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

Oops. Didn't really talk about the birth! Next blog...

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!

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!

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!

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: Cat
This 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.

The Landlord

You've probably seen this before. Pretty amazing / disturbing. How on earth did they get the little girl to say all that?

Baby counter

The baby has left the womb...in the baby counter at least. Weird.

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.

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!

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?

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!

Espin

I love this Ron Burgundy sketch....

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.

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.

The McCartney Years

Thought you might be interested in this Wayne?

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.

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.

Happy Halloween

Okay....this is one I made last year. Just didn't get round to it this time. Anyway, have a good one.

A Secret Wedding and a Birthday Surprise

A few weeks ago I received an invitation from my friend Dave (he's the one on the right) asking if Laura and I could meet him and his partner Barbara (she's the one on the left) for a 'pre-birthday' drink in a pub not too far from where we stay. I used to work with Barbara at Gaia Architects, back in 1999 / 2000, and met Dave through her, so I've known them both for a while. (I think you would have met them at my BBQ Wayne if you remember). Dave is also an architect who works for the same company my old flatmate Calum works for, but I digress...

Now, I only received the invitation by email in the morning of the day of he wanted to get together, so I didn't exactly have much notice. Nevertheless, they're good friends and I wanted to make the effort to meet them. Dave's email was also quite insistent that Laura and I should both go and that he'd really appreciate it if we could be there. As it happens, Laura doesn't work too far from where we were supposed to meet, and she was free that night, so we agreed that we would go along.

Barbara's always been good at buying me cool gifts over the years for various occasions, so I wanted to try and get Dave something better than just a lousy card. There's a store that sells great designer stuff just around the corner from my office that opened not too long ago, so I nipped out at lunch time to see if I could find anything suitable. As soon as I walked in this caught my eye. It's called the 'Dombo mug', for obvious reasons, designed by a guy called Richard Hutton. (Coincidentally featured in this month's issue of Dwell, Dom.) I also found a cool box of cardboard drinks coasters made up of metal elements from the periodic chart called 'What's your poison?' I got both of these and a card and headed back to the office to get some lunch.

By coincidence I also work with a mutual friend of Dave and Barbara's, Heather (bear with me, this gets confusing), and I'd assumed that she would be going along too. I bumped into her in the sandwich shop carrying a gift she'd bought from the same store, which as it happened I had also contemplated getting Dave. I mentioned this to her but she seemed utterly perplexed and scurried off back to the office with her lunch. When I got back shortly after she quizzed me about it and wondered what present I'd got for Rob. "Who's Rob?" I replied. The plot thickened.

It turned out that we had both been fed different stories about the reason for the get together. Rob, as it turned out, was a friend of theirs who was turning 40 the next day. Dave's birthday, however, wasn't for a couple of weeks after. Also, it turned out that Barbara's parents were visiting from Germany. When Heather called them to probe the issue there was lots of mumbling and excuses. It soon became apparent that something else was going on.

When we turned up to meet them they revealed that they had in fact gotten married at the weekend! Which to be fair we'd figured out, but still a nice surprise. The picture of them was taken when they were signing the registry book. One of the funniest wedding photos I think I've ever seen. Haven't gotten them a wedding present yet though. I'm still bitter about them lying to me. :)

Paul Live at the Roundhouse

I caught Paul playing live on tv this week. He played a whole set...check it out!