Gracie’s Life Experiment

Yay - panic - yay - panic - yay!  It’s July.  Our baby is due this month!  I had a bad night’s sleep last night as I was really excited about Shrimp arriving, but at the same time scared about the future and everything changing.  There’ll be no more impromptu dates out to restaurants.  Probably won’t get to go to the cinema for the next 5 years.  Everytime we leave the house it will be a military routine and involve a car full of stuff.  Sleep? - overrated and is for the weak!  I actually asked hubby last night whether it was too late to change my mind about having a baby.  I was having mild identity crises and thinking that my life for the next few months will revolve totally around baby and involve changing nappies, becoming a one-woman, sleep deprived dairy!  But then there’s all the nice stuff too - the cuddles, the feeling of being needed, playing with Shrimp, seeing her grow and develop, and finding out what her personality is like.  Since we met hubby has always been broody and I love the fact that I can give him the one thing in the world he’s always wanted and that is a baby of his own.  We’ll be our own proper little family from now on.

Summary of the day:  Woke up at 4.30am and cleaned the kitchen and put washing load on, Went back to bed at 6.30, Woke up at 8.30, Put towels and dressing gowns in washing machine, Hung out all the washing, Started work on lit review again (only got a couple of pages done today), Had visitors (a couple of mates have moved into a house nearby and popped by for some tea), Had takeaway for dinner

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.  

Our little Mocha needs her hair cutting approx. once a month during Spring/Summer.  Thought as the baby is due next month that I’d better give her an extra good grooming now. As I seem to get a fair few hits from people also looking to “shear their dog” I thought I’d write about how I do it (I’m not a groomer or anything, but it seems to work). Bear in mind she’s a smallish Shih Tsu X Bichon Frise (Zuchon).

So here’s how I tend to do it. 
- Put dog’s leash on and put dog on picnic table, tying off the lead so she can’t jump off
- Get the electric clippers out (clean and oil if necessary). Pick height guide (today I used #2)
- While the dog is standing there put her under your arm (kind of like you’re going to pick her up under your arm but with her head backwards)
- Start shearing her back, starting from the rump. The instructions with the clippers said to go the other way (i.e. neck to tail but I find it doesn’t work as well). Move it slowly and it clips off more efficiently.
- You may find that if you haven’t groomed the dog you may get large matts. You’ll need to trim these off with scissors otherwise doggy doesn’t like it when the clippers get stuck.
- Usually I can use the clippers on her back, rump, sides of her thighs but she won’t let me near her face, legs or underside with them
- Then I do the rest by hand with the scissors. It works best to do as much clippering first as my dog always likes to play silly buggers and wriggles around at the beginning. By the time you get round to doing the fiddly bits you’ve won the battle of wills already and she can’t be bothered to wriggle as much.
- I start with around the eyes, cutting away all the tear duct crap first, then sculting around her muzzle. I like to leave the bit above the eyes a bit longer. Then I just work my way down her “cheeks” (do dog’s have cheeks?) and tidy up around her mouth. She gets staining from her food so I just trim it all away (you may need to move hair from inside her lips to cut it). Then I go for the top of the head down to the collar, I’ll pull up a tuft of hair with my hands (starting from the skin pulling gently until my fingers are about 1 inch from the skin then I cut at the tips of my fingers, thus ensuring I don’t cut through skin).
- With the ears you need to be especially careful to find the edge of the actual ear skin (as she has floppy ears and it often matts it can be quite tough). I tend to pinch gently with my fingernails to feel the textures. Then I leave a finger’s worth of gap and trim the hair away (for some reason her ear hair grows much faster than elsewhere). The underside of the ears is hard to do as she will shake her head when u tickle them. I find that I have to use a comb to straighten out the hair in her ears (and it’s very waxy) so that I can cut it.
- I then trim away under her chin down her chest. Her skin is much baggier/pink under her neck and stomach so be careful if you are using the “pulling the hair straight” before cutting it as there is more give. I find at this stage if you stand perpendicular to the dog’s skin then you can actually see through the hair and see where the skin’s edge is
- I use the scissors to trim off down each leg. The fur on her legs goes really curly when it’s wet and the skin is quite tight so I find that I can just turn the scissors at an angle and just trim away at it without getting any skin. You need to make the dog stay standing up. Mine doesn’t mind the front paws being done, but as soon as you start doing the rear legs she tries to sit down (I find it easiest to do with the dog under my arm (sort of around her stomach with her face pointing backwards)
- Then I tackle the tail and rear end. I hate this bit as she doesn’t like me pulling her tail and is v coy about me trimming away down there.
- I may then get the clippers out one more time and run it over her again just to get any stray bits off and to make sure that there’s no tufts
- Once I’m happy more or less with how she’s looking then I do the fiddly bit. She hates it, I hate it but we somehow manage to get it done. I’ll sit on the floor with my legs out straight, then put the dog on her back on my legs (using my legs like a cradle/vice). I start with her head nearest me first and clip each paw pad (watch out of the dew claw as doggies don’t like it if you try and cut it off!!). If you press your thumb against the upper two middle “toes pads” then the pads will spread and you can then use the scissors carefully to trim the hair out from between the pads (sometimes it’s very hard if she’s got mud caked in there). The skin between the two middle toepads comes up quite high so be careful between those two.
- Then I rotate the dog (still on her back) so that her head is pointing away from me. Do the same for the back paw pads. Then I trim any long wispy bits off her stomach working down towards her bits. She always tries to put her tail in the way, but I find you can tuck her tail under your leg. Then trim very carefully around the bits.

It takes a lot of patience on my part (yes, people who know me will laugh as I’m so NOT patient). It usually takes me about an hour to shear her, but the first 10 mins is always her monkeying about and trying to escape, and prob another 10 mins during that hour is me arguing with her!!! She does look every so cute when her hair is long (like a little teddy bear) but she just stinks in Summer.

Summary of the day: Sheared the dog, Went into work to input my marking, Went out for pub lunch with Matthew, Came home and had a nap, Felt ill

I think today must have been the hottest day of the year so far.  I was absolutely baking!  According to the thermometer in the greenhouse the maximum temp was 37.5 deg C!  It must have been at least 26 yesterday with clear blue skies and no breeze.  I must admit that I did for a millisecond look over at the pond and think it looked tempting for a dip (apart from all the algae and leaf mulch).  I sat indoors hiding from the heat most of yesterday.  I did manage to get a bit of the gardening/potting done in the greenhouse in the morning before someone turned up the thermostat on the country!  The dog of course was being a dog and hanging out in the garden basking in the sun on the lawn all day looking too hot.  She chased a few pigeons that dared to enter her airspace and drank water from the pond waterfall.  She came in occasionally to lie on the laminate floor in the dining room with her legs sprawled out in all directions to get maximum stomach area onto the cool floor.  She really needs a haircut/shearing again but it was too hot outside for me to do it today - maybe tomorrow.

Only question is… how will I cope with the heat when we move to oz in December?  At least I won’t have a built-in oven on the front of me.  The baby belly does make me feel really very warm anyway (I’ve been sleeping with just a thin sheet over me at night since April).

Summary of the day:  Had a fabulous lie in (wow after 2 nights of only about 4 hrs of sleep each night I was so knackered I slept till 9.30), Got up and tidied the kitchen, Stripped and washed bed sheets, Pootled about in the garden, Hung out washing, Felt too hot and hid inside, Marked student projects (am getting there slowly but surely), Ate ice creams and ice lollies.

We had our 28 week scan today (actually it’s 28 +5).  We were sat in the waiting area for 90 mins before we got seen (yawn) and we were the last ones left there (having seen 2 waiting rooms of other parents to be come and go).  Finally we went in for our growth scan.  Baby K is fine and everything is the right length/size (if anything the head circumference is slightly smaller than average which sounds good to me). To our surprise we also got a 3D scan at the same time as they have got a new machine at the hospital (QMC in Nottingham).  For the first time Baby K was also not being shy and trying to hide.  Here’s the piccie.

Also we found out that Shrimp is a Little Miss Baby K!  Am just about getting used to calling her “she” now rather than “it”.

Summary of the day:  Hung washing out on new clothes line hubby put up, Went for scan, Popped into Ikea on way back and bought a load of baby bits and bobs, Came back and stared at piccies

Hmm we both finished work late today and were too knackered to cook any proper food so decided to stick a frozen pizza in the oven with a smattering of chips.  15 mins later and I asked hubby whether he needed to turn the chips over.  Funny the chips are still mostly frozen, but the pizza looks done (from above).  Hmm (in my best Marge Simpson, unimpressed impression) the numnuts had put the grill on instead of oven.  AND it’s not the first time he’s done that - last time we ended up with an overdone pizza topping with the pizza base cooked in a frying pan.  Ended up the same consistency as a naan bread.  So I shooed him out of the kitchen.  Whammed the oven up to max temp and put the chips in, turned chips over and put pizza back in.  15 mins later and dinner was resurrected.  Hurray for me

Summary of the day:  Back to back meeting all day (9.30 - 4.45), Wrote up minutes from meeting before leaving work late, Fixed dinner, Relaxed

No, not a job for me (I’m pretty much set for the next year on maternity leave).  Today hubby got a phone call from the school in Sydney he had a couple of interviews for at Easter.   They’ve offered him a job and have put a contract in the post.  Hurray.  But also boo as they want him to start in Term 4 (which is 1/2 way through Easter).  Unfortunately hubby has to give 1 full-term’s notice and that would have been latest 6th April.  D’oh so now we have some big decisions to make.  Obviously we don’t want to miss the opportunity and have to think about the future, but we don’t want to be in breach of contract and leave on bad terms.  And we need to be able to get everything in place much quicker now.  So this week’s 10 things are 10 items of information that will help us make the decision:

1. Will his present school release him from his contract without the required notice (given that the notice would be 4 months that’s quite a long time)?
2. Will the new school be prepared to wait another term without hubby?
3. What happens if hubby breaches his contract? Will it be worth the school bothering to sue?
4. Can hubby bypass his principles?
5. When will the baby get here?
6. Will we be able to get a passport and child visa before end of Sept? (within 2 months of birth)
7. Now we’ve booked our tickets to Oz in December, will we be able to change these/get a refund?
8. What are the exact terms and conditions of the new school’s contract?
9. Will we have somewhere to stay if we turn up in Oz in October?
10. When would we need to book dog into quarantine and put house on market?

Actually there are far more questions and it’s a bit scary that we may have to move so soon. Hubby has asked present school about releasing him from contract early and they said no, but are going to think about it. He’s also contacted new school to see if there’s anyway they can wait till January term instead. It feels a bit helpless as we’re just waiting to get these various bits of info.

Summary of the day: Got phone call from new school headmaster, Work, Sat through very difficult mediation meeting with students (total group breakdown), Got home late, Knackered, Hubby foraged takeaway (naughty), Worried, worried, realised there was nothing we could do, but still worried some more.

Is it just from growing up in a Chinese (well Singaporean) family that I now have no idea which people are actually relatives or which are family friends.  AND if I am related to someone outside of my immediate family I have no idea how.  When we were younger we had lots of visitors from Singapore to UK who stayed with us during their visits.  We had various Uncles and Aunties (whom I knew weren’t my my parent’s siblings) but were related in someway (I think probably cousins of my parents).  Since I was a kid though I’ve not seen many of them as I don’t live at home anymore and my parents are always on holiday so now when I meet these people they always ask if I remember them and I have to rack my brains as to how I might be related.  Today was one of those days where I met a couple who are related to someone who was an “uncle” in the 80s. 

Think I’ve cracked it though as those who are real uncles and aunties are never called “aunty” or “uncle” they have chinese terms.  Twa Koh (oldest dad’s sister).  Gee Koh (second oldest dad’s sister), Sah Koh (next oldest).  Gee Ee (second oldest mum’s sister).  etc etc

Summary of the day:  Went to parents’ local church, Met distant relatives for lunch, Drove back to lufbra

My parents came back from their globe trotting this week (they left sometime in Jan).  We all got summoned home for the weekend to celebrate (belatedly) my Dad’s birthday.  It took us 5 hrs to get home in the end as my sister locked herself out of her house and my Mum refused (why?  who knows) to drive round to hers with the key (they only live 20 mins away) so we had to add an extra 2 hrs onto our journey to get my sister, drive into Central London, drive down into Kent to get the key, drive back up to Docklands to drop of sister and then drive back down to Kent!!  Grrr most annoying and my back was almost about ready to totally give up after being sat in the car so long.

Summary of the day:  Got up, Packed, Sat in car, More sitting in car, Went out for birthday dinner

Today was a scary day for hubby.  He had an interview at Cranbrook School in Sydney (which is very prestigious and a bit posh).  He didn’t know what the job was nor when it would start or anything, we just got an email from them asking him to come for a chat.  He had his interview and was quite happy (even though they are looking for a Science/Biology teacher and he teaches Physics).  Not really sure how it went though, seems to be a bit of a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” kind of affair so not holding out too much hope.  Although if he gets a job then that would be a load off our minds.  It won’t be fun moving out in December with a 5 month old baby and no job to support us!  Whilst hubby went for interview, GH and I went for a pose around Double Bay area.  Now, the area is something akin to Knightsbridge in London.  Even the simple, 2 up 2 down terrace houses there are $2.2m (~1m GBP) so there’s no way we can afford to live round there!  Was a really lovely area, lots of cafes and boutiques.  There was even a poodle parlour and we stopped to watch a little black and white dog being coiffeurred (reminded me of Mocha, apart from this dog was not misbehaving).

Summary of the day:  Went to Double Bay, Hung around posing, Went for late Yum Cha lunch in China town,  Had dinner party with brother’s neighbours