Christine Currie

On Sunday I decided it was time to dust off my bike and hit the roads and cycle paths of Chandler’s Ford. It felt great to be moving more quickly than my running plod and was a good way to complete my first week of postnatal exercise. Unfortunately, the tempo slowed a bit as I neared home and the slow puncture kicked in. I also remembered as I tried to change out of the middle set of gears that I’d put off getting it fixed while I was pregnant as I was about to stop using it. I should be out there now cleaning it up and fixing the puncture but watching Emma try to go off to sleep is far more pressing.

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The photo tells a story of mornings in the Currie household. Emma and I have been up for hours but Daddy needs a bit longer in bed.

One of the presents we were given was a book of recipes for babies and toddlers. Written by Lizzie Vann and called Organic baby and toddler cookbook, it’s got an excellent guide to weaning and nutrition as well as some tasty dishes.

Emma’s not quite up to eating solid food yet but we thought we’d give some of the preschool meals a go to get some practice in before she gets to that stage. Last night we had spicy bean burgers and they were delicious. I think the 15 minutes preparation time that the book gave was a little optimistic as it took quite a while to grate a carrot, make breadcrumbs, chop an onion and a pepper, mash lots of hard beans with a fork, etc, especially with a child to keep checking up on. However, maybe she bargained on you having a preschool child to help out. Next up will be the fruity cakelets I think and perhaps the vegetable and coconut korma.

Emma was 6 weeks old yesterday, which we celebrated with an ice cream on Studland Bay, while watching the Dorset Coast Path relay, which Dave ran a leg in for SOC. The day also saw me take to the driving seat once again as my driving ban is now officially over.

Far more exciting though was today’s activity - my first run for I don’t know how long. It was brilliant to be out and I felt OK. The Runners World return to running schedule had me doing 3 minutes worth of running in 3 separate bursts, which is less than I’ve been doing with the pram while out for walks so I just did what felt comfortable. In the end that was 20 minutes of running in 3 bursts with a warm up and warm down walk. My right side ached a little bit by the end of that but otherwise I feel fine. I now have to remember how to upload my training to my computer so I can spend hours analysing my heart rate trace!