First lily

The first lily in my garden:

Not exactly before and after

Earlier:

Recently:

I know the toenails are unkempt. But I can’t reach them anymore. And I have trust issues re. the ViL, clippers and my tender toes.

I suppose there are worse side effects of pregnancy.

t-0 (-10): the hysterical pregnancy

Back in Tudor times, people didn’t have a firm idea of how long pregnancy lasted. When Bloody Queen Mary announced her pregnancy, no one thought anything of it when it went a little long. She retreated into confinement. And that lasted a long while (I know how that feels!). And it lasted a little longer and a little longer.

It wasn’t a real pregnancy. Some speculated that it was an hysterical pregnancy, born out of her own desire to secure the crown of England to Rome. Some speculate it was maybe a bit of that and the progression of ovarian cancer which would eventually kill her.

Today I had a thought that my pregnancy is starting to seem a little like that…a big countdown and then, waiting, waiting, waiting. Some more waiting.

But I’ve got ultrasound pics. Really.

And I’ve got an induction date. Monday. That’s later than they normally “allow”. I really don’t want to make it to that date. And I could fight further. I don’t want an induction. But I’m tired of waiting.

No more than 5 days til baby Cletus

Does this work?

I was looking at Household Tips for Women at The Onion when I spotted this one:

When you open yourself to the abundance of the universe, anything is possible… even getting a clean toilet with NO SCRUBBING! Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet, let it sit for one hour, and then flush it clean. You can use that extra sixty minutes of free time to believe, breathe, dream, laugh, or CELEBRATE what makes you UNIQUE!

Does this work? I mean not that it matters too much to me, since it’s my husband’s job to to clean the toilet. But I just thought maybe, if it did work, he could celebrate what makes him unique.

No goose down

I posted yesterday about my fears for the welfare of a pair of Egyptian Goose Goslings. Well, I think saw them today in our walk in the park.

They were really cute before:

But I’m afraid that when they get big…

–they get ugly

(But like so ugly they’re kinda cute…) Anyway, I was relieved to see them. And then just as we were moving on – some woman’s dog starts chasing after them and they just barely made it to the water in time. I thought I was going to see the little goslings get eaten after all. Then the dog remembered he could swim. And I really thought I was gonna see gosling slaughter. But, the dog gave up.

And what did the owner do? Did she call him off. No, she just chuckled indulgently.

-0-

We saw other kinds of wicked bird behavior today, too. The swans with their swanlings thought that a Canadian goose got a little too close for comfort so the swan bit down on the goose’s ass feathers. The goose swam/water skated/flew all over the place trying to shake his tail feathers (and the swan) – but not til the goose got onto land did the swan let go. It was hilarious. Though kind of scary.

Swans. Did you know that they can break your arm with one beat of their mighty wings?

t-0 (-9): finally I see a celebrity…on the labour ward

I had a monitoring appointment today. The midwives and junior doctors wanted to put me on the induction train for Cletus’s lack of promptness. I said no. They said that only a senior doctor could “let me” go and agree an “alternate” care plan. So we waited and saw a senior doctor. He was totally cool with our wanting to watch and wait. He didn’t think there was any risk in waiting until our cut-off date for induction (a week from today). So we went on home.

On the way out I saw Jordan, glamour model, pneumatic breast wearer and one of these people who seems to make a living off being famous.

I almost never see any celebrities, and if I do – I don’t recognise them.

And Jordan’s pregnant, too. Quite pregnant.

I’m not really surprised that a celeb was there – just by the fact that I noticed her. Our local hospital is reknowned as one of the better for “problem” pregnancies, and despite the fact it’s really not a very nice environment it’s definitely the place you want to go if you want to be on the safe side. Or if you’re a celeb, you might want to go to a nearby private birthing centre – which is just spitting distance from the hospital. (My house is the same distance, which is why I’ve felt OK about a home birth).

I actually had my camera with me, but there’s no way I’d have got it out at the hospital. First off, what if it wasn’t really her? And even if it had been, it just would have been too trashy to snap someone’s pic in the hospital.

bracken heart

We keep walking despite the rain. Not the best weather for photos. The temperature has plunged to the 40s in Southern England, the sky is leaden and the wind is blustery. It’s a holiday weekend here – so that’s totally expected.

Update (in response to a comment):

This is a still closed furl of bracken – a big-ass fern. I fancied having some in a difficult spot in my garden, and planted some but then thought “Hmmm- this stuff covers a whole park, it grows in every nook and cranny, the deer can’t kill it.” So I chickened out -pulling the little fledgling things up. Turns out that was the right thing to do (from the Wikipedia entry):

bracken may be considered to be one of the most successful ferns. The plant sends up large, triangular fronds from a wide-creeping underground rootstock, and may form dense thickets. This rootstock may travel a metre or more underground between fronds. The fronds may grow up to 2.5 m (8 feet) long or longer with support, but typically are in the range of 0.6-2 m (2-6 feet) high

…snip….

It is a prolific and abundant plant in the highlands of British Isles. It causes such a problem of invading pastureland that at one time the British government had an eradication program. Special filters have even been used on some British water supplies to filter out the bracken spores.

t-0 (-8): latent National Socialism and projects to pass the time

Back in 1999, I was on a bit of a Roman kick. We’d visited some ruins in the countryside and seen some mosaics in the British Museum. I bought a book on Roman mosaics and started on a painstaking complex mosaic coffee table. I’d seen the table-top tiling project done on tv and it was completed, in an afternoon, by two people. I chose a more intricate pattern, smaller tiles and there was only me – but I figured I could complete it in a couple of weeks of mosaicking and tv watching in the evenings. This project occupied a central space in our living area – after I all I wanted it to be convenient. It turned out to be pretty painstaking and tedious. Months and months later, the Vol-in-Law threatened me: Complete the project or he would start randomly gluing large white bathroom tiles to the table top to finish it himself.

I knew he was a bit fed up, but I did not believe that he would interfere with my art. I did not think that he would dare. I awaited inspiration to finish the work.

Beneath my horrified gaze, he glued down the first tile and I took a whole new tack with the table and it was completed by the weekend. It wasn’t exactly a Roman design anymore – in fact, it’s Roman in the central motif – and abstract Gaudi-esque moving outwards, until you get to the edges, where large white plain bathroom tiles prevail. I would show you a picture, but the table is now covered with a wine rack and the paperwork detritus of our lives.

My next project was a needlepoint design based on a Roman mosaic pattern found in an ancient Romano-British villa. I painstakingly copied out and slightly altered a design I thought I could do in two colors in needlepoint. I was trying to be a bit less ambitious – and needlepoint can be put away in a bag.

It was only when I stepped back a bit, that I realised that the design was full of swastikas. Crap. Well, I’d already started. Plus, swastikas are used as a perfectly normal and nice design element of symbol in loads of cultures (Hopi, Hindu and Roman).

Somewhere along the way, I decided to stitch in the year of completion – 1999. The Vol-in-Law warned me against doing that. He said that I’d be setting myself up for failure (particularly given my extensive track record of 90% completion of art projects before giving up – it wasn’t just the table). Rubbish – I said. Thanks for your vote of confidence – I said.

It’s 2007, and I pulled out everything in our junk closet to find my roughly 50% completed needework with a big mocking 1999 stiched into the design. I needed a project to pass the time. I needed something to occupy my time while I waited for the baby, propped up my swollen feet and watched old Columbos and Sally Jesse Rafael in syndication.

Well, I finished it. And then some. I added a design surround and stitched in a motto.

Agere et pati Romanum est

To do and to endure (suffer) is Roman. Apparently, the ViL’s mother used to say this to him when he was complaining. I changed it slightly to Agere et pati Vol-Abroadium est when I was feeling a bit down about my lot. Which I am now. Perhaps I should have made it Exspecto et pati Vol-Abroadium est – To wait for and to endure.

I’ve also stitched in 2007, too.

I’m still awaiting and enduring, but now I’m out of needlepoint.

8 days of baby Cletus lateness

Goosey gone

I think these little guys have been eaten. I’ve been looking for them every time I visit the park. I’ve seen their parents (Egyptian geese), but no sign of the goslings on a number of occasions now.

t-0 (-7): it’s someone’s birthday

Mine. It’s my birthday. I hadn’t wanted to share. But at this point, I’d have been just as happy to evict the little blighter. After all, I already share the day with Hubert Humphrey, Henry Kissinger and Siouxsie Sioux*.

We had a pretty quiet day. Despite gray skies and constant drizzle, we went for a long walk – almost two hours and then out to dinner at an “American” chain restaurant. It’s hard to make big plans when you’re over a week overdue.

(photo ripped from Underground T-Shirts, with a fine range of similarly imaged t-shirts from the era)
__________

* Which just goes to show that there really is something in the whole horoscope thing. I feel my personality is really something eclectically between Henry Kissinger and Siouxsie. That is – given free rein – I’d probably orchestrate a secret war while wearing wild costumes, wild hair and a lot of eye make-up.

7 days of baby Cletus lateness