Busy busy busy!

Busy busy busy!

Just not been around for a while as the start of the new term ahs been extraordinarily busy - Alfie started school, and seems to be settling well, I can't get over seeing him around the school, he looks so lovely in his school uniform! New head and tons of work, not to mention new role have meant some increased stress levels, but (hopefully) I feel calmer and more on top of everything now.

Stolen from Beege who has also tagged me for childhood memories which I WILL get around to as soon as I have some time to think!

7 things I plan to do before I die:
learn to play the piano
go to New York
Fly in a hot air balloon
Cry at my son's wedding
Be a grandma (I can't do that myself, but I want it!)
Find the ultimate lipstick
Own a terribly expensive handbag

7 things I can do:
Play the clarinet and guitar
Bake birthday cakes
Fashion icing figures for the top of these
Speak French
Speak confidently to a room of people
Make people laugh
Eat the recommended fruit and veg each day

7 things I cannot do:
Use a lawnmower
Get my left and right correct all the time
Save money
Accept criticism well
Not be bothered what people think of me
Resist handsome men
Fly in aeroplanes (or indeed by any other method!)

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
Sense of Humor
Kindness
Warmth
Sense of family
Ability to get on with my friends
Shoulders
Intelligence

7 things that I say most often:
Oh for God's sake
Quite frankly
Love you
Morning!
Alfie
One, two, three, show me two hands
Sorry

7 celebrities i find attractive:
Jack Davenport
Thierry Henry
Robbie Williams
Bono
Damien Lewis
Hugo Speer
Matthew MacFadyen

Welcome to the World Baby Girl!

Well put me in a corner and call me Malcolm - I have a niece! I'd've put money on her being a boy, but now she's here I can't imagine it any other way!

Freya Alys (pronounced Al-ees - Alys is the Welsh version of Alice which was our much loved maternal Grandmother's name, and my sister has Alys as a second name) was born after 24 hours labour by forceps at 2.02am. My sis is a complete star - and she looks magnificent, those endorphins certainly kick in!! Freya is beautiful, she looks just like my sister, and was a whopping 8lb 2 oz - which given the fact that my sister is not built like me at all, and is a slim 5 foot 2, is no mean feat.

Can't wait to go and see her next weekend at home - hospital visits are always pretty rushed and unstaisfactory, especially when you're on a tight timetable as there are other visitors expected, and have a four year old in tow. And your husband refuses to come with you - don't get me started on that.

Welcome to the World Baby Girl - your Auntie loves you already, and I promise to keep you in fabulous accessories forever!

Five Years

My favourite magazine Eve is 5 this month (Happy Birthday Eve!) and I have read every edition. Natch, there was a feature in the magazine this month about all the positive changes in the world that have occured in the last five years. It got me thinking about the positive changes in my own life over the lsat five years and so I dedcided to list them in my blog:

In the last five years:

• I have had a baby - who has grown into a fabulous four year old
• left a job that was quite frankly, toxic, even though I didn't realise it at the time
• found my niche - teaching
• got a first in my teaching degree
• my marriage is in a completely different and lots better place
• I have a brilliant relationship with all my close family
• I still have all the friends who mattered to me at the time, and I also have several more who mean a great deal to me
• I have eliminated about half a dozen toxic relationships from my life
• I weigh five stone less
• I am in a size 16-18!
• I have been to Egypt and seen the pyramids, and Athens and seen the parthenon and the Acropolis
• I have driven in France
• I have done a zip wire
• I have sung at a friends wedding
• I have finally sold my flat
• I have seen U2 live
• And The Pet Shop Boys
• And Morrissey
• I've seen my two best friends marry and have babies - and I'm the godmother to them both
• I've bought and sold on ebay
• I am TONS happier than I was five years ago

Isn't it funny how sometimes you have to look at the really big picture to realise how lucky you are?

Waiting

My little sister is in labour. She has been in hospital since 7am - arrived 4-5 cm dilated, and my Mum called me at 9.30am to say she was going in to be there. Today has been really hard, because I desperately want to be there too, and should be if there weren't stupid rules at her hospital that there can only be two people with her. She was at my labour, but I can't be there.

Yesterday, she went in with a false alarm and I was beside myself with anticipation and...grief - i bawled for most of the afternoon and only stopped when my Mum rang to say that she had been sent home. I don't even know why, I'm of course overjoyed that I am going to be an auntie, but the emotion was immense.

So, today as displacement activities I have cooked a load of stuff for the freezer, done a load of laundry and taken A to the maize maze - and still the poor girl hasn't had the baby. I've had two texts from Mum (who taught that woman to text, it shouldn't be allowed!!) one saying that she had been put on a drip to speed things up and the second saying that the baby had a strong heartbeat but that if there was no progress in two hours then they would do a section. The two hours is up shortly.

Now I had a section - emergency - and I wouldn't voluntarily have one again. My sis, whom I adore, has pissed me off a couple of times during her pregnancy as she has said "oh I wish I could have a section" because that attitude really annoys me - that it's the easy option. I blame all these celebs who have the planned sections. It's traumatic major abdominal surgery. You could die. The baby could die. So I am here praying that she doesn't have to have one.

Hopefully there will be news soon. If not, my Dad will ring me (again) from his holiday in France to ask me "any news?" Yes Dad, she's had it and I couldn't be arsed to call you...