I’m angry about a lot of things at the moment. Every day we are faced with more things that make us sad, bewildered, and angry. I cannot believe the scenes I am seeing in America, I can’t believe how lightly young people (and politicians?) in the UK seem to be taking the Lockdown. How have we got the highest death rate in Europe?! I am also sick and tired of seeing people in positions of power abuse their roles for selfish reasons.
Germain Greer once wrote it was ‘time to get angry again‘ and she was right. She was reminding us that women were still struggling, powerless and abused all over the world. But there is so much else to be angry about. The damage we do to our planet, the appalling treatment of minorities, the double standards where important jobs are underpaid, when footballers earn millions.
‘Go ask Ronaldo how to cure Covid-19,’ I watched a medical specialist say, ‘you pay him over a hundred times what you paid me.’
As humans we have to get angry when faced with injustice, or poverty, or abuse. Anger can be clean and powerful, and an agent for change. But what I keep seeing on the news is something that is destructive, and divisive, and it breaks my heart.
I don’t know what the solution is; I’ve lived long enough to see terrible injustice, but it never seems to change. How long do we have to wait until we no longer need to be angry?
Impotent fury is the worst. It is terrible watching the news and seeing things are so wrong and not being able to do anything about it. But you can. Use your vote, people. Or stand to be elected yourself. Do something.
As a middle-aged woman I have been angry plenty of times. Not just at great big social issues, but the dishwasher not being emptied. I could power a country if they could harness the energy created by my rage. I have written about it far too often, I now realise.
So I can’t solve the problems of the world, but hopefully we can look together at the funny side of anger. The times when you know you are being stupid but the rage still bubbles. I connected with a great group of friends on what made out blood boil. Here are some of the stories.
Stephen Fry once wrote a piece called ‘Sock Fury‘ in which he described the incandescent fury engendered by losing one of his favourite socks. At the time of reading it I was young, single and childless and I found it very funny. Now, married, aged, and with teenagers, I am haunted by his words.
I’m sure I never used to get this angry. Where does all this rage come from? What particularly worries me is what worried Fry; it’s not just things like injustice, or world poverty or political dirty dealing that make me cross, it’s trivial things like not being able to find my phone in my bag when I know it’s in there – I can hear the damn thing ringing. Whenever my mother-in-law comes to stay she turns the kettle and toaster off at the wall. Yes I know it’s sensible and ensures we won’t all burn in our beds, but it drives me absolutely mad when, after waiting for ten minutes, I find the water un-boiled and the bread still bread.
This is the group of incidents I class as the yes-I-KNOW! type of triggers. It also includes how cross I get when the children were young, and laden with shopping and dying for the loo, I discovered that my husband has locked the Yale lock, which means I had to put everything down, wedge my toddler against the wall and tuck my baby under my arm so that I have both hands free to open the bloody door. He thinks I’m being stupid and of course he’s right, security is very important – it’s just that him saying that makes me crosser than ever.
Of course the most annoying situations are the ones when deep down you know it’s actually your fault. Rage that your trousers won’t do up? Shouldn’t have had that third bag of crisps should you? Furious that you can’t find your keys? Well, maybe if you were a bit more organised and put them in the same place you wouldn’t lose them. God how I hate that little smug voice at the back of my head (occasionally sounding a little like my husband) that adds a dash of guilt to irritation which leads to impotent rage – the worst kind.
So, what else makes me angry? Well at the moment the new Facebook layout is annoying as it confuses me. I had to revert to the old layout in order to update my status which took for ever. Now the real reason I’m angry is because deep down I know I shouldn’t be fossiking about on the Internet, I should be making scones, or clearing out the kitchen cupboard which is sticky with spilt syrup. I suspect my husband also knows it’s there, but is hoping he’ll get away with pretending he hasn’t seen it so I have to clear it up. I also know, sadly, that I’m really far too old for Facebook – and that makes me cross too. Oh, and sneezing loads of times and not being able to find a single scrap of tissue paper.
Other irritating things aren’t so much my fault. In the old days when parking your car, people would sometimes give you their ticket as they had a few hours left on them. I used to do it. It gave you a warm feeling in your heart and made everyone feel a little more human. Now all machines make you enter your licence plate number so that you can’t do that any more and you end up paying for a space that may already have been paid for – how mean!
I hate how easyJet’s policy of first come first served to get seated means everyone turns into snarling animals – glaring at others to get out of the way so they can get to the seat first. It makes me so cross when we have yet another rubbish summer – but to whom do I complain?
My husband will confirm how furious I get with mascara adverts. Whenever they come on I yell at the screen. For years I thought my eyelashes were rubbish – nothing like the adverts, no matter what mascara I used. Now I see that not only do they have false eyelashes on (lash inserts used) they also enhance them post-production!! OK, maybe I was a little naive but it infuriates me nonetheless.
A brief survey of friends threw up similar findings. In a matter of hours after posing the question of what drives you mad on Facebook I was inundated with replies including: trying to get bracelets off with one hand… alone; friends pinching food from your plate; people walking too close and too quickly behind you; friends misreading your jokes and getting offended; people who phone you with a weak signal and then shout at you because they can’t hear you; litterbugs; traffic lights; being patronised by your partner when you’re cross in a traffic jam; traffic lights generally; things falling wilfully on the floor because you’ve not balanced them properly and stubbing toes and fingers were all on the list of things that made us see red.
For me, I think a major cause of my anger is having children late. I heard recently that the angriest people in the country were those with small children. I reckon that’s about right. I am An Older Mother – which makes it even worse. This means that I have got used to a selfish lifestyle in which all my desires were (mostly) gratified immediately. Those times when, simultaneously, I’m on the phone to my mother trying to solve her latest IT related emergency; the baby is yelling to be fed; my toddler needs to do a poo and the pasta’s boiling over; I could stand there in the kitchen and just scream. All I want to do is sit on the sofa (alone!) with a good book, cup of tea and a biscuit. I want to be able to go to the loo on my own. I look back longingly on the days when I could sit quietly without a toddler jumping on my head. Now the thing is, having suffered a full term stillbirth and two miscarriages I, more than many, appreciate what a blessing my two beautiful children are, and most of the time I do. It’s just sometimes, and I hate to admit this so I’ll say it quietly: they can be a little bit too much to handle.
The funny thing is when I talk about this with friends we end up hysterical with laughter. We agree how ridiculous (and harmful) it is to get so angry and we resolve to not take ourselves so seriously in future.
So next time something is driving you up the wall and you feel yourself boiling over, take a look at your cross, self-important little face in the mirror… and laugh. I guarantee you’ll look ten years younger and feel ten times better.
Well. I really don’t know where to start. Who could have possibly envisaged that the whole world would be in lock down with a terrifying virus rampaging around? There are tough times, and I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well.
But enough of that. There’s enough misery out there without me adding to it. I have got a reason for my long absence, scouts’ honour, and more on that later, but I wanted to check in to let you know what’s been going on in the warrior household.
The Dog
So things have not been good for Dog. We found a lump on her hip and I thought – oh it’s fine. Probably just that piece of grass wandering around her body that they didn’t get out in her last operation.
Well it wasn’t. Turned out to be a tumour she had to have cut out. Horrors, horrors. The poor thing had to get back in her cone and have her tummy shaved (the vet offered a free ultrasound as she was in training and I thought, why not?) and a big chunk cut out of the top of her leg.
Look at her! Look at her poor little face!
The good news is she is absolutely fine now. She wasn’t allowed to go for walks for ages and when she was finally allowed off her lead she promptly ran into a wood for an hour and a half until I was hoarse with shouting and sweating like a pig.
I was just about to call the vet police (is that a thing?) when she trotted up to me with casual shrug and a ‘what?’ expression.
She has also managed to work out how to lever off the top of our metal bin so three times in a row I have woken up to find our rubbish scattered all over the kitchen with Dog lying under the sofa refusing to look at me.
She is over the moon that we are home all the time and is getting lots of walks. She is the children’s constant companion.
Dog helping Daughter with Distance Learning
The only problem with working from home with Dog is that when I was teaching a live lesson she crept up to my blind side and carefully clambered up my body until she was sitting on my lap. Her strength and weight was extraordinary and it took me quite a while to prise her off – much to the hilarity of my sixth form.
Family
As I am sure many of you have found, living all together can be tough. The children are driving me insane and I find it irritating they are both now taller than me and Daughter keeps stealing my clothes; she looks so much better than me in them I have now hidden everything.
The chocolate stash remains undiscovered, but I have to keep moving it to avoid detection. I have given up on wearing a bra at all, settling for thick jumpers, so there are some silver linings.
Now the holidays official have started, I have no excuses and Rob has been getting quite insistent that I should be doing half the cooking.
This is why I don’t cook
I tried to point out to him that I am not a natural cook and the last time I cooked a big dinner was at Christmas, and somehow I managed to burn myself so badly (on the edge of a saucepan – how is that even possible?) I had a giant blister, the scar of which remains to this day.
This didn’t cut any mustard with him, so I am getting pretty good at ham and cheese toasties (but now the bread has run out and I am 9 million and one in the Ocado queue) and I was quite proud of this pasta dish I made from the left overs in the fridge. I added loads of chipotle sauce and it was delicious.
My other cooking success was golden syrup cookies. OK, so the syrup was so old it had gone a bit black around the edges of the tin, and the flour’s best before date was June 2018 – but they come out lovely. I made a billion of them, thinking they would last the lockdown duration, but the kids hoovered them up within a day and a half.
This was despite me hiding them in a variety of places including a muesli cereal box and the laundry basket. They’ve gone completely feral and roam about sniffing the air to see if there’s any food to be found.
I am very grateful to the Walking Dead because when I was binge watching it I got really paranoid about running out of food so I went through a phase of buying loads of tins. Rob scoffed at me and thought I was mad.
Well, who is the mad one now? Ha! Thanks to me, Rob found fourteen cans of custard, twelve tins of rice pudding and six tins of chopped tomatoes I’d put in the attic. Not so much the ‘idiot wasting our money’ now, eh, Rob?
It may not seem the most ideal of of food stores, but actually it’s been really nice having hot custard with crumble and bowls of comforting rice pudding. Next time I worry about a zombie invasion I will definitely stock up on yeast, chocolate chips and mayonnaise – all of which are sadly lacking in our household at the moment.
Rob is spending hours in the garden then getting very cross nobody will come out to help him except Dog who lies next to him and gets in his way.
I’ve spent too long on my phone constantly swearing at it because it won’t open when I look at it. I don’t know what I did, but I can’t seem to recreate the fricking expression I used when I first bought it and signed in, so have to keep using the passcode. I have no idea how to update my Face ID so am stuck with this.
Stupid phone
Not being able to go to the gym has been hard, but we are very near a field so I have been running around that every couple of days. (This time with a bra, a very firm one). I thought I was fairly fit until I did a bloody Joe Wick work out. Jesus! I ache all over today – very good value (I bought one episode on Amazon video, the 20 mins HIIT work out) and it was excellent.
I chose Joe purely because he is such an effective teacher *cough*
Having a slower pace of life takes getting used to but we are relaxing into it. We are very lucky we are safe at the moment, and can self-isolate, unlike those incredible people out there in the NHS, as well as the delivery drivers, farmers, supermarket workers, food stackers, bin men and women, and all the others who have to keep going out there to keep us all going. My heart goes out to them.
One lovely advantage to being able to sit and stare out of the window is you get to see some amazing birds. On our bird table I’ve had a woodpecker, and a beautiful long-tailed tit (I’ve been told that’s what he is) who is TINY but so bold he sat on my door handle and tapped on the window to be let in.
My Book! MY BOOK!
OK, so I managed to keep a lid on my excitement until now. My book goes live on 3rd April!
I am hoping to send a link out so people can have a look. It’s going to be so embarrassing if everyone things it’s a pile of tosh.
The absolute worst bit has been finding a photo for my author profile on Amazon. I spent ages looking and thought the one I’d chosen was quite nice until Rob said I looked like a fat Chinese woman. ‘I look happy though, don’t I?’ I said. ‘Yes, you look happy,’ he replied.
I’ve got two novels finished now, and one I’m in by a few chapters. Writing the books and writing the blog at the same time is something I’ve found impossible, so it’s been nice to put the book aside to write this.
I feel like this is a bad time to be twaddling on about my book. It seems very trivial in this nightmare we are currently enduring, but I thought, well, maybe reading about an old witch and a fat, middle-aged woman is the escape we need in these dark times?
Speaking of coping with the nightmares… here are my escape recommendations….*
Stop watching the news and read/watch these instead
This was sweet, funny, and rolled gently along. I’m looking forward to her next one.
The wonderful, wonderful, Marian Keyes. This is a great big wodge of a novel and kept me sucked in until the end. Perfect to shut out the world.
If you want a good, gripping, thriller of a novel – Sophie Hannah is the master.
Love Lisa Jewell and her thrillers are top notch. Highly recommended
Have a look at my recommendations for books but if you click here you will find my top COMFORT READS, which we all need right now.
Also, we’re late to the game, but Rob and I are really enjoying bingeing (sp?) on The Tunnel – the UK version of The Bridge.
Marcella – absolutely bloody brilliant – have you seen it? Really, really good thriller. Two seasons as well so will keep you going for a while.
Oh dear, I do like comedies very much but all I have watched lately have been gritty thrillers. They are absorbing, though – and maybe that’s what we need right now.
I can hear the sound of chocolate wrappers opening – Son’s found the stash!
Keep safe everyone.
*I used to get a % if anyone clicked on these links but I’ve never made any money so they chucked me off the programme, but I thought I’d better warn you just in case that I might get some pennies if you go on to buy this 🙂
I was HORRENDOUSLY messy as a teenager. It would drive my Mum to distraction. I could never understand it, ‘it’s FINE!’ I’d say. ‘I’ll do it in a minute!’ rolling my eyes as mountains of mess gathered around me. ‘Jeez, Mum,’ I’d think, ‘just shut the door on the mess, it’s not a big problem – deal with it in the morning.’
Now, of course, Karma has come back to bite me on my big old ass, as the young people would say. As my children enter the dark, empty-crisp-packet strewn, tunnels of adolescence, I find my rage levels have risen accordingly.
I’ve been really looking forward to this Easter holiday. The end of term was a nightmare and I was on my knees, longing for long, sunny, stress-free days with plenty of time to update my blog and finish my god-damned book.
Well it didn’t work out like that. There are a number of reasons for this but all the stress and rage got me thinking about why I get so angry and also what helps calm the anger.
I’ve decided it’s all about control. I never used to be like this; I now realise it’s because I didn’t need control in my life – that’s what grown-ups were for! They were the ones who dealt with problems, who brought order to my existence, and if anything went wrong I could just get hold of a grown up.
Now I’m 50 I have to accept I’m the grown-up. Also, being a grown-up sucks big time because it turns out things happen over which you have no control and NOBODY knows the right answer. There is no bloody right answer. (I am aware I am arriving very late at this particular party)
I have learned the illusion of control is what helps you get through the day. It’s how all humans get through the day. Life is chaotic and random, and it is only by imposing an illusory sense of order that we can cope. I’m not talking about any kind of big philosophical idea here, I am talking about having a fully stocked loo roll cupboard.
The more I thought about this the more sense it made as to why I instantly explode into spitting rage when I find a crumpled pile of towels on the bathroom floor for the third time within an hour. It’s because those neatly hung towels are the only defence I have against the terrifying chaos of the universe.
The last two or three weeks have been trying. I am conscious they are very much first world problems, but trying nonetheless.
The Children
Ah the children. I adore them, of course, and part of me loves that they are becoming funny, thoughtful, interesting adults; Jesus Christ though, it’s also like suddenly being forced to take on strange lodgers who help themselves to your food and wipe their ketchupped faces with clean TEA TOWELS for God’s sake.
Let’s start with Daughter. It turns out she’s short sighted. Now I am very short sighted (-7 prescription) and it has caused all sorts of terrible problems, the least of which is my inability to walk across a room safely without glasses. Severe myopia can cause detached retinas (as in my case), and you can be more at risk of macular degeneration and glaucoma.
These are all things I don’t want Daughter to have. I was therefore delighted to discover that nowadays there are these amazing contact lenses that slow down the severity of myopia so hopefully stopping my daughter at a -3 level rather than going on to sight as bad as mine.
OK so it costs a fortune, but what price sight? etc etc.
The trouble is my Daughter HATES putting them in. I’m not allowed to help her (according to the optician) but apparently I DO have to sit right outside the bathroom door for security when she puts them in.
She knows they are going to go in eventually. I know they are going to go in eventually. However, I have to endure the most horrendous, guilt inducing monologue before this can happen.
‘I can’t DO this, mummy! It won’t go in! My eyes are all red now. This isn’t working. I’m HOLDING it close to my eye. I don’t want to wear lenses. Can’t I have today as my rest day? I’ll just wear glasses. You’re short-sighted and you’re OK. OW! It HURRRTTSSS!’ Pause for dramatic sobbing. A moment of silence. ‘I can’t DO THIS! Now I’ve broken one. And the other one. You’ll have to give me two more. This is stupid. I HATE LENSES. Why do I have to wear lenses? Why are you making me wear them? Why doesn’t Brother have to wear them? OOWWWWW!! I’ve broken another one.’
I cannot express how I hate hearing his every morning. I can feel my shoulders rising with stress as I write it. I feel guilty, worried, cross as it’s going to cost us thousands over the years, then guilty for being cross. Eventually I cave in. ‘OK, Darling, give it a rest for now and come and sit with me and you can try again later when you’re a bit more calm.’
She bounces out of the bathroom and lolls about on the bed listening to Harry Potter on Audible. After about 20 minutes I pluck up enough courage to try again. ‘Right, that’s nearly half an hour now – why not have another go?’
She looks at me, eyes wide and puzzled. ‘Have another go at what?’
‘Your lenses!’
‘Oh I’ve got them in already,’ she says. ‘The popped in really quickly in the end.’
Meanwhile, Son is revising for exams. He is not happy. Every day I ask him to revise and his response is, ‘I don’t want to revise. I want to play Fortnite.’ A simple, bold statement but one that is difficult to argue with without getting very cross and shouty.
He is also suffering a nasty bout of eczema which has blown up over his eyelid and is nasty and sore and he keeps scratching it, making my whole body twitch with the mother horror shudder – if you know what I mean. I’ve taken him to the doctor, we’ve got the cream but every time I have to apply it – and I mean EVERY TIME – he has the screaming heeby jeebies and I have to actually pin him down with all my body weight (he may be taller than me but he’ll never be heavier – ha!) to apply the damn stuff.
The Builders
We had the builders in.
My beloved, darling Rob has spent every weekend and holiday since last July building a kitchen from scratch. The fact that he has done this despite suffering chronic depression and anxiety shows just how amazing he is. I have promised him that one day I will write a blog called ‘We built this kitchen on Agomelatine‘ It’s an anti-depressant drug which has very few side effects and has helped Rob’s focus and concentration. The brilliant thing about it is it has no withdrawal symptoms so he can come off them at any time.
Here is the beautiful kitchen he made.
I think it’s brilliant, and I will fight anyone who says differently.
While we have to live where I work we rent out the place as a holiday let and we have a family of 6 hoping to have a lovely break here in May.
This didn’t give us much time to transfer the old kitchen into a lovely new bedroom for Daughter, as well as overhauling a manky old bathroom.
Rob was also on his knees and needed a break so unusually we decided to get builders in.
This is all very emotional as pretty much all of the building work we have done in the past Rob did with his lovely old dad, who we lost to Aplastic Anaemia just over a year ago. It made his loss all the more powerful for Rob when he didn’t have his Dad to turn to when he had a question about brick work or sorting out the plumbing.
We got hold of a builder who had done a great job on a cupboard we had fitted a few years ago. He came and looked at the job. ‘No problem! Couple of weeks. Sorted.’
Great! We thought. Let’s do this! Rob was more cautious – he pointed out that it was an old house and problems were bound to crop up. The builder was confident but suggested we see how it went and agreed the quote was flexible.
Rob spent the weekend outlining every job we wanted to get done. He put it on a list and also sketched a diagram detailing where plug sockets etc went. We sent it to Bob the Builder (not his real name).
All fine. quote agreed. Work begins.
Three days later Bob gets in touch. He’s underestimated the amount of work needed. The quote needs to go up. Fine, we say. We understand.
The job jumps from two weeks to three.
Rob and I find beautiful mosaic tiles for the bathroom. He and I visit Bob on site with a sample of the mosaic tile. ‘Is this OK, Bob?’ I ask. ‘I don’t know anything about tiling so thought I’d better check with you before we order them.
‘They’re fine! No problem!’ says Bob.
While there Rob asks if we can adjust the list to include the movement of three radiators. We knock off building a cupboard so we hope that will even it out. The tiles arrive.
Bob sends a very long text saying the addition of moving the radiators has thrown him out and the quote is now wrong. He asks us to send us a new list including everything so he can update the quote. He threatens to down tools and leave the job as he ‘can’t deal with this uncertainty.’
Fine, we say. We send over the new list. He comes back with a new quote. The job will now take six weeks and the quote has TRIPLED. For three radiators. He says it’s because the tiles will be complicated. The tiles he said would be fine.
At the end of the fifth week Bob asks me to send over cash for materials he’d bought that day. At all stages in the job I have paid for the labour and materials within HOURS of him asking – thousands of pounds worth. Due to another issue, which I will come to in a moment, I didn’t reply to his text for two hours.
He then sent a page long text saying he has told his worker to pack up all their tools as he is concerned I am going to ‘withhold payment’. (A hundred pound bill for materials – why would I have withhold this having already paid thousands for his labour!?)
Eventually I calm him down. This is the third time he has threatened to down tools and leave the job. The stress of this is nightmarish and really not good for Rob. The builder sends another text complaining ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, you keep throwing extra jobs at me and then asking me to do things we haven’t agreed.’
This is when I get really infuriated as the only things was added was the moving of three radiators (which seem to be costing us thousands extra) and every job I’m mentioning is on the list. Skirting boards on the list. Bob doesn’t remember seeing it. Boxing in of all pipes – Bob didn’t see that on the list.
So here we are six weeks later. The bathroom is half tiled. Bob has disappeared off to another job. We’ve had to ask his mate to do some extra days to get it finished. Despite paying all that money Rob is now having to do the boxing in, all the painting and decorating, and fitting the doors.
All of which were on the list which was finalised and agreed by Bob. AND PAID FOR.
Grrrrr It makes me so cross and I know. I know. I am being naive in thinking that a job like this is easy. But if a list is agreed for a certain price they should do what’s on the list? I am aware I am going on a lot about this list, but it was the only sure, solid thing I had in a disordered word.
The Holiday
At the end of January my brother and I started planning our two-family summer holiday together. Its the one time of the year where the kids can hang with their cousins and I get to catch up with my lovely brother.
It took weeks to find somewhere nice that ticked all the boxes, was a bit luxurious, and could easily accommodate four adults and four children. At last we found somewhere that looked absolutely perfect. I’d never been to the Lake District and we were all very excited about it.
I’m going to name this place as I don’t see why I should offer them any anonymity. It was the Dormouse Cottage at the Swan Hotel in the Lake District.
It was perfect. Looked gorgeous. Close to lots of lovely walks and with plenty of room for us all. The cottage was in the grounds of the hotel so we could use the pool and gym there as well as the restaurants for days when we couldn’t be bothered to cook.
It all seemed too good to be true. ‘It’ll be booked already,’ Rob said, ‘peak school holidays (end July beginning of August) you’ve no chance.’
We were using a third party booking company. It’s the same company we rent our holiday lets with, and one advantage of paying them 30% commission is they give us a good discount when we book through them. However, as I was so nervous about this I called the hotel direct to check the cottage was free those weeks. (It was showing as available on their own website as well as the third party booking website.)
‘Yes of course it is, madam!’ said the receptionist in that slightly patronising tone which means ‘if it says it’s free on the website it is free you sad, neurotic middle-aged crone.’
Great! I thought, casting a smug, triumphant look at Rob before calling the third party people to book.
I chewed my nails nervously until they called back 10 minutes later to confirm all was fine and the booking could go ahead. Woo hoo! Both families delighted. The email confirming it came through and we were safe and sound. We couldn’t wait for our holiday.
Cut to half way through April. I get a call. The booking has been cancelled.
?!?!?!?!?!
What? How? What? I spluttered for about five minutes. The third party booking company said the owner had called to say the cottage had been double booked.
I exclaimed that couldn’t be possible.I had checked and double-checked it was free. They suggested I called the manager of the hotel directly to find out what had happened.
What followed was the most awful, frustrating and upsetting phone call, which ended with him hanging up on me.
He said it wasn’t his fault it was the third party booking people. He insisted that the cottage had been booked by someone else in the ten minutes between me confirming it was free and the third party company booking it.
I said to him I didn’t see how that was possible. As he was blaming the company I asked him to confirm for me when he had told them about the double booking. With that evidence I could complain to the company as they hadn’t let us know for three months – by which time all the good place have gone.
That’s when he hung up.
When I went back to the company they read me the emails the manager had sent them. Firstly, in February saying he was withdrawing his cottages from their site but would honour all bookings already made. Including our one.
Then, a month later, he wrote again to confirm the withdrawal, but still maintaining he would honour all bookings. In April he sent an email saying he wasn’t honouring the bookings already made. So screw you, Middle-Aged Warrior and both your families.
So the manager LIED to me!!! It wasn’t already booked, he was just taking it away from the third party booking company and getting guests to book with him directly so he didn’t have to pay any commission. He obviously wasn’t at all concerned about the impact this would have on our families who had booked in January.
I was so upset I burst into tears, which was really embarrassing as Son had a mate over and his mum had just arrived to collect him when I greeted her bawling my eyes out. Something I never do.
Balm
The thing is with all these frustrations is that there is absolutely NOTHING I can do. No matter how hard I tried to do the right thing it all went to shit and no amount of persuading, cajoling or logic made any difference.
It was out of my control.
I couldn’t get the builder to do the job we’d paid him to do, and I couldn’t do anything to save our holiday. I can’t make my Son revise without a row, I can’t help his eczema without a full wrestling competition and I can’t help my Daughter’s sight without her making me feel constantly guilty.
So how to cope? This is where the balm comes in. I now understand why mess is a bad thing. It is an outward manifestation of the chaos of life, but at least you can do something about it.
So here is my list of things that calm me down and restore order.
A fully stocked Loo roll cupboard
A fully charged electric toothbrush
A completely full tube of dishwasher tablets
A made bed
The recent discovery that my kindle fits into the pocket of my slobbing-about-the-house tracksuit bottoms makes me very happy
Wiping a counter, emptying a laundry basket, charging a phone… These are all things I can do that will bring peace and calm to my life. Everything in its place, everything clean, charged and easy to find. A delicious sense of order which, for some reason, helps me cope with all the other crap I can’t solve.
I don’t know what it is about having things fully charged. I suspect it’s something to do with challenging mortality. But what writing this has helped me understand is why the following drive me insane in the membrane.
This is how I left the bathroom
This is the same room TEN MINUTES LATER. You don’t want to know what’s in the (unflushed) bowl. How have they got through so many loo rolls? Why do they need to use four towels?
A lovely clear, clean, shining kitchen counter
The same counter after the children made a sandwich. Using my favourite Norfolk Cruncher bread! The one they say they hate and complain about because they want white bread that tastes like plastic. I don’t know whether you can make it out but I also found a small, shriveled chunk of roast chicken on the centre plate.
And generally just this. Things like this.
So to answer my son’s question, ‘Why are you so ANGRY all the time?’ that’s why. I’m not really shouting about the counter, I’m shouting because our holiday has been cancelled, and the builders have left the house unfinished. I’m shouting because it turns out I’ve not brought up the children properly because they now won’t do anything they are told. I’m shouting because I want some peace and quiet but know that my heart will break when the children grow up and leave home. I’m shouting because I’m 50 and I don’t know where the time went and I want to write a book but can’t find the time.
But then I calm down. Stay up late so I can clean the kitchen when everyone is in bed and enjoy the quiet and the tidiness of everything. Rob takes us all out for lunch and I remember how funny my children are and how nice they are. Playing loud music helps too. Oh, and wine.
I should also go and phone my mum to say sorry for all the mess I made when I still lived at home.
So what about you? What stupid little things drive you into a rage and what helps calm you down?
I’ve come pretty late to the arena of Podcasts. For ages I’ve heard people rave about some murder documentary podcast, or a ‘fascinating exploration of child slavery in Brazil’ podcast, but they’ve never appealed to me. Life is tough enough – I’m barely coping with the horrors of Sports Direct – so I want entertainment from my podcasts, not intellectual stimulation.
I love Podcasts. When not at work I listen to them whilst folding laundry, at the gym, driving back from the school run or mucking out the children’s bedrooms. It is essential they make me laugh, or at the very least they have to be interesting, or involve writers or personalities I like.
I thought I’d put together a list of ones I particularly love and have kept listening to over the years. It would be great to hear any suggestions you have so I can extend my repertoire.
These podcasts are brilliant. I have lost count of the number of times I have snorted coffee out of my nose listening to them. They often leave me helpless with laughter, not a good look when you’re trying to impress the iron bodies at the gym.
I’m not sure what it is that makes this podcast so unmissable. Buxton has a warm, self-deprecating sense of humour which I like, and because he is around the same age as me his cultural references are ones with which I am very familiar. He also has a lovely deep chuckle which never fails to make me smile when I hear it.
His subject matter is wide-ranging. He talks about mortality and the death of his father so movingly he has made me cry. His passion for movies and music is inspiring, and he has introduced me to new artists and directors. This is against a backdrop of bonkers jingles, chats about his family and the weather. Embarrassingly, I now think of him as a mate I know very well so I can’t ever meet him because it would be incredibly awkward (for him).
Each podcast features an interview, sometimes with someone very famous but it could be a singer from a band you’ve never heard of. The interview is bracketed by Buxton (or Dr Buckles as he sometimes calls himself) waffling on, often as he takes his dog Rosie for a walk. On one memorable occasion he recorded Rosie galloping past like a horse which, of course, reminded me of my own Dog, who does the same thing. I pretty much adore him just because of the bits when he has chats with his dog who turns out to be very wise and slightly scathing in his responses to Adam.
I am aware that this sounds a bit bonkers but trust me, it’s great.
I think my absolute favourites interviews are those with Louis Theroux and Joe Cornish who are regular contributors. Look out for those.
Otherwise, I have linked below the episodes I particularly enjoyed and have listened to more than once. Let me know what you think if you give him a try.
Adam and: Simon Pegg – the connection between the two of them comes across really well. I loved ‘Spaced’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’ and was pleased to hear how down-to-earth, natural and funny Pegg was in this podcast.
Adam and: Louis Theroux – Old mates from school the ease of the chat is lovely, I feel like I’m sitting behind them in a pub eavesdropping whilst I get more and more drunk. Wonderful stuff. Listen to all of the ones featuring Louis. This one covers Theroux’s documentary on polyamory in America and caused a number of nose snorting laughs.
Adam and: Charlie Brooker – I ADORE Charlie Brooker and have done since the old days when he wrote his ScreenBurn column for the Guardian. This interview didn’t disappoint. Brooker is irreverent, sweary, full of middle-age rage (which I can SO connect with) and very sharp insights into modern culture. Buxton brings out the best in him.
Adam and: Joe Cornish – Whenever Adam interviews Joe it’s a joy to listen to. I think it was last Christmas when they talk about going to extreme cinema as teenagers and I had to stop doing press ups and leave the gym to go into the loo as I was sobbing with laughter. Really, really funny.
(Watch this clip for one of my favourite Adam and Joe moments)
Adam and: Romesh Ranganathan – Romesh is a very, very funny man. His discussion of the racial stereotyping of shows I remember from the 70’s and 80’s was thought provoking, and his stuff about his mum had me in stitches.
Adam and: Kathy Burke – As you would expect, very sweary but utterly utterly brilliant. I loved this one and listened to it a number of times as I kept laughing through it and missing bits.
I am going to have to stop there as looking through the site there are so many I could link to. Do have a look next time you have a long journey or mindless housework to do Brilliant stuff.
I really recommend this as it’s so easy to get stuck in your ways and only listen to a limited bracket of comedians with whom you are already familiar. Every week the BBC puts out a collection of different pieces from all kinds of comedians from old established ones such as Mark Steele, to up and coming young comedians which include real diversity and loads of woman – such as the fabulous Josie Long and Sindhu Vee.
I’m only a couple of episodes into this but I am already gripped. Really interesting and told in Fry’s gorgeous mellow, chocolaty tones. I find myself hypnotised and forget what I’m doing as I get caught up in learning about things like glasses were invented when the first printing press came out so people could read the small print. There is wit and warmth and although it is more informative than comedic, I will forgive it and put it in my list because… Well.. It’s Stephen Fry innit?
The best bits from his Radio 2 show. His witterings with Maria McErlane are the perfect accompaniment to a basket of ironing (groan – how boring is my life) He often interviews writers, which I always enjoy, and I have got good recommendations for books as well as theatrical shows and TV programmes from this Podcast.
Do you listen to podcasts? Which ones do you subscribe to and hate to miss? I want to spread my wings a bit so recommendations wold be lovely.
I love this Gif. I often see it on Twitter or more generally on the internet and it is used as a meme to represent middle-aged woman rage. Often it is accompanied by slogans such as…’my mum when someone takes more than 10 items through the 10 items or less checkout’, or ‘Middle-Aged White Woman’s Dry-cleaning isn’t ready in time.’
It has always made me laugh, but I realised I was very close to becoming an older, fatter version of the divine Gillian Taylforth yesterday in Sport Direct.
Let me give you a bit of context. It’s been a long week. I’ve gone from weeks of nothing to do at all except faff about with my book, to three fifteen hours days on the trot. Also, Rob and I haven’t managed to get to the gym or do any exercise as we (or rather he) has been ripping out the old kitchen and slowly replacing it with a new one.
We approached our personal training session with great trepidation on Tuesday. Zelda, her eyes glinting with energy and enthusiasm greeted us at the door. ‘I’ve got a great programme for you!’ she exclaims in delight. ‘Yay’ I say.
Now Zelda and I have had our highs and lows over the past almost-two years. She has got me successfully jumping on giant boxes like the bionic man and helped me to keep as much of my old weight off as possible. However, she was not kind to us that day.
Thankfully, there wasn’t too much cardio – it was all about the weights. The kind of circuits where you start of thinking, ‘hey! This is great! I can do this!’ to, ‘just kill me now, please, poison, gas, a knock on the head, anything rather than make me lift this fricking 10 ton weight with my thigh muscles.’
As we left she called out to our departing figures, ‘you might hurt a little bit tomorrow!’
This was Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday Rob and I could only get out of bed in the morning if the other one prised them out with their feet. Neither of us can lift our arms above our head (doing a million fly lifts with 18llb weights – it may have been 5llb-), nor walk up or down the stairs (147 goblet squats). One really had to marvel how she had managed to screw over every single muscle in our bodies in a single one hour session.
Son’s birthday was on the Thursday and all was lovely and jolly, except for the constant background of winces and yelps of pain from Rob and I, which we covered with bright smiles. I did the usual thing of putting on Facebook a picture from every year since Son was born and noticed for the first time his face was lengthening, leaving little hollows under his cheekbones. I can see the face he will wear as a man starting to take shape. Thirteen years old! How did that happen? He was very sweet, though, and gave me a nice pat and a hug when I couldn’t stop crying about my little boy growing up.
A combination of the muscle pain, and averaging 4-5 hours sleep since I got back to work, meant I was feeling quite irritable when we went out to Pizza Express to celebrate Son’s birthday. This is a regular thing as to both of them, going out to Pizza Express is the height of luxury and exciting dining.
To try and ease the pain I ordered a large cocktail. A large, Prosecco based cocktail. Now, am I right or am I right, a Prosecco based cocktail should be fizzy, yes? Well mine wasn’t. It tasted like a flat soda stream.
My irritation started to rise still further. Rob refused to taste it to see if there was something wrong, which annoyed me even more. Finally, I asked the waiter why it wasn’t fizzy. Turned out they’d forgotten to put the Prosecco in.
THEN, I ordered the Classic Caesar Salad, and it had no Parmesan in it! I’m sorry, but that is enough to justify a complete melt down and smashing up of the place. But. I am a lady, a strong woman, and I can control myself. So I stuck to giving the waiting staff a Paddington Hard Stare. This made me feel a little better.
Thursday evening my irritation levels were still bubbling along just under ‘volcanic explosion’. I had to collect the children from school and, foolishly, thought ‘oh they won’t be long, I’ll go to the loo when I get back.’ Big Mistake.
When I got to the school Son had decided he needed to spend a little more time with his mates ‘because it was his birthday yesterday’, apparently they wanted to discuss – in-depth – presents old and new and dreams for future birthdays. All this while I am fuming in a boiling hot car, bladder starting to bulge at the seams. In fact, the last time I had a bladder this full was when I was waiting for an ultrasound scan with Son and I was so full the technician felt sorry for me and made me go and ‘let a little bit of the wee out and come back.’ I didn’t even know this was possible.
Daughter finally rolls up, dreamily singing a hymn she has been learning in choir. She can only remember two lines of it, so I listen to her singing the same thing over and over for about twenty minutes before Son appears.
She then hands over a letter from her tutor informing me that Daughter has grown out of her trainers ‘by quite a way!’ (implication – bad mother) and could I buy some more before tomorrow’s sports’ session. It is now 6.30 pm.
This then reminds Son that he ALSO needs to get new football boots as his toes are protruding out of his old ones. He lifts a foot to demonstrate. Yes, his two big toes are pushing through the front of his trainers. As I know I bought them and his football boots at the same time, it is clear I am also getting him new trainers and boots.
Sports Direct is the only place open on the way home at this time of night. By this stage I am keeping very quiet, focusing on my driving, and not moving in case my now very full bladder is knocked in any way. As we swing into the car park my heart sinks as I see the big sign: ‘Sports Direct.’
I. HATE. SPORTS. DIRECT.
Let me tell you why. First, my muscles are screaming in pain from my stupid work out at the gym. Second, my bladder now feels like I have a netball shoved up there. Third, I am severely sleep deprived and hungry. Fourth, the children have managed to have seven arguments in the ten minutes it took from school to Sports Direct.
But let’s get onto the store itself. Why is every Sports Direct I have ever been in contained inside a very thin, deep building that travels back about a mile? Do they go to estate agents and say, ‘I need a new site for my shop! It has to be eight feet wide and a hundred and twenty miles deep. Oh with a second floor where we can’t install an escalator. Make sure it has no windows!’
Then, bearing in mind how far you have to walk to get to the end, WHY DO THEY PUT ALL OF THE TILLS AT THE BACK OF THE SHOP? Also, all the stuff I seem to need, ie stuff for Juniors, is on the second floor at the back, with a closed down till, so you have to trek back down the stairs WHICH TAKE YOU TO THE FRONT OF THE SHOP so you then have to WALK BACK UNDER THE STAIRS to get to the till at the back of the shop on the GROUND FLOOR!?!?!?!
(Deep breath)
Of course there is not a single staff member in sight so I have to trawl about (carrying two 5 kilo bags of dog food for Dog – long story) with sore feet and bladder to find someone to get a shoe in my child’s size.
I merrily tell the guy that Son is size 5 maybe 6, and Daughter is around a 4. He raises an eyebrow and asks them to stand on the foot measuring thing.
Son is now a SIZE EIGHT SHOE.
Daughter is a size SIX not a FOUR.
Oh crap. Yet again I have shoved my poor little darlings’ feet in shoes two sizes small for them for about a year.
Such was my guilt and shame, I agreed to buying the shoes they chose without checking the price. I ended up spending £145…
And that, my friends, is why I am suffering Middle-Age Rage.
I am very lucky at my age to still have both my parents who are relatively hale and hearty well into their 70’s. I love them dearly but they do drive me absolutely nuts, bless them.
Before we began our trek to Italy this week, we decided to catch up with my parents who live in Portsmouth. Why they decided to sell up the family home and move three hours away from me and my brother still remains a mystery. He and I remain loyal to out roots and each live within a 40 minute drive from the family home, but unfortunately some one else’s family now lives in it.
Another reason for a visit – as well as children longing to hang out with their grandparents, long may it last – Mum and Dad often take us along to socials in the community area. I love going along as I feel like a girlish young thing as the average age of everyone else is about 80.
So there they live, miles and miles from the nearest family member in a nice modern apartment overlooking the sea. It’s funny, when I think of old age pensioners, the image I have in my head is of my grandparents: white haired, stooped by years of hard labour, living in hot houses stuffed full with old fashioned, heavy, brown furniture and long held traditions such as laying the table for a full breakfast before going to bed.
Well my parents are nothing like their parents’ generation. They keep fit, mum dyes her hair, all their furniture is ‘habitat’ modern.
But.
They are just as old and stuck in their ways as my grandparents were, they just hide it better. This is something of which I was reminded this weekend.
My grandma was famous for loathing fridges, only ever using a pantry for her milk and butter. When she died we found tins and jars dating from before the war. I’m not joking. Thirty year old tins of Spam.
My mother, on the other hand, embraces fridges and freezers and regularly goes through her cupboards. Or so I thought.
Our first night there Dad poured out his usual mouth-puckeringly strong gin and tonics. Two of these are enough to leave you completely plastered. About an hour in I registered I was talking too loudly, waving my hands a bit wildly, with bits of peanut crumbs all over my shirt. Rob was making throat cutting gestures behind my Dad’s head so it was time to move onto something non alcoholic
(The throat cutting gesture is the universal symbol in our marriage for, ‘you’re getting too pissed and you are one sip away from disgracing yourself. Abort! Abort!’)
I knew Mum always keep Diet Cokes on hand for me – she’s great at making sure your every whim is satisfied – so I asked for a can. Two or three sips in I discovered that Diet Coke can, in fact, go off. Who knew? It tasted awful. Assuming it was a dud can and not wanting to embarrass my parents, I tossed the it away and grabbed another.
Again, the same weird, dusty taste. The drink tasted like the syrup and fizzy water had decided to part ways, quite some time ago, creating an odd fizzy froth with a slick of old, caramel coloured coke syrup at the bottom.
Understanding was dawning. I checked the bottom of the can. Yup. It expired in 2004. At least it was made this century.
Catching up was great and the first day was full of conversation and laughter, as it should be. But I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would be called upon for tech support. I could see Mum had lined up her phone, her laptop and Dad’s iPad on the sideboard (is that an old person’s thing? Nobody seems to have sideboards any more) ready for me to sort out.
She did wait until after breakfast the following day before pouncing with her IT questions. I don’t mind helping her at all. Not a problem. What I do mind is how she refuses to accept the changes I suggest until we have had a long, intense, and increasingly irritated argument discussion. Eventually I will convince her and she will agree, for example, that I can change the nickname on her email account so people actually know who she is.
For the first hour she refused to believe that changing the nickname of the account wouldn’t change the actual email address. It escalated so quickly that within about fifteen minutes she was yelling tearfully, ‘I CAN’T contact everyone to tell them my new address, I haven’t got the time! And what if Jackie needs to get in touch urgently?’
With me replying, ‘Mum, it’s fine. I just want to change the account…’
‘DON’T CHANGE THE ACCOUNT!’
Me… Patiently… ‘Mum. Listen. I am not going to change the account, I’m just altering the…’
‘DON’T ALTER ANYTHING!’
Me… through slightly gritted teeth now… ‘Mum. You know Dad was getting cross because when he used the email you shared it would show up on other computers as coming from ‘Fairybluebird48′? That is because you put that as the NICKNAME of your email account.’ Putting up hand to stall my Mum’s interruption, ‘NOT your ACTUAL EMAIL ADDRESS. I am going to change the nickname so that it just says your and Dad’s names… OK?’
Slightly sullen nod. JESUS! This is like trying to get Daughter to put her tights on for school.
She then insists I send five test emails to her phone to prove the email address hasn’t changed despite a sensible ‘Mr and Mrs Warrior’ nickname showing up in people’s inboxes.
After I sorted out the phone, I then spent 20 minutes showing Dad on his iPad where the ‘send’ button was on his email package, and where all the brilliant family photos I had sent him were.
He greeted the cache of photographs with exactly the same joy and delight he had demonstrated the last four times I had shown him.
I found and re-stuck onto his iPad case the step-by-step instructions post-it I had given him detailing how to find the family sharing folder with hundreds of photos of his beloved grandchildren.
All that remained was to go through the lap top with them both trying to free up memory, breaking up the row brewing between them about Mum’s Netflix habit – explaining to an increasingly puzzled Dad what ‘streaming’ meant. Again.
Oh! The bickering! Does anyone else have or had parents who did this? Constant sniping about things like bins, or ‘what have you done with the sofa samples?’ ‘ I don’t know what you’re talking about, I haven’t seen any ruddy samples!’ etc etc. At least they still make each other laugh.
Saturday afternoon involved the usual diatribe from Dad on the topic of: ‘Why Women are Not Qualified to do the TV Commentary on Cricket or Football.’ I’m not quite sure what the logic is, but it’s something to do with women not suffering the highs and lows of these sports in the same way men have done. I think he wouldn’t be happy with any football commentator who didn’t watch England winning the World Cup in 1966, to be honest.
Sunday night marked the ‘Great Allocation of the Pills for the Week’ ritual. My Dad hates taking pills but once he hit 75 four years ago, his GP wouldn’t take no for an answer. Mum LOVES taking pills. In fact she has two of those weekly pill things as she can’t fit them all in one. Mum’s are pink, Dad’s are blue and both have MTWTFFSS marked on each little pop up slot.
My Mum takes so many I’m surprised she doesn’t rattle like a maraca when she walks around. I’m sure some of them much cancel each other out. But whatever they are doing it works as they are making the most of their retirement.
Despite all this, it was great to see them and I know very well how lucky I am to have them in my life and not yet so frail they can’t look after themselves The trouble is that I find when you stay with your parents the dynamic shifts powerfully. Instead of being the ruler of your own home, with complete autonomy and control as an adult, you are catapulted back to the difficult teenage years.
When you are under their roof they are in charge. They are the adults. And it doesn’t matter how old you are, this dynamic will never change. I never understood it until I had children and they got old enough to say things like, ‘are you sure you want that second Krispy Kreme Doughnut, Mummy?’ and it struck me how bloody infuriating it must be to have your children grow up and try to boss you around. I can already imagine Daughter hustling me off to an Old Folks’ Home the second I retire.
So I am going to make the most of this time when my parents are still living happy, healthy lives. My Mum was delighted to whats app me that her ‘Dementia score was 27/27!’ I am assuming that’s good? Both Mum and Dad sidled up to me to say furtively that the other’s memory was ‘not what is once was’, but they both seem pretty able to bring up every single annoying thing the other one has done over the past fifty years.
We are back home now and I have spent the day doing the washing and trying to pack everything despite the children’s best efforts to take everything back out as they ‘want to wear it now! It’s my favourite dress/top/skirt/shorts etc.’
I am slightly hampered in my yelling at them as mother-in-law is here and I need to pretend to be a good parent. I am hoping I can keep this up for the duration of the holiday we are spending together.
Speaking of holidays, I have just checked the weather forecast for the upcoming week. Here, where I live, it’s blazing sunshine for the next seven days.
This is what is happening in the part of Italy we decided to visit.
If you’re here for the Mojito recipe, scroll down to the bottom as I wiffle on for a little bit…
I’ve always adored cocktails. I’m not a huge drinker – so don’t worry, I haven’t got a problem, but there’s something about a cocktail which makes life that little bit more colourful – a little more fizzy and fun.
On my 21st birthday party, in a dive of a pub in Northern Ireland, there was a special offer on Black Russians – buy one, get one free. When it was discovered it was my 21st birthday every single person in the pub – with typical Irish generosity – bought me two Black Russians.
It was a wild night, my last memory is looking down at a circular table with about twenty glasses on it. I didn’t drink vodka or kahlua again for about twenty years.
My 40th birthday was a slightly classier affair. I decided to have a ‘Film Noir’ theme and hired an underground venue and made everyone dress up in tuxedos and ’40’s glam’. There was a casino with a roulette wheel and everyone received a gambling chip with their invitation. When they arrived they were each given 20 chips to gamble with.
It was bloody brilliant, and the best bit was the tuxedoed waiters who went round with frozen jugs of Gimlets. I chose them as that’s what Raymond Chandler characters used to drink. (Reminds me of a lesson I gave on Film Noir when I said (brilliantly, I think) to the pupils, ‘the characters, like their drinks, are on the rocks.’)
Anyway Gimlets are fantastic. Half gin, half Rose’s Lime Cordial. Ice Ice Cold and served in a martini glasse.
Gimlet
Gorgeous – and doesn’t really taste that alcoholic. That is a problem as everyone at the party knocked them back and were completely plastered within about an hour. The good news is there is something magical in the cordial which stops you getting a hangover. I had a fantastic night but, again, couldn’t drink Gimlets for about five years afterwards.
Shortly after that, when the children were still quite young and causing all sorts of stress, Rob hit on the ingenious idea of working our way through the cocktail alphabet. He would knock up a different cocktail every night, inspired by a cocktail encyclopedia I had bought him for his birthday.
I am proud to say we managed to get through nineteen cocktails before our livers pleaded with us to stop. I took a photo of each one Rob made, which you can see below. Please excuse the glasses. Rob is very cross I am putting these pictures up as he said some of them are in the wrong glasses which completely spoils the look. I didn’t think it really mattered. I hope you will forgive the wrong glasses! If you hold your mouse over the picture you will see the name of the cocktail.
Brandy Sour
Daiquiri – Strawberry!
Gimlet
Mississippi Mule
Mojito
Number 19 Pick Me Up
Original Singapore Sling – in a very bad glass!
Pimms No. 1
Pina Colada – in a nasty glass!
Queens’ Park Swizzle
Rum Daisy
Screwdriver
Tootsie Roll Martini
Ulanda
Victory!
White Lady
X cubed – invented by Rob
Yellow Fever
Zombie Prince
All of these are recognised cocktails except this one.
X cubed – invented by Rob
This little beauty is Rob’s invention. We couldn’t find a recipe for a cocktail beginning with ‘X’ so Rob created the X³. The recipe is an equal mix of cherry cordial – or cherry brandy if you have it, Malibu and creme de cacao. He garnished it with a maraschino cherry. It was gorgeous but only in tiny amounts: tasted like cherries dipped in chocolate and dusted with coconut.
How to Make the Perfect Mojito
One heady evening Rob and I escaped up London to meet with Best Mate Guy for a night out like the young people we used to be. Children were with grandparents, I was wearing ridiculously high heeled shoes. These ones.
God I love these shoes. I can’t walk in them, so it’s home-taxi-bar-taxi-home with these beauties.
We went to a mind-blowing restaurant in central London which was so trendy I felt 150 years’ old going in. It had an Argentinian theme and all the chairs had fake pony skin covers. Time for cocktails!
The reason I am telling you this story is because that was the night we had THE BEST MOJITOS IN THE WORLD. They were unbelievably good. Rob’s eyes were on stalks. He was determined to get the recipe but the snooty polo playing waiters refused to pass it on.
In the interests of science we ordered more and more rounds so Rob could work out the secret ingredient.
For the next year Rob would experiment with recreating those mojitos. His job is research, and he used all his skills and problem solving ability to create the perfect Mojito recipe. And now, I am passing it on to you.
Mojito
The Recipe
You will need water, sugar, fresh mint, fresh limes and the most expensive rum you can afford.
First, and most importantly, it’s all about the sugar syrup. This is the secret ingredient. It needs to be made in advance.
The sugar syrup should be roughly 50/50 water and sugar. Then, get fresh mint leaves (including the stalk, which contains lots of flavour) and put them into the sugar syrup. Don’t do anything to the mint – just drop it in. Around two or three stalks of mint is all you need.
Leave to steep overnight – the longer the better – in the fridge.
Line up your Highball glasses for each of your guests. Keep them in the freezer so they are nice and frosted. You will need one lime per drink – get the freshest, juiciest limes you can find.
Squeeze juice of one lime. Add the same amount of pre-prepared sugar syrup (don’t forget to take the mint stalks out and throw them away)
It’s a good idea to have a little taste now as you have to make sure you have the balance right. If the limes are a bit old and sour you will need more sugar syrup. If they are nice and juicy you don’t need as much.
Once that is right add in five fresh mint leaves
Fill glass with crushed ice.
Pour in two measures (three if you like it strong) of white rum (spiced rum if you like it dirty). Use the best rum you can afford
Top up with soda water
Drop in a couple more mint leaves on top
Add a slice of lime on edge of the glass if you’re feeling fancy.
Stir with swizzle stick and drink with a straw.
Enjoy!
Cheeky alternatives:
If you want to make it very special, use champagne or Prosecco instead of soda water to make it a Mojito Royale.
Add angostura bitters (three splashes) to make it a Queens’ Park Swizzle – this drink will knock your socks off.
The Queen’s Park Swizzle – a twist on a Mojito
Let me know if you try any of these – also what drinks did you over indulge in when younger and now can’t drink any more?
My stress levels are very high at the moment. I’m being a right miserable old cow. Rob and the children have realised it’s probably best to leave me alone until I come out of this – what do I call it – Rage Cave? Stress Swamp? Oh dear me, it’s terrible. I’m writing this with awful indigestion, caused by too much wine last night, still in bed, and filled with a murderous fury. Rob tried to suggest it was hormones until he saw the look on my face and hastily backtracked out of the room offering tea as he went down the stairs.
I should be happy. I should be singing to the roof tops with delight as finally, finally, IT’S THE EASTER HOLIDAYS! I’m hoping, as – I’m sure – are the rest of the family, I will be back to my jolly, happy self tomorrow. I thought venting might be a good idea, so here I am, writing a blog with Daughter playing a REALLY annoying noisy game next to me, occasionally singing very loudly a very stupid song about a chicken. I am having to bite my tongue to stop myself snarling at her like some dreadful Gruffalo before returning back under the covers. WHY IS THERE NO GAVISCON IN THE HOUSE? I buy bloody packs of the stuff. Where does it go?
Deep breath.
Today is Sunday. The last day of term was an absolute nightmare. I was hoping it would be a fairly relaxed day. I only had a couple of double lessons, an assembly and off they jolly well would go. But no. A number of tricky, delicate issues cropped up which required immediate and careful handling and took up about three or four hours, stretching that last day of term well into late evening. At the time I didn’t resent it – there were some pupils who needed support and care and that’s what I’m paid to do. But it was exhausting. By the time I got back home the only thing I wanted to do was drink a bucket of wine and eat Chinese food. Both of which are guaranteed to make me feel crap in the morning but I DIDN’T CARE.
Daughter is now singing, ‘I’m a Knight, I’m a Knight, and my only aim in life is to fight’ where does she hear these insane songs?
The Day of Doom begun on Saturday morning. The children came into our room in the morning, crazy with joy because it was the first day of the holidays. I took a good, hard look at them. Daughter was wearing some gorgeous Cath Kidson pyjamas I bought her last year. I hadn’t seen them for a while. ‘Jesus, Rob – look at the children!’ I said in horror.
Daughter has had a recent growth spurt and this picture demonstrates how much she has grown in the last few months. The trouser legs are inches above her ankles. But worse than that was the indelible pen stains all over them and the giant rip in the knee. How the hell did that happen? Turning to Son we see his pyjamas are in exactly the same state. This is what Rob and I think of when we look at them.
Oh the shame, the shame. We have been so busy at work our children now look like unkempt, unloved tramps. I ordered them to dump their pyjamas in the bin. ‘You’ve plenty of lovely pyjamas! I trilled, leaping out of bed, ignoring my thumping headache and the sound of undigested wine sloshing around in my stomach. ‘Let’s get you packed, shall we?’ I did not want a repeat of my disastrous weekend off when I left the packing to Rob.
The whining begins: ‘We haven’t got anything to weeaarrrrr…. nothing fiitttssss.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ I responded gaily, sweeping to their bedrooms. ‘We did a big shop only a few months ago! You have lots of wonderful new clothes to wear.’ As I approached their wardrobes I slow down in apprehension as I remember that, actually, we DID do a big shop, but it was last January. Over a year ago.
They were right. Apart from one extravagant party dress (Daughter’s) and an over sized hoodie (Son’s ) absolutely nothing fits them. And there are no pyjamas.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I yelled, my face red and sweaty having forced a number of tiny outfits on increasingly reluctant children who seemed to have morphed into great hunks of people in the last five minutes. There was certainly nothing suitable for three weeks in muddy countryside with the forecast undecided between snow and/or balmy Spring weather.
Because they tend to just lounge around in their school uniforms during the week and I work Sunday, I hadn’t noticed they’d grown out of everything. I packed up three bin bags of clothes and put them by the door ready to take to the charity shop over the road. I guarantee those bags will still be there next year.
As I walked across the landing, I noticed a letter I had received from a well-known high street store. It was a card type loyalty voucher offering ‘50% off your first shop if you spend over £100!’
Brilliant! I thought. Being the end of the month I was skint, so this was ideal. ‘Right! We’re going to the shops!’
Rob generously offered to look after Dog at home and away I went with the children into town. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: Big mistake. Huge.
Town was RAMMED. I mean knocking people with your elbows walking down the High Street rammed. ‘I don’t like it, Mummy,’ Daughter said, leaning on me so hard I had to struggle to stay upright. (It drives me mad when she does this) ‘I don’t like it either, Darling,’ I replied, but we’ll be in the shop soon and we will get some lovely, lovely new clothes.’
Finally we reach the shop, and within minutes I was weighed down with clothes, shoes, coats and new pyjamas. Off we went to the till where a young man who looked very, very nervous and whose hands shook throughout the entire transaction served us. He made me feel so anxious I found myself calling out reassuringly, ‘No rush! Don’t worry! We aren’t in a hurry!’ I don’t think it worked as he kept getting himself in a real muddle and throwing away hangers we wanted to keep and putting the ones we didn’t want in the bag. He’d then stop. Realise in horror what he had done, blush to the roots of his hair, sweat now shining on his forehead, before slowly rectifying his mistake.
When all was done he rang up the total and I smugly handed over the discount card. WHICH DIDN’T WORK! He had to phone head office who declined the voucher and told him ‘they were not at liberty to discuss with anyone but the cardholder as to the reasons why.’ I assumed that meant they wanted to speak to me directly, but Nervous Boy hung up before I could get hold of the phone.
Sighing, I wiped my account with the 50% more than expected charge. Feeling murderous by this stage I phoned the number he gave me where a woman with the most enunciated voice I had ever heard informed me, ‘it won’t work until you have activated the card by email, Madam. This is CLEARLY detailed on the form you were sent, and no, I’m afraid we can’t backdate the discount on the goods you have already purchased. As I said, Madam, this is CLEARLY printed on the letter…’ I don’t know what she said after that as the rage was causing my ears to ring.
Walking out of the shop, vowing never to return, carrying eight million bags of clothes, I was struggling home through the crowds hoping the children were behind me, but fearful to turn round – like Orpheus – when I remembered another reason I was in town was to buy Easter gifts for the staff in my part of the school. ‘Fuck’s Sake!’ I whisper wearily, turning against the crowds like a fish going upstream to buy 11 Easter Eggs. Do you know how bulky they are?
So. Now carrying twenty billion bags but with the joyful accompaniment of the children moaning about how long this was taking and if we didn’t get home they were going to ‘pass out and die’, I made my way home. With a sigh of relief, I dumped the bags and realised the OTHER thing I was supposed to get was drops for my eye which – as it always does the first day of the holiday – had developed a nasty case of conjunctivitis.
I knew if I didn’t get the drops it would blow up into something really nasty so I went back into town AGAIN. They only had ointment. Typical.
Now the thing about ointment is that it not only looks gross, but it means you can’t see anything. Remember, I only have one good eye, so you have to imagine all of the following events occurred with me squinting through a thick film of greasy ointment. My eye was too sore not to use it so I just had to put up with it.
While I was out with the children, Rob had finished a leisurely cup of coffee, had a little nap, and – to be fair to him – packed all the food, drink and general kitchen accouterments we had to take to our house. He had also carried out all the bags of fresh and frozen food and put them in the car.
This is great. A pain of a job, but he’d done it calmly and methodically so a large part of the work had been done. Brilliant.
Unfortunately, this is where Rob felt his responsibilities ended, so he went out AND SAT IN THE CAR!
Leaving me with the children, my own packing and a bonkers Dog who was jumping around like Zebedee, delirious with joy at no longer having to wear a cone. This bouncing was interspersed with protracted, loving, and methodical cleaning of her backside – she hasn’t been able to reach it for a week – which was enough to turn the strongest of stomachs.
Blinking furiously to read the number on my phone, I called Rob to scream at him, turning the air blue when, yet again, I stubbed my toe on the 5 kilo weights he’d left on the bedroom floor and which I had asked him to move FOUR TIMES ALREADY!
Deep breath.
He was not at all contrite, pointing out that he had already done a lot of work and the children were old enough to pack their own stuff. Which was fair enough.
I stumped round the house muttering and cursing. I still couldn’t see anything. I spent the next half an hour yelling, ‘Get down, Dog!’ and ‘Will you go and get everything packed, NOW!’ to the children who had decided to put on some kind of fucking fashion show and were walking up and down the corridor wearing their new clothes, each commenting on the other’s choices, completely oblivious to their fuming, squinting, oily-eyed mother, who was tearing her hair out.
Eventually, they realised I really was getting quite angry, and they started doing as they were told and Son, bless him, circled me warily asking if he could help with anything. Feeling awash with guilt at being such a cow I gave them both a hug and said sorry for being so awful. Reassured, he lugged down all the remaining cases whilst Daughter took the Dog out to the car. Son ran back in and without prompting, brought me a large glass of fizzy water with ICE CUBES, to cheer me up.
I could have sat down and wept. ‘I don’t deserve these children when I am so horrible to them,’ I thought.
When we arrived at our house the birds were singing. It wasn’t too cold and I could see signs of Spring stirring all over the garden. My shoulders dropped and I realised I was deathly, deathly tired. Without a word, I walked like a zombie into the house, lay down on the bed and slept like the dead for two hours. That night we all went over to our brilliant neighbours and consumed large amounts of curry and lots of wine and I laughed until I felt sick.
This morning, Rob has wisely taken the children out so I can just sit in bed and recover. He reminds me I am like this every time the term ends – I always forget – and I allow myself to gradually wind down. Writing this has acted as poultice sucking out all of the anger and stress which had worked it’s way so deep into my bones. I’m going to have a hot bath, read a good book and take it easy. I think my batteries had completely depleted, turning me into the bitch from hell who terrified everyone around her. My poor family!
Oh and by the way, you know I said I would never go into that shop again? Well it turns out Nervous Boy forgot to take the security tag off one of Son’s tops. I don’t know why it didn’t set off the alarm. Eye roll.
I hate New Year’s Resolutions. I always give myself completely unrealistic goals and then feel like crap when I don’t achieve them. So this year I thought I’d have a little conversation with my children (in my head) about the resolutions they should put in place. Mostly in order to ensure I retain my sanity.
I love my children. Adore them in fact, wouldn’t be without ’em. I can say in all honesty I would step in front of a bus if it meant saving their lives. But, man, they drive me crazy-nuts sometimes. In my post about being angry, I wrote about the trials and tribulations of coping with a baby and a toddler. They were tough times; now my children are 12 and 9 they are much easier to handle – they don’t poo in awkward places anymore, and they don’t try and kill themselves by playing with knives, plug sockets and falling down steep slopes – but they continue to have an unerring ability to hit me where it hurts.
My responses to their little quirks can range from hilarity, to stressy anger, to shouting, to utter despair. It would be wonderful if they could heed these suggestions. Maybe then I will get them to suggest some resolutions to help me be a better parent.
By the way, I am aware a number of these issues have stemmed from being a crap parent when my children were younger (and now – it’s not like I’ve improved over time) Rob and I both work and my current job means I work seven days a week during term time. I am not around as much as I would like. This is something my children are very good at using against me. My son, then 10, once said to my husband: ‘I wish you could earn more so Mummy didn’t have to work so much.’ Ouch! Double whammy. Amazing how he managed to crush Rob as a man and me as a parent in one careless aside.
So with this in mind, dear children, here are some actions you can take to ensure you don’t drive your parents towards a complete breakdown.
Resolutions..
1: Don’t guilt trip your Mum and Dad. I know this is something you have both learned to do with admirably deftness as you have grown, but it’s not big and its not clever. We already feel guilty enough. In fact I suffer a constant sense of guilt about how crap I am as a parent. My children do this often: ‘you only won’t do it because you’re so lazy!’ or ‘Why won’t you buy me that (insert insanely expensive product here)? ALL my friends have one, you just want everyone at school to think I’m a LOSER’, or ‘Everyone else’s Dads play football with them ALL THE TIME!’ Statements guaranteed to weigh shoulders down with even more guilt.
2. KEEP YOUR ROOMS TIDY! Oh My God, my kids’ tidiness, or lack thereof, causes me more vein-busting fury then anything else in my life. In fact I’ve given up on their rooms now. They can bloody live in filth in there for all I care. They can roll around and rot in the banana skins, old cereal bowls and dirty laundry as far as I am concerned. At the moment, my battle is focused on getting their rubbish out of the sitting room. It’s hard enough keeping on top of that.
People without children don’t have any idea how messy they can be. For example, look at these pictures. To be fair to my son, this was the absolute worse his room ever got and it was a while ago – he was about 7 – and his excuse was he was ‘looking for something’. There are three days between the before and after pictures. Three days of the following: Me, screaming, sweating and shouting whilst throwing rubbish in bin bags; carrying out six, SIX bin bags filled with crap; physical struggles over old broken toys which have suddenly become more precious than fricking diamonds; and finally, me videoing my son swearing solemnly never to leave his room in such a mess again. Look closely at the before photo – can you see my son’s leg beneath the rubble?
Before – If you look closely can you see my son under the pile of rubble?
Three days of cleaning (by me) later…
The funny thing is now my son’s room is always immaculate. Without me saying a word, one day he just upped and cleared away all his old toys and put them in boxes to be stored in the loft. He asked for a desk and gaming chair for Christmas so now his room looks like the office of a YouTuber. My daughter continues to carry the torch, however, so it looks like I still have a few more years of prising dirty laundry out from under beds and bottom of cupboards.
3. Please recognise that when we limit your phone usage, or your time on the Playstation, it is not because we are joy-hating ogres, who delight in ruining the lives of young children. We are doing it so you a) don’t get groomed by sexual predators and b) don’t destroy your brains and eyes with the constant glare of wifi enabled devices. Ditto for making you eat food that doesn’t entirely consist of sugar. And yes that mango juice does contain 50 sugar cubes which will destroy your vital organs. No, crisps and cereal do not represent vital food groups and granola and Greek yoghurt are much yummier than coco pops. Yes I know I let you have coco pops yesterday, yes, and the day before, but you can’t have them today.
4. Stop asking the same thing over and over and over again. OK, so every now and then Rob or I will give in and let you have or do what you want once you’ve asked 500 times but that was because we were TIRED! You can’t hold this against us and hope this trick will work again. My daughter came in this morning and asked me if we could go to M&S (She calls it Marks and ‘Spensive) to buy sausage rolls. (She bloody loves sausage rolls, especially the ones that you have to take a loan out to buy at high-end shops.) I was asleep, so mumbled ‘We’ll see’. Big mistake because this was then followed by a concentrated 20 minute campaign to negotiate a solid agreement to purchase said party food. Once I had agreed I thought that meant I could go back to sleep. But no! My daughter would not let up until she had a fixed time as to when we would leave. I plucked ‘2pm’ off the top of my head, desperate to make her go away so I could go back to sleep. I then had to endure her asking ‘are you getting up now?’ every three and a half minutes for the next four hours.
5. Stop arguing with your brother/sister! Oh My God the rows my children have with each other drive me insane. This should be number one, actually. I read once that dealing with children fighting with their sibling was the equivalent of having a whole extra child. Ain’t that the truth. Here is a list of the most recent topics my children argued about.
Who was the most cold on the games pitches at school that day
Daughter had an 5mm longer sausage than son at supper. Cue ten minute rant on the theme of ‘unfairness and you love sister more than me’ from son, stopped only by Rob yelling at him to shut up. Rest of meal eaten in grim silence
A pritt stick glue was found in the sitting room. Both claim it as there’s. This led to a physical punch up.
Whether Mr Noisy from the Mr Men books was red or blue. This furious debate lasted the whole school run journey home. (He’s red)
A complete inability to keep to ‘their’ side of the two-seater sofa.
Which one of them loves the dog more. I find this infuriating as not one of them does a fricking thing for the dog. They won’t walk her, feed her, water her or pick up after her unless I threaten them within an inch of their lives.
Whenever my children argue, I am haunted by the words once said to me by my best friend. Like me, he has a sibling only 18 months younger than him. Unlike me, he has never got on with his sister. I have always got on with my brother, and value that relationship very much. My friend told me that one of the reasons he doesn’t have a great relationship with his sister is because when they were children his mother always took her side when they argued. She was very good at playing the victim so he ended up in trouble and bitterly resentful. So when I am faced with the red-faced fury of my children hurling abuse at each other I have to make an effort to try and listen to both sides to ensure justice and parity is in place.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to sort out an argument when both of them are lying, or at least exaggerating, and how do you resolve an argument entitled ‘Yes I know I gave her that book and said she could keep it but I really like it now and want it back.’ Also I am constantly aghast at how vile they can be to each other. I mean, really vile. It’s such a shame as so often I hear them giggling together and see them hang out and it’s lovely. Five minutes later thought it’s all ‘you’re a poo-head’ and ‘I wish you weren’t my sister and I could swap you for a boy!’
Rob and I constantly tell them how important our siblings are to us. We talk seriously about the friendship and camaraderie we have with our brothers. How they are an important link with our childhood.
This means nothing to them.
6. FLUSH THE CHAIN. There’s few things more revolting than entering the bathroom to discover a child has already, and quite visibly, used the lavatory already. Also, use the bloody loo brush. I have demonstrated the wonders of this little instrument hundreds of times but the lesson doesn’t seem to stick. I’m not sure which child it is, but one of them does a sort of sideways poo which clings stubbornly to the bowl. Both of them adamantly deny it is them. Once I cleaned the loo, watched my son go in, watched him go out, then called him back in to witness me pointing an accusing finger at the sideways poo. He shrugged, ‘that was there when I went in – my sister is so disgusting.’ He capered back to his room whilst I stood mouthing, ‘but I just…’ with steam exploding from my ears. I’ve even toyed with the idea of getting a web cam in there to catch them red-handed, but have now seen sense.
7. Finally, and this is particularly aimed at my daughter, stop SHRIEKING all the time! It’s bad enough listening to the constant thump thump of my son kicking his football against his bedroom wall (despite countless requests not to). My daughter shrieks at everything. There is not a shade of difference in sound between the shriek that means ‘Oh! That’s annoying, my Netflix programme has frozen’ or the shriek that means ‘Help! Brother has stabbed me with a knife!’ (I hasten to add he hasn’t ever stabbed her with a knife. When they were very young there was a slight incident with a Stanley Knife but we shall draw a veil…)
It takes a great deal of parental experience to translate daughter’s shrieks. But whatever the cause, they never fail to make my blood pressure soar through roof.
Looking back at this list I have to admit that they could have been much worse. Five years ago I would have written things like ‘Stop sitting on my lap and cannoning your head back without warning, smashing my nose and front teeth so hard my eyes water,’ and ‘please don’t insist you don’t need the loo before changing your mind the minute we walk into the shop (which has no facilities) and insisting you need to do an enormous poo RIGHT NOW’.
I have no doubt that in a few years time I will have a whole new host of things to moan about with my children. And yes, I know, a few years after that I will be moaning about how much I miss them. But in the meantime, maybe this list will help them to make a few tweaks so 2018 is peaceful, joyful, blessed and full of familial love.
I first wrote about losing James who was stillborn at 42 weeks, years ago when I was newly pregnant with Joe, now a beautiful golden boy. I wrote as a catharsis, as a way of dealing with something so horrific, in the very real sense of the world, that I couldn’t get my head around it. When I finished writing, I put it away and haven’t looked at it since.
Re-reading what I wrote then I am stuck by my naivety. I didn’t know when I wrote and prepared for a birth I knew in my bones would be fine – and was – that I would go on to have two miscarriages, both at three months. The first resulting in a life-threatening haemorrhage. I didn’t know when I finally managed to carry my gorgeous girl to term, I would have to suffer scans every month of the pregnancy, which led to panicked worries about her heartbeat. There were concerns about my blood pressure, and at 36 weeks we thought we might lose her as my waters seemed to disappear. (It turned out she had managed to gather the entire contents of her amniotic sac beneath her, fooling the ultrasound technician).
I didn’t know then that the relief of the safe birth of my daughter would trigger a breakdown in my husband who would suffer severe, chronic depression for years afterwards. Years when dealing with a baby and a toddler were hard enough without having to yell at someone who wouldn’t get out of bed, or wash. A therapist told me Rob had stayed strong for me, despite reeling with grief from the stillbirth. He kept it together until our second child was born and then he just collapsed.
It is only now I feel able to look back on what I wrote, both as a way of remembering, but also as a way of letting go. The scars are healed, pretty much, but they are still there – reshaping who I was and fixing in place who I am now. The facts are, sadly, around one in a hundred babies die between 24 weeks of pregnancy and the first days of life. (Stillbirth is ten times more common than cot death)
I had no idea that this statistic is the same all over the world and hasn’t changed since records began. This is appalling. And if me posting this helps other women, or raises the profile of stillbirths – a strange, medieval sounding word – so that more is done to stop them, then something good will come from James’ death.
We hadn’t been married long when I got pregnant. My husband, Rob, wanted to wait – to spend more time together as a couple – but I was pleased. At 33 I didn’t want to wait too much longer to have children. This was in September and once we knew all was well, (following the first scan) on Christmas day we told both sets of parents they were to be grandparents for the first time. Everyone was delighted.
All was normal: I saw the midwife; I went for scans; I read all the pregnancy books I could get my hands on. Apart from some first trimester bleeding I had a wonderful pregnancy. I was happy and healthy. We started to gather bits and pieces for the baby. I didn’t want to buy anything at first, but at six months I lost my head in a toy shop and bought a set of three rubber ducks – Daddy, Mummy and baby sized.
By seven to eight months I was huge; the possibility of actually having a new addition to the house started to become more believable. Rob and I watched the bump wriggling and kicking in my belly and most nights Rob would read Winnie-the-Pooh to the baby so he or she would get used to the sound of his voice.
We went to ante-natal classes (which Rob absolutely loathed) and started preparing the nursery. At 37 weeks Rob created the most beautiful murals of Winnie-the Pooh characters on each of the sunshine-yellow walls we had painted. Looking back I can see it was such a joyful time, but all the while I kept feeling this was too good to be true – I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something would go wrong. People tried to reassure me but I felt I didn’t deserve to be so happy.
At 41 weeks, a week overdue, I went to see the midwife for my regular check-up and she offered to do a membrane sweep. She tried, but didn’t see any signs of imminent delivery. She monitored the baby’s heartbeat and all was fine. We booked in for an induction the following week. That afternoon I was reassured that all was well because the baby kicked so much – at one point he kicked so hard he knocked my book aside and Rob and I laughed. This is so difficult to write because I realise now that the baby was dying at that point, and was twisting and gasping for air.
Thursday dawned and I had a really happy day. Rob and I just lazed about together and I was convinced I was going into labour soon. I felt really close to Rob and that I should savour these last moments alone with him. I vaguely noticed the baby didn’t seem to be kicking as much but assumed he was getting ready for labour.
On Friday, now nearly two weeks past my due date, I hadn’t felt movement for a while. I rang the birthing unit and they told us to come in. We arrived sick and clammy with anxiety. I knew something was wrong. Rob tried to tell me everything would be OK but I knew with a heart-pounding certainty something catastrophic had happened.
The midwife placed the monitor on my belly and for the first time since I got pregnant she couldn’t find the heartbeat. I knew the baby had died. She tried to blame the equipment but it was clear to me. She told us to go to hospital to get scanned. The journey passed in a blur. It took us ages to find the right place to go – eventually we were met by a midwife. She unsuccessfully tried to find a heartbeat and then called for the scan. Nothing.
I asked her to leave us alone then Rob put his arms around me and we just wept.
It was late Friday night. I was in a state of shock (I now realise) but I was very calm and Rob never stopped holding my hand. The plan was my Mum was going to come with us when I went into labour, so my parents were waiting for a call. The hardest thing I have ever had to do was to phone them. It was my father who answered the phone. I said ‘Dad. I’m so sorry. The baby died.’ I heard him tell Mum, and her wail of despair still haunts me. Dad told me later I sounded as if I was drowning.
We talked briefly and I told them I’d call back. His sadness was terrible. It was then I started to go into labour. I pleaded for a Caesarean but was persuaded that the best thing to do would be to deliver the baby naturally. When I argued they told me that it could put future pregnancies at risk; I gave in and agreed. The medical staff, professional and expressionless, started to administer drugs to speed up the process. I phoned my Dad back – it was about 2 in the morning now – he asked if they could come up: they couldn’t bear sitting at home.
The next two days passed in a blur. I was given an epidural which meant I had to lie down, which I absolutely hated. The baby had swung round against my back causing a crippling ache. I wish they would have let me go on all fours or at least stand up, I’m sure it would have helped. Rob felt terrible for me as he knew this was so against all my plans of a natural, mobile birth. My parents arrived and my Dad couldn’t stop crying. He made me laugh as he said he was just like Del Boy. Mum was absolutely fantastic. She looked after Rob and kept spraying rose oil from the Body Shop in the air; wiping my face with cooling tissues and rubbing my feet to warm them up.
Rob’s parents turned up as well and I was glad because I was so worried about him, he was absolutely exhausted and being 6ft 3 couldn’t sleep on the tiny chair next to my bed. I felt very calm. I kept telling him I was going to be OK. We would get pregnant again and everything would be fine. I was driven by an absolute certainty of this.
It took me ages to fully dilate. Saturday evening came around and I was finally ready to push. In the position I was in, along with the epidural, I had no idea how to push properly. The midwife helped but it wasn’t easy. Later, I was absolutely astonished to discover I was pushing for five hours. I thought it was no longer than ten minutes.
By Sunday morning worries were raised about my blood pressure. I was exhausted and longed to go home. Rob later told me he couldn’t help thinking if he could just take me home everything would be OK. He didn’t tell me for a while he thought I was going to die as well. Finally, the staff said they were going to try forceps and if that didn’t work I would have to have a section. I was ready for anything by that point and in quite a lot of pain. They wheeled me into the theatre with Rob and in came the head Doctor who was the biggest, blackest man I had ever met. His hands were huge. When he examined me I heard him say ‘I’m going to need longer gloves’ which filled me with horror but even at this darkest of dark times it made me smile because it reminded me of the immortal line ‘we’re gonna need a bigger boat’.
After an episiotomy and forceps James was finally born at 6am, Sunday 29th August. The relief was incredible. The baby was taken away to be washed and looked after but I didn’t really notice, I was dazed and exhausted. The pain of labour had ended straight away though I then had to suffer the agony of having the placenta scraped out, which is indescribable.
The midwife came in and said ‘Did you know what you were having?’ I hadn’t even thought about the sex of the baby I had just delivered. Rob told her we didn’t, and she looked at us with huge sympathy. ‘You had a baby boy,’ she said. I can still hear Rob’s gasping sobs when he heard this. I held his hand as tight as I could.
I asked Mum to go and see James, I didn’t know whether I wanted to see him. I asked her to see if he was OK to look at because I didn’t want to be frightened of him. She returned to tell me he was beautiful. She had left Dad with James because he wanted to introduce himself and didn’t want to leave him on his own. Rob’s parents saw him too and told me how lovely he was and that he looked like Rob. I broke down and couldn’t stop saying how sorry I was.
They took us into a double private room away from all the other new mothers with healthy, live babies. Whenever I heard a new born crying it was like a knife in my side. They brought James to us. When the midwife put him in my arms, bundled in a blue blanket with a little hat on, we saw his face and dark lips, blue because of the lack of oxygen; we saw the scrapes on his cheeks from the forceps and Rob said ‘Oh, our poor little boy’ and I saw how beautiful he was. I held him and cried. He weighed nearly 9 pounds and was almost two feet long. As I cried his body jiggled horribly, like a doll, and I felt afresh the tragedy of his death. Rob held him and then they put him in a crib by the bed. We then fell asleep and I was ridiculously comforted to have Rob’s arms around me.
Our memory box. It is filled with letters and cards from friends. James’ photographs, ultrasound pictures and his wrist band. Also the hand and footprints the midwife had done when James was born
We had James blessed and the chaplain was wonderful. She lit the room with candles, cuddled him, told us he had my nose and we named him James Edward. They took him away and Rob signed an agreement for James to have a post-mortem. We went home. Mum and my father-in-law had gone round the house and packed away all the tiny baby clothes, the Moses basket, everything. I was grateful. I was bleeding and sore and needed to sleep. My family and Rob’s brother were there and looked after us. Midwives came and went but my world was Rob, me and the memories of our baby.
My milk came in three days later. It was painful but it didn’t upset me because I felt it showed my body was strong and knew what it was doing. It would be ready soon to carry another baby. We went to Spain to get away from the town where everyone knew us. We talked about what had happened almost constantly and cried an awful lot.
When we returned we felt able to arrange the funeral. Throughout my pregnancy I wore a shocking pink maternity t-shirt that read ‘FBI: Fabulous Baby Inside’ and I put it to be placed with James in the coffin. First, though, was the post-mortem result. That was horrible. As we expected there was no obvious reason why James had died. He was a well-nourished fully grown baby. It was upsetting to read how he had swallowed meconium – evidence of him ‘gasping’ and the description of the weight of the brain and other organs was very distressing. Rob was upset for ages that his only role as a father was having his boy cut up.
The funeral was beautiful. James was placed in a wicker-work, Moses basket like coffin with a lid. Rob carried him up the aisle. Afterwards, we looked out at the lovely hills that surround the crematorium and one of the gardeners offered to show us where James’ ashes would be scattered: a beautiful rose garden overlooking the valley with a small statue of a child at the centre. He said, ‘this is where we put the little ones,’ and I cried because it was such a lovely thing to say and made it sound like a playgroup. I said with utter certitude that I would bring James’ brother and sister up there as it was a beautiful place that wasn’t at all frightening.
Seven months later I was pregnant with another son, Joe. It had been a difficult time. I never thought I could be happy again but it is amazing what you can cope with. Sometimes Rob was so sad it broke my heart. I found him one day in the nursery upset because the murals were starting to peel off the walls, the paint had cracked slightly. ‘We made such a beautiful room,’ he said, ‘and James never saw it.’ I don’t know what to say when he says this. There isn’t anything to say. I can’t answer him when he asks me ‘why us?’ What can you say when someone says ‘we’ve done nothing wrong, we’ve never hurt anyone, why did our baby die?’ We can only hold each other, and try to remember the happy times of the pregnancy when a golden light seemed to surround us. James may have never seen us, but he knew his father’s voice and would often stop hiccupping in the womb when Rob stroked my belly.
Most people were wonderful. We received piles of cards and letters. Many knew others to whom it had happened and helped us with tales of the next babies being born happy and healthy. Shockingly, one friend behaved in a way which I found inexcusable. A week after we lost the baby and came home, my friend called to say, ‘as you won’t be needing the Moses basket I lent you any more, could I take it back for my friend who has just had a baby?’ Rob never forgave her for making me go up to the loft to search through the hidden baby things for that Moses basket. I remember sobbing with rage as I looked for it. In contrast, another friend was so saddened by the poor quality of James’ Polaroid photograph, she ran a marathon to raise money to buy a good quality SLR camera which she donated to the maternity ward of the hospital where James was born.
The card that touched me the most, and had the most powerful message, was from my Aunt. Her daughter died hours after being born because of Rhesus disease. She wrote: ‘Sadly there will never be a satisfactory answer to ‘why you’, but the strength, love and concern you have shown to one another and have shared with those who love you both are the gifts your baby boy has given you.’ And that message, more than any other comforted me as it recognised James as an important member of the family who brought something into our lives even though he never lived to meet us.
I remember holding it together for weeks after the stillbirth until I looked in the mirror and recognised with a sadness that made my bones ache that my baby never saw his mother’s face. I only every cried publicly twice: once on a plane when a woman thought I was still pregnant – a few weeks after the birth – and another in a fish and chip shop when the server asked, ‘hello, love – what did you have in the end? Girl or boy?’ Both those times I cried like I’d never cried before. Without restraint. With loud sobbing and so much water pouring down my face I felt desiccated afterwards.
The pregnancy that followed was magical. Joe kicked every 30 seconds for the entire 38 weeks. It was like he knew I needed constant, minute by minute, reassurance. The birth was easy and didn’t need to be induced. The first months of his life were some of the happiest of mine. Joe’s birth coincided with England winning The Ashes so the men in our families were over the moon twice over. All of us were drenched with the relief of this birth after the darkness of the previous year. I am glad I didn’t know then about the miscarriages and the depression that would follow.
I don’t know what to do with this experience. It showed me that I am much stronger that I thought I was – but then I think everyone is, what else can you do except keep on going? When Joe was born Rob and I were already parents. James was and is always with us. He bonded the two of us, and our families, more strongly together than ever before. I still think of him, and when my irritation with my children rises I try, not always successfully – I am only human – to remind myself how blessed I am to have these two. I was lucky, I managed in the end to make the family I wanted, many don’t.
If I can offer any advice to someone who has suffered the loss of a baby it would be to cry, a lot. Don’t be ashamed or afraid. Crying releases something in you that helps – albeit temporarily at first. A kind man, a priest urged, ‘Tell your story’ and that helped too. All I can say is it gets better. You won’t believe how long it takes. But it does. It stops crippling you. I promise. But you’re never the same again.
If you ever know anyone who has gone through this, please talk to them. Acknowledge they are parents, even if the baby is gone. Let them talk to you, let them cry on you. Please, please don’t forget the father. People always support and comfort the mother and forget the impact on a man who has also lost his child. In a way it is harder for them: James had a complete life within me, I got to know him. Rob was waiting for the relationship with his son to begin, and the grief he felt at the loss of that affects him still, years later. I was comforted by the support of my friends and work colleagues. Time and time again people would walk past Rob to hug me, forgetting he was hurting as much as I was. One day I will ask him to write his side as I think fathers are often forgotten. In many ways I found his grief harder to deal with than my own.
Stillbirths should not still be happening. Think of those fifteen families a day whose lives are forever scarred by the loss of a baby. SANDS and Tommy’s are wonderful charities who have helped by advising hospitals on how best to support newly-bereaved parents. Private double rooms and chilled cots are some of the ways to help facilitate that very precious time when parents can say goodbye to their child.
That long night when my family waited in the hospital corridors while I was in labour, my Aunt phoned begging my father to tell me to spend time with James. When he was born I didn’t want to see him, but she was so insistent I agreed, and I am so glad I did. Later, my Aunt told me it was because when she lost her daughter it was believed that the best thing was to pretend the baby had never existed. Her child was whisked away and later buried between the legs of an old Catholic man who had just died. My Aunt never knew where her child was buried. The barbarity of this makes me gasp.
Charities like SANDS and Tommy’s have helped to change this and are also committed to developing research to try and stop these deaths altogether. If this article moves anyone to donate then something good can come out of this, so please have a look at their websites.
Click here to donate to SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity)
