After school today we are going to Pizza Hut. I am anticipating mild bickering, but I am hoping the pizza and unlimited orange squash will unite them at least temporarily. There is a seven-year age gap between my two daughters, and at seven and fourteen, it has never felt so significant.

When Belle was a baby, Bee was an enthusiastic seven-year old, keen to help her mummy by doing Useful Jobs and still up for shared baths. It was a period of smugness for me. I looked at other friends, struggling with two or three kids under four and I thought I’d been pretty canny. I never had the problem of how to amuse a toddler whilst breastfeeding a baby – Bee was genuinely useful and could be relied upon to sit nicely doing some colouring and fetch me snacks as required.

Seven years later and my smugness has worn off. Now my friends have siblings who play together happily for hours at a time, leaving their parents to do the weekend crossword, drink cappuccino, and other grown up things I always imagine other people to be doing. My darling daughters however seem unable to be in the same room alone for more than 20 seconds without some kind of argument erupting. Belle is a bouncy child, always looking for someone to play with her. Bee is a sullen teenager, always keen for people to leave her well alone.

And so it is that we end up with outings to Pizza Hut being one of the only things that both of them enjoy. Holidays and days out are getting harder and harder. Bee doesn’t particularly want to hang out with Belle anyway, and hanging out in a toy shop or an indoor play centre is her idea of hell. The last time we went out for the day altogether Bee spent most of her time sat in the car.

Being a single parent makes the situation much harder to manage. When there are two of you, you can share the load and split the outings. If I had a useful father figure, he could take Belle off for wholesome outdoor activities while I took Bee to the cinema to watch cheesy rom-coms and eat overpriced sweets. Day to day parenting would be so much easier too. Ultimately, there is only one of me, and as much as I try to be all things to all people I can only spread myself so thin. Sometimes I feel I can’t have a proper conversation with one child without somehow neglecting the other.

So I am asking for help – do you have a big age gap between your kids and how do you manage it, how can I make sure both sets of needs get met? Is there anything we can do as a family that won’t be met with groans? Bracing walks in the countryside are unpopular with them both, but a venue with a cafe/gift shop combo usually goes down well.

Alternatively, if your kids are close in age, you have a useless husband and you find parenting generally hellish, let me know. At least then I can take comfort in another person’s misery…

Pizza Hut

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This week I have officially had a New Experience. I went to my very first Baby Show. Yes I know, it is a bit late considering my children are now seven and fourteen, but I was working, not buying.

When my children I were babies I never really went in for Having To Have Lots Of Equipment. Pretty much everything I had for them was bought second hand or handed down from relatives who had boys. I liked to think I was challenging gender stereotypes by dressing them in a lot of blue, but basically I was just a bit poor. Or maybe mean. My two days spent at the ExCeL Baby Show though have made me realise I was right all along, and reinforced by long-held belief that babies really don’t need much more than a boob.

If you have never been to a Baby Show before, let me paint a picture for you…

Imagine yourself in a giant warehouse, an aircraft hanger, the air thick with pregnancy hormones and the cries of bored babies. The space is set out to keep you circling, wandering between stand after stand of colourful equipment you’ll never need, a never-ending maze of muslin from which there is no escape.

Ok, it isn’t really that bad, but you get the idea. Goodness knows how much the average new parent spends on ‘essentials’ for their baby, but judging from the prams piled high with goodies, it is quite a lot. And all the exhibitors are jostling for a slice, trying their damnedest to come up with the must-have product, the one thing that your baby really can’t do without. And the truth is that most babies can really do without most of it.

Of course there are a few things that really are simple, elegant solutions to real problems. The Cuddledry towel for instance, that simply fastens around your neck like an apron, leaving you two hands free to lift your wet, wriggly baby from the bath. Not that I’m at all biased – although I possibly should mention at this point that I was at the show working with Cuddledry…

Some things though are just making problems where there aren’t any, or trying to make a product out of nothing. I had a lovely demo from a woman selling what she maintained was a revolutionary cover up solution for breastfeeding women, allowing them to feed easily in public. As a breastfeeding counsellor, I was drawn in by the concept – anything that helps more women breastfeed is obviously great – and it wasn’t until I was walking away that I realised what she was actually selling. It was just a scarf, tied around your neck. A fairly thin, plain scarf at that. For sixteen quid. But even cynical old me had been temporarily ‘sold’ on the amazing, revolutionary, must-have breastfeeding scarf.

So the whole experience got me thinking, if you really break it down, what do babies and toddlers actually NEED? Are there any products at all that they simply can’t do without? Or is the whole industry built on fear and guilt, making women believe they will be bad parents if they don’t get a scary 3D scan, have their babies feet cast in coloured glass, or buy some kind of complicated pram system that they won’t even be able to get in the boot on their own?

Did you buy anything for your babies that you really loved and used? My one thing would probably be the hip seat from Hippychick – indispensable with Belle, who refused to leave my side for about two and a half years. Or maybe you were seduced into buying an ‘essential’ that turned out to be utter crap? I’d love to know what terrible products your baby-addled brain let you part with cash for…

Photo credit: maessive

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After all the lovely feedback for my rather childish birth story, I have been wishing this week that I kept more diaries when I was younger. I just know they would have been incredibly entertaining (in a laugh at me rather than with me kind of way) as I was a fairly precocious yet oftentimes naive child, with a sense of humour only a close family member could love.

I probably did write things down, but having moved house nearly 30 times in my life so far I am not what you’d call a hoarder. I have been forced over the years to be ruthless with what I throw away and don’t have a loft full of childhood memories I can plunder for the sake of a blog post.

My mum and my sister are a lot more sentimental than me, and have dragged boxes of what I call rubbish and what they call treasured possessions from house to house, certain in the knowledge that one day it will be very useful or significant. I must admit (don’t tell them), that as I get older, I do see more value in hanging on to things from the past, not least because I am beginning to forget things that happened more than about a week ago. As my own children grow up it is useful, when faced with difficult questions like ‘what was I like when I was little’, to be able to present them with a box of photos, letters and mementoes to rummage through.

It was in a box of my sister’s keepsakes that I recently found my diary from 1990. I say diary, but it really only has room for a few sentences a day. 1990 is probably pushing it a bit too, as I appear to have lost interest by 13 February. Still, the six weeks I spend spilling my heart and soul onto the pages of my M&S Snoopy diary are a fair reflection of the contents of my 11-year-old mind – it is mainly an account of what I ate and the occasions I did well at school. I am still very much a person motivated by praise and by snacks, so not much has changed really in 20 years.

So, for your enjoyment, here follows some unedited excerpts. For youngsters reading this – this is what life was like before kids had TV and the internet and had to make their own fun. (Although I’m not sure all 11 year olds made antique maps of their homes and clothes for their teddies)…

Jan 2: Went to town in the rain so I bought an umbrella. Both Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe tapes are broken. I am making Teddy a knotted hankerchief. Had fish and chips for tea.

Jan 5: Mummy stayed in bed until 5.30pm. I played Sylvanian families with Annabel. I made a map of our house and to make it look old I painted it with yellow water.

Jan 8: Back to school. School was quite good, but I forgot my dinner money again! Rubbish art lesson. Vicky doesn’t do anything to help. I have to do all the work.

Jan 12: Cross country today. I was almost in a state of collapse at the end. Time was 9mins 36secs. I was second from last.

Jan 21: Went to Bristol for Grandma’s birthday. Everyone was there. Even Auntie Jill.

Jan 24: Went to textiles to find Vicky hadn’t done anything towards our hat. Took it home to finish. Went to Grandma and Grandad’s for tea. They had beef!

Feb 5: We had a French test about the weather and we had to be able to spell them! I got 18 out of 18. In textiles we did drawing. I drew some brill shells and Miss Newton said I was a very good drawer.

Feb 8: Had a big fight with Leann in physics today. I have a massive bruise on my shin where she kicked me. Me, Paul and Michael got some special homework because we were so good.

Feb 12: Drama – we had to go to court. All the boys were the judges so none of the boys got a chance to do anything. I am making Teddy some clothes.

Now don’t let anyone ever tell you I don’t know how to have fun.

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I was chatting to a friend the other day, a friend who has known me since before I had children (i.e. a long time) and who has recently had her first baby. She also reads my blog. As I always imagined would be the case, she is a completely natural mother and absolutely loves it. When she was talking about her baby though on the phone to me, she sounded almost apologetic – “I’m sure the novelty will wear off soon,” she said, “and I’ll feel more like you do about it.”

Oh dear.

I looked back through my posts and wondered if perhaps they were a little negative. I guess it is the nature of my theme that I am going to be venting frustrations, sounding off to an imaginary husband, and that I will tend therefore to be writing about things that have annoyed me. I don’t want this to be the case all the time though, and have been planning for a while to write something terribly wholesome and positive. Honest.

So I have been spurred into action this week by a tag from Mari at Mari’s World, asking me to write about Shiny Happy Things – the stuff that is guaranteed to make you smile. Obviously my first thought is of sitting quietly somewhere with a cup of coffee and the papers, but in an effort to nurture my maternal side, I am going to focus on the things my children do that make me love them extra hard. Here goes…

I love when Belle is in my bed with me (which until recently was pretty much every night) and she strokes my leg with her feet in her sleep.

I love it when Bee comes home from somewhere and she is really chatty – either because something has annoyed her or inspired her – and she talks non stop to me for ages about it.

I love that Belle is only seven but she has a fantastic sense of humour. She can be so sharp, so quick-witted, and very sarcastic. I know it is the lowest form of wit, but it is the basis of our whole family sense of humour, so it’s important Belle gets up to speed.

I love it when me and Bee go to the cinema on our own and laugh at all the same bits of the film, (often the bits no-one else is laughing at), and Bee makes me buy her a gigantic, hideous blue slush.

I love it that Belle is so self assured and confident, that she will happily just say hello to random strangers and ask them questions about themselves.

I love it when I look at either of them, when they are doing something completely normal, not knowing I am looking, and I think to myself  ‘gosh, I made them. I didn’t just physically make them, but I helped to make them into the people they are, I shaped them.’ It can be a massively daunting sense of responsibility, but with that comes a huge sense of pride.

Yes well, that’s quite enough maternal positivity for one day.

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I was just 17 when my first daughter, Bee, was born. Her dad, Jonathan, was a year younger than me and was still at school until about three weeks before she was born. At the time I didn’t think too much about my circumstances, and obviously felt incredibly grown up and mature, as you do when you’re a teenager. Now Bee is a teen herself and I am beginning to realise just how much of a child I really was!

A little while ago, sorting through some photos, I came across a short birth report I had written at the time, fourteen years ago now. I read it and can imagine myself there, but it sounds like another person. A child. In some ways it makes me sad to think about how much growing up I must have done in such a short space of time, but at the same time it has an enviable casualness to it, a laid back, take-it-in-your-stride attitude that we often lose as adults.

So in the name of self reflection I have reproduced it here. Unedited. Even though parts of it did make me cringe a bit. I started having contractions at about 3am on the Saturday morning but the report starts when I went into hospital at around 7.30pm, when I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes….

…

7.30pm – Went to Musgrove hospital. Used TENS machine – lot of use that was. Jonathan sang me lots of nursery rhymes especially Baa Baa Black sheep. Had Columbo on TV. Waters broke at about 2.10am, which was a good job as they were on the verge of transferring me to a ward and sending everyone home. Was monitored lots but the bed was extremely uncomfortable and a nasty black-haired woman left me on it for ages. Had to keep moving the sensor thing on my tummy because Zippy kept dodging it. [Zippy was our name for my bump. We thought she was a boy so I refer to her as ‘he’ as well]. Contractions only peaking at 6/12 max on the printer.

Jenny was the name of the midwife who delivered Zippy. She was the nice one. The nasty midwife broke the rest of my waters with this big crochet hook. Jonathan suggested a big pin but I don’t think she thought that was very funny. When my waters broke it was a bit gross. I was on my way to the toilet and got loads of gunk on the floor. It got quite unbearable and nothing much seemed to be happening. I had a dose of pethedine at ten to four. I didn’t much like Jenny at this point as she said I would have to stay on the bed all the time, as it would make me drowsy – like I wasn’t completely exhausted already. I didn’t though. I sat in the chair. Jonathan had to practically carry me to the toilet and I kept falling asleep. I don’t remember the next few hours because I was so drowsy, but things definitely seemed to be happening. My contractions were coming every two minutes or so and it was horrid.

At quarter to six I had an internal exam and they said Zippy was ready to pop out. Lots of people seemed to be running around putting on plastic pinnies. Jenny said she would give me until 6.30am and then she wanted him born. We had Jenny and a fatish midwife there. Jenny made me lie on my side – she said it would make it much easier. To start with I had to not push which was practically impossible. I had some gas and air, which helped me not to push, but made my mouth feel really numb and dry. I kept falling asleep and Jonathan had to keep waking me up and giving me drinks. He was really brilliant and I couldn’t possibly have done it without him. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that towards the end my contractions were so bad I had to be sick into a kind of bedpan thing.

Finally I was allowed to push which was much more satisfying. I think it hurt a lot but all I can remember is the relief of being able to push and do something productive. Jonathan got really excited when he could see the top of the head. I felt it, but I didn’t fancy the mirror thing. I did one massive push and Zippy kind of catapulted out all at once. The cord was really long but it was all so lush. She was a bit cold but apart from that, perfect, loads of hair.

I was really shaking and I couldn’t push out the placenta very well. She was born at 6.23am but that whole last bit seemed to take about 5 minutes. It was a bit undignified with my leg up over a midwife’s neck but it was worth it when Jonathan saw we had a little girl and cried so much he made all the midwives cry. I was so proud when I saw him holding our little girl. I wanted to cry with happiness, but I was too exhausted and shaky. She put her hand in her mouth to suck it and I tried feeding straight away.

Eventually everyone went home and I had a bath. Then me and Zippy went back to the ward. We went back to the Mary Stanley at about 4pm and I stayed until Thursday morning.

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It is a few weeks ago now that I confessed to some of my most secret habits, including occasional hiding of dirty dishes in cupboards, so I thought it was time to justify my Slummy Mummy status by revealing some more of my slummiest habits.

I love reading other people’s confessions. There is something fascinating and comforting about reading other people secrets – the blog equivalent of reading Heat magazine. Just when you are feeling inadequate and lonely, you read that other women feel the same, that even celebrities sometimes go out with chipped nail varnish, and suddenly the world feels like a better place.

I felt particularly vindicated today reading confessions from Ella at Most/Least – what a relief to read I’m not the only mother who sometimes prefers writing about her children to actually having to speak to them…

Today though, I want to focus on housework. I know… GROAN…. who enjoys housework? Well not me. Of all the responsibilities in my life – being a single parent, holding down a variety of jobs, not to mention a nice selection of voluntary roles, housework really is my lowest priority. In fact, I suspect I became a school governor just as an excuse not to clean the toilet. So when my juggling gets tricky, the first ball to crash to the floor is always the cleaning one.

There are some forms of household chores I enjoy. Arranging my books in colour order for instance is always a pleasant way to pass an afternoon, especially if I have a particularly pressing deadline that I am trying to avoid. I’m not sure that tasks like sorting my make-up into pretty boxes really count as housework though…

So if you are looking to save time and effort around the house, here are my top five tips. Those with a fetish for cleanliness or who are easily disturbed should switch back to facebook now:

1. Crumbs – they get everywhere don’t they? My house is always full of bits. Sometimes I feel motivated enough to pick some of them off the floor (I don’t have a Hoover) but then what to do with them? The kitchen is too far away, I have yet to install a bin in the living room. So when you’re pressed for time, throw your crumbs behind the sofa.

2. Children’s toys – again, they get everywhere. And Belle gets as much fun out of a toilet roll or a piece of cling film as anything else. When the toys threaten to overwhelm you and you can’t be bothered fighting to get the kids to tidy them up, just collect them all up off the floor in a black bag and take them to Oxfam. It will make them appreciate what they have left. Honest.

3. Dishes – now we know I sometimes hide them, but this is obviously only a temporary solution. My least favourite dishes are the ones my teen brings down at intervals from her bedroom – cereal bowls encrusted with fossilised coco-pops, mugs stiff with mould. What to do? Just put them in the bin. Really. Out of sight and all that…

4. Baths – yuk yuk yuk. I particularly dislike cleaning that involves getting my hands wet. If you can’t face all that bending and stretching but need to scrub the tub, children’s bath time are ideal. While they are in the bath just give them some soap and a cloth and get them to clean the tiles and other surfaces. You might want to give them a rinse down afterwards to get rid of scum (the child, not the tiles), but this is much simpler than cleaning the whole bath.

5. Beds – sick of changing sheets? Ditch your partner. Become single and suddenly the need to change your sheets more than a few times a year goes out the window. Tada!

So that’s it. Slummy Mummy’s guide to housework. Some valuable advice there I’m sure you’ll agree. Do share your own time-saving tips!

Photo credit: suesviews

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It was meant to be the perfect date, but it definitely did not go to plan! If you're looking for perfect date ideas, here's how NOT to do it.

This morning I wake up in a state of eager anticipation. I take a little more care than usual getting dressed – I put on a skirt and brush my hair and everything. Why such glamour you may ask. Well, Bee is visiting her Dad and Belle has been invited to a birthday party, so I have a rare Saturday morning to myself.

And so this morning I am going on the perfect date. (Not like this one.)

A date with myself. An illicit coffee shop rendezvous with the weekend papers.

I find the papers make a perfect date. They are interesting, able to talk about a wide range of topics, they make me laugh and most importantly the don’t judge when I dip my croissant in my coffee and drop soggy crumbs on my cardi.

Of course the time limit and the rarity of the opportunity combine to pile on the pressure – that urgent feeling of having to Make The Most Of it that most parents will appreciate. In a bid to really enjoy myself as much as possible I end up visiting three different cafes, trying to find the perfect retreat, before settling on one that really looked very much like all the other two.

My perfect date starts well, and I’m half way through the Guardian when my secluded corner starts to become rather crowded. I have bagged myself a comfy sofa, and am happy to have well behaved extras occupying the two chairs opposite. However, the longer I stay the more I find my space being overtaken.

A small boy plonks himself down in one of the chairs and helps himself to my sports section. Fine. I don’t like sport anyway. His Dad joins him in the second chair. Still manageable. But then the boy’s grandparents arrive and suddenly things are not so fine. I am forced to take my feet off the sofa so Grandma can sit down. I toy with moving but want to stand my ground – I was here first after all. And so long as I ignore Grandma’s shuffling and awkward glances I can still pretend I’m on my own. Just about.

But then it all gets a bit much. I am already starting to feel a little overwhelmed when another couple plus child appear – apparently friends of the family. “What’s going on here then?” says Dad number two.

“Just a little family outing,” says Grandma.

“Who’s that then?” asks Dad two, nodding his head in my direction.

“I’ve no idea!” exclaims Grandma loudly, as though I have just attached myself to them and they are humouring me.

“I am sat right here!” I want to yell, but of course I don’t. Instead I keep my head buried in the paper, hoping they will feel uncomfortable and drink up quick. No such luck though. Dad two plus family are invited to join them. There are now seven of them and me and everyone knows one’s company but eight’s a crowd. I do my best to stick it out but my presence at the crowded table now feels vaguely ridiculous.

It’s not long before I give up, make my excuses and push my way out through the family party. Hmph. Not exactly the romantic coffee for one I had planned. Still, I got as far as the Review section of the paper, which is further than I normally get before about Wednesday, so I probably should be grateful…

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Today has not gone according to plan.

It was supposed to be my day off. I had things planned.

But instead I am at home with a sick child. Sick children really cramp your style don’t they? I know she can’t help being ill or anything, but still.

So I am in a bit of a no-mans-land today. My head was all geared up for switching off for the weekend and being away from my desk, but now here I am, confined to the house for the afternoon, and I am rather at a loss for what to do. Working from home, my daytimes, evenings and weekends tend to get tangled up. I work during school hours but really I am snatching any free time I can find to sneak off to my study. I know I have been working a lot lately, and it has got to the point where I’m not quite sure how to do anything else.

Past about 9pm I can relax a bit, as my brain begins to switch off, but during the day it won’t keep quiet. It’s always buzzing, swirling ideas around, overwhelming itself with possibilities. Often it gets so wound up turning over ideas, plotting and scheming, that it has no energy left for actually doing anything. In fact, if I sit myself down to focus on an idea, my brain starts to panic, worrying that all of the other thoughts will have to pipe down, that they might get forgotten.

All of which of course often results in me doing nothing at all. I can’t bear the thought of having to choose and leave some ideas behind, and I don’t want to start something just to have another task interrupt, so I end up staring blankly at the screen instead.

That’s what I’ve been doing this afternoon anyway, until I gave myself a good metaphorical kick up the backside and wrote this instead. It may be nonsense, but it is words on a page, and it gives me a temporary sense of accomplishment at least. Plus it has kept my fingers busy and stopped me eating marzipan fruits for twenty minutes, which can’t be a bad thing.

I’d be interested to know how other people feel – does your brain brim over, leaving you paralysed to do anything at all? And how do you cope with it, how do you focus on one thing at a time? And more importantly, how do you manage to go into the kitchen without eating a handful of leftover Christmas chocolates every time?

Photo credit: eszter

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I have recently become a member of Judith’s Room, a new forum for women writers, through which I have been able to share my writing, read what other people have to say, and generally pass the time when I should be working. The group is launching a series of new themed writing weeks and is kicking off with the seven deadly sins – a different sin for each week. What a fantastic idea! I love it. So this week I am writing about envy…

Envy is one of my favourite sins – not the practise of it of course, lust and gluttony are a lot more fun – but the fact that it always makes me think of coveting my neighbour’s ass, and that makes me chuckle. What can I say; I have a childlike sense of humour.

My dictionary describes envy as ‘a feeling of grudging or somewhat admiring discontent aroused by the possessions, achievements or qualities of another, the desire to have for oneself something possessed by another.’ Envy therefore is a particularly destructive emotion, not only for the individual, but also for the neighbour whose ass is being coveted. Envy isn’t just about wanting what someone else has, it’s about the twisted pleasure you get from seeing someone else lose it.

The problem with envy is that once you let it suck you in, it will never be satisfied. A bit like a tapeworm, but without the bloating. Become a victim of envy and the grass will always be greener. It may serve to drive your ambition, help you strive to attain a higher status, gather more Stuff, but ultimately it will leave you unfulfilled, never quite able to get the Right Kind Of Stuff, to reach the status you feel sure will make you happy.

That’s not to say envy is all bad – it can play an important part in helping you to develop aspirations and motivate you to achieving goals, but the important thing is to be sure your goals are the right ones and that you are striving for the right reasons.

When I find myself envying another person’s job, husband, income (or indeed ass), and it happens often, particularly when I am feeling a bit rubbish about myself, I try to follow through the process in my head. I might start off by reading a well known journalist’s column in a newspaper and thinking ‘that’s not fair, I could write that, why don’t they realise I am FUNNIER and give me her job instead?’ Quite a normal thought pattern I’m sure. So then I try to think about what that would actually mean. It would mean I had a strict deadline every week, which would probably bring on some kind of panic attack, I would forget to feed my children, they would run away from home…. Worst case scenario perhaps, but it temporarily prevents me from descending into a pit of silent jealous rage at least.

What would the world be like without envy I wonder? When you begin to unravel the forces that drive us in our day to day lives, the seven so called deadly sins are really what make us human. How much of what we do is driven by our desire to have what other people have, to look how other people look? Without envy, would the diet industry collapse? Would everyone stop having affairs? And more importantly, would I ever be motivated enough to get any work done at all?…

Photo credit: Rev Guzman

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If you think of my blog as a life journey – as I’m sure you are, why wouldn’t you be? – then I am very much still in nappies. Less than two months in I am still finding my feet, toddling my way around the virtual world of blogging, gazing up in awe at the more established writers who all seem so much funnier and more interesting, hoping that when I grow up I will Be Like Them.

I was very excited this week then to be tagged in my first meme, especially once I realised what being ‘tagged in a meme’ actually means, as it appears to imply that other real live people are reading my outpourings, not just my mother and my closest friends,  who obviously feel obliged to support me. So thank you very much to Linda at You’ve Got Your Hands Full for helping me reach this milestone!

So, my childhood song memories…

I actually have a terrible long term memory. My sister, who is four years younger than me, is always trying and failing to get me to remember significant events from our childhood and I’m sure will never forgive the fact that I can’t even remember her being born. I do have snapshots though, isolated incidents rather than long swathes of memory, that have stuck with me so long I’m not sure any more whether I am remembering the event itself or just my memory of remembering it over and over.

A lot of my childhood memories are triggered by smell, particularly those to do with my grandparents, whose house always smelt of a comforting mix of Embassy No1 (my Grandad) and Gordon’s gin and tonic (My Gran). Even now if I pass someone in the street wearing Chanel No5 I am immediately a child again, sat on my Gran’s knee, catching a whiff of perfume from her handbag as she reached in for a handful of Anadin.

Songs don’t feature so prominently – my Mum only ever had ears for Neil Diamond and has never been a big music fan generally. Most of my song memories come from periods where I have spent chunks of time with my Dad. One that sticks in my mind was from a week we spent in a caravan in Durham – oh the glamour that was my childhood! My Mum was on an OU residential course and we had gone up to stay nearby in case she got scared and wanted to visit us. The soundtrack to that week will always be U2’s Joshua Tree, which I remember my Dad playing every evening as he cooked us dinner before we settled down to our daily dose of Monopoly.

While we were on holiday that week, I also remember sitting in a pub, hearing La Bamba and my dad offering me some kind of monetary reward if I could memorise all the words. At least I’m pretty sure that was the song. Memories for me have that dream like quality – you try to capture them and they seem to get further away and less clear, until you wonder whether they were ever there in the first place, or if you just made it all up.

Being a mother makes me think more about memory, and I am conscious of the fact that everything I do is creating memories for my children. I wonder which will stick out for them – the silliest of things probably – and I feel sad sometimes that lots of our happiest moments together will end up forgotten by us all. On the other hand, some things are probably best forgotten. When Belle was a baby, she would only tolerate car journeys without screaming if someone sang Agadoo to her over and over again. Try as I might, I just can’t wipe that memory…

Photo credit: Ben Dobson

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There are some women who seem able to remain effortlessly poised at all times. Others are more like Bridget Jones, stumbling from one mishap to another. Most women though can probably remember a time when they’ve found themselves cringing with embarrassment, wanting the ground to swallow them up.

If you can remember such a moment – a glass of red wine sloshing onto your friend’s new cream carpet maybe – then you can begin to imagine the mortifying shame that must have been felt by the clumsy art student who this week stumbled and fell into an £80million Picasso, tearing a six inch hole in the canvas.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York, where the accident occurred, have kindly declined to name the student and have offered reassurances that the painting can be restored in time for the Picasso exhibition in April. It still makes you cringe though to imagine that gut wrenching, slow motion split-second where she knows she is falling, but is powerless to help herself.

I had a rather embarrassing moment this week when, driving myself and a friend to a meeting, I misjudged a corner and crashed into a verge. My first thought as I struggled to avoid a telegraph pole, was not for my safety, or that of the car, but for passenger and my ego. Fortunately no one was hurt, but all I could think was how embarrassing to make such an awful mistake and to crash your friend into a hedge.

My friend Lucy has had more than her fair share of embarrassing moments, including a late night tumble that resulted in a trip to the dentist. “I’d been at a party full of important people,” she confessed, “and was very nervous, so I had drunk quite a lot. I was late leaving and could see my bus disappearing round the corner. I ran for it, attempting to leap onto the back, but I missed, and smashed my face into the pavement. I could hear people saying “Oooh!” but I got up and felt fine. When I woke up the next day and looked in a mirror though I realised that I’d knocked out both my front teeth…”

Unfortunately, unless you can maintain a permanent air of Judi Dench like grace, these types of mishaps are unavoidable. It could be that as women we are distracted by our multi-tasking brains, but more likely it is a combination of hormones and high heels, conspiring to turn us into Bridget style stumbling fools. Note to self: the next time you’re feeling clumsy, steer well clear of galleries.

Photo credit: Andrea

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In preparation for my first writing workshop this week over at Sleep is for the Weak, I am writing on the theme of false assumptions – those funny things that people think about you that seem to come from nowhere.

This is an interesting topic for me, as I’m pretty sure people are quite often not sure what to make of me. For a start, I’ve been told I look younger than I am – 32 this April – and the perception of youth can often effect the way people interact with you. A couple of years ago for example, a salesman came to the door, trying to flog gas and electricity. I answered, and he asked me if my mum or dad was home…

Age gives a woman a certain gravitas and I do often worry about not being taken seriously. Sometimes when I meet people for the first time I want to come right out and explain – “I may look young and have the voice of a child, but really I am a proper grown up who knows how to do stuff. Honest.”

Add to this the fact that I was pregnant at 16, when I looked about 12, and I’m fairly sure I must have attracted some curious glances in my time. Not that I have ever really been aware of it. I’m just me inside, and I forget sometimes that other people can see my face when they are talking to me.

Another occasion I remember well was when I got my GCSE results. I was particularly geeky at school, a straight A student and prize winner, and everyone I went to school with knew it. (I made sure of that – hence not having many friends at school…). My boyfriend at the time however went to a different school and when his friends – whom I had known for some months – found out my results they were stunned to say the least. “Blimey,” they said, “we’d thought you were pretty stupid!” Charming.

A couple of times in the last week people have made reference to me being terribly organised and orderly, an assumption which I challenged, not least because it made me feel terribly dull. Who wants to be thought of as ‘the woman whose files are arranged nicely’?

It’s true that I am fussy about some things – I do like my books to sit flush which the edge of the shelf, and have been known to arrange them in colour order – but I don’t think this makes me hugely organised. In fact, a quick glance around my study or bedroom would show quite the opposite. Piles of magazines, newspapers, unread letters and mountains of clean and dirty washing, merging together in one giant heap – hardly the hallmark of a neat freak.

And then of course there are the friends who see me scoffing sweets and quaffing wine like the grape is about to become extinct and assume I am some kind gluttonous lush with no self control. Oh hang on a minute…

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