movies, waiting, reading, waiting, eating, waiting

Movies seen now include:

Law Abiding Citizen

P.S. I Love You

Saving Sarah Cain

Enchanted

Books I am currently reading:

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale

Starting Over - Tony Parsons

A Swamp Full Of Dollars - Michael Peel

I blame late pregnancy for my sudden inability to concentrate on one book - reading three concurrently is very unlike me (and something I abhor in others!). I feel most ashamed not to have finished Michael's book yet, as he's a good friend, and the book has been shortlisted for the Guardian first book award. Awards happen on 2nd December, and while everyone suggests 'it's a fiction year', he's done amazingly well to be the only non-fiction entry to even make the shortlist. And what I have read so far is truly excellent.

Despite me giving up 'Heat' once I discovered we were having a girl, James has kindly stockpiled some copies to keep me going during labour and any hospital waiting around that happens. After that, it's back to cold turkey.

Speaking of turkey, we're still planning to have Christmas dinner at our house, crazy as it might seem with a newborn. Yesterday, we bought an enormous (8 kilo) ham, and James is in the kitchen right now pouring all sorts of exciting goodness into a bucket to marinate/cure/brine it until it finally gets cooked in a few weeks. Including salt peter, which we got under the counter from a source who made us promise not to mix it with the thing that turns it into gunpowder (or the baby might come early after all). I can't wait for Christmas. I know we're going to be tired, but it will be our first family Christmas, and I have embarrassing santa outfits for both the baby and the cat - watch this space for a Christmas Day photo. I reckon we'll have about 5 minutes to take it in before mutiny sets in (from the cat) or vomiting occurs (baby).

Baby is technically due tomorrow, but I am extremely doubtful that she'll turn up then. Or even in the next week. In fact, I'm sort of at the stage where I'm not sure there will even BE a baby. It's like I've been pregnant for so long that I've accepted it as my lot in life... I'm not sure I really believe in a non-pregnant existence with an actual baby :)

So, this week I have plans to have coffee with the NCT-ers, go to the Thea Gilmore show on Thursday, and then maybe to Zoe and William's tea party for Nahum in Oxford on Saturday. We'll see how it all pans out... If things get really late, I comfort myself that there is an Orla Kiely sample sale on in Brick Lane on the 10th December. If baby is not here by then, I will go and buy a bag to cheer myself up. I hope she's not too long after that! I always thought it sucked for people who had their birthdays in the school holidays, and of course the closer it gets to Christmas, the more you have the 'one present for both' scenario to contend with :( My Granny's birthday is December 11th, and I guess it would be cool if they shared a birthday. After that, I'm all out of fun, and will just sit and home drinking raspberry tea and eating curry.

the cat mirrors my mood

More movies, more waiting

Clearly the last stage of pregnancy is characterised by being enormous...and sitting around. I'm too big and uncomfortable to do anything, but too not-catatonic to do nothing. So I end up doing things that either make me very tired through having to leave the house and walking, or things that only involve sitting on the sofa. Sigh. Apart from going to the pool and jacuzzi, which is a lifesaver, especially with the hell that is SPD.

Anyway, movies I have seen now include:

A Mighty Heart

2012

The Bucket List

hmm...I feel sure there are more

Marcus Brigstocke was very funny, and Dar Williams was as good and as lovely as always. Today and tomorrow I'm going to the O2 to see the tennis. Today, Nadal v Soderling and Djokovic v Davydenko, and tomorrow Del Potro v Verdasco and Murray v Federer. There's doubles as well, but I'll have to see how I am coping - if I'm too uncomfortable the plan is for me to go and lie down in the car for a bit with pillows and duvet. Sad, isn't it?

On Wednesday, the remainder (apart from a few tiny bits) of my Christmas shopping should be delivered, and I will be wrapping things in a fiendishly organised manner. Then there is nothing in the diary (apart from coffee and cake with my fellow suffering NCTers) until 30th November, which is the day the baby is supposed to arrive. HAHAHA. I highly doubt we will be seeing any baby action on that day, as only 5% of babies arrive on their due date, and 75% come later. But I am so damn uncomfortable, I will be trying everything I can to hurry things along by then. So far, I have heard that the following things help bring on labour:

Curry

Sex

Pineapple

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

Champagne

Walking

Anyone know any more? I will be trying them all in various combinations (apart from the walking too much, as that is too painful). I'm already on the raspberry tea, as it's supposed to help anyway.

Amanda Palmer writes to Robert Smith

If you've got a spare half hour, her letter is sweet, entertaining, slightly annoying, and cool.

Well, well, well

PhD has been submitted, and baby is two weeks away (allegedly). I've spent the last couple of weeks trying (and mostly failing) to unwind and generally chill. To that end, I signed up for one month of Sky Sports and Sky Movies, which has meant access to the tennis Masters tournaments (and the ATP tour finals next week) and that I have watched a ton of movies. Also managed quite a few cinema trips. So in the last two weeks I have seen:

Up

The Men Who Stare At Goats

An Education

This Is It

The Other Boleyn Girl

27 Dresses

August Rush

Definitely Maybe

Made Of Honor

The Jane Austen Book Club

In The Name Of The Father

Planning to see 2012 and Harry Brown this week, and have another 20 movies or so sitting on my V+ box, waiting to be watched.

Have also managed to wade my way through some trashy novels, though am about to start the more worthy 'Suspicions of Mr Whicher'.

Other sociable pre-baby plans include: Dar Williams gig on Wednesday, Marcus Brigstocke on Thursday, two days of tickets for the ATP tour finals next week, and the Thea Gilmore show at Bush Hall, if baby has not made an appearance by 3rd Dec. However, I'm now feeling like I can't really do anything because I'm so enormous and everything hurts a lot, so I wouldn't be too disappointed if the baby were to turn up today and I could do none of this.

Once I've bought a new battery for my camera, which seems to have just stopped working, I will take some pictures of the nursery and post them, as the room is now ready, and it will probably never look so nice again :)

It was lovely to see loads of people on Friday night for my 'brief window of opportunity' party. I made the sort of food I will probably not have time to do for some time (I suspect that with a baby, putting tiny mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes and individual basil leaves onto cocktail sticks will not be high on the agenda), including my first foray into cupcakes, which were very successful and well-received. I have to say that I was fairly exhausted by the end of it though, and as such, I barely left the house all weekend.

I've got a few admin/work-type things to do today, and then I am going to start drinking raspberry leaf tea (it's supposed to hurry things along) in earnest.