Hot Tips and Cold Feet at the Fontwell Races

So yesterday, for the first time ever, we did the traditional Boxing Day thing and went to the races.

Fontwell Race Course is not far from here but getting there without a submarinewasn't easy. Part of every road was under water and so was most of the race track car park..
" You'll be fine," smiled the car park attendant,  " there are enough of you to push the car out afterwards if it gets stuck."
We squelched our way to the race course where the dress code was " smart casual with wellies," - and there it was, the BUZZ.  Lots of stands with electronic lists of horses, odds constantly changing, people with their heads lost in betting magazines, voices over the loudspeaker  giving us urgent last minute betting advice, horses from other races cantering on the big screen above our heads, children running  wildly across the soggy track, weary parents chasing after them.
The Boxing Day Races.
Ninesh had a hot tip for the second race so we all bet heavily ( £ 2 each way ). The race started, the ground near us began to slosh heavily with the fast approaching vibrations of 6 racing horses. Here they were in front of us, neck and neck, still anybody's race- until Ninesh's hot tip decided that enough was enough, dropped back and wandered off the track.
" You can't win them all," we shrugged, stoically, turning to the electronic lists to choose a likely winner for the next race.
But truthfully, we didn't win any of them.
Ninesh and I did so spectacularly badly that Amy and Barry came up with a whole list of race horse names just for us:  Bad Tip,  No Hope, End of the Line, Bottom of the Pile and Stay at Home.

After 5 races the cold and rain got the better of us and pounds lighter { money wise ) we headed back to the car. But cold and wet as we were, none of us could remember the last time we had laughed so much and the kids learnt an important lesson: when your grandparents give you some Christmas money to bet on the horses, save it for the Boxing Day Sales.
"We should have stayed at home " said Ninesh,  accelerating out of the car park mud "  and used £5 notes to light a fire.  We would have lost less money that way and at least we would have been warm! "

World Peace and a jar of Marmite

Paper is scattered all over the floor, open presents strewn throughout the house, teenagers temporarily happy.  ITS CHRISTMAS.
 Rain is beating down on the window panes, our American friends Barry and Amy are asleep in the shed, just like Jesus but without the animals, the star, the wise men and the shepherds. Coffee is bubbling in the pot. All is right with the world.
Perhaps Christmas is not so bad!
I remember one Christmas Eve, sitting on a bus on my way from Rhode Island to New York.   It was full of grumbling, tired people, dragging huge bags of wrapped presents with them. A few pieces of half-hearted tinsel hung from the luggage rack. And over the loudspeakers a DJ's voice sang out:
" All I want for Christmas is world peace and a six-pack."
And making my stop/start way towards the Big Apple, far from the dampness of England, I remember thinking:
" All I want for Christmas is a bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate, a slice of cheddar cheese and a jar of Marmite...... and world peace as well, of course!"
So here's to a happy, restful, too-much-of-all-that-is-good day to everyone... wherever you are.

Laughter and cheer and long-lost friends

You can tell it's Christmas when you are sitting, waiting for long-ago friends to arrive.  You can tell it's Christmas in England when those friends have flown seamlessly across the Atlantic but have been delayed for hours on British trains!  So I sit, watching the rain, waiting for the doorbell to ring, remembering.

Amy and Barry were my closest friends when I lived in Providence, Rhode Island.  It is so long ago now, that their 2 year old son, who I used to baby-sit, is now 25. And in all those years, we have seen each other rarely. A brief visit when we were living in California, a week's visit to England with their sons more than a decade ago. But as soon as we talk on the phone or share a glass of wine over Skype, I am immediately warmed by the pool of sunshine that was, and is, our friendship.  I met Amy in the library where we were both volunteering and on that very first day, she invited me back to her house for coffee. There is nothing more welcome than an invitation to someone's home when you are far from yours.  And so began almost 2 years of midnight cocktail parties, delicious meals and hours of laughter and conversation.  Even white-water rafting when Amy couldn't stop laughing when she told us, on the way, that there would be moose near the hotel  and my English friend who was with us said "What a shame. If I had known that, I would have brought a teaspoon!"

And the doorbell has rung!
 They are here.
 Christmas has truly begun.  

Ban the guns, end the madness

Yesterday I watched the Christmas performance of the 3 and 4 year olds in our Nursery. Each group sung a different song.
The children were so excited the songs seemed to explode out of them like slightly- out -of- time, slightly -out -of tune musical fireworks.
They have  practiced the actions to go with the songs for weeks and even though some of them did the actions in the wrong order or for the wrong song, it didn't matter.
 One boy was so excited he sang the whole thing jumping up and down  with his back to the audience.
And parents watched proudly, smiling, laughing crying a little bit.
 For some of them, it was the first time they had ever seen their children "perform."
Every year I am amazed at how something so simple can be so unforgettably touching.
 But this year, hanging over it all was the shadow a different  Christmas concert  on the other side of the Atlantic.
 The one that was rehearsed with just as much excited, happy anticipation.
The concert that was never performed  because a crazy, unhappy, man walked into a school, gun in hand, and opened fire, killing as many children as he could.
 And even though I am a complete stranger and couldn't possibly have known any of those children, my mother's heart hurt so much I could hardly breathe.
 I imagined kissing my children goodbye, not knowing it was for the last time.
I imagined standing outside the school gates,  hoping and hoping that the next child to emerge would be mine.
And it's not just sadness that I feel but a bubbling fury.
Mass shootings are only possible if you have a gun.
 And while guns are so easy to come by in America, there will be no end to the murders
. Shooting is not for fun.
It's not a leisure activity.
 If you own a gun, you have the capacity to kill someone.
" It's not guns that kill people, it's people that kill people," shout the pro-gun lobby from the rooftops and I am stunned by the short-sighted stupidity of those words.
Because it is not all people but only  "people with guns," who can kill so many people so easily .
 Of course it has to be a human who pulls the trigger.  but we hand them the tools for mass murder and pretend to be surprised when that's exactly what they are used for.
If they couldn't get hold of a gun, they wouldn't have a trigger to pull.
We can't stop people from being people but we can stop making it easy for people to become mass murderers.
I know banning the sale of firearms in America is an impossible dream.
It is a mountain so high and so impassable and guarded by so many powerful people that no one dares try.
But the greatest change begins with the tiniest step.
"In order for evil to triumph, good men must do nothing."
 It's time for the " good men ( and women)," of America to put on their bullet-proof walking boots and take the first step.
 It's time to make these young, innocent victims the last.
 It's time to ban the sale of guns.

Make it end.

Teenage tantrums and innocent lies

I am wondering if, as parents, we are biologically designed to argue with our teenage children.  Every day I vow that today will be the day that I stay calm and reasonable while my children rant and rave and are completely unreasonable.
 But somehow, it gets to the end of the day and the reverse seems to have been true.
 It begins with an unnecessary comment,  a " whatever," shrug, irritation with the constant teenage debris that seems to cover our living room floor.
And then it moves onto complaints about the the lack of favourite food in our house, the fact that breakfast/lunch/dinner isn't ready at precisely the moment they are hungry, how unfair it is that their brother or sister hasn't got into trouble for something that they " always," get into trouble for,  the injustice of having so much homework and so little money........
And suddenly, often unexpectedly for me too, I find myself exploding.
 I bring up things they have done wrong months ago or how tiring it is for me working and being their slave or how lucky they actually are.
And I am ranting, not listening, proving that I an undoubtedly right and they are definitely wrong and whatever happens, making sure that I have the last word.
And when I look round, I see my son and daughter standing there, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, united for once.
"You chose to be a parent," they say,  " that's what mum's do."
And dropping a few more possessions on the living room floor, they flounce up the stairs.
And I am left wondering who is really the teenager.
 Perhaps the truth is, that we never stop being teenagers.
 Or maybe it is just that when your children are teenagers, you all regress so that everyone in the house spends part of every day railing against injustice and eating ice cream and chocolate instead of vegetables.
 The trouble is, that, as parents, the transformation is only temporary.
 As soon as we resume the cloak or responsibility and  bite into a raw carrot, we realise how foolish and wrong we have been.
Whereas our teenage children, they just never stop being right!

Was out with some friends on Friday night and we began to discuss how mean we had all been to our younger siblings when we were children, too young and innocent to know any better.
" Oh yes," said one of my friends, " I told my younger sister she was adopted."
" Really," I said, " How did she take the news?"
" Well," said my friend, " she was a bit shocked at first but when I explained that she was actually a member of the Osmond family, she felt better.
I explained that they had only put her up for adoption because her teeth weren't big enough and her hair was blonde instead of black so they thought she would never feel like she fitted in."

Christmas wrapping and cardboard beards

Yesterday I had to take Ninesh for some minor treatment at Bognor hospital.  It was the middle of the day and I had lots of presents that needed wrapping for staff at work. So I took paper, gifts, sellotape and scissors with me so that I could wrap while I waited.
" That's a good Idea," said an elderly lady, sitting with two fingers, bandaged and elevated above her head.
" Do you need some scissors?" asked the receptionist
" How many have you got to do?" asked a mum, sitting with her teenage daughter.
And gradually everyone in the waiting room was commenting or helping.
After only a few minutes, Ninesh was out again and I gathered together the  small chaos I had created.
The disappointment in the waiting room was tangible.  Now they would never see me achieve my wrapping goal.  As we left we were followed by " good luck with it all." wishes.
Perhaps it was just the boredom of waiting that made everyone so interested in what I was doing but I think it was more the activity itself.  The English are known for being " stand-offish," and unfriendly but yesterday made me wonder. Perhaps it is just that we are not very good at starting conversations with strangers.  Perhaps all it takes is somebody busy doing something that people can comment on, so that without having to look anyone  in the eye, a conversation can begin.  It's strange how quickly somewhere as small as a waiting room in a small hospital, can feel like a community. I find myself wondering about what happened to the elderly lady with the elevated fingers. Did she live by herself?How did she get home?  And the teenager? Why was she there?  And I don't think it is nosiness, I think it is because it is human nature to care, it's just that sometimes we have forgotten how.

At work , Christmas craziness is truly here.  Staff frazzled, children manic, parents exhausted. At the Children's Centre Christmas party last  Sunday morning, our " soon to be dressed up as Santa," teacher arrived.  Taking the costume, hidden away since last Christmas, out of the bag, he discovered that the beard was missing.  Santa without a beard is not a possible concept so with 10 minutes to go, he cobbled one together, using white netting and pieces of white paper and material. Sitting in his grotto, waiting for the glue to dry, the odd bit of torn white paper floating to the ground, he wasn't convinced about children believing the whole Father Christmas thing.
" Aren't beards meant to be soft?" he asked worriedly.
But the rest of the staff just laughed.
" It's Christmas," they shrugged, opening the Grotto.
And they were right.  Because that is the wonder of childhood and the power of Christmas (  especially where a sack of presents is involved). Father Christmas is Father Christmas, whether his beard is soft and curly or feels suspiciously like pieces of cardboard  stuck togethers with glue and sellotape.
Let the merriment begin.

Irresponsible surrendering

Monday morning.  The Christmas tree is up and draped in decorations. It feels like surrender.   On Saturday evening, our house was full of some friends, carol singing in fancy dress to raise money for a kids' charity,  I stood and surveyed the donkey, the Christmas present, the elves, the Christmas and the Christmas pudding that were warming themselves by our fire and realised..... there is nothing I can do! I can't stop Christmas from arriving! So I poured another bottle of mulled wine into the saucepan and joined them!

On Friday night, one of my oldest friends from Germany phoned me to tell me that, after all these years, she has officially become a responsible person. She just got a job as a headteacher. And suddenly I was lost in memories. Meeting her for the first time  on a tram in Hannover 25 years ago. We were both about to start a year 's placement in a nursery for children with additional needs. Stepping off the tram , I took a deep breath and walked up the road towards the nursery with Urte, wondering if she was as nervous as I was, wondering if we would be friends or rivals, wondering if I was going to understand a word anyone said to me.  And a quarter of a century on, I know the answers.   We were both petrified,  we are still friends and for the first few weeks of my time in Hannover, I understood about 2 words.  But often, on our most drunken nights, Urte and I would wonder what it would feel like to be responsible people. Parent, house-owner, headteacher.  The truth is, these things happen almost without you noticing. You don't go to bed one night irresponsible and wake up the next morning weighed down with responsibility. It's a gradual.  Like the making of a patchwork quilt, each new square a deeper colour and a little heavier than the last. There are days when you wish it was still small, wish you could stop anymore patches from being added on. But there are other days when you wrap it proudly around yourself and feel like you have truly achieved something.
Perhaps Christmas is a time for swapping heavy blankets for lighter covers. Perhaps, for just a little while we can all surrender and remember what it feels like to be irresponsible and free.

In the Nursery in Germany, we would write daily diaries for each of the children in our class. We would write about what the children had done or said, What they had had for lunch, who they had played with and any other important  health information.  Which is why I told all the parents in our class to look out for rashes on their children because there had been an outbreak of saucers in the nursery.

The un-wonder of modern technology and paperclip fantasies

I always like Thursday. It's so close to Friday that you can almost pretend it's the weekend!

Yesterday we had a computer  switchover at work.  All our old computers were taken away and replaced by ones that look exactly the same. Apparently though, they are so much better, they are going to revolutionise our lives.  The biggest problem I can see, is that everyone now has an identical laptop and we share such a big room, that I'm not sure how we are going to know which ones belong to who.  So while I was having  the amazing things I can now do at the touch of a finger explained to me , I was daydreaming about the patterns I could paint on the cover in sparkly silver nail varnish.  The technicians were very patient  as they showed us how to make video calls and stood by as  we spent 10 minutes video chatting with the person sitting next to us, But when they had left, the switchover mostly successful,  I was left standing alone in a huge room, scattered with shiny black laptops.  And I couldn't help pining.  Imagining surfaces scattered with different coloured  notepads, pots of pens, piles of paperclips.  Because each of those things tells you a little bit about the person who uses it.  Why did someone choose a purple, spiral pad while someone else chose a loose leaf notebook with holes in it.  And why does that person  always uses ink pens instead of  biros.  And what about the person who has a series of matching notepads all labelled and lined up in neat rows, while someone else just rips out pages and leaves the notes scattered, randomly near where they sit.  An office full of PCs and laptops looks smart and efficient and connects us to the rest of the world in milliseconds but it tells you nothing about the people who work there.   They could be anyone, working anywhere. The more efficient and  technologically modern we become, the harder we have to fight to remember who we are.
So today I will sit in front of my laptop, dreaming of notepads and fountain pens as I  paint sparkly silver stars and rainbows all over the cover.

The Christmas parties in the Nursery and Children's Centre are looming and we are desperately trying to find our Father Christmas costume. And I remember the Christmas party at the Nursery when Joss  was 3.  Bells jingled and the headteacher cupped her hand round her ears.
" Listen," she said, " can you hear the bells. Can you hear the footsteps on the roof.  I wonder who it is."
The children listened,  holding their breath, eyes sparkling.
Bursting with excitement, one of the boys started jumping up and down.
" I know, I know who it is," he shouted out, " it's Spiderman!"

Wille and the Bandits flying high

Went to see an amazing band on Saturday.  Wille and the Bandits.  They were playing in The Chichester Inn. It's only a small venue but their voices and presence and pure musicianship made you  feel as though you were somewhere much bigger.  I live in constant awe of musicians.  Their fingers flowed and plucked and strummed while they sang and harmonised and seamlessly switched from instrument to instrument.  For someone as unmusical as me, it seems like an extraordinary, almost magical talent.  Ninesh is the drummer in a band too. And I feel the same when I watch him (only prouder of course! ) so lost in the rhythm and the moment and the song that if you asked him what he had actually played, he probably couldn't tell you.  Looks amazing to me though. Drumming is in his blood and he can't hear a song without tapping out a rhythm with his fingers, a bit unnerving when you are driving.   With the exception of me, our house is quite a musical house.  Mia and Ninesh and Joss all walk around humming or singing songs with varying degrees of tunefulness.  Sometimes I think how harmonious life might be if they were all singing the same song, especially on long car journeys.  Our living room is full of vinyl records and drum kit and Mia's flute and the rest of our house is full of the latest hits, blaring out of Joss's bedroom ( some of which barely register as actual music, I feel).  But there is something about music that brings people together.  Some of my friends sing in a local community choir and they love it.  One of my best friends is a magical flute player and another has just joined a ukulele group, while Mandy, who should be writing this blog with me, is having singing lessons. And I envy them. Because  the music and the singing and the playing are an escape and for just a little while, they are flying.   But when the music is good enough and the musicians talented enough, they take their audience with them.  And on Saturday night, with Wille and his Bandits, we were flying too!

When I was much younger, I used to learn the clarinet.  I struggled with it for many years but I am not a natural musician.  My teacher, one the kindest, warmest people you could ever meet, tried his best but there were moments when even he gave up.  At one point, we turned the page in my music book and looked at the next tune I was meant to play.
" Oh," he smiled, " you're playing one of my favourites next."
Then looking at me and back at the music, he paused.
" On second thoughts," he said , " why don't we play something different!"

Frosty " I love you's," and heart-aching goodbyes

Saturday morning at last.  Fire burning, cat curled up on the beanbag, tortoise sleeping under the drumkit, teenage son asleep, coffee brewing.  Perfect!

Mia is at a sleepover to say goodbye to a friend.  Saying goodbye to friends is never easy. At 15 years old, it's heart wrenching. And this friend's story is achingly sad. Because on the 7th of July 2005 her dad was killed in the London underground bombings, taking with him everything that had seemed certain and  safe. And still there is no walking normally through life for her and her family, no peace from the pain, instead they seem to fly and spin on winds of uncertainty and sadness.  She joined Mia'a class a few years ago, when they moved from Ipswich to be nearer to her dad's family. But tomorrow they are moving on.  Another leaving, another goodbye, another ending.
I hope it is a new beginning.

 Go well Ruby. Your friends will miss you.

Getting a lift home from work with my friend the other day, we had to scrape the ice off her car.
"You know, " she said, " this morning my husband scraped the words - I LOVE YOU- into the ice on my windscreen."
" How romantic," I mused.
" I know," she said, " but all I could think was: why didn't he scrape the whole window!"

Starbucks shame and frost-melting rants

It's peaceful here this morning.  The kids have a day of school and seem to be planning to spend most of it asleep, so a whole morning without fights and moans and frantic uniform hunting.. Outside the garden is covered in a thick layer of  frost which, for a little while, makes the world sparkle. Snow is forecast and Mia and Joss are pinning their hopes on schools closed for " snow days," and snowball fights in the road.

I was at a meeting yesterday, discussing how to make Children's Centres more inclusive and welcoming to families with children with a disability. Those meetings make my blood boil. I find it extraordinary that in 2012 we still need to have meetings about it. Time and again I hear stories of families, overcoming their fears of being judged, struggling to get children who find walking difficult out of cars, walking through doors of children's centres or shops or cafes. And when at last, they make it to reception or a table, they are made to feel unwelcome or ignored or kept waiting while people walk past and stare.  And I want to stand on reception desks and shout from cafe tables " Shame on You".  Sounds like I am a do-gooder I know but I'm not.  I am as quick to judge as anyone but it is so WRONG.  Because this world, its good parts and bad parts, snow covered or heat burnt, belongs to everyone, not just those who can walk normally.  

One of my friends has a daughter in a wheelchair. A few years ago she tried to take her to Starbucks in Chichester, only when they got there, there was no ramp and the door wasn't wide enough. And once again people stared and the family " were making a fuss." And the staff in Starbucks didn't even apologise.  I asked my friend why they didn't make an official complaint but even as I asked I could see the exhaustion and resignation in her eyes.  Because there is a limit to how many battles a parent can fight. And while the battle to get your child the right walking aids or a place in the right school, is one you will never give up on, fighting a big tax-evading company like Starbucks when other cafes with perfectly good wheelchair access are just round the corner, is just  one battle too many.

I have ranted for so long that the frost is melting. Maybe, one day, the world underneath will still be sparkling..

Christmas blues and vestless angels

Back to morning blogs!
Sitting at staff meeting yesterday, planning when we are going to take children from Nursery to choose the Christmas tree, suddenly made me realise that December is very nearly here.  And with it, that huge wave, that has been on pause such last Christmas, is about to crash down upon us again causing Christmas chaos.  From Monday, the excitement will be growing like a bubble with a sparkly, white membrane that will burst on Christmas day.  It is hard not to find yourself caught up in  the excitement of young children as the floors of the nursery and Children' Centre  are covered in  glitter and every inch of tree is weighed down by homemade decorations, until it looks like Christmas has been regurgitated all over them!  Children practice Christmas songs and laugh and dance and sing and cry and stamp and scream.  Excitement overkill is exhausting!  But there is something hidden behind the merriment that I find hard.  I listen to the parents talking competitively and proudly about the amazing electronic toys, overpriced clothes and latest mobile phones they have bought for their children and family and I feel sad.  I am thinking of marketing bottles of " quality time,"  jars of " love and patience," tokens for " an unbroken night's sleep." and a bestseller: " a handcrafted bag of FUN with the television turned off!"
Somehow I don't think it would make me rich.  Sounds "holier than thouish," I know, but I struggle with the consumeristic, materialistic frenzy that Christmas has become.  I can't help sympathising with the Grinch.
On Saturday the first doors on Advent calenders will be opened and the countdown will officially have begun. And despite myself I will join in. I know there will be moments of magic and lots of delicious food and huge amounts of chocolate.  And I will ignore the little part of me that is getting greener and grumpier and bah humbuggier. And I will pretend that I am not plotting how to steal Christmas.

One of our neighbours once told the story of her daughter who, every year, had wanted to play an angel in the Nativity play at school.  At last she was chosen.  With great excitement she helped her mum make her white costume with gold edged wings.  The day of the dress rehearsal was freezing, so her mum helped her dress up warm in vest and shirt. to wear under the costume.
That afternoon her daughter came home from school in floods of tears.
" What's the matter?" her mum asked, " did something happen in the rehearsal?"
Her daughter shook her head.
" I'm not an angel," she sobbed.
"Did they tell you you couldn't be one after all?" her mum asked, anger beginning to flair at the injustice of it.
Her daughter shook her head again.
" No,"she sobbed, " I'm not an angel because angels don't wear vests!"

Madly whirling Mondays and an 82 year wait.

It's feels strange blogging in the evening.  Usually it is early in the morning and the rest of the day is lying in front of me, waiting to be walked through. Now the day is coming to an end and I have left my footprints all over it. Mondays always feel like crazy days and I am always glad when it gets to the evening and all the groups at the Children's Centre have finished and the kids have been taken to and fetched from everywhere they have to go after school. Sometimes it feels less like walking through a day and more like whirling through it madly. And we only have two kids and Ninesh and I share the load.  I don't know how all of you with three or more kids do it, especially if you are on your own.

At the moment, Joss has to go to hospital 3 times a week.  He is having phototherapy and often I  find myself sitting next to other patients while I wait for him. And it is like collecting stories listening to them.  Today I sat next to someone from Pakistan.  He is working as a chef in Butlins holiday camp but only because love drew him away from London, where he was training with Gordon Ramsay.
" Is he as scary in real life as he seems to be on telly?"  I asked.
" Oh, he is very scary," said my waiting-room neighbour, ' but I have never learnt so much or wanted to stay somewhere so badly. But I came to Bognor and married my girlfriend and now we are expecting our first baby.  "
" So are you glad you gave everything up to come here?" I asked.
He stared at the ceiling reflectively.  " Well, we have a free flat and we are together and that is good," he said " But it is hard being a chef in Butlins.  They don't like to use spices in their food."

And then there was the 82 year old.
" I'm going to buy myself some trousers tomorrow," she told me triumphantly. "I'm going to be 83 in December and I've never bought a pair of trousers. But tomorrow I'm going to. This weather is just too cold for my legs. Who'd have thought I'd ever buy trousers."
" Who will take you shopping to buy them? " I asked because she used two waking sticks, so trying on trousers wouldn't be easy.
" I'll ask my niece," she said, " I don't have any children of my own.  Never married.  Fell in love with a soldier when I was in the army.  Head over heels I was.  He didn't tell me he was married.  Never got over my broken heart."
And her taxi arrived and she strode off bravely, leaning on her sticks.
I hope her first pair of trousers are worth the 82 year wait!

Upstairs Joss is singing tunelessly at the top of his voice, celebrating the fact that he only has a few more hospital visits left.   I am happy for him.  But I will miss my waiting room conversations.

Thanksgiving curries

Right now I should be tidying the house in preparation for the arrival of my parents-in-law but instead I am busy feeling thankful!  Last night we went out with our friends to celebrate Thanksgiving in the good old American tradition of going for a curry. And we had such a lovely evening- playing games, eating delicious food and laughing more than I remember laughing for a long time, Outside the wind was howling and rain was battering the windows ( I'm English- I have to mention the weather ) while inside lights and hearts were glowing.
" So go on, " my friend said, "what are you thankful for this year?" And suddenly the laughing stopped and we all looked at each other.  How do you answer that?
Cheesily: I am thankful for my family, my friends, my health, the love of those I love......
Materialistically:  I am thankful for my DM boots with the roses embroidered up the side and for the new fire pit in our garden
Philosophically: I am just thankful for being
Greedily: I am thankful for delicious food but most especially chocolate.
The truth is, it is hard to put into words what we are thankful for. It is more a general sense of wellbeing that we are lucky to be who we are, living where we are, when we do.
But last night, sitting in the restaurant sharing delicious food, creating  golden memories with good friends, it was hard not to be thankful for the creaminess of the saag paneer.


And what I forgot to write about bedtime story last weekend, is that as our story-teller sat back down on his chair, there was a squeal from underneath him and a little boy emerged hands and arms waving. Obviously the story-teller's chair looked more comfortable than the cushioned floor The story- teller jumped up.
"I'm not sure who's more surprised," he said, " him or me!"

Stories in the darkness and the great pyjama debate

Last night was bedtime story at the Children's Centre.
The children arrived wrapped in blankets of excitement.  Not because they were going to listen to stories but because it was dark and they were coming to Nursery in their pyjamas.
And, pyjama envy aside, there was something magical about it.
Pyjama clad, we searched the Nursery for the headteacher and when we found her fast asleep, wearing rollers in her hair, silk pyjamas and furry slippers, the children seemed to think it was perfectly normal.  Of course teachers live at school?
And as we all  fell under the Divali spell of our story- teller, weaving tales of evil  kings, brave children and lights in the darkness, it was hard not to feel part of something special.
When the stories were over and the hot chocolate drunk, I watched  everyone disappearing into the night.
Children wrapped tightly in fluffy dressing gowns, clutching teddy bears, parents pushing buggies or holding tightly onto tiny hands.
We tidied the Nursery and whenever we found a discarded blanket, we picked it up, folded it carefully and packed away the excitement.
Ready for next year's bedtime story.

And now there is an ongoing  pyjama debate raging in our house.  
My friend's daughter was horrified yesterday when I explained that I sometimes go to the corner shop, at the end of our road, in my pyjamas.
 She looked sympathetically at Mia, who shrugged and said " see what I have to put up with."
 I tried to explain that pyjamas are snug, warm and exceptionally fashionable at the moment.
But my friend's daughter kept repeating: " you go to the shop in your pyjamas!"
 I asked her what she would do.
She said she would get dressed, go to the shop, come  home and put her pyjamas back on.
" That seems like a lot of effort just to buy a pint of milk," I said.
" At least no one would see me in my pyjamas," she said.
At which point Mia told the story of how, one time, she had been chatting to her friends by the shop when I arrived, pyjama clad, said hello and walked straight in.
.  My friend's daughter looked at me.
" At least," the look seemed to say, " if you can't do if for yourself. get dressed for your daughter's sake!"
But life's too short to get dressed, when your pyjamas are so warm and comfortable.
 That's what I say.

birthday strangeness

Today is Ninesh's birthday.  Presents wrapped, candle with cake ready.... and I am thinking about how strange it is, that everyone has certain dates that are special just to them.  Your birthday, the birthdays of your children, the date you got your first big break, your wedding anniversary ( if you remember it! ), the date you left home,  bought your first car.  We each of us have special days that shape our years and our lives.  What's strange, is that anyone you walk past on those days, has no idea that they are special. To you it is, in some small way, momentous, to them it is just another day. I don't know why this suddenly seems strange.  We spend our lives walking past people we know nothing about. These dates are just one more thing we don't have in common with them.  But I can't help wishing that there was some code, some piece of clothing you could wear, a certain smile, that would tell everyone else this is a special day for you.  And maybe, just maybe, they would come and shake your hand or wish you well or share a smile.

Today though, the 14th November, is strange in it's specialness.  It is not just Ninesh's birthday.  It is the birthday of our friends adopted daughter,  long awaited and much loved.  I will never forget the day my friend came round, after years of emotional roller-coasting, to tell me that they had met the two girls who were to become their daughters.  They had met the oldest one, 11 today, first.  My friend told me how she and her husband walked up the garden  path  that day . Looking up, they saw a little girl, all curly hair and smiles waiting for them at the front door.  " Who's that?" they heard her ask her foster carer. " They're your mummy and daddy," said the foster carer.   And my friend turned to me, smiling too, and said " That's what we are."

And then there is the sadness because Ninesh shares his birthday with someone else too.  A friend who we didn't know for long enough and who is never really faraway.  I hope the flowers in the garden that is planted on her grave are flowering today.

Happy birthday to Ninesh, Ceylan and to a smiling girl with curly hair who has found her mum and dad.

Remembering and calmness in the rain

Yesterday at Mums Aloud, a Sunday drop-in and brunch for mums and their families at the Children's Centre, we held a minute's silence for Remembrance Sunday.  It's amazing how quiet 30 mums and 60 children, mostly under 5, can be when they really try.  And there was something so moving about seeing so many mums and young children holding hands or hugging each other quietly.  It made the loss seem so real and remembering the dads and grandads who were never given the chance to be part of their own family, so sad.  As soon as the minute was over, the children went back to cycling wildly round the garden or using huge amounts of glue to stick tiny bits of scarlet, poppy coloured paper onto a collage.  Everyone laughed and chatted and played.  But somehow, one minute's remembering made the next hour something worth treasuring.

Spent Saturday wandering around Brighton with a friend and our daughters.  My friend has 2 teenage children and 2 children under 5 ( rather her than me ). She was telling me that her 4 year old daughter had been given a wooden sword and was pretending to stab her younger brother with it.
" It's alright," she told her mum when she walked in and saw her , " I'm killing him very gently."

Joss ( 13 )asked me the other day, why Mia ( 15 )gets worried about school tests.  It's hard to know how to answer that!

Last night as Mia and I were driving back from dropping off a friend, we spied a man standing on the pavement at a busy intersection, doing T'ai Chi in the dark and rain.  He radiated such a peace and inner calmness. I hope we can carry it with us through today.

Trivial mundanity and train announcements

It is always a good feeling to wake up and know it's Friday. So even though it's still dark, I've got up to enjoy those first few minutes of the last working day of the week. Today is going to be one of those domino effect days: our big, brave, new multi-agency room is having desks put in all around the walls, so we have to put all our things in the very small meeting room next door, which means the health visitors who use that room, will have to move into another room, which means the group in the other room will have to be squeezed into one room instead of two, which means......It makes me realise how much of our lives we spend sorting out mundane trivialities and I can't help wishing it wasn't so.  But then, I suppose, it is the trivial things that provide the firm base upon which great things are built. It's especially true as a parent.  If you don't help your kids find their lost PE shirt, make sure they've eaten some breakfast, done their homework, switched off their computers, stopped tweeting on their phones, replace a broken compass and protractor- if you don't do all those little things, the solid base of their world can crumble.  It's hard to spread your wings and fly if you have no firm footing to take off from. Life will always be precarious, full of unexpected potholes, some small, some so gaping and enormous,  that all we can do is tiptoe around them and be careful not to fall back in. There is not much we can do about those.  The mundane triviality we can sort out though. So maybe, walking through this Friday, I'll be glad that's all I have to do.

Ninesh has changed his phone ring to the sound that is made in Swiss stations just before a train announcement is made.  So now, every time he gets a text message, I expect a train to arrive in our kitchen.

Roses and victory

And he won.  In front of me,on the table, from a vase full of flowers, a perfect, orange rose has unfurled.
I will carry Obama's victory and the scent of one fresh rose with me as I walk through today.

Shouting votes and blue food colouring

I am thinking about the elections  in America, as I sit here in freezing Chichester.  I  hope the right person wins. It is going to be so close and I wonder if knowing that, will make more people vote.  In England the voting apathy at election time is both sad and disheartening.  It is not so long ago that women were chaining themselves to railings and sacrificing themselves to ensure votes for women.  Yet today, many women cannot even be bothered to vote.  When we lived in Switzerland, I was shocked to discover that there was one area where women only got the vote in 1976! Perhaps it is because politicians and the word games they play, seem so far removed from the daily grind of making your benefits last to the end of the week or trying to get a house that is big enough for your family or applying for another job to be rejected from.  Maybe voting for someone who doesn't know you and probably doesn't really care, seems pointless.  In America especially today, I can't imagine how hard it must be for people who have lost everything in the hurricane, to summon up the energy to vote when their lives lie in shreds around them.  But still, I hope they do. Because voting is all we have.  However far removed the politicians may seem from us, voting is the only tool we have to make our voices heard.  One vote is a whisper, a whole community of votes is a SHOUT!

Yesterday I was searching for a candle for a birthday cake for one of my colleagues at work.  As I opened the cupboard in the  kitchen, a bottle of opened food colouring fell out, turning every inch of surface and every millimetre of white grout, a brilliant blue.  A splash of colour on a grey day.  Not sure my boss will agree though!

Magic moments and pink cupcakes

Joss, my 13 year old son is ill.  So instead of going to work, I have spent the morning curled up next to him, by the fire, reading the third book of "His Dark Materials," Trilogy: The Amber Spyglass.  It is easy to get lost in the tangibly magical worlds Philip Pullman creates. But sitting here with Joss next to me, I realise that  you don't need stories, or television or films to create magic. What you need is time. Time to be a mum, time to be a family, time to be a friend.  Time to talk, time to laugh, time to share your dreams.  And that is enough. Because the memories of mornings like today are what keep us warm on even the coldest days. And that's magic.

At work yesterday one of the mums was telling me that her 3 year old daughter had asked for pink cup cakes for breakfast.
" When do you ever have cupcakes for breakfast?" her mum asked.
" Today would be a good day," replied her daughter!
" And did she get them?" I asked.
The mum laughed.
" I told today probably was as good a day as any.  The kitchen's still covered in pink icing though! "

The taste of happiness

Last night I was having dinner ( and too much wine )with a friend, a children's centre co-ordinator like me. With our first glass of wine we decided that we could probably write a play about the daily craziness that is life in a Childrens Centre, by the second glass we thought it should probably be a soap opera and by the third we realised that actually it would have to be a sit com.

Like all jobs, running a Children's Centre has it highs and lows. But since no two lives are the same, neither are any two days at work. There are parents who come in crying because they are about to lose their house, their partner, their children, their lives.  THere are parents who panic if their children are more than two steps away from them and parents who don't e seem to know where their children are or care what they are doing. There are families, newly arrived from other countries, who walk through our door hoping that we can guide them as they begin their  life in England, children and adults in wheelchairs and walkers coveted by children who can "walk normally." There are teenage parents who arrive angry- expecting to be judged, volunteers with learning difficulties who have walked the edge of society looking for somewhere to be accepted and belong.  Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, step-cousins.And all accompanied by the the cry of new born babies, the tears and laughter of young children and the chatter of parents and carers.  What we hope, is that everyone who walks through our doors feels unconditionally welcomed.  Sometimes we manage it, sometimes we don't.  But we will never stop trying.

It is the half term holiday at the moment, so it is a bit quieter than usual.  I am covering in the Community Cafe while our manager is on holiday, proudly producing squashed paninis and overfilled, untidy sandwiches.  Yesterday one of our teenagers with learning difficulties was helping me.  He's been going through a hard time lately, his future lying scarily unshaped before him. And helping too,  was one of our mums who has had to fight many demons to walk back bravely through our doors.  And together, with her guiding and him listening, they made the most amazing chocolate chip cookies: huge with melted chocolate buttons instead of  chocolate chips. And as the cookies cooled, my heart warmed.  Two lost souls, coming together, creating  something  delicious.  Both so proud of what they had done and for just a few minutes so engrossed in what they were doing, that they  forgot the sadness and troubles weighing them down. Today, we will sell the cookies in the cafe and I am sure that everyone who takes a bite will smile.  That's what happens when you taste happiness!

Delicious kindness

We have just come back, my daughter, Mia, and I, from a trip to Bristol.  Keen shopper and general merchandise consumer that my daughter is, we left early so that we could spend some time shopping in the centre of Bristol before going on to stay with family  just outside the city.  We stopped to buy lunch in a busy and fast pace sandwich/ warm snack cafe.  I ordered and paid and too late,  noticed a soup on the menu that sounded delicious. The person service us must have heard me talking about it because as he laid out our lunch on the tray, he added a cup of the soup. " You should try it," he smiled, " it's delicious. On the house!"
Maybe it was just a loss leader, maybe he had been asked to promote the soup, maybe the soup had almost run out and he wanted to finish it off but I like to believe that he was just being kind. And believing that warmed me to my heart and made the thought of 3 hours shopping much more bearable.  And it made me realise how rarely in our manic, often self-absorbed race through life, we have time to be randomly kind and how much difference it could make if we were.  The smallest action can make the hugest difference. Most of us can probably count on our fingers the number of times we have been truly randomly kind to someone, friend or stranger. wanting and expecting nothing in return other than the pleasure that the knowledge of having done it can give us. Yet all of us will remember the times when an unexpected kindness  has changed the way we walked through a day.

" You read too much into that whole soup thing," Mia says. And maybe she's right but it"s still making me smile two days later- and it was delicious!

Imaginings and football dreams

The tortoise and the cat and I are chilling by the fire, waiting for the rest of the family to come home from a trip to London to watch an Arsenal match.  By the skin of their teeth, Arsenal won, which is a relief to all of us.  The house is quiet, free from the noise and clutter that comes with family life and I can feel myself slipping into an imaginary world where the house stays tidy for whole days at a time and the television is covered in dust from lack of use.  Today at "miniGIANTS," our football club for under 5's, one of the children ( there for the first time ) came in and just stood, gazing around him at the footballs and the other children and the parents.  "It's alright," said his mum, " It's just that he's spent so long being part of his imaginary football team, that this real one is quite confusing!"  And I think I know what he means.  Sometimes reality can be so much more confusing and complicated than anything we ever imagined!

Ninesh and the kids have just arrived home, filling the house with noise and chaos.  Reality bites- but the truth is, it doesn't hurt and living in that imaginary world can get lonely!

Small world, wide roads

Yesterday at the Children's Centre, a kid's Spanish group linked up with a group in California to sing Spanish songs and dance together in hyperspace. In California, their day was just beginning, ours was almost ending. But it made no difference to the chaotic fun, breakfast time or dinner time, kids know how to hop, skip and twirl through days!   The world has become a small place where we can almost touch hands across oceans. Yet I watch Betty,  who lives opposite us as she opens her front door to collect her milk. Wrapped in a cornflower  blue dressing-gown, her white hair slightly more dishevelled each morning, I realise how rarely I reach out across the road to touch her life. The distance from one side of the world to the other can seem so small and the distance from one side of the road to the other, so vast.
Last Summer we had a Diamond Jubilee street party. We thought it would be hard to organise, the few of us who met over tea and beer to organise it.  But on the day, the street was hung with fluttering bunting ( made by our neighbour ) parked cars disappeared and by 1 pm tables, covered in colourful table -cloths ran the length of the street. And from every house people began emerging with plates piled high with cakes and sandwiches ( some with the crusts cut off! ) and drinks and crisps. And the party began.  And for an afternoon neighbours forgot their quarrels, children played in the middle of the road, young and old sat laughing together and for just a few hours, we understood what if felt like to be part of a community.  And outside her house, Betty sat, cup of tea in hand, smiling. It has made the distance from one side of the road to the other seem shorter and now we know most of the people who walk past our window and smile at our neighbours.  But the truth is, it's still easier to come home, close the door, switch on the computer and skype someone on the other side of the world than it is to walk normally across the road.

A while ago I met up with one of my friends who is a head teacher. At the end of the school day he was called by one of the class teachers to deal with a problem.  She had handed out a page of homework to the children and one of her pupils had eaten his!   My friend went to talk to the child.
" How are you going to do your homework if it is in your tummy?" he asked.  " Are you going to swallow a pencil too?"   " Miss said our homework was so easy today it was a piece of cake." replied the boy " and I was hungry."

Misty aspirations

The Autumn mist is wisping around our garden and swirling right up to our windowpanes this morning.  And I am thinking how nice it would be to stay at home, hidden away.  That way I could just sit through Thursday in my pyjamas, instead of getting dressed and walking through it normally. Mist is strange because it fills even the most familiar objects with magical potential.  In the vagueness of their outline, a leafless tree could be a frozen monster, an overflowing bin - a crashed rocket, the houses on our road could really have disappeared leaving only roofs and chimneys suspended in mid-air.  Life might be much more interesting if every day was misty.  At least everyone would have to walk more slowly and have time to think more deeply.  Listening to politicians on the radio is a bit like listening to verbal mist- except that instead of magical potential, there is only the potential to mislead. Policies and ideas take on different shapes depending on who's talking about them, truth and lies get muddled up and words are left suspended in mid-air, floating above the emptiness of their meaning.
The mist is clearing outside, shame our politicians haven't noticed!

Walking back from work with my 15 year old daughter, Mia,  yesterday, she pointed at a crowd of girls with their blue school uniform skirts rolled up as high as they could be, their hair blonde, long and unmovingly perfect.  "They're the ex-YTS," said Mia.
"YTS?" I asked, thinking maybe some youth club members or a work experience team.
"Year Ten Sluts," explained my daughter.  " Only they're in Year 11 now so they are the YES.  Except that the new YTS are more popular than they are so they hate each other. THose ex-YTS's keep writing letters to the new ones saying things like " just because you've slept with more boys than me, doesn't make you a better YTS!"
They've obviously worked hard, those YTSs and YESs to get to where they've got to today.  Makes you proud of our English education system!

The beauty of sadness

I often wonder if it is ok to  feel sad.  If we are lucky, we spend a lot of our lives smiling and laughing and loving and being loved. But sometimes sad things happen and I find myself pretending they don't.  When people ask me how I am, I usually just say " fine, how are you?" I wonder what would happen if I said, "I'm feeling a little bit sad today, how about you?"
Yesterday I stood by and watched as one of my oldest and best friends stood in front of the coffin and said goodbye to her mum . She and her family were so strong and dignified in their grief that it made me realise that sadness, with all its pain, can be beautiful. Once the sense  of shock and loss and emptiness and grief  that inevitably comes with death has passed, there comes a gentler sadness that we will carry with us always. It is sadness that creates a hole in our heart that is the shape of the person we have lost.  It can never be filled by anyone else and it will never leave us but its very presence helps us move on.  It is a hole we can sometimes disappear into for a few moments, a sadness we can touch when we need to, just to make sure we haven't forgotten. A place where the memory of those we have loved and lost, will always be kept alive and safe.  So I think today, it will be ok to feel sad and when someone asks me how I am, I will try and be brave enough to say " I am feeling a little bit sad today. Do you sometimes have days like that?"

RIP Sheila.

Films, words and red balloons

One of my friends just gave me Stephen King's " Hope Springs Eternal,"- the short story on which the film , The Shawshank Redemption ( my all time, one- of -the -seven- things -I -would -save favourite) is based. Now that I have read it, it has set me to wondering about films and books because I think it is one of the few times when I believe the film is better than the book. It is an ongoing argument in our house.  Every time my kids go to see a film based on a book, I try to get them to read the book first  explaining to them that films are nearly always a pale shadow of the original story.

" Films are always disappointing if you've read the book," I say.  

To which they reply, " Then why would we want to read the book? We don't want to be disappointed."

And as usual I am dumbfounded by their teenage logic!

Most of the best lines in the film are taken directly from the book but I think the twists that have been added in the film make it a better and more compelling story. In the end though, the message is the same- hope is a good thing! And I think that is why I love the film so. Because if I had a mantra I think that might be it, although there are times, when I am about to walk into a room full of people wearing smart clothes and high heeled shoes or , even more scarily, a room full of teenage parents, when I have to keep repeating the words " Remember they are more scared of you than you are of them, remember they are ...." Maybe mantras, like priorities, change depending on what you are doing and who you are talking to. At work, I often find myself saying to people, that if you think "blue sky,"  you have more chance of your hopes and dreams coming true than if you think grey, cloudy sky. And when I am talking to my daughter, upset once again because of a friendship crisis, I tell her the most important thing is " to be true to herself," while to my son, raging at some new injustice we have imposed upon him, I say the most important thing is to think of others. And to Ninesh, I mostly say that there are more important things in life than football.  And the truth is, they are all just words.. Which is probably why I will always prefer books to films, whether or not I win the argument at home.

The sky outside our bedroom window has just filled with red balloons, hundreds of them floating fby with tags attached.  So for a few minutes even the air is filled with words!  

Playing I Spy at work the other day, someone told me how his family  had been playing it with their 3 year old  daughter.

" I spy with my little eye, something beginning with "b," she said.  The family spent the next 20 minutes guessing and asking for clues.  " No," she said to every guess, " no, not that." Finally they gave up and admitted defeat. " What is it?" they asked, " Tell us.  " Oh, I don't know," she said, put her sunglasses on upside down and fell asleep.

Rain, grumpy teenagers and inconvenient tortoises

Outside the cars swish through the puddles The familiar sound of morning! It seems like a long time since since a day began with warm sunshine pouring through the window!  One of my German friends tells me that the English are obsessed with the weather.  I always tell her that is just stereotyping, but on reflection, I think it might be true. The first thing my husband ( Ninesh ) does every morning is check the weather forecast on his computer, even though all he will be doing for most of the day is sitting in an office.  At least he will know what "shade of grey," to expect from his window!
 Last year we spent Christmas in Sri Lanka with Ninesh's family. His mum and dad have lived in England for a long time now but something about  the warmth of the sunshine, the friendliness of the smiles, the brightness of the colours, seemed to bring his dad back to life. It is as though, in England,  his colours are hidden and it  took the sunshine and the sense of  truly belonging, for the bud, closed up inside him for so long, to unfurl.  So perhaps we are right to be obsessed with the weather.  Perhaps it is an intricate part of what defines us.  Perhaps if we English woke to sunshine every day we would feel lost and confused- not sure that I would mind though!

Just woken up my son, who told me to " go away," said good morning to my daughter who hasn't slept a wink I needn't think, and fallen over the tortoise who always seems to fall asleep in the middle of the living room floor. Rain, grumpy teenagers and inconvenient tortoises.  Think I will need steel- toed wellies and armour to walk through today.

Gadgets, memories and tranquil Tuesdays

I kept asking people yesterday what 7 objects they would save, if they had to have the biggest car boot sale in the world and sell all their other worldly possessions. 7 is hard,. 1 or 2 is easy.  Most women said they would save a piece of jewellery, a photo, an old love letter.  Most men said their mobile phone or a toolset. My husband said could his whole record collection (1.000 records) count as one thing. But after that it gets hard.  How do you choose between your all-time favourite pair of shoes ( I would save my DMs with the red roses embroidered on them ) and your kitchen table that belonged to your great-grandmother. Or between your new laptop and the hat your wife gave you.  Are memories worth more than possessions? Meaningful gifts worth more than useful gadgets?  Wandering through some woods in Thailand a few years ago, we came across a saying, nailed to a tree:
" Hundred years from now, all new people."
Maybe it should have said " Hundred years from now all new gadgets. ( So why did you bother saving your iphone."

 Out with some friends at the weekend. we started talking about times when our children were little and motherhood was new to us. And about how easy it was, in the cotton-wool headedness of sleep deprivation, to forget things.  One of my friends said that when her brother was tiny, her mum had wheeled him to the shops in the pram and taken the dog for a walk at the same time.  She had tied up the dog next to the pram outside a shop, bought everything she needed and gone home.  After a little while, she suddenly realised that she had left the dog outside the shop. It was only when she ran back and saw the pram next to the dog, that she remembered she had left her son there too.

Onwards into tranquil (!) Tuesday.

Circuit boards and unused fondue sets

Monday morning here again! How did it get here so quickly.  Feels like it was Friday evening just  a few minutes ago, with the weekend lying dreamily in front of me. It's hard to believe that there are still 2 months worth of days getting shorter to contend with. It already feels that daylight is just the thinly spread filling between two thick slices of darkness!

At the Children's Centre on Friday a group of 3 year olds walked proudly into our office.  They had been given the head teacher's old laptop to take apart and were carrying it carefully, screwdriver's in their other hands.
"Look!", they shouted triumphantly, " we fixed it!" And opening the lid of the laptop, we all watched as keys, circuit boards and bits of wire scattered all over the floor. Looking gleefully at the other computers in the office, they advanced, screwdrivers ready, saying " can we fix these now!"

Did a car boot sale yesterday.  The sky was blue, the sun was ( unusually ) shining and my two nephews were helping me, full of enthusiasm and special offers for anyone brave enough to touch anything on our table. A whole car park full of the unwanted clutter of so many lives. I was wondering what would happen if everyone was told they had to have a car boot sale and could only keep 7 objects from their lives. What would they be?  Cuddly toys, chipped cups, baby clothes, unused fondue sets, old mobile phones?  A new version of Desert Island Discs called Can't Live Without It!

The shoes of the day are waiting to be slipped on! Here goes Monday.

Chocolate booking forms

Strangely, it;s not raining! Very strange not to wake up to the patter against the window. Just trees bending in the wind. When our friend died 2 years ago, leaving behind 2 little children and a mountain of broken hearts, the weather stormed around us, thunder, lightening, rain slashing, trees crashing.  It lasted days. She never was one for going quietly, our friend.  Today when I look at the more gentle bending of branches, I imagine new souls, touching the leaves as they pass in a final farewell.

We have a new multi-agency room at work.  People keep coming and asking us what the booking system will be.  We have so many bits of paper to book so many different rooms in our building, that we have decided " no more."  Instead of a booking form, priority will be given in direct proportion to the amount of chocolate people bring with them.

Think maybe I will try walking backwards into Friday, the view from behind at the end of the week, might be better!

Parenthood, posterity and international banking

Just sitting by the fire, watching the lights being slowly turned on in the other houses in our road. Chichester is waking up and it is time to begin the walk through another day.

Been preparing for a parenting group this afternoon.  Every time I plan the sessions, I realise that most of the time I don't do any of the things it tells parents to do! But I've noticed in general that it is often teachers and people like me running courses like this, who have the worst behaved children!  The truth is, that as a parent, we never get it right and we never stop feeling guilty about that..  If you read the job description for " parent," before having children, I don't think many people would apply! . There is definitely no walking normally through parenthood, mostly just groping blindly and hoping  you sometimes get it right!

In the end book club last night was really interesting although no one liked the book much.  Spent a long time talking about how sad it is that no one writes letters anymore.  And wondering how posterity is going to remember us when future generations will have to trawl through reams of spam and boring emails to find the one interesting thing that happened.  We were thinking maybe we could collect all our most important emails and save them in a file marked " for future generations!"

My sister and I were discussing future generations and the mess bankers are helping us make of this one.  She said she had met lots of international bankers where they live and the strange thing was that none of them seemed very intelligent.  My brother-in-law said that actually, the strange thing was that my sister thought that being an international banker and being intelligent had anything to do with each other!

Almost all the lights in the road turned on now. Time to turn from blogs to packed lunches.

Dreams, tortoises and cat food

The first sip of coffee in a peaceful house! The right way to begin a day, even a wet and dark and windy one.
The thing about  calling a blog "walking normally," is that I think about walking normally all the time, (which usually makes me want to hop or skip or twirl! )Today, the kids are going to my parent's house after school.  My dad can hardly walk at all now.  Each tiny shuffle costs him so much energy and loss of dignity, that he prefers to just sit and ponder the injustice of it all.  He says he knows what he needs to do to  put one foot in front of the other but his legs just won't do it.  It makes me realise how easy it is to take walking or hopping or skipping  for granted. Sometimes, when I go round to their house, he is sitting in the kitchen with a faraway look in his eyes and tells me of the dream he has just had where he could walk. And turning to me he says " the hardest part is that when I wake up, for just a moment, I forget it isn't true."

Our tortoise, on the other hand, races across the living room floor as soon as he hears the cat munching on  its breakfast.  The cat watches warily and eats faster to avoid the daily head -to-head. Never knew tortoises ate meat but given the choice between cheap cat food or wholesome fruit and veg, cat food would win every time.  Probably also true of my teenage son.

Never did finish " Instead of a Book," - wish I could have read almost any book instead of that one. Time for finishing it is up today! Book club tonight and I wonder how many people will have read it. Quite glad I don't like it.  Book clubs always work best when at least one member hates the book.

Still searching for the tranquility Tuesday didn't bring - perhaps it belongs to Wednesday this week.

Iced biscuits and fiery redheads

Just been helping at a club for kids with additional needs.  Icing biscuits.  After covering ourselves in icing sugar and pouring most of the water over the table, we managed to make the icing.  One of the kids picked up a spoon dripping with icing and said: " I am just going to let this drip on my tongue so the biscuits don't get dirty."

Heard the best name ever today: Attaine Kildaine.  Conjures up a picture of a small, fiery red-haired woman wearing a kilt and wedges and carrying a spike.

Gold crowns and mobile phones

Finding myself becoming addicted to this blogging!  Instead of collecting gripes and grumbles all day at work, I have started collecting snippets of people's lives to share! Lucky no one knows I am writing this!

My 13 year old son is sending off his no -longer-on-trend mobile phone and will get £35.  One of my friends has just had to have a tooth pulled out because his gold crown fell out.  If it hadn't been for the fact that he has found out he can sell his crown for the gold, he might have felt old and depressed. Instead he is spending his time trying to choose which company to send it to!  And I am picturing a set of scales.  On one side a complicated electronic device and on the other a tiny, chewed on gold tooth crown.  And I am wondering which way the scales will tip.

Harvest deliveries and hoovering in your underwear

I don't think there is any way you can walk normally through  Mondays.  Rush chaotically or zig zag defiantly ...but walking normally...As a mum it usually begins with your children screaming at you because they can't remember where they threw their PE kit on Friday and a frantic search for something to put in packed lunches.  In a Children's Centre it begins with most of the families you work with having a  crisis because they have had a whole weekend without one.  And throughout the zig zagging of the day, you keep remembering all the things you forgot to do last week. It is always a relief when you reach the relative normality of tranquil Tuesday ( ever the optimist! )

One of my colleagues came in this morning mortified. Yesterday afternoon there was a knock on her front door.  "Thank you," she heard her husband and young daughters say as they closed the door and came into the kitchen, arms full of tins and vegetables, harvest festival goods from their local church.  Obviously it had been meant for the old couple who used to live there but the members of the congregation who delivered it were not deterred by the fact that a young father and his 2 daughters opened the door.

Great excitement when my boss's long awaited new hoover arrived at work this afternoon.  She told her husband that he'd probably find her hoovering in her underwear when he got home from work. He replied:
"I don't care what you're wearing.  Just do the hoovering!."

And maybe doing the hoovering in your underwear is about the most normal way this Monday can end!

Great grandads and trampolines

Dads Aloud full of dads and kids using boxes, glue and bits of string to make amazing models, dripping paint over the floor and hammering nails into little bits of wood. When the kids got bored, they went outside to play and left their dads to finish. And they did.
Just been at my niece's birthday party.  Lots of her friends find walking normally hard but their sense of achievement when they make it to the trampoline shines loud on their faces.  One of them told us that her great grandad is 96 or 97, she's not sure.  He lives next door to her grandad but they would like him to go into a home.  When  I asked her why, she said "because he drives them mad.  My great grandad drives everyone mad!' and then she joined her friends on the trampoline..

Dads Aloud and books full of holes

 There is nothing better or more delicious than the first sip of coffee in a quiet house.  Have lit the fire and am watching the tortoise basking in its heat, with the cat curled up dreaming next to him.  Thinking maybe I was born into the wrong species. Working later, Dads Aloud. Dads bring their children to play in the Nursery, leaving the mums at home.  First one of this academic year so I am never sure how many dads will be brave enough to come. I always watch them as they walk uncertainly under the enormous horse chestnut tree towards our Children's Centre. Holding hands, pushing prams.  Feeling unnatural.   Many of them out of role and even more of them out of comfort zone. I imagine how it must feel. Don't think Ninesh ( my husband ) would have been brave enough to do it! Don't think I would have been brave enough to come to anything like it either. It must be scary wondering who will be there, will everyone be watching everyone else.  Will their son/daughter have a tantrum.  Will they know what to do if that happens!  But as soon as they step into the organised chaos of our Nursery: paint and glue and bricks and train tracks and play dough and bikes and footballs, nervousness disappears and playing takes over.  And before you know it, they are elbow deep in glue or constructing an amazing boat or covered in paint. Kids and dads engrossed!  And I always wonder at what a leveller being a parent is.  Makes no difference if you are a politician or a plumber, a head teacher or work in Argos, if you have had no sleep because your kids have been up all night, or had to deal with a tantrum in the middle of a shop, the exhaustion you feel and the worries you have are the same! And the deliciousness of the sausage sandwich before going home is also probably the same for everyone!
Coffee finsihed.  Got to read 300 pages of Diana Athill's Instead of a Book by Wednesday.  Quite hard going.  Reading one sided letters is a bit like reading a book full of holes.

walkingnormally.

The first post is the hardest.  Should be the title of a song.
So here I go.  Walking normally through life with its constant detours and u-turns is hard enough! Writing a blog when you are as computer illiterate as me, might be even harder. But when there is laundry to put away and a house to clean, anything is worth a try. So here goes.
This is meant to be a collaborative blog with me ( Becky- in Chichester ), Mandy ( in Germany ) and Cath ( in Liverpool ) but setting up a collaborative was far beyond my skill level.  But as the three of us were told to "walk normally," on a film set we had walked into by mistake last weekend, the seed for the walking normally blog was planted. And anyway, what is walking normally?  There's the tripping stiletto walk, the wobbly wedge walk, the confident DM walk, the shuffling slipper walk, the squelchy welly walk ( all those who were at Greenman this year ) , the defiant teenage swagger walk, the swaying-hips sensual sexy walk- and the sidling-off-the-film set- you-are-not-meant-to-be-on walk.  Like everything with the word " normal," in it, walking normally means whatever you want it to mean and is however you are walking today.  Perhaps the real skill is to walk differently and look like you mean it. Maybe that's what we should have called the blog!
Going to practice walking differently now as I walk to my son't bedroom to put away his clothes!