The piano got moved out to the new study last night. I haven’t played it in months (okay, maybe years), but it just looked so tempting out in the new room, that I had to sit out there and play a little Clementi. It’s sitting out there now, bathed in sun from the skylight as if it’s always been there… tempting me.

The problem is, as I reflected earlier, I approach piano much as I approach life. It’s all or nothing – I’m either giving myself fierce dictums to practise hours daily or (when I inevitably fail with the personal recriminations that go along with that) ignoring it completely. I secretly like the pretty tunes best (hence Clementi) rather than the more technically accomplished pieces. Maybe it was too many years of examinations, but I find it hard to get in the mode to just play for fun.

Thing is, I’m actually not that bad. When no-one’s listening I can play quite well (I passed my Grade 7 but failed my Grade 8, never retaking it – afraid of failure and, to be honest, no real interest in jumping the whole examination hurdle again) but if I stumble I find it hard to restart – it throws me completely. Or if someone’s listening I become horribly self-conscious and stilted.

There’s probably deep insights into my character there. But if you’ll excuse me, I must put the baby to bed so I can sneak back out to the study…

I spoke to soon.

They phoned up to let us know that the vinyl had marks all over it so there’s going to be a delay while they reorder a new roll.

ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!

This on a day where we overslept (due to Akra Jr being up half the night) and I dropped a water glass down the stairs (why is it the volume of glass increases tenfold when shattered?). These things come in threes, right? I’m due for a great afternoon, aren’t I?

We’re still living in chaos. Why is it that the final stages of building work seem to take longer than the entire project so far? Just cleared out the free-standing appliances from the kitchen so the vinyl can be laid tomorrow. Carpet is also being put down in the study.

Then after that, we can finally start moving in properly and begin to use our new rooms. However, still on the list to do is the telephone extension, baseboards back on the kitchen units, patio to be laid outside (I’ve been missing the garden so much, but it’s still a builder’s site out there and not really safe for the children to play in, let alone be a relaxing experience!), gate to be put up…

Must remember my mantra: it’ll be good when it’s done, it’ll be good when it’s done, it’ll be good when it’s done, it’ll be….

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and support. Li’l Bhaji is still refusing to breastfeed, my hormones have settled down now and my boobs are comfortable again (sorry to the men reading, too much information I know). I’ve pretty much decided that here is as good as any to call “the end”.

I’m still pretty sad about it, and I wish we could have gone on a little longer. Our morning routine is now shot to pieces and has become much more stressful, as Li’l Bhaji doesn’t get a nice little cuddly feed while Akra and Akra Jr get their breakfast and the chores done before Li’l Bhaji expects his brekkie. It makes it that much more fraught. We’ll obviously have to revisit how we do things and see if we can jig things about to make life easier on ourselves at that time.

My makeover yesterday went a long way to cheering me up, and I very much intend to bin the nursing bras and get something rather more flattering in the very near future…

I spent my prize winnings today. Well, what was left of them! I had a colour and style consulation from my local Color Me Beautiful image consultant.

I have to say that I had a lot of fun. Apparently, I am a Deep Autumn and despite being pale skinned many dark colours don’t actually wash me out as I always had assumed. I get to play with some lovely olivey greens, browns, oranges, aubergines and yay… tomato red! Although not all at once, obviously. I also have a “perfect neat hourglass figure” and have been ordered to stop hiding myself behind shapeless clothes and to flaunt my waist a bit more!

It was really eye opening, seeing colours and styles I would never have considered before, really suiting me. I would definitely recommend it. Now all I need to do is go shopping with colour swatches in hand!

Nope, this is not going to be a post on HSBC employees or on any other disgruntled workers. This is a post about Li’l Bhaji.

He’s gone on a nursing strike.

I’m writing this hesitantly, as I’m fairly certain I’m not going to get much sympathy on the topic (breastfeeding beyond about 6 months sadly appears to be “contraversial” in much of the western world) but it’s something that’s happening now, it’s affecting me deeply and I have to write about it. Compulsion to write is why I started a blog in the first place, so here we are.

He stopped for no apparent reason Monday night. He seems to want to feed, then changes his mind at the last minute, gives me a soft nip and then wants to go on to other things. Sometimes he seems distressed that he “can’t” feed, sometimes he doesn’t. I suspect that it is teething related but can’t be certain. Apparently, due to its sudden nature it’s classed as a nursing strike rather than true self-weaning, which is generally a much more gradual process and usually happens around 18-24 months of age. Li’l Bhaji is 11 months old.

Akra Jr stopped feeding under similar circumstances around 8 months old – he had a bad chest infection at the time, and it must have hurt him to feed. However, we never recovered from the strike and over a week later I stopped expressing and came to terms with the fact that was that. All done.

I’ve not really tried to talk to my social circle about it. I tried yesterday, but find myself increasingly upset by very genuine and heartfelt congratulations for getting so far (yes, we have done exceptionally well – but it almost feels like saying “I’m sorry, you didn’t win tonight’s star prize, but you do leave with this super blankety blank cheque book and pen…”) and just plain incomprehension that it’s in any way a big deal (“I couldn’t wait to give up with mine…”) and to them it wasn’t/isn’t and that’s great, but it is to me.

It doesn’t help that I have such mixed feelings about it myself. On the one hand, if you’d asked me when Li’l Bhaji was born, I would have said that I’d like to get to 1 year, but as the year approached I had started to feel that maybe reaching the WHO code’s recommended 2 years for the best benefits to his immune system wasn’t quite pie in the sky for us after all. As he was getting bigger and more independent, it was our wind-down snuggle time – I was still the most important thing in his universe.

Now I change my mind every five minutes what I want to do. One moment I shrug my shoulders, philosophically accepting that maybe its come to a natural end and that there are advantages to stopping around the year mark. The next, I’m on the verge of tears hoping that it’ll be possible to recover from this strike. Hormone levels resettling after a long period of breastfeeding probably don’t help either. Nor does the knowledge that he’s very likely going to be my last baby and I’m never going to breastfeed again and …. I MISS IT DAMNIT!

I didn’t want it to end like this.

Letters to the Editor

April 19, 2005

School dinners
From Mr Gareth Rowan

Sir, A letter from my daughter’s primary school in Essex reads:

Change to the School Menu
In response to recent publicity, “Turkey Twizzlers” have been taken off the school menu and replaced by “Chicken Teddies”.

Akra Jr seems to have got to the “yuck, girls” stage early despite his best friends at nursery being of the female persuasion. He got quite insistant that he wanted short hair like his daddy, wanted to be tall like his daddy. Then came the wail “I don’t want to grow up to be a girl!”

Hmm, what’s so bad about girls anyway, eh?!

In my continuing attempts to reduce food miles, packaging and find tastier fresher food, I went to our local farm shop this afternoon.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realised the apples had little stickers on them declaring their point of origin was South Africa.

Apparently, I am being unreasonable to expect a Farm Shop to lose part of its customer base to import out of season fruit and vegetables to bolster up their shop. While I don’t expect the farm shop to only sell stuff from their farm, I would expect most produce to be part of a local co-op of farms – simply not stocking anything that is out of season.

If I wanted something that has been flown in from the other side of the world I would have stuck with the supermarkets’ flavourless offerings or gone to a small quality greengrocer (apparently non-existant in Worcester) with a more discerning buyer and greater range of stock.

What do you think?

My mobile hardly ever rings. I call out on it occasionally, text lots, but hardly anyone calls me. The last week or so that’s all changed.

Every day, somewhere between 10am and 11am I’ve been getting a call from a withheld number. That number rings off the second I pick up. If I send it through to the answerphone, no message is ever left.

Now I know that it’s only one call a day, but it is driving me up the wall. I suspect that it’s some sort of telemarketing thing or some automated system that has somehow got my mobile number, but with the number withheld and it immediately hanging up I have no way of finding out the originator. It’s registered with the Telephone Preference Service but again, I can hardly report the company if I have no idea who it is.

Anyway, I emailed the TPS today on the offchance they might have some advice. They told me about the Silent Call Guard service – not anything I’d heard of before. It’s also free and they are supposed to reduce the number of silent calls received within 48 hours. Their information number is 0800 0831138 and the number you call to register is 0870 4443969.

I will let you know if it gets rid of this. In the meantime, hopefully this information may help someone else in the UK with a similar problem.