Making Mince Pies, Toga's and Christmas Shopping

I am sure that Christmas will come together but currently I cannot see the Christmas tree for the holly. I am beginning to resemble a slightly deranged, bag lady. There are bags scattered around the house, badly secreted under beds, in wardrobes and the office stationary cupboard. They contain various Christmas presents or parts of Christmas presents and my mind is beginning to lose track of what is for who and where it actually is. I wake at night in a cold sweat dreaming that I have wrapped 0.2mm drawing pen and given it to the local farmer instead of a bottle of wine.

Do not start me on the Christmas tree! The buying and decorating of the tree was scheduled for Sunday past. It didn’t happen, not because I decided to have the mother of all lay ins. Oh no, I couldn’t be that lucky. I was up early frantically knitting a dress for my granddaughter in white four ply. Have you ever tried knitting four ply on a Sunday morning? My eyes felt like red-hot candy canes had poked them out.

Then I received the bombshell that my youngest HAD to go Christmas shopping for her friends, she needed to wrap and fill her Christmas shoe-box for Rumanian orphans, oh and could I find a sheet for her Roman Christmas Feast as part of her Latin studies and if I had time could I make some Mince Pies for the Mothers Coffee Morning. I went into freefall.

I put down the knitting, made the pastry and left it in the fridge (apparently this helps the pastry). We hot footed it down to Argos where I spent 20 minutes browsing with the youngest, attempting to find five Christmas presents for 12 year old girls, all of which I had set a budget of £6 each on. The budget flew out of the window. I dashed next door to pick up a chicken (dead, I hasten to add) for Sunday lunch and grab more Christmas cards. I never knew I had so many people to send cards to. Crisis! I remembered I had no mincemeat for the mince pies. Easy to find mincemeat at the local Leedaaals. Ohhh noooo it isn’t!

We dash round to Morrisons; I had forgotten to get dog food too. BIG mistake. The world and his wife had decided to park in supermarket car park and trot off into town for the Victorian Christmas Market. What are you thinking of people? Are you mad? Christmas is two weeks away and you are ambling around the local ‘Past Times’ market.

Was I the only person in town that had broken into a sweat of fear at the thought of not being able to secure the purchase of a jar of mincemeat and four tins of dog food? I manoeuvred the husbands ‘truck’ into the car park and sat, then I sat some more. Then I was overcome with car park rage. ‘RIGHT, that does it’ I yelled. ‘We are going home’. We did, minus the mincemeat and dog food. By this time, I genuinely had the mother of all Migraines and a severe case of Post Traumatic Shopping Syndrome. I got home and I had a strong coffee with a slug of brandy in it.

I helped the youngest wrap her Christmas presents and dispatched her with hubby to her riding lesson. It was 3 o’clock and not a Christmas tree in sight! I decided to cut out the mince pies ready for the arrival of the mincemeat hubby had promised to secure. The phone rings. ‘What type of mince meat do you want, figs and brandy, rum and almond, luxury or just plain cheap?’ Oh my giddy aunt! In my head I was screaming, ‘I don’t know.... ask me again.... no don’t.... I haven’t a clue, just get me anything’. My festive spirit and the brandy had worn off. ‘Cheapest you can get and lots of it’ I barked, immediately feeling sorry for him.

I made the mince pies, after borrowing extra pie tins from my neighbour. I seem to have lost two of my three tins. I suspect they are somewhere in the garden being used for ‘concocting’ some experiment by the youngest.

By the end of the day, daughter had sheet (toga), presents bought, wrapped and packed neatly into several carrier bags she had wrestled her show box into submission and packed that too. Something missing? Oh yes, the mince pies. She never did get those. For some reason although they looked relatively festive, the bottoms of the mince pies were as hard as the hobs of hell. To send them to a coffee morning where they would sit next to those made by mothers who had taken all the time and care in the world would be suicide. I sent the daughter off with the words ‘sod it, I am not going to the coffee morning anyway, they can mange without mine’. She smiled her best sympathetic smile and said, ‘never mind Mummy, no-one will notice’. Bless her, she could have told me that at 9.a.m that morning. Christmas tree is scheduled for later this week. I will keep you posted!

Finding a Cure for Chilblains

The weather is grey, interspersed with sunshine. A little like life really. My feet get cold, so cold they feel numb. My brain seems to follow the same pattern these days. Warming my feet by the fire, I risk chilblains and wonder if the constant searching for sunshine for my brain will risk me being left with chilblains on the brain! It does though, doesn’t it? With the pain, sense of loss and anger of the last few weeks I know the chilblains on my brain will heal but I also know they will leave their mark. I guess that is what makes me the person I am and the one I will become. If I give in to anger and bitterness, all is lost.

Following on from the murder of our friend, one of my girlfriends died last week, she had fought long and hard against cancer. She was so determined to live. She loved life, her young son and her husband and always had a smile on her face. The only self-doubt I ever heard her have was when we met for a drink and she took me into the Ladies and removed her hat. 'Look Mary', she said looking tearfully at her head. 'It had grown back so beautifully and now I look like a badger'. I hugged her, rubbed the patchy skull and told her it would grow back again when she had beaten this second round of treatment. I lied and deep down we both knew I had. We never talked about her dying; she told me she did not consider it an option. I will miss her; she could drink some Guinness that girl.

I have my moments when things seem futile. I am left with another layer of life heaped into my head. Having mulled things over for a few days, I know I was lucky to have known the two people who have now moved onto another place I have yet to discover. I learnt a lot from knowing them. I need to take their examples of courage, compassion, hope and kindness and use what they taught me to make a difference in my own life and the lives of my own family and friends. If I let anger, misery and bitterness wrap their icy fingers round my brain, I will never cure the chilblains in my head.

No Answers

We went to Venice. It seems an eternity away now.

Twenty-four hours after returning, our world was shaken and suddenly everything changes. On Saturday, a friend of ours was found murdered in his home. He had lived quietly on his own.

I sit here and I can still see his face, his smile and hear his voice. We are caught in a time warp.

My youngest daughter, when she was treated to dinner in the local, always had Chicken Teddies. Our friend would try the distraction trick whilst trying to 'steal' the Chicken Teddies from her plate. She loved his, obviously bungled, attempts. It became their ritual. As she grew older their conversations became more 'grown up’. Our friend always remarked how bright, and funny she was. In the same way he brought tears to my eyes a few months ago, when he told me what a beautiful girl my eldest daughter was, 'she is beautiful from the inside out Mary'.

My girl’s world has been rocked. How do I calm the eldest, who knew him well? What do I tell the youngest? How do I protect them from a vicious, nasty world, when that world has landed here? How do I make them realise that this is not going to happen again? Suddenly our rural community, that was always idyllic and friendly has been cloaked in fear, anger, misery and grief.

I cannot make any sense of it because there is none. Our friend was a son, a brother and an uncle. Why did this happen to this family? There are no words of comfort I can think to offer his family. I have a huge anger in me, a rage I cannot explain. No one deserves to die in this way, no one. Our friend was the kindest of gentle men. You tell me where the justice is, I cannot see any.

I have held my eldest daughter. I have diluted the story of his death to the youngest. She said the line that everyone in our community was silently saying in their own heads. 'I don't want to hear this; I know I don't want to hear this'. God only knows what his family where screaming in their heads.

Someone out there, who is a son, possibly a brother, lover, husband, father or uncle did this. You took the life of another man, who had the nicest nature of anyone I have met. You have ruined the life of his elderly mother and his sisters, nephews and nieces. May your soul be damned to hell for eternity. May you never rest peacefully in this life or any other. I hope that you DO realise one day what you did, because you can NEVER salve your conscience whilst you walk on this earth.

The Power Of Twitter and a Busy Week

There were a few hangings on Twitter this week, the odd escaped balloon, a roof top protest and a miserable employee.

Jan Moir has been hung, drawn and quartered for her completely bigoted and despicable article on the untimely and tragic death of the young Steven Gately. Her acidic tongue and the venom she flicked from it was ceremoniously ripped from her mouth and thrust down her throat. She deserved it. Her downfalls began when she assumed she could hide behind the Daily Mail and flaunt her vicious nature whilst waving her 'I am a serious journalist and have the right to voice my warped opinions' flag. The aforementioned flag has been ripped from her hands and not too gently put into a place where the sun does not shine. Her arrogance was terrifying and her ignorance was beyond belief. Her mistake was assuming anyone would have even considered the opinions of such a misinformed witch as her. I am only surprised she only managed to miss mentioning Jade Goody out of diatribe of claptrap. Perhaps that is being saved for her next article.

The Trafigura toxic waste dumping off the Ivory Coast was shoved, none too silently, out into the public domain, completely defeating the object of the Court Injunction against The Guardian Newspaper. Within hours, more people knew of the incident than would have if The Guardian had actually published the article in the first place. The object of the exercise was complete, we knew about it and we shouted about it. Success.

Balloon Boy disappeared over the USA in a weather balloon, sparking a major incident, only to reappear, several hours later in his parent’s loft. Don’t ask! Amid cries of, ‘it’s a publicity stunt’ the Internet went into free fall, somewhat like the deflated balloon the child was said to, mysteriously, have got into before it vacated its tethering rope on Terra Firma.

Greenpeace went up on the roof of Parliament to raise awareness of Climate Change and tweeted from the rooftops. They also produced one of the most iconic photographs of recent weeks as they held a large, yellow banner above their heads against the backdrop of Big Ben.

Ian was exceptionally rude to an elderly traveller on the London train network. I suspect, as a result of the huge outcry on Twitter and several ‘tweets’ to the Mayor of London, he will lose his job. Quite rightly so.

What have I learnt this week?

• That if you are misinformed, vicious and have an axe to grind, do not do it in print and expect to keep your head.
• That if you don’t keep your children tethered to the ground they float off.
• If you anchor your ship off the coast and poison thousands of innocent people, you will be found out.
• If you angrily suggest that someone be pushed under a train, your words will come back to haunt you.
• Finally, if you want to shout about something, get up on the roof.

If you do any of the aforementioned stand by your computer, we are all armed with opinions and some are not scared to voice them. Who said Twitter was for saddos? Let us hope it is a bit quieter next week.

Blog About Climate Change

Act on Climate Change or this is the conversation I may be having with my granddaughter in ten years!

What is a Polar Bear? She said
It is like the Dodo, its extinct, I said

What is an ice cap? she said
It is like the ice cream you eat, I said
But that’s all gone, she said

What is a rainforest? she said
It is a field, I said

What is Climate Change? she said
It is your future, I said

Sing Birdies, Sing

I am not a person for New Years resolutions; instead, I strive every day to find something positive to see in others even when they lead their lives in the grey, dark, misty places of negativity and bitterness. It must be a very cold place, living in a world where everything someone else does, irritates you. A world where the sun never truly shines and never casts warmth and light.

Do not get me wrong, I love a good rant, but once the rant is done, I am over it. Until the next rant creeps up on me, unexpectedly!

The sun is beaming through the window of the office. My old dog is snoring on the doorstep. The leaves are clinging onto the trees stubbornly refusing to change colour. Everyone is out at work and the village is peaceful. What more can you ask for? Perhaps that is where the answer lies. The simple things are truly the most important. If we spent more time letting the sun truly warm us perhaps some of us could thaw our souls out a little.

When the birds outside my office sing, they sing in harmony. It isn’t scripted, each bird sings a different song but en masse, it may as well be a symphony. There are no pre-dawn meetings needed to discuss the tempo or the rhythm, each one is an individual and each voice is important. There is no fighting for supremacy, no under-hand 'knobbling' of the opposition, no greed for adulation. Perhaps out politicians should spend more time in the country!

Monday Morning, blurgh. Monday during term time, is the weekly dropping off of youngest daughter at school for weekly boarding. The older children both boarded full-time too. I hated that as well!

I have had my fair share of critics over the years for sending them to board. I have rarely defended myself. I do not see any point in explaining how they love the boarding environment, being with friends their own age, planning 'get togethers', whispering to each other after lights out, giggling over the latest pop god or discussing the latest 'reality' TV. Boarding has given them continuity of care and study time in a family life that is punctuated with my heavy workload. They loved coming home for holidays and weekends but it was obvious that they could not wait to go back either!

The most common comment thrown at me, 'how selfish, how can you abandon your own children?'. I have never abandoned them. I have worried and fretted late into the night over each of them. I have resented (occasionally) the bonds they have formed with the House Parent's and Matrons who have cared for them over the years. I have dreaded the end of each holiday drawing closer. I have taken myself off and cried after leaving them and not just at the beginning of term. My grief was never limited to the start of term time; it sprang upon me at its own choosing.

This weekend my ex husband and I took the youngest to see her new school. She absolutely loved it. Her excitement at seeing the school and her new boarding house was barely containable. This morning on the school run, I asked her, 'if there are no flexible boarding places left, how do you feel about boarding full-time?'. The answer cut like a knife. 'That would be great'. Great for you I thought, but what about me.

Sending my children to boarding school has never been an easy option for me. I adore all my children and dote on them, probably more than I should do. The research that goes into finding the next school is time consuming and mind blowing. Many parents encourage their children to go to University and expand their education, I just started earlier with mine. I look at the two older children, now young adults. They have a strong work ethic, are kind, considerate and accepting of others. I rarely clash with them. Perhaps they would have developed these traits had they gone to a local Comprehensive or a day school. Who knows?

The youngest is excited to be back at school today, she has been learning a jazz tune for her drum lessons and is rehearsing a new piece for her drama exam; she has stories of her new school to tell her friends. Meanwhile I am might just pop to her room, have a tidy round, and have one of those moments.

Confusion Limitation

I have reached the age where each day is merely a different level of confusion, punctuated with brief moments of clarity. I find myself worrying unnecessarily about my parents, my children and now my granddaughter. Where did the new found level of forgetfullness come from? Lists! For goodness sake I have never written lists, now I write lots of them, only I can't remember where I put them.

There are too many occasions when I ask one of my eldest offspring, "where are you going, when will you back?" only to be told, "Mother, we discussed this the other evening, I gave you the details then". The look that accompanies the words is more disconcerting than the fact I don't recall the discussion! My son has perfected delivering the aforementioned line with a heavy sense of resignation that his mother has started to lose the plot. I can sense the painful, protracted sigh, bursting to break free from him. I feel the knowing looks pass between the eldest children and my husband.

I find myself researching the symptoms of the menopause, grasping at the hope that there is a logical explanation for the fact that I cannot remember where my husband left his keys, where the oil for the chain saw is, where my daughters brown shoes (which originally were mine until she 'borrowed' them) have vanished to. My youngest is used to me and fortunately has accepted since she could walk and talk that I have a tendency to forget where I left her or forget to collect her from school.

Trust me, I don't relish the menopause, in my head I am capable of having at least 6 more children and I am far too young to reach the end of my reproductive life, even though I have no intention of producing anymore offsrping! In my head I am capable of running my house and my businesses in a perfect, structured, well organised way. In reality I am having more days when I stand staring into space, trying to recall why I went upstairs in first place. I now laugh when I set off for the supermarket and find that I am actually going completely the opposite direction. I don't mind being told that the reason the printer doesn't work on the computer is nothing to do with a software/network problem, it is merely due to the fact I haven't switched it on. I try not to get frustrated that after half an hour trying to charge a phone I discover that not only am I plugging the wrong charger in, it is actually plugged into the wrong connection on the phone.

The reason I am not perturbed is simply that I now make time to stand and gaze at my garden, the countryside that surrounds my home, my children and tiny little fingers and toes of my recent granddaughter. I read anything and everything because I indulge myself and make time to do so. I have taken up lots of the creative pursuits I indulged in before the children came along and despite the apparent loss of some of my marbles I like my confusion because it makes me laugh at myself. After all, laughter is the best medicine.