Harry's Blog

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

Sorry I seem to have forgotten to blog for nearly a week. Don't worry though, we're fine. Just been a bit busy that's all. Pretty much everything is sorted out now. I was a bit worried because I've been paid late this month, but I have now managed to pay for my suit hire and the train tickets for our honeymoon. We have a few things left to sort out, but they aren't my territory so I shall leave those to my beloved.

The wedding is a week tomorrow. It's come round so fast. It really doesn't seem that long since my proposal last Christmas Eve. I'm actually remarkable calm. The stresses over money are either sorted in some cases and too late to worry about in others. So we can get on and enjoy our wedding.

Quite frankly the last few weeks have been hell for myself and my beloved L. The wedding was falling apart around our ears. Both of us have had financial setbacks this year (not to mention old debts to pay), poor L losing a job, myself being stiffed by a client - which meant that money we'd earmarked for wedding costs ended up paying essentials such as rent and council tax. The wedding we'd planned wasn't extravagant, but we were getting to the point where even this modest plans were going awry.

And I so wanted to give L what she called her Princess Day. But everything was going wrong. The woman supplying her dress made an utter mess of it, we couldn't afford the catering we planned and neither could we afford the DJ to supply music for the evening. It was seeming like a complete disaster.

...We're getting married this month.

Crikey that has come round fast. Yes we're finally into September and in just a few week's time my beloved L and I will tie the knot. Long time readers might remember a cryptic little post at the very beginning of 2005. Who knew all that time ago that here we'd be on the verge of getting married.

The plans are pretty much coming together despite some setbacks. We're going to struggle with a few things - most notably paying for the catering and not being able to afford a DJ at all (thanks to the thieving gits at a Doncaster purveyor of crash-happy console add-ons) but we think we've managed to put a good do together for our guests.

The last week or so has seen some of the longest periods of inactivity here on the site for quite a while. There's been so much going on in our lives that it's been hard to find time to blog and those things I might want to mention have to be left off here in detail for now. Something wonderful is happening in our lives right now, something aside from next month's wedding, something we've both hoped and dreamed for. And while I'm not spelling it out for you, I'm sure you can read between the lines.

The recent days have been full of work and more fretting about the impending nuptials. Thanks to some extremely generous gifs by our guests we do think we'll be able to actually give them something to eat on the day. The wedding reception venue is paid for, the honeymoon is paid for (but not the travel to get there) and we'll probably be able to pay for the photographer this month too.

Our wedding moved a step closer today as we had to go to the local registration office to give notice of our attention to marry. I'm not convinced you have to do this if getting married in a CofE church, but certainly we had to because of the church where my beloved L and I are getting married next month.

Our appointment was at 10am and I met L there. We had to bring lots of ID and documents along with money. Yes it costs £30 each if you want to even register intention to marry.

So it's been a few days since I last blogged so I thought I'd bring you up to speed with the goings on in our little world, well some of them anyway. I'm sat here taking a brief break from a busy day at work. I'm listening to Led Zeppelin, this morning I ripped all the studio CDs and have put the whole lot on shuffle, meaning a full day of Led Zep in random order.

The inactivity on the blog over the last couple of days is due to my beloved L and myself heading north for the weekend. We headed to my dad's place in Stockport for my brother in law's thirtieth birthday party (hope you had a great time mate!). It was a surprise bash put together my sister. Was a great do though both L and I were so tired we didn't stay the distance. It was also a chance to see some family members we'd not bumped into for a while.

Last week L's parents sent out our wedding invitations. And it seems, based on the few people i've spoken to, that they've been arriving before the weekend. There's something about sending out the invites that makes everything seem more real.

For the last year or more we've been planning this wedding, yet it has always remained slightly unreal and hard to grasp. But now the invites have arrived, now people will be making plans to travel to the happy occasion, it's taken on a new life in my mind.

No not Napoleon's second bout of running around Europe making mischief which ended with the battle of Waterloo. This historic 100 days begins today.

Yes it's exactly 100 days from now that my beloved L and I get married. It's come round rather quickly hasn't it?