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Day 1
Really it's day 1+ because the regime to produce a me minus an undulating back started yesterday evening. Before going out for our Wednesday night curry I commenced the exercising. This involved putting on a Dance CD and bouncing around the house for 30 minutes. All that happened was that I created a lot of dust, terrified the cats, weakened the floor boards and became extremely short of breath. Then we went for the curry. I resisted the poppadums, chapatis and rice and settled on a Chicken Bhuna, mushroom bhaji, and vegetable korai, accompanied by a double bacardi and DIET coke. (I had to have the rum because I had trapped a nerve in my back with all the bouncing and my friend said that it would help).
This afternoon I am expecting a visitation from daughter and grandson, I havn't seen them for a whole week so I shall do the full grandmother thing, lots of kisses, cuddles and baby talk while daughter is going to improve my vision by attempting to bring my unruly eyebrows under control.
Jack came to visit today. On Tuesday he weighed in at 13lbs 10ozs. I think the moses basket will have to go away and I will just have to buy a travel cot - E-Bay here I come.
Midwives sometimes get pressies and it lovely when you do. On Monday night I was given the most beautiful bouquet of flowers, generally it's choccys we get but today I was offered something so different that I was stumped on how to respond. One of my ladies lives on a farm, her hubby farms sheep and cows and she is an eventer. It's been a challenge caring for her through her pregnancy as her stomach muscles are so well developed that it was impossible to feel baby. Last week I sent her for a scan because I was in such a quandary as to where baby was. Thank God I did because it was breech (apparently the staff at the hospital were taking bets as to baby's position). On Tuesday her waters broke so they did a caesarian straight away, on Thursday she discharged herself. My student and I went to visit 'woman of steel' today, there she was leaping around offering us tea, leading us out to the field to show off her foal, clambering into horse-boxes to show us the special compartment for the baby, I was at my wits end, I couldn't think of any other ways to say "rest" than the 100 I had already tried. Eventually I asked where her husband was "in here" she said as she dragged open this metal door about 10ft wide by 15ft high. There was Mr R in this huge pen surrounded by sheep which he was busy marking with different colours. I has a swift chat with him along the lines of 'for heavens sake make her rest, she's had a major op'. He agreed with me and then we started talking sheep. I admired one, it had a really pretty face, and he said "did I want it". "How much is it?" was my bemused reply. "Nothing to you, its a present". Well, how do you respond to that? I looked from the sheep to my Clio and then to my student, her face was a picture, "Let me check with my husband. How lovely" was my pathetic response. I've checked with Hubby, I'm not allowed to have it. I just hope that the green mark on it's back didn't mean that it was being sold, I'm going to have to stop eating lamb now.
I've just been reading and listening to mark the carlisle cockneys blog and it stirred up so many memories and images. When Princess D died we were on holiday in Minorca and in a way that made the impact even greater. Any bar you went into had their TV tuned Sky News, everyone in there was talking quietly or just staring at the screen. All the Minorcans were so sympathetic, they would express their condolences to you as if it were a friend or family member who had passed away. Other English holiday makers would sit next to you and start talking about it, it created a unity which I have never experienced before, or since. I would have been sad anyway, just for the life lost, the children left without a Mum, but being away from two of my children, especially my eldest daughter, when I knew the feelings that must have been rife in England devastated me. I phoned her as soon as I found out and the phone call was brilliant. Daughter was absolutely certain that Princess D was not dead at all. Her theory was that Di had got fed up with all the media hype about her every move, had faked her death and was now living under the pseudonym of Doris. Hubby, who was waiting outside the booth during the call, was mystified when I emerged, no longer crying but laughing my head off. Typical off-the-wall daughter, she had, in a few words, lightened my mood considerably. We arrived home the day before her funeral. On the day, I took to the settee with a box of tissues, and prepared to wallow. I held up pretty well until they showed the wreath with the simple note 'Mummy', then I was off until, by the time Elton sang, I was unashamedly sobbing.
Hubby remained his usual unemotional self throughout. I often question why my reaction was so extreme, I didn't know her, my feelings about her during her time in the spotlight oscillated between silly B, she's lovely, and poor thing, but when she died I felt terrible sorrow. I think I felt so sad because I had believed that one day she could be really happy and that she may have been on the brink of that when fate dealt it's blow. Her's really was a life, a very public life, cut short. For all her money, travel, lifestyle I would never swop with her. I have my trials and tribulations but they are mine. Unless I choose to share them, they are not open for public examination and condemnation. Princess D never had that freedom, and for that I mourn.
Nanny
Daughter has just been round, with Jack, to update her CV. Tomorrow she has an interview working as a Nanny a mile away from where she lives. I asked what was happening to Jack whilst she was at the interview, he's going with her because the family are happy to have her take Jack with her to work, if the children like him! So it's not really daughter having the interview, it's Jack. What a lot of pressure for one so young! I hope she/they get the job as money is very tight with her not working
Son and partner were here during her visitation and so she took the opportunity to tell them about their wishes should anything happen to her and Motorbike Man (her partner). Jack would be come to live with Nanny and Grandad. All this arose because Daughter and MBM are going off together on one of his bikes next weekend and leaving baby with us. So me, ever the optimist, said had they made a will, or discussed with anyone what should happen if something terrible happened? You read about situations where parents are killed and then there are awful battles over the children, which end up with some relatives never seeing the children due to the animosity caused. I would hate that and would rather it was all sorted, and everyone knew their wishes, just in case. Really morbid but now everyone knows, it's something that can be forgotten about.
Bring in court marshalls
I am incandescent with rage. Why? Ahmed.
Energy crisis
Brain dead. Lethargic. Work, work,cycling, doing 'the crunch', Atkins, merger meetings, only three more days then I shall re-energise and once more be a merry blogger.