Friday 15 April 2011

Meet Kylie

I did mention "big news" a few weeks ago - just before the kids got that nasty bug and I was running around like a headless chicken trying to sort everything for our mystery guest. 







































I'd like to introduce Kylie to you. She is my new person. She is our friend, our extra pair of hands, our ally in the rom-com vote department. She has been with us for two weeks today and this is the first time I've had an opportunity to tell you about her, and its only because she has taken the kids out an a walk. We have been super busy, and if Im honest I shouldn't even be doing this right now! But I cant resist. 


































She will be with us until September. Longer if I have my way! 





We took her to London's Bourough Market, and a stroll down the South Bank of the Thames, starting at Hayes Galleria. The boys enjoying taking in the battle ship HMS Belfast before settling at a sweet french seafood restaurant for lunch with the kids. Asher stole my calamari pan starter and demolished it, with a fork. 


The market was busy so I didn't get many pictures, but I couldn't resist these French sisters delights. I might have bought three of those tarts and not shared. 




















































































































We are delighted to have our sweet new addition - not least of all because I got to do up a VERY girly room! More on that when I find the pictures I took of it. For now, take in this gorgeous London market!

































JOY! for the arrival of figs. They land up in breakfast, salads, desserts, preserves, cakes, meat mains and anything else I can sneak them into over the summer. 

Our time at the Tate might have run smoother had people paid attention to the sign below. Needless to say, liftfulls of able bodies adults took the lift ahead of us and our pushchair. No less than FIVE liftfulls. 



























The view from the third floor of the gallery through the original power plant windows is something to behold. I love London Symmetry when you find it. This kind of symmetry is ALL OVER Paris, but finding it in London is a little more challenging. 




























We finished our day at a fascinating exhibition with over a million hand crafted porcelain sunflower seeds. Read about it here. Each one individual. So special. Come on, follow that link. 



I Im hosting two showers this weekend and catering and doing the flowers for a wedding next weekend so you may not see much of me, but Im thinking of you all! Much love ladies xxx

Sunday 10 April 2011

Anniversay!

This week we celebrated four years of marriage. We have spent 204 weeks together as husband and wife. 204 saturday mornings, many of which were not lie ins. I estimate that we have had at least 204 arguments. 




We've had 48 pay days, many spent trusting God for the miraculous in our finance. He has never, ever not come through. 


18 months of pregnancy. 24 months of breastfeeding. 14 weeks recovering from caesarean sections. Two children's first breaths, steps and words. One first day of school. 


We have had three home addresses. 




Less than a dozen date nights. 




We have spent a total of 21 weeks of our married life on different continents to each other. 


We have hosted people in our home 34 times, that excludes friends visiting us on vacation. 


I have spent more than 500 hours shopping for food, and more than 3000 hours preparing it. We have cooked many meals and washed lots of dishes. We have also done LOTS of laundry.


I've driven just under 10 000 miles on british roads, yet never taken our car further than three hours away from home. 


Looking at it like that our four years seem mundane. Full to the brim with ordinary. And in many ways it has been - most of life is ordinary. Full of chores, work, struggles and challenges, but, with each challenge, we have over come. In each battle we have found victory and there in lies the reason our life has felt extraordinary. So full of joy and adventure. 

We're  only 10% of the way to our 40 year anniversary, when I may feel old and wise enough to give you advise on marriage. For now I have just this to share: Looking at these photos I'm reminded of how we've made it though 204 weeks of the mundane. While the moments of inconceivable joy have played their part in sustaining us through the ordinary, the real reason we still wake up in the same bed is what happened on the 7th of April 2007. 

We made a choice. To love, to honour, to cherish, to trust, to be a leader, to be lead. And every morning when we wake up, we make that choice all over again. We honour each other as belonging to Christ. We honour our promise that we made before Him. And sometimes we don't. But then we ask for forgiveness and then we make that choice again. We work through the tough times. We dance in the kitchen in the middle of washing up dinner dishes. We bless each other with our "mundane" choices. He picks up his socks. I buy our food. And somehow, in all of that, He pours out more and more love and we fall deeper and deeper into it. 

I never imagined it could get sweeter yet, each year that passes, it does. Thank you Lord for your blessing over us. We love you. 



Tuesday 5 April 2011

One Month

Its been a whole month since I had my lovely post birthday day out with some ladies, but I can't resist posting all of things I had lined up before life took over and left me wondering how on earth its April 2011.  I keep accidentally typing 2001. I remember writing that date like it was yesterday - it feels much more appropriate. 2011 on paper looks space-age. But here it is. A decade has whizzed by at the speed of light and most days I wake up feeling like I should be rounding up my books for school - not rounding up my kids books for school. 

I "recently" had my first day out with friends in a number of years. I've since had another so I cant write with the same conviction about how much I needed it, loved it, need them more... I now feel a little guilty abandoning my man with spot covered toddlers and heading out in heels. 

The heels in question may have meant that I took a black cab from the station to the gallery - but I simply needed to show the bridge view. You needed to see it, right?





The London Eye, Big Ben and Parliament 



























St Pauls Cathedral, The Gherkin 

























This day started with a sweet friend (who we have since passed the kids horrific disease onto!) celebrating her 30th with a swanky high tea and the National Dining Rooms and the National Gallery. Champagne, scones, tarts and tea with aloof impeccably mannered staff to complete the experience. 

Sweet birthday girl Caro  - now down with HFMD


































































After and hour at tea, I met my sweet friend Jules and showed her to the Impressionist rooms in the gallery - a little Renoir, Degas, Monet and their cronies go a long way to making the afternoon feel even more special. We studied those paintings together, so being together with them in the same room brought with it and unspoken magic. It completed a bonding experience started a full decade ago, back when writing the date 2001 felt acceptable, where we longed to have our futures unfold before us - long before we longed for life to have brakes, the days when pedalled onward toward adulthood with vigour and expectation. 





























Jules and I plus part of Nelsons column and trafalgar square


We struck gold at St Martins church off the square where the orchestra where practicing some Bach for their upcoming concert. Its a treasured discovery - you can sit in on their practice sessions on the weekends free of charge. We sat for nearly an hour before heading out to Harrods to Laduree for Macarons. 


St Martins






































A little comedy never hurt - unless you're the owner of this bike outside Harrods. Woops. 

This is not art work - this used to be someones bike... 






































A quick stop in at Laduree and a walk through the luxury shoe boudoir is all that we managed before Harroods shut shop, so we finished the evening with some window shopping. Have you EVER seen such lace!?



 















































I'll be back again soon with more gap filling news - I've missed you guys. x
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