In short…

I am madly trying to finish my placement before it finishes me. 9 days full time to go. I am feeling odd and sad about it. Once its over its over – no more fun times with refugees, cooking with boisterous ladies yelling in arabic, cuddling babies, laughing like drains with my service users, having really big talks about cultural differences and the oppression of women accross them, finding common ground at the ends of the earth, meeting some really wonderful, unforgettable characters.

I have turned 30, none too happily but I did have a lovely weekend in Padstow with Shep. We ate at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant and it was fabulous. V tasty, tasty fish things to be had there! Padstow was also really beautiful and i’d like to go back many times. On the way back we stopped for ice cream and played with piglets – shep was of course in 7th heaven!

I am now uncomfortably pregnant. The baby wriggles a lot which is nice and kicks me in the guts which is horrid. The wee baby growing anymore seems inconcievable.

Meanwhile I finally have some stuff. I’ve collected a truck load of baby girl things from a friend with a 20 month old but nothing smaller than 3 months and I am still a bit confused about what its all for! However I did get a v comprehensive list from newshoes and ordered a ton of stuff from john lewis. Babies are expensive!

Because theres more to me than just a bump (just about….still!)

We recently had a boss type person of Shep’s over for dinner with us plus PF. It was actually really nice and he was a very interesting chap. Today he sent me a thank you letter. Not an email/text….an actual letter – handwritten and more than two lines. I was astonished! And ever so touched. We have strict traditions in my family about thank you letters for christmas and birthday presents but even those have transferred to emails over the years. I’m just made up!

In other news I have had my second to last practice observation and my last meeting with practice supervisor, practice learning manager and academic tutor. I’ve had some really strong positive feedback which has been nice and a change from stupid assessors telling me I shouldn’t be letting the children I work with touch me (children i work with range from 4 months to 11 – the ones i see most are 2 year olds who climb all over me). Consequently I have been asked to speak at the uni in September to new social work students about social work in the third sector and opportunities to evidence theory in practice. I said yes, if I haven’t hatched by then.

Meanwhile….

I seem to winning the virtual balloon eating/easter egg impression contest. I just read on one of my pregnancy newletter/email/junk type things that the bebe will now undergo a growth spurt until week 29. Great stuff. I can’t do my shoes up as it is!
The bebe also wriggles like mad most of the time now which reassures me that it is infact still alive!

Posh Friend came to visit for the weekend so I have been rejuvinated by shopping and general girly company. Shep nad I let PF have a go on the doppler and listen to the baby heartbet which she thought was so amazing. I suppose for me the novelty of that has sort of worn off because I can feel her kick all the time.
I had the 3d scan at a Bump2Baby show in Exeter with the osle purpose of finding out baby gender. Now that I know she’s a giel she actually has some stuff!! Well 1 baby outfit which my Mum bought her from posh organic baby baby compnay, 3 washable nappies with velour bum covers in bright colours, 1 wooden toy, a wooden toothbrush from posh organic baby compnay again, 2 x free swaddling blankets and some crayons. PF bought her a baby blanket with little ducks on it and yet another jellycat toy – this one is a monkey to go in the pram! OK so I need about a thousand other things but hey its start!

GUESS WHAT???

ITS A GIRL!!!!

(i had a 3d scan – i’ve seen her bum and everything)

(thank bloody god for that!)

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Meanwhile…Here is a caption contest…

This is my beloved completing the Plymouth Half Marathon on Sunday.

I am green today, I chirp with joy like a cricket song..

I spent all day yesterday at the allotment run my my refugee agency. It was the long overdue planting and digging open day. In laymans terms that means we rounded up as many staff and service users as we could convince and dug over the plots and filled them with new baby veg plants.
The plot is on the hillside of Central Park in Plymouth and overlooks the city and the sea. It is windy and bright. I got sunburnt on my hands from working and on my collarbone as a perfect scoop neckline, broken up by the white space left by the chunky bronze heart necklace I was wearing. So classy! And I tease Shep for his farmer tan.
We have crops now of broad beans, rasberries, spuds, sweetcorn, tomoatoes, peppers and chilllies, butternut squash, peas, onions and garlic. There is also tons of other stuff that might not identify itself for a few weesk yet!

Meanwhile at Shep Towers my kitchen garden has been descimated by greenfly and I have lost one tub of tomatoes and all the bell and jalapeno peppers. I think my last remaining sunflower is also on its knees. I gave in and procured the spray fly killer but work up to a horrible chlorophyl smell and dead plants. I wanted to cry buckets over my first failing but spurred on by the allotment day out I am determined I will pick myself up and carry on. Shep ferried me to B&Q and I now have some new pepper and other assorted veg plants and a really posh wooden planter. There is also a piece in the Telegraph magazione today that makes me want an allotment of my own so much I can’t even tell you!

Well…

I had my scan at 21 weeks and apparently, I am the proud mother of a textbook baby. However, the little monkey had its legs crossed and its little hands around its ankles during the scan. The sonographer poked it with the scan thing and we saw it raises its hands to its face to protect it and I wanted to cry with guilt. Sonographer thinks its a girl but can’t say for definite.
So thats the news.
Meh.

Meanwhile for all my worrying a few weeks ago the baby regularly wakes up and wriggles and kicks.

Dear Banana

I get to see you again tomorrow. I’m very excited. I think you are too since even right now at lunch time you’re wriggling about like an impatient puppy. I find out tomorrow whether you are a girl or a boy. (please be a girl……i’m just being honest).

ps. the two noisy people were your Dad and Grandma. They are excitable at best.

Dear Honeydew Melon

5 months today!

ps. Please stop beating me up from inside!