The Shortest Month...

...at least as far as work is concerned. Consider the evidence:

When Easter falls in April , it means we have 3 short weeks (Good Friday, Easter Monday & Anzac Day).

When Anzac Day falls on any day but a Wednesday Thursday, people will take 1 day of annual leave for a 4 day long weekend.

Throw in school holidays, and you begin to see the problem - or opportunity, as the land of the long weekend reaches its zenith.

Autumn has finally arrived. With daylight saving now banished for another 6 months and the equinox one month past, the days are much shorter. I now arrive at the office in semi-darkness. We had our first sub-10 degree night last night. The challenge now is how to have our gas heater operational when it is not child-proof.

Typing of kidlets, Lydia's first birthday was celebrated with an afternoon tea to which a small collective, including some family, came. Thankfully it wasn't too much of a toy fest. Some will need to wait until she's out of the 'shove everything in the mouth and use it for teeth development practice' phase (which seems to have gone on forever).

Mum's just got home after 3 weeks in NSW. She's only seen Lydia at three stages of life - first week, four months and 1 year - so our surprise visit for her 70th in a month should be a good thing (note to self - must get all invitations out this week, and book all travel). Mum had also won a digital camera, which she has given to us in her luddite state. Am slowly experimenting with photo taking, and just need to load the software onto our desktop so we can transfer shots from camera to computer. Ah, the myth that new tools make you more productive - I can feel a work cliche coming on :-).

While not yet walking, Lydia is blossoming in so many ways. She seems to share her Father's 'lark' biorhythm (i.e. awake before sunrise). She's not just taking things out of containers, but can play at putting them back in, so there's hope that she can go to bed being trained to clean up after herself. Appetite seems to know no bounds - drinking c. 500mls of fluids a day, culinary tastes are expanding. We know she needs to learn to spoon food - we're just holding off until we get a drop sheet big enough to cover the floor. The only time she's upset at the moment is due to teething (8 and counting) - something beyond all our control.

Yesterday we went out for lunch at the Engine Room - a great cafe on the Honeysuckle Precinct in the Newcastle CBD. Because I'm so rarely on the ground in Newcastle, this area appears to be powering ahead with developments now after 20 years of laying the groundwork. It's great to have a dining strip where everyone is less than 18 months old, and really setting the pace for the others to follow. Lydia was very well behaved in the high chair and admired by all.

My life/work balance continues to be stretching. If I was given the tools to run more remotely, and could be guaranteed a day a week (Friday) in the Hunter, then life would be much sweeter. My last quarterly review was fine - I'm no.1 for sales in NSW and set a new individual monthly sales record in March - the organisation is asset rich, cash-flow poor and paranoid about data security. While the products and programs are excellent, the business is seeking to re-grow itself after many years in the wilderness.

Anyhow, enough rambling. See you in the marvellous month of May....hopefully will have the camera up by then and can include birthday posts for both Lydia & Mum.