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)

Good Times

It's a chilly Thursday morning, made worse by not quite dried hair. Even though it's tied in a loose knot, it still manages to send rippling waves of cold through my scalp, butterflying down my spine. So, I'm wearing a blue cardigan overlaid by a sleeveless jacket to offset the shivers. Our boiler, over aged, very tired, is on the blink. As too is my very ineffective hairdryer that's intent on blowing tepid air through my long, damp strands.

As I contemplate the sudden drop in temperature, inside and outside, and I wonder what Autumn has up her blustery sleeve, I realise I haven't told you about our recent Summer escape to the beautiful Lizard Peninsula, in South West Cornwall. I've hinted at it. But up until now, I haven't forged a blow by blow account. Don't worry, I shan't bore you with the tiniest grains of detail, just the highlights accentuated with a few pictures!

St Ives Harbour

Every year, thankfully, we manage to grab a week's break away from the walls of our two bed roomed flat. And every year, regretfully, we kick ourselves (that's Younger Dad and I) for not having taken two weeks instead - this year, probably more than any other. Have you ever been to Cornwall? Have you ever seen the abiding charm of the Lizard Peninsula? For me, other than the Lake District, it isn't like any other place in this country. Quiet, secluded, untouched. Beautiful, dramatic, undulating. The craggy coastline is dressed with golden sands, sculptured by hidden coves, decorated with tiny fishing villages, and sugar coated cottages. The landscape is unspoiled by tarmac and industry. Only fields and farmyards reign.

And as a child, The Lizard was the Summer destination, year, after year, with my parents and younger brothers. So it was a joy to return after nearly three decades. My memory, after all this time, still intact, held a vivid bygone portrait that accurately mirrored the present day. Nothing much had changed, apart from a better selection of ice lollies, and the lack of dubious role models - Punch and Judy anyone? ...

We feasted daily on Cornish ice cream (Little A introduced to the flavoured delights of chocolate, strawberry and hokey pokey honeycomb). We luncheoned on freshly baked pasties, Cornish Yarg, and plump apples. We Sunday roasted in a cliff top dining room overlooking the misty swell of the most southerly point of England. We ate locally caught fish and chips out of vinegary, salty, paper. And we scoffed three too many clotted cream teas; one afternoon, we found ourselves gorging on scones, piled chin high with jam and cream, in the front garden of a very hospitable farmer (she just happened to be selling homemade teas). The down side was that it attracted the unwanted company of determined, yet dozy, bees, and the unfortunate nostril pinching fragrance of manure, pigs, and chickens.

Little A thrived. She stroked miniature ponies. She watched cows being milked. She ran gleefully around and around the garden belonging to our holiday cottage, prodding snail shells, zig zagging after royal admirals. Sheltered under the leafy canopy of a giant rhubarb, she imagined the residents of a pair of antiquated gypsy caravans we'd discovered in the neighbouring meadow of a dairy farm. "Does the Gruffalo live in one of those tiny houses?" "Is this where Abney and Teal go on holiday?" She trekked up St Micheal's Mount, in a back pack, with Younger Dad. She built sandcastles, collected empty crab shells, hopped over baby waves. And she slept like a dream ...

Minack Theatre, Porthcurno

We revisited the hotel I stayed at when I was a child.  To my dismay, it was boarded up, paint peeling from the balcony windows, moss growing on the tennis court, the garden, wild and over grown. My mind threw flashes, recollective missiles, of times gone by. Aged nine, a tennis rookie, learning the ropes with Dad. Aged eleven, eating sweet cream cakes on the manicured lawn with mum. Aged thirteen, styled in a Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, pining after a boy ...

It was wonderful, liberating, not to feel the chains of my laptop for a week. I thought about my writing a little, the direction of my blog, the plot for a novel I have in mind (whether I am brave enough to pen my story is another matter). It was lovely to be away from the call of my inbox. I spent the days doing nothing much other than sightseeing, eating, and just spending quality time with my family; we played raucous games of 'moo, baa, meow,' as Younger Dad navigated the car cautiously down tractor wide lanes to our next port of call. On the beaches, I studied sand smoothed pebbles, and let myself melt, disappear, into the light buffeting of the on shore breeze and the reserved sound of waves gently breaking at low tide. I inhaled the present, and exhaled my worries, and for those five days I forgot about my higgeldy piggeldy life outside of Cornwall.

Good times ...

Mousehole Harbour

Such a wonderful holiday was had, albeit a fortnight ago, that I'm linking this post up with Reasons To Be Cheerful.

#One Week - Summer '12 - Beauty

I find combing beaches for pebbles, shells and other washed up oddities the most relaxing past time. I switch off when I focus on the array of hues and textures nestled in the sandy grains. I'm absorbed by the detail of something so simple as a small stone, feeling its smooth or coarse surface between the palms of my hands, admiring the flecks and punctuations of colour. I imagine how many years it's taken the tidal elements to sculpt these basic rocks.

I discovered the above creation on Praa Sands beach, Cornwall. What do you think it could be? My initial thought was that it looked like an eye. I was tempted to remove the framing seaweed but I think the artist had every intention of its inclusion in the piece. So I left it as it was supposed to be until the sea eventually reclaimed her estate.

To me, the way the pebbles have been arranged, according to the camaraderie of colour, reflects one of the basic needs of human nature - to define, to classify, to group, to find resonance in the similar and familiar, to extract symmetry and harmony from the unruly jungle created by a toddler and her toy box...

This work of art was crafted by Little A and I on the last morning of our holiday. She helped to assort our chosen pebbles according to colour; white, dusky pink, blood red(dish) and slate grey. "Mummy look, I've found another white one." "That's great, pop it on that pile there". Then two small hands assisted me in placing the white stones in the middle. The other coloured pebbles followed, positioned in circles around the centre.

Little A and I both felt very pleased with our mosaic masterpiece. But even more satisfying, was the mummy and daughter collaboration as we manifested this pebbly mandala. Just doing and being together was a thing of beauty. It washed ripples calmer than the sea over every pore of my physical self...


This is the third day of the seasonal linky One Week. Over the next few days (until Friday) I'll be posting a photograph(s) and a few words that diarises and distills my experience of summer '12. Take a peep at the details here. You can join in for one, two ... or the full five days. And don't forget to add #oneweek on Twitter.

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_c1a4245128_m.jpg" width="225" height="169" alt="one week"></a>

I am also linking this post up with The Gallery, this weeks theme is Beauty.