Midweek Musings: We lost the house

So it turns out I must be cursed. Surely it can't be normal to have the vendor of a house you're buying pull out of the sale TWO DAYS before you're meant to exchange, TWICE? But alas, that's what's happened to us. We found out yesterday that, after months of messing us about, the elderly lady we'd been buying our little midcentury house in Wimbledon from had decided once and for all that she didn't want to move after all, and pulled out. She'd already had a little 'wobble' as she'd called it, a few weeks ago, but we'd been to view it again and she'd reassured us that she did indeed want to move and that she was happy to sell it to us, with exchange set for this Thursday (I think she liked the idea that it was going to a young family).

She was supposed to be buying a brand new retirement home just around the corner, but the developers had been very very pushy with her, trying to get her to move sooner than she wanted to, and I think in the end the whole thing became far too stressful for her. We also found out yesterday that she's 93! (she lives alone) so it is an incredible amount of upheaval to deal with at her age. I can't be cross with her.

But my, are we disappointed. What a waste of time, and stress, and money. And like I said, this isn't the first time this has happened to me - it happened about five years ago when I was trying to buy a house in Tooting Bec - my house was under offer at the time when the woman I was buying from pulled out, and in the end I had no choice but to go into rented accommodation to make sure the sale didn't collapse. It worked out OK in the end (and is how I came to live in my current flat), but it was literally a year and a half of hassle and aggro, and I remember that trying to find somewhere to rent with a week's notice was one of the most stressful things I'd ever had to deal with. I suppose I should be grateful that this time we're not homeless at least.

Anyway, you'll forgive me for this slightly sombre post. I am so so sick of house hunting now, it feels as though we've been doing it forever, and it's constantly two steps forward, eight steps back. I just want a home, godammit, and somewhere for Daphne to sit outside in the summer! I know in comparisons to millions of others we're lucky to have my flat but we're just so on top of each other all the time, especially as we both work from home, and there's just simply not enough space.

So yes. Boo. Sigh. Sob. Onwards. Etc.

Midweek Musings: You're So Vain

I bet you think this blog post is about you. Or, er, me. Which it is. What I mean to say is, I'm so vain. I don't know whether it's the warmer weather or the fact that Daph is sleeping better so I can no longer blame her for my daily Stig of the Dump impression, but anyway, I've decided it's time to get myself together. Appearance wise.

I mentioned teeth whitening in my last blog post - and a few of my friends IRL told me that they'd had the Zoom treatment and it was beyond painful, so that's kind of put me off that a bit. BUT. Today I had my hair done and - drum roll please - CUT for the first time in... well, so long I'm ashamed. Anyway I wanted to go back to the ombre thing I blogged about last year but get it done properly this time. And get my lob cut back in. I asked the hairdresser to match the ombre to my roots. Which were coming through looking properly BROWN. But she insisted I was still a 'dark blonde' and so we went with that colour. And voila...

Hilariously, my roots are now the exact same colour as Daphne's hair, which is quite nice really. We match! I can't believe how much lighter it looks than I imagined it would and although it's very 'ashy' (and obviously a lot darker!) I actually quite like it. Oli nodded his head in approval too, which is a bonus.

Best of all, there's no sign of any YELLOW hair - my absolute pet hate about blonde hair is when it goes yellow or gingery. Yuck.

I've also treated myself to some new skincare - the Alpha H Liquid Gold serum that everyone talks about. I've used glycolic acid masks before and really liked them - I hate any mechanical exfoliates as my skin is so sensitive. I've only used the Liquid Gold once so far and I definitely noticed a difference the next day - my skin was tauter and smoother, but not massively so. I'm going to use it two or three times a week as suggested to see how it works long term.

I also went to M&S earlier this week to get the baby something and ended up spending shedloads on Stila make up. There's a massive M&S right by my flat and I often go there when I'm bored and want to take the baby for a walk. Anyway I'd never really looked at the M&S make up section but had noticed recently they now sell Ren, which is really good as I use their clarifying toner every day. But then I spotted Stila, and I dunno - perhaps it's the brown packaging but everything suddenly looked REALLY enticing and promised amazing things. So I bought a lipstick, some BB cream (why Charlotte? You HATE BB cream) and a eyebrow kit thingy which is sadly quite crap - back to drawing mine on with pencil I think.

I don't know why but just BUYING make up always really cheers me up. Now what I really need to do is shift this extra 10 pounds I'm carrying around from being a pregnant pig. Then my transformation will be complete. Ha ha! I suspect the only way to do this is cardio - namely, running, SOB - so have resolved to get back into it after Easter and all the eggs. Ahem.

On that note, hope you all have a fab Easter. We're off to Bristol to visit my uni friend Sophy who's just had her first baby, and I'm quite excited as we're staying in the Hotel du Vin so it's almost a little mini break. Will let you know how we get on sharing a hotel room with a seven-month-old... bedtime at 7pm, that should be fun!

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.

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...

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: Weaning trials and sleep success

*warning - baby-heavy post!* I'm writing this after having mopped both Daphne and myself down following an incident which will now be referred to as Butternut Squash Gate. Yesterday her evil Feeder Mother gave her two huge cubes of butternut squash puree, and felt all proud and pleased as she gobbled the entire lot down. Not realising that there is such a thing as too much roughage when you are just under six months old. Ever since, butternut squash has been coming out of both ends (the stuff from the top end going straight down my bra - lovely!), accompanied by lots of tears and gigantic farts. She's finally fallen asleep in exhaustion. I'm so sorry little Chippy.

How much food is too much food for a six-month-old baby? I have literally no idea. Once again it strikes me as crazy that I am responsible for this delicate little baby's LIFE and yet I know more about looking after my Macbook. We've got the Annabel Karmel weaning book but nowhere does it really suggest any ideas for portion size - it's all that same old guff about not worrying if they don't eat much more than a teaspoon. HA. Chip says sit her in front of a 6oz steak and she'll quite happily put the whole thing away, then cry all night with tummy ache. One way to learn about cause and effect I suppose.

I do wish there were clearer guidelines about how much to feed babies and when - it all seems so confusing and there's so much different advice out there. I really am making it all up as I go along. Maybe I'm just really thick but I don't have any instincts as to how much is too much! We were going to do baby-led weaning but Chip was obviously so hungry all the time - when we ate she would watch us and open her little mouth in expectation - but she's not quite mastered the hand-eye coordination thing enough to put a carrot stick in her mouth yet. So we've been spooning puree in, and she's loved it all (except for spinach, which is probably fair enough). Her favourite thing is 'biscuits' (mashed up Farley's Rusks with milk) and she could eat that all day long. I was giving it to her as a kind of supper because I thought it would help fill her tummy before bed, and was quite pleased about it but then I googled rusks and everyone on Mumsnet said they were horrific and full of sugar and I'd be better off giving her a Mars bar. So that made me feel quite terrible - even though we'd bought the reduced sugar ones. Sigh.

It's a minefield. I miss the days of trying to choose between two cartoons of formula that were ostensibly the same anyway. Much easier.

On a more upbeat note, Daphne is finally sleeping in her own room at night! We've even taken down the bedside cot!  We moved her in a bit early (the guidelines say that babies should sleep in a room with you until they are six months' old) because she was already napping in there and we were really reaching the end of our tethers with the exhaustion thing. It's made me happy and sad all at once - but mostly happy because we've actually had a few relatively decent nights' sleep since she moved in there about a week ago. She obviously prefers the bigger cot with more space to stretch out, and I am sure that she prefers not having to hear her mum and dad grunting (hmm, that makes it sounds as though we're having conjugal relations, which is definitely not a priority right now) and snoring away next to her at night too, or waking her up when they come to bed at 11pm.

It is a bit weird not having her next to me though, and last night in the middle of Butternut Squash Gate she was waking up every hour or so in constant pain with wind so I gave up and brought her into our bed again (which I secretly loved). I think if she's ever poorly I'm going to use it as an excuse to have more baby cuddles in our bed - it was one of my favourite parts of when she was little - there's really nothing nicer than having a sleeping baby snoozing on your shoulder...

It is bittersweet now when we put her to bed at night, tucking her in and leaving her to it. She's already starting to become independent... sniff sniff!

She's also started to do a lovely long nap at lunchtime which is definitely the most exciting thing to happen to me for years. Or this year at least. I sometimes even get two hours to myself in the middle of the day to do stuff, and IT IS BRILLIANT.

Finally, we've finished Making a Murderer. Thanks to whoever recommended it to me - what little chance of sleep I had before has now disappeared thanks to my new late-night googling sessions of 'who might have killed Teresa Halbach?' and 'why did Brendan confess?' etc etc. It's driving me insane! I keep thinking there's no smoke without fire and surely even with a low IQ you don't randomly confess to raping or murdering someone?! We will never know! Aarrgh!

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!