I hate homework

When I was a kid, even though I was a bit of a swat one thing I could never get the hang of was homework. Schoolwork came easily to me, but give me something to do in my own time, to my own timetable and with a seemingly far off deadline and I was screwed. I'd leave it and leave it, allowing the overall volume to increase and increase. This in turn fed on itself and made the prospect of getting round to doing any work progressively less appealing.

What I'm trying to say is I know I've got a lot to cover in this blog and the more I put it off, the more I end up having to do.

So I'm gonna try and pull my finger out. In my usual nerdy style, I reckon the best way to do this is to break each entry up into two parts and catch up gradually over the next few days that way.

Part I - The Wedding Bit

Ok, so fly back in time to the start of December. We packed as lightly as we could and welcomed our Animal Aunt to the house. After a brief run through of how the place worked we took ourselves off to bed and set the alarm for some god-awful hour when we'd get woken up to get our taxi to the airport.

The alarm inevitably went off (seemingly) the second I closed my eyes and we blearily got ourselves ready for the taxi to arrive - trying our hardest not to wake Aunty and (more importantly) the dogs. A barely awake journey later we were at Manchester Airport, then checked in and on our flight to Amsterdam. A slightly more awake but no more less confused our or two later we were checked through and onto our flight to South Africa. A mere twelve or so hours later we were in another hemisphere and on another continent.

We were greeted at the airport by The Wife's mother and step-father. It was evening and unseasonably cool so not too much of a shock from the UK. We arrived at The Wife's parents' house and were welcomed by the clan of brothers and sisters and (as I later found out was unavoidable) a beer for me.

The next day was spent chilling by the pool. More beer. A slight sizzle from our pale bodies as they became accustomed to sun once again. Tons of tasty meat on the Brie. Life was good. This was a December I could get used to.

The week was spent largely tidying up the last loose ends for the wedding. Getting suits for myself, my best man and The Wife's brother. Haircuts. Buying a few presents for the Wedding party. Picking up guests from the airport. Talking to The Wife's father about the ceremony - not much to be gleaned there, the ceremony would be kept as a surprise to both of us. I was largely a spare wheel in the whole thing and was left to look after kids by the pool (The Wife's parents seemed to have a house constantly teeming with kids) while the women did the important stuff.

So a week later, we finally left the family home and headed off to a hotel to spend the night before The Wedding. No fans of tradition, we spent the night together. This was our wedding and we'd do it our way...

Part II - The Present

So here we are now. Wales is cold. The house is a lot closer to completion but still not there. The Wife is knackered due to the impending arrival. We've also had to come to a bit of an unfortunate decision...

We're going to have to rehome the dogs.

We've tried to get them completely house trained and it's almost there. We've tried to make them less clingy and that's working less well. We've tried to make them occupy less of our time and that hasn't worked at all.

This would all be perfectly fine if it was just the two of us. But we've got someone way more important than the both of us to think about now. Unfortunately, as much as we love the two little buggers there's just no way we can envisage the next six months - pregnant wife, half-finished house, incredible amount of preparation to do - with them. Worse than that, the thought of looking after them and a baby just plain terrifies us.

So the next few weeks will be spent finding a good home for the boys. We love them dearly and it breaks our hearts, but at least this way we can find a good home and provide a life for them that they deserve.

So ho-hum, we'll just have to see how it all pans out.