Spring in a tortoise step

I am watching Gaudi, our daughter, Mia's,  yellow footed tortoise,  pacing slowly and carefully up and down the living room floor.  He looks like something that got left behind when the dinosaurs became extinct, like a small piece of something older than time.

 But I think I know why he is pacing. Like me, he is waiting for Spring.  To Gaudi, Spring means the freedom of the garden, of fresh air, of grass and soil between his claws. He will be able to climb rocks instead of beanbags and lose himself in the shade of the lavender while he chews on leaves and flower petals. To me, Spring means longer, drier days, an explosion of deep pink blossom on our peach tree and most of all the chance that things will change, that maybe dreams will come true.

That's the strange thing about seasons.  They give you hope.  Breaking up your year so that if things are not going well, you can always say to yourself"things will be better in the Spring," "just wait until Summer, you'll see." In England we spend lots of time moaning about the Winter, it's cold and rain and long, dark nights. But sitting next to the blazing fire, chatting, watching TV, listening to music, wrapping Christmas presents -  is the stuff of memories.  There is an aura of cosiness around Winter.  Last year we spent Christmas in tropical Sri Lanka.  It was going home for Ninesh's mum and dad. It was beautiful and vibrant, full of life and colour and sunshine- and Mia and Joss missed Winter.
" Christmas is meant to be cold," they said, as we dived into a swimming pool overlooking the Indian Ocean. And a part of me knew what they meant. When Ninesh and I lived in hot and sunny California, I missed the seasons.  When days are the same length all year round and weather only changes from hot to not-so-hot, there is little to mark one day from the next. Life can stretch out before you in a long, straight, unchanging line. We measure out our lives, not in coffee spoons, but in  seasons. We know what to expect from each part of the year and so while we dream of change, we are not scared of it because we know a part of it will be safe and familiar.  So prehistoric -Gaudi and I will pace the living room floor together, dreaming of the freedom and colours of Spring.

It was my niece's 5th birthday a few weeks ago. Mia and Joss phoned to wish her Happy Birthday.
" Did you have a nice day?" asked Mia.
" Yes," said my niece " but mum and dad only gave me one present that I wanted."
In the background my sister-in-law burst out laughing.
"Not one present," she said " all but one."

It's not my fault.... and the Blockbuster disaster

I am getting worried that I am becoming a grumpy old woman!  
More and more I seem to be walking through weeks carrying an underlying sense of slight irritation wherever I go and whoever I meet! And I am not quite sure why.  Perhaps it's because I,m tired or worried or constantly trying to sort out ( and usually failing! ) my work life balance.   Perhaps it,s because  however hard I try to battle the chaos, our house never seems to be tidy. Perhaps it's because I hate the cold and the post-snow frozen slush. Perhaps it all of these but whatever the reason, it is to do with something inside me, it's no one else's fault.  
And that is what I seem to struggle with every day.  A sense of RESPONSIBILITY. Or the complete lack of it all around me.  Wherever I turn, whatever I listen to on the radio or watch on TV, there is always someone saying" " It's not my fault." 
" It all started in with the last government, when we weren't in power," says the Prime Minister, " It's not our fault. 
" The Conservatives made us do it," say the Lib Dems, in coalition, " It's not our fault."
" We would never have done it, if we were in power," say Labour, " it's not our fault."
" He was just a bad person holding a gun," says the National Rifle Association after yet another mass shooting, " it's not our fault."
" The ball boy made me kick him by holding onto the ball," says Hazard, " it's not my fault."
" She told me she was on the pill," says the teenager who's just become a dad, " it's not my fault."
" They don't listen to anything I say anyway," says the parent, watching their child hit another child, " it's not my fault."
" I can't remember to pay my rent every month when I've got so many other things to worry about," says the social housing tenant who is just about to become homeless because he has used the rent money given to him by the government, to buy something else, " It's not my fault."
" She did it," says the 3 year old, holding a piece someone else's ripped  picture and pointing at her friend."
It's everywhere and all around, this complete inability to take responsibility for our own actions. 
And I"m wondering when it happened. When did we forget how to say " sorry?"
Because sometimes that's all it takes. 
One word that means:
 " I made a mistake, I got it wrong. Now lets try to make it right!"

If only this youtube clip were true!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo

My friend recently had to go into hospital for an operation.  
" Is your son alright?" I asked. " Is he really worried about you being ill and being away from home?"
" Oh," said my friend, " he's not worried about that.  He's got something much worse to worry about.  He just doesn't know what he's going to do! 
 He doesn't know where he's going  to borrow computer games from, now that Blockbusters has gone bankrupt!

.

Pets, vets and the end of the tail

So it did snow and the children did get a day off school but Lucy, our cat still had her tail cut off on Friday.  My son and I carried her in her basket through the snow.  She was shaking and yowling softly and I, I'm ashamed to admit, was crying.  Because it seemed such a cruel thing to do to some thing so little.  As my daughter said, " if only we could ask her what she wants."  But that is the power that is the price our pets pay for being domestic; they don't have to worry about anything- food, drink,warmth,  even clearing up their excrement ( if they are a dog )- and in return, they lose their right to decide.
The good thing about the weather was that we were the only ones who made it through the snow so Lucy had the undivided attention of everyone in the surgery. We left her.  And I trudged through the snow to work. The roads were full of teenagers having snowball fights and families making snowmen and as I got nearer to the Children's Centre, laughing children being pulled on sledges. But somehow the magic had gone. I kept thinking of little Lucy waking up after the operation in a strange place with emptiness where her tail should be.

It's strange because I have always thought of myself as quite unsentimental. Ninesh and I don't even remember what day we got married, although we think it was May. I hate Valentines Day and slushy unwanted gifts.  But as soon as I became a parent, some sentimentality hormone must have kicked in.  Because now I can't even watch Finding Nemo without crying and the thought of leaving anyone, even our  cat, confused and uncomprehending, all on their own tugs constantly on my heart strings.  Other parents have said the same thing. Perhaps it is the sense of responsibility that comes with being a parent.   You have created beings completely dependent on you. And it is for the rest of your life. And there is no turning back. And they are so vunerable and there are so many things that could trip them up or hurt them, so many potential battles that could lie ahead of them and all you want to do is hold them close and keep them safe.  And that desire to protect doesn't seem to stop with your children but is transferred to anything that crosses your path, whether it is pets or cartoon fish.

But Lucy survived.
" She probably won't eat much for a day or so," said the vet " and she will feel a bit sleepy until tomorrow so don't worry if she doesn't have much energy."
Lucy sat in the basket, plastic cone round her head to stop her from biting out the stitches in the stub of tail she has left and glared at me.
At home, I opened the basket very carefully, reaching in to help her out. She ignored my helping hand, leapt over the edge, headed straight for her food bowl, ate a whole packet of food and before I could stop her, peed angrily on our beanbag.  The strangest thing of all is that she barely seems to have noticed that she is tail-less and oddly, it is not the first thing you notice when you look at her: a feisty, little black and white cat.  And I realise it is not my strange  desire to protect her or the fact that she has made the whole family care so much about her, that has got her through this. Instead it is her innately fierce, animalistic desire to survive.  Because the truth is, however much our pets belong to us, their animal spirits are not ours to own.  And that's how it should be.
Maybe that's why we like having them around!


Lucy- no tail to tell but doing very well

Hoping for snow

It's 6 a.m.. Outside our bedroom window the spiked leaves of our yucca tree are perfectly still. Not even a whisper of wind.  Like everyone inside our house, the world outside seems to be waiting. Waiting for snow.
The forecast: by this evening, Chichester should be covered in  10 cm of cold, white powder.
In some countries, 10 cm of snow is nothing.  In England, it is world stopping.  Schools close, roads are impassable, trains stop running and people fear starvation because they might not make it to the supermarket for several days.
The kids are hoping that the first flakes will fall soon.  They still have 3 hours before school starts. Just  time  for enough snow to fall, if it falls fast and furious, for a "snow day," to be declared and for their schools to be closed.
And me-self-declared snow-disliker that I am-I am looking out of the window, hoping anxiously for those first flakes to fall. Not because I want a day off work, although that is always nice, but because, if it snows hard enough, it will stop me from having to do the horrible thing that I have to do today. Today is the day that I have to take our cat, Lucy, to have her tail cut off.
It's strange how people seem to accumulate pets.  Ninesh has always hated them.  He sees them as a burden, a drain on finances and a demand on time and holiday plans.  And although part of me agrees with him, I have rarely been without pets. Even if it is just goldfish! Now, all these years into our marriage, we seem to have added a cat and a tortoise to our collection of fish.
We didn't choose Lucy, she chose us.  She turned up in our kitchen one hot Summer's day when we had only been living in our house a few months.  Our 2 year old daughter screamed the first time she saw her, a living, moving creature in our kitchen.  Her " new-to-the-world," brother sensed his sister's fear and started howling.  So I gathered the cat up and put her firmly back on the street. But cats are tenacious. They don't give up.  Every time I opened a door or a window, every time we went into the garden or chatted to neighbours, there she was.  Until eventually, she joined our family and the children only cried if they couldn't find her.  And their tears always made her come running. She seemed to love the kids and couldn't stand it if they were upset.  Sometimes, when they were looking for her, Mia and Joss would go and stand in the garden and pretend to cry and she would come bounding across gardens and over fences to comfort them.
But I am wondering if today she will wish she had never walked through our kitchen door, black and white tail held high. Because the lump on it, that has been ballooning for months, has grown so big, that we have no choice.  And it is a horrible feeling, this playing god, making life changing decisions for others, pets or humans.  I hold onto the thought that cats don't need tails to lie in front of a fire being stroked or to sleep on the grass in the sunshine.  And I hope that I am doing the right thing.
But even more, I hope for snow. Because if it snows and the world grinds to a halt and the schools and vets surgery are closed , the kids and I will light a fire and let Lucy curl up next to us while we watch rubbish on TV. And all will be well and Lucy will keep her tail for one more day.
Is that the first flake I can see falling through the darkness?

Not so beautiful snow and the right salami

The flurry of excitement that came with the snow yesterday morning has melted into a slush of disappointment today.  Perhaps because we so rarely have snow here, it is hard not to find it slightly magical: waking up to a world that is, for a few minutes at least, clean and bright and crunchy white. Although I am not generally a snow fan. Kids look at snow and see snowball fights and building snowmen and the potential for school to be closed for the day.  I look at it and see cold and traffic jams and cancelled trains.  But there is a part of me that still longs for that sense of awe and wonder that waking up to a snowy world can bring.  Yesterday morning I watched from our living room window as a mum walked along the road, carrying her 1 year old son, wrapped up warm in her arms.  As they walked past hedges, he reached out his gloved hand and touched the white leaves, giggling with excitement as the snow fell off. He and his mum were so caught up in excitement at the novelty of a newly white world, at the sound and feel of snow, that it was impossible not to smile as you watched them.
Perhaps it is not snow that I don't like snow. Perhaps it is that I don't like what it reminds me of: that the older you get, the harder it is to find things new and exciting and beautiful.

When I was only 18 and the world was still new and exciting and I had just arrived as an au-pair in the South of France, I was dispatched by the family I was working for to buy a special salami at the weekly market.  The mum was about to have a baby and hadn't been allowed to eat salami through her pregnancy because of the high salt content.  She made her husband promise to bring a baguette packed with this special salami to the labour ward so she could eat it as soon as the baby was born.  They explained carefully which stall I should the father usually bought it from at the market but when I got there, there were hundreds of different salamis.  Looking confused, I explained to the stall holder, in my broken French, that the husband always came to this stall to buy this special salami.
Sensing my foreign- ness, he replied slowly.
" Describe to me," he said.
I took a deep breath.
" Well, he has curly hair, quite short, wears glasses and a shirt and jacket ...."
I stopped. The stall holder was staring at me strangely.
" I meant describe the salami," he said.
"Well,

Old Age is not for sissies

My mum and dad have this picture in their kitchen, drawn by my niece.  It says " Old age is not for sissies." And it is so true.
 I think getting older starts to get hard as soon as you turn 30.  I know that 30 is"the new 20," but there is something about entering your  fourth decade that gives you a permanent sense of slight panic.  It is time to start living  your dreams instead of dreaming them. Time to settle down.  Time to start a family. Time to own a house, And these days, time to make sure you are paying into a pension! I remember feeling that somehow, the first stage of my life was over, a line crossed, the future less glittering and more tangible.  But, with all the hindsight of someone now well into their fifth decade, 30 is young.   40 though...

Yesterday I watched my dad struggle to shuffle from arm chair to table in their living room, observed by an Occupational Therapist.   I saw my dad's frustration as  his legs refused to do what he was telling them to do. The OT was lovely and patient and helpful. But to him, my dad was just another elderly patient, struggling to walk normally through his day. And I wanted to shout out: " he's not just anyone, he's my dad."
Maybe the hardest thing about getting older, is feeling that you are losing your identity, that everyone looks at you and sees someone "old." We have all been guilty of feeling irritated when we are stuck behind someone who  is walking too slowly or  taking too long to pay,You begin to feel that others perceive you purely as the sum of your frailties and with every fibre of your body you want to shout out "Don't you understand,  I am so much more than this."

So Happy Birthday Dad.
To me you will always be sitting singing " Oh Shenaniki Da," ( spelling?) or " 10 Green Bottles," while you drive us to school. Or standing in the garden in your motorcycle gear, drinking in the serenity of flowers and fruit trees  before heading off to work. And you and I will always be walking together  (with legs that work ) along overgrown railway tracks in French forests, as the early morning mist swirls around us.

And if it's any consolation, when I went to buy my immorally expensive running shoes, they asked me if i'd ever worn orthoptics!

Crazy pay-offs, prevailing insanity

I just heard on the radio that a director from some huge international company is going to get such a massive pay off when he leaves ( after 2 years ) that it would pay the water and electricity bill for an average family in England  for 9 1/2 thousand years! And I am thinking, there is no longer any place in this world where sanity prevails.  Either we are all killing each other or hating each other or paying each other off with huge amounts of money because we are so bad at our jobs.  And at the other end of the scale we are making it almost impossible for working parents to afford to go to work.

Also on the radio this morning, they were talking about the Universe. Apparently we have now found thousands of planets similar to earth. But I am wondering if the retiring director, about to earn more money than most of us can even dream of, actually orbits the same sun as the rest of us. It's hard to imagine them walking on the same planet as a single parent who is wondering if they will make next month's rent.  I sit and watch the sun rising from our kitchen window and hope that, when that, in 91/2 thousand years when the money would have run out, the world ( if it is still here ) has become a fairer, saner, more balanced place where the orbits of rich and poor collide.

Rant over.

I survived my first run.  My feet felt fantastic in my new shoes, not so sure about the rest of me.  Wondering if I could pay an immoral amount of money to buy a new body as well.  And taxes- 8% complete. Might not be able to pay our bills for the next 91/2 thousand years, but will soon be able to pay them for last year.

Tax form evasion and being human

A lazy Sunday. And I am doing anything to avoid doing my tax return. Every year I vow that I will start it in May and every year it gets to January and it is still there, looming like a hungry shadow at the end of the month. I so wish I could blame someone other than myself but whichever way I look the arrows are all pointing at me!  Fortunately today there are towels to be put away, handkerchieves to be folded, cushions to be plumped up....so definitely not enough time to start filling in a tax form!

Last night Ninesh and I watched the long awaited first episodes of series 2 of Borgen.  I don't know why it's so good.  But filling in a tax form definitely pales into insignificance, compared to the huge political and personal problems facing the fictional female Prime Minister of Denmark: what to do about troops in Afghanistan, who to choose as your representative in the European Parliament in Brussels, how to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, who actually are your enemies!  But as I watched I kept thinking that what is most intriguing about it, is the realisation that however much power you have, however huge the impact of your professional decisions, it is the decisions you make in your personal life that are always the hardest and most painful. Sometimes it is hard to remember that our leaders are humans too. We, the public, are quick to criticise and slow to praise.  It is hard to perceive politicians as anything other than the sum of their policies, hard to disassociate them with the latest lies they have had to tell or cuts they have had to make. But at the end of the day, they still have to go home and deal with the daily grind and heart-ache of being a wife or husband or mum or dad. In Borgen ( because it is TV and needs drama maybe  ) there is the heartbreak of divorce and children choosing one parent over another. And maybe in choosing to become  Prime Minister she chose her country over her family but that doesn't stop her crying. And that is the truth. Whether the power and fame some of us achieve is the result of luck, hard work or ( more rarely! ) pure talent, in the end, we define ourselves not by how we are judged by others but by whether we believe the personal  decisions we make are  the right ones. And if they are not, whether we are brave enough to admit we are wrong and try to put them right.

Which is why I am now going to do one of the things on my New Year's Resolution list. I'm going to put on my brand new ( immorally expensive ) running shoes and go for my first ever run. And then, of course, I will log on and start filling in my tax form, although, the kitchen floor  could do with a sweep and the fridge could probably do with a proper clean and there's that cupboard I've been meaning to empty.....

Dwarf kings and cleaning schedules

So it's the 3rd of January and I have already broken most of my resolutions. Ate loads of chocolate today and got cross with the kids yesterday. Have done no running at all and have got home late from work every day.  But.... I haven't thrown any slugs over the fence yet. So there is still hope.

Being back at work after a break is always hard. All those things that you had just managed to stop worrying about are waiting in a big pile to greet you: cleaning not done, unanswered emails, unreturned phone calls, families in crisis, staff in crisis..... and suddenly the holidays feel like a long time ago.  To try and pretend that they are not over, Mia and I and some friends went to see The Hobbit  last night.  It was amazing. An escape into  a world  of magic and make-believe and adventure, making damp Chichester seem dull and coldly real  in comparison.  So today, as I sat discussing rotas with the cleaners, I found my mind drifting, imagining handsome Thorin, the young dwarf king, riding his pony through the Children's Centre, sword in hand, ready to smite the Orcs that were bound to be gathering in the sandpit. Don't think it would make much difference to the cleaning schedule!

I've never been very good at schedules or lists but I'm quite good at clearing things away.  Too good at throwing things away, Ninesh would say, as he retrieving another important document from the recycling bin. One of the things I like best about Christmas is taking down the decorations, packing away the tree and piling up the cards.  It's always hard to know what to do with cards, birthday or Christmas.  They are so personal, you always feel guilty throwing them away.  So I usually put them in a big pile for about a month and then throw them away.  Month-on guilt is never so bad!

One of my friends was telling me that her mum once sent her birthday card. She opened it:
" Happy Birthday to my lovely daughter," it read, except her mum had forgotten to write anything in it or sign it.
" Did you get my card?" she asked when she phoned later.
"Yes," said my friend, " Thank you.  Except you forgot to sign it."
'Oh," said her mum, " how did you know it was from me then!"

New year resolutions and coconut diamonds

So 2013 has arrived in exploding fountains of expensive fireworks and a living room littered with streams of coloured  paper from all the poppers pulled by my niece and nephew. And this morning we greeted the new year, as we do every year, with traditional Sri Lankan kiribath: diamonds of coconut rice eaten with your fingers

New Year's Day is always a strange day.  Too full of looking back to be simply look forward.  As an old year ends and a new one begins, I find the last year kaleidoscoping in my head, mixing the forgotten with the remembered in a swirl of disorganised pictures and emotions.  And then the countdown reaches zero and  and for a whisper of a second, we stand astride two years, one foot planted firmly in the unchangeable past and the other trembling with potential in the unknown future. And for that tiny moment anything  seems possible! And then the clock strikes 12 and the fireworks begin and it is tomorrow and a new year has begun.

New year's resolutions are not easy.  The older you get, the harder it is to think of anything new to resolve on or to convince yourself, for more than a minute, that you will actually keep them.  I am wondering if writing them in a blog, putting them into undeletable  cyberspace , will make me try harder to keep them.  So here they are:  eat less chocolate, take up running, be a better mum, put the laundry away, work less,  day-dream more,  stop throwing slugs over the fence into the neighbour's garden.

 And, since it is still only new year's day, I am still full of hopeful optimism that I might at least manage some of them.

So here's to a happy, healthy 2013 filled with friendship, laughter, adventure and the odd day of sunshine.

Hot Tips and Cold Feet at the Fontwell Races

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

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

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

World Peace and a jar of Marmite

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

Laughter and cheer and long-lost friends

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

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

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

Ban the guns, end the madness

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

Make it end.

Teenage tantrums and innocent lies

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

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

Christmas wrapping and cardboard beards

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

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

Irresponsible surrendering

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

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

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

The un-wonder of modern technology and paperclip fantasies

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

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

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

Wille and the Bandits flying high

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

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

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

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

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

 Go well Ruby. Your friends will miss you.

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

Starbucks shame and frost-melting rants

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

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

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

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

Christmas blues and vestless angels

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

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

Madly whirling Mondays and an 82 year wait.

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

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

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

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

Thanksgiving curries

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


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

Stories in the darkness and the great pyjama debate

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

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

birthday strangeness

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

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

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

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

Remembering and calmness in the rain

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

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

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

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

Trivial mundanity and train announcements

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

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

Roses and victory

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

Shouting votes and blue food colouring

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

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

Magic moments and pink cupcakes

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

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

The taste of happiness

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

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

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

Delicious kindness

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

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

Imaginings and football dreams

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

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

Small world, wide roads

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

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

Misty aspirations

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

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

The beauty of sadness

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

RIP Sheila.

Films, words and red balloons

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

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

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

And as usual I am dumbfounded by their teenage logic!

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

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

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

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

Rain, grumpy teenagers and inconvenient tortoises

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

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

Gadgets, memories and tranquil Tuesdays

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

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

Onwards into tranquil (!) Tuesday.

Circuit boards and unused fondue sets

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

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

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

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

Chocolate booking forms

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

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

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