Sweeties, Pies and Ginger

Robert Finlay Arnott was born at 03:31 this morning and weighted in at 7lb 5oz. Mother and son are both doing well, father is ecstatic!

I've just phoned the people organising the Bedford Sprint Series to let them know I'm pulling out of Sundays race. It's a shame as I've really been looking forward to doing my first triathlon, but it's unrealistic if I'm going to be a Dad in the next 36 hours...

What a difference a day makes... So after the scan and a bit of monitoring we've been told that they are going to induce after all. We just don't know when, but it's likely to be either this evening or tomorrow. One thing seems to be sure, I'll be a Dad before the weekend.

They decided not to induce the birth after all, much to the relief of both Karen and I. Instead we had been waiting most of the day for a scan and a bed on the ward; the scan is now tomorrow morning, so yet more time to get to know the staff in the Rosie.

Yes it really is that time in the morning... I'm just on my way back to the Rosie to spend the rest of the night with Karen who is being kept in. It's a long story, but it started around midnight and has ended up with the news that she will probably be induced tomorrow. As we didn't think we'd be there all night we left a few things behind, so I'm just picking them up and throwing the cats out. Just think, I could end today by being a father.

I was at a camera club committee meeting last night when I got a phone call from Karen. She was having painful regular contraction and could I come home. Well, as you can imagine I thought this was it and jumped in the car and drove (sensibly) home as quickly as I could.

As it turned out it was a false alarm, the contractions, while regular for the most part, did drop out for twenty minutes here and half an hour there and did get less painful. Although the sight of the baby thrashing about wildly underneath a contraction looked bloody uncomfortable.

Got out today for a cycle and run, which went really well considering the wind. As I knew the wind was supposed to be a northerly, but in fact was more of a north westerly, I decided to do my usual circuit back to front. This would, I thought, have me going into the wind for the least amount of time.

The ride itself was pretty uneventful and the wind wasn't too harsh, although I was glad to finally turn eastwards and have it on my back. I made good time even though I still couldn't get the front derailier to engage the big ring.

When I got back to the house I quickly stripped off all my cycling gear and chucked on some running shorts and my trainers and ran round the farmers field eight times. Jeff reckoned that a lap of the field was about a quarter of a mile, although I'm not so sure.

I didn't want to push myself any further just in case I knakered one of my calf muscles again, as the first in the Bedford sprint series is only a fortnight away. Over all though, it was a good session and I was quite please that I managed it, I'm just hoping that I can get out again during the week to get some more miles in the legs.

I ordered a few triathlon items from Sigma Sport on Wednesday night, as I though it was really about time I bought a pair of tri shorts. The magazines are always saying that you should try things out before you race, so I though it was only sensible to get a few supplies in and try them before the 24th.

I got a phone call yesterday from a chap at Sigma Sport, he was most apologetic, but they'd run out of the tri shorts I'd ordered and he was just wanting to know if I would accept another pair. I said yes and he said he'd send the order out.

So imagine my surprise to come home from work to find my order had been delivered. I wasn't expecting it until after the weekend, so I was presently surprised. Great service from Sigma Sport, I'll be buying stuff from them again.

It was Karen's birthday yesterday so I though I'd take her to a vegetarian pub we'd been told about called the Jolly Abbot in Abbotsley. I'd been trying to get them on the phone all day but to no avail, no one was answering. In the end I thought we'd just take the chance and go out and see what it was like.

It looked a bit quiet when we pulled up and it was quiet when we got inside, with half the place in darkness. As it turned out they don't do food on Monday nights, so I had a half of Tim Taylor Landlord and Karen and a lemonade. We then headed back into Cambridge and had an Italian at Prezzo.

We finally got the car seat and buggy today after waiting for a few months for John Lewis to get them in. There was never a problem with the buggy, it was always the car seat that was never appearing.

We first started looking for a buggy and car seat in the January sale, they can be expensive so you may as well try to save a few bob. However, we didn't manage to find one we liked, or one that matched what we wanted.

As we live down a rather potholed lane, we really wanted a chunky three wheeler that would be able to cope. We'd seen the Silver Cross XT in a couple of Karen's pregnancy magazines, but we'd failed to see it in any of the shops we'd been to; then we spotted on in John Lewis.

The only drawback to this buggy is that it doesn't go flat, so it's only suitable from three months. Because of this we decided wait until nearer the time as there was obviously no rush and it would give us the opportunity to look for a car seat, or even a different buggy.

We were told that Silver Cross were making a car seat to fit their buggies, but that it hadn't been released yet. We phoned them every month just top be told that the release date had been put back again and finally that it would be out at the end of March beginning of April.

During the last phone call they said that they'd finally got a demonstration model in, so we could at least go and see if it would fit in Karen's car; which it did. So we ordered one and a XT buggy, only top be told that they were out of stock of the buggy as well and didn't know when either was going to be coming in.

To cut a long story short, Karen phoned them a week later and was told that they did have buggies and that the car seat was in, so we could go and pick them up, which we did earlier today.

So we're now the owners of one of these, and one of these.

I got out on the bike today for a two stage ride. The first half was out to Elsworth for the East Anglian Rocketry Society launch and the second half was back again. I took slightly different routes to try and get some miles in, so the way out was ten miles longer.

Unfortunately there was a southerly wind blowing, which meant that four fifths of the route there was into the wind and it absolutely killed me. I don't think I've been so glad to get to a location on the bike before. I was quite worried that I would have trouble getting back as the ride out had taken a lot out of me.

It wasn't as bad as I had feared, although it could have been a lot better. For some reason I couldn't get the chain on to the big gear, so I was spinning out when the wind was on my back; which was a bit on the frustrating side.

Over all it was a good afternoons riding and I covered quite a distance. I'm hoping to get out again on Tuesday, but we'll have to see how the legs feel.

After the weekends exertions I was keen to capitalise so after a great session in the pool this morning I decided to go for a run at lunchtime.
I was going to do the same run as I did on Tuesday lunch, which was over the A14 and round Milton Country Park and then back to the office.

I was feeling really good, the legs were feeling really good and I was going at a nice pace. then about a quarter of the way round the park disaster struck. I got this really bad pain in my right calf, sort of a cross between a tearing sensation and someone stabbing it with pins. Needless to say, I stopped running and walked back to the office.

I don't know how bad the damage is yet as I'm still limping rather badly around the office as even small movements are quite painful. I'll get some deep heat on it when I get home and hope that the damage isn't too bad.