Good afternoon all! Got back at 2am this morning, bit tired still but I'm home.
Haven't had chance to properly read the thread but have managed to gather that AM's Ella well and truly jumped the queue. Congratulations, very speedy and I bet she's beautiful.
Well, well, well, the big question, am I still pregnant or am I not?
Yeah, still pregnant!
Had a bit of a scare in the Tower of London, was happily staring at the Crown Jewels (!!porn innuendo alert!!) and wondering how much of a chav the Queen must be with such over the top bling and had what was most definitely a contraction. Then another. And another. Then a show. Then a panic that I was going to give birth on the very spot Ann Boleyn had her head lopped off. Or in a toilet. Or horror of horrors, anywhere in London. You know the rest. She's still in there, fully engaged and trying to be born bit by bit. I have lost the ability to walk like a normal person and am still having irregular contractions but while there's no dilation and the water is intact I can do what I please. Sort of. Just can't choose walking, bending or behaving in a ladylike fashion.
TYG, I gather you tried to text (you were right, I don't have a mobile, it's DH's). The mobile is useless, won't accept messages from people you haven't saved as a contact so I'm sorry. Have now got your number and will add you accordingly. Still intend to meet up with you, you haven't escaped the inevitable. May have to meet halfway in Cambridge though as there's no way I am ever going back to that place. If Mathilda wants to see London she can look at pictures in a book. It's the oddest, noisiest, dirtiest, most inconsistent person stew that I have ever seen.
Top 5 gripes were:
- What is the black stuff? You know, the smoggy black stuff that comes out of your nose at the end of the day by the truckload. How dirty is the air in London?
- The tube. Or as it should be called the place where I might have died, where nobody stands up for a pregnant woman (until you faint) and where people with serious and unresolved hygiene issues invade your personal space.
- What are those adverts? The ones in phoneboxes and shop windows? You know 'Genuine 40DD, call number for service'. Are they offering some sort of handyman service? DH said it's more like an odd job woman. I can't imagine what he means.
- The price of everything. It's £12.50 to go to the cinema. Each. In Norfolk you can go to the cinema, eat out, see a show and get a tractor home for tuppence ha'penny. And nothing's better, just bigger so what is it you're paying for?
- The lost, dazed look in the eyes of souless children who are crying out for some grass and clean air.
Obviously I am jesting somewhat so to even the balance I will add five good things about London:
- The M11 gets you right out of there
OK, seriously....
- The parks. Regents Park, Hyde Park, Kensington etc. Lovely. Like being in, well, a park.
- The zoo. I saw a turtle called Matilda.
- A shop that sells only profiteroles.
- The zoo. I saw a Eurasian Eagle Owl called Max.
- Covent Garden.
It was like high school. I didn't fit in (granted I spent 95% of the time wearing the biggest straw hat you have every seen- with shells on- a hemp embroidered jacket and big ethnic earrings). I think they thought I was a street performer.
The biggest casualty of the week (apart from DH and his farking man flu) were my feet which are officially mince. Walking the streets of London has killed them. They swelled up quite badly on day one and haven't recovered. Arches have completely collapsed and my shoes don't fit. Painful.
Anyway, picked up our free car at some ridiculous hour last night, took ages to get home because of some numpty playing 'bounce your car off the central reservation and cause a jam' and finally made it in at 2am. Proud of DH who has only driven one car for a month round Norfolk getting us out of the Big Smoggy Smoke and home to sanity again.
Have missed you all something chronic. Accidentally went to Bethnal btw, wondered if JL or Befnal were loitering nearby. Were you the two drunk men fighting and vomitting?