Love and roses

The strange thing about love is that although we spend most of our lives searching for it and desiring it and longing for it, no one can really define it or explain it or understand it.
And it has so many different forms, love.
There is the kind that sweeps you off your feet and sends your world spinning into  disarray.
There is the kind that grows slowly from the heart until it has wrapped itself around you like a warm blanket.
There is the kind that consumes you until you can think of nothing else and life has no other meaning.
There is the kind that hurts  and the kind that makes you laugh for joy.
There is the kind that anchors you and the kind that makes you fly.
There is the kind that makes you feel vulnerable and the kind that makes you feel strong. 
And then there is the unconditional kind that you take for granted:
the kind a parent gives to their child.
And that's the kind that makes us who we are.
That " no-strings-attached-devoted-love," that gives us the courage to take our first steps, say our first words, make our first mistakes,  knowing that someone will always be there to catch us if we fall.
It's the kind of love that comes with no expectations, the kind of love that is so unassuming you almost forget it's there.
 But if you don't have it, the world is a frightening, complicated, meaningless place.
 You don't dare try anything because there is no one to catch you if you fall.
Or you try everything because there's no one to care what you do.
It's not just that love completes you but that it supports you and gives your life meaning.
It is love that holds our fragile world together.

When my mum was ill last week, Ninesh, my husband, bought her some roses.
They were bright and beautiful, bringing warmth and colour to the whitewashed walls and polished floors. of the hospital wards.
But you're not allowed to have flowers in hospitals anymore.  They bring germs and allergies and the scent of hope.
So we took them back to her house and put them on the oval table just like she asked.
Like us, they were waiting for her to come home.
A reminder that no-stringss-attached-devoted-love goes both ways, that for now it is our turn to catch her if she falls.
They kept blooming, the roses, their colours almost glowing against the greyness of these rainy days.
They were still blooming when mum came home.
I hope she knew what they were meant to say.
That in the end, whatever form it takes,  perhaps that's what love is: a vase of constantly blooming roses that fills the world with hope and colour and dreams.

Stay with us Scotland

" What do you think about Scottish independence?" my father-in-law asked me as we were clearing out his garage last week.
I stopped, my arms full of old books, and looked at him, shocked.
Because I suddenly realised that I hadn't really thought about Scottish Independence at all.
That's probably because all we can do  in the South of England at the moment, is think about the weather'
The good thing about all this rain and flooding ( not for the people who have lost their homes to the floods of course) is that it legitimises the English desire to talk about the weather.
" Is this rain ever going to stop? Is it going to reach our houses? Have you seen all those fields that have turned into lakes? Can you believe its still raining? Look at those grey clouds. When are the government going to do something about it?"
And much as I love to blame the government for everything,  I find it hard to blame them for the weather.
But I do blame the weather for the fact that I haven't really thought about Scotland and its desire to be separate from England.
And I do understand.  
It has fought so fiercely for so many centuries to maintain its own identity.
It's not just the kilts and the haggis and the Hogmanay, it's the wit and the raw creativity and the stories and the beauty and the ability to survive against the odds.
Why should that all be part of someone else's country?
Why should what makes your country unique be lost to what makes another country important?
I can see why Scotland might choose to become independent.
Why it might choose to move away from a country that doesn't seem to care about it.
But I hope it doesn't.
Not just because we would have no Winter Olympic team without them but because we live in a world that already has too many borders.
Borders dividing the rich from the poor, the East from the West, the blacks from the whites, the Muslims from the Hindus.
It's easy to find the things that make us different from each other.
Easy to build fences or walls or borders to make sure those differences remain.
Easy to create something worth fighting for.
What's hard is finding the things that we have in common, the dreams we share, the peace worth hoping for. 
What's hard, is breaking down barriers, removing boundaries, opening borders.
Scotland is unique and beautiful and complicated and full of history and fairy-tales.
Perhaps if England had valued it better, found goals to share and successes to celebrate, perhaps then Scotland wouldn't be seeking to add another border to our divided world.
At the risk of sounding like David Bowie: stay with us Scotland. 
Give us one more chance to value and understand you- another hundred years should do it, as long as its stopped raining by then.

Beautiful Scotland

The Great Wedding Bake Off

I'm not really one for baking.
Over the years I have dutifully baked birthday cakes that usually come out flat and cupcakes for cake sales that usually taste of nothing.
But last weekend we were invited to a wedding ( I'm not really one for weddings either) and instead of a traditional wedding cake that most people don't eat, the bride and groom asked all their guests to bring a cake.
It was an inspired idea. 
A Great Wedding Bake-off.
And we all rose to the challenge.
It's not just the baking, it's the time spent searching out the best recipe, the hours spent pouring over pictures to find the right decorations, the days spent deciding what shape it should be.
We even did an uncharacteristic and disastrous practice run, boiling rose petals, simmering cream.
" Tastes like grass and vegetables," said Mia, pulling a face.
And she was right, more like rabbit food than wedding fayre.
So we returned to the recipe books and started again.

The night before the wedding found us weighing and stirring and whisking and pouring.
And it was fun.
It made us feel as though we were part of the preparations for the big day.
As though by pouring our heart and soul into a cake, we could pour love and happiness into the marriage of our friends.
In the end we stopped trying to be clever and went for simple. 
 A rose-flavoured sponge ring covered in multi-coloured hundreds and thousands, the centre filled with a bunch of white roses and tiny edible roses circling the edge. 
It wasn't sophisticated or perfect but it was so much better than anything Mia or I have ever baked before that we were bursting with creative pride.

The hardest thing was getting it to the wedding without dropping it.
 But amazingly, we managed.
Breathing a sigh of relief, we handed it over to be added to the table, already groaning  under the weight of mango pavlova, kitkat special, chocolate dream, butterscotch wonder, death-by-chocolate-brownies, flapjack royale, rainbow surprise and more sugar, icing and sweets than a dentist's worst nightmare.

When all the first and main courses had been eaten, when all the loving speeches had been made and the embarrassing stories shared, it was time for the cake eating to begin.
And we guests took our task seriously, piling plates with as many cakes as possible, sharing on tables so that nothing went untasted.
By the end of the evening, just  the thought of cake was turning us all green.
And our creation didn't win.
The engraved cut-glass plate for the best tasting cake went to the mango pavlova and the plate for the bride and groom's favourite went to our neighbour, Gill, for her  chocolate and flower covered letters C and D ( Caroline and Dez- the bride and groom ).
And when the dancing was over and the happy couple well and truly married, we climbed into a taxi home. 
Sitting in the back, Gill clutched her plate close to her heart.
" I never thought I'd win," she sighed.
I looked at Mia and smiled
Because the best thing about this Great Wedding Bake Off is that the right person won.

And anti-weddinger though I am, it truly was a beautiful day, full of love and happiness and warmth and joy.... and a tableful of colourful cakes and delicious dreams.

So Caroline and Dez, may your life together be full of love and laughter and lots and lots of chocolate cake.

Switzerland, surprises and 40 year old headbangers

Last weekend Ninesh and I spent a wild weekend in Winterthur, Switzerland.
For a few years, when our daughter was a tiny baby, we lived in Winterthur. 
 And although it is more than 14 years since we left, going back there always feels a little bit like going home.
Its cafes, delicious coffee, cobbled streets and strange wooden statues fill me with a comforting sense of warm familiarity that you only have in places where you have been happy. 

Wooden statue resting in the streets of Winterthur- the jury's out as to whether he has a very long penis or just very long legs

As a foreigner, Switzerland is not an easy place to live.  
There are so many laws and rules that the Swiss are born knowing and everyone else just has to find out the hard way.
When we first moved there, I was 7 months pregnant and had to fly back to England for the last month because we didn't have health insurance in Switzerland. While I could speak German, Ninesh hadn't yet learnt it. I was staying at my parent's house when we received a phone call from the Swiss police. Ninesh had broken the law. He had put out a bag of rubbish in the wrong place with the wrong sticker. 
And it is not that anyone tells you which sticker to use or where to put the rubbish. 
 If you are Swiss, you just know that.
" How do they know who's rubbish it is?" I asked one of our friends when Mia had been born and we returned to Switzerland.
" Oh," she explained, " there is a special policeman whose job it is to go through rubbish bags that have been put in the wrong place until they find a name and address!"
" Do they have a special rubbish-sorting qualification?" I asked.
My friend just laughed.
And there are lots of other laws we found out the hard way:
If you live in a flat you may not take a shower after 11pm.  
You may not mow the lawn or go to the bottle bank on a Sunday....

But once you have learnt all the rules that and laws that are important for to you, Switzerland is one of the most beautiful, relaxing, friendly places you could live. 
We lived there for such a short time but the friends we made are still some of those closest to our hearts.
Which is why, last Saturday night, we were back there for our friend's surprise 40th birthday party. 
It was in an underground bar, the kind that you only seem to find in Switzerland  with metal art on the walls and car doors suspended from the ceiling, 

The whole place was ours: a tableful of food, unlimited cocktails, a dance floor and the familiar smiles of long-ago friends.
And we might all be over 40 ( almost all) but we danced and drank and laughed the night away until it was almost light outside.

Age cannot stop us headbanging

And when we woke up the next morning in our friends' beautiful flat, floating above Zurich, the world was white and sparkling and covered in snow.
Exactly as it should be in Switzerland.
And as we trudged and slid and crunched our way through the snow towards the tram and the airport and rainy England, it was hard not to wish for just one more day of chocolate and cheese and Swiss relaxation.
But however many times we fly away from Winterthur, we always know we will be back. There are some places that you never quite leave.

And there's always our friend's surprise 50th to look forward to.

Happy Birthday Christine.

Tax Return Resistance

There's something about the words " tax return,"  that turn my heart to stone and cause the life to seep from my soul
Words like capital gains allowance float incomprehensibly in front of my eyes and I try desperately to cling onto their meaning.
Ninesh sits patiently by my side, trying to control his frustration.
" What do you mean, you didn't keep the receipt for that?," he says.
"it's not that I didn't keep it," I say defensively, " it's just that I don't know where it is."
Every year, as April 5th arrives, I vow that this year will be the year I start filling in my tax return early, saving everything in an orderly way, remembering how much you can claim per mile, knowing exactly how much the mortgage interest was.
Every year I make that vow.
And every year it gets to January 20th, with 11 days to go before my return must be filed and I haven't even started.
I'm not sure why.
Once you start filling it in, it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. 
Especially now that you can do it virtually, on line and there's that reassuring percentage marker across the top showing you exactly how much of your form you have completed.
It's amazingly comforting.
" Yay," I shout triumphantly, "1% complete." 
Which means I've filled in my name and address.

I know it's churlish, this resistance to filling in a form, to adding and multiplying and percentaging, to totalling up my last year's life and slicing off a third.
But with every fibre of my being, I fight the moment when I have to sit down and do it.
I think maybe I struggle with the concept that parts of your life have to be defined purely by their monetary value.
Our flat in London, the lovely flat I used to live in, right in the heart of London next to the canal where I was woken every morning by the quacking of ducks, becomes a taxable asset with allowable expenditure.
The stories that I sit and write dreamily in the shed and living room, become a loss making business.
The long hours that I work at the Children's Centre, optimistically believing that they might really make a difference, are reduced to nothing more than a disappointing income. 
And I can't help finding it all depressing.
I can't stop myself from believing that what you do, should be so much greater than a balance between profit and loss.
 Life should mean so much more than the gap between taxable assets and disposable income.
I fill in my National Insurance Number and the details of my employer- 8% complete.
I'm making progress.

Most of the things we do, can't be quantified or valued: the cleaning, the smiling, the listening, the dreaming.
Yet those untaxable, non- profit making moments are what define us
I hate to see everything I have done over the last year divided up into sections and fitted into tickable boxes.
I like to believe I'm so much too mysterious and enigmatic to fit into a box
!
Self-employment done- 47% complete.

But if I am honest, there is a simpler reason why I spend so much time resisting filling in my tax return.
The truth is, it highlights my lack of organisation and the chaotic way I think and live.
Those are not things to be proud of.
If I had kept all my receipts in the same place, if I could remember where I had put my P60, if I had put all my invoices in the right file on my computer, then filling in a tax return would be easy.
But I haven't done any of that, so filling in my tax return highlights my failings- and that's never a nice thing to see on paper.

All the sections are done, 90% complete.

All that's left to do is to submit and pay.
Then it will be 100% complete.
The pain over for another year.

But somehow, even that seems wrong.

Recently my mum and dad were on holiday in the Canary Islands.
As my dad struggled to lift his foot onto the curb, leaning on his stick, a voice behind him asked if he needed help.
Dad declined and the owner of the voice, an elderly German man, walked past him and stood in front of him, waiting patiently.
" It's over for us," he said to my dad sympathetically as he finally made it onto the curb.
Taken aback, dad thought for a minute and said:
" But I still eat a lot! "

And he's right. 
The world is full of delicious food, still waiting to be eaten.
Until we breathe our last breath, nothing is over, nothing in life should be 100% complete.
Not even a tax return.

With my finger hovering over the "pay now," button, I watch the percentage marker:  97% complete.
For a moment I let my chaotic thoughts wander into 2014, a new year, still only 0.83% complete. I imagine it full of hopes and dreams and laughter and love ( I only ever imagine the good parts )  and all that untaxable potential gives me strength.

My resistance melts, I press the button.
My taxes are returned for another year.
My future is 0% complete.

That mother-son thing

One of the hardest things about being a mum, is the day you wake up and your son has outgrown you. 
I don't mean that he's suddenly taller than you ( although that happens too ) but that he suddenly feels that it's no longer cool to be seen anywhere in public with his mum.
No more shopping together for his clothes - " you always choose ugly things! "
No more meeting in town for a milkshake- " I'm meeting my friends! "
No more sitting together at the cinema- " why would I want to see that film with you? "
No more family days on the beach- " there's a whole group of us going later."
And if you do pass him in the street with his friends, you must absolutely not ever wave or show that you recognise him- " why did you do that mum? You're so embarrassing."

It's not that daughters don't do it too. It's just that their desire to be independent and free themselves from parental control doesn't seem to need such a complete disconnect.
Often our daughter will still let me meet her in town for a coffee ( if I'm paying ) or to go shopping  ( if I'm paying ) and she will even still sit next to me at the cinema ( if I'm paying ).
Girls seem to be able to mix family and friends more easily than boys.
And the hard thing with boys, is the suddenness with which it all happens.
Boys seem to lurch up the hill of adolescence in zig-zagging, unpredictable strides, while girls take it more slowly and long-sufferingly.
Our son, Joss, seemed to go to bed one night a sweet little boy, still wanting a goodnight kiss and a bedtime story, and woke up the next morning a grunting teenager.
As his mum, I found the speed at which it happened confusing and complicated and 
(dare I say it ) just a little bit sad.
Overnight I had to rethink a relationship that had been based on that special " mother-son thing,": 
knowing the things that made him grumpy, 
understanding, without words, when he was tired or hungry or out of his comfort zone, knowing when he just needed a hug or a few words of encouragement.
All of that was gone.
It felt as though during the night an alien had landed in my son's body and it was making him speak a language that I couldn't understand.
Whatever I said was wrong.
However I said it was irritating.
Whatever I wanted to know was none of my business.
" What would you like for breakfast?"     " Not hungry.
" What time will you be back?"               " Why?"
" Will you be home for lunch?"               " Dunno."
" You should wear a coat, it's freezing."  " It's not. Stop talking so much."

Ninesh, his dad, seemed completely unphased by the sudden change.  
He seemed almost relieved that someone in the house was, at last, speaking his language.
No more having to analyse emotions and discuss for hours how to deal with a situation.
" Leave him alone," he'd say, " he's told you he's not hungry." " If he gets cold, that's his problem."
And I know he's right.
But silently watching your son walking away from you is very hard. 
Accepting that he will no longer be the little boy, holding your hand as he skips along the pavement next to me, is hard.
To keep him close, I have had to learn a different way of being.
I have had to learn to bite my tongue, to listen not speak, to wait until information is offered rather than to request it, to cross the road when I see him and his friends in town, to interpret grunts, to keep the fridge full, to let him get cold and wet, to trust this stranger that is my son.

Finding things that we can do together, has been hard. 
He can go to football matches with his dad. 
He can discuss fashion and music with his sister.
He has little in common with me.
But last weekend we flew together to Berlin, taking his cousin, Toby, with us.
And perhaps because it is rare that we spend so much time together, perhaps because I have learnt to value moments that we share, we had a magical time.
We stayed with my cousin, surprised her son for his 10th birthday, go-karted at his party (not me!) cycled around the Brandenburg Gate on a six-seater bike (including me) and ate Bratwurst in the " Mauerpark," drifting across the no man's land of old East-West days.
And as we sat in the plane on the way home, Joss leant his head on my shoulder and fell asleep.
Very gently, I leant my head against his.
And for just a moment, he was skipping along the pavement next to me, holding my hand.
 

3 cousins waiting to go-kart in Berlin

Elvish Resolutions

So 2014 is here.
And I'm glad
2013 has had too much of the "13," in it for my liking.
To welcome in the new year, we spent yesterday celebrating in true Sri Lankan style, making  " short eats," to share with our friends and neighbours

pol sambol- spicey coconut 

vadai- spicey, fried doughballs

kiribath- diamond- shaped , coconut rice

 For the day our house was full of chatter, laughter, the smell of spices  and the vague sense of hope that always comes with the dawning of a new year.
Teenagers lounged on the sofa, recovering from their New Year's Eve partying, little children fought over who should sit on the beanbag and grown ups chatted idly about nothing in particular.
 But somehow, somewhere in the conversation, someone mentioned New Years resolutions.
" I'm going to start running," said one of our friend's confidently. 
" I'm definitely going to start worrying less," said another.
" I'm going to stop drinking in January," said one of our newest friends, waving around her glass of mulled wine.
"But today is the 1st of January,"  someone pointed out. 
Our new friend paused, drink half way to her mouth, " yes, but today's a bank holiday,so it doesn't count ," she explained, draining the glass.
" We're going to have more friends round for dinner in 2014," chimed in some others. 
" I'm going to finish my website," said out free-lance graphic designer friend.
" I'm going to eat less," said one of our neighbours, reaching for another vadai.
I sat listening, eating kiri-bath with my fingers, dreaming I was sitting on a sun drenched, silver-white beach in Sri Lanka.
Outside it started to get dark and rain pattered on the window.
" How about you Becky?" someone asked, calling me out of my day dream. " Have you made any New Years resolutions?"
I glanced at the kids. They were lying, staring glassy eyed at the TV, surrounded by biscuits and crisp packets.
" I'm going to get the children to tidy up more often," I said.
" I think the idea of New Year's resolutions is that they are meant to be possible," said one of my friends, " that one's impossible. Choose a realistic one."
" You're right," I said, passing around a plate of fish cutlets, " since seeing the Hobbit, my real resolution for 2014 is to become an elf."
" But your ears aren't pointy, your hair isn't long and you can't speak elvish," pointed out one of our guests. 
" True," I said, " but those are all obstacles that can be easily overcome. I think the hardest about being an elf will be believing that I can always thwart my enemies at the speed of lightening while spending  the rest of my very long life drifting around writing songs and poems and being aesthetically pleasing. That part will definitely be a challenge."
" No point in making resolutions that are too easy though is there?" said someone supportively, " What's in this coconut stuff? It's really nice."
And so the conversation turned to recipes and dinners and the most delicious meals people had eaten in 2013.
And slowly people began to drift home, leaving a trail of paper plates, empty glasses, hopes for a happy 2014 and the warmth of friendship behind them.
" Your ears are a little bit pointy," said one of my friends, hugging me goodbye.
" Thanks, " I said, hugging her back.
But chances are I won't become an elf in 2014. 
Most likely I won't even get the kids to tidy up more.
Still, I can keep hoping.
Because the best thing about the beginning of a new year, is that there is always the chance it will be better the old one.
And that's worth celebrating.

So here's to hoping that 2014 is full of dreams and happiness... and just a little bit of elvish magic.

Happy New Year!

Grinch empathy and friendly hedge trimmings

As it happens, I am not a big fan of Christmas.
At this time of year, on this day, I find myself siding with The Grinch in almost every way. 
I hate the crazy present buying, the unnecessary wrapping, the endless mince-pie eating.  I want to scream as I squeeze into packed supermarkets full of people panic buying because the shops will all be closed for one day and we might all starve or dehydrate or run out of alcohol.
I get embarrassed pretending to love unwanted gifts while secretly planning to drop them off at a Charity shop on the way home. 
I groan as the big day gets closer and Mia and Joss remind me that we still haven't put up our tree.
" Perhaps we don't need one this year," I suggest tentatively.
" What! " shout Mia and Joss in unison.
" Just because you don't like Christmas mum," says Joss, " doesn't mean that we don't. And we want a tree."
" He's right," agrees Mia, siding with her brother for once. " Just because you don't like Christmas, doesn't mean you have to ruin it for us."
Grumbling I drag our fake, black tinsel tree out of the cupboard under the stairs. 
After being folded up for a year its branches are bent and the tinsel looks a bit scraggy.  
Half-heartedly we hang  a few baubles from the branches.
" It looks like its been run over," says Mia, standing back and critically assessing our handiwork..
" Why is there wire instead of branches?" asks Joss.
I shrug.
" Perhaps its deciduous," I say. " At least we can put all the presents underneath it now, so we don't lose them."

But I know Mia and Joss are right.
  I'm definitely not a good mum at Christmas.
I find it hard to overcome my abhorrence of the overt consumerism and the fact that Christmas is now, more than anything else, about presents. 
Everything has to be the most up to date, the fastest, the trendiest, the coolest, the best.
 I shudder to think of the number of Play Station 4 games, laptops, mobile phones and DVDs that have been given as gifts.
Whatever happened to a new pair socks and a bar of chocolate?
And the closer December 25th gets, the more I rant and moan and the more Mia and Joss roll their eyes indignantly and disown me.
Except for Christmas Eve. 
The24th December is the one evening that we all look forward to all year. 
It's true that the "eve," of most important days is usually more exciting than the day itself. The day before something happens is generally full of anticipation and excitement without any of the disappointment that reality often brings.
But that's not the reason everyone in our family looks forward to Christmas Eve so much,  it's because it's the day we have dinner with the Medways.
The Medways are our next -but -one neighbours and they have been our friends since the moment we moved in. 
Mia was not quite 2 and Joss not quite born the day I met Gill Medway.
We had just moved in and I was walking along our new road, holding Mia's hand, feeling Joss kicking inside me.
And there was Gill, standing on the pavement trimming her hedge.
" When's your baby due," she asked,pulling a stray leaf out of her hair and smiling.
" Next week," I said. 
Joss kicked again,
" But I think it might be sooner. "
" Let me know if you need a lift to the hospital then," said Gill, calmingly. " My daughter Emily is in Holland at the moment. She'll be back next week. She's going to be so excited when she hears there are two little ones living next door.  I'll send her round when she's back."
And there was something about the welcoming warmth of Gill's smile that day, that made me realise that, even though we had no fridge, no unpacked furniture, no proper beds, everything was going to be alright.
And Emily did come round when she came back from Holland and she's never really left, not our hearts anyway.
The thought of her not being a part of Joss and Mia's life, is unimaginable to them and us. Her love and friendship is the branch that has let them grow away from us, knowing that they will always be safe.
So it's probably not strange that we started spending our Christmas Eves together,
There's no planning involved, we're none of us good at that. 
 We only decide a few hours before whose house we will have dinner at.  
Everyone cooks something, children and grown ups and in-betweens. 
And every year we create the perfect feast: starters and main courses and puddings.
And every year we eat and laugh and put the world to rights.
And every year, for one whole Christmas evening, I forget about presents and wrapping paper and overcrowded supermarkets. 
And instead I remember what Christmas really is: a time to share what you have and be together.

But then again, isn't that exactly what happened to the Grinch?

Happy Christmas!

Patrick, Jonny, Gill, Joss, Emily, Mia and  Ninesh- Christmas as it should be.

Impact measuring, Jude Law and four "sisters," from the fourth floor

I have spent a lot of the last week self-evaluating.
Nor myself but our Children"s Centre.  
Which means I have spent a lot of the last week drowning in stats and data 
How many families from our reach area attend our centre.
 How many of those families are targeted families. 
 How many of the children of the targeted families go to a nursery, a health visitor, eat healthily, weigh the right amount…….the questions are endless, the statistics screwy and our ability to change the world, limited.
But the worst part of all is when it comes to measuring impact.
How can we show that, by doing what we do, we can truly make a difference.
How has your centre changed lives for the better.
And that's where stats and data fall apart.
You can get statistics to prove almost anything.  
You can turn them into graphs or charts or percentages. 
You can even get them to predict what might happen in the future..but you can't get them to tell you what that future holds.  
Impact doesn't fit into a tickable box because impact is about something immeasurable.  It's about changing an attitude, altering an aspiration, planting a dream.
And how  do you measure that?
How do you quantify what might happen tomorrow or in a week or in a decade as the result of something you have done today?

And the more time I try to spend analysing data, the more I find myself daydreaming.
Wondering what it would be like to impact measure ourselves. 
To assess the difference we have or haven't made.

As it happens, I have been thinking about the past a lot lately.  A few weeks ago I met up with 3 long-ago friends in Dusseldorf, Germany.  We have known each other since we all met on the second floor of C block at university in Liverpool more than two decades ago. Over the years we have fallen in and out of touch and our lives have travelled in very different directs.  But somehow across oceans and countries and years, we have always found each other again. Because there was something immeasurably special about that year when we lived on the same floor and the next, when we shared a student house ( so cold that we had to burn most of the furniture to keep warm! )
 It's hard to say what it was.
 Perhaps it is because student days are the only time in your life when you spend every waking hour with your friends and friendships that can survive drunken nights, hungover mornings, love, heart-ache, exam pressure, shared cooking and the contentious splitting of electricity bills- can survive anything . 
Perhaps it is because, living so far from home, we had to grow up and become independent. And to do that we were, for a time, dependent on each other.  
We sat round the psychologically warming fake fire in the hotel, drinking champagne from ice cube filled pint glasses discussing Jude Law and whether or not he had ever  been in our garden, reading glasses, Christmas markets, the situation in the Lebanon and what to have for dinner.
And as we got out of the lift, chatting and laughing and made our way back to our rooms, someone from the lift called after us:
" Four sisters from the fourth floor."
And I thought: from the 2nd floor of C Block to the 4th floor of a hotel. We have definitely gone up in the world!
And the truth is, that we have all gone up in the world and perhaps none of us would be where we are today if we hadn't met each other. 
But then again, perhaps we would.
And that's the trouble with measuring impact.
 It is not finite or definite.  
It is the possibility that because you met someone, their lives are now different.
All that I know for certain is that all these years on with all that has happened my life is richer and slightly crazier for knowing them.But all these years on, for me at least, it is easy to measure the impact my 3 friends from the fourth floor have had: my life is richer and a little bit crazier for knowing them. 
Fit that into a tick box if you can!

 

Four friends from the fourth floor

Breakfast cocktails and perfect Sunday mornings

Last weekend I met some friends for breakfast at Canary Wharf in London.

Canary Wharf is an eerily quiet place to be on a Sunday morning. 
I'm sure Monday to Friday it's full of the buzz and bustle of smartly suited business people manically buying, selling and generally being very important.  

But the weekend is a different story.
The London Underground doors slid open automatically, revealing a completely empty platform. And as we wandered through the metalic, shiny station, we didn't see a single human being, just sign posts and big glass doors and long, silver escalators.

And outside was just the same.  
Wide empty roads. 
Tall empty tower blocks. 
And a big, empty cafe, where we were meant to be meeting our friends.
" I've reserved a table for 4," I said unnecessarily to the waitress.
" Well," she said, pointing to a table with a sofa and basket chairs, " I'd reserved this one for you, but…… basically, you can choose any table you want."
There's something about an empty cafe which makes you feel that you have made the wrong decision.
So, pretending that we hadn't noticed that we were the only people there, we flixkws through a menu while we waited for our friends.
And that's when I discovered something that made the reservation worthwhile and the  empty cafe, the best breakfast joint in the world. 
 Because after the coffees, teas and hot chocolates on the drinks list, was the list for 
" Naughty and Nice BREAKFAST COCKTAILS."
And suddenly Sunday morning stretched before us in a haze of poached eggs, toast,  bacon and perfectly blended alcohol.
Parlour Bloody Mary, Breakfast in Bloom Martini and Morning Fruit Sparkles.

Breakfast in Bloom Martini and Morning Fruit Sparkles, The Parlour, Canary Wharf

Our friends arrived and we ordered the Sparkles and Martinis ( a surprisingly delicious mix of alcohol an marmalade! ) and the morning melted into the afternoon.
And the waitress came and asked if we wanted to look at the dessert menu. 
" Does breakfast usually come with dessert?" I asked.
The waitress looked confused and glanced around the no longer empty cafe at the customers ordering lunch
" Does breakfast usually come with cocktails?," asked one of our friends.
" It should do," I said.
And ordering another round of toast and jam and breakfast cocktails, we raised our glasses to perfect Sunday mornings and almost empty cafes.

And if we had been there today, we would have raised our glasses to Nelson Mandela: 
an "almost saint," in an almost hero-less world.

RIP Nelson Mandela

The wordless Snapchat universe

I was sitting in a cafe with my daughter, Mia, and her friend last Sunday.  
Like all 16 year olds, they were discussing how awful their friends were, and of those awful friends, who did what to who at last night's party.
And like all mums allowed to go to a cafe with their 16 year old daughter,I tried to look 
"acceptably cool,'" by sitting quietly, drinking my coffee and pretending not to listen to their conversation.

Best coffee in Chichester, Attibassi

The strange thing about their chatter, though (making it very hard to keep track of when you are pretending not to listen ) was that it in the end, it didn't seem to involve using many words.
" You won't believe what they sent me from the party last night?" Mia was telling her friend, " this Snapchat, with a picture of two of them smiling, doing a thumbs up with the word PT underneath."
I was itching to ask what PT meant and desperate to explain that PT wasn't a word, but bit my tongue, repeating 
 " acceptably cool, acceptably cool," in my head.
" OMG," said Mia's friend ( "you could use the actual words," I wanted to say ).
" I know," said Mia, " it made me so angry. I mean why can't they just go to a party without having to tell the whole world how cra..they are." ( " I think you will find the  word is crazy," I want to say ).
Since Mia had seemed to include me in the last comment, I took my cue to speak.
" Perhaps they were just taking a photo because they were having a really good time and wanted to remember it?" I suggested weakly, feeling my comment taper off into a question under the fierce gaze of incredulity that Mia and her friend turned on me.
" If they wanted to do that they wouldn't have done it as a Snapchat would they?" said Mia, " it disappears after like 20 seconds. And why would they be smile-pouting if it was because they were having such a good time. "
Cowed into silence at this logic, I carried on pretending not to listen.
" I know what we need to do," shouted Mia gleefully to her friend, " we need to Snapchat them exactly the same picture from here, you and me with our thumbs up, just like their photo and write AB underneath ( Attibassi is the name of the cafe we were in, best coffee in Chichester! ). 

Attibassi, coolest hangout in Chichester

Enthusiastically they set to work.
Posed, clicked and sent.
 Two girls, thumbs up, the gold and black Attibassi wallpaper in the background.
There was a few minutes of expectant silence and then Mia's phone buzzed.
" Look," groaned Mia, showing the phone to her friend and me." i knew that would happen. Now everyone is going to be bitching about me all weekend.I knew she'd be angry.  Why doesn't she get that  it was just a joke."
" How can you tell she's angry?" I dared to ask, looking at the photo before it disappeared:
A tired girl, lips arching downwards making a weary thumbs-up.
Mia gave me another one of her withering looks.
" Obviously she's angry.  Look at her."
But before I could look anymore, the picture was gone.
The trouble with conversations without words, is that they are constantly open to misunderstanding … .and understanding each other is hard enough, even when we are talking. 
But where's the fun in words when you can spend the whole day misinterpreting pictures!

"I know what we can do," said Mia," we can go to all the shops in town and take the same photo in all of them…."
"Yeah," said her friend excitedly, " we could go to Top Shop,take the photo and put TS underneath."
" Or just take a photo of everyone around you Snapchatting and write BS underneath," I suggested..
Fortunately, Mia and her friend didn't hear me. They were too busy trying to get their smile-pouting poses exactly right.
Hugging my hands around my steaming cup of coffee, I glanced around the cafe. 
Sitting comfortably on the red, leather sofas or perched on high stools in front of the floor to ceiling windows, almost everyone was holding their phones up in front of them, taking perfectly posed pictures. 
 Dads with their kids, so that without words, they could show the world what  perfect dads they are.
Mums holding glasses of steaming coffee: "look at me," the image would say, " even though I'm a busy mum, I'm still so trendy, I have time to drink coffee from a  glass."
Teenagers leaning their heads together, hair gleaming or time-consumingly sculpted, perfect smiles on their perfect faces " look at the fun we are having while we are young and beautiful," the image would say.

" We've got to go now mum," Mia said, " Thanks for the coffee ( Nutella Mocha ) 
" Yeah, thanks for the hot chocolate," said her friend ( a whole bar of Montezuma chocolate melted in frothy milk) " it was delicious. Where shall we Snapchat first Mia?"
I watched them drift youthfully out of the cafe, feeling grateful that for now, at least, they were still using words instead of temporary photos to communicate with each other.

Perhaps I am just a conservative purist but I have struggled with text speak.
I find the LOL's and sos's and cra's and wht tme?s hard to take. 
Our 14 year old son, who has never been particularly interested in spelling things correctly, no longer needs to try. With his 30,000 followers on Twitter, spelling correctly is obviously a thing of the past.  The important thing is to say everything in as few characters as possible,so vowels are definitely a complete waste of space.
But even textspeak must be better than the "no speak," of Snapchat or Instagram.

I finished my coffee, carefully hid my very old-fashioned phone ( only letters and numbers, no camera ) in the deepest pocket of my coat, paid and left.
And walking through the busy pre-Christmas streets of Chichester, I watched the wordless couples, staring down at their phones, the teenagers giggling as they shared photos. the kids pointing out the latest mobiles in shop windows to their parents who were busy sending Instagrams on their own.
And if anyone had snapchatted a photo of me just then, it would have shown a picture of a middle-aged woman wandering through a phone-filled world and the caption underneath would have read:
" Lost for words."

The " 5- minutes- before -school," daily crisis

There's something about the 5 minutes before leaving for school that induces a daily crisis in our home.  It doesn't matter how calm the hour before has been, how friendly the teenage grunts or how willingly the kids have been woken from their dreams, the hand on the clock reaches 8.25 ( late for some I know ! ) and pandemonium sets in.
" Mum," shouts Joss from his bedroom, " where are my green PE socks? The ones I put by the washing machine last night before I went to bed.
" Probably still by the washing machine," I suggest.
" What,' shouts Joss, horrified, " you mean you haven't washed them yet?.  They're covered in mud."
" Mum," moans Mia, " where's my French book? I left it on the sofa last Tuesday and have you seen my…..nooo."

Looking for a Frenchbook in a haystack, I mean sofa!

Her questions die off as Joss dashes past and darts into the bathroom before her.
"Joss," yells Mia, " that's not fair, you've already had a shower for about an hour and I haven't even cleaned my teeth yet."
" Tell mum and dad to build another bathroom then," says Joss helpfully through the bathroom door, his words accompanied by the clicking open of a jar of hair gel.
By the time he emerges, each strand of hair perfectly positioned, Mia has found her French book but lost her geography homework and her compass.
" I left my compass on the floor by the table. Why do you always have to clear everything away," she complains, striding angrily into the bathroom.
"Mum," calls Joss from the hall, as he struggles into the blazer he has left in a crumpled heap on the floor, the button has just come off my trousers. Can you fix it? I have to go in like 2 minutes."
I walk into the kitchen to try and find a safety pin.  
Mia is doing her hair in the mirror over the kitchen sink.

" Why does my hair always look like THIS," she cries, " grabbing fiercely at one of her perfect curls. " It's not fair, why is my hair so horrible."
Joss stands still so that I can pin his trousers back together.
" Did you make me a hair appointment?" he asks. " my hair's getting so long."
I stare at his skin-hugging, side-buzzed hair and wonder what short hair would look like.
" And I need £2.50 for geography. If I don't have it by today, I'm going to get a detention."
" Have you signed my letter for the theatre trip,"  shouts Mia from the living room, " If you don't do it today, I can't go." 
She tips the contents of her schoolbag onto the floor and hands me a crumpled note. " I told you about it ages ago. Why do you always leave everything until the last minute."

And I stand there, biting my tongue.
I could say, if you had both got everything ready last night, none of this would be happening.  
I could say, if you got up 5 minutes earlier there would be enough time for everyone to use the bathroom.
I could say, Mia if you put your things away instead of leaving them scattered around the house, you would know where everything was.
I could say, Joss, you must have known your trouser button had fallen off, why didn't you put on your other pair.
I could say, Mia your hair is beautiful, Joss your hair is short enough and neither of you told me about money that needs to be paid or letters that need to be signed.
But after a decade of experiencing the " 5 -minutes -before -school crisis point," I have learnt it is best to say nothing.
Nagging only causes rows.
Telling your teenagers that they should be better organised is as pointless as telling your Sat Nav it has got the directions wrong.

The truth is, just before leaving for school, your kids don't want solutions, they want stress.
The thought of spending a whole day sitting, listening to teachers, getting in trouble for breaking rules and generally doing things you would rather not be doing, is not something that fills most children with joy. 
A day at school is rarely something kids look forward to, even if it is not so bad once they get there.  
So of course they need to begin their day with a " crisis." 
It just reflects how they feel about school.
If mornings were calm and cheerful, we might think they like going to school.
How else can they remind us parents how hard their lives are.

So I sign Mia's letter and find £2.50 for Joss from the change scattered around the kitchen.
The doorbell rings.
" Holly's here," shouts Mia, " Have you seen my phone? Never mind, got it. 
Bye mum. See you later."
I listen to the giggles and chatter as they wander down the road.
" Bye mum," shouts Joss, texting his friend  as he strolls cooly through the door.


And I am left, standing in a quiet house, surfaces covered in safety pins and Mia's make-up. I find Mia's compass in the fruit bowl and wonder if she would find it, if I just put it back on the floor by the table.
But it's 5 minutes before I need to leave for work….and I can feel my stress levels rising!