News!

We are excited to annouce the impending arrival of a baby Harris in October! Approaching our next scan on May 23rd. For the time being we're referring to the lil' one as the Bean, being as we're not sure if it's a boy or girl... We have been able to share our news by word of mouth for the most part so now we're ready to share the news online. Wish us luck!

¡Estamos muy felices al poder anunciar la llegada esperada de un bebe Harris en Octubre! Tendremos el proximos scan el 23 de Mayo. Por el momento llamamos al bebe como Bean, ya que no sabemos si es niño o niña... Hemos podido compartir nuestra noticia de boca en boca, pues ahora es la hora para comparirlo por el blog. ¡Deseamos suerte!

The Bean



Reunion, Birthday Picnic and Barbeque

Hello all, another instalment in the happy world of Gemma and Alex. And it really is happy at the moment, with my birthday, Easter day, easter week holiday booked off, the Royal wedding holiday and bank holiday Monday to boot! We've been aiming for this week off for months, it's as good as the Christmas holidays!

The weekend before the holiday I actually met up with Lisa, Danielle St Leon and Danielle Sumner, all friends from Blue Coat. Lisa and Danielle I get to catch up with regularly, they are two of my best friends in all the world. But it was a good chance to catch up with Danielle Sumner, aka Ruck as she was when we all went to school together. We'd also hoped to see Susie but unfortunately she couldn't make it. Anyway the three of us and Danielle's little girl had a lovely meal together and a good old catch up.

Danielle and Amelia

Danielle Danielle and Lisa

Playtime

 Then that evening me and Danielle went to see mum in her World Song choir concert. It was joyous and loud and invigorating, as ever. Una May the conductor sang beautifully and led the choir and I was proud as punch to watch her. Their website gives a flavour of the style, colour and flamboyance, as well as a little of their repertoire. Go to: www.worldsong.co.uk/

Mum's concert

Then 4 days of work dragged by like nobody's business and finally... we started our holiday with Good Friday. We basically had a relaxing day in the build up to my birthday next day, visited B&Q and chose some wallpaper for our guestroom. The plan was to get the diy underway in our week off for the spare guest room. It's a pretty green design, a bit classy I think, if we can get it up alright!

Saturday I woke up and Alex presented me with my card and my birthday present, the much anticipated Harry Potter dvd, yey! And after a brief visit to Sainsbury's for some picnic ingredients we drove to Cannon Hill Park. We took my parents in the car and met Danielle, then Nathan Laura and kids Emma and Ben, Ben and Lauren, Pete and Vicky, LC and daughter Leah, Claire, Dave, Milly Rob and their neice Holly, Phil Jo and his son Lewis. The sun shone and the food was abundant! The boys kicked/threw/caught a ball/frisbie and the rest of us chilled out and caught up. I opened a few presents and cards and enjoyed the fresh air. The only downer was poor Lisa. Bless her she set off from Coventry but her sat nav played up and she never quite figured out how to get to the park. After two hours of driving around in circles poor Lisa headed home in desperation, I am quite sure vowing never to return to Birmingham!

The picnic

Me, obviously

Danielle and Claire

 Then all of a sudden the storm clouds blew over and for 5 minutes the rain fell. Even though the rain was very brief we decided that as we'd been out for about 4 hours we'd head home for a bbq - that way if more rain fell we could at least shelter in the house! As it happened, it didn't rain at all and we spent a very pleasant evening and then a night at home. Emma and Holly were best friends by the time they parted after hours eating, playing lego and colouring in. The boys crowded around the bbq and got the burgers and sausages cooking and left over picnic food was out on the table and we all chilled out on the lawn until it finally got too cold.

Al and dad

the bbq

 By 11 o'clock I was knackered! Dave, who'd got off a 30 hour flight from New Zealand, slept over, and Vicky was asleep on the sofa until well after I went to bed. The last two up were Pete and Alex, playing darts into the night.

These days I seem to wake up before Alex but go to bed earlier too, and Easter Sunday was no different. I headed off to church where I caught up with Jean and Mike, Sue and many other friends cause the church was packed for Easter. After the service me and Sue ran the tea and coffee and caught up with lots of the congregation. Afterwards I ran over in the car to Nathan and Laura's to sit in the sun with them and their parents while they got their bbq underway to wish them a happy easter while Alex got himself ready for Sunday lunch at his parents. and then we went for food with the Harris', a chat with Nan and a quick nap on the sofa... a gentle day all round rounded up with stacking up all our chocolate eggs :) !

Easter eggs!

Next post... NEWS!

Progress and normality

Last Saturday it was mum's birthday, and a glorious day. Sheer summer. We went to Kenilworth and sat in the Queen and Castle, literally opposite the beautiful castle remains. Only trouble was it took so long for the food to arrive that we missed most of the good weather ond only squeezed in a five minute walk before heading back to the car park... Still, mum seemed to enjoy herself and it was a good opportunity to catch up with auntie Shelagh and uncle David who we don't get to see too often. David's always full of stories cause he volunteers for the talking newspaper for the blind in Coventry. I just checked out the newspaper's website and I'm amazed at how much more technologically advanced they've become. Years ago they'd distribute cassettes of magazine-style news and feature stories and interviews. Now you can also download them as a podcast. Uncle David is a driven man. He seizes every opportunity to get a story for the paper. The moment a famous person comes within 50 miles of the city he jumps in his car and uses his charm to get an interview by hook or by crook. This shy man has met everyone from Buzz Aldrin to his holiness the Dalai Lama. It's pretty remarkable actually. As a result the blind community in Coventry benefit from his efforts - It's a gorgeous idea the talking newspaper. And I'm extra fond of it because as a child uncle David got me a few features on the programme, interviewing people or telling stories. It was quite a confidence boost! One time a blind couple wrote in to thank me for my rambling story-telling and sent me a bracelet as a thank you, which I've kep to this day even though it's hopelesly too small for me now. I't's put me touch with people that I'd never have got the chance to meet; like the blind farmer on Kenilworth Rd whose hobby was archery. It's cool.

Last sunday was a normal sunday; church and chilling at home. The weather was still pretty fine, and Alex came home with the usual football injuries but otherwise ok. Mosely Town had lost but he'd scored so overall he was ok! The next day was Uncle Ken's funeral. Uncle Ken Cartwright was a delightful man. He was married to Alex's aunt, one of nan's sisters. Whenever I saw his he had a smile for me, always made a joke, and after decades of living in Birmingham he spoke with a real shropshire accent. He loved his garden and up until the last year he worked on the neighbours' gardens. Twinkly eyes and a smile is what I'll always remember. Alex was particularly fond of his uncle. He recognises that as a child he was very full of beans; the family had to work pretty hard to keep up with him and tried everything they could to tire him out! He has many happy memories of spending days with uncle Ken doing just that; taking him to the hobby shop, or to walk the dog or kick a ball around. The funeral came around and the day was  another glorious one weather wise. We gathered at the crem and it was a sad day obviously but a friendly and warm family occasion in many ways and I was glad to attend with Alex and his parents. In honour of Ken, after the wake, we went home and did our garden and enjoyed the outdoors. With any luck he knew!

Uncle Ken on the left, Nan and uncle Tom at Nan's 95th birthday 3 years ago

On Friday we (Al, Nath, Laura and Phil Blakey) went to the Patrick Kavanagh pub in Mosely for Claire's 30th birthday. As Claire is in the next play alongside me she'd used the evening for some 'shameless self promotion' and put up posters on the walls to help sell tickets. It would be marvellous to sell as many as possible... We had such fun! Half the Billesley Players were there and we all bumped into people we hadn't caught up with in ages. I danced all night and we had a whale of a time!

Everyone!

Birthday girl - Claire - aka Sylvie in the Odd Couple

After a week's effort we've finished the bottom of the garden and it finally looks tidy and something to be proud of. Alex researched plants that grow under connifers and we went out and got some herbs too for that old basin that's been in the garden waiting for us to fill it up. He cut up a new end to the lawn and in the process discovered several massive concrete blocks (aha - no wonder the grass never grew there...). Then we spent yesterday (Saturday) afternoon getting out fresh compost from the composter ( I love that we make our own compost - it's magic! You put crap in at one end and life giving soil comes out at the other!) to bank up the new rockery area and plant it all up. I love looking out of our bedroom window now!

Herbs in the old basin

One half of the new rockery
- wild flower seeds, lavender and daffodils

Researched plants plus mint, rosemary bush and curry plant

Raspberry bushes are growing up! Fruit hopefully this year!

Finally; the play's progress. We had theatre on Thursday and I'm reapplying myself. It was our first rehearsal in a couple of weeks and I felt a little nervous. I'd forgotten large chunks and the scare has really been good for me. Even though everyone else seemed to think it went ok I'm going to be stuck to my script for a few weeks I think. It'm getting into the detail of it now. There are so many elements to research and think through; the intonation, pauses, rhythm, breathing, movements and quirks of every phrase need thinking through and analysing now that I've memorised the broad outline of each conversation. We're getting there!

An invasion and a wedding

Invasion first.

We had all the girls from Griffin visit, Emily, Sarah Susie Hannah, two husbands, Jonathon and Jon, and two babies Samuel (4 months) and Caroline (1 year), followed by Hannah's 2 boys Jack and Oscar for the afternoon and finally Nathan Laura Emma and Ben for good measure. Our house was fit to bursing point and it was marvellous if knackering fun!

After lunch we decided it would be a good idea to go to the park, which is opposite Nathan and Laura's house - and it's the only time I managed to take photos!

Laura and Ben

Sarah and Sam

Oscar

Emily and Caroline

Susie

Hannah with Jack and Oscar

The kids ran around, Emma got stuck in the mud following Jack around, and we all enjoyed a breath of fresh air. All of us that is except Al and John who made the most of the peace and quiet with Nathan to watch sport on telly! Han took Jack and Ozzie back to their grandparents in Wolverhampton and we hung out throughout the house. We had a mattress party in the upstairs room because there was absolutely no floorspace left, it was just mattresses - but add a glass of red wine or two and it becomess a party, right? Then people started bathing their babies and bedtime rituals, Nathan and Laura took the kids home and at last we all sat down, looked around, and: no kids! The curry was on its way, the telly was on and we all just chilled out in front of the box talking nonsence. After the curry people started nodding off and at midnight: bedtime!

After a semi-disturbed night's sleep (but no worse than our gettogethers usually are just this time interrupted by children rather than drunk adults) we awoke at 7.30. It was a very slow start for everyone. Babies were fed, Emily went back to bed, breakfast was made and we all just enjoyed each other's company some more. Then finally people started heading off to pack up their cars, Al had already gone off for his sunday match, and it was just me and the cat. 2 hours of very determined cleaning later I was done in, with almost no energy for anything and a very lazy afternoon slipped into an early night...

One week later it was Pete and Vicky's wedding! It was held at Holy Trinity RC church in Sutton Coldfield. Vicky wore a be-u-ti-ful dress and looked even skinnier than ever. Pete looked like the cat who'd got the cream. Failed to get any good photos of the two of them together - except the dancing ones on video. The priest was Vietnamese and hilarious - a real crowd pleaser wherever the solemnity of the service allowed. He was obviously very fond of them both and of the whole Gilhooly clan. When we got to Aston Villa they ran mini stadium tours before the meal, which was very unnusual for a wedding day and really great. It meant no one got bored waiting for the stragglers to arrive because we were mooching around the dressing rooms and the tunnel pretending to be (very bad) footballers!
Pete's family is part Irish, so after the speeches before the meal Pete's dad led us all in saying Grace and included a Gaelic blessing or grace in there too. After the meal, which was delicious, there was a folk band and lods of Irish dancing before the pop started. I had a go at the Irish dancing and I have just one word to describe it - knackering! I barely lifted by legs but all that jumping around nearly killed me!
The whole day was fab! We drove home at midnight after saying our goodbyes and left the party in full swing - they were going to be carrying on until 3am! But Al had football and I was driving so it was definitely bedtime - not that Pete was entirely happy with our excuses!

Michelle, Teresa me and Kate

Posing in the dressing rooms

Ash 'interviewing' Nick

Pitchside with Chelle and Nick

Leon and Teresa blowing bubbles

Pete with Leon

Laura with Emma and Ben

Nathan and Emma

First dance

First dance