Midweek Musings: Foot Muffs and Teeth Whitening

Blimey O'Reilly I'm ill again. Sleep deprivation +  growing a baby last year has clearly left my immune system at an all-time low. I was never ill before I had Chip - actually, before I got pregnant (I was ill quite a lot when I was pregnant which was of course worse as you can't take anything for it). I used to swerve most colds going round but now I seem to be a magnet for them - at the moment the day after I travel on the tube I wake up with a sore throat. Not fun.

Anyway in the midst of my head-cold-and-sleep-deprivation fog, I did something pretty daft. So I thought I'd share it. When we bought Daph's buggy (the Bugaboo Bee 3 - does anyone want me to do a review? if so, let me know!), it was summer and the lady in the shop said not to bother with buying the foot muff as she wouldn't need it until it got colder. So we didn't. But at six months she progressed from the carrycot to the normal pushchair seat and I realised her little toes were getting cold, no matter how many blankets she had on her lap. So I remembered the foot muff thing and went onto John Lewis's website and ordered it. Probably in the middle of a feed while I was thinking about eighty other things. It was £95 which made my eyes water but I thought it was one of those things you just had to stump up for and reasoned she'd be using the buggy for a few years to come. There were several colours to choose from, so I got bright yellow, because the sun canopy is bright yellow and I assumed they should match.

(Bear with me, I appreciate this story is already long and boring). When it arrived I opened it, raised my eyebrows slightly at just how yellow it was but shoved it on the buggy anyway. Within five minutes of our first walk avec foot muff it was already dirty from me scraping it along a wall. I suddenly realised what a terrible, terrible idea a bright yellow foot muff was. Of course it just so happened that I'd put all the packaging out for the binman that morning (who'd been and gone), so I couldn't return it even if I'd not already made it filthy.

I did a bit more research when I got home and realised that you can get foot muffs that fit ANY BUGGY for about £40 online. And they don't have to be bright yellow - they can be a far more practical grey or black. The moral of this story is: you don't need to spend £95 on a Bugaboo matching foot muff. Don't be an idiot like me.

I hope the bloody thing is washable at least. Everytime I look at it now I am going to think about what else I could have spent £95 on (like some nice clothes for me! SOB).

In other news, I went to the dentist this week, which was relatively unremarkable, although I do love the fact your treatment is free when you've just had a baby. My (NHS) dentist offered me some sort of fillings for my receded gums which sound painful but like a good idea, so I'm going to go for it while it's still free. She also mentioned teeth whitening (not free). It's not cheap but I'm seriously considering it as my teeth are so horrible and yellow (and I hardly ever drink red wine - NO FAIR). I've done those illegal Crest whitening strips (ordered from eBay) before but they really hurt my sensitive gums and the effects wore off quite quickly. If anyone's had any experience of the Zoom whitening system - please let me know! I've googled it and everyone just goes on about how painful it is, which doesn't really fill me with hope. But whiter teeth are just the sort of thing I feel would get me out of my postnatal beauty slump (along with a decent haircut, which I'm doing next week).

Finally, you might have noticed that I've redesigned my blog logo. I only just realised how bloody awful the last one was, so I've gone completely minimalist (read: unimaginative) and feel much happier with it. Also, I keep meaning to say a big thank you to everyone who's followed me on Bloglovin' since my shameful begging post - it's really cheered me up and is much appreciated!

Midweek Musings: Literary Salon Loveliness

So this week I headed off to what I will always call the Shoreditch House Literary Salon - except it's no longer called that. For those not in the know, it's an evening event that's been running for a long time now, organised by journalist and author Damian Barr. He gets established and up-and-coming authors to come along and give a reading from their books, then has a little chat with them and does a Q&A after. It's such a brilliant evening and I can't recommend it enough.

Back when I was writing fiction regularly (sniff sniff), I used to go quite often with my friend and fellow authoress Rebecca Connell, but stopped going a few years ago as the novel-writing side of my life gave way to the desire to earn enough money to keep myself in socks. Anyway I'm pleased to say that the event is still going strong, even if it's no longer held in Shoreditch House. Instead, the evening I went to was held in a ballroom at The Savoy - very swish. You used to get free pizza and gin and tonics at the Shoreditch House one, but this offering has been upgraded somewhat to free wine and sushi (which you have to buy alas). Probably for the best because from what I remember the pizza scrambling was always a rather uncouth affair - Becky and I used to position ourselves right by the bar to try to snatch a piece or two as it came out - there was never enough pizza to go round. Starving writers + rationed free food = not a pretty picture.

This last Salon featured four authors: Susan Calman, Garth Greenwell, Dame Joan Bakewell and my literary heroine Maggie O'Farrell, who gave a reading from her latest novel which I absolutely cannot wait to read and must now book a holiday to somewhere peaceful in order to devote proper time to devouring it. Not sure where the baby fits into that plan, alas. But I digress. If you're at all interested in writing (or reading!) then I really suggest you try to come down to the Salon - it's the kind of evening that makes you feel like you should be contributing (creatively at least) more to life, but in a good way. A motivating way. It's also funny, relaxed and very enjoyable. Keep an eye on the Facebook page to find out the details of the next event - and be quick, as tickets sell out really fast. You can also listen to this week's event on podcast - definitely worth doing, Joan Bakewell is an inspiration.

My first mother's day

Well, not my first mother's day EVER of course, but my first as a mother! It started, in true Daphne style, at 1am, when she decided to wake up ridiculously early for her middle-of-the-night feed (yes, the one we're trying to cut out, but failing). It then continued at 4am when she woke up again, this time bawling her eyes out, and I only had to go into the hallway to smell the reason why. So that was nice: a 4am poo to wish me a happy mother's day. You've got to love her style.

Anyway I'm grateful that my gentleman companion said he'd get up with her at 6am (by then she had decided that it was time for the day to start - THANK YOU VERY MUCH BUT I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THAT BLOODY COT MOBILE NOW) and I had a lie-in until 9, which was much needed. I was given some stunning flowers and a card she apparently picked herself (Oli said he was looking at them in the shop and he looked down and she'd pulled one off the shelf, which is very like her as she's grabbing everything at the moment - so of course he had to buy that one. Luckily it had a bunny on it and was suitably cute). Then we went off to my parents' for a mother's day lunch with the family.

It's very strange to think I am a mother, and it doesn't feel how I imagined it would. I'm not sure that any of the 'having a baby' thing has really sunk in just yet, but that's because my focus is so constantly and entirely on Daphne and her needs, and I haven't really bothered to think about myself in the context of 'being a mother' really. And I suppose that's what being a mother is all about - not thinking about yourself first anymore. Daphne is the only person I would willingly get out of bed at 4am for when it's -2 degrees outside and only 16 degrees inside, and the only person for whom I'll sit in the car after arriving at my destination for forty minutes in order to ensure she has a long enough nap. I worry about her far more than I ever worried about myself (I'm not really much of a worrier) - in fact, Daphne has made me completely neurotic and I am aware that I am total control freak when it comes to her. I need to loosen up a bit lot. But I'm so protective of her because of the issues I had during pregnancy, and then she was so small when she was born, with all the problems that that involved. I feel like she's a really sensitive baby, who's overstimulated easily and loves routine and I am anxious to ensure that she doesn't ever get overwhelmed. But I'm sure my anxiety rubs off and affects her too - and that means I need to chill the fuck out a bit and learn to relax.

Before I ever even got pregnant, I noticed that my friends who were a bit more highly strung about their kids seemed to have more highly strung children, and my laid-back friends had 'easy' babies. Not sure if it was just coincidence in those cases but I remember registering it and thinking that if I ever had a baby I'd have to make a conscious effort to be relaxed and laid-back - HA HA HA. Not so easy when you're in the thick of it - I'm probably the least relaxed and laid-back mother on the planet. In my defence, four months of colic will do that to you. But every day she seems a little bit calmer and a little bit happier - I hope as she grows and seems better able to cope with things I'll feel more confident on her behalf.

Phew! This is a bit of a stream of consciousness. Not quite what I had in mind for today's post but there you go. Sometimes it's good to get these thoughts down on... a computer screen.

What I really meant to say was... happy mother's day mums! I'm SO happy to be in your club and I think you're all bloomin' amazing. Including my own mum - who's also proving herself to be the most stellar grandmother too. We're lucky to have you.

Midweek Musings: Baby Apps and Annoying Restaurants

I'm SO pleased it's March! Even though today the weather is disgusting, I've surrounded myself with daffodils at home and am hibernating today with the baby and lots of tea, and thinking about the warmer months ahead. The best thing about having a baby in August was that it was still lovely and warm (or warm enough) for a good few months after she was born and I got to go for long walks every day. But these fell by the wayside in January and February thanks to the cold weather (warmest winter on record my arse!). And I really do think my mental health suffered for it - not to mention my fat thighs.

We've all finally recovered from our super fun bout of flu (spending an entire day lying on my bed shivering and sweating with the baby next to me and chucking toys at her every now and then was an interesting experience, hopefully not to be repeated) and so we took Daphne to be weighed again on Monday. She is now an impressive 17 pounds, or 7.75kg, at 28 weeks. Still on the 50th percentile which is good! I definitely think she's grown longer in the last few weeks, and is looking more like an actual child, too - they say you only have a baby for a year and that year is really disappearing now!

On that note, I've just seen that Glow, the fertility app that I used before I got pregnant and then while I was pregnant, has launched a new baby app, called Glow Baby. It's very serendipitous as I was just thinking what a shame it was that there was no good app for logging things like the times Daphne napped, amounts she ate etc etc, as well as tracking her weight over the weeks. And now there is! I'm not being paid to say this either. I really love the Glow interfaces and I've downloaded the app today - will let you know how I get on with it but from initial glance it looks really useful! Check it out if you have a littlun.

Anyway for today's post I really wanted to write about my experience last night at Flat Iron in Soho. I'd heard good things about it (STEAK!) and so suggested dinner there with my friends Vicky and Susie. However, it's one of those 'no reservations' places. We turned up at 7pm to be told that there was an hour and fifteen minutes' wait. By someone with an iPad and just a hint of attitude. So we went over the road to Byron instead.

I'm really really really really really SO fed up and bored of non-booking restaurants. PLEASE can someone make them un-trendy? I'm actually thinking of starting a blog that only features restaurants that allow you to book because honestly, does anyone like queueing for hours in the cold for a restaurant table? Or being squished in the doorway, flapping a menu in hand for forty minutes, while people squeeze past you on the way to the loo/to meet their smug friends already seated at tables?

The longest I've ever queued for was nearly TWO HOURS at Dishoom - and much as I ruddy love that place, it did make me hate myself inside for buying into the bollocks. So what if they did hand out peppermint tea to the people getting rained on - we were still getting rained on WHILE QUEUEING TO SPEND MONEY ON OUR DINNER. How did this start, why did this start and why do we put up with it? Are we all such stupid lemmings that we think somehow queueing for our dinner makes it more special? I propose we all boycott these places until they agree to let us book tables again - who's with me?!

Midweek Musings: Normal service will resume shortly (hopefully!)

Hello there. I felt I had to blog today because blogging on Wednesdays has become A Thing in my life, and I'm a stickler for schedules and routines. Alas, however, I have nothing of interest to write as we are all poorly. First the baby had it, then Oli had it (he refused to eat his dinner and didn't even want a glass of wine - that's how I really knew he was ill) and then I woke up with an interesting pain in my skull as though someone had tried to put it in one of those car crushers but then given up after squeezing about eight times, and then given it a good shake before chucking it on the floor and stamping on it.

There's nothing more boring than hearing about how ill someone is/has been so I shall stop this whiny post here. Suffice to say, I have discovered there IS something worse than a screaming baby at 3am, and that's a screaming baby at 3am when you have flu.

One thing I will mention though is that I have ordered Chip this fab activity cube from John Lewis, after seeing my friend Sally's baby playing with hers. It's SO lovely - all wooden and reassuringly solid with delightful little illustrations on it. I can't wait for it to arrive. I need to get her some more wooden toys actually - if anyone has any recommendations please shout!

If you'd like to read something more cheery, may I suggest my six-month baby update post? The littlun is actually completely recovered (amazing how babies can basically get a cold and within 24 hours it's gone) but her mum and dad are still dragging our carcasses around like zombies. Hopefully we'll be back on top form soon, but in the meantime I'm off back to bed...

Blog(no)lovin' - a small plea

Look, I'll admit, I don't fully understand Bloglovin'. This may be an age-related issue.

Twitter, I'm a pro at, Facebook I'm starting to like more and more and Pinterest and Instagram, well, they're works in progress but I'm getting there... But Bloglovin' - I truly suck at.

I have 19 followers on Bloglovin' people. NINETEEN!

Worst of all, I had 21 two weeks ago.

What am I doing wrong?! Anyone care to enlighten me?!

I'm actually getting a reasonable amount of traffic to the blog these days, which is LOVELY, yet if you looked at my humiliating Blog(no)lovin' tally you would not believe me.

I don't get it. Why don't you Blogloviners love me?! Sob sob.

So this is a small (and embarrassingly desperate) plea; if you do like my blog and you do use Bloglovin', please give us a follow. Otherwise I may have to remove my account. Because, y'know, I live in fear of waking up tomorrow to only 18 followers... I appear to only be going one way with this. (Oh help! please don't unfollow me! Oh god, it's SO undignified to beg! Gaaahhhh! *shoots self*)

Midweek Musings: Property hunting and the Great Interior Design Challenge

Hello! This post is very late. This week seems to be evaporating before my eyes. For one thing, little Daphne is six months' old today - I can't believe she's been here for half a year already! Sadly she was in a complete grump all day - I'm not entirely sure what the matter with her was, whether it was teething or separation anxiety beginning or just baby PMT, but she didn't really enjoy her half-birthday. Sniff. Anyway I'll do my six-month baby update post once she's cheered up and fancies posing for some (better) pictures.

Anyway the exciting (and preoccupying) news is - we've found a house! And it's in Wimbledon! And they've accepted our offer on it! HOWEVER - we need to get a mortgage on it so at the moment we're still a bit in limbo as nothing has been approved yet. I'm keeping everything crossed, but as we're both self-employed, getting a mortgage is an absolute bloody nightmare so nothing is guaranteed. I don't want to share too much info about the house in case we lose it, but it's a midcentury marvel in need of work. I'll keep you posted... please keep your fingers crossed!

I find it so infuriating that it's so hard to get credit when you're self-employed - surely someone who is employed and can be made redundant at any time with nothing to fall back on is a far higher risk than someone who's managed to create their own work for years?!  Yet if I got a 'permanent' (no such thing!) job tomorrow, I'd be able to get a mortgage with no bother at all. Makes me really cross actually.

In the meantime, in order not to get our hopes up too much in case we lose the place, we're still spending hours on Rightmove trying to find alternatives we like just as much. Tonight I came across a terrace in need of modernisation, and feel the need to share this bathroom with you - YIKES! That's some creative shower curtaining.

I'm not going to lie - househunting is excellent fun. My mates over at Myfriendshouse actually did a post about Rightmove addiction, which may resonate with you...

Finally, I hope you've all been watching the Great Interior Design Challenge! It's on BBC2 at 7pm (stupid time BBC schedulers!!), Monday-Wednesday and is basically like Bake Off with wallpaper. Well worth a watch, and if you're on Twitter you can also join the discussion when the show is on using the hashtag #GIDC. Me and my work cronies have been enjoying pulling the poor designers' schemes to shreds - they really do have a hard time of it with tiny budgets and only a few days to transform rooms, but that doesn't make our armchair criticism any less harsh... mwahahaha.

Midweek Musings: the house hunt is on!

I can't quite believe I'm writing this but, after being on the market on and off for nearly two whole years, Oli has finally sold his house. It's a long story but it was a lovely house in need of renovation and we ummed and ahhed about whether or not to move there (for about a year, no joke), but it was in NW London which was always going to be a bit too far from my family. Anyway it went into auction yesterday and about an hour before it was due to be auctioned, Oli accepted an offer from a buyer and the contracts were exchanged!

This finally means we are free to try to find a family home. The only problem is that neither of us is quite sure exactly where we want to live (well, Wimbledon Village would be nice but is sadly out of our price range). We both like being in London for the convenience and the fact it's near to our friends/work, but we also both hate London as a place to bring up Chip - too many people and too much pollution. I'm kind of exhausted just thinking about trying to make a decision to be honest. But still, it's so exciting because we can finally actually start looking at houses in earnest, and in a 'good' position which is so critical when the market is so competitive!

I was actually sent a press release yesterday with this nifty map attached showing the average house prices per tube stop - it's crazy how just moving one stop away from your preferred location can save you up to half a million pounds in some cases. Unsurprisingly Colliers Wood (where we live - I call it Wimbledon cos it's the same postcode and no one has heard of CW, and everyone in the entire world has heard of Wimbledon) is one of the cheapest areas on the Northern line. I actually think it represents really good value for money and would consider staying here if it wasn't quite so traffic-choked.

On another note, because there's always got to be some ying with the yang, this weekend my car started playing up. It's eleven years old now and possibly 'had it' - the last service was more than a grand and given that it's only worth £1500 I'm not entirely sure whether I want to sink even more money into fixing it. But at the same time, the idea of buying another car fills me with dread. Not only are most of them ugly these days (is it just me?!), they are ruddy expensive. I was a bit shocked when I started looking into over the weekend. I know a car is a luxury, especially in London, but I've always had one - ever since I passed my test - and there's something about the sense of freedom it gives that really matters to me. A couple of times over the past ten years I've been technically 'homeless' and my car was the one thing I owned and although it sounds silly that was really important to me. Because of this I'm reluctant to go car-less at the grand old age of 35. I guess I'm set in my ways, and I can't think of a nice way of getting the cat to the vet's without it. So... winning the lottery is required at some point in the not-too-distant future, please and thank you.

Midweek Musings: Baby Bottles and Nursery Progress

Hello there! I don't often do reviews on here (mostly because the things I am offered aren't usually relevant) but when Scandi brand Twistshake got in touch with me and offered me one of their new baby bottles to review, I couldn't say no. (That sounds so cheesy and hackneyed but it's true).

As Daphne has always been bottle fed, we've been through our fair share of different bottles - we started out with the ones that came with my breast pump, then we moved onto Dr Brown's Anti-Colic, which I think were good but were a right palaver and a half to wash up, and then we moved onto Mam's Self-sterilising Anti-Colic bottles which we currently use. They've been pretty good and I don't have much to complain about with them (although Daph hated their fancy teat and so we still use Dr Brown teats with them), but the Twistshake is quite frankly genius thanks to one thing - the little powder box it comes with.

When we moved onto powdered milk, this really worried me - how would we store the powder when we went out? I know you can get little plastic boxes but they looked fiddly and lots of people said how much they leaked. To avoid the issue completely, we usually make up a bottle then flash-cool it and take it with us, keeping it in a cool bag (or fridge if we're at a friend's) until Daph needs it. I'm pretty sure the NHS would string me up for this, but touch wood it's been OK so far. But today I went to my mum's and I roadtested the Twistshake and it was just brill - I simply scooped out the powder required into the little powder box then tucked that neatly back into the bottle. Then topped it up with slightly cooled boiled water when I needed to make up Daph's feed.

I've seen that you can also use this powder box to store snacks for older kids (like cucumber sticks etc) which is another brilliant idea. I do like a multi-functional invention!

The bottles are bright and colourful (I hated the look of the Dr Brown ones) and very easy to use, with a special powder filter that stops any lumps from clogging up the teat. They're Anti Colic too, although Daph no longer has colic so I can't comment on that. They kind of look like grown-up drinks bottles I think! I love the fact that the colours are bold and not insipid or very clearly gender-specific. We use blue Mam bottles (as well as pink ones) and it annoys me that the pictures on them are clearly designed for boys.

The only downside of the Twistshake is that (as far as I can tell) they are not self-sterilising like the Mam ones - this is a real plus for me as we don't have space for a separate steriliser in our stuffed-to-the-brim kitchen. Otherwise though, I'm impressed, and very happy to recommend them. They're available on Amazon

In other news, this week we've been getting Daphne's nursery ready for her to move into when she's six months old (in just over two weeks). Sniff! Part of me can't wait to move her into her own room because quite frankly, she's a noisy little bugger and between around 2am and 5am just basically makes noise non-stop - singing, gurgling, shouting, crying, you name it. But then part of me is really soppy and can't bear the idea of her not being next to me anymore, all soft and snuffly and smelling of babies. I will miss her!

As we're hoping to move house at some point this year we didn't want to spend too much money on the nursery, so we've really just made do with what we've already got, and bought a few new touches like a rug (not the horrible old one in the picture!), some artwork and a cot mobile, to try to make it nice for her. I'll do a proper nursery 'tour' post when it's all finished but the cot is in and looks fab, and my mum is busy adjusting the existing cheap Ikea curtains (finally cutting them to the right size for the window and lining them with blackout lining). She's also making a cot bumper for me. My mum is a superstar! I really need to learn how to do this kind of stuff - seriously considering a sewing course at some point...

The one thing that I have yet to manage to source is a nice lampshade for the boring pendant light fitting. We have a bright pink one (also Ikea) up now that I bought when I first moved in and it's just dull dull dullsville. I'd love something quirky but not too expensive. Or cheesy. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Midweek Musings: kitchen tables and life without a laptop

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)...

ercol-chiltern-table-lifebylotte

But here's what we ended up with.

ikea-lisabo-lifebylotte

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.