Month: March 2015

7.35am (up since 7am)

Where does time go? The weeks fly. I never achieve the amount of work that I would like. A step into the void again with the Easter holidays coming at the end of next week. I’m sure that I used to look forward to the school holidays, now they seem to fill me with absolute dread. I know that any of the work that I am involved in will be brushed aside by care work. Oh sisyphean, sisyphean. Oh lamentation, lamentation. Songs of sorrow. Mummy moaning, on and on and on. I bore myself.

Syd interrupts: I need to hand my options form in today, I have made up my mind, I need to hand it in now, or else my subjects will get full up.(I have never heard such rubbish!)

Me: Why don’t you get yourself some breakfast.

Syd: No I wanted you to get me some.

This is impossible, I will try and write again a little later, as five minutes is not enough to calm my frustrations, yes this is therapeutic and it is art. Marking down the feelings goes some way to straightening out thoughts in my mind and perhaps in the process art will happen. Or maybe this isn’t art and its just a rant.

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10.20am (after the school run, a run and a shower)

Fog. No vision. Fog, just the stone walls and the near. Dew on spindly grass. Fox gloves beginning to emerge from cracks in stones.

Fog.

I am so annoyed by the education that is being offered to my son. He is selecting his options. He  has to decide between Mr Gove’s aspirational Baccalaureate and another system that does not allow for multiple science options, this is totally crazy. So much contradictory information and advice. Seems like a two teer system has been adopted by his school and arts subjects are not encouraged. Arts are  being completely undervalued. I am angry. I am frustrated, this education system is not serving the needs of my son or others. It does quite literally make me want to scream. Is it not possible to be scientific and creative?  Leonardo da Vinci seemed to manage.

Syd is difficult and moody and stubborn, his choices swayed by what his friends are doing as opposed to any practical or consider choice. I really do not enjoy being a parent, its the most undervalued job of all. He thanks me for none of my advice and I don’t think he is even listening. Need to find a different approach. Need to try and at least get him to listen, to consider with care, not to be swayed by his peer group, maybe this is impossible. Maybe its all fine and I am worrying about nothing. I do care though, I keep telling him that when he snaps and snarls.

I keep thinking of the Slaves gig that me and Syd went too and the mosh pit and all that energy, youthful boys bouncing, pushing, sweating, climbing on top of each other. All of a boys energy, he takes it all. He needs constant feeding and constant reassurance and encouragement and he needs to let his hair down and so do I and does any of this really matter. Does it?

He is my Mantaray and I love him.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Beep, beep beep fifteen minutes gone.

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7.15am ( up since 6.45am)

Sun and frost and cold. The crocuses in the window box shrivelled and dead. There is to be a solar eclipse on Friday.

I am going to go and see it at the observatory on Bacup road, you need special glasses, I will jog up the hill after school. I have always wanted to go inside the observatory. They will have special glasses there so I can safely gaze at the sun without fear of blinding. Apparently it is going to be cloudy on Friday, I do hope not. I will take the children in the evening so that they can have a look too.

Naoise is getting a little more compliant in the morning, scootering helps. When we got inside the classroom at school, the teacher urged me to take a look at some English work that he had completed. It was about the Minatour. The mythical monster resembled myself with outstretched arms. The writing was big and clear and loopy. I didn’t notice what it said just how it looked. The teacher was saying that he had used the past future and present tense, she was clearly impressed with him. Some of the other children gathered around to look. Naoise looked proud and happy.

I missed my run friend, so I didn’t make it up to Gaddings or Stoodley Pike, instead I followed the Pennine Bridle Way up along the moor above the ridges of  Walsden. On the way I heard the man of rock terrace practising his saxophone, I saw blackbirds busying themselves, a pheasant waking, fat rabbits bounding, greyhounds barking, cows staring, keep out private signs, strange farms, cobbles, geese and one other man walking. I crouched down to wee between the thick of the moor grass and the stone of the wall. I ran to see another friend, we drank tea together and she showed me her friends treehouse settlement in the woods in Wales where she had recently visited. It looked amazing, all hand made, off grid.

After school Naoise played on the muddy bank beside the school.He scrambled about with a stick in his hand and chased after his macho friend. At one stage he disappeared into the laurel bush and became just voice. Syd turned up to collect the front door key, he grunted at me and acted cool. Naoise found a red plastic ball. He threw the red ball away and lost it, later we had to go on a hunt to find it and play football on the tarmac of the carpark before he would comply and come home.

Naoise showed me a stone that he had found earlier in the playground, he reached into his pocket to find it and dropped it into my hand declaring it a dinosaur egg.

As Naoise played I talked to my friends about the upcoming Solar Eclipse. Apparently if you hold a colander under the light of the sun, all the shadows in the holes will form into moon shapes.

The buzzer on the oven clock has sounded 20 minutes gone.

 

 

Woke up late around 7.10, no time to write in Morning, Afternoon or Evening Time.

I am cheating as I have published this today Wednesday morning- its the first time over the duration of this project that I didn’t manage to write a post and publish it on the same day. I am feeling run down, I have a chest cough. These are just excuses though. Quite feeble. If this was a new born baby, I wouldn’t have been  able to neglect it for a whole day, I would have had to feed it,dress it, cuddle it, wash it, change its nappy. You can fail to take care of words but you cannot fail to take care of a child.

Naoise was being difficult refusing to go to school, he claimed he was still unwell.

Naoise was being difficult after school, not listening to what I said, being nasty to friends, running away.

I escaped in the early evening to print out some flyers in the library. Some days I hate being a mum and I feel that I hate my children. Of cause I don’t really, hate is very close to love, isn’t it? When things get difficult, when children are stubborn and unruly and just don’t want to comply or co-operate, when I am over tired, run ragged, it drives me mad, quite literally.

Printing out sheets of paper is really very easy and therapeutic. I take my time in the library.

I take my time in the supermarket. I bump into a friend, she calls to me across the vegetables, I meet her new born baby, she is beautiful, blue eyed alert, open face. I stare and stare at her sitting in the carrier on top of the trolly. She is the most interesting thing. My friend asks me to remind her how many children I have, two I reply, she has four. I talk about family’s of four, how I am from a family of four children, how brilliant I think big families are. I am growing more content with my two, but I probably will always wish for more.

 

 

7.35pm ( awake at 7.00am up at 7.10am)

https://youtu.be/biSq6UssUt0

Here’s to those of us who had to struggle for love from our mothers. It wasn’t our fault, and in the absence of an ideal world , maybe not their fault either. Here’s to the grandmas who picked up the pieces.Here’s to the young mums who face discrimination everyday but still push through to give out love, here’s to to the older mums, the single mums, the accidental mums who took the plunge. Here’s to the mums who mourn. Here’s to Mother Earth. Here’s to everyone with a mothering heart, be you male or female, related or acquainted, this day is for you.

Diane Goldie  (Artist)Facebook post; 15th March, 2015 (kindly published with permission from Diane)

Mothers Day, not always a day of love, a day of joy, its more complex than that. These words are great, so carefully chosen, I read them on Facebook, I loved them and asked Dianne Goldie if I could publish them here and she said yes.

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Naoise presented me with a gorgeous card and some perfume from Lidls, it was the bottle that I wanted, I was so delighted, and it was wrapped in hand made paper. Paper covered in small motifs that looked like the sun, the earth and another planet.  Syd was at his dads, he sent me a text message. His voice would have been better but his words were kind and made me smile. Next year I think that I will ensure that he is with me, I only gave birth to him after all. I hate his time being split between me and his dad. It sucks, it really does. I envy all those women who don’t have to live apart from their children every other weekend. I busy myself so that I don’t have time to think or dote.

 I don’t really want to be writing this now. I am juggling cooking dinner and Naoise is trying to get my attention. Syd is playing the Arctic Monkeys upstairs.  

We went to The Whitworth Art Gallery. It is beautiful.I looked after Naosie for a while, we drew some pictures on the leather seat.

Then Patrick kindly looked after Naoise for a while and they made some worry dolls together. It was Naoise idea to make worry dolls. We are a worry doll family. Patrick and Naoise made these beautiful films together by playing with a kaleidoscope.

Naoise is now telling me about which clone wars ship is better, one has more bullets, one is faster, I think that he wants an opinion, instead I just hum. Mum MUM This is what this one looks like in battle. MUM MUM do you want to see a battle one. I am almost finished Naoise. I will be done in a minute, just go and sit on the sofa. 

I had some time on my own to look and dream. I  just love Sarah Lucas installation Tits in Space, isn’t that the just best ever title. Tit is such a better word than Breast. Cunt is such a better word than Vagina. Cock is such a better word than Willy. All these naughtier, funnier words to describe parts of our bodies come to mind as I look at Sarah’s work.

https://youtu.be/bwRUgllYD4w

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Articles

Mother’s Day 2015: Forget the bunch of flowers, mothers deserve £172,000 a year, The Independent, Hannah Boland, Sunday 15th March, 2015

My friend breastfed my baby, Elisa Albert, The Guardian, Saturday 14th March, 2015

‘I gave birth yesterday’-mothers with their brand new babies  , Susanna Rustin, The Guardian, Friday 13th March, 2015

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7.45am ( up at 7.30 am)

Mothers Day is a day to be be grateful. Grateful that I have a gorgeous mother and that I am blessed, blessed with the love of  my two boys. But I am also a little sad that my eldest son is not with me today, he is at his dads for the weekend, I hope that he rings me later. Its also sad that I won’t be seeing my mum, she is at her home in Scotland, enjoying her peace. She is happy where she is in the place of her childhood dreams. I sent her a card, I hope that makes her smile. I will send her a text too.

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Patrick is wondering why I am up so early when I had booked a lie in for Mothers Day, I remind him that I have to write this blog. Its not a chore, its an absolute pleasure, the opportunity to write and reflect upon my maternity throughout the duration of a year is a fortunate. I am glad that I have allowed myself this space and that on the whole my family have been supportive of me in keeping it.

Its Mothers Day. The cynic in me would say that today is for card manufacturers, restaurant owners, florists  and chocolatiers to make an easy pound. The positive in me would say its a great opportunity to bestow your mother with thanks and love and kindness and to think about all the wonderful things small and big that she does each day. Mothers Day should be celebrated, mothers are heroes and gods to their children and children are gods to their mothers. Mothers of the world unite and take over.

My head is foggy because I began mothers day celebrations last night at my friends home together with all my dearest local mummy friends. We talked and ate delicious snacks, drank wine and listened to music, simple, pleasurable, and calm. Walking home my legs felt as if I had been riding a horse; perhaps too much exercise or not enough stretching.

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I walked and ran and walked out onto the moors. I had hoped that the bridle path would have been deserted but instead I met a fell race the Hepworth Hobble coming in the opposite direction. I felt very self conscious and occasionally ran in-between a lot of walking and runners bidding me well with an Ei Up or Mornin. I was intrigued by them, I watched how they moved, what they wore, could I really be one of them? I paused at an outcrop of rocks and took in the sheer beauty of the valley, rugged, bleak, cold. I noticed a crowd of trees and how they miraculously hung out of a sheer cliff side.

I met Patrick and Naoise at the local pub for lunch. I ate bad food chips and cheese and chicken. I ate bad food and it tasted great. At home it was a day of making plaster models and painting. Robots and Breasts. Naoise made us laugh as the plaster was drying he said ” the boobies are harder than the Robots”.

At breakfast time we all had a laugh watching a clip from the Woody Allan film Everything that you wanted to know about sex * but were afraid to ask.  I found a small grant being offered by the Hebden Bridge Arts festival  £250 for artists to propose work in response to the theme ‘The Hills are Alive’. I’d like to propose a project that used the grant to make a giant pair of breasts. I would then release them onto the moors above Hebden Bridge to bounce and cause havoc and perhaps they would roll Prisoner style down the cobbles of Market Street in the town centre. This would be so much fun, it would be so naughty, I should do it, but sadly I don’t think £250 would cover the costs or the public liability. I will look into it.

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7.38am ( awake since 6.30am up at 7am)

I am so so tired, least its not snowing today, the sky is white and filled with nothing, as if a polystyrene cup has upended itself onto the world. The children are eating chocolate breakfast, its Saturday so hey why not?

Not much to say. Head numb. Syd goes away to his dads this weekend, I will miss him especially as its Mothering Sunday tomorrow though I much prefer International Women’s Day, seems less of an opportunity to sell cards, flowers and chocolates.

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I walked up the Pexwood Road. I saw a weeping wall and my robin. Robins are territorial so it is the same one I see at each passing. A kind friend bought me a coffee and I moaned at her about my week inside looking after the family, she listened and offered me some sound advice. I went to the supermarket and bought all the provisions that were needed for the day and trudged back up the road towards home.

https://youtu.be/KJYebIZ1lHs

Each day much the same as the previous, medicine doses, catering, playing, clearing up, cuddling, holding, stroking hair, reading stories, lifting a small body into the shower, towel drying, fetching warm milk for supper, wishing children to sleep.

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In the late afternoon, I managed to get to the studio to work for a couple of hours, nothing creative just some admin work, but still nice to be elsewhere, to be outside the home.

Syd has drawn and scratched graphical self portraits of himself into his lovely wooden bedside table.  Perhaps it is lovelier now. The drawings are Roaring. I tried not to get annoyed, or show that I was upset with what he had done. I looked carefully at the images he had made, I do like the images but wish they had been drawn on paper not furniture. I will in time learn to just love them not for the act of teenage vandalism but for the joy of the drawings themselves and the time that they mark. I think I have similar self-conscious scribblings recorded on the blue cover of a school notebook, and there were naughtier scratchings marking wooden desks. I doubt that you would get away with scratching motifs into the wood of a school desk these days, not without at least a week in seclusion. I am glad then that this right of passage has been gauged out of the wood that furnishes our home. It is safe to experiment with graffiti here. Expression and creativity is both encouraged and permissible.

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The children are squabbling. Patrick has got up to sort it, but I best stop here, there is bound to be a conflict to iron out. Naoise wants a wrestling fight with his dad. He is pleading him for a fight.

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7.00am ( awake at 6.15am up at 6.20am)

Is it snow or is it sleet? What began as sleet is slowly making its way to being snow. Wet snow. Loads of it. Just when I thought that we had left the death of winter behind, the weather turns. It has to be said  the weather here is on the whole miserable, or changeable to be polite. A sunny day is a rarity and one to be rejoiced in, winter can last through to April.

Its red nose day. I am going to try and get Naoise to school, though its hard to conjure up enthusiasm when everyone else is in bed at home. I love my family dearly but I need the company of friends too. I need to be able to work. I cannot work amidst caring for three people its impossible.

I had a disagreement with Patrick. Conflict is inevitable when the whole family is caged in, our house is tiny, there is no place to hide, one has to escape into a book or the imagination to be set free. I began to draw to try to cheer myself up, but instead I cried, and the wet of my tears fell onto the paper. Naoise cheered me up by drawing a happy picture of me and him holding hands.

 

Syd learnt an Arctic Monkeys song. This involved him playing the same rift on repeat for about four hours. He is so bloody good but it does take practise, lots of it and so demands lots of patience from parents too. Me and Naoise drew and built lego and read and stuck stickers onto pictures of Knights in their underwear and slept.

I managed a run, the television can provide baby sitting duties for a short while. I have to get out to keep sane. It was all grey and foggy, I found a new path. Its good to attempt to get lost, or at least discover new routes, new places, new ruins.

 

 

 

 

14:09pm ( awake and up at 7am)

Struggling to keep up with this blog, unable to write until now. Got up late, interrupted by the children needing my attention, normal stuff, you know making breakfast, hugs, medicine, jollying them along. Then making breakfast for Patrick. Normal, normal, normal, yawn, yawn, yawn.

Still all ill. Still playing nurse, cook and housekeeper. Chalking up the medicine doses.I am so bored of this game now, can I clock off please. We have even run out of coffee…NO. I feel really hemmed in and angry. Yes thats right I have had enough. I really really want them all to go back to work and school now. I am no good at juggling the needs of three people and keeping up with admin. I am not smiling my way through this week. I hate being trapped inside. Care work brings out the worst in me. Yes the children are lovely, but I just have to escape this house.

I am only getting to write this because the kids are watching TV. I really don’t have any energy to write. My brain is sucked of thought. I am so bored, I have even painted my nails alternate colours black/gold/black/gold just as Syd requested.

There are brief moments of absolute joy, such as me and Naoise drawing session after breakfast yesterday. He drew factories, I drew pregnant bodies. He then drew twin babies squabbling and fighting inside the pregnant bellies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBSilgvvp3E

 

 

 

6.10am ( awake at 5.45am up at 5.55am)

The white vans are passing, these are the earliest of workers, the hardest of workers. The lights of the vehicles still need to be switched on, but the early mornings are getting much brighter now.

I must get to the garden centre to buy my potatoes and start chitting, and then there will be the seedlings to pot. Spring is a crucial time when you have an allotment to keep. All the preparation work for the days of growing needs to be done. Each year our potatoes suffer blight and each year I attempt again to grow them. Last year the weather was warm and dry, it was easy to grow things. This is not always the case, I remember one very wet, cold year when even my beetroot seeds failed to germinate. Its hard to grow food in the peaty, acid,clay soil that lies here in the pennines and monster sized slugs are a nightmare to keep at bay. Organic slug pellets work a little. If I lived nearer my plot I would go out each night with a torch and pick off the beasties one by one.

The washing machine is chugging away, I feel that there is little to say, it is ground hog day here at home. Man and boys are in their beds sleeping.

Naoise woke me around five and asked me to put my arm around him. Are you cold, I asked. No, was the reply. Then it was just the comfort and love and security that he wanted. All the cuts and scabs and rashes seem to be clearing up on his little body, he is scratching less. I applied some antiseptic cream to all his sores as he slept. He hates the feel and smell of cream on his skin and refuses to let you apply it when he is conscious. Such a relief it was horrifying to see him picking deep scabs into his beautiful fair skin. He must have been so run down and exhausted. I am so glad that he is home resting, getting strong again.

School takes its toll, days are long and filled with less play and more and more maths and words each passing week. I am still shocked by the amount of work they expect our five year olds to get through and then the phonics test, what a load of ridiculousness. Makes my blood boil thinking about it so best to stop or I will rant. Its not the teachers fault, the government seem intent on turning our children into compliant, word and maths zombies. It will not be so, at home we rebel with art and music and riding bikes and running and poetry, politics, philosophy, growing potatoes and critical thinking. There is no way that my children will comply we shall play Breaking Bad top trumps till the sun goes down.

I have lowered the expectations of myself. The screens have taken over, but I guess when you have three ill people to look after, thats permissible. We built lego and played top trumps, the children’s eyes did get some break from the burn of the electric screens. I am quite enjoying keeping a tally of the medicine intake. It is fun to chalk up the times on the blackboard, to make a record. I swallow vitamin pills and iron supplements and wash my hands and try not to breath to close to them all. A mother never gets ill, does she?

Yesterday I managed to clear the dinning table, there are still stacks of lego and paperwork and bits n bobs everywhere but at least we can now sit down at a proper table to eat once again.

 

The buzzer on the oven timer sounds its beeps.

 

 

 

6.15am ( awake at 6am up at 6.05am)

Its getting light on another fresh spring morning, less fog more damp than the day before. The headlights of cars shine their lights towards the front of my lounge window as they zoom past. The workers.

I hope to meet my friend for a walk this morning, I need to get out, I need to escape this house that has become hospital. I am no good at nursing, I simply have no patience for it, but it is the role that I must perform. My mum was a nurse by profession and I am sure that this helped whilst raising four children. I am not patient and I am not kind. I stumble and trip may way through care work. Perhaps I don’t care, maybe that is the problem.

So all the boys and man are sick. Sick with some sort of horrid virus that causes throats to burn and temperatures to rise. Each sick person is in their room. I have to ensure that both boys get their dose of paracetamol and ibuprofen every 4 hours. I chalked up the times on the board so I didn’t become muddled. Thankfully Patrick is taking care of his own antibiotics and pain killers, so as not to complicate my timetable further.

So there is little to say. I took them to the GP’s collected their prescriptions, did the shopping, tucked them all in bed, plugged them into their TV screens, sorted some of the mess on the dinning table, washed the clothes and sheets and towels, put the clothes away, checked if any one needed drinks, got on with some administration work, made them two meals, washed up, cleared away, watched the end of The Voice with Syd, placated some arguments between them all, read some stories to Naoise, scratched my head, instructed Syd to take his next painkillers are 10.15pm if he was still awake then and fell asleep with my arms around little Naoise.

I am tired, I am not sure I can write much more here, I need to enjoy this little bit of space, perhaps read The Guardian supplement about How to change the world by Srdja Popovic, and dream up my own revolution.

 

6.40am ( awake since 5.45am up at 6am)

You can see that there was a frost last night, white ice is clinging to the yellow grass on the moor, and the windscreen of the car is thick with it. The sun is just rising a peach orange above the roof line of the terrace on the other side of the road.

It looks as if it will be a bright clear sunny but cold day, I hope that I manage a walk. Fresh spring days such as these are a pleasure to be out in. The sun is rising higher and it lights up the fluff of the clouds.

The house has reached new levels of crazy dome. There are feathers scattered all over the red rug, it looks as if a cat has had a kill, and there are three large  black bin bags of laundry in the kitchen. I had a panic last night when I discovered a nit infestation in Naoise hair. The poor love, he had quite a little community going on in his gorgeous blonde locks. I am itching my scalp now thinking of it. So it was a very busy Sunday evening. The whole family ended up having the comb and shampoo treatment; just in case, and I had to strip all the beds and covers. Yuk.

I felt rather neglectful that I hadn’t noticed the little friends that he had required previously. I think that me and Patrick have been rather busy and distracted lately. His poor little head was covered in red marks where they had been eating him. Oh how I hate these nasty creatures. We are lucky, I guess this is the first infestation that I have had to treat. Last time I had nits was back in my student days and I caught a head full from my boyfriends long locks. My dear friend L helped to de-nit me, such a sisterly act of kindness to perform. I was wincing with the horror of it, as I combed and inspected Naoise scalp.

On top of the nit drama, Patrick has fallen ill with a fever and a strange red rash, and Naoise seems very lethargic and a little hot too. I am planning a double trip to the GP’s today. Oh joy, oh joy the joys of motherhood.

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Earlier in the day, I took our Syd to buy some new school shoes in Manchester. We had the usual arguments and grumpiness about which shoes he could have. His school are very specific about what is permissible. It has to be black, formal, lace ups, no logos. This is very limiting, but if you are going to have a uniform then you might as well be strict about it, else there is simply no point. I am glad that   no logos are allowed. Logos cost a load of money, they live on badly made footwear and are walking advertisements for big nasty international corporations.

I hate shopping and I am glad when the job is done and the shoes are in the bag. Now that the deed is done, Syd immediately transforms into a the lovely sensitive boy/man again. We walk pass Selfridges and he tells me a story. Did you know mum that they put spikes all around the outside of the shop building so that homeless people couldn’t shelter or sleep there. I tell him that I did know that, that I am impressed he has heard the story that he is recounting. I speak to him about the fact that thousands of people signed a petition to get them removed, and that they won. I probably should have used this as an opportunity to move on and discuss other issues around homelessness but our conversation wondered elsewhere.

We drove back to Syd’s DJing. He is brilliant at entertaining me with all his music knowledge. Teenagers can be difficult and tricky sometimes but you know what they are so so cool and so so amazing too. I love my Syd he is totally awesome.

Later after I have got the man and little boy to bed, me and Syd sit down to watch a bit of The Voice. I massage his bare feet. We eat super together, and then retire to sleep.

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I have been thinking of these two photographs from 2013 for a while, and I managed to find them this morning. The images were taken before Naoise went to school . We are standing on the Pexwood Road, its the summer, the pram is overladen with shopping, I think we were returning from either the nursery or a playgroup trip. I can remember at the time, dreaming of an easier future, where Naoise would be at school, and I would have all the time in the world to seek out paid employment and work in the studio. Why did I wish this precious time away? I miss it now, I really do, yes it was intense and I was exhausted and there seemed like there was no space at all for me, but strangely the time that school has given seems so little and insignificant. I miss our days together, our days of playing and dreaming and watching the slow of life and muddling through.

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7am ( been awake since 5.45am up at 6am)

Happy International Women’s Day 

Naoise snuffly (king sized duvet cover) is doing the rounds in the washing machine, the corners of the cover that he pushes up his nose have become blackened, it is time for a wash. He will hate me for it, washing will ruin the smell of it. The dirty comfort of it.

Naoise woke early and I fetched  him milk and banana to eat as he was hungry and then washed him in the shower as he was dirty. I have plonked him into bed with Patrick. They are both ill. I was hoping to get out with Syd today but I may be catering and nursing ill man and boy instead.

The weather is looking dismal compared to yesterdays bright shine. There is grey and sheets of rain falling at acute angles. I went to try and find some paracetamol in Syd’s bedroom. Its chaos in there. The unpacked Paris suitcase lies on the floor spilling its contents, clean clothes wrapped up with dirty. I still haven’t heard any stories of his time away. I hope he tells me some of them soon.

The dining room table pile is growing, it seems to have a life of its own. Its interesting to see what happens if I stop sorting. As I thought, it is me that is the main sorter. I must teach the boys to sort. Sorting is dull and boring and tiresome. Why do we have all this stuff, all this clutter in our lives. I was going to say unwanted clutter but that is dishonest. The boys love the clutter of lego and so the clutter keeps coming.

I must clear the table though. A table is the heart of a home. A place where dishes are placed, food and stories are shared. Where conflicts can be ironed out with a sweet spoon of apple crumble, or a sip of tea.

The washing machine sounds as if it may take off. I don’t want to write anymore now. I was hoping to write something more profound for International Women’s Day but I am all out of ideas today. The washing machine drum slows its pace to a stop.