I was a bit worried we wouldn't get our weekend away because Obi's a big planner - he struggles to just make things up as we go. And Thursday rolled around with not a thing booked. But that night we got online, booked a car and two rooms - one at the Entrance, the other in Newcastle. And with nothing else planned except to stay at the Entrance long enough to see the pelican feeding, we set off Friday night for our adventure.

Now, it didn't occur to me to be afraid of making the drive until I was in the passenger street. Obi's only driven in my country a couple of times, and only short distances. He drove the minibus back to the depot after the wedding and he made a few trips two blocks to the hardware store in the small town where the house we were renovating was. That's it. So, he was a bit rusty. Also, in Canada the traffic light hangs above the individual lanes on the road while here, they are on the side of the road and it's not always clear which light is yours. You just kinda get the hang of it... if you're looking for it. Which he wasn't. So the first time I'm like "RED!!!!" and the car stopped on a dime and I'm pretty sure my fetus smacked into my bladder and gave itself a concussion I started thinking that maybe this wasn't a good idea. But too late now.

I was navigating our way out of the city, using directions I'd scribbled from Google, and trying to pay attention to where the road signs are (I must admit, Canada has a better system, Aussies are slack with the road signs... like, it's not at all necessary to have a sign for every street is it? Nah) and which light belongs to what lane. We did well. We only got lost once and we only had one other THIS-IS-IT-HE'S-GOING-TO-KILL-US moment. I was pretty proud really. We got lost coming back into the city too - ended up in the tunnel going east instead of the bridge going west - and it was terribly late at night, but we worked together and stayed calm. We got home fine - and as a team. Which is really big for us. There was a time we were so shit at teamwork we couldn't even move a piece of furniture together without hurting the other.

All round it was a good but quiet weekend. We didn't really DO that much. On Saturday we killed some time by going to a psychic. I've always wanted a psychic reading. I know lots of people don't believe in that stuff, but well, I'm a bit different. I've worked as a professional psychic before, and I know that not only am I genuine, I'm (all modesty aside) fucking great at what I do. I still have clients I read for years ago seek me out to thank me or get follow-up readings. Anyway, that's beside the point. I can't read for myself - I'm too biased. And I've never found someone who could read for me... so, why not pay a professional?

The difference was, she's a medium, and I'm a tarot reader. She just shuts her eyes and "tunes in" to the client and then starts talking. I don't think I could do that. I may have the talent, but certainly not the confidence. Anyway, so she just... starts talking.
Now I've been in the other chair I can really see why people are skeptical. Like, some of it was reasonably spot on - she opened with that I've been having a lot of vivid freaky dreams lately, and I have (pregnancy gives you whack dreams!) but then started telling me they are messages. I'm not at all into dreams, but I tried to put that aside and just take on board what she was telling me. She also said that there was a male spirit around me, she could see him holding me as a baby and being silent... and that he was touching his chest, telling her how he died.
Now, my Grandfather (Pop) was very close to me as a baby. He was the ONLY man that could hold me without making me scream - often by not speaking himself (I was terrified of men - my father used to beat my mother, even as she breastfed me). So, that's got to count for something because that's probably not something general enough to use on all clients.
And she was right about my ability to channel etc.

But, she kept coming back to this flower in a pot thing, that made no sense, and kept telling me about the spirits of people who have passed being around me. I strongly feel/believe that most of those spirits, my mum in particular, have moved on. (I wont go into why lol. I sound like a freak enough as it is.)
She also went on with a whole bunch of stuff about how our souls must be strong to have chosen to incarnate at this point in time, which I reckon was filler.

She told me about the emotional reasons for my feet and back pain, which I'm leery about. She says I have some abandonment issues (which I can see might be relative) and that I'm afraid of the future/change and the unknown, which is bull - Obi called bullshit on that too.

There were a whole bunch of little things that I would have thought obvious, but she didn't pick up on, not least of which is my pregnancy. Like, I'm not huge or anything, but at the end of the session she gave me a card reading to wrap everything up - using a deck I'm familiar with - and even though two of the cards were directly relating to pregnancy, she still didn't pick up on it. But something like that, that weighs so heavily on a client's mind and body should be felt. Like, she was telling me about my backache (doesn't everyone get backache?) and sore feet - but couldn't use her empathy to sense the fetus causing my bladder pain? Uhm....

But yeah it was good for a bit of fun, and now at least I'll be less offended when I hear people going on about how psychics are all fakes
Then we saw the pelicans (Obi's really into pelicans, he'd never seen one before he came to Oz) and got into the car for our next adventure.
The Entrance is about an hour from Sydney, and Newcastle is an hourish north from there.

I think we had more fun with the B&B than anything else. Lordy we made dicks of ourselves.
When we got there, we couldn't get in, so Obi phoned and he's like "uh, we need to check in..." the lady directed him to the side door, where between the screen and the main door he could find envelopes with keys in them. Ours was not the only one there. So we let ourselves in.
The whole place was very Olde England. There were crystal (prolly fake) chandeliers, heavy carved wooden furniture, velvet upholstery, a crystal decanter with rum, little stands with cakes on them... It was like going back in time. So we made ourselves tea in these dinky tea cups and filched some mini cupcakes... then proceeded to hang out in the sitting room, taking pictures of each other making posh faces. We laughed so hard! The room was lovely too, with a Paris theme. It had this ornate mirror... so Obi discovered how to take photos that looked like photos of old English portraits.
We left comments in the guestbook about going back in time and feeling posh... which we discovered the next day might actually have been unintentionally insulting. We discovered that the lady hadn't actually tried the theme the place like that... it's just her personal style. Ooops.

Then we went out and had a fancy dinner, and you don't need to know that when we got back to the B&B I dressed up in some lacy gear that matched the room or anything that came after.

We met up with an old mate of mine the next day, visited the beaches, finally got a microwave (as you do on vacation ) and before we headed home went out for some fine dining. We're really getting into this stuff lol. I don't even know why. But it was great. I spent a lot of time staring at this other couple, they were so young and cute and totally into each other. So adorable. I wanted to go and tell them about it, but like... I'm not that weird so I just stared instead.

It was all very nice and bonding though. I've never really traveled - certainly not just for the hell of it!
Being in the car was good too. The fetus doesn't like the car, or maybe really likes the car? either way it was all over the place, wiggling and flopping. Movement came like, overnight. I felt some flutters a couple of weeks back, just once. But since then.. nothing. Then Thursday evening I felt the first real movements.

You'd think it would be beautiful and bonding. Well it isn't - it's mostly freaky. It's your body, but it's moving and you can't control it. It doesn't feel very nice either lol.
But it is reassuring. Everything feels so much more real.

I also had my 20 week morphology today, and they readjusted my due date. I'm so happy about this. Like- I just KNEW the other one was off. I'm also stoked that the baby's brain looks good, it's heard has four chambers, it has kidneys and it's bladder is working. It's got legs and feet and hands. It's heart rate is in a normal range. I've got "satisfactory" amniotic fluid. Placenta is away from the cervix. Cord is working fine, and attached fine.
They let us have a couple of photos

And yes, the doctor was fairly sure he knew the gender... but right now? I'm not telling!

And that's it from this side of the rift