October onward
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Money Saving Tip - Child Trust Fund
Some more great financial advice for us new parents. This is a guide on how best to invest your £250 from the tax man ... click here for the advice.Bathtime for Lyra

Lyra loves her bathtime with auntie Lol. More pics of Lyra's progress are available on Flickr.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Lyra Alice is born ... 2 weeks ago!
It's a bit late but here's our lovely daughter Lyra Alice! She was born on the 16th October at 3.58pm.She's 10 minutes old in this picture and still covered in this fine hair called vernix which falls off soon afterwards .. makes her look like a monkey!
We had a home birth with labour starting on Sunday early evening ... we panicked for a few hours unnecessarily as this was only the beginning - I spent 2 hours filling the birthing pool up with a bucket while Les started moaning about some abdominal pains or something! The mid-wife was called over, early ... twice ... Indeed we spent a good few hours of in bed after the mid-wife ordered us to rest. Eventually it was time for the pool and lesley worked hard for another few hours ... unbelievable respect to any woman going through it. Jeez, the pain they endure is unreal.
Eventually we were into second stage labour, we thought we had at least an hour left so the mid-wife had the bright idea of getting out the pool for a walk to let gravity help us out ...
... Lyra was born on the bathroom floor 5 minutes later in what the mid-wife said was the fastest 2nd stages she'd ever seen. Lesley was standing trying to walk so we could get back in the pool when she just popped out! The cord was wrapped around her neck four times but she was ok. I was completely unprepared and have to say it was without a doubt the weirdest and most amazing thing I've ever witnessed. She was completely white and alien looking ... didn't seem real at all. The cord was weird too, lke a twisted rubber hose with thin wire running through it ... was hard to cut through.
Anyway ... Lesley is well ... she only had a little bit of gas, quite remarkable really.
I had the unbelieveably dull task of emptying the birthing pool ... it's huge and I had a bucket! Eventually I worked out how to siphen the water ... and got a right mouthfull!
Lots more pics going up on Flickr over the next few weeks no doubt and if anyone was wondering about the name, yes, it was inspired by the Philip Pullman 'Dark Materials' character but after looking into it I was pleasantly suprised to see it is also the name of a constellation of stars, which is up my street without being too hippy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Save £1000's on childcare
Read this article and learn how to save £1000's on childcare. This guy has some great advice if your finances have taken a knock!Sunday, October 01, 2006
How to roast potatoes
We bought ourselves a big freezer for the garage and are busy stocking up on food for those hectic first couple of weeks. This site is great for cooking tips but couldn't find any parenting videos. Hmmm, maybe I should get a video camera.Saturday, September 30, 2006
Our kid
Here's the YouTube version of the DVD we had produced by BabyBond of our unborn at 27 weeks. For anyone unaware of this technique it is like an ultrasound which also creates a 4d representation of the baby in the womb. It was quite amazing to watch in real-time. Especially when he/she yawned!On WARD?
Can I just add that when thinking of an appropriate name for the blog, 'October Onward' was meant to suggest from October onward and wasn't supposed to be a terrible pun about you ladies possibly being 'On ward' ... {cough} ... erm, we can change the name!Welcome to the blog
Welcome to the blog of the October NCT group in Hertfordshire. If you wish to author on this blog then contact the administrator here with your Google account name. You'll also have access to the group Google calendar.If you do not wish to setup a Google account you can still comment on any of the posts and can view the calendar by clicking on the Google calendar badge.
Please email me or comment on this post with suggestions for links we can add to this page to make it more useful. I have already added a link to the NCT site, the calendar and the Flickr photo group I've made. Enjoy!

