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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Following on from yesterday's blog post, it's been pointed out to me by one of the world's leading linguists (thanks, Dad) that if you go to Babylon.com and enter the words 'La Ferme' into the French-English translator, it comes up with 'shut your trap'. Which has made me see Andrew's gift in a completely different light. I'm scared to enter 'Les Véhicules', in case it tells me to f*** off.

But bad language aside, I had the day off work yesterday, which was bloody great. I booked it a couple of months ago after we received an exclusive invitation to spend the weekend in Oxford, at the home of one of England's leading scholars. Unfortunately, our trip to the city of dreaming spires began to look more like a nightmare once Lisa turned anaemic, developed pelvic girdle pain, and started throwing up. So we took the decision to cancel. We might have been staying with a healthcare professional, but she didn't want to deliver our baby.

So that's the second weekend away that we've had to call off in the past fortnight. Our names must be mud on the high society social scene. It's no wonder we didn't get called to the palace last week. But hey, I'm sure the invitations will start rolling in again once we've got a screaming baby in tow. Everyone loves a newborn.

So with that in mind, we spent my day off acquiring a new wardrobe for our impending arrival. One of Lisa's friends has an eleven-month-old son, and she kindly offered to give us the clothes off his back, so we drove over to Portslade yesterday afternoon to pick them up. Once there, Lisa disappeared into the kitchen for a girly chat, leaving me to help Amelie break the ice in the living room with the baby's four-year-old brother.

It was a bit like mediating in a marriage breakdown. I had Amelie on one sofa, refusing to speak (if only she was like that at home), and a young man on the other, telling me about his holiday, but trying not to look my daughter in the eye. In the end though, they went from one extreme to the other. After twenty minutes of sterling work that ACAS would have been proud of, I had a mini-breakthrough, got them to talk to each other, and within thirty seconds they were heading upstairs to his bedroom. If she was ten years older, she'd be grounded.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Maybe Amelie will refuse to speak to her brother when he arrives. Although she's already shouting at him through my stomach - so it's unlikely.

Alyjay said...

Maybe the invitations will be amended to Lisa only after baby arrives? She will deserve a stress-free, relaxing break, and an Oxford scholar would surely show her a good time - avoiding the dead bodies of course.

Lisa said...

"stress-free, relaxing break" - those words go very well together. May have to put the children on Ebay to achieve it.