Alex is a DIY legend. I was sat in the spare room/nursery yesterday, quite happily killing time on the 'puter while I waited for hubby-dearest to finish doing his DIY footlings in the bathroom. He was in the middle of the relatively simple task of making sure the floorboards were all secure ready to lay the boards and tiles, I was in the middle of arsing about with an email...when I heard BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG "Fuck...", followed by a suspicious hissing sound.

He'd only gone and put a nail through a water pipe. So. Water spraying out from beneath the floorboards, us running around trying to prise aforementioned floorboards up to wrap a towel round the pipe whilst simultaneously searching for the tap thingy to turn the water supply off and also hunting for the number for the emergency plumber.

Bloody Hell.

Chappy has been round and stopped the leak, but there's now a disgusting stain on the ceiling in the front room and we have to have a whole section of pipe replaced. We didn't have any central heating all day yesterday or last night and I'm now stuck in the house (wearing three layers of clothing) waiting for the plumber to come back and finish the job.

Christ I wish he'd get on with it. There's snow outside. I'm hugely pregnant. I don't want to play eskimo.

Brr.

ALEX'S MOM REALLY IS ON DRUGS.

Ok, so I've joked about this before. I've laughed in a fond sort of way at her mad mad ideas and schemes...like the idea of all of us moving to New Zealand to work in an extreme sports shop which Alex's brother has never even considered thinking about opening, or the plan for Alex and I to move to New Zealand so that I can teach in a secondary school...even though I'm three years away from being fully qualified and am about ready to pop with our first baby. Yes, she has some mad ideas.

Now onto the latest. First, some background. Alex's Mom has been on a diet forever; she doesn't find losing weight easy because she's not good at motivating herself, and often ends up giving in to have a 'treat' a couple of times a week (usually a takeaway treat). The only exercise she does is a once weekly walk with Alex's Dad, although they've only been doing this for around a month, so there's still chance for her to decide that there's better things to do with her Sundays.

So.

We were round at their house yesterday, just getting ourselves ready to leave when Dee came out with the following:
Dee: (grabbing Alex's arm) "If I win lots of money, do you know what I'd like to do?"
Alex: "What?"
Dee: "I've got a brilliant business idea. I could open a gym, but it'd be a gym with a difference. It'd have all the normal bikes and running machines and stuff, but also a rock climbing wall and it'd be by a lake so we could have water sports and I could simulate pot-holing, and I'd do special membership for older people so that everyone could get involved! It'd be great - people could use it for teambuilding, like paintball but better!"
Alex: "So you're winning a lot of money?"
Dee: "Oh, about half a million pounds."
Alex: "When Ed was looking at setting up just his water sports centre that would have cost three quarters of a million..."
Dee: "So maybe a bit more. But don't you think that's a great idea? I think it would really work." (Looking directly at me) "Don't you think that's a good idea?"
Kate: "Ermm...hmmm...ummm hmmm...."
Alex: "Yes Mother." (Pat on the head).

She's on drugs. Seriously, she really really is on drugs. I've joked about LSD flashbacks before, but I'm actually really starting to wonder now.

I later told Alex that I'd really had to bite my tongue, as when she'd said "it'd be a gym with a difference" I'd really wanted to say "what, there'll be a pastry shop?"

It's probably for the best that I did control myself. I'm not sure how she would have taken it.

I HAVE EATEN PANCAKES!

Finally. I've been craving pancakes for about a week...a situation exacerbated by Alex kindly buying me a box of pancake mix* with Cadburys chocolate sauce...a box of mix which required an egg. We had no egg. The pancake mix was taunting me. But anyway - we bought some eggs yesterday...celebration at the pancake consumption!!!

Whilst making the pancakes I looked on the side of the box, where I noticed a little sign that said "makes 8". Bollocks does it. It makes three. My pancakes are fat. I managed to eat one of them.

* Pancake mix. What a con. I can understand buying the pancake mix which you only have to squeeze into the pan - this makes sense. It's time and mess saving and I think it's a good idea. But pancake mix that involves adding water and eggs? Surely it would be just as easy to add milk and eggs to flour? Plus, how much do you pay for the privelige of having some flour and salt mixed with dehydrated skimmed milk and packaged in a pretty box?

I won't judge Alex for buying it though - I asked him to get me the time saving pancakes in a bottle and they didn't have any, so he naturally assumed that boxed pancake mix would also be time saving and useful. He wasn't to know.

STILL, BRR.

The plumber said he'd be here early, but not so early that he'd get me out of bed. It's now 9.10...I think this is acceptably early. We actually expected that his definition of 'early' would mean he'd be here by about 8.30...but HE'S STILL NOT HERE. Come on, I'm freezing my ass off here!! I might have to go and set up camp in front of the gas fire in the front room. Ok, so there's not much I can do from there, but at least I might avoid death by hypothermia.

I'm starting to wonder if he might forget. That's what happened with the window guys; they did half the job and said they'd be round the next morning to put some sealant around the new windows...and then didn't turn up. I phoned them the next day and they said someone would be round later. Nobody came. It eventually took them two weeks to get round here and finish their work. What if the plumber does the same thing? What then?

But I think I'm being paranoid and over-reacting again. It is only 9.15am.

TAUNTED BY DREAMS

Yep, it's not just boxes of pancake mix that are taunting me. My dreams are also causing me problems.

Due to the NHS ban on sex (otherwise known as "you have placenta praevia, having sex is dangerous") it's been ten weeks since Alex and I had a proper shag. We were sort of fooling around a bit in a "don't put it all the way in" kind of way, but that backfired on us around three weeks ago, resulting in a 2am trip to the hospital. So. It's now been three weeks since I've had any semblence of a shag.

This dream causes me problems.

I dreamt that Alex and I were away together somewhere (possibly Newquay - I like Newquay), walking down a totally deserted street in the early hours of the morning. I was wearing a little denim skirt, he was in his usual jeans/t-shirt majiggy. It was all innocent and not much happening...and then things got rude. I'm not sure how my brain made the jump from 'innocent walk' to 'mmm', but it did. The next part of the dream involved Alex shagging me, up the wall, fully clothed, only the absolutely necessary bits released/uncovered...and I woke up feeling a tad twitchy.

The worst thing is that, even if we do get the all-clear to have sex in a months time, the chances of him shagging me up a wall when I've got something the size of an over-inflated football sticking out of the front of me...well, it just wouldn't happen.

Ugh.

BOLLOCKS TO THIS.

I really am freezing. Ok, so I can't be very productive from in front of the gas fire, but at least I'll be a bit more comfortable. I is skiddadling.

"LITTLE HARD FEET...LITTLE HARD FEET..." (to the tune of 'Winnie the Pooh')

WE CAN HAVE A GROUP HUG FOR WARMTH. COME ON, EVERYONE HUDDLE TOGETHER.


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