I think this might be goodbye

Gosh, how many times have I thought about writing this? Well here I am. Might as well just do it.

I suppose there might be some people out there waiting for an update and wondering where I've been and what I've been doing. Now you're going to find out. But it's a long post. Settle down. Get a cuppa.

To recap, we just about got by financially while I was a stay-at-home mum for seven years, but as you know last year various things started coming together and every month, no matter how much we slimmed down, the amount going out was a bit more than the amount going in. I was sewing curtains part-time, but that doesn't make much money. All the boys were finally in school. And the crunch hit: we'd hit the limit of our overdraft in mid December and all the sh*t would hit the fan.

I couldn't keep indulging my passion for sewing, writing and creating: I was the only one who could get us out of this mess. My husband's job is fairly static in level/pay for now - long story, and I'd have to tell you what his job is to explain, which he understandably doesn't want me to reveal.

Basically I had to get a job. I started by doing some admin/receptionist temping work in late November and through December while interviewing for jobs in the transport planning field that I had left seven years previously.

These are the assumptions I had when going into the process:

• No one in my old industry would hire me. I had been seven years out of it and that would make my skills and knowledge redundant. I was unemployable.
• On the extremely rare chance I could get a job, I would have to agree to work full-time and that would have a massive impact on the family, childcare, etc.
• On the extremely rare chance I could get a job, it would take ages and a huge amount of leg-work to get it to happen. I would be working in admin for quite some time first.
• When I left the transport planning industry, that I had fallen into in the first place, I was absolutely desperate to leave and start a new life being a stay-at-home mum and then finding my dream other job. I would hate to go back. It was not for me.
• If I did go back, I would flounder for ages. I would feel out of my depth. I would take a long time to not only get back up to speed with industry knowledge, but also the basic skills of work like report writing, IT, etc, and feel like an imposter and make them wonder why they hired me.
• I would hate the commute. I would hate the time away from the children. I would miss them dreadfully and feel guilty and constantly like I was missing out. I would be sacrificing my happiness because I had to go back for work for financial reasons. I would do it, but I would feel a huge loss in the process.
• The children would hate it too. They wouldn't like breakfast or after-school club. They'd feel abandoned. They'd find it really strange adjusting to their dad often collecting them from school and doing the previously mummy things of making dinner, homework, etc.
• I would feel bereft having to give up the sewing that was so close to my heart, and the business I'd been working to develop.

But it had to be done, so I speculatively sent out my CVs to consultancy companies, contacted a recruitment agent in the area, worked hard on my CV, discovered Linkedin, and all the other things when you're going hell for leather to find a job. This is what actually happened:

• Two of the four companies invited me to interview. I could not believe it.
• Within a fortnight, I had had both interviews.
• They both offered me a job. They both offered me a job! At four days a week instead of five. perfect. With good pay. With a drop in seniority to where I had left off, but I expected and wanted that so I could have some time refreshing myself and learning the work again, without the pressures of managing staff and budgets.
• In fact, far from feeling like I'd almost have to beg for a job, they both liked me so much that they were trying to sell themselves to me, knowing I had the other company interested too.
• I accepted one of them. We had gone from a massive financial struggle and me feeling unemployable, to signing a contract of a great job with a great company, based really close to the station in a major city, and all in about three weeks. Rollercoaster doesn't even cover it.

Goodness, it took some adjustment. I spent several weeks afterwards feeling mostly stunned. I had to wrap up the sewing business, try (unsuccessfully) to get all my sewing work finished up, sort childcare out, buy work clothes (!), plan commuter routes, and all the other things you have to do when going from a stay-at-home to a working-mum. All in December with Christmas to organise at the same time. It was frantic, frenetic, hectic, overwhelming, and a whole lot of other words that all basically mean the same thing.

And while all the money worries, CV writing, job hunting, interview prepping, Christmassing, logistic-sorting and everything else was going on, I didn't have the time to write anything here.

I stared work on January 4th. I get most Friday's off as I work four days usually, and this is the end of my second week. It's possible that I'm in the honeymoon period, but having read back those assumptions I listed earlier, here's what's actually happening:

• I thought I would take quite some time to get back up to speed, though I knew I am quick on the uptake and good at absorbing new information. But I felt fine very quickly. I read around the subject and google search things where I need to. The things I don't know are mostly to do with the transport infrastructure in the north versus the south, where I used to work, and that's not a lot different to if I'd never stopped working and just relocated.
• I hit my stride pretty fast. I feel, in the best possible way, like I never left. There are loads of new things (telephone conferencing on Lync - blew my mind!) but I'm getting my head around them fine.
• I feel like I'm good at this. I write reports and they get complimented. I've not written a report in seven years! But turns out, it's like riding a bike. And if you're engaged and interested, if you're good at report-writing generally, you can do it. My colleagues seem to trust me, as do my bosses. One of my bosses actually said, a few days in and after my first report was finished, something along the lines of: "You get a feeling for someone when you interview them, but you never fully know for sure, and I'm really pleased to see I was right about you." They're giving me work and responsibilities as a result that I don't think they realised they could do, at the start. I feel like I'm worth the money they're paying me.
• I like the commute and the office work. I feel like my brain is lit up. I feel like I'm somebody, like I'm important and going somewhere again. I feel a bit ambitious. I like to be helpful and useful. And I know I'm a swot, but I love to be learning things again and using that academic brain that's been sat wrapped in bubble-wrap all these years.
• I miss the children, but they're happy at their before/after school clubs, their dad's doing wonderfully (though it's hardcore for him working 7am-2.30pm then rushing to collect the kids three days a week, cooking dinner, etc). I feel appreciative of all our time together. I am sillier with them. I am not ground down. I am lit up.
• Losing the money worries is huge. I feel a hundred times lighter. That weight had been on my shoulders and that worry had been grinding at me for a long, long time. We have new stresses now, mostly of the logistical kind, but they've not cumulated like the money stress had, and so we feel very blessed by comparison.
• I actually feel more organised and on top of things, despite having less time at home. I feel like I'm becoming that old organised person that I once was, and couldn't understand why I couldn't be all these last few years. No idea why that's happened: because it had to? Because I have the commute to put down one role and take up another? Because things have to be more efficient and planned and so I'm being and doing both?
• I like my job. I like being a working mum. I never, ever would have thought it, but I do. I like feeling like I'm doing well at things and being recognised for it. And the sewing? I don't miss it yet. And when I do, I'll be able to sew us a cushion on a whim or something, rather than feel that it's also a job and a deadline that makes me feel under pressure.
• What was one of the worst and most worrying times of our life, could, it seemed, only be fixed by the loss of so much: mothering, sewing, my dreams, and everything in between. How could we have known how it would turn out? Overall, I'd say we've gained rather than lost. I had to fix our problem and I went out and did it, and the sacrifice became a blessing in disguise.

As for the blogging, where do I go from here? Well I'm saying goodbye. Not necessarily forever, so watch this space. But I don't feel the urge like I used to, because it was a way to connect with my creative self and the outside world while I lived a very insular life with my children in a little village. Now I'm out in the world with grown-ups every day, and I'm creating all sorts of things (though not arty or crafty ones any more), and so I don't need it. Will I want it? I don't know that either. For now, I want to be good at my job and make myself proud, and when I'm at home I want to be fully present in home and family life. I want to clean the house, go to the park with the kids, bake at the weekends, share a glass of wine and a chat with my husband, basically live my life rather than document it. I don't want to lose the time I have by sitting here tapping away in this space.

It all may change, but for now, a heartfelt and expansive thank you and goodbye to all my readers. You lifted me through all the darker moments of the last seven years, and you were lovely to me in all the lighter and good moments too. I'm still reading your blogs, if you have them, though I may not often have time to read every post or to comment on them like I used to. I think you and this world are fabulous. It's just that I've set off on another adventure for now. Be glad for me - I'm happy. Things are good. And I think they're going to get better.

xxxxx

What I decided to do

Funny how the dawn and the dusk can look so similar. It's a bittersweet thing in life, the way the end of something and the start of something else are often the same moment in time. 

I wrote a few weeks ago about the big dilemma I was experiencing, in deciding 'what to do with the rest of my life' (it's hard so say that without melodrama). Should I carry on with the sewing business that would never earn us enough? Become a teacher that would take up all my time? Go for the Masters I couldn't afford? Return to the sustainable transport career I'd burnt the bridge on? Or get an undemanding admin job that would never fire me up?

I spent seventeen years of my life as a vegetarian. And I have to tell you, there's value in a limited set of choices. Going to a restaurant with any kind of dietary peculiarity cuts the menu down by a huge amount. And there are many times now, sat at the table and faced with columns of choice and struggling to be decisive, that I yearn for those days when choosing three courses was effortlessly simple.

After I wrote about the career limbo, my dilemma became vegetarian. By which I mean, the crunch time we always knew we were headed for (you try living on a single frozen public sector salary with three children, two cars and a nice house in a nice village) hit. It hit hard. Thank you to the government for reducing our tax credits by a couple of hundred a month, due to a pay rise of a couple of hundred a year. Thank you to the recession for freezing my husband's salary for years, for raising the price of food and fuel, and for cutting our profit on our London house sale by quite a chunk. Thank you to all sorts of other external influences that suddenly meant, this autumn, our slowly dwindling reserves had the plug pulled on them. We've been living very carefully, money-wise, for a few years now and there are no more cuts we can make (we are even, ironically, vegetarian again now on week nights).

And thus my dilemma went away. Before, the world of work had been open to me and I had the task of finding the 'one true vocation' that would fit me and my family. Now I just need a job. I need a job by the end of the year or all that stinky brown fecal matter hits the proverbial fan.

At first I felt liberated, weirdly. I couldn't be a teacher or do a masters, as both wouldn't start until autumn next year and I need to start now. Sewing curtains for people will never make enough to keep us. So it's back to the transport work, if anyone will ever have me after seven years away from it. Or it's into an admin job, if anyone will hire me when up against a huge wave of twenty-something job-seekers with no dependents and an unbroken employment history.

Having been completely, completely desperate to give up the transport planning world and never go back, oddly it now seemed quite appealing. Before, it had been the career I'd fallen into and left me unable to choose. Now I could choose it after all, and simply as a means to an end, and that was fine. And the admin work that I felt overqualified for now seemed nicely simple and a chance to interact with real adult human beings. The transport work pays better and uses my talents more. The admin work is more likely to be available part-time (full-time work will be such a shock to both the boys and me) and local.

But a job didn't fall into my lap that first week. I then spent a fortnight feeling - every single day - disappointed in life. A fortnight hibernating from the outside world. Wallowing in grief for the loss of the dream life we had up here. And then this last weekend I pulled myself out of it, and so here I am on the blog again, finally able to tell you all about it.

I don't know what will happen. I'm applying for everything that fits in with my family. Eventually, I'll have to apply for things that don't fit in too. I don't mind that, at the moment, the dream (which turned out to be returning to academia to hit the masters-phd-lecturer road) has gone. I just want to provide for my family. I want to stop the daily fear and worry that the money's run out. I want to enjoy Christmas. I want to see my glass as half full again.

I'll keep you updated. Cross your fingers for us. 

after the storm: remembering

On Wednesday last week, it was Remembrance Day. I stopped work and walked down to the Cenotaph in the centre of our village, and watched all the children from our local primary school - including my youngest two - sing their songs, read their poems, and recite the names of every man in our village who lost his life in war. Men stood proudly in their well-maintained uniforms, medals shining, flags on heavy flagpoles held aloft. The oldest, a man whose face bore every one of his years, shook each time he had to hoist or lower that flag, or put it into the pouch that held its base at his waist, and yet you could see that every moment of discomfort or difficulty was an honour to him because he was still living, and he remembered those who had gone.

A boy in my son's school had, a year previously, visited the Tower of London's famous cascading poppy display and had been inspired to ask if we could do something similar at our school. All sorts of adults, from the local secondary school's Head of Art, through to our local British Legion representative, came together to breathe life into his dream. The children in the school made their own clay poppies, glazed them, fired them, and on Remembrance Day they became a field to the side of the walkway into school. I see them four times every day, in all weather, and they still stand proud a week later. They remind me to remember, and that is so good.

And then Paris happened. It happened on the same day we remember the birthday of my oldest friend's lost mother. And both those things together: the senselessness of loss, the cruelty of life, all the very best and very worst of humanity laying itself bare... it made me need to write here again. It made me need to say: I remember. I remember those soldiers from more than a century ago. I remember the innocents of Paris, of London, of New York and everywhere else touched by vicious violence. I remember the refugees from Syria, that boy on the beach, the faces of those mothers as they stepped onto Greek islands. I remember Jenny, my friend's mother, who was so, so alive and taken so fast and so unfairly. 

And I choose. I choose not to let all this bring me down: because everyone who died wanted to live, I know I must choose to live fully. To love my family and friends not just in my heart but in my actions. To grieve what's lost and then, on a new page, write a future. I choose to step forward into life with the steps they wished to take.

I know it's hard to feel like there's anything we can do to help after Paris. Those of us with neither the finances nor the power to help the victims or catch the perpetrators feel impotent. But let me tell you: we are not. We have seen the power of the internet to influence others in the name of hate and murder. But through the internet, we have the power to spread happiness, purpose and goodness too. And through life itself. If I raise my boys with love, with kindness and compassion, they can become three men who neither kill, maim or destroy. If I live my life as fully, richly and honourably as I can, I am one more person who hasn't been beaten or broken by the evil in the world. We need more children to grow into good people, and more people to live in the name of peace, kindness and happiness, and if we can do that, add all those people up and we make such a difference. 

This week I have a doll to sew. It may seem a frivolous thing to do in the light of what's happened. But it is my way of living the good in life, of living my values, of bringing happiness to others. My little niece may grow up to love it. It may brighten your day to see it here. And sewing it, for me, is an act of love for my family, and of filling my life and soul with everything that is the opposite of what those vicious men did in Paris. Making the world good starts with making our own lives good.

What a day. Indulge me while I give you nine things, from two perspectives...

The bad

1. There were so many battles with those two boys. Silly fights over silly things. Winding each other up on purpose. I ended up doing some shouting. Mostly I held on to my patience but it was at the expense of my joy.
2. I indulged in a cake. It was a huge lemon Viennese fancy. I discovered lemon should not be in a Viennese fancy. Bit of a waste of a cake treat.
3. I also indulged in a pizza. Beyond the point of full. Possibly even beyond the point of stuffed. Because I plan to treat my body like a temple for the next month so perversely needed to eat rubbish today.
4. I meant to finish working on my CVs. I got time for none of that.
5. I meant to have a nice chat with my parents this morning. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum ruined that. The current state of play is: mummy tells them what to do. They don't do it. I tell them again. Ditto. By time four or five I get really shirty and even then I am often ignored. What's the point of speaking at all?
6. I meant to do some selfish sewing. No time for that either.
7. I woke up at 5am for no apparent reason.
8. I really do usually love spending time with the boys, and I have been so looking forward to half term. It's a bit of a shame when you build it up and then have a day that probably managed only about an hour total of relaxing, probably only an hour total of enjoying their company, and again an hour of lightness and happiness.
9. It was my birthday today. Which is why all the above was... let's be diplomatic and say disappointing.

The good

1. It was my birthday after all. And that's always nice to mark; nice to remember. Plus I'm a year younger than I thought I was going to be. It's the little things.
2. I got Anna Jones' new book. My body really is going to be a temple. Her first book is one of my favourites. And I have about forty so that's saying something.
3. Just look at that tree! It was a glorious autumn day. The light was amazing and the leaves around here are just every colour of autumnal loveliness right now.
4. That tree was in a park, and while the playground was too busy, the crazy golf was open but almost empty and the boys spent a good half hour running around it sans golf equipment, pretending to be spies or Ninjagos, using up lots of their energy (at last), and I got that same half hour sat on a bench reading a couple of blogs on the phone, actually enjoying them, and relaxing.
5. I had a bath. That can never be bad.
6. The middle son, instigator of many of today's troubles, who is going through a stage of being a bit selfish, a bit whiney, a bit 'that's not fair' was actually really quite lovely for about half an hour this morning in bed snuggling with me.
7. The lovely husband let me faff on the computer after the blow-out pizza dinner. He put the kids to bed by himself. He tidied the kitchen.
8. ... And he's taking me down the road for a couple of drinks now, where there will hopefully be a nice fire or two, and some lovely conversation.
9. And I wrote this. I vented and then I counted my blessings. I checked in on the blog. And tomorrow is, as someone rather glamourous once said, another day.

I need your help...

Last week was kind of rubbish. I have been feeling so frozen. So stuck in the headlights of the future. I have so much that needs doing but nothing driving me forward because I don't know which way to go, and thus I'm stuck in procrastination and pottering and I hate it. So I just thought: I'll write it here. You readers tell me what to do. Please.

The dilemma is my career. Or the lack of it, and the need for it. I'm sorry but this may end up being a long post! Stay with me if you can. I'll try to be concise (says one of the least concise people ever) but I need to set the scene (bonus material: you're kind of going to get my adult life story)...

Seventeen years ago I had my first born. I sat my A-levels while half-way through being pregnant with him. I turned down my place at Cambridge and decided to focus on being the best mother I could be, despite being young and single. I spent two years just mothering him and they were two of the best years of my life. I found myself and who I wanted to be. And I really loved being a mum.

Then, belatedly, I went to university to do the Geography degree, two years later than planned. The eldest and I lived with my parents, he went to the nursery where my mum worked and I commuted into town and what was, luckily, one of the best universities in the country. I loved my degree. I have always loved learning (I'm a bit of a swot). I worked really hard and got a First.

I had planned to stay on and do a Masters then a PhD and finally become a lecture. But some work I did in my final year got me a job offer and, with a child to support and no means of getting our own home otherwise, I had to do the right thing and accept it. I figured the Masters bridge was burned.

I worked for five years in town, in a variety of transport/sustainability/streetscene type jobs. I was pretty good at it and I enjoyed it enough (though not all the time), but it was never what I really wanted to do with my life. During this time I met and married my husband, a northerner, and we realised we'd need to move north at some point to be nearer his mother. The move would mean we could just about get by on his public sector income while I looked after our future children.

That's what we did: seven years ago we moved to the Peaks, I gave up working, and we had our second and third child. Being a stay-at-home mum was a very conscious decision, something I did for them as well as me. I have loved it. But the youngest has just gone to school, our finances are pretty dire, and I have to go back to work. I want to work. But I want to still have as much time with the children as possible.

I have worked a bit in the meantime. In the early days up here I did some part-time admin work for a year or so. For about six months between the second and third boys I was a childminder - I love working with children, but being pregnant and looking after three under-two's was tough. And this last year I've sewn curtains, cushions and blinds half time. You know me: you know I love to sew (and discovered sewing before our last boy was born).

So here are my choices (in current order of preference). Or yours, since you're choosing for me...

1. Perhaps that Masters-PhD-lecturer career path wasn't burnt down all those years ago? I would really love to do this, but there are the finances to consider, I'd need to do some admin work (ideally at the university) part-time, and there would be an impact on the children as I'd need to commute into (probably) Manchester to do it. How would I pay for it? How would I earn at the same time? My husband is usually home from work by 4pm (he starts at 7am) so they wouldn't need too much childcare but I'd have essays and reading to do most evenings. But I think this option is what my heart, soul and brain most yearn for.

2. Teaching. This has always been my back-up option. I know I would love to teach and would be really good at it. But I also know it feels a little like settling. And, most importantly of all, it's a highly time-intensive and stressful career. I want time with my children but the typical teacher does a 70 hour week for the first few years. I would hardly see them. Teaching gives you the school holidays but day-to-day it really isn't a parenting-friendly career any more.

3. Stick with the sewing. This was certainly the plan a year ago. I love it. I could work from home and fit my hours in around the children, so it's certainly the best option for them time-wise. But it's never going to bring in much money, certainly not enough for the eldest starting university, the mortgage, blah blah. It's increasingly looking unviable for these reasons. And my academic brain is pretty dormant.

4. Just find a regular admin type job that fits in with school hours, brings in extra money, and maybe the boys have to do a few days in after-school clubs. The first 3 options involve bringing work home with me but this would not, and that's a benefit to them. But I really, really want to be able to do a job I love for once. And this really wouldn't be it.

5. Go back to the transport world. I'd earn much more than option 4, though I'd be working full time and that would impact on the children. I'm experienced though out-of-touch, so I'd probably have to start on a much lower level than when I left seven years ago. And when I left I was so relieved! I really never wanted to go back to it. But maybe needs must?

What do you think? When I say decide for me, obviously I won't just do what you say, but your opinions and votes will, I hope, help me decide. 

I am a planner, and this is the first time in my life that I can remember being so stuck on a major life decision. I always need to know where I am and where I'm going and I just don't know what to do here. What's best for everyone, not just now but five years down the line when the kids are all older. And while I thought I could do the groundwork on several options at once, running them concurrently for much of this year and then deciding, it turns out that the lack of a plan instills a horrid, self-defeating inertia in me. So I think I really need to decide on one, and maybe keep another one or two as back-up options. You should know, also, that the list in 'order of preference' is a new thing: a week ago, I wouldn't have been able to rank them at all I was so stuck.

PS Option 1 and 2, and maybe 5, could seriously impact on my time to blog and read blogs. Does that matter? I love to write and I love this online world that's just for me. But perhaps the writing element of those three career paths would satisfy my writing needs anyway?

Right. Go! Answers on a postcard (or, for convenience, below in the comments section please!)...

If I could...

My lovely blogging friend Lizzie wrote a very interesting 'If I could...' and challenged me to do the same (thanks!). This daydreaming list project was initiated by Jocelyn at The Reading Residence I think. I've been quiet for the last fortnight (life!) and thought it'd be a nice way to reintroduce myself. So here goes...

If I could live anywhere...

I would be about an hour from my parents. I know I should probably pick a specific place but that's the answer my heart tells me. I used to live 5 minutes walk away. Too near. Now I live 4-5 hours drive away. Much, much too far. Other than that, my must-haves are to be in Britain, with woodland, hedgerow, rivers or streams, wildflowers, friendliness and a train to take me to the galleries and shops of a city.

If I could have any home...

It would have to be Georgian/Victorian, with sash windows, a big stained-glass window door, double-fronted (well, I may as well shoot for the moon), with working fireplaces, high ceilings, and full of light.

If I could have any garden...

It would have grass for the boys to play ball games, rambling beds of country-garden flowers, brick walls leading to other garden 'rooms', bird feeders, a courtyard area with cornflower-blue garden furniture and, if I'm being honest, no midges at all.

If I could be on holiday right now...

You're going to think I'm really strange but most of the time I just like being at home! If I were on holiday though, I'd pick the British seaside in the sun and warmth (if such a thing exists), Paris in springtime, or Tuscany in the autumn. My magic three holiday ingredients are culture, scenery and good food.

If I could have any job...

I'd be a writer. No hesitation. Sewing comes a close second, as does being a university lecturer (though I think that ship has passed!). If I am completely honest there are quite a lot of days where I'd like no job at all! For the past six years though, I've been a stay-at-home mother which was my ideal job while my boys were small. I've been very lucky.

If I could have any talent...

I'd have the talent of not procrastinating. Seriously. And if that can't be done, I used to be pretty good at drawing, and I'd be very glad to have that talent back.

If I could live any day again...

I'm not sure if I would. But my instincts are always to go back to a day when I've made terrible mistakes and fix them, rather than to go back and experience a day of great joy again. There was one day, aged fifteen or sixteen, when I couldn't handle my emotions and so was terribly unkind to someone who least deserved it. I'd probably go back and change that. I wasn't that great at adolescence!

If I could have any superpower...

Oooh! Let me think... There are definitely some days I'd like the power of reading minds! Is that too Machiavellian? And I'm not sure if it's a superpower, but I bet superheros need less sleep than me and can wake up at 6am wide awake and raring for action. That'd be very useful!

Thanks for the tag, Lizzie. Thought-provoking! I nominate ...

Rachel at The Ordinary Lovely and Lowri at Little Maldod: if you have the time and inclination to join in, please do!

In which my Little One turns six

This boy. Skinny as a rake, fast as a hare, with superhuman balance. He has a thirst for knowledge and answers; he has perseverance and tenacity. This boy who clings and cuddles yet strikes out with sure independence and autonomy. He is six today.

When he was born it was ten years since I had last had a child and he was like a new first to me. He still has many qualities of first born children: he is a planner, a rule-follower, an achiever, particular. He can be highly-strung. I am also a first-born. I feel a sense of affinity with him, an empathy.

He loves his friends and his family fiercely. He has an enduring love of yellow, since he was at least two. When my parents come to visit, he always asks them to bring apple & mango juice, smoked salmon and dates. He is a creature of habit and he needs a sense of security. He prefers the known to the new. 

He is serious and considered, yet has a wild and silly streak in his comfort zone. I love to watch it come out. He dances like a hillbilly. He loves to jump.

He loves Star Wars and superheros right now. He likes to read and to study fact books. He loves numbers and sports. If you play along with feigned ignorance, he does a mean magic trick. He eats nearly everything, and in it goes to his Tardis tummy. When playing with his brother, he likes to be in charge, but with big boys he hangs on every word. This is a boy who is going to be a scientist rather than an artist, a conformist rather than a rebel.

He is not my baby any more. He is still a mummy's boy but on his own terms. And though it can be bittersweet I love to see him stride out into the future, gaining confidence and sovereignty over himself. He is crossing the bridge from little boy to big boy, never too far from me, but not needing to hold my hand anymore. Yet in bed, when he cuddles goodnight, he won't let go. I'm thinking I should stop trying to get away to my chores or my own time, and let him hold on a bit longer.

He had a Star Wars party at the weekend but today is just about our family, his favourite dinner (veggie lasagne and a lemon (yellow!) cake), and getting to know his new toys. My love for him is strong, calm and deep - like an ocean - and I am feeling it heartily today.

An introduction to myself, which is a little odd several years into blogging, but here I am!

I follow a blogger on Instagram named Little Maldod, who is running a lovely project called my Thursday breaktime that I was featured in last week. She has also started a series called little introductions in which instagrammers reveal a little more of their true self behind their online business identities. I joined in and then I thought, why don't I share it here too? In all these years of writing online you've not seen much of me so, here goes, and here's the little snippets about myself that I revealed too...

Hello! Here's nine things you may not know about me:

1. I was clever enough to get into Cambridge University at 18.
2. I was stupid enough to get pregnant at 18.
3. I chose the baby over the university. He's now 16 and I couldn't be more happy with my choice.
4. I met my husband when my eldest was 5, married when he was 8, moved to the Peak District when he was 10.
5. I had my 2nd boy when the eldest was 11 & my 3rd boy when he was 13.
6. I chart my whole adult life by the age my eldest was, since my entire adulthood has been motherhood.
7. Surrounded by boys, I can be a bit of a girl. I love the little creative domesticities of life, from sewing to baking to flowers to... well you get the picture.
8. I dream big but I procrastinate and potter. Not the best combination! I have however made my dream of starting a sewing business a reality (Sparrow Stitch).
9. I am not a natural in front of the camera!

Piano lessons (or how we navigate the extra-curricular activity pressure on parents and their children)

Faced with a National Trust schoolroom, a chalkboard and and instruction to 'write something, anything you like', the Little One wrote this.

"I do pyano lesurns" ... or, to us spellers out there, "I do piano lessons".

And I wanted to tell you about it. You see, most children we know do three or four paid-for extra-curricular activities a week. These range from cricket, tennis and football, through swimming, to dance, gymnastics and theatre school. There's a huge pressure felt by so-called 'middle class' parents to conform to this. We want to give our children opportunities. We want them to be well-rounded. We fill their days with shouted instructions to hurry up so we can rush them from school to an activity, from weekend breakfasts to more activities. It carries on for years and it starts young. Yes I've seen signs for baby yoga, for toddler music groups, for baby gyms.

There are two honest truths about our parenting that I have to tell you about this.

Firstly, for our own family we don't agree with the rush-them-everywhere, fill-their-days-with-organised-activities school of parenting. We like to give our children time to play, to breathe, to rest, to be creative of their own accord. We like them to run round on grass playing silly games of tennis-cum-cricket with us rather than always join in with the keep-up-with-the-Jones' formal activity every single day. Apart from anything else, we know it would just exhaust them.

Secondly, even if we didn't feel this way, the complete honest, feel-ashamed-as-I-say-it truth is that we can't afford it. We can afford one activity per child and that's it. For several years, it's been gymnastics. It has taught our middle child how to manage in a large, organised group without us at his side. It's given him the skills and techniques in sports and activities that could transfer to other recreation from football and dancing. He loves it.

But my husband and I a long talk about it, and we've changed our approach this year. The Little One is at an age when he's thirsty for new experiences and skills, and the pride that comes from mastering them. He's incredible agile and interesting in sports. He's growing up in all senses of the phrase. We decided we'd enroll him in a number of different activities so that he has the chance to learn the skills and the rules of each, and most importantly find out what he likes and is good at. He's doing football, cricket, gymnastics, and occasional tennis. He's also doing piano lessons. For the sports, these are things he'll be doing in the playground, with his peers, in P.E. lessons, and after school as he grows up. If we want to enfranchise him to be able to do all these things, and to be included, we have to give him the chance to grasp the fundamentals now.

But I am not sporty by nature. I was the arty one. I learnt piano. I strongly feel piano is the gateway to being a musician of any hue, and any level. You learn about songs; you learn how to read music. You learn rhythm, beat and volume. It's learning a vocabulary and giving you an ear. Again, it's about enfranchising him. The funny thing is, I never thought he'd be the musical one. The eldest, now sixteen, has a father in the music industry and is always plugged into headphones. The youngest, now four, has snake hips, and dances to every song on the radio with glee. But the middle child, the almost-six year old, the one who dances like a fourteen-year-old boy at a disco and leans more towards maths and sciences... he surprised me. Yet he loves structure, he has incredible concentration and perseverance, he loves to learn and he loves to be good at things. Why was I surprised? He says his piano lessons are his favourite part of school now. And this is from a boy who loves school.

As the Tiny One starts school in the autumn, as the cricket and tennis seasons come to an end, I think we'll say goodbye to our days of wild abandon with our budget and slim back down on the sports spending. But I will fight tooth and nail for the piano. Apart from anything else, I have a keyboard on order (sadly not a traditional upright piano, but that's another story), and I plan to start learning again myself.

Disclaimer: Tuesday is piano lesson day and I totally forgot to send the Little One to school with his piano folder. Lofty ideals, rubbish execution. If only this wasn't the theme for my life!

Easter 2015

Easter has come and gone. Where are the days going? They are flying by and I feel like I just need a half a day to get back ahead of myself. There never is that half day though, and so I'm always out of breath trying to catch up. Gosh, the things I could do if I had a cleaner, a couple of evenings when my husband wanted to watch a film on his own without me, and a magic machine to kick me out of bed at 6am every morning.

But I can't and I shouldn't complain. The world's a much tougher place for most other people in it and, even if you're not into the religious side of Easter, the giving thanks and feeling lucky part of it ought to be something all of us hold on to. New life racing in - who of us would ask it to go away or slow down?

Just you wait til I put up a whole post of Easter lamb pictures!

(And, by the way, I'm having yet another fed-up-with-my-outdated-clanky-blog-design moments. What do you think?)

9 tips on how to thrive as a mother

Perhaps I'm not the best person to give 'advice' on motherhood. I've been a mother since I was eighteen, and so I don't really know of an adult me without it, nor do I remember having lost anything by becoming it. How can I tell you how to thrive as a mother when that's all I've ever been? But then I've had to create room for myself within motherhood for over sixteen years now, and three children in I've learnt a little too.

The first thing I want to tell you is that the last sentence I wrote is not entirely true. Yes, you need to find room and time for yourself when a mother - a cup of coffee in silence while your children watch their favourite programme; a bath after they've gone to bed. But better than that, you need to find ways to be yourself and a mother at the same time. There's not 'the normal you' and 'the mother you', and a day full of lurches from one to the other. In the fullest sense, a mother is who you are as well as what you are. And the mother you are is because of the true, real you filling every corner of that mould.

Here are some of the ways I thrive in motherhood. I hope some of them are useful to you. I hope you know that there are many, many times when I feel like I'm drowning or failing in motherhood too!

1. Sleep is the number one rule. Sacrifice other things to get more of it. Pick a nap over a clean house. Pick an early night over the washing up. The more sleep you've had, the better you'll feel, the more you'll accomplish, and the nicer you'll be to your children.
2. Be yourself all the time, and find ways to involve your children in what makes you happy. Mine still aren't that into art galleries, but I still take them (and give them challenges like 'how many horses can you see in the paintings in this room?' because art galleries feed my heart). We love to walk, so we have found ways to get sometimes reluctant children to love it too (a future post, I think!).
3. But also find time to be yourself apart from your children, if you can. I don't feel bad about the half hour or so I let my four-year-old watch tv after lunch so I can read blogs and drink my coffee, because it refuels me every day. Although your love for your children is limitless, your ability to treat them lovingly can run out if you don't give to yourself too. They need the best of you, and that requires you to be kind to yourself.
4. Write to do lists because you'll kick yourself for forgetting things. Always put a couple of things on it that you've just done, as those first ticks just feel so good. Include little tasks, and break bigger ones up - put washing in machine, unload machine, do ironing etc, rather than 'do laundry'. If you're like me, little successes are key to your wellbeing, and so the more little ticks your day includes, the better you'll feel.
5. Start the day with some successes already under your belt. If you're a night owl, tidy up once the children are in bed so that you start the day without the weight of that job already over you. If you can rise early (and your children aren't also up before dawn!), get a little done then. Playing catch-up on your day is demoralising and disheartening. It's always easier to start your day with your children without a weight or a chip on your shoulder.
6. All those things that you beat yourself up about as a mother? Stop it. If you forget to brush their teeth today but remember every other day, they'll be fine. Trust me, the kind of parent who worries how a missed teeth-brushing will affect their child is not the kind of parent that the dentist dreads to see. It's the parents that don't worry about those things that are a problem. If you worry whether you're a good mother, that in itself means you are a good mother.
7. Remember that your parenting is a function both of who you are and who they are. That equation is unique to the pair of you. Parenting books can give you tips but no one knows your child as well as you. The longer you parent them, and the more children you parent, the more you'll wish you knew that at the start.
8. A change of scene is almost always the answer. Get them outdoors. Get yourself outdoors. Visit the park, go to the library, whatever it is - change things up and you'll find their cranky moods, their fighting, or your stir-craziness is forgotten or cured.
9. Above all else, and I've said it before, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself lots. Know tomorrow is another day. Know that the times you lose your temper or don't have the energy to play are not the times they'll remember, or the things that will damage them. Know your children really do think you're the best mum in the world, and force yourself to believe that. You're the best mum for them. Know that though you could do better, you could do worse - much worse. Give yourself a break when you need it. Fill your heart up so that you have more to give each day. Suck in all those cuddles they give you. Cuddle back.

Spring has sprung

Yes it rains a lot, and gosh hasn't it been windy? But every few days we wake up to this:

And though the frost is there, the sun is singing that old song, "Morning has broken....", and I know it won't be long before the frost turns back to dancing beads of dew. If I step outside to look at that rising sun - and I often do - the birds are carolling about it at the top of their little lungs, as if they too feel like skipping.

We take a walk along the river that runs through our village, and the stream too is singing in its babbling voice, chuckling to itself with the glee of new life. The riverbanks are still largely void of growth, but look closer and you'll see that the sunshine with its warm breath has blown a message into the soil, and shoots are appearing. Trees are beginning to bud. Rabbits are scampering in the still-vacant campsite. And the birds are still singing in giddy chorus.

Walk a little further, away from the shade of the riverbank, and these glorious fellows meet you. That's my littlest, the Tiny One, in the distance there. He's exploring the farm lane, looking for new spring flowers, searching for lambs in the fields, grabbing every stick he can find with his brother.

It's such a good time of year. Everything has promise, hope and beginnings. While the winds are still often cold and the frosts plenty, the rains still flying in our faces; even on these days the nature around us is standing firm and believing in the spring days to come.

the end of winter?

I didn't think I suffered from SAD. 

I think it's the snow that bothers me most, in the way that it's so restricting up here and lasts so long, slowly turning into ice. And I'm not the biggest winter fan, but few are. I dance my way to Christmas and then idly twiddle my fingers and circle my ankles while I wait for winter to slope off, tail between its legs.

But a few days ago, before it turned chilly again, there was the littlest touch, the daintiest spring of Spring in the air. And oh my goodness. I virtually skipped everywhere rather than walking. I unbuttoned my coat. The boys took theirs off. The green tips of emergent daffodils were beginning to whisper their yellow secret. And you should have heard the birds. They weren't singing to communicate they were singing a song. Suddenly it was like the whole of our little, 200m-above-sea-level world stopped, stood up and listened. From cheery daffodils still hidden in their winter coats, to small boys throwing theirs off and whooping: we all heard the sound of Spring.

I knew that morning that the day was going to be good. I knew I was going to tick a whole raft of limpets off my to-do list. That I would be a lovely mother. That I would smile at the villagers as I walked past, that I would be airy and cheery when my husband came home at the hungry-boys-witching-hour, that everything would be so gosh-darned lovely.

And afterwards, when the next day dawned swathed in cloud and washing cold air past my ears, I thought: perhaps that SAD thing affects me after all. Or affects most of us. And actually, I'm done with treading water while the world tips over the bottom end of the year. We're 5/6th's of the way through winter. The snowdrops have already popped up to say goodbye to it. The daffodils are waiting impatiently in the wings. I expect I'll spot some crocuses soon. We're all done with winter. Let's all tell it to head off where the sun don't shine.

Wondering: In which I tell you how I'm rebuilding my blog

What do I want this blog to be? What do I want to build?

I think this is what hampered my blogging in 2014. Not knowing the answer to that question. Seeing so many other blogs out there that inspired me and finding, as often happens, that the influence of others clouds the truths of yourself. I am so drawn to bloggers whose clothes and style I love, but I've never felt comfortable showing myself online. I love DIYs and tutorials but did I really want to commit to all the hard work and time involved in doing that myself? I love to write above all else but the blogs I am drawn to and hooked by are those with the beautiful pictures using fabulous cameras that I cannot achieve. Do I want to strive to become a well-known, monetised blogger in such a saturated market? Do I even want to view my blog in market terms? I'm not sure I even know the answers to these questions now.

And then I realised that my answers are in what I thought my blog would be the day I started writing it. There were six words I attached to it: making, baking, wandering, wondering, sewing, mothering. Those are the things I wanted to share and document. Combined, they are who I am, they are the touches of domesticity that feel like home to me. And so they are what this blog is and will be again. 

I am part of a community of women in the UK and further afield that feel it is not a contradiction to value intelligence and yet want to focus their lives on their homes and family. To be ambitious and yet content. To be interested in serious and important things yet also love simple and beautiful things. You can be interested in both fashion and world affairs. You can be ordered and yet free. You can be all the things our foremothers fought for in the feminist movements of the past century while being happy, fulfilled and worthwhile wearing a pinny, baking a cake, kids round your feet, crayons all over the table, haphazard twigs from your walk in a vase on your table, and muddy footprints by the back door. And so that is what you're going to get from me.

(And, slightly unrelated, but on the subject of building something, my middle boy built that fabulous tower in the even more fabulous Clore Art Studio at Manchester Art Gallery. If you're in the area, you really should go.)

Goodbye and Hello

Well, it's over.

Goodbye to Christmas, goodbye to 2014, and goodbye to the Christmas holidays.

But hello to a touch of domesticity on blogger! I haven't seen you for quite a while. But it's a new year, a new page turned, and golly if I don't just feel like writing again.

So let's start with a list shall we? A Nine Things list, in a blast from this blog's past.

1. My eldest is now sixteen. And I feel, as a result, ancient and inconsequential in his life. I wish I knew more of him and saw more of him, but he's ploughing his own field now and I know he'll grow best out of the shadow of my tree (mixed metaphor alert).
2. My youngest two are really growing up. There are lots of numbers and counting in our days, reading and pretending to read, and asking profound questions. I love to watch their minds and intellects grow.
3. I have started my new business, Sparrow Stitch, making bespoke curtains, blinds and soft furnishings. I've started very small but it feels really good to be working and learning how to run a business. The website is in its infancy but you can find me over here:  http://sparrowstitch.co.uk/
4. This has been the first year in a long, long time that I haven't been ready to say goodbye to Christmas come the start of the new year. I love new beginnings, and from 1st December I go so crazy on Christmas that I'm ready for it to end five weeks later. But I don't know, this year I've sunk into the Christmas limbo and loved having the family around with our lazy days, and I'm struggling to get back into the fast lane again.
5. My husband and I have now been together for 11 years. And it sure feels good. We are such a partnership that I do not know how I'd ever manage without him (and hope I never have to). And I still get slightly giddy about him all these years later. That's nice, right?
6. We went to my parents for Christmas and it was lovely. But my dad's been ill a lot in the last few months and he's getting older. I found it so strange spending six days with him, because the him that he once was wasn't fully there, and most of the time I found myself missing him.
7. I have plans for this new year. They start with me going in for the 'one little word' and choosing (or, in reality, finding it chose me) strive. Nothing feels more apt right now. My next job is to dig my December 'to do' list out and make a new one for January. I always feel better with a direction to go in and a set of jobs to complete. Yes, you can call me Monica (overused Friends reference).
8. I also have plans for the house and the garden. You're going to see me in paint-splattered jeans a lot over the January weekends. I may even share a bit of it here. There's only so much staring at other people's impossibly perfect rooms on pinterest before you start thinking "just start" (or other suitable pinterest quote).
9. And I have plans for this blog. I'm starting by committing to two posts a week. Come back on Thursday to find out more. You'll be very welcome.

Life right now

I have planned this post for a long time. Months.

This was supposed to be my goodbye post. The one where I finally admit, in print, that I am turning the last page on my blog and saying goodnight.

Weirdly, though, in recent days as I've pulled myself together to come out and say goodbye, I find the word in my heart is 'hello'. I think I'm coming back.

Wondering: The start of the day

These poorly focused phone photos are not from today. Today the rain lashed, the hailstones bounced, the wind whipped. And we three, then four, then five, all stayed at home. But a couple of days ago it was a glorious January day. The Tiny One and I took the Little One to school, and as we walked back home again - ah! just look at it!

I hate to be hierarchical about the weather, because a day like today - watching hailstones ping on the ground like they were dancing on a trampoline - well that has its own beauty too. But is there anything better than a cool, clear, crisp midwinter day with the sky the colour of a summer sea and the sun blinding you? I went right up to the top of the house with the Tiny One, who was rather perplexed at his view-drunk mother, opened the roof windows and took photos - one out the front, one out the back. Yes I knew they'd be grainy, just look at them. But those long shadows from the rising sun are there. The tinge of cold gold on the fields and houses. The start of something. The promise.

And it went on to be a good day. It lifted me up and sent me soaring onwards.

2013 into 2014: winding the bobbin up

We've wound up another year, and the empty spool of 2014 lies ahead of us.

 

I love this feeling. I love a new year. I know it's an arbitrary cut-off and resolutions are often considered childish, but they're just right for me. I need an end, no matter how artificial, and I need to turn a page over ready to start again. I am a keen little brewer of plans and dreams.

 

2013 was a good year. We made progress on our house. I progressed a lot with my sewing skills. The little boys have been (mostly) lovely, the big boy has left Kevin the Teenager (mostly) behind. From the roots we set down in the Peaks five years ago, a tree has grown. We have good, deep friendships up here now, all of us. The Little One is at primary school. My lovely husband's job has changed to a (mostly) weekday, daytime affair, and our family life has settled into a much more regular shape. Our further-afield friends and family were missed, but we had such lovely times when we did see them. It was the kind of year of which the worse bits will fade from our memories, leaving the many good parts behind.

 

I have a good feeling about 2014. Our family moving on, growing up. And most of all starting my sewing business. That is the big goal for this year. It feels so, so good to be this close to it now.

 

After quite a long blog sabbatical, in which I lost my verve and impulse for it, I thought I'd come back and try again. To again be writing and recording our countryside life, my sewing and home-making (gosh, I wish that wasn't such a trite term), and all the simple, beautiful things we make, appreciate and do in the life we've built here. 2014, here we go.

Mothering: beginnings and endings

Three weeks ago exactly, this was the start and end of my day. The beginning. The end. In so many ways.

 

In two shoes, new shoes, bright shiny black shoes (paraphrased from the great Shirley Hughes), my Little One started primary school. When he went, I thought he wasn't too young for it but he wasn't quite ready. I wasn't quite ready. He was big but so, so little.

 

He walked in without tears, surprising everyone. He came out with a smile. I watched him, David Attenborough style, all afternoon and evening at home. He had a new swagger. His huge uniform now fit him. He was taller. He had a new place in the world, and it was on top. And I realised, to my surprise, that he was big enough for big school after all. That he was ready. That he had opened a door, stepped through, and had found himself greeted into the big, wide world.

 

But it was an end too. The sun set on the pre-school years. The years where the largest part of his days was me. When I lead him, guided him, and presented the world to him. Yes he went to nursery, but it was only three hours a day just down the road with a dozen or so others. That was a stepping stone over a stream. This was a burnt bridge across a river.

 

It was an end for him but he's looking forward, following that sun over the horizon. I am left in the darkness behind, and though I know it's right for him, and though I know I've looked forward to the time and freedom for me... there's a large hole in my days the size of my little man, and it's staring back at me. He's the elephant in the room, the ache in my heart. Three weeks in, I'm more settled, he's had his tearful days, and things are much more normal for both of us in the wobbly way we're taking on this new page in his life. But golly, I miss him.

Wondering: on boundaries

There is barely a book, article or programme about good parenting that doesn't mention the importance of boundaries. How a child can thrive within them as they feel safe and secure. How the firm setting and policing of behavioural boundaries can reduce discord in a family. How we need to respect our children's personal boundaries, particularly as they change with age and need.

 

Have you heard much about boundaries for us though? Instead, here's what's lauded and sold to adults: that travel, wanderlust and flightiness are exciting and enriching. That breaking through our boundaries and acting outside our comfort zone is exciting and enriching. That our boundaries trap us. That being 'free-spirited' describes our heroines and icons.

 

I expect this is because it is true of most of us. Or perhaps true of the fabulous, feted, young things that are now the generation behind me and populate our magazines and culture.

 

I feel like my spirit is free and gliding. But I am like a child: my spirit flies within its boundaries. Beyond that, it is like Icarus to the sun.

 

At home; with my family; making, keeping and nourishing our home. Creating. All those things I write about under my blog name: making, baking, wandering, wondering, sewing, mothering. In all these things I am darting about the skies like a swallow.

 

Beyond that? Sometimes I go beyond my boundaries and all is good. But sometimes... I am not. I am learning about myself as I age, as I learn to live with a tiny illness that occasionally throws the shadow of a giant. I am learning that I have limitations, and that I must see them not as a trap or a cage, but as like the walls of my home, replete with windows bringing in light and views. They are about safety, comfort, security and refuge.

 

I have had a good year, but uncannily something always goes askew around the summer time. This is the third time the PTSD has hit and, after the earthquake of the first and the sharp but brief fall of the second, this was just a tremor. But it taught me that my dancing flight has a territory it lives in. It taught me that my boundaries help me thrive, keep me safe and secure. I can visit the world beyond but tentatively, mindfully, and with my little bird feet stepping on the ground.