Lily Beatrice

One of the primary questions I have had to deal with from my family is, of course, why the name Lily? I've given them all so much grief over the (in some cases) weird names of their kids that I was bound to come under intense scrutiny. Thank God the baby was a girl is all I can say, I was really struggling for a decent boy's name.

Lily is named after her three times great aunt, Lily Hodgson, born in Millom in the Lake District in 1890. As mentioned previously, the Hodgson family were miners - with my late Dad being the 5th generation to earn his living that way. So Lily's dad, Ralph, after being born in Grassington in Yorkshire where his dad Joseph was a miner, moved to the mines in and around Millom. Ralph's son (and Lily's brother) George moved to Rhodesia where he lived out the rest of his life in mining, as did his son Ralph (my grandad). Sadly I have not yet been able to trace Lily's current family - mainly due to the pompous and fussy bureaucracy in England which states that the ten-yearly census data must be kept from the public eye for 100 years - so the most recent information I can access is from 1901.

Anyway she's a cute kid and pretty well behaved too (inasmuch as I can tell, having so little experience). I am very conscious of what an old dad I will be when she's a fractious teenager and so am building a store of devastating anecdotes about her infancy as ammunition for later arguments. For example, when troubled by a bubble of midsection gas, she contorts her face into the most amazing grimaces, goes a plummy red colour and then, at the climatic moment, lifts one eyebrow and expels a thunderclap. Marcela has demonstrated that she cannot lift one eyebrow and, by means of this somewhat meagre defence material, claims that the entire performance is thus genetically derived from the Hodgson clan (notorious eyebrow lifters and occasional farters).

Another endearing habit she has is of sleeping with her left hand to her ear as though on the mobile phone. Once again I am minded to see this as a simple quirk of nature related to her prior somewhat cramped quarters inside her Mom, but there may also be grounds for taking this as an early warning of expenses to come.

Sunday morning and I guess I better go to the gym. Being wakened several times during the night, albeit ever so gently by the small sounds of baby feeding, reduces me to a strangely zombified state. Perhaps some brisk exercise will help dispel the cobwebs - in any event I need to go to sleep early tonight as I am getting up at 03h00 on Monday to head for the airport. Norwich is a lovely city but so damn remote and I need to be in Germany for an early workshop.

The Hoglet has landed

... and Dad wins £5 from Mom!! Lily Beatrice Hodgson arrived by (eventual) C-Section at around 01h30 on 19th January, weighing in at 4,5kg or pretty much 10 pounds. My two special ladies are both still in hospital so your prayers are appreciated - I hope to retrieve them next week and bring them home to our little cottage in Norwich. She's a dark Latin beauty like her mother, but with the bulk and muscle of a true Hodgson already. I hope to provide more photos soon but frankly I'm so knackered I can't keep my eyes open... and I can only guess how Marcela feels after the string of mishaps and problem all through the pregnancy. Anyway, dear readers, say hello to a very determined young lady who is already showing a distinct personality. 

Waiting for Godot

Still no sign of the Hogga sprogga as of Sunday 14th, little bugger ruining his (or her) dad's reputation for punctuality. An induction is planned for midweek, and if all goes according to plan then I'll leap off the plane from Dusseldorf, drive back to Norwich after 2 days high pressure consulting and pause only to collect Marcela before heading to the hospital. It looks to be a long week.

Anyway so far so good - work is interesting, doing a project recovery for a major client in Germany. The weird thing is that it is quicker for me to fly from Norwich to Amsterdam to Dusseldorf than it is to go by train from Norwich to my office in SW London (that's the building I am pictured standing outside - in the same office park as my cousin Grant, by some rare coincidence). I wonder how many years of my life I've spent in transit, both literally and figuratively. Germany will be the 21st country I have worked on assignment in and the 31st I have visited. Still, it's long overdue for the Hogga to visit the land of some of his forefathers - as mentioned in other blog pages, my dad's mum's family originate from Germany although they left it for South Africa in 1700 (Erasmus) and 1713 (Swart).

More news soon, I have a £5 bet that it's a girl while Marcela, bolstered by a lot of anecdotal evidence about the shape and size of her pregnant tummy, is convinced it's a boy. My bet is backed by a peculiar vision I had of the kid, a little sharp-nosed princess with black hair and eyes, while listening to its heartbeat around month 7.