Lulu Devine


 
Finally, five months after my now husband and I conceived the little blighter in a velvet-draped four-poster bed in a Monte Carlo hotel, The Bump has decided to make itself known.

In the spirit of factual accuracy, I should say that the conceptual location mentioned above is a best guess. It was a passionate week, but whilst that suite is statistically most likely, it was definitely Monaco. The glamorous backdrops to the Formula 1 Grand Prix will never be the same again, but it's a swanky place to sow the seeds of life.

But I digress, and before any more detail creeps in, back to the point. Namely that I at last have a visible bump to be proud of. Whilst many women would be delighted to reach 20 weeks or thereabouts without showing, I'm overjoyed that I can now point to a nice subtle swelling and yet still wear pretty much anything in my wardrobe.

The only disconcerting aspect of my pregnancy is that it is running almost in tandem with that of Helen in The Archers, so that whenever she pops up in an episode and something baby-related occurs I can look two weeks or so ahead in anticipation.

She, however, conceived via a donor. This is surely in breach of the strict rules to which the family must adhere to retain their farm's organic status. In the interests of taste and decency, we'll skip and jokes on the theme of artificial insemination lest poor Linda Snell has a heart attack.

Life imitating art indeed. Or vice versa. Speaking of radio, which will soon lead us onto penguins so don't be surprised if you lose track of this stream of consciousness, it has been a peculiar week over in the Twitterverse, where in the past few days no fewer than three of broadcasting's finest have retweeted me: BBC Radio 5 Live's Phil Williams, talkSPORT's Matt Forde, and BBC Radio 4's Corrie Corfield.

It's tempting to challenge myself to a clean sweep of all the national radio stations, but somehow I doubt my particular style of humour is likely to be seized upon by anyone networking from within the sacred halls of Radio 3.

But this has nothing to do with penguins, you grumble. Well, yes, it does, because also on Twitter there seems to have been a plethora of penguins lately. After Russell Brand and Katy Perry married in India and the groom adopted a rare tiger for his bride, much chat ensued about what animal would make the most endearing and adorable adoptee, and penguins clearly came out on top.

My husband, when we were talking about this over dinner, announced that he would choose a meerkat. That's his Christmas present sorted then. Simples.



Footnote: Those of you who haven't yet discovered the above-named broadcasters on Twitter may like to know that Phil Williams is @radiophilw, Matt Forde is @mattforde and Corrie Corfield is @corfmeister. I am @ReallyLulu, but you probably already know that!