#One Week - Autumn '14 - Autumn Bites

I haven't touched a conker or turned my face towards the wind.
I haven't baked a crumble or remarked on how the nights are drawing in.

I have forgotten the richest and most dishevelled of seasons.
Paid little attention to fallen leaf and heavy cloud.

But have written under light of bureau lamp.
Have sat at table, helped her read first words.
Have planted pansies in pots, verdant heather in borders.
Have had silver birch cut back, harvested tomatoes.
Have visited showrooms, poured through kitchen catalogues.
Have wheezed with asthma, upgraded inhaler.
Have made new friends at school date, kept in touch with old.
Have forgotten hair dye, bought her new clothes.
Have felt lost, bereft, adjusting to new routines.
Have worried and worried about this here blog.
Have lacked the inspiration, ideas for posts...

...like a gust of air released a kite from handheld grasp,
and earth under foot turned to mud.

Maybe I am unknowingly taking stock?
Maybe I have run out of stories?
Maybe I need a different approach?
Or maybe I simply need to devote my time to where my energy now flows?

#One Week - Summer '14 - A New Rhythm

I did it. I gave Little A the best summer ever. Probably my greatest achievement this year, I think. We grew courgettes and tomatoes and sweetcorn. We even grew butterflies - bright red admirals - setting them free in the garden. One crawled up her arm, stretching its orange wings before it disappeared among the branches of the silver birch. A magical moment. And there was the festival, the holiday, and numerous play dates, and a brand new trampoline. But then, for me, there was also the tooth extraction. Not the tooth which had become infected back in June (and which I still haven't done anything about). No, not that one. The tooth directly above it. After a week of tender gums, the dentist declared that the crack in the tooth (what crack!?) was so bad, my poor tooth was beyond repair. So out it came, in pieces. I didn't feel a thing, only tugging; not unlike having a c-section. 'Do you want to keep your tooth?' she asked. 'Er, no,' I replied. Little A was subjected to the entire medieval procedure, but she found it fascinating, and afterwards incessantly requested view after view of the bloodied gap in my mouth. Nice. 'Wow,' she gasped, 'it's huge!' This has categorically not been a good summer for my dentures.

And I did it (again). I had a wonderful two month break away from blogging and most of social media. What a breath of fresh air. When I had the chance, I worked on my novel and read a good book (or two). The most relaxed I've felt in a long while. And happy. I saw my life from a different perspective, reevaluated my priorities, and I made a promise to myself; that upon my return in September I was going to spend a lot less time on the likes of Twitter and Facebook, and blogging. Oh I will still continue to write posts, just not as often as before, or just when the urge really takes me. I need to focus on my other writing aims (or I'll never get them finished), and there just aren't enough hours in the day....

Still, it's great to be back.

This is the final day of my One Week series. Due to the amount of work involved, I've decided not to run this series as a linky anymore, but please feel free to join in if you want to... Thank you for reading!

#One Week - Summer '14 - South Then North

First there was The South.

Figs in honey. Bresola and salami. Green olives and nutty bread. Pain au chocolat every morning on the sunlit terrace. Ah, The Provence. The bright waxing moon shone silver tongues on lapping waters, cast shadows through palm leaves overhead. My girl in the swimming pool, with arm bands, then without. So many of her family there; mummy, daddy, granny, aunts and uncles. Took it by turns to play pirates in the deep end, or holding her hand, jumping off the edge, making huge frothy splashes. What a joy to watch her confidence in the pool. And I rediscovered diving, swam fifty lengths every other day. Even the yoga mat was subjected to an occasional downward dog in the late afternoon heat. Simple postures, focused on the breath. And evenings spent listening to the cicadas in the trees, their incessant buzzing an electric circuit, jamming the air with their currents. Insect bites, large and swollen, on ankles and calves. The little one late to bed with a smile and satisfied sigh...  

A feast of mussels in white wine sauce. A string of mustard lights hanging slack between two boughs like a clown's smile. A hammock made for a long read. On days the air stood still, the surface of the swimming pool was as still as glass, the bottom paved in mosaic tiles, sloping deeper and deeper below. I laid the dinner table in taupe coloured clothes, added little glasses with flowers hand picked from the garden. Each night a different couple cooked a sumptuously simple dish. A fresh fish or a hunk of steak.

To my dismay, I'd forgotten verbs and nouns and tenses. Now I dearly wished to speak the language again, get by at the very least. Le singe est dans l'arbre... Fresh bread with a slice of tangy comte or a mild sheep's cheese. A flute of delicate rose. The never ending Sunshine. We didn't want to leave...

And then there was The North.  

A road trip. Just me and her. To visit grandma in a little market town on the North Yorkshire border. And how lovely to revisit home turf, it had been an age after all. The sweeping hills and pale Yorkshire stone. Grandma laid on some special comforts; chocolate rice crispy cakes, meat loaf and strawberry crumble. This the first time my girl acquainted herself with the new(ish) additions; two rag doll cats, one called Macho, the other Maisy. Both very, very fluffy. Macho was so amenable, so easy, the floppy thing. He didn't mind a four year old's constant attention; being picked up under his front legs, dragged from room to room like a marionette. Meanwhile, Maisy, wholly terrified, scarpered underneath every available chair.

We took a trip to adventure park. Found ourselves lost in the maze, retracing our steps, a hapless sense of direction. 'Come on,' she said. 'It's this way, I know it is, follow me.' And she was right. Clever girl. Then a walk avoiding determined rain drops in the enchanted forest. A tree with chiming notes. A damsel in distress. A witch's empty cauldron. And the following day we spent a delightful afternoon in the company of my God mother. Plates piled high with smoked salmon sandwiches, homemade malt bread, moist elder flower sponge, raspberry brownies and strawberries coated in chocolate. And of course, a proper pot of Yorkshire brew. What a delicious treat.

We shared a double bed in grandma's spare room, my girl and I. I think my fondest memory of the entire summer was climbing under the duvet, turning on the bedside light, and her arm curling around my stomach as I read the final chapters of The Goldfinch. A sleepy voice half-whispered, I love you Mummy...        

This is the second day of my One Week series. Due to the amount of work involved, I've decided not to run this series as a linky anymore, but please feel free to join in if you want to...

#One Week - Summer '14 - Outdoors.

One lone portaloo. Bright blue among nature's greenest. The only amenity in a field of rough, overgrown grass and dense nettles; tall thickets that sprang with the sudden jolt of whooshing geysers. And the loo was barely a beacon of hygiene; an anti-tardis of function, an-almost-merger of sink and lavatory, and a roll with the thinnest stretch of muddied paper. I began to cry. I want to go home. I don't like this. T'was also a certain time of the month. Not the ideal context for a night in rural Buckinghamshire. We need to do this, Younger Dad urged, this is the tent test for two weeks time. Oh God.

In the adjacent field was a cricket pitch with a small white pavilion on the farthest side, and tucked behind the ageing shack was an ever-so-slightly-more-refined toilet. The paper was damp. A tap didn't work. The mirror was cracked and broken. And curiously, a neon pink loom band lay unused and forgotten under the browning sink on the broken tiles of the floor. I closed my eyes, brushed my teeth, determinedly focused on the sweet, sweet aroma of falling dew beyond the gaps in the flaking door. I am fine. I can do this. It'll be fun!  

The fire wood was too damp. All smoke, no flame. So Younger Dad gave up fanning the tentative sparks, and the bag of marshmallows remained unopened. She was too excited to sleep. She clutched my hand at every strange nocturnal sound. A bat's high-pitched cry. Wind rasping through the branches. A fire works display beyond the hills in Henley. Boom. Boom. Boom. But as it went, I slept so soundly and when I took those first fresh breaths the following morning I decided that camping wasn't so bad after all.

...and fourteen days later we arrived at the festival. I wrapped bunting around the tent, hung solar lanterns above the entrance; a canny reference point for our temporary home. Around us there were bell tents and tee pees and palatial domes and flags and fairy lights and children tearing around in face paint, chasing the tails of escaping balloons and the path of tipsy butterflies. And in the family field where we'd pitched, to my delight, a yoga tent, and, and... flushing toilets and hot comforting showers (even though the queue was longer than a blue whale). The air smelt good and clean and delicious, of bubbles popping and BBQ's sizzling.

Over those three days of music, literature and laughter something reawakened. Was it the sunshine on my brow or the way it warmed the nape of my neck - the touch of a small downy feather - as an author read from her novel? Was it the tug of war of bass, my auditory canals spoilt for choice - which stage was it going to be? Daryl Hall singing I can't go for that... (the saxophone solo that felt like rippling silk, and tasted of butter-soaked crumpets and melted chocolate)? Trying to decipher the words of Kate Tempest, so in awe of her boundless spirit and passion? Was it watching my girl fly down the helta-skelter, her face lighting up at The Cat in The Hat, the way she created a fairy wand from stickers, twisting and moulding it until she found the correct shape? Or how the wind whipped up before the storm? The lightning colouring the sky in flashes of burnt orange and the deepest purple, the rain beating heavy rhythms on the nylon canvas and bouncing off the grass? Or was it the simple observation that at a festival the English stop being so very English; no one minds the changeable weather or claggy mud - we stop frowning, and finally start smiling....

.... it was all of the above, all rolled into one sweet wrapper of experience. I laughed over my hysteria with the lone portaloo, realising how easy it all was, and how enjoyable; why had I flustered so much? I'd caught a sense of wonder and adventure I'd not experienced since before Little had arrived, when I'd cycled everywhere and spun records at parties in the mountainous foothills of southern France. Life. This was what it was all about. Spontaneity. Creativity. Freedom. The big, big outdoors.... the stuff of childhood I want her to remember, to always be enchanted by....

This is the first day of my One Week series. Due to the amount of work involved, I've decided not to run this series as a linky anymore, but please feel free to join in if you want to...

#One Week - Spring '14 - The Last One?

No swansong, no fanfare; spring appeared early this year, and simply kept on growing. I am tired though. It's nearly the end of May, and in some ways it feels like the end of the year. I should be smiling and tap dancing, full of bubbles and beans, instead I'm stock piling boxes of tissues and counting down the minutes to bedtime. The last two weeks have seen gastric flu, head colds, and now, the firm family favourite, chicken pox. I can really do with a holiday; so glad we're heading to Pembrokeshire in two weeks time; goodbye t'interweb, hello good reads. At least the weather held out, warm and pleasant and dry; life could be a lot worse than a puddle of stomach and a runny nose.

But always with spring comes the joy of longer days and lighter evenings, and if you're lucky, evenings spent in the garden with a glass of something crisp listening to birdsong and the neighbour's faint laughter escaping an open window. Spring opens up everything, and brings the quietest of dawns. Days roll into each other, and new plans are made. The storm-torn garden fence was replaced, soil turned over, plants moved and rehoused. Weeds were ripped from the driveway, wood chip thrown over flowerbeds; but still the straggly cats came. A trip to The Natural History Museum in Tring where she drew stuffed bears and stuffed ostriches, eerie and frozen in time. Birthday parties, so many at this time of year; two in a garden, two in a gym, sausages, jelly and iced rings. We grew butterflies, she collected wood lice from underneath mossy stones. We enjoyed the dappled sunshine with an ice cream under the silver birch; she flapped up and down the garden in her fairy wings, teaching the birds how to fly.

Life has taken an interesting turn. I self-published a booklet of prose, finished the first draft of my novel, and to my delight, received an email informing me I'd been picked as a mentee on the WoMentoring Project which pairs professional literary women with up and coming female talent. Exciting times indeed. To add to this, I've been asked to read a post, of which I cannot yet reveal, at the Bloggers Keynote at Britmums Live in June. I have new ideas for stories, and as well as full length fiction, I find myself drawn to penning shorter narratives too... So I've been having a think; that it might be time for a necessary break from #oneweek to focus on these other projects, but perhaps I could still be persuaded otherwise; I'm really rather addicted to my seasonal musings...


This is the third and final day of the seasonal linky One Week. I wanted to say a big, big thank you to all those lovely bloggers who joined in, and those who commented, and tweeted, in support of this project.

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Spring '14 - The Sweetest Goodbye

The first thing we eat is Granny's warming fish pie; that comforting mix of mashed potato, cream sauce with chunks of haddock and cod. And parsley of course, always parsley. A foolproof dish after a three hour journey in a rented van. No pudding though, Granny doesn't have a sweet tooth. I let her stay up later than usual, she's so excited to be here; too many questions to ask, too many cuddles to give, too many new things to explore in the garden... 

...Granny's garden, an idyllic suburban retreat. A quintessentially English back yard. A lawn shaped like a ripple, gentle and undulating. A shore of pale blue forget-me-nots, in their hundreds, waving hello. Fat tulips in magnolia and purple stripes, like boiled sweets. Others an unwelcome pink, rich and dusky, 'that's not what was described on the packet,' says Granny, 'I'd expected something paler, not this loud.' She isn't impressed.

I love the ramshackle shed, the faded paint, the flaking wood, the trug and the twigs, the logs piled against a wall. The huge urns, the way lavender pokes out from cracks in the paving stones, the bird feeders hanging from the branches of the winter blossom, the forgotten trellis buried under heaps and heaps of tangled clematis. At the back there's a little pond; my daughter crouches and watches the clouds of spawn, they look like one-eyed marbles, a little creepy, and she points to the tadpoles, some with tiny hind legs.   

    

The curtains over the back doors at the rear of the kitchen are closed tight, revealing nothing of the activity beyond the window panes. Outside, the Easter Bunny is doing his thing, scattering foiled eggs over the grass, in pots, on soil, around the pond, on low lying branches. She's finally let loose, and by tea time she's still finding eggs next to flowers, by stones, tucked under the succulents; her straw bag loaded with a six months supply of chocolate. I share in her every delight and surprise; 'the Easter Bunny must be so fast hiding all these eggs Mummy?' 'He is sweetheart, faster than your eyes can blink.'   

She doesn't want to go,  leaving Granny's is always bitter sweet. And she has a plan. Together, she and Granny cut flowers from the garden, and place them one by one on an alcove on the back wall. 'This is so that you'll remember me,' she says. As if Granny would ever forget.

This is the second day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next three days (Monday till Wednesday) I'm posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of spring '14. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Spring '14 - The Pile of Pink

She has an idea, it formulates as we drive past a blossom tree; a blossom tree that's shed pink silk, flurried and piled on the pavement. Hand and hand we walk with a yellow bucket, once a vessel for reusable nappies, a little smellier back then. 'It's bitter,' I say, 'dead parky for April.' The chill in the wind makes it feel like February. I shouldn't have trusted in the one thick jumper, at least she's wearing her coat; good that one of us is warm. Daffodil heads are bowed, moping, their time over, but the tulips are still going strong; straight to attention, they remind me of the Queen's Guard, trooping bright in colour.

We turn the corner, and there they are, hundreds and hundreds of pink petals. A great big thing of pinkness. It looks a centimeter deep this freshly fallen delicate blush. Pink. Pink. Pink. Everywhere. 'Pink is my favourite colour Mummy,' she says, and she runs through the blossom creating snow tracks behind her. To her they are like tiny fairy wings or fairy landing pads, to me they are shaped like teardrops, or oddly, like guitar plectrums, their tips curving like sea shells.

The petals fall and float down and down, settling at the bottom of the bucket. We gather more in our hands, soft and smooth, petals slipping between fingers, stuffing them inside, pressing upon them, pushing away extraneous air; there's at least half a bucket left to fill. When I was five, I would make homemade perfume from blossom, and watch it wilt and stifle in tap water in a cup. She, on the other hand, has other plans for our harvest.  



'It's the colour of angel delight,' she beams. Petals are scattered. Over grass. Over pebbles. Over the fuzzy flooring of her garden shed. They catch in tulips, in the nooks where the stem and paddle-shaped leaves meet, they fall amid the russet branches of the sapling, an acer tree, and they collect on the paving stones near the back fence. 'Mummy, do I look beautiful? Do I have pretty skin like petals?' And I have to remind her again - I've found myself repeating it a little too often of late - that her beauty comes from her heart and mind, and most of all, the way she treats her family and friends; it comes from how she blossoms within...


This is the first day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next three days (Monday till Wednesday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of spring '14. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Winter '14 - The Turn

This year I remembered; I bought a bright red sledge. It lent against the hall way wall for weeks and weeks. Sad. Unused.

'It's not winter yet Mummy, it hasn't snowed.'
Only wind. Only rain.
'I'm hoping it will,' I replied, silently cussing the clouds, 'there's still plenty of time.'

Is there? Do you think so? I have since transferred the sledge to Little A's garden play house, the bulbs and blossoms arriving early; pinks, blues, oranges, yellows... I'm not complaining, it's really truly lovely; but winter isn't winter without one thick dumping of white the stuff, and anyway, I'm rather partial to icicles.

I had hoped to take Little A sledging on the gentle inclines of Cassiobury Park... Scarves, woolly hats, three pairs of socks. Misty breath. Catching snowflakes in gaping mouths, on nose tips. Cold pink cheeks. And desperate times called for desperate measures; so we satisfied ourselves with indoor snowball fights - fake snowballs, crunching like the real thing, bought for Little A's birthday party - bouncing off face and limb, scattering over the living room floor. Snowballs that can be bagged and saved for envelopes of boredom...

But it's all so beguiling. It could all change; turn so suddenly. Apres ski in April anyone?

#oneweek winter '14 has proved to be such a challenge... I have struggled with ideas for posts, and the words haven't flowed easily, inspiration sorely lacking; its been such an unusual season...


This is the third and final day of the seasonal linky One Week. I wanted to say a big, big thank you to all those lovely bloggers who joined in, and those who commented, and tweeted, in support of this project.

One Week will return in spring, dates TBC. So get your cameras at the ready and imaginative hats on! For more details about One Week, take a gander here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Winter '14 - Drip Drip

Indoors looking out. Everyday another shower. Every hour a deeper puddle. The rain bounced off the grass, the wind howled down the chimney; dirty pebbles bouncing through the vent in the bedroom wall, charcoal smudges on the carpet. I found myself stuffing cotton wool in my ears before going to sleep; anything to silence the wailing wolves.

'Mummy, can we play in the garden?'
'No.'
'Mummy, can we go to the park?'
'Not today.'

With the outdoors making a nuisance of itself, all noise and clatter, I forgot to have my camera at the ready. I have no pictures of the rains and floods; only a few raindrops here and there, and that's when I remembered. Will it be like this every winter? Wet and windy? Now there's a slight understatement... was a bit more than blowy, a little more than drizzle or down pour. Monsoon teardrops. Roaring tempests. Boiling seas. Breaching waters. Shakespeare would have been so so proud. Squally and riled are my descriptors for winter 2014.

We turned the corner on our way to preschool, and there it was, in our way, a flood across our road; lapping over curb, licking garden walls, rolling down mossy drive ways. We couldn't go over it. We couldn't go under it. We had to go through it. I picked up Little A, I picked up her scooter, and waded through our reflections. A car passed through, the driver's face apologetic, sending cold waves splashing against my ankles; soaking boots, soaking hem. 'Mummy, you'll have to change your trousers.' When I returned for Little A, the water still stood, flat and grey, no sign of relent.

Later that afternoon, we were caught in the body of a long long jam; a tail back that wound its way beyond a round-a-bout behind us, and down a hill in front, rear lights flashing secret code. At the bottom were clusters of bright yellow jackets, and a policeman's poker face, his arms flagging the traffic in the opposite direction, back the way we came. The river had burst. A deep sheet of water blocked the main thoroughfare into town. A large hosepipe was failing. Sandbags were being piled against doors. Frantic. Desperate. Another storm predicted the following day... Winter's ruin.

'Mummy, can we go to soft play?'
'Sorry sweetheart, it's knee deep in river.'

The garden. Well it took a battering. The fence to be exact. Half blown away in October's great storm. The rest torn by February's teeth. It's definitely our fence, Younger Dad checked. Odd having such a transparent view of our neighbour's garden; I'm sure she feels the same. A new boundary is required. Windproof. One with concrete foundation. In preparation, I spent the other weekend digging up all the plants and bulbs, transferring them to another bed; either destroying them or delaying their growth. A necessary evil I guess.


This is the second day of the seasonal linky One Week. From Monday till Wednesday I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of winter '14. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Winter '14 - In The Basement

This is my world. Inside another.

A favourite place.

This was my third time.

For her, a first.

Earth. I'm quite fond.

Of lava, carved away,

amber and bronze.

She prods a rock with her stick.

Outside is sun. It is hot. Blue.

Down here is a constant. Warm.

Hollow and echo.

'How deep are we Mummy?'  

I want to bottle IT, 

whatever IT is.

Unbroken. Endless. Now.  

She wonders, in awe of drops, of holes. 

You hear drums and silence.

Rhythm under sole.

Resonance in soul.

She bends beneath scarred tunnel.  

This is winter.

Underground. In the basement.

What I love. Where I should be.

'Mummy, I'm bored, can we go back up now?' 

This is the first day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next three days (Monday till Wednesday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of winter '14. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Autumn '13 - Noted

Leaves, that's what I've really noted this autumn. My focus shifted south, down there, towards the ground. Walking to preschool, I avoid the clutter, the mulch and decay, the foul undisclosed. The garden is littered by a tide of yellow and broken twigs, a landfill of fungi.

What a mess. What a complete anarchic mess. Autumn is conkers bonkers.

And I still haven't bought a rake...

I noted the air one exceedingly blustery day, a gap in the garden fence, a missing tooth, a large branch collapsed on the road outside. Quite dramatic, the most exciting theatre before we'd woken up. The wind, caught and howling in the chimney.

I've noted Little A's ever growing love of language. 'B' for book and boy and boat. Curly 'C' for cat. Kicking 'K' for kite. I bought a Pocket Oxford Dictionary. She was fascinated by it's size, page after condensed page of nouns and verbs and adjectives... It all began with, 'can I borrow it,' to, 'can I have it?' Then, 'you can buy yourself a new one mummy!' Now she takes the tattered dictionary to bed with her, shifts a teddy out of the way, opens and places it besides her plumped pillow. Words to send her to sleep, for dreaming... I have given up sneaking in, snatching it for back-up with my bedtime read, I am going to have to buy myself a new copy.

I've noted how incredibly industrious I've been as the days shortened and the dew on the grass thickened and frosted. I've attempted NaNoWriMo over November, trying to make head way into the final third of my novel. It's going okay, although I've had a few inert days, juggling words while I organise Christmas (my mother and brother coming to stay), preparing for a holiday, and planning Little A's fourth birthday party - it isn't until the end of January but in these parts, halls for hire tend to book very quickly. The theme is lovely, whites and creams and blues. A winter wonderland party.

...and Christmas, I've never planned it this early before, my hosting cherry is on the line. Most of the presents and decorations are procured. I've even placed the order for the meat, a large lump of strip loin beef, Younger Dad's been itching to cook one this Christmas, the seal of approval from his in-laws. I'm secretly glad we're not having turkey, it tastes of, well, not very much at all...cardboard?

And I've noted that it's my birthday next week. I'm going to be forty three. 4.3. I've really enjoyed 42, as I said last year, it tasted very good, the richness of a chocolate fondant pudding. And what am I doing to celebrate? Well I mentioned it earlier, we are going on a week of winter sun to Lanzarote. From bleak weather to black beaches. This is my first holiday abroad since my honey moon, and Little A's very first adventure on an aeroplane.

I haven't decided if the laptop is staying at home yet. If I do bring it, it will be for the novel; I've harboured romantic notions of tapping away against a backdrop of volcanic wasteland.

All social media is barred.


This is the third and final day of the seasonal linky One Week. I wanted to say a big, big thank you to all those lovely bloggers who joined in, and those who commented, and tweeted, in support of this project.

One Week will return in winter, dates TBC. So get your cameras at the ready and imaginative hats on! For more details about One Week, take a gander here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Autumn '13 - Hands

My hands; they are ageing. 

Poor, dear hands, never much cared for, left to mercy of wind and rain. What little respect given, when they have opened the world to me. The pleasure of touch. Brushed cotton, silk, sand through fingers. The sharp edges of danger. Sensation as warning. Hot and cold. Skin. Little A's perfect skin. Young and velveteen. 

My hands spun records, alert and nimble. Have turned page after page. Scribed imagination in words. Caressed my baby's face.

My hands create and love and comfort.

Without my hands I would have no...  

What have I given them in return? Nothing. Not a jot for their manual servitude. Mother said, 'moisturise your hands everyday.' I was twenty four. They were plump, ripe, so I didn't bother with creams. Not even in my thirties. Now I have a tube in the bathroom, a tube on the chest of drawers. I think the tube in my handbag is past expiry.

The creams, they smell of July over grown. Too flowery. Too condensed. I like neutral, plain. Honest vanilla for me. No wafts of jasmine please. Or lily.

Looking at them, they have lost youth's sheen. Dry mud flats. The pitted surface of fruit. Veins bumping under skin like roots breaking free. Wrinkles. Fine lines etched in wood, all markers of minutes and years. Knuckles. Flattened stumps, pummelled by stone and earth.

When Little A was birthed, and my body cancelled out, numb, it was my hands that touched the moment; retained the ability to impress, be impressed upon. My baby, my child, my girl. Her fingers on breast, the first object of love, finding existence through touch, through her hands.

Leopard spots. Gravy taints of decline. Junk mail landing on the doormat. Will I get them? When will they happen? Long, long ago, I asked a baby sitter what those things were on her hands. Leopard spots she said. Leopard spots.  

My Grandmother's hands, warm and soft. Before the end, unusable, frozen, curled like talons; raking away memory, making room for sempiternity. Those hands once made food, and party dresses, and touched with such tenderness...

...Hands, I would like to shake yours.


This is the second day of the seasonal linky One Week. From Monday till Wednesday, I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of autumn '13. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Autumn '13 - Champagne

A walk over the ploughed flats of Norfolk. Brown and grey. 

Cracked clods of earth underfoot, thick and heavy from harvest. 

The dog bounds off the leash, after sticks, after birds.

And here we all are, to bid farewell.

A goodbye in the wind.

Granny says, 'she said the air was like champagne up here.'

I adore that description. Champagne.

Bubbles through the yellow leaves. Fizz through the sloes.

And onwards, a thoughtful walk, on dirt track, 

under canopied boughs, and mossy floor.

Here we are, journeys end, her resting place. Only us.

A pond at low ebb, ferns and reeds bent over.

One bench.

She loved to walk her dogs here. In the champagne.

I liked her. A lot.

Straight and sturdy (if you discount the broken hip).

Honest to the bone.

A fierce wit.

Out comes the jar and spoon. Sacred dust.

Like course granules. Chalk white.

Powder in the grass. Particles of a life well lived.

Ashes and atoms.

In the air.

Away and beyond.

Little A says, 'Bye bye Great Granny.'

Little A says, 'Great Granny has turned into a star.'

Life and death in one burst.

Flesh and bone between her fingers.

-------------

A foot note: This was Little A's Great Granny on Younger Dad's side of the family. She passed away over a year ago, her ashes scattered this September.

This is the first day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next three days (Monday till Wednesday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of autumn '13. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter, and comment on each others posts...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>

#One Week - Summer '13 - Not Vintage. Just Good.

I've returned from a holiday. Seven days and seven nights. It's never enough. I need more time... More sunshine. More sunsets. Ankle deep in warm waters and sands as fine as golden breadcrumbs. I'm not in shape for Autumn. After only two months of visible sun, the stock pile of vitamin D is low. I could do with an Indian Summer - a complimentary burst of happiness. One last hurrah.

It could have been the Algarve. It wasn't. We were in England. Lounging on The Lizard. And Carbis Bay was a delight. Palm trees. Clotted cream. Daily triple chocolate ice cream. An open view of St Ives and flat, turquoise seas from the decking.

But Little A was in a grump. Insistent whining. She just pushed and pushed....

"What's up Little A? What's upsetting you?" I asked kindly as we walked down a slope towards the beach.

"You're upsetting me mummy... you're annoying me."   

"How am I annoying you?"

"All you do is go blah, blah, blah."

Pardon? What had my three year old just said to me? Blah, blah blah?

Her cheek was out of the ordinary. I knew it, and I knew what it was. Anxiety. Apprehension. The lack of structure over the summer. That Younger Dad would be returning to working away from home the following week.

Little A has had a landslide of change thrust upon her this year. A new home. A new school. Younger Dad's absence five days a week - Sunday evenings regularly infused with bedtime dramas. And if she needs a target for her confusion, I will happily play the bulls eye to her angry darts, reassuring her that all is well in her world.

This summer has notched up a tally of new experiences.

Play dates with friends (that's Little A, not me).

An ant invasion. An army of pesky crawlers over the hallway and kitchen work tops, found behind cereal boxes, on top of the microwave, in between supermarket coupons. Younger Dad enticing them with noxious, sweet, sticky stuff. Then one day, they were gone.

Wasps. A first sting. Little A screaming for her Daddy. A remedying cocktail of vinegar and anti-histamine. Soft cuddles from Grandma and Mummy.

A little wooden garden house. Painted in sea grass and holly. A new secret hide-away. Home to special treat tea times and clandestine talks with teddies and rag dolls.  

A very steamy stroll through the rain forest biome at the Eden Project. Electric blue butterflies gliding like gulls.

I have salvaged a forgotten garden. Grown courgettes. Courgette tart, grilled courgette, chopped courgette in salad. Have harvested half a dozen plump ripe tomatoes. Charmed strawberries, lettuce and sweetcorn.

And such precious time with Little A, a budding comedian and philosopher....

"Mummy we have to drink lots of water or our pee-pee will turn like Daddy's beer."

"When someone dies they go to the moon and stars."

And at last, she has reverted back to addressing me as Mummy again. Answering to my first name was starting to grate....

I took my blogging hat off over the summer and put my novelist's boots on. The words came marching out. I am not the fastest of writers, but I am pleased to say that I have now written thirty thousand words of Four Gigs. Getting there. And this weekend I am going to a three day Writer's Festival in York. I can't wait but I'm so very, very nervous as well #goingonmyown. Wish me luck!

I guess it's time to close the curtains on summer. The heating's already on. I've already worn the first woolly jumper of the new season. Summer 2013 was a good one. Not vintage I don't think. Just good. And that will do for me.


This is the third and final day of the seasonal linky One Week. I wanted to say a big, big thank you to all those lovely bloggers who joined in, and those who commented, and tweeted, in support of this project.

One Week will return this autumn 18-20 November. Get your cameras at the ready and imaginative hats on! For more details about One Week, take a gander here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full three days...

Badge Code ...

<a href="http://older-mum.blogspot.co.uk/p/one-week.html" title="One Week"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8436/7807711152_5f912c7903_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week" /></a>