Thank crunchie it's Friday

Another longish week comes to a close, I'm working from home this afternoon while Olga's at the dentist, Lara is being very considerate and snoozing away. We'll go for a walk in a few minutes, I'll put her in the Baby Bjorn and we'll take Mishka to the park. The back garden is now like Stalag Luft 3 but I'd still want to keep my eye on him.

We've not achieved much this week on the list of jobs. Between late starts in the morning and late finishes at work, there's not been much time to get anything done. I made a collage of photos from the honeymoon and put them in one of our big frames, it looks really good, and is a lot easier than trying to hang each photo individually. I'm going to do the same with photos from the tour of the USA we did in 2005.

A new feature I thought of for the blog was "Things I've liked this week" and "Things that have bugged me", so my Victor Meldrew side can come through again! I'll do them as new posts...

Mishka's getting adventurous

The summerhouse was finally totally finished on Saturday, and just as I thought I might have a break from worrying about outdoor DIY jobs, Mishka has learnt to jump up onto our garage roof (from the side passage of the house it's only a four foot jump - like everything in Wycombe, we're on a hill). From there he can bypass the garden gate and escape. In fact he did clear the gate yesterday after Olga put him in the back garden while the health visitor was here. When Olga popped out to check on him, she could just see the top of his head on the far side of the gate - he was just sitting quietly on the front door step, watching the world go by! He came straight in when she opened the front door and called him - it was a close shave though. He does have a collar of course, and he's chipped too, but that won't matter if he goes running into the street and gets mown down by a car. We were lucky that no-one came by walking their dog, because he certainly wouldn't sit quietly on the step if he saw another dog.
So, this weekend I need to investigate getting 2 new large garden gates and some screening to keep him off the garage, so we can leave him outside without worrying where he is!

Health Visitors? Not any more

The Health Visitor called yesterday - Lara is up to 3.98 kilos or 8 3/4 pounds! That and all Lara's other measurements are perfectly OK, so the Health Visitor won't be visiting any more. We're still trying to figure out Lara's patterns, although we know how to get her to sleep in the early evening, by giving her a bath and a feed, then she's asleep until 10 or 11 o'clock. She still can't decide what she wants to do at night though, sometimes she'll sleep non-stop till 4.30am, other times she'll be awake hourly for a little feed.
It did mean I was able to watch Andy Murray lose at tennis on Monday morning though!

Shakers for the Cup

Look at Bury go! I hadn't realised they'd sacked the manager until tonight, when they were the Shock of the Night on Sky Sports while I was watching Liverpool win for beating Norwich 2-1. I thought it was a little harsh of Mike Newell to say something like "if it'll rain anywhere, it'll rain in Bury".
They'll play Southampton in the 4th round at the end of January, at St Mary's. Hmm, I'll have to see if Ola and Lara fancy a trip to the South Coast that weekend for some sea air? I've probably still got my inflatable black pudding somewhere!

Hooray for ASDA

I've been turning in Victor Meldrew for some time, so a piece on the news this morning was right up my street. Asda are bringing in fines for people who park in disabled and parent & child spaces when they are not entitled to. About bl*ody time! It had bugged me before we had Lara, but since she was born we've been to Asda in High Wycombe three times with her and only once did we get a parent & child space, and that was the last one, and it was at 10.30 at night! I don't believe for one second that all the other cars there were parents with children. I've been ready to have a moan at the next selfish driver I encountered who parked where they shouldn't, fully expecting a load of abuse back, but now I can just report them and watch them get fined. Actually I'm not that bothered about them getting fined and having to pay the £60 (although the profit goes to charity) but at least Asda will have people out there actively shoo-ing people out of spaces.
Here's the full story: http://www.asda-press.co.uk/pressrelease/151