April 2009 - Chapter 3 - Let us round up the stragglers

[PuzzleRocks]

Ta da.

Ooh, look, I pop on and discover you're planning to come & see me!!!!
Brilliant plan.
Basic guidelines: we move on July 18th.
Prior to that you are v welcome but should be aware there are currently 8 kids out on the square I live on, smashing the windows of an empty bulding, under the smiling supervision of the mother of six of them. Restful it ain't. But the fanjo warriors would sort them out sharpish, I reckon.

We will be rushing away pronto after the move, around the 22nd, to FIL's place for R&R by his pool, but I will be around in the new refuge for fraught mothers house for most of Aug trying to entertain DS1 while managing Alex, so visitors will be a welcome distraction.

Airports near(ish): Marseille, Avignon, Nîmes, Toulon.

Don't think I've ever really been clubbing either, though I have been to some dodgy "nightclubs"/discos in Réunion & France. Does that count?

Erm, have just clicked on your St Tropez link, Boff. My new house is big, but nowt like that.

Springy, am off to your thread now...

What, you mean you don't have a chef and all that??

I am shocked

No, Boff, sorry.
I am v good at slicing melon and laying it any old how artistically on plates alongside some ham, bread, cheese & wine, though.

And olives, naturellement. Real or...... chocolate!

Say just for a minute I was mad enough to go to visit someone I met on the Internet ...

Would 3-5 August be any good?
How far are you from Marseille?

Not the chocolate olives!!!!!

Jeez, have returned longingly to your link and seen the prices, Boff.

I know. I think I'm going out tomorrow morning to buy silver ribbon for whatever I end up baking for my parents' 25th wedding anniversary.

The good thing about clubbing is that you stop caring about going to bed. & you also stop caring about what you're wearing in the end You'll have to come out with Nutty & me next time we go

& Auld, are you actually, really, truly serious?

Well, say I was mad enough to invite someone I met on the Internet...
3-5 Aug sounds good.
45 mins drive from Marseille airport, bit less if traffic good.

Springy, I think I am. Weird, huh? But I feel I know you & Boff and am up for it!
DH will need talking into it, but I can do that no probs.
Do you think I am nits?

oh ffs, that should say nuts
I have not got nits, lice or fleas.

I don't think you're nuts - I invited the Nuttiest one here to my home & let her get me incredibly drunk before collapsing into bed together (fnar).

I'm just rather tempted by the whole idea

(Of course, you're welcome here any time, but Sheffield's not quite such an exciting prospect!)

Springy, jet2 do cheapish flights between Leeds Bradford Airport & Avignon. Haven't looked at fares, but is usually cheapish.
Or Ryanair and Easyjet go to Marseille.
And if we are being serious, you and Boff had better not come on exactly the same dates, or DH will feel a bit invaded by fanjo warriors.

But you could overlap nicely with each other .

It's about £200 all in on Ryanair if we don't bring any luggage. Would we be able to borrow various bits of stuff from you (eg baby clothes)? Do Ryanair really let you bring a buggy for free? Could you collect from the airport or should I budget for hiring a car?

I am still a bit nervous but considering it. Do I have to go to bed with Springy??

I am sorry you guys are feeling . I wish I knew how to cheer you up. I scored only 3 on the scale, but I think many other people living like me would score higher. I have barely been out of the house for 2 weeks and I basically sit on the sofa all day on MN, and on my new obsession, food blogs. I sit and plan what I want to cook, add to my Ocado shopping list, and then if I'm lucky, H lets me get up long enough to bake a cake or something once DH is home from work. But even pre-baby I was pretty anti-social and happy to potter around the house all day on my own for days on end.

The on-demand feeding/ velcro baby combination is pretty intense, so I often don't get dressed and don't shower until DH is home. I bailed out on lovely lunch plans with NCT group basically because I couldn't be arsed to get clean and dressed. This could easily sound like PND, but I really am just that slovenly and lazy! Goodness knows what I'll do if and when DC2 comes along!

I am feeling a bit better now, as it happens. DH took me out for a posh Chinese and one of the local students babysat the boys while we were out. Then DD came home and gave me a lovely bunch of roses which she even tried to arrange nicely in a vase, and also put some nice treats in the fridge for us. If she carries on like this I may even forgive her!!

BTW Juwesm, could you advise me on something to do with antibiotics that I have been wondering about? I am taking Erythromycin 4x day for my bad ear, and I am wondering what is the optimum timing for them, bearing in mind I am not going to wake up in the middle of the night to take one of the doses. I also have to synchronise this with 3x Diclofenac a day, 2x Locorten-Vioform eardrops, 15 or 30 mg Codeine Phosphate (if ear or hips are particularly bad), 4x Panadol a day (for ear) and 175mg Thyroxine, so it's all getting somewhat complicated.

Well look at you ladies planning a trip to France!

Evening. I am sorry you are feeling down, Springy, Kali and Boff This is not good. I hope you can get the help you need. Boff, you really shouldn't have to tidy up after your DD. Why don't you send her over here for some baby sitting? Also boo for ear infection, poor you, hope the antibiotics kick in quickly. Oh and Springy, please do leave the house, you'll go nuts if you stay inside with a baby! Even if it's just a walk to the corner shop.

Juw, are you still pumping? Have you tried expressing from one side while H feeds from the other? Always worked a treat for me, the milk just came pouring out.

DD1 and I made cookies today, anyone want one?

Sending lots of good vibes all round to those who need them! xxx

Well, erythro tend to upset the old tum, so I would aim to take them with/ just after breakfast, lunch, dinner and at bedtime. At work it would be written up at 0800 1200 1800 & 2200. Dilcofenac and codeine also after food so you should be able to bunch most of your doses up into a handful of tabs at a go. Thyroxine before breakfast.

You could even do 1g erythro twice daily instead of 500mg four times, but that's even more likely to make you sick!

You aren't half good at this, Juwesm. Many thanks! xx

hi everyone - came online to plan a wee french trip and I see there is an April mums trip. how exciting.

really sorry but havent read back far. sorry to be a bit ignorant but i dont want to lose touch completely in the hope that one day i will be able to keep up properly. busy making kilts whenever i have a spare minute so not much time to catch up or post just now but I hope you are all doing well.

angus is gorgeous and a great sleeper (am very lucky after Struan being such an awful one). struan is enjoying being a big brother and getting very independent. has a bit of a hissy fit if i try to do things for him now. has also developed a habit of stopping at lamposts and doing a little pole dance - no idea where he has got that from. he does sing his version of 'see saw marjory daw' while doing it but no one except his parents would recognise it as such.

will try and skim now and see what folks are up to.

oh dear - sorry didnt realise some people were feeling pretty down today. definitely sounds like a lot of people need a holiday (preferably with a nanny to play with the kids though too).

Hello Conker!! I was wondering what you were up to ...

I am a bit nervous of going to France because I am scared of Ryanair (I don't know if I have recounted to you ladies my adventures at Dublin airport, my sit in, my near arrest, and my subsequent successful legal action against them?) As for the principle of staying with Auld, I discussed it with DH, and we decided she probably wasn't a psychopath if she sends people Provencal chocolate olives in the post.

Nutty, I am so post-natal and blobby at the moment, and a size 18-20, so I doubt even your ministrations could make me look hot enough to go clubbing. Plus if I have three units of alcohol I generally need to have a bit of a lie down. That having been said, I am told Ballare or The Junction are the places to go around here, and I suppose if someone tied a luggage label around my neck with my address on, someone would deliver me home eventually. DD might be quite shocked if she saw her mother living it large at The Junction because that is her fave venue for D & B music, I am told. It would be worth going just for that.

My other secret ambition is to go to a festival, as I have never done that either. I was looking at Frekkles' pictures of them all at one and I felt a bit jealous, even though I hate camping and don't like mud unless it's in my own garden or on a hike.

You have to remember that when I was in my 20s I was a classical music student with a toddler in tow, and our idea of a good time was to listen to Katya Ricciarelli at the Coliseum or similar, or all go around each others' houses and play Beethoven duets on the piano whilst getting off our faces on Beaujolais Nouveau. So in this respect I am suffering from arrested development.

Afternoon all.

Boff I think there are a number of factors in DHs lack on interest in sex. Partly it's because he's not got a secure job (we're both researchers and I'm the main breadwinner because I currently have a contract, though it's temporary, and he only has bits and pieces of funding). That's just the situation that most researchers are in, though it makes it more difficult when you're both in the same boat. I think this makes him feel like he's not successful and less of a man not to be able to support his family financially.

Another problem is that we have no clue whatsoever where we're going to end up once my contract's over - will be anywhere either of us manages to get a job, probably in yet another country. This is stressful for both of us, and though it can be exciting, we're both at the stage where we'd like to settle somewhere. He hates the fact that he's now in his 40s and still doesn't own his own house etc due to being a researcher on short-term contracts (par for the course! :-) )

He's just generally down and has lost a lot of self-esteem from getting knock-backs from funding bodies etc which has made it very difficult to continue in the project he wants to do (also par for the course in our business! ).

I dunno. Perhaps if I keep trying to get him interested and keep encouraging him things will improve. He has already started getting broody for another baby so maybe if I make it clear that that's NOT going to happen without actually having sex, he might cave in!!! (Though not having a job might out the kybosh on that! )

Men!

Sorry for the me me me post.