Happy belated Valentine's one and all. We spent the evening eating assorted goodies - antipasti, fresh pasta, amaretti biscuits and rich chocolate cake courtesy of Carluccio's near my work - by candlelight at home.
Last year, I forgot all about Valentine's Day until my soon-to-be husband presented me with a card. Careless of me as a soon-to-be wife!
This year though, a blissful, chilled night away from it all, just the two (well, three) of us.
 |  |
The picture above shows how much the internal organs are already being pushed upwards at 20 weeks. I'm now 23 weeks and 3 days and I can really feel my uterus pushing against my skin and above my belly button. The lifting upwards of the uterus has certainly relieved pressure on my bladder and lower pelvic cavity so I feel relatively more comfortable than I've felt before. But I am more breathless and have heartburn. It's extraordinary how hard my belly is - like a round football, but larger, thrusting outwards from my body like an alien growth. M and I keep marvelling at it.
On Saturday we ventured eastwards. Under a crisp blue sky and pale yellow sunshine, we strolled along the canal, periodically dodging earnest cyclists eager to claim the path as solely their own. At the Parasol Unit we viewed Darren Almond's black and white photographs of crystalline, snow-covered Siberian forests (above). Though the ravaged, stripped trees on show were testimony to the brutal effects of nickel mining, there was an eerie beauty about the photos and their composition that made for a magical if conflicting viewing.
We continued towards Old Street. I find the Old Street area of London a curious mixture of derelict dead zones and colourful quirkiness with just the right amount of interest to draw me back again and again. What I dislike about Old Street is the endless waiting at traffic lights as the ceaseless traffic drones by. But luckily the galleries draw me back, as do the places to eat and the small boutiques. In Hoxton's White Cube, we saw more of Darren Almond's photographs - this time of the British landscape where the exquisite subject matter (left) was rendered flat and dull by highly conventional photographic techniques that wouldn't look out of place in a tourist guide.
After lunch, we popped over the road to browse the furniture and interior knick knacks at SCP before cabbing it over to the Barbican for the superlative tale of murder, revenge and meat pies to die for that is Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. Murder, mayhem, mouth-watering meat pies and a tortured Johnny Depp who channels David Bowie through his singing voice - what more could a girl like me want. I enjoyed every second of this musical and can't wait to see it again. Though perhaps not at the Barbican's Cinema 2 which, unlike its Cinema 1, is cramped and uncomfortable.
Edward Burtynsky's magisterial photographs of large-scale quarries around the world (above) were on show at Flowers Central on Cork Street. This Canadian photographer is fascinated by the architectural possibilities of geography and landscapes transformed by industry, but despite this it is wonderfully unclear whether he is an environmentalist, an industrialist or simply a documentarist. The vast scale of his photos and their flattened, geometrical preoccupation reminded me of that other magisterial photographer Andreas Gursky.
Tim Simmons' elaborately lit photographs of snow at The Fine Art Society (above) on Bond Street were haunting, enigmatic and extremely cinematic and could easily be hung alongside contemporaries such as Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Gregory Crewdson.
I dragged M into Fenwick department store so I could use the loo but then used it as an excuse to also check out their baby department. And then we replenished our tea supplies at Postcard Teas on Dering Street. We bought second flush Darjeeling from the Fairtrade-endorsed, family-run Goomtee estate (left), some Japanese sencha from the Wazuka hills of Uji and a new tea we've never tried before from southern Korea - Hongcha. We love visiting this small tea shop because the owner regularly encourages us to taste his teas and has a story for each one. He told us how his Hongcha tea tasted remarkably and radically different when drunk in east and west London and we spent some time discussing how the different PH levels, chemical composition and processing techniques of London water affects how delicate teas taste.
After our disappointing experience looking for shirts on Jermyn Street a few weekends ago, we were extremely impressed by the Brooks Brothers store on Beak Street. Though the menswear and womenswear are a little too preppy for our tastes, the store had a wider variety of shirt collar styles that better suited M's preferences. The service was impeccable also and the store was uncrowded making the whole shopping experience much pleasanter. The best discovery was their fabulous Thom Browne collection (above).
We revived ourselves with chorizo and cheese (M) and Dorset ham and Montgomery cheese toasted ciabattas at Fernandez & Wells down the street, then walked along Great Titchfield to the Marco Bohr photographic exhibition Floating Cities at the Mummery + Schnelle gallery. The photos echoed the washed out, melancholy glaze preferred by many of the contemporary Japanese photographers I have seen and featured amateur musicians practicing their craft along the banks of the Tamagawa river on the outskirts of Tokyo - one of the few places they could play without disturbing others or being disturbed.
Sunday was a quieter, more local affair. As usual, M went to the gym. I cleaned the house, did some laundry and read the weekend papers. Then I met up with M outside his gym and we browsed the local Mothercare. From Ambala we bought some sweet and sour, crunchy namkeen and from our favourite Indian supermarket we bought homemade vegetable samosas, pakoras and potato and pea kachori which we lunched on back at home with sweet lime and chilli pickle, that made Little Planethalder dance around inside me, and a clean and crisp raita M made (above).
Our dinner guests at night were M's sister and one of her best friends - a recently qualified doctor who entertained us with all sorts of gruesome stories from her night shifts at A&E. M served the roast lamb with pumpkin mashed with chillies and cumin and a salad of watercress salad with peas (above). All so delicious. M's sister remarked what a lucky woman she was having a brother like M. I can only agree!
Most of our grey and rainy Saturday was spent wandering through Marylebone - buying crisp white cotton bed linen from The White Company; lunching on salads of smoked mackerel and white beans (M) and chickpeas, goats cheese, roast squash and sun blush tomato pesto (me) at The Natural Kitchen; and browsing the Scandinavian designer tableware and furniture at Iittala. Laden down with goodies, we cabbed it to Covent Garden where we watched the terrifically tense and brooding modern Western movie No Country For Old Men (photo above) by the back-to-form Coen Brothers.
In Marylebone, we also popped into Daunt Books, where M picked up Mario Batali's mouthwatering collection of simple, everyday Italian recipes Molto Italiano (photo above), and I headed straight to the Pregnancy & Childcare section. The first book I bought was Dr Miriam Stoppard's First-time Parents: What Every New Parent Needs To Know, with chapters on how to change a newborn's nappy, how to bathe and dress it (photo below), how to feed it, how to soothe it when it cries, and other basic guides.
This morning, M and I were lazing in bed (those days will soon be gone) chatting about how neither of us have ever changed a nappy, how I've never even held a newborn baby (and M can barely remember if he has). Basically, we have no clue. How can we bring new life into the world?
Another book I picked up at Daunt Books was Ann Pleshette Murphy's The Seven Stages Of Motherhood, which explores the various shifts in identity a woman goes through as her child matures from a fetus in the womb to a toddler, from a school child to a young adult. Its focus is not on pregnancy, birth and child-rearing but on the woman as mother, and I'm enjoying it because it begins with defining motherhood as an identity that begins at conception.
The baby wriggled around incessantly, kicked and punched me endlessly and did round upon round of head-over-heels until the sonographer, my husband and I were doubled up with laughter. I was scanned three times with gaps of 20 minutes between each scan, but eventually all necessary measurements were taken and my stubborn, active, playful baby was declared fine and dandy. It had passed the big, scary 20 week anomaly scan with flying colours and "it" was pronounced "she".
It's been a while since I posted a recipe here on Planethalder. When it was still fashionable, I thrived on the protein-rich Atkins diet. Beef is my favourite meat and I nearly always choose it if it's on the menu. Steak done rare is my ultimate dish and it is what I ate, with rocket and sun-blush tomatoes dressed with balsamic vinegar and parmesan shavings, at Caffe Caldesi in Marylebone on Friday night after work. This weekend, we visited my parents in Suffolk. One of the wonderful things about visiting my mum and dad is the fantastic, home cooking. On Saturday, my mother cooked us an array of mouth-watering Indian dishes: dal with sultanas and fresh coconut pieces, curried mixed vegetables, plump cod steaks in a spiced coconut and mango sauce, and this dish - Kolkata beef and coconut curry...
I'm celebrating this guy's birthday today - 61 today. The only celebrity I still obsess about (since I was a child). I know Elvis would have been 73 today, but I don't remember him. It's the leper messiah I grew up with in the 1980s (albeit a decade too late), so Happy Birthday Dame David Bowie - your music and your many different looks have given me untold pleasure over the years.
Thursday turned out to be Indian Treats day for me. During my lunch break, I walked down to Drummond Street near Euston to pick up some paneer for the evening dinner when I passed by Diwani Bhel Poori House and thought, "Why not?" The place was packed due to the restaurant's buffet lunch special but I managed to find a table for one. I had bhel puri, of course, and then malai kofta with paratha. The food was not as tasty as my favourite Ravi Shankar Restaurant next door, but it hit the spot. Then I popped over the road to Ambala for a tub of their very moreish Ambala Mix. And then later, for dinner, I cooked paneer and peas curry.
On Saturday, we visited Alicia Dubnyckyj's Two Cities exhibition at Sarah Myerscough Fine Art in Mayfair. Dubnyckyj took snapshot photos during trips to San Francisco and New York City then manipulated them on her computer before painting the images onto MDF with gloss paint. The results were interesting though a little too "paint by numbers" for my liking. We also popped into the Aicon Gallery to view their Winter Moderns exhibition (Jamini Roy, right), but once again nothing jumped out at me and I felt that much of it wouldn't have looked out of place in the wall art sections of Habitat or Ikea. That was my instant reaction anyway. However, with hindsight and longer reflection I realise now that at the time - early 20th century - these modern Indian masters really broke new ground within India in bringing a different artistic aesthetic to public attention. With that in mind, I will try and return to view the works with refreshed eyes.
Back at home, M cooked baked macaroni with cheese, bacon and spinach - inspired by our lunch at Automat last weekend - and then we vegged out on the sofa with the weekend papers, books (The Old Curiosity Shop for me and Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games for M), and magazines.
Then we snuggled into the large, comfy armchairs at the Benugo cafe inside the BFI, for a couple of hours waiting for our movie - Wim Wenders' Alice In The Cities - to start. We lunched on deli sandwiches, thick-cut chips with ketchup and rice pudding with raspberry sauce, chatted, read the papers and people watched. The space at Benugo is great for families with strollers and there were many babies, toddlers and children around which will be terrific for us later on in the year. The Tate Modern members room is the same - great for parents with young children, complete with changing facilities. And the Barbican of course has parents and babies film showings most weekends. I'm beginning to file it all away!
Then back home, where M cooked a spicy lamb bhuna with crushed fennel, fenugreek, coriander, cumin and mustard seeds plus crushed dried red chillis, ginger, garlic and tomatoes. His first attempt at cooking a curry for me and it was superlative. When my mother found out she said, "How am I going to cook curries for him from now on?" as she knows how well my husband cooks. Don't worry Ma, I am sure he will gobble up all your delicious curries next weekend when we come visit you. Besides, you have decades more experience of cooking Indian food than him!
We've spent the last few days of 2007 flexing our credit cards - M at Maison Martin Margiela and Gieves & Hawkes, myself at DKNY and John Smedley. My usual wardrobe consists of my favourite clothing colours black and white and indigo and charcoal, but pregnancy hormones are drawing me towards a different colour spectrum. I had already bought a vibrant, metallic grey dress and burgundy pink sequin camisole from DKNY for my work Christmas party a week ago, and yesterday I bought clothing in champagne and plum and electric blue. These are the colours that are exciting me now.
Later tonight, I will cook a hearty beef chilli con carne and we'll eat it with tacos and guacamole. M is planning to make a New York cheesecake. He made a fabulous puff pastry pie with the leftover Christmas goose (above) after Boxing Day. For New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, we will roast a leg of lamb and then serve the remains up in a sheperd's pie. |  |
 |  |
Saturday, schlepping around central London and battling against the heaving crowds for last minute Christmas gifts - a Casio Exilim camera for a little boy, a 2008 "dear diary", a computer game and a DVD box set for a little girl, wrapping paper and cards from the wonderful treasure trove that is Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road. M still has a bit more shopping to do (my presents I suspect!) but he has Christmas Eve off work. We ate a late lunch of rose apple and chicken stir fry and jungle curry at Busaba Eathai on Wardour Street, then popped into Paul bakery on Old Compton Street to order a black forest gateaux for Christmas. Last minute Christmas food shopping at John Lewis then a much deserved cab home. By this time my back was aching and I was feeling quite uncomfortable - I had to unbutton my (non-maternity) jeans in the taxi. Once home, M cooked us a roast chicken with roast potatoes and wilted spinach and then we settled in to watch Spiderman 3 on DVD.
Sunday, heading to the Southbank to revisit the sensational Painting Of Modern Life at the Hayward, which examines the use and translation of photographic imagery in contemporary painting, and Louise Bourgeois at the Tate Modern. At the Tate, we were transfixed by the delight of a little toddler waddling with squealing joy towards each Bourgeois piece with her arms outstretched. Obviously in thrall of the different shapes and textures, the toddler's excitement was a refreshing counterpart to the artist's own depiction of childhood angst. We stopped for a comfort lunch of chunky handcut chips at Benugo and then a look at Patrick Keiller's The City Of The Future installation/compilation of film footage from London to Shanghai from the years 1896-1909.
On the way home, we stopped off for more groceries for Christmas and then while M cooked us a dinner of Mexican chilli and chicken "lasagne" (made with tortilla layers instead of pasta), I vegged out with uplifting chick flick The Holiday with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz. After dinner, we both settled in to watch the disappointing Robert Downey Jr movie A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints.
Squint and you'll be able to see him or her a little clearer in all that fuzz.
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?
