Babblelogue

Slippery words are us

2010-04-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from a 12 day holiday in south west France, where we took in a few days' skiing, hiking, site-seeing and a visit to friends.

It was a lovely break, though one during which my writing muse completely left me.

I found myself wrestling so much with the French language, groping for words mid-sentence and looking like an asphyxiating fish, that my facility with written words in English disappeared as well.

As a result, on my return to my desk today I find my writing approach to be verbose, to say the least. English words are fighting for their position on the page, nudging and shoving and bumping each other like determined commuters on an over-crowded train.

Tomorrow I'm speaking to the Swindon Philosophical Society about hypocrisy. My talk is probably going to last about 40 minutes. This is a deliberate ploy to reduce the amount of time for questions - because sitting and concentrating and answering questions is exhausting if it goes on for too long.

Tonight is the first election debate featuring all the leaders of the 3 main parties. I am very excited. Great timing for my talk. No doubt there will be oodles of material to choose from.

Just hope they get their words out better than I could last week.

End of the line for localism?

2010-03-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

The Tories and New Labour have both made announcements today about the importance of local communities taking more responsibility for running public services.

David Cameron calls this the next Big Idea and wants to see every adult in the country actively involved in at least one community group.

Labour wants to see Surestart users as stakeholders in the service.

Everyone's getting very excited and the LibDems - the still small voice of reasonableness that everyone ignores - are pointing out that people are too over-burdened finiancially and exhausted physically and mentally to think of dashing out to this or that community committee of an evening.

So who's right?

Is it the LibDems who seem to be pointing to a grim reality where the majority of people would rather grudgingly reheat a TV dinner for the kids and then collapse in front of the soaps in their free-time?

Or is the assumption that the two main parties are making correct? Are people really prepared to give up their leisure to make a bigger difference personally to their local experience?

Put like this I think they are, and I think the assumption is right. People are naturally resourceful and resilient and want to be self-sufficient. As individuals we are motivated to act and make a difference for ourselves and others. A whole self-help industry is based on the human desire to become self-actualised in service of others. (Honest.)

However, put these assumptions into the mouths of politicians in the run-up to a general election and all of a sudden what sounded like a fabulous sociological goal becomes, unfortunately, little more than politicised twaddle.

While localism was the preserve of ideological publications, rarefied courses at Schumacher college and the life-long,extraordinarily prescient rants of auricularly well-endowed heirs to the throne, it was an acceptable notion, freely available for anyone to examine, reflect upon and consider applying in their own lives.

But now, like teenagers whose musical tastes are dictated by peer pressure, we have most likely been united against the idea of localism by the political gangs who have recently espoused it as the probable basis of their future policies.

Listening to their latest tit-for-tatting on the subject invokes an involuntary twitch of our collective auto-dumbing down muscle.

This saddens me. I'm all for reducing food miles and building self-sustaining communities, and I just hope there's still some mileage left in this Big Idea.

Normal operation is resumed

2010-03-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Quite incredible. Just like clockwork my dark, paranoid and hopeless mood lifted completely as soon as my cycle began again. I literally went from fuzzy-headedness to clarity in the space of a few minutes, and I suddenly couldn't relate whatsoever to my previous outlook.

How can that be? How can someone change so quickly? That's Jeckyll and Hyde that is. Unnerving. No wonder women sometimes feel like they're going mad. No wonder they drive everyone else mad in the process.

So here I am looking at another dynamic week in the building of my writing business. Sarah a very nice web-site designer came to talk to me today. I'm full of ideas for my new site, with lots of updates and blog entries to attract the attention of Google. I have no doubt that these will appear with utmost regularity in weeks 1 and 2 and possibly 3. But week 4? Forget it. Oh yeah, I already did.

But you've got to admit that another reason PMS might not be taken too seriously is because women ourselves can't be exactly sure we've had it. Or that what we've had really happened, because it seems sooo completely unrelated to who we are and how we behave before and after. The only way to be truly sure is to pay very close attention...

Better get on - oodles of things to be getting on with. I'm making use of this hormone high while it lasts.

Sussed it!

2010-03-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

Day 25 of my cycle. Already there have been flashes of anger, high emotion and libido. (Not that I'm complaining about that one!)

And as the week forges on I'm aware of heightened irritations. Why doesn't my daughter go to bed when she's told, get up when she's told, eat her dinner, have a wash?

Occasionally there's a rising sense of panic and confusion in my head as lots of things want to get done at once - but I don't seem to have the energy nor the mental capacity to do any of them.

I've noticed a severe aversion to noise and sudden movement. So sitting next to my 6 year old at mealtimes, with her constant humming/singing/wittering and her relentless fidgeting/waving her arms/jigging about, all of which I usually consider charming and characterful, is driving me to distraction just now.

In the final week of the cycle, the three musketeers oestrogen, testosterone and progesterone (D'artagnan wasn't strictly a musketeer you know) are at their all time low. For many women this triggers physical and emotional symptoms, and it would appear that I'm no exception. Headaches, moodiness, restlessness and tiredness neatly counter-balanced with insomnia are regular visitors this week, but I think I've found the solution.

Since my brain refuses to work very well, and can't seem to engage, I've discovered that the best way for me to spend my week 4 is in doing lots of exercise and then getting to bed as early as I can. Golf, cycling and Pilates are my physical activities of choice this week, and I don't think it's a bad thing to give the entire week over to sport and sleep. I've often read that PMS is alleviated by taking exercise, though that never really landed with me until I paid close attention to my own experience.

Sitting in front of my computer being consumed by unproductive restlessness, an inability to concentrate and a creeping sense of failure isn't going to do me any favours. The most I can do in this situation is write a list - and trust that the more focussed and multi-tasking weeks to come at the beginning of my cycle will take care of it all.

Meanwhile, see you on the first tee.

Write it down!

2010-03-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

One of the things that is really helpful through the menstrual cycle, and indeed for any other health related issue that needs careful scrutiny, is to keep a journal of symptoms, thoughts, feelings and experiences. Within the space of a few months this gives a clear insight into what to expect at different points in the month, and how your body "behaves" throughout the cycle.

Having a symptom journal is also most helpful for GPs to refer to in order to help with diagnosis and treatment, and they will often recommend that women spend a few months building up a journal before making a diagnosis. So better to build one in advance of an appointment at the doctor's.

In my experience, writing a journal throughout my cycle has actually contributed to a lessening of my symptoms. There is something in this about becoming more self-aware and developing greater understanding about what's going on. I also think there is something very strong and healthy about making a conscious decision to accept and observe my symptoms, rather than struggling against them, denying them and trying to get rid of them.

Journalling works in this way for me in all areas of my life. It helps keep me sane! My journal is a place for lists, reminders, rants, dreams, intentions, and wishes, as well as symptoms. It is a place for my voice and my ideas, and it is where I give myself a good talking to occasionally.

So if you're at the end of your tether with PMS, facing the menopause with trepidation or dealing with any other issue or difficulty that life might be throwing at you, grab a notebook and write it down. It helps get things back on the straight and narrow.

On second thoughts.....

2010-03-09T04:11:00.000-08:00

Ooh, on reflection, yesterday's blog felt a little bit personal.

"Who wants to read about my monthly cycle?" the voice in my head demanded to know this morning. "What do you think you're doing - better to just keep it to yourself.." it went on.

Ordinarily thoughts like these would have me retreating into my hollow, keeping my head down, and feeling all churned up inside like I'm over-stepping the mark and I should just keep quiet. It might even force me to hide what I've written from the possibility of public scrutiny - maybe even delete my last entry. And then I'd start to feel all disappointed, that I haven't put myself across in the way I'd like to, and that I've missed an opportunity. "Doh" the voice inside my head would say. Can't win.

However, this morning, I remembered that I'm on day 17 of my cycle. I've gone over the hump as it were. Oestrogen levels are starting to dip, progesterone is on the ascendency. The certainty and purposefulness of the last couple of weeks, when oestrogen and testosterone were on the rise, have worn off; now is a time ripe for reflection and second thoughts.

Having second thoughts has got such negative connotations. Getting cold feet, crying wolf, and losing heart are all phrases associated with those occasions when we momentarily stop to check ourselves. The trouble is in many cases the checking isn't just momentary. Instead the checking destroys the action.

This is due in part to our personal lack of self-confidence, which may in itself come from a lack of understanding about ourselves. It may also be due to the cultural aversion we have to making u-turns, not seeing things through, not being completer-finishers, or simply changing our minds.

Our culture demands decisiveness. It craves ambition and accomplishment at a fast testosterone-fuelled pace. This is a very male perspective on the world.

If on the other hand we understand that reflectiveness is a vital part of the success equation, and that as women we are biologically predisposed to it during the course of our cycle, it becomes something to celebrate rather than to fear. Armed with this understanding and awareness we can do something positive in response to what we are experiencing,rather than ignore it or, what's worse, allow it to morph into inner sabotage.

So, here I am in reflective mode. As a result I've written 2 blog entries in a 24 hour period - heretofore unprecedented; have a new idea for a short story, and oodles of other thoughts about reworking existing stories; a idea for a novel; and have outlined my talk on hypocrisy for the Philosophical Society in April.

This time of second thoughts definitely has a different feel about it - a bit more dreamy, a bit less multi-tasking and list-ticking, AND it is still in its own way just as productive.

On second thoughts, I'll carry on anyway.

Riding the hormonal wave

2010-03-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

Here at Stillpoint we are getting excited about our first "Being a Woman" retreat weekend in September, dedicated to helping women become more aware of their monthly cycles. We are wanting to work with women to embrace rather than resist the fluctuations we experience every 28 or so days - and to discover what riches of learning and self-awareness lie that way.

PMS, periods and the menopause bizarrely remain taboo subjects in our society. Even as women we tend at worst to poo-poo the effects of hormonal change, at best to make a joke out of them and brush over the difficulties we might experience as a result.

Career success for women is still sadly about having a male attitude and approach, in which period pains, moodiness, hot flushes and dipping energy levels just don't make sense.

As someone who has experienced symptoms of PMS, including irritability, tearfulness, anxiety and exhaustion, I am curious about what difference we might make in our lives if instead of suscribing to the sweep it under the carpet approach we actually spoke more openly about what we experience, and looked for hidden strengths in our symptoms rather than viewing them as some form of inconvenient illness.

So , I have been paying close attention to where I am in my cycle, and making a mental or journal note about what's going on for me at various times. I had this vague notion that PMS made me very angry and easily provoked, but until I started closely observing and reflecting on my behaviour it was very difficult to understand what was going on. So month after month I would just get cross, and then the fact that I couldn't really understand why I was getting cross would make me even crosser. An extremely vicious cycle within a cycle.

The next few blog entries are going to be about what I'm noticing as I go through the month - my moods, thoughts and emotions, and how I'm dealing with them, as well as what they mean and a little bit of why they're happening.

In the meantime - happy surfing!

The Winning Return of Masterchef

2010-03-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the Winter Olympics, Masterchef has made a delayed come-back to our screens this season. But how fantastic to have Greg and John back, cringeing and salivating at turns over contestants' attempts to pursue their dreams in food.

One of the things that really impresses me about this programme is how the producers frequently tweak the formula from one series to the next. There's flexibility, the sense that this is a moveable feast, in a good way. So instead of one person crashing out of the competition having failed a taste test, which used to drive my hubby mad, this time round they get kicked out based on their cookery skill - or comparative lack of it. Seems much fairer.

It's even noticeable how the photography in the programme changes. Last year flash backs from previous programmes provided us with washed out shots of the contestants' concoctions, which looked neither appetising nor visually pleasing on the screen. Sloppy seconds are never appealing. But this time the producers have reserved the sepia tinge for the people rather than the food, so we don't all feel like throwing up at eight o'clock in the evening.

The thing that makes Masterchef such great TV - apart from its obvious attraction to a nation of armchair chefs - is that it is about real people trying to make their dreams come true. It's full of "journeys" and "passion" and "life-changing" moments, which are admittedly starting to sound rather jaded, but which are nonetheless strangely fascinating. We like to see people laying everything on the line, exposing their innermost desires and becoming extremely vulnerable in the process. It is the place where genuine genius can be found - and indeed has been over the past few series of the programme, discovering real culinary talent and launching glittering careers for the winners.

I like to put myself into the shoes of the contestants as they make their way from the quarter to the semi-finals. I like to imagine the euphoria they must feel at getting to the next step, the specialness of having someone praise your efforts to produce something delicious. Sometimes knowing it's good yourself is not quite the same as having someone else declare yours the best. Sometimes there is no feeling quite like being told you are the winner.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em - then beat 'em

2010-03-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

It is over a week now since Pratt-gate broke across the airwaves, shocking charitable counselling and support services with its blatant breach of confidentiality, and shaking Downing Street with its allegations of bullying in the Cabinet office.

I have to admit that I have taken at least a week to recover. I'm not good around such overt displays of betrayed confidences and tattered professional integrity. Makes my skin crawl. Makes me want to shout.

Looks like Max Clifford has done a good job though, as the National Bullying Helpline is up and running once again, with a message of gratitude from a caller given prominent display. Thank goodness for Christine that when Maxi posed the challenge to stick to her guns, she remembered the real reasons she set up the helpline in the first place.

During the week's frantic coverage about Andrew Rawnesley's allegations, that then seemed to be substantiated by the lady-in-pink from Swindon, some internet forum comments called for the repeal of the workplace bullying laws that Gordon Brown's government were so keen to implement. Claims were made about how such laws have done little but contribute to the victim mindset prevalent in an overly litigious society.

The tragedy of Gordon Brown is that he is a man not quite up to the job he’s dreamed about for so long, and his angry outbursts are, by his own admission, directed more at himself than others.

Nevertheless, his gift, rather unintendedly, could be a trend in workplaces around the country to eschew legal proceedings and approach conflict resolution in a more balanced way. After all if you can't beat the Pratts, you might as well join them, and then beat them at their own game of keeping things out of the courts.

The nation has caught a glimpse of the snapping alligators lurking underneath the tightrope of unresolved dysfunction in the workplace. Maybe it'll persuade us all to try a bit harder in the first place. Prevention is better than cure after all.

Life-sentence for one mistake

2010-01-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

What would it feel like to be forced to change your career, be prevented from working with the people you choose, in the job you love and are skilled at, all because, during a time when you weren't at your best due to illness, you made a mistake?

Today I met a lady who is trying to put her life back together after this pretty much happened to her. The mistake she made was, admittedly, quite serious and potentially dangerous, but in the end noone died or was harmed.

At the time the lady explained that she was suffering from depression, and had allowed herself and her home to get into a mess. An unfortunate accident alerted neighbours, who raised the alarm. Having 2 children at home meant that social services got involved, and the lady was served a caution for child neglect. and yet, rather than being treated with compassion and support, this single mum was made a pariah.

Of course when cases like Baby P hit the headlines we are all sickened and are desperate to see more stringent measures against child abuse. Remorselessly abusive individuals must be prevented from having access to children and other vulnerable people, and somehow the law must deal with this.

However when decent, ordinary people get into difficulties due to personal circumstances and health issues, it's extremely sad that they are tarred with the same brush instead of getting the help and support they need.

As a result of her mistake, as a result of others' insensitivity and prejudice, and as a result of inflexible new legal restrictions, this intelligent and articulate lady now finds herself with a criminal record, no career as she was sacked from her job, and total uncertainty about the kinds of references her former employers are writing for her.

Nevertheless she is taking action, looking for new opportunities for herself and not allowing herself to dwell on the injustice she feels she has experienced.

We all make mistakes. We'd like to think that we can be forgiven for them. Instead this courageous lady will carry a prison sentence around with her for the rest of her life.

Bad Science plagues us once again

2010-01-11T06:25:00.000-08:00

As Swindon becomes the first metropolitan area to have its own wi-fi blanket, there is a lot of public concern in the town about the safety of electromagnetic frequency radiation. Same with mobile phone masts. Noone wants a comms company to put a mast at the bottom of their garden, nor adjacent to the school their children attend.

Quite so. The inverse square law indicates that the closer one is to an emf transmitter such as a mobile phone mast or handset, or a wi-fi base station, the greater the power. And it's not necessarily a good thing to hang out there too long.

However the inverse square law also indicates that the power decreases rapidly with distance. So the power in the middle of the street 30m away from a wi-fi base station is 900 times weaker than at 1m. And a mobile phone's field is 10 000 times less 1m away from you than when its 1cm away from your ear.

This all seems like common sense. Furthermore emf radiation has been bouncing around the place forever, not just in the cosmic background radiation that has been bombarding us since the Big Bang, but also more recently in the TV and radio emissions we take for granted, never once thinking that having too many episodes of Eastenders bouncing around the ether might be in any way bad for our health. Ahem.....

So why oh why do certain alarmist members of the public choose to wave scare stories under our noses about the dangers of this and that radiation from too many transmission masts? Seeming technical experts write impassioned and authoritative sounding letters to local rags, whipping up public feeling against the encroachment of new technologies whose safety record hasn't been proven (similar to the Eastenders argument I would suggest.)

Upon closer inspection these correspondents' sources, themselves presented as 'technical experts' and members of this and that [pseudo] scientific community, are revealed to be pedlars of products to combat the adverse effects of the wrong type of electromagnetic radiation, to the tune of between £50 and £150 a whack.

Conspiracy theoirists abound, and are all the more convincing for their confidence and charisma. And what is astonishing is that their arguments become more compelling for innocent members of the public than the fundmental scientific facts freely available to anyone who cares to look in any Physics A level text book. The clue is in the difference between ionising and non-ionising frequencies. First type bad, second type not so, and also the type we're talking about with emf radiation.

I guess this is what Richard Dawkins would call the God Delusion - our in-built propensity to want to believe in a baseless unlikelihood over actually checking the ubiquitous and readily available facts.

Reflecting Progress

2009-11-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've been preparing some handout notes for the journaling workshop during our reenergise weekend, and in the process I've been revisiting some of my own journals from the last couple of years.

At the start of 2007 I took a step back from the relentless promotion of my coaching business. It was beginning to exhaust me, and I began to feel my self-confidence flag.

I formed a new intention - to put goal setting and project planning to one side, and to get back in touch with the things that were, and still are, most important to me, and which made me feel most productive and fulfilled.

I was not surprised to discover that the thing that made me feel this way the most was writing. It didn't matter whether it was writing in my journal, or responding to thought provoking emails in online coaching communities, if I'd written a few hundred words in whatever medium I felt like I'd accomplished something. I felt calm, as if I'd brought of my best to a situation.

At this point my intention to open myself up to opportunities to do with the written word formed in my mind. I wouldn't set myself a goal, or write an aggressive plan of action, I would follow my curiosity, wait, observe and respond.

The clarity I had in the opening months of 2007 is marvellously captured in my journal from that time. Since then I've learned about the Law of Attraction, and, while I can't help scoffing a little bit at the sensationalism of The Secret, I feel on reflection that I was tuned in to that law without realising it at that time.

In two years the progress I have made as a writer is phenomenal: I'm now a freelance reporter, a prize-winning short story writer, parish magazine columnist, writers' group facilitator, journaling workshop leader - and there is so much more to come.

All through this transformation in my career from IT project manager to business owner and life coach, to writer, journalist and workshop facilitator I have kept my own journal by my side.

I would have done none of this without my notebook and pen - and reading back over the past couple of years I can't help but think that it's been a miraculous journey.

S.W.O.T analysis

2009-11-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

It's been a time of Switch, Wins, Opportunities and Treats since my last blog post. Fun but busy, and, at times, a little bit stressful.

Since landing a new job in the summer as a freelance journalist for a local magazine, I've had to Switch to a new style of working, new deadlines and new experiences.

Going out to interview people and follow up local news items, or phoning people to get stories, have all provided me with new challenges. I've met some fantastic people locally, and learnt so much more about my adoptive home-town and the folk that live here.

Swindon is much maligned for having the most average (and by implication mediocre) demographic in the country. But I have to say that there is much afoot in this town, and there are surprises around every corner amongst its residents. In my 17 years of being here I certianly have developed a soft spot for the place, and the people I'm now meeting through my work are only deepening the love story for me. Such a Treat.

Further Treats over the past few months have come in the form of visits from friends, including a couple from as far away as Melbourne, Australia.

Since having the kids we've perhaps got out of the habit of throwing parties as we used to - and I for one struggle with the after effects the following day. Nevertheless for hubby's birthday in October we partied hard two nights on the trot with old friends and new. A fab time was had by (nearly) all, as there was one of our number who over-indulged a tad and made herself a little bit ill....

Celebrations have been called for as I've watched my golf handicap plummet by 2 whole points (!) and found myself on the Winners' board a few times since September. This is more than exciting for me as I don't have a natural talent for golf - just a great time having a go at what must be the silliest and most addictive game ever invented. I'm pleased to say my perseverance has started to pay off, and I'm even finding there's something a little bit Zen about the game.....

Opportunities abound at the moment. Just this weekend the first creative writing workshop hosted by the writing group I set up last year has attracted some awesome writing talent in the town. Yesterday 12 of us spent the whole day working with our tutor Jill Sharp to practice character-driven plot-development, and came up with 4 separate novel outlines during the afternoon.

Perhaps most exciting of all is that this week I depart for south west France to join some colleagues and friends-to-be at a Reenergise Retreat. I'm going to be facilitating a journal writing workshop over the weekend, so I've been doing lots of practice, and having loads of insights about the power of Writing for Well-Being.

In preparation I've been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, a book I'd seriously recommend to anyone wanting to slow down, get more out of life and connect with themselves at a deeper level. Re-energise in fact! I'd also recommend investing in a journal too to sustain the journey, but if you want to know more about that I guess you'll have to come along... www.stillpointassociates.com

Switch, Wins, Opportunities and Treats - analyze that!!

A star-studded summer

2009-08-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

Today is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope, which is a very fitting date as today I find myself reflecting on a truly star-studded summer holiday. It is hard to believe that the kids are going back to school next week - so soon!? - and we've only got a few more days to complete room makeovers, new shoe purchases and to ensure that all the new uniform fits!

Now the star-gazer lillies in the garden have finally gone over, although the jasmine, like fragrant points of starlight adorning the back of the house, is still holding out.

Our summer holiday began with Junior Golf Week at Wrag Barn Golf Club. This was our third year in attendance, hubby's third as Junior Organiser, and it was wonderful to watch the young ones enjoying themselves on the golf course. This is truly an opportunity to see some golf stars of the future in action, and the presentation evening is such a great night out for the cadets and juniors alike, with lots of prizes and certificates for everyone taking part.

In August we packed a picnic and went over to Lydiard Park for some Shakespeare under starry skies. This was a fabulous production of The Comedy of Errors by the troupe from Shakespeare's Globe in London. The kids really enjoyed this night out - and chortled loudly all the way through the slapstick comedy. It was a great introduction to the Bard for children - ours at 11 and 6 could not have been better entertained.

We spent a week under the star-spangled skies of Somerset, where the starlings roost, in the delightful company of my sister-in-law and her family. A rural location, there are no streetlights for miles, so no "light pollution" preventing a perfect view of the Milky Way.

While the kids stayed in Someset, hubby and I hopped over to Dublin for some star-stalking. We stayed for a couple of nights at the Clarence Hotel, part-owned by Bono and the Edge of U2, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and imagined meeting the stars in the Octagon bar over a quiet pint or 3 of Liffey-Water.

Next it was to be star-struck for real as we took the kids to see U2 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The biggest stars of rock n'roll, those Irish boys did not fail to disappoint, and we had a fantstic night, only wishing that it could have gone on for much longer.

But despite all these exciting star-studded activities, one of the most enjoyable had to be lying in the dark on the trampoline with hubby and the kids after an evening barbecue, watching the shy stars pop out of the sky and tracing shapes in the clouds. Witches on broomsticks, killer whales, kangaroos and rabbits holding candles all made an appearance. Sorry Galileo - who needs telescopes?

Old flames

2009-08-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

In the age of facebook and friends reunited it is easier than ever to seek out old flames.

One such has recently sought me out. After the initial shock of hearing from him - made doubly weird because minutes before his message landed in my inbox I'd just been googling him to see if he really did become that famous journalist and author he always talked about - we immediately got into some profound banter about the meaning of life, love and everything. It was ever thus between us. And all in French, because he is.

He's in his 40s now, and unmarried. So I guess he's still got his pre-marital imagination intact. It can prove devastating for a married woman to come face-to-face with this after many years of effectively taking on the role of her husband's imagination. It can send wives into frenzies of confusion, which end, at worst, in betrayal and separation, at best in an awakening of Shirley Valentine-esque self-awareness.

So, mon vieux has tracked me down. I was 17 the last time I saw him. When I turned 20 he asked me to send him a photo - then told me he was disappointed by how I'd changed - in three years!! God forbid what he'd think these days, after 2 kids and the legacy of my Dad's premature greying gene kicking in.

Pour couper une longue histoire courte, he was always a serious character, and now, like the chap in Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity", he's hunting out past girlfriends in order to "try to understand".

Maybe this is what's happening in the minds of old flames - they just want to understand something about themselves and life that has so far eluded them. When I got in touch with an old boyfriend a couple of years ago to see if he wanted copies of some old video footage of birthday parties from way back, all I really wanted to know was that he was OK. When I discovered that he's fine, married, settled and very gainfully employed, that was enough. He politely and sensibly declined the videos and after this I was happy to let him be. I certainly didn't want to rekindle anything, and I was in agonies for a while that I might have inadvertently opened old wounds by writing to say Hi. Then I gave myself a good talking to - it's not always about me after all.

But I do think that we get to a certain point in life and we start looking back and wondering about the choices we've made and what might have been. Of course it doesn't serve to dwell on these too much - better to take hold of the life you have and milk it rather than living in a fantasy world. It's all a question of balance after all.

Balloon races and egg powder

2009-08-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

At the village fete a few weeks ago a lady from the local care home was selling tickets for the Grand Balloon Race to raise funds for her establishment. Apparently in the past they have had balloon tickets returned from places as far afield as France and Holland. The person whose ticket is returned from the furthest destination wins a prize.

But it wasn't the prize that had me fishing the pound coin out of my pocket. It was more the possibility of making a tenuous, unlikely connection with someone whose life and experience is literally and figuratively hundreds of miles away from my own.

In the 1950s, whilst opening a packet of Australian powdered egg during the final days of war-time rationing, my Grandad found himself reading a name and address and the Alice-in-Wonderland-esque reqeust to "please write", scribbled on a scrap of paper and, presumably, inserted into the box by a factory worker down-under. This single act of launching a message-in-a-bottle from one side of the world to the other spawned a correspondence between 2 families who shared news and well-wishes for the next 2 decades.

Serendipitous connections make the world go round. They appeal to our sense of oneness with the rest of the human race. They are little miracles.

Dawn Chorus

2009-05-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Fire Jugglers, Faerie Queen, Fiddle, Drum and Song

Chasing Bubbles and Dreamy Poems from the Pod

Maypole ribbons entwined,

And danced again undone.

Trees, grass, lovely Lawn
Coming to life with the Dawn.
Windmills on the horizon,
Townsfolk foregoing their lie-in
For the sake of music and words.
The pen is mightier they say,
Except when the sword yields rainbows for play.
Festival-goers unite
Bringing to Swindon the light
Of creativity, joy and laughter.
Meeting friends and making new,
Guitar, whistle and melodeon too.

Bacon butties, cups of tea,
All this and home by 7.30.

To My Friends at StillPoint

2009-04-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

Thankyou for your time this morning over the phone - always a tricky medium to work with! It was a privilege to be part of your circle, on the hearth rug, on the book pile, wherever. And thankyou for the lichen!

Our conversation, and the visual I was getting of everyone's journals around the room, prompted me to take the photo above of a few of my journals from over the years. I have always been a sucker for stationery and as a child would spend hours in WH Smith salivating over pens, pencils and notepads. I really did lead a sheltered childhood!! But still the joy I find in opening my journal and putting pen to paper to write is such a yummy thing, such a sensual thing. Yes it is an indulgence - an utterly shameless one.

I wish you all a very happy relationship with your journal - and have fun!

love
Juliet
x

Garden meditation

2009-04-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

While my friends in Aberdeen were enjoying nature and a few of life's good things in Templars Park, I was at home giving the kids their tea on the deck, and then spending a very contented hour or so tending to my plants.

Of course it is no secret that nurturing plants in our gardens has tremendous therapuetic and health benefits. Hundreds of thousands of gardeners down the ages have found immense satisfaction and fulfilment in growing and cultivating flowers, shrubs, vegetables and fruits. Intellectually I would sympathise - I get it - working with your hands, getting back to nature, to the soil, watching something develop from nothing with only a few readily available ingredients. How does the bean know to grow into a runner or a string? It is facinating.

Yet only very recently have I formed my own personal experience of working with plants. The area around my front of house deck has become overgrown these past 5 or so years. A number of plants needed to be culled, or ruthlessly pruned back. I was scared to start. I didn't know what to do , how to get "the eye" for what to lop and what to leave. Nor was I sure of the right time to prune. Why can't these plants just take care of themselves? Why do they need me to interfere?

But for a number of months I have been aware of the plants' need to be given a new lease of life. It has become apparent to me through my own feelings of guilt at having neglected them for so long - and through a awakened sense of that very enlightened philosophy about needing to look after your own garden first. How can I help others as a personal development facilitator if I don't look after and learn from my own?

(And already I feel myself slipping away with this thought - the inner critic or the parenting gremlin can have a great time chiding me about looking after my own, particularly my children - how much TV do I let them watch? how much fresh organic non-processed food do I get them to eat? Bla Bla Bla.)

But if we choose to surround ourselves with plants, with pets, with children even, then we have a duty to take care of them. And plants are so grateful for their care. We chop them and lop them and they reward us by springing back to life with renewed vigour, oozing gratitude and life. It's such a wonderful experience. And now I spend time each day strolling around my plants - Russian sage, Dutch Honeysuckle, Choisya, Forsythia, Fuschia, Wisteria, Magnolia, Hydrangea, Fern, Clematis, Lavender - just watching their response, observing how they are once again bursting into life.

So while Stillpoint connected in Templars Park, I connected here, through my plants, into the timeless realm of universal mind, free of personal anxieties, plucking out the easily yielding weeds from the stones and shaking off the pebbles from their roots.

Only Connect

2009-04-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

It is one of my favourite quotes - possibly because it is the shortest and most easy to remember - EM Forster's "Only connect" from one of my all time favourite books, Howard's End (which I keep wanting to call Howard's Way - but that is just a throw- back to my TV-obsessed youth!).

"Only connect." What is it? A foreshortened imperative? A statement of the one single thing that is of any importance whatsoever? A plea of the nature "if you only ever do one thing make sure it's this"? All of these things.

Superficially making connections in this day and age is easier than ever. Technology makes it possible to be always available, always reachable. The potential for connection over a phone line or on the internet has never been greater.

But connection doesn't happen without intention. No matter how many times we talk on the phone to each other, no matter how many emails we send, we may stay disconnected if we so intend. Technology enables a veneer of connectivity. So maybe it's no longer enough to "only connect".

Indeed this week I am connecting virtually and energetically with a group of friends and colleagues across the miles - thanks to the wonder of mobile telephony - instead of being with them in person. We're running a bit of a pilot - an energetic connection over a phone line between little old me in Swindon, and a fabulous group of people in Aberdeen, who are getting together to discover the meaning and experience of Stillpoint.

I ought to be with them, yearn to be with them, and be part of the creative process. But on this occasion the universe would hold me here, at home with my children, because hubby is working away. Either one of us or the other is likely to be away from home at any one time. We just can't both be away at the same time.

My intention with the group in Scotland is to connect with them on a deeper level than just a conference call. They are in my thoughts. They are the reason I'm writing my blog today - something I haven't done for too long I know.

This evening between six o'clock and eight they will be in Templars Park in Aberdeen experiencing campfire stories and tasty food in the outdoors. Food always tastes better in the outdoors. A humble picnic of a ham sandwich and an apple taste like a feast once once you've carried it to the top of the hill and found a sheltered spot to sit. So as my friends enjoy their outdoor dinner I shall, weather permitting, serve the kids their tea in the garden!

In this way I hope to do more than just superficially connect. I hope to share the experience - even though I'm a long way away. I imagine the morning greetings, the laughter over coffee and breakfast, the private jokes broken open from their hiding place, to be shared and built upon by all. I think of the morning routines, the mutual requests for bodywork to get centred, to feel like you're coming back together with yourself.

And suddenly as I write I'm shocked by tears. The idea of connecting with others as a way of connecting with myself, of reconnecting myself, is suddenly overwhelming. In this moment I realise that I have been floundering in a disconnected sea for days, not being able to find myself, being unable to read or write, and not having my husband around to help me, to reflect back to me.

Instead I've been busying myself with the flotsam and jetsam of household chores - washing, cooking, ironing - and distracting myself with helping the kids - homework, lifts to activities, things to entertain them. And while all these things make up a life that looks happy, without the connecting thread to hold it all together the picture is rather chaotic and unfulfilling. Energy begins to leak away, and it becomes difficult to replace.

But now, even without yet phoning into the conference, just with placing my intention with a group of people who I know at this moment are preparing, in a spacious and comfortable house in Aberdeen, to work together and create together, I am able to piece myself back together. Synchronising my breath with theirs is easy with the intention to connect, and breathing in sync brings a fresh sense of connectedness within me.

Theatricals

2009-03-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

Well so far this year I have managed, thanks to the wily marketing tricks of the good people at TicketMaster and See, plus the fact that I'm a sucker for being on the mailing list of various venues in my local area, to spend nothing short of a small fortune on tickets "to go and see things".

On Thursday last we went to see Brainiac Live at the Colston Hall in Bristol. The four of us went. It was a family outing, on a school night, to the theatre. How civilized!

Except it was no ordinary theatrical production. It was more a series of demonstrations, loosely justified as "science abuse", of explosions, of how inflammable certain gases are, of how far you can inflate things made out of rubber before they go bang, and of which method of propulsion makes an office chair spin round the fastest.

It was hilarious, although my daughter, like me, spent most of the show with her fingers jammed into her ears. As a balloon-a-phobe who winces even at the sight of a party balloon floating within earshot, I did find this production quite a challenge to sit through.

What I found really interesting was that, although there were plenty whoops and cheers and noisy stamping and clapping during the show, partly on the bidding of the Brainiac team as they demonstrated the science of decibels, when the show came to an end, there was no rapturous applause, no standing ovation. As the actors left the stage the audience clapped a bit, then got up and filed out. No bowing went on, no running on and off stage for more audience appreciation, no opening and closing of curtains and all that business that usually goes on in a more artisitic production. It made me feel a bit sorry for the people on the stage, who'd given it their all, and who deserved a bit more appreciation from the paying public.

I got to thinking - maybe this was to do with the fact that we were not in the company of luvvies, but rather more rational, less emotional scientific types, and that the show wasn't really Art but Science. But one look in the programme revealed that the majority of players had indeed received a theatrical training - in some cases even balletic.

Maybe it is that Science is not as emotionally engaging as Art. Or that the kind of audience this attracted are not your typical theatre-going types, who maybe don't know all the luvvie conventions.

Maybe as an audience we were confused, in the absurdist sense, about the barriers between stage and auditorium being blurred, about the roles of actor and spectator being reversed, as images of members of the audience in various compromising positions flashed up on the big screen at the back of the stage.

Or maybe we were all just sick of choking on dry ice and talcum powder, and, it being a school night, desperate to be the first at the pay-on-foot machine in the car park.

So what's next in my theatrical year? In April I'm taking the kids to see Oliver, in May its the Swindon Literature Festival, of which more later, and in August its U2 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. And I've only just found out about Bocelli coming on tour in the autumn.....

Personally I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber and Graham Norton. How dare they popularise British musical theatre?

Un-skilled for life

2009-01-21T04:43:00.000-08:00

I am feeling rather ashamed having been watching the BBC's latest reality TV offering, "Victorian Farm". In it 3 intrepid historians/archaeologists are taking on the challenge of spending a year living/working/farming the Victorian way on a traditional farm in Shropshire.

It's a strange ménage-a-trois - a female expert on Victorian housework busying herself with laundry, poultry-keeping, preserving, embroidering, foraging and preparing food on an authentic Victorian coal-fired range, while 2 other blokes do farm maintenance, ploughing, sowing, harvesting, chaffing, milking, shepherding, raddling and general "animal husbandry".

The reason for my shame is nothing to do with my penchant for reality TV - I'm really quite brazen about that, nor is it the puzzle I have in my mind about the conjugal relations or otherwise of the programmme's participants. Neither of these is making me pink with embarrassment. No, what is making me shrink behind the cushions on my sofa is how damn hard these people have to work – and how alarmingly skillful they have to be just to get by from one day to the next.

Take the laundry for instance. I whinge when I’ve got to put washing in the washing machine and switch it on, leaving it to go merrily through its cycle while I go off and enjoy myself. I then huff and puff when I’ve got to take washing out of the washing machine and either bung it in the drier or peg it out on the line. And as for ironing! I’ll stare at the ironing basket for days before mustering up the energy and inclination to get on with it. The maximum amount of time that the whole washing/drying/ironing cycle needs to take in my house is about 4 hours, whereas that poor woman on the telly took 4 days to get through all hers the Victorian way, before having to start all over again.

Then it showed her plucking the Christmas turkey – which she had personally slaughtered, having hand-reared it from the egg and named it Evie. All I need to do is go down to Asda and pick up an anonymous packet of diced turkey, and all the skills I need to do it are driving my car and reading the words free-range on the wrapper.

Meanwhile, out in the yard the blokes are learning how to build stone walls using traditional Victorian tools and methods, so that they can provide a home for their two Tamworth pigs before winter sets in. They’ve already had to master ploughing a field using a horse-drawn plough, driving a horse and cart using a genuine Shire horse, painting the chest of a horny ram with red “raddle” so they could tell which of their ewes had been “tupped”, and growing and harvesting their own animal feed. And all this after restoring the farmhouse to a livable standard.

Phew – I’m worn out watching it! But I am also filled with awe at how hard life was for my farming ancestors, and with gratitude that amongst so much hard graft they didn’t neglect the business of procreating and raising kids – otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

It also has me reflecting on our modern “skills for life” educational initiatives, and makes me wonder whether we would be better served learning some more of that self-sufficiency stuff that the Victorians knew so well, instead of literacy, numeracy and how to drive computers and cars.

I shall certainly think twice next time a roll my eyes at having to do the washing, or load the dish washer or pour the raw ingredients into my bread-maker.

Essential Trees

2009-01-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

It's been jolly cold this week in the UK. Cold enough to keep the ground frozen and the trees frosted up for days. As hubby said yesterday - it's been a long time since it's looked like an arctic tundra in this country.

How beautiful the trees look. And there's only one thing for it when the trees look so pretty, and that is to scoot off to Westonbirt Arboretum and have a stroll around the winter wonderland of arboreal splendour.

I've loved Westonbirt for many years - ever since my first trip there in Autumn 1997, just before the birth of our first child. I lurched my way up and down the avenues and rides, admiring the fabulous autumn colours, and dreaming of enjoying this environment with my new baby.

So yesterday we headed over there with both babies - except they're not so much babies any more. And they were quite happy stalking hubby and I through the trees and shrubs while we enjoyed a romantic stroll, dampened only by the meltwater which was pouring off the Wellingotnias and the Lawson Cypresses.

There is something about walking amongst trees which cheers me right up. Being at the Arboretum, with the kids playing some version of The Crystal Maze, finding crystals attached to different species of tree, and having mock light-sabre fights with sticks, somehow makes time stand still. All the pressures and worries of the day just float up amongst the canopy above and evaporate into the sky. I become aware that I'm walking around with a silly grin on my face.

I'd love to go back to the trees each month, to get an impression of how the seasons change, and to get a regular soul-uplift. Hubby says it smacks too much of routine. So what? Better to have such a seasonal routine that pleases the spirit, than get into couch-potato habits which are quite deadening.

Get out and look at some trees - and be inspired!

What happened to December?

2009-01-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

I wanted to be really cool and go to the Hub while we were away in Canada so I could update my blog. The Hub is an internet cafe at Whistler Creekside, full of young people wearing the crotches of their tartan or tweed effect ski pants between their knees and those woolly hats with ethnic patterns and plaits.

As you can see I didn't get to update my blog. Instead, feeling shy, I went in there and paid $1.30 canadian to go online and renew my library book at North Swindon library!!

We had a fun time skiing, although there wasn't much snow, the slopes were sheet ice, there weren't many runs open and the temperatures plummetted to -26. Nevertheless the views were stunning, the sky crystal blue and the hot tub was bubbling in the evening.

Christmas was mad. What with the jet-lag, all the cooking and a houseful of guests over the middle weekend I felt like I needed a whole new holiday. So we took one - and went up to my parents' house for New Year. I spent an extremely schizophrenic New Years' Eve between my parents' house and their neighbours' - raucously drinking lager in one place and demurely sipping G&T in the other.

And now it's January, and the kids are back at school, which is about time as they've had a month off already. I love this time of year, when everything gets back to normal and suddenly the house seems twice the size because the Christmas tree's gone.

We've had snow in Swindon this week. It's been looking very pretty early in the morning as we've walked to school with the kids. I was hoping to get my bike out and try and shed some of the extra Christmas poundage, but the roads have been a bit too icey.

Any Resolutions? Only getting up a bit earlier than everyone else so I can do a bit of scribbling in my journal. It's lovely when the house is quiet and I can settle down for quarter of an hour with the first brew of the day. Trouble is, I'm still there at 7pm when I ought to be making up the kids' lunch boxes and kicking everyone out of bed!

Other than this attempt to get in some regular writing each day I'm planning on pretty much carrying on where I left off last year. Oh yes, and I'll be rebranding Treetops too.

Happy New Year everyone.

Brain Blast!

2008-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

Well I have to admit that I am quite ashamed not to have been more frequently "on the blog" since early October. Thanks to Jane for nudging me - she had to resort to Facebook to find out what's been happening with me! (Though in truth I've been too preoccupied for even that the last couple of weeks.)

The thing that has been keeping me so quiet has been my presentation to the Swindon Philosophical Society, which finally took place last Friday 14th November (a date which has been etched on my brain for months, and which has elicited a nervous response in me every time I've thought of it!). I did quite a lot of research, beginning, according to my journal, about mid-September. It then took an entire week to write and rework.

My topic was "The effects of science and technology on human imagination and creativity". It wasn't my title, though I decided to rise to the challenge of presenting it anyway. Once I'd crafted my core argument all the background reading, listening and watching was interesting and fun, especially as it touched on my pet interests of neurology, psychology, consciousness, and whatever spiritual conclusions we might draw from all that.

The scope of my talk ranged across the following subjects: the real relationship between science and creativity; the effects of science in revealing the secrets of human imagination; research into psychic phenomena; and how science is or isn't responding to the hunger to know more about consciousness.

I pointed to the difference between "Logical, Scientific Rigour", which tends to close down further inquiry into "that which cannot be seen"; and "The Over-Active Imagination", which tends to cherry pick amongst scientific hypotheses to knit together a seemingly coherent, seemingly scientifically valid world-view, one that just happens to tally with their own wishful thinking.

In conclusion I highlighted the value of finding a balanced mode of thinking between the wild extremes of scientific skeptism and the over-active imagination. Over-active imaginations look gullible in comparison with skeptical scientific rigour, but, without the cynicism, the imagination is a powerful guiding force for scientific inquiry.

It was the topic of psychic phenomena which attracted the most lively discussion. I decided to take the line that much of western science finds psi inadmissable for some good reasons - which I named. However, my implicit portrayal of science being rather dismissive of psychic research prompted some strong reactions, quoting the thousands of dollars that have been invested by scientific foundations into this type of study.

Had I argued the opposite - that science must actually consider these areas worthy of investigation, because of the funding that has been allocated to them, I'm sure the scientists in the room would have objected on the grounds of scientific inadmissability. So it was a no-win situation.

Of course, in hindsight the best argument would have been to declare science to have been admirably open-minded in providing research funding - but that none of the research had returned conclusive evidence.

Nevertheless I would still have maintained that this impasse may well have resulted from skewed readings of the data: either by those with over-active imaginations which saw things in the data that weren't really there; or by those with a predisposition to doubt in a more or less cynical way, while allowing the funding to provide the smoke-screen, the pretence of open-mindedness.

In fact this would have illustrated beautifully my point about the need for balanced thinking, and a cooperative way for psi researchers and scientists to work together. Hmmm...

Anyhow, the evening turned out to be a splendid success. A full house, some new members, lively discussion and lots of people going on to the pub to continue the debate. Well and truly a brain blast, and a valid excuse for being absent from blogging for a little while!

To coach or not to coach?

2008-10-09T03:27:00.003-07:00

The other night I had a phone conversation with an old friend who is considering leaving the corporate rat-race to set up a coaching business. I had deja-vu. It reminded me of my own position seven or eight years ago when I left my Project Manager role to strike out on my own into the scary world of business ownership.

Here are my nuggets of advice:

1) Be clear and comfortable with the accredited nature and status of your coach training provider. While the profession remains unregulated - except for the work of the International Coach Federation - many coaching schools can get away with touting coach training with very little accreditation. If you are uncomfortable with the sales style or ethics of a training provider tread carefully.

2) Be aware that the majority of money being made in coaching today is in training others to become coaches. Get clear on what percentage of their coaching revenue comes from true coaching - how many clients do they have who aren't coach trainees? This will also give an indication of market demand for your services as a coach.

3) Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - if you are considering making the transition from corporate employment to full-time coaching, you are unlikely to be able to replace your current salary immmediately. Much of the discussion within the coaching profession recently has been about "how can I make money out of being a coach?", and there has been a glut of courses and resources claiming to give coaches the key to kick-start their business. Once again, while no doubt helpful to coaches setting up on their own, this trend also reveals where the real money in coaching is being made.

4) Consider what other income streams are at your disposal as a coach. This could be as straightforward as holding down your full-time role and doing some supplementary coaching on the side - or even negotiating a change in your current role to give more in-house coaching opportunities. Alternatively it could mean a radical shift towards making money out of a creative talent, plus coaching, plus contract work or another more reliable wage-making opportunity. "Portfolio careers" have become all the rage in recent years, and seem to provide people with a fulfilling variety of work, with multiple income stream opportunities.

5) Keep a healthy perspective. Selling coaching is like selling anything - it helps if you completely believe in the product, and are able to demonstrate the tangible benefits that you and others have experienced through coaching. What difference has it really made? It will pay to regularly reflect on these types of question, so you can always respond to market need in the most effective and productive way.

6) Self-awareness is key - coaching that becomes "techniquey" is extremely off-putting and will be neither convincing nor helpful. It is vital to continue reflecting on your own personal development and experience in order to be most authentic and "useful". AND you need to get out of the way completely when you are coaching others.

7) Do you have a practical skill that you can combine coaching with?

For myself, coaching has become much more a way of life and an attitude than a business. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have had to learn and practice coaching, and I have met some remarkable, extraordinary, beautiful people along the way. I would like to see the coach approach practiced more widely within the world of education - and for the principle lessons of self-awareness, listening to and respecting others, busting self-limiting beleifs, trusting our intuition and being curious, all of which coach training delivers, to be of more central importance within our educational curriculum.

Scribblers are go!

2008-10-03T00:56:00.000-07:00

Last night saw the first meeting of a new writing group - the Highworth and Blunsdon Scribblers. It was fun! Six of us turned up at the Saracen's Head on High St in Highworth, to have a drink and share our thoughts and ideas on what we're currently writing, what we're interested in writing, and what we'd like from a writing group.

The interests of the group are varied but complementary. Children's books, novels, short stories, radio plays and non-fiction are represented by the members so far. Some are extremely keen, others less certain; some need structure, others feedback, everyone encouragement and inspiration.

We intend to meet every month for a couple of hours to share readings, do writing exercises, seek advice and have fun with words. The group even felt comfortable with homework! Everyone was very honest and open, and it felt like a safe place to be.

Our next meeting is on Thursday 6th November, 7.30 at the Saracen's Head. Can't wait!

"What have been the most powerful prompts or questions in your life so far?"

2008-10-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

This question turned up as a topic thread on the coaching network. It intrigued me. Many of the responses to the thread quoted very coachy questions - like "Where do you give away your power?" and "What's the thing you want me to dare you to do?"

All no doubt valid questions, and powerful in their way, when you've hired a coach to make you think and give you a new perspective.

And while I can remember asking people questions like this when I've been "performing" as a coach, they didn't really sound like the kind of questions I have experienced in my own life as mould-breaking or delusion-shattering. I started to get curious about what those questions and comments have been, the ones that incited me to something, and that still resonate with meaning for me today.

I came up with a little list. Some of them are questions I asked myself, others aren't even questions but observations made by others. The circumstances of my hearing them are still very clear in my mind. Each one evokes the room where I was sitting, or the dress my teacher was wearing, the rain lashing, or the sunlight glinting on the fruit punch bowl in the Munro Room.

These are pivotal moments, containing information which mines deep and well.

"Why don't people just listen?" I asked as a frustrated eight-year-old, afraid of having my truest account of myself dismissed. I was standing next to my guinea-pig's cage at the time - the smell of damp, soiled saw-dust still comes to mind.

This has become such a mantra for me in recent years: the importance of listening to each other, especially to children, who have their own channels of wisdom and so much to teach us about ourselves.

These days I can turn this question into something meaningful, which stops me in my tracks and makes me think again - "What if I just listened?"

"I'd like to see the outcome of that little venture," spat my French teacher, in her knitted pink tube dress with a cowl neck, when I announced I wanted to go to Cambridge and do languages. I so wanted to ridicule her sarcasm and prove her doubts totally unfounded. I did.

These days I ask myself "What will I prove someone wrong about?"

"You are a diamond in the rough and you will go far." I wrote to my former university supervisor about 8 years ago to thank him for this comment he made 10 years before. We were making small talk at the linguists lunch after finals. I struggled to attribute any kind of sympathetic personality to this man whom I considered to be no more than an enormous brain, so at the time the comment didn't hit home. I'm sure the fruit punch didn't help. Years later I felt a great surge of gratitude for his generosity, so I wrote to him. He wrote back and told me that my letter had meant more to him than all the accolades he had received during his academic career.

These days I want to know "How am I shining and where am I going?"

"Do you want to come to a Quireboys concert?" Little did I know that the rugby yob striding towards me through the rain outside the porter's lodge was destined one day to become my husband. He'd chased me - unsuccessfully - for months, usually plucking up courage to speak to me only after consuming an inordinate amount of alcohol down the Mill on a Thursday night. But this was a Tuesday. He found himself asking the question, and I found myself replying "OK".

These days I ask myself "What new opportunity will I find myself taking today?"

"Will you marry me?" This question came exactly 5 years and 7 days after our trip to the Corn Exchange to see the Quireboys. He smuggled chilled champagne and 2 flutes into the anniversary suite at the hotel, then was irked when I switched on the TV to catch up with Neighbours immediately on arrival. But eventually he got my attention and went down on one knee. There was no ring - he wanted us to choose it together - but I remember lying in a bath full of bubbles sipping champagne and allowing myself to imagine the most beautiful wedding ever. I was committed, and blissfully happy.

These days I ask myself "What am I committed to?"

"So if you want to be a writer, write!" I was in awe of the woman from Logistics Planning. Not only did she know about warehouse picking and haulage companies, she'd just been telling me that what she really wanted to be was a novelist. She was working up a few ideas and had actually made a start on her book. I was probably salivating, hanging on her every word, hoping that some of her drive and ambition might rub off on me. I was probably wibbling about how I really wanted to be a writer, how that was a real childhood dream, that I'd even receieved a commendation in the WH Smith Young Writers' Competition when I was 11. And now here I was a Management Traine at WH Smith instead. Then she asked me what I was writing currently. And I probably mumbled "nothing really". At which point she uttered the line which still has the power to make me pick up my pen and write morning pages at the absolute minimum.

These days I just say "Bloody Well Write!" Sometimes there's no room for reflection. Sometimes you've just got to get into action. These are the most powerful kicks up the backside I can remember.

Purple Swans

2008-09-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

The spare room is now complete and resplendent in its new colour scheme of violet white. It only took a couple of days - mostly because I cheated and only attempted to change the colour of the walls and nothing else. So the "amethyst" carpet remains, as does the lilac ceiling, the mauvish wood-work and radiator, and the lavender curtains.

The walls were painted with a roller and brush I found in the garage, and the bed dragged to the middle of the room and covered with a fusty old dust cover I found next to the roller and brush.

Proud of my thriftiness, I decided to treat the bed to some new linen, and was delighted to find a complete set - duvet cover, fitted sheet and pillow cases - on offer in M&S for under £50. Hurrah! So with paint, polythene dust covers to protect the carpet, new bedding and a new tidy rail so our guests don't have to persist in arranging their clothes all over the carpet, the makeover budget only just broke the £100 mark.

Mission Declutter has made a positive start. Life already feels simpler and more ordered. At last, the laundry room having been cleared out a few weeks ago, after hubby revealed the computer kit that was languishing next to the washing machine was no longer needed, I now have a proper routine for washing and ironing - without risking my neck everytime I go into the utility room for fear of tripping over cables and bits of server. It makes it a whole lot easier to be able to load the washing machine from the front instead of having to crane round and shove clothes in from the side because there's too much junk in the way. No wonder I've got a bad back!

I've managed to find a home for the mountain of books that were balanced precariously next to my bed. So now getting into bed no longer involves stubbing my toes on a long-forgotten volume by Trinny and Susannah; and when I get out of bed I no longer have to place my feet an uncomfortable distance away and then arch my back dangerously upwards in order to allow my shoulders to catch up with my feet and bring myself to a vertical position.

Mission Declutter is certainly proving both physically and mentally freeing. I can think far more clearly about things when I don't have to look at an untidy mound of stuff in front of me everywhere I go. And chores speed up, so I'm not spending such a long time doing the things that need to be done to keep domestic life ticking over. This means I can get on with the things I really like doing - like blogging, or researching my talk to the Swindon Philosophical Society, or having my Mum down for a visit.

The spare room project represents a purple patch of domestic order and calm. Meanwhile those little swan legs are paddling hard below the surface.

Unlocking Mission Declutter

2008-09-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

Rather than finding the key to the filing cabinet this time I discovered that shifting the old filing cabinet was the key to unlock Mission Declutter. The brown and beige 2 drawer filing cabinet, which we'd bought on a budget 15 years ago, when we first joined the property ladder and needed somewhere to dump the aforementioned bumf that various financial institutions would send us, had to be shifted in order to make room for the large bookcase out of the spare bedroom. The bookcase out of the spare bedroom needs to be shifted so that I can redecorate the room.

So like one of those puzzles that you have to slide tiles around in order to create the picture, pieces of furniture needs to be shifted around between permanent and temporary homes and back again.

The redecorating of our spare room is long overdue. When we first moved in we were so bored by the perpetual beige and brown of the previous residents' decor that we decided to go radical. So one evening, over a bottle or two of red wine, we devised our colour schemes. The spare room became a riot of purple and orange, and I’m sure that guests of ours over the years have been rudely jolted into their Sunday morning hangovers by the violent clash taking place on the walls surrounding their bed.

The joke, if ever it was one, is wearing a bit thin now, and once again we are beckoned towards the safe haven of “neutrals”.

I used to be a project manager and I know about things like critical paths, milestones, plans, objectives and costs. I also know about risk management and contingencies, resource planning and implementation. It gives me a huge degree of satisfaction to plot the sequence of tasks that must be undertaken to ensure that nothing blocks the critical path and that all risks are averted.

Of course, in my relatively modest project called Mission Declutter, the risk management amounts to taking down the curtains before I start painting, and the contingency planning hinges upon the number of coats of neutral paint I’m going to need to cover the dark vileness that currently adorns the walls.

But now the filing cabinet has been moved the only thing that blocks my progress is lugging the great bookcase down the stairs. I have done my resource planning – having cleverly worked out that I require hubby’s assistance for this task, and sensibly acknowledged that I’ll have to wait ‘til the weekend, ‘til after he’s played golf on Saturday morning, before that milestone can be reached.

And with that I’m off to take down the curtains.

Wake up - it's September!

2008-09-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Always at this time of year I feel a huge amount of motivation to start new projects, and turn over new leaves.

This year is no exception as I've embarked on MISSION DECLUTTER, to get the house organised and do a bit of decorating, so I can feel life running smoothly.

Whenever there's a lot of stuff lying around I find it increasingly difficult to move, and think. Stepping over stuff all the time is extremely distracting, and fighting the huge pile of books, files and papers strewn around my desk makes it literally impossible to see the wood for the trees.

My first task has been to clear out our old filing cabinet - a grotty old metal one from Office World - which has been groaning under the weight of expired insurance documents, financial information and old tax returns for far too long.

A couple of years ago, my brother, a gifted carpenter and furniture builder, created a brand new filing cabinet for us, which truly is a thing of beauty. Today it has finally been commissioned for its intended use, rather than being used as a docking station for one of hubby's computers.

As I was going through all the bumf out of the old cabinet I grew increasingly irritated by the amount of paper issued by financial institutions, often with only a single line of information on about this or that investment, more frequently with reams of information you couldn't pay me to read and inwardly digest. It became clear that, like us, thousands of good people of the world must avail themselves of "private banking", to spread their financial assets across a wide range of global funds, only to be rewarded with tons of poshly bound paper reports that tell them a) their investment has dropped in value and b) the bank will charge an admin fee of £120 for the privilege of sharing this information with its valued (?) customers. What a racket!

I also have absolutely no idea what the global investment funds represent. Are they ethical - or do they sponsor capitalist activity which is actually exploitative or detrimental to natural resources? This is a big deal for me. And I feel blinded by financial gobbledegook.

Anyhow, of course I'm not blaming the banks for putting this stuff in my decrepit filing cabinet in the first place - I guess hubby and I had a hand in doing that - but I am waking up to how easy it is to go along with someone else's investment policy or approach without really understanding or appreciating what's involved, or the impact of our actions. Posh banks with their fancy bindings appear to legitimise everything - but is our money that is inevitably trickling away actually being put to good use, or are we just lining the pockets of smarmy city boys?

Like the clutter in my house this is something I'm not happy about stepping over any longer!

Nits!

2008-09-02T00:50:00.000-07:00

The summer holidays are coming to an end; the kids are going stir crazy; they are desperate to get back to their friends; they are fidgety and whiney and quarrelsome.

And then in the midst of all the rationalising I'm doing about how they can't wait to get back to school I notice something slide out of my daughter's hair. She's in the bath and has requested a hair wash. She lies back in the water and I apply a good squirt of strawberry-scented shampoo. The creature slips down to the end of her hair as I comb it through - and I am mortified to realise that it is a louse!

I have learned a lot about the life-cycle of head lice over the past couple of weeks - the amount of time it has taken me to get rid of all traces of infestation in my daughter's hair. Heaven knows how long she has had the things, or where she got them from. She is not given to cooperating over having her hair brushed during the school holidays, much less having regular nit inpsections. The critters in her hair looked pretty established - and fat!! She's certainly been feeding them well.

In my search for lotions to eliminate the unwelcome guests I learned that the nits themselves are actually the tiny white eggs of the lice, that are laid in the shafts of hair close to the scalp, and "glued" on with a substance it is impossible to shift with a dry comb or brush. You need something oily, to loosen the nits' hold. At first I was determined to beat the creatures using natural products, and read on the internet about smearing the hair with mayonnaise, which kills the imposters, then combing out the remains.

Well I didn't go as far as mayonnaise. I bought a product called Wild Child from Boots, which claims to contain no nasty pesticides or chemicals that could not only damage the nits but my daughter too. I also bought a nit comb called the Nitty Gritty, which has been acclaimed by Richard and Judy (?) as being the most effective weapon against the invasion of nits. For 2 hours my daughter and I (by this time I was convinced I had things running around in my head too) sat with Wild Child plastered all over our heads and sealed in with a disposable shower cap. (I'm glad I wasn't expecting any deliveries that day.)

The nits hatch into nymphs, tiny brownish creatures with wavy legs, which can be seen congregating around the edges of the hair, over the ears and in the fringe, as well as deep in the scalp, so all areas must be gone through, literally, with a "fine tooth comb." (Is the English language truly indebted to nit-nurses for this phrase?)

The Nitty Gritty comb claims that no other lotions or chemicals are needed with it - just your regular conditioner to loosen the grip of the bugs. I have to say that this claim is very sound. After Wild Child I combed our hair through with the Nitty Gritty and managed to remove a large number of nymphs and grown up lice.

The trouble is if you don't get to all the critters at the same time the cycle repeats itself, the nymphs grow into lice then lay their nits again, so there followed many hours on consecutive days of raking through my daughter's hair, each time eliminating a good clutch of wildlife.

Nits have become my obsession. I now have the eye for them, I can spot them at a distance, and neither of my children can come anywhere near me now without me staring fixedly at their scalps and poking around in their hair.

Two weeks of itching is way too much for anyone, so in a final attempt to banish the parasites I lathered all our heads in a preparation called Full Marks - which claims to work in just 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes sitting with a sticky head, followed by another good 15 - 45 minutes' meticulous combing.

Who knows whether they're all gone? Much to my daughter's horror I have decided to instate "nit night" on a Monday just to keep the situation in check. And each day I shall be sending her to school reeking of Tea Tree, as this is apparently a good nit repellent.

All in all I have spent £35 on my nit arsenal. And I have to agree with Richard and Judy then the £10 Nitty Gritty comb is the best investment.

Marian Alder 1918 - 2008

2008-08-28T00:46:00.000-07:00

My Grandma was a gold medal-winning gymnast - not an Olympian, but nevertheless a champion of Marsh Gym in Leigh, Lancashire, and holder of the George Holden Cup. She worked in the cotton mills of the 1930s, and was whisked off her feet at the top of Blackpool Tower by Cyril Alder, my Grandad, who promised her the moon.

Marian was beautiful. She was an actress and a dancer in Leigh Amateur Dramatics. She married Cyril in 1941 and spent the next 40 years sharing his early mornings opening up the family bakery, delivering pies, pasties and barm cakes, as well as keeping house, making clothes, doing embroidery, and crocheting.

Her daughter Christine was born in October 1943, while Cyril was serving in Africa during the war. Grandad wrote home about the delicious fruit they were getting to eat, whilst worrying about what kind of rationing his wife and daughter were having to endure.

Cyril died in 1985 at the age of 65. Marian never fully recovered from her own grief, and continued to help friends and relatives of her husband as long as she could.

Marian gradually lost her own health and mobility through a series of aneurisms. Christine looked after her mother full time until 2002, when Marian became a resident of High Peak Nursing Home in Leigh.

Marian was buried on Thursday 28th August alongside her husband in Leigh Cemetery. Reunited at last, Cyril will finally be able to give her the moon.

"God Bless"

Metamorphosis

2008-08-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

Never has a summer holiday gone by so quickly as this one. Somehow we have managed to cram in such a lot of stuff that we haven't noticed the time whizz by - and though I should be looking forwards to the kids' return to school next week, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for them to go. Have they had a good enough break? Have they enjoyed themselves? Have they spent enough time with their friends playing out and chilling - or have we forced them into too much of an adult itinerary, packed with things we think our kids will enjoy, rather than allowing them to make their own arrangements, and even be bored for five mintues?

The first week was spent on the golf course at our club's Junior Week event, which hubby helps to organise. It was a fantastic week, with over 60 kids between the ages of 4 and 18 in attendance, and there were daily competitions and skills challenges to keep everyone involved and entertained. Both our children took part this year, so I went along to assist. My hubby had even managed to recruit his Mum to help as well - so we both had a fantastic week walking around with the youngsters and, literally, marking their cards.

During the second week I decided to take off with the kids for a couple of days camping while hubby stayed at home and got on with some work. It was the first time I'd ever put a tent up on my own - and much to my surprise it neither let in water nor blew away, despite the less than clement August weather conditions.

After that we have made our annual trips north to stay with parents and parents-in-law in Lancashire and Cumbria, and fitted in rounds of golf and trips out to Blue Planet Aquarium near Chester, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Longleat Safari Park and a performance of High School Musical at Oxford New Theatre.

Hubby and I also managed to grab a night away in Rydal in the Lake District, to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We climbed Great Rigg from Grasmere, walked along the ridge to Heron Pike and descended steeply back into Rydal over Nab Scar. We covered no more than 5 or 6 miles, but ascended 2500 feet, which explains why the back of my calves have been agony for a few days.

Sadly on the same day as our climb my Mum gave me the news that my Grandma passed away that morning. I felt extremely torn about whether to go ahead with our anniversary trip or not in the circumstances. In the end however I was glad I went, and I felt a real sense of purpose in getting to the top of Great Rigg fell, to place a stone on the cairn in memory of my Grandma, and shed a few tears.

We have got precisely seven days of the summer holiday remaining, into which we will cram a further wedding and a funeral. All life has happened during this short month of August. I'm not sure we're going to emerge from the end of it with quite as much renewal and feeling of being refreshed as we hoped. This summer has left me feeling more groggy wasp than beautiful butterfly.

Left-handers' Day

2008-08-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

The note in my diary reminds me that today, 13th August 2008 is, for some reason, Left Handers' Day. This is significant for me personally as I am left-handed, and I wondered what could be special about this day. Maybe a day when all right-handers should be made to live left-handed? Or a day when left-handers can wear a badge so they can easily recognise each other and say Hi?

As it turns out today is also the 13th of the month. Unlucky for some, or so the saying goes. For me I've never been particularly bothered by the number 13. It's our address, and I never cringe from Fridays which carry this date.

However, today has been a real stinker for me. Firstly I played the worst round of golf in about 5 years, lost a grand total of 5 balls, and scored an appalling 15 stableford points over 18 holes. Maybe, ironically for today, I would have done much better if I'd played right-handed.

Secondly, while hubby was looking after the kids earlier, our daughter pushed our son over and he cut his head open on the corner of the radiator in the hall-way. (This is a five year old girl we're talking about, and her brother is 10.) I came home to find bloody tissues littering the kitchen and our son sitting in front of his computer with a very blood-drenched plaster over his right eye-brow. (At least it wasn't the left one - that would've been spooky.)

Also on my return from the golf course my hubby told me there was a letter for me. As soon as I saw it I knew it wouldn't be good news. It was very thin, with only one sparsely written side of A4 folded efficiently and properly, informing me that I haven't been successful with my recent job application. I am gutted, to say the least. Back to the drawing board on this one.

I'm not used to having bad days. I'm usually quite a cheerful and optimistic soul. But today has been tough. I haven't had a day when I've felt the need to retreat for a long hot soak in the bath in the middle of the afternoon for a long while. But today has been one of those days.

I can't help wondering if the unpropitious nature of 13 is compounded by the sinister influence of left-handedness? I know that being left-handed has long been considered "undesirable". So why mark the occasion on the 13th of the month?

Who says kids aren't competitive?

2008-07-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of decades - or so it seems - a debate has been raging about whether or not it is right and proper to allow children to compete against each other, in races, football teams, highway code quizzes (does anyone else remember these?- I was never on the team but was totally in awe of my classmates who had swotted up on the highway code and could recite whole tracts of it), and all manner of other childhood pastimes, such that the outcome leads to winners and losers.

Minis' football in the UK very conscientiously refuses to admit to having a winning team in its events, which means that teams who become over-excited by the fact that they have scored 5 more goals than their opponent will soon have their joy and exuberance stamped out as every single member of both teams receive a medal for taking part.

In recent years my children's school has shown minimal interest in putting on Sports Day, claiming that it traditionally shows the highest rate of absences out of any other day in the school year. Hmmm - I wonder which came first, pupils' alleged non-interest in the event, or teachers' lack of enthusiasm for sport?

Last year my husband was most digruntled at having taken time off work to come and watch our son sit on his bottom for three-quarters of an hour, waiting for his turn to jump up and down three times on the spot. The poor man was so incensed that he even offered to organise a long distance race (well 3 circuits of the school field) for anyone in the school who wanted to take part. To his astonishment and fury, this offer was rejected on the grounds of health and safety.

Nevertheless, the format of this year's Sports Day was considerably different from the shambolic event of last year. I'm not sure if the words my hubby had with the head were anything to do with it at all.

This time every child was given the choice of which races they wished to take part in, and everybody got the chance to run a long distance race at the end - if they so chose. The atmosphere and level of engagement in the children was unrecognisable in comparison with last year. There was a real buzz on the playing field and children took as much pleasure in supporting their team mates as they did in winning.

For me this showed that children are completely capable of making the right choices for themselves, rather than being politically correctly herded and manipulated. Whenever this happens all the joy, spontaneity and good will is leeched away and children are left looking bored, feeling fidgety, and privately arranging with themselves to be off sick this time next year.

I have written beofre on the dangers of not allowing our children to experience what it is to win and lose. Ever since my daughter could speak there has been a constant jostling between the kids for the winning position. Such exchanges as "First one to clean their teeth is the winner - I win" and "Last one in bed smells of snakes" (?)have become part of the soundtrack of our family life.

So children are in my opinion naturally competitive - and - given the opportunity, naturally gracious in defeat (except perhaps in the case of siblings, or children who have been made to feel utterly unloved by touch-line parents who get completely stressed out at minis football matches). The more we give our children the opportunity to compete, the more they are learning, and the more their confidence and motivation builds.

Last week was a great winning week for our son. Not only did he win his golf competition on Sunday, he also won a Lego modelling competition at youth club, and a school Design Technology competition to build a hat out of newspaper. These are important land-marks in his development, and deserve to be celebrated, if only to remind him that competing is more than just taking part, it's all about winning (and losing) too.

Stop this muddled meddling!

2008-07-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

I was most put out by the news of Lillian Ladele, the Islington registrar who last week won an employment tribunal against Islington council, citing "bullying and harrassment" as she refused to officiate at same sex civil partnership ceremonies on religious grounds.

What next? A judge being exonerated for failing to convict a serial rapist because, according to his religion, rape is an acceptable way to treat women?

Civil partnerships for same sex couples are now legal in this country, therefore a civil registrar is duty-bound to officiate at such ceremonies, regardless of his or her own religious convictions.

To be fair, Ms Ladele's victory was more to do with allegedly having suffered harrassment, and with the carefully argued fact that the tribunal found her actions not to have in any way impeded the provision of services to the homosexual community of Islington.

Of course it is wrong for anyone to be discriminated against, whether for their sexual preferences or their religion, and I do not condone bullying if indeed that took place. But to sanction someone's exemption from official duty on the grounds of their religious prejudice, just because the council was able to find a satisfactory "work around" solution, strikes me as morally arbitrary and rather dangerous: "Prejudice is usually wrong, but prejudice on religious grounds is OK - especially when the perpetrator is not indispensable to our function."

This entanglement of religious opinion, legal sanction, human rights and civil duty is a symptom of the extremely confused reasoning that becomes inevitable when the political landscape has ill-defined boundaries between church and state.

In a secular state we would not allow our common sense to be hijacked. Our lifestyle choices, such as what religion we belong to, would not, in the eyes of the law, be allowed to influence our attitude towards the lawful needs and choices of others.

The alternative is a doomed future of increasing political correctness, endlessly tip-toeing around each other and spending inordinate amounts of time and money trying to accommmodate everyone's preferences.

Where our lifestyle choice is incompatible with the public function or service we have chosen to pursue, then we ought to take responsibility for ourselves and step down from our public role, rather than expect the public office to flex and shift to our particular demands.

Now where's that subscription form for the National Secular Society?

Born on the Fifth of July!

2008-07-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl in the early hours of Saturday morning, having spent most of the previous week in hospital waiting for labour to start. What a relief! And what a wonderful gift the new baby is.

I really spent the whole of last week on tenterhooks, jumping out of my skin every time the phone rang.

But she's here now, safe and sound - and I'm going to meet her later this week. It is so exciting to have a new baby in the family, a little cousin for our two, and for it not to be mine!! I'm looking forwards to lots of cuddles and fun, AND to not having my sleep disrupted! Excellent.

One thing I learned BIG TIME last week is how difficult I find "not knowing". Not only did I "not know" when the baby was coming, my head was also done in by "not knowing" about the job I've applied for. The pressure really started to build up, as the void of not knowing left me vulnerable to day-dreaming and being totally unproductive. I didn't even manage to play a full round of golf!

In turn this restlessness led me to lose connection with my hubby and the kids, and as usual this caused me to experience seering pain in my body, particularly in the form of mouth ulcers, and stiffness in my neck and across my shoulders. It's been one heck of a domino effect, but I'm pretty sure the main culprit is the phenomenon of not knowing, and not being OK with that.

Thankfully I had the good sense to stop wrestling with it on Thursday and chose instead to go round to my friend's house to celebrate her birthday with her. It was great to get together, to chat and laugh and let off steam with each other. It was a great way to open a safety valve. Meetings like that always make me feel so grateful for my friendships - and always slightly guilty that I don't see more of my friends.

Unsurprisingly then on the same day I found out that I HAVE got an interview for the new job. Knowing this somehow felt like some kind of reward for dealing with "not knowing" in a different way. Rather than fight it, I gave in to it, and went to spend a lovely day with my friend. I used the time far more productively, and as a result, received the outcome I was hoping for. Thankyou universe, or whatever you are. Maybe I should go off and read the Secret now?

Time to break some rules

2008-06-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

There has been an incredible transformation in our house since my last blog entry.

The TV has hardly been on after school - although our son is still wedded to his computer games- and my daughter and I have found other things to keep us busy. We've been to the park after tea, we've been swimming, cycling, entertaining friends for play dates, playing "Sorry", and one evening last week the kids went to the driving range with their Dad whilst I was working away.

The net result is that the kids are far more engaged, with us and with each other, and, especially in the case of my daughter, far more articulate and mature.

She's only five, but actually my daughter's at the age where as a mother I have to encourage her not to behave babyishly any more.

Prior to our conscious efforts to spend more time with her rather than relying on electronic media to entertain her, she was routinely behaving as if she was still 2, frequently reminding me that "I'm your baby, Mummy".

Kids frequently get a bum rap for "attention-seeking behaviour", as if they do this on purpose, with no other reason but just to make life hell for the adults around them. We can always choose how to respond to this. Either we can react impatiently, and perpetuate the mistaken thinking that kids are indeed out to get us, or we can get curious about why they are behaving in this way. Kids seek attention because they are missing something from us - either a feeling of comfort, or because they are ready to learn something new.

My daughter's babyishness I now recognise was both of these things. It's the only way she knows to demonstrate that she needs me. She wants me to respond to her in a particular way, to give her reassurance, and also to show her the way to grow up.

Little did she know that this behaviour was actually "turning me off", and causing me to back off from her and react impatiently, giving me cause to retreat ever deeper into my own world of distractions. I guess this is the viscious cycle that it is easy to fall into, such that parents develop a misconception about their children's behaviour and what it means. What I needed to do was wake up and get curious.

By paying attention to what our children's behaviour is really about we are instead able to respond in a way that is far more appropriate for both of us. In my daughter's case we both needed to learn something new about each other - I needed to learn that her babyish tendencies were actually a cry for attention, while she needed to learn that it's time to grow up, and I can show her the way.

Showing her the way has involved taking on new habits, and breaking a few rules.

For example, the rule that floats generally around young children, that they need to be in bed early, eight o'clock at the absolute latest, really needed to be broken in our house. This is because my daughter was neither tired enough nor secure enough to say goodnight to us so early, particularly in the light nights of June, and especially if all she'd done since she came home from school is watch TV, pick at her tea, get shouted at, watch more TV, then get impatiently packed off to bed.

It is truly shameful having to admit to all this, but really in my daughter's world this is what was happening. No wonder she didn't want to eat her meal at tea-time, nor go to sleep at bed-time.

Breaking the early bedtime rule has meant that we're more open to doing more activities after school and into the evening. School finishes at 3pm, there's still a good six hours left of the day, which are desperately difficult to fill if we've got an unbreakable set of rules in our mind about getting our kids to bed early.

Likewise, the rule that I'd made up about feeding my kids fresh home-cooked food every day has also had to be relaxed in the face of spending time having fun after school. Don't get me wrong, feeding our children properly is still high on my agenda, but not at the cost of leaving them in front of the telly while I concoct in the kitchen.

My daughter has been much happier on a diet of fish fingers, hot dogs, omelettes and "time with Mum" than she ever is sitting at the table in front of lentil bolognese or roast dinner. Sometimes we need to recognise that our kids need a different type of nourishment than just food.

Of course the other spin off benefit of all this is that when the kids do eventually go to bed they sleep much better, with fewer requests for yet more drinks of water, night lights, trips to the loo, or making sure that the dream -catcher is hanging straight, or that the house spider (which has become a pet) is safely in its corner.

Kids are past masters at making up all kinds of excuses to bring us closer to them, to help them feel secure and comfortable. The trick is to recognise what lies behind these tactics, and respond to what our children are really needing, in a way that works for everyone.

The postscript to this has got to be "be flexible". Because my husband and I both work from home this can be both easy and hard. Easy because we're our own boss and needn't work to strict "office" hours; hard because it's much more fun to be with the kids, so sometimes work doesn't get done when it should. As with everything there has to be balance, and an open mind about breaking rules, especially ones that we may have created for ourselves.

Another moment of Parental Inspiration

2008-06-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

Intellectually and theoretically I know it. I advise others about it often. I'm pretty much aware every time I fall foul of it myself - and berate myself endlessly about it. But actually doing something about it invariably proves extremely difficult.

What am I talking about? Quite simply, the blatant, unassailable fact that kids don't deal very well with distracted parents.

When parents become distracted and preoccupied, we lose patience with our kids, as our attention and focus are elsewhere. If things are anything like our house, as parents we become increasingly reliant upon siblings, computers and TVs to provide our children's entertainment, so that we can have some peace and quiet to devote to our current distractions.

Sooner rather than later the sibling rivalry kicks off in time-honoured fashion with squealing and squabbling, as it becomes increasingly apparent that our children cannot be in the same room as each other without World War Three breaking out. In reaction to the bickering we temporarily awaken from our preoccupations to shout at them and tell them to behave themselves, so that we can go back into our own extremely important parallel universe of distraction and preoccupation.

All in all the children end up feeling not a little abandoned and "got at", which in turn triggers a feeling of insecurity. This then triggers attention-seeking behaviour in them, which in turn pushes the parents to impose increasingly punitive measures, until we've nowhere left to go short of locking our children in their rooms and forgetting about them for a bit. We all know that feeling of utter exhausted helplessness when we've literally run out of sanctions and threats, and our kids are still driving us up the wall.

If you can relate to this in any way I recommend you take a moment to step back and assess how distractedly you are behaving towards your children, and how much you're trying to put them off in favour of "more pressing and important" things.

It all came to a head for me this weekend when my own feelings of guilt at putting off my own kids yet again finally imploded. I decided that a family conference was needed and that we all needed to pay more attention to each other instead of hiding ourselves in our separate rooms to indulge our separate distractions.

I told my son that he needed to spend less time on his computer as it was making him forget how to relate to people rather than machines (Oh physic - heal thyself!!) And I told my hubby that we both needed to make more of an effort to be with the kids when they come home from school so that we can start getting on better as a family.

Of my daughter I shared my observations that her listlessness and disinclination to eat properly at mealtimes is directly linked to how much time she was getting to share with us after school instead of being mesmerised by the Cartoon Network.

My request was that this week we try an experiment - that we all try to resist electronic media as much as possible so we get to do other activities together and we get to talk more.

In response to this our five-year-old daughter became extremely animated, and started making suggestions about all the things she's been dying for us all to do together if only we'd been less distracted - "We could play a game, or go to the park after tea, or go swimming after school, or we could all go to the playing field and you can play cricket while I ride round on my bike without stabilisers...."

It's heart-breaking really.

Meanwhile our ten-year-old son has already become a bit of a hardened cynic and he began his habitual snarling at each of his sister's suggestions (except maybe the one about cricket). For this he received a severe dressing down from his father, who also agreed to make more of an effort when the kids are home from school to do stuff instead of languishing in front of his PC.

So, as a result of our family conference we have enjoyed an extremely pleasant weekend. On Friday afternoon we went to watch some Twenty20 Cricket in Bristol; on Saturday afternoon we went to watch the kids play golf in their respective tournaments, then in the evening we played Sorry instead of putting the telly on; yesterday for Fathers' Day we did a bit of a cycle ride around Swindon, called at a pub with a playground for a couple of drinks, then came home for a barbecue.

The kids have been a lot calmer, brighter and happier, they have played together really nicely, and to top it all our daughter ate 3 lamb kebabs for tea last night, which is some kind of record on her recent eating form.

The only reason why changing our experience is ever difficult is because habits are easily formed but tricky to break. It's so easy to fall into lazy habits as a family and not take the time to share activities and be together. Playing board games, joining in their play and enjoying the long days to go out for a walk or bike ride after tea are little ways to reconnect with our kids and put our own distractions to one side. I've noticed that not only does it help our kids behave better, it also makes the distractions far less preoccupying and significant.

The more we're aware of our habits, the more chance we've got to change them.

Gadget phobia, self-actualisation and holiday memories

2008-06-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

I've finally sorted out my photos, and know now how to upload them onto my PC without having to limply get out of the way while hubby sorts it. I hate that!

He gave me my lovely new digital camera for my birthday, and I could tell by the way he hovered around me after it arrived, and while I was taking it out of the box, that he couldn't wait to get his hands on it and see how it worked. He was almost taking it out of my fingers when I told him to back off. I point blank refused to allow him to touch it before I'd figured out FOR MYSELF how to put the battery in, charge it up, use the zoom, understand the various settings, and actually take the pictures.

I just knew that if he picked it up before I had chance to do all these things then he would become the "new gadget expert" instead of me, and I would become dependent on him knowing how to work the thing. It would end up with me never using it myself because I wouldn't know what to do with it unless he explained it to me. And constantly having to have things explained to me is a serious drain on my personal pride, so something which I tend to avoid.

I know this sounds rather irrational - what would be the problem with me looking at the instructions myself? - but the point is I wanted to become the expert before him! If he became the expert first then, every time he saw me pick up the instruction manual to figure out what to do with the thing, he would be over in a shot telling me everything that he'd discovered about it.

Don't get me wrong, I know he has every good intention and only wants to be helpful, but my habitual reaction is "Oh well you deal with it then because you know more about it than me."

As I write it strikes me that this is a key way I "give away my power", to use a corny, new-agey, self-actualisation bit of jargon, and deny myself new learning, experiences and expertise. This is also the main reason why, despite being a complete music nut, I haven't caught up entirely with I-Pods and MP3s and the like, and why I have only just recently discovered how to send text messages on my phone - yes really.

Anyway, since I banned hubby from fiddling with my new camera, I've become a bit more savvy, and a whole lot less dependent. I have been sending text messages to my new friends in Manchester and Turkey and I've been uploading photos onto Facebook!

Even so, I'm still extremely grateful for all the sophisticated computer and network kit we've got at home - and for the fact that hubby, also affectionately known as "technical monkey", is the one who maintains it and makes it work. Because quite frankly it would have me tearing my hair out.

Without further adieu, here's some lovely pics from our recent holiday in Jard-sur Mer, western France:

The harbour at Jard sur Mer at sun-down

Swimmming pool at Camping Les Ecureuils where we stayed in a Eurocamp tent.

Playing on the beach

The beautiful and practically empty Plage de La Mine.

Our bike ride on my birthday. Our daughter was very pleased that she got to sit in the trailer because the rental place didn't have a bike small enough for her to ride safely!

Distractions, procrastinations and solutions

2008-06-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Ooh dear - the time between my blog posts is getting longer and longer. I'm not losing interest -honest!

The kids went back to school yesterday and I had a list as long as my arm of things I would get on with given a bit of peace and quiet. We had a great holiday in France (I'll blog about it soon when I've managed to figure out how to upload the photos off my camera into the correct place on the PC without hubby having to take over), but the kids were really starting to drive me mad by the end of the two week break. (Something else to share my pearls of wisdom about.)

A couple of things came up over the weekend that I needed to get out of the way early doors this week, not least updating my CV for a new coaching opportunity which sounds interesting - and which is probably the only role I've seen in a very long while which I actually feel appropriately and adequately skilled for.

So yesterday I spent the entire day updating my Curriculum Vitae - well not the ENTIRE day - I still found time to catch up with some old mates in Canada, Australia and Brighton on Facebook. How distracting is all that social networking malarky? I could spend the whole day either looking for people I know and inviting them to be "my friend", or tapping happy messages to all the other people who are already my friend, whether I "know" them or not!!

I do love it - though it does require a resolution of steel not to keep skipping back to check for messages! (Don't stop sending them lovely people - just know that I'm working hard to resist chatting to you all the day long.)

It's amazing what other things I can find to do before I get down to doing the stuff I've got to do. There's always another load of washing to put into the machine or hang out to dry, or a load of stuff to tidy up or put away. It's not that I'm avoiding doing stuff particularly - I like doing what I do - I just like feeling that I've got clear space behind me and in front of me before I start.

I also think I like putting off the moment where I no longer have a big list of stuff to do, having done it all. I like having the list! It's comforting and exciting ("just think of all the stuff I've got to look forwards to!"). I guess it also gives me some sort of purpose (I must be important because look at all these things I've got to do!) Usually I won't admit that my to do list also includes things like "do the ironing" and "buy washing up liquid", but even having those things on there gives me some kind of focus, and once they're done I just love the sense of achievement I get when I tick them off!! It occurs to me that this is a much more productive feeling to get addicted to than the feeling of always having something to look forwards to.

OK so now I'm revealing my saddest secrets. I procrastinate because I'm afraid of running out of things to do. As if! Or looking at it another way, I'm buying creative thinking time so I can make sure I develop the best ideas possible. This also needs to be treated with caution as I have the tendency to loop off into different dimensions of the universe which are completely irrelevant to the here and now.

For example yesterday my hubby read a draft of the covering letter I was going to send with my CV. I hadn't been mulling it for that long, but I was looking forwards to writing it and I knew already that there was STUFF I WANTED TO SAY. So away I typed and then I said to hubby "Come and read this."

It was about 200 words long and contained precisely 2 sentences. Imagine! The longest, most jargon-filled sentence with the least amount of punctuation that you can get away with. I could feel my husband about to pass out through lack of oxygen intake even as he read it silently to himself in his own head. His sense of utter confusion at what I'd written was palpable and I knew that his verdict wouldn't be glowing.

Thankfully he responded by giving me just three simple questions: "What are you applying for, why are you suitable, where can they contact you." Some people are just born to cut through the crap.

Birthday Madness!

2008-05-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

Every family has a time of year when everybody's birthday seems to happen. For us it's the period at the end of May and beginning of June. This always used to be a bit of a bummer for me with my own birthday on 1st June because every year it collided with the start of school exams, 'O' levels, 'A' levels and then university tripos exams and finals.

The day of my 18th was the day before my 'A' levels started, but I abandoned all my revision on that day to be whisked off to Alton Towers to enjoy all the rides practically to myself. There was something deliciously naughty about it, and typical of how intense my birthdays have been over the years, sometimes going on for days, despite the awkward timing.

I can see my daughter developing a similarly excitable attitude towards her birthday. Like mother, like daughter. She turned five on 23rd May, which was also her last day of term at school and the day of her party at our house. The countdown to it was almost unbearable for her. "How many sleeps til I'm five?" has been her repeated mantra since at the least the beginning of April, so it has been a constant challenge to my mental arithmetic capability, which isn't good at the best of times.

We have always held our children's parties at our house, doing the usual party tea and games, eschewing the popular trend for hiring out village halls and children's entertainers. Pass the parcel, musical statues, musical bumps and "duck, duck, goose" were my daughter's games of choice this year.

During the party preparations I almost decided against wrapping the pass the parcel prize in the same number of wrappings plus one as there were children coming to the party. I almost decided against putting a lollipop inside each layer, a practise supposed to make passing the parcel as democratic and fair and politically correct as possible. But I didn't decide against these things - bowing instead to the weight of contemporary expectation that every child should win something just for taking part. So I dutifully put seventeen wrappers, including sixteen mini chupa-chups, around the prize.

What a load of rubbish! First of all, as usual, three or four kids didn't want to play in the first place - depsite (or maybe precisley because of) the predictable promise of a sweetie each time a layer came off. Then came growing disillusion and boredom with every rotation of the parcel around the increasingly restless circle of remaining children.

Where's this aversion to allowing kids the anticipation of winning by chance come from? Why are we so scared that kids might not be able to handle losing? It's clear that the possibility of losing is part of the game, and makes the idea of actually winning all the more exciting. If everyone wins a small prize anyway just for taking part then the kids start settling for less and disengage from the possibility of winning the bigger prize. Is there a more precise demonstration of how to encourage people to tolerate mediocrity?

The kids get bored and drift off, having quickly sussed, and quite rightly dismissed, the patronising strategy which we adults have come up with only because we're terrified of having to deal with a losing child's tantrums. In fact, kids who lose under normal circumstances don't have a tantrum, they just shrug and get on with something else, quite accepting of the fact that losing occasionally is as much part of the game as winning.

So next time you're wrapping a pass the parcel prize, resist the temptation to include consolation prizes and then tie yourself in knots trying to keep track of which child's already unwrapped and who hasn't unwrapped yet. Put on only a few layers of wrapping, avert your eyes from the group completely and press the pause button totally at random. Kids are not stupid, they are really quite resilient,they really can handle it, and it won't drive you quite so mad.

Tingles

2008-05-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

There are certain places that I have visited over the past ten to fifteen years which have truly stopped me in my tracks and given me a particular, peculiar 'feeling'. It's dfficult to know how to put this feeling into words, but the overall sense I get is one of connection to other people over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. It's as if I'm looking at things through their eyes, and I certainly feel as if I'm treading in their footsteps.

The specific places I'm talking about which give me these kinds of tingles are both local to me here in Swindon and further afield. Of the local sites, I'm talking about Avebury stone circle, Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow, Waylands Smithy and White Horse Hill at Uffington, indeed anywhere along the Ridgeway and in amongst the North Wilts downs.

Further afield I love to walk in the sunken paths, the ancient holloways of Dorset and Somerset, feeling like I'm continuing an ancient tradition of migration. Robert Macfarlane writes very compellingly about these paths in his beautiful book "The Wild Places":

"These holloways are humbling, for they are landmarks that speak of habit rather than suddenness. Trodden by innumerable feet, cut by innumerable wheels, they are the records of journeys to market, to worship, to sea. Like creases in the hand, or the wear on the stone sill of a doorstep or stair, they are the consequence of tradition, of repeated action. Like old trees - the details of whose spiralling and kinked branches indicate the wind history of a region, and whose growth rings record each year's richness or poverty of sun - they archive the past customs of a place."

It is indeed the connection to others' habits and daily lives that gives me tingles in these places. All the hill forts, paths and monuments to ancient times either look out over, weave through or hide among landscapes that I can truly imagine others feeling every day fortunate to be part of.

When I first came to Swindon I was reading Thomas Hardy, and I felt thrilled to be walking the same Wessex routes as many of his characters. This landscape somehow captured my imagination and made me feel safe and connected to many other souls who settled here.

What is the magic that I catch in these places?

I'm not one necessarily for UFOs and Orbs and Crop Circles, although I'm open-minded about most things, but I can understand how others are driven, through their own tingles, to imagine evermore fantastical "powers" and unexplained apparitions. There's lots of video footage on Youtube purporting to reveal the appearance of orbs on the landscape, though George Wingfield, a Wessex Sacred Sites expert I was recently talking to, assured me that all these, along with the majority of crop circles, are of course the product of marvellous fakery.

Personally I believe the magic I'm catching is one of human consciousness and industry. All that has been written about these places, and all that has been constructed in these places, the remnants of which can still be traced, conveys a timeless sense of imagination, creativity, resourcefulness, response to beauty and deisre to work in harmony with the land, which is common to all humanity, as much then as now.

I wonder if the tingles I feel are at all similar to how Tim Smit felt when he first set foot, machete in hand, into the brambly overgrowth that was to become the Lost Gardens of Heligan. I went to listen to Tim on Wednesday evening as part of the Swindon Festival of Literature, and I was reminded of the remarkable effect Heligan had upon me when I first visited it 5 years ago.

It was a visit that changed my life and my outlook completely. I became fascinated by sustainability, local food production, kitchen gardens and the society they supported. On my return home I registered with an organic box scheme from a local walled garden, and stopped buying vegetables in the supermarket. As a consumer I voted with my feet, and am pleased to say that along with similar actions from other consumers the supermarkets are gradually changing their stock to be more organic, and more locally produced. But that is another story.

I was of course doing more than voting with my feet. I was also voting with my heart and my imagination, because the Lost Gardens of Heligan had given me the usual tingles. I saw so much evidence of Victorian and Edwardian ingenuity that had all been lovingly restored, the reminders of civilised and sustainable community and society before the barbarity of the First World War, and I wanted to reconnect with that ethos and that time and those resourceful human souls in a tangible way in my own life and habits. I wanted to find a way of translating those tingles, and carrying them away with me.

Like in so much of the rest of Britain, life was never the same again at Heligan after the war. The gardeners were wiped out, leaving their tools and pots and overalls to languish behind them. I guess the sadness of the Heligan story, and the triumphant regeneration of the place by hopeful and optimistic individuals, only adds to the tingles, and confirms for me that what I feel in certain places is indeed a pride and excitement about the imagination, the creativity and the resourcefulness of our forebears' consciousness.

So I'm grateful for these tingles. They remind me of my place in the human chain, and they inspire me to live my life with greater imagination and gratitude. They occur whenever I come across evidence of human relationships with the landscape, and with each other, and sometimes bring tears to my eyes.

Family history - what's the point?

2008-05-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've just been to a question and answer session with family historian Mary Turner. I was interested to hear what an experienced researcher might have to say on the subject - what she may have learned about the human condition, whether she has observed any patterns bearing out nature or nurture, and whether she might claim any other surprising benefit to doing family history research, other than just the fact that it is fun and absorbing.

Unfortunately, if you weren't already a keen family history detective, then listening to today's session was unlikely, in my opinion, to make you hungry to get started.

Since the TV programme "Who do you think you are" interest in researching our ancestors has undoubtedly increased dramatically, with web-sites such as Ancestry.com and GenesReunited making a pretty penny out of people's curiosity, and insatiable appetite to "know".

However, apart from advice about where to look, how to interrogate records and how to embark on the detective work required to populate a family tree, then bring it to life with its history, the whole topic inspires little to talk about other than the usual platitudes about it being fun and interesting, and then endless anecdotes about everyone's various skeletons in the cupboards.

Even the therapeutic avenue didn't hold much promise, as frequently people finding out about their ancestors unearth things which run counter to their expectations to such a degree as to leave them unhinged. Just look at what happened to John Hurt. He was devastated to discover that all through his life he thought he was rom Irish stock, only to discover that he was actually from a Scots line! Imagine!

One member of the audience today did volunteer some information about using ancestral death certficates to trace congenital illnesses that those in the current generation might then use some sort of spiritual jiggery-pokery to heal and expunge from the genetic line. Though this in itself elicited a rather chilly reaction from the rest of the audience.

So, why bother with it? Does it matter that my great great great grandfather was a blacksmith, or that the man my Dad thought was his father wasn't? It's hardly going to change my life to know these things, and in some way it might even be upsetting. So why do it?

Before I go on, I should like to mention that I am interested in researching my own family history, especially the line of my paternal grandfather. His family were the Joyces hailing originally from western Ireland. For me personally the whole notion of having Joyces amongst my ancestry is too delicious and romantic to ignore, especially since what I know of them paints a colourful and enigmatic picture, and since the descendants of that clan remain warm and eccentric characters. This gives me a certain amount of pride in our association, and a desire either to know, or at least imagine, more.

But why would this personal fascination be of interest to anyone else? Maybe if I discovered an ancestor whose story was particularly heroic or tragic or impactful in some other way, then I would be justified in sharing their story with others.

Mary Turner suggests that it is very dry to look just at records, names and dates without finding out a bit of the contemporary history of the society our ancestors were part of. Ms Turner is, in her own words, a "professionally trained historian" so knowing about the historical reality is of course her main priority.

My personal view is the opposite - that history itself is exceedingly dry unless we look at it through the eyes of the characters who lived at the time. Indeed it becomes even more fascinating if we happen to share the genetic code of the individuals in question. In a similar way to how literature helps us to relate to history through human eyes, getting to know who our ancestors were makes history much more accessible to us, and helps us feel much more connected to events of the past.

Mary Turner used the example of Jeremy Paxman bursting into tears as he discovered the truth about his own Scottish ancestors. This of course made sensational TV, and also points to the power of bringing together personal, familial experience and historical understanding for a greater sense of connection and empathy. Maybe the teaching of history in school can be transformed, and the social and emotional education of young people enhanced, if students were to start with the history of their own families first.

Finding out about our ancestors also gives us the opportunity to put ourselves in the context of history, and strips away the human tendency to believe that the universe revolves around us alone. It echoes the importance that primitive cultures place on the spirit of their ancestors, whose stories are used to guide people in the present, and to give them a sense of place and belonging in relation to the past.

All in all I am persuaded that knowing where we come from is a basic and commonplace human fascination, because it underlies so much of our sense of personal identity.

Finally, you never know when knowing a bit about your family history might come in handy. Eleven years ago my husband was asked to be best man at an Anglo-Turkish/ Armenian wedding in Australia. We don't have any current Turkish Armenian connections, so the request was in itself rather unlikely. However, imagine the uproar during the best man's speech when hubby was able to declare, on the strength of his mother's family history research, that he is one-sixteenth Armenian himself. Even for a big man it didn't take long for him to disappear amongst a writhing mass of fellow male bonding, and he was made to dance all night long to music from the old country. Perhaps in hindsight it might have been a piece of information he could have chosen not to disclose, but it did make the party go with a swing!

"Most personal tragedies can be averted by better use of the imagination"

2008-05-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a lecture by Laurie Maguire, English Literature professor at Oxford University, who has written a book entitled "Where there's a Will there's a way". She was in Swindon for the annual Literature Festival, (which is becoming quite a thing in these parts) and she was talking about her book which examines how Shakespeare's plays represent the ultimate in self-help.

Laurie isn't implying in her book that people who read Shakespeare need self-help, nor is her book a Shakespeare study guide. Instead she analyses what we can learn about life from reading Shakespeare.

To me this isn't at all a new idea. As a student of English and foreign literature for most of my life I have been able to defend the seemingly passive and self-absorbed activity of reading as a neat way of acquiring wisdom, of learning about life and the human condition. There is nothing more relevant to life than learning how others, be they fictional characters or not, deal with certain situations. And this is largely the message that Laurie Maguire opened her talk with this lunchtime.

The quote in the title of this blog entry, or at least a version of it, does apparently feature as a key idea in her book, which I've yet to read, and I found it utterly striking. I'm fascinated by the reasons why people read, why they go to the theatre, why they become captivated by the telling of a good story, and of course why they write. It appears that as human beings our imaginations are constantly hungry for input and expression, for a way of reframing a familiar experience, or of giving us an inkling about something we may never personally know. Shakespeare knew this intuitively, and his art bears testament to how highly he valued human imagination.

But there is another reason why I found the idea about how we can use our imagination to avert personal tragedy so touching today. As a writer I tend to deal with my own difficulties and emotional challenges through the written word. I've done this ever since I can remember, always having a diary to scribble in, or, in more recent years, a luscious leather-bound journal, or even a blog!

For many years writing has been self-help for me. The product of my scribblings doesn't stand up to much scrutiny as a rule, and I can rarely bring myself to re-read any of my previous rants, which more often that not are much too whiney and self-piteous to stomach, but nevertheless the act of writing it all down in the first place really did serve a purpose.

These days I'm getting a bit more sophisticated in my use of writing as therapy. And I guess this is again where I concur so powerfully with Laurie Maguire's reading of Shakespeare's imaginative conviction. I am acutely aware of how my imaginative abilities have developed over the past year or so, and I've finally granted myself that crucial permission to allow my imagination to run free.

I've got out of the constraining habit of thought that everything has got to be factually accurate and perfect before I can write about it. I've allowed myself to write things anyway without having a purpose to them - I mean without being hide-bound by target markets, deadlines and article proposals. I've made stuff up, and made it look like it's real. I've told stories, and attributed them to imaginary individuals. It's been OK, I've got published, and I've made progress.

Then just over the past couple of days another bombshell hit me. Another way of using my imagination better. And who knows I may have averted a personal tragedy as a result.

Since I got back from Turkey something has really been bugging me, and it's been exceedingly difficult to concentrate on the here and now, and to be present and patient with my kids. I came back to post-holiday earth with a real bump, and I've been struggling to reintegrate myself with my normal routine.

As usual I began to write down my thoughts, and just allowed my pen to move across the page and spell out whatever came into my mind. As usual this activity began to bring some relief to my emotional state, and then, as sometimes happens during this process I had a real "light-bulb" moment, a sudden insight into what it was that had been bugging me. And I felt tons better from that.

But then things got even better. My imagination started to kick in, and I started to make up a story founded in my emotional mess. I found it was really easy to transfer all my stuff onto a totally made-up character, and allow her then to take up the reins for where it all might lead. Doing this also strenghtened the permission I gave myself to explore more deeply some stuff that was previously making me feel really uncomfortable. I could pretend, through the medium of my own imagination, that the things I'd been experiencing weren't actually mine, and this made them much more accessible and acceptable to me.

How neat to get some kind of perspective in this way, to use our imaginations to create other characters who can carry our baggage for us, while we get on with the practicalities of our own lives in the real world.

This may all sound like self-denial, which therapists, psychologists and coaches tend to agree is not such a good thing. I like to think of it instead as a way of letting go, and of freeing myself from the grip of unhelpful thoughts so that I can make better use of my creativity and wisdom. I might also get a story out of it too, another product in my portfolio. And my family get me back from la-la land in one piece. So, thanks to my imagination, the situation so far is WIN WIN WIN.

Holiday Mad

2008-05-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

No sooner have my feet touched the ground from Turkey, than my hubby has flown off with his fellow golfers, including my Dad, to Belek, just a little bit further east along the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Meanwhile the kids' heads are spinning - as one parent flies in another flies out. It's a bit like March of the Penguins at the moment. Although Penguins don't fly of course.

Not only that, but when hubby gets back it'll only be another week and a bit before we all head off together to France for a week Eurocamping. When will I learn that going on holiday is not just about the actual week that you're away, it's also the week before to get ready, then the week after to recover and get back to reality? The month of May is looking like a write-off with regards to doing anything other than opening and closing suitcases.

However, nothing could be further from the truth! May is still so much more than an open and shut case. (Groan - sorry.) There's still loads happening in May. My Dad's 65th birthday, our daughter's fifth birthday party, my sister-in-law's birthday, two bank holidays, AND, last but by no means least, all the excitement of the Swindon Literature Festival, which started on May 5th, and which promises an interesting schedule for the week ahead. Add to this my fourth golf medal competition, plus my first singles knockout match, and I've no idea how on earth I'm going to fit everything in. At this rate I'm not surprised we used to have May Week in June at college - there simply weren't enough days in May to accommodate all the events.

I shall be posting my thoughts about the things I hear over the next week at the Lit Fest. I've marked my diary with all sorts of things from self-help in Shakespeare to druidry and mathematical philosophy. A glutton for punishment I am. Sometimes I think I should have gone to university at my present time of life, rather than at 19. Maybe I would have taken it all a lot more seriously, instead of spending the majority of my time looking for a husband, or, at the very least, "possible snogs".

One thing's for sure - we've certainly managed to keep up the holiday habit from our university days. It was the same there - no sooner had we unpacked all our cool posters and finally discovered the most satisfying configuration for them around the room, in a way that would look most impressive to the discerning eye of whomever we might invite round for coffee and "possible snogs", than it was time to pull them all down again, taking care not to leave scrappy pieces of Blu-tac all over the place.

So I concede this penchant for holiday madness, and cramming as much as possible into a single month - even shamelessly stealing an entire week from the following month because there aren't enough weeks available in the given month to do everything required - is a product of my rather privileged education. How on earth we're meant to achieve anything with said education is quite another question - and one that would surely drive me mad, if I had time to think about it.

Still in Dreamland

2008-05-09T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well it's quite a while since I wrote as I've been on holiday to Turkey. And on my return the house was immaculately tidy, and all the washing and ironing had been done. Even the garden was tidy, with the grass mown and some of the more rampant shrubs given a much-needed trim. So I'm indebted to hubby and Granny Steph, who was down for the week to help out with the kids and give lots of moral support while I was sunning myself on Turkish sands.

I have to say I've been back for 4 days now and I'm still waiting to wake up from the Dalyan dream. I asked one of my friends last night when exactly I might expect Dalyan fever to wear off, so I can actually get on with my life.

Dalyan is a place I'd never heard of before last spring, when my Mum went out there with some friends who have been Dalyan veterans of some years' standing. Last year I wasn't able to tag along, but when they invited me this year I immediately said yes. I was curious to know a bit more about Turkey, to find out what all the fuss is about about Dalyan, and to spend some time just with my Mum - something that we have rarely done.

Of course since I've returned I've discovered that Dalyan has quite a posse of loyal visitors, who go back year after year, and who rave about it so much that there are numerous internet forums dedicated to lauding the place. I guess I too have been completely captivated by it.

Apart from its natural beauty, and the fact that it is amongst the top ten wildlife conservation sites in the world since it's a significant breeding ground for the loggerhead turtles of the Mediterranean, I think the thing that is so special about Dalyan is that it is a small resort still centred mainly around family run businesses: hotels, apartment complexes, restaurants and bars are all owned and run by local people, who rely mostly on word-of-mouth recommendation to keep going. And of course because they take such pride in their town and in their work the recommendations pile in, though canny tourists probably like to keep much of the secret to themselves!

We were lucky enough to be staying in the Ozalp Aparthotel with our gorgeous hosts Ozzy, Acelya, Celal and Afe. Ozzy took us on excursions to the Hamam (Turkish Baths), the beach at the mouth of the Dalyan river delta, the mud baths at the lake, and a boat trip to Bacardi Beach with swimming, snorkelling, sun-bathing and barbecue. The weather was beautiful, the sea pleasantly cool, the scenery stunning and the company delightful.

When the sun hid behind a cloud on our second day I went with Mum and one of our friends across the river to the ancient site of Kaunos, where there are Roman and Byzantine remains. An amphitheatre, Roman baths, numerous temples and an early Byzantine church are now mainly populated by tortoises, goats, and honey bees, though one Dutch guy told us he had also seen a snake as wide as his thigh up there too. Hmm. I'm glad I didn't know about that when I had to duck into the bushes for a quick wee!

Our evenings were spent in numerous local restaurants and bars; the ones most worthy of mention being Denizati for its delicious calamari and the Jazz Bar for stonking G & Ts, mellow music and its kind, attentive and welcoming host Bekir - you gorgeous man!

The Turkish language is a good challenge. I always like to try and pick up a few words, even if it's just to say hello and thankyou. I didn't do too bad, although for the first few days I was saying the equivalent in Turkish of Thak-nyou instead of thankyou. People were giving me strange looks until someone finally put me right on about the third night!

(My hubby has since pointed out that Turkish for Thankyou sounds a bit like "Takeshi's Red Herring". Check it out!)

All in all this holiday was one of my best ever. It was a treat to be able to read, laze, swim, walk, stroll and get up whenever I wanted in the mornings! I'll be back next year to visit all my new friends once again, and do all the things I didn't get round to this time!

Wasp season

2008-04-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I've had to fight my way across piles of books and correspondance to reach my keyboard. It's been a funny old week. I haven't been doing much writing, hence the way the detritus of my life has begun to crowd in around my desk, like ivy wrapping itself around everything and blocking all access.

The kids were back at school this week, so the familiar routine of making packed lunches in the morning and then cycling to and from school morning and afternoon recommenced. My least favourite time of the day is between 3pm and 6pm, the time when the children are home from school and when I'm typically preoccupied with making our dinner. It's such a restless time. My son usually disappears onto his computer as soon as any homework or spellings are out of the way, and leaves me wishing that he never had a computer, and why can't he go out and play like all the other kids I see on the field behind our house...? Then I remember that he hates football, which dominates the games of the playing field kids, and anyway he prefers his own company when he gets in from school.

Meanwhile my daughter will hang around my legs as I'm chopping veggies and keep asking me if I'll go and play with her. I invariably feel a stab of irritation each time she asks, as I curse myself for not having done all the food prep sooner, before they were back from school, so I could spend some time with them when they come home.

So it's a time of day when I feel most guilty, most out of balance, most irritable, and most likely to sting.

Speaking of which I've noticed the queen wasps are back hunting out a suitable location for their nest. We've had four enormous wasps in the house over the last week, and have dealt with them with varying degrees of cruelty - from nastily spraying them with wasp killer, throwing plastic fruit at them, and squashing them, to more humanely letting them fly away through the window, or capturing them in a upturned cup and releasing them into the garden. I really don't like killing creatures as a rule, not even wasps, I think they've got as much right to life as me to be honest, but as my daughter reminded me "wasps are horrid", and I'd certainly prefer one dead wasp to a whole colony of them burrowing and scratching around inside our woodwork.

This week my son invented the sport of throwing plastic fruit at the wasp which was buzzing around in the lantern light window above our dining room. It's quite high up, so the only way to dislodge anything from it from below is to aim a carefully chosen missile at it, one that won't smash the glass on impact. Plastic food is perfect for this job, and when I asked my son why he was throwing plastic fruit at the wasp he replied that he couldn't find the plastic chicken, which is what we usually use to dissuade magpies from pecking the bugs out of the outside of the wooden window frame.

Another thing that has caused me to be irritable and more likely to sting this week is the fact that I'm off on holiday tomorrow to Turkey, without hubby and the kids. This will be the first time I've been on holiday without him since we were married. For some reason this has become a really big deal in my head, and I've been worrying about how we'll all cope. Actually I know we'll all cope very well, but the thing that has become a really big deal for me is what will the house be like when I get back? What will be all the things I'll have to do when I get home? Will anyone think that I won't want to find a pile of dirty washing that urgently needs doing as soon as I walk in? Or that I won't appreciate bringing my suitcase through the door and tripping over a My little pony tea party in the hallway? All week I've had the nagging thought - "will anyone think..."

So I'm off to pack now, and to relax into the thought that of course they'll think. They might not act, but they will think. And all will be well.

Bit of a soap-box moment....

2008-04-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

I have recently been introduced to an excellent web-site called www.ted.com. It comprises a selection of talks by speakers of all disciplines, on all topics, and its strap line is "ideas worth spreading". I am a new visitor to TED - my attention was drawn to it through the newsletter of a fellow coach named Mary Rosendale, and then just the other day my friends Jane and Gary Spinks told me about a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson. (Thanks guys!xx)

If you are interested in children, in education, in creativity, or if you've simply got 20 minutes to spare to listen to something entertaining, then do take the time to check out the video! I tried to include a link to it in my blog but technology got in the way. Blogger wouldn't let me do it, so I have to trust that you will go and find it for yourself then come back here and read what other things I've got to say on my soapbox, and hopefully leave some comments, which I might even publish. So go to the TED web-site, search on Sir Ken Robinson, then sit back and relax for 20 minutes, and come back later!

Meanwhile, by way of an interval, here's a nice photo of some barbies on the beach:

WELCOME BACK! What did you think?

Sir Ken talks a little bit about learning disorders and ADHD. What he says strikes some as rather controversial, however I do agree with him that prescribing medication to children who are simply different, who have different needs, and who do not conform to the narrow strictures of a modern classroom, is tragically misguided, insensitive and unimaginative. These young people are far more likely to be the creative, innovative geniuses of the future than many of the "conformers", and yet we typically do not know how to deal with them.

I once saw a TV programme about ADHD and in it the mother of a young lad who was awaiting diagnosis actually said that she found her son's behaviour so difficult that she didn't know how to love him.

For me, this is precisely where the problem lies: it is our (innocent) ignorance and (innocent) lack of imagination, compassion and wisdom which causes us to get impatient with the behaviour of others. We withdraw from what we don't understand or feel comfortable with. When the object from which we are withdrawing is another human being, in fact a lonely, confused and highly sensitive CHILD, we cannot begin to know the impact of our action on that individual. When the person doing the withdrawing is the child's own mother, then the impact is magnified a thousand fold.

Actually the woman being interviewed was extremely brave to admit her feelings about her son. She didn't WANT to withdraw from him - she just didn't know what else to do. She was doing the best she could do, and she was becoming exhausted and desperate.

It IS exhausting always to be looking for something different from what we're faced with. It is exhausting always to be thinking, "I didn't want things to be this way, I wish they could be another way."

Why not just stop, take another look at what we do have, what's in front of us RIGHT NOW, what the beautiful best of it is, and work with that? It does require us to be extremely tuned in to what's going on with those around us, we need to be connected, we need to be open, we need to drop our expectations and our judgements about how things ought to be, and we need to listen and respond.

Four years ago I had a great teacher named Dr Roger Mills. I learned many things from him, and one of those things was that bad behaviour comes from insecurity. If you want a child to behave badly, withdraw from them. Show them no interest, no love. This sounds very harsh, and of course it is something that every single one of us as parents would say that we couldn't possibly do. In our own way we all believe wholeheartedly that we love our children and that we show them we love them. The trouble is, it is love by our own definition.

Instead of loving our children to the standards by which we were loved, by the confines of our own conditioning, we need to pay special and careful attention to how our children want us to love them. For my son, he wants me to speak to him honestly, without sarcasm, and to trust him. My daughter needs more interaction, she likes to play imaginative games, and she likes me to join in.

How we love our children, how they like to feel our love, is not dissimilar from how we educate our children. As they have different sensitivities so they have different intelligences.

What faces us now is how to use more of our own wisdom and creativity in designing education that will prepare our children best for the uncertainties of the future.

One thing I'm sure of is that this will be much easier if we stop trying to control and becalm everything and everyone that threatens to rock the boat. Withdrawal, exclusion and medication are cruel, inhumane and entirely unsustainable foundations for human civilisation, and yet these seem to characterise the experience of too many children.

Love, compassion, flexibility, openness and an ability to empathise and connect with others are the only ways to safeguard our children's future. Once we've got these things right, education, creativity and how to accommodate "non-conformers" will take care of themselves.

The Wisdom of Children

2008-04-20T01:34:00.000-07:00

Many people know that this is a particular fave topic of mine. I could write a book about it - oh yes - I have written a book about it, though this is something which I keep forgetting about because I'm too scared to do anything with it - but that's a whole different story.

Anyway, I've been reminded of this whole wisdom thing a couple of times over the past few days.

I took my ten-year-old son to see the drama production of Philip Pulman's "His Dark Materials" on Friday at the Theatre Royal in Bath. It was presented by Bath Young People's Theatre, and it was stunning. The oldest member of the cast was 19, and the youngest 10. We sat in the theatre for over 5 hours absolutely gripped by the performance, although I have to say that I'm glad my son and I were familiar with the story and the characters before we went along. I'm sure that without having read the trilogy beforehand it would have been quite tricky to figure out exactly what was going on.

Lyra Belacqua is the principal character in the story. She's a 12 year old girl brought up in the belief that she is an orphan, though the truth is much more intriguing. She is deemed to be a child of destiny, and she has many adventures on the way to fulfilling that destiny. With the help of the alethiometer, the Golden Compass of the film version, she is able to detect the truth about any situation. As a child she is able to read the alethiometer - it takes a particular state of mind, which eludes us as we grow from children to adults, and we lose our innocence.

One of the other things we tend to do when we reach adulthood is forget how wise and capable we were as children, and, in forgetting, we then develop the tendency to underestimate those who are children around us. My kids never cease to amaze me with the things they say and do, and I hope that I never lose the ability to be pulled up by them, and be reminded again of their wisdom.

What on earth am I talking about? Well, here's an example. The other day we were sitting around the dinner table and debating what we would do with the remaining days of the school holiday. We'd done golf, we'd done cycling, though to be honest hubby and I were hoping we might get to repeat at least one of these activites. Our daughter was keen on the idea of cycling, but our son would not be drawn on anything. He actually said he couldn't think of anything he'd like to do. (I wonder if this is his policy - to deliberately not volunteer any ideas in the hope that he'll be able to stay at home and play on his computer?)

After we'd made it clear that a day staying at home and playing computer games was not on the cards, our four-year-old daughter suggested that she brought her bike to the golf course and cycled round while we played golf. Hubby and I stopped in our tracks. What an ingenious solution! On the face of it, it catered simultaneously for everyone's preference who had expressed one, and cycling round the course couldn't be that different from driving a buggy or pushing a trolley round, could it?

We were amazed at how she had created a solution that would accommodate everyone at the same time - and still manage to make it so that we would be spending time together. She was able to do this because of her innocence - it didn't cross her mind, as it did ours, that other members of the golf course might not take too kindly to a child using the fairways as a cycle path. She was also able to do it because one of her main gifts is making sure that everyone's happy, and that everyone gets to join in.

In Pulman's book Lyra'a gift is story-telling, which gets her out of many scrapes. In real life all our kids have their own particular gift and motivation, just like we did. It's fun to listen out for their gifts - and to try and reconnect with our own.

"On continue sur le sujet de Paris..."

2008-04-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

It's really easy to get to Disneyland from Gare de Lyon. It's about 30 minutes away at Marne la Vallee. And the station out there is right next to the Disneyland ticket booths and the entrance, so it couldn't be simpler. Much better than staying out at Davy Crockett, driving to a carpark then having to yomp for miles through carparks and along walkways with giddy children.

What can I say about Disney? Disney is Disney isn't it? Lots of queuing - although this time we did take advantage of the fast pass on the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast - by far the most fun ride we went on, especially the eight foot tall "animatronic" Buzz speaking French! We all enjoyed this ride, and even came back for more in the evening just before the closing "Candelabration" at 8pm.

We arrived at about 10.15am and took in Big Thunder Mountain, which our four-year-old daughter hated, Orbitron (a lot of queuing for little return, although our daughter loved it), Space Mountain (which our ten-year-old son declared the most uncomfortable and painful ride ever), Carousel de Lancelot (not as good as the carousels in Paris proper), Pinocchio, Pirates of the Caribbean (good fun and atmospheric sail and occasional minor splash), Dumbo (huge queue for very little but young children love it), Indiana Jones and Casey Junior (my personal favourite). We had lunch at Pizza Planet, which has got a soft play area, though this was closed on our trip, and we ate hotdogs at Casey's on Main Street for tea. (On this day I just surrendered to junk food. And mighty fun it was.)

Many of the Disney characters can be spotted walking round the park, which is great sport, especially the inevitable ensuing game of "find-your-kid" as they disappear into the throng of eager-to-be-photographed other kids. Personally I wanted to have my photograph taken with the Beast - those who know me and my hubby will understand why - and I did attempt to grab his attention as he stormed through the crowd. Unfortunately grabbing hold of his cape didn't go down too well and he shrugged me off.

One of my favourite things all day was the Parade at 5pm. It's really worth getting a good spot along the parade route to see all the floats and characters go by. Of course it is all very DISNEY, but Mickey Mouse is so cute and the costumes are ace. I got really into it, and I know the kids absolutely loved it.

Another surprising highlight of the day for me was leaving the park in the evening in a huge crowd of people, then peeling off the general throng headed to Disney Village and the carparks, to sneak into the train station. There were literally about six people doing this, including us! We went straight down the escalator to the platform and straight onto a Paris-bound train. Yee-haa! By the time we got back to our hotel we sank a well-earned beer in the bar then collapsed into our beds. A perfect day for all!

On our final morning in Paris we rewarded ourselves with a lie-in, though by 10am I was starving and peering jealously through the curtains at the cafe opposite our hotel. By 10.45 we were in there ordering breakfast - and extremely yummy it was too. (After a very dodgy evening meal experience in the hotel restaurant on the first night I had made a vow never to enter that amenity ever again. My family take these vows of mine very seriously.)

After breakfast we jumped onto the Metro as far as Champs Elysee, and continued our walk down towards Place de la Concorde and Tuileries gardens. At this point I began to realise that Paris truly is a very beautiful city, though the trees that are manicured squarely remind me of something out of Alice in Wonderland. I became aware of a real need within me to LIKE the place, to FEEL ROMANTIC there. So many other people have said hwo fabulously romantic it is, how beautiful, how mesmerising etc. Yes, I liked it, but I was far more aware of my own wish to be liking it even more. Weird.

The Tuileries were quite pleasant. A nice little cafe, with extortionate prices, an old-fashioned carousel, and a completely groovy playground for the kids to let off steam in, which had a stainless steel dome instead of a slide. How cool is that? I was so taken by the simplicity and the safety of it. First of all you've got to climb up onto the thing, which is no small challenge in itself, and I found it hilarious watching kids smack against the side of it a la Tom and Jerry!

After Tuileries we headed up to the Louvre, turned right towards the river once again and crossed onto Ile de la Cite via Pont Neuf. We were in search of Notre Dame - the place I really wanted to see before leaving Paris. I saw it, took a photo of it, and stood in front of it wishing we had time to go in it, before we had to rush off to find a place to eat. We had only 2 hours to go before we had to navigate our way back to Gare du Nord and our train home. Thankfully the Soleil d'Or cafe served us well, and we left the city feeling tired, full and happy with our Parisian adventure.

Paris in the Spring time....

2008-04-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Paris was a great success. The train journey was easy-peasy - the most difficult bit of it was trying to find our way out of Gare du Nord. French mainline railway stations are enormous, and the signage is quite over-whelming - there is a lot of it, it's all in French (obviously) and sometimes the colour coding for the Metro lines varies from one sign to the next. So if you're following plum-coloured 4's for the line to Porte d'Orleans, calling at Ile de la Cite for Notre Dame, just beware that from time to time they change to pink.

Having caught the 5.30 First Great Western train from Swindon into Paddington, then the Hammersmith and City line tube to St Pancras, we made excellent time for our Eurostar departure at 7.45. The renovations at St Pancras are quite stunning, and we had a little bit of time to admire them before being serenaded onto our Paris-bound train by the Southern Ragga Jazz band in full Disney regalia. This encroaching Disney-fication seemed terribly un-British, and also tremendously exciting! Fuelled by sugary Danishes, Belgian chocolate-filled crepes and dodgy coffee, we were all exceedingly giggly as we boarded the train.

Once in Paris, and once, mercifully, out of the Gare du Nord, having got our bearings on the Metro, we found ourselves wandering along Avenue de la Grande Armee towards L'Arc de Triomphe. It was well into lunch time and we were anxiously looking for an eaterie that had a promising looking children's menu. We wandered past one or two brasseries which weren't convincing, et voila, right at the end of the block was Restaurant Le Cristal, closest to L'Arc, probably extortionate menu, but with a very friendly and welcoming waiter ushering us in. How gullible we were! How sainted he immediately became! Croque Monsieur, "steak et frites", "formule expres", and a couple of beers and Oranginas, and all was right with the world once more.

I now admit, to my shame, that although I have a degree in French and Spanish, I have hardly ever spent any time in Paris at all, and, furthermore, my French is rustier than the bolts at the top of the Eiffel Tower. So, while I have read lots of literature about the city, and while I used to be fluent in the language, I don't really know my way around, and I'm not very good at asking for directions. Thankfully my hubby is a walking streetmap, and having visited Paris as recently as last September for the Rugby World Cup, he knew all the places to walk to.

I've heard people say that Paris is a city for strolling in - and it certainly does have beautiful wide pavements and fabulous architecture to admire. However, on the Champs Elysee, if you're too busy admiring the architecture, you run the risk of being ploughed down by a car exiting or entering one of many underground carparks, or portals to parallel universes, which seem to interface with this universe along the lovely wide pavements of the Champs Elysee. Take care! And make sure any pigeon-chasing children you might have with you can be thoroughly reined in on demand.

Our plan was to stroll down the Champs Elysee, cross the river towards Les Invalides, then stroll back along the Quai D'Orsay and Quai Branly 'til we arrived at the Eiffel Tower. This part of the plan worked well. We even managed a bit of a sit down in a tiny playground while the kids climbed, slid and see-sawed. The next part of the plan was to go up the tower in the lift all the way to the top, so we could enjoy the stunning views of Paris. This bit didn't work so well. Although the cheery sign at the back of the lift queue announced "30 minutes d'ici", for some reason it took us almost thirty minutes to get beyond this point, as we kept being pushed back by straggling Italian students who were catching up with the rest of their group in front of us.

Frankly the Eiffel Tower was a grim experience. Having successfully boarded the lift to the second floor, we then had to get out and queue again for the lift to the third floor. It was extremely crowded, and very cold, and our lad began complaining of vertigo. As for me, I was just complaining about people bumping into me all the time - I HATE that. When we finally arrived at the top, the covered viewing platform was swarming with people trying to peer out of cloudy, scratched, perspex windows at the rich delights of romantic Paris below. All the time I wished that I was in among it rather than up above it.

On his Rugby World Cup trip last year my hubby had visited the Eiffel Tower, climbed up the steps to the second floor, then enjoyed a surprisingly cheap beer and baguette at the cafe, taking in the view on a balmy late summer's day. He had then thought how great it would be to take the kids there, and how they would love it. Unfortunately the experience this time was diametrically opposed to the one he had. Which just goes to show that things are never the same second time around, and I was mighty relieved when we decided to call it a day and head to our hotel.

We were staying at the Novotel next to the Gare de Lyon, conveniently placed for easy access to Disney the following morning. From the Eiffel tower it was a straightforward train ride to Gare D'Austerlitz, and from there we crossed the river on foot over the Pont Charles de Gaulle to the Gare de Lyon, and at last our hotel!!

More on Disneyland and our other Parisian adventures soon...

Spring Break

2008-04-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not the Easter holiday, because Easter was 2 weeks ago, but the kids are now off school for a fortnight before the summer term starts in earnest. I haven't heard a peep out of them. They're in the playroom building a dinosaur zoo out of Lego, and I daren't go and disturb them because then they will start to squabble and bicker which, I have come to the conclusion, is all for my benefit. Best to keep my head down, providing zoo keeper refreshments and snacks as unobtrusively as possible.

There is an age gap of five and a half years between my children. My son is 10 and my daughter almost 5. For a couple of years it was quite difficult to find activities that they would both enjoy outside of the home, but now things are settling down quite well: they enjoy playing together, as long as I'm nowhere within earshot so my son doesn't feel I'm eavesdropping on their role-playing, and since my daughter has learned how to ride her bike without stabilisers and can finally get round a pitch and putt course without getting hysterical (which is, let's face it something that I've only relatively recently been able to do myself), there is more scope for the things we can do together as a family outdoors too.

But today the weather is just too cold for persuading the kids to be outside. I'm not too worried, we're off to Paris tomorrow on the train. We're going for a couple of days seeing the sights of the City of Lights and checking out Disneyland. It'll be an interesting trip - especially as it's our first holiday entirely on the train! We have to leave Swindon at 5.30 am, then we're catching the Eurostar from St Pancras. We're hoping to arrive in Paris just before lunch.

We've decided to stay in Paris itself rather than base ourselves at Disney. We've got a family room booked at the Novotel close to the Gare de Lyon, which is where the train out to Disney leaves from. So we're hoping to get a mix of culture and theme park over the next few days. I'll write an account of our trip here when we get back!

Reading, reading, reading

2008-04-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Quite by accident, long before I realised the significance of 2008 as the National Year of Reading - as in books rather than the capital of the M4 corridor - I made a tacit resolution last winter to become once more a serious, considered and reflective reader. What this means to me is: 1) Always finish books I've started; 2) Reflect on what I've read and review it on Amazon; 3) Join a reading group. I'm happy to say that so far I have honoured every one of these self-generated "qualifying" criteria, and am truly relishing my new literary life.

Of course I have always been a reader. My favourite outing as a child was to the library. I loved the smell of books and the feel of them in my hand. I loved being able to borrow three or four books at a time and stack then neatly on my bedside table.

Then through A Levels and at uni, books were my constant study. In English, French and Spanish I would pour over the text and then launch into numerous essays considering the style, genre, imagery, philosophical intent and historical context of what I'd read. It was a serious business - honest. At least I took it very seriously, and I can't help thinking that it has given me a smattering of wisdom, and a good ability to see things from others' points of view.

So all in all I think reading's good. These days I shiver with excitement (I really do) at the prospect of going to discuss the monthly book in the reading group. I've always been a bit of a snob when it comes to reading matter - I'm much more likely to be found reading Wilkie Collins on the beach than Elizabeth Gage - so I deliberately chose a group with a more challenging and arty reading list. It is very refreshing to be able to talk bollocks for an hour and a half each month with other like-minded lit-lovers, rather than enthusing to my otherwise adorable but totally unliterary hubby.

I've included a log of books that I've read so far, probably since November last year. My favourites so far are Howard's End, The Inheritance of Loss, The Great Gatsby and Open Secrets. And the list is growing...

April Fool!

2008-04-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

As usual this morning I was making my kids' packed lunches between about 7.15 and 7.30, and catching a little bit of the Today Programme on Radio 4 before anyone came down and switched it to Terry on Radio 2. (I have two kids who are real TYGs. They even change to Radio 2 from Radio 1. How times have changed!)

When I tuned in there were a couple of young fellas talking to John Humphries about their allotments (I'm sure this was today, though it could have been yesterday now I come to think of it).

They were saying how an increasing number of young people, particularly students, are choosing to grow their own veg, and are even operating allotment-shares. I'm impressed! I come from a generation of students who felt we had to live up to the layabout image people had of us, rather than do anything too creative or wholesome.

Anyway, the guys were bemoaning the fact that so much allotment land is being reclaimed by town and borough councils as development sites. Crying shame really. I haven't got round to digging over my back garden to a veggie patch yet, though it is something I often dream about from the comfort of my armchair in front of the gardening programme on BBC 2, but I do like the look of a well-tended allotment. There's so much industry and potential reflected in it, all that tender loving care to build the bean wigwams and rotivate the soil, and all those little green shoots under cloches, and rhubarb under forcing pots... I get quite excited by it all.

So - it would be a travesty if all these plots get hidden under the foundations of yet more new builds. Apparently there's a bye-law that requires every council in the country to provide enough allotment land to satisfy local demand. Te fellas on the radio were recommending that if you're interested in having an allotment then you find six other like-minded people and form a pressure group. Or at least approach your council and say "Please could you provide us with some allotment space?" Sounds like a good idea to me.

ANYWAY, then my kids came down so we had to switch to Radio 2 just in time to hear Lynn Bowles give us the nationwide traffic report. This always makes me feel a bit bored, as we only have to go half a mile on our bikes to school in the morning, so aren't really affected by what's happening on the M8 north of Glasgow, but I guess I need to be a bit more public-spirited and send out compassionate vibes to those people who are experiencing traffic problems in those places.

SO, because my radio input takes this pattern every morning, I usually miss Radio 4's Thought for the Day and have to catch Pause for Thought on Radio 2 instead. This morning they had a London vicar talking about the importance of being silly and light-hearted, and how it's good that we've got a day in the calendar to celebrate this.

Although I had to listen hard not to get distracted by THAT TONE that Pause for Thought guests usually have - you know what I mean, that tone that sounds like they're still rehearsing their spiel in front of the bathroom mirror at home while smiling at themselves in a bit of a self-satisfied way and congratulating themselves on the dubious glory of being a regular guest on this spot - I did actually enjoy what he was talking about. It is important to be silly sometimes and not take things too seriously. I'm glad he brought my attention to it.

Personally I grew up dreading April Fools Day because I would usually be one of the class to find a flour bomb on my chair, or what's worse, not be able to come up with any prank funnier than those of Anne Devine or Shona MacCallum.

In contrast, I fear that my kids are experiencing a very sanitised version of it, as they had no pranks to tell me about at all on their return from school. The closest thing my son could describe to any April Foolery was a playground conversation about a news item someone had heard on the radio saying that Big Ben's DONG has been replaced by a DI-DI-DI-DI.

Now I wonder which station that was on.....

A Glorious Sunday for Golf

2008-03-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

Well the weather yesterday here in Wiltshire was just lovely - good timing too as yesterday saw the first Junior Golf tournament of the season at Wrag Barn Golf Club near Swindon. My hubby, a keen and extremely competent golfer, organises coaching and competitions at the club for cadet level golfers - usually in the age range five to thirteen. Our son played in the tournament - and brought home the runners-up trophy, with which he was chuffed to bits!

It was really pleasant strolling around the junior "academy" course yesterday, six holes of pitch and putt length, forming with other parents the gallery around our wee golf stars of the future. The youngest to play yesterday was a four-year-old girl, who managed to play some pretty decent shots into the green. The leader in our group of Level One Cadets was a lad of six-and-a-half, he told us very deliberately, who was spanking the ball straight into the green from the tee - a good hundred yards or so. Apparently he first picked up a club at 15 months - a Tiger in the making.

I used to think golf was the most ridiculous of sports, still do sometimes, but the difference now is that I actually attempt to play it rather than being scornful from afar. I took it up so as to avoid becoming a golf widow in my hubby's growing enthusiasm for the game. Now I play regularly with the Ladies section, and, work commitments allowing, manage to get out for a game with hubby occasionally.

Like cycling, another of my must-do things to keep myself sane, golf is a great antidote to modern hectic living. Once on the course there is absolutely nothing that you can do about anything, noone can phone you, noone can interrupt you, and it is imperative, in order to play with any modicum of skill, to empty your head of absolutely everything. From the outside it looks like a slow, quiet game, but this external calm belies the battles that rage internally to stop cursing yourself for being deluded enough to want to play this stupid game in the first place. Worrying about your swing, about what you're going to feed the kids for tea, about how many tasks you've got outstanding on your to-do list, do not contribute to skilful play, so blocking all these thoughts out in order to get round the course without utter embarrassment is good practice for the rest of life. It's like meditating!

The Apprentice is back!!

2008-03-28T01:46:00.001-07:00

Hurrah for mid-week reality shows on the BBC! My hubby and I got quite into Masterchef this year, and have been keen followers of Sir Alan's recruitment drives for the past 2 or 3 years, so we're very excited to see The Apprentice back on.

I absolutely love programmes like this, although I avoid "Pop Idol" and "Britain's got talent" like the plague. But give me Maria, Joseph, Nancy, Oliver, and "Strictly" on a Saturday night, and a couple of good quality "change your life" competitions during the week and I'm glued. It's curious why I find some types of programmes of this nature more acceptable than others. It's the public humiliation elements of some of them which I can't stomach, whereas others have a good amount of challenge and honest appraisal which makes compelling viewing. It's fascinating to watch people rise to challenges, and it's quite moving to see how much people's yearning to win affects them.

The thing that keeps me coming back to the The Apprentice though is utter incredulity at how contestants get so confused about the notion of what it takes to be an effective and impactful leader. Why is it that young people go on that programme and think that in order to come across as a strong leader they have to be the absolute personification of arrogance and agression, and completely dismiss everyone else's worth? It baffles me, and I keep watching in the hope that someone will turn up who is business-minded, pragmatic, adaptable, tolerant, curious and open-minded. Sir Alan always talks about COMMON SENSE, and yet the majority of the contestants either fail miserably to demonstrate any, or get caught in the ego race and become more and more cut-throat, belying the leadership potential that they came on with in the first place.

In the meantime, I cannot deny that all the posturing DOES make good telly - even if I do need to have a good pile of cushions next to me to keep lobbing at the set while I watch.

Learning to say sorry

2008-03-26T02:10:00.000-07:00

Knowing how to give and receive apology is something I feel increasingly strongly about. What I have discovered is that to be able to give an apology which is sincere and meaningful we need to have a heightened awareness of our own state of mind, and of that of others. We need to be able to put ourselves in others' shoes, and truly attempt to see things from others' perspectives. If we don't do this then we will continually be trapped within our own outlook, continually justifying our own behaviour, to the detriment of others, and becoming increasingly isolated and ugly.

It is particularly important to show our children how to apologise. The only way to do this is to apologise to them whenever we have done something about which we feel sorry. Keeping in mind what we are teaching our children in every moment by our actions provides the measure against which we can judge whether or not an apology is necessary. For example, if I want my son to learn how to deal with bad temper in a positive way, but my own way of dealing with bad temper is to storm about the place slamming doors and yelling a lot, maybe I'm not providing him with the most desireable role model. So, I heighten my awareness of my own behaviour, reconsider it, identify an alternative way of behaving, then I say to my son, "I'm sorry for... It was wrong to ... Next time I will..."

Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes all the time. We are always going to disagree about things. But if we can all agree that we can help each other by knowing how to give and receive apology in a reliable way then we can proceed with greater confidence and self-assurance.

If we never get used to hearing sincere apologies from others, then it becomes impossible for us to learn how to receive apologies when they are made with good intent. Just saying "thankyou" is the simplest way of accepting someone's apology, but we are frequently tempted to demand further contrition, further compensation for the personal slight we have suffered by another's behaviour. We might even be tempted to dismiss the humility of the person making the apology by mocking them, or by going on about how they must never do what they did again. This is extremely ungracious and is like picking a freshly healed scab, just to have it bleed again and possibly become infected. It is a dangerous way to behave.

I once had cross words with a teacher at my son's school. I felt very indignant and said some things in front of my son which were rather uncalled for. Later I felt ashamed. The only thing I could think of doing was going into school and apologising in person to the teacher. I also apolgised to my son. Unfortunately the teacher I wanted to speak to wasn't there when I went in, so I had to leave my apology by way of a message with the school receptionist. This lady was amazed, expressed deep gratitude on behalf of the absent teacher, and said there were not many people who would be big enough to apologise. The following day I bumped into the teacher in the supermarket, so I did get my chance to apologise in person. And the best way to give and receive an apology? With a hug.

Car-free means care-free

2008-03-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how exhilerating it feels to pedal off to school, my daughter tagging along behind, her book bag and lunch box in the basket on the front of my bike, and the car resolutely left on the drive. Fresh air, exercise, and a new perspective on the world are so easily accessible on a bike, and it is infinitely pleasing to leave the car at home. I read a statistic the other day that people who cycle regularly are 50% less likely to suffer from depression. There's such a feeling of freedom, and it is so easy to connect to other people by shouting out a greeting as you shoot past. People say things like "That's lovely to see", or, commenting on my daughter's tag-along bike, "That's the way to travel"! It really brings a smile to my face.

As a result, our school run has been transformed. Rather than bundling grumpy children into the car on the last minute, angrily driving round to school cursing our constant lack of punctuality and using far more diesel and far less safety-consciousness than driving calmly, the school journey is now so much more fun: the kids can't wait to get outside and I represent far less of a threat on the road.

My son goes ahead on his scooter, and when we get to school we meet him in the playground and he gives me the scooter to bring home with me. (Unfortunately the school doesn't have enough space to store bikes and scooters during the school day.) I had to dig out a large rucksack to carry the scooter home, and the only downside is that this gives me a bit of neck and shoulder ache. But then again, so does persistent hunching over a steering wheel. I just have to choose.

SO enthusiastic am I about being on my bike that I started oggling a bike trailer somebody had the other day. Ooh - the things I could get in that and pull around with me! A little while ago I heard about a chap here in Swindon who used his bike trailer to transport his old fridge to the domestic recycling centre. I am in awe.

Being the change

2008-03-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever got to a point in your life and thought, "Hmm - not sure what to do next, not sure I want to carry on doing what I'm doing, not sure I want to go back to doing things the same way I've done them before. I want something different, something that I can feel true to, that reflects me as I am today"?

Sometimes there's a feeling of having "missed the boat", or of not being able to recognise which river the boat is on.

This is something like I'm feeling right now. It can be very unsettling, and can induce lots of uncertainty. It can even feel like a total crisis in self-confidence.

Typically our reaction is to fight it, struggle against the tide of the river that we find ourselves in, find familiar patterns in work and life which may not be ideal, but which we can at least relate to.

An alternative approach is to "go with the flow", not to fight, but to watch and wait calmly and curiously, and see what emerges next.

This approach demands a lot of patience, and not a small amount of faith in the fact that something WILL emerge, it has to, because our minds are endlessly creative and resourceful. What we've got to get good at in this circumstance is paying attention to what our minds are coming up with and turning our attention to it in moments that don't feel like struggle.

The title of this entry is "being the change". What I mean by that is to take heed of what our minds are quietly urging us to do and moving in sync with that. In order to be successful in this practise we need to have greater mindfulness, greater awareness of our thoughts, and be able to distinguish between the qualities of our thoughts. (Bizarrely, I notice that being mind-ful is actually to have our minds empty of distracting thoughts. Funny that.)

For me, when there is struggle I experience thoughts that seem to shout at me in my head. They are impatient and exasperated thoughts, with a breathless quality, over-eager in their enthusiasm and over-ambitious in their scope. It is also frequently very difficult to remember from one moment to the next what the thought was, so flimsy and unenduring are they. These are thoughts whose voice sounds like an over-bearing parent or teacher, who wants to see more achieved than they have been able to achieve for themselves. If I read these kinds of out-pourings in my journal they come across as being mildly hysterical, the hall-marks of a desperate and over-worked thinking process.

Conversely when my thoughts are true and on target they have a quieter, more effortless and timeless quality. They have a calm, sustained endurance and a simpler message. Like a quietly insistent and uncomplicated demand. "Just write, just write, just write." When I take heed of these thoughts my journal is full of ideas, paragraphs, narratives such that I can pick and choose from to shape my stories and my work.

I know that as long as I keep believing in the resourcefulness of the human mind, keep paying attention to the quiet, enduring messages I receive, and develop my practise with conviction, commitment, discipline and rigour, then I can avoid that feeling of disorientation and lack that my busy, fearful thoughts like to grab hold of and worry like a dog with a rag.

Wasted Day?

2008-03-17T12:35:00.001-07:00

Woking at home as I do, with only myself to answer to, it should technically be straightforward if one of my children is ill, to look after them at home without all the hassle of taking leave from the "office".

The trouble is I'm a hard task master, especially when it comes to moving my creative projects forward. At the moment I've got a short story on the go, a new assignment to tackle for my correspondance course, plus I'm working on relaunching my website for my coaching business, which involves writing content and figuring out what layout I want. So when my four-year-old daughter was groggy this weekend I had to quickly re-order my plans for the day.

There's not much I can concentrate on with CBeebies twittering on in the background. We sit and read a book together, but after a while she gets restless and tired and wants the telly on. I catch up on some chores and decide that I'll have to try and squeeze in some work this evening just to feel like progress is being made.

During the day I've battled with my own impatience, frustration, and cross feelings, all the while reminding myself that this situation can't be helped, that I need to stay calm and gentle for the sake of my daughter's recovery. But there's such a feeling of guilt, caught in between sick daughter and compelling projects.

It's the kind of day that makes me strangely envious of the unexciting office job I used to do, which I never had any qualms whatsoever of abandoning for the sake of my sick children. Yes, there might have been a tricky conversation with my boss, but not much gets in the way of a mother's sense of duty to her children, and there's usually someone else who can step into the breach.

I guess the gift of the day is in appreciating how much I love what I do, because having to abandon it, even for the sake of a child with the sniffles, is extremely difficult. Does it sound as if sometimes I'd rather be working than spending time with my kids? Well of course I would! And other times there's nothing else I want to do but sit and laugh and play and sing with them. It's all about balance after all.

Sausages for Tea

2008-03-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

In this day and age of local food, farmers' markets, the annually observed National Butchers' Week (just passed) and neurotic, middle-class "ethical consumerism", of course I agonise over how planet-friendly and compassionately farmed the meat I buy is. But since I also have 2 children and a husband, mostly I agonise over whether my fussy family will eat whatever I prepare with it, or whether the wretched animal gave up its cutlets or loin chops in vain, just to find themselves chucked in the bin, which now sits outside our house for two weeks before the Council empty it, as opposed to the original seven days. It's a doubly ignominious end to a life lived in organic pasture.

In our house we've got into a bit of an impasse over food on numerous occasions, largely due to the fact that my husband and my kids like eating certain things over and over again and I get bored cooking the same things over and over again, so try and experiment with something different occasionally. I'm not talking about anything too exotic, lamb shanks maybe, or duck-breast. The ox-tail I had in the freezer had to go last week, no doubt to the extreme relief of everyone else in the household, because the heating element-?!- or something in said appliance failed and all the contents defrosted. (Hmm - now I'm wondering whether there has been some sort of conspiracy...)

Thankfully the one dependable meat which I can prepare without causing ructions is sausages. Usually baked in a herby tomato sauce and served with conchiglie pasta. It HAS to be conchiglie, because then I can count on some of the tomato sauce stowing away in the centre of the shell on the perilous journey from plate to mouth, so at least the kids get a bit of their 5-a-day without even realising it. This is a meal which invariably elicits a cheer when it is announced, on the back of THE wary question from my ten-year-old: "What's for tea Mum?"

So tonight sausages are on the menu, and cheers will ring out. There shall also be a healthy serving of all kinds of veggies, which noone but myself will eat of course. If I serve up too many visible vegetables on the plates of my husband and my kids there will be "playing with food" rather than "eating" taking place at the dinner table, and usually this results in me storming sulkily out of the kitchen, feeling unappreciated and under-valued. It happened just last week, when there were too many leeks in the creamy bacon and leek sauce to accompany the spaghetti. I ended up fuming in the dark in our bedroom, and my son has been bending over backwards all week to ingratiate himself with me and put things to rights. I'm not one to bear grudges, not at all, it's just that meals can be such emotive occasions and food can be such an incendiary topic that every so often there is an explosion, only to be calmed by mutiple peace offerings and, the piece de resistance, sausages for tea.