Twins update

It's been more than a year since I last blogged. This is largely because life with twins doesn't slow down.
The challenges change and I'd be the first to admit life with two boys aged nearly two years old is far more interesting and rewarding than life was at the start when the main aim was to keep them clean, fed and alive.
I wrote an article for the Leicester Mercury -
http://tinyurl.com/6hx8yce - about my first year as a dad, choosing to look at the big numbers involved rather than a wistful look back.
It's almost a year since I wrote that article and life hasn't been as simple as taking last year's numbers and doubling them. Some things have gone - babygros and formula milk - and some new things have been introduced like wellies and a child-proofed house.
The boys are now walking, saying their first words, eating us out of house and home and sleeping in little beds and no longer in cots.
This development has proved to be a huge transition and, at the start, quite stressful as two little boys run riot around their bedroom, enjoying a new found freedom.
Things are settling down with that now thankfully.
During the day we are are having to find more and more activities to keep them occupied too, often heading to Leicester's play parks and watching them tackle the slide and giving them a push on the swings.
It may sound like hard work but it's far better than being stranded at home with them all day, so we are making the most of the good weather and getting out.
The rewards during this time have been seeing their confidence grow as they walk and climb, hearing their new words, which seem to come daily, and seeing the interaction between the two brothers.
Socially, Sara and I feel able to go out together a little more, and in the next couple of weeks I'm heading to Berlin again to watch my beloved Hertha play - the third time since the boys were born so I can't complain. I've even escaped to watch Leicester City a couple of times but yet to make it back to Sincil Bank to cheer on the Imps.
So the twins update as they approach their second birthday is that they are still hard work but life is suddenly very rewarding.

National Beatles Day

Last week the Leicester Mercury carried a story about a man who was angry that 10 Downing Street refused to post an online petition calling for double killer Colin Pitchfork to be kept in prison for life, as it was "inappropriate".
I too have had an "inappropriate" petition rejected by Gordon Brown. Earlier this year I asked Number 10 if I could stick a petition on their website calling for a National Beatles Day, to recognise the contribution the Fab Four had made to the country and our place in the world. I added it would be a chance to dress as pop stars for the day and celebrate British music. Obviously I wanted everyone to have a day off in the form of a bank holiday. But Gordon Brown was having none of it.
This is probably because:

1) He is bitter that there are no decent bands from Scotland
2) And he has proper work to do, like learning to smile better when he is talking
or
3) He simply hates the Beatles

Listening to the Beatles makes us happy Gordon. Even my unborn twins like them.

On a slighty different note, I know talking about dreams is rubbish but I have to mention this. Last night I dreamt that I broke into a farm house on a hill after ditching my car, stole two cans of Fosters (which I never drink) and a can of Guinness (which I never drink) and put them in a bag to drink as I walked home, approxiately six dream miles.
What is that about then? I have googled it but the experts only deal in the ones where you go to work naked (fear of failure... to wear clothes) or the ones where you are falling (archaic memories from the time when we were tree-dwelling monkeys, apparently).

Finally, in a more lucid state, I told my wife that Lorriane Kelly of GMTV fame is less than four feet tall, which I know is a lie but I think is entirely believable, so tell everyone you know. I also wonder if there are any other decent lies we could put around?