Day 244 The opening

Today's the day my new work place opens its doors to the public. I've worked around 6 weeks now for them and it's been great to be involved in this project and launch it. I hope the people of York enjoy our facilities and find us useful.

I couldn't help but take some pictures of the gym and the studio today, unspoilt at 5:30am before any members step foot through the doors.

If you want to find out more visit www.york-sport.com

Sorry Hospitals don't except TARDIS'

One of my last blog posts titled T-Minus 3 days and counting was written just over a week ago. I sit here, quite tired so my ability to string together coherent sentances might make for interesting reading. Now many people might think its due to have the new born baby in our lives, but the answer to this is no, not yet, unfortunately.

The baby is now 5 days over due and our best laid plans of sending away sister had to reversed yesterday due to us missing her and not wanting her to feel shunned away and left out. Then it happened, not like you see in movies. My girlfriend started having what she originally thought ere painful braxton hicks, these kept coming until 3 hours later we decided to call the labour ward who called us in.

In this panic we had to wake big sister up, ring her grandad to meet us at the hospital to collect her and take her back. We then got to the hospital and after a few tests and a short wait we were told to go home and try rest a bit there, this would be for the best.

After a few hours, a few hours sleep for me , zero hours sleep for my girlfriend, we called up the labour ward again to say the pain was increasing etc, again we were brought back to the hospital and stayed for a few hours and were told we are in early labour, and were told the best place would be to go home again as this stage could take hours, or even days! (God I hope not)

Now theres always lots of jokes about child birth can;t be that bad etc, but after seeing what my girlfriend is going through, the regular shoots of pain and not being able to sleep due to this I say this, Hat's off women, its look excruiating! And the worst thing for me is having to see her go through all this and knowing theres nothing I could do, I just have to be there for her, and it feels like a massive cop out that I can;t do much else than time the contractions and get her water, I feel bad. Earlier today she said make it stop, inbetween these contractions, I said the only thing I could do was to try build a time machine and go forward in time to when the baby is born, if I could I would, I'd build the Tardis!

The great thing about my girlfriend is she actually apologised to me, you might say what the hell for and you'd be right, she said sorry because all this was happening on my birthday. I laughed and told don't be so daft, if the baby came today it would be fantastic, but it doesn't matter about my birthday all that matters right now is her and the baby. So I shall leave you on this cliff hanger, hopefully shortly enough she will be through the pains of labour and she will be blogging herself about our new arrival, till then I bid you farewell.

T minus 3 days and counting......

So it's finally here, we are within our last week of pregnancy (hopefully) 3 days to be precise until the baby, our new addition to our little family is due. I'm sure many fathers can relate to this post. By what I am about to write I  hope I don;t sound like I'm whinging, quite the opposite, I can't wait to be a father and understand my girlfriend has had to deal with so much and love her deeply so for going through it all.

This week, this time is very scary, and horrible but as equally, weirdly, exciting. You may notice the words there, lets break them down. Firstly scary, why is this time scary? Well any day now, I will be a father for the first time. I am solely responsible, as well with my partner for the health and well being of another. This child will look up to me need me to care for it, feed it, bath it, cloth it, all round be responsible for it. This can be quite a scary though, couple that that the first couple years of the child's life it can't actually tell me what is wrong. I've looked after and worked with children before but they have always been able to communicate with me verbally, telling me when they needed feeding, when they weren't feeling well. For these reasons alone this time is scary as the ticking clock draws nearer.

However it is also scary to know that soon enough my girlfriend will be screaming all sorts of obscenities towards me accusing me of doing all this to her, and then knowing that in some way she will be plotting her revenge ;)

Ok so the next word, Horrible. Why is this time horrible? For this sole reason, and I hope other Dad's felt like this. Picture the scene, your sitting comfortably on the couch with your heavily pregnant loved one. She then winces in pain, you jump up saying are you ok? is it contractions? shall I get the car ready, already halfway out the door with your jacket on clutching the hospital bag that resembles something more like you used when you went bag packing for 6 months, than a simple bag to take to the hospital. Your girlfriend then smiles and goes no, I just had a pain in my big toe. At this point the man wants to say, I don't care about your big toe, I thought you were going into labour!!!!! This time is also horrible as everytime you are not with your partner and your phone starts ringing you are again, halfway out the door with your coat on just to realise the person on the other end of the phone is someone trying to sell you a credit card or something, and you have to muster all your strength to politely tell them where to go.

Lastly exciting. Well this needs no real explanation. It is such an exciting time to know that any day soon, our baby who my girlfriend has carefully looked after and loved and had to carry around for the last 9 months will be here ready to meet everyone, meet her eagerly waiting big sister and her nanny and Nana and grandpa's and most importantly in my eyes meet me, My girlfriend has had 9 months getting to know the baby and feels this fantastic connection, and even though I often speak to the baby and feel its twists it turns and its kicks and punches, I will feel an even deeper connection when I get to hold my child in my arms for the first time and see there little face, this will make all the times I've jumped towards the car and revenge my girlfriend will throw at me all worthwhile.

But then you think, I've passed my DNA on to an unsuspecting world, what have I done......

WooHoo ! Time to Blog !

Well Hello Internet and Bloggers !!!!!

This is officially my first ever blog, oh dear what have I done? More importantly what do I write? I guess the best place to start is by introducing myself. Well I am currently 26 years and 343 days old (what kind of adult counts the days?) It sounds better than nearly 27! My life so far has basically been all about me, I previously in life went where I wanted, when I wanted, for as long as I wanted. I have had stints living in Durham, Liverpool, Minnesota,Dallas and Leeds.

My life drastically changed for the better early this year though when I met a very beautiful young women, who after a short courtship is my girlfriend, my housemate and the mother of our soon to born child. With her into my life she brought her 3 year daughter who, at times is quirky and weird is certainly a very lovable and when she wants to be cute child. I should add here that whilst fatherdom is upon me, it is quite a scary time. I have a fantastic mother and 2 sisters, a father I haven't spoken to for 3 years with good reason. Only one of my friends currently has children. So the idea of being a father is very much exciting but worrying that there is not many people I can console for advice, In this respect I have two fathers I look upto my grandfather who sadly is no longer with us and a kind of surrogate father from my time living in Texas, he always had time for his children, whether they be step children, adopted children or his own children he had time, which I guess is what I aim for.

All this means that from my very selfish life I've had to grow a little mature (I certainly wouldn't want to become mature before my expiry date), sensible with my finances and most importantly a good partner and I guess father. Who would have guessed my life would have turned out this way when the bells chimed in 2011 as I sang Queens Bohemian Rhapsody at my good friend Sleazy Jon's New Years Party!

So why am I blogging? It's not like I'm famous or anything. Well the answer purely is I'm not sure. It seemed like a good idea. My girlfriend has for the last 5 months been blogging herself, shameless plug about happen check her blog here . She is wonderfully talented at it and seems to get some sort of comfort from it as it helps her express herself and open up a lot more. I tend to read every post she does and I've seen how she looks after shes spent hours creating her posts and editing them, she seems content and happy and smug, but in a good way. I felt that I don't want to tread on her toes but it seems like a wonderful idea, something that I could do and hopefully be good at it. Also as much as I always try to look forward in life I see this as a great way to keep track of yourself see where you've come from and I think it would be fascinating or cringe worthy to read in a couple of years and I love the idea of my children being able to read something that I wrote 20 years ago.

So in a nutshell my life revolves around my girlfriend, her daughter, our soon to be born child, whom we all have given our own nickname of being called the Pooheads, I naturally being the father of the family am referred to as Biggest Poohead, my girlfriend, Big poohead, Girlfriends Daughter is little poohead and the unborn baby is already and has been shouted through the womb as baby poohead by at some point in the last 8 months all 3 of us. As well as these 3 very lovable characters theres my gang of friends who I try have frequent adventures with that I'm sure in future stories you will all grow to love.

So what will I write about? again who knows? The loves of my life are Liverpool Football Club, My family, Cricket, Music and having adventures, so these all seem pretty good and very expandable topics that will enable me to go off on many tangents. I hope that on the way I can make you laugh and cry with bad spelling, grammar and stories of my life. I promise I will try to be as interesting as possible and if you want to throw any advice my way feel free to do so.

Cheers.