Little things

I don't have a lot of weight to lose, but I do want to shift a few pounds. So I have started to eat more intuitively - that is to eat only when hungry, to eat slowly, to stop eating when I'm satisfied or full (even if this means leaving food on my plate) and to eat anything I want. Basically, it's eating like a toddler but without the fussiness and tantrums! I lost 7lbs in the first two weeks of eating like this. I don't weigh myself again until another week or so but feel so much lighter, more energetic, less bloated.

Recent meals we've cooked have included a curry of paneer, tomatoes and peas - a chickpea and chorizo stew with spinach - linguine with crab, rocket leaves, capers and red chilli flakes - lightly seared tuna steaks with a salad of rocket leaves, oranges and toasted pine nuts - a tagine of chicken with saffron, green olives and lemons served with brown rice - sausages in a sauce of Marsala wine, Dijon mustard, onions, fennel seeds and served with, of course, buttery mash - tofu marinated in soy sauce and red chilli flakes and served with an okra and oyster mushroom stir-fry. I'm eating anything I want, even chocolate and ice cream, but my portion sizes have gone down by half or, in some cases, by more than half.

We tend to go out on Saturdays and on Sunday mornings or else entertain friends and family, but Sunday afternoons are reserved exclusively for Mr Planet and Little Planet to bake bread, biscuits or cakes. Little Planet loves pouring in the ingredients, mixing them in the bowl and eating them raw!

The coming of Spring means washing hung out to dry on the line. There is no better sight, for me, than white cotton sheets hanging out to dry.

I have two knitting projects on the go: an orange merino wool scarf for me and a charcoal grey wool scarf for Mr Planet. One day I will progress to something more challenging, like a cardigan for Little Planet or some gloves for me. For now I am enjoying the hour of easy knitting I do when Little Planet is in bed and Mr Planet has yet to return home from work - after a day of writing (or trying to write, see previous post), there is nothing better than to knit and contemplate. I get a lot of ideas when knitting, so my laptop is always on.

Television programmes I've been enjoying have included Marchlands, South Riding, The Big C and Great British Food Revival.

Easter is coming up and I am planning an Easter Egg Hunt for Little Planet. I'll buy lots of smaller chocolate eggs and hide them inside her toy cooker, her doll's house, her doll's buggy, her Lego box, her toy garage, the toy box in her bedroom, behind the books on one of her book shelves, inside empty flower pots in the garden, inside the shed... Oh, it's going to be so much fun!

I haven't given up anything for Lent, but I have reduced the time I spend on the Internet. On that note, cheerio!

Tweet, tweet

We had a lovely weekend, the highlight of which was going out for a Turkish lunch with six of us. In lieu of a proper weekend post (aside from the wonderful lunch, we did little else but play and relax at home), here are some recent Tweets:

• Cauliflower cheese for dinner tonight. Comfort food of the highest order.
• Happy wedding anniversary, Mum and Dad! I love you both xxx
• Homemade potato salad with spring onions, chives, parsley and mayo for lunch today.
• When M is home, Little P can never get enough of him. She's his little shadow which he loves, but he then gets worn out from no down time.
• I can never get bored of baklava. Yum.
• Downpour and soaking aside, it was a lovely day with a Turkish lunch for six.
• I was a good host and lent my umbrella to a guest and then got stuck in a torrential downpour. I was soaked, of course.
• I have to collect Little Planet from daycare soon and it's not only pouring with rain but I hear thunder too. And no car. Help!
• M and I have both taken today, Friday, off work so we're heading into town for a day of fun :-)
• This morning Lil P woke up so I called out "Hello" & opened her door. She shouted at me "No, go away Mummy, it's Daddy's turn to say Hello!"
• Little P is experiencing her first celebrity crush: Carrie & David Grant from CBeebies' Pop Shop. She gets excited & shy by turns. So sweet! (Photo above)
  
• The sheer size of A Suitable Boy is proving a little intimidating. I'm still (slowly) reading it but also dipping into A Married Woman by Manju Kapur (re-reading it actually) and Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting.
• Saw Toy Story 3. Exhilarating, funny, emotional. Brilliant!
• Uh oh, storyline for one of my major characters has changed completely. Time for a major reworking. All good tho as the story is stronger.
• Fancied simple dal and rice for lunch today. So that's what I'm cooking.
• Am beginning to get so lost in my writing that I forget that I have to pick up Little Planet. I need to set the alarm for 5.15pm each day.
• Just started to read Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. Brilliant! I can't believe I've never read it before - a veritable literary soap opera.
• Little Planet woke up this morning wanting Feta cheese with her Cheerios.
• Squirrels eating my Gerberas - buds and all. Googled a solution & laid down red chilli flakes all around the plant. Seems to be working.
• I love the rain now that I've got green fingers.

Weekend notes

Friday:

• After a morning of writing, I met up with M for lunch in town - om soba with pork, squid and prawns, deep fried tofu, sea cucumber with seaweed salad and Calpis soda at Abeno on Museum Street, near the British Museum.
• He went back to work and I headed to the Renoir to see Kristin Scott Thomas in French-language film Partir: A middle class English wife abruptly leaves her family to pursue a passionate affair with a working-class Spanish father. A pot-boiler plot but remarkably well-acted.
• For dinner, I made linguine with asparagus, broad beans and peas in a Dijon mustard, olive oil and chives (from our garden) sauce. We ate in the garden.
  

Saturday:

• My mother-in-law was staying with us this weekend, so she and my sister-in-law looked after Little Planet while M and I headed into town to visit some galleries.
• We walked along the Regent's Canal to the Victoria Miro gallery to view In The Company Of Alice - a captivating show of paintings by a variety of artists such as Chris Ofili, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Karen Kilimnik (painting above) and Elizabeth Peyton who were all inspired by the painter Alice Neel who was born in 1900 and painted in dire circumstances and often in obscurity. Her fascinating story is written in the FT.
• We popped next door to the Parasol Unit to see the animations of Tabaimo whose focus is satirising contemporary Japanese life. I found the work a little too contrived (and, dare I say it, too much like an end of year graduate show) for my liking.
• We walked to Hoxton Square where we had a mediocre "freshly-squeezed" (it tasted store-bought) orange juice from Ruby Cafe, before going into the White Cube to see the heady Kupferstichkabinett exhibition of drawings from artists such as Joseph Beuys, Luc Tuymans, Rachel Whiteread, Harland Miller, Gavin Turk, Tracy Emin, Lucian Freud and my very favourite Anselm Kiefer and Tacita Dean.

• We'd had enough art by now (is this possible?) and were feeling hungry, so be bused it over to Soho where we lunched at So Sushi: salmon and avocado chirashi-sushi, deep-fried tofu, seared scallops with daikon and yuzu mayonnaise, spicy tuna roll, California roll, iced green tea and Calpis (photo above). Yes, we were hungry and the food was so fresh and delicious that we gobbled it all up (most un-Japanese like).
• Before heading home, we stocked up on groceries at the John Lewis Food Hall.
• Dinner was whole sea bream cooked on the BBQ and accompanied by freshly-made aioli, sauteed potatoes and oven-baked cherry tomatoes on the vine, which we ate outside (photo below).

Sunday:

• I woke up ill: sore throat, congested chest and a hacking cough. Still, I was a good wife and gave M a lie in as he was recovering from a cold (the one he'd now passed onto me). I took Little Planet downstairs with me when she woke and we ate our breakfast on the sofa in the living room watching recorded episodes of the CBeebies show Everything's Rosie, which is whimsical and delightful. My daughter sat beside me and every so often made comments to me on what she was seeing. After two years, I still can't believe I have a little daughter - my little companion in life :-)
• When M woke up around 9.30am, I took to bed as I was coughing quite a bit by this stage. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law took Little Planet to the park and M did some gardening. A couple hours of sleeping and I felt better and the two of us headed to the park where we had lunch in the cafe with Little Planet and her Grandma. Little Planet shared a plate of fish fingers, chips, peas and ketchup with Grandma, M ate omelette with salad and I had a jacket potato with cheese and baked beans.
• M and his mum went to the butchers and grocers but I took Little Planet home for her nap as she was very tired from all the playing (it's a hard life, eh?).
• In the afternoon, Little Planet's other Grandma - her dida (my mum) - came to visit and we all whiled away the hours in the sunny garden.
• After Little Planet's bedtime, we dined on a BBQ of lamb chops, chorizo and seared red peppers, in between scooting back inside to catch bits of the (boring) World Cup final. My mum had bought a delicious blueberry and white chocolate cheesecake from Waitrose for our dessert, but M also put slabs of fresh pineapple on the BBQ which was heavenly.
• And then I had an early night.

This morning I'm still feeling quite rough so I've been napping, doing five loads of laundry (one-hour cycles; the air is so warm, everything is drying quickly - saves me doing laundry for the rest of the week when I will be writing), watching some rubbish TV and, of course, blogging this.

M is at work and will be working late, Little Planet is at daycare, my mother-in-law has returned to her home. I am going to take it easy today (and hanging out laundry is quite meditative actually) and hope that I can get back to normal tomorrow.

April tweets

• They say putting a baby to bed earlier than usual results in the baby's later wake up time. I wonder if the same principle works for adults?
• I am so tired but the only thing stopping me from going to bed at 9pm is the fear that I will wake up fully rested at 5am...
• ... Perhaps the next time M works late, I should try a super early bedtime. Just to see. 9pm seems like the perfect time.
• Trying to enjoy new series of Outnumbered but those children are annoying me now & they're my worst nightmare of how Lil P could turn out!
• Little P's directive to us this morning when we got her up - a single sentence: "Grobag off; go get milk; TV on." Who are we to deny her?!
• Yesterday evening, on the way home from daycare, Little P looked up at the sky and started counting clouds: "1, 2, 3, 4". So delightful.
• We've had a half day at work today due to moving offices, so I am now wandering around Bloomsbury before having to pick Little Planet up...
• Korean lunch (spicy hot pot) at Biwon on Coptic St, then a demonstration of a Japanese tea ceremony at the British Museum...
• ...A wander through the Korean and magnificent Chinese ceramic galleries; coffee and cinnamon biscuit at The Espresso Room on Gt Ormond St.
• ... A stroll down Rugby & Lambs Conduit Sts, buying books and other goodies for Little Planet from the sweet Little Lamb Books...
• ...To the Brunswick where I buy colourful blouse and dress & two t-shirts from the fabulous French Connection. Now heading home to my Lil P!
• Friday 7.30pm: Little P's asleep, the garden is watered, M's on his way home, dal and rohu fish curry for dinner tonight (thanks Mum!).
• Morning spent in Coram's Fields where Lil P enjoyed meeting the rabbits, sheep and goats; then we took her to meet Peppa Pig at John Lewis.
• Went to the gym today during Little P's post lunch nap. First time at the gym in 2.5 years. Feel fantastic & plan on going 3 times a week.
• 45 mins cardio, 15 mins weights. Need to reduce cardio & increase weights. This is a w/e workout; less time in the week - prob 40 mins max.
• Seeds M has planted so far in our garden: 4 types of pumpkin & squash, broccoli, kale, spring onions, radishes, rocket & salad leaves.
• A day in the garden. Such glorious Springtime weather.
• Homemade chilli con carne and brown rice for dinner tonight. M's on his way home but unfortunately he has to work still.
• Our offices have moved from Soho to Fitzrovia. Hurrah! Heal's, Planet Organic and Charlotte Street all on my doorstep!
• Cranky, clingy, nappy rash, early waking. You'd think that after more than a year of experience we'd recognise Lil P's teething symptoms? No.
• Client meeting ran over. Fortunately M could pick Little P up and put her to bed. So I took advantage and...
• Saw the sumptuous and elegant Tilda Swinton movie "I Am Love", followed by won ton soup & sweet and sour chicken in Chinatown.
• The Panorama programme shook me up. I'm now making sure Little P brushes her teeth AFTER bedtime milk rather than in the bath before milk.
• London Zoo, gym, garden, Spanish omelette, glorious sunshine, a wonderful Saturday. And the day is still not over!
• I almost forgot: Subho Noboborsho, Happy Bengali New Year! It's 1417!
• Hmmm, M wants to watch David Lynch's Inland Empire movie tonight; I want to watch the disturbing but less convoluted Munich. Who will win?
• Question for any gym bunnies out there. How do you stop yourself from over-eating after a gym session? I am now always ravenous.
• Dinner tonight had a Spanish feel: Spanish tortilla, chorizo with olive oil & red wine, deep-fried calarami & aioli. Plus a robust Rioja.
• Sunday activities: haircut for Little P, visit to M's sister and her boyfriend, gym, garden, visit from my mum, now roast chicken dinner.
• 9.45pm North London, 20th April: Was that a plane I heard just now high in the sky???!
• This month's Good Food magazine is particularly good. Tonight I'm making Spring vegetable tagliatelle with lemon, mustard & chive dressing.
• Another dinner from Good Food magazine tonight: Fettucine with green lentils & lemon. Dying to eat but want to wait until M's back home.
• M is bringing dinner home tonight. From Princi or Waitrose? Whatever, either passionfruit cheesecake or key lime pie will suit me fine.
• This weekend is all about family: M's cousins on Saturday and my mum and dad's on Sunday (though M has to work on Sunday).
• The weather in London was so glorious today. I don't think we spent more than an hour indoors and that was having showers and getting ready!
• We're finally decorating the nursery & getting furniture, art, toys & books in there for her. To date it's just had her cot & old boxes in.
• To date she's only slept in her nursery; now we want to make it her own special room where she can play, read, hang out in as well as sleep.
• Homemade pizzas tonight for dinner, complete with homemade bases & tomato sauce: asparagus tips, artichokes, mozzarella & drizzle of pesto
• Square Mile coffee first thing on a Sunday morning. Perfect. Today M is working, but Little P & I are going to enjoy at my mum & dad's.
• Mum's made prawn masala curry & mixed vegetable curry with red spinach, sweet potato, runner beans, aubergine, mooli and bori for dinner :-)

Things to do

Our busy weekend began on Friday night when M returned home with fish and chips, which we ate in front of the TV (recordings of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Breaking Bad). My working week had been particularly stressful due to having to work with a particularly controlling and obstructive colleague, so vegging out mindlessly felt so good.

Saturday began with hot croissants at home. An old friend of mine was meeting us for brunch at Carluccio's in the Brunswick Centre at Russell Square, but as it was raining so hard and Little Planet had ripped the only raincover we have for the buggy, M and Little Planet could not come out so I went alone to meet him. We both lectured together at university but whereas I moved career into advertising, he has remained in academia and is doing very well. He ordered scrambled eggs and I had a fruit salad and we caught up for an hour.

We separated at the British Museum where he went on to meet another friend and I took a cab to the White Cube in Hoxton to see Anselm Kiefer's The Fertile Crescent exhibition (photo above). Kiefer was inspired by a trip to India where he was taken by the sun-dried mud bricks of rural brick factories. The smell of thick, encrusted oil paint filled the gallery and was heady and earthy. It's been a few weeks since I've visited a gallery and I really needed this emotive hit of Kiefer - one of my favourite painters.

It was raining so hard that I cabbed it back into central London, to the Courtauld where they were exhibiting Frank Auerbach's abstract oil paintings of post-war London building sites (photo above). Like Kiefer, these weighty, gutsy paintings with thickly layered paint really got took my breath away.

It was still raining when I left the gallery but I decided to walk to Piccadilly where the second part of Anselm Kiefer's exhibition continued in the White Cube's Mason's Yard gallery - this time featuring monumental forest diptychs and triptychs enclosed in glass vitrines.

I tried to see Anish Kapoor's show at the Royal Academy Of Arts, but the queue was a mile long (despite, or perhaps because of, the rain) so I decided instead to search for a raincover for Little Planet's Bugaboo Bee buggy. I called Mothercare and Selfridges but they had sold out. I was fortunate in John Lewis - they too had sold out of the raincover but they graciously gave me a good-as-new display model for free. While I was there I also picked up some Neal's Yard baby balm which is so good for Little Planet's nappy rash whilst she's teething her big molars. Then down to Carnaby Street where I bought some Kiehl's products from Liberty and some candles from Muji.

Finally, I ate a late lunch (at 2.30pm) at Masala Zone, where I ate a vegetable thali and got talking to a nice elderly Indian couple from Barnes (south London) seated next to me about Anish Kapoor, iPhones and disabled parking in central London. I've eaten at a wide variety of Indian restaurants - from cheap to expensive - but Masala Zone and Rasa are still my favourites.

I came home in time for Little Planet's dinner time. M had spent a lovely day with our daughter - going to the park, playing and also doing loads of things around the house, including baking bread. Later on, M made homemade mayonnaise and crab cakes which he served with a salad dressed in homemade sesame seed dressing. It was delicious.

This Sunday morning, the weather was bright and sunny so M and I took Little Planet to the British Museum. We saw the The Power Of Dogu exhibition of small ceramic figures from ancient Japan (photo above) and the exhibition of Mexican Revolutionary Prints. At 10am, both exhibition rooms were virtually empty which was wonderful for the three of us as Little Planet was able to toddle around to her heart's content and M and I were also then able to really focus on the exhibits. Little Planet found alot to interest her in the exhibitions as we encouraged her to identify ears, eyes, noses, chins, mouths, hair, feet and hands on each of the Dogu statues and also on some of the people depicted in the Mexican prints. She really enjoyed this activity. Then we took her to the fountains in Russell Square.

The rest of the day was spent at home. All three of us napped after lunch for an hour then M planted Spring bulbs in the back garden whilst Little Planet played throwing and fetching balls on the lawn and I was upstairs sorting laundry. Little Planet watched Supernanny with me (!!) and then some CBeebies and then we all played before a family dinner of roast chicken, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn and broccoli.

This is the first time we've eaten dinner together. Because Little Planet goes to bed at 7pm she has her dinner at 5pm - this is too early for M and I but we thought for once we would give a shared family dinner at 5pm a try. It was too early for us and I didn't really enjoy the meal; also Little Planet does not eat well when she has an audience (such as people sitting at the table with her) so she hardly ate a thing. Oh well, at least we tried and we will try it again periodically.

Now she's in bed and because we've already eaten, we have a good four hours stretching ahead of us before our own bedtime. Such a long time not punctuated by meal preparation and eating! What shall we do with the time? I'm sure we'll think of loads of things.

Hope you all had a good weekend too.

Life 2.0

My weekend began on Friday evening at 7pm. I had just put Little Planet to bed and had now settled down on the sofa with a novel (The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz). I love the hour or two of silence that descends between putting my daughter to bed and my husband returning home from work.

A couple of hours later and M came home bearing assorted pizzas from Princi which we ate with salad in front of the TV. We watched our recording of steamy, brooding vampire drama True Blood. Apart from the football, I can't remember the last time we watched TV in real time. We record everything - TV 2.0.

My Saturday began at 6.30am. I was wide awake, lying in bed, my mind racing with work thoughts while my husband and daughter were still fast asleep. A little later, everyone was up and while M and Little Planet ate their breakfast, I headed into town to get my hair done at Aveda in Holborn, central London. I was very annoyed, actually I was mad, at the Tube driver for ruining my attempt to read my book in peace by making endless announcements. The wonderful head massage I received at the salon, though, soon calmed me down.

I ate a stodgy vegetarian brunch at Neal's Yard Salad Bar - not the best vegetarian food I've eaten, though the soya banana milk shake was delicious. I bought Indian and Colombian coffee beans from the Monmouth Coffee Company in Covent Garden. Then I watched Pixar's new movie Up in glorious 3D in the Covent Garden Odeon. I found the film very poignant and I loved it though I wondered whether it was really suitable for some children. One boy - perhaps 6 years old - in the audience said loudly, "It's very sad, isn't it?" Another boy of a similar age was whimpering, "I'm scared Daddy, when will it finish." I admit that I cried a fair bit, but then again I am a big softie.

After the movie, I popped into Borders bookshop on Charing Cross Road to buy Parents and Real Simple magazines. Queuing up to pay, I couldn't resist being tempted by a bright yellow Mr Happy umbrella for Little Planet (photo top). Then off to Muji on Tottenham Court Road to buy candles, soap refills and notebooks. I took a bus up Oxford Street to Selfridges where I bought a DKNY grey cardigan and a John Smedley black cardigan for myself for colder weather. Finally, I ended up in John Lewis where I bought Mini A Ture lilac trousers for Little Planet, a bath mat, a mattress protector, a grey lambswool throw for one of our couches, plus cheeses, fruit and snacks from the Food Hall. Though I work in central London (off Oxford Street, in fact), I rarely have time to pop out and shop on this scale aside from weekends and days off.

Laden down with bags, I caught a cab home and spent the rest of the afternoon with Little Planet, M and my mother-in-law who is staying at our house for a week and a half to look after Little Planet when M and I go away to New York this Wednesday - our first holiday in two years!

Dinner was pan-fried cod with a hazelnut and caper crust, accompanied by sauteed potatoes and a salad of spring onions and tomatoes from our garden. Did I mention in a previous post that M's home cooking is one of my "best things in life"? One of my "worst things in life" (post to come) is washing up afterwards!

Sunday began, as all weekend mornings begin in the Planethalder household, with a big family cuddle in our huge, super-kingsized bed. Our weekend morning ritual is this: Little Planet wakes up and shouts out from her bedroom. One of us brings her into our room and changes her nappy whilst one of us goes downstairs to warm her milk and make coffee. Then one of us feeds her her milk in our bedroom whilst the other snuggles back into the bed. After her milk the three of us end up snuggling in our bed with the CBeebies channel on. It's a lovely routine.

Later, after breakfast, my mother-in-law and I took Little Planet to get her (fourth) haircut then we took her to visit her auntie and uncle who live nearby. M stayed at home to chill out in peace (though he also cleaned and hoovered the house, good man!). Little Planet snacked on almond croissants with us, plus blueberries and strawberries. Then I took her home for lunch. She hates being strapped into her buggy so she screamed most of the way - I tried to distract her with leaves and keys, which worked for a while. Her frustration with being in the buggy makes going out with her quite difficult, but we persevere as we have to go out. It's all a phase, so won't last. But it does stress me out hearing her getting so mad. Oh well.

On a positive note, for the first time ever she properly strung two meaningful words together - her Dad was walking out of the bedroom and she waved and said, very clearly, "Bye bye Daddy!" Mind you, she was saying "Off we go!" a couple of months ago when she was 13 months. New words she's said this week include, "blueberry" and "finished" (when she shows us her empty plate).

She ate a good lunch of pasta and tomato sauce, and then she went down for her nap. In the afternoon, my mum and dad came to visit, so Little Planet was in her element with her two Grandmums and her Granddad all showering her with attention. I had to work though, for a few hours, upstairs as I have a big presentation in Paris tomorrow (fortunately the trip can be done in a day so I will be back tomorrow night). M also had to work for an hour.

And now it's the evening. M made Little Planet a stew of sweetcorn and tomatoes, which went down well. He'll be roasting a chicken for our dinner. Then we'll settle in to chat, read the weekend papers, do a little packing, and watch some TV.

Another weekend over, but I am not sad because in two days' time we will be off to New York (have I mentioned that to you?!)!!

Staying local

We didn't feel like straying too far from home this lovely, sunny and warm Spring weekend. On Saturday, we bought pungent Old Amsterdam, Brie de Meaux Donge and Pyrenees Chevre cheeses from the imaginatively titled Cheeses in Muswell Hill; we bought cod fillets from the fishmonger Walter Purkis & Sons; Little Planet crawled around the equally imaginatively titled Children's Bookshop and we bought her some colourful and bold Jan Pienkowski books (Faces and Food); and we ate brunch at the local Giraffe, where M had eggs tostada, I had a full brunch plate complete with bacon, sausages, baked beans, potato wedges, fried eggs and toast, and Little Planet got distracted from eating her lunch by all the orange Giraffe balloons bobbing away.

Then we spent the afternoon at home gardening and playing with Little Planet on a picnic blanket. The day ended with cod roasted on a bed of potatoes and tomatoes and served with chermoula, and our first ever viewing of The Sopranos, season 1 on DVD, which we are watching now we have finished all seasons of The Wire.

Aside from a walk in the park and swing rides for Little Planet, all of Sunday was spent playing with Little Planet at home, reading the newspapers and generally chilling out. M baked bread with rye, wholemeal and white flours combined, and we ate it with our cheeses for lunch. He also made meringues, which he served up as pavlova with blackberries, raspberries and strawberries and whipped cream for our dessert after our Sunday dinner of roasted lamb shanks and watercress salad.

The weekend list

Hot croissants with raspberry jam and Brie cheese for breakfast on Saturday / Apple and mango rice pudding for Little Planet / A stroll through Regent's Park and a play, for Little Planet, on the swings there / Hot dog for M, sausages, mash and onion gravy for me, and beef and green bean puree for Little Planet outside in the park's Honest Sausage cafe / Walking down Marylebone High Street and buying wine and toiletries / Strolling through Selfridges while Little Planet napped in her buggy / Walking down Wigmore Street to the John Lewis Food Hall for provisions / Cab home / Carrot and apple puree for Little Planet's dinner / Homemade lamb shanks and steamed green vegetables for our dinner after she had gone to bed / Fried eggs on toast with hickory Tabasco sauce for breakfast on Sunday / Oat porridge for Little Planet / Lahmacuns, humus, pitta bread and spicy Kurdish sausage for lunch in Antepliler (sweet potato and lamb puree for Little Planet) / A play on the swings for Little Planet and watching the birds being fed in the leafy Finsbury Park / A thorough read of the weekend FT while Little Planet napped and M had a conference call / Spinach and apple puree for Little Planet's dinner / Homemade tonkatsu, miso soup and shredded cabbage for our dinner / Catching up on 90210 (my new guilty pleasure) and Eastenders (which I have started watching again recently) while M worked / Being amazed at the thought that Little Planet will be 9 months old at the end of this week / Feeling sad that M is back in the States again - for a whole week / But looking forward to the week filled with guests and outings (so far, a friend and her two babies on Monday, my cousin on Tuesday, a baby singing class on Wednesday, an outing with just Little Planet and I on Thursday, and my mother-in-law this Friday) / Also looking forward to some solo trips into town on Saturday (getting my hair done and doing some shopping) and the following Monday (seeing work colleagues and catching a movie) while my mother-in-law looks after Little Planet

The weekend list

Beginning to research our childcare options / Terribly excited at the thought of returning to work, even though I still have 4 more months of maternity leave left / Terribly sad at the thought of leaving Little Planet every day, even though she will undoubtedly thrive in the company of other adults and children (as I did when my own mother returned to fulltime work as a paediatrician when I was 8 months old) / Giving Little Planet her first taste of egg - scrambled - which she didn't screw her adorable little face up at (at 7 months, she's been on solids for 2 months now and still can't be bothered with food - she's not an eager eater and still has no more than 3 or 4 tablespoons of solids per meal; despite this she is eating meat, rusks and lumpy food; the two things she gets excited about and eagerly opens her mouth for are strawberry and apple puree, and water!).

Going into town on my own and browsing the sales along Bond Street but buying nothing / Spending too much money instead in the lingerie departments of Marks & Spencer and John Lewis / Devouring one of my all time favourite comfort food dishes - dolsot bibimbap - at Biwon near the British Museum / Stocking up on green and Indian teas at Postcard Teas on Dering Street and chatting with the owner - Timothy D'Offay - about our babies / Having a lovely pedicure at the Aveda Institute on High Holborn / Returning home to eat M's deliciously cooked pot au poulet / Ending Saturday night with a few episodes of gritty police drama The Wire on DVD / Early to bed / Suffering a sleepless night as torrential, lashing rain and gusty winds shook the house and scared Little Planet in particular.

Waking up to a calmer, brighter and sun-filled Sunday morning / Giving Little Planet her first taste of yoghurt (mixed with strawberry and apple puree and some organic, sugar-free rusk) / Savouring several hours of pottering around at home, completely alone, while M took Little Planet out to visit her aunt - usually I leave the house and head into town to get some "me time" (as on Saturday), so it's nice being able to veg out at home on my own / Cheese on toast for lunch and M made tonkatsu for dinner / Another early night and this time a settled one for all of us and there were no gales.

Another week begins and I am sad because M will be away in the States again :-(

Choice pieces...

... from the past week.

• Dancing to the Sugababes videos on TV with Little Planet in my arms
• Eating M's risotto with rosemary and borlotti beans
• Being riveted by the John Adams series on TV
• Enjoying the return of Heroes
• Dressing Little Planet in jeans, beanie hats and NYC sweats (photo below)
  
• Lounging around reading the papers as Little Planet naps and it pours with rain outside
• Playing David Bowie and Tom Waits CDs to Little Planet, exposing her to superlative classics such as Ziggy Stardust and Rain Dogs
  
• Devouring beef stews and lamb curries on chilly nights
• Getting our garden shed erected
• Getting our kitchen spotlights fixed
• Enduring Little Planet's extremely fussy feeding and hoping it's just a phase
  
• Celebrating Little Planet's 4th month birthday
• Cracking hazelnuts and almonds and walnuts
• Taking Little Planet to her very first art show - Gerhard Richter's 4900 Colours: Version II at the Serpentine (photo above). She loved all the colours!
  
• Taking her for a stroll around Hyde Park in the glorious sunshine
• Taking her shopping with us at Whole Foods Market in Kensington
• Finishing Ann Packer's engaging The Dive From Clausen's Pier and Jonathan Raban's disappointing Surveillance; beginning Sarah Addison Allen's Garden Spells
  
• Relishing my time away from the baby - for example, a walk alone to the local shops, or watching the astounding and harrowing Il Y A Longtemps Que Je T'aime at the cinema in Covent Garden alone, or eating sushi alone at Tokyo Diner in Soho

Psycho buildings and soft shell crabs

Saturday began with butter croissants and Monmouth coffee; feeding and playing with Little Planet; and a stroll through the park. Lunch was leftover potato salad that M had made to accompany Friday night's dinner of veal snitchel. And then I headed, alone, into town.

I viewed the disappointingly mediocre Psycho Buildings at the Hayward Gallery; picked up Japan's answer to Martha Stewart - haru-mi magazine from JP Books in the basement of Mitsukoshi off Piccadilly; replenished my stock of Frederic Fekkai shampoo and conditioner from Space NK in Soho; bought slippers, cucumber hand soap and frosted salad bowls from Muji; watched the disappointingly mediocre The X-Files: I Want To Believe movie at the Apollo; bought daikon, miso, chilli paste and wasabi from Arigato in Soho; was tempted by the dark chocolate with mint and dark chocolate with sesame seeds at Yauatcha; and snacked on sushi, tofu and sesame spinach at Kintaro off Chinatown.

Back at home, M made tempura (above) with soft shell crabs, prawns, aubergines and sweet potato, and served them with shredded daikon, cold soba noodles tossed with black and white sesame seeds, and umeboshi plums. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Sunday was much like any other: a lot of laundry - we do loads now we have a baby; menu planning for the week ahead (such as pumpkin curry and huevos rancheros) and buying the necessary provisions; waiting for and then sorting through our Ocado delivery; feeding, burping, changing, playing with and doing crazy dancing in front of a very bemused Little Planet; sorting through all our books and DVDs as we have so many now that I am stacking books on the floor (I must admit, the piles of books look quite attractive and usefully put to use as makeshift occasional tables); reading magazines (such as Dwell, Living ETC, Real Simple, US Weekly and The Economist) and the FT. For dinner, M made chicken filo cigars with sultanas and pine nuts (below) from Claudia Roden's Jewish cookbook and served it with char-grilled brocolli with toasted almonds and red chillies from the Ottelenghi cookbook. Dessert was fresh pineapple and pomegranate with freshly ground black pepper, in front of the excellent series 1 of Weeds on DVD.

Also this weekend, Little Planet reached 9 weeks. At two months, Little Planet is now...

• Tossing her body from one side to the other whilst on her back
• Punching the air with her fists and feet vigorously
• Holding her head up unsupported whilst we hold her in a sitting position (we no longer have to support her head whilst we hold or lift her)
• Following people avidly around the room with her head and eyes
• Pushing herself backwards on her back and forwards on her tummy
• Cooing, gurling and babbling to her toys and to us
• Spending more time awake - usually in the mornings
• Sleeping in longer chunks at night
• Talking and sometimes crying or shouting out in her sleep - perhaps having good and bad dreams
• Opening her hands out and spreading her fingers
• Watching and listening to us intently as we chat with her, sing to her or read her a story
• Smiling
• Showing preference for bright colours over black and white
• Looking at the pictures in books when I read from them
• Beginning to drool (we keep her bib on alot now)
• Sucking on her hands more and rubbing her nose and eyes as if she has just discovered they exist
• Weighing in at 11lbs or 5kg - at the 50th percentile
  

Hanging out

The arrival of this weekend was much welcomed, capping a brutal work week for M and a stressful week for myself and an unsettled Little Planet. The weather was glorious and our little family of three enjoyed some quality time together.

Now I have a house and a new baby, my life is much more domestic than it's ever been. Just look back at the evolution of this blog from 2004 to see just how domestic my life has become. New motherhood, and the mundane, housebound routines that accompany it, has been a hard thing for me to adjust to as you well know from my recent posts. However, though I am greatly looking forward for Little P to get a little older so we can go out and do more things again - a few months, just a few more months - right now this is my life and I am resolved to make the most of it and make the little things count, like Little P's first smiles (above)!

Saturday morning began as leisurely as a morning can begin with a baby who awakes at 5 or 6am. We fed and played with her, put her down for a nap, had our own showers and breakfasts. M went for a run as I made up a few feeds, washed up and put on a load or two of laundry. Then the three of us went shopping for provisions.

We put the baby down for another nap at lunch time (though she had slept a little out in the pram too) and I headed into town alone to watch the gloriously camp and hilarious Mamma Mia! movie with the gorgeous Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. The music I grew up with and still love is the gritty, dark likes of Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, but the mother-love hormones currently raging through my system made me laugh and cry at the wonderful renditions of Abba songs and the emotional mother-daughter storyline. And like the rest of the audience at the West End Odeon, I applauded when the closing credits came up. How wonderfully embarrassing! I popped into Liberty for some decadently expensive Ren body cream for myself, and then into Borders and John Lewis for colourful Lamaze toys and books for my little treasure.

Back at home, M filled me in on his day. Now we have this house, he loves spending time in it at the weekend, especially because he's rarely home during the week. I, on the other hand, crave to disappear for a little bit on the weekends as I now spend so much time at home. So he had spent an enjoyable day feeding and playing with Little Planet, putting her to sleep, doing some gardening, reading, cleaning... generally pottering around.

We ended Saturday with a barbecue dinner à deux of chicken and lamb chops and sat in our garden until darkness fell catching up as we have hardly seen each other this week. Though we both have some very good friends, essentially we are both loners. When we were single and didn't know each other, we had both always been able to spend contented days, even weeks, without seeing other people. Fortunately for our marriage - and perhaps why it works so well - we also love being loners together. It does sound cheesy, I know, but M really is my best friend.

After our al fresco dinner, we gave Little P her last feed of the day, put her to bed and then watched a few episodes of the brilliant Californication on DVD starring the surprisingly sexy David Duchovny.

I spent all of Sunday at home with M and the baby. We went for a stroll around the park in the morning, ate feta cheese and watermelon for lunch, cleaned the house, read, napped, ate roast chicken and homemade alioli for dinner by candlelight in the garden, looked after Little P who slept for much of the time but who, when awake, brightened up our day even more by throwing us little smiles. Yes, our baby turned 7 weeks old on Saturday and is smiling at us.

Typical day # 3

This Typical Day post features a much more settled Little Planet compared to the last Typical Day post and shows how atypical a newborn baby's day actually is. There are good days, so-so days and horrendous days and everything in between. This day (from the Sunday just gone) was a reasonably good day.

• Little Planet's previous feed, given by M, was at 9.30pm. She awakes at 1.30am and M feeds her.
  
  
• She awakes again at 4.30am and M feeds her as I am out for the count. I don't even hear the two of them.
  
  
• I do the 8am feed as M is on his way to work. She goes to sleep in the miracle swinging cradle with the white noise soundtrack on and I shower, get dressed, wash up, put on a load of laundry, make up more feeds and have a leisurely breakfast reading the weekend papers.
  
  
• I wake her a little early, at 10am, to feed as I want to take her to the park before the sun gets too hot. I pop her in her buggy at 11am. She grizzles but as soon as we start moving she settles completely. We enjoy a stroll in the fresh air.
  
  
• We're back home by 12pm and we play for an hour under the activity gym and on the changing mat. It's a lot of fun and I can't wait for the day when she starts staying awake more just so I can play with her. At the moment, the endless feed-burp-wind-settle-sleep routine is a little too monotonous for my personality and makes me feel I am not a "natural" mother (which is okay, as not all women can be).
  
  
• At 1pm she feeds and I settle her at 2pm.
  
  
• I lunch on sushi, I blog, I read Grazia magazine and Rumer Godden's The River in the garden under a sun-dappled tree. I feel completely rested.
  
  
• She feeds again at 4.30pm and is asleep by 5pm so I take a nap too.
  
  
• But she is awake and griping from 6.30pm until her feed at 7.30pm. I am beginning to wonder whether I should feed her every time she grizzles as perhaps she's simply hungry and going through a growth spurt. It's so confusing to know what to do. I pray for M to hurry home though from day to day we are never sure what time he will return as his workload is heavy.
  
  
• By 8.30pm, M is back and we bathe and wash her hair together. We oil and massage her.
  
  
• She's asleep by 9pm and M makes fillet steaks with fries and tomatoes for our dinner, which we eat in front of catch-up TV (Heroes and the Gilmore Girls). She frets a little and we hold our breath frequently, but she settles each time on her own. I never let her cry for longer than 5 minutes, but generally she self-settles before that time is up. If she doesn't, then M or I are up there trying to comfort her.
  
  
• I'm in bed by 11pm and M gives Little Planet her last feed of the day at 11.30pm.

Extra special days

Now I am on maternity leave, the concept of weekends and public holidays shouldn't really make a difference to me as every day is a holiday, pre-baby. But days morph into extra special days when I have company. So my special week began on Wednesday night in the company of my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and husband for dinner, when I cooked them a hearty chorizo stew with spinach, garlic, smoked paprika, whole cumin and chickpeas and served it with hot crusty Turkish flat bread.

Thursday consisted of a gentle stroll around Finsbury Park (above) in the glorious sunshine with my mother-in-law, watching babies, identifying trees and taking lots of breathers on park benches. We then lunched at Ottolenghi in Islington, where I ate pork and beef meatloaf with roast beetroot salad and roasted peppers, and my mother-in-law ate salmon with broad beans and roasted aubergines. We finished our meals off with fluffy, sticky meringues. I love lunching here - the ambience is so relaxed and minimalist and friendly. The place is renowned for its salads and desserts and was founded by a Palestinian and an Israeli Jew. They've recently published a cookbook, which I promptly bought a signed copy of.

My mother-in-law then left and later, back at home, I cooked a dinner of orecchiette pasta with a sauce of pancetta, freshly marinated artichokes, garlic, fresh tomatoes, green olives and freshly grated parmesan (above) for M and we followed it with M&S lemon zest cheesecakes in front of the disappointingly anti-climactic season 1 finale of Dirty Sexy Money. Now that I am going out less, I am getting the time to watch more TV and DVDs, which (at the moment) is a real treat.

M had Friday off. While he ran errands, bought provisions and checked out a few art exhibitions in town, I spent most of the morning having my hair done at the Aveda Institute on High Holborn. Such pampering will be my last chance before Little Planet is born so I wanted to make the best of it. However, in the middle of my blissful treatments I received the texts that two of the women from my antenatal group whose babies were due end of May had already given birth. The news brought my 3rd June due date hurtling towards me and I was consumed with a tense mixture of excitement and fear: I really want to meet Little Planet face to face but am obviously afraid of both the birth and how I will look after her; I am also a little sad that what feels like a holiday – a self-indulgent period of me-me-me time – is coming to an end.

M met me afterwards and we lunched at our favourite Korean restaurant Bi Won, where I had my favourite bi bim bab bowl - a stew of vegetables, beef and chilli paste on a bed of rice and a raw egg broken on top, and served sizzling away in an earthenware bowl (above). This is comfort eating of the highest order and for me ranks alongside buttery mashed potatoes, thick, salty, hand-cut chips, and Alphonso mangoes in the comfort eating stakes. M slurped a kimchi and tofu soup. Then we strolled through a vibrant Russell Square in full, pink bloom (below).

Back home, M prepared the dough for pizza and did laundry (my hero), and then took a nap while I chilled under a blazing sun in the garden with my new favourite magazines - Parenting, Parents, Real Simple, Dwell and Junior. For dinner we ate the pizzas topped with our favourite tomato, mozzarella and artichoke toppings (with additions of black olives and anchovies for M) and then ended the night watching the gripping and complex Heroes, season 1, on DVD.

The Bank Holiday weekend was spent at home as I am too weary and heavy to do much out and about now as I enter my 39th week of pregnancy. M went for a run around the park and then to the gym. When he returned he planted coriander, parsley, thyme, sage and basil in pots in the garden (above). In the evening he cooked a mouth-watering Vietnamese meal of beef stewed with tomato, star anise and lemongrass from Andrea Nguyen's Into The Vietnamese Kitchen, which he served with stir-fried water spinach from a local Vietnamese supermarket that has recently opened and brown rice (below); and on a rainy Sunday he roasted lamb with rosemary (from our garden) and garlic for dinner and served it with asparagus and mashed chickpeas. We had Ben & Jerry's phish ice cream for dessert - my first time - yum!

We whiled away the rest of the rainy Bank Holiday chilling in the kitchen reading the weekend papers (below), reading novels (I've started Carol Shields' Duet - wonderfully descriptive evocation of the apparently mundane lives of two sisters - one a biographer, the other a poet), baking muffins filled with lemon zest and sultanas (recipe below), blogging, surfing the net, preparing and then taking delivery of our Ocado order (life-saving at this stage in my pregnancy when I can carry hardly anything), checking and re-checking my hospital bag and baby's things, checking we knew how the infant car seat works, and reading up as much as I can about water births as I am booked in to have one if all progresses well. And Bank Holiday Monday finished with M cooking Singapore prawns for dinner, made with fenugreek, fennel and tamarind (below). Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend (at least those of you in the UK and US!).

Summer chilling

Wasn't it a glorious May Bank Holiday weekend? The sun here in London shone and shone and everyone tried to make the most of it by being out in the sunshine and hot air with bare arms and legs.

We spent Saturday hopping from one gallery to another courtesy of many black cabs due to my advanced pregnancy: the voluptuous, almost edible paintings of Howard Hodgkin at the Gasgosian in Kings Cross (above); the haunting, mysterious, highly charged interpretations of Edgar Allan Poe's works at the White Cube Hoxton Square and the atmospheric, dungeon-like interior of the Shoreditch Town Hall and featuring the stellar cast of such luminaries as the Chapman Brothers, Cindy Sherman, Anselm Kiefer and Harland Miller; and the filmic photos of small-town life by Gregory Crewdson at the White Cube Mason's Yard in Piccadilly.

Saturday was also spent ordering big ticket items from John Lewis for the baby, including a red and black Bugaboo Bee pushchair/pram and assorted accessories, a black Maxi Cosi car seat/carrier, a white wooden chest of drawers and matching fitted changing top, a classic wicker moses basket and stand, a digital baby monitor, BabyBjorn sling, breast pump, Baby Einstein activity gym and assorted basic clothes, sheets and blankets.

We lunched at our favourite Fernandez & Wells in Soho and later bought assorted food, including fresh tuna steaks, from the buzzing John Lewis Food Hall. At home, we ate the tuna steaks with a simple salad of rocket, beet and chard leaves and cherry tomatoes dressed in a homemade (by M) orange zest and balsamic dressing. Then ended the night eating Presat chocolates (mint wafers and chocolate covered apricots) whilst watching Heroes, Season 1 on DVD as we never caught it first time round.

Sunday and Monday were incredibly chilled affairs spent largely lazing around at home: laying in bed until late in the morning; breakfasting on freshly ground coffee and bagels with Camembert and apricot jam; reading the FT and Sunday Times outside in our garden; cooking and eating Spanish tortilla with sides of fresh tomatoes and grilled asparagus with Parmesan shavings, and also roast chicken with sides of chicory gently sauteed in butter and a rocket salad; tidying up the garden; doing laundry and hanging it out on the line.

Since yesterday, Tuesday, M is back at work, but as I am on maternity leave I am doing much the same - simply chilling. I have four weeks to go and am making the most of this time off. In honesty, it feels like a wonderful, extended vacation - the kind I've not had since my university days (and even then I usually worked during the holidays).

My favourite moments over the past few days? Feeling Little Planet's teeny weeny foot pressing against the side of my stomach and into my hand. She's head down now - her head in my pelvis, her back against my lefthand side, her legs curled across the top of my stomach and her feet pressing into my top righthand side. She's apparently around 6lbs in weight and is a tiny bundle of energy. I am so much in love.

Easter drift

In the end I didn't do much more than drift from one thing to another without purpose, which makes a refreshing change as I am a woman who likes to plan.

I watched season premieres of House and Grey's Anatomy, neither of which I've seen before, as well as the new Dirty Sexy Money, which is looking promising. I chatted with my parents and with M over the phone twice a day as he travelled between Jacksonville and Manhattan (where I'd instructed - whoops, requested - him to look at camcorders, laptops and DKNY clothing for me). I watched Brief Encounter and a few episodes of The Waltons on DVD. I watched The Way We Were. I filled my bags at the Food Hall in John Lewis and cabbed it home, chatting about Thailand with the affable taxi driver who has a Thai wife and 8 month old daughter living in Issan. I ate alot of Green & Black's milk chocolate and blood red oranges and marmite on toast, though not all together. I stayed in bed late, sleeping, napping, reading Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard and The Inheritance Of Loss, and listening to Loretta Lynn, Leonard Cohen and Lambchop on my iPod. I wrote in my journal - a pretty pink and cream Japanese notebook from London Mitsukoshi's JP Books. I did laundry but I couldn't be bothered to hoover and dust the house despite my mother-in-law coming over on Easter Monday (today). I showed her around the new house. We went out to eat Turkish food with her friend and my sister-in-law and we looked at baby photos of M. We watched the 4D video of Little Planet's scan. I watched my belly dance as the baby did her rolling and kicking and hiccuping routine inside me. I browsed baby and nursery products from independent sellers on the internet. I read other peoples' blogs. And tomorrow morning I am off to my parents' house to eat home-cooked curries and drift aimlessly for another week.

I miss M so much. It's the longest we've been apart. I know from my own experience that a life spent largely alone can be rich and rewarding if you continually endeavour to make it so. But it's wonderful how much texture, shape and rhythm a loved one gives to one's day.

Eastward bound

After a long working day, we met up on Friday for a simple, light and aromatic dinner at the Thai Garden Cafe in Bloomsbury. We started with crab cakes and spring rolls before moving on to whole sea bass roasted with lemongrass (M) and beef red curry (me). We bought desserts of creme brule (M) and sticky toffee pudding (me) from Waitrose in the Brunswick and then ate them back at home in front of last week's laugh-out-loud Curb Your Enthusiasm. Really, the 6th season is shaping up to be as hilarious as ever.

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.

Also on show was Almond's fourteen-minute, three-screen film shot on the Qinghai-Tibet railway - the world's highest train route. The barren landscape viewed at a hurried pace through the train's window contrasted sharply against the meditative chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks filmed in the Samyey monastery in Lhasa. For Almond, the train is supposed to symbolise the penetrating force of China upon Tibet, but again I was conflicted - this time by my sense of excitement watching the train speed through the wondrously undulating and stark landscape, and by the inevitable if fraught coexistence of the industrial and the spiritual in the modern world.

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.

We returned to my favourite burger joint, The Diner on Curtain Road, for lunch where this time I was only just able to fit inside their leather and formica booth. This is definitely the last time I will be able to gorge myself on their deliciously fat-laden bacon cheeseburgers, fat fries and coleslaw as my pregnant belly had just half an inch of breathing space before it pressed uncomfortably against the edge of the table. I kid you not! I savoured my food while skimming the Saturday newspapers and chatting with M, while eavesdropping on a dull young man who would not stop yapping away as his girlfriend tried to stave off her boredom by eating without stopping to breathe, while stealing glances at a couple eating their burgers while their adorable little baby contented herself with her milk and toys and gurgled gleefully at her parents. I can't wait to bring Little Planethalder to places like this!

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.

Afterwards, we walked to the Bloomberg Space on Finsbury Square to see Sarah Beddington's Places Of Laughter And Of Crying film installation featuring near-still footage of interior shadows, drifting jellyfish, a Lebanese skyline, fluttering plastic sheeting, raindrops on concrete and more. Plus her 29-minute, four-screen footage of modern Shanghai. We had just a quarter of an hour to immerse ourselves in the installation before the gallery closed, so I'll do another review when we return.

And then to dinner at the Vietnamese Song Que Cafe on the Kingsland Road, where we enjoyed sugar cane prawns, beef wrapped in betel leaves, beef and tofu soup and beef stir-fried with lemongrass and rice vermicelli. We were also entertained by two of the staff's children who were excitedly engrossed in a computer chess game on the new Samsung laptop they had just been bought. M doesn't play chess and I can't wait to teach Little Planethalder the game so she can play with me - after all, like marriage, isn't having children all about having a permanent playmate to have fun with?!

In a Johnny Depp mood, we returned home and watched the first Pirates Of The Caribbean on DVD while eating Green & Blacks cherry chocolate. This time Depp was channeling Keith Richards to hilariously ultra-camp effect.

Today, Sunday, we didn't drift too far from home. We lay in late, drank coffee and read in bed, shopped for groceries and laundered clothes. M went to the gym. I stayed at home and finished off reading the last few pages of a number of books. If I have just a few pages left of a novel I tend to put it aside to start reading a new one. I do this because I know I will finish the book on my commute into work, leaving nothing to read on the commute back home. Rather than carrying two books with me, I bring a fresh new one and leave the unfinished one behind.

M can't understand why I don't carry the two books with me, or finish the other one later at night back at home. I can seldom read two books at once and if a book doesn't grip me in its fictitious vice then I tend to forget about finishing it once I am immersed in another story. As a result the unfinished novels pile up until I get round to finishing them off in one reading session. Curious habit I know, with little reason or logic behind it.

Anyway, this Sunday was my day to finish all those books: Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby, Anne Tyler's Digging To America, Amulya Malladi's The Mango Season and Manju Kapur's Home.

On his way back from the gym, M picked up some samosas and kachori from Ambala. We don't have a famed Gupta near us but these satisfied us perfectly. M came back from the store with tales of little children with their dads choosing what they wanted to eat. He said we should make such trips our own Sunday morning ritual when we have our own little family. But I cherish my own childhood memory of my mother batch-frying homemade samosas on the weekends - filling the air with exciting smells and aromas - and I would love to establish this as one of our weekend rituals with our daughter when she's old enough to enjoy the experience.

There is so much to dream about... this new future of ours... this whole new life...

Now M is cooking our dinner of poule-au-Bouillon - whole chicken boiled with leeks, carrots, turnips, celery, bay leaves, thyme and other aromatic seasonings. He may serve it with fried or mashed potatoes. Perfect comfort food to ease us back into the busy working week.