The chicken or the egg?

Last week, we watched The Great Food Fight, Jamie's Fowl Dinners and all else as part of the Chicken Out campaign that Channel 4 ran. And we cried, and we felt sick, and we recorded part of it to show the children and as a family, we agreed that we'd go from being a predominantly free-range meat-eating family to never touching the battery-produced crap again.
And then we did the weekly supermarket shop, and tried to buy our customary large chicken (will last two meals, including a bowl of stock.) And we couldn't. Not a free-range one, anyhow. The shelves were overwhelmingly stocked with cheap battery-produced chickens, processed chicken products were everywhere we saw, and there wasn't a single decent bird in sight. In the end, we went to Waitrose and got a joint of beef instead but that's really not the same, is it?
I cannot believe that the supermarkets did not know that this campaign was coming, and that they consciously chose to restrict the consumer's access to free range birds- but sadly, that appears to be the case. Messrs Tesco, Sainsburys and Asda appear to want to keep the 3p birds on the shelf, even if their customers would rather pay twice the cost for an animal that's lived a little and eaten A wild oat- even only one.
Please, go to the website and sign yourself up.

Charity shop haul

Inspired by recent posts on MDC and reading Craftster, I got a bit more creative when trawling my local charity shops today after my visit to the midwife. No longer will I confine myself to looking for ready-to-wear items in a size that fits me now. Oh no. Todays haul consisted of two wool jumpers for 50p each (that's a dollar to the americans out there) and a vintage knitting pattern, a further wool jumper for 2 quid (that hurt a bit, to be honest), some dungarees for the bean, and- get this- wooden musical instruments for Skye, at 50p each. Plus a fire engine, a vintage knitting pattern and some of the coolest, sheepiest pyjamas that ever walked the planet and will make perfect baby somethings.
And, best of all, two of the sweaters AND the pyjamas are a size 12. I haven't been a size 12 since I grew boobies ;) All for less than the cost of two Tescos chickens ;)

And then, to finish it all off, I called in the dressmaking shop and bought myself some sewing machine bobbins and a seam-ripper to help me dismantle the PJs. I'm looking forward to this ;)

Newborn longies...

No exciting news on the baby front- at least nothing I can take a photograph of. One of the good things about prodromal labour and taking a while to warm up, however, is that I get plenty of time to weave in the ends and graft the crotches, so to speak.

So here we have two pairs of longies, one in PF (leftovers from the circle cardigan) and one in some beautiful hand-painted BFL from Joyce at Elliebelly- and I know everyone knows how much I love her stuff, so I won't go on about it again. Plus a pilot hat. And I love it, and I can't wait to try it on our newborn.

Whenever that may be...

Some finished objects (none for me) and the bump shot.

Well, the kitchen is done. Over. Apart from the slightly imperfect plastering on the ceiling that we want redone, the total lack of paint on the walls and other stuff, and we have a home again. Project baby is go. And I am seriously freaked- I have never ever been THIS broad, this low-carrying, in any of my pregnancies. I think he's decided that down is the way to go, whether over or under my pubic bone, with or without the help of labour. I am seriously scared to sneeze, just in case.

Most of my knitting has been done for other people- the 3rd tri swap on MDC, and a trade with a mama for the most beautiful pendant imaginable. I did accidentally buy myself the new knitpicks options set this week with my Christmas money (it wasn't my fault, honest. I just ASKED them to sell me some wooden knitting needles, and they bullied me into it. I love Get Knitted :) So, the pictures seen above are, in order, me at 36 weeks, the teaser for the swap parcel, and Brooke's baby's (singular, this time) longies. And now, the hard work for my little one begins.