Category: Journal

Today we took Elisha into town to register her birth. As seems to be the pattern with anything remotely exciting, like being taken to the park for the first time, or on a walk to the shops, she slept through the whole thing. Not that I expected her to be sitting bolt upright and taking notes so she can recant it all during a milk break at nursery;

Did you have a nice registrar? Really? Mine was alright, I suppose – friendly, but quite obviously intoxicated by the power she wielded over us. Oh, and the barely concealed disgust because mummy and daddy aren’t married was unprofessional at best.

There had been a little bit of encouragement from my mum for us to choose a middle name for her, as all our family have middle names. Mine is John, after my Grandpa, and like Crazy Uncle John, his son. Not very original, but then I do remember my Grandpa quite fondly, so it does mean something to me.

Fliss doesn’t have a middle name, but, as her mum thought of such a unique first name for her child in the first place, there was probably no need to start showing off with all the other cool names that were on the back burner.

I think Elisha falls into that category – we really like her name and although right now she’s oblivious to the fact the choice has been made for her, we hope she likes it too when she’s old enough to realise it’s what she’s called. Granted, she could think it sucks, so we’ve reserved the space between her first and last names so she can choose her own middle name when she’s old enough to make an informed decision, if she wants.

It seems a bit of a non-news item to report that I’m not sleeping. Beyond the obvious reasons, like having a new born in the house, since Elisha isn’t the cause. I feel I should say that because she’s much too innocent to be taking any kind of blame thus far, bar the odd night. Perhaps when she’s self propelled and proving a lot more challenging to look after we can start blamestorming with her in mind, but for now she’s off he hook.

For whatever reason I’ve been rubbish at sleeping since I was in my early teens, and sometimes I’m worse at it than others. The last couple of nights I just could not get to sleep at all and, even when I did, the quality wasn’t of a high standard.

I hate not being able to sleep. There are guys at work who tell me they’re out the second they hit the pillow and I’m truly happy for them. Gits. I’ve never been “out the second I hit the pillow”, not unless I’m suffering from some severe form of delayed reaction and I don’t realise I’ve hit the pillow until it’s about seven in the morning. Maybe I should invest in some harder pillows? Even if I still don’t realise I’ve hit it, I might be fortunate enogh knock myself out for the night in the process.

Anyhow, perhaps the insomnia has been due to me having a lot to think about since I got back to work. I’ve a bit of a decision to make and although it’s not a horrible terrible one, it is quite a crossroads for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it out of the way soon, but just to help me off tonight I’m going to drop a Nytol and see if I can make Friday my most alert day of the week so far.

At the end of it, I’d have to say 2005 turned out to be a pretty good year for me. It started off a little slowly, with us looking for a house to buy and going on the misguided holiday to Malta. In hindsight that holiday was just a bit of bad luck on our part, as when I went back there with work a few months later I had a much better time.

The first real highlight of 2005 would come in April, when we bought our house. Usually that kind of thing is quite stressful, but I have to say that with us it went really smoothly – perhaps because we were the first people in the chain. It was a really good move on our part, though – it’s good to have a place we’re actually investing money in and a roof that doesn’t leak.

Next highlight would have to be when Fliss discovered she was pregnant less than a month after we moved into the house. To say I was shocked at the time would be an understatement, but nine months of denial later and things have worked out alright.

When June came around I walked Hazel down the aisle, well, half way down the aisle, at her wedding to Ian on what was a great day for them and all of the assembled family.

Shortly after returning from the wedding trip I ran my first 5k and put in a fair effort, even if I felt I could have done better.

In July I turned 33 and celebrated by visiting cousin Iain in London – my first of several trips down to the capital over the months that followed. We had a really good weekend of excess in the hot weather, but it didn’t exactly help in my preperations for my second running event a couple of days after I got back. Indeed, the least said about my gruelling experience in the Sefton Park 5 Mile Run the better.