oh my god there's a cot in our house... what's that doing there??

We saw the most beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery last Saturday night (to the tunes of a live jazz band!) - landscapes painted by Renoir as well as few other of the key impressionists. I had no idea that Renoir was such a prolific landscape painter, nor that his styles and choices of landscapes were so varied and diverse. This was one of my favourites - St Marks in Venice. You can see more of his works in this National Gallery slideshow by clicking here. The only downside was how quickly I got tired and my back ached what with lumbering around all this extra weight. At least there were loads of benches upon which I could rest my (substantial) behind and sigh in envy at all the slim young things dressed to go out on the town after seeing the exhibition. All my pre-pregnancy clothes are packed away where I can't see them, but it doesn't stop me admiring all the fashions currently out there!

or so I keep telling myself...

Seen on the Cricklewood Broadway - it's not just ok news that they have frozen fish in stock, it's not even good news, or heck, let's push the boat out, great news...it's GREAT GOOD NEWS! Woohoo! And no we didn't buy any. We know better than to buy seafood from dodgy little delis...

Taken on our mosey through the park in the rain this afternoon - yes, it's British summer time, and yes it's chucking down the rain. And I didn't bring an umbrella. Situation normal!

The bump size is 32 weeks. Not that you can see it in this pic but our little one was, at the time, trying very hard to make some more room on the right of my belly with vigorous arm and leg extensions. It's both very cool and very freaky having your own resident-alien-in-the-belly moment!

I am that sad and pathetic that I have a favourite avian inhabitant of the pond enclosure in the park (note to self: get a life). I always look out for him when I walk past in the mornings and evenings - Mr goosey goosey gander. We can hear him honking from our bedroom when he's particularly noisy. How he outwits the foxes that live in the park I don't know.

Our lady of the lake (who looks like she is washing her hair)...

Never let it be said I don't do glamour. Here's me at the weekend in the middle of stripping wallpaper, sanding walls and painting in the nursery. I think the crop top is particularly classy (it used to fit me once, honest), though it's a close contest between that and the face mask I am wearing so I don't breathe in any dust or paint particles! Check out those walls, turns out they were in absolutely appalling condition underneath the wallpaper. As a result we had to spend half a day filling in lumps and bumps and our plans to have the painting done by the end of the weekend have gone out the window!

Getting there...the undercoat is on, and the top coat is going on one night early this week, then we'll finish the skirting boards!

Found this little lovely in an urban wild 'outdoor space' near my office in Camden. There is a pond there with tortoises basking on logs in the sun, yellow irises swaying from the banks admiring their reflections, long grasses rustling in the summer breezes, and a family of coots with 5 fluffy little babies scooting around the water in search of adventure.

Me in the gardens..31 weeks preggers (and looking at the photo I can see why my back is getting sore - note to self: keep your lower back tighter and stop letting your belly pull you forward!)

"Damn! They caught me! And I'd almost worked out how to reach the accelerator, change the gears and see over the dashboard..." (Freddie's escape plan is foiled)

It's official, as of this morning I swore allegiance to the Queen and promised (some of) my loyalty to Britain: I am now a British Citizen, and in around a month's time I will become holder of the hallowed British passport.

So, jokes about Aussies are henceforth banned or I'll have you shipped off to some convict colony somewhere. What? You Brits aren't doing that anymore?

Rule Britannia! And may Australia long continue to win at cricket.

Yours as Queenie's Loyal Subject (throw another shrimp on the barbie and pass the Bunday & coke)

P.S. Oh lookie it's me with the Mayor of Camden!

How the $*£*$"%^!$ heck are you supposed to be able to shave your bikini line when you can no longer see the damn thing?? Or, for that matter, shave your legs when there's a huge bump that protests and kicks you every time you try to bend over ('Mum STOP squashing me!')?? I think it's time to endure the pain of hot wax at the beautician...

Look at Su and Andy's gorgeous son Matthew now! 7 weeks old, smiling away, beautiful little chubby baby cheeks and doing all the things babies should :) They grow so quick...!

Crikey! Where do the days go? We'll have a baby in the house instead of in my belly before we know it!

Have been really really busy, work has got crazy and it's odd having half a brain on work and the other half looking forward and planning and trying to get ready for the impending moment of 'turn our lives upside down and give it a good shake about'! I go on maternity leave in 5 weeks, I don't know how I'm going to get everything done at work before I go. Never mind about finishing the unpacking and getting the nursery decorated and set up!

What else have we been up to? Got thoroughly fed up with sitting on camp chairs and a computer chair since before Easter, and the armchair we thought we were getting fell through, so we had to go and buy a sofa. Which takes 5-7 weeks to make. And cost a bomb. Brilliant. Like my back doesn't ache enough without another 5 weeks of camp chairs! We probably could have spent several weekends tramping around London to find a sofa that a) we like and b) is in stock but frankly, I don't have the energy to do that at the moment. So, we wait 5-7 weeks and I go see my physiotherapist a bit more!

Saw Marie last weekend, and caught up with Iain, Cesca and Freddie at lunch on Sunday. We picked up the last few bits of furniture that Marie had been storing for us til we were ready, and I also managed to get into the town of Tunbridge Wells to buy some ginormo comfy sneakers for my now very big and fat feet (another pregnancy thing that no one tells you about!)

As of this afternoon we are now in dispute with our ex-landlords who have withheld almost 300 quid from our rental deposit bond (like we can afford that). I have informed them that we will be taking them to the equivalent of the small claims court if they don't cough up - we left the property in the condition it was moved into over two years ago, actually some rooms were in better condition. The landlord is totally taking the p*ss and basically using our money to redecorate his flat. I will not go quietly.

Random event of the week: for some bizarre reason I have started singing the chorus to Daryl Braithwaite's song 'The Horses', and have been trying to find the whole song on the internet with no luck - if anyone is sad enough to admit to owning any of his albums and can rip and email me the song I will love you forever. I'm getting tired of just singing the chorus! I blame pregnancy for this random bizarre behaviour (may as well use the excuse while I can!)

I have to work tomorrow (Saturday), it sounded like a good idea when I agreed to it a few weeks ago but now that it's here and I'm losing half my weekend I'm not so sure! Well, it's too late to change anything so I'll just have to go and give the training sessions and be done with it.

Hope life is good for you!

A VERY naughty friend who is a new mum sent me the biggest, most beautiful bouquet of tulips, a literal armful of colourful stunning flowers! It was such a wonderful surprise to open the huge heavy box on my doorstep when I got home. I needed three huge vases to hold them all! Thank you naughty lady!

Sometimes I'd swear there is a huge global conspiracy amongst women not to tell anyone exactly what pregnancy is really like (and probably childbirth and motherhood for that matter!) for fear that no one else will actually go through with it! There have been so many things that I had no idea that happened during the various stages of pregnancy, but when you ask other women, or search on the internet, they are actually quite common! For example no one told me:
- how utterly totally exhausting the first trimester (and longer) is. Like, 'fall asleep in the ladies at work in the afternoon' exhausting. Sloths have more energy and move more quickly than you do some days.
- what an total emotional rollercoaster pregnancy is, with all those hormonal changes you can sob your heart out inconsolably one day and be on cloud nine the next, all for no apparent reason. Generally you're more teary and sensitive than you used to be. Which for us tough cookies is, on occasion, quite embarrassing, crying when watching cute puppies on TV ads.
- bodily fluids. I won't go into too much detail on this other than to say you can leak some weird sh*t long before the baby shows up. And there's only so many times you can glance down at your shirt in a business meeting and hastily 'spill' some of your coffee down your shirt in a futile attempt to cover up what's already there before relenting and stuffing your already huge bras with more padding to prevent future leakages in important meetings.
- Increases in bust size. Like I wasn't big enough already. 3 bra sizes = very sore back.
- Leg cramps. What the? They damn well HURT and wake you up at 3am for no apparent reason. Is it the extra weight you're carrying around? Who knows? But dragging yourself cursing out of bed to put your hefty bodily weight onto a spasming calf muscle to convince it to unclench sooner rather than later HURTS. And yes I'm sure childbirth hurts more but I'm not there yet so let me whinge now about what does hurt!
- Itchy skin. Doesn't matter how much moisturiser I put on my legs, the second I get into bed they itch like crazy. Drives me bananas.
- Morning sickness. I am one of the lucky small percentage of women who didn't have any morning sickness at all, when I thought everyone got it! Nada, nothing, zip. I am thankful for this merciful lack of sickness, believe you me!
- Skin discolouration. What on earth this has to do with the baby I don't know but my face has patches of two tonal skin on it, which apparently will disappear in the weeks after birth.
- Aching: legs, back, shoulders, neck, ankles, feet, actually where don't I ache??
- Peeing every 5 minutes. I swear I now know where every public toilet in London is.
- Weird dreams. Seriously weird dreams. So weird I'm not even going to begin to describe them!

This is all slightly tongue in cheek, as I know I am very lucky to have had a relatively uneventful pregnancy and to have a baby growing healthily inside of me. I've not had to be hospitalised along the way, I've not had any of the more severe debilitating side effects of pregnancy, and every time I feel my baby kick inside me it makes me feel like nothing I've ever felt before. I'll take whatever the pregnancy throws at me if it means my little one is healthy at the end of it all when I get to hold him or her in my arms for the first time.