The Alice

I’ve never taken part in Sticky Fingers’ weekly Gallery feature, but this week (Week 9) I felt I had something to contribute.

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?

One of the things I’ve been anxious we get done is the re-vamp of our small garden. I want to be growing herbs, salad and some veg by the time the baby comes and I want it to be a nice space we can use for playing and entertaining. So this weekend we got started.

It’s getting there – most of the crap (bar the weird plant in the strange pink plastic tub) has now gone. All we need now is a nice table and chair set to go with our two new sun loungers (thanks Mum and Dad.) and I will be all set for a summer of maternity leave.

BEFORE

Our lovely little London garden

The yard area running down the side of the house

AFTER

Proudly BBQing in his new improved garden – note the handy beer-can holder on the right

I’m not sure if you can tell in this photo, but all the dust, broken bricks and bits of crap have been cleared away. Next step: pressure-washing.

A belated post on Mother’s Day: though not technically a mother yet the day did not go unnoticed or uncelebrated.

It began with breakfast in bed and a couple of cards:

One from Will (with a soppy message that I won’t re-print as I don’t want to threaten his hard-man persona) and one from Baby H.

We then had a great day of lounging round in our pyjamas watching crap TV, Skyping the in-laws and de-cluttering our lives on to eBay. I believe we watched 8 episodes of Come Dine With Me (my favourite) before Will decided he couldn’t take any more and we had to switch to some Sky+ goodies.

It was a very good day.

————————–

I’d also like to say Happy Birthday to my very own Mum – next year will be her first as a Grandma! She also had a good day today (I think) at the Rugby in Cardiff with Dad. Luckily the flowers I ordered for delivery today (doh) still found their way to their house despite them not being there. Here she is with Dad (looking like a massively camp snooker player or magician) at Christmas time:

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM, I love you very much. You’re the best Mum in the world, and will be the best Grandma, too xxxx

There has been more of the drama llama in the H household this week.

As I am a clumsy elephant-footed type of person, I was very careful throughout the cold winter and slowly and carefully tiptoed in the ice and snow – no accidents. Goodness knows how I managed to fall over my own feet on Tuesday night and spectacularly hit the decks in front of a group of city boys by Old Street station. Ouch.

I went home for a remedial bath and some comfort eating, after an early night I thought I’d be fine. But the next morning I was having a few stomach twinges and I was convinced baby’s movements had slowed down. I went to my local GP where the not-so-kind receptionist made me cry, and with no appointments I hopped to the Maternity unit at the hospital.

One gruelling 2 and a half hour wait later (they lost my notes. Twice.) I saw a midwife and everything was deemed OK. I was sent home for bed rest (not before treating myself to a naughty McDonalds, shhhh I’d had a hard day) and felt very sorry for myself for the rest of the afternoon.

It was such a relief to hear that baby is OK – I really went through the mill emotions-wise at the time and felt so drained afterwards. This mothering stuff is hard!

Will came home with a lovely M&S meal of fishcakes, green beans and potatoes – yum. He totally surprised me with pudding and presented me with this:

For the last week I have been craving a banana split like my Dad used to make me when I was younger, but could not for the life of me find the ‘correct’ chocolate sauce (has to be dark chocolate!). Lovely lovely Will found the ingredients for me and surprised me with that masterpiece. It was delicious, I spilled it over my lap and didn’t care.

This morning, for some reason I woke up feeling very tired and grouchy. I got ready for work and started my day. I couldn’t shake the bad mood – work certainly didn’t help – and I came home still feeling tired and grouchy.

My husband got home early tonight, and did the washing up I’d neglected last night because he knew how tired I was. He called me at work to ask if I wanted him to start on dinner – I said no, because I’d promised pancakes for dinner (and I am the master of pancakes, I have a secret recipe and everything).

I got home from work and slouched on the sofa and had a crumpet and a cup of tea brought to me by my husband as a reward for my hard day. I watched what I wanted on TV, whilst peeling and chopping the apples for the filling of my pancakes. It turned out I was too tired to drag myself to the kitchen to make the actual pancakes so my husband did it, following the instructions I had written down for him. He painstakingly made and served my pancakes but let me put the filling in myself (knowing what a control freak I am, I like things done a certain way!).

He watched the Brits with me for the full 2 hours, and even engaged in meaningless conversations with me about the clothes, performances, the stage sets and who would win.

After that he went back to the kitchen and did all the washing up (though this could have also been an avoidance tactic as I wanted to watch One Born Every Minute). The kitchen is now pretty clean.

He is currently in the lounge at 11.30pm doing all the work he should have done this evening when he was looking after me.

This post is to remind me what a wonderful man Will is; I must stop letting my hormones get the better of me, stop being so grouchy and start remembering how very lucky I am to have him. When I get tired I have a habit of taking it out on him, especially now I’m pregnant, and I really dislike it. I will be a more understanding wife from now on.

* I must also remember last night, when Will escorted me to the toilet at my request. You see, getting up at 1am the night before I was sure there was a ghost in the bathroom and I was scared of going on my own again. I don’t even really believe in ghosts. Poor man.

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…

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!