I haven't posted in a month, for which I feel rather bad. Thank you those who have emailed to check I'm OK - I am, and so is Sproglet! I've just been busy with my parents, and I just don't get the time on the laptop when they are around to keep up with email and LJ.

The diabetes has also been taking up a large amount of effort. I managed to control my blood sugar levels really well with diet alone, but unfortunately the only way to do it was to cut out carbohydrate almost completely (there just wasn't any other room to move in my otherwise healthy diet - at least I can feel good about that!). That meant that I just couldn't consume enough calories, so I lost weight, an absolute no-no at this stage in pregnancy. So, I went on insulin injections after a week of managing without. Now I test my blood sugar at least 6 times a day (but sometimes more if I think it might be getting low, i.e. every time I feel hungry!), and jab myself with insulin three times a day, and when I'm not doing either of those things, I'm eating, planning my next meal, or waiting for my next test. It does seem to have taken over my life! But fingers crossed it is only for a few more weeks.

I am actually hoping it is for at least another 5 weeks...I had a scan to check Sproglet's size two weeks ago, and it showed that I have low amniotic fluid. That could be as a consequence of having lost weight, but it is quite a risky situation for Sproglet, so if it doesn't improve or gets worse, I could be having the baby much sooner than I would like. I have a scan on Monday to check, and see the obstetrician straight afterwards, so keep your fingers crossed please!

My dad went back to the UK yesterday - it's strange to think of all that will have changed by the time he gets back here in March. My mum is staying right through til mid-April, which is great. We are attempting to make a quilt, with native birds on one side and native leaves on the other, but so far we haven't managed much of it!

I"m keeping up sporadically with everyone else's journals, but do know that even if I'm not commenting, I am thinking of you.

I seem to have done nothing but talk about being up the duff this week. It's a year now since I took redundancy from a stressful job, in order (secretly) to try to get pregnant. I've been back occasionally, either on contract work or just to keep in touch with people. Earlier this week I chased up a friend for lunch, and I was excited about the prospect of strolling the corridors before and afterwards, as the bump is pretty much unmissable now. It was funny to see people's reactions - I could tell instantly if people had heard rumours on the grapevine or were completely unaware of my changed shape.

Later in the day I had a repeat performance with my book group - only one of the ten knew I was pg, as she had seen me a couple of weeks ago. So much delight all round each time I opened the door to another arrival and they saw my very obvious bump.

The oddest thing that has happened this week was that a friend told me about the antenatal breastfeeding classes the local hospital runs. I thought I'd heard her wrong - antenatal breastfeeding? What the hell can they teach me - I don't have a baby yet! I had visions of all these women sitting round holding dolls in the right position. But I have been assured that breastfeeding is not something that comes naturally, and that learning about it beforehand is heartily recommended. So I will suspend my disbelief and sign up. No gory details to follow, though, I promise!

Whilst I'm still in awe of those, like miketroll, who can keep up a regular gym routine for more than a couple of months, I've been doing my own little fitness plan of late. The last time I did any regular exercise was before my wedding - eeek, three years ago! - when I went to the gym 2-3 times a week for about 3 months. Then my membership ran out, and so did my motivation. This time, I know I've got a marathon to run (well, that's how I choose to think of it!) sometime round 23rd February next year, and I am scared to be so unfit for it!  So I started with walking a couple of times a day when I was in the UK, just to get started. Since I got back I've been swimming twice a week. I'm one of those plod-along-in-the-slow-lane-doing-really-crap-breastroke swimmers, but I do enjoy it more than I remembered. I've been doing two more lengths of the pool every time I go, and am now up to 28 lengths, which doesn't seem too bad - and I'm much less exhausted today than the first time I went, despite the extra lengths, so it must be having an effect! Now let's see - there's say another 30 swims between now and end of Feb (allowing a gap for Christmas), making an extra 60 lengths. That'll take me hours - and how will I ever count them? I keep losing track at the moment!

On top of that, I do antenatal yoga once a week. It seems pretty low impact, but I certainly notice which muscles have been stretched the next day. I still don't think I'm doing enough exercise - I've only got about 17 weeks left after all, and it's going to get harder towards the end! - but perhaps if I squeeze in a hill walk on the days I'm not yogaing or swimming, it might just amount to enough.

In other news, the sofa is currently covered with baby clothes - a big parcel arrived from a TradeMe purchase, and I just can't bear to put them all away yet,  I have to marvel at their diminutive size a bit longer!

Before I get into describing the rest of my trip, I wanted to post about a couple of recent catches. While we were in the UK, I was really excited to get a catch from a wild release I did in Auckland. It seemed like ages since I'd had a catch (although in fact I had a lovely catch at the start of July, but there has been a bit of a drought this year, all the same), and I was beginning to get a little despondent (never mind that I haven't been releasing much lately! Duh!).

The book was State of Fear by Michael Crichton, and although I released it (http://bookcrossing.com/journal/5249150) in an internet cafe in Auckland, it was caught by a guest house owner in Apia, Samoa. The finder said that it had been brought there from Rarotonga by a guest, and left behind. Neat!

Then just before we left the UK, I got a wonderful entry from bella-bu in Wellington, whose friend caught a book I'd left outside a cafe in Wellington, during our convention coach trip. The book was "Heartburn" (http://bookcrossing.com/journal/4209039), and - oh, I'm just going to include the journal entry, I'm so chuffed with it!

"Wednesday, September 26, 2007

My dearest oldest friend Melissa actually found this book. She was sitting wanly in the surf shop/coffeehouse she manages, watching the waves and hoping for some excitement. Melissa'd just read an article in the paper about this 'phenomenon' and pined for someone to put a book in her path. At the end of a tedious caffiene soaked, surf tantilised day, she brought in her beachfront pavement sign and - WHAT'S THIS?! - her very wish had been granted.

After throughly enjoying the book, Melissa passed it onto me, as is common between the two of us. She attempted to give me the hot goss on this 'bookcrossing' jazz but I informed her that I was already aware of it, on account of knowing the whole internet off by heart.
I have since lent the book to my flatmate as well, a fellow writer like me, who was also duly impressed that it was the author's first work. Hence it has been months and months before I've gotten around to logging on and letting the world know about our exciting find! Plus the bonus that it is an endearing, funny and well-paced read!

I'm now going to post it halfway around the world to another dear friend currently living in London. We worked together in the film industry and as this book was made into a movie, this seems very appropriate! The book's theme of love lost, pondered over and grabbed by the scruff of the neck is also a delicious one, weaved through with the recipes and anecdotes of the narrator chef. This book rings true and still sounds and feels refreshingly modern, despite the fact it was written over 20 years ago now.

   By bella-bu from Wellington, Wellington  New Zealand
   Book Rating: 9 out of 10"

I didn't release too many books while I was away, despite only taking labelled books with me - mostly because I didn't read half as many of them as I thought I would! I left two in Lyndhurst, in the New Forest - in the afternoon, without plastic bags. Hope they were caught that day! I left one at home with my parents, and then I left another in a hotel in Champaign.

Hey everyone! MrLetterB and I got back from our trip yesterday morning, but this is the first time since that I've actually felt compos mentis enough to put finger to keyboard! I'm not sure how much I wrote about our trip before I left - probably not much, as it was all a bit last minute, and I felt a little bit uneasy about posting details of how long the house was going to be empty! Sorry for not posting at all during the trip, nor for keeping up with anyone's journals, but I just found I had barely enough time to keep up with emails. Still, I will post the trip highlights below, and then look forward to catching up on what everyone else has been up to over the next week or two.

So - we went to LA for three days, just to break the journey, then the UK for about four weeks, during which we had a couple of days in Marseille, then travelled back via three days in Champaign, Illinois. The trip was great, I hadn't realised quite how bored I was with lying round the house unable to do anything because of morning sickness. I was still a bit ill when we left, and so was extremely glad that we broke the trip in LA. However, by the time we had been the UK for a week, I was over all sickness, and able to start getting out for weeks, and enjoying being pampered by my parents.

The UK
My folks live in the New Forest, which is about 12 miles outside Southampton, which is in the middle of the south coast of the UK. One of the highlights of going home is always the first time we cross the road outside the house and take their rough collie (think Lassie) walking on the forest - it is mostly heather and gorse heath in that area. It was particularly lovely when we first got there, as the heather was still in bloom, and so the hillsides were bright purple and smelt strongly of honey. When we want a longer than 30 minute walk, we head east and walk through deciduous oak/beech forest. I always realise that I have forgotten how different it is to walk through that kind of forest, which has very little undergrowth, apart from the odd stand of bracken, and is therefore quite open, than the dense NZ bush. There are several areas of pasture through the forest, which the dog loves because there are often deer to chase (not that he would have any idea what to do with one if he caught up with it!), and some streams. The New Forest ponies, donkeys and free range cattle are often found hanging around the footbridges, although I always give them a wide berth. Some of the tourists feed them (even though it is not allowed) and so if they expect it, they can get quite aggressive. Again, it was a lovely time of year to be there, as there were foals galore, and even the odd fawn and calf. The young animals always seem to take quite an interest in the dog, but luckily he is a bit scared of them so doesn't risk getting kicked.

We had lovely weather for most of our time in the UK, so with two walks a day, and some sitting around in the shade in the garden doing the Times crossword with Mum, I found the time went pretty fast. I enjoyed spending time with my parents' friends, and being shown off (especially as I developed quite a bump as soon as I got to the UK, it was just lovely when people started routinely commenting on it). A neighbour who used to be a midwife, and is very friendly with my folks, lent us her expertise and her fetal heart monitor, so I was able to hear the heartbeat a couple of times. Very emotional!

MrLetterB had to depart for his work travels round the UK, which were the original reason for the trip, but I didn't think I was up to that amount of driving. Anyway, mum and I had some serious maternity shopping to do! Thankfully it was all end-of-season summer sales there, so I felt that I got lots of great clothes cheaper than they would have been here. I now just need a few more pairs of leggings or trousers, and maybe a dress, and I'm set up for the entire summer. Of course if the bump continues to expand the way it is at the moment, I might be wrong!

We had a day trip to Salisbury, where we met up with my aunt T, my cousin H, and my cousin's new little daughter E, who is 3 months old. What a good advertisement they were for motherhood - a very smiley baby, and relaxed mum, although it is her second child. I also scored a bag of second hand maternity clothing, yay, and my first piece of baby clothing! I still feel too superstitious to buy any, but it is lovely to have something. I was sorry not to meet up with the rest of my extended family (there are 10 other cousins and assorted offspring on that side of the family) but it just seemed to be bad timing for most people.

More on Marseille, return to the UK, and Champaign in the next entry.

I've finally got round to downloading the pictures from my camera - so this is the beading project that was driving me crazy with nausea during July. Can't wait to see how it looks framed!



Oh bugger - now I can see that one of the beads on the top 'i' is flicked round the wrong way - I must have forgotten to glue it. Darn!

And in the midst of all this, MrTheLetterB is trying to make me decide whether I want to go to Europe in Aug/Sept or not. He's got a big trip planned, for about six weeks, with stops in Shanghai, the UK and the USA. It seems medically there is no reason not to travel, although noone can promise I will be feeling better by then. And it certainly perked my parents up to hear I might be going back! But I'll have to decide in the next couple of days, as tickets are apparently hard to get and I won't want to have to travel on my own, or I'll have to have very light suitcases!

Oh, the doorbell just went. I hate answering when I'm in my dressing gown (especially when it's midmorning!) but I'm glad I did - Statistics NZ sent us a letter last week saying we'd been selected for a household economic survey, and we are legally obliged to comply. So the ring on the door was a very nice lady wanting to make a time when she could talk to all occupants of the house over the age of 15. I think she was relieved when I said there were only two of us! Interestingly they select the participants of the survey from the census, on the basis of address, and they don't have the matching names or phone numbers, so she has to visit all the addresses just to make appointments. Seems an awful lot of effort - surely there must be a way to access phone numbers! Anyway, we will have the fun of being grilled about our economic situation next Wednesday, can't wait. MrTheLetterB will doubtless be grumpy.

Louise84 has made my day. A year ago, Lytteltonwitch, FutureCat, Awhina, the kitten and I went to Christchurch's 150th birthday celebrations. The others did a mass release, whereas I did a mass releasette, with only a handful of books. However they were all nicely wrapped in festive ribbons, so when I didn't get any catches from the day, I was a little disappointed. Now, 344 days later, the book has turned up in Glasgow, with a lovely journal entry from a new member! This is also officially my longest gap between wild release and catch.

Book title: Babycakes, by Armistead Maupin

Catching this book made my day! I was travelling in new zealand as part of my uni course and it was my last day in christchurch which happened to be the city's 150th birthday. There was a total party atmosphere, with a birthday cake which we all got a piece of and just so many fun things to do! It had been a fat saturday- my friends and i had feasted on pancakes for breakfast, then the birthday cake and then went out for a splendid meal that evening. I met so many great people and spotting the book, on a bench just added to the feeling of the universe being completely in sync for me to have a major green squiggle (awesome) day!
That was almost a year ago and now that i'm graduating i feel it's time to move the book along on its journey and maybe it will bring someone else a great day. However, i'm wary of leaving it somewhere in today's terrorist climate so i think it might go to a coffee shop and be fairly conspicous so that no one mistakes it for something nasty.

book rating: 8/10

Louise84 has made my day. A year ago, the witch, FutureCat, Awhina, the kitten and I went to Christchurch's 150th birthday celebrations. The others did a mass release, whereas I did a mass releasette, with only a handful of books. However they were all nicely wrapped in festive ribbons, so when I didn't get any catches from the day, I was a little disappointed. Now, 344 days later, the book has turned up in Glasgow, with a lovely journal entry from a new member! This is also officially my longest gap between wild release and catch.

Book title: Babycakes, by Armistead Maupin

Catching this book made my day! I was travelling in new zealand as part of my uni course and it was my last day in christchurch which happened to be the city's 150th birthday. There was a total party atmosphere, with a birthday cake which we all got a piece of and just so many fun things to do! It had been a fat saturday- my friends and i had feasted on pancakes for breakfast, then the birthday cake and then went out for a splendid meal that evening. I met so many great people and spotting the book, on a bench just added to the feeling of the universe being completely in sync for me to have a major green squiggle (awesome) day!
That was almost a year ago and now that i'm graduating i feel it's time to move the book along on its journey and maybe it will bring someone else a great day. However, i'm wary of leaving it somewhere in today's terrorist climate so i think it might go to a coffee shop and be fairly conspicous so that no one mistakes it for something nasty.

book rating: 8/10

Got back from Auckland on Wednesday evening, and as soon as I'd dumped the bags in the hallway and turned on the light, I rushed to the garage to open the kiln. Success! My blue glaze has finally turned out as it is meant to (i.e. proper speckly blue, rather than patchy brown and light blue). I took the kiln up an extra 20C to more than 1260C this time, and think that has made the difference.

Top shelf: Some blurry tiles for a friend's farm gate (these will be rejects), some coasters (very happy with these, although I might put some more green glaze on and refire them just to get a deeper colour),  a 'mackerel' bowl (this is how the blue always used to come out - maybe the glaze is thinner?), and a blue one. Wahay!


Middle shelf:  A better, crisper tile for my friend's farm - this will get reglazed with green over the top when I next fire. Some blues that I'm very happy with, and some green jugs that are slightly less satisfactory (I was a bit lighthanded with the glaze). Spot all the bookstrings-to-be!


Bottom shelf: A couple of test bowls in orange glaze (this used to come out chocolate brown, so at least now it's closer to how it's meant to be!), more blue - and spot the ballycumbers! Very pleased with the clear glazed ones, but the yellow glaze is not as transparent as it should be, and is patchy when thinly applied. Bummer.

Gosh, I really haven't posted much lately. I've had computer problems the last day or two, but I must admit prior to that I was just lurking and reading everyone's journals. I've been busy glazing pots, loading the kiln, and yesterday I fired it. It takes days to cool down again, though, so when we come back from our quick trip to Auckland on Wednesday I'll be able to open it and see what happened.

I've also started a spur-of-the-moment beading project. It's my parents' ruby wedding anniversary at the end of the month, and I couldn't decide what to make. Me and my brothers will get them a hot air balloon trip, because they've never tried it, but I wanted to make something too. For some reason I woke up on Thursday morning with a picture of a red beaded thing in my head, so now I have just a couple of weeks to make it reality before it needs to be in the post to the UK. Just as well that I have little energy at the moment, and am spending many hours per day on the sofa. Now I have an alternative to reading to fill in the hours!

I must admit I'm nervous about heading off to Auckland - I've reached the point where even a short car trip makes me quite nauseated, so I'm worried about the effects of air travel. Fingers crossed it will be a smooth flight!

*waves to everyone* hope all are well!

A huge thank you to everyone who left supportive comments this past week. I had a follow-up test yesterday that confirmed everything is proceeding as it should. I'm SO relieved! Of course it is very early days and I'll continue speaking in (barely disguised) code for weeks to come until I'm more comfortable with it. In the meantime, I just can't stop grinning. It seems to hit me most as I'm driving - so occasionally I catch another driver's eye as I'm doing my Cheshire Cat impression, and I can tell they think I'm crazy! Heehee.

Time to do a bit more work now the sun has gone in. Seems like Christchurch might be the only part of NZ enjoying a nice day, so I promise to appreciate it fully on everyone else's behalf.

Oh my god. Test came back POSITIVE. This is fantastic and much wanted news. Of course those who don't know what I'm talking about can just wonder, I'm afraid, as I'm not up to spilling the beans anytime soon, after bad experiences earlier in the year. But at the same time, if you can't share to some degree the really big things in your life with your LJ friends, what's the point?

So excuse me for being very behind in reading others' journals - I will catch up over the next few days. In the meantime, I need to sit back and ponder the meaning of my news, and how it might (fingers crossed etc etc) change my life. One thing that has already happened this year is that I have become incredibly superstitious. I had a sneaking feeling that the test would reveal what I wanted to hear today, when I was driving out of the hospital after visiting a sick friend yesterday. I looked up and saw a spectacular shooting star against the remains of the sunset. FOr most cultures across most of human history, that would be seen as an omen of some kind. Who am I to argue? ;)

Saw a few seconds of this YouTube video on the TV this evening and nearly wet myself. Had to go and view the entire thing! MrLetterB doesn't quite understand why it tickles me so much, but for some reason it just does. Ohhh, my stomach hurts.



(Sent the link to a friend today and it seems it was linking to a different - not in my opinion very funny - video! Darn YouTube. We'll see if embedding helps any.

The joys of automatic telephone answering systems.

Just opened up my diary and realised I  missed yesterday's bookcrossing meetup at Trattorie. Forgot all about it! Sorreeeee! Although to be honest, even if I'd remembered, I would have been very late - I was so exhausted after Friday's work that I didn't wake up til 10.30! Still I was looking forward to some convention chat.

Still, I did reach a milestone yesterday - I popped in to the library sale at Pioneer and bought a few books. I didn't buy as many as I thought I would, because these were all used library books but were priced at $2 paperback and $3 hardback. The prices at the Rotary sale a few weeks ago were the same, but pretty much all the books I bought there were nearly-new paperbacks that had probably only been read once. In both cases, though, I only bought books that I want to read, and I didn't buy anything with a broken spine or loose pages, so I don't feel like it was a waste of money. Anyway, my latest purchases took me over 250 registered, which means it is time to run an RABCK once I get some of this work out of the way.

Oh, and as I was leaving, I asked one of the organisers what happens to the leftover books. She said they invite community groups (old people's homes, etc) to come and take their pick, and whatever is left over is recycled. I expressed horror, and explained briefly about bookcrossing, and now have the name of the contact to get on the list of invitees for leftovers for next year. The handy thing about ex-library books (thinking ahead to books for the convention) is that books by New Zealand writers have a handy little NZ sticker on the spine.

Once in a while I get strange ideas in my head. Recently I was curious about how many of my truly wild releases had been caught. Of course to figure that out, I had to audit my entire bookshelf (when will BC have a function to let you download your own bookshelf as a spreadsheet, for goodness sake?).

Anyway - eventually I found out that I have released 112 books into the wild. Of these 112, 19 have been caught. I thought that was rather disappointing (it feels like more!), 'til I worked out that is 17%. Not huge, but satisfactory, despite the fact that in my first few months, I had around a 30% rate. Handwritten labels stapled to the front cover must have been more effective than nicely printed ones stuck inside!

I was also pleased to note 11 new members who joined after catching one of my books (even if they didn't credit me with referring them). One of my wild catches got caught on the same day I released it, and the longest interval between wild release and catch was 141 days. So there are still lots of books out there I could hear from. Unfortunately 19 catches isn't really enough to work out if there were any locations that worked better than others.

So now I have a lovely Excel file with all my books in, carefully listed by title and release date and location etc etc, and I'm promising myself to keep it up to date as I release books, so I never have to recreate it. Bet that'll happen!

I've been working in central Christchurch the last few days, which is a novelty for me. Unfortunately I had to advise my employer today that I need to add an "impulse purchase" tariff to my hourly rate, or I'll end up paying to work for him. Today's joyful purchase was a lovely pair of brown suede boots...I have awkward shaped feet, and skinny legs, and have never in my life before found a pair of knee boots I could wear. Happy day! I suspect I will be finding time over the next wee while to lounge around in inner city cafes blatantly waving my legs at people waiting for someone to say 'nice boots!'.

I happened past a bead shop today, which has never before been open when I pass. I came out empty handed, but only because I have to glaze and fire my potential bookstrings before I can perfectly match the beads for the other end of them...something to look forward to!

Have been doing far too much potting lately, and I now find that trying to fit in a few hours work assisting another consultant is tiring me out. Quite ridiculous, but I'm just not used to working to someone else's timetable anymore! It doesn't help that I've managed to injure my left wrist (I think dragging my old pottery wheel around the garage to make space for the new one). It hurts to pick up a plate, but is fine for typing (which is just as well). I thought I'd give it a week to get better before I got concerned, but it is still interfering with my pottery, so better call a physio tomorrow.

I'm going to note here for the record that I was almost too tired to go to pottery class tonight, but decided I'd feel guilty if I didn't as we are a very small class and any absenteeism might endanger the continuation of the class. Of course when I got there I was very glad I'd gone! Learnt lots (how to make round bowls oval, and some tips about trimming the bottom of pots).

Tomorrow I'm meeting with a printer/designer, and corresponding with a website developer, on behalf of this other consultant. Pushing me slightly outside my comfort zone (can he really want me to go ahead without him approving the designs?), but what the heck!