The Size of a Small Bedsit

I am now a little over a week into my second trimester (though the picture is from last weekend) and still going strong. I have an appointment with the midwife on Friday and I got a letter for my next ultrasound appointment, the last week in November. I know, right? I'm shocked, too. Normally the appointment letter shows up on Tuesday informing me that my appointment will be on Monday. I actually have time to reschedule before having to switch shifts so I can make it. Though, in fairness, the short notice appointments have all coincidentally been on days off. And yes, I have my work rota through the end of November already. Technically it's written out through mid-January but A) I won't be working that long and B) I highly doubt it will survive the first skirmish with the enemy. I keep telling Little Djinn to stay inside until January, any time in January is fine but not a moment sooner, but I'm comforted to know that if it has other ideas it's viable. Still, my preference is a 2013 baby who shows up in January and I'm not shy about saying so.

Of amusement to me and Chris, every time I tweet my weekly progress update ("28 weeks down, 12 to go #gestating" usually accompanied by a picture of either my pregnant self or an ultrasound of Little Djinn) at least one more person twigs that I'm expecting. I've been tweeting about it for 4 months now, and not just the weekly update. I complain about kick boxing lessons when I'm trying to sleep and near constant heartburn and say how weird it feels when Little Djinn has the hiccups (very weird). I talked about the swollen sausage flippers that replaced my feet when we were on holiday and there has been a lot about the joys (or rather lack there-of) of trying to find maternity clothes. I don't really expect people to notice every little thing in my life, but it is a source of amusement and wonder in our household when people who actively use twitter miss it completely.

We're finally getting around to "nesting": we've cleared out the nursery (but not the cupboard/closet!), washed the walls, plastered the holes and, today, added the first coat of paint to the walls. We're using the leftover barely-there peach from when we repainted the lounge after having the fireplace installed. We got our local handyman to do it while we were on our honeymoon and it looks lovely, adding just the slightest hint of warmth to the walls. The paint is also supposed to be "light reflective" which is not to be scoffed at when you get as little sunshine as we do. The nursery...doesn't quite look the same. We're not entirely sure if it's because of slight paint transfer from using the same brushes Chris used to paint one wall of his office red, or if it's because the room is smaller and the colour is bouncing off itself, or just because the paint was wet, but the nursery is looking a bit pinker than the lounge. I'm not overly bothered, if Little Djinn has a problem with the colour of the walls we can paint it again in 5-8 years, and I'm confident that yellow curtains and/or bedding will pull the room back towards peach. I'm also hoping that a second coat of paint will even out the colour. It turns out that love and enthusiasm are not a substitute for skill and professional tools.

In autumnal news, I made pumpkin cake using a third of a tin of Libby's pumpkin purée sent to me by the lovely Miss Krissy. With another third I made pumpkin butter (cup of pumpkin purée, cup of yogurt except I only had 3/4ths a cup left, and a cup of powdered sugar, spice to taste). In the picture above the cake is served with brandy whipped cream, which my husband implied through grunts and eyebrow waggles made him love me twice as much as before, on Aged Parent's seasonal china. It's his every day tea service that he uses year round, but currently it's seasonal and I thought it particularly suitable for pumpkin cake.

Here's another picture from last week, the view from our bedroom windows. The yellowish trees are now mostly gold and rust. I'll take another picture for Autumn-Watch 2012 when the sun actually comes out. It snowed on Friday but not enough to stick or, really, for me to see it as I was at work in a windowless room all day. But I got the satisfaction of correctly predicting it would snow in October, so that's something, right?