Book

So, no rape post.  BUt here’s something light and fluffy, from Amanda’s blog!

1. Grab the nearest book. If you are currently reading something, that’ll be fine too.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your Blog along with these instructions.

5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet I know that is what you were thinking!

Page 123 only says Letter No. 15 for me so I’ll skip to page 125, which is the next page with substantial text.

"Mr. Darcy tells me the estate has been well run but lacks the capital to modernise and make those improvements which will be necessary to ensure a profitable undertaking.  In short, he considers it to be an excellent proposition and approves wholeheartedly.  I understand Mr. Bingley’s enthusiasm is the equal of my dear Husband’s, so let us hope that there will be no obstacles to bar the way, for I am quite set on the idea that you and I will be no more than thirty miles apart in the future.

While the gentlemen were gone from home, Kitty, Mary and I paid a visit to the Norlands’ cottage one morning, then all together we continued on to Hurstbourne Park where we were invited to dine…"

From Letters From Pemberley:The First Year; A continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice by Jane Dawkins, sent to me two Christmases ago by my secret santa.  Thanks, secret santa!  I read it often.  It’s not as much Darcy as I would like to get, but rarely do good stories carry on as long as the reader would wish.  I pace myself with favourite books by reading only as many pages as time permits while putting the baby to sleep; sometimes I barely get half a paragraph done, others I can manage chapters.  If I’m nearing the end of a book I’ll read softly to the little one; the jury (that is, Mark and I) still can’t agree on whether it puts baby to sleep because he finds it soothing, or boring.  It was the same question when his first kick of the pregnancy ocurred during the proposal scene at Hunsford, right when Darcy was insisting "You must allow me to tell ou how ardently I admire and love you."

My parents will be here shortly, and we’re goingt o take the opportunity to leave the sleepy baby here so we can go and test drive a car.  Yay, cars!  Not.  I hate cars.  I should be able to fly instead.

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I have had a miserable 36 hours – my devil spawn from hell baby is having one of those ‘growth spurts’ which in reality is his way of increasing my milk supply.  As a consequence, he is feeing every two hours.  For those of you not in the lactating know, this means for example that he feeds at, say, 5pm-5:30, then a nappy change, then some ‘playtime’ and then if I’m lucky he’ll sleep for forty minutes, then he wakes again for a feed.  Sometimes he doesn’t sleep, so I feed him back to back.  Or sometimes he won’t go to sleep without being fed to sleep, so in effect I will feed every hour.

Also, he’s clingy and won’t let me put him down, so him hanging out in the rocker is not an option because he just snorts and fusses and cries till I pick him up.

The best bit? Mark’s away till tomorrow, so for the last 36 hours I basically have been attached to the child.  My arms ache, my back hurts, and I am groggy from lack of sleep.  This is the first time I’ve had to deal with a really difficult day when I’m alone.  I was soooo tempted to undertake the four hour drive to get to Mark last night, I was in such bad shape.  Today I am suffering the lethargy of resignation, but my mother arrives on the train in about half an hour so I have to go and pick her up.  I hope the baby will consent to being held by her so I can, you know, eat.  All I’ve eaten in the last 24 hours are four gluten-free orange and poppyseed biscuits.  They were yum, but Not A Meal.

Something of substance: if I get the time I want to write a post about rape, but specifically about Sheik al Hilaly, his comments, and last night’s Insight on SBS.  But that requires brain, and brain requires more sustenance than gluten-free biscuits.