James : 20 weeks

hello again

well, here are pictures that are barely an hour old of the lad at twenty weeks. my, how time flies!!

otherwise, when people have been asking why i have spent some time packing up all my worldly goods, i just tell them i am some six weeks away from fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a goat farmer (or herder) in Kuala Lumpur. it has led to some pretty interesting discussions. i was delighted, some time after i began with this, to discover that they do indeed have goat farms in Kuala Lumpur. i always suspected such things would take place in other areas of Malaysia, but there you go.

if the penny has not dropped, no, we are not moving to Kuala Lumpur.

be excellent to each other!!!!!!

James : those 19 weeks old pictures at last

heya

as promised "eventually", here's James and his naughty face (according to his mother) aged 19 weeks. sorry they are a bit late, anyone checking in on a regular basis for them. is there anyone doing that? one never knows, and i have no idea how to do one of those "counter" thingies. i digress somewhat......

as you can probably guess from the finger-mouth positioning, James carries on with his teething endeavours as we speak. he will bite and chew anything he can get his hands on. as this has been mostly Michele's stuff, it is cool, although he does grab the odd DVD out of my hands.

as for the proud parents of Napoleon Elvis, Michele has some serious dental issues and has had a couple of teeth taken out over the past few weeks. she does tend to look after her teeth about as well as i look after cars - any oddities are bound to sort themselves out if you just leave them to it.

and myself? as winter dawns, so i have my usual, annual start of winter flu/cold thing. probably because when it starts getting cold i still insist on wearing short sleeve shirts for a while just to show i am a Yorkshireman. none more stubborn than us, you know.

right, let's put some week 20 pics up next!

be excellent to each other!!!!!!

the loves of my life

hello again

nope, still no 19 weeks pictures uploaded as yet, but here are the two most beautiful people in my life.

not much more i can say than that!!

everyone say....."BORO IN THE U E F A FINAL"

hey everyone


sorry, week 19 pics will be updated soon. in the mean time, here's all the gang posing for you!!

what can i report? busy packing up books, tapes, discs, etc, etc!!! we are moving house "soon", and thus am getting a head start!

James can "almost" crawl - legs are going, the arms not quite yet. but boy does he love bouncing up and down. again and again and again and again!

The Butternut Incident

hello again

well, as suggested in earlier updates, James has taken quite a shine to this eating business. i believe you will find that these two pictures prove conclusively that the young man is most enamoured with butternut baby food at the moment!

on the teething front, he has just about got one tooth ready to show on the bottom right hand side. it feels quite impressive when he bites your finger!!

be excellent to each other!!

more from the eighteenth week of Napleon

hello again

Michele wanted some more pics to be posted, Michele tends to get what she wants

The Eighteen Weeks Of Napoleon

hey everyone

well, here we go with another weekly update of how young James is doing, as well as letting you see my new trimmed down beard, complete with a few grey hairs here and there!

James is doing just fine - he is now eating, as some pics that will appear here imminently shall show in abundance!!!

the deals on all the houses in our world are done, and so we shall be moving home in the near future!!

be excellent to each other!!

Easter 2006

hello

well, here are some images from Easter. we were very kindly invited over to Gillian and Grant's, where Bam Bam got to sit with Pebbles for a bit. in the true spirit of Easter, James coveted Katie's odd toy so much (pictured here infrequently frequently) that i got to go and buy one.

Grant also personally allowed me to help him load some sort of damaged braai (a barbeque device for you who have never visited our land) on to his bakkie (a pick up truck for the uninitiated), and show him how his most excellent DVD Recorder works. it is a splendid, splendid machine indeed. as is the Plasma screen tele thing he now has. Ian Brown looked ace on it......

i went off to do some shopping. oh dear, whereas one can rent (and if they were inclinded to do so copy) the excellent film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, one cannot at this stage go and buy it. this is annoying - every other film i can think of worth much you can buy at the same time it hits the rental shelves. i guess i am waiting a bit longer.

Michele did OK, mind. the new Live CD, Songs From The Black Mountain, was up for sale, and thus she has a copy. it is not a bad album at all, well worth your time having a listen to!

going backwards in time, Friday saw Maryke and Ryan visit. hello to you two if you are visiting, and it was very nice indeed to see you!! once again, sorry that we were not at your wedding, but the birth of James required both of us to be up here in Johannesburg, apparently.

and on Friday night we watched a whole film for the first time in ages! it was The Ref, also known as Hostile Hostages. an old favourite of mine - it was Denis Leary's first proper "lead" role and thus features a large range of his wit and wisdom. a certain Kevin Spacey, then largely unknown, was in the support cast. if you have never seen this gem of a hidden-away, "sleeper" film, you could do a lot worse than track down a copy!

today, on this fine Easter Sunday, James is off to visit his other Gran, Monica. and of course young Dylan, for whom we have purchased an astonishing amount of easter and in fact dragon related items. hope he digs them!

hope you all had a most excellent Easter weekend!

James aged 17 weeks

hey everyone

well, here is this charming man at 17 weeks. apparently, the rosy red cheeks are a sign of his toothing. i think his cute smile is a sign that he is healthy and happy :)


be excellent to each other!!!

Meet The Flintstones......

Pebbles and Bam Bam for you from earlier today!

James at 16 Weeks

wow, an update on the day the pictures were taken!! go figure!!

sorry for my harrassed look, in particular the "nutty professor" hair. things are somewhat hectic at verk these days, but that's another story.

be excellent to each other!!!

a must visit website for film lovers

WARNING! this page contains a stack of movie spoilers, but if you have seen as many films as i have, you should be OK!!

hats off to the people / person who created it!!

James at 15 weeks.......

well, here he is at 15 weeks, having his dinner disturbed!!!

Home, James

and here's a couple of pics of James in his class walking ring / buggy device that his Gran R bought for him.

already he appears to be a more confident driver than his dad, and somewhat better at corners than, say, Takuma Sato, or whatever his name is.

i did like the device, but unfortunatley his mother has put batteries in the thing for the flashing lights and music.

DON'T BUY THE TOYS THAT MAKE A NOISE.

be excellent to each other!

James eating.......sort of

hey everyone

well, here's young James having his first go at eating something!! rice cereal with all sorts of yucky fruit purity mixed in. hesitant at first, then happy to eat, then very delighted to sneeze it over Michele!!

his cousin Katie ("Pebbles") has her first tooth! James will not be far off!

be excellent to each other!

South Africa's Chuck Norris (it is alledged)

i have no idea what this is. thanks Matt, i am sure that Mr Mervin Fraser will enjoy it


· Riaan Cruywagen is fluent in twenty seven of the eleven official languages.

· Riaan Cruywagen knows the news before it happens.

· Riaan Cruywagen knew you would say that.

· Riaan Cruywagen is cryogenically frozen every night for EXACTLY eight hours.
His brain impulses are monitored during this and used as templates for deciphering elaborate ancient manuscripts.

· Riaan Cruywagen had a telekinetic showdown with Johan Stemmet. After draining all of Stemmet's powers and rendering him severely retarded, he created Noot vir Noot and made Stemmet the host.

· Some people believe Riaan Cruywagen wears a toupee - he has, in fact, one perfect hair. The one that covers his entire head - giving it that, 'not quite real' look. Riaan himself is not quite real.

· Riaan Cruywagen was the original model for Michelangelo's statue of David. Unfortunately, that was in the early years of Michelangelo's career and he wasn't yet artistically mature enough to capture the Cruywagen essence. He nearly drove himself mad with frustration until eventually he decided to settle for his number 2 choice of model in Chuck Norris who was only 3 years old when he posed for Michelangelo.

· One night during an ad break on the 8 o'clock news, Riaan Cruywagen mentioned to the makeup lady that he was 'tired of this apartheid nonsense'. Nelson Mandela was released from prison the next day.

· Riaan Cruywagen wasn't born, he thought himself into existence.

· The only man made object visible (with the unaided eye) from space is the Great Wall of China. Riaan Cruywagen can see the Mir Space station with his 'unaided eye'.

· Riaan Cruywagen never blinks; if he does the entire world would just not happen for that split second.

· When Sir Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Mount Everest, he was welcomed by Riaan Cruywagen, who briefly interviewed him, before wiring the information through to the SAUK.

· The SAUK is actually a front for a secret society of Swiss Bankers who manipulate the world's economy, and is chaired by non other than his most Worshipful Master, Riaan Cruywagen.

· In binary code the word "Riaan Cruywagen" looks like the shroud of Turin.

· When he was three Riaan Cruywagen successfully reinvented the wheel. For his second birthday party he entertained guests by coming up with the first highly successful prototype.

· Riaan Cruywagen will never die. His soul gets transferred to another identical body via various arcane rituals and current nano-technology thrice fortnightly.

· Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard is based on the unpublished autobiography written by Riaan Cruywagen at the age of 15.

· Riaan Cruywagen is an accomplished author and poet - though, humble by nature, he chooses not to write under his own title but prefers to go by psuedonyms such as W. Whitman, E . Hemingway, Proust, JD Salinger and G Chaucer - amongst others.

· Riaan Cruywagen's first job was tutoring Pythagoras.

Sunday James

bonjour mon amis

well, i know it is kind of wierd for me to update so frequently, but to quote Michele of sorts, James was looking rather angelic this afternoon. here's a couple of pics to illustrate her point!!

an odd Sunday - people coming to look to buy our house in anticipation of us moving soon, me putting together a new phone for James's Grandad, and Boro actually winning a game - a rather interesting one, too!

be excellent to each other!!

influential gifts on Barry Dale

here's Barry in no way mixing art with reality with two of his gifts.

it is worth noting that Mervin "Chuck" Fraser, he of all responsibility for Chuck Norris appearing on these pages, considers Barry to be a pillar of society.

James meets the extended family!

heya

Barry's birthday party also afforded James the opportunity to at last meet his Auntie Les and Uncle Bryan, pictured here with the ever proud Grandparents getting into the pictures!

James seems to have taken quite a shine to Bryan, which is no bad thing at all!!

Happy Birthday Barry!!

here's a couple of pictures of Mr Barry Dale, along with the delightful Viking Michelle Dale and the fine gentleman Jason Dale, taken at his surprise birthday party today. it certainly was something of a surprise - he couldn't figure out why everyone was rushing, and thus got there at his own pace!!

thanks very much to Michelle and Jason for organizing everything, and indeed for inviting us along! a most excellent day had by all!!

Crockett and Tubbs

partly as a protest against the impending and probably awful new film version yes, but mostly because it is ace : Miami Vice series 1 & 2 will soon be mine on DVD. oh yes they will. i believe i shall be playing them on a continuous loop for me and James to enjoy.

Michele disagrees. Michele covers up James's ears when i play the theme tune at full volume. but she is a girl, and Miami Vice is meant to be enjoyed by men anyway.

i look forward to giving you a most triumphant update on their arrival soonest.

aaaaaahhhhhh.............

James having a snooze. Michele's fave pic of the moment.

need i say anything else?

James at 14 weeks

somewhat more recent than the 13 week ones i just posted, but i guess that kind of makes sense in itself!!

as per the earlier post, we believe that Napoleon may well be teething. he seems to eat everything (a damp flannel is the number one choice for him, closely followed by his teething toys), and it at least feels like a bit of a bite there. nice one!

be excellent to each other!!

James at 13 weeks

hello hello

SORRY SORRY SORRY for the delay - huge thunderstorms for a while have prevented me from connecting, as well as me just being very very lazy!!

here are the pics from a week or so ago - he's becoming cuter by the second!!

we're convinced he is teething, as he wants to eat everything......

James : an apology

oooooops!!!!!!!!!! i said in the eat the fruit post that James is just over 3 months. ahem, the gregorian calendar system of establishing time as a movement of days, months and years says that he is in fact just under three months old.

sorry!!

Victory For South Africa

over 800 runs in one day playing? how was it done?? if one were to ask any of the usual suspects (Mervin, Conrad, Matt, etc), the answer would be this picture........

eat the fruit!

OK, at just over three months, James is making some slight forays into the world of eating something other than his beloved formula, or in the words of Farmer Palmer, powder. he seems to have taken a shine to sucking on, and attempting to chew, some dried mango. nice one!!

we are contemplating starting him off on some 1st foods stuff - you know, the apple jelly type stuff that they fed to RoboCop in the first film. not yet, but will let you know when that happens!

going on the class mustard stain on my shirt today, like, it may be wise for me to learn to eat properly before i expect James to :)

Napoleon meets Blondie

hey everyone

here are some images of my mate Blondie, proudly holding his future son-in-law James :) James did a little bit of crying when he first met Blondie, but the two now seem to be best of mates!

oh dear - it seems that the DVD release of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has now been delayed until mid-April here. i guess that is me ordering a copy from the UK, where it is on the shelves NOW.......

be excellent to each other!

James at 12 weeks

hey everyone

well, James was rather tired when we took the weekly photos this time around, so please forgive his more grumpy look being in place instead of his traditional smile!!

James at 11 weeks

ahem........

James/Napoleon is in fact 12 weeks today, but here is the 11 week pic!! sorry, i have been running around with this, that and the other!

my mate Blondie is out from the States at the moment. nice one, good to see him, have a few ales and discuss proper footie and ways to improve it!!

otherwise, thanks to Chris over in the UK, i have heard the new Moz album, Ringleader Of The Tormentors. it is a most excellent album indeed!!

be excellent to each other!!