Ankle bones

Hurray, I can see my ankle bones again! For the last week and a half I've had puffy ankles but with alot of walking and spending my evenings feet up in front of umpteen films I have ankle bones again.We picked up a winnie the pooh learning tree from March today thanks to freecycle. Its really noisey and does loads of stuff. I'm sure we will hate it about 12 months from now. It does have an off switch though.Went to the french market yesterday in Ely. No fun, unpasturised cheese, pate, alcohol, oppressive heat and loads of smells that used to be nice but now don't do anything for me. Bumped into Nevla and G twice, once briefly in the bra shop where I am now an F cup. (we joked a bit but I think none of us were particularly comfortable being in there for completley different reasons). We had a good natter in Waitrose though.Having spent hours in town we overstayed our 2 hour parking limit and got fined £30 quid. Tobe is mortified!We took Tobe's dad to the Red Lion at Swaffam Prior for Fathers Day Sunday lunch, a wander round the two churches and a bit of Jazz in the pub garden. A very nice afternoon followed by fresh strawberries in strawberry jelly back at ours.Time for food (mexican smells wafting from the kitchen).

freecycle

In preparation for Billybob's arrival, I've been responding to various 'offered' posts on freecycle.
Last week, while Christine was out for the evening, I came home with a wardrobe, bookcase and chest of drawers, all from the same guy who was emigrating last weekend! The bookcase has gone under the stairs, but the other furniture is for Pumpkin's clothes :)

Holland

Couple of weeks ago we went to Holland to see Christine's family and friends.

We went to a gathering of friends, lovely to see everyone again. I played tag (in Dutch) with the kiddies!



Lots more photos here:
www.flickr.com/photos/72889691@N00/sets/72157594166899512/

Other highlights:
We went for a pancake, which was lekker! Had bacon and syrup on mine :)
And we had a tour of DBs (music practice rooms) by the owner! Lots of good tips for Christine :)

Run Lola Run 4 stars

Fabulous, simple and fun. Great sound track. How subtle changes in the way the scenes unfold can change the future...Much better than Sliding Doors! 

Turks Fruit 3 stars

This is supposed to be the greatest Dutch film ever made. It's pretty good, I saw it once before in Holland without english subtitles and one of the reasons I don't think I'll use it for a film club is the english subtitles are really crap and don't really reflect what's being said. There's lots of sex and strange behaviour. Very early 70's. It's a love story basically but no one is particularly likeable which makes it interesting. I hope the Dutch have come up with some better films and I hope that one of my Dutch friends will recommend one that's a bit more recent and better please. 

In her shoes - 2 stars

Pretty forgettable. Considering it features two of my favorite female actors Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz plus the fact they play two sisters; the older responsible fat one and the slim less sorted one, it didn't really move me.
I wouldn't bother watching it again. Not unpleasant though. 

These pots are doing well too. Out the front, the thyme is flowering, so is the lavender, I notice some lily buds coming up and on inspection, there is the mother of all mint plants under the window too. I planted it last year to deter the cat's from pooing there. Mission successful... 

The fox gloves are getting busy.  

The ornamental poppy ellen got me at the weekend has flowered. 

As mid summer approaches, I went out this evening and was very happy with what I saw, the pots are in bloom, the roses too. The herbs and veg are abundant and the jasmine's growing like mad. The last pot at the end is the Fig, back to life, re-potted and looking very happy. 

not as many poppies this year. This is a wild one. Ellen gave me an ornamental poppy and I aquired another from round the corner. They are just settling in. Dad bought me a delphium at the weekend, we did Anglesey Abbey again and the garden centre there. We spent most of the weekend in the garden, on saturday with washing, then back from the garden centre I put Dad to work digging holes and repotting my fig tree. I fed him very well all weekend and provided plenty of beer so I think it was a fair trade. 

The rapsody in blue roses are out. 

more flowers are out in the garden and growing fast 

20 week scan

Christine and I went for her 20 week scan this morning. It was very thorough, taking about 30 min. Everything seems to be in order - heart, limbs, fingers etc, and they took measurements of head and torso diameters, leg length etc.

And... we found out it's a boy!

We asked for a couple of pictures, but they're not very clear unfortunately - this one's the best: our little pumpkin sucking his thumb. His head's on the right, looking up.


It was again very emotional, but in the hospital neither of us really let it show - I had to park up afterwards so we could have a hug and let it all out. Every time we have a scan it really brings it home to me that I'm going to be a dad. It's awe-inspiring and terifying and hugely joyfull and loving. 

Not very flattering but this is me about half way, belly starting to stick out. I did want to have a few pictures as I grow bigger. Not exactly Gwen Stefani. 

The cherry tomatoes are doing quite well and have started to flower. I plucked loads of the lettuce today for lunch, it's growing pretty fast, plus the little gems are getting pretty big now too. I only think one of the corgette plants has survived though. 

And then this weekend, more flowers are out and the snapdragons are in bud now too. 

I took this mid week to show the first flowers are coming through. 

Summer arrived almost as if it was waiting for the J month to come. And since coming back on the 31st May, the weather has got warmer and warmer. There was a peculiar thing that looked a bit like a daffodil in bud but the bud's just slowly got bigger over the past weeks until this week it exploded into this. 

I've been a bit lapse on the old blogging. We went to Mums last weekend for a long weekend, and had a really good break. Tob's still got some pictures we took in Holland to upload and blog. This is the only picture I took on my phone of Mum and John leaving for their MG Octagon Rally round holland on Saturday morning. It rained most of the weekend but it did brighten up on Sunday and Monday, it was still pretty fresh though. 

I felt pumpkin kicking!

Earlier today Christine was lying on the bed and she said she could feel some movement, so I waited patiently with my hand on her tum... after a while I thought I felt some fluttering, but I wasn't sure... then a few minutes later there it was, definitely a little kick! Just a little tap on the palm of my hand, but unmistakable :) wow :)