On Things

Hello! (Said in a voice like Izzy. Loud, there is an upwards inflection on the ‘o’ at the end, it’s cheerful, but there is a hint of trying something – too hard?)

It’s March! (Said in a voice like ME. A GIRL. No. Not a girl. A WOMAN. The child me cringes at that word, I used to think a ‘woman’ was an awful thing. I always wanted to be a ‘lady’. The woman me cringes at ‘lady’. Seems to me that to be a ‘lady’ is a patriarchal invention. To keep the WOMEN looking pretty for the male gaze. Staying prim in their kitchens and nurseries and painting pictures and filling their heads with frills. A WOMAN hoes onions. Hoovers stairs. Lifts two children with her solid, muscular arms. Works hard. Loves fiercely. Fills her mind with knowledge. Whatever it may be. She writes and reads and [read the following as verbs] mothers and daughters and sisters and wifes [no not wives – she VERB wife’s] and she is an entity in and of herself and…. I DIGRESS!).

it’s march.

the month I adore.

mainly because I was born in march.

i was loved when I was born. i was loved till I was 8 or 9, and then I was just… there.

Anyway. I adore March.

March in the UK this year is blustery, I am afraid. Cold. But we have glorious blossoms on glorious trees and my neighbours recently trimmed their apple tree and a couple of the branches fell over into our side of the garden, and I could see the buds forming on the branches so I seized them, precious things that they are, and put them in old glass jars filled with water and in my kitchen, right now, a miracle is happening. Buds are opening their delicious petals to the warmth of my oven and hob and the hum of my woman self humming as I prepare meals for my family. There is a spring in my kitchen. And it makes me so glad.

But folks, I am tired. I am on my feet from 5 am most days till about 1 am. And then I sleep a deep sleep only to be seized out of it and shaken viciously awake by a new day and my responsibilities.

I have no time to write or read. Just work. And kids.

And I am also prioritising time with my kids. To play with them and teach them. Things like fungus growing on old tree trunks and how not to slap each other when one doesn’t get their way. Things like washing one’s hands after one eats and how to not squash a ladybird to death everytime we examine one. Things like a cup full of fat juicy wriggly worms. Things like not eating soil. Things like ‘mowing the lawn’ with a pair of scissors. Things like not pulling Grandma’s cat’s tail. Things like days of the week and months of the year and years of the decade and century and what people did. Things like not wiping your hands on the chair in the same breath you use to tell me about the solar system.

Wondrous wondrous eyes.

Wondrous children.

Bittersweet, sad, joyful and frustrating.

If you are a parent, and if your child has long flown the nest, how do you manage the heartbreak? Or are you sensible about your emotions?

To be blessed.

Ahh. Hello. Little blog of mine.

It’s been a while. Two months, I think.

March promised me so much on her blossom scented breath but you know, April has proved to be more frilly and flowery than my favourite month. No showers, just sunshine. Pink blossom in powder puffs adorning trees and soft sweet apple blossom scattering itself through my window like dainty fairies. Love love love.

I did not write the things I intended to write. I barely treaded water, to be honest.

I caught the coronavirus, I travelled with my kids, I worked until I fell asleep at my keyboard – not once but several times – and I watched things while I folded laundry or tidied toys or folded laundry or washed dishes. Or folded laundry. Bloody hate folding laundry but when I think that I catch myself by the arm. I say, ‘Dear, dear dear dear. Don’t you forget the blessing of clothes to cover your back and a washing machine in which to wash them. So help me God.’

I added the ‘so help me God’ because people in books say that and it sounds like a strict admonishment.

My son started nursery for the first time in both our lives. I cried tears after I left him and there was a hole in my heart and a sad emptiness in my home – he is only gone 5 hours a day but it feels eternal. Two days a week only, and he loves it. He asks to go to school on days we don’t go, and he doesn’t want to leave when I go to pick him up. A great sign, right? I hope so. I do hope so.

I watched Bridgerton, yes I did, and I enjoyed the frivolity of it all. I did indeed. I watched Wild Wild Country and I marvelled at people’s hope and search for the truth, even if it ends in futility. We are so good for hoping, aren’t we. Us humans.

I read a wonderful book called ‘Talking to Strangers’ and it’s all about how we perceive others, and it touches on the wrongs in the systems that run the countries where most violence, crime and racism occur. The author seems to think it boils down to how we approach and talk to strangers. How we cannot decipher each other at all, how the truths we grew up believing about others, were in fact not truths at all. Fascinating stuff.

I read another book called ‘Beauty Sick’, and how the obsession with appearance is a disease in Western society. I really resonated with that. I believe most women would. When I discussed it with my husband he had a different opinion and it infuriated me and turned me into a little spitfire. He told me he didn’t want to talk to me anymore as I was being rude.

I went to think about it for a bit and decided he was correct, and I didn’t need to lash out at him because his opinion was .. INCORRECT. I should have just listened and pointed out the discrepancies in his arguments. Glaringly obvious to me but he is of a different ilk. Cut. Tribe.

He is, as Aunty Caroline would say, he is a ‘Man.’ Capital ‘M’. That’s all there is to say on the matter.

On an Undertaking

Hello internet. I managed to pop out a baby. Well I couldn’t actually pop him out, they had to wheel me into an emergency c section after 48 hours of labour, but I tried, dang it!  I did try. And my goodness, what a mighty undertaking that was.

I won’t go into any sordid details because that is faffy and to be honest I think I am still mentally trying to recover from the whole ordeal. It was very traumatic, actually. I cry to think about it so I don’t think about it. I suppose it is natural to cry at this stage. It’s all a mighty bombshell. As well as settling into this new shock of a life. It really is a shock, they didn’t lie. I never accused them of lying but I sure didn’t take them very seriously.

I feel a little bit as though my life has ended, in a way. But my mum says no, it is just the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. So that is ok. That is ok.

The main thing of course, is that there is a little man who has managed to steal my heart. A small little mouth and two gorgeous large eyes that are currently grey because they haven’t decided what shade they would like to be. He grunts a lot and is most patient with me, because I have had a series of problems after birth requiring me to keep going into hospital, and every time he has been so quiet and trouble free. May he stay that way.

And, I suppose I have come to say what I feel has hit me hardest these past couple of weeks. Life is so temporary, and change is so sudden. Even change that has been anticipated for nine months. That change is still sudden and a shock and they really don’t teach you that life does not come with a disclaimer.

I have not had more than 3 hours of sleep in one go for over two weeks, so perhaps I am sounding somewhat incoherent, but motherhood is very difficult. And I knew I wasn’t ready, but I think I have to power on through. And I can’t run to my mother anymore and cry my troubles to her and have her lift them gently away from me, because I am now the person that has to gently lift troubles from another little heart. I am the source of comfort and care for a little person, and that astounds me so much. It petrifies me, actually, that someone so small and tiny and incapable of even burping on his own is solely reliant on me for everything.

God I hope I can live up to the word ‘mother’ and do my best by this boy. He isn’t my property, he was given to me, and I need to take care of him as best I can before I can send him out into the world. And that, my friends, is a huge undertaking. And I have never appreciated my own mother as much as I do now.

There.

 

Eff him.

Donald Trump came to the UK and everybody gave a f*!#.

They tramped and shouted and trumped and stood in the park near Trump’s hotel so he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Sadly they were made to go home promptly at 9pm as the park keepers needed to shut the gates, but kudos to them for trying.

People in the UK don’t like Donald Trump, and they really aren’t afraid to say so. I can’t tell if that is British, or modern. To be British is to be coldly silent on matters one doesn’t find savoury, and turn the other cheek. There was warm and passionate and hearty hatred on the streets of Britain, and in true Scottish fashion, the Edinburgh festival signs told Trump to Fuck off Home. Hah. Even his motherland doesn’t want him.

France won the world cup and I really couldn’t care less. My dad said today, while we were watching the match, ‘Who would you like to win?’

‘nobody,’ i said.

He found that really funny for some reason. Now that England are out, I couldn’t care less. poor england, they were crying on the pitch. I felt like giving them a hug, even though their sweat and constant spitting makes me queasy. Meanwhile when one of the Frenchmen scored a goal he stuck it to the Croatian fans in the stadium. That Lacked Class.

Meanwhile, back at the ranCH, I fell asleep in the last 15 minutes of the match, and ran to the toilet to throw up when France was awarded the world cup. It really is not because france mAkes Me Sick.

iT’S because I am

pregnant.

 

So..

hEre we go.

BECAUSE it is still very early stages of

pregnancy.

I am not out of the danger zone.

Last time I got

pregnant

I didn’t last beyond the fifth week.

So this time we are hoping and praying and taking it easy

in the hopes that this

pregnancy

carries on fine.

How strange. We feel like we are kids, still. So we are going to have to do a great deal of growing up very quickly.

Living in Crewe

Hello bloggers.

I have taken a short break from blogging. No, I haven’t. I just have not blogged for a while. I haven’t been busy, as such. Well, I suppose I have, in the grand scheme of things!

I have edited (finally) my husband’s 24,000 word dissertation. I even did some research on the history of cars, from the designs of Leonardo Da Vinci to the Model T created by Henry Ford. As a non car-enthusiast, I can honestly say I found it all immensely fascinating. What really stood out starkly for me was the revolution in all economic systems that was created by cars. Traffic control systems had to be created from scratch through trial and error, 60% of the deaths caused by careless driving and speeding, at a time when speeding was a concept nobody had ever heard of let alone contemplate, were children. The growth of the car industry was a tragic and nostalgic business. However it sure has saved us a LOT of time and hundreds of feet worth of horse manure! (I speak very literally here when I say hundreds of feet – in the year 1900 the horse population outnumbered the human population in New York city!).

I have also been working on my own dissertation, which is far less fascinating and a whole lot of nonsense, really. I am taking a creative analysis course, where I have to analyse creativity in language. All the theories are entirely subjective, so it’s a little tedious to hear somebody’s opinion on something and quote it as fact. In all honesty, I don’t think much of it at all. But shhh, don’t let my lecturers hear you say that! It would be a travesty and might potentially affect my final grade! The grade which determines the outcome of my degree! Huzzah! It could NOT come sooner, I tell you.

Britain is sunny, the dogs are barking cheerfully and sometimes suspiciously, and the small town I now live in is a piece of literal crap. *insert taped laughter*.

It’s called Crewe, in England, about an hour South-East of Manchester and two hours East of Liverpool and three and a half hours North-West of London. I could cycle the entire town in about fifty minutes, and walk it in around two hours. The people are remarkably racist and treat me as a second class citizen because of my olive complexion and my dark black hair. I know this because they give me English looks of disapproval (I do it myself so I KNOW) and they also make comments about ‘immigrants’ and ‘they shouldn’t let them in’. I am not an immigrant. My maternal grandmother was. So was my paternal grandmother. I am just a very diluted English person. Even if I was an immigrant, one oughtn’t to treat immigrants like that. It’s rude and unwarranted and plainly ignorant. Also inhumane. When I open my mouth they are often taken aback by the British accent. They are uneducated, pro-Brexit and against Islam, brown people, and immigration. They are also remarkably poor, and very uncivilised, often leaving their homes at 3am in their pyjamas (oftentimes without) shouting at each other and toppling bins over.

It isn’t all negative, though. The shop ladies are lovely, and my neighbours are a sweet Polish couple with a bubbly little blonde daughter. Once I was cycling on the road and my long cardigan got stuck in my chain (fashion over logic, in this case, ha ha!), so I had to stop and yank it out on the road. While I was thus occupied, a woman darted out of her house and asked if I was okay and did I need any help? I was mighty touched, thanking her for her kindness. Another time I got my chain caught (on nothing, this time), a couple of really shifty looking young men came up to me when I was trying to fix it. I panicked because they did look menacing, but one of them said, as they drew close, ‘You alright, love!? Need any help?’

I was pleasantly surprised by their helpful kindness. I suppose it isn’t all black and white, and there is some ying in this yang. Or was it yang in this ying?