2013 is getting close

Time is whiling away...

Whilst we continue to wait, here's a Pleasing Photo for this week:

Messing about with balls on the Wick. It was extremely muddy! I had been thinking I might take the baby for walks on the Wick quite often, but I'd forgotten to account for how much mud there often is. I'm not sure it would be a fun experience with a pushchair! I'll have to get good at using the sling.

So, I didn't do a great job of keeping up my Pleasing Photos for the duration of 2012. But I'm starting again and my goal for 2013 is to keep it up beyond August, which is when I just kind of stopped this year. On the plus side, I'll have an interesting subject for my photographs! But it's just ever so slightly possible that caring for the interesting subject might somehow prevent me from photographing it as often as I'd like. We'll have to see.

Other goals for 2013 include praying with/for the baby every day, and taking the little one up a mountain before its first birthday. Ambitious? Maybe... but it should be possible (it doesn't have to be a big mountain!). Perhaps I should think of some non baby related goals too - but I'm finding a lot of my time taken up with thinking about baby related things these days :)

Waiting

Waiting for a baby is a bit like queueing for a rollercoaster*.

First, the excitement of finally being in the queue, knowing what's coming up: you know it's going to be both fun and scary but you're not there yet. Lots of joking and laughing as you get ready for what's coming.

Then, you kind of get used to being in the queue... you get on with it; it's not particularly interesting but you know it will be worth it in the end. You know roughly how long it's going to take, but not exactly. At times it seems like you have to wait for years!

At last you approach the end of the queue. You can see where people are getting on and suddenly the fear and the excitement are multiplied. It's about to happen! But still you have to wait... you're still not sure exactly when it will be your turn.

And then... you're sitting down. You're strapped in. The rollercoaster is going and there's nothing you can do to stop it!

I reckon at the moment I'm nearing the turnstiles at the end of the queue. I can see that I'll be getting on that ride any minute now. People have told me what it's like but I still don't know for myself. I'm extremely excited but also quite scared. I wish I could just rush forward and say "Now!" but I know I have to keep waiting for my turn.

Come on, baby. I want you to wait until you're ready, but... I really hope you're ready soon!


*No, I don't mean because both make you feel sick...

Baby Christmas Presents

To say it hasn't yet been born, the baby did pretty well for Christmas presents this year!

First up (in the stocking) was a rather hilarious moustache dummy. Someone always gets a comedy moustache.

I think it will look quite startling, especially when coupled with the buff baby rattle. The effect will be particularly striking if we have a girl.

Later in the day, baby was the (presumably) grateful recipient of a gyro-bowl. Allegedly unspillable (although my aunt did manage to demonstrate that this is not *always* the case), the bowl twists and turns as the unthinking toddler waves its arms about whilst holding said bowl by the handles. Ingenious!

I was most touched, however, by a gift that carries with it a dose of family history. This is Shetley (full name Shetley, Shetley, Off You Trot), the rocking horse bought as a Christmas present for my youngest brother Thom 20 years ago. Long since passed on to younger cousins, I had no idea that Shetley was even still in existence. But somehow or other Thom discovered that he (Shetley that is, not Thom himself) was in storage in the loft of a distant relative. With Mum's help Shetley was restored (a work in progress: the poor pony is still earless!) and presented to us on Christmas Day for the future use of our own child. Of course it'll be a while before the little one is old enough to ride it, but I look forward to passing on the story of how the baby's Uncle Thom used to ride the very same horse when he was two years old.

We still don't have the baby yet, but I have a feeling it won't be long. It's hard to explain how, but things have been feeling kind of different for the last couple of days (ever since I was Mary in the crib service on Christmas Eve and had to do an arm-waving, leg-kicking dance as part of the act!) - my assembled siblings would love the baby to be born before they leave, but as most of them are going home tomorrow we are running out of time for that. Although tomorrow is the 27th, which is when Noah says the baby will be born. Let's see if he's right!

Christmas Tree

I got so bored of waiting for the baby to arrive that I started taking photos of our Christmas tree. A pleasing photo for this week! (I'm disappointed though because in real life the star is sparkly but I'm not sure how to photograph that effectively).

On Maternity Leave

I've been on maternity leave for nearly three weeks now. So far there's still no sign of the baby (apart from some pretty vicious kicks of course) - but we are still ten days away from the due date. Noah is pretty disappointed that our offspring has missed not one but two cool birthdays (12/12/12 and 20/12/2012) and is now hoping it will be born on the 27th (not, I think, for any particular reason). Myself, I'm just hoping he or she doesn't go for Christmas Day: it must surely be a rubbish day to have a birthday.* Before or after would be just fine.

Anyway. The house is relatively tidy. I think my 'nesting instinct' has just about propelled me into doing about as much housework as the average person might do during an ordinary week! But the baby's room is (almost) ready, the tiny clothes have all been washed and the hospital bag is packed and ready. We even have a Christmas tree, and a paper chain, and all the presents are wrapped - surely the earliest I've ever achieved that particular goal.

As for the pleasing photos... it's been a while! I'm going to start again in January and see if I can keep it up for longer next year. I would not be remotely surprised if a certain baby were to feature in the majority of next year's photographic offerings - all the better for keeping distant grandparents in touch :)

More to follow when something interesting happens!

* Me being selfish really. I love Christmas too much... my traditional Christmas experience takes up the entire day and I can't work out how we'd squeeze in proper birthday time for the poor child!

Books and a Boat

I seem to be very behind in making my weekly posts... thinking back to my birthday week, here's the Pleasing Photo:

Dad and Ed in cafe

I know the cider bottle in the front is a bit distracting but I like the light and their expressions... I'd been trying to take a photo of both of them but Ed was pretty insistent on reading the write-up of Bradley Wiggins' latest achievements and wouldn't look up.

Other photos from the week:

Beautiful views on the scenic route home from Hay on Wye

We think Ed took this. It isn't freaky... until you notice his face in Mum's skirt!!

Looking up at the SS Great Britain

A Trip to Bristol

So... the summer holidays finally arrived, and I was able to spend some time in Bristol with my lovely parents and brother. The sun even came out for my visit. Hooray!

Pleasing Photo from last week:

As usual I had a few potential pleasing photos (PPPs?) and it was quite a tricky choice between them. In the end I went for this one even though it is slightly underexposed in some places - I kind of like the effect of that and the way it lets you see the quality of the late afternoon sunshine. Also it is genuinely candid (I'm not very good at getting those!) and I feel it conveys the quality of those few days in Bristol, spending time in the garden, just doing our own thing.

Two other contenders were:

Mum with soup at her lovely outdoor-cafe-style table

Dad enjoying a stroll by the river (slightly overexposed?)

What do you guys think? Which picture is your favourite?

(Another post coming up later with this week's PP)

iPhone Toes

All the photos I've taken this week have been with Gwyn Bach. Sorry, real camera. Anyhow, I think this week's winner of the Pleasing Photo award is...

This charming image of my feet, adorned by the socks I acquired at the charity shop last weekend. The best thing about these socks was that they came in a pack of three, all different. Like :D

Other photographic moments from this week include...

Noah pulling silly faces

A Kate Photo

Breakfast in Bed (hurrah for Saturdays!)

And a sneak peek at the recipe I invented this evening

Whilst the iPhone is certainly not as awesome a photographic tool as the Panasonic Lumix G2, it is certainly rather more readily available - and app versions of photo editing software are much cheaper than the real thing!

Pleasing Photos...

... from the last six weeks!

I'm not entirely sure that there's one photo per week here - but I have got six that were taken over the past six weeks, so that'll have to do. Sorry for not keeping up properly. It's all to do with being pregnant, and being ill, and being a primary school teacher in June and July (I was surprised last year to discover that the summer term is by far the busiest and most stressful!)

Anyway, without further ado:

Noah tidies up after the all-age service

A view I've spent lots of time pondering...

One sees this sort of thing in St Albans from time to time

Possibly our favourite local pub, the Olde Fighting Cocks

A door knocker somewhere in Ware

Ed: I say, where's my drink?

I don't think these are even in chronological order (Blogger doesn't seem to like putting photos in the right order) but anyway, there they are. And two more bonus shots:

I think I prefer this to the above actually - this'll be my Pleasing Photo from the wedding.

And from today, the moment when a cheeky police officer asked the olympic torchbearer to hop onto his motorbike for photos.

Self Portrait

This week's Pleasing Photo is a (kind of!) self portrait, taken during my first outing since being ill. Here it is:

I love the way the early evening sunlight slants through the trees around here. (That is, when there is any sunlight to speak of - which there has been this weekend, hooray!)

I wandered abroad for only about 25 minutes on Friday evening. I tried out a number of photographs, several of which were failures. I'm always drawn to the patterns in the mud and the reflections in puddles, but quite often they don't come out anything like how I expected. So instead, here are a couple of upward-looking shots:

On Saturday I was fit to go a little further afield, walking as far as the fabric shop, where I needed to purchase some elastic for a certain sewing project I have finally begun (sorry, Becky!). Today I made it to church and back, and very much enjoyed the service.

My feet have been encased all weekend in a new pair of Toms shoes. (Not Thom's shoes*. That's different.) What I like most about them is how the manufacturer give a pair of shoes to a child in need for every single pair they sell to people like us... but I also like the way they're surprisingly comfortable - kind of almost like wearing a sock instead of a shoe. Noah likes the way they look stylish (or so he says). I'm also very fond of the fact that, despite the subdued black of their outer surface (purchased to wear to work), the inside is decorated with printed elephants, rhinos and lions. Even if they look boring, I know they're not.

* When I talk about wearing Thom's shoes, I mean the pair of red Converse trainers three sizes too big for me which my kind little brother gave to me as a birthday present after he'd worn them for a year or so.

Monument

Last week's pleasing photo is not particularly pleasing... it's ok, but it was taken with my iPhone. My time last week was mainly taken up with going on the Year 5 Residential then being ill, which is my excuse for pretty much everything.

Ashridge Monument

And another couple of photos showing what me and Noah got up to over the weekend (with me feeling steadily more queasy...)

Our first trip to an English Taco Bell!

Noah feeding Marmite Marmite. She didn't like it.

Marmite on the Sofa

This is my Pleasing Photo from two weeks ago (29th April). It's of our new cat, Marmite (who was much newer when the photo was taken!)

She's a very tricky cat to photograph (or is that just all cats?!) so I can see that I'm going to have to build up my skills before I get any really good snaps of her (although I like this one ok). She's very curious, but also extremely nervous... the phrase 'scaredy cat' springs to mind frequently, particularly when she scarpers upstairs at full speed just because somebody sneezes. She'll come over to be stroked but never for very long; hates being picked up; loves it when Noah plays laser pointer with her and has sat on my lap (or rather, on a cushion on my lap) only twice (both occasions involving considerable persistence on my part). She miaows a lot and has extremely soft fur. On the whole, we like having a cat :)

Family Photo Shoot

It was pretty hard to select a single Pleasing Photo from all the family mugshots I took at our meet-up for Mum's birthday last weekend. But eventually I selected this shot of my littlest brother:

Some other fun photos from Saturday:

Which brother looks shiftiest?

Noah's handiwork :)

Two Pleasing Photos

Because our holiday in Snowdonia (woohoo!) followed by a busy Easter weekend leaves me a little behind with this photo-posting challenge... but the photos were taken in the relevant weeks, so I still feel more or less on track.

Firstly, taken on Saturday 31st March at perhaps the best-loved day trip destination from when the Sutcliffes lived in Cannock...

A further clue to our destination may be found in the additional photos below.

Secondly, taken in a village (does it count as a village?) we never actually visited, despite staying nearby on holiday...

Portmeirion was certainly an interesting place to visit. We both liked the way that the architect fitted the buildings into the natural setting - some of them really looked like they were growing out of the rocks. Except, of course, that everything is painted an exciting colour. Fun!

A few other contenders for the last two PP titles:

It was, of course, Stokesay Castle

Taken at Portmeirion again

Noah was delighted with Caernarfon Castle.

Isn't he sweet?

Noah calls this "A classic Kate photo'

Neolithic burial mound on Angelsey!

Looking from Beaumaris to the snow-capped peaks on the mainland