Towards the end of January my wife informed me that she was pregnant. This would be our second child. At that time Cormack, our son, was 19 months old.

We lived in a two bedroom thatched cottage in the centre of Fife. It was beautiful. Very picturesque with stunning views and a well maintained garden with fruit trees etc. Our friends envied our home.

Upon digesting the information about the prospect of another mouth to feed, we sat down and talked over what we were to do.

Our house was too small for another baby. We decided to sell and find a new decent home. The house went on the market in February. We got down to house-hunting. By April we had found a new home and were nearing completing on the sale of our own. We moved in to our new house at the beginning of May. I got my new company car also.

Decorating, cleaning, building fucking Ikea furniture, decorating. At the end of May I celebrated my 40th birthday. A quiet affair. In June we celebrated my son's 2nd birthday and a promotion at work for me with a decent pay rise.

On September 26th my 2nd son Shaw, was born at 02:45am. For the last week I have been doing what I can to support my wife Nicola. Asda, looking after Cormack and generally using my paternity leave to get all those nagging little things done that I've not been able to do. I work from home and tend to be away meeting clients sometimes 3, 4 nights a week.

Right now I am in my office at home. My wife is asleep on the sofa. Shaw is lying in his bouncy chair, also sleeping. I've just finished hooking up the fax, the video recorder and the play-station.

I was looking around my setting and thought to myself. "Fuck me! Where am I? What happened to the time?"

Life is precious. Time is short! Enjoy it while you can.

Steve