June 2009 Archives

It's that time of year again folks, time for the tennis-averse members of the community to pack up their tents and head down to Somerset for the Glastonbury Festival. However, with tickets at £175 apiece, the festival experience can be an expensive one.

This set me thinking ...

You see, the BBC provide radio and TV coverage of the event, so why waste time traipsing to Pilton when you can get a realistic Glastonbury experience IN YOUR OWN HOME!!!!!!! Just follow these simple steps to festival heaven.

1. Put the bathplug in the tub and set the taps running - in a matter of minutes water will be pouring over the sides and down through the floorboards into the living room - hey presto! Glasto rain! (chuck a tarp or plastic bag over the TV for good measure)

2. Empty the soil out of all the pot plants in your living room onto the carpet, combined with the water from Step #1 this will create your very own Pilton quagmire - getting that feeling of "being there" yet?

3. Superglue the toilet door closed with your incontinent, partially-sighted aunt on the inside  - pretty soon, the combination of a tiny bladder and inability to see properly will result in urine surging under the bog door. For extra authenticity, employ your kids/nephews to hammer on the door of the loo shouting "get a fucking move on, I'm busting!"

4. Ask your partner to prepare some partially cooked beefburgers and kebabs (particularly effective if Auntie Lil is still in the 'cloakroom'). Don't expect instant results but after a couple of hours you'll be vomiting like a professional.

5. Turn up the TV and stereo so loud the sound dissolves into static causing haemorrhaging from your ears and possibly eyes.

6. Ask the bloke from next door to pop round every half an hour and charge you £50 for a bag of sherbet and/or basil leaves...

7. Buy a tent, then steal it from yourself and insist on sleeping in the mud and piss on the living room floor each night.

And there you have it! After three days, emerge from your house covered in sick, puke, Aunt Lil's pee and gobbets of mud. Feel free to tell everyone what a "banging time" you had, how it was "the shit" and how you can't wait to stay at home and do it all again next year.

No need to thank me festival goers, I suggest it because I care ...

Today was egg transfer day for us, for the non IVF-aware it's where the doctors implant fertilised embryos back into Elly in the hope they'll 'stick' and go on to become babies.

Usually it's quite a hopeful day, we get to say hello to what may become our future kids and we get a positive gee-up from the medical team just in time for the dreaded two-week wait - in two weeks time we'll know if the treatment has worked or not.

In the past, we've always asked for photos of the embryos - it might seem like a small thing but to us it's really important, after weeks of drugs, pain and misery for Elly, travel and a considerable amount of expense. Given the odds of the treatment working it might well be our only contact with the embryos.

Today, we also asked for photos, but the embryologist at the Shady Grove Fertility Centre was too busy and forgot - thanks very much for that. Is it really too much to ask for one damned photo?

I realise the medical staff are busy, I realise they deal with a lot of patients but, to be selfish for once, I don't care. This is *our* baby and when we put so much time, effort, money and emotion into this procedure I *expect* certain things to happen - even when they seem inconsequential to others - we're not having the oil changed in the car for Christ's sake, this is important to me and Elly.

I'm furious.