Although we were still getting to grips with the news, we told our parents pretty much as soon as we picked our jaws up from the floor. What a lovely feeling, I thought. I could get used to this...Perhaps this pregnancy malarkey isn't so bad after all.

After the seventh negative cheapo pregnancy test from Costcutter I was starting to doubt my so-called 'sixth sense' certainty that I was pregnant. However, after a nap, I happened to re-examine one of the £1 wonders. And guess what...there was a second blue line. It was so faint it could have easily have been nothing. But the fact remained - there was something there and I ran downstairs to Chris, the hubby, to show him.

22 Weeks:

After finally starting to believe that there is the vague possibility of a baby actually being 'in there' I think now's a good time to start a pregnancy blog. Over the next 16 weeks I'll be detailing the ups and downs of pregnancy and how it feels to be expecting for the first time. To get you up to date, over the next week I'll be blogging about the significant events up to this point...Enjoy!

Left to his own devices for the weekend, this is how my husband decided he'd hang out his jeans to dry...

How long should you hold a grudge for? A week? A month? A lifetime? When is the time to just let it go?

As previously confessed, I'm a bit of a Facebook junkie.

For those more sane people out there - who still believe in the virtues of actually speaking to someone face to face or picking up the phone - Facebook is a website that allows you to connect with acquaintances past and present by becoming 'friends' with them at the click of a button.

The other day Facebook suggested that I 'make friends' with a girl from my old school.

Facebook often gets it wrong ... but ahh how wrong they'd got it this time.

You see the moment I saw her face on the screen I was transported back to one of the single most heartbreaking episodes of my entire life (yes, I have led a bit of a sheltered one).

I can still remember proudly stepping off our school bus - the first day back after the summer hols - sporting a pair of Kickers, the only shoe to be seen in circa 1994.

After years of being tortured for wearing the wrong ones (i.e. those resembling a corrective nature) I finally felt I could hold my head up high ... I felt like I was walking on air, blissfully unaware of the disappointment that was just moments away.

"New shoes are they?"

I had no time to splutter a response before the awful girl had dipped her own shoe in mud and stomped it on the front of mine - making sure to grind it in good and proper, before skipping off arm in arm with one of her cronies.

As a shy 12-year-old I didn't have it in me to stick up for myself, but my God I've often wondered what I'd do if I was magically transported back to that moment.

Kick her? Punch her? Come up with some witty remark? I don't know. But I wouldn't have just stood there like a complete lemon and taken it - which is, of course, what I did do.

And there she was. Staring out at me from my computer screen. Almost two decades on. Most probably blissfully unaware of the psychological scar she'd inflicted.

After all she was only 12 too - surely people change? She's probably - ugh, dare I say it - quite a nice person now.

I wanted to send her a message on behalf of my 12-year-old self. Ask her if she remembered. Was she bothered? Was she sorry? But then I realised that I actually have her to thank.

It's people like that who make you the way you are. And that's something to be grateful for.

* Find Mieka's column For Better For Worse in The Journal every second Tuesday

I read something in the paper the other day that made me laugh. Apparently Britain's men claim to be doing more housework than ever before, saying they spend a record 13 hours a week on chores. Ha! Pull the other one...

On the train the other morning I was reminded of all the things I hate about commuting.
There is nothing worse first thing on a Monday morning than someone invading your personal space.

As we're still on our saving up mission, dearest hubby and I have not been out in ages.

Before we came to our senses (i.e. got boring) we'd go out for meals at the drop of a hat. "Nothing in the fridge darl? Let's go out!". Now it's more of a case of: "Nothing in the fridge darl? Let's have beans and a mouldy potato. Again."

Boys just don't get fashion. In the last couple of weeks I have been told that:

A: I look like I'm wearing a curtain (it was a purple pussycat bow blouse actually)

B: That I look like a carpenter (I was sporting my new, much loved utility jeans)

And C: That my eye makeup was 'scary'

With the risk of sounding about 80, I'm going to have a bit of a rant about rubbish customer service.