Free to every complaining customer...

When our conservatory was finished, alongside the final bill there was a feedback questionnaire asking if the installers had followed certain procedures (they had, where appropriate) and asking how satisfied we were and if we would recommend the firm to friends and neighbours. The gist of what we put was that the builders, installers and electricians were courteous, efficient and seemed to do a good job, but we were unhappy with the lack of communication from the company (there were big delays and getting information about what was going on was like getting blood from a stone) and the fact that they tried to change the agreed payment terms towards the end (after a very wet summer, I suspect cashflow was an issue for them). As a result, we said, we couldn't really recommend them.

Well, that was a couple of months back and we didn't hear back until a couple of days ago when <3 received a phonecall, apologising for our dissatisfaction and saying that if we could pop into the shop, they had a hamper of goodies for us. So yesterday we went by after work and now have a rather nice M&S hamper containing lots of lovely consumables, including cake and pudding to supplement our home-made ones, in case we get more visitors than expected.

While we still probably won't be recommending the firm, this has left us with a much better feeling about the experience. Hopefully the goodwill gift is a sign that they have taken our criticisms on board, but if not, it's not a problem: we no longer need windows or conservatories, and we have a great supply of sweet (and other) stuff for the holiday.

More Scores on the Doors

And the final result is in: I now have a first class honours degree in IT & Computing. Ph34R my 1337 X4|\/| 5k!lz. This is such a relief and has put a huge grin on my face.

And the scores from the Milton Keynes jury...

Holy crap! I got my course result today and somehow I actually managed to scrape a distinction. This is a *lot* better than I was expecting and needless to say I am very happy with this. Now I just have to wait for the letter offering me a degree, which should (I think) arrive before Xmas.

I am going to accept the offer, by the way.

One More Couple, Please

Last night <3 and I got out for one of our rare nights out thanks to one of her friends stepping up for babysitting duty. So we pottered off to Grove for a ceilidh organised by White Horse Ceilidhs. These guys organise half a dozen or so ceilidhs each year and the one we had been to previously was great fun, so a return visit was always on the cards.

This time was every bit as good as last time. The band was Boldwood, who specialise in playing tunes found in C18th manuscripts, and are effective proof that the modern era does not have the monopoly on great dance tunes. We came home with a copy of their CD, which is a really nice listen. I'm going to have to see if I can learn a tune or two off there. The caller was Will Hall, a chap who occasionally attends our local pub sessions and who has proved a great help to me in getting used to learning and playing folk tunes, and who is a lot of fun to play with, even with my very limited skills and repertoire. Anyway, this was the first time I've seen Will call a dance, and I really enjoyed it: his choice of dances was a lot of fun and he had a great, gentle presentation style. (I don't have much to compare with, being pretty new to ceilidhs, but he's definitely good.) Half-time entertainment was courtesy of the energetic and enjoyable Borders morris side, Armaleggan, who did a great, manic show full of sound and fury.

So, we danced to the point of exhaustion, we chatted, and we won a big box of fudge in the raffle. All good. Time to decide when we can next make it...

Unknown Beneficiaries

It turns out that HM Revenue and Customs have given our family's personal details to persons unknown by sending them, along with those of 7 million other families who claim child benefit, on disk, via a courier, who lost them. Nice. Chancellor Alistair Darling has apologised for the security lapse, but apparently there is little danger of identity theft. According to the BBC:

The records include parents' and children's names, addresses, dates of birth, child benefit and national insurance numbers and in some cases, bank or building society details.

That sounds like plenty of information for bad guys to be going on with.

There are, of course, calls for Darling to resign. While I love to see a good bit of bloodletting, I'm not sure that he needs to go in this case. The chairman of HMRC has already resigned over this and an investigation is underway. The Revenue had better get its arse in gear over data protection before this happens again.

Actually, when I first came across this story I thought it was just a follow-up to the story from a few weeks back where HMRC lost a load of personal data in transit and more details were now coming out. But no, this is a new and separate cock-up, albeit one of a very similar shape.

And Now, We Wait...

So that's it. My OU degree is done and dusted. I managed to survive sitting at a small desk for three hours with nothing but a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate for sustenance and only my calculator and reference books for company. The first part went pretty much by the numbers, with the expected questions about ATM cell sizes, CSMA/CD collision domains, and object models. Part 2 was a bit tougher, with a few surprises (I think this was the first year ever that there was a question on the Bellman-Ford algorithm instead of Dijkstra), and left me burbling on in a vague manner about TMN function blocks (don't ask!) and elements of MPEG encoding.

I'm confident of a pass, and I'm pretty sure it'll be better than the basic 'Pass 4' grade, but beyond that I don't know. It just depends on how close I got with my random burblings. According to the OU website, the results for this course should be available by mid-December, and I should receive an offer of a degree shortly afterwards. There's nothing more that I can do but wait, but it'll feel like a very long wait...

A Glimmer of Light Ahead

So, seven years since I signed up and I have now reached the final hurdle. Yep, tomorrow is my final exam for my OU degree.

The course this year has been a struggle (officially this was meant to take about 16 hours per week and I have also been doing a full-time job and trying to do my bit with raising a new baby) and revision has been intermittant, but thanks to <3 covering for me over the last few days I think I'm just about ready. This exam allows me to take some reference material with me and to annotate it as I see fit. A lot of my time has been spent working on indexing key sections and adding extra diagrams into margins and spare pages. I'm confident of a pass, but beyond that I don't know.

The result is due in before Xmas, and I should get my offer of a degree shortly after that. It's going to feel like a very long wait...

L'homme qui plantait des arbres

A few years ago I heard a story, "The Man Who Planted Trees", on the radio and for about 15 minutes I was transfixed. It's just a simple tale of an ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing and something that really caught my imagination and on more than one occasion left me thinking "that is what I want to do with my life. Of course, I'm not really driven enough, but I really do love planting trees and hope to do so on a fairly regular basis for the rest of my life.

Well, time passed and I stumbled across the story online. It turns out that the original (French) author, Jean Giono, dedicated the story to the public domain, but various translations have been made and remain copyrighted. The version I have linked to was made by one Peter Doyle, who decided to adhere to the spirit of the original and also dedicated his work to the public domain. Good on him. The story is still as inspirational as I remember. It is also, contrary to popular belief, fiction. Sadly.

Parliament Goes Quack!

Thanks to Rich for raising this one... A few months ago, one Rudi Vis, MP, raised an early day motion on NHS homeopathic hospitals. Basically, an EDM is a sort of petition used so that matters of interest to individual MPs can be aired without needing to take up a lot of time. This particular one calls on the government to support homeopathic hospitals through the NHS as they have "the potential to offer clinically-effective and cost-effective solutions to common health problems".

Now let's be clear on this: homeopathy is, according to all scientific studies undertaken so far, snake oil. It relies on patients taking doses of water (active ingredients are diluted to the point that not one single molecule remains in a typical dose) or similar carriers and can be shown to have no benefits at all beyond the placebo effect. At a time when proven effective treatments are being withheld from patients because there just isn't the money to go around, should we really be spending public money propping up superstitious quackery?

I've written to my MP about this as he is one of the poor, misguided fools who have supported this EDM. With a little luck (and some badgering) he may see the light.

If you want to know more about homeopathy, Google is your friend. There is an article on Quackometer about this EDM and many good debunk articles from fairly solid sources floating around.

It's a Bird! It's a Microlight! It's...

On Sunday <3 and I took the Youngling to the White Horse Show near Uffington (just a few miles down the road). The little'un seemed to really enjoy gawping at all the sights and sounds of an English country fair, but there was one thing that really caught my attention as one of the most inspired, bonkers and generally cool things I have ever seen...

There is this French fella called Christian Moullec, who has made it his mission to help save the lesser white-fronted geese which used to be common in Scandinavia, but which are now close to extinction. These geese are being bred in captivity, but to be successfully released into the wild, they need to know how (and where) to migrate. So, M. Moullec has been working with groups of not-so-endangered geese and learning how to lead them on migrations in his microlight, with the intention of learning how to lead the captive bred white-fronted geese on their migrations.

So, the upshot of this was that we spent a little while sitting in a field, watching a microlight flying circles above, in formation with seven geese and (bizarrely — and I never found out why) three storks.

Bonkers. Shine on, dude!

C'mon and shake it on baby

On Sunday afternoon we had a nice family outing to a folk music session at a local pub. Yep, that's the whole family, including the Youngling. This wasn't actually the first session for the Youngling, but the last one was a few months back and she has grown so much since then. <3 and I were a little on the nervous side abonut how long it would be before we had to get into lots of baby cuddling, feeding and so on.

We needn't have worried. The Youngling sat in a highchair for ages, just listening and watching with a rapt expression on her face, occasionally shaking her maracas, banging her tambourine or yodeling along happily. Nobody seemed to mind that she couldn't tell the difference between a jig and a reel, and several folk added to the fun by pulling faces at the little monkey. After an hour or so, <3 fed the Youngling and she was OK again for a while longer, though eventually tiredness set in a bit and it was time to take her home (though I was able to stay on a little longer and play some more thanks to <3 volunteering to be on baby duty).

We're now wondering what instrument we should be providing our wee little prodigy. It would be nice to have a fiddler in the family, but perhaps we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves...

Anniversary Binge

So yesterday was our anniversary and as a friend of <3's had volunteered to babysit for us we managed to celebrate by going out for dinner. The one friend had actually turned into two and they happily spent the evening watching Serenity while the Youngling snoozed happily in her bed.

Dinner was at the Yummy Thai restaurant in Wantage, chosen because we both rather like Thai food and have walked past the place on many an occasion and figured that we really should try it out. Now, I reckon our standard benchmark for an eatery is would we take our foody friends, E. and I. to it? Based on ambience (very homely, reasonably busy for a Thursday, quiet music, very friendly and polite staff) and starters (very nice dim sum and tempura) we decided that this place passed.

The more advanced standard for a restaurant is if, having brought E. and I. along, would E. use the word "sublime" about the food. I think, having tried the crystal scallops, the answer to that is almost certainly yes. Melt-in-the mouth scallops in garlic, lovely stuff. The rest of the food was excellent too. We'll definitely be going back.

<3 and I had agreed to stick to token presents to mark the occasion. She got me a pair of rhythm bones, curved sticks that can be held in one hand in such a way that they can be used as a sort of rattle. All I need to do is learn how to do this properly — I'm slowly making progress.

Crowds of People Create Risk Shock

New in from the department of "Well, Duhh" the startling news that forcing crowds of people to huddle together in compact queueing systems for significant periods of time might actually create new security risks. Yup, the current airport security procedures do, indeed, mean that terrorists are unlikely to have the opportunity to kill themselves in a plane toilet with an explosion barely powerful to blow the doors off, thus meaning that dozens of passengers will have to use the other toilet for the rest of the flight (which, of course, will result in an emergency landing, oh the terror), but surely everyone realises that if you simply crack down on one (largely imaginary) threat you leave, or even create, many other gaps.

I am pleased to announce that we now have a fully double-glazed house. Over the last couple of days a couple of nice fellas from Zenith Staybrite ripped out the last of our original, thermally rubbish, steel framed windows (plus our rattly, ill-fitting front door) and replaced them with shiny lumps of uPVC. The last bit of the job involved hacking out a chunk of (steel) wall below our dining room window in order to turn it into a big, patio door. The room is now somewhat transformed.

Zenith do seem to have done a good job for us: the process from order to fitting was well within their estimated times, their fitters were quick and personable, and the product seems to be good. However, we were very much less than impressed with the salesman who originally came around: it took quite a lot of effort to get the key pieces of information we wanted: why his products are better than the competition and how much it would cost to get the job done. Eventually we had had enough with the salesman's somewhat hectoring manner and told him we weren't interested. This resulted in <3 having a frank and open exchange of views with the sales manager over the phone, which in turn resulted in a very large discount. We had already had some other quotes and knew the ballpark of prices to expect, so were confident that the discount was genuine. Basically, the quote was too good to miss, so we signed up.

Next up is the conservatory which we are expecting to have built, probably in a couple of months' time...

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

...But driving from Wantage to Sligo is also a sizeable journey (about 900 miles on road for the round trip), even when the bit between Fishguard and Rosslare involves sitting on a boat drinking coffee and we stop at Athlone for a couple of nights before doing the rest of the distance. One of <3's cousins was getting married in, so we drove over with the Youngling (who was suffering from a nasty cold) and the necessary paraphernalia to stay with the in-laws and go with them to the wedding. It made for a good trip and driving almost from corner to corner of Ireland helped me appreciate what a beautiful country it is.

Amongst other things...

• It would appear that playing "I Used to Love Her" by the Saw Doctors at an Irish wedding has a similar affect to playing "Delilah" at a Welsh do.
• There was a small swing band playing at the wedding reception (billed as "The Irish Rat Pack", which made the female singer and the Abba covers seem a bit incongruous), which provided a great opportunity for <3 and I to dust off our half-forgotten jive moves. Great fun even when we are so out of practice.
• We spotted a poster in a shopping centre in Portlaoise calling for help in finding Madeleine McCann. Well, you never know, do you?
• At the same shopping centre, we rolled up at a café just in time to get first dibs on a freshly made batch of scones to have with our tea while we fed the Youngling. Sometimes it all just works out. I am now more convinced than ever of the righteousness of my long-term ambition to run a little tea shop where scones are baked fresh throughout the day/
• Dosing the Youngling up with Calpol and/or Tixylix isn't easy, though we are starting to get the hang of it with a technique that probably has more in common with drenching sheep than holding out a spoon for a child to obediently drink from.
• There is something comical about a bunch of early-teenagers playing "Killing in the Name Of" at a charity fundraiser in Strandhill, near Sligo, particularly when the singer's voice hasn't broken.
• The coffee on the Stena Europe ferry was better than that on the Stena Express, which we took on the return journey. However, the latter was, true to its name, an hour and a half quicker, so there was less time to ponder beverage inadequacies. Plus we had fresh Wexford strawberries to eat, picked up at the side of the N11 on the way to the ferry. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Autorotation

I got up this morning to find <3 acting all excited and telling me to watch the youngling, who was wriggling happily on the floor. Right on cue she rolled over onto her tummy (the youngling, that is, not <3, who has been able to do this for some time) and proceeded to lie there looking pleased with herself. So, another little milestone: 20 weeks and 3 days, rolls onto tummy. This is both very exciting and a worrying step towards mobility...

Trust me on the sunscreen

Over the weekend a friend quoted something at me. I think he said he saw it as graffiti, so I have no idea of the original source, but it made me laugh and I don't want it to be lost...

Love like you don't need the money.
Dance like you've never been hurt.
Work like nobody is watching.

Young, Foolish and Chopping Onions

Last night <3 and I actually went out for a dose of live music. A friend kindly agreed to babysit for the Youngling and having safely deposited her, we got to Newbury with enough time to spare to get the drinks in.

The show was a regular (mostly monthly) one hosted by the Mandolinquents, and is billed as a sort of folk and world music evening. This time, the band, a quartet, was down to 75% of its normal strength and the focus of the music was blues, and through the first half we had a good variety of pleasing acoustic music which really showed their singer, Hilary James, in a great light. <3 tensed up visibly when Hilary announced that she was going to sing Down by the Sally Gardens, but relaxed significantly when she did a really good job of the song — though the additional verse (which I didn't notice, not knowing the song very well) didn't really strike the right chord ("she's not exactly Yeats, is she?").

The second half saw the introduction of the evening's special guest and the reason that I had wanted to come to this show: Brendan Power, a fantastic harmonica player who I have previously bought CDs and customised harmonicas from. Brendan was awesome: he is equally at home playing blues, Irish traditional, ragtime or any number of other styles, and was a great fit for the other musicians on stage. The show was clearly being winged to a great extent (as one of the band commented, "not tired from over-rehearsal") and had a great energy and sense of fun.

All in all, a great evening and we came home with smiles on our faces and a clutch of CDs to listen to at home. We may even go to another of these shows some time. And to put the icing on the cake, when we picked up the Youngling, she was asleep and had, apparently stayed asleep all evening. Excellent.

Play 'Brown Eyed Girl', Mate!

There was a nice article in the Washington Post t'other day (I don't read it as a matter of course: someone posted a link at The Session) about what happens when you set a world class classical musician to busk at a Metro station at rush hour. Nothing is proven really, but the description of the reactions (or lack thereof) from the general public are interesting, as are the thoughts of the musician himself.

Grand Unified Theory

Finally, thanks to Pearls Before Swine, the universe's deepest secrets have been uncovered...

Better Than The Usual Medicine

Over the weekend I gave the Youngling a bath and, inevitably, we soon had the situation where her butt slipped and I frantically lunged to get a better grip before her head got a lot wetter than intended. What was her reaction? She laughed.

I'd heard her laugh a few times before, but that was just a bit of a chuckle, a smile with emphasis. This was a genuine peel of delighted laughter. What could I do but laugh back? This made her laugh all the more, and soon enough we were both in hysterical giggles, splashing each other with bath water. It was a tough weekend in some ways, but that bathtime erased all other concerns. The laughter of a 12 week old baby is just magical.

Small, Cute and Smiling

I guess it's about time to post a couple of pictures. These were taken a month ago, when the Youngling was 7 weeks old...

English Folk Culture Is Not Dead (it just smells a bit)

Friday night was session night down at the "Abby" and saw me experiencing a few firsts. I actually managed to play both of the first two tunes that were started (and, of course, a load more later too) for the first time ever. To enhance this, I don't know the name of the second of these: I must have known this at some point, but on Friday I just played along and was lefte wondering what the tune was. I count this as a (slightly) positive thing! I even managed to start a set while there were still a good few musicians around. Oh, and not so good, I made myself look a bit of a dick by misreading the others during a reel that is often played slowish and then speeded up: I thought that a couple of the others were "kicking off" so upped my tempo only to be left playing far too quickly for a couple of bars. Oops. It was all laughed off afterwards and I don't think half of the people there even noticed.

On Saturday, thanks to a visit from the M-in-L (and the handy babysitting), <3 and I went off to a local ceilidh, which was a hoot. We've been meaning to go to one of these for ages (and I am constantly being badgered by one of the organisers at the pub sessions), so finally we got there. This was a great, informal and very friendly do at a local village hall with reasonable bar prices (and decent beer!) plus a nice format of two set dances in a row, followed by a break, then a couple more dances. The evening was also broken by a display from a local morris side, which provided a good, extended breath-catching opportunity. I'm a real klutz at this sort of stuff, but over the evening a couple of the regular ladies taught me a few of the less-obvious moves, and I think <3 picked up quite a bit too — I'm ashamed to say she danced more than I did this time. We will definitely be going again, though we'll be off at a wedding at the time of the next one.

Rhubarb Enhancement

So I have now divided my rhubarb. Actually I should have done this some time back, during the winter, but seeing as we haven't really had much of a winter and the plant has been growing pretty much throughout, I don't think it's much of a problem. Having not done this before, I was in for an interesting time.

The main thing I hadn't realised was just how much of the plant there would be underground. I found a fibrous mass a bit larger than a football (but a lot heavier) and a number of cable-like roots heading off in all directions, including downwards. Basically, there was no way I was shifting that beast. With excavations all around the plant I decided to get heavy and shove the spade in to split the root/stem mass were it sat. A little later I had four hefty new crowns, two of which I replanted right away (the whole point of this is so in future I can force one plant for an early crop and let the other develop naturally), one I gave to a neighbour, and another is promised to friends on the other side of town. I was also left with a small piece which I have potted up for the time being, pending some better idea of what to do with it.

Now only time will tell if I have managed to kill off my lovely rhubarb plant or if I have improved the productivity of my garden and also made some other people happy. The whole process felt more destructive than anything, but I get the impression that rhubarb is one of those resilient plants which are hard to kill. Fingers crossed...

Whalesong and Bananas

As of the end of last week we have a new Sainsbury's superstore near us and on the opening day staff were handing out maps to help customers find what they were looking for among the many aisles. All well and good until you see how some of the aisles are marked on the map. Sure, plenty of people will be looking for "frozen wellbeing" (who wouldn't?), but I can't remember the last time I went into a shop looking for "ambient fruit".

Actually, I'm sure I have shopped for ambient fruit: the aisle marked as such contained tinned, bottled, snack-packed and otherwise ready-to-eat, non-fresh fruit, so I can only assume that this is grocer-speak for fruit stored at ambient temperatures, or something like that, but honestly, what rubbish!

From Alabama

So I've gone and bought myself a new instrument to learn to play. I was given a ukulele for Christmas, which has had me happily learning a few basic chords, and then spotted this on eBay...

It was listed as a ukulele, and it's the same size as one, but closer inspection showed that there were double courses for the strings and there were eight tuning pegs, despite the fact that it only had four strings at the time. Yup, this was a form of mandolin-banjo: looks like a banjo, but strung like a mandolin. What the hell, I thought, so I put in a bid — and won.

So yesterday I fitted some new strings (a full set of mandolin strings) to the little beastie, tuned up, worked out the fingering, and a few hours later I was playing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and a couple of other very simple tunes. Very slowly.

The woodwork is poorly varnished and the banjo head bit is damaged and needs replacing, but it doesn't sound too bad, and seems to hold its tuning pretty well. It's another fun toy which I should be able to learn the basics of over the coming months, and looks wonderfully "distressed", which seems appropriate for a folkie instrument. And, of course, it's another instrument that nobody takes seriously (though it's a very short step from that to a number of other instruments, like the tenor banjo or octave mandolin).

But the other one is much more shiny, Sir

Last week we regististered the birth of the Youngling, something which must be done within six weeks of the birth. There were a whole load of questions, <3 signed the register, and we were given the birth certificate. We were then told that this was a short certificate and that if we wanted a full certificate (which would be required by the Passport Office and for some other purposes for which the short certificate would just not do) it would cost us £3.50.

Does this strike anyone else as bonkers? The two certificates both consist of a single sheet of A4 paper, printed out from a computer record, with a manual signature by the registrar. They take exactly the same amount of effort to produce and, though the full certificate is on (possibly) slightly better paper, basically the same demand on consumables. Why, in the name of all that's fluffy, can't they just give us a proper certificate right away and not have this knobbing about with some certificates being more valid than others? If they really have to charge us for something, how about a nice commemorative thingy that looks nice but is useless?

We paid the money — it's not much, after all — but I'm still wondering what planet some people live on and why things are done in the way that they are.

Resolute

Last year I made two new year resolutions: to eat some tripe and to smoke my own food. I achieved neither of these, so I guess they continue to be high on my list of Stuff To Do (TM). However, I did learn to play a musical instrument (badly so far, but you have to start somewhere), something which I have been wanting to do since forever (and, thanks to a great Xmas prezzie I am learning a bit of ukulele too!), and we got ourselves a lovely baby daughter (which had been on the shopping list for a while), so I can hardly count last year as a failure. It was a good year, all things considered.

So what about 2007? Well, no real resolutions but top of the list of stuff to do is learn how to be a father; I suspect this will take most of my time and energy. This will also, hopefully, be my last year with the OU before I get my degree (assuming I didn't mess up last year's project too badly — the results aren't in yet); the OU being as addictive as it is, I am already considering studying music later! On the subject of music, I want to keep practicing with the harmonica, learning tunes and going to sessions; if I can get some competence on the uke too that would be great.

I suppose I should probably give something up, but right now I'm not worried about that. With the demands of parenthood, anything that can help keep me sane has to be a bonus.

A Late Arrival

Well, happy (belated) new year!

After a long wait and a Christmas more full of waiting than anything else, baby B., a beautiful little girl, was born on new year's eve, weighing close to the average for a 2-week-late baby. Mother and baby are, as is traditional to say, both doing well, though this is very tiring for all involved.

So, what have we learnt? Well, some of the points...

• The delivery suite team at the John Radcliffe are superb people, though occasionally run ragged with stuff to do. They looked after us well and helped <3 through a difficult labour to produce a perfect baby.
• Similarly the maternity team at Wantage Community Hospital are fantastic. We didn't get to see how they handle a delivery, but the postnatal care was great and the environment was so much more relaxed and comfortable than the JR.
• <3 is my new number 1 hero after seeing the feat of strength and endurance required to deliver a baby. She was magnificent.
• When it came to cutting the cord, I was handed what seemed like a pair of round-ended kiddie scissors (I guess they don't trust new fathers with sharp objects) which required me to hack a few times before getting through (an umbilical cord is thicker than I imagined though on reflection, given it's function, this is not surprising).
• Sometimes the father's mind goes blank when shown the baby's "bits" and is expected to tell the mother that she has a baby girl. "A boy without a winkie... Wait, I know this one..."
• After recuperation they let you out of the hospital with your baby without having to prove that you will be a fit parent. We felt that it would only be a moment before someone stopped us and demanded to see authorisation.
• Babies take a lot of love and attention. They have simple needs, but do not have the gift of patience.
• Nappies are not that bad really (so far — we are bracing ourselves for that doozy that involves the contents escaping and finding its way to all corners of the babygrow).
• Sleep is something that can only be got in small snatches, particularly for <3, who so far has all the feeding duties.
• You don't need to be quiet when the baby is asleep — in fact, quite the opposite seems to be true.
• After feeding, a young baby has a really goofy, almost drunk expression on her face.
• It can be an amazingly complex exercise in logistics to even leave the house with a baby — can't wait until we don't expect her to sleep through the entire trip (which she did this time).
• Babies are cute, but there is nothing cuter than our own baby when she smiles. (OK, I know that technically it isn't really a smile, but I don't care.)

I could go on. Maybe I'll add more later. What am I talking about, maybe? Of course I will — the youngling is likely to be my number one obsession for some time to come.

So 2006 ended on a massive high note. 2007 is set to be great — though tiring — as we learn how to live as a proper family.