Grin and Tonic

Back to school

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

With much wailing, knashing of teeth and beating of breasts, the time has come to acknowledge that summer is finally over. School is starting and the depression has sunk in. I’m talking about me of course. Daisy is fine… my little ray of sunshine actually told me the sun was shining inside her tummy she was so happy. It was me that was wailing and knashing and beating. My long lovely summer of lazy mornings in bed (reading to the girls I hasten to add, lazy mornings in bed by myself are a long lost lament..), lazy breakfasts in our pyjamas, picnics in the park, playdates and playgrounds has drawn to a chilly conclusion, and this morning’s early alarm clock declared my rude awakening that autumn is here and routine has come home to roost.

But it seemed there was another reason I was in my reluctant to return to school mode… I trussed her up in her new clothes and with one final lingering hug I tried to reassure her about her new playschool. “Come ONNNNN mummy!” she yelled impatiently and she struggled from my strangling hold, “I want to go, I want to go, I’m starting a new school!!” I washed over the table top again, I had another toilet trip, I tried to put the washing out …. “Come onnnn” she said through gritted teeth as she hurried me out the door. She skipped down the road and I dragged me feet. “Come Onnnnnnn mummy, I want to meet all my new friends!” I hung my head in dread. I was beginning to realise that this wasn’t the way it was meant to be playing out. Wasn’t I meant to be the happy one? Wasn’t SHE meant to be dragging her feet?

I had to finally acknowledge that it wasn’t just my fear of her starting a new playschool – my chats over the summer to explain that she wasn’t going back to her old playschool because we’ve moved house obviously doing the trick because she didn’t have one millisecond of doubt about starting all over again with new friends. With a shock I realised it was MY reluctance at having to make new friends all over again. It’s ME that has to make new friends with all the parents, remembering their names, their children’s names, their children’s sibling’s names, their husbands (wives) names – not easy when I can currently barely remember my cat’s name! It’s ME that has to look like a good calming, responsible parent rather than the chaotic, holding-it-together-by-a whisker wreck I normally am so that they will trust me with their children. …… so that I can leave MY children with THEM! You see, if I don’t make friends, then I don’t get to arrange playdates with like-minded good-parents-in-disguise, I don’t get to watch my child flourish in fruitful friendships, I don’t get to build those essential “can you pick Daisy up for me, I’m stuck in town” relationships that make life bearable! She’ll be a looser with no friends and it’ll be my fault and she’ll blame me for ever, and never speak to me, and end up putting me in a home when I’m old and frail. Forget exam pressure – parental pressure is much worse! Anyway, can’t hang about writing this. Must have a bath, wash behind my ears and go to bed early. It’s a school night.

Posted in motherhood, parenting, school | 2 Comments

Wet, Windy and Wonderful…ish

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

So the final piece of the motherhood jigsaw has fallen into place – the last singleton pleasure usurped by the wishes of two tearaway toddlers. Gone are the lazed holidays by a sun-drenched beach…… now are the crazed holidays by a rain-drenched beach.

We are having a ‘staycation’ as the recession-minded media are calling them. And we’re not just holidaying in Ireland. Oh no… we’re braving the wilds of the most rugged island off the west coast of Ireland… there’s nothing between us and America but a few hostile weather fronts and the Atlantic Ocean. And don’t we know it. “It’ll be an adventure!” we thought. Mmm. We had to abandon the tent on the first night due to ‘adverse’ weather conditions… otherwise known as a bloody big storm. Now, securely sleeping in a rather more stable structure, our Achill Island adventure is rather more the Wild Wild West than Dora goes Exploring.

My beach body has been replaced by beached whale body as I comfort eat between rainstorms. Who needs sunburn when scorch marks from a blazing fire at night scar our shins just the same? Who needs expensive Spa facials when sandstorms and North Atlantic howling winds take two layers of skin off for free? Who needs cooling cocktail umbrellas when you can throw your inside-out umbrella in the bin and surrender to the elements? Trapped in a small (we’re calling it ‘bijou’) holiday cottage, rain pounding the windows in relentless laughter as we try and entertain two children who have yet to unwrap that “we’re on holiday, we’re meant to be relaxing” gene, hubby and I keep looking at each other with a look that can only mean one thing…. Next year we are so going abroad. To the sun. And a fun park. It’s really amazing how much one bedraggled eyebrow can say.

But then again, part of me is delighted with our little adventure. Isn’t this what it’s all about? Isn’t this what we experienced as children, and didn’t it make us, well, more robust? Achill has probably never been called balmy, so today we were probably barmy as we ran onto the deserted golden beach (the best thing about Ireland is the beaches, the worst thing about Ireland is its rarely warm enough to enjoy them) the second the sun scurried out from behind a cloud, as it eagerly shone on us before the next grey sky descended. We might have had 15 layers of clothes on, but that sun was shining so we were going to enjoy it! The girls ran up and down the beach like manic munchkins, danced with the waves and collected shells. Daisy hasn’t stopped singing and talking since we got here, running from one rock to another in boundless energetic excitement. I even braved the fiendishly cold Atlantic Ocean and went for a swim. It was cold yes, but it was exhilarating in a way I’ve barely felt since childhood. We explored the rock pools and threw clumps of soggy seaweed at each other, then we wrapped ourselves in towels, added another three layers of clothes and headed to the nearest pub for some fine Irish seafood – thick warm chowder swarming with prawns, fishcakes crammed with salmon and trout, scampi as fresh as the fish we just left in the rockpools. Stuffed to our gills, we rolled home, sand stuck in places sand is not meant to be, faces ruddy, and exhausted in that way only wild windy days can make you. The kids are asleep upstairs, sleepy smiles settled on their weather beaten faces. Hubby and I are cradling cups of warm wine by a smokey turf fire. Even the wind has mellowed. The sun may not be shining on our holiday, but the girls’ sunshine is making it a scorcher. That said…. Where’s the ClubMed brochure for next year?

Posted in holidays, motherhood, weather | 2 Comments

Arming them for life

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

Slightly bereft at having to chuck my much-used colour coded planning chart in the bin, I wave goodbye to my family. Left alone with my girls and a vacant diary, I feel the emptiness only a great time of love and laughter can leave in its wake. Every year, my mum and dad, my brother’s family, and me and mine all converge from our various corners of UK, Scotland and Ireland for a mass gathering of Kirk capers and quality extended family time. Of course, they’re not extended family to me, they are an extension of me, my family before I had a family.

This year they all came to me to be captivated by our new house and capitulated to my organisational orgy of planned activities (red), sightseeing (blue), culinary caterings (green), sleeping arrangements (purple) and picnic sandwich fillings (pink).

It was fabulous. For a week we all lived as maybe society originally intended – all together, sharing time and tasks. My girls loved showing their grandparents their new toys and dance moves, and I loved showing my parents our new furniture and surroundings. We picnicked, we walked, we beached, we parked, we playgrounded, we laughed, we talked and we ate. And then my brother arrived with his troupe and our family enlarged like a heart heaving with happiness. For three days, five kiddie cousins learned about each other. Friends enough not to be strangers, but strange enough to be exciting friends, they ran around the older generations like buzzing bees on a spring day. We all smiled at their energy, their imaginations, their spirit; new friends in our old family. And maybe I smiled most of all. I mentally added three more bullets to my children’s ammo belt of life. To watch my two girls absorbed in such intensity, besotted with six year old Ellie (who as an older girl is an object of pure adoration), while playfully joking with Tom and Alex, their twin boy cousins, for three days they were happily lost to me as they familiarised themselves with their family, courted their cousins, and built a bigger platform for their step off into life.

I smiled because I always visualise a belt around their waists you see, an invisible belt of ammunition for building their confidence, their happiness and for self-defence as they battle their way through life’s little wars and woes. Their dad and I are the lazer guided missiles, keen and catastrophic in our ability to defend and protect, the foundation blocks on the platform they will leap from in time. Their grandparents, uncles and aunts are the hand grenades to be lobbed to devastating effect, their love providing building blocks for the girls on their first steps up in life. Their godparents, cousins and friends are the bullets, quick fired and sure, all stepping stones so they can reach as high as they can. The more ammo they have – the people who love them, and care about them, people to teach them and guide them, and play with them, the better armed they are for life.

So I smiled because the firepower of family is fierce. And in the next day or so, our family extends further still, as a new cousin is born. Another bullet on my girls’ ammo belts. Another person to love them and be loved.

Posted in children, cousins, friends | 4 Comments

Beauty is Pink Deep

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

Part of being a mum, especially a mum to two girls, is that I teach them not to see beauty as skin deep. It seems every time I open a newspaper I read another survey about how hard girls are finding it living up to the spectre of skinny vacant role models that bombard our once cultured lives. But despite my pontificating that their cleverness, their kindness, their lovingness, their imaginations are what also make them beautiful, it seems my nearly-four year old has other ideas…….beauty is in fact, merely pink deep.

The other day I dressed us all up to go off and meet my friends for lunch, and I said to them, “You both look so beautiful today” admiring their pretty dresses. Daisy looked at me and then, returning to her dolly, spoke to me without looking. “But you are not pretty mummy,” she said in a disappointed voice.

I stood back in mock horror, “But why, Daisy?”
She looked me up and down. Yes, my three year old daughter actually looked me up and down.
“Well, your shoes are pretty” she conceded, noting they had a sparkling stone on them.
“And your clip” she admitted, seeing the sparkle there too.
“And your necklace,” she supposed, being that any jewellery is good in her book.
Pause.
“But mummy, your trousers are not pretty. They are trousers, and blue. They are not pink and not a dress and therefore they are not pretty. You are not pretty when you wear blue trousers.”

Well, you can’t argue with that.

Posted in beauty, children | 1 Comment

who me?

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

As a mum, I’ve long got used to toothy grin trophies, hugs instead of handshakes and stinky bottoms instead of shiny booty. So imagine my hands-in-the-air-hoorays (picture Meryl Streep jumping on the bed to Dancing Queen and you have it about right) when I received a MEME award for my writing (not my 10 veg cottage pie, not my standing-up-nappy-change-in-20-seconds record, not my piñata making skills, but my grown up, life of my own, writing!) from fellow (and exceptionally good) ((well, she does have very good taste, don’t you think?)) blogger, Hot Cross Mum. To be recognised by my comrades-in-laptops is especially rewarding – a bit like a huge “I love you mummy” hug at the end of a long day from my girls for being their mum, except for something I do for myself. So thank you Hot Cross Mum… you made my week. In order to properly accept my award I have to do two things. I have to pass on the award to 7 of my favourite bloggers and I have to share 7 of my personality traits….

So without further ado, I present to you…. the 7 blogs I enjoy the most (not sure if I’m breaking the rules by including Hot Cross Mum because she nominated me, but it’s one of my favourites, so it’s staying!)
Hot Cross Mum
Her bad Mother
Musings in mayhem
Re-writing motherhood
Mothers who write
Creative Construction
Mommy writer

Phew – these blogs keep me inspired, encouraged and amused – three fairly essential talents.

So now for the hard part. 7 personality traits of mine…… should I be modest, or boastful? Fantastical or funny? Since I love reading and writing, I’m going to try and do this using my favourite books (thankfully Jackie Collin’s The Bitch is NOT one of my favourites…)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin) – I can be bull-headed and determined, and have great pride (mostly internally combusting rather than externally extolling) in my wonderful hubby and two amazing girls…… making me rather prejudiced that they are the best in the world.
Colour Purple (Alice Walker) – I am rather partial to a colour-coded chart, my organisational obsession leading to lists upon lists, and colour coded charts to plan our every move. (If I said I was spontaneous too, would this complicate things?). Also my favourite line in the book is one of my life mottos – it’s hard to walk past the colour purple and not be thankful for life.
Four Letters of Love (Niall Williams) – I love writing, and letters and diaries (and blogs) have been my outlet all my life. And also there are four letters in my hubby’s nickname and I love loving him.
Bel Canto (Anne Pattchet) – this relates to my determination (after 15 years of trying) to master the art of song – in particular, how to play a guitar. I am determined, therefore I will succeed, it’s just that between child-rearing, novel writing, socialising, and life in general, it may take another 15 years.
House of Spirits (Isabel Allende) – I’m spirited – I’ll try anything once, and if I don’t like it, maybe twice…. I like fun and want our lives to be as full of it as possible. Put it another way, I have get-up-and-go…. if only I could get-up-and-go to the attic a bit more and finish my novel
Making Babies (Anne Enright) – something I never thought I’d do or enjoy but has become the best thing I do….. hopefully it’s not just because there are more names to organise on my colour-coded charts but that it is who and what I was meant to be (along with a award winning, guitar playing, skinny, novelist….. ah, I can dream.)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) – not because I steal books, but because I am notoriously precious about mine and do not lend them to anyone unless they give me a gold watch and their house as security that I’ll get mine back. I can’t even use the library (although I think libraries are the best things ever invented) because I could never hand back a book I loved. It has to sit on my (creaking) bookshelves so I can touch it occasionally. Sad, I know, but true.

So there you go…. my best books and my personality traits in one. We mums are so good at multi-tasking…..

Posted in awards, MEME, thanks | 3 Comments

Summer time and living is easy…

Posted on July 24, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

I feel like a child again. For the first time in years I have a lazy summer holiday ahead of me. Now, I feel like it’s reward for all the hard work. Now, I realise what it’s all about. Now, I remember why I gave up my job. Now, I understand I did the right thing. Now, I’m having fun.

Somehow in the blur of birth and the chaos of child-rearing I careered into seeing being a mum as a job, with hard long tedious repetitive hours, little appreciation and not much gratification. It seemed there were days that all I did was respond to the needs of others. And when my job was done, I was too tired to respond to my own needs and write. But suddenly the sun has appeared from behind the clouds (metaphorically I assure you, as the sun is definitely staying away this summer) and the summer holidays are upon me. School’s out for summer and I’m no longer a mum. I’m just a kid, hanging out with her friends. Because suddenly, that’s what my two girls have become. Suddenly, I don’t feel I have to do every single thing for them. Suddenly Daisy can dress herself and Poppy can make a pretty good attempt. Suddenly the possibility of no nappies is nearly upon me. Suddenly they can all talk and chatter and play together and I’m no longer the only person who can satisfy them. Suddenly I want to join in and it has all come together and despite the crappy weather (oh the joys of an Irish summer) it’s just me and the girls…. and girls just wanna have fun. While hubby still trundles the toiling treadmill (oh how I used to resent his ‘escape’ to the outside world), we live in a different world – a world of picnics and playdates, adventures and days out, lunches and high teas, breakfasts in the garden, lunch in the park, tea in Applejacks up the road. And while he still marches to the rules of work and wage, we dance to a different tune, our routine random and reckless. I dreaded Daisy finishing up at playschool for the summer, and now I dread her returning in September. My holiday will be over along with hers. Oh I still have colour coded schedules on the fridge (you can take the girl out of work but you cannot take the project manager out of the girl!), but now it is filled with new activities (red), lists of parks to picnic in (green), beaches to explore (yellow), daytrips to plan (blue)…. lazy mornings at home in the garden (sun permitting), or baking (rain insisting) not colour coded but as important as the rest.

And so once again, motherhood turns me on my head. For years now, I have resented my hubby’s ‘freedom’, planned Houdini escapes to capture some me time, organised our days in minute detail to save my sanity, dreamt of running away from the crushing neediness of my two adorable girls. And now? Now, I feel guilty when he goes to work, leaving us in bed to read stories, because suddenly there is nowhere else I’d be. Now, I hate having too many things in the diary because suddenly an unplanned day is a joy. Now, I can join in the fun and stop being the boss, because suddenly we are interacting and talking, and playing as friends. I read somewhere that time shapes with silent hands. Often I’ve resented that time, but now I give it freely because suddenly it seems we’ve all grown up, me most of all.

Posted in children, motherhood, summer | 6 Comments

Washing up a little nostalgia

Posted on July 14, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

I’m not a Luddite, although the fact that it took 6 weeks for us to figure out how to get the internet to work in our new house does suggest my husband and I are not blessed with technological prowess. I might not embrace every new fangled fascinations and I’m no social twitterer (where do people get the time??) but I do throw my arms around and hug all time-saving devices that make my life easier. I often think back to my mum’s time and wonder how on earth she coped with two young children, a job, and no microwave, dishwasher, washing machine, car, disposable nappies and all those other things I just take for granted.

So for a brief moment, when our dishwasher gave up the ghost and had a nervous breakdown, I almost joined it and had a small seizure at the terrifying thought of actually having to wash up after the 1473 meals a day I cook (ok, it’s actually about five but sometimes it does feel like it). But a strange thing has happened. Every time I go to ring the repair man, I hesitate and then find something else to do (washing up for instance).

I’ve noticed my husband and I are talking more. Now, instead of one of us rushing off to do something after dinner while the other silently, solitarily stacks the dishwasher, we have a conversation. A real one. He usually washes up and I stand beside him drying the dishes as he places them in the stupidly small, but very cool rack that is only there for ceremonial purposes (well, when you have a dishwasher, who needs one that is actually practical?). We sling banter at each other, and occasionally he flicks me with water, or I get a great flick of the drying cloth on his leg if I get my wrist action right. It’s been a long time you see, and I’m long out of practise. When I was growing up (with no dishwasher remember) clearing up after dinner was a family affair. Mum would wipe around the cooker, dad would put the condiments away, my brother would wash and I would dry. I remember some of the best conversations with my brother over the kitchen sink. And so it seems again. The death of the dishwasher is breathing new life into our washed out routine.

So here’s my plan. I will get round to ringing the repair man one of these days, because let’s face it – nostalgia is one thing, but reality bites and my hands are beginning to suffer! But I think as my girls get older I might just have to pull the plug occasionally on the time-saving device so we can have some time-enhanced discussions as our busy lives take over.

Posted in motherhood, talking | 3 Comments

Mini-me bites back

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

The mirror can throw back some pretty ugly images – especially on a bad hair day. But the mirror of motherhood can throw back some pretty shocking reflections too – especially on a bad mother day.

I will never forget the first time I saw Daisy act out an imaginary scene. She was playing with her doll and I started to watch, entranced by my baby’s transformation into a little girl. My enchantment was short lived when I realised what she was doing. Dolly was firmly placed on the naughty step and being boldly admonished by her ‘mummy’. I was absolutely gutted! All my loving, all my attention, all my teaching and singing, all my playing and reading – and the one bloody thing she copies is me being horrible! Thankfully though as time went on, and especially after I had Poppy, she acted out lots of the good mummy stuff too. I thought all my stitches would come out one day when she tried to breastfeed her dolly!

But suddenly in a burst of déjà vu, she seems to be talking back to me – in MY language.
“I’m not happy with you mummy!” was sternly thrown at me last week. As I tried not to laugh and nod solemnly at my bad behaviour (I had insisted she not wear a dirty dress) I wondered how often I say that? (let’s face it, it’s not that nice).
“What do you say?” she asks me with a superior but very sweet raised eyebrow if I give her a hurried command while forgetting my manners.
“Please,” I say sheepishly. Ah yes, it’s all coming back to haunt me.

And poor Poppy. Not only does she seemingly get it from me, she now also gets it from her big (3 year old!) sister. I’m mesmerised when I hear Daisy talking to Poppy like a little mini-me. “Now Poppy, you really are a silly billy. What are you? A silly sausage. You are not allowed to draw on the walls. Poppy? That’s a one. That’s a two. If I get to three there’ll be no Dora later!” Dear god – the mirror can be harsh!

But then there are the other times, the moments when the mirror on wall says I’m the fairest of them all and I bask in a fleeting moment of positive feedback. “It’s alright darling, everything will be ok. I love you Poppy,” I hear her say in the dark of their shared bedroom when her sister cries. “You need a big sleepy sleepy Poppy, it’s a big day tomorrow.” And I lie in bed and smile a huge heart-bursting smile.

Posted in parenting | 2 Comments

Nature versus Nurture

Posted on June 30, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

I spend a lot of time trying to analyse my children’s quirks and mannerisms – a self-indulgent attempt to identify some chink in their DNA chain that came from me. Like a charm bracelet, they throw little gems of personality that dangle and dazzle, like flashes of silver lining in the cloud of nappies and toddler emotional outbursts. What chinks of charm have come from me? What jewels of high jinks came from my hubby? What treasure trove of theatrics come from our families? Like Daisy’s shy performance of an acorn growing into a sycamore, I reconstruct our family tree from their blossoming traits.

And while I can often place their quirky origins with a jubilant yelp of “Oh, she’s just like my mum!”, and “Oh, she gets that from you!” – every so often they laugh in my face and trump my house of cards with an ace of their own, a gem on the bracelet that is all their own. New additions to our family collection of traits, a new leaf on their own branch. And it makes me smile as I ponder the nature versus nurture thing. I was recently reminded that it also applies to me, but in a slightly different way. Where nature is all instinct, nurture is all learned, and sometimes you have to remember which is which.

Last week I got knocked off my mothering perch – one I had perilously climbed to sit high and safe in contentment and some satisfaction that I’d finally worked out how to do this gig with some semblance of sanity and success. For a little while I forgot how precarious that perch can be.

One night, Poppy went into melt-down and a few days later, I followed suit. She started crying hysterically when I put her down at night, to eventually fall off some hours later exhausted. Just as I would carry my weary self to bed, she would start again, rejuvenated for another few hours of screeching unless I was with her. After a week of this I was beside myself and no longer mother-in-charge. I shouted, I panicked, I lost my nerve. I tried various ways to stop her – soothing, ignoring, surrendering. No consistency, just chaos. No plan, just panic. No mothering, just madness. I read the books and begged my friends for advice, and they all told me different things. And so was I…

My heart was telling me she needed me and I should just be with her no matter if I never slept. My head (and all my friends) told me to be firm, and strong and don’t give in, we had to break this ‘habit’. Then one morning, her ‘habit’ broke out in spots all over her body. Poppy had chicken pox. She hadn’t been trying to ‘get her own way’, she had been sick. And so was I. Sick with guilt. That night I took her into bed with me and we all slept for the first time in over a week. She had needed me and I had ignored my instinct to respond the way I should. (Luckily she fell out of bed at one point which I wisely reminded her of the following night, so no issues of her demanding a repeat for eternity!).

And so I go back to basics…. Instinct is there for a reason. They are what they are – charming charms on their bracelet of life, some are given and some are grown – and I need to be what I need to be to make sure all their charms are the most precious they can be. I need to trust my nature, so I can nurture them effectively.

That said, its not abnormal for my instinct to tell me to run to the hills, so I’d better chuck in some common sense too!

Posted in nature, nurture, parenting | 1 Comment

Fickle Fancies

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Grin & Tonic by Alana Kirk

I’ve come to the conclusion I’m fickle. Not only that, I’m shamelessly shallow and materialistic. I also think I’m a bit smug. It took a new mirror to reflect the real me….
Oh how I would mock those grasping celebrity types who looked so needy as they paraded themselves in OK magazine, their homely splendour spilling opulence onto every glossy non-recyclable page, their smug smiles trying to hide their delight at living in a larger house than my tiny little railway cottage, while the rest of us mere mortals tutted and toiled over loads of washing, panted and puffed over endless meals to be planned, bought, prepared and cleared up after, fretted and fussed over the non-existent time we have to pursue our ‘other work’ – be it writing or whatever.

Reading back over my previous but one blog about moving house, I saw how fickle I’ve become when after a week I realised I had not cast a single thought to my old house, not once. Not one swaying tree had disrupted my childish, fiendish delight at my new (spacious – there I go, smug again) home, where I can now officially swing a cat. I haven’t actually tried it yet, but to know I can is enough. Ok, it’s not actually that big, but compared to our previous doll’s house, it’s positively palatial.

We had bought our beautiful (little) cottage because it was quaint and full of character. Then we had kids. Quaint and character are about as useful to parents as a two seater car. So after much scrimping and saving, sacrificing and shameless standard-dropping, we bought a house – completely devoid of quaint character but bursting in super, sensational space. Beautiful things may come in small packages, but maternal merriment comes in a big open kitchen, large landings and enough rooms to loose your kids in. In our old house we could literally step from our bedroom into theirs without touching the 2 x 4 landing, so I actually cried tears of joy the first time I couldn’t find the girls after we moved!

So there you go. I left the sturdy swaying trees for the fickle smug satisfaction of a kitchen I can cook in without braining the children at my feet when I take a saucepan from the pot stand. Ok, so I still have all those loads of washing, but now there’s somewhere to hide it when I can’t be bothered. I still have an unfeasible amount of meals to manage, but now I can do so while watching the girls play in the garden and not in the vegetable cupboard. I still have no real time to write, but I see a spot in the attic room with my name on it where I can sit and muse over my meandering thoughts and hopefully the children will take so long to find me I might actually get something written down.