Gemma’s Pregnancy - Week 32

There are only 8 weeks left until our new baby boy is born.

Everything is progressing as it should be, as we had confirmed today with an ultrasound scan. It was a growth scan to check that baby was growing as he should be, after a “soft marker” showed up at an earlier scan.

The scan showed that he showed no sign of the hypoechogenic bowel that was previously present, and also that he was on target for the size that he should be at this stage of the pregnancy.

Gemma is getting really uncomfortable with each passing day, having to carry all the extra weight around. It does make things a little difficult, especially sleeping at night. Not long to go now babe. It will all be worth it in the end.

If the extra weight wasn’t enough to stop Gemma sleeping properly, then the leg cramps certainly are. They strike at all hours of the night, which disturbs Gemma’s sleep even more than usual.

Each passing day makes me more and more nervous. It makes me nervous because within the next few weeks labour could start at any time. It’s in the back of my mind that I hope that the labour is not too quick, especially as I work about an hour from home.

You wouldn’t think that we’d done this before.

Till next time …

Stopped by the Police!

Gemma had a bit of an exciting day on Monday. Having been out in the morning with Ellie they were on their way home when they were stopped by the police.

The police were out in force doing their usual vehicle checks. Gemma was spotted by the lead police car, who radioed his mate to stop her to check the tinted windows in the car.

Gemma stopped as requested and the nice policeman (he was genuinely nice according to Gemma!) He checked the windows to see how much light was being let in, and it was found that the windows were letting in a lot less than they should be.

The policeman was quite surprised that we’d not been stopped about it before. We’ve had the car for 3 years now and its never been an issue before.

The limit for the front side windows is min 70% light, but they were actually only letting in 40% light. He also checked the windscreen which has a limit of 75%, and it scraped in at 77%.

Because of that he had to issue Gemma with a ticket. Luckily it was only a non-endorsable fixed penalty, which meant no points for Gemma, but a £30 fine. We’ve got 28 days to cough up.

There was a little bit of humour from Ellie as the policeman gave Gemma the ticket:

“Look Mum, a ticket” said Ellie.

“Yes darling it is a ticket,” replied Gemma. “But not one that we want!”

So when I got home I had the job of taking the film off the inside of the windows. This was not an easy job. Getting the film to start peeling off was the hardest part, but once it got started it pretty much came off in one go. Once the film was off, the next job was to get all of the adhesive off.

A lot of elbow grease and white spirit was required, but eventually most of it has come off.

So all we’ve got to do now is to send off a cheque

My First Day as a Contractor

Monday saw me start my new career as a Contract Design Engineer.

As first days go it was a pretty quiet affair. I arrived nice and early and met up with my new boss. After a few formalities, I then had the obligatory Health and Safety induction which is pretty much the same wherever you go. This lasted about an hour and then it was back to the office to get accustomed to the workstations.

Once I had about an hour getting settled in and getting access to the correct CAD systems it was time to break for lunch. For my first day I decided that I’d try out the canteen. Its the first place that I’ve worked that has had a full canteen. There was a few choices of meals, and I decided that I’d have Toad in the Hole, with Potatoes and Veg. All things considering it wasn’t too bad. I’m not planning to eat there everyday, but it gives me another option.

Anyway, after lunch it was back to my desk to get some familiarity with the new products that I’ll be designing. The new company are in the business of designing exhaust systems, so a bit of familiarity would be beneficial as I don’t have a great deal of experience of these systems. I soon realised that there is a lot more to an exhaust system than meets to eye. It’s going to be a good challenge, really looking forward to it.

The afternoon passed pretty quickly, and soon it was time to head home. It felt good to get home, feeling revitalised and looking forward to going back the next day.

PS: My second day was spent with a 2.5 hour training session on the company’s product data management system before being let loose on re-designing some parts. Looking good so far.

Finished…

Today was my last day as a permanent employee. I have now finished as a Design Engineer, and from Monday I will be a Contract Design Engineer.

Ever since I handed in my notice 5 weeks ago, I’ve been itching to get out of there and into a job where I can actually do some proper designing. For a few months now I have had little to do in the way of designing and so I have been getting extremely bored, so now I am going to have something to get my teeth into. I am really looking forward to that.

I’ll let you know how things go on Monday.

My New Job Starts Next Week

It’s now only one week until I begin my new job as a Contract Design Engineer. I’m really looking forward to it, as it is going to be the start of an exciting new chapter in my life.

When the opportunity came along, trying to decide whether to make the jump seemed to be a scary proposition. A few decisions had to be made.

One of the most important of these was whether to form my own Limited Company, or to join an Umbrella Company.

After a bit of research and weighing up on the pros and cons of both options, (a good source of information can be found at Umbrella Supermarket) I decided that the best option for me was to go for the Umbrella option.

The company that I have gone with is Brookson. They were recommended by another contractor at the company that I’m going to be working for.

I am new to contracting, and I think going for the Umbrella route is the safer option at this stage. Nearly all of the paperwork is taken care of by the umbrella company, and so therefore there should be less chance of me falling foul of too much government red-tape. You don’t have to worry about paying your tax bills on time like you would with forming your own Limited Company, so there is less pressure for the first time contractor. It would also allow me the freedom to get out should I not like the lifestyle of a contractor and go back to a permanent job.

Who knows what the future holds?

Maybe in 6 months time I’ll find that I like the way that it is all working out, and want to have the greater flexibility that the Ltd Company option gives to the contractor. But with greater flexibility comes greater responsibility. Once I have made up my mind that this is how I want to work then I will make the next step and form my Ltd company.

So I’m going to take it one step at a time, and see how things go. The next update will be after a few days of the new job.

Until then……

Gemma’s Pregnancy - Week 27

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last update on Gemma’s pregnancy.

There has been some excitement this week, as we went for a private scan. This was mainly as a reassurance aid for Gemma, but it was also a chance to have another look at our baby.

We’d made an appointment at a place called Innervision in Warrington.

Once we were in the scanning room, we were put at ease by the sonographer. He was very chatty, reassuring Gemma, and myself.

First thing that we did was to confirm the sex of the baby that we were having. At one of our previous scans we were told that it was a boy, but the sonographer at the time would not say that she was 100% certain.

This time, there was no uncertainty. The baby is definitely a boy. I would post a photo here, but Gemma has banned me from putting the picture here. She wants to keep it for his 18th birthday party, to show all his friends and possibly a girlfriend.

There was also no sign of the soft marker that had shown itself at the earlier scan, which was a huge relief.

We did get a few other picture, two of which I have posted here.

 

Until the next update…

Making Cakes

Over the past couple of weekends Ellie and Gemma have been making cakes.

Last weekend they made Jam Tarts :

 

And this weekend they have been making Chocolate Krispie Cakes, we’ve got to use up all of the Easter Eggs that Ellie was given somehow!

 

Here’s Ellie after cleaning out the bowl, mmmmm, chocolate:

They were all lovely, and there aren’t many left.

Another Year Older

Its my birthday today, reaching the grand old age of 33.

I spent the day as usual in work, a really thrilling experience. But I was cheered up by going out for dinner with Gemma and Ellie.

I met them at the pub after work, and we had a lovely meal. As it was my birthday, I even treated myself to a pint .

Thank you to everyone who sent me cards, and especially to Gemma and Ellie for my present. I really love it.

Here’s to another year.