This post is subtitled "I am Mum - hear me roar."

Another fairly decent night last night. Little Bear is now settling well in her cot between feeds and nappy changes, although for some reason her dear little body has decided that the majority of dirty nappies shall occur during the hours of darkness. As anyone who has ever had to change a nappy at four in the morning will know, it's a lot easier to change a wet nappy than a dirty nappy with one's eyes still half glued together with sleep. Again I had the phone with me with a rolling alarm set for every four hours but again she pre-empted the alarm naturally by about half an hour to an hour each time. I got my first batch of sleep last night about midnight after 2 nappy changes and feedings, three hours straight through to another feed and a nappy change, just under three hours to the next feed.

As the time stamp on the post may indicate, I elected to get up after the last feed and bring her downstairs - allowing me a little time on my own with a quiet sleeping child and allowing Theo the precious remainder of the slumbering hours in peace and quiet. I'll likely sleep again later in the afternoon to make up the missing few hours of my normal sleep requirements but to be honest six hours in two decent segments isn't half bad given there's a week old baby in the house.

Speaking of which, this time last week I was in horrible, horrible pain and half an hour from producing Eva into the world. Bloody miraculous when you stop to think about it. Human bodies are a weird combination of things that should be dead-ends in terms of evolution (precarious methods of reproducing young during torture sessions that are then essentially helpless for several years) and things that make you marvel (being able to walk a mere five hours after gruelling physical stresses, albeit very carefully and painfully).

More anon. Tea and book calling now.

( The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed.. )
Final marks out of ten: 5 out of 10. Points deducted are for taking most of the book taking up the stance of 'The Hero Tries To Get Somewhere' but in a way that makes for slightly less than compelling reading. 1 point is deducted for an entirely unnecessary plot thread and viewpoint being randomly introduced (a Culture person who tries to second guess outcomes). 1 point was returned for the inclusion of the epilogues.

Final comment: Banks takes until the epilogues to shed light on the point he was making. The end was fairly original (the heroes don't all win the day). Overall a decent story but simply not the story this book is billed to contain, leaving me feeling somewhat hijacked.

Well, that was an interesting night.

I say 'night' because technically darkness fell, eventually lifted to birdsong and morning arrived.

Eva was quite happy and settled after the horrors of the midwife giving her her first MOT at the hospital and then the startlement of coming to a new environment.

Until it was time for Mummy and Daddy to go to sleep. When she decided she was going to be voraciously hungry and dislike her cot bed, and also excrete something close to her own body weight in poo over the course of no less than three nappies.

The books talk about Day 3 of a child's life being the horror. Bollocks to that. It's Night One at home that's the true test. I will admit straight away that I had my first real howl last night about three a.m. but it was more because I was so very tired than because I wanted to give her back or anything. So far being a mum is indeed a responsibility but one that I am very happy to be in charge of.

I will also say straight away that it really does make a difference having lots of help and support at home. As Eva is breastfeeding then at the moment the menfolk can't help out much when she's hungry but they are both being very functional and useful at things like keeping a watchful eye on her while I snooze, and also when it comes to my having half an hour to myself for a bath and spending a little bit of time talking about or doing something unrelated to being a mum.

I will likely do a friends filtered post later today/tonight/when schedule allows, behind an LJ cut to protect the minds of those who wish not to know about the gory detail that I will record for posterity. However here is the very short form of the salient points:

Eva weighed 8 lbs 10.5 oz when she was born, in metric I think this is just short of 4 kg.

Only after she was safely delivered and in my arms did people realise that there was a bloody big knot in her umbilical cord, that could have caused all kinds of problems throughout the pregnancy and the delivery and in fact had they realised it was there then there would have been an emergency c-section rather than inducement of labour.

Things were indeed induced at half five on the Monday evening, but instead of taking 2 days as warned, things were over and done with by half eight the following morning. Fortunately I do not recall most of the hours in the middle bit as I do recall they were the ones that really rather hurt a bit.

I did the lot on gas and air.

I lost a lot of fluid and couldn't keep any liquid or food down throughout, and lost a bit more than average blood at the end, therefore I was given a bag of fluid intravenously directly after she was born, and kept in overnight for observation. However I made a quick recovery and haven't even had a Paracetamol since.

Hello, world.

Well, for those of you who have Theo's journal friended or were otherwise on the distribution list of News: I'm home, without the Bump but with a Baby.

Theo has talked about some of the detail and at the moment I am both too tired mentally and physically to decide what if any detail I want to share in all the gory detail, so for now I shall simply say the following:

All is well. Baby and I are both well and getting stronger by the day. I have some very interesting aches in bits of my body that I would have been pleased never to have experienced, but never mind that now. We are both being well taken care of and intend to take things very easy indeed over the next few days.

I will post a small selection of pictures in the next few days. Those of you who live locally are more than welcome to come by and meet Eva Joanne in person, though it would be nice to do things by arrangement so random dropping in to find us unwashed and in our pjs can be avoided. Those of you who live further afield who would like to meet her please do feel free to comment or email and we will come to some arrangement at a suitable point in time.

Thank you all for the best wishes and congratulations that have been relayed onwards to me, even if I haven't spoken to you personally yet your words have reached me and been gratefully received.

Away notice.

I am about to change my shoes, clean my teeth, and put my book in my hospital bag. We're then all traipsing off to the Queen's Medical Centre where the nice midwives are going to see what they can do to encourage the baby out.

This may not be a quick process. Nothing may happen today or even tomorrow morning, depending on what happens when we get into the labour suite.

As soon as there is a confirmed gender, weight and name please rest assured that between them my menfolk have contact details and the messages will go out. Please be kind and do not pester them especially as their mobiles will need to be off most of the time anyway.

Talk soon!

Today I have:

Cleared the old veg out of the fridge. The potatoes and carrots have been chopped up for a vegetable soup to freeze, anything that was starting to go mouldy has been chopped up and is in the compost caddy.

Washed up twice.

Washed the kitchen teatowels on the usual 'incinerate' cycle.

Put the rubbish out.

Cleaned the top of the bin and wiped the suspicious stain (I suspect cats) off the radiator in the front room.

Taken all the paper recycling over the road.

Made the aforementioned vegetable soup, which is even now simmering down on the hob.

Started to work through a bag of leather scrap, cutting out small pieces to sell on ebay as card toppers or other craft embellishments from the pieces of leather that are too small for our use. This keeps my hands busy while I'm watching Theo playing GTA IV.

Things I have not yet done today:

Taken the compost caddy out.

Had the baby.

Oh, but my hips ache today.

Another lovely day outside, though I shall not be partaking too much of the outdoors. Have gotten to the fragile consciousness that revolves around my proximity to my packed and ready hospital bag - the further away from it I am the more anxious I become.

Awkward getting to sleep last night, and a bit of a disturbed night although I got plenty of sleep. Bouncy again on waking.

Theo's copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 turned up in the post this morning so he has been happily playing away, with occasional observers as it really is a very pretty game to watch.

Alex and I have spent most of the afternoon in the front room doing some leatherwork, with the game off tomorrow no need for us to clear the table behind us today (always a plus). I spent some time redrawing one of the pouch templates which was a bit rudimentary, I dug out the french curves set of rulers from the drawing cupboard and smoothed out the template. Of course having done that I had to test it, so made up a pouch from scratch. I need a little more practice with rivets and the ribbon I chose to assemble the main pouch was a bit wide for the job, which in turn made the finishing of it a bit more fiddly and time consuming in order to get it nice. Finished result is perfectly decent, however. There shall be more of those pouches made in the future I think.

Remembered to pay both my credit cards yesterday after we got all the end of month pay day budget sorted out.

I have allowed myself a small treat from ebay - an obi style belt/waist scarf and a matching clutch purse. Terribly girly of me but I have a whole new wardrobe to look forward to in the next few months as I promised myself. I anticipate it will take a while to get back to anything remotely resembling my old figure and am planning a couple of new jeans and some cool plain summer shirts. The new obi style belt will dress up such an outfit nicely and the purse was a very nice treat as it's made in matching fabric.

I've also got my eye on a couple of pairs of summer sandals as apart from the very battered flip flops I'm wearing at the moment I don't have much in the way of soft shoes for warm weather. Last year I had a few pairs of canvas deck shoe style but they do wear out and get too smelly to wear relatively quickly. Technically I still have my old beige Faith slip ons but they really are in the category of 'yard shoes' now. Sticking with the slightly oriental feel sparked by the obi style belt I'm eyeing up a pair of proper 'geta', which are Japanese sandals from which flip flops originated. They appear somewhat more 'proper' in appearance than most flip flops, which I don't really count as outdoor footwear and certainly not for going out in, and I'm not fond of the fragile feminine manufacture of most of the women's flip flop style sandals that seem to turn up in the shops over here.

I've pretty much decided how I'm going to decorate my finished belly cast. I'm definitely going to go with a cherry blossom finish. A bit on the girly side for my usual manner of doing things but sometimes I think I'm allowed to be a bit sentimental. Throughout my growing up years part of my favourite experiences of spring/early summer has always been flowering cherry blossoms. I once swore I would get married when the cherry blossoms were out, and I did, and now one way or another in the next week or so I'll be giving birth when the cherry blossoms are still out. There are some fabric blossoms on my watch list on ebay at the moment, though I have to actually get around to finishing off the cast before I make my final decision to go with some fabric blossoms. It's definitely thoroughly dried out now but needs strengthening up and the edges smoothing out. I need to experiment with fine grade sandpaper to see if I can safely smooth down some of the finish, and I think that backing it with fabric will give it some more strength as well. Ah, decisions, decisions.

I'm running out of decisions to make and plans to lay. I may only just make it until Monday and induction without going totally bonkers, assuming Little Miss continues to procrastinate about arrival until then.

This post is subtitled "When Kettles go Boom and Other Topics Relating to No Baby Arrival Yet".

For my own sanity, some sort of chronological order to yesterday.

The midwife came around at eleven yesterday morning. Jones dog was a very good guard dog, made lots of noise, backed down when told to, and sat outside the bedroom door watching carefully in case the midwife made A Wrong Move.

Without going into detail, which would necessitate at the least an LJ cut and at the worst several people who know me in person being unable to look me in the eye for a while, the outcome is thus. My blood pressure is still just fine, still about the same as when I first had it done right back at 8 weeks gone, so clearly it was the last couple of months at work that put the stress on and the pressure up. In fact, you can tell when I stopped working by looking at the dates in my pregnancy record relating to the drop to normal of blood pressure.

I am still fine in myself, in fact rather disgustingly I can still touch my toes without bending my knees which Theo can't do at all! She carried out a full examination and swept the membranes (again, those who don't know what that is have the option of looking it up on the internet so you can go 'ew' in your own time). Little Bear is in the right place still, I'm actually slightly dilated already but Little Bear is a couple of centimetres too high still to press down properly and start things off that way.

The midwife also had a bit of a laugh trying to feel where Little Bear was from the outside, since Little Bear and I have played 'the pokey game' for months. This is where if Little Bear has been too quiet for my liking and peace of mind, I gently poke her until she pokes back. Similarly when she is very active and shoving constantly, I poke her back. This meant that yesterday when the midwife was poking her to see where she was, Little Bear obligingly poked back, making it harder for the midwife to concentrate.

So, all is well. Things are indeed under way, just Very Slowly. However, I need be patient only until Monday at the very latest, since that is when I get to call the Labour Suite and ask them when they want me to go in for induction.

I am still quite fine in myself, but even heavier and very tired physically. Mentally I'm still mostly here although prone to wandering off in a daydream about paving the back yard or thinking about stair carpets. I am still gently pottering about the house but for ten minutes at a time rather than half an hour as before, and doing lots more resting. Last thing I want is to be exhausted when the big event actually does occur.

And now on to other subjects.

Last month I decided that we could do with a new microwave as the one we have is quite old now, Theo had it when I moved in six years ago and that's quite a while. I also really fancied getting a new kettle and spent some time studying the eco-friendly billed kettles. Much like several other modern appliances, the conclusion seems to be that the main problem with kettles is that people overfill them, boiling too much water each time the kettle is used and thusly wasting energy that way, rather than any inherent glut of power consumed each time the switch is flicked. Most modern kettles are designed with power consciousness in mind, it would seem.

There are some even eco-friendlier kettles available that only dispense the hot water you need, but several reviews of these indicate the water doesn't boil properly but is heated to near-boiling, much like hot water dispensers in the workplace for hot drinks (this is the Tefal Quick Cup). Although I gave this lots of consideration, it is still £60 worth of kettle.

There is an ecokettle available (main blurb is at www.ecokettle.com ) which comes in at a fairly reasonable costing (compared to the Tefal one at any rate!). This kettle has an internal reservoir with a button that allows you to decant the water you need into a separate boiling compartment. A clever idea but if you stop to think about it it's only making lazy people really think about how much water they need in the kettle in the first place. I imagine it would be good if the kettle station was some distance from a sink, for example, and you didn't want to keep filling the kettle to the 2 cup level every couple of hours. This tends to retail at just over the £30 mark but unless one of the suppliers is accessible to you, then you'll probably need to order online, pay the delivery fee and wait for it to be sent out.

The kettle I finally decided on was either the ecokettle or the Kenwood Energy Sense, which is available at Argos for about £40.

However, with pay weirdness considerations this month and the fact we already had a working kettle, I reluctantly decided to shelve final decisions for a couple of months until my pay bumps up again and luxuries for the house are back on the agenda.

However however, yesterday our kettle blew up. Not quite as spectacularly as it sounds, due to the lovely fuse in the plug, but there was a definite loud POP and when I lifted the kettle off the base there was a faint smoking effect.

So I have just unpacked a new Kenwood Energy Sense kettle, having sent Theo into town to pick one up. The Energy Sense won the race on the grounds of sheer availability and the fact it costs less than the Tefal Quick Cup.

Initial observations: Recycled cardboard box, no polythene wrappings, no styrofoam but moulded recycled (and recyclable) inner packaging. Lighter than our last kettle (a Breville Lightning). The fill lines are clear and also sloped as well as straight so that you can actually see where the fill lines are when the kettle is angled over the sink.

So I have new kettle joy.

Go me!

As it's been a while since I talked about something that didn't involve the pending arrival to our house, just thought I would make a mention of some ecofriendly products that I have tried out recently.

1. Ecover multisurface cleaner. Smells nicely lemony and does the job nicely. So far I have used it on bathroom surfaces, the laminated floor in the bathroom, a squirt in the mop bucket when I do the tiled floor downstairs, and this morning it really proved its worth when two neat squirts was all that was required (apart from a hot wet dishcloth) to get 99% of the yuck off the top of our oven (including burnt on and fatty congeal).

Tesco price 76p for 500 ml (£1.52 per litre). Difficult to price compare to my mind because as a product it sort of sits between multisurface cleaners that come with a spray and the gel/creams that are a step up from there.

2. Ecover toilet cleaner. It also does the job nicely with a minimum of scrubbing, dissipates quickly after the wash (no mounds of bubbles in the bowl for hours afterwards, making it impossible to see if you missed anywhere with the toilet brush).

Tesco price £1.14 for 750 ml (£1.52 per litre). Neither the most expensive, nor the cheapest.

I got my lot from Asda and as I recall didn't cost anything out of the ordinary there either, in fact again they were more cost effective than some of the brand names on offer.

Beltane blessings all round.

Happy 4th Wedding anniversary, Theo. Will figure out an appropriate gift once Little Bear has stopped squirming about on my spleen, I promise. Not sure a baby should count, it's certainly not listed on the options for this year (books, flowers, fruit, or the modern equivalent of 'electrical appliances').

It's now officially May, which means that Little Bear's birth month flowers have moved from being dahlias and sweet peas to being lilies of the valley and sunflowers. This does make Theo's gift to me of 'grow your own sunflower' in a pot for my birthday somewhat more pertinent, I haven't planted it yet as have had other things on my mind than flower tending and didn't want it to perish for lack of attention.

It amuses me a little that her birth sign will now be Taurus, because the scar on my belly button from where I had a bellybar for a few months has stretched and elongated to almost exactly the same appearance as the astrological sign for Taurus.
[]

And now I must away and make a cup of tea before the midwife arrives.

As part of our cleaning out process, we find ourselves still in possession of Theo's vast Warlord collectable card game collection.

By vast, I mean in the realms of several thousand cards, in a good mix of all the different releases. The collection has never been weeded for rare cards and so should contain a usual proportion of these.

They are also completely unused in this household, not worth the weight costs for us to sell on eBay, and no one on our local Realcycle list wants them.

Therefore if anyone at all on my friendslist wants them, knows a games club that would be happy for them, or knows anyone who still plays, they are going free to a good home. If they need posting then we would be grateful for a refund of the postage, which shouldn't be more than £10 standard parcels at the most I would imagine. I can weigh the box and cost it properly for postage if requested.

Otherwise they will be going in the recycling which is a bit of a shame.

( Returning thirty years on to the world of Anno Dracula. )
Final marks out of ten: 5 out of 10. Points are deducted as follows. 1 point for the fact the book kind of plays on the merits of Anno Dracula without in any way being very related apart from some distant history and a minority of characters. 2 points for the overall lack of general direction - there isn't really a defined start or end plot point, more like a general 'dipping into' the war years. 1 point for lack of new engaging characters. 1 point for a general overall lacklustre showing.

Final comment: A fairly adequate read, Anno Dracula is still a lot better though. Dracula-cha-cha is on my 'to read' pile, fingers crossed it's better than this one.

Ah, so this is why people who have retired get up so early.

Because they can.

Was up late again last night due to being very uncomfortable again. Slept well once I went to bed and got to sleep - there comes a point of tiredness where progressing to full fledged insomnia is a very valid option but also an option associated with a certain amount of martyrdom, and frankly I would rather lay awake for half an hour getting comfortable in bed than exhaust myself, especially at this stage.

Therefore I slept late today. Theo kindly brought me tea at an appropriate time as he knows that I dislike sleeping too long on a day when something fixed (like the Sunday game) is planned, otherwise I tend to get sulky that I didn't have time to potter about beforehand. Showered and dressed and found myself with enough energy to walk down Asda with Alex.

For some reason Asda was very busy. Although we had really only gone down there for a few specific bits and pieces, I decided to stock up on a few other things as well. Usually at this point of the month a 'big' shop waits until after payday but that is this Wednesday. On Thursday if nothing has happened naturally then the midwife will be planning to come and see if she can jiggle things along, so I doubt I will be in the mood for grocery shopping. Therefore I decided to get a few more bits and pieces than planned today to make sure that there was food in the house throughout the week, especially as I highly doubt I will now be sallying forth out of the house on my own.

Have done quite a bit of pottering around today. Some laundry, some washing up, a quick clean of the back yard.

We went back to the primary characters for today's Sunday game. As we haven't played these for a while it was a refreshing change to go back to them as the traditional guano started to hit the air conditioning system. Still Ysh did manage to lay claim to a rather nice greatsword (it's intelligent, and slightly psychotic about killing dragons, I can see trouble ahead...) and she also got to accept a single combat challenge from a venerable warrior guarding the way we had to go. It was the honourable thing to do under the circumstances, I was practically wetting myself at the outset until we realised that under the fearsome armour was in fact a very old man. This did even out the combat between us, and we hammered away at each other with our swords and clanging armour for some rounds. It came close and down to the wire, it genuinely could have gone either way except that one of the other party members cheated slightly by putting up an aura that reflected damage back and stood just close enough for it to cover me as an ally. (In his words, he wasn't good and we were on the clock, pausing to engage in single combat was a tad time-consuming). The other guy went down as I hit 28 hit points (out of 108 total) - my character was mollified by the fact that she managed to pour a cure potion down his throat before he died. People forced to act against their will is not something she is happy with, and if she had killed the Knight Marshal I think she would have been even unhappier at the Duke. Fortunately for her, the Duke is in fact a dragon... that nice sword of hers might be able to help her express that unhappiness in certain sharp ways.

For the first time since I finished work myself, both my menfolk are out of the house over the next few days. Both are at work from Monday to Wednesday, with Theo home for the remainder of the week and weekend. I think it will be a bit quiet tomorrow but I don't honestly think that I will suffer too much for the quiet. I have gotten used to Theo's absence for the first part of the week, which did come as a shock to begin with after essentially spending most of the day in his company. I will also likely sleep for part of the day, and have plenty of non-stressful things to occupy my time for the time not spent snoozing.

Sod's law, therefore, tells me that I am most likely to go into labour tomorrow - the first day both Theo and Alex are out of the house - at whatever time they are both likely to be at lunch, in a meeting or otherwise unavailable. Bets please, ladies and gents.

In the meantime, much though Beneath the Planet of the Apes is entertaining in that I don't recall having seen it before, I am going to make an attempt to head to bed and see if I can get comfortable.

Woke up today full of happiness and a ridiculous amount of energy and a desire for pancakes. Therefore I went down the corner shop for milk and eggs and made pancakes. They were probably the worst pancakes I have ever made but they fulfilled the requirements.

Despite the energy burst, it sort of all dissipated not too many hours later. Quite a great deal of today has been curled on the couch watching television with the menfolk and stitching up the braided rug. Slept for a while as well.

Little Bear is just waking up for her evening stretches and wriggles.

Very difficult to get to sleep last night. Little Bear was kicking up a bit of a painful racket from late evening onwards and despite not going to bed again until I was very tired it still kept me awake for a little bit longer.

Had some very surreal dreams including the fact that I killed Bill Crosby. Very very surreal dreams.

Am now up and awake but in my pj's as I'm very heavy and somewhat vaguely uncomfortable. One can but hope it is the beginning of the end. If I have to wait another week for the midwife to come around and start jiggly-poking things along I may in fact go slightly mad.

Still here. Still round. Had a bit more of a 'proper' contraction last night before I fell asleep rather than just the niggly Braxton Hicks ones that I am now getting rather used to. For a moment I lay there wondering 'Ooo, is this it?' but then I fell sound asleep and nothing else happened. Theo agrees that Little Bear is sitting lower today though.

Mum called earlier to catch me up on the family news. My niece Vicky has thyroid cancer troubles and she's going in on Friday to have her thyroid removed. All should be well, they seem to have caught it before things got out of hand and she is young and relatively fit.

Today the weather is a little up and down - rainstorm one minute and bright hot sunshine the next.

Packed up the next batch of ebay stuff ready to go and walked around to the post office. Note to self: the post office closes for lunch between 1 and 2 pm. Will have to go around again later. However not a total waste of a trip as we ran out of washing powder this morning, and I called into the corner shop to get some more, as well as topping up on staples such as bread and milk and cat biscuit.

Meant to start sewing up the braided rug yesterday afternoon but as I'm photo-documenting each new step of making the rug for the craft section of my website, couldn't start without a photo. Couldn't take a photo as the camera battery was dead. So the camera battery is charging up at the moment and I might make a start on it later.

Have taken half the paper recycling over, and the other half is ready to go later.

Bit of a slower day today since last night I didn't go to bed until 3 am and needed to be out of bed at half nine this morning.

Essentially I started to get quite uncomfortable at about half ten yesterday evening. Little Bear was doing big sulky wriggles as is now usual and I was just too uncomfortable in myself to settle down. Given Theo had done a long day and was planning another today it seemed very unfair to go to bed at the same time as he did and then keep him awake while I tried to get comfortable.

Therefore I stayed up until my level of sleepiness rose high enough to counter the lowering level of the uncomfortable state I was in. This meant up until three in the morning but that my Tauren shaman is now level 13. She's just such a versatile character, I didn't even do an awful lot of fighting/grinding, in fact most of last night's extended session was spent coaxing up my profession and secondary skills - in other words wandering around Thunder Bluff and neighbouring environs 'flower picking' herbs. Alex also had his secondary Tauren warrior on for a while so I followed him around for a while and healed him through a couple of quests.

When I got to bed, Theo had cocooned himself in the duvet. I crawled in with as little disturbance as possible but when I tried to reclaim enough of the super king size duvet to cover my legs he got rather possessive in his sleep. This morning he had the cheek to accuse me of trying to steal his covers.

Anyhow I barely stirred when he got up for work. I had set my alarm for half eight and crawled out of bed at half nine with enough time to tidy the bedroom a little, clear the door area, get dressed and have breakfast before Bloke arrived to tend to our bedroom door.

As before, Bloke did a very good job and fitted the bifold door to our bedroom doorframe with a minimum of fuss. It took him two hours to do the job properly, which involved carefully modifying the doorframe itself a little bit, attaching all the door fixings, and trimming down the door itself. This was a little longer than I had hoped it would take on the downside but on the plus side the rate he actually charged us (since he charges by time segments) was at a lower rate. So although it took a bit longer than I had hoped we actually didn't end up paying any more than I had originally anticipated. Another fine job and I shall have absolutely no hesitation in getting him out again after payday for the next jobs on the list.

Most of the day I have spent with my feet up. I read an entire book this morning (Fat by Rob Grant). Although I realised very early on in the book it wasn't very good, I read it all anyway. Theo came home on a half day and we watched some television. I've been doing some work offline on my website, updating the craft section as not only is the online version out of date and incomplete but also has some broken links due to carelessness. I did some more of that work this afternoon and also some cross-stitch.

Completely forgot the Wednesday game was on! Rob is running Mutants & Masterminds for a little while and we all sorted out our characters and made it to our first encounter today. We are all playing 'stock' characters to start with since it made it a lot easier to get up and running quickly and also means that we didn't have to struggle through the character build process beforehand. With a quick bit of personalisation we were off and ready to go. I really enjoyed it, the system seemed a lot simpler to grasp than the system used in the Marvel tabletop rpg (no charts to cross reference for every dice roll). Looking forward to playing a bit more of this.

I'm now curled up at my computer watching Outland in the background. I am simultaneously very restless and very tired. I feel like I have lots of enthusiasm to sit up again and do more cross-stitch and write up websites and and and and and.... and on the other hand I think I'm going to be hard pressed to go and have a quick bath before I go curl up in bed.

Enthusiasm can wait patiently for tomorrow morning. I need sleep.

( -Cholesterol free, fully skimmed and now with added Omega 3s )
Final marks out of ten: 2 out of 10. Points are awarded for the three very different points of view, narrative and content of the three threads in the novel, and also for some bravery in attempting to highlight certain issues that exist in society.

Final comment: Unlike Incompetence by the same author, this book isn't going to make it to the 'keep' section of the library. An excellent concept but poorly executed, off topic and above all in a book branded 'part comedy' it simply isn't funny.

Had a bit of a sleep in this morning but seem to have made up for that with a wash of activity throughout the rest of the day.

Went to the post office as mentioned earlier. Small Cat came running around the corner as we left the house but was too late to be let into the house through the front door as we left. Our cats are somewhat annoying as from time to time they will yell outside the front door to be let in and then promptly run through the house and out the cat flap in the back door. I think that it's some sort of cat bet that they have going on between them, much like I remember Ben when he worked at the cinema playing the game of how many times the employees could lap the lobby pretending to be an aeroplane before someone noticed/said anything. Anyway, she was too late to be let in and so punished us for this by following us down the street yelling at us every ten to fifteen seconds. Fortunately she abandoned the chase before we reached the crossroads where the traffic would have become concerning to us, although we know full well she is an outdoor savvy cat.

I scrubbed the back yard down today, properly scrubbing with the broom and cleaning stuff to shed the concrete of the fine green mouldy stuff that periodically seems to bloom. Lots of exercise but nothing more than a couple more Braxton Hicks twinges to show for it, so much for that particular method of encouraging labour onwards slightly.

Alex taught me how to recognise damp proof courses in houses as an episode of Ground Force the other day taught me how to lay paving but it can't come above the damp proof course otherwise it breaches it (obviously). It appears that our extension has it, but couldn't recognise any signs in the back wall of the house proper, but given the age of the property and the fact it used to be let to students before Theo purchased it, it wouldn't be surprising if we didn't have it. I was pleased to note that the course in the extension is high enough that we could theoretically lay the paving over top of the existing cracked concrete without having to take the concrete up at all but rather using it for a hardcore layer as is. The only thing to work around would be levelling off the lip of concrete around the back corner and also making sure that we relocated our drain cover in a suitable way upwards. This gives me lots of happy room for thought about the eventual make over of the back yard, even though it is kind of last on the list in terms of priority.

I also brought in the small blue compost caddy from the back yard and scrubbed it out thoroughly, and found it a home on the windowsill. I have also picked up on the tip to line it with a sheet of newspaper as this will help keep it cleaner on the inside, easier to tip the eventual soggy mess out into our compost bin proper, and the newspaper will mulch down nicely as well. I did some washing up as a side effect of being in the kitchen, on my feet, and happy cleaning things.

I also moved the steamer and unpacked the steriliser, although the latter is still mostly wrapped in protective plastic and I haven't unsealed the bottles at all. Things are in the right place, which is the important thing. Unless breastfeeding is a complete and utter fail then there won't be a lot of need for the steriliser for at least 2 weeks - the guidelines we have been given is that between 2 and 6 weeks old is the best window of opportunity for introducing a bottle teat as well as breastfeeding. Too soon and the risk is higher of them rejecting the breast in favour of the bottle, too late and the risk is higher of them refusing a bottle entirely. The bottles that came with the steriliser are the nice short stubby 'closer to nature' brand that have teats shaped a lot like a natural nipple, so with any luck we will be able to eventually sort out some sort of feeding pattern that allows me to share feeding from time to time.

The new bale of green towels that has been waiting in the bathroom for several months has finally been unwrapped, washed, partly tumbledried for softness and they are currently on the line in the fresh air. Some of the old scratchy towels got thrown out when we did the plaster belly cast a little while ago so at least for a while we're straight on that front.

The hospital bag is now downstairs in the front room. I have repacked it and made sure I know where everything is in it, as it's a big flight bag rather than a bag with compartments I have actually packed most of the toiletry products for baby and me into baby's changing bag and packed that in the hospital bag, so there hopefully won't be too much scrabbling around when the time comes that I want something.

The new mortgage paperwork arrived and has been signed ready to send back.

The bedroom door frame has been painted with the second coat of white ready for Bloke tomorrow morning. In a fit of preparedness I also signed a blank cheque for Bloke and put it somewhere both Theo and Alex know where it is, just in case I myself am absent from the house.

I also trimmed back the raggedy bit of the carpet by the entrance to our room, and nailed down the carpet. Oh, and I tore down the old phone extension that has been broken for years between the ground floor and the landing just outside our bedroom door. And I hoovered around our bedroom door, with a quick swipe down the sides of the bed for good measure.

And as if all that weren't enough, I also clipped the dog's claws and started sorting out the batch of ebay stuff that finished today.

I tell you, I think I need to go back to work in order to have a good sit down during the day, this housewifely thing is full of chores!

However now I am comfy in my pj's and am about to potter about on the computer for a little while before bedtime.

Today is a lovely sunny day. It's also Earth Day apparently.

Took a long time to get to sleep last night. Lots more big sulky and very uncomfortable movings around from Little Bear. Woke up when Theo went to work and went back to sleep again for several hours.

Have been out to the post office and sent off the batch of ebay stuff that was due to go. One less job off the list. Feeling quite energetic in myself but heavy and slow at the same time. I shall therefore continue to potter about the house being patient and getting bits and pieces done.

One day until Little Bear's due date. One day! So unless she decides to put in an arrival today before midnight, any concept of her being born early will go right out of the window fairly soon.

Didn't update properly yesterday, so a quick recap in case one day when I'm 63 it interests me.

Yesterday was quite a sleepy cosy day, to be honest. Thursdays and Sundays tend to be slightly quieter days since they are now respectively Theo's first day of weekend and last day of weekend, both of which are good reasons to put the feet up for a while.

We watched the Silver Anniversary Edition of Flash Gordon with the commentary by Brian Blessed - or at least I watched about half of it. I got very tired and went to have a short lay down and ended up sleeping for about 45 minutes before the Sunday game.

The Sunday game was very decent - we managed to kill Strahd von Somerton with an almost easy ending as Theo discusses in his journal. However I should point out for the record that Rob's new character ended up going down just before the final blow was struck so Theo nearly snatched our defeat from the jaws of our victory.

After the game I went flump for some time due to the onset of several long and very ouchy practice contractions, so there was lots of sitting on the sofa staring at the fish tank taking my mind off things by thinking about a future make over of the back yard, of all things. Clearly I've been watching uktvgardens channel enough of late for some things to sink in.

Then to bed, where I rather surprisingly slept fairly alright although it took me a bit of time to get to sleep in the first place.

This morning Theo was off to work bright and early. I went back to sleep until about half nine when I hauled my aching knees out of bed and had a bath and washed my hair. Alex has a new job starting on Thursday, so he was still home to make a yummy bacon and mushroom omelette for my breakfast today and come into town with me this afternoon.

Went to the bank as I needed to, making this the first stop so that if anything had have been sparked off by being out and walking around lots then the important job was done first. Alex wanted to drop by the library on the way back, so since I had my provisional driving licence on me I got a library card. Seemed to make sense, given how much time I'll have to spend reading this summer (theoretically) and that the library is after all a free repository of reading material. While I was waiting for Alex to find the books he wanted I picked up two rather randomly to sit and leaf through, and ended up taking them both out: Introducing Nietzche and a book on designing stage costumes (I did say they were rather random selections).

We took the tram back as far as the High School stop as this cut out the worst of the walking up hill, and then walked home the rest of the way. Although my pace was somewhat slow due to being rather round and awkward I still have not resorted to waddling, and I made it all the way home without needing to give in and take the tram.

All the exercise and fresh air made me sleepy and after a fresh fruit salad for lunch I headed upstairs with Jones dog and we made a very good attempt at sleeping for England, I think we ought to enter the Olympics as a team as we might do the country fairly well. Although technically Jones dog is Welsh so not sure about the technicalities of entering her for it...I suppose of course we would be on the UK/GB team. Ahem. I ramble.

In any event I am now awake again. Little Bear has been doing some very big sulky movements amidst lots of practice contractions. Poor little lump probably doesn't have an awful lot of room in there to stretch any more. I am about to go and wrap up some of the ebay stuff ready to post tomorrow morning, and then it'll be time to have something to eat again.

Tomorrow (if nothing has happened) I will be cleaning the yard, putting away laundry, going to the post office, starting to stitch together the rug and putting a second coat of paint on the bedroom doorframe.

Bloke is coming on Wednesday morning to fit the bedroom door.

No wonder new mums give up on breastfeeding so often. Can we say conflicting advice, anyone?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7355094.stm

I cleaned out my fish tank last night, as it was very green. I suppose that's the plus and minus of such a small tank - it gets green very quickly (especially as it's on the windowsill) but also only takes a bare minimum of time to strip down, scrub out, and do a three-quarter water change. Fortunately it appears that my guppies are all a hardy lot and don't mind the frequent water changes. Still haven't really thought about another fish to go in with them - I might get some sort of feature fish after payday but really and truly the guppies do tend to please the eye without needing anything else in that tank.

I slept oddly again, lots of deep sleep interludes peppered with random awakenings.

Today is day 100 of the year, according to my count and assuming I haven't screwed it up somewhere. Lovely nice round figure there. Just like mine...

Still no arrival, else this post would have been entitled slightly differently. Or in fact, sir-post-not-appearing-on-this-day. I didn't go into town this morning and walk back as I had planned to, for absolutely no other reason than the fact that I did not want to. That's right, today I threw my dummy out of the pram and simultaneously took my toys and went home. I can go to the bank on Monday. If by some chance I'm in hospital on Monday, the bank can wait until I can send a delegate to do it for me. So ner. I did absolutely nothing today except exactly what I fancied.

Some of this was crying, I admit. Hormones seem to have peaked.

However, a lot of this was playing Warcraft (I have a Tauren shaman at level 11 now) and about an equal proportion of this was cleaning up in general terms, gently interspersed with the sitting down playing games so that I haven't exerted myself too much in one go. My energy levels are still rubbish, I can't blame my body for hoarding it to be honest.

Today I cleared out the games and the cat carrier and game figure cases that were taking up the space under the mantelpiece in the front room. Theo kindly put the cat carrier in the cellar with the others, I moved the games and the game figure cases upstairs. The games were stacked in the corner of the study. The game figure cases have been neatly arrayed under the bottom shelf in the hallway. The DVD collection has been restacked and tidied on the correct shelf for it. A whole bunch of random stuff to be listed on ebay has been hauled down to the front room. Theo's Warlord collection has been offered on freecycle, as have the old coffee pot, the spare salt and pepper shaker, and a bundle of random battered books cleared out from my section of the library. Alex's leatherwork boxes from the front room have been neatly stacked under the mantelpiece in the front room, thusly allowing the table to be moved slightly and the sofa unit in the bay window to be pulled around. This in turn allows a perfect parking space for the pushchair, which has been dragged out of my wardrobe and hauled downstairs and set up ready with the carrycot (and all covered with a suitable cloth to try and keep the bloody cats out of it).

I have also kept the changing bag out of the wardrobe, but put back for a short time the car seat and the bouncy chair, as well as the spare footmuffs for the pushchair. I found three pairs of trainers that I forgot I had. It's bloody lovely to have at least half my wardrobe space back, it's been stuffed with baby things since Christmas. I got to stroke all the lovely tailored coats that no longer fit me in a fond reminiscent way before closing the door on them again. Soon, my lovelies, soon...

I finished braiding up most of the cut strips for the rug this morning, having run out completely of the black strips despite having loads of cream left. I have a little of the third colourway left and found myself in the dangerous position of wondering to myself if I could scratch together just a bit more fabric to strip and braid. When I cleaned up the front room later today I found some more black fabric that could be sacrificed to the greatness that will be this rug, but I am deliberately not searching for the third colourway amongst my bits and pieces of fabric because I know if I do then I will just keep braiding for ever and it will never get stitched into a rug. If during the course of the next few days of tidying up I come across something then it can go into the mix but otherwise I do intend to start making the rug up next week. I took several photos of the process and will likely do a write up on it as I go, it's about time I sorted out the craft section of the fallenseraphim site properly.

But now I must go and feed, since I'm still on the frequent small meals trend to account for the fact my stomach has very little room left, and I know if I leave it much longer I'll get gentle reminders from the menfolk checking their watches in a very obvious manner. And then I think I'll go and have a warm bath. And then I think I'll go to bed early and watch things in bed on the laptop, or even play about with the graphics tablet and the Coreldraw software I installed on it the other day...

Today I do not feel so hot.

However, first a catch up on yesterday. I did not scrub out the compost caddy as I had planned, however instead I got the DIY urge. Theo helped me for part of it, which was very welcome. I took down the old scrappy folding door from our bedroom and set to work on the doorframe. We used the blowtorch to strip down the wide inner surfaces as they were very thickly layered with old paint, but only sanded down the outer rims as these weren't so noticeable. The wood flex filler was drafted back into use to fill up the gaps left by old hinges and locks on the inside rims, and left to dry. Theo found the breathe-easy quick dry satin gloss in the cellar and we got the first layer of paint on.

After this we were going to put up the new door, or at least make a very good stab at it given that I had found some clear and illustrated instructions on the interweb to supplement the unhelpful and badly copied instruction sheet that came with it. However on further inspection we were at first stymied by the fact that the wide inner part of the doorframe was about two inches too narrow for the door to be fitted. No problem. It's a bifold door, we can let it open inwards and fit it to the other lintel bit of the doorframe where it will fit.

Ah. Where it will fit at the top. Because it seems that our doorframe is actually not a perfect rectangle. The bottom part is narrower than the top by at least an inch. How I love my house. So I have emailed Bloke with a desperate 'please come and fit our door, and be prepared to have to make it fit' since we own no planing tools and neither of us are confident of the result should we attempt it.

At least this will give the woodfiller plenty of time to dry out, be sanded off and another coat of paint applied in the interim.

Today, however, I do not feel so hot. I suspect, though I rather hope not, that I am coming down with a cold. I am a bit sneezy and not so switched on in the old brain department. Little Bear is doing some serious manoeuvring and I'm now getting slightly fed up with random Braxton Hicks contractions. I did not sleep well. I believe the next door neighbours had their radio on all night just loud enough for me to be able to recognise the likes of Travis and Nickelback every time I woke up. Only creative thinking (putting my imagination in one of my inner safe/warm places) kept me in bed and going back to sleep else I think last night I would have become fed up enough to actually give up on going back to sleep entirely.

Therefore I am spending today curled up in the warm and doing little more energetic than cleaning off my desk (again) and pottering about with some games and light craft activities. The braided rope of cotton scraps for the rug is growing at light speed, I think that perhaps by next week I may be ready to start stitching it up. I plan to do this on the front room table to try and avoid it buckling as I go.

I have also started thinking about our back yard, since getting the surfacing sorted out is on our list of things to do (eventually) and half planning out in my head how I would like it to look eventually. That is, actually doing something with it rather than having a bare concrete yard for the dog to do her business in. This is assisting with keeping my poor tired brain at least slightly active.