Absolutely bloggered...

I am actutely aware that I have not posted for 3 weeks.

It's been a busy and challenging time. I have been working hard and travelling to sexy and exciting places such as Sheffield. We have all been struggling with flu/colds. Maisy has chosen this time to go into season for the first time, so we have been trying to prise our two hounds bent on committing canine incest apart with a crowbar while mopping up the inevitable blood trails. Luckily, Neville and Claire and Rob and Jules have been able to give us some respite care by taking Murray off our hands for a few days, but that just leaves Maisy very miserable and every carpet in the house spotted.

Molly is suffering from a horrid cough/cold, but continues to prosper on a diet of almost exclusively breast milk. On Wednesday she weighed in at a whopping 14lbs 9oz and is now 12 weeks old. She is almost able to hold her head up without support and has developed a most engaging chuckle and an ability to be secretly sick down your back.

We had a Chambers 'do' for solicitors and clients in the Long Room at Lords last night, the first time I had ever set foot in a proper cricket ground. I have to admit it was quite impressive. I watched some entertaining maidens and noted some very cute bodyline moves without being caught ball-tampering. Thankfully, the wicket was less than sticky and there were no bouncers. Eventually, I positioned myself at silly mid canape and caught as many as I could. No duck in any of them though. I was certainly well padded by the end with no need for extras, indeed I had real trouble closing my face. At last I declared, found my way out into the corridor of uncertainty and enforced the follow-on. Perhaps cricket isn't such daft nonsense after all.

Death - there's a lot of it about

It's been a grim old week. Following our double date with death on Friday, our dear friend Neville's father passed away on Saturday morning, following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Our thoughts are very much with Neville and his family.

As a result, we currently have four chocolate labradors gambolling around the house while Neville & his wife (Claire) are up in Birmingham with his mum. The dogs make a formidable sight as they charge around the woods terrorising anything that moves. The garden's resemblance to the Somme becomes greater and greater by the day.

Helen and I attended the Chambers annual dinner on Saturday night, leaving Molly for the first time for a whole evening. Given that we already had four dogs and my niece that needed to be babysat by Emily and Charlotte we felt that it was unfair/unwise to expect them to be able to look after Molly as well. Luckily, our very good friends Viv and John were prepared to step into the breach. Indeed, they volunteered with worrying enthusiasm and apparently spent the whole evening playing with Molly and taking photographs. Given that they are both doctors we were pretty confident that Molly was in safe hands. It seemed very odd being out without Molly and both Helen and I were keen not to stay out too late. Molly seemed perfectly contented when we picked her up at about 1.00am and slept through until almost 6.00am.

This sleeping through thing is a becoming a bit of a habit.

Well the "cheese" thing worked !

The following adverts appeared on the blog page as the result of my repeated cheese references (see blog entry below):

Which? Online reviewUnbiased advice on cheese spread And 100s more consumer topics
Rhug Organic ShopAward-winning organic food. Organic Meat, Poultry, Fish, Cheese

So having proved that the targeted approach to advertising works - any suggestions for other words that I might use to pepper my page ?

Molly with three of her Great Great Aunts and Uncles, Gwilym, Becky and Norman 

Molly's Great Great Uncle Gwilym at Great Great Aunt Violet's funeral 

Molly's Great Great Aunt Becky at Great Great Aunt Violet's funeral 

Molly with her Great Great Uncle Norman, their births separated by a mere 88 years

Molly with Great Great Aunt Becky 

Funerals are like buses

Actually I am not at all sure that funerals are anything like buses, but it is true that two came along at the same time today. Helen's great aunt Violet's and my uncle Brian's funerals were both fixed for the same day. Sadly, it was not possible to attend both. One was in Birchington near Margate at 11.30am and the other was in Gorleston which is near Great Yarmouth at 2pm. Although the distance is not that great as the crow (or helicopter) flies, it was quite impossible to drive to attend both.

Despite the fact that my family (and especially my mother and my brother who contrived to be embroiled in separate pieces of litigation with him) were estranged from Uncle Brian, I would have liked to have attended his funeral. However, by some odd quirk of fate, those most estranged from him were the only members of my immediate family who actually knew of his demise before last night. My sister Julia and I, who might have attended the funeral given enough notice, were not aware that he had even died let alone when the funeral was. My cousin John (Brian's son) assumed that we would have heard about it "on the grapevine". He is a lovely man, but he did not seem to realise that knowledge is power where family estrangement is concerned.

In the event, we had already made arrangements for us all to attend great aunt Violet's funeral, which also gave me an opportunity to meet some of Helen's relatives for the first time, especially the Welsh contingent. They turned out to be utterly delightful people and given the shallowness of the Norfolk gene pool from which my family emanated, it seems to me that it would ill befit me to make jokes at their expense, so I won't. However, despite the cold, I left the sheepskin coat at home - I didn't want to lead them astray. And the kids were warned that all ovine intercourse jokes were strictly off limits.

Molly obviously sensed something was up because she decided to wake up twice in the night. Particularly unfortunate given that we had to be up so early to drive to Kent. She also sensed that we needed her to be quiet in the funeral ceremony because she began to grizzle the moment we set foot in the church. A grizzle that rapidly became a very vocal protest. Of course, it is possible that she understood how much I hate attending funerals and playing up as she did gave me the perfect excuse to take her outside and miss most of it. By the time we had finished in the church and decamped to the crematorium for the committal she was fast asleep. Bless !

Great aunt Violet's funeral was conducted according to the rites of the Catholic Church, so there was much bell ringing, burning of incense and splashing of Holy Water. Wailing and gnashing of teeth were depressingly absent and there were no mendicant friars offering to sell me pieces of the true cross or more unusual relics such as toe clippings from St Ursula of Ormskirk, but otherwise they put on a jolly good show. The priest who conducted the funeral was about 104 years old and both Charlotte and I had to suppress giggles outside the crematorium as one of the pall bearers had to step back to avoid being liberally sprayed with Holy Water as the priest did his thing at the back of the hearse. The head honcho from the undertakers also lurked around the priest in a way which, had I been his age, I would have found more than mildly disturbing.

The food afterwards was sublime and the company very congenial. They even had filled bridge rolls. A funeral is not complete without bridge rolls afterwards - a fact that I trust will not be overlooked when my time comes.

Murray playing with thin ice 

Murray posing before attempting his famous ice walk on the pond 

Murray's ice walking exploit goes horribly wrong 

Hell it's cold in here ! 

Murray doing his drowned rat impression 

Murray relaxing after his watery ordeal 

Murray and Molly engage in a horizontal 'Mexican stand-off' 

Maisy whispering sweet nothings in Molly's ear 

Molly in contemplative mood 

Get me some more milk or I will punch you in the kisser. And stop taking so many photographs or I will cry 

Daddy's taking pictures, mummy's in the shower - who's getting my milk and why is it taking so bloody long ? 

Molly and Daddy share an aside

Molly having another quick chuckle over the bathing incident (see below) 

Google Adsense Nonsense

I have just noticed that the Google Adsense programme which is supposed to provide context-relevant advertising on the blog page has obviously picked up my post about buggy tyres because there is currently an ad for inner tubes at the top of the page. Although $2.79 does seem a good price, I suspect that the postage from the US might be a little prohibitive.

I will have to give more thought to the words I use to see if I can manipulate the choice of ads.

Cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.

Now sit back and watch for ads for Wensleydale or perhaps more likely, Monterey Jack or some other similarly ghastly American cheese.

And for good measure: cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.

It was all going swimmingly...

...almost literally. Helen and Molly were enjoying a bath together. Molly seems to love the sensation of floating in a large body of warm bath water and Helen was loving being in the water with Molly. Molly was laughing and smiling, as well she might, knowing what was to come.

Then Molly sneezed.

Followed by a hiccup.

Then there were bubbles where no bubbles should have been.

Then, as if by magic, Molly was not the only thing floating in the bath.

Nor does she do things by half measures. All hands were required on deck to stem the flow which continued for quite some time after Molly was extricated from the bath water. Just imagine how much funnier this will be when she is on solids.

Once Molly was safely dried and wrapped up, the bath water strained and drained, the hosing down of Helen began.

The bath was in fact the second piece of water based hilarity for today. Earlier this morning I took the dogs for a very long walk in the woods. It was still very cold and there were lots of icy puddles. And an icy pond. Murray decided to try out his skating skills on the iced over pond. He gingerly put one paw onto the ice, then a second. Just he was about to climb right onto the ice, it creaked groaned and cracked. Murray fell right in and submerged completely before flailing around in the water to get back to the edge. Where he discovered that he could not get out without help from me. I managed to grab a couple of pictures of this exploit which I will post shortly (see above).

Molly had her first immunisations this week. One jab in each leg. She cried a bit, but Helen was inconsolable. Afterwards she was very restless and grizzly - Molly, not Helen. Although, now I recall....

Molly was also weighed again and is now a colossal 12lb 10oz. Helen's milk production has stepped up a gear and Molly is now on roughly two thirds breast milk to one third formula. I am now beginning to keep an eye on EU milk quota prices because if Helen continues to produce at this rate we may need to think about acquiring some.

Work has now become unavoidable, which is a shame. However, working predominantly from home is definitely the way forward.