An exhausting three weeks

Has it been three weeks since I last posted? It’s been a pretty full on few weeks as well, with a potentially huge life change coming up. In summary I am definitely being made redundant although the company are refusing to make any confirmation until the 30-day consultation period is complete. They asked for any proposals to be kept on at the company, which I submitted, and they then declined my consultation sugestion. As time has gone on though I just don’t want to be in the office anymore. I think once someone says they don’t want you, and then confirms they don’t want you by rejecting a proposal to keep you on, your motivation to stay dissipates. My team are being great, and the weird atmosphere in the office has subsided a bit, but it’s not a great place to work anymore. And as the June 10th deadline for the consultation period to end looms it is getting harder and harder to leap out of bed in the morning and launch into a work day enthusiastically. As an aside to all this the consultation meetings seem to be dragging on and that is adding a bit of stress to everything. I am going on holiday on June 10th and I want all of this resolved before I go. I definitely don’t want to come back in the office after I get back from holiday. I have confronted HR about sorting this out and just get fobbed off with ‘things have to take their course’ bullshit.

I have been approached by another company to go and work for them. I have spoken to the senior staff there and hopefully they are going to take me on. It would involve us all leaving London and moving to the South coast of England to Portsmouth. The job sounds interesting although it will be a challenge to begin with. We have lots of family who live in and around Portsmouth so the move would be ideal for us in many ways. We have talked about moving down to the coast for a while, but then put off the move until the economic situation improved – we figured it would be better to keep a stable job until things get better (how wrong was that call!). We are thinking about trying for a second child so it would really help us to have family close. And the atmosphere is much more chilled than London so it all kind of fits. Just need to get the job now!!

The logistics of moving down there will be a bit complex though and we have tried to prepare as much as possible already. The best solution we have come up with is to rent down there for a few months while we sell our place in London and buy a place in Portsmouth. Ideally we don’t want to have to move all our stuff from London to one house, and then move everything to another house afterwards. Moving is stressful, things get broken and it’s crap, so I want to do it the fewest number of times possible. We have played around with several ideas including me working down there during the week and then coming back to London for the week-ends, but I really didn’t like that either. A house move will take a least 3 months and I can’t be away from my girls for that long. So renting somewhere is the best option. Renting somewhere furnished so we can leave our stuff in London while we sell the house is the next decision. We thought about renting in the area we would like to buy, but there are very few furnished places. Then we hit on the idea of renting somewhere by the sea for a few months. It’s the Summer, we could go to the beach every day, and Portsmouth is small so it wouldn’t matter much to be a couple of kms from where we plan to buy. Suddenly the plan seems to be coming together. And I quite fancy living by the beach for a few weeks! Of course it all hinges on the decision about the job, and everything that can be crossed is about that one!!

Without wishing to tempt fate it’s funny how life works out sometimes. Without the redundancy I probably wouldn’t have been approached about this job. Without the redundancy we wouldn’t even have considered a move for a while. Meg doesn’t start school proper for another year so the timing for her is ideal, as we can settle into the new area and not have to change her schooling after it has started. As much as we love being in London it’s starting to get tiring now, and living near the coast is like a dream. Most people I spoke to said that redundancy was a great thing when they looked back on it. If this all works out then I will second that!

VE Day

It was 64 years ago that the first step to the end of World War 2 took place. Peace was declared in Europe today as Nazi Germany was defeated and surrendered to the combined Allied forces - VE Day. I think those of us who were born long after those times have no real conception of what it was like. And reading books or watching films doesn’t really convey the horror for those who fought (on both sides). I think the only programme that has really come close is a TV series called Band of Brothers which I can highly recommend, but even this glosses over some of the details.

Nowadays we are used to seeing war ‘live’ on TV. The technology makes it look like a video game to the casual observer. And the scale of the carnage is significantly lower than it used to be. In World War 2 over 55 million people lost their lives – incomprehensible today, even when compared to things like the South East Asia tsunami of a few years ago.

So I say thank you to those who fought and died for our freedom all those years ago. I hope they are happy with how things have generally turned out and they don’t feel we have wasted the opportunity so many of them paid the ultimate price to give us.

Redundancy

I was told on Friday that I might be made redundant soon. It came as quite a shock as the company seemed to be riding out current economic problems quite well. And I am having a good year budget wise due to some negotiating and smarter thinking on the print buying I do. So I really thought that if any redundancies would happen I would not be top of the list. But apparently I was wrong. The MD summoned me into her office and just told me I was going to be made redundant. At 4.30 on a Friday afternoon before the Bank holiday! No emotion. No 'I'm afraid to say..'. Just 'you're going'. Amusingly she then asked me if I had any questions, and then said that she couldn’t answer me to every one that I asked! (Which kind of begs the question – why ask me if I have any questions if you’re going to refuse to answer them?)

Due to the number of people being put forward (is that the right phrase?) there has to be a consultancy period where we apparently get an opportunity to put forward a case for us not being made redundant. I’ve been looking at all of the information online about this and the company has to justify us being got rid of, and has to make every effort to keep us on. I have read up on what is supposed to happen, but it need to be initiated by the company. So far we have just been told that we have to elect a representative for the 9 of us in my division and then the process will start. We then have a minimum of 30 days consultation before the decision will be made if we are to be laid off or kept on.

My family and I have gone through a whole range of emotions over the past few days, but I think it’s mainly been confusion and anger. The stupid part of all this is that I want to work, I enjoy my job and I think I am actually doing a good job as well. I’m finding I have two heads on with this situation as well. My 5am head where I worry about how we will cope and what will happen – how will I keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates. Then I suppress those thoughts with my logical head where I tell myself that we are not extravagant so our lifestyle won’t have to change dramatically. There are systems in place for redundancy, especially in the current climate and we will get help with the mortgage and money from the government – hey, I’ve been paying my taxes for 10 years so I have no guilt about claiming jobseekers allowance money for a short time if that’s what it comes to.

What is proving the hardest to deal with is the not knowing. Nothing is going to start for nearly a week as it is. For example we were out for a walk yesterday and we thought it’d be nice to stop for a coffee. But then we thought no as that is being extravagant and we must tighten our belts. I think if they’d just turned round and said ‘go’ then we’d move on and get on with our lives. I think I’d still be angry, but not so unsettled.

There are lots of questions flying around my head, but one of the big ones is what do I do job wise? The ideal for me is that I stay where I am, even though my personal relationship with the company will be damaged, probably beyond repair – but if I am going to leave I would rather it was on my own terms. Or do I wait until this process is well under way and try and gauge if I will be staying or going before I start trying to sort myself out. Or do I start looking around for a new job now as there are still jobs out there if you’re prepared to look. The latter is emotionally preferable as I will feel like I am doing something and have more control over the situation. But any new job will probably not be doing what I currently am so there is a certain fear of the unknown. And the money may (probably) will not be as good. And if I find a new role do I go for it and hand in my notice to my current company. I do want to get as much money from my current company as I can so that I can feel some personal satisfaction.

Coming into the office this morning there was a strange atmosphere as everyone was still reeling from the announcement last week. Everyone seemed shocked and quite depressed as I think many realised they could be next. It took a bit of time, but various conversations started springing up and certainly the ‘shop floor’ staff seem more resolute now that first thing. There is still an air of mistrust of the company which I think may take time to heal, if it ever does. I’m finding that people are slightly nervous around the 9 of us as no-one seems to know what is going on or what is going to happen, or even what to say. It’s not great and I sort of feel like no one is going to come out of this a winner.

I’m sure there will be many more humorous/crap things that will happen in the next few weeks, but today’s incident is: The 9 of us are based in different offices so we thought we would meet up before the Thursday afternoon deadline to have a chat and decide among ourselves who our representative would be. We decided to go to the other office to meet up as it seemed easiest. We decided to meet up on the suggestion of one of the Directors of my division. We weren’t trying to hide anything, but HR called me (not sure why me as I wasn’t instigating this – good omen/bad omen?) and told me it would be inadvisable for the 5 of us in our office to leave during office hours as we would not be able to justify the time travelling to and from the meeting, and we should do a conference call instead. When I asked how they had found out about the meeting (not that I was bothered about them knowing until they called me) they wouldn’t say. And when I asked what would happen if we went ahead anyway they just said that is would not prejudice our case. But you know when someone says something like that in a particular tone of voice you get the feeling that they’re lying? So I don’t know if they’re trying play with our heads a bit, divide us up or what they’re up to. But I just feel like I’m getting kicked from all sides at the moment.

Aparagus

I love it when the fruit and veg picking season returns. We went to Garsons Farm at the week-end as they are just starting the new season with the Asparagus available to pick. We went slightly mad and bought 2.5kg of the things, but they were yummy. The only downside is you do get Asparagus pee. It took us a while to work it out, and we did wonder if we'd gone down with some wierd illness, but no.

I found this online:

"Asparagus pee" has long been the subject of scientific debate. The problem is that if you ask people if their wee has an unpleasant, sulphurous smell after they've eaten asparagus, half say it does and half say it does not.

Scientists used to believe that people digested asparagus differently and divided them into "excretors" and "non-excretors". We now know that it is not whether or not individuals excrete chemicals that makes the urine smell, but whether an individual can smell these chemicals. Scientists still argue whether or not all of us produce the chemicals that make the asparagus pee odour. Most people certainly produce them, but many can't smell them as they lack the necessary sensory cells in their noses.

The most pungent compounds in asparagus pee are sulphur-containing molecules. How these are formed in the body is also a bit of a mystery. Only one sulphur-containing compound, asparagusic acid, is unique to asparagus. So it must be the way the body deals with this molecule that creates the odorous chemicals in urine. The concentration is greatest in young plants - which fits with the observation that asparagus pee is most pronounced when you eat young, white asparagus.

So if your wee smells after you have eaten asparagus it is because your body deals with asparagusic acid in such a way that it produces smelly chemicals, and you have the ability to smell these."

So there you go. All I know is the bathroom at Casa de Stancombe was definitely fragrant over the past few days. Not unpleasant just odd.

Sunspots and the quiet sun

The surface of the sun with a sunspot and solar flares

Astronomers are currently observing very few sunspots and the spotless day streak has grown to 24 days straight. The current solar sunspot observation minimum is part of a pattern going back 400 years, and for the most part is to be expected. I say for the most part because it seems many forecasts and scientific analogs pointed towards 2008 being the solar minimum with an increase in sunspot activity arising in 2009. The problem is the sunspot number continues to decrease in April 2009.

The sun with lots of sunspots

What is a sunspot? Has this ever happened before? What implications are possible if sunspot numbers don’t increase anytime soon? A sunspot is a planet-sized region on the Sun's surface that is marked by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection and forms areas of reduced surface temperature (therefore making them “dark spots” on the sun). Sunspots are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Sunspot minimums come along every 11 years or so, and when plotting sunspot counts, we see peaks of solar activity are always followed by valleys of minimum solar activity.

Therefore, it is expected for the Sun to undergo minimum solar activity on a regular basis. 2008 was considered a very deep solar minimum where no sunspots were observed on 266 days out of the year (73%). Only one year during the last 100 years observed a lower sunspot activity, 1913 (85%). As of April 19th, there have been no sunspots observed on 96 out of the 109 days (88%) so far this year. However, sunspot activity has been lower on several occasions during the last 400 years.

So what implications would an extended solar minimum period mean for Earth? Although there is a better chance than not that sunspot activity increases in the next few months and follows the cycle, if for any reason it doesn’t, we should examine past examples of similar cases to see what this would mean for Earth.

According to NASA research, there is a cause-and-effect relationship between sunspot activity and measured changes in global temperatures on Earth. As evidence shows us that the “Maunder Minimum” and “Dalton Minimum” were times where Earth experienced anomalously cold temperatures. The years surrounding the “Maunder Minimum” are now commonly called the “Little Ice Age”. “Dalton’s Minimum” combined with the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 set the stage for the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, as it is commonly referred.
Earth’s surface temperature saw a drop in 2008, which I think is no coincidence given the deep solar minimum. IF, we were to see a “Maunder Minimum” type of sunspot activity occur over the next few decades, the world’s economy and agriculture would suffer tremendously. Many scientists who believe in global warming speculate that this deep solar minimum we are currently experiencing will keep global temperatures from rising over the next few years until sunspot activity increases towards the next predicted maximum in 2012 or 2013. Climate change is a much heated debate in the scientific community; however the one mechanism that both sides agree upon which influences earth’s surface temperature is sunspot activity.

To the naked eye this is what a sunspot looks like.

As mentioned previously, it should be a matter of time before the solar cycle corrects itself and solar activity increases towards the next maximum. Nonetheless, extended solar minimums have been observed in recent history and if it were to occur, would have tremendous impacts on the world’s economy and agriculture. This might go some way to explaining the incredible amounts of snow we had earlier this year and the period of calm weather that we are currently experiencing. I also wonder how much effect the sunspots have on global warming, but that’s for another day.

At the top of this post are photos of the sun with lots of sunspot activity. This is a photo taken on April 19th showing nothing happening at all.

Easter 2009

I think celebration times of the year such as Christmas and Easter are so much better when you have small children around. They haven’t been corrupted by the cynicism of adults or the commercialisation of the event (both things linked I feel). So they enjoy the dressing up, the singing and the receiving of the presents. This year she did very well for Easter Eggs from both sets of grandparents and us so we had to figure out a way to give them to her without just giving them to her. And as we were back at my parents they joined in with the games and really made the whole thing more special.

When I was young a tradition was that the church bells would ring and spray out little chocolate eggs which my sister and I would then go out and collect from around the garden. So we did that this year and Meg thought it was the best game ever. She and Granny went around collecting the eggs in the frosty morning. Then in the afternoon we went and hid lots of small model chicks around the garden and got Meg to run around and find them. For every five she collected she got one of the big Easter Eggs we had got her. As she hadn’t seen the big eggs before this she thought this game was even better than the morning!

Now the only thing is to make sure that she doesn’t OD on chocolate with the amount she has. Or that I get too fat from helping her eat the eggs!

Visit to Shipham

With it being Easter and with a long week-end break we went back to Waycroft to spend a bit of time with my parents. With Easter being late this year we were blessed with wonderful weather, almost good enough for the shorts that I didn’t bring with me! Having completed all of the building work on the house my parents are now much more chilled and I think this holiday was among the best we have had as a family there. Mum and dad were keen to spend plenty of time with us, and to take Meg off our hands, which really gave Theresa and I a break. With life being so hectic we rarely get much time to sit down and chill out, read books or just have a general chat. So being able to sit outside in relative warmth and with wonderful fresh air was so welcome I cannot find words to describe. The air is so fresh and clean there as well that we went to bed tired from just breathing it in, which is something we don’t get in London.

Theresa and I have just booked a small holiday in the Summer and we are going to leave Meg with my parents for the time we’re away. We’ve decided that we deserve a few days of just us being a couple. Especially after some of the trials and tribulations this year. While I will miss Meg a lot I really can’t wait as well. And this week-end was kind of a trial run for my parents, us and Meg and I think everyone passed with flying colours.

Meg had a great time too. The house is so big and open that even she starts to flag after a full day of running around it. And the garden has become her personal race track. She and the dog seem to have reached an understanding and generally don’t harass each other as much. And most important of all she was so pleased to see her grandparents and seemed quite happy to be left their in their care all of the time.

We went to see my aunt and uncle, who we hadn’t caught up with for a few months now which was lovely as well. Meg tried skipping for the first time and we all had a lovely meal and chat. It’s sometimes a bit awkward trying to keep up conversation, but this time it was lovely. And we heard all about my cousins wedding next year which will be the society event of the Summer I suspect, but does sound wonderful.

Mayfair walk

Another week-end and another very enjoyable family London walk. The weather is being particularly kind at the moment and there are few nicer places to be than London on a beautiful day. (Well, actually, I can think of some places, but given the resources at hand it’s pretty good.) We have been gradually working our way round London over the last few years, trying to explore under the skin of our capital city. It has been inhabited for something like 6000 years in various forms so literally everywhere you go you are stepping in the footprints of history. That is a wonderful feeling and quite head spinning if you really think about it too much. Simple things such as street names often have very old and historical reasons why they’re called that. Or the basic trace of a road may not have changed for several hundred years, just the buildings on it.

This weekend we went around one of the wealthiest areas of town called Mayfair. It is home to some of the richest estates in the country and many of the embassies. It borders onto St James Palace (where we went a couple of weeks ago) and the Royal Parks such as Hyde Park. It is home to many of the big designer labels and has the most expensive shopping street in London within its boundaries (Bond Street).

It was a fascinating walk although maybe not the most diverse we have done. The whole area just reeked of money and everything was very private – big walls, big doors, big shutters. All the streets were tidy and the flowerbeds and houses very neatly kept. It did feel a bit soulless in a way because everything was so ordered. But you can imagine that the residents here would be very busy people running things or wealthy enough that the house in Mayfair is probably just a convenient pad to stop in while visiting town.

One of the highlights was going to the National Gallery which we’d never visited, and included seeing the largest collection of Constable paintings I have ever come across. I’m more into Impressionist art, but it is impressive looking at a painting done several hundred years ago and worth several million £. And like many of the galleries and museums in London the building itself was almost as impressive as the work contained within it.

Battlestar Galactica ends

Possibly my favourite show in TV right now, and one of my favourites for the past few years ended last night, with the last ever episode on British TV. Battlestar Galactica was created in the late 1970’s, but actually only ran for one season back then. (I should probably say this might get really geeky!) I don’t remember it in 1978 (I was 3), but I did really enjoy watching it as a child. I loved the premise of it being more real than Star Wars despite the kitchness of having been made in the 1970’s.

Since that there have been various projects on the go, but none came to fruition until 2003. Looking back on this now that was probably a good thing as the re-imagining as it was described has become one of the best TV dramas that has aired. The new Galactica takes the basic premise of the original show, that humans on far off worlds are attacked by robots (Cylons) they created and then go on the run to try and find the 13th ‘colony’ of humans on Earth while being chased by the robots, and tweaks it to improve it. What has been created is a very real looking series that in some ways mirrors our society. In the new series people are flawed, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad, things break, the humans don’t always win and the whole story is a rollercoaster ride of emotion. Some critical elements were rewritten to mark it out as different from the original, such as two of the key fighter pilot characters now being women rather than men, and one of those being a robot (it turns out). This caused a storm of debate online, but I thought it was pretty cool actually.

The re-imagined series first aired in 2003 and I came across the pilot of the show by accident. I was hooked again immediately. I think initially because the storytelling was very good, and the way it was shot was very real. It contrasted markedly with programmes like Star Trek which were big at the time as they portrayed everyone getting on, everything being neat and tidy and the good guys always winning. I’m not criticising that at all, and I used to enjoy Star Trek, but it was cosy TV without being too challenging. I think it also appealed to me as it took me back to my childhood and I could connect with the memories of enjoying the original series back then. Back in 2003 I didn’t have access to the TV channels it was broadcast on so I used to wait eagerly for the series to be released on DVD and I would then watch the whole series every evening for 3-4 weeks in my flat. I would limit myself to one episode per night so that I could enjoy the feeling of looking forward to the next episode. I remember being so tempted to watch another one when an episode ended on a cliffhanger, but I always resisted. Before Season 2 started I was in a position to watch the show on TV and each Thursday evening (as it was then) I would get my Galactica fix. When Theresa moved in with me she even started to watch and got into the series as well.

From the start the re-imagined series was written as a complete story stretching over 4 seasons, with a definite start and end to it. Over the years there was pressure on the writers to make it more accessible by producing just stand alone episodes, but I am pleased and grateful that they resisted and continued the story arc. While this made it harder for people to join the show in later series, it gave those of us who’d followed it from the start a real treat and really allowed us to connect to the characters. Over time it built up more than a cult following and has been recognised as being one of the best written dramas on TV.

The final series began airing last year with the survivors still battling to survive and escape the Cylon enemy. The line between the good guys and the bad had blurred as we now had humans and Cylons fighting alongside one another against other Cylons. They were desperately trying to find this mythical world called Earth that written into their legends, but no-one had ever found. As Season 4 reached it’s mid-series break they found Earth, but it had been decimated in a nuclear holocaust. We then had to wait four months for the final eleven episodes to come on TV. And agonising four months, fuelled by rumours that due to the writers strike in Hollywood the whole series may end on that note. Luckily sense prevailed and the remaining episodes were completed and became a Tuesday night treat from January onwards. The remaining survivors left Earth as it was not inhabitable and continued to try and escape the Cylons and find a habitable planet. Through various permutations and a minor civil war within the humans, we ended up at the final episode last night. I’ve read online that people thought one or two bits were confusing, and Theresa the cynic questioned one bit in particular. But I thought it was great and a good ending for the story. It tied up most of the loose ends, but left enough threads for you to still be able to imagine your own follow on story for some of the characters. It didn’t leave too much open that there would have to be another series in the future which I thought was particularly good.

As I was watching it I did feel sad that this was all coming to an end. It hadn’t taken over my life or anything like that, but it was something I would look forward to watching and seeing how the story developed. I enjoyed reading other fans views on what was happening and enjoyed the reflection on the show of life in the real world. I guess I enjoyed being part of the fan community. The show had been part of my life for about six years and I think that is significant. I watched a show called Babylon 5 during the 1990’s and really enjoyed that. When that ended I had a kind of sci-fi hiatus for a few years and the Battlestar Galactica came long. Now that has finished I wonder what will come next and how long I will have to wait? There is a prequel of Galactica called Caprica which is being done by the same people and due on air at the end of this year. Maybe that will turn out to be great too, as there is a talented team behind the project. Who knows …

All I can say though is that the last six years of being involved in Galactica have been wonderful and it’s a series that I think will stand the test of time. I have a huge amount of respect for Ron D Moore and his team for what they achieved. And I thank you for giving a big kid back some cherished memories of youth through your show.

Wedding Anniversary

Today is our third wedding anniversary. Has it really been three years already? And has it only been three years? It feels like we have both done and changed so much in such a short time. We have had a child, been round the world, significantly changed our house, seen some big changes with members of our family, among other things. I am really glad that we got married when we did and I feel so committed to Theresa. I feel sad when I leave in the mornings and really happy when I get home in the evenings. And I cherish our week-ends together.

To you Theresa I say thank you for sticking with me and I love you more than anything. It’s been the best three years of my life and I am so looking forward to the rest of our lives together. I love you.

Our new shed

Our old shed was rotting, being held together with dead Ivy, and attracted the elements in rather than keeping them out. And it was red. So we decided enough was enough and knocked it down. Last week the replacement arrived and we built it on Saturday.

At 1430 it looked like this:



By 1630 it was like this:




And then by 18.30 it was complete and the ground was cleared. Four hours - DONE!

All that remains now is cleaning off three years of crap from when the old shed started to fall appart and let everything known to man in.

Google Streetview hits London

Google Maps/Street View has arrived in the UK after a few months of debatting the privacy issues surrounding it. With faces and number plates obscured I'm not sure how much of a risk people are really at. And there is so much information about people on the Net already, that I'm not sure a picture of their house really makes much difference. And I think it's cool that I can go online and look at my sisters house in Australia, or find a restaurant that Theresa and I ate in while in Rome.


And here is Casa de Stancombe, complete with knackered pavement and cute window nets!

Spring family pics 08/09

The bottom photo is from Feb 24th 2008, and this one is from March 14th 2009. It’s taken in the same gardens in Wimbledon. It’s interesting how the faces have changed during that time. And also how everything is flowering 2-3 weeks later this year than last. I’m not speculating on the why’s and wherefores of this.

My birthday

I am now officially 34 years old. Or 3 + 4 = 7 which is a lucky number apparently, and that’s not happened for 8 years!!

I digress (or just confuse – not sure which). There are a stack of things to be done around the house, or more specifically, the garden, but we decided to not do any of them this week-end and just spend the days doing stuff as a family. As a bonus the weather was fantastic. There’s nothing like a bit of sunshine to brighten the mood.

I got a book with loads of walks around the villages on the edge of London. It includes one for our village which we did recently which was fascinating. So on Saturday we went for a historical walk around Wimbledon Village which was great. We walked all round the village, discovered an old Iron Age camp on Wimbledon Common (of Wombles fame), and discovered the oldest building in the village which is about 450 years old. We were out slightly longer than planned and got home pretty weary after having been walking for about 7 hours!

Then on Sunday we drove into town and explored 18th century London around Buckingham Palace/St James. The highlight for me was probably the oldest wine merchant in London, with 250,000 bottles of booze in the cellars. But the parks looked incredible, we saw some soldiers on horses and Meg pooed into a bag in the afternoon. Our only consternation was when looking at some guard huts outside St James Palace which had what looked like light switches in them – one labelled ‘wet weather’, and another mysteriously labelled ‘black button (with a strip of black tape underneath for dunces). It was another long day, but with such lovely weather it seems a shame not to make the most of it.

After the trials and tribulations of the last few days it was wonderful to be able to spend some time as a three. The weather definitely plays a part, but I feel so enriched to be exploring and learning new things with my girls. I also still get a tingly feeling when I stand in or on a really old place and just pause and think ‘this was built 500 years ago’. I also go off on tangents and wonder what the surroundings would have looked like back then, and who were the people who built it? London is such a fantastic city and doing walks like these really makes me appreciate it more than when stuck in commuter hell during the week.

Company anniversary

It's been three years today since I joined my current company JCDecaux Airport. Not quite the longest job I've had so far, but only about 7 months shy of it now. It's been a pretty life changing three years, some of which has been work related. In that time I've got married, had a child, been round the world, bought a second house, lost two of the elder members of the family and potentially the youngest.

At work I've travelled a bit, managed to miss both of the Christmas parties, hired 6 people, seen plenty of other colleagues come and go, and got to know Heathrow Airport intimately.

It's been fun and I'm pleased to still be here in the current climate. Not sure if I'll still be here in three years, but who knows...

Goodbye

A few years ago we weren’t too bothered about having children, and then Meg came along. She has considerably and positively added to our lives and we love her to bits. But we thought that she would be enough and we would continue to be a team of three. Then a few weeks ago Theresa and I started to think that maybe a second child would be lovely, and it would complete us as a family. There were many factors in deciding this, but it was partly that we didn’t want Meg to end up as a single child – I think that despite the battles siblings have they are far more rounded if they grow up learning to share and interact with others of their age. Also Theresa and I are both getting older and we thought that if we didn’t try soon then we might not be able to. And lots of our parent friends who’d had their first children when Meg came along were now having more kids. So we decided to try for a second child.

In early February Theresa suspected she was pregnant, and we did a test while at my parents. It came back positive and the whole family were so chuffed. We were ecstatic that it had happened so soon as well. We started making plans for the child, started thinking about names, stopped drinking so much wine, and so on. We never even considered that there might be any complications. Looking back on it now there were signs such as Theresa getting bad headaches and looking very pale, but we just put it down to early pregnancy.

Unfortunately on Thursday Theresa noticed some fresh blood when she went to the loo. We were concerned, but still thought things would be OK. But things got worse and Theresa went to a clinic to get checked, where we received the worst news that our unborn child had died at about 5 weeks. I’m writing this now to try and deal with the emotions, but it’s incredibly hard to put into words. We didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. Although the child hadn’t been born we had already started bonding with it. I always previously thought that any child that young was not a life yet, but having this happen to your own flesh and blood changes that perspective. This was a life, part of Theresa and I, and it had died. As I sit here writing calling it ‘it’, even that seems unfair. But giving the child a name somehow makes it even more painful.

I have been trying to rationalise the situation by saying it is not unusual and it happens to lots of people. We will move on from this and we will try again for another child. Sometimes these things happen and it was not through anything we did, sometimes things just don’t quite click properly. And it shows how fragile and miraculous life is, and how we should never assume anything or take anything for granted.

Being rational and staying busy helps to ease the pain, but I think it is masking it rather than solving it. Theresa and I have cried together and talked through how we feel. At the moment the whole situation is very raw and it will take time to deal with, and I think we will never forget it. Throughout this we have spent time with Meg and we appreciate even more what we have in this fantastic little girl. Luckily she didn’t really know what was going on, because I think she is too young to have to deal with this kind of situation.

So I write this to my wonderful and incredible wife, who I love more than anything. I am here for you and I always will be.

Back to Somerset

For the moment I feel this blog may become more and activities and travel journal than I place to pontificate. I’d like to think it’s something that we will look back on years to come and remember the cool things that we did and cool places we went. My only concern is putting information on here that might compromise our security, but I’ll just have to be careful – I guess it’s impossible to live off the grid now anyway.



We’ve just come back from spending a few days in the West of England chez senior Stancombes. It’s a most wonderful part of the world and incredibly tranquil and relaxing. And this came about a bit unexpectedly after I had to go the area for a business meeting and we decided to stick around for a long week-end. My parents have now completed a big renovation and extension on the house so we all have masses of room to run around in. Not that we didn’t before, but for Meg it’s like Christmas comes around each time as she can race about to her hearts content, chase the dog and generally run off some of her energy.

Our main aims this trip were to spend time with my parents who we don’t see so often as they live a fair way from us, catch up with friends and go to Bristol Zoo. The latter was a lovely day out and was a bit of nostalgia trip for me as I hadn’t been there in probably 20 years! Can’t really remember much from back then, but I guess I was treading the same ground I had before. (Actually that puts me in a history frame of mood, but that’s for another day.) We’d been to London Zoo during the New Year so it was interesting to compare the two, and Bristol came out OK I reckon.

The zoo is quite compact, but does make for a nice day out without being too big and overwhelming. I’m not sure what it’d be like during the Summer holidays, but on a weekday in February was lovely. The Seals were cool and playful, not sure what some of the birds were, but they looked nice and the love doves were wonderful – especially on the day before Valentines Day! We also discovered that our new(-ish) little camera takes quite good photos which is pleasing.



We spent a nice amount of time with my parents without hopefully overwhelming them, and were really chuffed to spend the day with mum.

I think it’s really important to try and get Meg to spend some time with her grandparents as she doesn’t get too all that often. And whenever she does she talks about them for days afterwards which is so lovely. And it gives her a chance to do fun things like face painting and eating treats which she doesn’t do with us very often.

And being in Shipham we try and get some time for just Theresa and I, usually as a meal out or a cinema trip. They’re real treats for us as we are usually tired after long days or find it tricky to leave Meg with people. But my parents always come up trumps on that front and this was no exception. So on Valentines night we went to a lovely little pub/restaurant/hotel in the village which does good locally grown food, and which is where we had our final meal before getting married several years ago. So a wonderfully romantic night with many good memories too.

Computer Meg/Sporty Meg

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the positives and negatives of my daughter playing on a computer versus doing more physical activities. I want to start this by saying that I believe a balance between the two is the best and that is what my child gets, before anyone starts having a go!

We have not encouraged Meg to play on the computer and she hasn’t particularly been watching us when we’ve been on either our PC or something like a Nintendo DS, but she seems to have grasped the concept of both extremely quickly. She’s not up to searching for stuff online (thank goodness), but put her on Youtube with Peppa Pig selected and she’ll confidently flick between the episodes. She’s grasped what the mouse is and what buttons to press on it to make things happen. And she’s grasped this very quickly. Likewise with the DS – put her game on and she’ll navigate between little games and understand what she has to do. So I am wondering if this is normal or if I have a budding computer geek/gamer on my hands? As an aside she also loves sitting on my lap in the car and playing at driving while we are parked so maybe she’s just more like me than my wife at the moment?!

Meg can also be slightly manic and is like a midget missile when she’s let loose in fields or play areas. She has boundless energy and keeps going until she drops, and especially loves things involving footballs. She gets out of the house everyday and does plenty of walking and gets plenty of fresh air at the very least. Now, I'm the only member of family who isn't bothered about Football, but if that's her thing then I'll positively encourage it. I’m not concerned about her not doing enough exercise though.

Going forward should I be concerned about her predilection for computer based activities? I did a lot of sport when I was younger and mixed that with playing games on the computer. I feel this has helped me to have good reaction times and co-ordination, even into my thirties and despite me doing less gaming now. So I want to give her free rein, but I am also going to sort out parental controls sooner rather than later. She will also not be getting a computer in her room because there are too many dodgy people in cyberspace now to let a child go out there unsupervised. But maybe this is the next generation coming through now?

Snow and sun

Who knows what’s happening to the world climate at the moment. I’m not sure I subscribe to the Al Gore / Day After Tomorrow vision of us all spiralling into a climactic holocaust, but the weather is definitely odd. And being British it very much dominates daily life and conversation at the moment.

Here in the UK we’ve had a week of incredible amounts of snow. When I woke up on Monday morning and saw the 25cm of snow lying outside my house I had a real conflict of emotions – snowmen, snowball fights and fun / how the hell am I going to get to work. I knew that Meg was going to have a really fun day and I was kind of gutted that it was Monday and I wouldn’t be able to build my first snowman with my daughter. But I felt morally bound to have a go at getting to work, despite it going against a part of my better judgement. I think it was the wannabe adventurer in me that saw it as an interesting test of man versus snow. Riding my scooter was never going to be an option and public transport was suspended in the whole South East for a time. So like a scene out of aforementioned Day After Tomorrow film I tucked my trousers into my socks, put on my walking boots and joined the file of walkers heading for town. Three hours later and still in unexpectedly good shape I rocked up at the office to discover we were closing because hardly anyone else had managed to get in. So I went home at lunchtime feeling very much that I had the moral high ground over most of my colleagues, but also slightly irked that they were probably still tucked up in bed or out making the most of the conditions. We did all get out in the garden in the afternoon and had HUGE amounts of fun in the snow.

From that lofty start to the week the conditions have stayed icy, wet and cold and the novelty has most definitely worn off. A highlight for me has been going to Luton Airport yesterday for a meeting to discover that there were no shuttle busses or taxis from the station due to the road conditions. The only option was for everyone to walk the 2km uphill to the airport. My second Day After Tomorrow day of the week. I was sort of OK, but I did have some sympathy for the people going on holiday because they didn’t look like they were having fun dragging suitcases up the icy hill. And then to cap it the airport had to be closed due to the runways being unusable, so I guess they all had to slide back down the hill at some point later in the day.

And then today I received an e-mail from a friend in Sydney, Australia where they are having the hottest conditions for years. I guess to every equal there is an opposite and this is it. The forecast for Sydney this week-end is 47 Celsius, and it will be about the hottest populated area on Earth. She sent me a map that was posted on their news channel which makes quite stark viewing. And to make matters worse for poor Amy she is heavily pregnant. Below is the link about this story:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25015424-1242,00.html

Into 2009

Has it really been 816 days / 19,584 hours / 1,175,040 minutes since I last posted? How time flies when you’re having fun I think the saying goes! Life has changed and been lived considerably since November 13th 2006 when I last added anything to this blog. We are still a team of three, but Meg has now become a proper little girl – gorgeous, headstrong, funny and incredibly independent already despite only being 2 ½ years old.

We’ve travelled round the world on a couple of incredible holidays and also spent an increasing amount of time exploring and learning the history of our area. We spent a long time looking into a possible move away from Surrey, but then world events overtook us and we decided to stay put for a while longer. And instead have made a few changes to the house which has made our quality of life better. We’ve had friends move away and made new ones. We’ve seen births, marriages and unfortunately the deaths of two of the patriarchs of our families.

We are all well and I’m pleased to say that life is good.

Life has happened.