Month: August 2015

18.11pm

Its the non-time. The sludge time of summer. There is no structure. There are no fences or gates or pedestrian crossing or morning rush. There is just this, each day rolling into the next, some memorable others just got through.

The robins are still visiting, the fledglings fluffy feathers are giving way to red breasts. They love oak cakes. They all come to visit if you chirp.

Nagoo. Nagoo. Naoise has invented this word Nagoo that has multiple definitions. Where are you? I love you? I need a cuddle? I am tired. The list is endless.

We went for a walk on the tops with Naosie. We visited the incredible edible farm bought delicious jam ate their tomatoes and coo cooed at a baby chicken. Naoise would like a baby chicken.

I am still convinced that a piece of plastic is stuck in my throat. I feel it when I am sitting or lying down. Endless swallowing. If I keep walking, keep occupied I am alright. I’m not sleeping very well though, I wake in the early morning. I look up advice on the internet watch foreign objects being removed from oesophagus walls using an endoscope. I am convinced the plastic has lodged itself, no amount of burping or swallowing or drinking water or eating will budge it. It sticks. It is stuck. I hope to be released from this prison of anxiety after seeing the ENT specialist on Monday morning.

I went to the little Rawtenstall museum in Whitaker Park yesterday. Naoise liked the footprint of the dinosaur preserved in the fossil, the neolithic arrow heads, the rocks and crystals he was not impressed by the stuffed animals, he worried how they had all died.

It rained and rained, it was dark and depressing all day. There was a landslide and in Manchester a sink hole opened up on a major road. Today at least is better there is blue and sun and some warmth.

Swallow. Swallow. Burp. Burp.

I hear Naoise being cheeky downstairs, his dad is cooking dinner and juggling the childcare. I am starting to feel the wear and tare of endless childcare. Its great to have all this time to dedicate to Naoise whilst Syd is away but my brain feels like collapsing in on itself. The days will pass quickly though, I shouldn’t moan, I shouldn’t moan.

Time to get changed I am going out for another evening walk with some friends, its too nice to be stuck in. I will drive so I won’t be drinking much at all. Thats ok, I need a clear head and drinking piles of the pounds. Naoise is asking about watching football matches whilst he eats dinner. Oh yawn.

Today (10th September) I found an image of the washing up that I had taken on the 14th August. I wrote nothing this day. It was a blank day, but there was the washing up, there is always the washing up. The image seemed important. This image of undone housework and no words. 

There are no words just these images. Found today 10th September. Today I am finding the mother in mothers stories, piecing it back together. Finding the images and the days that I lost. It feels like cheating, but there are no rules in art. Art breaks rules. I only found time for this today because both children are back at school. 

I remember this day. Syd was away at his dads. My friend bought her dog to our home for us to look after. A day of dog sitting. We took the dog for a walk just before lunch and got something to eat at the local chip shop, in the afternoon Naoise drew pictures of the baby robins in the yard. I don’t remember what I was thinking or feeling but I know that we both loved having the dog for a day. 

 

8.43am

I wake I am stuck. Stuck in my throat. I am waiting for an ENT appointment on Monday as I can still feel the plastic of the coffee sachet in the back of my throat. I coughed up some small grainy particles of black. I think it is there, I feel it, its not psychosomatic. If it is psychosomatic I have a good imagination. It is is not, I want it removed. Its hard to relax, to concentrate, to focus on anything other than the neck and throat area of my body. I swallow and swallow and swallow and it does not feel right. When I swallow I feel something obstructing the passage into my body. I am annoyed that something so small, that such a silly accident can cause me such anxiety, such distress. I am stuck. I am stuck.

I opened up this computer to find a cure for the thoughts in my mind. If I try and order them, empty the thoughts try and make feelings into concrete language. If I form words and sentences and passages then I may forget this niggling suffering. Monday seems like a year away, far too long to be patient, to have to wait.

The washing machine churns away in the background. The sun’s light is falling on the side of my face, it is warm. The sky is blue. A picnic with Naoise and his friends is planned today. We will dip our feet in the river, pick bilberries. I am wearing a white top maybe I will change it to save the colour from the blue  juice of the blilberries.

I can hear the birds in the  back, the door to the yard is flung open. I hope maybe that the fledglings will visit, they bring me such joy.

Do they come when I chirp, when I try to mimic their calls or have I imagined this?

What is imagined and what is real?

Me and Naoise watched Jurassic Park when he got home from football school. He loved the bit where the baby dinosaur hatched from the egg. Later I put away the screens and we managed an evening of games and reading and moving through routines. He has become even more strident and stubborn and rebellious recently. Maybe its a six thing. So much assertiveness. Its depressing the amount of ignoring that I have to do, yet its the only thing that works. My parenting seems so weak and futile, he always seems to be wanting to run in the opposite direction from me.

The house is a crazy mess again,  I struggle to find the energy to maintain the caos. Patrick is totally out of action with his bandaged finger. I cannot find order out of this chaotic domestic space. Its impossible to keep a tinyhouse brimming with stuff sorted. I need to get rid of more. Declutter, declutter.

The sensation of plastic object re-enters my mouth and throat, for a few moments, a few paragraphs I forgot, I distracted myself. The children will keep my mind occupied, they are just as much a tonic as this. If only I could swallow a sentence of words to remove the obstruction, to fix it right now, I need to be fixed.

I forgot to set the buzzer on the oven clock but it is 9:03 time to move on from this place.

12.58

Almost one. Almost. Time. Passing. The little cheep cheep fledgling visited again this morning. Naoise was delighted and watched it hop from bay to jasmine trellice to table to step to under table and away again. Nervous friendly fluffy cheep cheep. Checking us out looking and looking again. It wanted to come in the house but I don’t want that. A bird in the house gets so panic stricken and its hard to get a bird out once its in.

Mum thinks its a baby robin. MUM RINGS. She is busy we don’t talk for long, though I could bore her with all the ins and outs and minor incidents of my life. Oh yawn. PATRICK RINGS. As I am on the phone to Patrick I hear the cheep cheep sounds. Sure enough outside there is the little bird. I crumble up some oat cakes to feed it with. I chat to Patrick and as I chat I notice another fledgling and then another. There isn’t just one fledgling but a whole family. They dance and chase each other around my yard. What a sight. What a surprise. I am delighted by my visitors. Naoise will be thrilled. He told me he had seen two yesterday, I hadn’t quite believed it, now I do. This will explain the frequency of visits and they must all like oat cakes as they have all refused the sunflower seeds. I guess I need to get some proper bird feed. What Am I thinking I have bird feed under the kitchen sink.

FEED THE BIRDS…..

The birds now have official food, but I bet they will ignore the feast on the plate and stick to the oat cakes. I will listen out for them, for a cheep and a flutter. I hope they stay a while. I wonder how territorial robin fledglings are or if they stay together for a while. I’ll look it up….

I dreamt that a friend had a baby last night and she called it Trophy. Such a strange dream, by coincidence I was in the same hospital as her, in a room across a long corridor. A sea of white. Her partner came to tell me she had given birth, he lay on the end of my bed to let me know. Odd name. Odd space. Odd place. Odd.

The oven buzzer sounds.

I’ve had a look on the RSPB website and the fledglings in the yard are most definitely robins. So the male robin that I have seen in the yard must be the father looking after its fledglings. Could be that I have a few weeks of sightings ahead of me. Amazed that they can have up to four broods in a year and that they fly the young fly the nest in only 14 days. What a very busy bird.

After thoughts….RSPB information about breeding Robins

The young are tended by their parents for up to three weeks after fledging. Frequently the care of the fledged young is left to the male, while the female prepares herself for the next nesting effort. Robins have two broods a year. Three successful broods a year is not uncommon, and in a good year even four are known.

Looks like the oat cakes were ok to feed them after all as this is what the RSPB recommends to feed robins:

Birdtables can make a big difference to the survival of urban and suburban robins. The favourite birdtable treat is mealworms. Other useful foods are meaty kitchen scraps, fat, cheese, cake and biscuit crumbs, and dried fruit. Peanuts are also taken, but they are better shredded or crushed than whole.

 

 

11.21am

Since choking on a small piece of plastic covered foil coffee wrapper I have been imagining it still stuck. I am stuck. Literally stuck in my throat. Swallowing again and again. Feeling this sensation of stuck plastic in my adams apple. I wake each morning and have a panic attack. I swallow and swallow. I try to be sick. I replay the choking again and again.

I thought that swallowing words would help. Swallowing my anxieties. I went for a walk, the sensation continued. I spoke to my mum. She made me feel calm, suggested I go back to the GP again if the symptoms don’t go away. Maybe I need to see a specialist. She is kind. She always listens and is patient and understanding, I cannot imagine a world without mum. Without being able to pick up the phone and talk to her. I won’t imagine this world.

It is a wet day. Naoise is at football school. He was slow to get up but once awake couldn’t wait to be out the door. He told me to go, he would give his friend the spare pair of shorts. He would sort it out. I watched him just for a while, kicking the ball, trying to kick it in the net. He is a happy soul, I am glad that he is happy to let me go and does not cling. We have been clung to each other each day now for three weeks.

I am getting used to the flow of the holidays some planned days some unscheduled. Waking up late, not rushing. Not worrying about getting to school on time. No time table. Time that drags and spills and grows. Our time. Unstructured. Unscheduled. Un. Un. Un.

I have let go of this project. By let go I mean its not always possible or desirable to write each day. Its harder over the school holidays. Its better not to feel the pressure of this. Better for it to be a delight than a chore. So I have failed. I scheduled in failing. By failing, I mean that I haven’t written every day as I had set out to do. I have allowed myself a break. I needed to just stop analysing and naval gazing I needed to just gaze at my children. I needed to stop feeling the need to record and document everything. I needed to withdraw. I still am uncertain I want to share. I am a snail drawing back into a shell.

Small incidents. Small happenings, make this mundane life. Make this simple life. Beautiful.

A little fledgling possibly a sparrow or a thrush has taken to visiting my yard. It likes to eat oat cakes. Crumbled oat cakes. It hops around on its spindly legs. It cheeps and calls to be fed. It balances on the washing line, the jasmine, the bay. It looks at me and Naoise by cocking its head to one side.

Naoise delighted in feeding it and laughed at it balancing precariously on the plastic rope of the washing line. Beep beep beep beep. The oven buzzer sounds fifteen minutes gone. I must attempt a job application. I need to be responsible. I need to catch up with the others. Get back to paid work. Get out of this domestic meaningless sludge of a life. I have meaning. I have purpose. I have a function beyond these walls.

 

9.16am

It rains a lot where I live. There are many words to describe the rain here.. drizzly, drenching, spitting, pelting, continual, light, horizontal, sheets, showers. There is no sign of it slowing.

8.30am awake since 6.30 am

I am home. I am glad to be home to be back and to establish a comfortable reasuuring familiar routine.

My holiday was good but glutinous. First thing this morning I braved the scales. I was not at all surprised by my findings. If you stop writing and stop moving as much and start relaxing and eating more weight gain is entirely inevitable. I have been a pig the past two weeks. I have lost will power and I have let go of my waist line and I have gained around five pounds in weight or between 5 and 8 packs of butter. Yuk. Not just me though my partner in crime has gained similar.

I feel like a character from a Roald Dahl book. I am lumpy and bumpy and farty and slow.

I have eaten chocolate, ice cream, clotted cream, crisps, chips, bread, bread, bread, pasties and more. I have had seconds and portions that would feed all the knights of a kingdom. I have eaten and eaten and eaten. Perhaps holidays are stressful. There is pressure to make every moment count to have fun each second.

I sat. I sat on the sand and read. I read The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane. I thought about how this place cornwall was once wild, but is no more. Now that the tin has gone, it has been tamed by the motor car and tourism. I thought about Assynt and Strathnaver, I thought about the wild of our holiday in the highlands  one year gone and I compared it to this static caravan beach holiday.

I was well and truly beached in cornwall. I deliberately tried not to think. I lived for two weeks in-between the day dream and the constant searching of the now. I am still searching for the now. The washing machine is working its way through a valley of washing.

The buzzer on the oven timer has sounded. Today is a full stop. Today is a new beginning.

 

“Cornwall is much nicer than Todmorden” says Syd.

He has been having the best time ever in sunny cornwall, swimming, surf boarding, sun bathing, eating ice creams and chips on the sand, spotting dolphins frolicking, seals bobbing up between the waves, cliff walking, guitar busking, table tennis, brother bothering, tv watching. Yes cornwall probably has been more exciting than the same of todmorden, but then holidays always are a fiction. They begin they temporarily transport mind and body to a fantasy elsewhere.

Breath in. Appreciate each moment.

As well as the drama and beauty of the dolphins. I saw my 99 year old great auntie and matriarch of my family,  my gorgeous cousins, my very clever uncle and his beautiful farm…..We saw humming bird hawk moths, kestrels catching mice, labyrinth spiders, bats, moths and butterflies of all sorts and persuasions.

I am tired. I will wait to say more. To recollect.

Its been good to have a break from this project. I needed to step back. I needed to fail. I needed to allow myself some time away. Not to think, not to analyse, not to write, to share. I needed to step away. Step back. Get some perspective.