Strolling Amidst the Blossoms

It’s very easy to come up with cliche titles for blog posts when it’s spring and the blossoms are blooming, but I feel like this one is even more so as I’ve thrown the “strolling” into it in my first set of outfit photos with a pram at my side!

While this isn’t a pram review, it’s an outfit, I just quickly wanted to gush about the travel system we chose. This is the Quinny Buzz Xtra with the carrycot attachment. Ours actually came with the normal stroller seat which can work from newborn up to 15kg and has an optional foldable carrycot, but ours is the older style which my aunt and uncle lent to us as my cousins are now too old to use it.
The first purchase in our travel system was the Maxi-Cosi Cabriofix car seat and I set Ben the task of finding a pushchair suitable to our needs that would fit it. His choice was an excellent one – this stroller is so easy to manoeuvre, even around our local country lanes, and it folds up easily to fit in the boot of our car. Emmy loves it too and tends to fall asleep as soon as we head out of the door with it! I’ll try to do a full review of it once we’ve had the opportunity to use the seat it came with more – we’ve chosen not to use that at the newborn setting, but I imagine we’ll be moving on to it soon. This little lady is far too nosy for her own good and she can’t see well enough out of the carrycot for her liking!

But on with the rest of the show! Emmy was having a slightly cranky day – no major tantrums, but she just wasn’t a huge fan of taking her naps. When I realised we were outside her “awake window” and she still wasn’t playing ball, not in her Moses basket, not in her swing and not even on me, I decided we’d go for a walk.

I’d originally put on a basic top and jeans this morning for a day around the house. Our days have been pretty busy lately, whether that’s been at baby groups (we took our first baby massage class last week!), meeting friends for lunches and duck-feeding fun, or health visitor appointments. This means that when I get a “normal” day at home, I spend a lot of it trying to clean and tidy the house around Emmy’s naps. I’ve actually just published a “day in the life with a newborn” vlog featuring 7 week old Emmy from last week on Youtube if you’re interested in seeing how I spend these days:

Anyway, we spent the morning (in between feeds, at least) completely emptying Emmy’s drawers and storing away the clothes that no longer fit her. How is this possible already?! I’m finding this very difficult, as I imagine all new mums will. Getting rid of your baby’s first ever sleepsuits isn’t an easy job, but I’ve decided I’ll keep a handful (for memories and potential future offspring – that’s a decision that hasn’t yet been made if anyone asks!), including the first ever one she wore, send some to charity, and am passing some on to friends. We moved new clothes and bigger sizes into the next drawer up so they’re more easy to find now that she’s wearing 0-3 months instead of newborn sizing.

It was only this afternoon, when, as I said, Emmy was resisting napping, that I stuck my head outside to take out the washing and I realised that the dreary morning fog had cleared and the air had warmed up to a positively balmy temperature.

So I did the typical fashion blogger thing – I first headed out for a walk in my boring jeans and plain top, spotted some blossoms down the road, so turned around and changed my outfit so I could make the most of the blooms!

There’s a quote in the Secret Garden, which is one of my childhood favourite films and books:

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

And these photos couldn’t make that phrase more true!

Truth be told, I actually spotted these blossoms as we drove home from the supermarket at the weekend. They’re located along the road that leads back to our house – a road that isn’t anything special, it simply leads from the main road into the market town we live in. But grab a camera at the right angle, and the few blossom trees that line the footpath become a picture-perfect backdrop. It wasn’t the easiest place to snap photos as I was constantly wary of cars driving past and wondering what I was doing, but fortunately I managed to disguise the tripod partially behind the pram – another bonus of it! And luckily – after my fears in the last post – I managed to get my tripod into the basket underneath for the walk!

It’s a strange thing being a new mum with a pram. So many people stop to talk to me! It’s most commonly older ladies who stop to peer into the pram to say hello to Emmy, asking me how old she is, how well I’m sleeping. Today all my chats were about how strange but wonderful the weather was today – going from cold and foggy to warm and sunny. And it’s lucky it was so that I didn’t stand out in my flowery dress and sandals!

I actually struggled to find an outfit suitable for the blossoming backdrop that also works for my nursing needs. Many of my pretty dresses seem to have high necklines or are too fitted to move out of the way for breastfeeding, it looks like I may still need to invest in yet more clothes that work for this. But luckily this one still fits me and works well…except for the fact that the buttons are tricky to do back up again once you’ve finished feeding and have a sleeping baby on you. I may or may not be typing with a baby in my arms who has finally decided she wants to nap, but with half my buttons undone – let’s just hope no delivery men appear at the window! The last time I wore this dress was back in the summer of 2018, when I guess I must already have been pregnant but didn’t yet know it!

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