One highlight of the day was that a pack of baby clothes I ordered from eBay came! I’ve discovered these ‘baby bundles’ you can buy – such bargains. 30 items for £9 inc p+p? Yes please. They are all lovely quality and I will be trawling eBay for more bargains in the coming months.

Mum also took a trip to her local NCT nearly new sale today for some bargains (like Mother like Daughter) and found Childbirth Without Fear for 50p, as well as a couple of toys. So in terms of baby H accumulating more things, it’s been a good day.

I’m trying very hard to get over my money worries. I think the issue is that I want to be able to spend the absolute maximum time with our baby without feeling the pressure to have to go back to work. I would rather not go back to working in an office at all and have been looking into freelance options so I can be WAHM, but what if nobody wants me and I don’t have a choice? I’m sure this won’t be the case but going from having a dual income to relying on one salary will be a massive shock to the system. About a year ago we reached a point when we’d paid off the majority of our debts and were able to live without money worries, it feels very strange to almost go back in time finance-wise.

Plus, I’ve been working for the last 7 years. How will I deal with losing such a big part of my life?

Anyway, I know I need to suck it up and get over myself. People raise children on a lot less money than we have, we are lucky to have a safe home, great friends and a wonderful family; we will never go hungry, cold or unloved and I need to stop my whinging!

Having spent the day in bed feeling sorry for myself I really wanted comfort food. Will’s working this evening so I needed something easy, and something that can be re-heated when he gets home at 6am. Macaroni Cheese had popped in my head earlier on in the day – I know it’s not the best diet food but it’s definitely delicious, and hey, I’m eating for 2! I use a roux-based cheese sauce and if I’m feeling virtuous I add tomato slices on top before baking, or even breadcrumbs for a bit of extra crunch:

25g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
250g grated cheddar cheese
300ml milk
250g macaroni pasta
300g bacon, pancetta or lardons
salt and pepper

Fry off the bacon until golden in a frying pan and drain on kitchen paper. Put to one side.

Cook the macaroni until al dente.

Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a gentle heat.

When it’s liquid, add the flour and stir in well. Add 1/3 of the cheese and 1/3 of the milk and stir in until melted and blended.

Add the rest of the cheese and milk bit by bit, reserving a small amount of the cheese to put on top before oven baking.

When it’s a smooth sauce, add the macaroni pasta and bacon. Pour into an oven dish and sprinkle the reserved cheese on top.

Bake in an oven at 180 degrees C for about 12 mins, or until crunchy on top.

PS: Having had a bit of an issue with comments on my blog lately, I’ve upgraded my Wordpress installation so hopefully this should have fixed the problem. Feel free to email me if you’re still experiencing an error message – alice at thealice dot co dot uk.

Anna is a stay at home mum with a one year old son, George, and she writes at EvieGeorge. I’m pleased to give up this post to her and have to admit I shed a bit of a tear when I read it this morning (hello hormones) – take it away, Anna!

“There are occasions when I look at George and I just want to cover him in chocolate sauce and eat him. He is the best DIY project I ever did!!(well, with a bit of help- ha!) To me, he is perfection personified. Sometimes, he just comes over, wraps his arms round my neck and kisses me and I’m not sure how I manage to keep my heart inside my chest. It literally feels like it might burst out.

People say you stay the same person after you have kids but I disagree. I think once you are a mum you are someone’s MUM! I mean for goodness sakes, you are the mother of someone’s grandchild, someone’s cousin, someone’s nephew or niece and that is a huge responsibility, albeit an amazing one.

Maybe when your child is bigger you can get back to being a bit more like the original ‘me’. But whilst you’re still changing nappies every couple of hours that’s a tough one. From other blogs I have seen people really struggle with this, it can cause turmoil and despair that they are losing their identity. Well, I have those days too, it can get to three in the afternoon and I am still in pyjamas and I wonder what the hell I’m doing.

What I am doing is teaching my son to play, to sing, to love, to laugh, to dream. I know he’s only one but everything I show him now will affect who he is when he’s bigger. That is why I don’t mind that the current ‘me’ is pretty damn different to the old ‘me’ because as soon as I start humming ‘row, row, row your boat’ my son starts moving backwards and forwards with his hands grasping imaginary oars and it was ME that taught him that!”

Now I’d urge you to pop over to Anna’s blog and read my guest post - where I write about mummy bloggers and books.

In fact, back when I lived in Nottingham I used this website to write about one of my biggest loves in life: FOOD. Recipes and restaurant reviews mostly, some photography too, but unfortunately when I moved to London I didn’t have enough time to give my food the attention it deserves.

Moving out of the city and cutting down on my socialising (and hangovers!) has meant I’ve can spend a lot more time in the kitchen, and I really want to share my recipes on my blog (not just for my readers, but so I remember what I’ve been cooking, too!). Our Sky+ box is full of cookery programmes and therefore tonnes of inspiration, and I picked up a couple of back copies of Olive from our hotel in Cheltenham last week and dusted off my recipe file. The cookery world is now my oyster! (hah)

I want to begin with a roast, it’s a weekly occurrence in our house and I think a lovely tradition to uphold :

Perfect Pork Belly
Pork Belly is one of our favourite cuts of meat. It’s cheap – the last piece we bought (pictured) was £5 for 1.5kg and lasted 2 of us for 2 meals (I’m sure it would have been more if we weren’t such greedy bastards). When cooked correctly it is one of the most meltingly tender pieces of meat you will taste, and it has the awesome addition of crackling!! Delicious.

I find scoring the skin of the pork the most boring and thankless task, so if possible ask your butcher to do it for you. If you are left with the hard graft of scoring the skin yourself you will need a very sharp knife indeed (a decent stanley knife will suffice if you don’t have one). Score through the skin into the fat but not into the meat.

This recipe is brilliant because it cooks for ages – you can forget about it and get on with your day. It also uses the pork dish to cook some of the veg, saving on washing up!

1.5kg Pork Belly
Sea Salt and pepper
Olive oil
5 large carrots, peeled and chopped into chunky rounds
2 red onions
500ml chicken stock

Score the skin of the pork and make sure it’s as dry as possible. Season the bottom of the meat, then place skin-up in a large cooking dish.

Season the skin with sea salt liberally, using your fingers to get in between the scores. Drizzle with a couple of teaspoons of olive oil and rub into the skin (messy but worth it!).

Pop in a very hot oven (260-280 degrees C) for 30 mins, or until the crackling puffs up nicely. Use your judgement with this as you don’t want it to burn, it should form a crispy layer that’s hard to the touch and almost hollow-sounding when tapped with a finger nail.

Turn the oven down to 160 degrees C and cook for another 45mins.

Remove the pork from the oven and baste with the fat. Take out the dish and put to one side; toss the carrots and onions in the pork fat. Replace the pork on top of the veg and cook for another hour.

Remove the pork once more and rest under foil for 10-15 minutes remove the veg (strain if necessary, reserving the juices) which should leave some lovely meaty liquid behind. Add the stock to this and bubble on a low heat whilst the pork rests until you have a nice rich gravy. You can use the roasting dish for this, using the liquid to scrape the tasty bits of pork off the bottom of the dish.

I like to serve this with potatoes roasted with parsnips, and peas.

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!

It feels wonderful to be halfway there. Not only have my worry levels dropped significantly recently (thank-you hormones), I’m really pleased that the time isn’t dragging anymore. I’m concentrating on enjoying the pregnancy – easier now I look pregnant rather than a raging Krispy Kreme fan. I’m feeling a lot more like my happy, healthy self (minus the sickness bug) and all is good.

The weekend before last was a big one. Will works in the live music biz here in London, and he had a couple of nights of big shows; Faithless on Friday night followed by Simian Mobile Disco on Saturday. We had friends from Nottingham staying on Friday so dined with them at Vivat Bacchus (OK – would go again for their TopTable offer) and went on to see the show. I’m pleased to report I wore sequins (see photo, me and my gorgeous friend Su who I know reads my blog so here’s some blog fame for her!), drank a special treat glass of champagne and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I got a bit tetchy about 4am as it was slightly wearing to be the only sober party-goer, so a taxi was procured and our group retired. When we got home I went straight to bed rather than taking part in the post-night-out toast and tea/Top Gun feast.

The next night I was treated to a dinner at Gaucho with SMD and friends (I LOVE Gaucho) before meeting my brother to say ‘Happy Birthday’ and bed for 2am. What a partygoer!!

I have to admit, these two nights out plus the Baby Show on Sunday totally exhausted me, though the impending Norovirus certainly didn’t help. From now on I’m a strictly midnight-bedtime gal.

So, here’s a quick bullet-point roundup of how I’m feeling at Week 20:

- I love the movements and kicks I’m feeling! They were awful when I was sick as I had horrendous stomach cramps and they seemed to magnify them but now I’m well again I could lie back and feel my stomach all day. Unfortunately I have to go to work instead.

- I’m drinking a lot and my dehydration is well and truly under control. I haven’t had a headache since 18 weeks and have come to terms with the fact I have to pee around 12 times a day.

- The sinusitis has been really getting me down, in the cold weather my nose just won’t stop running and it seems to have spread to my ears which pop and crackle in the wind! I’m hoping this will improve in the warmer weather and if not I know it will definitely disappear when the baby comes.

- I’m sleeping like a log and feeling fresh when I wake up. It’s great and I’m making the most of it!

- I’ve had some hormonal spots along my jawline. Quite normal, aside from the fact they itch like anything and look almost like mosquito bites. OUCH.

- I lost the 6lb I gained in my second trimester with the sickness bug, but am working on getting that back. I feel lucky that I haven’t put on a lot of weight but have been making sure I get my 5 a day in moderation.

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!

]]> http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/02/whats-in-my-bag-2/feed/ 4 http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/02/wordless-wednesday-1/ http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/02/wordless-wednesday-1/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:09:23 +0000 Alice http://www.thealice.co.uk/?p=226

Would bump like some champagne with that? Enjoying a special treat glass of bubbles at the weekend. Mmmmm.

NB: I may be pregnant but I can still wear Paul Smith and Sequins

So far, we have spent a fair bit of money on:
- Ante-natal vitamins – Pregnacare, whilst they were the most expensive brand, seemed to be the best
- Maternity clothing – I have been LIVING in maternity leggings, nothing else will do at the moment. And I bought my first maternity bra at the Baby Show… that was expensive, nearly as much as my Rigby and Peller birthday undies
- Travel to and from the hospital – I’m going on average twice a month
- Furniture for the nursery – I’ve been lucky and found some bargains on eBay, but there are some things (cot mattress etc) that you really do need as new
- Baby clothes – why are so many baby items the same price as adult items when they’re a tenth of the size? One of life’s great mysteries I guess
- Pregnancy books – I like reading, I like to be informed, I do not like how expensive pregnancy books are!
- Food – I’m hungry, need the good stuff, enough said

… and I’m not even a quarter of the way into my ‘baby essentials’ purchasing list.

Factor in a trip in May to see the in-laws in Greece so they can see the baby bump for themselves before my July due date, a house move and all the fun money-spending things that come with living in London, and you’ve got yourself a couple of expectant parents with empty pockets. Plus we want to save up for a car as we sold ours when we moved down to London two years ago, and the situation isn’t helped by my expensive tastes…

It’s come to the time to decide what ante-natal classes we want to take. Throughout this pregnancy (and before, if I’m honest) I’ve always considered myself to be fairly well-read on the subject of pregnancy, birth and beyond; I don’t like surprises and I’m adamant that there won’t be any when I’m in labour so I’ve educated myself on every single outcome and possibility during this process. I’ve devoured pregnancy books, magazines, TV shows, YouTube clips…

At 7 weeks pregnant I pre-registered myself with my local NCT and selected to attend their standard ante-natal class, however when I received information on the course I felt I knew it all, and there was nothing new there for me. The problem is, every mum I know has cited NCT classes as essential for getting to know new mums – even Jools Oliver waxes lyrical about it in her 0-9 months baby book (hormones drove me to make some bad book choices…). If I choose not to go to classes will I be massively missing out? I know as a younger mum in a new area I’m going to find it challenging to make new friends, but what if I do choose to go to the classes and make no friends at all? Then I’m out of £280 and no better off. Mellow Mummy discusses this more eloquently than I do at her post ‘NCT: An Expensive Introductions Agency?‘

One thing I am certain on is that I want to use the hypnobirthing method during my labour and delivery. And hey, guess what? More money. I looked into doing a course but all local to me were around £350-400 so I’ve decided to do a home study course instead. And here’s somewhere I can save money! I’m going to buy the book off Amazon (along with Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth which I have heard brilliant things about), and couple that with Dany Griffiths’s Tums2Mums Hypnotherapy MP3s. She’s running a competition on her blog at the moment where you can win one of her Home Study courses – go here to enter as I have done.

I would love to hear from mums who have been through all this and can give me some advice on a) how to save a bit of money, and b) how to stop worrying about it. Help!

NB: please come back in 9 months time for the inevitable ‘Boy, aren’t babies expensive?!’ post, and if anyone needs a soon-to-be-mummy friend in the N10/N22 area, I’m on the market!

Picture credit: me, from back when I worked in the corporate world and could afford to flash my cash on frivolities such as work roulette nights…

However, come Sunday evening Norovirus hit the H household. It’s been a really horrid couple of days for both me and Will – I have lost 6lbs in less than 2 days – but today we’re both feeling a lot brighter. We’re under strict doctors orders to remain at home for 48 hours after our symptoms have gone as we’re so contagious, and despite my worries baby will be absolutely fine.

So my weekend round-up will follow a little later than expected, along with a ‘what’s in your bag’ post after being tagged for the first time by MetMum (yay!).

When he got the job it was brilliant – the best thing that could ever happened for his career. I was so proud of him, yet the stress of organizing a move across the country in 4 weeks was pretty full on. Naively, not knowing London’s housing market, we allocated one day to house hunting two weeks before our moving date and managed to see three flats. We took the second one we found in Kentish Town, a beautiful 2 bed garden flat, though rent was more than twice our Nottingham mortgage payments at almost £1,600 a month (OUCH).

We quickly learned about London and the different areas we were spending most time and subsequently lived in Shoreditch and Islington, where we were the longest.

When we found out we were having a baby, one of the first things I wanted to do was organise where we’d be living. Our flat in Islington was lovely, but only had one bedroom and no garden. Perfect for that time in our lives, as we spent most of our time in restaurants and pubs! But I knew that when baby came I would want a garden and extra room for a nursery. So we moved out to Muswell Hill, Zone 3, in January. A big move – moving away from our friends, work and the bars we were in so often really cemented the change we were about to make in our lifestyles. But we 100% made the right decision.

This place is going to be our baby’s first home so it’s really important that the it’s as homely as possible. I’m a real homebody and love being here – pottering round the house, cleaning, doing laundry… so I’ve got a huuuuuge list of DIY things that need to be done before the baby arrives.

We’re getting there, though; the area is lovely, there are tons of kids on our street and we really feel at home in this house:

The lovely interior glass paned doors were one of the things that sold me on this house.

Hallway table.

My favourite room… the bedroom! Faux fur blanket a gift from my parents.

Sun streaming in through the garden into the lounge – I can’t wait for summer…

* My sinusitis alongside a cold has been giving me real pain the last couple of days so I’ve been hanging out at home working from my sickbed. Urgh! Hoping to get out the house for dinner with Will at some point this weekend – and of course to The Baby Show on Sunday with him and my parents. I’m sure photos of the baby-overload will follow.