Harry's Blog

The blog - written between 2005 and 2007 - was the work of my late wife Lanie. She was quite the most amazing person. A prolific blogger though she was not. Following her death in March 2007 I deleted her blog...but later thinking better of it rescued most of the posts.

It has taken quite some time to repost them but you can now read her thoughts on a variety of subjects and get a glimpse of two years of her life - two years I'm so lucky to have spent with her.

I'm not making the blog part of the site again - it won't appear in the menus. But if you'd like to read her posts you will find them here.

Memory is a funny thing, the way certain experiences are recalled via various connections. Take for example the arrival of The Sims 3 review code in the post today.

I'm sat at the PC installing it now and it reminds me of 2006 when Lanie spent most of the year playing The Sims 2. She got completely addicted to the game, raising little families within the game and - much to my surprise - killing off elderly neighbours by trapping them in the garden so she'd inherit their wealth.

The Sims 2 and Lanie's addiction to it was about the only thing we ever argued about. But I know she played the game to avoid worries over paying for our wedding (which was a very stressful time for us both) and also to avoid worrying too much about being pregnant with Patrick and Kitty (or Domino and Zizzi as they were known early on).

So today I'm installing the next game in the series in the knowledge if she was still alive Lanie would be very excited to get her hands on this sequel. And so, who knows, I may slaughter a few elderly neighbours in memory of her.

Our spare room, aka the nursery, currently resembles that famous final sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Knowing that something I might need is in there is not exactly reassuring when I weigh up how many boxes I'm going to have to look through to find the Ark of the Covenant, some paracetamol or a SCART cable.

We're ploughing through stuff as best we can and at least our lounge and bedroom look somewhat normal. But it always takes a little after a move before things get back to normal.

For example, I'm still stuck on dialup internet and probably will be for the rest of the week. Fun eh?

Well we made it over here to our new flat but it hasn't been without the occasional drama or crisis. But thank goodness we're away from that git that rented us the place at Rockleigh Court.

Our new place is gorgeous and not only that, the rent is cheaper than our previous place. It's a stone's throw from the railway line but thanks to double glazing you really wouldn't notice.

I'm enjoying my view from the computer desk over gardens and trees compared to my old view of a car park and the back of some shops.

The moving company we used weren't particularly good. They were loud, slow and continually took breaks. I really doubted they'd get everything here at all – or hear and working. But so far things seem fine.

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I'm surprised that I haven't blogged this already yet. We've certainly had quite an eventful week. Our landlord has decided to kick us out because we're expecting children. Not that he's given that as his reason, oh no, he's just said he wants to redecorate and up the rent. Rather a coincidence though one week after he was told by the letting agents that my beloved L was pregnant.

And when do we need to be out? Well it's the week the twins are due, isn't that nice? We've got to be out of here in two months. Over the last few days I've had to call on plenty of willpower not to name and shame this bastard, but for now I'm biding my time until we're safe and sound in a new place. He has the legal right to give us two months notice to leave, but given the situation it's an unspeakably callous act.

Thankfully the letting agency has been very helpful and it has suggested another property that we can look at. It actually sounds better than this place, with lower rent and an accommodating landlord. So we have our fingers crossed there.

And we've been inundated with offers from L's friends for help in moving if we get this other place. I just hope we get it. I'll keep you posted.

Have you got any landlord horror stories to share?

I have the flu. No I'm not doing the usual blokey thing and calling it flu when I have a cold. It's definitely flu and I spent much of the weekend asleep as that was preferable to trying to move around when my limbs feel like they are made of lead. I've not even started with the full-on cold-like symptoms yet, so I'm only scaling the shallow foot-hills of what is likely to be a pretty crappy week for me.

Poor L has been suffering with the same thing for the last two weeks and it migrated to her chest giving her a horrible hacking cough. Given the size of the baby bump now this wasn't at all comfortable for her and she yelped in pain every time she coughed. Thankfully though my beloved L is feeling much better now and although still coughing is over the worst. Both twins are fine though and are growing well, which means L can't see her feet now.

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Friday was quite an astonishingly exciting day. It was the date that L was due for her 20-week scan. She has been very nervous, she so wants to have a little girl and had spent the weeks wondering what gender our children were. For both of us, the most important thing was that our babies were healthy and developing normally. I must admit that I shared L's wish to have a boy and a girl, with the second choice being two girls.

And so on Friday we went to the hospital in Chelmsford for the scan. The visit was like a thriller ratcheting up suspense - all the diabetic and other appointments before hand when what we really wanted to do was head over to the ultrasound department.

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Well we've been strangely quiet since the honeymoon. Never fear, we're both doing well thanks. Married life is fun, I think we're as close as we've ever been. We've been married over a month now and can you believe that the twins are now almost five months old? The 20 week scan is coming up very soon and the time until the two bundles of joy arrive in our live draws ever closer at a frightening yet exhilarating rate.

As far as baby names goes we haven't decided yet. For a long time we had names we liked but with the reality of becoming parents those seemed to go out of the window. After lots of discussions on the subject we've decided not to talk to other people about it anymore, especially so they don't nick our favourite ideas.

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Well it's now a couple of weeks since the wedding and something has been nagging me since then (no not my wife ). I do intend to write a detailed blog post about the wedding and the honeymoon but right now there's something I want to address before I go ahead with the other post.

Namely an apology to some of our guests.

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Hello folks, been a while since I last updated the site. That's because L and I were busy getting married and then went on our honeymoon. Everything went rather wonderfully and I'm sure I'll tell you about it in the next few days. But for now you can take a look at a few of our honeymoon snaps in the gallery.

So today is the day. Crikey I'm nervous. Not about getting married or anything, it's just that I'm not so well at the moment - my reflux is playing up thanks to wedding stress.

But I'm smiling and looking forward to today's events. Not that I'm ready yet. Am still sat in a t-shirt and trackies. No point in getting in the suit yet.

I suppose the next time I update the blog L and I will be married. Crikey.

Well those of you rather bored by these posts about our wedding plans will probably be sighing with relief tonight. The day of the wedding is almost upon us, this time tomorrow we'll already be married.

There's not that much left to do. This evening we have our rehearsal over at the church, but after that, the preparations are finished. All that I have to do is clean myself up a bit and put on my suit, pretty easy really.

Am I nervous? No not at all. I'm really looking forward to it. Not only because I'm marrying the girl of my dreams, but also because I get to see lots of friends I've not spoken to for a while.

There's one thing that is clear from our trip to Romford's various jewellery stores that we are just scum. The looks we got from the painted faces of the various shop girls when it was clear we had no intention of spending hundreds of pounds would have scarred a child for life.

But let me step back a little and tell you what we were up to. With three days left before the wedding we went out to get our wedding rings. A bit late, you might think, but these hoops of metal really haven't been on our minds. What they symbolise is very important to us, what they are made of is entirely a none-issue.

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We've been hinting for a while that my beloved L might be pregnant. But we've held of talking about it until the 12-week ultrasound scan. We didn't want to tempt fate or anything. But now we can come right out and say it, we're having twins.

How wonderful is that?

Both L and I are really happy. It's certainly a big week for us. Today we got to see our babies and on Saturday we get married.

Life is definitely good. More pictures after the jump...

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