We are alive (honest)!

So what have we been up to?  Well we just came back from a week up north, where we spent a few days with my parents in York before heading to Edinburgh for Jocelyn's christening at St Giles' Cathedral.  We then drove all the way back down, staying over in York on the way back.

We did the journey in two cars, so we could swap cars with Serena's parents for the return journey.  I have my old red Honda Civic back and will be trading it in some time early next year for something bigger.  Serena now has her Mum's Honda Jazz in trade for her Nissan Micra.

To make the journey a bit more bearable for Lauren we bought a portable DVD player on which she watched hours of Teletubbies and In The Night Garden whilst I listened to audiobooks on my MP3 player!  Serena and Jocey happily listened to Classic FM in the other car.  In fact Jocey was exceptionally well behaved on the drive and is turning out to be a little angel!

We are now well on with spring cleaning our whole house in preparation for Christmas, as we have a house full for both Christmas and New Year (our trip to York for New Year has been canceled and my parents are coming to us instead).

Beyond that I finally have a start date for my job at Legal and General, after they decided to carry out a full five year reference and credit check on me!  That meant capturing info from our stay in Australia, so the whole process seemed to take forever.  I start on Wednesday 5th December.

Both Serena and I have been really good recently as well, going to the gym, eating healthily and I have also been taking Lauren swimming (although she doesn't really like it yet).  It was paying off as I had lost 10 lbs, but I suspect the unhealthy eating of the trip to our parents will have undone some of the good work.

Plans for the immediate future are finish the tidying and get the house straight before the Weegies descend upon us in a fortnight and a family lunch with Jase and Charlotte celebrating Charlotte's 30th birthday!  Then it will be polishing my shoes and finally having a shave!  Being on the social for so long means that my beard is rather bushy!