Pickled Onions

Well, the moment of truth has arrived.....I will get my first taste of life in Bermuda tomorrow. Jon and I are flying over there because he starts his job on Monday and I am going to spend a couple of weeks, relaxing, getting to know the place and the people -- who are known, apparently, as Onions, much as the French are known as Frogs. Although there's not much chance of me becoming an honorary Onion, or, perhaps better still, an honorary Pickled Onion for a while, it should be quite interesting. I'll report back on where it ends up on the expectation scale when I return. For now, hope you're all keeping well.
xx

Bean's first bash

Here's the promised picture of me and Jon at the Queen's Birthday Party last Friday. It was held at the residence of the ambassador Richard and his wife Jemma, who's a friend of mine and also to say goodbye to them, as they are going after three years. There was a really cool Union flag dance floor and lots of food, including miniature scones. As you can see, I've had my hair cut....

Five months to go

Five months today and I am due to become a Mummy. Lots of things to report since the last post. I know I'm a bit erratic at keeping people up-to-date, but I hope you'll forgive me. First and foremost, Jon and I went to the doctor yesterday and everything is fine with Jelly Bean, whose heart is strong. We don't know what the baby's sex is, nor do we know if we will decide to find out before he or she is born, but for simplicity's sake, we're calling JB him. So, he's an active little thing, which I don't think will surprise anyone given his parentage. Because Jon was there we had another ultrasound and could see his hands, arms and legs thrashing around. Actually, I say little, but he's not that little, apparently measuring around 16 centimetres from crown to rump, or head to bum. I'm pretty healthy too, with the only minor complaints being slight low blood sugar and slight anaemia, while I don't seem to have put on too much weight, just yet! I don't really look massively pregnant...well, I suppose I'm not yet: eighteen weeks yesterday, but I do have a pot belly and I have put on about five pounds. For the past couple of weeks, I have occasionally had little butterfly-type feelings inside me, which I think are probably the first signs of JB kicking, but apparently I should feel them even stronger in the next few weeks. The one downside of the visit to the doctor was the fact that he told me I had to stop running, which was a bit of a blow, but I suppose understandable. I've been relying on it for a long time to keep me sane and healthy, but the doctor seems to think it could damage the placenta, with all the bouncing, and the last thing I want to do is cause that to expel itself before the time is right. So, I was a little bit miserable yesterday, because it's going to be more than five months and I hate to think how unfit I am going to be and how tired with a little baby, but am sure things will be fine and I have set myself a challenge of running a 10k in Bermuda in January. I've been feeling really good running recently, okay much slower as my body dynamics and balance change, but good. On Sunday, just the day before I saw the doctor, I ran a 5km race around Miraflores, here in Lima, which I took very easily, but Jon still reckons Jelly Bean was the first foetus to cross the line. So, I suppose I did go out with a bang....
I have just got back from a walk along the cliff-top here, something I am going to try and do as a replacement to running. It's not quite a substitute, but it was a beautiful day this morning and the lighting was so pretty and so good that you could see the big island in the distance off the port of Callao.
I'm hoping that we finally get the results of the Peruvian elections today and get confirmation of who is going through to the second round with the rather controversial nationalist former army officer Ollanta Humala. It'll be Alan Garcia, the former president who's perhaps just as controversial, but I can't really do a story until we get confirmation. Ho hum...
I'll write more later, as I want to post a pic from the Queen's Birthday Party, which we went to on Friday at the British ambassador's residence. Bean's first official function! For now, lots of love to you all xxxx

Better the devil you know...?

I'm sitting in my friend's apartment in Lima, where it's about five in the morning, looking out at a string of orange street lights and listening to the ocean. The horrendous screeching of dilapidated vehicles and the constant whine and bang of construction hasn't yet begun. It's the quietest time of day and really pleasant, so I don't really mind the fact that someone from the BBC called me at 3am, with the age-old expression 'I haven't woken you up, have I?' When will people learn that the world doesn't revolve around London. Ho hum.... Anyway, I have just filed a report on the Peruvian elections. The first round took place yesterday and, as with many things in Peru, the results are deeply uncertain. With just over half the vote counted, nobody knows who the next president will be and the only likelihood is that people here are going to have to do it all again and vote in a second round in the next few weeks, because no candidate got the majority in the first round.
This is bad enough in a country with the infrastructure and relative wealth of somewhere like Britain, but imagine having to travel for days from your home deep in the Amazon or high in the Andes to vote in an election you don't understand, for candidates who don't understand you, only to be waste your ballot because you've been denied basic education and are illiterate, but voting is compulsory?
The man most likely to get the most votes is someone who reflects quite how divided this country is. He's a nationalist former army officer, who has found favour among the fifty percent or so of Peruvians who live below the poverty line. His rhetoric has terrified the business classes here, because he's pledged to increase state control of Peru's vast natural resources and has aligned himself with fellow military-type Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela.
But, the other two frontrunners in these elections aren't much better, according to most Peruvians: an upper class conservative woman, the darling of the rich and someone who has marginalised the poor with her 'establishment' buddies and a former leader who left the country in the grip of economic turmoil and terrorised by the Shining Path rebels. As I wrote in my report, it may come down to 'better the devil you know, than the devil you don't'.
All I know is that I'm getting sleepy and feeling a little sick, which tends to happen when I haven't eaten for a few hours. I'm sixteen weeks' pregnant today and I have covered two elections and reported on another (Chile, Peru, Bolivia) and travelled to various countries in the past four months, so this baby already has a firm foundation in international politics. As the BBC likes to put it, there is a leftwards anti-Washington trend in Latin America....If we're to believe that, will I give birth to a socialist subversive firebrand? Hmmm, it's a good thing journalists simplify things sometimes, isn't it?
Buenas noches y amor a todos xxx

Lots of news

Ok, ok....a million apologies to anyone who is still reading this blog, and also many thanks for reading it. I have been away for too long, but I do have a good excuse. Since last posting, I have been travelling a massive amount, have got engaged to Jon and have discovered I am pregnant. Jon and I are expecting our baby on September 25 and we're very excited. We're not going to find out if it's a blue baby or a pink baby as my friend Abi asked me, and Baby Chittock, will probably be born in England. I'm not quite beginning to show, although I do look like I ate too much for lunch and my trousers are getting a little tight. Had I posted something earlier, I might have spilled the beans, so I hope you'll forgive me. I wanted to wait until I was safely in the second trimester. I don't know if I'm going to be able to summarise the past three months, suffice to say, they have seen me on more planes than I care to remember and travelling backwards and forwards between Peru and Chile, with a trip to England and another to Bolivia thrown in. So, here I am at almost four months pregnant and back in Lima, which makes me very happy, working pretty hard, setting up interviews and visits for Dan, the South America correspondent who is here to cover the elections this weekend. Yet, another South American country, and another election......this is for another posting.
Love to you all
xxx