What's in YOUR Bag??

Well - thanks Diney over at Older Mums Are Fun for tagging me. I love your blog. But now I have to - in the spirit of reciprocity and tagging- tell you all what's in the dark recesses of my handbag!!

Oh.... did you mention Orla Kiely? Sorry. I thought I heard you say Orla Kiely... Yes, I DO have a beautiful Orla Kiely bag to which I devoted an entire post not so long ago. However, before you wish me suffocated with my Orla Kiely bag over my head (how many times can I say it? I'm annoying myself) let me tell you that the other day in Sainsbury's while I was lovingly carrying her, my bag slung casually but stylishly over my shoulder, Hattie was hideously sick all over AND INSIDE my bag. And the floor. And the rest of me. And some shopping which was in a bag on the floor. See pride does come before a fall after all. The other lesson I've learned is that I shouldn't try to pretend that I can carry off style and parenting at the same time (or separately come to that). It's all so very sad.

As is what's inside my bag which I can't pretend hints at a hot and sexy secret existence. So here goes.... try to stay awake for the end of the list if you can.

Lip balm (Neal's Yard) - totally necessary due to ridiculous changeable weather and central heating. Again - the chapped lips look isn't the most stylish, but one which creeps up on me all too quickly if I don't use this baby regularly.

My filofax - Strangely I don't have many meetings with the PM, publishers and agents just at the moment, but it's always useful to have it with me should I need to know for example at any given moment exactly when the kids' dentist appointments are!! My filofax is actually quite a lovely version, made of fabric and given to me the Christmas I was pregnant with Hattie just before I became ill. Oddly I still have squashed into it my diary for 2008 and 2009 as well as 2010. It's some kind of superstitous thing - all my chemotherapy appointments, Hattie's birth, my radiotherapy dates are there superimposed onto earlier entries to do with work I thought I'd have to do before starting my maternity leave, before I knew that my life was going to change out of all recognition. I guess I should get rid of those years, but somehow at the moment it seems necessary to keep them.

My sunglasses - Yes, very necessary at the moment in the snow and pouring rain!! But I bought them last summer at a fanatastic market in Sarlat in the Dordogne. We took the kids camping in France -an amazing and exhausting holiday, long before I was anywhere near being well but a holiday to prove that things were getting back to some sense of normality.

My Orla Kiely purse. Need I say anything? Actually I'm not exactly sure that Rog exactly knows about this purse. Not exactly. Hmmmmm.

A sock - Hattie's

A pair of socks - Ed's

My digital camera - I'm trying hard to take more photos before I blink and the kids are leaving home.

My book - I'm just starting 'February' by Lisa Moore. I don't ever get to read through the day, but I can't take the risk that Hattie might fall asleep somewhere in the car or buggy and I can sneak a few pages. I'm laughed at by my family and friends for always, always having a book - and lugging it around the supermarket, on the school run, wherever. It started when I was a child. We'd go on family holidays to Yorkshire, Northumberland or Scotland and I'd have my nose in a book from the start to the end. I'd read through picnics, drives in the car, rainy afternoons in the caravan - much to the utter disgust of my brother, and sometimes the irritation of the rest of my family.

Ibroprufen and paracetamol - I like to have a choice when it comes to killing pain.

Neal's Yard Calm Spritzer - I'm a bit of a Neal's Yard fan as you can tell. This smells lovely.

I hope there's nothing unpleasant left in the bottom of the bag connected with the nasty incident in the supermarket - I don't think so.

I have to say that the above is a little too much for an Orla Kiely bag! It's kind of a little out of shape. My reality is hard to contain in a piece of frippery - lovely though it is and that's the sad truth.

Are you still with me? Well if you are, here's the part when I'm going to tag some other bloggers whom I read regularly as well as a couple of new finds - so that they can tell us all what's in THEIR bag!

Rebecca at Letters to the World

Tracey at uno, dos, tracey

Jane at ExmoorJane

HotCrossMum

The Dotterel (Ok, so maybe you don't have a handbag - but you must have some sort of bag) at Bringing up Charlie

Debra at Menopausal New Mom

Enjoy!!

To Meditate or not to Meditate

I'm not getting on with the whole meditation thing. I'm missing the point, I know I am - but when the baby only has one sleep a day, and when in that time before getting the kids from school I have to get all the house stuff done (damn, just realised I haven't put the washing on), write something, and rest if possible as I'm still so tired; I find it difficult to spend 45 mins sitting on a chair focusing on my breath.

I'm halfway through doing my course which runs on a Tuesday evening. It cost money - which I don't want to waste, but I'm not sure I'm at the right time in my life to do this. At the moment it just feels like one more thing which is hassling me and which I have to do. Not really the idea. But I kind of feel like it's going to be hard to extricate myself from the group. Aaargh! This is typical of my life at the moment - in a bid to get well, cope with stress, lose weight, get fit etc etc I'm putting pressure on myself which doesn't really help me to relax or feel in control.

I haven't been doing the daily practices - and obviously until I do, I'm not going to get the benefit of them if there is a benefit to be had. But my days pass in a blur and I'm not sure that I'm able to commit to doing them. Bloody hell.

Oh - and the blood results need repeating, but they certainly indicate a low white cell count which obviously still means that I'm going to be prone to more infections for the time being. But, I went to our local fitness centre this morning with Hattie and checked out the creche - a step closer to those boxercise classes!

P.S.

P.S. And anyhow, I should have been more organised because obviously the coats are not going to dry before tomorrow. And it's snowing. What was I thinking? Clearly not only can I not write like Virginia Woolf (or anyone else for that matter), neither can I excel in the best mother in the school playground competition.

And I'm about to make a shepherd's pie which will take longer to cook than the kids can wait, partly because (and the 'because' refers not to the fact that I'm making the pie, but to the fact that the said pie won't be ready by tea-time) I'm writing this and prevaricating in lots of small ways; by being un-necessarily wordy for one example, the others (examples, that is) about which you don't even need to know. (see!!?)

Peeling potatoes? Ugh!

Back to School

Oh - it's Sunday! And the kids are back at school tomorrow. I'm washing uniform, coats and all manner of tedious things. Did Virginia Woolf have to do this kind of thing? I think not! On the other hand, she could write quite well........

Half Term

So - Roger has gone to St Petersburg and left me with the kids for half term. This has been very helpful and I have found my exhaustion levels reaching new and dizzy heights.

But, we've de-bunked to my mother's house. Actually, my mum owns and runs a lovely and quite well-known pub on the Northumberland coast. Literally on the beach. She lives above the pub and the kids spend delirious and happy times here drinking hot chocolate and walking on the beach, playing in the dunes and riding ponies. So it's not all bad.

The sea is fabulous - stormy and grey: sitting in her kitchen drinking coffee you can watch the waves rolling and crashing just a stone's throw away. It's cold here but it's lovely to get away from the city and lovely to see the kids falling exhausted into bed after so much exercise and fresh air.

It won't stop Ed getting up at 6am though. I'm resigned to his early rising until the teenage years hit - he doesn't seem to be growing out of it like all his friends and his younger sisters. The most I can do is threaten him on pain of some terrible punishment not to wake anyone else in the house. But he's too unaware of how noisy is his every move to manage even that. Hmmm.

Rog's back on Thursday - I'm handing the kids to him quick-smart mind you the moment he's home, while I lie in a darkened room. I've had some blood results back which might indicate at the reason for some of my tiredness - more details after I've spoken to the doctor. Hopefully it's nothing to worry about. Hopefully.

Damn - again!!

I have tonsilitis - woke today feeling just terrible.

Went to the doctor (after refereeing usual morning chaos and doing the school run in the pouring rain - no let up for illness of course. Rog went to work as usual at the crack of dawn). The doctor says it's a horrible dose and I have to take 8(!!) penicillin tablets a day.

Rog did come back from work early though and I'm 'resting' on the sofa while he puts the kids to bed. They do keep bursting in but it's a real novelty to be sneakily on the computer, watching 'Neighbours' and 'Home and Away' at 6pm.

If I could only swallow and turn my fat neck more than ever so slightly things would be perfect. What an attractive image I paint hey??

By the way, am trying to write seriously, meditate and exercise but keep being thwarted. Damn!!!!

Food

I love food.

Today, I have another bug despite trying to eat healthily and drink my smoothies everyday. My neck has swollen up to body-builder proportions (yes, really -very attractive!) and I'm finding it hard to talk and swallow. And I cannot get an appointment with the doctor until tomorrow.

Despite this, and despite the fact that I've looked after the 3 kids all day with multiple school runs, tea-making and putting to bed single-handedly as Rog is working late, my mind is running on food. Specifically food that I would love to eat in my invalid (ha, ha) state but not have to cook.........

Fish pie - the luxurious version with smoked fish and prawns, spaghetti with garlic, white wine and chilli, bolognese with mushrooms and red wine, homemade tomato soup with cream and croutons. Not to mention strawberry fool, chocolate mousse, and rum and raisin ice-cream.

But, delirious dreaming aside - I'm going to have to pull myself off the sofa to see what I can quickly put together instead. I've sort of collapsed for the evening so I fear it may be toast and marmite. Not quite what the doctor ordered.