My Blog Posts

After the excitement of last Saturday today was quite a normal day at Todd Towers. I dragged myself out of bed at around 7:30am and roused JFGP from his pit. I had the delightful pleasure of watching Nick Jr. whilst we had our breakfasts and prepared for the rigours of the day. SMWBO and HBIB joined us just before 9am just as the last remnants of my intelligence were seeping out of my ears. JFGP and I then got washed and dressed and made our way to the pool for our Saturday morning swim class. Today was a corker, we ducked, dived, jumped and swam like professionals. If he didn’t already have a nickname I’d be plumping for number 1 son to be called “fishy”.

I’ve just had a potentially marvelous ten minutes with my headphones on. My random playlist on iTunes just offered up Afraid of Sunlight by Marillion and then Landed by Ben Folds. Marvelous. Now if my colleagues would stop interrupting me every two minutes I can actually sit back and enjoy the music.

JFGP is rather taken with the ball pool at Red Rover. He’s taken to climbing up the ramp and jumping in without any sign of fear. I think we may have a fearless adventure junkie on our hands.

Yesterday was an interesting day. It started with a trip to Sydney airport at an extremely early hour and ended in Royal North Shore emergency department. In the mean time we did manage to celebrate the foiling of a fiendish Catholic plot. Sadly my plan to acquire some fireworks came to naught so we had to settle for some quality sparklers. My efforts at creating a bonfire were equally poor and I ended up lighting the barbecue.

I’ve made a small change-ette to the sidebar. There is now a section exclusively devoted to my photographs. Take a look to the left and click on a link. A small tip though, if you’ve got a flickr account (or sign up for one, they are free) then let me know. Then you will get to see the full range of shots and not just the selection I make available to the public.

It would appear that spring is with us again as the cricket is on Channel 9 today, sadly without Mark Nicholas, which will displease my Mother as she’s a big fan. The good news is that SWMBO gave me a membership in the Doug Walters club for my birthday. This gives me free entry to every “Speed Blitz Blues” home game, although I’m buggered if I’m going to watch them in Bankstown tomorrow. I’m hoping the match will be on television.

I did have a very nice birthday. I’m still just a tad busy which is why it’s taken me a week to say so. JFGP here is demonstrating my present from the Reeves. It’s a neoprene bottle holder for keeping your beer cool at the beach. Every home should have one. Thanks to the locals (SWMBO, JFGP and HBIB) I had presents, cards, balloons and a smashing birthday cake.

It’s not all been hardcore SQL (for me) and wall to wall vomiting (Oliver) at Todd towers in recent weeks. Yesterday, for instance, we were lavishly entertained by the Reeve family at their mansion in North Sydney. After a lunch of finest Ungarie lamb we discussed topics of pith and moment over a glass or two of very fine wine. SWMBO took up my camera and snapped off some lovely photos. Here’s one of the juice and I spending some quality time together. Bless.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re holed up at work twelve hours a day for six and a half days a week. You’ll be pleased to know that I managed to carve out a little of my copious free time to update my wish list today. Feel free to celebrate any upcoming anniversaries or national holidays by sending me an item or two from the list. Cheers.

To those who have noticed a lack of updates to this page in recent days may I offer this homily. Call it “Andrew’s first law of blogging” When your web site has been updated more recently than mine you can start calling me a slacker. I’m busy. Deal with it. There will be (hopefully) daily posts at the Australian TV blog. Just don’t expect anything from Ciaran because he’s a workshy fop.

We went to the Zoo this morning. Luckily I had my camera with me and managed to squeeze off a couple of shots. This one of JFGP smiling at his Mum is probably the pick of the bunch. The rest are available at my flickr page. Oh and you’ll need to sign in because most of the pictures are reserved for friends and family only.

Today we have mainly been doing chores. The major project of the day was to fix one of the slats in JFGP and “the Juice”’s cubby house. It was looking run down when we moved in, and it’s only taken me ten months to get the materials together to replace it. Sadly I was deficient in the tools department so I had to rope in Ciaran and his drill. With my extensive array of screwdrivers I managed to start removing the board before being called away to tend to small children. When I came back Ciaran had whipped it off and was staring at the spiders in the hole.

Move along if you don’t like the game, I’m going to talk about the Ashes. Reading the Sydney newspapers today you’d be forgiven for thinking that the drawn game at Old Trafford was the greatest victory since Don Bradman played the game. Does no-one remember the confident predictions before the series started? The colonials are worried my friends, very worried that they are losing the plot and not winning enough games. Where do I go to put some money on England winning the Ashes?

We went to the Olympic stadium on Saturday night to watch the Bledisloe Cup match. Australia were very average and the All Blacks showed a little of the spark the displayed against the Lions. Luckily I did take my camera with me and managed to get some half decent shots with my telephoto lens. There are plenty more where this came from, just check out my photos marked with the rugby tag.

Tonight I’m off to see the Wallabies vs the All Blacks at the Olympic stadium (as was). I’m very excited because we’ve got rather good seats. I’m even more excited because I’m taking my camera. Hopefully with my telephoto lens I’ll be able to get some pictures of the action where you can actually see that they’re playing rugby. Wish me luck.

I’ll be celebrating mine tomorrow, because it’s Left Handers Day. Come join me in awkward writing and cutting land, it’s really quite fun.

I love the way JFGP runs down the hallway when I come through the front door after work. I also love the way he only ever occupies the top third of his bed. Maybe he’s being cost conscious and saving the other two thirds of the mattress for future wear and tear. I love the way “the Juice” looks at me as if to say “Why can’t you give me food too Dad?”

JFGP emerging from a tunnel. This was taken at last week’s organised enjoyment session and just goes to show how much fun small people can have at such an event. As a result of continued attendance at these events nothing that rises more than about fifty centimetres from the ground is sacred any more. The boy will climb on anything at any time. If he carries on like this I’ll have to buy him a climbing harness and a hard hat.

To celebrate the birth of our second son it falls to me to celebrate in a fatherly style. To that end you are cordially invited to join me for a few cold drinks tomorrow night (the 28th of July, 2005) from 6pm at the Manly Wharf Hotel.

We bought Oliver home from the hospital this morning. Everyone is settled in and rather glad to be back, or arrived in one case.