Shh! Don't tell anyone, but the whisky-sodden, foulmouthed, Silk Cut smoking, 30 something etc TTCers are hiding from babydust under a mound of wine bottles - come & join us!

[openerofjars]

And there we go...

Shiny, winy (but never whiny) new thread!

Come on in then, settle down and pass the gin. No baby dust, no huns and no fecking glue, just lethal combinations of dodgy duty free and the confidence to use the word PERIOD required.

Ooh yes socks, I could do with some jokes. Sarcastic and/or filthy. Or just really bad puns. Bring them on, you lot!

ok ladies, you lot are responsible for me spending the last pretty much 12 hours thinking about pies.

all that awaits me at home is tuna...

Has anyone ever made Jamie Olivers turkey and leek pie? It's fucking amazing, It's a big of a faff as you have to drain off some of the cooking liquor through a sieve halfway through to make a gravy with BUT is worth every second.....

fish It must be as horrible decision to have to make but being completely non biase I think going in to have the ERPC might be the easiest way for you? (not suggesting it's at all easy but you know what I mean)

desperate when is your period due? as in, how soon can you test?

I'm currently on CD21 so am now starting to make up experience imaginary pregnancy symptoms :)

jewels hope all is well in your camp? are you in the 2ww yet? Can't remember have lost days somewhere me thinks...

jars you alright dearie?

Sorry Wino, but pies are gooooooood :) Nom nom :)

Ah, I'm not really a fan of turkey, so no on the Jamie Oliver pie. All of his stuff is a monumental faff as far as I've seen from what I've come across. I do like The Hairy Bikers and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall though...

Due on 23rd dearie, fully expect the old hag to turn up. Don't know when I can test, but POAS yesterday evening and nothing...and I know I ovulated around the 12th day of my cycle cos I felt the bastard thing!

So...how soon can I test??? This is driving me fucking batshit, and I'm already there in any case :o

Sorry about the lack of pie. I don't really think you can make anything nice in the pie variety with tuna, though I could be mistaken.

If I AM up ze duff, I'm seriously considering turning veggie again - no blue steak? No cream cheese? No seafood - WTF? Are they serious?! {throws strop}

wino, how about tuna and sweetcorn pie? Saute onions and garlic, add tuna and sweetcorn and a tin of condensed mushroom soup (thinned with a dribble of milk), herbs and black pepper to taste. Top with a pastry lid and bake. Was a bit of a student speciality of mine.

Went to hospital today for a general poke and prod, as I'm not feeling too well. Back tomorrow for a scan and a discussion of options, though I'm now pretty sure I'll opt for the ERPC.

Desperate, I wouldn't bother testing until you're on your due date. Even the good test kits are unreliable earlier than that. Plus, apparently us older ladies (harrumpf) don't kick out the same quantities of HCG early on in pregnancy, so tests show false negatives. Boring I know, to have to wait the full fortnight!

Ah crap Fish, why didn't I think of tuna and sweetcorn pie? I'm rubbish today - brain like a collander! I'd like to say sieve, but that implies the holes are all small and delicate, and they are nothing at all like that

Sorry to hear you're not feeling too well. At least you're going back tomorrow and aren't having to wait another week or so before they decide to see you. Hope everything goes OK tomorrow. Keep us posted.

OK, thanks for the advice my fishy friend. I shall try and refrain from testing. Though I'll be honest, I can't promise I'll succeed!

Hi all. Sorry about the disappearing act. I am finally in the process of renovating my disgusting kitchen and have had bog all free time. Victorian horse hair plaster? Check. 1960s DIY wiring? Oh yes. Damp? Uh huh. Asbestos? Not so far - result!

Fish, bollocks, mate. Gutted for you and can only applaud your stoicism in the face of a truly shitty year. I have no useful advice or wisdom to offer but I do have an end of sloe gin, a cocktail shaker and a bag of crushed ice, if they would help.

On a slightly different note, I seem to have a huge pile of lighters down the side of my chair: what's been going on in here? Ladies? You could at least have left me the fags to go with them.

desperate, back slowly away from the pg tests. All you will get at this stage is wee down your sleeve and an infuriatingly solitary blue line. I have all my things crossed for you but cease and desist until the 22nd, for the love of something or other. But if you don't, and you get a positive, make me eat my words!

Right. Who fancies a mid-90s style pint of snakebite and black? I was listening to Pulp this morning and got all nostalgic. Anyone?

I'll take you up on the snakebite and black please , I have plenty of suitable 90's dance tunes on my ipod to liven the place up, and also a bit of Eric Clapton, Bon Jovi and Roy Orbison if you fancy it

Yup I've admitted it now, I'm a fraud, I am not a 30 something as the title suggests-I'm so sorry . But I can act 30 something if it helps!

Hahahaha, technically I'm probably not meant to be here either socks due to my advanced age (44 next month). However, I can generally be relied upon to act my shoe size and my boyfriend (at 30) is the mature one in our relationship in general :o

I don't smoke Silk Cut either - I'm a rollies girl - although I took delivery of my NiQuitin patches this evening and will be starting them tomorrow! Eeek!

Ooh, snakebite and black! Yes indeedy! Makes me think of my teenage days as a goth. I have the bassline from "Lucretia" in my head as I type...

Off topic, I was reading a rather snippy piece in the Daily Wail website about Mumsnetters all wearing Boden. Sounds like arse gravy to me (though I concur with the bit where it said we all swear like troopers). I possess no Boden and would like to bet that you ladies don't neither. (I tend to be Woman About Fat Face, as it's the only decent clothing shop in the town near where I live, which you can get a pushchair into.)

Speaking of wee down your sleeve, I was at the hospital today (GP told me to go to A&E when I rang him to say I quite fancied an ERPC, actually, and also that I was feeling a bit grotty physically) and they gave me one of those tiny little sample jars to do a wee into. FFS. I can NEVER aim into those things! Piddle all over my hand and the jar. Oh the glamour of it all.

Shite, realise I've already banged on about trip to hospital before last post. desperate, is colander brain catching?

jars, I adore sloe gin. Might even have a snifter left of my own in the booze cupboard. Plus the sloes this year are looking lovely and fat, as are the wild plums. I feel another bottle or several coming on. My wild plum vodka kicks serious arse. Will let you all know when it's ready!

Fish you can be forgiven talking about hossie twice but I cannot forgive the suggestion of tuna and sweetcorn pie. Hot tuna

Homemade sloe gin is the dogs. Ours barely lasted last year. Blackberry could be a goer this year too...

Yes yes snakebite and black

Keep hanging on in there fish. Wild plum vodka eh? In-ter-esting. [Mr Burns voice/fingers]. I made some jam on Sat with blackberries (free) and nectarines (£1 for a big old bag full when the market was packing up) and have no idea if it is genuinely really good or I'm just delighting in the sweet sweet taste of frugality, but either way...there's a jar in it for you for some of that voddy.

Fingers crossed too to those of you 2wwing. I'm not there yet. If we go for it this month we have to start the sexing tomorrow and I'm not currently feeling it. There is part of me that is quite liking the idea of just carrying on doing lots of non pregnant/miscarry-y/ttc stuff for a bit. But I dunno. I'll probably be on here tomorrow waving thermometers and inconclusive piss sticks at the lot of you. So that's something to look forward to at least.

PS sorry fish but folic's right. I know you're a bit hormonal and fragile and all, but there's making allowances and then there's allowing talk of tuna pie to pass unchecked.

What's wrong with hot tuna?! My housemate hates the idea too. Frankly, I find it too dry when it's not cooked - unless it's a fresh tuna steak, then it's great, but I have to undercook it - no more of that if I'm up ze duff! I really am going to go back to being vegetarian :(

Blackberry gin is amazing. I made some one year...it was like a thick, purple liqueur. Nom nom :)

jewels and folic, we'll just have to agree to differ on the subject of hot tinned tuna. (Oddly, I cannot stomach fresh tuna. ) I bet you'd turn your noses up at anchovy and pineapple pizza too. Cuh, some people....

I tried blackberry vodka a few years back and didn't rate it, actually. I found had a slightly bitter, medicinal aftertaste. What worked better for me was blackberry brandy - same approach, just using brandy instead of vodka. (BTW, are any of your ladies au fait with Aspall's "Peronnelle's Blush" rose cider? Dry cider with a slosh of blackberry juice. Beautiful stuff.)

Which reminds me of my last go at sloe gin - 7 months very visibly up duff, in Tesco, 2 litres gin. The woman on the till looked at me down her nose (no mean feat given she was sitting down and I was standing up) and said, in tones of extreme snottiness, "I hope that's not for you!"

I thought up lots of pithy rejoinders - several hours later.

PS: jewels, that jam sounds rather fine. I'm not a big jam fan as a rule, but I make an exception for blackberry. And I love nectarines too. We'll have to work out the voddy-to-jam ratio for our swapsies.

Ooookay Fish....you're not a big jam fan, and yet you have 'jam' in your name!

The Blackberry brandy sounds fab - I may give that a try...time to go back scrumping to the farm methinks - next weekend maybe as Mr. D is away throwing scouts off cliffs and into lakes this weekend in Wales LMAO! There's no accounting for taste :o

am loving all the talk of gin..... can one of you tell me how to make sloe gin? I know that it's crap that I don't know but please someone enlighten me?

jars kitchen sounds erm, fun? well, maybe not but the snakebite and black sure does.

So I'm only on day 22 but had really sore boobs last night which is never good and I just burst into tears when one of the directors at my firm was being a cunt to me when usually I just give him two fingers in my head. (fortunately in the safety of my own office when he had left) therefore I have can only conclude that buzzwammer ache + extreme wimpyness = period well on its way... arse bums tit wank!

fish I hear you about those sample pots! What is with those? Can't they supply a funnel or something? I always get freaked when I wee on the label and then try and dry it and you can see where the wee was and I think that the nurse must be thinking 'gross' someone has wee'd on this?

May possibly have 'overthunk' that :)

Jewels whatever you decide, you sound positive about both so that's good? (did that makes sense?)

right, snakebites all round - ooh, there was a pub near me that used to serve a 'pink pint' that was £5 (a fortune in them days) and it used to taste EXACTLY like Vimto but would get you totally headcased with just the one, god knows what was in it!

Can't remember what the sit com was but when she used to say 'just the one, Mrs Wembley' - we thought she must have visited that pub for a pink pint....

Erm...here you go wino - hope the link works:

www.sloe.biz/

desperate, the "jam" in my username is nothing to do with boiled fruit and sugar. Sadly, I am a mad cat lady and my username is a contraction of my cats' names (Fishfash and Jameela).

wino, it was "On The Up" starring Dennis Waterman (who did indeed sing the theme tune). I rather liked it. Early 90s, I think? As regards the sloe gin recipe, my advice would be to buy TWO litres of gin, drink one, and then decant half the remaining litre into the empty bottle :) and then top up with sloes as per. My technique is to stab them with a fork - pricking with a needle always involved me missing and perforating my fingers (as I was usually doing it while watching telly). I'd also cut down on the sugar a bit - you can always add more after you've drained the gin off the sloes. If you're feeling really refained, you can strain it through some muslin (as otherwise you can end up with little tiny bits of sloey flesh at the bottom of the bottle).

PS: and watch your hands when you're picking sloes. It ain't called blackthorn for nowt.

I love the idea that you have a cat called "Fishfash" :)

I'm not sure that's the most economical sloe gin recipe I've ever seen Fish, but it looks like the most fun one I've seen so far :). And yeah, get your gardening gloves on for stealing sloes...or get butch OH to do it instead LOL!

right, so I've done the first part fish

good 90s sitcom knowledge...

now, just need to find some blackthorn for the sloes....

thanks ladies! looks yummmmm

desperate, you can amaze your mates at some pub quiz in the future by knowing that fishfash is the name given to the soft sand in the Sahara that your tyres sink into (and which you then have to dig yourself out of). Mr F&J (Dr F&J, akcheloi) is an academic ivory tower type wot does geomorphological stuff and is particularly interested in sand dunes. So we went on holiday to the Libyan Sahara one year. A great hols, surprisingly - not just desert, but also spectak Roman ruins, desert towns etc. Once the political situation sorts itself out over there, do go if you can.

God, I do go on about stuff, don't I. Seem to do the longest posts in here...

Anyways, went for a scan at the Dud Pregnancy Unit today, where the staff were totally lovely. Turns out I have an anembryonic pregnancy (used to be called a blighted ovum, I think) - jewels, is that what you had too? It kind of feels better than a straight m/c as there was never an embryo/foetus there in the first place. ERPC on Monday, as they're full tomorrow.

Wow, thanks Fish! I like to find out new stuff like that. Please do keep 'going on' about stuff. It's better than us all driving ourselves mad with symptom spotting every second of the day...

Don't worry...I won't do the last one! :o

Good that the staff were nice at the Dud Pregnancy Unit (I'm assuming that's not it's proper moniker?). There would be nothing much worse than having to deal with some evil witch or man with a god-complex, would there?