As Scrabo Power has pointed out below, and despite my post to the contrary, this blog has been greatly neglected of late. I feel at this time I at least have a reason to justify this – H gave birth to our second daughter Beth (henceforth B) just over 2 weeks ago. B and I have had limited time to get to know each other yet, as I have been the self-appointed “Chief of Keeping K Amused” during my 2 weeks of parternity leave (a task which would undoubtedly been made easier if the weather has been better). All of my girls are well and we are getting used to each other.

Any spare time I have had has seen me going to a quiet room and reading Stephen King’s epic The Dark Tower (well, re-reading the first four books and reading the next three for the first time). Once I finish them, I’ll blog on them, but in the meantime I promise to give all you football fans out there a detailed insight into Norn Iron’s defeat at home to the Czech Republic tomorrow night…

Today in town I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt which read “Too many right-wing Christians – too few lions”. I’m not sure if I feel worse for initially being amused by it or for reflecting upon it and thinking that I could see where he was coming from. It is easy for me to sit at home and type it, but there is something to be said for being in the minority.

One thing I have been doing quite a bit of since the 12th is going on bike rides with K. I bought myself a cheap bike from Halfords (the second cheapest they had in stock, as if that didn’t make me look a cheap-skate), a seat for K and a couple of helmets. Despite the inclement (i.e. absolutely crap) weather Norn Iron has endured this summer, we have been out on the bike to various parks etc probably every second or third day and it has been a great bonding experience for us.

Getting used to the extra weight on the back took time (particularly given that I hadn’t cycled even by myself for probably over 3/5 years), but now we have a pretty good thing going. Well, she certainly does, as all she has to do is sit behind me as I do all the work, complain whenever the road is too bumpy and occasionally make me sing our cycling song which I now regret having written.

Fresh air, exercise and a girl who loves her daddy – bad weather or not, maybe this hasn’t been such a bad summer after all.

 

I am very conscious that I have been negligent re this blog over the last number of weeks. The quantity of my blogs has dropped off, as have the quality of the few posted. I consciously decided to take a break from this when I was off for two weeks (we didn’t really go anywhere, but I tried to make a break from what I considered to be the same old routines) and I have struggled to get back on the saddle since (ironic given what I have been doing a lot of – see above). I’m not entirely sure previous service will be resumed sometime soon either, given that it is just over 2 weeks and counting to H’s due date for our number two. So, sorry and I’ll try to make this worth reading again soon.

Caught the end of “The Two Ronnies Sketchbook” a few Friday nights past. H and I both loved “The Two Ronnies” growing up and I would hold them up with the great Eric and Ern. The below sketch brought back happy childhood memoires for both of us and H remembered far too many words. Stick with the dancing until the song kicks in after 3 mins…

I’ve been off the last couple of days and have watched as much of the Open as possible on the BBC. The golf coverage is superb, but there is no way that the commentators would get away with a number of the comments they make if they were commentating on any other sport. Get a load of some of these beauties from today:

• On the appearance of an Asian golfer on the screen, one commentator said “I know I said I fancied a Chinese last night, but…”
• Another Asian golfer was described as looking “inscrutable” (a la Fu Manchu presumably).
• One commentator made reference to Oddjob from “Goldfinger” when the overnight leader KJ Choi from South Korea was on the screen.
• Another commentator intrdouced sight of one Cariberrean golfer by saying “Trinidad and Tobago” in a very bad Reggae-like accent.

Insightful into attitudes that I suspect may reflect a number of middle-class golfers throughout the British Isles…