Out of the Arsenal closet

After years of being worn down by my "Gooner crazy family," I have finally given in.
Last weekend I went to my first ever Arsenal match.

It's not that I'm opposed to watching live football. I watch our son, Joss, pounding the pitch  almost every weekend. 
It's just that, since the children were tiny, Ninesh has always taken them to the family enclosure to watch his team. It's something the three of them have always done together, while I had a whole day of freedom.
 Firmly of the opinion that early indoctrination is the best way to prevent his flock from wandering and supporting the wrong team, Ninesh took them to their first match when Mia was 5 and Joss was 3.  And his plan worked because all these years later Mia and especially Joss, are die-hard Arsenal fans.  Joss, who at the moment is a teenager of very few words, can wax lyrical on the tactics used at last night's game or on the impact of Walcott being injured (again). Although Joss is now too cool to wear his Arsenal shirt, I am part of a family where every member is, inwardly if not outwardly," proud to be a Gooner." 
And the truth is, over the years, I have become a closet Arsenal fan too.
It's impossible not to be pulled into the noisy cheers and jeers that fill our living room when an Arsenal match is on TV. Ninesh, who remains cool, calm and collected when moving countries, interviewing for a new job or organising big meetings ,becomes a nervous wreck hours before an Arsenal kick-off. Over the years I have learnt to keep my distance and say as little as possible until after the game. A bad score can cause a cloud to hang over us for days, while a victory can make the most boring day a celebration.  With so much emotion crackling around me, it's hard to resist the red and white pull of Arsenal.
" You should come to a match." Ninesh started saying when Mia was 6 and Joss was 4.
" It's such an amazing atmosphere," he said when Mia was 7 and Joss was 5, " I just want you to experience it."
" Mia and Joss would love it if you came too," he said, using 8 year old  Mia and 6 year old Joss as his utlimate weapon..
And so the campaign became three pronged with Mia, Joss and Ninesh all offering me reasons why I should come  to a game.  
For over a decade I resisted, standing firm,clinging onto my day of complete freedom. 
But somewhere deep inside the closet Arsenal fan was stirring. 
" Just come out," it whispered, " one match won't hurt. Just one."
And that is how come I was there, last Sunday, sitting right at the front of the enormous Emirates stadium where the grass is so green that it's hard to believe  each blade has not been lovingly painted by the head groundsman.

Emirates Stadium, where the grass is always greener

" We hate Stoke," explained Ninesh happily, " ever since Shawcross broke Ramsey's leg."
" Oh," I said, absent-mindedly turning to look at the dads and children sitting in the rows behind us , wondering jealously what their partners were doing with their free days.
" Walcott's not playing," said Joss, looking up from his phone to share the news, " he's sick."
Mia seemed unsurprised as everyone else by this information.
" I'm so glad you're here mum," said Mia, squeezing my arm, " it's nice not to be the only girl."
But her words were drowned out by the roar of the crowd as Ozil, Arsenal's newest favourite player ran onto the pitch.       . 
" Everyone likes him," explained Ninesh. 
"Really!"  I said.  
The only thing louder than the cheers for Osil were the boos for Shawcross when he arrived on the pitch.
" Everyone," hates him, explained Ninesh.
"Really!" I said.
"And you have to boo every time he has the ball,' added Ninesh.
" What if I don't want to?" I asked.
Ninesh just looked at me and without answering turned back to the game.
And I have to admit the atmosphere was amazing, like a party where everyone arounds you shares something in common with you so you know, for this afternoon, you have 40,000 friends and you don't even have to make exhausting small talk.
Every time Arsenal nearly got a goal we had to stand up and cheer and every time Stoke nearly got a goal we had to stand up and gasp and when Arsenal did get a goal ( 3 altogether ) we had to stand up, jump up and down and shout important things like:
 " oo are ye, oo are ye!" 
And when Stoke finally scored, we had to sit down and clasp our head in our hands in despair.
And we were so near the front that when Ozil took a corner we could almost reach out and touch him  which meant that Ninesh got lots of good shots of his back.

The most popular back in Arsenal

We cheered and shouted and booed ( when we remembered ) and groaned and stood up and sat down for an hour and a half. 

But it was awe-inspiring to watch the skill, energy, passion and sheer physical endurance of both teams, although of course Arsenal was much better at all them. 

And when the final whistle blew and Arsenal won 3-1, I was right there, part of the red and white wave of noise that filled the stadium. 

" We are top of the league, we are top of the league."

" Are you going to come again mum?" Joss asked as we drifted towards the tube station, 

 jostled by the crowds. " You enjoyed it didn't you?"

And the truth is, I really did, although I don't know if I will go again.  

Days off are too rare and too precious. 

But now, whenever the rest of the family go, a little part of me will always be there with them- standing up and sitting down, booing and cheering.

Because after all these years, I think I at last understand what it means to be a football fan.

 It's not just about wearing a shirt or having the most expensive players.It's not even about winning all the time, although that's nice. It's about something else, something bigger than us. 

It's about sharing a passion.

It's about having something to believe in. 

It's about fidelity (relationships may come and go but once an Arsenal fan, always an Arsenal fan).

It's about dreaming a dream that just might come true. 

It's about never giving up hope.

It's like belonging to a family that you have chosen, instead of having it forced upon you.

It's a phrase that is twee and overused but when you are a football fan, you honestly

" never walk alone."

These are hard times for lots of people. People might not have a job or money or a home - but they will always have football.

I can't help thinking that the closet Arsenal fan in me has been well and truly, forever outed.

Sweet Sixteen

Our daughter, Mia, turned 16 this week.
The celebrations flowed through the evening, her and her friends filling the house with giggling and instagram induced gasps.
And I spent the evening wondering if 16 years seems like forever or no time at all.
" It definitely feels as though she has been around for 16 years,' said Ninesh, "A bit longer actually."
And in lots of ways, he's right. As soon as your children arrive to unbalance your life, it is hard to remember a time when they weren't there crying and laughing and moaning and generally causing mayhem
As a parent your life is definitely divided into 2 parts: BC and AC- before children and after children. And however fulfilled the AC days make you feel, there are days when you just miss the freedom of the BC days.
And one of the strangest things about becoming a parent, is the effect it has on Time. 
The first few years are spent in a state of such complete exhaustion with so many sleepless nights and pre-dawn mornings that it is often hard to believe only a day and not a year,  has passed between waking up and going to bed. But now, looking back over the first 16 years of Mia's life, parts of it seem to have passed so quickly that it is hard to believe they are over.  Where did her years at primary school go?. This time next year she will be in the sixth form and won't have to wear school uniform.  But I'm sure it was only a few weeks ago I was buying her first school skirt and sweatshirt! 
All those nights I spent rocking the tiny bundle to sleep in my arms and now she has to bend down so that I can kiss her goodnight.
I am sure that time doesn't pass in regular intervals, but passes instead in intermittent spurts, like a fan that has been unevenly folded, sometimes with creases so close together that it feels you barely stop to breathe and sometimes with big, smooth gaps where life has no folds at all and memories are vague.
Once, when my brother and sister and I were on holiday with our grandma, Omi, a little boy came into our room.
" Hello," he said, " my name is Robert Lynch. I'm 4 and I was born when I was 3."
And now, all these years later, I understand exactly what he meant!

On the day she was born, Mia didn't sleep at all. 
She lay still next to me, her big, almost- black eyes, drinking in the newness of the world around her. 
And watching her, willing the world to be kind , NInesh and I realised that our lives had  just been shaken to the core. 
No more lie-ins ( or not for years!), no more responsibility-free drunken nights, only responsibility-ful ones. and no chance of ever, for the rest of our lives, putting ourselves first.
And 16 years (that sometimes seem like longer) later, was it worth it?
Of course it was.
The truth is, Mia and Joss make our lives worth living (except when they fight with me about breakfast, fight with Ninesh about chores and fight with each other about nothing). 
And it is impossible to imagine our lives without them.
It's a long time since we've missed our BC life. 
So Happy 16th Birthday Mia. 
We wrapped your presents in flowery paper and dreams.  
I hope they all come true.

Weddings, Currywurst and Headless Photos

We have just spent a weekend in Germany celebrating the wedding of 2 of our good friends.
It was the second marriage for both but watching them at the church and the wedding party afterwards ( and it truly was a party- complete with currywurst und pommels at 2 a.m.) it was impossible to believe that either of them could have been so happy with anyone else. It was one of those truly romantic stories where after many years without seeing each other, and without the help of the internet or friends reunited, two lost souls found each other again wandering through a street market in Germany.
Perhaps it was meant to be, perhaps it was just one of life's happier coincidences. But whether you are a believer in destiny or just someone who dares to dream of " happy-ever-afters," last Saturday, in front of 140 friends they made their love for each other official and celebrated in true German style!

And it made me wonder about weddings. 
Over the years we have been to lots of different weddings in lots of different countries.  Some religious, some not, some big and some small, some smart and some casual.
The average cost for a wedding in England is £22,000, in America $28,000.
That seems like an unholy amount of money for something that is simply meant to be a public declaration of ( hopefully) everlasting love between two people.
Sometimes it feels as though there is a new disease called weddingitis when, as soon as a couple get engaged, their wedding becomes the only thing that matters.
 Everything at their wedding must be better than everything at any wedding they have ever been to. The bride's dress must be more beautiful, the setting more perfect, the food more delicious.
And in the middle of all the weddingitis madness, it is easy to forget that the reason for it all is that two people have fallen in love and want to make a commitment to each other.
Perhaps I am biased.
When Ninesh and I got married we were living in America and simply flew to New York, booked an appointment at City Hall and asked one of our friends, Rich, living in New York at the time, to be our witness. 
We spent the night before in a gay bar where all the men tried to convince Ninesh that he was making the biggest mistake of his life marrying a woman. 
We woke up so late the next day that we missed our wedding slot and had to run to make it to City Hall before it closed.  

The whole ceremony took 2 minutes and when Rich took our picture on the steps of city hall with a borrowed instamatic, he forgot to include our heads!
Perhaps we just don't know what we missed out on, Ninesh and I, but just because it was private didn't stop it being important. In the end the promise we made to each other in front of Rich and a Justice of the Peace, was the same as the promise we would have made in front of friends and family.
I guess, in the end, like everything else, the way you get married is a lifestyle choice

The worrying thing about weddingitis though, is the speed at which it consumes the body and mind of all involved. Its symptons of unending wedding talk and obsessive wedding planning are untreatable. 
 And in the middle of weddingitis fever, it is easy to forget weddings always have  one long term side-effect: marriage 
But the truth is, it is never the wedding itself that I remember.
 It's not the venue or the cut of the bride's dress or the taste of the food.  
What I remember is the look in the groom's eye or the tremor in the bride's voice.  
What I remember is the laughter of friends and the sense that for just one night, we have shared in the warmth of someone else's dreams.
When the party is over and the dress packed away, all you are left with is two people who have made a life-long commitment to each other and are standing at the beginning of a journey they have promised to share. 
And however big or small the wedding, all you wish for them, is that their adventure will bring them happiness.
While a marriage is a private commitment, a promise between 2 people to stay together for better or worse, a wedding is a way of making that promise  public by sharing it with the people you care about the most.
Or then again, perhaps it's just the best excuse ever for a party and eating currywurst at 2 a.m.

Losing the fun-factor and bald-headed dads

It's too early to be up on a Sunday morning.  
I don't have a baby that has woken me up.
I'm not just coming back from an all night party- ( Mia and Joss always look slightly horrified that I could ever have been that young ! )
I haven't even been for an early morning run.
NO, I'm up this early on a should-be lazy Sunday morning because I have to go to work later and there's stuff I need to get ready.
So far I've cooked an enormous saucepanful of bright red spaghetti

 And made about a ton of blue play dough.

Not really hard, demanding or time-consuming jobs!
Mostly, when I tell people what I do, they look at me incredulously and say, 
"what, you mean you get paid to just, like, play with children and, you know, chat to their parents. Wow, I wish I had your job."
And in lots of ways it's true.
Except that years of playing with children take their toll.
And nothing is more exhausting than having fun all the time!
And I'm sitting here, listening to the rain pattering on the roof, watching the blanket of grey cloud moving slowly across the " was blue," sky, wondering what part of today's "Fun Day in the park," will be the most fun.
The getting intermittently soaked to the skin, the setting up and clearing away, the constantly reminding parents that we are not there to play with their children for them but to provide activities so that they can play with them. "
But it never really works.
" Oh," they say, " our kids love getting messy.  So glad that you do it, so we don't have to."
And I will be sitting there, on a Sunday afternoon playing with other people's children thinking about how my own children are at home without me..  
And even though they are teenagers and no longer like messy play ( however red the spaghetti ) I know that they still like it when I'm home. 
Who else can they shout at when they haven't done their homework or demand help from when they  can't find their make-up or hair gel. 
And the truth is, sad as it sounds, staying at home with Ninesh and the kids is my idea of fun these days.
Perhaps it's because I know the kids will soon be searching for their fun on further far from our living room.  
Perhaps it's because I spend so many weekends and evenings working that what I used to call relaxing, I now call fun.
Or perhaps it's just that I'm getting too old for the  real-deal, jumping in feet-first, truly infectious fun-factor.  
Give me an afternoon with a good book and a long walk on the beach any day.
I'm thinking about asking our tortoise  if he would consider a life-swap.

The other day my friend's 4 year old daughter was having an argument with her dad upstairs in her bedroom. After a little bit of shouting and grumpiness on both sides, she turned to him, sighed and said:
" It's ok dad, you can go downstairs now.  And take your bald head with you!"

Holding onto the dream

50 years after his death, it is still hard not to be moved by Martin Luther King's  " I have a dream," speech.
I listened to it on the radio this week, different parts of it read by different people.

Famous human rights activists,  famous politicians, nobel prize winners, poets,  popstars.
They came from all over the world, the readers, chosen because each of them has played a part in trying to make King's dream come true.
 But the voice that moved me the most was that of a mum: Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen Lawrence, murdered 20 years ago in South East London 
He was 18 years old, waiting for a bus, killed in a racist attack.

Stephen Lawrence

Since then his mum's voice has become familiar as a campaigner for justice and equality.
But in the end, she is a mum, who has lost her son because of the colour of his skin in a world that was meant to be colour-blind.
50 years on we are still struggling with Martin Luther King's dream.
50 years on every day, people are killed or injured because of their race or their religion or their gender.
50 years on- all over the world, ethnic groups battle to gain power and authority over each other.
50 years on if you are from an ethnic minority, you are still less likely to succeed and more likely to live in poverty or be in prison.
50 years on one man's dream has not been enough to change human nature.

It is not that nothing has changed.  
We have come a long, long way from segregation and apartheid.
Walking through the streets of London or New York, melting pots of culture and ethnic diversity.
Hopeful, that what matters now is not the colour of your skin nor your religious beliefs.
but that what matters now is who you are and what you bring to the world.
And it's ok that everyone looks different and speaks different languages and wears different clothes.
It's ok that everyone believes different things and dreams different dreams and hopes different hopes.
What's not ok is to believe that you are right and everyone else is wrong or that the colour of your skin makes you more important than or superior to someone with a different coloured skin.
" I'm worried that my 4 year old daughter is racist ," one of my friends said to me the other day." She always points at people with different coloured skin and says,"look they have brown skin," or" look, their skin is black."
" It's just a description," I say, comfortingly, "she's telling you what she sees. Just like she will tell you that a  flower is purple or a bus is red."
For a while my friend is silent.
" It's not just that," she says at last, " sometimes she says -they have black skin and that makes them ugly. Or they have brown skin, they don't come from our country. She's only 4. Where can she have heard that? Do you think racism can be innate? Do you think children can be born racist?"
 I  laugh and shake my head.
" I don't believe children can be born with  pre-conditioned prejudice," I say. "Their entrance into a cold, un-umbiblical chorded world must be shocking enough, without having to take on a whole new value system as they exit the uterus.  Prejudice is definitely something we  learn."
" But who has taught it to her?" sighs my friend, tears stinging her eyes " you know it isn't us."
"I know it isn't," I say, hugging her.
But inside my heart is sinking.
I don't believe that racism is innate, but I do believe it can be heard and learnt so early in our lives from friends or family or peers that, without knowing how, it becomes an integral part of what we believe.
And that is why, 50 years on, Martin Luther King's words still drift unanchored and unfulfilled through our imperfect world.
Because for his dream to come true it must be shared by everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Dreams do not come true while we sleep but only through what we do while we are awake. 
Doreen Lawrence showed us that when she turned her tears of loss into words of passion Nelson Mandela showed us that when he turned years of imprisonment into the end of apartheid.
Malala Yousafzai showed us that when she turned a bullet in the head into a fight for equality.

Malala Yousafzai

And I know I'm not as brave as they are.
And I know that what I do will never make the difference they have.
But I will always, always , always have a dream.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23855375

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.