Day 16* - Oh my god, I'm pregnant!!!!

I know I have been quiet. Quietly incubating the cell balls, as calmly as possible getting through the infamous 2 week wait to precisely THIS morning. Pregnancy test time!!!

It was weird - I've done these in the past, normally with almost no hope that the two lines would eventually come up, feeling incapable of imagining that one day they actually would. So in the run-up to this morning I couldn't quite imagine it. On the other hand, I was feeling so happy and optimistic that I couldn't quite imagine that it hadn't worked either. Whenever I brought my attention into my belly I found this huge smile spreading over my face and a small bubbles of excitement rising up. I kept trying very hard the last two weeks not to read too much into that, just so I wouldn't be quashed with disappointment. I kept carefully tracking the odd moments of nausea, one instance of lower back pain, sore nipples, knowing fully well they could all be good signs, but they could also be side effects from the high dose progesterone supplements.

So this morning came. If it hadn't been for all the excitement and nerves, the beautiful morning sun of a perfect day would have tickled me awake anyway by 6 o'clock. I woke my beloved next to me - not having passed out on the sofa at 10.30 like I had, he wasn't quite so sprightly yet. We climbed down to the living room, he unwrapped the test stick for me and off I went armed with my morning me. I capped it, came back to the living room, put it on the table and covered it with the instructions. We timed: 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. I really didn't want to pull the paper away, steeling my mind for seeing a single line. I took a deep breath and did it! There they were two fat pink lines - the test line even fatter than the control. "Oh my god!!!!" I think was what I said and "Our cell balls rule!" Tears shot into my eyes and I was laughing. P. just very quietly went "Wow!", not quite able to take it in yet.

So at this point, I also want to say "wow!" and a big thank you to all who have willed us and the cell balls on! We are of course mindful that it's early days yet and of course your good wishes are always deeply appreciated. xxxx

Day 5* - cell balls coming home!

Wow! Wow! Wow! Our cell balls rule! They've been dividing beautifully ever since day 1. Yesterday four of the six were reaching blastocyst stage and are ready to transfer today. It is around this time that naturally fertilised blastocysts would also implant in the womb i.e. any IVF embryos that have made it this far have a really good chance of implanting. So today we're having two transferred. It took the full five days of reading and talking until we decided we were definitely going with two. Funny actually, I was stressing because I was sure P. would opt for just one and completely surprised when he also thought we should go with two!

So in a couple of days time I could be pregnant - not that I'll know it for another 10 days or so, but I could be. It's actually a strange thought to get my head around after all this time. I don't think it fully hit me until I bought the pregnancy tests yesterday. It suddenly feels like there's a whole new strange life potentially ahead of us. P.'s been getting it too. He's been talking about getting a grip at work (rather than having it as easy as possible) and yesterday he called me out of the blue about a bigger flat he'd seen online. We spent half the evening looking at estate agents website and school reports to see where we should or shouldn't move to. Before you worry - yes, this may look premature, but I really believe that this is just a question of time now. I don't mean believe in a magical kind of way, but simply based on scientific probability.

How strange, how strange! Tonight I'll be back on this sofa with two little cell balls in my womb, urging them to lie back and get comfortable. I've considered reading German books to them - a little strange and ineffective as my husband pointed out - but it'll make me happy :-)

Day 1* - 6 of 9 :-)

Oodles of follicles yielded 9 happy eggs yesterday! Sounds like they made the consultant work for his money. I'm not surprised, they've always taken that attitude with me. This morning 6 of them have fertilised - my beautiful non-smoking, non-drinking, veggie husband's sperm did a great job (somewhat to his quiet pleasure). From here on, the embryologist will call us everyday to keep us informed of their progress. If they keep growing well we take them through to day 5 on Tuesday. They will then be at blastocyst stage and have an optimum chance of implanting.

I'm still a little tense about their progress, but also very, very pleased! Even if it doesn't all work this cycle, at least we know that the technique works for us in principle, which is more than I was expecting. Patience is one thing I've learnt from this experience. What is more, I've learnt that I'm not always the best judge of when it's the right time for something to happen in my life. If I'd got pregnant quickly and easily four years ago, I would have missed out on so much and I certainly wouldn't be the person I am now. I'd be alright for sure, but I really like THIS version of me.

I could write a lot about the experience of the egg collection day, but I can't see the point. It was quite untraumatic, I slept through the exciting bit and today my ovaries ache (nothing the paracetamol can't deal with). There are plenty of in depth fertility journals out there and they are excellent, helpful and at times traumatic to read. So this is really all I want to say today. 6 out of 9 - fucking well done you guys! Keep on going in that incubator. You have no idea how many people are rooting for you and dying to see what a quirky little gene combo you may turn out to be!

Day 41 - Egg collection day!

It's still early. I've just had my final glass of water before the surgery, replied to my best friend's warm good luck wishes and now I'm waiting. It's egg collection day. Today we're making babies. That's if all goes well and each of the many little steps required to come together just perfectly does its bit. Wow!

In my mind's image of this morning I definitely didn't expect to feel this excited or this positive. My ambivalence seems to have evaporated and so has my pessimistic defence. I could of course worry about all that may or may not happen, and yes, there is some of that going on, but I keep coming back to the excited feeling in my stomach. Today, we're making babies...

Butterfly

Do you believe in souls? I don't know if I do. I lie. I do. Admitting to it is a different matter. But in my most secret, most loving, most estrogen-intoxicated thoughts I find this:

Come this way lttle butterfly,
Come here to us,
And I promise you
You'll find the most marvellous flower,
Waiting only
For you to come home
And land in the dew
Of my sweet warm happy tears.

Day 36 - a great day :-)

Today the fertility nurse smiled at me.
"I like it when you smile," I said.
Eight beautifully maturing eggs on my left ovary; the right one was hiding as usual. Did you know they move around? You'd have thought your organs would stay put where they belong. Well, not that one!

I'm feeling so happy today. Lack of response or hyperstimulation had been such spectres on my IVF wall that maybe, hopefully having bypassed both would leave me thrilled. It's hard not to get overexcited and drift off into the kind of baby fantasies that I haven't been allowing myself. Thinking of names, wondering what a child of ours may look like. Can't stop smiling and cradling my bloated aching belly. You go girls, keep going!

Day 35

A better scan yesterday. It looks like things are starting to move. Enough certainly for the next scan to be booked in for tomorrow. We're not there yet, but what a relief! I've actually started to feel the ache in my ovaries for the first time.

On a low day on Tuesday I started reading people's online IVF diaries, just hoping to find other cases where the stimulation had been this slow. I actually didn't find any, but I did find plenty of detailed descriptions of the physical symptoms this process brings with it. I was shaking my head on reading how much people can overinterpret every little twinge. Now here I am, not being so different. I can't help but notice how often reason tells me one thing, but emotional reaction another. I feel glad to be able to hold both, without letting them negate one another.

Today is also the first day that I feel contented to be vanilla for a little while. This process is the centre of my attention now. Even before my body started feeling so tender, I myself started feeling tender enough to want safety, indulgence and pleasure rather than boundary pushing wildness. I feel so blessed to have friends and lovers that care enough about me to bear with me here rather than disappear from my life. I feel even more blessed to have found my wicked, playful side and to know that I will never lose that again.

Day 31 - not a great day

Ah, what do I say?! I just flew through the most epic weekend to this morning's scan, not even thinking or worrying about it much. Definitely a great strategy. My husband thinks I should write "The slut's IVF survival guide". However, that didn't help me much when it came to the actual scan this morning. Still only a minor response :-(. The consultant thinks it's too risky to put the dose up any more, so I am to continue on the existing dose for the next 4 days before we check again.

In my head I'm telling myself that's really ok. It doesn't matter how long it takes. The pencilled in date for egg collection on Thursday was just that - a pencilled in date. I always knew this wouldn't be straightforward and was more likely NOT to work. But maybe hidden underneath that was more hope than I wanted to admit to. Otherwise I wouldn't now be worrying what will happen what I don't ever respond on this dose - whether that will be IT already, without ever having got to a single embryo. Patience now feels like a bigger ask than three days ago. Sometimes I wished I could cry more easily. This edge of tears feeling is just tiring, let's just cry and get some catharsis. But that's not how I am and I can't force it - any more than I can force my ovaries to respond.

Day 28 - patiently waiting

So it was D-day yesterday, well first scan day, anyway. It all didn't start to well with a train cancellation and a mildly stressful drive to the clinic. I'd prepared myself for whatever outcome. I was perfectly aware that we'd started with a low dose of hormone, so as not to overstimulate me dangerously. As it was we'd barely stimulated me at all. But that's ok, there's no rush. We've upped the dose now and I'll have another scan on Monday. I thought I took it just fine, calmly and realistically - until I talked to someone in the evening who'd just lost his 22-year old daughter, never really having known her. Ah, daughters you may never know and the broken-heartedness that brings.

I'd managed to distract myself very successfully by having a drinks date with a potential dom on the night before the scan and a beautiful evening with my lover the night before. Unfortunately, both ended up shooting me in the foot somewhat - emotionally anyway. My lover really wants to see me next week and I very much want to see her and drink from that crazy happy state. However next week could be extraordinarily difficult for me. I don't know what it is I'll be needing in advance. I don't want to hurt her, especially as she's not used to being with a polyamorous lover, but I also don't want to hurt me or stress me more than I'll be able to handle. Delicately honest communication was the best I could do - the best anyone can ever do. I hope it was  enough.

With the dom - oh gosh, where do I start? It was fun and I really got very enthusiastic on the night, but I had some underlying uneasy feeling. It might be a bit to do with the boundary-pushing nature of the things he was proposing, but more with a lack of warmth I was feeling. I'm not good at saying "no" to people, especially if I've been very enthusiastic with them. More difficult communication! We've since talked about the affection question (sigh, he's also not used to playing with a poly) and maybe we just need to talk some more in person. Two difficult conversations and one disappointing scan - all a little too much for yesterday.

Guilty secret: subscription to "Conversations with God"

I have to confess to a guilty little secret of an entirely unsexual nature. I subscribe to Neale Donald Walsh's daily "What God wants you to know" messages and I absolutely love them. Below is today's message and it's so pertinent to yesterday's post, that I'll reproduce it below:

On this day of your life, dear friend, I believe God wants you to know...

...that safety is not the thing you should look for in the

future. Joy is what you should look for.

Security and joy may not come in the same package.

They can...but they also cannot.  There is no

guarantee.

If your primary concern is a guarantee of security,

you may never experience the truest joys of life.

This is not a suggestion that you become reckless,

but it is an invitation to at least become daring.

Day 25 - Life, wildly unpredictable

Gosh, day 25 already and barely keeping up with the writing. I’m pleased to report that my low mood didn’t last more than a couple of days. On the upswing I went a little wild! The “is this really wise” voice in my head sits there shaking her head at me, but I’m running with it. After all, only a couple more days and this will all get much more serious, as I’m about to find out whether the stimulating regime is doing anything at all. I might calm down a little then.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to cause somewhat of a stir by engaging in oral sex with my friend at a small local fetish night and then having the gall to complain on a forum that everybody else was basically boring. Well, I didn’t put it that way – I’m far too politely constructive for that. I didn’t quite expect the debate that ensued. If there’s one thing I’m not in every day life, then it’s controversial! Interesting experience!

On the weekend I had a coffee date with a potential dom guy who was entirely lovely but who I didn’t really feel any chemistry with, to both our disappointment. Maybe I should have described the St. Paul’s guy to him – who was easily the most beautiful man I have ever had sex with, but with whom there simply wasn’t much of a spark either. Just a little later that evening however, I managed to completely fall for a girl who I’d never have predicted I’d fall for and found myself bursting with chemistry and spiritual connection, all in such a short space of time. I hardly got any sleep that night, had to stumble home in the morning for my injections and got to work very late! I’ve never actually met someone by chance before and then just spent the night. That may surprise you, but I have been with my man for 17 years and our swinging has had much more defined parameters. I don’t know where this is going to go yet or how long it may last, especially at a time when the voice is telling me I should play life safe. I’m probably just facing up to the fact that I’m essentially polyamorous. Meanwhile, this hasn’t really stopped me looking for a dom either. One I’m having drinks with tomorrow and another is driving me plain insane with his messages.

All of this – the emotion and the d/s flirtation - is bringing memories of Him back to me. He’s now seemingly a Dad. I thought that would upset me, but actually I found myself feeling a warm glow for all three of them. I’m guessing the last thing that they’ll need now is to be reminded of me, but if you’re still reading this: “Congratulations, I’m so pleased for you! He’s just as beautiful as his parents! I wish you all very, very well!” Ah, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’ll be us soon. Incidentally, finding this out was probably my last act of cyber-stalking you. We barely ever go to the club where we met anymore, so you can relax, there should be no difficult meetings and certainly no bunny-boiler incidents. One day I’ll write my book, you can sue me then ;-) Meanwhile I hope you keep well and fortune favours your cards. xxxx

Day 18 or: swinging moods are less fun than swinging

After an intense, debauched and slightly mad weekend, the mood swings have finally caught me. That seems fair enough, given that I had a fairly easy ride of it until now. Yesterday I could have cried pretty much all day. I thought perhaps I was just extra sensitive and there were a couple of things preying on my mind. But even after sorting those out, even after getting through the tension of an appointment at the fertility clinic, even after buying myself a new handbag (SUCH a girl these days), I still wanted to cry. My favourite dacryphile would have had a field day.

On the bright side - all the baseline results at the clinic were absolutely fine. Even my marathon period was easily explained by the hormonal suppressors that make their way under my skin each morning. Now I've got a fridge full of expensive human recombinant FSH (that's "follicle stimulating hormone" for the non-endocrinologists and the guys), sitting between the lettuce and the ready-made pizza. Saturday then. Saturday is the day when we start stimulating. I'll be counting my way through FSH vials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 right up to the next scan.

With every little step along the way this feels a little more real. I had made a conscious decision to separate this whole process entirely from the possible outcome i.e. I deliberately don't think about the fact that this is about me having a baby. Seems weird? Straight self-protection - otherwise the expectation, the hope and the potential for devastation becomes too great. But it's becoming less easy. Every time I go to the clinic and see the photo gallery of their success stories, every day that passes that's getting me closer to having to look at my follicles on a fuzzy ultrasound screen, it's getting more difficult. I don't even hate the photo gallery any more, like I did at our first visit - now it just makes me want to cry. I know, everything makes me want to cry, but it's a sign that my defensiveness is eroding and giving way to longing once more. That's a good thing, a painful thing, but a good thing.

Day 13 - and I'm swinging!

Day 13 - that bloody period has finally stopped!!! Still no hot flashes or mood swings, but extraordinarily horny!
I had actually said that I wouldn't swing during the IVF process at all. I didn't know how the drugs were going to affect me and I thought I should take it easy, concentrate on the process. But I'm really fine at the moment and right now the sum total of the process is one injection each morning. With lots of exciting erotic opportunities manifesting themselves, let's just make the most out of it NOW! Who knows how I'll feel once I start on the stimulating drugs in another week or so.

At the back of my mind I know I'm fighting a bigger fight - I'm proving too myself and the world that I can do this and still live, still be happy and excited irrespective of the question whether the IVF will work or not. I'm also fighting the idea that I need to be a slave to this child already - in complete denial of any of my other needs. If this works, I may just eat my words on the day when I don't want to exist for anything other than my child. But today is not that day.

Wild Geese - on not getting with the program

Day 9 – no hot flashes so far, no tears, horny as hell and still on that period! For somebody who rarely ever gets them, this is becoming a bit annoying. In reality, this does of course mask some traces of concern, but I’ll give it a couple of days before I call the clinic.

Meanwhile, this seems like a good time to put into writing some of the thoughts that have been crystallising themselves over the last year or so. I guess it doesn’t get any more profound than talking about the purpose of life. Note that I didn’t say “the meaning of life”, I have no idea about that one, I mean the purpose that you put your life to.

In many ways, if it hadn’t been for my infertility, it would have been so easy to get with the program. School (check), university (check), PhD (check), build a career (check??), take a break to get pregnant, have a baby, arrange expensive childcare, work your arse off during the day to continue your career, see your child evenings and weekends, give up on anything else until your child is much older (have at least one more child along the way). I’m rapidly running out of checked boxes there.

When you drop out of the program and it isn’t by choice, you’ve really got two options: you feel bad about it or you decide to make your own. Actually, it’s far from simple – I’ve in the past spent an inordinate amount of time feeling bad about it until I eventually started to appreciate the joy of being free from that pre-set plan. But that’s ok – it’s an existential crisis, it’s allowed to be messy. I see people in this kind of crisis all the time. It's always tough, but if the opportunity in the crisis can be grasped, much can be gained. It’s a beautiful feat of human spirit.

Where am I in all this? Sometimes I think I’m still somewhere in the messy bit. In some areas of my life, I’m still living in the tattered remnants of the program, even if they don’t really fit me now. Yes, it’s work I’m talking about. But isn’t that perhaps another trap? The concept that your career has to be the focus of your life? I can tell you exactly what the focus of my life has been lately! Being a sexual adventuress and writing about it suits me just fine, no other focus needed. I would be very surprised if I didn’t lie on my deathbed one day thinking back fondly to that time.

But what about some kind of lasting legacy? Did this make a contribution to humanity? I don’t know! It made a few people quite happy. Perhaps it was even a tiny jigsaw piece in the continuing movement towards sexual liberation. Is yet another research paper in a journal that nobody reads any more of a contribution? I’d rather have a few thousand people read one of my literotica stories to be honest. And if we’re truly honest about it? Who ever gets to make one of those big lasting contributions anyway? Beyond the people you’ve known and touched personally in some way, who really will remember you? So if I don’t get to live on in my children or in any other lasting legacy, then perhaps I just don’t get to live on beyond my life. Maybe that’s ok? Isn’t that enough? More than enough even? Isn't it enough to make a conscious effort to LIVE your life at least? I’ll let another poet say it better than I can:

Wild Geese 
You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

Copyright Mary Oliver Online source

Poetry of sorts: That one wild summer

That one wild summer
I will never forget that one wild summer.
Sharp and fresh as a blade of grass,
Cutting pale skin,
A single drop of blood trailing in its wake.
Can anything ever touch it?

"All comparison is lovelessness",
Says Teresa of Aquila.
What would she know of simple human passion?
What would she know of forbidden messages,
Of jumping in the car, abandoning work
At a single word from him.
Arriving at his door,
Moist,
Breathless,
Scared,
Aroused already by his words.
What's it going to be, my darling slut?
Unbearable sweetness?
Delicious cruelty?

You are asking me to be a saint,
Not to recall the sharp flavours of that summer, 

Asking me not to miss
Every second of that pure wild existence.

Sometimes I think you ask too much.
You say you ask for my own good.
But I know good,
It's not what you think.

And so it begins (Day 3)

Today I've learnt how to inject myself - not something I'd have thought I might ever have to know, but there you go. They even gave me my own miniature sharps bin - how weird!

What am I talking about? Well, today we've officially started our first IVF cycle. We've boarded the train, the show is on the road or whatever other mental image you might be able to conjure for a process that's now more or less out of my control. In the end, day 1 (or strictly day 3) arrived pretty quickly, paradoxically so after all these months of waiting. Not that I did much waiting in the end - much adventuring, much fucking, but not so much waiting. Wise move, I think.

I was asked whether I felt nervous and although I replied that I was shitting myself, actually I don't feel it today. Mentally I've decided to worry about this one step at a time. So for now, if I'm concerned about anything, it's about drug number one, Buserelin. That's the one that's intended to shut my own hormonal system down altogether and that might just bring me an early flavour of what it's like to hit menopause. It had better not mess with my libido too much or I'll be distinctly unimpressed! Anyway, let's do drug number one for a couple of weeks and then we worry about the serious stuff. But honestly, I'm far too tired today to worry much about anything. They told me that I might feel tired and tearful on the Buserelin, but actually I'm a bit fragile today anyway - minus the Buserelin. Perhaps it's just coming off the week's worth of artificial progesterone into my first period in 9 months that's knocked me out, the evil crampy bitch, or perhaps I'm also still hungover from my Sunday of depravity with Banshee girl. In any case, I'm just about ready for my sofa, a hot water bottle and a good dose of Stieg Larrson.  I've not felt this particular internal state for a little while - very, very soft with a big desire to take care of myself. All that rebellious edginess that's been my near constant companion since last spring - it's completely in the background right now. This particular girl - she's an old familiar friend. You know, I think I actually quite like her...

Cherry Blossom Tattoo - as promised

Poetry: Dark Angel

Dark Angel

Who were you?

Just some figment of my imagination?

I don’t know.

If only,

If only I knew.

It was as though the shadows from the deepest corners of my soul

Came to life

To walk the earth,

Just for some brief time,

Became flesh,

Became warm skin, and bones, and lips, and hair.

Sometimes I think

I fell in love with my own creation,

Only saw what I wanted to see.

Who were you?

What did I see in you?

Was it even real?

Or was it altogether different?

Did you show me something of you,

No one had ever seen?

Not even you.

So that in the end we were

Two dark angels meeting in the night.

Nothing left now

But the whisper of wings,

Receding in the distance.

Spring blossoming

Ah, I love coming home! I've always blamed being a Cancerian, but I just am a bit of a home maker. Wherever I've lived, I've made the place my own. It speaks of me more than I ever do in words - that's unless I'm writing. It's my harbour, my haven, the place I return to to recuperate and rest.

It's all the more beautiful to have returned back here in the spring time. Nature seems to have advanced in leaps and bounds since we left a couple of weeks ago. With the arrival of spring sunshine, my internal sunshine seems to have firmly taken hold inside me. Thank goodness! I had some fear that returning would bring back some of the pain I left loitering here those few weeks ago, but somehow that's not happened. I've not had the slightest inclination to play poker and that raw feeling in my chest seems to have dissipated at last. I test myself of course - to check if it's quite real. I do the difficult things like read his old messages, listen to his voice recordings. For the first time I actually felt nothing much. Time to move on.

Perhaps quite fittingly I had my Cherry Blossom Tattoo done yesterday. 3 hours of solid work have left a beautifully gnarled branch grow up my entire left side with dark pink blossom blooming and petals falling. It is fantastic work, I never dared to hope it would come out so well, despite the comprehensive collage I'd left the artist with for her design. It's so stunning I can't help sneaking peeks at it whenever I go past a mirror, never mind it still being covered in cling film. So why the Cherry Blossom? On a simple level: I just fell in love with it. I'd played with a girl with the most delicate feminine tattoos and been inspired to have more myself. On the hunt for flowery tattoo motives, I found it - the most amazing image of a woman's body half covered in cherry blossom. Only after that did I read about its two-fold meaning. In Japanese tradition, the Cherry Blossom stands symbolic for life and its transient and finite nature. A cherry tree flowers briefly with vigour and beauty for a mere few short weeks. Everything ends, everything changes. It reads as an encouragement to me to savour those precious moments and it also reminds me that moments of pain also end, as surely as the petals must fall. In Chinese herbal lore (although I only ever seem to find this fact on tattoo websites), the cherry blossom is apparently a symbol of feminine beauty, power and sexuality. Well, let that be an unsubstantiated reference, but there is something in the darkness of the wood against my pale skin and the pink-red tone of the delicate blossom that expresses that state of being just the One Girl perfectly: sexual, sensual, loving, fierce. Perhaps all the more so, as I remember the pain and the blood that magicked this beauty onto my body. I won't forget this in a hurry.

PS: Yes, you will get a photo - when it's healed!

Germany - fleeting family meetings and encounters with German police

With all the myths about German efficiency, you would have thought that the German leg of our journey would have been a fairly smooth one. You would also be very much mistaken.
It all started to get excessively eventful when we came off the ferry that ships the train across from Danish Zealand to the North German coast. The delay just crept up and up and up and making our connection in Hamburg became a very questionable prospect. But we were lucky and nudged into Hamburg with just minutes to spare. I flew down the stairs to the platform, just as the connecting train drew in perfectly on time. A quick glance at the departure board told me it was actually 20 minutes late. This didn't quite compute, but hell I was just glad I was on it. We'd just settled in our seats when the excessively jolly conductor informed us that a lorry had just crashed into a railway bridge en route and that we would be delayed for at least 30 minutes. 30 minutes soon became 80 minutes and we eventually crawled into my home town at a quarter to one in the morning. It was a school night for my family, so we took a taxi to my sister's place and snook into a sleeping house to find a lovely note, much gorgeous food and a freshly made bed. I grumble about family at times, but at moments like that I love them without an ounce of reserve!
When we awoke the next morning everyone was already gone for work and school. I can only imagine how much restraint it must have cost my 9 year old nephew to see our shoes and not wake us. At least we saw my sister briefly, as she popped back from work to take us to the station for a midday train. I only see my folks a few times each year, so passing through like this, barely touching, felt strange, but was also an interlude of warmth and comfort that leaves me with a warm glow. After all, hero stories are best shared around the hearth and a good adventurer will value her welcome.

Denmark!

After 22 hours of near continuous train travel we have traversed the entire length of Sweden and made it to Copenhagen! Signal failure shortly before Malmo temporarily threatened all our carefully coordinated plans, but in the end we even managed to squeeze onto the competely oversubscribed onward train to Hamburg.

Around us is a babble of different European languages. Across from us an Italian gentleman and a French couple, a Dutch guy further down, snippets of Liverpudlian drifting down the aisle. Before you ask: no, I don't think that's a recognised European language. Plenty of Danish people of course and, needless to say, the omnipresent German pensioner, never far from any tourist destination and instantly recognisable from their own brand of frumpy waterproof, known in my and other German families fittingly as the "anorak". And then there's us of course, thinking of ourselves as arrogantly unclassifiable and having descended into our private brand of Deutschlish, as we sometimes do.

I'm uncertain whether this melange played out on trains all over Europe will aid intra-European relations, as everyone exchanges their heroic travel stories in accented English or stir old prejudices as they fight over the remaining seats. Fact is, we've got a seat. But then, being German, apparently I've got a reputation to lose.

Lapland to England by any means

130 km of cross country skiing later and we'd done it! The adventure was over. We had sore legs, I was sporting the kinds of bruises I'd be afraid to show even in an S&M setting, but we were still in one piece and proud of what we'd accomplished. So when the little old hut warden told us that a volcano had errupted in Iceland, we found that nothing more than a rather quirky piece of news. After all, we'd hiked in that part of Iceland and seen the heat leak out of it's multi-coloured earth firsthand. Even the fact that a few airports in Northern Sweden had closed didn't worry us unduly. After all, we were flying back from Stockholm, 1000 km further south. Little were we to know that in the following 72 hours the airspace over most of Northern Europe would be closed.

So here we are, once more on a sleeper train from Lapland and at the beginning of an epic train journey that will cover around 2000 miles and as many as 6 European countries. Lapland to England by train, or so we hope. That this is even possible is only down to my husband's impressive knowledge of European railways and our combined ingenuity with the online booking systems of Swedish railways, Deutsche Bahn, SNCF and Eurostar. We spent almost 3 hours on a computer in a local library desperately trying to grab the last available tickets while the overloaded booking systems groaned and crashed under the strain. The town of Lulea may have little to offer to a Metropolitan European otherwise, but it's shiny new cultural centre was an absolute godsent today. I felt that emotional surge of victory when we had eventually done it and put our impossible itinary together. My joy may yet be premature, but here it is:

Lulea in Northern Sweden (Sat, 16.32) to Gothenburg (Sun, 10.52);
Gothenburg (Sun, 11.32) to Copenhagen in Denmark (Sun, 15:00);
Copenhagen (Sun, 15.45) to Hamburg (Sun, 20.16);
Hamburg (Sun, 20.46) to my German home town, where we crash out for the night. We leave there at 12.44 on Monday to get to Brussels at 16.35. That should give us just enough time to collect the Eurostar tickets we were lucky enough to get via SNCF from the Rail Europe booking office. These were pretty much the last and only Eurostar tickets out of Belgium that day. They'll eventually get us to London (via France for country number 5) First Class at 21.33 on Monday night.

This epic adventure is costing us (or hopefully our travel insurance) around 1000 GBP in train fares, so just a little more than the 60 pounds we'd originally paid for the two flights. If this was a wise move only time will tell. Just at the moment it looks as though air travel will still be affected for several days. I swear if this thing clears by Monday night, I'll be glad for people stuck all over Europe but wishing we'd just stayed put in Stockholm. For now all I can do is hope that all our many connections work out, that there are no delays anywhere along the way and that we manage to squeeze onto those couple of trains for whom reservations were no longer available. Up to now we're managing to regard this as a different part of the same adventure - Phileas Fogg style!

However, when the train stopped 10 minutes out of Lulea and the Swedish announcement spoke of difficulties, I didn't find the whole thing so entertaining anymore. But hey, we're moving again and only 15 minutes late so far, something we're hoping to make up over night. So wish us luck! I will keep you posted.

Healing Swedish style

Three days in the wilderness and we are temporarily back in signal range. How do I express the sum total of those 3 days of experiences?
On the one hand there is falling flat on my face, seriously bruising a rib and developing the biggest blisters my heels have ever seen, all within the first two hours of our 7 day ski tour. Let's not forget the bone crunching descents and being buried in a snow drift to my waist, skis and all. But then there's also the amazing scenery. I'm at a loss to understand how there can be so many shades of white, how the endless rolling hills can be both so bleak and so beautiful. The clouds that somehow are always low around here seem to play endless games with the light. I'm forever expecting snow to be unleashed from those dramatic skies, but it seems simply Lapland's version of good weather. However, the best part of the day are the evenings, crawling into the hut for the night, when all the exertion stops for a while and there is little to do but enjoy the warmth of the woodburning stove and devour the ludicrously tasty dried food.
All of this seems to have the most soothing effect on my state of mind, the exertion as much as the rest. I came here last year at this time in so much pain over my fertility test results and left feeling clearer and more settled. This year I'm feeling it, too. Everything falls away, there's just me, my body and this landscape, as if nothing else existed and I guess in that moment it doesn't. The past settles back comfortably where it belongs and concerns for the future beyond the next hut seem irrelevant. Thank you Sweden!

Happiness is...

Today I found myself huddled in a blanket on a sled pulled by a skidoo flying across a frozen lake through the most spectacular scenery. The sun was on my face, tiny flaces of snow spray hit my skin, my beautiful husband was by my side and I was happy -the kind of happiness that makes my heart bounce excitedly and that can't help but betray itself by spreading that cheshire cat smile all over my face.
So what is it I wondered that brings me this state of bliss? There's beauty, novelty, excitement, then add an ounce of adrenaline and a pinch of physicality. But a recipe just won't do. I'm tentatively ambling my way back into spiritual ways of thinking. It is those things that my soul is calling for, the next step, whatever that may be. I can feel it when it's just right, that free flowing feeling in my chest, that clear "yes" that's reverberating through my core. Some of those steps appear unlikely, unreasonable, but I'm learning to trust their rightness. What else is there to trust, unless I want to find myself in someone else's life? I like this one - even if it bumps up and down like the skidoo hurtling across a rut. Right now there's little to do for some days, nothing but moving my body through the snowy expanse. Soon even the phone signal will peter out into sweet silence. And that, right now, is as it should be.

Artwork: Lovers I, II and III

Lovers I - a joy to paint from the beginning, in fact more pleasurable than I expected. Also the painting that the rest of the group felt had the most harmonious composition and the greatest unity. I've nicknamed it: two tadpoles swimming into the sunset - although it could be two comets under an arched sky.

Lovers II - a nightmare! My plan of whirling shapes resulted in 2 separated irreconcilable spheres, which I simply couldn't get to form a coherent painting. I tried to solve it be dissolving it all into a kind of nothingness until I eventually arrived at this forceful penetrative symbol. Figures! Nicknames for this one - "Dark Matter" or simply "Kaboosh!"

Lovers III - very pleased with the basic shape and the creative tension/harmony between the lovers. I wasn't expecting it to turn so overtly yin and yang but really love it for that.

Artwork – Preliminary inspirations for paintings Lovers I, II and III

I’ve recently made a scrapbook for a new tattoo – a collection of photos of tattoos I liked and some text about the specific features of each one that I find particularly appealing. I left my pages with the tattoo artist to design something unique for me to curve around my hip. Hopefully all will be well, she’s got it and it’ll be gorgeous (after the pain). So it seemed both fun and more than appropriate to do something not dissimilar for the paintings I’m planning for this painting holiday I’m about to embark on. These aren’t of course simple paintings, they are about real people and real meetings, so even making a collection of key words for each painting felt rather insightful. I think little explanation is needed, so here they are:
Lovers I

• Holding, carrying, embracing, supporting, caring
• Stability, warmth, the base, the home, open-heartedness, generosity, gentleness, honesty, tolerance, compersion, equality
• The wife, the carer, the kindred spirit
• The husband, the rock, the shelter, the son, the haven
• Colours lying alongside each other, as if spooning, holding each other respectfully. Pale pink and sea green

Lovers II

• Swirling, tempestuous, sensuous, fierce, unpredictable, confusing, enmeshed, compelling different, harsh, edgy
• Danger, adventure, exploration, passion, fear, anger, hunger, desire, addiction, dark/light, power, imbalance, force of nature
• The lover, the whore, the slut, the slave girl, the demon angel, the object
• The lover, the master, the seducer, inflictor of pain, the gambler, the adventurer, the other, the subject
• White background, fuchsia red/pink and black, balls of colour that swirl into each other and spiral into the sky

Lovers III

• Independent, mysterious, partly unformed, wispy, random, tentative, intrigued, circling each other, some swirling, some holding
• Warmth, care, force of nature, claws and carresses, stillness and chaos, both separate and entwined
• Two sprites, two sisters, two lovers, two prowling cats, may curl up together or growl, power switching from one to the other
• Less familiar and compelling than the other two, attraction strong but still circling each other tentatively, potential for either of the other two forms
• Colours and shapes not quite clear, ma not even be able to paint this yet. Thinking of spectrum of colours pink, fuchsia, blood red and black for me, same for her but with different emphasis. I start pink, she starts red, two globes of colour more separate but with swirly as well as holding connections, vague yin yang or cancerian shape, together forming circle

Burning houses - past and present

God, I've literally just watched the house opposite ours burn out! I was mucking around in the bathroom and kept hearing sounds of breaking glass. My stupid thought was that we must have missed the recycling day - again! But when I looked out of the living room window, there was black smoke billowing out of the first floor window of a house a terrace below ours! What I'd heard were the windows exploding! I almost went into shock. This seems ridiculous, there was no danger to our house and I'd seen lots of fires before on TV, but this just sent my mind spinning. God, what do I do, do I call the fire brigade? Yes, of course that's what you do. Is 999 the right number for that??? I kept thinking 112, 112, but that's flipping Germany - I've not even lived there for 16 years!!! So I grabbed the phone and dialled 999, forgot to say what town I was in until prompted and when I put the phone down the sirens where already sounding anyway. I couldn't help but keep watching, my heart beating fast, as the smoke billowed and squeezed itself through every gap in the tiled roof. The fire started to eat a hole through the roof, threatening to spread down the terrace to the houses on either side. Not much later and I saw the first fireman on the groundfloor. I was relieved, this was going to be ok now. Perhaps 10 minutes and it was all under control. However, in those few minutes the first floor of the house had been almost completely burnt out and next door's curtains looked half gone - the fire had made it across after all.

I couldn't get over how shocked I felt and of course, as they always do, my meaning-making faculties set in. Given that I was writing about loss yesterday, this is the kind of random event that can put things into perspective.

Not so crazy after all - the cycle of grief

Psychology is everywhere now, we are all busy throwing around a lot of psycho-babble (as my husband would say), but often when it comes to our own stuff we're a bit blind. As I was writing yesterday, I couldn't help see the parallel between my strange poker attachment and someone hanging on to a dead person's things. This brought to my mind a model called the "cycle of grief". It was developed by Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross from her work with dying people and their relatives. Since then, we've understood that it is actually much more widely applicable to situations of loss and change. I'm not going to write and essay on it here, but it suffices to say that in her model grief comes in different stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It's pretty widely known these days - hell, it even featured in one of Grey's Anatomy's little verbal preambles. It is also a somewhat contested model in that we are all unique and we are not going to fit neatly into those stages like a programmed automaton. One of the things that many people going through grief will tell you about is the "rollercoaster" experience of flipping through different emotional states, at times going round and round and round. If all goes well, each agonising cycle may bring you a little closer to that place of acceptance.

Crazy behaviour

Have you ever watched yourself do things and thought "I can see what you're doing, but this looks a little crazy to me", whilst at the same time feeling compelled to carry on? I guess you must have, most of us must do at some point. So why do we carry on? Surely we could stop if we really wanted to. Yes, I think we always have that choice. I also think we don't because carrying on feels like the only thing that makes life bearable at that moment.

So what am I doing that's so crazy? I'm getting into Poker. Ah, gambling addiction, you may think! Actually no, I'm not even playing for real money.