Portobello Market

Kay and I went along to Notting Hill in North London today and headed for Portobello Market in Portobello Road. It was heaving with tourists of a hundred nationalities all taking photographs of the area made famous by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in the film Notting Hill. It took us 20 minutes alone just to get up the steps in the Underground station, as it took the crowds that long to shuffle through.


We spent all day just browsing the shops and stalls on one side of the street and then browsing back along the other side. For those who have never been there, it is a very long road indeed (I believe about a mile long) and boasts the former homes of Lord Asquith and George Orwell. The sights and smells (of street cooking - paella, crepes etc) were amazing

and, of course we managed a bit more shopping for our holiday, even calling into the Travel Book shop (featured in the film) for a holiday guide book.


As it was Saturday, all the antique stalls were out in force today too. Our aching feet told us when it was time to head home again. Feel free to click on the pictures to get enlargements.

Anniversary comes round again

Greg is looking like Long John Silver this morning with a patch over his eye where he had the cataract operation yesterday afternoon. He was not looking forward to the operation (I wondered if they would even attempt it with him full of alcohol, but they did it all under a local anaesthetic anyway). We had been told by various people who had had a cataract operation themselves that the op was not at all gruesome and indeed it went very well. Greg lay down, they covered his face and 25 minutes later they took the cover off his face and the eye had been done. He did not feel a single thing - it was all done with drops in the eye,numbing, melting, soothing etc. So if you know anyone who needs to have a similar operation done, there is absolutely no need to worry. I took the patch off, as directed, this morning and there is not even a lot of redness. I have bathed the eye and put three different lots of drops in which has to be done four times a day over the next two weeks. Seeing as I shall be ensconced in Greece in ten days' time, that could be difficult, but hopefully Greg will be able to do the drops himself by then, if the alcohol makes him see straight!

It is our 33rd wedding anniversary today. Greg wants to celebrate. I can't be bothered. Am I really being that unreasonable?

Back for a while

Kay and I just got back from a lovely week with my mother. The weather was fantastic - mainly hot, sunny and humid with a scary thunderous downpour at the end. We all had a great time, shopping, shopping, shopping, lunching out, shopping, walks along the seafront, more shopping and (oh) shopping. I relaxed, as I was getting quite stressed of late, Kay relaxed, forgetting all about the trauma of exams, and my mother enjoyed our company, as she spends far too many long days on her own.

On our return to Greg today, we found

• he had not eaten any food left in the fridge.
• he had not taken any of his medication.
• he was still wearing the same clothes we left him in a week ago.
• he had not organised a handyman to do an urgent job in the house. I shall now have to get on and do that as a priority.
• he has not reduced his alcohol consumption in preparation for a cataract operation he is having tomorrow.
  
• he had not provided fresh water for the dog (he swears he had but there was grime around the bowl and algae floating on the top! The first thing I did on getting home was to wash out the water bowl and refill it with fresh water and the dog hurled himself at it and drank with gusto!)

Within 5 minutes of being home, my stress levels were sky high again. Grrrrr

Plans a-plenty

As I have mentioned before I am never happier than when I am organised and everything is shipshape. I have been getting a tad frustrated over the last few weeks as I wasn't quite sure how the summer months were going to pan out. All I knew for certain was that Kay's exams were over and that Greg was well and truly in the grip of alcoholism again, starting his first drink at breakfast, half-way through a bottle of whisky by lunchtime and at the end of it by evening. He is doing nothing to help with household chores or paperwork. Everything falls to me. I am effectively a single parent.

Kay wanted to do so much during her vacation, but as yet we had not planned out how and when we were going to fit it all in. This morning, however, I have started to make concrete plans. First, Kay and I will be spending a week with my mother, starting on Friday. Lots of motherly and grandmotherly quality-time planned, trips to the beach, shopping etc. I may even take Snoopy so that he gets a bit of a holiday and releases the demands on Greg when he is left alone at home. We are then back at the end of next week as Greg has to have an emergency cataract operation (the growth of a cataract discovered last year has accelerated because of the diabetes). That is followed by Kay's 18th birthday (not sure what we are planning for that yet).

Then Kay and I will be going away towards the end of July to the Mediterranean for a week's relaxation/sightseeing/Greek hospitality. Greg will stay at home with Snoopy, although I pity Snoopy's part of the bargain. Greg did mention that he might like to come too but as he cannot walk out of our cul-de-sac without getting tired, I cannot see him getting as far as the Mediterranean. But seeing as we have never dared to leave Snoopy behind on any of our holidays over the past ten years, it is best the boys stay home together in any case. I also doubt they would let Greg on a plane in his condition! So, that covers the next few weeks or so of the summer and after that, who knows what we'll plan!

Bring on the Summer!

Kay's last exam was this morning. Chemistry Synoptic. Covering anything and everything she has done over the last two years. She did not seem too pleased about it when she came out, but I never know whether it is her being glass half-empty or realistic. We now have a nail-biting 8 weeks until the results are published before we know whether she has won her place at university or not. She needs to get A, A and B in no particular order for Chemistry, Biology and Maths, but Chemistry is her least strongest subject and she is not confident of even a B for that.

Last night, while she was revising for it, Greg threw a wobbly. He had been drinking heavily all day from breakfast time onwards and by suppertime he was well gone. He had not eaten all day. I had cooked a Chicken Curry with rice for supper and he told me not to serve any for him, as he would have it later, when he felt like it. After Kay and I had served ourselves, the remains lay untouched on the stove right up until 11pm. As I was getting ready for bed, I made the mistake of asking whether I should put it away in the fridge (rather than let the flies buzz around it), if he did not want it. He just blew up and told me to leave him alone. He then proceeded to chunter on about how he never gets any peace (yet we had not been near him all day!) Kay could hear him all the way upstairs as he moaned on and on for a good half an hour or more, while she was still trying to study for this morning's exam. It seems like Greg always seems to lie in wait and save his venom for the chemistry tests and exams! When we came down this morning, he was still asleep on the dining chair in the kitchen. He had clearly not been to bed all night. He did not even wake up as Kay and I clattered about getting breakfast and left the house.

Que sera, sera. What will be, will be. The exams are done and now we sit back and wait. Next week she has to go into school for just one final day to hand back all her text books and say goodbye. That day finishes with the school prom in the evening held at an exclusive golf-club near here. We bought her the most exquisite floaty chiffon evening dress for it this afternoon. Meanwhile, Kay is exulting in the fact that she does not have to use her brain for the next 12 weeks. She is as free as a bird, can lie-in till suppertime, if she wants, watch films, TV, vegetate, gossip with her friends, shop till she drops and busy herself doing absolutely nothing. I give her a couple of weeks before she says she is bored!! Bring on the Summer!!

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?

Greg looks very old all of a sudden. For decades, he was the young man I married, then (puff of smoke) he turned 60. A wand has been waved and he is grey both in hair and complexion, bags under his eyes and he looks ill. Well, he is ill. The alcohol-related illnesses over these past 5 years have taken their toll on his looks, as well as his health, which was not good before he started drinking heavily. He has diabetes, heart disease, poor circulation in his legs and feet, the possibility of early stage liver cirrhosis and (I reckon) depression, which is probably why he drinks. He can barely walk a few yards. Since he retired, he has no interest or energy to do anything, so he drinks and that gives him no energy or interest to do anything. A vicious circle.

He announces regularly that he is going to do so much around the house - mend this, fix that, decorate the other, but he never stirs from the spot where he sits watching TV all day. Similarly there are things he wants to chase up with the household's paperwork (concerning bills, insurance claims or the mortgage) but they never get done. If pressed about them, he will say it is too hot, too cold, too wet, too soon, too late.... the excuses keep on coming. In the end, Muggins here usually does it. Sometimes the one and only job he insists on doing (because, he says, I don't do it properly) - namely loading the dishwasher - does not get done and the dishes pile high on the kitchen work surface for a few days or so. Then in desperation I even do that job, as I try to find a clear square inch to chop up some vegetables or prepare a meal! As for major work around the house, forget it - mind you, he has not done that in about ten years anyway. So in latter years painting and DIY has fallen to me. He has great hopes but they just don't materialise.

Even washing himself, cleaning his teeth, brushing his hair and changing his clothes seem too much for him - I often find him asleep on the bed in the morning fully clothed....in the same clothes he has worn all fortnight. Alcohol becomes the be-all and end-all of an alcoholic's life. Relationships and personal hygiene cease to matter. Ketchup stains on his sleeves, soup stains on his trousers, a scaly rash on his face and in his hair. Constantly reeking of whisky and stale cigarette smoke. He seldom washes or showers - usually only when he has to present himself at the doctor's for a repeat prescription, once in a blue moon. If I "nag" him to wash once in a while, it starts World War 3, so it is easier to say nothing and watch him stagger to and from his car and around the neighbourhood like a tramp. Goodness knows what the neighbours think. You tend to look at married couples as one entity (like your own parents) and don't see them as having separate personalities and separate opinions. Do they tar me with the same brush and think I'm a slob for not keeping my husband clean and tidy? They cannot possibly realise what an uphill struggle it is for me to get him to look presentable. Or have they guessed the truth and all this pretence of a normal marriage which I put on for the outside world has been sussed?

Once upon a time I used to worry about what other people thought. If people came to visit us, it became more and more difficult to conceal the state he was in. If they did notice anything, they tactfully said nothing. If we went out anywhere, I'd feel the embarrassment crawling all over me, as soon as he and I stepped out of the front door. I'd beg Kay not to tell any of her friends, lest their parents found out and wouldn't let their children visit our home to spend time with Kay. Living with an alcoholic can be very isolating. For the last year. however, I have advised Kay to tell her friends, as she needed someone to confide in and to make them understand what was happening in her home life and why sometimes it was better for her to stay over with them, rather than for them to stay over with us. Whether their parents know, I don't know. I don't even care any more. I am running out of resolve. I just don't care any more. Let them see it. Let them judge, if they must. I cannot fight his battles any more. I cannot continue to live a lie.

Exam fever and the Bombay diet

School exams have started in earnest this week in our household. Of course, as always, just when you need to keep cool and concentrate, the weather has decided to climb into the 80s (Fahrenheit) or about 26 (Celsius), so Kay has been sweltering while she revises. Added to that she has had a terrible head cold which is now heading south to her chest, the poor little mite has been struggling to breathe. I have been trying to build her up with brain fodder and anti-virus food, such as salads, fish, blueberries and echinacea tablets. Hopefully that will pay off. The thanks I get for it is that I am now going down with it too. Still, unlike Kay, at least I don't have to bother my fuzzy head with analysis of chemical ions and aldehydes.

Greg meanwhile is now downing the whisky like it is going out of fashion and is currently going through a typical phase of his alcoholism that is oh so familiar - I have seen it many times before in the previous cycles he has been through. When he is well and truly in the grip of alcohol addiction, his appetite starts to disappear completely. He tends to skip breakfast and lunch altogether and only snacks very late in the afternoon, so that by suppertime he says he is not hungry. He declines to eat lunch with us and at suppertime may at best take minuscule portions which would not even fill a two-year-old. He will toy with the food on his plate with his fork and say that it doesn't taste of much....things which under normal conditions he usually relishes. Most of his food then ends up in the bin. At the moment, he is existing mainly on whisky, milk and strange concoctions he makes himself such as bombay mix with salsa sauce! It seems he has to really accentuate the spiciness of his food to get any taste at all. I think the alcohol kills all the little taste buds on his tongue. I am watching out for the next phase which will no doubt follow the usual pattern and develop into the upset stomach/hiccuping phase, followed by the more extreme gastric ulcer/ dash to the hospital phase. This morning he got up retching. Surprisingly that only starts to happen when his liver really has had really more than it can take. I've been there before. Watch this space.

Slipping through my fingers

Last Friday was also another very special day for another reason. It was Kay's last official day of schooling. I say "schooling" rather than "school", because she still has to go to school to sit her exams over the next few weeks, but last Friday was the last day of actual lessons. Ever, ever. It seems like only yesterday morning that I held her tiny three-year-old hand and took her to her first kindergarten class. It seems like only yesterday lunchtime when again I took her hand and introduced her to her first primary school teacher when she was four. It seems like only yesterday afternoon when she boarded the bus heading for the big girls' school aged eleven. Suddenly she is almost eighteen, an adult and able to vote in a couple of months. Heck, how did that happen?

Fifteen years have passed since that first day at kindergarten, in which she has learned the wonders of this world and the basics of reading and writing. I have sat listening to her read her very first books, watching her first shaky attempts at art, helping with those multiplication tables right through to now when at her request I try to test her and have to decipher the totally foreign language (to me) that is Chemistry. I have packed lunches when she used to be a faddy 6-year-old and hated the school fare; packed suitcases for school trips to far-off places such as Cumbria, Paris and Latin America; and packed a proverbial punch in mad-mother-cow mode, if I thought another child in the playground was being unfair or bullying her. I have watched her turn from a small wobbly toddler into a beautiful young woman who without my guiding hand wobbles still on high heels and towers above me.

Where have all those years gone? I must have got here in the Tardis! Her last day of school came stealthily in through the back door. It just cannot be possible. Don't get me wrong, I have prepared for years for this day in my mind over and over, determined not to get all weepy and sentimental, but it still comes like a bolt out of the blue and surprises me just how quickly eighteen years can pass. The time rushes by in a flash. You are happily ticking off all those milestones of losing teeth, growing new ones, different schools, exams, vaccinations and achievements and before you have time to blink, the chicks are leaving the nest. Make the most of your little cherubs while you can.

Anniversary.

My blog is one year old today.

I started writing it because Greg was drinking heavily after yet another attempt at detox and I could not get any professionals to help me stop him or slow him down. I felt I was going to blow a gasket or go mad or both. Everywhere I turned for help, I came up against a brick wall. GPs can only advise or prescribe drugs. They don't really want to get involved on a practical level. Hospital accident and emergency departments just ensure there are no serious problems, patch the alcoholic up and send them back home again without admitting them. (You cannot blame them - they are inundated with drink-related emergencies. Their eyes roll heavenwards when told the patient is an alcoholic). Professional alcohol counsellors can advise and refer for detox, but can only do so if the patient volunteers to seek help (which of course they rarely do because they don't see they have a problem in the first place!) Detox clinics have long waiting lists and (again) the alcoholic has to be the one to make the first move. Families of alcoholics are usually the ones left to deal with the problem on their own and all you can to is try to cope with it on a daily basis. Damage limitation. There is no wonder cure or magic wand. It requires tough love. Love is really a misnomer, because love tends to sail out the window when you are coping with the problem on a daily grind. It is not the person you married and chose to spend your life with. I have always felt that if you had a partner who develops something like cancer or dementia, you would know it is not their fault and you would continue to love them unconditionally, whatever life threw at you. But with an alcoholic who hurls abuse at you and is very much wrapped up in themselves, you are left to deal with a major irritant in your life, sharing a house with a lodger - one whose references you wished you had checked out before you let them the room!

A year ago Kay was trying to revise for exams and having to deal with Greg shouting and ranting as he invariably does when he has got through a full whisky bottle in about twelve hours. Once he is inebriated, his mild temper can rise drastically to Incredible Hulk proportions if anyone dares to interrupt a TV programme he might be watching or contradict him in any way. He will shout if we go to bed leaving him asleep in front of the kitchen TV on a dining chair. He will shout if we wake him to try to transfer him to bed. He will shout over the silliest of things. A no-win situation. Damned, if you do, and damned, if you don't! All this shouting in the evenings coincided with Kay trying to study. She is a conscientious student, but I would defy anyone to concentrate with all that noise going on. Also Greg will follow us from room to room if we try to diffuse the argument by walking away, so often the only real escape is to jump into a car and drive off for a while. But it's not the sort of thing you want to do, say at 11pm, or when you are trying to study for an A-level Chemistry test the next day. So in utter desperation, I contacted the school at least to warn them what was happening at home. They were very sympathetic, as well as helpful, and after that I found the confidence to start my blog. I was close to breaking-point.

I have found the writing of the blog very therapeutic. It is the verbal equivalent of hitting a pillow with your fists. My outpourings have probably saved me many a time from being carted off to the funny farm or dissecting Greg into a million pieces with a blunt knife! Your comments have buoyed me up more than you will ever know, even if I have not thanked you personally, and I feel as if I have made many cyber friends on here. I am so grateful for that. Greg has not been happy for me to write the blog, but I have gone to great pains to change our names and whereabouts, so that he will not be embarrassed or found out by his friends or ex-work colleagues. I have often given him the chance to read it, as I had hoped it might be easier for him to read as a third person about the damage he was doing to himself and to his family rather than me telling him, but he has religiously avoided reading the blog at all.

A year later, so much has happened, but many things stay the same. In September, Greg became very ill again, was rushed into hospital, came out a month later detoxed and returned to a reasonable state of health. But slowly things have deteriorated and he is back to the similar patterns of last year. Not quite as bad, but almost. He is almost back to a full 70cl bottle of whisky per day. He maintains he is in control of the alcohol and will never again revert to the states he has been in in the past, but to see him late in the evening - either angry or asleep on an upright dining chair - it is easy to see what is still in control. He came out of hospital not smoking a single cigarette any more and is now back to about 30-a-day. He has lucid, sober moments - during the mornings I can still reason with him, he will often deal with household issues, or even go out in the car to fetch more supplies of cigarettes and whisky. But already by lunchtime, I am losing him again and by supper-time, he is asleep and awake in hourly turns. Kay and I retire to bed, not knowing if he will fall asleep with a cigarette and burn the house down. It does not do much for my anxiety levels.

In that year, I have also made new friends by joining a local Al-Anon group which is there for families of the alcoholic. I am not sure if it is helping me in the way I would have hoped (ie practical solutions to deal with the alcoholism), but the programme focuses on how to repair yourself, look deep inside yourself and detach from the alcoholic. At the very least it gives me a couple of hours away from Greg each week and, as I have said, it has forged some new friendships. We all have the same in common - we live with an alcoholic husband/wife/son/daughter/mother/father - so there is no need to put on a pretence (pretence is something I am good at with neighbours or other parents at Kay's school or those friends and family who are blissfully unaware that Greg drinks). At Al-Anon we can relax and discuss our feelings openly. Usually someone weeps as they tell their story. Months and years of pent-up emotions come flooding out. The rest of the group gather round and console. The emotional support is palpable. We know only too well what that person is going through. We've been there. Correction - we ARE there.

So, it seems a strange anniversary to celebrate, but celebrate I shall. Whether I shall continue to blog depends on so many factors, most importantly of all whether I decide to stay with Greg once Kay leaves for university in September. My frail, arthritis-disabled mother sixty miles away deserves a heck of a lot more of my attention than I can give her at present and I aim to spend a lot more time helping her. Greg's problems are self-induced. Hers are not. I have no struggle with where my loyalties lie. However, I am still trying to keep an open mind and don't want to make any urgent decisions for the moment. Al-Anon advises - "One Day at a Time", so maybe I should not rush a decision, but I know which way my common-sense is pulling. Al-Anon sees alcoholism as an illness and not something we should berate the alcoholic for. I am not sure I buy into that philosophy, but now and again, it does make me feel more pity for Greg than I used to feel. However, whether I want to spend the rest of my life just watching him slowly drink himself to death (quite literally), I don't know. He sits zombie-like all day in the kitchen/diner watching TV and drinking and smoking. We don't do anything together and we don't go out anywhere together. We don't share a bedroom together. We don't even have conversations. Not much of a life to look forward to, if I stay. But I know that deep down underneath, Greg is still the wonderful man I married. Just like the extremely narrow waist I used to have........ it's there somewhere, just hidden. He was a kind, educated, caring individual. Always the first one to help someone in trouble and to understand the other person's viewpoint. He is a man who, for some strange reason, has decided since retirement five years ago to become an alcoholic and now cannot find the long way back.

The Youth of Today

There are times when I wonder whether the world is going crazy and what the future holds for us when there is so much greed and hatred about. You read so many terrible things about the youth of today in particular, what with knife crime and bullying at school, being spoiled with ipods, laptops and computer games. You wonder where it will all lead.

And then you see these two gorgeous fresh-faced youngsters full of talent and somehow you know everything's gonna be all right.

1. Natalie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mAqUWuJayw

2. Aidan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0HBEDgeA8

( I cannot get the links up here on screen, as embedding is disabled for these items. Sorry. Just copy the links into your search engine to call them up.)

Medicinal Compounds

Well, I am pleased to say my "cold" did not develop. I think Crystal Jigsaw may be right, when she commented on my last post, and I may have had a touch of an allergic reaction to all the tree pollen about at the moment. I have not suffered from hay fever before, but there is so much pollen around at the moment and conditions are fairly dry, so maybe this may occur again.

Greg has been prescribed some new tablets. He already takes a bucket-load of tablets each day. He has diabetes (for which he injects insulin), heart disease, circulatory problems in his legs, possible early cirrhosis and possible brain damage. The last two brought on by his heavy drinking. The rest probably caused by smoking 30-40 cigarettes a day all his life. The new tablets are to help him with nerve pains he gets in his feet. All in all, he now takes 15 tablets spread over his waking day. The new ones say DEFINITELY NO ALCOHOL. The existing ones advise against alcohol. Greg is now back to drinking anything between half and three-quarters of a standard 70cl bottle of whisky per day. Sometimes he washes the tablets down with a glass of whisky.

If I say anything, he shouts and rants. I really do despair.

Pandemic

I've had a sore throat and cough for the last two days. I've checked that am not sprouting a curly tail and I don't oink when I utter a few croaky words, so I think I am all right. Just a belated winter cold, then. But what with Alleyns school only four miles away in one direction and Kay informing me that a friend of a friend of a friend's brother's cousin has gone down with it at a school only two miles away in the other direction, this swine flu is kinda circling us. I'll keep you posted - if I survive the fever of government pamphlets coming through my letterbox!

Tagged

Three things in one post today!!

First I just wanted to report that we DID go out last night, despite Greg having drunk two glasses of wine and a half-bottle of whisky between lunch and supper. My heart was in my mouth all the time, as his speech was very slurred, he was walking with a deliberate slow gait and was coming out with all sorts of embarrassing comments within earshot of people. When I get anxious, my throat closes up, gets very dry and my old phobia (of not feeling comfortable eating in public) raises its head. Still, Kay and I were determined to see it through and we just nodded to all his comments and tried not to get embarrassed or start any arguments. Once home again, he proceeded to doze off on the sofa and Kay and I heaved a sigh of relief.

**************

Secondly, I have been tagged by the lovely Nunhead Mum of One and will do my best to answer all the questions.

Rules of the meme
Respond and rework
Answer questions on your own blog
Replace one question
Add one question
Tag 8 people

1. What are your current obsessions? Trying to reduce my cholesterol levels. I also want to go on and lose one more stone to return to the weight I was when I was a young slip of a girl.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often? Scruffy jeans for walking the dog.

3. What's for dinner? Tonight there will be chicken casserole, rhubarb crumble and custard (a friend gave me some rhubarb from their allotment and I just have to make a crumble, but normally I avoid this for cholesterol reasons - see, I told you I am obsessed with this!)

4. Last thing you bought? A salad spinner (Last of the big spenders!)

5. What are you listening to? The tinnitus in my ears. I've had it for a number of years and it drives me insane. It sounds like the whine of the test card they used to show on TV. Listen here. You only got 6 seconds of it. I have it all the time!

6. What five items could you not leave the house with? Keys, mobile, extra strong mints, lippie, money.

7. Favourite holiday spots? Greece, Greece, Greece

8. Reading right now? Al-anon (for families of alcoholics) literature.

9. Four words to describe yourself: shy, anxious, sexy(??), practical.

10. Guilty pleasure? Baileys, chocolate

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak? My daughter. We can get very silly sometimes and have lots of therapeutic girlie giggles. It's a good antidote for stress - try it.

12. First spring thing? Snowdrops by our front door

13. Planning to travel to next? Regular visit to my mother, who is housebound.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately? A bar of chocolate - the first I had had since my cholesterol-reducing diet started 12 weeks ago (see I mentioned it again!) An expensive bottle of red wine the neighbours gave me for looking after their cat while they were on holiday. I kept this hidden from Greg and had it all to myself over a few days!! (A very rare treat !!)

15. When did you last get tipsy? At a millennium party!!

16. Favourite ever film? Difficult, I love so many for different reasons, but one that really affected me was Sophie's Choice. I also adore Far from the Madding Crowd, as I am a Thomas Hardy fan.

17. Care to share some wisdom? Life is not a rehearsal. Don't let it pass you by.

18. If you could be someone famous, who would you be and why? Joan Collins. If I'm looking that good at 76, I shall be happy.

19. What did your last text say and who was it from? "Where r u? "- Greg texting me on my return journey from Yorkshire.

20. What is your favourite animal? All dogs and especially my dog, Snoopy. He is the most intelligent dog I have ever known and can understand about 100 different sentences (not just one-word commands but whole sentences.)

The eight people I am tagging (getting more difficult to find ones who haven't already been tagged!!) are:

Fat Frumpy and Fifty

Don't Panic

Kit Courteney

Dulwich Divorcee

Working mum on the Verge

Crystal Jigsaw

Forever Anxious

My Wife has Agoraphobia

**************

Finally, my garden is full of beautiful blossom at the moment. It is arguably the best time of year for colour. Here are some pictures I took last week.

ceanothus (californian lilac)

Choisya (mexican orange)

Lilac

All together

Officially retired

Greg is 60 today. How do you celebrate and what do you buy a man who is an alcoholic and not in the best of health? I have resorted to buying him lots of books, as he has always been an avid reader and hungry for knowledge, so that is always a safe bet. I even have to delicately sift through birthday cards, when buying them for him, as they tend to have pictures of beer glasses and champagne bottles on them.

But how to celebrate? I thought long and hard about whether to put on a surprise party, but then decided against it. The majority of friends and colleagues know nothing at all about his problem, as it only developed after he took early retirement and he barely sees any of them any more. A party would therefore bring it to their attention. They would also find it very strange to have a party with no alcohol whatsoever, particularly for such a special event. I asked Greg what he would prefer and he took weeks mulling it over, but decided he did not really want a big fuss. He, Kay and I hope to go out for a special meal tonight, but I fear he will already be drunk well before then, as he is meeting a few old media work colleagues for a lunchtime drink. As they do not know of his problem, they will probably ply him with drinks to celebrate and he will not be able to refuse the many rounds that will ensue. In fact he will have a field day. I shall then get nervous about whether he will behave himself in the restaurant tonight. That's if he is upright enough to get there in the first place! On the other hand, it is his sixtieth, so he deserves a special day.

Marathon

I am nursing aching limbs today. My back really hurts and my legs feel as if they are going to drop off. Have I been running today's London Marathon? I am ashamed to say I haven't, but it feels like it. Yesterday Kay and I went up to Yorkshire for an Open Day at her chosen university to look at the types of accommodation on offer to her in September, as she needs to put in her preferences soon . We left home at 6.30am, commuted to Central London, took the mainline train up to Yorkshire and arrived in glorious sunshine at 10.30am. From then on we tramped around the city streets on foot wandering first to the campus to collect relevant brochures and advice, then off to each of the Halls of Residence, climbing stairs, visiting show-bedrooms and show-kitchens, then on to the next Hall some distance away and so on. Hop-on, hop-off shuttle buses had been laid on specially by the university for the day, but there were long queues for these and and in any case, Kay and I wanted to test out the distance of the accommodation from campus to get a good idea of the daily walk she will need to do.

By lunchtime we had managed four Halls in as many miles and were flagging, so stopped off at a Costa's for a bite to eat, then managed three more Halls after that. We covered a fair area of the town and must have walked miles and miles - a lot of it on hills that seemed to have a steep gradient. At one point I actually welcomed a very short sharp rain-shower to cool me down, as the combination of hot sunshine and steep hills was not a good one. Apart from the 20-minute lunch, we were on our feet and walking for the whole day until 6.30pm when we were able to collapse into our reserved train seats and commence the 2½-hour journey back to London again. My legs throbbed all the way and are still doing so today. I am used to walking a lot with the dog, but this was something else! We got home to find Greg cuddled up with a half-bottle of whisky, but at least he was interested to ask how we got on. Kay and I fell into bed at midnight and I think I would be there still, if Snoopy had not nudged me at 9am to let him out into the garden.

Fat chance

A while ago I wrote about the discovery that I have a high level of cholesterol. My doctor had prescribed statins to reduce the level but I was against taking them, as they can produce nasty side-effects and it is also recommended that once you start taking them, you have to stay on them for life. Instead, I decided to tackle the cholesterol reduction by diet alone and devised my own saturated-fat-free diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, pulses, grains, porridge, chicken, fish and extremely low-fat dairy options. Without even trying to lose weight (remember my sole aim was to reduce cholesterol) I lost half a stone in the first week and another half-stone in the following few weeks. My clothes fitted better than ever, my skin looked radiant, I felt much healthier. I continued this "diet" for ten weeks and had a fasting blood test at the local hospital to measure my new cholesterol levels. I got the results this morning. My cholesterol levels have drastically reduced and the doctor is very pleased with me. It was only then that I confessed to her that I had not started the statins at all, as I had been conscious of all the junk food I had previously resorted to as a comfort in times of stress and hoped that by eliminating the junk and lowering fat in general, I would solve the problem. She congratulated me and said I could now tear up the statin prescription.

As a rule, I normally take prescribed drugs without question, but this time for some strange reason, I decided to rebel and find an alternative solution. I am glad I did and that I have saved myself from possible adverse side-effects. It just goes to show that modern medicines are not always the only answer. Sometimes good old-fashioned common sense works just as well.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Again

My Easter week away has been one of mixed emotions.

First it was oh so nice to be with my dear old mum who never complains and, boy, does she have cause to. She is not very well at all at the moment. Apart from severe gastric pain which needs investigating (booked at the hospital for 13 May) and which causes her to almost double-up every time she eats something, she has severe arthritis in her spine and knees which means she can barely walk or stand. Despite all this, she almost apologises for her shadow and will thank and appreciate for any bit of kindness anyone shows her. We had a great time with me taking her out and about in the car to get a change of four walls from the ones she is imprisoned in most of the time. We had short walks, coffee sprees, car rides to watch gambolling lambs and blue sky, shopping trips, as well as me doing her garden, sorting out some space in a rather over-used junk room and fixing a few odd jobs.

Greg on the other hand was "supposed" to be in charge of things at home, enabling me to go away. Kay was with him at home, as she wanted to revise for her forthcoming exams, so all he needed to do was be the adult in charge, cook a few meals, be on standby to wipe her fevered brow and take her once or twice to meet up with friends when she felt like tunnelling an escape route. What happened was far from that. First he saw it as good practice for her to cook all the meals. Whilst I would agree that she should get a good run at independent living, now was not the time, as she really had a lot of study work to get through and he had nothing better to do than watch TV all day. But more to the point, as soon as my car had disappeared round the corner on its way to my mum's, Greg took up the whisky bottle and did not let off. I could hear it on the telephone in his slurred voice with its deliberate enunciation. I could almost smell it on his breath sixty miles away. Of course he denied it, too emphatically and too argumentatively. Kay on the other hand witnessed it at first hand and had to look after him rather than the other way round. By the end of the week, he was getting slurred much earlier in the day, forgetting things I had told him several times, even things I had written down in day-by-day notes to remind him. On one occasion Kay was distressed because she had to visit a friend some miles away and needed a lift to get home again late in the evening. He was incapable of collecting her and I was sixty miles away trying to sort out how to solve the problem. And to think he had even put on a concerned look when I was originally leaving for my mum's and ordered me to have a good break and build in some relaxation time. But then he had dashed any hope of that by giving me cause for concern at a long distance over his stupid behaviour.The moment my back was turned. One evening, he kept ringing up to continue an argument long after we had gone to bed and he knew the phone on my mother's bedside would disturb her sleep. He just didn't care or think. My entreaties for him to stop ringing us fell on deaf ears. By the end of the week, I had to leave my mum a day earlier than anticipated as he was again incapable of driving Kay and a friend home at midnight from a party. Just when I needed him to be there for me, while I was there for my mum.

He admits he is drinking again, but only "one or two a day and certainly nowhere near as much as before". He maintains he is in control and promises it will not get any worse. But he said that a year ago and a year before that and a year before that. I have heard it all before. The only person he is deceiving is himself. I can see right through it. In fact I discovered a half-bottle in his jacket pocket yesterday afternoon and it was empty by mid-evening. I just hope he holds off his imminent decline long enough for Kay to do these very important exams in June. The university course she wants requires superhuman grades. She cannot afford his drunken distractions.

After that Greg can please himself and go to hell.

*************

My 22-year-old niece had a bad car accident last week. She was driving back from university on Easter Saturday to spend the rest of the Easter weekend with her mother, when two miles from home she skidded on a patch of grease on the road, bashed into three trees, one after the other and ended up in the middle of the road. Fortunately no other cars were involved and she was able to get out of the car and walk away from it. But here's the rub..... the car was a complete write-off. A passing car stopped and called the police, an ambulance and my niece's mother, who was close enough to get there before the emergency services. My niece was taken to accident and emergency at the local hospital. Apart from cuts and emerging bruises she was allowed home soon after, although it now seems she has belated concussion. There is some suggestion the car may have somersaulted as there were dents on the car roof and my niece cannot recall some of what happened. Her car was full of stuff she was returning home after three years away and was spewed all over the roadside and some of it even landed up in the trees. Most irritating of all, her laptop was thrown into undergrowth and badly damaged, so that the final draft of her dissertation for her university degree may have to be retyped and will miss the deadline she was set.

The terrifying thought of it made me drive like a granny on the way to my mother - much to the annoyance of the car behind me!

Easter

We have a little custom in this household which I picked up from our time in Germany. They do it a lot there, but I have not come across anyone else doing it here in England, unless I am mistaken. Just as the Germans introduced the Christmas tree into Victorian England, so they have introduce the Easter tree into our generation in my household. The idea is to put a few twigs into a vase and decorate them with Easter bunnies, chicks and eggs. Here is our version decorated this morning by Kay and me.

The finished tree

One of the egg decorations

One of the chick decorations

One of the bunny decorations

I shall be off to spend a week with my mother, so wish you a Happy Easter and hope you have a lovely chocolatey one!

Little Miss Organised

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I cannot function without lists. I have to write them for just about everything and, if I have too many lists, I make a list of lists or stick post-it notes on things as reminders. I suppose it comes from my days in the Civil Service where I had to be extremely organised in my job. I like law and order in my life. I cannot stand chaos. I can usually put my finger on anything that is needed from a receipt for something purchased the day before to a champagne cork kept from our wedding 33 years ago. I know where to find the list of vaccinations Kay has had throughout her life or the parking fine Greg got seven years ago.

By way of contrast, Greg is totally disorganised and a great procrastinator. He cannot find the lighter he used to light a cigarette five minutes ago and yesterday he mislaid his cheque book which resulted in him turning the house upside down and inside out. He even accused me of having snatched it to annoy him, but then hours later he found it in the back pocket of some jeans he was wearing at the weekend. Each day he will say he is going to do a particular repair job (say, weather-proofing the fence). For every dry day, he will make all manner of excuses or be rapt in some television programme and end up not doing the job. He then waits for a day when it is pouring with rain and then says he was definitely going to do it that day but now of course it is too wet (and he says in a grave tone that it will take quite a few days for the fence to dry out so there's no point doing it for at least another two weeks!!) He will spend all day looking out at the sunny weather saying HE will walk the dog for a change, but when by 3pm he hasn't gone out, it seems he is waiting for the weather forecast on TV. I am often so bold as to comment that he only needs to look out the window, but he needs to hear it from the professionals! Of course by the time he sees the weather forecast, it has clouded over and started to rain and he then says it is too wet to go out with the dog!! It's the same pattern every time and of course nothing ever gets done. Then he forgets these chores need doing altogether and I have to make a list to remind him about them!

If I have a pile of different jobs - some manual (such as repairing clothes, housework, washing, ironing or gardening), some requiring mental input (such as bills/letters etc) or some requiring special action (eg. booking train tickets North or researching something before I make a decision etc), I write all the things I need to do in a list. That way I have a handy overview of what needs doing and the amount of effort I need to put in. Sometimes, if the list is long, I will put a day of the week against the item so that the load is evenly distributed on each day. There is nothing nicer than making a list and getting immense satisfaction as the items are gradually ticked off and I have completed action on the last remaining one. It also makes sure that things get done - in time.

Is that sad, or what?

Not one of my lists - just a Google image!!

The Talking Tree

I forgot to add this to the photos of my daily walk in the park with Snoopy. It always reminds me of the talking tree in the Disney film about Pocohontas.

Mothers' Day

My diary always seems to fill up months in advance these days so there is always something that demands my attention here in London or elsewhere, but never gives me enough time to spare to drive the 120 miles trip (there and back) to see my poor old riddled-with-arthritis mum. She lives alone and finds it harder to cope with the house, garden and shopping.

She is virtually housebound now and relies on me more and more. We really ought to move her closer to us, but in the past we have had thoughts of moving ourselves, once Kay left home, so we put off moving Mum until we knew what we were going to do. Then in more recent years, with Greg's behaviour being so impossible, I have not liked to move her in with us and I cannot always spare the time to drop everything to visit her for a few days. Now, with the credit crunch and housing recession, I doubt we could sell her house quickly enough to facilitate a move. It has been awkward but so far we have managed. I telephone her every day and try at least to visit her for a week every 6 weeks or so to do major chores for her. Thank heavens too for Internet shopping. It has saved our lives. During one of our telephone conversations , Mum will every so often give me her shopping list. I order the groceries online from the supermarket and they deliver to her a few days later. I pay online and Mum reimburses me by cheque when she can get a neighbour to post the cheque to me. We have been doing that for a few years now and the system works quite well. Recently, however, I have been up to my eyes with sorting things out for Kay (interviews at university or just being there for her while she did exams), attending hospital appointments with Greg or for myself. Unusually, I haven't been able to see my mother since New Year, as there was always something vital that got in the way. She never complains, but sounded a bit down recently, so I was damned if I was going to miss the chance of seeing her for Mothers' Day, though, which takes place in the UK today.

I went to see her on Friday, stayed overnight and came back late yesterday evening. We had an incredible action-packed 36 hours together. Even the weather was glorious with wall-to-wall blue sky and sunshine. On the first day, we wandered around the shops (as best as mum can manage with her dodgy knees and back), spent time in her favourite cafe watching the world go by and reminisced about the old days. On the second day, she suggested a very long-walk down to the sea-front. She never gets the chance to walk far and is afraid to do it on her own (she has had very bad falls in the street in the past which has now made her very nervous). She felt she needed the exercise and the fresh air. We walked very slowly and stopped lots of times, but we made it down to the seafront. We sat at a promenade cafe and watched the crowds of people drawn out by the sunshine. We got a taxi back home but it was amazing just how far she was able to hobble. She was delighted with her progress and felt elated that she had got out of the house for a while. I cooked lunch and then we sat in her garden basked in sunshine until it was time for me to leave for London again. I later rang her and we both said what a marvellous time we had had.

Today is Mothers' Day and I came down to find Kay was already up (before me? on a Sunday?) and had prepared breakfast for me. She also gave me some lovely presents and a vase of flowers. I rang my mother and then was put on a pedestal for the morning. Told to do what I wanted. As I write, Kay is preparing lunch for me. After lunch, Greg, Kay and I plan to have a walk with the dog in the wild park I mentioned in my blog recently. The sun is still shining furiously.

All in all a truly good few days.

The Good, (The Very good) , the Bad and the Ugly

I have had extremes of emotions over the last few days ranging from elation to downright despair.

My mood soared on Thursday when Kay telephoned me from school with the results of her A-levels (the early ones taken in January to reduce the number she has to take in the summer).

Grade A for Maths
Grade A for Statistics
Grade A for Biology
Grade A for Chemistry

When she came out of the exams, she thought she had done so badly in a few of them, so I was more than surprised let alone delirious that she had gained top marks.

Then on Friday a letter arrived addressed to Kay from a certain university we had visited in February for interview. It was A4 in size and quite bulky so I took a chance that it was unlikely to be a rejection and phoned Kay at school. Fortunately she was in the school library on a free period , so she was able to take my call. I told her a letter had arrived and asked if I should open it. (Secretly I was unable to contain my curiosity and I was almost working out how to steam the letter open without her knowing, if I had been unable to contact her. Not that I would have done, but I was bursting to know the answer). We agreed that I would drive in at her break time so she could open the letter herself. Kay had been rejected by three of her four choices of university because the course she wants to do is so competitive. In one case there were twenty applicants for every place and the others were about twelve to fifteen for every place. I will not reveal the course yet as I do not want to jinx things, but suffice to say that it is nigh impossible to get in unless you are Einstein. Kay opened the letter and my mood went to the dizziest heights imaginable when she revealed that she has been accepted on the course providing she gets equally good grades in the summer exams. We were on the phone after that telephoning my mother, aunts, cousins, anyone who was equally eager to know the results. Kay spent the rest of the day barely able to believe that her dream may be within reach at last.

The high we continued to remain on all over the weekend came crashing to the ground this morning when I woke up. Greg and I sleep in separate rooms - something I have insisted on since his personal hygiene fell to an all-time low a couple of years ago. He remains in what was our bedroom on a very comfortable double bed with wardrobes, bedside TV and ensuite bathroom. I have decamped to the smallest room where Kay used to sleep as a baby. Then there was just about room for a cot and a table; now there is a rather uncomfortable single bed with a bedside table. To add to the claustrophobic ambience, I share the room with the dog whose bed takes up the remaining bit of floorspace there is. The dog decided long ago that he did not want to share a spacious room with Greg but preferred to sleep with his nose pressed against the base of my bed. Anyway, when I went into Greg's room at 7am this morning, there he was asleep on the top of the bed, fully clothed, including his shoes, with all the lights on. When I went downstairs, lights were still on everywhere. In the evenings, Greg normally sits at the kitchen table to watch TV so that he can smoke outside or at the back door - a rule made at the hospital conference back in September) . On the kitchen table was an unfinished glass of whisky. My heart sank. I had not wanted to believe that he might be drinking again. He had seemed to be doing so well. But there it was. He had obviously been so tired (or drunk) that he had staggered to bed and fallen asleep instantly with all his clothes on and without turning out the lights or removing the tell-tale signs of whisky.

I got Kay off to school, walked the dog in the park and he was just surfacing as I returned home. I was so mad at him, I let rip and we have had a day of blazing rows. He has in turns either lied about how much he has drunk or refused childishly to talk at all. By 5pm this evening, he was so tired/hung-over he went to bed, just as Kay was returning from school, and has been there ever since for the last 5 hours.

The park

There are lots of parks in London. Many of our American visitors in particular always comment on the amount of greenery there is in our large city. In central London there are the well-known large parks such as Hyde Park, St James' Park, Green Park, Regents Park and so on, but farther out in every suburb there are many many more local ones. Our part of London is no exception; there are at least four parks within a mile of where I live and even more to add within a two-mile radius. Two of them are, I suppose, my most favourite, but as different from one another as chalk and cheese. Having had Snoopy, our loveable dog for ten years now, I have come to frequent those parks regularly and know them intimately.

One park is wild and deliberately kept as natural as is possible (without the threat of being sued by someone tripping over a log!) It has vast acres of woodland complete with bluebell displays in Spring which attract horticulturists from far and wide, a stream and a couple of fields which have been turned into football pitches in winter and picnic sites in summer. I can usually walk a three-mile circuit of this park and get completely lost in the woodland. It is strange to think of being completely cut-off and completely alone in a city of ten million people. I suppose I visit this park about once a fortnight.

The other park I visit nearly every day. I drop Kay off at the bus stop for her journey to school and carry on with Snoopy to the park arriving at about 8.15 am. It is in the heart of the "village" within London where I live. It too has a much smaller wooded area, a lake, a children's playground, a cafe and horticultural beds, as well as hundreds of squirrels, dozens of geese, ducks, herons and a family of swans. I have in the past (see here) mentioned the dog fraternity here. It is again strange to think you are in a large city yet on speaking terms with every one you meet with a dog. After a while they become firm friends and you stop and chat with them daily. Someone will often pass and hand your dog a biscuit or ask how you are.

Over the years I have come to love this park. When we first moved back to London from Germany, some thirty years ago, Greg and I used to come as a newly married couple to walk the stresses of our jobs off, commune with nature and relish in the thought that we were not really in the hustle and bustle of London. We would take our American or German visitors there and delight in their surprise at so much greenery. I would sometimes go there on my own for solace when it felt like I would never ever be pregnant and my body-clock was on the verge of exploding. Then when we were blessed with the arrival of Kay, we would parade round the lake with the pram and later, as she toddled, show her the ducks and geese and teach her how to throw bread to them. We would scoop her up when she squealed as the geese ran after her and then gently place her in the box-seats of the toddler swings in the playground. Much later we watched

with bated breath as she climbed the stairs of the helter-skelter slide and hurtled downwards in a corkscrew of flailing limbs. When my father died, I would often go there and find my grief would melt with the ripple of the lake and the rushing of leaves; my heart would lift and be happy once more. When things with Greg got really bad, a good walk through the woodland or alongside the lake would cure my low moods or help Kay when she got stressed about it. We would sit by the lakeside
watching the sinking sun and consider what to do, if things got worse.

I sometimes walk round it and thank my lucky stars that I am still able, despite everything, to witness Mother Nature's work. If ever we should move away from this area, I shall miss the park more than anything else. I feel as if it has become a microcosm of my life and has witnessed the ups and downs of my marriage and my life. With the arrival of Snoopy, I have covered every inch of that park on a daily basis and know every tree, every bush, every bit of fence and railing. I see subtle changes in the seasons, arrivals and departures in the wildlife and in the staff that tend the land. I sometimes imagine I am the lady of the manor surveying her land and fuss over a broken branch or a piece of discarded litter.
Right now, the cherry trees are bursting into girlie pink, the ducks are forming pairs, the daffodils are expectantly waiting to fanfare that Spring has arrived and
nature's cycle in all shapes and forms is beginning all over again.

The Joys of Parenthood

For those who are contemplating becoming parents for the first time, preparation is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. The following are twelve simple tests for expectant parents to help them prepare for the real life experience of being a mother or father. Those who are already parents will be able to confirm the following advice. Don't say you have not been warned.

1. Women: to prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a bean bag down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After nine months, take out 10% of the beans. Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in your life that you have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds. At 10pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep. Get up at midnight and walk around the living room again with the bag until 1am. Set the alarm for 3am. As you cannot get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2.45am. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear Marmite onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds, then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?



5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

6. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet roll tube. Using only sticky tape and pieces of foil turn it into a Christmas cracker. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball and an empty packet of Coco Pops and make an excellent replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations. You have just qualified for a place on the playgroup committee (or the next presenter of Blue Peter, which at least comes with a salary).

7. Forget the Audi and buy a Ford. Don't think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a choc ice and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a 20p piece. Stick it in the cassette/CD player. Take a family size packet of chocolate biscuits. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.



8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the loo for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette-end, piece of used chewing gum and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up and go back to the house. You are just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times. I said, always repeat everything you say at least five times. I SAID, ALWAYS REPEAT EVERYTHING YOU SAID FIVE TIMES!!!!

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Weetabix and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane. Continue until half the Weetabix is gone. Tip the rest into your lap making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. Now you are ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

12. Learn the names of every character from Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, Teenage Mutant Turtles, Teletubbies etc. When you find yourself singing "Postman Pat" at work you finally qualify as a parent. Well done!

This was given to me when Kay was a toddler. It made me laugh then. It still does. By the way, no children were harmed in the compilation of these tests! Incidentally this is not based on my experience with Kay. She was an angel (apart from the first 8 years of not sleeping through a single night).

The Death of a Child

The news that Conservative leader David Cameron's six-year old child died yesterday is very sad news indeed and there is probably not a person in the country who would not want to extend their sympathy to the Cameron family. It was even enough to unite all political sides of the House of Commons yesterday - an event rare in itself. The loss of a child in any circumstances is a thing none of us can begin to understand fully unless it has happened to us, whether the child was able-bodied or handicapped, ill beforehand or not, in pain for a long time or a short time. Small wonder, then, that there is counselling for parents who have undergone such a tragedy. Or at least there is now, thank heavens.

The story got me musing about the case in my own family history. My maternal grandmother was born at the close of the 1800s in Bermondsey, South London. She was one of twelve children (they certainly had large families in those Victorian/Edwardian days) and life was hard and poor, but happy. As a young child she used to play on the newly-built Tower Bridge on the top level, 143 feet high, (which incidentally was closed to the public in 1910, as jumping off it was a very popular way for some people to commit suicide). Among the children she played with were some brothers and sisters from an equally very large family in the neighbourhood. She particularly fancied one of the boys as she grew up and they began to court (or date, as I suppose it is now known). Surprisingly for a working-class lad leaving school at 14, he managed to get a job as a junior in a bank across the river in the City and my Nan considered him to be a very good catch indeed. Unfortunately, events got in the way and he volunteered in 1914 to be one of the first to fight for King and Country in France and Flanders. He was only 21 in 1917 when a bomb exploded and shattered his leg and eye, causing his part in the war to be over, as he had to have that eye removed. My Nan still thought he was a good catch, though, and they married after the war. He had returned to his job in the bank but because he only had the one eye left, he found it very hard to add up very long columns of figures in small hand-writing (adding up in his head, mind you - no calculators then, you know). The strain on his good eye was such that he was having bad headaches and could not cope. He had no option but to leave the bank and try to seek work elsewhere but with only one eye, bad headaches and the moving shrapnel in his body, it was difficult for him to get suitable work in an already depressed post-war era.


By that time, my Nan and Granddad had three daughters. In early 1925 in a pea-souper fog all three children (aged 3 years, 18-months and 6-weeks) went



down with whooping cough and double pneumonia. There were no antibiotics in those days, so infection was either something you fought on your own or surrendered to. The three children were admitted to hospital, but sadly the 6-week-old and the the three-year-old died within days of one another IN THE SAME WEEK. Only the 18-month-old (my mother) miraculously survived, although it left her with a weakened heart for the rest of her life. My grandmother and grandfather must have felt beside themselves. There was no counselling in those days... you just had to gather your skirts and carry on. I remember my Nan telling me years later that the worst thing she found to deal with was when friends or neighbours would actually cross the street to avoid talking to her, as they did not know what to say. If only they could have raised the subject with her and mentioned the children's names, she would have been comforted, but instead they shunned her and would not bring the subject up at all, as if the children never existed. Looking back, I don't know how my grandmother managed to cope. My grandfather, much later, had a job he could immerse himself in, but my grandmother was on her own at home bringing up her surviving child. In middle-age, she moved from house to house never settling. If she could not move house, she would move the rooms around,swapping the bedroom for the lounge and vice versa. Or if she could not do that, she would move furniture around within a room. All signs of restlessness and a troubled mind. In her old age she was almost agoraphobic, refusing to go out, even to buy food, and would rely on her husband or, when he died, my mother to do it for her.

To lose two children in a single week must have been dreadful for her to bear all her life, but I seldom heard her speak of it. The only hint of what she must have been going through was a very large, old sepia photo (of her three-year-old daughter - I don't suppose she even had time to get a single photo of the six-week-old) which always hung larger than life in a gilt frame over the mantelpiece of her bedroom. Now my grandmother is dead, that picture is now wrapped in brown paper and resides in a cupboard under my mother's stairs. It is something my mother will never part with as it is all she has of her older sister. I doubt I shall ever be able to part with it, when time comes for me to take the picture over. It is the legacy of my grandparent's grief which is still affecting generations almost eighty-five years later.