The cauliflower

My hasn't he grown?  There is a true bump visible now.  All of a sudden it seems to have popped out and risen upwards.  And he's wriggling about like mad. I'm glad he's still got enough room to wriggle about in there.

Can you guess what we did with the cauliflower?  Yep, we were boring and just smothered it with cheese.

This is one of my favourite dresses from Anthropologie. I always get nice comments when I wear it.

Farewell Electra

A truly sad moment has come to pass in this pregnancy...  I decided to stop riding my bicycle.  It's getting a bit uncomfortable with my knees hitting the bump as I cycle, and then I had a couple of scary moments this week.  A dog ran out in front of me and I had to brake suddenly, and then it poured down on me on the way home yesterday.  It was slippery and I just thought maybe it was time to move on.  So I offered the lovely Electra to a colleague and joined the masses on the train.  And it's horrid.  I don't mind not drinking, avoiding some cheeses and not drinking too much coffee, but this tube going might be the end of me!

Farewell Electra, you've been a loyal friend these past 7 years.  At least I can home some fun now in thinking what bicycle to get next.  We're thinking of a cargo bike, but more on that soon.

The cucumber

I can't believe that he's this long, can it really be true?  How does he fit in there?  I think he must be a bit squashed.  We had some lovely fresh salads this week thanks to the cucumber.

Back in this old Urban Outfitters dress.  It just zips up!

The swede

We have no more white walls, so for the next few weeks we'll have a selection of different plaster wall backgrounds!  This week he's a swede, probably he's supposed to be a bigger swede than this one here but that's the biggest we could find.  We turned him into a tasty cheesy bake and then some mash.

I can now fit into my ASOS maternity pencil skirt, a bargain at £10!  And with all my different blouses I should be able to make it work for the remaining months without getting too bored of it.

The aubergine

I searched Brixton market this morning to get the prettiest looking aubergine.  After photographing we turned it into a delicious stuffed aubergine treat.  This photo is taken before heading out to a friend's farewell party, we had a lovely time catching up with some old faces.  I'm wearing an old Whistles jumper which is so sparkly and perfect to pep up a pair of jeans.

The ear of corn

Thankfully we're still in season for corn, the end of summer and some lovely sweet corn from the Brixton farmers market.  This is a dress Mum sent last Christmas, from the New Zealand designer Karen Walker.  It's accommodating the bump rather nicely.

A weekend in Bologna

I travelled to Parma for work this week and Carlos joined me to enjoy a weekend in Bologna.  Our last baby free weekend away... although he is there with us isn't he?

We had a fabulous time doing my favourite things, investigating the charming back streets, tasting some delicious foods and browsing the shops.

If you visit Bologna you must go to the food markets in the centre of the Old Town, they were amazing.

Of course we had to buy a few things to bring home with us.  A selection of pork goodness for Carlos and some delicious parmigiano to experiment with. 

The papaya

Another week and what a treat...  a papaya.  Not something we usually buy as they're a bit pricey and hard to come by.  But so delicious when liberally covered in lime juice.  This photo is just before I headed off to a big cycling event we'd spent months organising at work, so I had on my pretty Marc Jacobs dress which still fits, hooray!

Notice we're fast running out of any nice plain white walls for our background.  This is taken against the boiler cupboard just before we demolish it!

It's a ...

We had some very exciting news this morning.  Carlos can't keep the grin off his face and is already obsessing over cute little outfits.

Image courtesy of Sycamore Street Press

The carrot

Another week and technically not much change from a banana to a carrot.  But it certainly feels as if the belly is growing...

An old dress by Marc Jacobs which I haven't worn for a few years but was saving for maternity given the rather accommodating style!

The banana

This week we had our scan and well, we talked for ages about whether to find out the sex or not.  Neither of us care either way, but being quite the planner I'd just rather know and be able to start buying the right things.  We were pretty surprised by how passionately the 'don't find out' camp campaigned for us to keep it a surprise.  Friends who did find out however said it made the connection with their baby all the stronger.

Well, we did find out, and the news we received made it rather funny that this week it's a banana... yup, it's a boy!

 A past season top by Comptoir Des Cotonniers and a skirt by Whistles.

The mango

This week was perhaps the most delightful of treats after a few weeks of starchy carbs... a mango.  And Brixton market happens to have loads of mangoes so we ended up buying a whole selection before choosing this beauty.  So we've spent the week devouring mangoes with yoghurt ice cream, with custard, and just fresh on their own.  Quite a big jump in size this week and I think for the first time I have a proper bump to show off!

For the last couple of weeks I've started to feel the baby moving and it's pretty strong.  Perhaps a future footballer in there?!?

This dress is another past season favourite, from the West Village.  Very comfortable and accommodating of the bump!

Our week in the sun

Having just suffered through the wettest summer in 100 years, and two months with no heating or hot water, this week in Sardinia was pure luxury.  It was gorgeously sunny, hovering around 30 degrees and the water was magically warm.

Li Cossi Beach

We went to Sardinia last summer and fell in love, so when we decided to escape London for some later summer sun the choice was easy.  We even decided on the same area, the Costa Paradiso, which is home to one of the most spectacular beaches in Europe- Li Cossi.  

In Santa Theresa

We spent a week exploring the beaches along the northern coast of Sardinia, and popping back to a few of our favourite haunts from last summer.  We enjoyed the delicious gelatos, the pizzas and the outstanding local pastas.

After a storm on the Costa Paradiso

The kumara

This week the baby gets a dose of New Zealand culture as it's now as big as a kumara, or sweet potato to our English friends.  It's nice to teach it it's first Maori word.  A bit scary that it will spend it's first few years on this side of the world and that it might not learn words like kumara. This is another vegetable that we don't buy often but should seeing as they're so healthy. Traditionally we just don't eat a lot of heavy meals in the evening so that is something that I am trying to force myself to do... eat more carbs.  

The belly is starting to swell more now and on this dress I don't need the belt any more.  Which meant that I had to finally get around to telling people at work.  I put off telling them for ages, I guess because that finally makes it real!

We had to hurry and take this photo last thing in the evening, hence the darker shot as tomorrow we leave for Sardinia and I'm not convinced they'll have kumara in Sardinia!

This dress is about 8 years old, from Zara.  I don't want to call it vintage, although I'm not sure how old something has to be to constitute the title of 'vintage'.  To me it's just old!

The turnip

Now this week was a challenge, a turnip.  There were plenty of turnips to be found at Brixton market but none of them were big enough.  This is too early in the season for a good sized turnip.  So we had to resort to buying a medium sized turnip from Waitrose and pretending it was a bit bigger.  

We have to admit that we'd never bought or cooked a turnip before.  As pretty as they are we just hadn't come across a recipe that called for turnip.  So we consulted the internet and decided on a turnip gratin... and discovered that we don't really like turnip.  It's pretty bitter isn't it?

Dress from Whistles, ring from Monica Vinader.

The avocado

Wow, that felt like another big jump and to be honest, it's starting to show in the belly.  These trousers only just do up.  An avocado was a nice treat, we made a delicious salad with fresh salmon.  

The orange

And so it grows to the size of an orange.  I'm still saying it because it still doesn't feel quite real to me. I guess once I start feeling it moving around and I get too big for all my clothes then it will all feel real.  The orange taught me something this week... we never buy oranges!  I guess we're just not orange people.  I did make a nice cold juicy treat from the fridge later in the week but in the summer I'd much rather indulge in a stone fruit of some kind.

Dress by Trelise Cooper

The lemon

An easy fruit for us to find this week... a lemon.  And a nice versatile one to use at that!  This week we've finally been telling people our news.  Carlos wanted to tell everyone straight away but I was pretty keen to enjoy the secret for as long as we could, and probably because I don't like being fussed over and I knew a lot of fussing was coming our way this being the first grand child.  But it was lovely being able to delight our parents with the news.

This photo was taken before heading down to Woking for a friend's BBQ.  Now it was lovely and peaceful in Woking and I was a bit jealous of all the space they had, but I just can't imagine giving up our lifestyle in order to enjoy that peace and space.  I love being able to cycle up into Shoreditch for a coffee, or walk down into Brixton to sample the latest food craze, and I love being able to cycle to work in just over half an hour.  Nope, living in the countryside is just not for us.

Dress and bracelet from Aime

The nectarine

Seems like a big jump from a lime to a nectarine, can it really have grown that much in a week?  Nothing much is changing just yet.  Now that I'm over the nausea and tiredness, things are going pretty well- I can still fit all of my clothes although there is a little tightness around the waistband!  We're enjoying getting around and discovering the area.  So far we've really enjoyed trying out places in Brixton Village and have ventured over to the cafe at the South London Gallery for brunch- Carlos highly recommends the Spanglish.  The restrictions on eggs during pregnancy mean I've been keeping to scrambled eggs.

Trousers by Topshop and top by Monsoon.

The lime

This week it's grown to the size of a lime.  We had our first scan and can confirm, yup it's official, there really is a little being inside.  We were pretty blown away by the scan and just how much this tiny little lime sized thing actually resembles a baby.  It was wriggling and moving about like crazy, which hopefully had nothing to do with the big flat white I consumed just before the scan!  

Top from Anthropologie last season, trousers by TopShop last season and hat from Marylebone market.

The fig

So most of you have probably heard of the pregnancy bible, What to Expect When You're Expecting.  Well we did what most pregnant people with iphones probably do and downloaded the app.  This app tells us as the pregnancy progresses, in terms of size, which fruit our foetus most resembles. So we decided to document this with a photo each week.  First up the fig, at 12 weeks.  Pretty tiny really, so not too noticeable to the outside world just yet, luckily as we've not told anyone yet!

Dress from Anthropologie.

New beginnings

This year has brought massive changes for us, we've moved from North to South London which feels a lot further than it sounds!  We're slowly pulling our little corner of the world out of the 1980s and discovering the joys of being south of the river.  We bought a two bed flat in a Victorian terrace in Loughborough Junction, around about half way between Brixton and Camberwell.  The flat needs a LOT of work and given our tiny budget, we're planning to do as much of it as we can.  We'll be sharing our design inspirations and the tribulations of learning how to take on the DIY projects ourselves.

Our other massive adventure is that we're now expecting our first baby, which is about to turn our lives completely upside down.  We have to admit that we're pretty clueless when it comes to babies but as our family and friends are split around the corners of the world, we thought it would be nice to document the process for them.

So here is our story...