Adios!

Having resisted the the almost overwhelming temptation to gobble a mince pie for breakfast, I instead had a leisurely and healthy breakfast to fill me up for our journey down to Portsmouth to visit a darling friend I haven't seen in almost 3 years! So, till Friday, adios ;)]

DIY -- at your peril!

My first scrumptious mince-pie of the Christmas season (make that two, actually) in my tum and I'm just about ready to hit The Nap Zone - a critical time of day for me these days if I am to survive through an evening of dinner, some random television show(s) and my usual spot of pre-slumber reading!

This afternoon, B&Q was pumping! Their usual, weekly singular till-point was abuzz with uniformed cashiers whizzing away cash and credit cards from the lines and lines of waiting customers, all visibly itching to get back home to their DIY. Yes, 'tis the season to be merry, but also the season to be painting, stripping, sanding... Winter seems to be the time when the British are suddenly consumed by an unquenchable desire to redecorate - and so often incurring both decorating and first-aid disasters! High-powered tools zing and pound and churn through plaster and wood, and arms, legs and fingers... It reminds me of a fellow student at art school who took a university anglegrinder home with her to catch up on her lackadaisicality regarding our latest sculpture project: laminating layers of inch-thick Supawood into a grand, imposing block of it - and then carefully tearing into it with anglegrinders, saws and chisels that would look more at home in a butchery! A zol or three later, her laminated woodblock calling to her and she was ready to begin! With the anglegrinder tucked inbetween her thighs, she reached behind her to turn the machine on at the wall. ZZZZZZZWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The person who'd last used it had neglected to turn the actual anglegrinder off - and the monstrously sharp blades were churning and chunking ever deeper into the meat of her thighs! (She recounted this gorey tale, mascaraed lashes blinking through the acrid blue smoke of her cigarette, in a comically detached voice - lifting up her wide cotton Indian skirt to reveal two fat cotton pads taped to each thigh - oily Betadine seeping through the gauze...)

I didn't buy an anglegrinder at B&Q - my power-tool days are long over - but filled my basket with a slimmer, sharper steel paintscraper, some nastily cheap (and soon to be moulting) paintbrushes and a shockingly expensive tub of ultra-sophisticated paint stripper. 10quid as opposed to 5quid - but with needing to keep this baby inside me safe from fumes, 5quid was worth the extra expenditure! Paint stripper I've used in the past was lethal!! While you got high applying the stuff and waiting for the paint to bubble and ooze up from the wood beneath, you risked suffering searing chemical burns if some accidentally landed on your skin. THIS paint stripper is a thick gel which needs to be painted on in a 1mm thick layer - then left to dry overnight. (Great news for me - I can work super-duper fast in small sections at a time, then close the door behind me, having left the sash window wide open to breathe!) The layer of stripper absorbs the paint off from the wood into a crusty, crumbly layer which is easily scraped or brushed off. Voila! C'est trop facile, no?! But first, that nap I was going on about... zzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Dr Who?

"BUGGER!?! %$@*!!!!" --- delightful language for a young mother-to-be, admittedly - but I honestly didn't expect SUCH heavy traffic at 9 in the morning - especially when I was only just on time too! A long line of blinking, winking red brake lights stretched as far as the eye could along that pin straight road into Northampton, while visions of me doing arm-wrenching three-point-turns out of too-full hospital parking lots made me shudder and, I'm ashamed to admit, swear a little more.

Either the time-angels or the traffic-angels were on my side that morning, because we arrived with plenty of time to spare - AND finding a parking spot right in front of the antenatal clinic itself! Voila!
A petite orange lady (her stiff hairsprayed bob matched her orange blouse EXACTLY - a bit odd, really) took my maternity notes from me, and when I reached into my folder to retrieve my still warm wee-sample for her (she'd asked for it!!) she recoiled in matronly horror! I felt like saying in a bit of hormone-aggravated indignation, "Listen lady - then why did you ask me: 'And do you have your urine sample for me?'" Honestly...
Craig settled down with a magazine into the much more homely, warm waiting room compared to the cold sanitisation of the scan department's. The proliferation of 'Mommy & Baby' magazines sprawled endlessly over the tables irritated me somehow. Did they think that just because you're pregnant that's all you're interested in? That your brain has shrunk to a decrepit, useless walnut?! Anyway, it didn't matter because I was called soon enough by a waddling sweetie of a nurse with eyes that twinkled kindly. She showed me into a neat little room that was NOT what I expected at all!

Little Diversion: This is another aspect of what I've called The Soutpiel Phenomenon: the dysjunction between your South African expectations and the English reality. You see, our expectations are naturally based on our past experience and knowledge gained from heresay, newspapers, television etc - and my experience of visiting a gynaecologist and what my friends have told me about their visits just did NOT coincide with what happened in that Northampton antenatal clinic! What did I expect? To be seen, solely, by a snazzily dressed gynaecologist in a plush, modern office, including a thorough physical examination and open chat. What happened instead? Well...

Sweet nurse Julie had me sit on the paper-covered examination table, and took my blood pressure - smiling at the very healthy reading. Next she checked my urine sample - also nice 'n healthy. "Please lie back on the bed so we can listen to baby's heartbeat!" Now THIS was a surprise! Once again in a state of utter maternal ecstasy, I strained to hear my baby's sprinting-stallion heartbeat - and then suddenly remembered Craig was out in the waiting room - still bereft of this experience... "Could I call my fiance? He hasn't heard our baby yet!"
"Of course, love!" and Nurse Julie beamed proudly as though she were my own mom!

Like an unembarassed schoolgirl with the best news in the world, I ran into the waiting room to grab an unsuspecting Craig by the hand - literally dragging him into the nurse's cubicle. Craig's face lit up with a light I can only describe as brandnew daddy-love when our baby's heartbeat eventually made its sonic appearance (after hiding almost deliberatelt away down in the deepest dark depths of his home! Oops - did I say 'his'?)
Nurse Julie slipped out to call Dr Aldritch -- and with that kind of name, I was rather taken aback when in walked a stocky, smiling Nigerian man! Very quickly and politely he explained he was the new registrar under Dr Aldritch and would be talking to me about my pregnancy's progress and the medication I'm on. No qualms there - he did a fabulous job though was interrupted by a cellphone call about a delivery ---- not the the kind of delivery you'd expect from a gynae: a delivery to his house! He then said he'd briefly consulting Dr Aldritch before we were free to go. Dr Aldritch appeared a few short minutes later alongside his African protogee - in a pink shirt and an even pinker tie nogal spotted with little daisies! Casually leaning against the doorway, he reassured us with a grand sort of proficiency my pregnancy and baby were progressing wonderfully and that he honestly felt no concern regarding my meds -- but that he'd let 'the paediatrician' know about it anyway. Righty-ho! Next appointment: only on the 22nd of December. What a relief!

Though the experience didn't nearly begin match my expectations, I can't say I was specifically disappointed, nor was the experience a bad one. After all, we both left smiling like happy, reassured parents-to-be! March can arrive now - I am relieved and pleased as punch I chose Northampton hospital (despite its naughty nurse posing topless on Facebook and its random shootings! Curious - see "Health & Safety?!" at http://thesoutpielphenomenon.blogspot.com )

O wat 'n skande, Mevrou Oosthuysen!

Today the sun has won its fierce battle against the predicted days and days of atrociously grey, wet weather! And only because I can, did I spend the morning in bed, listening to music and sipping tea and dismantling Sunday's newspaper - hunting for anything that would tickle my fascination - but more particularly, for something that I could use as a departure point for my next Soutpiel entry. All that really related to South Africa was a paltry side article on the British government wanting to clamp down on immigrants coming into the UK and a more elaborate section with full colour photos of (gasp!) a scandalised South African-born MP! One Ms Oosthysen and her lie through omission: "They never asked me if I had a police record. I would have told them had they asked!"

Her crime? Scratching her ex's car with her keys in a bit of a rage -- but unfortunately caught in CCTV camera...

Having thought my registration and application with Protocol Education was complete, and waiting as patiently as possible for work - I was mildly annoyed that they needed yet another certifying document: this time, a South African police record certificate (something I have NEVER been asked for! And which, rather stupidly, left me feeling blushing and indignant!) But, seeing as Protocol Education are one of the top employment agencies for teachers and supply teachers, with international offices in Cape Town, Canada and Australia, their standards are impeccable: they have to see originals of every single document! Thankfully, my mom could just zip over to the Cape Town office to show them my original university degree certificate: very, very handy indeed!
Their Cambridge office is a claustrophobic 6 miles away from Soham - the school janitor, Ian Huntley, who abducted and murdered two young girls a few years ago. There was a huge uproar - not least because his criminal record, which had plenty to worry about, hadn't been checked...

Tonight is a TV night - a rare occurrence for me because I usually steal off to bed to luxuriate in whatever novel I've got my nose stuck in! After a supper of a pasta I'm yet to feel excited about (neighbour Ang joining us), we'll watch Gok Wan's Miss Naked Beauty, followed by what looks like a fabulously detailed and glossy documentary about British fashion (bring on Galliano, Vivienne Westwood et al) and then another documentary: this time, an investigation into what women will resort to for love - looking this week at polygamy in the United States!

Tomorrow will be a day dedicated to writing, writing and more writing - so expect more news, epic sagas and tall tales very, very soon!

Staying in touch...

After a week of the most unseasonal but GLORIOUSLY warm sunshine, the grey skies are back to haunt us with rain, rain and more rain. At 14C it's not as bitterly cold as that icy snap that made me so miserable I had to turn the central heating on!
My friend, Ang, gave me a lekker warm coat (I was REALLY that miserable it must've shown on my face) but it won't fit over this ever-expanding belly for much longer. In fact, a quick shop-around on the weekend didn't render many coats that are in the 'tent' shape I was so hoping to find... The only ones available to me now are the maternity ones. The maternity wear shops all think us pregnant females must be desperate and/ stupid! WHO, in their right, pregnant or non-pregnant mind would pay the prices they're asking?? But hell - maybe I will end up succumbing to their arm-twisting extortion because I NEED TO BE WARM!!! Even if it means paying 100 squidoodles for a massive black tent that makes me look like I'm hiding an entire Tesco grocery shop inside it?! (Work has been very, very slow in the offering: one day of work in almost two months... But now that I've signed up with another agency, I should be able to afford The Tent after a few weeks.)

Craig's daily reading of the P.E Herald newspaper (he can't actually go to sleep at night if he hasn't read it) has prompted me to begin the same habit in the frantic hope it'll help curb this snowballing homesickness. Yesterday was my first day. This is what I discovered: my second-cousin, Luke Watson, called Afrikaners 'Dutchmen' and is now suffering the cold shoulders of all the Boks. Admittedly I do feel a little defensive on his part for two reasons. One, he is my second-cousin (though I only remember playing with him as a tiny tot at Storms River more than 20 years ago) and two, haven't so many of us said the same thing?! OK, yes, yes... he was a bit of a poephol for doing it so publicly...

The other thing I discovered was so ugly and gruesome that it stayed with me all the day long, like a seething, pounding pain in the back of my head. Four little Xhosa boys were conned into helping a stranger catch a stray fox - but then raped them and made three of them watch while he butchered the one little boy... removing eyes, intestines, a part of his tiny little pinkie finger...
If only I could set up a filter on the news sites. If only. One of my reasons for reading the news is that I can feel more connected to my country - and also to acquaint myself with the true 'climates' of the country: political, social, economic. And I suppose that means keeping an open mind and taking it ALL in. Oh, but then I think of those four little boys and I just don't know.

PS. Just as frightening, revolting things happen here in England (everywhere, in fact). Some people use these kinds of stories as a numbing technique to not miss their homeland - but realistically, I can't do that to South Africa. In the news here, I've seen stories of a young British woman in Brazil butchered to pieces by her Brazilian boyfriend, then collected in a suitcase and abandoned under a bridge next to a river; or the pretty young special-needs teacher whose best friend's boyfriend murdered her and kept her body in a self-storage freezer, fetching her body whenever he felt like it, for necrophilic sex until her body decomposed from exposure to too much warmth - then he burnt her body in a field.

Nowhere is civilised.

On cravings and carboot sales

What a GLORIOUS sunshiney day!! For the last 5 days we've showered in bucketfuls of hot, gold sunshine - Summer's way of apologising at last?! What would we do with this magnificent day? With what could we fill it?
Seeing as we missed yesterday's carboot sale in Holcot which must've been a whopper in this weather, we headed down to our local recycling plant where Craig'd seen a foldable rabbit run a few weeks back (while I secretly hoped it would be gone: I can't bear the thought of my sweet little bun being cooped up ALL the time...) Fanastically, the run had long been sold (lucky Max!) but I discovered all sorts of other things I didn't think I could leave without.
One was a very old, very large black and dark blue luggage trunk, stamped with R.A.F and someone now long-passed's name. Hmmm, it'd look fabulous on top of my fluffy flokati rug in the lounge as a coffee table! Then there was an old walnut dresser with perfectly filigreed brass handles which was the perfect height for the baby's nursery to serve as storage for the baby clothes AND serve as changing table! A single cup and saucer caught my eye in its white porcelain glory edged delicately in turquoise and gold lace. A tiny old Chinese jewellery box with a miniature landscape set theatrically behind a little pane of glass, each little branch and leave carved ingeniously from some pale, soft wood. A small gold latch unclasped to reveal a seductive red satin inside. Oh there was so MUCH! But the council workers who run the tip are rather like sharks, who sidle silently up to you, sniff the money-scent of you and try to determine just how much you'd be willing to pay! They can size up desire in a cold flash of an eye. And so, when our regular council-dude told me, with that cold gleam in his eye, "Thirty quid, my love," I realised we would no longer be frequenting this den of refuse and sharks --- the carboot sales in the local villages render much better quality (yes, it's still someone's refuse) stuff for just a fraction of the price! Two weeks ago we bought a beautiful cabinet for my studio space for just 2GBP!
So did I buy anything in the end? An old home-made wooden horsey on wheels that I can just see rejuvenated in some kind of paint effect. Keep it old and antiquey? If our bub is a girl, maybe I'll lacquer it in a lush fuschia pink and decorate it with gold, lace-like patterns - a la Bollywood? I'll leave it in the empty nursery and wait for our scan result on November the 3rd!
The foraging and bartering left me hungry (nothing unusual these days!) and lunch was a feast of a feta sarmie, a handful of plump, juicy cherry tomatoes and a somewhat gluttonous helping of real German sauerkraut! Mercifully, I've not begun chewing the plaster off our walls or eating handfuls of soil form the back garden, but I can certainly testify that Cravings of Pregnancy are no myth or old wives' tale: it is as real as gherkins and strawberry jam at midnight!! My cravings have been less bizarre, but certainly something I can' help but notice when one week all I want to eat is buffalo mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, and the next it's something else... (For the first time this morning, when I surveyed myself in the mirror, I felt like I actually look pregnant for the first time - and no longer like a fat vroumens! We're just 2 weeks away from the halfway point!!!!!!!!!!! If I START to describe all I'm thinking and feeling, I'll have you stuck for another hour yet, so let me say ciao ciao and see you soon ;)
PS. My poor, pounding heart needed a break from all the Stephen King books we have in our home (thanks to a certain addict called Craig) and so I found some more soothing, beautiful books - and the current one I just can't put down is "Serving Crazy with Curry" by Amulya Malladi. Reminiscent of 'Like Water for Chocolate' by Laura Esquival - but much more simple in language - and, of course, Indian in origin. (I think my looooong story about my friend Pakshi (http://thesoutpielphenomenon.blogspot.com) had me lean towards this Indian tale!)

Not Keyne on Milton Keynes...

A sunny autumn morning and I am up much earlier than usual to enjoy the sunshine! (To clarify: to enjoy the sunshine from my warm little spot on the sofa right next to the radiator, dressed up in all the warm, cuddly things I could find AND my coat!) Yes - winter is here, even though it is technically only still autumn - but remember that when one is African, many things are not quite as it may seem (wink!) Admittedly, Zuma has the same effect on my heart that the English winter has on my body, but: I haven't been able to really get to grips with the ins and outs of what's really going on, so I'll not allow myself to comment at this time, lest I make a poephol of myself!

Plans for today? Stay on 'high alert' for a call from Simply Education, my supply teaching agency! I'd assumed I'd be working 5 days a week, week after week, but I've only had one (disastrous and discouraging) day so far. Eish! Also, I'll do some writing - but more excitingly, I'll head into my little studio to concoct a game-plan for MOOCH. Mooch? Huh? 'Scusez mois?

A hot cup of perfectly sweet tea and toast soaking in melted butter and honey was brought as a peace offering yesterday morning to wake me after an irritable night spent next to the now hopeful peacemaker who tossed and turned like the sea after a storm - the sad result of an oft repeated chemical experiment whose the thesis remains the same: Jack Daniels and red wine in one evening do not bode well for a good night's rest! Munching the delicious offering in wolfish acceptance, we stared out together in dismay at the torrid black rain which dampened our enthusiasm somewhat for the day we'd had planned: a trip down to Milton Keynes to visit a craft fair.
Driving along in the car with our South African neighbours/friends, Barney and Ang - Ang and I in the back, I very quickly became more carsick than I've ever been in my life - but closed my eyes, breathed dramatically and deeply through my nose and blamed it on being pregnant (most things get blamed on that these days!)but by the time we reached the next village along, I couldn't bear it much longer (and I think my fellow passengers couldn't either!!) so we lurched to a stop and I leaped into the front next which soon proved to be an instant solution. No, let me rephrase that: a short-lived solution! The nausea crept back slowly but surely, so that I began to frantically gobble down the apply I'd packed for much later in the day in the hopes it would settle my blood sugar level and make this YEEEEEEECH feeling go the hell away!! A windy farm road decided my fate: I was to be sick, for the very first time in my life on TWO accounts, 1)on the side of the road and 2)in front of my fiance and friends................ Bloody hell!!
With my carefully applied eyeliner now running in long grey streaks down my red, puffy cheeks, we headed to the nearest place we could find some munchies. It was unanimously decided I'd not had enough to eat for breakfast, so a ploughman's sarmie, Lucozade and chocolate bar later and I felt like the proverbial million bucks.

After a shortish drive from our emergency stop and a fair amount of our driver's vehement cussing about how he abhors the English and that our African taxis drive more considerately, we arrived at an old, sprawling stone farmhouse that had been converted into a farm stall and various little decor/trinket shops. The mustards, chutneys and jellies really tickled my fancy - their flavours ranging from apply & thyme jelly to Devil's Breath mustard! The big loaves of just baked bread left us all in a mouthwatering state of temptation - until we saw the price per loaf!! But what really captured me (mind, body AND soul!) was the selection of Turkish Delight! THE REAL DEAL kinda stuff - so that you could almost smell the old, dark hands of the Turkish merchant and touch his tightly wound, unwashed grey turban when you picked up the box and felt the succulent weight of the heaven inside... A purple, hexagonal box boasted 'violet' Turkish delights. I was wracked by strange sense of deja vu thinking about these violet-scented delicacies, but simply could not place the feeling or memory...
The next shop along was a very French decor boutique bedecked with chic candles, cushions and some gorgeous art I didn't think would sell outside of Europe. The owners, a subtly pushy Frenchman with shoulderlength, wavy greying hair that would look ridiculous on a man of any other nationality -- and his Dutch wife (ex-model, by the looks of her) chatted with us while she soothed her crying 11 month old baby son, telling me about her other 3 children aged 17, 15 and 12. I refrained from saying 'laatlammetjie'!!
Craig had disappeared awhile before and I discovered him in the next shop along, the proprietress holding up a white babygro - the front embroidered in delicate silver with 'i'm a baby angel', the back adorned with tiny little white fabric wings!
Wonderfully cute, but hey - for TWENTY ONE fat squidoodles, my baby can be cute enough for me without it!! The rest of the shop was elegantly stocked with the most fabulous stuff - the kind of stuff you would find in Cape Town (somewhat exacerbating my homesickness!) Little square silk sachets of something scented, handstitched, with a little printed arty image stitched down onto the silk... Flat round fabric button-badges decadently hand-embroidered with words or little images... Glasses and vases in dazzling blue, etched with trailing flowers and random butterflies or summer swallows... a long floor rug in knotted suede strips with the word L O V E running along its centre in blood red...
The long and the sort of it, before I get carried away, is that I will now spend the next 2 to 3 weeks making some of my own decadent little fripperies and small square art canvases - and then potentially become a supplier for Mooch - their second shop opening up in nearby Buckingham in the coming month! (This could not have come at a better time for me!!) ---- oh yes! Mooch stocks SA's Carol Boyes silverware. The owner's husband has some or other South African connection/heritage.


If you've ever read Bill Bryson's book about England, you will understand my lack of enthusiasm about encountering the town centre and (in)famous shopping mall of Milton Keynes. Parking was a nightmare with everyone greedy and grabbing for a space, the rain not making things any easier. The mall is just one looooooooooong stretch of shopping shopping shopping. Wallis, Hugo Boss, Woolworths, Faith, Burger King. The bizarre uncomplementary mix of shops is reflected in the crowds - elegant, ruthless women in stilettos and manicures bumping and jostling between loitering cheap-tracksuited families who look lost and soul-hungry. Yip - a pretty scathing criticism, huh? But if you've been there, you'll agree. And if you're going to go there, don't say I didn't warn you!

Enough of all that. Max is shredding the newspapers in a lonely, hungry rabbit-tantrum - his way of telling me: I KNOW you're in the next room, Lisa! Don't think I'll let you ignore me for long!! Time to get give my bunny some love (and keep a beady eye on him so he doesn't get another mouthful of lounge wallpaper!!)

Tring-tring...

Yesterday I joined a couple of writing forums as well as some SA expat ones. Some of these seem very 'random' and very slow, while others look so damn complicated and un-user-friendly that already I've ditched them. I don't really know where to go from here, but all I know is that I must write or I will explode!!
When I write I do very little (or no) editorial polishing mainly because I think I might suffocate all that freshness out of it by being hyper-critical. Of course, I'll do a cursory, casual 'once-over' but I can't bring myself to agonise over every little comma or adjective... Maybe this means I am lazy - or maybe it means I have developed enough self-confidence to just write for the sheer love of it! Whatever the verdict, I am my happiest when writing...
Summer has definitely moved onto its celestial course down to the other hemisphere, so that we are forced to sit with scarves wrapped woolenly about our necks and the gas bill climbing ever higher. My passion for winter I've had since a child has been frozen into a mere memory so that I have to do my utmost to not let this perpetual chill get me down. Strangely enough, last weekend was magnificently warm - as if the sun were teasing us by saying - ha! this is the last you'll see of me till June next year! Har har!
Craig is at a rugby match this wind strewn afternoon with the Colts - the under-11 rugby team he coaches at school, while I am home in my jarmies (and scarf!) cuddling on the warm couch with my laptop - catching up with a world of emails that seems to spin and spin and spin! How people coped with living abroad I don't quite know. My brother was one of the first in the SA exodus to London in the '90s - and he'd phone for our birthdays for 10quid a minute! Now it only costs a mere half a pence a minute to call home... Most days I find myself chatting to my mom with a cup of tea usually for an hour or more. Though email is great for corresponding and staying in touch, NOTHING can beat a languid, detailed chat on the phone - hearing the dogs barking in the background or the doorbell ring...

British Wintriness (is there such a word??)

Never before has this British wintriness affected me in the way I am struggling with it at the moment. Perhaps I can blame it on my perpetual homesickness, compounded by these raging pregnancy hormones? Even our summer up north here in the Midlands was hardly worthy of being called 'summer' compared to the gentle sunniness of Hampshire and West Berkshire, with probably a grand equivalent of 7 days that justify being called 'sunny'. I remember how my one sister struggled deeply with the English winter, literally sinking into what they call 'seasonal depression' - but even then, I figured it was her living in grey, concrete London that caused her to feel so low and frustrated.
And so, I have turned the heating on since yesterday despite the constant talk about everyone being able to afford their gas bills. I just could not bear the cold eating into my bones, day in and day out - where the only relief could be found in bed under piles of duvet or in a scaldingly hot bath. The trick is to have the heating on, not to turn the house into a hot air balloon, but to merely take that dreadful biting chill off the air - whereas the trend here seems to be to blast the building with hot air so that when you walk in off the icy street, you are hit by a solid wall of claustrophobic heat which has you clawing frantically at your woollen coat!
However, when the baby is born, we will need to keep the ambient temperature quite warm. Newborns' little bodies haven't developed the ability to regulate their body temperature, and their circulation is still quite primitive. Our nurse/midwife at Gymboree explained one day, when I moaned about how stuffy and warm her office was, that babies can easily catch a cold or develop pneumonia if exposed to a cold draught. (And she's a 'modern' woman who blatantly negates most old wives' tales -- so I think I'll definitely take her advice!)

Engrossed in a telephone conversation with a very dear friend, I didn't hear the sounds of escape - until Max was right next to me in the lounge looking at me with proud defiance: "See, you can't keep me locked up!" Flabbergasted, I had to retract my previous statement that bunnies aren't that bright... Needless to say, his cage is now rigged to keep him firmly locked in his straw-strewn, bunny-poo home!
As I am becoming more and more pregnant, I am finding running around after this cheeky little bunny more of a chore which leaves me cussing and puffing (and, I'm ashamed to admit, wondering if there is a nice little girl in the village who would like a bunny!!) Someone rightly advised me to stick him outside in the garden where he'll probably be happier, but I just can't bring myself to do it! I imagine him shivering in the winter nights, wondering sadly why I kicked him out the house. Also, I know for a FACT, that I will neglect to play with him as much as I do with him being indoors: it's seeing him looking at me with those big, brown eyes that makes me open his hutch and cuddle him for a bit before letting him run around the house (and eat all my wallpaper - or, shall I say, the landlord's?!)

GUESS WHAT????? At the midwife on Wednesday, I heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time!! The exquisite miraculousness of it hasn't yet reached the realms of my conscious, rational brain - I can't find the words to express the sound of such a tiny little heart beating like a running wild horse's hooves so deep inside me, and consciously being able to understand that THIS is my child... Prostrate on that examining table covered in stiff blue paper towel, I fell victim to something I felt before at the 12 week scan... I can only think that this overpowering emotion and deep awareness is 'mother's love'... In a few weeks' time, we'll be back at the hospital's dark ultrasound room, for our 20 week scan --- Craig is almost obsessed about this scan: then he'll be able to know if it is a boy or a girl. It's not such a crucial thing for me - maybe because I have the sore boobs, growing belly ETC (!!!) to make the baby more real for me, whereas Craig needs everything he can to be able to relate to this first child of his. There's a private clinic down the road that will do an hour's appointment with ultrasound and a 4D scan -- for 175 Great British Pounds! And despite our meagre earnings, this is something I think he would go without food for!!

Oh, I could write and write all day - but I need to do some research into how to get more traffic to my two blogs. (My dream? To be a full-time blogger and get paid for it. Unrealistic? There are plenty of bloggers out there who have stopped work to become full time writers - so why can't I? It's just that I've found my current attempts at publicity rather useless -- so I need to push myself a bit and get involved in forums and various other groups. Any ideas from you would be WELCOME!)