Return to blogging and a restaurant review…
Oh hi again! Yes, I am back once more, who knows how long for this time but for now my blogging mojo seems to have returned. I credit it to a group of North West bloggers I had lunch with a week or so ago. I’ve remembered how much fun it is to be with fellow bloggers, how much I miss it but most crucially, that I shouldn’t feel guilty about having little bloggy breaks (thanks for the reassurance Pippa!). Especially at almost 7 months pregnant and going through the busiest time at work we’ve ever had.
Despite my break from actual blog stuff I am still fairly active on a lot of the facebook pages, mostly on North West bloggers which is how I wangled myself an invite to Frankie and Bennys to review their new lunch time menu.
We are big Frankie & Bennys fans in this house, we went for Craig’s 40th last year and really enjoyed it. I do find it a touch on the expensive site but the lunchtime menu is 2 courses for £8.25 or 3 course for £9.25 which I think is pretty good.
I chose the cheddar & bacon potato skins, cheeseburger and cherry crumble. Full wasn’t the word! 
I wasn’t a massive fan of the potato skins, a bit bland for me but the cheeseburger was fantastic, as was the cherry crumble and custard. Topped off with a couple of diet cokes (the wine list was calling but I resisted the urge), great service and great company, it was one of the best lunches I’ve had in ages. I’ll definitely be going back.
(I didn’t get a pic of the burger, I was too busy nattering & forgot!)
(Disclosure: I received a free meal from Frankie and Bennys for the purpose of a review but wasn’t told what to write, all opinions are my own)
I think too much – the zombie edition
One of the things I’m most scared of is zombies. So, as with my other great fear, sharks, I feel I should know as much as possible about them in order to defeat them. (Sharks – go for the eyes! Or just don’t go in the water). Of course there isn’t a definitive guide on zombies, mostly just piss poor films which I’m too scared to watch. I IMDB them instead. I do this with all horror films so I know what happens when people talk about them but I don’t scare the bejesus out of myself. Sneaky.
So, last night after I’d read up on the latest research (World War Z) I started to wonder: why brains? Why do zombies want to eat your brains and not sat, liver or heart, or skin even? They’d have a better meal if they ate skin, there’s so much of it compared with brains. No wonder they’re always on the hunt for more brains, they’re relatively small and wouldn’t fill you up for long.
Then it occurred to me. It’s not fiction! There are zombies out there and they are after brains! This isn’t something made up by fiction writers. ‘They’ have studied them & we know they eat brains, much like we know pandas eat bamboo and koalas eat eucalyptus. So where are they? I’m going with Siberia, they probably go after the yetis which is why there haven’t been confirmed sightings yet. Zombies have eaten all the yetis!
In conclusion, having proved that zombies exist (and have decimated the yeti population) I am totally justified in being afraid of the Zombie Apocalypse. I feel vindicated.
And ever so slightly worried for my sanity.
(no pictures as I will have nightmares if I Google zombie images.)
Half way there!
I’m now 20 weeks pregnant and at the half way stage already! It seems to be going pretty fast but to be honest, I want it to. I’m not enjoying this pregnancy like I did the first time. I feel more tired which I suppose is only to be expected with a 4 year old as well. I was nauseous all the time for the first 3.5 months (compared with nothing first time) and a couple of weeks ago I started with awful back and pelvic pain which is manageable when I’m sitting down but agony when I move my legs. A lot of the time walking is difficult, driving can be too (moving my feet on the pedals causes a line of fire up my thigh into my back) and, on the worst days, the pain is almost unbearable even when I sit or lie down. I’m trying to keep moving through the pain as the worst thing I can do is sit still and seize up more. Once I get going I can usually walk semi normally and the pain retracts to a dull ache. The midwife dismissed it as ‘too early to be anything significant’ (at 17 weeks) and the doctor said it was lower back pain which couldn’t be treated with anti inflammatories as I’m pregnant so I’d just have to live with it and hope it gets better. She’s given me some exercises to do which all involve lying on my back – something I can’t do when pregnant!
Finding maternity clothes has been hard. Next have been my saviour once again with trousers and jeans in my fat arse size AND long length which is a minor miracle. The majority of shops evidently think that fat people are short, thin people are tall and all pregnant women like baggy trousers and high neck floral tops. Not true! I’ve dragged some of my old maternity tops out of storage and they’re a god send. All from H&M, they fit really nice and don’t cover the entire top half of my body.
I know I’m being a right moaning cow & I’m sorry for that – you imagine what my poor husband is going through, he gets it every day! I’m not a fan of this stage of pregnancy. I like towards the end, so big I can hardly move, baby doing somersaults part of pregnancy. I haven’t felt baba move yet but I’m not worried. I didn’t feel Sam until almost 23 weeks so I’ll expect the same of this one. It is fun lying in bed at night (can’t sleep because of the back pain and heartburn) trying to work out if what I am feeling is wind or baby. Then farting explosively and having that question answered for me!
I might moan but it’s not to say I’m not happy about being up the duff, I am. I’m completely thrilled and know I’ll feel better mentally at least when I can feel baby move. I have a drawer of things I’ve bought or been given so far. Teeny tiny baby grows and vest, nappies the size of my hand, the blanket I wanted first time around for Sam but refused to pay the price (I thought sod it this time!), I’ve dug my breastfeeding pump out, found my sterilised milk bags and washable breast pads (I’d forgotten the indignity of some parts of breast feeding!) and found my hideous feeding bras – they’re being binned and I am buying pretty ones this time!
Apart from actually meeting our baby there is one thing I’m most looking forward too – after a few months hard saving and a much welcome donation from my Mum we are buying the Stokke Xplory! I’ve loved this pram for the last few years and I’m so excited we’re able to afford one. We’re keeping saving though until we buy it in June/July as I know I’m going to want the extras too! Think that will be a shopping trip for just me & my Mum so Craig doesn’t know the exact cost of everything. J
And that’s where we’re up to. We have our second scan on Friday and we’re 99% positive we won’t be finding out the sex. We both agree that there is nothing more special than going through labour (or a c section) and being surprised. I think we’re sorted on names – well I am anyway, we’re not yet sorted on the birth but that’s not for here and in a few weeks we’ll be sorting out baby’s ‘room’, which is actually just a corner of our bedroom where it will reside at least for it’s first year. I’ll update you again at 30 weeks but in the meantime follow me on Instagram for more bump pics & updates!
Looking rather big for 18.5 weeks!
The National Railway Museum
Last month (was it really so long ago? How fast is this year going?!) we went along to the National Railway Museum in York to check out the trains. Sam loves trains! He loves Chuggington and Thomas the Tank Engine so we knew this would be the ideal day out for him. It’s fairly unusual lately that we have a proper family day out so we were thrilled when Craig got up after 5 hours sleep and a long night at work to come with us!
I forgot how much I love the city of York. It’s been years since I went there and as soon as I saw the minster, the walls and signs for the Jorvik centre I wanted to stay all weekend! Next time we go the NRM (probably in a couple of weeks) I think we’ll stay overnight. There’s so much to do there!
The NRM is fabulous for anyone who loves trains. It’s absolutely huge with loads of real locomotives for you to have a look at, look in and look under. There’s a couple of cafes, a play area for the kids, a mini steam train, a big steam train (both of which you can ride on), a library, toy engines for the children to ride, a couple of gift shops and probably a whole host of other things we didn’t get time to try.
Did we have a good time? What do you think?!
We found the GrumpyishMum family there too!
And my favourite things from the day:
Highly recommended – we’ll be back!
Tattoo – Spring!
I don’t think I ever showed you my newest tattoo. It’s not particularly new anymore, I had it done in April last year for my birthday but forgot to post about it!
With spring coming and the cherry blossoms about to arrive on the trees (we can but hope!) I thought it was quite apt!
I love, love, love it and although it was almost 4 hours of PAIN, it was definitely worthwhile. The new tattoo(s) I was planning are on hold now whilst pregnant but if I still like the thought of them in 6 months time (a test for any tattoo I have) then I’ll be going for it!
Holidays
It feels like forever since our last holiday but actually it’s only been 9 months. Last year we rented a house in Fuerteventura and loved it. However, with a baby on the way we are looking to holiday closer to home this year.
I’ve spent hours online looking at various options, holiday cottages, static caravans, caravan parks, theme parks, yurts – you name it I’ve researched it. Timing is also a problem. I’m due smack bang in the middle of the summer holidays and after my last pregnancy there is a good chance I’ll need to induced or have a section early. Well that rules out the first half of the summer and the second half will be spent either waiting for or caring for our newborn (and not at all stressing about how I’m going to look after a baby and a 5 year old when Craig goes back to work, on nights. Will he actually get any sleep during the day? Doubtful).
Sam, Louis & Rowan at the holiday cottage we hired for Karen (GrumpyishMum’s) birthday last year
Half term in October is looking like our best bet so now my parents (who will be coming with us as well) are back from their holiday in India, we can actually book something. We want fun things for Sam, a nice area to explore for us and a pub so Craig & I can leave the bambinos with Grandma & Grandad and have a night off!
If anyone has any recommendations within a 3/4 hour drive of Manchester then please let me know! Near a beach would be great too!
I have found some great bargains whilst I’ve been rummaging around online, especially if you are looking for a last minute break at Easter. This website combines two of my favourite things – luxury cottages and the Lake District! We’ll definitely be checking them out for our holiday in October, I find their prices more than reasonable and some of the cottages even accept dogs! Sam would love it if we could bring George, my parents puppy along with us!
Will you be going away this year? Vacation? Staycation?
This post was brought to you in conjunction with Cumbrian Cottages.
10 questions
I need a prompt back in blogging about things that aren’t baby related so reading Grazia last night I thought I’d borrow their 10 questions. Apparently these are the questions to ask if you really want to get to know someone. Personally I disagree. I want to know: do you drink, do you eat chocolate and do you think Grey’s Anatomy is the greatest medical drama on TV ever. If it’s yes to all three, we’re going to be best buds. If not, I ain’t interested.
Who have you been closest to in your life?
Difficult. I’ve had different close friends all through my life. Now I have my husband, mum & sister who are all very close to me but I can’t speak to any of them about everything. I like my own company and sorting things myself so I’d have to say me. Sad!
What is your earliest memory?
I get confused about memories. Do I actually remember this? Or do I remember being told about it, or seeing the photo? My long term memory isn’t very good so I think it would have to be a dress I had when I was 7 or 8. It was white with waves on and I think it was from France (where we used to go on holiday). It had writing on it: mer (French for sea) and sea and I remember being very excited that put together it sounded like merci! I wasn’t a cool kid…
What’s your biggest fear?
I have lots of very irrational fears. Being eaten by a shark (even in a swimming pool), zombies, asteroids, deadly diseases such as ebola, diseases that turn us into zombies. My nightmares about having to kill Craig and Sam because the zombies are coming are a source of amusement to my friends but I genuinely worry about the zombie apocalypse and end of the world. I cry in bed sometimes panicking about the zombies eating my child or would we wait for the asteroid to hit or kill ourselves? I know, I’m mental.
Relaxation is…
Sitting in a clean house with my boys watching a film, eating chocolate, lime vodka & diet coke in the fridge for when Sam goes to bed. I like being at home with my family.
What are you best at?
Compartmentalising. If something makes me sad or worried I can just stop thinking about it until I am ready (if at all). It can (and does) make me look hard faced but it’s my way of dealing with it. I don’t like to be emotional in public anymore. I did that when I was younger and it is not becoming.
What do you value in a partner?
Honesty. I can’t abide lies, even little white ones. Nice arms. Height, I don’t like men smaller than me. Generosity, kindness, similar values on child rearing, supportive. I have all of this in my husband, it’s why I married him.
Tell us something that will shock us.
I can’t – my mum reads this. 
Ok, keeping it clean – I love Neil Diamond, Jimmy Nail, Helen Reddy and Fleetwood Mac. If I don’t listen to this I’m listen to 90′s Brit Pop. I hate pretty much all modern music.
Describe the last time you remember feeling really happy.
A couple of weeks ago, doing nothing in particular I did have a tiny little cry because I was so happy. I think I was just in the kitchen, Craig & Sam were playing and laughing in the lounge and I thought how perfect everything was. A lovely husband, fantastic son, I’m pregnant again and although we don’t have loads of money or a huge house, or an expensive car, we are happy and content. I love my life with them, they make me happy.
What’s your greatest regret?
I’m not one for regrets. I compartmentalise them (see above) and try never to return to them. Regrets suck energy from you and I don’t see the point.
What’s the one thing you’d change about yourself or your life?
I’d be more confident. I am (contrary to some appearances) quite shy and scared of what people think of me. I honestly believe that if I was more confident, didn’t give a shit what people thought and stood up for myself, I’d be a lot happier in my career and my personal life. I worry too much what people think of me and I don’t like to upset people or rock the boat. This means people take advantage of me and get what they want from me, usually at a detriment to me. I despair at myself sometimes but can’t seem to get out of the rut. Since I’ve been pregnant this time I’ve found I have been a bit more ballsy, standing up for myself and saying no. It’s caused arguments, I didn’t like it. I think I’ll go back to being a walkover and a mug (yes, I have been called both). I need to change. I hate being like this.
So, do you know me better? Would you now like to be my BFF or run for the hills?
Hello? Hello?
It was the zombie admission wasn’t it…
Come back…
Christmas
Now the baby news is out of the way I can update on what we did over Christmas. As I’ve mentioned previously my sister and her family came over from Australia for the first time since they emigrated 4 years ago. It was the first time 20 month old Riley had been to England and the first time he was meeting much of his family!
We had a fantastic time! Riley’s a brilliant little boy – cheeky, stubborn, cute and funny. Sam adored him!
How much did we manage to cram into 3 weeks?
Helen & I went to my Mum’s Christmas do. These are some of the nicer pictures.
We had a lovely Christmas dinner.
We played a lot.
There were a lot of cuddles for everyone!
We went to Thomas Land.
And we laughed at Riley’s myriad of facial expressions. This kid cracks me up…
Yes, we had a great 3 weeks! We were gutted when they left but hey, they live there, we live here and that’s just the way it is. They have an iPad now so we’ve been Facetiming which is so much easier than Skype! Love it!
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday period too.
The Baby Saga – Success!
It’s been a while since I posted about what was happening in the whole baby saga epic. In November I wasted too much money (and tears) on tests when I was 2 weeks late. In December I decided I wasn’t going to test until I had missed 2 periods. I almost made it…
I think I knew I was going to be pregnant in December. My sister and her family was coming home from Australia for 3 weeks, we had a few nights out booked in and I wasn’t working for most of it. It was fate! Or Sod’s Law, whatever. I have to say I went off alcohol quite a bit from mid December. At our work’s conference (and Christmas party), I stayed pretty sober, interspersing wine with water and diet coke and going to bed at a reasonable hour (I did have a 5 hour drive home though, but this hasn’t bothered me before!) Even on Christmas Day and Boxing Day I wasn’t that bothered about drinking. Not that it repelled me or anything, I just didn’t fancy it. Wish I felt that way about chocolate.
My parent’s neighbour said a few weeks later that I just looked pregnant at Christmas but he didn’t say anything to me! Think I would have been freaked out as we didn’t know then!
I finally admitted I was almost a month late the day after Boxing Day. My Mum & Dad (unrelated to this) offered to have Sam for the night and Craig & I went to watch Reacher at the cinema. On the way home I grabbed a test from Tesco & not telling Craig, did it. Immediate, no doubt, clear as day positive. Woo hoo! We were thrilled, anxious but thrilled. As I had been in denial for much of the month when I worked out my dates I was 8.5 weeks. When I was pregnant with Sam we found out at 3 weeks, had a bleed at 6 weeks, was signed off work and scanned twice by 8 weeks so I was glad not to have that kind of drama this time.
We were going to wait a couple of days before telling our families but the next day we were going to Thomas Land with my parents, sister & family. I managed to keep it a secret all day (avoiding roller coasters and wine – yes wine at a theme park! Genius!) until we went for a curry at my parents. I ended up telling them and within a day both our families know. They were naturally thrilled for us, they know how much this pregnancy means to us.
I think we might have made a teeny mistake telling Sam – he was desperate to know when the baby will arrive ‘How many more minutes Mummy?’ but as the weeks have gone on he’s chilled out a bit. He does like looking at my apps and seeing how big the baby is which I think is just lovely. If he has a brother he thinks he should be called Luke and if it’s a sister he’ll call it Thomas! Grumpyish Mum’s eldest, Louis made me laugh when he came round for tea a couple of weeks ago. He thinks if it’s a girl it should be Rose (funnily enough on my short list anyway!) and if it’s a boy, Louis-Sam. Can’t fault him.
I had my 12 weeks scan a couple of weeks ago and everything is a-ok. Baby looks fine, likes to do backflips and is even more active than Sam was at that stage. I have an appointment this week with a consultant about trying for a natural birth (if you don’t know, I had an emergency c section last time which floored me emotionally & physically and I do not want to repeat that). As long as I stay fit, healthy and my blood pressure doesn’t leap up like last time then I have a 75% chance of a natural delivery, this thrills me. I am already downloading hypnobirthing info, gathering stats on VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Caesarean), finding natural ways to keep my blood pressure down and reading positive birth stories. I know my body can do this, I just have to stay strong and well.
And that takes us up to now! The constant nausea and exhaustion that plagued me so much over the past few weeks seems to be lifting slightly. The tiredness is lingering a bit longer than I’d like actually (last night I fell asleep on the sofa at 6.45pm, woke up at 8.15pm & went to bed at 9.30!) I’m 14 weeks pregnantnow & very much looking forward to the ‘glowing’ part of the 2nd trimester! My family are being wonderful – Craig is cooking and cleaning loads to help me out (to be fair as I’m napping pretty much every day after work, if he didn’t do it no one would!), Sam tells me to sit down to let the baby rest and my parents have had looked after Sam the last couple of Fridays and let me lie in at the weekend. Very much needed after 6am starts through the week!
Despite the tiredness I am so, so happy to finally be pregnant. I think we’re both a little worried about how we’ll cope with 2 children in a 2 bedroom house, the childcare costs, them being over 5 years apart, having this baby in the summer holidays when Sam is home, how I’ll manage 2 children when Craig is on nights and asleep upstairs! I’m of course worried about the birth, being able to breastfeed as successfully as I did last time, regressing 5 years to sleepless nights, etc etc. All fairly standard worries I think! We know what we’re doing, we want this baby very much and we’re so lucky to have conceived it finally (first month on Clomid!) so I’m sure all our worries will go when we see our newest addition.
I’m very excited to be sharing the next few months with you all – be prepared for a lot of hippy shit!! (cervix opening like a flower, calling contractions ‘surges’ and meditation). Fingers crossed for the next 6 months!
Meet our baby!
Merry Christmas!
I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last blogged. It’s been manic and crazy here and as usual that’s my excuse. So much has been going on and I’ll be sharing lots of photos in the next few weeks.
For now though I’m about ready for bath, painting my nails candy stripes and off to bed ready for Sam’s inevitable early start. This is going to be a wonderful Christmas for us. Hope yours is too.
