moved again

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http://preggersgoespop.blogspot.com/

It doesn't take a lot of hindsight

To see that 2006 is in contention for my most welcome new dawn to date. Thirty minutes does it.

Last year had some truly memorable highlights. Swimming with dolphins, dancing with Max barefoot on a beach, swirling my skirt to the Scissor Sisters at Amy's wedding, getting to know my wonderful nieces, reading the Kite Runner on holiday with my women, bringing pleasure with my camera in Bali.
But, on the whole, I'd stick it a drawer labeled 'dreadful. Bloody good riddance'.

This one will be better.
I've stopped smoking.
I'll be getting in my own bed for the first time in a year next weekend.
I've been promoted, albeit only to my own job.
The novel is getting written.
The baby is growing inside me.
The sickness is nearly over.
Ditto the tiredness apparently.

Life is seriously looking up.
I feel like after a year of being seriously derailed by a whole load of energy thrown in directions I wouldn't revisit, I'm in with a chance of getting it closer to right in 2006. I'm focusing on the big piece of paper.

My hormones are going ballistic.
I want to cry a lot. That's ok. I'm seeing it as a shedding process.
A saline tide to wash last year away, leaving tracks where the hard lessons have been. They'll guide me if I need to revisit.

This is my 100th entry here. I feel it's time to bring things to a close. Getting naked is currently a long way from top of my priorities. This blog has served me well, but the gypsy is moving on. Let me know if you want to stay with me as I tell in a new set of stories, in a new place in cyberspace. You can email or leave me a message here and I'll check back for a while.
Happy New Year

J x

Coming Clean

I didn't stop dating because it was rubbish. Although. Actually, I probably would have done. My last date (it was a hangover date - arranged before I decided to stop, followed through out of courtesy), would most likely have tipped me over the edge. The photo was at least a decade out of date (totally forgivable) but despite the mansion in Angel, good job, chocolate coloured Labrador (my favourite) and grand piano, the guy had no manners. Turns out he wanted to play 'are girls or boys hotter' all night, before revealing that whilst he'd had a plethora of same sex screws at boarding school he was 'definitely straight'. I hate that. Definitely straight is my sister who, much as she appreciates beauty, would find even Angelina leaning in for a snog unalluring. Definitely straight is not a string of dalliances with the same sex and avoiding all the phobia the braver folk get for admitting as much.
I actually gave up dating when I realised I was going to be a mum.
I decided that my head space would be pretty full and I needed to keep things serene and balanced.
Which was just as well cos no sooner had I realised I was pregnant than my innards started pouring out through my pants and I thought I wasn't.
Only it's a fighter. Held on amist the torrents. Saw it on a scan a few weeks ago, complete with heart beat and all. The bleeding has stopped and the hospital are confident it's all ok. I'm not 12 weeks yet so shouldn't really be telling, but I'm only a fortnight off and hope we're through the worst.
Bar the screaming and tearing bit.
Which, I should mention, terrifies me.
There's naught like seeing your sister sewn up like a puppy ravaged dolly to put you right in the mood for adopting.
Most of my friends and family have been marvelous. There's been times I realised a few of my friends see me as the spinning top whose life is so nuts that the comparison allows them to feel serene. But mostly I've not felt that, just cherished.
Dad had a tough time with it. I wonder if he wonders if he was a sado-masochist maniac in a previous life to have been punished with me. There he is, an ordinary, conventional geezer, who no sooner gets to grips with Big Daught being a dyke, than is hit with, 'oh, and did I mention I'm heading for single-parentdom?'.

I'm thrilled. Wasn't sure until I found it the pregnancy sack had survived the internal tidal wave.
The father is less so.
I'm waiting to see how that pans out but currently expecting nothing seems the safest option. An initial flurry of 'I want to do the right thing' has petered into silence.
I've got names.
Chosen my guardian angels (God parents without the God bit)
Found out I'm bloody lucky to be a civil servant as they will give me six months on full pay followed by six months unpaid leave.
Planned a naming ceremony in a bluebell carpeted wood in spring 2007.
Decided I'm going to tackle this with humour and aplomb. Learn all I can, love all I can and give all I can to make it a success.
I haven't been able to get much further than that. Too bloody shattered. No sign of blooming, I look and feel rubbish. Can't work out whether it's the chocolate or baby that's stopping me doing up my trousers.
Have naturally resolved to get fit in the New Year!

xxxx

A vat of Christmas love and a large lady's stocking of cheer

I haul my stomach up the stairs to write this. No mean feat after my Mother's Christmas feast.

I love Christmas, have been captivated by the magic after a few years of being blase. There's naught like the cold to make things sparkle I've realised.

If you're wondering if writing about stuff other than my love life proved a task too hard to master, I should correct you. It's not. Rather there's been some fairly major stuff come up over the last few weeks which I haven't been ready to write about, and when I can't write about what's top of my head to sail through fluff instead feels false.
Anyway, that'll change and I'll spell it all out in detail next time I write. In the meantime, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and let you know I'm thinking of you, wherever you are....

Voting for Thatcher? Surely not

Here I am a woman defined in opposition to Thatcher. A woman whose sense of justice was born out of the venom that Thatcher arose in me. Here I am, cheering on Thatcher as she gets gets crowned queen of the jungle (I'm a celebrity, get me out of here). It pained me, I was convinced no one with the Thatcher gene would ever get my vote. I was convinced never again would a female Thatcher woo Britain. I was, I'm not too proud to admit, very wrong indeed.
Carol Thatcher, chip off the old block, despite her 'I'm not bossy' protestations to the contrary, gave the best telly of the winter. Not since Celebrity Love Island have I been so wrapped up in the fortunes of those who at the outset had me asking 'who's that, what do they do..?'


I've been ill. Got to the final furlong of our mission at work, fell over the fence... at home, laid up.
Oh, and I've gone 10 days on 3 fags, or five days clear, 3 fags, five days clear. Know it's not a Thatch five star perfection, but... Impressed with myself regardless

x

The last straw

I have no idea what I am going to write about from here on in.
I do know it won't be dates.
before you all go 'oh there she goes again, with that I can be private about my love life nonsense, before spilling the beans for our amusement', I'll say it's not that.
It's not that I'm going to have loads of amazing dates and keep them all as a sexy lovely secret to myself. How horrid would that be? Too horrid.
Nope, I'm not having any.
Before those of you who know me best go ' uh huh, a Julie celibacy, off dating spell, that'll last a week', I'll say, it will. And longer.
'What?' I hear you cry, 'could have brought this on?'.
A singles night brought this on.
Nettie sends an email. 'single gorgeous gals, we're taking life in our own hands, sod the speed dating, sod the nasty cattle market events, sod dating agencies and personal ads and hoping the guy who smiled at you on the tube is not wearing a ring cos he's unattached rather than just messing round on his pregnant wife indoors.... Or allergic to gold'.... It didn't say this exactly, I'm improvising, it did say
'come to (some trendy hard surfaced bar) in Liverpool street, bring a man you don't fancy.'
Nettie brought two. I tried to invite the millionaire, but he was househunting in Sark. She covered me with a spare ex boyfriend she found hanging around in her garage.
Dad rang on the day of the big event
'want to go out?'
'sorry Dad, can't, out with Nettie'
'Just the three of us then' asked Dad hopefully (he has a soft spot for Nettie')
'Nope, we're going to a singles night'
'singles night? Can I come, I'm single?'
'nope'.
Net says
'ah let him come, your dad's a laugh'
then, worryingly
'don't let me snog him'.
I tell her
'honey I've told him he's not your type, if you decide to revise that, fine, if you want to kiss my dad, ewww, but fine, just don't ask me to referee it.'
The whole thing is feeling like a really bad idea at this point
I ring dad. 'you're coming'.
It's tragic. Dad and Net behave.
A table full of the most gorgeous, gregarious, witty women you've ever met. Two of Nets exes (off limits), my dad, and a man who looks like he has downs syndrome and tries to impress with 'I have no idea how much I earn anymore, lots, but lost count....'
Enough to put any woman off dating. Even me.
So looks like I need to find other things to write about.