Meatballs and mayhem

On Saturday Eliza and our respective progeny headed for IKEA Croydon. Eliza wants a “slidey door wardrobe” and I don’t need a reason to go to IKEA. Off we went in Eliza’s people carrier (after spending ten minutes trying to fit Mac’s car seat in), light of heart and free of care. There was hardly any traffic and, despite meeting every White Van Man on the road that morning, we arrived in good time. First stop, the loos. Mac has now decided against going into the Ladies with me. Fine when daddy/assorted male friends and relatives are with us, not so fine when there isn’t. Mac couldn’t see any harm in asking random passing men to take him to the Gents. Naturally I stopped him from approaching anyone and hoiked him into the Ladies whereupon he kept repeating “I’m a boy, not a girl” lest anyone be confused by the jeans, caterpillar boots and checked shirt and short back and sides his father made him have on Friday.

After a general mooch about - “shall we have coffee now or later” - we found ourselves surrounded by wardrobes but only one double one with slidey doors – one mirrored, one plain but big enough for her and Simon. “I don’t need a big wardrobe, I haven’t bought anything new since Jack was born” Eliza suddenly announced, pulling at her purple T-shirt. After sighing deeply, she decided that it would do “I suppose” and we set about measuring its height, width and depth with one of those IKEA tape measures. It wasn’t until I was half in/half out of the wardrobe admiring the neatness of the shelving that an imperious voice informed us that “all of the measurements are printed on the ticket”. No, not a member of staff, just a passing interested stranger. We thanked her and attempted to look nonchalant. Eliza picked up a brochure and leafed through it whilst Interested Stranger examined the “integral trouser rack” in the wardrobe next to ours. “Do you want it with one mirrored door and one plain one or both mirrored or both plain?” I whispered as I watched Mac opening every single drawer of a tallboy and putting a pencil in each. “Don’t you have to have it as it is?” Eliza hissed back.

“No, you can have whatever combination you like” Interested Stranger foghorned into my left ear. “My daughter has plain doors but I have one mirrored and one plain” she continued with a smug smile as she watched Mac who was now smiling angelically up at her, having dispensed with his pencils. “Okay, right, thanks” Eliza said firmly, shooting me A Look and making as if to leave. Interested Stranger bent down to Mac and said “Oooh, aren’t you da cutest liddle boy den?” in a high pitched voice. “Mummy, why is this lady being silly?” asked my son, raising one eyebrow, his latest trick. I stuck my head back into the wardrobe.

Finally having escaped in fits of giggles, we whizzed round the rest of the shop – I always come out with more than I planned to and this visit was no exception. I still haven’t worked out where to put two of the three fig plants I bought but they were a bargain at just £2 each. And David’s groan of “do we need more glasses?” when I unpacked the six hi-balls and six tumblers said it all. Oh, and the candle sets, but one of them will do for Marjorie’s birthday next month. And the dogs can never have enough fleeces. And we did need a new rug in the kitchen (but maybe not one this big) and I couldn’t go to IKEA without getting something else for my kitchen accessory rack but, as David pointed out, I hardly ever make cakes so the measuring spoons I’ve bought will be pretty redundant. But the huge wooden bowl looks pretty impressive in the middle of the table and even better now that I’ve put lemons in it. And IKEA means meatballs, both for lunch and to take home after a visit to the shop.

The restaurant was packed and I volunteered to go and get the lunch while Eliza found a table and sorted the kids out. I indulged in my habit of People Watching and listened into a number of interesting conversations, including a mother and daughter who were talking about something going septic because “you’ve never once opened the Savlon tube”. “Meatballs for the grown-ups and Eliza, pasta for Mac, plate of chips for Jack” became my mantra as we snaked round in the queue. Fifteen minutes later I arrived back at the table to find Jack having a tantrum and Eliza refusing to move away from the window as she was “watching all the cars mummy”. Mac sat serenely at the table and told me that he’d changed his mind “I want meatballs now mummy, not pasta”. We left for home an hour later, frozen meatballs defrosting in the boot, Mac’s unwanted pasta churning in my stomach.

The road out of IKEA is tricky……round a sort of roundabout and then keeping left to head back to Thornton Heath, Selhurst and so on. If you get in the outside lane (avoiding people who have just got off the tram and are so desperate to get into IKEA that they just run across the road without looking), you’re heading onto the A23 and Junction 7 of the M25. Which we did, Eliza saying “Shouldn’t I have gone up the hill and not along here?” as we headed Brighton bound. “Don’t panic” I said, knowing that she would. Who was I kidding, my own hysteria was mounting. I hate, hate, hate getting lost or taking the wrong turning which is why I should carry my sat nav round with me at all times. “Omigod, omigod, omigod….I’ve only got one nappy left for Jack!” Eliza breathed whilst I envisaged all three dogs sulking because I’d left them with David and abandoned them for longer than the “couple of hours” I’d promised.

I won’t go into the details of how we got back onto the right road but, suffice to say, it added nearly an hour to the journey once we’d dealt with traffic jams, wrong lanes, missed turn-offs and angry drivers who actually knew where they were going and were cursing the idiots in the navy blue people carrier. Tempers were frayed in the car as my map reading skills leave a lot to be desired and Eliza kept saying “Shall I go right here? Shall I go right here?” and then going left because I “took too long to sodding answer!”. It was a trying time and I had gnawed through my nails and was about to start on Eliza’s when we saw a signpost for Crystal Palace football stadium. Never before have I been so happy to see evidence of the Eagles.

Once we were on familiar territory we both exhaled shakily, tried to control our breathing and attempted to lighten the atmosphere. I made the mistake of clocking the expression on both Mac and Ashley’s faces when I whirled round to shout abuse at a motorcyclist who, fed up with our dithering, had overtaken us on the inside and had nearly taken the wing mirror with him. Both children were rigid with terror, Ashley’s eyes were the size of dinner plates and Mac’s bottom lip had gone into wobble overdrive. Jack was sound asleep and had missed all of the drama. “Silly Jack’s mummy!” I cooed to the pair of them as we passed the stadium, “getting us lost like that!” Ashley’s eyes widened even further but Mac’s lip stopped wobbling. “Silly Mackenzie’s mummy for distracting me by pointing out the heavily tattooed youth which made me get into the wrong lane in the first place” Eliza boomed heartily but with A Look at me. Mac’s lip started wobbling again while Ashley’s eyes returned to their normal size. “Shall we sing a song?” I bellowed cheerfully. “As long as it’s not ‘Show Me The Way To Go Home’, yes” Eliza muttered darkly.

We arrived home seven hours after we’d left it, both Eliza and I hysterical (but this time with laughter rather than panic), Ashley singing Wheels on the Bus, Mac loudly informing us that he doesn’t really like meatballs and Jack still soundo. “How come,” said David as I recounted the tale of terror to him over a cup of tea and a slice of almond cake “I just go somewhere and nothing untoward happens but you…..you go out and something always does?”

Whatever can he mean?

Fanfare.....

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday my dear blog

Happy Birthday to yoooooooooooo!

Cake anyone?

Nunhead Wives

Marjorie Stewart has decided to take me under her wing. I know this for a fact because she told me so this morning when she dropped in with a starch spray. “I’ve noticed David’s collars are a bit limp” she said by way of explanation as she bustled in through the door clutching a folded piece of A4 paper. The upshot of this visit was to “instruct” me in the art of being a good wife. Now, pardon my arrogance but I was already under the impression that I was already one of those. Obviously not. Marjorie revealed that, at their Mince Pies and Mulled Wine do before Christmas, David was mightily impressed with the way that she “waited on Frank hand and foot” and that he has since admired her “ability to make a steak and kidney pudding AND a sticky toffee pudding on the same day and with little or no fuss.”

What? How? When? When are all these discussions being held? At secret meetings? Exactly how does David know that Marjorie’s puddings are the talk of The Avenue? And for exactly how long has he been longing for a Proper Wife? One that doesn’t make him do the washing up I mean. “Have a little read of this dear” Marjorie simpered, pressing the photocopy of an article entitled The Perfect Wife’s Guide into my hand. “It’s something worth sticking to, I don’t need it back, I’ve taken a photocopy for you. You’ll find all you need to know there.” And off she went, no doubt to prostrate herself at Frank’s feet.

I was on the phone to David in a flash and, although I didn’t actually accuse him of fancying Marjorie’s puds, I came damn close to it. “Slow down and talk me through it darling” said my unflappable husband. So I did. To give him his due, he didn’t actually laugh out loud but instead declared me “a perfect wife” with absolutely no hint of irony.

And so, just for you, at enormous expense, is The Good Wife’s Guide from Housekeeping monthly (13 May 1955 edition) along with Nunhead Mum of One’s Guide from 7 January 2008.


Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Spend the best part of the weekend planning the meals for the week ahead. Shop for enough ingredients to last several weeks, freezing where appropriate. Change your mind several times, right up to and including the time when your chosen dinner for the day should be in the oven but is, in fact, still frozen solid. If your husband has been drooling over the prospect of Beef Bourguignon with lemon and rosemary rice whilst he’s slaving away at The Office, imagine the nice surprise he’ll have when he’s greeted with roast chicken and a jacket potato instead.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking.
Gauge the time of his arrival. Go to the bathroom and drag brush through hair. Wipe mascara from underneath right eye and sit down on sofa for a breather. Try not to react violently when husband arrives home and says “is that all you do all day, sit around?”

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
Dutifully ask how his day has been whilst refereeing dogs feeding time. Make appropriate noises and throw in the odd laugh (it may be that you have to listen carefully in case he’s telling a story about how the MD had an angina attack by the water cooler) and then spend ten minutes or so filling him in on the minutiae of your own day until he glazes over and offers to do the washing up.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.
Clear away the clutter into various cupboards/unused rooms. Use excessive force on the door that refuses to close because it has crapola circa 1992 stuffed into every crevice. Completely forget to make one last trip through the house before he arrives home and dispense soothing words (whilst trying not to sigh in irritation) when he trips over dog toy/Action Man and hurts his ankle.

Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper etc and then run a dustcloth over the tables.
See above. Fail to locate dustcloth and use palm of hand, smearing dust nicely across surface.

Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Ensure the central heating system receives its annual service and turn thermostat up to high during the winter. Your husband will fall asleep in his armchair due to heat exhaustion and possible suffocation. Open window, lower heating and dispense medication for the headache he is now suffering. Grit teeth as he hits the roof when the bill arrives.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimise all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer of vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.
Suggest to child that daddy might quite like to see him without a ketchup smeared face and in a T-shirt without half the garden on it. Remind child that he is a little treasure and would he please stop whining. Fail to eliminate all appliance noise because you need child’s pyjamas dried in half an hour so have dryer on “super fast quick dry” programme which sounds like Boeing 747 attempting to land in utility room.

Be happy to see him.
Throw yourself joyfully at your husband on his arrival home, tripping over child and three dogs in the process, all of whom have the same idea. Express delight that he can now take over amusing three dogs and child and retreat to eat ice cream in kitchen.

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Smile incessantly, prompting queries as to whether you’re okay or have been at the Chardonnay. Be accused, when showing sincerity in your desire to please him, of trying to get round him for “some reason”.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Try to remember that a blow by blow account of his spat with Trevor from Accounts over his monthly billing sheet is far more important than you telling him that you’ve put diesel into his petrol run car.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.
If he is late home, try not to worry that it’s because you don’t wear a bow in your hair and don’t have a clean child and surfaces. Try to understand that queuing in the lunchtime rush at Pret a Manger can be very taxing.

Your goal: try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquillity where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
Your goal: as you have absolutely no hope in hell of ensuring your home is a place of peace, order and tranquillity, do the next best thing and get Sky so he can watch cricket/football/rugby matches until his heart’s content.

Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
Don’t greet him with complaints and problems until he’s been stuck into the wine for an hour or so and then hit him with the whole lot. Remember, whilst he is in an alcohol induced haze he is at his most amenable so now is the best time to negotiate.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink waiting for him.
Ensuring that he’s comfortable and offering him a lie down will arouse his suspicions enough to ask you if you’ve dented the car again. Offering him a drink immediately on his arrival will have the same effect. Bask in the warm glow of wifeliness and try not to mind that he is highly suspicious of your motives.

Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
Don’t be disconcerted that arranging his pillow and taking off his shoes has led him to believe you are trying to seduce him. You are obviously a sex goddess.

Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
If he wants to do something his way, let him. Even if you know that it’ll all go tits-up. If he brags about being “master of his own destiny”, smile sweetly and make your own alternative arrangements which he will adopt as his own soon enough. In the event of this happening, you have every right to point out where he went wrong for months afterwards.

A good wife always knows her place.
A good wife is what he’s got. Remind him forcibly at every available opportunity. Just don’t let him read the Housekeeping Monthly, 13 May 1955 edition and ensure that he is not in prolonged contact with any 1950’s throwbacks. It may give him ideas.

Scarlett James Cassia Grace....

.......was born at 12.37pm today! Weighing 7lb 3 ounces, she arrived after a 22 hour labour - Janey's waters broke while she was in the middle of ordering something from QVC yesterday. Darren didn't get lost on the one way system and they reached the hospital in record time. Ivy kept apologising to the nurses and telling them that she was ashamed of her daughter and her "foul bloody language" and Darren's mum Lou was desperate to know the "absolute final" agreed combination of names as she's going to arrange her tattoo appointment for tomorrow. "There I am, wondering when my placenta was going to put in an appearance and she wants to know if we're putting the James before or after Grace!" Janey hooted, slurping back the champagne that David had smuggled in.

Janey said that she "weren't half glad I'd pre booked me epidural" and said that there was one comical moment when Darren ventured down to the "business" end of the bed just as the baby was crowning and "went as green as the gown he was wearing" but, all in all said Janey, it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. That'll be the drugs talking I said knowingly.


Ivy was all misty eyed and not letting anyone else hold the new arrival and Uncle Jim had arrived (after having to practically park in Catford) without the camera so she sent him home to get it. As we were leaving, Mac ceremoniously gave "Scallet" one of his teddies "from when I was a baby" and I had to be scraped off the floor.


"When are you going to have another baby mummy?" Mac asked in a loud booming voice as we negotiated the warren-like hospital corridors. Lots of indulgent smiles abounded from the harrassed hospital staff but David had to whip into the coffee shop to get a "strong Americano".

Pregnant pause and teenage patois

Still no baby. Janey spent an uncomfortable and tearful Wednesday night and is now, Friday morning, seriously considering ringing the hospital to see if she could be “introduced”. Darren manhandled her into the hallway at ten to eight yesterday and draped her over the banister rail. I thought this to be a little callous and told him so but apparently this was the only position that Janey – for a while at least - felt comfortable in. She hung, stretching her back out and making groaning noises. Like a baritone bat.

“I could just turn up at the hospital and say I’m in labour and then they’ll just keep me in” she said hopefully as I dragged a chair into the hall so I could keep her company. Mac thought this was great fun and announced that he was going to make a “tent” under the stairs. “Won’t work, they’ll see you’re nowhere near labour and turf you out again” I told her, supplying my son with bedsheets, clothes horse and blu-tack. “Callous bastards” she said.

Yesterday passed very slowly. Katie (my erstwhile friend who only every really calls on me if she need something) rang to ask if she could borrow the car on Saturday to go to IKEA “to pick up some furniture in the sale”. Although I should be pleased she’s stopped living in almost-squalor in Rotherhithe (she used an upturned crate for a coffee table), I was less pleased that she wanted to purloin our car and load it up with flatpack furniture. You can bet your boots that she’d show no concern for the suspension.

David got home early, just before Darren appeared – the former apologising for the telephonic mix up of the previous day. Janey was reluctant to accept his grovelling and snapped “Listen, if you can get this baby out of me then you’re forgiven. Until you can do that you’re of no use to me at all.” The parents-to-be left shortly afterwards, Janey informing me she’d be back at the same time in the morning. Deep joy.

Freed from my shackles, Mac and I headed off to Surrey Quays for some retail therapy, me quite giddy at my freedom and Mac on the promise of a Burger King Happy Meal. We’re easily pleased. We mooched around BhS, skulked in Superdrug and meandered around the Body Shop. Suitably buoyed up by my “ave-we-gorn-raving-mad” price reduction purchases I realised that I’d spent twenty quid on stuff that would usually cost more than double that. So I bought David a shirt as well.

Whilst eating in the Burger King open plan area (and watching the estate agents do their stuff through their floor to ceiling windows) we were joined, at the next table, by three anaemic looking teenagers. The boys were dressed in silver grey tracksuits that hung around their crotch and trainers the size of tanks. One had a nose stud and a rather fetching black anorak half on half off his shoulders. The young lady was dressed in cystitis inducing tight jeans, wholly inadequate shoes for the weather, a voile shirt and bum freezer black denim jacket with her hair in a pseudo Amy Winehouse beehive.

I suddenly felt ancient.

I felt even older when they started talking. I couldn’t understand a word of it. I could hear them, being just four feet away from them, but it was a whole other language. Their conversation was peppered with phrases such as “yahknahwhattahmean?” and “isit me bruvverfromanuvvermuvver, isit?”. Then all three guffawed loudly. More baffling conversation followed. Those bits that I actually understood included “this is me ‘nah that ain’t right’ and then this is him “yeah it’s right innit’ and this is me ‘don’t vex me’ and then this is him “I’ll vex yah right up innit’ and then this is me……” on and on ad infinitum.

I pulled out a pen and started making notes on my napkin. The young lady just sat throughout this entire debate and, apart from guffawing loudly, made no contribution other than to look pretty and to check her phone for texts constantly. Then both boys turned their attention to her and suddenly we were in the playground again, you know, when the boy you fancied at primary school would pull your pigtails as a mark of his affection.

More conversation with her loud pleas of “Shuddup innit!” being the only thing that I could make out as they quite obviously enjoyed winding her up. Then “That rude boy Marcus is drooling for me Maria” from the anoraked youth. Maria, for it was undoubtedly she, took umbrage at this and started off on flurry of “leave it man, leave it, he’s just a mate innit, leave it nahyeah?”. I’d covered three napkins with this and Mac was showing more than a little interest. A ketchup covered chip had been hovering near his mouth for the past two minutes and hadn’t reached its destination. Maria stomped off at this point and both boys skulked after her after a suitable period of “way too sensitive man” being bellowed across the concourse after her. “Mummy, who were they?” my boy asked me breathlessly. Mac is under the impression that I know everyone.

Is this how young people (can you hear me mother?) talk these days? Where are the manners, the not slouching over a table, the not chewing gum with your mouth open? I looked at my precious child and suddenly saw him in thirteen years time lounging at a Burger King table joining all his words together and not pausing for air as he regurgitated some strange patois at his youthful friends. I tell you, it put me right off my Whopper.

On the way home I held a gentle discussion about the need to talk properly because it’s only right that you show people respect and that by disrespecting other people, you disrespect yourself. I think it was a tad too heavy (once I’d explained what disrespecting meant) because when we got home and showed David his new shirt he examined it closely and said “thanks darling but there’s no hole for my cufflinks” Mac demanded “are you disrepectsing my mummy?”

Due dates and a feeling of doom

Janey’s due date is today. She’s been packed for the hospital since the beginning of November, Darren has learnt the route to the hospital (he gets confused by one way systems) and Auntie Ivy has knitted herself into a nice spell of RSI. Janey is spending the day at my house because she doesn’t want to be alone, Darren will be collecting her after work at 4pm and has double checked that I know the way to the hospital. You can imagine the withering glance I gave him can’t you. She couldn’t face going to Ivy’s because “she’ll drive me insane following me round with a bucket in case my waters break”.

Amelia is being driven home by Jack today but keeps saying to Janey “if you want me to stay dear, I will.” Janey knows better than to do that. Amelia is only really angling for a longer stay because the news of her planned jaunt to Ireland did not impress her son who is worrying that she’ll get lost in the wilds of Dublin and won’t return. Here’s hoping.

Mac is fascinated by Janey’s forthcoming event and keeps asking her questions like “will it hurt more than when I stubbed my toe” and “how will the baby come out?” at which point I had to divert him by asking him to help Granny finish packing because I’m not ready for him to hear Janey’s vivid description. On being told, by her midwife, that the vagina was one of the largest and most flexible muscles in the human body, she told the wittering health professional in no uncertain terms that “something that could weigh more than 6 bags of sugar is not coming out of my lady garden – I want a cessation”. She meant, of course, caesarean. The midwife pooh-poohed her request and told her and the assorted pregnant ladies at the class that she would have nothing to do with the “too posh to push” brigade. Half of them got up and walked out to the nearest Costa Coffee outlet and she had to go and bring them back.

Still, it’s been a pleasant day so far. Janey finds it hard to sit, stand, walk or lie down comfortably so we spent much of the morning rearranging the furniture and the way she slouches in it. She finally found a comfortable way of reclining on the sofa (pillow under head, waist, calves and feet) but couldn’t eat or drink in that position so had to struggle to half sitting/half slouching position, using an arm to prop herself up on the back of the sofa. As a result, her white T-shirt is now splodged with camomile tea, baked beans and dots of chocolate where the recently scoffed Mars bar has melted. She’s also unbearably hot so both living room windows and the back door are open to cause a nice “breeze through”. All three dogs are huddled in their baskets in the hallway and Mac is in full jumper and jeans mode. And the cramps. She yelped so loudly at one point that I thought we were starting. “Where does it hurt?” I yelled, mentally boiling kettles and fetching towels. “My f****** leg!” she yelled back. Trust her to be the only woman in the labour ward moaning about her leg. Amelia refused to let Jack into the house when he came to pick her up because “Janey is in an ungainly position on the sofa and is swearing like a navvy”.

The open windows (curtains billowing in the force ten gale) have attracted interest from several neighbours. “I thought you’d been burgled!” Ruby Over the Road guffawed as she peered in the window to find me rearranging Janey. “I’m about to be” Janey muttered as I hoiked her left leg up in the air and rubbed it vigorously. Ten minutes later Jane Opposite stuck her head in, closely followed by her daughters Jessica and Melanie. “Whatcha doing?” Jane asked as she caught me (still) rearranging my cousin on the sofa. I stated the obvious to which Jane Opposite responded “You should get a beanbag, ‘ere Jess, go and get mine”.

Janey later said that having Jessica and Melanie, Marjorie Stewart and Jill with the Purple Door all watching through the open window as Jane Opposite and I lowered her onto the bean bag made her feel like she should be in a window in Amsterdam. And it wasn’t even comfortable. The minute Jane Opposite had shut her front door Janey yelped “Get me out of this!”. It took ten minutes to get her standing upright. “I’m not having another one” she moaned as she headed towards the toilet for the fifth time since she arrived. By the time she needed the loo for the sixth time she looked at me plaintively and said “Do you mind if I just pee myself?” My short, sharp answer propelled her to the toilet again.

Ivy rang at twenty to two to ask if anything had happened yet. Janey gave her a brief run down - “cramps, peeing every forty minutes, raging backache, so uncomfortable I want to rip my own head off, losing my patience” – and forcibly threw the phone at me. “I don’t want her here!” she hissed as I put the phone to my ear and heard Ivy say “I’ll just finish my lunch and I’ll come over”. I then spent five minutes convincing Ivy that the minute anything happened I’d ring her.

Then David rang to ask if I wanted anything brought in for dinner as I’d had The First And Only Woman Ever To Be Pregnant in the house since 8am and wouldn’t have the chance to prepare anything for dinner. Unfortunately, Janey answered the call and, as she and I sound alike on the phone, he had unwittingly offended her. She’s now taken to calling him “Your Husband”.

We then had tears at half two as Janey wailed that she couldn’t cope with this for much longer. I pointed out that her due date is just today and that many first babies are late (Mac was six days late) and she burst into fresh tears and hit me.

Kids TV at 3pm and Janey and I had a nice time cackling uproariously at all of the “yoof” television presenters while Mac tutted us disapprovingly. “Look at her!” Janey wheezed as a rather bouncy young lady in a purple T-shirt had a chat with an animated sock about all the birthday cards she’d had that day. “She’s getting paid to do that, I could do that and with less roots showing!” Bea dropped in at twenty to four with a hamper for “the mum to be” full of massage oil and aromatherapy stuff and we had yet more tears which re-doubled when Darren turned up and asked “where’s the baby then?” in a jovial fashion.

Bea castigated him for being insensitive and stood, open-mouthed in disbelief, when he asked me for a “cuppa before we go, I’m parched.” She followed me into the kitchen and said that she was so sorry and that she’ll try to pop in on Friday. I asked her what she meant (poor, innocent fool that I am) and she said “You know you’ve got this until she actually goes into labour don’t you?” The penny dropped as only pennies can. The whole situation was confirmed when Janey said that she’d be here at the same time tomorrow, give or take, depending on how her bladder was.

Under house arrest with very hormonal, very pregnant lady with no reprieve date in sight. I wonder if this is why they call pregnancy “confinement”?

Ouch.....!

Happy new year one and all.......wishing you all the best for 2008! xx