Ok, look this is a bit girlie and probably because I’m pregnant and hormonal but it also goes to introduce one of the things that’s pretty much embedded in my psyche, along with Star Wars and all those sixties shows like the Avengers which they used to show at 6 o’clock on BBC 2 when I was a kid…

As a sad spud, I’ve just bought a smashing action man-sized Doctor doll as a present for one of my smaller rellies.

Dr Who is this completely brilliant BBC sci-fi show - but only, really, if you’re British, it’s not the kind of thing many other nations get. Dr Who never kills anyone or at least not on purpose although he sometimes makes exceptions when it’s self defence.

Although there is always lots of action, he doesn’t have fights or use a gun, he has a sonic screwdriver instead and he wanders across time, a kind of bicycle repair man of the universe, thwarting a selection of evil baddies with nothing more than a dash of Time Lord powers and his incredibly pointy brain.

Now, when I was a kid, I absolutely loved the show. I was gutted when it was finally axed but while enigmatic, charismatic and generally an all round good egg, Dr Who, himself, was never fanciable in my book.

Enter… if that’s the right word to use, the current incumbent, David Tennant. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Not only a decent actor but also a bit of a sex pot, an alien concept for most Dr Who fans. He does overdo the rubber-faced gurning a bit but I can forgive him that… see below.

See what I mean? You’d forgive him, too, wouldn’t you? If you like your men mercurial and intelligent looking you really can’t go far wrong with this one - even with the scary orange BBC Dr Who show background.

So the action figure I bought looks like this.

Mwa ha ha haaargh!
That’s so not right! He may be plastic and he may only be a foot tall but I would… and… um… that’s a bit scary.

Having checked with my small friend’s mother her reaction is the same as mine…  She wants one because, “…it looks so like the beautiful David Tennant - I could  have him with me at all times!”

Sigh.

In honour of yesterday’s post I have added a new warning category.  “Complete freak out”.  Yes for my loonier dump the crap moments I will now turn that category on as well as the “Adult Content” ie swearing and “Not while you’re eating” ie grim personal details about bodily functions coming soon, categories.

So.  After a long conversation with my Mum about how she hated being pregnant because it was frustrating annoying and painful, about how she administers stupid fingertip cuts that you can’t get wet with the annoying flappy bit of skin with her vegetable peeler on a semi-professional basis and how bloody annoying the organised people who ruin everything for the rest of us are (more on that story in a moment) I feel much better.

She also told me that in her day, the midwife came to see you every two weeks and your slot would be say… Tuesdays at 9.00 and would always be the same. Oh for such a simplistic approach these days.

As for the organised people… well I mean those people who even though they are pregnant still manage to hoist in that e-mailing the NCT woman, asking to go on the waiting list for antenatal classes and giving her your phone number, name, town of residence and e-mail address isn’t enough!

Sigh.

Looking at it, she did ask for my address so she could put me on the waiting list… but somehow I didn’t quite hoist in that I’d not go on without it and then Christmas loomed on the horizon and I got into my usual scrooge hissy fit/total panic and forgot about it until February. By that time, the organised women had got in and booked all the places.

Oh well.

Ballsed that one up then.

Not that I can do much about it.  And don’t give me any shit about complaining.  I do know I’m a complete pussy.

The other thing is that it would be nice if I could just ring up and book all the appointments I need right through from the point when I knew the pregnancy was viable. But you can only book a month in advance which, again, means that if you don’t get in on the first couple of days bookings open, you miss your slot.

Then there’s the scans, two and a half hours on hold waiting to book after they’d been closed for 9 days over Christmas and New Year only to be cut off.

Oh how I long for the days when they did the organising, slotted you in at a time convenient for them and you complied. The NHS is the worst of both, you are still given a slot at their convenience and have little scope to negotiate but you also have to remember to ring and book. Because it’s time critical I do get a little stressed I guess but yesterday was the first time I’ve had a full-on barking loop.

Then there’s guilt/socialising. You see, all my friends are older then me and they’re all being 40 and having huge parties in the months before the baby pops. We’ve even got two weddings to go to for god’s sake! We’ve not had a wedding in years and now, this year, when they’re going to be sodding tricky to get to, two! I’ve been invited on a hen weekend for the first time ever and the odds are I won’t be able to go.

The long and the short of it is, we are due on 1st June and we have the last three weekends in May left free (in case it comes early).

Every other weekend between now and then is already booked up. Even for us, that’s busy. Indeed we have one shot at buying the prams, cot, baby bath, changing station and general gubbins we need and it’s this coming weekend. After that, if we both want to go together and try the stuff out Mr BC will have to take a day off. At weekends there’s nothing. Nada, zilch.

Shit! Not the restful pregnancy we’d planned then. No wonder I lost my marbles yesterday!

We had planned to take a storage pod and get rid of some of the glass around the house and the things there won’t be room for if 1) Mr BC moves into my studio and 2) Mr BC’s office/our sitting room becomes Muffin’s bedroom/my studio.

We’ve packed everything up into boxes but so far, not had time to go down and open the pod. As we don’t have a weekend free I have no idea when we’re going to do this now… a little paternity leave a couple of days before the event I guess. Our hall is full of boxes. My office is full of boxes. There’s no room for any more and I can only lift about three of them.

Oops.

Still on the up side, we’ve solved the spare room problem so the rellies wanting to stay crisis is over. We’ll still try to persuade as many as possible to stay in the B&B opposite but at least we don’t get the whole minefield about whether they can afford to, whether they’ll be prepared to let us pay etc etc. So our sitting room/Mr BC’s office will become a bedroom/studio - small one’s bedroom, my studio - and Mr BC will move his office down to the building in the garden where my studio is now. Then this time next year, we’ll move.

Are other people this crap, I wonder?

Today’s action packed agenda includes rearranging the kitchen cupboards which is exactly as boring as it sounds - but needs done and will make Mr BC happy - and sketching out the first stages of a George. Which will be great because it’s only six letters but because his sister is Millie-Lucy I get to do him on a large piece of paper - lots of room for manoeuvre!

Perhaps I should also pencil in time for a brief fantasy about eating the contents of the fiat in this here photo. I took the picture in Bruges on our wee stress break a week or two ago and it’s actually meant to be a Valentine’s day heart, not the huge chocolate arse you might mistake it for at first glance! Although obviously, to me, flirting with the idea it’s an arse is much funnier - even if that makes the idea of eating it rather less alluring.

Enjoy…

Well no… not those accidents but when you combine a naturally clumsy pregnant woman with a mandolin - the type of mandolin that slices and dices, I mean rather than the type of mandolin with which you serenade a lady - the inevitable results occur.

Even with the special handy-protecty thing in place I have only narrowly managed to avoid adding a small slice of thumb to tonight’s dinner.  My thumb.  Mmm Mmm!

On the down side… I won’t enjoy my pending hot bath - which I’ve been looking forward to all day.

On the up side… I managed to stop it bleeding too copiously anywhere except all down the door of the bathroom cabinet while looking for plasters.*

* Note to self, put first aid kit at front of bathroom cabinet rather than at back behind 3 British Airways wash bags and approximately two thousand bottles of hotel toiletries stolen by your husband, while on business trips, from the Hotel De Vin.

Biggest up side of all, the piece of thumb didn’t fully detach so one, I was able to flap it back and hold id town, thus preventing the copious bleeding which took place when I let go two, no digging about in the shepherd’s pie for it and three, since I’d never have found it in a million years, the delightful truth that neither myself nor Mr BC need fear eating it.

Had a great time at aqua natal, too. The instructor was busy delivering a baby so I spent an hour treading water and talking to two girls I met in the changing room. It was top. I hope I get to meet them again. I gave one my card and suggested we meet for coffee! Then a lovely restful reflexology session.

Then I undid the lot by cutting that bit of my thumb off. Plaster and savlon applied… at least it’s stopped smarting now.

How much is my blog worth now?

Lots of dollars… (you have to put your little finger to the corner of your mouth and say this in your best Dr Evil voice).

Ah… if only I could put a little box of adwords on here, I’d make a fortune…* Sighs… never mind, if this is the sacrifice I must make for a nice user friendly interface so be it.

*  Hello English Teachers.  This is a fine example of irony. 

The official results are in. We have a 1 in 9942 chance of having a baby with Spina Bifida or Downs Syndrome. The BC household is relieved to the point of smugness.

This week, I have mostly been indoctrinating my future child’s musical taste with: Sham 69 - Questions and Answers is high on my favourites list, possibly even a desert island disk.

I have been to three Christmas Dinners this week and am feeling appropriately lardy.

It is perfectly possible to perform Egyptian Dance moves to British Punk although what the neighbours think when they see me cameling across the kitchen to “Hurry Up Harry” I’m not sure.

I have had two name art commissions, including one out of the blue from a complete stranger, for real paid money! Hoorah.

On the off side… it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey and we will be sans heating and hot water next week while our new boiler is fitted at this incredibly opportune time!

Freezing the Balls off a Brass Monkey is actually a nautical term. A brass monkey held stacks of cannonballs, if it was exceptionally cold, the brass monkey and the balls contracted at different rates when they froze meaning the balls could tumble off… allegedly. Two thousand million people will add a comment to tell me I am wrong right…. now.

Despite the daunting thought of enduring it with no heating, the cold is very beautiful, white hoar frost on everything, bright sun and blue sky, the kind of heart lifting winter day seldom seen here in East Anglia. A splendid departure from dreech and subacqueous.

Ok, shall I let you into a secret. My home town is featured on an album cover. Look at the Division Bell, by Pink Floyd. See those buildings in between the two facey things with the great big eff-off cathedral sticking up? Well… down behind that big building… that’s where I live.

That closes the random musings for today.

I thank you for your time!