Packing a hospital bag

In a month (give or take a week or two either way), I will be meeting Little Planethalder, God willing, in the flesh for the first time. Bearing in mind that I know very few people who have given birth, bearing in mind that I am booked into a midwife-run birthing centre at my hospital with a birthing pool in my room, bearing in mind things can go differently and I could still end up on the regular labour ward or in theatre for a c-section, bearing mind the hospital will be warm and it'll be June, bearing in mind I have no clue about birth or babies... how do the contents of my hospital bag (for myself and baby) sound - what am I missing and what can I miss off?

My hospital bag

• 6 x cheap comfy granny knickers (I don't fancy disposables)
  
• 2 x packs maternity sanitary pads
• 2 x packs night-time ultra flow sanny pads with wings (as protective base)
• Sanny bags for disposing pads
• 2 x nursing bras
• Pack of absorbent breast pads
• Nipple cream
• 2 x front-buttoning nightie for labour and breastfeeding (I'm too shy to let it all hang out for all to see)
• 1 x lightweight dressing gown
• Tanktini top for birthing pool
• 2 x dark tracksuit bottoms for early/post-labour
• 2 x dark baggy ti-shirts for early/post-labour (nursing ones or front buttoning)
• Slippers & socks
• Flipflops for bathroom
• Birth ball
• Hair scrunchie
• Hair brush
• Towel for bathing (I am sure my own will be more comfortable and bigger than the hospital one)
  
• Lip salve
• Face moisturiser
• Deordorant
• Toothbrush and tooth paste
• Contact lenses & case & solution (want to look good for photos!)
• Glasses
• Kajal
• Shampoo
• Bodywash
• Massage oil
• Granola bars, crisps, apples, carton drinks, canned drinks, fizzy water, isotonic drinks, bendy straw & cup
• iPod (with loads of music and my natal hypnotherapy meditations) & speakers & headphones
• Book & magazines
• Camera
• Camcorder (not to film the birth, but post-birth)
  
• TENS machine
• Antenatal notes
• Birth plan
• Watch to time contractions
• Notepad & pen
• Clean going home clothes
• Anti-bacterial wipes for public toilets/bathroom
• Arnica tablets & healing (organic/herbal) wipes for soreness down below
• Tissues

My baby's bag

• 10 x nappies (I think the hospital may supply these, but just in case)
  
• 4 x vests
• 4 x gros
• 2 x socks
• 1 x mits
• 1 x sun hat
• 1 x cotton cardigan
• Cotton wool
• Baby towel
• Baby cotton blanket
• Carseat
• Muslin squares

On a different note, several people have requested photos of the new house. We still need to repaint the house and change the kitchen and bathroom and some furniture is still needed, so aesthetically the house at the moment does not reflect our personal taste. When it does, the photos will come. In the meantime, here are photos from when we first saw the house.

Offline

Quickly jumping in from work to say I'll be offline for another week. British Telecom can't seem to get their act together at all, but we are stuck with them as we don't want cable or Sky. It's perhaps a blessing in disguise though: I start maternity leave this Wednesday and have a busy start to my leave - arranging and waiting for numerous deliveries and a room clearance, having friends and family over to visit, going out and about to this or that concert and this or that restaurant, attending antenatal classes and appointments, sleeeeping... I don't need to be distracted by the net - although I still haven't bought anything for the baby, so need to be online pretty soon, eeeekkk!

See you in a week with a proper post.

House update

The move went surprisingly well. Though we are pretty much unpacked, there is still much to do in terms of waiting on deliveries, buying new things and arranging rooms to just how we like it. We keep wandering around the house not quite believing it's all ours and also trying to work out what extra hard and soft furnishings we need now that we have so much more space. Moving from a one-bed flat to a three-bed house is quite a leap.

We're back at work now and getting back into our usual routine. I only have another week before I leave for a year's maternity leave and I am really looking forward to enjoying this house at my leisure. We won't have an internet connection until next week, so I may be offline for a while if I can't find any time to update Planethalder from work.

On the move

We're moving on Saturday. The cleaner is in the new house sprucing it up as I type. The post is already being redirected. The new PC is on its way. We are ordering a new fridge freezer, washing machine, rug and guest bed tomorrow. These boxes (above) are filled only with books. Poor M is doing most of the packing. We've still got a long way to go.

Intimacy and solitude

I was raised a happy and contented only child, I've been single for more years than I've been coupled up, and I enjoy solitude so much I have joyously spent weeks in my own company not socialising with a soul. When M said he had to go away to the States on business for two weeks, I thought to myself, "This will be fine. I love my own company. It's been a while since I've been truly alone to operate at my own pace only." And I've been enjoyably busy, booking the removals, arranging the parking suspensions, finding the cleaning company, buying a new PC, scheduling BT to install the phoneline and wireless broadband, showing friends and family around the new house, cooking all my meals, reading, writing, dreaming, and of course working. But I miss my other self. I am so much more of myself when I am with him. He enhances me. My life was good before him. But now it's so much better.

29 weeks

A little blurred as I don't have a scanner so had to photograph the scans with a slightly wobbly hand, but here is Little Planet in full 3D gloriousness. We got some video footage of her moving around too. Our little girl. She already has hair. Doesn't she look like a baby alien!

After the scan on Harley Street on Saturday, we popped over to Marylebone for lunch at Café Divertimenti of spinach and bacon quiche, Iberian platter, blackberry and amaretti tart, almond and raspberry shortbread, and coffees. In between bites, we eyed up the pretty little Indian toddler lunching on Hipp organic baby food with her parents. Then to John Lewis to look at carpets for upstairs in the new house, rugs for the living room, a spare bed, and curtains. And then, to the Barbican for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's new movie, Flight of the Red Balloon. Though not as compelling as his previous Café Lumière, the film spun a chaotic human story around a calm and serene heart in an elegant and beautiful way. Then a hearty dinner of lamb chops and kebabs at our favourite Turkish restaurant Antepliler.

Most of Sunday was spent in the new house, dismantling old wardrobes the previous owner had left behind, measuring areas to see where things should go, and generally enjoying ourselves in our first official, privately-owned place together as a couple.

My home, my family. This weekend was bliss.

Completed

It's official. We've completed. The house is ours!

Exchanged

We've finally exchanged contracts on our house today. Bearing in mind we first had our offer accepted late in October of last year, this has been an unusually long process. We could have pulled out months ago and relooked for a place to buy, but to be honest we weren't in a terrific hurry to move and as we had found our ideal (for now) house, we were willing to wait. But last week we decided enough was enough and that we definitely had to move in before my maternity leave began. We gave all concerned a deadline for completion, after which we said we would pull out. And the threat seems to have worked. The solicitors have said we can collect the keys next Friday. Hurrah!

Unfortunately, M is in the States for two weeks thereafter but this gives me time to arrange for a removals company and for a cleaning company to come into the new house and give it a good scrub and other necessary things. All I care about, to be honest, is having those keys in my hands.

Very excited.

Wretched

Most of my weekend activity took place on Friday night and Saturday, when I felt relatively fine - well, better than my sick day on Thursday. I was back at work on Friday and out and about on Friday evening, all day Saturday and on Sunday morning. Then by Sunday evening I was coughing and retching and feeling wretched again.

I spent all of today at home in bed, alternating between sleeping and watching Buffy, only dragging myself out of the bedroom to heat up milk or Heinz tomato soup. I couldn't even switch on the computer until now, thus feeling especially guilty for not being able to compensate for not being at work by checking work emails.

I have enormous amounts of energy and rarely get colds and when I get even the hint of one I beat it down with paracetamol and megadoses of vitamin C. With a baby inside to think about, I'm now even afraid to take a decongestant. I know there are things I can take while pregnant, but it's simply too much effort to seek them out.

Apparently colds last longer during pregnancy, perhaps because the immune system slows down to protect the baby - a foreign object - from immunological rejection. So, for the sake of my baby, I have to suffer. Something tells me that, as a mother, it will always be like this from now on (suffering for the sake of the children).

Some good news today though - it looks like the guy whose house we are buying has finally sorted out the complications around the flat he wants to buy and the chain we're in can finally move again. His solicitors tell us we should exchange before the month is out. I'm holding my breath and crossing all fingers and toes.

The house

Here are photos of the Victorian house in North London we are buying... Not our type of decor but we can always change this in good time.

The living room... The front of the living room will be where we relax together and with friends and family. We want to make the back part of the lounge a library, with wall to wall books and a comfy reading chair and tall reading lamp. There is a French door at the back which looks out onto the side of the house - we want to make this strip into a Zen garden of sorts so we can read and look out and be at peace.

The kitchen... We anticipate spending alot of time here. Our current kitchen is so small we've always been reluctant entertaining - perferring to eat out. But this kitchen is big and cosy at the same time and the vendor is leaving his lovely high-tech cooker behind. Finally, space to display all our cookbooks.

The bathroom... Um, may have to paint this all white and tile it but it's fine for immediate use.

The upstairs hallway looking out to the bathroom and then the back bedroom... The whole house is in need of a fresh lick of white paint to lift the place and make it bright and airy. There's a double bedroom to the left and the master bedroom behind. The loft is above and big enough to make another double bedroom or a roomy study if we wish...

The garden with well-established trees and shrubs. M is already looking at gardening books in the bookstores so he can grow vegetables. We would also like to have an apple tree and another fruit tree planted... Or perhaps a "garden studio".

The back of the house... Can you see the space along the side where we want to make a calming Zen space?

I'm so terribly impatient to move into our very own home. For the first time in my life, I've made some rather (wonderfully) conventional choices this year - I got married, I'm about to buy a house... What next I wonder?

Cold and rainy days and nights

Random notes from the last week or so: Lusty and disturbing George Baselitz at the Royal Academy / Takeaway fish and chips slathered in vinegar, salt and ketchup / Enjoyable if conventional Brick Lane at the Curzon Soho / Moreish sausage rolls at Konditor & Cook in the Curzon / Huge cheesecakes at Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street / One of my favourite comfort dishes of all time, dolsot bibimbap, and other Korean delights, at Bi-Won on Coptic Street / Old romantic movies on cold rainy weeknights - The Philadelphia Story with Cary Grant, James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, and Indiscreet with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman - while my husband is away on business in Paris / Finishing the absorbing and characterful novel Digging To America by Anne Tyler and starting Kiran Desai's exquisitely written The Inheritance Of Loss / The comprehensive Breaking The Rules exhibition at the British Library on avant garde printing traditions in Europe between 1900 and 1937 / Long, tiring but exhilerating working days as clients rush to launch things before the Christmas and the New Year / Gearing up for the work party season with colleagues and clients / More comfort eating - huge portions of cheesy tacos from Mexicali and baked potatoes with chilli cheese or baked beans and cheese from Spud-U-Like for weekday lunches / Sheltering from the downpour after work with beef rendang and other Indonesian and Malaysian delights at Melati on Peter Street / Happy that my Virgin Active gym membership now entitles me to use any branch in London - now I just need to motivate myself to go more often / Still waiting for all the paperwork to be tied up, but meeting the vendor of our new house and learning how the heating works / Eve Arnold's beautifully evocative and epic photos from China in 1979 at Asia House / Filling and spicy lamb kebabs, bhel puri and vegetable samosas at Asia House's elegant little Cafe T / This weekend's viewing: the gorgeously filmed Seven Years In Tibet last night and later this afternoon perhaps we'll watch John Huston's classic Moby Dick on DVD / Bowls overflowing with blueberries, peaches and clementines / Roast chicken for Sunday dinner later tonight.

Ashes to ashes

Saturday began with signing yet more papers at our estate agents. We were due to get the survey from The Woolwich last week; when we didn't, our estate agent called them and were told that they were battling a huge backlog of work and we were in a queue of three weeks. We instructed our agent to switch to Cheltenham & Gloucester who assured us they would take just one week. Everyone on the upward chain is keen to move as they now have their surveys sorted. Once the survey comes through, and providing it is fine, then exchanging contracts should be straight forward and we could move in before Christmas. The waiting game is nerve-wracking, especially for an impatient girl as myself.

Afterwards, we took the Tube to Sloane Square to visit the Eyes Of An Island - Japanese Photography 1945 - 2007 exhibition at the Michael Hoppen Gallery. The show wasn't as comprehensive, nor as dazzling as the blockbuster survey of Japanese photography we saw at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum Of Photography last month (which I promise one day I will write about), but it was a good show for London as exposure to Japanese photography is still nascent here. Photographers on show were Shomei Tomatsu, Daido Moriyama, Hiroshi Hamaya, Shigeichi Nagano, Hiromi Tsuchida, Eikoh Hosoe, the sublime Hiroshi Sugimoto (above), Ryuji Miyamoto, Naoya Hatakeyama and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Fancying some Lebanese food for lunch, we tried to get into the terrific Al-Dar on the Kings Road, but as usual it was packed out so as we were heading back into town we got off at Green Park and went into the Beiteddine Express on Clarges Street in Mayfair. There we lunched on lamb shawarma and selection of vegetarian mezze - battara harra (cubes of potatoes fried with garlic and coriander), vine leaves (stuffed with rice, parsley, chick peas, mint, lemon juice and olive oil), tabbouleh (parsley, tomatoes, lemon juice, mint, crushed wheat and olive oil), baba ghanouj (grilled aubergines with sesame oil, lemon juice), houmous, and bamia bizeit (okra cooked with tomatoes, onion, garlic and oil). The lamb was very good, but the vegetable dishes, though tasty, were too salty and oily for me.

We tried to get into the Lonely Prophets - German Art From 1910 To The 1930s exhibition at Agnew's on Old Bond Street but as is usual at these tiny dealer galleries, it was shut despite supposedly being open. I vented my frustration with a wander around DKNY instead!

All was forgotten by the time we entered into the Haunch of Venison and the gentle aroma of ashy temple incense suffused and calmed our bodies. Zhang Huan's Ash exhibition, above and below, featured canvasses and sculptures made from the ash remains of incense sticks burnt at temples in Shanghai. From fine dust to coarse flakes, the encrusted and thick impasto pieces were haunting and transcendent. The smells, the intimations of life and death, the organic matter - all put this work in the lofty realms of Anselm Kiefer and Joseph Beuys. Most striking was the slumbering, hulking, 5 metre high Smoking Buddha statue on the top floor - made entirely of ash, encrusted with incense sticks and prayers and other temple artifacts. I truly felt like dropping to my knees in holy and unholy adoration.

"To some, ash seems useless and insubstantial; it is a short-lived witness to human spirituality and spiritual practice. To me, ashes carry unseen sedimentary residue, and tremendous human data about the collective and individual subconscious" - Zhang Huan.

I wish I could urge you to see it; I wish I could see it again. Alas, the show ended yesterday.

We quickly popped into Liberty to stock up on more of my favourite Kiehl's cucumber body cleanser, and into Pages on Shaftesbury Avenue to admire Bodum's cast iron tea pot (left) which I may buy for M for Christmas. I love buying presents that I too can benefit from!. Then we settled in to watch David Cronenberg's riveting, well-paced, chilling and kinetically-violent Eastern Promises, at the Odeon Covent Garden, set in the dark Russian underworld in London. Predictably, the movie has had mixed reviews from the professional critics but I didn't look at my watch once during its 100 minutes and I was swept along by the story. London looked pretty good too in all that rain and darkness.

We picked up some chocolate eclairs from Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street then headed home, where M made us beef steaks, fries and a tomato salad for dinner. Snuggling into the sofa with steaming mugs of 2nd flush Darjeeling and the chocolate eclairs, we ended the day watching the companion piece to Eastern Promises, The History Of Violence on DVD, also by Cronenberg, also featuring Viggo Mortensen.

Sunday is, as usual, shaping up to be a quieter affair. A lie in (8.30 for me, 10.30 for M), a leisurely breakfast of eggs on toast, grocery shopping, cleaning the house and doing laundry, then generally taking it easy. I'll finish reading Roopa Farooki's slightly cliched and poorly written but still enjoyable chick lit Bitter Sweets and will indulge in my guilty pleasure of reading Oprah magazine. I say guilty, because it's not a magazine I'd read on the Tube - I always feel a little too young to read a magazine pitched at a middle-aged audience, but article titles such as Love At Last - Just When You Think You've Missed Your Moment, or When The Going Gets Tough... 3 Rules To Pull You Through, or The Two-week Plan That Will Reset Your Body Clock, combined with that relentlessly positive Oprah attitude, get me every time!

Later this afternoon, I may snuggle in for a few episodes of The Waltons on DVD on my own while M is at the gym and then, with him, watch a few episodes of Hill Street Blues on DVD. I may start reading another novel. Which to choose? I love browsing through our book shelves working out which book takes my fancy - the anticipation is sometimes better than the reading. My sister-in-law is coming for dinner tonight and we'll eat roast chicken with pearl barley, walnut and raisin stuffing, chat loads and perhaps watch another movie.

Tomorrow, a friend is staying with us and we'll be gathering with other friends for dinner. What a lovely Monday it should be. I rarely get the Monday morning blues as I'm blessed enough to have work that is still really interesting and sometimes even exciting. But I am sad when the weekend is over because that's my time to do exactly what I want, with no deadlines and no obligations. It's all about me, me, me. Well, and him, him, him ♥.

Puttering

Friday night after work is for puttering around the new John Lewis Food Hall, picking at whatever takes our fancy for the weekend ahead - fig bread, Camembert cheese, a variety of pasta, a variety of chocolate, plain and lemon cheesecakes, fresh peas, wild blueberry jam and marmalade - then returning home to cook a moreish dinner of paneer, peas and pumpkin curry.

Saturday is for puttering around town... Lying in very late, reading the newspaper over breakfast with the sun streaming in through the kitchen window, then signing more papers at our estate agents / Strolling down Tottenham Court Road, popping into This Is Furniture, BoConcept and Heal's appraising the merits of different styles of wardrobes, sofas and beds to fill the extra space our new house will have / Eating delicious chargrilled bacon cheeseburgers and fries with garlic mayo at Hamburger Union / Being dazzled by the colour and scale of Shirana Shahbazi's photos and paintings at the Barbican / Crying buckets at the viewing of complex Korean family drama Family Ties by Kim Tae-Yong, also at the Barbican as part of the Korean Film Festival / Walking by the new house and feeling fuzzy, warm and gratified at seeing not just how quiet the area is on a Saturday night and how great the house looks, but by the big, bold Sold sign outside it too / Eating only big bowls of grapes, plums and clementines for dinner while catching up on the thrilling Arsenal v. Man Utd game on Match Of The Day.

Sunday is for puttering around the house... Lying in very late, then breakfasting on toasted crusty white bread with melting slices of smelly Camembert and sweet as can be blueberry jam / Doing laundry / Vacuuming / Dusting / Cleaning floors / Planning the week's dinners - moussaka, tom yun goong, lamb and apricot stew, chickpea and spinach curry - then shopping locally for groceries / Vegging out with creamy Lindt milk chocolate and a chick flick movie Dinner With Friends, not feeling guilty at all while M is sweating it out at the gym / M cooking ahead just as my parents used to do every Sunday - boiling chicken wings into chicken stock for the tom yun goong, slow cooking the tomatoes and grilling the aubergines for the moussaka, part-cooking the lamb for the stew - to save time after work (he gets so much pleasure out of cooking, lucky for me) / Lunching on Heinz tomato soup and crusty white bread with lots of butter melting on top / Eating M's sea bream with fried potatoes and spinach for dinner / Catching up with parents on the phone / Watching old episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD while eating lemon cheesecakes.

How has your weekend been?

Drawing in

It's been quiet since my last post. Snuggling in is now my favourite activity: work hard all day then come home, cook comfort food - roasted vegetables, Hungarian goulash, spaghetti and tomato sauce - and then settle in with my husband, an interiors magazine and the TV. A lot of early nights - by 9 I'm shattered. I haven't even been bothered to switch on the computer. We spent the weekend with my parents at their home in Norfolk. My mother's knee operation was a success and though her full recovery will take a little more time, she happily fussed over us and cooked us lamb, minced beef and cauliflower curries. I am sure this Saturday will be activity filled: browsing furniture and computers, visiting a gallery or two, perhaps a movie. But I am also sure Sunday will be as chilled as can be. The house purchase is moving along. Many forms have been filled out and signed and posted. We're just waiting for the surveyor's report now. Not much we can do until then. Well, sleeeeep of course...

Gushing

Is anyone still here?

What a whirlwind... The crisp autumnal air, the clear blue skies and the fiery crinkly leaves have all conspired to inject new energy into my jet-lagged bones. I love Autumn.

On Friday, we saw Akram Khan perform Zero Degrees again at the Sadler's Wells with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. My review from the last time we saw this performance remains unchanged, but I marvelled again at how the loose, fluid movements of Cherkaoui contrasted beautifully with the logical, almost alacritic movements of Khan. This now counts as my sixth Akram Khan performance, all of which are collected here on my blog since 2004. Obsessed, moi?

Then on Saturday night, we attended Philip Glass's musical adaptation of Leonard Cohen's The Book Of Longing poems. I like Glass's original compositions, but find his adaptations of other peoples' work less passionate and inspiring than the originals. I enjoyed this night for the majestic presence of Mr Cohen himself. What a man! Though he sat in the audience for the entire performance - at the end of our row no less - he did recite one of his poems for us on stage and there were other recorded recitations throughout. I would have enjoyed the night even more if it had been just him and his voice. He has a dark and brooding drawl that draws one dangerously in and his descriptions of love and sex and passion and women and God that are so addictive. In short - he is very sexy... and in his 70s! He's also followed Buddhism (without necessarily calling himself a Buddhist) for several decades and several of the audience questions directed at him about spirituality were flowery, pretentious and almost cultish. He deflected those with poise, tact and elegance revealing a man whose spirituality is so private and ingrained that he doesn't have to go on about it. My hero.

Much of Saturday was spent viewing flats and houses in our area - 10 in total. We shortlisted a couple of places in our minds, but I was not entirely convinced: the layout was odd, or the decor was too sterile, or the second bedroom was too cramped and made me feel claustrophobic. And then we opened the door to a three bedroom house in a leafy, quiet street 5 minutes from where we already live and we were instantly smitten. The decor was all wrong, of course (bright red walls in the living room, lilac walls in the bathroom, pine everywhere), but every room was the perfect size and the layout was perfect - a double living room, a double kitchen with room for a large dining table, a pretty private garden with well-established shrubs and trees, two excellent-sized double bedrooms upstairs plus a good sized single bedroom which can be our study or, later, nursery.

We are both used to making instant decisions - quickly weighing up the pros and cons rationally, but ultimately going with our gut. Though we saw a few more houses and flats afterwards, this was the one we kept thinking about. So on Monday we put in an offer and, after a little haggling from both sides, our offer was accepted and they took the house off the market. This morning we set the ball rolling in terms of mortgage, surveyor and solicitor. It could all go pear-shaped and we are prepared to keep searching. But in the meantime, I can't help dreaming of my new house! I pray we can move in before the New Year.

I'm not done with our Japanese trip... hang in there and I will get round to blogging more about it.

Interlude

Life has been so hectic since we got back from Tokyo, that I just wanted to drop in and say thanks for your lovely comments. I have at least three more Japanese posts to write, which I will do but it may take longer than I wish.

In the meantime, we're house or flat hunting, and a few other activities are also gobbling up my after-work time. Plus I'm still dog-tired from jetlag.

We've managed to take some time out to visit a couple of galleries though. We both had Monday off, so after unpacking our bags and doing laundry, we headed to the Southbank to see the new Louise Bourgeois retrospective at the Tate Modern and the private viewing of The Painting Of Modern Life exhibition at the Hayward. The latter was a surreal and hilarious experience because each floor of the exhibition was needlessly guarded by loads of bored security men dressed all in black with loud walkie talkies. What did they think the invited guests were going to do? We couldn't contain ourselves when we overheard one of them explaining, "I'm 23 and I figure I only have one year left of being young so this year I'm really going to give my band my all"!

Anyway, we'll be returning to both exhibitions in the weeks and months to come, when I'll write about them in more detail.