Keep In Touch Day June 30, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General.Tags: keep in touch day
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I’ve been on maternity leave since 22nd May. Time has really whizzed by. As part of the deal you can have up to 10 Keep in Touch (KIT) days to go into work without stopping the leave. Unfortunately I don’t actually get paid anything to do them and I don’t have to go in so there’s no incentive to do it – other than me feeling like I want to.
The two people doing my maternity cover started work today and as my boss is on holiday I went into work in the morning to kick-off their projects. It was really nice popping into the office. Seeing all my friends/colleagues - everything was exactly the same as when I left. Of course all conversation was about Shrimp and how much time I have left.
Summary of the day: Went into the office (weird), Had to wear flip flops as can no longer get proper shoes on, Relaxed in the afternoon, Made the world’s most disgusting lasagne (don’t use Alpro Low Fat soya milk for anything – I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t nice in any circumstances and the reason it’s low fat is because it’s got more water in it)
Fed Up – I Want “ME” back June 29, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy.add a comment
I’m quite fed up of being pregnant now. I still have just over 4 weeks to go but am now looking forward to finally meeting Baby K as well as not being host to a squatter. I’ll miss Shrimp’s little kicks and wriggles, but I won’t miss the discomfort, indigestion, bladder trampoline, not being able to lie on my front, aches/pains/clicking joints, waddling, irrational hormones, people talking to my bump and all conversations being about the bump! I want to have a nice choice of clothes to wear each day (rather than working on a 3 pairs of maternity trouser rotation). I want to be able to wear lovely summer dresses again and wear make up and go out and not feel that people are staring at my big bump. I’ve actually got to the point where I can’t remember what it felt like in non-pregnant mode anymore.
Ah well another couple and she’ll be ready for eviction (I think I will try and post her notice, but I suspect that she will move out in her own sweet time). I’m hoping she’ll either be 9 days early (22nd July as that’s our wedding anniversary and if she’s born then I have bagsied it as my gift to hubby – he’d better get me an equally good present, he he) or 8 days late as she’ll be born 08/08/08 which is very auspicious in Chinese (and as she is 1/2 of Chinese ancestry then she’ll at least get some good fortune + it’ll be easy to remember her DOB).
Summary of the day: Woke up late, Played piano in church (yay I’m off the rota till mid August now), Felt rubbish, Slept in afternoon
OMG Dr Who!!!! June 28, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Television.Tags: dr who
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The episode of Dr Who tonight was really good (The Stolen Earth). I liked the bit with all the different companions all meeting up on the subwave “facebook” – poor Rose not being able to join in. The bit at the end was a bit schmaltzy though (the slow-mo running towards each other). Davros returning was a bit creepy (esp when he opened his jacket) - and Dalek Caan was so funny (gone screwy loopy and camp at the same time).
Huuooooowwwwaaagge cliffhanger till next week (thank goodness it’s not a cliffhanger till next series though). So many questions:
- Is the Dr regenerating? Beeb kept that quiet well if he is
- What is the Osterhagen Key?
- What are the 27 planets designed to do?
- Will Billie Pipers teeth stop escaping from her mouth?
- Why is Donna special?
Summary of the day: Went into town to do some banking, Can’t even walk round town for 1 hr without getting knackered (and why is it that when people see a heavily pregnant woman they just walk straight at you – where is it I’m meant to suddenly disapparate to exactly?), Hubby made a curry for dinner, Watched Dr Who (and then Dr Who Confidential on Beeb 3).
A Midsummer Night’s Dream June 27, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General.Tags: open air theatre
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We went to see an open air performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tonight at Donington Le Heath Manor House (near Coalville) by the Chapterhouse Theatre). Before the performance we had our little picnic – well actually there were about 4 courses to our picnic as Rach & Lou had got loads of stuff too (and we had some duplicate items). It was really entertaining, apart from being a bit cold and blustery (thankfully there was no rain). It was a bit hard to hear at the beginning cos the wind was rustling through the trees, but it died down a bit in the second half. Shrimp had a whale of a time kicking and flipping about during the performance – rather embarrassingly I had to get up in the middle of the first half for a comfort break. Shrimp was using my bladder as a trampoline.
Summary of the day: Had a bath, Did some more on lit review, Prepared salads and stuff for picnic, Picked up prescriptions, Picked up Rach & Lou, Went to Donington Le Heath.
10 Annoying Things June 26, 2008
Posted by graciek in 10 Things..., Life in General, Pregnancy.Tags: pregnancy anger
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35 weeks down, 35 days to go!!! It feels like I’ve been pregnant for almost a year already and I’m feeling like an elephant! This week’s 10 things are 10 things that are annoying me at this stage of my pregnancy (~8 months).
1. Constant need to wee – I may as well pour whatever I’m drinking straight down the toilet it goes through me so fast. I’m needing to go every 30-60 mins during the day and every 2hrs at night now.
2. Cramps – last night my calf muscle went into a cramp while I was asleep. Woke up in pain screaming and hubby had to stretch it out by pushing my toes back. Who knows how long it was cramped for, but it’s become a massive bruise today. Also I seem to get butt cheek cramp at least once every day too (how embarrassing).
3. Indigestion – yuck, uncomfortable, burns your throat, makes you choke!
4. People commenting on the size of my bump – yes I am actually 8 months pregnant and I haven’t got my dates wrong. I guess I just carry my bump well as it’s not as huge as it could be, yet Shrimp was bang on 50th percentile at scans a fortnight ago.
5. Suddenly having a social life – for ages we didn’t have very much in the diary socials wise, now suddenly there are loads of weddings, parties and reunions which we can’t go to.
6. Relatives wanting to know the exact day Shrimp will arrive – how am I supposed to know, oh yes let me get my crystal ball out shall I? All I can say is EDD is 31st July.
7. Insomnia – why is it that Shrimp likes to wake up when I am falling asleep and then do highland fling all night long?
8. Brain fog – I keep forgetting things. This morning I went down to make breakfast and put 2 slices of bread in the toaster, then I came upstairs to have a wee, went downstairs and put another 2 slices into the toaster. It was a bit of a surprise when 2 sets of toast popped up!! Ah well Mocha got to have toast for brekkie.
9. The house needing constant tidying – as soon as I’ve tidied it it gets messy within hours
10. Everything!!! It’s the hormones or something as everything is annoying me. Even all the inanimate objects. Today my T-shirt sleeve got stuck on the door handle as I went past and I almost cried in anger at it! I get angry at every little thing. Can’t bend myself to get my socks on, I have a big tantrum and throw the socks across the room. What is wrong with me – GET A GRIP!
Now I’m all riled up just thinking about the things that annoy me. I hope this goes away once the baby comes otherwise I’ll need to go to anger management classes or something. Poor hubby is coping really well with my anger/crying fits and constant demands and moaning about everything.
Summary of the day: Made 2 lots of breakfast!! Had a shower, Got to work on lit review, Made fishfingers for lunch (only 1 lot of lunch made), Did more work on PhD lit review (it’s starting to look in a good state now), Worked all afternoon, Made dinner, Played on Facebook for a while, Played fetch with doggy
Booking Train Tickets Online June 25, 2008
Posted by graciek in Family, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: booking train tickets online
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With the impending new arrival, my parents are going to come visit Loughborough for a week or so in August. As they’re getting on a bit and don’t like driving long distances I booked some train tickets online for them. They get free off-peak travel in London (being over 60 you get a free travel pass) so all I had to do was book the St Pancras – Loughborough leg. Sometimes they have some cracking Advance deal tickets. Last year I think it was £7 each each way (so £28 for both of them return – it would cost 3x as much in petrol to drive up). It only takes about 90 mins on the train from London so it’s not too bad a trip.
So first I went to Network Rail website and started to put in the journey partculars. Excellent, there’s some tickets at £7 again from London to Loughborough – but hang on the Loughborough to London ones are £46! So I started to try different dates. It’s most frustrating as you have to keep going back and forth changing the dates and waiting for it to recalculate. I noticed a button near the bottom that helps you to find cheap seats over a range of dates – but that’s useless as you can’t seem to add more than one date anyway (no matter how many times you try to add more). Eventually I worked out that any time from 23rd August onwards was going to be expensive (I guess lots of families off for 10 day holidays what with the Bank Holiday at the end of the month).
So that’s the days sorted then – 14th August to 22nd August, now to work out which trains to get them on. Now they can’t get to St Pancras till at least 11am because they have to get off-peak trains from Beckenham first. Hmm there’s tickets available for £7 at 11.55 – excellent that’ll do. Now 22nd August, there’s plenty of tickets for £9, but they don’t want to hit rush hour on the trains when they cross London, so need to be at St Pancras by 15:30 ish. Excellent – there’s a £7 ticket that gets in at 15:14. Now make my selections and try to book – oh I seem to be being redirected to East Midlands Trains website (hmm they’re not Midland Mainline anymore). It’s allocated some seats for those trains – but the parents need to travel forward facing – hmm Network Rail site didn’t give me that option so I start all over again on the EMT website. Putting in the same details only to find that the tickets for cheap trains are different, but at least I can allocate forward facing table seats! End up with train from St Pancras at 12:30 and return from Lboro at 13:44. Hmm, hang on, isn’t Loughborough a short platform and have I not had to run down the train at the last moment before to be able to get off the train somewhere other than a 4ft drop! So thought best to give the station a call – can’t for love or money find a direct number for Loughborough and end up talking to Customer Services in Derby (after getting through the various recorded options) – good the seats autoallocated won’t be in the wrong carriages. Now, finally time to book. Damn it wants my login and password (what, this is a new site, not Midland Mainline anymore) and now I have to trawl through my old email trying to find out what these details may be!! Everything is paid for and confirmed and I try and print out the confirmation – funny they’ve made it open in a new window with no File Menu on it so I can’t save it.
It certainly wasn’t simple booking online at all. Last year seemed to be so much easier! I imagine that a lot of people would get fed up and just give up after a while. There’s no way my parents could have booked it themselves. My mum asked what she would do next year when we’ve moved to Oz and she won’t have me to book the trains – I said, well you won’t need to get the train to Lboro anymore as we won’t be there!! ha ha
Summary of the day: Went onto Campus to drop stuff off and collect prescriptions, Went to Aldi to get some food (lots of reduced stuff in there today), Went to Merlins to pick up some arrows and other bits and bobs for hubby, Went to chemist to drop off prescription, Had lunch, Tried to book train tickets (2hrs of my life), Made steak and jacket potatoes for dinner.
Super Tuesdays June 24, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General.Tags: writing up
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Tuesdays seem to be my day of work. I don’t know what it is but I wake up bright and alert (and motivated!!)and just get on with writing up my PhD. It must be optimum time since the weekend and maximum boredom time for me – I guess I must usually spend Mondays pottering around the house doing nothing and getting bored.
Today I started at around 10am and worked through till 5.30pm (when hubby came home). My Introduction chapter is in a good state (i.e. in a presentable state), and as sad as it sounds I needed to get this one clear in my mind in order to ensure that I know where I’m going with the rest of the chapters. Now I just need to iron out all the other chapters (prob leave the discussion and conclusions till later in the summer) as at the moment they are “container” files (i.e. I have cut and pasted stuff in ready for me to rehash back together). Got a meeting next week to go over progress, which considering I’ve been on maternity leave for a month is not as much as I’d hoped.
Summary of the day: Did writing up most of the day, Hung out washing (it’s forecast for rain tomorrow), Cooked pork and beancurd for dinner
34 Week Midwife Appt June 23, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy.Tags: 34 week midwife appointment
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Went to my 34 week appointment with the midwife this morning. We’re actually 34+4 but it won’t make that much difference. Fundal height is measuring 36cm, which is prob about right as it’s not that accurate a measure anyway. Midwife had a good prod and poke around my abdomen and concluded that my stomach muscles are too strong so she couldn’t feel much other than baby is head down and not engaged yet. Heard her heart beating (which was really loud and strong, and sounded quite a lot more whoosy and squishy now). Shrimp decided to do a big wriggle and kick the midwife. Blood pressure was 100/60 which is good. Excellent news they will prescribe some more Gaviscon for me – hopefully that will ease the indigestion (shame I have to wait 2 days before I can even get the prescription, and then I have to take it to the chemist and no doubt wait another day or two). They said next appt is at 36 weeks and they’re going to do routine bloods again (boo I hate needles).
This afternoon/evening Shrimp was particularly animated. I think she was objecting to the fact that she got prodded about in the morning and also we dared to spy on her again (although this time, just with the doppler). My whole stomach was moving about and twitching in a spooky fashion. The dog was curled up leaning against me on the sofa and Shrimp gave her a good booting! Dog jumped off and turned around and looked at me like “what ARE you doing?)” – I tried to explain it wasn’t me, but she didn’t believe me and went to sit on her beanbag in peace.
Summary of the day: Went to midwife appt, Did some PhD work, Had some leftover lasagne (from the freezer) for lunch, Did puzzles from the Times newspaper and watched Poirot in the afternoon, Experimented making corned beef hash (with aubergine and baked beans in)
Indigestion June 22, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Pregnancy, Under the Weather.Tags: indigestion
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I’ve not been too bad all pregnancy with the indigestion. Managed to mostly get away with taking a Rennie every now and again which made it go away fairly quickly. Today was horrible. I had awful indigestion and everytime I hiccupped or burped I got a mouth full of acid that then made me choke and cough. Yeuch! After eating quite a few Rennies it wasn’t really working. We had a bottle of Gaviscon, but alas it was empty - I even tried putting it upside down and licking the inside of the lid. Tried drinking more water to neutralise it. Nope that didn’t work either. I felt awful and also my stomach was really bloated and tight. Not comfortable. In the end I ended up having a bath and paracetamol (as I seemed to be getting a bit of a temperature). This didn’t solve the acid problem, but made me so sleepy that I managed to go to bed straight after!
Summary of the day: Had a lie-in to catch up on sleep, Did loads of gardening (pruned the bushes, weeded, planted out some ageratum), Got horrid indigestion, Hubby made porridge (that was black), Watched Dr Who on beeb 3, Had a bath
Waking Up @ 3AM! June 21, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General.Tags: insomnia
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Shrimp was particularly wriggly all day today. I woke up at around 3.30am, lay there trying to go back to sleep till 5.30am, then ended up getting up and doing something useful. By 8am I had done the washing up, cleaned the kitchen, put a load of washing in, put it in tumble drier, folded and put them back in the wardrobe, done some sudokus, swept the floor. I’m really not enjoying this insomnia – but at least I made myself useful. I managed to get another hr’s sleep at 8am and then couldn’t sleep anymore.
Summary of the day: Woke up at stupid o’clock, Did household chores, Went to Tescos (very stressful on a Sat) to get stuff for a party, Made satay chicken, Went to Ella & Pete’s birthday BBQ, Watched Holland v Russia football match (comedy surnames!! Zherkov and Arshavin!)
