Even after a huge afternoon birthday party on the beach, little girls still have a bit of fairy dust in reserve for a late afternoon garden romp.

I sometimes ask Fionna, “Where do you live?” and for the last few weeks she has sometimes replied with the same sentence: “I live on adventure. I live in a moon-castle.”

I have no idea where it’s from, but I am soooo intrigued that I googled it, thinking it might be a song. I found a book called ‘The Secret of Moon Castle’ by Enid Blyton which is of course an adventure book by *the* adventure story writer.

Maybe this is this Fionna’s first book recommendation to me?? I like it. 🙂

Today is Fionna’s 10th day in the outside world. I went into labour on 4th October at 18:15pm and Fionna Gillian Brown was finally born on 5th October at 13:50pm, weighing 3.5 kg or 7 lbs, 12 ozs.

After four days in hospital, I was really ready to see our farm and all the animals again, although from my hospital window I had the most beautiful view of maple trees and I passed most days staring at Fionna and the spring sunlight through the maple leaves beyond. As the room was on level 4 of the hospital, it felt as though the room was literally in the canopy of the trees. It’s something I will always remember in terms of bringing her into the world.

This is a photograph of us waking up on our first morning back on the farm as a family. I am still in my pjamas and Tara the goat managed to sneak into the photo which is quite cute.

All of the animals have either bonded or ignored this latest little addition, and the farm is a strange place, resonating with the usual cries of roosters, chickens, goats, cows and now a human baby girl too.

Being gluttons for adventure, we have managed to take Fionna out three times already in the 10 days of her life. Once to the local supermarket and post office, then to the local Saturday morning farmers market and a half-day trip today to Victor Harbor.

I have to admit that I was slightly anxious about taking her out initially and this was why I so badly wanted to do it. The first expedition out saw me not being able to concentrate on anything but her and nor could I really relax. I felt extremely conspicuous with our newborn accessory and as everyone is drawn like a magnet to tiny babies you stop every few steps to answer questions and admiring sighs from friendly strangers. It’s lovely but a bit disconcerting when you are trying to blend into the crowd. After I got over that weird initial feeling, it’s better and today I even breastfed her on a bench in the main road in Victor Harbor and felt calm about it. Any niggling doubts about not having the confidence to feed and settle her in public have nearly gone now as I know I can manage to do it at this stage in a state of complete inexperience and first born clumsiness with her.

Physically, I am still recovering myself (stitches & tiredness) but moving is so much easier when you don’t have 3.5 kg hanging off the front of you and it feels great!

The spelling of Fionna with a double n is deliberate. Sgurr a’Fionn Choire (The Fair Corrie) is a mountain in the Cuillins on the Isle of Skye. Fionn in Scottish Gaelic means fine or beautiful. Richard climbed this mountain in the 1980s and we spent time on Skye together in the 2000s. Scotland is our favourite place in the world. When I was in labour I thought of the most peaceful place I could think of which was camping a the foot of Marsco on the Isle of Skye which is part of the same area. I also found out from my mum that her mum had wanted the name Fiona for me thirty years ago when I was born, so all in all the name really suits. Her second name Gillian is named after Richard’s sister.

Since June, my strange dreams induced by what must have been a psychedelic cocktail of early pregnancy hormones did settle down a little. I perhaps remembered a few each week, but most were fairly run of the mill stuff. I felt normal again.

However, now in the last few weeks of pregnancy, some new chemicals must be mixing around in my neurons because the frequency of dreams each night and the strangeness of them is now way beyond what it was back in June. I’m feeling like a real mental case again.

This week alone (keep in mind it is only Tuesday) I have dreamt:

Dream 1
I had to swim across the gulf to the Yorke Peninsula at night with an old couple to help them carrying something. I’m not a strong swimmer but reasoned that I could help because my belly would act as buoyancy and keep me afloat. Half way across there was a jetty but it was too cold to stop so we had to keep swimming. The water was jet black and turtles and fish kept swimming under us from beneath and it was difficult to tell if the sharper fins brushing our bellies were sharks or dolphins.

Dream 2
I worked in a huge plant nursery as an expert in succulent plants. I had my own greenhouse and customers were asking me questions about the plants. They were thanking me for my expertise and I felt really proud that I’d worked so hard to learn about the plants which were incredibly beautiful.

Dream 3
Our real half a kilometer steep dirt unsealed driveway was instead an immense cliff with a huge aluminium ladder embedded into the cliff. I had to park at the bottom and climb the ladder. I was wearing one of Richard’s jumpers and my mum was at the bottom yelling “You’ve got bird shit on your jumper!”. I said “Yes, it’s all over the ladder” and was trying to concentrate on getting up the ladder and wondering why she was distracting me with this minor detail.

Dream 4
Another dream, again on the driveway, I reversed to the side, out of the path of a small truck belting towards me on the drive which only takes one way traffic. I realised I was reversing onto the bank of a large fast flowing river and as soon as I remembered that the bank was incredibly soft, the soft ground gave way and the Forester sank backwards into the river. It floated for a few seconds and I thought “It’s ok, don’t panic, I just need to open the door and get out and swim to the bank”. Then I realised to my horror that I wasn’t in the drivers seat, I was in the back of the car and it was a 2 door only. To get out I would have to push the front seat forward, open the front door and step over to get out. Then I realised that the baby could also be in the capsule beside me. I didn’t dare look to my side to check, instead I thought “I can’t do this, can’t handle this, wake me up” and I woke up. My heart was hammering and waking up felt terrible because I hadn’t even tried to assess the situation, I’d just given up and had chosen to opt out and not try to save either one of us.

Dream 5
Richard and I were in a futuristic city. We were in a hotel and going out for a meal. I wore a red dress (which I don’t own) and people were giving me weird looks. Richard went to a cash point to get some money and a man made a lewd comment and grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to walk me away. I shook him off thinking he was drunk or weird. Richard and I walked on a little further and I realised that I was the only person getting singled out for this kind of attention and that people hated me. I saw a kind looking young Japenese girl and approached her. She looked wary of me. I pleaded “I’m not from around here, I need to know why people are being horrible to me”. She said “You are wearing a red dress – no one wears those any more, people think you are a prostitute and they are illegal here now”. I was mortified, so we went back to the hotel and I changed.

Dream 6
Richard and I were in an open-topped castle barracks and trying to shelter from bombs being dropped from planes at night. Someone else fleeing threw their cat into the shelter with us (the cat was our cat Gandalf). The bombing stopped a little and Richard scaled the castle wall down to the ground. I followed, but first told the cat to latch onto my back, which it did with some help. I scaled the wall and then used someones back to stand on and get to ground level which got us into the a castle hall type of area. There was a large open-fire in the room so I made the cat comfortable there. I walked around and the room was like an empty marketplace with closed stalls. A few people from work that I don’t know well came up to me and I felt reluctant to talk, but they insisted on an explanation as to why I was still pregnant. I was holding a long pillow and I explained that I was carrying it just in case I got admitted, and they said that it was dirty and needed a new pillow case. I looked at it, and is was covered in dirt from the castle walls, but I couldn’t believe how rude they were being about it because I’d just scaled the castle wall with a cat on my back! No wonder the pillow was dirty! I was pretty annoyed and just wanted to go home. 😉

I’ve read on more than one occasion that pregnancy causes vivid dreams. Now, I know the word vivid can be a bit subjective. What is “vivid” for one person may be just a hazy pastely smudge for another, but the word vivid just doesn’t cut it recently. My dreams aren’t just vivid – they are the stuff of lunacy, fuelled by what must be a truly psychedelic cocktail of hormones and emotions.Sure, I had a few odd dreams during the first trimester, for example, I barked like a dog in my sleep because I was dreaming that I was trying to convince my dogs to bark at a baseball-wielding psycho trying to get into the house. Instead they were just staring out through window from the house at him so, naturally I barked. You can imagine how funny my husband found that as he lay awake next to me hearing and knowing nothing of the story unfolding, except for the final part where I “woof” like a dog.

Yes, the odd bizarre waking-dream I can handle, but recently I have been bombarded nightly by mad stories and visions. In the last few weeks they have been progressively escalating in craziness and leaving me feeling like a nutter on waking.

I have now decided to note these here so that I can seek professional help in the near future if needed 😉

Some examples from the past week

I dreamt I had to sleep at work because of our workload, but not wanting to sleep under my office desk like my colleagues, I was trying to fit into the small wall mounted bookshelf above suspended above my desk. I was convinced I could fit and be more comfortable on the shelf.

Then, a few nights later I was back at work in my dreams and my colleagues and I were making and hanging curtains for a lecture room in our corridor at the University (in reality we produce print and online study materials). I came back to our office and there were a few other colleagues from different departments using our office for a meeting. They invited me to sit at the table and share a curry. I ate with them but felt guilty that my colleagues were still making curtains. One of my curtain-making colleagues came back and it unfolded that we had just heated and eaten her lunch from the fridge. The others denied knowledge of the food source, leaving me as the fridge raider. She was angry at me in particular. I was mortified that I had stolen her lunch, absolutely ashamed.

Then, in the same week, in another night of mind-bending story telling, I had to hand up my last Masters assignment (which was in reality a year ago). So of course I took it to the local supermarket! The supermarket was closed, so I knocked on the glass doors and asked a tradesman if I could put my assignment paper in his wheelbarrow. He said that was fine, and that it would get there fine, so I scribbled my name and subject onto the front and put it in his wheelbarrow with his paints and tools! I came back out into the supermarket carpark and noticed a huge bus of Indian people. They were all sitting on top of the bus chewing what I assumed were betel nuts and spitting them into a built-in rooftop spittoon-type hole in the bus. I smiled and thought how great it was that there was a bus load of Indian people in town (in reality, I have been thinking about one of the things I miss most about living in the UK is the Indian culture within the community). However, I was so distracted by how happy I was to see them as I walked across the carpark , that I didn’t notice a taxi speeding towards me. I saw it just in in time and narrowly missed being run over.

I yelled at the taxi driver ” You &$&*£*£ idiot, I’m prengant!”. I was fuming. The taxi pulled over and a huge man got out and gave me some backchat, but I was up for a fight and felt overwhelmed by a protective feeling towards my belly – so much so that I started throwing a few punches (this is not me in reality, I am a very calm quiet person). I was like a crazy woman.

I continued to have a go at the driver willing my fist to connect with his face. My husband came over and started to try and fight the taxi driver. I was frightened that my husband was going to get bashed by the taxi driver (in reality he’s strong and would probably put up a great fight, but is also not a person inclined to fight). I put myself in between them both while they tried to get to each other. I got even angrier with both of them because they continued to try and fight knowing that I was in between them with a baby.

Then, last night, my husband and I were living in an old spooky mansion with a group of friends and had lots of house staff (maybe the household chores are getting to me?). Everyone was going on a pirate ship sailing adventure and we were due to leave – everyone was packing up bags and assembling by the door, the huge boat was moored up outside.

Then a doctor came up to me and said there had been a bit of mistake and that although I was pregnant, they’d missed an earlier pregnancy, and that although I had three months to go until giving birth, that would be my second child. My first was due any day now. I could not go on the pirate ship. I was in shock. He showed me the ultrasound showing a big baby which I hadn’t seen before and then a smaller baby which I recognised as being due in a few months.

My husband and friends went on the ship and I was left in the mansion with the housekeeping staff who were all really nice and made me some soup. I felt completely in shock at the prospect of now having two babies on the way and couldn’t work out what to do next. 😉

These aren’t like normal dreams though – when I wake up at 4am on the dot after each one, the baby is kicking and I lie there feeling mentally exhausted from creating them. I love writing, but have nearly had enough of this sleep-writing. 😉