Running with the Dragons

Fresh off the flight back from the UK, with only about 4 hours sleep overnight and I found myself up at 6am the next day to do a 24km canoeing race.

Insane? Probably. Hard as nails? Yes. Now injured with all manner of random bruises, scars and muscle aches? Indeed.

I've added it to the list of improbably stupid races I've done since I fell pregnant and wondered whether the men's crews we beat (I was in a mixed crew with a male friend of mine) are pissed off that they got beaten by a girl. Tee hee.

Eve and the Boy were there to cheer me in. I sometimes wonder what Eve must think of her mother doing all this sport - but then conclude that I must be setting some sort of positive example!

For more details on the race, and should anyone fancy trying it next year, look here

Welcome home, Eve-style

I've not had the best week of my life over the past week. Too detailed and too personal to go into here, but needless to say it involved an urgent dash halfway across the world to London and visiting hospitals. Always the worst fear for any expat who is miles away from their family.

This was also the first time that I had been away from Eve for more than a few days. And the first time on a weekend. I cried when I left home to go to the airport, forcing the Boy to promise to skype me in London before Eve went to bed every night. In the end it was fine. Eve got away with murder while I was away. Exhibit A - a weekend phone call home.

Me "Hello, where are you?"
Boy "In a shop"
Me "I can hear Eve in the background talking about Upsy Daisy, shouldn't she be having a nap right now?"
Boy "I asked her about a nap and she said that she didn't want one"

Hmm, so that's OK then! Eve also wants to ride my motorbike and drive the car but I hope to goodness he didn't let her do those while I was away. In all seriousness, the Boy made a great single Dad and both seemed to have lots of fun without me. That said, I hoped that when I got home Eve would be pleased to see me back.

I purposely walked into the flat, fresh off my flight back to HK, gifts in hand. Whereupon Eve took one look at me, nearly burst into tears and cried "But Mummy, I was about to go to the playground!". After five minutes of gentle reassuring that we would still go and I would come too, and the presentation of the Harrods westie dog in his own bag (thereby combining two of Eve's favourite things in one gift - a fluffy dog and a handbag), I got a huge cuddle and off we went to play on the slide.

When the wheels fall off... the track wheel that is

I don't have much patience for whinging (or gossip, but that's another story). I had lunch today with K, a feisty colleague who is Mum to not one but two gorgeous little girls. K, being the efficient lass that she is, popped them both out at once too. We were talking about someone she knows who is pregnant for the third time and has taken to her Mum's house for the last trimester because she's a bit tired and needs to lie down. Ah, bless. K and I both scoffed at this lack of gumption, us being both of a certain nationality and certain type of upbringing where complaining is seen as a sign of weakness and is punishable by death.

However, I confess that today I feel a lot like complaining. My life is starting to feel like a conveyor belt that seems to be getting faster and faster. I never much liked the Generation Game, I have found something inherently scary about Bruce Forsyth since I was a small child, but I am increasingly finding myself shouting the working Mum equivalent of "teasmaid, TV, hockey stick, cuddly toy" at my life as I desperately try to remember everything I need to do.

So, this morning, for the first time in my career I found myself late to a meeting. Not just a bit late, but full on halfanhourlateanditswithmybossandlotsofimportantpeopleshit late. The cause? My Blackberry broke last night. My life is now organised to the millisecond and if I don't have something to write it all down in and flash and vibrate at me violently to remind me to be somewhere then my life simply stops. Everything goes into my Blackberry, I even put my Sunday school teaching dates into it. Without it to organise my life I am lost.

My assistant called IT to get it fixed this morning, I couldn't bear to call and she had to prise my fingers off it. Someone came and took my broken little device away, and as I wept and made the man from IT to promise me that he wouldn't leave me on my own for too long, I realised the only option is to cancel all meetings for two days until I get the new one.