The continuing diary of an accidental mother - week 32
"It was the beetroot wot done it, guv."
Lip-licking, lasciviously mine smacked together, as spittle fired with desirous thoughts of consumption. Gloriously immodest, the bunch was as nature intended, ripe for the picking. I would have that beet. The beet would be mine - and I did.
The doctor stood by the window, a urine sample raised in her hand, even the dirty light from grimed windows could not diffuse the strange matter of discolouration.
"This 'ere root... Why this 'ere root... " contested the farmer with a blade of wheat hanging from his lower lip, "It be packed with nitrate which according to those in the apothecary professions, is good for lowering the old pressure of the bloods." He paused to scratch his chin then continued, "There be folic acid, antioxidants and a host of other goodness's within." Old MacDonald even claimed the vegetable was a bone fide cure against dementia but qualified this assertion when he couldn't rightly remember his source.
Some women swear by charcoal. I was smote by a bunch of beets steamed and tossed in a most unctuous extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with salt. The entire bunch of six roots gobbled in a single setting; sweet, earthy and tender on the tongue.
I thought it best to mention this sudden crush on beetroot. The doctor was relieved, "That will explain it".
My presence at the surgery was due to letters of transit required, allowing me to travel to Dublin. The airline would not otherwise take the risk. My script, Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion was being shot. By hook or by crook I would be there.
When not stuffing my gob with ruddy orbs of deliciousness, I was packing my diary with meetings.
I was all out front, and can confess; competitively so. Engineering social bumps offs with other pregnant friends. A marathon runner on the last lap of a race I wanted to be the winner, my bump be the biggest. I was loving this pregnancy, digging the changes. Sure my breasts had changed irrevocably, and hey what's a stretch mark or two between friends? I wore mine as medals, as an African tribal scar. I reckoned if reflux was the worst of my symptoms, I was doing good. Okay, so I would prefer it if my arse didn't completely sag and my ankles didn't swell to the size of my thighs and....
There was a women waddling toward me, a woman with a mighty bump. I was looking at her and she was looking at me. And I could see she too had beetroot stains on her t-shirt and .... Jesus Christ what had I turned into?
I caught my own reflection and wondered how I had come to this?