I’m late! For a very important date!

Mark was out of bed with more agility this morning, so the excitement of Archie barking and Mark telling him to stop (it’s hard to get out of the habit of spoken instruction even when we all know the dog is deaf) was a wee mystery until I could manouevre myself to the living room.

There, calmly hopping through our garden, was a beautiful white rabbit.  Archie was going berserk at the french doors so we had to lock him in the spare room.  After a little bit of chasing round the garden, we managed to get the rabbit in a very depe cardboard box, from which it escaped (of course) once we got inside, but Mark was quick enough to catch it on the way down.  It’s now in the spare room (without the dog, obviously) in the dark with two heavy bits of baby paraphenalia on the box lid, and some carrot sticks to munch on.

And as soon as I’ve had my brekkie (mmmm, porridge waits for no rabbit) and as soon as it’s a decent hour so the neighbours don’t get pissy, I shall door knock until I find its owners.  Yea, verily.  And if I can’t find the owners I shall put up some FOUND! signs and then if worst comes to worst the city’s RSPCA is only one block from my house.

Pregnancy fashion

Part Two of my How To Look Fiiiine During Pregnancy: Accessorising.

Part One: The Ensemble can be seen here.

Every girl wonders how to successfully accessorise her Beautiful Bump (excuse me while I vomit)… can one still fit this year’s trend, the wide, low-slung belt?  Is that necklace a no-no next to my puffy face?  Should I take off the titanium wedding band now, while it still fits, or wait until I’m in labour and then have it cut off for extra excitement?

For those who are drawn to accessories of the electronic variety, I have recently stumbled upon the perfect solution, to be worn 24 hours a (single) day:

The Holter.

First things first: The Holter Neck.  I usually avoid halter necks, because I have narrow sloping shoulders and they are very unflattering.  But the Holter Neck beautifully draws [lots of] attention to the base of the neck, like so:

Generally one does not need to display the stomache to complete the look.  In this photo I am merely going for maxmum impact with minimum fuss.

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Next: The low slung belt.

Fully adjustable, it draws attention to the firm, taut skin of your abs.  Or, at least what’s left of them.

For this picture, I tried to achieve the higher positioning of the belt.  Generally, though, it slips down to a low position of its own accord.

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In the next picture, the belt is slung low to maximise the display of taut skin:

Please note that once in position, the belt should not be moved, so as to avoid unsightly indentations of the skin as seen in the photo to the right.

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Finally, the complete look:

 

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That was probably the most uncomfortable 24 hours of my life.  And the discomfort didn’t end when the monitor came off; in removing the electrode pads and miles of tape, a few patches of skin decided they wanted to shift to new real estate too and emigrated.  Thanks, guys.  The already-sore, chafed spot under my breasts really appreciated your sudden decampment.  Not.

Dinner Overboard!

Or rather, I went a little overboard with dinner last night.  Mark didn’t mind, though, and the whining the dog was doing suggested it smelled pretty good.

We had lamb cutlets marinaded in olive and sesame oil, fresh-outta-the-garden rosemary, basil and chives, lime juice, sea salt and balsamic vinegar, served on a bed of (very) creamy potato + sweet potato mash, with a side of butter-simmered shallots and grape tomatoes, and drizzled with the leftover marinade mixed with the shallot/tomato buttery juices and some quince jelly.  Sigh – yum!

Followed by homecooked quinces and quince jelly with not-homemade french vanilla icecream.

Tonight we’re having roast vegetable and osso bucco stew followed by persimmon sorbet and icecream.  The persimmon sorbet is an experiment – I saw it done on a cooking show the other day and want to see if it works.  And if I like persimmon.  The idea is to freeze the persimmon fruit, then take it out of the freezer for about two hours, slice in half, and serve with icecream.  Apparently the flesh will freezeand then semi-thaw into the consistency of sorbet.  If I don’t like it, I can fall back on the leftover quince from last night.  And I’ll be getting extra quinces at the markets on the weekend with which to make quince paste so I can have that cheaply with cheese and crackers or with meat for ages – it keeps almost indefinitely in the fridge, according to my fave cookbook.