Sometimes, things do not after all go from bad to worse. And then sometimes, they do.
October 2007 may well become known as the month when the Universe decided to beat up on Z and Nina until they wept for mercy just so it could go "No mercy for you suckers!" and then kick them in the teeth some more. My stress levels can be perhaps accurately mirrored in the fact that I either seem to have no appetite at all, or I eat vast quantities of cheese. (Mmmmmm, cheese).
October has been the month where I have found myself facing £3000 of bills I did not epect, not receiving the £2000 I was expecting and contemplating idly what life will be like next year when Small Squalling Thing is here and I'm bringing home the pittance that the British Government likes to call Statutory Maternity Pay. (And cheese, as we well know, does not pay for itself).
In a similar vein (because what are financial woes, without physical ones to accompany them?) my already-bad pelvic pain has been exponentially increased by the fact that on Monday afternoon a child barrelled into me in the library, smacking me in the most painful part of my pelvis, causing me to see every star in the sky and spend the next 45 minutes lying on the carpeted floor too shocked to contemplate anything but shallow breathing and getting someone to call a taxi to drive me the 500 metres home because I couldn't manage to walk that much.
Since then I've kept my walking/sitting minimal and my paracetamol intake high. I can probably go about half an hour of sitting and/or ten minutes of walking -I employ the word in its loosest sense, since I'm shuffling about with tiny steps, like a geisha with Parkinson's- before I feel like I'm being stabbed with a handful of fiery needles. The house looks like a bomb site and I haven't got the energy to clean it, even though just looking at it makes me want to cry. (I am a tidy person trapped in a disorganised person's body).
But! The month of October has still not dampened by resolution to Not Focus On the Negatives so let us talk instead about the gloriousness of the weekend past when Z and I visited chiller and met her cats, and ate her scones (which also happen to be the finest scones I have ever had) and admired her interior decorating talents. And then there's also the fact that I found The Best Smart Maternity Trousers In The World and I will post pictures of their exquisite beauty as soon as I'm vertical again.
Today I'm off work to rest and recuperate for a day in the office tomorrow, and I'm lying in bed piled high with kittens whose goal for Life Happiness seems to consist in molding themselves to my body and grooming my sweater (one of these days one of them will start spitting up blue hairballs).
One of my ex-colleagues is pregnant and expecting her baby a couple of weeks before I'm serving an eviction notice to mine, and by all accounts she is not only glowing with happiness but being amazingly industrious and sewing baby quilts and whatnot, which makes me smile in a wry sort of way since the most industrious thing I've done for my child is to feed it cheese and threaten its father with divorce unless he stops snoring.
Ultimately though, I am OK. One thing that this month has proved to me is just how amazingly strong and supportive Z is and how Things Will Be Fine. I have unshakable faith that as long as the baby is healthy and the two of us are as rock solid to each other as we normally are, then the world can fall apart and we will still be fine. We will find some way through the mess, work out a strategy, take out some loans if need be but ultimately work things out. That as long as we're together and good to each other, that's all that matters. That, and not letting the cheese run out.
So ultimately, I'm not anxious. Only holding my breath through a long dive underwater.
October has been the month where I have found myself facing £3000 of bills I did not epect, not receiving the £2000 I was expecting and contemplating idly what life will be like next year when Small Squalling Thing is here and I'm bringing home the pittance that the British Government likes to call Statutory Maternity Pay. (And cheese, as we well know, does not pay for itself).
In a similar vein (because what are financial woes, without physical ones to accompany them?) my already-bad pelvic pain has been exponentially increased by the fact that on Monday afternoon a child barrelled into me in the library, smacking me in the most painful part of my pelvis, causing me to see every star in the sky and spend the next 45 minutes lying on the carpeted floor too shocked to contemplate anything but shallow breathing and getting someone to call a taxi to drive me the 500 metres home because I couldn't manage to walk that much.
Since then I've kept my walking/sitting minimal and my paracetamol intake high. I can probably go about half an hour of sitting and/or ten minutes of walking -I employ the word in its loosest sense, since I'm shuffling about with tiny steps, like a geisha with Parkinson's- before I feel like I'm being stabbed with a handful of fiery needles. The house looks like a bomb site and I haven't got the energy to clean it, even though just looking at it makes me want to cry. (I am a tidy person trapped in a disorganised person's body).
But! The month of October has still not dampened by resolution to Not Focus On the Negatives so let us talk instead about the gloriousness of the weekend past when Z and I visited chiller and met her cats, and ate her scones (which also happen to be the finest scones I have ever had) and admired her interior decorating talents. And then there's also the fact that I found The Best Smart Maternity Trousers In The World and I will post pictures of their exquisite beauty as soon as I'm vertical again.
Today I'm off work to rest and recuperate for a day in the office tomorrow, and I'm lying in bed piled high with kittens whose goal for Life Happiness seems to consist in molding themselves to my body and grooming my sweater (one of these days one of them will start spitting up blue hairballs).
One of my ex-colleagues is pregnant and expecting her baby a couple of weeks before I'm serving an eviction notice to mine, and by all accounts she is not only glowing with happiness but being amazingly industrious and sewing baby quilts and whatnot, which makes me smile in a wry sort of way since the most industrious thing I've done for my child is to feed it cheese and threaten its father with divorce unless he stops snoring.
Ultimately though, I am OK. One thing that this month has proved to me is just how amazingly strong and supportive Z is and how Things Will Be Fine. I have unshakable faith that as long as the baby is healthy and the two of us are as rock solid to each other as we normally are, then the world can fall apart and we will still be fine. We will find some way through the mess, work out a strategy, take out some loans if need be but ultimately work things out. That as long as we're together and good to each other, that's all that matters. That, and not letting the cheese run out.
So ultimately, I'm not anxious. Only holding my breath through a long dive underwater.