My thanks to EricW who works for Bluehost Live Support. Following some changes to the server, I encountered multiple error messages when trying to access, and later use the admin side of, this site.
The previous two agents seemed a little more confused in comparison, but following Eric’s help, the site was available again, and the memory errors displayed when I edited/published a post were indeed down to a plugin.
Anyway, the last four posts mark the end of this night’s work – I’m heading to bed in a moment. We have another five posts or so before we catch up to photos of Anna in Kazakhstan, and so in a week or two, we should finally be up to date and posting live pictures

OK, I admit that isn’t the best post title I have ever come up with, but it was all I could think of.
Can you guess what the picture below will be of yet?
Shot at home in Clydach on the 1st of May, with Anna sitting up (just for a couple of minutes) on the sofa. I think this is the first photo from this batch of ‘found’ pictures, that is taking us beyond the last picture posted when we were back in Britain still.

Just a couple of days shy from her one month birthday, here we have all three of us sat in the backyard in Clydach (Gwen soon saunters into shot, but Anna isn’t so clear in that one)

Ira Anna Chris Backyard Clydach

Now six and half weeks old (at least in this photo ), we have Anna chilling out on her playmat.

Anna Smiling On Her Playmat

We moved back to Cocos Outback Steakhouse (need to check name later), where we have Alex once more, deciding which delicacy to go for… (kangaroo burger was one of the touristy delicacies on offer in the menu. More importantly, they allowed schmoking with your meal, though if they were busy, they preferred you to use the side room. Fair enough.)

Not related to the aforementioned grub, here is that establishment’s toilet taste proudly on display.

Next we have me in Barneys (Alex if you’re reading this, can you remember which of the Barneys establishments this was? I still can’t find my notebook from that trip) and then Chris reminding me that I was supposed to pixel out his face for online versions of photos.

Alex bought some items from this stall, on the way to grabbing some food, and I think she managed to barter the price down a little on condition we told our friends about her. OK, so its a little late to meet our end of the bargain, but here is her stock and her card

I’ll include a map showing locations of the coffeeshop and stall when I can remember/be prompted where the hell they were. Oh, and some of these photos may well be taken by Alex. Can’t remember which are which, sorry.

The console forefathers shifted bit after bit just to further the gaming cause. And yet, their efforts may have been in vain, since AntiSceptic did not do their part today and play a game or two.

First we have a shot of the bouquet of flowers/clothes that Nick and Roz sent to us back in Wales, and then a shot of Anna’s feet with Ira’s hands, back on the 5th of March. Again, the second shot was taken in John’s studio, but I don’t think I’m breaking a publishing embargo , as looking at the different shots, I don’t think this one will be used in the book.

After spending a couple of months guarding/accompanying Irina, Gwen suddenly found there was a new baby in the house. She seemed to adjust very quickly (this photo was taken 23rd February 2009), realising that whatever/whoever this new arrival was, we were all obviously giving a lot of attention to it, and that she was being very closely monitored whenever she approached this strange smelling bundle of joy. Pretty soon, Gwen was alerting us if she heard Anna crying, and dutifully following Irina around and around the back yard when Anna was getting some fresh air in her pram.

John Anna Gwen on the sofa in Clydach

No, really, I think these are the last unpublished photos from Anna’s birth day, after this there will be a little more variety. If you are used to reading about Kazakhstan, WordPress info, Amsterdam and Conspiracy Theories, sorry, you’ll just have to have a little more patience…

So, just one day before Anna came into this world, we were at the hospital, with a contraction and baby heart rate monitor attached to Irina. We saw a few other soon-to-be Mums in the ward, who we’d met at pre-natal classes & during previous trips to the hospital. I was a little over-protective, and asked the cleaners to come and sort out the dried blood I’d noticed on the angle-poise like lamp. Ooops, turns out someone who had used the bed prior to us had had chocolate on their hands!
As we looked out the window together, wondering just when Anna would decide that the time was right, Irina noticed a medical building across the road that looked vaguely familiar. Turns out that her old company (PKL healthcare, where she worked when we lived back in Cheltenham & Bourton on the Water), had constructed it! Small world…

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I heard someone tell AntiSceptic to go play outside and he was like ’screw that!’ so we did some gaming. Our gamerscore is currently 1,250 points. He opened up Peggle, and then he tried to watch TV, but I killed the power… If I can’t have him, no one can.

After YouTube banned my original account, (long story, the short version is I lost it due to short clips involving BBC material), I have finally got around to uploading some videos to my new account.

This post includes Anna’s first appearance in a movie (28th Febraury, on the sofa in Clydach, with Anna at just one week old), at least from Irina’s camera. I still need to hookup our proper camcorder and rip it to DVDs/YouTube etc. Anyway, enough of the text, onto the star

Click the link below to see: A higher quality version of the same video, parts 2-6 from the sofa, and also Irina in hospital a couple of days before the birth. (The ‘HQ’ embedded version appears to just be the same video enlarged, rather than the HQ version available from the video’s page on YouTube.com)
OK, just press the HQ button to watch a better quality version.
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So, finally back to posting Anna photos again, I am planning to post some of the pictures that didn’t find their way onto our hard drive until a little later than the first set of pictures. Some will be taken on the same day as already published photos, whilst others are entirely new. Anyway, within a week or so, we should be back to almost live photos of Anna here in Kazakhstan, but until then enjoy this series of catch up posts.
Strangely enough, the first of these posts focuses on Anna’s first day on this planet, over at the hospital…

AntiSceptic hit the switch and fired me up yesterday… his total gamer score is 1,250.He rallied Peggle, and I thought AntiSceptic injured himself in the process… but I was wrong… he lives to fight another day!

This is really good stuff… the more we play, the more chances we have to prevent Narcogen from leaving us in the dust. Call me crazy, but that 6,125 point deficit is totally doable…