SOME OF YOU MAY have correctly surmised from the limited sphere of these recent columns that I don’t get out much these days. Out of bed, I mean.
The size of my belly means that a sort of “roll-on-roll-off” manoeuvre is required to vacate the comfortable expanse of the scratcher. It now takes serious planning to get from here to, say, the sofa in time for Countdown.
It’s a red-letter day if I manage to make it out for coffee and cakes with friends and although I was psychotically punctual pre-pregnancy, I now roll up half an hour late. I met another friend for what constitutes a snack these days (a burger, two strawberry milkshakes, a side of coleslaw, onion rings and fries), in a place off Grafton Street the other day. Talk about an expedition. I felt like Ernie Shackleton just passing the Molly Malone statue.
In his less self-preservational moments, my boyfriend likes to insinuate that I am enjoying my Sloth Period. It’s actually not that dissimilar in many ways to my Goth Period when I also stayed in bed as much as possible, just wearing considerably more eyeliner and tartan.
It seems my boyfriend is convinced I am revelling in this guilt-free, legitimised form of laziness when of course the truth is that given the choice I would much rather be one of those pregnant women who run up mountains before giving birth two days later. Yes, I would much, much rather that scenario. Much.
Speaking of my boyfriend, I interrupt this column briefly to bring you another hilarious dispatch from my inbox. “Roisin, How old are you?????,” a person called Rhona demands to know. “And how old is your ‘boyfriend?!’ Don’t you think it is time that he moves from the status of being your boyfriend to that of being your partner, or is it just a (non-funny) joke? Seriously, he is about to be the father of your twins, shouldn’t he be upgraded to a name more worthy than that of teenagers? SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?”
Oh Rhona, Rhona. First of all, let me just say that even with everything else going on in the world, your query has an urgency that Barack Obama could not in all conscience ignore. So let me address it.
Don’t you realise that I have no respect whatsoever for my “boyfriend?!”? That he is just a device I sometimes use in this column to make endless non-funny jokes? That in real life I force him to make me rhubarb crumble and feed it to me while I watch Fair City? SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?
The rhubarb crumble thing is not actually an embellishment. An even weirder pregnancy side effect has been an end to my allergy to Fair City. I could be imagining it, but the script now seems to be written by someone who possesses both a sense of humour and literacy skills, two helpful soap-writing attributes. In a new departure, it turns out that some of the people on the show can actually act, too. There was also a bonkers storyline recently about Turlough, a psychic charlatan, which had me mesmerised for weeks.
Pregnancy is truly a magical time.
Anyway Rhona (!!!!) I hope this clears the matter up for you. I’ve no plans to upgrade my boyfriend’s title even when he becomes the father of twins. My plans for him actually involve endless nappy-changing duties and a TV that plays Manchester United winning the league on a continuous loop.
Girlfriend, you have NO IDEA!!!!! But back to my bed. It’s amazing what can be accomplished under the duvet with the laptop, as Marian Keyes will tell you. She’s written loads of best-selling novels, but I’ve furnished an entire house while propped up here on seven million pillows. From the dream bath to the perfect vintage sideboard to a rake of bathroom accessories, I’ve been clicking buttons and making things appear in our house, which is nearly ready for us to move back into.
I spent years in that house managing not to care very much that the bathroom was manky and the floorboards were pocked with stiletto marks. And now it feels as though two pernickety house guests are about to arrive, two permanent visitors, two (eek) forever guests. Two people who are going to have memories of their environment growing up. Memories I am responsible for. I just really hope they like multicoloured chandeliers.
Pretty much everything else is in place, which is why our builder, aka the best builder in the world (e-mail me for details), sighed recently as he saw another gigantic truck coming up the road. There just wasn’t any more room in the house to store vintage sideboards or giant dream baths while the painting is done. So he was delighted when from out of the giant truck he was handed a sensibly sized product called a shower caddy.
I had also ordered a bath mat on eBay. The package came in a tiny envelope. Suspiciously tiny, I mused, as I lay back on my bed. Apparently I am not the first to do this, but the bath mat turned out to be a bath mat for a doll’s house and not a real, life-sized bath mat. E-mail me one good reason why you need a doll’s-house-sized bath mat and it will be yours. I’ll even get my boyfriend to deliver it!!!!!???
roisin@irishtimes.com
