Back last night from our holiday - I did have internet while away (thank you to whoever didn't secure their Netgear box in the apartment block) but as my laptop was monopolised the whole time by Mr Spouse and, mainly the wife (but also the husband) of the couple we were with who needed to check Facebook hourly, and play Scrabble, and I didn't really want anyone looking over my shoulder while I blogged, no updates. But I have been reading. I think everyone managed without me.

Now, you may be detecting a tiny bit of resentment towards said wife. I am now going to totally exaggerate everything that is wrong with her in order to gain loads of sympathy from my dear readers. This is the couple made up of Mr Spouse's best man and his wife, who've been trying to get pregnant for (as far as I can work out) nearly 4 years - pretty much since they got married. They'd had 3 unsuccessful IUIs and were about to consider taking a break since the husband needed to go on a medicine that apparently causes birth defects (now I am not sure this is possible, since it's never been listed in all those Scare Story What Not To Do when you are TTC lists, but this is the woman who hasn't eaten blue cheese for 2 weeks every month for 4 years). Guess when they chose to tell us she was pregnant? That's right, the first evening of our holiday, when I'd just found out the activity I'd been longing to do had finished for the season an hour previously*. Obviously I am very happy for them. But.

This is also the wife that is "allergic" to everything in sight - not just the few things that lots of people can't have but are easily avoidable, but some of those ingredients that sneak into everything, and which I am pretty confident occur naturally in a lot of foods (funnily, she can eat those) and who is therefore a nightmare to shop and cook for. Add to that pregnancy restrictions ("darling, I don't think you can eat this pasta sauce, it says it has sheep's milk in it") and an unwillingness to go out to a restaurant that had main courses listed at about £10-£15 (they live in SE England, we are not sure whether they ever go out to dinner at home, and you should have seen the prices of lift passes!), and constantly telling us how she couldn't use the hot tub, what baby-related gifts she was going to buy her husband for his birthday present, how she kept having to email her parents to say she was still OK, worrying about falling over**, telling me she couldn't have a manicure "because they want to do something with your fingernails at the booking appointment" etc. etc.

She wasn't really that bad, in fact I think her husband fusses over her more (in general as well as now she is pregnant) and only moaned about the couple of infections she'd picked up rather than about pregnancy-related sickness, but you can appreciate that 10 days of this did not a relaxing holiday make.

I was very, very good and resisted telling her that when she went for her scan it was totally possible that there would be an empty sac. Hope you are all very proud of me. Now I feel mean as they were supposed to contact us when they had the scan and they should be back now, and no news, but then they do have all their Facebook contacts to update. And I may have offended her (though I think she understood) by asking for no pictures.

*Fortunately Mr Spouse is very very nice to me and we worked out it was cheaper to hire a car and go elsewhere where it was still happening, than for me to pay for a lift pass all week and ski with them and be miserable, and he even came with me and learned new things for part of the week.

**I had briefly considered what if I was pregnant on this holiday, and falling over didn't really bother me, but I thought I would probably sit on the sofa and watch DVDs/potter about on snowshoes/go shopping if I had been, not because of falling, but because of the exercise often being quite vigorous.