The First of Many

As a wise old Chinese man once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” This can be equally said for a lifetime of many years beginning with one year, and what a year it has been.

It was a year ago last week that we were rushed in to the emergency caesarean situation at Stepping Hill Hospital after receiving the news that Sophie, or Twin 2, had stopped growing in the womb. From that first initial shock, through the exceptional anxiety of the first two weeks, through the 3 months that we then spent in hospital every day watching Sophie grow as much as she could, through the scares that we have continually had since she has been at home (and also one scare with Dylan), and the ongoing struggle to give each of them the support that they need – I think that it is safe to say that Claire and I have changed infinitely.

I almost class myself as naïve and carefree a year ago compared to the man that I have now become. I know that through the tests that have come our way I can cope with most things that life can throw at me, and this has given me a sense of invincibility. It has helped me to put life into perspective and understand what’s important, and what really isn’t. Southampton struggling in the Championship is still wrangling with me, but it is under control and pigeonholed in the slightly irritating box.

Life is something to be grasped at immediately, because you never know what is coming up, and the biggest tragedy of it all is if you do nothing. If you give something a go and it doesn’t come off, then at least you’ve tried.

Anyway, after the year that we have had we thought it would be nice to have some friends round to the house to celebrate their first birthday, and the future. But in true neo-Holley style it all went pear-shaped and we had to tell 40 people that it was off due to Claire feeling as rough as some heavy-duty sandpaper. So in the end the celebration was kept low-key, with just a couple of friends coming over to have a cake.

But we did manage to get out on their actual birthday, which was on Thursday, and we travelled to Chester to the Blue Planet. Unfortunately this was not a museum for Pornographic material, or a tribute to Blue Peter, but an Aquarium. It had one of those tunnels that you walk through and can see Sharks willies and stingray mouths. But the kids loved it they were looking wide-eyed at the fish probably thinking that we had taken them to, literally, another planet. It must be quite astonishing to experience fish for the first time, no-one ever knows what that feels like because by the time we become adults we have erased all of this memory. But imagine trying to work it out in simple terms. They’re in the bath but they don’t come out for air, they don’t have any arms or legs but they still move, and strangest of all, they live in a television set. Crazy.

So we blew their minds for an hour or so, and then came back to reality. But it was a really nice day.

This gave Claire and I the catalyst for another one of our ideas. We would try and have as many day trips as we could in order to visit places around where we live that we have never been to before. The rules are that every Sunday one of us picks the destination and we then take off and explore. Only conditions are that one of us has not been there before, and we have to go where the other person wants. There is no negotiation.

Then, in a Bill Bryson manner, I will report on the trip in the following Blog entry, reviewing all aspects of the place and giving any funny anecdotes that have occurred whilst on the journey. This will provide the reader with a better insight into the beautiful world of the Northwest, and also stop being bored so much with your heroes’ incessant philosophical rubbish that ends up being written each time in the absence of any real content. So, today is the first day of this new plan, and as I won the toss in a strict ECB rules flip, I will decide the first destination. Now, as usual, it is raining in Manchester, so I must come up with somewhere that will not dampen our spirits as much as it dampens our clothes. (Brilliant)

Little Moreton Hall is the venue for the first day trip. It was built in the 15th Century, and is apparently the best example of a timber-framed moated country house in Britain. How can we possibly never have been there before? How can anyone be expected to carry on living without seeing the best example of a timber-framed moated country house in Britain?