Midweek Musings: kitchen tables and life without a laptop

Jan 20

Hello y'all. You may (or may not!) have noticed that I've had a little pre-spring clean of the blog! I loved my old template but I realised it was quite difficult for people to find older content as it wasn't really signposted anywhere, and I noticed lots of people were searching for my old pregnancy updates. Hopefully now they are easier to find - and not too in your face?! If you like the template, then can I recommend its designers Pipdig, who I've been really impressed with. They have lots of clean, efficient designs for bloggers and are really good value too - check 'em out. Is it just me or does January feel like it's dragging on?! I've had enough of the cold and dark now - I'm ready for spring. On a more cheery note, finally, our new kitchen table arrived! As I've mentioned before, in my titchy kitchen I used to have a small Victorian table that I picked up for £40 at Ardingly Antiques Fair (sidenote: if you love furniture, it's a must-visit). It suited my purposes pre-baby, but we knew that when we started to wean Chip we would need something bigger as we'd have to give up our TV dinners in the living room *hangs head in shame*. Obviously, choosing a new kitchen table is a task that's right up my street thanks to my day job, so I couldn't wait to get stuck in.

It's not a huge space so we were limited in what would fit. This was the one I wanted (LOVE LOVE LOVE Ercol furniture, have lots of it in my living room)...

But here's what we ended up with.

I know. I'm disappointed in me too. I weighed it up for days (ask Oli, it's true) but decided that as we're (fingers crossed) going to be moving house soon, it was daft to spend rather a lot of money on a small kitchen table, when hopefully in our new place we'll have space for a really big one (ooh er). So we went with the cheapie option (£120!!!), and actually I have to say considering the cost, it looks really lovely. The Ikea democracy strikes again.

In other news - and I've already tweeted about this, sorry, snore snore - my stupidly expensive shiny gold (pah) Macbook is currently in hospital after suffering from one too many ailments. Seriously, I love this machine - it's the lightest computer I've ever owned and the screen is beautiful. But it's shit. Really. I only bought it last summer and ever since then I've had no end of annoying issues with it - first up, it drops the Wifi connection for no apparent reason after about an hour. You have to disconnect then reconnect and then it works again. Not the end of the world, but enough to get irritating. Then I noticed the keyboard (it's got this new fancy pants 'butterfly' keyboard which means there's not much of a click when you hit a key) started sticking randomly, meaning I'd have to properly whack keys to get it to type. Difficult if you're a fast typer (and no, I didn't spill anything on it). Then one day the keyboard gave up completely and the whole computer when mental - basically the keyboard switched itself into some weird mode, sylliric (sp?) or something, which meant when I turned it off, it didn't recognise my password. I can't even remember how I fixed that now. And then finally, last week, the cable gave up charging. Rubbish!

Anyway it's been sent away to Exeter (random) to be fixed and in the meantime, I'm laptop-less, which sucks!

I wish I could take it back and swap it for a Macbook Air. I had a Macbook Pro before and no complaints. They're just heavy and more powerful than I need. In fact, this is my first Mac computer that's given me any grief. Just a little warning if you're thinking of getting one, as they're not cheap!

Finally, a little request if I may. Not the most cheerful of topics, but does anyone have any tips on getting a will done? I've realised that now we have a baby it's time to be GROWN UP about this stuff, and I really don't have the first idea where to start. Are online wills kosher? Or do you need a proper solicitor? Any advice gratefully received! Ta muchly.

THE RIVAL, my novel about career and motherhood, is on sale now. You can find out more about THE RIVAL here, and order here if you want to make my day. UNFOLLOW ME will be published in June.