Death of a butcher

We punch above our economic weight, here in the Borders.

In our small town (population about 7,000 I think), we have, in addition to a large out of town Sainsbury's, a Lidl and two Co-ops, the usual array of not very exciting high street shops (Boots, Smiths, Dotty Ps), a posh interiors shop, a gentlemen's outfitters (I kid you not),  four sparkly tat shops (that may not be how they market themselves), various independent clothes and shoe shops, three bakers, three coffee shops,  two florists, two hardware stores, forty-eight (possibly slight exaggeration) fishing tackle shops and two butchers, one ok (but with better haggis) and one great.

Until yesterday.

Because yesterday, without warning, one of the butcher's shops shut.  It was the better one, of course.  There's no sign of explanation on the door, it's just closed up, and the man mending the road outside is performing a public service telling sad-faced sausage buyers (the sausages were particularly good and the other butchers doesn't make them at all (presumably having given up in the face of the former competition)) that it's gone.

The details of why and how aren't public yet, if they ever will be, but the rumour in town is that even the staff didn't know until Tuesday night.

And this feels like a tragedy for two reasons.

First, of course, because they really were the best sausages for some distance, and as sausage afficionados we don't know where we're going to get them from now.

And second because although I realise this is happening across the country, and our town has not been immune - the sparkly tat shops come and go, and the two florists we have now are not the same two florists we had when we moved here nearly three years ago - I really didn't see this coming, and unlike the florists or the gift shops, I can't see another butcher coming in to fill the empty space.

I'd like to blame Sainsbury's (which opened about eighteen months ago), but while I'm sure it didn't help, I'm not sure it's as simple as that. Even if former customers have all been defecting to Sainsbury's (or the other smaller supermarkets), this will have been as a result of other pressures (lower incomes, less time) from which Sainsbury's may be reaping the benefits, but can't be said to be the cause.   In any event, too, knowing why it has happened doesn't change the reality of the situation: several families will have lost a wage earner, the town has lost a valued and long-standing business and local farmers have one fewer properly-paying outlet for their well-produced, and in many cases already barely profitable, meat.

You could say it's just a shop, but somehow the loss feels greater than that.

Balance bike or stabilisers?

We have a policy on Christmas (and indeed birthday) presents: try and get them something that we'd be buying them anyway.  It's worked so far, although I realise it probably won't for much longer, and certainly not once they hit school and peer pressure.

Anyway, this year, with L four and a half and S and A coming up three, we think it's time we introduced another life skill.  Time to get up on two wheels.  Bikes it is.

But even the world of bikes is not as straightforward as it was when my parents bought me "Bobcat" thirty-odd years ago.  There are now choices:  do we go for the tried and tested stabilisers, or the modern and trendy balance bike?

I rather feel that for L, we have missed the boat (if that's the right metaphor in this context) with a balance bike, although that might simply be because you tend to see very small children on them, and not the slightly bigger ones, but that for S and A, we could decide to go either way.

Fortunately we have cousins, and fortunately the cousins have both sorts, so this weekend we tried them out in an attempt to see what suits.

My instinctive preference is for the balance bike.  If riding a bike breaks down into two parts: balancing and pedalling, then pedalling is, surely, the easy bit.  Better therefore to master the tricky one first and then add the easy one.

The problem is, of course, that that leaves balancing as the tricky bit, and three year olds, or at least my nearly-three-year-olds, aren't that good at perseverance in the face of initial failure.  They tried the balance bike, gave up and proceeded to fight over the one with pedals and stabilisers* for the simple reason that they could do it.  My sister-in-law also pointed out that with twins, balance bikes, which require an initial intense element of parental participation, are even harder - you can't hold on to two children on bikes at the same time, apparently, especially if they're heading in opposite directions.

So I'm veering back to the principle of four wheels good, two wheels bad, but what do others think? Does mastering a balance bike first really make learning to ride a "proper" bike easier in the long run? Or doesn't it make much difference?



PS: You'll be pleased to hear that compromise was finally reached...

There's no such thing as a "baby essential"

When B and I got married we (I say "we", but what I really mean is "my mother") had arranged for a bus to take guests back from the reception to the various hotels they were staying at.  One couple had come with their then five-week-old daughter.  They had planned not to drink and to drive back to the hotel, but one glass of champagne led to another and 1 o'clock in the morning found them (with the baby, an achievement in itself) on the bus back to the hotel.  Unfortunately the carry cot, the spare nappies, the nappy bag, and all the rest of the paraphernalia were still in the car at the reception.

They are resourceful though, my friends, and so, finding themselves, a little tiddly, in a strange hotel with a new baby, they ransacked the cupboards for spare blankets, padded out the bath, settled her in and had as restful a night's sleep as you can have with a new born and the beginnings of a hangover.

I find myself repeating that story a lot whenever I read another press release about "Baby Must-Haves", normally shortly followed by "Top Unnecessary Buys for your Baby".   Because maybe it's just me but it seemed to me, particularly when shopping for baby things the first time round, that the entire baby stuff industry had, subliminally, one slogan:

If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby.

Made me cross then.  Still makes me cross now. Because, in fact, as it turns out, there is only one baby essential you can buy.

A car seat.  Because if you've had your baby in hospital they won't let you go home without one.  The midwives wanted to escort us to our car when we left with M because B hadn't brought the car seat in with him.  They did eventually concede that with three other children to control, it was understandable that he hadn't chosen to lug in a piece of reinforced plastic and it was raining so they decided to trust us, but apparently they shouldn't have. Hospital policy: no car seat; no baby.

But that aside, there is nothing a baby needs that can't be fabricated in extremis.

Cot? Bath, drawer, pushchair, blanket on the floor.  With a big blanket you can make a double bed for two babies and wedge them in on either side with pillows.  I know, I've tried it.

Nappies?  Muslin and a nappy bag with two holes in it for legs (not pretty but it will get you down the hill and into the nearest corner shop, where you can rip open an unpaid for pack of Pampers and stick your baby in one of them in the bread aisle.  It's not the best look for turning up at your husband's godmother's but needs must.)

Clothes?  Amazing how good a look the toga is on a three month old.

You get my drift. 

But I've also found, over the last four years, that while there is nothing you need there is plenty that you might want...

So here it is, my top wish list of lovely baby things.  None of them essential, all of them delicious.  Apart from the breast pads which are most definitely not lovely or delicious, but I wish I'd known about four years ago:

Posh nappy bag.  I just bought myself, on child number four, a swanky leather nappy bag.  It makes me feel feminine and glamorous, no small feat when your nipples are at your knees and you have sick on your shoulder.

Baby Bjorn bouncy chair.  Stupidly, stupidly expensive and I absolutely refused to buy one.  Then we were lent two for S and A and they loved them and used to wail when I used the cheapy one that we had had for L.  When my sister-in-law asked me for baby recommendations I said one of these.  She bought one and about six months later I'm borrowing it from her for M. Feel a bit guilty about that...

Sling.  Doesn't matter what sort, but hands free mobility is a life saver.

Merino stuff.  I'm a complete convert to merino.  It's one of those things, along with Napisan, that Antipodean friends raved about and I thought "yadda yadda yadda, yes it's wool, so what", but then we bought merino grow bags for L and they have lasted her, S and A and are now onto M.  You don't have to worry about tog weights and they last and last and wash in the machine and I could rave about them all day.  And then the lovely people at Nature Shop  (who, as it so happens, also sell the sleeping bags) sent M a blanket (although they call it a wrap) (as modelled above) and me a dress and I love them too.  The blanket is so fine you think it won't do anything but he's slept wrapped up in it every night since he got it, and it makes a splendid toga too (see above).  As for the dress*, well, it's not designed for breastfeeding, but it works (wraparound), and, even better, it makes me look and feel good, and warm, and it goes in the machine.  Genius.

Huge muslins.  Another kiwi thing (top tip, next time you're having a baby, have it in New Zealand, they appear to have all the best stuff).  I have no idea where these came from as a Kiwi friend gave them to me but they're brilliant: muslin, blanket, wrap, tent, breast-hider and picnic rug in one.

Carry cot.  Pushchairs are controversial items. They're so eye-wateringly expensive that everyone you ask has to try and convince you that theirs is the absolutely best one, last word, bees knees thing in baby transport solutions.  Clearly, the right pushchair for me is not going to be the right pushchair for someone else who has different numbers and ages of children living a different sort of life. (Prime example: the pushchair I have now, which  I love, wouldn't have fitted through my front door in London, despite the manufacturers' claims.  Top tip: if buying a side-by-side double pushchair, please measure your door first).  The one thing I would recommend though is that your pushchair has a carrycot.  I love being able to lift M in and out, and in fact he likes his carrycot so much he sleeps in it day and night.  I also love the fact that I can get four children into a pushchair made for two, but that's a different story.

Lansinoh breast pads.  It has taken a great deal of messy market research by me but these are absolutely the best.

And on the same front, lovely dress above notwithstanding, I am a big advocate of breast feeding clothes.  There's something very liberating about being able to feed your baby in public without exposing your post-natal stomach or anything else.  There are all sorts of small companies out there making really nice clothes that don't look "specialist" and are definitely worth supporting (pun intended).

Oh, and Anita make underwired nursing bras.  Genius.

Reading through this list, it occurs to me, not only that this post has got too long as usual, but also how many of these things are for me, and not for my baby.  Now I could, in a spirit of maternal guilt, take that to mean I care more about myself than my baby, but I don't think it's that. Or at least I hope it's not.

In fact, I think I've hit on something more important here than just "lovely new stuff".  I think if there's one thing that really is essential for a baby, it's that its mother is, as far as she is able, happy and comfortable in her new life.  I think even for those of us who are lucky enough to escape any form of post-natal depression, and even fourth time round, it's a huge adjustment and one in which our own identity can easily get lost.  Now I realise that my identity shouldn't be tied up in my physical appearance, but I also know that if I look together, I find it much easier to feel together, and at a time when my identity feels fragmented into disparate parts of 95% harrassed mother and the rest varying proportions of daughter, wife, employee, friend, sister, neighbour, self; nurturing the "self" bit feels like less of an indulgence and more of a necessity.

So perhaps it's not If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby, perhaps it should be more If you want to be able really to love your baby, it helps if you love yourself.  Sounds like the sort of thing that you'd buy, laminated, to stick on your fridge.  Doesn't make it not true though.





* This is not a link to the website of the people who kindly sent it to me, as they seem to have taken it off there, but it is the same dress.  Ask them if they can get you one! It's brilliant.

And in the interests of disclosure, Nature Shop sent me the wrap and the dress. They also sent me a really lovely organic cotton baby grow for M.  Everything else I mention in here was either bought with my own money or a present/loan from a friend or family.

How shopping made me love my baby

I admit it, that's a slightly over-dramatic title, but it's also sort of true.

Because however much I wanted (and still want this baby), since the moment I discovered I was pregnant there's been a little niggly voice inside me saying

"You're not going to sleep. You're not going to be able to play with the others. You're not going to fit them all in the car. The builders won't have finished. You have no idea what to do with a boy.  Four children is greedy/ecologically criminal/insane.  You won't be able to leave the house for the next five years.  YOU AREN'T GOING TO COPE"

The odd thing is that B is the opposite.  He was very cautious about going in to this; kept coming up with all sorts of reasons why we really should stick at three, but the minute that line went blue, he's been over-joyed.  He's not worried. We'll cope.  And how wonderfully exciting is it going to be to have a baby?!

And I say the right things and I smile and I nod, and inside I keep thinking "What on earth are we doing?  I'm not going to cope".  And where with the others I loved being pregnant and talking about being pregnant and being excited about being pregnant, this time I'm playing the very British jaded-mother-of-three-already card, and saying things like "Well, clearly we're insane, but..." and changing the subject.

Until yesterday.  When I took L to a birthday party and seized the opportunity to nip into mothercare while we were going past and came out with this lot:

And it's tiny, and it's new, and it's blue....*

And the odd thing is, the minute I walked in there, and saw the tiny baby clothes, and the new baby nappies (yes even those), I started smiling.  And that pile of stuff, which is sitting on the landing until we have somewhere better to put it (note to self, must remember to sort that out before going into labour) is still making me smile.

Because more than all the worry and the practicalities and the uncertainty, there's a baby.  And it took shopping for him to make me realise how wonderfully excited too I am about that.



*I did also buy an armful of waterproof sheets and a new potty, but oddly they're not doing it for me in quite the same way...

A tale of two chickens

I sent B to a large supermarket (yes, that one, you know what I'm talking about but they're not paying me for this post (quelle surprise!) so I'm not giving them any free advertising) the other day to buy a chicken.

He fulfilled the task admirably, coming back with a lovely yellow, corn-fed, happy chicken that had lived its days merrily pecking in the dirt and probably having massages and  manicures for all I know.  The only problem was that he'd bought a chicken for six and I'd forgotten to mention that we were 11.

So I went out to the local supermarket (Haldanes. They're not paying me either, but given there's only one of them, they deserve the advertising) and bought another one.  There wasn't any option: it was chicken or chicken.  I got chicken.

Now, I know B had instinctively bought the super, friendly, happy, chicken, but then that's because that's the sort of thing we can do.  We are lucky enough to have sufficient disposable income to be able to pay just shy of £10 for a chicken because we are also woolly liberal enough to worry about whether our chicken has had a nice life before it gets decapitated and stuck in a hot oven with an onion up its bum.   I appreciate that there are lots of people who don't have the luxury of that choice and to be honest, I think I would have said the difference came more in how you felt about what you were eating than in what you were actually putting in your mouth.

It turns out I was wrong.

Here are the nutritional values of those two chickens: 

Look at the calories.  And the fat content.  And give yourselves no prizes for working out which one is which.