hard work in london!

well, my trip to london is so much more demanding than i ever imagined. i thought i would be this super flexible mum who could just slip into the fast-paced way of things and take it all in my stride. as it happens, i've been in tears several times, almost come home seveeral times and just wanted to disappear. it is lovely to see shannon and on saturday i spent the afternoon with barnaby which was so good because we had so much time to catch up. but it's hard to work out how to enjoy myself. i ended up buying a cheap buggy because carrying robin in the sling was too much - much harder than expected.

however, i don't want to grumble and complain - look where it got the israelites! they went round and round the desert for 40 years because they just grumbled all the time! went to the bear church today which was great. had been feeling increasingly like God was telling me to visit them this weekend so we did. it's a cafe and gallery during the week and then they use the space as a church on sundays. worth a visit if you're in london.

robin was asleep but he's now awake and down with me and shannon. making a soup in a bit to have for lunch tomorrow and 'the wedding planner' movie is on later. nice chick flick.

going to heathrow airport tomorrow morning to meet andrew jones for a coffee. off to brighton on wednesday to see lucy. can't think of much else to write - my brain is washed out!!

andy has been brewing an awful lot of beer - yummy yummy!!

thank you

for an amazing birthday. anybody who was involved in being there, keeping secrets, seeing me, eating with me, singing to me, emailing me, texting me and any other things you did, THEN thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!

it was the most fabulous of days with a treasure hunt to find all y presents, 2 different versions of yhappy birthday sung down the phone to me and 2 different groups of people sang happy birthday to me. there was a surprise brunch which was attended by around 10 friends (i am told it would have been many more if people didn't have to work!). i had 4 birthday cakes and only one i made myself! then to the mashouse for dinner - a lovely english restaurant that recently opened in sheffield and after that there was a surprise game of 'settlers of catan' which andy and robin bought me for my birthday. it is a super game.

tomorrow, robin and i are off to london to stay with shannon and then on to brighton next week to stay with lucy (old school friend who was my bridesmaid). can't wait although am a little terrified of navigating london with a baby and also being away for so long with robin and no andy!

we've got to find new web space to blog at but hopefully we'll get some pictures up of my b'day soon!

the sun was shining yesterday so i took lots of opportunity to top up my vitamin D levels. today it is raining but at least blogger is working again.

my sister sent me an email today. one of those ones you send to 10 people and it is meant to inspire etc except that i actually think about the statements in the email (something i never used to do) and didn't agree with half of what was said. BUT there was a riddle at the end of the email that i thought i would share with y'all. interestingly i am either a genius or of a shared intelligence with kindergarten kids!

When asked this riddle, 80% of kindergarten kids got the answer, compared to 17% of Stanford University seniors.

What is greater than God, More evil than the devil, The poor have it, The rich need it, And if you eat it, you'll die?

yesterday i liked the word 'zany' but couldn't find any conversation where i could slip it in...

cathers and i have invented a new phrase to use if you see a pattern emerging in something. the phrase is 'handing on the rubber baton'. can't think of a good example in which to use it but if you hang out with me and cathers more then you will no doubt hear us using it frequently.

robin is poorly with a nasty cough and cold but at least he can still squeeze out the odd smile which says to me that he just needs cuddles and close time but nothing else.

last night i went to lynn's house. lynn is one of my new mum friends from the group in walkley. she had invited a few of us round and we had wine and great nibbles. i ended up drinking about 4 or 5 glasses of red - lynn just kept on topping me up so i'm not sure exactly how many! it was lush to see these mum's in a different setting and so conversations moved on from babies to other things which was great.

mum came up at half term and transformed our kitchen. everyone who sees it can't believe it's the same room. andy and i are working hard not to de-clutter it again and we are also doing well at washing up, having given up the dishwasher for lent.

yesterday i downloaded a dancer from the nike site who dose some booty-shakin' in the bottom right of my screen. she's becoming a bit irritating so i might delete her - very sad cos in lots of ways she's quite cool, but she only dances for a few seconds and the music is dreadful!

by the way, i do think about blogging a lot and there are many posts written in my head but time is so sparse!

robin has gone mobile

we have finally broken the blogging silence to announce Robin has started crawling properly 2 days ago. since then, he seems more interested in finding things on his adventures than sleeping, and he's pretty determined to get things when he wants them...
one of his top teeth has also just broken through yesterday too, bringing the total to 3 teeth and another reason for unsettled sleep and a lull in our 8.30-9.00am lie-ins.
his skill with technology also seems to be coming along nicely having unlocked bea's mobile and called her voicemail and crawling over and turning the cd player on.