How Not to Be a Good Mum

Something I have realised over this warm and sometimes sunny summer, is that I am stupendously good at not being a "good mum."

I think this was finally confirmed as I lay, nursing the worst hangover in the world,  curled  up in a taxi and then on a plane seat, on a 15 hour flight back to London  from our holiday in Singapore 
Probably not the best role model for our two teenage children, Mia and Joss,sitting in the row in front of us on the plane.
And it wasn't so much the hangover or the fact that I couldn't open my eyes without feeling as though pins were being stuck into them or that I was clutching a makeshift 'vomit,' bag, that left me pondering my parenting inadequacies. 
It was more the way my last words to Mia and Joss from the night before, kept swirling around my alcohol infused brain.

The night before had been our son, Joss's, birthday and luckily for him and our daughter, our friends in Singapore just happened to know the owner of a nightclub. 
Since night clubs in Singapore don't even open their doors before midnight (obviously) we arranged to meet our friends and the nightclub owner in one of his bars at 10.30 pm.  
"10.30!" says our (like me 50 plus friend,) " that's quite late."  
Mia and Joss say nothing, just give an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes.
"We don't mind how late you get back,," I say, the  epitomy (I believe)  of  laid-back good-mumness, " but remember we have to leave for the airport by 7.30 tomorrow morning. So make sure you're back by then and whatever you do don't drink too much. You definitely don't want to fly with a hangover."
Feeling extremely proud of our young-at-heartedness, we arrive at the bar at 10.30.and are greeted by the pony-tailed night club owner.  
And of course we have to buy some drinks to say thank you to him. 
" What you need," he says, grinning widely "is one of these."
And he points at a waitress carrying a tray of very blue cocktails 
"What are they?" I ask and he points at the menu
ADIOS YOU MOTHERFUCKER it says in writing so big that even someone as old as me can read it without having to hold the menu at the other end of the table.
And so it was, that while Mia and Joss were eventually whisked off to experience the wildness of Singaporean nightlife, we stayed and drank bright blue and extremely alcoholic AYMFs
Which is why, at 6 the next morning, I woke up in bed, fully dressed, with a head throbbing like a time-bomb just before it explodes.
And Mia and Joss.....they came home at 4 am, slept for a few hours, woke cheerfully and and stared suspiciously at my pale, sun-glassed face..

"What's wrong with mum?" asks Joss.
And I find myself wondering the same thing.

As I try to ignore my throbbing head and churning stomach, I think back on all the times when our kids could have asked me that.
All the times when I definitely was not being a good mum.

It starts with the times you arrange those "play-dates", for the kids which are really "coffee and sanity dates" for the parents.
While you sit munching the snacks you prepared for the kids, putting the kettle on for "just one more cup" discussing how hard it is being a mum, how constantly exhausting and demanding motherhood is, the children destroy the living room, paint the spare-room carpet red, tip out all their toys, fight over the one toy from the huge pile that they all want and start hitting each other.
Bravely we sip our coffee and ignore them.
Not being a good mum is exhausting.
It  involves so much clearing up, so much biscuit-eating, so much coffee drinking that it's lucky we manage to make it through to bedtime and falling asleep next to our toddlers when we're meant to be reading them a story.

Then there are those daily manically stressful 10-minutes-before-school-moments, spent shouting at the kids because you've forgotten to wash their PE kit, still covered in mud from last week or lost the note that was meant to have been signed 2 weeks ago to give permission for a school trip that is happening today.
" You never gave it to me," I shout at our ( then)  6 year old son ( even though I know it was me who took it out of the book bag ). Immediately he starts to cry and now I not only feel cross but also guilty.

Or those themed dressing-up days at school when our kids arrive wrapped in a sheet with a hole in it for their heads or a safety-pinned towel, while everyone else is in beautifully sewn princess dresses or amazing superhero costumes.
I catch Mia and Joss looking longingly at the costumes of their friends and run away before I have to chat with the "perfect mums," about how they have stayed up all night adding the finishing touches to their creations while I have stayed up drinking wine and watching the re-runs of "Friends."

And then there's those arguments that you just can't let your 6 and 7 year olds win.  Those times when, to avoid them having the last word, you wait until they are almost  asleep before saying: "and it wasn't my fault about your PE kit. You should have reminded me shouldn't you?" and creeping out I shut the bedroom door with a quietly victorious click.


"Those are nothing," says our now 18 year old daughter when I ask her views on my (lack of) good mum qualities,"what you do now is much, much worse".
" Really?" I ask disappointedly,  biscuit half-way to my mouth. "Really?" 
  Because secretly I've  always thought I was doing better as a mum of teenagers than I did as a mum of toddlers and young children. 
Deep down inside, I had believed that I had somehow managed to find  that "cool laid-backness but caring-when-it-matters," attitude.
" Yea," says Mia reflectively,
" What do I do that's so bad?" I ask, 
 " Like when I go out clubbing and you say you'll make up the bed in the shed just in case!  That's horrible ...Or all the advice you give me about what to say to boys which is completely wrong and makes everything worse.  Or when you try to use LOL in a message or talk to the parents of our friends.  And you're always telling Joss and I to have parties when you and dad are away for the weekend. You need to stop doing that.  It's embarrassing."
"I'll try," I say plaintively, " it's not easy being a mum you know."
Mia shrugs.
"Your choice," she says and wanders off into the living room.

And, as always, she's right.
I long ago gave up trying to have the last word. 
 It stops working when your kids start going to bed after you. 
It was our choice to become parents.
I think I just forgot to read the rule book.

"Welcome to Gatwick, London where the local time is 8.30," says the voice over the intercom. the weather in London is warm with 100% chance of rain. We hope you have enjoyed your flight."

I open my eyes tentatively and realise that my hangover, like our holiday, is fading.
In the row in front,  Joss and Mia are reaching for their hand luggage from the overhead lockers. 

"What's for dinner when we get home?" asks Joss." I'm starving. And all the trains are cancelled by the way. Just checked on my phone."
"Why didn't we just drive and leave the car in the car park like I said," groans Mia.

I pull my sunglasses back down over my eyes.wondering if I can plead hangover above motherhood for just a few more hours.

" One thing they never warn you about becoming a mum" said a friend of mine a long time before we had kids of our own " is that it's relentless."

And I've never forgotten that word because I've never found one that better sums up parenthood.
Relentless, guilt-ridden, exhausting and the hardest, most rewarding job you will ever do - even if you get it as badly wrong as I do so much of the time.

But just in case this is one of those truly " how not to be a good mum days," ....anyone up for for joining me in a bright blue AYMF?

Sun burnished friendship

So...we have just returned from a hot, humid and magical holiday in Singapore and Malaysia.

An escape from the Brexit trauma and the disheartening fogginess of lack-lustre leadership. 

Instead we wandered through the futuristic Marina Bay in Singapore, floated in a rooftop pool above the Kuala Lumpur skyline.

And watched the sun setting over the warn sea of Penang 

We drank the water from fresh coconuts and ate more delicious food  than most people get to eat in a lifetime 

The sun didn't stop shining and our spirits didn't stop soaring.

And that made the holiday fantastic.

We stayed with very special friends who have  a fish-filled pond in their living -room and an enormous swimming pool on its doorstep. 

And that made our holiday amazing.

But we met up too with some friends  from so long ago that it seemed almost as though I had dreamt them.

And that made our holiday truly magical.

The last time we spent a whole evening  together, whole weeks of wandering through Malaysia, was 31 years ago.  

A year after we left school.

31 years that seem to evaporate into no time at all, the moment we saw each other again.

Like treasure,  buried so long ago, its burnished beauty has almost been forgotten.

We brushed off the dust of time and found that friendship doesn't tarnish or waste away.  Instead we carried on where we had left off 31 years ago.  

Time seem to collapse into itself until we were almost sure that the things we remembered must only have happened yesterday.

Perhaps we were high on rose-tinted nostalgia.

Perhaps remembering made us feel young again.

Perhaps the glow of almost forgotten friendship made our hearts sing.

But I don't think it was just that

.

There is something about the friendships of our youth that always remain a part of us.

That have helped to form the very fabric of our being.

They are a piece of who we are and what we have become.

And finding that friendship again is like finding a part of yourself that you had thought was lost.

Suddenly the music of forgotten laughter is ringing in your ears.

You find yourself reaching out for those distant dreams  buried by the decisions you have made and the paths you followed.

And for just an instant, all things seem possible again.

While we were away, our son, Joss turned 17.

I look at him with pride and wonder at the young man he has become.

He is kind, caring, warm-hearted, determined and much wittier and more capable than I ever was.

But suddenly I remember being 17 again.

Because that's the age I was when I first met these friends.

Probably we were full of teenage angst.

Probably the future stretched before us, as full of fears and worries as glowing potential.

But all I remember, so many years on, is the pleasure we found in each other's company, and the knowledge that what we had was something special. 

I remember staying up all night talking earnestly about things that seemed so incredibly important that we could not let sleep get in the way.

I remember dancing at parties and pic-nicing in parks.

i remember laughing and crying and holding tightly onto every moment

And I remember so clearly thinking: "this is what it means to be alive."

I think perhaps you never experience again the intensity of the friendships you form as teenagers.

I see it with Joss and his friends now, the joy they find in simply being together.

The hedonistic afternoons spent on the beach or lying in the park.

They are growing up together, supporting each other as they dip their toes into the unforgiving ocean of adulthood.

" Is there more past or more future," the voice asks us over the microphone as we visit the " cloud mountain," that only Singapore could think of creating in a huge green house.

I ponder the question.

Obviously, environmentally, they are trying to show us that the future of the world is at stake unless we humans stop destroying it.

But I couldn't help taking the question more personally.

Obviously, at 50, I am most likely to have more past than future.

But somehow re-finding old friends makes the divide less clear.

Like an ever-growing patchwork quilt, our life lies all around us.

Sometimes the patches you find in front of you are bright and new and unexpected.

Sometimes they are delicate and transparent and as transient as mist.

And sometimes they are the  patches you started sewing so long ago that you are shocked at  how familiarly beautiful they are, how the patterns have not faded over time.

I look at our 17 year old son and hope that his life will be full of dreams-come-true and the music of laugher 

I hope that he finds what he is looking for and touches his dreams.

I hope that he never feels lost or alone.

But if he ever does, I hope his life has created a quilt , so bright and beautiful, that when he wraps it around himself the strength and  colour of love and never-ending friendship will keep him warm.

With an only-slightly-regretful wave, I say goodbye to my younger self.

It's time to weave old friendships into new patterns....all I need to do now, is learn how to sew.

August 1985

August 2016

High Fenced Brexit.

Today the UK has voted to leave the European Union.
Today is a sad day.
A day of endings not beginnings.
A day of uncertainty not calm.
A day when what divides us begins to become greater than what unites us.
A day when the door has been opened for racism and hatred and economic collapse.

In our garden we have take down our very, high fence and replaced it with a very low one.
Our high fence has been blown down by strong winds too many times.
It has kept us hidden away for too long.
And it is strange how such a simple action is slowly changing our lives.
While the UK must now begin to burn bridges and build higher fences, our garden has become lighter, brighter, more open.
And, more importantly, as I hang out the washing in the morning, I chat to our shy, private neighbour over the fence.
She and her husband have lived in their house on this road for 58 years.
We have lived in ours for most of 17 years. 
And yet in all that time of unapproachable closeness, we have known so little about each other.
The odd smile, a wave, a passing hello.
But there is something about low fences and busying ourselves with washing-hanging that has made it easier for us to talk.
One morning, clothes pegs in hand, she told me that her son was in hospital.
" He has leukemia," she says, staring away into the blueness of a cloud-free sky.
So now, each morning we stand and chat over the fence.
Just enough space between us for her to feel safe.
"All my son's friends from work visit him in hospital every day," she tells me, her smile sad and  proud.
I smile too,.
" He must be very special," I say.
" He's talking about all the things he's going to do once he is home again," she says, smoothing hope into the clean white sheets she has hung out to dry.
" The chemo's started," she tells me the next day.
I hang out mismatched socks and wrinkled shirts as I listen.
" Hopefully he can go home when it's finished.."
The flowers between our gardens have begun to intertwine.
There is no high fence to stop them, scented petals and deep green leaves, reaching across the space  between our lives,  white roses and purple sweet peas curling through the gaps.
Slowly, the 17 year barrier to a gentle friendship is being dismantled.
I carry a bag of washing out into the sunshine of a Summer morning.
Our neighbour is standing in her garden, staring at her empty washing line.
It is almost as though she has been waiting for me.
" I just want to tell you...," she says, quiet and dignified," I just want to say,... our son passed away at 7 o'clock this morning.
I drop the bag of washing .
Clothes scatter across the still-dew-drenched grass. 
I try to stop the tears.
I don't know him, their son.
For all this time, our fences have been too high for us to meet.
But her sense of loss is as palpable and gaping as the emptiness of her washing-line.
" Don't be sad," she says, " I keep thinking he wouldn't want us to be sad."
I feel the sun, warm on my face.
It seems wrong, somehow, this beautiful morning.
" I"m only telling you because you have been so kind,"  she says " you've been asking about him every day and I thought you would want to know."
And she turns and walks back inside.
There will be no washing to hang out today.

There are no words that can describe the painful hollowness of her grief.
It is a gaping, unfilllable hole.
No mother should watch her son die.
But if there is anything we can do to help, we will do it.
Our fence, at least, is low enough now.

I wish that was true of Europe.

We create so many barriers and boundaries in our fragile world.
We build higher and higher fences and stronger and stronger walls. -
It makes it much easier to hide and turn a blind eye to the suffering and poverty on the other side. 
There ares so many reasons why helping our neighbours is not convenient.
Why carrying the burden of others is too heavy a load.
The saddest thing about this vote to leave a united Europe is the reason why it has happened.
It is a vote based mostly on xenophobia.
A vote by people who have forgotten that the European Union was created to maintain peace between nations that had been warring for a thousand years.
A vote based on the fear that we are too kind, too open- minded, too generous.
A vote that goes against the very essence of what it means to be human.

This morning as we hang out the washing, our world has become smaller,sadder, less predictable, less certain...
But we don't have to become less human because of that

it is time to start tearing down high fences.

The Listening Project Experience

A few months ago my daughter, Mia, and I were given the opportunity to do something amazing.

We sat in a tiny, glass-sided BBC  studio in Broadcasting House, London  and recorded a conversation for  Radio 4's: The Listening Project.

It sounds like a strange idea, a radio programme that is just two unknown people talking about random subjects which are probably only interesting to them.  

And yet...over the years that The Listening Project has been running, I have listened to some of the most extraordinarily moving, heart-warming and heart-wrenchingly honest conversations you could ever hope to hear.

Stories of broken hearts, of love, of friendships that have survived against the odds, of challenges overcome, of mountains yet to be climb and of lives that have been changed forever by the smallest of things.

These are the everyday stories of everyday people and are proof that  there is nothing "everyday," about anyone. 

"Try not to talk about your conversation beforehand,"  advised Louise Pepper the producer recording our conversation "completely spontaneous conversations are the best".
That wasn't easy. 
 As soon as you are told not to talk about something, it becomes almost impossible to talk about anything else.

All the way on the train to London, Mia and I would start chatting and stop abruptly, scared that we might be having tomorrow's conversation today, fearful that the spontaneity would be lost somewhere on the tracks.

But we needn't have worried. 

The Listening Project is not like anything either of us have ever experienced before. 
In such an oasis of emotional opportunity, whatever we said, would have been spontaneous

 "OK", said Louise,making sure we were sitting comfortably in front of the microphones, "when I've finished the sound check, start talking about anything you want and just carry on until you've finished".

Being told just to talk for as long as you want is like a dream come true for me.

Talking is something I'm good at, (my parents still have the phone bills from my teenage days, to prove it).

But a conversation about things that you usually tiptoe around because they are too big or too personal or simply too hard-.... that's another matter.

Sound-checked and thumbs-upped, Mia and I took a deep breath and stepped into our conversation: a mixed-race 18 year old girl and her white, almost 50 year old mother talking about the laughter and the sometimes-tears of having differently coloured skins.

"Didn't you feel self-conscious," asked my husband, when we got home, " sitting chatting about personal things, while a complete stranger listened and anyone walking past could see you?"

I had to think about that for a minute... because he's right, we should have felt self-conscious.

But the strange  thing was, I don't think either of us did.

In an instant we had forgotten about the sound levels and the producer and the people walking past.

Instead it felt as though it was just the two of us and a world full of unspoken words and raw, untouched emotions. 

For more than an hour we talked and talked and laughed and cried and talked some more 

Turns out, all those things you thought were so hard to say, aren't really hard at all
You just need someone to give you permission to  say them (and perhaps a recording studio).

When we ran out of words and the recording was done, we were given a tour of the BBC. The Newsroom - buzzing with activity, the individual studios, the Live Lounge....cool and amazing.

But not quite as amazing as what had just happened to Mia and I.

Because in the end, it was not the fact that our conversation had been recorded, nor that snippets might be broadcast on national radio that was important.

What makes The Listening Project  inexplicably magical, is the chance it gives people to have the conversations they thought they could never have.

The chance to step outside of their constantly manic and often mundane lives and, for the shortest of times, talk  about the things that really matter..

In a world full of text speak and instant messaging and character-limited-tweets, real conversations are rare and often fleeting. 

Sharing how you truly feel seems to be getting harder and harder.. 

Children ( and adults) eat dinner in front of the television and spend days lost in the cyber world of computers and mobile phones while the art of conversation crumbles slowly around them.
If we are not careful, there will lose our voices forever, communication will be reduced to typed words and abbreviated sentiences.
The spoken word will be filed away under:  "no longer necessary."

Our teenage son thinks we are already there.
"You just keep talking all the time," he says, " you just say the same things over and over again in lots of different ways".
And I know he's right.
I use too many words, too often and for too long..
I'm too old to do anything more than stand on the fringes of his cyber universe.
I try really hard to bite my tongue, to bide my time, to find just those few perfect words.
But I'm not good at that.
The words just seem to tumble out.
And in the end, words are all I have. 
They are the only way I know to show our often mono-syllabic son how much love him.
Perhaps if I hired a recording studio, our conversations would be less one-sided.

So here's to never-ending conversations full of too many words, 
Here's to talking about what really matters and to making sure we never lose our voice. 


Mia and I are very lucky.
Being part of The Listening Project was like being handed a gift, an almost tangible memory. wrapped in rose-tinted words. 
Because  whatever the future holds, however far she wanders from our home, we will always, always have our Listening Project conversation.


And just in case you want to hear it, here are two parts of our conversation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03vr1rn#play

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cyvkw

50 Not Out

Today I turned 50, 
Turning 50 I not something I've been looking forward to but strangely, it's not something I've been dreading either.
It's just a number, one number more than I was yesterday..
I remember meeting 50 year-olds when I was a teenager and wondering what it would feel like to be quite that old.
And here I am, exactly that old, and I'm not sure how it feels but I am almost sure that it was only moments ago that I was wondering.
Time has always seemed to move in unpredictable waves,.
Some long, boring days seem to last years while whole decades can pass by in an instant...
But, however it moves, time can't prevent some of the home-truths that turning 50 has forced me to face.
I can no longer pretend, when I look in the mirror, that my body isn't drooping.
I can no longer pretend that my hair isn't more grey than brown or that my wrinkles aren't more permanent than temporary.
I no longer hope that I will write a great masterpiece some day,,, some day has passed.
I no longer imagine that I will be the perfect parent .......my kid's are too honest for that.
I no longer believe I'm right all the time (only most of it)......it's too tiring.
I no longer pretend to understand how to work the TV remote control....it's easier to hand it over to someone who does.
I know that I have lived more of my life than I have left to live
And I know for sure that if I drink too much, it will take me days not hours to recover.
And yet..and yet...
As I enter my second half century, i can't help feeling that I have more to celebrate than to regret.
I have a loving family who never cease to fill me with awe and wonder at all that they are and do and will become.
I have friends who are kinder and more caring than I could possibly deserve.
I am never lonely.
My days are full of light and colour and laughter (apart from when they are full of bad moods and shouting and grumpiness)
My nights are never empty - how could they be with so much good TV!
And if I ever want to escape from it all....I have my blog.
Life is not about the number of years you have lived but about what you have done with them..
And I don't mean grand gestures that have changed the world - those world-changers are few and far between.
What is important is that you have not wasted the years, that you have been brave enough to do what you believe is right, strong enough to face the consequences, humble enough to admit when you are wrong., whimsical enough to follow your dreams.
ti is not our age that defines us but our actions - which, in many ways, is unfortunate.
So, I'm hoping to move into my 51st year with a clean slate - no more pouring bottles of red wine over brand new cream carpets, no more secretly inviting live bands to play at a party when you are living in the basement,  no more permanently borrowing bar stools from pubs, no more climbing pillars in car parks. (.....well.. less often at least..).
And here' s the thing...however old you are, there are some things you never have to give up:. 
You don't have to give up chocolate or cheesecake or "twisted pear," cocktails.

You should never stop hoping or dreaming or believing that a little bit of magic would make the world a better place.

So here I stand, balanced  on the edge of my second half century, certain that life is full of potential and that magical things do happen.
And waiting, just waiting ,for my next big adventure to begin...wherever it takes me..
As one of my birthday cards says: The older you get, the better you get....unless you are a banana.

Conquering fear with love and cling film

Spring has almost arrived in South East England.
On the trees the buds of blossom are about to burst.
On the ground, wild hyacinths are beginning sprinkle the undergrowth with purple spears.
And up above, the skies are trying to turn a deeper shade of blue.
The world is about to be filled with colour and sunshine and nesting birds.
The evenings are about to become long and warmer and filled with laughter.
Spring is eternally, fear defyingly hopeful.
And if ever there was a time when we needed an infusion of hope, it's now.
Sometimes if feels that there is no way out of the misery and fear that is  engulfing our world.
Each day brings new stories of austerity cuts that seem to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Every piece of news is full of the tragic stories of refugees and migrants who didn't make it, of children's bodies being washed up on beaches, of small countries that can no longer cope with carrying the burden of other people's dreams.
And every morning we wake wondering if today will be the day the terrorists strike again, innocent people killed in a frenzy of someone else's religious fervour.
Sometimes the enormity of all that is wrong with the world can take your breath away.
Sometimes the sense of anger and injustice can be suffocatingly overwhelming.
But we cannot give up on hope.
Hope is the life-jacket that keeps us afloat amidst the debris and destructive detritus of war and politics and religious extremism. 

Sometimes it comes as a surprise that most of the time, with all these terrible things happening we live our normal lives.
Usually I spend more time worrying about whether to hang the washing inside or outside than what essential service the government will cut next.
Mostly I am more pre-occupied with what to cook for dinner than whether the next boatload of refugees and migrants  have made it safely to shore.
And generally I am more anxious about preparing my lectures, making sure the kids have eaten breakfast or remembering if I locked the back door, than wondering where the next suicide bomber will wreak their tragic havoc.
But perhaps that's just how we protect ourselves.
If we worry enough about the little things that we can do something about, then we don't have to think about the bigger things that we feel powerless to change.
" Why do you still make the kids packed lunches every day?" my husband asks, "they should make their own."
And he's right of course.  
At 16 and 18 they should be making their own lunches.
But knowing that I have done that one little thing every day to  help them, makes me feel better, wraps me in hope.
It's with such tiny acts of love that we will conquer fear.
It's by valuing all that is mundane in our daily lives that we can defy terrorism.
" Whatever you do," we are saying, " we will carry on living our lives. 
We will not stop loving  because you want us to hate.
We will not stop building bridges  because you want us to build barbed wire fences.
We will not stop hoping because you want us to fear.
We will not let our lives be consumed by all that is wrong in the world but will carry on celebrating all that is right.
And  so, for as long as they need me to, I will wrap my kids sandwiches in cling film and love - even if the fillings are very boring!

Because here's the thing.
The government might cut all our essential services until there is nothing left.
The refugees might keep arriving, searching for the life they deserve to live 
The terrorist might keep plotting to cause death and destruction.
But nothing, not politicians or wars or terrorism, can stop spring from arriving.
And this year, the blossom on our peach tree is going to be the fiercely vibrant, most deeply beautiful  pink it has ever been.

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?