What’s in a name?

As D-day (that’s due day) looms ever closer, like all expectant parents the Farmer and I are faced with one of the biggest and arguably most important decisions of our lives – what to call our daughter. Indeed, one of the reasons we chose to find out the sex of our baby was to eliminate 50 per cent of the inevitable disagreements that arise over this highly subjective issue.

Long before I had even met the Farmer, I dreamed of calling my future baby girl something beautifully exotic and different – Africa, India and Savannah were up there – but nowadays in everyone’s quest to be unique, ironically these sorts of names have become almost pedestrian. Consequently, I have found myself being drawn more towards classical names such as Grace, Jessica and Bethany.

We are both fond of Millie and Molly but are not sure how well our adolescent daughter would react to being named after one of our dogs, however beloved... Frustratingly we also agree on a lot of names not really available to us thanks to being part of two rather large families as well as the last in our circles of friends to conceive.

Like parenthood, choosing a name suddenly feels like an overwhelming responsibility because it seems bound to shape her character and personality in some way. To me, the meaning of the name is important too as is what it might get shortened (or even lengthened) to, and we obviously have to consider what goes with our surname. Then there’s still trying to be a bit original without being pretentious or worse, new-agey.

On top of all that, it’s astounding just how forthright people can be about names – particularly family. In much the same vein as the whole folk fondling your bump without asking quandary, it would seem that everyone has a bank of names better suited to our unborn baby than we, her future parents, do and aren't shy about voicing them.

Fortunately we have had largely lovely reactions to our current frontrunner, so much so that my Dad and Stepmum are already calling her by the name. However, ‘Oh no, that sounds like a cow’s name!’, was not quite the response we’d hoped for from both my own and the Farmer’s mother. ‘What about Annabel? Sophie’s a lovely name. Or Charlotte,’ they insisted, reassuring us that they’d get their thinking caps on.

‘It's so annoying! They’ve had their turn - seven times between them,’ I complain to the Farmer who, as ever, remains bullish. ‘Ignore them,’ he says, ‘My Mum wanted to call me Julian.’

Battle of the bumps

After an extended leave of absence, I’m back by popular demand...well, by a handful of kind requests anyway. Where have I been? Right here on the farm, as ever, and since losing my biggest copywriting client (long story) and finally falling pregnant (even longer story) – both coincidentally back in March – I seem to be turning into a fairly good farmer’s wife as it happens.

A lack of work coupled with the increasingly undeniable fact that there will be a baby here in two months’ time has seen the farmhouse undergo a series of much needed improvements and me go into domestic overdrive. Our newly created larder is now stocked with jams and jellies – blueberry, redcurrant, raspberry and strawberry (thank you Silver Spoon Jam Sugar with added pectin) – and I’m in the process of filling the deep freeze with meals for when the baby arrives.

Inspired by last week’s opening episode of the River Cottage Every Day series and Hugh’s stew club, today I decided to make a batch of hearty beef stew.

Down at my local butcher, I selected some root veggies and onions while the nice lady-butcher diced me a shed load of chuck steak. As we waited for my card to process payment, she asked me what I was doing for the rest of the day. I told her of my freeze-ahead plan before the imminent arrival of my baby, at which she looked quite taken aback. ‘I had no idea,’ she said, staring openly at my belly in disbelief. ‘You’re very neat,’ she added politely.

This, I have to tell you, is pretty much the standard reaction of strangers and people I haven’t seen for a while on discovering I’m 30+ weeks pregnant. I know, I know, I should be grateful that I am so ‘neat’ but at the same time I can’t help but wonder what they must have thought before finding out my news. That I’ve let myself go? That I'm a bit portly? That I’m taking my role as farmer’s wife altogether too seriously?!

I’m just disappointed that after waiting so long for the stork to visit our nest that it’s not immediately apparent to all that I’m with-child rather than with-an-awful-lot-of-extra-pounds. ‘Who cares?’ the Farmer reassures, ‘we know you’re pregnant. Just think of all those people who have big bellies with no baby inside. Look at your Dad!’

True, I console myself thinking of my foodie Father. Nowadays when we hug I don’t get anywhere near him, his bump being as big as mine. Instead we kind of bang bellies sumo wrestler style.

‘This is very expensive,’ he says proudly of his paunch, referring to the many Michelin-starred meals that have gone into it. ‘It’s cost me a lot of money,’ he adds, slapping his stomach forcefully, something I’ve had to discourage him from doing to my own.

Ironically, by all accounts (friends, family, books, the media) my bump – albeit temporary – is about to cost us a lot of money too.

Power of the Pen

Despite the fact that I write marketing copy for a living, I would have to say I am fairly susceptible to the odd advertising campaign or two. Okay, as the Farmer is fond of telling me, I’m an ‘ad man’s dream’. Always have been. A new mascara that increases lash volume by 10, it’s mine; a moisturiser that turns back time, I’ll take it; an email from Citalia about city breaks to Venice, I’m there. I even bought a (very expensive) cream in my mid-teens that promised to increase my bust size (if only I knew then that gaining several pounds in weight does the same thing for free).

It should come as no surprise then that upon receiving a proof of the Kitzbuhel brochure I penned the words for (Crazy about Kitzbuhel), complete with breathtaking photography and striking scarlet branding, that I was instantly captivated – again.

      Arriving in Kitzbühel is like stepping into a 21st century fairytale. World renowned for its winter    sports and hair raising Hahnenkamm downhill ski race, Kitzbühel with its candy coloured Medieval Old Town and magical alpine setting is a beguiling Tyrolean treasure; a place, as locals are keen to tell you, of legends...

As if this wasn’t enough, a few days later Kitzbuhel Tourism asked me to proofread their KitzLux brochure – more than 20 seductive pages featuring the cream of the Kitzbuhel luxury hotel crop. So when the Farmer suggested we book a pre-Easter break somewhere, it was a done deal. How could we resist Kitzbuhel the Legend?

Naturally, I couldn’t. We head off next week to effectively plough the money I’ve just earned from Kitzbuhel back into Kitzbuhel... Gee, they really saw me coming.

Working Girl

After a rather extended Christmas break and a bout of blogger’s block, I’m back, albeit a bit reluctantly. The problem is that my cunning plan to alert the publishing world to my writing prowess via my blog doesn’t seem to be working.

According to my tracking statistics, I have garnered a total following of just over 100 visitors since starting the Bad Farmer’s Wife in September (2009), which – don’t get me wrong – I am very grateful for, but clearly it’s not quite the volume of traffic that’s going to have Bloomsbury beating a path to my door...

Since the dawn of 2010 then, it’s fair to say that my motivation has been pretty poor. And until last week, I’ve had very little to blog about apart from the tiresome weather. What happened last week? It all started when the Farmer got a call from the police asking if we were landlords of a flat in town.

About three years ago, we bought a one bedroom flat in a fairly smart neighbourhood as a rental investment. It was one of about a dozen in a converted Victorian hospital and until last November, had been successfully rented to the same quiet living tenant. Sadly he left, so the flat was re-advertised in the local paper.

Being unfeasibly paranoid about showing the flat on my own to potential axe murderers, the Farmer did a couple of viewings and let the property within a matter of days to a bubbly Brummie girl who told him she was setting up a Fake Bake franchise. She gave him two letters of reference and paid the deposit and one month’s rent – in cash. The subsequent month was also paid in cash.

I immediately thought she’d done a runner on hearing the news of the police phone call. ‘It’s worse,’ the Farmer said grimly. Worse? I repeated. She can't pay the rent? I groaned. ‘No, the rent’s all paid up,’ he said, ‘because the flat’s being run by a ring of prostitutes!’

He went on to explain that after a tip off from one of the neighbours, the police had done a stake out of the property: the girls worked in 2 week cycles leaving the key under the bin for the next girl. However, they couldn’t prosecute them – allegedly they were doing nothing wrong (tell that to the neighbours!) – it was the pimp they were after; in most cases, usually the landlord! But after interviewing the Farmer, they quickly ruled this out. ‘A spot of farm diversification,’ the Farmer joked.

We were, as you'd expect, completely gobsmacked – our lovely little flat, a brothel! Worse still, I had to go round and clear out their belongings, left behind in their hurry to leave. Armed with rubber gloves and bin bags, I found a colourful selection of eye-popping underwear, bottles of baby oil, value packs of BIC razors and lots of air freshener... Fortunately, there was nothing more sordid than this.

Sitting down to dinner that night, the Farmer pointed out that while the situation was not ideal, at least they had paid the rent before they were busted. True, I agreed, we may be suspected pimps but at least we're not out of pocket.