Final Countdown

... We're heading to Venus.... etc

Well, we're not really, but we might as well be with the sense of anticipation I have right now! Tomorrow we officially reach 37 weeks. When I say we, I actually of course refer to Helen and Bump! Here is the one and only picture of Helen and Bump there is in existence.

We actually decided to celebrate Valentines Day last weekend, just on case!

I think we're probably about as ready as we're going to be. Although when little legs arrives we'll most likely feel quite the opposite. The nursery is all prepared and stuffed full of just about everything we think we're going to need.


The cot has been assembled and made up. Helen was desperate to make-up the cot, but at first I wouldn't let her as I though it was too early (this was a few weeks ago). So she just did it one night while I was out instead.


Note the bear in the corner. He is just one of many toys and animals that have appeared over the last 8 months (he is Uncle Gordon Bear - a Whatmore family tradition, everybody has to have one). I'm sure everyone will get the love and abuse it deserves and hey I'm as guilty as anybody for buying some of them ;-)


Helen is currently enjoying her Maternity leave to the best of her ability. Which means she gets out and about when she can, but can't do as much as she'd like. Plus she has both her Mother and me nagging her to rest. Which of course drives her crazy (Helen says I can quote her on that).

We have by now attended the "Parentcraft" classes provided by the good ol NHS. 2 x 2 hour sessions in the warmest room in the hospital ( we had one expectant fathers faint - definitely due to the heat rather than the conversation). Leeds is at the moment in the midst of a baby-boom and it was easy to confirm this fact just by the amount of expectant mothers attending the classes.

Overall things seem to be going as well as can be expected. Helen is well and really just suffering from being not able to get a good night sleep. Something which she is hoping I will share in as soon as possible lol. Our only annoyance is a midwife who is always late and didn't actually turn up to Helen's last appointment (which was actually a house call as there were no free appointments at the surgery). So I'm going to ring the surgery on Monday to find out what happened.

In other news Helen is looking forward to being able to wear her engagement ring once little legs is here. We've been engaged for 3 months and she's only really been able to wear it up until the new year. Thankfully she has a chain so she can wear it around her neck, but she's desperate to get it back on her finger.

So now we're just playing the waiting game and when something happens. You guys will obviously be some of the first (after me and the families) to know.

No, it's definately NOT a bus!

I think this post title could be interperated in any number of different ways. I'll leave you just to make your own ideas up ;-P

Well yesterday was S-day (scan day), this was the first of Helen's Scans so it was our first chance to see how many we were expecting! Thankfully there is only one "bun" in the oven so to speak, but spud it turns out is very camera shy. They had a hell of a time trying to get the correct pictures so they could get some measurements, so they could attempt to give us a more accurate due date.

Although as we all know the word "accurate" is a very subjective thing when it comes to these things. But at present the due date has been moved to 7th March (our estimate was out by 3 days), so we should be able to get Christmas and the beginning of the the New Year over and done with before our life gets completely turned upside down.

So without further ado, everybody meet spud!



PS I've had the new Dan Brown for 2 days already and have only been able to get 10 pages in due to everything else that's going on. It's quite frustrating!!

Metamorphosis - Coutesy of Block & Quayl

Well it's another spud related post I'm afraid. Do you get the impression that he/she is already taking over our lives and we've still got 6 months yet to go. A couple of weeks ago both myself and Helen had a week booked away from work. Originally we were planning to go camping and get away, but as with all best laid plans.

Anyway, we decided that the best use of that week, would be to actually start turning the spare (read - store) room into something that will eventually be turned into spud's room. This involved taking apart the large desk from the main bedroom and putting it in the garage and moving all of the bookcase and shelves from the spare room and putting them in the main bedroom.

Everything that was in all these various pieces of furniture was transferred to either the bin, charity shop or the loft. We were left with the room as you can see below:-

Please note: I was under a press embargo not to show any of these picture until Helen was finished. Hence while it's taken a few weeks for this post to appear.


As always the first argument was colour. What colour to paint the walls? Helen wanted Yellow, I thought Green would be quite good and something different. There were lots of conversations and the wall became a Polka dot of tester colours. Eventually we agreed to diagree and decided to do both as you can see. We were originally worried about the green as it was quite bright, when it originally went on, but dried to a nice light shade.


This is the part where my artistic ability finishes. However Helen's ability is much greater than mine, I suspect developed over the years of drawing on walls and windows to please the kids at nursery. So on the Yellow walls Helen decided to draw characters from Charlie Ark. A work in progress is shown below.

The finished Article - Flo (Cow)

Ace (Bear)

Zeep (Zebra)

As you can see the curtains are still a work in progress. We may have set ourselves quite a task finding material for matching curtains. My contribution can be seen below. What you can actually see there used to be the top of the desk from the main bedroom, which I've turned on it's side and turned into a small shelving unit. It now holds all of the small cuddley toys that we are starting to collect.

From Top to bottom: Bing Bong Bunny, Polly (named after Helen's Uncles recently deceased Border Collie), an as yet unnamed Elephant and an as yet unnamed Zebra.

Finally we come to the first piece of actual baby related furniture to make it into the room. This is a baby changing stand that we bought from Ikea. We didn't set out to buy it (those are probably going to be my last words) we'd just gone to Ikea for some boxes. We saw one of these on our way round, thought it was nice but at £50!!!!! Way too expensive for us. So we went to the checkouts with our boxes and past one of these in the "Bargain Corner". We couldn't find any damage on it, in fact the only thing we could see was the pull tabs were missing on the zips. When we enquired about the price we were told we could have it for £25. I keep waiting to hear the sirens as the police turn up.

I keep thinking that 6 months is still plenty of time and yet when I think how quick the last 2 months has gone (since we found out), 6 months doesn't seem long enough!

Oh and tomorrow is scan Day!!!!!! Where did that come from?????

Thought for the day: Paper! Used for Sonnets, Novels, Symphonies and wiping your Arse!!

You are in a Maze of Twisty Passages, All Alike!

And yet all different at the same time.

That probably best describes my life over the past 17 months. 17 months!!!!!! My god has it really been that long. When I logged into my blog for the first time in a while, I saw that I last logged on in April, I didn't really see the 2008 part until I looked more closely. I beg your indulgence with this post as it meanders about covering the last year and a bit. However if you just want the Juicy news, then by all means skip to the last section. If you can wait, well by all means continue.

I must now hang my head in shame. *Hangs head*

Okay, okay, in my mind though I have an excuse. Although if she ever caught me calling her that she'll probably be very upset with me. And even I'm not stupid enough to make my girlfriend upset with me. I can do that easy enough with out adding to it lol.

So with a suitable drum roll and fanfare... here she is.

Her name is Helen and I must freely admit that she is a welcome distraction amongst other things. I love her dearly and I don't care who knows it. She has been part of my life since about April last year and before you ask, yes that is just a coincidence. We met using the wondrous technological marvel that is the Internet. Which is the way I've met all of the best people in my life, so it should come as no surprise.

She currently works in a nursery as a nursery nurse, but has ambitions to becomes a full-time hospital nurse or a mid-wife, she hasn't quite decided yet. However now that she has me to give her a good push in the right direction she has passed an "upskills" course and has been awarded a place at York College to start an introduction to nursing course.

I'm so proud, can't you tell lol.

So what have we been up to over the past 17 months? Here are some of the highlights:

The First Date

Well we had our first Date at Fountains Abbey in Ripon North Yorkshire. Neither of us fancied the traditional cinema / restaurant combo. We'd spent nearly 2 months talking on MSN most nights and actually felt like we knew each other quite well. So as both of us are outdoorsy types we settled on Fountains Abbey instead. After spending nearly the whole day at the Abbey we spent most of the evening talking back at my place. When she left saying she wanted to see me again the next day, I took this as a good sign ;-)

The Birthday Treat

Helen's birthday is mid-July so as a Surprise a took her to see Avenue Q in London. Helen absolutely adores musicals. She's just about seen all the popular ones and loves all the old Hollywood musicals as well as the more modern west end / Broadway ones. We went to see Avenue Q with Helen S and Simon. As we were down in London for the weekend we needed something to do on the Sunday. Coincidental, the motor show was on in London that weekend (hmmm coincidence). Anyway we went there and had an enjoyable day there, I even made a car convert of her lol. This was her favourite car of the show.


Our First Holiday

By October Helen had moved in with me (around September) officially. The only reason it wasn't official until then was that there was still more of her DVD's and clothes still at her mum's than at my house. We were both spending all our waking hours with each other. So in October we decided to take a last minute break to Centre Parcs. We decided to go to the one near Longleat Safari park, as we both wanted to visit the safari park.

It was fantastic we spent 2 full days at the Safari park and with CP just next door was easy to pop back to the accommodation. When we weren't in the Safari park we could be found in the swimming pool. And even though it was October we even had brilliant weather, don't believe us, here is the proof.


Christmas

We have even managed to survive our first Christmas together. It involved me dragging Helen along to the Cadet Christmas Dinner (where the first blog pic was taken) and us visiting both sets of parents and extended family on Xmas day. Somehow we managed to survive but we both realised that our Christmas plans will now have to be set well in advance otherwise we're bound to upset somebody!

The Family Pet

Harry actually arrived in our life just before Xmas. I had promised Helen a Rabbit in the Spring when the weather improved, but she has me already wrapped around her little finger by this time. So she kept asking until I gave in, especially as she'd set her heart on a unique coloured coloured bunny we'd seen at the pet shop on one of our many visits.

So after much pleading this little one arrived.


He lived with us in the Kitchen and now the weather has improved, he lives in a nice big run and a proper hutch out in the garden. He hasn't quite eaten us out of house and home yet, but he's trying his best.

The Big Secret

And I think this deserves another Drum Roll...........

I am going to become a father. There I said it, yes Helen is expecting our first little bundle of joy (assuming alot I know). Spud as it has come to be known (I hate referring to it as an "it" so Spud it is) is due toward the end of February / beginning of March. We don't know what sex (and we want that to be a surprise) and how many yet as it's too early for a scan as she is only just 10 weeks. Our only real 2 hopes are that Spud is healthy and that there is only the on Spud and that I don't have to come up with more than one name.

How did I feel when I found out. Well shock and surprise probably covers 99% of the bases of my immediate reaction. We certainly weren't planning on it. Let's just say it was a failure of modern scientific technology an leave it at that shall we. My current mood is one of happiness at the moment. I have a women that I love by my side and another person on the horizon that I will love just as much. There are certain to be hurdles on the way, we are planning to turn the spare room into a nursery towards the end of this month. Which means we need to find room for everything that currently lives in there. But I'm sure we'll overcome anything that comes our way.

And I'll let you know how things are going. I have at least 2 Helen's that'll prod me with very sharp sticks if I don't start keeping this thing up to date. So watch this space.

Thought for the day: Life will find a way.
Copyright Jurassic Park, tm, etc...

12 of 12 April

Another 12 of 12. this time with a twist - well one and a half twists. Firstly none of this months shots come from Leeds, we are definately out in the wilds here. Secondly this is my 100th post at this location, long may it continue.



If you've been following this blog you'll know I've been taking an expedition leaders course over the past few months. Well last weekend was my assessment - as part of the assesment we were to supervise a group of cadets taking there Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition. This was to span both the Saturday and the Sunday, but to stay within the rules these pics are only from Saturday - a full set of pics will follow later this week.

-----1. 08:20 am

This is my rucksack for the weekend. I have to carry this whenever I'm out supervising the cadets. It contains my tent, sleepingbag, food/cooking equipment, spare clothes, torch, whistle, map, compass... oh and my camera. ;-)

I was staying at my parents house on Friday night as it was an easier location to start from.

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2. 09:00 am



I was also tasked to transport the cadets taking part to the starting location in Helmsley (N. Yorkshire). My car is what's called a Supermini and wasn't up to the job. So I borrowed a slightly bigger car for the weekend. Even so we still filled the boot floor to ceiling and they all had stuff on there knees while sat in the back as well. I don't think we'd have got any more in if we tried.


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3. 10:20am

Here are my team for the weekend. These are the four cadets from my ATC squadron who are going to undertake the expedition. They also provide me with a group to lead so I can be assessed for my course. This picture was taken at the begining of the expedition, hence the smiles. From left to right - Cpl Hildreth, Cdt Corden, Cdt Fowler, Cdt Oeshlarger.

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4. 14:00pm

The cadets have been walking for 4 hours now, I have met them on various points and the route and walked with them a few times to check there safety. The last checkpoint is the campsite where we will be spending the night. While waiting for my group to turn up, I have set up my tent before the rain starts (it had been raining on/off all day). It's a v. small 2 man tent, I bought it as it's really light to carry (only 2kg). However it's not even big enough to sit up in, I also think it's more suitable for 1 and a rucksack - see pic 12.
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5. 15:00pm

The cadets are running late so I go out and look for them. I find them walking down this hill. They are just off the shot to the right. This is the view down the hill, looking at the campsite in the distance.

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6. 15:40pm

My team have finally made it to the campsite (with only the odd navigational error). First job is to get the tent up while it's dry. They may have just walked 13 km, but they can't get yet. They must get themselves set up for the evening and get all there kit away before they can rest. Luckily the rain had held off so they could do this in the dry. It's actuallya three man tent, but they decided to only use this tent as it gave them less to carry.

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7. 16:45pm

Tea time, at least for the cadets. While they cook, they must be supervised at all times to ensure there safety. You can lose tent, even eyebrows through a moments carelessness. They are using a Trangia, which is a methalated spirts burner. I think here they are coooking Chow mein in the left pan, and pasta in the right one.

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8. 17:35 pm

These guys will never win at hide 'n seek! Actually the boots stay in the porch section of the tent, to keep the sleeping area mud free. This scene just reminds me of all those cartoons when someone hiding behind the curtain is found by there toes sticking out.

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9. 19:10 pm

All the cadets have eaten and it's time for us to eat. Leaving the cadets in the care of a number of volunteers, the rest of us have gone to a local pub to get something to eat. It seems slightly unfair that somebody has to stay behind, but the cadets have to supervised all times to ensure there safety. It is part of our responsibility as our Duty of Care to other peoples kids that we take on these expeditions. I have been the one to stay behind on previous occassions.

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10. 19:15

Here we all are, all 18 of us that have descended on this pub looking for something to eat after eating out of our rucksacks all day. Some of them are other people taking the course, and the rest are assessors and tutors. On the left in the foreground are Louise, Shona and Ian, on the right are Steve (red T-shirt) and Charlotte. The guy you can just see in the background (at the end of the table) is the course director.

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11. 20:45 pm

This is the bit of the evening I've been looking forward too - desert. Here there are not one, but 2 slices of Sticky Toffee Pudding (I only ordered one!!!!) with Walnuts, Toffee sauce and Ice Cream. I was tempted to take a photo message and send it to the cadets, but I didn't in the end. Not out of any sense of niceness, I had no mobile signal at the time.

----- 12. 23:00 pm

Bed time. It's been a long time and now it's time to try and get some sleep. The green thing in the foreground is my sleeping bag (3 season bag, good for 0 deg C). It's on a foam sleeping mat (about 1/2 inch thick) which is the only thing that makies sleeping on the ground comfortable. The other half of the tent is taken up with my rucksack. There is no other room in my tent, but it does the job for the evening. One more day to go.

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Well that's it for this month. I'll hopefully post more photo's + a video later in the week. If you're wondering why I've done all this pop on down to Chad's Blog and have a gander.

Post No. 99 - A Meme

Is the opposite of a Meme a Youyou, or maybe a Uu? And what would it's opposite be something unique rather than something repeated and propogated?

i. Bold the shows you've watched every episode of
ii. Italic the shows you've seen at least one episode of

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses
41. Band of Brothers

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama (possibly should be bolded)
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK
22. The Shield
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who (still haven't seen 1st ep of new series)

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (got half way throughS7 and went blah!)
01. The Simpsons

There was more on there than I thought there would be. I'm seriously behind on my series watching at the moment!

Who Likes Short Shorts?

Cue the sounds of 1958...

..I think.

I think I've just discovered one of the dangers of internet shopping. Some descriptions are definately in the eye of the beholder I think. Our tale starts a number of weeks ago when I'm looking for some way of helping to keep fit during the bad weather. I haven't done much about it with all the time my course has been taking up, but I did discover in my random trawls around the net that there is a swimming pool fairly close by.

Well last week, I went looking for said pool, as I had a bit of free time and the course finishes next weekend (my assessment weekend - hopefully lots of pictures will be posted here next week.) Anyway, I actually found it and looking at the prices, they looked pretty reasonable.

Now the only probelm is that I haven't been in possession of anything like swimming attire for years. Certainly not something that fits (one of the reasons for swimming is to reduce the waistline a bit). Rather than go shopping at all the usual places one might go looking for these things, I decided to use the internet (I wasn't drunk, just in a lazy mood that evening).

I eventually found a pair of shorts - described as a comfortable/snug fit. There was an accompanying picture, small but they looked sorta what I was looking for. At a reasonable price I was sold and it was late so I hit purchase.

These are what were waiting for me in the post this morning.

I feel if I wear these I feel like I have to walk around singing "Spinning Around"! I might certainly sound like Kylie wearing them!

I'm going to try them on at somepoint anyway, just as I'm curious and no, there's going to be no photos.

Not if you want to sleep at night!

Travelling Metaphors.

This is a meme, for which I was tagged by Simon.

The Six-Words Meme, which was originally started by Smith Magazine. The history is thus:Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre by asking our readers for their own six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).

Drum Roll...

"No regrets, only turnings never taken."

Here are the rules:
1) Write your own six word memoir.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
6) Have fun.

Here is the point where I'm supposed to tag people. Having checked various sources everybody appears to be already tagged.

This is where somebody proves me wrong. Until then, this road ends here. :-(