Three important lessons

I learned three important lessons today. The first is that it is very difficult, if not to say life threatening, to use a space hopper whilst wearing suit trousers. As one shiny surface meets another, it is very difficult to maintain control at high speed, some distance from the ground. The second one is that offering a four year old the choice of either a sticky bun OR jelly and ice cream doesn't work: once she has had one, denying her the other while we all happily chomp away on our green jelly was too much for her to bear.The third lesson is that we need to blog more. Oisin is two today (hence the jelly, and the space hopper). Here's a collection of pictures of our very proud little boy with a range of (largely vehicular) presents. I've lost count of the number of small cars he now has, but expect more reports of near-threatening-accidents as I fail to spot them on the carpet and hurtle towards the inflatable dinosaur in the lounge.

Our little girl has also graduated from playschool, involving a proper grown up ceremony round at the Inverbrenna Hall, complete with gown and mortar board. She sang excellent renditions of twinkle twinkle little star, and something about a banana and pyjamas

In other news, here are some snaps of the splendid Jayne Trimble (and her ramshackle looking band) in action on Saturday. If I haven't yet managed to persuade you to buy it yet, go and get her EP on iTunes immediately.

Lazy bloggers

Well, it's been well over a year since our last blog post - officially rubbish, especially without any sort of valid excuse really. I'm not sure what we've been doing all this time, apart from running round after our two small children as they grow bigger. Oh yes, and we moved to Strangford too and have been trying to do up the house - actually, Marie-Claire has been doing up the house while Dan regularly fails to drill the holes he's supposed to drill for curtain rails, pictures and shelves. I can't think why 150 year old houses with walls about three feet thick don't like having holes drilled in them? Anyway, another of my beautifully erected curtain rails fell down this morning, although I'd like to blame the weighty-three-year-old who was hanging off said curtain at the time.

So here we are in the run up to Christmas. The playschool Christmas Fair this afternoon seemed to go as predicted - chaotic, but we won a small fluffy monkey and a rabbit dressed as a carrot on the tombola. Sadly, the many and varied hampers on offer via the raffle seemed to slip through our fingers, in spite of the 18 tickets we had bought (or rather failed to sell so we got stuck with them).

In our attempt to be a bit less rubbish about recording our children's rapidly changing lives as they grow, we had some pictures taken and here are some of them. Our friend Anna seemed to quietly take most of them without us (and especially Meabh) noticing, which is why they look lovely. She seems to have a knack of making things look as you'd probably like them to look, rather than as they look in real life.

In other news, the double bass has made its way back from Newcastle, and Dan has decided to get his ar*e in gear (finally) and get a band sorted out before he gets full-blown arthritis in his stumpy fingers and can't play any bass lines apart from ones consisting of three notes or less. Marie-Claire's hats seem to be going down a storm, and Dan has proved himself as inept at growing vegetables as he was in Cawood, but at least he's consistent. It's a good job that supermarkets still exist otherwise we'd all be starving or eating seaweed by now.

More soon, we promise.

Josephine's christening

And then there were four

After a month of unpacking boxes, starting jobs and generally finding out where stuff is, we were were just in time for our little son to arrive - two days early, as it turns out (he clearly doesn't take after either of us). After reluctantly agreeing to forgo the lovely Chinese take-away that Dan had had bought for him, we sped an hour up the road to Belfast, and discovered we were only just in time for action stations. Dan bravely sat on a chair and fetched cups of water while Marie-Claire did the easy bit for four hours. At 2.34am on Saturday, our little man arrived safe and sound.

All is well with Mum and baby, apart from the lack of a name for the latter. However, progress has been made in that we've tried out a name for him over the past 24 hours and it seems to 'fit'. Meabh wasn't initially super-impressed with her new little brother, trying her best to ignore him at every opportunity. Having brought him home on Sunday afternoon though, she seems to have warmed to him a bit, and had her first 'hold' yesterday. This morning, she can't stop kissing him and seems besotted.

In case anyone is concerned, Dan did get to eat his (reheated) take-away the next day - phew.

In other news, Meabh has started nursery (and seems to like it), Dan's started his new job (and also seems to like it), and Marie-Claire's started organising in earnest. Lots of domestic tasks lined up for Dan this afternoon like moving (yet more) boxes and putting up mirrors and pictures.

This blog sometimes seems like a register of births, marriages and deaths. And so it goes on. Last week Squirrel (our rabbit) died. I'm not sure whether the Guinness Book of Records has been contacted, but I'm sure she was the world's oldest rabbit. She's been buried in the garden (that, and the insertion of some squash plants, has been the only activity in the garden so far).

Meanwhile, Mr Jelly continues to thrive, and has discovered that next door has a special 'cat shed' for their moggies, equipped with a cat flap, an old armchair and plenty of food. He's not daft.

So that means we've gone from 24 legs down to 12 now. Six new chickens would redress the balance nicely :)

Over the water

Well, a number of momentous events have happened in the last week. The greatest of these is that the 24Legs blog has been re-started - back by popular(?) demand.

To summarise since our last blog post, Meabh has turned one, and then two, another baby is on the way (the stork circling overhead as we speak), Sister Bernadette (she of the great double-yolkers) has passed to the big nunnery-chicken coop in the sky, and Orra and Clementine have joined us. Jamjar, alas, decided to run away last month never, it would seem, to return - hopefully she's managed to board a ferry and has returned to her native Norwegian forests.

More recently, after four happy years at the CBA I decided to quit in favour of a job in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and we've sold our house (nearly), packed up all our worldly goods, and are busy settling into lovely Newcastle, County Down. The chickens have been packed off to a green hillside in Helperby (courtesy of Geoff), but Squirrel and Mr Jelly bravely headed over the water with us. They're looking a bit giddy, but are finding their feet.

I'm currently sitting in a half-set up office surrounded by at last 40 boxes listening to Blue Moon of Kentucky - the Best of Bill Munroe. The sea front (15 paces away to my right) beckons shortly and the sun is shining.


Depicted are Meabh and I packing up our lovely cast iron bath for the road (and having one last go in it on the patio), Meabh leaving her home in Cawood for the last time, then us hunting for crabs in sunny Carlingford Lough at low tide, and Newcastle beach yesterday evening.

Meabh's first Christmas

Well, it's been a while since the last blog, but we couldn't let Meabh's Christmas go by without another edition of 24Legs. We were over in Ireland (Newcastle, Co Down) for Christmas itself, after a bumpy ferry crossing from Liverpool. Great Grandad waved us off and we soon corralled some seats near the bar and settled in for the eight hour crossing. Unfortunately, eight hours allowed plenty of time for Meabh to contract some kind of nasty stomach virus and spent most of Christmas having her nappy and/or complete outfit changed. She was distracted for a while by the huge pile of Ferguson presents on Christmas Day, but soon resumed her alternating rounds of sickness and diarrhea. On the plus side, it did mean that Mum and Dad caught up on some TV classics apparently only shown at 3am, Huckleberry Finn being a notable highlight. Unbeknown to her, Meabh slept through some great long walks along the beach with crashing waves and winking lighthouses.

After an otherwise great five days in Ireland, we spent another bouncy and eventful journey back to England. Meabh was zoomed off to Selby hospital to check she wasn't dehydrating and have some samples taken, and Mum and Dad continued to battle away, washing at least 12 baby grows a day and wondering whether she would ever get her previously phenomenal appetite back. After three days at home she finally started to look a bit better so we headed down to Peterborough to see the Hulls. Luckily, she continued to get better and had yet another huge mound of presents to get to grips with. We all spent a great new year sipping away at the bubbly and waiting for Jools Holland, then a distinctly quiet next day watching the Thunderbirds.

I'm beginning to learn about toys. Apparently, you can get singing crabs that dance sideways and swivel their eyes, pull-along telephones that squeak, Noah's Arks complete with most of the known mammal species, and music centres with hi-hats, bass drums and a flashing keyboard. She also got a tiny drum kit and a push-along dinosaur, a singing Dumbo and two tambourines. I'd never previously heard of 'activity socks', but Meabh loves them and has had them on every day since she got them (miraculously dodging the flowing quantities of poo). She's suddenly gone from a set of toys that were largely fluffy, quiet and innocuous to a huge moving mass of flashing, singing, moving and jingling objects that seem to move around of their own accord when we're out of the room.

Sadly, one of the chickens died over Christmas, in spite of heroic attempts to revive it by Guy. We've buried it by the apple tree and will get a couple more in the spring to keep the other two company.

Meabh's christening!

At long last we managed to get the Hulls (well, most of them), the Fergusons, some godparents (most of them) a priest, another priest and a church all in the same place at the same time. On September 13th Rosa Meabh was christened (or baptised, or, from Meabh's point of view, held awkwardly over a bath while 4 pints of cold water were poured over her head).

Meabh seemed to enjoy getting dressed up in her fineries, and the wonders of the sat nav miraculously guided everyone to the church on time. Father Gerry did a grand job of explaining what the whole thing was all about, even managing to bring over an impressively large picture of Jesus which he'd borrowed from a friendly parishioner's house in Ireland to explain what we were all there for. His slight mishap with the sharp candlestick was resolved by Mum's ever-resourceful handbag and some plasters. Although Meabh didn't exactly 'enjoy' the experience, after a mere 1 hour 48 minutes all was well, and we all emerged into the daylight again ready for some lunch.


Huge mountains of food and far too much bubbly then ensued, and everybody seemed to have a good time (especially Marie-Claire's Uncle Paul who snuck off to the pub to catch the second half of Liverpool beating Man Utd 2-1).

Here are some pictures of the day, including some great ones of Meabh in her super-hero cape, and one of the three us (with a very tired-looking Mummy and Daddy!) at the end of the day.

Nic and Doug's wedding

We've just been in Peterborough for the weekend for Nic and Doug's wedding. After a two-week build-up of stag dos and hen dos, the big day finally arrived, and my big sister married my mate Doug at Orton Waterville church on Saturday. Marie-Claire had made at least 372 hats (including two for herself), the best of which I think was Meabh's big pink flower. She managed to keep it on for at least 20 minutes, before getting cross and wriggling out of it - just long enough for us to take some photos to embarrass her when she's 18.

The day went really well, thanks to loads of carefully laid plans (and patios), and an amazing set of caterers who seemed to spend most of the afternoon doing the washing up. Well done Dad for the speech, and Meabh says sorry we missed it, but she really enjoyed being wheeled around the streets of Eye by her slightly-over-dressed parents trying to get her to go to sleep. In the end, the succession of almost indistinguishable bungalows and front gardens lulled her off and we were able to head back and get a few glasses of bubbly with everyone else.

It was great to see everyone, and to swap lots of baby stories, tips and suggestions with all the other Mums and Dads - something I never imagined I would enjoy doing until 4 months ago!

Here are some pictures of the happy couple too - currently on their Honeymoon in Cuba and having a great time no doubt. Congratulations to em both!

Morecambe and Meabh

I got soaked today coming home and York was plunged into chaos with roads closed and mini flash floods springing up all over the place. To cheer everybody (and me) up, here's another video of Meabh enjoying the bouncer (taken at more or less the same time yesterday, lest you all think we dress her in the same clothes everyday -tempting though it is). In this one, she gets a good jig going with the feet, or maybe she's tap dancing? It must be all those Morecambe and Wise videos we watch.

As we speak, Meabh is going back in her bouncer as she refuses to sleep so we thought we'd experiment in wearing her out. We'll let you know the results... The next step will be one of those perspex hamster rollers.

24Legs...Relaunched (and bouncy)

24Legs are back - relaunched, reloaded and, er, refreshed from our little break from blogging. The last two months seem to have been a blur of bottles and babygrows, and in the meantime at least two of our legs seem to have grown bigger and longer. Meabh's insatiable appetite seems to be getting her somewhere and she's growing up super fast.

Last weekend, we collected a baby bouncer from Granny and Grandad Hull and have then spent much of the last two days laughing at our funny daughter working out how to bounce up and down. I'm sure we should be looking on admiringly, but frankly she's just funny. After bouncing for about 10 minutes she then gets bored and frustrated and the more she gets restless the more she bounces, and the more she gets frustrated - endless hours of fun for us! Here's a new-fangled video of her bouncing, and a good ol' fashioned snap.

Meabh is now exactly two feet long, and according to the latest measurement weighs in at a hefty 14lb 9oz. Hopefully the baby bouncer (and the doorframe it's attached to) will survive the onslaught a bit longer...

In other news, Mr Jelly and Jamjar have taken to sleeping out all night now - dirty stop-outs. I'm not sure what they get up to but they come in starving in the morning and covered in vegetation that doesn't seem to be evident in our garden anywhere.

Paranoia.........

Recently Meabh has been telling me that she feels a "presence" - as if she is being stalked by something. Personally, i think she's imagining things!

The egg mystery is solved

Phew. More dastardly tactics by the Hull Hens have resulted in a drying up of the egg supply in recent days. Either Meabh has secretly mastered the art of walking and has been collecting and then eating them during the day when I'm not here, or the chickens have been trying to create a little brood by hiding their eggs again. Sharp eyed 24Legs readers will note that a clutch was found (and recovered) by the pond 2 weeks ago, however, they've turned to new corners of the garden. The trouble is there are now about 48 corners in the garden as the nettles and bindweed take over the nether reaches and create stretches of jungle. After 4 days of searching over the weekend, a long period of surveillance yesterday morning (in the rain, in my dressing gown, I might add) eventually detected Bernadette (pictured) skuttling off behind a pile of paving slabs and an old patio door. I had to wait until the rain had stopped to shift all this out the way, but there lay an impressive nest containing seven very shiny well-sat-on eggs. Unfortunately for Bernadette, these were never destined to hatch little chickens and are now in our kitchen.

In other news, Meabh continues to guzzle huge quantities of milk, and has been doing lots smiling. On occasion, and in the right light, she might even have started laughing. She'll certainly need her sense of humour living in this house.

Meanwhile, Naomi claims that the blog has yet to feature a picture of her, so here's a picture of her in our garden a couple of weeks ago (with Chris and Eddie), about to bravely head down to the village hairdressers for a trim. Rather her than me.

Meabh socialises (sort of)

Meabh had the Rimes-Dougalls to visit this weekend, and at last met the last (or first) of her cousins. Here's a picture of Olivia holding her, with Meabh looking a bit uncertain about the whole thing. Her only-slightly-older cousin Alexander showed off by being extremely well-behaved and smiley all weekend, while Meabh decided to see how loudly she could cry on Saturday night. She managed an impressive 1048 decibels, for about 90 minutes, and then decided that she'd demonstrated her mightily impressive lung power for long enough and then had a good long kip. Phew!

Olivia and I battled through the end of the garden and finally found where the chickens had been secretly laying some of their eggs. We then mounted a brave assault on the nest, risking life and limb through the nettles and across the pond, and smuggled three eggs away before they noticed.

Here are some pictures of the Rimes-Dougalls and Meabh...

Lots of visitors!

Sorry we haven't reported on blog duty in a while. Life seems to have become very busy all of a sudden, with me back at work and lots of visitors coming to stay. Meabh's had a very sociable time, with Granny and Grandad Ferguson last weekend, and Granny and Grandad Hull during the week. She's really looking forward to the Rimes-Dougalls coming this weekend, so at last she can meet the final cousin - the oldest one meets the youngest one.

Meabh's been having her passport photo taken this week. Not a straightforward task as she wasn't keen on complying with the government regulations of eyes open and mouth shut. I think we got there in the end. Here's one of the attempted pictures, with Meabh doing a very cool 'black power' salute.

Meanwhile, the other 18 legs continue to thrive, with the cats catching doormice and frogs in the sunshine and the chickens laying eggs like it's going out of fashion. Here's a rare picture of Mr Jelly inside the house, looking a bit grumpy.

The Hulls come for a visit

This time, it was the turn of Meabh's uncle Simon and auntie Lorraine to come for a visit, with Freddie and Romy. Meabh slept for most of the afternoon, and then when we all squeezed on to the sofa for a family picture Meabh cried for just long enough for all the cameras in the house to run out of batteries, and was then completely fine. She seems to have developed an aversion to cameras, just like her Mummy, so here are some pictures of Si (looking like a thirty-something Dennis the Menace), Romy and Freddie. It was great to see them all. It's Romy's birthday tomorrow, so I had spent the morning attempting to cook a big pink birthday cake, complete with hundreds and thousands and twelve candles, only to discover that I hadn't cooked it for long enough. Disaster!

Uncle Tim and auntie Toni are also down for a visit from Edinburgh too, so we'll see if we can extract some pictures from Tim's camera of Meabh.

She's three weeks old today, and has now met three of her four cousins - just Olivia to go and then that's a complete set...

And so, to Morrisons

Bravely, we strapped ourselves in for our first visit to the supermarket with Meabh. Alas, crushing disappointment descended as we realised that all the baby and toddler spaces were full. For years I've wanted to feel smug, pulling into one of those nice wide spaces right next to the door of the shop, as everyone else struggles with the 'normal' spaces 2km away - but it wasn't to be.

So it was that we headed off into one of the spaces for mere mortals, and then discovered why those big wide spaces were invented. After assembling a rope and pulley system with several winches to get Meabh and the pram out of the car, we stared perplexed at the range of 'special' trolleys for babies. They generally look like terrifying torture devices, but after seeing some other babies using them, we might be even braver and try one of those next time...

Down the pub again

People will be gossiping about that Meabh Hull, down the pub again yesterday. This time, with Granny and Grandad Hull for a swift half before dinner. They've been visiting this week and getting to know their latest grandchild (in a long line of at least 432 grandchildren, at last count!). She seems to sleep peacefully at the pub (or in fact anywhere outside the house), and then wakes up nice and refreshed ready for a night of shouting. She wasn't toooo bad last night, although decided that 5am was a perfect time for us all to be up trying to work out why we were all up so early. Having tried all the usual solutions, I resorted to taking her downstairs to help me make a cup of tea. As usual, a nice cupper solves everything and she went to sleep - for another 45 minutes at least.

Anyway, here's a nice picture of Meabh with her Granny, and a close up too. She really seems to have changed over the last week or so. Now that she's got over the traumas of being born, and having rashes and blotches all over the place, she's now turning into a really beautiful wee thing (not that I'm biased...)

Meabh meets the Fergusons

It was a whirlwind weekend, with a besotted Granny and Grandad Ferguson and Auntie Fiona flying over from Ireland to meet Meabh for the first time. She was very excited about the visit, and fell asleep especially - she was snoozing away happily when everyone arrived, and missed all the great presents they'd brought over for her.

Next day, we packed Meabh off in her pram for a long walk round the village, while the two of us finally caught up on some sleep. There was no rest for Meabh though - as soon as she got back she discovered that the Posh had just been promoted to League One, and was jumping up and down with excitement. She's really looking forward to next season now.

On Sunday, Meabh persuaded us to take her on her first outing to the pub. At one week old she was allowed in, but stuck to the soft drinks (largely milk, in fact). There were lots of admiring looks from the other pub-goers, and she behaved herself very well.

After managing to separate Meabh from her Granny, we then waved everyone off to the airport..

Worn out

Mum and Meabh are worn out after a busy day getting ready for more visitors. But after an afternoon nap, both were raring to go: Meabh had another bath - which she enjoyed just as much as the last one, and then there were lots more pressies for her to open.

Meabh meets the family

Yesterday, Meabh met Granny and Grandad Hull for the first time, and auntie Nic and cousin Alexander. As you can see from the pictures, she was bowled over by the experience, and could hardly contain herself! She says thank you to everyone for her presents, especially all the clothes as she's going through around 12 outfits a day at the moment.

It was nice to finally get the chance for a photo of the three of us too. Tonight, the Fergusons arrive from Ireland. Meabh tells me she's very excited about meeting them.