Busy-ness

It's been a long time since I managed a blog post.  Everything seems a bit hectic at the moment.

Auntie Beth and her best Top Gun impression.

Last Sunday my Dad took me and the sister-in-law flying for her birthday.  The weather had been looking terrible all week but thankfully we got almost completely ideal conditions, which was a bit of luck.  The plan was to drive her back to London afterwards in order to collect her old cot (hers as in her son's not hers as if in she's a bit nuts and sleeps in a cot).  This seemed like a stroke of genius as everyone benefited from it.  Unfortunately there were queues on the M25 (I'm going to blame Thatcher, for convenience), so we decided to chance driving through London, from East to West.  The first problem is the amount of time this takes even when there's only light traffic.  The second problem is that I've got a nauseous wife and a hyperactive sister-in-law on board.  Therefore there was lots of pointing and speculation about the living standards of various parts of East London (all shit, if you were wondering).

Anyway we arrived pretty late and spoke with Annie's mum for a bit before going to collect the cot, by which time it was approaching 10 o'clock.  I don't want to compromise my hardcore, rock n' roll partying image but I'm not confident of being able to drive an hour and 45 minutes on the motorway at 10 o'clock at night without feeling very tired.  With this in mind we decided that we would stay in a Premier Inn (ironic name, I think) for the night and drive home in the morning.  When we get to there the receptionist says it's going to be £81 for the night!  Apparently if you book via the website it's cheaper so she advises that if we have a smart phone it's probably worth popping online and reserving now (not having a smart phone is it's own punishment, so I don't need this).  Unfortunately there's not a whole lot that you can do so we paid up.  Now, the adverts from Premier Inn boast that you are: (1) guaranteed a good night's sleep and (2) everything is premier but the price.  While it wasn't a bad night's sleep it doesn't change the fact that nodding off in the first place is difficult with paper thin walls and a noisy family next door (spose there are worse things you could hear in a hotel).  The price however was pretty premier for what you get.

A sample of the work at WillowsCornerArt.

Fortunately I can't quibble about the price too much as my talented little missus has been earning a few bob by doing portraits and initials/nameplates (http://www.facebook.com/WillowsCornerArt/info).  I'm very proud of her enterprising ways and she's been doing amazingly with it.

We are still trying to get the baby room in shape and the most recent step is to get Vega her own wardrobe for diddy clothes.  I would highly recommend the canvas wardrobe for Dunelm Mill.  It was a steal at £12 although to be honest it takes a few days for the foul smell of the wipe-downable fabric to disappear.

Already got her own wardrobe.

We would also quite like to have a go at co-sleeping with Vega.  I think the plan is to "side-car" the cot to our bed and then she can also sleep in our bed if she falls asleep in feeding or if we bring her in, in the morning.  Now we have had to make some sacrifices for this.  We have got to sacrifice our double bed for a king size and therefore sacrifice our crappy old £100 mattress with horrible springs for a nice new fancy one (don't say we don't do anything for you Vega).  Anyway my ever generous grandparents are coming over to purchase the new mattress for us this weekend and my lovely mum bought us a new bed frame.  This arrived yesterday and we decided to put it together last night.  Needless to say this took a good 2 hours or more and involved a handful of petty flatpack squabbles (we've never had a flatpack that didn't).  It seemed a good idea to assemble the new bed frame before the mattress arrived, so we now have a double mattress on a king-size bed.  Luckily we don't get a lot of visitors so we won't look like morons to anyone but ourselves.

There's not a lot of activities involving Vega at the moment, until the ante-natal classes (I imagine there'll be some content there), I still can't get over how strong her kicking is.  There's nothing more relaxing in the morning when you're half asleep than reaching over and putting a hand on the missus' bump and feeling a massive kick.  However, I think it's probably less relaxing when you're carrying a baby and she's doing her best Vinnie Jones impersonation on your bladder when you're trying to get to sleep.  Annie attempted to stop her ante-emetic medication but it lead to her being sick and feeling nauseous more, so she's back on that.  Other than that, this is the what they call the enjoyable bit of the pregnancy.  I know I'm certainly enjoying it so far.