We hadn't seen much mouse action since buying the sonic plug-in deterrents and thought they might actually have worked. We also had ordered a couple more pre-baited traps, so now we had four; two in the larder, where there was most evidence of the little bliters, one in the hall next to a hole in the floorboards which I expected was their 'way in' and one in the living room.
One night, whilst watching TV, we saw a mouse scaling the curtain next to our Xmas tree. By the time I'd gotten up to try and find a make-shift 'trapping / maiming' device it'd disappeared. It was late, but the idea of this little fucker invading our living room drove me to tipping over the couch in an effort to find it. However, there was no sign of it, slippery little bastard. We pulled the couch forward a little and set a couple of traps next to the wall, along the route it would most likely be following (they tend to hug the walls); one near the tree and another at the other end of the couch. (We later found a half chewed chocolate Santa hanging form the tree - it had obviously sniffed it out and climbed up the curtain to get at it.)
Some time passed without any further sitings, of the mouse or droppings. Before too long we were in the throngs of the birth, so we were in and out of the apartment. I checked the larder from time to time but still didn't see any further activity.
The day after Laura gave birth her parents came up to stay. As Laura was still in the hospital, I arranged to meet them back home to let them in and give them a spare set of keys before heading in for evening visiting hours. As we were sitting in the living room drinking some tea Laura's mum saw a mouse next to the fireplace! I looked up and sure enough, there it was - trapped...but still moving. In fact it was dragging itself along with the trap in tow. I bundled it into a bag and took it outside. Poor thing looked like it was in pain, it had been caught by the leg, which was broken for sure - it was all red and swollen. I could have let it go but I reckoned it would be more humane to put it out of its misery. I didn't really have anything to hit it with to hand. At the bottom of the stairs there was a pile of phone books. I tried dropping them on it, but it only seemed to stun it - so I took it outside and stomped on it - several times, just to be sure - and threw it in the trash. Ugh.
The day after Laura and Seren got home Laura's dad found another mouse in the larder caught in a trap, this time dead - a clean snap to the neck, as it should be.
We reckon we probably got the mom and the dad, so we're hoping that's it, for now at least.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Spaced
Spaced is a TV series over here made in the late '90s written by, and starring, Simon Pegg, and directed by Edgar Wright, both of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame. They made two series of the show, neither of which I'd seen, so I picked them up on DVD to watch in some of the quieter moments we might have at home with our new arrival.
We've started to watch the first series. It's pretty funny. Similar humour and style to the films, but on a lower budget obviously. We were watching episode three tonight, which had some cameos by some other British comedians who were up and coming at that time. There was a scene in a theatre that looked familiar. Flash back to 1998 when I was working in London for a theatre consultancy. I knew that there was going to be some filming in the theatre foyer / bar for a tv show later in the evening one day I was working. I remember the production team brought in different furniture to make it look more like a proper bar, I guess. As I was leaving to go home the door buzzed and when I opened the door I was met by a comedian, know at the time by his pseudonym 'Dennis Pennis', a rogue comedy interviewer with a no-hold bars approach to asking celebrities awkward questions, eg. when meeting Steve Martin he asked him why he wasn't funny anymore, and Demi Moore how much she would need to be paid to keep her clothes on in a movie.
I recognised that he was in the scene (he plays the guy with on stage with the vacuum cleaner) and it it all came back to me. Weird. Ten years later and I've finally seen the scene they filmed downstairs. The bit in the theatre was our theatre also.
Of course the whole thing is on You Tube. I've included the full episode, in case you wanted to watch it in entirety. It's cut into two parts. If you fast forward to about 6:50 mins in the second part you'll see the scene I'm talking about. Weird to think that a few hours before that I was working upstairs.
We've started to watch the first series. It's pretty funny. Similar humour and style to the films, but on a lower budget obviously. We were watching episode three tonight, which had some cameos by some other British comedians who were up and coming at that time. There was a scene in a theatre that looked familiar. Flash back to 1998 when I was working in London for a theatre consultancy. I knew that there was going to be some filming in the theatre foyer / bar for a tv show later in the evening one day I was working. I remember the production team brought in different furniture to make it look more like a proper bar, I guess. As I was leaving to go home the door buzzed and when I opened the door I was met by a comedian, know at the time by his pseudonym 'Dennis Pennis', a rogue comedy interviewer with a no-hold bars approach to asking celebrities awkward questions, eg. when meeting Steve Martin he asked him why he wasn't funny anymore, and Demi Moore how much she would need to be paid to keep her clothes on in a movie.
I recognised that he was in the scene (he plays the guy with on stage with the vacuum cleaner) and it it all came back to me. Weird. Ten years later and I've finally seen the scene they filmed downstairs. The bit in the theatre was our theatre also.
Of course the whole thing is on You Tube. I've included the full episode, in case you wanted to watch it in entirety. It's cut into two parts. If you fast forward to about 6:50 mins in the second part you'll see the scene I'm talking about. Weird to think that a few hours before that I was working upstairs.
It's a Girl! (Part Three)
Okay...the birth. I'll try not to go into gory details, but I wanted to record this for posterity while it's still fresh in my mind.
As you know, the baby was due on Dec. 13th. Although we'd had a bit of a false alarm a couple of weeks prior, by the 23rd there was still no sign of any movement, so we went along to the hospital to start the inducing process. It wasn't quite as straight forward as we'd thought. Prior to inducing, a number of checks had to be carried out on the baby and Laura. The first check, on the 23rd, was to monitor the baby's heart rate, then on the 24th we were were supposed to go back in for a scan, followed by a 5pm appointment on Christmas Day to have the first application of an inducing gel applied. After that, Laura was supposed to go home for the effects to start, and go back in the following morning for a second and perhaps third application, if required. We were a little vague about what was actually supposed to happen after that, (technically that is...obviously we knew roughly what was in store!) but we figured on being in hospital from that point on until the baby appeared. Well, it didn't go quite like that.
We went in on the 23rd as planned. Both Laura and the baby's heart rates were fine, and the baby seemed to be in the correct position, head down and reasonably well engaged, but they thought there was quite a lot of fluid around it so they wanted to give Laura a quick scan to check things were okay. One of the consultants was available so he had a quick look. Everything looked good. There was a quite a lot of fluid but nothing to worry about. I'd assumed that we would find out the sex when we got scanned but he didn't say anything so I asked if it was a boy or a girl. He said he wasn't supposed to say, they need to cover themselves in case they get it wrong, but as Laura was getting up he said that it looked a bit more 'pink than blue', so we knew then and there that it was a girl! We wondered if we had to go back in the next day for a scan as we'd just had it done, but he insisted we should.
So we went back in on Christmas Eve for another scan. It was so quick we needn't have bothered really. It didn't seem like the midwife told us anything we hadn't heard the following day. And she still didn't tell us the sex.
Christmas Day arrived. We opened our presents and did usual Christmas morning stuff. I got Laura a book on a designer she likes called Tord Boontje and other bits and pieces. She got me a USB music keyboard which I can use with 'Garageband' on my work laptop (which I keep at home). We were pretty anxious, this was the day where it all kicked off.
We headed in to the hospital in time for our 5pm appointment. We expected to just be in for an hour or so, but when they hooked Laura up to trace the baby's heart rate they said it was too fast to apply the gel and that she's had to stay in rather than go home. Not what we were expecting to hear, so it was a little unnerving. They sent us upstairs to a private room in the labour ward so that they could wait for the baby to calm down before starting to induce. As we thought we'd be going home that night we hadn't eaten dinner and I hadn't taken Laura's case with her clothes, and the baby's. So I drove home to pick up the case and cook a quick meal to take back in. We hadn't imagined we'd be eating our Christmas dinner out of Tupperware in the labour ward, but there you go. A Christmas dinner to remember.
When I got back the baby had calmed down and gone to sleep, so they'd applied the gel. I stayed until about 10:30pm and then headed home to get some shut eye. It was surreal, and a little upsetting to leave her there. I knew that the next day or two were going to be pretty intense and exhausting for us, especially Laura obviously, so it was important to try and get some rest.
Everything was fine when I got in the next morning, but there was no real change. The next few hours are a little fuzzy. We had cups of tea and some lunch. I read a little. At around 7pm the midwife broke Laura's waters. That's when things really started to happen and the contractions kicked in with a vengeance. Poor Laura was in a fair bit of pain but she wasn't using any sort pain relief, just a tens machine and I massaged her back to help. She was clearly in a lot of pain and at around 8:30 they moved us into another room down the ward which had gas and air. That seemed to help, made her a bit woozy and talkative too. Kind of amusing. A marked change from what she was like just before. I tried a little bit but I don't think I had enough to notice anything.
We'd planned on having a water birth originally, but Laura was in serious pain so that went out the window and she wanted to go for an epidural. We were warned by the anesthetists originally that this might not work as she's had some back operations when she was younger. As it turned out it worked well, too well actually. She went into some sort of shaking fit for a little while after the first injection. Pretty distressing, but it worked fantastically in terms of covering the pain of the contractions.
After about 4 or 5 hours of heavy contractions Laura was still in the first stage of labour and it was clear that the baby wasn't going to come out naturally. The doctor decided that we'd have to go for an emergency cesarean and within minutes she was wheeled out into surgery. I grabbed our valuables, camera, wallet etc, and headed to the the partner's changing room to get out of my civvies and into some scrubs. Moments later I was ushered into the operating theater where I found Laura lying on the operating table surrounded by medical staff. Pretty scary stuff. They gave Laura a huge dose of the same epidural to numb her completely for the operation, though it had the unfortunate side effect of sending her into shaking fits again and made her feel sick, as if it wasn't hard enough. They raised a, somewhat small, screen just above her waist so she couldn't see what was going on.
Within a matter of minutes, at 3:18am, the baby was out and rushed to the paediatricians outside. (There was meconium in her waters so it was standard procedure to do this). A few very anxious minutes later the midwife came back in and handed me our daughter. At that moment I felt delighted, overwhelmed, shit-scared, amazed, kind of numb...but at the same time Laura was lying on a table with her guts open, shaking in fits. Fucking terrifying. It took about twenty minutes to sew her back up. The doctor lent over at one point to reassure me that everything was going fine. We later found out that she's lost quite a bit of blood, about twice the normal amount. Yikes!
Laura was taken just outside to a recovery room for a couple of hours, while I carried Seren out. The midwife weighed and measured her, 8lbs 6.5oz and 50cm long. I had my camera with me and I took the opportunity to fire off a couple of shots, the first pictures of our baby.
So there you go. They took Laura and Seren upstairs to the shared labour ward (4 mothers to a room) at around 6:30am and I went home just after 7 to sleep. She was in for a few days and got home on Saturday evening. And now the real work begins!
As you know, the baby was due on Dec. 13th. Although we'd had a bit of a false alarm a couple of weeks prior, by the 23rd there was still no sign of any movement, so we went along to the hospital to start the inducing process. It wasn't quite as straight forward as we'd thought. Prior to inducing, a number of checks had to be carried out on the baby and Laura. The first check, on the 23rd, was to monitor the baby's heart rate, then on the 24th we were were supposed to go back in for a scan, followed by a 5pm appointment on Christmas Day to have the first application of an inducing gel applied. After that, Laura was supposed to go home for the effects to start, and go back in the following morning for a second and perhaps third application, if required. We were a little vague about what was actually supposed to happen after that, (technically that is...obviously we knew roughly what was in store!) but we figured on being in hospital from that point on until the baby appeared. Well, it didn't go quite like that.
We went in on the 23rd as planned. Both Laura and the baby's heart rates were fine, and the baby seemed to be in the correct position, head down and reasonably well engaged, but they thought there was quite a lot of fluid around it so they wanted to give Laura a quick scan to check things were okay. One of the consultants was available so he had a quick look. Everything looked good. There was a quite a lot of fluid but nothing to worry about. I'd assumed that we would find out the sex when we got scanned but he didn't say anything so I asked if it was a boy or a girl. He said he wasn't supposed to say, they need to cover themselves in case they get it wrong, but as Laura was getting up he said that it looked a bit more 'pink than blue', so we knew then and there that it was a girl! We wondered if we had to go back in the next day for a scan as we'd just had it done, but he insisted we should.
So we went back in on Christmas Eve for another scan. It was so quick we needn't have bothered really. It didn't seem like the midwife told us anything we hadn't heard the following day. And she still didn't tell us the sex.
Christmas Day arrived. We opened our presents and did usual Christmas morning stuff. I got Laura a book on a designer she likes called Tord Boontje and other bits and pieces. She got me a USB music keyboard which I can use with 'Garageband' on my work laptop (which I keep at home). We were pretty anxious, this was the day where it all kicked off.
We headed in to the hospital in time for our 5pm appointment. We expected to just be in for an hour or so, but when they hooked Laura up to trace the baby's heart rate they said it was too fast to apply the gel and that she's had to stay in rather than go home. Not what we were expecting to hear, so it was a little unnerving. They sent us upstairs to a private room in the labour ward so that they could wait for the baby to calm down before starting to induce. As we thought we'd be going home that night we hadn't eaten dinner and I hadn't taken Laura's case with her clothes, and the baby's. So I drove home to pick up the case and cook a quick meal to take back in. We hadn't imagined we'd be eating our Christmas dinner out of Tupperware in the labour ward, but there you go. A Christmas dinner to remember.
When I got back the baby had calmed down and gone to sleep, so they'd applied the gel. I stayed until about 10:30pm and then headed home to get some shut eye. It was surreal, and a little upsetting to leave her there. I knew that the next day or two were going to be pretty intense and exhausting for us, especially Laura obviously, so it was important to try and get some rest.
Everything was fine when I got in the next morning, but there was no real change. The next few hours are a little fuzzy. We had cups of tea and some lunch. I read a little. At around 7pm the midwife broke Laura's waters. That's when things really started to happen and the contractions kicked in with a vengeance. Poor Laura was in a fair bit of pain but she wasn't using any sort pain relief, just a tens machine and I massaged her back to help. She was clearly in a lot of pain and at around 8:30 they moved us into another room down the ward which had gas and air. That seemed to help, made her a bit woozy and talkative too. Kind of amusing. A marked change from what she was like just before. I tried a little bit but I don't think I had enough to notice anything.
We'd planned on having a water birth originally, but Laura was in serious pain so that went out the window and she wanted to go for an epidural. We were warned by the anesthetists originally that this might not work as she's had some back operations when she was younger. As it turned out it worked well, too well actually. She went into some sort of shaking fit for a little while after the first injection. Pretty distressing, but it worked fantastically in terms of covering the pain of the contractions.
After about 4 or 5 hours of heavy contractions Laura was still in the first stage of labour and it was clear that the baby wasn't going to come out naturally. The doctor decided that we'd have to go for an emergency cesarean and within minutes she was wheeled out into surgery. I grabbed our valuables, camera, wallet etc, and headed to the the partner's changing room to get out of my civvies and into some scrubs. Moments later I was ushered into the operating theater where I found Laura lying on the operating table surrounded by medical staff. Pretty scary stuff. They gave Laura a huge dose of the same epidural to numb her completely for the operation, though it had the unfortunate side effect of sending her into shaking fits again and made her feel sick, as if it wasn't hard enough. They raised a, somewhat small, screen just above her waist so she couldn't see what was going on.
Within a matter of minutes, at 3:18am, the baby was out and rushed to the paediatricians outside. (There was meconium in her waters so it was standard procedure to do this). A few very anxious minutes later the midwife came back in and handed me our daughter. At that moment I felt delighted, overwhelmed, shit-scared, amazed, kind of numb...but at the same time Laura was lying on a table with her guts open, shaking in fits. Fucking terrifying. It took about twenty minutes to sew her back up. The doctor lent over at one point to reassure me that everything was going fine. We later found out that she's lost quite a bit of blood, about twice the normal amount. Yikes!Laura was taken just outside to a recovery room for a couple of hours, while I carried Seren out. The midwife weighed and measured her, 8lbs 6.5oz and 50cm long. I had my camera with me and I took the opportunity to fire off a couple of shots, the first pictures of our baby.
So there you go. They took Laura and Seren upstairs to the shared labour ward (4 mothers to a room) at around 6:30am and I went home just after 7 to sleep. She was in for a few days and got home on Saturday evening. And now the real work begins!
Friday, December 28, 2007
It's a Girl! (Part Two)
Gosh. It's 2am and I've suddenly woken up wide awake. My head's spinning round and round. Maybe a blog will help unload some of it.
So, wanted to tell you a bit more about the birth and show the first couple of pictures of Seren. It's weird, even when I type her name. Here's this little person that we've brought into the world; completely powerless over one of the most important things about someone that helps to form who they are, I guess. I suppose it depends on your view. Does the name shape the person, or does the person shape the name? 'Wayne', 'Burt', 'Dom' and 'Dame'. These words, these names, have completely individual and specific meaning to me. In an instant, they conjure up all sorts of images and memories. I guess that's helped, to some extent, by the fact that I don't know anyone else with those names. Not at this point in my life at any rate. Sure, I've met other people named Dominick, and Damian, and maybe even Wayne; I don't think I've ever met anyone else called Burton come to think of it. Hmm. But I've sure as hell met plenty of people called Steve. Both 'real' and 'fake' Steve's ('Steven' as opposed to 'Stephen'. Who are they kidding? There's clearly no 'v' in Stephen. Ooh, makes me so mad! ) Still, even though that's a pretty popular name (or is it just 'common?), I will always associate my name with me. My friend Steven Downie (note the 'correct' spelling) shares my name...but it's sort of...different. That's his name.
Anyway, I guess when we were thinking about names for our baby we wanted to give him / her something a bit 'special', or unusual. Something that they could feel was theirs. Not so unique that they were like they only one on the planet (Moon Unit Zappa anyone?), but just maybe something a bit less common (or is it 'popular'?) than say, 'Steve', or 'Laura' (sorry honey). I think there's a pretty conscious decision, certainly on my part, to do that with the name we've chosen. We're already met with somewhat quizzical looks when we tell people her name. Either that or they mishear it; "Sarah? Oh, that's a nice name!" Actually, 'Seren' is one of the 20 most popular names chosen in Wales, where it originates, so it's actually not that uncommon in some - not so far away - places.
So, I hope Seren likes her name, and will forgive us for being a little self indulgent perhaps in choosing something a little different. We think it's lovely, and so is she.
Seren Skye Turney Malone - Dec. 27th 2007
So, wanted to tell you a bit more about the birth and show the first couple of pictures of Seren. It's weird, even when I type her name. Here's this little person that we've brought into the world; completely powerless over one of the most important things about someone that helps to form who they are, I guess. I suppose it depends on your view. Does the name shape the person, or does the person shape the name? 'Wayne', 'Burt', 'Dom' and 'Dame'. These words, these names, have completely individual and specific meaning to me. In an instant, they conjure up all sorts of images and memories. I guess that's helped, to some extent, by the fact that I don't know anyone else with those names. Not at this point in my life at any rate. Sure, I've met other people named Dominick, and Damian, and maybe even Wayne; I don't think I've ever met anyone else called Burton come to think of it. Hmm. But I've sure as hell met plenty of people called Steve. Both 'real' and 'fake' Steve's ('Steven' as opposed to 'Stephen'. Who are they kidding? There's clearly no 'v' in Stephen. Ooh, makes me so mad! ) Still, even though that's a pretty popular name (or is it just 'common?), I will always associate my name with me. My friend Steven Downie (note the 'correct' spelling) shares my name...but it's sort of...different. That's his name.
Anyway, I guess when we were thinking about names for our baby we wanted to give him / her something a bit 'special', or unusual. Something that they could feel was theirs. Not so unique that they were like they only one on the planet (Moon Unit Zappa anyone?), but just maybe something a bit less common (or is it 'popular'?) than say, 'Steve', or 'Laura' (sorry honey). I think there's a pretty conscious decision, certainly on my part, to do that with the name we've chosen. We're already met with somewhat quizzical looks when we tell people her name. Either that or they mishear it; "Sarah? Oh, that's a nice name!" Actually, 'Seren' is one of the 20 most popular names chosen in Wales, where it originates, so it's actually not that uncommon in some - not so far away - places.
So, I hope Seren likes her name, and will forgive us for being a little self indulgent perhaps in choosing something a little different. We think it's lovely, and so is she.
Seren Skye Turney Malone - Dec. 27th 2007Oops. Didn't really talk about the birth! Next blog...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
It's a Girl! (Part One)
Laura gave birth to a baby girl very early this morning at 3:18 am. Seren Skye Turney Malone ('Seren' means 'star' in Welsh, Skye as in 'Isle of Skye', Turney is Laura's surname...you know the rest). They're both well and healthy. She's a sweety. Dark hair. Came out at 8 lbs. 6 and a half ounces. Birth became a little complicated so we had to go for an emergency 'C'-section, so Laura will be in for a few days recovering from, what is essentially, major surgery.
I came home for a rest around 7.30 this morning and am about to head back in. I'll blog more later! Crikey, I'm a dad!
I came home for a rest around 7.30 this morning and am about to head back in. I'll blog more later! Crikey, I'm a dad!
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Superquick Baby Update
Hey guys. Been an odd Xmas day. Laura has started being induced. Both she and the baby are fine but they want to keep her in over night just to be safe. So effectively that's us. The next time I speak to you I'll be a dad. Speak soon. Wish us luck!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Baby Update
The baby still hasn't appeared yet. We've had two scheduled check-ups at the hospital yesterday and today and everything is looking good. The baby looks healthy and happy; its heartbeat is strong and its head is down and engaged. Laura's keeping well, if a little fed up. If nothing happens tonight we'll be heading in tomorrow at 5pm to start the inducing process. Yikes.
I'll keep you guys posted. Have a good Xmas!
I'll keep you guys posted. Have a good Xmas!
A Mouse in the House
One of the downsides of living in an old property like ours is that it's fairly common for mice to take up residence from time to time. There are plenty of holes in the floorboards and gaps here and there, and it's not a problem for them to find a way in.I'd encountered mice in previous flats. When I lived in town, the first place I lived in when I moved to Edinburgh, we had at least one. Strangely, when I moved to the cottage in Penicuik, behind Brandon's house, it was never a problem, though there were plenty of spiders. It was a relatively new building though, not sure if that makes a huge difference.
Luckily we hadn't encountered any in our new home until fairly recently. Laura saw what she described as 'a small leaf blowing across the floor' out of the corner of her eye, which ended up underneath the washing machine. We later realised that in all probability this was actually a mouse. That was quite a few months ago we (actually Laura) had only seen it once.
Well, that has changed. The other night I heard Laura shrieking from the kitchen. The kind of shriek that said 'there's a mouse'. (Laura informs me that she didn't 'shriek'...but there was a startled noise at any rate.) It had ran out of the larder and over her foot, so it was understandable. I would have been a bit startled myself. Since then we've found fresh droppings on a daily basis and I've seen it a couple of times myself (the first time whilst standing on a chair with an empty bucket in my hand in a vein attempt to 'trap it' as it scurried out of the larder. Think of the large black lady from Tom and Jerry. Not a pretty sight.)
To say that the timing sucks for something like this to happen is an understatement. Laura's cat Gweno passed away a few months ago so our resident 'mouser' is no longer with us. And we're about to bring a new born baby into the flat. The last thing we want is some nasty, dirty friggin' rodent shitting and pissing all over the place and crawling over our food.
So we've begun a 4-stage rodent assault strategy.
Step one: Traps
We put down traps baited with chocolate and peanut butter around where we'd seen it. These, however tempting, have been duly ignored.
Step 2: Sonic assault Laura ordered some 'plug in' devices which emit a high pitched noise which is inaudible to human ears yet apparently disturbs the mice so they won't nest. They arrived this morning (a pack of four) and are now plugged in.
Step 3: Poison
We'd rather not resort to this option as they could eat the poison and then go away and die, who knows where. Not a very nice way to go either. As you know, two of my pets were rodents, a hamster and a squirrel. So, as much as I want the mouse out of here, I'd rather it died quickly and painlessly, like a lethal snap to the neck.
Step 4: CatThis isn't a great time to be getting a new pet, so I doubt this is a realistic option at the moment. Ideally if we could 'borrow' a friend's cat for a week or so then that would be great. Unfortunately, there aren't any strong contenders we can think of right now.
We thought the little shit was happy in the kitchen larder, but last night we found it in the living room behind the Xmas tree! I pulled back the sofa and found a trail of droppings along the wall. I'm just waiting for it to get into bed with us.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Landlord
You've probably seen this before. Pretty amazing / disturbing. How on earth did they get the little girl to say all that?
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Last day at work
Yesterday was my last day at work for a month. I'll be off until the 23rd of January. Bit weird, I think the longest I've had off since like 1998 is 2 weeks maximum. So, it'll be nice. Of course we'll be busy, but I'm looking forward to it.
Anyhoo, I've had this in my head for a while. I was going to show you ten pictures of my typical journey into work in the morning. Anyway, I didn't get round to taking ten, but I had my camera with me this week and snapped a couple of images, so here they are...
This is a view down the Royal Mile, the 'High Street' of the old town in the heart of Edinburgh. It's called the Royal Mile because it's um about a mile long, I guess, and the Castle is at the top and Holyrood Palace is down at the bottom. Also the new Scottish Parliament building is down at the bottom too. Our office is down that way, off one of the 'closes'.
So a bit further down on the right hand side is this building. I actually have absolutely no idea what's in it, but there's a wee close (archway) at the bottom left of it which leads to my work...
...and here it is. All the closes have a name, this one's called Bakehouse Close. (Wayne will of course be familiar with them having visited.) There's a really cool one called 'Fleshmarket Close' which a local well know author, Iain Rankin, used as a title in one of his Rebus books. (Rebus is the main character, most of the books are about murder, he's a cop).
And here's the view through the close looking back towards the Royal Mile. This building is pretty old, probably built in like, I dunno 200BC or something. Yeah, everything's pretty old here. I think it's built out of crushed human bones too, oh and dinosaur bones also.
And here's the office. This whole area, down to the Parliament, used to be a brewery. I think this building was used as some sort of warehouse. It was converted maybe 10 years ago, I think, into offices. It's pretty nice. We have the front bit, the higher up bit at the back is occupied by someone else, but our bit runs right through to the back, into our very own walled garden.
So that's where I work. I was going to take some shots inside but everyone was around and I would have felt a bit lame.
Here's one last pic taken the same day when I met Laura for lunch. We had lovely soup and a piece of cake. Mmmm.
Anyhoo, I've had this in my head for a while. I was going to show you ten pictures of my typical journey into work in the morning. Anyway, I didn't get round to taking ten, but I had my camera with me this week and snapped a couple of images, so here they are...
This is a view down the Royal Mile, the 'High Street' of the old town in the heart of Edinburgh. It's called the Royal Mile because it's um about a mile long, I guess, and the Castle is at the top and Holyrood Palace is down at the bottom. Also the new Scottish Parliament building is down at the bottom too. Our office is down that way, off one of the 'closes'.
So a bit further down on the right hand side is this building. I actually have absolutely no idea what's in it, but there's a wee close (archway) at the bottom left of it which leads to my work...
...and here it is. All the closes have a name, this one's called Bakehouse Close. (Wayne will of course be familiar with them having visited.) There's a really cool one called 'Fleshmarket Close' which a local well know author, Iain Rankin, used as a title in one of his Rebus books. (Rebus is the main character, most of the books are about murder, he's a cop).
And here's the view through the close looking back towards the Royal Mile. This building is pretty old, probably built in like, I dunno 200BC or something. Yeah, everything's pretty old here. I think it's built out of crushed human bones too, oh and dinosaur bones also.
And here's the office. This whole area, down to the Parliament, used to be a brewery. I think this building was used as some sort of warehouse. It was converted maybe 10 years ago, I think, into offices. It's pretty nice. We have the front bit, the higher up bit at the back is occupied by someone else, but our bit runs right through to the back, into our very own walled garden.So that's where I work. I was going to take some shots inside but everyone was around and I would have felt a bit lame.
Here's one last pic taken the same day when I met Laura for lunch. We had lovely soup and a piece of cake. Mmmm.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
We know what we're doing for Xmas
Still no sign of the little one appearing under it's own free will. We're now booked in for Laura to be induced. However, this does not appear to be quite as simple as 'one date'. Apparently, if we haven't had a natural birth by then, we have to go in on Sunday for a check up, then back again on Xmas Eve for a scan, then in on Xmas Day for some inducing 'gel' to be applied. Then we get sent home to let it work it's magic. If nothing happens then they try again! So, we expect to have our new baby out and with us hopefully by the 25th / 26th. Though who knows. Funny thing is, the baby counter says it's going to arrive in 6 days....Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, TUESDAY! Darn that thing's smart!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Due date
Well, our baby is due today, though he / she doesn't seem to be showing any signs of wanting to come out yet. Laura's fine, if a little uncomfortable, tired and fed up. But she's holding up well. We're both a little anxious but generally we're okay.
We went to check out a nursery that's nearby this morning. It seems pretty nice. Well within walking distance. Yeah, we're going to try and get the kid in there as soon as possible. I'm kidding of course, although I'm sure they're actually good learning environments to be in. Plenty of hands on stuff, artwork and the old social skills thing in mixing with other kids. It's a whole new world of which I know next to nothing about, other than my own experience but I was a little too young to remember. Actually, we checked it out today because there's a year long waiting list to get in there. Laura's hoping to take a year off work, depending on how she feels, so that would tie in with our future plans. But we'll just see how we feel when we get there. For the time being though it seems a safe plan to get on the list, though we have to put down a deposit. I guess it is a business after all.
So we're now entering that unknown 'waiting period'. We have an appointment with the midwife on Monday, so if nothing's happened by then we'll discuss arranging a date to get induced. Not a nice option from what I hear, but I guess if it comes to that so be it.
Officially my 2 week paternity leave starts today, but luckily I have a considerate employer (one of the benefits of being employed by the government) so my leave will start as soon as we head to the hospital. Following that I'm taking 2 weeks vacation. I've even got 8 days left to take after that so I might go down to a 4-day week for the first little while.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Just thought I should give you an update. I see that the Baby Counter has reached zero. I wonder what it'll say tomorrow?
We went to check out a nursery that's nearby this morning. It seems pretty nice. Well within walking distance. Yeah, we're going to try and get the kid in there as soon as possible. I'm kidding of course, although I'm sure they're actually good learning environments to be in. Plenty of hands on stuff, artwork and the old social skills thing in mixing with other kids. It's a whole new world of which I know next to nothing about, other than my own experience but I was a little too young to remember. Actually, we checked it out today because there's a year long waiting list to get in there. Laura's hoping to take a year off work, depending on how she feels, so that would tie in with our future plans. But we'll just see how we feel when we get there. For the time being though it seems a safe plan to get on the list, though we have to put down a deposit. I guess it is a business after all.
So we're now entering that unknown 'waiting period'. We have an appointment with the midwife on Monday, so if nothing's happened by then we'll discuss arranging a date to get induced. Not a nice option from what I hear, but I guess if it comes to that so be it.
Officially my 2 week paternity leave starts today, but luckily I have a considerate employer (one of the benefits of being employed by the government) so my leave will start as soon as we head to the hospital. Following that I'm taking 2 weeks vacation. I've even got 8 days left to take after that so I might go down to a 4-day week for the first little while.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Just thought I should give you an update. I see that the Baby Counter has reached zero. I wonder what it'll say tomorrow?
Saturday, December 01, 2007
An exhausting week
Man, this has been a tough week. I'm exhausted, or as the Scots say, 'knackered'. I knew most of it was coming but a couple of things came up that I hadn't quite counted on.
Last Sunday was Max's 8th birthday and my mum came down to visit. She stayed with Bran Saturday night and came back to ours Sunday night. Normally not a problem, but in preparing for the new arrival we'd decided to get rid of our old double bed and up-size to a king size. We bought a new bed a month or so ago and switched bedrooms, but we only just got rid of the old double on Saturday (we gave it to a girl I work with.) So Mum was on the couch, which again isn't a problem. The thing is, there's a little side effect to pregnancy that no one mentioned to me....snoring, and I'm not talking about my snoring (yes, I'm a hypocrite because I snore). Laura didn't snore before, but by god she does now! I'm told it goes away after pregnancy. Here's hoping! :) So, recently, though I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, I've taken to sleeping next door to get some sleep. So, when the old bed got taken away I was on the couch for a night and, with my mum on the couch, I took to the floor in the old bedroom. So I didn't get a great nights sleep.
Monday was scheduled to be busy morning. We'd ordered a new guest bed for the spare bedroom / baby's room (a single bed that folds out into double) and that was due to arrive anytime after 8am. We had also arranged for a guy (Malcolm) to come and paint the outside of our windows, and he was due to arrive at 9am. Malcolm had been recommended by a friend of mine, who said he was dependable and a really nice guy. He showed up on time but there was still no sign of the bed when I left to go to work.
I spoke to Laura later on. She'd given my mum a lift to the station and said that the bed had also arrived. Malcolm was getting on fine and was going to be finished by the end of the day. She said she wasn't feeling great so I finished up at 5 and headed home.
When I got in I discovered that Malcolm had accidentally burned a big hole in our living room carpet. He'd been burning off old paint on the outside of the windows and somehow a spark had ignited his worksheets and burned through onto the carpet. He felt awful about it and offered to pay for the damage with his insurance. We felt bad for him because a) it's a shit carpet that came with the apartment that we'd intended to replace at some point b) it was an accident and c) he's a nice guy and felt awful about it.
Also Laura wasn't well at all. Not long after I got home she was spectacularly sick all over the bathroom floor! Scared the hell out of me but she felt a little better for it. I think mopping up your girlfriend's sick is a sign of true love. But there was more to come. When she got into bed she thought she could feel contractions starting! We timed them and they were about 20 mins apart. We called the hospital and they told us just to measure them and keep in touch if anything changed. We both prepared ourselves for a long night, expecting to drive to the hospital at some point.
Needless to say we didn't get a great nights sleep that night either. In the morning the contractions had actually stopped, but Laura still felt lousy. So I called work to explain and said I'd work from home that day. We went to see the doctor in the afternoon. The doctor said that Laura had probably caught a bug and might be reacting badly to some antibiotics she'd been prescribed. Everything else was fine though and she said that it was perfectly normal for contractions to start and stop sometimes. So, it was a bit of a false alarm.
It was also a particularly busy and stressful week at work. There seemed to be something going on every day. We were also short on staff due to sick leave and vacations so I knew there was going to be extra pressure on me as a result. I was mainly anxious about a couple of events I was going to have to participate in and talk at. The rest of the work week broke down like this:
We needed to pull together and send out an agenda for a design review meeting the following week, ideally by Tuesday or Wednesday. Kate, who would normally do this, was on vacation and my colleague Eric was sick, so I knew it was going to fall to me to get it done. When we got back from the doctors I worked on it until around 10:30 and got the bulk of it finished.
I went in Wednesday morning, a little reluctantly but Laura seemed a little better. I spent most of the morning finishing and printing the agenda out. But we also had an event that afternoon / evening which I had to prepare a workshop for, so needed to work on that a little too. To top it all off my boss asked me to check a couple of reports she'd written so she could send them out before heading off to London. (She'd been in and out of the office all week on various trips). I managed to pull it all together and head off to the event around 2pm, but I was feeling pretty tired and a little under prepared. The event was okay, but it was chaired really badly and overran, so much so that instead of having two workshop sessions we only had time for one. The workshop was on Sustainability, a topic I'm familiar with but a difficult one to get to grips with in my experience. I'd prepared a little intro and three questions for the group. The session went okay. I didn't make a great job of introducing it and the group didn't really pay too much attention to the questions, so it was a bit of a wasted opportunity really. At any rate, by about 7:30 it was over and was one less thing to worry about. There were nibbles and drinks afterwards so I didn't get done until around 9pm.
I was exhausted when I got home. I guess all the crappy night's sleep and stress was catching up with me. But I was also worried about a talk I had to go and do the next day, again about our organisation and sustainable development. I'd prepared most of the presentation but I hadn't had a chance to run through what I was going to say. So I didn't feel too confident about it. I was also a little concerned about traveling anywhere too far in case Laura suddenly went in to labour.
I was determined to get some decent rest that night. I tried out the new bed and felt better the next morning. I even had some ideas about the presentation while I was getting ready for work, a sign that my brain was functioning a little better.
I got into work and had a couple of hours to polish off the presentation before catching a train. The event was in a pretty little town called Dunblane, close to Stirling, unfortunately perhaps best know for the 'Dunblane Massacre' in '96. It's about an hour away by train, so I had a bit of time to go over what I wanted to say before I got there and scribble some notes.
The presentation was for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). They basically deal with water, drainage, flooding and things like that. If you want to do any kind of development you have to get approval from them. They were having a two-day event at a lovely hotel called the Dunblane Hydro. An impressive old hotel at the very top of a steep hill. I'm pleased to say that the talk went well, and I left feeling pretty good about it. Afterwards I stopped in past a friend of mine who started up on his own a few years ago and recently moved to Dunblane to start a family.
The next day I had to go through to Glasgow in the afternoon to attend our board meeting, which was to be followed by a meal. It was also St Andrew's Day so when we got to the restaurant we were greeted by a bagpipe player on the door. Nice touch, if a bit noisy. The meal was good but I was pretty tired. I headed back to Edinburgh and got home around 11pm.
So, at long last the weekend is here. It's been nice and relaxing, although I've got another SEDA Magazine to be working on which I'm trying to get done before the baby arrives. Haven't even started it yet. Oh well, something's got to give, and it's SEDA. I'm glad I got this week over and done with. I feel much more prepared for our new arrival now. Watch this space for further updates!
Last Sunday was Max's 8th birthday and my mum came down to visit. She stayed with Bran Saturday night and came back to ours Sunday night. Normally not a problem, but in preparing for the new arrival we'd decided to get rid of our old double bed and up-size to a king size. We bought a new bed a month or so ago and switched bedrooms, but we only just got rid of the old double on Saturday (we gave it to a girl I work with.) So Mum was on the couch, which again isn't a problem. The thing is, there's a little side effect to pregnancy that no one mentioned to me....snoring, and I'm not talking about my snoring (yes, I'm a hypocrite because I snore). Laura didn't snore before, but by god she does now! I'm told it goes away after pregnancy. Here's hoping! :) So, recently, though I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, I've taken to sleeping next door to get some sleep. So, when the old bed got taken away I was on the couch for a night and, with my mum on the couch, I took to the floor in the old bedroom. So I didn't get a great nights sleep.
Monday was scheduled to be busy morning. We'd ordered a new guest bed for the spare bedroom / baby's room (a single bed that folds out into double) and that was due to arrive anytime after 8am. We had also arranged for a guy (Malcolm) to come and paint the outside of our windows, and he was due to arrive at 9am. Malcolm had been recommended by a friend of mine, who said he was dependable and a really nice guy. He showed up on time but there was still no sign of the bed when I left to go to work.
I spoke to Laura later on. She'd given my mum a lift to the station and said that the bed had also arrived. Malcolm was getting on fine and was going to be finished by the end of the day. She said she wasn't feeling great so I finished up at 5 and headed home.
When I got in I discovered that Malcolm had accidentally burned a big hole in our living room carpet. He'd been burning off old paint on the outside of the windows and somehow a spark had ignited his worksheets and burned through onto the carpet. He felt awful about it and offered to pay for the damage with his insurance. We felt bad for him because a) it's a shit carpet that came with the apartment that we'd intended to replace at some point b) it was an accident and c) he's a nice guy and felt awful about it.Also Laura wasn't well at all. Not long after I got home she was spectacularly sick all over the bathroom floor! Scared the hell out of me but she felt a little better for it. I think mopping up your girlfriend's sick is a sign of true love. But there was more to come. When she got into bed she thought she could feel contractions starting! We timed them and they were about 20 mins apart. We called the hospital and they told us just to measure them and keep in touch if anything changed. We both prepared ourselves for a long night, expecting to drive to the hospital at some point.
Needless to say we didn't get a great nights sleep that night either. In the morning the contractions had actually stopped, but Laura still felt lousy. So I called work to explain and said I'd work from home that day. We went to see the doctor in the afternoon. The doctor said that Laura had probably caught a bug and might be reacting badly to some antibiotics she'd been prescribed. Everything else was fine though and she said that it was perfectly normal for contractions to start and stop sometimes. So, it was a bit of a false alarm.
It was also a particularly busy and stressful week at work. There seemed to be something going on every day. We were also short on staff due to sick leave and vacations so I knew there was going to be extra pressure on me as a result. I was mainly anxious about a couple of events I was going to have to participate in and talk at. The rest of the work week broke down like this:
We needed to pull together and send out an agenda for a design review meeting the following week, ideally by Tuesday or Wednesday. Kate, who would normally do this, was on vacation and my colleague Eric was sick, so I knew it was going to fall to me to get it done. When we got back from the doctors I worked on it until around 10:30 and got the bulk of it finished.
I went in Wednesday morning, a little reluctantly but Laura seemed a little better. I spent most of the morning finishing and printing the agenda out. But we also had an event that afternoon / evening which I had to prepare a workshop for, so needed to work on that a little too. To top it all off my boss asked me to check a couple of reports she'd written so she could send them out before heading off to London. (She'd been in and out of the office all week on various trips). I managed to pull it all together and head off to the event around 2pm, but I was feeling pretty tired and a little under prepared. The event was okay, but it was chaired really badly and overran, so much so that instead of having two workshop sessions we only had time for one. The workshop was on Sustainability, a topic I'm familiar with but a difficult one to get to grips with in my experience. I'd prepared a little intro and three questions for the group. The session went okay. I didn't make a great job of introducing it and the group didn't really pay too much attention to the questions, so it was a bit of a wasted opportunity really. At any rate, by about 7:30 it was over and was one less thing to worry about. There were nibbles and drinks afterwards so I didn't get done until around 9pm.
I was exhausted when I got home. I guess all the crappy night's sleep and stress was catching up with me. But I was also worried about a talk I had to go and do the next day, again about our organisation and sustainable development. I'd prepared most of the presentation but I hadn't had a chance to run through what I was going to say. So I didn't feel too confident about it. I was also a little concerned about traveling anywhere too far in case Laura suddenly went in to labour.
I was determined to get some decent rest that night. I tried out the new bed and felt better the next morning. I even had some ideas about the presentation while I was getting ready for work, a sign that my brain was functioning a little better.
I got into work and had a couple of hours to polish off the presentation before catching a train. The event was in a pretty little town called Dunblane, close to Stirling, unfortunately perhaps best know for the 'Dunblane Massacre' in '96. It's about an hour away by train, so I had a bit of time to go over what I wanted to say before I got there and scribble some notes.
The presentation was for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). They basically deal with water, drainage, flooding and things like that. If you want to do any kind of development you have to get approval from them. They were having a two-day event at a lovely hotel called the Dunblane Hydro. An impressive old hotel at the very top of a steep hill. I'm pleased to say that the talk went well, and I left feeling pretty good about it. Afterwards I stopped in past a friend of mine who started up on his own a few years ago and recently moved to Dunblane to start a family.The next day I had to go through to Glasgow in the afternoon to attend our board meeting, which was to be followed by a meal. It was also St Andrew's Day so when we got to the restaurant we were greeted by a bagpipe player on the door. Nice touch, if a bit noisy. The meal was good but I was pretty tired. I headed back to Edinburgh and got home around 11pm.
So, at long last the weekend is here. It's been nice and relaxing, although I've got another SEDA Magazine to be working on which I'm trying to get done before the baby arrives. Haven't even started it yet. Oh well, something's got to give, and it's SEDA. I'm glad I got this week over and done with. I feel much more prepared for our new arrival now. Watch this space for further updates!
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Cinematic Orchestra
One of my favourite bands at the moment is The Cinematic Orchestra. I was introduced to them about 6 years ago by my then flatmate Calum when I tagged along to seem them play live. It was an unusual gig, which played on the name of their album 'Man with a Movie Camera' (taken from an experimental 1929 silent documentary film of the same name by Russian director Dziga Vertov.)
The band were hidden behind a screen and played along to the film. They only revealed themselves at the end of the film when the screen lifted up. Like everything else these days though, rather than tell you about it I can just show it to you. (You might recognise the tracks from my USA trip DVD - sorry Burt, I still haven't sent you your copy!)
They sound much like their name suggests, cinematic and orchestral, but with a contemporary jazzy sort of feel, with looped samples forming the basis of a lot of the songs. The band consists of a 'conductor', if you will, who acts as a front man and plays the various looped samples, an awesome drummer, who's pretty amusing live, a cool saxophonist, a double bass player and a guitar player. They don't sing on any tracks themselves, and as a result a lot of their work is instrumental. They do, however, tend to collaborate a fair bit, bringing in male and female vocalists.
I've seen them twice since that first gig. Once a couple of years later, on my own, and earlier this year with Laura, who is also a fan. The opening act that night was a Canadian band called Patrick Watson (he's the lead singer and plays piano). They were pretty good. The lead singer came on to sing with TCO for a few tracks. Turns out he sings on a couple of songs on their latest album, Ma Fleur. In fact he sings on the opening track. Here's a live version of it. Unfortunately they didn't play this when we saw them. I think it's a beautiful song. Ironically, TCO don't play on this at all (they do on the album track). You can see them just off to the right in the shadows.
The band were hidden behind a screen and played along to the film. They only revealed themselves at the end of the film when the screen lifted up. Like everything else these days though, rather than tell you about it I can just show it to you. (You might recognise the tracks from my USA trip DVD - sorry Burt, I still haven't sent you your copy!)
They sound much like their name suggests, cinematic and orchestral, but with a contemporary jazzy sort of feel, with looped samples forming the basis of a lot of the songs. The band consists of a 'conductor', if you will, who acts as a front man and plays the various looped samples, an awesome drummer, who's pretty amusing live, a cool saxophonist, a double bass player and a guitar player. They don't sing on any tracks themselves, and as a result a lot of their work is instrumental. They do, however, tend to collaborate a fair bit, bringing in male and female vocalists.
I've seen them twice since that first gig. Once a couple of years later, on my own, and earlier this year with Laura, who is also a fan. The opening act that night was a Canadian band called Patrick Watson (he's the lead singer and plays piano). They were pretty good. The lead singer came on to sing with TCO for a few tracks. Turns out he sings on a couple of songs on their latest album, Ma Fleur. In fact he sings on the opening track. Here's a live version of it. Unfortunately they didn't play this when we saw them. I think it's a beautiful song. Ironically, TCO don't play on this at all (they do on the album track). You can see them just off to the right in the shadows.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Chill FM
You may or may not recall that I was never really one to listen to the radio much when we were growing up. Not on a regular basis anyway. Mainly because I couldn't find a station that played the kind of music I liked, and I got annoyed by being forced to listen to wacky DJs and tons of ads, so I tended to listen to tapes and CDs. That stuck with me through my student years, and until fairly recently.
We've got a couple of DAB radios in our home and they're great. There's so much more choice, it's easy to find stations (they tune in right away and tell you the name of the station - and information about what you're listening to), and the reception is clear and perfect, no fuzz. But there's one station we've discovered in particular which has changed my perception entirely about listening to the radio. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but they play the kind of music I like, with interesting stuff I've never heard. Best of all there are no DJs or ads, just the occasional call out to remind you who you're listening to and where to find it. It's called Chill FM. You should check it out sometime. It's really easy to access. Just click on 'listen live' and it pops up with a separate little media player.
We've got a couple of DAB radios in our home and they're great. There's so much more choice, it's easy to find stations (they tune in right away and tell you the name of the station - and information about what you're listening to), and the reception is clear and perfect, no fuzz. But there's one station we've discovered in particular which has changed my perception entirely about listening to the radio. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but they play the kind of music I like, with interesting stuff I've never heard. Best of all there are no DJs or ads, just the occasional call out to remind you who you're listening to and where to find it. It's called Chill FM. You should check it out sometime. It's really easy to access. Just click on 'listen live' and it pops up with a separate little media player.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Penguin Parade
I stand corrected. Laura tells me that the number of penguins on parade is entirely dependent on the willingness of the penguins. The zoo keepers open the gates and let out as many penguins as want to come. I guess it was too cold for most of them at the weekend.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
A Day at the Zoo
Laura's birthday is on Monday. But, as it's the weekend, we thought it'd be nice to do something to celebrate it a couple of days early. I'd booked a table for dinner at a French restaurant in town, Cafe Saint-Honore, later in the evening, and as Laura had never been to Edinburgh Zoo before and wanted to see the penguins, we went there for the afternoon.It'd been a while since I've been to the Zoo myself. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole zoo thing. Yes, I hate the whole caged animal thing, and some of the animals we saw clearly looked bored / pissed off, especially the big cats who were pacing back and forth in a pretty disturbing and sad kind of way. But there's also the whole ' zoological society' / educational aspect, where they're helping to preserve / maintain endangered species in some cases. Good and worthwhile work I'm sure. But it's fair to say that in today's society the idea of keeping animals locked up in a cage for human entertainment is questionable.
Nevertheless, we had a nice day. It was bad timing in a way as it's the winter season, so the park was a little quiet, and some areas were closed, partly due also to building work going on; there's a new Chimpanzee House under construction at the moment - looks great. Also, there was only one restaurant open, so our choices for lunch were limited. I use the term 'restaurant' loosely. It was more like a high school cafeteria. By the time we got there (we wanted to see the penguin parade at 2:15 so it was a late lunch) most of the hot food was gone and we had to settle for a couple of scones and a packet of crisps. A third of the eating space was also taken over by a kids jungle gym (which parents had to pay to use!) so it was a little noisy and chaotic. A sign of things to come perhaps! I joked with Laura that it felt more like being in a zoo than it did out in the park.
Anyway, that was the low point. The high point was probably the penguins. They were very entertaining. They had a little penguin parade, which involved two penguins being chaperoned around a circuit of pavement just outside their compound, led under close supervision by a couple of zoo keepers. Very cute, but not quite what I'd call a parade. But funny nevertheless. Afterwards we checked out the main penguin house. It's pretty nice, has a big pool and everything! They were pretty photogenic too. One in particular with funky yellow hair. There was also a bit where you could check them out swimming underwater through thick glass. Pretty cool.
There were plenty of monkeys. Dom would have liked it. I'm sure we'll go back again when the wee one's out and about. It's a good day out. I've posted some other photos on my flickr site if you want to have a look.
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