Look who came a week early...

Yes, a week earlier than planned, our little boy turned up on Monday night/Tuesday morning. My missus was a total superstar and little Yan is absolutely lovely and seems jolly happy. Needless to say, Robin is very impressed.

Happy, happy days.

Red sky Robin

Hello again. So, as promised, I'm going to be blogging every Thursday from now on - and here's a picture taken with my brand new super-fancy digital camera. It has a function on it where it can automatically swap one colour for another - in this case the blue of a clear blue sky for the red of Robin's chest. Very clever. And quite dramatic looking. I think I'm going to like playing about with this camera.

Thanks to those of you who commented on the last blog - Rob, KJ, Dawn and, of course, my mum - it's nice to know you're still paying attention. We still get quite a lot of visitors to this site every day, which is great. So if you're looking, do say hello in the comments - you don't have to register or anything.

In other news, it's just 12 days to go until my missus is due to give birth to our first child. Scary. Exciting. Mind-boggling. And brilliant.

See you next Thursday. Who knows, I might be a dad by then...

Robin meets Johnny from Razorlight

Hey folks - sorry it's been *such* a long time. I've been super-busy with moving house, being busy with work and having a pregnant missus. It's all good, it's just not left as much time for blogging as I would've liked. Hope some of you are still there though, I'm aiming to post once a week from now on - every Thursday. And now that I've said it, I'll feel bad if I don't! But keep the comments coming, it's nice to know someone's reading.

Anyway, this is a picture of Robin with Johnny Borrell the frontman of multi-million selling UK rock act Razorlight. And a lovely chap.

Robin at Hitchin Town

Here's a pic of Robin at Hitchin Town vs Bognor Regis Town in the 2nd qualifying round of the FA Cup last weekend. The game ended 0-0. The official attendance was 353 people and 1 robin. Hitchin won the replay to progress to the next round (if they win four more games, they could entertain Manchester United in this little ground...)

Robin meets Lily Allen

So, this week Robin met Lily Allen, who's widely known as the poster girl of MySpace, because she caused quite a fuss on there with her music before she got famous and started having hits - in fact her songs have been played over 4 million times on there and she's got 74,000 friends (click here to see her profile). Robin hasn't caused quite such a fuss on MySpace yet, but he's got 101 friends, which seems pretty good. You can see his profile here.

Robin at Brazil v Argentina

Hey folks. Here's a picture of Robin at the Brazil v Argentina game last weekend. Sadly, we weren't on a trip to South America, but it was the next best thing as two of the best teams in the world came to play a game at Arsenal's brand new stadium, just a couple of miles from our house (Brazil won 3-0).

Oh, by the way, we're moving house in a couple of weeks, so I might not be posting too much as I'm so busy with packing, but it should lead to a whole new set of Robin pictorial experiences...

Robin hits MySpace

Hey folks. Yes, as the picture proves, Robin has finally made it onto MySpace (I've been meaning to sort him out with a profile for ages). If you'd like to join him on there, do head to his profile at www.myspace.com/robintherobin and click 'Add to Friends'. Thanks folks. Oh, and he's not really 69 years old - he's 5, but you have to be at least 14 to get on MySpace. Shhhh...

Robin and deer

Hey folks.

So this is a picture of Robin with the deer at Dunham Massey, a National Trust house and gardens near Manchester that we visited last week when we were up there for the England v Greece game. Click here to see its home page. We had a lovely walk around the grounds with our pals Simon and Evelyn, who'd taken us there. Top ice creams too!

Robin at England v Greece #1

Hey folks

So, on Wednesday, me and the missus went to see England v Greece play football at Old Trafford in Manchester. We decided to go in the Greece fans' section (as you might rmemeber, my wife's family are Greek). Unfortunately, Greece lost 4-0, but it didn't matter too much because a) it was only a friendly (ie not part of a tournament) b) the Greek fans kept singing and jumping about all the way through the second half, keeping everyone in the ground entertained and c) um, I'm English, so it was quite nice to see us play well and score a few goals!

Oh, and note the St George's flag being created by the England fans behind the goal at the other end, using red and white paper. Very creative.

Robin at England v Greece #2

Here he is, outside the home of Manchester United FC, Old Trafford - which holds around 72,000 fans. Which makes it rather big.

Robin in Belfast

Hey folks

Here's a shot of Robin in front of the Albert Memorial Clock in the middle of Belfast, Northern Ireland - which actually leans four feet off the vertical, making it the Belfast equivalent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was only in Belfast for about 24 hours, having not been there for around 20 years, but it seemed a quiet, pleasant sort of place these days - even if the police cars do still drive around with armour on them.

A record-breaking hot day!

Hello. Here's a picture I took a moment ago of Robin on what they're saying will be the hottest day in London on record! Apparently temperatures will get as high as 38C/101F. It certainly feels like it - it's baking out there! We've got a little electronic temperature sensor on the window sill. It's in the shade but apparently it's 36.6C/98F out there at the moment! Hot hot hot hot hot. Robin is currently chilling near our over-worked fan...

Robin at the races #1

Hey folks. On Saturday I took the missus to the races at Sandown as a birthday treat. We had a top day out and didn't lose too much money despite our particularly rubbish gambling skills. This picture shows Robin standing very near to the finish line, with number 4, Road To Love, galloping to victory in the 5.25 at odds of 9-1 (naturally it wasn't the horse that we'd bet on). It's great to see the horses up close - they really do travel at an amazing speed. See below for Robin's first foray into horse riding (on a horse that doesn't move quite so quickly)...

Robin at the races #2

This is Robin on a bronze horse at Sandown races on Saturday. Self-explanatory really. Good balancing skills though - a career as top jockey seems to beckon...

Robin outside the World Cup final stadium!

Hey chaps

So here's a picture of Robin that my wife took, while sitting on my shoulders (!), over the fence outside the Olympic Stadium in Berlin where the World Cup final will take place this evening between Italy and France. It's been a great World Cup and I was very pleased that Germany managed to clinch third place in the play-off against Portugal last night - they hosted the tournament with real style and the people we met in every city were really friendly. Good job Germany.

So, onto the final. I don't mind too much who wins (leaning towards France slightly, I think) just hope that it's a really good game and that it doesn't end in penalties.

ps... Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife!!

Robin and Zidane!

Hey folks

Here's a photo taken in Leipzig, Germany of Robin next to a huge picture of Zinedine Zidane, the French football captain who will be playing his last ever football match in the World Cup final tomorrow, before retiring. He's a wonderful player and, seemingly, a lovely man (when he swapped shirts with his ex-Real Madrid colleague Luis Figo after Portugal v France the other day, you could see the care that Zidane was taking to make sure his shirt wasn't inside out when he removed it handed it to Figo!). Me and Robin would like wish Zidane and the French boys all the best in the final tomorrow. Or, as the French fans put it, Allez les Bleus!

Robin at the World Cup #4

Hello and welcome to the 301st post on this blog (sorry, didn't notice the big 300, so we'll have to celebrate 301!). This is a picture of Robin at Angola vs Iran in the World Cup in Leipzig on Wednesday last week (Iran are in white, Angola in red). I've decided to put the picture 'large' rather than 'medium' to see what it looks like, but I won't know until I click 'Publish Post'. (Edit: mmm, looks quite good)

So, the Angola vs Iran game ended 1-1, which was a shame as I'd hoped Angola would win and go through to the next round. But all the fans were very nice - from both countries - so at least a draw sent them both away feeling a bit happy. Notice all the empty seats in the corner even though Fifa keep insisting all the games have a capacity crowd (all the tickets *have* sold, but that's a slightly different thing to people actually turning up).

Leipzig is in what used to be East Germany and it seemed like a really nice town. It's been interesting to travel around Germany a bit during the tournament as it's a country I haven't seen much of before. But all the places we've been to were really pleasant, friendly and excited about the World Cup.

Now, let's just hope England can get a victory over Ecuador this afternoon...

Robin meets Nelly Furtado!

Yes, here's Robin with top Canadian pop star Nelly Furtado, who is currently Number One in the charts in the UK and riding high in the hit parades across the globe! My wife met her recently and took along Robin so that the very-friendly Nelly could join the growing list of stars (Kylie Minogue, Chris Martin, Dave Grohl, Shakira, Andre 3000...) to have shared an audience with the little red-breasted bird!

Robin at the World Cup #3

Hello again!

So, yesterday we went to see Ghana vs Czech Republic in Cologne, which turned out to be one of the best games of the World Cup so far. Czech Republic, ranked 2 in the world, got beaten 2-0 by Ghana, ranked about 48th, and it could have been more than thst. The Ghana team were breathtaking to watch - they passed and moved so quickly. Me and the missus feel very lucky to have seen a game as good as that. The Ghana fans were great too, creating a real party vibe both inside and outside the stadium.

Interested to hear that you folks in the US *know* about the World Cup, but just don't *care* about it! Well, hopefully you'll know that last night USA came very close to causing a major upset by beating Italy, one of the best teams in the world. In the end, it finished 1-1 - but the US side played a lot of the game with just 9 men after two of their players were (questionably) sent off and yet they still nearly beat the Italians (only a disallowed goal stopped them). Must be quite sad for the American players to know they're the only team in the world where the folks back home don't care whether they win or not. After a result like yesterday's, you chaps should be proud! And you should definitely cheer them on in their final game, against Ghana on Thursday.

We've just got one more match to see (amazing to have seen four though!), we're off to see Angola vs Iran in Leipzig on Wednesday. Can't wait.

Robin at the World Cup #2

Hello again!

So, this is another shot from the World Cup (see below), this time during the England vs Trinidad & Tobago match yesterday afternoon in Nuremberg. We only found out we had tickets the evening before (big thanks to my bro Rob for that!!) which meant we had to hastily arange a hire car to get us the 300 miles (500 kms) down to Nuremberg for the match. Luckily you can drive as fast as you like on German motorways (faster than I'd be willing to admit I drove to my mother...) so we made it down in plenty of time.

England didn't actually play too well, but it was amazing being there and I'm happy to say that we won 2-0 in the end, thanks to two late goals - cue mass celebrations from tens of thousands of English who'd made the journey over for the game (it also made our 300 mile drive home afterwards much cheerier than it would've been if we hadn't won!) There was a nice atmosphere at the game, with the Trinidad fans mixing merrily with ours and not a hint of the hooliganism than the media always seem to anticipate so eagerly.

That chap second from left with the blue boots is David Beckham - probably the most famous footballer in the world, who made the pass for both our goals. We're off to another game tomorrow, Czech Republic vs Ghana in Cologne. Should be fun.

Oh, by the way, those of you who've followed this blog for a while may be interested to know that my wife is pregnant (yee-ha!). As of December, I'll be a dad and Robin will be, um, an uncle.

:-)