Went out for a drink with Brampton Friend N. last night, at the Howard Arms. It was great to see her and have a chat: it struck me when I got home that just before I went to University and while I was there, I had always hoped I'd have the sort of partly intellectual chat we had last night, only to find University a bit lacking in that respect. At least I'm making up for it now at times (I remember a conversation about history with two science graduates: they were as lost with history as I would be with science). It's a pity the book group hasn't taken off as I like the idea of being able to discuss books once in a while: but I can always review them here and if anyone is so inspired they can comment or debate.
Long-time Friend C.S. and I have been emailing quite a bit recently as well, which is great: both of us are at a crossroads career-wise. She's thinking of training to be a music therapist: personally I think she should go ahead and do so, as she'll always wonder about it otherwise. She said you have to be an excellent musician, but I'm sure she's good enough: especially judging by the standard of the music therapy charity up here, which is good but not what I'd consider to be 'excellent' musically. Surely it's more about getting people to experience music, either by participating or by listening? It shouldn't be a highbrow 'you're not good enough' type of thing.
I rushed home last night as I was about an hour later back than I had told Husband I would be. By the time I got home the upper part of my stomach/pregnancy lump was really tight and painful. Yet another worry! I was pretty despondent earlier in the week - but didn't have time to have a good old negative moan here - as my platelets have dropped to about 99 and so I've got extra midwife and Doctors appointments next week and early the week after: it wouldn't surprise me if the platelets had gone up again in the next blood test results, but I'm grateful they're taking good care of me. I did wake in the night worried that I was going to die of blood loss in childbirth however. It was partly sparked by Husband's saying 'well, don't go and die and leave me with 3 children to bring up'. I'm sure things would have to go seriously wrong for me to die, and they'd have to fail to give me a blood transfusion or something.
I was also feeling fairly despondent about money: I think once I've finished on Contribution-Based Job Seeker's Allowance I'll have no income, as 'the system' will consider Husband's income enough to cover all our outgoings (ha!). I think I will probably have just about used up my redundancy payment too... if I could only get a couple of weeks of paid work, I'd be able to then go off on maternity leave - if it was a permanent job, or if I was self-employed - and claim maternity allowance. There's still time to sort something out. Otherwise we're just going to have to be incredibly careful until I get a new job.
Am I being selfish trying to follow the 'creative and media' route? I think probably not as I'm trying to get surveying work as well - I'm chasing down both prey - I think one of the big problems with surveying jobs at the moment is a) the fact that I only want part-time b) being pregnant. I don't think either Husband or I want me to work full-time once the baby arrives as we've always felt full-time childcare was unfair on the children: but we'll just have to see what comes up. I mustn't stop being optimistic.
Meanwhile I haven't felt the baby move much today, but then Daughter's been home from school so maybe I just haven't noticed. Another niggling worry though. With any luck he'll start wriggling like mad just as I'm trying to go to sleep!
The children are still not in bed so I shall go down and see if they're still awake and watching Tinkerbell with Husband, or if they've fallen asleep in front of the TV. I hope the latter, and if so I shall go to bed myself.
I WILL be a success! Everything will come out fine in the end (and we're not as badly off as many people anyway: though the fact that if we were both on benefits we'd be better off is rather sickening).
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