Well what a quick year it has been. I simply can’t believe that a year ago I was becoming a Dad, and the year itself has flown by so fast. At the end of every year I tend to write a post on here that looks back at the years events, so here goes.
Of course the year started in chaos with the birth of my son, and actually has been chaos ever since, mostly in a good way though. Just before Christmas we decided to buy ourselves a Ninetendo Wii and in between looking after Harry, I became addicted to Wii tennis. To this day my record on the wall still stands at 70, although I just have not had the time to try and beat that in recent months. Also in January we had the Rowland Homes saga with then opening up the bottom of our road to build a new housing estate. I remember the health and safety risks posed by their wagons at the time and the chaos that they caused. It seems to have settled down a little now although residents still feel an injustice for the fact that the development has gone ahead.
February started with me having a go with Twitter. This didn’t develop really until after WordCampUK later in the year but still the seed was sown. I also distinctly remember going out one day to buy what is now know as the “Bear Chair” for Harry. We were having a touch time getting him to settle for any length of time, with this being worse at night and therefore a neighbour had a swinging baby chair that played sounds etc that they recommended. My trek took me to Bolton in order to pick one up but I managed it in the end!
March seemed to be a techy month, mainly for two reasons. Firstly the Equal Design website finally got its relaunch that it has been waiting for, for so long and also I had delivered my 15inch MacBook Pro that was to replace the Mac Mini that I had sold the year before. In fact I had been without a Mac for just over 3 months, too long! Harry also met his second cousin, something that I remember us debating about for some time when they met. Where they second cousins or half cousins etc.
I suppose the main thing that happened in the April was Harry’s Christening. We had a really nice day with the family and I think that Harry enjoyed all the input. On the computer front I finally purchased my Apple Time Capsule and managed to get it set up after lots of online chats to sales about how my current setup would work.
Into May and the budgies were breeding again. We had several more arrivals in the aviary, the lovely Inga being one of them. In fact the budgies had a very successful breeding year with several batches of budgies. In fact they bred so well that we have now started taking some of the offspring to the pet shop so that aviary does not get too crowded. May was also another month in which we made home improvements. We enlarged the kitchen by removing the utility wall which has given us much more space. Really worth while doing.
After May is were this blog took a little break really. July had some entries but after that it went quiet whilst I concentrated on other projects and really didn’t seem to have any time to work on posting here. In July I attended the annual meeting of the WordPress community here in the UK called WordCampUK. It involved a trip down to Cardiff where we attended lots of talks and me t some people that were very interesting and inspiring. Looking forward to the 2010 event which is in Manchester.
In July my wife and I also went to Edinburgh for a few days to get away and have a little break from taking care of Harry. We missed him like crazy when we were down their but it was nice to have some downtime. Edinburgh is a beautiful city and has some stunning buildings. We also went up on the train which was a bit of a novelty and something different.
Then Christmas came by which I won’t bore you with again as I have only just posted about that, and that leaves us here, waiting for the New Year (and new decade) to begin. I wonder what it will bring, and will it go as fast as 2009?
I have taken many photographs this year and this has inspired me to take on a photograph experiment in 2010. The idea is to take, and blog about 365 photographs, one for each day of the year.
My thoughts were to present them in some sort of collage, were you could click on each photo and then enlarge it to read more about the image. Obviously each would have a blog post already on the blog, posted each day of the year. I think I am going to give this a go, I just worry that I will not have enough photos to blog about. However with the acquisition of my iPhone it will make taking the photos a lot easier.
So watch out in the new year for Photo365 on this blog and wish me luck!
Christmas Day 2009 was a special day as it was our first Christmas with my son Harry. Although not yet of the age to get very exited he certainly new that it was a ‘different’ day with all the people that were coming and going.
The started like any other I suppose. The only difference was that I felt terrible in the morning. I have had a cold and bunged up nose for about 3 – 4 weeks now and it is really starting to annoy me now. I think this is the longest that I have had a cold for and it really is a touch little virus. Anyway after a Hot Lemsip (well Asda’s version!) I was feeling a little better and got up to.
Then it was time for Harry to start opening some of the presents that friends and family had given. We started with the Winnie the Pooh ride on truck that Helen and I bought him. It took ages to get into it as you can see from the below:
The annoying thing about this video is that I ended up sat in front of Harry and between him and the camera so although you get glimpses of the excitement he showed you can’t really appreciate it. Still I will learn for next year! After opening a number of presents we thought that we would leave some for when his grandparents arrived later on. Harry then feel asleep and had a good long nap.
Next to arrive where my parents, armed with a bag of presents, some for Harry and some for Helen and I which was nice. Helen’s parents then arrived with a similar sack full of goodies and then it was time to exchange presents and watch Harry open more and more of the gifts he received.
It was then down to me to get the Christmas Lunch on the go. Not a massive Turkey fan I decided that we would have a nice roast leg of lamb instead. This was accompanied by roast potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, and gravy. The gravy ended up a little on the thin side as we seemed to all out of Cornflour, something which we always have, but not when you really needed it. Still the meal was really good, and having not cooked a ‘proper’ meal for a while I was pleased that it worked out well. The meal was started with a Pear and Roquefort Salad with croutons and finished with a Morrisons Chocolate Cheesecake.
After some Trivia games in the afternoon and Harry playing with all his new toys, it was soon time for Harry’s bedtime. He was a tired boy after all the goings on. Once in bed Helen and I watched a little TV (Coronation Street, Mr and Mrs and The Royale Family) and then went to bed, still with my headache and sore nose.
It was a really pleasant day and one that I will always remember as Harry’s first Christmas Day. I sure that they will only get more chaotic from here!
Over the last few days in the UK we have had some snowfall. To people in the UK this is a massive event where everyone goes crazy for some reason, however I have to admit that it is rather nice, and a few days before Christmas as well!
It had snowed the day earlier but where we lived it was not very good snow and did not stick very well at all really. Today, the snow was what I would call proper snow, Large snow flakes falling to the ground at a rate of knots and then sticking to the surface like glue. Beautiful! I took a quick video to prove it, after all it was one of those Lazy Sundays!
I have taken many photos of 2009, not as many as I would like, but non the less I thought that I would share some of my favourites memories and photographs of the year.
I am hoping that now that Harry is almost 1 year old I will have a little more time to take more photographs, and also my iPhone should also enable me to take more photos. My favourite photo (excluding the photos of Harry of course) has to be the Edinburgh photo of the Scotsman hotel sign. Not sure why really but it just looks really good I think.
Well this week has been a very trying week indeed. A test of patience, stamina and just about everything else I think too. My son has been very ill, I have had a very bad cold (which I think my son gave me – thanks Harry!) and to top it all computer problems!
Readers of this blog and followers of me online will no doubt be aware of the difficult first 8 – 10 weeks we had with my son when he was born just under a year ago. This week has brought all that back as we have had several nights were we have been up most of the night with him. We I say we, but it has mostly been my wife who as beared the brunt a I was working all week. We also wouldn’t have managed without the help of our mums – Harry’s granny and grandma who have helped wherever they can. I think what made it hard was it brought back all the pain of those first 10 weeks although I think we both new that this would end (still hoping as I hear Harry crying in the background as I write this!).
I have called this post the week before the week before meaning we are currently in the week before the week before Christmas. Still with me! Anyway my wife was ill last week (I think she gave this cold to Harry) and me and Harry have been bad this week and usually there is always someone that is ill on Christmas Day. Therefore I am hoping that with the 3 of us all having coughs and colds that it will mean that we will have an illness free Christmas Day. Here’s hoping anyway!
So lets see what the weekend and next week is going to bring. The week before Christmas is always a nice week and in many ways better than the Christmas week itself.
Well I really have gone round the houses with this blog over the last few months. We have changed domain name, changed designs a few times and now we are back here on the original domain name that we started with, but with a new design. Let me explain all about it!
First of all I have had a blogging conflict for the last few months. I have started writing more and more blog articles about WordPress and the Web design and development work that I have been doing. That in itself is not a problem, but penny4them.com was followed by a lot of friends and family that were not in the slightest interested in WordPress or web development. Therefore I have decided that I am going to use this a more of a personal blog about me rather than things that are too WordPressy or web developmentish (not sure whether they are words but hey ho!). I am going to develop the Equal Design blog in order to publish any techy posts that I write.
So why this design? You are a web designer for goodness sake? Well that is true, a web designer that doesn’t design their own website? The thing is, is that I just haven’t got time to design my own site as I am too busy with other projects – teaching and Equal Design. So I stumbled across this theme from youare.com the other day and really liked it. Nice and simple with good design features and enables me to do all the things that I want to on my blog. So after a dummy local install to test the features I have decided to go live with it.
