Jollies

We're off on our hols. 10 days camping in France and then a week back home...please don't burgle our house.
For our camping trip I have not yet packed, but buoyantly optimistically will have done soon:
- girl guide enthusiastic outdoorsiness
- armfuls of resolve (tomorrow's forcast is RAIN)
- a dustpan and brush (a lesson from last year's experience)
- a moisturising mask or two (see below)
- a lot of loo paper (you never know with the French)
and hopefully some clothes and a tent and that.

As it happens, we will be away on Swiss National day, which is August 1st..lots of flag waving, scoffing and fireworks, so I'm told. I've only ever celebrated Swiss National Day in England, courtesy of the wonderful Pete again and his Swiss heritage. I imagine it's the one day of the year when they feel obliged to stop bitching about each other. Today's row: everyone is very upset with the canton of Valais, because they are now the only ones legally allowed to call their cheese Raclette, despite other cantons also using traditional Raclette recipes in their cheeese making. Grr!

Bye bye.

Why the big pores?

Something horrible has happened to my skin.

It used to be smooth-ish. Now it has turned into near-stubbly, large-pored, dinosaur hide. Why?

Rob - ever the diplomat - says: "It's your pregnancy bloom!"

I am not blooming. I look like a leather sofa.

I moisturise; my moisturiser contains SPF. I wash with Superdrug Lemon and tea tree facial wash every day and have done for a couple of years. When I was pregnant with Emma I didn't get a rhinoceros face. What is going on? Do I need to exfoliate? Any tips, Alexis?

Computer seems to have had a stay of execution, though it won't be for long, I fear..

Peter

..was the giver of the fabulous top below. He is a very generous mate with excellent taste, as you can see.

The eleventh commandment is "Love one another." Jesus tells his disciples this just before he ascends into heaven. It's at the end of one of the gospels, though I can't remember which.

By the way, this computer is going mad, about to die conveniently at the end of its extended 3 year warranty. So there may be a delay in posting. I am off to the shop in a minute to try and get it fixed.

Toodle pip.

The 12th commandment 

Shut up PLEASE about the giro

OK, enough about the blummin' giro and my faux Dickensian poverty gags, I am beginning to bore even myself. In case (though I soo doubt) you need closure on this issue, here's what happened today:
I phoned the insurance people.
They said they had only received one bill.
I wailed that I had sent them about four bills.
Then I remembered that I (stupid! stupid! stupid! cow) had forgotten to make copies of the bills before sending the originals to the insurance people.
Then I made a desperate call to Dr Happy Frankfurter, ready to beg her not to send me a summons for non-payment while we are on holiday.
Then her answering machine told me she was herself on holiday until August 15th.
Which is fine by me, unless of course I suffer an obtstetric emergency.
But then I would probably phone an ambulance and not HF anyway.

3 days on holiday and STILL NO GIRO

Next week we pawn our shoes and head to the workhouse.

I would like to change the orange, but then you lose all your customisations (like links and that) and I can't face that palaver again just yet. I was never wild about this template, but it did have a Links For Stupid People section. Sorry Kads and Christina, please bear with it for now. May I suggest sunglasses for the glare?

Anna is right: I am bloated. It's because I eat toast all day. But I am pretty sure some of it is baby now. I know this because I am getting an outtie.

One other thing

I don't like the orange. It's too E*syjet.

No giro

I bumped into my friend Anna the other day in the post office. She is a Polish-New Yorker. I am still not sure what brings her to Switzerland, but I am very glad she's here. This is what she said to me:

"Oh my GAAAD, HI LIZZIE! I mean, LOOK at CHEW! You showing already? Naah, come AHHN, it's too early. It's just BLOATING. You're BLOATED, RIGHT?"

I love her.

Waiting for giro

Still no money from insurance people.

We now have a cash flow situation, which must be remedied if there's to be bread and dripping on the table. I shall be sending Emma down the pit soon, small and nimble as she is, to earn her keep.

In Other News:
- SHE CAN WALK! By which I mean she stumbles around like a drunk, but it's a two-legged action none the less
- SHE CAN YODEL! She likes to practise at 2 in the morning.
-SHE DRIBBLES CONSTANTLY! Her sodden t-shirts need changing at least twice a day

Ta-daaa!

I'm not sure about the orange, but every girl needs a change.
And I have a links section now!

Swiss Whinge of the Week

This week's whinge is called Why Private Health Insurance Is Rubbish.

Private Health Insurance is Rubbish because you have to pay a monthly franchise (£250) just Because, and although some things are really paid for by the state (like maternity care) you still have to pay all your bills upfront and then wait to be re-imbursed by the insurance company.

I got a £500 - five hun-d-red p-ounds, or 1000CHF- bill from Happy Frankfurter (there's a cold, commercial heart beneath that jolly exterior) which I paid 3 weeks ago, and I have still not been re-imbursed despite pleading phonecalls. Actually, my French being wobbly at best, I might have missed the 'pleading' tone I was hoping for and gone straight into 'mentally ill' which is why they are hesitant about giving me money.

Here's a brilliant idea; why don't the insurer's pay the doctors directly? Or why doesn't the state pay them directly? It's what happens in a NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE *gets out union jack bunting and start's whistling Land of Hope and Glory*

This is Why Private Health Insurance is Rubbish.

Your starter for 10

What is
a) a marriage wrecker
b) a reason for me never to leave the house again
c) the reason why my infant is hardly ever dressed properly or played with anymore
d) the best way to distract yourself from feeling sick?

Answer: Su Doku of course.

I know it's been all the rage back home for a while now. I just discovered my first Su Doku at the back of an old Times and adieu conversation, social life, childcare, food, washing myself.

I can only do the Easy and Moderate ones, and even then they take me hours. I got a C in my GCSE maths, that's why. I know it's about probabilities and stuff, but that's the extent of my insight into this puzzle's inner workings. (Tips welcome, by the way.)

A return visit to Dr Happy Frankfurter. How time flies.


VERY GOOD: little 12 week old foetus bean looking happy, sitting on its haunches doing the occasional somersault.
BAD: I am quite anaemic, apparently..
BAD: ...and I haven't been taking my iron tablets, because a) I'm rubbish at taking tablets and b) iron makes , er, constipation worse but
GOOD!: Frankfurter ordered me to eat steak twice a week!!..except
A BIT BAD: it has to be well-cooked, and I like it practically still alive. With bearnaise sauce and a green salad, a lovely glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, some candles, a subtle-yet-plunging neckline, my husband, ..sorry, where was I? Also
BAD was the nurse who freaked out a bit when I said I didn't want the Down's Syndrome blood test and that she wasn't sure my insurance would pay for a scan without said test but then it was
GOOD again when Happy Frankfurter said that didn't matter one bit. Did I mention the steak, by the way?

Lonely blogger seeks cyberfriends

If this is the first time you have read this blog, let me summarise what you have missed so far:

"I am English but live in Switzerland blah blah blah blah I have a cute baby blah blah blah here is my baby doing cute things blah blah blah oh and I'm pregnant and spend alot of time being sick blah blah blah. Sometimes I write about food. And outings. The End"
PS despite having views on both I feel uncomfortable writing about politics and religion I prefer Blogging Lite mainly as a means of keeping in touch with folks back home
PPS I am now concerned that Lite Blogging has been a turnoff for many and that's why no-one comments anymore, they want more politics and religion
PPPS or it could just be the holiday season
PPPPS or it it because it's a boring site and I need more features? I am working on this one.
PPPPPS Enough. Desperation is never attractive.

Because we haven't had any cute pictures for a while 

Everyone I know is fine, I think, after a round of frantic texting yesterday...not that it changes the fact that there are some people out there who are now bereaved or injured and we are all thinking of them, needless to say.

Last night the World Radio Geneva ditched all its (extremely lame) programming and gave us wall-to-wall London coverage on the World Service.

Big shout to all my fabulous UCH colleagues who were all part of the major incident effort.

In Domestic News: Emma has decided she might like walking after all, and yesterday took a few steps on her own.

Request

Please could all my nearest and dearest who live in London - which is 99% of my whole world-please check in and tell me they are OK?

Horrible times.

Dropping things

Emma is very much still into dropping things, but for her mother the novelty is wearing off. We have graduated from a slow, deliberate action - examine object, pick it up, look over high chair and release - to very diva-ish rapid swiping motions and karate chops sending everything clattering to the floor.

She is also interested in feeding herself now, at least she is very interested in grabbing the spoon and flicking Weetabix onto the walls. I tried Gina 'I know everything about babies, me' Ford's trick of giving her one spoon to play with while I tried to shovel food in with another, but instead Emma just grabbed both spoons and engineered her own Weetabix supercatapult.

As I scrape dried Weetabix off the walls, mulling over a wasted university career (sorry, taxpayers) a moribund career and gruel-for-brains I keep thinking about Condoleeza Rice. As well as being the most powerful woman in the world, she is also a concert pianist. Or Nicola Horlick, 5 children and head of an investment bank or something like that. Or even my normal friends who have babies and are still managing to make the work thing work, and I can't help feeling very inadequate. I don't feel like this often; usually I am a resolutely Glass Half Full girl. It is not helped by the fact Mum has gone and I have two days of just my Elf and I before R gets back from Sri Lanka and I am already knackered.

Well, she arrived and I didn't even have to call Swiss Search and Rescue *thinks about men in uniforms and reflects disappointedly for a moment before remembering happy marriage*

And what a lovely time we've had; Ma has been waiting on us hand and foot, making meals, doing all the washing up, pushing the pram, frequently interjecting with things like "Are you OK, darling? Do you need to lie down?"

I don't know how to break it to her that I don't feel that sick anymore.