I thought we’d all appreciate a quick squiz at GQ’s Top Ten Best-Dressed Men. Purely in the interests of research of course.

Interesting that the emphasis this year is on the suit. GQ is calling this return to a more formal style ‘dapper masculinity’ (I shall pass this on to the Husband). And David Beckham is ageing very badly.

Apologies for not doing a whole lot of blogging recently. I’d organised a quiet and sociable Easter break, but the coverage on the right – from the The Times’ Saturday magazine no less – featuring the Hannah Tofalos eggcups, meant that in the end mirror mirror had quite a busy weekend. Not complaining of course, but I do wish journalists would respect my social arrangements a bit more.

The thing that pleased me most was that a photo taken by me has now appeared in a national newspaper magazine. You guys would laugh to see the conditions under which most of my photos are taken. I get the best light in a corner of our bedroom for about an hour every morning. When that photo was taken the Minx’s cot was still in the bedroom and is jammed over to one side just behind the eggcups. The Minx herself finds photography fascinating and was doubtless either holding onto my legs or knocking over the tripod as I pushed the shutter.

Still, it’s pretty amazing what one can do by taking loads of photos with a reasonably good digital camera on the off-chance that one or two might turn out all right after extensive Picasa-ing. I certainly wouldn’t be able to run mirror mirror as I do if digital photography hadn’t been invented, which is quite a sobering thought.

Anyway, over the next few days we are going to discuss the V&A’s Modernism exhibition, the Bluebell railway, my Easter Eggs (yet more scope for punning egg titles, hoorah!), my weight-loss regime (quite possibly compromised by aforementioned Easter Eggs), this month’s Vogue, and possibly some design-y things as well. Bet you can’t wait.

Some of you may have wondered why I’ve got a couple of erstwhile ‘infertility blogs’ on my blogroll.

I got pregnant first go after we finally decided to try for a baby (a huge decision for me as I appear to have missed out on some maternal genes somewhere along the line and have never craved a baby). After reading so many horror stories about the difficulties faced by older mothers, it seemed that it would all come rather easily after all. And I carried on feeling smugly complacent until I miscarried at nearly six weeks. But still, I was an older mother and that was only to be expected. So I picked myself up, dusted myself down and we tried again. I got pregnant immediately again and almost immediately thereafter miscarried again. So alarm bells started ringing.

In the space of just over a year I had four definite miscarriages (the longest pregnancy lasted eight weeks) and at least three episodes where I felt incredibly pregnant but didn’t get as far as a positive pregnancy test. I was referred to the Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington (I can’t tell you how lucky I am that this clinic is literally ten minutes down the road for me – some people have to travel hundreds of miles to get there).

After a barrage of blood tests I was told that I had a blood-clotting disorder which prevented the embryo from implanting properly but which could by treated using aspirin and steroids. And it was about this time that I started reading Julie’s blog. I came across it when I was searching online for stuff about recurrent miscarriage. Julie had suffered a number of miscarriages after IVF but still managed to write about her traumas in an incredibly amusing, non-sentimental and yes, downright cynical way which chimed with me at the time. Through Julie’s blog I reached Tertia’s blog – Tertia went through an amazing number of IVFs, suffered miscarriages and also the loss of premature twins but still managed to write incredibly movingly about her experiences.

Eventually I became pregnant again and, notwithstanding a terrifying bleeding episode at eight weeks, it looked like this one was going to stay. And Julie in the US and Tertia in South Africa also got pregnant at the same time, also with ‘keepers’. I don’t know these women, they don’t know me. I rarely comment on their blogs or exchange emails with them, but such is the power of blogging that they felt like good friends as we each went through pregnancy, each doubting all the time that this one would actually work. After our respective babies were born – Julie’s very prematurely while Tertia had IVF twins – their blogs kept me sane during the dark days of early motherhood. Bleary-eyed I would read their blogs every morning to find that they too were struggling with exhaustion, with babies who would neither sleep nor stop crying, with breast-pumps and night-wakings.

And what of the quilt? Apart from being a very witty and creative writer, Julie also makes the most unbelievable quilts. Recently she has been raffling a quilt on behalf of another blogger who has gone through a huge number of IVFs and had run out of money. This same blogger organised a ‘online baby shower’ for Julie when she was faced with bringing her tiny preemie home from hospital with nothing prepared for him. I love the karma in this story and thought the crafty people who read my blog would love to see her amazing quilt and read a bit about the love, effort and stories that have gone into it.