Can't believe you're gone bro.' RIP

Something terrible has happened in our quiet, mostly wealthy, generally-considered-provincial  city.
It is something so tragically unexpected that nothing will ever feel quite the same again.
On Friday night, a teenage boy was fatally wounded after being stabbed..
Apparently it was a drug related crime.
Apparently it was a personal argument.
Apparently the victim was only a few yards from his destination, the hostel he was staying in.
Apparently the victim and his alleged attacker had been at a nearby party....and there it is, the only "apparently," that mattered to me at first.. 
The selfish "apparently."
The "apparently," that  clamped a steel ring of panic around my heart.
Because all I could think was... it could have been one of our kids. 
They could have been at that party. 
They might have been caught up in that fight. 
They might have been walking home along that road.
But they weren't....and he was.
The tragedy is his not theirs
And for that I am selfishly and eternally thankful.
Thankful that this isn't their story. 
Because I cannot begin to imagine the agonising grief of the family whose story it is.
As a parent, there is nothing more terrifying than the thought that something might happen to your children.
That fear is what makes letting go so hard.
And this story is everything you dread.                                                     
The victim, left at the side of the road, had been at school with our daughter.
Her contemporary from the age of 9 until last year.
He wasn't a close friend but Chichester is a small place.
All the seventeen and eighteen year olds know each other.
They mostly orbit the same party scene.
They mostly acknowledge each other in passing, coolness factor allowing.
They mostly share a common friend, 
A separation of mostly one degree.
 He was a familiar part of the  teenage fabric that binds them all together, this young victim.
And now he's gone.
And the fabric is torn.
And our teenagers are left dazed and a little less carefree.
His life, a could-be-their-life, was cut short.
It ended before it had been truly lived.
And suddenly all that we have and all that we are seems fleeting and fragile.
The base of certainty upon which our teenagers danced, is cracked.
Uncertainties are seeping through.
Life is not endless but finite.
"Now," is not forever, it's transitory.

Around the tree where the stabbing took place, candles burn amidst bunches of daffodils and wrapped roses.
A card reads:
" Can't believe you're gone bro'. I'll miss you."
"He was always a loner," says our daughter, " even when we were ten. "
She tries to stem the flow of tears.
" And people at school....they weren't always nice to him then."
She looks at me, her dark eyes haunted by painful memories.
Unwanted questions float in the air between us..
How did the other kids make  him feel? Was school a horrible place for him? Was he hurt by what people said? Was he lonely? Was he lost? Did he long for a different life?
I hug her close, our eighteen year old daughter, but I can't take away her pain.
" He went out with my friend," she says, " do you remember?. They were together for ages.  I used to tell you about them.  How neither of them could ever sleep and how, on the nights they weren't together they would lie in their rooms and talk and talk and talk on Skype. They wouldn't stop until one of them fell asleep."
And suddenly I did remember.
Not him, not the person, but the story.
I remember being amazed at such a depth of emotion in two people who were so young.
Wondering at the all-consumingness of first love.
Remembering how nothing else exists but the two of you.
How the only thing that matters in the world, is what you share.
How it's impossible to believe that what you have will ever end.
How, just for a while, you feel complete and whole.
And I smile, because at least he had that. . 
At least, however short his life, he experienced one of the most important reasons for living.

And I hope, wherever he is now, he no longer feels like a loner.
I hope he no longer feels hurt or lost..
I hope he isn't alone. 
And I hope, with all my heart, that someone is talking and talking and talking to him, until he falls asleep.
.

                                                               RIP Luke

Putting the Brakes on Brexit

February seems to be lasting forever this year.
Grey days, grey evenings. grey politicians, grey news.
I dream of long summer evenings and deeply blue skies.
I remember the days we spent travelling in our camper van through Europe.
The beauty of the constantly shifting countryside, the every day passion of the Italians, the laughing vivacity of the Spanish, the laid back attitude of the Portuguese, the melt-in-the-mouth-crescent of a French croissant, the delicate flavours of a warm Sicilian snack. The wildness of Sardinia and diversity of Corsica, the beauty of sparkling lakes and drama of breath-taking mountains, the age-old cities and brand new art galleries.
No day was boring, every day was full of new discoveries.
And in these grey February days, I'm wondering why it is we are trying to separate ourselves from all that is beautiful and cultured and delicious about Europe.
I know that I am not informed enough about the economy or politics.
I know that I cannot possibly understand the complexity of the laws and interwoven relationships that make up the European Union.
I know that I am ignorant of the legal and financial implications that being part of Europe means.
But I am sure of one thing: I don't want to leave Europe.
I'm sure my reasons are flawed, they have to be because they are based purely on emotions and personal experience.
They are based on a rose-tinted hope that the more we try and overcome differences and create a shared vision, the more we will understand and respect each other.
They are based on a belief that being a small part of something big and full of potential is better than being a big part of something small that will slowly become less.
We live in volatile times where we are quick to hate and slow to forgive.
We live in divisive times where it is easier to build walls than create bridges, easier to look for problems than find solutions, easier to despise the culture of others than value diversity.
Is it so wrong to think that maybe, just maybe, a union of different countries could be a good thing.
Is it so hard to see the beauty in a patchwork quilt of mountains and lakes, of bluebells and orange trees, of different languages and different religions? 
And yet we want to cut the almost invisible thread that holds us so tenuously together.
I'm not sure what went wrong but I wish we could fix it.
I wish we could sew it back together with a multi-coloured thread of hopes and dreams.
Brexiting seems like running away rather than turning to face the storm.
Brexiting seems cowardly
Brexiting seems like a delusional attempt to return to the days when we believed we were better than everyone else.
But we are not.
We are all of us, wherever we come from, equal.
We have equal rights to a better quality of life, equal rights to a fairer distribution of wealth, equal rights to have our voice heard and our beliefs valued.
If we leave the European Union we will have to shout louder to be heard and work harder to trade fairly and be dealt with justly.
Before we know it the United Kingdom will be a splintered memory.
Every day the world seems to become smaller and yet the distance between us and our neighbours seems to become greater.
Instead of Brexit let's Brentrance into a better, more forgiving, brighter future.

The Hen Party Phenomenon

Hen Party, River Cottage HQ

Strangely, although I have been to many weddings over the years, I have been to very few hen parties.
I think, maybe, when I was young and my peers began to get married, hen parties were not such grand, important affairs. 
Maybe I just got too drunk to remember 
Or maybe I just wasn't invited.
Whatever the reason, today the hen and stag "do," seem to have become an integral part of the total wedding experience.
Hen nights seem to have evolved into " hen weekends, " and stag nights into "stag weeks."

Whereas in the past the bride or groom-to-be would meet a couple of friends in the pub and have a few pre-marital drinks, now the whole thing is an event which needs to be carefully planned, precisely organised and riotously enjoyed. 

It must be an experience uniquely tailored to the hobbies and interests of the future bride or groom.

It must include games involving varying degrees of drunkenness and either physical challenge or creative stimulation.

And definitely there must be lots of unhealthy snacks, delicious food, more drunkenness and the potential for long nights of wild abandon.

Knowing all of this, I wasn't sure what to expect when I set off at 7 a.m last Saturday morning, bottle of Prosecco in rucksack, for my friend's hen party weekend. 

She had requested a cooking lesson and meal at the River Cottage HQ in Axminster.

And so it was, that yesterday afternoon, 12 of us, friends and family, arrived at the beautiful, too-big-to-be-called-a-cottage, "Trill Cottage," just a bumpy tractor ride away from the famous River Cottage Cafe HQ.

We filled the table with snacks, the fridge with alcohol and settled down to write " what makes a good marriage," on wooden spoons.

Turns out, that the essence of a good marriage fits easily onto a wooden spoon. 

 Perhaps the hardest thing is to stir it into your married life.

The strange thing about a hen party, is that while all of us know someone, only the bride-to-be knows everyone.

But gradually, as the hours drifted by and the Prosecco flowed, the polite conversations of strangers, began to change into something else.

Outside the rain hammered on the windows, while inside we carved fragile bridges of trust and spun silken webs of friendship and ate lots of crisps and chocolate.

So that by the time we emerged, muddy and damp, from our tractor ride to River Cottage HQ, we felt somehow bonded, perhaps by words, perhaps by familiarity or perhaps by the shared anticipation of the evening ahead of us.

And it was magical.

We walked into a simple flagged stone room with a table laid ready just for us, a wood burning stove flickering in the corner and a delicious brandy and apple juice aperitif waiting for us on a comfortingly solid sideboard. 

We wandered between our private dining room and a rustic kitchen hung with shining pans. a fire crackling in the open fireplace and our very own sous-chef enthusiastically teaching us how to create the perfect souffle and the crispiest pakora.

" All the ingredients come from our very own garden and farm," he explained,  as he expertly chopped the garlic and onion with a very sharp knife and without looking because he was just slightly flirting with the youngest and most attractive of us. 

" All our eggs are from our very own chickens," he added, whisking the whites into perfect peaks and  holding the bowl over his head with a cheeky grin,to prove they wouldn't fall out.

Souffles exquisitely risen, pakoras crisped to perfection, our feasting began.

We sat at the table, our "hen" occasionally remembering to wear her tastefully flashing 

"bride-to-be" sash as course after delicious course arrived on our plates.

With each course our sous chef arrived to explain what the ingredients were.

Souffle, pakora, egg and spiced cauliflower, freshly caught fish in a reduced leek sauce, 

(halloumi for me), crackers and badger-bean humous, barbecued lamb, (homemade pasta for me), honeycomb, beetroot threads tossed in citrus juice and sugar, marscapone and fruit

It felt as though we were standing in a river of never-ending deliciousness.

And the fire burned, and the laughter danced around the table and our every wish was fulfilled by the staff.

For just a few hours we forgot about the rain and the mud and the real world outside.

Until, at last, satiated and almost comatosed by the huge amount of food we had consumed, we collapsed back into the tractor and were hauled back towards our oversized cottage.

We had meant to play some more games, we had meant to carry on drinking, we had meant to be raucous and wild.

But we were much too full.

So instead we all hugged each other good night and collapsed into bed.

Through the rain-dropped windows I could almost see the little seaside town of Seaton, nestling in the next valley.

During the Second World War, its holiday village had been an internment camp for those who were fleeing from the horror of Hitler.,

One of those internees was my Austrian grandad.

Seton was the last place he ever set foot on this earth.

He stepped from the camp onto a ship that was torpedoed, leaving his Ausrian wife and tiny baby daughter behind in an alien and unfamiliar world.

He had married my grandmother in England and held his daughter in his arms for a few short days.

He loved people and friendship and parties and good food and playing his mandolin.

And I'm sure, if his world had not been turned upside-down by the destructive and agonising heartbreak and hatred of war, he would have had the biggest stag do ever.

As I lay in my very comfortable bed, chatting and laughing with friends,

 I imagined him watching us from the beach, so strangely close.

I saw him smiling and waving.

And I know what he was telling me to do: to cling on tightly to every moment and to wrap them softly with my dreams. 

Because love and friendship are the greatest treasure we have.

And in the beauty of the memories we create together, lies the strength and courage of our future..

In the end, however drunkenly, loudly or deliciously, isn't that what a hen party should be celebrating?

 

Imposter Syndrome Blues

So….I have started a new job

No more  coffee-with-friends filled days. 

No more endless dreaming and limitless hours to fill with nothing- in- particular.

Instead I am walking gingerly across the polished wooden floors of academia.

I have a temporary job lecturing in early childhood studies.

And I have never, in all my life, felt so much like a rough edged square peg in a perfectly smooth round hole..

I keep waiting for the hand that will tap me on the shoulder and say

 " what exactly are you doing here? You do realize you don’t actually know anything, right?""

I constantly feel that my ignorance is about to be revealed, my extreme lack of academic knowledge unveiled.

"Oh that ," says my translator friend Mandy when I Whatsapp her about it, ' that's imposter syndrome.  I've had it for years!"

" Have you?" I say, trying to work out if knowing that makes me feel better.

 Because strangely, in all my almost 50 years and with the eclectic and various jobs I have done in my life, I have never felt this before.

Never felt so completely out of my depth, so lost in unfamiliar territory.

" How long does it last?" I ask one of the other lecturers,

" What last?" he asks, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the academic journal he"s immersed in.

 " This feeling that I shouldn't really be here."I say "will I ever feel that I'm actually knowledgable enough to do this job?"

" Well," he says, ' that's hard to say..... "

“ I'm here for 11 months covering maternity leave," I add , "so….ballpark figure? Just to give me hope.”

 " Hm," he says, looking at me in an academically wise and generically philosophical way, " that might not be quite long enough."

For a moment he gazes out of the window at the huge millions –of- pounds -worth of new academic building being constructed opposite his room.

Then turning back he looks at me, smiles supportively and after careful consideration, offers me a biscuit.

" For me," he says," I think the first 5 years felt like  I was a "wisdom imposter," but I kept telling myself that it didn't matter because at least I had worked in the field recently, so I knew more about the job than most of the other people here. But now, all these years on, I feel like an imposter because it's so long since I've worked in the field that I'm completely out of touch."

And there it is, the Catch 22 of academia.

You lecture so that you can train students to enter careers but you stop knowing anything current and practical about those careers because you are lecturing. 

At least I know now that I won’t be here long enough to change from being a "wisdom imposter," to being a " hands-on-experience imposter.

Being one type of imposter is enough for a lifetime.

And I don’t think I’ll mind when I have to leave

All this trying to sound knowledgable and wearing a fake mantel of expert.... it’s exhausting.

I find myself watching hours of mindless sitcoms every night, just to redress the balance.

“It’s not so bad,” says the other lecturer, sensing my pain, “ you get to eat lots of biscuits….and you don’t have to talk to that many people.”

Munching on a Digestive, I consider his words.

He’s right, you don’t have to talk to that many people…which is strange considering that to be a lecturer you are meant to be good at imparting information and talking to students.

But the truth is, apart from delivering the odd lecture, academics work mostly in isolation, immersed in their own research and lost in a world that can sometimes seem detached from reality.

And for them, the worst and most irritating part of the imposter in me, must be my constant desire to chat, my constant craving for human interaction.

But it's not just that.

One of the things I miss most of all about my last job ( and with rose-tinted hindsight you always miss a lot ) is the laughter.

The laughter and the huge amount we all cared about each other.

It's the little things that make the difference.

Remembering to ask how someone got on in a driving test, bringing in a bunch of flowers for someone who is sad, asking how someone's poorly mother is or remembering to ask how a son or daughter got on in an exam.

Knowing when a smile or a hug can make a difference or when people just need space and a safe place to cry.

They're little things but the difference they make is huge.

It's the difference between feeling listened to and valued or feeling like an imposter.

There is truth in the saying  that it’s only when you’ve lost something that you realise how valuable it was.

Even when what you have purposefully lost is the job you used to do.

But imposter syndrome aside, I do know how lucky I am.

I have a job that some people strive all their lives to be offered.

I have time to prepare for lectures.

I’m interested in what I do.

My colleagues are clever and interesting.

I have my own desk.

I can work from home whenever I want.

I have six weeks holiday a year.

It's almost perfect.

And yet…I know already that I will never feel as though I truly belong.

That’s the thing about being an imposter….you can never really take off your mask….except, maybe, to eat the odd biscuit.

Perfect 5- Minute Moments

Christmas is over and  the new year is not yet here.
We are back, once again in those nameless inbetween-days recovering from over indulgence.
Those of us who don't have to go back to work yet are meant to be recovering from the excesses of Xmas and filling our days with nothing but relaxation.
And yet....there is a vague sense of edginess, a feeling that we are waiting for something that hasn't happened yet..
For a new year? A new beginning? A return to work? A return to all things familiar and  slightly boring?
Time pressures have disappeared, replaced, instead, by the pressures of filling time. 
There is no reason to get up in the morning.
No reason to eat breakfast before lunch.
No particular reason to do anything at any particular time.
We are free to do nothing at all.
And all this freedom and resting takes a lot of getting used to.
We have all the time in the world to spend with the people we've been longing to spend  all the time in the world with.
And suddenly all the time in the world can seem like a big,beckoning space.
With as long as we want to talk about everything we have meant to talk about all year,we  find that we have suddenly run out of words.
We are used to making conversation in short, urgent bursts.
We live in a world of sound-bites, rushed conversations and 60 second news.
In a world of acronyms and text speak.
Sitting, listening to our teenage children and their teenage cousins huddled together on the sofa  on Christmas Day, I found myself wondering if they had actually started to speak a different language.
Theirs is a world  shaped by social media sentences and individual letters instead of words.
Sometimes it feels as though  conversation is a dying art
Grudgingly all the cousins, 4 boys and 3 girls, had agreed to participate in the dramatised court-case involving stolen jewels and dubious characters that their grandad had written especially for them.  
But under pretend cross -examination they answered mostly with monosyllables and  giggles and the odd 'LOL." or "TY."
Try as he might, their once-upon-a-lawyer grandad, could not really get them to enter into the spirit of his little drama.
The ad-libbed performance, supposed take up most of the afternoon, lasted only half an hour before the teenagers made their escape.
" I sent them the outline a week ago," complained their grandad, ' they were meant to read it and create their characters.  They've had lots of time."
"Perhaps they've had too much time," I suggested. " Perhaps it would have worked better if you had given them the outline 10 minutes before it started and told them they had 5 minutes to create their characters."
" How can you create a character in 5 minutes,"sighed their grandad, folding away his Christmas masterpiece.
But the truth is, 5 minutes is all that it takes.
5 minutes is all that it takes for the world to change completely.
5 minutes is all that  it takes for planes to fly into buildings, for bombs to explode, for river banks to burst or for freak waves to wash away an entire island.
5 minutes is all that it takes for crazy people to do crazy things.
So 5 minutes is definitely enough time for lively teenagers to create make-believe characters.
Our lives are a chain of sometimes-intense, sometimes-meaningless  5 minute intervals linked  together by hopes and dreams and the occasional bar of chocolate.

Christmas day faded into Christmas night.
The teenagers  turned the music up and danced their way into boxing day., chattering happily in their mostly incomprehensible language about mostly incomprehensible things.

And as we " oldies," sat and watched, we couldn't help smiling.
Smiling at the happiness they found just by being together.
Smiling at the fun they were having.
Smiling at the memories they were creating.

Because what I've realised as I'm writing this, is that it's not the speed at which we live our lives that matters, but the depth and strength of the memories we create. 
And one day, when all-the-time-in-the-world weighs heavily upon our shoulders, it's remembering all the 5 minutes filled with love and life and laughter that will keep us going.

So here's to 2016 being a year full of perfect 5-minute-moments...and lots and lots of chocolate.

Camper Van Ethics

Sometimes something happens and without you quite realising, it changes how you feel about the world, . 
Not the horror of religious extremism and hatred that seems to be flooding our world at the moment.
Nor the current epidemic of killing, bombing and terrorising.
They create an unavoidable ever-present whisper of fear that we are all trying to ignore.
They are all too huge somehow, too terrible, too incomprehensibly inhuman to think about.
But this week something happened, something small and tangible and utterly unsettling. 

It started with the milk.

Three times a week we have our milk delivered by a milkman ( a quaint English habit that we can't quite kick}.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we wake up and our milk is waiting for us on the doorstep.
But last week,it wasn't.
 I opened the door to a frayed  doormat and an empty space where the milk bottles should have been.
Outraged we phoned the dairy who apologised, explained it was probably a new milkman who hadn't quite learnt his round yet and gave us a refund.
But it wasn't the milkman.
On Saturday we found our milk bottles, and even some that belonged to our neighbours.
It was the evening, already full of November darkness, and Ninesh (my husband) and I, were piling bedding into our camper van.
We were spending the night with my sister and her family because my niece was having an 18th birthday party and, much to our surprise, she had invited us "oldies," as well as our teenage children.
But since we are at the age where the thought of sleeping on the cold floor amongst empty beer cans and smouldering cigarette butts fills us with horror, we'd decided we would sleep in the relative comfort and splendid isolation of our van.

Ninesh slid open the door and climbed inside .....and that's when he almost fell over the milk bottles.
Cursing under his breath, he turned on the lights..... it wasn't just milk bottles.
The roof bed had been pulled out and covered in a now-grubby sheet. 
One of our torches lay on top of it and every surface was covered in a thin film of tobacco dust, cigarette ends and joints.
At first Ninesh and I just stood there, speechless.
How could it be that a few yards from our front door, a complete stranger had been living in our camper van?
How many times had we walked past and not noticed him?
How many times had he watched us enter and leave our house?
How many times had he watched the living room window as the daily mundanity of our family life unfolded? 
How many times, under cover of early-evening and late-morning darkness had he climbed in and out of our van?
And how had we not heard the door sliding shut? ( We never manage to do that without waking everyone up!)
We felt shocked, violated, indignant.
How dare he...
We started looking around more closely.
Opening cupboards, pulling out drawers, checking for more evidence, wondering what he had stolen.
But the truth was, he hadn't stolen anything.
Instead, he had left his phone charger, his pen knife and his grinder lying around.
One of our neighbours wandered over
" Has someone been living in your van?" he asked, peering through the door. 
" How did you know," asked Ninesh.
" Oh, we just saw a young man wearing a hoodie leaving it," he said." It was only about 5 minutes ok. Shall I help you chase after him.  I know which direction he went in?" 
For a moment I followed his gaze through the street-lamp lit darkness.
Then I turned and looked at the penknife and the phone charger and the grinder, probably everything he owned in the world. 
I looked at the crumpled sheet and the lonely torch.
" It's ok,"  I said.
" But he broke into your van and lived in it," said our neighbour.
" But he's gone now," said Ninesh " and he didn't steal anything and we're taking the van away tonight."
And suddenly I imagined it.
A young, homeless man turning the corner onto our road late that night, and staring at the space, where his temporary home should have been.
And just like that my sense of indignation and violation evaporated.
And all I felt was a sense of overwhelming sadness.
We cleared away the milk bottles and the cigarette ends.
We opened all the doors  and windows to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke.
I collected the sheet and put it in the washing machine and we folded away the roof bed.
In the end all that was left of our van's temporary inhabitant was a small pile of his possessions.
We drove to the party, trying to process what had just happened and not to notice the scent of tobacco that lingered in the air.
" I feel bad keeping his stuff," I said, " it's probably all he's got.  What shall we do with it? Shall we just leave on our wall and hope he comes by to pick it up?"
" Good plan," said Ninesh, " we'll just leave a phone charger and a sharp knife outside our house! No one else would be interested in those!"
" Perhaps we could leave a note," I suggested.
" Right," said Ninesh, " to the person who broke into our camper van and has been living there illegally-
 Please knock on the door and we will return your possessions!"
I sighed, he was right.
The price he had paid for living in our empty camper van was the loss of everything he owned.
" At least he still has his phone," Ninesh pointed out.
I thought about that.
Wondered how someone who has nothing can afford a phone.
Wondered why you would choose a phone over food.
There is a cynical explanation, that the phone was stolen that he was dealing drugs, that he needed to stay in touch with his contacts.
And I know that's the most likely answer.
But a part of me wants to believe something different.
I want to believe that at least, with a phone, he could pretend he wasn't lonely.

We danced the night away amongst devils and angels at my niece's " Gods and Monsters," party and when the night was over we climbed wearily into our van.
We reclaimed it as our own. as the movable holiday home it is.
But emotions are never that simple.
He haunted our dreams, this homeless man.
It's easier not to face the truth, to hide behind our belief that we are, at heart good people who give money to charity and believe in freedom and justice and equality.
But perhaps believing is no longer enough. 
Because there is something so undeniably unjust and unequal about living in a world where some of us have empty bedrooms and empty vans and food to spare while all around us our world is filling with people who have nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat.
So now our lives have been divided into the time before our stranger in the camper van story and the time after it. 
Before it happened I could convince myself that " just caring ,"was enough.
Since it's happened my illusions of personal goodness have been shattered.

I phoned and registered our spare room as a space for asylum seekers with the council but apparently Chichester is not one of the places they are fleeing to.
Perhaps we should leave our van door permanently open and a supply of food and milk inside.... but somehow we can't bring ourselves to be that altruistic.
In this world of constant change and fear, it's hard not to cling even more tightly to what you hold dear.
I find myself looking searchingly at " The Big Issue," sellers and the empty-eyed hooded figures slumped on benches.
" Is it you?" I want to ask them," did you sleep in our van?"
But I know I never will.
The truth is, I don't have the courage to cross the bridge from thought to action. 
And so I live with the knowledge that our camper van will never feel quite like ours again.  That staying in it will always make us feel just a little bit guilty.
And every time I lie down on its comfortable cushions, I will see the lost face of a complete stranger who, for a very short time, had a place that he could call home.