Shameless plug

My little sister and her band - The Foster Kids - have just released an album. I am sooo proud of her! The album is available online at Letterbox Records - and on iTunes.

My sister is on the album cover, standing in front of my parents' house, back in Norwich, England! It's making me feel all homesick. (I am, of course, very hormonal.)

There's even a tenuous link to Germany as the band were interviewed on German radio recently!

Baby boom time

I know four women due to give birth over the next three weeks - I'm one of them! Another friend gave birth to a bonny baby girl on Saturday. Should we be suspicious that these babies will be making an appearance approximately 9 months after the craziness of the Cologne Carnival?

With all this baby fun to come and the prospect of being engulfed in a tidal wave of nappies and holed in for the winter, yesterday I took myself off to do something cultural. I visited the Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Art in Cologne. Unfortunately, my body was not feeling quite so enlightened (what with the 'cankles', the heartburn, the lack of body cavity space for adequate lung function...etc, etc) and so I couldn't stay too long.

During my brief visit I found this beautiful nativity scene - part of a 14th Century altar panel from Osnabruck. I only hope that all of us pregnant ladies and new mums look as serene and beatific when our little ones arrive. [Hah hah.]

Super hausfrau

I have five weeks to go until my due date and already there are serious signs of nesting activity. I'm chanelling Kim and Aggie BIG time.

It's bizarre: I feel exhausted and dream of having a whole day of just watching DVDs and eating cheese. However, I get these strange urges to clean things and then I'm off and whipping up a whirlwind with a vacuum cleaner and a feather duster. I'm cleaning things that I have never considered needed cleaning before. Like door handles. Or vents on bathroom fans. Or plug sockets.

I don't remember being quite this fastidious last time I was pregnant and nesting, so perhaps the need to clean amplifies with each subsequent birth? Before you're wondering, there's no way I'm testing out this theory with a further pregnancy!