Little People Developments
Firstly, I just wanted to thank all of you that have commented on my previous post about the forthcoming arrival of twins. Katie and I have been busy planning every eventuality, deciding what is going to go where and how much everything is going to cost.
On Wednesday, Katie received a call whilst at home asking her why she hadn’t turned up at the hospital for a scan. In true Katie style, she politely instructed them that they had neglected to send her a letter detailing this fact. Nevertheless, she jumped in the car and promptly arrived at the scanning unit and waited for her ultrasound like a good little girl. Because it was so last minute, I wasn’t really able to leave work and travel to the hospital, especially because I walk to work and would need to walk home, then drive on over there which would probably mean the whole process would have been over by the time I got there.
Katie was made to wait over 45 minutes but the wait was worth it because of what she witnessed, she would have gladly waited hours:
This scan showed her for the first time the mini-people moving about and kicking each other. As one would kick out, the other would retaliate.
This also allowed Katie to enquire as to the sex of the twins, the early analysis leaning towards them both being girls. At the moment it’s about a 90% certainty but I have no preference now I know that everything leans towards them being completely healthy newborns.
We have a scan coming up in just under two weeks that will let us know the sex for sure, this time I will get to go!
An Evening At The Dogs
Our plans for this weekend were set in the calendar for quite a few weeks, we were to travel to Romford to the Greyhound Racing Stadium and hopefully win some money on the dogs.
Early Saturday morning we headed off into Basildon with the intention of getting some new work shoes (in my haste to walk into work each morning, I had completely worn through my old pair) and Katie would be purchasing some more loose fitting clothing in the lead up to her getting a tiny bit bigger in the coming months.
Regarding the twins, we have started telling people who ask or have be interested in what’s happening with us. We have decided to have a little fun if people do ask if she is pregnant, our reply is: “No, I’m just fat”. Trips to shops have now resulted in Katie dragging me to the little people section where she plans everything she wishes to dress our little one’s up in. In three weeks we will hopefully have a 90% idea of what sex they will be, remembering the fact that as they are non-identical, we could be having one of each sex.
I digress.
Returning home after our jaunt out, we cleaned the house, had a bit of a rest and then got ready to drive to the stadium. We followed our friends there, having not been there before, arriving just after half past six. Paying just £5 to get in each, we acquainted ourselves with the venue and how to put down our bets with a nice cold glass of beer.
As the minutes to the first race counted down, we found ourselves a nice place to watch the races. Although we were on the other side to the finish line, we were next to the traps for the longer races.
Our tactic was to stake £1 per bet and place two bets each per race. We would put down a Straight Trio bet which meant we would have to predict the first three finishers and a Winner bet which was to simply choose who would win. This tactic fared well as Katie and I managed to finish the night only £20 down.
The last race was at half past ten and for this the six of us decided to put all of our money together and decide on a Reverese Trio bet. By staking a large bet and predicting this time the dogs that would place in any order within the top three, we would cover all the costs for the night and go home with some extra change in our pocket. Needless to say, out of the three dogs we chose, the top two were our choices but our remaining dog was edged out on the first corner and didn’t finish anywhere near the rest of the pack. We went home happy but frustrated our final bet hadn’t worked out, because the losing dog was actually the odds on favourite!
We zipped home down the A127, getting into bed just before midnight, a good night was had by all. The decision was made to make it a regular occurrence on our social calendar, you have more expensive nights out going just for a meal.
Let Me Entertain You
It seems my last post invoked quite a reaction, it also enabled me to gauge just how many people read this website (hello everyone, please do leave a comment, I don’t bite!). Since that post, things have moved forward pretty well, doctors checkups have been fine and we have endured the daily grind that is work.
Last weekend Katie and I ventured to Romford to attend a garden party at a rather swanky residence, a summer evening picnic of sorts. Here we were invited to bring our own food, where we could sit with friends and family and enjoy the evenings entertainment.
By entertainment, there were two singers on the main boardwalk in the back garden, positioned just in front of the speaker setup. Here they were able to look down into the garden (where we were situated) and project their singing of various Neil Diamond songs (I would say classics but I wouldn’t be able to name one of his songs). Although Katie and I attended, we should have been handed a disclaimer as the average age of the attendees was at least 55. This was all forgotten when the main entertainer for the night came on for his show. The feature was a Robbie Williams tribute act who had the double advantage of not only looking like him but having a voice that could match the ex Take That man himself. Katie and I lasted most of the night but decided to head home just before midnight as Katie had to work in the morning. Her parents on the other hand made it ’til 6am before they left the party.
In a strange twist of fate, Katie and I are to be attending Romford once more this weekend, only this time we shall be attending the Greyhound Racing Stadium to have a little punt on the whippets.
I’d like to finish on a more humorous note. Whilst at work on Friday, various colleagues mentioned that there was a car stuck between bollards on the pavement of Rayleigh High Street. The general opinion was that someone had put their new Mazda 4 car in reverse instead of first gear and careered in completely the wrong direction. The result was this:
I managed to get the full story when I popped into the hairdressers situated just down the walkway to where the incident took place. He was able to enlighten me and describe how an elderly man had tried to drive into a vacant space, placed his foot on what he thought was the brake and accelerate so fast into the Mazda that it shot up onto the pavement and rest firmly between a bench, a cycle rack and two trees.
The driver of the Mazda was not there when the incident took place and when she returned, she promptly went hysterical and promptly fainted.into the road. Cars drove around her, a man of about 40 had the nerve to take pictures of her in the road with his phone and ambulances turned up to take her off to hospital.
What you cant see from this is how dented the drivers side of this car was. The words “write off” do not do it justice.
You couldn’t make this shit up.
Wedding Anniversary Day Out
In four days it will be a full year of marriage for both Katie and I, it has zipped past so quickly we have barely had time to take it all in. We have had laughs, worked hard and made a home and a life for ourselves that we are truly happy with.
With the idea of doing something special, yesterday we woke up early and we ventured into London. There was no real plan or places in mind to visit, we were just going to hop on trains or tube carriages and go where the feeling took us. A quick tweet was sent out to court potential ideas, we knew we wanted to enjoy a meal later in the evening:
Arriving in the city just after midday, we came up with the idea of visiting some museums, we settled on visiting the Natural History Museum, a museum I had been too when I was quite young and Katie not at all.
Yesterday, the temperature was up around the thirties, we expected the Natural History Museum to be well ventilated or even air conditioned. How wrong we were. The place was sweltering, lots of tourists, children and couples packed into tiny exhibits with no air flow, the whole experience was a nightmare temperature wise. Katie made sure to play on some of the computerized exhibits before making a hasty retreat to get a bottle of water and some form of a breeze.
Walking out and along the road, we knew it wouldn’t be too long until we happened upon the Science Museum. Like the Natural History Museum, they are free to enter so this made the decision to go in even easier.
The Science Museum saw a vast increase in the number of schoolchildren but on the whole they seemed to be genuinely well behaved. Inside, we walked the Basement taking pictures and interacting with the exhibits, moving up to the upper levels which seemed to have a severe lack of interesting things to do and see. Stopping short of being there a full two hours, we decided to head back to the Tube and make our way to Covent Garden and the theatre district.
For years now, Katie has been dying to see Dirty Dancing but tickets have either been sold out or in very poor places inside the theatre. This time I didn’t want to fall foul of the latter so we headed to the Box Office inside the Aldwych Theatre looked at the seating plan and asked for tickets as close to the stage as we could get them. We ended up with tickets five rows from the front.
The only thing between the performance we had to do was eat. This was something I had planned for the longest time. For ages, myself and friends of mine have gotten together, organized what we call a “Steak Night” (basically we have a few beers and then order huge steaks). Katie had always wanted to know what these steaks were like, so with the aid of the awesome iPhone application AroundMe I was able to navigate us to the nearest Gaucho Argentine Steak House where we would sample the tastiest steaks this side of London.
To start, we were treated to the tastiest cheesy herb rolls, nicely brewed beer and then a choice of at least six different varieties of steak for our main. These were all displayed on a wooden chopping board, where the waitress talked through the different steaks and how their tastes differed as to how you had them cooked.
Katie decided to have what was known as a “Chorizo”, we both thought this was a sausage but in reality it was a lovely marinated sirloin cut that came out to the table looking like it could encompass half a cow. I chose to order the “Bife De Cuadril”, a rump cut that lended well to being cooked, as I like it, rare.
Now let me tell you, I have never left a restaurant feeling so sick from being so full. We both agreed they were probably the nicest steaks we had ever had and we couldn’t let any go to waste. From leaving the restaurant, we had an hour or so to kill so we had a drink in a nice little bar we always go to when we are in Covent Garden and waited the short duration until Dirty Dancing started.
I went into the show wanting to enjoy it so Katie wouldn’t feel like I was just there for her. I was expecting it to be awful and completely over the top but to my surprise it was funny, well acted and thoroughly entertaining. I think Katie loved it, I could tell because she smiled the whole way through and tapped to every beat of the music.
Finishing just after ten, we jumped in a cab and headed for the station. We arrived home just after midnight, completely exhausted but completely satisfied with the day we had just experienced.
It’s been a great year of marriage, here’s to the next fifty!
Oh and if things continue to pan out the way they are, expect another celebration soon!
Summer’s Finally Here
The Great British Summer, it’s finally here. As I write this, I am sitting in the garden with an ice cold glass of lemonade, laptop on my lap and soaking all the rays that the sun can provide me with.
I am fortunate really, prior to this week I had only taken 1.5 days holiday and with co-workers taking next available dates for the next two months, if I hadn’t taken this week I wouldn’t have had a break until at least September.
With my time off I have been really productive. Not wanting to waste all of my time laying in bed or doing things indoors, I took the opportunity to completely rid the front flower bed of every living weed and awful looking plant. This required a shovel, a hand tool set purchase and a very hairy man sweating his little bum off for a good few hours. For some unknown reason, either the landlords or the people who built the house had decided to plant some god awful green and yellow leafy plants that had roots that borrowed from here to Saigon. Using a bit of brawn and creative nous, the shovel was used in such a way the plants stood no chance and the bed was ridden of all life quicker than I could have expected.
In my rush to get it done I never took a before picture but below is the finished article and my self imposed reward for doing so:
Between finishing the front and back gardens I have taken the time to enjoy the tennis, most notably Andy Murray, even if he is a bit of an arrogant Scottish twat.
Tomorrow Katie and I are going to head up to London and celebrate (albeit a little early) our first wedding anniversary. We aim to visit a few landmarks, enjoy some nice food and hopefully see a show (if Katie has her way probably Dirty Dancing) but I don’t mind, time spent in London with Katie is always a day well spent.
Last and by no means least, I am going to be getting my third tattoo inked onto me on Saturday before myself, Katie and a few friends jaunt into the night for a Masonary dinner and dance. The tattoo is Katie’s present to me and I have opted for a tribal type tattoo that encompasses my entire right upper arm and part of my chest. Should be painful!