Lunch with Friends

We are getting out and about and of course our lovely boy is already making friends with the ladies. Here we are at lunch at our friends Gillian and Timothy, (an adult Timothy) and little Tim and Alice are chilling out on their super size bean bag. (It is wicked comfy).



And here we are all tuckered out.....

Congratulations Simon and Erica

On the birth of your new daughter Stella Maureen.

Our best wishes are with the three of you.

Typical Parents

Ok so yes we have become the normal over enthusiastic parents with the camera but really this was so cute I couldn't resist.

The Great Flood

We went for an adventure last night after I falled to catch the bus, (it didn't turn up). Ben came home from work and took Timothy and I out to the library, shopping and then dinner at the pub. We sat there watching the rain, remarking on the amount coming down but not really thing about it. Then on our way home we discovered that all roads were flooded. there are three roads into our village but it did take an hour and a half to work our way in. Two of the roads were inaccessable with one of them taking a poor ladies car, the water had come up over the roof of her car and it was pushing the vechicle down stream.

Here a few shots from it....

Note from Ben: I'd like to thank Renault for the quality of their door seals. There were five times we had to ford through rivers across the road, and four of those would have been above the door level :-P

Various Timmy Noises

Clicky Here:



NB: QuickTime 7.0 required. If you've got iTunes you can play this.

Country Party

The weekend before last we four, Ben, Timothy, Terry and myself went to the country fair. It was a wonderful experience with show horse, braiding. Tractor parade and dogs doing doggy things, trial runs and herding. Of course there was the excellent crafts and arts including many a taste snack such as fudge, home made ice cream and lovely fairyfloss. It was a great day with lots of sunshine and Timothy had lots of fun.

Bath Time

Ooo aren't I cute

Hi-Res Timothy Pics

For those who would like prints, I've uploaded a dozen or so full resolution images we've taken over the last few weeks here. Sorry, some of them are a bit noisy, but I prefer natural light, and sadly there is a lot less natural light up here than there is down there!

Enjoy!

Cambridge Beer Festival

On Saturday we decided to head on down to the Cambridge Beer Festival.

We headed out mostly because we needed to get out of the house after an aborted trip to the Pub to meet the work folks (Tim decided to not go to sleep at his usual time, bless his cotton socks, and slept through lunch).

Well, there can be no other reason. Eve's breast feeding, so tiny amounts of booze only. I'm driving, so only a bit for me, too. That and in order to fit in with Timbo's (haphazard) sleeping schedule meant that we turned up at 11:30am, not exactly drinking time, and the joint wasn't exactly jumping. I think there were a number of hangovers around - I didn't see many smiles about the place.

And it was raining.




Nevertheless off we went. Next year we'll find a babysitter and head in on a weeknight and have a ball. This beer festival is all about Real Ales, that is, Cask Conditioned Beer. These are not pasteurised and are hand pulled from casks, and thus aren't carbonated. You can stand a spoon in some of them, and alcohol content is usually on the highish side. This stuff is not what we are used to in Australia, but it's undeniable that many of them are just outstanding, if you have the taste for them (I certainly do!).



If only it wasn't so hard to find some of these in the pubs near us.

While we were there, Terry was on hand with his trusty video camera. He taped a few minutes of us with Tim, and assembled it into this nifty video. Thanks muchly Terry! To download, option click below (Mac users) or right click and download (Windows users). Or just click to view. It's about 25 Meg.

More Timothy Stuff

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful messages of congratulations! Very much appreciated by all three of us :-)

We'll have a go at responding to all your messages once we've got the little fellow home. Sadly, the internet at the hospital isn't terribly useful, and at the moment I'm only home for a few hours a night, and I have to sleep sometime!

So, a short update. This morning when the doctors came around to check on Tim, we received the fantastic news that all his blood tests for infection came back negative, which means he is in the clear! Once he has finished his course of antibiotics (precautional), we can take him home. From the looks of it, this means Wednesday afternoon. Yay!

There is a lot to write about our experiences over the last four days, and I hope to put up a more substantial post (with more piccies) about it later in the week.

But for those that requested a some more pics, here are a few from the last couple of days. The first one is my favourite so far.

Timothy James

Just a short message as I have to get back to the hospital.

But for now, please welcome Timothy James, 8 pounds 3 ounces,
born at 11:37pm on the 10th.




Timbo has been trouble so far. Unfortunately, he was a bit big for his mother and after a hard labour he eventually was delivered by cesaerian. Since then he has been having trouble breathing (which frightened us half to death), as there was a bit of air/gas/something outside his lung that was causing difficulty. However, today he has improved, and everything now looks like he's going to be fine. We should have him at home in a few days.

Progress

Greetings All,

Just to keep you updated. Yesterday we spent five hours at the hospital to check on the baby's health as its movements had become slow again. But everything was fine. This morning we had our midwife drop in at home and she did an examination stating we were in labour but I have yet to feel any pain. Beccy (the midwife) said I was very luck at this point as the usual painful contractions appear to be missing but the body is still doing its job. We should see a new family member in less than a week. We have another appointment at the hospital on Tuesday (that is if we haven't gone into full labor by then) to montior the critter again.

Big Day

Greetings Everybody,

Well the big day as arrived and the big news has not so alas we don't have anything exciting to report to you all. Thank you for all the well wishes and good lucks, I am sure it will go well once it actually gets started. We will be phoning and messaging everybody as soon as something does happen so hang in there.

Love, eve and ben

Gardening Weekend

Wonderful weather here again and we were out and about in our lovely cottage garden, improving. The first pics are of our improvements to the place. We have planted the blueberry, apricot, and rassberries out the back. We made two new flower beds also out the back and of course the veggie patch.

Out the front we have added number of flowering plants including jasmanie, broom and of course we already had the sweet peas going, there about to burst into bloom.



The next pics are of blossoms around our house and about the village.

Kirtling Towers

Excellent gardens to be visited and visit we did. Sunday saw us at the Kirtling Towers. The home of Lord and Lady Fairhaven, who are nice enough to open to the public in the blossom season. They have a great garden as you will see from the pics, as well as excellent landscaping courtesy of history as well as design.

A little history of the place.....

What we know today as Kirtling Tower was built as the gatehouse to Kirtling Hall in the 1530s by Edward North. However, the history of the site goes back much further. The first documents refer to Kirtling castle in 1219. Later references indicate that it had a moat crossed by a bridge in 1260 and an encircling ditch and palisade in 1310.

In 1337 it was described as a ‘forcelet’ suggesting that it did not have stone defences and keep. The wall was repaired in 1392. The only buildings recorded before 1400 were ‘ruined and wasted houses’.

The castle was lived in at various times during the 13th and 14th Centuries. In the early 15th Century it included hall, kitchen and chapel and a ‘longhouse’ outside the moat. In 1424 a new hall was built inside the moat for the earl of Warwick by a carpenter from Saxon Street using 100 oaks and 10 ashes from Kirtling park. The architect’s specification included a parlour, solar and two chambers at the east end and a pantry, buttery and a passage leading to a kitchen. By then there were several other buildings within the moat. In 1528 Robert Brown kept the use of the parlour and two chambers, but rented out the rest of the house to a man from Little Bradley. (from http://www.kirtlingandupend.org.uk)

They have a wonderful selection of tulips,




Along with the lovely flowers there are two churches, the orignal towers, a secret garden, several ponds, horses and various other old buildings. Only two sides of the moat are now filled with water though.



A few other pics around the place....