dom.blog

Before I begin: yesterday my Grandma died overnight at the age of 93. She was my last surviving grandparent, which is quite something given that I first wrote this type of post back in 2008.

My earliest memories of Grandma are hazy, but in a good way, as she helped to look after me when I was very young. I’m pretty confident that egg and toast soldiers on the little table in the kitchen were involved, though. Later, armed with my incredible portable tape recorder, I remember going with her to church and recording the service, which she was disappointed to discover sounded “mostly like people sitting up and down again”.

My siblings, cousins and I can all thank her for huge number of family outings, and for bringing a packet of Fruit Pastilles to pass along the row during any theatre trips in case we got hungry between the start and the interval. At home, she hosted many family gatherings – both big and small – and was the central figure around whom the rest of the family orbited.

I’m incredibly glad that she got to meet her fourth great-grandchild before she died, and that she approved of him too!

We are now hurtling towards Christmas, and after carefully measuring the ceiling height of our new house, we were kindly joined by my on pram-pushing duties so that Randi and I could continue our tradition of carrying home the largest possible Christmas tree. It’s a beauty!

Back in November, I also had my celebrated first mulled wine of the season at The Free Press in Cambridge, during a family trip for lunch with Peter Mandler. (Yes, this means our child has now crossed over the London boundary for the first time… and his father has successfully changed a nappy on the freshly-mopped floor of a Greater Anglia toilet!)

We’ve also enjoyed a lovely afternoon visit from Andrew and Bonnie, and also made it up to Kingsbury for a long-awaited first meeting with Josh, Anna and family. This was an incredibly special moment as Josh and I did always plan to have kids at roughly the same time so as to unlock the possibility of joint walks across Hampstead Heath later on. That’s still in the future, but in the meantime I was very amused to receive Economics for babies as a gift. “It was her favourite book!”

In other news, I was very, very happy to finally give blood again successfully after my ban for failing the iron test expired. It’s good to donate blood, of course, but the main motivation (other than keeping myself in the race with my sisters) was that I could legitimately pick up one of those adorable ‘my dad gave blood today!’ stickers which I have wanted forever.

I was also very chuffed to be chosen, alongside my colleague Patrick, to attend the 2025 Travolution Awards. My company, eviivo, had been shortlisted in several categories but we had no idea we were actually going to clinch ‘Best Technology Product’. Huge congratulations to all of my colleagues at eviivo who work so hard to build something amazing!

Finally, yesterday turned out to be an extremely strange day. After waking up to the news of my Grandma, Randi and I turned our attention to welcoming the rest of our NCT class to ours for a holiday get-together. (It turned into a real feast after everyone arrived with lots of delicious food, but as a backup we were also ready with an array of premium biscuits: Grandma would have been proud.)

Michaela and Will were the first to arrive, and while chatting over the frying of latkes, Randi and Michaela discovered that for a year they had actually gone to the same high school, only one year apart. This is all the more impressive given that Michaela is from the Czech Republic.

Those latkes, by the way, were hands down the best latkes I have ever had. It’s going to be nail-biting on Randi’s next batch to see if she can replicate them.

In the evening we also popped over to Angela’s for her 50th birthday drinks, although we didn’t join the trip to go clubbing in Balham afterwards. (Actually, I’m not sure we were really invited to go clubbing in Balham. My 50th is going to be a lot more pedestrian.)

Tonight is also the first night of Hanukkah, so we’ll also be experimenting with baby’s first candles!

Time for a few more of baby’s first…

• …trains! Appropriately enough, his first outing was on our local Windrush line as we made our way to Maria’s 70th birthday party (and north of the river!) via Overground. Awkwardly, some unexpected delays on the way back led to the antique Bakerloo line becoming his inaugural Tube journey, which Josh will be gleeful about. He’s also ticked off the Mildmay, Jubilee, District, Central and Southern trains in the course of a very special visit to his great-grandmother and an amazing lunch hosted by Tash & Cormac in Leyton.

• …pub! Allegedly, young people are turning against pubs, so we’ve tried to buck the trend by having dinner in the very family-friendly Perry Hill pub nearby. (I mean, it’s so family-friendly that there were also tables of older children doing some organised pumpkin carving for Halloween.) Together with Randi’s family, we also discovered another lovely pub just off Peckham Rye Park after a long weekend walk.

• …Halloween! Randi got into the festive spirit by buying him two separate pumpkin-themed outfits, which were very cute during their brief outings before he needed changing again. Meanwhile, I discovered that buying Jaffa Cakes is an absolute winning formula for trick-or-treaters. “I really want to take them even though I can’t eat them!”, said one girl. So this is basically a mental note for next year to buy more Jaffa Cakes.

Over the last month we’ve continued to have a stream of visitors, which has been really nice. Our son has now officially met all of his aunts and uncles, plus:

• Randi’s colleague Dan and his family (who came a long way for a short visit!)
• Kira, who empathises with a newborn’s existential questions
• Kirsty and Roger and the enormous picnic of dreams
• The Three As for brunch and a stroll around Mayow Park
• Cat and Brian, who were happily in the country on a work trip and made a flying visit to see us!

We also had our NCT group over at ours one Sunday morning, which was lots of fun (especially when our instructor forced us to line up all the babies on the sofa for a photo) and also a great excuse to start eating the incredible inscribed macaroons which Troy sent us. Thank you!

Otherwise, we’ve also been doing… lots of paperwork. We had to wait a while for Lambeth’s next available slot to get his birth certificate, which was the critical piece of paper needed to unlock all of the others. But props to the lovely woman who registered him in a surprisingly pleasant civic building, who also provided a cute “Born in Lambeth” lamb-themed pun-tastic baby vest (free when you purchase 4 certificates!) and a superb piece of British socialisation:

“Do you need to see our marriage certificate?” I asked, because fathers are only allowed to register a birth solo if they are married to the mother.
“No, it’s OK!”
“Oh… I just wasn’t sure how you’d actually know we were married…?”
“Well, you can’t lie to the government!”
“But I’m pretty sure people do though?”
“Well yes… but that’s a crime!”

It also makes me chuckle that my place of birth is listed as ‘Westminster’ (per my own birth certificate) whereas Randi is simply put down as ‘United States of America’.

In non-baby news, we’ve also resumed our quest to work through the entire Jet Lag back catalogue – just one more season to go now! – and, in possibly one of the sadder moments of our lives, decided we’d watched too many episodes of Location Location Location and so pushed the boat out by trying Location Location Location Australia. (Not quite as good, but still very compelling. And you get to see those famous on-the-street house auctions which Kim told us about!)

Shortly after going back to work our department also had a series of in-person meetings, which meant I finally got to meet our teammate Bala after six years of working together! There was also a delicious evening at Inca London, which I’m mostly writing down so that I remember to return here for Peruvian food with Randi someday. Assuming we can find a babysitter, of course…

It makes me very, very happy to say that our baby son was born at 3.03am on Wednesday 1st October. He’s perfect.

That could probably be the whole post, to be honest! But I also wanted to throw a few more memories into the time capsule from our two-week cocoon at home, as a brand new family, with neither of us working. Because, honestly, I’ve just been surprised at how blissful this all feels. It’s more work for Randi, of course, especially with the overnight feeding… plus our unwelcome discovery that this also needs to be followed by 20 minutes of overnight-being-held-upright-to-avoid-reflux. But right now we also all have time for each other: time for slow morning starts, followed by gentle migrations downstairs and maybe an afternoon walk along the river if we’re feeling up to it.

I know that all of this will get harder, in many different ways. But I think I was so prepared for it to be so tough from the beginning, I didn’t quite realise how wonderful this time could be. I mean, even changing his nappy is so strangely enjoyable… just to know that he’s working properly, and that I can help him when he needs me. It’s lovely.

Randi kept a diary of the birth itself, so we both have something to help us remember the details in 10/20/30 years if our child ever asks about it. Suffice to say, we made two attempts to get into King’s College Hospital that night, and I felt intense relief in the triage room on the second try when the midwife confirmed that Randi was now sufficiently dilated to be admitted. This was already after midnight, so it really wasn’t very long before he was actually born, but in those critical hours I can’t imagine a more incredible team of midwives looking after us. You’re all so amazing. Thank you.

And then, once he arrived, we were lucky enough to get everything we’d been promised from the ‘Golden Hour’ and then some: just hours and hours together in that private room, before anyone in the outside world even knew he existed, relishing our first skin-to-skin contact with our new baby. Plus that magical tray of tea and yoghurt with a giant stack of golden buttered toast! (Is that toast universal? Would recommend.)

In short, I feel very grateful both for the amazing care we received, and that we didn’t need anything out of the ordinary. But, if we had, I know that we were in the right place. 💙

And yes, obviously we have tons of photos… and he is very cute! I’ll resist turning this blog into a feed of baby pictures, though, and just thank everyone who has sent cards, gifts, meals, love and general well wishes into our bubble. Also a massive shout-out to the community midwife who visited us the morning after our first (terrifying) night of sleep at home, and then sat on our bedroom floor for an hour and a half to answer all of our questions and do observations without us even needing to get dressed.

We’ve also had wonderful visits from Granny G and Aunty Tash from my side of the family, and from Bubbe, Zayde and Uncle Alex on the other. Oh, and on day 5 we’ve even had Baby’s First Trip to A&E – don’t worry, everything is fine – which is just a reminder that we’re about to be hit by so many more firsts in quick succession, whether we’re ready or not.

Am I nervous and scared? Of course. But I’m also so excited. He’s finally here, and we’re doing this!

Update on moving house: we did it!

Well, I say ‘we’, but most of the actual moving credit should go to the amazing people at Finest Van, who also came and packed everything the day before. They really do go above and beyond and are highly recommended if you are looking for a moving service in London.

We’re also very grateful to Sienna for coming to stay with us that week! Not only did she give us lots of practical help during the move (including cooking a giant curry and helping us figure out where to hang everything in the new place) but we also had such a lovely evening together on the final night. We have five years of amazing memories from a flat which we truly loved, so it was really nice to just sit together around the staircase – all the furniture having been packed already – and reminisce.

Our new house is very exciting but also feels absurdly large for just the two of us. I’ve been assured that it won’t take long for us to feel differently. In the meantime, we’ve just been desperately trying to work through our top priority list before the baby arrives: unpacking all of the boxes (tick), getting the whole house recarpeted with something soft (tick), acquiring a cooker so we can cook food again (tick). And last night, Ewa and Mario came round with a drill to hang everything on the walls downstairs – including the famous railway departure board! – so now it’s really starting to feel like home. (Thanks! You guys are the best!)

Unsurprisingly we haven’t been out and about all that much recently, although we did enjoy a really fun evening with the rest of our NCT class at the Perry Hill pub, and as a Friday night surprise Randi also took me to a new (and delicious) Polish restaurant which she discovered has opened in Crystal Palace. I also had a great night out with my uncle Andy after work, the two of us entirely unaffected by the Tube strike thanks to the growing list of Tube-like things which aren’t-technically-the-Tube.

And for the purposes of making sure she gets into the blog, I’m just going to pre-emptively guess that Randi and I enjoy having Reema over this afternoon for a big shakshuka lunch! (If it turns out to be awful, I guess I’ll just have to come back and add a postscript.)

Last but certainly not least: last weekend was Ellie and Michael’s wedding up in Lutterworth! Randi was understandably not up for travelling, so I hopped on the train from St Pancras to Market Harborough solo. Apparently the big crowd I passed heading in the other direction was a group of far-right supporters on their way to enjoy their Big Nazi Day Out in central London, but I was running late so just assumed it was some sporting thing.

We’d already booked a room at the hotel where the wedding was taking place, so after imploring one of Ellie’s cousins who I’d never met to tie my tie for me (thanks!) I checked-in and then headed downstairs to third-wheel with Simon and Fleur.

Hanging out together over the course of the wedding was super fun, combined with helpful doses of baby talk and life advice, and although Simon was upset at me for sending back Randi’s starter and main course at dinner I tried to redeem myself by hanging on to her crumble at the end to share. All of the food, much like the rest of the wedding, was fantastic.

I’ve only met Michael once – and haven’t seen Ellie in a while, either – so it was really nice to learn more about him from the excellent wedding speeches, and from the rest of our table which turned out to consist of Michael’s semi-professional quiz team. They seemed very nice and intimidatingly knowledgeable. Plus, there’s clearly some air of mystery attached to this group, because later on in the night we were approached by a drunken man with a slightly wild look in his eyes, who asked:

“Hey, are you guys on Michael’s quiz team?”
“Oh, no no no…”
“But… you were sitting on their table!”
“Oh, yes, but we were just interlopers. We’re not quizzers.”
“Hmm… OK” he said, clearly still suspicious, before storming off again – presumably still on the hunt. I have no idea what this was all about, but I’m just glad I verified that the quiz team was alive and well on the dancefloor later, or I worry I would have become a side-character in an Agatha Christie murder mystery.

After a very hearty English breakfast the next morning, Simon and Fleur kindly dropped me off back in Market Harborough where I hung around in a café for a bit, confirmed that Randi hadn’t unexpectedly gone into labour overnight and then headed home. Our new home! (In which, incidentally, a succession of cats are now taking it in turns to watch intently from the garden. It’s as if they’re on duty…)

As we’ve gotten closer to the baby’s due date, it’s increasingly the case that any social events with friends and family have been subtly (or not-so-subtly) redirected to ours rather than going out. So there’s been quite a roll call of visitors over the past month or so, starting with Kim, who kindly managed to squeeze in all the Selfs on her recent work trip from Australia! We started at Nonna Maria for dinner before retreating back to our flat, where I learnt all about Australia’s stressful auction process for purchasing homes.

Next we had Alix, Adam and Austin, who came to drop off a wide selection of baby essentials (thank you!) and stayed for a slice of my patented cheese-on-toast. (It’s not patented, and it was only for Austin. But it went down well.) Ross – a volunteer on the Midlothian election campaign – arrived with cheesecake, and after Randi’s tasty chickpea pasta we walked him to Train Station #1, said goodbye, realised all the trains were cancelled, reappeared and walked him to Train Station #2 instead, whereby Randi confused us with two random strangers and walked all along the platform having a stilted one-way conversation about the frequency of service at Crofton Park.

Matt and Laura visited a few days later with their kids for a Sunday strata and Magna-Tiles construction session. It hadn’t felt like that long since we last saw them, but long enough for sleeping baby to be replaced by something much bouncier and livelier! But this was nothing compared to shakshuka with Oliver and Abi a week later, whose daughter came to our wedding as a tiny newborn but now appeared at our doorstep as a walking, talking and counting (lots of counting!) delight of a person. (Dear kids: sorry, I always found it really, really annoying when adults greeted me with some observation about how I was bigger than the last time they saw me. I’m going to try really hard not to do this in person.)

Occasionally we have ventured out: for example, to the Mayflower for a wonderful evening with AJ’s business partner Matt, his partner Julie and their two sons on a family holiday to London from Chicago. Their boys are both massively into Doctor Who, amongst many other interesting topics, and I very much enjoyed their deepdive into various Whoniverse facts even though I’m a little scared that they actually knew more than me. In return, we introduced them to sticky toffee pudding and tried to inoculate their young minds against Hershey’s.

With Matt and Julie, we also heard first-hand stories of the bizzaro trade-offs in American hospital births, e.g. the difference between arriving at the hospital at 11.59pm and 00:01am, or being born on 31st December vs. 1st January. (In case you’re wondering, pick the latter and then the former.) Oh, and they also gifted us a model CTA train as a baby gift! A truly lovely family, and we now bear a grudge against AJ for withholding them from us for all of these years.

It’s been so long since my last post that in the intervening weeks we also started – and then completed – our entire NCT course. I know the big joke about NCT is that it’s mostly just a way to make friends, and in fact we did try to win brownie points with the other couples by bringing our big fan along on the hottest days. But it was also incredibly useful as a learning exercise in its own right, with a nice open-minded atmosphere balanced by some strong guidance where our instructor felt it was warranted. Would recommend.

But the main event over the past few weeks has been Randi’s parents staying with us. As usual they were incredibly generous guests by doing a whole lot of cooking and shopping for us – thanks, guys! Their stay coincided with the grand reopening of one of our closest pubs: The Foresters Arms (formerly All Inn One), which now features an exciting array of tacos and side dishes in addition to drinks. We even ran into Jordan & Michaela from NCT there on opening night… see, we’re making friends already.

Speaking of pubs, we also took them to one of our favourites, Perry Hill, and observed another giant NCT group out in the garden with their new babies and spectacular array of prams.

Our other big outing with Beth and Stu was to Battersea Power Station, where we took Lift 109 up in one of the chimneys for a great panoramic view across London. The weather was perfect for it, and although the view of the trains snaking around at ground level is somehow not as captivating as what you can see from the Shard (sorry, Victoria) we still very much enjoyed this perspective over the city.

Other recent adventures have included: leaving drinks for Annie’s last week at work (boo!) which devolved into an intense quiz on US state capitals, pizza with Bronwen, a visit with Tash to my Grandma’s for probably the last time in that flat (the end of an era) and an evening at Mercato Metropolitano with my mum, who pointed out that back in her days working at Elephant & Castle they had no such fancy food options. (Oh, and that buzzer I accidentally stole on my last visit? The guy was surprisingly grateful to have it returned.)

But the other big news is… (drumroll)… we’re also moving! I haven’t blogged about this yet as ever since we started doing viewings back in March we’ve both been mentally prepared for the whole process to fail – which would have been fine, as we do really love our current flat. But, now that we’ve exchanged contracts I think it’s fair game to say that we’ll be in a new house by early September. We’re very excited to be getting it done before the baby arrives, and won’t have to balance that with any sadness about leaving the area because, as it happens, we’re not even leaving our street. Which did make all of the local area searches feel a bit redundant, but we love it here, so it’s great to be able to stay and move at the same time.

Finally, a massive thank you to furniture heroes Tash and Cormac, who came over yesterday after a Lazy Chef brunch to manoeuvre our giant IKEA NORDLIs around some very tight staircase curves! Randi definitely feared for everyone’s lives, but I’m happy to confirm that it got done without any visits to A&E, with just some minor trouser damage and a casualty drawer.