A Lovely Day Out!


Aengus and I had a lovely day out when we went to visit his Nanna & Grandad at their pad in Brighton. My Sister Clare and her daughter Dolly came too and we all went out and about. We all then went back to the usually tidy flat and messed it up with all our baby stuff!


Here's the photo evidence!

Cripes! Aengus is 2 months old already and I haven't updated this blog since Christmas - naughty Mummy!


Of course there's been rather a lot to do instead of blogging, but we're pretty settled into having our little bundle of joy around now. Aengus is so well behaved and really not much trouble at all, perhaps we have it all to come yet!


We've been catching up with family and friends and even had Helen visit all the way from Australia whilst she was over here at Christmas. Still plenty of you to catch up with though and it's been a great a excuse to get in touch with folks we have lost touch with recently.


Anyway, my office is a mess and as Paul is on Aengus duty this afternoon (in other words watching the Rugby), I am supposed to be up here having a clearing up session (could take all week)!

So, here are some of the latest pics and we hope to hear from you soon. By the way, for those of you who tried to leave blog comments and couldn't they should have been added now, I had to update the blogger software :-)

Ahhhh ... Christmas Morning and all is well.

Aengus slept through from midnight to 6:30am for the 2nd night in a row - I love my baby more and more every day!

So whilst he is having a cuddle with his Daddy, I'm here having a sort through the hundreds of photos we have accumulated over the past 12 days.

Here's a small selection of some of the best ones.

Is 8:30am too early for champagne I wonder? :-)

Merry Christmas!

Announcing the arrival of .......

Our Baby Boy ....

Aengus Graham James Strand

Born 10:48am on 13th December 2006

Weighing in at 8Lbs

Parents and Baby doing fine,

More photos and info over the next few days!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

39 Weeks and Counting!

Humph - this blogger system seems to have lost an entire entry for some reason. Oh well .... I'm still here, still preggers and moving around the place like a battleship. Oh I am so fed up with being uncomfortable! So much for me convincing myself the baby would be a week early - no such luck.

It was so windy here last night - I was up at 4am watching our wheelie bin being blown around the close - yes this is what my life has come to! When I finally got up again later this morning it was in the middle of the road lying on its back, looking very much like it had been on a wild night out and passed out in the road - just as well our street is very quiet and no one had driven into it!

Not much else to report really, I just bumble about and get done what I can, business is of course busy now and we are staying ontop of things at the moment - but if it all has to go to hell sometime next week - so be it, we'll get it all out and sorted in the end.

I guess it's time to get the Christmas decs out, put the tree up at least - not sure I can be bothered with the rest - all seems a bit insignificant at the moment and still a long time away, even though it isn't.

Well, more news as it happens, well after it has happened really, but hopefully very soon anyway!

Wish me luck!

NOT LONG TO GO NOW!!!

And boy, am I grateful for that! The last week or so has been a big change from the preceeding months - everything is such bloomin' hard work now. I have completely given up picking up anything I drop on the floor (which is loads of stuff as I have reached new heights of clumsiness), I have forgotten what lying comfortably in bed for longer than 20mins feels like and how easy it used to be to do simple things like turn over in bed or get out of the bath!

The baby has moved down some more and now feels like it is doing that spinning on the head breakdancing in there! It is certainly pretty lively. According to my latest check-up I'm in fine fettle, which I just don't buy - if that's the case why do I feel like I've been in a car crash every morning or that someones been trying to smash my pelvis and pull my legs off in the night? Doesn't seem right to me :-)

Had a bit of a crappy week last week when I had an horrendous headache for 3 days that just wouldn't go and was running me ragged - ended up in the hossie being checked over for this and that. In the end I had a bit of an emotional episode in the middle of the maternity ward - well if you can't have one there - where can you! Anyway, that got their attention, and got me the painkillers I had been waiting 3 hours for. Turns out I had a sinus/ear infection so they gave me some antibiotics and allowed me to go home. All seems to have cleared up now, thankfully.

We then went back to the hosiptal last weekend to be shown around the delivery suite and I have to say it wasn't what I expected at all and we were very impressed. All the delivery rooms are really roomy, have adjustable lighting, TV and lots of fun stuff like birthing balls and bean bags to help through labour and nice big baths along with the dreaded bed but even that looked kind of squidgy and soft and had loads of controls for moving you up and down and about (could do with one of those now actually). The birthing pool room is just amazing - a huge, deep, shell shaped tub complete with relaxing spa music, soft lighting and dolphins painted on the walls. Then there's loads of fluffy towels and a big double-size floor-level bed to flop onto - the whole thing blew me away! I was expecting beds with big metal contraption sticking out the end and loads of screaming and shouting - none of it - it was really calm (makes you wonder where they put all the screaming women!!!)

So, the bag is packed, the cot and crib are ready, as is a whole heap of baby stuff I've been hoarding for months. Paul pumped the wheels up on the buggy/pram today (bless - he'll have it in the garage for a polish soon if I don't keep an eye on him)! So now we just wait and I moan alot - but at least I've got I'm a celebrity get me out of here to watch, and even I don't moan as much as Jan Leeming!! :-)

As you can tell my promise to upload pictures and update this more often was an utter lie - no update for all of October!

Turns out this new place is a time warp and October just flew by without me noticing. Truth is we've been pretty busy getting the business ready for Christmas, which has kicked in already and of course getting ready for the new arrival. The baby side of getting ready has involved building and putting together all manner of items which neither of us have a clue how to work. For example, we haven't actually managed to figure out how the buggy/carrycot/car seat baby transport system folds down yet but are chuffed with having put the thing together and figured out where the brakes are! Next challenge is the baby seat base for the car which both of us are putting off and pretending it's not really lurking in the corner of the kitchen awaiting installation.

So, I'm going to write up some more news later today (that is my intention, I promise)! In the meantime, here is a rather fuzzy picture of me and the ever-growing bump as previously promised and requested by those too far away (like Australia) to see it in person! Unfortunately Harry the dog was very determined to be in the pic with me and has made my legs look even shorter than they really are - I haven't shrunk in the process! The reason picture is fuzzy is that Paul was testing out his new phone which he is only very slightly happy and impressed with!

Well we made it! We've been in the new house for just over 3 weeks and are NEARLY box free! It was all a bit of a marathon and we ended up not only paying the removal people extra to finish off our packing but we also had to do two 7.5 tonne truck runs from St Albans to Angmering to move the office, the garden pots and of course the hot tub. We are now totally indebted to my Dad for nearly finishing himself off helping us! We also had fantastic help from John and Monkey and Roopy, who came back for a second day of punishment - oh to be young! But a big thank you to everyone who helped - it was a mad few days.

So, things are still pretty disorganised here but we are getting there and the business is all fully operational from its new HQ! The local post office is pleased to have something to do handling all our deliveries and everyone we have met around and about seems very welcoming and friendly, we even had 'new home' cards from our neighbours which was really nice. Unfortunately we haven't had time to actually chat to them beyond waving across the street and yelling 'hello' yet, but I am sure we will.

I am all up and running with the local medical centre which is brilliant, way beyond the service you would expect in a small village - the medical centre has only just opened and it's all technology and shiny sinks abound. They even have in house blood testing so no more trekking off to the hozzie for blood tests etc. New midwife is lovely and I have bumped into her at the local shops, it's that kind of place, all very chatty.

Baby is now growing at such a rate that anyone would think I am eating fertilizer - as I waddle into the 3rd trimester the tiredness strikes again and I'm back to conking out unexpectedly. Thank heavens we did the move before it all went downhill again and I still had some energy left! Have to book my ante-natal classes just as soon as I remember about them and have a phone next to me.

Will try and post up a pic of the amazing bump in due course, will have to find a wide angled lens to cope with it I think.

Paul has been working with his friend Harley this week, who has been staying with us along with his doggy. Luckily there hasn't been any fur flying and Harry hasn't minded sharing for a change. Strangely a chap who owns a restaurant in St Albans has bought another in Worthing and asked Harley to renovate it for him, so how handy is that - a few weeks work for Paul and Harley has somewhere local and comfy to stay over here - nice one!

So, we are really quite settled in considering how long we have been here, still loads to do but there's plenty of time. We are getting to know the local area and are so sure we have done the right thing - everything seems good and there's very little to find fault with - even the trains into London are reliable, clean and not much more than they were from St Albans.

Will sort some pics and post updates a bit more regularly from now on!

AGRHHHHHHHH THE BOXES, THE BOXES!

Tomorrow is the 1st big day of the year - the move is ON!

The house is a mess ... it's 10:30pm and we still have loads to pack!!!

Oh grief ... will it EVER END???????

Hanging out with The Hells Angels .....

My one and only festival trip this year ... to the Bulldog Bash last weekend. OK, maybe not the best place for someone in my condition to hang out, but I was determined to get to one event this year, especially as it will be the last chance for quite some time!

I have to give the HA much credit for their care of a pregnant woman turning up to their mad weekend - they were very nice, even when I tried to take my car through the motorbike entrance and they allowed me to park right inside the event area at no charge. This turned out to be an absolute bonus as I could keep creeping back to the car for a comfy kip whenever I felt like it (and at 4:30 in the morning when the airbed in the tent had deflated!).

Had a fun weekend, although things seem different now somehow, perhaps it was the lack of alcohol in my system? Got some cool and groovy things in the on-site market at great prices and met some nice people selling there. I think they get rather stuck on their stalls and are happy to chat to any mad person who wants to pass the time of day!

As it was the Bulldog Bash 20th anniversary they had fireworks over the drag strip Saturday night which had to be the best we have ever seen. Just as you were thinking - wow that's something - this must be the finale, they just kept coming and coming and coming - absolutely fantastic. Paul recorded some of it on his mobile - apparently to save and show the baby later what all the noise was about!

My bike has now gone to its new home but it went to a good one so I am not too sad, was a bit upset when it actually went though. Other than that we are MOVING NEXT FRIDAY - YIKES! We have also accepted an offer on the current house, so that should hopefully get that situation sorted pretty quickly as the buyers are desperate to move. We had to haggle over price which has resulted in us deciding to take the hot tub spa with us, just hoping moving it won't be more trouble than it is worth!

Oh there is soooo much to do and at the moment I am wondering how we are ever going to get everything ready to go, at the moment we are living in cardboard box city and in my state of heightened clumsiness I am falling over them all the time. Paul finishes up at work tomorrow so at least he has a clear week to get it all done, whilst I am currently burying myself under boxes in the office. Which is what I should be getting on with right now .......

Just wanted to add a note about FREECYCLE (i'm on a roll this morning!)

As we have been clearing out the house, I have been redistributing stuff locally via freecycle. My eco-friendly friend karen told me about it ages ago and I have passed it on to a few people but here's a good chance to tell you about it.

Basically anything you don't want any more, you can freecycle - you give it away for free but 1) is goes to a good home and 2) you can also get other stuff offered for free. People usually come and collect so it's pretty hassle free and a great way of clearing out stuff without it going into landfill - everyone is happy!

Just visit http://www.freecycle.org/ and find the nearest freecycle community to you, most cities and towns have one and it is run via yahoo groups.

Just spoke to the solicitor and looks like all is OK with the new house so feel it is safe enough to show you a picture of 'Windmill House'! Can't wait - all that space - yipeeeee!

Hurrah! Here's the latest scan piccie! Hopefully clear enough this time to figure out what you are looking at?

Here is a lovely picture of my gorgeous Niece Dolly (19 months) on holiday in France last month - her birthday is exactly a week after my due date in December!!! Obviously doesn't hurt to have photographers for parents, just hoping Clare and Gordon will do some fabbo pictures like this one for us!

OH DEAR IT'S BEEN A MONTH SINCE I LAST BLOGGED!

First of all I want to send a BIG APOLOGY to all my friends and relatives that I owe Emails and telephone calls to - I am really sorry, things have been really topsy-turvey in the past few weeks and when added to maternity insanity (any Mother or Father should understand what I mean!), I have either 1) forgotten or 2) conked out before I got around to it, when I did remember - SORRY!

Well a lot has been going on .....

Off we went on holiday all jolly as house selling/buying all tickety boo, had a lovely time despite the very high temperatures - driving all over the island seeing people and places (also escaping the very English/Welsh hotel environment). Then just as we get back (in fact as we were getting on the aircraft home if I had answered my phone), we get a call to say our buyer has pulled out. So that was it - all benefit of holiday wiped out in one telephone call.

So, it was back to the manic tidying up, infact we had left the house in such a pre-packing mess that the estate agent went over and tidied up before we got back so he could show people around - I shudder to think what he came across!

So, a few weeks down the line now, with a lot of help we have managed to go ahead and proceed with the purchase of the new house as I really didn't need the stress of loosing it and they wanted to put it back on the market. Hopefully we will exchange later this week and complete on 25th.

I put my lovely motorbike up for sale on MCN and after dealing with the scammers managed to sell it on Saturday, although I still have the bike here until the guys bankers draft has cleared but he checked out OK and so I guess it is sold - strangely to a BT PC Engineer from Beckenham so may even see it around Mum and Dads way sometime! Stranger still, as I was coming back from taking the dog for a walk to recover from the bike sale, we got another offer on the house! So looks like they both sold on the same day - strange but true.

On the baby front (after all this is what the blog is supposed to be about), we went to the 21 week scan earlier this week and I tell you it has grown incredibly since we last were able to have a spy! I couldn't actually see the screen very well but Paul was sitting there saying - "wow I can see the eyes - oh look there's an ear, oh wow there's the toes", and I'm just kind of twisted around propping my head up and craning to see anything!

Everything looks good, all the tests came back as they should and there was nothing odd found in the scan, so everything crossed on that front. I did manage to see the baby moving its arms and legs about like a little frog which was very cute and apparently the sign of a happy baby!

I now cannot get into any of my normal clothes as the bump is growing at an alarming rate and I am unmistakably preggers now - I think before people just thought I was just fatter than normal! As I tend to wear jeans and trousers most of the time, it was a bit of a shock when I put on a dress for a wedding we went to a couple of weeks ago - I looked at least 8 months pregnant and automatically started to waddle around - but that may have been the high heels - blimey haven't worn those in a while either.

Will upload the scan photo shortly, hopefully it is clear enough not to need labels this time. Right now we are in house moving mode and tackled the task of clearing out the garage at the weekend which we have both been dodging for weeks.

Well I had better be off to bed - lots of mums have said - 'get all the sleep you want now because you won't get it later' - so I'll do just that. What's the chances that I will forget to email everyone tomorrow morning to say I have updated this? Let's see what time I get the email out - i.e. when I actually remember!

Oh the heat! I need to carry around a water-butt with me to contain all the water I am drinking!

Not a great deal to report - house sale/purchase seems to be going through OK and we are off on holiday Wednesday.

I've been much better - more stable and no more scares so I've been more settled although I seem to have gone back to 1st trimester troubles - knackered a lot (heat doesn't help - good idea going off somewhere even hotter eh!) and much queasiness. Hopefully all that will change soon.

Anyway, better get off to bed - busy day tomorrow!

The Joys of Motherhood!

One for all the Mums out there - if you have a couple of minutes and want a sympathetic giggle, click on the link to the right of this page to visit 'My Friend Eves Baby Blog' and read the Embaressing Supermarket story.

I met Eve when I worked at VNU, when I joined the company she was very pregnant with her 1st Daughter Megan and 4 weeks ago she had her 3rd Daughter Cerys, with baby Erin in between. I'm not sure how she finds time to update her blog!

Arghhh ... I've been very bad at updating this over the past few weeks, fasten your belts and hold on to the bar infront ... here's why (in roughly the order they happened!) ...

Had the nuchal scan and blood tests - lots of spying on Weasel and much wriggling around - really grown with proper arms and legs (looked like rather long ones to us!) but also shy as kept putting hand over face when sonographer tried to measure nose bone. Amazing news - average risk factor of downs for my age is about 250:1, so anything higher than that was going to be a bonus - result came back as 2605:1 - thats twice as good as the average for an 18 year old - brilliant! No need for amnio or more diagnostic tests - yipee!

Then a week or so later I started to bleed on Saturday evening and Paul was out at a gig in Milton Keynes - nightmare. Just had to get him home asap having called emergency doctor for advice. Held fire all day Sunday but ended up in Ambulance and hospital on Monday as situation hadn't improved and I was getting pretty stressed out.

Had a check over and a scan at QE2 hossy in Welwyn - that place has gone up in my estimation I can tell you - they dealt with me really quickly and found the site of the bleeding and seemed to think it quite normal but worth checking so I was given my notes and sent on my way.

Dad came to collect me and I went to stay at Mum and Dads with Harry the dog for just over a week to have a bit of a rest and whilst Paul went off to Download Festival for the weekend. Was having a lovely time, caught up with school friends Nicky and Gael who I haven't seen in yonks and had a great time hearing all their baby stories and other news. I got to meet Gaels nearly-three year old Harriet who was not too keen on Harry but absolutely gorgeous all the same - she's going to be a very attractive & tall young lady! I also saw Nickys Emily and Alex - now 13 and 10 who I haven't seen in years - they have grown up so much and are lovely kids - a real credit to Nicky & her husband Clive.

Then like an idiot on Pauls Birthday, the day before my own, I fell down the stairs with a real klonk, bruised my lower back badly and then started bleeding again in the evening - oh magic - just what I needed. Felt OK the next day despite the bruises and went on a shopping spree with Nicky but eventually ran out of energy and had to collapse back at Mum & Dads.

On my birthday Paul turned up really early by surprise and we had a lovely day with a meal out in the evening but again by 9pm I was ready to konk out. Next day, Saturday, Clare came over with her family as we were all supposed to be going to see the Foo Fighters in Hyde Park but I had sold my ticket off as not the best thing for me to go to under the circumstances and Clare decided not to go (so we sold her ticket too) and the rest went off - Paul, Gordon and Stan. Felt complete grot all day battling with crazy hormones, feeling totally grumpy and not really knowing what to do with myself. Wanted to swim in the pool but too downright scared to do anything as still bleeding so tried to spend as much of the day asleep as possible.

Sunday was Fathers Day and my mood had lifted slightly although I was still feeling very confused and hormonal. We gave Dad a remote control Hovercraft that I think he was actually quite chuffed with and it cheered me up that he liked it.

Got back home Monday afternoon and decided to take the rest of the day sorting out business and house stuff before trundling back into hospital to check on the continuing bleeding. Tuesday morning called various hospitals/doctors/midwives all of which told me to go back to QE2 A & E - so I did and was seen in about 2 mins! In no time atall they had me wired up, checked, tested and booked for another scan. Scan showed Weasel is all OK but that there is a new dark area in there (away from Weasel and placenta - phew) which needs monitoring - me thinks it's a bruise (which can cause bleeding) as it's at the back and lines up with the deep purply green smudges on my back. So it's back for another scan next week to see how things are. It's a reflief but I guess we're not off the hook just yet.

In the meantime - the house is sold and everything is going ahead - the chain is tiny as the people buying our place are renting and the people we are buying from are not buying somewhere else so with any luck we will be moving on August 4th if I get all the paperwork back to the solicitor sometime soon! Yipeee - cannot wait, cannot believe that fabbo house is going to be ours ... now just need to be organised with all the associated guff - removals, change of address, money in the bank, solicitors, business leases, internet connections, postal redirects, new PO boxes, phone numbers, new doctors etc etc etc

So I'm feeling fine now and just have to BE CAREFUL, not overdo things and see how it looks on the scan next week.

The evidence - Weasel IS in there!

10w 3d

The latest from Weasel watch:

Had the 'booking in' ante natal appointment which was excellent - really went through everything healthwise and all the testing options. Really can't fault the NHS so far, they seem to be offering me everything they have going which is very reassuring. I have opted to be tested for absolutely everything they can possibly test for, even though some of the screening tests are really just for national health information, I'd rather have them all. This entailed about 8 vials of blood being taken from me which did make me a bit dizzy and my arm is still sore. Mind you, the sore arm could be due to carrying away all the information books and leaflets they gave me - more information than you can shake a stick at - am working my way through it all!

They had a feel and said that everything is perfect, as was my wee test and results of my thyroid tests (fab!), so everything is looking good.

Nucal scan is this coming Monday which will be another step forward and another chance to spy on Weasel! I am now booked in for all sorts of appointments - I have been set up with a consultant endocronologist and consultant obstetrician and an anomoly scan at exactly 20 weeks (for which we have asked for Weasel to be checked for absolutely everything).

I am getting rather attached to the service here and hope that it is just as good in Worthing when we move. The Birthing Centre in Watford looks brilliant - the labour rooms look just like hotel bedrooms and really homely but we should have moved before that time arrives. They also have a birthing pool (Worthing has 2 as well) which I quite fancy the idea of - as Mum knows my 1st response to any pain or stress is to have ' a nice relaxing bath' so I think it will suit me. I just don't fancy looking like a half drowned beached whale like the women you see on telly having water births. So I want to know if I can at least wear a top of some sort! I also need to find out if you can still have all the pain relief if you are in water - I'm not turning into a natural birth tree-hugger - I want all the pain relief on offer!

Paul has admitted to being squeamish about the giving birth bit (so am I!), so I have to do some convincing and think of ways of getting him involved. He's just a bit old fashioned really so I don't think he is going to be one of those active birth dads. I reckon he knows I am going to be a nightmare and given half the chance would rather I just got on with it - tuff luck matey, that isn't going to happen! I'm sure that if we can find some stuff for him to do like take care of some music and keep the gas & air coming he'll be fine. I think the main reasons are that he doesn't fancy the thought of seeing me in pain and he is not sure how he will react emotionally - either by doing or saying the wrong thing or by being over emotional and embaressed, he'd rather be in the waiting room ready to hand out the cigars - I told you he can be old fashioned!

The other news is that we have had an offer on the house - a little lower than we wanted but we managed to negotiate it up a bit and have accepted it. The agent in Angmering is like a small Jack Russell with two tails since I told him, so fingers crossed that it all goes through now. I'm putting off getting too excited until we have at least exchanged contracts and am calling a few solicitors today as the one I used before has gone off and retired. I had another look at the house details on the agents website yesterday (I'd been stopping myself looking until we had an offer) and can't believe we have a real chance of getting the place - to be able to get us, weasel, the business and guests all under one roof will be great. I am particularly hankering after the massive kitchen and utility room - blimey - I must be going domestic and settling down!

So, overall looks like everything is on the move, including Weasel who is attempting a pelvic escape to find some more growing space