I am a big waddling lady who breathes very hard and loud when bending down to do up shoes (converse sneakers – not exactly snow-friendly but they have a tiny bit of grip and they, er, fit, which is more than I can say for the many pairs of ballet flats and pirate boots I have languishing at the bottom of my wardrobe…) and I put my hand behind my hip as I weave throughout the house and blow strands of stray fluffy hair out of my eyes. The boys have been fighting but I just say “Please go into your room to scream” and then waddle back down the hall to do some more heavy breathing. It is awesome. I wish I could record this elegance but alas, we have

1. the wrong lens on the canon, and

2. the battery door on the camera fell off somewhere between the statue of the horse and the gates near The Albert Memorial in Hyde Park which renders the canon completely useless anyway, and

3. my iphone has broken itself, and so

you cannot know how round and pink and sweaty I have become. Except for this little fuzzy teaser:

Eeek so we are without a camera, and the Flip video camera is a dud and will not charge, and I have no phone. I am really really hoping that I am walking through the park and my waters break and I am stricken with the uncontrollable urge to push and I have a baby on the snow and ice in full view of the swans and have nothing to record this moment of superhuman bravery and fabulousness, nor a phone to call husband/midwife or to update my twitter status. What a story to tell the grandchildren.

So all this is making me a little nervy. It is nice to be fully prepared for a baby. What we have done is spend all Saturday in IKEA buying things to put stuff in which will miraculously make way for a sixth member of the family. It did kind of work, and the current baby has been relieved of his cot which has been handed down to the as-yet-unseen-one, and I have found a set of drawers to put the blue stained baby grows of which I have possibly a thousand. Barnaby and Noah are in new bunks. All seems well in the refurbished-in-MDF apartment kind of way. And Barnaby says he wants to marry me, which is uplifting for the spirits.

So we wait. And try not to think about the Selfridges sale which is down to 75%, or the fact that Barnaby has a birthday three days after this baby is due, and we shall probably be cutting his cake at the party for 15 when I start to bellow like a cow. I shall think no more about the fact that I may break my bones and tear my pliable ligaments on the ice outside and may well be disabled by the time the baby arrives. Or, indeed, about the fact that the baby seems to be headed for No Name. No more shall I recall that when the Spanish nanny returned from Madrid with an enormous bag of Spanish Christmas biscuits made with sesame and cumin and a lot of sugar I simply ate them all, without sharing, or even pausing to think about sharing. And today I started on the (old) mince pies.

Just so you are not too alarmed by my girth, here is me again, without the belly, head and shoulders relatively in proportion, but kind of dead behind the eyes:

Bit spooky – sorry about that.