Gone

The house is empty. It looks shabby and ashamed in its nakedness.

It is no longer our house.

We are driving away.

I am crying.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Gallery - Wrinkles

Despite being surrounded by boxes and packers, I didn't want to miss The Gallery.

So here it is.  A portrait - without mine or my children's faces in it... 

Do you think it makes her look a bit wrinkly?

The rest of The Gallery is here.  Take a look!

M minus 2 days - A Love Letter

Dear London,

It's not you.  It's me. 

I am going.  But it's the right thing to do.

You have given me so much.  When I arrived here, I was 22, wet behind the ears, never lived in a city worth the name.  Two stone fatter, shorter of hair, less bespectacled of nose. Fresh from four years of what felt like independence but with meals cooked for me, sheets washed, and someone watching out if I wasn't home for a couple of days...

I grew up here.  I became who I am and what I am.  I met B.  I met hundreds of other friends and acquaintances, all of whom have had a part in making me the person I am today.  I made, and then met, L, and then A and S.

I got my first job, the same job I have only just left.  I bought my first flat, and sold it again a mere 15 months later to buy a house for the family we have now become.  I studied, and drank, and played, and sang, and danced badly, and gossiped, and did some unsuitable things to a number of unsuitable men.

I have loved your sights, your smells and your sounds:  the view from Waterloo Bridge, whatever the weather; the cherry trees in Normand Park;  your amazing cleanliness and silence under snow; the way wet tarmac smells after spring rain; the noisy shouts of delight and despair from the stadium not so far away... But I have hated your sights, your smells and your sounds too:  dog poo on the pavements; the 6 am wake up call of the first flight into Heathrow (and every two minutes thereafter); the stillness, and silence, despite the sirens, of the morning of 7 July 2005; the swearing, the shouting, the anger and stress of 7 million people crammed into living cheek by jowl, whether they like it or not.

I am proud to have known you. To have shared this part of my life with you.  That I have your tube map in my head: and that I know which stations have all the vowels, and which none of the letters of the word "mackerel".  I wonder how long it will take before I forget that it is quicker to walk from Covent Garden to Leicester Square, or before I stop being disappointed that the buses in Edinburgh aren't red.

I have known your prisons and your palaces, your concert halls and your cathedrals, and I will miss them all, as being part of you.  I will miss you.  Even though you won't miss me.

Because I know my relationship with you was only ever going to be transient.  I move and change, and am moved and changed by you.  But not you.  You change, but not because of me.  I am a blink to you.  Forgotten before it is even over. Someone else will take my place, and you will change them too, and then forget them too and move on to the next.

But I will never forget you.

Goodbye.  And thank you. x

The unsettling seas of the floating voter

I've got my ballot paper.  It's a postal vote, because we won't be here on 6th May, for obvious reasons.  So I've got it.  Ready for my cross... 

And I'd actually, if the truth be told, rather not have to use it.  In fact, I'm rather hoping it might get lost in the move. Last election I was disenfranchised (long story involving another house move and general incompetence) and I was actually entirely happy about it.  If nothing else, it was a great way of getting canvassers off the doorstep.

But this is awful. And bad. And irresponsible.  And just plainly, simply, wrong.  And I know it.  Women didn't chain themselves to lampposts or fling themselves in front of horses so that I could sit here with a ballot paper wishing it away.

But it's hard isn't it?  I can't help but notice that the blog posts I've read urging me to vote, and impressing on me the importance of exercising my democratic right have mostly been from those who are out of the country; or are here, but aren't from here, so can't vote.   British-born-and-based bloggers (of the non-overtly political variety clearly - and I can't say I read many of those) have been remarkably silent on the event that is taking up all the news space and I can't help but wonder if that's because it's not just me that is rather wishing that none of this was happening.  Which is interesting given that this is allegedly the "mumsnet election".

Is this apathy?  I had a post in my head when the election was called that was going to be entitled "Apathetic and ashamed".  But the thing is I don't think I am apathetic. I'm not indifferent to the result of the election.  I know how important this is.  And that's why it scares me.

Because there isn't a party that will do what I want it to do.  There isn't a party that can do what I want it to do.  Because I want everything to be fair, and equal, and innocently sweetness and light and skip through the daisies...

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that this is the "mumsnet election" and that the only issue that matters is the work/stay at home question.  Now clearly, I think mothers should have the right to work.  I think it's important that women should have time off to have babies and should then be able to go back to work and have the support of their employers in doing so.  I think that employers should have to make allowances for the impossible juggling act that is being a working mum.  This is, to me, so obvious as almost to not need saying.  So clearly I'm going to vote for a party that makes this possible.

But then I also have friends who run small businesses.  I have friends who run charities.  Who employ working mothers and women on maternity leave.  And I therefore understand that the issue isn't utterly clear cut.  To be honest, I'm not sure I'd have been very happy employing me over the last three years - although clearly I'm glad they had to...

So how do you square that circle?  You can't.  Because you can't make everything fair for everyone.  Because, as my granny, and my mum, and doubtless me just as soon as my girls are old enough to complain about it, would say: life isn't fair.  And wishing won't make it so; and political parties, however well intentioned (and that assumes that you think they are) certainly can't.

Or what about education?  The three main parties have lots of interesting options on education.  But what none of them is saying is "We're going to make all the schools excellent.  We're not going to give you a choice, because you won't need it. Your local school will be excellent, with excellent facilities and spaces for all the local children, whether born here or recently arrived."   Because they can't.  There isn't the money.

And those are just two of the impossible things I want the party who wins the election to do.  And if I accept that the party who can do those things doesn't exist, who then do I vote for?  Because I have to vote, and not just because it is my civic, and female, duty.  If I, educated (once upon a time) and intelligent (ditto), don't vote, then I'm giving more weight to the vote of someone who might not be either of those things.  And who might vote for someone I really don't like.

Clearly what I should do is to download all the manifestos, read them and make an excel spreadsheet (or something) of what they're all going to do, and then weigh up my decision carefully, probably using a ratings system to rank the importance of each issue.  With graphs.   But I'm not going to.  I've got a house move to organise and three children to entertain throughout it. It's not going to happen. Let's be honest, I haven't even watched either of the debates yet (they're taped...what's the betting we won't actually get round to watching them until after the election?!).   Even if I could create a lovely spreadsheet, how do I decide whether education is more important to me than health, or the environment more important than flexible working rights? 

Anyway, isn't it all about the economy, stupid?   But when it comes to the economy, I am stupid.  And surely in order to analyse who I think is going to be best for the economy, I'd need to know what I think is going to be best for the economy.  And if I could do that, I'd be standing for election myself, and then the decision on who to vote for would be easy.
 
So my decision will inevitably end up being framed by my perceptions of the parties and what they stand for (almost certainly out of date), the paper that I pretend to read at the weekend (woolly liberal, and anyway, I'm not sure how much help the magazine and the family section are going to be on this one), and a quick skim through the leaflets that drop through my door (mostly local, and therefore pretty irrelevant for someone who is going to be living 400 miles away by the time the election comes round).

And on that basis I stand a pretty good chance of voting for a party who doesn't actually stand for anything I care about.  And is that not worse than not voting at all?




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Addendum (in order to give credit where it's due) .... the bloggers in question were Heather at Notes from Lapland, Iota Manhattan, and Heather at Eggs, Cream and Honey. Fascinating posts, and awesome bloggers all.

M minus 6 days - Dear So and So

Dear House,

I love you. Sorry.

Soon-to-be-ex-owner

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Dear Removal men,

You know that sorting out I said I was going to do? 

Sorry.

Harrassed mum of three.

ps and no, I wasn't wasting my time blogging. Blogging is important.

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Dear Neighbours,

The new people are going to have a baby too.  Sorry.

The people formerly known as NextDoor.

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Dear New People,

The particulars might not have mentioned a few things:

Yes, you do have to turn the grill on with a pair of pliers.
And yes, that stuff that looks like dried snot on the wall by L's bed?  Well, that's, erm, dried snot.
And no.  I don't know precisely what that stain is on the carpet.  But I can guess.

Sorry.

Your predecessors.

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Dear Iggle Piggle,

Please come and see us.  You are her best friend.  She doesn't understand yet, but she's really going to miss you.

As am I.  Sorry.

Love Iggle Piggle's Mummy .

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Dear London,

Too much to say in a postcard.

Thank you.

Me

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Dear some Scottish people (you know who you are)

I'm coming to live with you, and there's something you should know:

I'm English. 

It's not my fault, I was born with it. It doesn't make me a horrid person.

So deal with it.

Happy St George's Day,

Englishgirl.

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Dear New House,

We are coming!

Hope you like us.

xxx

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More Dear So and So's here

M minus 7 days - nooks and crannies

This time next week we will be gone.

We won't have arrived, but we will have gone.

Five years of our shared lives, the beginning of our marriage, the births of our children all took place while we were living in this house.   I will never forget it. It has been the heart of my family since before we were a family.  And I hope that it will not forget us.

But I am concerned that I will forget its details. That like a long-lost friend I will forget the way its eyes crinkle when it smiles, or whether it parts its hair on the right or the left.

It has idiosyncracies, and quirks, some of which it was born with, and has lived with for over a hundred years, and some of which we have created and which may not survive much beyond the end of our lives here, but all of which I love, and all of which deserve to be recorded. And remembered.

 

 

L is three! A birthday gallery of maternal sins (but mostly pride)

It's Wednesday.  Which means it's time for the Gallery.  But it's also 21st April 2010.  Which means that L, my amazingly wonderful eldest daughter, is three today.

Tara's challenge this week was Seven Deadly Sins. She said she wanted it to be tricky, and she was right.  I had no idea what to do for this one.  B suggested I find a stock picture of George Clooney and call it Lust.  This would have had the advantage of accuracy, but the disadvantage of not actually (sadly) being a picture I had taken.

But then I realised what the date was.  And it all fell into place.

So I give you L's gallery.  Or the sins I have committed, do commit, and will continue to commit for love of my daughter:


GLUTTONY

These are L's cakes.  We are postponing the actual party until Sunday, when B can be there, but clearly a birthday isn't a birthday without cake, so we are taking these along to our Songs and Stories group later on today.  I'm not entirely convinced by the home made Iced Gem look, but it was the best I could do with the rubbish piping nozzle I had.

Which leads me on to

ENVY

My friend K has a proper piping nozzle.  I want it.  In fact, if I'd been better prepared, I'm sure I could have borrowed it.  But I wasn't, because of

SLOTH

I have been woefully under-prepared for today.  I've known it was coming up (if had forgotten, L would certainly have reminded me), but I've sort of lost track of what date it is, and so it has slightly taken me by surprise and I ended up doing everything at the last minute. I'm not sure if that's laziness, but the state I let my kitchen get into, at about 9 pm last night, mid-way through 67 fairy cakes and one t-shirt certainly is.

The 67 fairy cakes may seem an oddly precise number, but was how many the mixture made. Probably would have been about 70, but I was eating it with a spoon.

Which probably should take me back to gluttony.  But that's not the sin I'm most guilty of today.  Today, I'm all about

PRIDE

I am so proud.

I am proud of my slightly odd cakes.

I am proud of the stripy t-shirt with her name and the three on it in flowery fabric which I also made yesterday evening.  Even if it's not the best one I've ever done, and I'm concerned that it may not hold together as the t-shirt is too stretchy and the fabric not at all...

I am proud that I actually managed to tidy up the kitchen before I went to bed.

I am proud of the things that matter too:

I am so proud that this time three years ago I was 10 days overdue and not even in labour.  And that by 11.52 pm I had brought a whole new person into the world and was holding my incredible daughter in my arms.  To be scrupulously  honest, I don't think I actually knew she was my daughter until the wee small hours of three years ago tomorrow.  They assumed we knew she was a girl, and we forgot to ask.

I am really proud that I did that all drug-free, stitch-free and mostly midwife free (she was out of the room until L was actually arriving. I panicked at that point - I think I'd forgotten I was having a baby - and thought I was having prolapsed uterus (apologies if you're reading this over breakfast).  The irony is I don't actually know what a prolapsed uterus is.  I'm not so proud of that bit.)

I am proud to have survived not just labour, but also exploding nappies, colic, sleepless nights, trips to South Africa, New York and France, tantrums, the arrival of two little sisters, potty training,  fights, strops and three weeks (and counting) of "why-eee?".

I am proud that B and I have produced this amazing person (does that count as lust?) and that she is a combination of all that is best in both of us.

I am proud of L.  The person that she is and will become. I am proud that she is 94cm tall and 25 kilos in weight.  That she has that intermediate British hair that can only be described as "mouse". That her best human friend is M, and her best inanimate friend is Mummy Sheep.  That she knows to say sorry, and please, and thank you.   That she likes painting, and reading, and dressing up.  That she has a wicked sense of humour.  That she loves singing.  That she's fascinated by pictures of herself.  That she loves her sisters (most of the time). That she wants (and is getting) a scooter for her birthday,  and that despite all my attempts to lure her with a bike she has stuck to her guns.   That she is determined to the point of bloody-mindedness.   That she knows all her letters and spelled her name, unasked, for the health visitor yesterday when we went to say goodbye.  That she makes friends everywhere we go.  That she is entirely happy with who she is.

Happy Birthday, my wonderful girl. xxxx