Scotland Lite

Our trip began with a wedding in Preston. We missed the first train to Manchester due to overcrowding, managed the next one. We got to the hotel in Preston shattered but looking forward to the wedding the next day. Which really was lovely. We knew several people including a cousin of mine and some old school friends from Malta. I conserved enough energy to dance for about 3 minutes before I almost collapsed on my very high heels but was very pleased with the effort.

The next day, I paid for it tenfold. It was possibly the worst day of the pregnancy to date. And what made it even worse was that I had no bed to retreat to as we'd checked out of the hotel by 11am and were headed to the airport by lunchtime for our 5pm flight to Edinburgh. We figured we'd hang out at the airport, if for a rather long while, but at least we'd have access to food.

At 3pm, our flight was cancelled. At that point I think I slightly lost my mind. I was so unwell and was putting so much effort into staying awake and keeping my stomach from lurching every 3 minutes, it was too much to even consider another 3 hours of that until the next flight, at 8pm. So David and I took over a row of four seats in the departure lounge for the rest of the afternoon/evening, me lying down with my head on his lap as a pillow. On the plane, any control I had gained over my stomach seemingly didn't board the flight with me, and that was that.

So an hour later, thanking a very patient flight attendant and my bag stuffed with as many sick bags as I could smuggle out of other seat pockets on the way off the plane, we landed in Scotland.

After that, it wasn't so bad, but as I needed to rest regularly throughout the day, our sightseeing trips around Scotland could never be as long and in depth as we'd have liked. It is for this reason that I refer to our holiday as "Scotland Lite" because we did not see as much as we should and could have had I been feeling "normal."

But what we did see, I loved. It's been a very long while since I've been in a country that struck me as simply beautiful. Even the people were friendly and welcoming. The weather was not as cool as I'd hoped it would be - I was really looking foward to needing to snuggle up in a fleece most of the time, but as it was, a t-shirt generally did the trick! (The picture shows me feeling cold on the Loch, but that was an exception!)

A friend who knows Scotland well told me the other day that Scotland has two seasons: August and Winter... lol, I'm inclined to believe it!

Anyway, to name a few places, we stayed in a lovely little cottage in Callander. We spent half a day in Edinburgh, another stunning city - and another half day in Oban, where we visited the seal colony. So cute! We visited the Blair Drummond Safari Park and Stirling and Doune Castles, and another quaint little place which I will be spotlighting in a few days' time for my September Spotlight...

My final verdict is that it's definitely a place I'll be heading back to, perhaps in a few years, when the little kid can walk and hike, and we can really properly see Scotland in all it's glory.

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!)