We had our first meeting with the local midwifery team yesterday. Not really much to report - we went through individual and family medical histories, took some of Vic's blood for a battery of tests and received our pregnancy book thing. This book will hold everything to do with the pregnancy from the first scan right through to tests and details on the the first few days of our baby's life. It's a very substantial document with lots of good reading in it.
According to the experts Vic is now 14 weeks and 2 days pregnant and just starting to show (but only if you look hard!) Still early days..............
Busy weekend - here it is in chronological order.
• The All Blacks beat Australia 12-6 in the opening match of the tri-nations Richie and Fi came around to watch the game which was a dour, error ridden, hard fought affair played in freezing rain. v.nervous toward the end but neither team really looked like scoring a try and running away with the match.
• Then it was off out to the Bluewater shopping mall for a few hours in an attempt to find Vic some maternity trousers. Even though she's not really starting to show she is finding that more and more pairs of trouser aren't comfortable any more. Hours later we get back to the car with 3 maternity tops (of course!) Maybe next weekend..............
• Watched the last couple of hours of the England vs India triangular series final What a game!! England scored a stunning 325 in the first innings and had India struggling on 146-5. The Indian middle order came through though and India won with 3 balls and 2 wickets to spare. Great stuff!
• Saturday night was relaxed with Japanese noodles for dinner and a bit of grocery shopping (such an exciting married couple!)
• Most of Sunday was spent with my Uncle Andrew's family visiting them before they move a lot further away next week. As with most of my family they are totally chilled and visiting them is always relaxing. After a nice lunch sitting in the garden we spent some time watching the movie Spy Kids with Megan
• Then after a 2 hour drive back it was round to Richie and Fi's for a BBQ to finish the weekend off. We were going to see a movie but the weather was far too nice (for a change ) hence the food and wine instead.
So that's it - another Cramer weekend over and back into work. Stupid me has booked a day off on Thursday and then went and setup up a customer meeting! D'oh
Hope y'all had as nice a weekend as we did
As you can see below, Marc does the majority of our updates (in fact all of them on the new website so far!). Decided it was finally my turn and so therefore I get to tell you our important news.
We're going to be parents - we had our 12 week scan this morning and here is our first baby picture -
It was amazing to finally see the little thing that has been making me feel so lousy - no actual morning sickness, but have been absolutely exhausted - partly due to having to get up 4 - 5 times a night to wee (guess that's natures way of getting you ready for sleepless nights!)
It was a great feeling and very reassuring to see it moving (not much to begin with, but then it obviously woke up and decided to take part in an aerobics class complete with somersaults), it's little heart beating, and that it had two arms and two legs. The lady doing the scan confirmed it has all the necessary internal organs, that it is right on the average size for both length and skull size for it's age, and that the chance of Downs is less than one in 6,000.
So Marc now finally believes we are pregnant - I think he thought I was just being tired and grumpy for the fun of it!
Baby Cramer is due January 2003 - so we'll send regular updates to let you know how progress is going.
What a great time we had yesterday
The super six spent Saturday 6th July in the fresh air drinking New Zealand wines and eating New Zealand foods at ToastNZ.
Toast New Zealand was a food and wine festival that acted as a showcase for NZ wines, food and products. Over 6,000 people attended and it was held in the grounds of Syon House in west London.
Tickets were a bit steep at 28 GBP (42.50 USD/87.50 NZD) and once you got there you had to shell out at the very least 4 GBP (6 USD/12.50 NZD) for a 150ml (5 oz) glass of wine Given the cost of it though a great day was had by all I think. We got there about noon and nabbed quite possibly the last table available. This was a great boon as people weren't releasing tables so if you missed out at the beginning you were screwed.
6 hours of fine NZ wines, mediocre to good NZ food (yay for kumara chips, venison burgers and pavlova!) great weather and a well behaved crowd later we were back on the tube to the hour long trip home. We had all got a bit of sun and Vic was knackered so we came straight home while the others went out for dinner in Knightsbridge.
At 2 am I woke with a very upset stomach and a pounding headache and needed some middle of the night repairs - painkillers, antacids and loads of water later I managed to fall back to sleep and the slept in until 9:15!! Most unusual for me..........
Today has been spent chilling out and rushing to get KFC at 15:00 when Vic said in no uncertain terms that she "needed KFC right now!" So now I'm sitting here typing this and feeling slightly queasy.
I didn't take my camera but did take my clie and there are some lo-res hots of our day here
Well I've had time to sleep on it and think it over so here are some thoughts on the concert that we went to last night.
First of all I should say that I'm not, nor have ever, been a big concert goer(?). Not that I don't like music, 'cos I do, it's just that I find it hard to "get into" a concert.
The Royal Albert Hall is an amazing building. Opened in 1871 it really has that grandeur and opulence that one expects of great Victorian endeavors. It is almost perfectly round both inside and out and when you were sitting up the the nose bleed seats like we were you really get the feeling of being in a Roman amphitheater. Another cool touch was the fact that at the very top all the way along you had a standing section. Kind of the "really" cheap seats I guess
The music started with the warm-up act. This consisted of young British talent Oliver Darley He did a set of about six songs and it was just him and a keyboard. Great voice! - powerful and tonally spot on. Go visit his site - he has some track selections taken from his album.
As for the main act - well to be honest I was a bit disappointed Not that the music wasn't good, because it was, but it all seemed a bit self indulgent. Whenever any of the band did any sort of solo all the band would point at them expecting the crowd to applaud (which of course it did!) and for me it just got a bit tiresome. The band did it at the beginning and I thought they were just using it to introduce the band but no, it kept on going for almost 2 hours..................
BB King himself was amazing. His music was OK but the fact that a 76 year old can get out and do that show every night is nothing short of amazing (even though he sits down the entire show due to dodgy knees) Another problem was that BB's (we're on first name terms now) microphone was set up so that when he spoke (quite often) you could hardly hear him. Fine when he was belting out a tune but a lot of his tracks involved a lot of commentary.
One really nice thing that he did was spend 10 minutes after the show shaking hands, signing programs and giving out small gifts (couldn't tell what they were, picks maybe?) to those people that went up to the stage.
So that's it - I'm glad I went but it was definitely more an experience than a great concert.
Here's some dodgy pictures taken with my new PDA!
I had my first session as a "wedding photographer" in the weekend! A friend of mine from photography club asked me to be his photographer for their registry office wedding and eventually talked me into it.
Talk about nervous!
We decided on using my Canon EOS D30 digital for the inside ceremony and then my Bronica ETRSi medium format kit for the shots outside (group and couple)
I had to borrow his high end flash for the inside stuff and as I had never really done any flash work I wasn't very happy with the outcome. Vic liked them and Nic said that they were OK but even so - your big day and the photographer is disappointed!
I had taken the medium format stuff into the lab I use as soon as I'd finished and got them back today. I had shot a roll of Kodak Porta400NC and a roll of B&W Kodak T-MAX400 (both 120 rolls with 15 6x45 shots per roll)
Luckily the film stuff was really nice - in my opinion anyway........ so I felt a LOT better and very relieved. Nic and I had a coffee this lunchtime and he seems pretty happy with these ones
Funny how the shots with the really basic camera equipment and a handheld light meter turned out much nicer than top(ish) of the line SLR.... Mind you I've never liked flash photography - give me a slightly overcast day with nice diffuse lighting any day
Although I wasn't paid for this and Nic and Adele are having a "proper" wedding in South Africa next year I was still pretty stressed out by the whole experience. I have always said that I would never be a wedding photographer and this really just confirmed that fact! Maybe it just a lack of practice/belief in what small amount of ability I have but whatever it is I'm not doing it again!
We really must update this log more often.
Even if it's crap............
Even if no-one reads it.........
We did after all promise......
After all I update mine fairly regularly......
I feel like I'm getting a school report card (and mine ALWAYS said this)
Must try harder
...... so I will
Another weekend over and another dent in our wallet! (luckily not too big )
Vic's been really busy at work the last few weeks so our weekends tend to be spent relaxing and recharging the batteries for the upcoming week. This weekend however was slightly different in that we had my birthday dinner on Saturday night.
The super six met at our place for a few pre-dinner drinks. 60 minutes, 1 bottle of Taittinger, 2 bottles of Veuve Clicquot , some cans of Guinness and some nibbles later we were on the 381 bus and on our way to the Mill Street Cafe at Tower Bridge.
Mill Street is our usual hang-out for special occasions and so we knew we were in for an enjoyable night! Our friends Angus and Prithvi met us there and the red wine started to flow...........
Not much to say really except the food was great (my fillet steak was about 2 inches thick and cooked to medium perfection), the company was in fine form, and because we were all half cut by the time we got there the bill wasn't too outrageous
A quick bus trip back home at about midnight and it was coffee and birthday cake all around. The lovely Claire had bought a cake around on Thursday (she's so thoughtful )and so the night wound down to a close.
Thanks to everyone for the great presents and for making it an enjoyable birthday.