The Alice

A photo of me and my lovely Mum, in our hotel in Cheltenham this weekend. We were drinking virgin Mojitos and eating olives whilst waiting for our table to be ready. I hope I look as good as her when I’m in my 50’s!

I got tagged a little while ago by MetMum to reveal ‘What’s in my bag’ and I thought it would be a great idea to do my first Vlog. I initially filmed this on Thursday night but used the wrong setting on my camera and ended up with a 10 minute video that was 1.3GB long – oops! I re-did it last night and now have a much more sensible sized file that is here for your enjoyment.

Isn’t it weird seeing yourself on camera? In my head I speak totally different to this, and I have to apologise for my rain, stress and wind-swept hair (it looked better in the original Thursday filming!!). Work was manically busy on Friday and we had a broken boiler like Young & Younger so I rushed home for that to be fixed , luckily it was a quick 10 minute job and we didn’t have to go overnight without heating or water. Oh and I say in the video that I hope you are watching this on Friday night, thought I know you are watching it afterwards now…

I’m not going to tag anyone on this because I reckon I’m one of the last to do it… so I will say if anyone else wants to have a go – go for it!

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!

That is the sound of me getting re-connected to modern life at our new house, or the internet to be exact. I did without it for 34 days; there were tears and tantrums (mine), excuses (SKY’s) and desperation (husband’s) but none of that seems to matter anymore.

I’m back!

Apparently, I’m finding this whole no-internet-at-home thing very hard. It may be true that I have even been refraining from reading blogs during my lunch hour at work because I don’t want to know what I’m missing. This is resulting in short lunch hours and a severely clogged-up Google Reader. And I’m watching lots more TV in the evenings than before.

The main lesson learned during this whole experience is: do not get Sky Broadband unless you are prepared to wait over a month for it.

In the meantime, I’ve been entertaining myself with cooking, cleaning and all-round general practice for when I am a full time mum. Plus a lovely minibreak to the Cotswolds (where I grew up) with my husband, parents and brother. They made me go walking, but at least I got proof:

As inappropriately dressed as ever.

Donate. / Bloggers for Haiti.

I feel there is nothing else to say today.

- We moved house! And what a treat our new place is; the fact that I can be in the bedroom and not even hear the TV In the living room is still such a novelty, and I am so pleased to see my houseproud side back in full force (I thought I’d left it in the house in Nottingham when we moved to London 2 years ago). We’re still in a flat, but there is a garden, our own front door and neighbors with a toddler.

- I chilled out, relaxed, and learned how to sleep properly. Something about our new bedroom means I sleep like a baby, perhaps because our heating is no longer included in our rent payments so this house isn’t as balmy as our old one. No more nights of insomnia, no more 4am frets, I’m asleep for 11 and awake at 7. I feel like a new woman.

- From my 12 week test results I’ve been diagnosed as being high-risk for developing pre-eclampsia. It’s a testament to the new laid-back version of me that this hasn’t been worrying in the slightest. In fact, I think it’s wonderful that the hospital are taking such good care of me – I’ll be in every 4 weeks for additional pulse, blood pressure and heart monitoring as well as extra scans. I got to see baby H again yesterday and it was wonderful.

- I discovered emailsfromcrazypeople.com

- I grew a baby bump, evidenced by a lovely lady offering me her seat on the tube.

I am ending this week feeling positive, excited and very happy. Still no internet at home (and it’s not going to be forthcoming until the beginning of Feb, argh), but on the bright side this is giving me plenty of time to cook for and attend to my poor, neglected husband. I really want to get cracking on my freelance portfolio but this will just have to wait whilst I chill out a bit longer. Ahhhhhhhhh……..

Happy first wedding anniversary today to the best husband in the whole world!

It really doesn’t feel like 12 months ago that we said ‘I do’. And at the same time, it feels like we’ve been married forever.

What a year – I can’t wait for the next 70.

PS: a hectic weekend was spent moving all our wordly belongings 5.1 miles north to Muswell Hill. The new house is wonderful, all the SPACE is a revelation (garden! nursery! separate kitchen!). Sky was installed over the weekend but we won’t be online until the 22nd, so until them I’m limited to whatever I can squeeze in at work. Internet, I miss you!

Brilliant news – I think my first trimester exhaustion is on its way out. I can’t even begin to describe how debilitating I have found this, the strain on my brain felt enormous and I had so many “I can’t do this anymore” wobbles. It was a massive shock; I was prepared for morning sickness but nobody warned me about the bone-crunching fatigue. After six weeks of hell I am SO GLAD it’s over.

Bad news – the exhaustion has been replaced by insomnia. All week I have been awake til at least 4am, though it was 5am on Sunday and Tuesday. I’m putting it down to the stress of moving house tomorrow as Will is in charge, therefore I do not get to be a control freak. It’s disconcerting – nagging is my forte and I’m lost without it. We’re going down to the estate agents this evening to sign paperwork and pick up the keys, tomorrow I will leave our lovely De Beauvoir flat for the final time and return to our new Muswell Hill abode. Need to make the most of the 15 minute commute one last time.

Aside from the moving worry, I seem to have a whole host of baby-themed concerns buzzing round in my head in the early hours. Last night, these included:
a) how do I get a new baby in a pram down lots of steps on to a train platform?
b) how do I get a new baby in a pram up and down the escalator on the tube?
c) can I wear high heels when I’m carrying the baby or will it mean I drop it (I’m not great at balancing)?
d) how do I watch out for dog poo when I’m pushing a pram? How do I clean dog poo off pram wheels?
e) how do you get baby sick out of silk?
f) how can I justify buying the £60 sweater dress I like in American Apparel?

As you can see, it’s really serious stuff. Send help.

- Photo Memes – looooove…. ahhhh… SOB.

- John Lewis’s baby department – there is just so much stuff in there, it totally overwhelmed me and I had to be taken to Topshop to calm down.

- Glee – I have no excuse for this one and for that I am truly apologetic.

- My bank statement – “how are we going to afford a baby??!!”  and other irrational thoughts are keeping me up until the early hours.

- My tiredness – when will it stop?

- My scan photographs –  because baby is beautiful.

- Will, just not understanding me – irrational? Hormones? Moi?

Photo credit – Roadside Guitars

In 2010, I resolve to:
- Be a better wife
I need to realise when I’m being a whiny bitch because of my hormones and keep a lid on it, otherwise Will’s sanity will be severely compromised.

- Make our new home a wonderful place to be
I can’t wait to move to our bigger family home next week and to have a garden and nursery. We’ll be spending a lot more time there and I want to make it as homely as possible.

- Keep in touch with my friends more than I have done
Should be easy as I won’t be hungover at all in the next six months.

- See as much live music as possible before baby comes
…because I won’t be seeing much afterwards!

- Really work at doing freelance stuff
I won’t be working for a long while after baby arrives, should I pick up freelance work we won’t have to worry so much about budgeting (yuck).

- Blog
If I don’t blog about things, I forget them. I really want to remember this pregnancy.

- Be a good mum
Self-explanatory I think.

- Don’t splurge so much money on convenience food, clothes and booze
I think this means no more Pret. I’ll need a while to get over this one.

- Read better books, not just crappy chick lit
I love bad books, but I worry they are turning my brain to mush. So far this year I have already powered through Bridget Jones’s Diary, but am now on ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini. FYI: the Twilight series doesn’t count as crappy chick lit.