I was going to ask if you missed me...

… but DD’s comment showed you have. How lovely to have such a devoted readership.

I had a really good trip; it was very worthwhile (I have to keep saying that so people won’t think I was skiving), and an extremely lovely part of the world. I hadn't been to SE Asia before, but in some ways the island I went to was very similar to the area of East Africa where I used to live. I hope I didn't bore people in saying so. In fact, my student's project team were probably more interested in hearing about the similarities than she was, as they are all Muslim and were interested in cultural things. The food was fabulous too (have been Googling restaurants in London where we are over Christmas).

It was also a pretty good way to spend the 2WW - not that I had any hopes for this month, but what with jet-lag and probably a very tired uterus after last month, my period was 2 days late, which really didn't freak me out in the slightest. Busyness and travel are good for me. The only bad thing was Mr. Spouse couldn't come too, but the flights over Christmas were prohibitively expensive, and we also feel we shouldn’t abandon his mother for her first Christmas on her own.

I think I am feeling more like we are likely to adopt and less like we are likely to get (and stay) pregnant with each month – this makes the adoption thing more real, but also more scary. I only spent about half a day being sad and emotional this month, I was reading a book on immigration to Britain on the plane and people’s stories were making me come over all weepy – though to be fair, anyone who doesn’t come over all weepy at the story of the Kindertransport has a heart of stone, I tell you.

So now we need to ring the agency in January and make sure they have found us a social worker to start our home study – I am looking forward to it, in a strange kind of way. I know people say it’s intrusive, but I think we are both the kind of people who don’t mind talking about ourselves, to a certain extent. It’s the bit after adoption that scares me. But we are also feeling sad for our friends, who I’ve mentioned before, who had just done their preparation course for adoption from China – except that he is about the same age as Mr. Spouse i.e. over 50 – and they have no idea what is going to happen now, except it looks like they won’t be able to now. After all they’ve been through – much longer than us, with no pregnancies – this must be devastating. There are very few other countries with arrangements with the UK so I don’t know what they are thinking now.