Barren Mare

Buzzzzzzz

Guess where I am?  Go on, guess.  Agggggh, I am in Cafe Oobleck.  The phone, which we were promised would be working as of Saturday evening, is still not connected.  The only upside is that trudge here is just about the only exercise I am getting at the moment- essential, since more and more I am beginning to resemble a beach ball with legs. Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.

Anyway, I walked all the way here looking forward to updating, but frankly, I can't concentrate.  There is a steady stream of foul-mouthed, noisy boys in and out- and people shouting at top volume on their mobile phones.  It's spoiling my mojo a little bit.  Note to self; do not frequent Cafe Oobleck during lunchtime.

In terms of baby news- I bought a pram/pushchair/buggy thingee over the weekend. This was both exciting and a little surreal. Having thought about, discussed, researched, drooled over, dreamed of, fretted about and despaired about all things prammy, to actually be in a position to go ahead and get one of the damn things was a little strange. After several weeks of furtive research at work (mostly during my lunch hours, I swear!), I had it narrowed down to- well, one choice, really. Having just bought a new, tiny car in December, the options were actually somewhat limited.  Fortunately, I've always a bit of thing for the Quinny Buzz, and lo!  It's one of the few that will fit in the boot of a Mini- or so they say.  Buzzzzzz.

I actually ended up getting it on eBay for an amazing price, with lots of snazzy extra bits.  Normally, I have strict rules about buying expensive-ish things on auctions since I have heard too many horror stories, but in this case, I decided to go for it. So I bid, not expecting to win, but did.  The terms of the auction required that it be collected, which may have narrowed the competition a bit. As it turned out, the seller lived quite literally next door, thus enabling me to stroll over at leisure to pick it up. And then experience the slight weirdness of rolling an empty pushchair back to the rental flat, feeling a tad fraudulent despite my undeniably bumped out belly- but pleased all the same.

E. was asleep during all this, having just gotten back from a transatlantic flight. When he woke up and wandered through to the living room, he nearly tripped over the Buzz, parked in all its glory.

"GAAAAAH," he said, rubbing his eyes. "It's a pram.  You bought a....GAAAAH."

I think what he meant was, it all suddenly seems sort of real. Having baby stuff in the house makes it all far more tangible than either of us are perhaps really ready for- but there is it is. 

Then he said," There's no way that's going to fit in the boot of a Mini."  At which point, cue my frantic hopping up and down, demonstrating the folding down-ness and wheel off wizardy and the hoisting of the compacted chassis in the air, dancing about like a deranged gollum clutching the ring. My prreeeeeccccious!  He stood there looking bemused, watching me.

"Well, OK then," he said finally, " but we'll have to put one of the seats down.  Or take off the parcel shelf."

Oh God, no! Not the parcel shelf!!!! 

Anyway, we'll just have to make it work for the time being, since buying yet another car (or trading this one in) is completely out of the question at this point.  And I'm out of time, so with apologies for the abrupt departure that concludes today's sojourn in the delightful internet cafe.

Should I stay or should I go now

Absolutely no further forward with getting either phone or internet hooked up, I return to Cafe Oobleck, which today seems to be populated by spotty faced boys, and loud football commentary from the owner's radio.  This entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs unsettles me. But every time we call the phone company to enquire about progress, they tell us it will be connected 7 days from now.  We've been hearing that for over three weeks, so I think they just make it up. 

On the upside, we've been advised of a move-in date to the house, quite a bit earlier than anticipated.  Again, I am not wholly convinced this will happen, partly judging from the fact that the place still looks like a building site in an advanced state of chaos, but it's nice to hope it might be true.  Until then, I keep looking at the calendar and grinding my teeth over the number of potential days we have to get what seems like a ridiculous amount of stuff done.

Something I am swithering about a little bit is when to go off work.  Basically, the date of departure and commencement of maternity leave is flexible from next week onwards. I've received all sorts of conflicting advice about this from people I know. If I tell people  of the current plan- that is, I intend to work until the end of week 35, half the time they scroonch up their lips and then carefully say something like, " Well, in my experience it's nice to have more time off before the baby comes.  You will be getting very tired, you know. And it might be hot by then."  But then if I suggest that I might go off a couple of weeks earlier, say, around end of June, the other half impart the wisdom that it's better to have more time when the baby comes, and the baby will probably be late anyway, and I don't want to be sitting around the house all boredy bored bored, now do I?

The upshot is that I think it's fine either way.  One of the nice things about living in this country is that the maternity leave benefits are very good; and even better are the very generous maternity arrangements on offer by my employer. I will be getting six months leave at full pay, then another three on statutory pay (which is a lot less but still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick).  I can then take up to another three months off, unpaid, but without risk to my job security.  So to some extent, bearing all that in mind, two extra weeks or so off during the pregnancy doesn't seem to me to make a whole lot of difference.  The only hassle is that, having already given notice of a particular date for going off, negotiating the labryinth of paperwork to now change it is slightly unappealing at this point.  And if I continue to feel as well as I currently do (which is very), then it does seem somewhat silly to depart from work before I really need to.

Ultimately, I suspect the urge to have some extra time to myself for nesting, shopping, nagging the phone company, getting the bathroom floor tiled (and knowing me, extensive napping) is probably going to win out.  And I always did have a high boredom threshold.

 

   

Why should it be simple when it can be so, so complicated?

Ah, internets.  I love you and miss you so much even after this brief absence that I have resorted to waddling all the way to an internet cafe to log on.  Even though it is expensive, slow, the keyboard is covered in oobleck, Typepad looks all weird, and somebody is slurping coffee next to me. But you're worth it.

The move went fine, to my great relief, and we're into the rental flat, which is nice enough. It's also quite literally NEXT DOOR to the partially completed house, and E. and I are taking turns wandering around with the dog, peering through the fence to see what progress has been made. If any. In the meantime, we're reasonably comfortable, and I don't have to worry about packing, lifting, sorting, organising or running like a headless chicken for awhile, which suits me just fine.   

Despite our original intentions to do without (a huge brain fart if ever there was one), we quickly came to our senses and decided that we simply had to hook up some sort phone/internet connection at the rental.  I discovered, after several long, tortuous plunges into the telephonic abyss with our provider of choice that we could actually get connected and then transfer the service to the new house once we move in.  But because it's a non-cable area, that means also getting the phone line connected, which is the responsibility of a different provider.

And therein lies another obstacle course of woe. You see, it appears the previous tenant decided to stop paying all his bills, before vanishing to, um, New Zealand, I think. That includes a debt left on the existing phone line (which rather inconveniently, he arranged with yet a third provider).  That company has put a bar on the line, due to the unpaid charges- and until it is taken off, we can't get our phone line up and running.  Of course, that's not OUR problem, but despite having put in the order for our service over a week ago, it's taken until today to establish that this is the issue, and so Provider A have to talk to Provider C to sort the whole mess out. Which is meant to take another five days or so.  Thereafter we can go back to try to get the internet service with Provider B, but that will take another 7-10 days, or possibly longer because it involves getting permission from the landlord.

Sigh.   

In other news, the B6 vitamins are perhaps helping a wee bit with the carpal tunnely traumas. I'm not wholly convinced, but thus am managing so that I have not felt the need to pursue the wrist brace action any further (though I have not been doing ANY knitting either, and I think I am going to want to, soon). Thank you for all your helpful advice and comments-your collective wisdom is invaluable- and makes it worth braving Cafe Oobleck, home of the slow, grungy internet service.      

Lastly, all seems well with the Apocryphetus, generally- lots of gymnastics going on in my innards which is simultaneously amusing and disconcerting. Getting more bumpalicious by the day, together with my bosoms which by the way continue to expand, alarmingly so.  I've just been to buy another bra, the size of which is so unfeasibly enormous that I burst into hysterical laughter in the dressing room when I saw it. Then I put it on, it fit, and I shut up, quickly. Good grief.

Well, I suppose we can always use it as a hammock after the baby is born.