MORE DISTRACTION

So effective was the distraction that you may have missed key information hidden deep within my last post.

My amniotic fluid is stable, my placenta is winning beauty competitions but they still want to induce me. Tomorrow. At least, I have to go to the hospital tomorrow, with my cases, one for me, one for Rufus, who already needs more stuff than me and he's not even out yet! Whether they actually get around to giving me the drugs tomorrow is anyone's guess. It may be the following morning.

Anyway, enough of my yacking! (Anyone who can tell me the source of this quote wins a pair of throwaway hospital pants. Used or unused. Your choice.)

I never got around to showing you my €10 bargain from Le Monde Allant Vers, the depot vente where I go for all my €10 bargains. This time it's une commode. Not as one might suspect a grown-up potty for the incontinent (or a shit-chair as the Tall One so succinctly puts it) but a chest of drawers.

It is made of plywood. It was brown and really quite nasty, although rather... erm... commodious which is what attracted me in the first place.

On the excellent advice of John Wallace, I covered it in sous-couche (undercoat) then used a water-soluble, quick drying wood paint in blanc cassé.

A bit of artful trickery with some sandpaper to make it look distressed and you have something that could, possibly, be in the same room as THIS (see below) without blushing. Check out the posh Scandinavian crib in the background, courtesy of the Tall One's lovely sister.

Please don't focus on the last piece of grey and pink rose-motif wall-paper behind the posh Scandinavian crib. Blame the medics. If they'd let me go another few days like the Clark Kent look-alike intern that did my scan suggested, we'd have had that mirror down and that wall paper off before you could say "nesting instinct". I have a fantasy that if things start to go wrong, the intern will shed his glasses, turn into superman and rescue Rufus from my womb without the need for surgery. Do you think it would be cheeky to ask him to sort out the wall-paper too?

THIS is my gorgeous antique 'shabby chic' French armoire that I paid a fortune for in the UK (Ah... those bygone days when I had disposable income) that JL kindly repatriated for me when he came to collect Ash. Although it looks gorgeous, it was never really much practical use as a wardrobe as it is too shallow to allow a full adult-sized coat-hanger to sit sideways in the manner required by 21st Century life.

However, as a baby storage unit it's perfect. And I should add that it is extremely practical in that it is what's described as a "knock-down" wardrobe, i.e. it comes to pieces and is held together in the most ingenious fashion by 2 bolts and 2 wooden brackets. Nothing else would get up my cute French stairs.


That's your lot. Distraction over. Tick tick tick...

Oh my. DO you think there's ANY chance I'm going to sleep tonight?

ALBI THE RACIST DRAGON & PASCALE THE FECKLESS ROOFER

I am sitting at my computer watching the excellent and hilarious Flight Of The Conchords on youtube in a bid to distract myself from my impending (and probably painful) induction.

If you'd like to be distracted from thinking about it too, I'd recommend "Albi The Racist Dragon"

If you don't like Flight Of The Conchords, how about an update on the Belgian? I saw him the other day. He was explaining to one of the locals that Pascale had been 'working' on his roof for 2 and a half months and had yet to lay a tile.

If you have been losing sleep over what happened to Pascale's scaffolding, this is for you: Neatly laid out against the side of the Belgian's house by the johnny-come-latelies. One of the excuses Pascale gave to the Belgian was that he felt too "faible" to do any work, so the Belgian probably doesn't want to risk him falling off. How thoughtful of him. Notice they cleaned up all the old laths and off-cuts before I could get there, dammit!

I commiserated with the Belgian and offered my assistance should further roofing assignments be undertaken. We exchanged email addresses. I don't think he suspected for a minute that I was an undercover blogger and nosy neighbour.

Twitch.

HONOUR AMONGST ROOFERS...

There obviously is no code of honour among the French roofing fraternity.

I got terribly excited this morning when I heard hammering and male voices coming from the Belgian's roof. Could it be Pascale, returned from a fortnight of festive frolicking, determined to make the Belgian's roof an accomplishment of 2011?

Alas no. When I went out to check my post box, I recognised the johnny-come-lately roofers who only yesterday finished a repair to the house across the square. The Belgian has obviously decided enough is enough. Poor Pascale.

According to Michelle (the toothless one-eyed cadger with a speech impediment) Pascale has been in the grip of la grippe for the last 2 weeks. I tend to take most things Michelle says (when I can decipher them) with a pinch of salt as it's usually a meandering prelude to trying to borrow money from me; however... In this instance, when I think back to the horrendous weather, and the poor little Frenchman being lashed by torrential rain trying to nail down laths and insulation in the teeth of a fierce gale, I wouldn't be surprised if she is right.

Will the Belgian's roof ever get finished? Will Pascale ever get his scaffold back? Will anyone notice if I sneak out under cover of darkness and collect the old laths and off-cuts for kindling?

Twitch Twitch!!

CURTAIN TWITCHERY

My name is Michaela Paine, and I am a nosy neighbour.

Now, the Belgian that lives round the corner is having his roof done. I know this to be true because sometime in early November a man arrived and put up a scaffolding. He also removed a significant number of old slates, covered the roof with a blue tarpaulin then disappeared.

In the following week, the lady next door had her ENTIRE roof replaced. For an idea of the scale of this job, see left. It took the roofers a week. Granted there were four of them and they had cherry pickers; but they started at 8:00h and worked through til 18:00h being careful to observe the mandatory 2 hour lunch break in the middle of the day
(photo credit Nick Terrett)


Exactly WHY she, at the age of 93 has decided to have her roof done now is another mystery. My dear friends the Halls-Holmsens are particularly curious as she owns a bit of land that backs onto their property that she has hitherto refused to sell them...

The Belgian's roofer is called Pascale. Whenever I pass comment with any of my other neighbours about the spectacularly sedate pace at which work is progressing on the Belgian's roof, I get a conversational rap across the knuckles and told how sympathique he is, and how amazingly good at his job. I'm not passing comment on his skill, how could I? I'm yet to see any of his actual work.

Mid December, just as the weather changed from temperate and sunny to very wet and windy, the blue tarpaulin came down. Poor Pascale spent a few horrendous days up on the roof, which now looks like this. I felt so sorry for him, I took him out a hot cup of coffee and a biscuit; and then he buggered off again for Christmas. It doesn't take Hercule Poirot to work out that his priorities are not with the Belgian's roof.

I've nothing against the Belgian (except when he parks his bloody huge car practically inside my front window) but I think if he spent a little more time in the Haute Vienne and less time in the land of Stella Artois his roof would be done by now. That said, when my roof needs doing, I won't be asking Pascale.

The reason I'm telling you this is that the Belgian has just re-appeared. Pascale has not.

Twitch twitch twitchetty twitch!

THE MYSTERY OF THE AMAZING REJUVENATING PLACENTA

There have been dramas. There has two days spent doing nothing but washing baby clothes and hanging curtains(me); and painting walls and ceilings (the Tall One). This allocation of tasks has nothing to do with gender stereotyping and everything to do with body size and mental application.

However, having been told that my amniotic fluid is disastrously low and my placenta is looking dangerously old on the Monday, I arrive, suitcase in hand expecting to be induced on the Wednesday only to be sent home again.

Subsequent scans reveal that my fluid levels are fine and that my ancient placenta has rejuvenated itself. We're ruling out Botox on the grounds that if my placenta decided to slip off for a spa weekend it would have to take the baby with it and that I would definitely notice. Everyone's a bit mystified but it means I'm given a get-out-of-hospital-free card that is valid until my due date; now agreed to be the 14th January.

I KNOW that my baby is fine. Obviously given that I have no medical experience and no previous experience of childbirth they're not about to take the chance that I'm right; and in their shoes I'd probably do the same. But watch this space. When the time is right, I'll be able to say:

JE VOUS L'AVAIS BIEN DIT

DUFF

A conversation with a Nina W's teenage daughter* lead me to ponder on the following:

BEING DUFFED UP

BEING UP THE DUFF

Two very different things entirely but both fairly terrifying for a teenager. As you get older the fear of the former (hopefully) recedes and the latter for some becomes much sought after.

Oddly, the word DUFFER is not a term used to describe someone who causes either of the above conditions, rather someone who is perceived to be a bit of a pillock.

It should be pointed out that just because someone is a bit of a pillock doesn't mean they won't duff you up or get you up the duff. However, the word "Duffer" is seldom used outside of Enid Blyton books so unless you're planning a Famous Five re-enactment event, confusion is unlikely to occur. Luckily.

*Just to clarify, Millie is not to my knowledge up the duff. Although she did get duffed up at school. That's what you get for using words of more than one syllable in front of people with fewer than the average quota of functioning brain cells.

Millie needn't worry. When she and her fabulous bohemian friends are in the vanguard of a new and exciting 2020s arts explosion, the violent thickos will still be struggling with the meaning of the word 'imbecile'.

I KNOW, I KNOW...

I know I said no more knocking off of plaster, but I couldn't hep it! It came away in my hand!

When you discover this:

it makes you curious to know whether it could be turned into something like this.

So you do a bit of this

until you get this.

Then you either have to wait until Paul is free to do the same kind of pointing job he did on the second picture, or you have to read the chapter in the DIY book on pointing and have a go yourself.

This (below) is too much and will require you to either escalate the plaster removal to the entire wall and window surround or stop immediately and read the chapter on 'amateur plastering and the gentle art of botching it'

Oopsie.