The Guardian piece

So! The piece is in today's Family Guardian

I have to confess to feeling a bit worried about it beforehand, especially about the photograph! But it's not too bad, and generally I'm pleased with the piece. It is just possible that I was one of the first customers to visit our local newsagent this morning!

Thanks so much to everyone for your lovely, supportive comments.

Trying Times

Sometimes my children make me feel so angry. I'm not alone.... am I?

I won't describe the particular incident which triggered my meltdown (not too strong a term for it, I assure you!)last night, apart from mentioning the constant struggle involved in getting a certain son to do as he's told. Not all the time - that would just be unreasonable - but just some of the time. Just some of the time, after a long day at work, I would appreciate a bit of consideration and a bit of peace and quiet. The problem is that when I'm tired, Ed has more energy and determination to resist me than I have energy and determination to deal with him like a perfect parent.

Sometimes our whole household seems full of strife and noise - despite us all loving each other and despite my resolutions to deal with the kids with more calm, more patience and more consistency.

Maybe I'm just too old to be a parent. I wish I'd had them in my twenties. Would that have made a difference?

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!!

Zzzzzzz

Ed and Martha have gone (on the train - cue squeals of ecstasy!!!!) to stay with their cousins for the weekend. They are terribly excited - the lovely house in the country-side, deep in the Scottish Borders, with a farm just up the road.

And we've got Hattie to ourselves for a night. I was busy today so Rog had a day with her - and took her out for tea. And later I bathed her and put her to bed, with no annoying older siblings to disturb her. Life is definitely easier with only one child although I suppose the house does feel rather empty. We've got a good evening ahead - Rog is cooking and I'm watching X-Factor with a nice glass of wine.

I read 'Room'. I was quite amazed by it, and really moved too. What a strange and unforgettable book.

I'm tired - can you tell? I've got lots of projects on the go, in different areas of my life, including an article coming out in The Guardian newspaper in a couple of weeks time. I'm looking forward to having some time off work at Christmas - just to sleep and read and generally catch up with things.

An early night I think.

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.....

Still Here....

I'm waiting for the chicken casserole to cook, and I've just finished an online grocery shop to arrive in a couple of days. It's my day off from work, and as usual there's lots to do. It's lovely just pottering around though, doing the stuff I used to do before work dominated my waking hours.

I've taken and picked up the kids from school (what used to be mundane is now appreciated) and watched Martha playing her violin in her concert this afternoon. I would like to return to the time when all I had to do was 'home-stuff' although as my mum reminded me recently, it's not as if those three years away from work were hassle free. Recovering from aggressive cancer with a dreadful prognosis, kind of took up some time!

I'm resolved to write on my blog at least once a week, if not twice - work should not be able to encroach upon my time the way that it does.

It was Ed's birthday last weekend. He's 8. It's practically impossible to process how it might be that a tiny baby in a spotty babygro has become this gangly, charming impossble boy. But it has. And time marches on as the kids grow up and somehow it's nearly Christmas again. I look back on my blog to my Christmas posts over the past couple of years and I marvel how things have progressed for me on all sorts of levels.

I'm not reading as much as I have been - and I'm suffering for that. However I'm limping through novels in record slow time. Most frustrating. At the moment I'm reading 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht. She writes like an angel - extraordinary. I'd recommend it if you need to be transported far far away.....

Working Blues

So - now I'm working flat out. And it's tiring - and stressful - and just so hard leaving the kids.

Martha's just had a complete meltdown.

"I don't want you to go to work, Mummy. I want you to take me to school every day."

She sobbed for half an hour this evening curled onto my lap like a little baby. I think she felt like one at that point.

I feel pretty low at the moment. If we didn't need the money I wouldn't be doing it - not when the kids are still so small. We've been through a lot - the kids have been through loads in their short lives, nearly losing their mum before they'd even started school. I know most women have to work.... I know it's nothing so monumental. But for our family just at the moment, the dramatic change feels pretty monumental. Not much I can do though really if we're to continue paying that blasted mortgage!

Any advice out there for me???

Home Again... Holidays Over

I've just been shopping with the kids. And now I need to lie down in a darkened room to renew my breathing abilities. All three needed new school/nursery shoes. The two older ones needed new plimsols for PE. Ed needed the new regulation black shorts/white t-shirts needed now he is in the Junior school. And I spent a fortune yesterday online buying them uniform.

The coats are going to have to wait intil my first pay-cheque (and there was me wondering why I'm going back to work!) Until then they can squeeze into last year's ones.

Children are so expensive....so expensive....so expensive

By the way the floorboards look fantastic. I did have a small sense of humour failure when I came home to the whole house covered with a layer of wood-dust, but now I've regained my sunny outlook (ha ha).

Back to Frankenstein.... Blog, Facebook, Twitter stop distracting me!

Pre-holiday Meanderings

We're going camping soon. But I've so much left to do before we can get into the car and head for the hills (or head for the Cornish pasties at least).

I haven't been writing - on my blog or anywhere else either, as I've been embedded in preparation for my lessons in September. And there's a lot to do. I'm determined to head off on holiday feeling relaxed and as sorted as I can for my return to work.

And sorting the details hasn't been easy - Ed's haemophilia means that being out all day, not around the corner and available for any eventuality, is particularly stressful. I guess it'll sort itself out - but it's sometimes hard to imagine how it can

On a different note - has anyone watched 'In Treament'? It's great, great, great. I'm plannng to watch the rest of the first season this holiday (although not in the tent of course).... and may start the second season, in between re-reading 'Frankenstein' and 'Lord of the Flies (which I'm teaching in September), and reading 'Lacuna' by Barabara Kingsolver and the new Kate Atkinson novel: 'Started Early, Took my Dog' for my own pleasure and delight. That's in-between fielding the tantrums of a small Hattie and refereeing the squabbles of the other two.

Maybe I'll find going back to work restful after that?? Maybe.... maybe not!

Tiger Mother? I'm Growling like a Kitten

Thanks everyone for your lovely and supportive comments after my last post. I haven't got the results yet - and I'm guessing no news is good news. As I said, it was a routine scan - but my reactions really surprised me. Clearly something inside me wasn't feeling routine.

Now, I'm grappling with a new and different issue. Have you heard about the 'tiger mother'? You must have done. It's the name given to pushy parenting, or maybe more accurately to parenting in a more traditional way. So it's making your kids practice their reading, maths and musical instruments everyday whether they want to or not. It's about not praising your children for every move they make, instead one might ask them to try harder before you praise.

Some time ago I read 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' by Amy Chua. It caused a big controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. I thought it was quite funny and I thought that much of it was written tongue in cheek. The controversy I thought came, largely, from a collective sense of humour failure.

However, undeniably Amy Chua presents herself as a pushy mother. Very different from me and my parenting style. But after I read it I thought I'd try an experiment.

Both Ed and Martha play the cello and violin respectively. I encourage them to practice but if I'm honest the time seems to fly between lessons, and sometimes - what with everything else - the practice can fall by the wayside. We pay for these lessons, the kids enjoy playing and I want them to stick at it. But I'm guilty of letting the practice slide sometimes.

So, I decided that for a while I'd make them practice for 15 minutes a day. And I decided that I'd be just a tad more critical. I wouldn't just say, 'That's lovely, Ed', if it actually wasn't. Instead I resolved to ask him to do it again and do it better. Just a bit, a teensy bit of Chua style parenting! The kids were quite surprised. And a little bit outraged it has to be said.

But..... their music has improved and they are enjoying playing so much more. With the practice - properly focused and a just a little bit demanding - has come a leap ahead in terms of achievement. They're doing better, they play better and they're having fun.

Interesting, really. I guess it's certainly so - that if I'm half-hearted about something, even accidentally half-hearted, that doesn't help them to succeed.

Right - on with the Latin then.

Only joking.....

Martha

Martha is staying on her own at her grandma's. It's just a night but it has been organised with all the seriousness and gravitas which preparations for a royal visit might entail. Those pajamas, those clothes for tomorrow and that book for tonight.

I unpacked her toothbrush when we arrived and called her into the bathroom.

"There's your toothbrush and there's the toothpaste", I said, nonchalantly waving a hand in the general direction of the sink. "I'm telling you now, so you know where they are for later."

There was a pause.

"I think I'd better move them, Mummy", she said with firmness and something close to sympathy for my cavalier clumsiness.

And oh so carefully she moved the toothbrush and the toothpaste just a tiny bit: straightened them up and aligned them exactly.

"There", she said with satisfaction. "That's much better."

And I'm not sure that I've ever loved her more than at that moment.

"Much better", I agreed.

Back to Work

So - if I go back to work next year (it's looking maybe like 4 days a week - it's the only offer I've had which isn't full-time!!) I'll feel guilty and sad at all that I'm missing. Hat's still small, the other kids are not big and they all need their mummy. I'll need to fight to be able to have enough time to see their school plays and concerts and to see Hattie settled for her mornings at nursery. I'll still be organising all the shopping and cooking and washing with a big burden of marking essays, planning and general work-demands hanging over me too. Can I cope with secondary teaching (high school, that is) and all the stresses that it brings, along with all the current stresses of family life.....as well as the ongoing saga regarding my health????

But - we need the money first and foremost. Even with childcare (lots to be thought about there) the money I'll earn will come in very very useful. I'll have all those weeks of holiday when I'm free to be with the kids and Roger and I'll still have a day a week to get myself, the house and the kids organised. Bills need to be paid, and life is always too expensive however hard you try to be frugal, something which isn't a natural character trait of mine I'm forced to admit. The time has come I guess, but with Hattie just 3 it's come quicker than I anticipated. I worked before I had Hattie when the other kids were very small. It was just two days a week and I remember how hard it was just to get everyone out of the door. And now I have to give Ed his treatment twice a week in the early morning just to add a small detail of fun into the mix.

Underneath it all, though, I have to admit to a little (and sometimes very fleeting indeed) flicker of excitement at the prospect of finding some sense of myself again -an adult, work-place me with something new and challenging to do. Teaching changes all the time - I haven't worked for three years and there'll be a steep learning curve up which to climb.

I need time to write though, and I need space to stay well. Three years ago I was dying and since then I underwent a year of hardcore treatment to get into remission. I'm coming up to 2 and a half years in remission now. It's a good length of time, but it's not 5 years. Not yet.

I've got to find a balance so that I can keep healthy and keep my family well. What a terrifying prospect.

My Love Affair with the City - It's Starting Right Now

Who-eeeee! The kids (well at least the older two) have started going to a local theatre club on a Saturday morning.

For 3 hours!!

Now I'm not saying, in any way, that it's lovely to have three hours of relative peace with Rog and Hattie. Three hours with no squabbling, no crazy TV watching (Ed), and no listless Saturday slouching (Martha).

All I am saying is that they enjoy their drama, and we enjoy heading towards our local cafe and kind of experiencing (remember there's still Hattie spilling juice and dropping toast)the blissful Saturday mornings we had pre-kids.

We've always dreamed of moving out to the country. Not far, just to the beautiful Tyne Valley, where I could live my fantasy of country housewife (ha ha). Yes - chickens, ducks and dogs all figure in this life I've concocted. I've always explained to anyone who'll listen that as soon as we can we're heading out of the city.

But recently, as the kids inch ever older, I have to admit to a certain pleasure in city life and what it can offer. Last week I met a friend for a pizza one evening, went to my course at the university and did a Zumba class. I would have taken Hattie to the Sage Concert Hall to take part in a music class if Ed hadn't needed a trip to the hospital (which given the haemophilia and my trials and tribulations is conveniently only minutes away)......and the kids can go to a drama club on a Saturday morning. Not to mention the Tyneside Cinema which is the most wonderful art-house cinema in the centre of Newcastle, and fabulous Pannis with its wondrously, life-affirmingly handsome Italian waiters (get the picture?) and its beautiful, beautiful coffee.

If I'm sounding smug or like some kind of crazy city-phile, you only have to show me an old farmhouse in fields surrounded by sheep, for the grass over there to seem seriously greener. But I'm learning to love my city-life all the same for the good things it can bring to a tired girl who is faintly remembering who she used to be beneath the exhausted and rumpled mother she's become.

Weekend and all that stuff.....

Another weekend filled with kid-related activity.

Before I start to moan about how exhausting it is to have three small children, and I'm afraid to say that this had been the intention of this post - a familiar theme of my blog, I'm sure you'll agree - I need to announce Harriet's third birthday. While this is hugely significant for her (chocolate cake with Smarties and "cangles" or should that be candles??), it is enormously significant for me too.

Three years ago I was visiting my tiny premature daughter, born at 32 weeks, in the Special Care Baby Unit. She spent her first days hooked up to tubes with an oxygen mask strapped over her impossibly tiny face. I had just come from another part of the hospital having had a scan to see if the cancer had spread from my chest into my abdomen. My prognosis was poor and my first dose of chemotherapy was scheduled for the following week; and after that I was facing the best part of a year of aggressive in-patient chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and radiotherapy. My other two small, small children were waiting for me to come home.

I am increasingly bemused to think how I managed that time from moment to moment. I know I spent my days, and nights, waiting to die. And I never, never, never thought I'd be making Hattie a cake on her 3rd birthday here in May 2011. She had a party with all her family this weekend. And along with singing, "Happy Birthday to you", we all quietly toasted my health too.

I'm not out of the woods yet - I have to get to her sixth birthday to throw the mother of all parties. I'm planning one too. It'll be my 45th birthday just after her 6th. On my 40th I was still very unwell, so a party was not really in order. But if I'm here on my 45th - and I'm more confident than I've been for the past three years that I might just get there - we're celebrating in style. I'm already saving for the holiday of a lifetime for Roger and I.

It's good to look forward - I can tell you.

So - luckily for you, I'm not going to moan after all. I'll save that for next time!

Scotland.....Again!

Here's the latest posting then - from the Western Isles of Scotland. The weather has been fantastic: suncream a necessity and picnics a staple.

We've been cycling, walking and I've been reading as much as possible. Our friends came to stay for the first week with their daughter and the four kids had a whale of a time doing lots of kid stuff - rolling down the sand-dunes, watching films and eating the first round of chocolate easter eggs which seemed this year to have appeared with alarming regularity.

It's tiring though - full-on family time leaves me feeling exhausted. No school to take the kids off my hands for a while, and Hattie's afternoon sleeps have been truncated shall we say. By the time the kids are in bed, I'm kind of ready for bed myself. Rog and I are slowly watching our way through the box-set of 'The Killing' - the Danish series. It's fantastic, have you watched it? The down-side are the subtitles which require more concentration than one might expect, especially when you're trying to follow the intricacies of a fast-paced psychological drama....in Danish! Last night we resolved to watch TWO episodes - and by the time the second one was on we were both falling asleep in shifts and then waking and saying, "What's just happened?" Needless to say much re-playing of crucial moments was happening. I got to the point where I was wondering if I could manage to close my eyes between the subtitles appearing. Time for bed? I think so!

We've another three days or so here before we have to head home and normal life will have to be resumed. We'll avoid the dreaded Royal Wedding - up here in Scotland it's not even a bank holiday thank heavens. Fervent anti-royalist though I am, I have to admit to a sneaking interest in her dress!! So I might just watch the news or something to catch a glimpse. Have I completely lost it? Don't tell anyone! I've a hospital appointment next week, so has Hattie (not for anything too serious) - and she has her third birthday to celebrate too. Three years ago, I don't want to remember what was happening to me. On that note, I have some niggling worries which I can air at the hospital appointment next week. I hope to be reassured of course....

I'm managing Ed's treatment again - touch wood, having had a blip where I just couldn't find a vein and we were getting into all sorts of bother. And yesterday we discovered that Martha had a tick in her neck! They're a bit of a hazard up here - and the kids have been spending large parts of their time outside in various kinds of heathery landscapes. Out came the tweezers and I pulled that horrible thing out accompanied by a certain amount of family hysteria. I was cool as a cucumber. Ed had one last year so I've become something of an expert. I was quite proud of my medical prowess yesterday - tick removal one moment, giving Ed his treatment the next. Maybe I should deliver a baby today?

Actually, that said, all around us in the field to the back and side of the house lambs are being born - a whole collection have appeared overnight. The farmer/shepherd has been up all night. We've just seen him exhaustedly making his way home to bed I hope. There is something so eternally amazing about seeing a new life appearing, and something so touching about seeing the ewe feeling the same maternal pride and anxiety which all mothers, animal or human feel. Quite humbling really - and helps one to feel connected to the world around in quite a profound way. I know, I know.... give me a few days back home in the city and I won't be feeling this mellow. But, hey - at least it visited me even very fleetingly.

And cooking? Oh yes - lots of cooking which is somehow more pleasurable up here when there doesn't feel the inexorable grinding pressure of making porridge at 6.45am, packed lunches, tea for the kids before swimming lessons and the like, and then a rushed meal for us afer the kids are in bed.

And reading? Yes I mentioned reading. I've just finished Colm Toibin's "Brooklyn" which I just thought was marvellous. An incredible snapshot of a young girl's life which was unputdownable. And before that Maggie O'Farrell's "The Hand that First Held Mine", which gave a desolate account of the pains of motherhood, although was an ultimately uplifting read. Now I've just started Douglas Kennedy's "Leaving the World". I've read quite a lot of his books. I always start off quite unconvinced, I think he's quite a light read and certainly a 'holiday' book rather than an intellectual experience. But I always end up thoroughly involved with his characters - and a couple of chapters in I'm hooked.

I've just started reading "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis (as if you didn't know!) to Ed and Martha. They are totally entranced. I've managed to steer them away from the films so they've no idea what the books are about. We read four chapters last night before bed and Ed had to be prised away from the book - I've promised at least another four tonight. The best fun - reading those fantastic classics to your kids. Now I know why I became a parent - I can see the absolute delight that I felt when I read them as a child reflected on the kids' faces. Isn't that worth something? Well it is to me who would happily read rather than do almost anything at all.

Ok - sorry to write nothing on a regular basis and then suddenly subject you to a torrent of inconsequential detail about what's going on in our corner of the world. I'm wondering anyhow if anyone will bother to read this. Perhaps I've lost my blogland friends through my irregular posting. I hope not - my blog is still important to me despite my less frequent posts, and I still enjoy reading everyone else's posts too. It's a funny old thing blogging. Life kind of gets in the way... although I suppose that is how it should be.

Catch-Up

No - I didn't get the job, and although I was disappointed I'm beginning to see it as the best thing really. Two people working long hours is really two people too many when the kids are so small.

So, I'm back to my original plan of looking for part-time teaching work and supplementing that with doing some private tuition and some exam marking. Glamorous it is not, but I think it's the best way at least for the next couple of years before Hat starts nursery and school.

And maybe I'll get my lucky writing break before then and become an official writer! And then again...

I'm finding it so hard to find time for my blog at the moment. I'm missing it - but feeling strangely uninspired about what I want to write. Life gets in the way I guess, and just as my other writing has suffered through the past turbulent couple of months, with family stuff and work stuff pushing itself to the front, the blog has not been paid its due attention either.

The kids finish for the Easter holidays on Friday (I can't wait!) and we're heading off to my mother's house in the Highlands of Scotland for a couple of weeks. I'm hoping for some peace and quiet and some space to try to do some writing again.

I am reading though - lots and lots. If only an avid reader made a successful writer. I'd be sorted.

And for the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer I've re-scheduled my three monthly check-up for after our trip to Scotland. Which means it's more like a four month gap. I know that seems insignificant, but for me it seems to represent something important. Those appointments have always felt written in stone for me, and in the early days were times to dread. As Hattie's third birthday approaches at the start of May, which is also the third anniversary pretty much to the week of my diagnosis, I guess my confidence that I might just be ok is returning.....just a bit!

Crazy Stuff

I'm sorry - call myself a blogger! Things have just been crazy around here. A mixture of bad and good - things have been tricky on the haemophilia front, and I have had some medical stuff which isn't great (but isn't a relapse.....I hope). And I'm applying for a big job which has required much concentration. I'm emailing it tomorrow so fingers crossed for me ..... please??

Hattie has had such a horrible virus that she ended up spending last Friday in hospital after I took her to the GP. And she's still not right almost a week later. A severe lack of sleep hasn't helped the ever present sinusitis to stay in the background so I'm currently taking antibiotics which, by the way, ARE NOT WORKING!

But - I'm planning to be back blogging once things have calmed down, and I'm planning on them calming down round about now. Still, I'm about to become an aunt again for the fifth time I like to boast (any minute now, sis) which will be very exciting all over again. I think I must go and sleep - or at least go to bed to read the fantastic 'Long Song' by Andrea Levy. Read this I urge you. I've learned much more than I knew, and learned much of what I should know, by reading this book.

Lastly, I can't believe that I didn't mention that I met my first ever co-blogger in real life while I was staying at mum's pub the week before last. Good old Legend in His Own Lunchtime tapped me on my shoulder while I was having lunch with various motley kids in tow. He lives in the US but was over in the UK sadly as his mother had passed away. But it was fantastic to meet him and to prove to myself that I'm not just a creation in cyber-space (only joking). He has a standing invitation from my mother to come and play in the pub so I'm looking forward to seeing him again when he's next up here in the North of England.

Sunday

I'm waiting for my chicken with green olives to cook. And while I do - blocking out the shrieks from the children fighting in the other room - I'm sitting down for the first time today.

Up early, having had Ed coming in and out of our room through the night telling us he couldn't sleep; the pouring rain punctuating my early morning sleep. To the park DESPITE the pouring rain to imbibe a little fresh air. And then back home. To the supermarket for a quick shop and then home in time put on a loaf of bread to cook in trusty breadmaker and to make promised biscuits with Martha in honour of our friend coming for the afternoon.

Said biscuits made and quickly consumed through the afternoon mostly by Ed, while my friend and I attempted to catch up through the cacophony of Ed, Martha and Hattie 'playing' (read 'showing off').

Friend leaves for the peace of her house and I start to make chicken and green olive casserole (yum I hope). I stack the dishwasher, get lovely loaf out of the bread machine and peel the potatoes for mash.

It's not even half past five yet. I'm exhausted and there's still the delightful bedtime routine and the ironing of the shirts and uniform. What the hell happened to lazily reading the Sunday papers and actually having a REST? Having kids happened - that's what.

Tigers

This evening Hattie came roaring into the kitchen.
"I'm being a tiger", she announced.
"How scary!" I said.
"Well, I'm just pretendering Mummy", she said.
Lucky she told me.