Spider Family

This rather large spider was hanging about in our kitchen all last week, minding her own business. Then at the weekend we noticed she'd come to rest in a quiet corner and was now surrounded by little tiny dots.
I took a picture and saw that the little dots were little spider babies. Ibs counted 42 of them.
We haven't got the heart to move the spider family and think it's good karma for the house. However, we're a little bit worried that the house may soon be over whelmed with giant spiders.


Jane's beautiful lillies have fully bloomed and smelling fantastic.

On Tuesday I cooked Mark and Stephen this quick risotto, from a recipe given to me by Brother-in-Law Matthew. We added Stephen's lovely Mediterranean salad and scoffed it down, watching Sopranos, Series 4 Episodes 4 to 6. It's a great season so far, especially since Steve Buscemi has joined the cast.

21 weeks and 5 Days

Little One is 21 Weeks and 5 Days old today and went for his 2nd scan.
He was being quite elusive and shy, with his head deep inside Ibs' pelvis and kicking his legs up in the air, just under her rib cage. There was lots of movement and in the picture you can see him tapping his fingers, like playing the piano, on his head.

The scan and measurements seemed to take an age because of Little One's awkward position and I was hugely anxious waiting for the nurse to say that everything is normal as as it should be, which it is.

It was wonderful to see him again, we got a front on view of his face and saw eyes, nose and mouth in such detail, it felt like being face to face.

Porkolt Tarhonya

At home on Sunday afternoon and Little One got a big dose of his musical heritage. Ibs played Miles Davis, who I have my Dad to thank for making important to me, whilst she cooked a wonderful Hungarian dish called 'porkolt' with 'tarhonya' and made an incredible courgette cake.

I continued painting the nursery and we both tuned into Radio 3 so Little One could hear Prom 4 part 2, folk music from the British Isles and Transylvania, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains and Moldova. That was followed by Bartok's Romanian Dances and a new 'Hungarian' inspired piece by Kathryn Tickell.

Radio 3 followed that with a beautiful choral evensong, from Eaton College Chapel, which was exactly what my sisters and I would have been singing, right at that time, on Sunday evenings, when we were children.

Sharnbrook

Had a couple of drinks with Jerry and Alex after work on Friday night and cycled home, via the chip shop, for an early night with Ibs.

Up very early on Saturday morning for Ibs and I to get to St. Pancras and catch the 9.30 train to Bedford to see my twin sister and her family in Sharnbrook.

The Bennett family (SMOG) are Sara, my brother in law Matthew, my nephews Oliver and George and the very newest member of our family, my little 4 month old niece, Florence.

This was the second time we'd met her and she's just the most gorgeous, little poppet.

Bedford station was the first time we'd seen Ibs' new marketing campaign in action.

Florence.

Rabbits at work in the garden.

Matthew, Florence and George.
Oliver.

Brunswick Centre

On Wednesday evening, Ibs and I were sat at our computer when she thought she felt Little One moving inside her tummy. She'd felt butterflies a little before, which is supposed to be early movements but this sensation was defiantly more like little kicks. I held my hand on her upper tummy to see if I could feel any kicks coming through but they're weren't quite strong enough. But it was thrilling to think of Little One, making himself known, at last.

Last night, Ibs had the same kicking sensations and with my hand on her tummy, I defiantly felt one big kick, strong enough for me to feel. The kicks have only happened so far, when we've been together at night so we think Little One is responding to the sound of our voices and wanting to join in on our time together.

On Thursday evening we watched a wonderful film about Alastair Cooke on BBC4, I think called 'The Unseen Alastair Cooke'. It was a portrait of his life seen through his recently discovered home movies. Cooke has always been for me the perfect role model and the epitome of English Gentleman. Beautifully dressed, erudite and urbane. He is one of the very greatest broadcasters of our age and a unique, compassionate witness to the 20th Century. I still feel the hole at 8.45 on Friday evenings where 'Letter from America' used to be on Radio 4.

The past few days have been a marathon of cycling. On Thursday morning I cycled from home to Tufnell Park, from there to Millbank and in the afternoon to Hammersmith and then home. This morning I cycled from home to Southwalk and then on to Millbank and home in the evening. It must be something like 60km in 2 days.
It was exhilarating seeing some different routes through the city and I loved seeing some old favourite buildings of mine. Here are a few.

The Brunswick Centre. As remarkable a feet of urban regeneration in London as I know. I used to live round the corner and always admired it even in it's worst, most neglected days.

179 Harrow Road. One of my absolute favourite buildings, in the world. One day, I will live here.

This building, just behind Russell Square is new to me. A beautifully restored deco, industrial premises.

The glorious Post Office Tower.

National Theatre.

The Hoax

Our lovely robins have returned to the garden. Two of them have reappeared, after several months, at the end of last week and we're so happy to see them again.

They couldn't be more friendly and always keep an eye on us and keep us company when we're in the garden. They have a lovely chirruping whistle that carries through the house, when the windows are open. Ibs saw one of them feeding a small blackbird the other day.

Ibs made her fantastic stir-fry again last night, probably even better than her last.

We're trying to get better value of out our Lovefilm.com subscription so trying to watch more, sooner. Last night we watched a film I've been wanting to see for ages, 'The Hoax' by Lasse Hallstrom. It's the true story of Clifford Irving's fake Howard Hughes autobiography, with an exceptional cast; Richard Gere, in the title role (probably his best ever performance), Alfred Molina, who I've loved ever since 'Prick Up Your Ears', Hope Davies, the brilliant Marcia Gay Harden and the very beautiful, Julie Delpy.



I've been very interested by Irving's story since 1st seeing Orson Welles' 'F for Fake' which uses some of Irving's story and leads Welles to remunerate on his own relationship with Hughes and how he was close to using him as the model for Kane. Hughes has always fascinated me since being aware of his death in 1976 and all the scary stories about his bizarre life that filled the front pages of the Mirror and Mail at the time.

It wasn't long after that I watched and adored Tommy Lee Jones, in the made for TV movie, 'The Amazing Howard Hughes', giving me a long admiration of the actor and interest in Hughes' remarkable life.
'The Hoax' joins a sub-genre of terrific films that feature the Hughes enigma, including: 'The Aviator' and the very brilliant 'Melvin and Howard'. I just need Martin Scorsese to do 'The Aviator 2' and focus on the last, more interesting, half of Hughes' life.

Marylebone High St

I'd intended to go out on Saturday night with Jerry and a few others to Low Life's Pirate Party on the Thames but cried off with my gammy eye. Instead, I stayed home whilst my pregnant wife hit The Regent and The Paradise in Kensal Green, with her friends Claire and Joanna.

At least I felt fit and well on Sunday morning and had a bit of a lye in, reading our Miriam Stoppard 'Having a Baby' book and talking to Little One in Ibs's tummy.

After yesterday's breakfast left overs, we caught the tube to Marylebone High Street, looked round, with envy, at all the beautiful things in Skandium and changed to a smaller size the White Store bathrobe, Ibs bought me for our anniversary.

We then took a look round the farmers market and bought some bits and bobs including a rather nice chicken, which went from this

to this

served with my perfectly cooked roast potatoes and broccoli.

During the Sunday afternoon, I continued work on the nursery. The walls have now been skimmed and needed sanding down to prepare the surface for painting. As I worked, I listened to Stephen Fry's 4th itunes podgram, on my iPod, which was a retelling of his recent impassioned lecture about the future funding of the BBC.

After dinner we watched Wes Anderson's 'Darjeeling Limited'. I'd seen it at the pictures on release but was new to Ibs.

I have a great affection for Wes Anderson's movies, even though they are mannered, whimsical and superficial, they are always beautifully shot, with gorgeous soundtracks and always nicely cast with his repertory of actors. It also comes with a great short 'starter movie' too called 'Chevalier Hotel'.

Ibs's Tummy: Week 20

Ibs' amazing, beautiful tummy is growing now at an increasing rate and now at Week 20, Little One weighs 0.5 kg and is 18.5cm long! That's exactly the length of a DVD case.

It's an absolutely astounding feeling to run my hands over Ibs' tummy knowing that just beneath the surface, just a few centimeters away, our precious little bundle of love is sitting, safe and snug inside her womb.

We mostly refer to Little One as 'he' as Ibs' intuition is pretty confident it's a boy. We're talking to him even more now, especially since, according to Dr Stoppard's book, from week 20, he can hear our voices and sounds from outside the uterus and can respond to melody and rhythm.

So definantly lots of talking to, from now on, watching our language and playing a very careful selection of music.

I'm playing the Sigur Ros album 'Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust' a lot, knowing it's perfect, gentle and tender music for Little One to hear. Ibs was playing him Nina Simone when I got home tonight and yesterday I downloaded David Bowie's 'Peter and the Wolfe'. I can't wait to play the Little One Carl Orff's 'Music for Kinder'.

We're planning to put together a playlist of all our favourite music, for Ibs' ipod so Little One will get used to the music that's most important in our lives.

Saturday Brunch with the Hargreaves

We had the Heagreaves over for brunch on Saturday morning. That's my sister Jane, my brother in law Matthew and my beautiful neices and nephew, in order of age, Emilia, Hugo and Beatrice.

It's been a while since we've seen them so it was wonderful to catch up and enjoy their company. Time with them is always great fun. I was pretty pleased too with my food. I followed the Wolsely's breakfast template and had plenty left overs for Sunday too.

After we'd finished our food, went to the park at the bottom of our road.

Jane brought us these lovely flowers.