Ex Berkshire semper aliquid novi

The dawn of another year – and by all indications a year of change and movement. Not that this would be unusual for the Hogga household, to be sure. But certainly the harbingers and omens of more white water ahead are already popping up.

I guess I may have triggered these off by growing a festive beard. This is a nasty ginger affliction that appears whenever I get a week off from work and don’t have to go out in public much – and judging by the look on Lily’s face it is a good thing I shaved it off for New Year.

Lily herself, as is the way with babies, is developing at an incredible pace. Leaps and bounds, you might say, given that she took her first steps on Christmas day in front of the family gathering at Ashford Bowdler in Shropshire.

By New Year’s Eve she had to be retrieved from halfway up the staircase at Luke and Claire’s house in Norfolk and by her birthday on 19th January she was already deriving much amusement from stealing items from me and running away.

She’s a great kid, happy and alert – and not too grizzly apart from the bouts of teething that all kids get. Exhausting though, and I have no idea how Marcela survives being with her all day while I loll around at work.

Otherwise it has been a pretty dismal winter here in West Berkshire – dark and damp – and I must confess to scanning the intranet for jobs somewhere more inclined to sunshine. The temperatures are tolerable enough – we had only one cold snap of -5 degrees and today it’s 12 – but the dark gloom is what gets me. My equatorial upbringing has accustomed me to days that are pretty much the same length all year round, and to try and drive to work in the dark and then keep working a couple of hours after sunset is just profoundly disturbing. I end up semi-hibernating, gorging on carbohydrates and uninclined to any exertion… ah well, maybe the Hoggas will be lucky enough to find some work in the Middle East or Oz.. I’ve taken to smiling nicely at the company representatives from our more far-flung regions in the hope that they’ll take me home with them.. still, as long as the work allows me to spend time with baby Hogga then I'm fine..