You got an expat friend in me.

Hey look! Isn't someone who lies in front of steam trains exactly the kind of person you want to be friends with? No? Really?? Oh, well can we be friends anyway if I promise not to do that too often?

Ages ago I started a post about expat friendships. They are funny things you see. I started off by saying:

It would be a ginormous overstatement to say "I'm in love!", but you know that feeling of excitement you get when you think of the person that you've just met where you get butterflies in your stomach and you can't help but exclaim in your head "Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!"? Well, I feel a little like that. But, before you get ahead of me, I haven't traded Stevie in for one of those extra-tall Germans who have to bend in half to get on the U-Bahn, alas, no (though I dream of having one of those who understands what it says in all these letters I have to open and can gracefully steer me away from mistakenly ordering pig trotter stew with innard salad without having to carry round a German-English dictionary).

No, I have found a new friend. Or rather, as is the normal way of things in Fiona/Stevie world: Stevie found me a new friend in the swing park. I don't normally mention my friends in my blog; I'm not sure they are the types of people who like being flashed around the internet willy-nilly, and well, it seems a little unfair to write about them somehow. But I felt compelled to write about my new friend. I've been thinking a bit about friendship in foreign lands. Especially after another friend (also an expat) and I were talking about it.

The thing is, I have realised that friendship as an expat can be quite a different thing. For starters there's the language barrier. If like me, your foreign language skills are somewhat limited, it can be pretty difficult to develop friendships with native speakers. Once you've told them that they're not allowed to mount an aerial on their roof and asked after their mother's constipation and the failing brakes on her car, well, there's not much else to talk about. Especially if they're not willing to play out the part of the other person who is looking for a light for their cigarette as they hitchhike their way to Erfurt. So if you strike all the native speakers off your list, you're left with the people who speak your own language. And that can be a relatively small pond to fish from.

I know I am still lucky. I live in the capital city which frankly is awash with foreigners, and not only that, I speak English which is great. Admittedly, I wouldn't say no to speaking Turkish and Russian as well, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon

- and that's as far as I got with this post. I got distracted by nights out and parties and friendship-bracelet making sessions, etc, etc, and I forgot all about it. But allow me to continue. The thing I was going to say about expat friendships is that you have a smaller 'pond' of people from which to choose your friends and that is not always a bad thing. I have made friends with people who 'back home' I would probably not have given a chance to and therefore would have missed out on the different things that they can bring to a friendship. I've made friends with some very different, but very interesting people, so if there's one thing to take out of this foreign experience it's that I will hopefully be more open to making friends from all walks of life and not necessarily just go for people who on the surface seem 'my type'. Don't get me wrong, there have still been people who we have met and gone out with and thought afterwards that we just didn't like enough to want to hang out with- that's just life. But what I think we all hope for, is that we meet someone who shares our ideals, our sense of humour, or likes and dislikes, our cultural history perhaps: someone in other words who might just be a perfect friend.

It's easy to make friends in the same situation as yourself. All us expats thrown in together soon find each other and it's a bit like when you join a baby group when you have your first child, you meet a whole bunch of other people in exactly the same position and find you have tons to talk about, moan about, understanding shoulders to cry on, new experiences to bumble through together and laugh about, and it's all good. But sometimes somewhere along the line when the kids are out of nappies, and you've got more settled into your expat life, you realise that maybe you don't have as much in common with some of these people as you have thought and a few fall away from the group and move on, and that's fine. Chances are you will have met a few people who will be lifelong friends.

The downside of expat friendships is that people do move on, literally. Most English speakers I meet in Berlin are here for a couple of years, usually 5 at most. I meet very few people who are 'here for good'. Unless they have married a German that is. Some people struggle with the temporary nature of these friendships. But, it's not so bad. With Facebook and the internet in general, blogs included, it is much easier to keep in touch with people wherever they are in the world.

More recently though I discovered that some expats can be a bit brutal in their networking for friendships. I came to realise that someone who I thought was a good friend was actually not that interested in being 'my' friend but just wanted to use me in order to meet my other friends. Another friend told me this is not uncommon, and she has often found that newcomers attempt to make friends through her, though they may not be interested in her as a friend. She seemed to take this as just par for the course, but it all seems a bit callous to me. She suggested to me that my bad experience might have come about because the person knew that I was due to leave Berlin at the end of May. She says that she knows a few expats whose first question on meeting new people is "How long are you here for?", and if it doesn't meet some acceptable length of time in their head, then they don't bother any further with that person. I kind of get it, but I can't help but think that they might be missing out on meeting some potential good friends, and having some good times. Or maybe, just maybe, the other person has just had a lucky escape.

It seems that this is quite a common trait amongst expats. People feel that it's not worth their while investing in temporary friendships, and get bored repeating their story to a seemingly endless queue of transient friends. I read a post on another blog where the author talks of the superficial nature of expat friends, and discusses how expats often put other expat friendships on 'PAUSE' as soon as friends from home come to visit or someone more interesting comes along. But isn't that always the case. For someone like me who has always lived my adult life away from 'home' having friends or family to visit was never usually a case of a quick half hour out of my day and more often a weekend or a few days, and so because I saw them less often it seemed more important to spend all my time with these people even if that meant putting local friendships and plans on hold. So I am not sure that I entirely agree with that being an aspect of the transience or superficiality of these friendships.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting topic. What's been your experience of expat friendships? I'd love to hear all about it.

Baby books I read and loved

Tame this Dr Christopher Green.

My friend at WorkingBerlinMum is looking for birth and childcare book recommendations.

Way back at the beginning of last year before we ever made the move to Berlin, I started clearing out some stuff I didn't need and discovered that I had around 22 baby books. As in, a little mountain of books on the topic of pregnancy, birth, babies, and toddlers. I utterly loved them. I especially loved the pregnancy books that tell you what's happening month by month - when you baby is the size of the Giant Snickers you just ate, which month you can teach it to love listening to the Sugababes, so that you have at least 1 person who understands you. You know, that sort of thing.

My pregnancies weren't exactly typical as such. As a diabetic things are a little bit different. You have more frequent scans - which is lovely because I have about a dozen scan pictures of each of my two, but the flip side is that you have a lot more to worry about. I would go to one scan and at the end of it the sonographer would say "Ok, well at your next scan we're going to be looking for heart problems and so on, as the children of diabetics tend to have heart defects" which would give you something new to mull over for the next 4 weeks and have you worrying yourself to death. Every scan there would be something new to 'look forward' to. So poerhaps these books provided me with a window into a nice, fluffy, normal pregnancy.

My favourite pregnancy books were:

The Best Friend's Guide to Pregnancy - funny and informative, and down to earth.

The Rough Guide to Pregnancy & Birth - a week by week guide and very funny to boot following the authors pregnancy.

What to Expect When You're Expecting - month by month, and serious in tone, but it's indispensible and answers most questions you might have or worries that are niggling you.

Expecting - by Anna McGrail & Daphne Maitland - I really liked this book. I found it one of the most informative and covered a lot of ground and dealt with health issues well. Can't remember much more about it though now, just remember I looked at it quite a lot!

Minus 9 to 1: Jools Oliver's book telling her story of problems conceiving and her journey through pregnancy to having a new baby. A nice insight for those who haven't had a baby before.

Birth. I was/am terrified of giving birth, and dreamed of being knocked out and coming round after the caesarian scar had healed. I had expected to have a c-section as I am diabetic, and that's what I wanted, but I am also desperately scared of surgery and being 'awake' during an operation was not high on my list of things I wanted to do in 2007 and 2008. But then I found this book:

Stand & Deliver by Emma Mahony. It's lots and lots of individual stories about birth and all the different experiences women can have. I read this book, and I swear I felt confident and far less scared than I could ever have imagined. This would be THE book I would recommend for anyone who is at all frightened about giving birth. It's excellent.

My favourite baby books were (oh, and I'd advise reading these prior to having a baby as you don't get any time to do so afterwards):

What to Expect: The First Year - great if you have problems. It's got an answer for everything.

The Baby Whisperer - I never had the proper full-on 'Baby Whisperer' book, but I did have one called 'The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems' or was it sleep problems?? I can't remember because my mind was so addled from lack of sleep. Anyway, I bought it for sleep problems, and I quite liked it. This author strikes a halfway point between Gina Ford and someone who doesn't give a crap. Perfect! I remember it did work, but I was never good at not caving in after a week or two and brining them back into my bed. Hence the reason I have a 2 and a half year old cuddling into me most nights.

The Best Friend's Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood - it's all there in the title. I'm saying no more.

The Baby Book: How to Enjoy Year One by Rachel Waddilove. This is a great book and really practical. But I've never heard anyone else talking about it that I know of. It's an excellent book for first time mums. Oh and it's got a foreword by Gwyneth Paltrow as the author helped her out when she had Apple.

The Rough Guide to Babies - Miranda Levy - good, but not as good as the Rough Guide to Pregnancy & Birth. Different author, but I see now that there's another book by Kaz Cooke the author of the RG to Pregnancy about babies - so it might be good.

I don't have favourite Toddler books as such - I kind of gave up - the novelty was over ha, ha! Plus, by the time I had a toddler I already had another baby, and my problems surpassed those that even Tracey Hogg herself could solve. But, I did have, and would recommend:

The Best Friend's Guide to Toddlers - excellent as per the other books and I might actually have a look at it again, if I can find it under the mess.

What to Expect: The Toddler Years - great if you want to give yourself a complex about what your child can't achieve, or give yourself a pat on the back because they are over-achieving! Otherwise, pretty pointless, unless you are really stuggling with your toddler, or don't have the confidence yet to trust your instincts. Having said that - I still bought it.

Toddler Taming - Dr. Christopher Green. This outlines all the problems you are likely to come up against with your toddler. Easy to read too. I only had a quick read of this before a friend asked to borrow it and never gave it back, so it must be really good. Though not that good that I felt compelled to ask for it back.

So that's my list of recommendations. Other pregnancy, birth, baby & toddler books are available. I know. I've read pretty much all of them.

Suddenly I'm not feeling quite so 'chatty'

"We'd just like a word with you..."
A word? A word? I wonder if that means I only need to get down to my underwear???

Remember this? My last visit to the doctor, where I had been told I could go for a prescription, and then once I got there was told I couldn't and had to find another doctor and blah, blah, blah... rain... late for German,...etc, etc, and eventually came away with an appointment on (not the) 19th for a "chat with the doctor"?

So it was today. Not the 19th, and so I didn't miss anymore German I made the appointment for the afternoon, balancing up the missing of more German with the having to take the kids with me. I figured that with the kids with me, the appointment would be kept quite short as they make it plain that long appointments do not fit in with their lifestyle. And anyway, the appointment was for 4:45 so it would be post-nap (for Hamish) and hopefully they would not be tired and utterly horrible.

But then Stevie offered to come home early so I could go on my own. So I did, and just as well, as I didn't get home until 7pm so the kids would have lost the plot.

So anyway, the appointment was with the Frauenarzt - that's a gynaecologist/obstetrician and you have to go to one of them if you want contraception or a smear test, or well, a baby. So, I had been wondering what we might possibly have to talk about. Given that I thought I was going to have to take the kids with me I reckoned we could bypass the "Do you want any more kids?" question pretty swiftly, and probably without me having to speak too much German. But what else was there to 'chat' about. I assumed it was going to be something similar to what you get in the UK when you join a new doctors practice and you have to have that appointment where it's a bit like a meet & greet and basically they take a medical history, ask you if you need to see them about anything, and then thank you for coming.

Well, it was like that if you've ever been to one of those 'meet the doctor' appointments and had your chat with absolutely no clothes on. Now that was quite a surprise! The chat started pretty much as soon as I walked into her office and she said "Hello, pleased to meet you, would you like to go behind that screen and take off your clothes?". I thought I'd prepared myself by phoning my GP's office in England earlier today and asking when I'd last had a smear test. I even looked it up in my German dictionary in case I needed to mention that I didn't need one yet in German. That's how prepared I was. But I wasn't prepared to have to say this while actually getting a smear test. Apparently the Germans like to have them once a year even if you have never had any problems.

Then we continued our chat over on the examination bed where I was surprised to get both a breast examination and then an ultrasound to check my uterus, fallopian tubes, and to see if there were any tumours lurking. To add to my delight, unlike in the UK where if you have an ultrasound while pregnant, and you have the awkwardness of craning your neck round while trying to see the screen when really they don't want you to yet, here you get your own screen which hangs at the perfect angle from the ceiling for you to see the fibroids hanging off your uterus should you have any to see. Wouldn't that be nice?

I was then allowed to get my clothes back on, while she introduced the idea of getting Stevie a vasectomy for Christmas. I said it sounded like the perfect stocking filler, but I wasn't sure if Stevie would be too keen. He's never really fancied any of those Boots Gift Experiences, and this would probably have even less appeal for him than a hot air balloon ride.

Then she offered me an IUD for 400 Euros. In a toss-up between that and the lens for my camera that I've got sitting in my Amazon shopping basket, I think I'd prefer the lens to win. So that was that. A surprising evening that'll make me somewhat wary about chatting with Germans in the future.

A letter arrives

I am woken by Orla having a tantrum in the night. I go quietly from the room and sit with her until she feels calm and then I lay her down in her little bed and tuck her in. I creep back through to bed and as I settle a warm body shuffles closer until we are touching. As I run through some thoughts from the day trying to get back to sleep I remember the letter. Anxiety floods back into me and with it jolts memories of last year and the year before, of when I couldn't see. And this is how it was.

I wake in the morning before it is really light, and minutes before my baby. Before I open my eyes I check out the situation from behind closed lids, and there it is - I can see a bleed. Quickly I work out which eye and watch the blood spread like in one of those slow motion films of ink in water. Still with eyes closed I shift my pupils from left to right, and up and down and watch it spread and move around. I do this for a minute maybe more, some days this is what I do as I fall asleep, sometimes throwing in a turn from one side to the other and then I watch a whole slosh of blood slowly slide from one side of my eye to the other. But this day, only a minute, as the baby by my side has woken up and is demanding a feed. And now I open my eyes to get the full picture for the day. Can I see the spotlights in the ceiling today? Not quite. Ok. I turn to Hamish, scoop him up, and head downstairs.

Feed over, I get his nappy changed using what little sight I have to make out any 'dark shapes' that need wiping, but mostly using my now acute sense of smell to make sure he is clean. On good days when the blood is clearing I can get an hour maybe 2 of what I class as reasonable sight. I do my best to maintain it: I don't bend over, I don't move my head around too much, and I try not to shift my gaze around as this all causes my sight to deteriorate. I liken it to having a bucket of water with sand in the bottom, except really it's more like a gel. Nudge the bucket, stir up the sand, and all of a sudden it's a misty, murky mess.

I hear Orla cry as she wakes up. Stevie is in the shower already, so I quickly swaddle Hamish and place him in the travel cot to keep him safe while I go and get Orla. She holds out her arms from her little bed and I can make out her shape as I lean down for her. I select her clothes from the wardrobe. Maybe because I can't see it's important to me that her clothes don't clash; that she looks as though she has been dressed by someone that has not just grabbed the first things that come to hand. So I use my sense of touch to remember what's what. I recognise items by their buttons, embroidered details, and luckily I still have that skill picked up from Uni of being able to tell the fibre make-up of a fabric by feel. But there's not much in the way of 60/40 cotton/polyester mixes in her wardrobe but I am sure that being able to do this helps me in some way.

I carry my 16 month old Orla down the stairs and into the dining room and get her into the highchair ready for her breakfast. I dash back to the living room to check on Hamish. Stop, and listen. He's asleep. I place my hand into the bassinette and gently run it round his shoulders and head. It doesn't take long to discover he's been sick. I take the wet muslin out from under him and wipe his cheek. There's a little on the blanket but that can wait. I need to hurry now to get Orla's breakfast ready. It doesn't take long. I have pre-measured out little tubs of porridge and just need to select one and add milk. I probably spill the milk, but what does it matter?

Feeding Orla takes time. I can make out her mouth if she has it wide open and I can see the darkness of her open mouth against the paleness of her little face. This gives me something to aim for. But she does this maybe only a couple of times so the spooning in of porridge is a hit and miss affair. I get better with practice, and some days are better than others. So we get the job done, get her cleaned up, and get her nappy changed and dressed. During this long-winded process Stevie comes downstairs, racing around, getting ready for work. "How are your eyes today?". "Fine", I say "Manageable". "Really?" he asks, not really believing. "Better than yesterday anyway". Yesterday was hard work. Changing nappies all day long with sight similar to looking through heavily frosted glass held a foot in front of you with the baby behind it. My hands are dry and cracked from my blossoming obsessive hand washing habit. He shouts that he can't find his cycling gloves. "They're in the cupboard above the sink in the utility room beside Orla's puddlesuit, but they might be underneath some reigns and another pair of gloves now". "And where is my security pass?"- "Orla is wearing it". I hear its familiar smack off the wooden floor. I have memorised the location of pretty much everything in this house. Don't ask me on a quiz team because I have had to shove out about 20 years worth of general knowledge to make room for my mental household inventory.

Stevie goes to work, and the day continues. I switch on the tv. BBC 1. Always BBC1. I can't even see the tv set from across the room never mind watch the programmes, but it is my method of telling the time. 9:15 Breakfast news ends; Hospital trauma documentary or Animals being tortured 24/7 (glad I can't see that) - that's on until 10am. Then a slew of property programmes until Bargain Hunt starts at 12:15 which tells me it's lunchtime. I could listen to the radio, but I like to strain my eyes trying to make out Belfast sinks and new double glazing on Homes Under the Hammer whenever I can.

I get my own breakfast and Stevie has made me some coffee. You don't make tea and coffee much in my situation unless you have a certain apathy towards scalding yourself. Afterwards I get my insulin and work out which is the long acting one and which is fast-acting and silently listen to the clicks of the dial that I turn on the end of the pen until I get the right number of units. Orla is playing and I play with her until it's apparent that she is tired and needs her morning nap. Off we go upstairs and I quickly get a shower and get dressed. Most days I try and do this before Stevie has to go to work. I like to get my make-up on and have him check it so I don't look an idiot when I go out. Today though I do my make-up and hope for the best, though this is one of the things that really frustrates me about this whole thing.

Time for the next feed, puke, and change for Hamish. This time he has been sick on me. I know he has got my top, but hadn't realised that I had sick down my leg, so later I go out with dodgy make-up and sick on my trousers. As Stevie says, 'What does it matter?'. I guess it doesn't. I have lowered my standards significantly, but I worry that having reached new lows in my 'look', that when things improve I won't be bothered to up the standards again. In a kind of 'If you've seen me covered head to toe in sick, with next to no make-up, and generally unable to present myself in a decent way, does it really matter to make an effort in front of you ever again?'. Why bother? And that's what worries me. And that is why it is so important to me to have make-up on at the very least and have Stevie check it, even though he thinks this is completely pointless and ridiculous. (and unsaid "when there are more important things you have to worry about").

Orla wakes from her nap and we head out. I love where we live now because I can get everywhere I need to go by foot. I no longer drive, obviously, though strangely I could if I chose to as none of my doctors or consultants inform the DVLA that I wouldn't be safe on the road as I can't see an object clearly 30 cm from my face or when it is bouncing off the bonnet of my car. It's one thing I feel quite strongly about. There are lots of people on the road who shouldn't be driving, particularly the very elderly, and they have doctors and GP's and eye consultants who know they shouldn't be driving, but as long as they don't have a health condition such as diabetes or epilepsy or something else (I can no longer remember all the other ailments) then they are not required to be checked for fitness to drive every few years. My license lasts 3 years and then I have to reapply. But I am not fussed that I can't drive anymore. It's a bind in that I can't go to friends houses and I can't meet up with them at play places in other towns and parks in far away places. But it drives Stevie nuts. If I need to go somewhere or we need something big or heavy from an out of town retail park then he complains that he always has to take me and if I could see then I could just do it by myself and he wouldn't have to get involved. He is more frustrated than me. I have made my peace with the driving thing.

Back to the day. We go to Tesco. I go pretty much every day. In a similar manner to how they advise you to get out and about after you have a baby to try and avoid post-natal depression, I go out to stop myself from not going out at all. Some friends laugh at how good my children are about supermarket shopping. Some of them don't take their kids there for fear of the meltdowns that might ensue. And here mine are, every single day. But what choice do I have? I have 2 children in a pram and can't carry more than a day or twos' shopping at a time. I can't do my shopping on the internet, because I can't use the internet cause I can't see anything usually on the screen. On the very good days I can read some of the text, but I just can't see the cursor. We would starve before I completed my list. So shopping we go. I have the shop memorised, I know the colour difference between smoked and unsmoked bacon packaging even if I don't know what the discernible difference between the two is.

We shop, we pay cash (I can't rely on getting the buttons right on the chip and pin), we navigate the crossing of the busy road and we go home. I've bought meat but I don't know how to cook it. I phone my dad and ask him. "What weight is it?" he asks. "I don't know. I can't read it". "Well, what size is it?". "Ummm....It's about the size of Orla's head. Maybe a bit bigger". He tells me how long to cook it and what temperature to set the oven at. 1, 2, 3, 4, soft clicks to the right and the oven is on. The temperature is a different matter. Its a smooth turning dial. With numbers I can't read. I have it left at 180 degrees. It turns out there's not much you can't cook at this temperature - roast potatoes and things that require a 220 degree temp just need more time, and you can use that time to lower the expectations of your taste buds. With the microwave I have a similar theory. 3 and a half minutes. Does everything. And nobody died or got food poisoning during these dark, culinary times.

I miss reading. I miss magazines. I miss books. I even miss reading (or should that be mis-read) food packaging. I miss reading to Orla. That makes me feel lacking as a parent. But I tell her the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar every night at bed time and I use my own words and then it is our story. But, this gap in normal parenting is filled by Stevie who traditionally was not a reader. It helps to improve his reading tenfold and this is an added bonus. But most of all I miss seeing my children's faces. Faces that are changing and little bodies that are growing and doing new things every day. This is the hardest part of the whole thing. There is the worry that this won't get better and I won't see them and know what they look like. I don't allow myself to think about it. I just don't. Instead I just take lots of photos, dreadful photos, some just with the tops of heads, some with only part of my child and a whole lot of space, and lots of a complete stranger and his son at Water Babies who I thought was Stevie and Orla.

But it doesn't matter. We get by and we get on with looking after our two babies. The evenings are simple. Stevie helps me with the kids and makes sure that they are clean, and I always have him change evening nappies to ensure clean bums. We are at the peak of our bulk buying phase. Nappies and wipes, we have mountains of both. We go through loads anyway so it makes financial sense, but with my eyes the way they are I use 20 wipes where you might use 5, so the wipes mountain is constantly being depleted and restocked and we have our finger on the pulse of where the best wipes and nappies deals are on any given week. Once both kids are in bed we watch tv, or I sit and listen and ask questions where things aren't clear. But my eyes are tired from trying all day, and mostly I just go to bed early to get some sleep before the next feed. I climb into bed beside Hamish and relax next to his tiny snores.

We never bothered with a moses basket for him as Orla hated hers with passion. We decided instead to put him straight into his cot bed and luckily our room is big enough to have it at the end of the bed. But pretty soon I was having to dive up to get him when he woke for feeds to stop him from waking Orla and every time I got up to get him my eyes would hemorrhage. So now we're both happy. He sleeps longer and feeds less in the night and my eyes bleed less. So get off your high horses co-sleeping disapprovers!

So the days pass and the weeks and the months. Looking back it seems that this went on for a long, long time. Orla was 6 months when this started and I was just pregnant with Hamish. But some times wouldn't be as bad as others and sometimes I would have good sight in one eye. I was told that it could resolve itself and there was certainly no way I was having the operation while I was pregnant. And then I didn't want the operation when Hamish was just a newborn and I feeding all the time. So it went on and it went on and it didn't get any better, and Stevie started to threaten that we would need to move back home to Scotland where we could get help from family. I didn't have my children though to have other people looking after them. My job; my responsibility; my babies, and also I'm not very good at accepting help. So eventually I agreed to the operation. A big step for me who in case you don't know has an eye phobia so strong that I have to take diazepam just to make it through the normal eye clinic appointments.

I booked in to get it done under a general anaesthetic though you can get it done with a local. But my eye consultant thought it best also. I chose the worst eye and tried not to think of the chances of things going wrong. 3% chance of going blind. And all you can think of is the 97 successful cases before you. I turned up on the day, negotiated my way to the top of the list with the anaesthetist (hey, I'm diabetic -there's got to be some benefits!), easy enough as I hadn't eaten since the night before. And was operated on and ready to go home by 10:30am. So I could get back to the kids. Euphoric at surviving, I asked how soon I could get the other one done. Technically, they could do it the next day was the answer, but best to wait and see how this one healed first. I won't tell you about the operation. You can google it - vitrectomy - there you go. Eyes are the one thing I can't google. I don't need to know all the things that can go wrong. Time will no doubt reveal fresh horrors to me. The difference was remarkable. At the time I think I might have said it was the best operation you could have, to go from no sight to sight. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, while I was holding positive thoughts towards surgery. But it was a few months later. And I was kind of of the opinion that with sight in one eye, well we could just put a patch over the other one and forget about it.

But I did it. And I had follow up appointments and everything has been ok. I worried about dots that I could see in one eye that was kind of like what you see after looking at a light, but that turned out to be some laser surgery I had had previously. But then they gave me a nice long gap between appointments and this was nice cause I felt I needed a bit of a break from the whole diabetes, eyes, obstetrics constant whirlwind of appointments, but the longer the gap the more you worry that something will have gone wrong in the intervening period.

And so, the letter. It came yesterday, and I am scared and it's going to keep me awake and terrified in the night until the appointment arrives. June the 3rd. We should be in Berlin, but I don't think we will be, so I know I don't need to rearrange it. I just have to get on with it.

My first meme. What's a meme?

So I just got tagged to do a meme (pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'). I had read mention of meme's before but had no idea what they were. This afternoon I checked my email and I had a message from Mary at 'a small hand in mine' about being tagged in a meme. So off I went to have a look. Basically it's a bit like a chain letter thing, this one is for photos though. You follow the instructions and put up a photo and blog a little about it and pass it on to 5 other people (with or without the instructions that they will have very bad luck if they don't follow it out and pass it on - isn't that what chain letters said at school?).

So here it is: my oldest photo folder I think is from our holiday in Bilbao in 2006, and this is the 10th photo in that folder. It's quite similar to the other 140 in that folder, they are pretty much all of the Guggenheim building by Frank Gehry, my most favourite architect. This was why I wanted to go to Bilbao and it was so worth it. I love these photos, and love this building. I was about 4 months pregnant with Orla and we managed to fit in 6 holidays before she was born: New York (hold on, that might be an older photo folder actually - too late, I've got to get ready to go out so I'm not starting over), Bilbao, Prague, Barcelona, Paris, and Munich (well Munich was with work, but it felt like a holiday). Ah, those were the days...

Fantastisch! Or something like that. Without the spelling mistakes.

Ten things I love about April 1st:

1. A lovely friend has just told me she's pregnant, and I am as thrilled and excited as though it were me.

2. This mornings news that the SECONDMENT IS ON!!! and may be starting at the beginning of May.

3. It's the birthday month. We practically have a birthday every second day in April. Stevie's brother today, then my sister tomorrow, then me and my birthday twin Carmella on the 10th, then oodles of kids and my gran.

4. I am eagerly awaiting some lovely things from Australia - very excited, one for my sister and one for me!

5. The sun is out and I'm off with my friends to ride on the little train in the park. Let's hope it stays so nice.

6. Lots of lovely nights out with friends coming up, and one last night with my friend A who is sick of the dating scene and has tried everything from salsa dancing to speed dating with internet dating in between to find a nice man who has at the very least had a girlfriend before and doesn't turn up for a date with his v -neck jumper on back to front.

7. Watching Hamish colour in his face today with a piece of chocolate made me laugh.

8. Making new Facebook friends with old school friends and seeing all their children looking just like them.

9. Doing a lovely drawing for Orla's bedroom.

10. Listening to the house phone being thrown to the floor 3 times since I started this...

Tantrums, procrastination, and a big bag of pee. It's what dreams are made of.

Orla has started having the most hideous tantrums the like of which we have not previously experienced. We're talking about 5 stages beyond the fist-thumping on the supermarket floor advert. Generally they rush up like a whirlwind from something innocuous like suggesting it's time we got some clothes on. Stevie witnessed his first full-on tantrum this morning - cause: a top; length of screaming and ranting: 1 hour and a bit. He was on his way out to work but was determined to take over and wrestle her into the top. I thought some fingers would get broken in the struggle, but luckily for him he just got kicked a good few times. (I half thought it was the ideal time for me to land a few secret kicks). Anyway, he ended up carrying her up to her room and leaving her to shout it out and asking me on his way out the door if I thought she might be a bit mental. What would Supernanny do I wonder? If only I watched the programme I might have the answer.

My sister has told me that being 3 is worse thasn being 2 in terms of tantrums etc. I daren't ask about 4 or 5 bacause for all I know it might be worse. I wish I had known this before. I had high hopes for 2010 being a good year, and now I find out I have a 'terrible 2' blossoming this year and an even worse 'tantrum-ing 3'. Utter yuck! A good time to be moving abroad...ugh...

Stevie has been speaking to the people at RR Germany and has decided to hand in his notice at the end of this week and go sub-contract. So that's just over 4 weeks until we move. I need someone following me around shouting in my ear "It's only 4 weeks until you move!!! At the very least pick up those socks or find the missing banana!! Just do something!". I'm finding it hard to break out of my usual method of leaving everything until the last minute and then just flinging things into bin bags. Still, why fix something that ain't broke? I had a moment of proactivity this morning and threw out the very dead orchid that has sat on the console table for a year. So that done, we're ready to go!

My NCT sale was a bit of a disaster. Apparently there were very few people through the door, so having taken two carloads round to it, I had to bring one carload back. So now I am stuck with having to do a carboot sale this weekend. The last time (only time) I did a car boot sale I was quite pregnant with Orla and Stevie had been putting the pressure on me to clear my 'Fiona room' as this was to be Orla's room. So I forced myself to sell a lot of books and a single handbag. Anyway, the tme I chose to do the car boot sale coincided with having to carry out a 24 hour urine sample collection. So my car boot sale was quite brief as I sold everything for 50p just because I was desperate for the toilet as Orla was jumping up and down on my bladder.

I had to do a couple of those 24 hour urine things and it was nearly enough to put me off having Hamish. Of course Stevie and my mum were both like 'Oh it's no big deal. Just get on with it and stop making a big fuss over nothing'. But I had to go to a client meeting in Sheffield with a great big petrol-container like thing full of pee in a carrier bag, which was bad enough, but the final humiliating straw was that someone in my office was looking for something and pulled it out of it's bag, held it up, and said "What's this?" in front of everyone I worked with. I think this is when I really went right off open-plan offices.