Middling Meltdown

I do not enjoy running (jogging/shuffling whatever you want to call it). I like getting the kit on because I think "Excellent! You're really going to do it - look at you, you look the part! Now you've got that sports bra contraption on (it really is quite a feat) then there's no stopping you!" I enjoy leaving the house (and not just in lockdown, I enjoyed that bit since I started) and I enjoy the end. The bit in between is not enjoyable. It is not fun. It is a mental battle of endurance which I usually win. The minute I pick up the pace from a walk (yes there IS a discernible difference thank you very much) my brain begins the 30 minute long argument letting me know that I can't do it and that I should stop and walk and that it hurts and it's not natural for someone so heavy to keep lifting their body up and down in this manner, and even though I've done it before that this time it isn't going to work so just stop at 1k and no one need know.

I have been hoping that at some point in the last four months I would suddenly realise that I am enjoying it and that I am one of those people who loves running. That moment hasn't come. I also don't seem to have suddenly been bestowed with the ability to run for any amount of time, which I also thought would suddenly appear. I thought that once I 'cracked' it, I'd be able to run for hours, or until I got bored, whichever came first, and look like the other runners I see who look like they could run to Scotland in a day and not be affected, but sadly that is still not the case. I can keep going until I lose the battle of my body and brain and they both have a quick meeting (zoom obviously) and conclude that enough is enough and they need to put an end to this madness before I collapse. However, I keep on going out and doing it again. And that feels like a win, and that is what I enjoy.

Having said that, thanks to the loss of my running leggings after forcing a child to help with at least some of the sodding endless household chores (I accidentally wrote househole which is actually a far more accurate description of my home right now) and two unfortunate accidents for the little ones on my last two runs, I had put off going for nearly two weeks. (A lot of twos there). And then on Thursday afternoon I walked in to find my kitchen table looked like this:

The rest of the house was no better. It was hard to find the floor in at least three other rooms. And I think I reached what could best be described as 'breaking point'. On Friday morning I did quite a bit of angry shouting and scared all the small people. I'm not a fan of this way of parenting, and I know more 'woke' people would prefer me to get down on their level, hug them and then whisper in their ears about how they feel and what led them to being such selfish dick heads, but I didn't. I YELLED. And to all the nay sayers - it worked. We had a very productive few hours of school work (they had reduced their tolerance for working to almost nothing which was another of my frustrations) and then, I exited the house and went for my shuffling joggy run thing. And I hated it. Obviously. It was harder because I hadn't been for a while (and it turns out I had a brewing infection in the cut in my leg which probably didn't help) but, something in the act of being outside in the swirly weather with the threat of rain looming overhead, and doing the slowest 3k known to man, helped re-set my brain. Upon my return I no longer wanted to push my husband under the nearest bus, or drive somewhere far far away and leave the messiest children on the side of the road before driving away at speed. I was nice again. I have no idea what mystical power hurting yourself and getting sweaty does, (and please don't ever bother telling me, I prefer to keep it mystical) but it did.

There's quite a bit to unpick in that picture. Did you clock the hay in a cardboard box under the table? That was one of the many toys no. 4 child made for the guinea pigs. There were two more home made cardboard toys in the fridge which contained leafy vegetables as well as hay (lucky me!) There were old socks stuffed with hay that are now with the guinea pigs. There was a lot of hay out of sight on the floor and in other random places as it must have travelled on the feet of the small people in to other rooms. The glue was part of the great slime experiment of 2020. That glue was on handles, headphones, light switches, tv remotes, the bath and most annoyingly, in their hair. The paint was used to decorate our salt dough creations to hang on our 'occasion' tree which was looking sad and lonely as it was now bereft of easter eggs. There was a lot going on at once. My brain boiled over. What with the constant demands for food and attempting to catch everyone before they grab another piece of fruit or forage in the treat cupboard for biscuits (or biscuit crumbs because a more enterprising sibling has got there first) and the nagging doubt that I was doing a particularly shoddy job of parenting now that my Lockdown Lethargy was at its peak, it wasn't hard to see why I had had enough.

One of the accidents that happened during a run was due to some fairly shitty parenting on my part. Normally I can brush off my crappier parenting and forget it and move on, but just before Easter I went for a run (managed my PB which was very exciting) and upon my return I was greeted with the news that my youngest, at 4, had decided to heat up her own hot chocolate in the microwave after I had left, and had made the liquid scalding hot. She then attempted to drink it. Luckily she spat it out but the burns to her lip and tongue were fairly bad and after an hour of trying to console her and cool the area down, she was still screaming if the cold drink or ice were removed from the affected area. 111 advised we went to A and E and the gut twisting guilt of how crappy I had been to leave a 4 year old for half an hour was now going to have to be explained further afield.  She wasn't 'alone'. There were plenty of people in the house, even her father who had been upstairs at the time, but no one was actually with her at the time and I hadn't alerted anyone to the fact that she needed supervision because, she doesn't usually. With this number of people in the house, she is confident enough for me to leave and for her to find another human if she needs anything. However this time my luck ran out (pun intended) and she could have been seriously injured which was quite sobering. Once we got to the hospital, the shock of everyone wearing masks gave her something else to worry about and when she was gifted her very own mask, she pretty quickly didn't need the cold drink on her lips constantly and the doctor swiftly assessed she was fine to go home as she was in no real danger. (Luckily spitting it out had meant that she wasn't likely to have any swelling in her throat causing difficulty breathing which is I think, why we were told to go up there). I bought her a big chocolate bunny to ease my guilt for 'being brave' and she arrived home to a heroes welcome. All was well that ends well. But the guilt I felt hasn't ended and I torture myself thinking 'what could have been'.

However, thanks to me getting over it sufficiently to go on my life saving run, some antibiotics for my diseased and rather painful leg, some time without the little ones, and the return of my normal brain, my house is now back under control. You can see the floor in ALL rooms. And the kitchen table is clear and clean. K is now officially furloughed so is no longer observing strict working hours in the study, so he is (technically) now on hand to help all day every day (in reality he has already found two projects outside that desperately need his undivided attention and annoyingly, actually need doing) but at least he can drop those in order to remove the younger ones from my side for a few hours at a time on various outdoor pursuits. I feel as if there may well be an end in sight as talks of easing lockdown restrictions are mooted and I have even managed to steam clean the grout in my kitchen. SUCH JOY. It is hard to put in to words, such is the pleasure I derived from it. The whole floor now looks lighter and the entire room feels cleaner. FYI steam is an excellent way of removing glue from everything as well - floors, tables, handles, bins, baths etc. I am now a massive steam fan. 

When I was a young teen (or thereabouts) my mum drove me to my piano teacher's house for a lesson (this was abnormal as she usually came to our house) the teacher was so excited when we arrived as she had JUST ordered a device from Lakelands or similar, that would stir things in the microwave whilst simultaneously heating said liquid. She talked of how baked beans would no longer be cold in the middle and hot on the outside and her eyes sparkled and her smile, which was ordinarily large, was huge. I was agog. Not only did we not have a microwave at home so I hadn't a clue what she was on about, but I was also absolutely amazed that anyone could be so incredibly dull that the imminent arrival of a baked bean stirrer would excite them. Yesterday, as I would NOT SHUT UP about my clean grout and the general joy of steam, I became aware that *this* was my baked bean microwave stirrer. I thought finally cleaning my kitchen floor grout would pull me out of my 'rock bottom' moment but weirdly, it has catapulted me in to another sort of rock bottom. I have finally reached peak dull.

I may post before and after pictures if you're very good. Because I'm fairly sure we're all at peak dull now so you'll probably appreciate it. For now, you can appreciate our Saltdough Homage to Lockdown:

Another Week

We have survived another week. This Friday will mark an entire school summer holiday's worth of staying at home. And as much as I care for my fellow man and friends and family, very soon my feelings of care and compassion for pretty much anyone are going to fly out the window and quite frankly it will be every man for himself. I know Anne Frank survived for years in a room smaller than our bedroom living in fear for her life, and I am being very pathetic, but clearly she was a far better woman than I. I'll admit it, I'm weak, pampered, entitled and spoilt, but I just want the children to LEAVE THE HOUSE (without me). I feel if I just keep saying it over and over and over and over and over again, like a tired toddler who doesn't like the answer they've been given the first 400 times, (or indeed like the tired nearly five year old who just had a half an hour tantrum over not wanting to go to bed), I will eventually get my way. It has worked many, many times for the tired toddlers so it's worth a shot.

This week there is slime everywhere.  Child number four has been at the kitchen table like the nutty professor squirting shaving foam and pouring liquid and glue in to a big bowl and cackling madly as she stirs fervently trying to get the correct consistency. We have used every suitable container we can find to house all of her many creations and there are sticky remnants of each of them covering most of the kitchen, a number of sinks and most frustratingly, a patch of our playroom ceiling. I have almost lost the ability to care anymore. Things are so lax here, the same child came to me yesterday to tell me that she'd left it too late to get to the loo and then was befuddled by the buttons on her onesie so just had to sit on the loo and wee through it. I wasn't to worry though, as she didn't get any on the floor and had had the foresight to take off the onesie after she'd relieved herself, and put it in the washing machine. She is going to be 8 years old this summer. I didn't even get cross. I was just grateful there wasn't a load of wee on the floor for me to clean up.

HOWEVER, even though I just want to sit here and moan on and on (and on and on), I was determined to be more positive this week. SO to that end I shall recommence my Reasons To Be Cheerful and look to the upsides of Lockdown...

RTBC Numero Uno - No unexpected visitors

Eleventy billion years ago BC (before Corona) when we were allowed out and people were allowed in, and I had a working Mac keyboard and trips to the cinema weren't a distant dream, our internet stopped working again. The fear of it never coming back on again after the Dark Ages period we had post Storm Dennis, meant I wasted no time in ringing BT to report the fault and find out how long my suffering would last this time. As it turned out, the half an hour I spent on the phone to them was a total waste of my time as, in a shocking lack of communication, it turns out some engineers were just fixing a fault further up the road and would be turning it back on again after a few hours. Even so, a BT Engineer dutifully rang me a few hours later and announced that he would be coming to check out my fault. He was but minutes away. I jumped up, assessed the kitchen - quickly cleared the 'waiting area' above the dishwasher in to the sink, shoved the shoes away, removed the piles of washing and swept a bit to make it look like a 'normal' house. He came in and I showed him to the home hub and telephone line and said it was all ok now and he could pop off on his merry way as he'd had a wasted journey. He replied that he couldn't leave yet as he needed to see where the BT line came in to the house as the job had been logged 'on the system' and he had to check it all out before he could sign it off. I begged him not to see it and that we could all just pretend and move on. But he was adamant that he couldn't leave without a look.

The problem was, that our BT line was housed within the 'Scary Cupboard' thusly named because it is, 99% of the time, a fairly scary place. The scary cupboard contains the hatch to the cellar, 455 coats (approx) 25,000 pairs of shoes (rounding down), sleeping bags, roller skates, back packs and what I might politely refer to as miscellaneous items but could also be called, a load of crap. At various times I have possessed the zeal required to sort out the 4 foot by 8 foot space in to some semblance of order and sense. However, over time, the cupboard reverts back to its natural state and at the time of the BT visit, it was entirely inaccessible to anyone but the cat. A lot of the depth to the mess was coats - my eldest child is the lucky recipient of many fabulous hand me down coats, as well as a keen collector herself, and at last count, possessed somewhere in the region of 22. When she has finished wearing one, she opens the cupboard and just chucks it on to the assembled heap, so by the time I opened the door to display my hidden shame, the under-layer of bags and detritus was now covered in a huge pile of coats so we were met with a solid wall of 'stuff' which measured about 3 foot deep. 

Naturally I made light of the situation and the engineer tried to assure me that he sees things like this 'all the time' which was one of the biggest lies I think anyone has ever told. He went out to his van and I set about trying to dig him a path in to the deep dark recesses of the cupboard, where the BT box lived. A few items in and I realised that there was *quite* a pungent smell emanating from the heap in front of me. It was sadly and very unmistakably, the delightful smell of cat urine. Yes, there can be no finer or ever lasting smell, than the piss of a cat. There was nothing I could do at this point, to mask the dreadfulness of the situation, so I just kept moving things in to the kitchen and as he walked back in, I had to confess that not only was I going to be unable to clear the floor sufficiently, but that whilst he was in there, he was going to be able to enjoy the heady scent of old cat wee. AGAIN, the lying and wonderful man assured me 'it was fine'. Mercifully he was very long of leg so he managed to stride over the remaining obstacles in one deft stride and set to work. I stood watching him at the sink, frantically washing up to try and prove that I wasn't totally inept and trying to make him a cup of coffee from some old ground coffee I found in the freezer which he would have to take black as we had no milk. Again, he assured me it was fine and managed a very polite few sips. I gave him the very best customer feedback his feedback survey allowed.

Luckily, the humiliation of that visit prompted me in to action and I can happily report that the scary cupboard is now only scary thanks to there being no natural daylight, quite a few cobwebs and a number of holes in the plasterboard ceiling where K attempted to find the source of a leaky shower. The source of the feline effluence was revealed to be a RipCurl backpack which has now been disposed of and you can easily access any coat you fancy wearing because you can actually walk inside the cupboard! I was so pleased with my progress I actually went so far as to retrieve the man's mobile number from the home phone and was contemplating texting him with an update re the smell and accessibility.  I spent a good few days being on the cusp of a text but I worried it would seem a bit odd (and also I couldn't get the cupboard to look that good in the photo I wanted to send along with it). Although I'm not sure what is worse, him thinking of me as some weird desperate housewife sending unsolicited pics of my 'scary cupboard' or worrying that he tells all the other BT engineers about it not knowing that it's now a beacon of coat cupboard normality. (ish)

To that end, my RTBC is that there is something wonderfully liberating about the absolute certainty that no one is going to 'pop over' and catch us in our natural habitat. When I know someone is coming, I obviously make sure that all the surfaces are clear, the floor is swept, the endless washing piles waiting to be sorted are stored out of sight upstairs, there is bleach in the loo, the shoe piles are stuffed in the scary cupboard and basically we look, to all intents and purposes, like a very normal family in a normal house. I'm lucky that I do not suffer with the burdens of OCD or Neatness and I am fully able to live in quite a muddle without it affecting me to any great extent therefore people 'popping over' can discover us in varying degrees of chaos - from 'under control ' to 'totally losing the battle'. I am easily able to go to bed leaving a mess downstairs because I feel I'll be more able to mentally deal with it in the morning. I know of some people who can't leave the house or go to bed if there is so much as a dirty cup on the worktop. I would never ever leave the house or get enough sleep if that was the case here, with no cleaner, seven of us in one house and me (formerly) working during most school hours, the housekeeping is done on a triage basis - the most urgent is dealt with immediately and then the rest is left until it moves up the urgency list. Although if the children ever do leave the house without me again, I now have no work to do so maybe once we're released, I can transform in to the type of person who welcomes unexpected guests in to a beautifully fragrant and tidy house with proper coffee and milk for them to drink.


RTBC Numero Dos - Clothing liberation

Fairly quickly the fun of wearing my pink velour loungewear wore thin and actually even though wearing your pyjamas all day sounds fun, it begins to feel squalid and a bit grotty a few days on, so I have now moved on to my clothing liberation phase. I am wearing things in my wardrobe that I would normally worry about wearing in the outside world or only wear with a jacket or cardigan to cover my arms/hide under. Dresses, skirts and tops I have rarely worn are suddenly experiencing a renaissance and are no longer gathering dust in my wardrobe. I have even started tucking my tops in to skirts (I am morbidly afraid of anyone noticing my rotund middle and saggy stomach so always ensure the area is fully covered by a top) and the older girls said I looked 'young' which was rather edifying. Having spent almost all of my years worrying how people see my body, it is rather lovely to just enjoy putting clothes on it and not having to worry about what anyone thinks. It's still quite the shock when I catch myself in the mirror, but I am hoping that I will get used to that as the time goes on.

My youngest is also enjoying being free of the confines of uniform and the freedom of self expression on the clothing front. At nearly 5, she already has an extremely strong sense of self and a desperation to look 'grown up'.  For the last few days she has been sporting skin tight jeggings and a leopard print training bra she managed to find somewhere in the piles of clothing that are stashed about the place. She even wears the bra back to front so the covering at the front is minimal. She cuts quite a dash on our bike rides around the village. Today she suddenly jumped off her bike and ran towards a visibility mirror outside someone's drive and wiggled her body so she could enjoy her scantily clad reflection. Coupled with her Bratz/Barbie/Pretty Women stylings, she has also never really been a fan of wearing knickers - ever since she started wearing them. Without anyone insisting that she absolutely has to don them, she hasn't worn any for weeks on end.

There have been many incidents of her legendary disdain for covering her nether regions. For her first ever ballet lesson when she was 2, we didn't have the required leotard so she wore a lovely pink ballet dress. With her hair up and her ballet shoes on, she looked precisely like a very cute little baby ballet dancer. It wasn't until the class started on their 'floor work' with legs spread out to the sides, that the other parents present, the ballet teacher and I realised she had chosen not to add the pants to the ensemble I had left out for her, and I in my haste to leave the house, hadn't checked. The ballet teacher let her keep her legs together after that and my eldest ran to the car to see if any of the emergency pairs we keep in there were still around (sadly not as it turns out). There have been countless more knicker free incidents - parties, playdates, park trips and even going to school without them on. It's ok when she's wearing tights as she delights in hiding the fact she is commando from any helpful TA who might try to be-knicker her with a spare pair (we are now the proud owner of countless pairs I one day hope to return to the school) but when she is in socks I do try and remember to check before she leaves the car.

So my RTBC is that not only do I get to be vaguely experimental in my daily looks, but I have also not had to worry about having a pair of spare pants on me for so long, I have almost forgotten what it feels like.


And with that, I shall have to leave you to your day/night and save more RTBC for my next post as I feel I have taken up more than enough of your time. It's highly unlikely we will be released any time soon, regardless of how many times I whine and wail about it, or however many times Dot tries to flash the locals, so I doubt they will lose their relevance. And that's absolutely FINE. Obviously.

One Month And Counting

At the start of this whole social experiment, I had a doctor's appointment over the phone in place of a check up for a child. After going over the reason for the call she asked what the child, (13 year old boy) was intending do with 'this time' and mused that future University admissions interviews might ask what this generation did with the 'opportunity' of time that has been gifted to them. In my fresh faced naiveté I thought what an excellent and insightful thought she had had and spoke earnestly with said teenage boy about the idea of him actually properly learning Russian, a skill he has dabbled with here and there and which would surely deeply impress any university admissions interviewer. We both agreed this was an excellent idea. Feeling slightly smug, I thought what a great opportunity for him and we skipped off in to the great blue future yonder.

FAST FORWARD IN TO SAID future. The most I could hope for now is that the teenage boy in question manages to spend more than 2 hours each day, out of his bed. That he manages to find any interest that interests him for any prolonged period of time that isn't on his phone or the PS4 and that he manages to achieve at least 25% of the work he has been set from school. There is bugger all chance of any language being learned, even the two he is being educationally guided on courtesy of his hard working school teachers. His gift of time has been unquestionably and unutterably squandered and there is no hope of a change in his behaviour (I honestly promise you I have tried), in fact I imagine it will only get worse.

To be honest, I'm not sure his enthusiasm was entirely there to begin with. I think he was probably humouring me so that I would leave his room quickly and not moan about the mess or ask him to do anything else like learn Mandarin in his spare time.  Although he has been happy enough to sit down with me most nights and do some quite dull puzzles my mother managed to dig out for us, so I suppose that's something. I wonder if managing a 1000 piece puzzle with your mother during the great lockdown of 2020 is something that would impress Universities? I shall keep my fingers crossed on that one.

I can't entirely blame him for his lacklustre approach to this gift of endless time. My enthusiasm seems to have waned quite a bit too in the last few days.  Knowing my propensity towards laziness and my general, 'Why do something today that can be put off until tomorrow' attitude, I took the first few weeks by the horns and set myself urgent tasks and jobs that I had to achieve in order to keep me focused and busy every day. (I wish one of those had been to steam clean the kitchen floor grout - I was saving it for a special occasion, as you do, and now school is back in session I doubt it will ever be achieved).  Then we had the lovely Easter Weekend. A glorious four days of sun, chocolate (not so much for me as the Easter Bunny seemingly forgot about me), fun outside and general nice times. I wrote to you and felt grateful for so many things. Now I'm here. My brain doesn't seem so focused on being grateful. It just feels a bit 'MEH' about most things. Although you know what it does care about? Food. Glorious food. All the live long day.

For three weeks I was 'good'. I listened to people say they were over eating and couldn't keep away from the fridge and thanked my lucky stars that I was still very much in control, running regularly and managing to stay busy enough that I even managed to lose a bit. Hooray! And then, I became exceedingly hungry.  And I lost my running leggings. (I don't know how but somehow asking Ted to sort the washing has resulted in me not being able to find them for a week....) I have only been on one run this week. A painfully slow 3k in unsuitable leg attire. I am still enjoying quite a few aspects of this new way of life, but equally, I desperately want to get out, see people, see the sea, do something, anything to give me a change of scene.  My emotional state seems to vary from hour to hour. Sometimes I think 'Oooh this is quite fun! I'm reading a book in the sun with a cup of tea. It's really not so bad, stop moaning and get a grip woman!' and then shortly afterwards I'm at 'THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD AND IT WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER END'.

For me, it's very similar to the end of pregnancy. I have been overdue with all five. With all five, I have hoped for an early exit. I do not enjoy the end of pregnancy (or for that matter the start) it is long, heavy and usually hot. The 'end' for me is the last 6-8 weeks. By that time I am uncomfortably large, I have people asking me 'how much longer' and 'are you sure there's only one in there' all the time.  I am always super grateful that I am well, that the baby is well, that I was able to get pregnant in the first place and that I'm able to carry them without too much ado BUT, man, what I wouldn't have given for a weekend off. A whole 48 hours where I could take off the 'bump', where I could not have to get up 3 times in a night to wee, where i didn't dream of wearing adult nappies to stop the constant need for going to the sodding f'ing loo, where I didn't feel the pain of the weight on my back and I didn't breathe like an elephant on a jog every time I walked upstairs. I wanted to bend over and joyfully pick things up on the floor by bending forward and without making hideous noises and not dream about sitting or lying down all the live long day. I just wanted to take the bump off and hand it to someone for safe keeping until I had 'regrouped' enough to carry on carrying a baby to full term. I feel exactly the same now. 'Just' six weeks feels as endless as it does in late pregnancy and there comes a point where even with the weight of all the medical and scientific bods reassuring you that it must, you think that it will never, ever, ever end and you will just have to be pregnant forever.

I think 48 hours away from it all is all I need. I just need to hand 'it' over for a few days and go somewhere to laugh, drink and eat with my friends, go for long walks by the sea and come back, recharged and ready to go. I certainly need my willpower back. FYI My willpower has vanished entirely. (I think my willpower and my enthusiasm have buggered off for my weekend away and just couldn't face coming back because they were having too much fun). Up until this week I was managing to carry on with this silly 16:8 plan where you eat all your meals in an 8 hour window and then 'fast' for the other 16. It was relatively easy. Now, I am doing more and more days where I allow myself a day 'off' and use the 16 hours of the day that I am awake, to eat. It's not ideal.

But then I've always been amazed I have any willpower at all. People assume that those on the larger side of life have 'no willpower' - it's what the fat police say all the time - 'they have no self control'. But I can assure you that it is willpower alone that keeps me from living my dream life of just sitting on my arse, watching tv and eating all the live long day. The willpower it takes for me NOT to eat everything I want, every time I want it, is stupendous - it's only down to this miraculous power that I am not 35 stone and laying in my bed in need of carers to bathe me with a flannel, only to discover I've managed to lose a remote control in one of my many fat crevices and skin has grown over it (I read about that once and I was grossed out and equally fascinated and mildly in awe). You think I'm joking - SO NOT. I love food, I love eating, I love thinking about eating and all I want to do is eat. Now that I spend (what feels like) 24/7 in the kitchen making food for people, it is as if a dam has burst and my brain has thought - she's in the house all day every day, she must finally be living her dream life and be one of Britain's 40 Stone Shut Ins and we must make her eat, constantly in order to keep her dream alive! 

I jest. A bit. I'm not quite that bad. Luckily, I am still vain enough to not actually want to be airlifted out of my house by firemen when I need to go to a hospital appointment and so I will inevitably get a grip and put a lock on the fridge and the cupboards at some point in the very near future. I think it is just the unknown future, it unnerves me. I need a Due Date. I need to know that it will have to stop at least two weeks after the Due Date and that things can then go back to 'normal'. This never ending, not knowingness is not helping my usually happy state of mind. I'm not sure the start of the summer term of schooling is helping much either. I am dreading tomorrow. Although at least it does give me a modicum of certainty. I know for certain that it will be hard work, that there will be tears and tantrums and that it will be over by 4pm where I can have an early tea time Gin because there aren't any sodding after school clubs to get to.  And of course that no one will be learning Russian...   до скорого

The Bright Side

There is a quirk peculiar to the British (possibly others but in all honesty I am entirely ignorant of almost all other cultures so I can't tell you with any certainty if it is only the Brits who suffer) which forces them to remind you things aren't that bad once you tell them something bad has happened to you. We seem to have an inherent need to mitigate the bad thing to make it seem slightly less bad. I suspect it comes from our Stiff Upper Lip ethos, which means we are keen to 'jolly' a person along who may be suffering, to ensure they don't suddenly burst in to a heap of emotional tears we are ill equipped to handle.  Although it could be because no one likes to talk about miserable stuff or in my case, because I genuinely want to stop someone feeling so bad, or maybe a mixture of all three. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here are some excellent examples:

'My grandma died'
'Oh that's sad - She was 90 so at least she enjoyed a good long life',

'I've broken my arm'
'Oh dear, you're lucky it wasn't your leg so you can still get about!'

'My house has burnt down'
'Gosh that's terrible, it's so fortunate you were all out at the time - it doesn't bear thinking about the alternative'

'I've lost my job'
Thank goodness it wasn't before Christmas' (Christmas is always a key one - if your bad thing happened just after Christmas then that is extremely 'fortunate').

'I'm terrifically ill'
'Oh no, thank goodness it wasn't over Christmas/on your holiday/birthday/you can just stay in bed and get better'

I am absolutely the worst (or best depending on how you look at it) at this particular quirk. I cannot leave a statement about something shitty that has happened to someone, without immediately trying to counter with a bright side. Which is so odd because I am fully aware of how annoying it is. My lovely dad dropped dead from a heart attack two weeks before I gave birth to my first child after a hideous and long labour which ended in an emergency C section under general anaesthetic because she was well and truly stuck in there (honestly they tried EVERYTHING, hormone drug, what felt like 20 billion hours of pushing and ventouse - none of which could force her down that canal). I sat/lay in my hospital bed for 3 days on a catheter, unable to move much or it turns out, sufficiently  breastfeed my daughter, and I received emails, texts and well wishers who were keen to remind me that 'it was all part of the great circle of life'. 'At least you have your baby now' was basically the message - that has balanced the books nicely - Negative, your dad is dead: Positive, you now have a baby. I know that each and every one of them meant well, I did not take any offence, but I can categorically tell you, that having a baby that isn't feeding on your sore and pitiful nipples after an emergency C section on top of attending your father's untimely funeral the week before - does in NO WAY make up for losing a beloved parent. However, I never once challenged the 'circle of life' well wishers as I didn't want to upset them. It was all terrifically British.

I am increasingly finding that people are doing the same with this great Pandemic of ours. 'Thank Goodness it wasn't over Christmas ' (imagine the screaming face emoji here), 'Thank goodness it's spring and the days are getting lighter - imagine if it had been cold and dark!', 'Aren't we lucky that we all get to spend time together as a family', 'Don't think of it as being stuck at home, think of it as being safe at home', 'Thank goodness we have the countryside', 'Imagine if it was 30 years ago and we didn't have the internet!' 'Thank goodness you have a house and garden, imagine being stuck in a little flat in a tower block in London with 20 billion children that are all breast feeding and you're blind and in a wheelchair' (OK I made the last one up). And true to form, I am the absolute best/worst at this game. My brain is constantly thinking of all the ways this could be worse for us/me.

The main and most remote and ridiculous of these is my 'close shave' thoughts over my GCSEs which I took 25 years ago. I cannot stop worrying about all those teenagers who perhaps didn't take their mock GCSEs as seriously as they ought, because no one could have foreseen that those marks would be used towards their actual GCSE results. In my case in particular, my Spanish mock exam exposed my deep and fundamental lack of knowledge and I don't think I even had a grade for my mock - it was that bad. I shall never ever be able to forget the anger in my teacher's face when she pulled me in to a classroom and spent quite a bit of time yelling at me as I sat on a wooden chair, pale faced and racked with guilt as her face became redder and redder and there was almost actual steam coming out of her ears. I had up to that point found her and my lack of Spanish knowledge a source of some amusement, so when I got to one of the early questions in the exam, which asked me to 'walk in to a police station and explain to the police that you have lost your bag', I can vividly remember the feeling of not knowing a single word to help, even the word for police. So, feeling it was inappropriate to leave the entire section blank, I did what any Brit Abroad would do and invented my own hybrid language. My now legendary attempt at an answer included the immortal line, 'Mi losto mi handbagio'. That line in particular made her more cross than I thought it was possible for a teacher to be at a child.  Every day since I discovered that they had cancelled the GCSE exams for this year, I have thanked my lucky stars that it wasn't 25 years ago and that I had the chance to learn a sufficient amount of Spanish between my mock and actual exam and make that teacher exceedingly happy with a respectable B grade.

The next is an almost giddy happiness that we hadn't booked a holiday abroad this year. I have spent much of the last decade feeling guilty that I have failed my children so magnificently because I haven't managed to take them abroad for so much as a 2 star hotel-Benidorm-package-holiday. They haven't even crossed the channel to France. 4 of them don't even have passports. But at the beginning of this year I was determined to 'right' this 'wrong' and finally get them all on to foreign soil - 2020 was, after all, going to be an excellent year for us. I had found a few options, one with flights to a beautiful hotel in Spain courtesy of my friend's timeshare option, and the other a nice chalet on a campsite in France. It was only K's reluctance to part with a single solitary pound of cash towards either that saved us from losing out because I wouldn't have thought to buy travel insurance in advance so I would imagine that we would have lost all the money we had invested. Not to mention some serious First World Disappointment from me and the children. What makes me even merrier, is that nobody is going abroad. As a poor, impoverished, mother of many, it can sometimes happen that I *may* view the pictures on Insta or FB of my friend's foreign holiday jaunts with just a tinge of jealousy. I imagine them luxuriating in their foreign hotel/villa luxury, with delicious meals and waiters and housekeepers, as I sit outside my tent/rented house in the UK, exhausted and weary after another day of doing exactly what I do at home, but in slightly different or harder surroundings. It's not that I don't enjoy them - I have absolutely LOVED every one of our family holidays. But they are hard work and not what I would consider a 'holiday' for me.

Particularly the last one which saw me flying solo with the children to a campsite in the Isle of Wight, only to be greeted by gale force winds on the first night, which subsequently broke our tent. Not to be defeated, the children and I found a way to make it work with some abandoned old poles and, with a little help from the friendly neighbours, we got it back up again and we soldiered on to have a very enjoyable (but as I may have previously mentioned) fairly tiring holiday. So the fact that people can't bugger off to Lake Garda, Croatia, Barbados, the South of France or in fact ANYWHERE - makes me just a little bit pleased as punch. I'm not proud of this fact. But it's just that it's nice that we're all pretty much in the same boat. Some boats are bigger and nicer, with better gardens, naturally, and some are actual boats, but we're all in one and that helps me.

I could go on and on - thank Goodness Bea, my eldest, got to go on her school ski trip at half term - imagine how heartbreaking it would have been to finally finish those sodding monthly instalments I could never afford only for her to be cruelly robbed of the opportunity at the last minute; thank goodness we don't have a small toddler requiring constant entertainment/saving from certain death all the live long day (Ted, my third child was particularly in my mind with this one, he was, what one might describe as a 'handful'); thank goodness we're not in our old house in London with a tiny garden and neighbours that hated noises of children; thank goodness I like arts and crafts and am not OCD; thank goodness K didn't lose his job too and we still have one income coming in; thank goodness we paid most of our hideous electricity bill off before I lost all my income; thank goodness I'm not about to have a baby; thank goodness we don't have 20 children in the house like the mad Radford family; thank goodness I took up running a few months ago so I have a legitimate reason to leave the house alone and escape without question whenever I like and all I have to do is put leggings and trainers on..... I could come up with these all night. But all things considered, this is truly the best time a bad thing could happen to us as a family and my brain is acutely aware of our luck. And the last week has really been akin to a normal holiday for us - the weather, the lack of the dreaded school work emails, the bike rides, camp outs, baking, jumping (the children are really and truly making my point for me with the trampoline - I couldn't have asked them to make more of a point to K about just how wrong he was), making, marshmallow roasting, swimming (we got our converted-fish-pond-pool up and running in time for the hot weather) and general japery have been exceedingly enjoyable - I've even started to read my latest remote Book Club book whilst sunbathing.  The fact that this holiday is mandatory and hasn't cost anything (if you don't count the £150 trampoline) is even better.

Although I will leave you with one negative my brain is making me relive over and over and over again, just to ensure my embarrassment stays at a peak. The problem with continuing my running/shuffling during lockdown means that I now pass a number of people on my run/shuffle, as they too, enjoy their hour of exercise. All very socially distant from one another, obviously. On one of the first truly sunny and warm days this week, there were more people out and about in our little village than I have ever seen out on foot. I had said 'morning' to a great many people by the time I was finally doing my warm down walk on the road to our house. I said 'hello' and 'morning' to a few more people until just as I approached our drive, a very smiley couple who I think live slightly further down our road, said another 'good morning' to me, I responded again and then she spoke once more, and for the life of me I cannot fathom how I thought this, considering my red, sweaty and legginged state, but I swear I heard her say, 'you look lovely'. Now. I do not know this woman. I clearly didn't look anything like lovely in my present state even if her previous encounter of me had been whilst I was giving birth to a 20 pound horse, but I didn't think any of that. I thought, she just told me I look lovely, so I replied 'Thank you'. As she passed me by and I walked on to our drive, I realised with a moment of clarity I wish I had had 30 seconds earlier, that she had said 'Isn't it lovely' as she raised her smile and hands to the air and was clearly referring to the quite lovely warm weather. That made an awful lot more sense. So then I had to decide whether to to turn round and explain why I had said 'thank you' which, on reflection, I decided would be even more awkward. So I kept walking and now all I can think over and over again is that one of my neighbours is spending her days wondering why a person would thank her for saying how lovely the weather was.

Until next week then my friends, may the sun continue to shine, the children continue to jump and K and Marie Kondo continue to be wrong. I am MOST thankful for that.  xxxxxx

LOCKDOWN - END OF WEEK TWO

The Easter holidays are now in session. This means that all day every day, nobody feels they need to follow any timetable or do anything helpful and or useful. The Primary school sent their last work missives last Wednesday so I am now four days in to being a full time, stay-at-home Child Entertainer. I am struggling. Half of my brain thinks 'ahhh feck it - it's the holidays, let them watch a screen all day in their pyjamas snacking on cereal whilst you luxuriate in bed' and the other half is thinking 'oh my god they are becoming obese and brain dead and they won't sleep - QUICK DO SOMETHING'. I am still very much filled with a sense of trying to 'keep busy' and I struggle with watching the children vegetate in their pyjamas achieving nothing all day. In the old days, BC, I was always busy. I can't seem to get my head around the fact that there is a great big 'nothingness' of plans, work and activities and in order to avoid having to confront my fear, I just keep being busy. Luckily, with six children under my roof, it is proving pretty easy to do.

I have read many FB status updates from people who have been spending their time very wisely during the lockdown and I obviously commend them.  I see many 'my kitchen has never BEEN so tidy/organised/clean'.  I find this amazing. It will not be a surprise to people who have visited my kitchen, that this is very much not the case for me. As I sit here now,  (which I'm doing to avoid having to deal with it), there are saucepans piled high in the sink. The bin is full. The door to the mug cupboard which started to break off a few weeks ago, is now hanging from a jaunty angle by the remaining hinge. Plastic bags litter the floor as two children foraged for bags and trays in that cupboard and then studiously ignored the mess they left behind. The oven splash back and extractor fan are splattered with dark chocolate and there are smears of chocolate where the teenage boy made an exceedingly lacklustre attempt to clean it off (he was making chocolate bowls using balloons as the mould but two of them exploded mid-chocolate coating, but he decided not to clean up the chocolate bomb effect there and then, instead preferring to wait for it to harden and become much harder to clean off so he gave up shortly after trying). The floor is littered with sprinklings of grated cheese after a pasta supper (I'm super over cooking now - in the first week it was home made gluten free chicken goujons and even at the start of this week it was home made lasagne, but now it is grated cheese and pasta with ketchup and be sodding grateful for it). The glass bottles which need to go out separately to the recycling are sitting above the bin with a hopeful air that ANYBODY or indeed the other adult of the house, might recognise the need to transport them outside to their allocated dumping ground because they can't, as most people can attest, WALK THEMSELVES THERE.

In short, my kitchen is what one might call, a bomb site. It has, over the past two weeks had to become much more than a kitchen. It is a 24 hour diner, an arts and crafts activity centre, a skating rink, a dance studio, a cookery school and an actual primary school to boot. There is stuff absolutely everywhere. In life BC, I wouldn't panic quite so much as I would be able to sort it all out on a Monday morning. I could drop them all off at schools, do my Monday Morning Sigh of Relief after the final one is deposited in the loving embrace of her gorgeous Reception class teacher and assistants and then I could go out for my run, come back, chat to my friend on the phone whilst tidying the shit pit in to something resembling a normal home and 'reset'. I no longer have that option and I am getting a TAD worried about when that option is going to return. It was all very well when it seemed like a slightly fun adventure. It's even lovely today, with the beautiful heat and cloudless blue skies giving us a whole day in the garden - but always in the back of my mind, is that nagging fear that this month might continue on in to the next month. And that that month might continue on and on and on until the summer holidays. I hate not having any control over any of it. I hate doing what I'm told at the best of times and I am entirely on board with the whole, let's keep everyone safe motto - I am - but I'm slightly worried that two months on I may not care at all about anyone's health as we have done every sodding craft idea out there, there is no more PVA glue left in the world, the children will have broken everything we own and the notion that anyone ever did what I told them to do is a very dim and distant memory. And all the gluten free snacks in the known universe will have sold out due to over consumption.

My house has never been a shining example of excellent housewifery. I am, at best, disorganised and at worst inherently messy. The house, as I like to call it, has a very 'lived in' look. It is extremely well 'used'. Every inch of it. It is the very antithesis of the Mrs Hinch/Stacey Solomon school of thought which seems to encourage an insipid colour palette of only shades of grey and white with everything contained within the walls to be organised and labelled to within an inch of its life.  These women seem to require a special way of storing absolutely everything, even crisp packets and every bit of food, lotion or cleaning product they bring in to the house has to be decanted in to a specially pre-bought glass vestibule with black writing on the front. It is a world I cannot imagine inhabiting. The contents of this house provides me with an endless game of 'memory pairs' where I come across one thing, that is requiring its pair/home/set and I have to try and recall where I last saw the pair/home/set or where I put it, or where a child may have put it, in order to 'pair' the items.  I am hoping this constant use of my brain will help stave off any future deterioration later in life and I can smugly tell the news reporters, with my brain function entirely in tact, when they ask me what the secret is to making it to 100, that it was a glass of gin every night and a messy house. I appreciate it may give them a feeling of calm, knowing where everything is at a moment's notice, but to me it takes the fun out of everything. If you know where all of your children's birth certificates are - where is the sense of triumph when you manage to track one down when it is vitally needed?

I may yet be persuaded to come around to the dark side though. I recently made a total U Turn on my long held belief that running was a ridiculous and unnecessary past time fools undertook because they didn't know any better. After my Best Friend's 40th in January, we both looked at our photos from the evening and decided that it might be best if we do something about getting a little lighter and healthier in the immediate future. To that end, I downloaded the app and commenced the 'Couch to 5k' course. I was encouraged by the fact that the starting week only required you to run for 1 minute at a time with some welcome walks in between. I thought even I could manage a minute of running. I have always assumed, that even though I am comfortably in the morbidly obese section on those terrifying weight graphs (I think my fat is denser than everybody elses because to most people, including me, I simply look fat), that I somehow managed to retain a base level of fitness thanks to all the general care and maintenance of attending to five children every single day. After the 3rd minute on that inaugural run, I realised I had been woefully and dreadfully misguided. That realisation thankfully spurred me on to keep going and I managed to complete the 9 week course at the start of the lockdown which was deeply pleasing.

My only slight issue was with the misleading title of the app. 'Couch to 5k' very heavily implies that by the end of the 9th week, I would be managing to run 5 kilometres. I am most definitely completing the half an hour aspect of the task, but I'm only travelling 4 kms in that time. I think it should be renamed 'Couch to 5k unless you are on the heavier side, in which case it may well only be 4k'. If you count the warm up and warm down walks either side of the run then it may well be around 5k but I feel somewhat cheated. Nevertheless, my transition in to a 'runner' is as miraculous as if Kim K decided to embrace 'natural beauty'. Indeed, on learning of my move to the dark side, my elder sister sent me a one word text. It read 'JUDAS'. She and I formerly shared an absolute loathing for anything that involved donning Active Wear. Although, I would hasten to add that what I do isn't exactly 'running' as no. 2 son pointed out when he accompanied me once (he then started running backwards and around me in circles to emphasise his point). As my distance covered might imply, I am anything but fast. It is more of a spirited shuffle. It had long concerned me, having watched umpteen million police dramas, that I wouldn't be able to run from harm if my life depended upon it, so when I began this running malarkey I was filled with a sense of optimism that this would open up a whole new world to me in more ways than one. Now I have completed the course, I can safely say I am still very much in danger from anyone and everyone. I thought I might be safe from someone chasing after me in a motorised wheelchair, but alas, having looked it up, it would appear those things can get up some speed and so unless someone is on crutches with a broken foot, I'm still a very easy-to-catch victim. I am also a little miffed that the 'runners body' I see all the other runners sporting still also evades me. I should SURELY look like Kendall Jenner after two months???

I shall away now and see if I can tempt K in to sharing some profiteroles to celebrate our wedding anniversary. 17 years is a jolly long time and is definitely worthy of some note, but I am still heavily in the dog house after finally tracking down a perfectly priced large trampoline which I duly erected with the children yesterday. He is not at all a fan of trampolines and is pretty annoyed I have burdened our already over crowded garden with one. However he is not the Child Entertainer in charge and has no concept of how much effort it takes to keep them entertained for weeks on end so he can remain as annoyed as he likes. Today I managed to sit down to eat my lunch so it was entirely worth every penny. Sod it. Those profiteroles are all mine. Happy Anniversary to me. As you were people. xxxxxxxxxxx

Surviving Week One

WELL. The first week has been quite the baptism of fire. Anyone else? I feel like a different person to the one from this time last week. That first day. I don't even want to think of it. All my gusto, bravado and let's face it, massive naiveté from last week disappeared pretty much within the first few hours of Monday morning.

The teenage girls decided to plant their laptops at the kitchen table and work from there. The husband decided to hide work in the study and needed QUIET at all times in order for this to be a suitable work environment. The youngest girls were exceedingly eager learners for the first half an hour, as we squeezed in the spaces left at the kitchen table, and then their exuberance wholly dissipated leaving me trying to bring the energy for us all. (Like all those family photos where dispirited/angry children are refusing to smile at the camera but the mother is so desperate for a lovely family photo she tries to smile enough for the whole family and looks slightly unhinged. Have you seen them? We have plenty of those. It is a near impossible task to try and get seven people looking at the camera and smiling. Although we did manage one beautiful family photo a few years ago, because I was secretly whispering hideous threats of physical violence, through gritted teeth, to the child who was trying to ruin it for us all - the result is a very flattering photo of me surrounded by a husband and all children facing mainly the right way, with troublesome child not smiling, but looking in the right direction with an innocuous expression on his face which is a total win.)

That left me with the boys. They had clearly envisaged spending entire days on their screens so were slightly upset to discover the Timetable (drawn up by my organised older child who is the Saffy to my disorganised Edina) banned screens from 9am to 4pm. And their silence-needing father had imposed a PS4 ban until 5pm, when he would finish for the day. The older boy, G, is very like his late grandfather and excellent at keeping hidden out of the way, so much so you can almost forget he is even there. G executed this to a T and would disappear with a work task until I suddenly remembered his existence several hours later, and run up to his bedroom to try and catch him out, but he would invariably hear me on the stairs and arrange himself in to a suitable 'I'm being a conscientious worker' pose so I would have to concede the point. He would emerge at the designated 'break times' and make a big song and dance over finding the timetable so he could verify that this was 'free' time and I was therefore unable to ask him to do anything. Second son, Ted, just wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible and would rush through it all in a half arsed, half hearted manner just to shut me up and so he could go back to whining about how much longer before he could go 'on a screen'. What I desperately needed was a TA. Or in fact four. Six children to one unqualified teacher was definitely the wrong ratio.

The primary school is sending the younger three children daily work which I dutifully print out every morning and then spend the designated 'work' hours on the timetable, trying to get through. That first day the tasks felt endless. By Friday we were doing a very 'me' version of the work and picking and choosing the best bits. Far from needing to worry about the days dragging, they seemed to race by and I started to panic that we wouldn't be able to fit in all the work in time for our Family Game session in the afternoon. It is very important we get that in on time, because as soon as the game element is over, they are allowed back on screens and the blissful silence that ensues (and the gin) is the only thing that keeps me going through the day and the almost CONSTANT 'Muuuuuuummmmmms' I have to endure. I swear there is a sensor that is linked to all of our loos, and the minute I manage to sneak off for a wee and my cheeks hit the seat, an alarm sounds somewhere in the house - like the old fashioned bell system that sounded in the staff quarters of stately homes - the bell sounds and a child will start with 'MUUUMMM'. I never answer the first one, in case they lose interest. This rarely works. So the 'Mumming' continues. And then the same old pattern - I answer, they don't hear. Mum? Yes, Mum? YES. MUUMMM?  YESSSSSSS! MUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMM?  WHAT DO YOU BLOODY WANT I AM ON THE LOO!! They then continue talking to me as if i'd said, 'absolutely my precious dumpling, tell me what is troubling you, I'm all ears!'

In amongst the tantrums, the storming off, the tears, the placating, me endlessly saying 'hang on' - 'in a minute' - 'there's only one of me', the mess, the endless food preparation and the twice daily loading and emptying of the dishwasher, there have definitely been highlights. By day two, the big girls had realised that working in the chaos of the kitchen was a rookie mistake and found a way to make it work in their room. I decided to write off the youngest as collateral damage and basically let her play her 'long game' (which involves babies and handbags) all day with a little bit of reading and some counting thrown in. I allowed G to stay hidden for the best part of the day with only a few shouts up the stairs to ask what he was up to. This freed me up to focus on getting through the work with Ted and Cybs, aged 10 and 7 respectively. This worked. And as all breaks were taken outside in the beautiful Spring sunshine, I was able to clean up the mess left in the house with them all outside annoying our neighbours. I even managed to squeeze in some of my work. I felt like Erin Brockovich. On Wednesday afternoon we organised a 'whole school' rounders game up at the (empty) village sports field and took our home made cake with us as a snack to enjoy afterwards. That felt like a huge win. By Thursday I was desperate for the school work emails to stop coming and by Friday I had a horrible realisation that the school emails would indeed stop coming during the Easter holidays and then I would be responsible for finding ways to keep everyone amused, all day, every day. I started searching for trampolines. But it would appear I missed the memo which told everyone else to buy one which means all the reasonably priced, reasonably sized trampolines are all sold out. They will just have to learn to jump up and down on the grass with gusto.

However, I remain determinedly upbeat about it all. I have much to be thankful for and I am all too aware of our luck. My eldest, Bea doesn't take her GCSEs until next year (we hope....) and she managed to get to her much longed for ski trip before all the madness kicked off. Her best friend in all the world, and our surrogate 6th child, A, was delivered to us before the lockdown and so will be staying with us for the forseeable. (It is exceedingly serendipitous that her name begins with an A as the first letter of our girls' first names are in order, B, C and D. 'A' joining the fold is clearly meant to be). They have known each other since they started school in London aged 4 and have been a huge part of one another's life ever since and A has come to stay with us in almost every holiday since we moved to Suffolk five years ago. She is an only child and the idea of endless months stuck in the house, whilst her parents worked from home and attempted to navigate a house move (now on hold obviously) was enough to make our noisy and chaotic house look like a very attractive prospect. I'm also thankful that my husband, K is an employee and able to work from home, so we will still be receiving an income - for now at least. My work for a Dementia website has been all but stopped but I am able to do the odd few hours to keep a trickle of income coming in, and as another plus, our only expenses now seem to be food and electricity so I'm hoping my outgoings diminish in equal proportion to my incomings. That is the hope anyway.

My main outgoing BC (Before Corona), used to be petrol for the car which is clearly no longer a concern. Last year we upgraded our family car (which is actually just 'my' car that K occasionally drives. He gets to travel around in his car which can conveniently only fit two small children on the back seats, or one larger child if they have legs) to an 8 seater, long wheel based van. I am utterly in love with it, but like the rest of my loves, it is bloody high maintenance. It has needed more trips to the garage in the year that we have had it, than my old Ford Galaxy did in ten years of ownership. I have already had to replace all of the tyres. And every time I turn the key it beeps several angry demands at me. 'Low Fuel' (stop trying to push your luck with this you bloody fool), 'Park Assist not working' (take me to the sodding garage again you lazy bitch) and my least favourite of all - 'Only 550 miles of Ad Blue Left' (AGAIN). I find this incomprehensible. Who invented this warning system? Why does it need to warn you so far in advance? The warning light and message start annoying me at around 800 miles to go. WHO in, the developed world, sets off on a journey of many hundred miles without the prospect of a service station en route so might need reminding that they could conceivably get caught short? It's not even possible to drive for several hundred miles anywhere in the United Kingdom without finding a petrol station. Why does it need to be so needy? At around 'only' 300 miles it starts beeping at me mid journey, telling me the engine won't start in T-300 miles. WHO needs to think that far in advance? It is just not in my DNA. I hate filling up with diesel as it is. I never fill up the tank as I hate the money leaving my account so I only ever put £30 in at a time which I feel is a reasonable amount to 'lose'. It does mean that I visit the petrol station far more often but who cares.

In summary, we survived the first week. The children learnt a bit. We enjoyed our mandated exercise hour. Gin helped. Also, I haven't even managed to tell you all the blissful ways Marie was proved wrong during this week. I shall save that for next time. I sincerely hope you are all surviving too and not drowning under the weight of Whatsapp Group messages (STOP THE MADNESS), School emails, searches for a usable pencil/pen, coronavirus updates and yells of MUUUUMMMMMM and or DAAAAAAADDDDD (depending on who the default setting is in your house - in ours, I am default setting, back up setting and emergency contact. DAADDD is only used to find out if their playstation ban is up or if he has finished in the study so they can go back on the Playstation.)

A tout a l'heure mes amis xxxxx

Love In The Time of Corona

There is nothing like a deadly global pandemic to make you feel like a proper arse for complaining about having to 'endure' three and a half weeks of having no internet. Now it feels like the smallest inconvenience one could possibly imagine.

So here we all are, in this peculiar new 'normal'. I feel like I have been through all the stages of grief trying to come to terms with it all. I was heavily in to denial. I definitely ticked off anger. I spent Friday, the last day of school, in tears. From the moment I woke up, I just couldn't stop myself. The tears fell regardless of the reassurance, the need for me to 'pull myself' together, I couldn't stop them. I cried for normality, I cried for the children not seeing their friends or beloved teachers, for me not seeing my friends, for all of us trying to live and work together as I couldn't see for the life of me how that would work, I cried for the worry about lives, livelihoods, lost opportunities and the lack of control I had over any of it. And then, on Saturday, I awoke ready to accept it all. To isolate, to admit we couldn't go on our longed for trip away in April, that our 17th wedding Anniversary, would pass as the last one, unmarked and uncelebrated. I am not one to panic, so my natural reaction to people panicking is to get cross with them for being so dramatic. I reasoned with my panic buying mother that she was being irrational, I was cross with people who tried to tell me that schools would close 'indefinitely' and I argued that it wasn't worth all the fuss and we all had to get it anyway so we should just jolly well keep calm and carry on. But now, I am here, with 6 children (an extra I will explain in due course) and a husband, within our house and garden, for what could be months and months and months and months to come. 

I am still all over the place with my feelings about this bizarre situation. Even though I have accepted it as the new reality, I'm not always able to keep my thoughts under control. I feel like Rapunzel in the Disney film Tangled, when she finally leaves the tower. I swing from being petrified and worried, to being full of hope and optimism. In my wildest times I envisage the coming months, as the sun begins to shine, like a wonderful version of The Waltons. Except Waltons' Mountain is replaced with a much smaller brick house with a fairly modest sized garden. And there are only 6 children, and John Walton in our version works on a laptop in the study rather than the land. And there are no grandparents. But you get the idea. I imagine a time of togetherness, love, sibling play, outdoor adventures and singing around the campfire. I imagine me teaching them the piano, the violin, reading, writing and extremely basic languages and maths whilst baking wonderfully delicious things for them all to enjoy at meal times as we chat and laugh and bask in the sepia toned glow of our time together. I imagine me helping my dyslexic children advance exponentially with their writing, with my sons realising they are in fact best friends and finding all sorts of fun adventures to enjoy together, with my husband learning to live with us all, 24/7 (which he has only ever managed in very small doses). In my more realistic moments, I realise that when it rains, when we are officially confined to our home with only specified times out to gather food and supplies, the boys will physically fight one another, everyone will always be hungry, there will be a constant worry about screen time, I will shout at all the mess, my husband will shout at all the mess, I will take against him shouting about the exact same thing I shouted about, because he did it differently and louder, and then there will be slammed doors, tears and potentially desperation as nobody can know just how long this will all last.

For now, I am trying to maintain my usual optimism and think of all the good stuff. I shall try and pass these on to help spread my optimism as the weeks roll on and we all get slightly madder and madder. Here we go: 

Reasons To Be Cheerful No. 1. Marie Kondo was WRONG. Never, in the history of my 41 years, have I been more pleased to prove someone wrong. IN YOUR FACE ANTI-HOARDERS. I must have known that one day, we would face a worldwide disaster confining us all to our homes. Because under the roofs of this house and the garage, is more than enough stuff and clutter to keep us entertained indefinitely. Want to know what the older 2 were studying in the last term of year 5? Not a problem. Let me delve in to my pile of stuff people told me I should throw away - et voila! 2 sets of school books from 3 and 5 years ago for me to use. Want to glue stuff? Stick stuff? Roller skate around the kitchen dressed as a peach? (you laugh but this has already happened) not a problem! I have skates for at least 4 children which haven't been touched in years and a dressing up catalogue that has been collected over 15 years. I have old tights, socks, balls of wool and redundant inserts to cushions - anyone for a sock creature or an octopus? I have old clothes the older ones can rip up and repurpose, I have boxes and boxes of lego that have remained unloved, unused and bringing joy to nobody but the dust particles for years on end, but now, that lego will have the last laugh as it emerges victorious in to the light of extreme boredom and desperate home-schooling parents. Old reading books, learning targets from 2012, egg boxes, jam jars, stickers, boxes of cold and flu tablets and abandoned lemsip sachets (filled with paracetamol) etc - all here. I'm WINNING MARIE. I am loving the idea of her sitting at home, with her clear surfaces, empty cupboards and only joyful-bringing clothes feeling the error of her ways. Want a sock puppet Marie? TOUGH. You don't have the stuff you need. Want to know what you were doing on March 20th when you were 15? TOUGH you don't have your Purple Ronnie Diary from 1993 to find out. She who laughs last, laughs longest. Mwa ha ha ha ha. I mean I am still wondering how to fully utilise the odd shoes, broken headphones and weird leads to things I cannot fathom, but I will, don't you worry. To my sister who told me to 'order a skip and empty my house in to it', to my mother, who has bemoaned my hoarding ways (whilst simultaneously being a hoarder herself) I say IN YOUR FACE. And THAT brings me joy Ms Kondo. 

RTBC No. 2. I have spent the longest time wishing I could spend my days in my beloved loungewear, (drinking gin from breakfast through to bedtime but let's not focus on that part yet) and now my greatest wish has come true. I was born for this. My long suffering husband despairs of my wonderful collection of comfy casuals and rightly so. My latest and most loved pair of pink, velour, baggy trousers are the stuff of stylish nightmares. I look like a very badly dressed, rotund, golden girl who has given up on life. But to me, they are pure joy. They are soft. And 'Shnuggly'. And back in the normal days, my greatest desire from the moment I awoke was to get to the part of the day when I could be reunited with them. They are so stroke-able and comfortable it is mind blowing. My youngest grabs on to my leg when I wear them and strokes them and sighs whilst inviting anyone she can to 'stroke mummy'. I could put on 4 stone and they would still fit. And I got them for £4 from a Sale rail in Sainsburys when they had an extra 20% off special. I mean, what is not to love! Combined with any member of my exquisite shnuggly sock collection, they are comfort at its most extreme. Now I don't have to wrench them off to do the second school run in the morning (I almost always wear them to drop the older ones at school first), I can wear them morning, noon and night, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever surprise me at home and catch me wearing them. What pure delight! 

RTBC No. 3 PE Kits. My second child is a slightly (very) disorganised boy who has a penchant for losing things. Superdry/Topshop coats, phones, water bottles, phone chargers and PE Kits top his list of preferred items to lose. By the time it got to the 3rd PE Kit which has to be purchased from a specific shop in town at a cost of £24 a time, I decided that there would only be one PE kit going forward and that he and his sister would share it. I cannot tell you the number of mornings this rash decision caused drama, anger and at times, physical fights. However for the forseeable future, worrying about who had the PE kit last and whether its smell would be noticeable enough to worry about, is a thing of the past. HUZZAH! From now on, we have Joe Wicks at 9am every morning, online ballet classes a go go thanks to all the girls and one boy's classes now being 'remote' and we can do it all, wearing whatever we want. BLISS.

I am also cheerful that today is mother's day, because for the first time in what could be years, I got to stay in bed and fall back to sleep until a mammoth 10am. This hasn't happened, well, ever I think. So I am feeling discombobulated from the extra sleep and the weird 'it's Sunday but nobody is leaving tomorrow' feeling but also thankful that I have enjoyed a 'proper' mother's day of rest, chocolates and being able to sit and write. So, to all the mothers/mother figures and just all round wonderful women - past, present and future - let's all be kind to ourselves and sit back in our ugly velour comfy trousers and eat our Lindt chocolate whilst we make our way through every Neflix series that has ever been invented and gradually learn to hate our optimistic home schooling timetables we drew up in the early days of isolation thinking we had it 'sorted'. I say, as long as we all survive and Marie admits she was wrong, that is plenty good enough. 

Dark Ages

HELLO! and welcome one and all. Welcome back to those who have followed me from Mother and Other of SE23 (I sincerely apologise for the prolonged absence).  There is much to catch up on. But there is little time for introductions and catching up right now, wherever you have come from, as I am currently experiencing the very worst suffering a human can imagine. Yes, that is correct, I am now NEARLY A MONTH in to a life with no internet. (Let that sink in). YES, I have been surviving, just like Beyonce, and I have made it through 23 full days of not being able to work, not being able to ask Alexa anything, not being able to plant my beloved cherubs in front of a screen and let them loose on You Tube or Fortnite, not being able to catch up on The Split and The Pottery Throw Down and absolutely no NETFLIX.  It is an almost unimaginable horror. 

As you might be able to imagine, as well as a sharp drop in my income, and a sharp rise in extortionate data ‘add ons’ from unscrupulous network providers (I shall NEVER again complain about my broadband charges - it is a pittance in comparison to trying to access the internet via the magic of 4G) there have been other, very unwelcome side effects. One: the children have interacted with each other. This sounds delightful and even advantageous - but one of the biggest myths of modern parenting is that the internet is terrible. It is not. I am here to tell you that five children without the internet is a thing of utter horror. The children range in age from 4 to 15 and without the wonderful wonders of that magnificent World Wide Web they congregate together in small packs, fighting, bickering and worst of all - playing games together. SURE it sounds idyllic and ‘like the old days’ but really, playing is just an excuse to make a world of mess, injure each other with the almost indisputable excuse of ‘play’, cry about various injustices/cheating in board games and the NOISE.  

The headphones the children wear make the internet silent. There are no headphones for the children playing. The noise often reaches cacophonous levels and I, ill equipped to deal with such technological short comings, have had to live with that noise, morning and night (ALL hail the invention of school, my only saving grace). Without the internet to separate them, they seem to enjoy congregating in one room.  There are a number of rooms in this house. It isn’t huge but with the internet working, it is plenty big enough. Without the internet it feels half the size. The running, squealing and physical fighting (with swords - I am not over egging this - ACTUAL large wooden swords) has driven me to the brink. Obviously I am not anti-play  - I can see the beauty in it - I'm just not used to it happening so much in such a confined area. With three weeks of storms and rain, it has felt particularly hard work and the constant clean up has really taken its toll. Although it has taught me that I clearly rely on the internet a little too much so going forward, I may incorporate a few internet free weekend sessions so we can enjoy some good old fashioned, 'fun' family time. Actually to be honest, I really do not enjoy playing board games with them. I appreciate that with a few older children it could be fun, but with various ages and personalities to accommodate, playing Cluedo becomes less a fun activity and more an exercise in diplomacy, patience, tolerance and fight resolution.

I have clearly been labouring under a wildly false apprehension that I was ‘coping’ with the whole parenting malarkey. I am often told ‘ooh, I don’t know how you do it’ - but here is the thing - I AM CLEARLY NOT. I am a modern parent and as such I am used to instant things - downloading any free film they fancy watching, whenever I want to keep them quiet; whatsapp messages; asking Alexa for help with homework and announcing that it’s supper time; earning money from the comfort of my own home in the joyous silence of the school day; sitting in separate rooms to my husband as he watches Netflix in one room and I catch up on my terrible TLC (it’s a sky channel that is solely made up of real life programmes such as Say Yes To The Dress, My 600lb life, 90 Day Fiancé before the 90 days, Outdaughtered, Dr Pimple Popper, My Big Fat Fabulous Life etc etc etc) addiction in the other. We can’t even use our printer as it relies upon the hallowed wifi.  

The only advantage is that it has meant the children and I are much happier to go en masse to my mother’s at the weekend to enjoy free food and working Wifi. Although I’m not sure that this counts as a bonus for anyone except me, as it means I get to enjoy NOT providing the children with a meal which is the biggest excitement I get these days. I can honestly say the novelty of feeding my offspring has entirely worn off. 15 years ago, with my first precious baby girl, I was so worried about doing it ‘wrong’ I mistakenly thought buying organic jars of lovely mushed up food and feeding her only those, would be the best thing to do. To this day, I cannot fathom what I was thinking. Eventually I came to my senses and she then quickly progressed on to ‘real’ food and found that much like her mother, there was very little she wouldn’t eat. Including an infamous trial of my friend’s used cat litter. NICE. She would quite often have had her 5 a day in her breakfast and would eat vast numbers of cherry tomatoes in one sitting. Obviously, this changed as she grew up and her love of smoked salmon and avocado diminished until she was, predictably, eating ‘standard’ children’s food. But back in the early days of parenting, feeding your cute little babies is quite fun, it is such a big milestone and feels like you’re ‘properly’ doing the whole parenting thing. Fast forward 4 more pregnancies/children, 4 diagnosed Coeliacs, various long periods of time with little to no money and you arrive where I am now. With a very small weekly repertoire of meals the children will eat - only one or two that they will all agree to eat and a freezer full of oven chips. I’m not proud of it. I would love to be better at cooking and whip up vegetable curries packed full of chickpeas and spinach and present it with a flourish at 5 O clock to rapturous applause. But what I would actually be met with is tears from at least 2 of them. Possibly 3. It would inevitably lead to them not eating and then them all sneaking back in to the kitchen to forage for food later in the day whilst I am distracted - it is very much like living with a rat infestation - you go upstairs with nice food to eat in your kitchen and then come down some time later to discover discarded wrappers and crumbs in its place. 

The last word from BT was that my internet would be back on any day now, but others on the road have heard the end of the month, which would be a further 4 weeks. I can only imagine the pain. The big children have now started saying they will be moving in with Grandma until the wifi is back on. Although I'm hurt by the insinuation that they are only hanging around us for the internet access, I do like the idea of having only 2 smaller children to look after - I can't deny I would absolutely love some child free evenings. The older they get, the longer the hours you have to spend with them get, and I am quite often awoken up by one of the big ones as I snooze on the sofa between 9-10pm, in order for them to say goodnight to me. Grandma is no fool though and I very much doubt she'd enjoy her peace being shattered as well as the endless school runs, washing, after school clubs, feeding, fighting etc.

We will just have to hope that a collective frustration from our neighbours and us is enough to convince Openreach to pull their finger out and get us reunited once more. If not then I may solve all the problems and move to grandma's myself and leave them all here to fight it out amongst themselves.....