I'm so scared of next doors pond. I was wandering around the nursery, trying to get H to calm down enough to sleep, when I spied something. Something that looked like a very small human face, just under the water of the pond.

Freaky.

Clearly, this was just an optical illusion - the face in the water could not possibly be anything other than a plant or ornament. Then I noticed the fins...giant fins, disproportionately large if they were attached to a fish inhabiting such a small pond.

Weirderer and weirderer. Again, I decided that this was not a fish...no, it was a plant. A plant that moved. A plant that JUST SPLASHED THE WATER OH DEAR LORD THERE'S SOMETHING FREAKY IN THAT POND.

I had to walk away from the window. I was convinced it was watching me.

When I returned, minutes later (well, you have to)...it had disappeared. Did I expect to see mis-shapen wet footprints leading across the patio and into the house when I went downstairs?

No. Of course I didn't. The thought didn't even cross my mind...ahem.

CONDOM HOUSE

Yes, the whole house smells like a giant condom...no, no, don't stop reading in disgust; you have to hear me out. Really, you have to. Just where do you think you're going? Don't you dare click away from this page. Don't even think about it. Right. Good.

The cats have been irritating me greatly lately ("greatly lately", what a great little sequence of words that is) by climbing onto the conservatory and jumping through the upstairs windows, gaining access to the bedroom and nursery where we DO NOT WANT THEM TO GO, meaning that we've had to have the upstairs windows on the back of the house firmly closed throughout most of this hot spell.

Today it finally got too much for me to handle, so I've masking taped the rubber "stop the rugs from sliding about" mesh things over the windows, thus preventing feline entry. "Genius!" I hear you cry. Well yes...until the sun moved to the back of the house and started cooking the rubber. Now upstairs is cat free, but it smells really, really odd.

AND ON THE SUBJECT OF CONDOMS...

Gah! I'm fine to have sex...fine! But all is not well! My doctor has said I can't use any kind of chemical contraception until I've had my first period...so until then it's the hideous, hated "make everything feel less real that a cheap dildo" plastic wrapping. Or more babies. God I hate those things so much. **EDIT**: I hate condoms, not babies. I don't hate babies.

AND ON THE SUBJECT OF MORE BABIES...

Alex and I are very seriously looking into adopting our next child, rather than having our own. We really want to be able to give another child a chance at having a really good life, rather than bringing another life into the world when there's so many unwanted children out there desperately in need of a good home. Neither of us knew that it was something the other wanted to do; we'd both thought about it separately, but we had no idea that we felt the same about it. So there's a chance that in five or six years, we may have another baby/young child...but without me being bumpy. Of course, it's a very long, drawn out and painful process, and there's always a chance that we wouldn't be approved, but I'm going to be optimistic about this.

In one way it would make me sad to know that I wouldn't go through pregnancy again, and that Alex and I wouldn't be creating another little person who's a combination of the both of us...but on the other hand, it makes me sad to think of all the children who are so very badly in need of loving homes, so that would more than cancel out any broodiness I'd have about wanting another 'genetically linked to Alex and I' baby again.

AND HERE COME THE INEVITABLE PHOTOS...

Sorry. But you know how proud I am of my baby - I just have to share!

Heather having a happy chat with her Daddy:

Heather looking ever so slightly gormless :o)

...and Heather all dressed up in her summery clothes

And that really is all now.

T'ra a bit chucks.