Fancy that

A few weeks ago Anne and I went to a five year old's birthday party. Given out impending parenthood, Simon and Kate had thought we might like a taste of what they have to put up with day in day out, so invited us to their son Sam's party. It was fancy dress, with a superhero theme.

Sam, who likes The Incredibles (as do I) went as Dash. His two year old brother, Nathan, went as Noddy. Not really a superhero, but I let it pass with just a stern word. We had to decide on costumes. We don't have a lot of imagination so it was a bit of a strain. Here's me with Nathan:


That's right, I was The Hulk! The funny thing is, Nathan didn't seem to think it odd that I was green from head to toe. (Less than a week later, the area of Birmingham we were in was hit by a "tornado". No one seems to have connected the extensive damage with The Hulk's appearance, so I'm keeping quiet.)

Anne's was slightly less exciting and went as Catwoman. Julie-Newmar-era Catwoman, you understand, not Halle Berry.


I have to say, it was slightly exhausting with all those kids running around everywhere. It's a good few years before we have to put up with kids of that age, so perhaps we'll be better equipped to cope by then, but Anne and I had a great time as some of the few adults there withoput any real responsibilities.

I went on the bouncy castle and I had ice cream.

Most of Sam's school class were there and he had lost of gifts. Some of the gifts were pretty good, and I look forward to my kid getting presents I want to play with. However, some weren't so good, and I look forward to upsetting my child when I tell him/her that he/she can't have the latest plastic tat his school friends are raving about.

The drum 'n' bass Bean

Anne saw the midwife today and was able to listen to The Bean's heartbeat. It was beating at 152bpm, which I gather means it's equivalent to drum 'n' bass.

He/she likes to move it move it. I suspect.

He's got the whole world in his RAM...

As a father to be, you can well imagine how preoccupied I am with the impending change in my life. A blog seems like a great place to get that sort of thing off my chest and wax lyrical about what's to come, my hopes and fears etc.

With that in mind, I want to write today about Google Earth.

Goodness me! I haven't been so impressed with a piece of software since Ghostbusters on the Commodore 64. Google Earth is just marvelous, and if you have a broadband connection and a reasonable graphics card (it doesn't have to be top of the range or anything) I recommend you install it NOW. (Oh, I think you need a PC too, so Mac owners will have to wait. Sorry.)

It's basically a piece of software with which to view satellite imagery of the Earth. I can zoom in from space to see my house quite clearly. Great stuff!

(I'm playing about with a new way to upload images to Blogger here. They will look smaller than the files I upload, but when you click on them they'll show the full image. I'll give it a try and see if I like it.)

The Spawn of KT

Not a lot to say here. Anne's 13 weeks pregnant and we went for the "12 week" scan this morning and things are looking fine so far. Yay! Here are some pics: The Spawn of KT plans to come out and see us on New Year's Eve, all being well. Hurrah! I'm still in a slight state of shock having watched the little thing kicking and flailing on the monitor. We could see its face!

Cottaging in The Peak District

Yes, I know we've been a bit quiet of late. Here's another update though.

We've just come back from The Peak District. We hired a cottage in Butterton, a (very) small village in Staffordshire. It was a lovely little converted barn. Very cosy, and just what we needed. We did a lot of relaxing and slept late. We also did a fair amount of exploring.

On Friday we visited Chatsworth House, a bog ol' house with big ol' grounds. We didn't go in the house itself (we went to Wimpole Hall near where we live last week so figured we'd done stately homes for the week) but went round the gardens and had a baked potato with bean goulash (each!) in the cafe.

There was a maze in the gardens, so Anne and I split up and raced to the centre. I was there ages before Anne and could hear her grumbling about being lost as I sat on a bench feeling proud of myself and pretending to Anne I was eating both the chewey bars we'd brought with us. The first two photos in the diggy collage below are us celebrating in the centre of the maze (Anne did finally make it). We also had a good look round the kitchen garden. Their veggies are doing much better than ours. (In fact our fruits aren't doing great now either - we returned home to find our strawberry plants dying. We think they have a fungal infection. Grr!) Anyway, Chatsworth was quite good, but a bit expensive. We had to pay £1.50 to park, and also pay to go into the gardens. (Obviously we'd have also had to pay if we'd gone to the farm or house.) I can see why they charge for the car park, as I guess people go there and just sit on the grass and have picnics, but I reckon they should refund the cost of parking if you decide to pay to see the house, gardens etc. The Duke of Devonshire - take note.

Later on Friday we went to the nearby town of Bakewell and found ourselves surrounded by coachloads of old people. It's nice to feel young every now and then! We hunted down a Bakewell Tart to take home and have for pudding that evening, and also had a sneaky scone with cream and jam. Yup - it was THAT sort of break. The sort heavily punctuated with baked goods.

On Saturday we went to Matlock Baths and went by cable car the The Heights of Abraham. This was a couple of caves on a hill. There were good views of the surround area (from outside the caves) and we also had a baked potato there too. It was a good tourist attraction, and we got three hours' entertainment for our £9 (each).

That night we had an odd game of Jenga back in the cottage. It was odd because the tower refused to fall down and we eventually got the tower as high as we could with the blocks supplied. We tired of it and knocked it down, both winners. Or both losers, I suppose.

After a brief stop in the spa town of Buxton today, we drove home to Cambridge. I broke The First Rule of DIY when creosoting a fence when I didn't get changed into my DIY clothes and got creosote on my shorts and shirt. Grrr!