I'm Back.....with news!

I have been away from the blog world for what feels like years. But I am determined to renew my efforts.

In the future my posts are likely to take on a new slant because........I am pregnant!

Yes, Chris and I have a little one on the way in April/May this year. I am currently 24 weeks and getting bigger by the minute it seems! Everything is ticking along nicely, so I have my fingers firmly crossed that there will be no major issues.

I found out like this:

- Suspect I'm pregnant whilst helping my sister refurbish her beautiful Vintage shop, What Alice Found (www.whatalicefound.co.uk - check it out!)
- Accidentally fall onto a nail protruding from a plank of wood
- Sit down the following evening with a glass of wine and take one sip before being overcome with the urge to 'just check' if I am pregnant or not before I consume the rest of the glass
- Take pregnancy test without informing husband
- Get a positive result; but it is very faint. Deliberate as to what this means. Stare at the line so hard that I start seeing double lines. Worry about falling on the nail
- Go back into living room and tell husband, without preamble, 'there is a possibility that I may be pregnant'
- Drag husband to bathroom to stare at faint line. "What do you think?" I ask. Response "I don't know."
- Go back to living room and sit for 30 minutes in relative silence while husband has a whisky and gets over the shock (we had been not, not trying....if you see what I mean)
- Google frantically how faint a line can be and still be positive. Turns out, a line is a line, no matter how faint. Don't feel much more at ease though
- Give rest of glass of wine to husband once he has consumed his whisky (he is drinking for two now, after all). Feel strange. It doesn't seem real
- Husband finally talks and seems rather more panicky than overtly pleased
- Go to sleep that night wondering if this is it
- Next day book appointment with doctor. Have to wait a whole WEEK, before I can see someone. Take another pregnancy test but I didn't do it right (HOW?!) and the control line didn't turn blue. The only other one I had was past its use-by date. Used it anyway and again, got a really faint line. Feel frustrated now; just want to know
- After the agonising week is up, go see the doctor. Tell him I think I am pregnant and ask him to check. He says that home tests are so reliable now that he won't need to test again. WHAT??!!!
- After doctor's appointment I decide to settle it once and for all. Go to Boots in my lunch hour and buy a digital test. Go into the nearest department store and use their toilet (work seemed too far away). And..... POSITIVE!! Hoorah. Send photo message to husband of result screen with the accompanying message 'We are go for launch'

And that was that. (I am pleased to say that I have a small scar from the nail, but no infection - lucky).

My advice to anyone taking a pregnancy test, use a digital one. A simple 'pregnant' or 'not pregnant' is all you want in that situation. They even tell you how many weeks from conception you are. Brilliant!

Thus began my journey into pregnancy. Cue three months of feeling hangover-type sick ALL DAY. It should NOT be called morning sickness. That is such a cute little phrase that belittles how utterly gross you feel from 5am to 9pm (your new waking hours). Feeling so rough you don't even want to talk and not being able to tell your work colleagues why is really hard.

I am going to rename it 'Ultimate Nausea'. Because that is what it feels like.

Will I ever get it all right at once?

I don't know about you, but I never seem to have everything 'sorted' at any one time.

Sometimes in my life my house will be clean and tidy, but I will be behind on paperwork, laundry, food shopping and personal grooming (haircuts, nails etc). Other times, I will have all the laundry done, but the house will be a mess...and so on.

When I am at work my time management is impeccable. I work really efficiently and get everything done on time and accurately. My home-life on the other hand, is a completely different story.

Why?

Am I alone in this? I hope not. I hope that there are lots of people out there who are exactly the same as me and, maybe despite appearances, don't have it all together all of the time.

Anyway, must go....have a huge pile of laundry to do.

And paperwork.

Oh, and I need to get a haircut...

Comfort food means cake!

The nights are starting to draw in, which means that, yes, Winter is on the way. And if you are anything like me at times like these I need comfort food. This can be in the form of a roast chicken dinner, a big mug of soup, hot chocolate or....cake. 

Yes, I love cake. 

Victoria sponge, lemon drizzle, chocolate fudge and apple. I love it all.

Yesterday my darling sister sent me some cupcakes from Butterfly Bakery – they were cookies and cream and they have half an Oreo cookie on the top with the rest crumbled inside, with crunchy and creamy frosting on top. Mmmmmmm...

Image from butterflybakery.co.uk

 

(This is the same company that we used for our wedding cakes – more on this in later posts!)

I would like to share with you a recipe for a cake that I have made on a few occasions, which is always eaten amid cries of “This is amazing! So tasty! Please can I have the recipe?!” It is for a Blueberry Soured Cream Cake.

Ingredients

·         175g/6oz butter, softened

·         175g/6oz golden caster sugar

·         3 large eggs

·         225g/8oz self-raising flour

·         1tsp baking powder

·         2tsp vanilla extract

·         142ml carton soured cream

·         3 x 125g punnets blueberries

FOR THE FROSTING

·         200g tub soft cheese (Philadelphia)

·         100g/4oz icing sugar

Method

      1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4/fan oven 160°C. Butter and line the base of a 23cm/9in round cake tin. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla in a bowl. Beat for 2-3 minutes until pale and well mixed. Beat in 4 tablespoons soured cream, then stir in half the blueberries.

2. Tip the mixture into the tin and level. Bake for 50 minutes, or until it feels firm to the touch and springs back when lightly pressed. Cool for 10 minutes, then take out of the tin and peel off the paper. Leave to finish cooling.

3. Beat the soft cheese with the icing sugar and the remaining soured cream until smooth and creamy. Spread over the top of the cooled cake and scatter with the remaining blueberries. The cake will keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

Nicki dishing up

I made this for my sister’s birthday recently and it went down very well, as you can see in the photos! This cake is so moist – and is healthier than a lot of other cakes because there is no double cream, and I’m sure that the blueberries count towards your five a day!

Enjoy!

Traditional, different or...a compromise?

Will you want to try something a little different?

Nowadays you can get married almost anywhere: in a church or other house of worship, a hotel, on a beach, abroad, on a boat, underwater or even on a rollercoaster. So how do you decide which one is for you? First have a think about how you view your wedding – do you want it to have a fun-filled party atmosphere, or would you prefer the more traditional, serious feel?

There is a tendency to steer towards the side of traditional because ‘that’s just the way it’s done’, and it is all too easy to be swept along in the current as soon as you start to plan for the day. So, before you start planning, STOP for a moment:

         -  Have a talk with your fiancé about what you don’t want, as these ideas will usually be more established within each of your minds than what you do want. (Hopefully you will find that you each don’t want the same things!)

         - Think about other weddings you have been to before and pick out the elements that you liked

        -  Are you in a position that yours or your fiancé’s parents will have a say in your day? If so, what are they likely to expect?

     - Do you both like to try new things and branch out? You could consider a Handfasting or a Medieval ceremony

        - Are you both from different religious backgrounds? Will you need a fusion of 2 very different kinds of tradition? Or, instead, 2 completely different ceremonies in 2 different countries?

But, whatever your situation and preference, remember that there will always have to be a compromise somewhere along the line, whether it be on your part or your other half’s.

For example: When sitting in a sauna in a ski resort in France and first talking about my wedding with my brand new fiancé it went something like this:

Chris: “So, how do you see our wedding being?”

Me: (After a giggle of excitement) “Well....we could go abroad somewhere and get married on a beach at sunset, just us and a few close friends. How about you?”

Chris: “I want a really big party near home.”

Me: “Oh.”

What we ended up doing was unsurpassable for us so I am glad that I compromised on that one!

I thought that I would like a beach wedding, somewhere exotic

Your ideas will evolve and morph into your eventual plan, and it may end up being something completely different to what you had dreamed. Have fun with it and think it through before you do anything else such as seeing venues or looking at dresses.

Above all, remember, that it is yours and your partner’s day. 

So, what are you planning and what have you always dreamed?

And so it begins

Not only my blog, but my married life. I married my partner of 4 years, Chris, in June 2010. In the process of planning our wedding, I came to realise several pearls of wisdom, which I wish I had know beforehand.

I would like to share with you now some of these pearls:

- Make it known from day 1 that you and your partner are in control. If anyone is thinking of 'helping', or talking to family about the event ask them to ask you first!

- Shop around. It may sound obvious but it can be very tempting amidst all of the goings on when planning to 'save time' and just go ahead with using a company or buying that dress without having a proper look around. Look around so that you know you are paying the right sort of prices and getting the right item.

- Choose a 'theme'. By this I don't mean 'Let's all dress as Xena' (unless that is your thing...), I mean think about what feel you want your wedding to have. A lot of this may depend upon the venue, but not necessarily in every case. This theme can be the thread that runs right the way through, from invites to table decoration to the music.

Would you like it to feel modern, traditional, classic, chic, hippy, goth, country life, pagan, beachy? Or maybe it's just a colour theme. Doing this can give you continuity and help in your decision-making.

And finally (for now...)

- Make it personal. This maybe the biggest party you will ever throw. All of your loved ones will be there, in one place, for you. Add those personal touches which reflect your personalities, hobbies and interests; your guests will always remember that. For example, some friends of ours who were married a couple of years ago had their reception in a sailing club. They are both into watersports and they had large pebbles on the tables, the invites included a diary reminder in the shape of a sail, one of their favours was a small boat and their cake consisted of individual friands with sails made out of paper. Fabulous!

Adding a personal touch, as well as a theme

I will be exploring more about themes in future posts, but for now I will leave you with this to ponder:

If you were to be married or to marry again, in what way would you reflect your personality?