Today has been my first day of maternity leave. It feels strange as it’s come round so quickly. It’s nice to be finished as I don’t think I could have worked any longer but I will miss one big thing and that’s the people I work with. They are a great bunch but the turn over of staff in the hospitality industry means just because I will be going back later this year it could be to a totally different team of people, so naturally I got a bit emotional saying goodbyes yesterday. I did very much drag myself through the last few shifts though as physically I’m feeling it a lot more during this pregnancy. So a special shout out to those who helped drag me through those last few shifts, particularly Clare who realised before I did that my Friday night shift needed to come to an early finish as she didn’t want to have to get a crash course in midwifery over the phone as I really had pushed it too much that day. So, Dukes, thank you for 6 months of fun, I’m sure I’ll be down there enough with the little ones over the summer!

This morning we also waved away another visitor. My brother had replaced Georgia and Gyan on Friday and spent the weekend watching one of us come in from work and the other disappear over the Easter weekend, this did mean that we had a babysitter on tap so Polly didn’t need to come down for each of these trade-offs. Oh and he won’t be offended by that as he loves spending time with her and we know she’s the real reason why he made the 300 mile trip in the first place! It’s strange having an empty house after a week of other people being about but I can feel a strong urge creeping in that I can’t fight anymore. I need to clean. I need to nest. Of course this would happen as soon as I hang up my waitressing apron! I keep looking at totally ridiculous things that I want to scrub and clean, like the greenhouse. I honestly looked at it while making a cup of tea earlier and had to fight the impulse to go out there and give that a tidy too. I mean I understand the whole nesting thing helps us get the house ready for baby, but honestly bear-bear isn’t going to be anywhere near the bloody greenhouse so why on earth do I want to go out there and dust off flowerpots. This is why our guests vacating has probably come at the right time so I can do a bit of unnecessary cleaning and organising without the concerned looks from my family.

Lastly, on what I realise has been a very much pregnancy themed post, we had a strange deja vu this morning relating to guess what- pregnancy of course! Henry called this morning to say he hadn’t made it to the gym as he’d noticed a flat tyre (bloody pot holes!). This made for the 3rd inconvenience late on in pregnancy that we also experienced during the Polly pregnancy. Two years ago, the last time I resembled a whale the boy decided to write off our car so we had a car drama to deal with again. This came after the annoyance of changing midwives late on which has now happened again. And obviously the third inconvenience was one of the delightful pregnancy bonus features making a reappearance a couple of weeks ago (see number 9 on the list from a few posts back). All of these issues were much worse the first time and have only been slight inconveniences this time, it just made us chuckle a bit this morning when we realised the third deja vu had happened- you’ve got to find something to brighten up your day after shelling out £100 before you’ve even had a shower.