A Week of Great Anticipation

Trip hazards

So now Britain is Labour and we have a new PM. It was a landslide victory with only 35% of the British public voting for Labour candidates. Where else in the world could this happen, I wonder. Where I live remains staunchly Tory territory. This is a small, blue island in an ocean of red.

Locally, apart from letter drops for all the prospective candidates nothing outwardly advertised the forthcoming election apart from a painted wooden sign on the winding road to my village telling me to vote for Ian McCord. There, stood a badly-painted Union Jack the size of a barn door and the graphics looked as if they had been designed by a six year-old. When it rained, the Union Jack got washed away and only the name remained. If that was all that Mr McCord could muster to advertise himself, thank God he was an also-ran.

On the home front, Danielle entered the last gasp part of her pregnancy. Sophie arranged a lovely little baby shower and I joked that she should also have hot water and towels on standby at this late stage. Contractions started while we were there – no need for the towels though we did need a plan B. We took Danielle down to MKUH for a scheduled scan and then I kept Ezra-Mae with me. I told Sophie we would slow down to second gear and push Danielle out of the car when we got to the hospital. Sophie was worried, Danielle wasn’t– a family joke!

Ezra-Mae was worried. She likes to know what is happening and I couldn’t tell her as I didn’t know. There were complications with our arrangements as we had to take into account Hoover delivering a fully-operational washing machine that afternoon at a fourth attempt. I was tempted to take bets on whether the washing machine or the baby would arrive first.

The washing machine won! Now I have Ezra-Mae, Sammi, two dogs and Uncle Tom Cobley staying with me. All has been going well - mostly! Only one small incident is worth retelling. On Saturday morning in torrential rain I got ready to take the dogs for their morning walk. Ezra-Mae didn’t have a raincoat, so I gave her a little umbrella. It was all she could do not to put it up indoors but when we did get into the rain, she refused to hold it.

I stood outside in the road, the dogs were pulling in two directions, E-M was in full strop and refused to hold the umbrella up, my hands were full with the two dogs. I told her to get indoors. She refused. Sammi took her. I could hear her crying as I walked the dogs up the road.

I got soaked despite wearing a raincoat, and returned to a very sad little girl who just wanted to be with Nana. Even now she is telling me I left her and it made her sad. I have told her she should have held the umbrella up as Nana asked. Things would have been OK then.

So today is the day. Danielle is having a C-section…. What anticipation!