But, THIS Morning.....

Tops of traffic lights
Our giraffe point of view delights us all.
Even me.


My children sliding through slush
Shrieking with pleasure
My delight turns to hassled irritation.

Short, sharp commands
Humourless.

And restless guilt
Annoyance with my churlish self
For the rest of the day.

This Morning

6.00am - Ed woke Martha and they started to talk VERY loudly in their room. But after major threats last night before bed following weeks of early rising, they stayed in their room and didn't thunder upstairs to see us every few minutes in tears after arguing - miraculous!

6.30am - Our alarm went off. The Today Programme filtering into the freezing bedroom (our heating timer has not yet been fitted on the new boiler). Hattie started chatting to herself in her room. Rog, needing to get to work early, hauled himself out of bed and went to put the heating on and make the kids' porridge while I had a reluctant shower. I'm sleeping so badly at the moment that I feel tired even in the shower.

8.00am - Rog long gone, kids dressed for school and Ed ready for his Monday morning IV treatment of Factor 8. Secretly, I've been feeling pretty stressed about this since yesterday evening. But, I manage despite not hitting the vein the first time.

8.30am - kids and I out the door to catch the bus to school as our backyard and lane still has too much snow to easily use the car. Bus takes ages, long walk down the slippery, slushy hill to school. Ed falls once (thank god I managed the treatment) and Martha twice. I manage to stay on my feet thanks to my lovely Hunter wellies. Can you guess how pleased I am with my wellies?

9.30am - Back home. Hattie very lively - damn, need her to sleep so I can do all the house stuff needed. Manage to put on the washing at least. Make my smoothie - need an energy boost.

10.30am - Sign up for the 2010 5KM Run for Life. Surely I can manage that by the summer? Decide that I'm going to get a pedometer and start walking seriously. I'm going to try to cut down on my carb eating in the evening too, to try to lose some pounds. Hmmm. I'm so exhausted by the evening that I can't imagine managing without my baked potato or rice - but we'll see.

10.45am - Hear on Woman's Hour a speaker from Macmillan Cancer Support, and a cancer survivor talking about the long-term effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and realise that I have been suffering from some of these for the past year since I went into remission. The exhaustion, for one, has definitely been a factor to contend with, over and above that which comes with having three small kids. The radio programme was discussing the fact that when you finish your cancer treatment, you are really cast adrift back into your life with very little guidance or warning about how you might feel in the coming year or two. Consequently, I have been really pushing myself to get fit, lose weight and generally resume normal things long before my body is ready for that. Particularly after the very aggressive treatment I received. Of course going back to all the old stuff is what I want - but the frustration I've felt that I haven't been able to manage all the goals I've set myself has added to my stress and not helped my peace of mind. I only finished my radiotherapy this time last year - I now begin to see that I've been asking too much of myself for much of that time. The scan coming up on Thursday is obviously focusing my mind and my thoughts on all of this. If the results are ok (pray god they are) I think I need to treat myself more gently and try not to vilify myself because I'm not looking or feeling my best yet. That will come with time and care.

New Space

I spent this morning sorting out our spare room, in the attempt to turn it into an office.

Since we moved into our house four years ago, Rog has worked every night on the kitchen table, leaving books and files behind him in the morning as he sets off to work. And for four years it has driven me demented. It's not his fault - until we finished our loft conversion, we needed every inch of space to squeeze in the children we kept producing.

The spare room, which used to be Martha's room until November contained a shameful secret. Behind the soft toys, and general child accoutrements hid storage boxes containing piles of papers, letters and statements. For a time they had a colourful rug thrown jauntily over them in a futile attempt to disguise them. But they remained there glowing under their cover. We just did not have any room - every corner of our house has been bulging with stuff that needs to be sorted, discarded, recycled or stored properly.

When Martha moved out of her room to share with her brother, we were finishing decorating the other rooms. So this little room became the repository of all sorts of 'stuff' which temporarily or permanently needed to find another home.

Pah! Anyone with me here?

And while the rest of the house, due to mammoth sinus-y effort over Christmas was finally finished, this one room remained full to the brim of all that hadn't been rehoused.

But - no longer is it like this! This week while being snowed in - forced to suspend my normal life for something much slower, I've been working on that little room. This morning I spent two hours while the baby slept sorting through boxes, creating piles for recycling, shredding or keeping.

These boxes were mostly full of things from my single life, before I'd met Roger and before I'd had my kids. I spent the morning transported back to another life. I found photographs which I'd forgotten, in which I'm smiling unconcerned little knowing what the future held. And of course it held both good and bad. But I look at my skinny pre-child, pre-cancer self and the nostalgia at times is almost too much to bear. The past 10 years for me (my thirties) have been truly eventful - by far the most eventful decade of my life. And I kind of feel exhausted for myself.

This January 2010 I'm hoping firstly that I'm around for the next ten years - something which didn't cross the mind of my 30 year old self - and secondly that the next ten years are rather more peaceful.

And now that little room is tidy and sorted - waiting for its desk and Rog to move in with all his work clutter. And I can reclaim the kitchen table at last.

White-Out

I have blogging block! I think it's because of the snow - Roger and the kids are still at home: no-one can travel anywhere at the moment. It's like an extended Christmas holiday without the presents. They're all driving me mad. I didn't realise how much I'd secretly been waiting for everyone to get back to where they normally are on a Wednesday, so that I can organise my life the way I want it.

We're all milling about the house - ok, the kids can play in the garden and have snowball fights, which is quite fun - and ok I always complain that I don't see enough of Rog in the term-time, but...... in fact but what?? It's not the end of the world. It's just that strange sense of hovering in limbo, not doing all the usual stuff which takes some getting used to.

Crazy crazy snow. I can't remember snow like this since I was a child. The folded icing-sugar frozen waves hang, suspended in the crisp air, over the edges of roofs. Every now and again there's a strange cracking roar and snow avalanches off a roof finally sufficiently warmed by central heating inside. I find the noise scary and unsettling - suddenly I can begin to imagine why you'd want to avoid an avalanche on a mountain-side.

The forecast is for snow into next week. I'm already getting worried that I won't be able to get to my scan appointment next Thursday, but I think I'm being a bit dramatic as we do live in the middle - well sort of on the edge, actually - of the city. I'm sure I'll get there.

I need to break out of the snow-induced torpor. Eating a fabulous, luxury beautifully cooked fish-pie (although I do say so myself) hasn't helped on the torpor front. Excuse me anyhow, I have to go and put another log on the fire and make a cup of tea.

Snow

It's too snowy now - the novelty is wearing off. It's one thing when we can all mess around at home, making snowmen, walking to the park and playing with the woodburner but quite another when everyone has to go to work and school.

It's freezing - well below freezing - and the old cliche regarding the British inability to cope with wintry weather, is proving to be true. Our car is rubbish in the snow, is not 4-wheel drive, and slips if it even smells ice. And the kids' school is on a very steep hill. And I need to go into town tomorrow. GRRRR.

On a different note, my scan appointment came through. Next Thursday. And the results as soon as possible after that. Every time I think about it I feel weak with horror.

Quite a while ago I wrote a post about my son Ed's haemophilia and how I'm learning to give him his IV treatment at home. Last week was the first time I treated him completely on my own and it was a success. Today I was unable to bloody well find a vein and after poking around in the poor child's arm I had to give up. It's so frustrating - and he's so amazingly good. I'm going to have one more try tomorrow morning and then ring the haemophilia centre if I can't manage. It's so important to me to be able to do this smoothly and well. But, sometimes the nurses who've been doing it forever aren't able to do it either, so I'll have to be patient with myself.

Christmas seems a long way off already!

P.S.

Thanks Diney at Older Mums Are Fun for mentioning me on your blog and handing me the 'High Five Baton' - I'm hoping that my previous post fulfilled my responsibilities satisfactorily. I loved your post about your poor son's travelling hardships in order to be home for Christmas. Thanks so much again. It's good to know we're practically neighbours!

I'm passing this on to Rebecca at Letters to the World whose peaceful and readable blog is one of my favourites.

New Year

So, Happy New Year to all. I hope 2010 is good for you.

We had a lovely time - my cousin and her family were staying with us, and we spent New Year's Eve eating, drinking and watching Jools Holland. By the way, while we're on that point - does anyone know, can anyone categorically and definitively reassure me that Jools Holland's Hootenanny is LIVE!! A terrible rumour was spread in our house on New Year's Eve that it was pre-recorded. No!! Surely not!? Help me feel better about this.

On a more serious note I was going to write something about my New Year resolutions and all that stuff - but instead I think I might just consider the things about 2009 which were good despite the obvious pressures I continue to face, as well as thinking about what I want to achieve or hope to happen in 2010. It's all a bit obvious really and all a bit corny I suppose. But I do think lists can be cathartic and positive - depending on what you do with them of course. So here goes....

2009
1. My family - my kids and my Rog, and my mum, brother and sister and their lovely families
2. Managing to stay in remission
3. Hattie reaching her first birthday and me being there to celebrate it
4. Getting to my 40th birthday
5. The birth of my newest nephew
6. Our much planned and very exhausting camping holiday in France
7. Being around to help Martha through her first term at school
8. Starting this blog
9. Doing my memoir writing course
10. Finishing our lovely loft conversion
11. Getting our woodburner
12. Learning to give Ed his treatment myself
13. Unpacking those Christmas decorations for another year

And for 2010....

1. Continuing to stay in remission
2. To stop catching every bug going - watch that immune system strengthen again!
3. To write regularly - not to forget that book hovering in the back of my mind
4. To get fit and lose weight - to look fantastic for my 41st birthday in May
5. Lovely kittens and a puppy
6. St. Petersburg and Rajasthan - maybe...
7. Another nephew - or maybe my first niece this time, we'll wait and see
8. Summer-time holiday with the kids
9. Finding the perfect A Level teaching post in September
10. My mother meeting someone to share some fun with
11. My sister with another bun in the oven
12. Everyone I love and care for staying well and healthy - please!!
13. Unpacking those decorations for Christmas 2010, being about to celebrate two years in remission

Not too much then!!

I'm quite pleased that New Year's Eve is over - it's a scary time for me as I feel forced to think again about what's been and gone and what might be to come. I'm childishly sad that Christmas is over - as always so quickly, but it's kind of a relief to get back to normal days again. And every day is a step forwards towards a lighter future.