Tales of my father

My father once walked out of my sister's house because she had served him lasagne for tea. He got up, pushed back his chair and announced that he hadn't survived the second world war to be served 'itie' rubbish. Poor girl, there she was innocuously dishing up for the family with grandad come for his tea. Like me she'd thought that years of annual golf dinners at the only Italian restaurant in town had prepared my father for the delights of Italian cuisine. But he had apparently always had the steak chips and peas and quietly pushed his mushrooms under his napkin.

The grandchildren sometimes get themselves 30 minutes of fun by asking grandad about the war. He was actually just too young to serve (and may be that explains aspects of his personality) but he did have a job as messenger boy for the Home Guard. He has great tales of derring do, mainly bicycle based, him dashing around the countryside with messages for various far flung outposts of dads' army. We had bombs drop near us but not near enough for genuine danger. It sounds like he had a lovely time and was most self important. Extra hot chocolate too.

After the war he did his national service and was lucky enough, I think, to go to the Far East - Singapore. There he lived on a big base with many other young men. In the photos they all look about 15 and he is so young, so innocent and so cheeky! I can tell that it was here that he was happiest, with his mates all serving a common cause. Paydays were spent in the city spending he wages. Cigarettes and a decent meal - steak, chips and peas. Of course. In all hi time there he never sampled an authentic meal (or 'foreign malarky' as he puts it). Such a waste. They played pool and cards and wrote letters home.

At the end of his National Service he went to a dance in the local dance hall and saw my mum. He went up to her and asked her to dance. She mentioned she hadn't seen him for a while, 'well I've been in Singapore for 2 years, in the RAF' 'oh I see, that'll be why then. Wondered where you were'. Two months after they were married and 9 months after that my sister was born. The wedding photo was taken but not developed. They couldn't afford it. After my mother's death my sister discovered the negatives and took them to the same photography shop that had taken them (44 years previously) and had them developed as a gift for dad. They now have pride of place on the sitting room wall. My parents. Never before seen by us like this. Two extremely young, extremely nervous strangers.

They lived with my maternal grandmother for a while and later with dad's mum. My mother hated her. She criticised and picked fault and generally made her life a misery. When mum was pregnant with baby number two, the council took pity on them and gave them a 2 bedroom flat. I was born there.We never had many photos taken, money being a small thing but never enough of it with four children to raise. He took photos I think but could never afford to have them developed. No pictures were displayed in our family home but a biscuit tin in the wardrobe was a box of delights to us. Photos of strange people dressed in fur trimmed coats next to flash cars, babies in huge high prams and then a photo of granny on her wedding day next to a fierce looking grandad. A couple of pictures of my father so young, so thin and so shy in his uniform or off duty vest and slacks. Smiling in the company of his friends in Singapore. Looking uncomfortable standing next to a 'sight'. Holding a cigarette, looking hopeful. A handful of photos of us children (around 5 of me and none of the youngest, poor soul) looking like refugees from the eastern bloc all in a line with our hand me downs on sitting on chairs with torn upholstery or else a checked picnic blanket.

After mum's death the four of us poured over these photos in the days after her death searching for clues to our family's past and maybe future. And now I think of it, no pictures of my parents together nor strangely, none of her at all. But on the wall of my father's home there shines the photograph of the two young hopefuls, shy and uncertain and together for ever.

and again - 2008 anyone?

I am not only not a good mother but clearly not a good blogger either. Almost year has passed since our move to a new county and a new life. It has been a remarkable year, one of friendships old and new and lives renewed with a sense of freedom. We see more of real friends - an impetus not to lose touch - and we have made new strong friendships. Our little road is so friendly a community and both I and the children have forged strong relationships. I joined the WI, become a good neighbour and forced myself to meet and chat to everyone - village fetes, jam stalls, brownie meets, volunteering for the school - every single thin I could manage. This was the equivalent of 10 years' worth rolled into about 9 months. Hard work but worth every minute spent. I now have lovely new friends, a new WI (getting old I know but I enjoy having women friends across all ages), a new book group, and a range of places to visit.

All summer I have stood in the kitchen watching Rosie playing in the street with her friends - a gang of 13 girls on their bikes and skates terrorising the neighbourhood boys. I was surprised by how many children we have in the village but they all congregate in our no through road which leads to the nature reserve and our house has become the feeding and watering station for them all (thank goodness for tesco multipacks of crisps and juice) and toilet stop too. We now have a very large garden and tree swing and that too is popular after school and if it's raining they squeeze themselves into the log cabin and play the piano or playstation or use the gym equipment with much hilarity. I love the house full of kids, they bring life and joy and noise and bustle and my heart is full.

So life here is good.

where has the year gone

that it is already time for friends to have up the Christmas tree and nativity plays are looming large on the horizon?

It is months since I last blogged and it has been a busy time, fiiled with more than I would have predicted. My whole life has changed since the warm days of August when we sat outside with glass of wine and watched the children play on the campsite.

We came back from holiday to a very poorly mother in law who needed lots of love and support and we took ourselves off many weekends to see her and to give other family members a break. Rosie was still unwell too and we started the term with one of many weeks off school puntuated by trips to the hospital. Eventually we found a kindly paediatrician who seems to have sorted her out (after many false starts). And still the trips up the motorway continued to see mother in law.

We decided that we'd had enough and started to investigate moving nearer to her to make the trips easier. We decided upon Northamptonshire as it is more than half way there, near to canals (my husband has a love of narrowboats) and a lovely part of the country where we have spent happy days throwing dog (and the occasional child, in error) into the canal. Blackberry picking, chatting over the loch gates, friendly pubs - you know the sort of place. We picked a village and found a house. We loved the house. Oh how we loved it. Rosie could walk to school (first time ever, here we are too far) and there were horses in the field next door. We made an offer. It was accepted. I filled in the school admission form. And got excited. Then we did an early Monday morning trip to my husband's office and found it took 3 hours. We'd thought 1 and a half tops. Disaster!

So we withdrew the offer, I cried, Rosie cried, Tim was stoical. We decided not to move. Then looking on rightmove unable to get out of the habit, I saw the perfect place. To be honest the house is horrid but the location was fantastic. Huge garden and next to a nature reserve. School in the village 5 minutes away. In the same road as eldest daughter's best friend from school ( our 2 eldest live half with us and half with their mum so we commute them between the two). So we are moving away. Next week. This was a good move we decided. Very sensible, in the right direction and to a house needing less work (hmm?). Our lives will be easier we said and looked forward to free time and evening walks with children and dog.

And then we started to say goodbye to our friends built up slowly and lovingly after 9 years here. We moved in when I was pregnant and started to make friends almost immediately with NCT groups and quiz nights and preschools, nursery, school, french club, rainbows, brownies. Rosie and I have cried most nights for weeks thinking of all that we will be leaving behind Suddenly common sense doesn't seem to come into it. As she said ' mummy my heart is buried in the garden'. Of course I reassure her that we shall keep the true friends and will stay in touch with everybody we love, she can have sleepovers and I shall too! We have holidays and weekends and all the time in the world to see the people we love. But still we are both uncertain and unsure. My nervousness increases as the date gets nearer - 7 days to go -and I say goodbye each day to someone I shan't see now until after we move. How long will it take to build up this much love around us again?

Summer and the living is easy.....

And so this summer continues in its very own fashion, not really a summer at all.

We have been away, down to France (Ile d'Oleron) and had a lovely family holiday. I have been set my homework and being an obliging sort, here it is:



We travelled late on a Friday with a flurry of activity. Normally we take the overnight ferry and have a shorter drive at the other end but this year did the short crossing. This meant two hotels on the way down, one in poor grubby Calais, and one in the pretty town of Avrille just outside Angers. This hotel is a converted windmill and has our family essentials, a pool and a creperie. So the first afternoon of our holiday was spent by the pool sipping drinks watching the children 'perform'. The weather was lovely, not too hot but incredibly pleasant after the rotten weather we have had at home.

The next day we visited the beautiful chateau at Angers before reaching the campsite in time for a repeat: the kids in the pool but this time us unpacking the car and sorting out the tent, cooking the first meal and generally relaxing. For the first time ever we took the bikes and this was a good decision, although more hassle on the way down, it meant that the kids could cycle around the campsite, Tim could go for a bike ride while we had a lie in (he misses his early morning walk with the dog) and pick up supplies from the covered market and they could all go off for a ride to the beach. The campsite we had picked almost by chance we found to be perfect for us - lots of Dutch and French families and with very few pitches (they built the site and then applied for a licence and got permission for only 63 pitches when they'd built for 200). It was pure bliss - quiet and family oriented.

Another first was that because of the bikes we hardly used the car - we certainly never left the island and mainly headed out for the little towns and their markets: both covered and 'nocturnals'. The kids love the marche nocturnals almost as much as we hate them. Hate is probably too strong a word but while we do like to mooch around the food markets picking out fruit, veg and fish the tat on sale nowadays at the night markets is pretty much the same tat as you might find anywhere in the world. The exception was the market at Boyardville where we went several times to allow the kids to walk around by themselves and spend 'their own money' while we sat at a cafe having a coffee or drink (in truth we could see them the whole time but no need for them to know that). They bought endless 'bargains' and I bought a lovely ring and also a secret Christmas present for the eldest. We ate caramelised nuts and 'chi chi' (does anybody else know this stuff - it is like the churros found in Spain but long thin strips of doughnut deep fried and sprinkled with sugar. Our kids ask for nutella and they wander along dipping them in the gooey chocolate and getting themselves and anybody else near covered in sticky sauce!) The setting in the little port town was beautiful: bright and shining and relaxed and happy.

The pattern for the holiday was much the same as always. We slept late (except for Tim who wakes at 6.30 every day of his life) and read our books (two kids on Harry Potter, one on Secret Garden and Tim on the God Delusion while I read lots: John Irving's Widow for a Year and (of course) We were the Mulvaneys), cycled, ate salads and grilled fish, played boules somewhat lethally (MJ got sent off for bad behaviour), pingpong and swum. Even I got in the pool one day when the temperature reached 38 degrees. Everyone got brown (either that or their bottoms have got whiter) even MJ with his fair skin and red hair and one day we all burnt in the deceptive cloud cover.

We ate two meals out and nearly fainted at the cost: once because it was so cheap and once because it was so expensive. After that we decreed meals at home and puddings out: glaces or ci chi only. One night we tried sorbets from a little shop and the cassis sorbet I had transported me back over 20 years to Berthillons on Ille St Louis in Paris. We used to queue outside even in February freezing half to death to have sorbets or ice cream and then go to the salon de the around the corner and have chocolate cake and brandy to warm ourselves up. Misspent youth indeed! Can't wait to take the kids.

We tried to find a place to go landsailing but failed miserably but luckily the eldest's keen observation skills found us the most successful day out: parc des arbres, which was one of those tree top zip wire death defying kind of things which all the kids loved. MJ got sent off for dangerous behaviour but only right at the very end. I was ridiculed endlessly for shouting 'ma files est stuck dans la rouge top' very loudly when he froze, couldn't go up, couldn't go down. Yes, I do know he's a boy and I probably do know that stuck isn't french. I panicked.....he got down, of course.

And on the way home to the UK we visited Futuroscope. Too much to do and the queues are too long but it was fun especially watching me (vertiginous) attempting to get to my seat on the glass floored cinema for the 360 degree film. The night show was amazing and we all stayed up far too late resulting in an awful last day of the holiday but hey, who cared? On the very last night we went to a hotel which was really grotty, found online through Logis de France and deeply disappointing. We picked up the day though by finding a cycle track and the kids and their dad rode along the banks of the Seine past Victor Hugo's house and lovely gardens. A 'tasting' menu at a good local restaurant saved the evening and the kids were most impressed by the amusee bouches (and the whole thing cost a fraction of the crap hotel).

So what did we get out the holiday? Time together as a family. Three lovely 'the best/worst thing about my holiday' essays written by the children. A wonderful Q&A session from the two youngest who found our condoms and wanted to know if we were 'breeding' and had a list of queries they had obviously always wanted to ask (the eldest covering her ears repeating 'this isn't happening'). Laughter. Being beaten at swingball. Watching the kids playing wordlessly with the dutch children next door, complete with a full blown water fight and a game of 'it'. A determination to learn French properly. A desire to buy a place in that part of France maybe to retire but preferably earlier than that. Memories for the store. Happiness.

water over the bridges

This summer has been very strange. Apart from the obvious lack of summer weather we have had illness throughout the family. My mother in law has been unwell and has had to have a biopsy. She is depressed and lonely and rings and talks to the children telling them 'i am depressed, I am lonely' I wish she wouldn't do that but completely understand how she feels.

Rosie has been ill again, still, forever, it seems. We are weary with her illness and achingly desperate for it to wear itself out. How much longer can she vomit, not sleep, have tummy pains, not eat? It is no comfort for the GPs to say it is not serious - it is having a significant impact on our lives. 'thank god' we say 'our daughter hasn't got something serious like leukemia. However would we cope with something 'serious' if we cope so badly with this?'

We have had no relationship other than of people who discuss illness and coping strategies. We talk about who can go to work, how to collect the other two children from their mother's home and what to do about buying food and calpol. Our stocks are low in all senses of the words. We are sleep deprived, taking it in turns to get up in the night, to wash duvet covers and to take her to the out of hours doctor's surgery. We have no food and eat leftovers from the fridge and freezer. We have one black banana and two rotting apples. I go to the garden and pull the end of the season's rhubarb and stew it and we eat that with yoghurt and honey and congratulate ourselves on eating something healthy for a change.

And then, all change. Rosie wakes one morning full of smiles and refreshed, full of energy. She asks if she can go on a bike ride and 'can I help clean out the chickens?'. We are astonished and grateful and try not to believe that this might be the corner turned. She and her father spend the morning in the garden and they clean out the chickens and they contemplate the ducklings. The ducklings came in a moment of weakness. I was not really concentrating and we bought two when we went to replace the chickens killed by the fox. They were dear little things and are now dear great big things. They seem fully grown and have all their feathers and quack rather than 'peep'. They have outgrown two temporary homes and we have to sort out something permanent but are baulking at the cost of a purpose built duck house. We have had two duck ponds dug by my husband and are now the proud owners of a hippo sandpit from Toy R Us as we have worked out that as they shit so much we need something we can easily clean out. Our garden isn't big enough for a large pond that might be self cleaning and so this is it.

The ducks are a little overawed by the bright orange pond (as are we all) and they sit on the ramp looking in. Pip moves closer to the edge and a chicken comes near to its side of the fence. Daisy is flustered and flaps her wings. Pip falls in. Yes really, she falls in and then swims round and round her little pond dipping and ducking and loving it. Daisy looks on. Rosie looks on. 'may I go in and teach her what to do' she asks. We think that's daft and tell her so. 'Ducks can swim. They will both be fine Pull up a chair and watch but let them get on with it'. Rosie's face falls. The idea of teaching a duck to swim was a good one she thought.

And then the next day she awakens again happy and no longer in pain. We seize the chance and arrange for her to go to a friend's house for a couple of hours to play and maybe even to swim in their pool if it gets warmer. And then we have time alone. Together. We didn't have much time just the two of us like other couples might. We were both married before and he brought two part time children to the marriage. I fell pregnant after just a few months unbelievably - I had thought that I would never have children. We conceived Rosie in Suffolk while looking for a second home to buy for weekends and holidays and eventually to move to when the children finished at school. But Rosie put paid to that - and wonderfully so - no less wanted than any child could ever be. But what it did mean is that we haven't ever really had a 'honeymoon' period when it was just the two of us. We have had the odd weekend away and once had a whole week but since Rosie was born 3 months after we married we haven't ever really been alone. So getting to know one another is still an interesting proposition.

So what do we do? We garden. We tidy up the bedraggled climbers and cut the grass. I deadhead the flowers and he digs holes to finally put in plants we'd bought at Easter. We have a cup of tea whilst companionably looking around the vegetable patch and watch the chickens and ducks. We look at the hundreds of different greens in the garden and marvel at how clever we are in our planting plan (in reality all a happy accident). A sausage sandwich accompanies the news and the stories about the dreadful weather.

In short we did nothing out of the ordinary but it was all the more remarkable because we were alone, together at last. We worried not one jot about our child and we thought about nothing more contentious than where to place a plant or how high to tie the jasmine. Sheer bliss. These are the building blocks of our marriage that will see us through storms and the overflowing of life.

do unto ourselves as we would do unto others

My friend’s mum has been seriously ill and in hospital for weeks. She spent weeks in intensive care, then the high dependency unit before going to an ordinary ward. Her mum was nursed one to one and then 1 to 3. In the medical ward she was one of 15 patients to 1 nurse. My friend can’t understand how one minute you need this level of care and then next the care has to be provided by family members. Now mum is coming home. Or rather she’s going to be taken home by my friend and they are going to turn the dining room into a bedroom. She needs rehab and can’t manage at home yet although hopefully the aim would be for her to go home eventually. There’s a loo downstairs and they are trying to think what to do about a shower or bath. They have a funny staircase so they don’t think a stair lift would work.

So when I went round there the other day I asked the questions: have you had the discharge planning meeting yet? You know so that you can sit down and work out what will happen, how mum will manage, what level of care she needs at home and what help they can give her. And then you should have an assessment too as a carer to see what help you need’. And of course the answer from her was a blank stare. I repeated myself and said look I happen to know about this stuff if they are going to discharge your mum home then both you and her should have a pre discharge planning meeting and an assessment of both your needs. You can say you’re happy to provide all her personal care, if you are, but that you would want some help with the housework in order to be able to run the house and do your job as well. All this was news to her.

What astonishes me is how people like this manage to slip through the net. My friend is articulate, smart and sensible. She is assertive without being pushy and won’t normally take no for an answer. We live in a local authority area with really excellent services for users and carers and no shortage of voluntary sector provision, although this is under pressure. She had assumed that she would automatically get everything she needed in the way of help without having to ask for it. So I have sat down with her and she has a long list of what she wants, what her mum wants and how she needs help with her family, her work and her home if she is to provide the lion’s share of the support her mum needs.

How does it happen that we go to pieces when we have to ask for something for ourselves? I am so assertive (maybe even rude?) when I am trying to sort out work issues but trying to get an appointment for the GP before the end of the month or to tackle my daughter’s awful teacher is an impossibility. I know I need taking in hand and perhaps it is the feeling of being out of my depth or anxious and worried for my child but I would sooner pick up a spider than speak to my daughter’s teacher about her maths homework and how none of us understood it (so that is my husband, him with a double first from Oxford and me with a BA and an MA both shuddering and juddering in front of Mrs X. Where exactly is the sense in that, pray?)

life is ordinary

I can't believe how long it's been since I've had time to sit here and type thoughtlessly into this machine. The time since our holiday has passed in a blur. On Friday I finally sat down and transferred the photos onto the PC and sat and watched the slide show of them all. It was lovely to watch the holiday replay itself and see Rosie turn browner and browner with each new photo. I was in awe at the absolute beauty - of her unconscious gorgeousness and of the island where we were staying. The resort was a horrid little English enclave to be sure but going just a few hundred metres out of the centre we found deserted coves and bays where we could sit and just watch the view. And tiny little bays we clambered down to very carefully so as not to fall over and where we could dip our toes into the clear water. All alone on a small island filled with 10,000 visitors!

Rosie of course made friends with every adult she encountered charming them with her blonde hair and big blue eyes. The children she found trickier - she was shy and nervous of not being the 'cool' one (she's most definitely not that!) But oh how she enjoyed herself in the water, splashing and jumping in and swimming for as many hours as we would allow before dragging her off to explore the history and natural side armed with a copy of 'my family and other animals'. We didn't really get very far but it was fun trying. Rosie read it too, not bad for an 8 year old, and loved trying to imagine that she was seeing the very same creatures found by Gerry in the book.

And since then we have tried to keep hold of the relaxation and closeness that every holiday brings and every working day pushes farther and farther away from our grasp. Working in the garden trying to create a bigger vegetable patch, planting up all the little plants from the greenhouse (a plastic tall one, I long for a real thing, next year?) and we label and mark and plan endlessly. Rosie helps in the garden although main tasks are snail related. These she collects and makes houses for and names each and every one. And I place the house at the end of the evening in a spot where I hope they will find their way into the chicken enclosure rather than the vegetable patch!

The new ducklings are enjoying themselves and they do indeed seem to have taken to our home like, well, a duck to water! They love the little pond dug for them by Rosie and her dad and have enjoyed being moved around the garden while we try to find the perfect spot for their duck house (in reality an old rabbit hutch). They have to fight off the attentions of the chickens who clearly think they get too much food and also from the jackdaws who also dive bomb them in an effort to eat the chick crumb. I am touched by my husband who gets up each day now at six to open up the house and to wait to make sure they are ok. We all stood anxiously while they took their first swim. Rosie makes Pip and Daisy scrambled eggs for breakfast (I think this is a bit odd and creepy, too much like cannibalism) and cuts them nettles too.

We have thought about moving, for schools and a bigger house, but I don't want to push our luck. Here is where our happy memory store has been made and although each holiday I exhort the family to store up the views to get them through the winter months to be truthful it is the ordinary everyday that actually sustains me. Rosie singing to the snails, picking up chick chick and putting her on the climbing frame, running through the field with the dog, the kids' laughter as they tell each other 'dirty' jokes far too loudly in the garden, the combat of swingball. This is what shall shall sustain me in the months and years to come.