Mid May Madness...

... as they would no doubt explode from one of the appalling TV adverts out here, trying to sell you water damaged cucumbers or some other bargain you don’t need.

So for this week only, there is a special bonus email. A get one month, get one sort of related item that you really aren’t too bothered if you get or not free.

I thought I’d start by telling you all a funny little story. It happened to a friend of mine. Oh, OK, it was me. As you probably all know I have been having pretty bad back pain over the last few months and as I seem to get it sorted, it crops up in a slightly different place. Most recently I have been having trouble in my right (or as Libby would know it, left) shoulder. It has got bad enough to wake me up during the night - a bit like our friendly dance addicts down the block who felt that it was entirely acceptable to “publish modern music” (as my grandma very endearingly described it in a letter to us) at 3:30 am this morning. Not wanting to be a whinging Pomme, I was determined not to be the one to bang on their door and scream over the music to turn it down or I would disconnect the electricity to the whole block! Thankfully, they caved faster than I did. I digress.

So I have not been sleeping very well and one of my work colleagues suggested that we tried to find someone to do some acupuncture on it. This, while I’m sure will horrify some (even more so as the story unfolds), was something that I had been contemplating doing, and seeing as John is Chinese, I felt sure that we could find someone who knew what they were doing. We spent one lunchtime wandering around Sydney trying to find somewhere and he acted as translator - truly authentic places where the doctors don’t speak much English - Dr Chen was no exception. John agreed to come with me to the appointment and I am very glad that he did. The next day John explained to Dr Chen where I had been having trouble and then I went into the booth and got started. He prodded around my shoulder asking if it hurt, making some low acknowledgement noises at the correct times and out came the needles. It is quite amazing, you just cannot feel them going in. I think it is because they are so thin. So the first two went in to the front - I didn’t look as I have never been too clever with needles. As the third one went in round the side, I started a bit of a sweat and called out to John that I didn’t feel so good and could he get me some water. After the fourth, I declared that I thought I was going to pass out and duly did so. Gone for about 15 seconds according to John who was now beside me with a cup of water. Beside him was the doctor now holding the four culprits himself looking a little concerned. Failing to tell the doctor that I’ve never had acupuncture was the main problem I think. Occurs quite commonly as the body rejects the intrusion of so many foreign objects. We agreed that we’d leave shoving any more needles in and go instead for a massage which had the added bonus that I was able to have a lie down. It’s quite an odd arrangement as the doctor treats two patients at once, flitting between my cubicle and the one next to me. John said that the other patient could barely walk and the doctor had set to on his back far more vigorously than my own. Then there started to be a slightly odd smell, and the other patient had clearly lit up something that was not a cigarette! No wonder the doctor’s voice was so husky! The experience then got more bizarre as after 15 minutes of frustratingly interrupted massage, he asked if he could try something else. I thought “why not, you’ve tried everything else”. I didn’t quite catch what it was called, but at the time I thought he’d said capping, which sounded more like something the mafia might do to you if you’d ratted on big Don. I found out later that it was actually called cupping, which Libby thought sounded more like some strange S&M thing. Thankfully, it was neither. The doctor brought out these glass cups about 4 cm in diameter which must have been covered in alcohol or some suchlike. He then lit a flame and set light to the air inside the glass cups and stuck them on my shoulder creating a vacuum. About eight cups later he told me to wait for 10 minutes or so. As he took them off, there were the inevitable marks looking like a love-bite (or hickey as they insisted on calling it in the office). Wasn’t too concerned that Libby would think I’d been up to no good as they were too perfectly circular for any human to have caused them! Most of the marks were pretty tame, but one was really quite dark, and one was totally black and blue - not something I really wanted to look at given how recently it was that I’d passed out! And that was the end of my treatment. He wanted to see me again in a couple of days, but I made some lame excuse about not sure what my wife had planned for the weekend and left, slightly embarrassed about the whole episode.

Now I don’t know what I think about the whole experience, but I have not suffered with shoulder pain this week so it is hard to say categorically that it didn’t work. I’m inclined to agree with the doctor that there was a problem with the area that came back so black. And I can see that the cupping would increase the blood circulation to my muscles in my shoulder, which could have sorted it. Who knows? Will I go back? Who knows?!

Enough rambling about a mere 60 minutes of my life... What other news?

We have a puppy. Well, no, we don’t have a puppy, but last night the puppy next door made it’s final push for freedom under the fencing (not bad for less than 2 weeks!). Cleo, as we found out later, was very, very excited to see us up close. We are not sure what breed she is, but she is obviously quite intelligent. She cannot be very old, but definitely knew the sit command, even if the excitement meant that her bottom barely touched earth before she was leaping around again. I was playing the mean cop, insisting that we didn’t let her inside and that we should go in before she felt too at home in our back garden as she is not our dog. Too late. Cleo spent the rest of the evening in our garden, spending most of the next hour ripping the paper off my bike, a task that I’d not managed to carry out since the removalists left. Exhausted from this, she then fell sound asleep on the paper she had managed to rip off. Very cute. Later still, Libby looked out to find that Cleo had been back under the fence to collect her favourite toy for us to play with. We left a note under next door, explaining to them not to worry if she wasn’t in their garden she would be in ours and there was no escape from ours. One way to meet the neighbours!! Secretly I hope that they don’t repair the fence or put up any blockades, but I’m not letting Libby know that or she’ll think she’ll have won any future discussions of when we can get our own dog. The carnage in morning daylight gives me one final argument against getting one...

Last week I have not been very well. I have picked up a stomach bug which has left me on the sofa for most of the week. I tried to go into work on Tuesday which was a big mistake as it left me totally flattened on Wednesday when I slept all day. Still not feeling 100%, but I’m looking forward to eating for the first time in ages.

We got to carry out some DIY activity a couple of weekends ago. Chris and Niccy have been wondering if they should paint their cupboard doors in the kitchen as the old yellowing melamine was flaking off. I was very apprehensive, as I didn’t think that the melamine would come off very easily and it would leave marks on the doors that would then have to be sanded etc. Still, turns out that it was one of those rare jobs that went without a single hitch. Taking the melamine off was like peeling off wallpaper when you get a large strip that releases itself in one go, only every cupboard and drawer front was like that. I said we should give the doors a quick sand, but when I attempted to, it actually just gave the glue more life rather than removing it, so we just painted straight onto the doors. And the job was done in a day, and this with Niccy away, but the children still around. We told them that there were crocodiles in that particular part of the kitchen which did the trick. It was a nice surprise for Niccy and we think a great improvement.

So that’s about all our news.

Except for the fact that you should always save the best news until last so those of you who have put in the effort to read this far will be pleased! News will no doubt have leaked out to some of you... I know that my own mum couldn’t resist telling at least my aunt!!

Click here for the exciting news

As you can see this is a scan from a couple of hours ago and we are going to have a baby. Not completely sure that it is human from the second picture, but it was definitely inside Libby!! We are at thirteen weeks and very excited now. I wrote most of the above over the weekend and to be honest I am a little bit overwhelmed from the scan so can’t really find any reasonable way to describe how I feel. The scan itself was a considerably nicer experience than the last scan at the hospital in Southampton where none of the three nurses said a word other than to say at the end that Libby had a cyst. Not the case this time. The sonographer was extremely friendly, explaining what she was doing the whole time and we could see straight away that little Terry was a wriggling and so it was obvious that all was well. The next relief was that the number of babies was one!!

Libby has not suffered too badly from morning sickness, although that’s easy for me to say I suppose. The slightest smell of off food or the bins etc, would really make her feel ill. Most amusingly, she has turned into a bit of a carnivore, craving meat on every occasion possible! Other than that she has been very tired, although everyone keeps saying that as we move into the second trimester that should ease off and energy levels increase.

I probably ought to put everyone’s mind at rest and say that Terry is a generic name we seem to have got into the habit of using and bears no resemblance to the final name at birth! It is gender independent and calling it “baby” seems to lack some recognition that there is someone we have a relationship with.

Now I do feel bad that I can ramble on about the acupuncture for most of a page, but this is all I can write about us having a baby... I guess that everyone knows the process of having babies and I really am stumped by the scan at the moment. If you want any more info (within reason!!!) drop us an email and we’ll get back to you.

Much love,

Josh, Libby and Terry