Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

Tour of Britain

Thursday, August 16th, 2007

413No – I haven’t been reading Harry Potter all of this time. We’ve been away on holiday for the past couple of weeks and without network connectivity for most of that time. Our primary destination was the Scottish 6-Days orienteering event held on Speyside, up in the Highlands of Scotland. However, we decided to make the most of my being off work and have a fairly leisurely drive up there showing off Emma to various relatives on the way.
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Out to play

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

410Yesterday we headed over to Itchen Valley Country Park for the afternoon. As you can see, Christine had fun on the play trail whilst Emma slept. We then went for a walk round the woods and up to the top of the meadows – all fairly pram friendly if a bit muddy given the recent weather. We’ll have to remember to avoid Monday or Tuesday next time though as the cafe is closed.

Man of leisure

Monday, June 18th, 2007

Today marks the start of two months of leave for me. (No, before you ask, IBM aren’t quite that generous. It’s a mixture of vacation and unpaid parental leave.) It will be a chance for me to spend some time with Emma and Christine and hopefully get enough sleep to avoid turning in to a zombie. (Maybe they’ll even be a little bit of time left over to start on that list of jobs longer than my arm!) I haven’t had this long off work since… well… since I started work, so it’s a bit of a scary prospect. I’m still debating what’s the right approach to my work e-mail. I can’t ignore it completely as a) there are likely to be some notes on the work/non-work boundary that I’ll want to see and b) I couldn’t face catching up on a two month backlog when I return. However, I also know that I could easily get sucked in to doing too much. For now I’m going to settle for ignoring the internal newsgroups and forums and logging in every few days to delete the circulars and forward on the questions to my colleagues who’ve graciously agreed to cover for me.

South Downs Marathon

Sunday, June 17th, 2007

363Christine’s mum and brother were competing in the Salomon South Downs Marathon yesterday. The course follows the South Downs Way from near Arundel, west to Queen Elizabeth Country Park. As we drove over to meet them at the finish it was absolutely tipping it down with rain. As the downpour began to ease we ventured out of the car just in time to see Sue come in to the finish field. She seemed completely unaware though that her son, who had last been spotted eight minutes down at the 20 mile stage, was sprinting up the run-in behind her. You can watch the action unfold on Flickr. Both finished in a very creditable time of around 4:25. I’m glad to say I had the sense to turn down the entry I was offered on Friday night. I’m sure I would have made the distance but I’m tired enough at the moment!

Emma the orienteer

Friday, June 15th, 2007

Emma completed her royal tour of our typical weekly outdoor activities by attending her first orienteering event yesterday – SOC’s evening event at Shawford Down. Spurning the white course, Emma went straight for the yellow although admittedly leg propulsion was provided by her Dad and navigation by her Mum. As with the RR10 and Tuesday night run, Emma obviously considered the occasion so exciting that she slept through it all, only waking to test out her lungs on the way home. Many thanks to Andrew Nash for planning.

Settling in at home

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

357Christine and Emma came home from hospital on Tuesday and are settling in well at home. Emma continues to sleep well between feeds – at least during the day. Unfortunately 2am-4am seems to be when she is at her liveliest! At least there is plenty of opportunity to catch up on sleep during the day. Christine is recovering well and seems to be getting stronger day-by-day. We made it out for our first trip round the block this evening.

Emma Claire Currie

Sunday, May 27th, 2007

354At 23:37 on 26 May 2007, Emma Claire Currie was born at the Royal Hampshire Hospital, Winchester, weighing in at 8lb13oz (4kg). The birth was by caesarean section following a long and painful labour. Emma is sleeping and feeding well and enjoys wriggling and sticking her tongue out. Christine is tired but well. Daddy is very proud of them both.

Laborious labour

Sunday, May 27th, 2007

I’m not sure “nice” was the right word to use about the state of affairs when I arrived at the hospital in Winchester. Christine had been having painful contractions throughout most of the night and the co-codamol they had given her had caused her to be sick. However, when she was eventually moved to the labour ward around one o’clock she was a promising 5-6cm dilated.
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