October 2008

October 30th, 2008

A week of feeling (home)sick

In the spirit of Yvonne’s publication of her email to me on the matter of her having a shit week, here’s the email I bashed out during a precious moment of Astrid-sleep. I’d been planning a week of feeling (home)sick post – and, just like Yvonne’s, my email was destined to become a (highly unedited stroke rushed) blog post.



Astrid – on the mend

++

Hi you,

I just read your email again.

Ah well, at least it’s funny at the same time as being bloody awful.

I was up vomiting the other night. Astrid was up vomiting 4 nights running.
Kevin got it. He was up vomiting the same night as me and I begged him to go to work – he got a new contract immediately [ note to blog readers; Kevin got sacked for being off sick with Astrid's last bug, just a couple of weeks ago, and because he was still in his probationary period there wasn't much to be done ] – it’s for 5 weeks and so possibly no work over xmas but who knows. But yes, Kevin went to work ALL WEEK. I have been thinking about writing a blog post called, Kevin our hero, or something like that. Because to manage a week of work feeling like that makes him a bloody marvel. And it makes me love him even more because he did it for our little family.

Yes, so Astrid’s at home while we still pay for childcare and Kevin’s work is, well, uncertain. But he can always get work easily anyway. It’s just a bit scary with me not working, out, earning regular money – which was the point of us coming here – and Christmas coming up.


But that is us to a tee. Life on the edge and all that. Ha. Neither of us are the kind to stay somewhere – especially not when there are idiots running the show. Today I resisted a dress on sale at Whistles, which would have been perfect (ie it would fit the bump and look nice). So next week i AM going to make myself those robe rouge dresses I keep promising myself, from the marc jacobs cashmere and the cotton jersey I bought before we came here.

I cancelled my wallpaper subscription about half an hour after ordering it. In a way i really enjoy living on a super tight budget. And all these postal taxes and charges are really, really helping! And i am supposed to go on maternity leave as of monday, and suff is NOT finished. Because I’ve lost two weeks work out of the past four due to having Astrid home sick. And i am desperate to make all this stuff I’ve got lined up.

Including stuff for you which i bought just the best ever linen you’ll love and things like linen ribbon for MONTHS ago and haven’t had time to make yet. I’ve also got dolls designed, little aprons to make up, baby bags, baby blankets to sew and knit, treasure pouches to be sewn, cards to be bagged up, a set of cards to gocco up and a shop to open.

I had a blog contest before we left Auckland and the poor old winners still haven’t got their stuff. Although I’ve got a little pile going. I suppose that’s just the way a+b contests work. Run the contest really early. And send the prizes out on time. On time being at least six months later. If not longer. Hmm. Not convincing.

And to top it all off, well, the above made me really homesick – especially as Kevin would have got that promotion in Auckland – and then a friend emailed saying come home. And then I got really homesick.

… but then it snowed. It really snowed. We were all too sick to go out, but we looked out the window and there were big huge fluffy snowflakes falling. And they blanketed everything. A proper, big, snow. And I thought also we’ll visit you in Spring, definitely. We’ll rent a car and drive over. And go to Provence next Summer. Because that’s why we came here. To shop at Muji and Liberty and Loop and Upper Street and Selfridges and Heals and Marimekko and Borough and Spitalfields and Brick Lane, to do some amazing work to put on our CVs, to see snow, to live by the Heath again, to visit you, to take Astrid to France in the Summer, to walk everywhere and to learn to knit at Loop. So instead of wishing we were back home the snow reminded me to enjoy where we are.

It’s been a shit week hasn’t it! At least I’ve got some knitting in. And your house will be brilliant once it’s all done. As I always say, everything is always over in the end. Now it really is high time I sent you your chin up package.

x

ps. Astrid is starting to talk now. This morning she pointed at everything in the kitchen cupboard and wanted to look at everything in detail and know its name.

19 Comments »

October 24th, 2008

Lovely news

It’ll be a while before it’s got everything in it that I want, but I’ve made a start on www.lovelyshops.com – a little project that’s been bubbling under for some time, waiting for me to finish other bits of work.




Lovely Shops will be a pure shopping guide of all my favourite, mostly online, shops from around the world.

It will be highly edited, so I won’t be posting just for the sake of it – but it will be the repository of places I shop – because goodness knows I love the postman and the delights he brings with him! And I’m sure my favourite shops will keep us all busy for a while.

As will the other lovelies – I’ve resurrected Lovely NZ, and there’s another little project or two I’ll be launching very soon.

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October 24th, 2008

astrid’s birth story

I read a birth story about a month ago that scared the living daylights out of me, hence the purchasing of the mimulus. Thoughts of an epidural this time were becoming more of a reality. Frightened of having a baby in the English healthcare system, of not having a midwife I knew.

We went home last time especially so I could have Astrid there. And I wasn’t pregnant when we made the arrangements to come here. We still would have come. Well, we did, here we are. And I’m less scared now about the birth – thanks Adrienne – whose email today reminded me I really need to write this up before it’s too much of a distant memory. And that of course I don’t need an epidural.

So back to 2006 we now travel… back we go for Astrid’s birth story…



astrid hana – 2 days old

I fought like mad to get a good midwife in New Zealand. Arriving back at 18 weeks there was no way I was in time for anything but a community midwife and a birth at Auckland Hospital, especially not with a due date so, well, smack bang in between Christmas and New Year. No midwife in their right mind wanted their Christmas holiday interrupted by a very determined aromatherapist, insisting on a water birth. An obstetrician was out of the question for me as well. In my mind obstetrician equals caesarian by default.

The midwife I really really really wanted was really kind and said to call back if I was utterly stuck – that was once she had already said impossible as she was on holiday – but maybe she could help. So I called back at 25 weeks as I really was truly and utterly stuck – and she’d found New Year’s cover and I had a midwife! My own midwife! The midwife I’d wanted right from the start!

I went along on September 14th 2006 for my first visit. An old bungalow just off Dominion Road – just like a house really – an old bed with an orange candlewick bedspread in her consultation room, an oak desk and chair. Each room was painted brightly, in different colours. There were five midwives making up the collective. I felt immediately at home. This was the New Zealand pregnancy I wanted. Luise would listen to the baby’s heart with a wooden thing. My bood pressure was taken the old fashioned way with her pumping the thing – no beeping monitors, no electric gadgets. She always had a jar of flowers on the table and a big pile of well loved wooden and cloth toys on the floor.

Luise would be on holiday for the birth, but I was handed over to Linda at the start of December and if the baby was born in January I’d be handed over again. By this stage, a few weeks before the due date Astrid flipped around and was sitting up, breech, requiring twice-weekly acupuncture, a lot of moxa (burning herbs by my little toe), some serious hips up on pillows time and a strict macrobiotic diet. Two weeks of that and three scans later, Astrid, much to our great relief turned back to the head down position and started to engage.

Astrid started making signs of appearing on Boxing Day. Just tiny niggles, ever so tiny. The following day around 7pm we decided to call Linda as I’d been having irregular contractions since 5pm. One every two to eight minutes – we just wanted to check what to do. At ten that night we decided to phone again as the contractions were getting harder so Linda popped over for a visit. The minute she arrived they, of course, stopped – although she did an exam and I was 1cm dilated. Time for panadol, a hottie and a sleep. Linda said we’d know when I was really in labour and off she went.

I spent the next day, the 28th, resting where I could, grazing here and there, standing up for contractions. Waiting. Yes, waiting. It was actually getting quite annoying– all day long having these little contractions every few minutes. I spent as much time in bed as I could to keep my strength in reserve. Linda phoned at 11am and we had nothing to report. Again she phoned at 5pm. Again nothing much happening. I took another two panadol, got a hottie and went to bed. Around 6pm the contractions started to decidedly pick up. I’d been shouting a bit already, but this time I noticed the shouting was less controllable and I really wanted to shout. I had to stand up and go into the living room and leaned against the wall, still definitely shouting. A few of these and we thought it might be time to phone Linda. So at 7pm we bundled ourselves and the very perfectly packed bag into the car. I stood by the back seat of the car and thought well there’s no way I’m sitting down, so in I climbed, kneeling, holding the headrest, shouting my way through each contraction. Amusingly the same car followed us all the way from Mt Albert shops up to Symonds Street. It must have been such a mad sight – I tried not to make eye contact. It was a gorgeous summer’s evening, the light orange and hazy it was as we drove as quickly and as safely as we could to Parnell – to Birthcare.

Now I’ll just interrupt the story here for a minute for a word on Birthcare – I had most definitely had my heart set on a water birth right from the start – and we thought hospital would be a good option just in case anything went wrong, or if I needed an epidural. However if you birth at Birthcare you get a private room with meals included. If you birth at the hospital you get transferred to Birthcare straight away, but you have to share a room, or pay $350 a night for the private room. So we opted out of any pain relief in order to get the nice room!

Back to the story at hand. We arrived at Birthcare at 8pm – a familiar place to us as we’d been to natural birthing classes every Tuesday night for eight weeks. I don’t think we actually learnt much, apart from the fact that caesarians are bad, breastfeeding is good and we met some people there who are now great friends, which made it all worth it really. Funnily enough she had a caesarian but breastfed successfully – I had the natural birth but a hopeless time breastfeeding.

Right, now, really back to the story. Up we went in the lift, me breathing all over the place and shouting my way through contractions. We were given a birthing room. Linda was there – she’d filled the birthing pool. Linda was right there by my side while I stood with my hands on the bed. She got me to slow my breathing right down and just breathe as normally as I could. Not easy, but with practice I slowed right down, collected myself together and just breathed. Like sailing. Just like sailing. A client had said I just needed to ride the waves of the contractions, so I remembered that too. Ride the waves. Sail with the breath. Ride the waves. Sail with the breath. It didn’t necessarily feel like that, but it gave me something to focus on just saying that to myself. By this time, just after 8pm I was 6cm.

At quarter to nine I still wasn’t ready for the pool – I was quite happy standing up, leaning on the bed, fully attired in tracksuit pants, my olive green top (still my pyjama top) and socks. For summer, it was not a warm evening. And I’m not much of a naked person at the best of times.

At 9pm I thought I’d give the pool a go. It was a bit shallow and cold and it was very difficult to get comfortable. I was on all fours, floating a bit but the contractions really, really got going and after half an hour I managed to get myself out – the contractions getting stronger now. Not so strong that I felt overwhelmed by them but they were certainly escalating. An hour later I was at 8cm, the show arrived and I think that’s when my waters broke. The contractions were getting a bit much at this stage and I asked Linda for some help. She said I had to get myself through it and that I didn’t need gas and air until I was pushing (ha, now I know that was a big lie, but I can also thank her for it).

This was when the contractions got bad. I think there about three or four where I really  just thought I was going to have to give up. So I did. I got onto the bed and lay down on my side. Kevin had the birth book on him so we looked up where I was up to and realised I was in the middle of transition – I was reaching my hands out to grab something but just grabbing the air. And, all of a sudden at 10:40pm things changed. I felt the urge to push and the hideous awfulness of the contractions disappeared. After that, pushing felt like the biggest relief in the world. Fully dilated now Linda encouraged me not to actively push, but she moved my position so I was kneeling on the bed, holding onto the back of it telling Linda, right Linda, now you gotta tell me exactly what to do. Exactly!

By eleven pushing was underway and against everything I’d learnt at natural birthing classes I was on my back, Linda and Kevin acting as stirrups, Astrid on her way down. Linda had the warm facecloth strategically positioned to avoid any tears or the suchlike. Each push was carefully choreographed, Linda totally guiding me now. The second to last push was painful and Linda really had to convince me to do the last one, because I just knew it would hurt, but I knew I had to do it, so up I mustered all the courage I had for the final push, and there was Astrid at the magical hour of 23:23, on her due date, December 28th 2006.

Little eyes all shut, crying. A little pink baby. Very tiny. Ready to be held. Such proud parents. A job well done. We wait for the placenta to follow after a quarter of an hour. Time to weigh Astrid. Mum hops up for the loo and a shower. Someone appears with toast and milo, which is heartily consumed and off we all head to our little room.

Time to begin our new life as a little family.

( 28 weeks today – and little babychops ii is really starting to make her presence felt )

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October 21st, 2008

And she sewed

Hooray.



I finished sewing Astrid’s dress. It’d been loitering around on my shelf for weeks waiting to be hemmed and elastic’d. The fabric is a wool silk cotton blend from Linnet which I really had to stop myself from over-ordering. Still, I don’t regret it. I have enough fabric from last year’s buying rampage to last me a couple of years, and I like the surprise factor of not being able to repeat myself.



Simple dress – pattern from onnanoko no fuku

Also, the inbound taxes on parcels and the exchange rate are really making me think very very carefully before buying too much from overseas.

5 Comments »

October 20th, 2008

My amazing medicine cabinet

Feeling slightly nervous suddenly quite terrified about the approaching birthing process I’ve been thinking I must buy another bottle of Mimulus. The last time I needed it was during the time before Astrid was born. In fact I probably finished the entire bottle, which is a) why I sailed through her birth and b) why I couldn’t find it.



bach flower remedies mimulus
chanel magnolia rose nailpolish, black mascara and désert rose duo
weleda iris day cream
materia aromatica rose floral water

Bach Flower Remedies are one of the few things ever in our medicine cabinet. Mimulus is for fear of known things (as opposed to fear of an unknown origin). Since I’ve been taking it I feel much better, not worrying about Astrid falling off the sofa, or being afraid of her constantly hurting herself, or just generally feeling scared about everything in general (which is a fairly characteristic negative fish state of mind).

If you want to find yourself a Bach Flower Remedy they’ve got a cool little remedy chooser to help you decide.

As well as buying Mimulus on Saturday I bought myself a moisturiser. I’ve decided to face the fact I am not going to be making a batch soon for just so many reasons. Although I will again once we’re back in New Zealand, which in the scheme of things, isn’t that far away.


Feeling rather brilliant yesterday morning, with a weightless mind and a silky-soft face (and a new Whistles top), I polished my nails, put on some makeup and up we skipped to Hampstead village for scones. The weekend went so quickly, again. So close now to maternity leave though. With a head full of ideas, colours, patterns, designs and projects I am absolutely bursting to get going.

7 Comments »

October 19th, 2008

Growing up

Oooh, Astrid’s going to love having a little baby sister all of her own. At Lorraine’s – her childminder’s – she loves it when baby Orlando is there. She helps change nappies, fetch wipes from the buggy and generally hangs around waiting to help wherever she can.



flora and henri long sleeve tee
mor mor rita cashmere halter neck
6.5st circle skirt

We’re starting to get the odd word here and there. On Friday it was ‘bin’. Yesterday we got ‘I like that’ and today, nothing. We’re sure her first proper word will be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (perhaps if we remove the dummy she’ll speak).

I must confess I often wish I had me-versions of Astrid’s clothes. It’s very country-ish where we live so going out in cable knit tights, lambskin boots and a few layers doesn’t look at all out of place. But sometimes I think I dress just a little bit too much like Helena Bohnham Carter (who incidentally also lives around here) so I’m just itching to go on maternity leave (hurry up) and use some of that gorgeous Linnet fabric I’ve been salting away.



Kevin’s back to work tomorrow. He’s been off sick all of last week, following the preceeding week where Astrid had gastro. On Friday afternoon we walked across the Heath to Swain’s Lane, where they have such things as a greengrocer, a butcher, a wineshop, an organic food shop and even a flower shop. And two cafés. One with grouchy staff and quite good cake and one with nice staff where they have delicious fresh red-currant cheesecake.

Yes. Red-currants. My favourite berries. Ever.

8 Comments »

October 17th, 2008

A treasure trove

of free knitting patterns.
At Drops Design.

And today, week 27, sees us into the third trimester.
I’d better get sewing.

2 Comments »

October 16th, 2008

Little gumboots

and other random thoughts for today



Little chopsie boots from mini boden

There’s been more raglan jumper knitting going on. I was over cautious with the neck on the one I sized up for Astrid though, so I’ve gathered it up with some linen cord while I wait for my eBay elastic purchases to arrive. (I went to order elastic and some lovely leather and bamboo buttons from MacCullogh and Wallis but I went to check out and their postage is a flat £7.50 – Loop has been spoiling me with their honest and precise postage costs). 



The sleeves are super long, for folding back and growing into. As is the super wide neck. Mostly I make Astrid’s things far too big. We’ve recently been marvelling she’s been in the same pyjamas for over a year now. Time for new ones though now.

And time to knit another raglan too. The current one’s newborn size (in the pear tree 8 ply blush) so much much quicker to knit up. I’m working on a raglan smock dress too for Astrid. Then I think we’ll be set for winter clothes. Possibly. Apart from the felt coat. And the grey jersey knit long sleeved smock dress. And the new pyjamas.

Also some jolly good news for us regulars at amazon.co.uk, as of today free delivery is for all orders over £5. Think I can manage that then. Family Knits has been reduced so I might have to get myself a copy of that.

This week too, I couldn’t resist getting one of these for Astrid for Christmas. Although I think it might have to live in my study for now. As will one of these calendars that arrived today. I’ve bought a few for Christmas presents, although buggeration the pound has gone down bringing to a grinding halt all overseas purchases for now (that statement is half possibly a lie).

5 Comments »

October 9th, 2008

In love with yarn

Because of my obsessive nature there are now one and a half Loop bags full of yarn on my desk. Because I am my mother’s daughter I ordered the last of the Pear Tree sale yarns that I’ve been slowly collecting. And because it’s just so so beautiful I had to photograph it all right away and stash it in ravelry.



Astrid’s been ill most of the week. This time with a tummy bug and god it’s been hard work. I am absolutely drop dead exhausted and have spent most of the morning regaining my strength, organising paperwork for maternity leave, building a shop (not mine – although I am thinking about my shop, again), drinking earl grey tea and wondering where on earth the day has gone.

Knitting and Stitching show on this weekend but I’m just too lazy to go. And in other knitting news, the Knitting Goddess does some lovely semi-solids and lace-weight cashmere.

6 Comments »

October 2nd, 2008

Hello photography mojo

Why there you are!
You’ve been gone a long while.



So nice to have you back.

Clearing a surface has helped enormously.
As has dusting off the ol’ 5d.


above: out-take from today’s 44.

4 Comments »

October 2nd, 2008

A much better photo

I really don’t like the photo I put up of me last week, but Astrid’s Yoshitomo Nara character likeness just had to be recorded.



Anyway, here we are again. Sat in front of the computer, pretending nobody’s taking a photo. Hilarious!

12 Comments »

October 1st, 2008

Knit knit knit knit knit.



Today new yarns arrived.

The last ball of discontinued Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran #9 from Loop so I can make the other wrist warmer, and four balls of Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran for making this. I almost got the aubergine, but Astrid likes red, so I’ll let her have red. This time at least because it will match her new ankle boots.



For the garter stitch jacket I used Rowan Pure Wool Aran in Pepper, which is just so gorgeous and yummy I think I’ll make myself something in it too. The buttons are from Loop. Their delivery was so quick – I only ordered yesterday morning. This is the moment I just want my brain to think of a clever finishing line so I can get back downstairs to the cable. And it fails me. Ok. Right. Gotta knit!

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