Bookshelf demolition

Bookshelf demolition, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Merry Christmas from all of us

Family portrait in the snow, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Here we all are, in the snow in our garden, this morning. Yes, we were meant to be in Bruges but never mind - hopefully we will get a full refund. What are the odds that the one time we get organised enough to actually book a trip the Eurostar breaks down! Still at least we weren't stuck in the tunnel for 5 hours like some unfortunate people.

In other news, we're about to become car owners. I went for a test drive this afternoon and paid the deposit, then go back tomorrow to pay the balance and take it home. It is a 2006 Mazda 3 in Phantom Blue - quite snazzy. Sofia can't quite believe it - keeps asking 'Can I go in it? In my car seat? In my blue car seat? Can William go in it? And me? In my blue car seat?'

Our poor little plague rat

Plague rat, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Well, it was inevitable really, wasn't it? Still at least we are now done with the pox and Willy is slowing regaining his former beauty, one healing scab at a time.

He was particularly troublesome at the height of the spots last week, waking in the night and howling then falling asleep spreadeagled in the middle of our bed wearing a very self-satisfied expression.

To celebrate our spot-free household we are off to the Christmas markets in Bruges on the train on Monday for two nights. Sofia has already said she doesn't want to go on a train, she wants to go on two planes to see her cousins. Which is a bit of bad luck, really.

30-day moustache

30-day moustache, originally uploaded by Racmol.

The mo is no more, but this is how it was on 30 November. A big thank you to everyone who donated to the cause.

Also on flickr is Willy displaying his lopsided smile and Sofia with the pox.

The Movember mo in progress

Jules with Movember mo, originally uploaded by Racmol.

As you can see, Jules's Movember mo is coming along nicely. Doesn't he look handsome - very Magnum PI, I think.

However he is very depressed as nobody apart from me has sponsored him yet. Come on people! Time to put your money where his mo is.

Also on flickr is a charming new photo of William.

Six months old

Six months old, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Willy turned six months this week so I made a cake (any excuse!). He didn't get to do more than smile at the cake but he did celebrate with some mashed banana. We think he is looking quite grown up already.

In other news, the triathlon training is going badly. I have had what I thought was a bad cold for over a week but this morning after swimming in my new wetsuit I sneezed about 30 times in a row so I think it may actually be allergies exacerbated by chlorine and not a cast iron excuse to do no exercise for a week. Still, five weeks to go tomorrow - maybe I will be able to drag myself around the course anyway.

Sofia has made friends with a Jack Russell puppy at the park - after a lot of prompting she eventually put out a hand and stroked him and then said in a very polite English accent: 'Shall we take him home?'

We have booked some flights to NZ and should arrive on 22 September after a couple of nights in Hong Kong. We leave again on 9 October. All very exciting!

Day trip to Brighton with Great Auntie Averil

Brighton merry-go-round, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a lovely day out today, taking the train to Brighton with Great Auntie Averil. Sofia had an ice cream, a sausage and two merry-go-round rides so she was happy. William had three bottles and a sleep so he was happy too. I bought lots of things so I was happy too.

Here's a picture of the great aunt in action.

My first jars of raspberry jam

Raspberry jam, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Clearly it is time I went back to work, before I start knitting my own socks. These jars of jam were made with 17 of our own raspberries and £4 worth of raspberries from the farmers' market. So I'm calling them homemade AND homegrown. Technically there may well be at least one homegrown raspberry per jar...

Garden update, triathlons and celebrity spotting in Queen's Park

I pulled up my first two potato plants today and I think it's fair to say it could be a lean Heath Christmas this year. The prize for the world's smallest potato goes to this guy, sitting next to a small Braeburn apple for scale purposes.


Also harvested five red onions (small) and a handful of very small raspberries. To think I saved some jars specially for making raspberry jam...Still the blackberries are rampant as usual so I guess we can make blackberry jam instead.

The pears, apples and tomatoes are all doing very well and our cucumber plant has five babies while the red pepper plant has four. The butternut squash plants (2)are growing well and today I put a pumpkin in the raised bed that I pulled the potatoes out of. Also to go in is a chilli pepper bush - I figure it's a good idea to grow things that are expensive to buy.


My friend Alison and I are planning to do the Tri for Life triathlon at Eton on 6 September. You swim 400m in a lake, bike 20km around the edge of it then run 5km. This morning we went swimming at the Parliament Hill lido which is 60m long and unheated - it was lovely on such a hot day. Now I just need to hire or buy a wetsuit for the lake swim and a triathlon suit for the rest of it. And of course get back on my bike, which I haven't done since I fell off when I was pregnant with William.

In other news, I met Cillian Murphy in the cafe in the park today. We were both going for the napkin dispenser to wipe our accompanying child's face clean of ice cream. I wanted to say I really liked Breakfast on Pluto or whatever that film is called, but I couldn't remember the title so I shut up. And last week Tamsin Greig from Green Wing held the gate to the playground open for us so that's two celebrities spotted in a fortnight.

Row row row your boat

Row row row your boat, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Here are our two playing nicely together - and you can see that William's enjoying the attention, for once...

Day trip to Lavenham

Poppies in Lavenham, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a beautiful fine bank holiday Sunday, so we rented a zipcar and drove up to Lavenham in Suffolk, an old medieval market town. Had a lovely pub lunch in a garden bar and then went to see Little Hall, a 14th century timber-framed house. I found these poppies in the garden there.

There are pictures of all the family in Lavenham on flickr - just click on the poppies to see the collection.

Our two in the baby gym

Sofia and William, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Running back to happiness

On the advice of my psychiatrist, I've decided stop whingeing and get back exercising, as the fastest route back to happiness. Two runs so far this week - just around the park a few times but you have to start somewhere.

Anyone who hasn't sponsored me yet for the Race for Life on 7 June can do so from right here below. Thanks to all the lovely people who've already done it!





Lolo arrived safely this afternoon, and we're all thrilled with the presents he brought with him.

Sofia's had a great day at Millie Barnes's birthday party - she was too full of sweets and cake to even look at a sausage at the bbq lunch. And she managed to score 3 presents at pass the parcel too!

Fortnum and Mason's morning tea

Fortnum and Mason's morning tea, originally uploaded by Racmol.

A bit of a week of contradictions, really. Fortnum and Mason's morning tea on Tuesday and then I joined Weight Watchers on Wednesday. Don't know what the WW leader would have had to say about our morning tea - I had a black forest cake and hot chocolate (with real chocolate) and Christine had two strudels and a toffeecino (mainly whipped cream). Still it was lots of fun.

Then we went to the V&A in the afternoon, only to discover that the dolls' houses Chrissie wanted to see are actually at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green now. Still we enjoyed the fashion and jewellery exhibits - some amazing stuff on display, including 200 and 300-year-old shoes for women with tiny feet. People were smaller in general then, I guess.

That evening we went to see Mamma Mia, also good fun. I really enjoyed just being out in town at night - a rarity with two small people in the house but something that definitely needs repeating - and SOON!

It's been lots of fun having Chrissie to stay. Unfortunately for her though, Sofia has taken to waking up at 5.30 now that it gets light so early, which isn't the best. She came to see us at 5.45 and we weren't that thrilled to see her either.

First bbq of the season

Family snapshot, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Lots more photos on flickr of all of us enjoying our first bbq of the year with the Barnes family.

Also, today marks the planting of the potato crop and some more salad leaves.

For the Nanny, there are also some pictures of Sofia and Millie playing with the kitchen - it was a great hit.

Springtime comes to NW6

IMG_2344, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Sofia, William and I had a picnic in the garden this afternoon (while the rugby was on tv). Must have been about 18 degrees or so - positively tropical after the recent rain.

The leek harvest has begun - with one small-to-medium-sized leek. Maybe a leek and potato soup in our future this week?

The spinach is up in the raised bed, as are the first salad leaves. Red onions are there but pretty titchy.

And the slugs have been given their first dose of Kronenbourg in the slug traps - we'll see whether they like that more or less than last year's Stella.

Mother and son

Mother and son, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Some new pictures of Willy on flickr from this week. It's been a rough fortnight but I think I'm on the mend now. And William seems to be learning how to sleep through the night at last - has managed it on two occasions but not two nights in a row.

Jules and I are still pretty tired and resorting to chocolate as a pick-me-up. Sometimes I think the handiness of our corner shop is a mixed blessing...

William at 7 weeks

William at 7 weeks, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Sofia turns 2 - twice!

Blowing out the candles, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Yesterday was phase 2 of the great 2nd birthday extravaganza - the party, as opposed to the actual birthday on Thursday. We took 8 toddlers, 3 babies and 15 parents to an hour of soft play at Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre and then on to the cafe for cake. Definitely a good decision, having it away from our house. When we saw the debris after the toddlers had eaten, we were very glad not to be doing the clearing up. And Sofia had a great time so it was all good.

Sofia's latest phrase is "Fia needs more presents", which is quite clever but completely untrue! We were chuffed when she opened the scooter we got her and said 'It's Fia's scooter. Is pretty cool.'

Jules and I are a bit shattered, one way and another...

Grandma with William and Sofia

Grandma with William and Sofia, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Big sister, little brother

Sofia's first snowman

Snowman, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Lots more snow photos on flickr.

Our garden after the snow

Our garden after the snow, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Up to a foot of snow last night in London. Nursery closed today and snowman assembly to commence shortly.

We are all thanking our lucky stars William didn't arrive today on his official due date. Finding a cab to get to the hospital could have been tricky!

Our water baby William comes home

William comes home from hospital, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We finally left the hospital on Saturday afternoon, after 48 hours of antibiotics (William) and lukewarm, uninspired hospital meals (me). Very glad to be home!

On Wednesday evening I had gone down to the labour ward to be hooked up to the monitor just to check that William was ok, as I hadn't felt any movements all day. I thought this would be a 10-minute visit, but in the end I had the monitor on for nearly two hours even though everything appeared to be normal, because noone was prepared to let me go home until the machine said 'Criteria met'.

Eventually one of the registrars came around and said maybe it would be a good idea to try and do a sweep before I went home. So one of the midwives did that and said I was 1-2cm dilated already so things would probably kick off in the next day or two.

Jules and I got home about 10pm, had a pizza and went to bed. By about 3am I was feeling a bit crampy but not really having regular contractions yet. At 6am I got up and had a shower, then rang the midwives' team mobile. The midwife who answered said to see how many contractions I had in the next half hour. So at 7am I rang back and reported 5 contractions in 30 minutes so she said to come in.

Got to the hospital in a minicab by 7.30am. Only 3 contractions on the way this time, so a lot better than the nightmare cab ride to the hospital when we had Sofia.

We got one of the rooms attached to the birthing pool, and the pool was already being filled for me, so that was great. Around 8am I was hooked up to the drip for my antibiotics for Group B Strep, which took about 20 minutes. By that time the pool had cooled down again, so there was quite a painful half hour of leaning on the bed with Jules massaging my lower back before I could get in. Also threw up a couple of times around this point - the hot cross bun and cup of tea at 7am seems to have been a mistake!

About that point the midwives swapped shifts and the new midwife did an exam and said I was about 5 or 6 cm dilated. Got into the pool about 9am, which was a relief for the first few minutes and then after that I was in so much pain that I really couldn't tell if the water was helping or not.

Jules and the midwife sat around the edge of the pool and made encouraging noises and the midwife said she would let me choose when to start pushing.

The next hour and a half is a bit of a blur - I threw up again and made quite a lot of noise. Then eventually I couldn't help pushing. I remember feeling a big bubble as the waters broke and then having to not push too hard so William's head would be born slowly.

Then I looked down and his head was out and you could see his dark hair floating in the water and a few minutes later (10.35am) he came out in a rush, looking tiny and kind of blue.

The midwife picked him up, unwrapped the cord from around his neck and gave him to me to hold while Jules cut the cord. He seemed absolutely tiny but started crying straight away.

Then the midwife helped me out of the pool and the placenta was delivered on the bed. My only thought was relief that it was all over at last.

After a bit William got cleaned up and weighed and had his Vitamin K shot. Jules and I got a cup of tea each and then we were moved upstairs to the postnatal ward because someone else wanted the room.

The paediatricians insisted that William be given a 48-hour course of antibiotics because he'd only got 2 hours coverage from my IV antibiotics during labour. I wasn't exactly thrilled to have to watch my new son have a canula put into the back of his hand on his first day out in the world but he was very brave and didn't cry, even though it took them two attempts to get it in.

Jules went home and came back with Sofia and Grandma about 5pm. We gave Sofia her present from William and she seemed excited to see him so it went quite well - no screams of outrage or running from the room.

Today we've basically had a quiet day at home. Jules and Sofia went to the farmers' market in the morning and Sofia and I took a very quick walk to the charity bin with my maternity jeans (yay! good riddance) in the afternoon.

Snow has been falling since about 5pm (stopped now) and there's a severe weather warning over Eastern England tonight and tomorrow - expecting up to 15cm of snow in some places. So it may well be a pretty quiet Monday too!

B2 Arrives

Hiya Jules here. 

Just to say William Robert Heath arrived at 10:35 am today weighing 3.095 kg. 

He was delivered in the birthing pool (I'm sure Rac will blog more on this).

Here's a piccy of him after he was tidied up. The bandage on the arm is to deliver antibiotics to him (More on that later as well).

Here's another when Sofia met him.

More pregnant than ever before!

More pregnant than ever before!, originally uploaded by Racmol.

At this point I have no vanity left, so I'm sharing my enormous belly with the world. I hate all my maternity jeans with a passion - they all creep down and get very frayed and muddy around the bottom in this weather. I tried a skirt the other day thinking that would be better but no, it crept down too, taking the tights with it and revealing a builder's crack!

Nearly sent all three pairs of maternity jeans to the charity clothes bin at the end of the street today but thought better of it. If B2 hangs on for another couple of weeks I will be heartily sick of my yoga pants too.

And then of course there is the possibility that some of this hugeness is chocolate-related and will not disappear instantly on B2's arrival. In which case my ordinary jeans will not fit. Sigh.

I'm going to have a bath now. Any tips on bringing on labour gratefully accepted.

The birthday boy and his cake

Jules's birthday cake, originally uploaded by Racmol.

A busy day today - one cake to make, one Grandma to pick up from the airport, one little girl with an upset tummy (a virus already in evidence yesterday, and NOT related to excess cake consumption...)

In the end I made the cake while Sofia slept in the pushchair and Jules went to pick up Grandma. It seemed too risky to take all of us to the airport, considering Sofia's delicate condition - not to mention B2's imminent arrival. 

Nothing so exciting as Grandma arriving has ever happened before, or at least that's what you'd think from Sofia's reaction.

Grandma and Sofia have both gone to bed, and now and then you can hear Sofia calling 'Hi! Hi Grandma!' hopefully. With any luck Grandma is so tired from the flight she will sleep through it. And now everything has suddenly gone quiet - a good sign??

The chocolate sensation cake was a modest success, if I do say so myself. Although not exactly slimming, with sour cream and dark chocolate filling and dark chocolate and butter icing, and extra whipped cream on the side...

36 weeks pregnant

36 weeks pregnant, originally uploaded by Racmol.

Yes, I am HUGE. For comparison, here is Sofia at 38 weeks, the day before she was born.

Went to see my midwife today - B2 is doing fine and is engaged (about 1/3 of the head at least) but his spine is facing the wrong way apparently so I'm allowed to sleep on my right side for a change, in the hope of turning him over. Yay - I get my side of the bed back early!

Also got a tour of the labour ward and postnatal ward, neither of which are as bad as I had expected after the brief and stressful visit we had to the labour ward a few weeks back. Looks much better in daylight and when you're not worried about losing the baby...

Then I went to see the physio about my hip, which is not malaligned after all, just a bit flexible due to pregnancy. Anyway it is already a lot better than when it was I made the appointment. I have a new support belt thing and lots of exercises to do, mainly to do with core strength.

Quite liked the physio - she expressed great surprise that I was 36, which was nice of her. I'm pretty sure I look my age, if not more, especially at the moment!

Jules has just rung from work drinks to say he's at GBK having a kiwiburger. I note there has been no weighing in in 2009 - wonder how Harold's doing?

Cheers - here's to a very happy 2009!

Cheers - happy 2009!, originally uploaded by Racmol.

We had a lovely New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, even if the temperature stayed around freezing the whole time.

On New Year's Eve we had booked a babysitter so we went into town to celebrate. Had a pleasant if not outstanding meal at About Thyme, a little place near Victoria Station and then walked along to try and see the fireworks at midnight. A LOT of people had the same idea - all the viewing areas on the river were full by 11pm.

So we ended up in St James's Park, which is quite different after dark. From where we were you could see the top half of the London Eye, which was where the fireworks were let off from so we got an ok view and it was not crowded in the park at all. In fact it was kind of eerie and still, as this photo of the pond shows.



Then on New Year's Day Sofia and I went to the park while Jules prepared a roast lamb, with sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, brussel sprouts, carrots and broccoli, which was completely delicious. We chased it all down with trifle, just to make sure there was no danger of starvation!

Today we babysat Sofia's friend Millie, who has a new baby sister, so her dad could spend some time at the hospital. An interesting experience taking TWO toddlers to the park but we managed to avoid serious injury. The two girls walked along hand in hand, which was endearing, and then played 'Row, row, row your boat' from their highchairs in the cafe. Just as they were in the middle of that, Millie's dad arrived to pick her up, so it was nice that they were both looking so cheerful at that moment!