Time for a little break

One last tummy shot

I thought I'd get a photo in of my gigantic tummy before it explodes. Even my maternity clothing is getting a little tight on me now, so I hope he's coming soon. Due date is March 14th (nine days from today), but I can now tell people: any day now. This photo was taken yesterday. Also featured is my new haircut; it's just a bit shorter.


Last month we replaced our old wooden arch (that's it on the grass) with a new steel one. The wooden one supported a climbing rose, a passionflower vine, and two clematis--one purple, one red. Partner secured it to the garage (not pictured, but about three feet to the right) with a cable to keep it upright last summer. When he cut the cable, it pretty much tumbled down. The rose and purple clematis are still intact; we'll need to wait and see if the passionflower and red clematis survive the outrage.

The sun's appearance this week gave me impetus to do some gardening nearly every day. Spring is in the air--I hope!--less than two weeks ago it snowed. I've pruned some tough old shrubs and a few of the rosebushes, and cleared away dead foliage from several beds. Pruning is great, especially when one doesn't have to worry about killing the plant. Partner strangely doesn't like fuschias, and I'm not fussed if ours lives or dies: but I don't think I actually can kill it. Every year I cut it back to nearly the ground and every year it grows about eight feet. Still on my hitlist: the laurels and the rest of the roses.

Cheap flowers, motivation, and Romeo and Juliet

This bouquet of roses was £1 altogether. I haven't actually counted, but I think there are close to three dozen. I have a huge bunch of very cheerful chrysanthemums on my dining table; I think I paid £0.80 for them. I love getting flowers on the cheap. Strangely, the supermarket puts a sell-by date on flowers, meaning if they aren't sold by the last day, they go on the clearance shelf.

My backache is mostly gone, and my drive and motivation is mostly back. The dog and I went walking today; I made granola, crumpets, AND dinner; I finished and submitted that pesky math assignment. I even gardened and houseworked, albeit slightly. I'm on good form to sit down to the piano, and later do a quick sketch in my sketchbook (as per my daily goals).

We had a weekend visit to London to see the inlaws, resulting in high blood pressure (literally, not figuratively. It was actually a nice visit), further resulting in not one but two hospital trips: both on Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday trip, I ended up discharging myself because the nurse was happy with my condition and my blood pressure was dropping. Only when I told her I wouldn't wait for the doctor's review, she went from friendly to dirty look and told me how irresponsible I was. I had to sign a disclaimer saying I wouldn't blame her if I dropped dead in the street outside.

I hope no one thinks the worse of me, but I wanted to leave because we had tickets for the ballet and it started in half an hour. I knew the doctor could be hours yet (hospitals crawl at a snail's pace) and I didn't want to miss Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. We ended up missing the first act--but as there were three acts in total, we made it for just after the balcony scene, and saw all the good stuff (i.e. all the blood). The end was very dramatic when she stabbed herself and then rolled into his embrace, so they were spooning corpses.

I wonder if all ballet companies have a few people on the books just to walk on and off as the father/mother/priest characters. I mean, the people who are in the ballet but don't actually do any dancing. Are these people actually dancers, or are they just some random person brought in to wear a costume and mime a bit?

I checked myself back into the hospital the next morning to get the all-clear on my blood pressure. No problems there. And the previous night's nurse: not on duty, sadly.