Free falling

I’ve been off work for two weeks now and, to be honest, I’m starting to get very bored but very used to being at home. In the last 2 weeks I have – waited in for 4 days for Toys R Us (what a bunch of utter f*ckwits they are. Or maybe I’m the f*ckwit for continually believing them when they said the courier would come that day to pick up the broken pushchair), visited one of our NCT class to see their little girl, shopped a lot (both online and in town) and read a lot. I haven’t watched as much TV as I thought I would but I think this comes from spending the last 3 and a bit years watching TV for a living, you soon realise there’s naff all on. I’ve been catching up on all my Sky Plussed stuff (isn’t Sky Plus great? As someone who is knackered by 9pm when all the good programmes are on after this, it has been an utter godsend throughout pregnancy and will no doubt continue to be once we have a baby in the house and no time to ourselves). This includes watching the 4400, CSI Miami (I think I might be a little bit in love with Horatio/David Caruso. This might be wrong but I don’t care any more, I’ve learned to accept it) and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which usually makes me cry with laughter).

I’ve also been trying to get my head round the Bookcrossing Unconvention stuff for 2007. I volunteered myself for the committee again (do I need my head reading? Most likely) and it’s being held in Brighton, which should be fun as with 6 committee members, not one of us lives in Brighton. It’s starting to stress me out more than I thought it would because I’m acutely aware that I won’t be able to do much over the coming months and we still don’t have a venue. Why do places have email addresses for enquiries if they aren’t going to do the decent thing and reply to the email. Rude, I tell you, just rude.

My dad and stepmum came up at the weekend and brought us 2 boxes of baby stuff – mostly books and toys for when they’re a bit older, and bought us the bouncy chair of our choice. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. My dad stayed sober (well, in my presence at least) for the 2 days he was here. Stone cold sober, which I was actually quite impressed by. It reminded me why I put up with the drunken Friday night calls (but, oh, boy, I hope they’re gonna stop when the baby gets here or at least decrease in volume) because my dad is funny and very similar to me. He’s done interesting things in his life – work in Saudi Arabia for one and it’s nice for him and Duncan to be able to chat about things like cricket. We spent Saturday in Durham (where it rained the entire day) before going out for dinner on Saturday night. This is where my brother went wrong with his last visit to my dad. He went down for the weekend and actively encouraged my dad to go to a pub and drink (to watch an England football game) and then got upset and angry that my dad was drunk. It’s not rocket science, moron. Place my dad in a pub and you’re asking for trouble. But he doesn’t see that (and neither does my mum, who of course took his side when he stormed off home at 6am the day after) My brother seems to feel he shouldn’t need to put effort in but should get maximum reward and can’t see how much he’s actually hurting my grandad and stepmum at the very least by actively staying away from that side of the family.

Sorry, went off on one there. He just annoys me sometimes. My dad did bring up, again, the importance (apparently) of baby being born on Sept 26th, my grandad’s (80th) birthday. I really, really don’t understand why this is so important to everyone. Does anyone? Am I being obtuse by not understanding? Please, if you do understand, explain it to me. As far as I’m concerned, any day now would be a good one for baby to arrive. (except Sept 16th, which is the anniversary of our miscarriage last year, I just don’t want them to come on this date for some reason). I feel whale like these days and it’s an effort to get up out of bed, off the sofa, anywhere. I have (finally) taken a pic of the bump but haven’t got round to uploading it yet. I will and it may even happen before I give birth, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I also went to look round the nursery near our house. It’s a nice place, very secure and seems a really great environment. I put our name down for it, but hopefully there won’t be too much of a problem as it’s not full at the moment and we can pay (they do a certain amount of free places, presumably for all the benefit people who live round here). It did make me a little sad though. I haven’t even given birth yet and I’ve already had to plan childcare. I know it’s my own stupid fault and if I didn’t have to pay back my stupid debt, this wouldn’t be an issue as we could (just about) afford for me to stay at home full time. But that’s wishful thinking. The only way things would change from me going back 4 days a week in March would be a successful pay demand by our union to increase us from £14,900 to £20k, which some of the other subtitlers are on. Hopefully this will be sorted by the time I return and I can then consider whether to reduce my hours further and pay off the debt at the same rate or increase my repayments to finish it off quicker and then consider trying for our second.

Yes, I said second. I suddenly feel like I have my whole life mapped out for me – well, the big points anyway, and, unlike when Gary used to do it, it doesn’t scare the crap out of me. In fact, I’m kind of looking forward to it.

Until there is a next time…

xx