With Hippo, everything’s new. Silver Cross vs. Phil & Ted’s vs. Bugaboo? Baby Bjorn vs Tomy? Mothercare vs. Mamas and Papas vs. Cosatto vs John Lewis vs…? And so on. The few familiar brands bring some comfort – but they’re not specialist, so you wonder if they’re good at this. The prestige becomes generic.

And I remain clueless.

Anyone with any insight, or blogs I should read – please let me know… As well as all the baby stuff, with the house move we’re looking at Liebherr fridges and Bosch dryers – and need to take the great Flymo vs. Bosch Rotak lawnmower decision.

There’s entirely too much to think about!

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That said, a few friends have already been incredibly generous. Gifts have arrived in the post, been hand-transported from Texas, and tonight one colleague invited us around to raid his baby supplies – and we came away with a carload of awesome kit perfectly suited for Hippo’s arrival.

Hippo’s the first grandchild on either side of the family (there are a few grand nieces and nephews about, but not that many), so we’re the first ones to have to get this stuff since we were kids. So we’re unbelievably grateful to you all. Please, take a bow. And our thanks.

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Being told that South Asians, in addition to having a higher propensity for diabetes, also have a greater propensity for gum diseases, makes me feel a bit like a genetic fluke, and worry a little about Hippo’s state of being.

Here’s yet another reason to hope s/he takes after his/her mother.

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I’ve made endless spreadsheets of things we need to do and buy before the little one, code-named ‘Hippo’ until s/he arrives, which Amanda is doing her best to ignore (the spreadsheets, not the nickname – Amanda came up with that).

And we’ve had dozens of lovely conversations with interested friends and family about the new arrival. I’ll answer some of them here for you, beloved readers.

1. Do we know if it’s a boy or a girl?
No. We’re excited about the surprise, and would decorate neutrally anyway!
2. Have we discussed names?
Yes, we’ve started to, anyway. No final decisions taken as yet, except definitely *not* Hippo.
3. Are you telling?
No.
4. Are you going for the classes?
Yes, we’re doing the NCT classes in Basingstoke in a few weeks time.
5. Basingstoke?
Yep, we’re moving. S/he will be a Hampshire Hippo. I’ll still be commuting into London as I love my job.
6. Are you going to get any sleep when s/he arrives?
Probably not.
7. Will you go running with the child?
No. See this post.
8. Are you anxious?
As above, kind of too busy to be anxious. Recent experience babysitting my cousin tells me that I will be anxious, but as the Hippo’s Mormor (Danish for ‘mother’s mother’) will be 5 minutes away, we’re reassured that experienced wisdom is nearby.
9. Have you bought/chosen…?
Virtually nothing yet, except for the car (my fault). Our friends Farrah & Vik sent some lovely gifts and we’re getting some lovely offers from some of my Brands2Life colleagues for the kit you only need for the first three months. I am seeing the pram as yet another car purchase, but this one Amanda is leading. Advice on everything appreciated.

More fatherhood posts will ensue in the fullness of time; in the meantime if you’re interested in parenting blogs, my friend Ricky Bobby has started one over here.

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After a couple of weeks using a new machine with a Solid State Disk (SSD), my advice is fast becoming: get whatever you like the look of, but make sure it has an SSD in it if you can. Sacrifice the storage space for the speed…

Hard disk technology has been largely static for the last 10 or so years – platters spinning like super-condensed long-play records. The things that have moved along include reliability, energy consumption, storage density and the like. However… speed wise, they’ve not progressed substantially. Most consumer drives have platters that spin at 5,400 (slow) or 7,200 rotations per minute (rpm). The read/write and seek times on these disks (which determines, by and large, how fast applications respond when they need to access the disk) are limited by these spin rates.

With SSDs, there are no moving parts – we’re talking the same storage technology used in USB keys, iPods, etc. So a) read and write times are often much, MUCH, faster, b) performance doesn’t degrade over time (no platters to get worn down), c) energy consumption is reduced and d) they deliver much awesomeness. They’re totally worth the extra money if they are an option from your laptop vendor of choice… Oh, and if you get Windows 7, it’s written to take advantage of them…

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1) I’m on the threshold of overweight against a healthy BMI
2) My doc tells me that my threshold for BMI is lower on account of South Asian origins, so need to aim for BMI of 23 (instead of more normal 25)
3) New BMI target means I need to lose another 9kg or so, which was my long term weightloss goal anyway.
4) I’m not running due to an injury at the moment

So the diet has resumed, and a week in I’m already rediscovering the satisfaction I derived from last year’s obsessive geekery, diet-logging etc. Gyminee is proving invalauable.

I am, however, persistently hungry, quite tired etc., but thanks to quite a bit of exercise I’ve done between then and now, my fitness seems to be carrying me through this a bit more gracefully.

This does also mean that my journey of soupsploration will begin again; however there’s a piteously small selection of new offerings from Eat and Pret a Manger… so hoping for some variety come autumn.

Not sure how Hippo’s arrival in the autumn will change my dieting – some friends have said that they dropped weight on account of sleeplessness and baby-caring-busy-ness, but I can see myself eating more than strictly speaking necessary…!

Anyway, wish me luck and point me to vendors of good, interesting, meaty soups! Sorry for the slightly unstructured brain dump…

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But I’ll try to be a bit more present on here… maybe a few more tech-related posts, maybe even (shock, horror) something related to my job (which has been through a sustained period of being both busy and fascinating). Any requests for a theme for my next big blog post?

It probably won’t be about soup, although I’m determined to get back onto that wagon soon!

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I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much here lately. Truth is, I’ve been busy. Busy with work, the new running regimen, and… planning for the arrival of ‘Hippo’, our child to be, due in October! The name is clearly a work in progress…

Needless to say we’re delighted and keeping fingers crossed everything goes well. I imagine the ‘soup’ oriented focus of this blog might change somewhat when Hippo arrives…

In the meantime, find me on Twitter or Facebook, or on the LSR if you want to keep up to date with my happenings, but stay subscribed here… as a great man once said, “I’ll be back.”

Cheers, Armand

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One of the personal projects, my running/fitness programme, now has its own blog (with a colleague from work, @jimbocoyle) – you can find over on WordPress.com – it’s the Long Slow Run, a reference to the longer Sunday run people do as part of their running training routine. It’s just kicked off but as my current obssession it will see quite a few posts ahead of my running the New Forest Marathon with Rach, Sensei Paul & others in September. Donate money to the World Cancer Research Fund if you fancy supporting my efforts (Thanks to Jimjamjebobo & the nice people at WCRF for organizing my donations page)…

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Health: OK, ish – at 408 calories for the big bold it’s a modest lunchtime portion and has a good amount of fibre. However, it is a tad high on the fat front, ditto sodium.

Taste: A little taste of Mexico. It’s OK, tomato is the dominating flavour and texture and so its not massively exciting, but there is a good amount of chunky chicken in there and a tasty tortilla topping (which would be better when crisp – they sog up fast). Fundamentally under-spiced though…

Full-o-meter: Not bad. Fibre and protein/fat content should keep me going.

Verdict: 3.5/5. A good soup, I’d have again, but there’s room to refine this one, Eat.

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Health: Low cal – 222 calories for a 600g pot. Reasonable on all other scores, good on fibre, could have more protein…

Taste: Pretty good pea & ham soup. Standard. I must admit that I decided to spice it up with my new favourite condiment (Nando’s hot Peri-Peri sauce), not because it needed it – perfectly tasty as pea and ham soup – just that after the initial tasting I decided I wanted a little more kick to my lunch.

Full-o-meter: Not bad. Thanks to hot sauce have drunk two pints of water with lunch so feeling quite full right now. Eaten with two slices of medium sliced wholemeal toast.

Verdict: 4/5. Would have done better if it was a bit more interesting (it’s perfectly tasty, just standard) – but it is nonetheless a solid soup offering from those lovely Waitrose people.

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Health: 248 calories for the pack, low on protein, surprisingly high on fat (was clarified butter an undeclared ingredient?), pretty low on fibre. So good on calorie count, basically, and mediocre on actual nutritional value.

Taste: Nice. A low-level of spice (high street food can be *so* conservative with chilli) could have used some pepping up but there was a smooth, nicely textured consistency to the mild curried soup, the spinach was tasty and substantial… but I’m still opposed to potato as the sole substance in a soup. Lentils would have made this a lot more substantial…

Full-o-meter: Rubbish. Even with the artisan bread (175 cals extra) I was wanting more.

Verdict: 3.5/5. It’s not bad, but more fibre and more spice would have earned it a higher score.

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Description: Ingredients from Pret: “Pork & beef meatballs, celery, tomato, onion, garlic, organic vegetable bouillon, parsley, basil, oregano and thyme.” My description – watery ragu with a few self-pitying soggy meatballs.

Health: 261 calories and relatively low fibre and protein – consumed with the 175 calorie artisan soup bread this isn’t the lowest call soup lunch on offer…

Taste: My standard for this is the delicious Eat Italian Ragu and Pasta, and this just doesn’t compare; the soup needs garnish (Parmesan for a salty kick?) and the texture is just weird – although that could be a side-effect of the soup being kept ludicrously hot – it was scalding, and the meatballs had largely dissolved into a soggy mess.

Full-o-meter: Suspect it will have my willpower tested against the office biscuit jar this afternoon.

Verdict: 2/5. I might give this one another chance because there was some potential there, but it is not high on my list. Disappointed.

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Thanks to Voyager, and do sign up if you’re an SF / Fantasy fans (the next competition will let you win Robin Hobb’s backlist, which I read my way through earlier this year). They also give a bunch of good stuff away via their Twitter handle, but I’ve not had the good fortune to win there…

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