Triangular Bees

Innocent Childhood Passtimes: Garbage Hooking

2011-12-10T08:29:00.000Z

(Enter Molly aged 5, holding a wire coat hanger which has been straightened out to make a Christmas wreath, but retaining its hook. Dangling from it is a sausage packet from the recycling)
Molly: Daddy, do you want to play hooking the garbage ?
Daddy: If I am completely honest, Molly, not really.
Molly: Oh, but I really love playing with garbage.
Daddy: Perhaps we could move to India, there are places there were children spend all day on garbage heaps hooking out bits of garbage.
Molly: Could we really do that ?
Daddy: If I don’t get some more money in, we may have to.
Molly: Oh goody. But, Daddy, would we have to eat curry every day ?
Daddy: Yes Molly, every cloud has a silver lining.

Please help to ensure that this man receives the justice he deserves.

2011-11-04T08:38:00.006Z

Now this is serious. Please give this your attention and share it as widely as you are able. Please watch the whole video although it is upsetting and may make you angry and/or upset. It was uploaded to YouTube by his daughter who was the victim of what in any civilised country would be regarded as an awful, brutal and abusive crime against a young person that should not go unpunsihed whenever it was committed.

According to an article published on the Guardian online this morning, Judge William Adams who still sits as a judge is protected from prosecution for this appalling violence by a statute of limitations.

But he cannot be protected from the power of the internet, of which he ironically disapproves in the video. Hopefully, he can be forced to resign or be removed from office. This is unaaceptable behaviour from anyone least of all anyone who sits in judgment on other human beings.

I hope you will agree and will play your part in ensuring that he is brought to account for this.

Pierre Garroudi Fashion Flash Mob Photoshoot 8 June 2011

2011-06-16T21:01:00.003Z

I cannot begin to tell you how much fun my second proper fashion shoot was...

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

50th Birthday looming

2011-06-16T20:50:00.000Z

I am about to become 50 years old.

I would quite like to do something special to mark my half century.

But I am beyond skint at the moment.

Answers on a postcard please...

Catwalk Fashion Shoot

2010-10-05T08:09:00.006Z

Some pictures from my first catwalk fashion shoot. These were taken at the Grosvenor House Hotel Park Lane, London on 30 September 2010. Women's clothes by Pussy Willow, Men's clothes by Mark Lord, Hats/Millinery by Emily London. Thanks to all for giving me the opportunity to try my hand at fashion photography.

Well Done Charlotte !

2010-07-15T11:41:00.002Z

I am so very proud of my daughter Charlotte (far left in the blue hat) who is studying to become a Chef. She has just finished the first year of a Culinary Arts Management Degree at University College Birmingham and yesterday landed herself a job as a Commis Chef at the highly prestigious Claridges for her placement year. She has worked hard for this and deserves success.

Move over Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson and Angela Hartnett, Charlotte Sendall is coming through...

T Shirt from Zazzle.com

2010-06-14T07:42:00.000Z

I could not resist the urge to create this T-shirt to commemorate Robert Green's sterling efforts in goal against USA in England's World Cup 2010 opener. Please feel free to buy one !

Green-fingered T Shirt from Zazzle.com

So...

2010-06-09T07:00:00.006Z

Quite a bit has happened since I last posted on here. Without any doubt at all, the most important was becoming a grandfather on 14 March 2010. Oliver George Sendall is doing very nicely. The pictures below were taken just two hours after Oliver was born.

Yes, this is the point where you exclaim all the nonsense about me looking far too young and all of my ex-girlfriends squirm at the thought that they have slept with someone who is a grandfather ! Molly is now Aunty Molly, aged 4 and if Helen and I were to have another baby, he/she would be an uncle/aunt from birth and younger than nephew Oliver. Modern families, eh ?

On the professional front, business has been uncharacteristically slow for the first half of the year. There is still advice and drafting work to be done, but the amount of court work is appallingly small. I came into this job to be a specialist advocate not to attend case management discussions in cases that settle. I am, however, enjoying being a mediator and apart from the commercial and workplace mediations, I am now enjoying being a pro bono community mediator, having completed my recent training with Mediation Buckinghamshire.

Today is the first night of Chiltern Shakespeare's production of Twelfth Night. Although it is hard to be objective about these things, it is my eleventh year of appearing in their shows and I am fairly confident that this is going to be the best yet. I am playing Sir Toby Belch and Helen is playing Olivia. Ticket sales are looking a bit disappointing, possibly (in part), because of the recession, but mostly because of the World Cup. The Saturday night shows normally sell out completely, but this year, our smallest audience of the whole two week run is likely to be this Saturday when the show clashes with England's opening game of the World Cup against USA. At the moment, it looks as if the audience will be more like 250 than 750. So, if you know anyone who would like something different and highly entertaining to do that night, tell them to come to see our show ! If you click on the link above, it will take you to the website where you can book online.

I have been doing a fair bit of photography lately too. You can catch up with some of the pictures on Flickr.com, but here is one of recent favourites, which I have titled Sky Bridge. It was taken on the Millennium Bridge in London, facing St Paul's

As usual, I plan to post again soon, but who knows...

Bloody New Year Resolutions...

2010-01-09T10:08:00.002Z

This year I am going to keep my e-mail inbox at a manageable size (I have already brought it down from over 200 flagged items to a mere 88), I am going to devote some time to personal admin - the pile of 'filing' is sitting in the corner of my study like Mr Jackson in Mrs Tittlemouse's house. OK it isn't sitting all over a small rocking chair, twiddling its thumbs and smiling, with its feet on the fender. It is more slouched in a precarious heap, staring malignly with an expression perhaps slightly tinged with disappointment. The point is, if I have started to anthropomorphise my pile of admin (except I suppose to think of it as a toad is not really to anthropomorphise, but you know what I mean) it is definitely time for it to go.

My other resolutions include minor stuff like get our debt under control (it now rivals the size of the combined national debt of a number of medium sized African countries), get the garden under control, get the house maintenance under control...etc ad considerable nauseam.

So let's make a start. All pigs are now fed, watered and ready to fly...

I had better have another coffee and walk the dogs first. It's such a lovely day, now where did I put my camera ? Oh yes, there it is.

Waiting for Fabio Capello's call...

2010-01-08T07:50:00.003Z

So, having said the Outlaws' chances of flying off to Alicante at 9.00 am yesterday morning from Bristol Airport were roughly the same as my chances of getting a call up for the England 2010 World Cup squad, it seems that they did take off, albeit a bit late. Obviously, Fabio has got a 'get out of jail free card' for this as they definitely did not leave at 9am. The last I saw, their predicted departure time was about 10.35am. Nevertheless, I think this at least merits a call from Fabio to say that I was under close consideration and almost made it to the team. I shall wait by the phone for a few days, just in case he calls.

The Outlaws travel to the wild west...

2010-01-06T17:16:00.004Z

I have never come up with a better (albeit wholly undeserved) expression for my deceased first wife's parents. Following Christine's death and my subsequent re-marriage, they could no longer be the In-laws as this would risk confusion with Helen's mum and dad who now possess that particular title. So by a curious form of logic, upon ceasing to be In-laws, they became the Outlaws. The name quickly stuck.

The Outlaws (aka Harry and Trudi) have always been supremely supportive of me and have never failed to be anything other than utterly delightful to the disparate array of girlfriends that I introduced to them following Christine's death and before I met and married Helen. They were also present and had their photograph taken with the Judge when Helen and I adopted Emily and Charlotte, notwithstanding the fact that technically, they were ceasing to be grandparents. I suspect that some of you reading this will be surprised at the idea that I also adopted my own daughters on that occasion. Yes, it is true. For Helen to adopt them, I also had to adopt them, otherwise she would have become their only parent in the eyes of the law. Even more bizarre, I had to undergo a long interview process with a couple of social workers who needed to be persuaded that I was a fit person to adopt Emily and Charlotte with the consequence that if I was deemed unfit to adopt them, they would continue to be my children ! A more pointless exercise it would be hard to imagine.

The Outlaws have also always regarded Molly as another granddaughter although she is neither a blood relation nor a relation by marriage. She adores them and none of my three daughters has ever seen fit to object to the concept of having 6 grandparents - odd that, especially at times like birthdays and Christmas !

Anyway, we had not been able to see them at Christmas this year, so they decided to come to see us for a couple of days, just before flying off to Spain for 2 weeks on 7 January 2010. So they arrived in Beaconsfield on the evening of 4 January and planned to leave early this morning to drive to Yeovil to stay with their daughter overnight before flying from Bristol at 9am on the morning of 7 January. Obviously, the weather has played havoc with that idea. The arrival of the snow yesterday afternoon caused a revision of the plan so that they would go straight to Bristol and stay there in a hotel overnight before catching the plane. The sheer quantity of snow overnight meant a further revision of that plan. They have now abandoned their car here (it is somewhere under the large pile of snow in the drive) and have caught a train to Bristol. There is only one hotel near Bristol airport - the Holiday Inn. It is fully booked. Harry does not trust any hotel further than 5 miles from the airport to be able to get them to the airport for 7am tomorrow morning so all other hotels have been ruled out.

So they got me to drop them at Beaconsfield station (a short but highly entertaining journey through the snow) with the intention of catching a train to London and then on to Bristol. As I understand the current version of the plan, the Outlaws intend to get to Bristol airport (which has been closed for most of the day) and then camp out there in the (in my view) hopelessly optimistic expectation that Easyjet will fly them to Alicante at 9am tomorrow morning. So I dropped them off at the station and waved goodbye, not sure whether to admire their Dunkirk spirit or to be dismayed by their naive optimism (stupidity ?). I have told them to give me a call if they need me to sort out a hotel room for them in/near Bristol, but I suspect they will not call. I have a strange vision of them sitting among thousands of other delayed would-be passengers singing wartime favourites like "it's a long way to Tipperary" and "we'll meet again" to keep their spirits up, although I am pretty sure they will be stuck in some large draughty check-in area with hard metal seats bickering with each other all night before discovering early tomorrow morning that their prospects of flying to Alicante at 9am are roughly the same as my chances of being picked for the England 2010 World Cup squad.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow !

2009-12-20T09:16:00.009Z

On Saturday, I went for the most incredible walk in the woods with my dogs and my new camera. The snow was still thick on the ground and the woods were transformed into a magical winter wonderland. Since a picture is said to be worth a thousand words and I took a lot of pictures, I guess the following link is the equivalent of reading a short novel:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sendall/sets/72157623035587734/

Mr Whiplash

2009-12-06T09:30:00.002Z

Having started running again, it was all going swimmingly (should that be runningly ? Ed.) until last Thursday. The run went well it was the cool down afterwards that was not so clever. I had navigated my way running through huge quagmires of mud and partially concealed tree roots with comparatively little problem. My feet were a bit wet and I had some splashes of mud on my lower legs by the time I had finished. All I had to do was to walk down the steep slope of the grassy meadow back to the car. This proved to be more of a challenge than I could ever have imagined. It was like an ice rink with a layer of mud on top of the firmly trodden footpath. I was not even walking that quickly when I began to slide. But my weight and the inevitable tug of gravity down the slope soon turned my slide into a cartoon-style, wild flailing careering followed rapidly by a huge backward somersault onto the ground landing on my head and shoulders with the kind of thud that is invariably described as "sickening".

I was certainly completely winded. I don't think I passed out or if I did, the dogs soon brought me round by leaping on me and licking my face as if it was the best game ever. I lay in the mud for a few minutes until the dogs were pacified and the black spots and stars had stopped spinning in front of my eyes. When I got up, I was so covered in thick wet mud that I looked like something from a horror mud wrestling competition for fat old blokes. Good job I did not meet any women walking on their own during the short walk back to the car. I could have attempted to bluff that I was trialling a new cold mud beauty treatment, but I doubt they would have got close enough to allow me to make that sort of quip.

When I got back to the car, my head already throbbing quite badly, I had some difficult decisions to make, including the question, was I fit to drive ? Having decided I probably was OK to drive, the next big question was how was I going to avoid completely ruining the cloth seats in the car. There was almost no part of me that was not covered in a layer of mud about 1cm thick. I looked like a walking clay model for an Antony Gormley Sculpture. I searched the car for something to cover the seats with and came up with a tiny welsh dragon tea towel. It was not going to cover both the base and the back of the car seat. There was nothing for it clothes had to be shed and the worst of the mud wiped off.

I climbed carefully and practically naked onto the tea towel spread as best I could over the seat of the car and started the engine. I put the car into drive and put my foot on the accelerator and to add insult to injury, the wheels began to spin wildly on the mud under where I had parked. Perhaps the car felt sorry for me and wanted to spray itself with as much mud as possible to help to conceal my nakedness or at least draw the yes of passers by away form my state of undress. Of course, it probably had the opposite effect. Naturally, there was lots of traffic and I had to crawl through the busy town with people on the pavement staring at close quarters through the windows at my unusual state of undress. I just hoped there was enough mud on my face that no one would actually recognise me.

Having returned home and showered, I began to realise that my head felt quite swollen. When I awoke on Friday morning, I found myself unable to lift my head from the pillow. By the end of Friday the stiffness had spread down my neck and into both shoulders. Many ibuprofen later...I am still feeling a bit of a chump.

Brentford -v- NCFC

2009-08-15T08:22:00.002Z

It seems that the sacking of Bryan Gunn has done little to dent the indomitable spirit of Norwich City supporters. According to the ticket office at Carrow Road, I just bought the last available ticket for the Brentford game. I wanted two, but they only had one.

Sadly, I cannot make it to Exeter for today's game, but I trust plenty of supporters will. Instead, I shall be listening to the splendidly one-sided commentary from BBC Radio Norfolk over the jolly old Interwebthingy. I suspect they might have some interesting views on Gunny's sacking.

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE: Now, how is this for service ? While typing this post, NCFC have called me back to say that they have found another ticket and I can have two. Perhaps it was one of Bryan Gunn's relatives saying they did not want their ticket any more.

Who wants to come with me then ? A wet Tuesday night standing on the terraces at Brentford watching the mighty Norwich City - how could you resist ?

Gunned Down in Broads Daylight

2009-08-14T16:10:00.002Z

Norwich City FC have just announced that Bryan Gunn’s contract has been terminated with immediate effect. It seems that Assistant Manager Ian Butterworth will step into the breach to take charge of the team for tomorrow's Coca-Cola League One game away at Exeter City. This makes Bryan Gunn the first management casualty of the new campaign and with the season barely a week old, one has to ask the question whether this might have been just the tiniest bit premature ?

Gunn’s sacking seems to have been the result of the shameful 7-1 drubbing at the hands of Colchester United last Saturday. However awful that game was and having made a round trip journey of nearly 300 miles to see it, I can promise you it was stupendously bad, it must be remembered that it was promptly followed by a 4-0 thrashing of Yeovil Town in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night. It would have been difficult to have asked for a better response from the team and the manager than to bounce back in that way. Of course, I am not privy to the Boardroom discussions and decisions and there may be much more to this than meets the eye, but to a comparative (although not disinterested) outsider, it seems like a very odd way to handle things. Just when the team needs its maximum support from the Board and supporters alike to help recover from being the laughing stock of football and to attempt to rebuild the morale, the Board decides to sack the manager.

Bryan Gunn has been one of the most loyal and devoted servants of Norwich City FC. He played almost 500 first team games for City during the period from 1986 to 1998, he was voted Player of the Year twice and has continued to work hard for the Club ever since his playing days finished.

Last Saturday no one on the pitch seemed to have a clue what they were doing. This week a similar affliction seems to have struck the Board.

Hey ho. On the Ball City…

500 Years of women in art

2008-09-17T17:38:00.001Z

This is beautiful...

Molly feeding the goats

2008-09-17T12:35:00.001Z

Molly and I came across a field full of goats and she almost wet herself laughing at them grabbing the grass from her hands.

The Meatrix

2008-07-16T16:15:00.004Z

Watch the first episode of The Meatrix and learn the ugly truth behind factory farming...

It's been a while...

2008-06-20T10:44:00.008Z

I have been very remiss with my postings of late.

I will try to bring things up to date over the next few weeks.

I am busy playing Bottom in the Chiltern Shakespeare Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the moment. Pics below. Hopefully, we will have played to over 5000 people and raised a pile of cash for charity by the end of the run on Saturday.

Helen successfully completed her Race For Life and now professes to enjoy running ! Emily has finished her first year at Nottingham University reading law. Charlotte has finished her A-Levels and is about to embark on her gap year before going to Birmingham in October 2009 to study for a Culinary Arts Degree en route to becoming the next great celebrity chef. Molly is very busy watching Wonderpets and Pingu. Murray has become a father and all of his puppies have now been found new homes. Maisy continues to take every conceivable oppotunity to roll in fox poo.

Helen, Charlotte and I continue with our quest to lose some weight - I have managed to lose 2 stone, but would like to lose more.

I have just acquired one of those Efergy devices that monitors household electricity use - it scares me, but then I am the one paying the bills. I am hoping that the really irritating alarm that goes off whenever the kettle and the tumble dryer are on at the same time will help to change the habits of the other occupants of this crazy household...

I could watch this over and over again

2008-02-27T10:04:00.003Z

Kendall Sendall ?

2007-12-22T07:47:00.000Z

Incredible story, but I blame the parents - for the kid's name anyway !!!!

digtriad.com WFMY News 2 Video News HeadlinesDog Saves Young Piedmont Girl From Cancer

Evening Star - Raise a toast to the Blues

2007-11-22T16:53:00.000Z

Evening Star - Raise a toast to the Blues

This has to have been devised by a Norwich City supporter. The message: Ipswich Town are toast ! How I wish for that to be true. The picture of the Ipswich fan holding up a piece of toast with ITFC on it is utterly priceless. I confess I did wince at the clever quip in the story that apparently in the Norwich version the toast goes down and doesn't come up again - ho ho, how drole. Hopefully, it will all be a sick joke come May next year.

Reminds me of a little girl I know...

2007-06-01T12:21:00.000Z

The Landlord

I just love this...

2007-06-01T11:50:00.000Z

I laughed for ages watching this video clip.

Enjoy....

15 Years since Christine died

2007-05-29T13:30:00.000Z

My first wife, Christine died 15 years ago today of malignant melanoma at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.

I came across my notes for the valedictory speech I made when I conducted her funeral and in a fit of melancholy, have reproduced a large part of it below.

We met when she was 16 and I was 17. By the time that she died, shortly after her 30th birthday, I had known her for almost half of my life.

Chris was born in Windsor on 7 March 1962 to Harold and Trudi Farrar

In 1963 she went with her parents to Hong Kong where they spent 4 years and where her sister Sandra was born. They returned to England in 1967 so that Chris could start school here. Shortly after their return her brother Graham was born.

Chris had a fairly distinguished school career. She obtained 11 'O' Levels and 3 'A' Levels. Her 9 As and 2 Bs at 'O' Level, certainly outstripped my rather mediocre performance. Blonde she may have been - dumb she most certainly was not.

She was also a very talented artist - although she would deny this and, with her customary air of self-deprecation, would say that all she could do was copy things from pictures. All I can say is that, in that case, she was a very accomplished copier.

We met because I had been the Third Murderer and she was the best friend of a witch. Of course, I refer to the 1978 RGS High Wycombe production of 'the scottish play'. The first time I actually set eyes on Chris, she had a bag over her head. I was supposed to be taking a picture for Wycombe Action Group - a schools charity organisation, of which she was a member. As those of you reading this who knew her will know, Chris hated having her photograph taken - she had an abiding concern that she was in fact deeply unattractive and that those of us who disagreed were all profoundly mistaken. So, because she hated having her photograph taken, she decided to put a bag over her head. Photography was, and still is, one of my great passions - this made it even more miraculous that we ever got together. I pretended to get cross and told her to take the bag off her head - not because I cared whether or not the photo looked silly, but because if what was under the bag was anything like the bits I could see, I was keen to have a closer look. She reluctantly removed the bag and I was instantly smitten. Nothing further happened on that occasion, but on 23 December 1978, at a church hall disco, that incident gave me an opening gambit which I would otherwise not have had. The rest, as they say, is history.

We didn't exactly rush into marriage but we both knew early on that that is where we were headed. The first sign came one Saturday lunchtime in High Wycombe. Chris had a Saturday job in Mothercare and I had a Saturday job in Hepworths. We used to meet at lunchtimes and wander around the shops. We came out of Marks & Spencer and just as we went to kiss goodbye the parish church bells pealed for a wedding - we didn't say a word, but we exchanged a glance that would have filled 10 volumes.

Our romance flourished and eventually the time came to go off to university. We went to separate universities, Chris to Birmingham and I to Cambridge. We made no promises at that stage - we decided to see if it would last. It did.

We finally got engaged in Kenya in 1983. Under a palm tree on the sea shore at Mombassa. Me on one knee, Chris wrapped in a Kanga. Unknown to Chris, my camera was primed to take a picture at the vital moment. She said yes and the smack I got for taking the picture, only stung for a short time. Although I can feel it again right now.

Even then we still didn't rush to get married. It took us over 2 years more. Mostly because we had no money. I went to Bar School and was still a pupil barrister when we did finally get married on 20 July 1985 - a beautiful day which I shall always remember as one of the happiest moments of my life.

So far as her working life was concerned, Chris had a number of different jobs after university.

She started off by selling chocolates in a store in Knightsbridge - thus began her long and abiding love affair with Belgian chocolate. She was poached from there by one of the regular customers and went to work as assistant manager of a Bond Street Jewellery Store. There then followed a period as a trainee accountant and then jobs working in the finance departments of a large firm of Estate Agents and a property development company, Glengate Holdings plc.

Chris did not enjoy work. She had one major ambition in life - to retire and have babies. Babies turned out to be something at which she was extremely accomplished. To start our family as early as possible turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made. Chris had two very easy births producing two wonderful children, Emily and Charlotte. She adored them and although her time with them was so short, she showed herself to be a truly wonderful mother to them.

Notwithstanding her illness, Chris persistently refused help with looking after the children, she was determined to do what she could for them while she was still alive. She continued to look after them unaided until about a fortnight before she died - even though, at times, she was very weak and, at times, she was in great pain. She took them to playgroups and pre-school every day, she took them shopping on her own - an extremely difficult task. She took them on outings to Chessington World of adventure and Windsor Safari Park.

Some of you will remember the 3 birthday parties which she organised and ran for the children. Nobody else was allowed to help in the planning and few of us were allowed to assist on the day. She handled them with comsummate skill - and I for one shall never forget them. Although they will have few, if any, real memories of Chris, they will never be allowed to forget their mother and what they meant to her and what she meant to them.

Nobody should underestimate the pain and anguish which Chris suffered in the last year of her life. We will never know just how much pain she did suffer - she would hardly ever admit to being in pain at all, let alone its extent. She persistently refused to accept painkillers, hating the lack of control they gave her because of the drowsiness they caused. At Christmas 1991, she sat at the Chambers' Christmas Party looking a million dollars and talking cheerfully, while surreptitiously taking breakthrough doses of morphine when the pain became too much.

She never ever gave in to this most wretched of diseases and her determination to not let it win was second to none. Although there are many instances I could mention, perhaps the most poignant came just a few days before she died. By then, she was already desperately ill and had eaten virtually nothing for a week. She decided that she was going to eat some supper with us. As those of you who knew her well will know, there are 2 important things to know about every decision made by Chris: (1)They were comparatively rare as she was almost never able to make one; and (2) when she did, it was a thing cast in stone and could not be amended without leave from her. We were having a Chinese takeaway. She decided that she was going to eat a piece of chicken satay. She sat at the table, a glass of water to one side, the painkillers having dried up her saliva and a bowl on the other for just in case. She picked up the chicken satay. One tiny nibble at a time, each washed down with a mouthful of water, she began the task. It took her almost an hour to do, but she did it. The disease may have beaten her body but it never ever conquered her mind.

In the end, she became very tired and physically unable to keep up the fight which her mind was waging. Her pain, for once controlled by painkillers, I sat with her in the early hours of Friday 29 May 1992, as she peacefully slipped away.

Chris may be gone, but our memories of her will never die. Time has healed some of the pain and sorrow which we feel, but her most incredible fortitude, her bravery and her strength of character will be a lesson which, I at least, shall carry with me forever.

Apart from being brave and strong, she was a beautiful young woman, a devoted wife and mother - full of the joys of life, who was taken from us so undeservedly. I am sure that for all of us who knew her, the world is a blacker place without her in it.

Her funeral concluded, at her express request, with the Louis Armstrong hit - "What a Wonderful World". There was not a dry eye in the house. I still cry almost every time I hear it.

You walk the walk, I'll walk the dogs

2007-05-17T09:12:00.000Z

Our bestest friend Claire Jones is planning to Walk The Walk this weekend at the 10th Playtex Marathon Moonwalk and needs your support to raise some cash for this breast cancer charity.

In keeping with the spirit of the walk, she intends to walk 26.2 miles through the streets of London in her bra! I am not sure if she is wearing anything else. Indeed, the more you donate, the less she will wear ! Actually, I have not agreed that with Claire, but if she is crazy enough to walk that far in the middle of the night and you make the money right, we will be in a strong negotiating position.

You can donate (including Gift Aid) via the web at https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/ClaireJones

You can find out more about Walk The Walk by clicking the link

Emily is 18

2007-04-30T22:13:00.000Z

Emily is 18 today. I now have a daughter who is an adult. A sobering thought. A very sobering thought. I need a whisky. Or two. Hmmm...better make it just the one, I am in court tomorrow.

Eighteen years ago on this very day, she was born at North Middlesex Hospital. The time since then has been so eventful. It seems simultaneously to be both an eternity and five minutes ago. I wonder what Christine would have made of Emily to see her today ? I am sure she would have been incredibly proud. I would give anything to be able to let her know, to reassure her that the little girls that she brought into the world and that she loved so much, have grown up to be so bright, so self-assured, so beautiful and so full of life. They and now Molly, have enriched my life beyond all measure. I have no real grasp of the anguish Christine must have suffered knowing that she would never see them grow up, but even a moment's contemplation of it is apt to make me feel utterly desolate.

I remember my 18th Birthday Party. July 1979. I had swapped trainspotting for Punk, I had been going out with Christine, my first proper girlfriend (who 6 years later became my wife) for just over 6 months. I was no longer a virgin, the afternoon of Wednesday 30th May 1979 had seen to that. My fate was sealed so far as my A-levels were concerned. And at last I was old enough to set foot in a pub and purchase alcohol - although it is possible that this might have happened once or twice before that. I remember it as a time of great uncertainty and yet great optimism, but that recollection may be coloured by the 20:20 hindsight produced by my rose-tinted spectacles.

I wonder how Emily will look back on this day in 27 years time. Or if she will at all.

Running Joke

2007-04-16T10:10:00.000Z

I have started running again. Well, jogging would be more accurate. I have been doing it very early in the mornings with the dogs - do not want too many people to see 40 tonnes of middle-aged blubber bouncing along the woodland paths like an escaped giant blancmange. The dogs are enjoying it, although I think they find the pace a bit relentless. They would prefer to sprint off across the fields in the vain pursuit of the crows that seem to taunt them, followed by a bit of walking before the break-neck high speed pursuit of the next squirrel/pheasant/deer that crosses our path, followed by a bit more walking. Instead, I jog around at a fairly constant pace with them putting in the extra sprints in between. Fartlek for dogs. The family have unkindly suggested that I am the man who put the 'fart' in Fartlek.

At least the hounds will be leaner and fitter as a result.

Some arty photos

2007-04-12T17:09:00.000Z

I have put a few of my pictures in albums on Flickr. I am planning to add to these in the future.

You can view them via these links :

Arty Farty A few of my more esoteric images

Our Country's Good Some pictures taken of Beaconsfield Theatre Group's recent production of Our Country's Good

The Ace of Spades

2007-04-12T15:02:00.000Z

So we finally had the back garden done.

The pond has gone, the other daft water feature has gone. The two rocky mounds have gone. The muddy quagmire that was the lawn has gone. It has all been filled in, levelled and re-turfed. The dogs have a separate fenced off area for them to ruin and Helen and I have madly planted the beds with shrubs and flowers. It actually looks like a garden for the first time since we had the dogs.

The day after the pond was filled and the new turf put down I was sitting with Molly in the lounge very early in the morning, when a huge heron plonked himself down on the grass. I watched as he did a very obvious double take, looked left, right and up and down and clearly thought to himself "I am sure this is the right garden, where has the bloody pond gone ? There was definitely a pond here before. It was right....here. I must be going mad." Then he took off again. It was a wonderfully comic moment, I just wish I had been able to catch it on video.

Anyway, as usual we took our enthusiasm a step too far. I decided to create a herb garden in one of the raised beds. This meant removing a large fig tree which I assumed would be a fairly easy task. I chopped the branches off in no time at all and left a stump about 2 feet high. I gave it a good shake. It was disconcertingly solid. I gave it a jolly good kick. This resulted in a short informal walkabout in the garden as I mouthed a few obscenities and hopped to relieve the pain in my stubbed toes. So I decided to dig it out. I dug all around it exposing several inches of roots. Cut through a few, but still it stayed rock solid. So I decided to take the spade to some of the roots. I raised the handle of the spade high above the ground and put my whole (not insignificant) weight behind it and brought it down as hard as I could in the expectation that it would scythe its way through even the toughest of the roots. Had I realised that there was risk I might miss the roots and had I known that there was a lump of concrete just below the soil where my spade was about to land I might have been a little more circumspect. The jarring pain that rocketed through my hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder was truly excruciating. The doctor has confidently predicted that I have done the sort of damage that will take "a bit of time" to mend. In the meantime he has given me the sort of painkillers that require insertion not ingestion and the pain is breaking through even those with no trouble.

I did get the stump of the tree out though, by chipping it away, with an axe, piece by piece, very gingerly, with my left hand.

So The Ace of Spades, as I am now known around here is feeling a bit sorry for himself.

When colds go bad...

2007-04-12T14:15:00.000Z

We had a very scary trip to A&E with Molly last week.

She had been a bit miserable for a couple of days with a cough and a cold and on the Monday night she had a very high temperature and was plainly unwell. We called NHS Direct in the middle of the night and took her to see the doctor in the morning. He just said that he thought it was a virus and that we should be able to manage her temperature with Calpol and Nurofen. We were off to Cheshire that day to the funeral of Len Webster (one of my great friends from Bar School). Molly was a bit subdued all day but her temperature stayed reasonably low. We stayed in a hotel overnight and that night she became very hot again and we continued to treat her as suggested by the doctor. The next day she was clearly unwell. She became floppy and listless and the medicine failed to bring her temperature down. On the way back home she was getting worse and worse so we decided to take her to A&E. A very wise plan, as it turned out.

When we arrived at A&E, the triage nurse was very reassuring and essentially told us that everything was going to be fine and that they would soon have her temperature down. We were less confident because we knew that the Calpol Nurofen combination was not working. Within about 20 mins we had gone from "there there, we will soon sort her out with a teaspoon of Calpol" to three specialist paediatric doctors, two nurses, a mobile chest x-ray, a trip to the resucitation room "for just in case", an oxygen mask, saline drip lots of frantic activity and some very worried faces. Her blood O2 was at a mere 75%, her temperature was almost 40 degrees and climbing and she was dangerously unwell. She was admitted to the children's ward and thankfully the rehydration and oxygen worked quite quickly to bring her temperature down and her blood O2 back to 100%. They kept her in overnight and until the early evening on Wednesday. We then had to go back again on the Thursday morning just to get the final blood test results which were all fine. Apparently, it was just a very very nasty viral infection.

She still has a dreadful cough and a cold, but otherwise is well on the mend.

To say we were all a bit worried would be a massive understatement.

A Few More Pics...

2007-02-24T16:59:00.000Z

Teething Troubles

2007-02-24T16:15:00.000Z

Catching Up...

2007-02-23T18:51:00.000Z

Here are a few pictures to bring things a bit more up to date:

Tuscany Summer 2006

Molly & "Igger"

Molly Ball Run

Molly in the Bumbo

Playpen Inmate

Eating Out Tuscany Summer 2006

Molly in the pool - Tuscany summer 2006

Molly Tuscany Summer 2006

Molly cooling off in Tuscany July 2006

Molly in the pool in Italy summer 2006

La Penseuse

Molly does asparagus July 2006

Halloween 2006

Molly & Helen November 2006

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear !

2006-12-13T12:05:00.000Z

I am coming under ever-increasing pressure to bring this Blog up to date. I really will find some time to do it very soon - I promise.

Obviously a lot has happened since July when I last posted. I will try to put together a quick summary and add lots of pictures.

I have added a new link on the right hand side to "The Capsticks in Kiwiland" the new blog created by our friends Dave & Manda Capstick who have just emigrated to New Zealand. Hopefully, they will update their blog more frequently than me and much more frequently than Alan & Libby to whose blog there is also a link on this page, but they have not updated since February.

In the meantime, I need to do a bit of work....boo hiss.

2006-07-03T09:04:00.000Z

Look, I need something to wash that mashed sweet potato down with, OK ?

2006-07-03T09:00:00.000Z

More feet

2006-07-03T08:57:00.000Z

Molly flirts briefly with Islam

2006-07-03T08:54:00.000Z

Hmmm....interesting...

2006-07-03T08:52:00.000Z

I have discovered my feet

2006-07-03T08:48:00.000Z

Solid food - are you sure ?

2006-07-03T08:46:00.000Z

Paddling pool fun

2006-07-03T08:43:00.000Z

Walking the dogs - an interesting new activity

2006-07-03T08:42:00.000Z

Walking is a very tiring activity

2006-07-03T08:40:00.000Z

I sit up quite well now

2006-07-03T08:37:00.000Z

Surrounded by toys

2006-07-03T08:33:00.000Z

Getting used to 'tummy time'

2006-07-03T08:29:00.000Z

A big bed was the best investment we ever made

Molly at 3 months...

2006-04-09T07:56:00.000Z

I finally got around to taking some pics of Molly aged 3 months (see below)

I took them because people keep saying how striking the similarity is - I can't see it myself !

2006-04-08T14:58:00.000Z

Molly at 3 months

2006-04-08T14:55:00.000Z

Molly smiling

2006-04-08T14:53:00.000Z

Tony and Molly both aged 3 months

Absolutely bloggered...

2006-03-31T18:12:00.000Z

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

2006-03-05T23:25:00.000Z

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 !

2006-03-05T23:21:00.000Z

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 ?

2006-03-05T10:49:00.000Z

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

2006-03-05T10:41:00.000Z

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

2006-03-05T10:40:00.000Z

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

2006-03-05T10:19:00.000Z

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

2006-03-03T22:09:00.000Z

Molly with Great Great Aunt Becky

Funerals are like buses

2006-03-03T20:36:00.000Z

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.

2006-03-02T18:47:00.000Z

Murray playing with thin ice

2006-03-02T18:44:00.000Z

Murray posing before attempting his famous ice walk on the pond

2006-03-02T18:42:00.000Z

Murray's ice walking exploit goes horribly wrong

2006-03-02T18:41:00.000Z

Hell it's cold in here !

2006-03-02T18:39:00.000Z

Murray doing his drowned rat impression

2006-03-02T18:38:00.000Z

Murray relaxing after his watery ordeal

2006-03-02T18:29:00.000Z

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

2006-03-02T18:27:00.000Z

Maisy whispering sweet nothings in Molly's ear

2006-03-02T18:24:00.000Z

Molly in contemplative mood

2006-03-02T18:21:00.000Z

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

2006-03-02T18:18:00.000Z

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

2006-03-02T18:15:00.000Z

Molly and Daddy share an aside

2006-03-02T18:13:00.000Z

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

Google Adsense Nonsense

2006-03-02T18:01:00.000Z

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...

2006-03-02T17:32:00.000Z

...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.

2006-02-21T08:32:00.000Z

Molly on Valentines Day demonstrating some new dance moves she has been working on

2006-02-20T14:16:00.000Z

The Sendall women

2006-02-20T14:15:00.000Z

Tony Helen and Molly

Molly & Helen both pass their 6 week test

2006-02-20T13:18:00.000Z

Molly is 7 weeks old today and she and Helen had their '6 week' check up. They both passed with flying colours and Helen has been certified as fit to drive, a considerable relief to me.

Helen still has to see a specialist about her wobbly teeth caused by Molly stealing all her calcium to build her bones during pregnancy. Apparently, she may require surgery to keep them intact. It's a funny old game having babies eh ?

The pushchair is back in working order after a series of punctures . It is a Rolls Royce of a puschair but its Achilles heel seems to be the presence of hawthorn twigs on the paths around Beaconsfield. Its wheels seem to attract them and the tyres are not thick enough to withstand their spikes. I did try the boy scout approach by applying patches to the punctured inner tube. Having located the two large holes that seemed to be the problem, I patched them and wrestled the inner tube back into the tyre and the tyre onto the wheel, suffering only one or two blood blisters and engaging in only one short informal walkabout (with hand pressed firmly between my thighs and tears streaming down my cheeks) in doing so. However, it rapidly transpired that there were more holes in the tyre than I had anticipated or had patches to fix, so I took a trip to Halfords. We had bought the pushchair from Halfords, but the recently post-pubescent, educationally-challenged, carbon-based life-form that I asked for assistance, looked at me as though I has asked him to produce a thesis on plate tectonics. His second reaction when I explained the predicament of there only being two wheels on my waggon and a host of pursuing Cherokees which necessitated the immediate repair of the said means of transport as the apparent meanness of their demeanour suggested trouble, was to deny that they sold replacement inner tubes and suggested that I tried puncture repair patches. I then addressed with him, in terms I was sure he would understand (but falling short of actual physical violence), the obvious illogicality of selling puschairs with vulnerable tyres and then not selling the replacement tubes. He seemed to get the point and directed me to the bicycle section where, in due course, a replacement inner tube was found. I bought two and with an air of obvious pessimism, two more packs of self adhesive puncture repair patches. I left 'singing a happy song' with the Cherokees once more (metaphorically at least) in my rear view mirror.

That was the week that was...

2006-02-19T17:43:00.000Z

Wow, where did the last week go ? I seem to have achieved very little. A tiny amount of work and I did deliver a short talk to some students for UCL who are thinking of becoming barristers, but not much else. I did manage to put a new fascia on the dishwasher, which I have been meaning to do for ages and wish I had done sometime ago. Apart from that, the week has been dominated by satisfying Molly's needs, which are narrow in scope, but challenging in frequency.

Molly is having her belated 6 week check up tomorrow. She weighed in at almost 11lb last week, so it will be interesting to see how much she weighs now. Hopefully, Helen will be cleared to drive too. Being the sole driver for the last 7 weeks has been logistically awkward at times.

The lawn doctor turned up early to complete the winter treatment of the lawns last week. I was acutely embarrassed to take him out into the back garden which resembled a scene from the Somme. The dogs have been spending too much time on their own in the garden, which is strewn with toys, sticks, bits of cardboard, plastic and indeed anything else that they have been able to scavenge from the house and/or the bins. They have also established a number of race tracks (muddier than your average scrambling circuit) around the larger shrubs and have churned up the grass to such an extent that the lawn doctor opined that at least it did not need to be scarified. However, it is in need of some urgent application of grass seed as the lawn now mostly consists of moss and mud. I am not sure we need a lawn doctor, a lawn transplant surgeon perhaps or maybe a block paving specialist.

We are back to having three cars in the drive as the Outlaws have now gone to Brisbane, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur until mid-March. So far this year they have spent just 2 weeks in the UK. Alright for some eh ?

Work ? I don't thinks so, thanks

2006-02-13T09:11:00.000Z

I am still struggling with the idea of getting back to work. It may seem odd to many, but although I get a kick out of being in court that is practically obscene, faced with a choice between changing a shitty nappy and writing an advice on disability discrimination, the shitty nappy wins every time. Sadly, changing shitty nappies and clearing up sick does not pay the mortgage and ultimately would mean that we would not have enough money to buy the nappies that Molly could...,well you get the point.

And that reminds me of another odd thing about parenting. Remember at school when someone else in the class was sick and even the thought of it, let alone the sight of it made you retch too ?The idea of having to clean up your own, let alone someone else's sick was at a stage beyond an anathema. However, within a few days of becoming a parent, even the most squeamish person is capable of making a flying leap across a crowded room to catch their child's projectile vomit in the palm of their hand. Odd eh ?

Molly is still snuffling her way through a miserable cold and both Helen and I have sore throats and are generally bunged up - a side effect of sleep deprivation no doubt.

We took Molly to my sister's 40th birthday party on Saturday night where she was cooed over and mauled by the serried ranks of mostly '30 something' and '40 something' guests. Portsmouth Pete became so broody that it is widely anticipated that he will make an appointment this morning to have his vasectomy reversed. Molly also 'witnessed' her first firework display at the party, in the sense that she was at least present when the fireworks went off. However she appeared to sleep unflinchingly through the whole thing, despite the fact that they were impressively noisy. But then she managed to sleep through the band that was playing in the house too. She was awake when a rather drunk Charlotte persuaded the band to let her play a couple of songs (Green Day songs obviously), but her reaction to those was hard to gauge. I have to confess to being rather impressed with Charlotte's performance. It was the first time she had played an electric guitar and the first time that she had sung and played at the same time in front of an audience. Looks like the electric guitar for her next birthday is going to be hard to avoid.

It is now after 9.30 am and I have steafastly avoided doing any work yet and I have to take Emily to Stansted this afternoon so that she can have a week of skiing in Austria with my sister and her family and I have to attend a managemewnt meeting this afternoon in Chambers. So not much fear of me doing too much paid work today.

Grandparents whisked away by big white bird...

2006-02-07T17:51:00.000Z

Gareth & Diane went home this morning, so there is much doom and gloom here. We get to spend so little time with them, which is a real shame. However, they have agreed to come to Tuscany with us in the summer - yey !

Molly has been feeling a little sorry for herself for the last couple of days as she has a cold and seems to have a bit of a tummy ache. She was awake until about 2am and then slept fitfully in my arms until about 4am when I finally managed to get her into the crib. Charlotte woke us all up at 6.30am to start her preparations for a big fry up breakfast to see Nana and Grandad off. There was so much food it nearly saw me off too. Especially at that time of the morning. There should be a law against breakfasting before 9am. So, stuffed with sausages, eggs, bacon, black pudding, hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast we rolled Nana and Grandad out of the car at Terminal 3 at Heathrow at about 10am. The queue at check-in was so short that we had plenty of time for a coffee before they departed. Helen and Diane (who admittedly had eaten less breakfast than the rest of us) bought a muffin each to have with their coffee. Although the time was more civilised, the mere thought of more food made me queasy.

I have been into London this afternoon for an audition to play the lead in a short film called "Happy Larry" which, oddly enough, is about a man who persistently attempts to commit suicide with a remarkably poor success rate. But it does have an interesting sting in the tail. I am not very optimistic about being offered the part, but the audition was fun. I am filming some pick-ups tomorrow for a BBC3 programme that I was involved in during January. Apparently they just want to film my hands - you have probably all noticed what beautifully photogenic hands I have ! I might get around to doing some proper barristering work sometime soon - boo hiss !

Don't mention the rugby

2006-02-04T20:03:00.000Z

Luckily, I am not a huge rugby fan. Otherwise, I fear I would not have been able to have avoided gloating this afternoon as England gave Wales a bit of a beating. Gareth who is not only Welsh, but was part of the the Welsh Rugby team in the 1960s sat and watched the game slowly crushing a can of Abbot Ale in his hand as the game gradually slipped through their grasp. To be fair, he did predict that England would win, but I imagine he would have preferred a rather narrower margin of defeat.

In any event, gloating would be unwise.Not only is he very large, I may have to endure his reaction to the Norwich -v- Ipswich derby game tomorrow.

As you can see from the pictures below, I have been busy with my camera again terrorising the family with a barrage of photo requests. I still have not managed to procure a picture of the whole family nor one of the Sendall girls together. However, watch this space...

2006-02-04T19:57:00.000Z

Helen and Molly

2006-02-04T19:56:00.000Z

Smile for the camera

2006-02-04T19:54:00.001Z

I love you mummy

2006-02-04T19:54:00.000Z

Molly looking up to her mummy

2006-02-04T19:53:00.000Z

Tony and Molly

2006-02-04T19:52:00.000Z

Tony and Molly talking in tongues

2006-02-04T19:49:00.000Z

Lucy with her cousins

2006-02-04T19:48:00.000Z

Helen and Molly with Diane and Gareth 1

2006-02-04T19:45:00.000Z

Helen and Molly with Diane and Gareth 2

2006-02-03T22:06:00.000Z

Gareth and Molly sharing a joke

2006-02-03T22:05:00.000Z

Gareth and Molly

Slapdash Bodgeit & Co.

2006-02-03T19:12:00.000Z

After the previously trailed trip to Homebase as well as an extra trip to B&Q, Gareth and I have been hard at work assembling and putting up bathroom cabinets, hanging pictures, hanging an antique overmantle, picking up the picture that we knocked off the wall when we were hammering on the other side of it, plastering our wounds as well as the cracks in the walls and generally making a bit of a mess. I bought a new thingy to fix the loo handle which, having dismantled the old one in a way that would make a trained plumber weep, I discovered did not fit. At least I can now see that the old handle was broken anyway (well that is my story and I am sticking to it). Tools are strewn everywhere along with small bits of rawlplug, brick dust and other detritus and somewhere a dessert bowl full of Polyfilla is going hard - I was sure I put it on the window sill in the bathroom. In short we have been having a lot of fun.

Helen and her mum have been keeping a low profile as the swearing intensified, but periodically we could hear the low hum of the hoover as Helen's mum surreptitiously cleared up some of the carnage we had left behind as we moved from room to room.

Gareth has also turned his excellent restoration skills to repairing three broken sculptures, in one case building two new ears for a soapstone cat from jam and spit or a mixture of Polyfilla and Araldite anyway.

Tomorrow, after we have done the shelves in Emily's room we are going to sit down and solve the crisis in the Middle East.

Molly ? Oh she's fine.

OK, it was a fluke...

2006-02-02T14:48:00.000Z

Molly has not repeated her sleep through performance over the last two days. However, she is still sleeping quite well and our sleep debt is slightly more under control than our financial debt. She has also started smiling and has become much more vocal.

Grandad Gareth is here. At his request we have drawn up a list of DIY jobs and he has already rolled up his sleeves, gathered the tools together and begun to attack the many little jobs that we never seem to get around to doing. I feel an expensive trip to Homebase coming on to gather bits and pieces to finish the list.

I spent this afternoon scouring the internet for traces of Helen's grandad. He is a rather mystical figure having returned to the US when the war ended, so Helen's mum never really knew her father. I managed to find out his date of birth and death, his social security number and have applied for disclosure of his US Army records on behalf of Helen's mum, but he seems to have left very few other footprints in any searchable records. We now know that he lived in Bergen which is in New York State near the Canadian border when he enlisted in 1942 and that he died in Georgia, but the rest of his life seems to be a bit of a mystery with only a few hazy details known. It would be nice to be able to fill in some of the gaps in Molly's (and Helen's) family tree as we have so much more detail for Emily and Charlotte.

Just a fluke ?

2006-01-31T07:47:00.000Z

Molly was four weeks old yesterday and managed to sleep through the night for the first time last night. Obviously, while she slept 'the sleep of the just' we slept 'the sleep of the I'll just check if she is still breathing' spending the whole night dozing fitfully constantly wondering whether she was just about to wake up. Now we shall have to see if that was a one-off or whether it truly is the shape of things to come.

It's funny, you spend the first few years trying to get them not to wake up at night and just when you think you have sorted that out, they become teenagers and suddenly do not sleep at night again and want to sleep all day.

We were very glad that we kept Molly in our room last night. Helen's mum was keen to have her sleep in her room. Just imagine how bad it would have been if Molly had slept through for the first time on her first night with Diane, allowing her to tell us in the morning how superior her babycare skills were. Erm...not that we are competitive in that sphere of course !

Molly came to the Chiltern Shakespeare auditions for The Tempest last night and was cooed over by the assembled masses. She slept through the whole process, apart from one brief moment, when she heckled my attempt to read for Caliban. Emily read for Miranda and did very well, although I do confess to being a little biased.

I am looking forward to another possible fluke this evening - Norwich City beating Reading away from home. Well, if I can't sleep, at least I can dream, eh ?

2006-01-30T11:07:00.001Z

Duck !

2006-01-30T11:07:00.000Z

Harry & Trudi with Molly