The Clare-Panton Family

New Coat

2011-11-22T07:13:00.002Z

My first full winter in the UK I needed a proper coat suitable for the English weather. Not entirely sure I know what this is now and I certainly didn't know what that was then given the broad spectrum of weather you are likely to encounter in the country during the months of October - March.

In Colorado this is an easy questions to answer. You either need a triple down for the blizzard like conditions or no coat at all. I've worn shorts in February in that state but of course that was back when my blood was thicker and I was foolish.

In Germany you just needed a raincoat. All year round. End of. You might add a scarf in January but you would definitely need to hang it up to dry every night.

In the winter of 1997-98 I was working in London on Old Bond Street above the brand new flag ship Calvin Klein store. And I had money to burn. During my lunch hour I popped in and invested in a gorgeous dark charcoal grey wool coat. I paid nearly the same as my rent for this garment but I figured it was an investment for life. It had deep pockets and was double breasted to keep the wind out (when I could get it buttoned). It went with everything. It could be fancy or casual. It has served me well.

I very shortly lost the unsecured belt. I knew that was going to be a problem when I bought the coat but choose to ignore this miniscule flaw in my investment. I have stitched and restitched the lining of the coat more than a half a dozen times. I lost nearly all the buttons and the replacements don't match exactly. The arms are pilled and given I've gained considerable weight since then the coat hasn't actually buttoned up for some time. Although I blame this on the ill fitting buttons we all know that isn't really the underlying cause. The hem had to be repaired last winter just before the coats last outing and I knew then that after 14 years of dedciated service it was time to retire the old girl.

Which of course meant that I had to buy a new coat. I hear squeals of delight out there from my shopaholic faction. Regrettably, I am not a member. Shopping is a competitive sport worthy of an Olympic gold medal best left to well trained experts. I am not one of those. I find no joy in shopping. In fact it is high on my stress trigger list and if I didn't ever have to do it, I wouldn't.

This, however, was inevitable and necessary. I entered the shop with my shields up and defenses on stun. I was on a mission.

A long army green puffer coat was too small and made me look like a mouldy marshmallow and I swear those ladies I was sharing a mirror with were laughing at me. The black shawl coat with the faux fur collar was about 4 sizes too big so it looked like a superhero cape and it wasn't lined so was going to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot in the dead damp cold of January.

Nearing the point of throwing in the towel I found a long taupe down coat which fit perfectly and didn't actually look all that badly. I knew if I hesitated I would freeze this winter so I headed for the till. On my way there I also found a lovely winter satchel which I just couldn't live with out for the bargain basement price of £29. SOLD! It would match my new coat I practiced saying for my husband's benefit.

I put the coat on outside after removing the tags and stuffed the old coat into my shopping bag. So much for respecting the old. It looked great. It felt great.

Soon I was sweating like a pig on a spit. I found myself wishing I'd covered my entire body in anti-perspiration. I removed the coat and carried it around. It was a bit like carrying a king sized duvet. This morning I took the dog for a walk. I put on the coat and 5 minutes into the walk I had to remove it due to a reoccurence of the perspiration.

I had executed my plan for a new coat and ended up buying a double sleeping bag. The weather better turn to sub zero very soon or I will be needing to buy another less effective coat this weekend. But the satchel is great!

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

2011-11-21T07:48:00.000Z

CHAPTER I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
 
CHAPTER II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in this same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
 
CHAPTER III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in... it's a habit... but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
 
CHAPTER IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
 
CHAPTER V
I walk down another street.

--Portia Nelson

Aunt Helen

2011-10-14T08:27:00.001+01:00

On October 12, 2011, at 1:30 am my Aunt Helen lost her battle with brain cancer having fought valiant battle.

Aunt Helen represents a time in my life when everything was good and nothing could ever go wrong. Adults were perfect up on their pedestals and children had no other purpose than to create mischief and keep their parents on their toes. My mother and father were still married. My aunts were are still married to my uncles. Family dinners at my Grandmothers house were raucous chaotic events filled with love and laughter and usually a fair bit too much to drink (for the adults). The tribe of 10 cousins encouraged each other to climb higher into the trees and set various things on fire. Christmas Eve was magical and I wish so hard to be able to freeze that time and for none of it to ever change.

But the world kept spinning and it all spun out of control and nothing was ever the same again. By the time I was 12 my parents had divorced. Shortly, thereafter, Aunt Helen and Uncle Ed divorced. Uncle Bob and Aunt Sandy remained married but moved miles away.

Family gatherings became fraught with the tension of custody battle and alimony payments and we were never ever all together again. The tribe of cousins flew out into the chaos of the world and went on to create some of our own chaos in other places. We've struggled with addictions, broken marriages, custody battles and demons. Every one of us has our own children. But that time of childish abandoned joy ceased a long time ago.

I haven't spoken to Aunt Helen for years and years. We had a bit of a falling out when I was in university which makes my grief somehow hollow and shameful. I've seen her across rooms at matches (weddings), hatches (christenings) and dispatches (funerals) but more than a mere nod and smile little passed between us. I wish I could have told her that she represented all that was good in my childhood and that she made the best chile con carne in the world! Her laughter will be missed.

Stumbling

2011-10-03T08:12:00.001+01:00

Joyce Elaine (Carson) Smith
October 3 1921-February 7 2005

Today would have been her 90th birthday. I have been without her compassionate wisdom and gentle guiding light for 6 years. I miss her everyday and every year I stumble today.

My Valentine

2011-02-14T06:38:00.001Z

He's a very clever man. He's funny (although perhaps not as funny as he thinks he is....) but he can always make me laugh. He's built our son (and more for himself probably) the most amazing scalectrix track along with buildings like you have ever seen before! Our daughter thinks he hangs the moon every night just for her. He's crap at DIY. He can't remember beyond the next 5 minutes so he doesn't plan. Or rather he plans but it never happens according to the plan. He loves gadgets and can teach even me how to use just about anything although I must admit I would prefer he would just do it for me. He can fix any car anywhere no matter what breaks. He makes a wicked creme brulee for Christmas dinner every year. He makes me coffee every single morning. And I adore him. He is perfectly imperfect and perfect for me.

He's the best valentine in the whole wide world!

New Month Resolutions

2011-01-31T06:33:00.001Z

The start of a new year brings such optimism. Everyone dreams of fresh starts and new beginnings. They’ll be a better person. They'll at least look like a better person. On 31st December, just about everyone I know makes some declaration that the coming year will be so different than the previous year.

And yet, fate, destiny, the hands of time doesn’t really know that the year has ended and a new one has begun. The sun set that night and will rise the very next morning on the New Year Day the same way it did on the old year the day before. It is also incredibly egotistical to think that just because 365 days have passed the next 365 days will be better because the stroke of midnight has encouraged you to declare it so.

Maybe just the act of wishing it were so may in fact make it so. If you don’t wish for being fitter you will never get fitter. The activities required to transforming a doughy blob to a svelte form require more than thoughts, of course, for without the thoughts and desires it would never happen. In fact, it is indeed the very determination driven from those desires that keep you running down the road in a driving, freezing rain or sweating in a gym that smells like dirty socks surrounded by others who have clearly been more successful in achieving their desires.

And yet, here I find myself nearing the end of the first month of the year and I’m not entirely certain I can even remember the resolutions I set for myself which clearly means I haven’t managed to keep a single one unless of course I wanted it so badly it has seeped into my sub consciousness and I am achieving without realizing. Somehow I doubt that.

I read somewhere that you were more likely to stick to your new year’s resolutions if you didn’t tell anyone what they were. I can honestly say that my survey size has proven this to be incorrect. Of course, the size may prove to be statistically invalid since it is just me. I consider it accurate enough to inform me that in the future I would do better to shout them out from a bullhorn in the middle of rush hour in Paddington Station (or Grand Central if you live over there).

I am disgruntled that this New Year so far hasn’t been much better than the start of last year. Whilst I am not bed ridden just struggling to breath from the fog of pneumonia, my husband’s car has died a death when we could least afford it and has put to bed any of our desires to avoid the 20% VAT penalty. Having received several boxes of chocolates as gifts my desire to lose weight was derailed. My day job consumes my thoughts and my writing struggles to find the wee little spaces of creativity that hide out in the darkness of a bad day at the office. I have managed to adhere to my pledges to just make sure that I clean my face every night before bed on at least 4 occasions. Yes, that’s pathetic but some nights I am just too exhausted. Or forgetful.

So far, 2011 is sucking. Major big time.

And yet I am not willing to give up on 2011 just yet. I think the problem lies in the length of time: 365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months. It all just seems like plenty of time to do all and be all we want to be. But you find yourself at the end of every year wondering where the time went.

So let’s break it down into more bite size chunks. Why can’t we celebrate the end of the month as an opportunity for a new beginning? Just imagine at the end of every month you sweep all that didn’t go so well that month into a metaphorical rubbish bin. That was then. Bye bye.

At midnight (or as late as you can manage to stay awake) of the last day of every month (keeping in mind the next day is more than likely a work day), you celebrate with a wee glass of bubbly (or hot milk) and imagine how much better the next month is going to be. Affirm your goals, aims, desires. Validate that the plan you’ve got for getting there is achievable. Make any necessary alterations and get busy. You might want to skip the fireworks. Or maybe not.

Bring on February! Happy New Month!

You call that an airplane?

2011-01-16T17:24:00.001Z

Kosice, Slovakia in January? I can hear you all snickering at me. What was I thinking?

First off, let me just say I had to go. For work. Really.

Ok, so the choice of date was all mine but that is partly due to massive scheduling conflicts over the last 6 months and there was a genuine fear that if I didn’t get out there now I might never get out there. And I needed to be here.

But where exactly is here?

Kosice is the 2nd largest city in Slovakia and is only the far eastern end of the country near the borders of Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

To get here I flew Austrian Airlines from London, Heathrow to Vienna. Austrian Airlines deemed it acceptable on that leg of my journey to offer me a stale piece of neither sweet nor savoury nor fresh nor stale but rather just bland piece of white bread (although I use that term loosely). One bite was enough for me to decide I would work on my weight loss this week.

At Vienna airport, we had to make a dash for our connecting flight since we were late departing Heathrow (some things never change). As we went through security it appeared that there was considerable confusion over what the procedure was as each of us were subjected to various and all different degrees of search. Only 1 of us had to remove our shoes (me). Only one of us had to remove both scarves but not jewelry (me). Only 1 of us had to remove our coat (me). Only 1 of us had to take our laptop out of our bag (me). Only one of us had to remove our belt (not me). Only 1 of us had to remove our watch (not me). Only 1 of nearly missed the plane as security decided to unpack and repack their suitcase (eternally grateful, not me). I was feeling fairly secure as we compared notes on the bus taking us to the plane. (NOT!)

And then I walked off the plane. Trouble is I didn’t see a plane. OK, so there was there little tiny propeller type flying machine but this was most certainly not going to be the transportation I would be taking to Slovakia.

If you are new to my blog, you will be unfamiliar with my fear of flying which over the years has gone from bad to worse. I prefer to fly either dumb drunk or heavily sedated. Or perhaps both. This time I was neither and I was regretting that short sighted decision. Worse still, I was travelling with professional colleagues and trying desperately to hang on to any dignity I might have.

I started to tremble and sweat and was having trouble breathing. I merely walked away from my colleagues hoping they wouldn’t notice that the blood had drained from my face and I was struggling to climb the steps onto the aircraft.

By the time I got myself seated, I was in a full blown panic attack. I tried to count. I tried to meditate. I tapped my forehead. I pinched my ear. I tried to breathe deeply in through my nose and out through my mouth. I entertained the possible positive outcome of fainting and losing consciousness. I had lost the power of rational thought. The aircraft taxied for what seemed like miles and miles at which point tears were dripping down my cheeks. I realized a complete stranger was sitting in the seat next to me and he was just staring at me. I looked at him and attempted a smile and then assumed the crash brace position.

Before I my low humming turned to outright screaming we managed to get airborne. I counted to 100 and then I was fine. Now, do not go leaving me comments about how safe it is to fly in airplanes. I know that. If any of this was rational I could get over it by the sheer strength of the statistical evidence. I blame my father. And my husband. And my children.

I have always had a moderate fear of flying but nothing that a fear of flying course taken over 20 years ago helped me to conquer or at the very least submerge. But when I became a mother and my husband and I were flying with our first born child to the USA and I realized the responsibility and danger associated with taking this child on this dangerous flying flame thrower without his explicit permission was very inconsiderate. I then thought really that we should not all 3 be on the same flight together so that at least 2 of us would survive in case of a catastrophic nose drive. Then I thought no I would prefer that all of us go at the same time so no one was left behind. I tried to warn you that none of this was a shining moment of clarity.

My husband makes the entire situation worse. You see, he loves flying. He really wanted to be a pilot when he grew up. Hell, he still wants to be a pilot. He loves watching the Air Crash Investigations on the Discovery channel, especially the night before I have to travel on my own.

My father has always been afraid of flying and I always used to make fun of him. Every single reply he’s ever given me, I now use. Don’t tell him that.

Luckily, the flight was long and after an hour or so we began our descent. I looked out the window and saw the landing gear go down. Actually I saw one small tire. And the panic returned and the whole scenario played itself out all over again although in a much shorter time span. I never noticed before how much more quickly you land than take off. I’ll bet the passenger next to me was grateful for this small mercy as well.

My communist bloc adventure had begun.

Stayover to Surpliced

2011-01-11T06:27:00.009Z

This past Christmas holiday our family had to depart from our normal traditions and rhythms as one member stepped into a new role and had additional responsibilities. Sebastian was to take on the full duties of being a chorister and this meant that the rest of the family were going to have to hang on for the ride. I wasn't sure how this was going to work. I mean he wasn't going to be home for our Christmas morning. We were going to have attend more church in a week's time than we have all year.

Now normally, the biggest challenge this would present for me is that I would actually have to change out of my pajamas on Christmas day. But since our daughter Abigail was born on Christmas Eve, we had the small challenge of a very excited soon to be 7 year old feeling like she was just as special as a chorister who needed to sing.

We dropped Sebastian back off at the boarding house on 20th December. I saved every tear until he had walked through the door and I had heard it latch. I thought my heart was breaking and I had one of those moments of doubt that all parents have when they second guess their judgment fearing they aren't doing what is best for their child. The reality of the situation is I was doing exactly what was best for Sebastian. It just didn't feel so great to me. It was really this idea of me needing him more than he needed me starting me in the face and I was struggling to reconcile that in my heart.

We attended 2 carol services during the week. One was sung just by the boy's which was fabulous because we rarely get to hear the boys sing without the lay clerks (men) accompanying them. The other carol service was for the community of Windsor Castle. That includes all the people who work and serve in the castle. This was nice because the various fractions each did their own reading during the service. So the Metropolitan Police and the armed forces were represented. The chapel was packed for both services.

During the week, the boys attended a number of parties hosted in their honour including one by the Governor of the Castle and another by the Dean. They performed at the City of London Club. They played LaserQuest and went to the cinema. Basically, they had a jolly old time and did a fair bit of singing (which is fun for them)!

I wanted to make the birthday celebration extra special since her brother couldn't be with us. But who really wants to go to a child's birthday party on Christmas Eve? Luckily, our friends rallied round us. 2 girls who Abigail consider to be her big sisters agreed to come round with their mother despite the inconvenience of the day. 1 of the sisters of another chorister who just happens to be about the same age as Abigail came along and even brought one of her cousins, also of a similar age. We had the perfect party for a perfect 7 year old.

We then hung out and tried to stay awake for our trip to midnight mass,which isn't exactly at midnight but close. This was unique because we got to go into the chapel whilst the choir was practising. We never get to see the choristers practise. Then the boys went out and the church filled up.

All the lights in the chapel were turned off. And magic happened. The chapel is truly an ancient historic building. Originally built in 1348, it is the final resting place of King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour amongst many others. Because it is part of our daily life, I sometimes take this place for granted. Doesn't everyone have an royal chapel in which to attend church?

But the lights have always been on. Or the light has always streamed through the glorious stain coloured glass. Never has it been dark. So dark.

From the front of the quire, a lone chorister's voice sang out the first verse of "In Royal David's City". You could have heard a pin drop. It was one of the sweetest and purest sounds I have ever heard.

The choristers then processed down the centre aisle and sang like angels to celebrate the birth of Jesus. There were not many dry eyes in the house. Everyone had goose bumps.

Back down at the school, all the choristers had bags of goodies waiting for them on their beds and then it was quick into the sack so Father Christmas could come and go before they had to rise at 8:30 for the morning Christmas service. Unfortunately, we had to get home and get Abigail into bed before Father Christmas could do his duty here. 7:30 came early for us and we were back at the school by 10.

After the morning matins we had Christmas lunch in the school dining hall. I must confess it was odd sharing this most intimate of family holidays with acquaintances and some strangers. But we were all in the same boat and we made the very best of it. Luckily, we had a great table of fun and funny people and we laughed a lot and drank a lot and just generally had a wonderful time.

At 3, it was time for our final trip up the 100 steps (which just for the record is 123 steps). I figure I actually lost weight over the holiday because I climbed those blooming steps so many times. For this service we were allowed back into the quire (which is where we normally sit for evensong but because of the Christmas crowds we had spent the week sitting in the nave). And to be honest, we were back to the staunch choir supporters. The crowds were gone. For the most part, it was the choir and the chorister's parents. And they sang just for us. And they sang beautifully. And my pride bubbled over and dribbled out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

And when our son walked down the steps with us for the last time of 2010, I reflected on what an amazing journey this has been for both him and us.

In February with a bit of good luck and a fair wind, Sebastian will be surpliced. He does have to complete an assessment. If he is successful at the final assessment it means he will transition from a novice to a full chorister. He will get to wear a white robe over his red cassock. He will get to wear a red tie (which only the 17 or so full chorister in the entire school wear). He will have a special tie when he leaves the school that he can wear in adulthood. Of course with all that, it means he will also board more. He will have the additional responsibilities of Sunday services which will mean he will now have to board on Saturday nights and we will only have him home from 1-4 on Sundays.

But this is what he has been working towards for the last 18 months. It is what he wants and he is darn good at it. I just can't believe the little man he is becoming. I am so proud.

When I dropped Sebastian off at boarding school Sunday night I asked him what was his favourite bit of the Christmas holiday. I wasn't surprised when he cited the Christmas stay over. Well, that's about the end of my guilt trip then.

Roller Disco Queen

2011-01-10T06:10:00.003Z

I took a sweet trip down memory lane yesterday. My children went to a roller disco party and I was instantly transported back to the certain roller rink in Lakewood, Colorado on Alameda.

From the age of 14, my posse of girlfriends and I would spend an entire afternoon doing our hair and getting dressed for the big night that was Saturday night at the roller rink. All week we whispered our plans, passed notes and agonised over what we would wear, who would be there and whose parents had drawn the short straw for transportation arrangements. If we were lucky someone's older sibling had gotten permission to use the car but that rarely happened. Clearly, we needed supervision.

We would be dropped off after feathering our hair (which could take hours) and spraying it down (a tornado couldn't move that hair). Usually our makeup had to go on after we left home so it was straight into the ladies' room or I would try to plan on getting ready at someone else's house so my mom couldn't see how much makeup I put on. Or how tight my trousers were.

I had saved every penny from babysitting and working at Wendy's Hamburgers to buy myself a pair of roller skates. They were white with hot pink wheels and hot pink laces. I loved those skates. Every Sunday morning I inspected them for scuff and promptly applied white polish if there were any scuffs.

I was a pretty good skater but never brilliant. I could skate backwards and go in circles but speed scared the living daylights out of me. Still does! I was always very impressed with those boys who could skate really well but they always ended up with the girls who could skate very well too. That wasn't me.

It was a good night if the boy you fancied from the side asked you to skate with him during one of the night's 4 couple skates. I didn't get asked very often. One of the 4 skates was always ladies' choice where the girls could ask the boys. Usually I fancied the best looking boy and by the time I worked up the courage to approach him, the boy I wanted to skate with had been swept away by someone else. I usually asked someone else when there was less than a minute left to skate. What a loser!

By 10:30 the evening was over and we were headed home. No doubt one of us would be in tears, usually about a guy. One of us was over the moon, usually also about a guy. One of us was planning our strategy for next week. That one was usually me.

Through the magic of Facebook I've actually found a couple of the girls that were in the skating posse. Leisa and Robin will recognise the routine and anguish we went through but hopefully the giggles and fun we used to have.

Today's lights and music made me feel like it was all just yesterday as I watched my son and daughter take their first tentative steps on to a roller rink.

Le Freak, C'est Shiek! YMCA! Oh what a night, late December back in 63, what a very special time to me, what a lady, what a night!

Beware Advice

2011-01-09T07:11:00.002Z

I used to think I was not good at getting or giving advice, which is not so good for a writer or a mother. Everything you write gets reviewed which is a form of advice. And as a mother I am constantly handing out suggestions to my children. OK, maybe they are more like commandments but you get the idea.

But what I have learned lately is that I am better at both getting and giving depending on the spirit with which the advice is administered.

I remember when my husband and I decided to start up our own business, 99% of the people we told in England were horrified and tried desperately to steer us clear of what they were sure was inevitable complete and total fiscal ruin. I couldn't understand this advice. They'd never even looked at our business plan. How could they be so certain based on such little information?

As a writer struggling to climb the mountain of getting a novel published, I find there are loads of people telling me exactly what I should and shouldn't do. Some of it is priceless. Funny thing is most of it is contradictory. Much of it doesn't make any sense. Bits of it are just outright rude, destructive and unnecessarily mean.

Great advice is not the same as being told exactly what you want to hear. What is said is less important than the spirit with which that advice is given.

Before you ask for anyone's advice and certainly before you take that advice, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why am I asking their advice? Are they an expert on the topic? What qualifications do they have to give me advice? What experiences have they had that enables them to speak from a position of knowledge?

If you are asking someone who doesn't entertain what you should serve at a dinner party, the result will not be pretty. If you are asking for interview tips from someone who has never been interviewed or hired people, find a different expert. Make sure they are knowledgeable about the topic. If you are asking someone you do not respect for advice, give that one a miss.

2. How important to them is it that I take their advice? What would happen if I just ignore what they say?

I struggle with this. I have some friends who constantly seek out my advice. Just as consistently they ignore our advice. And then they complain to me when our advice proves to be the more beneficial path to have taken. Now, when they ask, I don't have an opinion for them. About anything. I keep it to myself. So, don't waste people's time if you know that what they have to say isn't going to be valued by you. Talk about the weather.

3. What's in it for them?

I know an individual who for whatever reason just can't (or perhaps won't) agree with me on anything. That being said she doesn't agree with most people. She is always the rain cloud over everyone's parade. Quite frankly, her opinion doesn't count because it is too coloured with whatever shit is driving her to be such a pooper. Make sure you pick a circle you can trust to give you sound advice without prejudice.

4. Finally, do you need advice? Or do you need approval?

I remember when I bought my first car all by myself without my father's guidance. I walked in, test drove it, negotiated the terms and price, and drove it home. The first call I made was to my father. He was furious. He was gutted I hadn't asked for his advice. His disapproved of my choice. He disapproved of the price I paid. Basically, I think he disapproved of my attempts at being independent and despite the fact that I was well into my 20s, what I really wanted was my father's approval.

Do your own research. Speak to experts. Some of these experts should be friends but balance those out with the opinions of objective observers who have no skin in the game. And then go for it!

Write a Letter

2011-01-08T06:29:00.010Z

A few months ago my husband's great aunt Dorothy died. At her memorial service, her grandson, Simon, read a few excerpts from the letters she had written to him throughout his life. Dorothy was a prolific letter writer. In this day and age of modern technology, other than a few birthday cards and Christmas cards, I rarely receive hand addressed envelopes and certainly never receive hand written letters. And I don't really expect to. That would be like deciding to go back to horse and buggy. I wouldn't be too popular on the motorway, I reckon.

And I am a big technology fan. I text if I have to. I love email. It's fast. I love Facebook. It's even faster. I love Twitter. It's the fastest of them all. Embrace change!

But there is something nice about getting an old fashioned letter. It took time and you know that. And there is something far more permanent and higher quality about a letter. The stationary is special. The handwriting is personal. When my grandmother died, I found boxes of the letters and postcards I had written to her when I first moved to Germany. It was a fascinating journey through my life as I watched myself change and grow and mature through those letters. I can't imagine that if I had made that journey during the age of email that I ever would have had the ability or foresight to rifle through her email inbox. Besides, I don't think she even would have kept them or I would have been able to find them. And I was able to match the letters she had written back to me with the letters I had written to her and it is a strange sort of journal of our lives during that time from two different perspectives.

Listening to Simon read just a few bits from the hundreds of letters Dorothy had written to him over the years, brought smiles and chuckles of laughter from the assembled congregation. Her thoughts about current events was captured. Advice was liberally dispensed. Her personality sang out. There wasn't a dry eye in the church.

It was in that moment that I realised it was important to me to give a similar gift to my children.

Our son, Sebastian, has embarked on an amazing journey. Over the last 18 months he has been learning how to be a chorister and during this time he spends less and less time with us at home. By February of this year he will be boarding full time. We will get to see him on Wednesday and Friday evenings and all day on Saturday but the rest of the week he will be far too busy to absorb the depth of my feelings. Besides, he's 9! Mom can't seem a bit heavy at times and we aren't talking about my weight fluctuations here.

Last school term I often wanted to tell him how proud I was of him and it seemed insufficient to just say it in the rush of homework, dinner, bath and bedtime routines. And the last thing I wanted to do was ring him on the boarders phone and interrupt whatever might be consuming his every waking thought. That would be a very uncool mummy thing to do. So I started writing him a letter each week.

I found some beautiful stationary that I bought in Italy over 12 years ago in my long abandoned stationary box that I'd never had the opportunity to use what with the demise of letter writing and all. I got out my beloved fountain pen which did require a new ink cartridge and I sat down and wrote. When I handed him his first letter, I asked him to keep them in his trunk and not to lose any or throw them away. I thought he would blush but he didn't.

I drop the letters off at the school office on Tuesday afternoons when I pick up Abigail and Sebastian has already gone up to the song school for one of the days two rehearsals, right before the evensong performance.

I was surprised to find one pinned up on the cork board next to his bed the week of Christmas. He was working so hard at being the best chorister he could possibly be and I could see the dark circles around his eyes but he assured me that he was having a blast. When I asked him if he was afraid that someone would read the letter and he would be embarrassed by it, he just shook his head, like "why would I think that?". "Don't you really want to hide it away in your trunk with the other letters I have given you?"

"No," he replied, completely unfazed. "that was the letter you wrote to me after you saw me perform The Messiah and I was just so proud to have a mummy who wrote to tell me how proud she was of me, that I wanted it to be up there. No one else's mummy writes them letters telling them how proud they are. And when I miss you at night, I can just reach over and read it and it helps me not miss you so much."

OK, so writing letters is a good idea. Maybe I should do this a bit more. Who could you write a letter to? Will you?

BBC License Fee Earned

2011-01-07T07:00:00.023Z

In the UK one must pay for the privileged of having a television. For the low low price of approximately £150/year you get commercial free broadcasting from the BBC. Trouble is I pay this fee every year begrudgingly because there is rarely anything worth watching at all but the simple fact of the matter is I can't watch any television unless I pay this stupid tax to the BBC.

There is the rare occasion that the BBC will play a film that I will watch and it is nice watching it without any commercial interruptions but quite frankly I've usually seen the film at the cinema or on DVD long before it gets to the TV. Anything that might be a bit cutting edge or controversial tends to be on another channel. Heck most things that are interesting tends to be on another channel.

This week, however, over 3 evenings, the BBC earned every penny, pound and shilling of their license fee for the year. Stargazing Live was broadcast on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for an hour. The ever so dishy and frighteningly clever Professor Brian Cox co-hosted the LIVE broadcast with Dara O'Briain. Dara is an irish standup comedian and other than having a keen interst in amateur astornomy I'm not entirely sure why or how he was chosen as a co-host. Professor Brian Cox, on the other hand, is a big brain: a particle physicist who has a remarkable talent for making the complex understandable for mere mortals like myself. I won't mention that he was also in a band....oops, just did, but ignore that! And that smile.....well, he was one of People magazine's sexiest men in 2009.

I believe the objective of the show was to get people interested in those little white lights that twinkle in the night sky and educate us about how much more amazing they are when you look at them through telescopes. The photographs of Andromeda took my breath away.

Unfortunately, since the show was broadcast from Britain and we are not exactly renowned for having clear skies the majority of the time, the show was hampered by trying to fill time when the sky was filled with clouds. The best moment in the show came during the second broadcast when they were speaking with the man outside with the telescope. He complained that not much was happening since the sky was so cloudy. Just as he was saying this, a large meteorite fell through the only clear spot in the clouds just behind and above his right shoulder. Twitter lit up about the show and the producers were actually able to replay it towards the end of the live broadcast. Classic!

There were some low points in the show. The piece about the sound of stars was a bit fuzzy and not really science at all which dented the credibility of the factual nature of the show. I loved that Professor Cox was very careful to identify those things we know for fact and those things we can only theorise about.

The show featured several female scientist showing my daughter that she doesn't have to be Hannah Montana when she grows up. My son was fascinated and kept asking questions during the live show. Luckily, we recorded it and have watched it back. I fear it may stay recorded ready for reply as reference for a while.

We have a wonderful telescope which doesn't make it out as much as it should although we have impressed some dinner guests with a viewing of Jupiter but the planet did most of the impressing to be honest. The telescope will be outside when the sky clears up and we are planning on heading southwest to do some star gazing during the half term in late February. On the occasions we have looked through it, I have seen the rings of Saturn. I have seen the gases of Jupiter and at least 4 of its 63 moons. I have seen what looks to be faint pinpricks of light become swirling masses of blue, purple, yellow.

I have looked at the night sky and the BBC has helped to remind me and all their lucky viewers that £150 is a small price to pay for the knowledge that we are tiny, insignificant beings in a small galaxy and we know very little of what is beyond it. But finally, it is highly unlikely that we are alone.

PS If you are in the UK, you can still catch the program on iPlayer. If you are anywhere else, tough. You will just have to be jealous and get a telescope of your own!

VAT in the Age of Austerity

2011-01-06T07:01:00.003Z

In this age of belt tightening and austere living I have made a resolution to empty my house of excess. My kitchen cupboards are stocked to overflowing with tins I haven't used. My fridge is full of jars of sauces only half used. Shelves are creaking under the weight of unread books and craft projects. I have picture frames with no pictures in them. We have too much.

The trouble is I stockpile. I love a bargain and love to feel like I'm getting a great deal. Costco is a dream made in heaven. I buy vast quantities of monster size ketchup and olive oil along with over sized cubes of butter by the dozen frozen for future baking endeavours. At one point, my husband noted we had 12 loaves of bread in the freezer and that the 4 loaves I had just brought were not going to fit. I have drawers of fabric, old shirts, and sheets for all those future quilting projects I have yet to start. At the height of the terrorist alerts when we all thought our water supply would be poisoned I stockpiled bottled water and if there is ever a drought, our garage is well stocked.

I realise this stockpiling habit harks back to my children. I have a fair bit of anxiety around not having enough. Or rather having enough and then suddenly, not. My parents divorced just before my teenage years began. My cushy private education uniform was replaced with state school wear whatever you want to wear. I have painfully acute memories of eating generic puffed rice cereal without milk for breakfast and dinner whilst using state supplied pink lunch coupons for a free hot lunch. Money was tight.

When I went to university I remember thinking to myself that this education was going to be the key to never having to eat puffed rice cereal again. I picked a career where I would be financially secure and provide for myself and, now, my family. Of course, something really bad could happen but trust me, my fears have led us to be quite possibly the most over insured household in the northern hemisphere. It is entirely possible that I have an inflated sense of my self worth. But I most certainly don't want to run out of anything I might need.

And I am a busy full time working mother of two. I create weekly menus and make assumptions about the contents of my pantry. When placing my online grocery orders I tend to order things which are perishable just for that week and buy pantry or freezer items in bulk, particularly if they are on sale, which explains my daughters comment at a dinner party when she politely requested that we eat something other than sausages occasionally. You see, I had bought 16 packets of sausages on 2 for 1 special but noticing this stockpile I had created a menu that despite being subtly different dishes every day did, however, consist mainly of sausages. I now only have 2 packets of sausages in the freezer. And I will never serve sausage more than twice in 1 month. Unless maybe there is a 3 for 1 special.....no, just kidding.

The bottom line is I hate running out of things. I hate getting half way through a recipe only to find out that you have run out of corn flour or baking powder or sugar. I don't have time to just "pop in" to the supermarket. I barely have time to pop to the toilet more than once a day.

This economic downturn brings everyone challenges over which I feel I have little control. Economic growth has stagnated, deficits are huge, taxes have gone up, benefits have gone down, inflation has started to soar. Our money just doesn't buy as much anymore and this has got me to thinking, do we need all that we have.

Christmas really made our family evaluate this challenge (and my very real fears and anxieties). We decided to have an electronic fear Christmas. This meant nothing we bought for each other needed to be charges. Only 2 things (coin sorters) given to the children by Santa Clause required batteries. I don't think the children noticed although Sebastian did think he was getting a laptop he has only mentioned it once.

Over the Christmas holiday I made a concerted attempt to not buy more than we would eat and mildly succeeded. I also tried to get everything down to having just one bottle. You see I have such a tendency to over buy that I have 2 jars of everything just in case I run out of one which is unlikely since that one has probably lasted me for the last 2 years. Spices are a common example. There are 3 jars of mild chili powder and 2 jars of whole cloves. No one uses that many spices in a year. This year I used them up....and I didn't buy a replacement. My new rule is unless the jar is over half empty and I have a plan for using the other half in the next month, it doesn't go on the shopping list.

I am finding a perverse sense of satisfaction now in using things up. I used one of the 3 (that's right, 3!) jars of dark treacle in my cupboard which is good since one of the other ones apparently exploded from being out of date and had to be cleaned up - what a mess! I have 1 bottle of maple syrup in the cupboard, down from 4 a couple months ago. I used it in some Christmas sweet recipes. I am down to one jar of cloves thanks to some generous lashings in the mulled wine.

There is now some white space in my cupboards. Sometimes when I open them and see all this empty space I feel light headed and my heart skips a beat. Feelings of not providing well enough for my children simmer in the back of my mind. So I start examining every other tin in the cupboard and try to imagine how I might create more white space. I have 10 tins of chick peas. Any one have recipe ideas for using vast quantities of chick peas? I have 6 tins of cream of mushroom soup. Don't ask......

All of this creates loads more waste than it needs to. I invariably come across tins with a use by date of July 2006. The other day I found a half used jar of anchovies with a date of March 2009. They were not far off becoming fossilized. I couldn't find the Christmas presents I bought last April to give this December (trying to save time and money) because I clearly put them someplace safe and out of the way and now I can't find them under the weight of everything else. So I bought new stuff. Waste!

My commitment to our family's financial future is to use everything we got before buying more, get rid of that which we will never use, store in a sensible manner those things which might be useful and thrifty for the future. I will certainly bin (or possibly eBay) those lofty scrap booking kits which will never never ever find a place in my diary to get done (until the children have left for university, I have retired and then I doubt this will be my activity of choice). I will try try try not to buy any new books until I have read all my unread books (ok, so this is never going to happen but I will at the very least remind myself of the size of the pile).

With a fair bit of luck and a good wind, we will have only what we need. We will appreciate what we have much more and we'll save the net of the VAT increase over the next year. Am certain this isn't what the government had in mind when they implement the increase but that'll teach them. And my home will be tidier and clutter free (maybe not free but less). Now all I have to do is get my husband to take a shot at the garage.....2012 here we come!

NOTE to non-Brits: VAT is Value Added Tax and is like sales tax. This tax increased on 4 January from 17.5% to 20% in an attempt by the government to lower the deficit caused by overspending during the last 10 years.

On The Beach by Nevil Shute

2011-01-05T08:07:00.000Z

Had never heard of Nevil Shute. None of his books were ever on any of my must read reading lists. I consider this a travesty and aim to single handedly correct this miscarriage of justice.

Back in November I attended the bookswap at the Windsor Firestation Arts Centre. "What is a bookswap?" I hear y'all ask. A bookswap is an event where 2 authors are invited to sit on a sofa and be "interviewed" by 2 literary aficionados (Scott Pack of The Friday Project and Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly -more about that later). The interview is not your typical book signing interview. The audience submits random questions before the event begins and they are picked at random. the questions have little if anything to do with the writing or the book and more to do with the human beings in front of us. My favourite question remains, "What's your favourite cheese?" The authors, as well as every audience member, brings a book they want to "swap". You are asked to give a sales pitch, an elevator speech, about your book and then other audience members are asked if they have a book they would like to swap to yours. If you don't feel your sales skills are up to scratch, Marie or Scott will skillfully step up and sell it for you. Admission to this unique event is either £5 or cakes. That's right....if you bake cakes to be shared amongst the audience, you don't have to pay to get in.

At the October event I managed a trade with Warren FitzGerald, author of The Go-Away Bird. I brought the book Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud by Sun Shuyun with me. A book group of mine had read that years ago and whilst I found the non-fiction account of this woman's quest to find the China of her childhood fascinating in bits, it wasn't a book I was going to read again. And I wasn't going to recommend it to someone else. The bits I found fascinating were all highlighted in my indomitable style and it was a hardback so I felt confident that my swap would be an easy pitch.

But I had competition. When Mr FitzGerald pitched this book by someone named Shute I was dubious about the plot but felt the description of the writing style would be worthwhile. And the swap was agreed. At home I added the book to my To Read pile and thought I might never get to it given the teetering size of that pile which isn't even one pile but more like 7 piles.

But the book called to me from its place and I kept picking it back up. Finally, I dove in and finished the book the night before North Korea started acting up as a bully to its neighbours. And I'm certain this book has changed me forever.

Nevil Shute was a British aeronautical engineer whose work on aircraft technology helped to win WWII. He emigrated to Australia in 1950 when he became disenchanted with Britain and many of his later novels are set in Australia.

In On The Beach, the world is ending, actually the world has ended, it is just a matter of time. World powers have detonated nuclear weapons and everything in the northern hemisphere has been destroyed. There is considerable vagueness about who did what to whom and why and where the weapons came from. I think in the event of an escalating crisis, there would undoubtedly be considerable confusion about who and what and where and why. Just read Wikileaks.

Set in Melbourne, Australia, air currents are bringing the radiation to the southern hemisphere and the last humans on earth are dealing with their inevitable fate. An American submarine commander whose vessel was underwater at the time of the explosion has found himself hastily promoted as everyone in his chain of command dies, explores the planet looking for signs of life, a fruitless and dispiriting endeavour.

Every character deals with the inevitable in different ways. The alcoholic, wild living Moira, cleans up her act and imagines her life lived in sober happiness with the US commander. The Holmes family ignores the entire future continuing to renovate their house, plant trees and a vegetable garden that will never ripen. The US commander denies his family in America are dead and buys them gifts to take back when he returns from his tour of duty.

Unlike any other book I have ever read about the end of the world, there is no small group of survivors to carry on the legacy of mankind. No one survives. No one. In the end cyanide pills and injections are dispensed for people to use to avoid the ugly and painful death of radiation poisoning. And so the decision must be made.

How does one decide to inject their infant daughter before taking the pill themselves? How does one spend the last few days of the end of the world? I have nightmares still despite reading the book months ago. After watching the film with Armand Assante (which is in no way near as good - not even in the same universe) with my husband, he is having nightmares - hey, at least he watched it since I can't ever get him to read a book!

When North Korea started playing games the very morning upon my finishing the book and governments all over the world were screaming for restraint, I felt like I personally wanted to deliver copies of this book to all the leaders with the codes and keys to the nuclear detonators.

I have now reserved other books by Shute at the library and must pop in to pick them up today. I hope Mr FitzGerald enjoyed his Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud as much as I enjoyed On The Beach but somehow I think I got the better end of that trade. I strongly urge you to give it a go. You will never be the same.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

2011-01-01T12:34:00.000Z

I'm not entirely sure where my education has let me down but let's just say there is a huge gap in my awareness of the finer points of World War 1, or possibly any points about WWI. So, I know Germany was there on the wrong side and I know England and America were on the other side. I know France was the battle ground on which the worst of the battles were fought and I have heard whisperings of the horrors of the Battle of the Somme. I know the war started with the assassination of some Archduke Ferdinand dude but the details were ever so fuzzy.

The 2nd World War held no such vagueness in my educational history. I have detailed knowledge of who the bad guys were and who the good guys were. I know all about the D-Day landings. I know how it started and how it ended. I was ashamed of the lack of such clarity around WWI and felt I needed to do something about it.

Let's face it though, me and non-fiction aren't such great friends. I'll read it if I have to say to learn something about my job or a medical release form but I do find it rather hard going and not enjoyable. So several friends recommended Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Now the trouble with that recommendation is that I had tried reading Human Traces by said author a few years ago and am afraid I couldn't get beyond page 47. Given such failure I had not embraced any other books by him but given the repetitive nature of this recommendation I decided to give it a go and checked the book out from the library.

I started it just a few days before Christmas after finishing Hotel du Lac, regrettably a nice novel but didn't live up to the hype and my perhaps unreasonably high expectations. Birdsong starts off like a romance novel. The first part is before the war and contains some erotic sex scenes that made me feel uncomfortable when I read them in the presence of my children. I was confused and really unsure what any of this had to do with WWII.

The second part lands you on the battlefield and in no uncertain terms you quickly come to grips with the unspeakable atrocities and conditions of that war. The reason for the first part of the novel becomes abundantly clear and you desperately yearn to escape. But there is none.

It was at this point that I decided given that is was 1 am I should really get some sleep and turned off the light. The images so eloquently drawn though kept haunting me and I found it difficult to find sleep. At 2:43 am I woke after what I reckon was only 30 minutes of sleep having had a disturbing and frightful nightmare. Sleep was never going to come. I picked up the book. Faulks continues to hammer home the relentlessness of the battle but by 4:56 am I had finished it. I tried to sleep a few more hours but knowing what I had learned from those pages, my sleep was never the same. Every muddy trench and tunnel came alive in Faulk's able hands. I flinched when wires were detonated.

I now know slightly more about how the war started and ended and am now more convinced than ever that I will find out more. Although some scenes do seem to go on and on and on, I can't complain given that my trauma lasted no more than a few pages compared to the soldier's years and years. I found the ending as disturbing as the telling. This war didn't end in 1918 with Armistice Day. So many veterans never recovered; some lived in homes without ever speaking another word. An entire generation of men were wiped out. The technology simply outpaced the tactics.

I highly recommend reading this novel if you haven't already. I cry every time I tried to tell my husband about it over the last couple days. Don't expect to be happy about reading it. That's not the point. The point is given all that we now know, why are we still fighting wars?

2010 Review

2010-12-31T17:46:00.000Z

I love New Year's Eve but not for all the parties. I actually despise New Year's Eve parties. People you barely know and don't really like all that much overdressed trying to all act like they are having far more fun than you are, which wouldn't be hard but still they aren't.

Nope, I prefer my eve to be a nice quiet affair at home with the ones I hold most dear and keep them near. I enjoy the luxury of hindsight the day offers and the promise of the new beginning tomorrow offers.

I will most certainly be happy to see the back end of 2010 and greet 2011 with the optimism every new year brings.

Our January started with a record snowfall all over the UK much like the year ended in December. (Un)fortunately for us, we were in Spain which also suffering from record rainfall and low temperatures so our attempts to go somewhere sunny and warm over the new year was a complete catastrophe. Upon returning to the UK we found airport baggage handling systems broken down and our car buried under 3 feet of snow. But the worse was yet to come. I had picked up a tickly cough which over the rainy new year and the stress of returning developed into a quite bad cough which over the next week developed into pneumonia which basically kicked my feet right out from under me. I was down for the count missing 7 weeks of work and still have very little memory of the days passing me by. It took 4 lots of antibiotics to shift the infection and several more weeks before I was back at full strength.

Oddly, our family grew without our having additional children and like something out of a novel, we discovered that Marc's father had spun a rather long yarn about who he was and where he had come from. We were contacted in early January by a woman who turned out to be a cousin of Marc's and we have since learned that his grandparents on his father's side only lived a few miles from us and passed away just a few short years ago. Regrettably, he never even knew they existed as his father maintained he was an orphan. The good news is his father wasn't an only child as he claimed but in fact has 2 sisters and 1 brother all of who have provided amply for a truckload of cousins and second cousins and now Marc's extended family rivals mine for size and love. I tell you fact is always stranger than fiction! You couldn't make this stuff up!

And just when I thought I had recovered to full strength, I then suffered the torture of bad chairs sitting in a training room for 5 straight days and my back seized up. I could barely move for over a week. I sincerely convinced myself that my body was giving out and promptly reviewed my will.

A trip to the British Museum provided Marc with a guaranteed joke for those numerous occasions when he would like to poke fun at Americans. After a long and thoroughly enlightening and educational tour of all the treasure the Brits have plundered (acquired) from various cultures all over the world our feet were tired and our spirits weary but we knew our experience would be incomplete without a journey to view the famed Elgin marbles. I had passively absorbed the controversy and really wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I followed my family through the rooms and found Marc dawdling in the middle of a large room reading about some sculptures hanging on the walls. I sighed heavily a couple times to express my impatience and still he didn't get a move on. Finally I urged we needed to get a move on if we were going to see the marbles before closing time. Marc stared at me and held out his arms sarcastically gesticulating for me to look around. Yes, I see those, I reliably informed him, but where exactly was I going to find those tiny round little balls of marble that little boys play games with and apparently continue to cause the odd diplomatic row? He nearly embarrassed himself at that point by laughing so hard he pissed his pants. I may never ever ever live that one down.

Abigail moved from being a Rainbow to a proper Brownie and her efforts impress us. She has started taking piano lessons and really enjoys it. She added street dance lessons to her ballet and can really boogie. But her passion is her horse riding. She rides every Saturday morning and the dreaded request for a pony appeared on her Christmas list this year for the first and I doubt the last time. The academic year was tough for her but Year 2 started in September. She has rallied and shown amazing progress in the 3 Rs. Keep up the great work, Abigail!

Sebastian moved from boarding 2 nights/week and being a probationary chorister to boarding 3 nights/week and being a novice chorister. He received fabulous mid and end term reports and performed very well in exams (if we ignore English - and who amongst us hasn't failed an exam or 2?). Cubs and all his other curricular activities are suspended due to chorister demands but he gets better every day at the piano and violin. His music theory and Latin are very impressive. He loves boarding although I suspect this is since he doesn't have any chores there and perhaps the hot breakfast is on offer every morning!

My mother visited for an extended time and we took her on the whirlwind of the British Season: Garter Day, Polo, Wimbledon, Windsor Horse Show, Royal Ascot, Travener's cricket, World Cup, . We also treated her to the tornado of our social life with school sports and family days, boat shows, May Fayres, Old Windsor Carnival, May Bank holiday camping in the freezing cold in the New Forest. I am certain we wore her out.

Our summer holidays were spent in the UK with 2 weeks in Bude, Cornwall and 1 week in Wales near Brecon. We saw quite a bit of rain but we have become quite expert at paddling round a campsite. We did meet lots of lovely new friends whom I suspect we will be seeing for years to come at various campsites around the UK!

We lost 2 people very dear to us in 2010. Marc's great cousin, John Somers, departed this earth during the summer after battling cancer for a brief period. I was amazed to learn so much about him at his memorial service and wish I had known him better. But I will never forget the first time meeting him when he showed me the telescope he had made with a camera inside it. He certainly changed our world making a major contribution to the development of the etching of microprocessor layouts. In November the precious Dorothy Harrison decided she had other places to be. She was the mother of Marc's Aunt Mary. She lived in Windsor and until she became ill a few years ago we saw her often. At Abigail's birthday party this Christmas Eve her presence was certainly missed.

This Christmas was dominated by the schedule of our chorister. In early December Sebastian participated in 2 full performances of The Messiah and 1 Festivo performance. The performed at the City of London club for "some very posh people" he reliably informs me and a service at St Mary-le-Bow. It was his first stay over and despite the school term breaking up on 17 December, he had to return to school on 20 December to fulfill all his singing engagements. This included multiple carol services, 2 services on Christmas Eve (including Midnight Mass), and 2 services on Christmas Day. We attended all and enjoyed every single minute. We are so proud and somewhat amazed that this young boy is so utterly capable of such inspiring feats. I simply can't imagine where he gets his energy, dedication, sense of duty and commitment. He astounds me.

Luckily, Marc's business has not felt the effects of the economic downturn other than a few customers being very slow to pay. Knock on wood, the good run continues and he gets the yacht he so desperately desires.

If you are a devoted reader you will have seen the domination in October of the self discovery of my writing abilities. I have regrettably not been able to fit it into my daily schedule but I am committed to making this work in the New Year. I approach 2011 with renewed commitment to the craft and am determined to finish the first draft of my novel, get an agent, and see if I can get a publisher interested. Not much then.....

We wish you all a very Happy New Year in 2011. May all your dreams come true and you face the adversity life invariably throws us with grace and determination.

Autumn

2010-10-15T06:58:00.000+01:00

Autumn is such a bittersweet season. It is my favourite season. I love the smell of leaves rotting, sending their nutrition back into the earth, the bite of the crisp morning air, the mist rising up over the river signaling the imminent arrival of winter. Mother earth has given us all she has and needs a rest for a few months before she can return to feed us with her bounty and warmth.

It is the time of soups and stews; Moorish food to warm the body and soul. The last of the harvest has been brought in; no more tomatoes or courgettes. The last of the potato crop has been dug up and stored for the months of hibernation. The lure of staying indoors curled up with a book and/or the children is irresistible.

Gloves are found and scarves are dug out of the bottom of the basket where they have spent their summer holidays, discarded after the last snow; forgotten despite their faithful service of last winter.

The darkness of the grey, damp winter days have not yet deflated my spirits. The excitement of Christmas begins to build and the laughter of Halloween looms with the promise of a delightful Thanksgiving feast well executed.

School days have found their rhythm and the children progress through each day growing in their abilities and knowledge, getting a step closer to the adults they will some day become.

Before long the days will become nearly indistinguishable with the nights. A fire will burn in the grate all day on the weekends and the aga will warm the kitchen. Socks will be worn to bed and we will cuddle up to each other to keep warm.

But for now, the electric blue sky signals another glorious respite from the biting rain, the gale force winds and surprising snow. The gold and red leaves light up the daytime landscape like Christmas lights.

And we attend the very last Harvest Festival in which our youngest child will shine whilst she gives thanks for all that she has and remembers that not everyone is as fortunate as we are. It is a lesson we would do well to pause and remember.

Dissolution & Dark Fire by CJ Sansom

2010-10-12T19:10:00.003+01:00

The first novel in the Master Shardlake work is a masterpiece in transporting the reader back in time to the sights, the smells, the sounds, but most importantly the feel of the reign of Henry VIII as he dissolves the monasteries across England. The novel is steeped in rich historical details and the plot carries you along without ever once losing your attention.

Master Shardlake is one of the most wonderful creations of historical crime fiction I have ever come across. He is a hunchback but the author doesn’t stoop to the carnival clichés and for large parts of the book you forget he is disfigured much like you imagine he forgets about his obvious physical deformity until someone else notices it.

The setting of a monastery on the Sussex coast in Scarnsea is brilliantly executed right down to the lighting and the echoes of footsteps. It did make me think how he knew what a disintegrating monastery would sound like. I particularly liked the descriptions of the journeys back and forth to London by horseback in the mud with driving rain and the state those travels must have left their clothes in.

The plot and pacing are perfect. I found myself unwilling to stop until I finished a chapter and before I knew it I had started another chapter. I read this book whilst we were on our summer holidays in Cornwall and many a cold night was spent curled up in the sleeping bag reading with only the light of my headlamp.

The second novel in the series, Dark Fire, is also quite good but not as good as the first in my opinion. I found the plot device of a ancient weapon of mass destruction from the time of the great Byzantine empire unearthed by a couple of bumbling idiots in Tudor London to be improbable if not impossible. I also felt this novel didn’t have the cut and thrust of the previous one. It plodded.

I really liked the subplot of Elizabeth, a young girl refusing to defend herself against the accusation of murdering her cousin. I felt this was a stronger plot and everything else detracted it. I finished the novel only to find out what happened to Elizabeth.

One of Shardlake’s sidekicks, Malton, whom he befriends at the monastery in the first novel, takes a much more active role and is developed more fully. Malton is a former monk with Moorish parents who fled Spain. Shardlake “rescued” him from the homelessness he would surely have suffered from the dissolution of the monastery in the first novel. Malton is a complex individual fighting the prejudice of the day but also exposing all those things which Shardlake doesn't know.

Both books capture the uncertainty and confusion that the people of England must have felt as their great and good King floundered in his many attempts to produce an heir. He was like a desperate, lovesick teenager flip flopping between women. Unlike the dalliances of our politicians of today, those whims had a profound impact on his image as the head of the church, the defender of the faith, and the one who declared the pope irrelevant. England was in chaos with every new wife.

Both books are clearly meticulously researched and with some more attention to editing, I reckon the remaining 3 books in the series will be as captivating, which is exactly why I’ve bought them on iBooks.

Twitter Explained

2010-10-11T06:09:00.003+01:00

Twitter is a baffling tool in the social networking phenomenon dimension of the web.

Most people get Facebook as a tool for linking up with newly found and long lost friends and all those in between. I find Facebook invaluable for keeping in touch with the friends and family I have slung to the far reaches of the globe. And then there are the people you know wouldn't necessarily make the effort to get together with or ring on the phone or write am email to or heaven forbid write a letter/postcard to. But these are people who you would like to keep in touch with. Facebook works for me. Of course I have to be diligent about my privacy settings and I have yet to capitulate to my children's begging to be on Facebook. I don't accept as friends people I don't know and I don't post photos or statuses I don't want the world to know. But Facebook is a beautiful tool for finding long lost friends, like the best school mate from when you were 10 (Jessica) that you never would have gotten in touch with! It's not hard to find friends using your email contact list or perusing friends of friends lists or searching for their names. Just about anyone can figure out how to use it!

Linkedin is another social networking tool I use but this is for my business contacts. These are the people that I have worked with, want to work with, are currently working with or want to work with me. It would be hard to keep track of them any other way unless you had a great business card filing system but even then you would lose track of them the minute they changed jobs. Again, it's not hard to use LinkedIn. When I get a business card, the first thing I do is link to them. Then I throw the card away. You can search on companies that you used to or currently work for and find just about everyone. Easy peasy and invaluable, especially the mapping to other people's connections. I can usually find someone who knows someone who can help. LinkedIn has discussion forums which has helped my husband's small business with enquiries regarding products and services he would have struggled to answer on his own.

Twitter on the other hand is all a bit more obscure. You have to invest a lot of time in Twitter finding the right people saying the things you are interested in and follow them. Then you hope they follow you. There is a lot of online marketing via twitter which is allegedly one of the primary benefits of the network but which I find wildly annoying. I've been on twitter for several years now and have few followers but am assured that doesn't matter. I try not to let it hurt my feelings. I follow twice as many as follow me. Daily I unfollow people who tweet rubbish which I am never interested in. Daily I get followers that I don't follow back after looking at their recent tweets and deciding that on past performance they probably won't say anything in the future I would be interested in. I block a lot of people who follow me. I still can't say convincingly I get the whole twitter thing. It can sometimes feel like I am participating in one great big long infomercial. And since it takes quite a bit of time and effort to build up a catalogue of people you want to follow I can't say that it is easy. I would hazard a guess that most people just don't invest that time and effort to make it worthwhile. Since twitter has few people I personally or professionally know, it is a good place for me to vent anonymously. And it is a great way to satisfy my insatiable curiosity of things are going on in a vast array of topics, eg energy, technology, poetry, writing, entertainment, politics, news.

On a Venn diagram of my social networks, there is a big commonality between Facebook and LinkedIn. It is inevitable that colleagues become friends, especially if you spend 8 hours/day for 8 years with a shared purpose. Not so much with Twitter. I have very few people (can count on both hands) that sit on Twitter and Facebook or Twitter and even fewer on all three (can count those on one hand).

What this does mean is that with the three networks, I have access to almost 900 people (allowing for duplicates in networks) which quite frankly I could never keep track of with an address book. I certainly couldn't send them letters, or postcards, and could never give them a ring on the telephone. But now I can electronically. And keeping in touch with people is what it is all about.

I Did & I Still Do

2010-10-10T06:31:00.000+01:00

8 years ago today, I put on a long white dress and a veil. I met a man on the King's Road outside the Kensington & Chelsea registrar's office in London and when we went inside we said these words we wrote to each other.

"I give you this ring as I give you my heart that it might remind you that you are missed when we are apart.

I promise to be by your side as a friend and lover through poverty and prosperity, strength and weakness, to celebrate our triumphs and withstand our trials, to go the extra mile to realise our dreams and to meet you half way to resolve our differences, to face our future with hope, grace and love. Shoulder to should, hand in hand all the days of my life."

Happy Anniversary, Marc! Thank you for all you are and all you make of me.

The Promise

2010-10-09T06:37:00.001+01:00

The sun danced on the snow with a sparkling smile,

As two lovers sat quietly, alone for a while.

Then he turned and said, with a casual air

(Though he blushed from his chin to the tips of his hair),

"I think I might like to get married to you"

"Well then", she said "Well there's a thought

But what if we can't promise to be all that we ought,

If I'm late yet again, when we plan to go out.

For I know I can't promise, I'll learn to ignore

Dirty socks and damp towels strewn all over the floor.

So if we can't vow to be all that we should

I'm not sure what to do, though the idea's quite good".

But he gently smiled and tilted his head

Til his lips met her ear and softly he said

"I promise, to weave my dreams into your own,

That wherever you breathe will be my heart's home.

I promise, that whether with rags or with gold I am blessed

Your smile is the jewel I will treasure the best.

Do you think the, my love, we should marry - do you?"

"Yes" she said smiling "I do".

- Eileen Rafter

Fear

2010-10-08T06:20:00.000+01:00

Fear is my enemy. It keeps me from doing what I want to do. Dangerously, it sometimes keeps me from doing what I need to do.

I fear making the wrong decision so I make no decision. Anyone who has seen my attempts (or lack thereof) at home decorating will attest. We have curtains but they are "cheap, disposable, thrown up in a hurry so I can tear them down in a hurry and not fret over the wasted money" type of curtains. This is true in every single room of the house.

Curtains are expensive and I can't really see in my mind's eye what I want or need to cover the windows and get the room to feel the way I want it to feel. I fear making a decision that doesn't look good and having to stare at that decision every single day. And worse subject my family and guests to that decision. And I won't be able to just throw it away because that would be a waste of money and bad for the planet.

Honestly though does my fear of making and living with an errant interior decorating decision ruin my life? No. Does it even diminish the joy I find in my life? Not really. Not when compared to the joy I get when my daughter cuddles up to me with her "I just woke up" eyes and mummy's warm safe body is all she wants right now.

But my fears runs deeper, ever so deeper, than that fabric swatch surface.

I didn't make any plans for the summer holidays last year. I had a vague idea of all the things we wanted to do and I was afraid if I started planning we wouldn't get to do all the things I wanted. Phew, glad that didn't happen and we scrapped by.

I have had only 3 really grown up jobs in my life. I don't count the jobs before university. Those were practice jobs. But once I got serious about who I was and what I wanted to do with my career I found a job and I stayed there. The first job I stayed far too long than was good for me. The second job they pushed me out because I wouldn't jump when I needed to change from a traveling crazy haired consultant to a mum who lived just down the road from where she worked. Now I'm in my third job. I've been there for almost 8 years now. Some might say I need a change. I'm afraid that I change jobs and it ends up being worse than the one I've got, which actually isn't that bad. In fact, it's pretty good. So I stay. I don't even look. I fear no one will want me, which is stupid and idiotic, but real.

But the biggest fear I have right now is that I want to write. I haphazardly write here on this blog and it kept me satisfied for a good long time. But I want to get a bit more serious about my writing. I aim for a novel. I've started one. Then stopped. Then started again.

Now I'm writing a lot of blog posts and a little bit of my novel and a lot of another book and a screenplay and a couple poems (I am bad at poetry). Every day I think of new ideas to write and suddenly there just isn't enough time in the day to write. The other night I was up til 1 am and woke up at 5:30 am fearful that the thoughts in my head just wouldn't be there when I woke up if I went back to sleep, like a dream you wan to remember but can't. One fear replaces another fear.

So I'm going to stop writing this and start writing something else. Just to let you know, my fear is still there. But I've asked it to go out for a bit and let me get on. I've got a lot to do.

New Dads

2010-10-07T06:47:00.008+01:00

I read an article in a newspaper (I think it was The Telegraph) a while back about how there is a new generation of dads emerging. These new kind of dads do the dishes, hoover the carpet, make dinner. In fact some even go so far as to be the primary care giver whilst mum goes out to earn the wage. Well goody for them. What do they want, a medal?

Women have been doing these jobs for ages and they certainly haven’t won any medals. In fact the press largely ignores their ongoing selfless contribution to raising the next generation of adults. But boy golly, a dad lends a hand to the running of a house and it is worth a feature article. Give me a break.

Let me tell you about the next generation of dads as I observe it.

1. Do Over Dad. This is the dad that has decided he isn’t quite happy with the wife and family he made the first time so he has decided to abandon them and do it all over again with a new woman and new children. This dad rarely visits his first children. If he does, it rarely ends in a satisfactory outcome for the children and the now single mother is left wiping the tears of children disappointed when these dads don’t turn up at their football matches or music concerts or dramatic performances. This dad is never around when they are sick or have nightmares in the middle of the night. The dad prefers to pretend that the first family never happened.

2. Absent Dad. This is the dad that left. And never came back. Ever.

3. Career Dad. This is the dad so obsessed with himself and his career that he never or rarely makes it home to have dinner with his children. He rarely, if ever, attends school meetings with the teacher because the only value he imagines himself as having is earning more money or getting an outstanding performance appraisal from his boss who would quite frankly make him redundant with the nod of a head if it was between him or the dad. He’s fooling himself and leaving his children feeling abandoned.

4. Late Again Dad. This is the dad who never makes it in time to anything. He misses the first half of the birthday party because he wanted to watch the last half of the football match on television or finish his pint at the pub. The message this dad sends to his children is that the time he spends away from his children is worth more to him than the time he spends with his children.

5. Mobile Device Dad. This is the dad that is there in body but absent in mind. He stands apart from the group of parents whilst fast and furiously typing away on his blackberry/iPhone/mobile device of choice. He is so self important he can’t be bothered to engage with anyone. He takes phone calls or replies to emails during dinner or a rainy Saturday at the cinema.

So maybe there is an increase of dads more fully engaged in family life. But I would argue there is a larger group of dads less engaged in family life who are abdicating responsibility for their family to their wife/partner whilst pursuing a self serving agenda.

Let me just say before everyone spams the heck out of my comments, there are a lot of great dads out there. My husband is way more engaged in our children’s lives than my father ever was. He used to do the majority of nappy changes (I have a weak gag reflux – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). He does way more of the bath time than I do since I once read an article that children get better academic results if they are given bath time by their dad (I made him read it and have been using it ever since.) My husband has been known to make a wicked lasagna. It is fair to say that we don’t have a traditional divide of household duties in our home just like many of you out there.

And to be fair there ain’t nothing wrong with the traditional divide if that suits each skill set. Whilst my husband can just about manage to cook a meal, he can’t plan a a weekly meal schedule or do the grocery shopping (without wildly exceeding our budget), and trust me when he’s done every dish in the kitchen is dirty so I don’t let him do it very often.

What I couldn’t abide was this self congratulating attitude in the article that dads were doing so much better than they used. Looking round, that’s not what I see. Unless we have ridiculously low expectations of the men among us. And I know that can’t be true. Or maybe it is if you read The Telegraph.

Under the Influence

2010-10-06T05:52:00.000+01:00

365 days have passed me by and the passage of time fails to have much effect on me. I’ll bet I’ve got a few more wrinkles and my weight has probably gone up and/or down. My hangovers last longer but I don’t get as drunk as often. My 40s are passing me by and I’m relatively ok with that. I don’t think I could survive the agony of examining every inch of my face or body for endless hours as is the habit of teenage girls and was most certainly my habit in my 20s. There’s just way too much wrong with it all now.

My children seem to grow up every time they walk back into a room. They don’t need my presence or even my permission. They even mature over night as they sleep and dream of gigantic sweet shops. They lose teeth. They grow new ones. They learn new words. Their hair grows. Their feet grow. I sometimes don’t recognize my babies in the bodies of this 9 and nearly 7 year old.

I’m excited and frightened of the people they will one day become. I watch my son’s fragile ego take a beating due to his small stature. No matter how many times I assure him that dynamite comes in small packages, his classmates don’t exactly agree and his performance on the rugby pitch is not exactly winning him a place on the A team. Then I watch him sing. And I see his ego soar up with the eagles. He is in his element. I have seen the singing of his choir move people to tears.

My daughter fears and withdraws from conflict or confrontation of any kind, which will most certainly keep her out of a street fight for which I am most grateful. Bu when classmates are not treating her with respect she loses her confidence and doesn’t stand up for herself. She would rather not answer a question than risk getting it wrong in front of everyone. She has a wicked sense of humour and can make me laugh my fool head off with her wry commentary on life but her tears when she can’t read a book break my heart.

With every passing year the influence a mother has on a child’s life diminishes with every passing day. Indeed this is the very job of a parent: to teach your child to be an independent and contributing member of society. They are part of your body and then they are born, the umbilical cord is cut and suddenly they are separate. We teach them to feed themselves. Then we teach them to walk. My heart leaped and then fell to the ground as I watched them take their first tentative steps away from me because I knew eventually they would walk out the door of our home and not come back for days, weeks, years. Finally, we hope they learn to have the confidence to go out into the big wide world and make their own way: find happiness in a career, find love, find joy in their own children, find contentment in their own wisdom and judgement. Everything you do leads them down the path you wish for them. But ultimately they pick their own road, their own journey through life.

As a parent your influence begins to diminish within the first year of their life. First I went back to work and the child minder had a part to play. Then they started school and the teachers had a large part to play. And now I find their peer group is starting influence their decisions and I’m caught in a crisis of confidence. Not long from now their peer group will be the primary influence on their lives. Did I tech them to pick the right friends? Did I teach them well enough about everything else, quickly enough? Did I simply teach them enough? Is what I’ve given them a sound foundation for the future? How much longer will they be influenced by me and does that have to come to an end?

Maybe it doesn’t ever end. My mother and father still have a profound influence on my life’s decisions, both good and bad. My grandmother, even though she is no longer living, is constant source of answers when I ask the question “What would nanny say?” For now, I will continue to hope that my voice can be heard over that of others even when I’m not there.

Like Bees to Honey by Caroline Smails

2010-10-05T06:28:00.002+01:00

So here it is: the first book review I've published since 5 April, precisely 6 months ago. You have been warned. Regrettably, the novel at the top of the stack is not one about which I have many good things to say.

The possibility of one of my children dying before me haunts my sleep. I have nightmares of attending their funerals. I can’t even think about it so this is a hard post to write and it was an even harder book to read.

The worst possibly scenario is my children dying because of something I did: my driving, my carelessness. I imagine the rubbish that would become our lives. I doubt I would recover. Ever.

So I was interested in what Caroline Smails had to say about this scenario in her book Like Bees to Honey. She didn’t hold my attention long and my interest waned.

Nina is a dull character and I felt the personality flaws were used as a way of making her more interesting. I found it made her less sympathetic and more annoying. Christopher is predictable (the "shock revelation" didn't surprise me at all) and the constant repetition of words, phrases, and noises quickly became irritating and I began to imagine that maybe Ms Smails didn’t have much of a handle on this topic either. And she certainly didn’t have much of a book. Without this repetition she certainly had a few 10,000 less words which if deleted could have left her with little more than a short story.

I entertained the possibility that the purpose of this repetition was to make the point that Nina was living her tragedy over and over, is the road through the grief and just needs things pounded into her head. But the affect on the reader is pure boredom and frustration, like someone is pounding you on the head. I felt Ms Smails used this device repeatedly thinking maybe her reader wouldn’t realise how recovering from the death of your child might be difficult. Sure wish she’d give us more credit than that.

The preaching of Jesus to Tilly using her own words was painful to read. I hope when/if Jesus ever speaks to me he doesn’t speak to me like I speak. I hope he has something more clever to say than I could ever come up with.

There is a small passage in the cave at Il Madonna Talghar that is beautiful and captures what a small step towards recovery from such a tragedy might feel like. But it is over way too soon and this skillful writing doesn’t appear anywhere else in the book.

Ms Smails might have some talent but I think she needs a bit more time to refine her next novel and maybe a better editor.

PS In the book group, none of the women liked it but the one man did. Go figure!

Blogging About Books

2010-10-04T06:11:00.001+01:00

I used to post a lot of book reviews on this site but one time a colleague of mine said he checked my site every day but if there was a book review posted he would just skip it and come back the next day. I thought maybe I couldn’t write book reviews. So I stopped. Writers have fragile egos. Even this writer.

What I failed to grasp was that this man actually just didn’t enjoy reading. This seemed like a bizarre and foreign concept to a girl/woman who read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at the age of 14 and basically has never been frightened by a piece of literature since. But now I think maybe he just didn’t really care what I, or anyone else had to say, had to say about a book, any book.

There was another totally self serving reason for writing book reviews on the blog. I forget what I read. Maybe that makes me a bad reader. But I read a lot. I'm a member of two book groups. One group sometimes almost manages to get the members to read 1 book but the other group has many members reading both books. Yeah, you read that correctly. I am a member of a book group that identifies 2 books per month. On a bad month, I can only manage 2 books/month. But on a good month and with some good novels, I devour 5 or 6 novels. But that’s a lot of books to be reading and keeping track of.

For years I didn’t read The Lovely Bones by Ablice Sebold because I thought I had already read it. I didn’t read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover because I thought it was by the same author who wrote Clan of the Cave Bear and I had read that years ago on my mother’s recommendation. Despite my mother (and many others) loving it, I hated it. Not having a reference as to what I had read already meant that it took me years to read both these books which I know realize was a loss, particularly The Poisonwood Bible which simply put is epic and beautiful. Watch for my review coming soon!

I also forget which book is which. People will start talking about books I know I’ve read and I just get a blank look on my face. I can’t remember the characters and have only a vague inkling what is was about. It takes a few moments but usually I am able to piece together enough fragments from my memory to recall a skeletal outline of the plot and form an opinion about whether I liked it or not. But please do not ask me what the names of the characters were. And most definitely avoid any deep discussion of their development or motivations.

This frustrates the heck out of me. I get immersed in great books and they have the power to change my life. I forget to eat. I forget I have to do the school pickup. Often I want to forget to go to work. One author, Lionel Shriver, has written 2 books which still have a profound influence on my thinking, We Need to Talk about Kevin and The Post Birthday World. Everything else she has written is rubbish, especially her latest, So Much for That (watch out for that review too!). But those 2 books, which are entirely different from each other, have had an elemental effect on me and my thinking. But I can’t tell you the characters names and if I were to describe them to you today, I would probably even mess up the plot arch.

There is only one book which remains fresh in my mind perpetually and that is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is primarily due to the fact that I have read and reread this book about 8 times. I cry every time I read it and don’t think I will ever forget it. It fundamentally changed my feelings towards the people of Afghanistan and the war the west is waging against them. If you haven’t read it, you should. Now, before you read anything else.

The point of all this is that I am notifying you my loyal readers and fans that I am going to return to publishing my book reviews on this blog. Not because I don’t care about what my readers think but mostly because this is my blog and I can do what I want to. If you don’t like the book reviews, skip reading that day. But come back tomorrow. Even I rarely manage to read more than 1 book in 2 days.

A380s at Heathrow

2010-10-03T11:05:00.002+01:00

This morning I am living under the flight path for landing aircraft at Heathrow airport. I don’t move around but the approach pattern does. We only have to deal with the noise every third or fourth day. I have lived in or around this area ever since I moved to the UK and trust me when I say that you get used to the noise very quickly and I hardly notice it unless I’m standing in the garden trying to speak to someone. BBQs can be frustrating. When the Icelandic volcano was erupting, we had a glorious week of silence. During my recent Scottish retreat, my perceived blissful isolation was broken only twice by the roar of a military jet flying exercises. I felt violated.

A friend of mine was complaining on Facebook the other day about how airplanes flying over Windsor Castle ruins the full force of the historical impact when the racket of modern day invades. This same friend travels abroad several times every year and appears to have forgotten that without the airport and these very same planes, his journeys would be severely more difficult and fewer and farther in between.

And whilst I may protest the noise, I know I am downright pleased as punch when I can make an early morning 7 am flight knowing that one of the world’s largest airports is a mere 6 miles away. We can get there in 20 minutes or 10 depending on the audacity of our taxi driver. Or you can spend an entire afternoon quaffing magnums of champagne whilst enjoying a thrilling polo match on a glorious sunny English summer day and then transport yourself in minutes for a quick hop over to Zurich without missing a beat. (not entirely true but that’s another post)

There has been a debate raging for several years about the addition of a third runway at Heathrow airport. Currently, London boasts the busiest airspace in the world with 2 of its airports, Gatwick and Heathrow in the top ten of busiest airports in terms of number of passengers. Heathrow alone is the third busiest airport in terms of number of passengers which is astonishing considering this country has a population of only 62 million. Airports in slots 1 and 2 are both in the USA (Atlanta & Chicago) a country with a population of just over 307 million. How does that work?

Adding a third airport has been violently opposed my residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. No surprise there. I’m not too happy of what a third runway would do to my property value. What these protestors forget is that the people, including themselves, need to own that responsibility. If you don’t want another runway, stop flying.

Over 15 million passengers travel through Heathrow during the year. Many of those are merely connecting to other flights. Could a possible solution be to build another airport further away from London which could handle the connecting traffic? The north east of England is in sore need of employment since the demise of manufacturing and a large international airport would no doubt be a welcome employment opportunity for those economically challenged parts of the country.

My family is full of plane spotters. My daughter and husband could quite honestly watch planes land all day. I would rather do just about anything including clean the toilets. But I do learn things by listening to them prattle on. Most valuably I’ve learned that the new A380 Airbus is much quieter when flying overhead than any other older models including the 737 or 777. Not only that, but the plane is huge. Gigantic. It can carry 555 passengers if it is split into three classes or 840 if only one class is offered. By comparison, the 777 can only carry a maximum of 440 with one class and 340 with 3 classes.

So, it can carry more people so it can make fewer flights and it is quieter. My solution for avoiding building another runway at Heathrow airport is simple. Replace all the legacy aircraft with the new A380 and everyone will be happy. The already dwindling wildlife in the area will not be impacted. The airports neighbours will have a wee bit more peace and quiet. The airlines will make more money having to fly fewer flights.

Am I the only one who thinks this is blindingly obvious?

Writer's Retreat - Final Part

2010-09-30T06:17:00.002+01:00

The story of Assynt, the area in Scotland where the retreat was hosted, is a fascinating one. You can read more about that here.

The Assynt Foundation, who works with Top Left Corner, is doing some amazing things for the area. You can read more about that here.

The history of the Vestey family is equally enthralling. You can read The Rise and Fall of the Vesty Family by Phillip Knightly (although I haven’t yet) or you can read more details here.

Lochinver and the surrounding area appears to be a mecca for creativity. There are artists for every discipline. Actually I don’t think this is limited to Lochinver. In Ullapool we met artists in the local tea shop. It seemed I was surrounded by them. I wanted to be one of them. Must be something in the water.

I’m not entirely sure how much of my transformation was due to the majesty of the scenery, the comfortableness of the lodge, or the stillness of the silence. I do, however, fundamentally believe that a large part of what I learned, what I took away, what I am becoming were the people who joined me on this voyage. I could not imagine having made this journey and travelling as far as I have without the benefit of having them along for the ride.

Obviously I could spend hours in the land of the hypothetical. Would it have been the same with another 12 people? Are all writers supportive and giving? Is the world full of really lovely people just waiting to be friends? Is this a byproduct of the retreat itself and a happy outcome for every Top Left Corner retreat?

I like to think we were special. We were unique. Somehow all the planets aligned and lightening struck in the same place more times than I can count. We are all still in touch. Many of us are on facebook. Some of us are sending emails. Some are only just returning from their extended travels abroad. We are planning on meeting up again during the year and with a little luck and a fair wind many of us will manage to bring ourselves back to the lodge at Lochinver and see what we can else we can accomplish.

In the meantime, I write. I don’t manage my morning pages every page when real life invades but on those days I can feel I didn’t do them. I’m cranky and grumpy and less able to be calm. I’m not writing my blog every day as despite the alarm going off at 5 am I am still just as good at turning it off. This post is a day late. I haven’t written a word on the novel for about 7 days which I’m ashamed of.

But what and who I have taken away with me will last me a lifetime and help me fulfill some of my lifelong dreams. What more could I have asked for? Oh, I know.....everyone will buy my book when it gets published! LOL!!!!

Writer's Retreat - Part 5

2010-09-28T07:02:00.000+01:00

But the end was nearing and I could feel it.

An unexpected bonus to the retreat was the expanded cast of characters who would enter our daily routine and enhance it in ways unimaginable with little unexpected opportunities to watch, listen, learn and embrace. One day we were treated to a visit from Helen who runs a lovely business dying her own wool for knitting. When she arrived with her tubs of yarn I had to resist just jumping in. Her skeins varied from delicate 2 ply to the big thick and chunky. The yarn had combinations of cashmere, mercona, alpaca. They all felt wonderful as they caressed your hands. The colours came from within Helen’s own imagination and largely echoed the vibrant nature outside the windows of the surrounding Assynt basin.

Or Phil who just occasionally joined us for a walk and as magically as he appeared, he would disappear.

Or Martin, an Iyengar yoga instructor with eye popping blue shorts, who had an exquisite command of every muscle and could move each in isolation of another. He urged me to hold poses for longer than I ever had and stretch my shoulders out way beyond the boundary of the Arctic Circle in a downward dog. And boy, I felt that stretch in the morning.

And John who greeted us and helped lug our bags about on the first awe struck evening, spent the first night with us and then vanished never to be seen from again.

But what had I really accomplished? My objectives were vague. I had always loved writing but felt that my writing lacked depth and was one dimensional. I had written a journal from the age of 9 until I was 36. For some reason I stopped when I met my husband and in the intervening 10 years have completely failed to pick it back up again. My blog was an outlet for a while but that too fell into disregard when I ran out of ideas. I suppose I needed to discover if there was more to my writing than just my day to day, self-indulgent capture and recapitulation of what happened in the last 24 hours.

I needed to discover if I had a creative bone in my body; if my imagination could soar with the eagles. If I had the power to move people with my words the way so many authors have done and continue to do for me when I read. Could I actually take all these ideas for novels, short stories, and journalism articles in my head and put them down on paper? And if I did would they be worth reading.

During the week I discovered that I could indeed get the words out of my head. In total I wrote more than 30,000 words not including my morning pages and my daily journal. I started my novel writing the plot arch, most of the character profiles and the first 4 chapters. I am very happy with how Chapter 1 reads although I am still tinkering. I wrote several professional articles which I am hoping to send into to professional journals. I wrote some more articles which I hope to get published in magazines. I wrote poetry! I’ve never written a poem in my life but somehow the people, the place eeked the words from me and they landed on the page resembling something that vaguely resembles a poem. I’ve submitted it to the Royal Berkshire Poetry Competition. It won’t win but I did it.

I write my morning pages most mornings. I’ve skipped them a couple times since I’ve been back and I can feel that impact the rest of the day; my state of mind is distracted and grumpy. I am forcing myself up out of bed at 5:45 in the morning to make sure I have time before work, children, the rest of my life invades this precious space.

I’ve written quite a few lengthy blog posts which you know if you are reading this. I’ve loved writing about it. I cannot recommend this retreat highly enough if you, like me, harbor a desire to write, or just want to see what is in that other side of your brain.

Work continues on the novel. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

I can only imagine the sheer scale of Mandy’s exhaustion when we waved goodbye as she stood in the purple doorway. I can’t remember ever feeling the conflict of emotions as we pulled away and headed back to our other lives, our other selves, the other side of our brains.

I’ve struggled to find the left side of my brain since I’ve gotten home. My education and professional life seems to have sent that part of me into a long enforced silence. Now that the best has been awakened from its winter sleep I don’t want it to go back to bed but equally I don’t think I can do my job solely from the right side. I am trying to integrate the two.

For now, I’m a writer who just happens to also be an IT Manager by day.

Writer's Retreat - Part 4

2010-09-26T09:59:00.001+01:00

There is earth, wind, fire and water. And then there is Mandy Haggith. She is the fifth force of nature. And nuture. She is tiny but do not for one minute think she is weak. She is strong like a hurricane is strong. And then she is as gentle as a duckling’s feather.

She is passionate about the environment and has written a fabulous book called Paper Trails about the lifecycle of paper from trees to trash. Everything she says or does includes nature. She can’t help it. Several days during the week we were given opportunities to join Mandy on a walk. You got the impression that she was going even if no one went with her so you might as well join in. Some walks were long and others were just in front of the lodge. You never knew where she might take you. But one thing that never failed was her ability to ignite your sense of wonder, heighten every sense in your body like when you were a child doing and seeing everything for the very first time. She took me to places I never knew existed inside and outside of myself.

When she speaks with you she is so thoughtful and considerate. You never get the feeling she wants to interrupt you. Or hurry you along. She just absorbs you and ignites your passion in writing, in poetry, in nature, in people.

The exercises during the week were always optional. There were no rules except to be respectful of one another which just sounded like common sense to me. Mandy held a stream of consciousness writing session at 10 each morning. Some people came to all of them, 1 person came to none of them, others mixed it up a bit. These were followed a few times by writing exercises meant to get your brain thinking inside, outside, and all around the box with the ultimate goal of encouraging and enhancing your writing input and output.

I suppose at some point I could have doubted that any or all of it would work. But that wasn’t why I was there. My logical, left side of the brain told me you are all in, darlin’, give it all you got to give it or just go home with your head hangin’. That left side of the brain sometimes speaks with a Texan accent, just so you know.

So I threw myself all in. Three or four times during the week the afternoons were punctuated with “walks”. Mandy’s definition of a walk is quite broad. One day this was a wonder out around the front garden seeing, feeling, squashing, tasting (yes, eating). I fear a few of us were expecting something bigger (like a climb up the glorious and ominous Suilven mountain) but what an unexpected pleasure to find us just wandering around in front of the lodge and finding wonder so close to where we were. You mean I don’t have to go far to find inspiration? Gee, that never ever occurred to me.

One day’s walk did push me up the side of a mountain. We didn’t go all the way to the top just to the bothy. Bothy? “What the heck is a bothy?” I hear you say (if you’re not Scottish). I just went along with it and had a certain feeling in my bones that I would know it when I saw it. The walk started out easy if a bit muddy. But I had my hiking boots on so I was appropriately kitted out. There was something satisfying in getting the boots well and truly covered in the mud. And then the walk took a more sinister turn and we were walking up some steep bits but again the path seemed to have a staircase of stone placed there by the power of nature made especially for me to simply walk up. I was gasping for air but not because I was out of shape (ok, a little bit of that) but more because the views across the landscape were literally breathtaking. Who could have guessed that the world looked like that from there?

I was sweating like a stuffed pig. I had packed for the cold, wet Scottish weather everyone had warned me about and didn’t really bring any T-shirts with me. Plus this was a walk out into the wilderness and I’d read all the alarming literature about being prepared for the weather to change at a moment’s notice. The trouble was the sun was beating down on us and I was trying to keep pace with the keener walkers in the pack. These people walked for fun and entertainment. I walk when my car breaks down. Nope, don’t walk then either. I ring a taxi.

Just when I thought I couldn’t take another step a stone structure appeared before me. So, this is a bothy. The skies had suddenly turned dark and ominous and the heavens began to spit on us. As we went entered the bothy, the heavens opened up and it rained and hailed like I’ve never seen it before. Actually, like I’ve never heard it before. The bothy has a tin roof and when the squall convinced me a military fighter jet was hovering above. We broke out our packed lunches all individually packed at the lodge that morning. In my backpack I had tucked away a tin of sardines, some crackers, a wedge of cheese, some dried apple crisps, a pear and a Green & Black’s bar of chocolate. Mandy had brought some ginger beer for us all to share. It was the best picnic I’ve ever had. We talked about the sources of our inspiration and what blocks our creativity. We all signed the bothy book which is like a guest book and packed up our rubbish to take it back down the mountain. As we stepped outside, miraculously/magically the storm stopped and the sun won the battle against the darkness. The path was a lot muddier, the puddles a lot bigger and where there had been small trickles of stream large waterfalls where thundering down the mountain.

Returning to the lodge was easier than I expected and I found myself marching like a soldier headed home. I have no idea where this reserve of energy came from but I was turbo powered. But the real magic happened in the way Mandy chatted to each and every one of us about our lives and our relationship to writing. She was interested in each and everyone of us in our own, her own special way. When she listened to you, she gave you every ounce of her attention. When she gave you advice it was constructive and supportive and imminently relevant and useful.

Just as we stepped on to the slate stones of the lodge porch the rain started to spit down on us once again as if mother nature had grown weary of keeping the threatening weather at bay. We’d only been gone a few hours but it seemed like a lifetime. By body ached and my brain had an electricity storm of its own going on. I went to my room, changed into my cozy tartan slanket with feet. I returned to the lounge and sunk into a big leather chair with my book and began to read.

Next thing I knew a gentle hand was on my knee giving me a little wobble and a soft voice was asking me if maybe I wanted to get changed for dinner. I was slightly alarmed to find that the sun had set and people were gathering in the lounge for pre-dinner drinks. When I went to sit up it was clear that my body was not in an entirely happy place. There was no way I was going to be moving any more than was absolutely necessary. I went to dinner in my slanket. Then I went to bed. And then I went to sleep like a bear out for the full count of winter.

Which was in fact the exception to the rule. I had visions of wasting away my precious writing time with sleeping and reading. As a mother I find it difficult to carve out me time to sleep in on the weekend mornings or just laze about in the evenings with a good book. I was fearful that my sleep deprivation would catch up with me or the books I was reading (Dark Fire by C.J. Sansome and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld) would prevent me from focusing on my real mission of writing. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

On more occasion than I would like to admit, we would finish our after dinner readings and sharings, each made our own way to our own room. My brain would be full of everything I never knew was in there. I would sit down at the computer and the words would just tumble out of me. And it wasn’t just me. During the nights when the house turned quiet and the fire had died down a casual observer might have thought that everyone had gone to sleep. What they couldn’t appreciate was that our brains just didn’t turn off. Like a freight train hurtling at us without any brakes our minds would unleash themselves on to our laptops and we would frantically write to keep up with the avalanche of words coming out of us. It was like everything that Mandy said and everything that Mandy did and every word we heard and every emotion we’d ever felt purge when the silence of night descended. Nearly every one of us experienced the nighttime energy and produced seminal works in the wee small hours of the morning.

This was so much more than I could have expected, planned , hoped, dreamed, prayed, begged. And it wasn’t over yet.

Writer's Retreat - Part 3

2010-09-25T06:41:00.018+01:00

We were the last to arrive. We could hear voices coming from somewhere else in the house. John announced our arrival and after putting our luggage down he went looking for Mandy. The three of us stood there smiling at each other not yet having found our comfort zone.

Mandy bounded into the foyer. She looked exactly like I expected her to look but that was because we had cheated and she had friended me on Facebook the day before my departure from civilisation. She showed the three of us to our rooms and John helped us with our suitcases. We were told to meet in the lounge in 10 minutes.

1o minutes? Who does anything in 10 minutes? OK, so no long hot soak in the great big huge bath tub which could have doubled as a hot tub for 6. No splashing cold water on my face or freshening up my makeup. They were going to have to love me or leave me.

I took a quick survey of my room. The walls were a gorgeous periwinkle, cornflower blue. There were two single beds but only one of them had sheets. There were two pillows on each bed and they were huge. This is a good sign. I was slightly alarmed when I saw that the writing desk of my dreams was actually a folding table and the view of inspiration was actually out the back of the house. I had a not so lovely view of a dog run and small rubbish tip. Uh, not exactly what I expected.

I knew that I had booked late. In fact, I think I got the last spot available. Yes, I had planned this way back in April but it suddenly occurred to me when we were on holiday in Cornwall in July that I had completely failed to complete and return the booking form along with my payment. When we got home from holidays I rang Mandy in a panic and she said I could have the very last room. I knew room allocations were on a first come first serve basis and that my room would not be the one with the best view. I took solace in the fact that I had my own bath and toilet so didn’t need to share. But in that one moment, I felt a pang of disappointment.

I raced downstairs after hang up my higgly piggly wardrobe for the week thinking to myself I must have been drunk when I packed and in fact discovered I had not packed enough knickers (underwear) for the week. I was sincerely hoping no one would notice. I was nervous to meet the others. Who were they? And what were they doing here? Were they going to be authors and professionals who felt my sophomoric attempts at putting my thoughts to paper were ridiculous and more appropriate for a pre-school class? Would I be able to write anything at all?

A fire roared in the lounge where we gathered only long enough to introduce ourselves but somehow this set the scene for everything beautiful that was to follow. We settled into the big soft brown leather sofas and all of these strangers proceeded to introduce themselves with honesty and vulnerability. They opened up about why they were here and showed us a tiny glimpse inside their souls. I immediately thought this is going to be good.

We were a diverse group but similar in so many ways. Of the 12 of us, only 1 was a man, 3 were Americans (including myself although I was the only one living in the UK; the other 2 had travelled all the way from the good ole US of A to be there), we ranged in age from 41 to 81, 2 of us had lived in Colorado (me and one of the Brits). We had a painter, a geologist, a psychologist, a sociologist, a nurse, a taxi driver, a runner and a hypnotherapist. We were cat lovers and dog lovers and animal lovers. Some had no children, some had children grown and some had children growing. And whilst our groups commonalities twisted and turned the one thing we all had in common was that we wanted to write. We wanted to write like we wanted to breathe.

After a few bottles of wine and the smells from the kitchen had wafted under our noses, we were summoned to the dining room where we enjoyed the first of many down home cooked meals (in the Scottish way) courtesy of the treasured Christine and Tina. Every night, these two lovely ladies prepared a home cooked meal with tender loving care. We ate homemade soups (carrot & coconut being my personal favourite), lasagna, fish pie, chicken curry, venison and cranberry stew and steak pies. We even ventured into true Scottish territory and had ourselves some haggis, neeps (mashed turnips) and creamed potatoes. We enjoyed gorgeous homemade puddings including a cheesecake that was simply out of this world.

After dinner we waddled our way back to the lounge, stoked up the fire and got ourselves cozy. If you felt like reading something you had written, then you were welcome to read it out. If you wanted feedback the feedback was honest but supportive and kind. If you didn’t want to read, well, you just simply didn’t read. No pressure. No judgement. No ill will. During these sessions we laughed and we cried (just a tiny bit) but mostly we listened. We listened with the rapt attention of a mother watching her child take their first steps.

And then the magic happened.

Writer's Retreat - Part 2

2010-09-24T06:44:00.002+01:00

My mad dash for the taxi queue sent travelers scurrying out of my way and I hurled myself at the poor driver, grabbed his arm and promised him the world and all my money if he could get me into the centre of Inverness in the next 20 minutes. The bus station was 15 kilometers from the airport and I convinced myself I would hold my breath for the entire journey if that would reduce our drag and make us go faster. God knows, the taxi driver needed all the help he could get as he proceeded to pour out his life story to me: 4 children from 4 women and he was only 47 and didn’t I think he looked a lot younger. He didn’t seem to want my world or need my money. I snarled a speech about STDs and appropriate use of birth control. I have never wished more that I carried condoms in my handbag than I did at that moment. OK, that’s not entirely true.

Just as we rounded the corner for the station, I had a major panic attack that I had left my wallet on the counter at the airport Starbucks when I thought I had all the time in the world to enjoy a coffee as I strolled to the bus and sat back on my relaxing 1 hour bus journey. Instead I was clutching the cup as I jumped out of the taxi whilst it was stopped at a red traffic light and heaved open the boot of the taxi and started rifling through the various pockets. The poor taxi driver was speechless as he stood next to me watching me meltdown. Some of you may remember I certain trip I took a few months ago to Zurich when after enjoying a full day of polo with even fuller glasses of champagne being quaffed nonstop for nearly 6 hours I thought I accidentally left my card in the cash point machine (ATM) at the Zurich airport. I couldn’t find it when I checked into the hotel and in blind panic rang home for bank numbers and card numbers, then rang the bank and got it all cancelled before realizing I then had no way to check out of the hotel which did eventually let me check out using a debit card. The one bit of the story I haven’t exactly gone public with is that I hadn’t left the card in the cash point at all. In my drunken stupor, I had put the card in a secret stash pocket of my wallet where I had never before ventured and whilst searching for a pound for parking months later happened upon the card thinking to myself, how the hell did that get there? Stayed tuned to the very end of this long and winding road to find out about the latest adventures of my wallet.

Needless to say, my wallet was in the top pocket of my suitcase which is the home I had given it in light of EasyJet’s ban on handbags. Even women are allowed only one carry on which means that if you have a suitcase to carry on you must put your handbag or the contents of your handbag inside your suitcase. Do they know how difficult and disruptive this is? Do they care? Nuff said.

I jumped back into the taxi and apologized for being a wee bit crazy. I knew he was thinking “a wee bit”? He drove to the other side of the road and couldn’t get me out of his taxi fast enough as I threw copious wads of money at him. 15 kilometers in 15 minutes, life story of sexual irresponsibility, near catastrophic public meltdown in the middle of Inverness all for the low low price of £27. Who could ask for anything more? And this was just day 1.

Considering my lack of experience with bus stations, I found the right bus with surprisingly little difficulty despite the fact that I don’t think I properly pronounced the city of my destination, Ullapool, which is where I needed to change buses. The blessed driver even agreed to postpone his departure until I returned from the toilet. Phew. After that coffee, I was bursting and I was scared to death of being trapped on a bus with no loo for the next 2 hours and no access to facilities.

The bus wasn’t completely crowded but there were enough people partaking in the joys of public transport that I felt very green. The seat next to me was empty so unpacked my handbag which was inside my suitcase and started moving things around making my handbag much more useful. I was tweeting and facebooking until my fingers ached anticipating imminent disconnection from the grid. I surreptitiously sized up my fellow passengers looking for the two women, Kristen and Rhoda, who I had guessed would be on the same bus as I but I couldn’t spot anyone that looked like a writer. Besides, most of my fellow passengers had fallen fast asleep complete with drool down the side of their mouth and even one (perhaps two) rumbling snore(s). So, this is Scotland? I was so jazzed up on my caffeine and the adrenalin rush from the taxi journey I couldn’t even manage a yawn.

The sights outside the window were by far more compelling than my fellow traveling companions. I was soon mesmerized by the landscape passing me by. Somehow I had missed the news bulletin announcing how beautifully stunning this landscape is. All I had heard was that it rained all the time and the midges/mosquitos were evil. So far I had seen nothing other than glorious big blue skies (with some very dramatic clouds) and not a single midge had taken an ounce of flesh off me. So, THIS is Scotland!

The bus driver didn’t really announce any stops and there wasn’t an electronic billboard announcing the next stop so I was hoping it would be obvious when it was time to disembark. Since the bus stopped at Ullapool Pier and was returning to Inverness I made an educated guess that now might be the time to get off. No sooner had I got my luggage and walked round that bus than the next bus appeared.

It seems that time is a wee bit elastic in Scotland. Our bus to Lochinver was scheduled to depart at 4:52 but at 4:55 we were still sitting there. I thought maybe someone had gone to the toilet and we were waiting for them which was only kind considering they done it for me. But at 5:05 we were still sitting there. I resisted my standard mode of operation which would have been to go up and find out what was going on. I figured I had no place to be by any specific time so no skin off my back. You have no idea how liberating that was! Soon another bus arrived and a whole bunch of people got off that bus and got on to our bus. Seems there is a ferry in Lochinver and if our bus had left those people would have been stranded for the night away from their home. Waiting is not a bad thing.

But apparently being late is. The bus driver decided this was his opportunity to practice his Formula1 skills: twisting, turning, up, down, oncoming traffic be damned even if that is a lorry. Thoughts began to race through my mind: I think I’ll just close my eyes, no, that won’t work, oh god, that was a really bad idea, I think I’m going to be sick, hang on, you are going to fall into the lap of the old man with a flat cap, perhaps I shouldn’t have sat at the front of bus, oh dear those suitcases are flying, that suitcase is going to fall on me, ouch, that’s gonna leave a bruise, this may just be the end of my life, is my will up to date?

Every now and again the bus driver would stop and let someone out. Once a young, fiery red haired, Irish girl in her twenties hoisted her backpack up on to her back whilst the bus was still moving (that impressed the hell out of me) and got off when the driver stopped. I don’t know how he knew that was where she wanted to get off. And I don’t know where she was going. It had started to drizzle rain. She had no coat on. There were no cars waiting for her. There were no buildings anywhere around, only a road that headed off to the west disappearing over a hill.

I didn’t have much time to ponder her fate as I watched her disappear and the ride of my life resumed. Every couple of miles the bus would come to a stop and left off a few passengers. As the population of passengers diminished I noticed that the bars on my mobile phone had greatly diminished and I had little mobile phone signal. It didn’t really matter anyway because I didn’t dare release my grip on my seat to type out a witty text, status update or tweet. I couldn’t bear to look out the window and witness the landscape racing past me like my life before my eyes. I began to surreptitiously inspect the stragglers. Who on this bus looked like a Kristen? A Rhoda? I’ve never met a Rhoda although I’ve seen one on television. What does a writer look like? What does someone who would go on a writer’s retreat look like? I was only entirely sure that I didn’t have a clue and no one looked like they were looking for a LaDawn.

I saw the sign indicating we had arrived in Lochinver but instead of the blind good luck I’d had in Ullapool, it became clear that there was more than one stop in Lochinver and I couldn’t remember which one I needed. Before the driver could put his pedal to the metal, I raced to the front of the bus and asked if he knew where I was to get off for where I was going. He asked me where I was going.

It was at this point that I realized I didn’t know how to pronounce Glencanisp and that all I really knew was that I was going on a writer’s retreat to meet a woman named Mandy who ran a organisation named Top Left Corner. None of this came out of my mouth in any coherent way so that another human being could make any sense of it. Maybe he wasn’t really human in the way Lewis Hamilton can’t really be human. But he appeared to understand me and mumbled something that vaguely sounded like “next one” so I returned to my seat not feeling any better informed.

At this point, having revealed myself as the bus idiot, Rhoda and Kristen revealed themselves as fellow retreaters. Before we knew it, the bus had stopped again and the driver was mumbling something which sounded vaguely like “this is your stop” but could have just as easily have been “get off my bus you stupid women”. All three of us remained seated. OK, so they couldn’t understand him either. At this point he raised his voice and told us to get off the bus. Well, perhaps not those exact words but definitely words to that effect.

The trio retrieved their luggage and fell off the bus and looked for a woman named Mandy. There was no woman here but at least the rain had stopped. When only a man was in the car park I was certain there was a mistake and was ready to get back on the bus. But he introduced himself as John and asked if I was LaDawn, Rhoda or Kristen. He relieved of us our belongings and packed it all into the back of his estate car (station wagon).

Rhoda was very persistent that we stop almost as soon as we started to pop into a shop. She wanted wine and with my trip having frazzled every nerve ending, I felt that a bottle or 7 wouldn’t go astray. I also knew that the arrangements were that we were responsible for providing our own alcohol although the joining instructions had indicated wine would be provided on the first night. I didn’t want to risk running out either. I sided with Rhoda.

We crossed the road to the local Spar and whilst I bought a single bottle of wine, I was impressed when Rhoda purchased a bottle of gin. Kristen had a good nose around the shop but didn’t feel the urge for intoxication courage.

My mobile phone had lost any and all single at all as soon as we turned down the single track road towards the lodge. The sun was beginning to set and dusk was upon us. We were surrounded by breath taking scenery and were able to introduce ourselves properly to each other.

Soon we pulled up in front of the lodge. The door was purple. Who paints a door purple on a grand and genteel lodge? I hadn’t expected a purple door and now everything I thought I might find behind that door was pulled into question. What was I going to find behind that purple door? Who was I going to find behind that purple door? It started to rain and John opened the door and we stepped in.

Writer's Retreat - Part 1

2010-09-23T12:16:00.002+01:00

I've been blocked. Just in case you have missed the bloomin' obvious I haven't posted to this site since April and even before then the frequency of my blog posts was in serious decline. I think I made some excuses about not having enough time but whilst that was certainly a factor it wasn't like the day suddenly had less than the 24 hours it had always had.

I believe I stopped writing because I didn't know what to say and I didn't know how to say what I did want to say.

I've always harboured a deep desire to be a writer, not just a blogger but a fully fledged, card carrying, published in paperback, want to see people carrying my novel around type of writer. I don't want to be famous like JK Rowling but known to my readers like Lionel Shriver or Ian McEwan: unrecognised on the street but moved to tears and/or laughter by their words.

So I finally decided to stop letting my dreams be jut dreams and trust in myself to make them a reality. But carving that time out of the chaos of my life is not only difficult, I found it quite simply impossible. I've got a full time career which to be fair has pretty much defined me for all of my adult life. I've got a husband who needs and deserves more of my attention. I've got 2 amazing children who I don't play with as much as I would like or should. I've got a high degree of commitment to my friends and communities which make it painful to say no when they need me.

This past year I have been plagued by pneumonia, back pain, weight gain, stress and general fatigue and when it all got to much I decided it was time for me to stop saying no to me and stop depositing some serious investment into my well being, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

I am back on the treadmill of losing weight. I've lost 14 pounds so far and the battle continues. I've set myself some aggressive targets but also some whopping big rewards. but the weight is a symptom not the problem. I needed to dig a bit deeper.

I decided to escape into the wilds of the northwest corner of Scotland. I haven't been to Scotland much having only been to Edinburgh twice for short weekend jaunts. This is most certainly the furthest north I've ever been in Great Britain since there isn't much more north to go before falling off into the North Sea. And the west coast is littered with only islands requiring boat, ferry, surf board which was perhaps a step too far for me this time.

I started my research back in April and decided a wee small chunk of my bonus would be spent on a Writer's Retreat. I had no idea what a writer's retreat was or what you did or what to expect. In fact, I found great difficulty in packing. Normally, I can get myself packed for a trip in under 30 minutes. But for days I circled the luggage struggling to come to terms with the dress code. What do writer's wear? What is their uniform of choice? Did I need high heels and a ball gown? Would I be allowed to wearing my pajamas all day long? At 2 am I surrendered and threw random items into my suitcase and hoped I was appropriately booted and suited.

Normally, the obsessive part of my personality ensures that I research any new venture with relentless energy and focus. I buy books about the subject. I speak to experts. I take classes. I do google searches until the wee hours of the morning. Nothing is approached without the full spectrum of the latest research committed to memory. But not with my writing.

I think writing is something you are rather than something you learn or do. I've always written and long time fans of this blog have commented on more than one occassion that I sure used to have a lot to say. But I knew that I wanted to add some dimensions and depth to my writing and I certainly didn't have a clue where to start to get the novel out of head and on to a page.

Lat Saturday, the alarm went at 5 am. I showered, dressed, agonised over what and how many books a writer takes to a retreat. Shouldn't I be reading rather than writing? But I couldn't help myself as I picked out 4. Just how much reading could one do in 7 days? A lot, if that writer couldn't write, I reckoned.

The children were eased out of their slumber bribed with the promise of a McDonald's breakfast and deposited in the car. Abigail couldn't decide if missing me was a good thing or a bad thing.

Whenever I've flown out of Luton airport, we've parked the car at the long stay and taken the bus to the departures hall. But Marc had to go round the round abouts several times before we figured out where to drop me. As I exited the car and unloaded the suitcases from the boot, I dropped the book I was carrying and it started to rain. I was trying to kiss the children and my husband goodbye, pull 2 small suitcases and keep the book and magazine from getting wet whilst trying to get the hood of my coat over my head and stay out of the way of impatient fellow travelers more eager than I invading the space behind me. I could hear the frustration in their sighs. I nearly started to cry. What was I doing? Why was I doing this? This was crazy and I had clearly lost the plot.

I entered the safety of the departures hall and found comfort in the predictability of an airport. I know what to do when I see an arrow pointing at Departures. I approached the desk, handed the small man with the perfect haircut my passport (photo id, not because I was leaving a country) and the boarding card I had printed out at home. I heaved one suitcase on to the belt becoming aware that my carry on was much heavier than my checked luggage which seemed wrong on so many levels.

I received my boarding pass back and made my way to the departure lounge to wait. I had managed to get a pretty good deal on my flight from EasyJet and I was trying to focus on the positive aspects of money saved as it became clear that the scheduled time of departure was clearly not going to be met. I don't know why I always expect EasyJet to do as they say they will. They never have in the past so why should they start that day?

Amazingly, despite a 30 minute delay in boarding the passengers, everyone was on board and we headed north landing 15 minutes before our scheduled arrival time. Clearly we passed through some space and time continuum because we almost landed before we took off with no time zone changes. Or I had already lost touch with reality and all concept of time, which is entirely possible.

There is only one building at Inverness Airport, one gate, one luggage carousel, one Starbucks (hurrah!). I had a 4 hour wait for my bus to Ullapool so I made myself comfy and immersed myself in technology fully aware that before nightfall I would be off the grid. Where I was headed had no mobile phone reception, no wi fi, no internet, no connection to the wider world other than a landline phone which I was entirely convinced I still knew how to use.

I lost track of time in twitter, facebook, hotmail, text messaging, my book, my magazine, my thoughts, my head. With about 30 minutes to go before the bus departure I decided to enquire about where and how I might purchase a bus ticket to Ullapool at the Information booth. Politely, the lady informed me that I couldn’t get there from here. My nervous breakdown was unfolding before her very eyes as I realised it was a very real possibility that I would miss the only transport that day to Lochinver and the gateway to my dreams.

Volcano

2010-04-15T17:12:00.001+01:00

Dear Iceland, we said 'send Cash'.

Talking in Cars

2010-04-14T17:59:00.002+01:00

Could someone please explain to me why it is dangerous to talk on a mobile phone using a hands free kit but not dangerous to have a conversation with a passenger in your car?

Just asking.......

A Good List

2010-04-10T09:10:00.000+01:00

Some nights, can't sleep, I draw up a list,
Of everything I've never done wrong.
To look at me now, you might insist
My list could hardly be long,
But I've stolen no gnomes from my neighbor's yard,
Or struck his dog, backing out my car.
Never ate my way up and down the Loire
On a stranger's credit card.
I've never given a cop the slip,
Stuffed stiffs in a gravel quarry,
Or silenced Cub Scouts on a first camping trip
With an unspeakable ghost story.
Never lifted a vase from a museum foyer,
Or rifled a Turkish tourist's backpack.
Never cheated at golf. Or slipped out a blackjack
And flattened a patent lawyer.
I never forged a lottery ticket,
Took three on a two-for-one pass,
Or, as a child, toasted a cricket
With a magnifying glass.
I never said "air" to mean "err," or obstructed
Justice, or defrauded a securities firm.
Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.
I never swindled a widow of all her stuff
By means of a false deed and title
Or stood up and shouted, My God, that's enough!
At a nephew's piano recital.
Never practiced arson, even as a prank,
Brightened church-suppers with off-color jokes,
Concocted an archeological hoax—
Or dumped bleach in a goldfish tank.
Never smoked opium. Or smuggled gold
Across the Panamanian Isthmus.
Never hauled back and knocked a rival out cold,
Or missed a family Christmas.
My list, once started, continues to grow,
Which is all for the good, but just goes to show
It's the good who do not sleep.

— Brad Leithauser, poet

Little Plastic Bits

2010-04-08T06:03:00.000+01:00

This time of year I venture into the depths of my children's assorted toy boxes, drawers, closets, caves and caverns for a good spring clean. I try to match all the games and puzzle pieces to the right boxes. Anything that can't be match gets thrown in the bin. Anything that the children have outgrown (or that I find just too annoying) gets either thrown in the bin (if I don't want to risk annoying countless other parents) or put in a big black bin bag headed for the charity shops.

I have discovered an uncanny talent which my son possesses. He showed a penchant for this talent at quite an early age. I'm wondering if there is any way to make any money with this talent. Oh perhaps not!

This son of mine cannot remember to put his dirty underpants in the laundry basket. He cannot remember what I ask him to do once he leaves the room I am not in. He has the memory of a newt.

Unless you are asking him which toy this little piece (smaller than a fingernail) of orange coloured plastic goes with. Or this turquoise square? Or this yellow tube?

He knows exactly which toy every stray piece of plastic goes with. He will tell me "It's the base that goes with that grey Transformer that was missing the arm that you threw away last spring clean." How does he remember that. I picked up this little clear yellow plastic bit and he identified as as belonging to a toy we threw out over 3 years ago.

My daughter is also displaying similar tendencies when we started on her closet. Are we all born with this? Do we then grown out of it? Are my children the only children that do this? Can we make money from this?

Another Day, Another Museum

2010-04-07T06:10:00.000+01:00

It is the Easter school holidays so the challenge is to keep 2 children busy without them killing me, me killing them, or them killing each other. In predictable English tradition, the school holidays begin and the heavens open up and the rain falls. Do NOT underestimate the scale of this challenge.

Our desitination this time was the Museum of London to which I turned for my salvation. As we were traveling with a rather large group I was determined not to make that classic marble mistake again! We had organised a small group of 5 boys (ages 8-9) and our wee little Abigail to descend all at once. What could possibly go wrong.

We caught the train and so far so good. We got a bargain basement group ticket for 4 adults and 5 children for only £13 more than it cost for just us 4 to go a few weeks ago. How exactly does that work? I am reminded of that line in the film Sleepless in Seattle where the little boy asks the little girl how much it costs to go to NYC. The little girl replies, "I don't know. No one knows."

I have discovered that train travel with boisterous children is a sure fire insurance policy for securing an empty carriage. People started to head towards the empty seats in our direction, heard the noise, and promptly retreated. Woo Hoo!

We were greeted upon entering the Museum and given maps and told of the day's events. Soon after Merja & William joined us and we were shown the various children's challenges and duly picked up each and every one of them. Abigail and I broke off from the group of boys to follow the medieval London tour which was incredibly informative and captivating.

We took a break for lunch and despite our best attempts to get the children engaged back into the swing of the museum they were a group of boys in desperate need of a run about. We headed for the Barbican. In typical English luck the rain started pouring down just as we headed outside. It stopped raining as soon as we were under cover of the play ground and then started again when we went to enter the park. Once again we ran for cover in the coffee shop at the Barbican.

We went home a bit soggier but with an enhanced appreciation of the Museum of London and Barbican and swore to return on a less wet grey day!

PS The Museum of London is completely free!

British Museum

2010-04-06T06:10:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago during the school half term, Marc and I took the children to the British Museum. I'd heard all sorts of rumours that this was allegedly the best museum in the world and I wanted to be the judge of that myself.

I also have a fairly strong opinion about how the British came to have of this stuff to put in the museum. Basically, the Brits went round the world pillaging and plundering all the great civilisations in every corner of the globe and brought home the best bits. The British Museum was built for the express purpose of showing the world these ill gotten gains.

The defenders of the museum will tell you they've got paper work for it all. Yeah, right! And pigs fly.....I didn't want any part of that.

My curiosity (and the children nagging) got the better of me. With my morals well and truly compromised, we set off for the day.

We headed straight for The Hamlyn Library in the museum which has numerous sets of trails and challenges designed for various age groups and they are all free. They not only teach the children about many items in the museum but also how to navigate a museum and scrutinise historical objects. They learned how to translate Latin (always a useful skill?). They even got to handle some objects under the watchful but not too over protective eye of a museum volunteer. Abigail can tell you all about an alabaster pot which held kohl for Egyptian eye makeup.

We worshipped the stone statue lifted from Easter Island. Seb sketched the remains of a sculpture of a roman foot in a sandal. Abigail copied the names of the busts of the Greek gods. They thrilled a woman with their knowledge of the countries of Africa (and taught us a thing or two).

I stood in awe at the Rosetta stone as I gained a better understanding of just how incredibly valuable this piece of history was in helping us to uncover the mysteries of long forgotten languages and how this has led mankind to a greater capability in translating all different texts.

As the long day drew to an end and we had seen just about all we had the energy for, Marc reminded me that we still hadn't seen the Elgin marbles. Oh yeah.....I'd always wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The Brits took these marbles from Greece a couple hundred years ago at the height of their empire building. Of course, Greece was taking very good care of them before they were taken away since they were being used as a gun powder store. But I didn't understand what that all meant.

We walked into a room and on every wall was a stone sculpture. Marc started reading the exhibit in front of us. I patiently reminded him that we were at the end of the day and if we wanted to see the marbles we should probably get a move on. Marc looked at me like I had gone completely bonkers, an expression he has perfected over the years. I gently reminded him that our highest priority right at this moment were to see the marbles. Exasperated he pointed to the four walls surrounding us and said "See!"

Oh.....but I thought marbles were little round spherical things that little boys played with in a circle on the ground and carried around in little leather bags.

No, of course not. The sculptures were taken from the walls of The Parthenon. This article can tell you specifically what they are. And this link will show you some incredible photographs of these precious treasures. Just wished I'd looked at these before I'd made a right idiot out of myself.

No matter how these treasures were acquired, they are housed here with incredible care. The museum is free. The curators take care to ensure that everyone gets the most out of their visit: adults and children alike. Our school's half term was a week earlier than everyone else's so we practically had the museum to ourselves. The only disappointment was the tea in the cafe but I can overlook that.

The children got some fantastic certificates with their names on them for completing a couple of the challenges. Everyone is still laughing about my interpretation of the marbles. And I will definitely be going back to the British Museum. Sod the morals! And the marbles.

Inside the Whale by Jennie Rooney

2010-04-05T06:50:00.000+01:00

This is Ms Rooney's first novel. I am sincerely hoping it won't be her last and that she is only just getting started on what will be a long and illustrious career. This book is a joy to read even if you have to manage it through your tears.

It's a familiar story. A young girl and a young boy fall in love as the world around them is on the cusp of the second world war. They boy joins up when Germany attacks Great Britain and leaves the girl to discover that she is expecting his child which she proceeds to raise on her own when the boy is lost and assumed dead when he never returns from the battles in France.

But the skill and originality with which this story is told is nothing short of astonishing and is decidedly anything but familiar. The narrator alternates from the boy to the girl with each chapter. And each chapter is exquisitely short and subtle. The writing is beautiful without being indulgent. The ending is surprising and sad.

I really appreciated the journey of these character's lives and look forward to reading more of Rooney's work.

Book Group Verdict: This was one of the books for my Waterstone's book group and there was overwhelming support of this book. Not a dissenting voice among us.

Easter Observed

2010-04-04T06:23:00.000+01:00

Holy Week Around the World

Wet & Wonderful Easter Trails

2010-04-03T18:51:00.003+01:00

Courtesy of the gorgeous Savill Gardens:

Egg Tradition

2010-04-03T08:38:00.002+01:00

Just in time for the Easter Bunny shennanigans are this year's artistic endeavours:

Lane Discipline

2010-04-03T06:15:00.002+01:00

Keep left unless overtaking (or right if you drive on the other side of road like the other half of the world).

A simple rule every one should be able to follow. At least everyone with a driving license.

A rule I never fully appreciated or was even that all aware of when I lived in America. Americans pass on the left. And the right. But you expect it. Besides the speed limit on the motorways (aka freeways, highways, etc) is set so low it doesn't really matter.

Lane discipline comes into its own in Germany and this is where I fully learned the importance of it. Germany has many motorways which have no speed limits. This is why they invented the Porsche and many other high performance vehicles capable of doing a leisurely Sunday drive at 120 mph.

And there are few other things that will teach you the value of lane discipline than to glance in the rear view mirror, see nothing and then have a blur of a Porsche pass you doing 140 mph. You learn to stay out of way. Unless of course you too own one of those works of art capable of going at the speed of blur.

In Germany everyone practices lane discipline. The same way they never cross the road unless they have the little green man.

In Italy they have lane discipline sorted out in that they don't have any lanes. You drive where ever, when ever you want to drive and stay the heck out of the way. Full stop. Which is the why they invented the Ferrari.

In Britain lane discipline is more of an aspiration. The British abhor the slovenly approach to lane discipline in the USA. They silently admire the strict adherence to the rules of the road in Germany and they are downright green with envy of the Italians lack of due care. But the stiff upper lipped Brits can't quite imagine anything themselves outside of simply sitting in the middle lane.

The Brits will never ever pass you on the wrong side of the road. That would be a sign of weakness. They will however do the entire journey in the middle lane to avoid being passed or merged into. They suffer fairly strong status anxiety and can't quite bear the fact that someone is passing them so they thinking nothing of holding up all the traffic travelling at 10 miles below the speed limit in the middle lane. I have sat in 10 miles of traffic jams with the slow lane being completely empty. No one wants to be seen over there.

And if like my husband you have a terminal case of speed anxiety you must be the fastest person on the road passing everyone you come upon in the middle lane.

So be warned if driving in the UK, the slow lane is for losers. The middle lane are for slightly less losers. And the fast lane is for the brave. And the stupid.

New Carpet

2010-04-02T06:41:00.002+01:00

When we moved into this house nearly 6 years ago, the first thing we did was paint a couple of the rooms. Let's just say the previous owners had rather dubious tastes.

The lounge in particular was painted this baby poo yellow/green. That had to go.

But it's easy to paint walls. What wasn't so easy was replacing the hideous red/burgundy/orangey carpet they had laid throughout the house. Fortunately, on the ground floor, only the lounge is carpeted. Unfortunately, this dark colour showed everything cat hair, every dog hair, every thing. I was forever stressing about hoovering. The last thing we did before company arrived was to run the hoover. And if we had unannounced visitors I wouldn't let them go beyond the kitchen.

Now some of you reasonable people might be asking yourself, why didn't that crazy woman just go and replace the carpet? Now I don't know who you think you're calling crazy, but my daddy raised me right. You can't just go round throwing things out before they have been used up.

And when we moved into this house 6 years ago these carpets were brand spanking new. So I lived with it. Not happily I might add. Every time I hoovered I complained, silently (and sometimes not so silently). I apologised to visitors for assaulting their visual sensibilities and waited for the day when the carpet could justifiably be replaced.

That glorious day came a few months back. OK, if we were really hard pressed I could have eeked a few more years out of it but the stress was more than I could bear. Instead I opted for the stress free option. Or shall I say I them subjected my husband to the stress of finding just the right colour?

One Sunday afternoon we visited our neighbours for a cuppa tea and biscuits to discover that they had replaced their lounge carpeting and they had the colour I coveted. That simple. Let the neighbours do the shopping. We promptly made our way to the same shop, the same salesman, and scheduled the installation.

Marc moved all the furniture to the playroom and waited at home for the installation. Abigail and I came home after the school run and there it was. Marc had move all the furniture back into the lounge and it was delightful.

Glorious, Beautiful, Exquisite, Pristine cream (marshmallow to be exact) carpeting. For the first time since having children I had cream carpet.

Right up until the moment Abigail dropped a slice of pizza face down on it. 8 hours after the carpet had been installed. 8 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!

Now I know people are more important than things. I know things can be replaced. blah blah blah. Let's just say this wasn't one of my shining moments as a parent and I wish I'd handled it better. But dang gone it, 8 HOURS? Really?

We frantically dabbed and mixed solutions of laundry detergent, vinegar, stain remover, and everything else the books say to use. No one else can see the stain. My husband says he can't see the stain but he wouldn't see an elephant in the room. Every time I enter the room my eye goes to that spot. I'm not sure I can see the stain. But I imagine I can see the stain.

I had new carpets for exactly 6 hours. Not one of those did anyone spend in the house.

Bath

2010-04-01T06:00:00.001+01:00

The first day of our Easter holidays was to be an embrace of the luxuriousness of the enjoyment of all things around us. So I had big plans of heading off to Bath to check out the Roman Baths and the Bath Abbey.

I have extremely fond memories of Bath. However, I suspect this has less to do with the place and more to do with the company. My grandmother had come to visit me in England just after I moved here. It was the first and only time she came to visit me. We had spent a week in the Cotswolds. We'd stayed in charming B&Bs with claw footed bath tubs bigger than hot tubs chintzed to the max with rose budded duvets and curtains and chairs and sofas and pillows. We visited villages with odd names like Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaguhter. We bought an antique clock (which we still have) in a small little village. We walked all over Cheltenham. We laughed at the sight of a horse we had mistaken for a statue wee for 20 minutes. We had played gin rummy for hours sitting in pubs drinking ale. Nanny had marveled at the 7 different vegetables served with our Sunday Roast Beef (each and every one of them lovingly over cooked in the way only the English can do).

Our last day we made our way to Bath. We were exhausted. And she was in her 70s. So we took the easy way out and took a whistle stop double decker bus tour. I tell you Bath looked lovely from there. But I hadn't stepped foot into the baths or the abbey so I always felt slightly guilty when I said I'd been to Bath. I'd really only had someone else drive me round it.

As Sebastian is studying the Romans at school I wanted to go to Rome for the Easter holidays. As a recovering Catholic I have always wanted to be in the holiest of Christian cities for the holiest of Christian holidays. I've always wanted to see the spectacle of the Pope saying mass in St Peter's Square. But my husband has something against Italy. Something about them not being civilised. Can't imagine what he thinks he's talking about. These people invented sewers and water aqueducts and they have some of the best food in the world. I've been to Rome several times and it is my second favourite city (only to Florence - another Italian city). there is so much history here. Everywhere you look!

But the gods (or is that one god) conspired against me and we didn't quite make it to Rome. So I looked around and found that whilst exquisite Italian food is hard to find here, we have plenty of Roman ruins of our own. We picked Bath for the baths.

I knew it was going to be a bit tricky when we woke to a downpour but I will not let this weather beat me. I've lived in this grey, wet country far too long to let a gale force wind stop me.

My plans had us setting off at 9 am but this got scuppered when Marc had a panicked call from a customer who needed some urgent assistance. He assured me he would be back for a slightly later departure time of 10 am. At 11 my husband appeared wondering why we weren't standing outside in the rain waiting breathlessly for his arrival.

I agreed to drive under duress as Marc needed to do get some work done during the journey. We had estimated our travel time to be 1.5 hours which would have been entirely reasonable had the Highways Agency been able to organise a piss-up (drinking contest) in a brewery. But noooooo.

During the 70 mile stretch there were 5 different work zone of more than 5 miles each where the speed was reduced to no more than 50 mph. Speed cameras measuring average speed ensured my temptation to ignore the law was scuppered. This meant our 1.5 hour estimation was in reality just over 2 hours and given our late departure time we arrived in Bath at lunch time.

So we popped into the M&S to grab some sandwiches although with the rain continuing to announce its presence with authority there was no where to eat our lunch unless we fancied some soggy bread. Besides as luck would have it neither of the children particularly fancied our choice of sandwiches. My patience was wearing thin.

We duly paid our entrance fee of £30 and excitedly set upon our audio tours, one for the children and one for the adults. Soon thereafter more troubles ensued.

The site was jam packed. A representative from the site has since informed me that a number of group visits were booked for the day and most of them did not turn up at their allotted times. No, they waited until we got there. We got pushed, We got pulled, We got shoved. We couldn't see a thing, especially the children.

We had been given free audio tour devices upon our entrance. The children really seemed to enjoy theirs. The commentary must have been entertaining and engaging as Sebastian kept complaining we were moving too far ahead and needed to slow down so he could finish listening. this is what all mothers dream of hearing so we quite happily slowed down.

Unfortunately, the audio tours were not quite as good for the adults. It didn't move at the same pace as the children's but that is not always a bad thing. However, music whilst just standing in a thronging crowd doesn't make it come alive for anyone. Tell me something I wouldn't know by just being there on my own. There are additional commentary tracts narrated by the author Bill Bryson which are good but he does swerve into over sentimental territory often. I, also, am awe struck by the historical significance of the baths. You don't have to tell me how awe struck you are seven times (or more....I only started counting when my annoyance levels went into hyper speed).

To make matters worse, a large portion of the site is under refurbishment. This cause major foot traffic jams in pinch points in the exhibits particularly when there was a long audio explanation in a specific area. And all that construction disrupted the continuity of the site making it extremely difficult to visualize what the site looked like which is a key component for a curator of a museum of this historical significance.

I suppose I was most upset that we didn't see any signage at the entrance that indicated there was refurbishment work taking place. When I checked out the website I didn't see any either. And the teller certainly didn't mention it when we bought our tickets. I think it is a bit cheeky to ask people to pay a full price ticket when only half the site is available to view. And even then you couldn't see it for all the crowds.

The final straw on this camel's back was the spa water fountain. The water in the baths is untreated. You should not touch it or drink it. However, there is the promise of a spa water fountain at the end of the tour. The children were desperate to try a drink. So we went and joined the queue. The long queue. The very long queue which was getting longer as there was no one serving the water from the fountain. Nor did there appear to be anyone interested in resolving the situation.

It is safe to say that we left there with a somewhat bitter (and parched) taste in our mouths. I am happy to inform you my dear readers that a very nice woman, Katie Smith, has responded to the, I am ashamed to admit, rather vitriolic email I sent this morning. She responded to everyone one of my complaints and apologised profusely. Additionally she offered a free ticket for our family to return to the site once the refurbishments are complete as they have overrun. She also offered a full refund but when someone is that nice and professional and fair, you gotta give it another go. So, dear Ms Smith, we will be back once your refurbishments are over. And it better be good!

After our rather unpleasant trip round the baths I was tempted to just get in the car and drive home. But I couldn't pass up the Bath Abbey. Never one to pass up an ancient church I just had to give this one a go. And I have to admit it was well worth the time. They had a little quiz for the children that ensured they explored every corner, nook and cranny. I discovered that the very first English monarch was crowned here in 973 AD. It had some of the most beautiful and best kept stained glass windows I have ever seen. It was dry. It was warm. It was peaceful. It was calming. It was perfect.

There will be a third trip to Bath in a few months time and we can't wait. Anyone fancy joining us? Third times a charm!

Mothering Sunday

2010-03-31T06:36:00.003+01:00

Is Mother's Day time for a mother to smother herself in all the love of her children or relish a day without the children? Is it a day to appreciate your mother or be appreciated for the mother you have become? Perhaps a little bit of all....but it is extremely difficult to fit all that into one Sunday. I love a good challenge.

My special day started with my husband delivering my favourite breakfast, eggs benedict, to me in bed. The children delivered their handmade pressies and cards and my husband provided a bit of ooomph with his exquisitely store wrapped package. In fact his gift was so well packed he said he had a "Love Actually gift wrap" moment (minus the mistress). If you haven't seent the film, go see it. The scene where Alan Rickman is waiting for a gift to be wrapped in Selfridges is hysterical.

I unwrapped my goodies and displayed sufficiently praise on the clay hearts and hand coloured cards. I oohed and aahed as I placed my new silver hoops in my ears. And then they all left me alone to enjoy my breakfast with coffee and the paper.

We then set off for the Isle of Wight to take Marc's mother to a late lunch. I had read about The Hambrough, the island's very first Michelin starred restaurant, in a magazine and we were dying to try it. I've been to loads of restaurants on the island and in my humble opinion, it is not the height of culinary experience. The Hambrough was exquisite. The food looked and tasted like works of art. Our children were immaculately dressed and no one spilt anything on anyone or anything. No dishes got broken. They even ate the food. Oh and don't tell anyone but they didn't even charge us for the children's main meals!

It was a beautiful day and the restaurant sits on a cliff over looking the English Channel towards France. We had sailed right past it last summer when we sailed across the channel. On this day we sat and enjoyed every luxurious moment and watched the boats pass us by.....

The restaurateur is just 23 years old. I cannot believe that a person this young would even be able to make something so wonderful. But he has. I hope the island supports this amazing endeavour and we hope to return and actually stay there as rumour has it that the rooms are just as luxurious as the lunch!

And I managed to give and get a little bit for me, a little bit for my children, a little bit for my mother-in-law. Luckily for me, Mother's Day is in May in America. Don't think I could have fit my mom in on this......although I'm sure she would have loved to give it a go!

Comment Settings

2010-03-31T06:28:00.000+01:00

Regular visitors and commenters to this blog (that would be my mother) will notice that I've had to change the comment settings requiring you to enter some letters as they appear on the screen if you wish to leave a comment. I've had to do this in an attempt to reduce the amount of spam that I am receiving. Oddly, this spam is directed at one post which is actually quite old. Not sure how or why this is happening but as the comments appear to be in Cyrillic meaning I can't read them I am playing it safe and trying to prevent them. Deleting them one by one is simply taking too long.

I apologise if this is a pain in the back side but quite frankly deleting the odd comments is a pain in my back side. Don't stop reading though!

Tap, Ballet, & Charlie

2010-03-30T07:36:00.001+01:00

The last weeks before the end of term culminates in the children displaying much of what they have learned in the term just gone.

A few weeks ago I was treated to seeing everything (such as it was) that Sebastian has created in Art, Design Technology (DT), ICT (Information Computer Technology), and Games/Physical Education. Not a single Art project was complete as there appears to be a problem with Sebastian finishing his choir practice and getting to art class but he manages to get a B for all the effort he puts into it. DT displayed a lovely bridge which was capable of holding 36 tins of baked beans which sounded like an awful lot but it was clear that he had once again run out of time to complete the centre support due to instrument lessons and his 36 was far short of the record of 116 tins. Sebastian continues his challenge with sport (literally). He is so much smaller than everyone else he quite simply keep up and no one understands this better than his mother. His attitude though had suffered and he seemed to just throw in the towel. Luckily that seems to have ceased and he gives it a bit more effort this term. Shame he can't get his clothes changed in under 15 minutes as he tends to miss most of the lesson by taking his sweet time changing clothes. I reckon its all a cunning plan. Sebastian is a geek just like his good ole mum and dad. He excels at ICT. What else would one expect? He can show me a thing or two about using a computer.

Sebastian also had two instrument exams this term on successive days. First was his violin exam on a Monday and then his piano exam on the Tuesday. I was a bundle of nerves. He, on the other hand, took his 1 hour cram violin lessons at Eton College which left his arms like jelly, just the day before the exam. He reported back to us that he feels he did "pretty ok". Not sure what that means or what the results are for either exam as the results don't come back for a few more weeks here. I am sure he did very well on his piano exam as he finds that much easier. Neither Marc nor I play a musical instrument so his prowess surprises us every day.

I was honoured to attend Abigail's tap and ballet performances. This is her first year doing tap and let's just say she ain't got much natural tapping rhythm. Lucky for her we don't currently have a video camera and I had broken the photo camera just before the tap performance. On the other hand, this is the 4th year she has been doing ballet and she has gotten quite good at it. She had beautiful posture. Her hands are delicate and she seems to have lovely expression in her free dancing. She seems so confident. It has to be said though that her best moves are clearly to MTV or the radio when she'll just start dancing madly around the house. Wonder where she gets that from? And we got the camera repaired and I have lots of beautiful photos of her exquisite poses.

The pinnacle of the excitement of the last week was the "Evening with Roald Dahl" performance where Sebastian had the honour to have a part as one of the leads as Charlie (from Chocolate Factory fame). We had practised his lines over and over but at the dress rehearsal Sebastian hadn't done well and needed to be prompted with every line.

His final performance displayed none of those missteps. He didn't miss a single line. After the show he confided that before going on stage he was very nervous but that once he was there "it felt like I was a different person and I just became very confident". I did point out to him that being a different person was exactly what acting was all about. I don't think he quite got it but his performance was fab with some impeccable comic timing. He is clearly very talented at acting. Wonder where he gets that from?

After all that excitement, we need a back!

Health

2010-03-29T21:13:00.003+01:00

The year hasn't started out so well for me. Actually the battle with my health has been fought for quite some time.

I had swine flu in the June of last year. Then I was strung my two wasps whilst on holiday in August. In November I fought an upper respiratory infection which left me battling an wicked ear infection and felt like someone was picking sticks in my ear. I seemed to rally in time for Christmas and then came the damp wet grey cold holiday in Spain for the New Year and that just tipped me over the edge.

I was powerless against the pneumonia which left me bound to the house and completely helpless. I had no energy. My temperature soared to over 102 for 12 days solid. I ate nothing for 3 days when my husband finally force fed me toast. A work colleague visited me and I still have no recollection of his visit. I couldn't sleep due to the excessive coughing. I couldn't breath. It felt like a herd of elephants were sitting on my chest.

I took all the drugs and had a reaction to the third course of antibiotics which left me in a worse state than I had been in when I started taking them. I followed all the doctor's orders and still I didn't get better.

I became depressed when nothing seemed to help and I didn't' get better for weeks and weeks. After nearly 5 weeks I began to recover. I returned to work but couldn't manage more than 2 hours. Even during those few hours my brain felt like mush. People would speak to me but I couldn't' for the life of me make sense of what they were saying. And when I did make sense of it I certainly couldn't do any critical analytical thinking about what they were saying. I would come home before midday and collapse into bed.

After a few weeks of this I stated to feel my mojo return. I was making sense of things. I could sustain my attention for more than 10 minutes.

And then I went on a training course and sat in some of the worse chairs ever for 8 hours 3 days in a row with only a few breaks.

I ignored the pain for weeks hoping it would just go away. Finally after 2 weeks, the pain won and seized in the middle of dinner out with my daughter. I made it home through tears with my daughter completely terrified. My husband wasn't home. The doctor couldn't come to the house until after hours. I couldn't sit. I couldn't stand. I couldn't lie down. I couldn't move.

The hospital gave me some serious pain killers and sent me into gagaland which is beautiful place to go. I spent 2 days in a complete fog.

I now have a physiotherapist and am working on the back pain. I don't need the pain killers more than once/day (usually at the end of the day). I have no cough, no cold, no infection. I am not taking any antibiotics.

Health is a funny old thing. You take it for granted when you've got it. And when you don't there is little you can do about it. In the depths of the pneumonia and at the height of the back pain I felt completely powerless. It scared the living daylights out of me.

I know I run at mach 10 with my hair on fire. I have a high stress job. I work full time and have 2 children under the age of 9. I do not have a nanny or an au pair. The only help I have at home is a cleaner who visits for 4 hours once/week (which to be fair is more than some have). My husband is sometimes more of another child than a help (aren't they all?). I do the school run every day. I help with Rainbows. I am a member of the school parent group.

I don't take enough time for myself but I don't know a mother who works outside the home who does. When we are not with our children we feel guilty for working. And when we are with our children we feel guilty for not working.

Now that I am better long may it continue. But I gotta take care of myself. I'm just not sure when I might be able to fit that in........

No PJs

2010-02-10T18:03:00.003Z

I hate bras, tights (or pantyhose as the Americans call them), and high heels (ever since breaking my ankle wearing them at work).

I love pajamas and slippers. One of the first things I do when I get home from a hard day out is to take off my shoes, slip on my slippers and take of my bra. People who pop round for visit unannounced have been known to catch me in my pjs and slippers in the early evening. Or possibly on a Sunday afternoon. If I had my way we would all wear PJs and slippers all the time.

A few weeks ago one of the largest supermarkets implemented a ban on customers wearing their pajamas into the store. Journalists have drawn similarities between this ban and the recent decision by the French government to ban the wearing of burqas in public. They maintain it is as much a cultural affront to wear pajamas to the supermarket as it is to wear a full veil on public transport or into the police station.

There's a huge difference between wearing pajamas and the burqa. The burqa is a symbol of submission and dominance. They obscure your identity and all non verbal methods of communication like facial expressions and body language. Jammies are a symbol of the desire to be free and comfortable. They obscure, well, nothing at all.

Now I've got some very nice pajamas. So nice in fact, I'm not sure you could readily tell the difference between some tracksuit bottoms and my jammies. How do they know I don't dress like that? In fact, those bubble trousers that Vanilla Ice wore could have easily have been mistaken for pajamas.

And the real cultural affront is the length (or lack thereof) of some very small skirts I have seen some girls (and some older women) wear. Or those tiny little skimpy outfits the youngens wear on a Friday/Saturday nights out when they could easily be mistaken for selling their wears by putting it all out on display. Shouldn't they ban those little pieces of string some girls call skirts.

And what about those trousers that boys wear that hang down past their hips threatening to fall down to their ankles at any moment causing them to fall and me and my children to trip over them and get all mucked up by their greasy hair. Now that is a health and safety issue just waiting to happen.

What next? Are they going to enforce that I wear a bra? Makeup? Get plastic surgery?

Luckily, I don't shop at Tesco. Well, I used to in an emergency because they are closer than Sainsburys. But not anymore. Sainsburys I hope you are listening. I would hate to have to do all my shopping at the corner shop where they often greet me at 7 am in the morning popping in to grab some milk for my children's cereal wearing my pajamas.

A Donut Shared

2010-02-07T10:55:00.003Z

The children enter the bedroom where I am enjoying some late sleeping. They announce that daddy has bought them donuts. With my eyes still closed I ask if I can have a donut. They both agree to bring me one.

I open one eye to see a small orange plastic plate with two halves of two different donuts has been delivered to my bedside. I sit up and revel in all that sugary pleasure that a donut brings.

Feeling much better I come downstairs and ask my hubby if there are any more. He says he only bought 2.

It is at that point that the depth of my children's generosity washes over me.

They had both come downstairs and cut their own donuts in half so that I might have a whole.

I am speechless.

Down But Not Out

2010-02-03T11:25:00.003Z

I am pleased to announce that I am finally on the road to recovery.

I've been off work since January 13 and was diagnosed with pneumonia. I've had 3 courses of antibiotics and for several weeks couldn't leave the house. I couldn't sleep at night due to the coughing. I've had a fever topping out at nearly 103. I've had an adverse reaction to an antibiotics that left me seriously ill for 12 hours. I couldn't move off the chair during the day an was exhausted by climbing the stairs once a day. I had completely lost my appetite and at one point hadn't eaten for 3 days.

I'm not entirely sure how it all started. Back in the end of November I had a bit of a cough and missed a few days of work. But I seemed to recover for December. Then we went to Spain and I think the rain and damp and cold just did me in. Within a week of returning I had hit the skids.

The good news is I seem to be well down the road to recovery. I've had a shower and smell better. My hair is done and I'm dressed in something other than my dressing gown and pjs. Makeup was a step too far right now but maybe this weekend. I've been through my emails and I think gotten them under control. I started writing a To Do List which Marc says is a sure indicator that I am feeling better.

I'm hoping to return to work next week if all goes according to plan. I promise to start slowly and ease into it although all that email makes me sick just thinking about it.

I lost the will to recover at one point during the second week. I could see no progress and it just felt like I was getting better. That day I received a phone call, a card and a lovely bunch of flowers. It brightened my day and made me smile.

A big thank you to all the mums at school who helped with the school runs. A bit thank you to all who send cards and flowers. A big thank you to all who rang to cheer me up and check on me. A big thank you to those who loaned me DVDs. A big thank you to everyone who offered to help out in anyway.

I'm nearly back!

Inspiration

2010-01-21T18:49:00.000Z

“To St George’s Chapel in the evening for one of the finest pieces of singing I have yet heard there; and the last for a bit. I shall never mind going to war if I know that I am fighting that such institutions as St George’s may live, for they are England and epitomise the spirit of tradition and worship – the laying before God of the most perfect and beautiful singing that man can produce. Just as much work and practice goes into each service even when no one is there but God. There is nothing slip-shod or cheap there, and the result is inspiring and uplifting”.

Written by a young Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards in the summer of 1943, before going off to fight in WWII. He died in Italy, aged just twenty-one – taken from the Friends 1949 Annual Report.

Choir Background

2010-01-18T07:50:00.003Z

This video should provide some context for what Sebastian does as a chorister and where he does it.

The video was made last summer and many of the boys & men are the same although a few boys obviously graduated last year. As ever, the quire in the castle where the choir sings remains the same and has for hundreds of years.

Lots of you ask what is the choir. Well I've got data galore!

The Choir of St. George's Chapel comprises 23 boy choristers and twelve Lay Clerks singing alto, tenor and bass. The boys are educated at St George's School which is situated in the Castle grounds, and the Lay Clerks live in the Horseshoe Cloister, just to the west of the Chapel, and on Denton's Commons.

St George's Chapel exists to provide a place to give thanks to Almighty God and to pray for the Sovereign and the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and the work of the choir is central to that aim. The choir was founded at the same time as the founding of the College in 1348 and, with the exception of the Commonwealth period (1649-60), has sung the services continuously since then. The choir sings regularly in the presence of the Queen and other members of the Royal family, and in recent times sang at the marriage of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones; it sang also at a concert in celebration of the seventieth birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, and at celebrations for the eightieth birthday of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. The choir sang at the funeral of Princess Margaret in St George's and also at the Thanksgiving service for her life held in Westminster Abbey.

Any questions?

Death Penalty

2010-01-16T06:07:00.001Z

I used to know things for sure but these days I'm not so......certain.

20 years ago I would have defended the death penalty as an apt and just punishment for those who commit unspeakable acts against mankind. These acts are so heinous there seemed little point in allowing them to continue to live in any conditions. Even the worse conditions would not be punishment enough and the world would be a much better place after their eradication.

10 years later I began to doubt the fallibility of the criminal justice system and the people working within it. The threat of killing just one innocent person wrongly convicted was enough to put an end to my unequivocal support.

The advance of the sophistication around the evidence provided by DNA has caused my support to swing once again. DNA can and does provide irrefutable proof of an individual's guilt/innocence.

But does an eye for an eye really serve as a deterrent? I doubt a criminal stops before he kills and thinks he might just get the death penalty so maybe he'll just shoot his victim in the foot. No, they aim to kill or don't even give it a second thought.

Is the death penalty really a just punishment? Ending the suffering of incarceration could be seen as an easy option; better not to have to live a life in prison than to spend the entire rest of their life deprived of their freedom.

By taking someone else's life have we as a society not become just as heinous as the murderer? We condemn executions in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanisatan. So, am I to presume it's ok if we do it but not our enemies? Hypocrisy.

Killing a murdered doesn't bring the victim back to life. And I'm not sure how much comfort it can bring to the family of those left behind. What I do know is that it creates a whole new family who has to deal with a loss.

The cost of keeping someone on death row is extravagant. These people have all of Maslow's basic hierarchy of needs met which they may not have when they were outside their imprisonment. Many prisons can be seen as an easier life than the criminals had on the outside which is one of the reasons cited for such incredibly high recidivism rates. Prison can seem like as fun as a boarding school.

But it isn't. And all prisoners should be afforded the basics. Many people cannot afford cable or satellite television. Neither should the prisons. Access to computers with internet access should be withdrawn immediately. Prison should be hard.

The last execution in the UK was the hanging of Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans for the murder of John Alan West in 1964. The statute for allowing execution as a penalty was stricken from the books in 1998. There are 389 people on Florida's death row alone.

Wikipedia has an excellent objective entry for capital punishment. The trouble is, it isn't helping me make up my mind.

Feliz Roscon de Reyes

2010-01-05T21:18:00.001Z

The day the kings present Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh is also known as the 12th day of Christmas or if you are in Spain as Epiphany. This day falls on 6 January and is a big national holiday . What we hadn't expected was how much fun we were going to have on the Eve of Epiphany.

In every town, village and city there is a parade. In El Rompido our 3 kings arrived by boat at 4 pm on the pier and immediately started chucking sweets at the people on the pier. A band then led the way to the thrones where the kings seated with their harems were to be pulled by tractors and then paraded around the streets. From the trailers the kings and harem threw confetti, sweets and small toys into the crowds which lined the roads and chased after tractors. There was quite a battle for the balls which appeared to be the most coveted toys. We filled my handbag and every pocket with sweets and Marc made a spectacular catch of a red ball that had bounced off a light post. Even our car had sweets on it when we returned to it.

The kings then gathered at the entrance to the local church where they were presented with flowers and they laid their boxes of gifts at the altar. And we went off to get some food for dinner.

We had been noticing these round cakes filled with cream or chocolate or custard and we realised that this is what a typical Spanish family eats on the night before Epiphany. So we just had to get us one! And so we did....it was delicious. We found a plastic toy inside the piece we cut for Abigail and a inedible nut of some sorts wrapped in plastic in Sebastian's. Near as I can figure this is for good luck.

As we pack and prepare for our departure early tomorrow morning, we have had a wonderful holiday. We saw and learned a lot of things we didn't know about Spain. We were surprised with unplanned adventures several times. The children have made some wonderful memories. I wish it had been warmer and sunnier but despite my best attempts I just cannot control the weather!

There is a blizzard in England and sever weather warnings are in place for tonight. It is forecast that 16 in of snow will fall over night. Hopefully the airport we are flying to won't be affected but we will certainly find the drive home a challenge. The weather may beat us yet!

Lost in Seville

2010-01-05T08:24:00.001Z

I think I have fallen in love with Seville. Prior to today my favourite European city was Florence followed by Rome but I'm afraid my Italian devotion may have come to an end.

Once we overcame the trauma of parking, we embarked on a never ending treasure hunt of narrow lane after narrow lane. Stopping at a cafeteria the children snacked on ice cream and we had some coffee to fortify ourselves for some heavy duty sight seeing.

Around every corner was a new breath taking church. Entering the cathedral literally took our breath away. It is the largest cathedral in the world, even bigger than St Paul's in London or St Peter's in Rome. The stained glass was incredible. We paid our homage at Christopher Columbus' tomb and headed outside to marvel at the tower.

The sun was shining and we wandered the twisty turny streets to find some lunch at a local tapas bar. We tried the local orange wine which was mmmmmmmm gooooood!

Back into the streets headed for the Alcazar we could see the storm clouds gathering and managed to make it inside just before the mist turned to downpour. The only trouble with this is that the Alcazar is half inside half outside and around every corner we would find ourselves running across yet another charming courtyard to avoid getting soaked. The children thought this was a fabulous game.

When the skies cleared we explored the streets of the Barrios de Santa Cruz aimlessly until the day turned to night. The Sevilians packed the streets. They are like little vampires who only come out after dark. Before heading for the car we popped in for some more ice cream and coffees and then to the local grocery shop for some basic provisions (milk, bread). As we were bagging up it started to rain. A lot!

Donning our rain gear we headed into the streets. Marc turned left and I turned right. The we deicded straight ahead was the right way. Then left. Then right. Then right. Then left. And so on and so on and so on. At which point the children asked us if we knew where we were going. And we realised we didn't. Nor did we know where we were. After 20 minutes of walking around in circles in the dark driving rain panic started to set in. Trying to refer to a not very detailed map in the torrential downpour presented its own challenges.

We then realized the police were closing off roads and locals were lining the streets as if to watch a parade. Initially we couldn’t even contemplate stopping to watch as we were dead set on just finding the car park. And then we took a moment to just live in the moment.

We could hear a band in the distance and joined the throngs of people lining the narrow lanes for a short wait. Not sure what we were waiting for but everyone seemed very excited, especially the children who appeared to be all holding letters. We knew that the 12th day of Christmas, 6th January, is a national holiday and that Father Christmas delivers highly anticipated gifts (not unlike our Christmas Eve). Marc and I guessed these letters contained the equivalent of our letters to Santa.

Soon the band was upon us. And then Spaniards dressed in Arab garb complete with dark brown painted faces began collecting the letters and in return throwing candy into the crowds lining the roads. Even though our children had no letter to offer they were happy to collect the sweets. A man in a red suit on a donkey brought up the rear of the parade. Clearly he was the man, the top dog and the target of the letters. After just a few moments the parade had ended and everyone went about their business.

We then looked up and realized we were on a street corner that we recognised as one we had passed that morning when we left the car. We knew exactly where we were and how to get to where we were going.

I am so glad we didn’t miss it. I’m so glad we stopped and lived in that moment. We took time to breath and enjoy and all was good.

Off Road Adventures

2010-01-03T21:41:00.003Z

We bid farewell this morning to our host family as they left the driving rain of Spain and returned to the sleet and snow of England. Faced with the prospect of staying at the house with Spanish television or venturing out on our own we decided to explore the countryside around Huelva. After suitable perusal of the travel guides we decided to head east to the small town of Niebla to explore its walls and towers. We were not disappointed and although the rain meant we did a driving tour, the roads were deserted leading Sebastian to remark that the town had obviously been abandoned. Not true as I believe the many beautifully tiled homes were occupied but like us everyone was staying indoors and out of the rain.

We had 2 unsuccessful attempts at trying to find a place to grab a bite to eat and made a spur of the moment decision to head for La Palma del Condado. After one hair raising experience with a toilet at a petrol station we found ourselves at this breathtaking town, a centre of Spanish wine production. The rain lifted long enough for us to have a walk around the town square admiring the beautiful church, narrow lanes and gorgeous homes. At this point we ducked into La Agencia for lunch which is so far my favourite part of the trip.

No one spoke any English. They didn't even have a menu with bad English translations. The waiter did his best and everyone was so friendly. Sebastian managed an hysterical conversation about football (go Chelsea!) and Abigail wants to know why everyone keeps petting her head of blonde hair. The children had some fabulous chicken. I had a wonderful steak in gravy but Marc wins the grand prize for the most spectacular tapas choices ever. I couldn't even begin to tell you what it all was but we wanted more!

We had one last stop to make. We had seen a sign directing us to a site of archeological importance, Dolmen de soto, which should be a burial mound or possibly a plinth like those found at Carnac. We decided to investigate and turned off the main road or rather what looked for all intents and purposes to be the road. The road was marred by larger and larger pot holes. At one point we were crossing a bridge that I'm not entirely sure really was a bridge. And there were holes in that. I had visions of ringing the hire car company and having to explain (in Spanish) why their hire car was stuck in in a hole. I am certain that the alignment of the steering will never be the same.

The good news is we found the site. The bad news is despite a large visitor centre being evident the site was closed off. A large hole in the fence provided a few Spaniards entrance but we decided not to risk it not wanting to fall foul of the legalities of trespassing and returned to our car never having seen the attraction. Still not even sure what it was we were looking for.

The day was filled with adventures big and small (trying to purchase laundry soap at a petrol station) and by the time we returned to our home we were all shattered!

Cordoba

2010-01-03T08:14:00.002Z

Yesterday we made our way east into the heart of Andulusia to visit the once great city of Cordoba. Originally founded as a Roman city in 152 BC the Moors established it as the centre of Moorish Spain in 756 and it became the centre of the western Islamic Empire rivaling Cairo and Baghdad. The primary attraction of the city is the Mezquita which is considered by most to be the grandest and most beautiful mosque ever constructed by the Moors.

The drive from Huelva (near us) to Seville was a long slog through featureless landscape scarred with tasteless urban development and despite only being 90 kilometres it seemed to take forever. Once beyond Seville though the next 130 kilometers opened up to reveal beautiful undulating green hills dotted with olive and orange groves. We didn't even notice the length of this leg of the journey.

As you come down the hills and around the last bend Cordoba reveals itself and as a tourist it is quite obvious where to head. We took quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the various parking restrictions were in place but finally just took a chance and left the car where we had initially pull in and given it was still there when we returned and we didn't have to pay a penny I would say parking was easy peasy.

Given all the rain we have had recently it was no surprise that the river was high and in fact one side had flooded the bottom floors of the gatehouse. The locals seemed in awe as they photographed the rushing river below us.

After passing a series of elaborate archways, we entered the orange tree filled courtyard of the Mezquita. This was the ablution garden complete with numerous fountains, a peaceful oasis despite the sightseers. The Mezquita was originally a basilica and there is now a Catholic church built on/in the mosque but the numerous columns, arches and open spaces are unquestionably that of a mosque.

After the Mezquita we toured the narrow alleys of the Juderia, the Jewish quarter and fell into our seats in a crowded tapas bar to enjoy the various gastronomic tidbits, my favourite being the deep fried aubergine (eggplant) slices. The children loved the local speciality of Iberica pork loin. Marc just loved his cerveza.

It was a chilly day (only 12 C - 50 F) but the sun was shining and I got a bit of pink on my face as evidence of a great day out!

A Decade Later

2010-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

I remember 10 years ago today like it was yesterday. Marc and I were at the Dart International Sailing Championships in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I did my first open water dive on New Year's Eve 1999. We were drinking gin and tonics for .35p on a veranda overlooking the sea. The temperature was roughly 96 F and there was a lovely sea breeze. We drank until we rang in the bells of 2000 and our best attempts at staying awake to see the sun rise over the horizon failed. We went for a long and possibly the scariest walk I've ever been on down on the beach where we were the only white faces in a sea of thousands of black faces. We decided that we might not want to go very far so instead we returned to our hotel and enjoyed a lovely braai (BBQ).

Where has the time gone?

In a decade, Marc and I have married. We have 2 gorgeous children. We have a gorgeous home (2 in fact). We run a successful business. I've got an amazing job. We have lost (and gained) numerous pounds. We have laughed and we have cried. We have sang. We have danced. We have made many friends and lost a few (I so miss my grandmother). We have changed in ways that were unimaginable.

The world around us has changed in ways that are unfathomable. In December 1999, Y2K was threatening (but I secretly knew it was all a hoax). September 11 hadn't yet happened and airports were more like shopping malls than lockdowns. No one had Sat Nav. Or an iPhone. Or Facebook. Or a blog.

I don't think I've ever looked back on a decade and experienced such upheaval. I look out into the future and can't see beyond tomorrow. In the next decade at least one of my children will have probably (hopefully?) left home. But beyond that I can't see that far. In December 1999, I never would have guesses that I would be sitting in the sunshine in a gorgeous home in Southern Spain surrounded by laughing, screaming children playing Nintendo DS Lites drinking Cava with fabulous friends I didn't even know but are now our closest of mates.

Maybe I'll lose those final unwanted pounds (and keep them off). Maybe I'll write a novel. Maybe we'll buy our yacht. Maybe we'll win the lottery.

I hope we are always relatively healthy. And warm and dry. And well fed. And happy.

But my overwhelming new year's resolution is to remember to enjoy this moment. And the next. And the next. And the next. But each moment in and of itself will be worthy of enjoyment. And so I shall.

May your next decade be filled with moments that all add up to the realisation of your hopes and dreams.

Rain in Spain

2009-12-31T08:46:00.004Z

Our friends Sean and Helen purchased a wee little holiday home in Spain. And we celebrated. Visions of sunny breaks in our dark winter danced in my head. And what a better time than the week between Christmas and New Year to get a bit of Vitamin D on a beach?

Our plane landed in Faro, Portugal and as we walked across the parking lot to get our rental car the wind lashed us and the rain soaked us. I prayed the skies would clear during the hour drive to Spain. Alas, it was not to be.

This part of Spain has had record rain fall and we have found ourselves dashing outside to enjoy the brief breaks in the grey sky. The beach is full of shells and starfish and bubbles (that might be sewage?). Just in time we ducked into a Chiringuito on the beach at Playa de Punta Umbria to enjoy lunch whilst the biggest rain drops lashed the beach outside the windows of the restaurant. The storm clouds were frightening and the Spanish staff rushed to fill the gaps in the windows as the water leaked in. We sat oblivious as we enjoyed a meal of shrimp pancakes, cuttlefish, baby squid and anchovies. The children are being a bit adventurous in their culinary choices (they must be starving). Even Marc is enjoying the fish.

We've played Quirkle and Scrabble and Cluedo. I am thanking the nerds of the world for iPods, iPhones and Nintendo DS Lites. Lottie and Abgail have entertained us with a variety show every night. Tonight is the Grand Finale.

As I write this the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the weather forecast is improving! We may get our Vitamin D after all.

She is 6

2009-12-24T11:09:00.000Z

Breakfast with Santa

2009-12-23T20:14:00.001Z

We had our annual breakfast with Santa a few mornings ago and the gift lists have been officially registered. Of course, we couldn't hear what the children told him so who knows if they will get what they asked for. Apparently, parents aren't allowed to hear what the children tell Santa. Well, that makes it a bit of a challenge!

Third Tooth

2009-12-23T07:47:00.001Z

Sebastian lost his third tooth yesterday whilst we were enjoying tea and mince pies round the neighbour's house. We got another one that is loose. I do believe he has added teeth to his Christmas list.

Best Christmas Single

2009-12-22T06:46:00.000Z

Hawaiian Christmas

2009-12-16T05:03:00.000Z

In the tale of The Littlest Angel, angels travel all over the world looking for the perfect place for the son of God to be born whilst the littlest angel falls asleep in a stable in Bethlehem. The angels travel to North America and visit the Native Americans. They travel to the Far East and see beautiful gardens. They travel to Scotland where it rains but the people are very nice and dance funnily. They travel to Hawaii where the sun is always shining and the flowers always in bloom. And they hula.

Abigail was a hula girl and a fine hula girl was she. I can honestly (and boastfully) admit that she was the best hula girl I have ever seen in my entire life.

When the angels report back all they have seen, the littlest angel wake sup and admits she has been asleep the entire time and it is decided that if the stable was good enough or the littlest angel it is good enough for the son of God. And so Jesus is born in a stable in Bethlehem.

I love school Nativity plays!

Rainbow Promise

2009-12-15T06:55:00.000Z

In September Abigail started in the local troop of Rainbows which are are the group before Girl Guides (which is like Girl Scouts in the USA). Last week she made her Rainbow promise and is now a full fledging Rainbow. She took it all very seriously!

Christmas Cupcakes

2009-12-14T14:45:00.001Z

Faces of World Leaders

2009-12-01T06:26:00.000Z

I just love this collection of photographs of world leaders taken at the UN this past September. If you click on a photograph you can then play the narrative by the photographer about that photo. A face is worth a thousand words....

Georgetown Chimes

2009-11-30T06:16:00.002Z

According to instructions available on Facebook, this is my debut album cover. If I had a band it would be named Georgetown Chimes, and my first album would be titled 'make him mad'. I fancy myself as the lead singer and am setting about to write some songs.

To create your own album cover, follow these steps (and pass on these instructions to your friends):

1 - Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/. Click “Random Article" in the top left navigation box. The title of the random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
The last few words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. I suggest http://www.picnik.com if you don't have your own photo editing software. You can work online and save it to your hard drive for free. :)

I Love the Whole World

2009-11-29T09:16:00.004Z

Which led to this comic.......

Which led to....

Virus & Violins

2009-11-26T09:50:00.002Z

I dragged myself from my death bed for a very special date with my son.

Back in June I had booked tickets for just the 2 of us to go to Cadogan Hall in London to see a violin concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Neither of us had ever been to Cadogan Hall or seen the orchestra before. This was going to be a bit of an adventure.

But I was ill. Very ill. I am on antibiotics and just about the maximum cold medication dosage allowed. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I loaded up on throat lozenges and cough syrup at the local chemist.

I started getting ready at 1 in the afternoon so I could rest in between exertions like taking a shower and blow drying my hair. When Seb arrived home from school he found me flat out on the sofa but determined to have a magical evening.

He changed into some very smart looking trousers and shirt and we set off with our map to the hall and nearby parking in hand. We had a lovely discussion on the way whilst navigating the nightmare of rush hour traffic (5:30 pm) into the centre of London. Sebastian entertained me with his philosophical observations like why do minutes go so slowly but hours go so quickly. Good question I thought. Why do we have to pay congestion charge when driving into London? An even better question!

In a mild panic I realised that my car doesn’t lock. The car is a cheap disposable kind. OK, not that cheap but French and they certainly don’t build them to last. It has one of those keyless key thingies. You’re not supposed to need it to unlock the doors or start the car. Just having it on your person or your handbag is sufficient. At least it used to be. About 6 months ago the key stopped working on the door locking/unlocking and I have to put the key in a slot to get the thing started. The locking thing isn’t a big deal usually because there’s no way a person walking past can tell if the car is locked or not so I make sure there is nothing valuable in it and just don’t lock it. Which is fine in our driveway. Not so fine in the centre of London. I found comfort in the fact that I was headed to a very posh part of London and the chance of random vagrants/thieves walking down the road trying every car door was remote. Besides I had a Renault Megane and all the other cars were going to be Aston Martins. Surely, they’d rather have one of those. I know I would.

In a bit more of a panic I turned right too early and we had a bit of an adventure getting back to where we needed to be in order to get to where we wanted to go. That will only make sense if you’ve ever driven through London. The streets are laid out with less sense than a spider’s web. You think you’re heading west and then bam, the river is in front of you which means that you’ve actually been driving south for the last 4 miles. Ah, those medieval peasants had quite the sense of humour.

We found a parking space and Sebastian made the astute observation that we had parked right in front of the hall. So we did. As I read the parking restriction signs I knew it was too good to be true. We asked a man at the hall if he had any suggestions and he sent us on a wild goose chase down Kings Road. After several aborted attempts down various roads finally I gave up and headed back to where we started.

We found some 4 hour meter parking just around the corner from where we had started. I duly fed 12 pound coins into the meter. Why I was carrying around 12 pound coins remains a mystery to me but I am going with the story that it is daily weight lifting routine. Again you will only get that if you have ever carried around pound coins in your handbag. They are heavy.

We walked up Sloane Street with me bundled up like a rough sleeper. I had about 4 layers of clothing under my coat, scarf, gloves, hat. I think maybe Sebastian was a bit embarrassed by my appearance but he never would have admitted that since I was buying the sushi. My fever had me sweating under the layers as was walked what suddenly became an epically long journey.

We were originally headed for Yo Sushi! at Harrod’s until I realised that Harrod’s is miles from Sloane Street. OK, not miles but too far for us to walk in our condition, especially since our wrong turning and parking misadventures had left us pinched for time.

As I walked past all the designer shops with dresses for skinny minnys my days before children and mortgages flashed back from the depths of my memory and the answer became clear. Harvey Nichols. Back before I had other’s depending on me for food and a roof, HN was my favourite place to drop a few bob and have nothing meaningful to show for it. But boy, did I feel great for having done so. But Harvey Nichols had a Yo Sushi! on the Fifth Floor. And that was all I needed tonight!

Seb was in heaven as he removed plate after plate from the conveyer plate and despite the difficulties of eating when you have an extremely loose tooth and a mother resembling Frosty the Snowman he got his fill.

When we went to pay I found that the tickets weren’t in my handbag. Mmmmm, that was odd.

I remembered during the parking hunt Seb had taken them out of my handbag so he could look at the map they were attached to. Not that he was helping much but he was trying so hard. Then I put the tickets in a safe place on the dashboard. As the minutes ticked away (very quickly he added) he checked the tickets for the start time of the concert. And that was the last we had seen the tickets. Oh, they must be in the car I thought as we moved off back down Sloan Street towards the car. Not too worry it was on the way to the concert hall and don’t pay too much attention to the sweat on my upper lip. That would just be my fever.

We turned that car upside down but the tickets were nowhere in the car. We turned my handbag updside down – no tickets. I turned Sebastian’s pockets inside out and no tickets. I broke down in tears and still no tickets. Sebastian made another philosophical observation that since Daddy wasn’t here we couldn’t even blame him, wish we’d brought Abigail.

Intellectually, I knew those tickets were in the car. Seb on the floor of the back seat found the tickets down along the side trapped. We slide the seat back and voila, tickets.

We had 10 minutes to spare.

The concert made everything we had endured up to that moment worth it. Seb was one of maybe 4 children in the audience and he was certainly the youngest. Watching an orchestra play is more satisfying than watching a sporting match. Sebastian plays the violin. Or at least he tries to. For purely selfish reasons I had wanted him to see and hear the possibilities of his playing. I wanted him to see professionals attain perfection. I wanted my ears to have a night off.

And it was magic. The orchestra started with the Carnival Overture by Dvorak which is just so much fun. Seb’s eyes were wide. So-Ock Kim was the soloist for Mendelssohn’s violin concerto and she was inspiring. Sebastian told me the music was louder if you closed your eyes. I thought he was falling asleep. During the internal we picked up a programme and drinks: OJ (for me) and cranberry juice (for him) and talked about how much practice these musicians must do every single day. I hope I wasn't too subtle. After the interval we head the emotional Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky. During the breathtaking parts, Seb would squeeze my hand. He was impressed. Not bad, mum!

We headed back to our car in the cold November night. Sebastian held my hand and told me how the orchestra was amazing and maybe he wanted to be conductor and how plucking the strings made a different sound to bowing the strings and the difference between a viola and a violin is size and sound and how big the bass cellist was and did I hear the harp and and and and?

We turned up the car heater and headed up Sloan Street passing the beautiful Christmas lights and deserted roads of nightime London. In under 5 minutes Sebastian was sound asleep. He went straight into bed when we got home. And I will remember this night for my entire life. I wonder if he will.

Remembrance Day

2009-11-11T11:11:00.001Z

Today is the commemoration of the World War II armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning - the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."

At precisely 11:11 am 2 minutes of silence is observed.

For weeks leading up to this date poppies begin to appear on the lapels of suit coats, macs, jackets, school children's uniforms, dinner lady's dresses. Everyone on the television and on the streets are wearing them. And we know why.

Over 1 million men and women of Great Britain died in the two World Wars. Over 400 have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must never forget.

The Sunday before 11 November is known as Remembrance Sunday. It is on this day that sons, daughters, mother, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands and wives all over Great Britain pause to remember those who have paid the ultimate price.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

--Laurence Binyon

When you go home, tell them of us and say, 'For your tomorrows these gave their today'.

--John Maxwell Edmonds

I dream of a day where there is no war. I fear it will never come.

Christmas Goodies

2009-11-08T09:41:00.004Z

Last year we gave boxes, baskets, and parcels of homemade Christmas goodies to all the people in our lives that help to make it the rich patchwork that it is: teachers, music instructors, postal deliverers, rubbish removers, scout leaders, gardener, classroom assistants, headmaster and headmistress.

Don't kid yourself into thinking this is the easy (or cheap) way out. Believe me, it would have been so much easier to hop onto the internet and buy them all a coffee mug or hand over a generic bottle of wine. And for cheap, has anyone checked out the price of sugar and butter (key ingredients in Christmas goodies) lately?

But the joy is in the giving. And the response to our homemade goodies was overwhelming. The children loved making it (although their contribution was limited to a lot of stirring) and they loved giving it. They really loved helping with the eating.

So we are off again. I am planning on what goodies to make. And I want your help. What is your favourite Christmas sweet, bread, and/or cookie?

PS Forget the popcorn balls. This particular goodie requires a skill that my Grandmother only managed to hand down to my sister who through lots of trial and error has perfected it and without her standing by my side I dare not attempt. It would only disappoint leading to tears and tantrums.

It's November: Gartner Symposium

2009-11-05T11:36:00.001Z

In addition to being a mother, wife, prolific reader and force of nature, I am also an IT professional. Every November I attend the Gartner ITExpo Symposium in Cannes, France. Some of you might think this is just a jolly good excuse to get out of the office. But those in the know, know this is an exhausting and demanding experience.

I come every year to update my skills and my knowledge of the industry. I spend 4 days (and nights) learning about the trends in the industry which are going to shape the future of my work next year and indeed the trajectory of my career.

During the days of week I've learned a lot about MDM, Sourcing, Collaboration, SOA, EA M&As, Methodologies. I've learned so much that right now I feel like my brain might explode.

The evenings have brought numerous opportunities to network with other IT porfessionals facing the same challenges as myself as well as Gartner specialists who have provided key direction to help me approach these challenges.

I've twittered every step of the way. I've met some clever people. I've picked up real nuggets of insight. I'vve been disappointed by the number of women in attendance. I've been frustrated at the lack of thought leadership shown by the attendees. I've been angered by a man complaining about my typing during a session whilst ignoring the man snoring next to him.

I've been soaked in a downpour and nearly blown over in the wind. I wish I had enough time to have gotten sun kissed but find I am pale from spending 90% of my day in windowless, overheated rooms.

I've dropped my engagement ring down the bathroom sink in the hotel but didn't miss a session as the hotel pulled out all the stops to get a plumber to me within 30 minutes who lovingly recovered this prized possession. I've drank far too much coffee (and wine). I've worried about my son at home ill with swine flu without a mummy's loving embrace.

I engaged in philosophical debates about the gap in the IT haves and have nots and the value of Twitter. I debated the impact of out sourcing on the economies of emerging nations.

Am now ready to go home, hug my children, kiss my husband, and put everything I've learned to the test.

Neglect

2009-11-03T11:58:00.004Z

Yes, I have neglected my blog. Yes, I have had a few other things on my plate. Yes, I will try to do better in the future. But quite frankly I'm not making any promises. Sometimes the cup just runneth over and mine is flowing down the hallway.

I've been so busy (with work, with family, with friends) I've not had a chance to sit down and get the creative juices flowing. I'm not reading. I'm not knitting, I'm not quilting. I was doing a lot of working. I am an over booked mummy taxi. I am an unpaid under appreciated director in a company which doesn't pay me (ok so my husband's business does pay me.....a little). But life is finally easing in a way that allows me to be more creative and think more. About life. About me. About you.

So let me just make clear I will try to do better. Because when I neglect to write I am neglected myself. This outlet is a non-negotiable extension of me and by not participating here I am not investing in myself. And we just can't have that now, can we? And, mom, get off my back! I'm back.

Year 1

2009-09-26T18:05:00.000+01:00

Year 1 is a big step up. The emphasis shifts (albeit gradually) from playing to learning. She thinks she's ready for it. I'm not so sure.

Duty

2009-09-25T08:16:00.001+01:00

Sitting in the chapel for the third week in a row and I am in awe of my son and what he is doing.

I can hear a soft rumbling outside the Quire as the chapel enters the church and they assemble themselves.

The organ echoes off the ancient walls of this historic chapel. At my feet is the burial plot of King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour (his 3rd wife). I sit in ancient oak stalls with the brass plates of the Knights of the Garter behind my head. King Louis V is to my right. They represent the servants of the realm and the Queen’s most trusted advisors. I feel like I am part of this history. Or at least my son is.

He walks into the chapel with the other choristers towering above him. He is by far the smallest; perhaps the smallest chorister ever. They’ve even had to shorten his cassock so that it would fit him.

His cassock is a rich burgundy red. The colour suits him. He looks so grown up. Or maybe he looks little acting grown up.

He wears an uncharacteristic stoic look on his face until his eye catches mine and I see a slight smile in his eyes. Sometimes his mouth betrays him and he gives me a proper smile. But it doesn’t last long. He is all business. He knows this is important.

The voices of angels are heard every time these boys open their mouths. They soar to the roof tops and back. I get goose bumps every time I hear them sing and tears spring to my eyes as I burst with pride. Is this my child? How did he become this incredible person? And what was I doing when he became him?

Sebastian sings every word of the service. He sings in English. He sings in Latin. He concentrates and knows this is his duty. To God. To Country. To Queen.

He sneaks me a wry smile as he exits the Quire. He is full of himself and his accomplishment. He knows he has a lot to learn. His enthusiasm about music theory I find quite baffling. His dedication to his piano is admirable. He frustration with his violin his pitiable.

I won’t speak to him until tomorrow evening by which time his performance will be long forgotten in the memory of an 8 year old. But these moments I will never forget.

The Sex Talk

2009-09-10T06:25:00.000+01:00

I am so not prepared for "the sex talk". Actually, I think I'm more prepared to give my daughter the talk but far less prepared to give my son the talk.

My mom and dad never gave me the sex talk. Well, I think my mom probably thinks she gave me the sex talk but by the time she got round to it I think I had lost my virginity. I must have been about 17. And my dad, well, let's just say I think my father imagines both of my children were conceived via immaculate conception. I should have been named Mary.

I went to Catholic school and let's just say they teach sex education the way they teach the theory of evolution. They don't.

I was annoyed, nay outraged, when I read my Oprah magazine a few months back to find that they had dedicated the entire issue to talking to your daughters about sex. Hey, what happened to our sons? Isn't it just as important to talk to our sons about their roles and responsibilities? Doesn't so much that happen to our daughters around sex happen because of the boys and what they've been taught (or not)?

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm still at the basics. Stuck there really. I don't have a clue on how to approach this with either of my children. And Seb is definitely at the age where he needs to have a talk.

I've read the general advice: Make sure the vocabulary is accurate but also age appropriate. This could be a contradiction. My husband doesn't even use what I would consider to be accurate terminology. Or age appropriate for that matter. And who's to say what is age appropriate. My daughter is far more mature at 5 than her brother is at 8 about some things.

Oh, I'm so afraid.

I attempted the talk one time when I was out having lunch with him. Just me and him bonding. Over pizza. Jump right in.

I asked him if he wanted to know anything about sex. He didn't miss a beat and replied it was just about a whole lot of kissing and he wasn't all that interested. Right then. Job done.

Just kidding. I knew my job was far from over.

My sister's advice was simple and straightforward. Tell them all. Tell them everything. Tell them now. She assures me this is the approach she's taken with her daughter and that it has worked a treat. I reckon she does this just so they get so overwhelmed they never broach the subject with her again. And I'll bet her daughter's extensive vocabulary makes her very popular at school. Now I'm thinking she might have something here.

You see, I was racing through the drugstore the other day. I was buying Seb a new hair brush and comb, a new toothbrush and some toothpaste, some shampoo, all for boarding school. Oh and I just need to grab me some of these. What's those, mum? Um, just things for mummy when she bleeds.

Silence.

We join the queue.

So, mummy, why do women bleed?

I gasp. The lady in front of us whips her head around, looks at Sebastian, then at me and cracks me one of those "whatcha gonna say to that?" smiles.

My pulse quickens and my palms sweat. OK, I can handle this. Just the facts mam.....

Women bleed so they can have babies.

Silence.

Here's me thinking I've managed that one. But nooooooo. it was never going to be that easy.

What does bleeding have to do with havin' babies, mum?

At this point the whole queue is snickering. Loudly. Indiscreetly. I take a deep deep breath. I bend down to his level and smack him. Not really.

I calmly explain to my son in a soft, gentle, supportive voice at his level that this is one of those private subjects that I am happy to explain to him in excruciating detail in private, when we are alone, say in the car. And the radio is turned up.

So we carry on with our errands and an hour or so later return to the car. I have bought him a book on astronomy hoping the distraction factor would be sufficient to keep his attention. I crank up the radio just as soon as I start the car up. We exit the parking garage singing loudly and there I am feeling smug with myself in the hopes that he has forgotten all about it.

I turn right on the road and feel myself coasting home when he leans forward, turns off the radio, and says, ok, so explain, the whole bleeding baby thing.

Heaven help me. I nearly drove the car off the bridge and into the rushing river.

So I gave him the facts. Very basic. Nothing about the seeds and daddy's role. Nothing about loving relationships or healthy expressions of your needs and desires. Or the anatomy.

So I ask you my beloved readers: you gotta help me out here. Anyone got a script I can read from. I just don't think my "when you bleed you're not having a baby and when you don't you are" will put him off for much longer.

And be quick about it. I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown here.

My Mother Needs Heathcare

2009-09-09T06:24:00.000+01:00

Harvest Time

2009-09-08T06:03:00.000+01:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I love autumn. I love the harvest of crops and the crisp sound of leaves crunching under foot. I love the nip in the air and the anticipation of the first fire in the fireplace. I love imagining that snow fall is just around the corner (although now that I live in England this isn't necessarily true anymore. I love back to school and buying school supplies (although I could do without sewing on countless name tages, thank you very much).

Our harvest this year was a bumper one. The foxes and rabbits got to my pumpkins, squash and courgette (zucchini) just after they flowered so I will need to make alternative arrangements for next year but the tomatoes, pepper, chillies and corn were amazing. And the beans were planted way to late but I'll now have sufficient ammunition to nag my husband with next year.

I loved watching the children pick the veg and husk the corn and boil it and eat it. Mmmmmm, good! Freezer now stocked! Bring on the winter....

That wasn't the plan

2009-09-07T19:53:00.004+01:00

Tonight we were planning on taking Sebastian's boarding gear to the school. That means we put his pillow case and duvet cover on his bed and unpack the clothes that he will keep at the school during the week.

I kept myself together all day by telling myself that even though we were doing this he wasn't actually going to be staying overnight tonight so everything would be just fine.

Well, man plans and god laughs.

We arrived at the school and there was a buzz in the air. Only the probationary choristers were being allowed to go home tonight and come back in the morning. And one new boy was going to be staying since his family lives miles away. He was going to be all on his own in the dorm. And of course my son just quite simply wouldn't put up with that.

When I offered him the chance to stay he jumped at it.

So now I have come home one child lighter. And that wasn't the plan. There was so much I wanted to tell him tonight. I wanted to cuddle him and hold him close. Oh heavens......I hope I've done the right thing. Could someone bring me a gin and tonic?

Porthcothan Bay 2009

2009-09-01T07:03:00.001+01:00

One of my favourite beaches in the UK is Porthcothan Bay down in North Cornwall. It isn't ever crowded and as the tide comes in and out the beach changes dramatically, exposing pool to explore and a river down the middle to ride a boogie board.

We've been to this beach before and we shall return. Let's just hope that next time the sun decides to make the journey with us. out of 7 days camping we had only 2 days of sunshine and only 2 half days of no rain. The rest of the time it completely tipped it down. Not to worry though: we had the Bentley of all tents. Our Outwell Vermont XL held up very well. In fact it was more comfortable than some caravans we've stayed in. Right up until we had to cook in the driving rain.

never mind. We made s'mores and drank hot chocolates and grilled lobsters and crabs and fresh mackerel (caught by our camping neighbours). We covered ourselves in our waterproof trousers and rain coats and pulled on our wellies and just ignored the wet weather.

Captain, My Captain

2009-08-31T16:04:00.004+01:00

I need to post one last but most deserved article about the man who made last week possible and without whom we could not have had such an amazing adventure.

My husband, Marc, showed us the way and kept us safe. He steered. He navigated. He winched. He demonstrated tremendous patience with us of less experience. He explained (sometimes numerous times) the finer art of sailing. He referenced tide tables again and again. He checked the weather forecast endlessly.

Mostly he kept us safe. And he did a fine job.

I am so proud of my husband. I am proud he is my husband. And my Captain.

Gale Force 8

2009-08-30T06:40:00.001+01:00

I have a shirt which says "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a gale force 8 excites me." What was I thinking?

Arriving in Lymington made me feel like we were home safe and sound. The showers were amazing and made me feel like a new person. I jut wanted to stay right there. I had neglected to give even the slightest consideration to the fact that we still had to get to our home marina in Gosport which was still a 3 hour sail away.

We enjoyed a leisurely morning and breakfasted on land at Vanilla Pod in Lymington, highly recommended although the service was a bit slow. The American Breakfast was superb. Bit of a shame though when the fressh squeezed oj machine broke down. We did some shopping at the T&G shop which is closing down and snagged a few bargains. We were delaying our departure hoping that the wind would die down a bit. It just wasn't happening.

So at 12:30 we set off down the channel. It got worse as we headed out of the marina. The Isle of Wight ferries were being blown sideways and with our engine full on we could barely move south. But once we turned east the wind was over our stern and with the tide's assistance we were moving at a clip.

We couldn't let the sails up because it was blowing a gale force 8. Seriously! Never mind! We still did 8 knots through the water although 3 of that was tide. We had a brief rain storm just before we turned into Portsmouth harbour but I took the children below deck and we stayed nice and dry.

Unpacking the boat was tedious and we had massively over catered particularly since we didn't eat during a couple entire days due to illness. We arrived back home last night 7:30 and got take away pizza and pasta.

My legs are still wobbling and rooms sway if I stand still for long. Marc says it will be several days before my body adjusts back to normal. My face is sun/wind burned despite sun block and little exposure to the sun. I have bruises in odd places and my manicure is ruined (although I only broke one nail during the entire trip and that was in Lymington Marina)!

My sense of accomplishment and pride is soaring. I am so proud of myself and my family and our friends. You see the character of a person when all is stripped away and I can't imagine there being a group of individuals that would have made a better crew or companions. We laughed and very briefly had a few tears. But mostly we laughed. At the situation, at each other, at ourselves.

Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat!

Back into UK Waters

2009-08-28T10:48:00.000+01:00

As I watch the sun rise over Lymington Marina I reflect over the sailing trip this past week. For the very first time I sailed where the horizon had no land in sight in any direction. Water surrounded me for 360 degrees. It was a strange and lonely feeling....I wouldn't want to be there for long. What an amazing adventure!

Hurricane Bill had left us wind swept just sitting in the marina all day on Wednesday. Any plans to sail to Saint Vaast were completely scuppered as the wind whipped through the marina and not a single boat departed.

We took the opportunity to walk around Cherbourg and enjoyed a glorious lunch at Cafe du Theatre. I wanted a goat's cheese salad and an omelette but no matter how much I tried to tell the waiter that I did indeed want 2 main courses he was not going to bring it to me. In my really poor French and in his unbelievably persistent French (he spoke NO English) I relented and enjoyed a really large salad. Boy, was I glad he was adamant. I headed back to the boat for a nap with Sebastian and the others went for a wonder round the supermarket.

Sebastian and I got a wee bit way layed by a gorgeous yacht, Northern Child. She looked divine and we just wanted to have a nose about. We met Lucy, the 1st mate, asked permission to board and a long chat with her and the Skipper about what it's like to live on a boat 9 months of the year sailing all over the world. They are headed for St Barts over the next 45 days. Don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon but it was fascinating.

We departed Cherbourg Marina in the pitch darkness that is 4:00 am. Neither Marc nor I have ever sailed in the dark and the feelings of dread had moved into my stomach. My body was in knots from being so tense with the anticipation of a miserable return sail. Every sway and gust I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes. It is scary in the dark at sea. Duh! We had given both Abigail and Kerry dosages of sea sickness medication in the hopes that we would minimise the extracurricular over the side activity. It worked in that it meant that Abigail slept for nearly 6 hours of the journey. We just had to keep her propped upright.

Soon the sun began to rise and France drifted away on the horizon. The wind blew a manageable Force 3-4 over the stern and we had a comfortable run all the way back to England. I was thrilled to see the Needles of the Isle of Wight on our bow.

Sebastian had a brief moment of sickness over the side but this was due to eating the entire family size bag of Doritos I handed him. Since I was paying more attention to sailing than what he was eating he ate the entire bag. We even managed to have a few cups of tea and some lovingly prepared sandwiches during the trip. The only fatality was our carafe of perfectly pre-prepared tea. A gust of wind hit the boat just as I was returning from the galley and knocked it into the chart table. It shattered and I'm afraid we didn't get a single cup from it! Never mind.

On the trip over I was amazed (and mildly disappointed) that we saw very few (6) ships in the shipping lanes. It just didn't live up to its billing as the busiest shipping lanes in the world. I had visions of spaghetti junction on the M6 in Birmingham. Not only that but we didn't see a single yacht on the way over. Maybe they knew something we didn't. But on the way back we saw loads of ships in the lanes in both directions although we only had to slightly alter course once to avoid one. Our top speed for the day was 8.16 knots and there were very few white caps (salt surfers, as Seb calls them) out on the waters. The waves were completely manageable. We also saw several yachts sailing pretty much the same bearings we were on. Some were smaller than us and we sailed away from them. Others were bigger (and motoring) so they overtook us. One thing about sailing is that it is a lonely activity but also a close quarter activity. It's you and your mates and that's it. You better have great mates.

We were lucky. We had the best mates in the world. Eddie is an ancient mariner. He was in the Royal Navy and has done a few Atlantic crossings so we were in safe hands although I started to get worried each time he knocked his head on the hatch over the companionway. You would think he would learn after the first time. He is nearly 70 years old so we'll forgive him this time.

Kerry was brilliant in helping me out with the children. Whenever we were tacking or jibing or vomiting she was hanging on to the children and just making sure they stayed out of the way and were safe. She kept Abigail warm for much of the journey and we couldn't have done it without her. She even steered for a bit and managed a tack. And you should see that woman use a winch. Once she figured out which direction the sheet needed to be wrapped she was a cranking maniac.

We turned right after the Needles and sailed into the Solent only to come face to face with boat congestion looking like rush hour traffic. Guess everyone else was having a lovely sail as well. On a jibe our Genoa got itself all in a twist. No matter what we did we couldn't get it sorted. We pulled and tugged and let it out and wiggled it and then as if by magic, she filled with wind and we had a glorious smooth sail into Lymington Marina after only 11 hours of sailing. We would have made it in 10 if the Genoa hadn't messed about. Oh and if those idiots out sailing in the Solent could have been just a bit more considerate and gotten out of our way. It seemed that our predicament was entertainment for all and they just couldn't help themselves sailing back and forth in front of us and despite them having right of way they could have made a nicer decision and just stayed out of the way! Neptune will get them.

We struggled to find the berth reserved for us but eventually found it. A man looked like he was going to be superbly helpful but then just stood on the pontoon looking up at us as our fenders bounced off the boat next to us. Finally, Eddie just threw the rope at him and when it hit him in the face he decided to grab it and help. Cheers mate.

Seb made a dash for the toilets in the marina and returned with a report that the toilets at Lymington Marina were 5*. Kerry was just grateful to be able to pee for the second time that day since she was not dehydrated from hurling over the side all day. The marina was filled with some of the most beautiful speed boats and yachts we've ever seen and Seb has announced that he wants to have a few of those when he is older. I have explained to him that he better do well at school since the one he liked the most goes for roughly £600,000 (used).

We enjoyed a dinner of filet steaks, baked jacket potatoes, halloumi cheese and sauteed peppers with a brilliant bottle of red wine then tucked ourselves up into bed ready for the final leg of our journey. Back to Gosport!

Cherbourg Day 2

2009-08-25T21:10:00.000+01:00

We needed a rest. Every one of us were exhausted. Our muscles ached. Our minds were weary and our bodies weakened. We ate a large breakfast of croissants and pain au chocolate with large cups of coffee. We then set about getting the ourselves and the boat cleaned and tidied up. It was a mess. We were too. Feeling a bit better but not completely recovered we decided to have a look at Cite de la Mer (Museum of the Sea).

Walking on land felt very strange for the children and Abigail told us she felt drunk. I wonder how she knows what it feels like. We had a look at the reception area of the museum but balked at the 18 euro entrance fee per person since we wanted a diversion for a few hours rather than a full day.

We made a quick run to the market for a few provisions (mostly batteries for the GPS) and then prepared to set sail.

Now some of you may think us crazy for sailing after the ordeal of yesterday. But I knew that if we didn't get right back on the water my children may decide they didn't like sailing which just wouldn't do. Abigail had a bit of a moan saying she never wanted to sail again. So we locked her in the forward cabin (just kidding) and set off.

The sun was shining. The wind direction was perfect for the direction we wanted to go (and come back). It was warm and the sea was calm(ish). We assured the children this was not another epic journey.

Indeed it was a dream sail. At the end of the sail Abigail was even up on the side of the boat admitting that she was having a great time. Sebastian was starting to understand the science beyond the wind on the sails. We even got Kerry to have a steer at the helm. And she smiled the entire time. Yesterday we had numerous minor injuries: banged fingers, cut knuckles, bumped heades, bruised knees. Today it was a text book sail with everyone returning to port in a good mood. OK, that's if you don't count a couple failures to tack due to short boat speed but that's down to our own laziness.

Tomorrow unfortunately we won't be so lucky I fear. Hurrican Bill is headed our direction and a Force 7 won't do any of us any favours. We may head east up the coast to St Vaast. But I am slightly worried about the return journey. But today is Tuesday and I'm not going to worry about that. We will probably not have wi-fi there but don't worry about us if you don't hear.

We are having a blast!

The Channel Crossing Part 1

2009-08-25T09:10:00.004+01:00

Arrived in Gosport on Sunday early evening full of optimism and high hopes for a pleasant crossing on Monday. Marc and I had decided that it was a great idea to take the children across the English channel to France on a sail boat. We invited two friends, Kerry and Eddie, to be crew. We hired a 38' Barvaria boat and carefully packed and planned. Marc got all of his required certifications in order. We were rearing to go.

Kerry and Eddie arrvied an hour or so after us and after getting the boat sorted we took the ferry over to Southampton and enjoyed a gorgeous dinner al fresco in some of the best summer weather we've had all year. My optimism swelled. This was going to be soooo much fun.

Sleep was hard to come by overnight as I was frightened we wouldn't wake up for the required silly early departure time. At 4:30 am I viewed Venus shining brightly in as the rising sun changed the colour of the sky to pale oranges, yellows and finally read marvelling at other people exhibiting equally poor judgement at this insane hour. I could see the weariness in their eyes and maybe for the first time thought this might not be such a good idea. Something about red sky in the morning = shepard's warning. Trying desperately not to panic or wake the rest of the boat I got the coffee on and prepared for a small, quick breakfast. Finally everyone one else stirred at 5:30 am and bang on 6:00 am we set off in a dead calm.

The first few hours the sea was like a mill pond. It was hard to believe that we weren't just on a small lake. No wind, no waves, no swell, and a strong tide in the opposite direction meant we were going nowhere fast. We motored for quite a bit although not nearly as long as we should have. Seb was desperate to sail so we prayed for wind. The power of our prayers for a bit more wind came in all at once. And then the seas roughened. The wind was right on our nose so we had the sails tight in and the boat was tipped right over so much that a simple cup of tea became an impossibility.

Abigail was the first sailor to feel the effects of the bopping and swaying. Kerry held her over the side right up until the point that Kerry started hurling over the side. This pattern continued for the remainder of the 15 hour epic journey. Thank goodness no one wanted to eat because we quite simply couldn't have made anything. Any more than 1 minute under deck and the tummy started doing somersaults. Sebastian only had one spectacular event hurling over the side.

But undoubtably the 1st pplace gold medal prize goes to Abigail who never whined, never cried, never moaned, never complained. She sat on deck in the spray, the wind, the cold and just hung on. Sebastian comes in at a close second by fortuitously lifting everyone's spirits at the very end of the journey when we all were disheatened and thoroughly fed up he started singing, telling jokes and stories, and pretending to surf. He helped to keep Abigail warm by cuddling up with her.

Abigial announced that she could hardly wait to get to France so she could have a croissant. We must have laughed for 30 minutes. Here this wee little angel was wet, cold, miserable with sick in her hair and all she wanted was a croissant. Bless her!

We finally entered the harbour and moored at the marina. I have never been happier. Abigail and I went for a hot hot hot shower whilst the boys prepared some soup and bagels.

It could have been so much worse. It could have been raining. It could have been colder. The wind could have been stronger. The waves could have been bigger. The children coul dhave been crying and freezing. And althought it was the worst sea conditions I've ever sailed in, I am so proud of my children and us as a family. This was an adventure of a lifetime. And it's only just begun!

An Indian Princess

2009-08-15T07:53:00.001+01:00

Uncle Matthew brought this beautiful sari back from India for Abigail.

Swimming Gala

2009-08-14T08:47:00.001+01:00

Ballet Performances

2009-08-13T08:11:00.000+01:00

The end of the school year brings yet another round of ballet performancess and this year was the best ever. Sebastian obtained his next level exam with merit and we were quite simply enchanted with Abigail's performance of her butterfly dance.

Sports Day Performances

2009-08-12T18:32:00.003+01:00

Despite the persistent threat of rain, we managed a whole day of hilarious sporting performances from our children. I wouldn't look to see either of our children in any Olympics anytime in the future. But they sure enjoyed themselves!

Africa Rain

2009-07-13T18:17:00.000+01:00

I want to be a part of this choir!

Toothless

2009-06-15T22:26:00.000+01:00

Sebastian has lost another tooth. This is only the second one having lost the first one when we were on holiday in America last summer. It had been hanging loose for quite a long time and tonight his dinner proved a step too far or perhaps a bite too many. We had blood everywhere as it dangled there and he finally gave his mother permission to grab hold and give it a good yank. Out it came!

Summer Ball

2009-06-13T10:07:00.003+01:00

It was that time of year again and we dutifully botted and suited set off for the annual Summer Ball with our good friends, Sean and Helen. A big thanks to the babysitter, Gill, who made sure the children were tucked away safe and sound whilst we drank far too much champagne and danced until our feet bled (literally). A fabulous night was put on by the dedicated school volunteers and hopefully we raised a substantial amount for charity (and the school)! Until next year.....

NOTE: My husband made (sewed) his very own bow tie. he was so enamored with my choice of frock (ie dress) that he set off to the fabric store, picked out a matching colour of fabric, brought it home, made his own pattern, and sewed his very own bow tie. Check him out!!!!

Prima Donnas

2009-06-07T06:04:00.000+01:00

These are some photos taken at the end of last term of the children demonstrating their outstanding grace and superb ballet skills. Or not......

Don't Rain On My Parade

2009-06-06T19:32:00.004+01:00

Today Sebastian made his appearance as a sprite at the Old Windsor Carnival. For the very first time in my memory, it rained on Carnival Day. It rained hard enough for them to have to cancel the horse and carriage. But that wasn't going to spoil our day. The locals in the village scrambled and the sprites were very happy to make do sitting in a convertible despite the drizzle.. Sebastian looked very handsome and made a dapper attendant to the Carnival Queen and her entourage.

If.....

2009-06-04T05:59:00.001+01:00

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Happy 8th Birthday, Sebastian!

Much love,

Mummy xxx

Animals

2009-05-27T06:14:00.000+01:00

Hippo as Human

And make sure you watch this all the way to the end!