Trapped

My delicious period of maternity leave began on Monday, and I couldn't wait to get all Nigella Lawson on Krusty's ass. My plans of a sparkling home smelling of freshly baked cupcakes were soon scuppered though, as I flicked through the news channels before heading out for ingredients, and report after report of lethal levels of air pollution in Hong Kong urged me not to leave the house unless strictly necessary.

The levels are recorded on a scale from 0 to 500, with figures of just 200 classified as "severe". Anything higher than that is considered dangerous to human beings, although my guess is that Hong Kong has a habit of exceeding it.

Anyway, on this particular day, by the time I was ready to run out to buy my baking soda, the levels had already hit 400; the news had hit international media, children were being forbidden from playing outdoors, and Krusty, on the 58th floor of the ifc, couldn't see anything through the smog out of his window.

By 9pm, the scale had hit 500, the highest reading since 1989. And no, that doesn't mean this has happened before - 1989 is when they actually created the index to start recording pollution levels... Not only that, but the readings can go no higher, even if the levels can. So chances are the levels, which were apparently due to a "sandstorm" in Beijing, were closer to the thousand mark...

So, on my first day of freedom, I was stuck inside my gilded cage, with only the sound of drills and jackhammers to keep me company. And I had nothing to cook with, so Krusty ended up coming home to an improvised ratatouille/bolognaise sheperd's pie with parmesan that he called "interesting" about 15 times.

Thankfully since then the levels have dropped somewhat, and I have been able to leave the house. All of the baby shopping is done, or almost, and so all I have to do now is find suitable activities to wait for bambino (I see a lot of knitting in my future).

Let's just hope I don't have to wait entirely indoors for the big day to come...