Man, is Richi a fat, slow slob or.....

Hi, another weekend come and gone! Hanna has just had her 3rd birthweek and is gaining weight daily, which is great! Unfortunately she is turning into a screamer / moaner, which means we are getting very little sleep, and are starting to feel the effects of it. Hopefully her stomach problems will quieten down a little bit over the next few days, and we will get a little more rest.

The weekend saw Aisha and me taking part in our first 10 KM for quire some time (see picture for Richi's fat layer). My plan was to run a 40 minute time and until about 7 km I was right on track! However at this stage my running partner packed it in :( - even taking her off the lead had no effect, after 50 meteres she was 30 behind. So a quick stop and then we continued on at about 5 minute pace. Still I ended up with a 42 high time, which was (due to the circumstances) not bad. On Sunday I am taking part in the Austrian Championships in 10 km on the road. I'll try for a sub-40 min then. This time there will be no Aisha :)

Other than that we had a fairly relaxed weekend. Visited with Omi and Opi on Sunday and generally tried to relax and catch up on some sleep (no chance). The snow has finally started to melt around here, and today we have perfect weather (20 +) and blue skies. I'll be heading off to the track later for some 400m intervals! Might as well use the oppertunity while you have it.

The new English teaching work is going well! My work load continues to increase and this week I have some 20 lectures. I expect that by the end of April I'll be doing about 40 to 50 a week! This should bring in some income and keep us going for a while!

Anyway, hope you are all well,
All the very best from the 4 of us!

Ah, a bath - what fun!

Today we decided that Hanna needed a bath - she has one about every 3 or 4 days. It's something she actually seems to enjoy quite a lot. It's only after you take her out of the water that she starts screaming her head off! Enjoy the photo's......

























And here are some of her sleeping in our bed :)

Hanna starts her running career

Well, finally it has happened - Hanna hast started her athletics career. Some would say she's a bit young, and some would indicate that we are starting her late :) - but all career's must start somewhere and somehow and so yesterday Hanna began her long trip towards stardom by being a spectator at a Cross Country race!

We, the Euro Gathers, went to watch the Austrian Cross Country championships on Sunday. It was lovely weather, a bit of chilly wind but otherwise it was nice and sunny. It was our first outing together and both Christine and I enjoyed it very much. We KNOW Aisha had a good time, we are just not so sure about Hanna. She seemed quiet most of the time and didn't complain to loudly, so we are just going to assume it!

Christian (the lad I train) had a really good run, moving up the field to finish eventually 11th overall. This is a marked improvement on his results since 2003 and he is still the youngest in his Category. Hopefully next year he will improve some more! The course was OK, just a bit flat for my liking, but it had one or two interesting obstacles to make the course more challenging. I guess the mud added to the race character, and it was good to see the athletes with power coming through towards the end of the races.

I hope that I will be able to run next year!
Anyway, hope you are all well,
Richard.

Hanna comes home

Well, on Sunday we finally brought our little bundle of joy home. Hanna accepted her first drive in the car with no problems, but Dad had to stop at least once to check that everything was OK :) (It was - she was just quietly enjoying her trip). The neighbour's had set up some balloons and posters to welcome her home which was really nice of them - she was made very welcome from the start.

Since then she has been keeping us on our toes. She sleeps in the bed with us still and will do this for a few more months probably. According to the doctors this is quite OK, and is not spoiling her. Rather at her age (and size) it's helping her adjust to the world outside. She is mostly a cheerful baby with lots of arm and leg movement, but when she stretches her head out she looks a bit like ET! The rest of the time she just looks like Yoda, especially when she scrunches her face up :)

Eating happens frequently with small pauses between, during the day it could be as often as every 2 to 3 hours but thank goodness over night it's generally only once or twice - I guess this might change later. Anyway here are some of the latest pictures, I'm setting up a Hanna picture page where you can look at the pictures in better quality, but until then you can find them here.

Proud Parents and Hanna.














Hanna in all her Glory!















Very proud grandparents with screamy Hanna.



















Hanna close up and personal.

The story behind Hanna or "How my life got turned upside down"

It started out just like any day! We got up quite early to wish Alex and Eva a nice skiing holiday - they had been staying with us overnight on their way to Saalbach - and had a relatively early breakfast. Christine mentioned that she was feeling some discomfort in her stomach - but was not sure what it was, and it didn't seem to be painful.

We knew today was Champs day, so we had stuff to do, additionally it has been snowing like crazy all night, so there was masses of snow to be moved. To top it off, we were visited by the police, who ordered us to move our car as it was blocking the snow plow. As I had already spoken to the snowmobile driver, I didn't see what the problem was, but the policeman was not very polite or caring and I had to go out and move the car as well.

All in all, 3 hours of snow shoveling is not conducive to good Cross Country results – be warned! During all this Christine continued to have these strange stomach twinges and we were just a little concerned, but it wasn’t really hurting, so we continued on with the day. We went off to the cross country, where just about everybody and their dog (well there was only one dog there – Aisha) was asking when we were expected and how it was going. Afterwards it was quite a funny feeling to think back to Saturday, isn’t it wonderful how life just….. well …… changes :)

After getting home from the Cross Country, Christine now realized that the stomach cramps were definitely getting harder and coming faster, so I got the old pen and paper out and started to record the cramps and the length between them. We were not worried, after all we still had three weeks to go. However, they were getting more painful, but Christine wasn’t complaining – she made dinner, I had a shower, we ate but by now I was concerned. If it had been up to Christine we probably would have just carried out wondering what was going on – she just wasn’t having this baby now! I wasn’t so sure, so I phoned Gitte, got Christine to phone the birth course instructor.

Gitte said that we should go to the hospital, Irene said that Christine should have a bath, but I had noticed that the “cramps” were coming at regular 5 minute intervals, that soon dropped to 4 minutes. So at 10 pm I packed Christine into the car we headed off to the hospital.

On arriving we were still not really concerned – the cramps were not painful and we STILL had three weeks to go. The nurse hooked Christine up to the machine that informed us that the baby was doing well, and that the cramps (as we expected) were just pre-cramps to prepare Christine. At this stage she said that I should leave Christine in the hospital for the night, go home and come back tomorrow. No problem. Just before leaving Christine said she needed to go to the toilet so I got the nurse and we started to help her.

At this stage two things happened, first Christine’s water broke and secondly I realized that I would be a Dad before the end of the night. The going home plan was scrapped, Christine was wheeled into the birthing room, and the long wait started. So essentially Christine had been in labour since 6 o’clock in the morning, we just hadn’t realized it.

At this stage there was still no real pain for Christine (unusual) but the cramps were getting harder and were beginning to cause some pain. As we knew, Hanna was still lying head up, but every thing was looking good and Christine decided to have a normal birth. For this she would get a spinal pain killer that would help to relax her muscles, and dampen the pain.

And so the final stretch started – she expanded to 10 cm very quickly and by 5 am we thought that we would soon be parents. Christine was in some discomfit now and the cramps were getting stronger as was the pain. This was end station though. The next two hours Hanna didn’t move any further down. At 7 am the doctor made the decision to operate and then it went super fast.

Suddenly the room was filled with people running round and shouting, bells sounding, a bed was rushed in and Christine was moved onto it and wheeled downstairs to the operating room. I was dragged out kicking and screaming, but they wouldn’t let me stay anymore. Christine was given a full anaesthetic and was put under the knife.

3 minutes later I heard my first scream from Hanna and about 5 minutes after that I had her in my arms. She was so small and wrapped in tinfoil, I didn’t know what the nurse was pointing at until I had her in my hands. She was peaceful and sleepy and I didn’t hear a peep out of her. I carried her into the birthing room were she was cleaned up, measured and dressed. I was mesmorised. She was so small, but a real runner – her legs were longer than the rest of her put together :) So very cute, and although I’m convinced that most babies look very similar at the beginning, due to her size and lack of baby fat, I was able to tell that this was Christine’s daughter. She has her mothers facial features without a doubt.

So at 7:03 Sunday morning the 5th March I became a father. The well wishers have been fantastic, our friends and family a regular pillar of strenght – without Leo and Gitte I would have been lost (and of course Edith) – thank you, you were wonderful. Thank you to all of you who have sent us emails, SMS’s and cards. If anybody wants to send flowers, then please do so to our home address (which I am sure most of you have). I will endeavour to answer as many as possible.

Chrstine will be back on Sunday it seems (and I hope), and we are looking forward to this with immense pride, pleasure and antisipation. I wish you all a fantastic weekend, mine will certainly be great!

Love to you all,
Richard.

Hanna is here!

Most of you will know this by now, however if I happened to miss you, my humblist appologies - it was certainingly not intentional.

Hanna weighed in at a smallish 2300 g, was all of 47 cm long (and most of that was legs) and ended up being 3 weeks and 2 days early. She was just perfect - all fingers, toes and whatever else you could expect on a baby was there.

She has subsequently droped to just under 2200 g, but is slowly starting to eat properly and put on some weight! I will send the links to Hanna photo's on this blog later this weekend.

I wish you all a great one as well.
Richard.

Salzburg Championships in "Running in the Slush!"

Well, it has been a long time since I actually posted anything on the blog, and now I have piles of information...so you will all have lots to read :)

Saturday the 4th of March saw two great things happen, the first was (we did not realise it) that Christine went into labour at around 6 am Saturday morning, and spent the entire day complaining about a funny feeling in her stomach. As we were not really sure what that could be, and also as Hanna was only due in three weeks, we really didn't think about it and continued the day as normal.

The second was the running of the Salzburg Cross Country championships! It was run on snow and ice which made running almost impossible and very slippery. I entered the long race myself, in the hope that my winter training regime of LSD would carry the day - no such luck - I was last but for three others :( I did however quite enjoy the run and I had a major disadvantage. In true Gathercole style I decided to run the course without spikes (i.e. just normal shoes!) Boy was that a mistake. I recon I was losing about 20 s a lap, and I got tired much quicker.

However the rest of the boys were good! Christian won his class, and Felix was 5th in his class (despite being sick). My results paled in comparision for what was about to happen!

I'll post some photies later!
R.

Game over

The last 2 weeks were packed with following the Winter Olympics. As the Austrians didn't only get media attention because of their results, there were lots of press conferences and interviews to be watched as well.

Well, lets start with the good part: These Games were the most successful Winter Olympics for Austria ever. In total the Austrian team won 23 medals of which 9 are Gold. A very good result - it was great to watch the competitions!

On the other hand, the Austrians, or at least part of the Austrian team, didn't get into the good books of international media and the IOC. A raid was done in the accomodation of the biathlon and cross country skiing team and several "items" were found. Additionaly some of the sportmen and trainers reacted in a way, that made the whole situation even more suspicious. I was very disappointed by the whole situation. I find it especially sad for those who succeded, as there will always be a big qestion mark behind their medal. Being an Austrian I have to state that those who are under suspicion, didn't enter any further competitions and also didn't win any medals before the raid was done. However, where there is smoke there is fire - so I believe that some of them are not as innocent as they are trying to make us believe. On the other hand, as a commentator on Eurosport pointed out, one has to assume that not only the Austrians are trying to "push the boundries" of Anti Doping regulations.

Well, that is my view on the Olympic Games. I really enjoyed watching the competitions and I even watched a few sports that I haven't followed at all so far - like curling (yesss ;-)) or speed skating.

And with the end of the Winter Olympics is seems that winter is finally coming to an end as well. Although we still have lots of snow, one can feel that spring is on it's way. Temperatures are around freezing point and one can hear birds singing! Even I look forward to warmer temperatures and the sun by now ...

Keep well and have a good day!
Christine