand why younger children would be a liability around the place. It'd be perfect for for older kids doing CDT to set off a project. Unfortunately, demonstrating that they meet current hygiene legislation would be near impossible so they can't actually do anything with the flour they make. We left to walk some more to the church near-by, while I pondered whether they had to meet lifting gear and machinery guarding regulations or if there was some kind of exemption.


The view from the fort in the Hardknott Pass.

Next day (Monday), we had a mini-drama with water leaking from the ceiling. Hopefully resolved by the agent, but we'll find out tomorrow. The afternoon saw us traveling up the Hardknott Pass, stopping off at the Roman Fort. The views were gorgeous, as for once it was brilliant sunshine. Usually when we get there it's raining! We visited the place we always do and got some wonderful pictures of Nathan with windswept hair. After that, it was over the pass to the bleak valley between the Wrynose and Hardknott Passes, and on through Wrynose to Ambleside. We'd planned to go to Keswick, but it was getting late, so we stopped in Ambleside.


It was windy up the pass!

We had a mini-expedition to get a baby rucksack carrier from a shop that actually knew about them, and ended up walking away with a 'bush baby' carrier and some sound advice. The shop was called The Outdoor Family for Kids and I heartily recommend it. Great advice, opportunities to try the carriers and patience as we made up our mind. After this, we had a meal at a Cinema and Jazz Club and Restaurant called Zefferilli's. It did get a little embarrassing when Nathan started to sing to the songs, but I'm sure they preferred that to him crying. After that, we headed back over the Passes to take some pictures of the sun setting and return home.

The day ended with a call from a friend I first met 16 years ago when I was working up at Sellafield during my year out. We'd called in to see them on Saturday, but they weren't around, but we'd left the cottage number. We're planning to meet up on Thursday, which will be a great finish to the holiday.

Currently feeling: Happy
Currently listening to: Nothing
Currently reading: The Wicker Man by Robert Hardy & Anthony Shaffer

We're away in the Lake District for a week, in what is best described as a communications desert. No broadband, no mobile signal, no outgoing phones. Even the TV has to be satellite to get a signal! Fantastic! As a result, this is going to be posted somewhat retrospectively!


Jill and Nathan at Wasdale Head.

We've taken a cottage in Eskdale, in the village of Boot, called Orange Hill Cottage. There aren't any oranges, and it's surrounded by hills rather than being on one, but it's rather nice. Jill found it on the internet. As well as the three of us, Jill's Mum and Dad, and her sister Paula and her fiancé Mark have come along. The cottage has a fantastic kitchen, and a lovely living area.

We got here around 5 o'clock last night, ahead of everyone else, so got the pick of the rooms and a chance to settle Nathan down properly. It did show how times have changed though. In the past, had we arrived and unloaded the car at a place like this with an excellent looking pub opposite we would have probably headed over the road and got a meal and a few drinks. However, now we're responsible adults (!), Nathan insisted that we stay in feed, bath and put him to bed. He went to sleep like a dream.

Everyone else arrived around eight thirty after a nightmare journey, which I suppose was to be expected on the last weekend of the school holidays. They'd just missed the smoke alarm drama (we'd had to disable the mains alarms as they were on the blink and replace them with battery based ones that were delivered by the owner's agent last night) and had also missed the turning for the village (something we'd done in daylight earlier on).

We were up again at 3 AM, as Nathan is teething again. We found two upper front teeth erupting last night and he was in lot of pain. We got back to sleep by 4 AM, and mercifully got a thirty minute lie in to 7:30 as he was tired. I'm not certain what today will bring, but I'm sure it'll be a great change to normal. I'm hoping we can catch up with some of my friends I made when I worked up here mumble 16 mumble years ago!

As an aside, I've just finished The English Patient, following its name-check in Pulp Egypt. I've never seen the film, and the book was interesting as it only really came together towards the end. I don't think its one I'll keep, but I will check out the film. Sadly, had I known it I couid have programmed the PVR at home to snag it as FilmFour has it on this week. That's the perils of getting the listings magazines later on!

Currently feeling: Tired but relaxed.
Currently listening to: Radio 4 via the Sky Box.
Currently reading: Polity Agent by Neal Asher

I've added some new pictures onto Flickr, which include the Great Yorkshire Show and Darcey Finta's Christening. I love the one above with Nathan in it. My mum had hired a motobility scooter for the day, as she is in a lot of pain with her knee while she waits for her NHS hospital appointment to replace a large bit of it. (Wow! 3 hip replacements and a knee replacement – My mum is becoming the bionic woman! However, I'd rather she never had to go through any of this because it's put her in a lot of pain.) Nathan sat on her lap and loved the whole experience. He wanted to try and drive it himself, as you can see from the picture.

Nathan struggled a bit for the second week running last night, as he's really started teething now. A week ago he had two teeth erupt, and another three nearly break through properly. He was hurting badly, and for a while the Calpol and Calgel just weren't doing it for him. Fortunately, I think a combination of the painkillers and exhaustion got him to sleep. Last night saw a repeat, with two more teeth arriving. Surreally, these were two additional ones, not the ones that are on the cusp of breaking through. I guess it's a good time for them to be arriving, as I'd rather loose sleep at the weekend than during the week. He's moving steadily into solids now, and just coming out of a variety of pureés. Sometimes the mess is quite impressive.

It's been a good weekend - I've finally managed to start to get some of my less wanted gaming material scheduled to go up onto eBay tonight. If you're interested, have a look at seller ID Cybergoths sometime after 10 o'clock, as I start to clear duplicates and rarely used items. This is a great step forward as it had been something that Jill and I had started onto before Christmas when we were just two and a cat!



I've been reading through Qin: The Warring States, which is a superb Ancient Chinese Wuxia style RPG. The production quality is excellent, and the game system is slick. It's a bit disquieting to find out that the French publisher has somewhat messed up the English language release with virtually no publicity. I don't do Chinese / Japanese Wuxia style stuff (usually), but this has really tempted me. The PDF version is currently 10 US dollars, and well worth checking out. I hope it does better as its reputation spreads, which it seems to be doing now. And if you're wondering what Wuxia is, think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers.

Currently feeling: Relaxed
Currently listening to: Spent the afternoon listening to Queen, and singing along with Nathan!
Currently reading: Qin - The Warring States (a Chinese based historical RPG).

It's been a while (nearly a month) since I last posted any pictures of Nathan onto Flickr. We'll I've corrected that oversight, and you can have a look at the results the usual way (by clicking on the photos themselves or by going via the thumbnails here).


This one was while he was enjoying a meal - he's really getting into solid food (well, pureés) now and loves to get it everywhere and throw the spoon around!


This one has Nathan facing a hard choice! Beer or milk?

The other BIG development today is that one of his teeth has finally broken through! Obviously, this makes us an excited and proud mum and dad, but it does mean that he's also in a lot of pain and finding it hard to sleep!

Currently feeling: Wet.
Currently listening to: Maximo Park
Currently reading: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

Nathan successfully completed his Splashathon today, with a new underwater swim at his Waterbabies class. He's raised nearly £300 for charity (see link here) and was a happy little boy. If you want to donate some more you can follow this link.


This picture was taken during his swim! There are more on my Flickr page, or you can follow the photo album link as usual!

Currently feeling: Like a Proud Dad
Currently listening to: The Who
Currently reading: 'Reign', an RPG by Greg Stolze

It's Saturday morning, and it feels appropriate to have a retrospective of where we got to with the DIY projects. We didn't get everything done we wanted to, but most of the key things happened, thanks to my father's help.

The completed list is as follows:
1. Security Light at back of house working.
2. Bannister repaired and reattached.
3. Nathan's video monitor camera wall mounted.
4. Nathan's picture put up.
5. Spare room measured to allow carpet to be moved.
6. Broadband and telephone extension relocated upstairs out of crawling child range.
7. Dining Room light changed for new fitting.
8. Garage light switch relocated by new pedestrian door.
9. Nathan's door hooks put up.

The things that didn't happen were;
1. Water butt connected (bought, installed, but needs the hose connecting to the downpipe).
2. Security Light #2 repaired (a full day of frustration with this one).
3. Bathroom extraction fixed (needs me to go in the loft).
4. Upper Storey Windows painted (probably happen later on this year).
5. Grout repaired on bathroom floor (couldn't get the right colour grout).
6. Repoint flags (thrown in as a last minute addition just in case we got there)

So all in all it was pretty successful, and a good use of four days. Nathan also enjoyed the attention from his grandfather!

All in all, I'm happy!

I've uploaded another selection of pictures to Flickr. You can get there by clicking directly on the picture, or by going via the photo-album.


Nathan in his new high chair with Mr Butterfly!

There are also such joys as Nathan trying out solids...


...and some more pictures of Wetherby.


All taken with the Panasonic FZ50, which is great fun to use!

I've been off the last three days on holiday. Or rather, I've been off these days learning the fun that it is to be a dad. Several of the other blokes I knew who had children used to joke about 'The List' which their better half maintained. Well, I'm just discovering about this phenomenon.

Over the last few months, a lot of things have built up around the house that need to be repaired, changed or generally attacked with hammer and screwdriver, not to mention power tool! Fortunately, my dad has taken a few days to come and help me go through the list. The first day was pretty successful, with a number of jobs, electrical or otherwise being completed.

Day 2 was a bit of a disaster though; when we bought the house it had two security lights at the back which stopped working quite quickly. One of these we successfully fixed, twice, as the first unit we installed didn't work properly. The second unit, which used to have a switch board in the kitchen until it burnt out, was much more frustrating. We spent most of the day trying to track the cables for this, in the end concluding that either the continuity was shot, or there was a hidden sneaky feed that we couldn't find. It was very, very frustrating!

We're hoping that Day 3 (repair the bannister and relocate the broadband to a custom built cubby hole) will prove a lot smoother!

Nathan is going to carry out a 'Splashathon' to raise money for Tommy's on the 12th June 2007, when he will perform a new underwater swim. He's been practicing every week with his mum at Water Babies. If you'd like to help him raise his target of £200, then please make a donation here.

Currently feeling: Content
Currently listening to: BBC Radio 4
Currently reading: 'Legacies' by Alison Sinclair (just finished 'Prador Moon' by Neal Asher)

It's not Nathan in this picture.

We've been trying to buy a high chair today for Nathan, and had all sorts of fun. It's been driven by the fact that he doesn't yet sleep through the night (he did for a bit, but now the milk isn't enough for him), and he's reached a size and an age that initial weaning can begin. Anyway, Jill did a look at all the options on the internet and using her Which? subscription, and we settled on a Tripp Trapp chair, as shown above. We knew that Mothercare stocked it, so Jill phoned Harrogate, Leeds and York to see if they had it in in the colour we wanted, and it turns out on Leeds had stock. So we went on an expedition just before lunch to go and buy it.

On arriving at the Leeds Mothercare store, the assistant went out to the back to get the high chair, then returned to tell us that they only had the cherry colour in stock. Jill explained that she had called earlier and they'd said they have it in,, but really only got a mumbled half apology. Anyway, disappointed and annoyed, we went and collected the other things we needed and headed to the cash till. At the till we were asked did we get everything we needed, so Jill told the assistant (a different one) that no, we hadn't. The assistant looked surprised and said she was certain that the chairs were in stock. A few minutes later she came back with one, and we walked out happily having parted with some of Nathan's vouchers from the Christening. (Thanks all!).

Fast forward to getting home. I opened up the box for the Tripp Trapp to discover that it was a Walnut colour, not 'natural' as we had asked for. 'Right', we thought, 'let's not waste time' and we arranged to drop it off back at the Harrogate store (far closer and easier to get to) and get a refund. We decided to use the internet to mail order it again rather than go back into Leeds. Jill first tried Blooming Marvellous, a site she uses regularly, but no luck there. Another site she tried needed her to phone them to order it, and when she did she was cut off by the store most of the way through sorting out the order. It was starting to look like it wasn't to be, until Jill remembered another store on the net which sold it. The order is placed, and hopefully it'll be here this coming week. Now all that's left is to start preparing the food for the little tyke!

Currently feeling: Tired (bad night's sleep)
Currently listening to: Nothing, as I'm hiding up in the Baby's Room as he sleeps.
Currently reading: 'Thud' by Terry Pratchett (just finished 'Karavans' by Jennifer Roberson)

The pictures from Nathan's Christening are on my Flickr page, or you can link through the photo-album page.

4 Months Old.

1 Month Old.

What a difference 3 months makes!

This is one of the new pictures that I'm really happy with. The rest are on Flickr (click through the image to find them) or you can look at the thumbnails on the relevant photo-album page.

It's fair to say that we've had an excellent weekend this Bank Holiday. The Christening went really well yesterday and we caught up with a large number of old and new friends. The service was lovely and Nathan was deploying all his charms. If he develops any of the abilities of his godfather Phill then he'll be a real heart-breaker in the future. Afterwards, The Bingley Arms did us proud with the meal and everyone seemed to have a great time.

However, I've got to confess that I'm looking forward to tomorrow and work for a chance to relax a little, assuming that work remains calmed down. Sleep has been at somewhat of a premium as Nathan's new schedule has been disrupted by everything that has gone on. Hopefully everything will return to what was normality at the end of last week.

I've only just got the photos from the Flower Show last weekend uploaded, and will add some from the Christening later on.

Currently feeling: Tired and happy.
Currently listening to: Nothing - enjoying the silence.
Currently reading: 'Collected Ghost Stories' by M R James

Well, the Bank Holiday weekend is finally upon us, and I really haven't looked forward to one for so much for a while. The last two weeks in work have been hell, and pretty stressful, and sleep has been at a premium. It's really been the worst time I've had in work, but I guess I'm now hoping that it is behind me and life can return to normal.

The good thing is that we've had 4 nights now in the 16 weeks since Nathan was born where he has slept through, and 3 of them have been in the last 5 days. Jill picked up copies of 'The Baby Whisperer' and has made some small changes to Nathan's schedule, which has been giving us some much needed sleep! Hopefully this will carry on and then I'll finally be able to get back onto the course I'm doing with work and the writing of Power Projection: Reinforcements.

Sunday brings Nathan's Christening, which has grown somewhat in proportion since we originally planned it. However, it should be a great do (after the church we're going to an excellent local pub, The Bingley Arms) and I'm really looking forward to catching up with some friends that I've not seen for a while. And we've the Monday to recover! I just hope that the weather holds off.

I've got some really nice photos of Nathan and Jill from the Harrogate Flower show last week. I'll try and get them uploaded over the weekend if I get a moment. I'm absolutely loving the FZ-50. It's a great camera and has re-enthused me about photography. I guess that having a cute son to take pictures of helps as well

Currently feeling: Ready for a good relaxing weekend.
Currently listening to: 'Face in the Sun' from Simple Minds' album 'Cry'
Currently reading: 'Collected Ghost Stories' by M R James

The best £3.50 ($5.99) I've spent in a while.

[UPDATE] I've now burned a CD with his favourites (which just happen to be the hairdryer, clothes dryer, vacuum cleaner and womb sounds) and it is working an absolute treat.

This shot was taken at the RHS' Harlow Carr Gardens when we went there for a day out on Jill's birthday on the 11th. It was a glorious sunny day, and we had a lovely time. It was a case of fourth time lucky, as we've tried to viist three times before, but always been scuppered by being too late or the weather. Nathan was absolutely shattered at the end of the day (there's a good picture of him crashed out in the Baby-Bjorn I was carrying him in alongside the shot above on Flickr).

I'm not going to add any more here now, as it's getting late, and I've had far too little sleep recently. I'll try and update later this week.

Currently feeling: Shattered.
Currently listening to: White Russian, from the Marillion album 'Clutching at Straws'
Currently reading: 'The Secret Pilgrim' by John le Carré

This photo sort of summarises Easter morning. Nathan was fascinated with the Easter Eggs! Ohh! Shiny!

You can see more by either clicking through the picture above, or by going and seeing thumbnails of the last thirty pics of Nathan I uploaded on the photo-album page.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, no, we haven't been feeding Nathan chocolate. He just liked the shiny wrappers!

Nathan's personality is really beginning to show now as he hits three months of age. On Saturday night we think we made a mistake by not giving him a bath before bed as he was tired. He went to sleep, but woke up every three and a half hours rather than the four to six he has been doing since he went in the cot. Tonight, when we put him in the bath, it was very funny. He was so enthusiastic, trying to crawl out of my arms and leap into the bath with Jill. I had difficulties holding him back.

Once he was in the bath, he showed some new tricks, grabbing and throwing and trying to chew the ducks he has. That and trying to drink the bath when we weren't looking! When I got him out he followed that up with peeing on his towel and giggling about it for the second time in a row! He's also been doing some of what Jill calls 'tummy time', and seems to like it, practising his crawling and head holding. He's also getting quite insistent that he wants to try sitting up.

We've had the quietest Easter in a long time, staying at home with no visitors. Good Friday saw us in Leeds for some shopping (getting Jill a coat from the ever excellent Bravissimo store). Saturday saw Jill taking Nathan into Wetherby, while I finally painted the half of the kitchen that we abandoned doing a year ago or more. Easter day itself had us puting a sleeping baby in the pram and walking along the disused railway track to Spofforth. We didn't go all the way – and it seemed a lot longer on foot than on the bikes we usually use – but it was great to get out in the sun and fresh air. When we got back he was still asleep and we left him in the pram while we had a coffee and a sit in some garden chairs with a book. In my case this was the CJ Cherryh novel I was reading back when Jill was in the hospital waiting to give birth. Fortunately, I can remember the plot from earlier!

About the only thing I've forgotten to do is phone Alix, Sam and the kids in Germany, which I remembered too late in the evening. Something to try today if I remember. I always forget the time difference between them and us. It was far harder when they were in Cyprus (as they were further apart in time zone) but it's something I should remember.

As usual, I've some new pictures, but haven't culled and uploaded them. I'll try that later today!

Currently feeling: Content.
Currently listening to: Somewhere Else, the new Marillion album
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh.

Nathan had his first swimming session last week with Water Babies. He went through the whole gamut of emotions - crying, laughing, smiling during the half hour. It was a great day, and Jill really had fun. I felt really priviledged to be there, and got some nice photos which I'll put up next time I upload to Flickr.

Last night was also a bit of a milestone. Nathan's been struggling to stay the whole night in his crib, so we decided to try him in the cot. Jill had been talking to one of her (cohort?) fellow new-mums who said that she'd had the same problem until her daughter went into the cot. So we tried it, and it seemed to be a good night for both Nathan and myself!

I finally managed to upload the latest pictures of Nathan to my Flickr account, and some of them are gorgeous, even if I took them myself!



There are also some nice shots from a recent Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) schools event held at the Light in Leeds, which coincided with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Presidential visit to the Yorkshire Region. This kind of schools stuff is critical to getting kids interested in science and engineering. The pyramid in the picture is made of elastic bands and bamboo dowels, and was built by two schoold over a morning.



I'm also pretty pleased with some of the shots I got recently of my mum and dad. My dad had emailed me a shot he'd had taken of him at a recent formal event, which he quite morbidly said would look great on an order of service for a funeral. I disagreed, as I don't think that it captures the essence of him. It was technically good, but wasn't 'my dad'. I'm pleased with the portraits I took as I think they really catch the essence of him.

We have a government that pushes the need to control carbon emissions and goes all preachy on it! They also commit to renewing our nuclear weapons capability. But they don't have the guts to commit to the one big carbon reduction they could make on power generation, committing to new build nuclear power stations.

Renewables are laudable, and should be embraced as heavily as we can, but nuclear is the only low carbon route which can provide the baseload generation.

How come we can have the bomb, but not clean power? Is it me, or is that just crazy?

I'll add some more updates in the near future. I've been a little sucked into 'real life' and cuddles for the lad. I've taken a load more photos and need to get them all sorted out soon.

Nathan has two new live and and bouncy exciting toys; a video monitor so he can be seen in glorious black and white when he's in his crib (which he's managing most nights), plus a new exciting bouncer. The bouncer does sounds, lights, and vibrations and he loves it! He loves his gadgets too!

Mummy and Daddy love the video monitor too. Daddy wasn't too fond of it at first, as it wiped out the wireless network, but that was soon solved with a change of channel. It's cool watching Nathan on TV!

He's getting a busy social life too - yesterday he went out with his chums to La Locanda in Collingham. Sadly, he had to drag Mum along too. The day before, he'd been for a weigh-in, and had successfully added another 4 oz on top of the 8 oz the week before.

You can find more cute pictures of him here...

It's been an interesting and busy week, which explains the time since the last post here. I've been travelling with work a fair bit to do some customer audits related to a company we are thinking of taking on in a service role, and Jill has had the usual clinic sessions combined with a check up to see how she is (rather than the baby).

Monday saw an early start across the Pennines to Macclesfield to a pharma company. It was very interesting to see, especially the difference of focus that massive margins mean. My company makes FCMGs and is far more conscious of the cost of waste and efficiencies than the pharma company we visited. It was a totally different culture, but it was also nice to see a British based business that is still doing well.

Wednesday I was on a big trip down South, so I worked from home in the morning. It gave me a far better appreciation of the pressures on Jill during the day, as writing a report played second fiddle to changing nappies, feeding and generally stopping tears. The value of the new baby bouncer was shown, as it was a sure way to thirty minutes quiet (and an excited Nathan!). Typing one handed, I managed to complete the report before I left. For reference, the bouncer is a Fisher Price one with lights, sounds, music and good vibrations! It was certainly giving Nathan good vibrations!

The hire car for the trip was a VW Passat, which was great once I worked out (a) how to start it and (b) where the handbrake was. The wonders of electronic gizmos making every car different. It was a completely different kettle of fish to the Renault Megane I'd had on Monday, and a pleasure to drive, certainly on a par with our Toyota Avensis.

The trip to Oxford was pretty clear, and I arrived at the 'hotel' that I was staying at earlier than I planned, 3 miles from the customer we were to visit. I use the term hotel loosely, as it was a 'Day's Inn' at a service station - clean, basic but with decent wireless internet access. I met up with the rest of the audit team (from another site) in the 'restaurant' and we enjoyed the best fare that Welcome Break could provide. It was all going swimmingly until I went to bed and phoned Jill, when I found out that work was after me.

I called the security office and they told me that a fire alarm incident had happened, and the long and the short of it was that I ended up turning the car around and coming back to support the follow up. I checked out with the bemused receptionist at ten to midnight, then headed back up the M40/A43/M1/M18/A1M... to work. I finally got home to my bed at 7AM the next morning, tired and shattered. I was pretty relieved too, as I think Jill was about to murder me when I came into the house at 6.30AM. She hadn't expected me and I think that I was going to face a fencing foil or something!

Jill has had a hard week – Nathan is in the middle of a growth spurt and as a result very demanding. It's wearing her down, and it's very difficult for me to do a lot practically beyond do the best I can to help look after him in the evening. The GREAT news is the fact that he has put on 8 oz (old money!) over the last week and is finally above his birth weight. This has been a great relief to both of us, and also explains his constant demands for food the last few days. Put in a context like that, it's fantastic. Friday night helped; I ended up as Nathan's chair for the evening while Jill pottered around. It's a good thing that Five US had three episodes of CSI back to back!

This morning saw me in work (playing catch up), but we spent most of the afternoon out in town, pushing the pram down and finding out just how much stuff you can get in a pram with a baby! I start to understand my mum's tales of carrying the collapsed family pet dog in the pram as well as me and the shopping. The Mothercare plastic bag clips are wonderful things! As I type this, Nathan is fast asleep recovering from his exertions (being pushed around town). We've got some good new pictures, but it'll be tomorrow before I post them to Flickr. It's nice having a quiet weekend. I'm glad I didn't have to go to South Africa with work this weekend as was originally planned!

I've uploaded some new pictures of Nathan and others (including some friends like Tom) to Flickr. Click on the picture above to go straight to Flickr, or use this link to look at all the pictures as thumbnails first.

It's been an up and down weekend. Some friends from work came around with a takeaway on Friday night, and we cleared the lounge in preparation for Allied Carpets failing to turn up to lay the replacement carpet on Saturday morning. It was a great evening, as it gave Jill some company other than Nathan or me.

Saturday had the carpet failing to arrive (it's being replaced after the iron fell on it in December) and my parents arriving to help put the room back to straights and see Nathan. It was a great day, as Jill & I got a few hours to ourselves, grabbed a meal and nipped out to Harrogate and Wetherby while the doting grandparents looked after Nathan. It was nice to have a little space, and to see my parents. The only downside of their visit was the return on my eBay pile, which means I need to do something with it!

The other big news is that Nathan managed to sleep the night through in his crib last night. Fingers crossed this continues!

Currently feeling: Tired.
Currently listening to: Bombs' playing in my head having written the last entry.
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh. If I could find the book as it's been tidied up!

I was following up some links and ended up on Neil Gaiman's website (famous author if you're into SF and Fantasy) where I came across a cool website that serves no real purpose except to let you realise how big the world is. Basically, the site lets you enter the places you've visited and colours them in on the map.


So that's the world view for me. Makes me realise how little I've seen.

The second map is a bit more parochial, as it shows the locations in Europe I've visited. I'm going to have to ask Jill to try this too and see if she's more travelled than me.

Where in the world have you been?

Nathan is a month old now, and getting more and more alert! He's been smiling for a while, recognises voices and is generally great fun. We got some great pictures of him last night (which are on the Flickr page!). He's still not reached his birth weight again, but is starting to pick up a bit now. The effects of the cold seem to have gone and he feeds like a trooper.

He had two expeditions this week; firstly he went out with the ladies who lunch, and then to be registered. The first adventure involved coffee at a friend's house, then a trip to Ask (a local restaurant), and finally a chance to tell scare stories to the next group of ladies who lunch. He took it all in his stride but was a little tired the next day.

It's been a week where we haven't got a lot done as such, but have been really busy. The evenings have disappeared in a blur of cooking, nursing Nathan, changing nappies and other domestic stuff. The one real leisure thing we've been doing has been watching the second series of Carnivale, which is really excellent. We're four episodes from the end now, and I'm hoping that it will be as good as the building tension suggests that it should be.

Currently feeling: Content!
Currently listening to: 'Marbles' by Marillion
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh.

I've uploaded a new set of photos onto Flickr, (ignore this link, use the pictures) most of which came from my sister Alix's visit with her family when they got back in the UK last week. There's a sample below with Matt pulling a scary face!

I've also added some shots of Wetherby I took this morning when I walked in, and some more pics of Nathan looking cute. Of course, looking cute is something he wasn't doing tonight. He was very grizzly, but seems to have finally got to sleep!

The shot here is of him asleep, escaped from his 'Space Baby' sleep-suit.

Today's been a bit of a quiet day, with the main things being my walk into Wetherby this morning, and our expedition to 'The Baby Room' to look at some more furniture for the Nursery. While we were there I couldn't but help notice (yet again) how obsessive people are about 'designer' goods, even if they are more poorly manufactured and less practicable. Anyway, we managed to find what we wanted, and a new wardrobe has now been ordered.

I got quite angry today when I was in Wetherby. I was walking along the High Street when I noticed that a young mum – looking very harassed with three kids in the car squabbling – carrying out a perfect parallel parking maneuver on the roadside. The thing she hadn't noticed was that the 'space' was in fact on double yellow no parking lines as it was an access way.However, the lines were near invisible from wear, and they wouldn't have been obvious because she was in a big car (a Freelander) and the space was tight.

What made me mad was the Traffic Warden. he was on the opposite side of the road and instantly clocked that she was parking in the wrong place. He took her number down and was preparing the ticket before she'd stopped the engine. There was a time when the traffic warden would have just come and asked her to move on, but this guy was just planning to ticket her. So I told her what he was doing and she drove off, leaving a really annoyed looking traffic warden. I hate behaviour like this, especially when the department doing it has been clocked breaking the rules on parking itself!

... if you think you're hard enough!"

Well, that's pretty much what Bill Gates said when launching Windows Vista! The BBC reports: 'Windows Vista is "dramatically more secure than any other operating system released", Microsoft founder Bill Gates has told BBC News.'

Frankly, I think that's tantamount to laying a challenge down to any hacker or virus writer who feels like taking a shot at Vista. Fortunately for me, I intend to stay with Mac OS X, and within that I run anti-virus software anyway.
–
I'm typing this downstairs on the laptop, while Jill and Nathan are asleep upstairs, shattered after their day out. They went to the pub at lunchtime to meet up with the group of new mothers whom Jill describes as 'the ladies who lunch'. It's great because it's go her out of the house and it's allowed her to share worries. At the moment, her worst worry is the fact that Nathan has only put on 1 oz in the last week. The thing is, he had a cold for a big chunk of the week, and she's feeding him on demand and regularly, so I think that it's probably a mountain made out of a molehill by the health visitor when she weighed him. If he hadn't put on more weight in a few days, then that's the time to worry. He's clear of the cold and feeding well now.

The last few nights have been hell as Nathan has been very grizzly. Three hours sleep has been fantastically long when we can get it. To paraphrase Shakespeare in the Scottish Play:

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Nathan does murder sleep," the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast. (2.2.32-37)

But then he smiles and it makes it all alright and fantastic. He's opening his eyes up a lot now, and being very alert. Looks gorgeous as a result!
–
Tonight has been the first night when I've had time to actually do some writing for BITS, but I'm feeling too tired. I had hoped to start trying out Scrivener to see just how good it is. Instead I'll probably mooch for a bit and read Squadron UK, a British Superhero RPG (effectively a rewrite of the game 'Golden Heroes' published in the early 1980s). There's a really nice toucjh in this, as it is dedicated to Matthew Bond, a fellow gamer and friend who died very prematurely last year. Apparently he loved Golden Heroes as much as he loved Traveller.

Over the last few days I've been giving some support to Ad Astra Games for their new Traveller miniatures range which will support Power Projection. They look absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait to get my hands on them. There are some pictures on the Power Projection site which show how fantastic they are.

I've also been reading the initial draft of one of the new BITS projects; it's an adventure by Dave Elrick set in the Spinward Marches just after the Fifth Frontier War. Dave is a master of writing for Traveller, and really captured the feel of the 'classic' era. I shared some feedback, and can't wait to read the next installment.
–
I don't do work here on the blog, but I can report that I've actually got a date for the interview to replace the first of two missing people in my team. I can't wait for this to happen as I feel a little like butter spread too thinly on toast, especially as a third team member is off after an operation. It should make life a little less fraught.

Currently feeling: Tired but strangely happy.
Currently listening to: 'Brave' by Marillion.
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh but also 'Squadron UK'.

Well, it took a while bit there are a load of new photos up on Flickr which you can reach via the photo album here on the site.

Last night was a bit trying. Nathan didn't want to sleep, so I got three hours in total, which I caught up on earlier tonight when I got it. It's looking like he's being a bit better tonight, and as soon as I have uploaded this I'm off to join Jill and him in slumberland!

On a happy note, we've just heard that one of our friends from work, Mike Fildes, has become a daddy for the second and third time tonight with his two little ones being born safely. His wife Lisa is doing well too. Congratulations!

It's been a hard few days. Nathan's sleeping hasn't got much better (although he did manage several hours in a row last night) even though the cold is clearing. Now it's nearly gone, he has got very hungry (he wasn't eating a lot at the weekend) and last night we had the joy of him discovering that he could get full and that it wasn't a pleasant situation. It's been especially wearing on Jill, even though my mum and I have tried to help as much as we can.


My mum arrived at the weekend after JIll's mum had gone home. Looking at the picture here, I've just realised that we didn't get many pictures last week and none with Nathan's maternal gran (or Nan) so I need to rectify that. I have uploaded what we did take.

Anyway, it is (touch wood) looking like we are heading out of the woods at the moment and sleep may return to living memory. Today, Jill and my Mum went out with Nathan, his first non-medical trip. They went to The Kestrel, a local pub that does pleasant meals and apparently had a lot of ice cream. Well, that's my mum and Jill, as Nathan isn't quite that developed. Apparently he slept through the whole thing and was much admired by the people in the pub. He's going to break hearts when he's older! It's great that Jill got out of the house, as I think she may slowly go stir crazy otherwise. I spotted this when she got excited during our recent trip to Morrisons!

Oh, and I was right. The day after we visited the doctor's Jill was told off by the Midwife for feeding Nathan the water exactly as the doctor had told her! Go figure! I guess we're bad parents because we carried on that day as it was obviously helping and in the case of treating a cold I think we'll take the route of common sense and medical opinion.

Currently feeling: Tired.
Currently listening to: Nothing, but the last albums I listend to were the Chemical Brothers' Surrender and Simple Minds' perennially good New Gold Dream.
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh. In theory.

I'm typing this with Nathan fast asleep in my arms, and the laptop perched on my lap (duh!) on the sofa in the lounge. We've been to the Doctor's today (sent by the midwife) to have him checked out because his hands and feet were a little swollen, and he was suffering with a really blocked up throat. Turns out that he has a cold, and maybe we aren't as neurotic as we thought. We've fed him with expressed milk and a syringe, and he's had more in a sitting than he's had for the last few days. We were treated with a big happy sigh, and now he's fast asleep in my arms. Jill has been told to give him some water if he is excessively demanding. I'm sure that will get her labeled as a 'bad mother' by some of the more militant midwives we met, but he seems happy enough.

Currently feeling: Justified and Annoyed! :-/
Currently listening to: Radio 4 in the background
Currently reading: 'At the Edge of Space' by CJ Cherryh

And that's a good thing! We've had ups and downs the last few days, enough to make it feel like we're on a roller coaster ride! Where to start...

Tuesday - an old friend, Phil, came around to meet Nathan. They hit it off well, but that was to be expected as Phil is a charmer! We patted him down before he left to make sure that Nathan hadn't decided to run off with him! There is a picture on the new shots I've added.



Thursday, I had to go to another site with work, over on the Wirral, for a meeting. I had to pick someone up on the edge of Manchester on the way, so was planning an early start. Things started to go a little wonky when I met Jill's Dad on the landing, and he told me that Gillian (his wife, not Jill his daughter) had developed a bad cold during the night, so they were planning on going home that day, rather than wait to the weekend. They wanted to minimise the bugs that Nathan was exposed to, and I can't fault that at all. Anyway, the meeting should have finished by 3pm, so they would wait until around 6pm when I would be back before they left.

I left the Wirral to return home at 2.15pm and finally got in our front door at approximately 10.30 pm. It was the trip from hell, and the weather warnings were – for once – very justified. I won't bore you with the details, but each of the following was shut just before we reached it; the M56, the M6 Thelwall viaduct, the M60 Barton Bridge. On top of that, Manchester Gridlocked and took perhaps three hours to cross rather than go around. It wasn't a fun day, but I guess at least I got home, unlike 11 or some unlucky souls. I was absolutely knackered.

Friday had the greatest ups and downs. Nathan started to sleep a lot longer (three and four hours) than ever before, and was showing very little interest in his food. On top of this, he was very nasal and sounded like he was struggling to breathe. Needless to say, this was quite worrying, so we phoned the midwife out of hour number after we couldn't find any descriptions of what he was doing in the baby manuals, and the next door neighbours with more experience than us were out. They told us to go to the Out-of-Hours doctor service at Harrogate Hospital, so Nathan had his first trip out, to the very place he had come from six days before!! Anyway, the doctor checked him out and he was okay. It's probably just a change in his sleeping pattern combined with the fact that he is taking his milk a lot faster. We were officially labeled as neurotic, and then told that the doctor felt that this was a good thing for new parents, and that we should do what we did if anything else changes again. Phew!

There was one disturbing thing. While we waited in the reception, we couldn't help but sit there and listen to twenty minute argument between the reception staff on what to do about an asthmatic who was choking. The Doctor had said to send a car out immediately, but the staff coordinating and the staff in the cars were being somewhat chaotic in trying to agree who would go. They couldn't even decide whether to call an ambulance. If it was a serious asthma attack, the patient could have been in a very bad way by the time they resolved it. I hope they weren't.

Another positive point is that we seem to have got the car seat fastening technique all resolved now! We go it in pretty fast last night, and the initially complex looking threading of the seat-belt becomes second nature very quickly.

Currently feeling: Neurotic (and that's a good thing!)
Currently listening to: Radio 4 in the background
Currently reading: Pulp Egypt (an RPG book)

I'm writing this as Jill is feeding Nathan, the last feed of the evening with the two of us. The last few days have been an interesting experience; returning to work was great, but I was instantly hit with a wall of work with a surprise audit that needs to be prepared for by the beginning of next week. I've managed to get out on time every day since we got back, which I think has surprised us both.

Beyond the late nights, the big change to our schedule is an early evening sleep (maybe for as much as two whole hours!) while Nathan snoozes off his meal. Jill's mum and dad are here at the moment, which is absolutely fantastic. I think we both really appreciate the support. Next week, my mum is coming over as well (kind of a shift change)!

The cat remains bemused by the whole situation!

Currently feeling: Tired, as I have an early start in the morning
Currently listening to: Nothing, as we are watching 'The Riddle of the Sands' on DVD.
Currently reading: Pulp Egypt (an RPG book)

It's been an interesting few days, mainly comprising feed, sleep, nappy change, feed, sleep, nappy change.... Jill is struggling with lack of sleep, and it's not been too much fun from that point of view. Of course, it's everything that people say it is, but when Nathan smiles or chirps, it kind of makes up for it all.

I'm due back at work tomorrow, so Jill's parents have come over to give her some support when I'm not around. She's doing pretty well overall, but the breast feedings is hard work, especially on her left side.

If uploaded the final few pictures from the hospital to Flickr, as usual. You can get to them via the photo album.

Jill and Nathan came home today! Hurrah! Now I can join in the 'no sleep' fun...

The journey home sent Nathan to sleep quite quickly, once we'd sussed out the car seat. I suspect that he is actually used to the car noise, plus we put on the appropriately named 'To All Arrivals' by Faithless, which used to send him to sleep when he was still in the womb.

It was a very hard night for Jill last night, as Nathan was very hungry, feeding every two hours or so for 30 to 60 minutes. She was absolutely shattered when I got in to see her this morning (early, as she called me in). Hopefully, she can get some sleep now while I sit here with him and finally get the chance to put the Christmas decorations into the boxes.

As an aside, the look on the cat's face was a picture when he started to cry... and I'll upload the picture later on. After a quick look he went and hid upstairs under his duvet-bed!

I've added some photos of Nathan taken yesterday to the usual place.

Yesterday was good, but it's hard going for Jill. Her wound is hurting, and Nathan has discovered his stomach so is starting to be very demanding on feeding. He's got it all sorted on the right hand side, but is still not quite not sure of the left hand side. He has this cute, but annoying, habit of feeding for a few minutes then nodding off with a happy sigh. Which is frustrating when mummy would really like to sleep.

I finally got some really nice photos of Jill and Nathan doing something other than feeding, which I've added to the photo album to share them.

The big change yesterday was a move from the room that Jill & Nathan have been in since they moved to Pannal Ward out into the ward itself. Apparently, they had a lot of babies born again on Thursday, so the rooms were needed for more C-Section patients. The move itself was simple enough, but I think that they'll need some adjustment to the new area as it's a lot noisier. It was nearly ten o'clock at night by the time that they were settled, and then Nathan decided that daddy hadn't seen a really dirty nappy yet, so did one to give me changing practice before I went home. It was quite an experience, and I now understand the comments some other friends and parents have made about 'how can someone so small make such a big mess?'. Once this was done, the midwife dropped hints so I went home!

Beyond the trip to the hospital, I finally managed to get a haircut, which was great. Funny how the little things make a difference! The Traveller CD ROM also arrived in the post (all the original books and games digitised), which will be useful if I am doing any writing for BITS.

Currently feeling: Ready for another day!
Currently listening to: Nick Clarke's Audio Diary on Radio 4
Currently reading: Pulp Egypt (an RPG book)

I added some more photos this morning. They're up on Flickr and linked through the Photo Album page as usual!



My Mum & Dad (Grandma & Grandpoppy!) visited last night from over in Cheshire. Nathan had been sleeping like a dream for the last two hours following a feed, and then decided to wet his nappy the moment Grandma held him, starting to cry.
He got a bit fractious then, and the midwives think that it is because he's got ahead of Jill with his need for milk – she's still supplying colostrum but should get the milk today (hopefully!). Aside from this, he's feeding well! Jill was looking a lot better too, except when she sneezed which really hurt.

Nathan Vincent finally arrived today. Both mum and Nathan are doing well.

The vital stats and more pictures can be found on the photo album pages.
I can sleep well tonight...

Dom (still smiling!)

Quick update this time, as there is no real news. Jill had the last gel shot of the hormone to try and start her off, but she didn't get to a point as good as the night before. I can't but think if she should have stayed up later last night rather than us both taking the 10 o'clock early night as a big opportunity. When she went to bed the contractions were still increasing in intensity and frequency. We noticed two things over the last few weeks – the baby is more active on alternative days, and that the moment Jill lies down she starts