"I like to be here when I can..."
We're back from too few days spent in one of the loveliest parts of the country, and one of the few counties I'd never managed to visit before. The drama of the rolling patchwork-quilt landscapes and even more dramatic seas disintergrating against treacherous wrecker's coastlines was bound to be inspiring and so it proved to be. We had a wonderful B&B run by the lovely and knowlegeable Ginny and husband Dave to serve us as a base; the beautiful Boslinney Barn, just outside the pretty working fishing village of Mevagissey.
This is in danger of turning into a travelogue and this is supposed to be a blog about impending fatherhood. Let me try and get back on track. I didn't have access to a computer and thus this blog. I couldn't sense check any baby facts that I have remembered and thought might be worth mentioning. It was just pure R&R. I didn't even bring along Bill Bryson's simply sublime 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' which only has a couple of chapters to go because I didn't want to read anything that mattered. What did I read? One copy of Empire film magazine and a rather ancient TV-Nation tie-in book. Am I going to have to stretch to come up with some entries to fill in the gaps? Nah...
I'm going to discuss the trip in a bit more detail in other posts, but one thing we noticed was that K___ is getting a more tired more easily now. She's into the second trimester now, and the baby narcolepsy doesn't seem to be as bad. She stayed up until past eleven last night, although a large chunk of the blame for that can be placed at the feet of the BBC moving the Sunday night repeat of the series finale of Doctor Who until 22.00 (and us for missing it on Saturday (and us again for being Doctor Who nerds)) and all this despite a seven hour drive back home. That's all much better, but get her to walk about for a while and it's quickly obvious her stamina has changed. She's fine for about a hour or so, but then she really needs to have a sit down for a few minutes. I suppose there's a danger in attributing everything to being pregnant though. It's pretty hot in the Eden Project biomes and you do walk constantly for an hour up some quite steep gradients in a 90% humid atmosphere to get through the thing. I wasn't exactly turning down the chance of a rest and a cold drink either and despite what the profile of my belly mght lead one to speculate, I don't think I'm pregnant. Truthfully though, it was noticable that K___ tired more quickly than usual.
We didn't spend the evenings out and about too much. Since I was driving, I couldn't drink - I only quaffed the one pint the whole time we were there and that was only 3.6% stuff, not the proper 'Kernow's Pasty Revenge'-type real ales at 50% proof. Obviously Kate's not drinking, so spending the evening in pubs was less appealing than it would have been otherwise. After we got our dinner, we'd just go back to the B&B. It really wasn't a problem because the amount of walking we were doing, we were pretty tired. An hour's crap telly and we were ready for adventures in Slumberland.
The couple that appeared on Sunday morning were also expecting a child although theirs was due in August. The mother-to-be (sadly, I can't remember her name, which is very rude) was telling us how they were going to visit The Lost Gardens of Heligan. We had been the previous day and she wanted to know how steep it was and how tiring. She said that she had to sit down every half an hour at her stage of pregnancy, so it's only going to become worse from here on in.
Our short break passed all too quickly and we were sad to have to leave. Apart from anything else, I'd just about go the hang of driving our new, manual car after eighteen months in an automatic. There's nothing like driving up and down 16% hills with hairpin bends every twenty metres to get you aquainted with a gearbox! It's a gorgeous and romantic part of the world and it's very easy to see how the land would have inspired long-time resident Daphne Du Maurier to create the setting for Rebecca.
It's a shame Cornwall's a seven hour drive away, or I'd be happy to be down there far more often, but it's lovely to be back home to our own bed as well.
We've found that the energy comes and goes through various stages of pregnancy. A friend of ours told about bounding up stairs in her ninth month, past a woman who was in her eighth month, thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember how it felt then." So, it's not just us, I presume.
ReplyDeleteThere's always the increased fatigue of carrying around the extra weight, but keeping active has seemed to help Mama with that. I can't imagine how she does it, myself. It would be as if I was carrying our beagle around, strapped to my waist, constantly. I'm amazed that she can step up onto a curb, much less go up a flight of stairs. She's much stronger than I am, in many ways.
That said, she has also informed me that she's well ready to have this baby now. Of course, we are at 40 weeks on the 12th, so it is time.