Hello there, cyberspace!

My name is Vic, I am 30 years old and have been married since Sept 2010 to my amazing husband Ant. We live in Leeds (despite neither of us being from here) and we have a 6 month old baby daughter called Violet (or Baby V as she will be affectionately called on here).

A few of my friend's have inspired me into doing a blog, mainly as a memory for the future. I am thinking that this will consist of useless day to day babbling and from time to time an update of my gorgeous baby daughter (for my mum to read mainly!).

I'm not really sure where to begin with this, I kind of wonder why anyone would want to know anything about me! I don't knit, I don't scrapbook, I don't climb mountains or go sky diving. I can sew pretty well but my tiredness and love of sitting down sort of overrides this! I am quite into cross stitching at the moment, even though it may sound like something your Grandma does, I highly recommend it for those who find knitting and the more "creative" hobbies a struggle to get their heads around and for those who simply don't have the energy or the time to go climbing/walking/sailing as their hobby! Cross stitching is easy to follow, takes a bit of time, is quite relaxing and you get something pretty at the end, sounds good to me! I also like to take photographs, not professionally I must admit, but my Dad is forever trying to teach me how to use my posh camera so hopefully I will get better!

A friend told me writing blogs has made her do more in her day to day life and that writing blogs has become a hobby in itself, so there we go, my new hobby can be writing nonsensical babble!

I guess a good place to start would be to tell you about my daughter, Baby V. Well, we wanted to start a family straight after we got married in 2010 but financially that just wasn't possible, we needed to move to a more appropriate house as we lived in a flat, Ant needed to learn to drive, we needed a more "practical" car as I drove a classic Mini (something I still regret selling!) and most importantly, we needed to save some money! I probably bang on about saving money far too much, but I think my drill-sergeant sister has calculated my finances to the death, I can't moan though as if she hadn't we'd have ignored being sensible and royally screwed ourselves, so thank you dearest sister!

So we moved house on the Royal Wedding weekend in 2011, Ant started learning to drive, I sold the Mini that summer *sob*, we bought an Astra *yawn*, celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and then decided to try for a baby, exciting times! Little did I know that it would happen a lot faster than we thought, and on 21 October 2011, we found out we were pregnant, wahoo!

In short, my pregnancy consisted of, us getting burgled and me getting very stressed, extremely bad morning sickness over the whole of Christmas, horrid hormonal skin problems, feeling very self conscious about my changing shape, worrying that my baby would suddenly go away, not worrying about the labour (nope, not one bit, honest), finding out she was a girl, struggling during the heatwaves and having to stand naked in my work toilet cubicles to cool down, keeping active, lots of kegels, giant boobs, giant ar$e and most importantly, a giant bump!

I had a month off before my baby was due which I spent mainly baking, cleaning, decorating, sunbathing, shopping and visiting my friends, basically making the most of my freedom for the last time!

On Thursday 28 June (the day before I was due), I made Jamie Oliver's 30 minute mushroom risotto (it was amazing and highly recommended!) and we went on a really long walk around Roundhay Park and I climbed both up and down 150 steps in the hope of helping the baby come on time.

The next day (my due date) I thought my water had broke slightly in the morning but nothing happened after that. Then at 3pm I had what felt like a period pain which lasted for about a minute. I tried not to get too excited so just sat and waited, then 15 minutes later I had another one, so then I got a bit excited! I rang Ant as he was at work, he said he would come home just to be on the safe side. By the time he arrived home, I'd had three more contractions!

And so the story of my labour begins, which deserves its very own blog, so until next time, by for now...!