June 08 - 79 days (and counting) til Christmas, has Deb started her shopping yet?!

[KnittingisbetterthanTherapy]

Thought we should update the thread!

oh and my holiday was lovely :) We didn't even get mobile reception and it felt wonderful. there's photos on the blog - linked from facebook.

Welcome back from your hols! I checked and nothing but I googled orange light over south london and someone had posted the EXACT same thing as me about a month ago as a UFO sighting!!!!

Well Deb, tonight I said we need to decide what to do with the steriliser and dh said, "We'll put it in the loft and see what happens"!!! The way I look at it we're so bloody knackered anyway another baby wouldn't make any difference .

We'll see, it won't be until next year that we make any decisions one way or the other.

Rolf, how awful for your friend - is there anyway she can come home again or is she committed to being out in the FE at the moment? I can't imagine how hellish it would be to cope with that alone. How old are her kids?

AH, welcome back - your blog is lovely, and the photos are gorgeous. Hasn't F got the whitest blonde hair imaginable? I thought A was blonde! What is that strange bike thing that your dh is riding? Looks intriguing .

Knitting -

Don't get too excited yet Deb!!

Oh Rolf, your poor friend. Hope it is good news.

In my experience Knitting, once you've made the decision to put it in the loft rather than on ebay, that next baby is fairly certain

And as if Chanel isn't bad enough, but Channel? Really? They so wouldn't let me be a registrar! Actually ours (all 3 had the same) is lovely and refuses to put housewife on the form. Mine all say Librarian even though I was only officially employed for one because that is my profession and no one is married to a house.

UFO update -- I sent my 'sighting' to that sightings website and the replied and said loads of other people had also seen it!

Hi - Lurking but not keeping up.

Think DH and I have decided on a name, one that will set MN judgy pants on fire! It make Ryder look commonplace, which regrettably it seems to be becoming (met three over here). Will let you know in Jan...

Can't decide on MB or not here too Amber. I don't like them but they seem to be so reliable and have a great resale value. Same with P&T, but I don't like them either (DH loves them).

Will have a big catch up at the weekend. Hope everyone is happy and well.

at being married to a house!

sybil, don't forget I have only managed two babies in seven years and bearing in mind I'm already 38 it's unlikely to happen again . But, we're going to explore our options and meantime remain eternally grateful for our boys .

I still love our P&T, if that's any help; we've got a buggy board on the back of it now, it's done really well. Have to be prepared to pump up tyres / change inner tubes as it gets the odd flat but really if I can manage that, anyone can!

Sorry to hear about your friend Rolf.

Caitlin's sleep has gone completely to pot - she refused to sleep last night till 9.30 and then woke up at 4 - and not-very-dp did not deal with it despite the fact that he has a day off today so I am . In full-on passive-aggressive martyr mode I did everything with both kids this morning and left him in bed as I just couldn't bear to see him!

Luke slept badly too last night - he has really bad dreams - is anyone else getting these? It's my fault for letting him watch Ben 10.

is nobody interested in my UFO story? Tee hee!

Penguin - DYING to know what the name is!!!!

Where is Neenz!!

Amber that is very exciting! Does this make you a believer?

PS look at this - it's genius! gonna get me one

How do you push the pram though? The space where your body and legs normally go is taken up by a child. I found that with a normal buggy board they stand on, you end up walking in an uncomfortable hunched over l shape, it would be even worse with a sit-on surely?

Mind you, I have never had one so could be completely wrong.

But it's £95! I was looking at a tandem buggy on kiddicare last week that was £99 in the sale.

Sorry Amber, I am being cranky so do ignore. Elephant car insurance want to charge me £50 to cancel my policy which when deducted from the remaining premium means that I owe them £18. On top of that I have requested my no claims certificate from them 4 times and so probably my new policy isn't valid but I can't get through to Sheila's Wheels to discuss it. So I have to not cancel the old policy on a car I don't own anymore but this means that Elephant cant send a normal no claims certificate, which is probably why nothing has arrived in the post yet despite all their agents saying that it is being issued . Both companies meanwhile are happy to have me sitting on the phone on premium rate numbers

Spider insurance companies are all arseholes - ours said we owed them £24 for ages and we kept getting calls every couple of days even though we owed them nothing!

Remember I need a triple now otherwise a double buggy prefereable to the buggy board! Sybil I did wonder about pshing the thing - I have long arms though!!

Spider - don't use premium rate numbersAt the top of the page put the insurance companies in the search and usually there's an alternative number.

I realise you need a triple but I think your buggy-board seat thing should be more like £40. Seems like alot of money for what it is. Do you think Luke would obligingly sit on it though? I'm not sure I would trust Peter yet not to jump off and run away. I am back to thinking I need a double rather than a single with a sling/board. It's so annoying that Peter is too tall for a P&T when in double newborn mode. If I wasn't so tight I would get a Baby Jogger City Select but they are about £700 and no secondhand market for them as they are new this year. I just don't think I will need it for long enough to justify the purchase.

You'd be surprised, even the buggy board I got was £60 from most places I found it for £45 after a lot of hunting - they screw as much as they can out of us!

Amber I reckon that sit-on thing might be ok if you were pushing a lightweight buggy with handles (rather than a bar, iwkwim) but I bet you'd get a sore back and bad "mummy posture" otherwise.

OK, lots of cheering posts please. As well as worrying about my friend, I'm also finding the 7/7 inquest upsetting. I knew (very very vaguely) one of the victims and it's horrid hearing all the dreadful detail . She was only in her 20s and her family was utterly heartbroken.

I'll stop being gloomy now, promise

Spider you sound really ratty. I hope I'm not being mean in smiling but there's something really endearing about "knowing" people online well enough to be ratty . Hope the day improves.

Ooh sit on thingy not getting a good response - maybe I should post and see if anyone has actually used it...

Sorry Rolf and Amber

Deb thanks for the link, I have used that site in the past but had forgotten about it.

This is the week that I cant go into labour as DH is away last night and tonight. He rang this morning to ask for an address and perkily told me about the 10 hours sleep he had had. I have been up since 5.30. Then the car insurers pissed me off.

However in the grand scheme of things I can see this is all trivia. E.g. Rolf's distresses. Also, my old boss came round for a quick coffee this morning. She is the one who was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago. She is doing well despite having an aggressive form of the disease, but the Herceptin is affecting her heart function and she also now has joint pains which they can't pinpoint a cause to. She is such a postive person and a real inspiration. She always was been in fact, long before her illness.

Heh, no buggy boards or ride on thoughts here - even if my current 2ww is a success then I still won't need one!
I am, however, worried about the whole ttc business - what if it takes a year? (I know the real answer there is 'tough'.) It didn't last time, but that doesn't mean anything. However, I do suspect I might have been briefly pg last month - 10 days late is quite a lot, but maybe it never 'took' IYKWIM. And by the time I took the test, it was over. Somehow that makes me feel better.

Rolf I'm avoiding the 7/7 inquest as well, and I keep getting tearful about it. I was in London the day it happened, and had a scary (short) time because DH had caught the tube in, luckily had got off before the first explosion, but immediately went into court and wasn't contactable until lunchtime. He'd texted me and I had to do some v. quick time-maths to work out that he wasn't on the tube. Being in London on the day was traumatic.

Spider I've had (negative) dealings with Elephant as well, and they're rubbish. The worst I've been with. DH works for several of the major insurance companies (don't hate him, people - he works to keep your premiums down! ) so I'm limited by his experiences in which ones I go with.

Going through the proofs for my book today. It's exciting - it's got a snazzy cover with my name on it and everything! (Who'd have thought it - I did write it all by myself, but still, it's exciting.)

Dewin the irony is that I used to work for a big insurance and pensions provider. My job was specifically focused on trying to make them less shitty in how they treat customers. Progress here though... I used Deb's numbers to call Sheila's Wheels and actually got through, and then I dialled the Elephant complaint number (0800 if you want to complain) and the threat of an official complaint resulted in them waiving the cancellation fee and issuing the no claims certificate (hopefully). I am feeling less annoyed now.

Good luck on the 2ww. Try not to fixate on the future too much, it will only make you anxious.

Positive comment for the day is that our buyers have said that they will know their exchange date withing 24 hours and are hoping to come out to sign the contracts here next week!!