Better than a kick in the knickers with a winklepicker

ARGH!

'Every pregnancy is different', I thought.
'The second one tends to come out easier,' I thought.
'Everything else has been happening much earlier on with this pregnancy, so the birth probably will too', I thought.
'I've been having Braxton Hicks for ages, and really painful contractions for several evenings in a row - I must have dilated loads by now', I thought.

In fact, I was a little surprised to make it a week overdue so that I needed to go in for a membrane sweep today in the first place. But I thought, considering all the contractions I've been having, that they'd get it done and the rest would be history. Rerun would most likely be born tomorrow.
( Cut for TMI LadyTalk )

Still Pregnant.

Carry on.

Ooh, one interesting thing - we did realise the other night that the woman playing the 'Mister Snappy' Mum in Psychoville is Alex Kelly from Hubs' film - barely recognisable under loads of blonde curls!

The people a few doors down are having a garden party. With bunting and everything. STOP HAVING FUN WHEN I CAN'T, PEOPLE OF BRITAIN!

Have had a few 'proper' (ie both crampy & achey) contractions this evening - will they stay? Will they go? That's the beauty of childbirth - we just don't know! Hope I pop soon though - it's so bloody hot!

My Showbiz Chum Off The Telly (and I think I can now happily refer to him as My Showbiz Chum - he has recently enquired as to my wellbeing, and called me 'a very funny lady', so suck on that!) David Schneider appears to want me to LiveTweet the Labour. To which there is only one suitable reply -


I have Pralines & Cream Icecream in the freezer, and ISIHAC to listen to. These are good things.

Oh, and I highly recommend renting out 'If You See God, Tell Him', if you can - 4 parter black comedy drama by David Renwick from back in 1993. Very of-its-time, but considering that the main things it satirises are over-commercialisation, dumbing down and the then-Government's handling of Recession and mass unemployment, it's still very current. Wonderful performances from Richard Briers and Imelda Staunton as well as lots of great cameos, but the one who really shines is Ade Edminson, very much against type as a Meldrew-esque put-upon suburban everyman. Gloriously dark & surreal - touches of Gilliam, especially 'Brazil', which it seems to directly reference in certain shots.

Today is not a good day, news-wise, to be full of Pregno-Rage. Nobody should have to look at Nick 'Drunk, Racist, Ranting Old Fuckwit Of An Uncle That Everybody At The Family Gathering Is Trying To Ignore' Griffin's smug fat 'Whee, I been done gots myself elected' face ever, let alone a woman who is achey and tired and constantly being punched in the bladder from the inside. Angry at the morons who voted for him, angry at the normal people who were too idle not to vote against him. Managing to focus all my anger on the one person I know who joined that Racist Facebook group, even though she might not have voted BNP and even if she had, she lives dahn sarf, so it wouldn't have contributed to either of the BNP MEPs that have been elected in the North. However, I'm picturing every BNP Voter in the land as her - thick, fat, fugly and, if Family Gossip is to believed, a shit parent. Yeah - I'm shaking my metaphorical fist at a hoard of imagined cave trolls whose approach to starting a family is just to stop the pill without telling their partner and are then so busy watching Jeremy Fucking Kyle that they forget to tell their beloved brood how to fucking talk. And they're always so ugly too, aren't they? Have you ever met an objectively aesthetically pleasing Racist - of any Race? No? Me neither. And it's like the fuglier they get the more Racialist they get. It's like there's some sort of mutually exclusive teeth-to-tolerance ratio.

Anyway. There's an interesting article in the Grauniad here, the jist of which is basically 'yes, it's shit, but let's all stop flapping our hands and look how we should go about opposing them properly, since what we're doing at the moment clearly isn't working', which made me calm down a little. And maybe once the Labour party has finally fallen to pieces (as it appears imminently about to do) it can get back to actually being the Labour Party instead of a dysfunctional mish-mash of Labour and Conservatism.

But then also in the news there's the horrible story of the pregnant young woman randomly stabbed to death in Grimsby yesterday, which is shaking and horrifying for me for so many reasons. Being heavily pregnant already makes me feel much more vulnerable than I do when not visibly pregnant. It's not just because I obviously wouldn't be as able to run from or fight against somebody who attacked me as I would otherwise... being this pregnant makes you feel so visible. You feel like you stick out like a sore thumb, and that your blatant vulnerabilities, as well as the vulnerability of the child you're carrying, makes you a glaring Nutter Target. Yes, there have only been three stories including this one of pregnant women being attacked in the street by strangers that I can think of. Compared to all the cases of violent crime against women both in the street and in the home, that's peanuts, I know. But it's still terrifying when something like that happens and reminds me what a high-visibility blimp of a potential psycho-target I am. *Sigh*.

Well! A trip to Mothercare was called for today in order to try to make the Rerun Anxiety Dreams a little less frequent... all we really needed was a suitable-from-birth double buggy (Yes, Vi can walk perfectly well, but she's usually very slow and doesn't always hold our hands in busy places - it's much easier at the moment if we need to go far, get somewhere quickly or she needs a drink/snack and we don't have time to stop to pop her in a buggy for some of the walk - especially if it's only me, and especially if my attention will be divided with a newbie) and a new expressor, steriliser and new bottles since the ones we had from Vi have gone a bit manky. Also splurged on new feeding nighties for me (Rock & Roll!) and a bathroom step for Vi to reach the sink since she's suddenly decided she wants to brush her teeth herself. Just so happened that Mothercare are having a massive sale this weekend, so we ended up saving loads - at least £50. Carseat, Moses basket, bedding and some unisex newborn clothes are already in our possession from last time, I've already bought him a few more newborn boy's clothes (just vests, little jogging bottoms, babygros and a hat - why you can get little shirts and jeans for a newborn baby is beyond me!) and got him some nappies (so tiny compared to Vi's Trainer Pants!) yesterday.

So I think we're pretty much set now. I've even started packing my Hospital Bag tonight. This time my hospital bag is around 5 times smaller than the monster I took when I had Vi. The Midwives laughed at me when they saw the size of it - I really had packed a stupid amount of stuff. Quelle n00b. Well, not this time.
( Behold! The Bag Of Wonder )

New school term = the tots get to rule the roost at Playgym again instead of being pushed around by the bigger kids. Vi was able to have a really good scamper about this morning, and we saw our friends who moved away! These are the twins who are pretty much the same age as Vi - their mum told me the sweetest thing as they were playing... not only do the twins share Vi's current favourite book ('Night Pirates' - I really recommend it BTW, mums of little 'uns) but they call the Pirate Captain 'Violet' because she's got loads of curly hair. How cute is that?!? Then Vi and the twins did some Pirate Noises for us. It was ace. We hope to meet up with them on Fri for lunch before they head back.

Violet looks fantastic today, BTW. I put her in a bright flowery summer dress that I've been waiting for it to be warm enough to warrant putting her in for ages. we don't really have any tights that go with it, however, so she's ended up in red-and-pink striped tights. I thought if she was going to clash she might as well just go the whole hog.

Oh, and I dreamt about Rerun last night/this morning! I'd given birth to him at Sacred Heart hospital (and why yes, we had watched four episodes in a row the evening before). He looked like a boy version of Violet, and was wonderful. He could already hold his head up, which I remember dreaming probably wasn't that likely for a newborn. I was in love the second I saw him. We named him Elliot. It's made me feel really positive about his upcoming arrival today.

In even duller domestic type news, we're finally getting someone in to poke our outside drain. It's yucky and keeps overflowing. All of Hubs' attempts to clear it have failed. Very annoying going through several pages of Yellow Pages ads for companies with absolutely no idea of who to go for or what to expect. Getting a big national company to give us a quote because a, I've heard of them and b, they don't charge per 1/2 hour - I know how that game works! Still, I think it's going to be pricey. Got to do it, though - it's in our letting contract as one of the things we've got to sort out if it goes wrong.

Escape to London today was well worth
a, the guilt of leaving the house just as Vi, who had been doing really well all morning, puked up her breakfast
b, possibly the worst Coach journey ever, on a completely packed coach. Picked a sleepy lady to sit next to, which was good, but ended up sitting the other side of the aisle to two massive charvers who spent 2 hours loudly and swearily sort-of chatting each other up as the girl (overweight and dressed head to toe in skintight white clothes so that she looked like the Michelin Man) simultaneously chatted with various people on her mobile - including her boyfriend so that ChavvyMan (who got on board with a can of Special Brew... if you're not pissed by 11am you're obviously not trying hard enough... and twice 'went to the toilet' for 5 minutes, during which time the whole coach mysteriously smelled of fag ash) ended up having a loud, sweary argument with Phone Boyfriend that 'they were only sitting next to each other on the fucking bus, for fuck's sake'. Actually, I was quite glad of Chavvygirl as she stopped Chavvyman from trying to talk to anyone else - apart from taking a few moments to ask the foreign students behind him some random questions and then take the piss out of them for not being able to understand his weird, slurred ramblings while Chavvygirl laughed her arse off. Having sworn that there was nothing going on they then kissed as the coach pulled up and exchanged numbers, Chavvyman leaving her with the immortally romantic line 'Just put me down as "Paul Coach". Now I've got to get off. I've got to get one of them... fucking... things...' He pushed me in the back several times as we were getting off. He was a CHARMER.
c, braving Victoria's alfresco ticket 'office' (aka the worst ticket booth in the world) for five minutes, then discovering that the Viccy line was closed so what should have been a quick hop to St Pauls ended up involving three different tube lines. It was quite fun playing 'how long before somebody offers me a seat', though - and impressively I was offered a seat on every tube I got on on the way there. None on the way back, mind.

But as I say, it was all worth it. I had a lovely escape with Miss C, la Nunn and 'Brickwork' Kahn, who we only invited to look more multicultural but impressively ate with a knife and fork and didn't even try to blow us up once. She did have a bit of a headache since we were eating in the shadow of St Paul's and everybody knows that Cathedrals are built out of Muslim Kryptonite. Jokes were made. Fun was poked. Plans were planned. Some children stared at La Nunn in a Village of the Damned sort of a way. Two old people pressed their noses against the door of the restaurant like tramps in a silent movie until our mockery of them caused them to move on. We saw two brides and compared their tits. I got terribly hot, but that might have been a Preggo thing.

Vi's illness these last few days seems to have turned me into my mother. I fretted and phoned a lot, but was happy to see that she was in a far more cheerful mood by the time I got back. Fingers crossed for her being more back to normal tomorrow.

Right - washing up and laundry to do! Saturday nights are a blast!

It's going to be a Boy Child, guys and dolls.

Out goes Penelope as a name, then!

Anomoly Scan all completely normal, BTW. A very healthy little lad.

Josie Lawrence was on Celeb Who Wants To Be A Milliner tonight! She rocks my socks. Why isn't she on telly more these days?

Thanks to some of my Flisters from across t'pond swapping notes on burger joints I now have a desperate craving for an Eat Or Die Burger from my old Student Union Bar... two burgers, bacon, cheese and a fried egg. We called it Eat Or Die because s far as we saw it, either you killed it or it killed you... *sigh* having to make do with pitta bread and dip :(

We watched 'Jumper' last night. Sweet Jeebs, it was shite. ( My opinions, let me show u them! *Spoilers* )

Anyway, apart from that and a fire in my hat, it's been a very nice day. Feeling very jealous of Americans and people with SKy who get to watch BSG and Lost already. Will probably have to wait for the DVDs of the final BSG episodes to come out (so please, no spoilers, like, forever!) and, fingers crossed, iTunes will be selling Lost episodes of a Monday so I'll be able to catch up then. Again, spoiler avoidance is love, beloved FList!

My appetite is still slowly becoming more normal, so I'm more and more capable of cooking properly and eating healthier things than just toast, toast and more toast. I finally bit the bullet and gave Vi's hair a trim tonight. Her fringe looks a bit severe. Hairdressing was never one of my strong points. Still doing character notes for the final story of The New Adventures. Bloody Hell, the notes alone are epic. And I still think I'm forgetting things. This is going to be a mammoth job.