midwife's muse

Today is eldest daughter's birthday.

There are little flutters of snow outside. Hardly anything really, but it was snowing when I went into hospital to have her so its a sentimental touch. 

To celebrate she has gone spinning. I expect evryone knows what that is, I didn't. When she first started it. I had visions of my 'not known for her homemaker' skills sitting midst piles of fleeces teasing them into skiens. I expressed my surprise about her new hobby to her, when she had finished laughing, she explained that spinning is a type of manic cycling. Before she had Amy she would go every lunchtime, only giving up when her knees kept bumping into her ever enlarging bump, now she's back, two or three times a week. For her birthday partner is renovating her road bike and putting a child seat on the back, she's obviously hoping that Amy will love cycling.

Afternoon with daughters and Mother went much as expected. Mother upset Jack's Mummy, quite easy at the moment as her hormones are all over the place, but totally uncalled for. I shall dedicate one blog entry to my Mother and try to paint a picture of , what I consider, to be one of the worse examples of parenting types you could encounter. Actually, it's not just her parenting, its her entire personality. My BIL usually manages to sum her up well, mad. Lets just say that I have based my whole life around behaving in the opposite way to her, other than becoming a midwife, a psychologist would have a field day with her and her daughters relationships with her.

Yesterday Billy and Flo went in to be castrated. It took me half an hour to catch Bill and get him into his carrier, I couldn't use food to lure him as he was being starved, so it was a leather gloves exercise. They came home yesterday afternoon, they are obviously made of stern stuff, no lounging around, no walking gingerly for them, oh no, off they went, leaping here, there, and everywhere. Next set of jabs in two weeks and then they can go outside, must remember to put butter on their paws so they come home.

With Chip & Pin becoming compulsory on the 14th I thought I should do something about the fact that my card had no Pin, so I phoned the bank, explained the problem, and they promised to send me out a Pin. Thought no more about it, until today. The post arrived, I dutifully sorted it,  handed Hubby his envelopes, and went to make a coffee. From the office I  could hear shouts and expletives, I thought there must have been a bank statement or he'd been caught speeding, I wandered in to see Hubby sitting there holding a small card with the Welsh colours and symbol blazoned on it. The Bank had decided not to just send me a Pin, but send us both new Credit Cards. Hubby becomes a rampant nationalist when sport is involved, apparently tomorrow we play Wales in the 6 Nations Rugby, he was not a happy bunny. He is usually quite laid back, I have to prod him into action if complaints need to be made., not on this occassion though, 'I'm not carrying around a Welsh card for the next 2 years, what the hell's all this about? Bloody cheek. Whats wrong with an ordinary card, no pictures, no national symbols, just a f*****g card.' Next moment he's on the phone, shouting at recorded messages, pressing keys, and then there is obviously a human being, in person speaking to him. 'I don't want a Welsh Card, is there a choice. We're playing them at Rugby tomorrow?' On hold, I bet the call taker was laughing, I certainly was. A few minutes later he was speaking again, we are having new cards sent out to us, the person he was speaking to was a Scot, apparently he was sympathetic, they are playing the Italians tomorrow and he wouldn't want an Italian card. It would be good though to know why a Welsh decorated card, is it commemorative? It's not a Welsh bank, any ideas?

3.2.06 10:41