101 uses for a scarf...

We recently had some rebozo training at work. A rebozo is a traditional Mexican scarf, very similar to a pashmina. Apparently they can be used during labours to help ease backache, encourage babies to move from a posterior position, help support the woman in different birthing positions and aid pushing. It was quite interesting, and once again Michael was the guinea-pig for me trying out some of the techniques (particularly those which help ease backache). I never realised there was so much that could be done with a cotton scarf – hopefully some of the techniques will be useful for labours.

Just four little words...

Michael and I had one of our occasional talks about the big “M” word this morning (or more accurately, I had one of my occasional moments of dropping another rather unsubtle hint). He told me that he was a little too busy with work at the moment to propose to me (two events in the next two days, plus still trying to finish his PhD) so I pointed out that it took about two minutes to get down on one knee and say four little words. Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate that those four words would be “Ow, my knee hurts.”

Creative writing group

Went to my creative writing group this evening for the first time in ages. Our writing exercise was firstly to write down everything we could think of related to the sea, and then we listened to a piece of music with wave sounds in the background and had to write something inspired by the music. It made me think of being seventeen again and holiday romances and so I wrote a short story about that. I’m quite out of practice with my writing though – the others in the group are so good that I’m a little in awe of them

Language barrier

We had a visiting Methodist minister taking Sunday’s service who asked if anyone could speak any languages other than English. A couple of the children said French so he asked what they could say (Bonjour and excusez-moi). He then asked the rest of the congregation so I raised my hand as I can speak a little Spanish, German and Italian as well as French. Fortunately he didn’t ask me what I could say – una bottiglia di vino rosso della casa (a bottle of house red wine) would probably not have been the best phrase to use to a Methodist minister!

Race for Life

The show was over, but there was no opportunity to rest today as I was doing Race for Life with my friend Lindsay. It was far too hot to run properly so we ended up “power-walking” the 5km instead and finished in 59 minutes. However, we ended up having to park near the 2km marker so by the time we had walked to the start line and then back to the car afterwards it was more like 9km! We were running in pink tutus as usual, and have managed to raise over £500 between us for Cancer Research this year.

Last night

The last night went really well. Inspired by a suggestion by my friend Phil, I changed my costume for my number. I start wearing a turquoise robe which is removed to reveal a green top and a black skirt which gets unravelled, Bucks-Fizz style to reveal a 1920’s style fringe dress. The chorus then surround me and I emerge in a black and silver sparkly leotard and skirt. Tonight I changed the leotard for a black sparkly velcroed top and finished off in the skirt and a black and silver sparkly bra which got a great reaction from the audience.

Unexpected retail therapy

My car went in for its MOT this morning which meant waiting in town for three hours (the garage being too far away to make it worth going home). I managed to fill some of the time usefully by popping into church to practise the hymns for Sunday (I’m playing piano for the service) but then wandered around the shops for a while. I wasn’t intending to buy anything but there were sales on and the clothes on the mannequins in the windows looked fabulous (and surprisingly equally fabulous when I tried them on) - what was a girl to do?

Opening night

Unfortunately, the technical hitches continued into opening night - the worst one being the final number of Act 1 where halfway through the final chorus there was a blackout and we finished singing the number in darkness! The number before also seemed to have a blackout before the song had finished so the lighting crew were clearly still sorting out a few minor hiccups. Still, performance-wise things seemed to go pretty well. The audience seemed to enjoy it, and we even had the mayor popping backstage after the show to congratulate us on our performances which was very nice of him.

Dress rehearsal

The dress rehearsal for the concert this evening went about as well as a dress rehearsal should go. It seemed to be a bit of a tech rehearsal as well so the lighting was constantly being adjusted during numbers which meant a few disconcerting moments when the lighting suddenly went from blinding spot lights to blackout and back again. There were a few technical hitches, a few panics with costume changes and more than a few mistakes but as they say a poor dress rehearsal means a good first night so fingers crossed that that will prove true for tomorrow.

Pretending to be a techie...

Tonight was the band call for the summer concert and the first night in the theatre. Once again I seem to have a huge number of costumes – I felt the need to draw up a costume plot so I can keep track of all the costume changes! Michael taught me how to use the PAT tester so when I wasn’t needed for singing, I was testing all the electrical appliances which made me feel like one of the techies. It is always nice to feel useful – usually I feel like a spare part when we first arrive in the theatre.

Catching up

One of the best things for me about the way I work is getting to know my clients through the antenatal period, supporting them at their birth and during the first few weeks of parenthood. It is always a little sad to say goodbye when I do the final postnatal visit so it is nice when people stay in touch. Gillian and I had a lovely day today catching up with a previous client today (we were both her midwives back when we worked together) and her little girl who is now a rather lively and chatty two year old.

Mood swings

Sometimes I have days where my moods decide to take a rollercoaster trip all by themselves. I have been happy, hyper, grumpy, angry, cheerful, miserable, tearful and calm all within the space of a few hours which is somewhat exhausting. It’s not been one of my better days I have to admit, but has been made a lot better by being able to spend time with Gillian and have one of those lovely reassuring chats that you can only have with a close friend. Now if I can just manage to eliminate the mood swings, life would be just great…

More musings on friendship

Looking forward this evening to catching up with my friend Gillian who will be staying with me for a couple of days. Most of my close friends and my family live quite some distance away from me and so I don’t get to see them anywhere near as often as I would like to (especially given that being on call means that anywhere that is more than an hour’s drive from work is too far unless I am on holiday or on a day off). I miss being able to see the people I care about on a regular basis.

Musings on friendship

Friendship is incredibly important. Since leaving university, I have discovered how much harder it is to make new friends in the “real world”. Despite joining a local am-dram group, taking up dance classes and becoming involved in my local church, friendship has been something that has been quite elusive. There may be a lot of people in my social circle but very few that I would describe as friends. Whilst some of my closest friendships have sprung up very quickly, others take a lot of time to grow and tonight has been a very pleasant evening cultivating a budding friendship.

Church newsletter

Trying to produce a monthly church newsletter/magazine often means having to encourage church members to send articles and occasionally having to write something myself to fill the space. In previous years we have produced a summer edition rather than separate ones for July and August and I decided to do the same this year, particularly as there was plenty of material to fill a summer newsletter. I thought it would be harder to get articles over the summer, but in the last week have had several articles emailed to me. Looks like the September magazine will be a bumper issue!

The importance of smiling

A plug for next week’s concert has appeared in this week’s local paper. Whilst the article about the concert is quite good, the photo that accompanies it is pretty terrible. The photographer wanted to get a photo of us sitting around the piano singing. Unfortunately, whilst we are all singing, very few people are smiling and so it looks awful. As a result, the director has spent most of tonight’s rehearsal shouting “Smile!” about 10 times during each song. We’re usually fine once we’ve got an audience but it has made us all realise how important it is to smile.

Cuddles and cakes

Every couple of months we have a coffee afternoon at work for our mums-to-be as well as mums and babies so I have had a lovely afternoon drinking tea, eating cake and having lots of cuddles with lovely chubby babies and getting paid for doing so, which is even better! The coffee afternoons are another thing I love about my job – it is so nice to catch up with previous clients and see the babies growing up. The women all chat to each other, swap advice about sleepless nights and feeding and sometimes exchange contact details which is also good.

Leading Worship

Had the final session of the leading worship course this evening. We were split into two groups, with each group leading a short worship session. It was interesting to see how each group approached things differently. Neither group had any quiet moments of reflection, we both seemed quite anxious to fill in the time with talking, praying and singing. I think if we’d had more time to prepare we might have done things a little differently but it was a useful learning process and hopefully has helped prepare me for when the Bible study group starts up in the autumn.

A little sleep-deprived

It’s been a very busy 24 hours. I was up all night welcoming a lovely baby into the world and then today was the first rehearsal running through all the numbers for the concert. Having had just over an hour’s sleep since 8am yesterday morning, I was running on pure determination (with the assistance of a large can of Red Bull) – still not quite sure how I managed it. I did have a few hours’ sleep this evening at Michael’s parents before dinner so am not quite so exhausted now, but definitely feel like I will sleep very well tonight!

Social ineptness

There are days when I feel like my social skills could be vastly improved and today was definitely one of them. It was the annual barbecue for the am-dram group which I’m involved in, and was one of those social situations where I’m not entirely at ease. Unfortunately, when I’m feeling uncomfortable, I have a tendency to turn into Ms Hyde, put up the barriers and keep everyone at arm’s length. I did relax after a while and enjoyed the barbecue overall but definitely could have been less prickly at the beginning. Sigh. I really must try harder next time.

The antithesis of fast food

Getting a veggie box delivered means that I get to try all sorts of vegetables that I wouldn’t normally buy. This week’s box came with beetroot, and included a recipe for beetroot ravioli which I thought I would have a go at making. It meant making fresh egg pasta from scratch but didn’t sound too complicated. Whilst it was fairly straightforward, it took absolutely ages and I ended up spending three hours preparing dinner! It was very yummy, but not worth the three hours of preparation. I think I will be buying fresh pasta from the supermarket in the future…

Another addition to the family

My family has increased in size again with the arrival of my new great-nephew Eli earlier today who weighed in at a very healthy 9lb 12oz. He is my nephew Jamie’s first child with his girlfriend Kayleigh. His birth brings the total of great-nieces and great-nephews to three of each (current total of nephews and nieces is 17 nephews and 7 nieces) and also means that four of my siblings are now grandparents which feels a bit odd really, especially as I’ve not even started on the parenting front. Still, always nice to have a new baby in the family.

Multi-tasking at its best

It’s been a very productive day. By midday, I had done some Bible study, practised the flute and piano, practised my French, sewed some trim on my costume, tidied the flat and was on the way to work for a meeting followed by an antenatal visit. After my visit, I managed to find time for some creative writing and then headed off to rehearsal. I’m not usually quite this productive but most of these activities fitted into 10 minute gaps in the day, and the French practice was due to listening to a CD whilst stuck in a traffic jam.

Mini costume crisis

I was getting a bit stressed about costumes earlier as it suddenly dawned on me that I had two free days (including today) at the most to do any sewing, so I finally managed to find some time today to sort out my costumes for the show. I have made a wrap-around skirt, jazzed up my leotard and ballet skirt and now just have a 1920’s style dress to finish. Most of my other costumes for the show have been borrowed from Michael’s mum’s costume hire business. I’m feeling much better now that most of my costumes are sorted out.

Only by grace

Next week is the final session in the leading worship course where we each have to lead a short service (30 minutes) in our small groups. Tonight’s session has been spent discussing the allocated readings, which hymns to use, finding and writing prayers and deciding what our message is going to be. We’ve decided to discuss how we shouldn’t beat ourselves up with guilt when we don’t tick all the required boxes for “being a good Christian” because we can’t be saved by our deeds, we are only saved through grace. Just as well really, otherwise we’d all be doomed.

Acrobatics and costumes

There are now just over two weeks to go before the summer concert, and things are coming together. Michael and I managed to get the acrobatic moves right in my number this afternoon which was reassuring – last week he dropped me twice so I was a little more nervous about rehearsing the number today. I also still need to make my costume as several layers get removed throughout the number (I finish the number in fishnets and leotard) so I have to make it so the changes will work. I’m beginning to wish that I’d decided to do something simpler!

Turning water into wine

Whilst I was at my leading worship course, I noticed a little card above the washbasin in the ladies’ toilet with some thoughts to ponder upon. It began: “As you wash your hands, think of the following…” and then went on to state how Jesus washed his disciples feet and then finished by reminding us of Jesus turning water into wine. Whilst admittedly there are times when the ability to turn water into wine would definitely be a good thing, it would really be rather disconcerting if that particular miracle happened at the point whilst I was washing my hands.

Rejoice and...?

I’ve been doing a course on leading worship at church for the last few months, and have a study day tomorrow which focuses on putting together a service. Last night’s email from our minister outlining the plan for the day contained an unfortunate spelling mistake regarding hymn books which made me chuckle. According to her email, she will be bringing six music copies of “Rejoice and Sin.” Whilst allowing for the fact that Jesus died so that our sins could be forgiven, the apparent message to go forth and joyfully sin seems to be taking things a little too far…

Passing ships

One of the advantages of Michael’s working hours being almost as unpredictable as mine is that he is very understanding when it is difficult to organise a night out, or when plans have to be cancelled. I suspect that I am the one who tends to grumble when he has to work later than anticipated. It does mean though that on a week like this when he has lots of events running and I have a busy week of labours and visits, we barely manage to see or speak to each other. Hopefully things will start to quieten down soon!

Long labours

Time management in long labours can be difficult. Having been with someone throughout labour, I want to stay as long as possible and be there for the birth. However, there comes a time in long labours when tiredness kicks in and it becomes more and more difficult to think rationally, and still provide support. Once I start struggling to think rationally, I know I can’t provide safe care or adequate support any longer and have to hand over. Even though it is usually to another midwife the woman knows, it is still hard not to feel guilty for bailing out.

Dance-free summer

Tonight’s tap class was the last one until September so I have a dance-free summer ahead of me. Usually there are technique classes which run during the summer, but they’re not running this year which is a shame. I will be quite rusty by the time lessons start again. On the plus side, it means that my evenings will be a little more free which is probably a good thing as I suspect work will be quite busy. It also means I may be able to go to the creative writing group again which usually clashes with my tap class.