I still exist!!

Though you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise...



Job + house renovations + A363 + pregnancy exhaustion = total blog absenteeism.



Apologies all round for not visiting blogs, not updating my blog & sporadic coffee morning attendance.



Hopefully I'll be back on track soon, but in the meantime, here's a little snap of the reason why I'm quite so leaden of late:

Thank you :-)

First of all, a big "thank you " for all of your kind messages on my last post about the pregnancy ~ seeing as I am ridiculously hormonal I teared up a wee bit.....

I'm now well into the second trimester (15 weeks & 5 days, as I write this) and I'm starting to feel a bit more like a human being again.

Plus I've got a 'proper' bump now, so I look proper preggers, rather than looking I've been surgically attached to the biscuit tin.

And I may have felt the baby move a few times over the last few days, but I can't be entirely sure. Very exciting all the same ~ I cried the first time I felt something babylike( seriously, what is with the pregnancy hormones and the crying? So far this week I have cried at 'Neighbours', tv adverts for baby stuff (that one with the dad saying 'I promise never to...'), 'Sex and the City: The Movie' (even though I HATED it!) and a comment I received yesterday about what a weird shape I am....

A363 is chugging along nicely (although my sleepyheadedness means that that I'm a bit further behind than I'd like). My first assignment came back with a much better mark than I was expecting, but the writing is still taking a bit of a back seat to eating and sleeping, which currently encompass the bulk of my evenings.

Still, I managed to get TWO submissions sent out in the last two weeks, so feeling pretty smug about that (smug until the rejection slips arrive, natch....)

And we start our house renovations in earnest tomorrow. Dust, mess, dust and more mess ~ hurrah!

The Big Reveal........

I know, I know ~ I've been a very bad blogger of late. And a very bad Novel Racer too, in terms of both the WIP and participating in the coffee breaks.

I've also been a useless friend and spouse, in that I've barely socialised for three months, and I've delegated all household tasks to my wonderfully uncomplaining husband.

I have an excuse, though. I'm pregnant: 12 weeks and 5 days, as I write this. And after my miscarriage in January of this year I never thought I'd be lucky enough to pass the 12 week mark. It still hasn't quite sunk in. But I'm pleased, very very pleased.

I've paid for it, though ~ nausea, exhaustion, sore (.) (.)'s & other assorted unpleasant symptoms that I probably shouldn't go into here (those of you who have been pregnant will know what they are, and for those of you who haven't yet experienced it, well I don't want to put you off!)

I'm hoping that the second trimester will see an upsurge in energy levels and blogging, writing and general participation in the real world can resume ~ sadly I missed Tracey Chevalier at my local library last night: it started at 7:30, but I was already fast asleep by 7:20........

How does three weeks pass in the blink of an eye?

I could have sworn I last posted about a week ago. Oh, my ageing brain.


Blame it the sudden chill in the air ~ I'm going into hibernation mode....



Still plugging away at the writing stuff ~ novel is a wee bit on the back burner, as a couple of other projects have jumped up out of nowhere and bitten me on the arse, so I'm giving those the attention they're demanding (in between sleeping, which is all I want to do at the minute.)

Still, I'm fearful that I've taken on a bit too much recently~ I'm taking evening classes in Counselling Skills, which I need to do in order to progress to the Counselling Psychology Msc I want to do ~ I hoped a psychology degree would be qualification enough, but noooooooooooooo, I have to take a sub-GCSE level course (their description, not me being elitist!) full of stuff that I already covered in my degree just to get a certificate that confirms that I already know this stuff. And I can't just miss the classes and sit the exam (which I could pass if I took it now ~ I got hold of a sample exam paper and mark scheme, and there was nothing on there that foxed me) because you need 80% attendance record to pass the course. So Thursdays are currently a 13 hour day for me :-(.
Hey, I may well sound like a snobby academic know-it-all, but it's so frustrating (not to mention boring) to sit through three hours of stuff you already know, whilst pretending that you don't already know it so as not to look like a show-off in front of the rest of class, and trying to resist the urge to correct the tutor's atrocious spelling on the board. Still, the other group members are mostly lovely, and it's very interesting to see what happens when you get such a varied mix of people with differing aspirations into a confined space, and one which seems to prompt an awful lot of emotional revelation.

In fact (magpie writer confession!) the group has given me an idea for a fiction project about a collection of people who come together under similar circumstances, and what happens to them as the course progresss. So I do spend a lot of time surreptiously storing lovely shiny nuggets of character detail and dialogue in my notebook. When Confessions from a Counselling Class rockets up the best-seller list you can all remind me that it wasn't a total waste of time :-)

She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword

No, not another personal confession hot on the heels of my intravenous drug using hooker with malaria revelation, but one of the contenders for worst ever analogy.

Personally I think some on them are absolute genius, and I'd be proud to have written them, not least The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. Says exactly what it needs to say ~ there's beauty in that there efficiency.


Workwise, the novel is still ticking along: I'm adding around 0.5-1% a day, so the progress ain't exactly zippy, but it be progress nonetheless. Of course, progress would be A LOT faster were it not for the curse of The Wire ~ BEST TV SHOW EVAH! Me & hub are rattling through the dvd's at a fair old rate (just about the start series 4 so no spoilers please!) and it's pretty much taken over my life. I even dream about it some nights. I'll be sad to get to the end, but then I'll have the consolation of seeing my friends, doing other stuff, and not announcing my entrance into every room with a McNulty-esque 'What the fuck did I do?' Doesn't go down well with gran as greetings go, that one......

That Calamity Physics book what I was reading is on the back burner at the mo ~ I'm speed reading as much Iain Banks as possible in preparation for seeing him at my local library next Friday ~ tried The Wasp Factory but I couldn't really stomach it, so I'm hoping a quick re-read of Complicity and The Crow Road will stand me in good enough stead during the Q&A, so that I'm not reduced to numpty-like statements such as 'errrr, I like your beard......'.

If you're really strapped for something to do tonight may I suggest that you partake of Rock of Love 2 with Bret Michaels (bloated , bewigged (ex?) member of eyeliner rockers Poison ~ anyone who can name anything by them other than ubiquitous 'Every Rose has its Thorn' will win themselves a slammin' pair of stretchy spandex skank pants) ~ every night, TMF, 9pm. Televised prostitution at it's very finest, folks.

Intravenous drug-using hooker with malaria

Oooh, I'm so close to 20% I can taste it! I've never got this far with a novel before, so i'm pretty chuffed. Not to mention the pages and pages of long-hand i've yet to type up, which could put me nearer to 35%, I reckon!!

Been MIA for a while ~ I've hit the time when my baby would have been due, and it's been a difficult time for us, especially as we're not yet pregnant again. So, there's been one minor emotional meltdown, and lots of quiet time, while I attempt to surf over this particularly messy few weeks. I'm almost out the other side of things though, so hopefully I'm headed in the right direction.

Scarborough ~ ah, what a dichotomy of a place! Pensioners vs hen parties, Kiss me Quick vs Victoriana. I loved it! Could I have spent a week there? Probably not ~ we had as good as run out of things to do by the time we left (fish & chips, funfair, pirate ship ride around the bay, art gallery, castle, publishers discount bookshop). I reckon a weekend was just about right. Hotel was marvellous ~ if you're ever staying in Scarborough then the Crescent Hotel comes highly recommended by moi.


Currently reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. Enjoying it thus far, but the reviews suggest that it jades after a while. We'll see......



PS: Didn't manage to give blood in the end ~ because I have acupuncture I was required to take a copy of my therapist's certificate to prove that they are registered and therefore I have not contracted some hideous blood disease from allowing some backstreet quack to stick dirty needles in me. But of course they don't tell you this until you get there (Me: Oh, I didn't know I should have brought that with me. Them: That's right, we tend not to tell people). Embarrassingly I had to walk back out IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, clearly having been turned down as unsuitable ~ so there's a room full of people who probably think I'm an intravenous drug-using hooker with malaria. Marvellous.

Scarborough......

....is where me and husband shall be spending Saturday night. Neither of us have ever been before. Have you? Got any suggestions for lovely things to see / do / eat?


I'm nearly(ish) finished "Over you" ~ should manage to get through the last 80 pages tonight, but I shall be sad to finish it :-( . I'll be curling myself up on the sofa with lots of choc and and reading materials and being deservedly lazy, cos I'm giving blood today for the first time and I'm super-nervous!