I’m looking forward to leaving for all the practical reasons; the commute, the mental energy I’d rather use on packing the house up for our move, the option to lie in if I’m awake all night with Braxton Hicks. Otherwise I’m pretty scared.

Mostly I will miss the people I work with, we have a lot of fun together and I genuinely like coming into the office every day. But I’ll also really miss the cool stuff we get sent on a daily basis.

I’ve worked on projects with G -shock for two years and was always kind of sore that I was never able to get my hands on of their watches: I went through two Baby G’s (remember them?) between the ages of 14 and 18 – you were a nobody at my school unless you wore one of those bad boys on your wrist.

Imagine my delight when a box full of grown-up G-Shock watches arrived at the office; in all colours of the rainbow, I managed to get my hands on a bright red one.

I felt sixteen again. I really love chunky watches – perhaps because they make my swollen hands look smaller? Dainty timepieces are lost on me and this watch really stands out. It’s brilliant.

It’s waterproof so will be great during labour…

There will be a Casio G-Shock watch shop/underground hub of creativity opening on 24th June at the Old Truman Brewery, hosting installations from emerging artists and designers as well as displaying their product offerings. Very East London. Having attended their artistic endeavors previously I can highly recommend a visit, though of course I will be in Nottingham resting my cankles so won’t be there myself.

You can find out more on their website.

]]> http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/06/watchy-watchy/feed/ 2 http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/06/being-33-weeks-pregnant/ http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/06/being-33-weeks-pregnant/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:05:07 +0000 Alice http://www.thealice.co.uk/?p=436 - Sleep has suddenly become really hard. How can I be so tired yet find it difficult to drop off at night? I’ll tell you how: a head in my ribs, a baby with the hiccups at 2am and a middle of the night football habit.

- ICE. Oh god, ice. I love it so much. Current daily intake: 3 pints. YUM. Thinking about ice makes my mouth water.

- I put on my maternity jeans (Topshop Baxters, the type with stretchy pockets, size 10) this morning and it was a lot tougher to get them over my thighs. I think pregnancy weight is finally catching up with me…

- I have not ‘done’ my hair since I left for Greece (i.e. blow-dried/straightened). Instead I’ve been leaving it au naturel, which means curly. It’s nice for a change but I wish I had the energy to dry my hair properly. I’m thinking this is good practice for when the baby gets here, I’m sure blow-drying will be the last thing I’ll want to do.

- Work is now officially a drag. I worked from home twice last week and once the week before as my SPD was just horrendous, it goes away fairly swiftly with a good rest but comes back when I walk. Because of this I’ve brought my maternity leave forward by a week, meaning I will leave on 11th June. That’s 8 working days! I can’t wait.

- …because of this we have brought our moving date forward to 13th June. Which means we have less than a fortnight to pack up our London lives. Eek.

- I no longer have ankles. I have cankles.

- Baby is still breech which is not only worrying but really uncomfy – I’m going to Argos this evening to purchase a gym ball and will do my best to bounce her the right way up.

- I think we’re all ready for the arrival of baby, with the exception of being in the right city (let alone the right house). This weekend we went shopping for all the final bits; hospital essentials, bottles and steriliser (I will be breastfeeding but want Will to do one feed a day), baby monitor, newborn sleepsuits….

- I bought a pack of 2 breastfeeding bras from M&S. They are possibly the least sexiest item of clothing I’ve ever laid my eyes on, but BOY are they comfortable.

Back when we lived in Nottingham and we had a lot of spare time, I used to be really into my photography. I’d spend hours and hours on Flickr and probably bored everyone to tears with photos of the dog (the only willing subject I’ve ever known). I want to get back into it with the arrival of summer and the baby, and will make sure my camera is a permanent nappy bag fixture. I’m going to attempt to do every single Gallery prompt from now on to get this resolution kick-started.

This week’s Gallery theme is ‘Portraits’, and Will took one of me this morning for a work project. It was snapped in our bedroom with the sun streaming through the curtains – despite my cold I think I look healthy and happy. It’s rare I like a photo of myself this much so I wanted to show it off:

Very Terry Richardson, don’t you think?

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!

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/love/ http://www.thealice.co.uk/2010/02/love/#comments Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:15:51 +0000 Alice http://www.thealice.co.uk/?p=171 We don’t really get into Valentine’s day in the H household; as much as I love the idea of a whole day dedicated to romances of the heart, Will is not so into the idea of “paying inflated prices to sit in a crowded restaurant full of other couples pretending to enjoy Valentine’s day” (his words). I usually get a couple of small gifts – I believe last year was a bottle of wine and some tulips – but this time I thought we should perhaps make more of an effort as this would be our last 14th Feb as a twosome.

Will took my jokey request of “a tacky teddybear holding a massive heart saying ‘ I love you’” (which was actually my first ever Valentine’s gift from my very first boyfriend age 10) a bit too literally. Guess what my present was?

Yup, a tacky teddybear holding a massive heart saying ‘ I love you’. And 2 cards!

In return, I got him the Godminster vintage organic heart-shaped cheddar:

I had bought him a great Valentine’s card that I was really pleased with, but can’t for the life of me remember what I’ve done with it, so had to improvise with a Mother’s Day card that was hanging round from last year:

I would blame baby brain, but apparently I can’t anymore…

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!

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.

- 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……..