Spotless

Less than a week to go!

Yes, our house is spotless. It’s not like I’ve been nesting like mad just recently. It’s that I’ve been nesting regularly for the past 9 months. Now with the impending birth, I just keep things clean and tidy at all times, as I know that once Sprog is here, this house will never look the same again and I will never have this much time on my hands!

So in-between making photo albums (a 2-year backlog!), tidying up endless folders of digital pictures, deleting megabytes of blurred, badly framed or uninteresting shots, resting and reading lots of books, I do the occasional dusting, a spot of hoovering, a bit of bathroom cleaning, and I put things away and throw useless items out. It is therapeutic, and every day I feel better and better for it all.

Every woman should have maternity leave at least once in her life, regardless of whether or not she is about to have a baby!

Bruised

Six months today! Three more to go!

I am bruised.

All over.

But inside.

Mind you, outside too – I keep bumping into things, dropping things, hurting myself with forks and knives and jewellery and pens.

But on the inside, it’s not my doing. It’s Sprog’s.* I am battered, beaten, shaken, trodden, flattened and crushed. Day in, day out, and at night too.

I couldn’t go back to sleep last night. It was only half past midnight, I had been sleeping for a couple of hours, but Sprog had woken up and just used my bladder as a punching ball – the loo beckoned. Then Sprog never went back to sleep, hiccupping one minute, kicking the next. So I didn’t either. Well, until about 2.30 a.m., that is, after lying still on my back on the sofa bed in the study, resting, reading, till my eyes couldn’t distinguish the words on the page any more.

I hope that this is not the first step on the downhill slope that leads to the abysmal first few weeks after Sprog has joined the world (till he/she finally sleeps through the night). If so, it will be a long winter...

* I don’t like using the name ‘Sprog’ for our baby, but Monsieur l’Anglais likes it and it stuck pretty much from Day 1, so we carry on using it. I did suggest using the boy name we’ve chosen on ‘he days’ and the girl’s name on ‘she days’ (no, we don’t know what sex the baby is), but no, he prefers to use ‘Sprog’, so hey, I might as well use it here too!

Are you a Woolly Mummy?

Especially for T. ...

I have been reading The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide by Liz Frazer avidly, but I would like to write about a different kind of mummy – the Woolly Mummy.

You are a Woolly Mummy if:
- you are more hairy than a monkey – and yes, even in the most unsightly places
- you scratch yourself all over, in all kinds of places (nipples, areolas, small of your back, and of course underarms)
- you spend countless hours brushing your teeth every day (see my French blog)
- you can only express yourself using ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ and ‘mmmhs’, because you have a woolly memory and you get completely gaga in front of (pictures of) cute baby animals, e.g. cygnets under their mother’s wings (yes, under, or even between – see picture, taken by our professional photographer friend during a boat trip on the Thames)
- you get all excited and emotional when you look at your friend’s first baby scan – let alone your own
- you grow a hairy tummy and a beard!

Ah, the joys of pregnancy!!!

Ageing

I have aged at lightning speed this past year. I can’t believe it. That’s it, you hit 30, and your skin starts showing blemishes faster than multiplying cancer cells, your memory fails you 30 times a day, you can’t go out without make-up, your eyes have more lines than an A4 sheet of ruled paper, you find your first grey hair and pull at it like an insane woman, and you have to avoid any kind of slanting light in the vicinity of your thighs, lest it should show your by now very obvious cellulite? No no no, I am not OK with this. Not at all.

I guess it’s the same for everyone, but I thought that I would ‘last’ a lot longer. I thought I would be young for many more years. Best of all, I thought I wouldn’t notice my ageing. I thought I would just wake up one day at about 40 and think ‘Oh, dear, I’ve got a line here, oh well’ and then not think about it and not notice anything else for 10 years or so.

Well, this is not the case. And I’m in shock. Perhaps hypothyroidism isn’t helping. I look like death warmed up most days, and if I do put make-up on, I look like circus warmed-up death, complete with white-ish mask and doll-pink cheeks. Perhaps I need make-up lessons, but I suspect the trouble lies deeper.

In any case, I am not best pleased with my appearance lately and so You: Looking Young by Roizen and Oz is very welcome. It is also meant to help me deal with hypothyroidism (or whatever else it might be, e.g. ME) more effectively. All sorts of tips to feel better, not just younger for longer. On my road to recovery, I also started yoga classes three weeks ago, and I’m feeling better already. It will all help to restore my health and my confidence in life. Maybe we’ll even finally manage to create a new life... (it is not impossible that the ‘delay’ in that department is due to my thyroid problems – any tips welcome, since patience and perseverance still haven’t paid off).

Exhausted and priorities

I have hypothyroidism. A.k.a. ‘an underactive thyroid’. It developed during our six-week stay in the US and now, despite the fact that I’m on thyroxine, I’m not better. In fact, I was worse until yesterday. I had to go back home early on Wednesday, couldn’t go to work on Thursday and couldn’t even work from home.

I know it’s a blessing in disguise. I know that this is happening for a very good reason. To make me think, perhaps. To make me take a pause in my life and reflect on it. Or just to let me see that if I do too much, or even just try to do too much, then my body will let me know. It’s keeping me in check. So I must stop striving to do so many things all the time, in my life in general, but also daily. That’s the general message. Loud and clear.

Ironically, on Thursday and Friday, during my self-imposed rest, all I could think about was writing. Writing writing writing. I was exhausted, I couldn’t function, I could barely get out of bed let alone walk, but all the while, one thought persisted in my head: W-R-I-T-I-N-G. I even got a new idea. It’s based on the same idea I’ve had for ages, but now the concept has evolved and I’m going to build a completely wild story. A real departure from what I’ve done so far, with that idea and with all the others.

It might take me 30 years, but I will write that story. I keep going back to this idea – there must be something in it...

So, in brief, despite my most definite commitment, back in October, to stop writing and stop thinking about potential stories, and to simply be happy, every day (it was clear that thinking about writing but not writing was making me miserable), this hypothyroidism is awakening my sense of priority again and so, despite this October decision, I now realise that I really must write, simply because it is still my passion. It is still the thing I go back to, no matter what happens in my life. It’s inexplicable. It is unfathomable. Tomorrow, I might decide, again, that I’m really not cut out to be a writer, that I REALLY must quit trying, but today (and often recently), as so many times in the past 20 years, I feel the irresistible quality of my desire to write.

The other day, I realised with great clarity that what I need to do is change my approach. That’s all I need to do. I can carry on thinking about writing, I can carry on writing, but what I need to do is incorporate it into my daily life, as I do with everything else – brushing my teeth, taking a shower, doing a bit of gardening (weather permitting), working, doing a few yoga poses, going for a 30-minute walk or bike ride. The way I do all these things every day (or most days for some of them), I need to do just that with my writing: a few sentences at a time. Because even if it’s just a few sentences, it’s still a lot more than I’ve been doing in the past few months. Years. And that’s what I want to achieve – build a story over time, not forcing myself to write it all in one go, in one year, day in, day out, three hours a day, as I’ve been trying (well, dreaming of trying to do!). If I do it this way, making this HUGE decision one day For The Rest Of My Life, there is too much pressure to do it, finish it, polish it and do it perfectly, and so I despair too quickly (because of course nothing is perfect straight away – or ever?). Whereas (I think, I hope) if I just write a few sentences each day, on my PDA or my computer, with no pressure at all, as things come to my mind, just scribbling, the way a visual artist might doodle in her notebook, then I won’t have enough to despise and despair about. These will only be a few words.

I think that, overall, this will practically require me to ignore the fact that I’m writing. I’ll have to see it as typing up words rather than as coming up with a story. I will have to stop myself from thinking about it as writing.

Of course, this doesn’t preclude me from becoming all horrified and in total desolation and hopelessness when I come to edit the damn story (the hardest bit, I know that already), but I will try not to think about this part of the process until it actually needs to be done (simply because I may never even get there!).

At least, maybe this story will still interest me in a year’s time, in 10 years’ time, even. Maybe with this one, I can stay the distance.

Slowly

I got too excited, that’s what happened.

I got too excited about the two little dark-green leaves that were growing on each of the two sunflowers that I planted two weeks ago.

I didn’t run or anything, but the wood of the decking was so slippery, there was no chance to keep my balance, and BLAM! flat on my arse I was, my right clog three meters away and my right knee in agony.

I screamed so loudly that my cry echoed in the quiet, sleepy town (it was 10 o’clock on Sunday morning).

I then shouted Monsieur l’Anglais’s name so loudly it sounded like I was about to die.

No answer. He was in the living room, the radio on, oblivious to any other noise and to what was going on outside.

Later, he told me that he had heard the racket I had made but thought it was the kids next door playing. As they do most Sundays. Couldn’t blame him.

It took another two long, loud shouts – along with seeing me outside the kitchen window clutching my knee – for him to come and see what had happened.

I couldn’t stop crying. It was painful, but mostly, I think, I had been sooooo scared when I had realised that the step I had taken that was going to get my balance back had been even worse than the previous one and when, in that split second where your mind disassociates itself from your body and you kind of see yourself from above, I had seen that I was unable to prevent a fall on my back, right on the edge of the step of the decking. My hands were also hurting quite a lot. I had used them to ‘soften’ the fall. The base of the thumb on my right hand was the most painful bit.

As we say in French, I think there had been ‘plus de peur que de mal’ – more fear than hurt. We put some ice on my knee, then I massaged it with body oil, as prescribed by my dad who’s a rhumatologist, and I tried not to use my legs too much. Fortunately, it rained more or less all day and I had intended to finish sorting out our wedding pictures, so it didn’t affect my plans. Our first anniversary is in less than three weeks (can you believe it?!) and we want to finish the album by then. It’s nearly done, we just need to add a few pictures of the day before, the day after and the French wedding.

Yesterday, my knee was better already, so I walked into town to run some errands. But I had to walk very slowly. It was nice actually. I realised what ‘slowly’ really meant. I took my time, told myself there was nothing I could do, so I had to be patient, and I made the most of it: I looked at the trees, stopped to find the bird that was singing so melodiously in one of the fir trees in the park (I’m hopeless at ornithology and my eyesight is not brilliant, so I don’t know what it was, but it was pretty!) and took in the busyness of the town, while I slowly wandered around its streets.

I might do that again today, especially since, for now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain so much...

Serendipity

So at least I look like I could have children.

Well, that’s something!

I’m starting to find the monthly disappointments a bit boring. I’m starting to get impatient... But never mind. At least we’re making the most of our ‘no-children’ life. DIY, gardening, going out for dinner on a whim, reading, writing, watching Desperate Housewives till late without worrying about being woken up at 6 a.m. the next morning. Yay!

I went to the gym last night. I nearly didn’t go because it had been raining like mad and because it was getting late, but in the end I went because I had worked for 7 hours proofreading some French revision cards, trying to finish the project (and failing miserably), and my whole body was starting to ache: neck, back, arms, fingers. It was time for a good walk uphill on the treadmill and a vigorous work-out on the so-called transporter.

If I had decided not to go to the gym
and if I had decided to do 10 minutes on the transporter rather than 15 minutes (I nearly stopped at 10 minutes, but then thought ‘Come on, you can do another 5 minutes!’)
and if I hadn’t realised that it was 7 p.m., when the Legs, bums and tums class finishes and all the girls rush to the changing rooms to put their decent clothes back on and hurry home to their Friday-night TV/film/meal
and so if I hadn’t rushed, myself, to be in the changing rooms before the LB&T girls’ invasion
and if I had taken that little bit longer to tie my shoelaces...
well...
I wouldn’t have met this lovely French woman who was coming out of the LB&T class.

Let’s take this further.
I wouldn’t have heard her speak French and would have been none the wiser when I saw her in front of me just about to go out the door. (I probably wouldn’t even have noticed her!)
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have another French woman in my circle of friends? Or at least someone to go to the gym with?’
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Shall I? Shan’t I?’

She was walking quite fast ahead of me. I only had three seconds before it was too late to approach her. I thought ‘What the hell? Why not?’ and then the words spilled out of my mouth:

‘Bonjour, je vous ai entendu parler français, vous êtes française?’

And this maybe was the start of a great friendship. Only time will tell.

Yes, she replied, she is French. In the couple of hundred metres that separated the gym from the car park where, presumably, she had parked her car (I can just walk to the gym, I don’t need a car), we learnt where we both lived, that we were both married, that our husbands were English. She told me that she had just moved from a town 20 minutes away, I told her that I have been in this country for nearly 12 years.

‘My children go to the international school in C.... [10 miles away]. That’s why we moved.’

Indeed, they’re now a lot closer to the school than they were before.

And it so happens that that school is in the same town where Monsieur l’Anglais is going to start his new job next month.

You see? You see the link? SERENDIPITY.

If I had been lazy, I wouldn’t have met this woman! I love serendipity. I love understanding the reasons behind this or that. I love creating my own life, too, and this is a perfect example of life creation, because it was all under my control: If I had stayed at home, if I hadn’t pushed myself a little on the transporter, if I hadn’t looked at the wall clock at the gym... and then of course, if I hadn’t had the guts to talk to the woman who had just spoken in French to another French lady...

When we were about to part ways, French Woman said:

‘Do you have children?’

It always stuns me when people I don’t know ask me that, because I still think of myself as 20 years old and therefore as looking very young, innocent and sooooo unlikely to have children already! Yet I am 30 years old, I’ve been married for nearly a year (can you believe it!?) and we’ve been trying for a baby for a few months, so it’s completely plausible that I could have children. I shouldn’t be so shocked.

‘No, not yet!’ my answer came.

Maybe French Woman and I will be great friends.
Maybe our children will go to school together.
Maybe her husband works where my husband is going to work.

The possibilities that serendipity opens up!