Surprise!

You got me good and proper! Those furtive text messages, the turning of the laptop screen away from my eyes and the obsession with the weather. All is now clear. In some ways I feel a bit stupid to have not sussed, but in fact I am pleased to have got the full benefit of the surprise. It's the aspect of a surprise party that makes it, well, a surprise party!

Those of you who have been paying close attention over the last few years of this blog will know that I turn 40 this year. As will those of you who actually know me. My birthday is actually later this month, so I was not expecting to arrive back at the house (after a very enjoyable afternoon shooting clay-pigeons for the first time) to find a whole load of cars parked outside!

"What are all these cars doing here?" I asked Dave who was in the car with me. "I dunno..." Dave said back, unconvincingly, "Perhaps the neighbours have got friends round..." he suggested. A good attempt, Dave, but it doesn't explain why I recognised Rachel's parents' cars and my mum and dad's car! There was nobody around, so Dave led the way round to the garden at the back, and...

Surprise! A garden full of folks! Family and friends raising a glass to... well, to me! It appears that my better (oh, so better) half, Rachel, had spent the last couple of months planning a surprise party for my 40th! It was the start of the best party ever... live music, Chinese lanterns, a wonderful cake (that's me in the picture at my computer, complete with Rubik's Cube!), and a magician. Yes, a magician! In fact, the whole night was quite magical.

Thank you to everyone who came, and to everyone who clearly helped Rachel with the organising and the secret-keeping (shame on you). And thank you for cards and presents. I've not opened any as yet... will save for my actual birthday later this month. A few more days of my 30's left, which I shall hang on to as long as I can!

But thank you most of all to Rachel. So much thought and effort paid off. Thank you baby... I love you very much x

eBay 'eck!

It started with a singing bear. Not just any singing bear. This was Bear. From The Big Blue House. Freya is a bit of a fan of Bear. So, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Rachel discovered a singing Bear for sale on eBay. At £6, it was a bargain. However, by the time it arrived through the post, we figured Freya would prefer a non-singing version (fickle I know). So Rachel re-advertised the singing Bear on eBay. A few days later and it was sold. For more than double what she paid for it!

With dollar signs in our eyes, we looked round to see if there was anything else we could sell on eBay. Our eyes fell on Freya's old pushchair. Although, of course, it's not just a pushchair is it? It's a pushchair-pram-car-seat combination. Limited edition no less. We had been meaning to sell it for some time, but hadn't got round to it. But buoyed by the success of the singing Bear, I gave it a thorough clean and took a few photos. Rachel did the technical bit of putting the listing on eBay, as I must admit to being an eBay virgin (as in I have never used eBay not that you can bid for my, ahem... well, you knew what I meant). Before you could say, "pushchair combo up for sale," the pushchair combo was up for sale! The auction would last for seven days. We would have to wait and see if anyone would actually bid for it.

Before long, there was an opening bid of £100. Not bad! We would have been happy with that, but there was soon a second bid of £105. Bidder 1 quickly responded with a return, and frankly unusual, bid of £129.99! As far as I understand how eBay works, each subsequent bid is supposed to go up by a certain minimum amount (e.g., £5), but you can put in 'automatic' bids so that if another bidder bids higher than your first bid, it will revert to your automatic bid, if it's higher than the second person's bid (are you following this?). Bidder 2 must have done this because his or her next bid was just a penny more at £130. Bidder 1 must have done the same, as it then jumped to £132. Meanwhile, a third bidder (let's call them bidder 3) had been watching this and upped the ante with a bid of £150!

Things were now hotting up. It was obviously too rich for bidder 2. But bidder 1 was having none of it. He/she hit back with a bid of £165.99. But it was to be short-lived. A few hours later, bidder 3 jumped to £190. Rachel and I just watched as the bids rose. We were just pleased that anyone wanted to buy the pushchair!

Things went quiet for a few days. Rachel assured me this was typical. If there were to be any more bids, they would be just before the bidding deadline, so we didn't expect any more movement for a couple of days. Even if there were no more bids, £190 would have been a good selling price!

As the final hour of the auction approached, we kept an eye on eBay just in case there were any more bids. As Rachel had predicted interest returned. A brand new bidder who we'll call, for the sake of consistency, bidder 4, pitched in with £195. But bidder 4 hadn't appreciated that bidder 1 had been in this from the very beginning (although the name 'bidder 1' in the bidding history may have given it away), and wasn't going to let this Johnny Come Lately (not his real name) steal the glory. Bidder 1 offered £200.

All remained quiet as the final minutes of the auction ticked by. There was less than a minute left when bidder 4 upped the stakes with a bid of £235! But bidder 1 didn't want to lose this. They offered £240. But with seconds to go a bid of £261 from bidder 4. Surely that was it.

5... 4... 3... 2... £266! Sold. To bidder 1.

Exciting stuff this eBaying! Now, what else can we sell?

The man with the never-ending surname

Yesterday, the video about our research into coincidences that Hannah liked so much made it on to the website of the Liverpool Daily Post. So up yours Hannah!

Speaking of coincidences, while looking for the link to the video on the Daily Post, I just took a look at the Daily Post's main page as that was where the video appeared yesterday. The video that appeared in its place today was about a launch event for something called CAUSE (Children's Aid Using Soccer Events) and featured former Liverpool and England footballer Steve McMananam. The coincidence? Somewhat bizarrely, when Rachel and I were enjoying a meal out on Monday this week, for Rachel's birthday, we recognised one of the large party at a nearby table as a famous footballer. Neither of us were able to remember his name at the time, but when we got home we did a bit of internet searching to discover it was none other than Steve McMananam.

Somewhat of a coincidence that Mr McManaman turns up twice in one week, once in person and once in an indirect link to this project via the Daily Post, don't you think?

Why the long face?

The last time I sat on a horse, I cried. I was probably about 9 years old at the time. My sister, Sally, went to horse-riding lessons and so my mum took me and my brother, Anthony, along too. The first few times Anthony and I would just play around while we waited for Sally to have her lesson, but eventually my mum thought it might be a good idea if me and my brother had a lesson at the same time. I don't really remember if we had a choice in the matter, but before we knew it we wearing hats and boots and were lined up next to each other on our respective horses. Sally was on her quite respectable looking mottled grey steed whose name I don't remember, Anthony was on a smaller, hairier, horse I think called Snip, while I was rested upon an animal that went by the name of Jason.

Now Sally, of course, was a more than willing participant in the lesson (indeed she was the reason we were there in the first place) and so no doubt found the whole thing rather enjoyable. Perhaps even fun. But my brother and I were more reluctant riders and so found it less enjoyable. Traumatic even. Anthony probably had the tougher horse as Snip seemed to have trouble seeing through his shaggy mane that fell over his eyes and would often stop half way round the ring to graze on the grass over the fence. My horse, Jason, seemed to be more up for it but paid little attention to what I was doing with the reins or my heels and decided to do whatever he fancied doing in whatever direction he fancied doing it. Which I personally think is fair enough. But you try telling the horse-riding teacher that. (I use the word 'teacher' but I think fascist cow is nearer the mark.) From the beginning to the end of each lesson she would shout her instructions from the centre of the ring, telling me that I was doing it all wrong. Hence the tears. (Hey, I was a sensitive kid.)

These memories re-surfaced today as I agreed to join Rachel for a horse-riding lesson. Yes folks, a horse-riding lesson. I've been reading Susan Jeffers' book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, so I thought what the heck! (And the fascist cow/teacher of 30 years ago must be retired, or even dead, by now right?)

When we arrived, the smell brought it all back to me. I could almost feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I actually felt a little nervous. And the pair of crutches beside the door of the reception office didn't help my confidence too much either. Still, Ms Jeffers would have been proud of me, as I followed Rachel into the office and found a suitably sized pair of riding boots and hat.

"Rachel, you're on Rosie", the woman behind the desk informed us. "Matthew, you've got Ed". She pointed across the stable yard to a black horse with a white streak down his face. I liked the look of Ed. As we led our horses out to the ring, Ed seemed very laid back, almost not caring. Did he not realise the demons I was exorcising?

Our teacher today was Geena. She was neither a fascist nor a cow. In fact she was really nice. She told us both (me and Rachel that is, not me and Ed...) how good we were doing and she was "very impressed" (her actual words mind) with my rising trot!

The entire lesson passed without a single tear. In fact, I had a smile on my face the whole time.

Take a break

Today is a significant day, as it marks three years of Rachel and I being together. So maybe the Three of Cups is an appropriate card for today:

Three of Cups: Love grows and a relationship moves up to a new level of commitment. A child may be born, or your creativity flourishes as new projects evolve and take form. This is a card of healing and happiness, with myriad opportunities for celebration, sharing, and the renewal of friendship. The Three also predicts healing, so you feel rejuvenated, physically and emotionally.

So whatever happens today, I'm happy to give the Tarot a point.

That said, a couple of meetings at work today seemed to fit nicely with what the Three had to say. This morning's meeting, which I'd arranged last week, was with someone from our Personnel Department about the possibility of taking a career break next year. In September this year, I will have been working at Liverpool Hope for ten years. And it's starting to feel like it! Many of the lectures I now give I haven't updated for a few years, and my research has come to an almost stand still. I just don't want to find myself having been there for fifteen or even twenty years thinking the same thing, having done nothing about it! For at least the last couple of years I have been saying to myself (and to Rachel) that I needed to change. Change my research, change jobs, change something. So I thought I'd start saying it to somebody other than myself and Rachel, and perhaps kickstart the process that might lead to me actually doing something about it! Anyway, the meeting with Cathryn from Personnel seemed to go okay (apart from the fact I had written down the meeting time wrong and was half an hour late!). She seemed to understand where I was coming from and gave me some useful advice.

Later in the day I met with two TV producers working on an idea for a TV show that would look at ghostly experiences across the UK (sound familiar?). It all sounded very interesting and exciting, but they were still looking for the show to be commissioned so we'll see if it comes to anything. Still, could be an opportunity for new projects to evolve and take form perhaps?

The best part of today, though, was the fantastic surprise I got this evening. Rachel called me through and said she'd been a little bit naughty. I immediately guessed that she'd maybe bought something. I was close. Rachel had actually booked a surprise weekend away for us both in Barcelona! She had booked it a week or two before and it would be for a weekend in March, but she had told me today to mark our three years together. I think that could nicely represent an opportunity for "celebration, sharing and the renewal of friendship", don't you agree? Even if you don't, I'm not too bothered... we're going to Barcelona!

Ready for battle!

This is what my tarot reading for the week ahead came up with for today:

Knight of Swords: When the Knight of Swords arrives in a reading, he heralds a future battle that must be fought so that a resolution to a problem may be found. Dynamic and charming, he may come into your life for just a short period of time, but his verve is infectious: he brings enough energy and determination to meet the challenge with courage.

So I was all set for a battle of some sort today! A fight! Maybe even a "scrap" (does anyone use this term any more?), just like you used to get at school, in which me and my nemesis are surrounded by an over-excited crowd, clapping their hands in unison to the chant of "Scrap! Scrap! Scrap!..." just in case it wasn't clear to any of the onlookers exactly what was going on.

But, alas, it was not to be. No fight today. No arguments. Not even a bicker. Or a cross word. Freya, now a willful 15 month-old woddler, had had a rough night thanks to a combination of teething and an ear infection, but it was Rachel who got up in the early hours and saw to her allowing me to stay in bed as I was to be up early in the morning. Rachel was quite willing to do this (or at least said she was!) so no battle there.

Monday is my main teaching day with six hours of teaching. That all seemed to go off without a hitch, and no arguments, battles, or significant challenges that I can recall. By the time I got home around 7pm, Freya was bathed and ready for bed and Rachel had the dinner on (her own recipe lasagne... the best ever). So still no battles. I put Freya to bed and within 5 minutes she'd fallen asleep. A very relaxing evening lay ahead and an early night. Not a battle in sight.

Tarot nil points.

Special Delivery

The reason I am up at 6am is the same reason it has been more than three months since I last posted a blog. On the 18th October 2007, I became a father again. The baby (let's call her Freya, because that's her name...) made an appearance 5 weeks early and so caught us by surprise! Just 4 hours separated the immortal words "I think my waters have broken..." shortly after midnight and the arrival of our beautiful baby girl in the early hours of the morning. After the initial shock and denial ("You sure you haven't just wet the bed...?"), I think Rachel and I made a pretty good team. Cool, calm, and collected was the impression I was trying to give as Rachel tried to tell me what I should pack in her hospital bag from her vantage point of the toilet.

All was going well apart from the fact that I couldn't seem to get Rachel to leave the safety of the bathroom in order to get her into the car. She was far too busy making sure there were no excess foodstuffs in her stomach (we're talking both ends here...). An hour after I had first phoned the hospital and been told to bring Rachel in, I phoned again to explain the allure of the bathroom and was advised to call for an ambulance. As I dialled 999, I realised that I had never dialled 999 before, which I guess is a good thing.

I explained that Rachel seemed to be in labour (she was now experiencing contractions a few minutes apart) and that I was unable to persuade her into the car to get her to the hospital. The man on the other end of the line assured me that an ambulance was on its way and stayed on the line until it arrived. "Whatever you do...", he instructed, "don't let her sit on the toilet!" Now he tells me.

Another half hour passed before the ambulance arrived, at which point I think I relaxed knowing that Rachel was now in safe hands. Only the previous morning, at our first (and as it turned out our only) antenatal class Rachel and I had talked of our plans to have the baby at home. But that idea had involved a birthing pool, relaxation CDs, and candles. Not me being instructed over the phone what to do if the baby's head appeared in much the same way as the guy in the Airplane movies is talked through landing the plane!

We arrived at the hospital at around 2.30 and were taken straight to the delivery suite. From here on, things progressed quickly. Rachel was an absolute star (she even told me she loved me between contractions!). For a few moments, when the doctor and midwives seemed to think that things weren't progressing quite the way they would have liked, there was talk of an assisted delivery. But it seemed that the sight of the doctor in his mask and gowns brandishing a pair of forceps was enough to give Rachel the extra push (as it were) and within minutes we were the very proud parents of a gorgeous little girl, born at 4.23am weighing 5lb 10oz.

I know I am just a little bit biased, but she is absolutely gorgeous. If you don't believe me, look here. Cute, eh? She now weighs more than double her birthweight and is now generally sleeping through the night till around 6am. After her feed this morning she has gone back to sleep as has Rachel, but I was wide awake so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post my first blog since Freya was born.

To my sleeping beauties. x

Turning 30!

by Rachel

In just under two months I am going to turn the big 3, 0, and up until a few weeks ago it hadn’t bothered me in the slightest. In fact I was one of those people who would insist, ‘I am not worried about turning 30, why would I be’. I was more worried about avoiding celebrating my thirtieth because of my pathological hate for birthdays, rather than the actual fact that I was going to be 30.

And then it happened. I started to panic.

Over the last few weeks I have been delving more into this ‘Turning 30’ lark. Though all I seem to keep getting told by websites and articles is that I should have done a parachute jump, travelled the world, lived in a different country, had a threesome, been involved in some form of kinky sex, paid off my credit cards, own my own house, own a sports car etc. etc.. Surely there are deeper concerns than these?

I am going to be 30, and I feel as if I haven’t achieved anything I wanted to achieve. I’m not married, in fact, I am not even engaged. I guess you could say I am in a ‘stable’ relationship, as yes we are living together, but marriage is a long way off. That started more panic, ‘Oh God, I am going to be an old bride, if in fact I ever get to be a bride’. Then I worry more about the fact that I am one of the few women that I know who is going to turn 30 and that no one has proposed to, am I really that poor a catch?

Then the panic about having children sets in. I don’t actually like children, but hey I would like the option to have them, but surely my biological clock is already ticking, it’s almost as if I can already hear it. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Perhaps I would like to have children, there was a time in my life when I wanted two, in fact I remember it precisely, I wanted a boy first and then a girl and would have been sorely disappointed if it had not worked out that way. Now I would just like the option to have a child, to actually find a mate who would like to have a child with me and before it is too late. There is goes again, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Don’t even get me started on my career, as far back as I can remember I have always wanted to be an actress. For years I dreamt of being ‘found’, I lived the deluded dream that one day a Television or Film director would just come across me at Gerrards Cross train station whilst on my way home from school. It’s not like I actually attempted to ‘be’ an actress, I didn’t go to Drama School, or studying acting at college or University, I just thought that I was destined to be found. By the time I was 18 and hadn’t yet been ‘found’ I went to University to study Media in the hope that if I got a job in Television I would be ‘found’ behind the scenes, in the same way that Caroline Aherne was.

The biggest blow to my acting career came when the actor John Thaw, famous for playing Inspector Morse, died in 2002. I had spent since 1988 fantasising that my first acting role would be playing alongside John Thaw, I even came up with the idea that unknown to Inspector Morse he had actually fathered a child, and I would be the person cast to play that role of his daughter. The day John Thaw died marked the end of my ‘dream’. Since then I have just resigned myself to the fact that I was actually destined to be behind the camera and not in front of it.

I started work in television nearly nine years ago, and the nearest to being an actress was when I worked as a Script Supervisor on ‘Most Haunted’ for Living TV where I spent hours in the middle of night looking for ghosts with a DV Camera in hand. I finally have to face that career wise I will turn thirty never having accepted the BAFTA and Oscar that I had dreamt of .

Sheila Pansal and Ellen Jackson writers of the book ‘Turning 30’ say: “Remember when you were 20, when you danced till dawn, dated people you knew you shouldn’t, worked hard, played hard, spent money on stuff you didn’t need…..”

Well what’s really changed? OK, I don’t dance until dawn as much as I did when I was 20, but it’s only because most of my mates are married or settled down. As for dating men that I shouldn’t, I am living with a married man. I don’t think I could have ended up dating anyone less ‘suitable’, and I certainly wouldn’t have dated a married man when I was 20!

Working hard, well when I am working, yes I do work hard, bloody hard in fact, far harder than I would have done when I was in my early twenties. Back then I didn’t actually care so much for the job as I did for the pay packet.

And what about the spending money on things I shouldn’t, at 20 I was spending £25 on a top for a night out with the girls, at 29 and 10 months I have far more expensive taste and at certain times during my late twenties have been known to spend near on £1,000 on three items of clothing, hardly something I think that my bank manager would approve of.

The truth is that when you hit thirty you start to wonder what you want to do with your life, will you ever be happy, fulfilled or successful. I think that reality finally slaps you in the face and you realise that you have to stop fantasising about your future. There isn’t going to be a dream man with no baggage, who will whisk you off your feet and take you away to Paris for a candlelit meal for no other reason than that he loves you. That children don’t always come when you want them, and if you are lucky enough to have one, then the best time to have them is when they can be made is out of love and not just because one or other partner wants one. And that perhaps it was time to get focused on what you really wanted to do with your career, rather than haphazardly moving from job to job in the hope that one day you will actually be in a career that you enjoy, rather than working for money.

I was rather intrigued to find out that in Astrology there is a period between 28 and 30 called Saturn’s Return. According to astrologers it is the first time that Saturn completes a cycle through your birth chart and is in the same place that it was at the time of your birth. Astrologers believe this to be one of the most important times in your life, a time of endings and beginnings.

As with any new phase in life, embarking on something ‘new’ can feel unsettling and even unpleasant as we are taken out of the comfort zone of what we know. Saturn’s Return is about examining what you truly want or desire, and although it is a very trying time, remember that anyone else who has turned 30, no matter what position they were in has probably felt the same frustration, loneliness and alienation. You need to realise that you do have friends out there who are probably going or have gone through the same set of emotions and that it is not always good to shut people out. By talking to other people about how you feel you can hopefully come to some understanding of what you want from life.

At the end of the day whether it is Saturn’s Return or just a Quarter life crisis, what turning 30 symbolises is the fact that you are now embarking on adulthood. You are now a fully fledged adult, and with that comes the feeling of responsibility, a sense that you need to be accomplishing things.

So next time you panic that you’re not getting married, or having babies, or in the right job or relationship, just remember that it is a natural progression, it’s written in the stars. As soon as you’re past that actual birthday hopefully you can just get on and start enjoying finally being a grown up.