Noah and floods in general

With today’s weather being rain and thunder, it seemed somehow appropriate that the sermon at church today focused on Noah. The story about Noah, the ark and the flood is so familiar, it brings to mind images of toy arks with cute model animals, and somehow I have become anaesthetised against the part of the story which involves most of the world being wiped out, and the devastation that floods can bring. Hearing on the news about the people of New Orleans being told to leave the city due to Hurricane Gustav made me think a bit more about this.

Barbecues - Brit-style

It has been great to finally have a day that actually feels like summer, and so in true British-style, we seized the moment and decided to have a barbecue this evening. Unfortunately, we invited friends over for 7pm (forgetting that the nights are starting to draw in again) and ended up sitting out in the dark. Still, it has been a great evening, and during a discussion about short people, Michael made us all laugh by talking about “Galliver and the Liverpudlians”. I will never be able to read Gulliver’s Travels again without imaging the Lilliputians with a Scouse accent.

Repeat clients

One of the nicest things about having worked for the same midwifery practice for nearly three years is that I’ve started to look after clients for a second time. It is lovely to be a part of someone’s birth experience once, but being involved in their care for a second time is extra-special. It is lovely to see that the baby you welcomed into the world has now grown into a cheeky toddler and now you are looking forward to welcoming the next addition to the family. It has helped remind me once again of why I love my job.

General grumpiness

The cold has now eased off quite a bit so I’m not feeling quite so lousy, but it is now at the stage where it just leaves me feeling tired and very grumpy. Poor Michael has been a bit on the receiving end of my grumpiness which has taken the form of general grumbling about men. Even watching the lovely Colin Firth in Bridget Jones which was on TV last night failed to raise my opinion of the male race which is never a good sign! Fingers crossed that I’ll be back to being a little ray of sunshine tomorrow…

Warning: may cause drowsinesszzzz...

Michael came back from Germany with a rotten cold, which he has now shared with me. Colds don’t tend to last very long with me – they hit me hard for a couple of days and then go. I was feeling pretty lousy last night so took a couple of Night Nurse before bedtime. They certainly helped me sleep, but left me feeling very drowsy and fuzzy-headed all day which was not ideal as I was driving around doing postnatal visits, feeling like a zombie. I think I will be sticking to plain paracetamol and hot lemon and honey in future!

Unusual dishes

Went out for a Chinese meal to celebrate Michael’s birthday. The food was reasonably good, but the menu had some fairly unusual dishes. I never thought that my first experience of eating frogs’ legs would be in a Chinese restaurant! I was quite disappointed to find that they really did taste just like chicken. Other unusual choices included kangaroo and ostrich (fortunately no dog). Still the prize for most unusual dish should be this dish at our local Chinese restaurant – Lamb with Greeks and Green Pepper in BBQ Sauce. I think perhaps they meant leeks, but I’m not entirely sure…

Yay for Team GB

So Team GB has now arrived back home after doing spectacularly well at the Olympics. 19 gold medals and 47 medals in total is pretty amazing (and best of all, we finished above the Aussies in the medal table!!) I’m not especially into sport (other than keeping up with the results, I didn’t watch very much of the Olympics on television) but it has made a nice change to hear about Britain being successful on the sporting front (and to see football given just a brief mention in the sports news!) Hopefully we’ll manage to do as well in 2012.

More on websites

Today has been mostly spent updating and creating websites. The new church website is now completely up and running, as is the new website for the concerts which are hosted at the church. Hopefully both websites should now be much easier to maintain and best of all, there are no more ads on either of the sites! Overall, I’m quite happy with the redesign, particularly as I’m working on publicity and branding for the church. We have a new logo, a new notice board which is being ordered and now a new website which has a much more contemporary feel.

Michael's birthday

Michael flew back this evening after spending all of last week working at the Leipzig Games Convention. It is his birthday today, so it has been nice to at least see him for some of his birthday (last year the games convention was during his birthday so I didn’t get to see him on the day). I made him a birthday cake yesterday evening (coffee and walnut) – not quite as creative as the last time I made him a birthday cake when I made the “bikini cake”. Surprisingly the cat seemed to enjoy eating the leftover cake on the plate.

Not exactly Mozart

I’ve been sorting through photos this evening and found a couple of photos of my twin sister’s two daughters “playing” the piano with me. Ebony, the four year old, always had to have a book on the stand next to mine and copy me every time I turned a page, and if I was singing, she’d sing too. I have a video clip somewhere of her singing “Milly Molly Mandy” with a very discordant piano accompaniment. Erin, the two year old, tended to sit and bash the keys for a few minutes before being distracted by something else more interesting.

New website

I’ve now started work on the new church website. Fortunately our minister (who put together our website originally) had some information from the old website backed up and has emailed this to me so I have managed to start getting the information back up again. I had been intending to redesign the website for some time so losing the old site has at least forced me to start working on this. The other good thing is that I can add Google Analytics to the new site which will mean I’ll get a better idea of which pages are most useful.

Lost webpages

Went to update the church website this evening and found that it had completely disappeared. We have been using a free web hosting service (not ideal but was a temporary measure whilst other options were investigated) and it seems they have changed their system. The website address now redirects to their website maker page, and logging in using the previous details results in an error message. I’ve produced a very basic page in the meantime with church information. There may be some way of retrieving the pages, but it looks like I will be redesigning the website sooner than anticipated!

Thank you for the music...

When I was growing up, I used to love listening to my dad, who was a very good jazz pianist, play the piano. In recent years, he has suffered from Parkinson’s disease and it has become harder and harder for him to play and when my parents moved house, lack of space meant having to lose the piano. I wondered if I would ever hear my dad play the piano again. Tonight when I answered the phone to my mum, she simply said “Listen.” In the background, I heard the sound of their new keyboard – and my dad playing it.

Hospitality

My Bible reading this morning focused on hospitality – “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9). It reminded me of the times I’ve grumbled about entertaining friends for an evening because of the pressure I’ve put on myself for the flat to be spotless. I thought about one of my sisters, a busy working mum with five children, whose house is rarely tidy but who is always a pleasure to visit because she is so warm and welcoming. Do my worries about the look of my home diminish the welcome my friends find there? Definitely food for thought.

Down to earth with a bump - literally

Productive days are all very well, but it is also nice to be able to spend a day relaxing and doing very little, which is how I spent most of today (plus missing Michael who flew off to Germany this morning to spend a week there working on an event). This evening saw a little more drama though due to a trip to A & E with Michael’s mum who had fallen down the steps in the herb garden and thought she might have broken her thumb and possibly cracked a rib. Fortunately nothing is broken, just lots of bruising.

Being productive

It has been a nice productive day. I have done a postnatal visit, practised the flute, piano and singing (not all at the same time!), practised some French and started learning Portuguese, done the ironing and mending, tried out a new recipe and managed to have some quality time with Michael. I love days like this when everything seems to slot nicely into place – shame they don’t happen a little more often! Tomorrow I’ll probably be busier with work things and get very little done outside of work, but today I’m enjoying feeling a little bit like a domestic goddess

Getting a reputation

It seems I have developed a reputation after stripping down to a bra and skirt on stage for the concert. Michael’s mum emailed out a video clip of an act to several people on the committee with the comment “How about this for the next concert?!!”. Basically it involved a disappearing hanky which reappeared in articles of clothing which got removed until the performer was naked on stage. Someone suggested that I was a suitable candidate to perform this! Whilst I know how to do the disappearing hanky trick, being naked on stage is a bit extreme even for me…

Babblings about babies

I can hardly believe that it is Thursday evening already! After starting this week with a marathon stint attending a labour (left home late Sunday evening, got back on Tuesday morning!), I have lost track of the days. It has been quite a busy week and I still have a couple of babies due imminently. However, despite a busy day of visits, I managed to spend some time this afternoon socialising with clients and getting to cuddle lots of very lovely babies. Broodiness is definitely an occupational hazard with my job – even marathon labours don’t seem to be an antidote!

Stress

When things are stressful and tempers short, we sometimes take it out on others. I know that I can be as guilty of this as anyone else, but at the moment I seem to be finding myself on the receiving end a little too often for my liking. There are days when it almost feels like I am being used as a human stress ball. I know that I am not personally responsible for their frustration but it can be very difficult at times to remember this and refrain from very unchristian responses. Loving thy neighbour seems almost impossible sometimes.

Family time

Managed to go home to visit family today which was lovely as I haven’t been home since June. I ended up looking after my twin sister’s two daughters whilst she went shopping and had a great time painting and getting out the Play-Doh with them, and running around the flat pretending to be a big scary monster. My mum bought them both a toy from the shop. When I gave two-year-old Erin her toy, I tried to prompt her to say thank you by saying “What to do you say?” Her response was “Open it!” accompanied by a cheeky smile.

Games night

Had a lovely games evening yesterday with some friends. We dug out a couple of less well-known games – “Kill Doctor Lucky” (similar to Cluedo but instead of moving around rooms trying to solve a murder, you move around rooms trying to commit a murder) and “Where is Moldova?” which involves having to try to control a chain of adjoining countries. I thought initially that it would be like Risk (which I loathe) but it’s completely different – you gain countries by moving around the board and answering questions or rolling the dice. Definitely recommended if you want to try something new.

Technically inept again...

It was my turn today to help out with sound and projection at church. I arrived early to find the equipment set up but no image on the screen and spent about twenty minutes before the service trying to solve the problem and trying to convince a helpful church member that it had nothing to do with a new file icon on the desktop screen. I’d called Michael to see if he had any ideas, when our minister wandered over and calmly pointed out the empty VGA socket on the wall. Funnily enough, it worked after we’d plugged it in…

The joys of the e-grapevine

Social networking sites are great in some ways for catching up with people, but often it seems that instead of talking to friends and family about what’s happening in their lives, you find out via the news feed on Facebook. I found out recently that my brother and his family are moving to a new house via my sister-in-law’s updated status on Facebook. It seems a little odd to hear family news this way and makes me feel somehow disconnected from it all. It might be an easier way of updating people, but I think I prefer old-fashioned phone calls.

Things that go bump in the night

Got woken up in the early hours of this morning by a client in early labour. After reassuring her and her husband, was just settling down to sleep again when I was woken a second time by a rather unearthly noise which sounded like a cross between a baby crying and cats yowling. It turned out to be a couple of foxes fighting in the back garden who seemed quite determined to continue their confrontation with each other for another twenty minutes before finally leaving and allowing me to go back to sleep. Fortunately the phone stayed quiet until morning!

Concert review

The concert that I was in recently received a glowing review from the local paper this week who commented that it was our “best show yet” and described my duet with Jenny as “top-notch” which was very encouraging. Overall, I enjoyed doing the show, although suspect that Michael and I will be giving up on the acrobatic moves in future as it has resulted in a trip to the chiropractor for him and a few bruises for me after being dropped a few more times than I used to be! Being six years older made more difference than we anticipated.

Home grown

I’ve been trying to grow a few salad vegetables, herbs and plants on my balcony. The trouble is, I go through periods of forgetting to water the plants and as a result most of the plants on the balcony are more brown than green and look to be in terminal decline. In spite of this I have managed to successfully grow spring onions and a few herbs. There is something very satisfying about eating food that you have grown yourself, and it also tastes so much better. If only I could remember to water the plants on a regular basis…

A timely reminder

Glanced down at my to do list this afternoon to find that Michael had added the following: “Tell Michael how much you love him” which first made me smile, and then made me think. We’ve both been pretty busy lately and haven’t seen very much of each other. I’d been feeling a little like he was taking me for granted, but the note on the to do list made me wonder if perhaps I was guilty of the same. Making time for loved ones is perhaps something else that slips off the list sometimes so that’s a priority for today.

Learning to slow down

I’m somebody who likes to be organised. Most of the time when I’m trying to juggle work, dancing, shows and social life, I need to be organised just to fit it all in. I’ve started writing to do lists lately to make sure I get all the things done that I need to during the day. The trouble is when I get really busy, the things on the list that get missed off are things like “eat lunch” and “stop for a cup of tea.” I like to be busy but also need to make time to stop and relax!

Summer break

It’s been nice to have a quiet Sunday for the first time in ages. For the last few months, Sundays have generally been a mad rush – church in the morning, followed by a show rehearsal, followed by dinner with the in-laws. Now that rehearsals are finished for the summer, Sundays will be a lot quieter. It was nice to be able to sit and have coffee after this morning’s service and then be able to come home and relax rather than dashing off to a rehearsal. I love doing shows but it’s good to have a break from it all.

Quality time

There’s a well-known poem which begins:

“I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish, that I didn't have time to pray.”

Often I find that the days where everything seems to go wrong, and life seems difficult are the ones where I’ve rushed out of the house in the morning without making time for breakfast, let alone prayer. It is amazing how much difference it makes when I take the time to focus on God first. Sometimes I waste too much time on unimportant things and forget what really matters.

Predicting the unpredictable

One of the questions I frequently get asked at antenatal visits (particularly in late pregnancy) is “”When do you think the baby will arrive?” My response is usually “When the baby is ready to arrive.” It would be great if I could accurately predict when a woman would go into labour, how long it would be and when the baby would be born because (a) I could organise my diary around it and never have to reschedule visits again, and (b) I’d probably become very rich as a result. Unfortunately, psychic powers are not something I have been blessed with.