6.28 am
I have lost a Field guide to getting lost (Rebecca Solnit). It will turn up eventually, probably slipped down the back of a bed or it will be hiding under a pile of unsorted paper, plastic and electrical cables. Without a guide to lead me I am flaundering around not sure what my focus is, perhaps loosing it is good, no words of orientation so I have to create all my own ones.
Naoise seems to have caught the dreaded virus that has knocked out all his boyfriends. Poor little Naoise he has a soaring temperature and a sore throat, I have given him water and medicine and sent him back to sleep. I agreed he is too unwell for school today. I was hoping that he wouldn’t get ill, its half term at the end of the week, and I have three deadlines to compete and a home to order before the ensuing holiday brings with it more chaos.
Naoise didn’t go back to sleep. There were feet on the stair and calls of mummy, mummy and now he is lying on the sofa on a bed of cushions, lambskin, fleecy blanket, woollen blanket. He is sucking his thumb, clasping his hands and watching me type.
The gas fire is making a strange smell, but I have risked turning it on regardless, a permanent chill hangs on the air of this front room, its good to at least take the edge off it. I am sitting with my back to the fire, kneeling on the red rug.
Went to a meeting about Syd’s upcoming French trip to Paris last night, it all sounds so exciting but going through the long checklist and parental/child agreement was so dull. When did teachers mostly become younger than myself ? A strange phenomenon. Yet even though they are younger in years, sitting here in the school hall next to my teenage child, I am reduced to a juvenile myself. Compliance, obedience, manners, fitting in. I am pleased when the meeting ends and we are released.
I am pinching myself now that I didn’t go for a walk yesterday as I am going to be stuck in for the next eight hours looking after Naoise. I had planned a long circular walk to make up for my lack of exercise the day before. I will just have to walk in my imagination through the woods and the path that runs by the river. My head feels groggy too, hope that I haven’t gotten ill, mothers never get ill, because they just cannot, there is always another to look after.
Prior to the weigh in at the Health Centre, I had spoken to the weight advisor about feeling like the diet had beaten me, but astonishingly I am down another four pounds. I put the big loss down to the draining of water retention after my period. I am at the lean point of the month. I probably shouldn’t have celebrated by finishing off a slice of birthday cake that Naoise had been given, but it was heavenly. See the food really does have the upper hand still, need to be much more disciplined, need to think about how I reward myself. Replace the food with anything else, lipstick, flowers, making art, staring out the window Food is not the answer for comfort.
Naoise is pleading that I watch a film called Box Trolls with him, oh the joys, oh the joys. I am just so rubbish at watching kids films, I end up staring into space, vacant. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy the cuddling and the chance to sit still, to break myself, but my mind just wonders onto better things that I could be doing with my time.
Naoise: Cats are a type of human because they have two front legs like arms and two back legs like our legs. Thats what makes them human.
Me: But they do not walk upright.
Naoise: Cats can actually walk like us but they have to balance a lot.
Me: What made you think about cats ?
Naoise: Frida (Frida was our pet cat). Frida is on our shelf isn’t she
Me: Yes she is (She has been cremated and is in a small cardboard box on the book shelf)
Naoise: Frida is just black and ashes and tiny winy bits mum
I would love to take some photographs of the parents waiting to collect their children, but I think that would definitely spell trouble. I had thought that I may take a low shot just of feet standing, but perhaps I will just keep to the safety of the empty yards.
Naoise loves to feed Chocolate and Vanilla, the school guniea pig, he pokes little bits of dandelion and grass that he finds growing between tarmac and concrete into the bars of their cage.
Naoise: You know what mum I have got x-ray vision because I can see through my arm
Cannot concentrate I am beaten by my little boy and his words of interruption.