There and Back 10/10/10

Got back from our holiday to Morocco last week, photos are here. It was really wonderful. Not too hard to come back to Blighty as the weather is fairly mild but I would rather be there waking up to the sound of surf to be honest. It was a great trip. Elise again proved herself to be a great little traveller although she was a bit unsettled when we got back. She had a great time but would have been happier staying in London with all her little friends and comforting routines. What a baby. We learnt that you need to roll with the punches a bit when you travel with a baby, but years of poorly planned travel means we are actually ok at that. We had planned to split the day up with surfing and yoga taking turns looking after Elise, but in the end we had to arrange one to one yoga lessons for Sarah (in the most amazing location outside our apartment) because Elise's routine didn't fit round the scheduled classes. The surf coaching turned out to be an all day affair which meant I wouldn't see Elise during the day just like I was at work in London so I just did two days and then surfed out the front of the apartment other days which as you can see from the photos wasn't too shabby. My body was wrecked by the coaching sessions but I felt great from it. Big improvements in my surfing too, although to be honest it is still more comic than majestic. Awesome country anyway, so beautiful and such great people in Taghazout where we were. It's hard to believe such a different and desert like place is so close to London.

Janine and Simon are our house guests at the moment as they get ready for the big move back to NZ. Completely hassle-free guests and it's nice to have family around. Makes it feel like Christmas! Not easy living with a baby if you are not used to it but they seem to be coping well, and Elise loves them so it's all good at what is now the Gould European head office.

Design Cafe 12/09/10

Busy as always, plans afoot. No actions, but plenty of plans. My current hobby is talking about opening a design cafe on Lama Island in Hong Kong. I have no plans to actually do this but spend lots of time thinking about it and talking about it to Sarah, mainly because it drives her crazy with frustration, unable as she is to understand that having a fantasy design cafe is much more enjoyable than having an actual design cafe. A design cafe is a normal cafe, but by the beach and with an amazing little book store full of beautiful design books and stationary s I sit in it all day looking over the water, drinking coffee (or beer in the evening as the sun sets over the water) listening to cool music and reading my books. She always asks stupid questions such as how much money would we make, when clearly the answer is none. Anyway, I've already picked the house we will live in with the girls (second child also a not real FYI), which is here.

Anyway Brighton was amazing, the design conference was great and we love that little town. It was also the first time we have been away with Elise where she has been old enough to enjoy seeing new things. We thought we would be stuck in the hotel the whole time she actually loved looking at all the people and eating at all the different restaurants we blew our retirement money on. Now we have to save up another 80 pounds to retire on. Good thing we have the Design Cafe to fall back on.

Elise has discovered my old Teddy, the not very originally named Ted, and is fascinated with him. Sarah is slightly concerned about the fact that he is, lets be honest, old and filthy. So I might get him deloused. I have to say though that I find the sight of Elise pouring love (and snot) on to Ted quite touching. Having a baby has made me so sentimental.

I love this photo of Elise. Almost good enough for a Farmers catalogue eh.

Prison of Culinary Delight 30/08/2010

We have set up a kind of fence to keep little travellers out of the kitchen and away from the various implements of death we keep there. It turns out that it also keeps out 'helpful' partners who inhibit your creativity with their bourgeois concerns with food being 'delicious' and 'safe for humans'. The result of this is captured above, although they look like poos they are in fact 'Matt's Experimental Vegetarian Sausage Rolls'. Although bearing no resemblance to what we would traditionally consider sausage rolls, or indeed even food stuff in its most widely accepted forms it was surprisingly, pretty tasty. No one was more shocked than me.

Not sure what else we have been doing, it's been a bit of a blur this year … went swimming with Elise today (too cute), drinking with scott (8 month olds are less cute if you have a hangover), saw Scott Pilgrim Vs The World at the flicks (awesome fun), stuff like that.

A couple of pics - bed time story and Elise and Janine. Funny thing is I remember when Janine was the same age as Elise.

Also, although this photo is pretty terrible, Janine, Simon and Elise all sitting on the couch blowing Raspberries is too cute not to share.

Little Traveler

Elise, it turns out, is a good little traveler. The photo above is on the train on our recent trip to Brighton with Janine and Simon, which started off pretty grey and rainy but we got some nice blue skies eventually just before my camera ran out of batteries (you will just have to believe me). Brighton is a cool busy little place and it was nice to be beside he seaside, as they say. We'll be back there for a whole weekend soon for the Deconstruct design conference so that should be fun. Elise is still driving herself crazy with frustration at not being able to crawl when a lot of her little friends can. Ironically she is actually pretty strong and moves around pretty well through rolling, bum shuffling and general wriggling but she has it stuck in her head that she has to crawl and tries again and again everyday. It's sort of heart breaking because she's so close and gets so upset when she can't do it. I've explained to her that developmentally it fine for her to bum shuffle but she just looks at me like I'm babbling nonsense. Still she's almost there and is such a clever thing (to my mind) that I'm sure she'll get there eventually. We're dealing with it by praising her when she tries, consoling her when she fails, and encouraging her to also practise the things she can do. It's great to see the look on her face when she achieves something she's been practising. She looks so pleased with herself, it never fails to make me laugh when I'm lucky enough to see it.

Still Here 5/08/2010

Bloody hell, almost skipped July completely. Long time no see, refer to previous lame excuses. Been a busy time - Sarah's Auntie and her husband (Nicky and Julian) stayed with us and Elise and Sarah went on a trip 'up north' to visit some family and have a nosey. I started a new contract so I had to stay behind but the new contract is pretty cool although fairly stressful in that way that working for a design agency as opposed to directly for a client sometimes is. It's in West London which is kind of a waste land as far as interesting things to do goes but the ride takes me through Regents park, along Regents Canal and through Hyde park so it's a gorgeous ride. Or will be, shamefully I've only managed it once so far ...

Elise - is a still a bubbly ginger ball of joy. Since our last post she has learnt to dance, roll around when she should be sleeping, complain (unbelievably loudly) and launch herself without fear from a sitting to a crawling position. This manoeuvre usually ends in tears as her head arrives in the crawling position before her arms. Also she can't crawl, so once there she either a) just sits there on her hands and knees looking pleased with herself or b) tried to crawl forwards, ends up going backwards and employs her volumous complaining sound to voice her frustration.

Life at the moment for me feels mostly like get up, work, bath and feed Elise if I get home on time, lie in bed with Sarah talking about how lovely Elise is (as we have both been hit with same lame-ray from the lame-o-matic 1st baby ray gun) and complaining about how tired we are, sleep then repeat. But good times are on their way. A day trip with the McFeachey's to Brighton later on this month, a design conference merged with a family weekend away in Brighton again next month, then a surf/yoga week in Morocco the month after that. I'm sure you can guess who is surfing and who is doing Yoga. You are correct!

A couple of Elise pics:

Scorchio 03/07/2010

It is very hot. Elise is over 6 months old now! Here are a few photos we took of her over the last couple of weekends to celebrate. Also, Elise has discovered me! For the last couple of weeks she has become very excited when I come home from work or when she wakes up in the morning and discovers me in bed, grabbing my face and giving me large very wet kisses. It is like being loved by a labrador. Although her teeth are giving her hell she continues her advance into adorableness. This is what we know about her so far (these may be true for all 6 month olds, I have no idea, Elise is the first one I have spent this much time with): She is good at being by herself and often wakes up and just lies in her bed working herself up into howls of cackles before asking for us to get her up. She loves attention and knows how to wield a chubby smile to get it, but particularly likes kids slightly older than herself. She likes food (green food in particular) and is aggressive and uninhibited in her approach to new tastes. She can say 'Bababa' (whatever the hell that means) and when excited squeals so high it is slightly frightening. She can get both feet in her mouth.

Outside of Elise everything has been very busy, I have secured a new contract which is pretty fabbo, we've been to a few galleries and pubs ... pretty much life as normal but hotter really. And that is all.

Fathers Day! 20/06/2010

These posts are increasingly beginning with excuses as to why they are taking so long to put up, so I won't go into detail, it's all the usual excuses plus the fact that I'm trying to redo my portfolio so between those and Elise time is a rare commodity. Elise and Sarah are having a snooze so I've grabbed some time to do this and watch the new Doctor Who.

It has been very busy, Sarah and I had our second ever night out without Elise, and Janine and Simon did such a smooth job of baby sitting that we began to wonder why we find parenting so hard. Elise grows so much every day that it is slightly shocking. Sometimes she still feels like the tiniest baby ever to me when she is sick or sleepy and other times when she is sitting up and smiling and squawking at me she doesn't look lie a baby at all but a real little girl. Meal time with Elise are so unrestrained, so anarchic, so messy that it is always leaves me in a state of disbelieve. I have never seen such inhibited avarice as when Elise gets a bowl full of carrots in front of her. By the time she has finished every surface within a meter radius is covered in food, very little of which seems to go into her mouth. She eats vegetables in the same way that Cookie monster eats cookies, with a lot of crumb and fury but very little actual digestion. She also learnt to kiss, although like her eating there is more enthusiasm than accuracy. When she is in a good mood however some part (or indeed most) of your face will be covered in Elise Saliva.

Been doing lots of Design community stuff at the moment including seeing Sir Tim Bernard Lees (the guy who invented HTML for you nerds out there) and Stephen Fry talk next week on the future of technology but tonight I am going to see Winston Marsalis play with Janine thanks to some free tickets she blagged.

Today is also my first fathers day. Yah me and thanks Elise for the socks and chocolate and breakfast. Better go and wake up the girls.

Elise TV 04/06/2010

Puppy? 02/06/2010

Welcome Fang! This adorable bundle of puppy fat weighs 9 pounds one ounce and is called Arlo. He came on Tuesday and Kiri and Bub are doing great I'm told, and apparently Rod was a first rate co-driver. Can't wait to meet you Arlo. As you can see he has already mastered the first of life's important skills, sleeping while wearing a hat. Sarah snd I cannot look at this photo without making involuntary awwww sounds. Good work team Krod.

Fireball 31/05/10

Photos of Sardinia are up here.

Having trouble keeping up with this at the moment but I have no plans to put it out of it's misery just yet so for the sake of consistency here is a quick run down:

Weather is crazy, it was 28 degrees the day before Kate and Luke arrived, was cold every day they were here and then went up to 28 degrees again the day after they left. Since then it has fluctuated by up to 10 degrees every day. Maybe that's normal for a London Spring

Elise can now sit up unaided, suck on a stick of vegetable (albeit with a rather unimpressed look on her face) and this week she rolled over by herself for the first time, accompanied by much whooping and cheering from me who apparently got much more out of it that Elise did. At the moment though she has a cold poor poppet but is putting on a brave if snotty face.

Couple of pics from one of the nicer days. Our local park complete with pale English types and and some pics of streets around my work near St Pauls.

Absence 22/05/10

Haven't had time to update here due to visitors and holidays but, in short, guests were a pleasure, weather was shit (although nice in Sardinia and gorgeous in London now), I'm a bit sick, and I wake up every morning wondering if Kiri has had her baby yet. And if she will call it Fang. Above pic is in Sardinia, note that thrill seeking daughter is asleep.

Little Britain 02/05/10

Kate, Luke an Edie are staying with as at the moment so probably won't get much time to write here over the next couple of weeks, but they have wasted no time hitting the museums and checking out dirty old London. We are off to Sardinia for a big family holiday next week and untill then just trying to figure out how to keep two little gigner kids occupied in the city. Elise adores Edie and carefully watches everything she does ... what will she learn ...

The Skies! 21/04/2010

After empty clear skies all week London's skies are again criss crossed with contrails. I didn't even notice they were gone really, but once they started appearing again they seemed really majestic. No news really but enjoyed a good weather weekend and good times in the park with Elise and Sarah. Here's a pic of Elise. Carry on!

Spring 11/04/2010

Yah for spring! Flowers are out, weather is mild if changeable, it's nice to be outside. Richard, Kerry and Walt are here from NZ for three months for work and it has been a pleasant couple of weeks catching up with friends and spring cleaning. Elise has a cold at the moment and is pretty grumpy but still can't seem to help herself from returning smiles. She has progressed her giggle into a full on cackle which we are hearing more and more often. She is also quite communicative when she is unhappy now as many people on buses and restaurants around London have learnt to their horror.

Finaly managed to scan and upload some photos from last summer (mostly of Camden but with a few London landmarks thrown in here and there, such as Soho above) which can be viewed here. The embeded slideshow is rubbish for some reason so if you want to see big versions probably better to watch the flickr slide show here.

F***ing Weather 1/04/2010

Ha! Knew it was suspicious. Weather has turned foul and cold. That's spring I guess, very changey. Settling into the new contract nicely, buoyed by finding a great Australian coffee place round the corner in Barbican. Great view of St Paul's from the office and a good tech set up with multiple big monitors and Wacom tablet goodness. The only down side is I had to shave the beard I grew while I was waiting for my security check to finish. The photo below is just before I shaved it. Sarah hated it, Elise wasn't convinced either.

Easter Weekend now so a bit of time with the family is in order I think. Harrah. Elise is a bit grissly at the moment due to teething but seems to be coming right. Here are a couple of pics of her for the Gould Massive, indulging her new hobby of putting everything in her gob and that killer smile.

Weather 19/03/2010

The weather (suspiciously) has become very suddenly nice. Sunny and ... warm? Is that the word? It's been lovely. Just a bit of a shock as it happened so quickly. The photo above is of our poor English baby (who cowers whenever the sun hits her like a tiny ginger vampire) being introduced (slowly) to the idea that 'outside' can be nice. She's not actually outside you will notice, just next to outside, close enough to see it but not close enough so it can get her. Meanwhile Elise has taken her baby noises to the next level and can now gurgle and squeal at an alarming volume. Strange how such a little girl can make such a large noise.

Water Baby 12/03/2010

Big week for Elise. First of all she got thrown out of her first pub tonight. For violating the no children after 7pm rule. Although I note that dogs are allowed. Secondly she did her first big underwater swim! She has been putting her head under the water at her water babies class for a few weeks, but I was lucky enough to get a chance to go to her class yesterday and saw her actually held her breath and swim a full .. maybe two meters? Well she didn't swim as such, Sarah dragged her by her chubby little arms but it was still impressive. I felt nervousness before she went under and relief when she came back up far out of proportion to the actual event. I was so proud at how calm and collected she was about the whole thing. What a little champion.

Tricky 10/03/2010

It's been a very sunny ... spring? I'm reluctant to call it spring, when does that start here? But it is has been a bit nicer. The problem is that it's so sunny you can't bear to be inside so we go on long walks only to find it's still actually freezing. Curses! But nothing that a few hundred layers of clothes and a cuddly bear suit can't protect us from. Below is regents canal where it cuts through our hood, on one of our sunny/freezing walks.

Hump 01/03/2010

Weather wise I feel like we are finally starting to break winter's back, if we aren't over the hump we are at least at the top of it looking down. It's still freezing and it was a fairly grim slate gray weekend but it was light when I got up this morning (well, the third time I got up, I do have a baby) and it's light (briefly) when I leave work. In fact this morning is gorgeous and sunny in a face hurting cold kind of way, the photo above is the view from where I locked my bike at the back of the building where I work this morning (By Embankment Station for those of you who know London). Actually this is my last week here, my contract finishes this week and I've signed a new one with the Japanese bank Nomura, quite excited about it actually it sounds like a pretty challenging project. There seems to be a bit of confusion in some places about the fact that I seem to change job every 6 months, I can assure you it's not because I get fired but because I'm working as a contractor. Which just means I get hired by a company to work for them directly on a specific project. It doesn't have the security of a full time job but if you can line up enough contracts it pays much better and is a great way to get in on some great work.

Elsewhere Elise is continuing her charm offensive (slightly less charming for Sarah when she woke up at 3:30am this morning for a feed. In fact much less charming because the reason she was hungry was because she spewed her last meal all over Sarah before smiling to herself and then dropping off into a milk drunk sleep the night before). And On Friday night both Sarah and I got a full 8 hours sleep which was ... amazing. Here's a couple of photos of Elise for those of you who like that kind of thing ...

Anniversary 25/02/10

Yesterday was our three year wedding anniversary celebrated by ordering a home delivery curry and watching the wedding video. So kind of low key compared to normal but still really nice to think back. Elise is getting chattier by the day (given that her 'chatting' is just squeals and coos) but we have utterly failed to get any of it on video. Here though, is a little sample of her noises we have managed to capture for prosperity.

Little Feet 19/02/10

Been extremely busy the last week and will be again over the next week, so not much time to put stuff up at the moment. But excuses aside we will try and get some baby video/photo action up soon, realistically though it will probably be once this current manic work phase dies down after next week. It's not too bad, I've been zipping up and down the country for work spending a lot of time at train stations and looking out of train windows which I like, and have now been to glamorous Blackpool, Sheffield and Leeds. Sarah and Elise are doing great, doing Mum and baby Yoga with the celebs from Primrose Hill, breast feeding groups with the other foreigners from the local estate and of course the swimming which Elise is slowly warming up to. Maybe. Also had a great late thanks giving dinner at Daryl's where Elise managed to convince a skeptical man that actually, a little baby girl would be quite nice, and then peed all over him just to give him a sense of perspective. Again, its amazing what you can get away with with a bit off cooing and smiling.

Blackpool 12/02/10

Just got back from a work trip to Blackpool and Manchester. Sort of a drag because it's much harder to spend a night away from Elise and Sarah now that we are a little family and work trips always involve a lot of ... working. But on the positive side a lot of time was spent on trains whizzing through the sunny country side and my hotel was right on Blackpool beach so my room had a view of the sea through it's very little window. I love you sea, you big wide thing you. Elise had her first swimming lesson yesterday. She seemed unimpressed, but we we'll see how it pans out. Not as much fun as bathing in the kitchen sink eh Elise.

Little hands 09/02/10

Big developments with Elise over the last couple of weeks, she is noticeably more alert and interactive now. Nappy changes are accompanied by direct eye contact with smiles and goos and little hands grab at you when she is cuddling. She is also being much more vocal when she is grumpy on the flip side. We're going to try and catch some of it on video to share soon, but this new onslaught of personality is so engaging that we haven't really been taking any photos. I'm going away for work this week, just for the night but still my first night away from the family since Elise was born. So I'm not looking forward to it obviously, but at least there will be a lot of trains involved so that makes me happy. Go the trains!

Our Big Baby 01/02/10

It's official, she's a big girl. She had her 6 week check up and she's 98th percentile for length and in the low 90's for weight, and erm ... head circumference. Which is very heartening but weird because she seems so tiny to me. But anyway Sarah must be doing something right because she is massive lovely girl.

Bloody hell there's a lot of pink in that photo. Must keep an eye on that. Also, it's been very sunny the last few days with a sprinkle of icing sugar snow. luuurverly.

Gone 28/01/09

The olds have gone, as I type this they are in Thailand (lucky bastards) on their way home to NZ. Quite sad really, but I'm just glad they could come at all. They didn't appear in the Blog much although we saw them almost everyday becasue in somways I got used to them being part of our everyday life, but now that they're gone I realise that it was actually a really special time with them and Elise. So more good than sad, I think.

Prospect of the olds leaving 25/01/09

Finally managed to get Mum to the Prospect of Whitby, a famous old pub on the banks of the Thames. We had a drink with Scott and Rob and then tried to give them heart attacks by driving home through the center of London.

I haven't blogged much about the olds leaving or the great christmas we had together due to the vagaries of only writing when I can grab a few minutes at the computer with no work to do and then just brain farting out whatever is freshest on my mind but it has been amazing to have them here and now the thought that they might not have seen Elise as a baby seems horrifying to me. Elise loves Mum and Dad, and lights up when they come round, no one can elicit coos, gurgles and smiles from her like they can. And they are leaving on Wednesday. So although I'm sure they are pleased to be heading back somewhere a little cleaner, less busy and sunnier than London we will miss them.

The Thaw 18/01/10

Too soon to call a thaw? All the snow has melted and the fountains in Trafalgar Square aren't iced over any more so I'm going to be bold and call it. We actually had a gorgeous sunny day on Sunday which in true British style we spent in the pub. Although I remember it snowed last February so this all might be a bit rash.

Busy weekend for the bub, we took her into town on Saturday night to go ice skating at Somerset House and then to dinner with the Whanau, and then on Sunday we went to the pub mentioned above to meet up with the other parents from our antenatal group to compare babies. She handled it all with ease, already a city girl at just 4 weeks methinks.

So after predicting lots of baby photos I've posted exactly one. But trust me there are hundreds of photos, the only reason I haven't posted them is because I'm making a few changes to my gallery system to accommodate the influx of baby pics but because of a few commitments haven't been able to finish it off. They will be up sometime over the next couple of weeks I hope. I've put up the slightly religious looking one above to keep you going until then.

Devil Woman 12/01/10

That's you snow, it's hard to maintain grumpiness at you when you gently drift down in pretty big flakes making our street look like Narnia. But it's getting easier each day that I can't bike to work. You are like the gorgeous girlfriend getting away with murder by batting your long lashes and looking sad whenever you get caught behaving badly. Eventually no lashes are long enough to compensate for the number 29 bus.

Train! 08/01/10

Went on a day trip to Blackpool for work yesterday, no pleasure beach for me though, I went to two meetings then was back ont he train home. But still, I love taking that train, particularly if I'm on it just before sunrise. The whole country is covered in snow and it was just gorgeous. Well done, England.

Work, Snow 06/01/10

Back at work now, and even though I really like this contract it's always a bit of a blow to go back to work after Christmas, especially since if I wasn't at work I would be at home in bed with Sarah and the baby. The blow is eased by the snow which always makes everything seems a little bit special. Above is outside our house this morning. Thanks, snow.

2010! 03/01/10

It's 2010! Good work everyone. Of the 38 years I have lived 2009 was definitely the best yet thanks to Elise and Sarah. I don't really know what to expect from 2010 but I'm looking forward to exploring London and a couple of other places, growing Elise, and getting stuck into a couple of design and music projects. My guess is you can expect a lot of baby pictures.