Oh damn, still in this dream.

Fred has her surgery tomorrow.
Fingers crossed.

She's told the kids she needs to have an operation in hospital and won't be around. Her mum is staying with her in Dulwich. I have the kids over this weekend and from Thursday next. It's all been a bit hectic, and, as with our separation, we've kept the kids in the dark about stuff. Who knew that parenting entailed such subterfuge and moral equivocation? But it seems that some information is best kept on a "need to know" basis, as we protect the kids from stuff they may not need to know if everything works out fine.

Stage 1 (b). Radical surgery and a lymph-node-ectomy, and maybe some radio and chemo. They got it early, thank the gods. Madame of course is caught in the bureaucratic void between private patients and the NHS. They don't talk much to each other. Paperwork isn't shared. Stuff can slip between the cracks. And it's just more hassle when she doesn't need it.

Anyway, I'll know more in the next few days.

Fred's waters broke at 5.30pm yesterday.

She was delivered of a baby boy by c-section at 10.31pm. Henry weighed in at 7 3/4lbs.

I got back to Dulwich at 3.30am. It is now almost 9am and I'm due back in the Hospital.

Go well and do good things.

Fred's bump is getting much bigger. We're about a month away from 'due' date, but I'm pretty certain any offspring of mine and SWMBO is liable to be pretty wilful, and not likely to appear to order. Premature, possibly; late, probably: but that's down to genes and environment.
Anyway, she's not having that easy a time in this last part of her pregnancy, poor love, but has a tendency to put on a brave face. Ergo, I'm having to learn 'anticipatory' skills which don't fit into my normal laid back/slightly slobbish behavioural habits acquired over many years self-indulgence. But Madame has at least made me civilised again. In the three years I have lived with her I have learnt that bedroom floors decorated with dirty washing are not a good look. I have learned the virtue of putting things back in their proper place (you can find them again). I know how to work the various white appliances about the kitchen. I can hang out washing, and have been known to cook.

However, ironing is still a skill I must yet master, but you can't have everything.

As an aside, our ante-natal class teacher told us we should get used to taking naps whenever and wherever possible. I shall endeavour to put this into practice on all occasions: it will be my mantra, and if such was good enough for Churchill, it's good enough for me. Time to practice my new regime I deem.

Firstly I've unlocked this entry for any on my f-list to see.

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com/206502.html

Secondly....

And in my dream my ancestors came to me and said that the child would be a daughter and I should name it for Parvati or one of her avatars.

Lalita.

So, if it's a girl child we will call it Lalita.

If it is a boy child Henry has the diminutive Harry and Hal, Ronald for my father and great-grandfather. Havelock is also a familial forename, but HRH may be pushing it a bit. Henry Ronald Gregson Barnes: four (or is it five?) generations from the House of Lords. Gregson comes from SWMBO's side.

All in all I'm beginning to hope it will be a girl child.

Yet another hugely busy weekend.

Next weekend looks even busier as SWMBO and I have to take care of  her Nephew and Niece as her Bro and Sister-in-law absent themselves for their Ten Year Anniversary celebration.

I shall try to be less grumpy than usual. So I'll have to work whatever curmudgeonliness out of my system by then.

Now, unusually, The Wife has never seen me play guitar live with a band. She's seen me in the studio, but.....

Anyway on Saturday afternoon I packed my tux and guitars and amps and kit, and she packed a LBD and we headed off to the Hunt Ball in Gloucestershire some ninety miles away. The fact that the first twenty or so miles were crossing London from East to West added about an hour to the journey. The function band had been recommended for the gig through Jezza Clarkson's Personal Assistant. Soundcheck was at 5.30pm. We rolled up (thanks to traffic) at about 5.45pm, but I was not the last to set up, which was a relief.

The venue was a big top in the middle of a field strewn with various kinds of animal manure, but that's horsey folk for you. As an aside, I never really took to riding. The Kid Bro rides a bit, but I just don't seem to have the temperament for it. I rode a bit as a youth, but preferred motorbikes which, like horses, can kill you; but at least don't seem to have a mind of their own.

Once soundchecked (big tops are bloody hard to get a decent sound in) the band went to get changed. We had a smaller tent as changing room. Frankie (the male lead singer) opined that The Wife looked a bit hot in the LBD, and thought she might be a trifle distracting to the chaps onstage, but I told him to get over it. We had our own table closest to the stage (thanks to the organisers - kudos to them) and were generally treated more like guests than 'staff', which is not always the case at these events.

Before supper, Martin, our leader, put the 'James Bond' album on over the PA. Brilliant. Almost immediately two hundred chaps in dinner jackets started adjusting their cuffs, standing up a little straighter, evidently lost in some child-like fantasy of....gawd-knows-what, really. I mean, honestly: why does it have that effect on chaps?

After the speeches, there was an auction, and I bid for a week in a holiday villa in Malta at the height of the holiday season next year; but due to my own ineptitude was pipped at the post. As it happens it went for 2K. Still, if I ever get a chance to see Valetta, and go to the island that was home to the Hospitallers, and won a George Cross during WWII, I'll jump at the chance.

Because of delays we didn't go onstage for the first set until just after 11pm. A ninety minute set followed which seemed to get everyone onto the dance floor. The Wife was, by this time, unescorted; as the band was onstage. When she got up to shake her stuff she was the subject of attention from a couple of chaps in their twenties, which must have been fun.

Coming offstage after the first set I complimented her on 'pulling'. She replied that the minute she'd mentioned that she was married to the guitarist in the band, they'd scuttled off, tout suite, as I believe the phrase to be. Where are these young chaps' manners these days? I am not likely to call 'em out (in the sense of pistols for two followed by coffee for one) for being charming to the Missus (disrespectful would be another matter, of course) and I wouldn't dream of spoiling her fun, but there you go.

After a twenty minute break we commenced the second set which went well. Well, that is apart from the solo to 'Beat It'. Of the eight measures of the EVH solo I screwed the first part of the sixth, which is one of the easier ones. But even that one mistake didn't spoil what was overall probably the best performances the band had given this year.

Offstage at 1.30am sharp (disappointing the crowd) thanks to the noise abatement people and the organisers. Packed and on the road by 2.15am. Back home in sunny Dulwich by 4.30am. Whereupon I spent another hour sitting on the loo while the food-poisoning I'd contracted from either something I'd eaten, or the amount of animal shit in the atmosphere, coursed through my gut.

I wonder if anyone else suffered similarly? Will take a straw-poll of the band and see if there were other sufferers.
We will have to host a function band Christmas Lunch this year. We haven't quite enough room for a sit-down if everyone brings spouses/partners, but we could do the old 'eat-on-your-lap' routine quite happily.

Sunday was spent recovering and watching telly.

The wife was v. impressed by the band. But I fear she is somewhat biased. Still, she'd seen Coldplay the night before at Wembley on a work shindig, so favourable comparisons weren't unwelcome, though they were unexpected. (Also, in general, dance bands play favourites from five decades or more, rather than trying to promote a new self-penned album....and Coldplay don't cover James Brown, Chic,  et al....or for that matter end with slightly raucous versions of 'The Boys are Back in Town', 'Lady Marmalade', or 'Sweet Home Alabama'.)