Feeling sorry for myself on my birthday.

It's my birthday.

I'm 37 today.

B is not here so I am single-parenting four children. He was working in Milton Keynes on Friday and then at a thing (the sort of thing you only get invited to twice in your life and that you don't, as a result, turn down, wife's birthday or no) in Oxford last night.  He is, I am told, now on the motorway heading home.  I expect him, with a delicious dinner he will have picked up at the motorway services*, probably around five-ish.
I am very tired, having been up 'til gone midnight wrapping presents and making an ice-cream igloo for those who don't like Christmas pudding.

The children are fractious and scrapping like small tigers, all teeth and claws and lots and lots of noise.

It is, in fact, just a normal day.  With the addition of a lovely new shirt, which I am wearing, and the promise of cake later when my sister and her boyfriend get here, the first of the Christmas arrivals.

So better than a normal day really.  And actually with four children under seven, an absent husband, and thirteen people for lunch in three days' time I probably shouldn't have expected anything else.

But it's my birthday so I'll cry if I want to.

Or laugh.  Because it appears that the children have internalised some of what B must have told them; as I type the screaming next door is taking on a topical note:

"STOP IT! IT'S MUMMY'S BIRTHDAY! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THAT! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

So near, but yet so far...

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*Tebay, so while that is strictly true, it is also much, much better than it sounds.

Party bags? Bah humbug!

It's S and A's birthday on Wednesday.  They'll be five. 

Pause for disbelieving intake of breath and how did that happen and gosh aren't they big type thoughts...

On Friday fifty-something children will be congregating in the village hall for a disco.   That's both primary 1 classes and a few hangers on... I know, we're mad, but the theory is that at this stage they're still young enough (just about) to be controlled (and I've cunningly invited both teachers too), and we're never going to invite the entirety of both classes ever again.  Ever.

Anyway, there will be cake, and singing, and candles, and gangnam style (heaven help me) and musical bumps and probably a sausage or two.

What there won't be though, whisper it, is any party bags.

No.  Say it loud. I'm stingy and I'm proud:

THERE WILL BE NO PARTY BAGS!!!


But actually, it's not just my tight-fisted nature.  Because there will instead be a book (£30 for fify books) and a small packet of haribo each.

But no party bags.

The girls went to Billy's party yesterday afternoon. They came back with this:

Now, I intend no disrespect to Billy's parents, who are hugely generous and put on a fabulous party for thirty children with magician (and real rabbit) and crisps and balloons and everything else you want if you're five. 

But then somehow they're also expected to provide this bunch of, quite frankly, tat.  I have no idea what half that stuff is or does - the little plastic figures for instance, or the things that look like suppositories. They rattle incidentally, but don't open, rather to the girls' disappointment.

The whole lot (chocolate coins, colouring books and the big blue hairbands excepted) went in the bin within ten minutes of bedtime last night.  It has not been missed.

And it's the waste that really gets me.  There are intelligent, committed workers in China or Bangladesh who spend their days and their human energy making this stuff.   It then gets shipped across the world, to get sold (because, as I say, I don't in any way fault Billy's parents' generosity) to people who mostly resent buying it, to get put into little plastic bags (also doubtless made overseas and shipped here in vast containers of more plastic rubbish),  to get given to children who neither need it nor miss it when it's gone, only to get thrown away and then, almost certainly, shipped back to China to get shoved in landfill.

How can any of that possibly be right?

The Gallery: Two

Almost exactly two years ago, on 31 May 2011, I took part in the Gallery.

The subject, then, was I am grateful for...

 And, that day,  I was grateful for this:

Now here we are.  Two years later.  And on 31 May 2013 Tara set a new Gallery theme.  It is Two:

And so is my boy:

 

I am still grateful.

PS: He got two cakes, too:

Now click this link to see other people's take on two....

Things I should know.

There are lots of them, obviously.  I'm a 36 year old university educated, professionally qualified mother of four, but I don't, for example, really know what the difference is between a King Edward and a Maris Piper and which one I want when I need to impress with my roasties.

Nor, for instance, do I actually know what colour eye shadow suits me.  Or how you choose an eyeshadow in the first place.

Or what half my friends actually do for their jobs.  I mean I know what the job title is, and I know who they work for,  but what is a deal architect, or a blue sky thinker anyway?  And yes, I do really know people who have that printed on their business cards.

Or, of more immediate concern, what is the etiquette when someone gives you a present you (or in this case your six-year-old) already has?  She, obviously, wants to come clean, complain loudly, and get them to send her something else.

I want to pretend it never happened, get her to write a lovely thank you card, not mentioning the duplication at all, and put the offending item in the "present drawer".

Which of us is right? 

The car, the cinema and the rainbow cake

Or the utterly flabbergasting power of social media.

And the birthday was saved!

I didn't think it would work, honestly I didn't.  I mean actually who reads this blog? Who tweets? Who's interested in what I put on my personal (I told them I blog! eek!) facebook page?

Do Citroen really care if L's birthday is ruined because their supply chain is rubbish?

Turns out they do.

On Wednesday afternoon I posted this (click the link if you have no idea what I'm talking about).   I also stuck it on my and B's and Citroen's facebook pages.  I also asked anyone who read it to tweet it.

B and I have, in total, we reckon, about 500 separate friends on facebook.  According to blogger about 350 people read the post (which I think means actually clicked on it).  I don't understand twitter, but I think about ten people tweeted it.

Citroen are a pretty big company.  They must spend millions on marketing.  As a result they must have a global reach to futher millions of people. They're not going to care about fewer than 1000 of my friends and relations, are they?

My phone rang at 8.45 on Thursday morning.  By Friday afternoon (took them time to find one big enough) we had this.

A Hyundai Hee-Owge (that may not actually be what it's called). All expenses (well not the petrol, obviously) paid.

By this morning the part was at the garage, and by mid-afternoon today, we had this, shiny and clean, riding high on its lovely new rear suspension:

Even better, on Sunday lunchtime, L had this:

And by Sunday afternoon she had a bucket of popcorn as big as her head on her lap, and a pair of 3D glasses attached to her nose.

I don't get it. I really don't.  What's a thousand people to the millions Citroen reach through advertising?  What was it about us that got us bumped up the queue (because we're far from being alone with this problem)?  Was it the human interest of poor little L, with her wobbly bottom lip and her tear-streaked face, missing her birthday treat?  Was it the blog? Was it the tweets? Was it the fact that though we were clearly fed up with the situation we didn't shout or swear?  Was it actually not us at all, but the garage (Dalgleish in Coldstream, who were also hassling on our behalf) that applied the vital pressure in our favour?

I don't know.  I probably never will.  I don't understand it, but I'm very grateful for whatever it was.

So thank you.  You, and the garage,and Citroen.

And apologies to the several hundred other Citroen owners who have, according to Citroen's facebook page, this forum and others, been waiting, mostly a lot longer than we have, and continue to wait.

Because while Citroen were great to us (why?)  they're still being rubbish.  They still haven't got the parts for other people, their supply chain is still non-existent (some people are being told it may be 8-10 weeks for the part) and they still won't admit that there's actually a fault with the thing in the first place.  So, again, please tweet this post, if you tweet. 

Because Citroen deserve to be praised for the way they treated us, but we're not alone, and there are other people, and probably other six year olds, who deserve to be treated as we were.  

If it worked for us, you never know...

In which I refuse to let Citroen ruin L's birthday.

Our car died on Easter Saturday.

It's not a big death, as deaths go.  The rear suspension's gone.  It's undrivable as is, but it's only going to take two hours (and the obligatory several hundred pounds, obviously) to fix.

Once they've got the part.

On Easter Saturday we were supposed to be going to Edinburgh to see some friends.  They came here.  I paid over £100 for the car to be taken to the garage.  We were promised it back early the next week.

We changed our Easter plans.

We were supposed to be going South to see my parents on the Thursday. No car.  We hired one.

The part was supposed to be in last Sunday.  It's not.  B cancelled the concert and reunion he was supposed to be going to on Monday.

The part was supposed to be in yesterday.  It's not.  I walked four children through a rainstorm to nursery (a mile away, which is a long way with little legs).

Today it's still not here.  I won't go to my exercise class tonight, or, almost certainly, my book group tomorrow.

Citroen are, as of this morning, saying that there is a supply chain problem.  Apparently there are cars all over the UK waiting for this part.  We are one of many.  They can't give us a date.

Nor will they give us a hire car.  Or a courtesy car (and the garage only has three which are all already out).

We are coping. It's fine.  We're in the middle of town. We can walk most places and change plans when we can't.

Only who's going to change L's birthday?

She's six on Sunday.  She is beyond excited.  Literally counting down the days.   We've chosen the (rainbow coloured) cake, and the big baking is scheduled for Saturday.  After much deliberation there's one thing she wants to do:  go to the cinema with her family and one of her best friends.  Nemo in 3D.  Twelve miles away.

Only we can't get there with no car.   There are no hire cars big enough available at the local hire car company.  The bus times don't work.  We can't get a taxi because what would we do with the car seats in the cinema?  There are too many of us (six of us plus her friend) to get a lift with anyone.

She hasn't worked it out yet, but if the car isn't fixed we're going to have to cancel.

And are Citroen going to explain that to her?

I've been fine about having no car for over two weeks now.  I've been  fine about shopping for six people in dribs and drabs.  I've been fine with non-explanations and non-contact.  I've been fine about cancelling my plans and B's.

But I am utterly not fine about cancelling a 6 year old's birthday.

I don't tweet, but if anyone who reads this does and wants to retweet it to (is that what you do?) @citroenUK just to see if we can sort something, anything, out, please feel free...

Lego or Playmobil?

I know.

It's one of those great questions of the 21st century, isn't it?  Up there with Are those bones Richard III's?  (very excited to find out they are, by the way), How can we solve third world debt? and What on earth is quantitative easing, anyway?

Playmobil or lego?

What do you think?

Two weekends ago we went to stay with some friends.  They had a big selection of duplo:  houses, hospitals, police stations and the like, and L absolutely loved it.  Not the construction element of it, but the playing imaginatively, creating tiny worlds.

It's her sixth birthday in three months time and as she is completely obsessed by planning it, I am becoming so too, and this weekend rather inspired me on the present front.

But at six she's clearly too old for duplo.

So should it be lego - on the basis that you get imaginative play and the inspirational foundations of a glittering career as a celebrity architect (maybe) - and if so, which bit of branding? How much do we hate lego friends a year or so after its launch, or is it not as bad as all that?  Or if we shy away from that and the movie tie-ins is there anything in the lego city that isn't fuelled entirely by speed and agression?

Or do we go with tried and tested, hasn't changed in thirty years (still can't walk) playmobil:  no construction, but a world of different sets to play with, each of which more reflects how she was playing with the duplo?  Even though it's, somehow, not quite as cool as lego. 

Or is that just me? 


And while you're at it, should they all have had capital letters?

The hardest thing about Christmas

Is not, in my opinion, the cooking.

It's not the maintaining of an innocent appearance in the face of ruthless interrogation on the reality or otherwise of you know who.

It's not even dealing with the fact that my twins (see left), my mother, my brother and myself all have birthdays in the two weeks before Christmas (and admittedly that means it's worse for my sister who has to buy (and think) for all of us - so does my dad, technically, but honestly any involvement he has in the thinking of, shopping for or wrapping of presents is purely coincidental).

No. It's men's presents in general, and B's present in particular.

It needs to be thoughtful and personal: chosen with real care to reflect how much I love him and how central he is to mine and the children's everything.

I've just ordered it. It is safe to say it is none of the above.

He reads this blog so I can't be specific (think of this as management of expectations) but suffice to say it's something we need and  so because I can't think of anything else I'm buying it now, essentially to save having to spend money on it later.

How rubbish is that?

It's his fault, obviously.  I'm pretty good at presents mostly, but my effort and imagination do, I admit, tend to prioritse birthdays over Christmas.  B turned forty earlier this year, and if he hadn't selfishly done so I wouldn't have used up my store of fabulously well thought out presents already.

I did well then, with no false modesty: he got a pretty spectacular party, a weekend away with various bits to go with it, and two maps from thisismymap.com

Now, this isn't a sponsored post (I paid for the maps ages ago), and the lovely people who made them don't even know I'm writing it but the maps are just brilliant.

The pictures on here aren't actually of our ones because B has very gently pointed out that if I stick a whole bunch of personal information (as I did briefly this afternoon) including all our names and significant places online, it might not do much for what remains of my anonymity, but these are very like ours and I hope that Tracy, whose business it is, will forgive me for lifting them off her website.  And that everyone else won't mind that I've changed this post slightly from the original version.

I designed them in conjunction with Tracy and they make me smile every time I see them. B loves maps, and we have maps dotted all round the house, but these are different: the one on the left not a map at all, it's a family tree, and the other, the one which looks, counter-intuitively like a tree (and which is what gave me the idea of the family tree above), is all of his favourite things interconnecting, from me and the children to bacon and egg muffins, from our first house to fine wine (it's more specific than that), and from sudoku to the Proclaimers.
 

They reflect him and us, and his family and friends and everything that is important in his life in two fabulously simple, information packed graphics and he, and I, are delighted with them.  The children love them too, of course, because they're on both of them.

If I say it myself, I did well.  Then.  For now though, I'm just going to have to hope they're good enough to compensate for the new Christmas Hoover...

Ps: As I say, I've not been asked to write this (and it wasn't really the post I intended to write when I started out) but if you're struggling for a present idea, and can't find a good place for a weekend away (we went to the Lake District, it was fab) have a look at the site. I can promise you won't regret it.
 

What should I wear to my husband's 40th?

It seemed like such a good idea at the time:

Please wear your favourite thing (and your swimming costume).

It's B's 40th on Monday (let's skip over the oh my goodness where on earth did the last ten years go bit) and we are having a party.  It's a These are a few of my favourite things party, because that way he gets to have all the stuff he likes: champagne (on offer), hot tub (hired - hence the swimming costume), karaoke, disco, roast pork, poppadoms (the curry house is bringing 100 round at 6.30 on the evening), ice cream... All in the garden (if the rain ever stops).

So obviously, the dress code is your favourite thing.  Which seems so easy, until you think about it.  Because actually my favourite thing is the thing that makes me look most like Angelina Jolie and least like a slightly stressed, slightly flabby, slightly saggy mother of four. (Angelina has six, or seven, which must be easier, economies of scale, and all that). And I don't seem to have a magic wand handy.

I've narrowed it down to the fact that I can't buy anything new (because that feels like cheating) and I genuinely like dressing up (in the posh, not stupid, sense), so where plenty of people are planning on coming in their pjs, that's not for me. I want to look splendid, and pjs (or at least my pjs) aren't splendid.  And I'm definitely wearing these:

But what else?  Because while B might be quite happy to have me in just gold sparkly shoes, I'm not sure the Scottish Borders is ready for that.

Here's the shortlist.... leave a comment letting me know what you think. I don't promise to do what I'm told, but some independent thoughts (and not that I need my legs waxing, that's next Tuesday) would be very much appreciated.

We could go sort of smart casual-ish.  These are absurdly flattering jeans (although better with shoes), and it's a nice top, although looking at the pictures I'm not sure it doesn't make my body look long and my legs short, which they are, but still....

Or the other extreme.  Nothing casual about this. I bought it for a friend's wedding in 2003.  Still love it:

 
Downsides: it appears to make me fade into the background, but I'm hoping that's just the picture.  Oh, and no bra... possibly unwise in a woman who has breast-fed (and sort of appears still to be breast-feeding) four children.

Or this.  I made this dress out of fabric my brother bought back from his gap year in China. Quite proud of that, but not sure I still have the figure I made it for. 

Or what about this?  I bought this in a charity sale about two weeks ago for a fiver.  It makes me feel all flirty.

B's always been quite a fan of this dress, which I bought with a friend (the same one whose wedding it was, as it happens) in about 1999.  I'm not convinced it does that much for me, but he wants me to put it to the vote:

He's also quite keen on this one, my amazing coat, bought on a whim for my birthday about five years ago in a funny little shop by Baron's Court tube, but I haven't got anything that really works underneath it (this purple job's a bit of a poor compromise), and as I've mentioned I'm not sure the Borders is prepared for the alternative:

So what about this?  Bought for the day after our wedding, when all the people my parents like but we don't know were invited for lunch.  Got a bit of a red wine stain on the front of it from a wedding about a month ago, but you can't really see it...

Or this? It is one of my favourite things, after all....but is it really that sort of party? And am I prepared to risk it?

Answers on a postcard (or in the comments box, if that's easier...).

The Gallery - April

April?  April?  What can I say about April?  Particularly now that it's May...

Well, April 2010 has been about picnics and birthdays and Spring finally being round the corner, and castles and walks and visitors, and builders and a new roof, and an ever growing bump, and a world tour of Kent, and Easter and chocolate and eggs, and suddenly getting the point of the Easter Bunny, and endless cups of raspberry leaf tea, and apple blossom, and only having one working loo between five of us and all the builders, and scraping the car again, and discovering that S is scared of ladybirds, and a new wendy house, and picking the spiders off the paddling pool, and some people getting married, and realising it's not as warm as it looks, and tulips and daffodils and deadheading and weeding, and blinking and you missed it and you've got the whole of the Summer stretching before you and a new baby very nearly here.

But that was April 2010, and this is just April.  Because however old she gets, and however much she doesn't need me any more, April will, for me, always be about one thing. My first born. Because it is her month, even four years on.

L.

 

Click here for more Spring-like (and not so Spring-like) pictures in the Gallery

Four

Not four children, although that day is not far off.  (Five weeks today, if you believe the doctors).

Just the one child.

L.

Today she is four.  If I can get the delayed posting thing to work, when this goes live she will be exactly four years old.  Four years from 11.52pm on Saturday 21 April 2007.

She has driven me absolutely insane today.  I have been to the end of my tether and back again, but I still wouldn't change a single cell of her exasperating, irritating, obstinate, argumentative, bright, sparky, beautiful, determined, inquisitive, talkative, engaging, loving little body.

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl.

Two twos make...

 

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This post is for Mocha Beanie Mummy's (almost) Silent Sunday, and in honour of my wonderful A and S who were two yesterday.

I love you very much, girls, and am so proud of you both.

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

Happy Birthday. Have a nice life.

It was my best friend's birthday this week. I didn't see her.  In fact, I didn't even send her a card.  This is not just because I'm utterly rubbish (although I am). She's moved recently to New York, and I don't (or thought I didn't) have her new address.

But it's got me thinking about our relationship, and the likelihood that it will be a very long time before I actually see her again for all that we are regularly in touch, and from that to how many friends I am going to lose over this move...

But back to my best friend.  To be honest, that description's a bit of artistic licence because she's not really my best friend any more, although she's still special to me, and I hope I am to her.  We were inseparable at university after we bonded over a pair of rubbish boys (one (hers) now married to another mutual friend, and the other (never actually mine, but I lived in hope) missing, presumed somewhere in the UK.)  But since university we've gone our separate ways. She's had to work exceptionally hard, and often anti-social hours, to get to the successful place she is now, and I was doing all the mundane mummy stuff that fills up your day and your mind without you knowing, and the result is that our lives have just drifted apart, as they do.  We both know this, and although it is sad, I realise that that is the way things go.

But now, it will be even less likely that we will see each other.   She will be in New York, I will be in Scotland. When she comes back to the UK it will be to London where her family and many of her friends are, and if that doesn't happen to coincide with when I'm here, we are unlikely to meet... 

In a way I'm not too worried.  We will stay in touch and when it matters we will make that effort and we will see each other.

But what of the others? What of the people I have worked with for the last ten years, or the women I have shared the first few years of our children's lives with, or the neighbours who I have got to know so well living in this house?

Because a lot of them I will say goodbye to in less than four weeks' time, and then I will, literally, never see them again.  Oh, we might send Christmas cards, or keep in touch on facebook, or if I'm very brave I'll give them this blog address and they can keep in touch with my witterings that way, but it's not the same. These are people I've seen four or five times a week.

Now there are lots of people that I know I will see, because they are lovely, and I love them, and they have already booked in their dates to visit us, or we have plans to see them when we are down, or we will be on the phone and sorting something out just as soon as the first boxes are unpacked. 

And there are other people where I realise that our friendships are superficial, and we would have slipped apart anyway.   Someone said to me the other day "Well, I guess we won't see each other again, good luck".  I stood there, mouth agape, unsure what to say. It seemed so final.  We're not that close, and I'm sure there are other people to whom I have been closer and with whom I have lost touch. But to say it, out loud, seemed almost violent. 

But at least it was honest. Is it better to do, and be, that than to make promises of keeping in touch, calling regularly, making efforts to see them when I'm down  here, when I know in my heart of hearts that there are a (largeish) handful of people who really fit into that category and the others, well, I am very fond of them, but there just isn't going to be time...?  And how do I choose?  How can I tell?  Because I suspect that there are some people who I will lose despite my hope and efforts.

Realistically, I know that this is just the same, though happening over a quicker time-frame, as what has happened between me and the best friend.  Friendships change, we change, we move on or away, we have different interests, and different friends for different stages of our lives.  But this feels different. These are people who I'm not drifting away from.  I am breaking these relationships and walking away from them deliberately.  And I'm not just doing it to my friends.  L and A and S, but particularly L, all have friends here, and some of them they too will never see again.  And how on earth do I begin to explain that to them?

On the upside - if you're reading this, and you know me, and you've secretly been wanting to get rid of me for years...now is your opportunity.

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This sculpture is actually entitled Welcome Home and it's at Fleetwood in Lancashire. I didn't take it. I found it at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Family_waving_goodbye.JPG

If I really loved my babies....

....surely I wouldn't seriously be considering not buying them any birthday presents.  Would I?

This time 377 days ago, I had twelve days until I became a mum of three.  Now I have twelve days to organise a first birthday party for two babies.

I've also got ten days to organise a birthday present for my mum, thirteen days to organise a Christening, fourteen days to organise a birthday present for my brother, nineteen days to organise Christmas (that's when we fly to Canada and if it's not done by then....) and a house that is stuffed to the gunwales with toys.

So I'm thinking - Do S & A really need presents? Or at least do they need presents from us? They're getting not one, but two, parties and will doubtless get spoiled rotten at those.  They're only (nearly) one and have no idea what presents, or indeed birthdays, are, so they're not going to care, and anyway, anything that I would want to buy them, someone probably bought L for her first birthday nineteen short months ago.

So why do I feel like a bad mother for even considering it? And what am I going to say when they ask me, in years to come, what I bought them for their birthdays?