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...