Listen

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

Most of my friends have a lot say. I always feel like I listen an awful lot. The moment I realise I have been listening for a while is subconciously the moment when I get bored of the monologue. When I talk, and am asked to enlarge on whatever it is I am talking about I get excited to think I suddenly have an opportunity to tell my story with an audience. This feeling of happiness is what defines a friend from an aquaintance.

The first line is quoted from Hemingway.

Phil & Teds

We finally received the buggy in the post, and we are happy parents! Catalina sleeps like a dream in the lower section; she's lying flat in the lower horizontal part of the buggy below where Juanita is sitting - notice Juana's position is quite high. When Cat is over six months old we'll put her in the front, so Juanita's present seat will disengage and fit low down. Ok, I won't go on about it, but I think I'm the most excited one in the family. It's like getting a new car!












Yesterday Mum phoned early in the morning because she'd stayed at my brother's house in London. Vicky turned up at ours soon after, so the two grannys were together, fighting over Catalina.

2007

This new year is anything but uneventful. The family on both sides of the atlantic have all contributed to help us buy the double buggy we wanted so Ro could carry the two girls easily - especially with the stairs up to our front door. Traditional double buggies with the chair on either side would have been impossible, they barely fit through doors. But this new design is single file, a great concept. I don't envy Ro, after my month off from work I appreciate it's hard work looking after the children and the house - I'm glad to be back in the office where I can have an uninterupted break whenever I choose to have it!

There's a saying in Spanish that says a new baby never arrives without bread under their arm, which means that somehow you seem to make ends meet, and it appears so, for now. I'm on the brink of going freelance as a lighting cameraman, finally leaving the comfortable security of a regular salary. I shouldn't write about it before it happens but I might already have a few days work for BBC2 in a couple of weeks, and that will be good for me to meet new faces and get my name around, hopefully bringing in new work. I'm confident of my skill, it's just making the contacts.

After ten years I'm finally facing my worst fear; to face the insecurity of no guarantee. No regular salary, even though they say it's great when you finally get there. I left university aiming to be an illustrator and chickened out because I didn't want to suffer 'five' years of searching for work, so I left for Spain then Italy. Because of the language skills I picked up I met my wife, and we knew without really talking much about it how we wanted a family. How can I have done all I have done with ambition and excitement, yet fear this peculiar thing? Well, it's rewarding to know that my time has come to face this particular demon that I've avoided for so long. For what is life for if it's not to be challenged?