Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The house purchase


Wahey! We are now the proud owners of a little house in New Bradwell. It is rather little, but it's ours. The downside is that we have to pay rent on our previous place until 6 November, so we have an overlap and certainly no money to meet it. Overdraft, anyone?

On 8 October (yes - Björn's birthday), we moved the furniture with the aid of members of our church cell group and a hired van. That night was the first night we slept there. We have since unpacked almost everything - just the conservatory and the thrid bedroom need work at this stage. It'll have to wait a little, though! The past two weekends have been spent doing house-things, and we have promised the boys that this weekend will be filled with family things. We do need to get them each gloves and things - the clocks are going back on Sunday (23 october) - always a sign that the morning journey to school is going to be cold - but apart from that, it's going to be swimming and badminton and movies and stuff. Bring it on!

Of course, Sod's Law being what it is, the microwave has packed up, as has Björn's bike - right now when we can least afford it. Oh, well... Björn is taking John's bike to and from school, while John is using Karyn's to get to the station and back (he is less worried about being seen on a "girl's" bike!). As to the microwave, we have just had to remember how to get by without it for now.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Torvald's news

Torvy is now 12 years old and is in Year 7 at school. This is the first year of Key Stage 3. He did well in his SATs exams last year scoring a level 5 for maths and science and a level 4 for English. We were surprised and disappointed in this last result, but all the papers in the school had been sent back for remarking, so we have just decided to shrug it off. Having achieved the 5 for maths, Torvy cares little about anything else - that was his big bugbear!

Now that we are in the new house, Torvy has to take a bus to school. For a little guy who struggles with change, this was an enormous undertaking, but he has coped beautifully with the situation. Just this very day, we heard from his teacher that he is a pleasure to teach - no trouble at all and great to have in the class. This is the sort of news every parent wants to hear! Way to go, Torvy!

Torvy is not a very sporty boy, but he takes part when he gets the opportunity. He does football after school, but didn't make the team. He isn’t particularly driven or competitive, so we're just happy that he takes part.

His feet are now larger than his Mom's, and he is growing fast, but he still has a little boy's face. He hasn't hit the growth spurt stage that his older brother has reached, so the height gap between the two boys has widened over the past year. It remains to be seen what happens when he hits his teens.

Like Björn, he is also taking guitar lessons, but he preferred an accoustic guitar, so we bought him one of those. He practises a bit more than Björn, but still not often enough. We are really hoping that music will turn out to be his passion. He has never yet found something that ignites him. This makes it tough for him in a family with so many passions, pastimes and hobbies.

John's work news


John is still plodding on at Marchpole. His boss (the FD) left in the last few days, things having finally reached an impasse between him and the others on the board.

When he called John in to let him know that he was leaving (which he did within hours of the conversation), he told him that he had never known an IT department to be run so slickly. I have always known that John runs a tight ship, and this was vindication indeed. If only he bottle that and produce it as evidence in an interview... but sadly, it's a little hard to prove.

He still sends in applications to posts nearer home, but age-ism is alive and well in the UK. If you are over 40 in IT, you'd best hang onto the job you've got, because a new one isn't likely to be forthcoming.

Of course, his ideal would be to be offered a job in San Francisco. We fell head over heels in love with the place when we were there last summer, much to my surprise - I had always been completely sure that America wouldn't appeal to me in the slightest.

Karyn's work news

For those who don't know, I work as a learning designer for a company called Capita in the Learning and Development division.

Capita is a FTSE100 company, and this particular division was listed as one of the top 100 companies in the UK to work for last year, so I sat up and paid attention when the offer came through.

I was sorry to leave Christie + Co slap bang in the meaty part of the Sigma project, where we were building up to the roll-out of a new bespoke central system, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about instructional design and to try my hand at "proper" e-learning.

I can honestly say that I have already learnt a huge amount and look forward learning more.

My office is in Bedford, although many members of the team work remotely from home, and that option is available to me going forward. I might explore it once I have got a handle on things. Bedford is not far from MK - only 18 miles or so, but the morning traffic means it can take 50 minutes to an hour. Bleagh! I am looking into options like cycling and stuff, but the English weather is not conducive!

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Björn's news


This young man is blossoming nowadays. He is 14 now, almost as tall as I am and his face is changing as the bones grow and become more masculine. His nose has become very much like my Mom's, which is a surprise, since it showed no sign of doing so until very recently. He officially has the biggest feet in the family, having now outstripped his Dad on that score. We bought him a pair of football boots recently, and they were size 9 (UK).

He is now in his second year of high school, which he thoroughly enjoys. He has been afforded the opportunity to play a great many sports he hadn't previously tried and has been game for all of them. Whenever a competitor is needed for his hall team to compete against the other halls, his hand goes up - even when he hasn't really played the sport before. As a result, he has swum, played tennis, badminton, cricket, rugby, basketball, football (soccer), rounders, thrown a javelin, run, jumped (high, long and triple) and so the list goes on. He is the top javelin thrower in his age group at school (and considering that there are over 2500 kids in the school, that's some achievement) and came third in the regional competition. He laps it up.

Academically, he is cruising at the moment. He is the top science student in his class by a long shot. He is among the top few for a few other subjects as well, including French, where he does a fine approximation of a French accent. I have concerns about the lack of homework he seems to receive, but he says he completes it at school and all his teachers are happy with the promptness of his completed work, so one assumes he's telling the truth on that score, but after the warning we got from the head teacher about the workload this year, I was expecting more.

Discipline in the school is lax and teachers are powerless in this country to compel the children to comply. If a child is disruptive in class and the teacher sends them out of the room, they might refuse to leave, and then the teacher is sunk. This disrupts the lesson for the rest of the class. This is particularly the case in the performing arts subjects. Both those teachers tell me he is one of the few kids who does as he is asked, but those few are regularly disappointed as the rest of the class brings the lesson to a grinding halt.

Björn recently started guitar lessons and we bought him an electric guitar. Predictably he needs to be nagged to practise, but he seems to be making fair progress.

He currently has a girlfriend called Chrissy who attends our church. She is a little older than he is - a year ahead at school. A sweet girl and it doesn't hurt that she is drop dead gorgeous to boot!

Friday, October 07, 2005

Church

As a family, we attend the New Life Church (north). This is part of the New Frontiers family of churches, of which there will soon be three in our city. We have recently outgrown our building and have yet to find a new one to suit our requirements, so we currently meet in the sports hall of a local high school.

The church is a very mixed group with people from all over the world and all walks of life. The range of accents, dialects and skin tones to be encountered within the congregation is very wide indeed. Most continents are represented!

We assist in the leadership of a midweek cell group which meets in the homes of the various members on a Thursday evening. The group enjoys socialising together and a good many of our meetings involve food!

Karyn sings in the church band, while John helps out on the Alpha course. Björn and Torvald are both "mini-stewards" and Björn has recently taken on the repsonsibility of operating the overheads for the worship. Karyn also helps out by creating the PowerPoint presentations to support some sermons. The boys attend the church youth socials on a Friday evening, where they enjoy a wide range of activities from ten pin bowling and quazar to death-by-chocolate and sleepovers.

The church forms the core of our social life and most of our friends are drawn from the congregation. There are many families with children of the same age group as our own, which makes it a very comfortable environment.

About us


Who are we? We're just your average family. Mom, Dad and two growing boys. We have all the usual ups and downs, highs and lows that go together with family life in the early 21st century. John and Karyn both work, and deal with all the fallout that that entails. For this day and age, we are fairly unusual in that we are still on our first marriage! Seventeen years and still going strong.

As a family we have a lot of interests and not nearly enough time to pursue them. As a churchgoing family, we also have commitments on that front.

Busy, busy, busy.