UPDATE TWO: Quarter English, quarter French, quarter Seychellois(e), quarter Trinidadian, Maya entered the world tonight at a whopping 9lb 8oz. Congrats to Nathalie and Marvin, and to Maya. Mum and baby fine. More pictures will appear in due course.......
UPDATE? My flight is at some ghastly hour of the morning - they'll probably serve breakfast immediately after takeoff - and as I write, inducement is in progress. But I have clearly succeeded as a father after all. From her hospital bed, Nathalie tells me she just hopes it's all over - with Pip's robust entry into the world - in time for her to be able to catch Chelsea v Man Utd on the box come Sunday. "Mon dieu!" said Mme Salut. "Seems to run in the family."
Two daughters, two headaches. Tomorrow night I jump on a London-bound plane from Abu Dhabi in the hope that by the time I land - if not even before takeoff - I will be a grandfather. Nathalie's baby, unofficially named Pip, is 10 days overdue already as I write.
Boy or girl? No one yet knows, and I think we'll all settle for safe delivery and healthy mother and baby.
And Nathalie's elder sister Christelle has been busy too, worrying her parents with tales of close encounters with wild and dangerous animals during a 10-week stint on a South African nature reserve that ends a day or two from now.
Regulars at Salut! know she has written regularly - and engagingly, though her dad would say that - about her adventures at this site. The Christelle in Africa archive is to your left and up a bit as you read this.
One more piece has just been added: not another of hers - though I am sure more is to come - but mine, describing in today's The National what it has been like waiting for news or, more to the point, reassurance that all is well.
Go to The National's website to read what I had to say. And come back for news.......
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