Once more unto the breech

No, not Hogga finally losing the grammar drummed into him by cousin and English teacher Guy Cary (another descendant of HF Cary), but an attempt at a pun combining Prince Harry a.k.a. Henry V, his famous speech from the play and the position our new arrival adopted for much of his pre-natal sojourn in Mummy's tummy. OK OK, weak, I know, but it's early on a freezing wet morning here in Birmingham..

Welcome to Henry Alexander Hodgson

And now, at last, I can reveal the world's worst kept secret! On 25th November my wife was delivered of a baby boy at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. In direct contrast to the arrival of Lily Beatrice, this time the pregnancy was uneventful and the birth was fraught. As I write this, Marcela and Henry are still incarcerated in the hospital after a week but that's mostly down to delays in processing blood tests and I am instructed by my darling wife to effect a jailbreak later today no matter what the medics say.

Henry Alexander is named Henry in honour of Henry Francis Cary, his many times great-grandfather who was born on 6th December 1772 and who later wrote the definitive translation of Dante's Inferno. H.F. Cary is buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. When Henry grows up he can choose to be known as Henry, Harry (as is the English custom), Alexander or Alex. Or he can go with tradition and be called "Hogga" like I was.

So what can I tell you? The little mite was not so little - 9 pounds 14 at birth. This is 2 ounces less than Lily's birth weight but I suspect Harry is taller and thinner. Lily has shown little interest in her brother thus far during her visits to the hospital, apart from giving him a few prods and exclaiming "It's a baby!". She then proceeded to reprogram the TV console and partially dismantle the adjustable bedframe, displaying her engineering genetic inheritance from Marcela.

Thank God Granny from Moldova is here, looking after our precious and precocious first born... what with Marcela in Oxford and me spending long days on a contract in Birmingham, we'd have been in right trouble without someone keeping the home fire burning in Newbury.

Anyhoo I better do some work, more news will be posted later.