Conversations With Mr B: Emotionally Inept

Scene: Walking home from Royal Quays shopping outlet after a lovely hot chocolate and cake in Thorntons cafe. Mr B is trying to explain some new TV programme to me

Mr B: It's got that character from "In The Loop". You know who I mean.

Me: "Walk the f*cking line" (in a very bad Scottish accent) - that dude?

Mr B: No. The other one.

Me:  "Difficult difficult lemon difficult"

Mr B: No, you goof, that's Chris Addison's character.

Me: Yes, I know that.

Mr B: The other one. Erm... Simon.

Me: Oh. "It's not inevitable. It's just not evitable"

Mr B: "You better work on that f*cking line" (also in a bad Scottish accent)

Me: That's an awesome film.

Mr B: It was R. (ex-girlfriend) that put us onto that wasn't it?

Me: Yes. *short pause* Remind me, how did you two ever break up? You seem to have an awful lot in common.

Mr B: Basically, one day she said "nah" and I am completely emotionally inept and said "oh ok".

Me: So, basically, we've just lasted this long because I didn't say "nah" to you?

Mr B: Erm... well... no, not exactly. I'm different now. I'd fight for you.

Me: What if I said "nah" to you now.

Mr B: Erm... I don't know

Me: That's not putting up much of a fight for me after 9 years Mr B.

Mr B: Ok. How about this - I've got the house keys.

Me: I've got the joint account card and there's a Premier Inn across the road.

Mr B: I can take the money out of the account. Or I could, if I knew the password.

Me: That's it? I've got the house keys. That's all you can come up with? Not that you love me or anything like that.

Mr B: Well, I was being practical, because you're a practical person really. I could start bringing the boy into it but that just seems pathetic.

Me: Well, yes. I would win. I've got the maternity leave.

Mr B: So?

Me: Are you kidding me?

Mr B: Well, that's just an accessory issue.

Me: Is it? Well, what are the big issues then?

Mr B: Well, I love you, because obviously that seems to matter to you, but most importantly, I have the house keys.

Sorry Doctor

Scene: Awkward postnatal appointment with a Doctor who was not my doctor...

Doctor: When you have your next baby...

Me: * cutting off doctor before he finishes that sentence * There won't be a next baby.

Doctor: Well, accidents to happen.

Me: Trust me. There won't be a next baby.

Doctor: We would like to make you feel happier about that.

Me: Oh, I'm sorry Doctor, how many next children would you like me to have???

(Of course I didn't actually say that. I sat in silence looking at him as though he had two heads, but I wish I had said it).

If You Have Children...

... you will never again trust that a warm feeling in your groin area is a safe and good thing. You will always be wondering if something spectacularly unpleasant has escaped from your infant's nappy.

I'm just warning you. 

You're welcome. 

Conversations With Mr B : Where Would Starbucks Live?

Me: I need new books thank you please.

Mr B: Okay, are you getting them for the Kindle, or actual books.

Me: Both.

Mr B: And are you getting your actual books from Amazon?

Me: No, from Waterstones.

Mr B: Why?

Me: Because I can use my points card * pause* and also because if I buy them from Amazon, I am not supporting actual book shops like Waterstones and then those shops might go bust and then where would Starbucks live?

Oops

Or, more appropriately, bollocks and arse. I have lost all my blog pictures in a moment of epic stupidity.

I joined Google + by accident one evening, and in my hurry to work out what it was, I managed to delete my album of blog pictures off the internets for all eternity by not reading the warning.

This is going to be terribly time-consuming to fix as I appear to have misplaced (read: deleted) the majority of my paint drawings from my laptop.

I am the queen of muppets.

Tales From Gas and Air...

At some point in the future, I will entertain you with the wonderfully traumatic tale of my son's birth. For now, here are some snippets of things I said / did whilst under the influence of gas and air (the most marvellous drug in the world) and which I instructed Mr B to keep a note of in case I needed them in future (presumably for this blog post...)

1. Whilst Mr B was taking photos of the delivery room (and I was sucking on my gas and air) I asked him: "does my hair look messy in that photo?"

2. I developed a preoccupation with taking off my leggings because "they'll stop the baby getting out" (yes, that was precisely the problem...)

3. I advised Mr B that without my gas and air everything was "a whole world of pain"

4. I needed a drink and asked Mr B to "pass me the light water because this bottle is full of heavy water"

5. I developed a preoccupation with "the butterflies". For clarification, there were no butterflies in my delivery room, I was talking about the vibration from my TENS machine. It did bugger all to help the pain, but I did like the butterflies.

Just Keep Breathing

Stop press. I've got it. The magic knowledge that means giving birth will not be as horrendously painful as I've been led to believe. Are you ready? ....

Apparently the trick is to breathe.

Yep, breathing is the future. That's it. You don't need medication, or injections, or gas and air. You just need air.

So says the woman who ran my Parent Craft class. All you have to do is remember to breathe. This information took two hours of my life to acquire. I learnt how to breathe in a variety of different ways (well, apparently it was all different ways, but it was effectively breathing in and out over and over again) and then got yelled at and told to pretend to have a contraction. I don't really know how you pretend to have them... I was always under the impression they just kind of happened. In our class, you close your eyes and relax (as much as you can relax on a gym mat in a room full of other pregnant women) and then get yelled at to breathe and then to breathe a different way and then to breathe another different way.

This is the cure for all pain in childbirth.

Personally, I think I shall be relying on a large quantity of chilled chardonnay.

The Saga of James The Delivery Van Man

It's that time again folks ... mobile phone renewal time! Hurrah! You may remember the sage I had last year in attempting to renew my mobile phone company and the resulting complaints (yes, this particularly company's customer service was so shocking I had to make two complaints!!) Following this, I decided that in no uncertain terms was I ever going to renew my contract with them, whatever the circumstances.

I therefore found myself another contract with an entirely different company and a shiny new phone. I also found another saga. I call this The Saga of James the Delivery Van Man.

My new phone was due to arrive next day by courier delivery at some point between 7.30am and 9.30pm. The timings were very vague. Armed with my parcel tracking number, I saw that my delivery left the depot at 8.30am and satisfied that it should arrive that day and sat around the house waiting and doing little jobs, mainly weeding the front garden.

My phone did not arrive. At 9.30pm I checked the online parcel tracker and discovered that the delivery company had updated their records to say that they had "attempted delivery" at 11am and had left a card. It must have been the most bizarre attempted delivery to ever take place. At 11am I was weeding in the front garden. The only way a delivery man attempted to get past me was if he, his van and his parcel were invisible. There was also no card. I was tres disappointed.

The next morning, I called to find out what was happening and was advised to call James, my personal delivery driver for an update. I called and was promised it would be delivered by 9.30pm. 9.30pm came and went and there was no sign of my parcel. I was beginning to get more than a little annoyed.

The following day was Saturday. I called the company I ordered the phone from and was told that James the delivery driver had gone AWOL with my parcel, had not returned to the depot and was uncontactable. The customer service assistant promised to call back as soon as she had any news and advised me to stay in just in case the parcel was delivered in the meantime. I waited for 3 hours. I thought this was quite long enough on a Saturday and called back to be advised by a different assistant that the delivery company stop work at 12.30 on a  Saturday (by this point it was almost 3pm) and I was very furious. I enquired about cancelling my order so that I could just go into a shop and sort this out myself (convinced that the stress of awaiting James the Delivery Man would put me into an early labour), but was told that I would need to send my phone etc back, they could not cancel the order until it had been delivered. I was also told that if I called back on Monday they would raise an enquiry with the delivery driver.

On Monday, I called and was advised that it would be delivered absolutely definitely by 10.30am. It did not arrive. I continued with my morning. At 3pm, I decided to chase them up. I was told the driver was 5 minutes away from my house. I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited. James the Delivery Van Man eventually arrived about an hour later.

I was ready to give him my full furious. Then I opened the door to the stench of cigarette smoke. It was not a little bit, it was as if I had been sat in a smoking room with about 500 smokers for the day. I signed for my parcel and shut the door quickly.

In James's case, it turns out smoking actually saves lives! He will never know how lucky he is...
 

Mascara Mysteries

Last week, Mr B and I decided to celebrate the start of my maternity leave with a long weekend in Yorkshire. We stayed in a lovely B & B near Fountains Abbey and had a very nice few days. This is all beside the point. I am telling you this in the hope that you can help me solve my mystery.

On our last morning there, I was in the bathroom attempting to put on my make-up so as not to frighten the other guests at breakfast time (very considerate of me, I know). It was not a particularly large or fussy bathroom.

As I was busy applying my eye-shadow over the sink, I heard a tiny little tap noise as if something had fallen. I reached for my mascara and it was gone. It has been sitting on the shelf by the sink. There were no holes in the shelf, or the floor. There were no cloaks of invisibility. All the units were firmly sealed and the toilet seat was down.

My mascara was nowhere to be found. Where is it?!!!!

Baby Brain

I have succumbed to baby brain. I have tried to resist it, I really have, but it has caught up with me, as the following conversations will demonstrate:

Conversation in the lift with a work colleague:

Scenario: I am walking into the lift, staring intently at my Blackberry.

Colleague: *looks pointedly at Blackberry* You're not still working are you?

Me: No. I'm sending myself an email to remind myself to do something I forgot to do before I left. If I don't do it right now, I'll forget what I need to do. 

Colleague: What do you need to do?

Me: I can't actually remember. 

Several hours later at home:

Scenario: I am logged into the laptop staring aimlessly at an empty blog post screen, trying to work out what I was planning to blog about. 

Mr B: You look confused.

Me: I've forgotten what I was blogging about.

* logs out  of Blogger *

Mr B: Oh well. Did you manage to sort that training out at work?

Me: S@*t. That's what I forgot to do. 

Mr B: That's not very bright. 

Me: No. It gets worse * tells Mr B the story about the lift at work * I need to email myself about it right now so I don't forget tomorrow. 

Mr B: * laughing at my stupidity * That would make a good blog post. 

Me: B*@ll$%cks. That's what I was logged into Blogger for...

Mr B: * laughs again*

Me: * shuts down laptop *

Mr B: What are you doing?

Me: *looking at Mr B as though he has two heads* I'm shutting down the laptop

Mr B: What about that email?

Me: What email?

Things No-one Ever Tells You About Being Pregnant

1. Your bump is not a permanent fixture. In the early days it will disappear without warning, leaving you looking like you just ate too many pies (or in my case, too many cakes). As your bump develops, it will look like there is a little alien inside you. It will move around randomly and, at times, will look quite disfigured.

2. Ironically, the bigger your bump gets, the fewer cakes you can eat (the same applies to chocolate, chips and anything else you might like to eat in large quantities).

3. You will not realise how useful your pelvic floor muscles are until you cannot rely on them to function adequately in a variety of different situations.

4. Gaviscon will become your very best friend.

5. Random strangers in supermarkets will ask you "when's it due?" and you are expected to want to discuss this. You are also expected to carry on as normal when they say "bloody hell, you're enormous", and by 'carry on as normal' I do not mean 'punch them in the face'.

6. You will become stupid. I mean really stupid. You cannot resist it.

7. You will suddenly decide that the names you picked out for your child when you were 7 years old are complete rubbish and that no-one in their right mind would call their child that. Then, despite promising you would not be 'that person', you will go out and buy a book of baby names which you will read cover to cover without finding a single name you like.

8. When people you barely know reach out and touch your bump, it is not acceptable for you to respond by reaching out to touch their belly.

9. Not only will you lose the ability to see your own feet, you will also lose the ability to put your shoes on without assistance. Unless, that is, your shoes happen to be slippers or flip-flops because things would have to be pretty dire before you could fail to get your feet into those.

10. Wearing orange clothing of any type will result in you looking like a space-hopper. There are no exceptions.

Devastated

I had the most humiliating experience of my entire life last week.

Mr B has a new car. (Don't panic, we haven't won the lottery and left you out or anything, it's a lease car). It has all these fancy gadgets, one of which is parking sensors. You know, those stupid beepers that warn you when you're about to crash into a large solid object like a wall or another vehicle?

Mr B picked me up from work the other day and I went to put my stuff in the boot.

I set the sensors off.

They thought I was a vehicle.

Carry On Midwifery

During pregnancy, visiting your midwife is supposed to be a positive and reassuring experience. With my midwife, it is more like an episode of a carry on film.

At a recent visit, the midwife began by calling me by my middle name. This is not good. I do not like my middle name. I do not use my middle name. I most certainly do not want my first name to be replaced by it. Said midwife did not understand what she had done to irritate me, even after a very clear and concise explanation from Mr B, who was trying to spare her a very slow and painful death-by-Mrs-B's-evil-eye. 

She then attempted to take blood. You will soon understand why I say attempted. First, she had to find the needle and relevant vials in which to collect my blood. On the surface, this would appear like a relatively simple task, however, it transpires it requires some detective skills. After all, locating a box of empty vials on the top of the only filing cabinet in the room is rather like searching for a snowball in the Arctic (I'm sure you'll agree). 

After locating those pesky vials, she then went to sterilise her hands. Good move, I thought, until she squirted the hand gel at the window instead of in her hands. This was the woman I was supposed to let near me with a sharp and pointed needle. Mr B kept saying everything would be fine. He tells lies. 

She began with my right arm. She tried to find a vein, failed, and stabbed me randomly in the muscle of my arm before saying "oh, there's nothing coming out of that one" as though surprised that my muscle was not leaking blood. She moved to the left arm. She tightened the band around it, then proceeded to watch the vials roll off the desk onto the floor, before looking around the room in amazement that they had disappeared. By this point there was a rather large, throbbing, purple vein from which to take the blood. You could not have missed it if you tried. Hell, I could have taken the blood from my own arm it was that big. She missed. Or rather, punctured the vein in a variety of places, leaving me with a rather heavily bleeding left-arm (which later turned into the most horrendous bruise you have ever seen from a simple blood test).

This is the woman I am supposed to trust to bring my baby safely into the world. Suddenly a home birth is not looking like such a terrible idea....

Game Answers

Well, we have returned from our anniversary holiday in Grasmere, and I know you are dying to know the answers to the hangman game, so here you are...


Game One

A jigsaw puzzle made out of a photograph from our wedding day 

Game Two

Afternoon tea for two at the Linthwaite Hotel in Windermere

Game Three

A new shirt, well it is a cotton anniversary after all

Game Four

A card


I also bought him two other shirts and a pair of skinny jeans.


He bought me this:

I think he wins...

Holiday Blues

I totally have the holiday blues already. Yes, you read that right. Me, Queen of the holiday countdown, has the holiday blues. You want to know why? Mr B. That's why.

In the car on the way to work this morning, we had a holiday conversation:

Me: This is our last working day until our holidays.

Mr B: Then how many more days?

Me: Today and two more.

Mr B: So, how many days until we go back to work?

Me: Gnjorhgoh?nlb!lnbldgn*jdjbvksjb?!!!

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT BEFORE YOUR HOLIDAYS HAVE EVEN STARTED? WHY?????!!!!!

Asshats

Dear Well-Known Retailer (whose name I cannot mention because it will let the cat out of the bag),

I recently placed an order on your website. This order was for an anniversary gift for my husband. Our anniversary is on Tuesday. I placed the order on 8th May and was advised by your website, and by email, that the estimated delivery time was 6-8 working days. It has now been 9 working days.

On contacting your Customer Services, I was advised that the website information is "incorrect" and the estimated production and delivery time is actually 16-18 working days. I pointed out that it might be advisable for this information to be made available on the website as the product is advertised under the "gift" section, so it is likely that people making such a purchase are doing so as a gift. If not, there is something quite seriously wrong with them.


I was then advised by the helpful gentleman that he would see if there was anything he could do to speed things up. Whilst a 20% discount is a welcome gesture, I fail to see how this improves upon the delivery time. The Customer Service assistant did not understand the problem and pointed out that this was only an additional 10 days. Clearly, in his opinion, my wedding anniversary is a moveable feast. Perhaps in another 10 days I will have another lovely holiday booked and another round of cards and presents? No? Well, it might have been prudent to deliver my order on time then!

Please bear this in mind for future customers.

Regards,

Mrs B

Stupidity I Have Heard : The Main Food Groups

Travelling on trains with work has it's amusing moments. Overhearing a person having an inexplicably loud conversation in the Quiet Coach of a train can be very irritating ... except when the conversation goes like this:

"You've got to get him to eat all the main food groups ... yeah, you know, the five main food groups ... calcium, fat, vegetables, solids and liquids ... well, maybe he needs more liquids then"

I wonder if the five main food groups have changed since I went to school....

Conversations With Mr B : Baby Face

Scene: Mr B and I are standing at the top of our stairs. Mr B looks at me and randomly squishes my face.

Me: what are you doing?

Mr B: trying to see what our baby will look like.

Things I Want To Eat / Drink After I Have Given Birth

You could also choose to read this as a list of demands. Prepare yourself accordingly

1. Soft boiled egg
2. Fried egg with a soft yolk
3. Poached egg
4. Parma Ham
5. Melt-in-the-middle chocolate pud
6. Cheesecake which does not have to be checked for raw egg content
7. Pimms
8. Cups of tea at regular intervals without feeling queasy
9. Baked Camembert
10. Brie
11. Gorgonzola
12. Goats Cheese

Let's Play A Game...

We can call it "Anniversary Present Hangman".

The Rules are effectively the same rules as hangman (if you don't know how to play this, learn, then come back to play).

The topic is: things I have bought Mr B for his anniversary present (and things I am going to buy him)

Additional rule : you are allowed to guess one letter per game per day. That's your lot.

Extra additional rule: you are not allowed to tell Mr B.

Got it?!

Game One

_/_ _ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _/ _ _/ _/ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _/_ _ _ _/_ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ _ _/_ _ _

Game Two


I am so totally taking this game out of commission now because Jill Bee is far too good at hangman and I would have to give the game away if I filled in her answers!!!! 

* * T E * * * * */T * A/* * */T * */* T/T * E/* * * T * * * * T E/ * * T * */* */* * * * E * * E * E

Game Three

_/_ _ _/_ _ _ _ _/_ _ _ _/_ _/_ _/_/_ _ _ _ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _ _/_ _ _

Game Four

_/_ _ _ _

You have 12 days (because then I am going on my holidays).

Go.

Five Minute Warning ...

I'm coming back.

I'm just warning you.

Because I don't want you to keel over and die of shock.

That is all.