The Alice

I had to share a photograph of my packed hospital bags after seeing this post by the lovely Notes To Self, Plus Two who was 40 weeks on Friday.

(Baby’s birth calls for posh luggage, I feel. Though there is too much stuff in the weekend bag and I can’t get the damned zip to close)

…but am utterly exhausted with the excitement of The Big Move.

It happened last Sunday, we were totally unpacked by Thursday and this weekend has been a whirlwind of building work as we’re having new decking constructed in the back garden (project managed by my Dad, Happy Father’s Day!). It looks fabulous but I completely underestimated the amount of dust the work would generate and have therefore spent a large amount of time running round with the Dyson and a duster.

Back soon, once I’ve slept off my DIY dust fatigue.

Photo: Dad yesterday, getting stuck into the old concrete steps by the back door (they are no more!)

PACKING! One week to go…

The last week involved a lot of soul-searching and decision-making for both of us; having been set on one path for such a long time and not expecting to deviate from it, Will’s redundancy was a big shock and really made us question our future.

Will was Head of Promotions at matter, a big music venue at the O2. We moved down to London two and a half years ago from Nottingham when he got approached to do this job – booking bands and DJs – and he was so good at it.

He worked ever so hard and a typical day would involve him leaving the house at 8pm and returning 12 hours later, plus there was the weekend work (9pm Saturday night through to 8am Sunday morning and often the same on Fridays, urgh). The perks of the job made up for the fact that we had limited time together, it really helped that for me most upsets can be cured with Laurent Perrier Rose. When I got pregnant I was worried that his job wouldn’t be so compatible with family life what with the long days and late nights, but it’s what he does, he loves his work and I didn’t want him to do a job he didn’t enjoy. Plus he’s always been a provider and has worked as hard as he can for our family – that’s just what he does.

When we got back from Greece to the news there was upset at his work, I truly didn’t believe it. There were murmuring about redundancies on the Monday and all was to be revealed at an all-company meeting on the Tuesday. When I got that phone call on Tuesday morning telling me he’d lost his job I literally fell over. I cried and felt sick. How were we going to cope? I knew he would get another job fairly quickly, but if he was out of employment for even one month it would make life incredibly difficult; he’s always been the breadwinner and we’d planned our finances so it would just about work for me to be off for 6 months maternity leave without earning. It’d be tight, but we could manage. I was terrified and had visions of having to leave my 8 week old baby to return to work (remember De Niro’s Mannery Gland in Meet The Fockers? That’s what Will was wearing in my deepest darkest nightmares).

We worked out we’d be eligible for some sort of housing benefits soon, plus tax credits and job seeker’s allowance so Will made an appointment to sign on.

Then he started getting phonecalls. He got offered a couple of events, and then some consultancy gigs. 2 weeks of work booking a venue in Liverpool, a Polish festival that needed a headline act. A London warehouse party, ongoing work with a record label. Suddenly it seemed silly for him to work for a company when he could be earning more money by cutting out the middle man and going out on his own. Will’s dad was a brilliant entrepreneur and his last wish was that Will used his skills to start his own business – the chain of events relating to Will’s redundancy kicked off on the day his Dad died and we can’t help but think that fate has played a big hand. We talked about it, and decided there was no time like the present for us to start a business.

The tenants who live in the house we bought 5 years ago in Nottingham coincidentally moved out a month ago, leaving us with an empty house and an extremely cheap mortgage (the only time low interest rates are good!). If Will’s working between the North and London it makes sense to be half way between the two, plus we’ll have more than enough space for an office for Will and a nursery for baby. So we’re moving back there as soon as maternity leave finishes and taking away our London rent removes a massive strain on our finances.

At first the thought of leaving London terrified me, but we haven’t been enjoying the city as much as we used to (and wouldn’t have been able to afford to once the baby came along). We’ll be returning to a city we know well and somewhere we have plenty of friends. When we found out we were having a baby one of my biggest regrets was that we wouldn’t be able to bring baby home to a house place we owned rather than rented and I am so pleased we are able to do this now.

Even better, Will is going to be working from home so will be around for cuddles all day rather than for a couple of hours in the morning; he won’t be missing bathtime and bedtime as we’d expected him to. He is over the moon at the prospect of being a more hands-on dad, and so am I. I won’t have any pressure to go back to work within a certain time frame and can concentrate on looking after our new family.

We’re going home, and I think it’s going to be the right thing for us. I can’t wait.

(and I’m not nervous at all at moving cities at 36 weeks pregnant, noooo not at all…)

Isn’t it a lovely looking house?

The living room.

We get a great view over Nottingham.

I haven’t had a dishwasher in over a year and I have to admit I am very excited to have one again.

With only 17 weeks to go now I feel it’s time to legitimately begin decorating the nursery. Taking inspiration from Young Mummy’s gorgeous book-themed nursery, I want Baby H to have a stimulating, girly and interesting room; she will sleep in our room for the first six months of her life so it will be initially treated as a nursery/playroom.

So far we have a white cot and chest of drawers. I think I’ve convinced Will that he should be building a built-in wardrobe in the bedroom alcove though with his track record in DIY I think he’ll need a hand from Grandpa-to-be. An antique desk inherited from family will be a changing unit with some small adjustments and the neutral carpet will be jazzed up with a rug.

(Note: I’ve shamed myself into posting the ‘before’ photo, taken just after we moved in! The room has improved massively even since then – though it’s currently serving as a storage area for the high heels I can’t wear anymore. Those awful opressive curtains that came with the house have been replaced with neutral white which makes the room immediately seem bigger and brighter).

On my shopping list so far:
Ridiculously girly fairy lights
Laura Ashley bunting
A ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ pink poster
Some pretty storage boxes
A cherry blossom decal

I was browsing birthday cards this morning and I found some gorgeous ones that were the result of a collaboration between Rob Ryan and Roger la Borde. Rob Ryan is a brilliant artist whose shop is based on the lovely Columbia Road (which is where we used to live, back in the day when a warehouse studio apartment with massive windows and one storage heater seemed like a good idea). His art is based around laser cut silhouettes and lovely words – the one I found this morning might have brought a tear to my eye:

‘You were in my head but now you are in my heart, please stay there forever’

He has around 7 greetings cards with Roger la Borde and luckily enough three of these are pink-themed. I’m going to frame these three (the one above will take pride of place in the middle) and hang them above the cot. Hopefully my hormones will have calmed down to the degree that I don’t weep every time I see it.

Where did you get your ideas for your children’s nurseries? I’d love more inspiration!

When Will got asked to interview for a job down in London, I didn’t think anything would changed He’d been asked to do the same a couple of times before and nothing had come of it so I was happy for him to give it a go. We were happy in our lives in Nottingham – we’d bought a lovely house 2 years earlier, had good jobs and lovely friends and in my heart of hearts I really didn’t expect that to change.

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.