Welcome

Damn. The entire hob needs replacing - the back rings aren't safe, they're worn down like weathered fossils. The tiny electric shower head coats water like flour through a sieve, light and drizzly. Damp pock marks the pink wall in Little A's bedroom. Why hadn't we noticed this during the viewings? Today the sink flooded the kitchen floor. At the moment, I can hear the drip, dripping into the bucket underneath the piping.

When one rents, the property usually works.

When one buys, well, like a treasure hunt of errors, there are often lots of niggles to be found.

Welcome to our new home.

We wanted a project. And now we have one.

And I absolutely love living here.

At long last Little A has a garden. I can watch clothes floating like tethered kites on the line, drying in a mid afternoon breeze. It's such a novelty living in a house, not a flat. I walk upstairs to bed. I walk downstairs to breakfast. The kitchen is on the same floor as the living room - in our old flat, the kitchen had been carved into the attic space, casseroles made with wide views of tiles and chimneys from the small roof window.

The move. Sweat and dust, lots of dust. The men in blue t-shirts arrived at 9.00 am, climbing stairs, carrying boxes, a line of worker ants. In a matter of hours they were done, their lorry filled with the complete history of our family of three. Then, potential disaster, "Mummy, mummy, I can't find Peso." Peso is Little A's rabbit, her favourite teddy. "Don't worry, he'll be in a box somewhere." "But mummy, I want him NOOOOW." Think. Think. Think. Solution. Fast. Younger Dad doesn't like my idea, but it's the best option. On our way to our new home, I take a detour into Chiswick, to a toy shop on Turnham Green, a shop with an entire row of Peso's. "Oh s'ankyou mummy, I'm going to call this one Pinto." Now she's a happy bunny for the forty minute trip up the M40 and beyond.

The first evening Little A's bedroom is assembled, our bed made, old curtains loosely hung over the bay window rails. Peso is recovered from a card box box marked essentials. We eat fish and chips soaked in ketch-up out of the paper. We share a thick melting chocolate ice cream in the back garden. A swig of cool beer straight from the bottle tastes so good.

In bed that night, something irks Younger Dad, like an itch on the ball of a well socked foot tightly laced in a walking boot. "You've got to be kidding me... why hadn't this come up on my research... this is totally doing my head in." The echoing neeeeeoooooows are unmistakable. We have moved under the flight path of airborne traffic headed north east of Heathrow. It just so happens tonight is particularly busy, a neeeeeoooooow every five minutes. "Stop laughing would you....." I think it's hilarious, a home from home, a reminder of our life in West London.

The kitchen is unpacked. The living space made homely by a few choice paintings, the all important mantel piece looks inviting - the 'welcome' cards, the wedding present by my best friend, H, taking centre stage. We have shifted the many remaining boxes against a wall in the lounge - there are big plans afoot, projects that are likely to begin this year - an extension, maybe a double, at the rear, a master bedroom in the loft.

Of course there are repairs that need immediate attention, but we are living and breathing and functioning in our wonderful new home. And the best part is that Little A is settled and happy - she's really enjoying her new preschool, her new friends. She sculpts faces, makes puzzles out of the tawny pebbles covering the patio and pathway areas of the garden. She glides up and down the laminate flooring on her scooter. She looks forward to play dates with her little cousins, a five minute walk away.....

I think we are going to be here for a long, long time.  


Amazingly, unbelievably, I have made the shortlist of the Britmums BIBS Awards under the category, Lifestyle. I am so ruddy grateful to everyone who voted for Older Mum in a Muddle. Now if you would like to see me in the Lifestyle final six, then please, please, please vote for me one final time. The champagne is on me if I make it this far...... (nominations close on 12th May)

Fizz. Froth. Hiss.

An end of day moment....

There we stood, peering over the rim of the bath. The water swaying gently, slowly settling itself until there was no movement, just the crackling sound of bubbles popping into nothing. Then she hesitated, I encouraged 'go on', and she dropped her special toy that smelt of vanilla and honey and faint roses into the water. It hissed and fizzed on the surface like a demon hangover cure, twisting and rolling like an alligator wrapped around it's prey mid kill. She hadn't seen anything like it.

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That day we had shopped and shopped and shopped. Summer clothes for the both of us. Pizza and ice cream. A photograph with Tree Fu Tom. Sugar and cinnamon fingers from a warm doughy pretzel.

In the changing room I examined my skin in the full length mirror, pre-menstrual and grey, pores opened. And tired. And spotty. And sagging, deflated cells from lack of glass-in-hand irrigation. No miracle cream could plaster up the cracks of this ageing dermis.

But no matter.

"Mummy you look fabulous," as I tried on the spotty top.

"Mummy you look like a pop star," as I pulled the blue grey t-shirt with silver stars over my head.

Her words were better than any thoughtless reflection the mirror cared to offer - It lied. 

When we entered the final shop - an emporium of all things soapy and facial - we were blown away by the stifling pungency of flowers. It wasn't an aroma - that would've been light and heady upon our senses - like we were dancing with butterflies and fairies. This was the thick sickly blanket of a pollen heavy day.

The shop's ware was arranged on tables and towered high on mounted plates. And where to start? I didn't have a clue. The soaps, thick bars of milk and white chocolate, were the stuff of sweet shops. Another trick up Willy Wonka's velvet sleeve perhaps? Or was there a witches furnace, hot and burning and ready, in a secret back room? Would I find Hansel trapped in a cage? Everything looked so enticing, so seductive, so sensual - candy sweet oranges and pinks and blues. Raspberry streaks lighting up cotton coloured fudge treats. Scrubs the thickness of double clotted cream. A green uniformed Oompa Lumpa massaging smooth ointment into a customer's willing hand.

She chose an innocuous small cream bath bomb. One with subtle soft smells.

And not a witch in sight.

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In the bath she let the water fall through her fingers, "it's so soft mummy."

But only minutes later, "I want to get out now." Uncharacteristically, she didn't want to play. Now a disintegrated milky film on the water's surface, she was no longer enchanted by her once frothing bomb. 

We watched as the water and the day drained from the bath stretching and separating the layer of tiny bubbles into shapes. I thought one looked like the boot of Italy. Another a curvy pepper mill.

"Look mummy there's a crocodile. It's snapping the other bubbles up."

"Look! Look!" Even more excitedly. "There's Captain Barnacles and Peso!"

And we stood in perfect, contented silence as the Octonauts disappeared down the plughole.


If you enjoy reading Older Mum in a Muddle, please spare a thought for me in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards - The BIBS - there are sixteen great categories to chose from but I think I'm best placed in the writers category. You can click on the badge below to take you through to the nomination form on the Britmums page - TODAY IS THE LAST DAY to nominate..... Thank you! X.