It’s curious, when you’re pregnant, how your body becomes so publicly available.

I know people talk and write about it a lot: the way almost.strangers will suddenly touch your belly or ask you private questions that they would never normally ask. Even the way people see you changes: I am incredibly conscious of others’ gaze as I walk, eat, sit and swim.

But mostly it’s the casual comments that I’ve struggled with:

• you’re carrying this one differently
• you really aren’t that fat
• your face is still skinny
• your boobs really are huge

I know that they’re just throw-away lines from people I don’t know very well. But still, they leave me super uncomfortable. I don’t know what to do with them, I don’t know if and how to respond. And I find myself feeling frustrated that I allow their words to affect my experience of being pregnant.

I was at the airport the other day. Arriving back from a delicious couple of solo nights away [heaven!]

Walking through the building, there was a big, long flight of stairs ahead of me and an escalator, just one, that was going down. [down! my cranky.pregnant.lady.brain complained to itself. why would you have just one escalator going down? hrrrmph!] But as I went to lift my bag, there was suddenly an older man beside me offering to carry it. How lovely!

And even lovelier: we got chatting. He was one of five children. He grew up in the country and only ever went on one [thrilling] family holiday – to the beach. He, himself, had four children ranging from seven to thirty-one and he was convinced girls are harder to work out than boys. Much more complicated [he said].

As we arrived at the exit I thanked him for helping me. It was very kind of you [I said]. Well, it was my pleasure, [he smiled] it was great to meet you.

I walked away feeling A Hundred Dollars! And thinking: sometimes the escalator really is going exactly the right way [even if it doesn't seem to be].

Do you ever do something that surprises you a bit?

I was driving the other day, with no Little One in the back of the car, just by myself. With the radio up.

[Crazy, I know].

And I suddenly saw a bookshop, with an empty car space out the front. So I stopped, browsed all that delicious.book.ness, bought a book by one of my favourite authors and then kept on my way.

I know going to a book shop on impulse isn’t a big deal [at all]. But doing something that I hadn’t planned, something just for me, felt really good.

oooh. How good is returning to your own bed after being away for a little while?

[love that.]