Dominic Self s personal blog since 2004
In a disastrous chronological mishap, my last post completely left out a family trip to Kelsey Park in Beckenham one Saturday afternoon. So, to correct the record: the highlight was seeking out a shady lunch spot in the long grass to share some very generously cheesy chips. And I guess if we re doing historical recordkeeping,
I am half-watching the World Cup final as I write this, honest. But there s a lot to catch up on, starting back in late June when Reema came over for dinner and took some inaugural bites of the magnificent chocolate fudge cake which Randi had concocted for my birthday. Since we have a strict one-in-one-out
My last post concluded with the surprise weekend trip I organised to the Isle of Wight for Randi s birthday, but the honest truth is that this was always a bit of a knock-off of Randi s idea, who had already booked a surprise weekend trip to mystery location for my birthday. So it was that last
Over the late May bank holiday we travelled down to Exmouth for my mum s birthday, and although we didn t quite make it onto the beach itself, we were all very much in the market for some sunny, seaside vibes. It also turns out that my mum has been quietly hoarding many of my childhood toys,
We re back! Prior to last weekend I d only been to New York twice in my life, and both times in February. So when Randi and I were first invited to Mike and Melissa s wedding, I was doubly excited: both to celebrate these wonderful human beings, but also to experience the city without a coat. Later,
Happy 22nd birthday, blog! You turned 22 on 27th April, and while it s tempting to say ah, they grow up so fast! , that s emphatically not true in this case. It feels like forever! Unfortunately the only thing I could find in the list of rights at different ages for 22 was that support ends for
If you re skimming this post only for the baby news, the big update in the last few weeks is that we ve started weaning! (If you re bored of all the baby news, I can only apologise.) So far, the good news is that he s been more than happy to experiment with food. Sometimes, when we re feeling
Last year, as you may recall, I picked up German citizenship. After just a little more paperwork, this resulted in a burgundy Europaische Union passport of my very own, which has duly sat in a desk drawer until finally a few weeks ago I actually had an excuse to use it on an
A couple of weekends back, Randi and I were honoured to be invited to my cousin Alix s big birthday weekend bash in a house in the countryside near Bath. We were joined by Tash and Cormac, Advia and Yama and many other friends of Alix and Adam for a weekend of incredible food, challenging Taskmaster-esque
At the risk of being annoyingly vague, it s been a really terrible few weeks for a couple of people close to us. So, if you re reading this, this is just a moment for me to mark and remember before moving on with less important things. 💛 For us, the highlight of January was Randi s mum
Happy new year! As you already know, we spent a week in Chicago in a sneaky attempt to persuade our child that, relatively speaking, London really isn t that cold. In truth, the Chicago winters are a little overhyped: you just have to dress appropriately for the weather, and snow is generally lovely. The only thing
Annual Roundup No prizes for guessing that having a child is my dominant theme of 2025. Randi s pregnancy already seems like a lifetime ago, but I ll never forget our regular bus journeys to Denmark Hill for midwife visits, scans and movement checks. Thankfully, everything went smoothly and since October we ve been happily getting to know
Hello from Chicago! I ll write about this trip once we re home again, but for now I m taking advantage of still having my hands free (despite also having a sleeping baby on me) to bring this blog up to date with our Chrismukkah back home. My first Christmas outing was to listen to carols and general
Like the stock market bubble, the expected implosion of my reading total was staved off this year. In fact, I managed 26 books in total, which is four more than last year! For this I have to credit both our holiday in China and a golden two-week paternity leave which involved a lot of sitting
Before I begin: yesterday my Grandma died overnight at the age of 93. She was my last surviving grandparent, which is quite something given that I first wrote this type of post back in 2008. My earliest memories of Grandma are hazy, but in a good way, as she helped to look after me when
Time for a few more of baby s first Over the last month we ve continued to have a stream of visitors, which has been really nice. Our son has now officially met all of his aunts and uncles, plus: We also had our NCT group over at ours one Sunday morning, which was lots of fun
It makes me very, very happy to say that our baby son was born at 3.03am on Wednesday 1st October. He s perfect. That could probably be the whole post, to be honest! But I also wanted to throw a few more memories into the time capsule from our two-week cocoon at home, as a brand
Update on moving house: we did it! Well, I say we , but most of the actual moving credit should go to the amazing people at Finest Van, who also came and packed everything the day before. They really do go above and beyond and are highly recommended if you are looking for a moving service
As we ve gotten closer to the baby s due date, it s increasingly the case that any social events with friends and family have been subtly (or not-so-subtly) redirected to ours rather than going out. So there s been quite a roll call of visitors over the past month or so, starting with Kim, who kindly managed to
It s most definitely summer, which in our family also means it s peak birthday season. For mine, we had a family dinner at Took Took in West Hampstead, followed by a little walk along the path through Fortune Green and behind Hampstead Cemetery which we used to do on my birthday every year growing up. Randi