In praise of my wonderful hubby

There are times when I take my husband for granted, when criticism comes more easily than cuddles and I forget the things I love about him because I’m too busy grumbling about the things I don’t. So, to redress the balance, here are some of the things I love about him:

1) He makes me laugh.
2) He gives the best hugs ever.
3) He always sees the good in people (not one of my skills, I have to admit!)
4) He tells me every day that I am beautiful and he loves me.

What more could a girl want?

Skewed perceptions

I have again received a timely reminder which has made me realise how lucky I am to have Michael and that I should stop focusing on criticism and re-focus on cuddles. I have also realised that my perception of a typical day was perhaps a little harsh. It doesn’t reflect the fact that my working hours are generally less than Michael’s. Unless I have been called to a birth, I usually leave the house after he does and get home from work before him. Being at home more means that the bulk of the domestic chores naturally fall to me.

A day in the life...

My day: get up, make breakfast, make lunch, put a load of washing on, sweep up the cereal that Michael dropped on the floor, make bed, wash up, go to work. Come home, hang the washing on the airer, hoover and tidy, cook dinner, eat dinner, wash up, write blog, go to bed.

Michael’s day: wake up, play games on iPod for 15 minutes, get up, have breakfast, pick up packed lunch, go to work. Come home, put TV on and sit on sofa, eat dinner, fly helicopter, go to bed.

Something tells me I’ve drawn the short straw here...

Wardrobe malfunction

I had a bit of a wardrobe crisis recently – being behind on laundry meant my only clean tights were winter ones. I was reluctant to succumb to winter tights this early or to wear trousers so I was quite relieved to find a pair of hold-ups in the sock drawer. Perfect solution, or so I thought. Off I went to my postnatal visit, checked mum and baby over, and then just as I stood up to leave, my hold-ups made a bid for freedom and decided to transform themselves into ankle warmers. I was somewhat embarrassed to say the least.

Contemplations on Christianity

The recent articles in the news about Anglicans being allowed to become part of the Roman Catholic church whilst still retaining some of their Anglican identity has got me thinking about all the differing branches of Christianity that exist with their varied views and styles of worship. Are some branches right and others wrong or are we just choosing to sing different songs from the same underlying hymnbook? Are we seeing the same God from different perspectives or are we in danger of creating our own god which sits more comfortably with our own views and beliefs about the world?

Sunny Swanage

This weekend’s trip to visit friends down in Swanage brought back lots of happy childhood memories of a school trip there twenty years ago. It has been a long time since I was last there, but those memories are still surprisingly clear. We went for a long walk around Langton Matravers and Worth Matravers, wandering along the coastal path. It has been such a lovely sunny day and it is a beautiful part of the country. I felt so at peace with the world, and with myself, and so relieved to be out of London if only for a day!

Stars

One of the best things about getting out of the city and going out into the country is seeing all the stars. Where we live, there is so much light pollution that we only ever get to see the brightest stars and the moon (not helped by the fact that our next door neighbours like to flood-light their back garden). I had almost forgotten how amazing the night sky looks when there is no light pollution and quite how many constellations there are. It is such a beautiful sight, and unfortunately one which I don’t get to see very often.

Another October baby and the hope of sleep!

The broken nights have continued with my “day” starting at 1.45am this morning when I was called out to a labour. I was tired, running purely on caffeine and adrenaline but it was magical to be there at the birth later in the afternoon and see the awe and wonder on two new parents’ faces. I headed home feeling very happy – a feeling aided by the fact that my October babies have now all made their way into the world and I can have a glass of wine and feel that perhaps tonight, at last, I will get some sleep!

Bleary-eyed and at a birth

It’s been a long day, or at least, it has certainly felt like a long day. Another night of being afflicted by insomnia followed by an early morning call to go and attend a waterbirth. Being there to welcome a new baby in the world was lovely although I must confess that the cup of tea afterwards was much needed – caffeine is my friend at the moment! However, travelling home crawling along at a snail’s pace left me feeling rather grouchy. I’m aiming for an early night and hoping for some sleep, although chances of being called out remain high.

Insomnia

Insomnia is a pain. You spend half the night trying to fall asleep, seeing the hours on the clock tick by before eventually drifting into a light doze an hour before you have to get up anyway. The day passes in a fog of exhaustion, your brain seems to be made of cotton wool, you curse the snail-like pace of the traffic on the way home and hope that the next night will be a better one. Insomnia coupled with being on-call is even worse - particularly when babies are late and the odds of being called out are ever-increasing.

Little things

It is the little things in life that can help to make a day a good one. A cheerful person behind the counter of the coffee shop, a baby’s smile, someone letting you out when the traffic is busy, getting a compliment. It is always nice to receive a compliment, and even more so when it comes completely out of the blue, and from a complete stranger. I was out and about doing visits this morning when a lady walking past commented on how pretty my skirt was. It was just a little compliment, but it really made my day.

Ten green bottles...

We have a bit of a surplus of wine at the moment. Michael joined a wine club about eighteen months ago resulting in us being sent a dozen bottles of wine every three months. With me being on call nearly all the time and Michael’s crazy working hours, we just can’t get through them. As well as this, I sometimes bring home a bottle of wine or champagne received as a thank you and so we now have quite a collection! Fortunately Michael has finally got around to cancelling the wine club – now we just need to start drinking it!

Family, felicitations and F1

Tomorrow is the dads’ birthday – both mine and Michael’s so it was off home for the evening to catch up with the family and spend time with my dad tonight as we will be spending tomorrow night with Michael’s dad. Which unfortunately meant that we did miss the Grand Prix and therefore had to catch up on Jenson winning the driver’s championship (yay!) by watching the highlights, but still it was good to see the family and get to have cuddles with my great-nephew Steven who I last saw on my wedding day when he was just ten days old.

Stretching the limits of artistic licence

I’ve been helping out at a concert at church this evening, featuring a local adult choir, primary school choir and a fantastic trombone player from the RAF. The choirs weren’t too bad (the adult choir would have been very good had it not been for one particularly dominant singer) although there were a couple of interesting duets. One in particular made me chuckle inwardly – a rather mature couple singing “You Are Love” from Showboat – hearing a portly middle-aged balding man described in song as “You are spring, bud of romance unfurled” was a bit optimistic even allowing for artistic licence!

Don't call me dear

I got mistaken for a 17 year old the other day which was quite flattering. However, looking younger than I am isn’t always an advantage, particularly when shop assistants (particularly when they are women of a certain age) start being quite patronising. I went shopping recently with Michael in a local department store – he was asked “Can I help you, sir?” whereas I was asked things like “Are you all right there, dear?” or “Do you need a bag, love?” which left me fuming. It’s not endearing, it’s patronising and annoying and I wish people would just stop doing it.

Contemplations on cooking

Michael and I go through phases when we seem to eat out or get takeaway food quite a lot. It usually coincides with me being a bit busier and feeling like I can’t be bothered to cook (Michael will occasionally cook dinner, but most of the cooking is down to me). Other times, I will go through phases of really enjoying cooking and trying out different recipes. My slow cooker and bread maker are two of my favourite gadgets – now we eat a lot more home-cooked food, but with a lot less effort on my part which is always good!

Winds of change

The proposed changes at work have now been put forward to the team and so far seem to have been met with a positive response although there’s a four week review period to allow everyone to feed back their thoughts before anything definite starts happening with the new ways of working which have been suggested. I wasn’t sure how well it would go down given that people generally don’t like change but the new ways of working seem to address quite a few of the problems that currently keep cropping up so hopefully this change will be for the better!

9 years of Louise & Michael

Today is the 9th anniversary of when Michael and I first became a couple. I’d gone out for karaoke that evening having told my housemate on my way out that it was great to be single again (having ended a relationship two weeks previously), I was enjoying being single and I was planning on staying single for a while. Several hours and more than a few Bacardi Breezers later, I found myself snogging Michael. It was a Friday 13th which has obviously not been unlucky for us as here we are nine years on – still together and now finally married!!

Let's face the music and dance

I love dancing. When I was at university, I used to do about ten hours a week of dance, mostly ballroom and latin, although since leaving university, it’s been unusual for me to do more than a couple of hours a week (unless you count show rehearsals as well) and I tend to focus mostly on tap. Michael and I got back into doing ballroom again just before our wedding but hadn’t got round to going back to classes since getting married until tonight. Fortunately the class was quite basic so we could pick it back up again fairly easily.

Chilled out Sunday

It’s been the perfect end to a lovely chilled out Sunday – curled up on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching Mamma Mia having spent the afternoon shopping with an uncomplaining husband in tow (who didn’t express any disapproval when I was forced to succumb to the delights of the Monsoon sale and buy even more clothes that will have to go in his wardrobe, mine being full). That said, the delightful effect is currently being diminished by the model helicopter being flown around the lounge (so far, he’s managing to keep it away from anything breakable, so far, so good!)

How married life should be...

After a busy day at work, it is nice to come home and put my feet up. Usually I get home and end up rushing around doing all the little household chores and cooking dinner whilst Michael tends to come in, put the TV on and crash on the sofa until I tell him that dinner is ready. Tonight he has surprised me by reversing the roles – it is me crashed out on the sofa watching the TV whilst Michael is cooking me dinner. This is definitely how married life should be - I could get used to this quite easily...

The miracle of birth

It’s been a busy few days on the baby-catching front – one of those weeks when I start to wonder whether someone has put castor oil in the water or was Sunday’s full moon to blame? Either way, it seems that half the October clients have decided this week is a good one for giving birth. I was lucky enough to be at a lovely water birth last night and get to welcome a gorgeous baby girl into the world. It’s not every day you get to witness the miracle of life in such a beautiful way – even in this job.

Little and large

There’s quite a height difference between me and Michael – I am 5ft and he is 6ft 3 which is very handy when I need to get something down from a high shelf. Sometimes I forget that we see things at different levels – I once tried to hide chocolate on the top shelf of a cupboard and was actually surprised when he opened the cupboard and spotted it straight away. Unfortunately, he keeps his chocolate stash at the back of the top shelf in his wardrobe which is very effective as I can’t quite reach it even standing on a chair!

Scary, moi?

My role in Fiddler on the Roof requires me to shriek and scream and then sing (which is all surprisingly difficult) and generally be scary. Apparently I am succeeding in the general scariness factor – which is fine when I’m in character, not fine when I arrive home and my husband cowers on the sofa as I walk towards him after he has dropped a chocolate bar wrapper on the floor. On the plus side, it shows he is realising that chocolate bar wrappers belong in the bin and not on the floor (husband training is working!) but honestly – scary, moi?

The joys of web-spinning

I’m not particularly good at website design, but somehow I seem to have volunteered myself to create and manage a website for a local group of churches with information about each church. The trouble is, not only am I expected to create the website itself, I also seem to be expected to provide all the content for it! People are very quick to grumble that there is not enough information about their church or church event but very slow to actually provide me with any information that I can use. Clearly I need to brush up on my psychic abilities.

Birth music

One of the things I often do when preparing a birth room is to put some relaxing background music on, although often women will bring an iPod to play their choice of birth music. I was a birth partner for my twin sister when her first daughter Ebony was born and her choice of music was Celine Dion. When Erin was born three years later, we had the music channel on and just as Erin entered the world, “My Heart Will Go On” came on. It seems my nieces are destined to be born to the sound of Celine Dion.

Martha vs Mary

I love my church – it is fairly small which means that everyone knows everyone else which makes it feel much more like you are part of a church family. The disadvantage of being quite small is that once you start volunteering to take on things, sometimes Sundays can feel a little hectic. This morning felt like I was rushing about trying to do too many tasks and being Martha when what I really wanted to do was to be Mary instead, to sit down and just enjoy spending time with God. Sometimes serving the church can distract from worshipping God.

Helicopter havoc

One of my husband’s hobbies is flying radio-controlled model helicopters and planes. This wouldn’t be a problem – except he has an indoor helicopter which he likes to fly around the lounge. At best, it’s somewhat annoying, particularly when I’m trying to work on something and suddenly have a helicopter whizz past my head, but it’s now resulting in breakages – fine when it’s the helicopter, not fine when it’s photo frames and ornaments. It’s even more reason to try and find somewhere with a little more space – and preferably a garage so he can shut himself in there and fly it.

Things I quite like about London

My friend Bryan has recently started a blog on things he loves about London. “Love” is a bit too strong a term to describe my feelings (usually either negative or ambivalent) about anything London-related but there are a few things I quite like about London:

1) The view from Lambeth Bridge looking over towards the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

2) Driving over Albert Bridge (although since doing “Follow That Girl”, I can’t drive over it without thinking about jumping off it!)

3) Free museums – great way to spend a few hours.

4) The West End – so many musicals…

Identity crisis

I’ve been gradually changing over to using my married name. The trouble is, I’m now at the stage where some things are in my maiden name and others in my married name and I’m losing track of which name I’m using for each. It didn’t help that I’ve been trying to juggle work calls (having kept my maiden name at work) with non-work calls (mostly in my married name). I’m beginning to realise that there is some sense in changing my name across the board. Still at least I wasn’t having to sign things too – now that would be confusing!