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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.

Hello, loyal blog readers! As many of you know – but maybe some of you don’t – my last few posts have omitted a few things. Because while I did write about everything from our muddy walks in Shoreham to our windy walks in Kirkcaldy, I didn’t mention that Randi and I are also expecting a baby in October. But we are! So, please just mentally insert a lot of extra paragraphs about hospital scans, midwife appointments and test-driving pushchairs in John Lewis, because we’ve been doing all of that too.

We’re very excited, but also, I’m not the one who’s pregnant, so you’ll have to find Randi’s top-secret pregnancy blog to read all about that. (I’m joking, there is no such thing.) (Or is there?) (There is not.) Once the baby is born I’m still planning to carry on with this blog in some shape or form, but obviously everything in our lives is also about to change, so let’s just see what happens.

In the meantime I’m going to carry on with a regular catch-up. But for those of you who were already in on the secret – or figured it out from all of the clues in the post titles – thank you for all of your love and support so far!

When we left off Randi’s parents had just arrived in London, and since then we enjoyed two weeks together with (mostly) sunny conditions. (Unfortunately, this did mean we were all wearing shorts when I erroneously led us down a narrow alleyway lined by stinging nettles.) As usual Beth and Stu cooked us a series of delicious meals – making friends with our local butcher in the process – but on one of their hard-earned nights off, Randi took us all out to Strangers’ Dining Room in Parliament for dinner. And for the first time, it was light enough to go out on the terrace first!

Together with Tash, Katie and Cormac, we also got a chance to visit Lea’s exhibition Zines Forever! DIY Publishing and Disability Justice at the Wellcome Collection. As someone who as a child once ‘published’ a twice-weekly newsletter with a total possible audience of four people – not so different from this blog! – I’m inherently quite fond of the concept of zines. If you’re not familiar, here’s Lea’s explainer. And on top of that, I’m also in favour of any exhibition which induces people to sit quietly in the corner and read.

After the exhibition we all had lunch together, followed by a round of complimentary teas and coffees for which none of us had a good explanation. Then Randi, Beth, Stu and I popped into the British Library – so really exploring the full spectrum of publishing – before meeting up with Andrew and Bonnie for a production of The Gang of Three.

I’m not sure whether this play was truly excellent or merely very, very well chosen for political nerds, but we loved it, even if (from the perspective of factional Labour Party politics) it’s one of those hands-over-your-eyes moments when the leadership totally blows it and the party is left adrift for two decades. It’s the mid-1970s, and Roy Jenkins, Anthony Crosland and Denis Healey are all vying to succeed Harold Wilson as leader. Despite being broadly in agreement about the future direction of the party, they’re unable to unite behind one candidate, partly (of course) because of personal ambition but also – at least as I see it – because there’s no one obvious standout contender. As a result, of course, they all lose, and we know what happened next.

The play itself is witty and fast-moving with excellent performances from all three actors, although during the flashback scene to their Oxford University days I did find the portrayal of a young Jenkins to be significantly more convincing than young Crosland. Many thanks to Andrew and Bonnie for snagging tickets to this!

The other planned activity with Randi’s parents was a cooking class at the Jamie Oliver Cooking School in Highbury, not far from where I used to live. (Indeed, we walked back via Drayton Park and Highbury Fields afterwards so I could say hello.) We’d opted for the Mexican street food class which resulted in some very tasty tacos, with tortillas pressed and kept warm in a cute little tin foil pouch until serving. Food highlight: chipotle chicken. Lesson highlight: mind-bending onion slicing efficiency.

Talking of food: as a joint celebration of Randi and Tash’s birthdays, last Friday we ventured up to Seven Sisters for Nigerian tapas together at Chuku’s. Everything was delicious, including the cocktails, and it was only social politeness which allowed the last few suya meatballs to survive on the table for so long.

The next day, Randi and I visited the Picturehouse Central (a beautiful venue, by the way!) to join the coordinated cinema screenings for the two-part Doctor Who season finale. This definitely triggered some mixed emotions. The immediate future of Doctor Who is now more uncertain than it’s ever been since the 2005 revival, and while I agree with those who say it can never truly die – Doctor Who will always come back, it’s just a question of when – it’s sad to contemplate another period in the wilderness. But more pressingly, I wasn’t ready to lose Ncuti Gatwa, and his regeneration was frustrating given that it seemed bolted-on to the story at the last minute, tied to a weird character twist for Belinda which I didn’t buy. Regeneration is always a double-edged sword, but this didn’t feel right.

That said, it is obviously always a thrill to see Doctor Who on the big screen and the story itself felt very well-suited for it. I loved The Rani – both of them – and I just hope we see them again. [Update: After watching the utterly lovely Doctor Who Unleashed special tonight celebrating the last 20 years, I realised I forgot to mention how excellent the scene with Jodie Whittaker returning to the TARDIS was. Loved that too.]

Finally, we saw mum last night for Thai food and a play at the Hampstead Theatre: House of Games. This is an adaption of a 1987 film which was first staged in 2010, set in Chicago at an ambiguous time. (I mean, it’s clearly still supposed to be around 1987, but it just bugged me when someone claimed to be able to play Snake on a cell phone.) Essentially this is the story of a long con, with the charismatic Mike – aided by a clever band of accomplices – seducing Margaret, a straight-laced psychiatrist and successful author, into an expensive scam.

Randi and I both likened this to a page-turning thriller. Unlike, say, a play at the Bush, the production is deliberately tuned for comedy and intrigue rather than raw emotion. This is absolutely not a production about the deep scars which con artists leave on their victims. This is not a complaint… sometimes you just want a fun Saturday night out at the theatre! But Randi was less forgiving of the dodgy American accents (it really didn’t feel like Chicago) and I think we were both surprised at how dramatically the ending has been softened from the original film, which – at least based on reading the summary, I haven’t seen it – suggests that it would provide a much more satisfying character act for Margaret.

Besides the accents, though, we enjoyed ourselves. The staging was also excellent, with a two-level set design featuring the brightly-lit psychiatrist office sitting above Mike’s disreputable bar. As it happens we were there on closing night, however, so if you were interested in seeing either of the plays in this post… it’s too late, sorry!

Lots to catch-up on in the last month, but I’ll start by belatedly celebrating this blog’s 21st birthday back on 27th April. (“You want photos for your blog?” asked my guide back in Chongqing. “That’s very old school! I haven’t heard that word in a long time.”)

Legally speaking, 21 is much less of a big deal than it used to be, but it turns out that there are still some rights which accrue at this age, at least in the UK. These include driving a bus, getting paid the full minimum wage, obtaining a helicopter licence and applying to adopt a child – although based on the experience of friends who have adopted, there’s no chance you’d still be 21 by the end of the process. Still, happy birthday blog, and I hope there’s still at least one other blog left in the 21+ clubs and bars for you!

We hosted Andrew, Bonnie and my mum for lunch the weekend after we got back, waxing lyrical about Chinese trains until they thought we’d joined the CCP. The weekend after, as part of the May bank holiday, I took a significantly slower train up to Edinburgh to join Randi in Scotland. Thanks as always to Katie and James for being such amazing hosts and for introducing us to Jet Lag, a YouTube series in the Amazing Race \ Race Across The World genre which I’ve known about for ages (I watch plenty of videos on their other channels!) but had never given a chance. Together we blitzed through one of their European games of tag, which was excellent, and since then Randi and I have started working through the rest.

Having all caught up with Doctor Who we also watched that week’s episode together, which provoked some mixed reactions! I think it’s fair to say that this season hasn’t felt as consistent as last year’s (which I thought was phenomenal from episode 3 onwards) although there have still been plenty of strong points, including the opening episode and the unexpected sequel to Midnight. But we also really enjoyed last night’s The Interstellar Song Contest, which (a) contained some very special moments, and (b) was a pleasant dose of Eurovision given that, for logistical reasons, we ended up skipping the main event this year.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Scotland – and on Saturday, Katie’s childhood-inspired tea party for Kirsty and Roger, complete with some very legit egg mayo sandwiches. The next day, Randi and I took the train up to Kirkcaldy to see Lea and Abi, without even realising the coincidence that two of our mums were – at that very moment – hiking through Peru together. I won’t claim that Kirkcaldy felt as adventurous as that, but we had a really lovely time at Lea and Abi’s house before walking along the riverfront\seafront together (this is a matter of some dispute), getting to see their studio space and learning about doocots. Thank you both for hosting us!

It wouldn’t be a trip to Edinburgh without a breakfast at La’Telve in Morningside, although I don’t seem to have actually mentioned this before during the first 21 years of this blog, so now I’m officially putting that right and asking you to backfill every previous post about Edinburgh in your head. Suitably filled with tatty scones, haggis and a legitimately really good breakfast burrito, we rolled back down to London on the still-not-as-fast-as-China train on bank holiday Monday.

The next weekend was equally busy, starting with a Saturday matinee of Cockfosters with Steven and Sadie. I was really looking forward to seeing this, especially given that Tash had recommended it during a previous run but the dates just hadn’t worked out. Essentially, it’s a wacky romantic comedy about finding love on the Piccadilly line, with a very fast-paced sketch show aesthetic as different side characters get on and off the (beautifully realistic!) Tube carriage set. A particular highlight was the North/East/South/West London rap battle, for which it felt like South London came off rather well. But it was all a lot of fun, as were drinks afterwards together at the Mercato Metropolitano.

And talking of South London: on Sunday we enjoyed a brunch feast with new South London converts Tess and Hugo at their new (and nearby!) flat, together with fleeting North London visitors Carolyn and Maria. Welcome to the neighbourhood, guys!

The next section feels more surreal to write, but on Tuesday I officially became German.

As with so many other families, Brexit prompted my mother’s generation to investigate whether there was a path to reacquiring European citizenship. For us, this was indeed possible due to the fact that my grandfather was German – leaving as a child to escape Nazi persecution of Jews – and the German government has long had a special legal process in place to restore citizenship rights to those who lost it during this period.

Until Brexit this never felt particularly relevant, but on Tuesday, Tash and I became the last in our immediate family to naturalise at a special ceremony at the German Ambassador’s residence. I’m hugely grateful to all of the embassy staff who were so diligent and thoughtful in helping us through the process.

Other than getting into the right airport queue, I have no way of knowing whether this will impact my own life very much… who’s to say? But given the uncertainties of the world, it felt like the right thing to keep this in the family, especially since – once the chain is broken – citizenship is often completely impossible for future generations to reclaim. Plus, I got to enjoy a delicious currywurst and half-pint of Adlerkönig at Stein’s afterwards with Tash and Cormac 🙂 🇩🇪

Finally – Beth and Stu are back in London! They arrived last week in time for Randi’s birthday on Saturday, which we celebrated with a return trip to Oxleas Woods and the celebrated Oxleas Woods Café. It’s great to see them back during this sunny weather, and they’ve already been on a successful Golders Green quest to fill our home with challah, babka and rugelach.

Editorial note: Yes, this blog title has been carefully formulated to be as boring and unappetising as possible. It’s a skill, available on request.