More Than Just a Mother

Heading to Chez Castillon

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:34:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I saw a competition on Jane Wenham-Jones' blog, in celebration of the launch of her extremely funny (and slightly daft) book 100 Ways to Fight the Flab. The book is the perfect antidote for that well-known freelancer's problem, Writer's Bottom, and the competition was to write a frivolous diet tip in no more than 250 words.

I saw the competition on the morning of the closing date, when I was sitting in the garden on one of those rare sunny days we had last month, trying to write a column and dropping biscuit crumbs in my keyboard. It was the perfect procrastination opportunity, and I spent a happy hour finding things to rhyme with Chekhov. As poetry has never been My Thing, I was forced to eat more biscuits while I found The Muse.

However, I'm delighted to report that I won the competition, and will be jetting off in September to Chez Castillon, in the South of France, for a six-night writing course with Jane. I will be starting book two round about that time, so it couldn't be more perfect. You can read my winning entry, and the very funny runners-up, here.

Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:28:00 +0000

The boys were five weeks old when Alex died. In my head he has never got any older - how could he? If I think of those thirty-five days - and rarely do I allow myself to do so - it is of a hand curled around my finger; a butterfly heart beneath the translucent skin of a child who never left his cot. A child who never laughed. A child who never grew big enough for clothes knitted on the tiniest needles.

With a mixture of pride and grief I see Josh grow into his role of the only son. I see his shadow fade as he makes his way through life alone, and slowly, carefully, I pick my way through life as a mother of three, not four.

And throughout all of this, Alex remains a baby. A tiny, three-pound, bird-like baby, whose weight is far less than the blankets in which he is wrapped. He lies in my memory as he lay in my arms: quietly, silently, calmly.

Last week Josh asked to do some sewing. 'I want to make a picture', he said. He trawled my fabric stash for greens and blues; for red, for ribbon and for buttons, and he sat on the floor with his tongue between his teeth as he pulled the thread back and forth. 'It's Heaven,' he explained, pointing to the strip of sky stitched to the top. 'It's a huge poppy field in Heaven, and I'm going to use these buttons for Alex.'

'They're too big', Evie piped up, ever-concerned with accuracy. 'Alex was really, really small'.

Josh shook his head patiently. 'Yes,' he said, 'but not now. Now he's six, like me. Now he's big. Isn't he, Mummy?'

For six years I have closed my mind to the thought of how Alex would be now. I have turned away from imagining a second head on the pillow, another plate at the table. I have never let him grow up.

'Yes,' I said. 'I suppose he must be'.

So I took a deep breath and I listened to Josh tell me about Alex; about the games he plays in Heaven, and the friends he must surely have there. I heard tales which made me hide a smile, and I heard the imaginings of a boy who has come to terms with death far better than I ever could.

When I think of Alex, I remember pain and grief; impossible choices; a tiny white coffin. When Josh thinks of Alex, he smiles at the boy running free in a meadow of poppies; a world built out of the love of a brother left behind.

I can learn a great deal from my son, I think.

Bumping into the past.

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:04:00 +0000

I bumped into someone from work the other day. Not my 'now' work; my 'then' work. The work where I wore a rank on my shoulder, made decisions, briefed teams. The work I slid out of eighteen months ago, on the pretence of a break. The work I finally quit last month, earning in return a standard confirmation email containing fewer words than the years I served.

I ran into her in the supermarket, the pen-pusher's lunchtime destination. She saw me before I got to my car.

'How are you?' I asked. 'What are you doing now?' It was a work question. It was always a work question. She told me about her current role, and I felt a stab of envy. She was always one of The Bright Young Things: sharp, quick, destined for greatness. I was a Bright Young Thing too, once.

'And you?' she asked. 'You're...' there was a pause, 'writing?' She made it sound as though I spent my days making daisy chains: a harmless pursuit, yet without purpose or ambition.

'Yes,' I said. I wanted to tell her how I ached to write, how my fingers itched when they weren't at a keyboard, and stories fell over themselves to escape from my head, like excited puppies desperate for walks. I wanted to tell her that a decade in uniform had stifled and repressed me, chased out creativity and left me broken. I didn't say any of that. 'It fits in well around the children,' I finished lamely, and her look of understanding was so patronising I bit my cheek with the force of my smile. She smiled back. I could never be like you, she was thinking. I could never throw away everything I've achieved. I would never abandon my career on a whim, to scribble unread stories and gossip at the school gate.

And maybe she never will. But perhaps one day she will wish she had.

Sunny days

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:54:00 +0000

There's something about the sunshine, isn't there? I woke up this morning and there it was: splashing itself across the garden in the most brazen way. I made pancakes, smoothies, fruit yoghurt. The coffee thrust itself upwards in the cafetière as though it couldn't wait to be brewed.

We sat on the deck beneath the heat of the gazebo, and we could almost have been in the tropics, save for the intermittent buzz of lawnmowers so peculiar to the English spring.

Could it have been more perfect? I don't think so. Happy children, happy parents, happy puppy - dancing between pairs of bare feet you would think were provided expressly for her pleasure. I had that notion one feels at a party or concert, where one steps back from the crowd and looks down upon the revelry. I watched my children laugh at nothing, smile at each other, giggle at some unseen joke. I felt warmth spread throughout me and I basked in the happiness I had helped to create. My family. My perfect, happy family.

When the clouds gathered overhead I shuddered, bracing myself for the inevitable chill. But the smiles didn't fade, and the laughter didn't die, and the warmth in my heart remained despite the shadow in the sky. And I realised the happiness I felt had nothing to do with the weather. Sunshine doesn't bring happiness - it simply helps you see it a little more clearly.

Time to donate

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:10:00 +0000

Blood, bone-marrow, breast-milk, or good old-fashioned cash. Most people I know donate something on a regular basis, or have done so at least once in the past. I was a regular blood-donor, until a life-saving transfusion meant I could no longer donate. Ah, the irony. When funds were more plentiful I sponsored a child, set up standing orders for two charities close to my heart, and always had a pocketful of change to drop in a busker's hat.

Nowadays my own children eat through my income like locusts through a cornfield, and the spare change I once scattered so liberally is carefully collected from pockets and bedside tables to ease us towards the end of the month. But I have time. Lots of time. Instead of a fifty-hour week and an hour's commute, with reports to read at home, and a vibrating Blackberry, I work twenty hours from home, with my phone on silent. I earn the same, but with less stress. I work smarter, not harder.

I am fortunate to be in this position, and as I'm not the sort of person who can comfortably spend time loafing around sipping Pina Coladas and watching Homes Under The Hammer (although, did you see how much they paid for that two-bed in Durham? Incredible), I donate my spare time. I have become addicted to volunteering. Time expands in a way that cash doesn't, and there always seems to be another hour in the week if I really need it.

I spend half of Monday in my children's school, supporting ICT teaching, and I have just committed to running a free creative writing after-school club for children from years five and six. I am Vice-President and newsletter-writer for a WI I helped set up a couple of years ago, and a Trustee and Director of Chipping Norton Literary Festival. I write a quarterly newsletter for an amazing charity called Emma's Trust, and do various bits and pieces for community groups and other local charities.

Volunteering, like other forms of donation, is rarely entirely altruistic. Of course I want to help the children I support at school, and of course I am committed to the educational aims of the literary festival. But I enjoy it, and that's the bottom line. Like the feel-good glow you get from knowing someone on the streets is going to eat something hot tonight, I get a buzz from knowing my spare time has made a difference. Still more selfishly, I enjoy the mental stimulation. I gave up a career which required constant dynamic decision-making and presented strategic challenges on a daily basis. I love writing, but if my most difficult decision was whether to replace a comma with a semi-colon I would begin a slow mental decline. Securing funding for a literary festival, managing a team and bringing a project in on time and under budget? That's more like it.

Almost everyone can donate something. I know that's a sweeping statement, but whether it's twenty pence in a collection bucket, or an hour a week spent reading the papers to retirement home residents, I think few people can genuinely say they can't do it. And those who can't? Well, that's precisely why we need people who can.

Evening time is MY time.

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:02:00 +0000

I am almost obsessional about the time between seven in the evening and bedtime. It's mine. All of it. I revel in the peace which comes when the children are asleep, and the utter selfishness of an evening spent doing what I want to do. When the babies were all under two, and the witching hour began at three pm and stretched through till bedtime, I would take a deep breath (and a large slug of Pinot) and tell myself I could get through it. I could get through anything as long as I could knew that, come seven, the night was my own.

Often I will work - I don't have the concentration required for television - and occasionally I'll read. Sometimes I'll write. Rarely do I go out, except for committee meetings, which happen all too frequently. But never do I spend the evening doing chores. I flatly refuse. There is nothing more soul-destroying than spending the evening ironing or sorting socks, so instead I race feverishly about the house from 6pm, tidying away toys and loading the dishwasher so that at precisely seven o'clock I may down tools.

When the children don't settle, or the chores are misjudged; when supper runs late, or the phone rings at bath-time, I begin to twitch. I feel the minutes seeping out of my evening, and it stresses me more than you can imagine. This is my time.

I know that the children will not be children for long. I know that seven o'clock will not always be their bedtime; that I will share my evenings with teenage angst and reality TV shows. But for now this is my time. And I guard it fiercely.

The new arrival

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:45:00 +0000

The puppy has arrived. An utterly adorable, squirming bundle of liver-and-white Spaniel, with a furiously wagging tail and a face you simply couldn't refuse. I am besotted. Yesterday I worked in the garden, fire-fighting emails while Maddie explored our sunny garden, and taking five minute breaks to teach her to 'sit!' Today I left her to nap downstairs, while I retired to my office to bang out a column. No deadline has ever been more motivating than the lure of a warm puppy, so desperate to see me she becomes a quivering blur. I should go back to work; now that we have played, and walked around the garden, and learned to 'lie down!', but I can't bear to leave her. Instead I am curled up on the kitchen sofa, the iPad a weak attempt to convince me I shall actually get something written this afternoon.

Maddie likes to sleep on feet. Stop just for a second as you cross the room, and she'll bolt after you and wrap herself around your ankles before you can take another step. She gives me the excuse I need to stand still. She isn't old enough to go on walks yet: until she's been vaccinated she mustn't go where unvaccinated dogs may have been, which means no pavements for another fortnight. I took her on the school run this morning, holding her in my arms so her wide eyes could take in the traffic, the children, the wind in the trees. She is learning, even faster than the children do, and I'm learning too. I'm learning patience, and understanding, and tolerance, and I'm learning to do nothing. And I like it.

Don't tell the neighbours

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:35:00 +0000

We decided not to mention the rat problem to the neighbours. After all, the rat man had it all in hand. Dead within a week or so, he said. I expressed concern that the bright green 'pest control' branding on his van might give the game away, but he winked and tapped his nose. Ants. That's what you say, apparently, if ever you have an undesirable pest problem. Just tell people it's ants, and everyone will shake their head and tut and tell you about boiling water and not leaving the biscuits out.

So we didn't tell the neighbours, and gradually the bright blue bait was nibbled away, and we thought we'd got away with it. All that was left to do was to tip up the compost heap, retrieve the bodies from the nest, and no-one would be any the wiser.

The children had a play-date last week. Nice children. Children who hadn't been to our house before. I threw them all out into the garden to catch a rare flash of sunlight before tea.

'THERE'S A MOUSE UNDER THE TRAMPOLINE!'

I shot outside, darting between the trampoline and the tribe of children, whose excitement surpassed anything seen this side of Christmas morning.

'LOOK! LOOK! A MOUSE! A MOUSE WITH GREAT BIG TEETH!'

I intercepted an inquisitive toddler, bent on investigating this furry play-thing, and herded all the children to the other side of the garden like an extra in One Man and His Dog. Come-bye.

'Just calm down,' I said, not feeling in the slightest bit calm. Where precisely was the rat? What if it wasn't dead? What if it was even now running towards me? I danced around a little bit, to deter it from running up my trousers.

'There's no need to get excited,' I told them, 'it's just a little rat.' I turned round and peered under the trampoline. Blimey, quite a big rat, then.

'A RAT?' my son bellowed, the sound bouncing neatly into each neighbouring garden. 'A REAL RAT? A RAT IN OUR GARDEN?'

'Don't keep saying it,' I hissed.

The rat was definitely dead. Two huge yellow teeth protruded from his open mouth. I shuddered.

'Can we play with it?'

'No.'

A plastic bag was fetched, and the rat deposited gingerly inside, whereupon all the children insisted on taking a proper look.

'Wow', they sighed, 'a real rat! How exciting!'

Let's hope the neighbours agree.

I always thought...

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:02:00 +0000

I always thought I would never let my children watch television. Until I realised they need down-time as much as I do.

I always thought I would never let my children sleep in my bed. Until sleep only came when they were lying by my side.

I always thought I would never allow the kids to off-load all their school bags onto me. Until I saw how freely they could then run home.

I always thought I would offer water, not juice, because then they'd never want what they'd never had. Until they wouldn't drink enough, and I panicked it would make them ill.

I always thought I'd have a career. Until I realised that would mean never seeing my children.

I always thought my house would stay tidy, with a neat stack of wooden toys in the corner. Until I realised the best toys don't come in neutral colours.

I always thought I would never shout at a child. Until I reached the end of my tether.

I always thought I'd be the perfect mother. Until I realised none of us is.

What did you always think?

Remembering the little things

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:42:00 +0000

How much do children remember? How is it that the tiniest of events are etched on their minds, yet huge, earth-shattering milestones seem to pass them by without a shadow?

'We've been here before!' one of mine pipes up, as we pull into the nondescript car park of a supermarket I don't remember ever visiting. 'I was wearing that dress with pockets, and Evie cried because she hurt her thumb on the trolley.' They break out in collective giggles at this piece of shared folklore.

They remember the tiny things. Dried apricots, eaten on an aeroplane at 18 months old. Clowns they met at Legoland when all three were still in nappies. Clothes they wore, food they ate, whether it rained... Things I would only recall if I wrote them down.

But when I ask them about their grandfather, who died just three years ago, confusion creeps across their faces.

'Did he have white hair?' Georgie asks, her voice full of doubt. I smile and nod, but I am breaking inside, realising my children are growing up without the influence of the cleverest, kindest man I have known.

'We sat on his lap to have a story!' Evie says, triumphantly, and I seize on this apparent recollection.

'You did!' I say, 'he read you lots of stories!'

She continues to describe the scene, but I see her eyes flick across the kitchen, and I turn to see the photograph on the door of my father, the children on his lap. She is describing a picture. She doesn't remember.

I feel a balloon expanding in my chest. I think it will burst.

Josh is quiet. He is thinking, staring at the floor as he searches his short life for something so elusive he can barely put it into words. He looks intently at me, the corners of his mouth slowly turning up into a smile.

'He showed me how to wind the clock.'

I don't turn to scan the photographs - I know there isn't one on the door. Besides, I don't need to. I can see the memory in my son's eyes: I can see he is taking his grandfather's hand and tugging him, for the tenth time that day, out to the hall, where the ancient clock stands between the umbrella stand and the stairs. He is watching him open the door, pull the metal chains to wind the clock, turn the hands slowly round again and again, until they chime the hours, fast-forwarding through time.

He is seeing. He remembers.

Perhaps, although it fills me with a sadness I find hard to bear, perhaps it is easier that children forget the big things. Perhaps it is better that they remember the trivia, the lightness, the tiny snapshots of time we grown-ups forget.

I will remember the big things, and they will remind me of the little things. Together we will remember it all.

Chipping Norton: the fifth best town in Britain

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

A pull-out in yesterday's Times ranked Chipping Norton as number five in their list of the '30 best towns in Britain'. Obviously we Chippy folk were delighted. That is, until we actually read it...

This town is sometimes described as Britain’s answer to Beverly Hills

Is it? By whom? It was market day in Chippy today, and all I could see as I scanned the stall-holders were women with tartan shopping trolleys, waving copies of The Times and saying, 'Beverly Hills?' in incredulous tones across the plums.

... its homes, hewn from honey-coloured stone, are to die for.

Well, I'll give them that. Cotswold stone is beautiful, even when clad onto modern houses with cardboard walls.

The town is peaceful and picturesque.

Granted, it is pretty here, and the countryside is glorious, but the town itself is your average hotch-potch of charity shops and offices, punctuated by some real gems. I love it - it has everything I need, and more besides - but peaceful it most certainly isn't. Clearly they have never tried to squeeze a pushchair between the Blue Boar and a convoy of thundering lorries.

Facilities include London-standard pubs and restaurants.

London-standard? Wow! Really? You really think our tiny, provincial town can compete with eating establishments in The Big Smoke?

For heaven's sake. Since when did London become the only benchmark for quality dining? It's so arrogant. And besides, the last time I was in a London pub it was over-priced and rammed with pinstripes - a sartorial choice I'm relieved to say I rarely see in Chipping Norton.

Who lives here?

Oh, this'll be good.

David and Samantha Cameron

No, they don't.

...and Elisabeth Murdoch

No, she doesn't.

...and Matthew Freud.

No, he doesn't. Honestly, this 'Chipping Norton Set' has got beyond a joke. The Chipping Norton boundary has extended so far beyond the town it may as well include William and Kate. In fact I'm surprised the royal couple hasn't snapped up a home hewn from honeyed stone, given the number of London-standard eateries around here.

Oh, I give up.

Chippy's a great place. It's packed with things to do and places to eat. We've got an award-winning theatre, festivals galore, and no end of gossip to keep us entertained. We have a fantastic town. We don't need the London comparisons, and we don't need to pull every celeb and politician within a twenty mile radius of the town, into the mythical Chipping Norton Set. There is no Chipping Norton Set: there's just Chipping Norton. And we like it here.

Learning how to read: it's about more than just letters

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

I am teaching my six-year-old how to read. Reading isn't about putting letters together to make words, or even putting those words into sentences, and those sentences into paragraphs. Reading is about how to translate these words and sentences and paragraphs into a story.

My son is learning how to make reading aloud exciting, both for the reader and for the listener.

For many years, as a child, I spent my weekends at drama festivals up and down the country. Dressed in the black tunic uniform of my speech and drama school, I skipped happily centre stage to perform duologues, verse, mime and improvisation.

One of my favourite categories was sight-reading. Rather like learning to type, sight-reading is one of those skills which is never forgotten, and which stands you in surprisingly good stead for later life. Taking a room full of colleagues through a report which has only just arrived on your desk can be a daunting prospect for even the most confident managers.

Sight reading at festivals was a nerve-wracking experience. The adjudicators would hand you an extract from a book, which you could read only for the time it took for you to walk steadily but oh-so-slowly to the marked cross on the floor in the middle of the room. The trick was to read the opening paragraph, skip to the end so you could be sure of a strong finish, then scan the rest of the text for long words and tricky Russian names or potential accents. Oh, the frustration to get halfway down the page, only to discover your protagonist had a pronounced Welsh lilt...

Josh and I are practising sight-reading with one of my favourite childhood books: The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark. It's about Plop, a baby barn owl, and the people he meets who show him that the dark is nothing to be frightened of, after all.

He reads it aloud to me while I make packed lunches, or start on supper. I interject occasionally to ask, 'where's the punctuation in that last bit?' or 'who's speaking now?' and often Josh goes back over phrases in order to make sense of the section, or simply to add a different emphasis. He has decided to use different voices for different characters, and this is helping him look ahead for where the speech marks are, to make sure he gets the right voice in the right place. When he doesn't, and Plop inadvertently speaks in the quivering voice of an old lady, or the slightly Dick Van Dyke barrow-boy accent selected for the boy scout, we both collapse into peals of laughter.

He is learning how to read, and he's loving it. And I'm loving it too.

Back to basics

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:05:00 +0000

If you read More Than Just a Mother posts via a reader, an email subscription, or on your Kindle, you won't notice anything different today. But click through to the home page and you'll see that the blog has had a restyle. It's gone back to basics. No sidebar advertising, no space for reviews or sponsored content, no badges, awards or fancy slide-shows. This is the way I used to blog, and I've missed it.

This is a blog about reading, writing, wondering and parenting. About the good stuff, the bad stuff and the downright ugly stuff. About being so much more than just a mother.

The rat-catcher

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:39:00 +0000

Top of my to-do list today was to find a rat-catcher.

I imagined a wiry, old fellow; a moustache stained with nicotine and a length of string tied around each trouser-leg. A tweed jacket, its pockets stuffed with unidentifiable essentials, and without doubt some sort of cap. His accent would be pure Cotswolds, although words spoken would be few; communication carried out in the main through a series of woeful head shakes and the click of a tongue against teeth.

Perhaps such rat-catchers exist, but instead I called the council, who - with astonishing efficiency - sent a man round just three hours later. Matt was a chatty, broad-chested Londoner, who grinned when I shuddered through my tale of rodent horror, and declined a cup of tea because he'd only just had one.

I showed him the tunnels under the fence, and the teeth marks on the shed door frame. He showed me the droppings by the wheelbarrow, and the maze of smooth channels which wove their way into the depths of the compost heap.

Well established, he said. Probably at least five or six, he said. Big ones, he said. I shuddered again.

He cheerfully administered poison and we chatted about rodents in general, and my rats in particular. I was rather sorry to see him go.

I can't say the same about the rats.

Pregnant Party Tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:53:00 +0000

When I was six months pregnant with twins, my son was coming up to a year old and on the cusp of walking unaided. Although confident standing on his two chubby legs, he still needed a comforting steer before he would put one foot in front of the other.

We were at a first birthday party for a baby chum of his, and I was standing in the kitchen, struggling just to stay upright. My bump was enormous: turn me sideways and I was a dead ringer for Mr Greedy. None of my maternity clothes fitted beyond five months, and I had resorted to wearing a terrifying pair of charity shop trousers with an elasticated waist-band, which clung precariously to my stretch marks.

I searched fruitlessly for somewhere to sit, but the party was in full swing and it seemed all the chairs had been stowed away to make room for more guests. I replenished my plate and topped up my orange juice. I loathe standing up at parties. Even when I’m not pregnant I’d far rather find an unpopular pub with seats, than cram into floor space at the most rocking bar in town. My feet always ache, I fidget unbearably and end up drinking my wine far too fast simply because there’s nowhere to put it down. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway.

Never-the-less this party represented my only social engagement in a calendar filled with nothing more exciting than vaginal examinations, so I felt I should make the most of it. I shuffled into a space in the middle of the kitchen and tried to look as though I was enjoying myself in spite of the acid indigestion and SPD. My son leant slightly against me, looking for all the world like a midget with a space hopper.

With a plate in one hand and a drink in the other, I wondered how I was actually expected to eat anything. I managed to juggle a mushroom vol au vent to the edge of plate and duck my head down to flick it in my mouth. It worked, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to tackle the cous cous.

The older children ran through the kitchen on one of their five minute loops of the house, chasing each other and slipping between grown-ups to be the first into the garden.

It all happened in a flash; a girl in a buttercup yellow dress bumped past us, not noticing the toddler at my feet. He startled, flapped his hands in a pointless effort to stabilise himself, and finally clutched at my trouser leg to regain his balance.

I knew it was happening even before I braced myself for the rush of cold air; my trousers sliding in defeat down my legs as the elastic groaned and gave up, my voluminous grey pregnancy pants bravely fighting the elephantine buttocks striving to escape from them, and no free hand to halt the shame.

My son’s friendship with the birthday boy had ceased by the following year, for which I was extremely grateful; imagine what party trick his guests would have expected of me then...

Happy sort of birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:14:00 +0000

The girls turned five today. Sort of. Without a date on which to hang celebrations, birthdays become nebulous affairs which last a week. That's no bad thing, in my book.

This time last year we were in London, preparing to celebrate their first proper birthday on the BBC Breakfast sofa, so this morning Evie asked when she and Georgie would be going to the television studios. Josh gave them a withering look. 'You're not famous this year,' he told them, 'you're only famous when it's a leap year.' Being famous once every four years is still pretty cool, I pointed out, but the girls were nevertheless disgruntled.

When they were three we offered them a choice of birthday. They picked one each: 28 February and 1 March. Two birthdays, two cakes, two separate lots of fuss. I assumed it would always be that way, but this year they surprised me. 'We want the same birthday,' they announced, 'just like we did last year.'

So we had it today and it didn't really feel like their birthday, but they grinned the whole day and tried out their new bikes while the film in my head turned my six-pound scraps into five-year-old girls in a series of jerky images.

After they fell asleep I sat in my office and read an email from a man in Peru. As his wife was about to give birth this time last year, he read an article I had written for The Guardian about leap-day birthdays. 'It inspired me,' he wrote. 'At 10pm on the 29th February, the doctor told us he had to do a Caesarian section and asked if we wanted to wait a couple of hours for March 1st. I said no. I just wanted to know that we are grateful for what you wrote.' I don't think I've ever been so touched.

So happy sort of birthday to my darling Evie, inspiring and maddening in equal measures. Happy sort of birthday to funny, sweet Georgie, who makes me laugh as much as she makes me roll my eyes. Happy sort of birthday to Carole across the road, to five-year-old Jenson, and to one-year-old Cristobel in Peru.

To all the Leaplings in birthday limbo this year - happy sort of birthday.

Why do old people get up so early?

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 +0000

For years I have wondered why old people got up so early. I mean, here we all are, slogging our guts out doing jobs we hate, raising families, doing chores, desperate for a break. Aren't we all secretly looking forward to retirement? The chance to stay in bed till noon, watching Homes under the Hammer and eating cheese toasties?

Yet when I do the school run, or go for a morning run, there they all are: old people. Opening curtains, getting in cars, popping to the shops in hats and gloves. 'Go back to bed!' I want to shout. What are they all doing up so early? If I didn't have to get up for the children, or for work, I swear I'd sleep all day.

So yesterday I asked my neighbour, a gentle elderly man, from whom kindness seems to radiate. He remembers the names of all the children in the street, helps with the church coffee morning, tends his vegetable patch.

'Don't you ever have a lie-in?' I asked, as he waved us on our way to the school bus.

'None of us knows how many days we've got left,' he said, with a wink. 'I wouldn't want to waste one.'

He's right, of course.

The Big Detox

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:32:00 +0000

I am detoxing. I'm on day two of a seven-day programme which involves nothing but juices and lots of exercise. It sounds hideous, but I'm rather enjoying it. This morning I ran 5k on nothing but hot water and lemon, and returned home to a glass of juice which looked like sewage but tasted like pineapple.

I'm not detoxing for weight-loss - although I won't deny it's part of the plan - but because I feel the need to purge my body of too much alcohol, bread, fat and sugar. Working from home has pushed me into terrible eating habits. I sit at my desk drinking sugary tea, reluctant to eat anything which involves stopping work for too long, which means I live on toast and mini babybel, with an occasional foray into reheated pasta I can eat with one hand. I don't eat fruit, I don't have enough vegetables. I need to kick-start myself into better habits.

I'm also attracted to the will-power element of extreme programmes like this. It's no bad thing to be disciplined from time to time, and surely there's no better discipline than cooking chocolate crepes for the children whilst sipping spinach and cucumber juice? I know it'll get harder as the week progresses, and I like the mental challenge that presents.

The hardest thing about the programme isn't the lack of food, or the taste of the juices, or the glances from supermarket shoppers as you pile your trolley high with nothing but fruit and veg. It's the time it takes. I figure it's about half an hour to make a juice, drink it and wash up the juicer and blender. With five juices, that's two and a half hours. Add to that the hour and a half of exercise each day, and that's half a working day just spent on eating and exercising. I would struggle to combine it with a full-time job, certainly one outside of the home.

Have you done anything like this before? I'd love to hear how you did.

In which I spend Valentine's Day in three countries.

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:06:00 +0000

I have spent Valentine's Day at three different airports. On my own. There are worse ways to spend Valentine's Day, and in fact I rather enjoyed it. When you're not in a hurry - and once you've missed a meeting there's little point in rushing - airports are second only to train-station platforms for people-watching. I have a client in Amsterdam, and go there a few times a year for meetings. I fly from Birmingham, which is a little over an hour from home, and what it lacks in shopping choices, it makes up for in convenience.

Unless I'm going off on a sunny fortnight, when getting to an airport early and quaffing champagne is an integral part of the holiday, I adopt a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach to check-in. It makes me feel like a seasoned traveller to waltz up to Departures as they're calling my name. In fact I arrived at Birmingham this morning at 10.30am, already checked in online for my 11.15am flight, only to discover it had been cancelled. Not delayed, actually cancelled. Just as I was standing there, looking at the board and wondering what on earth I was supposed to do, the airline called my mobile, which was rather impressive service, I thought. They offered me two choices: wait at Birmingham until 6pm and arrive in Amsterdam a little after 8pm, or take a midday flight to Paris and change there, getting to Amsterdam at 5.30pm. Well, I like Birmingham airport, but not quite that much, so I opted for Paris.

'Travelling alone?' The girl asked. She looked a little jaded; too many hand-holding couples angling for upgrades, I suspected.

'Yes,' I said. I grinned at her. 'But maybe I'll get lucky in Paris!'

'You're only there for forty minutes,' she said, clearly not rating my chances.

I still had an hour to kill, so I headed for the Departure lounge, where I splurged my £8 sorry-for-the-inconvenience food voucher on sushi and chocolate bars, after discovering to my immense disappointment that I couldn't use it in the Duty Free shop. (Bit of a swizz, if you ask me: who says I can't have a giant Toblerone for lunch?) The lounge was full of bored business men, courting couples and families fighting over who was going to get the window seat (I always go for the aisle seat, terrified by the thought of urgently needing the loo and being trapped in a corner by a sleeping fat man I can't climb over). I ate my sushi with a plastic fork, as M&S haven't yet branched out into plastic chopsticks, and very nearly missed my flight when I became engrossed in an elderly couple's discussion about whether their move to Singapore was such a good idea. I was desperate to ask why they hadn't had this conversation sooner, given that the first leg of their journey was about to begin, but the tannoy was becoming increasingly insistent.

Once up in the air, I redeemed my sorry-for-the-inconvenience drinks voucher on a cup of tea. I would have had wine, only no-one around me was drinking, and I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I was feeling rather French by this point, so I had my tea with lemon instead of milk, and imagined I was smoking Gaulloise. Hearing French spoken around me was glorious, and I sank back in my seat to eavesdrop on three different conversations. I lived in Paris for two (separate) years and miss it terribly. The prospect of being in my favourite city, yet not leaving the airport, was exquisitely painful. I wished I had ordered wine after all.

I had little time for people-watching at Charles de Gaulle, so instead I spent twenty minutes pretending to be famous. Have you ever done it? It's awfully fun. The trick is to wear impossibly high heels, dark glasses and lots of lipstick, and to stride confidently through the concours without looking left or right. Out of the corner of your eye you'll see people nudging each other and wondering who you are. If you follow an airport official between terminals you'll look as though you're being escorted, which adds brilliantly to the illusion.

I was a little confused by this point about who I was and where I was going, but I sorted it out and hopped on a plane to Schiphol. Flying without children is a pleasure, and flying alone is my ultimate indulgence. Not only do I not have to make conversation, but my phone is forcibly turned off and no one can reach me. You can keep your spa days - give me a couple of hours reading and writing time on a plane and I'm a happy girl.

At Schiphol, the same freak weather storms responsible for my cancelled flight had turned Holland into a gridlocked mass of frozen cars. There were no taxis, so I braved the train system and hoped I was heading in the right direction. I was beginning to feel as though I was in a second-rate must-get-home-for-Christmas film. I half expected to be offered a lift in the back of a truck heading for Rotterdam, prompting several hilarious mishaps and A Narrow Escape.

I arrived at my hotel a little under ten hours after leaving home, and five hours late for my meeting. I could have driven here in less time, but I wouldn't have had half as much to write about.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Bad words

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:43:00 +0000

Yesterday I took four children (my own three, plus a play date) to the supermarket on our way home from school. Halfway down the bread aisle, the friend began recounting a tale from school. I had tuned out and was just examining the baguettes, when he finished his story with,

'...and then he said, "Holy Crap"'

'Shh!' I hissed, as the expletive echoed around the supermarket (what is it with the acoustics in those places?) 'Don't use language like that, please.'

'What did he say?' my eldest asked. He had obviously been as disinterested in the tale as I.

'Never mind,' I said. 'It was a naughty word and we don't want to hear it again.'

'Was it shit?' my son said.

An elderly lady looked up from the Battenburg and tutted.

'No.' I ushered the children towards the tills.

'How about bollocks?' one of my daughters suggested, helpfully.

An approaching father swerved two children out of our path.

'It wasn't bollocks, alright?' I said. Why was everyone so keen on the bread aisle, suddenly? 'Just drop it.'

'I expect it was bugger,' said the other daughter.

'Or arse.'

'How about tosser?'

'Oh for heaven's sake!' I bellowed, as we reached the tills. 'It was crap, okay? HOLY CRAP. Happy now?'

There was a stunned silence, before the lady behind the counter leaned forward. 'Don't use language like that in here, please.'

'Sorry,' I mumbled. My children shook their heads and tutted in disapproval.

Bugger it.

On Retreat

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:02:00 +0000

I am On Retreat. Before I left I told a few people I was going on a writing retreat, and they looked at me with that look usually reserved for batty aunts and toddlers with over-active imaginations. My husband is hugely supportive, but secretly wonders what I will get done in Devon that I couldn't achieve by simply knuckling down in my own office in the Cotswolds. The answer is hard to put into words, which is ironic.

It is midday on Wednesday and I have been here since 4pm on Monday. In that time I have filled a notebook full of research, listed the experts I need to speak to, and identified a dozen books I need to order from the library. I have created a cast of characters, scribbled down their back-stories and worked out their relationships to each other. I have plotted a 100,000-word book, fathomed out my twists and even discovered that the character responsible for the story's dastardly deed isn't who I thought it was going to be at all. This morning I wrote a 800-word prologue. I am, as they say, on fire, and the flames won't be doused until lunch-time tomorrow when I drive home.

I haven't spent the entire time holed up in my room. I've whiled away the evenings by the fire chatting with other writers, listening to their work and reading my own. I've knitted nearly a whole glove (badly). I've written a letter to my husband and taken a leisurely walk to post it. I've done all sorts of things. But I haven't cooked, or cleaned, or worked, or answered the phone, or taken in a parcel for next door, or done the school run, or paid the milk bill, or taken the kids swimming, or any of the myriad things which make up everyday life. I have written until I felt like stopping, instead of when the clock told me to, and on the dot of 6pm a glass of wine has magically appeared in my room, with a waft of something delicious emanating from the kitchen soon afterwards.

It has been the mental space as much as the physical space which has been such a revelation, although the peace and quiet here is an absolute joy. We underestimate how much of our thoughts are taken up with mundane activities which squeeze creativity into the tiniest corner of our mind. To release it, to allow its expansion to the exclusion of all else, is an incredible thing, and the results have astounded me.

On writing

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:13:00 +0000

I haven't blogged a lot lately. This is less to do with Christmas, school holidays and the now seemingly endless snow days, and more to do with the fact that I am writing a lot elsewhere, and simply run out of words by the time I reach my blog.

I have been busy writing reflective columns for Cotswold Life, controversial opinion pieces for Parentdish, Facebook status updates for all manner of companies ('people get paid for that?' - that's what you're thinking, isn't it?), and programme copy for my literary festival.

But top of the writing list over the last few weeks has been my novel, which even after a year I still love with a passion. I am nearing the end of edits on my second draft; a draft which has seen 10,000 words ruthlessly slashed in favour of 30,000 new ones. It's better, tighter, more exciting and I am tentatively hoping that 2013 will be The Year Of The Book.

My deadline is the end of January, and in preparation for a last-minute panic I have for some time had a reservation at a writing retreat in the depths of Devon, where I planned to slave over a hot manuscript, meeting my deadline at the eleventh hour, in a dramatic and writerly way. It looks, however, as though I will finish my edits early, and so this weekend I will send the book off to London (uttered with the reverence only a Country Girl can muster) and spend my three-day retreat curled up by the fire with a brand new notebook, plotting book two.

And perhaps I'll write a blog post or two.

Out of the mouths of mothers...

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:22:00 +0000

Things I say too often to my children:

In a minute

Later

Stop that

That's enough

Do you have to do that?

Leave her alone

Put that away

I'm busy

Things I don't say enough:

You're amazing

Thank you

Let's do it now

I'm so lucky to have you

How clever

Yes

Let's do it together

I'd love to

I'm sorry

What words do you say far too frequently to your children?

What have you not said enough to them?

New Year's Eve and a foreign object

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:42:00 +0000

I've spent a few New Year's Eves in A&E; as a patient, as a wife, and as a police officer. So I shouldn't have been surprised to find myself there on the last day of 2012.

I was making jewellery with the children (I am now the proud owner of a pair of mis-matched plastic earrings) when Georgie appeared in the kitchen after half an hour of suspicious silence elsewhere in the house. When Georgie is nervous about something she loses the power of speech, preferring to conduct communications through the medium of mime. This can be a little frustrating for everyone.

She pointed to her nose, with her eyes widened just enough to indicate that something was going badly wrong.

'Do you need to blow your nose, Georgie?'

She shook her head, pointed to her nose again, then at the pile of beads.

'Georgie, you're nearly five. Please tell me you didn't put a bead up your nose?'

She started to cry.

By a process of elimination (One like this? How about this one?) we established what sort of bead it was. I don't know why this was important, but it gave me some thinking time. Unfortunately it also provoked an argument with the other children (but I NEEDED that one!) By this point Georgie had recovered her ability to talk, and was hysterical, sobbing something about the bead getting into her brain. Given that she was daft enough to put a bloody bead in her nose in the first place, I was fairly certain its arrival in her brain wouldn't impact too much on her IQ, but decided not to share my views on the subject.

It appeared that Georgie had spent a good twenty minutes trying to get the bead out herself, before coming downstairs. Any chance of me recovering it myself had been ruined by the work of a four-year-old with a pencil, and the bead was now lodged too far up her nose even to see, let alone remove. Blowing her nose resulted in screams of pain. There was no choice but to get the professionals in. I was cheered by a comment on Facebook (there is always time to share health emergencies on social media platforms, isn't there?) from a doctor friend of mine, proclaiming that foreign object removals are among the more satisfying jobs for a doctor, so at least we would be ending someone else's year on a high.

The half-hour drive to A&E was punctuated by helpful suggestions from Georgie's siblings (just sniff it up, Georgie), followed by my own calm responses (don't you DARE, Georgie!), and a growing wave of hunger pangs from all three children. Already an hour past lunchtime, and faced with the prospect of a long wait in A&E I decided it would be judicial to take a slight detour and pick up some sandwiches. (You're thinking you'd have raced straight to hospital, aren't you? Honestly, a bead wasn't going to kill her, but two hungry siblings might have done.)

I had of course forgotten about the hordes of people who decide that New Year's Eve isn't complete without a couple of hours in Sainsbury's, loading a trolley with food they don't need. Had I been dashing in for Calpol I'd have pulled the emergency card and jumped the queue, but I wasn't sure three tuna sandwiches would have the same impact. Deciding it would be dangerous to leave Georgie in the car with her brother and sister, who had been thinking up ever-more inventive methods of bead-extraction, I had brought her with me, and she wailed at full-pitch as we queued for the till.

'It's in my braaaaaaiiin!'

'No it isn't.'

'It's nnnn-ever ggggg-oing to ccccc-ome out!'

'Yes it will.'

'I've gone bliiiiiiind.'

This last one was true. The bead was near the bridge of her nose, with a visible bump where her glasses should sit. Wearing them was agony, so we had left them at home. Stress had made her squint worse than ever and she looked like a poster-child for an eye-sight charity. Every five minutes I made her blow her nose in an attempt to dislodge the bead, provoking lots of tears but no bead. I think everyone was relieved when we got to the till.

Eventually we got back into the car and drove to A&E, facing the usual car park carnage. I squeezed into a space and took a deep breath, preparing myself for the New Year's Eve assortment of casualty inmates.

And then Georgie sneezed. A purple bead flew out and hit the windscreen. The children cheered, and I turned the car round and drove home again.

Happy New Year.

What shall I buy my wife for Christmas?

noreply@blogger.com (Clare (MTJAM)) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 00:25:00 +0000

It's Christmas Eve. All around the world, men are walking blindly around shopping centres, trying to find something to buy for their wives. I shall leave aside, for now, the fact that you should have started your shopping long before now, so let me help you out a little with a few things not to choose:

'Sexy' underwear
Few of us would turn down something slinky from Agent Provocateur, but I suspect that's not what we're talking about. You're standing in Ann Summers, aren't you? You're holding something liable to set me alight if I walk too quickly across a polyester carpet. Don't do it. If it's red, peep-hole and rustles when you pick it up, put it straight back down again and back away from the shop.

World's greatest mum
Mugs, t-shirts, tea-towels... all manner of tat made socially acceptable by the fact that it's nominally from my off-spring. Just don't do it. Not that book from the latest sleep expert, nor that 'cute' teddy purporting to be from my first-born. Don't get me the hand-printed plate, the night-shirt with 'I'm a great mom', or the mousemat with three gurning children. Save it for Mother's Day.

Something to eat
A complete cop out. You may as well buy me a bunch of garage-forecourt-flowers. Oh, you got me those too... Seriously, chocolates are for Valentine's Day and guilty consciences, not for Christmas, when I've already got a tin of Quality Street and three packs of After Eight mints on stand-by.

Smellies
Ugh. Even the term makes me cringe. What woman doesn't already have a motley collection of bath bombs, bubble mixture and quaint objects that look like cup cakes but are actually made of soap? Now think about the last time you actually saw us take a bath... Well, exactly. If you must buy something 'smelly', make it something we can use in a ten-second shower with the children watching and the postman hovering by the front door.

Household appliances
I don't even need to qualify this one, surely?

I know, it doesn't leave you with a lot, does it? But then you've had twelve whole months to think about it, and it's not as though I haven't left enough hints...

Happy Christmas. I hope you get everything you wanted ;-)

Photo credit.