Lulu Devine


 
I'm not usually one to take any notice of our worryingly popular tabloids and certainly would never compliment them by buying one, but they do get left lying around in odd places and I can seldom resist a flick through. It's the same morbid curiosity that makes us look at the aftermath of a car crash as we drive past, however much we don't want to.

Over the weekend this meant seeing a photograph of some WAG or other, five months pregnant and already looking as if she had a Zeppelin under her jumper. As I glanced down at my own near-flat middle, I didn't know whether to feel smug or envious.

I settled for relief at not being married to a Premier League footballer, most of whom seem to think chastity is a mispronounciation of Chester City and that monogamy is a dark wood.

Coincidentally, two friends both had their weddings on Saturday, neither of which I was able to attend. Which is probably just as well, because the cake wouldn't have stood an ice cube's chance in the Sahara the way my pregnancy cravings and appetite are persisting.

Neither of the ceremonies were in this country, and although invitations and airline tickets to both were received, a busy few days kept both me and The Bump rooted in Brighton, where in the city centre the first Christmas decorations have been strung up across North Street. As, indeed, should be whomever is responsible for them, and not merely because there's still a sixth of the year between now and the tide of Yule.

These seasonal banners straddle the road at regular intervals, and look like threadbare fishing nets with a few token lights attached surrounding a child's drawing of Santa. One can safely say they'd have been better advised spending ten quid in Poundland, or not to have bothered at all.

But as usual, commercial promotions are out of synch with the calendar. George at Asda will still sell you a bikini whilst only just deciding that perhaps gloves and scarves should be given some retail space. Festive tat is creeping onto more and more shelves, including groanworthy tubes of 'Merry Pringles'. It must be just a matter of time before chocolate eggs make their appearance.

I'm not sure when Easter falls next year, but the stork will make his delivery before the Easter Bunny. Remember, won't you, that the clocks go back this Hallowe'en weekend; with all the above swirling around, you'd be forgiven for forgetting what time of year it actually is...
 
The onset of autumn means many things; leaves crunching underfoot, gloves and hats finally appearing in the shops a week after we first needed them; biting northerly winds; rapidly shortening daylight hours; and my husband constantly looking at the calendar and remarking on how long it isn't until the baby is born.

He has a point. November is almost upon us, and when it is we'll be counting down through fewer months than have passed. The exact date of conception is not an absolute, although we can narrow it down to one week in June when we were together in Monte Carlo, and that's about as much detail as I'm going to divulge on that most romantic of stopovers, thank you very much.

And now, at last, I am starting to show. It is, to be frank, about time. When people ask how far gone I am (a horrible phrase which sounds more like an enquiry into one's current level of drunkeness) and I state the dates, the reaction is usually a look of disbelieving astonishment.

In truth it's not rare for a pregnancy not to show until it's some way advanced, and there have even been cases of women giving birth without even knowing they were expecting. But I want it to show, so that I can glance down at The Bump and actually see something there. And anyway, it also guarantees a seat on the bus.

Amazingly, it does also, genuinely, give me the right to pee in a police officer's helmet. I'd always assumed that this was one of those myths, but a simple bit of research ascertained that this most quirky of laws does indeed still exist. It does somewhat overlook the mutual embarrassment factor, but in Brighton you're never more than a toilet roll's throw from a pub or a cafe or somewhere else with a convenient convenience.

My husband, may his stock always rise (and it certainly did in Monaco), has now taken to patting my stomach when we slink into bed at night. It's things like that which bring a lump to my throat; completely natural reflex moments that demonstrate how much his paternal instincts are kicking in.

The other day, he sent me a text to say he was on his way home. It began, 'Hello both of you.' I filled up.

And then went into the kitchen and filled up with custard. Not the craving-satisfying quick-fix tins bought in bulk from Asda, but real honest-to-goodness home-made custard. Well, every special occasion demands to be marked...
 
It's all happening in the blogosphere. I've barely begun this personal, lighthearted online diary, and now my services have been snapped up by (fanfare please) The Argus, our local newspaper here in Brighton and the surrounding locales of Sussex.

Well, specifically their website. Invitations to pen the occasional article for the actual paper have yet to flood my inbox, but let's not allow that to dampen any ambitions that may happen to be bubbling beneath the surface.

So, now I have two blogs to write on a regular basis. The Argus blog, entitled 'Devine Inspiration' (yes, I know, I've always hated puns on Devine and divine, but it works, so I'm rolling with it), is to be a (mainly local) news agenda reactive blog, in which I shall pluck from the esteemed publication and/or its website whatever reports trigger thoughts, and proceed to analyse them with all the incisive skill I can muster. Or, if all else fails, fall back on 'And finally...' style stories such as the skateboarding dog who hogged most of page three earlier this week, complete with shameful 'Bony Hawk' pun.

The irony of this hit me this morning, when, reading through the web editor's guidance notes which make the simplest processes seem like The Italian Job but with added complications, I remembered how, a few months ago, I and two friends were plagued by the most bizarre of accusations.

Neither I nor they were believed to actually exist in the physical world at all.

Now this would certainly be news to many people. My parents would surely be bemused, as would my husband and the rather suave vicar who presided over our wedding ceremony. Yet for weeks the three of us were subjected to a barrage of abuse and accusatory vitriol demanding to know why we were all masquerading as real people.

Spot the blatant flaw in the argument: according to one person in particular, all three of us were using Facebook and Twitter from behind fake profiles. All of us. Which left nobody to be the 'real' person behind them.

Eventually, one by one, we deleted and deactivated, and set up entirely new profiles in which we were far more careful about whose friend requests and suchlike we accepted. Since then, all has been well, and it is no coincidence that my new Twitter profile bears the wry-smile tag of 'ReallyLulu'.

It does rather bring a whole new meaning to the term ghost writer. Allegedy our little trio was a figment of our collective imagination, and we were no more rooted in actuality than the mind-bending universes of The Matrix or Inception. Although were the ludicrous barbs true I might claim that we were better acted.

The most laughable twist is that these daft denouncements arose because - in the bitter words of our accuser - we were 'commenting on each other's posts all the time.' Well, er, isn't that what social networking is all about?

Happily, as two midwives and a health visitor can now also attest, we three are very much alive and walking this earth rather than reinventing Marley's Ghost or mischievously floating around like Casper.

Which in many ways is a shame, because it would be lovely to be able to indulge the ongoing custard craving in the certain knowledge that it would not affect my diet because I simply didn't have one. Or to look forward to the latter stages of pregnancy with the comforting surety that however much our baby kicked from its womb without a view, I wouldn't feel a thing.

As it is, just for the record, the gas and air can very definitely be on standby come the early spring of 2011. And if, as seems inevitable, I scream whilst delivering our firstborn, those wails will be coming from the maternity ward, and not from somewhere far away in the ether...