Friday, December 24, 2004

A Christmas Wish

May your skies be clear and blue this Christmas.
May your days be filled with joy and your heart with peace.
May you wake to a whitened land and a roaring fire.
May your families bring you love,
May your gifts make you content.
May your skies be clear and blue this Christmas.

Have a very merry Christmas. I'll be back next week.

Monday, December 20, 2004

You know winter has arrived when...

...it takes ten minutes for your cheeks to warm up once you're on the train.

It was gorgeously crisp and cold this morning. The grass crunched lightly underfoot and the mists of my breath billowed gently up above my head. The pre-dawn sky was a riot of salmon pink, orange and golden yellow against a backdrop of cool, azure blue as the high clouds caught the first rays from the rising sun and reflected them towards the dark earth below.

That short period of time before the sun broke over the horizon held the promise of a perfect winter's day. Since then the clouds have rolled in and it has become just another dull, overcast day, barely even worthy of mention.

Perhaps this morning was a promise of beauty yet to come, a presage of what we can expect later on this week. I hope so. I really do.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Landmarks

We have passed a couple of pregnancy landmarks in the last week or so.

Firstly, in the middle of last week I felt the baby kick for the first time. L's been feeling it for weeks but until now it hasn't been strong enough to be felt from outside. It was a lovely moment, happening just after we'd got into bed and I think I went to sleep with a great big grin on my face.

More importantly, we have now passed the point of no return (24 weeks). We can no longer suddenly change our minds and decide we don't want this baby any more and if the unthinkable were to occur and L went into labour prematurely, we would have the comforting thought that (theoretically, at least) the baby could now survive.

At times, it's hard to believe that we're still not quite two thirds of the way through it all. We're not counting the weeks quite as religiously as we were in the first three or four months but time still seems to be passing very slowly and we can hardly remember what life was like before we changed it so dramatically. At work, a three-month long project would be over in a flash (usually without being finished, of course ;-) ) but I've got a feeling that the next sixteen weeks are going to take forever.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Going Under

And all of a sudden a week has passed without a word from me. I didn't mean that to happen. I was going to post something on Friday but I was ill and this week so far, I just haven't had the energy or the inclination.

Thursday was a largely wasted day at work as I practically fell asleep at my desk. I wasn't just tired, my muscles were aching and it felt like I had no reserves of energy left - even walking around the office was taxing. I gave up and went home an hour early and promptly went to bed for a while. L pretty much forced me to agree not to go in on Friday and, although I felt well enough to do so in the morning, I'm glad I didn't. While it wasn't long enough to set me completely right, as a short-term fix it worked well.

I expected it to turn into a full-blown cold or even flu over the weekend but, apart from the odd sneeze here and there, no other symptoms have materialised. That may sound like good news but it's worrying me. If Thursday can't be explained by a cold then what was it? I haven't been sleeping badly recently, with between 7 and 8 hours sleep most nights, and I haven't been running many marathons either. Can it really be merely tiredness?

Before anyone says it, I know it's going to get worse once the baby is born but I'll worry about that then. What's concerning me is the way I'm feeling at the moment. The thought that I could suffer a more serious collapse than last week is starting to trouble me and I don't know what to do about it.

I can't take any more leave until the new year (even then I don't want to take too much because of time off I need later in the year) and I'm not going to take days off sick just because I'm tired - it's going to have to reach the serious stage before I'll do that. I'm not doing as much around the house as I was and that's limited to the necessary chores. The major projects and diy stuff are being left undone because I just don't have the energy to get started on them.

So, if a few days go by without anything new appearing on Clear Blue Skies, it's probably because I've been sleeping.