So I’ve started a project that I’ve meant to do for both Nairn and Erica but never got around to starting. It’s purely a personally project but I don’t mind sharing it with you guys. Basically the intent is to have a photo almost every day for the first year of Greer’s life. If Erica had not had the problems she had I’d probably have completely forgotten about this but with her going from a tiny baby with health problems to a healthy child almost over night we never really seen a gradual change in her. I want to be able to see Greer changing and growing and I want to be able to show her this in the years to come. I’d originally started posting the pictures on my Flickr account but in order to stop my contacts being flooded with photos of Greer that were almost identical I was making them private but that defeated the idea of sharing them with anyone we knew if they wanted to see them. So I added a subdomain on my blog and all the photos will be displayed there. As I mentioned there isn’t going to be a picture every day but I aim to try for that anyway. We’re only a couple of weeks into her life and I’ve missed one so far and fully expect to miss a couple more over the coming months. It’s no big deal so there’s none of the pressure that’s stopped me keeping photoblogs before or stopped me completing 365 projects. I’m really looking forward to this.

You can find the project at http://greer365.theapochrypha.co.uk

It has been a while since we just jumped in the car and went on a trip. But we’d been talking for a few days about taking the babies on a drive but couldn’t quite work out where to go. We had the option of Tobermory (the home of the kids TV show Balamory), Arran or Millport. Tobermory was completely out though as we had to wait for the health visitor to drop by for her first visit now that Greer is with us and it’s a hell of a long drive.

So the health visitor came and went and we jumped in the car. I trust Vonnie’s driving and general sense of direction but after 15 minutes of driving it’s a bit of a surprise to hear her say “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’m not sure of how to get there.” Now to be perfectly honest I hadn’t decided where ‘there’ was at this point but they both lay in roughly the same direction. It wasn’t until we were coming up to the junction for the Ardrossan Harbour that we took the decision to go to Millport rather than Arran. I love Arran to pieces and I will be taking the kids there one day but £50 to take the car over on the ferry is a bit much for a day trip and so we’d be stuck in Brodick rather than getting out and seeing the island. So that left Millport as our destination. We drove up past the nuclear power station in through West Kilbride and arrived in Largs just in time to see the ferry leave the slip so we had to wait for the next one.

When we were on the Calais-Dover ferry last year Nairn really didn’t like going outside but when I took him onto the observation deck for the 10 minutes or so we’re actually out on the water he loved it. In fact he refused to come back down to the car without a fight and even tried to storm the bridge at one point. It’s been about 25 years since I last visited Millport and apart from the cars parked outside the shops almost nothing has changed. The toy shop where I would buy all my jokes for that summer whenever we visited was still there and if truth be told some of the tricks in the shop window look as though they have been there for those 25 years! The crocodile is still there on the beach but we never managed to get the kids along for the traditional photo opportunity.

So we stopped for lunch and despite Erica screaming the place down for almost the entire time we were in the cafe it was nice. I’m sure Vonnie thought differently though. Once that was over we walked along the beach and let the kids play on the sand for an hour or so. It took me a while to get Nairn to understand that he shouldn’t pick up the jellyfish and sea urchins that rolling about in the surf. We bought ice cream for the kids and climbed on the rocks and all in all I felt about 10 years old again. On the way back to the car we stopped and let the kids have a go on the trampolines which, aside from the joke shop, is one of the few memories I have of the place as a child.

As we headed off home we drove clockwise around the island which I’ve never done before. And by that I mean I’ve never went around the island and not that I’ve only ever went anti-clockwise around it. There are a couple of beautiful wee beaches about 15 minutes walk from the town and no one was there! I also found something that possible inspired the Lost creators and writers. As you drive around the back of the island you come across a face staring out at you from the rocky ‘cliffs’ overlooking the road. It’s freaky just thinking about the unblinking thing staring back at you.

We need to do more trips like this.

It’s been a few days now since Greer arrived, I think it’s 11 or 12 now if you want to get all exact on me, and I haven’t mentioned it here at all. It’s not though not wanting to rather through lack of time and energy despite having two weeks paternity leave.

So on to business. We’d purposely told friends and work colleagues that we were heading into the hospital on the Monday to go through the inducing process but we actually went in on the Friday morning instead. We knew we were going to be there a while and with previous births we’d been deluged with well wishers looking for updates so we thought we’d skip that part and hopefully give them a wee surprise at the start of the weekend. It didn’t quite work out that way.

At noon on the Sunday my wife was to be examined and most likely sent home for a break period before coming back in later in the week to restart the process. As luck would have it that’s when her waters decided to go. Over the next 7-8 hours I witnessed my wife go nuts on the gas and air again which is always fun, this time it was to do with Winnie the Pooh living in a birdhouse, and being threatened with my testicles being removed via my throat.

At 19:35 on May 17th Greer Valery Charlotte Sandlan was born weighing in at 7lb 11oz.

Unfortunately the timing of the delivery meant that the kids couldn’t see there mum that night, and hadn’t all weekend, and despite being outside in the carpark from 19.30 were not allowed in for 5 minutes to meet their new sister. The shifts changed round about that time and despite the sister in  charge of the ward during they day saying it shouldn’t be a problem for them to come in outwith visiting hours for a short time the new sister stuck to the rules. Anyway it also meant my lift back to East Kilbride was leaving early so I only got to spend about half an hour with Greer before I had to go home and leave both of them to rest overnight.

So what can I say about Greer. She’s been a delightful so far. She’s piling on the weight which after our troubles with Erica is a worry we’re glad to do without and did I mention she’s sleeping very well? The only trouble is she doesn’t like sleeping in her crib so we’re co-sleeping an awful lot just now which really messes with our sleep. I can’t sleep if any of the kids are in our bed never mind a little newborn.

For those that want to know where the names came from. Greer is the name that Vonnie picked early on that eventually grew on me, Charlotte was my choice of name and Valery was from St Valery sur Somme which is where we spent our summer holidays last year and decided to try for another child. All in all they are pretty tame considering how we came up with the other kids names.

I’ve been reading up on my rights with regards to dyslexia in the workplace and anything and everything else I can think off that may be an issue. With the ’severity’ of my problem if I was to go to nightschool or back to university I’d be able to apply for a disability allowance and I noticed a few of the other things that people can claim for depending on the disability.

One of the things they can claim for is a non-medical helper who would help with note taking and various other things the person may have problems with. When I found out that they can claim up to £20k+ for a salary for this non-medical helper I turned to my wife…

Bob: Here…these folk make more than I do and all they do is take notes and stuff. £20k for sitting through classes and doing what you would normally do as a student isn’t bad.
Vonnie: Yup it’s pretty good isn’t it. Things must have changed from when I was at uni though as they used to be called enablers.
Bob: I think we should just quite our jobs and start being non-medical helpers. What do you think?
Vonnie: Bob… Your dyslexic.
Bob: Oh yeah. I forgot about that.

To follow up from my previous entry. In short yes I am.

I always thought I had a problem. Nothing major. My spelling was never great and getting my thoughts across on paper was always a problem. They were things I could live with until I started having to complete application forms at work and really struggled. It wasn’t so much the writing but getting my head around the guidance and the competency framework.

Anyway as I mentioned in the previous post on this subject I booked myself in to be tested with some financial help from my work. The test went great but we weren’t sure just what the outcome of the test was going to be. I didn’t quite fit the new definition of dyslexic but the psychologist was going to process the tests and see what came out. I was very surprised by just how split it was.

My scores on the IQ test were a surprise to say the least.

• Verbal Scale - 96 percentile
• Performance Scale - 96 percentile
• Verbal Comprehension - 99 percentile
• Perceptual Organisation - 99.9 percentile
• Working memory - 77 percentile
• Processing Speed - 5 percentile

That’s a huge gap!

The rest of the test backed that up although it’s not as bad as it actually sounds. Apparently it puts me in the Severe Dyslexia bracket but this is a measure of the discrepancy between my general ability an literacy skills. Someone might not have as large a difference but have far more problems than I do.

I’ve had very brief conversations on Twitter with @Tregenza, a fellow RPG blogger, about all this as he suffers from Dyslexia as well. Yesterday he mentioned that it must be odd to be diagnosed with Dyslexia as an adult as he found out when he was 10 years old and so has had time to learn to deal with it. I don’t really know how to answer that.

Not knowing any different means I don’t have a yard stick to base it on as it’s not as if my mind worked perfectly fine until one morning I woke up and I struggled to deal with various things. Looking back I can see where my specific problems have held me back during my education. I can see where my problems lie at work as well but to be honest I’m not sure, given the job I actually do, if there is anything that can be done to improve. I can certainly give reports and applications a major overhaul now that I can get help with them in whatever way is necessary but as my job is 99% processing payments on our accounting systems I don’t suffer that badly whilst doing the actual job.

I’ve been given an ultimatum though by my wife. Things may be changing over the next year or two. I’ll post news on that as and when it happens though as it’s that huge it might take a lot of careful planning.

So with my daughter being ill these last few days Vonnie has found it a little helpful to have me around the house instead of being at work. With Kat coming over to visit I was sent to the darkest depths of the kitchen and told not to come back until I had something to show for it. Actually what really happened was Vonnie sent me a link to a recipe and asked me to go make it so they had something to eat with their tea.

Anyway… Vonnie has been meaning to try this one since she came up  the idea of making it for my birthday and not having the time to finish it. In fact I’ve lost count of the packets of Maltesers I’ve bought for this and ended up eating instead.

Ingrediants for the sponge

• 150g brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 175ml milk
• 15g unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons Horlicks powder
• 175g plain flour
• 25g cocoa sieved
• 1 teasp baking powder
• 1/2 teasp bicarbonate soda

Ingredients for the icing and decoration

• 250g icing sugar
• 1 teasp cocoa
• 45g Horlicks
• 125g unsalted softened butter
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 2 x 37g pkt Maltesers

Your wanting everything at room temperature to start with for this one although we don’t keep our eggs in the fridge anyway. You’ll need to soften your butter for the icing but it’s not essential for the cake.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/170C and grease/line two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich cake tins.

Throw together the sugar and the eggs in a bowl and whisk it up until light and frothy. Set that aside and then using a small amount of the milk mix it with the Horlicks until you have a smooth paste. Heat up the milk and butter in a small pan and add your Horlicks paste. Give your pot a stir with a wooden spoon until the butter has melted and the mixture is hot but not boiling.

Slowly beat the milk mixture into the egg/sugar mixture and the fold in the dry ingredients. Once you’ve done this split your batter between your two tins evenly. Going by the book the cakes should take 25 minutes to bake at which time the cakes should have risen and will spring back when pressed gently. I think mine actually took 40 minutes but then my cooker isn’t the most accurate at low temperatures. Once on the rack make sure you let them cool completely. I forgot this last bit and paid the price for it when it came to icing the cake.

Seive the icing sugar, cocoa and Horlicks into a bowl and add the softened butter and beat awy with your wooden spoon. I found I had to add the water fairly early on to get the icing to come together as although by butter was soft it just wasn’t soft enough and the hot water managed to fox that. Use half the icing as alayer between the sponges and spread the rest out on top. Once you’ve done that decorate the top with the maltesers and your done.

Apparently this is supposed to give you 8-10 slices but once you’ve tasted it you’ll probably only slice the next one into 4-6 slices instead.

Just been listening to my wife on Radio 5 so I thought I’d post up a quick blog entry.

Spent another afternoon in the garden but this time I had my parents helping out. My dad came over to help me lift some paving slabs and get started on putting up the fencing. We managed to get the fenceposts in for the short fence I’m building and the build up the gate. I’m not entirely convinced the posts are solid enough to hold the gate but I can always throw some concrete in there to firm it up.

I am physically shattered after yesterdays shed/coop moving so I’m struggling to stay awake at the moment. Theres a surprise.

I’m really not looking forward to tomorrow/later today at work. I can’t put my finger on it but I get the feeling somethings going to go wrong.

Speed: 1/1000 Aperture: f1.8 ISO: 100 Focal Length: 50mm

Do you know why people constantly take photos of their cats? It’s because they don’t run away and they are cuter that most inanimate objects.

This 50mm lens is really bugging me. Because you can’t really see the depth of field without using the magic button when I think somethings in focus I usually find that the cats nose is crystal clear but it’s eyes are fuzzy. Practice practice practice.

Not been on here in a while. I just haven’t had the time to be honest.

Lets see. Works been crap what with me no longer working in HR and being moved to Accounts to help out. I started off really positive and looking at it as a new start and a new challenge. As the days go on though I’m beginning to feel as though I’m purely there to help out and not as an actual team member. I guess that comes down to noone actually knowing for definate who’s responsible for me while I’m in Accounts. They can’t make any plans for my future because my reporting line seems to change daily and without all the training I need to work in Accounts there is avery little I can actually do. Hell I’m currently helping out another section my clearing payments which is something I learned to do 8 years ago and have’t actually ever done until now.

Friday night was Stoo’s Stag Night Mk2 after their trip Berlin. I gather it started well with a trip to Jongleurs and I joined them after the show for a few drinks. I ended up doing a small pubcrawl by myself as I arrived to early and had about 90 minutes to kill so I went around Ohenry’s, The Solid and Rufus for a drink to see if anyone else was out. Aside from the folk in Ohenry’s I met up with Shawsy in Rufus where I experienced the Nightmare on Hope Street cocktail for the first time. So anyway I met up with the guys and had a few drinks and it was time to leave. A bit of banter was had at the exit at the bottom of stairs with a few of the other groups. Scott walked through the double doors to be greeted with a fist the size of Norway followed by the body the size of Russia. The guy was big. Anyway to cut a long story short Scott ended up in A&E to get a couple of stiches in his head and the guy spent the night in jail.

Saturday we went to Wickes to pick up some fencing for the garden and muggins forgot to buy fenceposts and hinges for the gate. That went down well with my heavily pregnant wife who had herded the kids around the place for an hour. Anyway we went to B&Q today and picked up the bits that were missing and a few extras. I also managed to finish of the ‘pallets’ I was building at the bottom of the garden and move the shed and coop down onto them. Not bad considering I did it all myself and that included getting them down the hill!

It’s all boring stuff I know but as I keep saying my brain is turning to cream cheese so I need the written reminders

For years I’ve thought it and for years my doctor has hinted at it but they’ve never thought it was anything worth chasing up. Then I had to start completing application forms for work thanks the governments job cuts. To cut a long story short between my doctor, an adult literacy worker and the welfare officer at my work I was sent to be tested for dyslexia today.

So how ‘well’ did I do? To be honest I’m not entirely sure. Thanks to the body to oversees the psychologists changing their rules a while ago it doesn’t look as though I’ll be classed as dyslexic in the traditional sense. As I understand it to be called dyslexic you now need to have two or more of the categories your tested on score below the national average and fit the profile. In my case my memory skills are low enough to be below this average but the other indicator that I tested low on sits just on the average. Where my problems lie with this one is that almost all the other categories I was tested against had me in the top 1-2 percentiles so although it was average it was a significant drop from the rest of my scores. There was also a problem in that it is an amalgamation of two tests. On the mental arithmetic I scored 100% and almost completely failed the other which gave the middle of the road average.

So there is a definite specific learning disability there but the woman who went through the test with me is trying to work out whether she can technically diagnose me as dyslexic or not. Either way I’ll get the written report in about a week so we’ll see what she has managed to come up with then.