Season's greetings

Hello!! Remember me?

I used to write here quite frequently but since welcoming Miss L into the world I have been neglecting my dearly beloved blog and all of the lovely people who take the time to read it. I promise this is not because I have forgotten it or you. I can't tell you how many witty, sharp and insightful missives I have composed in my head these past few weeks while feeding my blossoming baby. Sadly, though, I can tell you how many have made it to the computer. Because that count is nil. If only there was an iDevice I could plug into my head that would automatically download, edit and format my thoughts into neat and entertaining posts to publish? Actually that might not work. The truth is not all of my thoughts are fit for public consumption.

Anyway. In the weeks between finishing work and having Miss L I had every intention of writing like a mad thing to have some posts in the wings (which have been in my head for months). I was then planning to impose a six week amnesty on blogging which I would explain to you all in advance. I figured any spare time I could find in those early weeks should be spent napping and that's the only part of the plan that's held. There were no 'weeks' between finishing work and having a baby, I still have those unwritten posts in my head and I didn't ever explain my blogging plans.

And now, the day before Christmas, a month since I last wrote, I sit with my seven week old baby in my arms while I tap this out on my iPad with one finger, to wish you all a happy festive season. (There is nothing like feeding a baby to develop proficiency in 'life skills that can be completed with one hand'. I am yet to master the act of buttering toast with one hand but I will persist). And, in addition to sending you the season's greetings, it's also time for me to close down for the year. After almost eight weeks' off can you even believe my audacity?? 

I have now made my annual pilgrimage to Yamba (a post on that experience will be forthcoming in the new year) where we'll spend a few weeks with my extended family. It is a sacred time and a holiday that need not mix with technology. Yamba is a computer free zone for me and it's a rule I refuse to compromise*.

So until next year NABM will lie dormant. I will be back with a vengeance from the 10th of January, from which date you will struggle to ignore me. At least that's what I hope will happen. I wish you all a very merry end to 2012 and hope that, however you spend the next few weeks, your days are filled with laughs and loved ones. Thank you for continuing to indulge me by visiting this tiny corner in cyber space. It brings me more joy than I can say. 

Happy eating, beaching and resting!

*With the glaring exception of posting this blog which has taken me several attempts to complete. 

A Royal bebe to be

I woke up on Tuesday morning to the splendid news that my favourite duchess is with child. At first I was slightly irritated she hadn't called me herself but then I remembered that she doesn't have my number. Nor my name. Such a shame. Throughout the morning my phone beeped, inbox pinged and my twitter feed filled up with commentary on the royal bebe in waiting, or indeed bebes as many are speculating, and I have to admit my heart sunk a little. And not just because I didn't hear the news from the royals themselves.

I am thrilled that a baby is on Will and Kate's immediate horizon. The blessing of a baby is something I'm reminded of regularly in the blissful, albeit sleep-deprived, bubble from which I'm writing.(From this bubble I'm also often reminded of the breathtaking ability of a certain toddler to mimic a terrorist who is zealously committed to holding her subjects parents hostage but that, my dear readers, is a post for another day).

Having children is something I wish upon anyone for whom the experience appeals and Will and Kate have both expressed such a desire. News they're expecting is joyful, lovely and exciting so why the sinking heart you ask?  I feel dreadful that Kate is so ill and I'm a tad devastated that their happy news emerged the way it has. The trouble with my imagined royal friendship is that I feel oddly protective of them. And dour as it might seem, right now, they have my sympathy.

The early weeks of pregnancy are precarious and peculiar enough without being violently unwell or heavily scrutinised. I don't think it's uncommon for even the least queasy pregnant woman to wish, even temporarily, she could just sit out the first loong 12 weeks of gestation without having to stage all manner of masquerades to hide the speck of life inside. Pretending to sip wine when in actual fact you're struggling to stomach lemonade, fronting up to work with your regular enthusiasm, finding enough foundation to mask the grey pallor discolouring your skin, assembling outfits that hide any sign of a bump and generally participating in normal life, is quite exhausting in those early months when, really, all you want to do is sleep. 

Imagine being one of the most visible, photographed women in the world during that strange time? Then, add in not just mild nausea but illness so severe that it requires hospitalisation, which in turn means your secret is out. To the entire world. Instead of enjoying even 12 weeks knowing your secret is safe in the privacy of your own marriage, news programs and betting agencies alike are speculating as to whether you are 8,9,10 or 11 weeks along. And to fill time  they're also using your public schedule to guess where the new life may have been conceived. All of which they're doing while camped outside your hospital room. It's enough to make a woman violently ill. 

So while I am overjoyed that my favourite royals are in the family way I am sad that it has come out this way. A private pregnancy was never going to be possible but I do wish their plans to share the news with their families on Christmas Day had been possible. Not just because it would have been on their own terms but it would have bought them another month of privacy. Which would have saved us all another month's worth of magazine covers running a variation of the story that Kate is pregnant. Because not even their most loyal friend, ok fan, wants that.