MY wife and I are expecting a baby in September which is about as terrifying and utterly brilliant bit of news as I have ever received. I am of course thrilled, the idea of a new Marsh continuing my legacy is wonderful, I just need to start work on starting a legacy pretty promptly before his arrival.

Preparations are of course underway for the new arrival, we no longer have a spare room, with our spare bed being dismantled and moved up to the loft. We've already received and assembled a cot which I put together on a sunny afternoon as I listened to Arsenal attempt to throw away their Champions league chances with a ridiculous home draw against Norwich City, so I am glad I am not someone who believes in anyone being able to pick up 'vibes' from inanimate projects. If I did believe such a thing then I could imagine someone walking past that cot and going "Woah, someone was angry here...very...very...angry". The workmanship on the cot does of course not reflect my mood, if anything the bolts and screws are even more tightly in place than they need to be.

At the moment my house is receiving a stream of deliveries related to internet shopping. Having a very tiny person to shop for seems to have awoken a passion for internet shopping in Amy which I am hopeful of her being able to curb at some point in the fairly near future. It makes little sense to me that a baby outfit costs more than what I would spend on one for myself, but I think that probably says more about my clothing than anything else. The main bulk of items being delivered currently seem to be very cute outfits for the soon to arrive infant. Of course, I expect lot of these outfits to fit him for approximately 20 minutes before he grows out of them but I'll be sure to take a picture before that happens. I am aware that sentence makes it seem like we may be expecting a 'Hulk' baby, bursting out of his t shirts as we frantically try to keep him clothed, but I'm just saying we shouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

The fact that we're expecting a boy came as a surprise because Amy was absolutely convinced that it was a girl. Don't ask my why I believed this instinct quite so unquestioningly, I think I've just been married for a long time now and I've come to the conclusion that it's a good policy to have. We'd actually already decided on a name for the daughter we expected but had no clue as to one for a boy. Part of the problem we had in picking a name for a boy is that Amy teaches in a school for boys, which means that she has encountered many horrible teenagers who have put her off certain names forever. She's also met a number of my friends as well of course, which has poisoned her attitude towards a number of other names, including one Spanish moniker in particular. I think many of my friends would probably expect me to try to sneak an Arsenal legend reference into any name for my unborn son, and Thierry was certainly a name which was suggested initially, but I think we've now decided on the name and it's not the case.

As I have mentioned previously I walk my dogs every morning with a chap whose baby is now about 6 months old, as well as another guy whose wife is actually due to give birth any day now. I imagine our walks in a few months time are basically going to become a support group for each other, where we talk of the old days where we used to do thing like 'go to the pub', 'watch films at the cinema' or 'sleep'. My friend with the 6 month old is positively gleeful at the thought of the sleepless nights of my near future in particular. I think the expression 'misery loves company' probably applies. He has also said things like "It's the best thing you'll ever do"...but then slightly ruined the moment by instantly following it with "You're going to be so tired you'll want to cry"....