Two thousand and oh oh seven. Innit.

Relax! It's alcohol-free beer.

I'm back. Back! BACK!! Yep, my new year resolution is to blog more often and try to keep up with Sara Sizzle. There we are, above, toasting 2007. I was not on alcohol-free beer, I must confess, but Buffy was.

Next year, apparently, she's getting slaughtered. Guess who's babysitting.



Readers of Sara Sizzle will know that our unborn progeny is known as Quiche. I have a weird feeling that this name might actually stick. Quiche Edwards. I think it looks quite good; I can picture it on a book cover. A book about being teased at school and despising your parents.

Quiche is growing and pushing out Buffy's belly. Buffy looks cuter than ever, I reckon. but I have some words of warning to all men out there. Women get very moody when they're pregnant. VERY moody. And I'm sure this doesn't only apply to redheaded yummy-mummies-to-be. Last night, at about seven, she suddenly announced - after lying in bed for two hours quite happily - that if all the housework wasn't done before the start of Celebrity Big Brother, the whole weekend would be ruined, implying with a steely glare that it would be ALL MY FAULT. She then proceeded to list all the things that are wrong with me:

I flap too much. Apparently, when metaphorically 'in a flap' (ie trying to decide what to do to keep the Sizzle happy) I actually flap my hands. I've never been aware that I do this. But the thought of it makes me, well, get in a flap.

I take ages to do anything. For example, it can take me half an hour to wash up or iron a pair of trousers. But that's because I'm meticulous! And daydreamy. I thought these were nice qualities.

I am insensitive, uncaring, horrible, ugly, smelly... oh, all right, she didn't actually say those last two. That would be ridiculous. I can't tell you all the things she said because they're not suitable for family reading.

I can't blame her - or any woman - for being moody when pregnant though. All that sickness, the backache, the need to hug giant five foot long pillows at night. The other icky stuff that would make most men dial 999 and insist on being nursed 24-7 while crying out for their mummies.

I accompanied Buffy to the hospital yesterday while she had a check up at the maternity clinic. A very pleasant way to spend two and a half hours, I can tell you, surrounded by moody pregnant women, their slack-jawed partners and griping infants. Vicky Pollard was there. Not the Vicky Pollard - maybe her sister. She had a two-year-old with her. This two-year-old had more E numbers in her than a Woolworths sweet department. While we were there, Ms Pollard gave her small child two fizzy drinks, three packets of sweets and a Big Mac. Oh, hang on - sorry. The Big Mac belonged to the sour-faced somehow-pregnant 50 year old sitting next to her. Maybe she wasn't 50. Maybe she'd had a hard life. Then there was the girl who, the midwives indiscreetly revealed, is a hypochondriac who visits the ward every day complaining of chest pains. Let's hope she doesn't have a heart attack next week. Maternity clinics are, I'm convinced, designed to put you off having children. They should open a vasectomy clinic next door, so horrified dads-to-be can get snipped while their partners wait and wait and wait. Oh, if only we were rich enough to go private...

I realise that I'm lapsing into cynical-writer mode, which I don't mean to do. I'm actually very very excited about Quiche's arrival. I've become obsessed with two things:

Trying to flog stuff on eBay to raise funds to pay for Quiche's upbringing. (And maybe go private.)

Buggies.

I've simply got to have a cool buggy to push Quiche round in. I spend hours researching them online, and when people walk past with a buggy, I (and Buffy too; she's just as bad) don't peer at the little nipper - I try to see what make the buggy is. I've decided that my preferred item of baby transportation is going to be the Quinny Buzz. Apparently, you just press a button and it unfolds itself. How exciting is that? It looks cool too. Now, we just need to know whether Quiche is a boy or a girl before deciding on hot pink or electric blue.

And speaking of hot pink...



Buffy made some delicious fairy cakes today. You may remember the giant cookie disaster from last August (which was when Quiche was conceived, though I'm sure there's no correlation).

Today's cakes, created while watching the unbelievably camp Grease 2, were much more successfull and yummy. I'm planning on eating them all and growing my very own bump.

Finally (the iBook is heating my lap so worryingly that I have to go) here are some pics of Ellie, now settled happily into the Australian lifestyle. Elle and I videochat on Skype several times a week, which is great. Well, I chat, she throws bricks around. Not housebricks, I hasten to add.





Bye, Roosters. I'm going to see what my lovely girlfriend is up to, apart from being pregnant.