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Visiting Shoreditch with Toddlers

Shoreditch is one of my toddlers’ favourite places. I mean – they’ll chose a trip to the beach or to soft play over Shoreditch, without a doubt. But on quiet Saturday afternoons, they really like to visit Shoreditch. The lure is in part the transport. They really like to ride buses and trains, and the trip entails both a bus ride to the train station and a twenty-minute train ride into London Bridge. From there, we take a taxi, which they love, all the way to Brick Lane and stroll down the road together peering into the shops and admiring the extravagent and outlandish art on the walls. They love to swing around the lamp posts; they are care-free and innocent. They make me smile so hard that my jaw aches. We have little competitions: to find new art, to find the best art. They always surprise me with how… View Post

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Quick Update on Us!

Hello!  It’s me.  I thought I’d come on and give an actual update, inspired in part by some lovely comments I’ve had recently that prove that someone (not just my mum!) actually reads my blog!  It’s always so good to hear from you all.  Mostly i feel like I am writing for myself and my children, which is fine, but it’s lovely to get to know you all a bit too.  This summer will mark my fourth year of blogging, and it’s been such a good hobby for me – a way of being creative in my own, limited time and of reaching out to people, which does make a difference.. I find that outside of work I am so busy trying to keep up with the children that I don’t really see adults any more.  It is good to have you all. So I thought I’d just summarise where… View Post

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Sainsbury’s Little Ones #AD

Picnics are my favourite, my weakness. There is something about eating outside that makes food taste extraordinary, something about plastic plates on wild grass that makes even my burnt offerings seem appetising. Even through the winter, when it’s dry outside, we like to pack a picnic lunch and take the bus to our favourite woods and to walk to the clearing in the middle where it is always so silent and nobody ever goes, and spread out the blanket that Kirsty crocheted back when the boys were small, and to eat. But in the sunlight – my goodness! When there are blue skies and a playful, summery breeze, we can make a whole afternoon of it; we go after lunch and meander slowly through the trees, we look for tigers and dinosaurs and collect sticks and when we get to the meadow we play chase and all sorts of ballgames… View Post

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Eighteen Weeks

I am eighteen weeks pregnant. This baby loves sushi and makes me crave avocado rolls and lychee-flavoured bubble tea, which I purchase whilst running errands at work and sip strolling down Oxford Street in the sunshine. Just this week, the baby has started to discernibly move in a regular pattern; he or she feels terribly low down compared to where their twin siblings lay at this point in my pregnancies. It feels mildly disconcerting to feel the kicking so far down in my pelvis, as though at any moment the baby might fall out. The children and I are obsessed with those silly apps, the ones that compare the baby to fruit and vegetables. This week I am carrying a bell pepper, minus their kicky legs, and I cannot imagine how something the size of a bell pepper with legs attached is residing in me already. With that said, I… View Post

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That Twelve Week Scan

Once the bleeding recedes, the first trimester flies. My uterine muscles give up almost immediately, and people offer me a seat on the train whether or not I wear the badge. I feel fraudulent, but I accept that seat gratefully because, as with my pregnancies with the twins, I am prone to fainting when I stand for too long in one spot. It feels magical to be back in this place again, as though I have been transported back in time, or given another chance. There was a time when I thought that my pregnancy with my daughters would be my last pregnancy; this little addition to the family, our snowflake baby, feels like an unexpected gift. We play with all of the stupid apps again, and the boys are fascinated by our size comparisons of the baby to fruit: our little raspberry, a strawberry, a kiwi. One day, Sasha… View Post

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