Elliot took his first steps about a month ago, and since then all he has wanted to do is walk walk walk. Now he spends every morning doing laps of the living room with the dog's toy held high, giggling. It's an amazing change - all of a sudden he's not really a baby, but a wee little boy. Elliot is happier too, just before he started crawling he went through a frustrated and grumpy phase when he couldn't get going how he wanted to. He's thrilled to be able to chase Gusdog around, and sneak up on him too.... Continue reading

I've now gotten to the halfway mark in the Prelude (end of the first page in my Barenreiter edition). It feels insane that I've made it this far. I still get a minor panic attack when I sit down to... Continue reading

I have been constantly mystified that nursing bras seem to be flimsy, flappy things. Considering you're often hauling around big bags of milk in there, why would they not give you some decent support? And the SEAMS. Why on earth do they put a seam across your nipples when they are being tugged and if you're really lucky, bitten, many times a day? I had despaired ever finding anything decent, when I spied this post over on Not So Yummy Mummy about the M2B T-shirt Nursing Bra from Mothercare. Finally. A normal bra that happens to have nursing clips. The... Continue reading

I am obsessed with containers. My old work colleagues would roll their eyes when a yet another Lakeland box would arrive in the post room with a new selection of salad boxes, banana guards and citrus savers. It's no surprise I am constantly searching for the best Elliot snack container, then. One of my mum friends pulled out one of these Tommy Tippee Food Pots the other day, and I was transfixed. It's a perfect cucumber stick size, and exactly the circumference of a baby rice cake. The lids stay on well without also being impossible to remove. Plus, they... Continue reading

Sometimes I think having enjoyed my childhood makes me a bit manic to make Elliot's early years perfect. Yes, I know that's impossible. But still, you know what I mean. I remember the big old farmhouse between a slow moving river and a little cemetery in rural Canada. I caught fish in the river with my Dad, I wandered through the cemetery talking to the names on the headstones, I pulled carrots straight from the ground and ate them with the dirt on. We stood on our back porch to watch the ice break up on the river in spring.... Continue reading

What a change from making freezer batches of bolognese and pulling bits of banana off the dog. It's my birthday this week, and I took advantage of the dinner Niamh had organised for the London Food and Drink Bloggers at Bob Bob Ricard to celebrate. And what a perfectly lovely evening it was. With single person booths, a big table in its own curtained corner, and turquoise splendour everywhere, BBR is the right place to treat yourself. An everyday treat or something more spectacular, that's your decision to make... Rhubarb gin & tonic Russian salad with black truffles in the... Continue reading

In my last year at ELLSO, a lovely film student by the name of Ed Houghton made a short documentary about this great adult teaching orchestra. You can see me in the cello section - front row, outside chair. Remember,... Continue reading

These are essentially glorified nappy covers, but they are cute, and very useful in this hot weather. I found this fabric that featured little sea creatures and yellow submarines, so I had to use it - one of Elliot's favourite songs is Yellow Submarine you see. This is from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby: 24 Easy Projects for Newborns to Toddlers , a lovely book full of straightforward patterns for useful things. Continue reading

A tongue-tickling dish that works for everyone - I give the full details of making it over on my food blog Aubergine & Eggplant, but this is how to adjust it for small people too. Leave out the final seasoning step and add the salt and pepper to the adult dishes after serving. For Elliot's dinner, I added banana spears as a base to help him get the couscous in his mouth, and only gave him a couple spoonfuls of couscous at that. Chunks of lamb from the main pot went on top of that. Pomegranate seeds are not very... Continue reading

It's been hovering around 30º here in London. Which is great if you live somewhere built to maximise airflow, or have air conditioning. Of course, my flat features neither, so the last thing I felt like doing was turning on the oven for three hours. Of course, that's the beauty of pressure cookers - turning slow-cooker recipes into weeknight doable recipes. And not requiring the oven to be on. I have never quite managed the melt-in-the-mouth texture that you expect with these kinds of dishes except in my pressure cooker. I am much too prone to forgetting to check on... Continue reading

Over the past few days I've rescued a box of tampons before Elliot threw it into the flushing toilet, changed three (full) nappies in the span of 20 minutes, tried to discover why Elliot is having periodic yelling freak outs in his pushchair, fed Elliot his first spaghetti dinner (in only his nappy), been impressed with Elliot's ability to clap every time Makka Pakka does his intro dance and scraped the contents of a messy nappy into a sample jar while standing in the hallway of my GP's office whilst the waiting people tried not to watch, fascinated. Continue reading

There are prettier shops than Kitchen Ideas, I'm the first to admit. Shops with beautiful dishes, in-store cafes, cookbook aisles, demos and lots of staff. This place doesn't have any of that. However, if I need a mini whisk, an ice lolly mould, Cake Release and a slightly smaller casserole dish, they have it and for a price I will be unlikely to beat anywhere else. The staff do know their stock, to be fair - I've heard many an in-depth conversation about the specifics of certain brands of stock pots or whatever. That there always seems to be someone... Continue reading

I don't notice the low-level panicking until it starts to evaporate, and my shoulders slowly come down from my ears and my jaw unclenches. Yesterday afternoon I spotted Elliot's top two teeth are finally cutting through his gums. It nicely explains the last week of cranky behaviour, short attention span, constant whinging, crap sleep, diarrhoea and biting while nursing. I don't know whether the pain is getting less or it's just the fact that I'm less apprehensive that's making things easier. Whatever it is, I'm thankful. Continue reading

I am the proud owner of a new iPad! My family kindly banded together to get this wonderful slab of joy for my birthday, which is not for another three weeks, but my husband wanted to play with it too and the pre-order arrived early so here we are. Patience, right. So far, Elliot hasn't been overly excited about it, unlike my iPhone, which is a cause for two minutes of square-mouth wailing when it gets taken away. I came across this great and thoroughly practical article about babyproofing tech by Alex Samuel, a lovely person I spent a bit... Continue reading

In many areas of my life these days I've had to adjust my goals. An unexpected half an hour of quiet time while the monkey sleeps outside the local Waitrose that coincides with having three-quarters of a latte left? Absolutely... Continue reading

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