alexist

So far, I've been pretty lucky stomach-wise. In fact, I've had the reverse problem of many women: instead of being too sick to eat I've been eating like a horse and gaining weight too quickly. Similarly, my tastes hadn't really changed--for some reason, anything salad-related has been tasting absolutely fantastic, but other than that all was normal. (I've had a couple of cravings where something seemed like a really good idea, but that happens to me anyway--they weren't different from my usual "ooh, I could really go for that" feeling.)

So imagine my surprise last night when I sat down to dinner. It was a perfectly ordinary dinner of things I cook all the time: roast chicken, boiled Jersey Royal potatoes, sugar snap peas. All cooked the usual way and it looked and smelled fine. But I put it in my mouth and it just did nothing for me. I ate some of it, but I couldn't finish--I had 1 piece of chicken and about 2 small potatoes. Normally, roast chicken and spuds are two of my favourite foods. The idea of going off them is totally alien to me. But I did. Hmm. I hope that was a momentary blip: I eat more chicken than any other meat!

I bought The Complete New Yorker when I was over (got it for 25% off at Strand).

It's brilliant. There's an unbelievable amount of great material on there--I've just been reading Hannah Arendt's original articles on Eichmann's trial. It really is fantastic value for $75.

What makes it exceptionally interesting in some ways is that it's a full facsimile of the original magazines. The layout is identical. So not only do you have the contents of the magazine, you can see the evolution of the layout and design, and the cartoons and illustrations in their original context. Almost as interesting, it's been reproduced with the adverts. Offhand, that might not sound that interesting, but it is. You can see the different things advertised and how the style and wording of ads have changed over the past 80 years.

BBC Weather widget says it's only 26, but it's been saying 26 constantly since Saturday so I think it lies. The a/c readout says 29.

I will guiltily admit to standing in front of the freezer case in Waitrose and pretending to be very interested in the frozen veg, just so I could suck in the cold.

I've turned into a raging mini-furnace lately, so this temperature doesn't suit me. I'd rather like a swim, actually, but our local leisure centre heats the pool to nearly 30C so there's no point. I grew up swimming in outdoor unheated pools--30 is like taking a bath. (There's an outdoor pool too, and I don't know if it's heated, but it's not open weekdays until the school holidays.)

I might bring the a/c back into the bedroom so I can have a lie-down. There's a nicely half-frozen bottle of Evian in the freezer too. (Plastic not glass. :) )

The cat loves the air-con, by the way. It's amusing.

I rang the surgery, explained; the receptionist told me to ring Barnet Hospital ante-natal clinic and ask them.

So I did. Woman says, "we're very backed up, but let me see if you're registered". Takes my details, looks them up... "no, no referral. But it could be in this giant pile of post. We've got over 100 patients waiting to be registered. How pregnant are you?" Me: "10th week." Her: "Oh, that's all right then, we're so backed up we're not doing first scans till 14 weeks at least".

If I don't receive my letter by the end of next week I should call again.

Lovely. And I don't have another option--Edgware is midwife-only, and any other hospital (Whittington [heard avoid at all costs], Royal Free) will be a trek, assuming I could be referred there in the first place. I know that a couple of years ago Barnet was so backed up that it was turning people away (people were getting sent to Northwick Park and Watford) but I didn't know it was a problem again...