The recent addition to our family has meant a steep learning curve and lots of new kitchen appliances. We have recently become the owners of a steriliser, a bottle warmer, a breast pump and numerous bottles and attachments that are used with the aforementioned devices. The daily rituals of expressing milk, sterilising bottles and pumps and warming feeds, which at first seemed a little daunting have now become second nature and the devices have become daily essentials. They will all be reviewed here at a later date when I get a moment to do so.

I was interested to read this article which suggests people that emotionally abuse their partners could soon be deemed to be guilty of domestic violence. Examples of emotional abuse could be banning them for seeing friends, cutting up clothes or just generally bullying someone without having physically attacked them. The call to recognise this type of abuse comes after it emerged that tens of thousands of teenage girls are being sexually or mentally abused by their boyfriends. I would imagine it would be fairly hard to prove conclusively whether this sort of abuse has been suffered in a relationship, particularly as it is often just the alleged victims word against their partner.

The cat we found a few weeks ago is still with us. Having first started off living in one of our outbuildings she has been spending more and more time inside the house, generally sitting on the sofa. We have had two responses to the  piece in the local newspaper. Unfortunately both sets of people came to the conclusion it was not their cat. That leaves us with Tabitha or Tabby as we have nicknamed her, spending Christmas at least with us. How, much longer we will have her is anyone’s guess but as she is such a good natured cat I am reluctant to send her to the cats home and and tempted to keep her until we can locate her real home.

We decided to have  a rather understated Christmas this year as I was fully expecting to be in hospital this year, with Penny’s original due date being the 26th of December. As things turned out we were lucky enough to welcome Penny into the world nearly a month early and will be spending our first Christmas at home with her, with Christmas Day spent with family. There will be none of the rushing about cooking the Christmas lunch, something which for one year I don’t think I will miss. I am, however, looking forward to next year when Penny will be old enough to fully enjoy the festivities. For now I would like to wish all my regular readers a Happy Christmas.

As someone who used to live in the area I was interested to read that Staines is to change its name. The town will now be called Staines-upon-Thames, something which local councillors hope will promote its riverside location and boost the local economy. The change was agreed after 25 out of 35 councillors voted for it. Local residents and businesses have also been consulted and there seems to be a fair amount of backing for the change, although some such as local football club Staines Town FC are opposed to it. It seems to me, to be more an effort to shift the focus away from the Ali G association and promote a more upmarket image.

This is interesting its a self cleaning cotton that breaks down dirt and stains when it is exposed to sunlight. The cloth is covered in a special titanium dioxide coating which is able to trigger effective cleaning in ordinary sunlight. In tests an orange stain vanished from the fabric in two hours in sunlight. My initial thought is how well will this work in the UK with limited amounts of sunlight although I can see it might be useful in places where you get a great deal of sun.

I have often wondered why busy pubs don’t come up with a system of dispensing drinks that allows customers to serve themselves in order to cut down on queues. One landlord it seems, has done just that. He has redesigned swipe card machines in his pub to dispense beer and is hoping to introduce the system before Christmas. Dave Barron, of the Queen's Head, at Hoyland near Barnsley has included a brewery metering system to dispense the correct half pint measure to customers and now has a patent pending on the design. He will be installing two machines to dispense both lager and bitter. Customers will still need to purchase a pre-paid card from the bar but can then serve themselves until the balance runs out.

This rare albino lobster was recently caught in a lobster pot off the Dorset coast. The lobster was found by two Bridport fisherman who gave it to Weymouth Sea Life Park. There have been only one or two other albino lobsters found in the UK in the last 20 years, mainly because they are more visible to predators so tend to get eaten. This one is thought to be around 30 years old and measures 40cm long.