New Home!

Dear readers,

Please follow our adventure now on my new blog 'Country Mumkins' it took me a while to think of a new title and to get my feet back on the ground, quite literally!!

Look forward to seeing you there! It's quite exciting all this moving around and change and fresh air and and and...!!

All Aboard!

Hello stranger - it's been a while and so much has been happening!


Since having Rowan we've moved house in both senses - took our lovely boat on our last trip down the canal and moved house as in onto terra firma, to the country mind, not just around the corner and have been making chutney and jam since!

Our last trip has been part documented by the lovely Laura in her blog - please take a look, very convenient because it was hard work looking after the baby let alone taking photos of the trip as well. Laura and Boyfriend were on the journey one way and left us somewhere East to public transport it home. We carried on and after stopping off for a big birthday meal for Jam in Bow we started the Limehouse loop. There's an electronic lock at some point, just outside the Olympic stadium. It was brilliant, huge and like something out of a movie, especially from my angle: I was feeding Rowan inside, looking up at these huge walls with lights casting shadows everywhere. Jam said it felt like we were going into a crusher! I concentrated on Rowan, letting the friends crew the boat. We stopped off somewhere near Victoria Park for the night, cracked open a bottle of birthday bubbly, then tequila shots all round ( I declined of course, the little one can do without the alcohol right now!)

The next day it was just Jam, myself and Rowan crewing the boat - we weren't much help, but it was a nice day and we had fun. We totally forgot that it was the Angel canal festival and were held up waiting there before we could get through the tunnel back to our mooring. It was great though, a couple of friends Scarlet and Odysseus joined us for the tunnel and festival wardens were manning the lock, whilst the Pearly Kings and Queens were serenading us from the other side - it was quite surreal actually, singing along and dancing to 'My Old Man' as the water in the lock filled up and we were surrounded by happy festival people, a really lovely ending to a fabulous weekend trip on our lovely boat.

Once back on the mooring we cleared away all the rubbish, cleaned and scrubbed as best we could as the light was fading and our energy levels dropping, our lovely neighbours did pop round with a cake for Jam which helped raise the spirits! Later than expected and slightly ragged, we packed up the car and headed out.

More on the new life soon, I'm not sure what to do with this blog as I'm no longer in London living on a boat, or pregnant! I shall start something new, for the new life and perhaps keep going with the memories and stories from the last few years of boat life anyway, for I hadn't planned to move so soon, well, we'll see, my little boy is crying now for Mummy's attention! Better go!

Rain and a mad coincidence!

I love the sound of the rain on top of the boat. It's so calming, soothing and relaxing. It takes me back to holidays in caravans with Nana in the Lake District when we were kids. Caravans are a little like boats in that way, the rain drumming tunefully on the metal tops, the tapping like a gentle massage of the soul.

Today, we went for dinner with some friends, then whilst back on the boat having cups of tea a boater came by in a very similar looking boat to ours and we were just remarking on it when the chap said, 'oh hello, we were in the waiting room at the hospital together when you were going in to have your baby' ~ what a coincidence!!

They needed to fill up with water so we let them moor up and we had a chat and compared boats and babies (ours seemed much larger and more sleepy ~ the baby that is!)

Windsurfing on the canal?

I looked out of the window yesterday and this is what I saw...

He didn't mind me taking a picture. He was with a friend, they had surfed from Broadway market through the tunnel. They said that was something else, surfing through the tunnel ~ must be like an extreme sport or something, extremely crazy more like!! One way to keep fit, shame I haven't got a spare windsurfboard! And off he goes back through the tunnel...

One Handed Whizzkid

I'm amazed at how much I can get done with only one hand. I normally write with my right hand, but when I was at school I broke my right wrist on a ski slope ~ it wasn't even whilst on the skiing holiday it was on the dry ski-slope practise session beforehand. I was petrified and convinced I was going to break my leg, only did half the slope, turned around at the bottom to joyously shout 'yey I did it' and fell, breaking my wrist...~ and I remember having to start my new geography book with my left hand. I was good. A little slow but at least you could read it. From then on I practised writing with my left hand as much as possible and when people asked if I was left or right handed I would proudly say, 'mainly right-handed, but ambidextrous really'!

Hilarious!

So now, putting it bluntly, depending on which boob is being drained, one hand is supporting the boy and the other is frantically texting/typing/eating chocolate or whatever is close to hand/drinking/reading/knitting (that one is admittedly a little harder!)/mopping up spillages/brushing hair/making tea/you get the picture...

I know I could use one of those slings, but to be honest I'm still a little tender down there and don't fancy crushing my stomach too much just yet - I have got a brilliant shoulder sling a friend bought for me in Canada, it's a Pippalily and it's got a beautiful design of dragonflies on it and I even have a picture of me using it for the first time...

Oops = upside down, bit like how I feel at the moment! He can feed whilst in it too, but I like to sit down whilst feeding and it's then that I seem to want to do everything all at once and oh crap, I've really waffled on here about nothing that I even wanted to waffle on about and it's time to get on with the cycle of feeding/nappy changing/sleeping, in which I'm not sure where I'm at right now but hey...

Jam asked me to juggle this morning with a pomegranate, lemon and apple, whilst I was feeding, making tea, buttering toast and washing up... I did it too, what fun we have!!

Baby Gazing

Please forgive my absence, I'm rather busy you see,
Not busy writing, reading, or watching lots of telly,
We don't even have one of them on board, what a waste of space,
I'm just happily sitting here ~ gazing ~ at my baby's beautiful face.

The perfectly formed fingers, delicate and long,

Made for the piano, time for Rowan's song.
The sweet dimple in his chin, just like his Dad's,
And cracking side-burns that Jam wishes he had!

Gentle purrs of pleasure as he suckles on my breast

Losing track of the days in this idyllic love nest.

Rolling eyes and a beautiful smile,

I know it's only wind but let me play for a while.

Auburn head of hair that curls when slightly wet,

Ancestral colours lest we should forget,

Deep blue eyes, will they stay or change to green?

Shh, he's gently sleeping now ~ blissfully serene.

I'm in another world and don't ever want to wake
The joy I now behold can make grown men shake,

Whatever did I do before this miracle came?

Who cares, life's amazing and will never be the same!

Picture taken by Anna Deacon, eagerly awaiting the rest of the set ~ she's a fabulous photographer! http://www.annadeaconphotography.co.uk/ my link button missing for some reason and baby is waking, so had better post this now!!

Welcome to the World!

Well, I am over the moon! On Friday morning our little angel of a boy arrived. He is everything and more I could have ever dreamed of! He's got my nose, Jam's chin and auburn hair, a proper red squirrel!! My grandad was a red-head, my sister and Aunty too; awwww he's so beautiful!!

The Cesarean was fine, I was really nervous, but calm and expecting it. Having the canola fitted was the worst part, I hate those things (the tube for the drip, canola may not be the right word)! The anesthetists were so lovely and really put us at ease, going through their cd collection to find some nice music, they said I should have bought one of my Hidden cd's in, but we ended up plumping for Frank Sinatra. When we told them about living on a boat they were really interested and after the procedure on the way back to the recovery ward we lost Jam only to find that he'd stopped to give my blog address to one of the anesthetists who was interested in reading it and finding out more about living on a boat!

When they lifted our baby out, they held him up for Jam to announce 'Oh Flora my darling, we've got a son, it's a boy!' He was taken to the side and checked and passageways cleared, he started to cry, then weed on the nurse, Jam started singing the lullaby he used to sing to him and he calmed down and grabbed his fingertip, then Jam bought him over to me and held him close to my face and he stuck his little hand in my mouth and up my nose and had a good look and I cried with joy. It took a bit of pulling and pushing as they sewed me back up, which was just a weird sensation and I was convinced that my legs were in stirrups, even when they took the curtains down and showed me ~ apparently your body remembers the position it was in when it went to sleep so that was why it felt like that.

Back on the ward I just held him and held him and he suckled and looked at us and it was incredible. Our little miracle safe in our arms, we've called him Rowan. When we were choosing names we were certain of our girl's name - Romilly Bella, and really struggled with the boy's name, liking Morgan, or Rowan, or more recently I'd been thinking Barnaby. His middle name would be Courtenay, the same as Jam's, slightly breaking the tradition in the family that the second born son would take Courtenay as his middle name, but hey.

I stayed in hospital for two days. It was so hard when Jam left in the evening, I should have slept whilst Rowan slept during the night, but he was on me, suckling and I was just gazing adoringly at him, unable to do anything else. The second night was the hardest, it was still quite hard to move around and the noise of the TV's from the other beds was too much and the nurses would turn on the lights every time they came in to take blood pressure or give out medication. It was hard getting up to put him down in the cot and then get back into bed, only to have to get up again because he didn't want to be there. One of the ladies from another bed, who I had chatted with in the waiting room came and helped me, I burst into tears, she was really lovely and said it was all completely normal!! Of course it is, and now we're home it is all so much calmer and more relaxed and I'm going to have to post this quickly to go and feed the little angel - more on this soon with photos, I just wanted to welcome him to the world... xxxxx

Countdown to the Cesarean

Squirrel is a breech baby and we are having a Cesarean on Friday. This is not what we planned ~ see already the little nipper is having it his or her own way!

I've found this really hard to come to terms with and still have the odd outpouring of tears. There's so much to read about it all out there, both scary and reassuring, yet when you're actually in the hospital being told your options it all seems so clinical and quick and you're in shock more than anything so making decisions there and then is a hard thing to do.

I read lots of stuff about how to make baby turn, indeed I was already doing quite a lot of them. One friend said baby won't turn unless you want it to turn, but I don't agree. I really did want Squirrel to turn and asked kindly too, but I don't think there was any room left at 38 weeks or desire to ~ he or she much prefers sitting upright looking out through the belly button window I think!

At the end of the day though we understand that making sure Squirrel enters the world safely is our top priority and it doesn't really matter how we get him or her here. It probably knows best too and doesn't want to put me through the pain of childbirth, especially with a history of difficulties in my family. I think I was concentrating more on the birth beforehand anyway and now am focussed on the time afterwards!

My gorgeous friend that I still haven't thought of a suitable pretend name for yet came around and helped me get organised sorting out all the different bags of baby clothes I'd been given and arranging the space for baby practically - it made such a huge difference in such a short space of time and everyone that's visited since has noticed how fresh the energy is and clear the areas. Friends like that are invaluable. They just know, they come over and DO stuff. (Picture of the book shelf we removed books from to make a space for baby things, with a changing area too).

Tomorrow is our last day before baby Squirrel arrives, so we are going to spend it together, talking about everything, doing very little, perhaps a nice long lie in, breakfast in bed, a trip to the cinema or theatre or a museum. That's what I'm hoping for, I'm sure though that Jam will want to continue doing all the things that need finishing around the boat ~ I'm trying to persuade him otherwise, saying Squirrel won't notice if the back steps are finished or not, but I do understand that he doesn't want to be doing it further down the line. It's very stressful for him right now and he is worrying about everything. I know though that once baby arrives, our hearts will melt and we will not want to do anything else but gaze adoringly at this little miracle we've created.

Only two more sleeps!!

Updates!

Apparently, according to a very close friend of mine, who shall remain nameless ~ because I haven't thought of a suitable pretend name for her yet ~ I don't update my blog often enough. So I'm now wondering what the protocol is with updating your blog?!!

Once a week? Once a day, twice a week, every hour? How glued to the computer does one have to be? How much do people want to read and where do you draw the line?

I mean, I started writing a blog a few years ago when I was travelling down under, then deleted it all for I didn't feel right somehow doing it and preferred to just send an email updating my friends on what I was up to every week, sometimes more if it had been an extra special week. I then started the blog again just posting my poetry, then I decided I needed more structure and a purpose for writing and decided to do the London Boat Life, incorporating the pregnancy. I really wanted to just do it for myself, making sure that I wrote regularly, but once I started getting readers it became a bit harder and I would find myself writing for the reader rather than myself.

I'm probably putting far too much thought into this and should just get on with it, take more photos and keep posting things that amuse and interest me and point my friend in the direction of all the other blogs out there to read and make sure she just checks in to me once or twice a week.

Right, I'm going to go and buy one of those wire things to download the photos from my phone, I seem to keep losing it...

Nice Catch!

Watching what goes on outside our boat is better than having a TV anyday! Yesterday I heard a rather loud SPLASH and thought that perhaps someone else was having a swim ~ it's been happening a lot lately, there's a funny sounding couple that keep diving in and swimming around a bit further down. It baffles me, the water is so disgustingly murky and polluted, but they seem to love it.

So back to the splash, I opened the hatch, peered out, with a bright and chirpy 'Morning' to the regular fishermen who were already three hours into their morning fish and saw a man with a pair of shorts on and a woolly hat, holding a line and tugging on it. A couple of people were with him, watching for whatever he was about to haul up. Nothing was coming, his line was stuck. I thought he was the same man that had been pulling out motorbikes and cycles further down the canal a few months earlier, but he said he was just a regular fisherman who was fed up with his line getting stuck and so had come down with a rake to try and fish out whatever it was that kept tangling up his line. Fair play.

The only problem was that his line was stuck. Well and truly stuck. I noticed that the funny sounding couple who loved swimming were actually sitting on the edge of the canal further down and mentioned that perhaps they would dive down for him to try and untangle it. He left his line with one of the keen onlookers and ran down to ask them for the favour. They declined saying they'd just dried off. This meant his only other option was to get in there himself. So he took off his shoes and started to lower himself in.

Now the other fishermen were showing some interest, in the kind of 'shake-your-head in bafflement at the crazy things some people do' way. I asked him if he was mad and hoped he would go home and have a shower afterwards. He said it was quite refreshing and he wasn't going to swallow any of it and didn't have any open wounds. Then up came a bike, his helper hoiked it out, quite a nice looking one at that, if you saw through the oily gunk. The line was still caught though, as he pulled it further, up popped a wheel of a shopping trolley...

'Ah, I remember when the boys threw that in, you should keep looking though, there were definitely two!' So he pulled himself out of the water, for the trolley was caught up in his rake and untangled it all, then threw it back in and caught the other trolley. 'That's great' he said, 'now I've got a clear path to fish in.'

I popped out for the afternoon. When I came back I asked if he'd caught anything more than the bike and trolleys, 'nah' was his reply, but he seemed quite happy enough. No real edge of seat clinchers here I'm afraid, but this is the real -life TV!

Never under-estimate the power of a pregnant woman!

4.17am. Rudely woken from our sleep by what sounded like the neighbour having a party. Jam sent Paddy a funny and rude message telling him to 'pack it in, you noisy bleep bleeps', which was promptly returned with a 'it's not me mate, woken me up too!'

Jam then pops his head out of the bedroom hatch and shouts to the group to 'keep the noise down please, we've got to be at work in a couple of hours'. Nothing happens. I turn over, with some difficulty I might add, then Jam puts a pillow over my head, I throw it off laughing at him as he starts humming loudly to try and drown out the sound of the all-night-revellers.

Twenty minutes or so later, the noise is not getting quieter and so I get up and go and look through the round window to see the bunch of young revellers with a couple of policemen standing talking to them. I think the policemen are asking them to put out the fire they have lit on the path and maybe to keep the noise down, then they head off back up the steps, leaving them all, still making lots of noise.

After another ten minutes or so of loud chatting, I decide that I should be the one to go out and ask them to stop, Jam protested but I insisted, whipping on my dress from the previous day and donning my flip-flops and glasses and heading out. Daylight was already upon us, a few stray revellers were lounging opposite our boat, but the main crowd were down by the tunnel entrance, some of them were nipping off into the bushes for a quick wee break.

I walked slowly down to the end of the mooring, a couple of them clocked me then they all turned round and looked. 'Hi guys, er, it sounds like you're all in my bed with me. Could you maybe move further down the canal where there are no boaters or houses nearby please?' Lots of apologetic mumblings follow, then I asked where they lived and their answer was 'Norway, France, Sweden etc'. 'Oh good, well give me a week or so and I'll come to your houses and wake you up in the middle of the night with a screaming baby!' Not sure they understood that but they all shouted sorry's and Good Luck with the birth, as I waved nicely and headed back to bed.

Jam gave me a round of applause as I got back into bed. I didn't expect it, but was amazed to hear nothing more. With a huge sigh of relief I drifted back into lala dream land.
Never under-estimate the powers of a pregnant woman!

I'm totally exhausted today and whilst writing this have managed to chow my way through half a packet of ginger nut biscuits some chocolate cream biscuits and an apple... ;)

a baby shower

So the girls all get together to throw a baby shower party for the Mum to be (me!). There's lots of excitement, laughter, nibbles, wine (not for me ~ although I brought along a bottle of non-alcoholic Riesling our dear neighbour Paddy had given me, left over from his all night mooring party, it was kind of disgusting, but palettable with some fizzy water...), there's presents, screaming, tears, silliness and the big surprise as to what the girls are going to make for the little one this time!?

Every time someone has a baby, our groups of friends get together and create something ~ one of our first parties we painted bibs, then we painted babygros, then some fabulous bunting and a really cute mobile of soft toys. We all bring along our sewing kits, complete with sparkly bits, buttons, crazy material and let rip. It's a huge amount of fun, everyone has a go and a good catch up at the same time.

For my Squirrel shower we were going to be outside in the park nearby so I didn't have too far to waddle, but unfortunately this was last week, when the weather had changed slightly so a last minute weather check meant we went to Prin's house instead. Scarlett came and picked me up beforehand with some whispering to Jam and disappearing off into the bushes to put things in her bag. I was beginning to wonder what they had in store for me! I was also feeling quite exhausted for I was about to have a quick pick me up nap when Scarlett arrived ~ she gave me a wee massage which was heavenly but not quite the same as a snooze! Still the excitement kept me going!

As you know, I'm a consultant for Neal's Yard Organic Remedies now, sharing my love for the products and finding a new business to throw myself into, that will work around Squirrel. So I took along my kit and held a mini party as well. It was great fun, I even managed to sell enough to be able to get the New Baby kit for free! A good result! (If you would like to know more about this let me know!)

So cut to the chase WHAT DID THEY MAKE YOU I can hear you cry! Well, they opened their bags and announced that they were making me a dreamcatcher! If you don't know what one of these is, it's a willow hoop, that has a spider's web inside and jewels and feathers attached to it. It is meant to catch the bad dreams which would then dissolve in the light of the day and all the good dreams would filter down to the sleeper.

Scarlett and Yogi start binding the willow together to make a circle with it, then they attached material around it and sewed it on, then they wrapped leather straps around it to try and make the shape stay. Some of the other girls make some dangly bits with buttons and badges and feathers to attach to the hoop. The web-making part was proving difficult and I wanted to help so got stuck in and made a web, but unfortunately it was too loose and didn't stay and it took so long to do I couldn't hold my arms up long enough to do again, so Scarlett tried again but it wasn't happening, so we fixed the shape using beads instead.

It was getting late and everyone was tired and needed to head home, Prin, who was feeling a little loose-tongued after a few glasses of vino, came out with, 'Oh Flora, every time we make something we get more and more creative, and for you, one of the most creative amongst us, we've made something really shit!' And the wonderful Ra churps up 'and you don't even like dreamcatchers!' Scarlett was adamant I shouldn't take it home, but I insisted, saying it was beautiful, it looked more like a mobile without the web part and I really wanted Jam to see it!

Anyway, it's the thought that counts and I think it looks lovely on the door of the boat, even if it is a bit squashed! It's colourful , fun and made with oodles of girly love for Squirrel!

I just want some sleep...zzz

I'm waking up tired, too tired to go to work!
I just want some sleep!
I want to sleep on my stomach and stretch out
without cramp setting into my calves.
I want to roll over and over and not ache in strange places.
I want to cuddle in to you and feel the warmth of your back
Wrap my legs around yours and nuzzle into your neck.
I want to jump out of bed feeling refreshed
And not have to get up four times to pee
I just want to sleep and wake up as me!
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Joy of Gardening!

There's something so satisfying about gardening!



After the weekend of DIY we had a spare day and Jam and I decided to do something about the mooring and cleared up some of the ivy that just goes mental strangling all the trees and bushes.

We brought over the logs from the old log pile that had once held up the shed that Polly had put up when she'd sold her boat, to put her stuff in, which BW then made her take down saying it was an obstruction to navigation, strange that for it wasn't anywhere near the water but that's a different story, and so we made a lovely looking woodery.

We planted some flowers that we'd bought at a car boot sale, mainly marigolds and little blue daisies, I forget their real name now.

I incorporated my trophies for darts and go-kart racing. Yes I have a trophy for playing 'arrows' ~ after my degree I lived above a pub in the East End and was roped in to playing arrows for the team, we did really well, considering you had to drink your body fluid capacity in vodka and orange at each match. I could barely see the board let alone hit it! I actually got sent home once at an away match for missing the board and shooting an arrow through someone's foot ~ didn't they realise I was a liability with a drink inside me?

There's also a section of home-grown salad and herbs in the woodery as well, a lovely climbing rose, some seating and a little bit of a rockery trail. Not bad for a day's work!

35 weeks pregnant and a slight panic

When you are pregnant you can sign up to all these websites which send you regular tips and tricks and offers and little reminders of what's going on inside and out of your body. So why does it come as a big surprise to me when I get an email saying 'Hi Flora, you're 35 weeks pregnant'? I suddenly find myself in a mild panic, worrying that I haven't packed my hospital bags yet, washed any of the baby stuff we've been given in baby friendly soap powder or prepared my husband sufficiently or myself for that matter!

The panic leads to me putting on a calming CD to try and breath through it and sitting on the edge of the coffee table whilst bursting into tears. Jam is poorly and trying to rest but comes through when he hears me sobbing and comforts me. Through the tears I sob, 'tell me it's all gonna be alright', he says 'I'm going to be alright', I sob a little more, squeeze tighter then say, 'what did you say?' He looks deep into my eyes and repeats it, and I say, I thought you said that, I actually said 'tell me IT'S ALL going to be alright, as in ME and the BABY, not YOU!' Then the laughter sobs break in and he reassures me that EVERYTHING is fine. I'm doing an incredible job and he had wondered why I was worrying about things I couldn't control, then the CD starts skipping at the 'little donkey' ambient dribbly variations on a theme part and he offers to make some tea and talk about what's bothering me.
[You may be interested to know the chap who wrote little donkey in 1959, Eric Boswell died in December last year.]

The pregnancy preview email also said I would be having whacky dreams and should write them down. I do this anyway, they are usually quite bizarre. Last night I couldn't sleep very well and wanted to get up at 5am, but forced myself to sleep some more after another trip to the loo (poor Jam has to change the loo nearly every other day at the moment instead of weekly.)

I woke having dreamt I'd had the baby, it was a boy, but I was also performing a concert for my album launch at the same time, and kept forgetting I'd had the baby, and would run backstage and Jam would be holding the baby and it was a girl, with really crusty hair, then I'd go back on stage and talk about the album and find that the words for the songs were all muddled up on the songsheet insert of the CD, which was a long thin sheet of black satin and one side of it was in Arabic, and the other side had a big lion and the words KAPLAN and I would be joking with the audience, doing a stand-up routine instead of singing the songs for I couldn't remember the words. I was saying things like, 'so, I'm 8 months pregnant and I've been watching this bellydancing DVD every day, that's right, every day, I'm really good at it, see, I'm watching it on the shelf, I'm looking at it every day, I think it's made a huge difference don't you? Then I'd remember I'd already given birth and run backstage to see the baby again....

The kindness of other bloggers

I was so overjoyed to read this post by a fellow blogger on her blog Edible Glitter, a lovely looking, exciting and diversely filled blog, which I love dipping into! I was shocked, surprised, then overcome with gratitude that still makes me smile now ~ it's amazing how kind people can be, saying such lovely things ~ and I've not been blogging regularly for very long and I didn't even know she had written it, I just found it whilst looking at her blog!



My darling friend LLG linked to me in her fantastic blog encouraging me to get on with the regular blogging and despite going into a slight panic at the thought of people reading what I'm writing I've overcome that now I think and am actually enjoying it.



It's incredible to think that we've been using the internet for years and yet it's still quite new and exciting, lots of things to explore, learning every day, ~ I guess it's similar to 'about to become a Mum', you hang out with friend's children or your siblings forever and never think you're actually going to do it yourself, then suddenly there's a whole new world of nappies, sick and baby classes to explore. Maybe that's not such a great simile, equating the excitement of writing a blog to having a baby, but most people DO think of their blogs as their babies, the above two ladies included, and why not? I'm beginning to get the bug, in fact I feel like I'll be looking after two babies soon enough! Bring it on! I can see it now, nappies on the laptop, posting pictures on to the baby... ;)

Re-cycling envelopes

Always check your envelopes before re-using them - you never know what your recipient might find as an extra free gift!

I sent my sister Oli a parcel for her birthday.  She lives down under so you have to send things well in advance and although it wasn't that long ago, I had totally forgotten what I'd sent her, and I haven't even had the baby yet!  It also took her a while to ask me if what she'd found was meant to be in there...

But before you get excited it was nothing sinister, just one of my contact lenses.

She thought it was a sweet way of me keeping my eye on her...  ;)

Bank Holiday DIY time and a little ditty...

Jam is such a fabulous handyman! I'm sooo very lucky! Right now the mooring is full of men working hard on various different projects.

We have Paddy quietly digging up his garden patch, making room for his table and chairs and vegetables, King Pin the Daddy rockin out doing final bits of decorating for his boat before renting it out and Jam whirring away in the workden making shelves and cabinets for King Pin's boat. I'm taking it easy, cooking lunches and suppers for them all and making sure they drink plenty of water, what a good woman!

Of course, the weather was beautiful that weekend (I know I'm a bit late on posting this, in fact, I'm sure my absence could have been a 'ooh crumbs has she had that baby' moment, but not yet, I'm still huge and growing daily) and so with nice weather we could eat outside in the 'Whispering garden'. A haven on the mooring, hidden amongst the greenery, using an old church pew we rescued from the canal a few years ago and a bar table as well, that had one leg missing when we hoiked it out, but that was good for it meant we could add a longer one so it sits on the slope properly. We've built a fence and canopy using all the overgrown ivy and woven in old guitars and signs saying 'Angels gather here', it's peaceful and calming.

I remember when we found the church pew, there were a few of us, and I saw it first, and wished I'd kept my mouth shut for the boys were all drunk and I was sure there would be an accident, but actually it was fine, and I'd jumped off the boat so as not to be part of it and they'd all come past me jeering and winding me up, but it was a fun day to say the least and one of the first times I'd hung out with Jam, who wasn't being so mean, the seeds of love being sown over the church pew, ahhhhh.

Where was I? Ah yes, so there we were in the whispering garden and after food, Jam said he fancied a cigarette, so I 'pretend' stormed off in a huff and came on board to write a song about it - here it is, I'm kind of in disguise, wearing an old pair of glasses and it was a first take so there were a couple of slips but I think you'll get the gist and hope you enjoy it!

Giving up seats for pregnant ladies on the tube

I went into town today, it's only three stops on the tube, and Squirrel tends to kick, wriggle, knit ~ whatever it does in there ~ quite a lot these days so I wasn't too bothered about sitting down, in fact I didn't want to sit down because I knew I would be sitting down all day.  A very sweet young man touched my arm and offered me his seat as soon as he saw me get on, and when I said 'oh thanks but I'm fine really, it's only a couple of stops' he seemed quite offended and flabbergasted almost and sat back down, looking around as if to say, did you see that? Offer a pregnant lady a seat and she refuses it, honestly!

Then a young German couple got on and when a seat became available instead of taking it the man asked me if I would like it, 'oh thanks but I'm getting off at the next stop I'm fine thank you though!'  More puzzled looks and whispering to his girlfriend and some odd looks from other passengers too.  I was quite happy perching on the cushioned rest, reading the man's paper next to me, then his mobile as he checked his very important messages about meeting with the Moroccan ambassador and Princess Laila and then looking around as if I wasn't reading it whenever he looked or the man on the other side of me caught me looking. Yes it was a fun journey indeed, but I did feel guilty, not just for reading the man's texts but for offending two very kind gentlemen who offered me seats.

After a very long, uncomfortable day I got back on the tube, desperate for the loo, hot, tired, hungry, and nobody offered me a seat, but I didn't really mind for it was only a few stops.  Then a gentleman excused himself past me to walk to the middle of the carriage, to stand and wait for a seat, saw me, then grabbed the young man sitting in the end seat and asked him to get up for the pregnant lady, the young man was instantly apologetic and grabbed his things together and gave me the seat, which this time I very gratefully accepted, and thanked the older gentleman too.  Sitting down, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with gratitude, a mixture of feelings welling up inside about accepting and declining seats and the whole protocol of it all and felt a huge burst of tears building up, but looked up and shut my eyes and let a small trickle of exhausted frustration run down my cheek quietly.

Fishermen again...

Now I spoke with Kevin and Simon recently, two of the regular fishermen and they are really quite sweet.  One of them recently had to put down his dog and doesn't know what to do without her, so that's why he spends his days fishing.  The atmosphere on the canal is much calmer with them fishing opposite, in fact they say that they fish here because they don't want the pesky kids throwing stones at the boats.  See, it's quite a community really.  They make the time to get to know us, always ask how I'm getting on with the bump and throw a joke or two over...
Kev - when are you due?
Me - I'm due July...
Kev - no I don't lie, are you calling me a liar?