Strange weekend
I had a fairly busy weekend planned - smorgasbord's birthday party on Saturday and our first NCT ante-natal class in Malton from 10-4 on Sunday. My weekend became a lot busier when I got a phone call from my father on Friday to let me know that my grandmother had gone into hospital again and wasn't expected to last the weekend. This wasn't a huge shock because she was 95 and had been in poor health since early Spring, but I'd been hoping that she would be around long enough to meet Kit. So I rushed out to buy party food straight away so that I'd be able to stay in the house as much as possible from then on.
On Friday night, Vicky WINOLJ came round to help plan my mother blessing/ hippy baby shower thing, and we drank tea from the most enormous mugs in the world which I had just bought from Argos.
Saturday was the party day, which I spent in a sort of rotation system between cooking and tidying up for the party, crying, and phone calls to various relatives. Smorgasbord was lovely, and provided plenty of cuddles and camomile tea. He does emotional support in times of need exceptionally well. I did have a moment of collapse when I realised that we were out of strong bread flour, but I managed to get the lack of flour back into perspective before too long :-)
The party itself was lovely, and although I was still doing frantic displacement activity cooking until well after the party got into full swing, I managed to calm down and have a very good time. The chocolate brownies topped with ganache turned out to be delicious, although smorgasbord had suspected that the ganche might have been overkill. It was lovely to see so many people all at once, and to finally show off my bump to antgirl, who hasn't seen me for months. Although I was pretty exhausted by the time that everyone had gone home, I took some time before I went to bed to snuff out the candle which I had left burning for my grandmother on my altar, and replace it with a pile of Jane Austen books.
We got up on Sunday morning, and headed off to the ante-natal class. I was pretty impressed with the class, and will probably write about it in more detail on my pregnancy journal. With no word from Belfast about my grandmother, I assumed that she was still ok, but wasn't really looking forward to getting home, as I suspected that she wouldn't last until the afternoon. Towards the end of the morning I got really upset and went off for a cry, and sitting in the sunshine at lunchtime reminded me of the last sunny spell which I spent in my grandmother's garden, but apart from that I was able to concentrate pretty well, and to have a good time. I had decided not to take a mobile phone with me, and I think, looking back, that this was the right decision.
I got home, saw two messages on the answering machine, and was just steeling myself to listen to them when my father called to let me know that Granny had died that morning, at pretty much exactly the time that I taken out of the class to think of her. She had as perfect a death as anyone could want, just gradually letting go with her two sons holding her, singing to her and reading poetry to her. so I'm sad that she's dead, but I'm really pleased that she got to go in a good way, and I'm glad for my dad's sake that he was able to help her to have such a good death and will be able to look back on her last days with a sense of pride as well as sadness. Smorgasbord was, as usual, lovely and supportive, and really helped me to feel better.
Now I've got to try and sort out the practicalities of getting to the funeral while too pregnant to fly without a medical certificate, and of getting to my witch training weekend if possible. If I manage to get the medical certificate, I should be able to do both without too much trouble. If I have to get around by ferry, then things become immensely complicated.
I hope that next week is calmer.
On Friday night, Vicky WINOLJ came round to help plan my mother blessing/ hippy baby shower thing, and we drank tea from the most enormous mugs in the world which I had just bought from Argos.
Saturday was the party day, which I spent in a sort of rotation system between cooking and tidying up for the party, crying, and phone calls to various relatives. Smorgasbord was lovely, and provided plenty of cuddles and camomile tea. He does emotional support in times of need exceptionally well. I did have a moment of collapse when I realised that we were out of strong bread flour, but I managed to get the lack of flour back into perspective before too long :-)
The party itself was lovely, and although I was still doing frantic displacement activity cooking until well after the party got into full swing, I managed to calm down and have a very good time. The chocolate brownies topped with ganache turned out to be delicious, although smorgasbord had suspected that the ganche might have been overkill. It was lovely to see so many people all at once, and to finally show off my bump to antgirl, who hasn't seen me for months. Although I was pretty exhausted by the time that everyone had gone home, I took some time before I went to bed to snuff out the candle which I had left burning for my grandmother on my altar, and replace it with a pile of Jane Austen books.
We got up on Sunday morning, and headed off to the ante-natal class. I was pretty impressed with the class, and will probably write about it in more detail on my pregnancy journal. With no word from Belfast about my grandmother, I assumed that she was still ok, but wasn't really looking forward to getting home, as I suspected that she wouldn't last until the afternoon. Towards the end of the morning I got really upset and went off for a cry, and sitting in the sunshine at lunchtime reminded me of the last sunny spell which I spent in my grandmother's garden, but apart from that I was able to concentrate pretty well, and to have a good time. I had decided not to take a mobile phone with me, and I think, looking back, that this was the right decision.
I got home, saw two messages on the answering machine, and was just steeling myself to listen to them when my father called to let me know that Granny had died that morning, at pretty much exactly the time that I taken out of the class to think of her. She had as perfect a death as anyone could want, just gradually letting go with her two sons holding her, singing to her and reading poetry to her. so I'm sad that she's dead, but I'm really pleased that she got to go in a good way, and I'm glad for my dad's sake that he was able to help her to have such a good death and will be able to look back on her last days with a sense of pride as well as sadness. Smorgasbord was, as usual, lovely and supportive, and really helped me to feel better.
Now I've got to try and sort out the practicalities of getting to the funeral while too pregnant to fly without a medical certificate, and of getting to my witch training weekend if possible. If I manage to get the medical certificate, I should be able to do both without too much trouble. If I have to get around by ferry, then things become immensely complicated.
I hope that next week is calmer.