2011 part 1

So here we are half way through what is undoubtably the busiest year of my life so far. Any previous complaints about being "very busy" are blown out of the water by this battle cruiser of a year!

So far 2012 has seen the birth of our daughter and a rather substantial increase in personal responsibility. I was warned that "it will f**k yer life up, in the best possible way" and I think that's a pretty good summary for what has happened. Everything has changed and it's great. She is such an amazing addition to our lives that it is very hard to imagine life without her. I am very lucky to be in this adventure with Katharine and we are both excited to see who she grows up to be, but there is no rush, everyday brings something new.

We also got married this year and to make things even more complicated we did it three times. First time was in Leeds registry office where we did the legal bit. Then we had a party at Mytholme for our UK family and friends followed by a similar bash in Bergen for our Norwegian based friends. I think the take-away from two weeks of partying was that we are really lucky to have so many great friends who really know how to party. We are now well and truly married and it feels good.

We have spent most of the spare time this summer getting the house in Norway ready to sell. Lots of jobs that never got finished because going climbing or kayaking was more appealing are all suddenly getting done. The place looks good! Shame to be leaving! Still I have enough photos of the sunset for a game of "sunset snap" and my year long time lapse project was finished, so I will have lots of good memories to take away. Eight years has flown by but I still love this place. The thing that will make it all worth while is that we have an awesome place to go to in Scotland.

We got the planning approved on Cowieswells and we should be starting building work in September. We are both very excited about it and we're getting very impatient waiting for it to get started. There is lots to think about, not least bathrooms, kitchens, what type of land rover to buy, what type of veg to grow in the garden and llamas vs alpacas. It's all very exciting.

Work going well, after lots of delays the company is now drilling its first three wells. From feast to famine! Still its what we have spent the last five years working for so we shouldn't complain. First one is at least a discovery and we will know more about the next two before the end of this week. Exciting times!

To add chaos to the busy-ness two key people, including the guy who founded the company with me and the woman who was supposed to cover for me during my paternity leave, quit in feb. That threw a serious spanner in the works and meant that I had to come back early after Sophie was born and we aren't getting a honeymoon. That was no big deal, but then when they started to poach away key people while bullshitting about how much they care about the company, then I got pissed off. It's really frustrating to watch people you thought were friends trying to wreck everything that you have worked for... Still as we keep saying "it's not meant to be easy, if it was easy then somebody else would have already done it".

Work at the Uni is going great. It's good to have such a good bunch of guys (and girl) to work with. Every time I spend time with them I wish there was more days in the week and I had more time to work on this stuff. Still I am very lucky to have the option to do both jobs and next year...

And that's about it for the year so far, had child, got married, designed house, drilled three wells, prepared house for sale... Part 2 of 2011 will be, sell house, move country, build house and drill two more wells, sounds daunting but it feels pretty good to be half way through the madness and I reckon the hardest bit is behind us.

And as for 2012, who knows?