The first of a series of pieces from the Queen Mother of Small Things. Written over ten years ago now, it was a time when we were helping my Granddad live through terminal cancer. Mum has written a lot about this time in her life.
Woodworm
I am helping Dad in the garage, sorting out his wood for the fire. It is in the middle of July and the weather is cold for him, and there’s a lot of rain about. Dad is feeling miserable and needs some cheering up. He is old and very sick with cancer and it is a matter of a short time and he will be gone from us.
What is upsetting and a long pause for thought, is that this wood he will burn, he has been saving up for forty years. Being a carpenter, he used to make furniture at home in his spare time: tables, bookcases and cabinets to mention a few. So over the years he had acquired a great deal of wood under the floorboards, in the garage and in the outhouse.
Beautiful reddish brown mahogany, yellow-brown teak and various other timbers, all had been saved for better usage. All these off cuts are free from woodworm and still have their original smells.
Now with feeble hands, this wood will go to keep him warm or be given away. The task of cleaning out and getting rid of this wood nobody wants is going to take a long time but it is so urgent for him to sort out his prize possessions. Who has the skill to use it? Who has the room to store it? What is the point of hoarding things up?
So I’m helping him, I’m looking at his tired face and thinking that God in his great love and mercy has stricken mankind with sickness and death.
Dad is chopping, sawing and putting the broken pieces in piles for the fire. I’m nearly in tears and pause again for thought. What is the point in being careful?
Dad is shutting the green garage door and walking up to a small seat by the garage window. The thoughts that are going through his head are of sadness I expect. The day is not that cold but Dad’s illness is playing tricks with him. So I pretend to have a shiver “Let’s go in and light that fire”.
I’m opening the back door for Dad as he carries a small bundle of kindling wood towards the Truburn.
I suppose in days gone by, things were in short supply and they got handed around. But today, in this land of plenty, the old values are long gone. As the old folk die so do their stories – and photos too will be destroyed. Once again, a new age of humans will bring in vast changes.
Everyone has their own signature dish they make for guests. Whipping out a roasting tray or a griddle pan and grabbing some garlic from the fridge or Rosemary from the garden, it seems we all have go-to dishes that never fail to delight.
But what do you do if you are normally a meat eater and now have a vegetarian in your midst? You’ve been Master at Arms in your kitchen for years and suddenly your teenager comes home one afternoon to announce that they are now veggie. Perhaps you’ve found out your son’s new girlfriend doesn’t eat meat just after you’ve planned a huge Sunday feast or maybe a colleague is coming round for the first time for a Friday night barbeque and they need a vegetarian option.
You can even make vegetarian scotch eggs – perfect for a picnic, a summer barbeque or a Christmas buffet.
I’ve known competent cooks to go to pieces and raid the freezer at Waitrose rather than come up with something homemade (and by the way, I’d eat anything veggie from the freezer at Waitrose any day) but if you’re looking to stir up something fabulous of your own creation, it’s not that arduous to remove meat from a meal without removing the flavour. I’ve not eaten meat for nearly twenty years now and if there’s anything that sets off an attack of guilty ungratefulness at someone else’s dinner table, it’s the sight of a Quorn sausage next to my dauphinoise potatoes and butter sautéed baby veg, no matter how pretty they look.
But you don’t really want to be cooking two meals when you’re already under pressure, so welcome to my new blog series: Vegetarian Kitchen Heroes.
I thought I would start with some basics
If you’re cooking for a vegetarian there are a few really important things to remember:
Sounds obvious but please keep meaty utensils, plates and all other equipment separate. Finding out that someone has put the chicken gravy spoon in with the mashed carrot and swede just causes sadness.
Not all veggies are cheese freaks. Have a chat with your herbivore friend beforehand to find out what they like to eat and then head off to have a look at anything by Rose Elliot (she’s published about a million different cookery books and her website is really informative too) or the Vegetarian Society website. I use the BBC GoodFood site a lot as well.
Easy on the carbs, even easier on the eye. A simple feta and walnut salad with shredded beetroot and lambs lettuce is great dressed with just a splash of olive oil and a little freshly ground pepper. Light, nutritious, perfect.
Vegan and vegetarian are two very different cuisines. Cooking without any animal products at all can be a scary proposition but the vegan society have a vibrant and really rather helpful website. Or rustle up a chickpea and coconut curry – rich, sumptuous and utterly comforting – I’ve made this BBC GoodFood version before and it’s delightful.
Check sauces, bottled ingredients and accompaniments. Did you know that Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce contains fish, Muller Light yogurt contains gelatine (derived from animal collagen) and most authentic pestos contain cheese made from rennet (from animal stomachs)? Five gold stars if you already knew all of this but it just goes to show that you need to check what you’re cooking with before you serve it up to a non-meat eater.
Easy on the carbs. It’s very easy to cut the goodness, protein and beneficial fats from a meal when you cut the meat. The last thing you want to be left with is a dull, stodgy mess so using nuts, wholegrains, cheeses, eggs and so many other great foodstuffs can round out a meal, making it wholesome and balanced. Do your research and have some fun.
Go on, try a bit. In fact, have a go at trying it once a week, or even for a whole week. You’ll bump into new flavour combinations, textures you may not have come across before and who knows, maybe even a few extra vitamins and minerals. My brother is a chef and he was impressed by just how much you can enjoy cooking and eating when meat is no longer the main attraction.
The basics over and done with, I’ll share the ingredients I really love to cook with over the coming weeks.
Are you already a vegetarian and can add to my list, have you had any veggie cooking disasters or have you found the above helpful and fancy giving it a go? Please share, I’d love to hear your comments.
Inspired by a Hairy Bikers recipe, this butter pie is as good as a winter pick-me-up with some bright salad as it is a picnic delight on a hot summer’s day – and completely meat-free.
I saw you through the gates. You had short, spiky hair in mauve or it might have been black, I don’t remember now. Inked on one shoulder was a huge Pegasus, its wings wide and green and on the other, the motif of a woman embracing a man: the image dreamlike and fantastic in muted, earthy blues and greys. With a bar in one eyebrow and a stud through your tongue, I noticed that when you smiled, you had a ring in the flesh above your top teeth, although I guess you must keep most of these in a treasured box by the bed now.
You were tall, distinguished and cocksure amongst the jostling bodies.
You looked up to the sky and beyond the high fence at the clouds gathering with a look of rain on your face and with open arms ushered the children in your care through the school doors to the sound of the wet play bell.
That was eight, maybe nine years ago now. I’d just moved a million miles from where I grew up to live with a wonderful but distant man and having cried my way around the bored housewives tutting at the quality of slacks in department stores too many times, I decided what I needed was a friend. Always one to wear the wrong brand of flip flops, my skin was too natural a colour and my clothes too close to plus size for me to fit in well with the other mums at my son’s school at the time but something about you spoke of interest, life and excitement.
Lifting me out of my delirious melancholy, something about the fact that you were the most unconventional dinner lady ever woke me up.
And now up you go: in the belly of the helicopter, rising with your future.
Because living on the seesaw isn’t easy. It’s isolating. I know that.
Do you remember the time I picked you up and we went shopping? It took no longer than passing by the chicken wings to realise that it was a bad day for you. There were issues with the joints of pork and you thrust a jar of pasta sauce at me: shortly afterwards you shouted at some special offers on an aisle end and told off a mother with a howling child. My cupboards remained empty until later that night but I knew that I had to usher you out of the supermarket before something permanent happened.
Thinking back, we found out not long after I saw you in the playground, that although our children went to different schools, they were the same age: tendays difference, in fact. It was meeting you at Scouts that secured the notion that we were somehow meant to be a pair of caped crusaders: less Batman and Robin and more Morecombe and Wise or perhaps even Laurel and Hardy.
It took some time for your past to catch up with us. I remember as a child, letting go of my mother’s hand while walking to town and jumping a small wall to rescue a bear left out in the rain. She was horrified and came in to the stranger’s garden to catch hold of me once more but having seen the bear’s damp, limp ears her face softened and together we rang the doorbell and handed it over. I’d often seen toys left outside at night in my neighbours’ gardens and it unsettled something deep inside, like my heart and lungs had changed places or something. Things made to be treasured should be just that.
And since your childhood, you had been left out in the rain too many times.
So now, camera in hand, near-adult son at your side, you soar for the first time ever: up to the mighty fighter planes, the giant jumbos and the angular magic of your favourite fixed wing jet. I’ve been smiling at the thought for days.
Then there was the time you hid for months. Neck pain and a faulty MRI scanner meant you stayed the safe side of your coffee table, piled high with ignored bills, tv remotes and old teacups until you felt safe to come out again. It was the rain again. I could tell because your ears hung down.
I have a rich collection of snapshots. Your face around the back gate when I was heavily pregnant and deathly tired: you had lunch in one hand and a duster in the other. Then there was my wedding: you wore a trouser suit and a smile. With a glass of bubbly in one hand and my cake topper in the other, I could tell that something bright was laying quietly dormant, waiting for longer days and brighter skies.
Perhaps one of the things that I am most grateful for are the times you can engage with my husband on the nature of gaming, cricket and sixteenth century military maneuverers on my behalf. I am more than happy to move down the bench. Sunny days follow dark nights but always there are the totems of childhood joys stolen through the gaps of adult anguish.
And having delighted in sharing my family with you for so long, since I spied you through the gates, every time I go to lift your soggy fabric body off the lawn lately, I’m intrigued to find another pair of hands there first. This man makes your eyes bright. Your manic bounce quietens into a gentle undulation, like an ocean under swell and you fit into the cup of his hands as if you were always there.
Courtesy of those magnificent men (and woman) in their flying machines. Gotta love a bit of Red Arrows magic.
And this is where he has led you: the steps, the upward draught of the blades and a weightless lifting off. He’s the other side of the world but money flies and I almost hope that his Airshow gift soars you up into the clouds, into the skies above and then out beyond the atmosphere.
Then in eight, maybe nine years’ time I’ll think of the friend I haven’t seen in a long while and I’ll smile about the thought of her flying around the sun.
Like sitting on the ceiling: the view from St Martha’s Church in the Surrey Hills
It’s the school Easter holidays. The first few days seem indistinguishable, looking back. I remember an Easter fayre on the last day of school, some pyjama wearing here and there, some telly, a few snacks, the odd shopping trip and here we are, nearly a week later.
Whilst I acknowledge we probably all need the rest I do feel a certain uneasiness after a while, like I’m wasting the holidays, like I’m not providing enough away-from-the-classroom-learning. My social media feeds seem to be full of pictures of happy kids and parents eating pizza at theme parks – something I know would blow several months’ family-time budget.
Does this sound familiar?
But then I remembered my Mum’s own very special brand of school holiday entertainment: adventure walks. I say adventure because you could never be quite sure of where we would end up. It was all about the welcome squish of fruitcake wrapped in foil, the hilarity of a lone, gaping welly stuck in mud, the momentary relief of escaping a herd of cows by sitting high up on a stone wall. We would pick through the mud for shells along the Penryn river, taking them home in carrier bags to sud them up and paint them, allowing our little artistic efforts to dry on the coal bunker in the sun.
So, a couple of days ago I made the effort to pack food, find wellies and almost carry my daughter out through the door for a walk and it was well worth it.
High in the Surrey Hills, above the village of Chilworth sits St Martha’s Church. According to the friendly and knowledgeable vicar, people have been worshiping there since as far back as 3500 BCE and it’s no wonder. Accessible only by foot, the site has an indescribable silence and magic, with views way out over the countryside to the South Downs. I can only liken the sensation of sitting in the wind on one of the weathered wooden benches outside the church to sitting on the ceiling.
A good friend of mine and I have been visiting this place for years. We come at all times of the year – in spring for the stunning bluebells, almost to vibrant to look at; in the summer for the sunburnt bracken, arid sand and blue sky; and in the autumn, the turning leaves set before us a carpet of ochres and greens as far as the eyes can see.
Declaring “I’m an indoors kind of person”, it was difficult to get my daughter into the car initially but I knew that as soon as her investigating feet took over, she’d be well away. And she was.
Paddling in the stream at Chilworth
Paddling in the stream, handbag in hand, she moved the sandy stones around with her toes, allowing the sensation of the cool water to tickle her ankles. “I wonder if there are any fish, Mummy”.
The floor littered with anticipation: the bluebell wood as it looks nowThe bluebell wood as it will look in a few weeks
I took pictures of the diamante water, the rugged stones of the old gunpowder works and bluebell leaves readying themselves for the blue blooms rising.
Then we took the steep, stony path up the hill. This is the same path we usually take and it is an old, well worn, well weathered route. I often think of the people who have scuffed the same stones; the same trees; have stopped in the same places for a rest to look out over the same countryside.
The path at the top is hard going and sandy but well worth it. Feet at an angle and my daughter holding tightly to my hand, we dragged up the final furlong, out beyond the treeline and into the sun. This is where I can understand the spiritual draw of the place. It simply makes me smile.
Hunkered beside the 19th Century walls of the rebuilt church, we ate figgy rolls, drank juice and chatted. The kids balanced on the solid parameter wall of the cemetery.
On a breezy day, the wind seems to skip in from the sea
It’s a place that makes for good quality breathing. We opened our mouths and let the wind hit the back of our throats and it felt like it had come straight from the coast many miles to the south, skipping over the hills and into our lungs.
We came home happy.
The thing is, looking back, Mother didn’t take us out on an adventure every day – but these are the days I remember: these are the days that have shaped me.
So, I’ll not worry too much about today’s pyjama day. Maybe we’ll make sandwiches together at lunchtime, play a little triominos and watch a little Frozen. We’ll have an adventure again tomorrow.
My children have been my inspiration and my reason to find a community that works
I grew up as part of a tightly-knit religious community. It’s a very closed, secretive group and when I decided I could no longer be a part of it, I part jumped/was part booted out and found myself very alone. With a new baby, an imploded marriage and most of the people I’d spent the first twenty four years of my life with now crossing the street rather than look at me (their policy on shunning is pretty severe) I spiralled into depression.
Me and Paul: we’ve been through a lot in thirteen years.
Wind forwards sixteen years and I’m happy and healthy again. I’m at the centre of a network of people of my own making and I smile a lot these days.
How did I get here?
There is no doubt that humans are hard-wired to function as part of a community. I’ll concede that we all crave personal space and solitude sometimes but study after study has shown that people are happier and healthier for longer if they live within a social network.
There are, of course, problems with the above: relationships can be toxic; can break down; can be subject to harmful conditions and a whole myriad of other issues.
But consider the theory that pre-historic Homo Sapiens outlived the stronger and physically more able Neanderthals because they had the mental ability and drive to build strong relationships outside of the clan. (This article from the Guardian in 2013 makes for some interesting reading.) Networks are so important to us that perhaps we could adopt or find ourselves staying within a less than beneficial group out of necessity.
Looking back, I have no doubt at all that the biggest contributing factor to my poor mental health in my twenties was loss of community. This is why I now regularly visit pages on Facebook to help those who have just left my old religious group to come to terms with their loss. It’s a grieving process that is all at once liberating but also deeply upsetting and the religion’s shunning policy is one of their biggest tools to suck former members back into the fold (unfortunately, it leads some people to suicide).
But things do get better, life does improve and you can build a new support network.
Drinker of tea, maker of cakes and lover of daffodils, magnolias and agapanthus, my Mum refused to be separated from me and left the religion at the same time. She rocks.
So, I’ll not focus on the negative here but rather the ideas I would have like to have shared with my newly free but utterly deflated twenty four year old self (and these are things that I regularly share on those Facebook pages):
It takes time. It’s weeks, months, years of talking, texting and meeting up. Sometimes there are times when you fall out with someone, offend them or rub them up the wrong way but coming back from these situations and carrying on regardless makes for stronger links. ‘Bumping along’ as my Dad would say.
We have so much to learn from each other. Whether you are twelve or ninety two, I have something to learn from you and your view of the world and you from me. When we stop learning, we die.
Don’t be afraid to give. The singer Macy Gray sings “spread your rubber lovin’ and it bounces back to you” and I love this concept. The goodness you send out may hit a few walls or pavements before it comes back but it will – and rarely in the form you sent it out in.
Learn to trust because people are rarely inherently bad. They can be damaged, a little broken, strange in their reactions and strange in their habits but trust your gut and build links with people who make you happy.
Remember that sometimes you have no choice but to distance yourself from those who constantly dent your self-esteem. It’s just not worth it.
Finding the balance between self and community isn’t an exact science. You have to sacrifice personal choice and comfort to one extent or another in return for the rewards of being part of a community but others will have done the same for you.
Sometimes you get to choose your companions, sometimes you don’t. Whilst I genuinely loved the community which I grew up in, the sinister controls behind it were damaging. In order to stay, I would have to have given up so much of myself – in other words, the price was too high. So there are times when cracking out on your own and finding a new clan is the only thing you can do. This takes courage.
And it did take courage.
My Dad and my son in the social club where I thankfully spent the other half of my childhood. My Dad sat here with his father before him. It’s home to me.
So I find myself with friends who are mothers, fathers, writers, entrepreneurs, painters, dancers and musicians. I think of the faces I see at my craft group, my toddler group, the parents at school, the houses of my family and friends and I see stories and a life shared. There is laughter in the lines, genuine interest behind the words and light in their eyes. Sometimes I hold my belly and throw my head back in laughter and at other times, I cup the tears for their sorrow in my hands – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And then there are the few friends that I grew up with who also left the religion. We have a very special connection that won’t ever go away.
I’ve built my community, my way and I feel very lucky to have been able to choose the people I want in it – but it’s not been easy.
And then there are the humans that have accepted me into theirs. I feel grateful to them too.
Here is where I have to stop blogging for today. A friend has taken my daughter to the park this morning so that I can write and they will be home again soon. I didn’t drink at quiz night at the pub last night so that I could drop her and her family home in the car. Sometimes, my back gate opens and her husband comes in with a tub of freshly made, fragrant curry that she’s made for my family and I’ll send him back with a warm chocolate cake for hers.
It’s the right kind of community for me and I feel so very thankful for it.
A friend of mine was lamenting the big bang that marked the passing of her cooker yesterday.
Not an easy position to be in when you have a family to feed and I should know, I’ve been in that position many times: once when we’d had enough of the ring on the electric stove turning on whenever it liked in our tiny flat (I suspect that cooker was probably older than me at the time) and another occasion when we were refitting the kitchen and the food prep involved an old garden table, a gazebo, a microwave amongst the junk on my dining table and a few prayers for good weather.
This got me thinking, so these are my tips (feel free to add your own):
Every kitchen should have a copy of this little gem
Firstly, get a copy of this book – The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. Originally published in 1968, it was distributed by the local milkman. It has been reprinted so many times, updated in the nineties and is still available second hand on line. It is said to be one of the most trusted cookery books of all time but its winning feature for me has to be the fact that just about every recipe has an alternative set of instructions for using the microwave. Packed full of practical meals like beef stew & dumplings and Leicester cheese pudding (a personal favourite), it also features some fabulously dated dishes like layered turkey & broccoli loaf and blancmange that I think I’m going to have to have a go at making purely for kitsch value. Oh, and I’ve just read that another updated version came out in 2012. I know what I’m going to be ordering this afternoon.
Merchant Gourmet mixed grains. Available in most supermarkets and ready in just a minute.
Pouch rice. Not the cheapest way to cook this cheapest of staples but rice doesn’t respond well to cooking in the microwave so these little life savers come into their own when you don’t have a hob. Sainsbury’s have a lovely selection at the moment for only 50p a packet but my favourite has to be this grain mix by Merchant Gourmet. Pricey at around £2 a pouch, it’s rammed full of goodness and easily bulks out a meal. If you’re a vegetarian like me, it’s a great source of vitamins, minerals and it contains protein.
For a really simple sauce, cook a chopped onion, a knob of butter a teaspoon of oil and some crushed garlic on full power in a covered microwavable dish for about three minutes. Stir in a can of chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon of tomato puree, 300ml of hot vegetable stock and some dried herbs and then put it back in for another five minutes, uncovered. Take it out, give it a good stir and then cook again for another ten minutes but stir regularly and keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t boil over. Serve up with some heated pouch rice or pasta with plenty of cheese or tip in a packet of the Merchant Gourmet mix mentioned above for the last couple of minutes of cooking to make an easy risotto. Fish also poaches well in this tomato mix – check the packaging for how long to do this for and check it’s cooked through properly before serving.
Bulghar wheat. Easy to prepare, easy to spice up, easy to eat
Remember there are some great things out there that don’t need cooking. Bulghar wheat is a great source of fibre, B vitamins, protein and iron and because it is already partly cooked, you can get away with just soaking this wholegrain for 30 minutes. About 225g serves 4 and you just put in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Drain it thoroughly and mix in some chopped fresh herbs, some finely chopped spring onions or diced peppers and then top with feta and walnuts. If this sounds a bit too healthy try some chopped jarred peppers and a shredded rotisserie chicken from the supermarket instead. It’s very filling comfort food and my kids love it – and because it’s a staple of Eastern European, Middle East and Indian cookery it is perfect with robust spices like chilli, coriander and cumin. What’s not to like?
Fine noodles and couscous are also fine to soak. There are some great flavoured varieties available.
In case you’re thinking I’ve popped my laptop down next to the carob in a health food shop, I’ll admit that the above tips lean slightly towards the fact that my friend is following a vegan diet for lent, which is very commendable. But as I cater for both carnivores and a vegetarian for most meals, I know it wouldn’t be difficult to slip some cooked or tinned meat in there somewhere. I guess some pancetta or chorizo might be good chucked in with the onions if you’re making the tomato sauce or to go for some all-out fusion food try some good quality prosciutto and figs with the bulghar wheat along with the chopped fresh herbs. Imagine the rich, earthy, sweet, salty flavours served with a cold glass of Prosecco.
Sunday morning and a tale of an apple lost and some memories found.
The other day I lost an apple – it was a russet, my favourite. At the supermarket, I’d spent some time picking the most russeted but slightly soft ones in the box, all the while checking for bruising and placed them carefully in a plastic bag. But when I got home and unpacked my shopping, I was most distraught to find that I was one short.
Retracing my steps, I examined every nook and cranny from the car to my kitchen worksurface but it was clear that the apple had gone. It was lost. There were only two remaining and they would have to do.
Sweet, tough skinned, buttery on the palette but utterly wonderful when well rested
Russets are really important to me. I grew up exploring my granddad’s rambling garden and one side of it was devoted entirely to fruit trees: apples, raspberries, gooseberries and pears. His apple trees were no usual apple trees though. He had little seen varieties such as American Mother but my favourite were always the Russets. Each tree had been carefully grafted onto the rootstock of a different tree to maximise durability and yield, so below the branches, the patch looked not unlike a collection of disjointed knees.
I’d spend days of spring treading carefully over the mulch on the floor as the white petals of the blossom fell like snow on to the dark, carefully laid bark. And then came the buds of fruit that would grow as the days grew and then continued as the days started to die away. Each weekend I’d check them for ripeness and make do with picking the wild strawberries on the hedge for my free sweetness hit.
The well drained lawn alongside would become like straw in the hot summer sun and then green again as rainy days became more numerous with the turning year but still the fruit would be too hard, the tree too unyielding.
Then one day I would turn up at my Granddad’s house and the apple boxes would be out. These were the boxes that lived some of the year stacked in the outhouse. There was an unmistakable musty smell in the outhouse. Granddad had an old butler’s sink that always smelled of surgical spirit and soap (he would wash out there in the summer) and amongst the dusty mud on the floor there would be wood shavings from some project or other he was finishing. The smell of oil mixed with that of stored potatoes and freshly chopped onions (he often prepared food out there too). At the window, obscured by years of dust, sat old cobwebs over the puckered linseed paint solution Granddad would use on the wooden frames.
A secularist by voice but a sentimentalist by nature, my Russian-born Granddad could find ceremony in anything. He would carry the boxes up the steps and I would know that now was the time for the laying down of the apples.
And this is where Russets come into their own. Eaten straight from the tree, Russets are sharp and crisp (not unlike other apples) but their skins are tough which puts many eaters off. I never ate fresh Russets, however. They were wrapped and rested, their flesh allowed to mature under the rough skin until when they were taken out they were as puckered as the window frame paint and darker brown in colour.
Inside, the fruit was soft on the teeth and buttery in colour – the sharp crispness had almost fermented into a flavour not unlike sweet wine. Using age old methods from the long lost farming family that had raised him, my Granddad could store apples and potatoes from one growing season right round until the next. Under the floor, in the cellar amongst the bottles of cooking oil, old Christmas cards and treasured stored timbers sat the boxes of carefully stored produce, waiting their turn. Apples were rarely eaten fresh.
You’ll be pleased to hear that I eventually found my Russet. It had escaped through a hole in one of my carrier bags and rolled across the floor, ending up underneath one of my kitchen cupboards. On the tiles, below the wooden cupboard doors I thought of cardboard boxes, the wood dust, the oily smell and the puckered paint and thought how lucky I was to have been taught to rest Russets in order to enjoy them at their best. Their sweet, yellowing flesh evading the supermarket shoppers who don’t know that the addition of time turns this hard, inaccessible fruit into a soft, sweet delight that seems to evoke autumn, even in the hard days of winter and the brighter light of spring, when the closing days of the previous year are a memory way out on the other side of Christmas.
An apple lost, some memories found.There’s something satisfying with placing a wood-coloured apple into a wooden bowl.
This is why each apple is carefully placed into the wooden fruit bowl and allowed to rest until the skin tells me it’s ready to eat. The kind of skills my Granddad had for storing food have been lost with the eternal harvest that is the supermarket but at least I can keep the spirit of it alive with each rested, puckered apple.
And there they sit, a symbol of autumn ready to eat on a spring day and my mind tumbles back to the closing months of my Granddad’s life. His wish was that he would see the blossom of another spring and I believe in honour of his beloved apples, he managed to make it through to autumn too.
I was delighted to see a post on Facebook from an old friend yesterday – her daughter has just got an unconditional offer for the degree course of her dreams and I text her straight away because although she was over the moon, I knew her heart would be breaking at the thought of her child leaving home. I thought of the days spent sweeping at seaweed in rock pools – her daughter holding the bucket, my son with the net. I thought of ice cream, tractor rides, warm grass and laughing with my good friend at another sleepless night, another pair of jeans ruined, another potty training accident and I shed a quiet tear myself. Another two years and my own nest could start emptying.
They don’t stay like this for long
Those early days were a shared experience: my friend and I made our mistakes together. We worked our way through as best we could, bouncing ideas off each other.
With this on my mind, I woke early this morning to the sound of the birds. The sun not yet quite up, I remembered doing the same many years ago, nested with my son when he was just a few weeks old. I thought what I would tell the 24 year old me – my eyes at once wide with new experience and heavy from sleep deprivation. This is what I came up with:
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Breastfeeding is an amazing experience, challenging at times and not possible for everyone but it is probably one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. It seems distant and not entirely relevant, however, when your child is 16 and you are supporting them through their exams/girl trouble/learning how to be a man. It’s all about perspective.
Sweat the small stuff. I remember one afternoon after watching the full solar eclipse over Falmouth harbour, I climbed down off Trefusis fields with my baby son on my back and drove home to our little house when all my childless friends were going out to party. I felt so left out. I spent the afternoon listening to old U2 albums and my son slept, fed, smiled and slept. I wouldn’t have remembered the pub crawl I would have done with my friends but the human warmth of that afternoon will never leave me.
Feel okay doing things your way. Be a magpie in collecting shiny pieces of advice from younger and older people, magazines, professionals and the T.V. but go with what your heart tells you is best. Utterly exhausted, I finally conceded to combining bottle and breastfeeding one afternoon at the suggestion of a close friend, despite the misgivings of my health visitor. It was the best thing I could have done for my mental and physical health at the time.
Give yourself permission to enjoy the now. Days blend into weeks, into months, into years. So many advice columns console parents with lines like ‘this phase won’t last’. Don’t be too eager to look for the next stage, it will come in its own time without you hastening it. It’s exhausting but the early days will become a memory sooner than you think.
He could probably sit me on his lap now
The talking, playing and sharing will pay off. I always had a strong feeling that these were more important than keeping an immaculate house or flattening laundered clothes. As a working single Mum, I had a busy schedule but when my son was a toddler, I instinctively knew that when he became difficult to handle, what he needed was for me to sit on the floor and drag the toybox out. We’d watch Top Gear and build train tracks that snaked through the living room and out into the kitchen, under the dining table chairs. Now that my children are older, my role is transforming from carer to mentor. I had no idea just how much easier I had made this by securing good lines of communication when they were learning how to talk and trust.
Never let anyone else demean what you are doing. When I was at work, I was at work: there were those who wondered why a woman would leave her three month old son to go spend the day in an office. At the time, I would have lost my home, my car and essentially my life if I did not go back to work after the end of my maternity leave (which was a matter of weeks back then) but I also went back to the office because I needed some time to stretch my brain, learn new skills and talk to other adults. This was ok. So was turning down a full-time job when my son turned five. At the time, he needed me to be there every day to pick him up from school. I still stand by that decision now.
Having a second child doesn’t take love away from the first, it multiplies it. My son’s father was at first worried when he heard I was pregnant by my second husband, worried that his boy would not receive the same level of attention or love anymore. (My ex now takes my daughter out for milkshake and they sing daft songs together, so all is well.) With a nine year gap between my kids, my son has learnt skills that he could not have acquired anywhere else, not to mention the adoration he gets from his little sister. I have had the joy of watching the two people I created mesh a relationship that will likely last longer than I will.
Children are loud and they run around. Of course, they need to learn appropriate behaviour and speech but this is a long term project. Broken kids make for broken adults. As long as you have the situation in hand, let the tutters tut – their discomfort is not your problem: it’s theirs.
It’s ok to compare your children. I’m not talking in a competitive way here but they are individuals and what worked for one might not work for another. They have their own unique skills and challenges: talents that seem to crawl out of the woodwork unexpected and quirks that are a reflection of the ones you’ve spent your lifetime dealing with. Siblings can be encouraged to learn from each other’s strengths and provide support for their challenges because one day you won’t be around to perform this task anymore but first, they need the tools to find out what these are.
You can choose to replicate your own childhood environment or re-evaluate it. Deepening the coastal shelf (to quote Phillip Larkin) isn’t necessarily inevitable. There is always time to change the way you think.
I think the most important thing I needed as a young mother was confidence. This, of course, comes with age through the media of hindsight, perspective and experience but I’m glad I launched unimpeded by fear into parenthood – and that was my youth at work.
There have been a few whispers around the web this week that Jeremy Clarkson, who fronts Top Gear, has been, how shall we say, a bit naughty (again). I’ve been a fan of Mr Clarkson on paper for years – his writing is intelligent, even if it’s a little shouty – but on screen I believe his feet are hanging so far out of his boots, it’s a wonder he doesn’t trip over.
Tyco BMW’s image, posted on Facebook, sees Guy’s face in place of Clarkson’s. Is this how the line up should look?
And now the BBC have sent him home to think about his behaviour (again) while they investigate. Meanwhile, further scant details of the fracas emerge through the press: the steak dinner that wasn’t ordered, the ‘punch’ that was only ‘contact’ and Clarkson’s good friend May awkwardly stating “the man is a knob but I quite like him”.
This leaves speculation about whether a motoring show of Top Gear’s ilk could once again charge our Sunday nights (or any night if you frequent Dave).
Yesterday’s Grimsby Telegraph provided the perfect suggestion for a Clarkson replacement in the form of Guy Martin (think TT racing, truck mechanics and the industrial North) . He’s not in the same league on the journalistic front but oh boy, the show would definitely open up to a brand new demographic. A cute, tea drinking, petrol-head with a talent for speed and getting his hands oily? Oh and a Lincolnshire accent that could float any narrowboat.
I know who I’d rather be viewing post-roast. What do you think?
Sunday 9th March was International Women’s Day. Aside from the double spread in the Independent on Sunday showing the world’s most powerful women and the BBC’s World Service’s post on the BBC website simply titled ’50 Women Who Made it Happen’ (well worth making time for) there were several things of note that popped their heads above the parapet.
Sat on the sofa on the Andrew Marr show, Sarah Baxter, Deputy Editor, Sunday Times, expressed her delight over India Knights’ article in the same paper on why the best spies are middle aged Mums – “inconspicuous and able to shuffle around with shopping bags”, equipped with unrivalled powers of tickling. I have thought exactly the same thing myself many, many times. It’s why female suicide bombers are such a valuable weapon – the fairytale of woman’s innocence vs. man’s wickedness is a well-established tactical tool.
The cost of raising standards in Early Years care has to be met by someone – so think these happy dollies in the sun.
Reference was made at some point to the recently published Family and Childcare Trust’s Childcare Costs Survey. Reading the report for myself, I was shocked but not entirely surprised in the rise in cost of childcare but in particular, the statistic that part-time care from a childminder has risen by 4.3 per cent in the past year. I have many friends who are childminders and the rise in this cost is clear: the government continues to raise the bar in terms of standards of care whilst cutting funding. Mandatory training courses, which used to be free, are no longer funded and in my area, free to access Sure Start run playgroups and the like are now off limits to childminders – the costs of these have to be met somewhere and childminders already earn very little for doing a very demanding job. This in the face of the House of Lords Committee on Affordable Childcare asserting that more money needs to be spent on bringing more graduates into the private, voluntary and independent sector and that Government funded 2-year old places should be in settings that are rated as Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. More for less seems to be the way of things across the board these days but I can’t help thinking of the damage this is doing not just to working parents and the private childcare industry but also the small people who have no say in these things.
Then, a little later in the morning, the last item on Nicky Campbell’s Big Questions (BBC1) asked: is it more important for Christians to do good than God? This prompted some often heated but well-reasoned discussion between several female academics and writers. Interesting stuff, I thought, sat on the sofa in my pjs and slippers, cup of tea in one hand, six year old daughter on my knee. The issues raised included the man-made nature of doctrine and whether women were historically excluded from the process. Perfectly good points, I felt – perhaps even pivotal to the whole discussion. Bravo, I thought as I quaffed more tea.
That was until Peter Hitchens, columnist for the Daily Mail, opened his pie hole and dismissed the previous ten minutes’ discussion as “bureaucratic, theological flim flam” and continued to sum up his opinion thus:
“There has to be something in your mind which stops you from doing a wicked thing when the temptation is there to do it. If you have no doctrine, you will do that wicked thing because there will nothing to stop you. That’s why our society, each year, kills 180 thousand babies in the womb and thinks it’s good.”
And boom! We all whiz back fifty years and the women may as well have not bothered turning up (or going to school for that matter).
All dinosaurs love butter pie
So, this is where the room for growth lies. Yes it’s in speech, yes it’s in education and yes, it’s in giving women the mobility to get into positions where they can bring balance to the important decisions we make as a society but it will take a while for the dinosaurs who choose to adhere to the old ways to die out. For now, we must keep them happy with pie and wait for their ideas to fade with them.
