Everything you need

Some friends of our friend Dan are moving closer to Chichester this week.  And we are all very pleased. For a long time they have been driving miles just to come for dinner or go out for a drink. Now, at last, they will be close by and we will see them more often. 
" Well," we asked Dan when we met him last week, " how are their moving plans going?"
Dan grinned.
" Good," he said, " all the paperwork is done.  They're moving next Friday." 
" And have they got everything?" I asked.
Dan took a sip of his drink.
" Oh I think so," he said. " They're very excited. They've been buying things for weeks. So far they've bought an untreated wooden bench riddled with wood worm, an American window that isn't a window, a vintage pencil sharpener and a gramophone that only plays 78s. So they should have everything they need."

We laughed and ordered some nachos while we planned the first party at our friends' house.  
But it made me remember my very first night in my very own flat. 
It was a beautiful flat by the canal in Kings Cross, London. It had a huge arched window and the generic magnolia coloured walls and brown carpets that come with most modern flats. I sat on the floor of the living room that first night, surveying my kingdom and my possessions proudly.  Like our friends, moving to Chichester, I had acquired the things I believed were truly important: a coffee machine, my old red futon, a pen and notepad, a fish tank with 5 fish and a picture called The Gods' Bathroom given to me by my friends on my 21st birthday.

Everything I needed to make my new home mine.
Over time you acquire all the things for day-to-day living: peelers, graters, plates, saucepans, a hoover, chairs.....But when you first move somewhere that belongs to just you, that's not what you are thinking about. You are not worrying about whether you have enough knives and forks or cleaning materials, instead you sit and dream of how you will make it yours. 
And those first few things you bring with you are important not because they are useful or just what you need. 
They are important because they are an extension of yourself, the very essence of you. And as you scatter them carefully through empty rooms, an impersonal, empty house becomes your home.

When Mia was 10 days old, she and I joined Ninesh to start our new life in Switzerland. I hadn't seen the flat and when we arrived everything was in total chaos. 
Boxes everywhere, clothes piled in a heap in the corner of the bedroom, a camping mat and sleeping bag on the floor. 
But in the middle of the living room, carefully set up, was Ninesh's record player and sitting next to it was Ninesh, putting all his vinyl records in alphabetical order.

In my arms, the tiny Mia wriggled and opened her big, dark eyes.
NInesh took her from me and hugging her tight, introduced her to his record collection.
And  suddenly an anonymous, rental flat in a strange new country had become friendly and familiar because it had just become our home.

At least, when our friends move into their new home next Friday, we will always have somewhere to go when our pencils need sharpening.

Losing the moral high ground

At the moment there is a party going on in our garden.
Ninesh has made an endless number of pizzas.
I have filled the shed with sleeping bags and duvets and mattresses.
We have pulled the chairs around the fire pit and set the dried up Summer leaves ablaze.
Everything is ready.
The guests are here.
And neither Ninesh or I nor even Mia are invited.

" Can I have a birthday party we get home?" Joss asked while we were away.
" Of course," I smile, pleased that at last he wants to have friends round to our house when we are actually at home. " What day do you want it."
" Monday," says Joss with a certainty we haven't agreed to.
" But that's our first day back at work, our first proper day home.  Don't you think we might still be jet-lagged. Why don't you wait until the end of the week?..." my words trail away.
" Everyone can come on Monday," says Joss.
"How do you know? " I say, " we're in America, they're in England and you only just asked me."
" And then I asked them," explained Joss reasonably, his fingers moving like lightening across his phone.
" And I told them it was a sleepover in the shed," he adds too quickly, " Beth and Brandon are bringing duvets."
I turn my gaze from the pelicans crashing headlong into the blue Pacific Ocean, to Joss, our just-turned-14-years-old son who has just in a casual, off-hand, social networking sort of way, completely manipulated me.
For the last year we have not let Joss stay at sleepovers where there are girls and boys. Despite his tears and his begging and his fury, we held fast to a principle we were almost completely sure was right. 
" You are a teenager Joss," we reasoned, " your hormones are raging. Things can get out of control. You're still too young."
And in the end we won a sort of victory.
Instead of letting Joss sleep over, he would let us drive along narrow, winding roads in the middle of the night, peering at doors, trying to read invisible numbers in the darkness. 
We got to know places in Chichester we didn't know existed. But at least Joss was gracious in defeat and stopped trying to battle us over it.  
He always thanked us for picking him up and never stayed longer than agreed.
It seemed that we had reached the perfect compromise.
He got to see his friends and we got to keep the moral high ground. 
But they are clever these teenagers. 
Joss bided his time
He waited until I was standing on a beautiful beach, bathed in the feeling of warm  happiness that always comes with holidays and peacefully distracted, as I watched the surf foaming to a crashing stop on the sand.
And before I knew what I was doing, I had agreed to everything that he had already planned.
And like the water pulling away the sand between my toes, I could feel the moral high ground slipping away.
And now I am sitting in the kitchen, writing this blog watching a group of carefree 14 year old friends laughing together round the fire. Wearing their pyjamas, they are wrapped in sleeping bags and duvets, planning how to stay awake all night by setting an alarm any time any one of them goes to sleep.
And it is right we were weren't invited.
We have to get used to watching from the sideline as our children stand on the cusp of their tomorrows. Always standing just close enough to catch them if they fall.
And I think perhaps we gave Joss the only birthday present that he really wanted- because we given him our trust.
The fire has gone out and as I watch 6 teenagers disappearing into the tardis-like shed, I can only hope that we were right. 

End of holiday blues and softly falling lentils

Here we are back in England. 

It's raining and the grey sky feels very close to the ground.

Already our holiday is slipping away from us. Like brightly coloured sand it is slipping through our fingers and if we don't clench our fists, we will lose it all.

And so I hold my fingers close together and clasp onto the memories that will keep me warm.

The tail of the breathtakingly majestic blue whale disappearing noiselessly into the sea, so close you could almost touch it.

LA sparkling at our feet from Griffith Park.

The simple sorrow of a single rose placed in someone's name at the 9/11 memorial

The human tenderness of pulling a blanket over a fellow down- and -out in Central Park against the defiantly inhuman height of the New York skyline. The sense of pride that  the Statue of Liberty somehow always seems to exude.

The crashing of the foaming Pacific waves and the salty honking of the La Jolla sea lions. The natural serenity of a New England, lily-filled lake and the constant movement and colour of the decidedly man-made Universal Studios.  The beauty of a stranger's home and the rekindling of almost forgotten friendships.  

Too much delicious food and not enough good radio.

All of that is becoming the stuff that dreams are made of. 

Because it's amazing how quickly a holiday can become unreal.  

A dazzling island surrounded by mundane weeks.

But the worse thing about a holiday being over is not the ending itself so much as the knowledge that it will be a long time before you can start looking forward to your next one.

Because the weeks planning and booking and shaping a holiday are almost as much fun as being on it..

Counting days forwards and anticipating before a holiday is always much better than counting days backwards and remembering afterwards.

Coming home is never easy. 

However smooth the plane landing, floating back down to every-day life is rarely pleasurable. 

But home is safe and familiar and holidays are only exciting because they are not.

" It's good to sleep in my own bed again," says Joss, patting his Arsenal duvet happily.

" Can you make your dal dad? I've missed it."

And suddenly here we are, home. 

 And as Ninesh lets the silky, orange lentils that he uses to make dal, fall between his fingers he stares dreamily into the distance.

"Where shall we go to next year?" he asks.

Empty shells and chai and chatter

We are almost at the end of this adventure and almost as far south in California as we can be without being in Mexico. It is hot and sunny. The sky is as blue as we remembered it and the sea just as wild and beautiful. It's strange being back where we lived for so long. It was the start of the life NInesh and I have shared together ever since and for that reason it will always hold a special place in our hearts. We are staying with ourfriend Gerhard, in San Clemente, catching up on old memories and creating new ones.
Friendship lends everything a richness and depth that just " visiting," a place can never have.
Friendship makes the leaving of anywhere all the harder.Friendships are what kept us so many years in Southern California.
"Why are you leaving paradise?" friends and family asked us as we packed our bags. 
" How can you leave constant sunshine and such blue, blue skies?" they wondered.
But the strange thing is, we didn't wonder at all.
Because something we realised when we lived here, is that a perfect climate, the glistening ocean and the bluest skies are not enough to create the perfect life.  For all its opportunities, there is something "empty shell-like," about the Southern Californian dream.
People own huge, beautiful houses, many with swimming pools and breathtaking views. But they never spend any time in them.
Here work comes first always. 
Work takes priority over your your family.
Work comes before your dreams.
Visiting some of our oldest friends here, Rafi and Athiya, last week, we suddenly remembered so clearly why we left. It was a Friday and Rafi doesn't work Fridays. In theory his office is closed. But often he goes into work anyway because everyone else does and it would look bad if he didn't. 
And that constant fear that somebody else might be doing something that you should be doing, casts a permanent shadow over your life. But Rafi was brave last Friday. He stayed home and only answered a few emails. He and his young son went to pray at the mosque together and we stayed with Athiya and her mother and her daughter and drank chai and chatted and remembered and dreamed. 
And that's what seems to be missing from life here sometimes. 
That chance to fill a house with chatter and laughter and to make it into a home.
And now it is time to enjoy our last day in Paradise and search out the sun.
And tonight we will barbecue in Gerhard's backyard, wrapped in a warmth that comes not from the sun, but from a friendship that has survived distance and time. 
And I will pretend that tomorrow will never come.

Dreaming California

So we are back in California, the land of blue skies, constant sunshine and infinite possibilities. Where dreams might come true if you believe for just one more day.
And here we are in the City of Angels and for just a few days we have borrowed someone else's dream. We are staying in a house of more rambling and elegant beauty than we could ever have imagined. We sit on one of the many sofas on the sun drenched terrace, drinking wine and watching the sun set. Above us, almost close enough to touch, the HOLLYWOOD sign rises gleaming white from the scrubland beneath it. And at our feet the lights of LA beckon to us through the dusty dusk. Around the pale blue of the swimming pool, humming birds hover, their wings whirring ceaselessly as they drink nectar from the pink and purple flowers. And just for now, this paradise is ours. the house once belonged to Aldous Huxley and is being 
gradually reimagined by its current owner. In true Gatsbyesque fashion we have never met her. She is a friend of a friend and all we can do is try and piece together a person from her home. 
and her home makes me wish, more than anything, that we could meet her.


We spent last weekend jumping on and off trams and cable cars in hilly, chilled out and chilly San Francisco. We stared at Alcatraz from the pier, accompanied by the honks of chatty sea lions. We played rounders in Golden Gate Park and bough t designer clothes in thrift shops. We were open and honest in Castro, full of love and peace in Haight Ashbury and cool and trendy on Polk Street. 
By the time we were winding our way along 
Pacific Coast Highway with its breathtaking views of the ocean, so blue against the pine green mountains, we were ready for the next part of our adventure.
And so we celebrated Joss's birthday in the party city of Santa Barbara. We arrived there during the big,noisy fiesta full of Tacos and tamales and Spanish music, bars full of  laughing, tipsy fiestarers.
And after a birthday picnic in a park with a pond full of basking turtles, Ninesh and Joss toured the city on Segways while Mia and I chatted on the soft-sanded beach watching the pelicans. They always seem wrong, somehow, pelicans. their heads look so much heavier than their bodies that I keep expecting them to topple head first into the sea. but they never do. One more of nature's inexplicable wonders.

And at last we arrived here, LA.
Beneath a sign more famous for what it represents than its own history.
In a hot, polluted city made beautiful by the collected hopes and dreams and aspirations of those who live in it.
And for just one more day, we will borrow the dream and make it ours.

Flawed memories and perfect moments

Returning to places where you were young, free and single is always strange when you are almost old and a parent travelling with your teenage children. that's how Providence, Rhode Island feels. for a few hours yesterday we wandered the once familiar streets lined with pastel coloured, 3 storeyed wooden houses and full of carefree Brown students and trendy RISDI ones.  

And memory is a strange thing. 

Because nothing was quite as I remembered it. 

None of the houses were in quite the same place, none of the cafes where I thought they should be. the park by the river is smarter, the main shopping street smaller and everything seemed more ordinary than it has been in my shadowy dreams.

when I lived there more then 20 years ago, I was working in a home in the community for adults with learning difficulties and behavioural problems. They had spent most of their unfulfilled lives in institutions and were struggling to adapt to lives without structure and rules. their stories were heartbreaking and their confusion often translated into bizarre and sometimes violent behaviour. Our house in Providence became our escape from all the craziness of work and we replaced it, instead, with a craziness of our own. With parties and drunken nights and trips to New York in the middle of the night. 

At least that's how I remember it.

" What did you do here everyday mum?" Asks Joss

And as I stare at the wooden house, standing alone, forlorn and shabby, that was our home for those few yearsf, I'm not sure what to say. and I can't help wondering if my memories have not been blurred with the rose -tintedness of time.

I shrug. 

" Well," I say, " we just sort of lived." Joss rolls his eyes. All teenagers know that their parents have no idea about living and didn't really exist properly until their children were 
born.

And there're is a limit to how long your family can pretend to be interested in reliving your old memories, so our friends Amy and Barry whisked us away to their camp. It is on the banks of what they call a pond, and we would call a pretty big lake, and it is beautiful. We woke this morning to the whir of hummingbird wings and the twang of pond frogs croaking from their lily pads. The tranquility is infectious. 

We have explored every corner of the pond with a pedalo and rowing boat.
 In front of us a blue heron flaps lazily and basking turtles slide silently into the water.
 It is hard to believe that we are only a few hours from New York, that we are not the only people living in a beautifully simple world.

And that is the strangeness and the wonder of America. It seems to be made up of thousands of splintered and disconnected parts. Like a colourful mosaic of states, each one believing that they are part of a slightly different whole.
Relaxed, full of the delicious food that is our friends' trademark and bottle of beer in hand, we sat last night and put the world to rights. the air around us vibrated to the boom of bullfrogs and high pitched buzz of cicadas. In front of us the black mirror of the motionless water reflected the far away stars and it was hard not to feel as though all would always be well. As though, for just a moment we had found our perfect moment.
I said as much to Barry.
He took a thoughtful swig of beer.
" I know," he said, " but I do find it hard. I have always been a much more productive complainer than enjoyer!"
And I can't help feeling that he just described mankind.

New York, New York

New York, that's where our 3 weeks of  drifting across the States is beginning and I can see already in Mia's eyes that she is hooked.
New York, the city of frenetic energy, of  constant light and sound, of people and buildings reaching for the sky. A melting pot of faces and races and sound and colour, where life is fragile and the line between hopelessness and happiness is always thin.

Gazing at the Manhattan skyline from the Staten Island ferry, it is easy to understand why people started to build upwards. How else could so many hopes and dreams be fitted into such a tiny space?  How else could it continue to grow? And even after all these years, there is something about the Statue of Liberty, golden torch shining in the sun, old fashioned and incongruous against the modern skyscrapers, that makes you believe your adventure is only just beginning..


The good thing about jet lag, is that you wake up very early. In a city that never sleeps, it's perfect. by 9 o'clock on our first morning we had watched Good Morning America being filmed thkrough the studio windows on Time Square, narrowly avoided walking through brain and guts newly splattered across a road,  walked the beautifully landscaped high line that follows an old railway line above the city, and of course, eaten the mandatory McDonalds breakfast.  We had watched trendily suited men and women rushing to work past homeless people pushing shopping trollies full of reclaimable bottles. And that's New York: hot and humid, contradictory and compellingly exciting. But beneath it all there is something else, something smaller and less tangible. Because underneath the fake smiles and the " have a nice day,"  and  the trendy village scene, there is a raw tenderness that keeps the human spirit alive. It's the white rose placed in one of the names engraved around the 9/11 Memorial, the young homeless man tenderly covering an older homeless woman with a blanket in Central Park, the lone notes of a saxophone drifting across the droning sirens and constantly rumbling traffic.


And that's what makes New York special.
Because beneath the skyscrapers and the noise and the lights, beneath the 24 hour living and the hopes and dreams, it has a heart that will never stop beating or growing or caring.
I think I can understand why Mia is hooked!

On to  Rhode Island  and old friends next. And I'm hoping I might have worked out how to upload photos onto an iPad!

Endings, beginnings and hand-washings

If you work in a school or nursery, this time of year is always full of endings. 
Children moving onto primary school or secondary school or taking their first steps into adulthood.  Staff moving on to new jobs or new countries or new lives   
The air is crackling with a strange mixture of excitement and sadness, laughter and tears. Every year at the Nursery and Children's Centre we watch our 4 year olds skip through the door into a world of classrooms and school uniform.  And even though they don't know it, they are leaving behind the first part of their childhood and even though we should be used to it, it is always hard to see them go (most of them!)

Endings are strange things. 
Part of the reason you start reading a book or watching a film is because you want to know  how it will end. 
But often when you reach the end, it is  unfulfilling  or sad or confusing. 
A memorable ending is the greatest gift a writer or film- maker can give you. 
Memorable endings are what we spend our lives striving towards. 
When you leave somewhere, you can't help hoping that you have made a difference, that you won't be forgotten, that without you there , something will be imperceptibly ( or perceptibly) different. 
When you move house, you hope that whoever lives there next will keep something of you in it: some wallpaper, the kitchen tiles, the shelves in the bedroom.
 It's the same when you leave a job, you hope that something you did made such a difference that a little part of you will always be there. 
And when you leave life, you cant help hoping  that the world will be a lesser place for the lack of you.

The truth is that our lives are a constant stream of endings. 
The end of school, the end of childhood, the end of being young, free and single,the end of work,  the end of breakfast, the end of X factor, the end of the day. 
But every time something ends, something else begins.
When school ends, the holidays begin.
When childhood ends, adulthood begins.
When you stop being young, free and single, it is usually because you have met your partner or become a parent.
When work ends, the fun begins.
When the  X factor ends, normal life begins again.
When the day ends, night ( and best of all ) sleep begins. 

" What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
                   From Little Gidding, T S Eliot

And that's why endings are so confusing. 
It's hard to know how you feel: happy, sad, excited, scared, everything, all at the same time.
One of my friends and her family are leaving England for good next weekend. Before they go, they are opening up their house and letting people buy everything they have left.
"It's a nice," says my friend, " to think of things we have owned scattered across friends' homes. Like a little part of us is staying behind."
But the truth is, it's not the things themselves but the memories they evoke, that keeps those we care about with us.
The memories of evenings spent laughing or days spent gossiping. 
The memories of shopping or drinking or wandering unfamiliar streets together.
The memories of nights on star drenched beaches, sharing dreams.
The memories of normal days, made special laughter.

And as long as our days are filled with moments worth treasuring, then real life will always be better than fiction because the ending will never disappoint.

My friend who is leaving the country and I were sitting together in Nursery the other day.  I was teaching in the kitchen where children were choosing different topping to spread on crackers. 

 A dark eyed boy with sticking up hair came in from the garden, sweaty and covered in sand. He sat down at the table and looked expectantly at the plate of crackers.

" Wash your hands and then you can have a cracker," I said.
The boy stared at me and continued sitting at the table.
" First wash your hands, then a cracker," I explained again.
Slowly the boy stood up and raising his hands, spat into them until they were dripping with saliva.  And once he had rubbed them together and dried them on his shorts, he fetched a plate and sat down again at the table.
For a while my friend and I couldn't speak, tears of laughter were running down our cheeks.  
She recovered first and found her serious face.
" I think you need to use water from the tap and soap to wash your hands," she told him.
For a second the boy stared at her, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Standing up, he started walking toward the sink but half way there he let out a blood curdling scream, rubbed his saliva and sand-covered hand in his hair and raced into the garden.
" I don't think he likes washing his hands," gasped my friend through our laughter.

And that's it. 
That's the memory.
A little boy with saliva covered hands and sharing tears of laughter with a friend.
A good ending to take with you to a new beginning.

The big boring breakfast battle

Like all parents, I know that breakfast is "the most important meal of the day."
Like all parents, I know that children who eat breakfast, learn better at school.
Like most parents of teenagers, I battle every morning to get them to eat it.

The battle usually starts on Sunday afternoon.
" So, " i say hopefully to Mia (15) and Joss (13), " dad's just going shopping, what would you like for your breakfasts this week?" 
" Anything's fine," says Mia, glancing up from her computer or away from a conversation with a friend about another friend.
" Don't care," says Joss, without lifting his eyes from his phone, which buzzes constantly with tweets from his 30,000 followers.
" Anything... and... don't care.. doesn't really help," I point out. " could you narrow it down a little."
Mia sighs and rolls her eyes.
" Why do you have to make everything so dramatic mum. It's just breakfast. Leave us alone. Get whatever."
" Mum and sister arguing about breakfast again, LOL," tweets Joss.
Ninesh writes " Breakfast things-whatever," on the shopping list and leaves for the supermarket. 
And I stand in the kitchen, explaining that I am not being dramatic and that breakfast is very important and Mia and Joss ignore me.  

And then it's Monday morning.
Sleepily Joss wanders into the kitchen in his trendy, baggy pyjama trousers.
He pulls open the drawer we have filled with bagels and muffins and malt loaf, stares at it disparagingly and slams it shut.
Ninesh comes downstairs, his ironed shirt in one hand and phone in the other.
" Joss just tweeted that there is never anything nice for breakfast in our house," he says.
I stare at Joss, who is now sitting at the table, his fingers moving like lightening across his phone.
" We've got loads of things for breakfast Joss," I say, my voice rising defensively.
" Not nice things," says Joss.
" There's bagels or muffins or eggs or toast or cereal or fruit or...."
" Exactly," says Joss, " nothing nice."
Mia floats in, her eyes still full of last night's dreams.
" Why are you shouting mum?" she asks.
" I'm not shouting," I shout.
" She's annoyed because I said there's nothing nice for breakfast," explains Joss.
" Oh that ," says Mia, " There never is. Can I have some of that curry left over from yesterday."
I feel myself relaxing. At least one of my children is going to eat breakfast without a fight.
" Of course you can," I smile, " I'll just heat it up."
"No. not now. I'm not hungry yet. I'll just have a cup of tea first."
I glance at the clock. In 20 minutes Mia and Joss have to be on their way to school and I have to be at work.
I grit my teeth. 
" Ok," I say," just tell me when.  Don't leave it too late though."
Mia glares at me.
" Why would I leave it too late. I'm not stupid.  Why do you always have to say things like that. Just forget it, I don't want anything for breakfast."
 And she storms into the bathroom.
Joss stands up.
" I'm going to get dressed," he says. " I'm not hungry anyway.  Why don't you just buy stuff we like for breakfast. Then you wouldn't have to get so stressy all the time."
And he walks upstairs, fingers on phone.
Ninesh's phone buzzes.
" Mum stressing out about breakfast again. Hahaha" he reads out. 
In my head, I race upstairs, grab Joss's phone and tell 30,000 complete strangers how I'm not stressed at all about breakfast and how lucky Joss is to have such a lovely mum.  In my head!
" Just let it go," advises Ninesh, " it's only breakfast. They'll eat if they're hungry."
And I know he's right.
But somehow I feel as though I am failing if I can't get them to eat at least a spoonful of cereal.
" But breakfast is the most important meal of the day," I begin forlornly, " all the research shows..."
Ninesh is already walking  away.
" All the research probably shows that breakfast is the most boring meal of the day... unless it's a fry up," he says, helpfully.
And perhaps that's true. 
 In other countries breakfast is just as exciting as all the other meals.  String hoppers  and kiri hodi in Sri Lanka

Chinese donuts and a bowl of warm soy milk in China

A cold platter in Germany

 Curries in Thailand

A bowl of cereal in England

Perhaps I need to be more creative with my breakfasts.  
Perhaps under " breakfast stuff," on Ninesh's shopping list, I should write:
Sate chicken, 
String hoppers
A variety of cold meat platters. 
Perhaps I should get up early so that the kids come downstairs to a beautifully laid out table with a variety of breakfast options each morning.
Or perhaps I should just stop being so " stressy."
Because  I can't help feeling that whatever I do for breakfast, 30,000 complete strangers would still receive the tweet:
 never any nice food for breakfast in our house. packet of crisps on way to school nom

The hopeful gardener

As it happens, we are all feeling a bit sad at the moment.

My father-in-law Sam, has had to have brain surgery for the second time in 3 weeks.  And he is battling to stay with us, mentally, if not physically.

And we are here , waiting.

Waiting for news.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting for a text

Waiting for anything that  will tell us that Sam is getting better.

It's hangs over us like a cloud, this waiting.  Stopping any of us from doing anything, just in case.

Perhaps that is why the washing is piling up and the dishwasher isn't being emptied and the house looks like a bomb of clothes and bags and empty cups and newspapers has exploded all over it.

Or perhaps that is just an excuse.

Because the truth is, that whenever I'm feeling sad, I leave the inside of the house to gather dust, walk outside and start gardening..

When I was young, I could never understand why my parents would spend Sunday afternoons digging and weeding and planting and mowing . Why would anyone  choose to get their hands dirty and their feet muddy, when they could be talking with friends or shopping or watching TV.

I'd like to say it's an age thing. But that's not true.  

At the Nursery where I work, the 3 and 4 year olds love gardening. They spend hours digging in the dirt, pulling out the flowers and vegetables we planted so carefully with them the day before and lovingly watering the weeds.  Even the most wild of boys become intent and focussed when they are gardening, lost in that  sense of wonder that a tiny seed or hard round bulb can turn into a beautiful flower or an enormous strawberry.

So on Sunday afternoon, as Sam was rushed to the High Dependency Unit, clinging to life, I dug my hands deep into the warm soil.  I planted delicate purple flowers and tall, paper-thin  pink ones.  I filled baskets with earth and waged war on weeds.

And I felt my heart slow and my thoughts calm.

And for a few absorbing hours, I forgot.

Forgot that I was in a tiny garden, in a small city. 

Forgot that my day was clouded in a shroud  of waiting.

Forgot that sadness was only a breath away.

Because that's the thing about gardening and watching things grow.

It's timelessly and unendingly constant 

It's everywhere and all the time .

I have stood on hard, hot pavements in the middle of enormous, dirty cities and seen the startlingly bright petals of  a perfect flower poking through a dusty crack in the road.

I have sat on the top of barren, windswept mountains and seen a delicate white flower nestling behind a rock. I have driven through fields and fields of untended wild flowers carpeting the world with colour.

Nature is frightening and uncontrollable.

But those tiny flowers, those splashes of colour where you least expect to see them, give you hope.

Because if they can beat the odds, perhaps anyone can.

If the flowers in our garden can survive my inexpert, ungreen fingers - then maybe, just maybe, when the phone rings, it will be with good news.

Mud and mayhem at the Green Man Festival

If it's Summer in England, it's festival season. And everyone has to experience a festival at least once in their life. It's the unwritten rule. 
The trendy festival scene started with Glastonbury. But now there are so many festivals, it's hard to go anywhere in June, July or August without passing marquees being set up in muddy fields and signs featuring the names of bands  you have never heard of in big red letters.

So a few years ago, in order to cross it off our " things to do before we die," list, my family ( us and my brother and sister and their families ) decided it was time. So we  bought tickets  for the Greenman festival in Wales. We chose the Greenman partly because  we had actually heard of some of the bands, partly because it's very family friendly, but mostly because it's very close to where my brother lives so if the weather was too bad and the toilets too disgusting, we had an escape route.

The Greenman Festival takes place in the grounds of a beautiful house, nestled in the foothills of gentle mountains. On the rare occassions that the Welsh sun shines, it is breathtakingly beautiful. We We arrived on Friday night as the first twang of live music vibrated through the peaceful Summer evening. The hardier festival- goers had already been there for days, colourful tents and painted camper vans crowded together, like a holiday refugee camp.

 We inspected the compostible toilets, which on Friday evening, still weren't too bad and  leaving our van in the hope that we would be able to find it again, we wandered through the happy crowds to try and find the rest of our family. Children with painted faces, wearing nothing but flowery wellies, weaved in and out of tents while their (mostly) long haired parents, also wearing flowery wellies,  hammered in pegs, laid out bedding and set up chairs and tables.  Teenagers in cut off jeans tried to catch the eye of other teenagers in cut-off jeans and smells of barbecue and curries and compost drifted over from the stages where the bands were already playing. And the evening was warm, the food we  ate together at " base camp," delicious, the cousins delighted to see each other and the first multi-talented band we heard that night:  Bellowhead, were amazing. 

                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZjnxFMQACk
 The main stage was built at the foot of a hill,  creating a concert basin with slopes to lounge on and the perfect backdrop of mountains and sunset. We danced and wandered around listening to music, poetry, stand up comedy and watching the enormous bubbles from the " bubble shop," drifting by with the beautiful relaxed festival-induced sense  of peaceful aimlessness.

And that's how the whole weekend was. 
 Full of good music, delicious food, bubbles and so much " love and peace," that it was hard to believe that bad things could ever happen in the world.  
The kids loved it. 
It was small enough for them to roam freely wherever they wanted without getting lost but big enough to feel like an adventure.       
We grown-ups based ourselves at the Chai Wallahs tent with a constant stream of beer, chai and amazing, as yet unknown, musicians from all over the world.
By the time we had to leave on Sunday evening we were so chilled it was impossible to believe that anything could ever stress us out again.  The kids, faces painted, flowers in their hair and huge bubble wands in their hands, all declared it had been the best weekend of their lives. 

 And we thought so too and as soon as we got back home we booked our tickets for next year.
The whole of the next year was spent in anticipation of the " time of our life," we would re-experience the next Summer.  We looked up the bands who would be playing so that Ninesh and I could listen to them beforehand and pretend we had always liked them.  We planned our food, our wanderings, our Chi Wallah nights. 
And the weekend arrived.
And it rained and rained.  
The mud changed from squelchy and earth coloured to compacted and unpleasant runny  brown.  
Walking was like a game where, if you made it to the other side of the path without losing a welly in the mud, you felt that you should win a prize. The toilets were brown streams and by Sunday, if you didn't keep walking, you sank!

The music was still amazing and we heard Linton Kwesi Johnson, which in itself made the weekend worthwhile.  The kids still loved the freedom of roaming unwatched, the mountains, when you could see them through the rain and clouds, were still beautiful and the food just as delicious, even the ice creams!

But somehow, the magic was gone. 
Perhaps the novelty that comes with "first-time,' experiences was missing.
Perhaps you should never do the same thing twice.
But mostly, it was the mud. Cloying and ( by the end ) stinking, we are still finding it in our clothes and van and wellies and tent a year later.
The truth is, that us " oldies," are fair-weather festival goers.  Deep down inside, I know that mud and dirt and blocked toilets are an integral part of the true festival experience but I have always preferred green grass and cleanliness and toilets that flush. 
And I can't help feeling relieved that I can now tick the  " go to a festival," box on my life plan.
I am glad it has  moved from my: " to do," to my: " have done," list.  
And when our kids are ready to festival on their own, I will willingly help them pack their bags with wellies and flowers and toilet paper, while I dream quietly of  weekends away in sweet smelling hotels with crisp white sheets and unmuddied bathwater.

Letting go

The strange thing about your own children is that however much they exhaust and frustrate you, letting go of them is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. The wrench is almost physical. A cutting of the ties, a loosening of the knot, a lowering of the safety net you have created for them.
Yesterday our 15 year old daughter, Mia, started her work experience for You Magazine in London. The offices are in Northcliffe House, just off Kensington High Street, the building  huge and never ending with escalators that  reach to the sky.

On the train and tube, Mia had towered over me in her heels and "smart/casual," blue dress but as I watched her disappearing through the spinning glass doors , she suddenly looked so small and vulnerable. A miniscule blue dot against the imposing brown brick and reflective panelled glass.  
It was hard not to chase after her - just to check she was alright.   
But that would never do.  
It was uncool enough that I had come.
So I stood and watched her disappearing along the shining hallway, taking her first step into adulthood. 
Watched the emptiness where she had been standing.
Watched the doors spinning constantly, rotating people in and out.
Watched the world that, at 15, Mia will now know more about than me.
And I couldn't help wondering when it is that we stop being the centre of our children's worlds and start becoming mere observers, standing outside, watching their lives unfold through the reflective glass.

Perhaps it starts with the first day of nursery or the first day of school. 

Or the  first time they go to a party without you or sleep at a friend's house. But I think that maybe it starts the day you are walking down the road together and they see a friend waiting for them and shaking off your hand, they say:
"you're not going to walk all the way to the end of the road with me, are you?"

I spent the rest of  yesterday pacing the grey London pavements, breathing in the fume-filled air, feeling old and slightly unnecessary. 
And at the end of the day I waited inconspicuously at the tube station.

Until I saw her, smiling and waving through the crowds in her blue dress and high heels.
And she was fine.
And I was fine. 
And I waved back, smiling too.  
The slightly sad smile of someone who is learning to let go.

To A Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye. 

Linda Pastan

One perfect peony

The thing that I love best about Spring and Summer, is the way that gardens, which have spent all Winter looking brown and boring, are suddenly filled with splashes of colour.  Red and blue buds poke through hedges and paving stones, sweet scented pink and white roses tumble from trellises and window boxes are filled with the deep pinks and velvet reds of geraniums, so bright that it is hard to believe they are real.

 To a chaotic gardener like myself, each new bloom is a pleasure and a surprise.  I never remember what I planted  last year.  I don't plan for flowers that bloom at different times, I don't plant flowerbeds with the tallest flowers at the back grading down to the smallest at the front. I don't think about what colours would look good together.  I just see flowers that I like and put them in the ground and hope that they will grow. And each year, if they reappear, my joy at seeing them again is not just the result of their colour or beauty or scent but is filled with the pleasure of a reunion, of meeting old friends who you had almost forgotten about but now you have met them again, you remember how much you liked them.

But there is one flower that I always wait for amongst the colourful chaos of our garden. One flower that, for the short time it blooms, seems to hold the rest of the garden to ransom. Nothing seems to me to be as beautiful as our peony. When it opens its rich, red petals, I always breathe a sigh of relief. It has been growing here since we first bought our house and the small wilderness that was its garden.  If flowers had been planted, they had long ago been strangled by weeds and overshadowed by knee length grass and bits of rubble. But when we had tamed the grass, waged war on the weeds and kicked aside the odd chunk of brick, I was amazed at the flower I found, nestled in the shadow of the crumbling shed. Its deep red petals formed perfect swirls of colour. Against the peeling green of the shed and hay-like brownness of the grass,its beauty seemed almost luminous.
 In the house our newborn son was crying and our 2 year old daughter was demanding 
" more milk." But I remember standing in front of that flower and for just a moment the exhaustion of sleepless nights and relentless demands that come with being a parent, disappeared  There was no epiphany. I wasn't suddenly filled with inner hope or enlightened courage but just knowing that something so beautiful could survive despite the odds, made me think that we could too.
When I asked my gardening guru neighbour Gill what the flower was, she laughed.
" That's a peony," she said, " needs replanting though. Look at those roots! And it needs more light."
So with her help, I replanted it in a better place. It was the first planting  I did in our garden, the first change I made ( after cutting the grass ). And it did feel symbolic, as though by replanting a beautiful flower I had taken the first steps towards replanting our lives in our new home.
And so I will always feel linked to my peony.  I will always wait anxiously for it to bloom. Each year I watch as the spiked red edged shoots break through the earth, hold my breath while the strange puppet fingered leaves grow longer and thinner, hunt hopefully for the buds hidden amongst all the foliage.  And there is a lot of foliage!
" Too many leaves," said Gill disparagingly, " that's the trouble with peonies."
And I suppose she's right.  
Once again this year, the leaves have taken over most of the flowerbed but they are nurturing only one flower, deep, deep red against the green.
 But I don't care because it is beautiful and perfect- and one perfect peony is all I need. 

Murder most unfathomable

Sometimes spine-chilling things happen at the most unexpected times.  Ninesh was in London this week, visiting his dad in hospital. My father-in-law is just recovering from major surgery and Ninesh was sitting next to his bed, chatting quietly when the hallway outside the door suddenly filled with policemen armed with machine guns. As Ninesh and his dad watched, a young man, handcuffed to a wheelchair was pushed past the door.

" Who's that?" asked Ninesh.

" One of the Woolwich murder suspects," whispered the nurse... " did you see. He looked straight at me."

For a moment, no one could speak. What is there to say when an alleged murderer, who just a week ago might have stood in the street, in the middle of the day hacking someone to death, passes your door.

There are no words. 

Just raw fear

It is impossible to fathom what drives someone to commit the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man.  
It is easy to blame religion, to accuse Muslim preachers of rousing followers to hatred.
It's always easier when we have someone to blame.
But there is never one reason that causes individuals to act in the way they do.
It is never that simple. 
We are, all of us, complicated products of confusing pasts and our reaction to the here and now is always part of a bigger picture. In these times of unemployment and economic crisis there are many disenfranchised people wandering the streets feeling that their existence is pointless, that their life has no meaning - no job, no money, no reason to get up in the morning, nothing to make you believe that you matter.  Easy prey for extremists whose passionate words can fill the emptiness inside with meaning and a sense of purpose.  As young black men living in England, the alleged murderers will probably have spent their lives feeling like outsiders.  However multi-cultural and open-minded 
(superficially at least) the country we live in might be, our colour and ethnic background will always define us. Even as he was being charged with murder, Michael Adebalejo, described himself as a "British citizen," as though by being suspected of committing such an unforgivable atrocity he had at last proved that he belonged.
There is no defence, no justification for the murder of an innocent man. The fact that someone can stand in the middle of a street in broad daylight and proudly hack a man to death is the stuff of horror movies, except that it happened in Woolwich. Perhaps the murderer was mad, it is not the action of a sane man, perhaps he truly believed he was doing it in the name of his religion, perhaps it was the moment that his whole life had been leading up to. It is hard to believe that as he was pushed along the corridor of a London hospital, handcuffed to a wheelchair, the suspect felt fulfilled. 
There is a difference between faith and religion, a difference between extremism and quiet belief.  But until we can give the disenfranchised and disillusioned a sense of purpose, until they rediscover their self-esteem, it will continue to be easy for extremism to fill the gap and give their life meaning.

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

 Steven Weinberg-1933

 Lee Rigby's family's request for peace, for  people to remain calm and not to allow his dmurder to be the excuse for racist attacks and religious unrest, is the greatest and most courageous tribute they could have paid to him.

Nothing can bring him back.  

Nothing can justify his death. 

Let building bridges and growing understanding be his legacy.

Lee Rigby  RIP