A poem I wrote in 1997....

Grey clouds pile up and drag their rain through a deserted street.
A cruel wind wanders through a back green and fans the ash of a dying fire.
An abandoned mattress appears to breath in time with the wind,
while discarded rubbish spins like a flock of panicked birds.

Upturned shopping trolleys lie like the skeletons of long forgotten beasts
that died where they fell.
A barefoot baby searches for something at the bottom of a puddle,
only the wind combs his unruly hair.

His home, a graffiti stained block has no windows left to smash -
This neglected shell condemned to stand not fall.
He laughs at his reflection as somewhere a dog barks an angry lament.
All around, the cracks deepen and a battered door slams shut in the wind.

His mother hides from the world and watches her dreams unfold under heavy lids.
Her crooked man smokes at a table, his chest rattling like a door in its frame.
These once helpless children are now adults with no battle left to fight.

On the television a newsreader speaks about struggles in a faraway place.
The man stares at the screen with unseeing eyes.

Ambivalence!

Wikipedia states that ambivalence is "a state of having simultaneous, conflicting feelings toward a person or thing" In this case it's my career as an author. I guess every writer reaches this point. Sometimes I feel like jacking the whole thing in and finding a more conventional way of life, one that doesn't consume every waking (and some sleeping) moments of the day. If I'm honest I have come close to scrapping the pursuit of a writing dream a few times. During a rather dark period at the end of last year I seriously considered drawing a thick, black line under the whole thing. Then I met my friend Paul for coffee and as always he encouraged me to reflect on things and gave me the proverbial slap in the face that I needed. He reminded me that I did not embark on this adventure for fame or financial rewards but because writing was something I loved doing. So I got straight back to it and swiftly finished the sequel to "Bree McCready and the Half Heart Locket". And loved doing it. Just last week I was struggling with the thought of making a start on my third book when I received an email from a lovely woman in Hertfordshire. She wanted to let me know how much she had loved my first book, in particular the thread that runs throughout the story about bullying. This lady's daughter had been so badly bullied that she ended up having to leave mainstream education to attend a specialist school, a sanctuary for bullied children. I had touched this lady with the words I had written, enough for her to take the time to write and tell me so. Sometimes it takes a moment like that to prompt me to keep going. Perhaps these small glimmers of niceness are the only rewards I will reap for my hard work. Perhaps these moments are enough. After all, reaching people in that way is a privilege that only a select few of us get to do. I must not lose sight of that when I am down in the dumps about the path I have chosen to follow. I started out with the goal of writing a good story. Then the goal shifted to getting that story published. Once that had happened all I wanted was for young people to like the story. All my goals so far have been attained. Of course it is natural for me to want to keep shifting the posts, to see how far I can stretch this dream of mine. I understand that no writer is an overnight success and I'll just have to get used to living with impatience and frustration as my daily companions.
"Stated another way.." continues Wikipedia, "..ambivalence is the experience of having thoughts and emotions of both positive and negative valence toward someone or something. The term also refers to situations where 'mixed feelings' of a more general sort are experienced, or where a person experiences uncertainty or indecisiveness concerning something" Yep, I'm nodding furiously here. I am experiencing feelings of uncertainty. Should I continue investing my time and energy into a venture which may never come to what I would like it to come to? I cannot seem to pull myself away from this mental slump. It's not so much writer's block as writer's droop. I know where I want to go with the series - Bree McCready was always going to be a trilogy and I'm two thirds of the way there already - but this final hurdle seems somewhat higher than the other two put together. Perhaps the dangling carrot seems a bit more shrivelled than before? Ambivalence is a psychologically unpleasant state of mind. When the positive and negative aspects of something are both present in a person's mind at the same time it can be quite torturous. This schizophrenic state inevitably leads to procrastination, or just outright avoidance. Suddenly, cleaning out that cutlery drawer seems way more appealing than sitting down and drawing out a synopsis for book three. Sigh, I know everything will turn out fine in the end. It always does. What I have to keep remembering is at the core of things I still care deeply about what I'm doing. Okay, the dream has been tempered slightly by reality but it's still my dream and that surely makes it worth holding onto.

In my day!

Well, it was a busy Easter holiday but Junior finally went back to school this morning. I thought I would be relieved but in actual fact I've been left with the feeling that I've misplaced something or left my umbrella on the bus. To be honest I really miss him. The house is so quiet and for the first time in three weeks it doesn’t look like there has been a Lego explosion in my living room. Junior was a little reluctant to return to school, although I think the fact he had brand new, big size, shiny black shoes helped a bit. I had to be upbeat about the start of a new term but deep down I was kind of sad that our holiday was over. I think it’s because we had such a lovely time away last week. We spent a glorious couple of days in the Highlands where we soaked up the scenery and stayed in the most beautiful B&B I have ever been in. Junior made friends with Corrie the Wonder dog (so called because the poor thing fell out the top window last year, breaking both his back legs and seriously damaging his spine. He survived, albeit with a slightly wobbly walk) We were warned that Corrie was nervous of children since his accident but he and Junior hit it off instantly and within 10 minutes of arriving they were playing with the squeaky ball in the daffodils.
The break away did us both the world of good. The weather was perfect and everything went our way. I felt so chilled out and refreshed that I have to admit to shedding a wee tear as we drove through the gate to begin our journey home. We arrived back in Edinburgh with sun-kissed necks, rosy cheeks and a head full of wonderful memories which I am sure will last a lifetime. I’ve posted some pictures for you to see - I haven’t yet mastered the art of pasting pictures intermittently throughout my blog posts so they always have to appear at the top, before the text starts. You’d think after a year of keeping a blog I would have worked out how to do this!
Driving through the mountains I kept yelling “Look at the scenery! It’s so incredible! Now, you don’t see THAT every day, do you!” (and other toe-curling expressions that only a parent would say). Junior grunted his approval from the back seat but I could see in the rear view mirror that he was far too engrossed in his Nintendo DS to fully appreciate the spectacular beauty around him. It reminded me of Billy Connolly telling the story about his tour around America in a camper van when his children were small. The van was kitted out with all the mod cons of the time, including a television. On their return from some of the most scenic and beautiful places on earth Billy had asked his kids what their favourite part of the holiday had been. “Sesame Street” they replied in unison.
We stopped off at Auchengarrich Wildlife Centre on the way back down the road where we spent a fantastic 5 hours. The sky was peacock blue and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Junior ran wild in the adventure playground and I relished every moment spent in the company of the weird and wonderful furred and feathered creatures on show. We even got to watch emu chicks hatching. I had to giggle when Junior spotted a little bird hopping around inside the deer enclosure.
“Mummy, mummy look a sparrow!” he squealed excitedly as he skipped over to take a closer look, “now you don’t see THAT every day, do you?!”

So, I was telling Junior this morning what life was like when I was his age.
“You didn’t have baths back then..” he announced proudly, “just metal tubs. And no cars, just horses and carts”
I put him right although I did have a panic when I heard myself say “..in my day”
I was telling him about the swing we used to have in the back garden (the same garden he now plays in when he stays with my parents). It was strong and sturdy, not like the cheap plastic rubbish you get now and it had a thick, solid seat made out of very hard wood. This unforgiving chunk of wood was held on by two long metal poles with sharp hooks on the end which were fed through hanging chains at the top. These lethal hooks used to catch on your clothes and my friends and I had many a ripped pocket in the late 1970’s where we had attempted to jump off the swing when it was in full motion, trying to make it safely over the washing line before it garroted you. Oh, the fun we had before health and safety was invented. Looking back, that swing was so ‘child un-friendly’ but we had hours of fun on it and were never once asked to wear a helmet or knee pads before we climbed on. I don’t remember my mum ever warning us not to get too close to the great slab of a seat or it would crush our skulls in one swift motion. Yet now she panics if Junior runs too near the greenhouse or swings on the washing pole. How times change.
Junior’s favourite story from the past was the one about being off school ill.
“We didn’t have cosy covers and 24 hour TV when I was little…” I told him, with my chin jutting out bravely, “..when I was off school Gran would get the itchiest, scratchiest blanket from the airing cupboard and wrap me up in it. It was like a punishment. We would lie on the settee and watch school programmes until TV stopped for the afternoon”
“stopped..?” asked Junior with a puzzled expression.
I nodded sombrely, like I was recalling some memory from a time too traumatic to relive.
“In my day..” I said with a pensive pause, “we only had programmes for a little while every day. TV used to finish at lunchtime and we would get something called the test card - a picture of a creepy girl and a sinister clown playing noughts and crosses”
Junior’s mouth was opening further with every word and his eyes were wide with growing horror.
“And there were only three channels to choose from” I concluded, which finished him off.
“Three channels!” he squealed disbelievingly, “how did you survive?!”

Anyway, I’m away to hang the washing out. The sun is still shining but there’s a crisp breeze which should dry the clothes in no time.

A losing game?

Junior is a fantastic little boy but Jeez, is he a BAD loser!!

We were playing a game of Coppit after dinner tonight. It's my favourite board game, genuinely exciting and one which I have happy memories of playing as a child. I was trying to find the balance between providing opportunities for him to capture my 'men' and showing him that every action he made had a consequence. All was going well until I somehow managed to roll three sixes in a row which resulted in me 'copping' one of his men. Suddenly I was a "cheat" and everything was going wrong for him. The tantrum was spiralling at an alarming rate and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried to gently explain that I wasn’t making the die land on six every time it was just a fluke. Big, fat tears had started to plop onto the board, making it all soggy (his not mine!) I tried all the usual words of encouragement,
“Come on, this is supposed to be fun!”
“You can’t always be the winner” (blah blah blah)
but it had gone too far. As far as Junior was concerned the world had turned against him in a big way. To be fair we’d had a busy day and he was exhausted but it got to the point where I couldn’t take any more of the huffing and deliberate sabotaging of the game (suddenly he was moving one extra square when I wasn’t looking or sliding the die instead of rolling it so he got a six!).
“Right” I announced firmly, “if you continue to cheat I will put the game away”
That was it. All the bones in Junior’s body melted and he had a complete emotional breakdown.
“I always lose!” he yelled in between wracking sobs, “it’s not fair!”
My patience was dwindling fast.
“If this is how you react to losing a game how the heck are you going to cope when life really gets tough?” I sighed wearily, “..like if you don’t get the job you want or you love someone who doesn’t love you back! If I had fallen apart every time I got a knock back I wouldn’t be sitting here right now!”
I knew I had taken things too far but it was too late. Junior’s tear stained face fell even further.
“I don’t want to grow up!” he wailed, throwing the pieces down on the floor in a colourful explosion of plastic cones.
Sometimes I forget he is only six. Time for a cuddle and a wee pep talk me thinks....
He did calm down after a while, so much so that by the end of the game he shook my hand gallantly and said “Well done Mummy” which I thought was lovely. In fact I think I used the words “Jolly good sport” for the first time in my life. He congratulated me through gritted teeth but the point was he had the courage to remain dignified in defeat. It reminded me of a great quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ “Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change” This is the secret to life.
It did make me wonder if these little experiences in life prepare us for adulthood. Nobody likes to lose but it’s an important life lesson to accept that sometimes things don’t go our way and the only way to deal with that is to accept defeat and move on. Sometimes life can feel like it's a losing game. Perhaps if we can learn early on that not everything is going to go as planned, that sometimes the game doesn’t go our way and we can’t always throw a six then it will make rejection and loss easier to take when we are older. Having some tough setbacks can be really important. Losing is learning after all. Sometimes losing can change us, make us tougher. Sometimes we can take away a morsel of wisdom from one lost game and apply it to another game.

We’re into day six of the Easter break already and it’s been hectic but enjoyable. So far we’ve covered the cinema, an egg hunt, eating out, a country park, football club and soft play. Next week is even busier, including a much needed break away. On the down side we’ve had a nasty gash in the knee and some head lice to contend with. I love afternoons like we had today. We did some artwork, built the marble run together, chatted over home made soup and laughed so much at bedtime that some mouth wash came down Junior’s nose. I taught him how to sing “Blackbird” by the Beatles and when he sang it back to me I had a lump in my throat that I thought might choke me. We make a good team, me and Junior. Tantrums and traumas there may be but sometimes I look at my boy and wonder how it is possible to love someone so much and still be standing.

Clutter!

I seriously need to de-clutter my house. I have now filled every available shelf/cupboard/cubby hole and there is simply no more room for anything else. Everyone who knows me will tell you I am the Queen of organising. "A space for everything and everything in its space" has always been my motto. Sometimes it amazes me just how much I have managed to cram into this tiny box I call home.
I read an article the other day that said British people's clutter adds up to an estimated worth of £31 billion. That's just stuff we never use. I know most people would have been shocked to learn this but I wasn't. In fact I did wonder if I might be contributing to at least a couple of billion of those pounds with the stuff that lies unused and untouched in my under-the-stairs cupboard. I lovingly refer to that 8 foot by 3 foot rectangle as "no man's land" ("An area of land that no-one wishes to move into or take control of for fear of being attacked" - in my case by a precariously balanced stack of toilet rolls or a particularly vicious ironing board). There have been times when I've desperately needed something at the back of that dark and frightening place but have taken one look at the obstacle course I would need to negotiate in order to get there and just closed the door with a heavy sigh. I know I need to tackle the problem but I hate chucking things out. I've done it before and almost always regretted it. I do have the occasional ruthless splurge where I feel liberated by throwing things onto the charity/rubbish pile. "If you don't use it or don't like it then chuck it!" is the mantra during those times. But inevitably, a few months down the line I'll find myself cursing under my breath that I gave that certain something away.
My loft is a veritable banquet of guff. There's no other way to describe it. It bulges at the seams. Having to clear it out is a job that fills me with dread not least because I cannot even get into the attic. There is not one single inch of floor space on which to stand. My attic reminds me of one of those puzzles I used to play with as a child. The one where you had to move the squares around to make a picture. I would have to move all the things around the loft hatch (broken lamps, old baby clothes, three legged chairs, an ancient typewriter) just to get up there. It seems like such an overwhelming task, and one I simply could not contemplate doing on my own. There is very little truth in the saying "out of sight, out of mind" when it comes to my loft. I lie awake at night in a cold sweat thinking about the day I'll have to tackle it.
My kitchen cupboards are a plethora of unused appliances that at some point I must have thought I wouldn't be able to function without. A yogurt maker (what a hassle that was!), two juicers (which take around 40 oranges and an hour to clean just to get one tiny glass of juice), a popcorn maker (fun to watch the truckload of puffed up corn spewing out the hole but it tastes like pieces of polystyrene which could in no way compete with M&S butter toffee bites), a George Foreman grill (which I bought during one of my short-lived health kicks and is a real faff to clean), three Thermos flasks (!), a Soda Stream fizzy juice maker...the list is endless. I haven't used any of these appliances for years and yet I cannot bring myself to part with them.
In Feng Shui the main entrance to the house is called the "Mouth of Chi" because it has the strongest influence on how energy flows into your home. "Your home cannot benefit from fresh, vital Chi if the front door is blocked". Mmm. I wonder if Chi has worked out a way to get past two pairs of muddy wellies, three pairs of smelly trainers, a broken brolly, a spade (which has been there since the snow forced me to dig myself out of my parking space every morning) and enough coats and cagoules to start a clothes stall. Since Junior came into my life I don't think I have been able to open the front door all the way. It used to be pushchairs and car seats blocking the way, now it's school bags, football trainers and a Spiderman ball (that somehow I always forget is there until I have fallen over). According to Feng Shui, "opening the front door more widely and frequently is a good way to breathe life into a less-than-exciting romantic life". Oh well, that explains quite a lot then...
Having a small house gets on my nerves beyond description. I hate having to manoeuvre my rather ample bottom around things to get washing into the tumble dryer/step over hamster cages to get in and out the back door/tiptoe through the mine-field that is Junior's bedroom floor in order to put clothes away/crawl over the bed just to get to the wardrobe. But I often wonder if having a bigger house would solve the problem or simply result in me filling every available space with even more clutter! Oh, to have a minimalistic living room. Nothing gathering dust, no obstacles to make my journey from the settee to the kitchen fraught with danger.
Getting rid of clutter feels great. I think I'll go and make a start on no man's land. To quote Captain Oates, "I may be some time"!!

Quote for today

"As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes"

Mel Brooks

The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

“In this pocket you will find,
A teensy, tiny tooth of mine.
So while I sleep where dreams are made,
Let’s see if you can make a trade”
Author Unknown.

Well, it’s the first day of March and I have spent the last couple of hours running around like a mad march Hare! When I picked Junior up from Monday Club this afternoon he smiled up at me and I just about fell over. He resembled a miniature Shane McGowan (pre fancy new veneers).
One of Junior’s top front teeth fell out on Saturday morning. It felt like such a big deal; another step towards adulthood. It had been dangling by a thread and we tried everything from crunchy apples to wrapping it in tissue and yanking it. But for the entire Friday night he looked like Nanny McPhee. I was slightly concerned that it might fall out during the night but tried to reassure myself that for as long as there has been little boys and girls there have been wobbly teeth and as far as I know nothing awful has ever happened. At 6am the following day I heard him fiddling around with it and then there was this sickening sound like an elastic band snapping followed by a delighted shriek as he waved a blood-stained tooth in front of my face.
The tooth fairy wrote him a lovely letter and left it under his pillow in an envelope filled with fairy dust and a note attached saying “time delivered 2.30” (see what I did there? 2.30/tooth hurty) Two shiny pound coins were tucked inside - I hear that’s the going rate these days. It was 10p when I was little but that’s inflation for you.
Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to have to do it all again so soon, hence my shock when I saw another gap in Junior’s mouth this afternoon. My first thought was “Oh no, I don’t have a single penny on me, I’m going to have to go to a cashpoint” which was a real pain because the traffic was already building up and I had just polished off a massive mug of tea (a deadly combination if ever there was one). Junior spent the whole way home in the car planning what he was going to buy with his fairy money and I had to gently explain that the tooth fairy might be a bit skint after a busy weekend. But he wasn’t buying it.
“The tooth fairy is magic mummy..” he said with a patronising tilt of the head, “..she can get money from anywhere”
The first cashpoint was at the petrol station round the corner from my house. There was a queue to get in so imagine my frustration when I eventually made it only to find a sign up saying “Out of Order”. Back in the car and off to the shopping centre, a frustrating 15 minute drive back the way I had just come. I put in my card and it spat it straight back out at me. Apparently I had 'insufficient funds' to cover the £2 needed to cover the cost of one shiny white incisor, lovingly wrapped in a paper towel by Babs at the Monday Club. Tooth fairies might be able to get money from anywhere but it would appear that stressed out mummies (with very full bladders) can’t!
I racked my brains to think where I could get the money for a very excited Junior. He was not going to buy my stories - "The tooth fairy has a sore wing and can only carry a 5 pence piece this time"/"the tooth fairy gave your money to the poor children"/"the tooth fairy is really poorly and has promised to being you £2 when she’s feeling better" - He’s six, he ain’t stupid!
Back home there was a frantic (but fruitless) check inside the settee and the pockets in the dirty wash basket. Junior was already upstairs putting the tooth under his pillow and the familiar ache of motherly guilt was beginning to unfurl in my chest as I imagined having to break the news to him that there was not going to be a special delivery. I started to unpack his school bag - half eaten packet of crisps, wet socks, chewed up homework sheet and the tin I give him for Monday club money. Imagine how my heart swelled when I heard it rattle. Inside was the £2 which he had forgotten to hand in to Babs! I’ve never been so happy to have a son with a memory like a sieve. When he goes to bed tonight I will write yet another letter from the tooth fairy and gently slide it under his pillow when he’s in the place “where dreams are made”. And I don’t feel too guilty for telling him porkies about the existence of fairies who take his unwanted teeth away to make beautiful necklaces. These are magical times and so short lived I will relish every single moment of them.
I was just having a little moan to my Dad on the phone about always having to fork out money left, right and centre for things that are out with the budget (i.e lost teeth) and he told me to look on the bright side. With two less teeth in Junior’s head at least I’ll save some money on toothpaste!