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Day in the Life

8.45am Wake up to baby Lucy babbling. Hear a little thumb-sucking. See a few wee fingers rise above the moses basket.

8.48am Get up and am greeted by a gummy baby. Happy and thumping her feet in excitement. One of my favourite things about having a baby is that they really think you are the BEST.

8.49.am After a few goos and gahs from me, I take Lucy to get her nappy changed. Her little sleeping bag is soaked with wee but she seems happy as a pig in poop. She babbles nonsense and attempts to eat my elbow.

9am Back to bed with Lucy wearing just her nappy. She’s too hungry to wait to get dressed. She mounts me like a monkey to feed. ARGGGH she growls with hunger.

9.20am Lucy finds her Daddy a little more interesting than my milk and sits up, chews her feet and stares at him. The three of us play about in bed for a while.

9.45am-11.30am We spend the next hour and three quarters eating breakfast, arguing, showering, deciding to take the tram, feeding Lucy, arguing, getting dressed, deciding not to take the tram, deciding to stay in, what’s the point it’s pouring rain and cold.

11.30am Finally in the car. As usual it feels like a expedition to the moon and not a family day out. Sat nav points us in the direction of the Japanese district and off we go.

11.45am Park right outside the Japan Store. Luck has it that Mr B always gets a good parking space.

11.47am Into Japan Store and have a wander about. Find some origami paper for Mr B’s latest project and browse the lovely things inside. Find a beautiful postcard book to give Mooosh or Mar-c for Christmas but decide at 22 euros they can survive without it. Sorry ladies!

Noon. After a short debate over whether it’s too posh for the likes of us, we venture along into the Hotel Nikko and go to the Benkay Restaurant. It’s posh but friendly and lovely inside. We are seated by pretty servers wearing traditional Japanese dress. I am fascinated by the patterns of the fabric and the interesting folds of the clothes.

Lucy is delighted with a new place to nosey at. For a bargain 12 euros each, we get an amazing set meal. Lucy enjoys her bottle of milk and eats a a funny angle so she can stare at the servers. She frowns at everybody passing by. Food eaten, nappy change, then off for a wander around the street. Not as many shops as we expected, but pleasant enough.

1.30pm Off to the computer shop which we never find even though the Sat nav lady says we’ve arrived at our destination.

2pm Into the Dusseldorf Arcaden for a wander. Lucy sleeps through a journey of typical shopping angst from me - ‘I don’t like anything, I can’t fit anything, I will try it on, I won’t fit it though, I am bursting out of this, I will buy it. I won’t.’ She wakens when I decide to buy nothing and actually declare the need for some Gok Wan action.

3.30pm Ahhhhhhh. Sigh of relief as I sit on the massage chair in a quiet part of the shopping centre. I always assumed these chairs just vibrated - how wrong I was! This mega-chair gives a full shiatsu massage and is so impressive I’m convinced that some man is hiding behind the chair massaging me. For 2 euros it’s a bargain. In the meantime Lucy is happy to have a bottle of milk.

3.40pm Ahhhhhh. It’s so good I decide to spend another 2 euros on another massage. The man next to me nods knowingly. Das Ist GUT he says.

After a quick scoot around Aldi’s (with Lucy laughing at everything - especially me. Did I ever mention how babies think you are SO funny. Like the funniest person that ever was, when I’m clearly not.) we head home. A problem with directions, traffic and irritating Sat nav lady means we have a SCREAMING baby who just wants to be out of the car seat NOW.

4.30pm Happy to be home. Phew.

5pm Another bottle for baby and I take her for a snooze. She snores on my chest and I feel nice and warm.

6.10pm Lucy lifts her head and spews down my front. My hair is rather sticky too. She smiles and yawns. She farts and goes to Daddy for some Daddy cuddles.

6.45pm Mr B makes a horse and bird with his origami paper.

7pm Mr B proceeds to show the origami horse to Lucy. She grabs it out of his hands and eats it faster than you can say SUSHI. Nom she says.

7.10pm After much cuddles, tickles and general staring at us, Lucy is ready for bed.

7pm-midnight Eat a lasagne from Plus (like Lidl but cheaper) with questionable mince, but it does the trick. The next few hours are spent surfing the net, sterlising and making baby bottles, expressing breast milk (yes, TMI but it’s what I do every night!) and tidying up. We watch the end of Stardust and go to bed happy in the knowledge that tomorrow we are all going swimming!

Other links to other bloggers will be posted as and when I get them. I nominate Claire to choose the next day.

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New beginnings.

It’s nice to be wandering around Wordpress again, finding my way into the rhythm of writing more than a few words. I realise my last post was in May. My life really has changed in six months. Lucy Alice Black was born on Sunday 5th July. 6lb, 15oz with a shock of black hair. She’s a rather happy wee baby and quite a delight to be around. We’re in love with our little girl -she’s wonderful. It’s been a hectic and crazy and altogether amazing time. I can barely believe that we also managed to squeeze in a move to Dusseldorf.

Lucy Alice Black

So things are changing. From the New Year, Merulapie will be closing. I’ll keep up the blog and Merulapie may well come back in the future, but for now it’s time to move on. I’d like to focus more on Lucy, crafting and writing again. There’s so much to explore in our new patch and I’ll share that with you soon…

The best news is that we’re going to have a HUGE closing down sale. There’s a 50% off discount code coming out soon! Come follow me on twitter where I’ll be tweeting the discount code tomorrow! (Wednesday) The lovely peeps from Miso Funky and Asking For Trouble are organising my orders, so they’ll still be posted from the UK with love.

Thanks for all your support - to my wholesalers, my sale-or-returners, my customers, all the people who I’ve met at the markets, the Glasgow Craft Mafia and my friends and family. It’s been a good year. Time for some new beginnings. Come see me soon; I’ll be here, writing out my new life.

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A Day In The Life

For the first time on this blog, here’s my Day In The Life as chosen by my lovely friend Claire from Miso Funky.

Saturday 9th May.

6am Wake up. Baby Black is gently dancing. Sun is shining. Fall back asleep.

10am Wake up. Baby Black is kicking. Grey clouds looming. Rain is coming. Get up and eat breakfast.

11am Chat to Mr B. Drink redbush tea. Generally lounge about as one should on a wet weekend.

1pm Shower and get dressed.

1.30pm Chat to Mum. We are both excited about a baby mat from the bargain wonderland that is Aldi. We decide my Dad is in charge of purchasing this on Sunday.

2pm Eat cheese and tomato toasted sandwich. Check Rangers scores. Find toast crumbs everywhere.

2.30pm Pouring rain outside. Brave the water to go for eye test. I love getting my eyes tested.

2.50pm Get a prime parking space in West End and head towards opticians. The air smells nice; of wet summer plants. I like.

3pm Eye test. Did I mention I LOVE getting my eyes tested? It always seems fun. All is fine. Slight long sightedness in left eye, but not enough to worry about or need a prescription. Enough to secretly irritate me though. I’m a perfectionist and after years of 20/20 vision I am filled with horror.  

4pm Back home. Chat to Mr B who is falling asleep. I mock him but slowly find myself getting tired too.

4.45pm Sister phones. They will be home soon. I can go visit. I close my eyes for two minutes…

5.15pm Dammit I fell asleep.

5.30pm At my sister’s house. Niece Eva is delighted with goodie bag of craft supplies I brought her. Nephew Josh is pretending to be shy.

5.45pm Chat to my sister and sit scrapbooking with Eva. She is very good at drawing and writing. “I like that very much. I do. So I do. I like it,” is her favourite phrase at the moment. Josh sits in high chair saying “choochoo” to his Thomas the Tank Engine comic.

7.30pm Children are bathed and put to bed. I chop mushrooms for dinner. Brother-in-law tells me about £10,000 competition at Domino’s Pizza. We discuss pizza at length.

8.30pm Dinner is seafood pasta and perfect. My sister never makes a bad meal.

9pm Brother-in-law wanders off muttering about pizza again. I produce a long list of baby questions and proceed to quiz my sister about what I need to purchase for baby Black.

10pm We eat ice-cream.

11pm Back home. Sit far too late watching tv, chatting to Mr B and looking at baby merchandise online. When I finally go to bed, baby Black begins a full blown jumping and kicking session. I fall asleep smiling.

Find more Day In The Lifers here -

Emma, Laura, Tracey, Claire, Miss Crafty.

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March Markets

Come and meet Merulapie! We’ll be at Raspberry Beret market tomorrow (Saturday 27th March) from 12-5pm. It’s on at Nuarts, 2nd floor, 48 King Street, Trongate, Glasgow.

And on Sunday 29th March we’ll be at the Glasgow Craft Mafia market at Mono, King Street, Glasgow. The market is on from 1pm-6pm. You’ll be sure to find some wonderful goodies!

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I have often walked on this street before

Dusseldorf is full of pretty architecture and sweet details. In any city it’s worth taking time and paying more attention to the street you wander down; you never know what you will find. I’ve always been a doddler (ie walking slowly and rather clumsily) but being pregnant slows me down even more. As I waddled along Konkordia Strauss last week I found more to see than I usually notice.

I love the colour of buildings in Dussledorf. In every street the facades are all different.

I’m not entirely sure who Peter Ludwigs is but he was either born or stayed on this street. From a google search he appears to have been an important person in the development of Dusseldorf, but I’m not sure. I noticed the plaque right outside our apartment.

Isn’t this car cool? Leather interior and always perfectly shiny - I want a shot!

I saw these rose petals at the bottom of the street; a long trail led to no-where.

This guy is easy to miss, sandwiched between two bushes. He’s a rather nice piece of art on the street.

A taster of my future blog post on Dusseldorf cake. The waffles were a Saturday treat. We found them in an ice-cream shop nearby…

C♥

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Cold As Ice

We’re into March but the well publicised ‘big freeze’ (a phrase coined by most paranoid news reporters) is still making most of us cling onto our bobble hats and mittens. In the spirit of all things cold and wintry, I was delighted to see the launch of Freeze Frame; a website created by the Scott Polar Research Institute of the University of Cambridge to display the collection of photographic negatives from polar explorations from 1845-1982. It’s a fascinating collection that makes me shiver at the thought of such dangerous travel: no satellite phones, gortex or advanced medical equipment. It must be daunting travelling to such remote areas today, and even more so during a time when equipment and communication was incredibly basic.

I love the above photograph of Herbert Ponting. It must have been wonderfully exciting having a camera in the nineteenth century, and even more so to be able to travel on an expedition to an area where very few people had ventured. I wonder how awkward the equipment was to transport? The photographic plates are very delicate and this online archive allows the photographs to be stored safely. Ponting certainly managed to be mobile enough to capture many wildlife scenes; these penguins look hauntingly sad floating off into the sea.

I also wonder how cold and uncomfortable the expeditions must have been. I cannot imagine the basic clothing being adequate cover for such extreme weather. This photo of Captain Scott shows his sledging outfit.

It’s been interesting exploring the Freeze Frame website and I’m sure it wouldn’t be quite so captivating to ponder in summertime. My dive into the cold front continues with the book I’m currently reading - The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman, a novel about a woman struck by lightening and left ice cold. From the first page the prose is lyrical and haunting with undertones of dark fairy tales. I’m intrigued to see how the heroine’s journey continues as she pursues a burning man. Perhaps it will encourage me out of this cold snap and into warmer climes?

C ♥

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French Fancy

Thanks to my lovely friends Panda San and Bunny San over at Super Cute Kawaii,I’ve had the honour of being introduced to the charming Monsieur Le Bun. This kawaii connoisseur invited me to write a guest blog for Super Cute Kawaii, so I’ve picked out my favourite kawaii goodies from around the world - go take a look!

A big thanks to Monsieur Le Bun for his warm welcome, he’s promised me we’ll share a nice bottle of wine this summer…

Remember we stock some mightily cute goodies over at Merulapie - and there’s a SALE on just now!

C ♥

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Latest Creative Project

Well things have been a little quiet on the blog front since October, I’m sorry for taking so long to post! Never fear, the Pay It Forward will still be going ahead, I’ve still got plenty of time left…As for creative news, well we’ve been working on various creative projects, perhaps our most exciting ever to date- a baby! I’m halfway through the pregnancy and and can’t wait to meet our little one! He or she is due at the end of June and time is flying by already.

I’ve started various baby knit projects in the past, but never managed to finish anything. Some patterns I attempted to follow have either been too hard to follow or didn’t size up as I expected. My local library has a fantastic Debbie Bliss baby book which I’ve been avidly reading. It’s so good I’ll probably have to buy it because I keep renewing the book. These little hats have been fun and easy to complete. Until I sew them up they’re a little mishappen! Aren’t they dinky?

C ♥

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Pay It Forward

I received a lovely gift from Alice.

We framed the print and sat it next to my orange Penguin Classics. I think it will go nicely in the hall. I love the gocco ship prints - it’s lovely to have some nice notecards to send out to friends.

So how did I get this lovely gift? Well, Alice took part in a Pay It Forward; here’s the pledge-

“I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this pay it forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, which is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

So the first 3 people to comment on my blog by Monday, 13th October will get a gift sent to them within the next year. And because I’m feeling kind of happy today, if there are more than 3 comments, I will send another package to another person - I’ll pick them at random! So say hello! If you don’t have a blog, just PIF in the ‘real’ world.

Look forward to hearing from you soon…

C ♥

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Tess.

One of my favourite things about the change of season is the new BBC dramas that appear - perfect for curling up on the sofa with a blanket and some crafting. I love it when classic novels are adapted by the BBC; you can guarantee a good cast and beautiful photography.

Last year I enjoyed Jane Eyre - possibly my favourite novel ever - and this Autumn I’ve been weeping over Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I’ve never read Thomas Hardy’s novel before and my friend laughed at me when I called it Tess of the Doobervilles - I had no idea how to pronounce it and was accused of being ever-so-posh!

With an innocent and simple first episode I never expected the drama to become so desolite and sad. I didn’t have a clue about the storyline and waited in anticipation for each episode as the tale became sadder and sadder. It’s times like this I wish for a widescreen television to emerse myself in the bleak photography and drama of it all.

Photographs taken from the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk/tess

I’m now waiting on a copy of the novel from Bookmooch. It will be my second Hardy novel, having read Far From the Madding Crowd a couple of years ago. I have already decided I will lie on the sofa, drink hot beverages and wallow in the drama of Hardy’s beautiful words. Dramatic? Me? Never.

C ♥