Letters To Harry

Paternity and Picnics

Dear Harry,

I can see it now, driving rain, howling gales, kagool clad infants being dragged kicking and screaming across deserted beaches and a look of flinty determination etched into my father’s face that come hell or high water, we were all going to have fun.

The joys of picnics

Don’t get me wrong, dining Al fresco can be wonderful experience but occasionally you have to accept the gods of outdoor grub are conspiring against you and if you quit now all you’ll have to sacrifice is half an M&S quiche and couple of happy shopper scotch eggs and in return you’ll keep your sanity.

So it was today. The family packed up the car and off we trotted to Centennial Park to cram a few rounds of sarnies down our gullets and bask in the bounteous company of our baby daughter.

Things began to go awry as we entered the park and my father-in-law managed to tweak a muscle in his shoulder with an awkwardly placed cough resulting in him spending the rest of the afternoon writhing in agony.

Upon decanting from the vehicle, which really is too small for four adults and child in a capsule seat unless every journey lasts a mere matter of moments, Alex managed to wander through a bog, drenching her thongs.

As Bob and Alex set up camp, Margaret, (my mother-in-law) and I practiced our goose herding skills, driving away a gaggle of thick-necked honkers that were preparing to rush our little encampment, driven wild by the promise of brown bread and Branston pickle.

And through it all Lucy cried. As Alex dried her sodden feet with, she cried. As Bob rolled his eyes in agony as the muscles in his shoulder knitted, she cried. As Margaret and I eyed up the geese and thought ‘Foie Gras’, she cried.

In fact the only thing that ended my daughter’s fit of uncontainable infantile yelling was the fact that rain clouds drove us back to the car and we headed for home, the motion of this homeward journey rocking Lucy to sleep almost instantly.

All this bodes ominously for our first ever road trip with Lucy to Canberra this weekend. All I'm thinking right now is that after 4 hours in the car I’m hoping we decide to dine under cover.

Regards,

Charlie

Lucy 10,000

Dear Harry,

This image of little Lucy is the 10,000th image I have uploaded to my Flickr account

Stretching back to July 2005 (when I uploaded a couple of frames of co-workers in London) right through to today I've been using Flickr as an online archive of the pictures I've taken both for work and for play.

I've seen the 10,000th picture milestone coming for a while now and while it should come as no surprise that a photographer should have plenty of pictures I'm still a little wowed by the magnitude of what we have online.

You can see the sets I've put together here over the five years. 

There are still galleries to be made, collections to be created and tags to be added but there is still plenty of time.

I've already got a stack more images to upload this evening (The joys of time off) so the number of pictures is set to climb but I though it was worth dropping you a line to mark this moment in time.

Regards,

Charlie 

The Undersigned

Dear Harry,

I can tell I’m tired as I’m going to bash out a few line on something vaguely serious.

As the happy hols come to a close and the rudeness of reality begins to lap around my throne, I’m becoming increasingly determined to get a few things done before Monday morning and my first day back at news.com.au.

One of these tasks is, was and by all accounts ever shall be, trying to whittle away at the unread email in my gmail inbox.

While the majority of this mail is opened, read and dissuaded in a timely fashion, the really good stuff is left for when I have time to deal with it, which is … never. The longer I leave it, the more of it keep’s coming in until finally I’m forced to sire infants, simply as a way of getting the time off work needed to wade through it all [Oh … no one is going to like reading that last line].

Onwards I say.

One such important email was a link to a petition posted on the PMs website in the UK by a group of photographers who are calling for the government to abandon their plans to;

“allow free and unhindered reproduction of photographs without payment or credit on non-commercial websites”

You can read about the exact parameters of the proposal, entitled the Digital Economy Bill, either on the British Journal of Photography website or on Wirefresh.

If you have the time, interest and caffeine coursing through your veins (YO!) then you can read between the lines at the bill’s official page.

So if you make your living with a camera in your hand and have enough POM in you to call the queen ‘Your Majesty’, and feel an imperial stiffening of you upper lip when you see the union jack a’ flutter, then you can add weight to the petition by going here.

Viva la Revolution,

Charlie

P.S. Ironically if the bill passes then I would be under no obligation to credit the images of the number 10 front door i used above.

Month One – Somnia

Dear Harry,

Amazing to think that a whole month has already passed since Lucy was born.

In the weeks since I last sat at the computer and managed to engage my brain enough to write more than my name over and over again we have had friends, family, Christmas & New Year all trundle through our lives in what seems like a blurr.

No doubt I’m not the first new parent to stand bleary eyed at six am and wonder if they’ll ever sleep properly again, but after only four weeks I’m starting to understand why sleep deprivation is such an effective tool for both cults and torturers (both of which are akin to the state in which we find ourselves now, but aren’t allowed to publicly admit as much).

Don’t get me wrong parenthood is wonderful, if not a little bewildering. It’s a source of constant amazement to me how such a small pink ball of tears and poo manages to absorb every waking moment of our days.

Newborn babies it seems are a little bit like a military campaigns. When you’re not fighting the current battle to quieten your screaming infant, you are either engaged in replenishing the supply lines with milk, and / or gearing up to enter the next theatre of operations by trying to leave the house, which in itself is like moving an army across Europe.

Like any good throw-down with the armed forces, everything hinges on communication. Crossed- lines, friendly fire (and we’ve had plenty of that during nappy change time, as the endless washing on the line will testify to), and general confusion as to what the small noisy thing really wants to placate her nocturnal bellowing.

But we are getting there.

At this very moment our top people [better known as Alex] are experimenting with the regimes, schedules n’ routines, that have been meticulously documented in the dozen baby books we have littering the house, all the time refining them until, Rosetta like, we crack the optimal set of times and durations that will keep Lucy, fed, entertained, quiet and generally ticking for every moment of any given 24 hour period. 

Where once we perused the pages of magazines on topics as diverse as popular culture and fashion or dared to gaze wide-eyed at tales of fiction or fact now we [and by we I mean Alex] are devotees to the musings of Tizzy Hall and Robin Barker, who tower, God-like over the baby book market, all powerful in the understanding in the dark arts of swaddling and the ‘dream feed’.

And while Alex has been doing the reading I’ve been busy with the camera. Pretty soon there will not be an angle, position or activity my daughter has not been shot doing and despite the fact that she will not thank me one iota for making these images public, I’m determined to keep a record of my daughter’s childhood that will both enlighten and amuse her when she's older.

Regards,

Charlie

Lucy Rose Brewer

Dear Harry, 

 

Born at 00:21 on December 6th, 2009 after 36 weeks and 2 days today Alex and I became mother & father to Lucy Rose Brewer.

She was born weighing 2.8kg or 6lb 2oz and measuring 49cm in length.

You can see more photos of her first 24 hours by going to Flickr.

Mother, daughter and Father are all well and happy.

Regards,

Charlie

Meeting a Muse

Dear Harry,  

Standard first line I’m afraid, ‘sorry its been so long since I last wrote to you but what with a pregnant wife, a house in need to a sound thrashing and a job that seems to be keeping me out till all hours, the last 4 weeks have just flown’.

Anyway I just I’d drop you a quick line to say Hi and post a link to an Interview I did on Monday with a Photographer called Pattie Boyd. Aside from being a dab-hand with a camera, Pattie also played the role of wife and inspiration to the Beatles’ George Harrison and the guitar virtuoso Eric Clapton.  

Pattie is over in Sydney launching her first ever exhibition in the southern hemisphere and I was lucky enough to be able to grab 30 minutes with her to ask a few question about her life, her capacity to inspire and some of the stories about how she came to be the inspiration for such classics as Layla and Wonderful Tonight.  

You can see the news.com.au multimedia piece here – The eyes of a muse  

And you an also see a bit more about her exhibition here – ‘Through the Eyes of a Muse – Photographs by Pattie Boyd’  

Anyway, hope all is well in the UK and preparation are well underway for Christmas, although if I know your mum she will insist the family Green celebrate her birthday before you are allowed to get the tree up.

Regards,  

Charlie

Burst of Energy

Dear Harry,
 
I might do better entitling this letter ‘inability to sleep’ or maybe ‘slave to insomnia’ but lets give this Sunday morning message a positive spin what hey!
 
So we are at T-minus 9 weeks and counting until the arrival of our first born. This is good. The time for fannying and faffing has now past and we have now reached the period where all discissions are being made knowing full well that unless we generally get our lives in order then the baby will most likely be sleeping in the shed, which while fun will attract the ire of parenting groups.
 
The spare bedroom has been cleaned, prepped and received the first, of what will be a few, coats of paint. Henceforth it shall be referred to as the ‘Nursery’.
 
After numerous animated discussions in the lighting stores of NSW we have managed to locate and purchase some new hanging lamps to replace the honky-tonk chandeliers that the previous owners so graced the ceiling spaces with.
 
While we’re on a role we are finally going to get proper picture rail fitted. The original idea was a Victorian style rail but we have so many prints and other visual goodies to get up that in the end we went for something more akin to an art gallery system – which makes me all sort of happy.

What else?

Well last weekend I dragged my sorry posterior out of bed a t 03:00 to climb the Sydney harbour bright to whiteness the first ever ‘Breakfast on the Bridge’. During the course of the previous evening traffic had been stopped and over 10,000m/sq of real grass laid so that 6000 Sydneysiders could picnic on the bridge for a couple of hours in the morning. If you want to see the bridge being transformed click this link to see the time-lapse video. ‘Massive white elephant’, said the Times ‘Gargantuan waste of state tourism money’, cried The Sun  (neither of the papers actually said anything but it’s early and I’m tired so shush now enjoy the ride). Well for the $1M the exercise was estimated to have cost our state premier Nathan has told us it will generate $10M in increased tourism revenue & I’m not going to argue. I’ve included a link to the gallery we made of the event here.
 
I’m heading off to the office in a moment to drop the cameras back from our All Hallows Eve Ball fashion shoot last. If I’m quick I reckon I can be back before Alex has surfaced, resulting a slow easy Sunday without having to dash all over the shop.
 
Anyhow, I’ll leave it there, so all that remains for me to do if bid you farewell and wish you all the best until next time.
 
Regards,
 
Charlie

Lighten Up

Dear Harry,

So here we are, October 17th 2009 and it was on this day four years ago I wrote to you and said Smile! our first ever letter.

http://www.letterstoharry.com/2005/10/smile.html

I won't delay you long with a massive rambling yarn tonight but instead simply wanted to show you a few photos of something Alex and I drove past today.

Over in Australia it's a fairly common practice to leave items you no longer want outside your house to be taken away and reused by anyone who thinks they can give them a good home. Our desk and coffee table were recovered from the mean street of Bondi in this fashion and and over the last few years we've seen everything from TVs to wardrobes being recycled in this fashion.

It was this sense of communal sharing that prompted a household in Leichhardt to place this on the street

Resembling a demonic font or the handbasin of the danmed adorned with the skeletal remains, this macabre object is in fact a lamp

I suspect that all the bones are real, except for the three human skulls (hopefully) and I hope is that the gothic home that adopts it, as per the instructions on the attached note, take good care of it. The body count of animals that went into making it Vs. light output generated probably means that you are unlikely to see its ilk again.

Regards,

Charlie

Time and a Place

Dear Harry,

There's a time and a place for everything, fact.

From sharing half-baked internet musings on the divine to relieving the pressure in your lower bowel, society has striven over the last half dozen millennia to assist the masses in allocating each and every activity to its own specific place.

Regardless of this cosmic planning there will always be those who buck the convention.

For example, Christmas office parties that start with 14 glasses of vino - retardo and end up with some soon-to-be Centrelink devotee approaching their employer and uttering the immortal line "You know what I think of you?".

A more recent example was a story from the Times Online about a mid-air punch up on an Air India flight. Now high altitude knuckle-dusting are nothing new. Thanks to budget airlines letting the multitude get off the ground and airports selling alcohol there is never a shortage of people prepared to get tanked up and travel; quite often resulting some sort of unfortunate mid-air fracas.

And when a fight breaks out mid-air what do you do? Well thanks to heightened security in the last decade the airline industry now employs the highly effective tactic of bundling all the available staff they have onto the tussling parties, hog-tying them to their seat and then diverting the plane to the nearest landing strip where the offending idiots are removed, beaten, and returned to the general population after a spell of incarceration.

A tied and tested plan - that completely failed to have any effect to quell the Air India fight. Why you ask? Well the maint thing that put the kibosh on the flight crew putting a stop to the fight was the fact that it was the flight crew who were having the fight, with their own pilots.

It seems that when one of the flight attendants accused the plane's co-pilot of sexual harassment her words were met with a less than "OK, lets get his sucker on the ground and we can all chat about it ..." attitude and more of a "OH, it is on!" response. Which is never good when initial reports indicate that at one point the plane was left unmanned as the both the pilots fought with the flight attendants outside the cockpit in front of 106 passengers.

Anyhow, I'll leave you digest the rest of the facts by reading the Times Online article here.

Regards,

Charlie

Life on Mars

Dear Harry,

Yesterday parts of the state of New South Wales suffered from truly gigantic dust storms.

Winds in the west caused huge swathes of deep red dust to be blown up into the atmosphere and them blot out the Sydney sun before heading up the coast towards Queensland.

You can get an impression of the scale of the storm by looking at this map supplied by NASA showing the cloud blowing up the countries east coast.   

Naturally the snappers were out in force capturing the blanked city in all of it curious glory.   By time I arrived at the office at 08:00, grabbed a wide angle lens and headed back out again, the real redness had dissipated and the sky was more a burnt orange.  

With the brief of capturing some of the cities monuments in the dust I headed to the waters edge to get a shot of the opera house and the harbour bridge in the single frame, only to discover that visibility was so low that it was all I could do to see the opera house let alone get it to show up on a photo.  

You can see the rest of the pictures here in the news.com.au – Sydney’s Landmarks in the dust gallery  

A special mention should also go to Dan Boud from Time Out, who’s images of the bridge and activities Circular Quay were some of the best shots from the day. You can see Dan’s images here at www.boudist.com - Sydney’s Apocalypse Red Dawn  

Anyway I’ll leave you to digest the shots and bid you farewell for now.  

Regards

Charlie

Laws of order

Dear Harry,

Gaze unto the face of cleaning and be sore … (traditionally that phrase finishes with the word ‘afraid’, but after lugging boxed hither and tither for the last three weekends, I mean just plain sore!

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write to you all day and now I’ve left it until the last minute before getting Alex’s dinner ready, so here goes a rapid deployment of activities to being you up to speed with all the going on of the Australian division.

• Friday 21^st August we moved from Bondi to Annandale - HURRAY
• Weekend of the 29^th August we continued to unpack – I cleaned out the gutters
• September 2-5^th we spend in down in Kangaroo Valley at New South Wales Southern Highlands – we chilled out and bought a vintage dresser, of which we could only bring half home.
• September 12^th we drove back to Fitzroy Falls to collect the other half of the dresser and our new bathroom cabinets (you’ve never believe how hard it is to find a decent bathroom cabinet).

And so to this weekend, drilling hole, cleaving tree stumps and a little more generally getting the new place straightened out.

Unlike the place in Bondi, where within a week the vultures of inevitability were circling over the injured cow of our beach side dream, this new place already feels more like home (plus we’re having a baby in months so we bloody well staying put)

I’ve not really had much of a chance to photograph it yet, partly because it’s got 25% less storage than the last place, so we are as unpacked as we can be until we solve out storage problems, ergo there are still boxes everywhere. None the less it’s a nice sized place with little garden out the back and reminds me a little of a single story version of the house in which I grew up in Reigate.

There are a few things that we are going to try and get sorted out before the arrival of the baby at Christmas, the main one being the bathroom. The previous owners fell madly in love with a cast iron, claw-foot bath, that so bowled them over they lost all perspective as to the practicalities of fitting into the bathroom.

This Dr. Crippin-esque bathing beast is large enough to dampen a hippo hide and so dominates the bathrooms floor space that all the other fixtures look like they have been coated in butter and squeezed with only with the greatest of difficulty.

Besides that house and Alex’s continued development in the baby-production industry things are relatively quiet.

The office is the usual hot best of intrigue, journalism, dissent and heroism and all is well.

As the request of my editor I entered a couple of pictures from last years festival season into a local music photography competition. In typically blasé fashion I’m not even sure I know how it’s being judged but you can see the images here;

Alice in Chains - Soundwave

F**k Yeah - Soundwave

 And while I’m talking about pictures, have a quick look at these. This was the first piece of proper photojournalism I’ve had a chance to do in a while. I spend a night on Sydney’s streets following the Salvation Army’s Oasis out reach network as they worked with the cities young homeless. 

Anyway I must get on as it’s unwise to keep a pregnant woman waiting for her supper on a Sunday night.

Regards,

Charlie

 

Broadband blackout

Dear Harry,

A lightening fast letter to let you know that we are alive and well but suffering from the compulsory communications blackout that new home owners are forced to endure s part of the relocation process.

We are off out of Sydney for a few days as of tomorrow so unles the gods of the internet deans us worthy of a auidence today, then we will remain benighted until our return this weekend.

Regards,

Charlie

Magic Numbers

Dear Harry,

There comes a time every century or so when hours minutes days months, even years, align to provide a totally unique run of numbers. That time was today.

At fifty six seconds past the thirty fourth minute, beyond midday a digital clock would have told you it was precisely:

12:34:56 7/8/9

Naturally those writing about this phenomenon have had to jigger around with a few format issues as the actual display of a clock would be more likely to be:

12:34:56 07/08/2009

or if you were of an American persuasion:

12:34:56 08/07/2009

Both of which looks less numerically impressive, but breaking formats in the name of a strong visual pun has never hurt anyone.

Besides the cosmos aligning a tiny fraction of it's unending being for the delectation of chronophiles two other events of worth took place today.

First iconic filmmaker John Hughes passes away aged 59. John brought us such cinematic classics as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club & Weird Science. Due to you tender years you're yet to experience any of these masterpieces of kitch 80s Americana, but when the time is right you'll understand why my generation laughs out loud to the simple monotone repetition of a the word 'Bueller'.

On a more upbeat note lets skip onto my second announcement. Today, 17 years later than any number of my contemporaries and after three failed attempts, I passed my driving test.

I Thank You All.

I'll bore you with all the gory the details some other time surficit to say today I ran no amber lights, refused to speed, heeded road markings and generally got myself together enough to convince a professional examiner I was fit to be released on Sydney's. Even after I struck the curb twice on my reverse park (which all deeply embarrassing).

Anyway my the bath water is elevating my body temperature to new and exciting levels and Alex is stalking around the blustery darkness of Bondi in search of a film to entertain us, I think I best wrap things up and bid you good night.

Regards,

Charlie

Information Blackout

Dear Harry,

So after much ago, a lot of driving around the city of Sydney and some general agonising, I’m pleased to announce that Alex and I have a new home.

Away from Bondi and the beach, as the 21st of next month the Inner West suburb of Annandale will play host to the house where we will raise our 1st child.

View Larger Map

I’ve attached a few images of the new place – a larger semi detached property with its own garden where we will hopefully be giving the cats enough land to defecate / frolic / rampage around on. And if they’re happy (‘Happy’; read as not causing our neighbours to degenerate into a Mary Shelly style pitch-fork wielding mob) then we can get on with the process of having a baby, settling down and getting on with becoming middle aged.

Speaking of middle age, this week I turned 34. I had to actually ask Alex how old I was going to be as I had gotten it into my head that I was about to turn 35, then thought I was already 34 and by the end of 5 minutes I was discovered with a pen and a piece of paper counting the years since 1975. MENSA Beware.

So while I pondered my age and spent my birthday in the office, India and Asia bore witness to the longest Solar eclipse this century. Lasting a little over 5 minutes the Umbra (the complete moons shadow on earth, which causes viewers within it on the planets surface to see a total eclipse) passed over the India, Asia and then parts of Japan on the Wednesday morning). You can see the progress the progress the eclipse made by looking at this Google map that the boffins at NASA created to chart the events progress.

What else, what else …

My sister Catherine has just departed for a 6 week secondment to Raleigh International in India. While there she’ll be the base medic looking after the medical well being of all the volunteers on the various programmes in the region. In this blog post you can see her in the picture of the three girls swimming in the river (she’s on the far right hand side).

On the baby front Alex went out this week and bough a sewing machine and I returned home on Friday night to discover her a whir of productivity creating a baby romper mat. In deference to my weird penchant for all things camo, She'd even bough olive and khaki coloured baby dinosaur patterned material – what a girl!

Speaking of which I must wraps things up there as I need to go and get her dinner ready so we can settle down to watch some more episodes of Torchwood. We started the first season this morning over breakfast and even though its proof positive that the BBC Wales reserves a special type of acting for the Dr. Who and its off shots it’s not bad stuff at all.

Oh and one last thing. Depending on which time zone you are in and what day you read this on today, Sunday July 26, 2009, is the day of the formal triple christening of Harrison, Kaspar and little Oskar Green. So to all three of you I wish a very happy Christening, presents galore and innumerable wet slobbery kisses for a gaggle of relations who grab your cheeks and mumble things like “Oh, haven’t you grown!”

I apologize for not being there but someone has to keep the Southern Hemisphere warm in preparation for your arrival.

Regards,

Charlie

Pulling focus

Dear Harry,

So here we are, sat on the 333 bus heading to work at 5.30am and wishing I had my new glasses with me.

In the past my glasses have generally been dictated by vanity. They've been useful but unless I'm attempting to pilot a car or watch a film they weren't a nesserity.

But not no more. I went for an eye exam on Saturday and for the first time since I was 12 my prescription has changed. Not massivly, but my eyes are now matched in their delinquancy.

I've noticed this coming on over the last few months with the muscles under the eye that has degraded twitching a good deal, which gave me a somewhat demented look.

Anyway new eyes are being fashioned as we speak but on days like this, with an early rise, a long slog in front of my computer and then a shoot this evening I'd rather rely on good specs rather than the BBCs recommended 5 cups of coffee a day to give me "sight beyond sight".

Regards,

Charlie

Harry in my pocket

Dear Harry, It was only a month ago that I wrote to you stating I had opted out of the mobile rat race and from now on I was going to enjoy only the delights of retro handsets. Yet here I am, Sunday night, lying in bed and tapping out a letter to you on the iPhone I got yesterday. So what changed? Well as time marches forwards It seems that I need more and more access to the web, espically when I'm out and about. Enter the iPhone. The latest version of this device has access to a host of applications that really do bring the best parts of the Internet into your pocket. Alex returns home tomorrow, so the quiet times are over. House hunting, driving tests, you name we're doing it baby (including getting ready to have a baby). Anyway I'll leave it there for now and write again soon. Regards, Charlie P.S. If anyone can point a really good typing app that let's you rotate the keyboard like you can do for the SMS feature it would be greatly appriciated.

Trip the Light Fantastic

Dear Harry,

Just wanted to show you this

The picture is taken by Time Out Sydney's man with a Cam Dan Boud at today's PMA (Photo Marketing Association) expo and shows your Godfather dwarfed by an enormous Broncolour Para 330FB reflector.

This monstrous studio reflectors cost about USD$10,000 so it's unlikely I'll ever want, need or be able to afford one, but for sheer scale of light up worldwith a single flash burst this baby is it.

Either that, or you can turn it skywards and use it to signal the mothership, watch Sky News in the desert or beam data back form the surface of Mars.

Regards,

Charlie

My Birthday Bunny

Dear Harry,

Stuck at home today as I am with a runny nose and absolutely no desire to spread my germs far and wide I’ll take this early opportunity to wish my beautiful wife Alex a very happy birthday.

As I write these words she slumbers a hemisphere away but when she awakes, most likely crack of dawn due to the jet lag, she shall find this message and wonder what on earth I’m up to all on my own in the house all day.

Well my love in a word - 'Influbrowsing' - the activity of engaging with the internet while locked in a cold or flu like medical state.

Regards,

Charlie

P.S. While rummaging through my collection of pictures to add to this post I came across this picture of an alternative Alex. Now for those of you who not met my wife, and there will be a few, rest assured that I’ve not transformed her into a rabbit with a broken leg as a birthday treat (although thinking about it, unless one of us had a thing about casting broken limbs I'm not sure who the treat would be for, but I digress ...) it just that I didn’t set the filter on the Flickr search before punching the “Give me pictures” button.

Be Afraid, Be very Afraid

Dear Harry,

It’s with great pride, and a good deal of trepidation that I announce that Alex and I are expecting our first child.

As with all these things we have waited until the week 12 scan was completed before making any formal noises about our impending parenthood but as you can see from the image below our progeny looks surprising human, so we can assume it’s safe to proceed.

At this very moment Alex is stampeding around the UK scaring her parents with a surprise visit to break the news in person. I have opted to stay in the colonies and disseminate these great tiding from a far, that and wrangle the cats, who have been demonstrating how excited they are by taking turns to sleep on my face at night.

So all hands to the pumps.

Since it’s regarded as unwise you reveal you hand before the 12 week barrie, a lot of the preparation so far has been done in clandestine secrecy. Alex has had to fain a lengthy detox program to get around her continued decline of alcohol for the last three months.

We have even engaged in secretive field trips to Sydney’s outer suburbs to attend Pregnancy and Baby shows. One on site we joined thousands of other demented parents or parents-to-be and like they, shuffle glassy-eyed amongst the stalls jam packed with every possible accessory for your new addition and more besides. Carry cots, strollers, plastic wear, bottle sterilizers, baby food, nappies (dear god, so very many nappies).

Alex has been amassing a towering collection of pregnancy literature. We have even gone on tour of the local hospital to check out the various birthing options, and there’s plenty of those as well. The tour was conducted by a seasoned midwife who gave us the spiel with a while a dozen anxious men and women huddled in couples looking like cattle being led to the slaughter.

So all we can do now is wait. Well that and find a new home to live in as we’ve just sold our place by the beach. If all goes according to plan we can expect the stalk sometime between Christmas and New Year, while we have 12+ relations staying with us ….

What’s that you say? Timing could have been better. Sure but what the hey - them’s the breaks.

Regards,

Charlie

Harry 08

Dear Harry,

As one of our irregular readers pointed out it's been a while since I've updated the right hand image of you.

So gone is the Harry of 2007 aged only 2 and in his place is the Harry of 2008, pictured in all his finery at our wedding in Devon last summer.

I'll do my level best to keep the image a little more up to date.

Regards,

Charlie

P.S. It's been so long since I've had to hand edit HTML code that I added an <img src> to an HTML page rather than a .jpg file. Must be slipping in my dotage