Monday, December 19, 2005

Our Elizabeth Year

Our Elizabeth Year

January started with a flurry of foul language as Toby and Angela were dispatched to see Jerry Springer, the Opera, on stage ahead of its broadcast on BBC One. The swear words were duly counted and Toby wrote up his thoughts, which were offered in response to the increasing number of complaints received at Methodist Church House. Toby’s thoughts were quickly adopted by a number of other people, and at one point the Anglican diocese of Oxford adopted his views, and he was invited to write a letter to the Evening Standard on the controversy. Angela attended a reception at the British Library to mark the successful completion of her family history group’s work on transcribing the Lavie Letters.

In February Angela went to see the GP, who took her word for it that she was pregnant. Toby then made plans to have as much fun as possible before the due date of October 10, and as a result on March 24 he and Angela arrived in a snowstorm in New York. After a few days at the Hotel Amdur, Meredith was able to sort us a great deal at a mid-town hotel, and we rounded off by going up to Hamilton to see Alan Cooper and family. http://www.flickr.com/photos/85498065@N00/sets/644046/

Angela made good use of NYC’s maternity stores to stock up on baggy trousers and loose-fitting shirts, while Toby bought CDs and shoes. We managed to get tickets for Spamalot in its first week on Broadway, ate a lot and went to a lot of museums and galleries.

After surviving a second Methodist Conference, Toby was in great need of a holiday, so Angela and he set off for Orange in France where some friends had rented a house. The house turned out to be huge and wonderful, with a great pool and a lot of things to do, most of them involving Roman ruins or food. http://www.flickr.com/photos/85498065@N00/sets/636655/ Angela was quite bumpy by this point and feeling the heat a lot, so the presence of air conditioning was essential in both house and car.

By September it was no longer possible for Toby to pretend that fatherhood was not imminent, so he organised a final fling. This was a polite way of saying that he invited everyone he knew to go to the pub for a final round of drinking. Much was consumed http://www.23hq.com/tobyscott/album/123558

Later in September Toby went to the Oval to see England all but wrap up the Ashes, and then the child seat was ceremonially fitted to the car, marking the onset of middle age.

By early October the spare room had been painted and transformed into a nursery; bottles and nappies had been bought and the only thing missing was a baby. At 5:44 a.m. on October 13, Elizabeth Jean Mountford Scott arrived to make things complete http://www.23hq.com/tobyscott/album/180526.

She arrived in the middle of a remarkable run for Toby. A week before he was the joint winner of a national PR award, and two weeks later he was promoted to Co-Head of Communication. But nothing tops the sight of Elizabeth with a smile on her face.