Happy New Year and all that stuff

Happy New Year to you all. As usual things have conspired to keep me away from the old blog - so I'm making new resolutions to remedy that. The problem is that after I've worked all day and marked and prepared lessons for the next; in between sorting the kids out, making packed lunches, going to swimming lessons (kids, not me), writing and reading and shopping, cooking and cleaning (phew!) there's not time for much else.

I don't mean to relegate my beloved blog and any readers who may still be out there, to the bottom of the very big teetering pile but the problem is that you're all so quiet compared to the clamour which echoes through the rest of my life.

So.... a catch-up. Christmas came and went in a blur. The kids were hyper - Ed at the age of 8 still waking up at the crack of dawn whenever there's a sniff of excitement and Martha and Hattie swirling through the days filled with everything Christmassy. For me, I guess it was the first Christmas since my cancer diagnosis (3 years ago I was going through radiotherapy)that I didn't wonder with quite such a heavy feeling inside whether that Christmas wouldn't be my last. I suppose I'm beginning to have just a little faith that I may stay alive for a few more years yet. I have an oncolgy appointment on Wednesday - just a check-up, but just walking through the doors of the hospital can make me feel shaky and less than sure about anything.

I read bit over Christmas - Look at Me, by Jennifer Egan which I thought was really interesting and dark, and I've just started Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler to cheer me up about returning to work. I love Anne Tyler for her easy readability and explorations of family relationships. I've read most of her books but gloriously I've missed this one. The problem is that I'm so tired when I get into bed that I fall asleep almost instantly. A least it spins out the pleasure for longer!

I'm also in the middle of applying for child psychotherapy clinical training for next year. Yup - finally I've decided on a career change. The course is scary in it's demands: I have to start regular analysis before I start. That is scary - I'm a little wary of meeting whatever might be lurking in my subconscious. And it's a doctorate which is another scary thing - if I ever had any brain power I think it's disintegrating fast. But it's worth a try. I completed the pre-clinical training while I was pregnant with Ed, and had intended to continue straight on to the clinical training however life (in the shape of two more kids, and cancer) kind of temporarily got in the way. Hattie starts school next year - and now is as good a time as ever to start the training seeing as I have to earn for a long time to come -I'm still hoping to become a full-time person of leisure, but it's not really looking likely any time soon!

Excitingly (although I'm shrinking with horrified anticipation at the same time) I have an article coming out in the Family Guardian this coming Saturday - yes, the 14th January. Read it if you haven't anything more interesting to do which I'm sure that you have. But I did write it which is pleasing. Bit worried (understatement of the decade) about the photo. Hope the beautiful kids eclipse the frazzled and 'seen better days' mother.

Christmas is Coming

How excited can three kids possibly be? I'm not sure that we'll make it through to Christmas in one piece!

Ed - excitable at the best of times - is getting up even earlier in the morning. Given that the alarm goes off at 5.55 every morning, which is early enough in my book, I am findng hearing his voice singing carols more annoying than charming. He can't wait for his sisters to wake up so that they can make a camp or set up a stage to perform a Christmas pantomine. I blame the schools!! No - I'm joking, although there is so much Christmas related activity so early in December in their classes, that they are revved up with joy and anticipation by the time the term actually finishes.

We're getting our tree on Saturday - and then I think I'll feel Christmassy. Maybe I'll make some mulled wine to get into the spirit of the season, while we decorate it. I do make a rather good mulled wine -although the large quantity of rum added to it along with orange juice, cinnamon sticks and brown sugar, can lead to dangerously inebriated behaviour. Or it did last year.... but that's another story!!

Christmas Plans

Four weeks to Christmas..... four weeks! I haven't done anything at all. No Christmas shopping, no planning, no thinking, no decking the halls. Up here in Geordie-land, most people are 'all-in' at this point. Their tree is up, their presents bought and wrapped and the turkey ordered.

I'm half in admiration and half jealous - with just a dash of bewilderment thrown in - ok that's more than a whole but you know what I mean. I can't get Christmassy in November, however if I'm going to rely on online shopping I'd better get a move on otherwise the only thing that will arrive in time for Christmas is, well, not a lot.

I hear you asking what I want....

Well seeing as you ask, an iPad 2 would be fabulous - some chance - and a puppy (loads of time to look after a puppy!!), so I'm probably looking at some books, and maybe some luscious Jo Malone goodies if I'm very lucky.... which isn't too bad. The best present will be a couple weeks off work. Family time will be lovely - although Hattie's ruling the roost these days (was there ever a time that she didn't?)so I'm feeling a little weak, as well as excited, at the prospect of Yule-tide celebrations.

I expect I'll come over 'all Nigella' at some point soon, although being a working woman again has dampened down some of my more ambitious culinary plans. Sleep has become very important - and I haven't seen Nigella draped in fairy lights planning the next day's lessons in between icing cakes and preparing 'impromptu' mid-week suppers. Maybe I just haven't looked carefully enough.

I'm about to start reading Emma Donoghue's 'The Room'- or Keith Richards' autobiography, I can't decide which. Maybe I'll start them together.....

Happy Christmas....of course

A belated Happy Christmas to everyone and lots of good good wishes for the new year. I've been woefully inadequate in my posting and my reading of my favourite blogs. But full action will be resumed in the new year. It's just been a lovely - but full on - Christmas. Hattie has chicken pox - the first spots appeared on Christmas Day(!) and the others have variations of a sick/flu bug which is going around. But, still lovely despite all of this: the right combination of being at home and seeing all the family. And there's still the new year knees-up to come! Exhausting.

This Christmas

It'll be turkey on Christmas Day - I'm making chestnut and sausage stuffing, my lovely roast potatoes (I hope they'll be lovely!), lots of other bits and pieces and chocolate prune and armangnac pudding with rum butter. It's my first Christmas Day in my own home with just us and the kids. My first Christmas day where I'm in charge instead of my mother. And I'm excited. I want it to be perfect.

We're off to stay with my mum, my brother and sister, their partners and my four small nephews on Boxing Day - and that'll be lovely too. The kids all adore each other; seven cousins aged between 7 and 6 months, with another coming in March, will certainly make for chaos. Proper family chaos that's for sure!

Due to my German heritage, Christmas Eve is important to us too. We exchange our presents entirely on Christmas Eve around a tree festooned with lit candles (try buying the tree candle holders anywhere in this country..... I've had to resort to ebay!), and we eat bockwurst and potato salad with rollmops. I'm not making the Stollen though - that's still the domain of my mum who makes perfect batches - I hope enough to take one home for us. We have a magical Christmas angel who comes to light the candles on the tree when it gets dark while the kids outside the room press their ears to the door to see if they can hear her speak or catch a glimpse of her out of a window as she flies away. When I was a child, Father Christmas didn't figure at all in our Christmas, he was always a mystery to me really; but for my kids I've had to build him into the story -without Father Christmas things are too complicated at school and with their friends, so now he comes and leaves the stockings later on Christmas Eve. In that way we can leave a mince pie and a glass of whisky for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.... and attempt to amalgamate the two traditions. I'm always confused though and have to remind myself who does what - when I was a child the Angel came back to leave the stocking!

I'm coming up to two years in remission. This year I'm going to a New Year's Eve party. I haven't felt able to since the diagnosis. Two years ago at Christmas I was going through radiotherapy -and due to my poor prognosis I had very little confidence that I would be around for the next Christmas. Last Christmas I was still hounded by profound anxiety and ill health. This Christmas I think I believe I might just be here for the next. That's progress for me. I think I can face this New Year with new optimism. Life's a scary business that's for sure.