As the actress said to the bishop. Or not.

I did something increasingly unusual last year.

On the census form, on the religion bit, I put: C of E.

I don't go regularly any more (distinct lack of child friendly churches round here), and you'd probably never know that I ever went at all if I didn't tell you.  But despite that my membership of the Church of England, is, and always has been, a part of who I am.   Three of my four children were baptised into the church and the fourth has his official dunking booked for later this year.

But following the news about gay bishops, I'm thinking of cancelling the Christening; and if the census were tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'd put.

It's not that I care who my bishop sleeps with.  (To be fair,it's not that I know who my bishop is, living in Scotland as I do.)  Nor is it that the whole thing is a nonsense - it's apparently ok to be gay, and do gay stuff like fall in love, move in together and  have a civil partnership, as long as you don't do other gay stuff; like, for example, sleep with other men.  (Really?  Is there really anyone who thinks that makes sense?)  Nor is it that it almost explicitly invites senior clergy into each other's bedrooms. (Will they also be asking the straight ones if they prefer it missionary or doggy style?).  

It's not actually about the gay men at all, whether bishops or otherwise.  

What's bothering me is the thought of what this says about the whole institution's unspoken attitude towards women in general, and women bishops in particular.

Because underneath it all, doesn't that attitiude boil down to this: 

Being gay is wrong.  Being a gay bishop is ok.  
Being a woman bishop is not ok. 

Or, in other words: while it's sometimes ok to be gay, it's never ok to be a woman.

Thoughts on the 22nd December 2012.

Well, it turns out the world didn't end yesterday.

As it happens, I still don't understand why people thought it might end.  If I've understood it right, and I can't say I've ever given much thought to the Mayan calendar before, it was just the end of a period of time for them, like a bigger week, or month, or century.  So if they were still around, they would, I think, have been looking at people stockpiling tins of beans and thought they were rather odd, while looking forward to what the fourteenth baktun might bring.

But anyway, the world didn't end.  Which is nice, because it's my birthday today, and it'd be a shame to have missed that.

And it's three days before Christmas, the wrapping is done, the cake is iced, B has taken the children off to Sainsbury's to do the brussels sprouts and double cream shop (one of the perks of having a birthday so close to Christmas) and, to top it all, M, nineteen months on New Years' Eve, has finally taken to his feet and walked.

So I am feeling blessed.  Or lucky.  Or both.   And not unlike Lucy Mangan in today's Guardian (even down to the motor skills). 

So go and have a read, and after that have a wonderful Christmas, and a very happy New Year.

xx

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.
 

Scots, wha hae wi Wallace read...*

Great excitement at school on Friday:  the P1 bookbug bags arrived.

It was the end of Scottish Book Week, and here, where we still get free books given to every child every year from birth to five, they dished out three crackers to L and her classmates, whose front covers you can see in this post.  I honestly can't tell you which I like best. They're all awesome.  If you're looking for a book to give a five year old this Christmas, you won't go wrong with any of these.

But they also gave us Jordan's new Jaiket.

First line: Jordan wis in his bed sleepin.  He wis in the middle o a braw dream.

And I have removed it from L and told her she's not allowed to read it.

It's not a Scottish literature thing, obviously.  The three fantastic books which illustrate this post are all written by Scottish (or Scottish based) authors and I couldn't be more delighted with them. 

But it is a Scots thing. 

For a start, I don't happen to think Scots is a language.  Now, technically, there's no fixed definition of what's a language, what's an accent and what's a dialect. But if we assume that a dialect is somewhere between a language and an accent, I reckon Scots is a dialect.  Or, indeed, a vast number of different dialects which are markedly different if you live in Stornoway, Stranraer or Selkirk.  Indeed, people (or indeed folk) from Selkirk, a grand 20 miles away from where I sit, speak a completely different version of Scots from those in Hawick, or Galashiels, or Duns, each of which is less than 20 miles from the others.  

So if L reads, or has read to her (although not by me, because I'd mangle it), Jordan's new Jaiket she's not hearing anything that really resembles the words, accents and turns of phrase she hears out and about. 

The introduction to Jordan's new Jaiket, written, obviously, not in Scots, says:

Learning about Scotland helps children to develop a sense of who they are and their place in the world[...].  Exploring Scots language is an iimportant part of this learning.

Of course it is. I couldn't be more delighted for my children, and all other children wherever they are raised, to be given an real sense of the local culture: the literature, art and music, the dialects, architecture and landscape.  I want my children to appreciate the works of Robert Burns, John Buchan, James Kelman or Irvine Welsh (but not Walter Scott, because (whisper it) it's incredibly dull).

But not yet.  Not now.

L is five.  She is just on the cusp of learning to read and write, an explosion of literacy that is going to open up to her worlds of imagining and information.  She, and I, are so excited by this.  She can't get through her bedtime story at the moment without stopping me to read out words or sentences she has recognised, or to point to a punctuation mark and ask what it is and what it's doing.

So when she picks up Jordan's new Jaiket, and reads, in her voice which still has more than an echo of three formative years spent in southern England, "Jordan was in his bed sleeping",  she is undoing all the hard work her teacher has put in, teaching her to recognise that was is spelt with an a and ing makes the sound, and has the grammatical function, it does (although obviously she wouldn't express it like that), in whatever accent you choose to say it.

Wherever you stand on the importance (or indeed existence) of the Scots language, at this stage, L, and all the other P1 children who were given this book, are being taught to read and write English, and it is in English that they will go on to read the vast majority of books, textbooks, exam papers, magazines, newspapers or advertisements.  Tacitly, the writer and publisher of Jordan's new Jaiket (which is, incidentally, a rubbish story - Jordan can't find his new jacket because his sister has put it on her snowman) know this, else why write the blurb in English?

L's school has a Burns competition. Each year around Burns night, the older children are encouraged to learn a Burns poem and to recite it in front of their classmates and the school.  I dearly hope she will take part and I'd love her to be able to do so with a swagger and a swing of Scots conviction.  But by that stage she will be older.  She will be reading and writing fluently in English, and regularly hearing the local dialect of Scots. She will have the knowledge and sophistication to recognise and understand the differences and to know that what is correct in one is not in the other.

But now, at five, she's not.  And to confuse her, or her classmates, is jist wrang.  




*With apologies to the shade of Robert Burns.

Win chocolate!

Honestly, was there ever a better title for a post?

How about this one:

Win seriously nice luxury chocolate!

Yup, Hotel Chocolat chocolate, no less.  To be precise a selection of their stocking fillers.

Tragically, I can't tell you what they taste like, because they didn't send me any.  Instead they sent me their Purist Festive Wreath:  70% cocoa single estate dark arriba chocolate, with golden raisins, almonds and hazelnuts.  It's the platonic ideal of a fruit and nut bar.  Only better.

When it arrived it looked like this:

Now, a week later, it looks like this:

And yes, we did need the knife to get through it.

Thank you, Hotel Chocolat.

So, if you want to find out if the Tipsy Christmas Puddings or Piglets in Blankets (clearly too good for the children) are just as good, leave me a comment giving me a better title for a post (any post), and I'll pick a winner at random  next Friday (30th) and get someone's December off to a very chocolatey start.

********************

ps and if anyone's wondering how this fits with my self-flagellating post about food of earlier this month, consider it whatever the opposite of aversion therapy is...

The end of happy ever after.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Except when they didn't.  Of course.

Now, you know that and I know that.  But my children don't.  So what I'm wondering is when should they learn?  When it it time to read them the books in which they don't all live happily ever after?

Take Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid.  It's giving me goosebumps to think of it.

She doesn't get her prince, you know.  He marries someone else, and she is told that to save her life she must kill him. But she loves him too much, so instead, standing by his marriage bed with a knife in her hand, watching him sleep with another woman's head resting on his chest, she drops a kiss on his forehead and throws herself into the sea, from which she is transformed into a daughter of the air, an ethereal cloud.

It's a great story.  A story of a love that is greater than life.

So why, when  the Guardian decided to retell it, did they change the end?  Why does she have to get the Prince?   Presumably because Disney say so, but then why did Disney change it too?

Are our children really not strong enough to take it?   And if they're not now, when will they be?  When can I say to them, "Actually, the Little Mermaid doesn't really end like that..."?

So many great children's books are tragic, after all:  the Selfish Giant and the Happy Prince spring immediately to mind.   I'm looking forward to children's war literature such as I am David, the Silver Sword and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit too.  And while we're on the subject of Judith Kerr, what about Goodbye Mog?
 
Now I realise, with the exception of Mog, that we may be a little young yet for Anne Holm or Oscar Wilde, but I still wonder whether protecting them from the idea of a sad ending is such a good thing.   We can't protect them from sadness in real life, after all.

Maybe that's it, of course.  Maybe Disney, the Guardian and their like think that stories should be a refuge from reality, especially for the very young.

I'm still not sure I agree.

*****************************************************

Image from Wikipedia, although, interestingly, not wikimedia commons, because apparently Danish copyright laws also protect works of art in public locations.  So if I'm breaching the artist's' family's copyright I'm sorry, and I will of course take it down if they want.   Probably also one to bear in mind if you're ever in Copenhagen...

Is it possible to have a "healthy" relationship with food?

I pondered this as I stood on the scales this morning.

Because I'm really not sure it is.  Or at least I'm really not sure I know anyone, anyone female at least, who has what I'd call a healthy relationship with food.

By which I mean someone who eats what they like, when they like, within healthy parameters, and feels no guilt, worry or obsession about it.

Are you out there? Someone? Anyone?

Because I don't.  And I always thought I did.  From the outside you'd think I did.  I'm 5'4", size 10/12 (although at around 10 stone 4lb, I'm also technially overweight if you believe in BMIs, which I don't).  I exercise regularly.  I cook from scratch, always.  I eat, mostly, my five a day.  I also have a very sweet tooth, and have never knowingly said no to a cake.  I'd rather give up alcohol than pudding.

If you met me, if you looked at me in the street, I think you'd think I was mostly unconcerned about food; that I enjoyed eating it, but otherwise didn't give it much thought.

Well, I'm afraid that's nonsense.

A secret.  I get on the scales every day.  I always used to think that was fine.  It's just a number, right?  But it's not when it puts you in a good (or bad) mood for the rest of the day.   Or when you realise that I look upon the nights when B is away as opportunities to go on a speedy crash diet in advance of cooking excessively when he's back.  Or when you factor in that the sole purpose of the exercise, for me, is to remain in control of the numbers on the scales.

That's not healthy, really, is it?

It's about body image, of course.    As I said, I'm ok, body wise.  I'm not stopping traffic, but for a mother of four, I don't think I do too badly.   When I think about it objectively, I think I'm ok.  The only person who looks at me naked (of the over six variety, anyway) thinks I'm (his words) "delicious".

Another secret.  I don't believe him.

When I look in the mirror, I see, objectively, a thirty-five year old woman of average build, who's had four children.    For B, that's perfect.   For me, that's not good enough.  And if I don't think I'm good enough, slim enough, toned enough, I don't see how he can.

I don't want to get into why that is.  I don't want to start talking about women's magazines, and the porn industry and the objectification of women and the patriarchy.  Or how I worry about what any or all of the above might do to my daughters, because I don't have the answers and I don't, honestly, think there are any.

But I do think, if I am feeling like this, is there anyone out there who isn't?  And if so, what's your secret?