Amelie and I met comedian, actor and well-known quantum physicist, Ben Miller today. Obviously when I say 'met', I mean 'brushed past in North Street', but it amounts to the same thing. I was pushing an empty buggy while Amelie wandered aimlessly across the pavement eating an apple, and he almost fell over her. I kinda wish he had. I'd like to be sued by a celebrity.

At the time, Ben was heading away from the Theatre Royal, where he's performing with Alexander Armstrong tonight, and towards the classy boutiques of The Lanes. I, on the other hand, was on my way to WHSmiths to buy some gold star stickers for Amelie's potty training reward chart. It's hard to say which of us is leading the more glamorous lifestyle.

That wasn't the only place Amelie and I went though. We also popped in to the Apple shop, which proved to be the most expensive greengrocers I've ever visited, where I bought some earphones for my iPad. Frankly, for a free gift, this thing is costing me a fortune. The good news, however, is that the earphones have a built in microphone, meaning that I can now take advantage of free apps such as 'Dragon Dictation' which will automatically transcribe anything I say, and send it in an e-mail. Thereby allowing me to verbally write blog posts in my car.

When I got home, I tested it on Lisa by asking her what she was doing. She told she was eating a Refresher. My iPad told me she'd had a major fracture. That'll teach her to speak with her mouth full.

Well ok, maybe the charity shop woman was right...


It's no wonder the shop's called Sense.

I forgot to say that I didn't win the lottery on Saturday. So as it turns out, my winning streak was more of a blip. In fact, having bought a total of five losing lottery tickets, you could argue that by winning the iPad, I'm actually five quid worse off. Or fifteen if you count the tenner I spent on a case.

On the plus side, the news of my achievement has now been officially announced...


The picture's there to refute the claim that by choosing me as the winner, they'd somehow lost their marbles.

As the text says, they hope I enjoy my new iPad. And I do. I find it's particularly good when you’ve just come out of the bath, and you want to watch a few videos on the sofa...


Although I haven't had a chance to try that yet because Amelie's always watching Pocoyo.

In other news, I was in the Sense charity shop in Uckfield at lunchtime today, where I found a Next long-sleeved shirt for £3 and a Next sleeveless jumper for £2.90. Being made of money, I decided to buy them both, so I took them up to the counter and handed them to the lady on the till. She examined my purchases, before saying "That's nice, and that's nice, but I hope you're not planning to wear them together!". She then laughed at the very idea that I might consider such an obvious fashion faux pas.

Naturally I joined in the jollity, chuckled along with her, and then lied through my teeth and said "No!"

There comes a point in every episode of Candid Camera when the subject realises they're being filmed, and bursts out laughing...


If I was Beadle, she'd have punched me on the nose.

I was working at Crawley Down Health Centre last week, in a room situated about ten metres from the waiting room. Bearing in mind that I have to do a 20m round trip for each patient twice (once to poke them in the eye, and once to take their photo), that's 40m per patient. With a book of 29 patients each day, that means I walked more than a kilometre up and down that corridor on a daily basis. It's no wonder my feet hurt.

I've actually been having problems with my right heel for the past few weeks. I'd like to blame it on the wedding shoes that Lisa insisted I buy, but if I'm honest, I'd already been having problems before then. So I blame it on the hill she makes me live on.

I should break off at this point and mention that the morning after our wedding, when most couples would be jetting off to the sun, I was heading down that hill to the rheumatology department for an appointment with a specialist. He took one look at the x-rays I had taken in May and told me I have osteoarthritis in my little fingers. It's a bit of a shame, because it means the six guitars I have in the bedroom are now little more than ornaments, but on the plus side, he said I won't end up crippled. As far as he can tell.

Unfortunately there's nothing they can do (apart from smile and offer sympathy), although he did say that much like the home of a horse, it appears stable. There's a chance it could spread to my knees and toes, meaning that Amelie could sing a song about it, and if it affects my other fingers, I may have trouble picking my nose, but other than that, I can live with it.

Anyway, the point is that he did ask me if I have any problems with my feet. So I lied and said no. I'm not entirely sure why. I think podiatry is my Achilles heel and I didn't want to put my foot in it. And besides, my heel had healed slightly by October 1st. Probably because I'd been walking on air since the wedding.

Over the past two weeks though, I haven't had a leg to stand on. I walked Amelie down to the marina on Sunday to invest in some art materials...


... and having stood on the balcony of our flat for half an hour, wondering if I could flog that as modern art, I was hopping mad. Well, I had an aching heel.

But as luck would have it, I saw an advert on TV at the weekend for new Scholl Orthaheels. They're little foam inserts you put in your shoes, and according to the entirely unbiased Scholl website, "Their unique patented design naturally repositions the foot, enabling the feet, ankles and legs to function as they should. By re-aligning the feet, ankles and therefore correcting body posture, Scholl Orthaheel orthotics can also provide natural relief from many foot problems as well as knee pain, tired aching legs and for some, positive effects on lower back pain".

Obviously you'd expect something which can perform such miracles to look mightily impressive. And needless to say, you'd be wrong...


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Two thin bits of foam that go in your shoes? Why, I'd be willing to pay upwards of twenty quid for those." And you're not alone. Despite being made in China by short people on low incomes, Scholl Orthaheels currently retail in the UK at around £23 a pair.

Unfortunately, when I walked (ironically) all the way into Lewes town centre at lunchtime yesterday, I didn't know that. And having got to Boots and found them on special offer at 'only' £18 for a limited time, I felt I had to buy them.

And as it happens, I'm glad I did. I've worn them all around Uckfield today, and the only time my feet started hurting was when I got home and took off my shoes. Lisa says I should sellotape them to my feet.

I was working in Lewes today, where I found this sign displayed outside the hospital...


Frankly Nevill needs to stop being so juvenile and grow up. Some of us need to use those roads.

I'm a bit concerned that after a week in which Lisa and I got married, and Amelie turned two, I could end up writing more about my new iPad than our wedding. So rather than discussing the latest apps I've downloaded, and the illustrated Winnie the Pooh book I picked up free from iBooks, I'll pretend I haven't just spent half the weekend stroking a touchscreen, and describe a bit of shelving instead...


It's a little known fact that under British law, every married man is legally obliged to start doing DIY within two weeks of their wedding. So I put up a shelf this morning. I've actually had three shelves ready to go up for the past few weeks, but when your neighbours are falsely accusing you of drilling in the middle of the night, it does rather put you off DIY. I didn't want to reopen the case against against us by proving that I do, in fact, own a drill. So I decided to wait until the hate-mail had died down.

But fortunately it's a good three or four weeks now since someone last lied about us at a bus stop, so I decided the time was right to get to work. I put up the shelf above in Amelie's room, to give Lisa (and me, on rare occasions) easy access to the girl's nappies. Although with potty training now in full swing, we'll soon be using it to store knickers. And bottles of carpet cleaner.

Having finished, I called Amelie in to admire my handiwork. She stood back, examined it carefully, and said "Ammy don't like it".

But undeterred, I moved into our bedroom and put up the other two shelves. I'd planned to install them above head height, to ensure that we don't blind ourselves by walking into the corner, but Lisa was keen to have them lower so she can put her make-up on them. Although I told her they were never designed to hold such a huge volume of stuff. Anyway, after discussing the issue with her, Lisa reassured me that neither of us would be so stupid as to walk into a shelf, and promised that she'd take full responsibility for any injuries, and walk herself to A & E if necessary. So I installed them at neck height. I'm fearing for my Adam's apple already.

Anyhoo, it may have taken me most of the morning, but here are the finished shelves...


And here they are ten minutes later, once I'd filled them with a few of Lisa's bags...


The bedroom floor's never been so tidy.

The excitement of a new iPad cannot be overestimated...


She's always liked apples, and this one is no exception.

My plan is to let Amelie figure out how to use the thing, and then get her to explain it to me. She's already worked out how to browse videos of herself on YouTube. Personally I'm still at the turning-it-on stage.

Anyhoo, I suppose I should explain how I came to be the proud owner of a new iPad. I've just spent all my money on a wedding, so you can bet your life I didn't pay for it. The answer lies in the conference notes I made whilst in Manchester two weeks ago...


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Phil, with handwriting like that, you could be a doctor". And you're not wrong. But most people think I am already. Interestingly, you might notice that if a patient has no perception of light in both eyes, confirmed by an ophthalmologist, they can be permanently excluded from a screening programme. That's because they'll never find the clinic. And besides, we're too busy lasering the housebound horizontally.

But all that aside, the key bit of information I scribbled on my conference notepad appears on the right hand side, just above the squiggle. It's the figures '29 29'. That's what earned me an iPad.

Among the exhibitors at the conference was a company which has invented software capable of automatically detecting diabetic retinopathy in digital photos. But only if they're photos of eyes. They were running a competition where you had to guess how long it would take their software to grade 10,000 images. And the closest guess won an iPad.

Except that guessing is for wimps. What you really need to do is trawl the trade stands for info, and then work it out properly. So while everyone else was drinking Thursday night away at the hotel, I was back at the Travelodge, tapping numbers into my free conference calculator. By 11pm I'd arrived at a figure of 29 hours and 29 minutes. And at 9am the next morning, I was handing in my entry.

Admittedly, my confidence took a knock about two hours later when my colleague told me she'd also worked it out, and made the answer about 400 hours. But I needn't have worried. At 10am yesterday morning, the chap from the software company turned up at my workplace unannounced, and handed me an iPad. Apparently I'd been one minute closer than the next best guess. So I clearly wasn't the only one with a calculator.

As if that wasn't enough to make my day (and let's face it, it was), my colleagues then surprised me in the afternoon by presenting me with a card, flowers and wedding present. Some people will do anything to get their hands on your iPad.

I think Ebay must have sold out of the Gardner voodoo dolls and started selling lucky charms instead. Let's face it, it's not every day a man shakes you by the hand and gives you an Apple iPad...


I'm off to buy a lottery ticket before my luck runs out.

Well, we've made it through our first week of marriage, and we're still together. Frankly Lisa spent so much money on that dress, it's not worth me divorcing her any more.

This might be our one-week anniversary, but by a spooky coincidence it's also my parents' 49-year anniversary. So I've got twelve months to save up for some gold. Or possibly a box of Terry's chocolates. Fortunately with Lisa the age she is, I'm unlikely to have to buy any for her, so I should make a saving there.

Anyhoo, I'd just like to congratulate my Mum and Dad for staying together so long. And trust me, I've met them both, so I know what a challenge that must have been. I only have to spend a weekend in St Leonards, and I feel like packing my things and leaving. So many congratulations to you both. Enjoy the rest of your special day. And then let me know when you're free for babysitting.

On that subject, Lisa took Amelie to the playgroup down the road this morning for a bit of mother and toddler fun. I've been working in Crawley Down all day with no e-mail access or mobile signal (it's like working in the 1980s), but when I got home, Lisa informed me that Amelie had had a run-in with a little boy. Apparently she'd been waiting to use the slide, when the boy had pushed her over and she'd bumped her head. Which in my book is common assault.

Obviously I heard Lisa's side of the story, but with the possibility of a no-win-no-fee compensation claim on the cards, I thought I'd better hear Amelie's version of events...


I think she loses a bit of focus towards the end. And we're going to have to clarify the role of those carrots before she takes the stand. But the lack of peas is definitely mental cruelty. I think we can sue.

I don't know if Ebay have started selling voodoo dolls of the Gardner family, but yesterday was not a good day. So much for this being the honeymoon period.

It started badly when I woke up to find that my prostatitis had come back from a month long holiday and unpacked itself in my pelvis. Like any good junkie, I keep a secret stash of pills, but my antibiotics take at least 24 hours to kick in, so as a result I felt like death warmed up all day.

But I struggled into work anyway. And then struggled to log on to our computer system. After half an hour on the phone to the I.T. helpdesk, during which the chap told me that this was officially "a weird one", he eventually solved the problem. Although he couldn't tell me what had caused it. I told him I suspect voodoo.

Having spent the morning in the office, I headed out into the field after lunch, before realising that we don't hold clinics in fields, and entering the hospital instead. I successfully logged in, sat down, called my first patient... and then discovered that the camera wouldn't work. The next twenty minutes progressed in a similar vein to the morning, but with the role of the I.T. helpdesk played by my team leader.

Having decided that it was, in fact, another "weird one", we discovered that the camera would work if I was logged in as my colleague. So I did the rest of the clinic as her. Only fatter and less pretty.

By the time I got home (late, and in the rain), I felt rougher than I'd felt all day, and was looking forward to a cheerful smile from the missus. I didn't get one. It turned out she'd had an even worse day than I'd had.

After a morning of stressful potty training, Lisa had left Amelie with her Mum, and headed into town to change her name to Gardner at the bank. She duly queued up, showed them our marriage certificate, offered them her banking details, and was promptly told that they won't change her name without an appointment. She was so annoyed, she left without making one.

But if that conversation was frustrating, it was nothing compared to the hour she then spent on the phone to British Telecom. When Lisa's Mum moved into sheltered housing back in June, we got BT to connect the phone line for her. She'd previously been with the Post Office, and after a couple of weeks in her new flat, she decided she'd like to go back to them for her phone service.

Lisa applied to have it changed, at which point BT told her there'd be a £60 cancellation charge if she left them so soon. My mother-in-law didn't want to pay that, so we cancelled the transfer, and she stuck with BT.

There was a slight complication when the Post Office attempted to bill her for three months line rental in advance, but having realised we hadn't gone through with the switch, they cancelled the bill, and all was well.

Until yesterday, that is, when Lisa's Mum received a bill for £60 from BT in respect of her cancellation. Lisa called them on her Mum's phone, thus proving that it hadn't been cancelled, but apparently that wasn't good enough. They said she must be phoning on a Post Office line.

To cut a long and frustrating story short, Lisa spent half the afternoon on a BT line to BT, trying to convince them that she hadn't been cut off. Some of the finest call centre operatives in both India and the UK insisted she had, and continued to demand money.

Eventually, after much arguing, they agreed to waive the £60 cancellation fee.

And then told her she'd have to pay £129 to be reconnected. She asked to speak to someone in charge. The woman refused.

To cut an even longer and more frustrating story slightly shorter, Lisa insisted that she wouldn't pay to be reconnected to a service she'd never been disconnected from, and they eventually offered to knock a hundred quid off the price. After an hour on the phone, and with her blood pressure through the roof, Lisa ended up agreeing before she went clinically insane. They're sending an engineer around next week to reconnect the phone line. That's going to be one of his quicker jobs of the day.

Obviously, with hindsight, the sensible thing would have been to politely decline the reconnection and carry on using the phone. After all, the Post Office are happy that it's not theirs, and having argued with Lisa for most of the afternoon that her Mum doesn't have a BT line, British Telecom can hardly start charging her for the calls. But with her mother threatening to throw herself off Beachy Head, Lisa felt she had to give in.

Fortunately the Gardners have a coping mechanism to deal with days like that. After putting Amelie to bed, Lisa and I sat down, took stock of the situation, and ate a whole banoffee pie between us.

I arrived home from work today to the news that Amelie has used her potty for the very first time. And not, I hasten to add, as a hat. Naturally I asked Lisa if she has video footage of the event, but tragically she said no. I did, however, open the fridge to find a small Coke bottle containing two inches of yellow liquid. I genuinely thought she'd saved it for posterity.

Fortunately, as I recoiled from the fridge door, she told me it was leftover apple juice. I'm inclined to believe her, but not enough to drink it.

Anyhoo, Amelie's nappy days are clearly numbered, so as responsible parents, we've had a conversation this evening about what words we plan to use for our daughter's bodily functions. We've settled on 'wee' and 'poo'. I won't tell you what the other options were.

But while we celebrate the fact that Amelie is now our number one daughter in more ways than one, I've shot some further footage of her other new skill...


She'll be doing wheelies by the end of the week.

Something about that face says "It's my birthday"...


She hasn't eaten that much cake since... well, since Thursday actually. To be honest, she's barely stopped for three days. But we've had a lot to celebrate.

This time, however, she was fully justified in stuffing chocolate into her mouth for nine hours straight, because yesterday was her birthday. It's exactly two years since Lisa and I gave up sleeping, going out, watching DVDs, and basically doing anything and everything we used to enjoy. And it's been the best two years of our lives.

Needless to say, Amelie received more gifts than is probably healthy. Frankly the living room looks like a branch of Toys R Us. Here she is wearing her Winnie the Pooh watch, whilst feeding Baby Born with one hand on her Hungry Caterpillar book...


She's also wearing her Night Garden wellie boots, but they're out of the picture.

In addition to that, we're having to get used to the constant whirring of a cheap electric motor, as she travels around the flat on her motorbike. After a cautious start, she's got used to the controls remarkably quickly, and as of this afternoon, she's fully capable of climbing onto it in the living room, pressing the accelerator, and steering herself around the sofa and all the way into the kitchen to ask for a biscuit. She should be morbidly obese by Christmas.

Lisa and I may be encouraging her to live the life of a couch potato, but fortunately Big Sis is doing her best to educate the girl. She bought Amelie a talking dog which can connect to the internet to download information specific to your child. As a result, the dog now knows her name, favourite food, favourite colour, and general likes and dislikes. Amelie can't believe how much they've got in common. She sits there shouting "Dog talking to me!", before discussing how much they both like apples.

Anyhoo, Lisa and I both grew up in abject poverty, and regularly bemoan the fact that no childhood videos exist of either of us. So we're making up for it with Amelie. I don't really expect anyone to sit through all fifteen minutes of what follows (unless you gave her a present and want to see her opening it), but she'll thank us for films like this when she's older. Assuming she's still speaking to us by then...


Admittedly her conversations with the dog are a bit limited, and the two of them are still fighting over apples, but you should see Amelie on the bike now. She's like Barry Sheen. But with more crashes.

Obviously the key to a successful wedding is in the planning. You don't want to rush things and end up doing it all at the last minute. So we gave ourselves three weeks. God can do three planets in that time. Although he doesn't have to find an outfit and shoes.


It all started on Monday 6th September. We'd always said we'd get married once both us and Lisa's teeth were straight in our new flat. So having done a bit of DIY on the Sunday, we looked up the council website to find out how to get married. It said we had to phone up for an appointment, where we could give notice of our intention to marry within the next twelve months. So we agreed that Lisa would make a speculative phone call on the Monday morning.

I left for work at 8:45am. And at 10:51am I received this message. Apparently they'd asked Lisa when we were hoping to get married, she'd said "As soon as possible", and they'd told her they had a cancellation on the 30th. I immediately checked my work rota, found that I had no clinics on that day, and promptly booked the day off.

By law, there have to be at least fifteen clear days between the appointment where you announce your intention to marry, and the wedding day itself. Fortunately they had an appointment at 3pm on the 14th. Two hours before the deadline. So I booked that afternoon off too. Forty-five minutes later, at 11:35am, it was all arranged...

The plan was to offend as many people as possible by inviting virtually no one. I even questioned whether Amelie should be there. But in the end we settled on close family only: parents, brothers and sisters. Plus the children they can't get babysitters for. It amounted to a guest list of thirteen, but fortunately I'm not superstitious, so - touch wood - it won't bring bad luck to our marriage.

Our trip into town on Sunday the 12th wasn't just to buy purple boots for Amelie. It was to buy wedding shoes for us all. We followed that up with our appointment at the Town Hall on the 14th, where we were questioned separately like something out of 'Green Card', before being shown a folder of poems and asked to choose any we'd like read out at our wedding. I flicked through them all, threw up in a bucket, and said we'd do without.


Having confirmed that I wasn't just marrying Lisa so that she could stay in the country, we then headed to the nearest jewellers to buy the wedding rings. The lady there asked when we were getting married. We said the 30th. She said "Which month?". I'll never forget the look on her face when we told her.

As it transpired, there was a bit of a problem. Apparently I have the dainty, arthritic fingers of an old woman, and to get a man's wedding ring in my size, you generally have to wait three weeks. Presumably for it to be shipped from the warehouse in Lilliput. Fortunately the manager of the shop came up with an ingenious solution. Ordering the right size may take twenty-one days, but resizing a bigger ring takes only ten. And she agreed to do it for free.

So on Saturday the 25th, five days before I-Do-Day, we picked up our rings. Lisa's is 18ct white gold, while I went with palladium. Mainly because it was such a performance to get it. In the meantime, Lisa had managed to source a dress from Coast and pick up a pretty little number for Amelie.


So having practised walking in our shoes for a few days, the only thing left to do was to choose our music. For our entrance, we went with 'The Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice; for the signing of the register we had 'The Girl I Adore' by The Senators; and for our exit it was '12 Reasons Why I Love Her' by My Life Story. Apparently a couple once chose to exit to the Benny Hill music, so it could have been worse.

By Thursday, Lisa looked more like she was heading for the electric chair than the altar, but despite some last minute nerves, she managed to hold it together, and by the time I'd zipped her into her dress, there was no turning back. Mainly because she still couldn't walk in her shoes. We considered hiring a stretch limo to the Town Hall, but in the end we went with a mini-cab with a broken rear seatbelt. It added an extra frisson of excitement to the journey.

Once there, we met the registrar, confirmed our details, handed over our music, and were told that when we hear it start to play, we can make our entrance at any time. Her exact words were "Take your time - there's no rush - wait until you're ready", so we took our time, didn't rush and were almost ready... when the registrar came running out with a panicked expression on her face to find out where we were. So much for taking our time. It's no wonder we got flustered and sat in the wrong seats.


Anyhoo, the ceremony was actually very nice. By which I mean it was short and we didn't fluff our lines. Lisa struggled to sign her name on the register with a fountain pen (she's more used to crayons), but that aside, it couldn't have gone any better. And we were so wrapped up in our love that we didn't notice Amelie heckling us from the back row.


Having tied the knot and shaken hands with our guests (that didn't take long), we headed outside for the photos. Fortunately we managed to snap a couple of my Dad before he realised he'd left his mobile phone in the car, and left. But the rest of us took our time, and successfully proved that if you take enough pictures, you'll end up with a few you can use.






From there we led the wedding party through the Lanes to the Ha Ha Bar for our Wedding Breakfast. So called because you're too nervous to eat one beforehand. Almost five years ago to the day, we went to the Ha Ha Bar with our good friend Marie. Which made me feel better about not inviting her this time. She can have too much of a good thing.

So we settled down for an enjoyable meal...


... punctuated by occasional screaming from the younger members of our party. I've never seen Amelie so excited. Or so covered in chocolate.

We eventually departed at about 6:30pm, and returned home for the most significant ritual of the day: the changing of Lisa's name on Facebook. I wanted to change my relationship status to 'It's Complicated', but my wife wouldn't let me. So it simply says 'Phil is married to Lisa Gardner'. And it only took six and a half years.

It's a well known fact that the perfect place to spend your honeymoon is Brighton. So I went back to work this morning. And I'm glad I did, because I screened a minor celebrity this afternoon. So minor that I didn't realise who he was until he'd left. But it was exciting in hindsight.

Unfortunately I can see why people generally leave the country the day after their wedding: I'm so tired I can barely lift the sellotape to wrap Amelie's birthday presents. I've also just discovered that the bike we've bought her requires detailed assembly with a screwdriver, spanner and hammer. And the instructions appear to have been translated into English by the illiterate brother of Chaucer. So I could be up half the night.

So in lieu of a detailed account of our wedding day, here's a video of the first dance...


We hadn't even gone in at that point. But when we did, that's the song we walked in to. We thought Rice was appropriate for a wedding.

And talking of appropriate behaviour...


That look from Lisa says it all.