before little Noë made his entrance i managed to read a couple of books which I can now highly recommend. the first, ‘The Ethics of What We Eat’ by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, covers all things food related and how removed most of us are from the process. it’s a very balanced but quite depressing look at the industry, generally from an American perspective, but they do discuss Australia too. certainly makes you think about what we eat and how that is affecting the planet and contributing seriously to climate change.

on a lighter note, the other book we can highly recommend is ‘Culture Club’ by Craig Schuftan. for those of you who are dedicated JJJ listeners you will know what this is about, but for those outside of Australia and those weirdos who chose to listen to some other radio station here in Australia not worth bothering about, this is a fantastic read about “modern art, rock and roll and other things your parents warned you about”. A very entertaining and easy read!

out of all the photographs we have taken since the arrival of beautiful Noë these two would have to be py’s favourites. 

other pictures are available on py’s facebook page and we will be uploading a set to flickr next week when mum and baby are back home

Mac here, very quickly before heading back to hospital - well it finally happened 10.30 we had the most amazing little boy arrive into this world. I’ll let py share the details but it was a long slog for her but she was amazing, don’t know how women do it but to have been there was incredible if not also the scariest thing I have ever done.

He is 7.7lb lots of hair and big ‘kangaroo’ feet, he’s got a lovely little face with bit’s of both of us I think and the most messmerising eye’s - as you’d guess I had a few tears. Pictures tonight when I bring the memory card home from hospital and get a bit of time for a proper entry.

Well love to you all our friends around the world and hopefully some of you will get to have your first cuddles sometime soon

love the three of us
xxxx

here are some more photos of the house renovations. we still need to strip and stain the woodwork, but that will happen in a couple of months. the nursery is coming along nicely and we will have some more pictures up of that soon.

quick update on the nursery mural from the weekend.

i know pregnant woman on a ladder, but you try telling her to rest!! but at least py has somewhere to rest her pot of paint.

here are a couple of pictures showing our house painting in progress. Mac spent his week off before startinbg his new job painting the hall, master bedroom and preparing the nursery. over the weekend pyMac together started the mural for the Jellybean’s new room - more shots of finished rooms to come. ps for anyone interested the guest room is ready for guests…

we’ve been meaning to post this up for a while, made us laugh, kinda the equivilent of ‘Chav Bingo’ in the UK except Metal instead of Garage. Markskaaa this one is very much for you. the website is very funny, especially the bio’s of the bingo callers check it out here

the studio I am about to join - Rich Creative, have recently worked with Greening Australia on the ‘Breathe Easy’ intiative see more here

well this is our first entry from the new home. we moved in over two days last weekend, Mac had much appreciated help from Shayne (our Canadian contact - good friend from Spin) and py in best tradition did the van driving. the move was largely uneventful, after all we have moved from the UK to France and back in the past. however there was one potential catch - we had purchased a large pine linen chest some weeks prior - so big Mac can get his entire t-shirt collection in one drawer with room to spare.

the first attempt to deliver the chest to our flat had ended with said chest being taken back to storage by the shop we bought it from. we then had to have it delivered and stored in our lock up garage the week before the house settlement. py was certain getting it into the new house wouldn’t be a problem, but we hadn’t actually measured it at any point. so it was that we came to the task of getting our new linen chest into the house. a little bit of light push and shove made it very clear it would get in but that we’d have to remove the front door and so py went in search of a screwdriver, Shayne took the door off and the chest made it in safe and sound.

we have now been in the new place for a week and it feels great to have our own little home, we have a little unpacking left to do, and Mac is very excited about getting to work on the nursery in a couple of weeks - pictures to flickr coming soon.

well we thought now would be a good time to update you all with a couple of things that will be changing soon. Mac has manged to land himself a pretty exciting job at a creative agency called Rich Creative. not content with moving house and having a baby we thought hey lets get a new job at the same time. Mac starts his new job on 18th June. on the house front, we move in next weekend. we took the final house inspection today, all papers are signed from our side and keys change hands next friday. once in we are both looking forward to getting the paint brushes and picture hooks out.

well for all of you that have been requesting a picture of “the bump”, here it is in all it’s glory. only 11 weeks to go now!

you may have picked up on this from the previous entry. well indeed pyMac and pyMac Mini recently had an amazing road trip to Sydney along the SE coast from Melbourne and back main land via the Hume Highway. we camped at various beach spots along the way with the highlight being a bush campsite at a beach called ‘pebbly beach’. pebbly beach lacks pebbles, not that we were complaining, but does have it’s own wildlife right there on the beach and in the campsite - see pics above. it must be noted that one of the many highlights on the trip for py was being driven for over 100km’s by Mac out of a total of 2500km’s! half way point on the road trip was a stay in Sydney with py’s school friend Caroline and her fiancé Sasa. thanks guys for a great few days and the loan of your bed - hope to see you in Melbourne very soon. the return from Sydney was along the Hume Highway ending with a day driving through the area closest to Melbourne that was hit by the bushfires. plenty of pictures to upload to Flickr once Mac has found 5 minutes to edit them all. 

well after our little excursion to Sydney over the easter break we are uploading a piccie of the front of our house to be. probably looks quite funny to you english folk, what with it being a bungalow - no we haven’t become pensioners over night, just the way things are here. the picture isn’t great as we have had to resize it from the real-estate website until we take some proper ones. but when you come to visit this is where you will most likely be staying - and especially for Mark we think we may have ‘bogans’ as neighbours.

py went for the second trimester scan last thursday and spent an hour laid out on the bed, whilst jellybean proceeded to move around like a mexican jumping bean. it is quite amazing to see all the detail they manage to pick up, especially seeing the face for the first time, although it does look a little alien-like due to it’s constant wriggling! i have now passed the 22 week mark and am still feeling pretty good, although a little tight around the middle. i was informed that Jellybean weighs about 490 grams, so we are getting bigger all the time. thankfully the movements are not yet brutal enough to hurt.