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I’ve discovered that the real menace of being at home during the day is not the danger of ending up watching the human bear-baiting that is day time television, but cold calling of the phone call variety.

Just to set the scene, I’m extremely pregnant, our stairs are very narrow and very steep, and I have two very young excitable cats who want their lunch.

A few moments ago I was just upstairs doing a spot of tidying when the phone rang. The phone in the bedroom needs charging so I had to go down stairs into the dining room to answer it. While I went down at a reasonable pace, my two very hungry cats went down with me, between my legs so they could take up their places in the kitchen to do the chorus of “No we’ve never been fed, we’ve never seen food”.

Additionally I have a very elderly grandmother in the US, and my husband also has not quite so elderly but nonetheless frail relatives, so it might not be outside the realms of probability that we might be called to tell us that someone was taken very ill.

So I was exceedling annoyed to find that it was Accident Helpline calling to see if I had suffered an accident in the last 2 to 3 years. Gritting my teeth I said that we were not interested and hung up. In retrospect of course I could have pointed out that in calling the house, and with me in my condition and with cats as pingly as they are I could have very easily just have sustained a nasty fall down a narrow stairs on to a hard tiled floor, and that they would be the ones getting sued.

We live in a No Cold Calling zone this covers people coming to the door soliciting for business not telephone calls, but we are also on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS, no not that TPS) which means that these businesses should not be phoning us.

Last week at 9pm, if you can believe it, I got a phone call from BT trying to get us to take up a VISA(!) card with them. This, I was told, was in a effort to retain us as customers(!!). Again the teeth gritted and I said I wasn’t interested. Asked why, I bluntly stated that I had a credit card and I made a point of only having one as I didn’t require an additional one.

Of course I have no idea if other calls of this nature were attempted when I was working, they never came on the two days that I was at home. I could start to become paranoid that this is an attempt to cause me to abandon my plans to be a stay-at-home mum and concentrate on my jewellery business, and return to a nice safe office where no one will call me trying to sell me credit cards and other dubious services I neither want nor require.

Its been a while since the last kitty picture, so here is one of Sophy taken a few days ago.

She likes to sleep on the back of the sofa just behind me. Her eyes are closed, she has some wonderfully unusual colouring just above her eyes, her high beams and low beams as well refer to them.

If I am watching something on television, and yes it is during the day but not human bear-baiting, rather it is usually an episode of Poirot that I have recored on the MythTV, she tends to sit on the bean slab in front of the set where she can get a good view.

It certainly didn’t surprise me to read an article today, on the BBC News website of course, to the effect that many foods which claim to contain fruit or to be fruit based actually contain very little or none of the particular fruit in question. For instance, some Strawberry bars are mostly Apple-based - which is a pain if you are massively allergic to Apples.

But really, hasn’t it been a long running joke that many fruit foods, either contain so little fruit, and perhaps if you are lucky have been shown a picture of their main ingredient… or not as the case maybe.

I can’t say I was entirely shocked to read that Angel Delight (cue my husband’s impression of “mm strawberry flavour!”) has absolutly nothing to do with Strawberries… I mean come on, everyone knows that Angel Delight is a completely alien substance that probably first made it to planet earth in 1947. Those colours just can’t be found in nature

Also does it contain Angels? Do we have written evidence that the product has been found to be delightful by Angels? Why do I think of the line from 1066 And All That… “Not Angels but Angles” I am sure that it delights the children of East Anglia as well as elsewhere. 

Although, some of the companies did point out that their products are labeled as ‘Fruit Flavoured’ which isn’t necessarily the same as saying ‘Flavoured with Fruit’ or ‘Flavoured with the fruit you’d expect to get that fruit’s flavour.’ Even the Angel Delight advertisement, doesn’t say “Mmm flavoured with (actual) strawberries”.

Maybe this has to do with the fact that unless you are really lucky, most Strawberries don’t really taste much of Strawberry (or what we expect them to taste like - which now will probably be like Apples, the Chicken of the fruit world), and that usually it’s the dinky little variety that have the nicest flavour rather than the iconic plump ones which are mostly water.

Now, don’t get me wrong I’m all for truth in advertising but I can’t say that any of this is news to me.

There is also the point to be made that sometimes the use of an actual fruit or extract of the fruit might mean that the product isn’t possible to make. For instance I believe it is Pineapples that can’t be added to jelly since the juices/chemical makeup of the fruit actually prevent the gelatin form setting. In fact I  find the freeze-dried real fruit pieces as can be found in Special K far more disturbing than a fruit flavour from alternative sources…. 

Next we will be reading that the ‘Chocolate Flavour’ fondant on Eclairs and powder for instant Cappucinos have never so much as seen a cocoa bean.

Also, off on a complete tangent, why are many education stories on the BBC website illustrated with images of legs? These images were for stories relating to teachers unable to maintain discipline and 71% of students admitting to bullying respectively..

We are off again to London today with Jon’s  mum and step-dad for what will probably be our last pre-natal trip out. Last week we went to see the little performed Iolanthe (which is a shame as it is an excellent G&S show and hardly dates at all) which was wonderfully done. However the Geilgud theatre is tiny and believe it or not there are some people who will not even stand up to let a heavily pregnant woman move to her seat.  This was a bit surprising to me, but given than an older gentleman had physically pushed me  (two hands on my back) to one side in the foyer was he came up behind me while saying “Excuse me” I should have been forewarned that it was going to be ‘one of those days.’

Surprisingly, or was it?, it was a woman who felt that she couldn’t possibly stand up to let me past so I could get to my seat - and as I can’t very well, suck it in I proceeded to bump my bump all along the seats, which when you are carrying mostly baby isn’t very pleasant.

At the interval when I again needed to visit the ladies’ I made a point of not even attempting to move past her until she had her strop and stood up, and as usual I very politely said “Pardon me, Thank you!” Which I do make a point of doing. I sometimes think that younger people need to set an example for people prone to later-middle-aged strops.

At least today we are seeing the ENO’s Black and White production of the Mikado at the Coliseum which we’ve been to many times and is a large venue so hopefully there shouldn’t be too much trouble getting around.

Of course since I’ve gotten even bigger than I was last week I’m sure we will have more looks of ‘Is she about to give birth?’ as we did last week much to my mother-in-law’s amusement.

Jon has been struck by this with a week of G&S mania, whistling slightly off kilter themes from various shows (not too bad given that he is a bit tone deaf), reading my book with all the libretti and generally being silly. However we did have a break yesterday evening as he was kept busy playing with the new Bugaboo Bee stroller.