Rainy august weather..

Ha! Second blog in a week. Making up for lost time. Pretty wet weather here over the last week - so much for August sunshine. My friend Rachel has just started a blog about the year she's just started in Haiti, worth a read here. As I write, Eden's asleep in bed, we've had some dinner and we've got some athletics on in the background on the telly - a pretty normal evening.

Not had any house viewings so far this week, which is a bit disappointing, but we've got two booked for tomorrow. It is holiday season though. Wonder how much longer we'll have to wait until we can sell and then seriously find a place to live in the West Midlands. We have our ups and downs of morale - it feels like we've been waiting a long time to sell. Most of the time we still feel fairly hopeful. We'd like to be "in" somewhere by Christmas - not sure how realistic that is. I know that selling a house in a recession might not be the easiest thing to do.

Still a tough trading environment where I work - government cuts have significantly reduced the company's workload in some areas, so more redundancies in patches. Not great. Another reason we're keen to move sooner rather than later so I can get stuck into my new role in Birmingham. Still, God's timing is perfect - just waiting for this truth to move from my head down into my heart more fully - still have my moments of questioning and complaint!

Haven't run so much this week, probably no bad thing after averaging around 20miles the past few weeks. Did my first barefoot running session last Sunday evening - gonna aim to make it a regular thing to help naturalise my technique etc. Haven't found another race to enter yet in the autumn. Wouldn't mind doing another half marathon.

Absolutely absorbed this week by another Julian May book that my sister lent me. Having devoured and delighted in The Saga of the Pliocene Exile, I've started the sister series, which is equally great so far. I do like getting lost in a book. Wondered if it might be harder to find time to read since Eden was born, but it's not so bad - she's in bed early!

Eden is such a delight - I do love being a dad. I love getting her up first thing in the morning before work, giving her her bottle, changing her nappy and playing with her. Likewise when I get home from work we play for a little bit before I give her her bath then give her a final bottle before putting her to bed. The whole shape of my weekends has changed - now it's about having quality time with my gorgeous little girl :D

Unusually, I baked a cake this week for my team's pool meeting at work. It was a banana cake and came out quote well - Kate directed me how to make it.. sitting down because she stubbed her toe really badly that morning and it went purple! Ouch!

By the way, do check out my friend Tom's blog - all about literature. His book tastes are SO much more highbrow than mine!!