What a way to start the day

Just a quick one before we go on "holiday" - got a text this morning saying our friends had turned their little girl into a big sister overnight. A whopper of a baby girl weighing 10 lbs arrived with minimal pain relief.

Congrats to D and J and big sister A.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

We're going on "holiday". I use the quotation marks as I think it's going to be 6 days of unadulterated torture. My mother turns 60 on Tuesday and has arranged for her side of the family plus hangers on to come up to a big house in Northumberland (Wife in the North territory). She has already started huffing about not everyone going for the whole week, people bailing at the last minute, arrangements for food... I think she might end up gagged and bound in the cellar of the house while everyone else enjoys the peace and quiet.

We're going via Wales though to spend some time with family friends (in fact, the people who own Buddy's parents) on Saturday - D is my most long-standing friend. Many, many years ago, Buddy's predecessor also came from this family, and we traipsed from the South coast all the way up to deepest, darkest Mid-Wales (mile and three-quarter long no-through road - they live at the end of it) in February half-term when there was snow everywhere and met this lovely warm, welcoming family in a paradise setting. D and I hit it off - her birthday is a few days after mine so we are the same age, apart from the fact that she only gets a birthday every 4 years. D's Mum turns 60 exactly a week after mine does. So they are doing the sensible thing of throwing a barbecue so everyone can turn up for it and then leave rather than having to be in a pressure cooker environment for 6 whole, long, painful excruciating days.

I sense that bad things will happen. As there is precious little chance of me getting near an internet connection for a week, like Mal, I will be very quiet for a week, but will no doubt have some emotional battle-scars for show and tell when we get back on Saturday.

Adieu!

Household objects of terror

Due to my penchant for fainting in hot weather, I have installed a desk fan in the sitting room to keep it bearable without the need to remove layers of clothes. It oscillates gently back and forth and keeps me nice and cool. Unfortunately, Buddy has taken exception to it, and refuses to believe that when he is not watching it, that it will not shed its mesh metal guards, and chase him around the room shaving off his coat. Heaven knows, in this weather, he'd probably be cooler with less fur.

He has to sneak past it, making sure it's not looking when he runs into the sitting room from the kitchen, and then dives to take cover from it on the sofa. Unfortunately, such is his fear of the fan, that when ordered "off" the sofa, he wets himself, as it involves being sent involuntarily into the jaws of the death fan. This renders the sofa un-sittable for humans. This human needs to sit down a lot, so I go and get the inflatable gym ball of certain dog-death.

For anyone who has seen that Indiana Jones film, I think he assumes it will start rolling at him, chasing him through the entire downstairs of the house, and he, the plucky hero will be forced to flee it movements by hiding in corners or gaps between kitchen cabinets. These large, blue, inflatable, 65cm diameter gym balls are not to be trusted. They are in league with the ironing board, don't you know!

The ironing board has been Buddy's arch-nemesis from the day we brought him home. Ironing boards are the scourge of small dogs, and a lesser known fact is that they feast entirely on a diet of dogs weighing under 4 kilos. Therefore a small dog must never walk under an ironing board lest it be snapped shut in the ironing board's legs and held until devoured (or at least, ironed flat) by the laundry aid.

There is no bounds to Buddy's nervousness. We've had him since he was a puppy, and we know his breeders very, very well. We can safely say that he's never had a "bad experience" where an ironing board, a desk fan, a gym ball or any other household appliance is concerned. If we had got him from a rescue centre, we would have assumed that he had been maltreated by gym balls, tortured with desk fans, and been shut in an ironing board.

The truth of the matter is that Buddy has a fertile imagination and an unhealthy nervousness of household objects. Lucky then, that he has a family who love him, and cherish him, and allow him his quirks, and coax him into not being scared any more with treats, honeyed words, and praise.

He's lying sprawled on Mal's half of the sofa, just next to me. He's enjoying the draft of the fan. It's not oscillating. We have reached a compromise. Baby steps.

Well that appears to be it then.

I went to the doctor's yesterday to see whether I should go back to work or not. He said that because I was still experiencing faint spells, that I should not be going back. I might seem ok to do things, but that is because I am managing my symptoms well at my own pace. If I went back to work, then I would not be able to do so, and would likely get worse again.

So, it looks like I don't have to work unless I want to before September 2009. Eeek.

There's a first time for everything...

Friday was a memorable day. It was the first time that I have ever seen the petrol pump go over the £40 mark to fill up the tank on my lovely economical car. Worrying times.

Buddy the dog went to stay at his sister's house, and we went to Dorking for a wedding at the weekend. Beautiful day, beautiful scenery, fantastic company, and a pair of very happy newlyweds. I have never seen my father-in-law so inebriated. He had a few too many wine gums and fell over whilst standing still. Quite amusing, but also shocking in itself as he is normally such a traditional, sensible person who exercises restraint and decorum in such situations.

We then went from Dorking to Wiltshire to collect Buddy, and then back home. I made a cake (hurriedly) and then we went out to hypnobirthing with said cake (it was someone's birthday and I had promised cake).

This week's session was all about falling in love with your baby. Which I have been doing, unless he's doing push ups under my ribs. I don't like him much at that point, but I still love him. He seems to like me singing to him. And he is starting to respond to touch too - if I prod him he often prods back.

Hope is a place on the internet.

I post on a forum on the internet. I started posting there when I was planning Mal's and my wedding, and since then have found my way onto different bits of it and have got to know some of the other posters quite well. I have even met a few of them for a drink. I don't think I've ever met such a high density of just genuinely nice people from one place before.

There are times when I wonder what will become of Mal Jr and what sort of place it will be by the time he enters it, and whether all hope of a decent society will be long lost, and we will forlornly remember the days when neighbours actually cared about one another.

That is, until yesterday. there is one member of the forum - actually, I will stop myself there and call it a community, because it is - who has had some tough luck recently. She is a mother of four and her eldest (15) has been been suffering cruelly at the hands of a mental illness (interim diagnosis received yesterday was bi-polar disorder) resulting in her trying to commit suicide 3 times, and being admitted to a specialist psychiatric unit that deals with children.

S (the person in question) is also well into her 3rd trimester of pregnancy number 5. She is a stay at home Mum and her husband works shifts in a job that keeps food on the table and their heads above water... but not much else. Due to all of the to-ing and fro-ing to hospitals and the like he has used up all of his holiday allowance (that he was saving to use as paternity leave when number 5 arrives) and couldn't afford to take any with the amount of pay that Gordon Brown deems acceptable to give for such occasions.

She was going to make do with a battered pram that had already been used for a number of her children and was on its last legs, too. So a couple of people (TF and H) from the forum decided to do a whip round for S in the hope that we could spread a little happiness and buy her her dream pram (yes, this is the sort of fluff and nonsense that gets discussed on this forum).

So we did. And it was delivered yesterday. And we caused her (in a good way) to be smiling and crying at the same time for most of the day.

And the question of what to do with the change. A few too many people were a bit too generous with their hard-earned. We actually had enough for the pram nearly 3 times over. We had no idea what to do with it all, but bearing in mind that they were in need of a few other things that we probably didn't want to say about, we just gave it to her.

Mr S can now take a week of paternity leave to get to know his new baby, and support his wife.

Nice things do happen to good people. And hope is indeed a place on the internet. It's just a matter now of getting it back into the real world...

Swimming with the Fishes

In keeping with my new drama queen status, I nearly fainted at work yesterday. I decided this was once too many times. So called NHS direct. I could hardly speak to the operator as my head was swimming so much.

She advised me to see a GP asap. So I did. And he signed me off work for a week with postural hypotension. i.e. my blood pressure is pretty low, and my poor head isn't getting the oxygen it needs when it needs it, so nearly blacks out as a consequence. It's caused by moving too quickly, so my body doesn't get the chance to acclimatise and make the necessary adjustments fast enough to catch up with standing up, or going from lying to sitting, or sitting to lying.

Mal Jr is fine though. Perfectly happy, bumbling round in there, jabbing me in the groin, thumping me in the ribs... I think he might be an octopus as I think I get kicks in about 5 directions at once sometimes.

Buddy has relished the opportunity to spend an awful lot of time curled up on me, next to me, sometimes under me... rather than spend the day alone. We have just watched A Fish Called Wanda. It must be the hundredth time I have seen that film, but it doesn't get old. It's one of Kevin Kline's best roles. Especially when he eats the fish. Poor Wanda the angelfish!

I've left the TV on the same movie channel and Buddy and I are now watching Groundhog Day. Another favourite of mine, especially the different treatments of Ned Reierson each time Phil Connors meets him. If the next film is pants, I'll probably start on the DVDs. Lord knows we have enough of them sitting in the dining room. Along with the dishwasher we need installing before Mal Jr gets here. That's a small part of the list really, there is still so much to do!