(no subject)
I got back to London late last night. My flat was insanely cold from being empty for over a week! I'm not sure that the heat is working at full blast at all actually. It's been on all night (we never need to do that) and the place still isn't particularly warm. So either there's a cold soaked into the flat that's taking a (long) while to shift, or that heating is not on as high as it should be. Hmm.
The trip home was nice. I got fussed over an awful lot about my bump, but I mostly didn't get to much tiresome lectures or should I say helpful advice on what I should be doing now and when the baby shows up. I did have two annoying conversations with M's mother where she bascially made it known that if I was to breastfeed at all, I would be a fool to do so exclusively or for too long. I thought there was a supposed to be a pro-breastfeeding gestapo? No one has so much as hinted that they think I should do it, I just had those two invasive conversations where it was strongly suggested that I shouldn't. Odd. The NHS here recommends that you exclusively breastfeed a baby for a year. Now, I personally think a year is too long to wait to introduce solid food (and a paediatrician of my aquaintance has told me the guidance on when to introduce solids in going to be moved forwards soon) but all going well I am planning on giving the old breastfeeding a good go. Possibly not a year since it's going to be an awkward pain in the ass, but a few months anyway. And if it doesn't work for whatever reason, hopefully I will be ok and not have a massive I'm-a-bad-mother breakdown. Luckily for me, I was completely left out of the baptism conversation, as M talked to her about that on his own, and she accepts we won't be having one, even though she is not happy about it. I suppose she's probably going to throw holy water over the child if I ever leave him alone with her, but I don't really mind that. As long as she doesn't try to do a "real" one on him! And I presume she can't without my consent, but I wouldn't really put anything past Irish priests.
Other than that, what happened at home? I went to see the Hobbit. It wasn't as terrible as it could have been but still had an awful lot of problems. I really hate how there was no sense of danger in the whole thing, and that's not just coming from the fact that I know the book inside out, because you knew the goodies were going to win in the LoTR films too, and yet the battles in those retained a sense of danger and terror. I really hate kids and hobbits being able to easily cut down war-trained orks (which I suppose is a silly complaint given that I'm in the camp that wanted the Hobbit movie to stick to childish, fairytale atmosphere of the book, but if they were going to do dark, for heaven's sake go dark!). I also got to meet a lot of friends which was great. One of my mates gave me the Slow Regard of Silent Things, since she ended up getting a present of it twice. Gah, I HATE Patrick Rothfuss. He's probably my least fantasy author. And my mate knows this! I don't know if she's taking the piss out of me, or if she just wants me to give him another chance since she likes his stuff. Well, I will read it, since it's only small and the disagreeable main character from his big trilogy will hopefully not show up.
We got given loads more second hand baby clothes while we were over there, and a buggy. It's a Bugaboo Gecko, and seems to be really good. I'm glad I don't have to shell out for one of those. We do need someone to bring it to London for us though, and M's dad has said he would.
Something that really impressed me in Ireland was that nearly every pub I was in had really nice non-alchololic beer. They mostly had either Erdinger or Paulaner. The off licenses had even more choice (I had a few bottles of Meisel's Weis, which I haven't had since the days of M's dj night Kingston Sounds, years and years ago). Here in London, all you will get is disgusting Becks Blue if you're lucky, and I've been in two pubs that served the marginally better Bitburger. Ireland is in the grip of the big craft beer revolution at the moment, and unlike here, they seem to have not forgotten people who want non-alcho beer.
Now we're nearly back to normal. I'm off work today and tomorrow, and in Friday. I'm going to wait until next Monday until I really accept that the holidays are over and it's back to business as usual. Not that things are going to be business as usual for long. I only have just over a month of work to go before my maternity leave starts.
I'm not really going to do resolutions I think. I'm going to read Marx's Capital vol 1 this year and do more exercise, but I was going to do those anyway, New Year or no.
Now I'm going to make some lists of baby stuff we need, a list for the hospital bag etc. since now that xmas is over, I feel like we're into the final leg of it.
The trip home was nice. I got fussed over an awful lot about my bump, but I mostly didn't get to much tiresome lectures or should I say helpful advice on what I should be doing now and when the baby shows up. I did have two annoying conversations with M's mother where she bascially made it known that if I was to breastfeed at all, I would be a fool to do so exclusively or for too long. I thought there was a supposed to be a pro-breastfeeding gestapo? No one has so much as hinted that they think I should do it, I just had those two invasive conversations where it was strongly suggested that I shouldn't. Odd. The NHS here recommends that you exclusively breastfeed a baby for a year. Now, I personally think a year is too long to wait to introduce solid food (and a paediatrician of my aquaintance has told me the guidance on when to introduce solids in going to be moved forwards soon) but all going well I am planning on giving the old breastfeeding a good go. Possibly not a year since it's going to be an awkward pain in the ass, but a few months anyway. And if it doesn't work for whatever reason, hopefully I will be ok and not have a massive I'm-a-bad-mother breakdown. Luckily for me, I was completely left out of the baptism conversation, as M talked to her about that on his own, and she accepts we won't be having one, even though she is not happy about it. I suppose she's probably going to throw holy water over the child if I ever leave him alone with her, but I don't really mind that. As long as she doesn't try to do a "real" one on him! And I presume she can't without my consent, but I wouldn't really put anything past Irish priests.
Other than that, what happened at home? I went to see the Hobbit. It wasn't as terrible as it could have been but still had an awful lot of problems. I really hate how there was no sense of danger in the whole thing, and that's not just coming from the fact that I know the book inside out, because you knew the goodies were going to win in the LoTR films too, and yet the battles in those retained a sense of danger and terror. I really hate kids and hobbits being able to easily cut down war-trained orks (which I suppose is a silly complaint given that I'm in the camp that wanted the Hobbit movie to stick to childish, fairytale atmosphere of the book, but if they were going to do dark, for heaven's sake go dark!). I also got to meet a lot of friends which was great. One of my mates gave me the Slow Regard of Silent Things, since she ended up getting a present of it twice. Gah, I HATE Patrick Rothfuss. He's probably my least fantasy author. And my mate knows this! I don't know if she's taking the piss out of me, or if she just wants me to give him another chance since she likes his stuff. Well, I will read it, since it's only small and the disagreeable main character from his big trilogy will hopefully not show up.
We got given loads more second hand baby clothes while we were over there, and a buggy. It's a Bugaboo Gecko, and seems to be really good. I'm glad I don't have to shell out for one of those. We do need someone to bring it to London for us though, and M's dad has said he would.
Something that really impressed me in Ireland was that nearly every pub I was in had really nice non-alchololic beer. They mostly had either Erdinger or Paulaner. The off licenses had even more choice (I had a few bottles of Meisel's Weis, which I haven't had since the days of M's dj night Kingston Sounds, years and years ago). Here in London, all you will get is disgusting Becks Blue if you're lucky, and I've been in two pubs that served the marginally better Bitburger. Ireland is in the grip of the big craft beer revolution at the moment, and unlike here, they seem to have not forgotten people who want non-alcho beer.
Now we're nearly back to normal. I'm off work today and tomorrow, and in Friday. I'm going to wait until next Monday until I really accept that the holidays are over and it's back to business as usual. Not that things are going to be business as usual for long. I only have just over a month of work to go before my maternity leave starts.
I'm not really going to do resolutions I think. I'm going to read Marx's Capital vol 1 this year and do more exercise, but I was going to do those anyway, New Year or no.
Now I'm going to make some lists of baby stuff we need, a list for the hospital bag etc. since now that xmas is over, I feel like we're into the final leg of it.