Today was...

Today was...

Yesterday was...

What needs done...

With yesterday's hospital appointment concluding that Baby T is definitely head down (yay, well done baby!), it now seems very real that this baby will count as full-term on Friday and could come anytime from now until New Year's Day. But, there is still so much to do! We can't do the whole setting up the nursery, as we are moving house in January, then he'll get his proper nursery. However, there is still so much, some practical and some, I admit, a bit selfish for me and Mr T.

THINGS TO DO

- Set up bedroom with crib.

- Pack second hospital bag for car.

- Complete yoga practise.

- Clear out baby box.

- Write, address and stamp Christmas cards.

- Wrap Christmas presents.

- Practise birth breathing.

- Send off for homeopathic birth box.

- Send off for Bach's Flower Remedies for birth.

- Sort out car seat.

- Get big pants for after hospital.

- Increase Raspberry Leaf Tea.

- Put up decorations (first weekend in December).

- Get mum's birthday card.

- Wrap mum's birthday present.

- Blow up and set up baby nest.

- Store up frozen food.

- Get Tens machine.

- Use up cinema vouchers.

- Go out for "couple" dinners.

- Book haircut for due week.

- Swim.

- Get plates and extra table and chair for Christmas.

- Colour swatches for new house.

- Check out Ikea stuff.

- Buy snacks for labour.

- Ensure work for course is up to date.

- Visit cats.

- Visit Savill Gardens

- Visit Christmas lights at Wisley.

Yesterday was...

It's late! Blue Babe by Dulux.

Colouring books and Paper dolls

Over on the Things We Love site, I came across the most amazing grown-up versions of my favourite childhood pastimes, Colouring Books and Paper Dollies.

Check them out...

Agyness Deyn Doll

Kate Moss Colouring Book

Lily Allen doll

Today was...

Today was...

Zaha Hadid

This week saw the unveiling of this rather splendiferous dream work by Zaha Hadid in Rome. Eventually, it will be filled up with modern art and architecture trinkets, but at the moment is a stark and beautiful blank canvas. As we have vowed (for the sanity of other passengers and for his own eco credentials) that we will not be taken Baby T on a plane for at least 5 years, the only way it seems we will get to see this is if we make the train journey down to Rome at some point. Hhhhmmm, I've done that journey, it's a loooooooong way!

Today was...

Today was

Orange - Barry M

Graham and Green - Top Picks

Today was...

Mellow Mocha

Helios Childbirth Kit

Whilst reading this book: I came across the Helios Homeopathic Child Birth Kit, which contains 18 remedies to use during and after childbirth. The kit is available online here. Now, while I already have arnica tablets in my hospital bag, I was wondering whether the kit was worth looking into? It contains:

Aconite - For anxiety and fear.

Arnica - anti-inflammatory

Bellis per - for trauma wounds

Calendula - for healing of cuts and lacerations.

Carbo veg. - for extreme tiredness

Caulophyllum - to speed up a slow labour

Chamomilla - to treat heat and irritability

Cimicifuga - for fear

Gelsemium - for aching muscles

Hypercium - nerve healing

Ipecac - for nausea

Kali carb- sharp and cutting pain, backache

Kali phos. - mental tiredness

Phytolacca - mastisis

Pulsatilla - weepiness after baby

Secale - cramp and bleeding

Sepia - uterine remedy

Staphysagria - pain after birth

Sounds good, but would I actually remember to use it?

Cookies and Clothkits

After last NCT class last night we ended up in the pub till 11.30, so ended up having a very lazy day today. But, after supermarket delivery came (with free bar of Greens and Blacks - yum yum), I decided to make some cinnamon biscuits, only problem is they are so very moreish.

I have also been enjoying a blast from the past, perusing the wonderful Clothkits website. In the early eighties, my mum used to run up some really fab dresses from the Clothkits catalogue, as well as these great dolls as Christmas presents. Clothkits disappeared for 17 years, but made a comeback a couple of years from a base in Chichester, West Sussex, with many of the original patterns being updated and still available ready-made or ready to run up yourself.

Here are a few of my favourite things from the Clothkits site, which I hope to be making in the next year or so.

Nanuq

VW Dungarees Bustle Skirt

Daddy cool.

It is official, Wilbur is officially -1 month and 2 days young. Eeekkk. Please come on time baby!

Anyway, just a quick one today. Today's outfit is a simple jersey dress with a lace panel at the front, bought for about £25 at Urban Outfitters over a year ago. Yay, no extra expense. I saw it hanging in my wardrobe today and thought-yeah, why not? And it works. Hurrah!

Oh and also there is a picture of MR T looking very "trendy daddy," in his new Uniqlo tank top and our Muji dog Ferdy.

xx

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

I was happily surprised this weekend to actually find something worth reading in the ever declining weekend papers. The Guardian interviewed Maya Angelou and I was transported immediatley back to the time I fist read her, age 16. She is as inspirational now as she was to my teenage self and so, if it's the last thing you do this weekend listen to her reciting her own poem "Still I Rise." Look out particularly for the part which questions...

"Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?"

Watch her read it here

Enjoy x

Why cake stands rock.

Hello, my name's Victoria and I love cake stands.

For some reason, I have a vivid false memory of a cakeshop when I was a child. It is a rainy day and I am wearing wellingtons. I am in a small town with my mum and she is walking slightly ahead of me. I pause to gaze into a cakeshop, the window glistens with condensation, it must be nice and warm inside. Inside there are ladies eating cake and drinking tea from china cups, shopping bags at their feet, dabbing their lips with serviettes, leaving behind traces of light pink lipstick. On each table was a cakestand, layered with fancies and delights in pastel colours and frosty icing.

I wanted to be inside that cakeshop, not outside in the rain.

One to Watch

Am looking forward to this series, starting on BBC2 and BBC4 tomorrow, with Matthew Collings investigating "What is Beauty" on BBC2 at 8.30pm - Saturday. I am particularly looking forward to the School of Saatchi series, with 6 members of the public attending a special art school under the tutelage of some of the art world's most innovative figures.

An interview with...

Mr T - Corporate wing man and rare capitalist good guy.

1. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

The Wright brothers.

2. What is your greatest fear?

Ever becoming more concerned with myself than others.

3. What is the trait you most deplore on yourself?

Laziness

4. What is the trait you most deplore in other people?

Selfishness

5. What do you consider the most over-rated virtue?

Faith, because it can become blind faith, which is one step away from selfishness.

6. Which words or phrases do you most overuse.

No problem, spurious.

7. Which talent would you most like to have?

Photographic memory.

8. If you were to die and came back as one person or thing what do you think it would be?

Something less fortunate than me.

9. What is your favourite occupation?

Eating.

10. What is your motto?

Fortune favours the brave.

The Timeless 10

Flicking around the internet last night I came across the Timeless 50 website, compiling the Top 50 timeless icons in the fields of Fashion, TV, Food, Music and Design. Readers can choose what they would like to see on this list, judging the "timeless" qualities of each object. My choices:

Fashion - Little Black Dress and the Pencil SKirt

Music - Son of a Preacher Man and Don't SPeak

Design - The cake stand and The Roberts Radio

TV - Sex and the city and This Life

Food - Whisks and Ice Cream Sundaes.

Tune back in for my ode to each of these classics.

x

Dancing days are gone...

If I wasn't so ridiculously pregnant how much would I love to go to this?

Will I ever dance again?

Varnishes

Christmas deco 1

Up until now I have usually been off spending Christmas with my parents, or abroad, so have never really got massively into decorating for Christmas. But this year, with family coming to us and, hopefully, a newly arrived baby (if he's not too late), I can feel that I may want to make the effort and feel all "1st Family Christmas." Even though we will still be in our little flat, I figure we can start making the effort this year and collect a few bits that will be used in our bigger house next year - when we will, of course, have a winter wonderland!

I am torn between a bright, brash Christmas, a monochrome Christmas or a more traditional Christmas, so for today, I am investigating the colourful option, with an emphasis on clashing red and pink.

Our tree is only a small artificial one, but next year, well that's a different story...

At John Lewis.

Kahmiri Baubles

London Sky Bauble

Union Jack Bauble

London Baubles

Momiji Bauble

Red Heart

Tube of Baubles