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.

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.

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.

This web page popped up on my screen and I immediately thought of Mr Barry O’Bain.

I have no idea why.

Day 2

So after that early night we woke up to the sound of rain pouring down onto the boat. One thing I should probably mention is that because we were slow in booking our hotel we didn’t get the Captain’s cabin and so had to settle for the Mate’s cabin. The only different I can work out is that the Captains cabin has a larger ‘living room’ and has windows in every room while the Mate’s cabin has a bedroom that has no windows. So we sat in bed wondering what we were going to get up to on our last day if it was raining. We’d planned the boat trip but unless it was nice weather it wasn’t really going to be worth it. I’d decided to brave the cold and got out of bed to take a peek outside only to find the boat completely surrounded by ice and it was the noise of all the shards rubbing against each that we were mistaking for rain.

We had into met a single person at the hotel that we could describe in any negative way until this morning when we went for breakfast. There is a PC that can be used for free by anyone but at busy times you only get 10 minutes before you have to let someone else on. I’ve no idea what nationality the girls were but they chatted away in thier language with Vonnie sitting at the PC at the table beside them. It wasn’t until they started moaning that they were important and had to check work emails etc that they switched to English and just generally felt it necessary to get in wee digs about having to get access to a computer as soon as possible. All they had to do was say to Vonnie that they wanted on next but instead the intermittently broke into perfect English to moan about the computer. After that we packed up quickly and checked out. With our exploration the day before we realised that if Vonnie was going to get about that day we’d have to rest her as much as possible. Cue one taxi to the Grand Hotel which cost far less that the previous one. We’d planned on going out onto the boat trip and getting the traditional hot pea soup with bread for lunch on board which was nice but certainly an acquired taste. What we hadn’t planned on was the temperature being -3C before we’d even gotten on the boat. We were heading out towards the Baltic Sea and the chef mentioned that it was -8C without taking into consideration windchill as we had lunch inside.

The boat ride was nice. Basically it took you out on a trip around the archipelago. As it was winter though the longer trips which we really fancied were not running but the one that was gave you reindeer hides to sit on and blankets to snuggle up in. Our guide for the day, like all tourist guides, was just eccentric enough to be interesting without being nuts. It was that cold though that throughout he was sipping down lots of the tradition hot drink that’s very similar to mulled wine. By the time he took his break he was plastered. We went downstairs for our soup and a taste of this wonderful hot beverage ourselves before he started on the second half of the tour. By this point the Australians we had sat beside had decided to stay downstairs in the warmth along with almost every other passenger including Vonnie. I ended back upstairs with the Cuban-American guy and an elderly gentleman that barely spoke a word the entire trip, he even spoke to his wife in grunts. We had major problems in getting a decent phone signal while we were in Stockhom. In fact the only time we managed to get a 3G signal at all was funnily enough when we were out on the boat and directly across the water from the owner of Ericsson. As soon as we were past that house we lost the signal again.

By the time we got off the boat it was only about 1-2pm but already it was starting to get dark so we went for a wander around the old town, Gamla Stan, looking for the toy shop and the chocolatier that I’d found the night before. I showed Vonnie the royal palace and eventually found the shops we were looking for but only after Vonnie spent time drooling over the wool/yarn shops she had found. The toy shop was something else though. Almost everything in it was handmade and very expensive but it wasn’t until we got home that we found out why. Women in Russia make all the toys by hand and the toy shop pays them a good price for their work to allow them to feed, cloth and house their families. Fairtrade toys if you want to describe them that way. There was some really fantastic toys in there but we just couldn’t afford them. We wandered around the town and every 15 minutes or so had to stop and get hot chocolate as we were frozen to the bone.

We stopped at another chocolate shop and had possibly the nicest hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It wasn’t one of your powdered drinks as he made it in a coffee machine from cocoa beans and it was like we were drinking smooth, hot melted chocolate. At £4 for a tiny cup I expected it to be good but I never expected it to be that good! As we wandered on again Vonnie clocked a guy talking on the phone in a suite with a bulge on his belt. He had a handgun strapped to himself. It wasn’t until we realised there were more men like him around us and that we were standing outside their parliament buildings that we clocked what he was.

Anyway after a few more stops for hot chocolate we decided it best for everyone concerned to find the bus station and maybe think about getting the next bus to the airport. We were running something like four hours early but to be honest with the cold and not being entirely sure where we were getting the bus from alongside Vonnie being pregnant it wasn’t a bad thing. As it was very late when we arrived in Stockholm we never really got to see much of the city on the way in so the journey back out at around 4pm gave us a much better look at the rest of the place.

Getting to the airport so early did mean we had to stay in on the land side for much longer than normal but they had Stargate Atlantis on the TV so time flew by relatively quickly. It wasn’t until we had landed that though that we found out that the Hudson River crash had happened 40 minutes before we were due to take off. The airport staff had went around turning off all the TV’s just as news filtered through about it. We just though they were shutting up shop that as we were the last flight out that night.

When we landed in Glasgow it turned out that the last three planes due to arrive at Prestwick had all arrived early so there were huge cues to get through passport control. I stupidly mentioned to Vonnie that now would be the perfect time for her to have one of her fainting episodes only for her to actually really feel faint about 5 minutes later. We ended up being brought through the side of the queue and the police gave Vonnie a bottle of water to help her recover. I’ll keep my mouth shut next time I think.

I’d go back. I’ve not seen anywhere near enough of the place but I think I’ll need to win the lottery to afford it again.