Enough already!

OK dudes, enough is enough. I am driving myself fruit loops with this constant whinging and negativity. So what if people are getting PG right, left and centre? So what if my boss hates me this week? So what if I have to attend my second funeral in 2 weeks tomorrow? Enough!!

I am doing an Oprah and counting my blessings and kicking myself up the arse all at the same time. I WILL drag myself out of this slump. I am knitting myself a whole new attitude.

a) If I ovulated freakishly early for me, the bright side is that I won't have to take that nasty-arse Provera to kick off the upcoming IVF. Result!

b) Funerals are great for catching up with old friends and relatives you have not seen for years and booze is always served at the traditional "cup of tea" afterward. Result!

c) My boss...hmm. I will have to think on that one for a little bit.

d) I have the chance to do IVF more than once, which is often a whole lot more than other people ever get to do. I can afford it and I can withstand it physically. If it doesn't work, I will have given it my best shot and that is all I can do.

e) Time to dig out the yoga mat. It has been gathering dust since the last IVF. Time to crank up the olde mind-body connection. I also ordered that Anji meditation/guided imagery CD to magic up a little deep breathing voodoo.

O-kaaay! I came over a little Tomkat there but it is all good. I am going to get through this.

You are 'aving a larf!!

Fertility Friend has decided that I am 4dpo on CD47. Hahaha bloody hahhaa! Even on the 22nd cycle of charting, it cannot figure out a pattern to my fucked-up cycle.

For Gawd's sake, just don't ask me why I am temping on a rest cycle. Well, actually, it gives me something to do first thing in the morning. A reason to wake up. Otherwise what is the point? I have truly lost the plot now.

Cut and paste yourself here

The Synarel has arrived in the post and the instructions for the next go-round in the ring. Ding ding, seconds out! #2 IVF will commence with downregging with July period. Of course, I am now on CD40-something and it will take a bitch-slapping from Madame Provera to get that show on the road. Joy, joy, happy, happy.

I am at that ambivalent stage where I want to get on with it but I am also dragging my feet thinking "Why bother?". I remember the first times I was so excited to try things and the whole shiny world of TTC lay glittering before me.

1st metformin
1st Clomid
1st injectibles
1st IUI
1st IVF

All doomed to fail. So here I stand. Doing it again.

Give me a kick up the arse, people. I really need it.

Smile like you mean it

Who knew that all I had to do to get what I wanted was to ask? Just float it in the blogosphere.

I moaned about the weather and lo! it changed. We hit 80 degrees yesterday and like Thalia said, it has been a nasty humid couple of days. I am just grateful that it has stopped raining. The downside is that the midges love it hot and steamy.

I will have to try this new wonder approach. I could have done this years ago. Let me see:

I hate being barren
I hate being not wealthy
I hate being fat

I am waiting!! Better give it a couple of days hmm?

Penelope also asked about the last blog entry title and whether I was being ironic? I was actually being more prosaic than Mao's teachings. If a blog title doesn't immediately spring to mind on typing, I use a song title that I have been listening to that day. Bless the iPod! It provides strength and inspiration for weary bloggers everywhere. Billy Bragg provided that particular inspiration and bless his cotton socks too!

Thank you for all your comments about my annual review, especially Internal Spring. I wish you were my boss, A.

For our British readers, I am still overwrought at the climax of Doctor Who and I am afraid to say it moved me more than my pre-pubescent self ever was. There was bisexual snogging and everything. I don't remember that, even in the decadent Seventies! The regular shedding of tears on an early Saturday night will be sorely missed and I fear, not to be replaced by a milksop with floppy hair either. Christopher Eccleston, we salute you. Middle-aged women all over the country will miss the sexual frisson you brought to Saturday teatime. I know I definitely will!

Waiting for the Great Leap Forward

It is the middle of June, almost but not quite the longest day. It is never dark here at the moment - not broad daylight like in the Arctic Circle but bright enought at 3.30 am that I can be woken up and think Huh? What time is it? Is it time for work? Bright enough to disrupt my sleep even with the blackout blind (its the pesky gap at the side innit?)

So why, why, why do I still have my central heating on? Why, why, why will it not stop raining long enough for the lawns to be cut? Why, why, why do my lupins and poppies and delphiniums get squished and blown over just as they are reaching their zenith? Sometimes I hate this country and its weather. Just a bit of sunshine and a light breeze and a temperature that can reach the high 60s - I really do not want much.

Oh, and just to add to my grumpy misery - it is my annual review this week and I hate that shit. Why do I have to justify my own existence? Can't I just say I had a great year and leave it at that? No, that would be too easy and not waste enough of my precious time.

I also have a COLD! It is supposed to be summer, people! Come on!

North, south, east or west...home is the place I love the best

Aaaah, home at last!

I do love to travel but even more so, I love to arrive home. My own bed and pillows and bath..bliss. Our hotel in Amsterdam was amazing as usual and very comfortable and the week at my SILs house was very warm and welcoming but nothing beats climbing into my own bed.

I feel as if I have been away for longer and that is always the sign of a good holiday. The weather was patchy and in fact, it was warmer in Edinburgh than London on the day we travelled back. However, it was sunny enough to bask in many a Dutch canalside cafe. I slaked my shoe lust in the Kalverstrat, which is the Amsterdam mecca of shoe shopping. Cheese was purchased for gifts, as well as eaten in copious amounts by us. They were celebrating the 50th birthday of Miffy in the DeBijenkorf department store and I fell in love all over again with that cute bunny.

We saw some real live windmills this time, a cheese farm and did the tour of the Heineken brewery (free beer!). I caved and saw the latest Star Wars at the Art Nouvea masterpiece of the Tuschinski cinema (with Dutch subtitles!). I did not make it to the Sex Museum as the red light district does not do much for me but the combination of Cosmopolitans, a very large mirror as a bedhead and romantic lighting made for some interesting nights back at our hotel! There is something about sex in hotels that adds a little extra oomph (well, it certainly does for me haha).

London was its usual cool self. My SIL and BIL were fabulous in their welcome as per usual, which was just as well as we were staying for a week. Mr P and I hung out a lot in Ray's Jazz Cafe in Foyles bookshop as I adore scrummy falafel sandwiches against a backdrop of Coltrane. They also do iced tea and dandelion and burdock if coffee is just not hitting the spot. The Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Tate Modern was out of this world and it deserves a whole separate post to itself. I met up with my good friend Jane and her new man and we caught up with all that is going on in our worlds.

During our stay, my nephew and his wife arrived from Tobago for a 3 week visit with their 6 month-old baby girl. I was a bit apprehensive, not least because of the whole great-aunt thing! I am too young to be a great-aunt, for Gawd's sake! At home, there are not too many babies in my life so I was wondering how I was going to deal. However, she stole my heart. The daughter of a white Londoner and a black West Indies girl turned out to be the most delicious caramel scrumptious baby and I just wanted to eat her up. She was good as gold and everyone was eating out of her hand within minutes of her arrival. She was the queen of the household and I took every opportunity to inhale that baby goodness from that fold in her neck. I had to tear myself away to come home.

The journey home though was quick and uneventful. Before we reach the end of our drive, I am craning my neck to see my front garden and the trees and the clematis on the front of the house. I ooh and aah over the flowers that have erupted over the last 2 weeks, exclaim at the length of the lawn grass and swear at the weeds that have appeared as if from nowhere. Aaah, home sweet home!