The antidote to domestic organisation

He may have had a great time on a gin palace in Cannes, but he is mightily hung over.

Great success!

Urgh. I feel like I have jetlag. I am an almost total zombie. I had to get up at 4.30 this morning to give Mal a lift to Heathrow, because he was going on a team trip.

Mal sent me a text message at 9.19 saying he'd landed in Nice. They had no idea where they were going until today. I have just been further updated, that they are now happily installed on a yacht in Cannes harbour. Thanks for making me feel better about the jetlag and the housework that needs doing.

Wash the floors Cinderelly! Clean the kitchen Cinderelly!

Had the first of my NCT classes today.

Had I not already had a birth preparation class in the form of a Hypnobirthing course, I think I'd be at a bit of a loss. They give you lots of information and show you lots of pictures, and then reinforce it with a big dose of "it's going to hurt a lot", and a lot of our next class is going to be in reference to pain relief. Oh joy.

I really wanted to stand up at a couple of points in the class and say "it doesn't have to hurt! It doesn't have to be like this!" But I think it would have been wasted on some of them. Teacher included.

Things like saying that the midwives will only pay attention to you when you go in if you make a lot of fuss, and hop about and writhe in agony, and whinge and complain and make like you're in a "TV" version of giving birth.

It would be a pretty shit episode of casualty if the labouring woman lay there deeply relaxed, breathing through her contractions, and didn't whinge, scream, shout, or create a fuss, but just lay there, breathing, and suddenly she had a baby. I've seen it - I've been watching a lot of hypnobirthing videos and none of them have the yelling etc. Just peaceful, calm, relaxed atmospheres, in which women give birth with virtually no pain, and have bright alert and happy babies.

Reading this back I sound like a right old hippy. I just can't put into words how unneccessary I believe all of the drama to be. And I hope I can prove it, whenever the big day arrives.

I reserve the right to eat my own hat though.

Still - I did learn some things today. like about colic, how babies turn during labour, and the people we met seem lovely.

I shall focus on the positives.

I have spent the majority of the evening/afternoon excavating the understairs cupboard. Another 2 black binbags full of stuff are leaving. One is heading charity-shopwards, and the other is heading recycling/binwards. It feels good for the soul, ridding yourself of crap that has been weighing you down.

I feel horribly guilty for making Mal live like this. He is less tolerant of mess than me. And I have made him live like this for 6 years. I have been so lazy and rather than making the decision to get rid at the time - have stashed away 6 years' worth of unwanted crap that I couldn't be bothered to deal with until now.

I have the kitchen drawers in my sights tomorrow.

Then next week I am going to tackle the bedroom. It doesn't sound like much, but the bedroom is arguably the worst of it all. It's just got mountains of crap in there that we put there in times of panic-tidying, on the grounds that nobody ever needs to go into our bedroom except us. It's embarrassing. I have actually avoided having people over to the house as it's been in such a shit state. I have rinsed out all of my friends' hospitality too much. I usually turn up with cake or somesuch so it doesn't feel like I am completely freeloading.

After the kitchen drawers are done, then I need to knock the dining room into shape a bit - I have put things in there that are intended to go there - I just need to find places for them now.

I ache all over. I think I might have overdone it a teensy bit. I shall find out tonight/tomorrow depending on how crap a night's sleep I have and how much I can't move in the morning!

I might have to delay the kitchen drawers by a couple of days in that case... hmm...

I have a short attention span. I am impatient. When I want something, I want it like... yesterday.

So to be sat here, uncomfortable, huge (well, to me anyway), and 34 weeks pregnant is more than a little frustrating. I want it to be over. My body doesn't work like it used to. I can't tie my shoelaces, I can't wear nice clothes, I can't walk very fast, I can't walk very far, I can't let the dog off the lead in case I can't catch him, I can't stand for longer than about 10 minutes, and I can't eat so many of my favourite foods.

I am getting increasingly frustrated when I bump into anyone I know, and they talk to my navel (it's flat, but not turned inside out yet), or, even worse, touch the bump. In what way is it socially acceptable to touch me? It's a hideous invasion of my personal space. I don't like it at all. You wouldn't walk up to a bloke with a beer gut, touch it, poke it, rub, it, patronise it as if it weren't attached to its owner and then be on your merry way, would you? The fact that anyone thinks that touching me is acceptable is hideously sexist, in my opinion. Just wait until you are invited to touch. The only person who's allowed to touch is the person that helped make the baby! So unless you are Mal, back away slowly!

I still have some serious amounts of nesting to do. I fear that tomorrow's job will be excavating the under-stairs cupboard. Hopefully I can complete it before my attention span reaches its limit and the job is left half done (this is a habit of mine that drives Mal up the wall. He deserves credit for putting up with it. I shall tell you about "Mal-Brain" sometime though: that makes our relationship a two-way street).

I shall let you know how I get on.