Hels and Tom both have colds. I’ve had a bit of a sore throat, but it hasn’t come to anything.

When they first went down with a little lethargy, sore throat, snuffliness and all the other usual symptoms, we immediately thought that our turn might have come for swine flu. If it had, we wouldn’t be too worried – we’d get our way through it and get it out of the way. Unpleasant and inconvenient, yes, but probably not life-changing. For the vast majority of people, it’s just a nasty bug.

So, given that, Hels called the doctor. We’d heeded the advice not to actually go to the surgery and it seems our local surgery is well-prepared. Our doctor was able to take Hels’s call (not just the receptionist team) and talked through the symptoms. She (our doctor) seemed a little fed up with the Government’s diagnosis-by-checklist approach. Hels described her symptoms, including her temperature of 37.8 Celsius. The doctor laughed and said that, given her symptoms and according to the checklist, Hels did not have flu but had a cold. If, however, her temperature had been 38 Celsius, that woud have been enough.

So we are carrying on life pretty much as normal. Hels has taken a little time off work (heavy colds tend to knock her down a bit anyway due to previous illnesses in her 20s). But we are not putting ourselves into quarantine.

What I wonder is this: given that our doctor is aware that this cold bug is going around at the moment, how many of the 100,000 new cases this week really are H1N1 flu and how many are just summer colds? Are we getting false information and is the Government making decisions based on that? What will happen if/when we actually get real flu later in the year?

As an aside, the Government gave advice last weekend (as reported by the BBC) that expectant mothers and mothers of under-5s should stay away from crowds. I presume they haven’t visited your average ante-natal clinic lately, because they are never crowded, obviously. And, what of fathers of under-5s? Presumably, if they stayed away from crowded places (like shops, offices, railway stations and workplaces) the economy would grind to a halt.

As Hels put it – the Government takes the nation to war but can’t seem to work out what to do about a virus.

This morning, I had the plaster cast removed. Thank goodness for that!

I now have a “double tubigrip” arrangement on my left foot/ankle/leg and have been given instruction to gently start walking again. I can only manage a handful of steps at one go before it becomes too painful/uncomfortable, but the doctor reckons that I should progressively get stronger and more mobile by early next week. He reckons that the majority of the damage (or possibly even all of it) is muscular, not bone.

Frankly, being able to move around again is great. I was starting to become a bit of a bear-with-a-sore-head (or sore leg) and could easily have become utterly insufferable for my family. But I’m looking forward to having a soak in the bath tonight and not relying on Hels to wash my hair (I couldn’t get in the shower to do it and found it rather precarious to lather my barnet whilst balanced on one foot). And, most of all, I’m looking forward to being able to drive again and get back to proper work rahter than the half-hearted work I’ve done for the last ten days.

The title of this post reflects the name that my uncle has for our household. Thanks Ted.

So far this year:

• conservatory woe, involving new conservatory purchased to replace old leaking one, but not being manufactured to the right size, resulting in a large “air gap” that it took the suppliers three weeks to resolve (sorry Dave, should have come to you)
• heavy cold woe
• financial woe, now resolved
• more family health woe
• falling down stone steps woe
• chickenpox woe
• and now, leaking waste water pipe under the sink in the bathroom woe.

For goodness sake, can we just have a simple life where everything bloody well works?

How odd. I’ve had a letter today from the hospital in St Malo that treated me last weekend. It is short and to-the-point.

Beg pardon? Now, my grasp of French is rudimentary to say the least (“schoolboy” would be a generous term and possibly an insult to most schoolboy students of the language), but the word “absence” does tend to leap out of the page. Google Translate comes to my aid and tells me that the radiography did not reveal a lesion on the bone. So why exactly am in a cast and on crutches, then?

Clearly, I’ve done a lot of damage to my left foot area. I must have stretched and pulled every muscle, tendon and bit of meaty gristle down there. It swelled up a fair bit (although, by everyone’s admission, not by a massive amount) and was very sore whenever I put weight on it. But have I actually done any damage to the bone? There was much discussion at the local hospital here in Blighty when I rocked up with my cast and my French x-ray transparencies because the damage is far from clear. I think I can see the ghost of the (tiny) chip on the image in the area where my French doctor said it was, but this new letter is signed by a different doctor. Was the original doctor imagining things?

I’m booked into the local fracture clinic for first thing on Wednesday morning. I’m going to ask them to review the evidence and to take a new set of x-rays so we can be sure what has taken place – my guess is that they will want to do that anyway. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have only damaged muscle and that, with a bit of strapping, rest and physiotherapy, I can be back up and running, or walking at least, as soon as possible.

Apparently, I’m suffering "temporary partial disablement". Or so my insurers say (so, hopefully, they will pay up).

As a sufferer, I can report the following:

• it hurts
• one becomes the centre of conversation
• going to the loo becomes a challenge
• climbing stairs becomes even more of a challenge
• going to the loo or climbing stairs on a cross-Channel ferry is even more of a challenge. I’d hate to be a one-legged pirate
• the cat still wants to sit on you
• small children (well, our small child at least) suddenly become remarkably understanding and helpful. It’ll never last
• your bum gets numb from all the sitting around
• it is very easy to get bored or frustrated; or bored AND frustrated
• it hurts to carry a cast about
• you become very reliant on people around you. Thank goodness for Hels
• you tend to blog more frequently

We have just taken the opportunity to have a little holiday. Well, that was the plan. I had to go to Angers for an exhibition and took H and T along with me, something we have done for four out of the last five years.

After staying in Angers for a couple of nights and a (very successful) day at the exhibition, we took the car to Saint Malo, via Rennes and Dinan. We got to our hotel and wandered into the Intra Muros, had a nice meal and then, to entertain Tom, clambered up onto the city wall to head back towards the hotel. So far, so good. But it was mightily dark and I decided to carry Tom as we descended the stone steps. Hels stumbled on the last step as we went down. And then I fell down on the same step, heavily. I managed to hold on to Tom and lower him gently to the step. But I had a fair idea that I’d really hurt myself. I could tell this by the tears in my eyes and nausea, not to mention the pain.

We hobbled back to the hotel and went to bed. But, in the morning, it became quite evident that I was in agony. The evidence consisted of me yelping with pain whenever I stood up, and yelping twice as much if I put any weight on my left foot.

With guidance from the hotel receptionist, Hels took me over to the hospital. After a short wait, an x-ray revealed the tiniest chip off a bone. My reward – a French plaster cast with matching crutches and painkillers. My first damaged bone. Bugger.

We changed our homeward travel arrangements and got ourselves on the next ferry from Saint Malo to Portsmouth (we originally planned to travel to Dieppe and then back to Newhaven – but if ever you take that boat, pack a lunch as the food is utter crap). I’m hoping that my insurers will pay for the change of ferry plans and the lost night of accommodation (about four hundred quid in total).

Since then, I’ve seen umpteen medical people and been the centre of much attention. I’ve got to wear the cast for at least ten days before it is swapped for a removable boot. Which means I can’t drive, can’t put weight on it and can’t walk more than a few paces. Which will make life a little difficult, to say the least.

And, to top it all, Tom has chickenpox. Spots. Lots of them. And itchy.

Hels has got her work cut out. She’s pretty amazing.

Why is it that we seem to be suffering wall-to-wall, back-to-back illnesses in our household? I had a really rotten cold a few weeks ago. Over the weekend I had a nasty stomach bug. And now I have a sore throat, blocked sinuses and repeated sneezing. And, naturally, Hels and Tom have had/got it too.

Anyway, mustn’t grumble, and all that. None of us have had to be hospitalized, which is what happened to my Dad. He’s home now and getting better, but it was one of those stop-and-think things. Hmm.

Meanwhile, we’re all busy as mad things and wondering how we are going to survive the madness of the next fortnight. I do wonder how it is that, every year, we say we are going to do less and make the festivities simpler and more enjoyable, but still end up running around like idiots, cooking for the five thousand, spending a fortune (in spite of setting a maximum of fifteen quid on gifts) and actually not really enjoying it all as much as we’d like.

Bah! Bumhug!

Next year, we will go away for Christmas. I say it every year, but this time I mean it.

So sue me. Or him.

1. My uncle once: fell over the side of an aircraft carrier in a plane. Actually, he did it more than once.

2. Never in my life: flown in a hot air balloon.

3. When I was five: I began primary school. My teacher was called Miss English, and I told her that my parents were aged 21 and 18.

4. High school was: not as great as people sometimes claim. But not as bad either. And probably a missed opportunity, particularly the sixth form.

5. I will never forget: the day that Tom was born.

6. Once I met: Molly Sugden. She visited my parent’s nursery and forgot to take her credit card after the transaction.

7. There’s this girl I know. Fact.

8. Once, at a bar: I was stalked by a midget with a perm.

9. By noon, I’m usually: thirsty.

10. Last night: I fought with Tom whilst trying to persuade him to sleep and then went to bed early myself. My patience is dramatically reduced when I feel ill.

11. If only I had: more money, time and self-discipline.

12. Next time I go to church: I’ll probably be with Tom and we’ll admire the architecture.

13. What worries me most: is not much at all. I don’t worry about much, as it seems a rather futile activity. But I’m concerned about the future, like most people. You can only wish to be happy, comfortable and for your child to have it better than you did.

14. When I turn my head left I see: the garden – lots of plants in flower, plus Tom’s trike parked outside the door.

15. When I turn my head right I see: a couple of pot plants and the stereo.

16. You know I’m lying when: I admit to it.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: the lack of responsibility. As I was in my early to mid teens during that period, I didn’t have much responsibility at all. Unfortunately, it was a missed opportunity – I should have grasped those years a bit more.

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: Banquo? Nah, who am I kidding?

19. By this time next year: we’ll be millionaires, Rodney! Alternatively, I might have finished those draft posts for this site.

20. A better name for me would be: um, actually, I like the one I have.

21. I have a hard time understanding: people who don’t think things through and use the evidence available to their own senses. I can understand why Richard Dawkins gets so frustrated by people who don’t agree with the findings of empiricists.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: have taken a wrong turning.

23. You know I like you if: I relax. You’ll know it when you see it.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: Hels.

25. Take my advice, never: clean your headlamps with a baby wipe and then try to stick “beam benders” on. It won’t work. (What? You wanted a philosophical answer??)

26. My ideal breakfast is: Dorset Cereals Simply Delicious muesli with cold milk. Plus eggs, bacon, toast, tomato, black pudding, juice, coffee, cheese, bread, ham…

27. A song I love but do not have is: not known to me yet. I tend to download stuff I like soon after hearing it.

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: visit the Cathedral and then a pub (assuming you mean the place I consider my hometown. If you mean the place where I live, then visit the church – it has a surprise inside).

29. Why won’t people: just give me the f***ing money now!

30. If you spend a night at my house: you’d eat well, drink well and, hopefully, relax.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: nothing, except a fire alarm perhaps. Done it already.

32. The world could do without: about three quarters of its human population. Obviously you and I are exempt from this.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: its feet.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: my wife.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: staples if you want to take the pages apart again after fixing them together.

36. If I do anything well it’s: cook duck à l’orange.

37. I can’t help but: I have a short attent

38. I usually cry: when peeling onions.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: is to never stop asking questions.

40. And by the way: isn’t it your round?

Feh.

A few things that I haven’t had/made time to remark upon here in the last week or so:

• my gorgeous wife had a birthday. The three of us went to London for the day and ambled around Covent Garden, Regent Street, Tate Britain and the South Bank. Tom was particularly impressed with the sculpture at the Tate, remarking that The Three Graces have bottoms “just like Mummy’s”, which is possibly the best compliment a girl could wish for.
• subsequently, my gorgeous wife went on holiday with her mum to Morocco, leaving son and husband to fend for themselves. Thanks to sitting in train stations with poorly-inked cardboard signs, we survived this ordeal and only went to the pub once.
• Hels and I completed the 20km JustWalk on Saturday in blistering (literally) heat. We were accompanied by our brother-in-law Kevin all the way round the circuit and were able to enjoy some lovely views and some splendid wild flowers. But it was bloomin’ hot and we had to work hard to keep hydrated and to avoid heat stroke. The sections of the walk in the open were particularly hard, especially the mile or so down the south-facing slope into Charlton which was on a chalk and flint track in a bit of a dip – no breeze, bright intense sun, no shade and lots of reflected light and heat from the surface. Thanks to some remarkably generous people, we have now passed our original sponsorship target of £500, for the Parkinson’s Disease Society but we still want to raise more money. What do you mean, you haven’t sponsored us yet? Go here and give now, please and thank you.
• Oh, and it’s my birthday today. I’m already enjoying my first present.

A little while ago, I linked on here to our JustGiving webpage. You see, Hels and I are going to walk 20km to raise money for the Parkinson’s Disease Society. That means we will be getting up very early, striding purposefully up Down and down Down, getting blisters, getting drenched, getting sunburn, getting achey and getting sore. But we are determined to do it because we think it is a very worthwhile cause.

We have exactly one month to go and we want to raise a lot more money yet. We’re only about one-third of the way to our modest target and really, truthfully, I’d like to reach double the target we have set. So, here’s how you can help:

1. Give money. How do you do that? Easy! Go to our JustGiving page. Now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not after you’ve had a cuppa. I should say "please", but actually I feel a little like Bob Geldof, thumping my desk and shouting "give us the [expletive] money now!" – and, if you use the webpage and are a UK tax payer, the PDS gets the Gift Aid which adds quite a lot extra to your donation.
2. Link us up. You have a website? Good! Then link to www.justgiving.com/grahamandhels – and tell your readers that we are awfully nice people and that this is a very good cause.
3. Tell people. Know anyone who knows us? Tell them what we are doing and suggest that they give money. Or maybe they don’t know us – well, tell them anyway!
4. Send encouragement. We know what we are doing might be small but is certainly worthwhile and we’d like others to encourage us. And you know what the best form of encouragement is? More money for the PDS!

If you do help with any of these things, then please email me because I’m a nice chap and want to thank you. But, please do help us – without your help, our walk won’t be worth much at all.

Now, back to sending pestering emails to people!

On arriving in a hotel near Geneva, one opens one’s washbag to discover that the bottle of conditioner has partly leaked. This has happened in the past when travelling and then it was a disaster of hair-pulling proportions.

However, having spent two years dealing with Tom’s “poonami” nappies, I now merely shrug and rinse it out over the bathroom sink. At least this smells quite nice.

Take a look at this. You’ll know what to do. And do it big!

This is a very well-travelled rabbit. So far, she has been to Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Italy.

Here she is at the Palace of Versailles, admiring the topiary.

I’ve been accepted as a full member, sorry, Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Which now means that I’m an MCIM, not ACIM.

I’ll not be rushing out to have my business cards changed.

Yes, once again we come around to the annual grayblog end-of-the-year introspection. I know you’ve been looking forward to this for at least, oooo, twelve months?

Firstly, let’s look back and get the resolutions thing out of the way. At the end of 2006 (the archives are over there, on the right), I said I’d carry on improving the things that I had starting improving in 2006. But who has time for that? The garden isn’t finished, I haven’t done enough exercise and the writings here have become ever more sparse as the year has gone on.

So, do resolutions have any value if they are so easily broken/ignored? Comments welcome on that subject. And, given my obvious feelings on the value of resolutions, you can set as much store as you feel is appropriate in the following:

• to write here more frequently (not too hard)
• to take more exercise (we now have bikes which spend far too much time locked away)
• to keep my office in a more tidy condition (also not hard)

What else can be said about 2007? Well, at a professional level, things have generally improved through the year. I don’t think it’s a huge secret that I wasn’t terribly optimistic about the prospects for my business late in 2006 and was feeling pretty demoralized. Things have improved markedly since then and whilst it is still tough going, the light is clearly visible at the end of the tunnel and, if all goes to plan in 2008, I might be able to talk about my business and the “P-word”* in the same sentence without laughter. To a large degree, I’ve been carried along by the faith shown in me and my business by others around me – my backers and my clients. Even my bank has been supportive (although I’ve yet to ask them to dip their corporate hand into their corporate pockets for me, and hopefully won’t need to). The one person who keeps me from believing too much of what they say has been Hels, who frequently questions me and challenges me to test what I’m doing and show that things truly are going the right way. That is a good thing and has encouraged me to look hard at the business and the direction that it is going in. And I’m happy with it right now.

2007 has also seen us seriously (VERY seriously) looking at emigration to the Netherlands (or possibly just inside the Belgian border). Ultimately this plan has been shelved – we have decided to stay close to friends and family. We also can’t really afford it at this stage – if my business was making more money and we hadn’t been so crippled by not selling Hels’s flat for so long, then maybe it would have been different. Note that I say that the plan is shelved, not abandoned. It’s something that we will keep at the back of our minds and may return to in the future. And our love for Maastricht is undimmed, as you might have guessed from the number of Dutch-related del.icio.us links that I post.

The year has seen its usual bunch of travelling, this time including trips to the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Poland. I didn’t get to a few destinations that I had in mind for lack of time and resources, but the opportunity is not lost, merely deferred. I do promise to stick some photos on here somewhen of some of the places that I/we have been to this year – feel free to nag me to keep to that promise. Highlights of this year’s travel for me included:

• San Pellegrino in Alpe, Italy – breath-takingly beautiful and wonderfully peaceful (although I suspect it might be busier in high season)
• Hamburg, Germany – drinking cocktails whilst standing in the rain on the morning of my birthday
• Warnemünde, Germany – bobbing about in a launch on the Warnow river with Hels and Tom
• Kanne, Belgium – getting the “I could live here – this just might work” feeling
• A12, Netherlands – driving from Gouda towards Zoetermeer and marvelling at the sodium-lamp orange mist with enormous wind turbines looming darkly out of the gloaming and wishing my camera was handy
• Tiercé, France – having possibly the best cheese board I’ve ever had or am ever likely to have in “Sarkozy’s restaurant”
• Przydworzyce, Poland – driving through the woods and seeing locals who had gathered mushrooms offering them for sale at the roadside, often only a single punnet-full

Travel plans for 2008 are subject to change, but look likely to include Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands (no surprise there), Switzerland (2008′s first for me – 2007′s was Poland) and Italy. Maybe Spain. And maybe Ireland and Poland. Too many places to go to, for both business and pleasure, and too little time and money to do them all.

Of course, the true highlight of 2007 has been watching Tom growing up. He is fantastic, a life-changing element of existence. He continually amazes and surprises us. It’s impossible to feel down when he’s around. I’m looking forward to more in 2008. And more of married life with Hels, but I’m going to stop on the emotional family gushing now before your keyboard gets covered in vomit.

What do I think 2008 will bring? Goodness knows. If there is one thing that I’ve learnt, it is that you can never tell what the future will bring. I think politics and the economy will both be fascinating in 2008 (and might finally push crappy nonsense “entertainment” out of the headlines a little) although the ride might be a bit bumpy. My business will increase in strength and stature. Family life should continue to be splendid, particularly as we have settled on our home here for the time-being and should have fewer disturbances to routine (famous last words). And I might knock-up a decent duck à l’orange or two.

Thanks to the regular readers who keep coming back here – I know there must be at least half a dozen of you still braving the digital elements to come here. Happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year to you all.

Three years ago today.

Hels is off work with a bug which Tom seems to have as well. So celebrations are deferred to the weekend when we shall go for dinner and take in a little jazz.

An “interesting” couple of days. I picked up some sort of virulent virus (is there any other sort?) at the weekend which resulted in me spending large chunks of the small hours of yesterday in the bathroom. It was so bad that I passed out, fell forward and headbutted the (slate) windowsill.

Two nice ladies in the local minor injuries unit (literally) glued me back together. They urged me to look out for signs of concussion (“dizziness and vomiting – oh, you’ve got those already”) and instructed me to drink flat Coke to settle my stomach (top tip – it works brilliantly).

Two things of note – in spite of all the commotion in the neighbouring bathroom, Tom slept through the whole thing. And, if it hadn’t been for Hels, I’d probably have ended up in a puddle of blood and unmentionables on the bathroom floor and goodness knows what would have become of me. “Above and beyond” doesn’t go far enough.

As it is, I look like I’ve been on the receiving end of a Glasgow kiss. This will undoubtedly enhance my reputation and do me the power of good as we enter the horticultural trade show season.

UPDATE (Wednesday): both Tom and Hels have now had the virus, although not as bad as me, it seems. So far, I’ve lost over seven pounds, but there are better ways to achieve that.

• 2.15pm – Monty walks into the house, limping
• 2.16pm – I get scratched as I try to see what the problem is
• 2.20pm – arrange 2.50pm appointment with the vet
• 2.23pm – phone Hels
• 2.25pm – dig cat carrier out of the shed
• 2.30pm – phone childminder to arrange collecting Tom early
• 2.32pm – leave home
• 2.40pm – collect Tom
• 2.50pm – arrive at vet
• 3.00pm – go into examination room, juggling cat, son and Miffy toy
• 3.02pm – vet extracts thorn from Monty’s paw, advising that if it had been left there would have been an abcess and general nastiness, and administers antibiotic
• 3.05pm – nurse agrees that Miffy is suffering from Dirty Ear Disease and needs a bath
• 3.06pm – nurse relieves yours truly of £32.41
• 3.15pm – arrive home. Release disgruntled cat. Monty licks his wounds on his paw. I lick the wound on my wallet.

Just to keep Matt The Bakiwop happy, here is a genuine update:

• I’m working like a mad thing at the moment. I haven’t even had time to update my work weblog, which is bad. Work is generally busy in a good way, though, so things are quite good. Just don’t mention the Germans.
• We’ve been travelling a bit lately and I owe readers some photos from recent trips. So far this year we have been to Angers/Nantes, Utrecht/Maastricht/Aachen/Namur, Hamburg/Rostock and I made a solo trip to Vlaardingen/Aalsmeer. There have also been a few UK-based days out and there are some photos from those too. When time permits, I’ll upload some.
• On the domestic front, I’ve been working on developing the front garden (although progress has been in fits and starts and has stalled again lately – I need to get the footings out for the retaining wall, but time constraints and the weather both conspire against me) as well as getting the side and back gardens looking good – I’ll try and sort out photos of that too.
• I bought Hels a bike for her birthday and this has spurred me to sort out getting my bike restored after having left it in a shed for six years following the spectacular failure of the derailleur whilst bombing along the Avenue de Chartres in Chichester in 2000. Following a suggestion from Kate, I’ve taken it to Baker Street Bikes in Brighton for restoration and should get it back on Wednesday. All I’ll need then is to add a child seat for Tom and we’ll then be able to go out on family cycle trips (although bike mounts for the roof bars on the car would be good and I think I’d like to have the chance to dump the child seat so that I can get a few miles in on my own terms too).
• We’ve started doing a bit more work to the house – currently, we’re remodelling the bathroom. Not a major change, just new paint, new taps and a new shower screen. We’re also eyeing the conservatory combine harvester (shhh, don’t tell Dave), which needs some major work – we’ve spied a couple of rotten timbers, which isn’t good. Repainting of the kitchen is also scheduled in for “somewhen”.
• Tom has taken to refusing to go to sleep in the evening. We’ve just had him up for a 9.30pm snack, which he took whilst lounging in front of the telly in the living room – he has the makings of a good couch potato.
• Finally, it’s the Garden and Art Event at West Dean, near Chichester, this coming weekend. I organise it. I’m seriously hoping that the weather improves considerably between now and then.

More updates. Soon. I promise.

Happy birthday to Mrs Graybo, who is [knows better than that!] years old today. Cake has been consumed (by me, at least).

Tom was most excited by the presence of paper, cards and gifts this morning, but less impressed that there was nothing in the way of gifts for him. It looks like he’ll be more aware of presents by the time Christmas and his birthday come around than he was for the last time.

For those following the saga of my burst eardrum (it’s edge-of-your-seat stuff!), my hearing is slowly coming back and the pain has mostly subsided. It’s actually quite remarkable that your eardrum can burst and then fix itself- it’s one of those parts of the body that ranks up there with eyes as being perceived as very delicate and irreplaceable, but it seems to be quite capable of looking after itself.

The doctors have told me that it could be up to another week or so before my hearing gets back to normal. As it is, I find it hard to pick out speech over background noise and I also have a little tinnitus. I tend to get more "foggy" as I get tired. They’ve prescribed a nasal decongestant, which is a little like snorting Pledge, but seems to help. The occasional ibuprofen knocks any pain on the head, but I’ve not had to take anything for a couple of days.

If things don’t return to normal, then I’ve to go back to the doctor and they will likely then refer me to an ENT clinic. But at the moment, progress is good. Either way, it’s not something I want to go through again or would recommend to others.

I referred in my last post to having "man flu". In truth, Tom first caught a heavy cold about two and half weeks ago and, whilst cheerful throughout it all in that Tom way, he was laid pretty low by it. Inevitably, Hels and I both caught it – it’s one of the worst colds I’ve had for years, causing aching muscles and particularly high levels of discomfort.

On Saturday, it took a new and more unpleasant turn for me. Neither of us had been sleeping well for several nights, so we were pretty run down. During Friday night, I got acute discomfort in my jaw which I guessed (correctly as it turns out) was down the the virus shifting around in my sinuses. Very early on Saturday morning, I started to get severe pain in my left ear which got worse and worse as the morning went on, with pressure building ever higher. As I found out later, what had happened was that the virus had got into the Eustachian tube causing it to swell up and close. Consequently (turn away now if you are squeamish) there was a mucus build up in my inner ear (hence the pain). In these circumstances, something has to give and, at around lunchtime on Saturday, that something was my ear drum. My ear has been oozing unpleasantness ever since, and I’ve lost most of my hearing in my left ear.

Thankfully, my parents came to our aid and took Tom for a couple of days. Hels took me to casualty and we were seen promptly by an excellent doctor who explained it all clearly (and spoke into my good ear!), and prescribed some painkillers and antibiotics.

I can assure you that this experience is really quite distressing.

On the plus side, most perforations of the ear drum heal well and quite quickly, with normal hearing usually restored. Let’s hope that that is the case. I’ve made an appointment with my GP for next Monday (as advised by the doctor in casualty) who will check the progress of the healing and will either send me on my way if things are going well or refer me to the ENT clinic if there is a problem. If I get to ENT then, depending on the severity of the problem, I might have to have surgery ranging from a graft to repair the ear drum through to more invasive surgery if there is damage to the inner ear. These are not prospects that I particularly look forward to.

Can I be honest? I hate the fact that my hearing is gone. I’m filled with dread at the notion that Tom might grow up and I might not be able to hear him properly. I’m also scared about what this means for me in my business (I need to be able to communicate). I am not a happy bunny at the moment. And I still haven’t shifted the cold, which is adding to my woes.

• Tom was one yesterday – it’s been both the longest and fastest year of my life (and Hels’s too, I think it is fair to say - and, by definition, Tom’s). We celebrated with cake, balloons and a trip to a farm. There shall be further celebrations at the weekend.
• We had snow last night. Up to six inches of the stuff is forecast to fall tonight. That should make for an interesting commute for Hels in the morning. Tom was non-plussed when I introduced him to the stuff this morning. His face simply said: "cold. wet. yuk."
• I’m in Germany at the moment for an enormous trade event. I’ve just had dinner in the hotel restaurant, which was eye-wateringly expensive. At the next table was Michael Heseltine. He was not wearing a loin cloth.
• I really need to update this site more often. Sorry.
• This site and my email (including work email) have been down for most of the day due to problems at 34SP. Apparently, the aircon failed causing the servers to overheat. I couldn’t help thinking that, on the coldest day of the winter so far, opening the window would soon solve the problem.

It’s that time of year again. Last year, I made five resolutions. I have made a good start on the first one, although it is a massive project and has taken much longer than anticipated, not least due to distractions of the Tom kind. The second I failed on miserably. The third hasn’t gone too badly, although it has improved of late. The fourth, well let’s not go there, shall we? – only 186 posts this year, including this one – not good enough. And the fifth one I’ve done reasonably well on – I’m certainly a lot happier on that score than I was this time last year.

So, for 2007, I’ll continue the good work where the good work has started. Beyond that, I haven’t really got that much that I feel I particularly want to resolve to do – there is plenty to keep me occupied.

2006 has been a year like none before it, entirely due to the arrival of Tom. He has, as I expected, changed life totally and for the better. In addition, we’ve had a lot of travel (I’ve been to Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Hungary this year) and there is more planned for 2007, with trips to Germany, France, Netherlands (naturally), Portugal, Poland, Ireland and Italy on the cards. 2006 has also seen us starting to make new long term plans. We’re not yet sure if they will come to fruition, but the notion of emigrating doesn’t look beyond the realms of plausibility. We’re also much closer to finally sorting out our finances, which has to be a good thing and has implications for all areas of life.

New Year’s Eve this year will be spent with friends, eating and drinking too much whilst (hopefully) Tom sleeps. Then I’ve got to wind myself back up in to work mode after an extended Christmas break – which, when I wasn’t being ill, I’ve enjoyed and was much needed, particularly as I’ve spent nearly the whole break at home with Hels and Tom, undoubtedly a good thing.

Happy New Year to all grayblog readers. Keep coming back if you like this sort of thing.

This is going to be a not-quite-normal Christmas. Firstly, it’s our first Christmas as a threesome, although Tom doesn’t really have an inkling as to what it is all about. I’m sure that he will be more excited by the wrapping paper, ribbon and boxes than by the gifts themselves, although I suspect that the maracas, tambourine and glockenspiel will all be hits as they all make a good noise. Shopping for Tom is remarkably easy (the problem is knowing when to stop) and we’ve worked particularly hard to buy only a moderate number of presents and to aim for quality over cheap tat.

However, this Christmas will also be not-quite-normal as we all fight illness. Tom has a stomach bug which has resulted in vomiting and diarrhoea, although he has remained remarkably cheerful in spite of it all. I took him to the out-of-hours clinic last night for a little medical reassurance (“plenty fluids, a little Calpol, lay off rich food – call back if anything changes”) and he sat on my knee smiling broadly at the doctor (but then he is a bit of a flirt, so I shouldn’t be surprised). Hels has sinusitis, which is causing her to be nauseous and dizzy as well as taking all the flavour and fun out of food. She spent much of today in bed and seems a little better this evening. As for me, I’m pretty tired out by caring for them both and tonight I feel a little flaky – I’m hoping that is a symptom of fatigue and not a harbinger of Tom’s tummy bug (having been around unpleasant nappies for the last two days, nothing would surprise me).

But the presents are wrapped (I’m just tying ribbon on the last few), the cards are delivered (save for three to be dropped through neighbours’ doors in a moment) and the fire is burning (although we can’t get near it for cats). I’m just about to break open the Bristol Cream and Hels is browsing the TV guide. Tomorrow we begin the round of parental visits with my parents, followed by my in-laws on Boxing Day.

All we need now is a holiday. Merry Christmas.

UPDATE: I was struck down on the evening of Christmas Day by Norwalk virus – look it up if you want to know the symptoms, but I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say that I’m a few pounds lighter now. Tom is better but Hels is still not well.
And, as if anticipating my holiday sentiment, my brother and his fiancée gave us a bunch of hotel vouchers so that we can take a break.

Lately, we seem to just go from one car-inspired crisis to another. We’ve had a situation where my car was off the road and we had to rely on Hels’s car. Then mine was fixed, only for Hels’s car to be off the road so that we had to rely on mine. Now hers is fixed – and I’ve just gone out to drive mine and found a new problem which means that it has to sit on the drive until it can be fixed.

If the financial fairy is reading this, a large cash grant would be handy at the moment.

Today is our wedding anniversary. We have celebrated by taking Tom to  a children’s farm, having tea and cake in a tearoom and collecting some sweet chestnuts (something that we did on the slopes of Mount Etna during our honeymoon). Tonight we’re going out for dinner.

Low key, but just right.

Three years ago today, I saw a very beautiful, tall, blonde woman for the first time. She was wearing black leather boots with killer heels, which she’d bought just for the occasion. The fact that she could barely walk in them was neither here nor there.

We’d celebrate this anniversary, if only we both didn’t have filthy colds. Bah! Still, we have our wedding anniversary next week, so hopefully we will recover by then.

This week has included:

• learning that a friend and client is very unwell
• literally dozens of phone conversations with two different sets of lawyers and two different sets of surveyors
• realising that I’ve cocked up my plan to go to a trade show in Poland (note to self: VIII means August, not September – d’oh!)
• dropping a client because he is really not on my wavelength and I can’t be bothered to struggle for what would be a potentially small reward
• getting a very long document from the Borough Council
• not getting a whole bunch of things sorted out that I planned to do this week
• cleaning up purple projectile vomit after Tom had blackberries for tea (he’s fine now, but I’ve got to redecorate a wall)
• having to clean the cat litter tray every day after one or other of them decided that the garden was too cold and wet to use now that the weather has turned.

And that is just what I’ve had to do – Hels has had just as much. 

But there are positive things too:

• Sussex beat Durham in the cricket
• it rained (very good news in this part of the world)
• we caught up with some people in the pub
• it’s Friday
• we’re going on holiday soon
• Tom “pulled” a waitress in the place we went to today for lunch (very funny – you had to be there)

So it’s not all bad. It just feels that way.

Let’s make a list:

• broken router
• broken down car
• tenant in H’s flat has served notice to leave – we’re advised to expect two months without rental income
• car still faulty
• two hours on hold to BT
• uncomfortably hot
• one of my customers is misbehaving and it could, potentially, end in litigation
• mother-in-law melted some of Tom’s bottles (don’t ask)

And it’s only Wednesday.

This morning, I think I became truly middle class. I achieved this by putting Tom in his seat in the back of my car and driving the mile-and-a-half to his childminder’s house (I have considered pushing Tom in his buggy, but it’s a very dangerous lane). There were two other parents there dropping off their children and, on the way home, I had to fight my way through the congestion around Ruralville school where dozens of parents were delivering offspring.

Tom, like the rest of us, is struggling with the current heatwave. We reached 36 Celsius yesterday here and the poor lad was wilting a bit. He sleeps in the afternoon more than usual and then is awake in the evening when he would normally be in bed. So life is all a bit upside down.

Today the temperature is a little lower, but the humidity is up so it is no less comfortable. I’ve struggling to keep going, my PC fan is going mad and the cats can barely drag themselves around. Typical English – never satisfied by the weather.

For once, this isn’t a post making lame excuses for the lack of new content on this site. Instead, I’m remarking on the fact that it’s a bit quiet at home today, even though Tom is here, my mum is here and the two cats are around somewhere (although trying desperately to find somewhere shady and cool, much like the rest of us).

The reason it is quiet is that Hels has gone back to work today for the first time in seven months. To say that she was not looking forward to it is an understatement – the thought of having to deal with daily stresses, irritating people and a stifling office environment are not the things that encourage someone to be enthusiastic. Added to that, H feels guilty at leaving Tom. Tom, of course, is going to be ably cared for by a combination of grandparents, childminder and me, so he’ll be fine. Furthermore, H is caring for him in a way by going out and earning the money we need to keep home and family together. So I’ve suggested that she shouldn’t feel guilty or even worried, but I guess it’s a natural reaction.

Meanwhile, I’ve had my mum for company today and she and Tom have taken a nap this afternoon on the lawn in some shade. She’s ably dealt with trying to get Tom to eat food he doesn’t really like, drink water that he doesn’t really want (I’m concerned about fluid intake in this heat) and is currently poaching some chicken for his tea this evening.

But it’s not the same as having Hels here every day. Anyone want to make a cash donation so we don’t have to work and can just enjoy Tom together?

I’ve really been neglecting you readers lately, haven’t I? Umm, well, sorry. But hey, I’ve been somewhat busy lately:

• Last weekend: up to Stafford with Tom to spend the weekend with Jo and Bob. Excellent time had by all.
• Last weekend and this week: much concern about SiL, who has been really quite unwell. But she seems to be making a steady recovery, which is good.
• Tuesday: an all-day meeting with my New Zealand sub-agent, who is in the country at the moment.
• Wednesday: a day out with H to the Chelsea Flower Show. We dressed in our finest summer clothes and were subjected to repeated heavy showers, with the result that we looked like a pair of muddy drowned rats. But it was worth it. Not sure that it is worth paying £35 a head to get in, though, particularly when you have to sit on the floor to eat your sandwiches and drink your tea because the catering facilities are so inadequate. They were absolutely awful when I last went ten years ago and have only improved marginally.
• Thursday: catching up in the office.
• Friday: to Chichester for a haircut and to distribute publicity materials for my event coming up at West Dean at the end of June.
• Saturday: Charlie and the Peet came for lunch – a thoroughly relaxing and wine-filled event.
• yesterday: up early to go to Heathrow to meet some American colleagues of their plane, collect plants, deliver them to a nursery near my parents and then join my parents for Sunday lunch and some plant talk.
• today: dozy sleeping and much talk of "we really should go for a walk" and "the lawn needs mowing" or "I really must start on the front garden", but it’s chucking down with rain (between burst of intense hot sunshine) – that’s my excuse, anyway.

There are many, many things that I really should find time to write about, but I’m not sure when that will happen. If you’re very lucky, I’ll provide you with some photos, as a picture is worth a thousand words (or several thousand, if your usualy verbage is as poor as that which generally graces these pages).

Quick post:

• thanks to Charlie and The Peet for my excellent Neotropic CD.
• thanks also to the Uborka Two for Winter Chill 2.
• thanks to family for gifts of cash, clothing and olive oil – all appreciated.
• thanks to Hels for Gnarls Barkley, clothing and cake.
• spent Friday at Wakehurst Place – thoroughly enjoyable another opportunity to put the buggy through its paces (it passed with flying colours).
• Friday evening involved a fantastic meal out – if anyone needs a recommendation for a fabulous meal in East Sussex, drop me a line.
• Saturday was spent gardening, painting and erecting trellis for the most part.
• Sunday was spent at Pashley Manor Gardens for the Plant Fair – not one of the best that I’ve had there, but I think some lessons were learned that will lead to changes before August.

As of today, closer to 40 than 30.

Send money. Or beer.

It will be my birthday on Friday. It says so when you click here, so it must be true.

• get up early
• study BBC online weather forecast – observe white fluffy cloud symbol and yellow sun symbol and assume the day is set fair
• saw logs so as to make them more woodpile-friendly
• create new border in the garden
• go to nearby farm to purchase a sack of well rotted cow poo for said border for one of your fine English pounds
• apply poo to new border
• get changed from poo-ey clothes
• welcome brother-in-law to house
• drive to extremely nice nearby public house
• park car
• strap small child to chest in slightly bizarre harness device
• walk in opposite direction to public house wiuth a view to making a large circuit, returning to said public house with hearty appetite for fine ales
• observe rapidly deteriorating weather conditions
• wade through mud, fight brambles, attempt to pacify child – all in steady rain and a cool breeze – whilst cheerfully reassuring one another that the weather "will blow over in a minute and surely improve"
• reach a farm with a large barn
• take shelter in said barn
• change child’s nappy and then eat sandwiches whilst heavy rain continues, whilst regretting not bringing any sort of waterproof clothing for anyone other than small child – the same small child who, whilst being only 12 weeks old, has already developed the ability to laugh and point at his soaking wet father from within the warmth and dryness of his red waterproof
• decide that the rain is not going to stop
• run back through the mud and rain to the car, leaving brother-in-law, wife and child in barn
• drive back to collect rest of party and then home, to glorious sunshine
• head to the pub next door for a pint or two
• return home, eat pie
• search for hotel for stay in Budapest – realise that no hotel there has been renovated since 1967. Decide to seek advice from the only person I know with much experience of the Hungarian capital.
• read the best post in ages on Parallax View – end the day contented

As we go along with parenthood, we’re slowly discovering more and more things that you are either not told about beforehand or are glossed over. So, in order to forewarn a few other prospective parents, here are a few that we’ve found out:

• sleep deprivation. OK, so everyone jokes about the fact that when the baby comes, you won’t get much sleep. It’s always mentioned and, as soon as it is, everyone sits back in their chair and laughs. Heartily. But it really is no laughing matter and the severity and impact of sleep deprivation is not to be underestimated. Sleep deprivation has so many knock-on effects. It makes you short tempered and irritable, generally lacking in patience. For a breast feeding mother, sleep deprivation makes what can be a difficult and tiring task doubly so. And for a father, it makes your workspace seem like a terribly attractive place to take a nap (if only I could afford the time to do that – I’m working 9 or 10 hour days at my desk, plus taking the laptop into the house in the evening to do a little more). How anyone who already has children copes with this, I really don’t know.
• looking after an ill baby is even less fun. Tom has a cold. As a consequence, he is finding breathing difficult, particularly when feeding. He also has problems with catarrh so that he is coughing quite a bit as he clears his chest and isn’t sleeping terribly well. As parents, it is difficult at first to understand what the problem is – your child can’t talk and say “Mum, I’ve got a cold” or “Dad, I’m all blocked up”. When the baby starts to cry, you work through a mental checklist (hungry? dirty nappy? too hot? too cold? cholic? needing a hug? ummm – now what?) but when you get to the end of the list, you are left flicking through books or wondering if you should call up the GP. Fortunately, the onset of this illness coincided fairly well with a scheduled visit from the health visitor, and she decided fairly quickly that Tom was suffering from nothing more serious than a cold. A check-up with the GP confirmed this (the GP was actually very pleased with his progress and seemed to spend most of the consultation comparing Tom to actors and dead politicians). But it does nothing for the stress levels.
• mastitis hurts. And compounds all of the above problems. There is a lot more to it than that, but I’m not sure that Hels would appreciate me discussing that here!
• nappies aren’t made for bottoms. First nappies are quickly out-grown. Yet the next size up seems huge by comparison, so much so that I have little confidence that the nappy won’t leak because it doesn’t make a good dry seal around Tom’s legs. We’ve already had a couple of unpleasant leakage experiences. Not nice.

But in spite of all of the difficulties, when he’s laying on his playmat and follows you with his eyes as you walk around the room, perhaps even throwing the odd smile or gurgled giggle in for good measure, you can’t help but think that it’s all worth it.

Being a parent is an utterly exhausting experience. Long nights of fitful sleep with an ear cocked for gurgles, snuffles, whimpers and the occasional outright cry. Disgusting nappies and fountains of pee add to the experience. But the rewards are fantastic. Tom is already fixing his gaze on our faces when we hold him and displaying a definite sparkle in his eyes. Starting as we mean to go on, and following a tip from our midwife, we’ve succeeded in teaching young Tom to stick his tongue out at people. Next is the challenge of teaching him to blow raspberries. From there, it’ll be a short step to having him swear like a trooper.

I know that one or two regular readers are either expecting a child or considering parenthood, so here are a few handy tips from our experience:

• You will get more advice than you can handle. It will come from family and friends; from books and health professionals; even from total strangers. Most of it will be contradictory. Much of it will be totally useless. Nearly all of it should be ignored. Everyone is being genuinely caring and trying to be helpful – I do appreciate those sentiments. But after a while, you will be totally overwhelmed and wish that it would stop. With this in mind, I’ll try to keep the rest of this post concise and truly useful.
• Don’t waste too much time and money on books. We had a good pile of books about pregnancy which were obtained at not inconsiderable expense. Most are still unread, even though the pregnancy is now complete. The most useful book that we had is the free one given out by the NHS – it has got all the essential information presented in an unvarnished style. It answered most of the questions that we had.
• Ante-natal classes are well worth attending. We tried to get on to the NCT classes, but these do involve a not insubstantial fee – as it was, they could only fit us on a course that started 14 days before the due date. If Tom had come early, they would have been useless. They also tend to have components related to breathing (I practice every day, so I’m quite proficient) and vocalizing your pain (a.k.a.: screaming). Instead, we went to the classes held by the NHS at the hospital where Tom was born. These were run by the midwife team there, were informal (and irreverent), free and, like the NHS book, told us what we needed to know in a concise and unvarnished manner, including a tour of the facilities (knowing your way around is vital). The NCT classes are reputed to have a social element which we found was also present in the NHS classes – we’ve made friends with a couple who had a son two weeks before Tom, with whom we can now share experiences and, more usefully, a pint.
• Birth plans are useless. Mostly. Most books will advise you to make a birth plan. We had a plan that extended to a whole sheet of A4. When it came to the crunch, everything on the plan went out the window – the only thing that actually came to pass was that I was present at the birth. However, making a birth plan does serve the purpose of forcing you to research all the things that might happen and understand what the choices are and what they might mean. That knowledge was very useful on the day, at least for me, as I was able to guide Hels through the process and choices as we went (she was a little distracted to be able to think consecutively – I can’t imagine why).
• Mothers – do not expect to have a shred of dignity remaining after more than 5 minutes in hospital. Any air of mystery that you have tried to maintain around your partner will also disappear. Let’s face it, you’re going to be in agony, shouting and screaming, with all your bits on display. Get used to the idea – once you do, you’ll relax a bit more. And you’ll need your sense of humour.
• Fathers – be warned that midwives will size you up in seconds. I had what can only be described as a very hands-on role in the delivery of my son, acting as the midwife’s assistant throughout the entire process. This did mean rolling my sleeves up and getting my hands dirty. It was only afterwards that we learned that, when you arrive in the delivery suite with your partner, the midwife will use her experience to quickly get a measure of you. If she thinks that you are the type who is going to sit in the corner and pass out at the sight of blood, then you will be given a seat and a corner and left to it. If, on the other hand, you come across as being made of stronger stuff, then you’d better be ready for some hard work. If you can, try to get the latter result (if you think you have the stomach for it) – helping our midwife deliver Tom is going to be an experience that will be with me for the rest of my days. It also means that you are too busy to pass out!
• Be prepared to be very, very scared. When we got to the end of labour, one or two things started to go a little awry. Tom was born at 5.18pm, with the midwife cutting the cord and then turning to her assistant (the official one, that is, who was present only for the final few minutes) and saying “Theatre! Now!”. Tom disappeared through the doors and was gone and we were left wondering what the hell was going on and if our child was alive or what. As it turned out, Tom was not breathing and needed to go to theatre (the next room) to be given a bit of a kick start in that department. A minute later, the nurse came back and held the door of the delivery room open so that we could hear him crying. I don’t think I’ve ever be so relieved in all my life.
• Post-natal wards are the noisiest places on Earth. You think your local bypass is noisy? Or that nearby building site? That’s got nothing on the post-natal ward. Twenty mums, twenty newborns, twenty partners, perhaps twelve staff. You will not find a quiet corner. Mums should not expect to get much sleep.
• Keep the number of visitors to an absolute minimum. Everyone will want to see you and your baby. Both parents will be utterly exhausted and will want the baby to sleep whenever he/she can as it gives them a chance for a little shut-eye. Even your parents can be told to hold-off visiting for a while. The only person you will welcome into your home will be the community midwife.
• You will end up with three pushchairs. Fact. Get used to it.
• You will go around grinning like a loon. Assuming you’re not fast asleep at the time. And your child will be the most beautiful baby in the world. You will turn into a baby bore. It’s fantastic, though you may seriously consider whether you would ever wish to put yourselves through it for a second time.

For the first time since 1986 (I think – understandably, my memory is a little hazy in this regard), I didn’t go out for New Year’s Eve. Although we had tickets for the cheesey disco at The Pub Next Door, Hels and I are full of a particularly unpleasant cold, so we decided to stay in and in fact retired at 9.30 – ridiculously early. Having said that, I do feel better this morning, so perhaps an early night paid off.

Today we have spent the morning tidying the house in preparation for the arrival of the parents for NYD lunch – a suitably low key way to spend the day.

Of course, you’ll all be expecting a review of the year. Well, here it is:

• trip to Essen
• trip to Angers and Honfleur
• stuff you don’t need to know about
• announcement of the result of the stuff that you don’t need to know about
• trip to Maastricht and Bruges
• trip to Devon
• three other trips to the Netherlands
• other not very exciting stuff

In general, 2005 has been a year of consolidation and was always going to struggle to live up to the excitement of 2004 – but there has been excitement enough for us. Both home life and work life have been successfully consolidated, although we’d like to have more money coming in in both areas. And, thankfully, 2005 has generally not featured much in the way of bad news, certainly not anything that I’m still dwelling on now.

As for 2006, clearly there is one event that is going to dwarf all else. Becoming parents is going to change our lives in ways that we probably have yet to even imagine. I think we are reasonably prepared for what is coming – certainly from a practical point of view, we have pretty much everything under control (all saving the final touches to the nursery).

As for resolutions, I’m not a huge fan of making promises that I know I probably won’t live up to, but here goes anyway:

• finish the garden. This is a major project that could take weeks or months, involving relocating our car parking area and moving large quantities of soil by shovel and wheelbarrow – but it will radically improve the look of our house.
• get some learning done. Not sure what yet – something towards my MCIM or Chartered Marketer status would be good. Perhaps some language learning. I’ve even been thinking about learning shorthand.
• really get on top of business. There have been moments this year where my business has led me and I’ve not been leading the business – clearly that must change, although I think I’m ending the year in a much better position to that which I started it in.
• to update grayblog more regularly, probably with more photos. And hopefully not just of the cats or the baby.
• to take more exercise and lose a little weight. We eat healthily in terms of what we eat, but fall down on how much we eat. Which in itself is not a problem, but when coupled with my increasingly sedentary lifestyle has resulted in a noticeable bulge. This year, the bulge will go and probably by means of increased activity. Doing the garden will help that.

Crumbs. That’s enough for one year!

Anyway, happy new year to all of you who come here regularly and particularly to those who are good enough to comment. Blogging remains good fun, both writing and reading, so I fully expect to still be here in another twelve months. I might even fix the archives!

Meanwhile, go and check out the good news at Uborka.

Last year, my Israeli clients all seemed to make a point of sending me emails on Christmas day, as if to say "Ha! Makes no difference to us!". It’s not a tradition that I wish to see encouraged.
So, having put together our quiz for the family for tomorrow (goodness knows why we have to do this sort of thing – I’d rather eat loads of food and then sit around being bloated than have to entertain people), wrapped all the presents (there were lots – and I only had to do the ones that I’m giving to H, as she has taken care of gifts for everyone else – delegation is the name of the game), stocked up the food and fuel stockpiles in case of unexpected snowdrifts (60% chance of snow on Monday and Tuesday could render Ruralville isolated if the gritters don’t make it out to us on Bank Holidays), we’re now fully prepared for whatever the next few days throws at us.
Expect quiet here for the next few days (though you probably won’t notice much difference from normal) except for automated posting of the quiz here tomorrow (can’t do it today in case the in-laws read it). Whatever you’re celebrating, I hope you have a good time.

…to my brother and his girlfriend fiancée Tracy, who have announced their engagement. Hurrah! Apparently Tim proposed whilst sitting in a Ford Fiesta – all class.
Apparently, I need to get my best man speech-writing skills up to date.

Yay! Travel blogging! This time aboard the Stena Discovery, the world’s largest high speed ferry. Today it is notable for being the largest nearly empty high speed ferry, carrying probably not more than forty cars.
I’ve forked out the not unreasonable sum of £11 each way to use the business lounge facilities, with magazines, endless free tea and coffee, extremely comfy seats, power points for laptops (Dutch-style sockets, power adaptor fans!) and, best of all, no children. I’m not sure that I should say that last bit, what with becoming a dad in a few short weeks, but when travelling for work, I like a bit of peace and quiet. Of course, once I’m travelling en famille, then things will be different, I’m sure, and I’ll be frequenting the brightly-coloured kiddies’ area of the ship. One thing that they could do to improve things is to offer WiFi in the lounge – having use of my laptop is great, but having no access to the wacky world wide webnet is a major drawback when so much of my business is conducted by email.
The purpose of this journey is a whistle-stop tour of Dutch clients, existing and potential, just to touch base before I disappear from the scene for a while during the last few weeks of the pregnancy and during my paternity leave. I’m entitled to take two weeks paternity leave and the government gives my company £105 per week towards my pay for those two weeks. As usual with this sort of thing, there is quite a lot of paperwork to complete. Sometime in the next ten days, I must serve a notice on myself notifying myself that I intend to take paternity leave and ensuring that I know that I must pay myself for that time. Then I must tell the Revenue that I’ve served that notice on myself so that they know that I’m going to pay myself for paternity leave and claim that money back against taxes that I’ve deducted from myself. But if the company can get £210 free cash, I don’t mind taking twenty minutes out to fill a few forms.
Woo! Yay! Free snacks! A nice young man has just brought a tray of crudités along with a voucher for a free drink in the restaurant – clearly a sprat to catch a mackerel, but all good stuff for my cunning money-saving plan to survive the trip without actually paying for any nourishment (free drinks, free fruits, free nibbles so far – it’s all going to plan). Oooh! Internet At Sea – wi-fi, hurrah! But boo! It doesn’t work due to "technical problems".
(And before anyone says, I know that these things aren’t free – I’ve paid £11 each way for them – but they are "free at the point of delivery" as HMG would say).
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the Netherlands – this trip will involve visits to places in order of increasing difficulty to spell, starting with Lisse, Hillegom, Hazerswoude Dorp and finishing with ‘s-Hertogenbosch – a place so difficult to spell and say (remember that the Dutch add phlegm to everything) that even the locals shorten it to simply Den Bosch. My business is coming up on its third birthday (February 12th, birthday cake fans!) and in that time I’ve got a much better handle on the whole European market, particularly the notoriously difficult Dutch section – having done my corporate Christmas cards this weekend, I know that I’ve sent more cards to the Netherlands than any other overseas destination.
Occasionally, one of you asks how things are progressing with the business (although it is very occasional these days – feedback has definitely fallen off, as have overall readership numbers, since my posting habits became more sporadic). I’m definitely working much harder these days (hence the lack of time for slacking blogging) although the money is far from flooding in. The problem with working as a plant breeders’ agent is that, if a breeder comes to me with a new plant today, it might be three to five years before I (and the breeder) earn any money from it. Consequently, some of the very first varieties that I started working with are now beginning to bear fruit – one in particular is really beginning to take off worldwide, and will probably become the most popular variety of its type (and credit for that goes to the breeder, not to me – I just facilitate, but I can facilitate as much as I like and not get anywhere if the variety isn’t up to much). But the revenue streams from these varieties are not enough yet to really turn the tide – they do, however, hold out promise that things are improving. If only the general economic situation and market conditions were better – that would definitely help.
But don’t panic. I’m not about to disappear without financial trace just yet.
I’m just seeing what all the fuss is about with this here ferry – for the last 50 minutes, we’ve been trundling along at fairly sedate standard ferry speed. We’ve now got out into open water and they’ve just opened up the throttles on the gas turbines. Now we’re motoring! When the ferry left Harwich, the lifeboat was sailing out of the harbour – we’ve just overtaken it, going considerably faster. Mind you, there’s a massive wake and I wonder how envirnmentally friendly this all is. H and I have been looking at our carbon quotas – we’re almost certainly polluting more than we should, the product of not being very good at turning electrical equipment off (instead of to standby), taking far too many short-haul flights, living in a rural area so using our cars constantly, having fairly inadequate insulation on our home and so on – and so I’m a little more conscious of this sort of thing. Whilst my crossing of the North Sea today probably produces lest carbon emissions than flying, the fact I had to drive for two and half hours to get to the ferry probably negates a lot of the benefit (not train connection could get me to Harwich in time for the sailing, besides I need the car in the Netherlands). As with all things, there is no simple answer.
Actually, the thought that occurs to me is that you could wipe the floor with the discount airlines on this route by using ekranoplans – both fast (as fast as an airliner) and environmentally friendly (or at least less damaging than aircraft). Now that would be fun!
We’re now approaching Hoek van Holland – there are dozens of ships at anchor as we approach the port. I’ve taken a picture of the view along the wake which I’ll add later. A stroll around the ship reveals bored passengers with glazed stares before TV screens blaring classic Eric and Ernie, children parked behind screens showing Tom and Jerry (a few seconds confirms the episode as Ol’ Rocking Chair Tom – yes, I’m a 40s cartoon anorak).
Time to power down and see what bits of the Netherlands are open during Sintaklaus.

To bring you up to date, in the last seven days:

• Hels went to hospital, but everything was fine
• We started ante-natal classes – Hels now knows how to scream convincingly during labour
• We bought six pies at the farmers’ market
• The family came over and we did more work to upgrade the Global Headquarters building
• We watched Hels’s dad in a village panto (actually very funny)

…and I’ve been very busy with work and stuff, hence the continued quiet here.
Carry on.

Happy birthday to my Dad – 75 today.

I’ve just heard that my secondary school English teacher, George Rafferty, has died at the age of 75.
He was a remarkable figure and an excellent teacher. He engaged with the kids in such a way that being in his lessons was a fun experience. His spittle-strewn, Scottish-accented speech was just the thing for a class studying the Scottish play for O-level (screeching When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning and in rain? He was particularly good at Upon the heath!) and his passion for teaching was evident in every lesson. Plagued by ill-health (his pill-rattling mock death by Sarah’s desk is something that will live in my memory for years) and perhaps mis-treated by the powers-that-be at the school, he always had the interests of his students at the heart of his work – I think that the people that I went through school with are testament to his teaching abilities.
Definitely someone who I’ll remember for the whole of my life.

I went to the dentist this morning. Unlike my last appointment, I actually remembered.
This was my first visit to this dentist, a friendly chap of Middle-Eastern origin who has a stereo playing rather good Persian-type music in his surgery (I’m not an expert on these things, so please use your imagination). There was some form filling to be done (Q: Are you pregnant? Y/N) and then he poked about in my mouth with the usual implements of dentistry.
"Hmmm. Very good!"
Encouraging, thought I. I’m proud of my teeth – no fillings have gone into my mouth other than those that go into pies. (Speaking of which, go sign Scary’s Bring Back The Breville Pie Magic Petition).
In fact, what he meant was "Very good! I see a way to extract money from your wallet!"
About eighteen months ago, I chipped one tooth from the front of each jaw. I’m not sure how I did it, probably biting on a nectarine stone or something. However it happened, my last dentist was not too bothered about it, but this one thinks differently. He says the upper incisor can be filed down to remove the rough corner, but the lower incisor needs a crown. I can either have an NHS crown, which is not of high quality, for around £95. Alternatively, I can have a really high quality crown, 90% white gold with porcelain finish, for the regal sum of £275. Ouch.
Thankfully, given the current state of family finances, he agreed that the work could be deferred for the time-being. But it looks like I’m going to have to bite the bullet at some point and have it done (maybe I caused the chip by biting a bullet previously?).
And can I confess to something? Having never had any form of "serious" dentistry going on in my mouth before, I must admit that I’m a little nervous at the prospect. Words of reassurance welcome.

I’ve been away on holiday, hence the long pause in postings. There will be photos and details in due course.
In the meantime, this site celebrated its fifth birthday last Thursday. I know I said that I was going to organise something special, but it didn’t come to pass. So have some cake instead.
Please note: I did not say that I would provide the cake. Come on, do you expect me to do everything?!

We’re all at a bit of a low ebb around here. Both H and I are pretty exhausted by work lately. Add to that the stress of the whole Boiler Incident and the parlous state of our finances and the result is that spirits are pretty low. And don’t forget the painfully slow progress on the sale of Hels’s flat, which is still dragging through interminable legal hoops.
Even the cats are brassed off as they are currently having to share the house with an intruder as we cat-sit for the in-laws – something that I always felt was a bad idea and has proven to be difficult as their cat is a foul-tempered sourpuss who will take any opportunity to threaten or clobber our two (who would quite happily ignore her if only she kept to herself).
So, any suggestions for how to lift spirits? A seriously large cash injection would definitely help right now.

A few people have noticed that things have been generally quieter than normal in these parts lately. One friend even suggested that I was coming across as distracted.
In addition, I’ve alluded to a few sleepless nights that we’ve had lately.
I even had to turn down an invitation for drinks from the Uborka Two and will be writing to the Sevitz to say that we can’t fit into his bra. Or something.
Here’s why:

Hels and I are absolutely delighted to announce that we are to be parents, with a baby due in January. When we’re not being absolutely terrified, we’re smiling like loons. Not everything has run smoothly thus far, as we’ve had a couple of scary moments in the emergency ward at the local maternity unit (where the staff are splendid, I must add). But things seem to be running relatively smoothly at the moment, with just the usual nausea, tiredness and urges to vomit. And that’s just me.
More news as things progress, and feel free to kick me under the table if I turn into a baby bore.
And before you ask, we don’t know yet if we need blue or pink baby clothes. We do intend to find out when the time comes, but we’ll be keeping it to ourselves until the baby is born (and I’ll try ever-so-hard only to refer to "it" or "the baby" and not to "he" or "she". Or "Dave".)

Hels and I have had tests this week. Apparently we are normal. This, evidently, is good news.
Make up your own jokes here.

Thirty four.

For reasons known only to the little gremlins that inhabit my skull, I’ve had Airport by The Motors on my brain all morning. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Text message from my brother:

Nope, nor me. Dad has a habit of recounting tales from his youth, including such gems as

• "When Tiddler Tom and I tried to blow up the pipe mines under the road at Spark’s Corner by throwing matches down them"
• "The slit trench I dug in the parents’ garden with only a teaspoon" (or was it a toothpick?)
• "The day they tied the apprentices’ bikes to the gas holder at Argyle Road" (my personal favourite)
• "The day that I was chased by the police through Felpham" (absolute classic – Dad was on his bike and the policeman commandeered a car in order to give chase – bear in mind that this was the 1940s, so picture something from the Keystone Cops)
• etc.

It looks like we have another one for the list – I hope Tim was taking notes.
I really ought to write these tales down, perhaps publish them here, although it has to be said that half the fun of Dad’s storytelling is the sight and sound of him laughing so hard that he can barely speak, turning beetroot red, with tears running down his face. That and the fact that a two sentence story gets extended (embellished and exaggerated) so that it takes upwards of thirty minutes to relate.

Well, the good news is that I’ve completed my tax return in time and will post it today. I was getting into a bit of a pickle, but a quick call to my accountant sorted out the problem I had and put my mind at rest – that’s what I pay him for, I guess.
The bad news is that I owe the Inland Revenue some money. Bah! If I’d got my finger out and done my return earlier, I could have had it taken from my tax code and paid in small amounts through the year. Instead, I’ll have to pay it all now. That’ll teach me.
Thankfully, PFE owes me some money, so I can jiggle funds around and cover the bill.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that if you haven’t done your tax return, DROP EVERYTHING AND DO IT NOW!

Oh blimey! There are only a few hours to go, most of which will be spent in the pub next door, and I haven’t written my end of year review yet! OK, time pressures mean it’ll be bullet points:

Highlights, in roughly chronological order:
• my trip to Saumur
• birthday trip to Lisboa
• the grand tour of the low countries
• selling my flat
• finally getting to live full-time with Hels
• the grand tour of Germany
• getting married! (obviously!)
• the honeymoon in Sicily
• getting our own home in Ruralville
• kittens!

Lowlights:
• not selling Hels’s flat
• generally not having enough money or time for all the things we want to do
• ummm… that’s about it really

All in all, 2004 has been excellent. PFE continues to plod along, family are healthy and happy (mostly!) and I married the perfect girl for me. You can’t ask for much more than that really.
Happy New Year to you. Come back to the same place this time next year for another exciting annual review!

I’m sitting in our conservatory, happily blogging in a wireless stylee. I’ve not tested it yet, but I reckon I’ll be able to log into my wireless LAN in the pub. Then I’ll be really happy.
Life is gradually settling down in Graybo Towers. We’ve repainted the lounge, stairway and both bedrooms. The house has been furnished cheaply but stylishly. The new sexy sofas have been ordered and will be delivered in the new year. We’ve got countless jobs still to do on our new home, but we’re getting there. We are both very tired, but we’ve been helped a lot by our family, and we finally managed to relax in our new home this evening – meatballs in tomato sauce, a bottle of Vinho Verde from our trip earlier this year to Lisboa and some lovely music – all by candlelight on our new table. All this coupled with waking up this morning to the view of the horses in the field across the road as well as the peace and solitude of our rural retreat. It feels like our home.

…to Tim. [cough hack wheeze]ty three today.

..what happened this weekend, I couldn’t possibly tell you. Alcohol was not involved. Oh no. Ahem.

It’s my half birthday today – six months from May 12th, six months to May 12th. Send all your half birthday cards to the usual address.
Which means I missed out on my thirty-three-and-a-thirdth birthday. Bah!

Having just received a letter from Chichester District Council telling me that they owe me a council tax rebate of nearly £200, I thought I’d treat my gorgeous wife to a light lunch in order to cheer her up, then would explore the bookshop for some new reading matter. Purchased in a 3 for 2 deal:
Francis Wheen – How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World. "Hilarious" says Jeremy Paxman!
Tobias Jones – The Dark Heart Of Italy. "Excellent" says Andrew Marr!
Noam Chomsky – Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. "Devastating" says Tim Adams!
I’ll try to report back on the levels of hilarity, excellence and devastation in each case. And I really must update that current reading, current listening and current mood thing in the sidebar, as it’s not-at-all current.

UPDATE: sidebar updated.

…for both of us for different reasons. For me, a trip to the New Forest to see two clients, then back via Chichester for a haircut, then home for vin avec Lu et Kev. For H, coworkers – nuff said.

Forgot to say that Hels and I signed and exchanged all the papers and paid over a hefty sum of money on Monday for the new house. We will get the keys on the 26th. We’re immensely relieved that we are on the home straight now with the house purchase. If only we could make progress with the sale of Hels’s flat…

…to my sister-in-law. 23 today (cof!).

This the only photo in which I’m not grinning like an idiot.
More when we get home from the honeymoon.

And thank you for all your lovely messages.

Can I confess to being a bit nervous?

Today is my last day officially working. Tomorrow will be spent running around with cases of wine and wedding cake, and Friday is supposed to be a day for relaxation before the mayhem of Saturday. So, I’m working to tie up a few loose ends and put PFE to bed until I get back from the honeymoon.

I’m finding concentration very difficult indeed.

Not long now.
The weekend was spent settling in. Not that it is really that strange to be here – I’ve lived here for half the time for a quite a while now, but now there is nowhere else to go back to.
On Saturday, we had the wedding rehearsal. I can’t say that either of us remember very much about it – where we are supposed to stand, when to sit down, when to kneel – but we did learn that we can’t expect much from either the chief bridesmaid or the best man – both are likely to dissolve into tears on the day. Great. What hope is there for us? At least we are confident that Reverend Sue will guide us through the whole thing with a sense of humour.
Yesterday, a little safer in the knowledge that it will be our home by the end of November, Hels and I went down to the village where we shall be moving to, went for a quick drink in the local and then for a short walk across the nearby fields. We sussed out a lovely circular walk that will be ideal for exercising the legs of visitors after a heavy meal, or building an appetite in advance of one. It’s a beautiful spot, with gently rolling hills, lots of woodland and the odd bovine spectator.

I finished packing and dumping the stuff at the parents’ house very late last night. It would have been later still without the huge help of Tim.
A few minutes ago, I went round to check my mail for the last time and then went to the estate agent and handed over the keys.

So, that’s it. I’m homeless.

Thankfully, a very nice lady in Tunbridge Wells has agreed to put me up.

Things are looking up – we now seem to have satisfactory paperwork so that any subsequent sale of Hels’s flat shouldn’t fall at the same hurdle that this last one did (although I’m convinced that the buyer simply changed his mind and used petty reasons as an excuse to weedle out of it). In addition, we’ve confirmed exchange on my flat for Monday with completion by the end of the week.
So we feel a little more positive today.
UPDATE: evidently the paperwork isn’t good enough. Bah. But we’re working on it, and feel confident we can get paperwork that will staisfy everyone by the middle of next week.

In a totally unexpected development, Hels’s buyer withdrew yesterday. We spent the day being extraordinarily stressed and trying to salvage the purchase of our new home. I think we can achieve the latter, although it will be expensive. Our solicitor continues to be splendid, although she too was pulling her hair out over the whole thing.
We’ve had easier days. And with only just over two weeks to the wedding, the timing could have been better.

Hels and I have, jointly and independently, been on the receiving end of some moaning and complaining lately, as well as not a little pressure. This pressure concerns people who have not been invited to our wedding or to the stag and hen events.
Firstly, to deal with the stag and hen events. These events were both only ever intended to be low-key events for closest friends – an opportunity to get together for some food and drink, followed by some silly dancing in a cheesy club (both the hen and the stag are following a similar formula). We never wanted to have a huge event with gazillions of alcohol-fuelled people, some of which we don’t know well. I’m happy that what we’ve got planned will be just right, not just a riot.
In the case of the wedding, the event is already considerably bigger than we had originally planned. We will have over one hundred guests in attendance, far more than we would really like. Besides, we are picking up a large chunk of the bill ourselves, and our resources are limited – the budget currently exceeds the original estimate by more than thirty percent. So we have had to draw the line, which means that some friends and not a few family members will not be in attendance.
Please don’t think that we do not want these people to be there. It has just got to the stage where it is as much as we can cope with. We are both tired and run down with the planning for the wedding, combined with the house moving and everything else (such as the other everyday things we have to do, like holding down busy and sometimes stressful jobs) – this is something that we almost resent, as this should be the happiest time of our lives (though we are more happy than you could possibly imagine, trust me!).
But please accept that it is our wedding. Our day. And we would like it to be something along the lines that we would like. We think we’re achieving that (thanks to help and support from many people), and we’re both looking forward to it.

A few weeks ago, I went with Hels to our local private hospital so that she could have a brain scan. She had been referred for the scan as she has a hearing problem, and the doctor wanted to check that there was nothing untoward going on inside her skull. Yesterday, we went back to get the results.
The interesting part is that you get to look at a big sheet of acetate showing about three dozen "slices" through the head, a bit like looking at slices through an enormous ham. Each slice is a fraction of a millimetre thick, and each sheet of acetate shows the ham being sliced at a different angle. It provides a unique opportunity to look at something you would never otherwise see – the inside of your own head (or, for me, the inside of my fiancée’s head). It is something that you can not reach with any of your senses, yet it is there and has been carried around by Hels for all her life.
The most shocking thing to discover, though, was that in spite of Hels agreeing to marry me, her brain is "normal".

Today, I’m spending rather a lot of my day on trains. Tunbridge Wells to Charing Cross; Charing Cross to Euston; Euston to Birmingham International – and then the same journey in reverse. The purpose of my trip is to visit GLEE, a huge trade show for the garden and leisure industries, held at the NEC. Ironically, after what has generally been a difficult season in horticulture as a result of bad weather, a weak economy and chronic overproduction in some sectors, I suspect that the last thing that most participants will be is gleeful.

So, in order to look like I’m working on the train, and to provide some light relief in the absence of my paperback (left at home in order to conserve weight in my bag), today I’ll be providing one of those fascinating "blogging-whilst-travelling" posts that I know you love. And there’ll be trouble if anyone attempts to steal my format.

Observations – some people really could use plastic surgery. There is a woman sitting opposite me with the most grotesque nose. I have to say that it isn’t helped by the sour expression on her face, as she has clearly got onto the train in a bad mood, but even so, a nose job wouldn’t do any harm. Also opposite me is another woman who really needs to eat some pies. When will young women learn that having the physique of a broom handle is about as attractive as a …errmmm.. broom handle?

Wow – lovely huge drifts of Michaelmas Daisies growing on the railway embankment between Orpington and Chislehurst – great soft clouds of mauve.

Anyway – a weekend catch-up. I spent Saturday doing not much at all, taking the opportunity whilst Hels visited friends to have an extended kip on the sofa, having ploughed my way through a thick wad of paperwork sent to us by our solicitor. I also drifted by the bookstore to get some new paperbacks (I must update the current reading and current listening entries in the sidebar). In the evening, feeling in need of a moderate level of adventure, we headed out to Masala, a reasonably new Indian restaurant in the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. It certainly wins out over our usual preferred home of curry, the Kirthon, in terms of atmosphere – the Masala seems more lively and trendy than the Kirthon, and just a little more refined. But whilst the food was generally good, and the naan was the best we’ve ever eaten, the menu was generally lacklustre and staid. The Kirthon definitely offers a far more adventurous (and possibly authentic, although I’m no expert) selection of dishes, and their rice and sauces are of far higher quality. So, we know where we’ll be going in future.

Yesterday (Sunday), we met up with my family to go around the house that we are purchasing, enjoying a mug of tea with the couple that are selling to us. It was only the second time that we had viewed it, but it confirmed our initial feelings that it is exactly the right home for us, and that was endorsed by the family. The views are still great, the road is still very quiet and the pub is still just over the back fence. We took the opportunity to walk around the village, surveying the village hall, tiny post office (open two afternoons each week only), beautiful church with Italianate ceiling (no, really!) and, most importantly, the pub. Ticks against every item.

OK – I need to conserve laptop battery as I might need this thing at GLEE.

[later...]
Hurrah for Virgin Trains with sockets under the tables. Pity the northbound train was old stock, pre-laptop.

Well, the big news is that my first hour at GLEE was filled with phone calls to and from our solicitor and the mortgage people. Our mortgage has been approved, subject to a favourable valuation survey. We’ve also been told that we don’t need the bells and whistles survey unless the basic survey shows any cause for concern. And the solicitor has ironed out a few other creases in things – it looks like everything is beginning to slot into place, although I’m holding my breath on celebrating, as there are still a few potential pitfalls yet. However, I’m pretty confdent that we won’t fall down at any of these small hurdles. I might allow myself a small port and lemon to mark the occasion.

In other news, one of my clients contacted me today with a tip-off for a potentially very exciting new breeder client for PFE in the Czech Republic. Which seems like a perfectly good excuse for a flying visit to Prague at some point. Furthermore, in spite of being able to cover the entire plant hall at the GLEE event in 2.5 hours, including coffee break and diversionary chat with Paul C at his stand in the neighbouring hall, I think I’ve picked up a small number of potential new grower clients for my charges and, more importantly, a crackingly good new breeder client in Worcestershire. Droitwich is probably not as exciting as Prague, but money is money wherever it comes from.

The bonus with finishing at GLEE early is that I’ve been able to get an earlier train, which means that I’ll be home shortly after 7 and able to relax a little this evening. The tube across London and the train from London Bridge will both, inevitably, be miserably packed, but home for dinner has to be a fair pay-off for that. And for now I can get on with some work, with an archived edition of GHC to listen to.

In general, GLEE failed totally to live up to its name. Growers there were in two camps – the "not bad considering" camp and the "sorry, we can’t hide the dismal prospects for our business as our faces are so long" camp. Thankfully, most of my clients fall into the former camp and not the latter, and tough times seem to be forcing companies to look at ways of innovating in order to differentiate their offerings from those of their competitors – which is good news for an agent representing new products such as myself. It was also good to see Paul C looking very upbeat indeed – his company had paid considerably more for the stand this year so that they could have a prime position, and it seems to be paying off, with the promise of meetings with some very large potential clients as well as substantial interest and orders from smaller customers. Paul works really hard for his business, probably much harder than I do for PFE, and it looks like he is getting the rewards he deserves.

[later still...]
Note to self – the online timetables do not always tell you the whole story. If I believed everything that I was told, I’d currently be trying to fold myself into an already-packed train at London Bridge. As it is, I’ve got a table and air at Charing Cross. No doubt it will become hellish later, but for now I can feel like a smug, hardened commuter.
Having said that, I’d hate to do this every day – the blank, staring and empty faces of so many commuters, idling in brain-neutral as they grapple with the journey home, is enough to deter anyone from this way of life – and that’s just the ones who are awake. I’m glad that my work calls only for very occasional forays into The Smoke, and more time spent in the countryside – and, soon, lots of time at our lovely new home, with fields and woods all around.

In one month from now, precisely, I will be standing in front of an altar, with palms that will most likely be very sweaty indeed.

Currently, our patience is being tested by surveyors who suggest that the house we are about to buy is going to fall into a large hole that could open up at any time. This in spite of the fact that all the houses in the street were built at least fifty years ago, and none have yet fallen into any mysteriously appearing holes. In addition, there are no nearby mineworks or quarries.
Furthermore, we may find ourselves being slowly poisoned by terrible toxic waste arising from evil landfill. This in spite of the fact that these very same houses were built on a green field site just after the Second World War, and nobody has been poisoned yet.
Our suggestion that we could bring in our own (local, knowledgeable and experienced) surveyor (and I don’t mean Dad) to provide an impartial view of the situation has had scorn poured upon it by the dear folks at the NatWest, who insist that we must only use one of their registered surveyors. My knowledge of EU competition regulation would suggest that this practice is anti-competitive and therefore illegal, but we are in no position to argue with a bunch of surveyors who are clearly only out to serve their own interests by suggesting that we have surveys done to check against things that exist only in their own imaginings. At our expense, of course. Considerable expense at that.

Later today, we are expecting a response from the NatWest to our full application for our mortgage. They’ve already said that they will give us the mortgage, based on Hels’s income, but it seems clear that they want to check my financial status to ensure that I won’t be reliant on H for financial survival. Which, of course, I am not (*cough*). What’s the betting that the financial statements that I have sent to them will not be satisfactory?

There has to be an easier (and less stressful) way.

It’s very good to be home again – these days, I find that I come to a point when travelling for work when all I want to do is go home. On this trip, that point came on Friday morning, but we still managed to fit in some useful and enjoyable work stuff, so it wasn’t all that bad. Highlights of this trip:

• dinner with friends of Mike on Sunday evening
• Mike fracturing his elbow whilst playing table tennis (not sure if that qualifies as a highlight!)
• exploring Münster, Bonn and Schwäbisch Gmünd – I particularly love the sound of this last town, which you pronounce as shway-bish ger-munnd
• doing lots of extremely good business
• lovely dinner with good friends, Jakob and Maria
• driving at 160kmh on the autobahn

Since getting home, our attention has turned to exciting mortgage paperwork, exciting bank paperwork and exciting solicitor paperwork. But we took the time yesterday to go for a walk followed by an enormous Sunday lunch, which is how things should be.

I’ve driven nearly 900 miles in the last four days – from Tunbridge Wells to Chichester and back, to Calais and back to procure the vino for the wedding reception (there is plenty and it is good, rest assured) and then to Holmes Chapel in Cheshire and back for the Four Oaks trade show. I trundled up and down the M6 Toll (waving to Brian as I went past his neck of the woods), observing that travelling at 75 or 80 mph consigns you to the slow lane, even though the limit is 70mph. If there were cameras at the same frequency as there are on the M25, the local constabulary could net thousands every day. And judging by the frequency of big rubber stripes on the tarmac, there would be justification for installing them.
I’m sure that there are lots of other utterly fascinating things I could tell you, but I can’t be bothered. But here are a few bullet-point observations:

• aren’t the streetlamps at Cité de l’Europe in Calais cool?
• I’ve had a filthy cold for the last few days. I seem to have given it to Hels.
• I love Jodrell Bank. I like the way that every time you drive past, the telescope is pointing a different direction.
• House sales and purchase seem to be progressing ok, although I’m being buried under requests for papers that I don’t possess. Thankfully, my solicitor seems to be on the case.
• If ever you are looking for a hotel in Cheshire, do not book the Saxon Cross in Sandbach. It’s crap – grubby in the extreme, with pathetic showers and mediocre service. Why do we do cheap hotels so badly in the UK compared to our continental cousins? (Not that I consider £50 PLUS extra for breakfast to be cheap!)

I’m pooped.

House viewed in the middle of nowhere.
Offer tendered.
Offer rejected.
New offer tendered.
Offer accepted.
Celebrations.

Now for the hard work. Fingers crossed, eh?

[written yesterday at the airport]

There’s something about being in airports, even the more cosmopolitan variants such as Schiphol, that makes you feel like you are suddenly a character in Rocko’s Modern Life. As I fought my way through the aisles of the shop in the departures lounge, surveying the endless rows of over-priced tat in a half-hearted and ultimately futile attempt to find a small gift for H (cow-shaped photo frame, anyone?), a clearly over-enthusiastic floor-sweeper operator patrolled across the store in an excessively frenetic and slightly crazed manner, literally sweeping all (including magazines, postcards, stray luggage and unattended children) before him. Meanwhile, a grotesquely overweight American, complete with shockingly pink navel glaring out through an opening in an over-stretched mid blue nylon shirt, ambles vacantly with an air of the lost (in every sense of the word). On the travelator, a tattooed Dutchman speaks rapidly to a girlfriend via his mobile phone whilst walking at full speed against the direction of the belt – perhaps some bizarre form of exercise for exhibitionists.
At gate D8, waiting for the flight to LGW, all one can hear is the monotonous, rapidly-repeated refrain of "Mind your step", delivered in a delicately accented female voice to travellers reaching the end of the moving walkway. A group of teenagers run for the end of the walkway, hoping to reach some sort of terminal velocity at the point where the walkway folds back under itself and they are catapulted onto the shiny tiled airport floor.

"Mr O’Toole, please report to airport information. Mr O’Toole, please report to airport information." Isn’t that one of those coded announcements, informing staff of a suspect package?

Evening sun is glowing across the aircraft on the apron as incredibly dark clouds loom over distant Amsterdam city centre. It’s been an incredibly foul day, with torrential rain, lots of standing water and slow-moving traffic on the A4. The sky promises a rough flight home. I ponder whether to go and get a copy of Wallpaper* Navigator, the new travel sub-brand of my favourite magazine that I’ve only just noticed (I tend not to browse magazine shelves at home, as the special subscriber edition of Wallpaper* is delivered to my home each month), but I feel that €10.99 is rather a lot for a magazine that costs £3.99 at home.

This has been a useful trip, with considerable amounts of knowledge gained, a few new contacts made and several old contacts refreshed. But I forget just how exhausting trade shows are to attend – an eight hour day yesterday of trudging the aisles, constant talking and vain attempts to absorb all of the information that is being presented to me; today, a 10am meeting (at least a civil hour at which to begin the day) followed by another four hours of aisle trudging, etc.

At the back of my mind are thoughts about our impending house-hunting and move. My travels here have been punctuated by several phone calls (including a very long one from the Gatwick departure lounge) to mortgage people, estate agents and Hels, all on that theme. Somehow, in spite of all the distractions around us, this weekend we must focus our attention on finding the right home in which to begin our married life – possibly the biggest decision we will make during our thirties (aside from the actual decision to marry, of course!). We have three candidate properties to view – two in need of significant refurbishment and one that has been recently refurbished but is in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere option is the most appealing to us both at the moment – the property details are encouraging, the pictures of the property are encouraging, the location is encouraging and the price is encouraging. We have two properties sold. We have mortgage agreed. The pieces may, finally, be fitting together. But celebrations will be withheld until we have the keys in our hands.

Do Japanese tourists really shout a lot and take photographs of everything, or is it a popular myth? There is a group here that is doing nothing to dispel the untruth, if that is what it is. Oh oh, I’m getting grumpy.
Oh my god. There are dozens of them! Enough to half-fill the aircraft. Gah. AND I’ve run out of Maynards’ Wine Pastilles. This flight could last a lot longer than the scheduled hour. And nothing to read besides an EC Directive, as I arrived sufficiently early to demolish the entire Indy already.

And I’m sure I passed H’s local vicar by the tat shop.

Sale agreed, with an additional £1000. Yay!

…under offer? I got an offer on Friday, which I rejected as too low. A new offer is now in, and I’m trying to decide – stick it out and risk losing it, or accept it now and risk not getting a little bit more. The new offer is just £4000 short of the current asking price, but is £2000 short of my mental reserve price.
Decisions…

UPDATE: I’m going to tough it out and see if I can get a little bit more. Fingers crossed.

No, I don’t know what that title means either.

Anyway, highlight of the day so far was receiving the Uborka Mix CD, a truly yayworthy event if ever there was one.
Lowlight of the week was reducing the flat price again. If it doesn’t sell by the end of the month, then young Dave will probably get a phone call (yes, I know I’ve said that before, but we kept hoping).
And this is bloody difficult.

… it’s too hot to concentrate properly. Actually, I’m not sure it is the heat, per se, so much as the humidity. Anyway, recent weeks in bullet points, and in no particular order:

• Charlie and Pete’s wedding at Lancing College. Was fabulous. Involved very large quantities of food and even larger quantities of alcohol – two things essential for any successful wedding.
• Neil and Emma’s wedding at a hotel near Uckfield. Still more nosh and booze, plus funky music. And a rare opportunity for the Old Howardians to have a meeting – Sarah, David, Louise and Andy were present.
• A lengthy trip to the Netherlands and Belgium with PFE-supporter Mike, involving lots of visits and meetings (about 15, I think), driving for more than 1500 miles in six days, a particularly dodgy hotel in Lochristi and an impressive journey in a gathering storm across the Markerwaarddijk.
• A much shorter trip to the Irish Republic, mainly visiting a trade show at the Punchestown Racecourse. Note to travellers – BA are now just as cheap and often cheaper than easyjet or Ryanair, with the added advantages of more comfortable seats, free coffee or tea, a sandwich and an allocated seat.
• Hels has had a hearing test. She was forced to go private, as the NHS waiting list just for a test is two years. Well done Mr Blair. Anyway, the results were not overly encouraging, and more tests are planned, including an MRI scan. H is definitely nervous about this.
• Barbeque at Charlie and Pete’s – more food, more drink, good company.
• Flat sales update: with two agents now working on mine, there is plenty of interest, but still no offers. We are now in the summer holidays, which is the worst time of year to sell a flat, but we keep trying. H’s flat is back on the market, but is not fetching huge amounts of interest at the moment. We’re resigned to not having a home together by the wedding, but we’ve managed so far, so managing for a little longer will be an irritation, not a disaster. What’s more important is that we now need to borrow money for the wedding – thankfully, the Bank of Dad is offering good terms at the moment.

I’m sure that there is much more to tell you, but it’s too hot to type much, and I don’t really have the time either. So, to keep you all happy, here are some piccies:

The Maarkermeer with storm approaching.

The Boomkwekerijmuseum – a museum dedicated to nurseries growing woody plants, in Boskoop, Netherlands.

You know Peace lilies – Spathiphyllums – that they sell in Marks and Spencer? Here they are produced on factory scale, mostly mechanised, disappearing off as far as the eye can see.

More when I get round to it/feel like it.

It comes to something when the log-in page for updating this site has nearly fallen off my "recently visited" list. Sigh.
Still, the good news is that the sale of Hels’s flat may not be completely scuppered after all. Completely scuppered with this particular purchaser, yes, but not scuppered entirely. What does seem to be scuppered, though, is any realistic hope of living together in our own home when we are married. It looks like I’ll have to cram as much of my stuff as is reasonably possible into Hels’s flat whilst still making it appear like a home that someone would want to buy, thereby allowing us to at least live together even if things are not ideal.
In other news, I’m psyching myself up for a 4am start on Thursday for my trip to Ireland. Looks like there’ll be an opportunity for some airport blogging, which I know that you all love for its increased level of rambling.
And finally, I really need a pint. Thankfully, it’s Tuesday – cue a "beer with…" post later.

Hels’s flat sale has fallen through. Again. F**king bastards.
We are at wits end.

EDIT: Before events conspired such that I wrote this entry, I was working on a piece about how Hels’s sale seemed to be going well, and that I had had a second viewing of my flat, had another second viewing imminent and had a third viewer on first viewing. The house we want(ed) to buy had still not been sold and things were, generally, looking pretty good and promising.
Now we are wondering what we are going to do. Without going in to detail, it seems that the sale of Hels’s flat is going to be problematic for the timebeing, for reasons entirely out of our control and through no fault of ours. We still need to raise some money fairly quickly, with the expense of the wedding looming very large indeed. So hopefully a purchaser for my flat will materialise very soon (and we can persuade them to buy windows from Dave).
Now we are looking at the possibility of me moving into Hels’s flat and working from there. It’s not very large, and to try and sell it whilst I’m working in it will be difficult to say the least. But there are several options available to us – we need a few days to review them all and think things over.
Meanwhile, I’ve just been and collected H from work. She wasn’t feeling very well before and, needless to say, this has drained her a lot. It’s drained me a lot too. So this afternoon will be spent trying to collect ourselves, and drinking several cups of tea.

Apologies for the continuing quiet here. I haven’t forgotten that list of things that I said I’d write about, and can now add the following:

• the house martins (not capitalized)
• going to church
• Fahrenheit 9/11
• John Lewis at Bluewater

Because I can, here’s a picture of my beautiful fiancée, browsing the menu at Charlie and Pete’s wedding on Saturday.

And, yes, we really did have four wine glasses each.

OK, let’s bring you up to date on the current property status.
Firstly, if all goes well, it seems that Hels has sold her flat. She changed agent about ten days or so ago, which resulted in a flurry of new viewings and two offers in the space of 24 hours. The second was much better than the first, and we’re working towards a completion date in mid September.
My flat, on the other hand, continues to sit in the market doldrums. I’m not convinced that there is anything wrong with the flat, nor with the price – £134,950 makes this one of the cheapest properties currently for sale in Chichester. I think part of the problem is that my agent is just too "nice" and simply not aggressive enough. There is probably a very good reason why most estate agents are irritating social outcasts – that reason being that irritating social outcasts are the best people for that particular job.
So, as of today, my flat will now be in a joint agency situation – I’ve managed to negotiate a good wheeze where both agents are charging the same commission rate as I would have paid under the old sole agency agreement. The manager of the new agent came across to me as a greasy and irritating individual, rather too sure of his own abilities, and bound to annoy anyone who has to spend more than a few minutes in his company. These, I feel, are the ideal qualities for an estate agent.
I’ve kept the price the same for now, and we shall see how the new agent progresses. If there are no developments within the next fortnight, then I’ll review things again.
Meanwhile, Hels and I went back to look at a house that I viewed some time ago. It’s a spacious three bedroom mid-terrace property, with quite a big garden, a garage and great views. We discussed it over the weekend, and I phoned the agent yesterday to register an interest and to sound out what sort of offer would be acceptable. Unfortunately, it seems that another offer is pending that is higher than the maximum that we can currently bid, although that purchaser has had their own sale fall through. Our sums were based on an ultra-realistic appraisal of the value that my flat might realise, although if we exceed that then we might be able to get in on this property again by making an offer closer to the asking price.
It’s a shame really, as it is a rather lovely house that is in good enough condition to live in it without unndertaking major works, yet still offers scope for improvements that would add to its value. It also has room for me to work in peace and even space for (whisper it!) a child or two. Hels and I have a mantra that we shouldn’t become "emotionally attached" to a new home until we have the keys in our hands, but that’s much easier said than done.

You know how it is – you’re sitting in a restaurant in Alphen an der Rijn and you spot someone wearing an "I’m blogging this" t-shirt. So you go an introduce yourself and exchange URIs. It’s the only polite thing to do!

In other news – I really miss Hels.
And this trip is really useful already, with only two of five working days completed.

Hels said I should write something here about this, although, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what to say…

On Saturday afternoon, having run a few errands and sorted out a few more wedding bits and pieces (invitations posted today), we sauntered down to Worthing for Sarah and Paul’s housewarming barbeque. We were a little bit early, so nipped into a seafront bar to kill a little bit of time and watch a squally shower lashing the shore. It was clear from the weather that we were in line for more of a "grilleque" than barbeque, and that proved to be the case once we arrived at Sarah and Paul’s spacious new home.

In spite of the inclement conditions, the party trundled along pleasantly enough, particularly as it gave me a chance to catch up with Gary, who I haven’t seen in ages, and also to meet the other usher for Sarah and Paul’s wedding (I’ve been practising my ushing ever since they asked if I would do that honour). However, what I hadn’t realised was that both Andrea and Kate would be there. It was good to see Kate again and to catch up on all the news – over the years, we have built up a good friendship, which some might say is what we should have stuck with all those years ago instead of trying to have a relationship. She and Hels got on well, which is without doubt a good thing.
The upshot of all this is that I stepped in to the living room at one point (having taken a "comfort break") to find Kate, Andrea and Hels standing next to each other and looking at me. That was the point that I decided it was time for us to leave!

The strange thing is that I really felt quite ambivalent about the whole situation. I don’t really view Kate as an ex any more – she’s a friend now. I don’t really have any time for Andrea at all, as regular readers of this site will know. And H stands head and shoulders above them both, both literally and figuratively.
As I said to H on the way home, the one thing that the evening did teach me is that it is true what they say – things do tend to work out for the best in the end. I can’t imagine how they could have worked out better than they have.

Not much to write about at the moment. Work is still the dominant feature in life.

• Drove 375 miles yesterday to deliver some plants to Cambridgeshire. Driving a Transit Luton in a strong wind is never much fun.
• Took Hels’s car for its MOT test today. It failed. I’ve been and purchased the parts required to make it pass, and Tim is kindly fitting them. However, he’s already hit a problem, though hopefully it can be remedied quickly.
• I’m currently printing all the inserts for the wedding invitations (where to stay, how to find it, etc.). We should get them in the post next week.
• I’m working my way through a huge backlog of work emails that I’ve filed but not yet replied to or dealt with. PFE has reached a stage where an admin assistant would be useful, but the money is not available to pay for it. So it looks increasingly like I’ll be working longer hours to try and get everything done. Still, at least I remain in total control of everything, and I guess that is a positive.
• And, whilst losing the football last night is a disappointment, I can see absolutely no justification for this idiotic behaviour.

Sorry for being quiet – mostly due to work pressure, but also because I stepped out of life for a few hours yesterday to spend some time with H.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Visitor number 150,000 passed this way at 11.45pm yesterday, having arrived here by searching yahoo.com for "47kg propane". Hmm.

Sometimes I wonder what life will be like when Hels and I can finally stop stressing about selling flats, buying a home and organising a wedding, not to mention work, family and all the rest. We’ve yet to experience anything that approaches what most people would consider to be "normal life" together. We frequently talk about the prospect of blissful times together, when we don’t have to do anything to a particular deadline, don’t have to worry where we will be living, not have to plan a major event and concern ourselves with the needs and desires of other people – and, most importantly, don’t have to hold those discussions over the telephone because we live 65 miles apart. We can’t wait for those days to come – at the moment, the prospect of those days is all that is keeping me going. Positive mental attitude. Positive mental attitude. Positive mental attitude. If I repeat it enough times, it may sink in and actually work.

[EDIT: actually, that's not entirely true. What's keeping me going is a very beautiful, amazing and wonderful woman who I love very much and who I know loves me too. But I didn't want to say that too loudly in case you all threw up.]

In other news, happy 40th birthday today to Lord Percy. I spent a few hours this afternoon with Lord Percy and Lady Bren, helping to tidy and pack at Percy Towers, as they are moving to the new and more imposing Percy Towers, complete with columns, tomorrow. To say that they are mildly stressed would be an understatement – I hope I provided a little light relief.

And talking of light relief, Elaine over at Little Blue Fox has submitted an excellent new image to the Little Otik photo competition. Go see.

I feel that I should explain the whole Little Otik thing, as I may be being a bit obscure for you all here. Some time ago, I went with Lord Percy and Lady Bren to see Little Otik at the cinema. It’s a film about a tree stump that looks like a baby.
B and G were working in their garden the other day and found a dead Pelargonium that looked like a little man, complete with hair. Naturally, they were reminded of the film, and with my birthday approaching, decided to put it in a spiffy little box and give it to me as a present.
It’s fab!

I’ve been busy.
And I’m missing H.

Ho hum.
Anyway, I spent most of the day talking to Australians, visiting a garden, looking at a plant trial and trying to find some important papers that seem to have been eaten by my desk.

And to keep Lord Percy happy, here is a picture of your hero and mine, Little Otik.

Apologies for the on-going lack of content here. I’m up to my eyes in work, particularly preparing for tomorrow’s plant fair at Pashley (you are coming, aren’t you?), so blogging has taken a back seat for the moment.
Levity was provided last night in the form of dinner and birthday cake in the company of Charlie and Peeeet, with their friends Simon and Mikaela – and my beautiful fiancée, of course. A splendid evening, and something that we do far too infrequently.

For reasons that I won’t go in to (mostly my own stupidity), whilst I should be on the first phase of my holiday now (relaxing in the bath at Hels’s home), I’m stuck in Chichester until tomorrow morning.
Thankfully, this hiccup is not disastrous due to some fortuitous flight timing, so, to use a well phrase:

Bugger this, I’m off to Lisbon.

See you Friday (maybe Thursday night if you’re lucky)

Remember this?

I lost that pair of sunglasses today. I think I left them in one of the houses we went to view. Which is annoying. I’ve had them for five years, and they’ve been to America (three times), Spain (twice), France (three times), Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Germany and Holland, not to mention all corners of the UK. Still, it’s a good excuse to finally buy a new pair.
We viewed two houses this morning, one of which was nice but not quite right (6.5 out of 10) and another not really right at all (4 out of 10). We wanted to view some others, but the property market in the area that we are exploring seems to have suddenly sprung to life. Hopefully, we’ll get to see a few more in the near future.
After that, we went to Brighton, looked at and sampled some chocolate and then sat on the beach having drink and food in the glorious sun whilst admiring the millpond-like sea.

Hels has received an offer on her flat which she has accepted. My flat is in today’s newspaper, so hopefully there will be lots of viewings this weekend and I’ll get an offer soon.

Today, we went for a long walk through West Dean Woods to Cocking Down (no jokes please), seeking vistas of bluebells. We found some, but not the great swathes that we had hoped for, although we were rewarded by plenty of patches of bluebells, drifts of wood anemones, a glade with masses of milkmaids and lots of primroses, cowslips and violas and bugle. We did enjoy fabulous views across the Weald, and also over Selsey Bill, the Solent and the Isle of Wight. We also passed a number of Andy Goldsworthy‘s chalk balls, which are slowly and surely mellowing and dissolving into the landscape. All of this was followed by tea and cake in the visitor centre at West Dean.
This evening, a trip to the cinema to see Under The Tuscan Sun (mostly romantic slush clearly aimed at an American audience that has never travelled to Europe, but harmless enough and quite entertaining) has been followed by fajitas and flopping on the sofa.
If married life is like this, then bring it on.

I’ve just applied the final dollop of paint to the last door in the flat. The redecorating is, finally, complete. Here’s a tally of what we have done:

• repainted the front door
• replaced all five internal doors, fitted new door furniture and painted them
• repainted the bathroom, hallway, bedroom, kitchen and living room
• ripped up the carpet in the living room and repaired the floorboards
• new carpet in the living room and hallway
• new carpet tiles in the kitchen and bathroom
• refitted the curtain pole and added new curtains in the living room
• replaced the bath panel
• painted the kitchen cupboard doors
• added two new prints and a large mirror in the living room, plus a new potted plant
• removed shelves and considerable amounts of "stuff" to storage
• removed old sofabed and taken loan of groovy green sofa from Lord Percy

As Hels says – basically, the place has been gutted, and it looks a gazillion times brighter and fresher, which has certainly added many times more to the value than the £800 – £900 that it has cost me.
Estate agents on Tuesday – let’s see what they have to say.

One year ago today, I played an April Fool on you lot and quite a few of you took the bait. Then it came true, which was as big a surprise to me as it was to just about everyone else.
I did toy with putting an April Fool up today about Hels expecting our first child, but then thought better of it!

I could write a long and not particularly interesting moan here at the moment, but to do so would leave me open to accusations of being an ungrateful, complaining, miserable git. I’d be less inclined to moan if certain people would undertake to fulfil the promises that they have made within the timeframe that they suggested without offering weak excuses and then getting on with their own thing, a thing that their weak excuse should preclude them from doing. As it is, I’m feeling cheesed off and a little under-supported.

It is strange that Hels and I often experience the same moods at the same time. She’s fed up too, and being 65 miles apart renders offering solace somewhat difficult. You can’t hug over the telephone, no matter how hard you try.

Anyway, it seems that the flat will not be finished, or even close, by the time the estate agents come round on Wednesday morning. For those that hadn’t realised, that is the source of my pissed-offness. Comments like "at least they’ll be able to see that the work is being done" do not help at all – the whole idea was to make the flat look its absolute best in order to make the best impression.
On the good news front, Greg has made available a sofa for loan that will look good in the living room, and give me something soft to sit on for the first time in weeks.

UPDATE: I’ve decided to defer the estate agents until after the weekend.

At last, a major step forward has been taken in the refurbishment of the flat – new carpet has been laid today in the hallway and living room, and it looks really good. I’m kicking myself for not touching up the paint on the skirting whilst there was no carpet here, but I’m sure that can be overcome. As it is, I’m padding back and forth around the flat, enjoying the warm softness underneath my socks. All good stuff.
With that hurdle overcome, and the carpet in the bathroom and kitchen likely to be finished by tomorrow night, or Saturday at the latest, I’ve arranged for two estate agents to come around next Wednesday and give me their best patter. One of them will be rewarded with the chance to sell this place, unless I get a cash offer in the meantime from one of you lot (I’m not holding my breath). I think the flat looks cracking, and once the windows are done (application going in just as soon as Dave sends me the drawings), I reckon that this will be one of the best one bed flats in Chichester.

Yesterday, we stirred ourselves early in the day in order to go for a walk at Bedgebury Pinetum, followed by lunch at the Oak and Ivy. In the afternoon, we explored Rye before embarking on some windswept stone-throwing silliness on Winchelsea Beach, followed by a visit to my future brother-in-law and his family on the way home.
The main thing is that we actually spent a day relaxing, just ambling about. We need more days like that, but I don’t see many of them being possible this side of moving home and the wedding.

I’ve got a grotty cold. Can’t be arsed to write anything here. I’m off to bed.

Over the weekend, the following was achieved:

• lunch was attended
• our mortgage was secured – house-hunting can now begin in earnest
• we travelled to London to meet up with my cousin Gemma to celebrate her birthday, meet a few of her friends and then head to Brick Lane for a splendid Bangladeshi meal
• we explored new home possibilities
• we introduced my parents to Hels’s parents over lunch, which turned out to be much easier than we had anticipated
• we clambered around the ramparts of Lewes Castle
• we went for drinks with Lord Percy and Lady Bren, with sightings of Malcolm and Paul F
• we did some painting in the kitchen (oooo! paint! rollers! emulsion! gloss!) whilst Dad fitted replacement taps and a new bath panel in my bathroom
• we ripped up the carpet in the living room (not a euphemism for anything, honest)

Fun. Packed. I can tell you.

I’ve just got my latest mobile phone bill, which includes the periods that I was in France and Germany. It’s a good job that I was sitting down. It seems that when I’m abroad, calls home work out at around £1 per minute, including VAT. It seems that I made around 100 minutes of calls whilst I was away. Hmmmm.

Sometimes, bad news comes along in bunches. One of Hels’s friends has lost a baby late in pregnancy. Her sister has lost her job. Her sister’s husband has cut his hand badly in a DIY accident and will be off work for at least ten weeks. Another of her friends is feeling a bit down and depressed with life.
It’s easy to focus on the bad news, to get maudlin, depressed and discouraged by it all. There is only so much support and counselling that a person can give without it taking a toll. But I think it is important to focus on the positive. Hels’s sister is resourceful, so I’m sure she’ll find new work soon. Her brother-in-law’s accident could have been far more serious, and he will make a good recovery given time. Her friend is well in spite of the loss of her baby, and has much to look forward to. The other friend is attractive, strong and intelligent, and will find things improve in time, I’ll be bound.
And there are lots of good things going on, much to anticipate. Another of Hels’s friends has just got a good new job close to home, so will no longer need to commute to The Smoke each day. Other friends have a happy healthy new baby. Yet other friends have the excitement of a new puppy in the house. And then there are all the things going on in our own lives too.

The question is, how do you avoid the negative aspects of life swelling up to overshadow the positives? It’s easy to get swamped by the negativity, particularly when others are seeking support and solace in their own difficulties. Should you even try to be everyone’s counsellor? It’s difficult to say no to a loved one.

I’ve just completed the first stage of the grand repainting of the flat. All of the matt emulsion has now been applied, which means two coats on the walls of the living room, bedroom and hallway. This leaves the kitchen and bathroom paint to be applied in (unsurprisingly) the kitchen and bathroom, which is to be preceded by a session with sugar soap. That will be painting stage II.
I’ve also begun preparation for the other decorating stages. Dave is working on the drawings for the planning application for the windows (aren’t you, Dave?). Yesterday, I purchased five new (but cheap) doors to replace the monstrosities that have been here since I moved in (including the famous kitchen door featuring the hole where some previous occupant put their fist through it). I’ve also been researching carpet for the living room and hallway. Dad has been working on making a replacement bath panel, and at some point he’ll help me lay the new carpet tiles (which I’ve had for, um, five years) in the kitchen and bathroom. Mum is going to take up my new curtains for the living room, and, tomorrow, Hels and I will go to IKEA to purchase some prints and odds-and-ends to make the place look a little brighter and more attractive (Hels believes that it needs the woman’s touch. I’ll not disagree, if it helps to sell the thing!).
So, it’s full speed ahead. Anyone interested in buying it? Only £150,000. Discount if we do it privately, without an agent.

• printing forms for my events, still, and then stuffing them in envelopes;
• taking photographs of plants;
• sticking a memory stick in my ear to see if it helps (thanks Vaughan);
• preparing for a speaking gig tomorrow;
• painting the flat.

It’s a good job this edge isn’t sharp, or else I’d cut myself.

Hels has had a good cash offer on her flat. Yipes! I really do need to speed up the decorating now!
She plans to hold out for a little more money – it’s slightly below the asking price, and we both reckon that, given that an offer has come so quickly, that she can ask for a little more and play hard to get. As it were.
So, since I’m travelling to France tomorrow evening (immediately after doing a local speaking gig) and will not be home until 7am on Saturday, I’ve scheduled in the weekend for a decorating extravaganza. Hopefully, that will then put me in a position to put the flat on to the market sooner rather than later – the target date is March 15th, but I reckon we can get there sooner than that, particularly if Dad gives me a hand.
So, like I said – anyone want to buy a flat?

Ooo blimey – Hels has had one person look at her flat already who is "very very interested" and has another person coming to view it tonight. And it’s only been on the market since the end of last week.
Which means that yours truly is going to have to get his butt into gear with getting his own abode ready for sale and onto the market. Yipes.

Not much to report here: the weekend was spent with family and, when not with family, doing very pleasant, relaxed and low-key Valentine’s Day type things.

<politics>Anyone smell a gimmick here?</politics>

Been to a trade show in Dorset today. Not very exciting.
Tired. Will put my feet up tonight, I think.

Thanks to everyone who contributed advice on the work problems I mentioned below. The outlook now seems a little more positive, largely because we now think that by strengthening the team and making plans and decisions for the future, we should be able to work things out to a positive conclusion. But that depends on everyone, including the boss, doing everything as we hope. I’m not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, we’ve had a full-value weekend, featuring dinner out on Friday, lunch with my parents yesterday, a visit to Kearn’s nursery, lunch with Bren and Greg today and a couple of long lie-ins. Also, we’ve made a start on blitzing my flat. Following advice from my estate agent, I’ve been working to reduce the amount of clutter in the flat, with the aim of simplifying the upcoming redecorating task (a lick of paint to make it look bright and fresh, plus replacement cheap carpet and finally hanging the new curtains that I’ve had for ages) and also to make the flat seem bigger than it really is – or, perhaps, less small, depending how you look at it. So far, the shelves in the living room have been dismantled, which means that my CD collection has mostly gone into storage – reduced from 550 CDs to just 70. Hundreds of books have been boxed up, as well as my archive of Wallpaper magazines. Additionally, I’ve had a blitz of my wardrobe, leading to several sacks of old shirts and tatty jeans being taken to the textiles recycling bin at the tip. My desktop PC is currently sitting on the floor, awaiting transportation to the nursery for storage until we get to our new home.
All this does make the flat seem larger, but it also creates a strange sensation – I’m beginning to dismantle the place that has been home for the last five years, the first home that I have owned and paid for with my own money. Along with the upcoming planning application for new windows (at last), I will soon be ready to put the house on the market and then throw my lot in with Hels (who is also going through the same thing). Life will never be the same again.

As an aside:

Interested? Email me, and let’s both save some estate agency fees.

The last few days in bullet points:

• a few hours wandering around Arundel, featuring the ducks of Swanbourne Lake; Belinda’s Tea Rooms (not recommended unless you enjoy microwaved food); a wander around the cathedral, surely one of the finest Roman Catholic cathedrals in the country; and a considerable amount of time browsing the excellent Sparks Yard General Store in Tarrant Street.
• Much food and drink with Sarah and Paul, including a pistachio explosion.
• Lunch with the family at the Spur.
• An excellent walk in Baycombe Woods and through Slindon village, with a fantastic sunset, and a pause to purchase an Uchiki Kuri from Mr Upton’s famous squash and pumpkin garden, which Hels plans to use in a soup this weekend.

You can tell it is the thirteenth today – it’s not even a Friday, yet everything seems to be going wrong or to be full of stress. Missing staples, miscreant property management companies, short-tempered people, time-poor people and a distinct lack of chocolate are making for a mildly stressed and tetchy Graybo.
But the only solution to these problems is to seek a logical way to move forward. So my problematic email server is being solved by a DNS transfer to 34sp.com, who have been making a very good job of looking after grayblog for the last three months or so. The missing staples problem is solved by looking where they should not be. Property management companies are less easy to fix, but some research involving a trade catalogue for cast iron drain parts has proved to be enlightening, and some sensible financial management ideas pour oil on troubled waters. And whilst I still have no chocolate, a Polo acts as a good temporary substitute.
I could use a holiday, but there seems to be no chance of that (other than the honeymoon) much before 2020 (you think I’m overstating the situation?!). So I shall seek other forms of rest and relaxation after work today, probably involving some music and a good book, with the possible addition of a soak in the bath. That will be better than last night, when I finally finished the paperwork I had taken home at around 11pm.

I promised a review of 2003, although reading Gordon‘s, I was tempted to give it up as a bad idea. It’s hard to sum it up in a few words, but I think it is fair to say that 2003 was the best year yet, both professionally and personally.

There have been three major positives in 2003. The first was finally deciding to draw down the shutters on Croftway Nursery in its current incarnation. With my parents finding running the nursery so all-consuming that no room was left in life for the more pleasurable things, and with my brother and I both up to our eyes in our own projects, it was really a simple and natural conclusion to come to. Since that decision was made, all sorts of exciting new plans for the nursery have been made, all of which involve my parents – they certainly won’t be spending the future sitting in front of the fire with the cat, which is exactly how things should be as they are not the sort of people who enjoy sitting around and being idle. I’m looking forward to the future for Croftway, even if my part in that will be much less than my part in its recent past.

The second major positive was the creation and rapid blooming of Plants For Europe Limited. If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I’d be undertaking to set up my own business that would give me the opportunity to travel a bit, meet interesting people and see brand new plant varieties before the rest of the world, I’d have laughed. The fact that PFE has also been so well received by the industry is also extremely encouraging, such that PFE is already exceeding my forecasts (which is also the result of my prudence when it comes to spending money, my additional cash inputs and the support of my backers). The next three years will not be easy for PFE – money will flow outward faster than it flows in, but I’m confident that the tide will begin to turn, and that if all goes well, it should provide a good income for me and my family in the future.
Not only that, but PFE has also been good fun. It has always been important to me to have a job that I enjoy – I rate that above pecuniary reward. PFE is certainly that, and has included some interesting travel too, with two trips to the States (plus some add-on when I went to David and Andi’s wedding), a trip to Germany and three trips to the Netherlands, as well as several trips within England and Wales. 2004 will see still more travel, with visits to Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, Scotland and possibly more. There’ll be a lot to fit in this year.

Of course, the last but greatest of the three positives of 2003 was meeting and getting engaged to Hels. We’ve got a lot to get through in 2004 – we need to sell our flats, find a new home, arrange a wedding, actually get married and then settle in to our new life together. It’s an exciting and challenging time, but I’m loving every minute, and looking forward to all that it will bring.

grayblog is still here too, nearly halfway through its fourth year of continuous inanity. I’m surprised you stick around to read this drivel, but you do. I still enjoy creating and maintaining what you see here and, as I’ve said before, whilst that remains the case then I shall continue to keep on driveling. I still have plans to improve this site, although finally switching to MT and changing hosts was a great step forward.

So that’s it really. 2003 done with, 2004 to look forward to. I hope yours is as good as mine promises to be.

Apologies for the continuing lack of content. I’ve been monumentally busy lately, as our social diaries seem to be just packed to the gunwhales with events involving friends, family and J Sainsbury.
Anyway, I promised a Christmas report. There isn’t much to say, to be honest, but highlights included dinner with Hels’s sister Lu, her husband Kevin and their friends Fiona and Kevin on Christmas Eve; Christmas Day with Hels’s family; Boxing Day with my family; a walk by Chichester canal; dinner with a friend from Hels’s office and her family; a burger in a bowling alley (don’t ask); drinks and dinner with some more of Hels’s friends.
The edge was partly taken off things as we were both ill, possibly as a result of exceeding the limits of food and drink consumption, and possibly as a result of a bug of some description. I suspect it was a combination of the two.
Tonight we shall be in Chichester for the annual New Year celebration at the Nag’s Head. This, by way of a change, shall involve consuming large quantities of food and drink, with the possible added complication of dancing.

Pity my liver and pass the Rennies please.

…though I’ve come pretty close to it through an excess of excess in the last few days. I think that most of my internal organs are about to pack in as a result of the strain of it all.
Coming up soon on grayblog…

• the annual grayblog Review Of The Year
• a Christmas report
• um… stuff. and things.

Watch this space!

…to everyone who has sent messages of congratulation to us.

Well, for those of you who have waited patiently for a photo of Hels, here she is with your cheesily-grinning author on the banks of a canal in Copenhagen, with the impressive buildings of the Gammel Strand behind.

In my original account of our long weekend in Copenhagen, I left out one thing that took place. On the Friday evening, we walked around Tivoli, admiring the beautiful fairy lights and watching all the happy Danes (and tourists) enjoying the rides, stalls and glögg. Having passed the skating rink and warmed ourselves by a brazier, we turned a corner and found the most breathtaking sight, a weeping willow with simple white lights along every branch arching down and wonderfully reflected in the water of a lake. It was utterly beautiful and we held each other close as we admired it. We stood there gazing at it, and agreed that it was very beautiful indeed. Then there was a pause. I turned to Hels, and said "Will you marry me?" – and without so much as a moment of hesitation, she said "Yes!"

On Monday, we stopped in a wonderful independent jewellers on the Strøget, where we chose and I purchased a beautiful white gold ring with four princess-cut diamonds, which Hels is wearing as she sits next to me now.

I am the happiest man alive.

[with apologies to all those who are reading this before I've had a chance to send you a personal message - we're just so thrilled, that we want everyone to know!]

Happy birthday to my brother, who is [cough!] years old today. Sticky buns for everyone.

This is the last you’ll hear from me until Tuesday afternoon at the earliest. I’m just about to depart for Tunbridge Wells, and in the morning Hels and I will go to Gatwick for the 0940 Maersk flight to Copenhagen. For the first time in ages, I’ll be travelling sans laptop in spite of the hotel being equipped with broadband in every room.
We both need this break desperately – I’ve been looking forward to it since the moment I booked it. It’s going to be brilliant.
See you all next week!

Typical, isn’t it? Just as I’m about to go away for a much needed weekend break with my gorgeous girlfriend Hels, I catch a cold. Still, there is only one thing to do when you have a cold – yes, that’s right, try to infect as many people as possible, with bonus points for infecting people of other nationalities. Fortunately Hels is unlikely to catch it as she has already had it.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Any tips from people who know the city would be welcome. We’re planning to nip over to Malmo on Sunday too, as Copenhagen seems to shut down on the sabbath. If you’re very lucky, there may be photos. If you’re really lucky, you may even get a photo of Hels. If you’re unlucky, I’ll be in it too.

Dad is [many] years old today. Happy birthday! (not that he reads this, but, you know, the thought is there and all that)

Beer on the way home with Sarah, Pol and Jo. I now have hiccups.

I promised an update on what has been going on during my month-long hiatus. Contrary to rumours spread by Dead Kenny (who has done a fine job of keeping you up to date with things Brighton and Hove Albion-ish), I haven’t been exploring illegal substances or doing anything that could really be described as thoroughly outrageous. However, the following did occur (in no particular order):

• Brighton appointed a new manager in the form of Mark McGhee. I think this is a good choice for Brighton in the short term, but it is unlikely that he will stay with us much beyond the end of the season, particularly given the lack of a decent stadium facility.
• There is a "new" Weebl and Bob
• My brother Tim and his long-time girlfriend Jane surprised just about everyone by announcing their engagement at the weekend. Huge congratulations to them! I think everyone had just about given up on them ever marrying, what with their joint cat, joint mortgage and his-and-hers mobile phones – it never seemed as if they wanted the hassle of a ceremony. Still, a chance for yours truly to wear a suit and stand up in front of a crowd of people and talk for a few minutes. Potential best man speech topic ideas welcome.
• Mo restarted content creation, which is a good thing.
• I travelled to Amsterdam for a few days to attend Hortifair at the RAI, which was both hard work and tiring. I went with Mike, one of the people supporting PFE, and we had a useful and enjoyable time meeting lots of companies at the fair as well as sampling the products of the local restaurants. On the last morning, we even managed to fit in a very quick tour of the Van Gogh Museum, where we had an interesting discussion on the merits of James Cagney and Jimmy Stewart as actors, and also concluded that much of Vincent’s daubing was driven by purely commercial motivation, rather than much in the way of artistic desire. At least, that is the impression that much of the museum gives – I’m sure that there is an art historian reading this who will disagree.
• Some bright spark set fire to Woolworths in Chichester city centre, causing some considerable damage to the facade.
• The final parts of the refurbished Waitrose have opened. The coffee is pretty good.
• I moved grayblog to new hosts and installed MT. The hosts are a lot cheaper and offer better support and many more facilities. MT is very powerful, but almost has too many features for a time-poor site owner like myself.
• I’m sure that there were loads of other things, but I can’t think of them at the moment.

Some of you might be wondering why I disappeared from the scene. Well, partly it was because grayblog was drifting a little and had lost its way. I hoped that taking a break would help me to find my blogging mojo once more. It also afforded the opportunity to at least get started on some of the boring back end changes that needed to be made in the hosting and CMS arenas. As you have probably realised, there is still more to do on that score.
But one of the principal reasons was that I had found myself to be very short of time indeed. Much of that is a product of the pressures of work.

In addition to all of that, a little while before I took my blogging break, I met Hels. She’s made me promise not to write too much about her here, so I will not say much more than that for now. Suffice to say that she is beautiful and fun, we are very happy, and have all sorts of plans, including a weekend break in Copenhagen at the end of the month which I’m really looking forward to.

So, what news have you lot got?