Also

Trying to swipe a bag of Doritos off a very high shelf using a packet of Strawberry Laces = Not my finest hour

Eggs of terror

This moment of relative sanity is brought to you by Suede, low lighting and fluffy pillows.

Aw yeah, Internizzles, I’m working from home today.

I’m not sure if it’s the malnutrition or the cabin fever or the hormones (yes! yes! yes!) but I am irritable as all get out and the NHS is not doing a thing to help.

I’ve been trying to book my eleven-week scan for the past three hours, on and off, and each time I ring them, a recorded voice goes:

I’m sorry, but this line is busy (weighted pause)

If you would like to request a call-back, please dial 5

So I do, and then:

I’m sorry: that service is unavailable for this type of call

What - the type of call a pregnant woman must make between the hours of 9 and 5 when she’d normally be at work, where presumably nobody knows about her condition because she’s not yet three months in the clear? GET. OUT.

And then, THEN, the Marks & Spencer website gave me a full, 55-page report on food allergies, when all I need to know is: CAN I EAT YOUR EFFING BELGIAN CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE IF I AM PREGNANT OR NOT?

Because it says something about two pasteurised egg yolks on the packaging and nothing about raw or baked. And by the time I was halfway through their List of Gazillion Products That Include Soy, I was nearly finished eating the damn thing. Let it never be said that I am unfamiliar with risk assessment!

Last night, I somehow managed to eat my way through (and keep down) an entire pan of cannelloni, in spite of the fact that it didn’t taste or feel very nice. But it was my first hot food in over a week, my first bit of animal protein, and god be damned if I wasn’t going to enjoy every bland, middling, fat-laden mouthful.

This - coupled with the fact that Bruce had cleaned the entire flat on his own with no prodding from me - was enough to persuade me to live my life a bit. So I watched an hour of the excellent BBC series Age of Terror before hitting the hay.

At this rate, my kid is going to emerge one nervous ball of eating-disordered anxiety, and it will be my fault. Though with half its father’s genes, it will know how to wash a dish.

It takes courage to enjoy it

At the moment, I am subsisting on a diet of Bjork, sugary cereals and popsicles, which they call ‘ice lollies’ in this country (aw...puke).

It occurred to me as well that waiting for something different to take place before posting again would result in not many posts between now and July. If fighting to see anything beyond the veil of sick is my only option, so be it.

In the spirit of all that, I’ve come up with a *3-Step Plan for those of you who are either i. in the early stages of pregnancy or ii. wanting to lose weight in a fashion that would scare your mother

Step 1 – Diet

If it is bland and/or nutritionally unsound, you should eat it. Examples:

Honey Nut Cheerios
Wheat bites
Toast
Toasted bagels
Cream cheese
Mild cheddar
Doritos

Actually, that’s about it. For flavour, why not try something full of sugar? Such as:

Popsicles (ice lollies)
Strawberry laces (or a single lace, if you can’t manage it in the plural)
Toffee popcorn
Honey Nut Cheerios

Don’t you feel sick now? Good – off to the toilet with you.

Step 2 – Exercise

Don’t do it! Get back into bed, young lady.

Step 3 – Sleep

Get an early night – and why not? There’s nothing to enjoy in the waking world anyway, least of all food. Don’t worry, you’ll wake up feeling sick in approximately four hours anyway, when you can do all your best thinking!

Happy living, hip and healthy friends of the internet!


*For those of you under age 18 and/or lacking in irony, I’m not actually suggesting you do this.