Monthly Archives: January 2011

Still waiting

It has now turned into a waiting game,  with the arrival of ‘mini us’ due on the 29th.  They can decide they want out and join us on the outside anytime now, so we are both on red alert.  Hot curries most evenings are not helping to speed things up.

So what do you do at weekends when you are waiting for your wife to drop one?…. well, the answer is not a lot really.  We went to Bennachie as it was a nice day and did one of the orienteering courses which was enjoyable.  It was a pleasant day and was good pratice with a map and compass, it took us to some parts of the woods we have never been to before.

It gave lara some much needed fresh air as I think she is now very bored of being big and uncomfortable.

We are planning on trying for a home birth,  she is in a category that are allowed to try home delivery as she has had a simple pregnancy with no complications.  We have a room ready to go covered up ready to make a mess in.  We have had two gas cannisters full of gas and air, had morphine delivered which is now sitting in the fridge and the midwifes on speed dial…..

It is a waiting game, a boring, fustrating, now tedious waiting game.  We both want to get on with being parents and playing with our son /daughter.  Oh well, nothing we can do but….. yup you guest it, wait.

watch this space!

Playing near home

As I am on red alert and start shaking every time my phone rings when I am not next to Lara,  I have a self imposed 1.5 hour radius of Lara at all time.  So anything in the mountains is out of the question at the moment as I don’t want to miss the birth of my child (plus Lara would chop my balls off). 

Yesterday as the snow has mostly disappeared I arranged to go biking with Rich up at Fochabers.  As we set off it started to snow….. great.  Still I thought in a couple of weeks i might as well sell my bikes so I was determined to go biking no matter what.

By the time we had gotten to the trail, there was a couple of inches of fresh snow on teh floor, nothing hurrendous and off we set.

The snow had fallen onto normal earth so there was no underlying ice or snow to make it slippy and it was surprisingly grippy.  Was very cold and still snowing but it made it different and enjoyable.  It was also Rich’s first experience of any Northshore.  So i take my hat off to you, it is scary at the best of times, let alone when it is covered in snow!!!!!  But Rich looked down, saw the MTFU sticker on the top tube of the bike and went for it.  I sat there poised with the camera ready for the potential carnage……

Non – he rode it like a natural.  The look of relief at the end was funny though! I thought I had better do it as well to save face after egging him on to do it as well.  Camera was not fast enough to catch me though as I was obviously going so fast……. (yeah whatever)

A very enjoyabel ride, the snow made it good fun, and the odd bit of ice that did catch us out never did any damage.

FULL TERM!!!!!!! when will the baby arrive?

So poor Lara is now full term as of last Friday. (37 weeks) the baby is due on the 29th but it is able to be born any time from now!  Oh sh*t!!!!!!

Lara is praying for the baby to come and join us in the outside world ASAP!  She is now pretty much over this being pregnant malarkey and is look forward to playing mummy.

We took thess picture last Wednesday and she has a bump diameter of 39″ (as seen below)

Tonight we remeasured as I swear she looked bigger, and she is 40″!!!!!  So an inch in 5 days.  I think Lara is now super desperate to get the baby out before it grows to very painful proportions!

Will keep you all updated, but my forecast is the 23rd of January and 7lbs 8onzs and obviously male.  Email me your guestimates and we will see who is closest!

Must fly, as I have to go cook Lara a hot curry and chop up a pineapple!

Merry XMAS!!!!

With ‘Mini M’ fast approaching, Lara is too far gone through her pregnancy to be able to fly.  So this meant that everyone came up to us!  This was out first family Xmas in our house.  Probably as we never had a house big enough to fit the family in.

We had Frank, Caryn, Tallie and Chester up.  New years eve was spent with some more friends Euan, Lainie and Rich coming around, we played a few games of articulate with boys versus girls, we found that the girls were far more articulate than us,  even with our powers of cheating the blokes could still not win!  We also did the old wife’s tale of the gold ring and a piece of string dangled over Lara’s head then the bump.  Well I can tell you that this test does nto work, it showed us that it was going to be a girl….. and we all know it is going to be a boy!  So anyone out there who is thinking about trying to determine their baby’s gender don’t bother with this technique.

Xmas day came, and I thought that I was a child again as I was up at silly oclock to go for my xmas morning bike ride before everyone else go up.  Chester and Rich came along as well.  There is still loads of snow at the moment so it was quite fun and a unique bike ride for a xmas morning.  It was -8 and for some reason lovely. It was only a short ride around the woods behind out our house for a few laps to make sure we got home before everyone else stirred.  We started off in darkness and the sun rose as we went around.  We nearly had to stop and hold hands at one point.  Below is Chester ‘enduring’.

When we got home no one was up yet……  I think this could have something to do with the previous nights over endulgance!  Lara was up first and we set about getting the turkey in the oven.  Lara had great fun getting the stuffing up the poor turkey!  She was not gentle.

Then came the various others coming down in assorted xmas gear…..

I felt under dressed in my traditional Xmas day shorts.  We soon all had breakfast and set about the presents.  I got a great presents this year, thank you all for your generous gifts.  But I think Lara was the clear winner this year!  Just look at it all!!!!!

Then we started drinking and it all got a bit fuzzy.  What I do know was it was as always a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  I love xmas and look forward to the next one already!

Morvern Again (winter Solstice)

With the forecast to be clear and a full moon, I thought a good way to spend winter solstice is to go skiing.  I have only been skiing a few times at night, but know that when it is clear and a full moon it is really bright and sometimes head torches are not needed.

I rang around a few fellow skiing idiots who would think it is a good idea to go skiing at night as well, and ended up with the two Scott’s (Muir and Burnett), and one of Scott’s mates called Donald

We met up at the bottom of Morvern and started to ski up, we thought we would be all alone but about a dozen head torches came over the crest and down the hill, they were not moving fast enough to be skiers, when they neared it was the local hill running club.  Think I prefer to have been on skis!  Anyway, the climb was great, no head torches needed, could see more than enough with just the moon light, the moon was even casting our shadows on the floor it was that bright.

When we got to the top we sat around and admired the view, could see all the way over to Ben Macdui and in the other direction Lochnagar, was a great view and it was at night!  Mr Burnett whipped out his hip flask and some left over liquor chocolates and we all warmed ourselves up with them. 

after 10 or so minutes on top it was starting to get cold (it was a balmy -4 up there, and down the bottom it was a temperature inversion being -16)  we got all our stuff sorted and headed down.  We found some great patches of snow and was a really pleasant descent.

Once again we got back to the cars just before midnight and had a smug feeling.  I think I could really get into this night skiing stuff, I think everyone else enjoyed it and I think there could be some more happening this winter.  Thank you Mr Muir for letting me steal the pictures from your website as I forgot my camera…..