And we still have no idea what a foot muff is for...

Who knew there were so many bloody makes of pram? Each with different terminology so you need a degree accredited by flaming Mothercare just to enter the store and be allowed to look at the displays. My mind has been spinning all the live long day. Strollers? 2-in1 prams? Travel systems? 3-wheelers? Tandems? (Actually - I think tandem is one we can safely cross off the list, since we know there is only one wriggler in there. At least I hope we can cross it off.) It really a minefield out there.

We've been into at least five separate shops - sometimes more than once - to compare things. And what did we discover? They're all con artists! The cheaper ones all feel like they've been built out of sticks and will implode and eat your baby. So you find something you think will work from the mid-priced section that meets all your criteria, see the price and think 'oh, well - that's not too bad.' Then you look closely and realise that the price is the pram frame only, and doesn't include the carrycot. Or the foot muff. Oh, and if you need a car seat, that's an extra £100. Plus the same again for the base. And don't forget your accessory pack - you might not be able to buy matching changing bags or parasols at a later date. By the time you've totted up the grand total, you've spent £750 quid on a flipping buggy without trying. And you still ask yourself what the hell a foot muff is, and do we need one?

In the end we decided to go for a model that was tall enough for The Other Half to push as well as me (it's always tricky, what with him being almost 6"5), would not involve taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, did not feel like it was made of matchsticks, and most importantly - could be collapsed one-handed without me bursting into tears in the middle of the shop crying that it's too heavy and I couldn't do it. It was tough, but we got there in the end - after several long hours beating away salespeople. And it'll be delivered next week so we have plenty of time to work out what a foot muff is actually for. Right, that's the pram sorted. Now for the cot...

Oh, and on the plus side, I was treated to a very nice chocolate milkshake in a diner this afternoon. Think it was for good behaviour, or at least good behaviour in the circumstances.

The pillow fight...

For the past couple of weeks, every now and then I've been experiencing a shooting pain in the very base of my back - around my coccyx when I stand up or bend funny. A bit like there's a trapped nerve, but there's not. I've discovered this phenomenon is yet another tribulation many pregnant ladies have to put up with, and it goes by the rather delightful name of PGP (pelvic girdle pain). Joy. The midwife helpfully says there's not much you can do about it - rest, don't strain, have baths and try some pelvic exercises when it doesn't hurt. But it should disappear after the birth. Comforting thought, only five more months to go.

One thing that may make a difference and alleviate the back pain a bit, she suggested, is adjusting my sleeping position. I had been doing this unconsciously anyway - in the mornings I've often found I'm curled up at an odd angle on my side and seem to have pushed The Other Half so far out of the bed he's ended up in the spare room. I think he may need his own bed permanently, now. There are now NINE cushions propped around me when I sleep like a wall of padding. Two supporting my back when I'm lying on my side, two between my knees to support my pelvis, two on my other side wedged under the bump, two on top of my pillows to make my weird sleeping angle more bearable, and one under my elbow, just because. You can't move for cushions. But it does seem to be helping.

Well, it's helping me. I'm not so sure about it helping The Other Half. He seems to have settled for the bum end of the deal - on the nights he can see enough space to sleep, he has to strategically climb into bed and take whatever room he can claw back. That's if the cat hasn't stolen his spot completely, though. She likes the cushions. On such nights, he's relegated to the spare bed. And I would feel really bad about this but it's hard not to be pleased when my back hasn't hurt for the first time in three weeks.

Grow, bump, grow!

I'm feeling very impatient. I'm in an awful inbetween stage of my pregnancy where I still don't really look like I'm with child, so passing folk just think I've stuffed myself with a few too many roast dinners and piled on several pounds round the middle. Urgh. However, there might be no real bump to speak of yet - but my clothes are getting a little nippy. And it's never a good thing when you can't fasten your jeans up anymore and the old elastic band and safety pin trick to get a wee bit more longevity out of them no longer works. Yup, time to go shopping for maternity clothes.

And that's what I did today. I was actually quite surprised with the range of stuff I've managed to get - it's all from stores I normally buy from, and very similar to what I'd wear anyway with a slightly different cut to make room for expanding stomachs. Apart from the best invention ever - maternity jeans! They look like regular jeans, but instead of having any buttons or zips at the top, they have an enormous stretchy jersey material piece that almost comes up to my armpits. But they're sooooooo comfy - I may actually wear them all the time, not just when I'm pregnant. (Incidentally, I had a male pal at uni who had a similar pair of pants he kept specially for nights when he ate his supper in those all-you-can-eat chinese buffets. Buffet pants, he called them.)

So I'm all set and can actually wear attire that fits to work next week. But I still want to know where this bump is. It's been four months now, surely it must be on its way? I WANT A BUMP! Please?

Little white lies part two...

The Other Half went to see Oasis last night, and took the chap who was his usher rather than me - which is something else I have to sulk about. (I spouted off some utter tripe about working late on a webinar and not being able to make it. Grrr.) Ok, ok - I donated the ticket to him myself as I'm still feeling like absolute shit on a stick, but I wanted to go! It would have been money down the drain though I wouldn't have seen much of the concert owing to the fact I'd have been in the loos for most of the evening then either gone home early or curled up under my seat to sleep. And sleep on a stadium floor is something I never want to do, regardless of how tired I am.

On a different note, my tea tonight consisted of things I haven't eaten since I was 12 (waffles, fish fingers and beans). Interesting. But they seemed to be the only food items that didn't make me feel queasy at the thought of. Hence my cupboards are now packed to the hilt with tins of beans and I predict many meals of beans on toast in the foreseeable future. Oh, and I ended up telling the guy who sits next to me at work today the truth as he's been asking me for a while now if I'm alright, and outright asked me this morning if I was pregnant. And since at the time I was nibbling ginger snaps with a grey, sleepy-yet-ready-to-throw-up expression, I couldn't think of a viable excuse so swore him to secrecy.

Gawd almighty, I'm counting down until I can tell everyone about this small person inside me so they can stop thinking I'm a tired, cranky, hungover bint. Well, they'll think that anyway but at least they'll know why I'm such a bint.

Little white lies part one...

Urgh.

Yes, I'm irritable. Shut up. I'm getting tired of keeping schtum now. Thinking of excuses for everything is almost as exhausting as being pregnant. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. I also feel the need to bleat on about it all here because I can't vent it elsewhere. So I'd be prepared for some boring baby ranting posts if I were you. In fact, if you're adverse to such things, just bugger off now and save yourself the time.

I had tea out with the gals tonight. Which is usually a lovely, chatty affair but between me fighting to stay awake (not the company's fault, I'm just THAT tired at the minute) and having to pretend I'm not that hungry (not like me at all), I just couldn't be bothered with it all and found myself fantasising about going to bed with new pyjamas and clean sheets rather than participate in conversations about people we went to school with. Choosing what I could have from the menu was also rather trying. Sticking to lemonade is not my scene, and neither is not having coffee. Actually I was feeling quite bleurgh and sorry for myself in general but had to keep a fixed grin and at least appear interested in the exploits of my non-knocked up chums.

I've also found it difficult keeping things concealed at work, too. Being bleurgh at work is becoming much harder to disguise. This is partly my own doing too, though. Aside from needing the loo all the live long day and nibbling on all manner of sickness 'remedies' - trying to keep Amazon deliveries of baby books to work inconspicuous is like a Russian spy operation to get the packages safely to my desk unnoticed. Must find suitcases and large newspaper with cut-out eye holes.

Oh, I've managed to irritate myself now. Good night.

Wig Wham Bam...

Well, this week I did something I've certainly never done before. No, not swimming with dolphins (although I'd like to one day); not skydiving from a hot air balloon (can't say I've ever really thought about that one) and not even finally sitting through the whole Lord of The Rings Trilogy (I managed half an hour of part one and fell asleep, and have never attempted again). No. This was neither exciting nor daredevil, but it was something I wouldn't care to repeat. Namely, having a domestic with The Other Half over a grey wig in the middle of a fancy dress shop. I kid you not.

On Monday, we went shopping for some bits and pieces (namely a wig for him) for the imminent TedFest party we're attending. Since he is going as old Father Jack, a quick bit of research on t'interweb told us we probably wouldn't get a Father Jack-specific wig, but something along the lines of a mad scientist/Beetlejuice-looking grey wig would do, especially as we could do the finishing touches to the costume ourselves to make everything more Jack-esque. So, off to the shopping centre we trotted to have a trying on session in every costume shop we could find. And by god, it was trying.

Tensions started to fray when we kept having to go backwards and forwards between different shops to compare wigs. Which pretty much all looked (and cost) the same. I'm not sure what The Other Half had a picture of in his head - I'm guessing he was looking for a packet labelled 'Father Jack wig', which I calmly explained several times over we were never going to find and we'd just have to get something as close as we could. Then the argument started when I found a Beetlejuice grey wig - which ok, didn't look exactly like Jack's hair, but we could trim it and it would be ideal. Apparently not good enough, despite the fact that nobody except our friends would see this, and nobody would care anyway if it wasn't an EXACT replica of Jack's mangy locks as they all knew who he was supposed to be going as.

It continued. The Beetlejuice wig just wasn't going to cut it as the picture on the front showed that the scalp of the wig was grey, when it should have been pink. This is when I lost it, there and then in the wig shop with a comedy polystyrene brick in one hand and a giant fake priest's cross in the other. The staff were so bemused by this weird couple shouting at each other over the colour of a wig's scalp that I left the shop and went off to buy a cup off coffee. On my return, I found a sheepish-looking Other Half with a bag in his hand. Turns out, he'd tried on the flamin' wig after I stormed out, only to find that the scalp was in fact pink, not grey. And it did look rather Father Jack-like after all.

I have no words.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

I feel cheated. Cheated, I tell you! I've been robbed of a day off, all because the weather men told lies. There we were on Sunday night, watching the weather reports which told us to brace ourselves for heavy snow fall (and thinking, yeah right - it never snows heavy here. Whilst secretly wishing for a snow day to get us out of work), and lo! Monday morning arrives. The whole country was apparently in the midst of a blizzard - everywhere except my region, that is. We had a slight 'dusting'. Lies, goddammit, lies! How dare it not snow here. I really wanted to go sledging.

Instead, I've had to read all about other people sledging on the BBC News website while I pretended to be working. Reading all about how London was at a standstill because all the transport networks were out of action. Smug friends in the capital were giving me updates as their offices called it a day one by one and sent everyone out to have snowball fights. Watching with scorn and jealousy as thousands of photos poured in online of happy people building snowmen and having good, clean winter fun. Well, I've got news for you - you self-righteous, would-be-at-work-if-it-wasn't-for-this-white-dust, Frosty-building idiots. Your snowmen were rubbish! Rubbish, I say!

Bored and bitter, now. Unless it snows here, that is. Then I'd show those snowmen builders how it's done. Grrr.

How to be a rubbish domestic goddess...

Rant alert.

On Saturday, I am supposed to be having the girls over for dinner. This has now turned into some of the girls plus some other halves for a Chinese New Year supper. OK, I can cope with that. Ordinarily. Except this hasn't been an ordinary week. No. It's been a week of complete and utter culinary disasters. My domestic goddess halo has fallen. In fact, I've Frisbee-d it out of the bloody window.

Earlier in the week I made a big pot of ramen. It always goes down well in my house, does ramen. I just don't think I engaged my brain when making it, this time. Instead of shredding pak choi, in went red cabbage instead. I don't believe I've ever had luminous purple soup before. Radioactive soup. I bet Nigella never has such mishaps. A day later I tried my hand at melty-in-the-middle mini chocolate puds. They were lurrrverly. Rich, but delish. The recipe made four little puds, so I saved two for dessert the next evening. Only muggins here forgot that they were melty-in-the middle puddings, and whacked them in the microwave at full pelt to heat them through. They were no longer melty-in-the-middle puds when I fished them out. More like steaming rubber bouncy balls. Sigh.

Anyway, undeterred, that same evening I set about making a stew to use up all the leftover veg in the fridge. Now, I didn't do anything differently to what I usually do here, so I'd like to know why it all went hideously wrong. Casserole pot on hob, oil in pot, brown off meat and onions, throw in the veg, add stock and simmer for a bit, then bung in the oven. All was fine until I added the stock. Then I heard a sort of popping, crackly noise. Then a gush. The casserole pot had cracked clean IN HALF and a litre of hot stock proceeded to flood the hob, run into the oven and all over the floor...it was a flamin' stock tidal wave. £80 Le Creuset casserole pots should not shatter on your hob. No. They. Should. Not. I have a good mind to take the two halves back to the shop. Which I could have done if only I hadn't shattered them into several more pieces on the patio in a rage.

Last night I decided to practice some homemade spring rolls ahead of Saturday. I've had my three cooking calamities this week, I couldn't possibly be due any more, I said to myself. Ho ho, how wrong I was. I had the recipe in order (a usually trustworthy source - Saturday Kitchen), a very nice gal at work gave me some tips, all the ingredients were lined up and I was ready to go. The filling went well. The pastry - not so well. More bundles than rolls. Now, even though they weren't wrapped very well they still should have been ok. So I'd really like to know how in the name of all that is holy do spring rolls EXPLODE in the oven? What did I ever do to them?

I think I'll have the takeaway menu on standby on Saturday.

It's not worth crying over spilt vino...

Remind me never to play board games whilst tipsy with my equally inebriated Other Half ever again. He's just far too competitive. I mean, honestly. It was only Cranium - not exactly high pressured. (Have you ever played Cranium? It's ace. Like 4 games in one.) And certainly not worth going in a strop and throwing a prop from the game - a ball of purple plasterciney play dough stuff used in a clay form of Pictionary - at me mid-sulk. Except he didn't aim properly. Oh no. The stuff missed me and knocked my wine off the table. Luckily my hand-eye coordination is better than his, and I caught the glass. Tsk.

My Facebook graffiti of the Incident. The Other Half was not impressed.

Anyway, apart from that, last night was tres amusant. A wee gathering of chums to celebrate our pal S returning from the Big Smoke. It was supposed to be themed (her idea) and that theme was Italian food (again, her idea. But a crowd-pleaser, nonetheless) and everyone had to bring something. As people arrived, our table became laden with an entertaining mix of garlic dough balls, spinach ravioli, mini tiramisus, teddy bear shaped pasta and more pizzas than in Rome. Therefore this turned into a Pizza Party. And a good time was had by all. Until the flying plastercine incident, that is.

Boys. Honestly.

Working 9 to 5...

...What a way to make a living. Dolly Parton got it so right. All taking and no giving. There are always stressful days and weeks at work and general workplace frustrations that are sent to try us. This week, my office gripes bubbled over when they collided with almighty PMS. It has not been pretty. I've been exasperated all week by things I would normally shrug off and laugh about. Things like:

• The photocopier (there was not a jam! It lied! Although I fared better than my poor colleague, who had 90-odd booklets to copy and bind and couldn't get the stupid thermal binding machine to work - 'INPUT JAM' was all it said to her - so we had a chat about what kind of jam the damned thing would like. My money was on blackcurrant.)
• My computer (it was making a funny high-pitched squealing noise - I don't profess to be a technological wizard but I do know that when a machine screams at you, it's not good. I was, however, helpfully told to look out for smoke)
• The new scary franking machine (ate my letters)
• My waste paper bin (how can a bin go missing?? And why?!)
• The man who made me a hot chocolate in the cafe. Not only did he not use enough powder, which made it taste like dishwater, but he didn't stir it properly to get rid of the lumps. Shoddy.
  
• A colleague who is so incompetent I was annoyed simply by thinking about their past acts of sheer uselessness and had to get up and run away as soon as I had an inkling they were going to come and annoy me to my face. Harsh, but true.
  
• Myself, for forgetting to charge my faithful companion - my little blue iPod. All week long I've consequently had to suffer the vocal incompetency of The Most Annoyingly Voiced Coworker Ever Bar None. Her voice makes me want to rip off my arm and ram it down her throat. And I'm not a violent person.
  

And as if that wasn't enough, someone then committed the cardinal office sin. They stole my coffee cup. Stole it! How very dare they. Ooh, I was so incensed by this thievery and desktop robbery that I made a poster and stuck it up in the office kitchen (I say kitchen, it's really a cupboard with a kettle), complete with a Googled picture of my poor cup and a reward. OK - not much of a reward (a leftover Chomp bar I found in my drawer from Halloween), but still. I reckon it's being held to ransom.

I know I sound like a bitter and twisted old crone, but hey. I'm allowed to be narked. Now shut up before I bite you.

Gunpowder, treason and plot...

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

I've always found this rhyme a bit odd. Nothing happened! It was a non-event! Why do we need to remember an event that didn't happen? Guy Fawkes didn't blow up the Houses of Parliament, the King did not die, and for all we know Guy Fawkes himself might have been an innocent bystander who thought he was doing someone a favour by changing barrels of ale in a pub rather than rolling gunpowder into Parliament's cellars - and he was hung, drawn and quartered for his good will. After all, it was over 400 years ago. How do we REALLY know, eh? So, I find it strange that we celebrate by having bonfires and fireworks and burning effigies of poor Guy when nothing actually happened.

This, however, does not mean that I don't enjoy Bonfire Night, oh no. I do. I like the firework displays. And the bonfire. And sparklers. And I love the food. What I do not like, however, is really rubbish planning. Tonight, The Other Half and I set off to our local (I say local, it was 6 miles away) display in good time, all wrapped up against the cold. We drove around for 25 minutes searching for a parking space only to give up and defeated, we watched the display from an industrial estate a mile down the hill from the bonfire. Then we had the bright idea that by driving home over the hills, we'd be able to have a panoramic view of displays across the city. This would have been true if the fog on the hills wasn't so thick that we couldn't even see the road properly, never mind the horizon.

Anyway, what made it all better when we returned home, deflated, freezing and hungry, was the food. Jacket potatoes stuffed with cheese and leeks, herby sausages, and spicy onion soup. Topped off with a toffee apple and mug of hot chocolate. It doesn't get any better than that.

Trick or treat (or not)...

I'm too grumpy to write today. Not only did I fall asleep on the sofa mid-way into film three of my five-stops odyssey (Carrie. I dozed off just as Chris, Billy and gang broke into the pig pen for phase one of their stunt, and dreamt of that hideous glow-in-the-dark plastic Jesus in Carrie's closet), but not one single little person dressed in scary garb came a-calling, and this morning the awful truth dawned on me as I picked bits of popcorn and wrappers out of my hair that I'd eaten waaaaay too much Halloween chocolate and polished off a tad too much Tia Maria. Meh. I'm going to have to take the remaining sweets into work just so anyone but me can finish them.

And I'm depressed that every retailer in the world has now seemingly upped the advertising ante. Almost every commercial I've seen so far today has in some way or another related to Christmas. Whether its 'perfect gift ideas' (I wouldn't, however, call X-Factor rejects peddling more cover versions and seasonal tunes a perfect gift idea); Christmas scented air fresheners (more like pine trees and mulled wine smells, not the aroma of turkey carcass as I first thought); sofas with guaranteed before-Yule deliveries; every damned advert has had either jingly bells Christmas music or snowflake graphics and grinning idiots in Santa hats. And you just know that ALL the shops are going to be sickeningly bedecked with all their festive tat. The supermarkets have had Halloween and Christmas aisles running parallel for weeks.

It's the first day of November. NOVEMBER! We haven't even had bonfire night yet. I don't want to be made to feel guilty for not having started any Christmas shopping yet. Ooh I'm going to make something with my pumpkin remains before I throw something at the TV. Which may just happen if I hear those unmistakable strains of The Snowman or see that singing muppet, Aled flamin' Jones, presenting something inane. Hopefully whipping up a kitchen storm may remove my loathing.

It also may not.

Hello, darkness my old friend...

The nights are drawing in and the clocks have gone back, and my office is full of people complaining about getting up in the dark and leaving work in the dark. The car needed de-icing this morning. The winter cometh. It's fantastic! Cosy nights in are the business. But I was thinking, you really don't realise just how much you rely upon electricity for mundane things, especially when it's dark all the time. The other night we had a power cut of epic proportions (well, I say epic - it lasted for all of two hours. But the Law of Sod descended upon us and clicked the power off just as we'd settled down to watch a DVD).

Not just our house or even the street - it felt like the whole village had been knocked out when we stood outside and stared over a dark valley. The total blackness and rolling valley mist were quite creepy and atmospherical, and it would have been eerily quiet had it not been for the house alarms going off on their emergency power and the regulars in the pub down the road making their opinions on the matter known to all most profusely. None of this would have been so much of an issue in the summer - we'd have just gone outside and carried on as normal or lit the barbecue or something. But as it's October, I had to make do with trying to read a book by candlelight, which didn't last long. I got as far as three pages and gave up and went to bed - spilling my Ribena in the process. (Yes, I drink Ribena. No, I am not a five year old. Hey, it tastes nice.)

So, instead of counting sheep, I attempted to recall games you can play in the dark. And here they are (clean ones, people!):

• Murder in the Dark - I can't remember exactly how to play this; but remember it at birthday parties in dark rooms. It involved some sort of murderer, detective and suspect shenanigans, but the rules escape me. I seem to recall testing out several 'death poses' and fake fainting, however.
• Sardines - a version of hide and seek in the dark. One person hides and seekers move around in the dark whispering "sardines" and listening for a whispered response from the hidden person. Fairly boring, but there's the added danger of falling over something.
• Pimped-up hide and seek - use glow sticks, those stupid fibre optic pen things you get at firework displays and torches to play hide and seek indoors or out. Again, could be interesting if your garden is filled with exciting things like ponds. Mine is not.
• Ghost stories - a staple of pre-teen sleepovers, usually resulting in weaker members of the herd crying to go home for fear of the serial killer with a hook. Usually involved sitting in a circle taking turns to pass a torch around and tell a story. Many sweets were consumed.
• Twister in the dark - does what it says on the tin. Things could potentially get a bit risque and you should really be careful where you put your foot. Ooh er.
• Glow-in-the-dark cocktail party - not really a game, but this idea is wearing thin and I'm clutching at straws now. Use glow-in-the-dark martini glasses and provide glow-in-the-dark accessories for guests to wear. This sounds like more fun than games anyway. I'd happily swig a cocktail anytime, day-glo or otherwise.

Oh, I can't remember anything else. The power surge must have shorted out my head as well as my house. Perhaps that's why this working week is so supremely awful.