Wrong wrong wrong wrong!

Well, top of the “list of things I’ve been wrong about in this pregnancy” seems to be my apparently faulty instinct that Bob would arrive early.

After a veritable contractions-and-mucus-plug-fest at 37 weeks I was absolutely convinced I’d be meeting my baby soon – only for everything to die down and go completely quiet again. I’m now in limbo, with no niggles beyond some regular bladder-bouncing and rib-kicking by young Bob, and no signs that any labours will be kicking off any time soon.

I’m now having to face the hideous prospect that I could quite easily go past my due date on Sunday, which is not something I’d given much thought to previously.

And yes, yes, before anybody brings it up – I know Bob will come when he’s ready, and there’s nothing I can do to speed things up. But oh good grief am I fed up with the waiting!

I saw my midwife on Monday for my 39 week check-up. All seems to be well, which is great news – blood pressure still great, as are my bump measurements and Bob’s heartbeat. Seemingly the baby’s head is so far down in my pelvis that it can’t be felt any more – which pretty much confirms that I could go at any time.

So my task for the next week is to somehow figure out how to get a good night’s sleep in amongst all the rumbly baby movements, the hourly pee trips and the acid reflux. Also, trying to keep myself occupied during the day so I can’t just sit about the house and dwell miserably on the fact that I’ve not had this baby yet.

My last remaining hope for this week is that tonight’s full moon will do its thing and tip me over the edge. Seemingly some old wives believe that labour wards tend to be freakishly busy during a full moon as women due around that time are likely to coincide with the big cheese appearing in the sky. Whatever – I’ll believe anything at this stage! The thought of being able to bend freely from the waist after 9 months is quite intoxicating… 

Come on Bob – your time is most definitely up. Rent-a-womb want their property back!

Congratulations to Cramond Tearooms!

23^rd November 2009

The Proprietor

Cramond Tea Rooms

Cramond Esplanade

Edinburgh

 

Dear Sir,

CONGRATULATIONS!

We are writing to let you know that you have been awarded the annual Edinburgh & Lothians Miserable Bastard of the Year Award^TM 2009. 

You will, we are sure, be thrilled to know that you were nominated by one Mrs Elaine Gunn, who on the afternoon of Monday 23^rd November 2009 asked if you would be willing to waive your usual 30p charge for use of the toilet facilities at Cramond Tea Rooms, when she found herself caught short and without any available funds to hand. 

As Mrs Gunn advised you, and as may have been apparent by her somewhat corpulent appearance, she was 9.5 months pregnant at the time, and in some not inconsiderable discomfort – attributable to the fact that she had approximately 10-15 pounds worth of unborn human being, amniotic fluid and other pregnancy-related items pressing down insistently on her bladder and bowel. 

To refuse an exception to your usual “pay-per-use” policy in such a situation shows, we feel, a really superb commitment to being a thoroughly Miserable Bastard, and this considerable achievement should be recognised accordingly. 

To that end, please find enclosed the sum of a fabulous £3 in prize winnings. The board of Edinburgh & Lothians Miserable Bastards^TM respectfully suggest that you might consider using these winnings to cover the toilet fees of the next 10 pregnant women (or other similarly deserving parties) who would like to use your facilities in the future, but find themselves for one reason or another without the means to pay your entrance fee. 

Of course, we can only make suggestions – the winnings are yours to expend as you would like. Being the Miserable Bastard that you are, we are sure you will have no problem coming up with a far less honourable and socially-conscious use for the money if necessary. 

Once again, please accept our most sincere congratulations on your very well deserved victory in the Edinburgh & Lothians Miserable Bastard of the Year Awards^TM 2009. We hope to see your name appearing in our nominations list again next year.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

I.P  Frequently Esq.

Chairman  – Edinburgh & Lothians Miserable Bastards^TM

The waiting game – part II

No – not another post about preserving your virtue as a young lady, in fact this one’s at completely the opposite end of the reproductive scale. I’m waiting for my first baby to decide that he/she is going to put in an appearance; which if you believe the big pink pregnancy book could be any time from last Sunday 15^th November when my baby was considered “term” at 37 weeks.

My actual due date isn’t until the 6^th December, so another two weeks tomorrow, but I’ve been getting a spooky feeling – stronger and stronger – that Bob and I aren’t destined to make it as far as 40 weeks. Yes, yes, I know that first time mothers tend to go past their due dates as a generalisation, but the closer I come to mine the more I wonder how much of that is down to physiology, and how much is in the mind…

I’ve become pretty passionate (some might say opinionated) about the emotive issue of childbirth during my third trimester, and have been doing a lot of reading about natural childbirth and the influence of medical factors on what used to be considered a natural – as opposed to pathological – event.

More and more, I am appalled by the out-and-out fear and demonisation of childbirth that is rampant in society, along with the general mistrust of women’s bodies in terms of what they were put on this earth (biologically speaking, at least) to do.

The first time I was pregnant, I lost my baby at 8.5 weeks. Despite the sadly short pregnancy, I nevertheless had enough time to read up on the process of giving birth (in the big pink pregnancy book, incidentally) and begin thoroughly pooing my pants in panic. Not only was I finding out horrifying things about routine episiotomy – the procedure whereby a helpful physician will cut your foofy to let the baby out – and the promise of more unbearable pain than you can shake a pointy stick at, but I was reading up on the risks of epidural anaesthesia (anybody fancy a month-long spinal headache…?) and the various drawbacks – i.e. stoned babies, problems breastfeeding, babies who don’t fancy breathing – of other drug-based pain relief.

Based on the evidence at hand, I was starting to come to the conclusion that the least unpleasant, risky and traumatic way of giving birth was just to bite the bullet, book myself a caesarean section and hope to god that I didn’t end up with MRSA. I was feeling so disempowered, so frightened and so panicky that I couldn’t even bring myself to indulge my natural optimism and believe that “there must be a better way…”

Now I’ll never be glad that I lost my first baby, but what I will be profoundly and forever grateful for, is what that experience taught me in terms of how to trust my body and believe that it knows exactly what it’s doing.

When I discovered that I was going to miscarry, my birth fear kicked in again in a very real and immediate sense. I remember howling on the phone to the Early Pregnancy Unit that I wanted to book a D&C, I wanted them to knock me out, deal with the situation and then for me to wake up and have it all be over – no mess, no fuss. I was scared of the pain, scared of the bleeding that I’d been told to expect, and most of all I was so, so scared of seeing my poor baby lying on a soiled sanitary pad.  

Luckily (and yes, I do truly mean that) Mother Nature had other plans for me, and I spent the next few days on what I can only describe as a voyage of discovery about my body and its true capabilities.

I won’t go into all the gory details, but what I discovered throughout the physical process of miscarrying was that my body knows exactly what it’s doing – and I do mean exactly! A rush of hormones here, 8 hours of contractions there, and a freakishly perfectly timed loss of the baby (my body waited until I’d firmly sent my husband out to the football – I think it knew I needed to be quite alone at the critical moment) and it was over. I’m not going to say there was no pain, but there was certainly no trauma, and my body executed everything perfectly to make the process as easy for me to get through as possible – physically and emotionally.

So having been panic-stricken, terrified and desperate for medical intervention, I had been taught first hand that (for me at least – I would never judge any woman for the choices she makes in such rotten circumstances) the natural route was by far the best.

With the benefit of that experience, I was able to approach a new pregnancy with more curiosity than fear about the process of birth itself. If the heartbreaking and hopeless experience of miscarriage could turn out to be positive in the end, then surely childbirth could be the same? Surely the pain and the mess would be even more possible to cope with, since there was more than likely to be a happy outcome?

And that’s how I started finding out about the secret that nobody seems to want you to know – that childbirth has the potential to be wonderful!  

Very shortly after I found out I was pregnant again, I started looking into the possibility of having a home birth. The thought process behind this was pretty much “miscarriage at home = good” as I’d had plenty of time to reflect on how thoroughly miserable I would have been going through that experience in a random hospital bedroom. Ergo “giving birth at home must also = good”.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that – not only did I have a lifetime of social conditioning to overcome in terms of what I myself believed childbirth to be (frickin’ dangerous, unbelievably painful, best done in hospital with ready access to lots and lots of drugs and a surgeon if required) I also had to help my husband come to terms with the thought of my giving birth outside the “safe” environment of the good old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

The book that finally overcame all of my negativity was Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, written by prominent US midwife Ina May Gaskin. Through observing and supporting natural birth in her community throughout the last 30+ years, Ina May has risen to worldwide fame as an incredibly successful and highly respected midwife who works hard to promote the concept of childbirth as a safe and natural life occurrence rather than an illness to be treated in hospital. Her mantra seems to be “your body is not a lemon” – a refreshingly down-to-earth and helpful approach to the general mistrust of women’s bodies in relation to childbirth. The effectiveness of this approach is pretty much borne out by her community’s incredibly low c-section rate – below 2%, compared with a frankly shocking 25% in US hospitals.

Since reading her book (I also bought her recently released Guide to Breastfeeding which is excellent as well) I have by degrees been able to melt away the residual fear of childbirth, to the point where I have managed not only to persuade, but truly convince my previously sceptical husband that a natural home birth is best for us. Of course, I am remaining realistic about the fact that in the event of a true medical emergency we will need to transfer to hospital, but if all goes well we will be welcoming Bob the Blob (which is becoming an increasingly inappropriate nickname, but hey-ho) into the world from the comfort of our very own dining room.

Anyway, before this article runs away with me altogether, back to the waiting part – which was kind of the point in the first place!

I’ve had a couple of (icky, I will spare you the details) signs that Bob’s birth might be on the way sooner rather than later. So now I’m officially waiting to go into labour, and very much looking forward to it as well! Imagine being eight years old and your Mum telling you Christmas was coming really soon, but not knowing exactly when it was going to be – well that’s pretty much where I’m at right now…

I’ve been wondering if all my positivity towards birth is really going to help me to enjoy it as the life-changing and positive experience I now truly believe it is. Or is it all just hippy mumbojumbo that’s going to result in me ending up on my back in hospital screaming for drugs despite all my preparation? If you believe the all too prevalent bearers of birth horror-stories, I am being incredibly naive in anticipating a trouble-free (if intense) experience in the comfort of my own home.

That’s why I feel it’s important to write about all this in advance of the big event. For some reason our society seems to find it perfectly acceptable for individuals to pass judgement on and undermine women’s choices concerning giving birth. For some reason, plenty of people seem to just love asking if you’re “shitting yourself yet?” about the birth – what do they think the benefit/point of such a question is? Should we not be trying to support and encourage childbearing women to believe that their bodies are not, in fact, lemons (thank you again Ina May) instead of constantly validating their fears for them?

So this is an experiment. I’m putting my birth plan out there in advance, to see if my preparation and positivity has in fact enabled me to influence my own labour experience. If women who expect fear, pain and c-sections get just that, then why not choose to look forward to hard work, intensity but an ultimately positive and fulfilling experience instead?

I’m hoping to give birth at home, without any pain relief beyond breathing and relaxation techniques, a good old float about in a birthing pool, and some gas & air if I really start to struggle. Unless there’s a true medical emergency I hope not to transfer to hospital.

I’m hoping I’ll go into labour sooner rather than later, given all the signs I’ve had and also due to the fact that I’ve not built up an emotional barrier of fear and dread against the process (for what it’s worth, I have a theory that it’s this fear that’s mostly responsible for the whole “first time mothers go past their due date” pattern). This also makes me think that my labour is unlikely to be the marathon 36-hour-ending-in-a-c-section session that can so often be associated with first time mothers.

We shall see. I’m honest enough to post the true birth story afterwards, so it will be interesting to find out to what extent the actual process measures up to my expectations and what I’ve been preparing myself for.  

So back to the waiting game. I tell you what though, if it all goes as well as I hope there will be a mahoosive bunch of flowers winging its way to Mrs I. M. Gaskin, c/o The Farm Community, Tennessee…

Two brands. Both alike in dignity.

Or not, as the case may be.

It’s been a while since I blogged last; I’ve been settling in to the new house, enjoying having more to do since I took a part-time job, and growing a small, but very demanding human being.

I’m nearly 28 weeks now, so the third trimester is just round the corner (Sunday, to be exact). I finally have a bit of a bump, so have passed the stage where I just look like I’ve been over-indulging my pie habit, and have been searching for any maternity trousers whose gussets can be trusted not to descend uncomfortably to knee-level with the slightest physical activity. It’s not easy…

Anyway, I was flicking through a maternity catalogue the other day, and found an advert for “Hot Milk” lingerie (see image aside) who design and sell underwear for pregnant ladies such as myself.

Or perhaps not exactly like myself, but pregnant ladies nonetheless.

Let me make it clear at this stage, I am in no way dissing their product – in fact I saw some of their line in Edinburgh’s finest West End mum-to-be outlet Vanilla Bloom yesterday and can honestly say it’s lovely – very pretty, very cleverly made, and a million miles from the utilitarian passion-killers that I’ve been forced to invest in so far.

I just don’t know what their brand manager thinks they’re up to with this Little Red Riding Hood advert?

Firstly, yes I can accept that it’s generally considered sexy to position a nubile young lady as a little girl – that’s not really much of a surprise given the success of kiddie-fiddler-fodder like St Trinian’s et al. But introducing pregnancy into that field? Is that not just the teeniest bit, erm, disturbing?

Surely pregnancy is something to be considered womanly, not girly? While our bodies are changing at a rate unprecedented in the average woman’s experience, should we not be allowed to retain our claim to womanly sexiness, rather than being forced into the same media-led rat race for youth and immaturity as non-pregnant females?

It’s just a contradiction in every way. Yes, we know that the Western ideal of female beauty tends towards the juvenile rather than the mature, but positioning pregnant women as little girls in order to make them sexy? Clearly the creative behind the Hot Milk ad thought there was a nice juxtaposition there, but to me it’s just plain mean. How can we possibly live up to that expectation?

The fundamental mistake (in my humble opinion) is that the marketers involved have assumed that pregnant women are, or want to be, sexy – in the same way as non-pregnant women. Now I’m not for a minute suggesting that pregnancy precludes sexiness for anybody – but I do feel strongly that it’s a totally different kind from the generic, androgynous (apart from massive hair extensions, naturally) waif-like attractiveness of the ideal. Stand up Girls Aloud, your time is up…

Pregnancy sexiness comes from roundness, curves, glowing skin, sparkling eyes, fruitfulness, contentment and the occasional ill-concealed cheeky burp. It’s being comfortable with who you are and what your body is doing, excitement for the future, and the wisdom that comes with knowing that whatever weirdo and uncomfortable thing your body is doing today, it’s worth it – because it’s helping to create a little miracle.

Anyway, apart from anything else, the Hot Milk advert lost all credibility when I realised that they’d crimped Little Red Riding Hood’s hair. So now we have an inappropriately fetishist contradiction in femininity with a (shriek) nasty 80s ‘do.

Not cool, guys. Not cool at all.  

Having said all that, I do have to in principle applaud what they’re trying to do – i.e. give pregnant women a decent choice in pretty undies, and encourage them to remember they’re still sexy.  Have a look at their website – the product is seriously good. http://www.hotmilklingerie.co.nz

I’ve done a bit of rambling now – this was meant to be a well-structured comparison of how two brands got it horribly wrong. But I’ve gone all feminist again and run out of room (and I suspect, reader patience) so I’ll make the second brand assassination a quick one.

My Mum and Dad joined a gym in Inverness recently. You know what it’s called?

Fit 4 Less.

Yes, that’s right – if you join this gym, you’ll be fit for less.

I’m waiting with bated breath for the inevitable free membership deal, surely to be entitled “Fit 4 Nothing”.

It’s genius I tell you, flipping genius!

Shopping fun for mums-to-be

I bought my first maternity clothes this week. There was a great sale on at Mamas & Papas, so I decided to go mad with the old point and click internet shopping.

On receipt, I tried the stuff on and (I don’t know why I was surprised at this) had to package 75% of it back up to be sent back. Apparently maternity gear is no less stupidly misrepresented online than any other garment.

I chuckled to myself as I read the return codes” on the form used to send it all back. “AB/01″ was for “Wrong size” and “AB/02″ was for “Garment not as I expected”. It occurred to me that there should have been a more specific and truthful set of return codes for this particular delivery:

• HA/HA – Garment correct size, but makes recipient look utterly ridiculous.
• HU/UH – Garment labelled as correct size, but clearly manufactured during fabric shortage.
• BE/EP – Garment resembles supermarket checkout uniform, circa 1997.
• TE/NT – Garment completely shapeless in manner of marquee with excess material.
• WH/AT – You don’t seriously expect me to wear this, do you? It’s got shoulders like the strapping on an american football player!

It’s just a thought. I’m quite sure I’d find the process of internet clothes shopping far less stressful if it was acknowledged upfront that at least half the garments would be making their way back immediately.

Born again housewife

This is very weird for me.

At the age of 29 and a half, I seem randomly to have become houseproud. This, after approximately 24 years (I’m estimating that I started being responsible for my own bedroom at about 5) of being a bona fide slob, washing re-user and piles-of-dishes-ignorer.

Gus and I moved into our new house a week past last Friday. We’re settled already – although by “settled” I don’t actually mean “unpacked” or “organised” or anything like that, just that this old place feels like home. And for some reason, living at “home” (as opposed to in a microflat or a money pit) makes me want to keep my accommodation clean and tidy.

This might come as some surprise to anybody who’s ever lived with me (or in fact visited me)  in the past. Flashbacks to student accommodation at Sciennes remind me uncomfortably that the posh boys who lived upstairs kept their flat far cleaner than I ever did, give or take a slice of courgette that remained stuck to their wall for the length of the year.

Even moving from scummy studentsville to a proper grown-up flat with my then best friend didn’t encourage me to pull my inside-out-for-one-last-wear socks up.

But now – how times have changed. I caught myself last week mentally creating a daily plan of which room I would be cleaning once everything was unpacked. 7 days in a week, and 7 rooms in the house (if you count the hall/stair as one room) work out nicely, giving me something to polish and primp every day.

I spent my Saturday morning this week cleaning the kitchen, organising my assorted herbs and spices into attractive uniform jars from IKEA, and wiping down the microwave and kitchen units. Today was spent scrubbing fake tan tidemarks off the bath, and washing the sponge I’d used afterwards. I’m even having wild thoughts about perhaps mowing the lawn, should it stay dry for another hour or so.

This is so unlike me, that it’s actually freaking me out a bit. I mean, I guess I always knew on some level that my slovenly ways would have to come to an end some day – it’s not like you can bring up a child amongst piles of crumpled clothes and discarded mail. But the drama of the change is something that’s taken me completely by surprise.

Is this another crazy hormonal thing that I can attribute to the pregnancy? Am I perhaps “nesting”?

Certainly, I have a bit of a horror of being as bored again as I was during the first trimester, when I was too tired to move anywhere, and feeling too sick to do anything if I’d been able to move. My part time job shifts work out in such a way that I have 6 days off on the trot every two weeks, and the thought of spending them lying fitfully on the couch,  exercising my remote-control muscles does make me feel the urge to get up and clean something.

Well, whatever is causing it, I’m just going to go with my new found housepride and embrace my apparent destiny as a born-again housewife. If I can manage to do so without morphing into some sort of dreadful 1950s stereotype, that is.

Bugger! It looks like it’s going to rain. Now what can I do instead of mowing the lawn…?

Another broadband rant.

Yes it’s that time of the month again. No, not that time of the month, but “ranting about broadband” time.

After a promising phone call a few weeks ago from 3 Mobile Broadband’s Executive Office (in response to my previous post noting general dissatisfaction with my mobile broadband service – or lack thereof) I was looking forward to some progress being made, some problems getting resolved, and in the event that that wasn’t possible  – the cancellation of my contract.

I spoke to a very pleasant gentleman named Charles, who agreed that asking me to pay £15 every month for a broadband connection that didn’t connect was a bit on the unreasonable side. He advised that he was going off to get his techie guys to look into our problems, find out what the story was, and in the event that our issues couldn’t be resolved satisfactorily, he would arrange for our contract to migrate on to “pay as you go” without breakage fees – hurrah!

Unfortunately, I missed Charles’s call when he phoned me with an update a week past Friday. He did leave a message to say that he’d call back the following Monday (8th June) but so far I’ve heard zippo. Worried that my missing of the callback might be interpreted as my now being happy with my contract, I tried to call Charles back on the number he rang me on.

Of course it went through to the automated service that would ultimately connect me to my friends abroad whose computers have a habit of saying no.

Ever resourceful, I googled “3 executive office, Glasgow” and managed to get hold of a few phone numbers which would take me through to the switchboard.

And the response…?

Switchboard are “not authorised” to put me through to anybody unless I can give them either a call reference or a mobile number for my broadband account. Doesn’t matter that I have the name of who I need to speak to, or that I have been expecting his call for over a week now. Nope, the computer says no again. I will have to rake through paperwork at the microflat tonight to see if I can find either piece of information – although I suspect that as soon as I hand it over they will refuse to connect me on the basis that the account is held in my husband’s name.

Honestly, when did common sense become such a yawning vacuum in corporate customer service? Yes, I agree that we have to have processes and procedures, but surely we should also be able to sensibly assess situations and provide reasonable human responses accordingly?

So, the purpose of this rant is really to say – Charles, if you’re out there – please call me back and help me get this situation resolved. I’m tired of not being able to access the internet, I’m tired of not being able to update my blog (I’m making this entry on a friend’s network) because 3 doesn’t do WordPress admin, and I’m really really tired of going round in circles with call centres and switchboards.  

It’s just not cricket!

Here comes the sun!

Can there be anything more glorious than a properly hot and sunny day in Scotland?

I’m sitting outside in my Mum’s beautiful garden, surrounded by cute, furry bumblebees and the scent of lavender, cooking myself gently (through an umbrella and a coating of factor 30) in the most fabulous sunshine I’ve seen for about three years!

There’s something about living through 9 months of freezing cold, dismal and wet weather that makes rejoicing in the first proper appearance of summer each year even sweeter. I’m sure that as a Scot (and originally a very Northern one at that) I’m more sensitive to the joy of the sun than your average warm-climate dweller.

Anyway, it’s my last day up in Inverness before returning to Edinburgh and the microflat later this afternoon (post barbeque, if all goes to plan and the sky stays clear). I can’t say I’m looking forward to it much; I know there are only another 4 weeks until Gus and I get the keys to our lovely new house, but we’ve been saying “It’s not long now” for the last 8 weeks, and my reserves of patience – never impressive at the best of times – are wearing thinner with each repetition of “Build me up Buttercup” from upstairs!

We’ve just spent a week travelling the Northern Highlands – a much more activity-packed holiday than I had anticipated, given my recent 1^st trimester shunnage of all physical exertion. On Tuesday we hiked to Sandwood Bay, a phenomenal white sandy beach on the Atlantic coast north of Kinlochbervie – along with Applecross on the Western coast, one of my favourite places in the world. It’s reasonably hard work getting there (4.5 miles of rough, undulating track – then you have to get home!) but extremely worth the effort.

After Sandwood, Gus and I realised we were sunburnt – not something we had really anticipated, given the random rain and hailstones we’d walked through on the way, but that’s Scottish weather for you. It doesn’t seem to matter how often we go up North and encounter sunshine, we never think to pack sunscreen – as if the sun in Scotland “doesn’t count” for some reason. Anyway I am now paying for being remiss, as the unaccustomed sun on my face, plus an odd pregnancy-related condition called “chloasma”, mean that I have developed random dark patches of skin on my face.

They’re not too noticeable yet, for which I am profoundly grateful, but I’ve learned my lesson now and am smothering myself in factor 30 every 5 minutes. It’s not just a case of being vain (although as I start to lose my figure I have noticed I’m spending more and more time on my eyebrows…), it’s just that the patches – really quite small and inoffensive in another location – have cunningly chosen to materialise on either side of the dent between my nose and my top lip. Should they get darker and grow, something I understand could easily happen, and is more likely to if I expose myself to the sun willynilly,  they could join up in the middle - in which case I’d be left sporting a fetching Hitler ‘tache!

I’m now wondering if it’s safe to use moustache bleach during pregnancy – I thought that maybe dyeing my upper lip fluff might lighten the whole area and deflect attention from the offending patches. However, then I worry that the whole unnaturally light hair/unnaturally dark skin combo might all be a bit Atomic Kitten for my usual natural image, and highlighting the area could turn out to be an ill-considered publicity stunt. Oh, decisions decisions…

So, despite its coy shyness the sun in Scotland definitely does “count” (even when it’s randomly splitting hailstone-dispensing clouds) and henceforth I am taking up arms ‘gainst a sea of troubles and sticking like glue to my bottle of sunscreen.

Not that I’m complaining, of course – a burgeoning dictator ‘tache is a fairly small price to pay for the joy of being able to sit outside with your morning coffee. I do love summer, it’s great!

Updates, musings and plans…

This week it’s all about catching up on blogging. There’s been so much going on for the last few months, yet I haven’t been able to post any of it due to my stupidly ineffective mobile broadband contract. 

By the way, I spoke to Gus last night (he’s been away travelling on business, hence my decampment to Inverness) and he reckons the 3 dongle works perfectly from a Holiday Inn near Halifax. It remains to be seen if this is a local pocket of high performance, or if things will improve when we move house at the end of June (we wonder if ancient stone-walled tenement might be having an adverse effect). Perhaps it’s worth delaying my angry letter onslaught until we find out… 

But back to what’s been going on lately, and why I’ve been doing practically nothing for the last 3 months. 

After the shocking, depressing write-off that was the second half of 2008, we were sincerely hoping for a bit more luck in 2009. Promisingly enough, we got an offer on the yawning money-pit we used to call “home” (that’s before we started calling it “that place where everything breaks”) and I started to feel a bit better about the whole baby-making business after our horrible miscarriage in August 08. 

I’m sure you can imagine how flummoxed we were then, when the house sale turned into the most ridiculous and drawn-out, nit-picky, over-demanding, “let’s make the vendors pay for another survey because we suspect there might be a sneezing pixie that will cause the house to fall down” type processes I’ve ever been through in my life. 

Honestly, if I ever see their surveyor again, I will shoot him on sight – you seriously have to question the intelligence of a man who will demand to see the builder’s warrant for a sinple bathroom refit, and the electrical compliance certificate for a shower that runs off the combi boiler!! You may laugh, but we had to pay £65 plus VAT for a letter of comfort from a highly confused bathroom surveyor to confirm that neither piece of documentation was remotely necessary. 

Anyhow, between that and the sad loss of our second baby at the end of February (right at the height of house nonsense) we were feeling pretty sorry for ourselves again by the beginning of Spring. What was this? 2008 was following us into the next year, bringing all its bloody nonsense with it! Surely that’s against all the rules… 

But Spring is a great time of year (it’s always been my favourite season) and things with the flat sorted themselves out eventually. We’re now going to be moving to a cutesy wee house in the West of Edinburgh – in fact about 300 yards from where we used to live. It’s got a South-facing back garden, with patio doors from the living room and decking for the many, many barbeques we’ll be having this summer – come rain or shine. The nightmarish sale is well and truly behind us now, and we’re just looking forward to getting our keys and moving in. 

Also, I ended up pregnant again on my first cycle after the second baby we lost and am now 11 weeks, 3 days and counting… A few early scans have confirmed all is progressing well, and despite some truly demoralising morning sickness (serious misnomer if you ask me – I felt vomitous all the bloody time!) and tiredness, I’m doing really well. I think I’m starting to come to the end of the icky part now, which is nice. I’m feeling a lot more energetic, and have even been able to contemplate whole days without a nap in the middle. 

So it’s back to work for me now! I’ve had a lot of time out to think through what exactly I’m going to be doing with my life, and have come to a few conclusions about Top Cat Copy as a business. 

Firstly, I’ve started to question why I’m restricting myself to copywriting, when (a) my skills extend much further than that, (b) nobody wants to pay for business writers during a recession, and (c) sitting in a wee room by myself writing gives me much less of a kick than getting out into businesses and solving problems for them. 

I’ve recently been doing a bit of consultancy work with an Edinburgh business called Anthyllis – see www.anthyllis.co.uk – helping them to rationalise and improve their website, and giving them advice on how to take advantage of the various online marketing opportunities open to them. Apart from the fact that I just LOVE their business and products (gorgeous organic, natural skin/bodycare by Dr Haushcka and Spiezia), I’ve also really enjoyed sticking my nose right into their business and using my problem-solving and marketing skills to come up with ideas for them to manage their brand and raise their profile. 

Yes, copywriting will form a part of the service I’m providing, but it won’t be the main product. I keep forgetting that I’ve actually unusually technology and web-savvy for the average small business owner. I’ve caught myself assuming that my copywriting clients know how to structure a website sensibly, how many pages their sites should have, how they should be optimised for search engines, and how they can be backed up with less traditional marketing tools such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, link exchanges…. the list goes on. 

In fact, one of my clients didn’t know any of this at all. More importantly, neither did the client’s web designer – which made me think that there’s a bit of a gap somewhere in between the small business owner who wants a website, and the web designer who knows how to write the code. There’s a need for someone tech and web-savvy on one hand, but creative on the other, who knows how to take business requirements from the technophobes, and translate it into functional specification for the build bods. 

Think about it, how how often must losses in translation between end-users and techies contribute to websites that just aren’t fit for purpose? It must happen all the time! 

Anyway, these are my musings thus far. Hopefully the aforementioned gap will prove to be Elaine-shaped, and I’ll finally have found my niche. In the meantime, I’m going to continue musing and pick as many brains as I can until musing turns into an actual plan.

I’ve just got to hope that this will all happen a bit more readily now that I’m not constantly fighting the urge to be sick on myself and fall asleep. God bless pregnancy; babies are wonderful, but growing them doesn’t half take it out of you! 

By the way, one decision I’ve definitely taken is that  in light of the above-mentioned diversification, my company name will shortly be changing to Top Cat Communications. 

Now how’s that for progress?

Technology? Pah!

Well firstly I should explain why it’s been nearly two months since my last blog… 

I haven’t disappeared entirely, and I still think about blogging quite a lot; but sadly I have had the great misfortune to change my internet service provider (ISP) and for some reason the new network says an emphatic “no” to WordPress admin. 

Therefore, my first back-online blog is going to be (yes, you guessed it) a rant about rubbish service in the technology sector. 

I’m currently connected through AOL at my Dad’s house. Gus and I moved into a very small flat at the end of March when we finally rid ourselves of “house of the thousand collapsed ceilings” and settled in for the long wait for the keys to our new place, which we expect to move into at the end of June. 

At the time we moved, Gus thought it would be a good idea to switch our ISP to 3 so we could get their mobile broadband package, enabling us (or so we naively thought…) to sit outside in the sunshine and enjoy speedy internet access wherever might take our fancy. 

Oh dear; as my happily AOL-powered Dad might write in a satisfactorily and timeously delivered email “Ye’re no often right, but ye’re wrang again!” 

Take this from someone who’s spent the last 7 weeks in a microflat, with nothing to do but look silly stuff up on the internet (business activities have been somewhat suspended lately – but more about that in a future post) – 3 Mobile Broadband is PANTS. 

In fact it may not even be effective enough to be called PANTS, because at least PANTS have a function beyond causing their owners to spend inordinate and unreasonable amounts of time on the phone to call centres where staff have clearly been specifically trained to empathise with angry callers, because that’s the only type of call they ever receive. 

I lose connection to the internet at least 2-3 times every day. This can sometimes be addressed by rebooting the router 12-15 times, but more often it results in an expensive and frustrating call to 3 technical support, only to be told that there’s no indication of any reason for the fault, and therefore no way to have it fixed. 

However, at the same time as being incandescent with rage during said phone calls, I can’t help but be reluctantly impressed with the fabulous textbook examples of active listening and “mirrored empathy” I receive from the call centre telephonists:

 

Caller: I’ve lost internet connection again. That’s the third time today. I’ve tried rebooting my router and restarting my laptop, but it’s not helping. I’m really getting fed up with this now. 

Telephonist: Thank you for your comments. I understand your frustration Mrs Gunn. Your internet connection isn’t working for the third time today, you’ve tried rebooting and it is still not working. I can appreciate that you’re not happy. 

Caller: (Patiently) Well, is there anything you can do? I work from home, so I need a reliable internet connection, which this clearly isn’t. 

Telephonist: I understand your frustration Mrs Gunn. Your internet connection isn’t reliable for you at the moment, and you need this because you work from home. 

Caller: (Extra patiently) I can see that you understand the problem. Can you tell me if there’s anything you can do to have it fixed? 

Telephonist: So, your internet connection has gone down, is that correct? 

Caller: (Extra, extra patiently, with a hint of tiredness) Yes, that is correct. 

Telephonist: Did you know that the majority of connection problems with 3 Mobile Broadband can be addressed by restarting the router and switching your laptop off then back on?   

Caller emits an inarticulate sound as if suddenly strangled. 

Telephonist: I’m sorry Mrs Gunn, I did not understand you. Did you know that the majority of connection problems with…. 

Telephonist hears the sound of a window being opened. The line is filled with the rushing of air and the rapidly diminishing sound of screamed obscenities.  

A thud and some brief sounds of splintering plastic. Then silence. 

 

So despite their evidently comprehensive training in how to sympathetically and considerately assist upset, internet-less clients, 3 Mobile Broadband’s technical support are in fact about as much use as an inflatable dartboard. I’m still no further forward with my connectivity issues, and beyond a paltry £5 credit to our account (which I have no doubt has been swallowed up by mobile phone bills for calls routed via the Middle East) I’ve had nothing except a sympathetic verbal repetition of my problems. 

Of course, when raising the question of whether I should in all fairness be held to a contract for a service that doesn’t serve, I received the inevitable notification of enormous disconnection fees should I terminate early. I did ask to speak to a manager, but was told I’d receive a callback within 24 hours, which of course I’m still waiting for two and a half weeks later. 

Not being one to shrink at a challenge though, I will shortly be embarking on a campaign of irate and over-articulate letters to 3 customer care. If I can’t have a reliable internet connection, then I can at least have the satisfaction of wasting their time as well as mine until they agree to cancel the contract without penalty. 

So a stern warning for anybody looking for a new ISP; do not under any circumstances consider using 3 Mobile Broadband, unless you plan to sign up and then immediately cancel the contract under the 14 day cooling-off period, just to make an administratively inconvenient point about the unfairness of consumers having to pay for rubbish service and repeated viewings of “Internet Explorer cannot display the web page” error screens. 

Technology? Pah!