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Yes yes OK so I took a break at Xmas and it's gone on a little longer but here, I've been busy!.. no really busy!.. let me just catch you all up on a few bits.

So, most importantly bubs... nope not here yet!.. but we're one week away from the official due date, which is really just the medical professions bast guess, so we're officially due on good Friday. As it turns out, Doctors don't work on public holidays!.. I know, who new!?.. may be if they did the waiting lists would be shorter but there you go.

So we're going in this week to talk with the doc's while they are there for them to decide if junior should arrive before or after Easter, now from my other half's point of view, and I'm sure all mum's will agree, this is a stupid conversation to have to have, OF COURSE IT'S COMING BEFORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but we shall see, I just hope the doc explains their view point from a distance!

We're pretty much as ready now s you can be for a 1st child. We've got somewhere for jnr to sleep (got both a bassinet thingy that we can move around but will initially be in our room, got a cot for later down the road as well) we've got clothes aplenty. My mum has been knitting up a storm and shipping us over clothes parcels from Scotland. They are all very cool, it's been hard as we don't know if it's a boy or a girl so everyone is having to go whiles, lemons, creams, greens etc, Ang's mum here has done stuff as well, some fab booties and mits and hats etc... all very cool. We've also been buying a bunch of clothes as well and friends have given us some lovely stuff. Apparently with babies it's all about layers so these things will all be used, it's also about being able to get the clothes on and off with minimum fuss... so yes the ENGINEER in me kicks in with the hmm... the optimal design for clothes must be snappers at the bottom and up the legs, in fact why not just Velcro?.. I;m sure there will be lots and lots of pondering about this in the very near future (by pondering I mean rants, bu rants I of course me explosions of frustration... stay tuned!)

OK so what else, oh yes the pram, this we have, we got a Mountain Buggy which is a bit like  a transformer robot, you want a carry cot top bit, no bother snap here snap theye, fold this, done. Can't take it all in side, no worries it unclips and you can carry the cot, buggie? gain a couple of clips and off you go. We went for the Urban elitle version as it's got some extra sturdiness but it folds down into almost nothing and it does it easy. This is important when your wrestling with jnr in one arm and the pram in the other I think. From an Engineer point of view... it's fab, someone has obviously listened to a coffee group of mum's (from now on I have decided that 3 or more mums hall be called a coffee group as in a flock of birds, pride of lions, coffee group of Mums) and thought hmm..best we do what they want or we'll be beaten with our rulers and assorted engineering implements of which there are many. I'm also keen on it , it's got pneumatic tyres (a Scottish invention!) and it's all set up for me to take jnr on great walks / runs around the park when mum needs some time to herself or, I need some bubs time after a week of work.

So only 2 days of work left and then it's holiday time, Christmas to be exact (like you didn't know) It'll be good to kick back and relax after a fairly long and hectic year. However... as you may know (if your reading the blog... and if your not then it's time to catch up!) I'm going to be a Daddy in April for the 1st time. This means of course that the nesting has to be done and in NZ Xmas is summer time and that's when we have our break.. so my 3 weeks off work is going to be filled with DIY.

The list isn't so bad really, and to be fair I've put a few on there myself... mainly cos I never finished some under floor insulation I started a few years ago. You see the house is built on stilts of about a meter as Christchurch is mostly built on old swamp land it stops the dampness, it also lets air circulate but means that there's little in the way of under floor insulation. When I did the 1st batch it was all plastic lined on the ground and then you put polystyrene between the floor boards and hey presto but the house was actually moved about 15 or so years ago and so the floor joists aren't even which means lots of additional work. After 3 straight days under the house I think I sickened myself and haven't been down there since... so I'm thinking that may be job No1

That is good as that's an 'inside' job which means I don't get wet when it rains.... but once that is done I can finally fix the floor in the laundry which is where the hatch is to get under the house. But it's uneven so the washing machine shakes a lot, so that needs levelled to reduce that racket from that... which lets me build a frame to hold the tumble dryer which has lived in the kitchen / dinning room for 2 years ... again inside jobs...

As is of course painting Bub's new room... for which we'll need to decide the colour but that's a bit tricky as we don't know if Bubs is a boy or a girl so it's got to be neutral which is ok.

I also want to get the roof painted as it's looking a bit tired and I've never been keen on the red roof... we have a corrugated tin roof by the way, which is great for laying in bed listening to the rain (which we're getting a lot of just now). Then there's the deck which cold do with a bit of a sanding and staining, the guttering needs doing as well.

I hate being ill, I'm not a great patient to be honest, I'm not good at having people fuss around me, it's much better to let me just get on with stuff and hand me a tissue or some cold remedy.

Last Friday I realised that I really was coming down with a cold but generally I shake them off pretty easy, not last week... I spent the weekend coughing and sniffing, by Sunday it was full on Manflu which as we all know can be fatal. I did all the right things, fluids, extra box of extra big hankies, lemsip cold remedy... but nothing was shifting this beast, I blew my nose so much at one point I thought it would explode! To add to the fun my sinuses were very blocked and my head hurt like I'd done 5 physics lectures in a row with Einstein!

By Sunday night we'd agreed that the best thing I could do was sleep in the spare room to let my other half at least get some sleep and to reduce the risk of her coming down with it... i couldn't take the risk of my pregnant other half getting manflu... it's just to terrible to think about.

I did however try to do a bit of work from home, it was a challenge though, I mean I can log in to email but not much else from here and as I'm trying to co-ordinate some work to our China plant next week it was important to get these things done, but, even when your feeling great there are things that just get you wound up.. so add manflu and by close of Monday I was pretty much ropeable! Not to worry.

Tuesday came around and it was another visit to midwife to see how Bub's was getting on, and the answer is fantastic!.. we got to listen tot he heart beat again and it's still racing around at 140 beats per min which is apparently perfect. The midwife seemed more relaxed with us this time, I think I was a little more relaxed with her too... still not sure I pass muster with her yet though.

Well it's been a week, you know 7 days and all that stuff. It's been one of those weeks where I've don't stuff but not 100% sure I've done everything I should have, if that makes sense?

The the past few weeks we've been doing work in the garden, well I call it a garden but in truth it's edging that goes round our patch of concrete and we've got 2 1/4 barrels with tomatoes, peppers and rocket in them which is pretty cool. This week we discovered that the tomato and pepper plants have white fly which is a bit of a pain so it was off tot eh garden centre to get something to remedy that, plus some citrus feed for our young lemon tree and as it happens seem watering pipe for said tree as well so I could plumb it into our 'irrigation' system.

I do like the garden centre, it's full of all these wondrous plants of many many varieties and colours that I just know I could never grow... I'm surprised at times my weeds manage to live. So we gathered everything we needed and got home only to discover that I had in fact forgot to buy an end plug for the new pipe... so I'll pop back for that today (I thought it was only the Mum to be that got baby brain?)

We've also been doing a bit of window shopping for stuff for bubs, I have successfully identified the correct model of train set and scalextric that we will need... We did also look at cots and baby wear etc.. as bizarre as it sounds there are some very cool things around.. some that I have no idea what they do or why you've want them but they look cool. It's been great though, a couple of friends have had kids in the last year so they have said they'd loan us stuff, the respective grandparents I think are going to be knitting a plenty so it's all good but I'm starting to see why a friend of mine said 'buy toys!..  buy them now!' (toys for myself obviously) as once you've got bubs I think it'll be a different matter... for one thing we'll need to start saving for school! oi vey!

A few more people have found out this week that we are in fact knocked up. It's always funny watching their response, seem are so pleased and instantly want to touch Ange's tummy, not a good move!(why do people do that!?) and some look at me and are clearly thinking.. Oh I hope it's not another ginger!

Its just a little after 6:50am, I’ve been up now since 5am with Emily, she wasn’t much in the mood for sleeping, eating.. certainly, nappy filling and burping most definitely but certainly not sleeping.

This is of course not unusual in the two weeks we’ve had our bundle of joy at home (she really is the best little girl in the world.. not that I’m biased!) so of course we’ve been catching up on our recorded programs. A while ago we invested in a new Hard Drive recorder as my video was pretty poor and my old DVD player that I got in a supermarket in the UK 10 years ago for $100 finally gave it up. I’m now convinced this is one of the best investments we have made, we record quite a bit between TV scheduling clashes and baby feeding, me hiding in the PC room working on photo’s or websites that is always stuff to record and hence stuff to watch. This has been a bit of a godsend I have to say…. until now, when I think I have officially run out of things to watch and unfortunately I’m too tired to be able to read my book. (Certain friends and family have just fallen from their seats at the thought of me reading books!).

So I’ve turned to the TV and found that there exists only infomercials through most of the night, not sure how much I can take of a new Ab Machine that burns fat, crunches your Abs and makes a cup of tea at the same time!

So I thought what else can I do, well I could write to the TV stations and point out that the country doesn’t stop at midnight, I mean we have insomniac’s for instance that are surely always up, new parents, nightshift workers who are sneaking off… what I’m getting at are there are those of us awake in the early hours of the morning…. show reruns or something!..

I’ve taken to delving into the DVD collection, I’ve just finished watching season 6 of spooks… that was fantastic!… I’ve been from Pole to Pole with Mr Palin, always good value and giving serious thought to a rerun of Planet Earth with Mr Attenborough at the moment. I may actually have to join a video club.