Hello and welcome to my blog. Here you will find musings on various topics from video games to mental health to fatherhood.
These thoughts are my own and I should probably warn you that not all posts are totally safe for work!
Renault Zoe 3 – Road Trip!
I’ve talked previously about my first impressions of our all-electric 2015 Renault Zoe, as well as our experience of living with it for the first few months. Now it’s time to talk about the main ‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to electric cars; what is it like on longer journeys?
Review – XCOM: Chimera Squad (Part 2)
In part 1 of my review of XCOM: Chimera Squad, I talked about my experience of playing the game to completion for the first time and looked at the general strokes of how the game was different to its predecessors. In this version, I want to focus more on the actual mechanics of the game.
Review – XCOM: Chimera Squad (Part 1)
I haven’t done a game review in a while, mainly because I don’t play games close to their release dates any more. They’re just too expensive and I’ve had too many disappointments in the past. However, I not only bought XCOM: Chimera Squad soon after it was released, but I also feel qualified to comment on it, given my history with the series.
I Am Your Father – Part 14: Baby finds his Voice
It’s getting harder to find the time to keep this blog up to date, but I’m going to do my best to summarise the key points from the last few weeks in this shorter-than-usual update.
I Am Your Father – Part 13: Baby’s New Routine
Eight weeks in and, as things hit a low point, we had to make a tough call about whether to follow the orders of our malicious and inept wise and glorious leaders or whether to prioritise the physical and mental health of us and our baby…
I Am Your Father – Part 12: Baby’s First Smile
We are now five weeks in and, despite the happy title, this has been one of our most challenging weeks yet… (more…)
I Am Your Father – Part 11: Baby’s First Hospital Trip
It’s now the third week of m’boy being home and… well, it’s been an interesting week for us!
I Am Your Father – Part 10: Baby’s First Week
So, after what turned out to be a fairly traumatic birth under difficult circumstances, I had a few days to recover and then we finally brought my son home.
I will now attempt to summarise what those first few days were like.
I Am Your Father – Part 9b: Delivery
So, a quick recap. 10 Days overdue and knowing we had a chunky baby on the way, we finally found ourselves in a delivery room at the hospital. Labour was pretty intense and after dealing with unbearably painful contractions brought on by the hormone drip for what felt like an eternity (and that was just how *I* felt!), an epidural was administered and when it finally kicked in, we both got a little bit of rest.
This blog was initially written shortly after I got home from the hospital. It’s taken me a while to get round to actually posting it, but hey, I’ve had a bit on!
Anyway. Part two begins – very suddenly – in the (very) early hours of Sunday morning…
I Am Your Father – Part 9a: Labour
This is the first of a two-part “I Am Your Father” special, which will tell the story of what happened in the hospital when the time finally came for my son to be born.
I was labouring (no pun intended) under the ridiculous notion that I would be mostly superfluous and that I would have the time to ‘live blog’ the birth; making notes every-so-often as we went along.
What a sweet, naive, young man I was!
Losing Faith – A Muggle’s Guide to Dementor Defence
The Muggle’s Guide to Dementor Defence is based on my experience with mental health issues. Posts like this are more personal than, for example, my recent post about sleep and insomnia, but I hope to include some helpful advice as well as telling my story.
I struggled with many things when I was suffering from depression and anxiety, including issues surrounding my career, my relationships, my social life… It’s too much to talk about all at once, so I want to break it down and focus on one thing at a time. The following is based on notes that I made during therapy and is the story of not only what happened but how I came to terms with it.
Long before the events that triggered my mental health issues, I lost my faith. I didn’t really miss it at the time, but when I was depressed, I felt like I had lost a part of myself. It took some time – and a lot of soul-searching – to realise what the problem actually was.