A Pint of Milk

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Sometimes, amidst all the crap that life throws our way, there comes a moment of goodness. Pure, old fashioned goodness.

Like when a young boy bumps into you on a pavement and takes the time to turn around and apologise. How often do you get that anymore?

Or like our taxi driver, who picked us up from the airport after a week away, and thought to bring along a carton of milk in a cooler for us to take home. Paranoid, given-up-on-society me had a discreet panic attack when she asked whether we were going home to an empty house. All sorts of things crossed my mind, why would she be asking? It turned out to be about a pint of milk, handed to us as we got out of the car.

"Have yourselves a cuppa and wind down," she said.

Operation NICE comes to mind. If only these little niceties cropped up more often...

Bump

Well as the days go by, and my mind becomes increasingly foggy, I am becoming more visibly pregnant. For a while there I forgot it would actually happen and then overnight, or so it seemed, I developed a bump. A bump that even strangers now acknowledge. It feels funny.

Yesterday we hit Bluewater for a spot of maternity shopping. It is unbelievable how utterly difficult it is to find a smart dress that allows for a bump and doesn't cost the earth. A very lovely sales assistant at Dorothy Perkins took me under her wing and suggested various options, and in the end I did find something suitable for a wedding I'm off to next week.

But I really am very pleased with all of the pieces I bought yesterday, especially the amazingly comfortable trousers from H&M. Saturday morning brought with it the slightly shocking news that I could no longer close the top button on my jeans and still breathe normally. Something desperately needed to be done.


Three hours of that later, I had used up more than my daily quota of energy and the rest of the day was really quite awful, as most afternoons lately are.

Today I woke up, batteries charged once again (mornings are always the best) and I made us pancakes for breakfast (I woke up literally tasting them), and then set about clearing out my wardrobe of everything I no longer fit into. I put everything away, hoping to see a day when I do fit into it all again. There isn't too much left, it really is quite daunting!

And suddenly, between the adorable Moses Basket I picked up last week, the sudden change of wardrobe, and my startingly distinguishable silhouette, the whole pregnancy thing now seems more real... and I may be sensing some panic coming my way!

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Just One Evening

I had such high hopes for beautiful evenings spent in our garden this summer. I dreamt of evenings sat outside with a glass of wine (though water would have done) with David, lanterns glowing with tea lights and fairy lights draped beneath the umbrella. Maybe one of us sat in the pod on a big cushion that we never ended up buying, swaying slowly. I envisioned having our little patch of brown filled with beautiful flowers and greenery, and music gently flowing out of the open living room window while we chatted easily and enjoyed each other's company.

We still get to enjoy each other's company. Unfortunately it's mostly locked up indoors, windows firmly shut because of my ongoing hayfever and more often than not, there's a bucket at my feet, because of the nausea, just in case.

It saddens me to look out at that garden, (even with nosy neighbour sticking her head out of the window opposite trying to catch any movement of anyone that might be worth gossiping about) and see it left unused. Brown patch still very much brown save for the weeds that have grown back after I painstakingly spent hours trying to get rid of them just a few weeks ago. Umbrella still closed and covered after the long, cold winter. And find myself wishing for cold again because I know it'll calm the hayfever.

Before I know it, the summer I so wished for will be over and I won't have had a chance to enjoy it. I hate watching it go by and not be able to do anything about it, except dream about the way it could have been.

I'm sad today. Disappointed. But tomorrow's a new day and the weather should be cooler. And who knows? Maybe one of these days, it'll ease up, and maybe I'll get even one evening in my garden before the winter's back.

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An Introduction

Well I promised you all an explanation for my recent behaviour and here it is.

For the last few weeks, I've been rather unwell, mostly in the afternoons and evenings. Unfortunately there's not much I or anyone can do about it as it's down to those wonderful things we know as hormones. (And hayfever.)

Lovelies, I'm almost 10 weeks pregnant. David and I are very very excited about it all and yesterday we got a first look at our little Bean, who seems to be doing very well, jumping around in there. We saw a beating heart, little fingers and arms and kicking legs and then Bean got camera shy and gave us his (her?) back.

So, here's introducing my upside-down little Bean :)



(Fingers crossed that my anything-but-morning sickness lifts soon to allow me a smidgeon of normality!)

Lines of Light and Dark

Last year, as summer came to an end here in the UK, I was invited to be a guest blogger on Biscuit in the Basket. This year, to mark the beginning of a brand new summer, I'd like to repost my piece here. Hope you enjoy it!


September 2009

England's not exactly known for it's sunny days, but this summer there've been a good few of them. Sunlight fills me with joy: It reminds me of brilliant summers in Malta when I was young. We lived in an old house which was over a hundred years old and had once been a guesthouse for the posh and pompous. Downstairs, our bedrooms, had been the maids' quarters. There was a little storeroom, which we used as a study. It was always so dark in there; I would run past it like a flash of lightning, day or night. Surely there were ghosts and other terrifying creatures hiding in that little room, ready to eat me alive.

We lived in that house for 12 years. Yet the strongest memories that remain are summer ones. I don't remember looking out of the window and seeing rain. It always seemed happy. Always full of sunshine. Whether the old wooden shutters were open or closed.

The summers were brilliant. Carefree schoolchildren, books forgotten for the three months of summer. We'd be playing in the paddling pool in the huge garden at the back of the house, when we'd hear a van hooting its horn and a man shouting in Maltese. The pastry man was here. We'd get out of the pool, pull off any swimming aids (clearly unnecessary in a few inches of water but made us feel like professional swimmers), and we'd run through the house, leaving a trail of little foot-sized puddles of water, throw open the front door, coins jingling in our clammy hands, and we'd queue up at the pastry man's van eager for pastries. He had the best ones: the long soft pastries with the white cream and the bright red jam. They were always delicious and we could never have enough of them.

Then one summer he never came again. And we never really thought about it either. That paddling pool always got filled with water though, even when we were technically way too big to fit in it, and when there were far too many friends trying to join in. Anything for some respite from that stifling Mediterranean heat.

Summers quickly came to an end (although our parents always found three entire months never ending!) and memories fast-forward to my sister and I sitting at the kitchen table, suspiciously inspecting our brand new schoolbooks. The shutters would be closed in a further attempt to keep out the heat. But rays of light still seeped in. The room would be filled with alternating lines of light and dark, all around. It felt somewhat reassuring: another school year might be around the corner, but the sun hasn’t quite deserted us yet.