Death Warmed Up

Sorry I've been so slack and not posted for a while, for once this is because we've actually been quite busy - and not just working! Friday night we went to the Old Packhorse in Chiswick with Andy & Sarah for their annual Hallowe'en do. Tudor & I dressed up - well Tudor's was pretty subtle but not bad for him:


That's two Bloody Marys please

I was on call by the way. Fortunately I didn't get called out, although walking on the labour ward splattered in blood probably wouldn't get a second look... Incidentally, walking down Chiswick High Road with a severed head and a machete didn't get so much as a quizzical glance from those passing by so if you're thinking of a career in psychopathic killing that's probably the best place to do your groundwork.

Saturday we went into London in the evening to see Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which was absolutely excellent. Extraordinary to see the guys who literally invented thrash metal hiring a therapist and explore their feelings. They even go as far as writing a Metallica Mission Statement! You don't have to like or even know Metallica to love this film.

Then today was spent in the ever delightful company of our friends Phillip and Zoe, who were having a Hallowe'en party. Boys will be boys, and these boys take their gadgets very seriously. Phillip dressed up as (a bit of a camp) Grim Reaper:


Ooh Death you are awful

And Tudor had rigged up a load of sound effects, so when Trick or Treaters came near, we had scary music, lightening/thunder effects, witches cackles and wolves howling. Phillip had a radio mic under his mask and Tudor had rigged up a load of echo on his voice so he could scare the children. I had reprised my 'psycho killer' outfit and also joined in, then Ellie and Morag, the two witches, handed round the sweets. Actually, most of the children seemed none-too-peturbed by us but alot of the parents were terrified! All in all it was apparent that we were having far more fun than any of the kids were...

Even little Elliot - Phillip & Zoe's little baby - joined in with all the fun by dressing as a pumpkin:


One MILLION dollars muah muah muah...

So a good time was had by all. Back to work tomorrow...

Tex Mex is great

Here is my tiny namesake (taken on my camera so excuse the terrible quality):

Mia & Ella Mia!

Just spent a delightful evening with my friends Guy, Chris & Jonathan (as well as m'dear hubbie of course), woolfing down tex mex, ranting about how crap football is and despairing at the merest thought that Dubya might get elected again. Surely not? Guy reckons this election is unwinnable and that it will be legal suit followed by counter-suit until about 2007. He's probably right. And by the way, jalepeno poppers are the greatest foodstuff ever invented.

RIP John Peel

I have been shocked and deeply saddened today by news of the death of John Peel. Known for his acerbic wit, musical insight and "everyone's favourite uncle" like qualities, the radio, television and indeed the world will never be quite the same without him.

John - we will miss you greatly.

The End Result & Soggy Fireworks

Just thought I'd post a picture of the results of my hard night's labour (pun intended - though technically it wasn't my hard labour but otherwise the pun didn't really work and so...oh forget it):

Baby Kairan & me -you can probably tell we've had a long night...

I got back at about 9.30am Sunday morning, had about 4 hours sleep and then got up to go to my dad's house for food and fireworks. Basically, every year we have a fireworks in memory of my step-brother Nick, who died 5 years ago this year. The food was fantastic, as it always is at dad & Jackie's (next time you hear we're going over there I thoroughly recommend you invite yourself along). However, this year, just as we started with a few taster fireworks, the heavens opened and the subsequent monsoon conditions meant we had to abandon play. Was Nick trying to tell us something, we wondered? A few hours later when we decided to head off I looked around for my handbag containing all my worldly goods including my iPod, only to discover it still outside on the patio, as wet as an otter's pocket. Bugger.

Quite tired still now...

Hard Day's Night

I'm sitting here on the labour ward at 2am with someone in labour. It's an induction that started on Thursday so it's been a long haul for us both (no I haven't been here all that time!) but hopefully we're on the home straight now though. I'm pretty tired now, I must admit, and the thought of going through till at least 8am...well it's not a pretty one. That said, the woman I'm with is a delightful 17 year old and her lovely boyfriend so could be much much worse I suppose. We've also got a top team on the labour ward tonight. Good doctors, good midwives and good anaethestists - how often does that happen? (For those of you who don't work in the NHS the answer is: not very often at all)

In other news, I've just finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban today for probably the, I don't know, eight time? What a brilliant book. Now I can start on my favourite, Goblet of Fire, before JK Rowling's grip on me is released and I can read some of the other books I have stacked up by my bed. Currently there is The Five People You Meet in Heaven which I think looks brilliant, as well as Dude Where's My Country. I've also just bought The Da Vinci Code, which my brother-in-law Mick tipped me off about. Ooh and I think I'm going to have to put this one on my Christmas list. Any other suggestions? I love books me. Sometimes I daren't go into Waterstones, it's like a pharmacist to a drug addict...

Yawn...

Last night we had chilli for the first time in absolutely ages. I had forgotten how delicious it could be. As is my wont, I made enough for sixteen people, so Tudor & I had to eat extra portions - it's a hard life - and still had loads to put in the freezer.

Sadly, the above missive demonstrates just how uninteresting my life is at the moment. Work work work, getting home in time to eat and go to sleep and back to work again. Sorry.

However, I have today off (well, I'm still on call but no visits planned) so I will endeavour to find something amusing and interesting with which to astonish you all.

I'm not hopeful.

Parking Tickets, Torture & Dubya

Firstly I want to rant a the fact I got ANOTHER parking ticket on Friday. Despite that fact that I was on the scooter, I was for some reason best known to Kensington and Chelsea expected to pay and display, even thought there is nothing to secure the ticket to the bike and therefore nothing to prevent any Tom, Dick or Harry from picking the (very soggy due to the horrendous rain) parking ticket from the bike and placing it in their own vehicle. No other local borough expects you to do so, realising of course that it is bloody ridiculous to expect it, and that you might as well insist that every car displays a live ostrich on the dashboard. 50 bloody quid. That's £250 that various London boroughs have had out of me over the past 8 months or so. Naturally I will contest it so keep your fingers crossed and if any, say, trainee lawyers (like, for example, my sister Jenny or my friend Rosie) would like to fight my case, I'd be delighted to let them do it for practice...

Secondly, you'll be pleased to know I made it to yoga yesterday. You might be pleased to know it, but I on the other hand am not, seeing as I'm in AGONY today. Clearly I hadn't realised how flexible I had become and having 6 weeks off has sent me sliding back down the snake to square 1. Muscles I had no idea existed are hurting like never before.

So yesterday we set off for deepest darkest Kent to attend our friend's Fahrenheit 9/11 Anti-George Bush evening. I had arranged for us to stay in an Oast house as a surprise for Tudor, who played along spectacularly by complimenting every Oast house we passed on the way down and saying how much he liked them... This is where we stayed:

A Little Bit of Oast

We had a top evening, even if the film, which Tudor & I'd seen before when it first came out, is a little depressing. Everyone should see it to make sure we all know a twat Dubya is. Guy & Sue, who's do it was, were the consummate hosts, providing lots of food for us to hoover and their kids were absolutely gorgeous as usual. For some reason I didn't get a picture of Sam (age 3), who is very lovely indeed but I did get one of Connor (age 5), who we have always referred to as Two Buttons. This is because he isn't just as cute as A button...



Finally today, after a lovely breakfast in the Oast house cooked by Marianne who had FIVE homebirths (count 'em!) we headed over to Jan & Barry's for the day. We visited the Bursledon Windmill and then headed over to Hamble to look at the sea. On the way, Barry urged Tudor to slow down on a particular stretch of road where the police always hide on a Sunday to with their hairdryers waiting to catch drivers over the speed limit of 30mph. At this point, Tudor realised that this was the stretch of road that, on the way to Barry & Jan's, he had put his foot down to overtake all the ridiculously slow Sunday drivers who were ambling along at 30mph...oops. Only time will tell whether Tudes got away with it. We'll keep you posted.

Just came across this which is just fantastic. Now I want you all to go out and create your own...

Busy busy busy

Been a very busy week at work. My partner Alison is away this week and I've been trying to squeeze a bunch of her work in as well as my own and I've had some pretty tricky things to deal with too. Still the working week is nearly all over for me - because of the way we work i.e. on call every other weekend, we always have three days on our off-call weekend so we can guarantee 3 days off in a fortnight. Does that make sense? Basically I get either Friday or Monday as well as the weekend because the following weekend I might not get any days off depending on what's going on baby-wise... So tomorrow I'm going to have lunch with my ex-brother-in-law (there's a lot of hyphens in that, isn't there?) followed by, oh, who knows, a bit of a shop? Seems rude not to...

By the way, I've just had a baby named Ella Mia after me - this is the girl who was having all the breastfeeding problems (all going fine now thank you). I'm very touched indeed. AND she let me have some Jamaican Ginger Cake whilst I was there today. Does life get any better I ask myself?

With the big election in the States coming up, see who you think has the best moves between Kerry and Bush. No contest as far as I'm concerned...kick redneck ass Kerry!

Dear Diary, today was a GOOD day...

Attended a really really lovely homebirth this morning. The woman was having her third baby and they really couldn't be a more delightful family. Both her other children were there (they are both under 3) and the look of amazement when they saw their baby sister's head come out was fantastic. If there are any of you out there who still think birth is a scary, horrible thing that needs to take place in a hospital, I really wish you could have been there to see how wrong you can be. It was quite quite beautiful.


Job's a good 'un!

Shortly after I left there, I got a phone call from the woman I was talking about yesterday, who has been having a tough time breastfeeding. My colleague (and friend) Cindy had gone round there after the homebirth and the baby was suckling really well - the woman was as proud as punch!

Went to see Dodgeball this afternoon to recover from all the excitement. It's hardly going to change my life, but it was very amusing nonetheless. Can't beat a good underdog story...

Breastfeeding, yoga & biker jackets

I've had a very frustrating day - been over to one of my clients house today to help her with a few breastfeeding problems she's having. I find it quite the hardest part of my job. For lots of women breastfeeding is no problem at all, some have a bit of a tricky start but all go after that, and a few (fewer than you'd think...) take quite a lot of input before you can really get it started. This is such a case and I find myself getting SO personally involved...very tricky to handle. Anyway, she's quite my most favourite client, we get on like a house on fire and she's very determined to make it work, so I'm sure it'll all work out okay.

I missed yoga again today though, because I went round to her instead. That's five weeks I've missed now! Two because of our holiday, one because of the bike exhibition, one because of filming last week...bad girl.

In other exciting news, I bought a new bike jacket today (I look a bit nicer in it than the girl in the photo I reckon, not so bulky, but maybe I'm deluding myself) which should keep me safe and warm over the winter...

Gigging

Lead singer Chris Healey dreams of his long awaited rhinoplasty appointment


The Keyboard Player plys his craft

The much anticipated arco (no capitals please!) gig took place on Sunday. Been waiting for photos to come back before I posted about it (I forgot my own camera - duh!) Good do all round, great playlist and Tudor was note perfect. As far as I could tell anyway... Only thing that was a bit of a pity was that they had rehearsed three songs to be played as encores, but when they finished their main set and went off (to what was basically a broom cupboard next to the stage), the rapturous applause died down a little too quickly, despite my best efforts to keep it going, and then the barman put the house music back on, making an encore impossible. Tudor et al. then had to wait in the broom cupboard for what seemed to be an appropriate amount of time before eventually sneaking back out, as though they had been doing something very important, to their awaiting fans...

Spotted a brilliant typo this evening. We went to the Anglers pub in Walton with our friends Sophie & Dan and on the back of the bar menu it said: "Please collect cutlery and condiments yourself. Witch is by the main door." I looked but I couldn't see her...

Filming, Harry Potter and naked people

I've spent the day filming today. Well, no, that's not entirely accurate. I spend the morning sleeping and listening Jonathan Ross, natch, and the afternoon filming. The filming has been for 'The Secret Diary of Sam Jackson' and the story of how this all came about is far too long-winded to go into just now but maybe I'll tell you all later. Suffice to say that it is a (sort of mock) documentary I've been involved in for quite some time now, which had finished filming until Guy, the director, decided we needed to bung a few more bits in to make it make sense. Am I making any sense? Anyway, much fun and chocolate (Dairy Milk: it's in my contract) was had by all.

Harry Potter. Ah Harry Harry Harry. I finished the Order of the Phoenix (book 5) again the other day and immediately picked up book 1 to begin the whole wonderful thing all over again. I really can't wait for book 6, which will be entitled The Half-Blood Prince apparently, to come out. If you haven't read them up to now, I URGE you to go out and do it now. Why would I want to read a kid's book, you may well ask? Well, what I think is most remarkable about these books is that, as you may be aware, each book details another year in Harry's school career. This means that in each successive book, Harry is a year older (beginning at 11 and currently 15) and along with this, the reading age of the book goes up. The first is a kid's book - clever and absorbing undoubtedly, but a kid's book. But by the time you get to book 4, the Goblet of Fire, it really is very very dark indeed. The end of book 4 is genuinely chilling, I get goosebumps reading it. And don't come to me with all your 'But the films are out, why don't I just watch them instead' nonsense. If that is really what you think then you have no soul, none whatsoever. How can a film EVER give you what a good book can? An experience so individual, so personal to the reader that it touches you in a way nothing else ever could - it is assimilated into your consciousness and changes you and the way you think forever.

Oh dear, that's all a bit wanky, isn't it?

True though.

And I've got a bit of a thing about Professor Remus Lupin at the moment too. THAT'S how real a book can be.

Yes, I am obviously a bit sad.

In other news, my ex-brother-in-law (who still counts as family as far as I'm concerned!) Mick, has been involved in a rather interesting project recently. They've produced some dress-em-up fridge magnets, Mag-Babes and Mag-Boys, which I urge you to check out and play with but ONLY if you are open minded and don't mind seeing men's and women's rude bits. VERY rude bits... I like Nico best.

P.S. Still sparkling...