Today has been a good day. Yesterday, by contrast was a Very Bad Day. We went to my sister’s for afternoon tea and she made, among other things (including cucumber sandwiches, for she is very refined, my sister) a wonderful chocolate biscuit concoction for tea. I have been feeling pretty sick, but it was not something I could refuse. I mean if you had seen it, you would have had to eat some too. So I had a big slab of it. And then I had another big slab of it. The thing about pregnancy sickness for me is that the more frequently I eat, the less sick I feel. So I had these two lovely slabs of chocolate biscuit made with marshmallows and Maltesers and then I felt so much less sick.

Until I got home about two hours later. And then during supper I felt really sick. So sick that I had to leave the table (the family are getting used to me leaving without any warning, and when I return nobody even mentions where I have been anymore). By bedtime I was feeling even worse, wretching and moaning. One thing I have been doing while feeling sick is watching a lot of movies in the evenings seeing as I have no energy to do anything active and at least the movie takes my mind off the sickness a little. Or I can roll over the edge of the sofa, throw up into the bowl and roll back without even really missing much of the film. In fact, I have become so sick that often I don’t have the energy to empty the bowl between bouts and I just lay there with vomit in my hair, sweating and sick, dust and dirty dishes collecting around me until someone comes to my rescue. I’m having so much fun!

So last night I watched Gosford Park. It was a good film let down only by the sheer number of characters and by the attempts of Stephen Fry’s stereotypical character to solve the murder that takes place halfway through the film. The most intriguing part of the film is the hierarchy of a household where the upper classes live upstairs and the servants downstairs. I know a few people who have live-in help, although not quite along the lines of Gosford Park where the servants’ quarters are a small city in their own right, and I find it intriguing how these people can treat others as servants in their own homes in this day and age. One of the reasons that I refuse to have help is that I could not bring myself to boss someone about. But what really strikes me about those people who have housekeepers, nannies, cleaners, gardeners and so on is how they boss them about, treat them like dirt and then complain about them. It seems that one has to complain about their actions, even if recommending them to someone else because they are so good, because that is What Is Done. And I just couldn’t bring myself to be like that about anybody.

Anyway, I thought Gosford Park was a good film. And it stopped me dwelling on throwing up which is always a good thing.

And then today, I have felt fairly nauseous BUT THAT IS ALL. I feel like a new woman. I hesitate to say that my hormones are settling a bit, because that never happened in my other pregnancies and if I do, I will so pay for it tomorrow with the most horrendous vomiting. But the sun has shone all day, we have been outside all day and taken lunch and supper outside (see how that Gosford Park talk is rubbing off on me). And so while I am feeling good I am going to throw a bit of bleach around and clean up a bit. Or perhaps I should ask the blasted servants.

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