(On account of him only living to 33.)

So far, today has entailed washing up a pot and a pan and giving Sjr the emergency backup bottle. There is now a... used nappy in my immediate future - I'm sure the year will bring many more of those.

I wonder whether the decision then is to sleep, to play or to be hungry. Again.

On the 24th of March, our daughter was born.

She was very premature - over eleven weeks - and started out in the NICU. She has been doing very well so far, and while she is still in the hospital, and will stay there for another few weeks at least, she does not currently require intensive care.

She is tiny. She is also amazing.

(With thanks to leedy for coining the term "krabbelet")

Five cancellations, two rebookings refused because the other flight was also already cancelled. Le sigh.

Looking for a stable.

It's cold, it's wet, it makes airports close and Gabe sad.

Humbug.

Four years. Four years we've lived here. Four years, and there's still no good bread to be bought.

It's mighty hard to buy any bread, mind - for the most part, the locals will call a bag of squishy, damp, character-, body- and tasteless sliced toast "bread"; the available alternatives are either the fluffy, airy, body-, character- and tasteless "vienna bread" or the dense, solid, tough and malevolent "soda bread". None of those are really acceptable as part of a proper Teutonic breakfast.

Breakfast, you see, does not involve frying pans, it does not involve pots, and most certainly doesn't contain potatoes. No, breakfast is the festival of the hunter, the gatherer, the herdsman and the planter. Brekfast is the triumph over meat - Aufschnitt (uncomprehendingly paraphrased as "deli meat" when seen, incomprehensibly not called "sausage", of which it is simply cut - possibly because items commonly called thus are made entirely of pork fat and sawdust). Breakfast is the triumph over fruit - Marmelade (called "jam" here, under the misguided assumption that citric acid is special magic). Breakfast is the triumph of man over beast - Butter (unsalted, for it is versatile and may be used for sweetness) and Käse (which is neither cheddar nor moldy). Breakfast, finally, is the triumph over the soil - Brot (of wheat and rye, for using both gives body and texture, using both gives taste and character). Of all four, it is the bread that ties them together, just as the farmstead gave the hunter, the gatherer and the herdsman a home and a centre to return to.

So anyway, I baked bread yesterday, and the only thing that went wrong is that I made rather more than I'd intended. On the other hand, we've already eaten almost half of it, so that's probably a good thing. And it was quite easy, too. Next, I think I shall try making my own Sauerteig.

The start of a year is a time to practice writing the new date (it's Decebruary 20089), a time to enjoy the quiet in the office, a time to revel in the knowledge that there may be three months of (relative) winter ahead, but the days are growing longer.

A while ago my manager asked what kind of career I had in mind; he paraphrased himself as "where do you see yourself in five years?" Well, in five years I will have a four-year-old - it's a singularity of sorts, in that I can guess and plan my life, but I have less control over where it'll go than I did in the past.

Among the many things that change is the loss of the study in the house we're in. We can either rearrange things to have a child bedroom and put the computer desk in the guest bedroom, or we can move house. In good sysadmin planning spirit, we're doing both, rearranging furniture while looking to see if we find a great place. Part of the problem there is the definition of "great" - we don't want to move every other year, but will we want a second child? If so, when? Will S want to go back to employed work? If so, when? When the first krabbelet¹ starts having an interest in the outdoors, what kind of garden/commute tradeoff will we want? That makes coming up with criteria a bit harder than it was the last time we looked for a place to live: "House. With rooms in. Reasonable train access good."

On the other hand, wow.

¹ With thanks to leedy

No, I wasn't tagged.

( But I'm happy anyway. )

On Monday, S will take part in the Flora Women's Mini Marathon (a 10km race for charities - one gets the entrance fees, any number of others hand out sponsorship cards). That meant that she had to pick up her race number today (or over the weekend, but we're flying to Munich (back on Sunday), for the christening of our second godson). That, in turn meant that *I* had to pick up her number, because the collection point only opened at one, and our flight was due to leave at four: with the motorbike, I stood a narrow chance to do the round-trip in time. Well, the round trip plus a bit of waiting in the queue, with apparently everyone else having extra time for a bit of a chat - with one another, with the ladies at the registration desk, with their infant children, or with imaginary friends.

I blame the weather; I believe we haven't had over 20 degrees all year.

Anyway, riding like hell through traffic from same to get home, driving like hell along the construction site they call "M50" to get to the airport, dropping S off to check us in and hand Aer Lingus our bag while I parked the car: No problem, ten minutes to spare. And then the plane was an hour delayed anyway.

We're spending this weekend in Munich, for the christening of our second godson.

[Backdated, on account of alcohol, then lack of interwebs...]

Yesterday's exam was in Statistics. The haircut may have helped with the feeling-younger; or maybe that was the Theology exam in the same hall, with some over-sixties in attendance.

Again, I should have passed, but beyond that, I have no idea.

After the exam, we retired to the nearest pub, had a pint and a pint and a pint, then the two of the originally six of us who were still there went back into the campus to enjoy the sunset from the Pav(-illion). Over a pint. And then another one.

S graciously picked me up, and just like that, the first year of the three was done. Three weeks or so until the results.

At some point real soon now I'll tell people just why I'm doing this.

Last exam for the year, assuming I pass them all...

And today, I won't feel old, because I got a haircut! A colleague of mine does a good mohawk; that should do it.