The Black Dog

Today I am alone, self imposed loneliness. I thought I'd try it.

I have work to do but am distracted by remnants of a past life, several past lives .

I have a tin of photographs, I lift the lid and shuffle through. The second one I come to is my dear granny, long gone now, but still remembered often. In the photo she is sitting on a deck chair in a sunny garden, my parents old house I think, and she is smiling, perhaps even laughing. It can't have been taken that long before she died, she looks old and frail in the picture. We must have been having a BBQ at the time I think, perhaps a celebration, maybe a birthday. Tears spring from my eyes as I see the picture. It takes me by surprise.

I flick through all the years printed so colourfully on glossy paper. All that time, passing in an instant. In amongst the photos are long lost friends, long lost partners, and moments that will never return. Today I am looking backwards, to the past and I want to turn the clock back.

There are photos of me in the tin, some of them taken when I was barely 4 years older than Tall Girl is now. And it is not so much that I am lamenting the loss of my youth, but the people in it. How can I have been so careless as to lose them?

My head is hurting now, I have cried for too long and the Black Dog has sniffed about and remains at my feet, curled up but drawing me down.

This year life has moved on relentlessly, I never have time to stop but perhaps this is why, it seems that, as soon as I stop running, he catches me up. It doesn't do to slow down these days, if you keep on moving forwards there is less time to look back.

Today Tall Girl updated her blog. Her post is the total opposite of this one. This is the final sentence of her post "I have changed over the last few months and feel more exited for what's going to happen in the near future!"
I have never read her so wonderfully full of excitement and youth before. I don't remember having the feeling myself at her age; I am glad she is so self aware. It is as though she has just realised that her whole life is before her, isn't that wonderful? Wouldn't you like just a little piece of that again? I envy her, for I have squandered over half of mine already. This, I guess, is how it feels to be grown up.

I realise today that, for the first time in several years, I have no plan. So where do I go from now? Do I wait?  No, I must move on relentlessly before the Black Dog wakes again. But in the meantime I will look to my daughter and listen to some wise words that she has found... 'Every day may not be good, but there will be something good in every day'

GCSE's and memories

Mum came to visit this weekend, we had our mothers day in March in the UK but it just happens that this weekend was the one she chose to come down. Tall Girl meets her at the door with a big hug. She loves her Granny very much, she really does and I am reminded of how much I loved mine - it is the same.

We sit about in the kitchen, keeping the door closed and the cooking warmth in. Tall Girl is supposed to be revising, her exams will all be over in 4 weeks and she's 'too the wire' revision wise. Small Sprog is dutifully doing his maths homework, all of us sit around the kitchen table as I start to fuss about Tall Girls lack of motivation to study.

"I can't even remember you revising" Mum said to me "you must have just got on with it"

"I did" I said. But really I wanted to say, yes, I got on with it because I spent the best part of 2 years shut in my bedroom listening to Pink Floyd and crying into my text books! No one offered to help me revise, no one  advised me to work hard and no one really had much to say to me between the ages of 14 to 16. My parents were definitely 'hands off' parents when it came to school work. But perhaps all parents were back then? Perhaps we interfere too much now that we are 'expected' to get involved in our children's education? 

Tall Girl gives me a glare when I mention revision for the third time that morning and says she is 'going to' do it! At some point I think to myself, in the next 4 weeks if I'm lucky. 

How will she remember me in this time of her life, I wonder later? As an interfering mother, constantly telling her to do well? Maybe. Will she be a 'hands off' parent because of her experiences now?

At work last week a colleague told me that her daughter, same age as mine, has tired to commit suicide 3 times and has now been sectioned. I am shocked. Later I mention it to Tall Girl who is not surprised.  I learn that it is almost 'the latest craze' for teens. "It's all over Facebook" she tells me "Loads of people my age are doing it, and self harming" I already know that she has several friends that cut themselves. And I wonder how it comes to that? 

With all this in mind being a parent is a hard line to follow, encouraging children to do well at school and pushing them over the line into stress and despair. But then I remind myself that I am not telling her she has to get straight 'A's, just mentioning that she needs a C in English!

When I was 15, I was alone in my room. I didn't have Facebook or the Internet. I couldn't research '10 best ways to kill yourself' as my friends daughter had done, though I do remember thinking, if necessary, pills would do. But I wasn't aware of others doing the same thing, there was no mass call to cut ourselves or tie a rope around our necks. 

I used to worry about children taking drugs, now I worry about them taking their lives...

Homework

Small Sprog is doing his homework, sort of. He has a YouTube vid playing on the ipad blasting into his ears through his headphones, he has a web page open for research on the PC and his head is swivelling around intermittently to watch the TV. Who says boys don't multi-task? However perhaps this is not the scenario the teacher envisaged when he set the homework! I encourage him to concentrate...

Later I ask him if I can 'borrow' his Beano back catalogue for school and he scowls  "They'll get damaged" he says "and then I won't make any money on them!" Then he continues "I'm a 'man of profit  you know". He grins at me. My Small Sprog; you've gotta love him?!

Meanwhile Tall Girl goes off to find the old and delinquent cat who happily chucked up on the stairs as we returned home and then took his spittly covered face off to my bedroom - unbeknown to me. She retrieves him from my bed and brings him down. Lovely. He instantly plonks himself on my lap disabling both my arms  so that I can barely type, digging his claws into my leg to enhance stability (his) as I reach for the 'querty' keys! Sleeping, smelly old cats are a bit like babies, I muse; best left undisturbed when sleeping.

I complain that he is now being a nuisance and she is offended for him. She loves that stinky old bag of bones very much. She too is doing homework. Is there ever any 'down time' any more? And why is that bag of bones not on her lap I wonder as the next round of cooking dinner beckons...

Stealing time

I am writing this in stolen time. I should be at work but poor Small Sprog is home again after vomiting up his meal last night. He didn't sleep much. I am worried. He is anxious.

As for Tall Girl, well, she only has about 6 weeks left of school then it's GCSE's followed by a massive gap of nothingness! I can't believe it. Where does the time go? It doesn't seem long since I was writing here about her first day at 'Big School' and now she's close to her last. Talk about a roller coaster of emotions over those last 5 years, phew, no wonder the hairdresser convinced me into a 'new look'!

All that time, all that rushing about and making deadlines; I look at them both and try to remember them small and portable, remembering the days when they took up less space on a sofa and went to bed before I did! Tall Girl is 16 and a half now and planning driving lessons in the autumn, Small Sprog has reached 13 and has become fairly monosyllabic, grunting and growling when he can get by with that form of communication rather than actual words! He always had dog habits, now he even sounds like one!

Still, I can hear the hamster wheel calling once again, I must depart forthwith. Working double the hours that I used to work has really caught up with me this year. So, off I go, scampering into the distance once again. Catch you next time around...

Tell me your news?

Sometimes

Of late I have felt the hamster wheel of life catching up with me. Perhaps, now that I work 4 days a week, instead of half that, I am finally feeling the pinch. Perhaps it is the GCSE's getting to me, God knows I could take them for her (Tall Girl) with all the prep I help her with, or perhaps there is no escape from suburbia?

I am not unhappy here. I love my home and my children very much. I love them here with me and always regret their time away with ex husband but I also, once they're gone, relish the child free time.

I am lucky, I have 'it all' in a way. And as I sit here now, tap tapping on the laptop, with the cat draped over both wrists attempting to give me repetitive strain injury, I can't help wondering what life might have been like had I not left Acacia Avenue. Are things very different? Do I still keep the house running? Yes, and work twice as many hours too! Did I get the freedom I craved for? Perhaps...but I am happy here. Yes, I am, even when I'm alone.

Watching moments in time...while I've been gone

You may have noticed I've not been here very much recently, I've been slacking - though Mr Carter said the other day how many old bloggers seem to be dropping off the edge of the bloggesphere, so I'm not the only one- but I have also been busy and absorbed.

In January a bloggy friend Kitty invited me to post a photo a day from Instagram onto a Facebook Group. I took up the challenge and I can't believe how much fun I've had!
So if writing here was 'therapy' once (not private enough for that now!) then my next obsession feeds the artist in me - therapy, perhaps, in another form? Taking a photo a day was a way of living in the moment, something I always find hard, mostly spending my time wishing for the past or rush into the future, well that's the theory...

I think it's working, I'm enjoying taking photos so much it is running my life now! Mostly I take the photos on my phone and edit and upload them from there, so don't expect perfection. But now that I've started, I may just need to invest in some more equipment one day - I can always dream!

So, without more waffle, I just wanted to say, if you can't find me here, then I could well be at my new blog which I've named watchingmomentsintime

Please come and see me there, I'll be lonely otherwise!

Another Brick in the Wall

Poor Small Sprog has been traumatised by his cookery teacher (I know it's called Food Technology these days but hey, it's still cooking to me!) It sounds stupid doesn't it? But really, he was a complete mess before half term at the thought of having to face her. He says he feels threatened by her. He says when he asks her a question she barks at him. Listening to other things he has said she sounds like she has a screw loose...

Now I remember, back in the '70's when I was at school, regularly being in class with teachers that would throw blackboard rubbers at us (do you remember those? It's all white boards and 'smart boards' now) and I vividly remember watching my Geography teacher hold a boy by his throat up against the classroom wall on one occasion. Yes, I was a child of the '70's where there was still talk of the cane and you were scared of most of your teachers! But haven't we moved on a little since then?

Tall Girl had the same teacher that Small Sprog is complaining about but some years ago. She complained to me too but played it safe in the classroom and - as she is was somewhat of a shrinking violet back then, managed to 'disappear' in the classroom environment and never get noticed by the vicious creature.

"How old is she?" I asked Tall Girl -asking Small Sprog for that sort of information is particularly unreliable.
"Old" she states. I think of nearing retirement, 'old school' a woman that threw backboard rubbers back in the '70's and would still do so if there were such things in schools now.
"Nearing 65?" I ask her
"Nearer 50" She replies as I raise and eyebrow at her and she realises I'm not a million miles from that myself (though I am working hard on reversing the years these days)!
"No excuse then" I mutter, realising that there is no excuse whatsoever, in any circumstances, for threatening behaviour in the classroom.

Valentines Day

I was out with a few people from work the other night and the subject of Valentines Day arose. No one was positive about it, everyone bemoaned it's existence; the cost of flowers, the overbooked restaurants and the cheesy cards. Everyone, without exception, stated that it was a waste of time and that they would not be making a fuss on Valentines Day this year.

So am I very definitely in the minority? Doesn't anybody really like Valentines Day? Or is their loathing of the day just a front in case no one makes a fuss of them, in case they don't get a card and no one bothers to say ' I love you'?

Now I know we don't need to have an excuse to say those words, I say them every day to my children, but isn't it nice, just sometimes, to feel a little bit special?

I'm nearing middle age now (well we're living longer these days so surely middle age happens later on, yeh?!) and I have never lost the anticipation of Valentines Day. From the squirmily embarrassing moments at school, when you either lie and say you had loads of cards, or deny having any because the one you did receive came from the spottiest boy in the school, to the disappointments of adulthood; I still feel the need to have a 'romantic' day. And I am very aware that it's most likely not going to happen but I like that some people (apparently 9 million roses will be sold in the UK today - yes and I know that that in itself is not a good thing), some people are happily enjoying being together with their loved ones and making small gestures of love. It makes me happy. And very possibly over sentimental.

So this morning, I put on my new bra, painted my toes, splashed on some 'Miss Dior' from a sample bottle and headed into Valentines Day feeling just a little but special! Sad huh?! I gave Tall Girl and Small Sprog a tiny box of Valentines chocolates each and cleared up the cat poo from behind the computer desk - nice of him to remember to leave a 'gift'. Yes readers, a romantic start indeed.

As I gave Small Sprog his chocolates - with a home made heart attached saying 'Happy Valentines Day' just in case he was in any doubt to the occasion - he took them absent-mindedly and said 'Oh, is it Valentines Day?' and I laughed to myself - start as you mean to go on Small Sprog, Valentines Day is just for girls really isn't it?

Oh and I did get a card in the post...just in case you were wondering.

Happy Valentines Day 

The word "Family"

It's been a tricky month. It all started with a planned family photo...

Last year, for Christmas, I bought Mum a family photo shoot as a present and we booked to have it taken at the beginning of this month. When I bought it, in my head, I envisaged the children, Mum and myself taking part. However she had other ideas. She wanted her husband to be in it, my step-father. If you've read this blog for a long time then you will know we have an awkward relationship that goes back to my teenage years. More recently it has become easier but all of a sudden, the thought of being in a family photo with him filled me with horror.  It was a strange feeling, something deep and buried; one that wise people, who have commented on the situation before, have told me I must resolve. They are right, under the surface everything is still raw but mostly I don't notice on a day to day basis.

The problem was that Mum didn't communicate to me about her wishes until very close to the time the photo was booked. And without going into massive detail, she was miffed about my response, so miffed in fact that she was fairly unreasonable.

The storm broke when she emailed me saying I had lead a charmed life as a teenager. I saw red. I was so angry I shook. She had no idea, she had forgotten? I knew she had never believed me. All those emotions flew around my head.

So, in a step that I thought I would never take, I wrote to her telling her how things had really been, things which I always imagined she would die without knowing, things she would have been better not knowing. But I was angry and I realised that the anger was all to do with her never doing anything about the situation.

Though I wrote in anger I did not send until I was calm and had read it through many times. Her response was that she thought she had solved the situation by never leaving me alone at night with him! I reassured her that it wasn't always the night that was the danger.

She believes me now, she said she did before - which made things worse in a way because, despite knowing what he did she stayed living with him, always has lived with him. How could she? I know she is too old to leave now but, how can she live with a man like that? Unhappily I suppose, as she has over many years. She's not as strong as me, she tells me, 'I couldn't leave him' she states. Whilst all I can think is ' if someone I lived with laid one finger on either of my children they'd never cross the threshold ever again' but that is the difference between us I suppose, the difference that makes me free and her a prisoner in her own life.

Was this all cathartic? May be. The photo was cancelled to be rebooked under different circumstances perhaps. At least she has acknowledged that my dream childhood was not that at all. For her though, I know I should have kept it to myself, what can it all have done to her?

She's currently not really talking to my step-father, for what good that will do. She thinks it punishes him but I know he is just lying low until the dust settles.

Seeing her again will be difficult. Yet we can both put on a great act...The whole episode made me think about the notion of family and the massive web of emotions and feelings that the simple word contains.

Belated Happy New Year

A belated Happy New Year! We're into the fourth day and 2013 feels just like 2012. Right now work is looming and I find myself counting the days left before returning and therefore not enjoying the moment. In fact the whole two week break has been a whirlwind of 'things' which have counted down the days for me. I sound ungrateful, I'm not but I want more time! Why do I feel compelled to fill every minute and then have no 'free' time? Do you do that?

Just to help things along time wise, I've started (or rather was invited to start) a 365 in 2013 instagram project ( #2013inpict ). I am ridiculously excited! I must miss being creative more than I realised.

Anyway New Years Day was a glorious day weather wise and so the first photo for the project is one I took on our walk that morning. Lovely Man's parents live on the Herefordshire/Welsh border and the picture was taken from Kerne Bridge, near Goodrich. The water, in the photo, is the River Wye which has engulfed several fields where the river has broken it's banks. Sadly there's not been much sun around since that day but this one day of blue sky was a perfect way to start my photography project.

So despite almost constant rain for weeks the Christmas Rose has, amazingly, withstood the wet weather and is in bloom in the back garden, I'll take a photo if it when I can squelch safely across the lawn! And the snow drops are coming up by the front door - though slightly chewed by something, possibly snails I guess.
And here we are, the right side of the longest day and I am wishing time away - again - until spring is here.

Four years ago I was planning my escape. Time passes, I look back, I look forward, and my New Years Resolution should be - if I ever made them - to enjoy and live for now. Perhaps stopping in a moment to take a photo a day will help me along with that one?

Bliss

An Xbox. He wanted and Xbox and that's what he got. Well we all have it really, it's not been off for more than a few hours overnight and I reckon I could hear the bullets firing in my sleep -or is that just the noise of living in the city?!.

Apparently it's his best (and only this Christmas, though he didn't seem to notice that bit) ever present, though I have to say I have my reservations, we only have a small living room and we are currently all in it. Small Sprog  is on the small sofa with the slightly deaf -luckily, as his head is inches from the speakers on the telly- and grumpy cat. Small Sprog is shooting Spartans randomly and has been banned from having the sound up when his sister is in the room! On the other side of the room, lying out on the sofa bed which Lovely Man assembled for me, I am nursing a head cold which Santa kindly gifted to me on Christmas day. I am still unwashed and undressed -though sporting a fluffy dressing gown which renders me more like a marshmallow than a stylish 40 something I would like to - delusionally - believe I really am! Next to me is Tall Girl sporting one of her many Christmas lounging type outfits, this one, a blue and white striped onsie, vaguely reminds me of a convict suit though she prefers to imagine it as looking 'Very French'. Lovely man is sitting on the bean bag as the last remaining chair is squashed behind the Apple Mac(which doesn't usually live in the middle of the room) on which TG  and I are watching catch ups of Christmas comedy which we only watched yesterday. There is a pile of tissues next to me and TG has crumbs down her Onsie which she informed me would be OK as they would drop out by her ankles later should she ever leave the sofa bed today. Lovely Man has made us all lunch, I have been spoilt and although this is not necessarily how I imagined today would go, it is, without doubt Boxing Day bliss... Well maybe not for the cat but hey ho, you can't please everyone all of the time.

"Oh look, I've got no Jelly Beans left" Small Sprog says gleefully with a sugar induced grin. There's a fairly spacious box of chocolates near my feet and I slyly attempt to pull it towards me using the duvet as leverage.While he is shooting things he is randomly shouting out phrases from the most recent Out Numbered Christmas Special - as if I don't already feel as though I live on the set of that particular sitcom already! If only he could remember his school work like that rather than a handful of random one-liners. 

Tall Girl wanders off to wash her hair- and use all the hot water I anticipated using in my bath-before she gets to work with her new 'Styling Wand'.

Lovely Man at last gets a go on his Apple Mac and the cat gives me a look that could kill as I do an uncontrollably massive sneeze - I knew he wasn't that deaf- curls up again and puts a paw over his ears - like that's going to stop the rain of bullets firing just above his left ear.

And so life goes on

Happy Boxing Day everyone

Merry Christmas

Small Sprog is bouncing off the walls, as usual at this time of year, there's only 3 hours left until 'The Big Day' and if he asks for a present one more time I'll explode and so will his sister. At the moment he is in a sugar filled rush resulting in an explosion of energy and random noises. He managed a whole packet of Jelly Beans before I realised what he was up to...this evening may be Very Long!

We have just spent the day with Mum, (the cause of the Jelly Beans meeting with Small Sprog in the first place) we have opened gifts together as she will not see us on The Day and she has fed us well.

While we sat around the dinner table talking, laughing and generally messing about, for some reason the topic of conversation turned to lesbians!
"Of course you can still have a baby if you're a lesbian!" I state
"Well, yes, I suppose you can" She admits "But Elton John couldn't have a baby could he?"!
"But he's not a lesbian!" we all chorused.

Sometimes conversations with my mother are so random!

Anyway, the presents are wrapped, the shopping is done and here we are, another year nearly done. I am thankful for so much, what a brilliant year we have had.

Meanwhile I wish you all a 

Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 

full of all the things you would wish for yourself.

(...Anyone need a small boy full of sugar?...)

Vile but Festive Small Sprog post (not for the faint hearted!)

I picked the children up from the freezing bus stop at 3.30pm. Small Sprogs eyes had that look of mischief in them, the look that I recognised long ago almost from the day he was born. He's 'cooked up a plan' I thought as he grinned his way along the icy pavement toward me.

He'd only just managed to get his body in the car, and his sister was still struggling with bags when he pipes up "Jacob and I thought of a joke today!"
"Really" I say, not as a question you understand but more of an-Oh My Goodness do I really want to hear this?-sort of a way.
"Yes" he says, "do you want to hear it?"
I try to ward off the impending moment of disclosure by striking up a conversation about school.

Warning...if you are not up to the rude, vileness of 13 year old boys then read no further, he really is disgusting...

"Do you want to hear it?" he insists
"Not really" I state knowing full well that it will fall on deaf ears.
By this time we are home and through the door.
"Jingle my balls bells and I'll give you a white Christmas"! he shouts out and then runs off up the stairs.
"Eww" I shout up after him
"Jessica laughed her head off when I told her" he shouted down before disappearing into the bathroom.

"You told a girl?" I look at his sister who rolls he eyes and says something derogatory about men in general. She was in a fairly depressive mood what with mock exams, coursework and the cold weather and I did think, at that moment, that the evening could go either way.

I mean, he might be vile but at least he's festive!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Small Sprog has completed his Christmas shopping; in like a ninja and out like a Bargain Hunter on the first day of The Sales. He loves it, shopping with purpose, thinking of what people might like, making decisions. He is generous to a fault, he was born that way, I think I may have mentioned it before.

As we pottered around the gift shop he found the perfect little cream jug for Granny, and something appropriate for Lovely Man. As we browsed further he found a pair of socks that were black with white words saying 'Bah Humbug'. "These would be good for Dad" he giggled.
"You don't think it will offend him?" I ask. Small Sprog looks at me
"Do you think he will be?"
"I'm not sure"
"I'm going to buy them anyway" he decides. Very apt really, I think to myself...

This year Ex is having the children the day after Boxing Day for a week, however he has already told them he's not going to bother with a tree. When Tall Girl told me this it made me sad. When he picks them up and takes them home on 27th surely that will be their Christmas with him? He can make it special and they will still have presents to open (though they may not be surprises as he's not great at buying presents). And as well as feeling sad I feel miffed. If he's not going to have fun with them then why have them at all? I'd really like to spend more time with my children over the holidays as we finish school so late this year.

Recently I have had the feeling that they are more reluctant to visit him, just a little, it is barely perceivable, they are far too loyal to say they don't want to go. Yet I've picked up on bits of conversation; "we won't be doing much this weekend. Daddy watches sport on the TV all day" those sorts of things.

I have come to the conclusion that he has forgotten to cherish them. So many reasons why I left him; a leopard never changes his spots...

Yet, in contrast with those thoughts; it's four years this week that I first met Lovely Man, who'd have thought it huh?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in suburbia, and it's feeling good.