Jan 28 2009
OK, here we have a photo of myself, Irina, Roz and Nick.
Me Ira Roz Nick
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Jan 21 2009
One giant space for baby clothes… So, the changes have begun in the bedroom (no sniggering at the back there…) After washing all the clothes, Irina has started to put them away in our bedroom, which means hiding away some of our clothes, and creating a space for Lyolik’s§ clothes. Luckily, hers tend a to be a tad smaller than ours, so sacrificing a little space still makes a big difference.
§ – In case you haven’t been following the blog recently, Lyolik is a ‘pet’ name for our baby, whilst she is still inside Ira, and doesn’t really exist as a name normally. A Russian version of ‘cute little human, who we’re really REALLY looking forward to meeting soon’ if you like 🙂
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Jan 21 2009
Here we have Walton, Asel, Dr. Ken, David, Irina and myself, all eating out at the Ali Ba Ba restaurant in Astana, just after out return to Kazakhstan from Britain and Amsterdam. Which reminds me, I still have a lot of Amsterdam pictures hiding on one of the hard drives that need to be published along with a few coffeeshop reviews.
Walton Asel Ali Ba Ba Astana
Iria DavidG Ali Ba Ba Astana
Dr Ken Ali Ba Ba Astana
As you may have noticed, this blog now has a very light weight gallery plugin installed. When you click on a thumbnail, you should see the original, higher resolution image pop up in a new box. Do let me know if you encounter any problems. Smart alecs are not welcome to leave messages complaining of no images whilst using the Lynx browser ;-P
Jan 21 2009
OK, so I’m hoping to start posting more pictures that have somehow slipped through the net and not been published on this blog yet. This first post we have a couple of shots taken in Singleton Park, I think the day after we arrived in Britain. Irina and Gwen went with John to the park next to the hospital where she (Ira, not Gwen) will be giving birth in a few short weeks.
Singleton Park Gate Ira Gwen
Singleton Park Bench Ira Gwen
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Jan 13 2009
The drop side crib has finally arrived today 🙂
Irina and John are currently in the spare room constructing it. I have taken the sensible route of being on hand if something heavy requires moving, and otherwise not complicating arguments on construction techniques by taking a few photos and hiding in the study 🙂
If all goes well, we now have a cot for upstairs, a pushchair/pram/car seat combo for transport (they won’t let you leave the hospital with a new born unless you have car seat&transport sorted already)/clothing and toys galore to cover the upcoming months. Thanks to all the friends and family who have found such lovely things 🙂
(Normal non-emotional/family centred blogging will most likely end in around 18-21 years 😉 )
Jan 12 2009
Wow, no posts in almost 12 days. That has to be improved upon, sorry. The (somewhat predictable) reasons for my online muteness were recovering from Christmas, seeing in the New Year, travelling around meeting friends and family, some of whom we hadn’t crossed paths with in a couple of years, friends coming over to sunny Wales to see the house for the first time, oh and also maintaining, repairing and improving four different PCs. Getting used to Vista from a technical support point of view has taken time, but I at least no longer involuntarily shudder when I hear the OS’ name 😉
After flashing my TyTn II (Kaiser) to a custom WM6.1 ROM (it was working boringly reliably, something had to be tweaked/modded 😉 ) and getting TomTom, music and voice commands to work whilst in the car, I installed Ubuntu onto Ira’s laptop (dual-boot obviously, didn’t think the love of my life would appreciate me nuking her Windows install), finally got around to properly securing the wireless network at home in Clydach, got the PCs all happily working as far as UPnP was concerned. This needed to be sorted as the internet radio I recvd. for Xmas could also play files on the LAN, and I was having issues just using normal folder sharing on a couple of the Vista machines.
Ante natal classes have been an interesting and mostly informative process, it is hard to believe we are now probably less than a month away from seeing our daughter’s face for the first time 🙂 We now have a lot of the items new borns need, and even the pushchair/pram/car-seat optimus prime styled transforming thingy has turned up. Ira has done some more photo shoots with John, obviously centred around the theme of pregnancy/new life etc. See previous posts for the last published examples – though hopefully John will get around to adding new posts to his blog, and new photos to the gallery soon. Which reminds me, don’t forget to check out ConJoinery if you are in need of carpentry or joinery skills… when Con came over here for a few days, we got around to setting up a quick blog to promote his work, and showcase previous projects. It obviously still need more content, but the basic framework of WordPress 2.7 and useful plugins are in place.
After all that I finally noticed that this site is once again down to a PageRank of 0 (see many previous posts regarding Google and post links-for-money issues. Anyway, I now know why there is a lot less work around again. From n/a to a 2, then up to 4, spanked by google down to a 0, recovered to 2, then back once more to 0. As the only thing this alters for the worse is the potential income for this domain, I’m not crying into my cereal. The unique visitor numbers per day has been steadily bouncing between 250 and 600 a day, even when no fresh content has been added, so I know the search engine traffic, and regular repeat visitors have carried on regardless. It is a little strange to find out which of your posts are popular, and the search terms people googled to get there. If you’ve not already enabled AWStats on your site, it might be worth popping along to your CPanel interface and turning it on…
Dec 31 2008
This is just a quick post to wish this site’s readers a very Happy New Year.
We currently have Marilyn & Peter over (Chris & Tim’s parents), as well as John’s son and daughter-in-law and their kids, with midnight fast approaching. To our American visitors, I hope you are warming up to the evening well, to my UK amigos, just under four hours to go. To my Kazakh readers, Snovum Goddum, hope you are already having a great 2009. (Over there, Western Xmas is barely noticed, Orthodox Xmas is observed, but New Year is the big deal.) Big HELLO to Walton, Assel, DavidG, ChrisK, The Dans & their respective familys, DrKen, lovely friendly Northern bloke I’ve temporarily forgotten the name of, Mel, the in-laws, Dana & Assen, Mira, Bayen & son and everyone else – thanks to all for your support over the last year/months (delete as applicable 🙂 ).
With Arriving to Britain, settling in, Christmas, New Year, and the baby due in February, it is possible that site will see a few less posts in the future, however the blog will remain here (assuming I remember to renew the hosting 🙂 ), and I’ll try to get back to regular posting ASAP.
Dec 29 2008
Here we have some shots of Ira, Lyolik and me (the scrubbing up part of the post title refers to me, not them 😉 ).
They were taken not long after we arrived back in Britain, so Ira’s bump has grown a little since these were taken. Hopefully they are enough to keep Alex happy, as she was complaining that there hadn’t been enough shots of Irina recently on this blog.
Silhouetted Bump
We Three
We Three Again
Pretty On Top Of Pretty Inside Pretty
Hearty Kisses
PS To any eagle-eyed readers, yes I am not wearing my wedding ring during these shoots. It is normally on 24/7/365, however I’d cut my finger whilst lifting the suitcases, and didn’t want to make the cut worse.
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Dec 29 2008
Irina has asked for all British tap manufacturers to take note – STOP selling individual kitchen sink taps or anywhere where your hands come into contact with hot water, PLEASE combine them into one stream, so we don’t have to choose between freezing cold or scalding hot water. I originally was going to write about how brilliant it is to now be able to drink water straight from the tap back here in Britain, but decided it would sound to much like a whiny ex-expat. Given Ira has voiced her opinion on combined vs. separate taps, I no longer feel bad about proclaiming clean drinking water as a good thing 🙂
Nov 17 2008
As you may have guessed from this post’s title, today is my Dad’s birthday. Everyone here in Kazakhstan hopes you have a great day…
The title should also give you a clue that Babushka (Ira’s grandma) and StarGazer also share their birthdays with my Dad. Happy Birthday all round then 🙂
