Nicey nicey positive things!
So, tomorrow is Nov 1st. I leave work on Nov 21st. 3 weeks to go.
We're nearly at 5 weeks to go now. 35 weeks on Sunday. We're going to make it.
Tomorrow is when I / we do the "big shop" - go down to Mothercare in the morning with a list (and more importantly, get fitted for maternity bras - the one thing that I am *not* about to buy sight unseen), then everything else is on the web.
And I read a lovely thing in a pretty good book last night called "Trade Secrets" (a present from a girl leaving work called Jessie, who is a lovely person all round) which seems to be just tons of "handy tips": to get a soft toy and sleep with it next to my skin for a few weeks so that when she's born, it'll smell of me, and she'll feel extra comforted by it. That's the loveliest sort of nice, human thing to do, isn't it. A good thing then that I previously bought one soft toy from the Early Learning Centre which is lovely and soft to touch. Very amusing to be snuggling down with a soft toy after about 25 years.
Have also bought Liz and whoever the helper is on the day their thank you presents, as well as a thank you for Alex and Beccy - although when they'll get here god only knows what with the postal strike.
Nothing negative today that you don't know already so given that it's a lovely sunny autumnal day, I can't be bothered to bring the mood down.
Every day is currently being counted off like a blessing.
Woke Mackay up in the night with my agonised groans as I tried to shift in the bed. I couldn't actually get out of bed this morning since the top of my right leg refused to work without eliciting large amounts of pain. Had to sort of push myself out of bed with both legs tight together. It really is intolerable, and yet I have to keep reminding myself that there are many women who have it worse, with eclampsia and god knows what.
So another day working from home. Another isolating day. I did say this a while back didn't I, how much I utterly hate being forced to be on my own. I think I need people.
On top of which, I can barely believe it myself but I actually managed to fuck up an entire day's work yesterday, which I am now beginning to start again. Don't ask: it was such a banal mistake; the kind of awful rubbish that only a tired and not quite concentrating person could make.
Meanwhile, Tom has made me very jealous by being involved with www.mysociety.org which has launched today. Unfortunately dayinalife, my lovely idea I've never been able to manage to do doesn't quite fit in to the category so it couldn't be funded. I'll have to think of other things as I'm going along.
You'll have to excuse the following scene:
Aha - actually I've just moved it in to "extended entry" because my brother alerted me to the general grossness of the beginning of the content. At least, i think that's what he meant when he mailed me and said "I'm officially not reading Moolies anymore".
Yeah right, *I believe it!!
So I'm sitting there looking at a load of fresh pink blood mixed in with all the usual "stuff" coming from inside thinking "That's not supposed to happen".
Well not yet, anyway.
So I think through everything - no, not even what I'd call Braxton Hicks contractions going on... but, much as I'm trying to remain completely calm, I now have pains at the bottom of my abdomen - which, I try to convince myself are no different from the groin pain I've been having for ages anyway or else they're just psychosomatic.
So - sensible me, I carry my hospital pregnancy notes folder with me everywhere, it's got all the phone numbers on the back. Liz's mobile doesn't answer... 2 other numbers don't answer. Anxiety levels begin to rise. Eventually someone answers the phone and we have a chat about what's going on. It's probably just a show (ie: beginning of a birth, possibly) - keep an eye on it, if it gets any worse come in to the day unit.
Sit at desk. Try to focus on work. Ha! Sorry, my screen has gone completely blank or is that just me... So, I piss off home feeling slightly tense and everything dies down and stops. She's still kicking away as usual.
Well - today, I've still got a bit of something which isn't quite so pink, more like old blood - girlies'll know what I mean (ie: old, nothing new to report) but nothing else.
This week is just drama central. And I didn't even mention the oh so hilarious crutch moments.
Physio reckons it's a vein thing, not a ligament thing. Still hurts - nowhere near as much - the gorgeously lovely ministrations of Claire over the weekend (that and a packet of frozen peas) has reduced the "Jesus! Fuck! Ow!" factor somewhat.
But. I now am the proud owner of a lovely grey NHS crutch, and a pile of "tubigrips".
Just call me hobblin' Hurley.
So according to Mackay the expert psychologist (as opposed to Mackay the actor, the astronomer or any of his other perfectly legitimate disguises), those suffering from sleep deprivation experience more REM sleep.
So it's sort of the other way round ie: one sleeps lightly, because one wakes more often, and therefore one dreams more variously, radically and weirdly.
So there you go. Now if I can just use the Buffy marathons to have a few dreams about David Borean... thingummy I'd be very happy, thank you.
So my right knee kind of gave up the ghost. You'll have to excuse my language, I have begun to embark on a marathon Buffy viewing orgy which I have promised myself I would do at the end of the pregnancy. Unfortunately this is not the end, but since I can barely walk around the flat, it will have to do.
Imagine if you will the back of your right knee - and things that may be going on just under the surface, such as ligaments, pulleys, levers - the kind of stuff that knees just "do".
Now imagine a ligament or rubber band, if you will, on the left hand ie: inner side of the back. It makes sense that there is one there, doesn't it. Now imagine injecting a whole load of ligament loosening chemical in to your system, otherwise known as "Progesterone".
Now think of the fact that buggeration, you've got what has been described previously as a nest of blue, nasty various veins which have suddenly appeared there. I will persist in calling them various, btw, since I find the alternative, "true name" invokes bad spirits in my head that have a tendency to make me want to start shuddering and otherwise feeling unwell. What does one do to help these various veins disappear - well, use Aesculus Gel, which is a bloody good invention from a bloody good herbalist company, for a start. But one also stretches ones legs out and up at every available opportunity - ankles higher than the heart, right?
Oh yeah, right. And that just happens to put the aforementioned ligament under constant strain.
On Thursday during the day it hurt but I thought, damn - more bloody variousness! Thursday night, performing the usual greasing ceremony and squidged the somewhat acrid smelling Aesculus Gel in to the back of my knee...
Bang.
It kind of went... well...
B'doing, actually.
Next thing I know, a small area of red on the back of the knee, accompanied by a lump which distinctly *isn't* blue. Mackay touched it as an experiment after me screaming and entirely failing to be able to stand up. You could see the hole in the ceiling where I rocketed up within miliseconds.
So. Ah. We have a problem. This time, I'm putting the bloody frozen peas on it. I phone the physio people myself not waiting for Liz. I have an appt at 11am Monday. And, for now, I get a weekend basically confined to the house, whilst a massive magnetic storm swallows half of Canada in huge aurora and stops GPS working properly.
I, meanwhile, order curry, lay on the sofa, wince even more than usual when moving and watch Buffy. Life could be both much better, and much, much worse.
Aha. So Dr Sears yet again comes to the rescue with more information I haven't found elsewhere. This is in the Month eight section. Ok, so I'm only just in month eight (although, you know - it's 6 1/2 weeks to go now, not 7. I'm counting every day down right now).
"Frequent night waking. There are several reasons for night waking in the final months. One is that your sleep cycles change, and you may experience more REM sleep – a sleep state in which you dream more and awaken more easily. Also, your enlarging uterus makes it difficult to sleep*. It presses upward on your stomach, causing heartburn, and downward on your bladder, necessitating frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom. And babies in the womb seem to have their days and nights mixed up as daytime motion lulls baby to sleep. Then when you rest, baby awakens, stretches, and awakens you up by knocking on your insides. Most mothers find sleeping on their side supported by pillows to be the most comfortable. If heartburn is a problem, try sleeping slightly upright on several pillows.
The REM sleep thing though is very interesting - because you wake up every 2 hours or so sometimes it means that you have anythings up to 4 or 5 (on the weekend) very intense dreams, dredging your subconscious for titbits of news, anxieties or detritus picked up during the day.
*No kidding. I don't - well, thinking about it I suppose that it's because of the whole heartburn thing but sleeping on my side is a total non-starter. I have 4 pillows and a V shaped support pillow which I prop myself up on since I get 2 guaranteed heartburn attacks per day - 1 about an hour after breakfast (which I don't understand - gluten free sugar free cereal and goats milk? What is there to give me heartburn in that lot?) and 1 as I'm going to bed / trying to get to sleep. So imagine if you will, sleeping on your side with your wedge firmly in place to keep the uterus from pulling too much, but with your back arched up and your top half draped over a pillow mountain.
So ever mindful of the "sleeping on your back "could" cause oxygen supply to reduce to the placenta (yeah... "could" - in all likelihood won't, but when you've got christ knows how much weight bearing down on these two arteries snaking up your back from your pelvis you kind of think - ok, I'll take this in to consideration), if I sleep on my "back" I am also sleeping basically upright. And I've got used to it, so I can, just about. Slept through till 5.33 from 11 the other night!
I can see that the sleep obsession is not going to leave me - particularly after she arrives. Ach well.
You know, I'm certain that the seratonin high is beginning to crumble. I can barely believe how unutterably *miserable* I was yesterday. Just, really, horribly negative about a whole lot of things. Couldn't get myself out of it until about 3pm.
Yet today, here I am with exactly the same things bugging me or making me go "Oooohhhh... fuck" in the night (or as is currently the case, making me clench my eyes shut, groan and hold the top of my belly as if hydrochloric acid as escaping from some inner valve), but I feel entirely different. Welllll... fairly different anyway.
Chemical depression. It should be banned!
So it appears that Warren Ellis' very saleable (I always thought) series of 1 off stories called "Global Frequency" have been otioned for a series (see the bottom of this otherwise tedious American media news story) - one assumes in the "Alias" type mold or something. Some gorgeous action bird type as a central character with support action men folk helping her out - that sort of thing.
He's being uncharactistically cagey about it but it's all money in the bank which will help him do other things. I would put links to all Warren['s stuff as he does it but since that would occuply a large part of this blog I leave it to your discretion to wade through the seemingly endless pages of hacking, bloodletting, smart alec remarks and unusual events he spews in to the world on a monthly basis.
Looking down - well, actually, I'm wrong, I was going to say "anywhere past my bellybutton" but of course it's now *above* my bellybutton too.
Anyway. Quinn's stretch marks look like they might now be overtaken by my collection of stretch marks and also horrendously distended bellybutton scars. You would not believe how rank and awful it looks. My skin over the two scars I have which were *in* my bellybutton (but now delightfully ring it a good inch or so outside the slight dimple I have in the middle) is noticeably thinner and has less thick stretch than any of the skin around it - and look a combination of dark blue, purple and red. That's not actually an exaggeration.
And they hurt. They really don't want to stretch any more. I'm getting little blood points, like needle pricks, in the skin round there, which tend towards the "I've reached the end of my stretchability and now I'm going to rip" hypothesis. As per the entire length of time since week 8, I've been pouring wheatgerm oil (pure natural form of Vitamin E) and Vitamin E lotion (in to which I poured yet more wheatgerm oil) in to all the skin round there.
I know it has had an effect because no bugger told me, and I didn't read in any of the books (gee thanks) that you get stretch marks around the top inch and a half of your pubes. So there I was pouring gunk of the top half but the bottom half got nada. Consequently, the stretch marks on my belly look dark pink (if excessive, but nothing's going to stop stretch marks coming) whereas the stetch marks at the top of where me knickers go are LIVID RED. I mean - if I didn't know they'd go away I'd be really shocked by what they look like.
But. I am genuinely concerned about the laparoscopy scarring. It doesn't just look ugly, it looks stretched beyond all endurance and hurts like hell. I can't see it all pulling itself back in to shape and going a nice shade of pink, unseen inside my belly button - I thnk there's some real problems for the future storing up there.
So.
Waking up as usual late this morning and rubbing in yet more oils, standing in front of the mirror with this huge, heavy belly, looking down at a lower belly that resembles the kind of bruising that you'd have if you got in to a drunken brawl in a pub with a violent psychopath... I couldn't help but feel really demoralised.
Hey - baby - sprog - girly: Don't worry sweetheart, this is me just wailing. If you want to know the truth, if I knew you were going to come out at the end, I'd go through alot more than this minor hasslage. It must be so peculiar for you to read this now, years later (if you even get to) but what I wanted to do in writing all this stuff down was write my whole experience of it. Pregnancy (it turns out) is a lot more grief than it says in the books, I'm telling you! But, it's worth it for the things I probably don't say enough. Last night, for example, as Iwas doing the half-hour oiling ritual, I hadn't felt you for a while, so I wound up your mobile and played it for you. Surprise, surprise, you almost immediately reacted, and pushed and stretched inside me. I mean - how amazing is that! That I can get to the stage where I can communicate with you and you don't even have a birth date yet!
You just gave me a little nudge just now actually. It's very reassuring, even though sometimes you do it at very innapropriate moments. Right now, here I am, exhausted constantly, wanting to do absolutely nothing other than prepare for your arrival (and definitely not be drudging in to work every day tiring myself out even more) and all I can think of is waiting to see your face in something other than the dark purple and light green of a scan! Yet here you are. How bizarre to thnk of a time when you weren't alive in the world, but you weren't "not alive" either.
Anyway. Blah, blah :)
Which sort of makes me feel a bit awkward, for no real reason.
Anyway, so our friend Al and his wife Amber now have 2 lovely daughters and were having a clear out. We now have every baby clothe we need until she's 6 months old, and being as how Al is *reasonably* well off, it's all la-di-dah Next, or French stuff and all sorts. It's all very cute and girly, and also smells very nice. I think they use rather nice washing powder.
So the front room now looks like a *bomb* has hit it, it's so full of gubbins. More clearing and more organising all this weekend, then.
A sea of pink. Thousands, it seemed, of little girls, all queuing in an orderly fashion to see Owen's new film. And it really isn't too bad - looks very good actually! It was very cool to see it in the same cinema I'd seen Toy Story 2 in.
The kids all laughed in the right places, which was gratifying.
Meanwhile, Blair's in hospital with palpitations (I wonder what that could mean - would he step down for his health?) and Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah had a baby boy. Given the pitifully weak (but nevertheless more extensive than some) grounding in economics that I have, I nevertheless have a grudging respect for Brown. He's the only one of the cabinet I actually trust, for example - in as much as I can see where he's coming from. There are many things wrong with this economy though. Anyway - meanwhile, he said the most human of things yesterday. Something along the lines of "...anyway, I'm now a Dad and that's more important than anything in the world. Anything". Good luck to him. And the missus.
Missed a good party yesterday for sleep reasons ie: I'm really fucking tired now. This is a real pisser, since Stef is going away travelling for a year, and Matt's just off to Helsinki I think I've fucked up seeing two of my favourite people off. So. Hmmm. Not too happy about that at all. However.
My friend Greg, who wants very much to work in Africa with an NGO, did the MBA with me and it often tended towards me and him scratching our heads at the attitudes on display. He's very smart and also far too handsome for his own good.
Anyway. He's also a brilliant wildlife photographer and he's just launched his new site, which you can view here. Lots of nice photos to pass the time...
I'm getting seriously back in to the "preternaturally tired" thing.
Not much kip last night, ante natal this morning - zonko'd this afternoon whilst s'posed to be working.
My brother directs movies. This of course makes him unutterrably cool. The fact that he also directed a few serious kick-ass episodes of Reboot obviously makes him even more groovy. If only to a very dedicated and specific group of cgi geeks. And me. And Lee.
In the last few years he's been busy doing Barbie movies, which is a bit peculiar in that one's instinct is almost to wince and go "yeah yeah" but, you know what - they're really not bad. The first one (Barbie in the Nutcracker) he was finding his feet, and if you watch it with the prerequisite - a smallish child, you'll notice an amusing homage to one of our favourite films, Errol Flynn's "Robin Hood" (amazed as I might be that you might not take the time to go watch it, I'll tell you anyway - it's a shadow swordfight). the second film, he and the creative director really got in to their stride and I'll tell you what - it's a really nice children's film. Not only does Barbie wear jeans instead of a pinky skirt or some nonsense, but the story itself, "Barbie as Rapunzel" has the Barbie type character being creative, solving problems, being the "hero" and she doesn't even really meet any Prince until the very end of the film - so as a Barbie film could go, it's pretty empowering, and it's all about being creative. I wouldn't feel bad at all showing it to sprog in a couple of years.
Anyway. His latest effort is now out on DVD, and it's Barbie of Swan Lake. He's been working with the same creative director so I imagine it's as polished as the last one.
They're showing it at the Odeon in Leicester Square on Sunday morning (hmm -10am! how delightful!) but that should be pretty cool. Although we will be surrounded by a bunch of Barbie competition winners.
A bit.
So she's moving about as frantically as she can (kicking hell out my kidneys on the right this morning.. verrrrrrrrrry strange feeling) for a good 5 or 6 hours a day on and off. I think she's beginning to Want Out. Which is fine by me, baby. If you want to enter the world, we're happy to bring you to it :) The emphasis being now or within, say the next two weeks, as opposed to the average 1st baby length of time which is 41 weeks!
Tony and Elaine had their baby induced overnight and now have a fairly amazing 9lb 4oz's baby boy. And Tony's emailing again already! Get offline man for God's sake!!! Looking forward to photos etc and a present is on the way.
Them having theirs is like some sort of incredibly positive hurdle along the way. Yay! Another new human life, another new person to blink, blearily at the world and start smiling in only a few short weeks before emabarking on a life of Playstations and teenage shagging.
And in some kind of empathy, she's just giving me a nudge.
Midwife updates - although I'm virtually the size of a house, apparently she's perfectly average sized. And the physio dept might be phoning me up, I bloody hope, so I can go and see them about my leg agonies.
Oh god! Ok, since the whole point in this is that it's - as the header suggests, a "warts and all" review of what's happening I will say this but you'll have to excuse me if you then wish to go away and NEVER REMEMBER HAVING READ IT AGAIN. You have been warned...
I now have a various vein of the blue variety bubbling and snaking it's way across the top and the inside of the right hand side of my flesh around my "bits". It's probably the most HORRIBLE BLOODY THING I have ever come across. It's all swollen and - argh! I can't possibly put Aescelus Gel (or whatever it's called) on there!
It's frankly: gross. It makes my flesh feel like it's crimped or something. Absolutely DISGUSTING. And I'm going to have to live with it for another 2 bloody months!
At least, I bleedin' well hope it's only 2 months! This whole process is doing me enough permanent damage already, never mind something like that!!!
Barf.
In my ongoing campaign to provide links and more importantly, actively get people to link through to them (and you never know, actually buy things), for those people what I know who have got off their arses and projected actual product in to the world, as oppsed to yet more web rambling, here is the latest:
Richard Herring's "Talking Cock" is now out and on bookshelves in shops across the UK (not available on Amazon.com). However, should you wish to save two quid and get it from Amazon.yuk. then link away :)
It's much better than you'd imagine from the PR / blurb - he's based it on all his research and a questionnaire he has on the website for the book (which is here). There's actually at least 1 quote from me in the book based on a questionnaire answer, but I can't tell you which of the miriad it is, since then Rich will know which questionnaire I did. Definitely not a good thing.
Anyway. Rich is a very funny bloke. His web diary thingy is often hilarious, very often painfully honest and always worth a read - there's a permanent link on the right. I hope he takes his place as unofficial 'Uncle Rich' since his mix of cheeky bad influence and good board game playing skills will be invaluable in about 5 years time.
He had a party at his on Thursday to celebrate and unfortunately I was so entirely exhausted I managed about an hour of conversation before struggling home to get a cab. But, he was on good form and I'm absolutely certain I saw Janet Ellis come in. Which is a bit surreal. Anyway.
People are just so great.
I often wonder whether or not I am ever as nice as this. I suspect it's all a case of "What goes around comes around" but you never know.
Went over to see a friend, Alex, who I haven't seen in the flesh for about 4 years (since the last time he had a big party, in fact) at his big farmhouse in Suffolk. We went over almost entirely because he said he had some baby things we could borrow, which seems a bit tight, but when you haven't got a car, getting over to Suffolk is one almighty journey. And what things! So we came back with a cot, a "travel system", bouncy chair and two bags full of clothes, as well as Becky's (Alex's lovely wife/partner/person) preggers trousers. The travel system is bloody amazing! I mean, in total we're taking about several hundred pounds worth of gear. It's almost overwhelming.
Our front room is now full of gubbins to go through and organise!
I was saying to Mackay on the way back "I still, even now, find it unnutterably surreal that I am currently gestating our child, who will be born. And be alive and breathing in a couple of months". He agreed, whilst trying to drive the worst van we've ever had to hire. It was a dreadful journey frankly (partly our own fault because we weren't really sure which would be the best way to go - turns out, through central London and the South Circular is to be avoided at all times) and it completely polaxed me - woke up part way through the night, but then after a couple of hours went back to sleep only to wake up at a horrendous hour, so I'm working at home. Thank god for the interweb.
So I guess I can now knock several items off our horrendous "if you have to buy it all new yourself, this is how much it will cost" list. And keep everything safe and happy for Alex and Becky, using them until they decide to have no.3. No 1 (Ella) was I think actually gestating last time I saw Becky. Now she's a fully formed human being. Time does your head in, it really does. Aaster is a roly poly grinning 7 month old who looks disconcertingly like Al Murray. Really lovely kid.
They're both really sorted out people - I get the impression that no.2 for people such as they is the baby where you get things right, you know what you're doing and you can just get on with it. Anyway, not that that makes much difference to me!
Anyway. so we promised we'd come down and visit early spring while I'm still off with sprog, and I must say, I wish we did that kind of thing more often. Alex is the nicest person, and so many of my friends I rarely see, really. Emails don't really cut it.
She is now, top to bottom the length of my entire torso.
Two things I was thinking about this morning - the immense disparity between the amount of people living within the culture in London (that I know), and the amount of children they are having.
It struck me that the cost of living in the South East (particularly London, obviously) be default now requiring two salaries (or in our case, one pretty big one and one small one, with the hope of occasional extra cash injections!) that people who live and work within the confines of London or major south east urban areas must actively be forced in to making a choice between a traditional sized family or ... living and working where they do. The reason I say this particularly is because only those who can afford a Nanny can really have more than 1 kid, unless they make the deliberate decision to not earn for a specific number of years (particularly, if you are a woman) - and there must be tons of people who are in a similar position to us.
So the solution must be to advertise moving to other areas like Liverpool or Manchester or even to be honest with you, further north given that costs within those areas are rising so fast, to enable you to have more kids and work, and have a nanny, and all of those things. Except that doesn't really work as an idea. It also sounds offensively "Have it all!"-ish so I'll shut up now.
The other thing I looked up this morning was a biography of Charles Kingley who wrote "The Water Babies". Annoyingly, this is not availabe on Project Gutenberg as yet, but is apparently in the pipeline (I just went to see if I should volunteer to do it). It's a great book. He was a god fearing socialist but there's no real mention of God in that novel. It contains within it the clearest and most obvious specification of Existentialism prior to Sartre and it's the proper, full on socialist Existentialism at that.
I am being called away, meanwhile, so I will depart!
And *boy* did she realise I was awake and wanted to get up and about herself. There I was groaning and lumping about, with Parappa the Rapper downstairs kicking and punching away with Mr Onionhead in her own personal dojo.
However - despite increasing levels of vegetable-like tiredness, I seem to be unaccountably in a good mood. Well, not quite unnacountably. I bought a box of some of the most delicious chocolate this side of the Atlantic Eclats de Cacao.
Caffeine and not actually too much sugar is bulldozing through my overtired brain.
Met Claire for Yo (ie: "average") Sushi last night and found afterwards that I'd really just wanted to have bowl after bowl of miso soup. I think I'll have to make some at home.
After two days of relative stillness she's up and about, scrambling all over the place. Glad I didn't panic about it in retrospect, but it did make me feel queasily uneasy.
In other news, I'm becoming very, very VERY tired now. All the time. I've just been discussing working at home 2 days a week with my boss. She's fairly cool about it, and Mondays / Fridays seem to make sense to me - to ease me in to and out of the week, allowing me an extra hour in bed before working.
Anyway. I think there's some hormone changes going on, albeit gently. I keep being unnacountably downhearted for literally no reason. I wonder whether the increased Seratonin thing is wearing off now I'm near-ish to the end. I dunno, it's that sort of depression hollow feeling thing (those that have ever will know what I mean). It annoys the hell out of me because I really have no right to be depressed. But, I'm gonig to mention it to Liz next week. I got so depressed after the miscarriage, I really want to guard against being depressed after the birth or rather - being depressed and not really realising. I'd rather those around me were on alert just in case.
It could be just because it's getting closer, so instead of feeling all excited, I tend now to feel quite daunted. That and the sheer exhaustion of carrying her around. I can't describe it, it's not resentment - God, no. It's grumpy, resigned-to-it humping her about - like a backpacker who really wants to get off their bloody feet after lugging around a massive backpack all day in the heat. Like that - but you can't take it off, and it's there *every* day. and in the wrong place.
Anyway. Apologies for the unusually downbeat grumping.
I've just finished reading "Evolution's Captain" by Peter Nichols, which makes a pretty good fist of writing up the professional life of Robert Fitzroy, an exceptionally talented seamen who captained The Beagle and was the person who invited Darwin to be his on-ship "friend" as it were for the course of the journey. from which Darwin eventually clicked the evolutionary imperative, etc, etc.
The writing style is a tad idiosyncratic at times, but it does make a fascinating read. I could really see a Sunday serial on BBC1 made up of this book plus a couple more episodes particularly about Darwin on top. Fitzroy deserves a rehabilitation by history and he seems to be getting it, gradually. Such a creature of his time - hidebound by "society" - his rank, his expectancies from life, and at the same time living in this age of incredible.. I suppose you could say it was a second scientific rennaissance. Finding yourself either retreating in to the familiar because it's less scary, and apparently more concrete, or embracing new theories which must have been like having a cold shower sluicing everything you thought you knew from your head.
And he did such brilliant things for the metereological office too - he basically created it, but was hidebound by the scientific materials he had available at the time. Poor bastard - if only he could have just realised he'd found a new career that had meaning, that had importance - instead he was more impressed by the fact that his weather predictions were published by The Times.
Something else struck me during reading it - there were obviously diversions in to Darwin territory because the theories expounded by Fitzroy's erstwhile mate helped compound his parlous psychological state. I suddenly realised the bleedin' obvious. Athiesm is such a normalised state to me, and the acceptance of evolutionary theory ... well, one shrugs one's shoulders and says "Er, yeah... so?" because it's all so clear, accepted, average...
But Darwin basically realised the scientific explanation that dematerialised God. Forget the philosophical debates - he, ultimately, is responsible for the clear acceptance of athiesm. If athiesm were (perversely) a religion, he'd be the Prophet who sat under the tree and received enlightenment. there's some sort of background to a "Brave New world"-esque story there. Instead of Ford being the icon, Darwin being there on pedestals, worshipped. No doubt someone's gfonig to tell me of the miriad of science fiction stories which do exactly that. Yeah, yeah so sue me for getting there late.
by the way - almost as soon as I posted the last thing, she kicked me in the feckin' kidneys.
Ah right, so.
I've barely felt her since yesterday morning - she had a very, very small flurry when I was going to sleep last night but nothing like the usual booming feet punching out and causing my whole belly to rock, or the scraping of her hands as she has a stretch. She usually greets me in the morning with a similar punching and kicking routine - and she'd started responding to the mobile music. So, I played it through twice as I got dressed this morning... and nada. Not a sausage.
So. trying hard not to get 200% distracted, if I feel nothing at all during the day, I'm going to make my way home via Barts, which has I believe some sort of "non-emergency" medical drop in centre type thing, so I can hear her heartbeat. But, at some point shortly I might ring the Midwives dept at St Georges for some advice and/or reassurance.
The more I think about this, the more a voice in my head is saying "What in hell are you waiting for?". Truth is, I don't really know but I can't just get myself in a big knotty panic over nothing. I want to give her the opportunity to say hello to me naturally, I also don't want to waste everybody involved's time by becoming a panicky first time mother - know what I mean?
She's only 31 weeks, so there's no way she's so big she can't move anymore. A couple of days ago she was laying completely sideways in there scraping and kicking at both ends. Just... ok... you know the chances of anything being wrong are very remote. Ok?
A very nice physiotherapist who gave the ante-natal class on Friday suggested I do the ole' frozen peas trick on the painful "top of right leg inside thigh" thing (ie: groin).
What!!!!! Masochism was never my strong point. At least, not with something the size of a PACKET OF FROZEN PEAS ladies and gentlemen. Expect screaming. On a sligtly different tack (trying to get off that subject as fast as bloody possible), poor Mackay's even deafer than usual atm, having a load of bicarbonate ear drops in morning and night ready for an ear slooshing out on Tuesday. Consequently he sat through the whole session barely understanding anything other than the physical demonstrations of massage (he is the worst masseur I have ever known, so holefully this may help).
Oh, there was another fag incident btw. Sitting on the train home I suddenly became aware of the smell of a lit fag over the top of my newspaper. Strange how I've got so much more ac tion oriented with this kind of thing these days. I immediately yelled out as authoritatively as I could "Mate, Can you put out your cigarette right now please" (mumbles of discontent from said lad) "I'm not interested, this is a non-smoking train, put it out right now". He puts it out on his shoe, then all frustrated, leans over the carriage "Who are you, anyway?". To which the only possible answer could be "I'm the pregnant woman who doesn't want to breathe your fag smoke, alright?".
Cue wander off in a huff.
What bored me witless was the post-event mumbles of encouragement from all the middle-aged dull twits in the carriage who all went "Jolly good show, not often people do that". Well - er - why did you leave it to me then you useless bunch of tossers? One particular woman got all indignant, and started explaining to me how terrible the world was (like I cared) because she obviously felt bad she hadn't done anything - and she actually followed the lad up the aisle to go and give him a piece of her mind! Mortally embarrassed after that. Like - jaysus, what are you going to do, teach the lad the error of his ways by hectoring him?? Hardly.
Anyway.
So I sit down on a bench at the station with my steeeenking cold still very much in evidence as , obviously is my bump.
About five minutes after I sit down, the guy who's sitting next to me get a fag out. I think I've found the perfect way to deal with this situation. straight away:
"I'm terribly sorry, but would you mind not smoking for a little while?"
Cue look verging on "how dare you jesus christ grrr arghhhh etc" from man, at coughing pregnant woman. So what's he going to do?? He gets up in a big huff and goes and stands down the station platform and lights up.
Yay! So the answer is: slightly apologetic but *incredibly* polite, whilst implying that it will only be for a few minutes so you should be ok, really. Honest. there's a vague, nurtured little hope that in being terribly polite about it, perhaps it might kick a memory in to touch with said bloke next time he's going to light up to - pffft, I mean, look around maybe, or even - good god, ask the people around him if they mind? Aha. Ha. No. Not going to happen.
Curious that today, walking around getting to work, many people noticed me because of the pregnancy. That, amazingly, is the first time it's really happened. This despite the fact that I'm reaching gargantuan proportions and have been for about a month.
What has been strange has been pregnant women actually. Far from the "shared sisterhood" nonsese I'd heard about, when I walk past a pregnant woman or sit near them on train platforms etc, there is in me a tendency to want to say hello (because I'm like that) but in them almost every single time there's a tendency to almost scurry away. Don't talk to me, how embarrassing! Ignore her, maybe she'll go away!
So the people who talked tome today were:
-A woman walking past me who looked at me with empathy and said "You doing alright?" (that was very nice)
-A tramp: "Ope it's a boy! A gehw? Aaaow naahaw!"
-A drunk tramp "Ooooh that's a hell of a cough you've got there now ... not long to go there now is there"
..that's it so far. A wee while ago, there was me, and this other heavily pregnant woman, walking basically up to each other in a small typical London road which looks more like an alley. She actually looked relieved that she had got to the office door she was going to before she had to ackowledge my presence! Bizarre.
I think this says more about london than pregnant women generally, frankly.
The pains around the top of my right leg are unbearable at the moment. I've actually cried out twice in the last 24 hours instead of the usual groaning between gritted teeth and whistling air out. Liz the midwife isn't coming for another nearly 2 weeks - luckily the physio is doing the sessions at ante natal on Friday. Maybe I can last that long.
Plus this morning as well as still feverishly recovering from a cold (with the radio on, hence a series of confused dreams about Christopher Wren and God only knows what when I should have been dressing to go to work), some really nasty IBS style cramps round the back as opposed to the front. Of course, I have no idea what to expect from cramps round the front but I think I'm fairly safe in saying that there's nothing going on. Just me, stumbling round having forgotten to put my glasses on, holding my belly in slight shock and saying - what the fuck? Ow.
Slightly anxious. If she *did* decide to come out now I'd have to rush in to hospital because she's so unsettled, unsurprisingly. She's all over the place - up, down, sideways. I can feel her hands currently scraping the side of the womb bottom left. this morning they were just below my right breast. Anyway. it's not happening, I'm just having a bad day because I'm a bit weak with being ill n'all, I reckon.
I bought 2 pre-buying frenzy purchases (or "acquiring" frenzy) which came from the Early Learning Centre yesterday. One is a mobile which winds up and does "Old MacDonald had a Farm" - it has very cute animals which presumably do not fling around like they're on a waltzer - the point is though that I've got the holdy stick with the clockwork in, and am now winding it up and playing it to sprog a few times a day. This apparently is supposed to be soothing for when she comes out: Oh, right, I know that sound. I'm safe. (etc). I also got a thing which it transpires is part of some TV series, which is a shame. However, by the time she's old enough it will have disappeared without a trace no doubt. And it looked so cute and knitted and soft - it's ok, in fact rather nice - take a look. In reality it's a bit too pink, and it's not very knitted. But what, I'm complaining? It was a fiver.
So I promise not to buy anything else until we do the big shop at the beginning of November, which seems to be half a millenia away. Now I must phone work, apologise for being so horrendously late, and waddle my way in feeling like I've been beaten up, yet again.
