CHILD PHOTOGRAPHY

bright eyes
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Did I ever mention I'd love to be a child photographer?

FORTY-ISH

my cake
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Some of you may have realized I was celebrating a rather significant birthday this week. For weeks I've been asked what I wanted to do to celebrate - this question was usually huffed and growled at but Monday came around all the same!
Celebrations started on Friday when HarperCollins threw its usual birthday party for me in the Marriot hotel - for some reason they call it Collins' New Year party but it is always at my birthday weekend, so I assume it is my birthday party. That consisted of some sushi and a Chinese meal.
Next my old breast feeding group turned up from the distant places they have all moved to - originally we were all Glasgow West Endies (though Cynthia is American) but nowadays we're in Bridge of Weir, Lancaster, Inverkip and Newton Mearns. They brought me this lovely cake and some pretty picture frames, but more importantly they cheered up my mood with tea and coffee and tales of the old days. I still miss our Friday afternoon chats like crazy all these years on but know we'll all always be there for each other - truly special friends.
Then the gruesome day arrived. Thomas took the day off work - probably to experience my grumpiness first hand! He bought me some studio flashes so I can do better portrait photography - he's obviously worked out what is close to my heart.
We went for a Japanese lunch - inspired by the sushi at Collins 'Chinese' night! That was nice though a little stressful as it was Léon's first trip to a restaurant with no nappy on. Some sushi, a Japanese curry and 12 toilet trips later we picked up the kids from school and went to ASDA to buy a roast for dinner.
Thomas had invited my parents, my brother and sister-in-law to dinner. He then proceeded to cook a delicious prawn cocktail, a roast beef and a home-made lime mousse for dinner, while I ran around snapping at everyone as the house was in a bit of a state, but I calmed down in time to have an absolutely lovely evening with my man, my kids and my family, with beautiful gifts of an amber bracelet, a DKNY watch and a new mobile phone - oh and several bottles of bubbly.
Pudge announced to everyone at the end of the meal that it had been positively yummylicious - think that's a thumbs-up for Thomas's cooking.
Now my only plans are to read the studio flash manual and try not to change decade again in the near future.
Thanks to all for a lovely day.

BULK REFUSE AGAIN

Plank of Wood
Originally uploaded by laungmai

So they finally came as promised on Monday... I thought at first they'd taken everything away but then noticed they'd left behind one plank of wood. Odd! All was, however, explained on a hand-written note through my door: We have left your plank because it is too large for our lorry... The bulk refuse department had left my bulk refuse because it was too bulky. Cool - must phone and ask what their plan B is!

SECOND-HAND ROSE?

green babies
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I always thought Marcel looked just like a wee dolly in this home-made woolly suit. Today I realized I had a photo of all 4 in it - pity I don't have one of Gordy too. Anna may feel like a bit of a second, no third, no fourth-hand Rose in it, but I can assure her each of her siblings only wore it 2 or 3 times, given they all grew out of it at 6 or 7 weeks.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

Happy Groundhog Day!
Originally uploaded by Flatbush Gardener

Hey, apparently today is groundhog day (we're in for 6 more weeks of winter according to Phil this year, by the way). Anyway, more importantly, if we're going to get stuck on today, we're never going to reach Monday - wouldn't that be tragic!?

NOSTALGIA

nostalgia
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I've been tidying out a lot of old boxes today and I found this. How fondly I remembered it and its many hours of use over the years. I went to throw it in the bin, knowing sadly, it would never ever be used again and then suddenly wondered firstly how many people would actually ever have seen one and know what to do with it if they had one, and secondly whether there might be some sad nostalgic nut out there who might pay for one on ebay now or in the distant future - just for old times' sake. I think I'll put it in the loft for now just in case.
:-)

CALL ME PSYCHIC

Call me psychic - I almost blogged this yesterday morning, sure it would happen before it happened but stupidly I gave them the benefit of the doubt!
Last week I was indignant to find out that East Renfrewshire council expects me to pay for a bulk uplift of rubbish I didn't want to take in my car to the dump (a fridge, freezer etc). Indignant because Glasgow city council doesn't charge and I have only just moved back to this council district.
Anyway - after 3 days tripping over an unsightly pile of fridges, freezers and packaging in my back garden, suddenly £20 seemed an easier option than 3 trips to the local dump with 4 kids in the car.
I rang them Tuesday and inquired about their refuse pick-ups. I was told I should pay £20 for 2 men to work in my garden for 15 minutes. Hold on then, I thought, a fridge and a freezer don't take 15 minutes so I booked the council, got a job number and asked them to pick up all the rubbish in my back garden, assuming I could make quite a pile by Friday. Oh no - they said, you can't say that - we only pick up things specified because otherwise they might accidentally take your garden table or kid's trampoline and you'll try and sue us - whatever happened to common sense and human judgement? Ho hum... Ok I'll make a list and get back to you, I told them. Be sure to quote your job number and you have to ring before Thursday at 2pm so we can draw the lists up for the vans, they replied. So Wednesday Dad and I moved some planks, some shelves, a kitchen worktop, a sink, and an old door onto the pile, and despite the rain and gales I even added a chair and a stool. I paid Marcel £2 to neatly arrange my pile by gathering rubbish from all over the garden in the freezing cold so the numpties couldn't miss it. I rang at 5pm Wednesday, I gave them my number. I asked them to read the list for that job number - a fridge, a freezer, some packaging. I told them to add some planks, some shelves, a kitchen worktop, a sink, an old door, a chair and a stool to the list. I made them read me back the list:
a fridge
a freezer
packaging
some planks
some shelves
a kitchen worktop
a sink
an old door
a chair
a stool
On Friday morning I opened the curtains - the fridge was gone, the freezer was gone, everything had been moved a metre to the right and the packaging had been taken from the bottom of the pile. I rang them and gave my job number, I asked them to read me my list, assuming the Wednesday numpty hadn't saved the complete list and common sense had taken flight when the guys were moving my rubbish off my rubbish to get to my rubbish but no, she read my whole list. Oh I'm sure they'll be back she replied. (Too bloody right they will!) By 4pm they weren't back - she insisted they still hadn't finished for the the day but if by any chance they still hadn't taken the rest by the end of the day, I should ring again Monday and she'll send them back free of charge. Given I am not likely to be in the best of moods Monday, as it is my unspeakable birthday, they bloody better!

IL PAVONE SUD - OVERPRICED CULINARY MEDIOCRITY

I forgot to blog this the other week, or rather Thomas and I both discussed blogging it and in the end neither of us got round to it. When we sold the flat we decided to go for a nice meal in the Village Curry house, for the 3rd time in as many weeks, taking my parents and Thomas's sister and family too. That night 6 adults, 3 kids and a baby ate an outstanding meal for £95 - amazing, no? A few days later with everyone gone, the kids with André for the night and both our fridge and freezer broken down, we decided a quick meal out for two would be an easy option. Figuring it was too soon to go back to the Village, and both feeling tired, we opted for the local Italian place - Il pavone sud. I had eaten in the Glasgow branch 10 years ago and it was fine so was quite looking forward to my dinner.
It didn't start wonderfully well. It was 7 o'clock on a Thursday night but there were only about 3 tables taken up despite the fact they had 20-30. We decided we wouldn't bother with alcohol as we just wanted some food, so ordered two cokes. When they brought the cokes they were in glasses about a third the size of your usual restaurant glass and half full of icecubes - no big deal. We looked around and were amused by the fact that they were mightily over-staffed - one chef for each person eating there that night, 3 waiters available per table and a restaurant manager wandering around. Maybe they expected it to get busy later.
For starters Thomas ordered the pâté and salad, I ordered the mushrooms. The pâté came discoloured, with less than half a slice of toast cut thinly and a tiny salad. My mushrooms were quite odd - they were boring button mushrooms that had been fried though not in much butter, but they came on sweet brioche bread with hollandaise sauce which was a bit like overthick garlic custard! Interesting - I'll try anything once.
For the main course Thomas had lasagne and I had risotto. The lasagne was unaccompanied - no salad, no garlic bread and about the size of portion I would serve Léon in the house. Thomas ordered a side portion of garlic bread to supplement and it came as two small slices (and was charged extra). The risotto was bland - the rice was cooked to the right consistency but had little or no butter or parmesan in it - like they were trying to make that fattest and most rich of Italian dishes into a healthy diet food - a bad move... give me one of Thomas's risotto's from Jamie Oliver's cookbook any day!
The dessert was cheesecake and though on the set menu, was charged £3 each extra. It was quite nice - green with a sprig of mint on top - but the actual cheesecake was not obviously a particular flavour - it might have been mint because it was green but it might even have been pistachio - I really don't know!
After all this we decided to opt for coffee at home instead.
We asked for the bill - 40 something quid. Not particularly overpriced, though nothing like the value we get at the village...until you consider the starters were hopeless, the maincourses were child portions and we had no alcohol or coffee.
Next time I feel like an easy meal and find myself in the shopping centre in Newton Mearns near Il Pavone sud, I will remember that I can have tiger prawns and two of Marks and Spencer's best steaks with a bottle of wine by walking a few steps further.

LIFE'S A BORE!

Today Anna got to meet her Collins co-bump. Julie, from the Production (no pun intended) department was about 3.5 weeks behind me all through my pregnancy and from half way through we both knew we were having little girls, so we'd planned to meet up once we were both on the other side. I was in the middle of a photoshoot when wee Aimée yawned, instantly Anna, who was staring at her, caught her yawn - I didn't realize that was an instinct that started so early (Anna is 6 weeks old, Aimée 3). It was a very sweet sight. When I showed this photo to Carol, another dictionary co-worker, her reaction was to ask if we'd shown the girls a dictionary or something equally boring - funny!

OH SHIT!

A little wet
Originally uploaded by carolclarinet

It's raining in our living room! The weather in 2008 has so far been rather gruesome - we lost a dozen roof slates 2 weeks ago and today, during yet another nasty gales plus blizzard storm something must have blown off the front of the house above the living room window because around 6pm a bucketful of water poured in above the window frame and then stopped as suddenly as it started. I guess the insurance company is going to be sick of us by the end of this winter - what with a break in at our other house the same week as the last storm damage claim :-\

HUMBLE PIE

The 3 little grandweans
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Today I dropped in on mum for a little while and Amanda dropped by too. As I hadn't known Amanda was coming, I hadn't brought my camera so I stole dad's for the obligatory baby photo shoot. When I uploaded them to flickr the same problem I had described last month occurred. But this time I had checked the camera settings so I suddenly realized the problem had to be in the flickr uploader settings rather than the Nikon settings. I checked them and quickly found that the uploader was downsizing dad's photos to the ludicrous 800x500 pixels. I know in the past dad has been guilty of trying to save his hard disk by taking minuscule photos but this time it looks like flickr is to blame, not dad. So sorry for the rant!

BEAUTIFUL SMILES

 

Isn't this a sweet photo of Anna smiling at Thomas in the mirror?
:-)

WHY SCOTLAND CAN NEVER SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

Wednesday 20 June, 2007
Originally uploaded by Mellie*

I was in Primark yesterday buying some pyjamas for Léon. I had noticed the last time I was in that Primark had switched from plastic to brown paper bags in an environmentally conscious move. Once the shop assistant had finished packing the pyjamas into my nice brow bag, he then filled it with other identical bags. Huh? He explained that all week in the pouring rain people had been complaining that they had got half way down Sauchiehall street before their envirobag had disintegrated leaving their new clothes in a soggy puddle at their feet, so were now trying to cover shoppers by giving them enough bags to get back to their car even on a rainy Saturday in Glasgow! So plastic may be out but each shopper is now using 3 times as many bags!

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

What the hell is this?
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Today I decided that despite my cracked nipple and general hatred of expressing milk, I needed to make a start on Anna's initiation to drinking my breast milk from a bottle if I was to stand any chance at all of going to the Collins dinner dance next Friday.
It didn't start well. Apart from the obvious cracked, and aching boob, I went through the drawers and found all the bits of my much-detested Avent Isis breast pump - I loathe it with a passion - except the pumping handle, rendering it absolutely 100% useless. So I had to drag myself up to Asda at 9pm in the pouring rain and stormy wind. They had a new Isis for £18, which I knew would be the easiest manual pump, as it is actually the only one I have ever grudgingly got the hang of, but given how little I intend to use it, I figured the Tommee Tippee £10 pump was probably more sensible.
I came home, sterilised it, and sat for 20 minutes producing a pitiful 30ml. I figured that although that was very little, it would be enough to test whether or not Anna could work out how to suck on a bottle, given exclusively breastfed babies are notoriously stupid when it comes to bottles, lapping at the teats but not sucking and getting nowhere fast.
Half an hour and a whimper or two later Anna has got nothing out of the bottle except a great deal of frustration.
She's tired and very unhappy and considering seriously how to learn to shout 'Bugger off, dad!
The steak and haggis on Friday night looks like it might be hanging in the balance!

AVENT NIPPLE PROTECTORS

Today I paid £4-49 for a pair of these hideous things. They are made of fairly rigid plastic, stick out so far they catch the back of the baby's throat and make her gag, and encourage her to suck rather than lap at my breast in the usual way. They dull the contact with the baby so neither of you feels the same closeness. And they need to be sterilised - and given I don't own a steriliser of any sort, that meant cold water sterilising tablets which leave a yucky aftertaste of bleach. On the plus side, they mean I can try to allow my cracked nipple to heal while still breastfeeding but I sure wouldn't recommend them except to protect sore nipples.

LITTLE LEECH

Too much information I am sure, but don't worry, no photo attached...yes I have got cracked nipples for the first time ever. That little leech has totally destroyed the right one and partially grazed the left. Odd - the others never did that. Mind you, I have noticed recently she's not been opening her mouth widely enough but rather sucking it in lazily past her gums. My mistake was not to correct her, assuming my battleworn boobs could cope with anything the little people could throw at them. Wrong! Ouch!
I now have the challenge of trying to express milk - something I am not particularly good at and I hate doing with a passion - for next Friday complete with wounded boobs, as Thomas and I had intended to attend HarperCollins annual dinner dance for the lovely meal. And however much I enjoy a free meal at the Marriot, I am not willing to compromise my 'not a single mouthful of formula before solid food' motto that I have rigidly stuck to always as I hate the stuff with a passion and all it represents. I guess if the boob continues to ache, I could always wear something loose and hide her inside just till the meal is over ;-)

...lucky for me Thomas happens to have a tube of the antiseptic cream Danish farmers use on cows with sore udders...what?! Cultural differences between close European countries never cease to astound and perplex me!

SIMPSONCALLAFRAGILISTICEXPIALA-D'OH!-CIOUS

Yesterday the kids showed me one of the best episodes of the Simpsons I have ever seen. A parody of Mary Poppins, which was fresh in my memory from having watched it with Léon at Xmas, this 8th season episode pokes fun at the US with some wonderful songs. Pity they didn't make a movie-length version! Oh and it even contains a brief spoof of Reservoir Dogs in it too! A classic - even better than the Mr and Mrs Smith spoof they showed me last month.

A PLANNING APPLICATION AND A LOAD OF RUBBISH

I've been having fun today talking to East Renfrewshire Council . First I had to phone them because of the kitchen saga. When I rang MFI yesterday for an appointment, they informed me they wouldn't design me a new kitchen unless I already had a building warrant to move my kitchen into another room - sorry? I have to pay the council money for a planning application to change the internal layout of the rooms in my house, to improve them for my own use, in a way that no one from the outside can see, and wait 8 weeks for the paperwork - 8 weeks in kitchen hell - give me a break!? (Oh this also applies to turning a cupboard into a toilet... must mention to mum and dad they live in an unsellable house with an illegal shoe cupboard!) A great start - grrr - bloody council.

Later today when trying to put out my bin, but being unable to, as it was full half way through the week as always, I got the idea to ring the council once more. This time I asked for the refuse department and asked how I went about getting an extra wheelie bin. Oh you can't, came the reply, we encourage recycling you see! Yes I know you encourage recycling - that's why I already put all my glass, paper, tins etc in my blue bin but you see 6 people create more than one bin of non-recyclable rubbish a week. I pointed out my bin was the same size as my parents' bin three streets away and enquired whether the little girl on the switchboard thought that 2 pensioners used the same bin capacity as 2 adults and 4 kids. Probably not but the only solution is to recycle more, she told me she could offer me a free extra blue recycling bin but no extra normal bin! So from now on I guess I need to buy beer instead of milk for Léon as they recycle beer cans and bottles but not plastic milk bottles. Oh and I should stick to tinned food instead of fresh as they'll recycle my tins but not fresh food packaging!

Oh and a final rant - I asked if they could make a bulk uplift from my address as my old fridge and freezer and packaging from the new one are currently making my garden look like a dump to save me spending a day driving up and down to the dump filling my beautiful car with dirty rubbish - sure they said - £20 per 15 minutes spent by their guys.

Remind me what it is I pay council tax for? Oh yeah - the decent schools...

ANNA

Anna aged 4 weeks
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I dressed Anna this morning and went about my business as always. As the day went on I remembered I had a photo of Charlotte wearing the same trousers back in 2000 but couldn't remember when it was taken. I dragged out my old photos from 2000 and began to think I was mistaken. By the time I had passed 3 and then 4 months, I really was at a loss. Imagine my surprise when I found it entitled: I'm taller - Charlotte August 2000!

NEW KITCHEN

We need a new kitchen desperately. Our oven doesn't work. Our gas hob has 4 tiny burners. The extractor is next to useless. The new replacement fridge and freezer are standing in the middle of the room blocking cupboard access and removing use of the work surfaces for a whole wall. The hideous doors are hanging off too. And the tumble dryer is in a different room from the washing machine. Derek told us about a Kitchens Direct and how he'd negotiated them down to nearly half their original quote when they'd installed his kitchen. I went onto their website and found they'd a half price sale. Perfect! I even arranged Derek to come round and use his legal skills to negotiate down the ridiculous price we would no doubt be offered, to one we were prepared to pay.
A salesman drove through from Edinburgh and started badly. Thomas and Derek showed him our new long extension room saying it was perfect for a kitchen, and he started explaining why the current small kitchen would be a better choice. They stuck to their guns and I even, at one point, heard him more or less suggest 2 kitchens - the current one with the washing machine, sink, dishwasher and tumble drier - a kind of wet room, and the new one full of cupboards - not quite my idea of the optimum kitchen triangle. Eventually they beat him into submission - we could choose how many kitchens we needed and which room to use. Result!
Two hours of measuring ensued culminating in an announcement that our kitchen would cost £13k...in their January sale. Wow, a £26k kitchen! I only paid £28k for a 2 storey extension of 4-5 rooms in my old house 3 years ago - even allowing for inflation, kitchens, to my mind, should always cost less than house extensions (especially when the house extension actually included an Ikea kitchen and all the plumbing and gas for it!) Derek then explained how much he expected us to have to pay, given the price of his own kitchen from the same company last year. Miraculously the kitchen fell from £13k to £10.9k to £9.2k over the next 10 minutes and our reply, of course... on your bike, we can get a kitchen in Ikea for £3k and there is no one in the west of Scotland who'd dare to suggest it'd cost £6k to fit it. All in all a disappointing evening.
I'm away to compare Ikea kitchens and B&Q kitchens with MFI kitchens now!
Having checked these now I feel invigorated, and sure I can soon have a perfect new kitchen for much less than nine grand :-)

New Kitchen
Originally uploaded by Thorin

BABY SNOT

Snotter
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/42225166@N00As you know our very own Banana Girl is now 4 weeks old. This phase of babyhood, I find, is marked by snuffliness. Tiny babies, probably up to 2 or even 3 months, from what I remember with the others, have such tiny nostrils, that their airways get completely blocked on a daily basis. They get anxious when they try to breastfeed as they can't breathe properly and eventually they end up sneezing out lumps of snot that even a fully grown builder would be surprised by. I have found from Marcel onwards, that you can loosen the snot and make them sneeze it out by dripping sterile water or saline solution up their noses and massaging olive oil or baby oil into their nose at the same time. I am forever astounded though that I have never seen baby snot mentioned in a single baby care book. I know it isn't a nice topic, but most first time parents must spend weeks at a loss wondering how to help their little cherub breathe and eat. I think I am going to start a Baby Bogey web help page ;-)

MY NEW BEST FRIEND

Thomas is a master of the understatement. This isn't just a tumble dryer. It is a cherished family member already. It is my new best friend. My house no longer has clothes drying everywhere. I no longer spend every waking hour ironing. This is even better at drying and de-creasing than the Candy dryer I had in the house. I wonder how I survived a year and a half without one. I must have been crazy to even have considered it. With 6 people in a wet climate, it is the only way to have any quality time. Everyone should own one - it leads to a higher form of existential contentment! ;-)

WHERE POTTY TRAINING MEETS FARCE

Pudge has well and truly got the hang of the potty now, so there are no more accidents, no more missing the potty accidentally accidents anyway. Picture this... (you'll be glad I am not uploading a photo with this posting.) Léon did a large, smelly poo in his pink potty. He picked it up and brought it round the coffee table to show me. I had just ascertained I needed to go to ASDA on my way home from the schoolrun, so had just turned on my laptop to email Thomas and ask if he wanted to add anything to my shopping list. I praised Léon and suggested he should take his poo to the loo. Instead of walking back the way he had come - that is to say the shortest, most direct route to the loo, he took an unexpected step backwards, tripped over my laptop cable, fell bum-first into my open handbag, bum still all 'yucky' and stood up with my purse glued to his buttocks with the protruding poo! Yeeeeeeuuuuuuuch! I think I want a new purse for my birthday suddenly.

Thought I had to blog this one in brown!

LATERAL THINKING

Lots at 8
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Thomas and I were sitting moaning about the fact that the doorbell in the house is too far away from the bedroom to be heard. With Comet bringing us a new frost-free freezer and salmonella-free fridge tomorrow, neither of us want to get up at 7-45am only to sit and wait till 6pm for the unnamed-time delivery slot. As we scratched our heads, Charlotte looked at us, as always, as if we were worse than stupid and instantly suggested reversing the baby monitor circuit - ie putting the baby unit in the downstairs hall, and the adult unit in the bedroom overnight so instead of hearing baby snooze while making breakfast, we'd hear the bell from under our duvet. I guess I'm just not as smart as an 8 year old...

POOR PUDGE

Poor Pudge seems to have broken out in a terrible eczema rash in the last 36 hours. Who knows what has set it off, or what to avoid in the future - I just know I have to get him to the doc in the morning to get something to ease his itching, poor wee guy. And hopefully get some allergy testing set up so we can avoid this in the future. What a worry...

GOODBYE ROSE

Place of conception
Originally uploaded by viralbus

It went through! The flat sale finally went through on Friday at around 1pm. We got an email confirming they had released the keys to 'Eleanor', the new owner, and later in the afternoon, we passed her coming out of the front door (and interestingly going straight into the letting agency next door - curious!), so she must definitely have coughed up the money, even if it'll float around some intermediate place for a couple of weeks before finally showing up in Thomas's account so we can clear all the credit cards that have got us through since September 07.
What a relief... though I'll miss free(ish) parking in town and the ability to quickly run to Sauchiehall street for a quick shopping spree, or Cambridge street for an Italian meal.

YUCK!

I passed this yesterday on the south bank of the river Clyde and I must admit it turned my stomach. I know I am not much of a drinker but find it hard to imagine anyone could face 'Alcohol at 8am' except my old deceased Gramps of course!

POTTY ABOUT HIS POTTY!

At last! After a week of clueless pee and poo everywhere around the house, in pants and everywhere else, followed by a week of pee and poo in the wrong places but at least accompanied by an embarrassed look, Léon has finally got it! Completely. He says potty, he uses it, he pees over and over looking very proud, and wants to carry it by himself to the loo and even waves it goodbye as he flushes it away! And he poos in it too - hurray! We're definitely on the right side of the hill now - a week from now, I estimate, we'll even manage ASDA in a pair of pants - what a clever wee man :-)

DO BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN?

Having looked at this, I am absolutely convinced no one actually suits blonde hair - in fact I'm away to dye mine dark brown!

SNOW PHOTOGRAPHY

The BBC liked my pegs :-) (Number 7)

EASY TO PLEASE

As you know, the past 5 months have been difficult. Two mortgages taking the entire salary on the first day of every month, no child maintenance and latterly 4 kids and me on maternity leave, has left few spare pennies for enjoyment. Santa is crumbling under the weight of his visa bill at the moment. With the flat sale potentially going through tomorrow, (fingers, toes and eyes crossed), Thomas asked the kids where they would like to go for dinner next week to celebrate if they could choose any restaurant in Glasgow... Charlotte jumped in immediately with: Can we go for meatballs in Ikea? I am speechless - she really is a child of minimal ambition!

PROUD OF HIS BIG BOY BED

 

Now Léon is getting the hang of potty, we thought we'd let him move into his big boy bed, complete with car duvet as a way of acknowledging his achievement. It was love at first sight. He looked happier than he had on receiving his Xmas presents, and definitely more proud. He went happily to bed without a moan and fell asleep quickly.

POST-IRONING PONDERINGS

I've just been ironing for about 4 hours - why did I think a family of 6 was a good idea? Anyway, I know I used to ponder socks while dealing with laundry (I still do - I will blog my odd socks next time I have a spare minute). However what struck me tonight was the different stages kids go through with relation to underwear... depending on their age and sex. Now, I was doing about 6 days ironing, so as you may imagine the basket contained 6 pairs of adult female pants, 6 pairs of adult male pants, and even, slightly surprisingly 6 pairs of little 8 year-old girl pants - however there seems to be a huge difference between boys of 2 and 10 - and I am in doubt as to which is best! My basket contained only 1 (yeuch) pair of 10 year old boy pants, and 18 (yeuch) pairs of age 2 boys pants!

CHARLOTTE

 

Charlotte was thrilled to find it had snowed for her 8th birthday! Pity it didn't lie longer.

A DECENT-SIZED FRIDGE

I already moaned about this house's cowboy appliances. We happened upon a thermometer in the flat the other day so decided to measure the temperature inside our dodgy built-in fridge - an impressive 11°C. Over Xmas Thomas had turned off the heating in both the porch and the kitchen-to-be in order to store extra drinks and vegetables for the big family meal on 26 December. We measured it - a slightly better 6°C. So I have just suggested we turn off the fridge altogether and move everything to the porch until we can afford a new fridge :-\

SIBLING GENETICS

Siblings are puzzling. Take Marcel and Charlotte. When they are sitting about downstairs with us, Charlotte appears on the surface to be more willing to help with setting the table, or tidying the living room. She argues and grumps less when asked to lend a hand. One might even be tempted to conclude that she is less lazy, more helpful and tidier. However, when you set foot in their own rooms, a whole other story shows itself. If I open Marcel's bedroom door, I may find the odd sweetie wrapper or empty coke can, and if I open his wardrobe, the clean washing I have asked him to put away is there inside neatly in piles of T-shirts, underwear, school clothes etc, all on separate shelves, much as I would do myself. Charlotte's room, on the other hand, if you can get the door open, is a minefield of dirty clothes strewn on the floor, her wardrobe has everything I have just ironed, thrown in together on one shelf and often mixed with dirty clothes she has put back in the wardrobe (arg). This is as far from my own personality as you get. Even looking in her wardrobe makes me a nervous wreck. I couldn't bear to live in such a chaotic way. I find it interesting that on the surface I feel she is more like me, while scratching it shows quite the opposite. I think Marcel is fairly lazy but likes order, whereas Charlotte, though dynamic and helpful, can tolerate a much higher level of chaos. It will be interesting to visit their homes as adults. I fear Charlotte's student dorm may be so scary, I may find myself twitching nervously for days after a visit! And to be quite frank, I think they would both do well to work hard at school, as both would function better as adults, if they manage to earn a salary high enough to pay for 'staff' ;-)
I wonder what Léon and Anna will bring to the chaos in a few years time?

SNOWMEN

As Léon mentioned on his own blog, he found his first real encounter with snow yesterday linguistically challenging. Over breakfast, he kept pointing at the garage saying 'snowman house', this was later followed by my car being described as a 'snowman car'. As the morning went on however, it became clear, Léon simply lacked the words 'snowy' and 'made of snow' in his vocabulary and was therefore using a word he knows well from Charlotte's early childhood fetish, assigning it these meanings!

EXTRA WASHING

In the washing basket
Originally uploaded by viralbus

I think it is fair to say we have now calculated, in real terms, the maximum number of inhabitants a house can have in winter in Scotland without a tumble drier and still continue to function. Unfortunately that number seems to be 2 adults and 3 children. At that point, doing a daily washing, using a clothes horse, all free radiators, door tops and the backs of the dining room chairs meant we seemed to have reached a static all in use always situation. Throwing a dribbly, pooing December baby into the mix however has made the status quo untenable. Roll on the flar sale so I can order the tumble drier!

ALL THE BUCHANAN GRANDCHILDREN

How likely is it that you get 5 kids, including 3 babies all sitting nicely and staring in the right direction for a group family photo? Amazing, no? So how bloody infuriating is it to upload it only to find out the silly plonker, whose camera you borrowed to take it, has it set on a resolution of a mere 800x531 pixels - ie something you can't even blow up to the size of a postage stamp to print for the living room wall or office desk. Now that'd be bad enough if it was taken with a 2 mega pixel mobile phone but it is a bloody Nikon DSLR no less. DAD ARE YOU INSANE????? Why buy a DSLR and set it on 800x531 as a standard?? Our Sony alpha is set at approx 3500x2323 standard, that way if you get a nice photo of the grandchildren you can blow it up to A4, and if you don't you can simply resize it before you save it. PLEASE stop using a Nikon DSLR to take photos at a worse resolution than Thomas's mobile phone - or swap him your Nikon for his mobile phone at the very least, you crazy old fool!

GLASGOW, XMAS 2007

The Great Santa Escape - Glasgow Santa Dash 2007
Originally uploaded by euan_pics

Pity I was too busy having a baby this Xmas to multitask - looks like I missed a bit of a photo opportunity in the city centre a couple of weekends back! :-)

POTTY TRAINING - THE UPDATE

Today's potty training didn't seem any better. Today Léon managed one pee on Charlotte's back, while playing horses, one pee on his aquadraw - making for an interesting shape, and one poo in a nappy during a trip to Tesco :-( So much for the nice new Bob the builder and Thomas the Tank Engine pants...

MONOPOLY, MODERN STYLE

monopoly, modern style
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Thomas's parents bought Marcel monopoly for his birthday in July. With a 2 year old and an 11 day old baby, we couldn't find a function to attend to bring in the new year, so decided letting the big ones stay up past midnight to play monopoly while drinking shloer, was a reasonable compromise. The first thing that struck me about the new monopoly was the inflationary hike in prices. My 1970s London version gave me £200 for passing go. This new Danish version gave me 2 000 000 Danish Kroner (about £200 000).
The chance cards were also more modern: I won a million in a reality TV programme and was fined for using my mobile while driving!
Even the tokens were modern: a mobile phone, a hamburger and a roller blade boot!
The hotels (see photo) are now NY-type sky scrapers, but the most radical, if you look at the photo has to be that there is no money any more! Thomas is paying his 1 million fine for landing on Marcel's hotel by VISA, and Marcel is registering it on his electronic card reader!
I feel old!

POTTY TRAINING

Potty training
Originally uploaded by bombhead

With us all home for the next 2 weeks, now seems like the optimum time for potty training. I had intended to start about 8 weeks ago but as I was completely unable to bend over to scrub the carpet, I decided it had to be on hold till after the bump arrived. So today we started. Two potties were strategically placed downstairs, old pants were looked out, bribes of chocolate were offered, we explained how big a boy he'd be to use his potty, how only babies needed nappies etc etc. And the result 12 hours on? No pees in the potty, 4 wet pairs of pants and, I believe absolutely no clue of what he is meant to be doing! :-( Tomorrow I am going to take him to choose some 'big boy' pants of his own in the hope that will inspire him slightly more...

DÉJÀ VU

German Wasp
Originally uploaded by markopoulos

Is it something about January? You may remember my rant when I was unexpectedly stung by a wasp in January last year. That was in the flat in Glasgow, so imagine my surprise this evening when Thomas came down stairs in the house holding another dead wasp, explaining he'd encountered it walking along our upstairs hall - give me strength. Is it global warming, or just victimization?

ALIEN MONSTER CHILD

Phyllis/Thomas mixture
Originally uploaded by viralbus

When we were considering having a child, Thomas decided to play about with gimp mixing our features to see what kind of child we might make. Strangely after seeing both our possible future daughter, pictured here (my face with Thomas's eyes and mouth) and our potential son, I still agreed to go ahead. I must have been mad or brave or both. Fortunately, Anna does not yet seem to resemble this freaky child!

WRAPPING XMAS PRESENTS

I'm sitting here wrapping my presents feeling the cool soothing of a bra full of Savoy cabbage - ahhh relief!

BIRTH FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

I saw Thomas had blogged the birth right the way through from the triage farce to the arrival of Anna. I thought I'd leave myself a day or two to get over the shock before blogging the same from my perspective!
We'd had a bit of a fraught 3 days where I monitored every twinge, mainly because Thomas's parents had flown in to meet the baby so we so desperately didn't want their trip to be in vain... Anna had other plans however. Finally on Tuesday, the date I had calculated from my period to be my due date, Thomas came home from work and mentioned an ex-colleague, Elspeth, had suggested a massage between my thumb and forefinger would do the trick. Laughing, he held each of my hands and rubbed them for 30 seconds or maybe less. An hour later, I sat down on the couch to watch Gordon Ramsay and felt my waters break! Coincidence, I suspect! It was 7-30pm. I monitored contractions thereafter. They were mild and infrequent and by 10pm I figured labour wasn't going to start till morning.
In bed I felt them become stronger and didn't manage to sleep. After midnight I felt things were becoming more imminent so I woke Thomas and my dad at 1am. In the 20 or so minutes I waited on my parents to arrive to babysit the others, I had frequent, painful but short contractions so assumed the birth would be like Pudge's and mentally estimated it at 10am.
On arrival at triage, a fairly grumpy midwife confirmed I was only 1 to 2cm dilated and insisted I lie on a bed hooked up to 2 monitors, one measuring contractions, the other, the baby's heartbeat for half an hour. This was sheer torture. Anyone who has ever been in labour knows lying on your back is on a par with lying on a train track watching the virgin west coast intercity hurtling towards you. Unable to lie still I watched these monitors slip all around my belly, not registering any of the contractions while the grumpy midwife waited next door, popping in flippantly declaring from time to time that I wasn't really contracting much... if I'd been within reach of a machete, Derek would have been defending me in court next week! Not bloody contracting? I was contracting every 3 or 4 minutes for a minute or more. Worse still the baby heart monitor was also slipping about, not registering, so looking like the baby was asleep, therefore confirming to the numpty nurse that my baby wasn't even noticing the contractions and therefore that I wasn't really in labour yet. She suggested returning home or sleeping overnight in an all-female ward while waiting for labour to start. I had been unable to sit in dad's car on the way in at 1-30, so I sure wasn't going to sit in a taxi back then in my dad's car again the following morning at rush hour. I also didn't believe I wasn't in labour as I couldn't stand, walk, sit, lie and was in excruciating pain. I quite believed it would take all night as I have always had 20 hour labours but I knew I was already in advanced labour.
We reluctantly opted for the women's ward. I was quite annoyed given the triage ward with its 3 or 4 beds was completely empty and Thomas was allowed there. He went out to reception, I went next door to another empty ward and they left me beside a hospital bed that was up as high as it could go in a room where all the chairs were at the other side of the room. I was in too much pain to try to adjust the bed, I was in too much pain to cross the room to get a chair. Between the next 2 or 3 contractions, I slowly crossed the room and walked a chair back, unable to lift it. I had been abandoned so couldn't ask for help. I sat down on the chair backwards leaning on the back and waited maybe another 15 minutes. I felt desperately sick and started to reanalyse my birth plan request for no morphine. Morphine makes me sick so I didn't want it but figuring I already felt like vomiting and potentially had another 8 hours ahead alone, I decided to attempt to cross the room to the buzzer and ask the midwife's opinion. It took ten minutes to walk the 10 paces to the buzzer. A new midwife arrived nonchalantly on the scene. I started to explain I was considering morphine for those reasons when I felt a great deal of pressure in my bottom. The midwife looked panicked and asked me to quickly jump on the bed for an internal because I wasn't acting like the 1cm dilated patient they had been told to expect and had been ignoring assuming she was tucked up in bed for the night.
She helped me on to the bed and put her fingers into me. I'm so sorry, she told me - I assumed that was to be followed by - you are still only 2cm dilated but in fact it was followed by: you shouldn't be here, you should be upstairs, you are nearly 7cm dilated and if you have dilated that far in half an hour you must be in terrible pain! I cancelled the morphine, realizing the degree of pain was actually in keeping with the degree of labour... and I wished once more for a machete..
Buzzers were pressed, wheelchairs ordered, Thomas found and we ran to the lifts to get me upstairs in a record 5 minutes. Within 10 minutes of arriving upstairs, I was fully dilated and ready to start the pushing phase. I remember little of the next 15 minutes. I know there were foetal heart problems and I was made to turn round while a monitor was fitted. I know I was given oxygen and it ran out which felt like someone was strangling me, so I had to scream at them twice that the tank was empty before they heard.
Finally I felt her head pop out about 30 minutes after arriving upstairs. The nurse, this one was lovely, as was the 2nd one, started to tell me not to push her out till the next contraction, but as I felt her shoot across the bed, simply fell silent. The heart problems, it turned out, were caused by the cord being wrapped around her neck.
Thomas tells me he cut the cord but to be honest, I was only vaguely aware of that, as I was still shaking in shock on the bed slowly coming to terms with going through 10 hours of labour in slightly more than 1h30!
I think they felt guilty at the cock-up because the usual 1 hour you get to spend together postnatally in delivery eating toast went on from 4-24am to 7am, in this case, leaving me time for a bath, some extra toast and also the loss of several scarily large bloodclots.

A PUZZLING PURPOSE

 

I have now had 4 kids, all at the Queen Mother's maternity hospital in Glasgow. As the trance of birth, caused by pain or adrenalin or whatever wears off each time, I find myself slowly rejoining reality staring up at the ceiling where in the corner of each room is a socket and wondering what possible purpose a socket 3 metres off the ground can serve? Now, I didn't have any drugs the last 3 times so this is definitely not just in my imagination and to prove it this time I got Thomas to take a photo of it along with the many others he took of Anna that day... Answers on a postcard please!?

MILK AND MEMORY SPANS

Today was a bit of an eye opener. At one point I mentioned that the baby needed to eat. Léon suggested 'tatoes. I replied that babies only ate milk at first. He went to the kitchen looking for a cup. I told him that I meant the milk in my breasts and he looked completely blank. Bearing in mind I breastfed Léon until he was 22 months old and stopped during our trip to Denmark this summer, and considering he is now only 26 months old, I was quite surprised he had no recollection of his beloved milk. After finishing a feed I noticed Anna had milk running down her chin. I dipped my finger in it and called Léon over. Lick this, I told him. He licked, screwed up his face and announced vehemently That's disgusting water!
I feel oddly sad!

INTERESTING TIMING

After mentioning a few days ago that I'd have a comment to make if the baby should turn up on the due date predicted by my period rather than by my scan - well she did neither but my waters did break on the 18th...

A QUOTE

Saw this last week - I thought I'd share it with you:

If pregnancy were a book, the editor would probably cut the last 2 chapters...

I can relate to that, in fact now I am past the end of the last chapter, I am beginning to wonder what the editor would do with the epilogue!

RIP DOUGAL

I can't help but notice that poor Dougal has finally died and his stuffed body is being used ornamentally outside Silverburn shopping centre - who on earth thought a stuffed Dougal was in any way aesthetically pleasing or a positive addition to the Pollock landscape? Who decides what is artistic and what isn't, I wonder?

TATTERED REPUTATION

This baby has my reputation in tatters - I have never got beyond week 39+ before and here I am sitting 1 day overdue with no more twinges or contractions than I was having back on November 30th. Now, I can think of two reasons: Is it the different genetic make-up that is causing this or is it the so-called advances in medicine? I mean all my other due dates were based on my last menstrual period plus 40 weeks, but this one was originally given to me as December 18th but changed to December 14th once scan measurements were taken, the hospital claiming that scans were much more accurate than the human menstrual cycle... If she does happen to turn up Tuesday, I know what I'll be saying about scans but that'll be cold comfort to Thomas's parents who flew in yesterday for 3 days to meet someone who, for now, is still cosily tucked up on my insides! Will attempt one last curry and raspberry tea tonight for their benefit but I don't hold out much hope :-(

Hope this posting answers the flood of email arriving in my inbox daily, entitled: 'You still here?'

TIME TO SUE THE DANE?

In exactly 56 minutes I will be 40 weeks pregnant. I have never been 40 weeks pregnant before in my life. I am not a happy bunny. Forty seems to be becoming a more and more significant number in my life at the moment...6 weeks till I'm 40 years old, 40 weeks pregnant - as long as it doesn't also mean 40 hours in labour.

JOHN WAYNE AND HIS MATES

Have I moaned about our new kitchen? It looked fairly bland but functional when we first moved in - how wrong can first impressions be? Firstly, when there are 5 of you and 2 out at work, then the dishes take every free minute in the evening and leave you no time for DIY, family life etc, so number one priority had to be to buy a dishwasher we couldn't afford and have Thomas plumb it in as plumbers are too dear.
Then there's the built-in oven. Now if you bought a house with a dirty built-in oven - wouldn't you assume it had actually been used? Or would you assume John Wayne had been round with his cowboy mates building it in without actually linking it to the electric circuit, and worse still tiling over the cooker socket so you can't find it to reattach? A real electrician has since quoted us £250 to rewire it all the way to circuit board 2 rooms away...
At least the integral fridge and freezer are working... well kind of - I mean the light doesn't work in the fridge so I'm not overly sure it works at all and milk goes off every 2nd day because it isn't cold enough but at least there's nothing wrong with the freezer - well apart from the fact that the door fell off it last week so it suddenly didn't look so integral, oh and the fact that today everything in the top drawer defrosted suddenly without warning. Talk about bloody cowboys - it is just as well we were planning to install a new kitchen eventually anyway but it is so frustrating not being able to make anything at all oven based in the meantime - with kids constantly moaning about steak pies and pizzas and Yorkshire puddings... I just hope they didn't use John and his mates for the extension too!

GLOBAL WARMING - THE REAL CAUSE?

For months now all we've been hearing about is global warming, carbon footprints and all that stuff. We're all supposed to stop flying and go back to holidaying in Largs, to work from home and recycle everything from our knickers to our beer bottles...maybe Al Gore hasn't driven through Newton Mearns recently - the true cause of global warming is here and on display for everyone to see - just beside the new expressway to East Kilbride! ;-)

GETTING EVEN FURTHER IN A MANIC KIND OF WAY

Today, with still no baby on the scene, I have managed to gut the kitchen, find the tools in the garage despite the 2 degree temperature outside, sand down a chest of drawers and give it 2 coats of varnish, fix two antique lamps by taking them to pieces, then take the hoover to pieces and fix it, removing about 3 years of long hair entwined in its blades, tidy and hoover the living room and administer piriton to Pudge who seems to have developed an allergy to the sweets he was given at HCP's staff Christmas party yesterday, and administer paracetamol to Marcel who is running a temperature...Tonight I have a hospital appointment to check me over - if I can fit it in! Oh and I'm just back from the doctor who has ascertained the baby who was the right way round last week is now OP - grrrrrr!

FINALLY GETTING SOMEWHERE

Now that I have resigned myself to the fact that baby wotsit is in no rush, I feel like I am finally getting somewhere. I decided to DIY. I started, gingerly standing on a chair and a toy chest so I could attach a row of screws above Marcel's window, so I could then attach a curtain rail and thereafter a pair of curtains. Neither the chair nor the toy chest broke under my weight - result! After that I decided to stain and varnish the toy chest, and after that I decided to repair a ceiling-height bookshelf and then stain and varnish that. Next on my list was starting to work my way through Pudge's room, sorting toys, throwing out pieces of ex-toys and trying to find the floor. I didn't quite get that task finished but hey - not bad for 39+ weeks pregnant, no?

Nesting instinct? Never...?

HOW SURPRISING!

Léon and Gordon playing together
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I read today with little surprise that Scotland's population is falling because we aren't having enough kids. (Ok, refrain from any comments on me myself)!
Now Scotland, if you don't know it, is a country where the average female graduate salary does not cover two simultaneous private nursery places for under 5s, where the average house price requires two salaries to pay it and where students aren't out of debt from their uni days till they are into their 30s... and they report people are having less than two kids but want more... hmmm - I know I'm no rocket scientist but come on?

THE SELF SERVICE DEPARTMENT IS APPARENTLY OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

DSC06757
Originally uploaded by viralbus

In the flat we have an all-in-one fridge freezer with the fridge on the top. I hadn't realized until the last few days quite how much less hassle that is with little kids. Here in the house we have a hopefully-soon-to-be-replaced built-in fridge and freezer separately under the worktops. Not only don't they work - milk goes off after a couple of days, but they are space-consuming and patently way too accessible! Two or three days ago I found yogurt on the living room carpet and on investigation found Léon had helped himself to yogurt he could reach but eaten it with his fingers given he can't reach the cutlery drawer :-(
Today took the biscuit though. I was busy in the living room. Everyone else in the family was upstairs... Léon was quiet... Léon was too quiet. He walked in and announced 'cheese' to me then walked up to Thomas and announced 'ost', and proceeded to sit down on his little red chair and munch his way through at least half a block of mature cheddar before I managed to salvage enough to put over everyone else's pasta!

CAN YOU SUE YOUR BABY?

I had absolutely no intention of reaching my last day in the office, assuming, like last time, that the baby would be well and truly on the outside long before the end of last week, so to find myself still pregnant nearly a week after my cake is wholly unacceptable! I am now 1 day off reaching 39 weeks and starting into my 40th week - come on, what is going on?! Anyone would think it is warm and cosy in there compared to Glasgow in December... hmmmm, maybe she has a point... I wouldn't mind so much if I hadn't had to endure a week of contractions on and off, like the baby is taking the mickey...
I suppose if I was a betting man, my money would be on tomorrow... I am meant to be going to a funeral in the morning and Charlotte also wants me to go into school to take part in some Christmas-decoration-making activity for parents, not to mention my book club also expects me to make an appearance at 7ish, having finished some book I haven't had the energy to start because of all the contractions!
Failing that I'd go for Sunday - the date for the HarperCollins annual staff childrens' Xmas party - failure to attend that is sure to find me dead, knifed in my bed one morning given that it can be summed up as 2 hours solid free teethrotting sweets positively being forced upon them plus a free gift :-\

A SLEEPY SAUSAGE

A sleepy sausage
Originally uploaded by PhylB

How can anyone fall this soundly asleep after a car journey lasting less than 3 minutes?! I guess someone had a hard day!

GENETICALLY TRANSFERABLE STUPIDITY?

Charlotte the hairdresser
Originally uploaded by viralbus

You may remember in the spring, Marcel was stupid enough to cut off his hair. At the time I thought I'd dealt with all the available stupidity in this family. This weekend Charlotte was at André's. When she comes back she usually has straggly hair falling in her eyes and we argue about the need for her to comb her hair, and put in a hair clasp. This Sunday though she returned with her hair combed and swept away from her eyes. On Monday after school, however I got a closer look, the crazy child had only gone and done exactly the same as her brother! They each have a cow's lick to the right of their forehead - and now apparently they have both decided to find out the hard way that simply cutting it short does not stop it from growing that way. The only problem is that where Marcel's hair could be cut short and regrow in a month or so, Charlotte's is supposed to be the same length all round - so if that 2 mm chunk is now to reach half way down her back - we are looking at a 3 year wait - silly girl. And why do that a week before I am likely to want to take a photo or 20 of her with her new sister. Give me strength!

BIRYANI

Mutton biryani
Originally uploaded by trudence

Today Thomas and I decided to go for lunch at the little known Village Curry House in Glasgow's Nelson street. It isn't at all expensive but uses some of the freshest ingredients you can get and really is worth the detour. Better still, because it doesn't serve any alcohol, it compensates by making what has to be the yummiest mango smoothies in the West of Scotland. Every time we go there, I make a mental note to myself not to go to any other Indian restaurants ever again. Please remind me next time.

(By the way, the curry didn't work, so I'm away to make another cup of raspberry tea...) :-(

NEW KNICKERS?

I have been unable to do any DIY all day - I've managed the washing and putting on the dishwasher and am now trying to psych myself up to hanging up the washing, but I did start the day intending to wash, iron, tidy, paint a toy chest, hang some curtains, get some Xmas shopping and pick up some furniture from the flat. Instead I have sat on the couch grumping like a large tired whale watching Gordon Ramsay swear at people - quite therapeutic. So I thought I'd google some natural ways to induce birth, figuring if I am too heavy with Bart on the inside to do anything useful, I need to get Bart on the outside. Julie did give me the raspberry tea mentioned on this list as a leaving present when I left work yesterday. Three cups on it has done eff all, though it is quite pleasantly fruity. I must say I find some of the suggestions more tempting than others, and haven't rushed for the castor oil yet. Maybe my best bet is to send Thomas out to buy me some new, expensive fancy pants before la Senza up at ASDA closes tonight...