Family Ties

It's been a family week for Jackie and I.

It started on Monday when we had Jackie's cousin Jen over for dinner. We reprised the lasagna dish from an earlier blog post and finished off with homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Jen brought a nice bottle of Italian red which went well with the meal, between the two of us we polished off. The big topic of the night was Jen's big Oxfam Trailwalker walk which she is doing next weekend, it's a 100km walk in the South Downs, quite a challenge but it sounds like she has been doing all the right training.

More about this walk for those that are interested can be found here...http://www.oxfam.org.uk/trailwalker, if you fancy sponsoring Jen and her team to give them the extra motivation to get over the finish line you can do so easily online by clicking here.

Then on Saturday (yesterday) my cousin Hannah and her boyfriend Jim had a farewell at a great pub (The Edinboro Castle) in Camden. Jackie was working so I was flying solo on this one, I bought the paper for the journey up the Northern Line. It was a fine day and they had a great spot outside. Had a good catch up with them, they've been travelling around the UK and Europe for the past few months so it was great to hear their stories. It was a shame I couldn't stay longer as the bbq that was going smelled so good but I had to get home to cook for my working wife. I made bbq chicken wraps to make up for not getting to eat at the pub.

And today we took my other London based cousin, Carla, out for a birthday treat lunch. We went to an amazing tea shop in Barnes, which is just a few train stops away. The tea shop is called Orange Pekoe, which is apparently a name derived from a grade of tea leaves.

We started with ice tea for Carla and I, Jackie had a Chai. To eat Jackie had the vegetarian platter, I had the ploughmans and Carla had the smoked salmon salad. All the meals were large servings, pictures below, but we knew we wanted to have cake as well. That didn't stop me eating all of mine, some of Carla's bread and Jackie's cheese and pickled onions.

The three of us with our meals before we got stuck in

Jackie's vege platter

My ploughman's

Carla's smoked salmon salad

For pudding Jackie had a fruit scone with clotted cream and jam, I had the carrot cake, as did Carla. We all shared a pot of Afternoon Blend Tea. Very delicious and civilised. I would definitely go back there again -  thanks to Carla for once again introducing us to a great place in London.

Outside after stuffing our faces, it was a bit of a walk back to the station (via Fara kids shop) which was good. We also got off at Clapham Junction to walk to Balham to try and walk off some of the cake too. At least we don't need dinner now. 

And for a bit of nostalgia linked to the title of this post...

London in Bloom

Last weekend a 'heatwave' was forecast for London, which means temperatures around 30 degrees. Jackie and I didn't have much planned which was great, it meant we got to spend the weekend mooching around our neighborhood.

We started off by heading down to the Ritherdon Road street party. Ritherdon road has just a small row of shops, fewer than 10 shops in total but most of them are cool shops with our favourite being Quirky Dovetail which is an antique furniture shop.

Jackie at the Ritherdon Road St Party, we couldn't stay for the magic show but maybe next year (or the year after) Baby Bush will take us to the magic show. 

We bought a cheese and herb scone which was fresh out of the oven, had a look at the furniture in Quirky Dovetail and had a chat with the people from NappyValley.net which is a website mainly for mums in our neighborhood - it's a great website for getting local advice on pregnancy and parenting issues and also for keeping up to date with local gossip!

From Ritherdon Road we went to Argos, which is a peculiar shopping experience, maybe the topic of another blog post. We picked up our Moses basket from here.

We dropped off the Moses basket and headed off to Northcoate Road, walking through Wandsworth Common along the way.

Jackie in Wandsworth Common, Common's are a particular type of  park, they used to be common land for grazing your heard and most commons still have relatively wild parts which are not mowed, in fact they'll quite often come through at the end of summer and make hay from the long grass. Not livestock anymore though.

London in Bloom is the title of this blog for two reasons, lots of flowers out and Jackie has definitely reached the 'blooming' stage of pregnancy with her belly getting bigger by the day but looking great and generally feeling good too. 

More blooms on the way to Northcoate Road.

Northcoate Road is a great spot with lots of cafes, restaurants, antiques shops, charity shops but also maternity wear shops, baby clothes shops and pram shops - we spent a fair bit of time in these shops, I didn't mind so much as most of these shops had air conditioning.

Northcoate Road was buzzing with lots of people sitting outside at restaurants,  the one in the background is a great Italian restaurant, we went there a few years ago and had a great night.

Jackie blooming in the hot London sun

The two bits of the day I enjoyed most was our visit to The Breadstall, photos below. This place is great, fresh bakery goods including monster sausage rolls that are worth eating (unlike most of the sausage rolls you get over here). They even have pies but given the heat I went for a crayfish baguette.

The Breadstall, yum

Looking very pleased with herself - probably due to the self control exercised in not buying anything sweet.

"Jackie stand in front of that restaurant so it looks like I'm taking a photo of you" - this is a Spanish Tapas restaurant which we've not been to but want to go to some time. It would be best to have one of these outside seats where you can watch the world go by.

My other favourite bit of the day was before going to the park to eat our lunch Jackie needed a loo stop so I allowed her to go into the Draft House  to use the toilet. The Draft House is a great little pub with a huge range of beers and a nice French restaurant menu. I started with a Dark Star Sunburst half pint and because we had a great spot perched at a windowsill looking out to Northcoate Road, a great place for people watching, Jackie let me have another half pint, so I had a Camden Brewery Wheat Beer. A couple of photos from our prime position below...

Yours truly with a Dark Star Sunburst, it might not look it but I'm happy. 

Some of the beer taps at the Drafthouse

Our view from the Drafthouse over Northcoate Road. Note the girl in the bottom right has three half pints just for her. I actually think this is a deal the pub has so you can taste more of their beers.

We eventually tore ourselves away from the spot at the Draft House and went to Wandsworth Common to have our lunch. All in all a great, relaxing day spent in our neighborhood, one of our favourite things to do in London.

Weird things happen to you when your pregnant

It's 6am on a Sunday morning and I'm writing a blog and this is Jackie not Simon.

Well my pregnancy so far has been pretty uneventful and hassle free. There has been no weird food cravings (apparently some women have cravings for inedible things like coal, chalk, bleach I found this really hard to believe!), no horrendous morning sickness, no massive weight gain, no sore boobs, no mood swings, THAT WAS UNTIL THIS MORNING!

I have been awake since 3am and stayed in bed for an an hour trying to will myself back to sleep. Baby Bush was also awake a very restless. Finally I realised sleep was alluding the both of us so I got up at 4am (as you will know from Simon's previous blog it is broad daylight at 4am) and got busy in the kitchen. A quick scour of the recipe books and a check of the cupboards for the right ingredients and I set about whipping up a batch of biscuits and a tray of muffins. Some substituting was needed as no golden syrup could be found so had to make do with a honey/ brown sugar combination. That should work should't it mum?

Stem ginger and coconut cookies
Bran and sultana muffins (to keep us nice and regular)

Simon came to check on me at about 5.30am in a dazed sleepy stupor. He had heard all the banging and crashing around and came to investigate. I wish I got a photo for the blog as I've never seen him so confused. I'm pretty sure he thinks his wife has gone loopy!

I have never been much of a baker only when the desire to eat something sweet and yummy has taken hold do I get the cake tins prepped. The weird thing is I don't even feel like eating what I've just made, I feel like like fruit and porridge for breakfast. In fact I'm eating an apple right now when there is warm buttery cookies cooling in the kitchen and the smell is wafting throughout the flat. Lucky Simon is marathon training again so he can eat what he likes and just burn it off. Yesterday it was a 20km run and then 18 holes of golf!



We are off to buy a Moses Basket later today for Baby Bush to sleep in (that's another 5 hours away though as the shops don't open until 11am). We plan to avoiding buying a cot until we move to a bigger flat in March next year. This might be a bit optimistic on my part as Baby Bush will be 4 months old but I'd rather not have a big baby especially at the point at which it comes into this world. A small healthy baby is what I'm after when I go off to the hospital. We can only break our current lease in September which would mean moving house when I'm 8 months pregnant which I don't fancy doing even though we will be a bit cramped in our one bedroom flat. On the plus side our Du Cane Court flat is lovely and warm and very dry during the winter with heating and hot water included in our rent.

Now that we know Baby Bush is going to be a boy I have started buying some of the baby gear we will need although still trying to avoid buying everything in blue as Baby Bush might have a sister one day and she might appreciate not be dressed as a boy! Next important thing on the baby gear list is a pram which is going to be vitally important to us as it will be our only means of transport and something that I will use everyday. Worth spending money on although we are happy to buy second hand if its the model that we want. Prams in the UK can go up to a £800 -£1000 which seems ridiculous as you could buy a car for that sort of money. I am constantly looking at prams on the street to work out what style/model will suit us best. At the moment we are thinking of a 3 wheeler with good suspension that isn't too wide as it will need to sit in our small hallway. I would like Simon to take Baby Bush running with him but he is not keen on this idea which I can't understand as it seems like the perfect solution. He still gets to exercise and I get time to catch up on some sleep to me this equals HAPPY MARRIAGE!

Bump as of today

Gourmet night tonight

Jackie has been busy in the kitchen, I came home today to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and a home made lasagna for dinner. Dinner was picture perfect, so we took some pictures...

Lasagna just out of the oven, with side salads ready to go. 

This yummy turkish bread wasn't home made but bought from a  shop down the road which we've recently discovered. It was a massive loaf for just 60p (about NZD1.20). Yum yum yum.

The finished product, mine didn't last too long.

Sleeping with the lights on

It's summer solstice on this side of the world today which means long days.

The sun sets at 21:21 but it is light till well after ten and then the sun officially rises at 04:43 but it starts getting light well before that.

This means we are going to bed (bedtime is around 10pm in the Bush house) and waking up in daylight which is a little bit tough.

We've taken to wearing eye masks to bed.

Below is a picture of me ready for bed, it helps if you don't put the eye mask on until you're in bed, otherwise it can be tough finding your way.

Things that go bump in the night

I think most of our blog readers  (all 7 of you) are aware that Jackie is pregnant.

We've just gone through 21 weeks.

A few weeks ago, lying in bed I had my hand resting on the bump when Jackie asks me to stop tapping my finger. I'm not I say, that's when we first felt Baby Bush moving around.

Since then Jackie has had kicks and flutters regularly which has been very exciting and reassuring.

Today we had our second scan which was another exciting mile stone. Given the baby is so much bigger than the first scan you can't actually see the whole baby in one shot, so it looks a bit more abstract. Although there was some more details in certain areas and we've seen for ourselves that it is a little boy!

A few photos...

Jackie with some recent purchases

Showing off a very tidy bump!

Baby Bush at 11 week scan

Baby Bush today at 21 weeks, the photo we've take from the scan is a bit fuzzy but it looks like a very handsome lad I can assure you. 

Wedding in Devon

This weekend we went to a wedding of our close friends Simon (Thommo) and Bev. They got married in a small village called Huntsham in Devon. They hired Huntsham Court which is a rather grand building. Most of the guests, including us stayed at the venue and it was quite a highlight, some photos below...

Photo from Huntsham Court website

The ceremony

First dance

Another happy couple

Our bedroom was in the turret, it wasn't as grand as some of the other rooms, it was smaller than most of the bathrooms in the house but was better than staying off site as there wasn't any other accommodation within walking distance

Relaxing after a huge bbq lunch

Jackie chilling out in the bar

The library, one of my favourite rooms in the house

One of the lounge rooms the day after the wedding

The main reception room where the ceremony was held, this is the day after, bride and groom contemplating what they've done!

Dining room with long table

Not quite from the wedding, this is my team' scorecard from the stag do, 9 hole ambrose, which  we won comfortably at 3 under par!!