Ok, so the weather isn’t great. I mean it’s not warm and sunny as it has been the past few days, but it’s hardly ‘miserable’. Slightly damp, but fairly bright to be honest. Definitely cooler, but not exactly cold. I can think of much worse weather days.
So in reasonable spirits off into town to meet a good friend and do coffee and things. It really is the simple things in life that make it wonderful, isn’t it? 
)
Today is absolutely gorgeous. I have probably mentioned before that springtime is probably my favourite time of year. And it does seem to have returned after the recent cold snap with snow, etc. I am thoroughly enjoying a week (yes, a whole week!) without any trips to London interrupting my freedom. The gorgeous weather and the daffodils everywhere alongside the ever more noticable signs of growth and new life in the garden and all over the place just lift my spirits to wonderful heights. It also seems to be a fairly quiet week on the e-mail and committee-work front. Hurrah for that! Imagine my joy when, checking my diary, I realised that my next London trip isn’t currently until the middle of April – double hurrah!
The last couple of days have been stunning weatherwise. Early fog giving way to glorious warm sunny days (up to 15 deg C). I have not been hiking or to the beach, but just toddling around the garden and generally sitting in the bay window at the front of the house (south facing so plenty of warm sunshine) and enjoying the fact of not being bogged down with things. I have even done some sorting and filing, as well as a reasonable amount of tidying (although the ironing looms and seems to be multiplying whenever my back is turned). I have made a conscious decision that it would be a horrid waste of a lovely day to even consider ironing anyway, so it will just have to wait. Hubby is on leave next week anyway so there is no urgent requirement for shirts.
On the subject of next week, that’s going to be an interesting one. Both of hubby’s sisters will be coming to stay at different points with their respective other halves and children. I am not sure where they’re all going to sleep (especially on Tuesday night.. we’re thinking of putting a couple of them in a small tent our little patch of lawn – remind me to tell you how that goes!!!). The general plan is to entertain them by getting them to help with giving some much needed attention to the allotment. Midweek there’s a crossover when one set will have not yet gone home but the others will have arrived. That’s the day we’re planning to visit Cadbury World. Should be interesting as apparently it’s recently been done up. I was taken there by my grandparents when I was about 13 so I suspect it may have changed slightly!!
This weekend I am off to the NEC to a crafty festival with my Mum which is very exciting. I am really looking forward to it (not that I have touched my sewing machine since the latest thread-tension incident – must get it out and start on making some of those maternity clothes I have patterns for…). We’re also having my brother and his wife over so there’ll be 6 of us for dinner (to celebrate my brother’s birthday). That’s something else I should really think about – what I am going to cook… Something else that can be put off until tomorrow!!!!!
Also very exciting is the fact that tomorrow one of my very good friends from way back is coming over to Brum to visit. I am really looking forward to seeing her and having a good old natter.
I have just been checking the ‘fault status’ of our telephone line. Apparently it’s fixed, as of 3pm today. Well, I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘fixed’. I do have a dialling tone, and appear to be able to make calls (tested by calling my mobile). However ringing in isn’t quite what you would call normal. I called it from my mobile and the first time, it rang and rang without going through to answerphone then connected (to what, I am not sure) and the ensuing noise down the line was almost similar to the one you get when you accidentally call a fax machine. I left it a little while then tried again. This time the phone rang once, and then connected but the same thing happened (ie I had not actually answered the call, and on the mobile I could just hear noise coming from somewhere. I’ll be asking hubby to ring them up tonight and let them know that we’re still not happy (I’d do it myself, but the account is in his name and bitter experience tells me that they won’t talk to anyone other than the named account holder…).
Phone line still not working. It’s been over a week now. The original expected repair date has passed, and now the ‘track fault’ facilty doesn’t even give a repair date! Not impressed.
This being my first pregnancy, everything is new and strange. People sharing their experiences definitely helps because it means you don’t feel completely wierd and it’s nice to know that other people have been through the same thing (well obviously, I mean women have been having children for years… but everyone is different and sometimes books just don’t describe things very well!!). I have had an ever-growing pile of clothes that I can’t fit into anymore on my bedroom floor for a while, but last week I noticed that I really have much more of a pregnant looking bump rather than just having expanded all over gradually. Very strange and seemingly quite sudden – Hubby came home after his few days away and made some comment along the lines of ‘wow, you suddenly got bigger!!’ (in a nice way, of course!) ) Friday is to be my 20 week scan – how exciting! We’re lucky that Mr Moog was able to arrange to be back a day early so that he can come along with me.
We had a fab few days down in Wales (more on that later) but when we’d got back we discovered that our telephone isn’t working. Hubby tried to call his Mum on Sunday morning for Mothering Sunday, and there was no dialling tone. According to our next door neighbour, someone was up the pole doing something to the telephone lines on Thursday or Friday last week. Obviously we were away, so we have no idea when our line went down just that it wasn’t working on Sunday. The wierd thing is that our ADSL internet connection is still ok. We reported the fault online and apparently it’s likely to be a fault on their network, and the expected repair date is 23rd March PM. Well, it’s a good job I don’t use the phone much isn’t it?? I wonder whether they’ll refund us 1/4 of our line rental for the week that we didn’t have a line?
I knew it had been a while since I last blogged, but hadn’t realised that it was actually last month! For a Lady of Leisure I seem to have a surprising number of commitments. It’s been interesting trying to get this weekly heartrate check sorted out with the midwife because I seem to have so many other things going on! But so far so good, all has been well with the checks up to now. Thanks for thoughts and prayers on that subject.
Last week was rather manic. I was in London on Monday, Thursday and Friday for meetings. The in between times were spent preparing/following up and generally not doing anything much else. However, things went ok and this week I have no such actual meetings (only follow-up stuff, and thankfully not too much of that).
So this week is a bit like a week off! Yesterday was lovely. I had a lesson in the Alexander technique in the morning, did a bit of shopping and discovered some fantastic Gluten Free chocolate bourbon biscuits (made by a company called Prewetts – can’t seem to find a link for them) and mostly relaxed in the afternoon/evening (including talking to neighbours outside the garage, drinking tea and eating some aforementioned bourbon biscuits, catching up with my Mum on the phone, cooking, watching some TV, etc.). Today I’ve been out again in the morning to a quite interesting talk on Climate Change (although it was really a pulling together of a lot of things I’d already heard or read about), and following up committee stuff this afternoon.
This evening is the 3rd session of the Lent Group that I have been attending. It’s really good – I haven’t been along to a study group for some years and I am very much enjoying being part of one again. When I was living in Canada (back in 2001) I attended a study group for the duration of my stay (about 6 months) and it was such a support, a real sense of fellowship. This group is a little big for that and I’ve only been twice, but I am enjoying it. We’re following the Love Life, Live Lent 2 adult bible study programme (towards the bottom of the linked page), and it’s been quite interesting. The great thing about groups is hearing other points of view that had never even entered my mind before. It’s also interesting to see group dynamics when people obviously have very different points of view which are sometimes opposing. Last Tuesday I was at another Lent talk, and the speaker quoted Anais Nin:
‘We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”
Very profound, don’t you think?
I am very excited because towards the end of the week Hubby has business in Swansea so I am going to join him on the trip. A great opportunity to catch up with some people and hopefully spend a little time on the beach appreciating the surroundings.