10.05

Cider-with-Rosie-Spring-weekend-23-weeks-5

T H E   P E R F E C T   S A T U R D A Y .

Our Saturday began the same way as ever other day- with a 6am wake up call from the little pup downstairs. She’s as regular as clockwork, always ready at 6am on the dot with a whine and a scratch at the gate to let us know she’d like to be let outside and then to have her breakfast, please.

Jason and I had sat out around the fire pit until almost 11pm the previous night, and so waking up so early on a weekend morning felt pretty tough going. Good practise though, I guess…

We always take it in turns to do the early shift, and Saturday was my day to be up with the birds. The morning was hazy but warm already, and I opened the curtains in the living room to find the bunch of peonies I’d bought a couple of days previously in full, beautiful bloom.

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There’s no flower that makes me happier than the peony. They’re always the most spectacular, don’t you think?

After a leisurely breakfast, and an even more leisurely walk with the dogs, our first order of the day was to visit the garden centre to pick up some new greenery for our little garden.

I feel like I’ve talked a dozen times before about how much I wish I was naturally green-fingered (and how sadly UN-green fingered I actually am!), but since I know that I’ll never get better at keeping our garden looking ship-shape if I don’t try at all, try I will!

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We bought a few new plants to fill up the beds- purple and white dahlias that I would just love to grow tall and flower every year without fail, a huge rosemary plant to sit potted on the deck, a lovely ornate fuchsia, and some strawberry plants to put in place of the herbs that didn’t make it through the winter in our wall planters.

Oh, and a hanging vine tomato plant too!

I’m thinking that maybe the fact it’s hanging, as opposed to on the ground, will help to keep pests like slugs and snails away…though perhaps that’s just wishful thinking?

But still, we’ve dutifully given all the new plants a good feed with Baby Bio (which we bought purely because I remember using it with my Grandma as a child, to feed the tomatoes we grew in a gro-bag on our patio), and now we’re keeping our fingers crossed that they all flourish!

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And speaking of growing, this bump of mine seems to have suddenly popped!

About time too, given that I’m now only week away from being six months pregnant. Can you even believe that? I’m starting to worry about stupid things, like that we haven’t chosen curtains for the nursery yet, and how many layers to dress the baby in at night. I need to get a grip…

This dress was a treat from my lovely Mum around Easter time, and I’ve been saving it since then to wear when A- the weather finally got warm (and now it has- hurrah!), and B- for when I could actually fill the belly part with bump!

And it turns out that maternity clothes, funnily enough, actually highlight your bump rather than it just looking kind of awkward when you wear your regular stuff. Who knew? ;)

Pale blue polka dot dress

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We had family coming over later that day for a barbecue, and so my afternoon was spent tinkering in the kitchen.

Salads were prepared (my favourite of all- caprese- was made with those fist-sized tomatoes in the photos above), chicken was marinated, and the sweetest pineapple I ever had the pleasure of tasting was sliced up and laid out ready to become the basis of a tropical fruit salad.

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^^ Sweet pineapple, ripe mango, tart passionfruit, and fresh (homegrown!) mint. The best. ^^

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The evening become our second in a row spent sitting around the fire until late, toasting marshmallows and talking as the night drew in.

We’re really trying to make the most of these calm, peaceful months, both by spending as much time as we can savouring all the free time we have right now, but also by trying to fit in as much as possible whilst we only have ourselves to think of!

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I think it’s the fact that we’re on something of a countdown right now that’s making everything feel that bit more heightened. I’m happier, more emotional, more ‘in the moment’, more sensitive, more appreciative, just more…more!

It feels so lovely to just soak in weekends like this, all whilst wondering and dreaming about how wonderfully different our lives will be in a year’s time.

And I think that that, combined with the flowers and the sunshine and the quality time spent with some of my favourite people, and all that delicious food and the smell of woodsmoke in my hair, is what made this particular weekend such a perfect one.

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05.04

Cider-with-Rosie-pregnancy-announcement-9

Oh, you have NO IDEA how good it feels to have finally been able to share the news of my pregnancy here on Cider with Rosie! Keeping the secret from you all has been so hard, and made me realise quite how much of myself I do share here. Finding out that we were expecting and my first few months of pregnancy have been totally all-consuming, and so not being able to share what had immediately become the hugest, most thrilling part of my life really was such a challenge. I’ve missed you!

Today I wanted to share with you a little round-up of my first trimester (I’m actually 18 weeks pregnant now, so roughly a month into my second trimester…), and update you on this whole pregnancy experience so far. If you’ve already watched my 15 week update video on YouTube then there might not be anything new to find out, so you can just look at the pictures if you fancy ;)

(p.s. The baby’s busy kicking me over on the left hand side of my stomach as I type, so I like to think it’s on board with this whole blogging thing already…)

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Jason and I found out we were expecting on New Year’s Eve, though we did suspect I might be pregnant over Christmas. This meant that the whole of this  Christmas turned into a game of ‘hide the fact that Rosie’s not drinking from our friends and family’…Jason stepped up and subtly drunk everything alcoholic that came my way, so he had the best Christmas season of his life! ;)

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I feel as though I was relatively lucky during my first trimester, since I escaped the dreaded ‘morning sickness’ and got away with just some nausea.

Instead, my main symptoms were fatigue (oh my GOODNESS the fatigue!!! It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced! I feel as though I basically dozed my way through the whole of January and February…), a loss of appetite combined with crazy hunger (all I could stomach was bland carbs, but needed to eat constantly!), a sense of smell that I reckon rivalled even Teddy and Elsie’s, and (this might be kind of an overshare, but hey!) the most INTENSE boob pain ever!

In fact, that pain was pretty much my first clue I might be pregnant, and is still with me three or so months later! The worst thing was it meant I had to stop sleeping on my stomach at 8 weeks, even though my ‘bump’ was non-existent enough at the time that I otherwise could’ve stayed on my front for at least another month or so. Sob!

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I felt as though the first 12 weeks or so of pregnancy passed me by in a haze of bone-aching tiredness, nausea, worry, and…have I mentioned the exhaustion enough times yet? Being able to tell our families after the 12 week dating scan was absolutely magic (I secretly filmed a lot of their reactions, and the footage is priceless!), and the scan itself was an incredible, emotional experience. I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing our baby wriggling away on that screen, and hearing its heartbeat so strong and loud. I’ll never forget what a joyful, grateful moment that was.

At around the beginning or March it felt as though I ‘woke up’, and started to feel more like myself again. And since then, the pregnancy’s been racing past!

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Spotty dress || Stripey dress

I know I said it yesterday, but I’m so excited to share this next chapter of our lives here on my blog. When I first started Cider with Rosie I was at the end of my second year of university, lost in a fog of grief and trying to will myself to complete a course I wasn’t interested in, and Jason and I were only a year or so into living together for the first time in our relationship.

You’ve been with us as we found our feet and grew up, got engaged, got married, and now (I’m feeling a little choked writing this), I hope you’ll be with us as we enter this next chapter of our lives as parents.

Thank you, all, for continuing to read. It means more than I can say.

X

p.s. I’ve begun sharing pregnancy videos over on YouTube (this ones going up this week are from earlier in my pregnancy, and from next Sunday onwards they’ll be up to date), so if you’d like to watch and follow along, you can find my channel here!

~ Photos by Freya Dowson ~

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Posted in BABY, FAMILY, JASON, LIFE LATELY

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05.01

Cider-with-Rosie-Sketch-London-afternoon-tea-7 Cider-with-Rosie-Sketch-London-afternoon-tea-3

O N E   F I N A L   C H R I S T M A S   T R E A T . . .

One thing that my family and I always wish we had more of is quality time together. With there being an eight year age difference between my sister and I, and the fact that I moved out of our family home more than four years ago now when she was only 13, it often feels as though our lives are on two very different timelines!

Instead of buying my Mum and sister each a stocking full of bits and pieces this Christmas, I decided that it might be fun for us to spend the afternoon together in London indulging in our shared favourite pastime- eating afternoon tea!

And so it was that a table for three was booked in Sketch’s Gallery restaurant, at 2.30pm on the 3rd of January…

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My Mum and I had been to Sketch for tea years and years ago, in the little tearoom right at the front of the building, but despite having seen the famous pink Gallery in approximately 5 million Instagram photos, I’d never made it there before!

The room itself more than lived up to expectation…

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First on the menu came the selection of teas- English Breakfast, ceylon and rose, silver needle, rosebud, and peppermint tea. I loved the delicate tasting ceylon, but Mum was adamant that the silver needle was the star of the show.

The chinaware is part of what makes Sketch so fun- the shapes are all slightly unusual and have words or phrases on them like ‘dreams’ ‘ghost’ and ‘forget about it’.

I fell in love with those sweet tea cups!

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The main event, those heavily laden cake stands, arrived, and we got stuck in.

There was so much to choose from, it was hard to know where to begin! We ate basil and fennel  and cream cheese and smoked salmon flatbreads, miniature grilled Comte cheese, coronation chicken, and ricotta and cucumber sandwiches.

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The sweet things followed next- lemon and passionfruit tarts (the best thing we ate all day!), pineapple cake, mini blackcurrant cheesecakes, and, of course, the obligatory scones with jam and clotted cream.

Pot after pot of tea arrived as we ate, and eat we did! In fact, by the end of the meal we all were full to bursting, and I was so very glad I’d happened to wear a pair of trousers that’re a good couple of inches too big for me around the waist!

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As we whiled away the afternoon, sipping from our teacups and spooning generous quantities of jam onto our scones, we chatted about the past few years of our lives, and the ones ahead too.

About time spent feeling frustrated and cooped up at university, about the exciting summer just gone, about weddings and birthdays and families, and what the future might hold for each of us.

It felt so peaceful and civilised, and the nicest way to wrap up the Christmas season ahead of this first working week of January.

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Posted in afternoon tea, FAMILY

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29.12

Cider-with-Rosie-Christmas-Elsie-6

S A Y   H E L L O ,   E L S I E !

We picked this handful of cuteness up on Sunday, and have been pretty busy on puppy-watch ever since! But I thought, since the lady herself is currently napping on my feet, it was probably about time I seized this moment of quiet, and introduced her properly here to you all!

So, meet Elsie! The newest, sweetest, and most mischievous member of the Chappel household!

She’s an 8 week old springer spaniel puppy, and so far is behaving pretty beautifully, on the whole. For those who’ve been asking, Teddy is a working cocker spaniel, which is a slightly different type of spaniel to Elsie- the two are very similar though, and we’ve been assured that if we can train a stubborn cocker we’ll be able to handle a springer!

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I think having Elsie’s crate right next to Teddy’s bed and her being close to him whilst she sleeps is helping ease her separation anxiety, because we barely heard a peep from her the first night!

We’d been bracing ourselves for a repeat of 8 week old Teddy’s howling, (it was ear splitting!!) but touch wood- we’re lucking out so far!

And speaking of Teddy, he’s been *so* good with Elsie!

True, he was pretty furious with both Jason and I for bringing her into ‘his’ house that first afternoon, but since then has been getting better and better at being brotherly to that naughty pup who keeps bouncing around him, and *even* tolerated her sleeping almost nose to nose with him last night! It was the sweetest thing!

Though you should’ve seen the looks he gave her when he first spotted her playing with his cuddly sheep toy…

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We’re working on her not using our hands/feed/slippers/clothing as a place for teething (not *too* dreadful, but still a little nibbly…), and having to fend off her attempts to scale the sofa every 5 minutes (LOTS of time outs happening over here!), but aside from that, she’s just a total dream!

We’re totally smitten.

So, now you’re fully acquainted with our new littlest love!

We’re so excited to watch her grow, and to start taking her out on walks as a foursome…but right now we’re happy to soak up as much of her milky puppy smell as we can.

More puppy snapshots on Snapchat, if you’d like to find me over there! I’m ‘ciderwithrosieb’…

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Did you all have fabulous Christmasses? :) It feels as if I’ve been away from the internet for days! It’s not been long at all, I suppose, but Christmas always make the days and time kind of warp, doesn’t it?

I hope you’re all happy, content, and very well-fed! :) Do you have exciting NYE plans? I bet yours are more exciting than the puppy snuggle-fest we have planned! Though it’ll be pretty special in its own right…

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Posted in FAMILY, PUPPY

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