Is that your child or are you a kidnapper?!

Last week I went for lunch with a friend and her 2 year old daughter. I don't see her very much so her daughter wouldn't have remembered me as I last saw her about a year before, but we had a very nice time. Towards the end of lunch it became very obvious that a nappy change was in order, but mummy had lost the baby wipes somewhere between the London Aquarium and meeting me. Baby wipes are crucial when dealing with babies' bottoms, tissue just doesn't cut it. So I piped up helpfully, "I'll watch the little'un if you want to nip out and get some more" (this is from a shop 2 doors down so I didn't envisage she'd be very long). Everything was fine to begin with. Little'un seemed quite happy with me, and we were playing with a jigsaw. Then someone came to clear the table. When faced with yet another stranger, little'un looks very perturbed and pipes up "I want my mummy!" and looks at me like I'm a complete stranger. Louder "I want my MUMMY!!!" and tears weren't far off. The lady clearing the table looks worried and frowns at me. It's all I can do not to say "hey, I'm a helpful librarian not a childnapper. Back off lady!" but I just tried to smile reassuringly and attempted to distract the child from getting me arrested. I am sure this made me look even more suspicious.

The minutes until mummy came back with the wipes were interminable. I was starting to think she wasn't coming back. There was me, stuck with a very smelly bottomed child, a jigsaw that was rapidly losing its appeal, and half of the shop staff discussing whether to call the police or not. When mummy finally showed up again I could have cried, never mind the baby!

That'll teach me to be helpful. Probably.

A large dog did it

We caught a bit of the X Factor last night, this is the beginning bit where they mainly show all the rubbish people and slag them off and make them cry. Last night actually made me cry - with laughter. They single certain people out who have "stories" to try and make their attempt at fame seem more meaningful, and possibly get them more votes if they make it further on. One older lady who got her 5 minutes of fame with an interview said she had had a life threatening injury a year ago, and her recovery had made her keen to live life to the full and to "make it". When the intrepid interviewer asked what happened to her, she said (and I quote):

"Well I was at the top of some stairs and I tripped over a large dog, fell down the stairs and broke my spine".

A large dog?! Was she not expecting one to be there?! Did he jump out of nowhere going "Raaar"?! Hee hee. Why she didn't just say she fell down some stairs and broke her spine I'll never know. The introduction of the "large dog" just made it hilarious. Well I know Miss S would have found it funny, especially if was a large fluffy doggie!

Good news for the lady though, she is walking again - and "dancing" - and her exuberance at being alive got her through to the next round, despite a decidedly ropey Kylie impression.

Pft

I am half way through my 2 week "holiday" and I wish we'd ignored our "sensible" heads and just gone to Magaluf or somewhere hot. It would have been cheaper too. Poor Mr B is putting in a new bathroom, which seems to involve lots of swearing and more problems every time he moves. I'm sorting the rest of the house out - that I can get to for ladders, drills, crap, old toilets etc. - and you know what, being at work seems kind of preferable! When I go back next week I am going to have the almighty hump as I won't feel like I've had a holiday. But hopefully I'll have a lovely new bathroom, at the rate we're going I don't think it'll be decorated, and it will probably stay like that till next year, but it won't be green. And that is a bonus.

America!

If I didn't get such brilliant material for this blog, I would refuse to be taken out for dinner ever again. I'm starting to think it's me, the amount of freaks we encounter on a daily basis is getting ridiculous. Saturday night, we ventured out for dinner again. The restaurant was quiet, no mention of "tits!" by the main course, I started to relax. BIG mistake. A group of people showed up and were being shown to their table. They spot whoever is sat behind me, and chaos ensues...

Characters:

Group 1: Let's call him Sean, wife Brenda. Another younger couple with them, never speak, just look blankly around.
Group 2: Quietly eating their meal, let's call them Colin and Edith and their kids.

Sean: "OH MY GOD! Look who it is!! Brenda, look who it is!!"

Brenda: "OH ... MY ... GOD!!! We f'ought you was in America!! Didn't we Sean?! We f'ought they was in AMERICA!"

Sean: "Yeah that's right!"

Brenda: "Yeah we saw Barry and he said you was in AMERICA! Massachussets or somewhere beginnin' with M"

Colin: "Ah ha, ha, erm, no, we was in Somerset"

Brenda: "No!! We f'ought you was in America! Didn't we Sean? And to see you here when we f'ought you was in America!"

Colin: "Erm, no, Somerset. Got back last week. In a caravan".

Sean: "Well that's great that is, you can come round to ours tomorrow now we know you're not in America!"

Colin and Edith: "Erm .... [desperately thinking of excuses] ... yeah, maybe."

Colin: "Why don't you go and get sat down and I'll come and have a word when I've finished me dinner?"

Sean: "Yeah ok Colin, but don't be a stranger!"

Colin: "???"

It was all I could do not to turn around and go "they weren't in bloody America!! They were in SOMERSET! Now piss off!!". Then they went and sat down but bloody Brenda could still be heard chirruping "I f'ought they was in America!" every few minutes. Then every five minutes they reappeared to plague poor Colin and Edith's dinner. And ours. Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

"I told you we were closing..."

Man this story hit a nerve with me! It is a terrible story and the poor lady really didn't deserve it just for going to church, but his excuse for killing her? "Ms Lonati, who was a student, had hit her head during a row sparked by her refusal to leave the church so he could lock up. "

Come 6pm tomorrow evening, I'm handing out copies to my barristers and saying "come on, do you feel lucky...?"

Rock n' roll

So the Priory is the new PR stunt for rockers? Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins and now Tom from Keane have all signed themselves up. God help the poor other people in there who have real problems. It'll be karaoke every night, singalongs around the piano, presumably not in the bar though. I love the Darkness, but the idea of being in the Priory after paying shedloads for the privilege and ending up in a self help group with a self-obsessed rocker would piss me off. I'd be there having to admit I'm an alcoholic and open up my darkest secrets to complete strangers, then in the middle of it Justin pipes up with "ooh that gives me a great idea for a song, la la la..." and whips his notebook out. They'll all write touching memoirs of their time for the newsrags (Pete Doherty for the nth time, a bit like his prison diaries but less angsty), and sell more records, and feel a bit more "rock". But it is hardly Hendrix choking on your own vomit rock is it? Or Keith Richards falling out of a tree while stoned out of your head rock?

And I bet they aren't addicted to anything rock. It'll be coffee and fig rolls, or milk, cheese and Gaviscon that are their demons! Or Rennies! They are SO addictive! Rock!!

And another thing...

I haven't had the best of weeks. Yesterday at a routine hospital appointment to get my blood test results, I experienced the NHS "how not to act around patients" demonstration or perhaps their "let's scare our patient half to death just for a laugh" routine. Let me explain.

Step 1: When queried by patient, claim that a blood test wasn't actually done, and patient is lying.

Step 2: Some bright spark thinks to ring the lab. Gets results over the phone. Spend alot of time going "A-ha, erm, ok, a-ha" whilst frowning into the receiver. (Patient must have a clear view of this for best effect).

Step 3: Doctor puts phone down, calls for senior doctor. Both medics frown over patients notes, muttering and looking worried. (Obviously in front of patient, but not close enough to hear).

Step 4: Send random other doctor in every 5 minutes to ask patient where notes are.

Step 5: Call senior consultant out of meeting. 3 medics now repeat step 3. More shuffling of notes, frowning and occasional glances at patient.

Step 6: Senior consultant approaches patient. Demands full medical history from junior medic, while rifling notes distractedly.

Step 7: Announces "well everything is fine! Come back at 41 weeks if you haven't had it yet".

Step 8: Leave bemused and by this stage quite upset patient to it.

I'm with stupid

My god, I hate hate HATE the "vacation hours" I am currently being forced to work. We close at 6 instead of 8. There really isn't the demand for proper hours, including weekends, at the moment. So we advertised the fact long in advance, we put it on the web, we put it on the answerphone, we bloody leave notices on EVERY desk. Has this had any effect at all?! NO!!!!!!!!!!! AAGGGHHHHH!!! It drives me mad. Trying to get people out of the library at 6pm is the most stressful experience of my week. It's like they are aliens and don't understand a word I say. The fact that I have to ring a big bell 5 minutes before closing doesn't have any effect either.

Then tonight. The icing on the cake. Stupid barrister man comes up at 6.05 when I am despairing of ever being allowed to go home. "'Scuse me, where are your Saturday opening hour sheets?" Me (not fully understanding): "Oh they haven't been printed yet, they don't start till September". Barrister: "So who's open tomorrow then?". Me: "????"

My god. These people are supposed to be educated. The cream of society.

I used to have a tannoy at my old job, that worked much better, and you can tell them that the doors WILL be locked in 2 minutes if they don't get their asses outta there. Grr.

Brain mush

One aspect of pregnancy that I wasn't prepared for is the complete inability of my brain to work properly. As a librarian, I take great pride in getting things right and never making mistakes. Now I've just given up and have warned my colleagues it can only get worse and to double check everything I do. I think as I haven't had any symptoms to speak of this is bigtime payback. I keep randomly putting things down and losing them, cataloguing things with random titles instead of what is clearly printed on the page, half doing something then wandering off and forgetting all about it. Someone can ask me to do something, and not even ten seconds later, it's gone out of my head completely. I need to stick post-it notes on my cardigan, that's what I'm going to do. I can look like a mad crazy pregnant/chubby person - hey maybe then nobody will bother asking me for help! Result!

Mine's bigger than yours...

I have discovered a new phenomenon: competitive mothers. Today me and Mr B wandered into Mamas and Papas, a VERY pricey baby things shop. We just nipped in to gasp at the prices mainly. And the blandness of the extremely expensive stuff. It was all beige!! If we won the lottery next week I still don't think I'd buy anything from there, unless my house was having an all neutral theme. Anyway, back to my point. I think I had half noticed this before, but in this shop I couldn't miss it. Other women stare at your midriff blatantly to see if their bump is bigger than yours. Then, as at the moment most of them are, I've only just started looking pregnant rather than chubby, they look very smug and carry on walking past you. The rude beggars!! I might go in next week with a cushion rammed up my top and show them!

Tits!

So last weekend Mr Barbara took me out for a meal on Saturday night. It was a lovely place, in the middle of the countryside, and even though I had to drink lemonade it was lovely. We got a nice booth and were halfway through dinner when a couple were seated in the booth behind us. As it turns out, it was lucky that they were kept well away from the many families with young children sat around us. I think maybe the bloke asked to be kept away from children. I really hope it wasn't a first date. This was their conversation:

Characters: Girl - early thirties, pretty normal looking, voice like a foghorn.

Bloke: early thirties, reminiscent of a deer in the headlights.

Girl: "eh, isn't this lovely? Yeah, I know I don't know you very well but I'd show you me tits if you want?"

Bloke (nervously): "um, eh, he he, no thanks yeh?"

Girl: "Yeah, well when I'm out wiv me mates, we are always getting our tits out. It's a laff innit?? Me mate Karen gets her bits out after a few bacardis too. What are we like?"

Bloke: "???"

Girl: "Yeah and when we were in Magaluf last year we had a competition, you know, who can get their tits out the most? I came second to Carole, she only won coz she had more photos as evidence"

Bloke: "So ... aha ... how is your meal?"

Girl: "It's lovverly, ta, I've got great tits really. Do you want to see them?"

Bloke: "!!!"

And on and on. Her voice carried so much at one point I had to openly turn round and see who was talking. Seriously, every other word was "tits!". She was oblivious. Her "date" would have been happy if the floor had opened up and swallowed him! I could have sworn at one point he was fashioning a noose out of his napkin...

Drunken sots

All my illusions have been shattered now. Robin Williams is in rehab for alcohol abuse. Mel Gibson is also a raving (and swearing) alcoholic apparently. I thought they were the two Nicest Men in Showbiz. Bless, they always seemed so nice. Well, I suppose that in 1 Hour Photo, Robin Williams was a bit off from his usual nice films and quite scary, and the bizarre films Mel has been making recently should have given it away. But it's like finding your dad has a secret porn collection. Or that your brother wears women's clothes and wears mascara better than you do. Lovely Mel, lovely lovely Mel. How touchingly he portrayed destitute husbands in Mad Max and Lethal Weapon - why did something horrible always happen to his wives?! - and cute little Robin - Flubber, Peter Pan etc etc. It just goes to show the secrets hidden beneath the smiles for the camera. Evil booze that's what it is!!

They'll be telling me that Hannibal Lector loves puppies and bakes cookies next (hee hee, not puppy cookies I hope!), and that Evil Severus Snape (aka Alan Rickman) visits old people on his time off.

(I think the line between reality and fiction is blurring a little here...)

Adverts

I don't know if it's me getting older or maybe just maybe adverts are getting worse. Honestly, some of the current ads make me want to hurl things at the tv or the radio. Ad men really aren't checking their audiences nowadays. My pet radio hate is Autoglass. They fix your windscreen for you if it's busted. Which is a Good Thing and people ought to be aware of them. But they picked THE most boring man in the world to talk about it, called Gavin, and then gave him about 5 minutes of airtime to drive his listeners to do things they normally wouldn't. He makes Mr Bean sound like an amazing conversationalist and after the 100th time of hearing it I almost want to write to the radio authorities and complain of cruelty to listeners.

On the tv, an ad for a fabric softener is so so bad it makes me want to hurl. A stupid lady is getting ready for a date, but her clothes are "so soft and smooth" she can't decide what to wear and would obviously spend the evening poncing round her bedroom instead of drinking lots of wine at a restaurant. But this isn't the worst of it. Her obviously caring boyfriend (or girlfriend, hey who knows?! But I suspect a girl wouldn't put up with that shit) phones several times to be fed a whole heap of lies (LIES!!) - "ooh I'm just leaving...I'm stuck in traffic...oh now I'm stuck in roadworks!" - by the hussy. Then about 2 hours late she decides she is ready. But she's wearing the worst outfit I've ever seen. I can only hope her poor date saw the advert and dumped her ass. Grr. And it doesn't make a good case for relationships, apparently if you use certain products you have carte blanche to lie blatantly to your other half and leave them standing like a lemon in a bar for hours. Relationships should be based on honesty not lying sirens whose only positive quality is that their clothes smell nice!

I know they're only adverts, but after the 77th time of seeing them I take issue with the actors personally for making me suffer so much, and if I saw them in the street, who knows?! Being able to blame your hormones for everything is great!

Dribble!

Lady L may well have found the Best Website in the World!! I don't know if it's my current obsession with all things sweet, but I could cheerfully order pretty much everything off this site. If it was a shop I would be there with a giant brown paper bag filling it with 2 of everything and drooling like Homer Simpson :-)

These might be today's favourite.

Lesson # 1

Things not to say to a lady you suspect may be pregnant:

"Excuse me, but are you expecting? Oh, I didn't know, I just thought you looked chubbier"

Chubbier!!!???? Imagine if I wasn't! The shame!! People, if you ain't sure just don't say anything, it's much safer that way.

(And don't tell the lady's husband that she looks "stout". Stout isn't much better)

Outed.

So it's now out in the open, Booky B is having a little book of her own. Kind of weird. So I guess this blog is now going to be full of pregnancy related posts for a little while, I don't really do anything else now I'm an old married. But if it gets too boring I might start making things up instead! BUT I am going to a gig on Monday! Whoo! And it's the fab Automatic - "What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster?" And my mission for the evening is to masquerade as a 20 something student not a 30 something married lady of burgeoning girth. Just watch me!

Urgh!!

Spotted on a market stall. Well I say stall, it was just a blanket on the ground near a market:

"For Sale. Bic Razors. 20p each. Only used once in pre-operative procedures."

Sorry Mr Cyclist!

So we ran over a cyclist on the way home tonight. Thankfully he was fine, he was trying to get down the side of us via a very small gap and he attacked the front bumper with his wheel. Usually I get really cross at cyclists, running red lights etc etc, but I thought we'd killed him. He was thrown off onto the pavement and his chain fell off. But he was SO nice. He was apologising over and over for being run over, and said "not to worry, it was only his chain" and told us to get going and leave him (to spend half an hour putting his bike back together probably). Bless him. I felt really bad, and I wasn't even driving! But I guess he won't be weaving through tight spaces anymore.

As for the two women (you know who you are!) I saw this week weaving in and out of traffic with abandon while on the mobile phone - next time I'm taking your number plates and reporting you. Sigh. I think it would be easier to get the train to work sometimes.

Don't hassel the Hoff

What is going on with David Hasselhoff? Last week he was in the news for "accidentally" severing a tendon with a chandelier. I don't even want to think too much about that. Today he has allegedly been thrown out of Wimbledon for being drunk. Of course the toffs at Wimbledon are much too polite to admit to it, and it would ruin their idyllic vision of people who go to Wimbledon all eating strawberries and drinking Pimms and being jolly nice people. They don't want Mitch Buchanan turfing up out of his head, slurring leerily at the lady tennis players and throwing up in a champagne bucket. It's not the rugby you know!

But it intrigues me. He is either on a very misguided PR mission at the moment, or pretending to be a rock star for a while. Before they announce the surprise making of "Baywatch: the Movie!" - coming to a cinema (or straight to the DVD shop) near you soon...

New pecs please!

You know what Tim Henman's problem is? He needs to buff up a bit. Roger Federer is practically bursting out of his top with well toned muscles, but poor old Tim still looks like a 16 year old public schoolboy all skinny in his big flapping white shirt. He just ain't got the power of the muscle men. Send that man to the gym!