The Hogga Sprogga

It's been an interesting year so far I must admit. Entirely in keeping with my preferred approach of getting all my major stressors out the way at once, the month of April saw me buying a house, being made redundant and, as it turns out, demonstrating at long last a degree of fertility. Yes indeed, dear readers, there is a mini-me on the way. A Hogga Sprogga - or hoglet - has survived some early scary incidents and now appears to have settled down and be growing nicely in time for a mid-January arrival, God willing. Marcela is happy, glowing and thriving and we've decided to get engaged too. Marriage will sadly have to wait while we unravel a mare's nest of bureaucracy around a Zimbabwean passport-holding UK permanent resident wanting to marry a Romanian-passport holder here on a business visa. And relocate out of this one-employer town to somewhere I can find a meaningful career and afford baby clothes..

So. Wow. A new way of life looms. Long overdue, of course, and at my advanced age the poor wee mite will be more likely to be pushing me round in a wheelchair than me pushing him/her in a pram, what with my buggered knees and all, but still fantastic news. And you may have gathered we have no idea what gender it will be - and don't really want to know. Too much information and not enough magic and surprise makes the world a poorer place.

I'm not an expert on this but I gather it will be a little while before the kid can read well enough to get a job and suchlike - even so I am already stocking up on books and things and recently I spent a happy hour re-reading the Beatrix Potter stuff. Some of the starring animals are of dubious character, with larcenous mice, overdressed frogs and a hedgehog that looks positively gin-soaked and raddled, but all in all good stuff and I shall be reading it to both baby and mother. Along with excerpts from some decent thinkers like Feyerabend, Polyani and others of course. But no local news - I fear for the poor child's sanity if it finds out its father left sunny Zimbabwe to avoid a megalomaniac head of state who continually favoured cronies, circumvented the democratic process and ignored domestic misery in favour of strutting the world stage like a shabby bantam rooster - and has wound up in the gloomy UK watching Tony Blair do the same and compounding the error by kissing up to George Bush. Plus ca change and all that.

Still, old Blighty is a good place. The Poms have many strange habits and customs and in some ways are just as alien to me as the Saudis were - but I can tell you that a Friday evening spent in the lounge of a Victorian cottage eating Maltesers and watching Jonathan Ross is a very nice way to pass the time. If it were only a little more sunny more often, and if I could afford some acreage and persuade more of my family to join me, I'd be quite happy to stay here forever. At least Hogga Junior will be born here and be British by birth - probably the best start in life I can arrange. It means he or she will not have to spend years and years working in chaotic countries and saving volatile currencies just to try find some stability, as I did. And with careful time management, the kid will start work around when I retire and am needing some extra income....