Yesterday we watched another amazing episode of Doctor Who, they brought K9 back. The best quote (forgive me as this is from memory)Mickey says "Oh my god, this makes me the Robot Dog!"

Spent a very nice Saturday afternoon with Sarah, James and their one year old, Elizabeth, they came round for lunch loaded with baby stuff they can't use which was fab, Tob made lunch and we went for a trip down to Anglesey Abbey and lode Mill. What was also great was we drove cross country, which is nothing unusual but this was not an area we usually go to. The Fens are beautiful and we passed through the beautiful village of Swaffham Prior. I can see us taking family there for a day out in the future.

Elizebeth had a tough time in the Abbey, so much stuff to see and touch and there were 'do not touch' signs everywhere, it was hard enough for me. She was most gracious.

I bought some plants, well £4.50's worth, so not a huge amount which I've now planted in the front garden with the rest of the Sempervivums (House Leeks) and alpines in my little rock garden bit. My god I'm dull.

Well went to see Kreuzdammer in Cambridge. They are members of the Goth Film club, make lovely loud industrial, dark NIN, like music. I can stay awake! I think I might well be getting my energy back for the 2nd trimester! I'm sure the glass of coke helped, it was a bit dissapointing as the venue cocked up the timing and they could only do 2 numbers as the place was only licenced until 11pm.
It was very loud and there was a fair amount of jumping around. I realised it might not be the best place for a pregnant woman and at that volume, I'm glad it will be a few weeks before pumpkin will be hearing stuff through the amniotic fluid. I very much liked it but it did make me think.
The last gig the resembled this was NoMeansNo at the Worlds End in Camden which must have been about 3 years ago. It used to be a weekly occurance. How lives change.
Now, I must get down the garden centre and buy some soil! I have tomatoes to plant.

New sensations

I'm about 14 weeks now, still feeling sick and have very strong sense of smell. A new sensation happened last night, I keep getting bursts of energy during the night. I kept waking up feeling like I should jump on a trampoline but of course really just wanted to get back to sleep. Aparently it's not uncommon to get 'restless legs' while pregnant. I think I have that too, I've become very fidgity and in keeping with all of Toby's sympathetic pregnancy symptoms, so has he. Bless him.

We finally have some holiday to look forward to; end of may to Holland and end of June to Italy. Looking forward to both.

nuchal scan video

When we had the nuchal scan done, I asked if I could take a video... 'we don't really' was the half harted response. However, I was allowed to take a photo of Christine lying on the bed. And I thought... well I've got my camera out now, and it doesn't look like a video camera, so if I'm subtle...

Afterwards, when I told Christine, she gasped and said I might have got them into trouble, but hey, we're paying a lot for this scan, so I think I jolly well ought to be allowed to take a video!

Of course, it came out sideways, but after a bit of messing about, I've managed to rotate it the right way round, and extracted a good clear bit.

Here he or she is, doing a headstand and waving those little legs and arms about! Samba!

Just to show everyone I can cook ;)

This was 'use up the veggies' day. We had frozen sweet potato chunks and roast vegtables, which I put in the oven, along with mushrooms, corgettes and leeks. The red brocoli I brought to the boil, then simmered. All topped with gravy with water from the brocoli. Completely veggi and very tasty :)

Freecycle

A college at work told me about Freecycle a few days ago. It's an email list where people offer up stuff they don't need anymore, for free, to anyone who can use it, rather than throwing it away.

It's great! Someone offered a Sony CD Walkman they didn't want, and I asked for it for Christine for while she's in hospital. This tickled the lady, and she walked round to my office with her own little baby, and gave the CD player to me, for free.

There's all sorts of things offered; pots of paint, old cars, wardrobes, bulbs, you name it. And there's lists all over the world. Take a look at the Cambridge area and find your local group!

13 week Nuchal scan

As Chrissy said, we had our 13 week Nuchal scan yesterday. I watched the screen in amazement as our little pumpkin flexed his (or her) arms and legs and jiggled around. I didn't mind having to wait for him/her to turn around because we got to watch our little bambino twice :)
The whole point was to measure a small sack of fluid behind the neck, which turned out to be just right, and to check the existance of a nose bone, which we saw :)
It was really a fabulous experience and seeing our pumkin move around really brought it home that this is a little life of it's own. I'm happy, awe struck and proud.

13 weeks and 2 days - it's kicking!

Well I can't feel any thing just yet but I did experience strange fluttering 'down there' yesterday afternoon. When it dawned on me what it might be it felt like I'd just been told the best secret ever and everything around me faded into the background while I had that moment and smiled.

Last night we went to the Rosie for the Nuchal Scan where they measure the skin on the back of the baby's neck and if it's over a certain size it can indicate possible chromosomal abnormalities linked to things like Downs Syndrome. As I'm over 35 it was recommended we do it so we did!

It was a very posh scan machine and the doctor was much nicer than the one from the Dating Scan a fortnight ago, she even warmed the gel...
The Baby was moving around, doing handstands, arms moving around, legs kicking, he/she twisted and turned, going upside down and round. We could see the heart bouncing up and down, the spine and at one point she pointed out his/her stomach inside so the organs are all forming too. He/she was moving so much she couldn't get the neck skin measurment so I got sent off to get a drink and walk around while she saw the next patient, then we went back in again 20mins later. Pumpkin had indeed settled down a bit and was reclined enough for her to take the statutory number of measurments to enter into the computer to work out the risk of Downs.

According to her findings everything is good, Baby is growing the right amount since the last scan, everything's in the right place and the skin thing was small. For my age, the risk was something like 1 in 300 chance of Downs and with the measurments and data they collected from the scan the risk went down to about 1 in 1900 which was the equivelent of a 15 year old's risk factor. So far so good. I've booked for my blood sample for the final part of the analysis next week.

Tob and I were very happy with the findings and having spent rather longer than expected looking at our offspring wriggling about we were very triumphant. I suggested Mexican food was in order so we went to a reasonable Tex Mex place I'd spotted a while back down on the other side of the river from Darwin College (if anyone knows of any proper Mexican Restaurants in Cambridge, please let me know).
I managed to keep it down, which with evening and morning sickness still happening I was very relieved.

As a certain someone else once said, From nothing we are made.

If I coud have just 9 LP's ....

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

It's a work in progress....

11 weeks and 5 days

Well this is now the official dating scan thing. The estimated due date is the 25th of October. Tob and I didn't leave ourselves anywhere near enough time to get across Cambridge not to mention the biggest hospital complex I've ever seen. I was 10 minutes late for my appointment but they were running late so Tob had time to catch me up having parked and we went in together.
Having been jellied the woman pushed the ultrasound so hard into my tummy it felt like I was being elbowed in the stomach. It worked though and she found my little pumkin very quickly. we could see the heart beat flashing. I was very moved to see it there, it was really there! I hadn't made it up and it really was this thing alive inside me, growing like mad.
Tob channelled most of his emotions into complaining about the lack of signage in the hospital and being very protective and wanting everything to be straight forward. Once we'd got across Cambridge, back outside my work he got all happy and emotional, letting it sink in. Our baby pumpkin!

I won again on 6 music today!

Yep I did it again, this time the Box Set 3rd Series of Nip Tuck for guessing the last 3 lines of a song. It was New Order - Regret.

I've got my first scan next tuesday :) fingers crossed we have hands, toes and heart in the right place.

Try putting your date of birth (no year) into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_anniversaries and then post the 3 best events, 2 births and 2 deaths on your blog!

I found it hard to stick to just 2 births and deaths though.

Events

• 1865 - History of slavery in the United States: William Henry Seward proclaims that the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution has been ratified by the legislatures of 27 of the then 36 states.
• 1892 - The first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
• 1969 - Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan's motion to remove the limit on the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, which suspended the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland for all crimes, except treason, piracy with violence, and certain crimes under the jurisdiction of the armed forces for a period of five years, is carried by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
  

Births (well they are good ones)

• 1943 - Keith Richards, British guitarist (The Rolling Stones)
• 1946 - Steven Spielberg, American film director 1946 - Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1977)
• 1948 - Bill Nelson, British musician (Be Bop Deluxe) 1963 - Brad Pitt, American actor
  

Deaths (I thought they were all good too)

• 1737 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker (b. 1644)
• 1787 - Francis William Drake, British Admiral and Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1724)
• 2000 - Kirsty MacColl, British singer and songwriter (b. 1959)

11 weeks - not as sick, still knakkered.

This is what's happening right now in my tum;
The fetus actually looks like a small baby human now. Eyes and ears are completely formed, inside and out. Extend your little finger. That's about the size of the fetus at this time. The weight is approximately 10 grams, or about a third of an ounce.

I still don't have my appointment for a scan, I have to ring the hospital tomorrow. My midwife's phone hasn't been working for a day and a half now. I'll try tomorrow...
Chantal in Holland told me that all the scans we have to pay for over here are standard and free in Holland and that pregnant women get an extra 30mins break at work every day too. I'd regret moving back but I wouldn't have met Toby (ahhhhh).

I think this is such a cool album cover. It's by Regina Spektor and it's called Soviet kitsch, this album will cost me a fiver from amazon along with a load of baby books about pregancy and childbirth I've been recommended to invest in and 2 other CD's from artists I've been admiring lately like Gogol Bordello (Tob really like them too - Gypsy Punks) and the Polysics (The Vapors meets Shonen Knife). It's not often I buy CD's anymore but these ones I am willing to make an exception. La La la! 

kikujiro - 3 stars - interesting.....

Quite a slow film, a bit of a road movie that ended where it started. A boy living with his grandmother wants to visit his Mum who he's never met and doesn't know anything about where she lives or any thing. He finds a picture of her during the summer holidays while he's bored cos all his friends have gone on holiday with their families. A complete asshole, kikujiro is paid by his wife to take the boy to see his mum. Why the woman trusted him I will never know but I suppose it was better than him going across Japan by himself. On the way they meet people, stuff happens, they sort of get to understand each other. Very Japanese, a bit slow and simple in places. It was interesting seeing normal every day Japan, but then again I don't know if it really is...Not sure I'd recommend seeing this film to anyone. 

Serenity - the best Sci Fi film ever ever off the scale

Fabulous, original, intelligent, entertaining, funny, thought provoking and just great to watch over and over again. I wish more action sci fi films has as much script content and decent characters like this has. 

I heart huckabees 4.5 stars out of 5 (even with Jude Law)

I watched this last night and it's hilarious, especially if you have any interest in philosophy or have done any crazy self improvement courses. Jude law has the worst American accent for a brit I've ever heard but every one else was excellent. There are so many bits that if you've done any thing like Landmark it will really crack you up. It reminded us both of Fight Club, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Magnolia in that it is about the empty and meaningless, the brutality, connectedness and that you are everything you could possibly aspire to right now, I am, you are alright I think it takes alot of creativity and insight to take the mick so well out of existentialism and philosophy, it also makes great entertainment. 

10 weeks - feeling sick most of the time, I can sleep for England.

The weekend was really nice! including the rain as I spent time planting summer bulbs, lettuce and kale. I might be taking a bit of a gamble considering it might freeze again but hey, it was a good weekend for gardening.Having spent Sunday morning in the garden, I spent the afternoon in the bath, followed by a sleep then watched Planet Earth in the evening - all about caves. I've been to some of the caves in Mexico - not the ones you have to absail into - the ones I visited involved canoes and torches. It was nice to re-visit them though - it was an amazing thing to see, once you get inside they open out like cathedrals.
I had a phone call from Erik from Holland end of last week, He'd heard via via that I was up the duff and wanted to congratulate me. We had a long conversation Sunday evening about this and that while I made shepherds pie, just in time for Planet Earth. It was with him, coincidentally I visited those caves in the Yucatan 10 years ago. Seems like a lifetime ago.
The next couple of weeks are pivotal in the baby's future - it's the 'fuel tank' transfer to the placenta that if that doesn't happen properly it's that that causes most of the 'M' words.
According the the BBC guide, this is what's happening this week:
The fetus makes plenty of movements, and can wave arms and legs, but you won't feel anything for several weeks yet. The outlines of tiny fingers and toes are just visible, though there are no fully-formed nails yet, and the digits are still fused together. The external genitals of the fetus are visible – before now, there has been no clear difference between boys and girls. The fetus can now wee, and the urine is discharged into the amniotic fluid surrounding it.
and the crucial one - this should happen by the end of this week:
The umbilical cord is fully formed around now, and doing its job of taking nourishment to the developing fetus, as well as taking waste products away.

Stereotypes and Medievel Obscenites...

Friday eve, we watched Firefly and all the DVD extras again!
Saturday I went to the sounds expo at Olympia. By the time I got to Earls Court to get the train to Olympia, I found myself on a platform with about 1000 Indian people of all ages and at first thought
'I've been in East Anglia for too long' then
'These people can't possibly be going to a sound engineers expo at Olympia 2 - I wonder what's on at Olympia 1...'
I finally asked a white middle aged couple if they knew what was on, it was an overseas property expo. I started laughing - Of course! The middle aged couple (the other stereo type for overseas property) they couldn't quite get it though. Then when we got on the train, there was a teenage Indian girl who looked at me and we both started laughing at the stereotypical nature of our circumstances. I was stood next to a black guy in a cool hat, I said
'I guess you are going to the sounds expo' he said yes and we chatted the rest of the way to the Expo about our plans and our families etc.
The expo was smaller than I expected and I had expected a wider range of products. I saw some amazing demos and picked up some brochures on studio supplies and talked to a few people. I talked to a guy who runs 3 day sound and recording courses in Islington - crash courses for people who are maybe musicians who want to get the basics, the course was designed to give you all the important bits of info if you need to record and produce something. I liked the sound of that as it would be good for me to get a background knowledge plus we talked about holding courses at the Plugin in Ely - I'm sure periodically we could muster enough people to hold one in Ely.
It was bitterly cold in London, met my Dad at Kings Cross about 4pm and we headed up to Ely. I'd got tickets to see the RSC perform the Canterbury Tales in Littleport Leisure Centre! it was Fab!
After eating a delish curry that Toby cooked we got picked up by Tob's parents and driven to Littleport for 3 and a half hours of Royal Shakespeare Company excellence. Sword fights, sex scenes, poo, rude words, and religious peculiarities - Chaucer in other words. It took a bit to tune into but it was so well done and funny that it was very universal - I think it's a semi-translation into 16th century English so it sounds more like Shakespeare.
Sunday Rowing, Sunday night I did an ostrich roast for the parents which went down well, we watched the best of the Muppets taped from Saturday night which was sadly disappointing in that it didn't actually show anything for more than 10 seconds and so to bed, another week awaits...

Super Pram with chrome...

Just came back from Tob's parents who really came to the rescue and cooked a delish meat pie with lots of yummy veg. I've been feeling sick all day and couldn't face food and yet was very hungry. I'm not sure what I'd have done if it was up to me to cook. It went down really well and I felt 1000 times better.
It was actually a very cosy visit and we both remarked on the way home what a nice evening we'd had.
Tob's mum has managed to find a proper old fashioned pram with chrome and dark brown leather look trim. I think it's fab, better than the ankle biters you get. I look forward to us wheelying into town!
Ellen's also found a 3 wheeler with pneumatic tyres that's very light and nippy in a charity shop! so we they have a nippy and a super pram which we will no doubt share plus we will probably get a car seat that clips on to a wheel frame so we will have an complete travel system!
These are some of the things that the bbc website say I will be experiencing:

• The fetus' heart is beginning to develop, along with the first blood vessels of the circulation system.
• You might find you need to wee more often – even at night. This is one of the effects of pregnancy hormones.
• Are you tearful or irritable with people you're close to? Mood swings can be a pain in pregnancy. It could be hormones, or a touch of anxiety at the idea of all the coming responsibility.
• You may have been feeling sick, and it may be getting a bit worse. Nausea and vomiting are symptoms of early pregnancy – and though it's a real nuisance, it's usually temporary, and harmless.

Well yes, feeling sick but not being sick. I tell you what, at work, I'm usually a bit outspoken but my response to an email last week informing me that one of the guys was too busy to cover customer support was 'Am I bovered?' I even cc'd the department manager! No repercussions so far though. I think they are scared...

My next favorite punky person, Kerrang have moved on to Green day now. Still happy.