All Woman

When I'd thought about the word imagine, I'd envisaged expansion not contraction. And yet my life dreams of being smaller. I need to be a turtle inside its shell. Or a hedgehog curled into a ball.

It's about an internal down-sizing. A need to create space to engage space. To view my inner workings as a compass and to ascribe each direction the things that matter most.

I think the word is balance.

... and then I only went and spilt water all over my keyboard. The letters stopped working, became illiterate, and I couldn't upload any photos - the drive was broken as well. So how was I suppose to blog, then?

All an excuse though. I did have a solution.

There is always a solution.

Such busy beginnings to the year: a self editing course, a vintage-styled wedding (pretty girls and bearded boys), and I lost my woolly hat.

January has never been a good month. But this year was a little better, a little more fair-weather. The facts of her birth have grown dim. I am looking through frosted glass. The past is full of shadow and images that can't be touched. At her party there is a sea of Elsas and Annas, an icicle hunt, a snowball fight, bubbles and marshmallows and five-year-old fun. I no longer see the ward doors or the imposing white of the theatre - I simply see her bright smile, her proud shoulders as she sashays down the red carpet and takes her place on the birthday-girl throne.

February I met myself. February, I had to be honest. I imagined being happier with a smaller piece of cake. I imagined a simpler life, the complexities peeled away. Or so I would wish. I stripped everything back. I mean I stripped the blogging back. In its place I have a daily yoga practise, a better diet, a stream lined focus on the novel. I have taken up running again. I am journal writing again - one with a note book and pen. I will return to practice as a counsellor this year.

But it's more than that. I am changing. I am regrouping. I am emerging from the broken lines of the infant, toddler and pre-school years. I am slotting into place. Who am I? Where now? I am reacquainting me with me once more. I have never felt better about my body and as a woman as I do now. I am rediscovering the feminine beyond the role of mother and the contours prescribed by masculinity.

I am woman.

I am free.

This is what I imagine this year.

To step into authenticity. To be me.

Tears in Welsh

Tap. Tap. Tap.

'Does that hurt?'

'Uh-uh.'

Tap. Tap. Tap.

'Does that hurt?'

'!!**!!'

The sea was most days so noisy. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it, what else it might sound like. But it sounded just like the sea, rough and tumbling and bubbling. Behind me lay a protective bank of pebbles that stretched the length of the beach. Blue stones. Purple stones. Cream stones. Some with lines, some mottled with spots. Piles and piles of muted colours. We collected the shells she and I, tiny things of mauve and palest green. On the days of rain, it was hard distinguishing between sea and sky. Both heavy. Both grey. But one choppy with temper; surfers falling away from their boards, breaking the illusion of continuity between water and air.

'F**k,' I said holding the hot water bottle to my cheek. 'F**k. F**k. F**k. Then the outcry. Then the tears. Everything felt like agony. Hot. Cold. The bumps along the road on our way to the emergency appointment. The dentist prodded and poked, his instruments, precise and clinical, laid out like a silver army on the trolley. 'You have a deep pocket,' he said, 'full of bacteria.' 'Uh-uh,' I said with his finger stuffed inside my cheek. It might have to come out was his prognosis, gave me a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers, sent me on my way, 'see your dentist as soon as you get home.'

It still hurt. A lot. Stabbing and intense, like boulders cracking thick ice. Wednesday night I couldn't sleep, was sat up-right in bed rocking backwards and forwards like a child, my arms wrapped around my chest, my jaw hung slack like the open cavity of a basking shark. By 3 am I'd had enough. I pulled the covers aside, climbed down the stairs. I watched a lame movie on the ipad, rocking without thought in the leather chair. Dawn appeared, the first I'd seen in many, many years; the sun like a fresh orange over the hills, the tide ebbing, quiet behind the window, shy and sleepy. Covering the nearby field was a sheen of dew kisses like a blanket of candy floss. I wondered how satisfying it would be to run barefoot in that grass, feel the cool against my ankles. I held my hand against my cheek, watched gulls flying in pairs, heard the crows echoing inside the chimney in the cottage next door. Anything to distract me. How could tooth ache be so all consuming? Reduce me to this? Crawling the walls. And at this time in the morning FFsakes?

Hooray for Younger Dad who looked after her; built sand castles during the day, told her stories before bed. I hardly saw her during our week long stay on the Pembrokeshire coast. Too tired, in bed, not joining in. So I attempted sleep in the spare twin in her room, anything to feel close to her, hear her movement and breath. Each day she appeared with more colour in her cheeks. Each day she gave me one of her gentle hugs.

We left two days early. 'Poor Mummy has a really hurty tooth,' she said. 

And now I need a holiday.

Nothing and Everything

It was just one of those days. Where nothing and everything happened.

A day when a soothing pot of tea restored the equilibrium after the afternoon's fraught tears.

But the morning began at a snail's pace, frustratingly lazy, the gloomy smog of a head cold setting the dial of my day to red - to not do very much at all. Just chill.

"Little A, mummy is feeling very tired, let's snuggle on the sofa, I'll turn the TV on."

"Mummy, can you get me some dried cheerios in a bowl and a beaker of warm milk?"

"What's the magic word?"

"Please."

This is often the way, when Little A has woken in the middle of the night, not returning to her sleepy dream world until at least an hour later. And curled under the warmth of a duvet, Little A's hand resting on my crown, the theme tunes of Tilly and Friends and the Postman Pat wash over me, lulling me into a half slumber like the delicate sound of lapping water at high tide - the crunch crunch of my daughter's teeth on her breakfast cereal, the only prevention of my being pulled fully under.

We break fast at 10 am. I have my bowl of 'proper raspberry porridge', Little A - the hungry caterpillar - digests two bowls of cheerios, this time with whole milk, and a bowl of mummy-made nutella pear porridge. Then to feed my cold - unbelievably, Little A still isn't satiated - I toast some thickly cut slices of sourdough bread, generously spread with unsalted butter and mirabelle plum jam. Thoroughly delicious. After time spent colouring in, browsing social media, that extra cup of tea, our morning feast has finally reached it's conclusion.

It's 11.00 am.

In the shower I chide myself with guilty thoughts, I'm such a lazy mum, useless at getting on, other mothers are out and about by 8.00 am. 

After such a slow start, the only remedy I can think of is to make the most of the rest of the day. Little A and I dress together in the main bedroom. I watch as she pulls on her red doggy top, flattening the blond hair against her head. She falls over on the bed mattress as her feet catch in her trousers. I rub my tummy with stretch mark cream before clothing myself in what feels like one fell swoop. Little A reads a book bundled in a duvet on the sofa while I methodically sort the dirty laundry from the clothes basket into piles - underwear, Little A's clothes, Younger Dad's shirts, my jumpers (Little A's clothes always take precedence in the washing machine).

At 12.00 pm we are ready for the big, wide world. Well the supermarket to be precise. And it's here, in the baby aisle, were the morning's peace somersaults into a pool of pandemonium. Splash.

"Mummy please can I have this skipping rope?"

"Well I guess I promised you a treat," as I inspect the object of my daughter's desires, turning it slowly around in my hand.

"Mummy can I have this toy car too?"

"Sweetheart, you can't have both - you will have to chose one or the other."

"I want both. I want both. I want both. Waaaaaah."

And so it begins. She shakes her head. She stamps her feet in frustration. She screams. She barricades herself in front of the trolley. I am forbidden to move. So I kneel down at her level, "You have to choose. I am sorry but you can't have both, now I have to finish the shopping, you decide which toy you want as we go around the aisles." Of course, the situation escalates, "but I want both, I want both mummy." I plough ahead with the formidable task of calmly continuing the shopping with a mini volcano following behind.

In dairy, she pulls and pushes against the trolley, tears flying from her angry blue eyes. In wholefoods she is violet with rage, screeching, wailing, channelling her fire into physical strikes against my right thigh. We find ourselves obstructed by a brown tower of stacked crates, and in turn we frustrate a lady behind us. As she passes I notice her severe silver bob, her strong jawline, her ankle length black coat, she's tall but stoops over her trolley. Could she be 75? I don't know but there is something rather resilient about her, clearly made of tough stuff. She reminds me of a hawkish buzzard or vulture. Then she stops, turns to me and says with her nose in the air, "look how angry she is, what an angry little girl, totally out of control, no discipline, you need to discipline her."

The stooping buzzard continues her shopping as if she's just handed me a bouquet of flowers. But I am rendered speechless. And I feel terribly mortified, totally judged and inept. Why do some people think it's acceptable to publicly judge a parent? It's like the modern day version of medieval stocks. Maybe they should hand out tomatoes and potatoes and cabbages so shoppers can lob them at will at unsuspecting mothers.

Little A continues her frustrated onslaught. I feel every eye in the supermarket. At both ends of the aisle I can see customers and shop assistants staring - some smiling sympathetically - in our direction. And then, like passing through the eye of a hurricane, the eerily calm centre of a storm, the tantrum simply stops.

"Mummy I want a cuddle," she says between quiet sobs,"can you put me back in the trolley?" With Little A fully cuddled, nestled in the plastic seat, I turn my back to her pretending to choose a bag of wheat free penne slumped on a shelf while hot self conscious tears roll down my face. I just can't let Little A see that I am crying. I try making a phone call to Younger Dad - sorry I can't take your call right now, leave a message and I'll get right back to you. Frustrated, I take few deep breaths, and a few more still, and one final breath to steady myself. I'm ready to take on frozen foods.

"Little A, I have come to a decision," as I place the petits pois on top of the pork, "because you lashed out at me, and the trolley, you won't be getting any treats this afternoon. And when we get home you are going on the thinking cushion."

"But mummy, but mummy, I want the skipping rope. Waaaaaah."

And so it begins again. The storm continuing apace. I calmly wheel Little A to the baby aisle and place the skipping rope back on the shelf. And then I calmly wheel the trolley to a small checkout queue, my face parked in neutral.

"Look at you - I feel just like that when I shop at M&S," A kind voice interjects behind my back, and it has the effect of slowing down Little A's latest tirade - her shyness dampening the blaze.

I turn around to face a warm presence. Her cheeks are ruddy from tiny broken veins. In her hat she wears a miniature fresh daffodil. She's dressed head to foot in green and brown. A mother hen. And then she says something that's so reassuring, so comforting, that administers an antidote, some happy medicine for the earlier poisonous criticism,

"You're doing a brilliant job mummy, keep it up."

And I wanted to hug her. To say thank you, oh thank you, thank you once again.

I don't think she'll ever realise how much she made my day.

How did you handle a public meltdown?
Have you been publicly criticised for your parenting?


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 - there's only one week left to nominate..... Thank you! X.

SOLD

Selling our flat has been a rather push-me pull-you undertaking, one that has involved the wrong paint, a brand new rug and dog poo...

The long winding road to SOLD began during the initial weeks and months of 2012; every room, crack and crevice was cleared of clutter - including a rather dusty 1970's coffee percolator - then shipped, and dumped in bungalow-sized containers labelled 'glass', 'plastic', 'cardboard', 'clothes'. The percolator was abandoned on a wobbly trestle table in the rain. I hope it found shelter in an antique shop, made good and over priced for resale, or now proudly displayed in a museum cabinet of note. Sadly, it's probably rubbing shoulders with soiled nappies and rusted spoons in landfill.

Then things went quiet....

June. The porch and path were re-tiled, and a brand new front door fitted and painted - I'd chosen a medium teal but an altogether different colour was mixed, applied, and our street - every other door a blue, red, or black - had to contend with a brilliant lilac entrance. As anyone - potential buyers, the postman - would run a mile from a door that remotely resembled the portal to Justin's House, I requested, nay demanded, that the builders repaint it. This time, it was coated in a-sort-of-teal-but-really-it's-blue colour. Why can't paint shops mix the correct shade?

Then it went quiet again....

October. The boiler stopped working. Once. And. For. All. There was no way a potential buyer would accept the old boy in its current stuttering state. Hands in pockets, a new boiler was grudgingly purchased. But hey, we had a warm home, viewers would be flocking in (or not) from the cold.

A brief pause....

Last week of November. In a freak flurry of spontaneity, we viewed a few properties that needed some work, placing an offer - after a second viewing - on a light, spacious three bedroom home we really felt drawn to. But our flat wasn't yet on the market. So the local estate agent was promptly ushered and hastily instructed.

Now we were rolling....

December. In one week shelves and spots were removed from walls, files and books boxed, carpets cleaned and the lounge, kitchen and Little A's bedroom repainted in neutral colours - not a whiff of lilac in sight. A feature wall of duck egg blue and cream flowers was added to detract from the rigorous amount of caramel brown in our bedroom. I dressed our bed properly with throws and cushions, and purchased a green rug - brightly woven with caterpillars and carrots, and according to Little A, a cabbage girl - for Little A's bedroom floor.

And our home was ready for sale.

No pause.

January. The first three Saturdays in January were spent foraging for a new burrow in Croxley Green and Rickmansworth. Our highest tally, I think, was nine viewings in one day. The offer on the home we had our hearts set on fell through in a very dishonest way. Post major disappointment, and to add injury to insult, the very same agent showed us around another property where I had an accident involving a ladder (said estate agent is now being sued). Back at our place, viewers arrived in all shapes and sizes; couples, single men, retired women, parents hunting for an investment, and the guy who wanted to construct a dubious ramp for his feline friend from Little A's bedroom window...

Then, last weekend, when we thought we'd exhausted our search, we inspected a home that had just come on the market at a great, within budget, price. It was proportioned well enough and had potential for an attic conversion and extension at the back. Younger Dad and I made knowing eye contact - it was the one - and without hesitation, made an offer there and then. No second viewings, we wanted this property. The very same day our estate agent phoned with a decent offer on our flat. On Monday morning we accepted, and that afternoon our offer was accepted too...... sometimes, things really do happen for a reason. (the chain, only small, had better not fall though).

And that was that. SOLD, subject to contract.

And the dog poo? Well don't tell Younger Dad, but after a viewing, I found a nasty brown smear on our hallway carpet. So much for the shoes off policy.... yuk.

NEVER Trust Estate Agents

"Would you like to view the boarded out area in the loft?"

 "YES!"

"I'll just lower the ladder then..."

Bernard, the estate agent, opens the attic door and lowers the ladder into position. No one checks to see whether the joints have correctly secured in place, it is presumed the ladder is solid, fit for ascending into the headier regions of this home. Besides, as Bernard reminds with vexing salesmanship, there's already been a steady stream of potential buyers who've safely climbed into the roof.

This attic has been partially converted. From the floor, I can make out wooden beams and storage space and a lone, high wattage strip light. I place one trainer on the first rung, gripping the frame with both hands. Behind me, a concerned little voice makes its self heard...

"Be careful climbing up the ladder mummy."

"Don't worry, she's absolutely fine," Younger Dad says reassuring Little A.

One foot in front of the other, pulling myself up, neck craning, the loft interior reveals its secrets rung by rung; I can see more storage alcoves and the angled crossing of beams.

I reach the middle.Then. SNAP. The ladder collapses in two. Without any time to comprehend what is happening, I fall to the floor landing on my back, banging my head against a cupboard. But it's my left leg that takes the brunt - it's entangled in the fallen heap of metal. Apart from a faint hint of the prickly electricity of pins and needles, my lower leg is numb from the knee down. Later, Younger Dad tells me how my left leg shot forwards through a rung as the ladder gave.

Shock. Total shock.

ARGGGHHHH, HELP, HELP, ARGGGHHHH...

...And then the tears. Big, fat distressed tears.

The ladder is promptly removed. Bernard is frozen, pale-faced. Little A cuddles my shoulder as I writhe, clutching my left leg, on the in-need-of-a-serious-rinsing cream carpet. Younger Dad is worryingly asking where it's hurting, he thinks I've damaged my back.

But I'm quite oblivious to the caring attentions of Little A and Younger Dad. My eyes are focused on the black coat and white mop of Bernard. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm currently horizontal, I might have given into a visceral urge to return him a left hook. But of course, I don't - I couldn't - my exterior is far too polite for such a gut response. I imagine clocking his expressionless face one instead.

Sensation eventually reignites my left calf. With adrenalin flooding every cell, I'm able to stand. On both legs. Phew. Nothing broken. Bernard offers a tepid mug of tap water, muttering some kind of apology. And then? In the best of British, we carry on with the viewing. I'm not keen on the downstairs living space, the rooms lack the fluidity required for a family of three. And the pencil thin garden? Well where exactly would we fit a swing?

When we leave Bernard behind, the tears reappear with amplified flurry. I feel strangely embarrassed by the accident, the kind of humiliation I might have felt if I'd publicly fainted. I'm clearly still in shock. I've also decided that Bernard is plain bad luck - this is the second viewing with him, the first - another house we loved, placed an offer on but consequently lost - left a bitter taste on our tongues; Bernard, with the slipperiness of a blackened banana skin, wasn't the slightest bit transparent as to the sold or not sold status of this-much-desired property - he kept us hanging on for over a month....until he finally mentioned in passing that it'd gone to the vendor we were competing with, the one with no chain.

I DO NOT WANT A THIRD VIEWING WITH BERNARD.

At home, the adrenal glands abate, leaving pain and swelling in their wake. When I sit down, my coccyx reminds me where I fell on my back, the purple blue hues of bruising appear above the knee, my calf and foot are stiff - ligaments and muscle feeling very hard done by. Pain killers are promptly administered.

As I say goodnight to Little A, she advises me with the straightforward concern of a doctor who's seen it all before, 'not to hop on my left leg.'

The following morning I'm invited to play a game she's named estate agent dragon.

I politely decline, offering TV instead.

Linking up with The Monday Club.