Pramming along

How depressing to return to work after the 3-day break. Even the weather agreed, after a sunny weekend, drove in to work and it was grey and overcast - matching my mood. Attended my friends wedding over the weekend in Birmingham. After being together for almost 9 years, they finally tied the knot. The wedding was an all day affair encompassing the civil registry, Hindu ceremony and finally the reception in the evening. It was held at the stately Ragley Hall, and all in all it was a lot of fun. The Best Man's speech was extremely funny and wildly inappropriate, with the closing line the highlight: "Congratulations to the couple, and we hope the only ups and downs are those that occur between the sheets!"

My wife and I are expecting our first child in October, inshallah and as the day approaches we've been spending a lot of time on deciding what we need to buy before the baby arrives. One of the most important purchases is the pushchair and car seat. There appears to be two main options. Either have a separate car seat and pushchair, which means having to transfer the baby to and from both or have a travel system that enables one to transfer the car seat directly onto the frame of the pushchair.

By all accounts, having the travel system is the better (and more expensive) option. The convenience of transferring the car seat onto the pushchair frame saves a lot of hassle when it comes to transferring the baby and risk waking him/her up. So, having agreed on the need for the travel system the weekend was spent trying to decide which one to buy. Although my parents have very kindly offered to finance the purchase of our new travel system, I still thought it prudent to do some research to decide which is the most suitable travel system for us. The choices are seemingly endless.

Starting with the most expensive and working downwards, the king of the travel systems appear to be the Bugaboo, and with prices starting from over £550 and that's just for the pushchair - it doesn't include the carrycot or the car seat - it deserves the title. It is the designer pushchair - the Armani of the pushchair world - too exclusive and too expensive. To be fair it does do everything a travel system could probably do, but the price is extremely prohibitive.

Next is the Micralite Toro, which you must agree does look really cool, and at a price of £349 you would expect it too as well! It looks like a Golf-Kart, all that's missing is an engine and remote control. However, there is also the Micralite Fastfold, which looks almost as cool and can be had for £139.99. The added bonus of the Micralite is that it allows for 'off-road' travel on grass and sand because of the large rear wheels. The downside appears to be that it is not a shoppers buggy and that won't suit my wife.

Further down the list comes the highly recommended Quinny Buzz, which is used by a few people we know. Having used it myself, I thought the design was very good, with the all important height adjustable bar for tall people like myself. However, at almost £300, it definitely doesn't come cheap. It has the added advantage of allowing the pushchair to face either towards you or away from you which is quite rare. It is however, quite heavy, making it difficult to transfer from car boot to the road for my wife.

Last but not least are the Graco travel systems, which appear to be extremely good value for money at £149.99, for the Mosaic travel system, and £159.95, for the Tour travel system (both include the car seat and various other accessories). The Graco's get good reviews, are easy to fold and relatively lightweight. However, they do look a bit cumbersome to say the least and tend to suffer for being too common.

For the first three travel systems I've discussed, the very popular Maxi Cosi CabrioFix is compatible with the pushchair frames, which needs to be purchased separately. The Graco comes with it's own car seat, included in the price. In addition to the car seat, for ease of use, a car seat base is essential for locking the car seat safely and securely. For the Maxi Cosi, an Isofix Base or Easy Base is required at an additional cost. For the Graco, again, the car seat base is included in the price.

So, there are our options. The Maxi Cosi CabrioFix is a very good car seat, but the pushchairs compatible with it are very expensive. The Graco travel systems are very affordable and good value for money, but don't look as good. It should be an easy choice, but then if it was I wouldn't have blogged about it. I'm probably going to settle for a Graco travel system, but the other pushchair are just too cool to rule out. I welcome any recommendations and suggestions that people may have.

Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?