i am saying that here and now because we have just seen it and i don’t want to go to bed. apparently we saw the director’s cut one which has a different ending to the one shown in cinemas. it sounds like we got the scarier ending (woo and hoo).

thinking about it, i found the indiana jones film on bbc3 tonight really gory. i might be turning into my mother.

maybe i should stick to hugh grant films. cliff richard is definitely not good though.

starting to ease myself back into work things. i hope to help to write a paper or two about my research findings and finish my thesis in between baby things. it’s going to be tough i know, but i have come too far to turn back now.

we had a great weekend to celebrate our anniversary. we were originally going to stay in york in a nice hotel and order pizza and coke to our room just like we did on our wedding night. unfortunately york turned out to be quite an expensive place to stay, so we settled on a day trip instead. it’s quite a good journey for a day trip though, you just stay on the m1 until you fall off the end.

york is a very pretty place and the people we met there were nice and friendly, with a good sense of humour. we didn’t manage to do much of the touristy things. the castley place had lots of steps and then charged you for it at the top and the minster was closed by the time we got to it. we stood and admired them though, along with the narrow lanes with oldy worldy houses leaning in to whisper their secrets to each other.

went to a great shop called fizzywigs, which we thought was a very harrypotter name. had a nice romantic 3 course meal at a restaurant called russell’s too. the food was so nice, despite the ditzy waitress trying to make up our order as she went along (she was friendly though so it was okay). they had some piano music playing that resembled popular songs and one of the songs they played was bridge over troubled water by simon and garfunkel. this is a song that has meaning to carl and me and it was like they were saying happy anniversary by playing it. like on our wedding night when we were watching tv in our hotel room and robbie williams was on singing angels live (our first dance song), he was really saying congratulations to us.

being the cultured people we are we also went to a photography gallery whilst we were there. thought it would be interesting to see the kind of photographs that get displayed in proper exhibitions. turned out to be a collection of disturbing pieces exploring the emotions surrounding the death of people’s children. highly inappropriate given our current situation, although this inappropriateness amused me slightly. what were the odds? bet next week they have an exhibition of pretty flowers or something.

the past year has on the whole been good for us as a couple. another very eventful one. i remember before our wedding i read about how the first year of marriage is often the hardest one. people can have unrealistic expectations of how their partner/relationship will change when they become husband and wife. a lot of people apparently get depressed after the anticlimax of the big day too, which can put a strain on things. none of this has affected us though. we were under no illusions that we might suddenly become the perfect partner when we got married. carl still checked out the waitress’s bum at our anniversary meal and i will never be a great housewife with a good level of common sense. we don’t care though. and as much as we loved our wedding day and honeymoon, we were very happy to get back to “normal” afterwards and carry on with our lives.

so a happy weekend to celebrate a happy year together. all is well and we are looking forward to what the next year is going to bring us.

apologies to anyone older than me, but 26 is sounding very old. entering the 2nd half of my 20’s. when i look back at the first half of my 20’s i feel very happy. it has all been about setting up my life with carl as independent people in the world and i feel proud that we have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. the rest of my 20’s looks like it will be dedicated to setting up and nurturing our growing family and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

so really, this isn’t a birthday to be afraid of. i don’t want to roll back the years to younger days. this is exactly where i want to be. so hoorah for that.

also, think how much easier it is going to be to go to the loo in it rather than an all in one.

carl bought it me for my birthday, but he said i can have it now and so the inaugural wearing of the birthday tankini is set for tonight.

perfect.

it was great, really very relaxing. quite weird though, because as i was doing my just-about-keeping-nose-above-waterline breast stroke i could feel the weight of baby in my tummy, like i had something strapped around my waist. felt baby kicking a few times, as if she wanted to help me out.

need to get a maternity swimsuit if i’m going to get any bigger though (which i will be). i want a tankini, partly because that word amuses me. it’s like a bikini, just with a longer top bit, and they look really cool.

what a pointless post. at least i managed to amuse myself further with more mentions of tankinis.

i thought the film was really good. tom cruise was very good in it, as i had heard, but the little girl playing his daughter was fantastic. her fear seemed so real. that’s what struck me about the whole film too, that it all seemed so real. not one alien or tripod looked out of place in that world, even the people being vapourised by the rays looked realistic. well, i have never seen anyone actually being vapourised so i suppose i don’t know what it should look like, but that seemed fairly close anyway.

i spent most of the film with a look of horror on my face. i thought it was quite scary and that night i worried about leaving the bedroom window open in case the alien eye came in to find us. definitely wouldn’t take a 12 year old to see it. specially since i don’t know any 12 year olds.

so all in all, good film. did the story justice i thought and i managed to repress the urge to start singing “da-da-daaaaaaaaa”.

let everyone witness this so i won’t miss out on the chocolately goodness that will be owed to me.

hearing the heartbeat was so magical. as carl said, it’s the first thing we have heard from baby. she put cold jelly on my belly (jellybelly, hehe) and found it almost straight away with the microphony thing. it was really loud, strong and clear and much quicker than a normal heartbeat. the coolest thing was when baby moved and the midwife had to chase him/her to get the heartbeat back. such a relief to know that everything is still all good.

so weird as well to know that i have 2 heartbeats in me now. but then, everything about this whole experience is fairly weird.

the summer of fun kicked off on saturday with joe and hannah’s wedding. it was a great day, everything went perfectly and much merriment was had by all. joe and hannah looked really happy together and joe’s mushy bit in his speech was so lovely it nearly made me cry. carl looked great in his kilt and i was proud of him doing his best man duties so well. some photos of the day are here. didn’t take as many as i wanted to since i was loaded down with carl’s stuff and official wedding stuff after the ceremony (kilts need pockets) and then later on i put some batteries in the wrong way and so camera stopped working. i got some amusing ones and some lovely romantic ones, so i’m happy.

other fun things coming up are trips to snowdon, the lake district, safari park, family visits, another wedding, a christening, an airshow and a party on a boat.