Before we go to play in the summershine

So I was reading this livejournal snark community (mistake number one) and I saw a link to a parenting community and followed it (mistake number two) and I read some of the comments (mistake number three) and I saw one where a woman (supposedly a woman) had typed (unless it was the demons in her trousers) that - wait for it, get this, you'll love this -

"Every woman is born with enough of a tolerance to give birth without drugs." There, that's the quote. It's unattributed so no-one will go and track her down and kill her. There's another one: "Feeling you "can't" do it without drugs is a confidence issue, period. Because you can, everybody can otherwise the human race would have died out -- but it's all whether or not you have the confidence to acutally do it."

Excuse me please, I have to go vomit with rage now. Because I happen to be aware that the leading cause of death in women, until pretty damn recently, was birth. Yessir, the most natural thing in the world used to KILL PEOPLE. And I have no idea what the figures are for babies.

It's great that some people have labours and births they can get through without medical intervention, or without drugs, or without pain relief. My mother had four - and she only had pain relief on the first one because the doctors told her to and she didn't know any better. I'm sure I know other people who did it, too.

But some people would DIE if they did that. And so would their babies. DIE until they were DEAD.

And then, you know, they'd stay dead for a very long time.

So watch what you say. It might be bad for my blood pressure.

On that note, me and my baby - neither of whom died, because I allowed them to pump me full of noxious toxic risk-laden chemicals - are going to go play in the Botanic Gardens at Kew. And it will be lovely. We have a picnic.

O Frabjous Day!

We had a marvellous day. We found a shady glade with dew on the grass and had lunch with acorns dropping all around us, we found a male peacock sitting on a nest and male peacock with no tailfeathers left and about three baby peacocks and two females. We found a pheasant that looked like a cartoon parrot in colour, and we lay in a sunny clearing and watched the sky, which was full of dragonflies and little helicopter-seeds whirling madly across the opening in the trees.

Linnea insisted on wearing my jumper for a good part of the day. Yes, she was much too hot.

We watched coots on the waterlily pond and Linnea found a truly excellent rock which we then had to extract from the precarious positions into which she threw, kicked or chewed it. Linnea picked a flower - but only one, and anywhere but Kew it would have been a weed anyway, so that's kind of ok. I mean, of course I feel guilty about it, but I also picked up other people's litter so I think that's even.

We played "One two three wheee!" with Linnea until she stopped walking at all for one two three and just sort of hung from our arms waiting for wheee. Rob carried Linnea on his shoulders and she imperiously removed his hat because it was surplus to requirements; I, at her right hand, took the hat and placed it where it couldn't interfere. She flew on my shins while I lay on my back.

Linnea and I fed each other cashews and raisins and she removed the yolk from her egg and put it in my hand to be got rid of. Rob and Linnea did a bit of plane-spotting and Linnea identified the moon again ("Ball!") even though it was a crescent. She was also very polite and unencroaching towards a passing pussycat.

Linnea went to bed after we got home, having eaten snack-dinner on the train, and Rob and I had fishfingers and baked beans for tea. And that was wonderful too.