Are you principled ? My wife is.

How did your day start today ? My first email was from my lovely muse Kate, who wrote " Pull your finger out and get blogging. Lily will be in school by the time you do the next entry if you had your way. Hopeless. ". I am not sure why this makes me laugh, but it always does. Kate also addresses any postal mail to me to the following name ' F. Off McKendry '. Again, I do not know why, but it makes me laugh for about 5 minutes, and then again any other time I think of it during the day. I am actually smiling as I write this - truly.

Todays blog subject comes courtesy of the lovely wife. When she was at work the other day she bumped into her ex-boss ( yes, the same one who made her redundant about a week after she told him she was pregnant, and broke the news to her by phone at home on the Saturday morning we were flying off to Italy and France for a 2 week holiday ). Unfortunately when she bumped into him it was not literally, and she was not carrying an unsheathed knife. But I digress. While chatting with him through grated teeth, she was informed that he had just got back from a conference in Australia. While she was cursing her luck that all the dingoes, taipan's, funnel webs and great whites had decided to eat other tourists instead, he mentioned that the 'McKendry's Principle' is going down a storm. He went further to explain that these hospitals had picked up on Moira's research, which had been published in the British Medical Journal, and had implemented her methods into their treatment of some patients. He then told her she was redundant again. She advised him that she no longer worked for him, and this was a habit that he really must give up.

Moira can also balance a spoon on her nose, and perform magic tricks such as making 2 bottles of wine disappear over an evening.

Is there no end to her talents ?

If you are interested her research paper can be viewed at:

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7460/0-d

Out of the mouth of babes

Trying to remain objective, this quick blog is just to show off our wee gal, and the fact that she can now walk. While she may have taken a long time to get to this point, we think it is cute all the same.


By some strange coincidence she also seems to love ice cream. Not sure which gene pool that came from.

She has now started quite a vocabulary of words, some of which are not quite being pronounced correctly. In mixed company this can be quite embarassing as when she loudly exclaims that she is going to 'sit', she adds an 'h' in amongst it, and when reading books points to a clock and loudly states the fact that she does not need to pronounce the 'l'.

To be fair I spilled a whole drink on the carpet the other night and the 'h' was present, and I didn't pronounce the 'l' either.

These photographs are kindly provided by Malcolm , a budding Lord Lichfield.

We hope to provide some photos of wee Archie's christening soon, but will have to steal them off Neil, as I used his digital camera.

The gal has grown a love of plane spotting which she was introduced to by her Gran when visiting her in Nelson. When the planes came into land Gran would point them out to her, and now the gal is pointing them out to us. I managed to take this chance to eat more of her ice cream.



World Cup only days away, first England game to be viewed at Moira and Jackies.

ENNNNNNGERRRRRLUND !!.

anyway enough about me - what do you think of me?

It has just been pointed out to me by my wife, that all of my Blogs are about me. When I replied " yeah, so what ", I just about wasn't around anymore to continue being so narsasistic ( say that 5 times when you are drunk ).

So anyway, enough about me - what do you think of me ?

Having said 'me' more times than the 3 tenors warming up, the rest of this Blog is about 'er indoors.

For those of you who have kindly been saying how slim the wife is looking that is because she has been diagnosed as having an 'overactive thyroid'. Nice if you can get the work. My overactive cakehole does not seem to be having the same effect, so the wife is getting slimmer and I am getting bigger. ( anyway, enough about me - what do you think of me ).

To have the blood tests it required her to go to the local hospital, rather than the GP surgery where she already was, and with Lily on tow she took her 'number' at the counter. She took ticket 142, but could see that they were currently serving blood donor number 71.
One hour later, child fidgety and cranky, the number was up to 85. Apparently the day she went in it was also the diabetics getting their blood tested, and as they were regulars they were called for by name, and therefore the number system did not apply to them. Essentially for Moira to get seen that day would have required her to eat a 4 pound bag of sugar. Failing that she took herself and crying child home.

Visiting the hospital again the next morning at 8:00am, she discovered that the office had already been open since 7:00am. Taking ticket number 20 she barred the doors and sat it out.
On receiving her results she was told her thyroid function should be in the range of 5.3 - 6.1,
Moira scored a bullseye - yep, she was a 50. Her prize was to be put on medication for the next couple of months and see if her levels come back to normal.

The meds seem to be working as the other symptoms seem to be abating, and she is getting a better nights sleep also, which is a bonus. She did ask if she could have waited until she had reached her target weight before starting the pills, but the doctor failed to raise a smile.

Anway, enough about her - what is up with you lot ?

Answers on a postcard please.

And now for the muse

Apparently the director Quentin Tarantino uses Uma Thurman as his muse. Personally as a writer, I have Kate Duthie. Inspired by her email: " You are rubbish at blogging. Get on with it, you nonce, xxx ", which was succinctly followed 3 days later with " pull your finger out and get on with the blog....... ", I feel inspired to write.

All of at No. 8 are now adjusting to having me working from home, as this is now my third day as a 'work from home Dad'. The spare room upstairs now contains a desk, 2 laptops, a PC, a bookcase full of manuals, a variety of CD's and DVD's, modems, printers, corkboards, mobile phones, fizzy water and me.

Outside the room, and down 1 flight of stairs, contains crayons, bibs, toys, books and a small person , complete with mother. We have set our 'boundaries', my office is a child free zone, I have rule of the upstairs, and I take a break from work to join the ladies for morning tea, and lunch . The rest of the day they listen through the ceiling to me talking gibberish to clients, when sometimes I think I would be best just to pass them straight over to Lily.

I do miss the cameraderie of working in an office with other people, but it is also nice not to be 'wedgied' once a week, and always having to make the tea.

Right, it almost morning tea time, I am off downstairs to have a coffee and a bun.

" WIFE - get the kettle on " .

I think they've gone out. Looks like I am still making the teas then.

lots of love

F, M and L.