someone had a good weekend....

went down to newbury for the UK open gaming tournement for the wargame thingy i play here and there.
played 5 really enjoyable games and didnt get trounced in any of them which is always a good thing.

got to meet up several people from manchester i see every now and then at these things which was really nice, especially the other dads who ask how the kids are doing and generally dads to the other people at these things - kinda sweet really.

got to meet this guy called ali who i've know on forums for a while but never actually met in person - it was quite odd how much he reminded me of my brother owen in the way he stood, and his general manner, just a bit quieter and more laid back perhaps.... stayed up late on the saturday night drinking with him - we even got into a "you're my besht mate you are!" conversation and chatted about the young and married experience (he was 19 when he got married to a girl from houston - he's now 21...)

on the saturday i won the runners up prize for best painted army, getting a paint set as a prize.

and if that wasn't cool enough, i then won the "most defensive player" award (i'm sure that says something about my personality!) which was a little trophy and a whole new army of miniatures - i basically got to go to the trade stand and pick what i wanted up to the value of about £60!!!

still can't believe it now - i figured i had a chance of winning something in the painting competition, but to win something based on gameplay was just unbelievable.

so yeh - had a brilliant weekend - more fun that i could possibly hope for really.

(sorry if all the above is a bit boring and geeky!!)

jos has started eating food

(3rd post of the day)
having spent the past 2 months or so desperately trying to get at some food, he's finally got his first taste of it today and apparently loves it!
yay jos!!

the harlequin

i've walked past this dingy semi-closed pub every day i've been working at creative stream, being literally right next to the offices. then a few weeks ago they started doing it up, and today was its grand opening.
thinking we could go in for a drink to see what its like, we (or at least i) was amazed at the range of beers - some 10 cask/ real ales available from a whole bunch of breweries... this can only be a good thing, or bad, depending on which way you look at it!!
i had a beowolf heroes (which was free being the openning day)
i am excited tho - its good to see a pub (re-)openning that sells lots of interesting beers, and not just the usual carling, fosters, john smiths, strongbow and VK ice in the fridge.
starting to sound like a camra member now.... (which i am. err...)

praise god, drink beer, sing hymns!!!

second attempt at this post....
had an excellent time at greenbelt - p[robably the best one we've had yet - after past ones we've had to lower our expectancies of what we can do with kids, and with that in mind we probably did more than we expected.
had a great time watching nizlopi - weren't sure how it would work out with just the two of them but with the bassist beatboxing as well, it was awesome - gave robin an opportunity to dance too.
my morning jacket i'd heard before briefly but was blown away by them live - not sure why, they were just amazing to see.
and probably the highlight of the festival for me at least was the "beer and hymns" that included the sermon that makes the above title - simply take an organic beer tent, a couple hundred merry folks and a bunch of hymns and it made for one very enjoyable evening of singing and drinking. so popular was it that it got put on the following night and then the night after that.

lots of other good talks too including several on crazy shenanigans by shane claibourne, one titled "god bless adam and steve" by john bell and a couple of seminars on how to do podcasting...
just gotta get some photos up now...

freaky....

jompin chop?

johnny rotten?

and in other bizarre-ness, robins favourite phrase of the moment (aside from "daddy beer!!" or course) is "bob bor-derr" which translates as "bob the builder", his dvd of choice, and most commonly requested item. and then ben fuller and i spend all day yesterday pulling up carpets from our house ready to get painted, and when robin went up to his bath leaving ben and i he waved to us saying "bye bye bor-derrs"
how cute!!

this is unbelievable!!!

a 5m long lego aircraft carrier
more pics here

the world cup is over...

....and there are a lot of emergency services sirens going off this evening.

places i've visited - not that many really.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

it has started

well - this is my first day in my new job working at creative stream - trying to figure out how to use a mac... hmm. my computer's not arrived yet.
bea's gone to filey, n yorks with helen dT for a few days holiday.
things going alrightin general - robin sleeping pretty well, jos sleeping pretty good too.
hmmm. yep

exodus

a start date has been set - as of monday the 5th june, i will be working at the home office just 2 days a week, spending the first 3 days of each week working with ant, cliff and andy woods at creative stream doing a mixture of web design, graphic design, maybe even some website/ database programming if i get a chance to learn it, alongside SAGE book-keeping and other project/ contract management/ admin.
the plan is to be able to leave my job at the homeoffice for good as soon as possible (ie when it looks like work at creative will be sustainable and regular enough to do so, hopefully within 6 months), but in the mean time i'll be working as a self employer web/ graphic designer.
in so many ways this is a dream come true - working in an environment that is project based, creative, visual, challenging, office based, uses computers, small company, has a future... everything i want from a job!
very exciting times.

jos is 5 weeks old today. he's doing really well and got weighed by the health visitor and is 12lb 11.5oz.

things are hard work - robin is extremely over-tired due to a number of cumulative factors and as a result is not sleeping well or going to sleep easily which just makes things worse.

had an awesome time on saturday night when our texan friends brian and whitney and their 2 boys came for the evening. hadn't seen them for 3 years but it felt like only 3 weeks. we ended the evening with a great time of prayer and they are now in orkney getting ready to explore scotland and find a place to settle there.

bizzaro!!!

two really wierd things to look at/ watch:
http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/44210/
http://www.citynoise.org/article/3629

something really upsetting happened yesterday so i am feeling particularly crappy today. have been awake since 3am being upset and woried. no doubt this 'thing' will get resolved soon but i feel like it has put me back a bit.

jos is great but very unsettled in the evenings - when he gats windy. quite normal for a little one but i really want to do some knitting!

two mini miracles happened on sunday - had an ansafone message offering practical help with shopping etc and also a friend popped by out of the blue with a meal and some sweeties!

juliet is back from her travels (she is a really good friend who lives half way up the road) so i have a nice cup-of-tea-getaway!

new photos should be up very shortly...

thought i'd post a little!

not doing so great so if you are the prasying type, youre prayers would be great. very emotional - sometimes feel i am only just holding things together. i've read andy's posts about some of what happened and in my head they feel much more traumatic and dramatic. my midwife is very supportive and she also found the birth experience very traumatic. my health visitor has told me about some specialist midwives who do something called 'birth after-thoughts' for women like me who have experienced trauma surrounding their birth experience. jos is doing great and in some ways the 4 days in the childrenb's hospital seem so far away. they never found what was 'wrong' with him and i tend to think my homeopath is on he right track when sdhe says it could well have been his way of balancing his body after all the puncture wounds (canula, blood samples etc) from our initial time in hospital immediately after he was born.

through all of it i found peace in God and he really was my rock but now i feel a bit lost and all at sea. i'm also struggling with where our faith is at because up until we started using conventional medicine with robin for the eczema, we had loads of faith for healing. now that seems to have diminished and we hardly pray for God to heal the eczema - it's as though we've resigned to the fact that medicine is what we have to settle for.

it would be lovely to hear from people - we have both felt quite alone and isolated in all the has happened and the aftermath of it. i know that some people like to have space etc but let's not forget that andy and i are the couple who tried to get home early from honeymoon becauuse we missed our friends!

Something of an update then? (for those who don't know)

Joss got admitted to hospital very early on Sunday morning due to a high temperature and some irregular breathing - they got him on antibiotics and paracetemol (to get his temp down), and then did a lumbar puncture to find out if there's any particular infection going on in there.
This then meant bea has been living in hospital since then (not a good Mothers day!) waiting for them to decide if they need to keep him in on antibiotics for another 7-10 days.
The tests came back today as all clear so they'll keep him in for 24 more hours without antibiotics and keep monitoring him, and assuming there's nothing wrong in the meantime, they should be out by this ime tomo.
At last!
Having said that, a doctor also noticed he had a slight heart murmour today - apparently they're not uncommon, and often heal naturally, but it's still not a nice thing to hear.
Robin's eczema's been a bit up and down recently too - as long as he's been smothered in steroids he's fine, take them away, and things go downhill again, so that?s been really disheartening too.
On top of that, bea's sore throat is also still there.
So there we are - it's all a bit crazy right now - any of you out there inclined to pray, we'd really value it right now!

day 5: more photos.

(click to enlarge)

Josiah Indi Marshall

born 20th March, weighing 9lb 10oz.
labour went brilliantly well, and he was born quite suddenly at 14.57 at home in a birthing pool in our kitchen.









anyway, whilst we had to go in to hospital when the umbilical cord snapped (not sure how much blood josiah had lost), everyones home now (at last) and everythings going well - robin seems pretty excited by it all too.

nothing yet...

...we're now on borrowed time.

not long to go....

...less than a week till the due date, #2 is iminent.