Portishead - Silence

New song off Portishead's new album, 'Third'. Just bought it yesterday, very cool.

A log cabin in Strathyre

We've got a week's vacation coming up in May. We booked a log cabin in Strathyre. Can't wait. It's a 2 bedroom so we've got some friends and family coming to stay for part of the week. Here's a bit of blurb about it...

Set amongst the scenic lochs and mountains of the Trossachs National Park, Strathyre lies at the foot of Ben Ledi waiting to welcome you to Scotland’s dramatic forest landscape. Experience the peace and stillness of an early morning by the loch shore or take up the challenge of this rugged and beautiful landscape.

Tree-clad slopes sweep down to the edge of Loch Lubnaig are truly breathtaking. The varied terrain of "Rob Roy country" is ideal for hill walking for all ages and abilities. A vigorous hike will bring you to the summit of Ben Ledi, nearly 3000 ft above your cabin.

There's more to do further afield too - visit the other lochs in the area such as Loch Katrine where you can take a trip on a steamship or nearby Loch Earn for sailing, windsurfing and water-skiing.

We'll be there during my birthday so we're heading over to a really nice hotel called Monachyle Mhor for lunch on the 10th. Hopefully the weather will hold up. Keep a look out for pics on flickr when we get back.

Innnnverness, Florida

My brother and his family flew to Florida for a week this past Easter. They stayed at Disney and spent most of their time there, but they did take a day trip up to our old home town of Inverness, where we grew up. (Not to be confused with Invernesssss, Scotland - where the emphasis is at the end of the word, not the start.)

While he was there he drove past our old house on Inverness Blvd. I was kind of half expecting it to have been bulldozed and replaced by a new house by now, but it's still there. He said it was pretty sad, the front porch was full of junk and it looked awful. Here's a picture he took from the woods across the road (I think he was afraid they might come out with a shotgun if they saw him taking photographs).

It was never the nicest house to be honest, but I grew up there and I have a lot of fond memories of the place. I can still imagine the old gold Chevy Malibu parked out front on the grass, and the basketball hoop and horseshoe pit in the back yard.

He also drove past the old Crown Hotel, where he and I and my Dad used to work, and where Dom, Wayne and I stayed in 2000 for our 10 year reunion. It still looks pretty good, although it's no longer the 'Crown Hotel'. It's now a retirement home called 'Crown Court'. Well, at least they kept part of the name, guess it made sense. I wonder if they still have the replica crown jewels in there. Hmm.

Tasty fingers

Seren's discovered her hands recently and her favorite pastime seems to be ramming them in her mouth. I guess she was hungry or something...hmm.

Saving daylight...

The clocks went forward today marking the official start of Spring. This means two things, it's going to be lighter later and it's going to be warmer. Hurrah!

Look who's talking...

Seren's started to become quite chatty recently. It's difficult to catch her on camera sometimes because she can get a little camera shy but here are a couple of pretty funny clips we managed to get...



This is when she first started to 'answer' us, or even maybe try to 'mimic' a little. Very cute, killed me. This was a couple of weeks ago.



She's been chatting away to herself a lot more, especially in the morning when we sit her on her play mat. I took this the other morning whilst getting ready for work. Cracks me up.

New furniture

We got some new furniture for the lounge. We ordered a set of book shelves and a tv unit (from separate sources) off the internet a good 6 weeks ago, so it's been a long time coming. They both arrived within a week of each other. It's amazing how much they tidy up the room. Here are a couple of 'before' pictures.



















And now the after pictures.....

Mini me (Part 2)

I only really have one baby picture of myself in the house, which is the same one featured in the 'senior class baby picture' section of my senior year yearbook. But I thought I'd have a look to see how Seren and I compared around the same age. What do you think?

Left - Steven Malone (circa 1973) Right - Seren Malone (Feb. 2008)

Mini me

It's weird how genes get passed on from one generation to the next. From as long as I can remember people have always said I looked like my dad, and I have to admit it's true. You can see the resemblance between us at similar ages in photographs, and as I've grown older I think I've grown to look more like him. But it's not just my dad I have things in common with. I have a similar profile to my grandad on my mum's side. When he was in the war someone drew and cut his profile out of black card which we have framed at home. I used to tell people it was me and they believed me. The resemblance was that uncanny. I also apparently have his feet.

Dad and Seren

So, we were curious to see who Seren might look like. The first time I saw her I thought she looked a little like my dad, or my brother's kid Max, but also a little like Laura's brother Nathan. But it wasn't a striking resemblance by any means. Neither Laura or I saw any strong likenesses to ourselves though, and I'm not sure we do yet. But recently a few people seem to think that she looks like me, or my dad, or Max, which is actually more or less the same thing as we all look a little alike.

Me an my nephew Max

I guess she's still too young to tell yet, and she'll change a lot. One thing's for sure though, she's got her mother's feet.

The Mice Strike Back

The mice are back. Just when we'd thought we'd maybe seen the last of them for the winter they've reappeared, and they seem to be braver than ever. We first starting noticing their droppings in the usual spots. Then some unusual spots. Then we could hear them, first rustling, then squeaking. Then we caught sight of them a couple of times, in the kitchen, and even in the living room. Tonight I saw two on separate occasions, first the parent and later a little baby mouse. We've laid some poison so we're hoping that the parent might be dead and the baby's been driven out from hunger. It's sad, but the other traps don't seem to be working. They even set one off tonight without getting trapped. Noooo, that's not true...that's impossible!

Aesop's Fables

I bought a book on Aesop's Fables a while ago to read to Seren while she was still in the womb. I'd read somewhere that, from a certain stage, babies can hear your voice from inside, and that, if you read to them, it could help familiarise them with the sound of your voice.

When I was in 5th grade we had to base a project on an Aesop Fable. I was assigned one which had something to do with a dancing frog. That's all I remember; that, and cutting my finger on a pairing knife when constructing my card board 'cineramic story-teller'. (I ran my finger down the blade to show my brother how blunt it was. Little did I realise that my mum had just sharpened it.) Strange how certain things stay with you.

Everyone probably knows a few Aesop fables. They're over 2000 years old, so it's inevitable (The Hare and the Tortoise anyone?) I was surprised by how many stories sounded familiar. There's one in particular that I remember quite vividly from my childhood which, in the spirit of storytelling, I though I'd share with you. You too may well recognise this, but I'm going to share it anyway!

The Wind and the Sun

The wind and the sun once had an argument as to which was the stronger of the two, and they agreed to settle the issue by holding a contest: whoever could make a traveler take off his coat first would be recognized as the most powerful. The wind began and blew with all his might until he stirred up a blast, cold and fierce as an Alaskan storm. The stronger he blew, however, the tighter the traveler wrapped his coat around him and clasped it with his hands. Then the sun broke out, and with his welcome beams he dispersed the clouds and the cold. The traveler felt the sudden warmth, and as the sun shone brighter and brighter, he sat down, overcome by the heat, and threw his coat on the ground.
Thus the sun was declared the winner, and ever since then, persuasion has been held in higher esteem than force. Indeed, sunshine of a kind and gentle manner will sooner open a poor man's heart than all the threats and force of blustering authority.

I love the stories because they all have some wise moral at the end - which can sometimes even be a little sinister and shocking.

I still haven't found the story about the dancing frog. Plenty of stories about frogs, but none of them seem to dance. I'll let you know when I find it.

Colic

We've had a pretty easy time of things so far with Seren, relatively speaking. She's a good baby, and sleeps a fair bit throughout the day. When it got to the evening she developed a 'waking period' pattern, where she would be pretty vocal and fuss a bit between around 10pm and 2am, but eventually she would fall asleep again and wake every few hours for a feed. Manageable.

She's a month old today, and we've noticed some changes over the past few weeks. She's becoming more alert during the day, and actually sleeping for longer uninterrupted spells during the night. We even had to wake her a couple of times because she's been so long without a feed. (I guess there are different views about whether we should do this or not, but the advice we're following says that at this age they shouldn't go for longer than 5 hours without feeding. We've discovered that there's a lot of conflicting advice out there though!)

Well, last night that all changed. In fact the signs were there the night before, but not quite as severe. We were out for most of the afternoon and she did well, sleeping for most of the time. We got home and she woke for a bit. A little later around dinner time she started to get a little ratty, which developed very quickly into a full-on wailing marathon. She was uncontrollable from about 5:30 until midnight, when she eventually gave in...and slept until 7am! We'd been reading up on colic and had hoped that this might have passed her by, but we suspect that's what's happened. We're resigning ourselves to the fact that we might be in for a long phase of difficult evenings. Some of the advice we've read suggest swaddling the baby to make them feel more secure and control their flailing arms and legs. I also tried one of the colic holding positions (which came fairly naturally, but I noticed it in a book Cristina had sent Laura on breastfeeding) and it seems to comfort her, so that's my secret weapon. It's the only thing that seems to calm her. We'll see how it goes tonight, strange that it only seems to affect them in the evenings, and we'll probably give the health visitor a call on Monday to see what she thinks.

A New Project

I'm starting on a new project for you guys. It's not a DVD, probably be a while before I have enough material for, or get around to doing, one of those I expect. It is something of a multi-media nature though. I actually started working on it some time ago, and I've been piecing together bits and pieces in order to finish it off and I've got most of it done already. That said, the last bit will probably take the longest amount of time, so I'm not sure when it'll be finished. Don't want to give anything else away. Watch this space for future updates.

Spaced - Series 2

We just got done watching series two of Spaced last night. It's fantastic. They stepped it up a gear for the second series. Here's the first part of the first episode. If you want to watch the rest just go here and take it from there (the next parts are in 'related videos' on the r.h.s.). Actually, the whole of the second series is there.

Seren dancing

I'd read in one of the baby books that there are some things you can try to test the baby's reflexes 'for fun'. There's the Startle, or Moro reflex (she passed this one in the hospital before she came home); the plantar reflex (when the sole of the baby's foot is gently stroked from the heel to toe, the baby's toes flare upwards and the foot turns in); the rooting and sucking reflexes (she's got those down pat); the Palmer grasping reflex (a piece of trivia - a newborn's grasp may be powerful enough to support their full body weight! - not that we've tried that I hasten to add).

I thought I'd try the walking, or stepping reflex today. Basically this involves holding the baby upright on a flat surface under the arms - she's supposed to lift one leg and then the other taking what seem to be 'steps'. Not sure how well it worked but she made a really funny face when I tried it, as if she's just discovered something new - which I guess she had. Anyway, Laura videoed it with her camera (so the quality is a little better). It looks like she's dancing too, rather than walking, but I reckon that's a pass. :)

Seren's first videos

Here are the first couple of videos of Seren. We took them tonight with our phones, so the quality isn't great, but you get the idea. There seems to be a lag between the video and audio. Oh well. We need to invest in a good digital video camera.




Seren hiccuping



Seren crying / screaming

Return of the Mouse

Sigh....Just after I posted my last blog about my mouse killing adventures I went through to the kitchen and caught a glimpse of another mouse scurrying along the floor. Looked like a big one too. Man, I really could do without this right now! I just hate the idea of the dirty little vermin crawling around the apartment when we've got a new baby. Might be time for step three...poison.

A Mouse in the House - Update

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.

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.

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!