Imogen Clark at Home

BRITISH ENGLISH?

2012-01-22T15:37:00.000Z

I have a new computer. It's American and it can't spell.

That's probably not fair. It's an American computer and it can spell in American but I am English and it's frustrating. So, after adding more 'u's than was good a girl, I decided to go in search of something to change the language settings. I found a setting called 'British English' and, without really giving the matter much thought, I clicked on it. This morning, when it informed me that 'tantalizing' is spelt with an 's', I started to get a bit cross.

I don't mean particularly that my computer's spell check cannot cope with the vagaries of English. Let's face it. It's not the most complicated language in the world for nothing. (Actually, it might not even be that but that's a different posting.) No. What has annoyed me is that we have to define English in terms of being British. British English. Surely that's ridiculous. It's English. Pure and simple. It's a language all of it's own.

But then nothing seems to be truly English any more. The Scots are fiercely proud and the Irish identity is pretty secure. Even little Wales knows what it stands for. And then there's us, hiding quietly behind the mantle of Britain hoping that no one will notice that we're there or, which is infinitely worse, apologising. I know we have stuff to apologise for. Imperialism perhaps wasn't our finest hour and no other nation tries to wear socks and sandals in public. We drink too much, speak loudly to foreigners, insist on showing far too much flesh when the sun comes out and eat food from photo menus. But I'm sure that's no worse than any other nation. We all have our faults.

I'm not convinced that Britain is any good for England. Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost our sense of national identity - the things that make us English. I don't mean all the silly things that I've listed but the important stuff. True grit in the face of adversity, a desire to explore and discover, scientific endeavour, the stiff upper lip, stopping for tea in the middle of the afternoon. Ok. I know. I've strayed back into silly but you take my point.

And the worst thing of all is that even as I type, I'm worrying about the response that I'll get. There's a fairly good chance that by blowing the trumpet for England I will cross a line for some readers into some vague and unidentifiable xenophobia which should be only spoken of in hushed tones. But why is it unacceptable to be proud to be English but not Scottish, or French or German? I don't get it.

I might write to Apple and tell them that there's no such thing as 'British English'. I doubt they'll listen to me but they might learn how to spell tantalize.

MUSICAL CHOICES

2012-01-16T12:56:00.000Z

I seem to have stopped listening to music. It wasn't a conscious decision - it just kind of crept up on me. I gradually slipped from being someone who always had music in their life to someone who didn't.

My preference for silence springs from my home. It is a very noisy place. All manner of sound spills out of every room almost all the time, resulting in a cacophonous din which makes clarity of thought an impossibility. In desperation, I began to protect the rare moments of peace by not destroying them with my own music.

However, made aware by the constant references to musical selection on Facebook, that I seemed to be out on a limb, I thought that I ought to revisit my music collection and see if anything appealed. After careful analysis, it seems that most of my records fall into two camps - stuff I have because it reminds me of something else and stuff I have because I thought, at some point, that I ought to have it.

The first group is easy. It's made up of music that I think I like but when I listen carefully, I realise that I simply enjoy the connotations that it carries. These are songs that remind me of people or of a holiday or a great year at school. If I were to hear most of that music for the first time now, would I bother listening for a second time? Unlikely. So does music like that have any merit for the purposes of this exercise? Well, I suppose I enjoy the memories but that doesn't make it music that I like does it?

The second group is more complex. There is stuff I bought because people whose opinion I respected liked it. There is stuff I bought to ingratiate myself with people I considered to be important at the time. There is stuff I bought because I thought that I should listen to enhance my own knowledge. I don't really like any of it. It is music I own because someone else likes it. What's the point of that?

So I looked at every album I have and imagined that I had never heard it before. What did I actually like when looked at in those terms? What remained was very small. Boys singing sacred choral music and soulful stuff circa 1965 -80.

So this makes me think that perhaps it's not listening to music that is the problem. It's listening to the wrong stuff. Instead of playing things I thought I liked, I should listen to the music that makes my soul sing. This is probably really obvious to everyone else but it has taken me an awfully long time to get there.

On reflection I do probably prefer silence but a more discerning approach to what I actually want to listen to might get me better results. And, as in so many things, I need to stop thinking that I am missing out on some crucial aspect of life. Just because everyone else tells me what they are listening to, doesn't mean that I need to be doing it too.

SOCK TROUBLE

2012-01-08T08:55:00.001Z

My socks keep twisting round in my boots. I know it's not the kind of news that is going to keep you awake at night but it is really annoying. I'm constantly having to stop to sort it out, hopping around on one foot whilst I twist and turn the uncooperative fabric back into place.

Before you start casting aspersions about the shape of my feet, let me assure you that they are not the problem. Sock twisting is a relatively new phenomenon for me. It's the quality of my socks - my new socks let me add. If they were old and worn with the lycra long since gone to meet its maker, I would be less irritated. But these are new Marks and Spencer's socks.

I suspect that you are wondering where on earth I could possibly be leading you with this erudite and insightful observation. Well, this is a post about quality verses price. You get what you pay for, as someone once said to me. Marks and Spencer's socks now cost next to nothing. A veritable bargain in fact at £4.50 for three pairs except they are not fit for purpose and won't stay right way up in my boot.

It's not just socks. School polo shirts seem to have fallen for the old "Never mind the quality: feel the width" adage as well. Cheap as chips but almost see through and washed out of shape long before they are grown out of. It's the dumbing down of retail. Perhaps they think I won't notice? Well I have.

But times are hard. People are price conscious and, lured by the temptations of the super cheap stores, our expectations about how much things should cost are becoming muddied. After all, who wants to pay top dollar for something when you could buy it for a third of the price just down the high street?

Well, me actually. Call me old fashioned but I'd rather pay a little more for a pair of socks that stay put. I'd like to throw my socks away because they have worn down to the warp and weft and not because they have gone baggy before their time. ( I generally draw the line at darning. I'm not that old fashioned.) I was taught to launder well and take care of my clothes but I seem to be a dying breed. At some of the prices in Primark it hardly seems worth laundering at all.

I'm hoping for a backlash. Perhaps eventually we will tire of this disposable world that we live in and yearn for quality once again? It does seem to be happening in other areas but I fear that soon we will be so far down the road of cheap clothes that it will be culturally impossible to turn back.

I could, of course, shop elsewhere for my socks. I know that if I paid a little more I could get socks that stayed put. It's just that I have bought my socks in Marks and Spencer's for as long as I can remember and it seems a betrayal to jump ship. Then again, they have betrayed my too. They have some in Harrods, I note, that might fit the bill!

CHUCKING STUFF OUT

2012-01-03T19:35:00.000Z

There is something very satisfying about throwing things away. It gives me a sense of order, of moving forward. It reminds me that in the fight between me and stuff, the stuff may win the occasional battle but that I can win the war.

I'm good at getting rid. In a house of six people with walls made of brick and not elastic, it is a necessary skill and one that tends to fall soley to me as the rest of my family don't seem to have my talent for it.It hasn't always come naturally though. As a child and a young woman, I was sentimentally attached to all kinds of things. I had items in boxes and files all over the place, precious treasure that was important in some way. I have a sweet that a boy that I fancied gave me in class when I was 11. I have all my 'O' level exercise books. I have the sugar flowers from the top of my wedding cake.

Then one day I opened a box and found things that no longer held any significance for me. I couldn't remember why I'd saved them. Whatever it was that I was seeking to preserve had been lost, notwithstanding the keepsake and at that point I decided that hanging on to random things was pointless. I had my memories no matter what else I kept.

This realisation coincided with me having my fourth child. With the first baby, I kept everything, squirrelling it away for posterity. Paint daubs, shoes, birthday cards. By the time I got to number four, I realised that something was going to have to change or we would sink under a tsunami of preschool art. I started to be selective. Each child has a box file and things only make it in if they are really good or really special.

However, the rest of the house is a bit hit and miss. I'm great at throwing away clothes because my wardrobe is tiny. I'm less good with shoes and coats because you never know when they might come in. I'm rubbish with books too but fortunately my kindle arrived just as I was going to have to start making some difficult decisions in that department. Current areas in need of attention are the pantry (far more containers than any woman could ever need), the kids' wardrobes (toys that haven't been touched for years but are too good to throw away) and the garage (I really need to master eBay.)

But I can't just throw things away. I have to be in the right mood. I have to be feeling ruthless and practical as there can be no turning back halfway through. Today I was like that and took full advantage. But tomorrow I may be feeling more sentimental, less gung ho. Tomorrow I may think that the past deserves a second chance. Who knows? Life's funny like that, isn't it?

NEW YEAR'S EVE ANTICS

2012-01-01T08:48:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all. I type this with a huge New Year's Eve lash up kind of bandage on my little finger which makes hitting anything on the extreme left of my keyboard a bit hit and miss so please forgive any errors!

I know you are all dying to know what necessitates such an inconvenient arrangement but if you are of a squeamish disposition you might want to look away now. Or perhaps in a paragraph or two whilst you permit me a degree of suspense building.

I haven't really celebrated "New Year's Eve" since the Millennium. A combination of too many children, not enough available friends and my disinclination to party have resulted in it generally being a quiet affair. But this year we had an invitation for an early doors gathering for games and nibbles. Three families, nine children and someone else's house. Perfect.

In the morning I raced up to Marks and Spencer's for party food and 'free' cava and around we all traipsed mid afternoon ready for a bit of fun. And fun we had. First, a glass or two of bubbly as we attempted to chat over the noise of the children careering around the house unrestrained. Once relative calm had been restored, we played a game whereby each team had to build a structure using spaghetti and marshmallows. Predictably, those teams containing a dad focused on structure whilst those with a mum had a different emphasis.

I know you're still waiting for my finger story but please indulge me a moment longer whilst I briefly consider New Year's Resolutions. January is a terribly time to make life changes. Everyone is exhausted and skint with a slight veneer of self loathing and a long winter ahead. It's a time for pampering and indulgence not strict regimes and yet more guilt. That said, I do feel that I need to work smarter this year and waste less time on the trivialities of life. Already I feel failure snapping at my heels.

So, back to slicing those mini burger buns with the new ceramic knife. I was chatting, I knew the knife was razor sharp and I'd had two glass of champagne. So when I sliced the pad virtually off my little finger I was entirely to blame. It bled. Well, you can imagine and kitchen roll isn't quite as absorbent as I'd been led to believe. I was playing things down whilst trying to hide my bloody finger from a particularly squeamish child. There was talk of Casualty which I quickly batted away. In the end I was whisked off to some poor GPs house who reconstructed it with steristrips and a tube bandage.

It's hardly life threatening but it will mean that New Year's Eve 2011 will be one of those that goes down in the annals of time as one to remember. And that, after all, is what good memories are all about. Happy New Year !

THE FATHER CHRISTMAS FIB

2011-12-24T07:13:00.003Z

Complicated fib, this Father Christmas thing.

It's great when they are little. As long as they aren't terrified out of their wits by the prospect of a strange, bearded man wandering around the house at night, then the magic is irresistible. They go to bed. Empty stocking. They wake up and....ta da... presents.

But then it starts to get tricky. Whilst I am generally delighted that my children are curious and question the world around them, I wish they would just take Santa at face value. Each year the plots and sub plots get more complicated as their enquiring minds develop. I have to think with the speed of a master criminal just to keep one step ahead of them. The occasional slip up is to be expected. If caught out, I change my story and move on. If I'm really stuck, I fall back on the rather feeble explanation that it's all magic.

Some of these may sound familiar.

'Yes I think Santa shops in Next too.'
'I'm not sure why Auntie June's present is wrapped in the same paper as your gifts from Santa.'
'I don't think Santa brings expensive electronic gadgetry for bedrooms.'
'I think he does have a budget.'
' I'm not sure it's a good idea adding something new to your letter at 5pm on Christmas Eve.'

You get the picture. But I have children of two ages. Whilst the Little Ones are on the cusp of discovery as far as the Father Christmas myth is concerned, the Big Ones have long since moved on. With various nods and winks they assist me with the conspiracy and wouldn't dream of spoiling it. But it is also important to maintain a degree of mystery for them too. Tempting though it is to discuss the complications of the lie with them, I have resisted.

Older children also bring a whole different set of problems with them.They go to sleep late. I go to sleep early, particularly when here is a family infused cooking fest to be dealt with the following day. This is another area where a degree of foresight on my part would have been helpful about fifteen years ago. Why did I encourage the excited toddler to place their stocking on their bed instead of hanging it on their door handle? Could I not foresee the difficulties I was creating for myself? Of course not. And so I sneak about trying not to rustle as they lie there pretending, for the sake of good form, to be asleep.

Of course I adore the excitement that goes hand in hand with the Father Christmas story but if I'm totally truthful, I shall not be sorry when it strikes them just how very unlikely it is and we can all happily pretend. Until then, I will track his progress with my Norad app and marvel at the speed with which he covers the ground.I will leave out mince pies and carrots and savour that moment in the morning when they see that, yet again, the magic has not let them down.

Merry Christmas to you all and may Father Christmas bring you everything your heart desires... because it is magic after all!

IT'S MY CHRISTMAS TOO

2011-12-12T18:00:00.002Z

So, the tree is up and the house is full of twinkly lights. It must be nearly Christmas. And there are various other tell tale indicators of the impending festivities.

1. Every available spare inch of inaccessible cupboard space is filled with surprises.
2.We have run out of blu tac.
3. Each time I leave the house I come back to cards informing that a selection of delivery men have failed to deliver something.
4. My lists have sub-lists.
5. My voice is getting higher with every passing day.

I love Christmas but I think I like this bit best. This is the moment before the panic of forgetting the Stilton or a gift for the teachers has fully taken hold. This is the moment when I can listen to tacky 80s Christmas hits and still feel festive and nostalgic. At this stage, filling my freezer with tasty morsels still seems appealing.

Sadly, experience tells me that this remarkably calm period won't last. Already every evening is filled with a party or a show or both. This means that as the Big Day approaches everyone will get increasingly exhausted and consequently irritable. And then the children will break up from school and suddenly the order that I have spent weeks creating will be destroyed. They will try to eat everything that I have prepared. They will make tails out of tinsel and scatter sparkly coloured strings all over the floor.They will spring surprise gift requests on me at not quite the last minute so that there is just enough time to source the item before it's too late but with scant regard for my stress levels.

I will get more and more wound up as I try to ensure that everything to do with Christmas Day is as perfect as I can make it. I will scream and shout and moan that no one but me ever does anything and if they're not careful I'm going to cancel Christmas. I will spend the day itself in the kitchen striving to make the food the same as it was last year so that no unfavourable comparisons can be made (as if they ever would be.) I will collapse in front of the telly at the end of the day and feel ever so slightly let down that all my work has vanished in less than twenty four hours.

So, if I know all this, why don't I do something about it? Does it matter if the kids eat all the chocolate before Santa comes? Will anyone but me notice if there's a bit of dust? As long as the meal has the main component parts, does it matter what else there is? Of course it doesn't? The person who sets the hurdle so high is me. I want it to be the best that it can be so that I can be proud of it when it's all done and think to myself 'I did that!'

But I've decided there needs to be some give and take. This year, I'm not going to spend the time between now and then getting in a tizzy and feeling badly done to. So I have a new strategy which I'm hoping will result in a more relaxing holiday for everyone. In my preparations, I will aim for angel on the top of the tree but if reality happens to be the glittery bauble three branches down then so be it. After all, it is my Christmas too!

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

2011-11-30T10:18:00.001Z

"I want to be Prime Minister!" announced one of my children over breakfast yesterday.
"Great idea!" I replied. "And what will you do?" There then followed a list of reforms that were planned, some more practical than others. Of course we both know that she is highly unlikely to take office any time soon and so the conversation was a kind of game.

But what happens when they really want to do something that's either highly unlikely or actually beyond them? Should I encourage them to follow their dreams or manage their expectations?

This is something that I think is becoming warped for all kinds of reasons. You only have to watch the X Factor auditions to know that something has gone wrong. I know it makes good telly to have the world's most tuneless singer caterwaul on national television only to be knocked back by the sniggering panel. Invariably the dumped performer makes a fuss, issuing threats to Simon Cowell and his ilk that they have missed the next big thing. What interests me is why did they think they had what it takes in the first place? Did no one take them on one side and point out the glaring truth about their lack of talent?

Historically, we British have always had a tendency to underplay ourselves. We didn't like to make a fuss, show off or get ideas above our station. Everyone knew their place and stayed there. By contrast, the first time I went to America I was immediately struck by how different the attitude was. If you wanted it and worked hard it could be yours. The only thing holding you back was you and all that. And lots of that attitude seems to be finding its way over here. Our previously inflexible class system is breaking down and there is far more social mobility than there used to be. Everyone is encouraged to do what they want and not be held back by old fashioned and preconceived ideas.

And all this is good. It's great in fact. Until you start telling everyone that they can achieve anything. Obviously there is our national obsession with celebrity but I don't just mean that. What if you have a child who loves animals? He is encouraged by his parents to believe that he can be a vet notwithstanding that his academic record will preclude him from achieving the necessary grades. Is being honest with him about what his future holds stifling his ambition or ensuring that his life is not blighted by disappointment?

The current system of grading students doesn't help. Previously, the grades would be distributed by percentage with the top 10% getting As. This meant that it was clear to all, not least the students themselves, where they might best pitch their ambitions. Is it any wonder that with so many students obtaining the top grades they all believe they can take on anything? But it's not true. We are selling them a lie. Of course there will be the odd one who under achieved and can outreach what seems to be their lot in life. But how many straight A students at GCSE have what it takes to study to be a doctor? And how would they know?

So what do I do? Do I let my child believe they will be a ballet dancer or a prime minister or a brain surgeon and hope that they are not too disappointed when they work out that it's not going to happen? Or should I manage their expectations towards something that is realistically within their grasp and have them wonder what if?

MIND MAPS

2011-11-22T19:21:00.001Z

As you may know, I am studying for a degree in English Literature with the Open University and last night I had a tutorial. It's only the second one of this module and we are feeling our way somewhat as we try to work out what makes our fellow students tick without asking them any direct questions. Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway. last night's activity, as a precursor to the next assignment, was to compare and contrast two pieces of prose. This struck me as a tricky exercise. Apart from both being written in English, I was struggling to see anything that the two pieces might have in common.

My tutor suggested that we might like to use some kind of visual system to assist us in identifying the similarities. Colour coding perhaps? Or a mind map? At this point I nearly left. A mind map? On an English Literature course? What was the world coming to?

We broke into two groups, coincidentally split by gender and the girls set to on our out-sized piece of paper with our felt tips whilst the men shuffled awkwardly in their chairs and then scribbled some notes on the back of an envelope. Afterwards, my female tutor commented to my group that the results of the exercise were entirely predictable on gender grounds alone. Actually, I believe that the results had less to do with gender and more to do with age.

My group consisted of me and two much younger students whilst the men's group all had a good ten years on me and therein lies the root of their and my discomfort. What exactly is a mind map? What is its function and how can it possibly assist me in ordering my thoughts when it resembles something out of Star Trek and has no discernible order? I was brought up to write only in grammatically correct sentences. Numbered points were permissible at a push and possibly bullet points in an emergency. At no point in my education was it acceptable to allow my imagination to run amok all over the page. That was called a doodle and might result in a detention.

The colour coding I can just about get my head around. I am a girl after all and happy to play with coloured pens at a drop of a hat. Plus, I could see how that might work. Highlight all the narrative points in red, imagery in yellow, argument in green etc.. There is an ordered kind of logic to it. But the mind map concept seems a step too far for my stifled mind to deal with. I left the idea in a dark corner of the room where it could do no harm.

But if truth be told, I would love to have the kind of mind that can map itself with complicated twists and turns and connections marked in ever narrowing veins across the page. I like the idea of shaking my mind and watching what comes out in random order rather than the neat, down the page control that it usually displays. So I'm going to have a go - not with a compare and contrast task: I know my limitations- but maybe I could mind map Christmas or the plot for a story? After all, I like to think that I'm still capable of a new trick or two.

A UNIFORM APPROACH

2011-11-15T11:25:00.001Z

The school attended by my older two children is bringing in Business Wear for the sixth form. A list has been drawn up of what constitutes 'business wear' which is useful because no two businesses seem to define that the same way these days. And our school is not alone. Certainly around here most of the sixth forms seem to have gone down the same path.

I have been trying to work out what I think of the idea. As ever in these matters, I begin with what happened when I was at school, which coincidentally was the same institution. We wore uniform, after a fashion. Blue skirt, blue jumper, white shirt. How this was interpreted was pretty much left up to us and in my case was a combination of what I could afford from my meagre allowance and what I could get past my Mum. We were a scruffy bunch - no two ways about it - but at least when I got up every day I knew exactly what to wear.

Things have changed since then. To distinguish between the children who are at school by law and those there by choice, uniform was scrapped for the sixth form. Perhaps the powers that be anticipated that the newly found freedom would be exercised stylishly like the French or prepily like the Americans. But we are English so what they got was a mixture of quirky, sexy and downright scruffy. Something needed to be done.

The something is the Business Wear. In theory, the sixth form will look well turned out with a pride in their appearance and an attitude that is ready for learning. In practice, they will all spend a lot of money on their own interpretation of the rules which may or may not match the school's and in time, I suspect, many of them will end up looking almost as scruffy as they currently do.

There seems to me to be an obvious solution. Why not just wear school uniform whilst you are at school? All the reasons that make a uniform a good idea are just as valid no matter what age you are. A sense of identity, a great leveller, a remover of distractions, putting on a uniform reminds you of what it is that you are meant to be doing, in this case learning.

It appears that I am old fashioned in this view. Apparently, the sixth formers want to feel superior to the rest of the school, to distinguish themselves from it. But, and here I seem to be terribly controversial, they are still school children. It seems to me that in this, as in so many other things, they are being allowed to grow up before their time.

Of course they are on the cusp of adulthood and about to step either into the working world or leave home for university but they haven't quite done it yet. Whilst I felt invincible at 17 and 18, I now know that my life had barely begun. Why thrust upon them the realities of the adult world before they need to face it? Should we not encourage them to be children for as long as we can? Address them as pupils, give them a uniform, make sure that they respect those around them. And then, when their wings are fully formed, nudge them slowly out of the nest and into the real world to discover it for themselves.

DOMESTIC DISASTER

2011-11-06T08:04:00.001Z

My washer broke down this week - words to send a chill down the spine of any woman. Of all my time saving devices, my washing machine is the one closest attached to my sanity. When it breaks, it as if someone has lopped off my right arm at the shoulder and then wiped the soggy end on my whites. It is a domestic catastrophe of biblical proportions.

My machine stopped mid-cycle and refused to play any more. It was one week out of its manufacturer's guarantee. We had had lots of letters through offering us appliance insurance and I had dutifully looked at them, researched their services on the internet and decided that it would be better to save the cash and then use a local man if we ever had a breakdown. Happy with my plan, I recycled the letters in the sure knowledge that as the machine was so new it was a wise decision.

So when the machine died so shortly thereafter, I cursed and stamped loudly and then rang my Guardian Angel, my brother, who took away and washed load upon load to get me through the weekend. Day one survived.

On day two, I dived into action with my emergency plan and rang the local man. He doesn't have a mobile so he doesn't ring you back until the end of the working day. I described the machine and the fault. He sucked his teeth and said that the machine was too new and complicated for him to fix but that I would have a five year parts guarantee. A day lost.

It's funny how when you have no washing machine you suddenly have the desire to wash everything that you possess. Cushion covers, coats and curtains all caught my disapproving eye and suddenly became high priority matters as my mind began to panic. On day three I rang the manufacturer who promised to have a man with me by day 6. That would be quite a backlog. After four days there were 24 shirts alone. I went out for coffee and took loads with me to spin whilst we chatted.

Day 6 arrived. The call was from 8am until 6pm. I arranged for someone to cover my school run and began to wait nervously, desperately hoping that whatever the fault was, the man would have the part with him and could fix it on the spot. He did. He replaced the brushes, worn out in just a year and soon my house was again filled with the reassuring whir of the machine.

The seriousness of a broken washing machine is something that all woman understand. When you mention it, they adopt a look of horror, tinged with an flicker of relief that their machine is in full working order and either offer heartfelt sympathy or the use of their machine depending on how well they know you. It's a kind of domestic solidarity that I have come to rely on and which reminds me that we are all in this together. On the darker days, that knowledge is worth a lot.

HOLIDAYS NOT EN FAMILLE

2011-10-25T08:48:00.000+01:00

My baby is going away today. I wish she wasn't. I like to have everyone at home where I can touch them if I need to! It's not like it's the first time or anything. Brownie camp, school trips, a couple of music festivals and endless sleepovers mean that I regularly say goodnight to her in her absence. But this is different and a first for us. She is going on holiday with another family.

This concept is alien to me. I never went away with anyone else when I was a child and I never wanted to. It was the four of us and my brother and I played with whoever we managed to hook up with when we got there. Perhaps going away with your friend's family was less common then - or maybe it was just that no one ever invited me?

Now that I have my own family it would never cross my mind to take anyone else with us on the rare occasions that we all leave Ilkley together. Numbers are obviously an issue but with four children we are also pretty self sufficient. There is always someone to play with and the top two and bottom two are best friends, although they are sometimes reluctant to admit it. Adding someone else into the mix just causes trouble and fights where there weren't any before. With others around we get positioning, showing off and petty jealousies which never surface in the safe surroundings of your siblings.

But now I have to get my head round my child going on holiday with someone else. Will she be safe? How many of my ludicrously long list of dos and don'ts will be flouted? Will she come back slightly different to how she was before? I'd rather she didn't go. It leaves a big hole for the rest of us to try to fill.

And yet I have to say yes. Once I am sure there are no safety concerns then the rest of it is just a problem in my head. Keeping my family at my bosom and never letting go might be what my instincts are telling me to do but it's not in the best interests of my children. They need to explore the world and make discoveries for themselves and that includes seeing how other families function. And other families don't have the safety in numbers that we have. Mixed sex broods, big gaps and missing offspring all mean that sometimes there is room for a stowaway on a trip away. My child is vivacious, entertaining (if not a little loud) and polite. I hope she will make an attractive addition to a holiday grouping.

It's only three days and whilst she is leaving the country, her destination is Wales so I have no concerns about her getting lost. The family that she is going with are lovely and she will no doubt have a wonderful time and return a little bit more independent and worldly wise. And whilst she's gone I will tidy her bedroom and wait bravely for her to come home brimming with laughter and stories of her exploits.

EXPLODING EXPLETIVES

2011-10-20T09:52:00.000+01:00

I love to swear. I know I'm not supposed to. I'm a responsible parent, in control of my faculties and with an extensive vocabulary at my disposal. But sometimes only a swear word will do. Nothing else seems able to capture the moment as eloquently as an obscenity.

There are three main occasions when I feel the need to resort to inappropriate language. For, after all, I wouldn't want you to think that I'm f-ing and blinding at the drop of a hat.

1. In the face of sharp pain or immediate disaster. Into this category I would place stubbing my toe, for example. It really hurts. A nice round swear word is almost akin to morphine for taking away the pain. And surely you would forgive an outburst if a pint of milk were to smash to the floor or I drop the box of hundreds and thousands?

2. Frustration in extremis. Fridays are a good day to catch a frustrated expletive round here as that's the day I clean my house from top to bottom only to have my efforts annihilated within fifteen minutes of the kids getting home. I know it would be more appropriate to say 'For goodness sake' as I chase after them trying to rectify the damage but it just doesn't cut it.

3. Surprise - either good or bad. It doesn't really matter but both are likely to elicit the same response.

Whilst I have a fair few choice options in my armoury, I am not an arbitrary swearer. I only really use variations on two words. They are certainly not the most offensive but neither would I expect to hear them coming from the mouths of my children. My children are not allowed to swear. Oh dear me no. I'm not even happy with the ubiquitous OMG from them. I pick them up on it every time and will tut if their friends swear in my presence too, making light of it but nonetheless making it clear that we don't do that in our house. And that's how I was brought up. We absolutely did not swear. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard my dad use foul language even now.

What a hypocrite I am then as I regularly utter inappropriate expletives in front of my children. They roll their eyes and tick me off. Someone even suggested a swear box which I scoffed at because it's not that I can't control my swearing. Quite the reverse. If I swear in public, other than possibly in case 1 but sometimes even then, I will have made a calculated decision to do so. I will have considered all the ways in which I can express myself and, for whatever reason, have selected the swear word as being the one that most clearly expresses what I wish to convey. And that, I believe, is the way language should be used.

And so, somewhat arrogantly you might quite fairly say, I tell my children that when I am sure that their vocabulary is wide enough to give them as vast a range of possible options as I have, when I can see that they have not just sworn as a lazy response to what has happened or, worse still, out of a sloppy habit and when they completely understand the social effects of the way that they have chosen to express themselves then I might be more forgiving. But they aren't there yet and so they aren't allowed to swear. Until that day however, they are learning from a master!

TO ZAP OR NOT TO ZAP?

2011-10-15T08:11:00.000+01:00

I'm trying to make a decision. Should I have laser eye surgery? Or not?

I've been wearing contact lenses all day every day for almost thirty years. First hard ones in the 80s which were like little domes of glass. Solid, unforgiving, frequently lost on pub floors and regularly cleaned with saliva. Yuk! After trying various other types over the years, I now have daily lenses - the ultimate in laziness. No cleaning and you can pop then out wherever you want and throw them away.

But my eyes don't really like them. Shorter wearing times, deteriorating vision as the day progresses and corneal ulcers have all dogged my steps over recent years. But I loathe wearing glasses. You can see and feel them all the time and, with the recent fashion for rectangular lenses, there is always a blurred world around the edges of the clear central picture. And don't get me started on the impact on specs wearers of living in a damp climate.

I looked into laser eye treatment over a decade ago and rejected it as being impossibly expensive. Then in 2006 my husband had his done and again I was tempted. But it was too hard. Ferrying back and forth to appointments with three children in tow was unrealistic and sleeping with plastic cages over my eyes was not on option when I was up in the night feeding babies. So my vision went back on the back burner and on we went.

But this recent bout of steroid eye drops, trips backwards and forwards to hospital for endless checks and of course the risk that if the ulcers continue I might ultimately damage or lose my sight, has brought the whole idea back into focus.

So this week I went to see if laser eye surgery was an option for me. I spent two hours being tested and scanned, pupils dilated and eyes dyed yellow. They explained which operation I should have, how it would work, what results I could expect and what the risks were and they sent me away with a large pile paper and a decision to make.

As ever with me, the decision making process doesn't follow the path you might expect. I think I am pretty sure that the surgery itself is fine. Of course, success is not guaranteed but the odds are pretty highly stacked in my favour. It carries a level of risk but so does stepping out of my house and if I'd never taken any risks, my life would have been far less rich.

But it is going to hurt and recovery will be slow and uncomfortable because of the type of surgery that I have to have. I know pain and inconvenience shouldn't bother me. I've had four children after all. But it's hardly something I relish, especially when it's inessential.

Also, I will need reading glasses at once. Again, this is something that I've been waiting for as, one by one, all my friends have succumbed. Balancing the pros and cons, the better scenario is probably being able to see properly but need reading glasses than not but it does feel a bit like I'm doing a deal with the devil. 'I'll give you the power of sight but don't think you're getting away scot free.'

I think I will probably go ahead and just score a week or so from my diary to allow for recovery. Consistent amongst the numerous people of my acquaintance that have had it done and recommended the surgery to me is the phrase 'I wish I'd done it years ago.' So, the date is fixed and whilst I can cancel right up to the moment that I'm in the chair, I think I'll be there. After all, as I recently said, rhetorically and with more than a touch of irony, how wrong can it go?!

TEACH YOURSELF COMPUTERS

2011-10-12T12:21:00.000+01:00

I could never describe myself as computer literate. On the wall above my desk there is a sketch of a PC with the words.

'Hello. This is your computer speaking.
You have no idea what you're doing, do you?'

It sums up how I feel pretty accurately.

About three years ago, made nervous by the way my primary school age children were able to run rings round me technologically and fearful of where this gap in our knowledge might lead me, I got myself a laptop. I have been more or less baffled ever since.

I'm not scared by computers. I trust that I can't do too much damage and that if I always read the pop up boxes, especially the ones that ask me if I'm really sure, then I should be OK. But I do find the whole thing terribly exasperating. Because I am self taught, I am sure I always find the most tortuous ways to achieve things. Photos in particular are an issue. I have all my photos in named folders in date order, as you might expect but when I get a new camera load in to be sorted, I have to set aside a good day and a half whilst I laboriously move them all about to where I want them. And the photoshop thing that opens each time is a complete mystery to me. I had a go at a bit of gentle editing but I'm not entirely sure where the computer saved the results to so I just forgot that I'd ever tried.

My computer tells me that its hard drive, a term I've never really got to grips with, is almost full but I have no clue as to what I should be deleting. My husband nearly had heart failure when he realised that three years worth of deleted emails are still there. Well, I clicked 'delete'. How was I supposed to know that all that did was move the redundant message from one folder to another?

You see, that's the trouble. No one has ever shown me this stuff. When I worked in an office I had a secretary to do everything related to computers. Back then, we hadn't even started emailing outside the office. So ask me to set up word document with anything more complicated than a few italics and I'm howling in frustration. Why does my numbering go awry? Why does the type keep returning to bold unbidden? It's all a mystery. It's like trying to understand Chinese without first mastering the alphabet.

I think I may have inadvertently fallen down an abyss between two stools. I am not of my parents' generation who believe the internet to be a bad and dangerous place and a nice, handwritten letter is much the best way to go. Similarly, I have never been educated or worked in an environment where computers are just taken for granted.

I think I would like my life to fall somewhere between the two extremes. Google is great but it's important to be able to use a dictionary. Sat nav is marvellous but maps are sometimes more effective. And if someone can explain iTunes to me, I'll be forever in their debt.

SECRETS

2011-10-05T10:11:00.000+01:00

Secrets. What do you do with them? So exciting when first told, they hang around your neck like Bilbo's ring, causing you to double check your every utterance in case you inadvertently give something away.

Nice secrets are hard enough:

'Surprise party!

Don't mention it on pain of death.

RSVP to this Box Office in Outer Mongolia.'

I find that I lose the power of speech with the person concerned. Instead of day to day chat, I am reduced to inconsequential small talk which makes me appear at best dull and at worst as if the person concerned has offended me in some unspecified manner.

Presents - they're another. You plan ahead and choose the most perfect gift for your loved one. But then you have to button your lip. You're dying to share your knowledge so that they too can bask in your cleverness at finding just the right thing. But you can't. Then doubt creeps in. What if they don't like it? Perhaps you ought to check that you've been thinking along the right lines? It's no wonder the kids struggle to keep their mouths shut after they have finished the wrapping.

But what about bad secrets? What do you do with those? Not long since, I told a friend a bad secret involving someone close to them. How did they react? They shot the messenger. Did I say shot? I meant obliterated with a bloody great blunderbuss. I won't be doing that again.

However, what if the secret affected me and mine? Would I want to know then? After my recent experience, I have given this a lot of thought. The people that I have related my story to all looked at me with horrified faces and told me in no uncertain terms that they would want to know whatever it was that I knew. But would they? Really?

One of the disadvantages of living in such a small and inward looking town is that no matter what you do, someone will find out. I tell my children this with great delight. 'I know everyone,' I say. 'You step out of line and someone will tell me.' But would they? Perhaps they, like me now, think it wiser to keep their own counsel rather than risk an adverse response.

After careful consideration, I have decided that I would want to know and I trust my closest friends to tell me. Because, for all the humiliation that it might cause, all the feelings of doubt and disbelief that are likely to rampage around my mind, if I don't know about it I can't sort it. If I continue in blissful ignorance of some fact which, if it came to light, would make me behave differently, then in the long term, I will be poorer. I will have missed the opportunity to try and put right the wrong, straighten the path. I like to think that I am grown up enough to rise above the pain that the revelation might cause and just be grateful that someone had the courage to tell me.

But if you do hear something bad about one of my lot, tell me when I'm sitting down!

PARENTING - HOW HARD CAN IT BE?

2011-10-03T13:14:00.000+01:00

When my children were small I remember how those with more experience than me always said the same thing.

"You think it's hard now? Just wait until they're older."

Whenever I heard that, I just used to smile wanly through my veil of exhaustion and hope that they were saying it for effect. After all, it couldn't get any harder than two children under two and a full time job crammed into four days on next to no sleep. Could it?

In my turn, I repeated the adage to those with children younger than mine. I remember almost causing a stand up row at a birthday celebration by asserting that it was, in fact, true. The older they get the harder it becomes.

Now that I have emerged, almost unscathed, from pre-school hell and have two teenage children to boot, I feel able to be more circumspect in my consideration of the issues. Parenting is tricky, whichever stage you're at. It is hard with very young children because they are so demanding of your time and sleep is at such a premium. But it's not challenging. They cry, you work out what is wrong and hopefully sort it. They smile, your heart melts and all is well.

Pre-school years, my own personal nemesis, are hard. Dealing with a child that thinks it can when actually it can't is frustrating to say the least and I found the constant repetition soul-destroyingly dull.

I look back on my life with four children aged 7 and under and compare it to how it is now. When they were little it was relentless. I had no time to call my own. Even leaving the house was an effort. I was time poor and would have given my right arm for an uninterrupted cup of coffee. But I now look back at the things I agonised over and laugh. How I fretted about whether I should allow my child a break time snack of jam sandwiches? How I worried about why the teacher wouldn't tell me precisely where in the class my little darling sat in terms of intelligence?

Fast forward to now. By comparison, my days are easy. The children are all gone for hours on end. My evenings are filled with ferrying them backwards and forwards which isn't hard and I no longer have to jam everyone in the car with me every time I go anywhere. But the parenting? That's something else altogether.

Last week alone we encountered exclusion from school for possession of drugs, chemically induced abortion and oblivion due to alcohol. Not the actions of my children as far as I'm aware but children not that far from our lives. Not the children about whom you might knowingly shake your head but nice ones from nice homes with nice parents just like me.

This is where things get tough. I'm starting to understand what those prophetic parents must have meant. Keeping your children safe from an ever-encroaching adult world, helping them to make grown up decisions when they are nowhere near being grown up and hardest of all doing it without driving them straight into the path of the thing you are seeking to avoid.

When they were little, all I had to do was say no and stick to my guns. Now the decisions are bigger, more important and may make a difference to how the rest of our lives pan out. I'll confess to being a bit overwhelmed by it all, feeling my way in the dark for a light switch that keeps moving. All I can do is keep on doing what I think is right and hope that it all turns out for the best. Deep breath Imogen.

TV IN THE DIGITAL AGE

2011-09-27T18:21:00.000+01:00

So Ilkley has entered the digital age. Last week, the analogue television signal to our little town was turned off and now if you want to watch you have to do so through Sky, cable or a set top box. Apparently.

I know this because of the irritating advert campaign that has been running for the last year. However, I have no meaningful understanding of what this actually means. I don't suppose I need to know except that the way the four 'real' channels and the Sky stuff is now distributed around my house is different and what I can watch where depends on the wiring and the age of the set. Apparently.

Now I don't mind change and I try to embrace technology but I have to confess that I struggle with modern television. I'm not one of those who says that everything that comes from Sky and cable is rubbish. If you are discerning and pick carefully, there are some really good programmes and some of the repeats have a kind of comfort factor, like an old sweater or a fire on a chilly night.

My gripes with modern TV lie in the sheer embarrassment of choice. When I was a child there were three and latterly four channels and video recorders could be found in only the very smartest of houses. This meant that everyone watched the same programmes at the same time. We would wait all week for an episode of Starsky and Hutch and then spend the next day discussing it with our mates and quoting chunks of dialogue at each other. There was a kind of sociability about our viewing. Just look at the viewing figures, numbers that producers today can only dream of.

Now, the chances of you and your friend having either watched the same programme or watched it at the same time are very slim indeed. Discussion is stymied because someone in the room will have recorded it and not managed to catch up yet. Others are weeks behind because the series link button allows you the luxury of recording something without even realising that it's on.

Family viewing is another casualty. Whilst there were moments when I wished I wasn't watching with my mum and dad, generally when the TV was on it was family affair so we would be found in the same room doing the same thing.

I know I could insist on selecting and watching programmes with my children but our viewing habits haven't grown up like that and they watch things that hold no interest for me. So they sit in one room with America's Next Top Model and we sit in the other with Spooks.

I know that modern TV is convenient, that I can watch what I want on demand and pause it if the phone rings but I think I preferred it when you either watched or you missed it. So as we enter this new, exciting and somewhat mysterious digital age, I can't help but remember the good old television of my youth with more than a little wistfulness.

CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE

2011-09-21T12:46:00.001+01:00

It's been nine days since my last post. My output has dropped from at least twice a week to...well, to who knows what. I did think about stopping, either permanently or at least until something worthy of comment happened to me. That would be the easiest thing, I thought. But then I've never been awfully good at the easiest thing. Instead I revert to type. I analyse. I work out what has caused the slow down in output and try to figure out how to fix it.

Well, what has caused my uncharacteristic silence is easy to identify. Nothing to write about. Simple. But then I have to ask why I have nothing to say. My life hasn't been particularly devoid of excitement over the last week or so. In fact it was my birthday so that alone could normally generate a least three decent ideas. It is true that after 313 posts there is a danger of revisiting old ground but let's be honest, who is ever going to notice except me?

So, my analysis continues, if life has continued apace with plenty of material to go at, why have I not sat down and written anything? Lack of time? I don't think so. I waste masses of time. I can always find a slot to put pen to paper.

Confusion strikes me now. I have subjects to write about. I have time. I have written nothing. Why not?

Of course, I know why not. My personal soul searching is just a thinly disguised attempt to take myself to places that I don't want to go. I know exactly what's wrong. I write loads when I'm feeling either:
a) supremely self confident that what I publish is witty or thought provoking or both and will elicit a positive response from those who read it; or
b) I don't care whether people think it is or not.

Ergo at the moment I feel neither of those things. When you start to worry about what people say or in my case, don't say about what you choose to reveal in such a public forum then suddenly it becomes too difficult to do. I fret about how my words might be misinterpreted. I harbour concerns about the impact that my public laundry service might have on those that I love best. Sometimes I even worry what my mum and dad might think.

And then suddenly there's no spark, no devil may care attitude and no blog!

I like to blog. I like that it makes me organise my thoughts into some kind of coherent argument. I like the record that it is forming of our day to day life which will be there when we have all forgotten what got us steamed up. But most of all I like that I can say what I think without fear.

So I need to ditch the worries or it won't work. I need to rediscover the me that doesn't care what others think on the basis that if they hate what I write then they won't bother reading it. Most importantly, I need to remember how to not take life too seriously. So please stick with me. Normal service should be resumed shortly.

PUSHY PARENTS

2011-09-12T11:01:00.001+01:00

Someone suggested that I was a pushy parent last week. It grated. I have never considered myself in those terms. However, the suggestion did give rise to some musing on the point. I've been wondering what I see as pushy, how I believe I differ from that description and what those around me might think ( although I have to confess to being relatively unconcerned about the latter.)

When we were children, my brother and I had pretty strong ideas about what constituted a pushy parent. Our parents did not come close and, with the security that that knowledge provided, we mocked mercilessly those that we thought did fit the bill. Certain of our friends' parents were to be avoided at all costs and we took a kind of pride in keeping our own achievements well under our bushels, proof positive, we believed, that we were not the product of a pushy environment.

When my children were babies, I was very aware that it was a thin line that I walked. How easy it would be to tip over into being something that I had mocked. In groups of women, their names now lost in the mists of time, I soon discovered that no one really listened to what was said about a child that was not their own. They were simply waiting for a gap in the conversation where they could insert some other amazing detail of their own offspring's development. I missed proper conversation. I went back to work.

At school it was the same. Mothers telling me loudly and often about how far up the reading tree they were. Entries for school competitions which had the tell tale signs of an adult's hand. Parents whose path to the Head's office was so well worn that they could walk it with their eyes closed. That was not and still is not me.

So why might I be perceived as pushy I thought. Well, my children are busy. Perhaps that's it? Maybe busy children can be equated with the style of parenting that allows for no gaps in the schedule lest boredom creep in. But our busyness is organic. The children's enthusiasm, joie de vivre and, dare I say without sounding pushy, talent has filled their every spare moment. In many ways it would suit me if they didn't show such vigour and we had some more downtime but I see my role as a mother to facilitate their desires as long as it is prudent to do so.

I suspect the downfall of my reputation as a non pushy parent has been facebook. It is the perfect platform to show how proud I am of my children's achievements (although, ever conscious of reaction because part of me does care what people think, I keep a lot of their successes back.) This may be seen as boasting, something my brother and I ridiculed but I believe hard work should be rewarded with praise and I am always pleased to see the achievements of other people's children trumpeted in a similar manner.

At the end of the day, we are all doing our best to bring up our children. I hope that I am helping my four to grow into rounded, confident and happy adults by supporting and encouraging them and providing advice and guidance when they reach a crossroad. If this is pushy then bring it on. I happen to think it's what parenting is all about but none of us will really know how we've done until they are grown and by then it will be too late!

THE JEANS DILEMMA

2011-09-08T10:41:00.000+01:00

Driving through Bradford yesterday, I chanced to sit in a queue outside a sari shop and so had plenty of time to admire the outfits in the window. They were beautiful. The fabrics, some in strong, jewel colours, others more subdued and elegant, were all delicately embroidered with metallic thread and there were beads and sequins to accentuate the designs and add sparkle. I could have walked in and bought any one of them.

Then I looked down at my own attire. Jeans of course, on their second day and so slightly bagged at the knee and with a paler patch where I fell and rubbed the indigo out. A nice enough top, grey cotton with lace but nothing special. None of it could be called smart and nothing came anywhere close to making me feel like a woman.

Now you may say that the only person who controls what I wear is me and therefore I only have myself to blame if I don't feel that I can hold a candle to the women in their saris. And this is of course true. I am solely in charge of my own wardrobe and consequently the image that I project to the outside world but I am also a product of my environment.

When I worked in an office in the 90s I tried to look the part. Suits, blouses and heels were the order of the day every day. But then my home became my workplace and things changed. I needed practical clothing, stuff that I could wear to crawl around on the floor with the children, that could withstand constant washing and would protect me from the elements whilst walking around town. Jeans. They fit the bill.

I've been wearing jeans for over ten years now. There is a brief spell in the summer when I cast them off but generally that's what I'll be in. At the start of every season I peruse the catalogues and make half hearted decisions to smarten my wardrobe. Sometimes I even buy things. A skirt perhaps or some tailored trousers. But they don't get worn. They either aren't comfortable or I never find the perfect shoe. And most days nobody actually sees what I have on underneath my coat so there hardly seems any point making an effort.

But I do miss dressing as a woman and making an effort. Heels make you carry yourself in a particular way and if you are wearing a skirt you have to think about how and where you sit. I have now reached the point where I have barely anything feminine in my wardrobe. If someone were to invite me somewhere smart for lunch I would have to go shopping first. I watch 50s films and long for an age when clothes had structure and were well tailored instead of soft and designed to hide a multitude of failings. And yet if I bought these things they would never get worn.

I know myself well enough now to know that there's no point planning to change my image this season; nothing will change. However, staring wistfully at those beautiful garments yesterday did make me wonder whether perhaps I ought to make a little more effort.

THE DISNEY DREAM

2011-09-04T09:22:00.001+01:00

One of the many reasons why I love 'Pride and Prejudice' is that it is so relevant to me. I, like Elizabeth Bennett, am constantly leaping to conclusions based on ill founded ideas and then having to change my mind. A case in point is our family's recent holiday to Disney World in Florida.

I'm happy to admit that taking the children to Disney was something that I felt we ought to do rather than a burning ambition. However, having decided that the ages of the children made this an optimum year, we booked. I was pretty certain that it would not be for me despite having no concrete evidence on which to base my decision. I imagined small, overcrowded spaces filled with screaming children. I visualized men dressed in unconvincing animal costumes and expected banal platitudes at every turn.

Boy was I wrong? The Disney parks are huge, clean, immaculately manicured. The paths between areas are wide with perfect flowerbeds and water features. There was no litter and no signs of wear and tear on anything despite the huge numbers of people passing through each day. And it all ran like clockwork. Getting all those people through the queues and on to the rides is no mean feat but it was achieved with order and decorum. At no point did my children moan whilst waiting because there was always something to look at or do to keep them entertained.

Even leaving the park was trouble free. We watched the fireworks at Epcot on our last night. There were thousands of people there who all left at the same time as us and yet we were in our car and on the road within 15 minutes of the show ending. Incredible.

So, once I'd relegated my prejudices to the back of my mind, I got on with the task of enjoying myself. We were there for 14 days and were at a park for 12 of them. I had imagined that we would be able to bear no more than a week of it with quieter days in between. In fact, as it turned out we spent our quieter days at Disney's water parks and had no time off at all. There was too much to do to sit still for long. However, having commanded a mission to Mars, taken part in a disaster movie, watched countless 3 and 4D shows, spent some time on safari in Africa and driven a car on a test track (amongst countless other things), I found that I lost my grip on what was real. It was all rather intriguing.

Yes the Disney message is all a bit mushy and over sentimentalized. Memories are made here. Dreams can come true. But somehow I found myself buying into that because, fundamentally, that is what I believe too. Work hard, aim high and seize the day is not a bad mantra for life.

I don't need to go back. We had a fabulous holiday but the world is a big place and I feel I have taken from Disney what it has to offer me. However, I would now have no hesitation in recommending the American Disney experience to anyone, no matter how sceptical they are. Of course, Orlando is big and brash. The roads, the cars and the portions are all huge but the customer service is exceptional and the attention to detail is second to none. The Disney experience is something that I don't think we could do here. We don't have the space and our attitude is all wrong. But there with the American 'can do' philosophy it works like a dream. And dreams can come true!

PAINTING THE FORTH BRIDGE

2011-08-11T09:08:00.000+01:00

I'm a tidy person by nature. I like things to be straight. If a room isn't as it should be then I can't relax in it until it is. And of course, if I can't then neither can my family because I will huff and puff and make a huge fuss until it's all sorted.

It was the same when I had a busy job. To ensure that nothing got overlooked, I had tidy piles of paper dotted around my desk so that at any moment I could see what was still awaiting my attention. This was how I maintained the illusion of control for myself. My boss had a room that looked like a bomb had gone off in it. I used to hyper-ventilate just standing on its threshold. Paper was piled upon paper upon paper so that it was impossible to find a flat surface on which to work. And yet, if you asked him where anything was he could immediately lay his hand on it. He had control in his chaos - his brain was clearly bigger and with better wiring than mine.

Unfortunately, being anal about tidiness does not always sit happily in a house with four children. They fail to understand how important to my mental well being a tidy house is and I cannot comprehend how they can walk into an ordered room and destroy it in a matter of seconds without even a nod to its former pristine state. So it's a bit of an unhappy mix and I have to bite my tongue and close my eyes to it to save myself from going mad.

I do have some understanding though. Don't tell my kids but I wasn't a tidy child. I too had drawers that were so crammed full of stuff that they wouldn't close. The catchphrase 'Don't open that cupboard! Things fall out!' could have been written for me. Too much stuff, not enough space and no interest in achieving more than the merest modicum of tidiness to get my mum off my back. That was me. And, it appears, is them.

Task for the summer - sort my eldest's room. The others need attention but hers was the worst. We tackle it storage unit by storage unit. The desk, the bedside table, the vanity unit and finally the wardrobe. We do it together. She is good at throwing away and we fill bag after bag of clutter in a satisfyingly Cathartic manner. The result is impressive. A place for everything and everything in its place. There were even clear spaces waiting ready to be filled. It was great. I feel calm and she is pleased.

It lasted less than a day. Fresh ironing hidden rather than hung up. Toiletries left on the side rather than in their newly allocated spot. Bags, scarves, clothes, magazines all not where they were supposed to be. Previously this blatant disregard for my tidiness would have resulted in a minor explosion of anger but slowly I'm resigning myself to it.

I'm not giving in. I remain unchanged. If it's not tidy I twitch. That's just who I am. But I can't make them who I am. They will learn to be tidy or they won't. There is nothing that I can do about it. I hope they will have enough respect for me and their environment to make some sort of effort but if I want the house like a new pin then I'm afraid that that is going to have to be down to me. At least my square metre is straight!

JUMP? HOW HIGH??

2011-08-03T07:38:00.000+01:00

An article in The Sunday Times got my goat this week. To be fair, I was determined to hate it when the tag line read 'How do the Nation's Top Mummies get their kids eating veg?' Already my hackles were rising. Exactly who are these 'top mummies'? Do they give out awards? Can we all vote? As suspected, the article was actually referring to celebrity mummies. Those mummies who have to give their children to someone else to look after whilst they are out becoming famous and making plenty of money to then spend on vegetable gurus who can tell them how to make their little darlings eat vegetables. ( I did warn you that my goat had been got!)

I didn't read the article first time round, so incensed had I been by its basic concept but as I turned the page my eyes were drawn to a plateful of bright orange spaghetti and yet again I was sucked into the text. The recipe began with a nice little suggestion as to how to make it a hit with your children. 'Ask your children to arrange the carrots in order of size.. get them to count out the sage leaves.... encourage them to smell the sage and talk about its lovely silvery green colour.'

God give me strength. This is such a ludicrous suggestion that if I hadn't been weeping I would have laughed. Perhaps if you only have one child, do not work and have patience of Job this might be a good wheeze? Now, I may be on my own in this regard but in my house food preparation is a much a chore as cleaning the bathroom. I want my food, albeit freshly cooked and wholesome, prepared and cooked with as little fuss as possible. As I chop vegetables there will be someone playing tig around the island, another telling me that if they don't eat ' in like five minutes' they are going die, someone needing help with homework, someone trying to tell me something trivial about their day which is clearly a coded message for something more important that I have to decipher and I will be clock watching to make sure that I time the meal to fit in between the various extra curicular classes that that evening holds in store. There is absolutely no time for counting carrots.

And this is what makes me cross. All households are different. We all have different priorities and ways of doing things. But as far as I can see we all have one thing in common. We are all just doing our best. So reading in the Sunday paper that it if I do not engage my children in the cooking process I will not get them to eat vegetables, that this makes me second tier to the 'Nations Top Mummies' and consequently a failure as a parent is unhelpful at best and downright irresponsible at worst. Being a parent is an incredibly difficult job, made worse by constant comparisons with others and the enormous list of things that we are supposed to achieve, eating vegetables being just one of them.

My children do eat some vegetables and the list of what they will contemplate gets longer every year. This is a result of living in a house where vegetables are served as a matter of course. I pity all those mothers, particularly those with children much younger than mine, who opened their Sunday magazine to be hit over the head with how inadequate their parenting was because they do not count vegetables with their off spring. Come on Media. Give us parents a break.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

2011-07-31T08:04:00.000+01:00

My given name is Imogen Jane Bromley and so it was until I reached 28, got married and, following age old tradition, took my husband's name. Growing up in the 70s with a name like Imogen was a challenge. It's hard to imagine now that the name is so prevalent but back then it was unheard of. When introducing myself I generally had to repeat my name more than once. Adults smiled politely and then didn't call me anything for weeks. Children just said 'What? That's not a real name.' etc etc. I was 18 before I even heard of another one that wasn't famous and in my twenties before I met one.

It was character forming. If someone was talking about Imogen then it was always me. That was just how it was, good or bad. And Bromley was relatively unusual too. Even by the time I was an adult and announcing myself on the telephone at work, the secretaries would only get one name or the other first time. When I changed my name there was less of an issue. Clark is so easy to get hold of that Imogen proved to be less of a stumbling block.

I'd been married for a year when I discovered that there was another Imogen Clark. She is a solicitor working for a City law firm and she works within the same discipline as me. I didn't like it one bit. I wasn't used to sharing my moniker with anyone, let alone someone with whom I might reasonably be confused.

There are, of course, thousands of Imogen Clarks. Imogen has been in the Top 100 names for years now and Clark, even allowing for the rogue 'e' at the end of some versions, is a Top 20 surname. I used to ask my husband how it felt to have people shout out his name in a public space and it not be for him. I think he thought I was mad but to me it was the strangest thing. It's more common now of course but when mothers shout at their own little Imogens I always turn round.

This is all writ large for me these days because of my blog and more specifically my stat counter. The counter tells me how many hits the page gets each day and the links that have been followed to get there. So I know that when people search for 'Imogen Clark' on google, it's not always me that they're looking for. There's an author for example and an Australian indie/folk singer with the sweetest voice. Someone once even posted a comment that they loved my music. I had to tell them that they were acting under a misapprehension and that the Imogen Clark whose life they were reading about was not the one they sought.

I have toyed with the idea of setting up a closed group on facebook for everyone with my name just to see what a diverse bunch we actually are. I might still do it but even though I think it would be great fun, something still holds me back. Somewhere in my head I am still that unique child with the unheard of name and I am unprepared to share.

HAVING FUN WITH LEG-WARMERS

2011-07-27T08:37:00.000+01:00

It's high summer. My garden is in full bloom. The children are playing barefoot on the lawn late into the evening. I wait all year for this. But lo. What is this falling through my letterbox and landing with an ominous thud on the doormat. Could it be the sound of Autumn/Winter catalogues arriving?

I should know better than to look. Instead of anticipating what comes next, I should be enjoying what we have now. But I can't help it. The lure of cable knit sweaters is too much. So I have a little peak. After all, what harm can it do? It's not like I'm wishing away my beloved summer or anything. And what do I see? Girls in jeans and boots with long-length cardigans and tousled scarves. And leg-warmers.

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I've always been quite attracted to leg-warmers. Even in the 80s, when they were only worn by fitness freaks, Fame wanabees and Bucks Fizz, I really fancied a pair. And here they were, in my new catalogue. I want some. I need some. I am absolutely not paying £36 for some.

I know. I'll make some. I can knit. I made fingerless gloves and wrist warmers last winter. These are just the same only longer. I need a pattern though. Whilst they are simple and I am a competent knitter, I need to have success guaranteed or I'll lose heart. I need a pattern that looks like the one in the catalogue.

And so I begin to trawl my way through the knitting sites. I come across hundreds of leg-warmer patterns but none of them are quite right. You see my requirements are very specific. A simple rib is not enough. I need a cable too. But if it's complicated and I have to concentrate whilst knitting then I will go wrong and lose interest. It's a very fine line between looking right and lying unfinished in the bottom of my knitting bag.

After what seems like hours, my vision is starting to blur but I still have no perfect pattern. And then I find it. Not too complicated, the exact rib to cable ratio. Marvelous. The pattern is free and I click on the PDF file, my heart beating a little faster in anticipation of Autumn walks and kicking through leaves. The pattern is in Japanese. I hit translate which makes the surrounding adverts intelligible but leaves the pattern itself a mass of squiggles. Damn.

Undeterred, I decide to go with my second choice of pattern and visit the helpful women at my wonderful local wool shop Create. They are full of sound advice, won't laugh at my desire for simplicity and the result, assuming that I don't lose count and get disheartened, should be just what I'm hoping for.

This way I get to do something non screen related in the evening and by the time the nights are drawing in and jeans and boots are de rigour, I should be sporting a natty pair of leg-warmers. Or the yarn will be lying in the bottom of my knitting bag. tangled with the mess of other unfinished projects, waiting for today's enthusiasm to re-emerge. It's a hard one to call.

WHY I HATE FESTIVALS

2011-07-24T20:07:00.000+01:00

We went to a festival this weekend, Deer Shed in North Yorkshire. It is billed as being kids and family friendly and I would have to agree with the tag line. When I arrived, the field was full of happy people. There were men doing battle with tents, children playing on space hoppers, mums with plastic glasses of Pimms, rainbow jumpers and lots and lots of smiling faces.

There were oodles of creative crafts for the children to try, interesting stalls with quirky handmade stock to purchase and fabulous food stalls with hardly a chip in sight. There was a circus tent and the music and the beer tents. There was plenty of fresh water to drink and the loos were remarkably clean. The organisers had thought of everything.

My family had a wonderful time. There were plenty of people there that we know from home and the children formed a huge feral pack and careered around the site wallowing in the unaccustomed freedom. The adults found a place to act as the base and spread blankets surrounded by camping chairs so the children always knew where to return to if their nerve failed them or they ran out of cash. Everyone looked happy and relaxed.

Except me. I hated it.

As far as I am concerned, it had no redeeming features whatsoever. I arrived half way through the weekend and left again before the day was out. Of the two days and nights that my family was there, I managed seven hours but I would have happily left after three.

So what's wrong with me? Why am I swimming so hard uphill when everyone else is happy to grab a rip tide and enjoy the ride. The list of things that I don't like about festivals is so long that to even begin to mention them makes me sound like a fuddy duddy killjoy. Sadly, it seems that I am the only person of my acquaintance who doesn't love it. Despite mentioning my view tentatively to a wide range of people, I have yet to find anyone who replies 'I know exactly what you mean. I hate it too.' I am completely on my own. I did wonder whether some other people didn't enjoy it quite as much as they made out but were happy to go with the flow but I saw no evidence of this.

I'm not going next year. I shouldn't have gone this year but I felt guilty when the rest of the Clarks were so keen. I am hurt and upset that I am incapable of doing something as simple as sitting in a field for a weekend to please others. It is probably just selfish of me not to smile and pretend that I'm having the best time and I'm sure that the others must think that I'm weird or mad or both.

Perhaps I should cultivate my slightly eccentric demeanour, begin wearing purple now rather than in old age? Then people will say 'Oh it's only Imogen. Don't mind her. She always was a little odd!'

Perhaps they already do.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

2011-07-24T08:52:00.000+01:00

I was listening to a science show on the radio. It was about the relationship between science and the world of the psychic phenomena. It made lots of interesting points about the need for humans to have explanations for things, particularly in times of stress although the existence of anything paranormal was poo pooed.

As part of the programme, they asked the studio audience to conduct an experiment. It was introduced as a way of finding who had the most imagination. Of course, what it was really about was susceptibility. I was at home on my own so I joined in.

So. If I could now do a straw poll of my readership, I wonder how many of you would say that I, self-confessed sceptic and truster in science, would fall for something as simple as that? Alternatively, you may feel that I have some powers of imagination and a tendency to believe the unlikely which might be revealed by such a test. I suspect you could all have a pretty good guess as to which side of the line I fell.

Actually, the key word is 'susceptibility'. With my logical, rational head on I cannot be convinced of the existence of higher powers, ghosts and communications from beyond the grave. But I would like to believe in fairies, am highly credulous, easily deceived and like to think I can be open minded.

Of course I fell for the experiment hook, line and sinker. Even as the instructions were being spoken, I was aware that I was being manipulated but when I opened my eyes it was obvious that some stronger part of my brain had taken over and decided that I was, unwillingly or otherwise, going to cooperate with what I was being told to do.

Of course, this isn't the first time that my susceptibility has been proven. A hypnotist came to the Students' Union one night when I was there. Guess where this is going! We had to lace our fingers over our heads and the ones who couldn't separate them when he'd finished suggesting things to us were judged suitably susceptible and had to go up on stage. There were about twenty of us. Without giving any indication of how he did it, the hypnotist quickly identified those who were pretending and sent them back to their seats. This left me and nine others to make the show.

It's a strange experience, being hypnotised. I was aware of what was going on the whole time. I knew that the things that he was asking us to do were silly or required a leap of imagination - invisible chairs, dripping ice creams, alcoholic water - but somehow it all seemed perfectly sensible and quite ordinary.

So, from this I must conclude that I am someone to whom things can be suggested and I will believe them. I am Derren Brown's dream audience member. Despite my professed logical outlook and pragmatic approach to life, there is something about the way my mind works that makes it open to things that don't make much sense. But should I be bothered? Does it reveal yet another massive character flaw? I suppose I rather like to think of myself as having imagination but isn't that just a nice way of saying that I'm a mug?

Actually, all it means is that I can be hypnotised. It doesn't follow that I will start attending seances and believe that a woman with a crystal ball can predict my future. It is fascinating though and I would love to talk to a hypnotist about why their powers work on some people and not others and what it is about my brain that makes me susceptible. It's probably just my tendency towards gullibility but I like to think that that's part of my charm!

A MOMENTARY LAPSE

2011-07-19T10:56:00.000+01:00

Natasha Blakeman sat at the table in her well appointed kitchen and wept. In the next room the twins were fighting over a toy train or a book or a jigsaw puzzle. She had no idea exactly what. She no longer cared. In a bouncy chair by the table leg Lily was crying. Her little fists were bunched in anger and her screwed up face was squeezing out real tears. Natasha put her fingers in her ears and tried to block out the sound but the piercing cry continued to sear straight through her brain. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks.

‘Will you all just shut up!’ she screamed. For a moment, the sudden and unexpected sound made Lily stop crying and she looked with curiosity at her mother but then she redoubled her efforts as the shock of the sound hit her. Natasha, horrified both by her outburst and the effect that it had had on her daughter, knelt down beside the bouncy chair. She struggled with the buckle as she tried to release the screaming child from the straps that held her safe and the unforgiving plastic clip nipped her finger. Ignoring the pain she freed the baby and held her close to her chest, rocking her back and forth instinctively.

‘I’m sorry, Princess. I’m sorry,’ she repeated over and over through her tears. Noah and Jacob stormed in to the room, both desperate to put their side of the story before their sibling.

‘Mummy! Jacob said I was stupid!’

‘ Noah took the tractor and I had it and its mine.’

‘No it’s not. It’s mine. Uncle James bought it for me for my birthday didn’t he Mummy? Didn’t he? And you can’t have it. I want it back. Give it to me now.’

With that, Noah hit Jacob on the arm with the length of train track that he had in his hand.

‘Boys! Stop it! Can’t you just play nicely? Please.’ Natasha knew that begging her four year old sons to behave would not have the desired effect but she no longer had the energy to apply the strategies that she had read about in her many parenting manuals.

Jacob, generally the more sensitive of the two realised that his mother was crying and immediately abandoned the fight with his brother to hug her. His small arms were too short to wrap around both his mother and sister and so he focused on Natasha’s shoulder instead.

‘Mummy, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?’

Noah, realising that his brother was about to steal a march on him by showing compassion, came to hug her other shoulder but Natasha could see that he was still pulling faces at Jacob as he did so. Balancing Lily precariously against her chest, she put an arm around each of the boys and pulled them towards her in an awkward embrace. Stalwartly, she tried to regain her composure, hating that she was showing this alien, vulnerable side of herself to her children but there was no stemming the flood of tears now that they had started. Her shoulders heaved and she sobbed, snatching her breath in uneven gasps. Her long brown hair stuck to her damp face but she had no hand free to wipe it away and so she left it there, not caring how she looked.

Lily had stopped crying, placated by the contact with her mother and the twins, tired of competing for her attention, were struggling to get away. She released them and they scattered, all concern for their mother forgotten in their desire to move on to the next thing.

A blood blister had formed where her finger had caught in the buckle and it glistened on her skin like a ruby. She knew she would have burst it before too long, not having the self control to allow nature to take its course but for now she would let it be. How had her life got to this? Crying in a heap on the kitchen floor? She was a controlled and competent woman, laid waste by the marauding monsters that were her children. That was not fair. The children were not bad; they were just children. She would cope. All she needed was some sleep and everything would slip back into place just as it had been before. She was pretty sure that every mother had moments like this, when the enormity of the task they had been given overwhelmed them. Of course, you would never tell from the outside. By the time the little family was seen in public at the twins’ preschool tomorrow, all would be calm and a picture of order. The twins, in their matching blazers and shorts, Lily in some adorable but not entirely practical dress and she with freshly laundered outfit and blow-dried hair. It was all a façade really, a conspiracy that all mothers were party to but that no one would discuss.

The phone rang. James maybe, although unlikely. More probably her mother, or James’s. She let it ring, waiting for the answer phone to reveal the identity of the caller. She heard her own voice, unnaturally bright and cheerful, inform the caller that the Blakemans could not come to the phone right now. The irritating beep filled the kitchen followed by the strident tones of Rosemary Blakeman.

‘Hello dear. How are you? You must be out. Bother. I just wanted to firm up the plans for the weekend. We are so looking forward to seeing you all. I’m arranging for Matthew and Kate to come over for lunch on Sunday so that will be nice…’

As her mother in law got into her stride, Natasha thought briefly about picking up the phone and speaking to her. That would save her having to call back later. In all honesty though, she really could not face the pretence that a conversation with Rosemary at this moment would involve. She left the phone on its cradle and, feeling a little guilty at the deception, listened to the remainder of the message without getting up.

‘….so if you could give me a ring and let me know what sort of time to expect you that would be lovely. I’ll put the travel cot in with you and James. I hope that’s OK. We can always have a swap around if you’d prefer somewhere else. Anyway, I must go. Hope you’re all well. Love to James. Bye.’

A click signalled the end of the call and Natasha shuffled herself and her daughter across the floor so that her back rested against a cupboard door. Lily had fallen asleep. Natasha knew that she should put her down and go and spend some time with the twins but instead she stayed where she was and closed her eyes. The smell of Lily’s feather-soft hair was divine and she breathed it in as deeply as she could, breathing out again reluctantly. It was nearly four ‘o clock. She would have to do something about tea for the boys soon. Perhaps she would just do a carpet picnic and then aim for an early bath. James was unlikely to be back in time to help her so she might as well get the whole bedtime process over and done with as soon as was realistic.

A weekend in Bath. She could do without it but at least Rosemary would cook and there would be plenty of people about to keep the twins entertained. It would be nice to see Matthew and Kate too. They were such an earnest couple, Natasha thought. Matthew a replica of his father in so many ways and Kate, so serious and focussed. The Blakemans had always had Natasha pegged as the driven career woman of the family but it was obvious to her that Kate was just as determined. You only had to look at the way she was keeping them all waiting for a grandchild to see who wore the trousers there. Rosemary seemed to think that it was a biological issue but to Natasha it was obvious that Kate’s childless state was by design. At this moment she was almost envious.

Well, she could not sit here all day. Buoyed up by the early to bed strategy, Natasha carefully stood up with the sleeping Lily still in her arms. The baby did not stir and delicately Natasha returned her to the bouncy chair leaving the vicious buckle unfastened. Gently she sidled to the kitchen door and, closing it behind her, went off to find out what the boys were up to.

THE SUMMER HOLIDAY

2011-07-12T10:17:00.000+01:00

'There's no point going to school for the last two weeks of term.'

So affirmed my daughter at the breakfast table this morning. It appears that what, in my day, was the fun run-down to the summer holidays after the drudge of school exams is now a bit of a drag. Without exams there has been no discernible end to the academic year and so it is about to go out with with a whimper not a bang.

'We are playing board games in Spanish.'
'Well that sounds like fun,' I say, brightly. 'Do you have enough of that kind of vocabulary?'
'No mum!' she says, with distinct undertones of exasperation. 'In Spanish. Not in Spanish.'
'Oh,' I say, weakly. 'Well that will be fun as well....'

I give up. I decide against pointing out that even if they had finished earlier, the last two weeks would have been the same. And anyway, they have Celebration Day for working hard all year to come and daughter two won the Super Tutor Group challenge and will be rewarded with an afternoon at the Lido so it's hardly doom and gloom.

Conversations like this though serve to remind me (as if any reminder were necessary) that the summer holiday is almost upon us. Six weeks of long, hot days swinging in the hammock and sleeping in the tent. The days that childhood memories are made of.

I take an extraordinarily hands off approach to the long vac. We do barely anything that requires a car or organisation. Instead, we all kick around here, occasionally venturing out to town for supplies. Kids come. Kids go. I make food and we all achieve very little. It suits us. We work hard as a family during term time and it's nice to take our collective feet off the gas.

Or at least it is for a bit. Granted the first week is normally a challenge as we all hunker down into our new lifestyles but after that, we generally have a few weeks of unadulterated mucking about. But then I start to twitch. I long for silence, or what passes for silence around here. I dream of having to be up and out before midday. I even start to look at the calendar and work out how the new term's ferrying will work out.

I love having my children at home. Of course I do. I love it when everything stops and we can eat when it suits us and not be constantly watching the clock. But I do miss a bit of structure to my days. With not much to do, I sort of slip into a malaise and before long just walking up to town becomes too much like hard work and gets put off to another day.

I think the problem is that the holiday is just too long. Four weeks would be perfect. Time for us all to relax, recharge and re-engage. After six weeks, they have forgotten what shoes are for or the meaning of the words 'Hurry up!'

This year I have rather cleverly placed our summer holiday in the last two weeks so we will only get four weeks at home. As a result, I'm not quite as daunted as I usually am. I have books to read and things to write and I have drawn up a cleaning rota. But by the time September comes, I will have had enough and will be raring to meet all the challenges of the new academic year. By October, of course, I will be mourning the death of yet another summer and crying out for a break.

HIDDEN PEOPLE

2011-07-08T10:37:00.000+01:00

Last week my friend went on a course. Billed as 'Vikings and Volcanoes', it was designed to be a day's romp through the highlights of Iceland but actually they seemed to spend rather a lot of time talking about elves.

This caught my interest. Whilst it flies in the face of what I consider to be my logical intellect, I have always been strangely drawn to magical creatures. Fairies, mermaids and unicorns have resonated highly with me since childhood. I love the idea of there being a parallel world existing side by side with ours which we fail to see either because we aren't looking or because the ability to notice is reserved to special people only, like children. So although I'm pretty certain that there aren't any pixies living in the wilderness at the bottom of my garden, I would be delighted if someone proved me wrong.

And so back to Iceland. What I gleaned, second-hand from my friend, is that in Iceland a belief in the 'Hidden People' is both prevalent and totally acceptable. Elves, seen only by those that the elves choose to give the power, feature heavily in the country's folklore and traditions. You must never throw stones for fear of hitting them and building projects have been put on hold whilst sites have been checked for signs of elf settlements. Apparently, houses like this one are built in gardens to ensure prosperity.

I'm not sure what it is about these ideas that appeals to me. It's certainly not believing in something that I can't see and which defies scientific explanation. I could do that here along with millions of others and be in good company. I think it's more to do with there being a possibility that we don't know it all. I like the thought that something could have slipped through the net and be laughing at us here on earth whilst we fix our attention on the cosmos and ignore what's going on under our noses. I also love the idea of living somewhere where it's perfectly acceptable to believe in elves after you leave Infant school, to have minds so open to the extraordinary that it makes it seem like anything could be possible. If we close our minds to everything that is not supported by rational reasoning then there's no room for the imagination and that would be a very dull place to live.

Try as I might, I know that I am unlikely to see a unicorn in a shady glade or a colony of mermaids in a rock pool. But I would really like to believe that fairies or elves, pixies or sprites happily coexist with us and that this could explain some of the more mysterious questions of life even if I never actually see one.

SPEAKING TO STRANGERS

2011-07-05T14:49:00.001+01:00

I walked to school carrying a Lego model yesterday. It was an intricate reconstruction of a some scene from a Harry Potter film which my youngest had spent ages building and wanted to produce at 'Show and tell'. And so, I took the responsibility of transporting it safely to school in one piece thus seeking to avoid the inevitable tears that would follow if it broke on the way.

I appreciate that this in itself is not terribly interesting and unlikely to hold my reader's attention for long. However, the response that I got was. I didn't notice to start with. The first few people that we passed smiled broadly at me and, being a friendly soul, I smiled back. After all I do try to engage with the people that I pass on my daily saunter to school. When I noticed drivers of cars smiling at me as well, I began to think that perhaps there was something else afoot.

I was brought up to acknowledge the people that I pass in the street. If my path crosses with someone else's, I will generally smile and say hello. If a stranger waits for me to pass at a narrow place, I try to thank them. This, as I was taught as a child, is common courtesy and costs nothing. I know it doesn't happen everywhere and that if I tried smiling at random strangers in a city centre I might get more than I bargained for but here in my little sleepy town it's what I consider to be the done thing.

Except that it's not. People younger than me rarely make eye contact. They will be texting or plugged into their ipod and it doesn't seem to cross their mind to recognise that they and I briefly share the same air space. Old people will generally speak if they're spoken to but often look so shocked that someone has said 'Good morning' that I fear for the state of their hearts. They clearly no longer expect a stranger to speak and sometimes I do just to challenge them (which isn't really the point, I know).

Which is why it struck me as so unusual when so many people made eye contact and smiled whilst I carried the Lego creation. With me walking with small children and carrying a toy they were happy to speak. Is that because it gave them an excuse to communicate, a point of reference? Was the sight unusual or comical enough to jolt them out of their private world? Did I just look less threatening armed with Lego rather than my ubiquitous phone (which I do always try to stop looking at as I pass people out of some strange sense of decorum.) Do we now need an excuse to communicate with one another? I fear we might.

There are lots of people, mainly those younger than myself to be fair, to whom speaking to strangers would never occur. I consider this to be a break down in manners and is something that needs to be addressed before all sense of community is lost. But this was different. These were people who were happy to smile at my son and his model. It was as if they had simply got out of the habit of tipping their invisible hat and saying hello.

Well, I for one, think it's a shame. I am bringing my children up to acknowledge those around them although I am sure there are those that would say that I'm playing fast and loose with the 'Stranger Danger' rules. I want to live in a world where talking to someone new is not greeted with suspicion. I am thinking that perhaps I should amass an array of interesting and noteworthy objects to carry around with me just to prompt a response. And I think that everyone reading this should acknowledge a stranger every day just to appease me! That would be a start.

NON-COMPETITIVE SPORTS' DAYS

2011-06-29T14:41:00.001+01:00

It was Sports' Day at our primary school this week. In fact there are two - one for each key stage. The one for the younger children is labelled a Games Afternoon, presumably to distinguish it from what is held for the older ones. The emphasis seems to be on taking part rather than winning but stickers are given out for the first three places and points collected to see which house is best so there is an element of competition.

The fashion over recent years has been to make the day less about winning and more about fun. I can kind of understand the thinking. Not everyone can be good at sport. I never shone on the sports field. I wasn't bad : never the first to be picked for a side in those awful line ups but never the last either. I would cringe when it got down to the final two or three children. They would stand waiting, either pleading with their eyes not to be left until last or pulling at the hem of their top, eyes cast down, longing for the humiliation to be over.

I don't know if they still choose teams like that. I'm sure they don't at our primary school. However, it seems to me that in trying not to damage the self esteem of the youngsters in their care, the school is overlooking some major issues. Firstly, not everyone can shine in the classroom. Some of the children find their talent on the running track and yet, for fear of not upsetting the ones that are less able, they are reigned in. Can you imagine if they did that in lessons?

"I'm sorry Janie. I know you are the best story writer in the class but today you can only use words with less than two syllables that begin with a t."

It would be ludicrous wouldn't it? And yet that's exactly what happens to a talented athlete?

The second issue is the inconsistency that having a non-competitive Sports' Day brings with it. For the rest of the year, sport is actively encouraged and sporting success in football, cross country or swimming is encouraged. Photos of smiling team members are printed in the local press and the trophy cabinet takes pride of place in the reception area. But on Sports' Day, lights need to be kept firmly under bushels for fear of upsetting the less able. Confusing.

And of course what about the rest of their lives? Life is, whether we like it or not, one long competition. Learning to deal with that is an essential life skill. Of course, we can't all be good at everything and it is important that children learn that as early as possible. They also need to know how to be gracious in both victory and defeat if they are going to be successful. Our focus should be ensuring that their self confidence is strong enough for them to deal with life's ups and downs rather than shielding them from failure.

At the end of the day, Sports' Day should be fun for as many children as possible. If the range of activities is wide enough, then every child should have an opportunity to do well. The egg and spoon race, for example, tends to favour the quiet, thoughtful child who is able to focus on the task in hand and is not tempted to run. At the same time however, give those who are genuinely gifted races that really test them and let them compete amongst themselves.

I rarely won anything at Sports' Day and I think I've turned out OK. Kids have far more sense than we give them credit for.

SPEEDING

2011-06-23T10:38:00.001+01:00

On the way to my eldest's saxophone exam I got caught by a speed camera. I had no idea until the letter plopped onto my doormat. In my defence, I thought I was driving under the limit but I wasn't and it was a fair cop. By way of punishment for my crime, I was given the option of points and a fine or attending a Speed Awareness course. So, rather than tarnish my previously unblemished licence, I signed up for the course.

I went by train and having beetled about in the bowels of Bradford for a bit, I finally found the training centre. I was more than a little apprehensive as I mounted the stairs to reception. What would all these arch criminals look like? Would I be able to tell that they were wrong 'uns by just looking at them? Would I stand out? Of course I didn't. I was met by a room of about fifty other people all trying to look nonchalant and none of them looking like serial law breakers. They were mainly men older than me but there was a typical cross section of the population there.

I'm not a great driver but I don't drive fast and I am quite good at reading the road ahead having had it drilled into me by my dad all those decades ago. So my attitude when I went in was to listen to what they said and learn what I could but safe in the knowledge that my crime was entirely accidental and hopefully not to be repeated. I soon changed my tune.

The course was very cleverly presented in a non-judgemental way. At no point did we feel preached to or that fingers were being wagged. But what it did do very effectively was make you think. We thought about our excuses, our driving habits and, most importantly our responsibilities. The most difficult session was when we saw footage of an accident and watched interviews with the parents of children who had been killed on the road. Being a mother of four and having hit a child in my car myself (http://imogenclark.blogspot.com/2010/02/accident.html) this was particularly hard for me to watch. In fact for a lot of the time I was focussed on the weave of my top rather than the screen with my nails jammed into my palms to hold back the tears.

But of course this was why we were there - the habitual speeder, the innocent speeder and those who suffer momentary lapses of concentration. It doesn't matter which type you are. The end result is still the same.

It was a useful day. I relearned lots of things that I'd forgotten about breaking distances and chevrons and I decided that I would never let my daughters ride in a car with a teenage boy! I passed the course. My licence remains clean. It did cross my mind however that speaking to us was a drop in the ocean. Only two people there had been caught on a motorway. The rest were just like me - going too fast in a built up area. Momentary lapses of focus, irritation at a slow bus ahead, trying to save pointless seconds by racing the lights. And we were all as likely as anyone to cause an accident. But what about all the rest? The ones who aren't caught or take the points instead. What about the mothers screaming at their children in the back of the car? The van drivers on their mobiles? The business men checking the address of the next appointment on their sat nav? Perhaps they should all be made to sit and listen for a while just so they remember exactly what that momentary loss of concentration or judgement could mean.

I know that the desired effect of the course was to make the offenders think. Well it worked. I hope everyone else thinks too.

THE ROAR OF THE CROWD

2011-06-19T09:51:00.001+01:00

Well what an adventure we have been on this week.

All four children have been performing in Billy Elliot at the prestigious Alhambra theatre. Those regular readers will know that it has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for us all.

To begin with, it was my eldest's baby. She is the one with the stage in her dreams but I wasn't sure that auditioning was the right thing for her to do, coming on the back of the four big shows that she had already done this year. I soon changed my mind. Then she missed the auditions because she was away with school. More tears and trauma. Then she was too tall for the part she wanted, which promptly went to her younger sister. Stoical acceptance on her part and great maturity shown all round. Then her little siblings, having strut their stuff in the panto earlier in the year, were invited to take part and her little brother stole the show by being the smallest on stage and delivering his appalling swearword line with great aplomb. Not easy for a hormonal teenager to deal with. But she did.

The trials of casting completed, we then moved on to rehearsals. Complicated schedules which took over Sundays and ate into great chunks of the rest of the week so that other things had to be sacrificed. More tears as commitment to the show was explained and difficult decisions were accepted by them all. It got to the stage where they might as well have dragged their mattresses up the road and moved into the Upstagers' Barn.

In and amongst all the preparations, they also competed for a place to perform at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London's West End. We had a long day and a late night attending the heats in York and then the bittersweet news that Upstagers had been chosen to perform but the scene concerned only contained the Little Ones. More tears and tricky moments.

And then it was show week. We all suspended the rest of our lives and I ferried backwards and forwards to Bradford, shoe-horning meals in where possible and plaiting hair and mopping brows in my wake. The children were excited and nervous and anxious to do their best. Backstage the atmosphere was tense.

But the opening night was a triumph. The appreciative audience laughed and cried their way through and showed their delight with a standing ovation, the first of many that the show received. Comparisons were made, by people in the know, with the West End production and the children buzzed. The night that I was chaperoning backstage I was struck by the team work of the whole cast and crew. The older ones, none of them more than 18 but with a maturity beyond their years, focussed on the task in hand but still had time for a smile and a ruffle of the younger ones' hair as they flew past each other for costume changes. Even the primary aged children dealt with the long periods in their dressing rooms between scenes calmly and without causing trouble.

They played to full houses and standing ovations and as the word got out about how good the show was more and more people flocked to Bradford. Even Billy Pearce, long-standing star of the theatre's sell out annual panto, donned his 'Coal not Dole' sticker and expressed huge admiration for the show.

And now the run is over. My children are wandering about my kitchen as I type looking more like zombies than theatre stars. We will now have a sharp descent as the adrenalin fades and all that remains is the bone numbing exhaustion. Today will be a parenting challenge. But nothing can replace the experiences that they have shared this week. I hope that the confidence that they have gained will stay with them and that they will be able to hear those cheering audiences in their heads for the rest of their lives.

http://www.digyorkshire.com/HighlightDetails.aspx?Article=1294

BEING BRAVER THAN YOU ARE

2011-06-14T10:00:00.000+01:00

I've always been a bit shy. I suspect it's rooted in my nomadic childhood. I've often wondered whether, if we hadn't moved house every three years or so, my confidence might have been higher. I guess that's something that I'll never know but by the time I was 17, plunged into co-educational schooling again after a few years at a single sex establishment, I was suddenly nervous in company.

It's not just me of course. Most people have some areas of social discomfort and everyone's different. Put me in front of a room full of men in suits and ask me to present about something that I understand for half an hour or so and I won't bat an eye. Leave me in a pub or a party on my own and I am a quivering wreck. I'll skulk at the edges and hope no one speaks to me. Or else I'll dance and forget that they are all there.

So the internet has been a revelation to me. I have been facebooking and blogging for years and am happy to confess addiction to both. I'm content to chat to anyone and I will put my head above the parapet on any subject that interests me. It's a type of behaviour that's most unlike the flesh and blood me.

At first I thought that my propensity to open up and be honest with people that I barely knew was because I spend most of the school day alone and I was lonely. But that's not true. I do spend my days in a solitary fashion but that's through choice. There are plenty of real places that I could go for human interaction if I wanted but I rarely do.

Then I worried that I was replacing real life conversations with virtual ones because it was easier. But that's not it either. I do talk to real people as well and hardly any of my close friends are on facebook. It must be that, like many others, I'm just not shy in writing. I am happy to have all the conversations online that I would never get involved in face to face. After all, it is highly unlikely that the diverse and frankly mismatched group of people that are on my facebook page would ever be in the same room at the same time. Even if they were, I would probably just make small talk or sit and let others do the talking.

It's fun, this communication lark. Most of the time. I get to have incredibly diverse 'conversations' with all kinds of people and I can rant or laugh at the world in my blog at the drop of the hat. Sometimes though it gets confusing. The difficulty with talking to someone without seeing the whites of their eyes is that it's easy to misread the mood. Because of the time lag, comments get out of sync and things that are meant in a light hearted manner get misunderstood, hence the wide range of punctuation expressions. I used to think that I ought to be able to express my meaning adequately by a careful use of syntax. Now I'm not averse to the odd winky face if required.

It's very different in the virtual world of my teenagers. They have grown up communicating without speaking. One look at their facebook pages leaves me horrified. Their friends and they are direct to the point of harshness but in a few movements the conversation has moved on and it is, in the main, forgotten. Contrast that with me who will walk into a row on facebook bravely and then spend two days fretting.

Overall, I love my virtual world but I have to remember that notwithstanding my assumed bravado online, I am still a bit shy, a smidge over-sensitive and likely to over analyse things. I sometimes think I should have a month's embargo and see where it takes me but then I think perhaps I think too much!

FINDING TIME

2011-06-09T15:48:00.000+01:00

There are never enough hours in the day are there? It's such a challenge to get through the stuff you have to do and reach the things that you want to do. I do say this rather sheepishly because, what with my toy job and all my children being at school, I have rather lost sight of what it's like to be so busy that you can't think straight, so busy that one more request will bring your whole world crashing down on top of you. But it's all relative isn't it, so notwithstanding that my current lifestyle is somewhat more pedestrian than once it was, I shall continue with my train of thought.

I am approaching the end of a two week half term holiday. It's been fine. Only half the children are at home this week and they are well beyond needing constant attention. In fact, as long as I stick my nose in on them every hour or so and produce food at regular intervals, they pretty much organise themselves these days. But children at home inevitably means more chores and so the time that I usually set aside to pursue my own activities has been severely curtailed.

And I have something that I want to be doing - really badly. What I really want to be doing is getting on with novel number 2. You may recall that last year I had lots of fun trying to write a book. It was so much fun that I'm having another go. This time, however, rather than writing about generic things that could happen to anyone in a vaguely described northern town, I have a real location and characters with interests wider than their family and friends.

This has opened up a whole new chapter for me in my favourite game of 'Let's pretend I'm someone that I'm not'. I am having to do research just like a real writer. I have spent ages following virtual tours of places so that I can describe them with a convincing level of detail. I have pulled up pictures of houses and churches in the relevant area to get a feel for the type of architecture and materials that they might be built in. I've even had to work out which clocks you could hear chime in a particular spot. It's a hoot!

And this takes me back to my original theme of lack of time. Of course, I'm not an author. I'm a stay at home mum with four children and a long list of domestic tasks to complete on a daily basis. Although I read that proper writers take themselves off to their inspirational studies after breakfast with a steady supply of strong coffee and an instruction not to be disturbed until lunchtime, this is not how it is for me. Either I leap out of bed at some unfriendly hour to grab and hour or so of peace before they all arrive demanding breakfast or I snatch twenty minutes here and there between loads of washing which is not conducive to creativity.

I long for a whole morning, or even an hour, when I could just put pen to paper with my mind entirely focused on the task in hand. My little ideas, starved of attention, are starting to flutter off out of the window to pastures new. Maybe next week I will let my fantasy life do a swap with my real role and shut myself up at my desk, letting the rest of my world go to rack and ruin. Oh. You have no idea how tempting that is!

CHILDREN BEING CHILDREN

2011-06-04T06:48:00.001+01:00

We're just back from a week in the woods. Not the wild kind with no civilization to speak of and a bear around every tree stump but the contrived and created type where the next door lodge is but a stone's throw away. We go at this time every year and have done forever. At the end of each trip, I tentatively suggest that the elder two might have grown out of it and we might give the next year a miss. Each time I get a resounding 'No'. They love to go and so we go.

It's easy to see the appeal of the place for the younger two. They are happy pretty much anywhere and there there are bikes and no cars and an enormous swimming pool and acres of forest to explore. It's less obvious in relation to my two teenagers. There are no computers, a patchy phone signal, no friends nearby and they have to spend a week in close proximity with their siblings.

But they don't seem to mind. They are happy watching birds, careering round the site on bikes and playing endless rounds of tree stump tig. Gone are the mobile phones and the skype. They stop wearing make up and fiddling endlessly with their hair and who cares what they're wearing. There's no one there to see.

This attitude made me wonder and two things crossed my mind. Firstly, whilst 14 might seem terribly grown up, particularly when I see my eldest and her friends dressed up for a birthday party, she is still a child. She is still happy climbing trees, flying down water slides and playing crazy golf. Yes, she and her sister are on the cusp of another stage in their lives but just at the moment they have more in common with their younger siblings than they might believe. So, give them the opportunity to play and that's what they will do quite happily.

Secondly, it was easy for them to play because there was no external pressure on them. Who would see that their hair was a mess and that they had no mascara on? No one that mattered because they were unlikely to see any of our fellow guests again. We all know what it's like to worry about what others think but for all I tell them that it doesn't matter, the views of others still frame most of their actions at home. But in the woods they have a chance to be themselves again without fear of not fitting in or being left behind and it's refreshing to see. My children being children whilst they can.

So we shall go to the woods again next year and the year after that until they finally say that they don't want to go. I hope that day is a long time coming.

THE PERILS OF PACKING

2011-05-28T11:57:00.000+01:00

We are going for our annual pilgrimage to Centerparcs on Monday and so this weekend I'm packing. How can it possibly take me two days to pack for a minibreak? It's ridiculous I know but there you have it.

So first I'm washing, drying and ironing the contents of the linen basket. It's not that there'll be much call for school uniform in the forest but somehow it needs doing before we can go. Then I have to steal what I think is required from the wardrobe of each child before they decide to wear it and get it dirty. But what to pack. Space is limited as there's not much room for luggage in a car packed to the gunnels with children. I scan the weather forecast, a pointless exercise and one that only makes things worse. So I pack long sleeves, short sleeves, full length and cropped, underwear, sleepwear and swimming kit. That must cover it surely? Not much left in their wardrobes but I plough on regardless.

The big two pack for themselves. This worries me. If I don't keep my wits about me we'll end up with indecently short shorts, a couple of vest tops and no underwear. I make suggestions and remind them how miserable it is to be cold. Reluctantly they include more suitable items.

I don't pack for my husband. I just nag him.
'Could you make sure everything you want to take is in the wash by tomorrow please?'
'Could you let me know how much you're taking so I can leave space?'
'If you don't give me your stuff now you'll be going in what you're standing up in.'
Of course, he doesn't understand what all the urgency is about. It's Saturday morning. How can it possibly be a priority right now? That is because he does not have a maelstrom of lists crashing around inside his skull like I do. For him, the trip involves attaching bikes to the car. The rest just happens.

Finally, I consider my own attire. I always fall into the trap of thinking that five days in a forest means scruffy clobber and then feel like a tramp for the whole week. So I've packed nice stuff which will make me feel better whilst I'm there but will require for more careful laundry on our return. C'est la vie.

Food next. Yes I know there's a shop there but it's so much easier to sort it before we go. Then I need decent knives because the ones there don't cut, the wherewithal to make good coffee and the papers that we haven't got round to this week. And I'm on the homeward stretch. Books, chargers, plasters, insect repellent, bike locks and we're nearly there.

I sometimes wonder how everyone else does it and whether it is such an all consuming task in other households. I like to think it is but I'm not entirely sure. And come Monday morning we'll either have it or we won't and it won't be a disaster one way the other. But now, in the thick of it with forty eight hours to go, I'm busy and I need to get on!!

PROCRASTINATION

2011-05-23T11:04:00.002+01:00

Today I'm not that busy. Oh there's stuff to be done. The flotsam and jetsam of a weekend with a houseful needs returning to its rightful home. There's laundry and some mopping and a trip to the supermarket wouldn't be a bad idea but none of it is urgent. And as there's not much happening tomorrow or the next day I can look ahead and see a whole cathedral of windows of opportunity. Consequently I'm on a go slow.

I don't function well without pressure. When there's stuff to be done I adopt my 'I'm a busy woman' stance and I beetle about with a sense of purpose. Cakes needed for school fair? No problem. New contracts required for uber demanding client? You'll have them by lunchtime. Christmas in less than six weeks? Sorted. Because the more I have to do the more I achieve. I suspect I'm not much fun to live with as I sigh and tut and shout my way through the day, moaning that no one ever does anything except me and genuinely expecting everyone to genuflect and nod in respectful awe as I sweep past.

Today I have things to put off. Tedious household tasks are eyeing me from the edges of my peripheral vision and laughing scornfully. I have some work that my boss emailed over but the instructions include the fatal words 'There's no rush' so it has joined the long queue of things awaiting my attention but not really getting it. Instead, when I came back from school I wasted time on social media whilst convincing myself that it's good for my soul to get out there and chat, did a bit of light organising and now I'm writing this.

But does it really matter? It all gets done eventually. They will all come home and they won't notice if I've mopped the floor. There's always something for tea even if it's sometimes a bit touch and go and everyone had a clean and ironed shirt this morning. I will get to it all when I'm in the mood, which apparently is not now. In the meantime I will entertain myself by typing 'Procrastination' into google and seeing what comes up. Actually, I already did that......

A FRENCH EXCHANGE

2011-05-19T14:06:00.000+01:00

My eldest came home with a letter from school yesterday. It was inviting her to participate in a long standing French Exchange arrangement through school. We have less than forty-eight hours to respond and pay a non returnable deposit and so I have been deliberating as to what we should do.

I did a French exchange myself when I was her age. It wasn't a school arranged thing. I flew by myself, my first time on a plane and was met at the airport by total strangers who spoke little English. My host had a broken leg which was unfortunate and so I spent most of the week in the apartment watching French television. I missed home horribly but I think my French improved. The girl, whose name I have forgotten then came to stay with us, didn't smile or speak for a week and that was the last I ever heard of her.

What happens with the children from Coutances is very different. They arrive en masse, the students having been matched to a hopefully like-minded child beforehand. They attend their host's school and various group activities are organised. If she falls lucky with her host it might be fun. But will it do her French any good?

I am certain that there are huge benefits to be had by spending time in a foreign country with someone who lives there. She will get a real taste of French life and that is something that I can't replicate. When we have been to France as a family it has been as tourists and whilst we do our best to speak the language and point out differences between our two nations, it is not the same as actually living amongst it for a while? Absolutely not. But will it make a difference to her GCSE French mark? I very much doubt it.

If it were just about her going to France for a week I probably wouldn't really give it much thought. But her host has to come back here and that's where the trip goes awry. Firstly, we have no spare room and in saying that I don't just mean a room that no one sleeps in. Our house is packed. Every spare inch is utilised every day. We don't even have a lock on the bathroom door as there's never just one person in there at a time! This is a problem to which there is no obvious solution. Also, we are very busy. Just because one child has a guest doesn't mean that everyone else's lives can be put on hold. And if I'm horribly honest, do I really want a potentially surly teenager to fill my house, turn their nose up at my food and cost me a fortune in ungratefully received outings? Well, no.

I know being a parent is all about sacrifice and Lord knows I am prepared to put my children before my own needs. But in this case it is my view that the potential benefits are far outweighed by the certain disadvantages. I feel like I am supposed to say yes because I should strive to give my child every opportunity in life but there is little about this trip that she can't get from other aspects of her busy and privileged life. I feel almost bullied into letting her go and that I am somehow failing her educationally if I refuse.

So what to do? Do I let her go and endure the return visit knowing that the chance of the trip enhancing her knowledge of French is minimal. Or do I follow my head, knowing from life's rich experiences that it is likely to be unsatisfactory and say no? Who said parenting was easy?

YOU SHALL GO TO THE BALL

2011-05-14T16:05:00.000+01:00

Next weekend, like Cinderella, I am going to the ball. It's not the one with glass slippers and unavoidable clock chimes. This one is organised by the PTA at the primary school that my children attend and it is reputably a good night out.

I say reputably because, whilst I have been to the school ball before, that was many moons and several PTA committees ago. Having attended every year for quite some time, we suddenly stopped going. There were two reasons for this and both of them are inextricably linked to the peculiar quirks of my personality. Firstly, I'm not awfully good at pushing myself forward. When the first two children were at the school, there was a group of parents that I'd got to know reasonably well. It was therefore quite easy to muster numbers for a table-full. But then their children grew up and moved on. I stayed connected to the school though my younger two but now had no obvious group of friends and lacked the courage to ask people outright if I could sit with them. So I didn't go.

The next reason is even sillier. The venue changed from a hotel in town to somewhere a twenty minute drive away and with the change went the element of control which is the lifeblood of my existence. If I can't leave somewhere when I want to, then I'm very unlikely to go. I know it's mad but there you have it. That's me. So, as I couldn't walk home, I stopped going.

But this year, the organisers brought the ball back to town so I screwed up my courage to ask a couple if they would like to come with us and now the tickets are bought and we are all set.

But what to wear? Remember I am four or five years out of the ball going circuit. What are the ball gowns of choice for a forty-four year old girl these days?

My first ball was the Law Ball at Manchester University in 1986. It was a smart do at the Midland Hotel and I had a blue dress with a big bow on the bum. I bought it in Laura Ashley, which at the time did a mean line in flouncy frocks. Back then it was easy. If you went to a ball you wore a ball gown. They were, in the main, hideous but we all looked equally awful so it didn't really matter.

But last time I went to the school ball it seemed that anything went. There were some formal dresses, some shorter cocktail dresses, some things that you might wear out to dinner and one or two shockers that really shouldn't have been worn out at all. So what's a girl to do? I have a few dresses that might do but I'm really not sure. What I would like to do is sneak up there, see what everyone else is wearing, nip home and dress accordingly. Sadly, that option is not awfully practical so I am going to have to make a decision all by myself.

But it's hard. If you go somewhere dressed in the wrong thing it can totally wreck your night especially if, like me, you're not a big drinker and can't hide your embarrassment in the bottom of your wine glass. So I have decided to carry out a little fashion parade in front of my family and see what they think. I have two realistic options I think. I did have three but then my fourteen year old tried one of them on and looked fantastic in it which immediately resulted in its relegation. Hopefully, the advice of my own little band of Gok Wans will be sound and I will turn up looking at least like I'm at the right do and hopefully looking nice.

Sometimes, it would be so much easier to be a boy.

A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

2011-05-08T08:32:00.000+01:00

So the first year of my six year marathon to get an English Literature degree is almost over. All assignments have been duly completed and marked and I just have the end of module assessment left to tackle. However, since I began, the academic environment has changed and is now looking somewhat different - about £27,000 different.

Studying with the Open University means that my contact with other students has been somewhat limited. However, I am a member of a facebook group of people all doing my course and currently standing at over 1,000 strong. The reasons why people are on the course are many, varied and endlessly fascinating to me. Hardly anyone seems to be just there for fun and there aren't nearly as many Third Agers as I had supposed. Instead there are lots of people who need a degree to change their life's direction, progress their career or because their health prevents them from following the more traditional route.

There are also a fair few young people who are going down an online route because it is simply far more financially viable. Not only are the fees considerably more reasonable but distance learning allows you to fit your studies in around a job so that you can support yourself as you go and don't have to incur all the expense of living away from home. I've been very impressed so far. The course material is excellent and leaves what I gleaned from one or two of my flesh and blood lecturers standing and the support that I have had from my tutor has also impressed me.

And this has got me thinking. Until now I had only really thought of two possibilities with regard to my own children's post school education. Either they would want to go to university or they wouldn't. I kind of assumed that they would want to go and that making a sizeable contribution to the cost of that was something that we, as parents, would strive to do.

But is that the right approach now? I Back in '85 when I left school, going to University was what me and my friends did next. We took our A levels and either got the grades and went where we'd hoped or we found a place through clearing and did something that sounded like it might be fun. Very few chose a different path. However, a lot of the people at the OU seem to be deciding that incurring the necessary levels of debt with no guarantee of an increased earning power at the end is not a risk that they are prepared to take. Many of them seem to have rejected the traditional appeal of a brick university for the flexibility of a course undertaken in your own time and at your own pace.

The downsides of this are obvious though. My second degree is a personal challenge and something that I am somewhat self indulgently fitting in between my other commitments. How far would I have got I the cut throat world of corporate law with an LLB from the Open University? Obviously I can't know the answer to that but I can have a jolly good guess. But maybe as more and more people choose to undertake their higher education in a less than traditional way, these stigmas will be eroded?

Now that it's become so expensive and will result in a lifetime's debt, youngsters may begin to wonder if it's really for them. Unless they have a vocation or are truly bright, is it really the right decision to delay entering the work place for three years or might they be better finding a job and then studying for a degree should they need one in an alternative way? Maybe there are other ways of skinning the cat? Just a thought.

DAYDREAMS

2011-05-02T07:26:00.000+01:00

So a commoner has married a prince and with that unlikely union has realised the dreams of generations of little girls. When I was a child, I was constantly being told that only princesses could marry princes but it didn't stop me having the odd daydream about being whisked down the aisle in a fairy tale dress by my prince charming to a waiting horse-drawn carriage. I wonder if Kate Middleton had the same childlike fantasy.

Anyway, looking at the pictures of the happy couple in the Sunday papers got me thinking about what we wish for and life's harsh reality. I never aimed particularly highly with my dreams. I didn't have the wherewithal to be a scientist who could discover something vital or an inventor of a household object. I had no particular talent that would set me apart on the sports' field or the stage and life wouldn't allow me to marry a prince. But now, as I beetle along in my day to day existence I do wonder at the normality of life.

I, like billions of others, get up, trundle my way through the quotidian chores, relax a bit and then go to bed. I try to do my best, to make sure that the bit that I do is done properly but if an alien sucked up my house in a giant vacuum cleaner no one, bar my immediate friends and family, would notice. I think it's fair to say that I'm not really making a difference to the world order.

Then I got to wondering whether this was a disappointment. I suppose I have the advantage of never actually wanting to be a household name so there has been no catastrophic fall into reality for me. Over the years I have toyed with the idea of what vast wealth might do to my life but I have always been too pragmatic to harbour any more fanciful dreams. The difference is that decades ago life was all ahead of me and something remarkable might have been just around the corner. Now I can take a pretty good stab at where I'm going. It's not disappointing as such but I have caught myself voicing the age old cliché 'Is this it?'

Of course, I am not complaining. My life is good, great in fact. And whilst it might feel a bit like everyone else's, of course it isn't because its mine. But I think I now know that I will never marry a prince or be invited on to 'Desert Island Discs' to share my life story with the nation. I'm just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life and trying to get the most out of every day of it. Something more exciting might have been nice but if it's not meant to be then I can happily settle for what I've got. And who knows? The unusual bit might be lurking just around the next bend.

THE ROYAL 'I DO' DO

2011-04-29T08:22:00.002+01:00

It's Royal Wedding Day. Today the heir to the British throne (once removed) is to marry his university sweetheart whilst the whole country sits divided and either watches, enraptured or scoffs. It will be a day when the English do what they do best: pomp, ceremony, tradition. And I say English rather that British because I think it is a peculiarly English way to carry on. The marching, the precision timing, the hundreds of years of history behind every building, every carriage, every piece of jewellery, even every uniform. It's all part of what makes the English English.

I wouldn't describe myself as a Royalist but I have no deep seated objection to the Royal Family. Someone has to do it and I can see the merits in a system when there is unlikely to be an argument over whose turn it is next. What I do love though is tradition. For some reason that I really couldn't begin to explain, I take comfort from the fact that the wedding will be executed in this way simply because that's the way it's done. Somewhere in London there are lots of people who know exactly who does what and why because that's their job. Living history you might call it. I particularly like that the Royal Couple will declare their vows to one another using the same words that I used when I got married. OK, the rest of the do might be slightly grander than mine was but the essence is exactly the same. What was good enough for me is good enough for the future Head of State.

Although they have been sorely lacking in my social calendar for a good ten years, I love a good wedding. This one looks, on paper at least, like a belter. The couple are old enough to understand what they are taking on. They have already shown that they know their own minds and won't be strait-jacketed by convention when it is feasible to escape it and there have clearly been rows about the guest list and, no doubt, the seating plan. And let's face it, we need something to distract us from the rest of life in England which seems to go from bad to worse on a week by week basis.

So it's down to the country to give Kate and Wills the send off that we have come to expect. Middle England, with flags and red, white and blue face paint, cheering for all it is worth.

And today, assuming it runs as predicted, I shall be proud to be English. I will revel in my heritage that goes back into the mists of time with its crystal clear expectation of how these things should be done with no margin for error, no cutting corners and absolutely no compromise. There aren't many things in life that can be carried out with such rigidity and still be valid but an English Royal occasion is one.

So all that remains is to hope for good weather, that the bride remembers her groom's names and that no one faints at an awkward moment. I shall endeavour to watch the ceremony with such of my children whose interest it can sustain, enjoy the music and the outfits and no doubt have a little weep for the promise of things to come as I usually do at a wedding

FOOD IN FRANCE

2011-04-25T09:11:00.001+01:00

We are just back from a few days in Paris. Spurred on by our surprisingly successful trip to London last Easter, we decided to venture further still and try and give the children a taste of the French capital. Foreign city-breaks up the ante somewhat as far as I am concerned. Not only do I have to keep my children safe whilst negotiating the unfamiliar transport system and ensure that they are entertained and interested but I have to do it all in French. It's a challenge sometimes, especially when everyone is tired and hungry and tempers fray a little.

And this leads me to the biggest problem I have whenever we travel but which is magnified when we are in another country. What, when and where will we eat?

Feeding my family is an issue for me generally. Finding something that all four children will eat is hard enough at home. It's not that they are particularly fussy. It's just that they have vastly differing likes and dislikes. So whilst each child will eat a wide variety of dishes there are very few that actually coincide with one of their siblings. When we are out and about, the difficulty is magnified but generally we can find somewhere where the menu has something that will cater for each specific requirement.

However, this is not necessarily the case when we are abroad and particularly when in France. Wandering around city streets, carelessly perusing menus and selecting a cafe or bar that looks inviting is part of the fun when there are two of you. You can allow yourself to be drawn in by the sound of laughter, the twinkling lights and the couples lounging at little round tables and staring out at the street scene beyond.

Not so with four children. Even finding a table in anywhere that looks appealing is nigh on impossible. Instead of sitting outside in the balmy evening air soaking up the atmosphere and feeling cosmopolitan, if there is a table big enough to seat us all it is likely to be inside, at the back, by the loos. Not terribly Parisian.

Assuming we find a table we then have to hope that the menu has something that the children might contemplate. Shellfish? Game? Steak tartare? Snails? Hmmm. I know that I should try and widen their culinary experience and select for them. But they are hungry and the food is expensive. I just want something that they will eat. In plenteous quantities.

We once stayed in an all inclusive hotel. The food was all laid out so the children could pick what they liked the look of and if it wasn't to their taste they could abandon their plates and start again, leaving we grown ups to sample the local delicacies. It was a perfect arrangement but not one that I can easily replicate.

Needless to say, the most successful meal that we had in Paris was in a stylish Italian restaurant just off the Boulevard St. Germain. Now, the Italians know how to feed a family. Maybe Rome next time?

TACKLING MOUNT EIGER

2011-04-18T11:01:00.000+01:00

I make no apologies for writing about the mundane here on my page. Most of the time, that's how life in general and my life in particular seems to be. And so here you are. Some thoughts on the ironing.

Now, before you accuse me of being a slattern, can I just point out that my ironing basket was empty with all laundry neatly ironed, folded and put away just four days ago. This not inconsiderable pile has accumulated since then with bedding drying on the line and the washing basket contents beginning to creep up again.

So, it would be fair to say that ironing takes up a fair proportion of my life. But it's dull. No matter how much satisfaction there is to be gained from a neat sleeve crease or a job well done it's still not a task that entertains you. I need distractions to stop it being a monumental drag.

Number one is the Sky + box where I merrily record things that look interesting but clash with something else that looks interesting or are on past my bedtime. Ironing would seem to be the perfect time to catch up. And it would be but for the fact that I have one of those new fangled steam irons. The plan was to get through the ironing in the blink of an eye with the vast quantities of steam that it generates. And this is indeed the case. However what it doesn't say on the box is how it is impossible to hear anything but the generation of steam when it is in full flow. This coupled with the fact that the room fogs up like an industrial laundry means that TV watching for anything but the smallest of sessions is problematical. By the time the volume is loud enough to hear over the hiss, I am a one woman noise pollution hazard and risk a visit from Environmental Health.

When I first gave up work, I harboured what turned out to be misguided ambitions of learning a language whilst ironing. I have a selection of courses for various modern European tongues around my house. My language skills remain unimproved however. Again there is the noise issue but even when I moved to my ipod, I found that I needed to see the words written down to follow what was going on and so was constantly breaking off to check a spelling or two. Hopeless.

So then I tried audio books which I listen to with great success whilst carrying out other household tasks. But my children will keep talking to me. First I can't hear them over the noise of the steam generator. Then I have to put the iron down huffily, retrieve my ipod from wherever it's hidden and turn it off. By this point, I am so irritated that the answer to whatever they have interrupted me for is invariably 'No'. Then I have to rewind the story a couple of sentences which I always misjudge and end up listening to the last few minutes worth all over again. One step forward , two steps back.

Now that the weather is warmer I may take the whole cha-bang outside where the sunshine and the birds seem to provide the requisite level of distraction. Or I could, as today, distract myself in other ways and just not iron it at all. But for now I must go and make a start. I may be some time.

MANCHESTER V LEEDS

2011-04-11T14:45:00.001+01:00

I was in Manchester on Saturday for the first time in many a moon. It was a really warm day and the city was looking at its best. The streets were swept, the shops looked enticing and the sun was glinting off the Manchester Eye. Everywhere there were people relaxing and enjoying the space. There was a real buzz about the place and I felt like I belonged.

That's not as unlikely as it might sound. I did my degree in Manchester and although my time there was before the urban boom and pre-bomb, the basic shape of the city is still familiar. Sadly, I only had an hour or so to mosey around but in that time something significant struck me. It's not like Leeds.

I know. Ridiculous thought. Of course it isn't. They are different places grown up in different ways and with differing histories. But there was something going on in Manchester that isn't happening in Leeds. As this fleeting impression began to take a firmer shape in my mind, I started to look for specific things that might explain it.

Manchester is certainly bigger, its centre more sprawling but it seems to been have developed in a more consistent way which contrasts starkly with the somewhat ad hoc style that Leeds has. Manchester's public spaces are more continental in feel, its shop fronts wider, its finish more opulent. And it has a much wider cultural society with far more going on than we living over the hill have.

Eventually however, it finally dawned on me what was really making Manchester different to what I am used to in Leeds. It was the people. Everyone had a certain style. Whilst fashion was being followed, I didn't see great gangs of identically dressed youths. Although it was hot and people were dressed for the weather, I didn't see any jaw droppingly hideous ensembles.

And that was it. People in Manchester are just cooler than people in Leeds. And I wanted to be part of it. Not the cool bit. I'm far too long in the tooth for that. But the bit about having easy access to a city that's on the up. And that drags me back to one of my greatest fears in life - that I will leave Ilkley in a box!

Ilkley is a beautiful town. It has fabulous amenities and spectacular countryside on its doorstep. It has easy access to other places and is yet small enough to make it a remarkably safe place to bring up children. I can't imagine that it could be bettered on a whole range of things. But it is a very small town in a small part of a small country in a huge world. I didn't actively choose to live here. It just sort of happened to me but as accidents go I really can't complain. I could have done an awful lot worse. But when I go somewhere that reminds me of how different other places are, it makes me feel claustrophobic and a little bit trapped.

I'm not saying that I would want to move back to Manchester specifically. I don't. It's more that I want to experience living in other places before it's too late. I suspect that only then will I feel that I have made the most of my life. And if I say it often enough then who knows? One day it may even happen.

EXPLOSIONS!

2011-04-05T13:54:00.003+01:00

There were tremors in our house this morning. I'm not sure they would have registered on the Richter scale but they were certainly felt by my children.

When I had calmed down a bit and was again capable of rational thought, I put my point of view to the Little Ones in these terms. "I want to live like a princess. You make me live like a pig." I thought this was quite clever and would appeal to their fertile imaginations. They thought it was hilarious, their minds' eyes visualising farmyard animals in tiaras and instead of tidying the offending bedrooms, they scampered off to make a jigsaw of a fairy castle which simply served to remind me how far reality really is from the dream.

The cause of this and, to be fair, most upsets in this house is that I do everything and they do nothing. Now before you side with me ( as you are bound to do) and reassure me that my children are all ingrates who don't deserve the luxurious lifestyle that I create for them, I should point something out. I do everything because most of the time that suits me. I am naturally tidy and organised and I can beetle round cleaning as I go in less than half the time it takes them. I know where everything is, how clean the bathrooms are and exactly what is in the larder.

Also, most of the time, my view is that they are children and shouldn't have to have their lives bogged down with the mundanities of adult life. They work hard at school and they are busy with the things that they do afterwards. They need time to relax, interact with one another and play. And so I facilitate that by ensuring that their home environment is clean and safe and entirely conducive to tipping the contents of their toy boxes out all over the floor in the firm knowledge that shortly thereafter order will be restored. They have plenty of time to learn how to sew a button on

Stacked against this is the idea that they do, at some point, have to learn the skills necessary to survive. How to work the washer, the best way to clean a bathroom, how to rustle up dinner for six from the contents of the fridge at break neck speed. In seeking to protect them from the real world, I am no doubt storing up issues for whoever has to live with them in the future. When I think back to what I was doing when I was a teenager, I am forced to laugh at their piteous attempts. They do not even have a quarter of the household skills that I had when I was their age.

I have tried. We've had rotas and what not. But I don't have the time or the energy to police them. Maybe if they were fewer of them it might be easy to keep on top of but no matter what systems I set up, they always fall down after a couple of days. Coupled with this is my refusal to pay anyone for doing a task. My firm belief is that they should do what they do because they are part of a team, a cog in a well oiled machine and not because someone has bribed them. But actually its a very exclusive team with only one member - yours truly.

But does it really matter yet? Apart from mornings like today, when I lose my composure over another dumped apple core, it seems to work OK. Everything is the way I like it. They get on with being children and I get on with making their world work. Eventually, they will have to learn how to iron at a speed that isn't painful to watch but perhaps not just yet. As long as they don't abuse my generosity and adopt an acceptable level of common courtesy, we can all rub along just fine with me doing everything. But don't ever remind me that I said that out loud.

FREE TIME

2011-03-31T10:48:00.000+01:00

Today is a day with no plan. They don't come around very often. Invariably there is something that shapes the time between the school bells. Some work, some studying, coffee with a friend, cleaning the house. But not today.

So. What shall I do with all this unscheduled liberty? It's raining and blowing a gale and so, being a fair weather kind of girl, that excludes anything that involves me being outside. I have lots of ideas. Top of the list is some research for a new story that is slowly taking shape in my head. Then I have a book that I'm trying, without success, to get into. I have a couple of knitting projects which could use some attention and I have some fabric waiting to be sewn into a bag.

Then we move into the slightly less appealing options. I could bake. I could catch up on my Sky + viewing whilst tackling the ironing pile. Hot on their heels are the things that I should do. Sort out the pantry. Clean the windows inside. Mop the downstairs. Tidy the children's wardrobes.

You see how quickly my day can deteriorate from an exciting window of opportunity to just another list of chores? And it's always the same. I have some time that I could spend doing something fun and frivolous but what I end up doing is feeling bad and cleaning something.

I think the problem lies in it being a whole day. I wake in the morning fully intending to treat myself to a totally self indulgent experience. You've earned it, I tell myself. And what's to stop you taking a day out to do something just for you? But there are those that might say that that's what I do for part of most days and they would be right. And so the niggle starts at the back of my head.

I do the school run, come back home and just before I begin doing whatever it is I'm going to do with my time, I just have a quick tidy up. In doing that I notice that the floor could do with a hoover and as the washer is empty I might as well just run a couple of loads through. An urgent call from my eldest for something that she desperately needs but has forgotten sends me flying up to school and suddenly it's half past ten.

The couple of loads of washing won't dry themselves and then I realise how much bigger the ironing pile will be when they come out of the tumbler. Then I remember that I have some veg in the fridge that would make a great soup for lunch but only if I chop it and cook it.

And there you have it. The day that had nothing in it is suddenly full of stuff and I haven't yet done any of my lovely self-indulgent things.

There are two things that I always forget on days like today. Firstly, there's never nothing to do in a house with four children and secondly if I think I can be happy pleasing myself all day I am deluded. Unless I actually leave the premises, I cannot cope with whole days off. I need my 'me' time in nice containable chunks of not more than two hours at a time and then I can feel like I've earned them. So if I run round all morning doing housewifely tasks, I can feel that I have justified my rather peculiar existence and sneak in a cosy hour on the sofa with a book.

And there you have it. I've talked myself out of my day off and into just another day like all the others. And wasn't it easy?

MAGGIE AND THE MINERS

2011-03-29T12:45:00.001+01:00

My children recently watched 'Billy Elliot' and it has given rise to all kinds of questions. Who was Margaret Thatcher? Is she still alive? What's a picket line? Aren't boys allowed to dance?

If you have never come across the story, 'Billy Elliot' is about a boy who wants to do ballet but is being brought up in a working class environment where boxing is more the norm. It is set during the Miners' Strike in the 1980s, hence all the questions. It has been a very strange experience for me to explain something that the children think as history but which I lived through and have clear memories of. But stranger still has been my emotional response to those recollections.

I was in the sixth form when the miners went out on strike. Whilst not particularly politically aware, I could not avoid the news stories and so had a fairly clear idea of the issues. However, there aren't many pits in middle class Ilkley and I didn't go to rallies or gigs so I only ever saw things through the tv screen. For me, as a young adult, the focus was all on the picket lines, the brutality of the riot gear and what Billy Bragg had to say about it. When it was all over and such of the miners that still had open pits to work in went back, I took my 'A' levels and my adult life began. I never really gave the strike more than the odd thought as I drove through Sheffield.

So I was somewhat taken aback to discover my reaction when to trying to explain what had happened at that time to my children. My throat closes, my voice wobbles and the tears flow unchecked as I talk about picket lines and collection buckets in a way that it never did at the time. I'm not sure my political opinions have changed that much so there must be something else about me that is different now to then.

And of course there is. Now I am a mother with a family of my own and suddenly the whole history takes on a different slant. I have an empathy that played no part in my make up back then. Now, in my imagination I can put myself and my children in the position that the miners' families were in. I can more readily understand the suffering that they endured as they fought for their jobs and the passion with which they believed in what they were doing. And that makes me cry.

It is yet another example of how much richer my life has become as I grow older. The range of emotional responses that I discover I have is much greater than it has ever been in the past and my reactions to things regularly surprise me. When I was a girl, I could never understand why my mother cried when she heard children singing. I thought she was barmy and over emotional. Now I get that completely and although I don't always do it, I think I can understand why she did.

But I'm not certain and that's rather the point. I couldn't tell you precisely why I respond with tears when discussing the miners and what they went through. But I do cry and I never used to and that must mean that I am changing as I grow up. And I think I like that.

CRITIQUE BY COMMITTEE

2011-03-26T11:16:00.000Z

As regular readers will know, not least because I have wittered on about it endlessly, I spent the best part of last year penning my first novel. Despite numerous self deluded daydreams, by the time I'd finished I was pretty certain that this was not the book that was going to propel me into the literary spotlight. However, I thought it might not be totally without merit and was interested in a third party's perspective. I hit upon the idea of sharing it with my book group.

When I bounced this proposal off various people, I was met with two responses. 'You're brave!' from my friends and 'You're mad!' from people who knew a little about the publishing world. Still, always one to plough my own furrow, I soldiered on regardless, distributed copies to the relevant people and waited for the crucial meeting of my critics.

The evening began with the usual chit chat and when I could bear the suspense no longer, I brought the meeting to order and the dissection of my novel began. Now, I had a fair idea of the merits and flaws of my work and I know the members of my group and their literary likes and dislikes pretty well so I wasn't expecting any shocks. My greatest fear was that they would all smiled at me glibly and said it was good because then I'd know they hated it.

But they didn't. Within ten minutes they were in hot debate about the credibility of my characters and whether teenage girls would really have hitched to London as a dare. To an outsider, the meeting would have seemed to have been progressing along our well worn path. We were a group of well educated, well read women robustly discussing a novel and all reaching different conclusions.

Of course, for me it was a little different. Each time they said that they wanted more of this and less of that my insides squirmed. Sometimes, their criticism was so fierce that I thought that perhaps they had forgotten that the author was in the room. But then maybe this was a good thing. They discussed my book, chewing it over backwards and forwards in minute detail for at least as long as we spent on Ali Smith last month. If nothing else, it had provoked debate and not everything we read does that. Almost worse was when they said that they liked a scene or a character or the writing style. Never good with compliments, this was nearly as difficult for me to take as the criticism.

Despite almost begging them to stop a couple of times when I thought I could bear it no longer, after about an hour we wound the discussion up and conversation floated back to something more general. I collected my copies back in, thanked them for taking the time and walked home, breathing deeply of the the crisp night air and processing what had just happened.

And now how do I feel? Well, in all honesty I feel inspired to continue. I shall take what I've learned both from the writing experience itself and from sharing my work and crack on with the next one. All I need is a good idea and then who knows?!

TOO SCHOOL FOR COOL

2011-03-23T11:10:00.000Z

I've never been cool. It doesn't bother me. I reconciled my wishes with reality many a moon ago. When I was a child, I didn't fit into the popular group. Instead I had a small gang of loyal friends who were occasionally lured away by the temptation of the cool kids but generally floated back to us second or third tier inhabitants before too long.

On reflection, I think it would be fair to call me a swat. I behaved in class, always did my homework and tried my hardest most of the time. Too school for cool, that was me. I had my life plan and that was my focus. I rarely let things distract me. Even my boyfriend played second fiddle to revision.

But it wasn't easy, never quite making the grade with the Queen Bees. It is natural to seek approval and to be bathed in the golden glow of the class favourite's attention was something that I craved just like everyone else. It was just that my drive to do well was a stronger draw.

Now that I'm 44 I couldn't care less. I am what I am and people can take me, foibles and all or leave me untalked to. Apart from the odd wistful glance at gaggles of giggling women, being popular is neither here nor there to me. But this is something that has come with age. It is not the same for my children.

As far as I can see, not much has changed in the scary world of school. There are still the 'too cool for school' mob, strutting about and ruling the roost, graciously giving and then retracting their favours with wanton abandon. Very occasionally you find a child that is highly popular with all groups and yet pleasant and motivated but it's still a rare commodity.

Beneath these kids there are a wide selection of less cool groups and each child, despite any aspirations that they may harbour, knows exactly where their place in the pecking order is. My task is to ensure that my children are happy with where they have landed, as indeed we all have to be. I need to show them that being in with the in crowd holds very little benefit in the long term. Cool seems to equate to distraction, cheek and underachievement as far as I can see and none of these attributes lead to school success which I consider to be highly important.

And yet, when you are a child, all these things have a irresistible sparkle. It is hard to see how ultimately unsatisfactory it can be to modify your behaviour and looks in an attempt to fit into a place that you were never destined to be. Even if you say the right things and wear the right clothes and laugh at the right jokes, the popular crowd can still drop you like a hot potato on a whim and then what is left of your true self?

I try to ensure that my children's self esteem is strong enough to survive the vicissitudes of the playground. I repeat, ad nauseam, my mantras that being cool is not always the best policy and that it is always better to be true to yourself than try to ape those around you. But my heart breaks every time I wipe away their tears because they have been inexplicably mocked or ditched.

But ultimately it is a lesson that everyone has to learn for themselves. And until you do I think it's a struggle to find true contentment, which is what we all strive for for us and our loved ones.

WANDERLUST

2011-03-20T20:52:00.001Z

If you have a good memory, you may remember me blogging last summer about how I was finished with pets. I was so self righteous and determined in my view that pets are more trouble than they're worth. I firmly believed that when our one remaining guinea pig shuffled off this mortal coil, I was going to draw the line and we would become a totally human household.

But then I had to conduct a spectacular and very public U turn when I was unable to resist the lure of two beautiful kittens. I know. It's pathetic but there is it. The kittens arrived last October. Two little bundles of fluff and mischief to delight and worry us in equal measure.

And now they are six months old. They are quite a lot bigger and a little bit wiser than they were when they first arrived and have made such a difference to our household that I can't really believe that I ever said no more pets.

But something that I didn't bargain for when I welcomed them in was the impact on my stress levels. It's not that the kittens misbehave. In the main, they are pretty good, staying on the floor, eating their food not ours and not disgracing themselves on my soft furnishings. They even keep the mice that they catch outside.

No, the thing that is causing the heart ache is their tendency to roam. They seem completely incapable of just playing in the garden. I suppose that they have farm cat genes so it shouldn't have come as any great surprise that they might wander. And boy, do they wander?

The first time that the black one wasn't there when we got up, we had an incredibly difficult morning as I imagined the worse and tried to pretend that I hadn't to the children. He turned up at lunchtime and immediately I hotfooted it to Timpsons and got discs cut for their collars with our phone number on. I imagined that we would only get a call if the kittens were squished at the side of the road. How wrong I was!

The phone must ring most days with some cat loving neighbour asking me if we have lost a kitten. I had no idea that so many people would be concerned for their welfare. Dozens of well meaning folk have rung to say that they are worried about them. Either they are up a tree or playing near cars or just investigating other people's kitchens. If the land line rings, you can pretty much guarantee that the call will be kitten related.

I am training myself not to fret. I have enough to fret about already without including errant kittens. I know that they are cats and they will wander at will and with microchip and collar disc we are likely to hear if anything horrible happens. But I'm not sure that the stress of not knowing where they are is what I signed up for when I took them in. Perhaps I should view it as good practise for when the children get older? I wonder if I can get phone number discs for them?

PROF COX v SARAH VINE

2011-03-16T20:36:00.001Z

There has been a big argument on the internet today surrounding comments that Sarah Vine made in The Times about Professor Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe television programme.

To roughly précis her argument, Sarah Vine seems to be saying that science should be presented by 'the sort of person who's too brainy to notice that drip-dry brown polyester is no longer in fashion.' She complains that having a young, sexy presenter some how diminishes the subject and ' irritates viewers with some knowledge and distracts the rest.'

I and a legion of Prof Cox fans beg to differ. You may remember me blogging a few months ago about how sexy astronomy has become. After the Star Gazing Live series, Amazon sold out of planispheres and telescope sales were up by an extraordinary percentage. This is a measurable indication of how inspired people were by the programmes to get out there and gaze at the skies for themselves. Who knows how many future Nobel prize winners may have been inspired?

Science has never really been my thing. I am an arts girl through and through and only took Physics 'O' level because it seemed the best of a bad bunch. But as I get older, I am more and more interested in all things sciencey. And I'm happy to admit that having someone who is both extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his subject as well as being easy on the eye has whetted my appetite.

Sarah Vine seems to think that this is a bad thing. A programme that relies on interesting locations and a dramatic soundtrack to support its points is anathema to her. Presumably she has a problem with natural history shows, which have been using these techniques for decades, as well.

What she seems to ignore is that it is precisely because science has always been so stuffy and taught by unappealing men in polyester trousers that the numbers of people studying at University has been on the decline for years. This coupled with the worrying low number of girls that study science after school is surely grounds enough for a major overhaul of how we address science in this country. I, for one, think that anything that gets people taking an interest in science has to be a good thing. If that turns out to be wide angled shots of Prof Cox walking into a sunset with an orchestra booming behind him then so be it. The science remains the same.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this whole discussion is that Sarah Vine is married to Michael Gove, the man in charge of Education in this country. Let us hope that pillow talk in their house does not lead the country back into the scientific dark ages. And in the meantime, may the BBC find other vivacious and interesting scientists to front programmes on chemistry and biology and hopefully kick start a whole new generation of scientists.

FIFTEEN MINUTES EACH

2011-03-13T16:40:00.000Z

I read an article recently that said that a parent should spend fifteen minutes a day with each child on an individual basis. According to the report, you should put the time aside and spend it doing only what the child wants to do. This, apparently, increases the child's sense of belonging and self-worth. So, I have four children - that makes an hour a day. How hard can that be?

Hmmm. This type of report is always thought provoking and makes me examine how well I step up to the mark. I fear I fall far short.

It's not that I don't see my children. I am always here when they are. But rather than spending time together, we all sort of orbit each other like a bunch of slightly erratic satellites. I am generally in the kitchen sorting post or cooking or ironing something. They beetle in and out to request food or help with homework or to recount some interesting tale. But time actually spent on a one to one basis?

It was worse when they were smaller and needed my help with getting down the pens or doing a jigsaw or setting up the lego. A little voice would pipe up with a request for assistance and time and again I would hear myself say - "I'll be there in a minute" or "Just let me....." I did try to get there when I'd finished whatever vital task I was working on but they had often lost interest in the project by then and wandered off to pastures new.

Now they are older and more independent they generally don't even bother to ask for help, just mentioning their intended action casually as they flit through the kitchen. That makes it even worse. Whole days go by when all I do is housework around them. Good job the report writers didn't visit my house.

It's not that I don't spend any time with them on a one to one basis. I try to make sure that the lines of communication are kept well and truly open with my teenagers and will seize any opportunity to gently pry into their worlds over a cup of tea or perched on the end of their bed. I read with the little ones individually each day and talk to them about their day on the way home from school, listening to their tales in turn. And one advantage of having lots of children is that there is always someone to play with and the dynamics change the whole time.

But 15 minutes when they pick the activity? Nope. It simply doesn't happen. And the children seem to be OK with that. They know that I'm here if they need me and they have each other. Is that enough? I think so. I hope so.

A COMPETITIVE EDGE

2011-03-11T14:10:00.000Z

I came relatively late in life to skiing. I was 25 when I first donned those unwieldy boots and took to the snow in nervous trepidation. I loved it at once although it took slightly longer to develop any level of competency. I managed to squeeze in four trips before the birth of my first child and then followed over a decade of sad resignation to the fact that there was no longer any opportunity for me to ski.

So last year, when an invitation to a girls' trip landed on my facebook page, I jumped at it with very little prompting. I begged and borrowed some kit and when at last I found myself at the top of a mountain again, it almost felt as if I had never been away.

After a few slightly shaky runs down, I regained my ski legs and by the end of the second day I was skiing slopes that would have daunted me back in my heyday. During the three days that we were there, I skied more red runs than I had done in the whole of my previous experience. And I didn't fall. Not once. Whereas on my previous trips crashing into barriers, tumbling over children and sailing down slopes on my backside had been common occurrences, this time I remained vertical no matter what the mountain threw at me.

Of course we went again this year. A repeat trip to the same place with almost identical personnel. Another fabulous few days with plenty of skiing and no incidents. But this time I started to wonder why my earlier trips were so very different to the later ones.

The answer is very clear to me. Competition. It is something that barely features in my world these days. I am happy in my own skin and rarely feel the need to compare myself with others. Indeed, I actively steer clear of it which is no mean feat in Ilkley. But back then it was different. My first two trips were with people that I worked with. We were a mixed bunch both in terms of sex and ability and I wanted to prove myself. I went fast because I could and because I didn't want to be left behind. Even later, when I skied with my husband, I felt an uncharacteristic need to show him that I was capable and could hold my own against him on the slopes.

But in the company of women it is very different. Who cares who is the fastest? The pecking order of ability was very obvious, with me falling somewhere in the middle but that was just accepted as fact without anyone feeling the need to prove anything to the others. There was, in some cases, the need to prove something to themselves but in an environment of genuine support rather than thinly disguised one-upmanship, it is much easier to combat any misgivings and win.

The motivating force behind most of the decisions made on the slope was a desire to ensure that each of us skied to the best of our ability. This was achieved either by the stronger skiers helping the weaker ones or by everyone feeling confident enough to express what they really wanted to do without fear of reprisals. And as a result, I skied better and for longer knowing that all I had to do was what I felt comfortable with.

It's an attitude that I shall try to weave into the rest of my life now that I'm home. Trying to support others rather than using them as a springboard to showcase our own skills is not only far more satisfying but seems to result in everyone achieving their best and that has to be a better outcome doesn't it?

LEAVING HOME

2011-03-02T15:00:00.000Z

On Sunday I am going away. I am going skiing with a group of girlfriends. It is a repeat of a highly successful trip last year. The chalet is gorgeous and right on the slopes. The hospitality is fabulous and the company lovely. There are spectacular views in every direction and I'm hoping to get some paragliding done as the icing on the cake.

Sounds idyllic doesn't it? And I'm so ready for a break. One of the downsides of being a stay at home mum is that every day is the same. Be it Wednesday or Sunday the house still needs sorting, the food preparing, the children caring for. There is never a day off. So having the opportunity to go away and recharge my batteries is such a luxury.

But it comes at a price. As any mother will know, I can't just pack and leave.There are mountains to be climbed before I get to ski down some. Firstly I have to sort the childcare, calling in favours wherever I can. Covering four children and their plethora of activities is no mean feat and no small ask. I have to work out who needs to be where when and how they will be transported. I need to sign off every part of their lives in my head so that I know that it is all arranged and will run smoothly.

Then there is the food. Meals planned, bought for and where possible cooked and frozen is the order of the day. My husband has to work all day and then come back and do my bit on top so I need to make it as uncomplicated as possible. And it's Shrove Tuesday whilst I'm away so there must be eggs and lemons in the house!

And then there's my course. Next week's work needs to be completed so that I can relax when I finally get there and not fall behind.

But these are just the practicalities, the matters that need to be sorted so that I can leave. Harder to deal with is my head and the wide range of emotional hurdles that I have to negotiate every time I leave town. Guilt comes first. I am getting a break. It means that everyone else has to run even faster to cover what I do. No one else gets to swan off for four days - just me. That makes me feel bad and is almost enough to stop me arranging trips in the first place.

Then, in a couple of days I will decide that I don't want to go after all. I will start to fret about the children and how they will cope without me to do their thinking for them, read their stories, check their spellings and generally be mother? In reality, I suspect that they will barely notice that I'm gone. They are generally either at school, out or asleep but I firmly believe that my place is to be here when they return. And I won't be. That's hard for me to reconcile with my need to be without them for a bit.

Next comes the fear of disaster. What if the plane goes down over the Alps? What if I break my leg and need an army of people helping me out when I get home? What if I get caught in an avalanche?!

Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth going away at all? It is all so difficult to achieve and isn't the benefit outweighed by the stress leading up to it? At this point in the week, then quite possibly.

But on Sunday morning, when I walk into that airport knowing that I can now no longer do anything about anything, it will all miraculously float out of my head. I know that I will stop thinking about everyone else for a few precious days and concentrate on me instead. And when I come home, I will be ready to leap back onto the roller coaster of family life and take that ride at breakneck speed until I get the chance to go away again. And when I think about that, I know that all the heartache will be worth it in the end.

Roll on Sunday.

A PIECE OF CAKE

2011-02-27T07:37:00.000Z

It's my son's birthday party today. Being a Leapling, he doesn't actually have a birthday this year but we are pretending that it is as usual. But with the party comes the requirement for a cake. I cannot tell you how stressful the whole cake business is for me. I lie awake at night fretting about it, I dream of being chased down the street by rolls of fondant icing. Well, not really. But I do get myself into an bit of a tizzy.

Now I know what you will say. But cakes is your thing. You have been going to classes for years. How hard can it be? And this is all true. I have been going for years but we make flowers, fine, life-like flowers for wedding cakes. The work is precise, neat, in fine petal paste or porcelain. We don't do any novelty work.

It was fine to start with. When my eldest was little, almost nobody decorated their own birthday cakes. I had a couple of very simple books left over from the eighties and I just picked something out of them that had a vague relevance to their life and Bob was very much my uncle.

And because it was unusual, my cakes were generally met with oohs and ahs by the attending parents. Of course the kids didn't bat an eyelid. But over the years I felt a slight sense anticipation build up. A few people began to ask what the cake might be this year. I started to bow under the pressure.

As the years have gone on things have changed in the birthday cakes world. Firstly, I have four children. That's a lot of cakes. They don't like to repeat each other's choices and I have far less time and inclination to spend the best part of two days before the party crafting a cake. But for weeks beforehand, they sit poring over my books, now expanded in number, choosing the perfect cake. I try and guide them towards the ones that I anticipate will be the most successful based on my past experience. The pressure builds.

Secondly there are now lots and lots of people all making fabulous cakes. People have even gone into business just doing novelty cakes. I can think of half a dozen in Ilkley alone. As a result, the whole cake expectation thing has racked up a notch or two. More pressure.

The trouble is, I'm just not very good at it. The execution I can just about carry off as long I steer the children towards something that I know will be within my capabilities. But Madeira cake and butter icing just don't behave themselves like fruit and marzipan. Things don't go to plan. I get frustrated and grumpy. And also, because my powers of imagination and creativity are truly limited in this regard, I can never think of things to make or how it might be done. So I slavishly copy from books with results that I find disappointing.

Of course the kids are generally delighted. They don't notice the wobbly icing or the heads held on with cocktail sticks like I do. But I have to admit to being guilty of steering them towards away from novelty sugar paste and towards things that I can do and that I enjoy - chocolate ganache, gateaux or plain Victoria sponge liberally coated with sweets.

At the end of the day, all they need is something to stick candles in that tastes nice and I should stop worrying about it because it's only a cake! But fretting is what I do. ( Here is this time's effort, Notice the shot is taken from a distance!)

PLUS POINTS AND DOWNERS

2011-02-23T09:08:00.000Z

There are lots of positives about writing a blog. It started as a way of expressing myself but now, 290 posts later, it's beginning to look like a pretty accurate record of my life and that of my children. A diary of sorts then. And that's good.

Also, it makes me think about my world as I search for the next subject matter. It makes me question my decisions and helps me laugh at myself when I'm over sensitive or too po-faced.

And it's a great discipline. I have a deal with myself that I will post something not less than twice a week and I try hard to comply. I have to take time out of thinking about what to make for tea to consider what I might write, organise my thoughts and then put pen to paper, so to speak.

But there are some negatives and those have been haunting me recently. There's the guilt of course - guilt permeates every aspect of my life and snakes its way around my consciousness most days. In this case, it's the guilt of being in breach of my own deal, not having kept to my side of the bargain and penned what I hope to be erudite and interesting posts. Of course, if I tried to eliminate everything that made me feel guilty from my life there would be next to nothing left - and then I'd feel guilty about that. So I suppose that doesn't count as a 'Blog Specific' disadvantage and more just a bi-product of being me!

The main downer is that trying to think of things to write about makes me realise how very narrow my life is. You can imagine that in 290 posts, I have covered most of the stuff that happens to me quite comprehensively and some of it more than once. Every so often, I will try something new or there is a thought provoking parenting development which sends me scuttling to my screen. But most of the time, my life is routine, conducted within the four walls of my house and just a bit dull.

I wouldn't notice this distinct lack of excitement if I weren't trying to write about it twice a week. However, in that context it's really quite depressing! Where are the exciting tales of intrepid travels, the witty anecdotes of interesting family life? Even the odd mild disaster might make an diverting addition. But no. It's STILL winter and I'm here in my square metre (see picture of my square metre in a thinly veiled attempt to pique your interest) waiting for life to do something extraordinary.

I see some potential blog topics peeping their noses over the horizon so all is not completely lost. But if I resort to listing all my CDs or books that I've read in the last five years then you'll know that I ( and consequently you) have finally fallen into a dungeon of terminal boredom and that there is no longer any hope for me! At that point you can stop visiting Imogen Clark at Home and I'll archive the whole, bally lot!

OPTIONS OPTIONS

2011-02-21T08:51:00.000Z

It's Options time in our house. I cannot believe that my eldest is about to have to make a real decision about something that matters. It is, of course, just the first in a long, long line of decisions and it's unlikely that any fatal or irreversible errors can be made but even so I feel that the situation has to be given due deference.

When I chose my O level subjects back in 1981 there wasn't much choice. Two Englishes, Maths, French, History or Geography and a Science were all compulsory. After that, you were either arty or sciencey. I did three languages and dropped all the science that I could. As I already had my eyes on the prize, I didn't bother with anything that wasn't traditionally academic. No cookery or sewing for me!

I don't remember it being a difficult decision. Maybe this was because I already had a clear direction mapped out or perhaps there was relatively little choice? I just picked the subjects that I believed I had the best chance of doing well in and that was that.

These days the whole system is entirely different to the one that I battled my way through and is changing almost year on year. There are fewer exams and it does seem that success is far more formulaic than it was in my day. Of course, we all like to think that they are easier to pass because the results are comparatively so high. I don't actually know if that is true but in any case it doesn't matter as my children have to succeed in today's system and not the one of thirty years ago.

So now my eldest has three weeks in which to choose her GCSEs and I know about as much about it as I did when I was 14 and choosing my own. I still have all the same prejudices against particular subjects which I assume I picked up from my own parents. It's that whole middle class prejudice against anything that isn't a 'traditional' subject. I look at some of the things that are on the list and immediately disregard them as not being suitable. I would always prefer academic subjects to non - academic. But am I right? Is it still as important as it was or do they now just need to show good marks in a broad range of subjects but it doesn't really matter what? She has to do at least one creative subject from a long list of choices. Should she go with what she enjoys or what she's best at? Is Music a better option that PE? Does it really matter?

The whole thing is a bit of a minefield!

When push comes to shove, these are decisions that she has to make for herself. I will try and give guidance and make sure that she doesn't close any doors for herself at this stage although I'm not sure you really can get it terribly wrong. I suppose she needs a balance of subjects, preferably that she enjoys and that accord with the school's recommendations.

It's still scary though for me, the first time parent. All I want is for my children to be happy and successful in whatever they choose to do but if they have a sound academic grounding so many more options are available to them. And so as she steps out into the big bad world of public examinations for the first time, I am biting my lip and hoping that she's got it right and that all is well.

MY SPARE TIME SPENDER

2011-02-16T16:49:00.000Z

It's been a while since I mentioned my course so I thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

For those that don't know, in September I started an English Literature degree with the Open University. It's always been a bit of an ambition of mine. I would have done English had I not needed a Law degree to be a solicitor and last year it crossed my mind that instead of dreaming about it, I could actually just get on and do it.

At the outset, I teetered between wild excitement at the prospect of being able to spend all day reading books and deep trepidation about the whole madcap scheme. Where did I think I was going to find sixteen hours a week? Could I really take on a commitment for six long years? Would I be able to concentrate long enough to read my books let alone come up with anything sensible to say?

I calmed my nerves in the stationery department of WHS as I salivated over lever arch files and highlighters and suddenly it was October and I was off!

It's a slightly peculiar experience to be studying with the OU. Last time round I sat in lecture theatres scribbling frantically and had lots of people to chat things through with over coffee in the Union bar. With the OU it's just not like that. I have a pile of course materials, a book of assignments and a timetable of tutorials. The rest is up to me.

And so far so good. This year's course (AA100) is the foundation for all arts based courses and is designed to help learn the skills needed to complete a degree. It does this by introducing the students to a huge range of subjects. From Plato to Irish independence, from Cezanne to Christopher Marlowe we have scooted about the subjects spending a week on each before flying off at a tangent. It's fascinating and most of it has been completely new to me.

Every five weeks or so, I hot foot it to Bradford University for a tutorial. Whilst there are twenty people in the group, only eleven have ever put in an appearance. We know absolutely nothing about each other, our tutor being a gruff Lancastrian with no time for small talk. I have no inkling why any of them are studying, what they are aiming for or how well they are doing. It's all slightly strange. Still, I suppose they know nothing about me.

I am managing to keep up with the timetable by trying to keep a week ahead of the game so that I have time in hand for unseen eventualities - sick kids, work, half terms. And now, with the end of the first year in sight, I am starting to look at what to do next. There is so much choice that it's hard to know which direction to take. I could choose to study virtually anything I want. It's so exciting.

Next year it all steps up a gear - less hand holding, higher standards and an exam. It's a bit daunting but not as scary as taking that first step was. In the meantime, I shall continue to follow my timetable religiously and enjoy getting a discount at the cinema with my NUS card!

TIGER MOTHER

2011-02-11T20:40:00.001Z

The Tiger Mother is all the rage. Brought into sharp focus by a recent book with a serialization on Radio 4, this style of parenting, favoured by the Chinese, has been causing a media storm.

In case you've missed it, the essence of the idea is that you focus all your child's energies into their education and perhaps a musical instrument, although only the piano or the violin are deemed acceptable. Any other distractions are forbidden so no sleepovers, parties, friends' houses after school or other frivolous activities.

At first glance, this is so different to how most Western households bring up their children that it seems cruel. To hot house your child in this way deprives them of what everyone else takes for granted and what may seem like the essence of childhood. I suspect your average Western parent would baulk at these methods because it is generally believed here that children need to have fun, time to relax, be happy.

I would say the same. I chase my tail fetching and carrying so that my children get every opportunity to try new things. I hope that I am helping them grow into well rounded individuals with a wealth of experiences to set them on their way through life. However this approach will almost inevitably lead to them being Jacks of all trades and masters of none. Would I have been better, I wonder, channelling all their energies down two paths only - school and music- as is suggested by the 'Tiger Mother' of the book? Would they have a better chance in life if I narrowed their outlook?

The results of the system seem to speak for themselves. Chinese children achieve whereas British children seem incapable of getting five GCSEs. So why don't we all do it the Chinese way? Well, we don't like it. We want children to be happy and to have their self esteem boosted way beyond what can possibly be realistic.

But what does being happy involve? Children, like adults, are happy when they get their own way, when they do what they want. However, doing what you want often isn't the best course of action. I have to question whether a child is really in a position to make that kind of decision for themselves. And constantly being told that you are the best when you patently are not must lead to disappointment once you step outside the cosseted world of your home.

I encourage my children to do their homework but I don't stand over them whilst they do it. I like to think that I am teaching them to be self motivated and independent. But if I am brutally honest with myself, I know that I could spend more time with each child helping them with their school work but I am busy with other things.

To hot house a child in the way that the Chinese mother has done takes huge amounts of stamina and determination. It is tempting to decry it as a strategy and say that it's an inappropriate way to parent but actually I'm not sure that it is. If you can devote your life to ensuring that your child reaches their potential then surely that's a good thing? And I suspect that a large part of the reason that I don't do it myself is not because I don't agree with it as a strategy. It's more that I couldn't actually do it. I just don't have it in me.

So hats off to the Chinese mothers. Through their sheer hard work and determination they produce children who know how to apply themselves and succeed and are then able to enjoy the fruits of their labours in their adult lives. I wonder how many British children will manage that?

.

ALCOHOL AND THE TEENAGE GIRL.

2011-02-09T10:20:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago my fourteen year old went away for a week's residential trip with school. The kit list came home and in block capitals across the bottom was a missive warning of the consequences of taking alcohol or cigarettes. It took me by surprise. I suppose that because it never crossed my mind that my child would pack alcohol in her bag I hadn't thought about the possibility. But of course it is totally possible and presumably packed by children just like mine whose parents' minds it never crossed either.

So here it comes galloping over the horizon into full view - my next parenting dilemma. What do I do about my children and alcohol?

As with all things parenting I tend to start with my own experiences as a child. I don't remember booze playing much part in our family life. As far as I recall, my parents didn't really drink in front of us. I don't know if that was a considered policy or just the way it worked out. And I really didn't like the taste, being able to detect a whiff of sherry in the trifle at a hundred paces. The result was that alcohol didn't really feature in my life until I was 16 and I still think that's an acceptable age to start experimenting with the demon drink.

So that doesn't really help me. I'm going to have to formulate my own plan of action.

I have been taking note of how other people seem to be preparing for the inevitable. So far I have observed four different approaches.

1. The total denial. 'They are only 13 and 14. Of course they aren't drinking yet.'
This is going nowhere. I may be naive but even I know that it's happening and pretending that it isn't won't help.

2. The total ban. This is, of course, what many people would like to do at least until they get a bit older but banning things is rarely the answer so I have disregarded it as an option.

3. The turning of a blind eye. 'I'm not sure where they're getting it from but it's only a couple of bottles. It's just what I did.'
The trouble with this approach is that you can never be entirely sure exactly what it is that you're turning a blind eye to. A couple of bottles of Budweiser or a litre of vodka. And what is it doing for parent child communications?

4. The controlled introduction. 'I'll provide a bit and then they can learn about the effects of alcohol where it's safe.'
This seems to be the most sensible idea. A little wine with a meal, a bottle of beer at a barbecue. All controlled, in appropriate social settings and with the emphasis on a drink as a pleasant experience and not a means to an end.

But..... they are only 14. As far as I can see they are just too young. It's like everything else. Phones at primary school, make up at 11, heels at 13. It's all far too soon. They are, or should be still children at 14. On the cusp, I accept but there's no need for us to go pushing them over the edge so that they fall, headlong into the dirty, dangerous adult world.

So I'm trying to follow approach number 5 and gently suggest to my daughter that it would be preferable to wait until she's a bit older when her young liver will be better placed to deal with the onslaught. I don't know if it will work. With this approach, I am pretty much at the mercy of her ability to make the right choices. It depends on mutual trust and her understanding of the reasons why I feel the way I do. I don't want ban alcohol. I see little point. If they want to drink then they will no matter what their parents say. I just want her to hold back for a little while until she is better equipped to deal with the consequences.

Have I got it right? Who knows? Time will tell.

TRUE GRIT AND MY LITERARY AMBITIONS

2011-02-06T17:00:00.000Z

It has been said that I am determined. I think that is probably true although I'm not sure that it's a characteristic that reveals itself in my day to day life. As far as I am aware, there have only been two things in my life so far that I have pursued with dogged grit and unstinting resolve.

The first was my desire to be a solicitor. This idea, born in a music lesson when I was 14, shaped my life for the next two decades. It was the one goal that I valued above all others and I single-mindedly followed the educational path necessary to reaching it. The second is my wish to be married and remain married to my husband which I defend, terrier-like, from all dangers and peril and would fight to the death to protect.

Now suddenly there is a third. It will come as no surprise to you to know that I dream of being a writer. I've said it before. And I meant it. But something has changed. My ambition has transformed from a nice idea to a driving force pushing me on, just like the one that I had for my exams 25 years ago.

But being a writer is much easier written than done. Yes, I can string a passable sentence together and that's a good start but it's only the beginning. What I need is a little bit of help and an awful lot of practise. So, as a starting point, I am conducting a couple of experiments. If I don't lose my nerve, which I have to say I do on a daily basis, then my Book Group will read my first stab at a novel later this month. I am hoping for honest and gentle feedback as to whether they think I have something worth pursuing. The book itself probably isn't. It is, after all, a first attempt and not really what I'm aiming for. But my well-read friends should be able to give me some idea whether my quest is, in truth, a hopeless one or not.

In addition, I have taken to posting stories written in different styles on a writers' website. The first was a bit of a cheat as I wrote it on the little writing course that I did last year and so had an idea of what they might say. They liked it. The second was written in about the time it takes me to blog, with very little editing and in a totally different style. It has received no comments, has not been cherry picked and significantly fewer people have read it. Style one is considered better than style two then? I will continue with this game until I have a better idea of what is considered 'good' by them. It's an interesting exercise.

This is a long term plan. I am under no illusions that results will be had quickly. But I'm only 44. My life is just beginning. I have plenty of time to find my voice and offer it up to others. After all, the literary world is scattered with late bloomers - Mary Wesley, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Kenneth Graham and Raymond Chandler were all considerably older than me when they found success. And anyway, in the words of the man with the beret, "You've got to have a dream, If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"! Happy Talk

WHAT IF......?

2011-02-03T14:17:00.001Z

Do you ever wonder what if? What if I'd not come home from inter-railing and got a job in a bar in Florence? What if I'd stayed in London after Law School rather than going to Leeds? What if my husband hadn't been in the Trav that night? ( Apologies to all my readers who do not live in Ilkley and for whom that reference will mean nothing.)

On Sunday morning, I was flicking through the colour supplements when out slipped a Kuoni brochure. Unable to resist, I had a sneaky look. It was filled with fabulous holiday destinations in far flung places now all beyond our means, totally impractical and relegated to the realm of dreams alone.

And then the heinous thought crossed my mind. What if we hadn't had the children? I can hear you tutting from here. How could I think that? How could I even let the merest shadow of such a thought flicker across my consciousness? I know. It's appalling - but actually I do it quite often.

Life BC (Before Children) was very different. At least I think it was. I can't actually remember. I had a thriving career and was talking to the powers that be about promotion before my waistline expanded in a tell-tale manner. So without children, with two incomes and no dance school bill, we would have had considerably more disposable income. We could have lived in a house with fewer bedrooms and far less lawn. I could have had matt white walls and impractical carpeting. I imagine us taking weekend breaks to interesting destinations off the beaten track and holidays to places that don't serve chips with everything. If something whetted our appetite, we could spontaneously explore it.

"I fancy the theatre tonight darling."
"Oh, do you really. Let's see what's on."
"Or perhaps that new restaurant in town? I'll meet you there when I've just closed this deal."

But it's no good. No matter how hard I try, I can't imagine my life without the planning and complication that the children bring. I can't remember making decisions that just impacted on me. I have forgotten what it's like to not worry about the ramifications of every yea and nay.

What I can imagine though is how life might have been if we had stopped at two children. That is easy because all I have to do is scrub the little two away, erase them from my day to day life. If we just had the big ones, we could be enjoying meals where everyone sits still, trips out to see grown up films without the guilt of leaving two behind and great tranches of time when there were no children here at all. But it would be so quiet and dare I say it, a bit dull by comparison.

If I can't properly remember the minutia of life BC, I can remember being far too exhausted after the working week to go to the theatre on a whim. I recall quite clearly plans regularly being cancelled at the last minute because a deal had gone pear shaped and there would be no getting away from the office. As in all walks of life, the sudden removal of the rose coloured spectacles brings the reality into sharp focus and it's not always quite what you'd hoped.

As it is my life is noisy, chaotic and very organised. The children and their constantly changing requirements mean that there can rarely be a spontaneous excursion either for them or us and the simplest of arrangements takes forever to achieve. But would I swap? Of course not. My life without children might have an attractive gloss but my life with them is rich and deep. I am still exhausted but in a rewarding and satisfying way.

And maybe one day, when they have all gone to make their own way in the world, we can dig out those Kuoni brochures and pick somewhere with the most spectacular infinity pool and the whitest beach. But until then it'll be Centre Parcs and pantos for me and, do you know, that's just fine.

NOTHING TO WEAR

2011-01-30T16:58:00.002Z

I have nothing to wear.

Not literally of course. My wardrobe is full of stuff. I also have a couple of boxes under my bed filled with 'off season' things and a slight overflow into an as yet unrequired hanging space in one of the children's rooms. There are plenty of clothes. But I have nothing to wear.

Now, as every self respecting woman will know, this phrase can be interpreted in a number of ways. For me there are generally two translations that fit the bill.

The first is that I have nothing to wear because I am going to a particular occasion and none of my existing wardrobe is suitable. There are plenty of reasons why this might be. It might be a smart affair to which a certain level of dressiness is required. It might be an outing with a group of people that I have been out with in recent memory thus necessitating an alternative outfit. Or it maybe that what is there has unfavourable memories or connotations and won't give my self confidence the much needed boost to get me through the evening.

These problems are relatively rare and not to difficult to resolve. I seldom go anywhere that requires a degree of smart (which is why the difficulty arises in the first place.) This means that if such an occasion is looming in the diary, I usually have plenty of time to think it through and work out what might look nice with what. I can decide what can be tarted up with some new statement jewellery or different heels. Problem relatively easily resolved.

But the second 'I have nothing to wear' moment strikes most days at the moment. It could quite justifiably be rebranded as 'I have nothing that I fancy wearing.' Because we have reached that stage in the season when everything I own has been pretty much worn to death. Nothing still has the frisson of being new. No single item still retains the power to make me feel good when I put it on. The lovely little knitted gilets that were so beguiling when I bought them in September are now a bit bobbly, and my arms, not benefiting from their woolliness, get cold. My new Winter jeans are faded at the knee and I really am too old for the leggings that I bought in a nostalgic moment of madness.

I'm bored. I would dearly love something new to relieve the tedium. A little jaunt round the shops to chase away the mid Winter blues would be just the ticket. But my sensible head says that I should save my pennies and wait for the turn of the season. If I buy Spring clothes in February not only will I look slightly odd and freeze but then when Spring actually arrives I'll be bored of those too.

I know that it's shallow and girly to measure my mood by the age of my clothes but let's face it. If you feel good then you have a better day. Your hair sits right, your eyeliner behaves, your skin looks fresher. I know it's psycholoical but it's January and I need all the boosts I can get.

Maybe one little shopping trip to buy a new top or two wouldn't hurt. After all the way I look at it is that if I'm happy then the house is happy. And anyway, I have nothing to wear!

MEMORY OVERLOAD

2011-01-26T12:02:00.000Z

A while ago, I got an email inviting me to a talk after school. It was a subject that I was interested in but it was on a Tuesday night. Tuesdays are hectic in my house. Seven children's activities plus husband's guitar and my tutorials to factor in. I put the meeting into the "Too difficult" box and closed the lid on it.

Last week I got a reminder but things had, as they are wont to do, moved on. Now all four children would be at a rehearsal at the same place at the same time and so, delighted that something had worked in my favour, I skipped off up to school. It was ominously dark when I got there. I hung around in my car for a few minutes and then decided that all was not right. So I drove home, checked the email and, lo and behold. Next Tuesday.

I'd like to say that this was a one off. This morning my car needed taking to the garage for its MOT. I knew that. We discussed it breakfast. The arrangements were all in hand. So why, when my husband texted me at 9.30 was the car still sitting in the drive?

I know what it looks like. Mid forties, memory starting to slide. But in my own defence I really don't think that it is. It has far more to do with the vast amount of information that I have to carry around with me.

It's the same for all busy mums. We run not just our own complicated existence but those of our children and, in some cases, our husband's too. Four busy kids is no mean feat. When you add in my housewifely duties and the bits and pieces that I do for myself, it's hardly surprising that sometimes things slip off the end.

I remember whist revising for my 'A' levels how frustrating I found it that I could instantly recite the lyric of virtually every song I had ever heard but struggled to recall quotations from my set texts. That could hardly be put down to my age.

I don't forget everything. The week in week out stuff is fairly safe. But the elder two will sidle into the kitchen and mention half arranged plans for parties and sleepovers and I half listen because I'm cooking and I know that most of these things never come off anyway. And then suddenly it's the party and the arrangements fall down because there is no one free to taxi them. "But I told you!" they cry indignantly. And they did but somehow the full implications of what they have said haven't registered and I have temporarily overlooked that I cannot be in two places or once.

Alternatively I slip into default setting. "Can I...?" "No." No doesn't necessarily mean that the activity is unachievable. It generally means "I cannot take any more information in, process it and reach an appropriate decision at the moment." And then later, when I have thought about the ramifications of the plan, I may change my mind and say yes. But that is rubbish! 'Mum always says no but then she changes her mind so we'll just nag until she does.' That's not it at all. It just takes Mum time to think the new plan through and match it up with all the existing plans. Perhaps I should alter the default setting to 'Maybe'?

It does worry me. Turning up to a meeting a week early is irritating but not important. The car is in the garage now. No problem. But what if the thing to slip off the pile is more important. A court deadline for work? Something that means a lot to one of the children but which gets accidentally overlooked? Some things are not quite so easily fixed.

There's nothing that I can do about the busyness. Our house is hectic. That is just a fact of life. But somehow I have to devise a better system to catch the things that are out of the ordinary, that sneak under the radar because they are one off events. A bigger diary? A bigger wall chart? A bigger memory!

WAITING

2011-01-23T18:04:00.000Z

Waiting in the supermarket. Not much to do but wait. My selection of groceries is balancing precariously on the conveyor belt. I've tried to give a semblance of order to assist with its eventual packing. Cold stuff together. Boxes together. Fruit and veg stuff together. And now I just have to wait.

My eye casts round for something to distract me. The shop is full of the usual Sunday shoppers. Mothers who have popped in for a few bits. Dads with grumpy toddlers in tow. Young lads buying more beer than they can conceivable drink. And me - sneaking in the weekly shop so that I don't have to sully my Monday with it.

The woman on the till next to me only has four items. Two bottles of Italian plonk, a bag of frozen garlic bread pieces and a packet of budget hay. I wonder which she actually came in for. I suspect the hay and picture a small, furry pet sitting in a dirty cage waiting for its weekly clean out. Maybe it's the wine and the other things are needed later. I doubt it's the garlic bread. I didn't even know you could buy frozen garlic bread.

The woman in front of me has nearly finished loading her shopping into a hotpotch selection of 'use again save the planet' bags. I look again at the woman with four items and absently mindedly wonder why she didn't go to the 10 items and less counter but she looks a bit distracted so perhaps it didn't cross her mind. Maybe she really did came in for all four items.

I speculate about what people would think looking at my weekly shop. I gaze on it with a critical eye. No meat, no milk no booze, no chill cook stuff. Inordinate amounts of breakfast cereal and things to spread on toast. Yoghurt. How can one family consume so much yoghurt? Kitkats. Espresso coffee beans. Flour. A strange selection with no obvious pattern.

The woman in front has paid and is dithering about in the place where in need to stand to pack my shopping. I am momentarily irritated by her lack of thought and then check myself. Trolley rage is so undignified. No harm done. With practised speed I begin to pack into my 'save the planet bags' . One for cold, one for boxes, one for fruit and veg......I hand over my loyalty card, knowing that it means that they can monitor what I buy like Big Brother but shallowly attracted by the thought of free stuff. I pay without looking at the total. How dreadful is that? But it's always about the same- the cost of feeding my family.

I smile wanly at the checkout girl and push my way past the grumpy toddlers, mission accomplished for another week. It's a conveyor belt, life. I shuffle along from task to task doing what is necessary without really thinking. Is that how it should be? Well, that appears to be how it is.

ONE SMALL STEP

2011-01-19T14:15:00.000Z

Last night my eight year old came out of Brownies clutching a piece of paper. Her eyes shone with excitement and she could barely stand still as all her words tumbled out on top of each other.

"Mummy. We're going on Pack Holiday. Can I go?"

She looked at me with expectant eyes, willing me to answer in the affirmative. I mumbled about it being cold and that we would talk about it when we got home and bundled her into the car. As she chattered away from the back seat, I went through the familiar arguments that always dance around inside my head when one of my children takes a new step towards their eventual total independence from me.

Of course she can go on Pack Holiday. It's what Brownies is all about and she will come back a slightly more confident and accomplished child. But knowing all that doesn't make it any easier for me. She is eight. She has only slept away from us for one night in her whole little life and this is for a complete weekend. Of course, the fact that the site is ten minutes walk from here, that the Brownie leaders are highly experienced and that she will be with her friends should all make it easier to deal with. But somehow it doesn't.

Strides by my children into the big, bad world are coming thick and fast these days. No sooner have I got my head round something new than something else pops up to fill its place. Each child is growing and testing and learning whilst I struggle to take it all on board without capsizing. And it doesn't seem to matter if one follows in the footsteps of another. Both the big two went on pack holidays at a similar age and they survived unscathed. Knowing this should make it easier to handle this time round but somehow it doesn't.

I suppose this is how it will be now. The children will race, pell-mell towards whatever opportunities life throws at them and I will bring up the rear, trembling slightly and ready to pick them up should they stumble. It comes with the parenting territory, as they say. Have child will panic. No doubt my own mother will be harbouring similar thoughts when, in a few weeks time, I hurl myself off the top of the Alps again attached only to a flimsy bit of cloth. I tell her not to worry, that I will be absolutely fine and am more than capable of looking after myself. Perhaps I should listen to myself a bit more carefully?

BODY BUFF

2011-01-16T15:29:00.000Z

There comes a time in a girl's life when she has to think about keeping fit. Realistically, that time came and went some time ago for me. To be fair though, it isn't a consideration that I have entirely ignored. Over the years I have offered more than a nod in the direction of exercise and have a reasonable residual fitness level as a result.

But if I'm going to be entirely honest, for me fitness is not about resting heart rates and a sense of well being. I can live without the aching muscles and physical tiredness that you get after a hard session at the gym and I've never been that turned on by endorphin rushes. No, it's all to do with vanity. If I'm going to make an effort to do some exercise, it will be in the pursuit of the body beautiful and preserving what I have left rather than ensuring a certain fitness level. If things stayed put without me having to bother exercising then I wouldn't.

With that in mind it's not always easy to know which exercise path to choose. I have done gyms and I am quite disciplined once I start going. But after a while it's just so dull. No one seems to chat so I take to wearing my ipod and not conversing either and then it's really boring. There are plenty of classes around but I have a phobia of having my time accounted for and so I'm really nor keen on regular commitment. I did run a bit last summer and I enjoyed that but I went at sparrow's croak and ran around the woods in the sunshine. In the dark when it's cold and muddy, running loses its appeal.

So I have turned to the exercise video. The fact that I call it that shows how long it is since I last had one. It was Jane Fonda's Workout in the early 80's and it was all about leg warmers and feeling the burn. This time round I bought Davina's Body Buff and set to in the sitting room. She's so smiley that you can't help but smile too and she offers little words of encouragement to camera which makes you feel like she's talking to you and you alone. I wouldn't say that it's fun exactly but it could be worse.

And so far so good. I'm making an effort to fit it in to my life in the same way that I used to make gaps for the gym. It's a bit repetitive but I haven't done it often enough yet to know exactly what's coming next so it still retains a small element of surprise. As for results, well we'll have to wait and see but hopefully when we get to summer and the big reveal, the situation will be no worse than it was last year and it may even be a bit better. I know that just like King Cnut, I can't hold back the tide of time but I can give it a run for its money!

OPEN ALL HOURS

2011-01-11T15:04:00.000Z

Do you remember when there was only one phone in your house? It was attached to the skirting board in some communal place. If you were posh you might have an extension in another room. If you were trendy as well as posh you had one with a long curly cable which never hung properly so that you could wander as far as the stretched cable would allow to afford yourself a degree of privacy.

Can you recall when you rang people after 6 in the evening because it was cheaper and when phone calls during the day were reserved for matters bordering on an emergency? I clearly remember my parents walking past me tutting loudly because someone important might be trying to get through. They would mouth questions about whose call it was and then relax visibly when they learned they weren't paying for it. And if I was chatting for longer than half an hour, they would make me hang up simply because being on the phone was a waste of time and what could I possibly have to say to my friend when I had been with her all day at school?

But I am beginning to realise that there were distinct advantages to the parent of a central phone for the family. My mum always knew who I was friendly with because she could monitor the frequency of calls from various people. My dad could tease me about my boyfriends because if they wanted to speak to me then they had to get through him first. If they decided that there was a more legitimate use of my time than chatting, they could ban me from using the phone completely, telling my callers that I would ring them back. And if, heaven forbid, someone unwanted rang, they could shield me from the call with a little white lie.

I have none of this luxury. If our house phone rings it is almost invariably my mother. The rest of the time it sits silently on its cradle. Since the girls got mobiles, all their telephonic communication is conducted in private. Not for them, sitting on the stairs in a draught. I have no way of knowing who rings or even when they are on the phone. If a call came when I was doing my homework, my mum would tell them that I would ring back. I have no such control.

In fact, with the introduction of modern communications all control is lost. The children deal with their own calls, texts and emails and I am entirely excluded. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing. Everyone is entitled to privacy and let's face it, there was little enough of that when the call came through into a room filled with your family all watching "The Generation Game."

But it is not a breach of their privacy to have a handle on what's going on. If someone upsets my child, I may never find out. If someone rings more than is necessary I have no way of knowing unless they tell me. And when boys start featuring in their world, I will have to rely on them telling me rather than by asking strategic questions when someone rings more than once.

My children don't know any different. They would scoff at the systems that were in place when I was their age. But I do think that being constantly available makes life more difficult not just for me as their mother but also for them. I wouldn't deprive them of their phones. They are a product of the age in which they live and are consequently more or less obligatory. But I will have to devise ways to make sure that they are supported and safe in the world that they build for themselves. And their dad needs to find a way of making potential suitors squirm because that's what dads do.

WINTER BLUES

2011-01-09T15:09:00.000Z

I don't like to moan but I really struggle with winter. Now that Christmas has gone, all that stretches before me is three months of grey skies. I know the sun shines occasionally. It was shining today. But for most of the winter, Ilkley is grey and cold and damp.

Perhaps we should shift Christmas? Winter is still a novelty in December. We have no need of a distraction from its rigours. In December I still savour log fires and endless scarves and getting excited about snow. By the time we stagger into February, I have had my fill of ash and all things woolly. A big celebration then would be just what the doctor ordered.

Sadly Christmas is over and there are still months and months of winter to go. Somehow it zaps all my enthusiasm. It's like a huge dementor, sucking all the happiness out of me. I seem to retreat into my kitchen and can't find the strength of character to pull myself out. I wear jeans the whole time because no one can see what I have on under my coat. My hair frizzes in the damp and my skin loses its glow. Suddenly everything becomes such an effort. Marshalling the children into hats, coats, gloves etc to go out and get cold seems too much like hard work and they are happy at home so we stay in. But that makes me feel guilty and further down I spiral.

Life is so much easier when it's warm. I can wander off with just my bag without having to worry about what I have on my feet. I can wear what I like. I can busy myself doing outdoors tasks because being just outside is such a pleasure. Even the catering is easier.

But then I have to give myself a good talking to. I live in a country where it's cold a lot of the time. I have no real plans to change that and so I can hardly waste half my life every year waiting for the sun to come back. I need to dig deep and find the strength to grab winter by the throat and wrestle it into submission. I need to learn to be oblivious to the cold and the dark and to function as effectively whatever the weather. Or I can just sit here with my hot chocolate and wait for the spring.

TRENDY ASTRONOMY

2011-01-05T11:49:00.001Z

Astronomy is trendy. There's no getting away from it. It's everywhere. Each astronomical event is reported on the national news and there have been a string of programmes on TV over the last year with more to come in this. I even have an app on my phone telling me which constellation is which and providing me with the astronomical picture of the day.

I have been wondering why this might be. Having completed an astronomy course myself last year, I am certainly more aware of the press coverage but that doesn't explain the large budget that the BBC seem to have allocated to it as a subject. It's certainly nothing new. For as long as man has been looking up, he has been charting the progress of the stars and planets around us. Gazing at the stars and asking why and how and what is as old as we are.

It might be that in these austere times some comfort is to be gained from grasping hold of how small and insignificant we are as human beings, notwithstanding the huge day to day problems that many face. And of course, it doesn't cost anything to stand outside and stare at the sky which has to be an added attraction at the moment.

But I believe that the major factor in the re-emergence of astronomy is its current face on TV, Professor Brian Cox. He is certainly easier on the eye that Sir Patrick Moore ever was but it's not just that that's brought him to the forefront of the public's attention. Nor is the fact that he used to be part of a successful pop band, although that does add to his mystique somewhat.

No, the main reason that Prof Cox has fired up the imagination of the nation is that he is passionate about his subject, which is in fact particle physics. Every time he opens his mouth we want to listen because he makes what has always seemed so inaccessible, interesting and, more surprisingly, comprehensible.

I'm not suggesting that what he imparts on the TV is more than scratching the surface of his knowledge but it seems very important to him that nothing is dumbed down. He just finds a way of explaining things simply and step by step so that it can be grasped by people with only a modicum of knowledge, like me. And if interviewers do try and simplify what he's saying and in doing so get it wrong, he's not afraid to correct them.

And that is my point. Whether a subject picks you up and whisks you along with it depends on who is teaching you. Every so often someone who is passionate about what they know and interested enough to want to share that knowledge with others wanders into your life. If you're really lucky it happens to you at school. Of my five schools and countless teachers, only one managed to pass on to me a passion that has lasted throughout the subsequent decades. Not a great ratio I think you'll agree.

This is why I get so cross about those who enter the teaching profession as a second career, not driven by a vocation to inspire young minds but because it fits well with their own childcare arrangements. If all our teachers were like Professor Cox or my music master at school then just think what our children could achieve.

So I say hats off to Brian. He has inspired me, with my B grade 'O' level physics, to think that science is not just for brainy geeks and that I might be able to follow if I listen hard. He makes me want to know more. He makes me want to ask questions and discover things for myself and that is rare indeed. I wonder if someone could do the same for my maths!

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

2011-01-01T10:56:00.000Z

Happy New Year.

As I have mentioned before, I love the start of things. With my leanings towards the over sentimental, I'm not much good with ends. They make me wistful and weepy. But beginnings? That's a horse of a different colour, as they say. I love the freshness, the tantalizing opportunities, the just not knowing how it will turn out that comes at the start.

The new year is no exception. I am eager to get the clutter and tat of Christmas behind me and to sweep through my house restoring clean lines and clear surfaces. And of course my mind is drawn to resolutions. I like thinking about them, I like asking others what they are hoping for. But I rarely actually make any these days.

I used to. In my youth I regularly resolved to be thinner, fitter, more interesting. Then in my thirties the theme was all about rescuing myself from the melee of nappies and broken nights. Me time, books and personal grooming all featured regularly. I'm not sure how far into the new year any of these worthy ambitions continued but I did at least consider what I wanted to change about my life and try to address it.

When I thought about resolutions a couple of days ago I came to a startling conclusion. I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to change. That makes me sound smug and horribly self satisfied, as if I am a perfect being living a perfect life. Of course that's not the case. But, I have a pretty strong grasp on what is realistic and what is not. I know that there is no point making certain resolutions because I don't want the outcome enough.

For example, I could resolve to compete in the Ilkley Triathlon. I know that with appropriate training I could get round the course in one piece. But I don't really want to. I'm not driven to achieve it and the training would take up precious time that I would prefer to spend on other things. I could resolve to take up something new. But my life is full and if I took on more I would have to sacrifice something else. The list goes on and on. For every potential resolution I have a perfectly reasonable answer for why it is unachievable.

I have come to the conclusion that rather than resolving to change things, I just have to keep on trying to do my best. Some days, my best is better than others. When I have let the children watch the telly for hours on end and have been grumpy, my best is pretty poor but it was the best I could do that day.

So I don't make resolutions any more, or at least not in January. If something takes my fancy, I'll have a go. If I'm shouting at the kids too regularly I'll try to mend my ways. If I've been on my own for too long, I arrange to meet someone. It's an ongoing process and not something that I decide on New Year's Eve and have abandoned by the beginning of February.

As I strip my house of twinkly trinkets, my mind will scamper through the possibilities that 2011 holds in store and I will get excited that somewhere, in the middle of all the dull day to day routine, I might find a diamond, nestling in the dark, just waiting to sparkle.

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT

2010-12-30T08:40:00.000Z

I find it hard to decide what I would like for Christmas. When I was a child it was straightforward. I would settle on something - a tape recorder, a watch, a transistor radio, early and then channel all my energies into hinting for it and then hoping.

As an adult it's a bit trickier. Presents generally fall into three categories. First are the things that you'd like but that you would probably buy for yourself - books, music, perfume. They are lovely to receive but if hints fall on stony ground then it's nothing that an evening on Amazon can't sort.

Then there are the things that are quite personal and rely on the giver having reasonable taste or at least, taste that accords with yours. Into this category I would place any form of clothing, jewellery, make up. I am lucky that all my friends and particularly my husband seem to triumph in this regard and choose beautiful things for me.

Finally there are those things that you would really like but which are totally impractical. An indoor pool at the bottom of the garden, a holiday home in Bali, a sporty convertible for the rare days when the sun shines. These kind of presents are strictly for day dreams only and barely worth mentioning except in jest.

So when my husband asked me, a few weeks before Christmas, I was at a loss as to what to suggest. Then I stumbled on the idea of an electronic book reader, or more specifically a Kindle. This was not a new idea to me but, in a rather irritating habit that I have, it takes me a while to come round to an idea. I have generally rejected something out of hand before I have to perform a total U turn and come round to it with enthusiasm.

Such was the case with e readers. The idea of reducing the joy of a freshly bought paperback with its pristine cover and fresh smelling paper to a computer generated single page was anathema to me. I chuntered about how pages were meant for turning and that a book, once read and enjoyed, should sit in pride of place on a bookshelf so you could pluck it down from time to time and reconsider choice passages.

Of course, many of the books that clutter my house did not live up to the promise of the front cover, will never be read again and require weekly dusting. Once I reached that conclusion, other advantages of an e reader began to fight their way through my initial objections. No need to carry a heavy tome with me round the shops just so I had something to do on the train. No need to fill the bottom layer of my suitcase with novels when we go on holiday. No need to try and hold a weighty book above my head whilst I sunbathe on my back.

Suddenly a Kindle began to look terribly attractive. I carried out a mini survey by asking the one person I knew that already had one and he confirmed the many and varied advantages. So I asked Santa for one and then got quite excited about the whole idea and even read reviews and whatnot on Amazon so that by the time I opened my much anticipated gift I was already quite knowledgeable.

I have had my beautiful Kindle in its steel blue leather cover for four days and already I cannot imagine my life without it. I am an instant convert. I love how easy it is to read. I love that I can balance it on my knee without having to hold it and you don't have to change position depending which side of the page you are reading. I love the fact that I can read long books without worrying about having to lug them about or encounter the risk of breaking the spine and having the pages sprinkle like confetti all over the pool. And, rather sadly, I love the fact that no one need know what I'm reading. The third book that I downloaded and the one that I have spent most time engrossed in over the holidays is the latest by Jilly Cooper - my guilty secret.

Whilst my relationship with my Christmas present is in its infancy, I do believe that we are going to be firm friends and in my book that is what a good gift is all about. So thank you husband for bearing with me whilst I slowly accepted technology and then for picking up my hint so beautifully.

GREENER GRASS

2010-12-27T07:41:00.000Z

It's snowing. Again. The garden is still white from the last dump over a week ago. I'm beginning to find it hard to visualise the colour green. It's no longer exciting though. Snow has most definitely lost its sparkle for me. Even the children have stopped sledging. The front lawn only has a lone set of footprints to spoil the pristine, white surface and those were made by my husband who I sent in search of holly for the pudding on Christmas Day.

I try to imagine what it must be like to live in a country where it snows heavily for prolonged periods. I know that places that expect heavy snow each year deal with it in a way that means that daily life goes on without the chaos that ensues here. But free flowing roads or not, you would still need to wrap up in an array of warm but fundamentally unflattering layers before venturing out. Footwear must be decided limited. Shoes of almost any description must be out for months and even boots would have to be of the flat, practical and warm type. Shearling is the height of fashion this year but when spiky heels and butter soft suede are the must haves of the season then it would be no go.

The chalet from which I skied last year sits nestling into the side of the French Alps. You could ski from the top of the penultimate lift straight to the back door. Perfect. Unless you actually lived there.There would be no popping out for milk. The last lift ran at 5.00. Woe betide anyone who needs to get to the village after that time. It is snow shoes and a long and arduous trek down the path that used to be the road. What if it was an emergency? Do all pregnant women confine themselves to the bottom of the mountain for the last few weeks? Are all bar tenders actually qualified midwives on the side?

Not being a cold weather creature, I often imagine living where the sun shines every day. I dream of waking to that light that comes at the beginning of a day that promises heat. What if you could arrange a party in your garden and know that it would go ahead rather than spending all week watching the weather forecast with fingers crossed? Imagine how it would be to pop to the beach with the children after school rather than the park. My favourite part of this particular daydream is being warm. Throughout an English winter, I'm never properly relaxed. My muscles are perpetually tensed against the cold. I don't notice until the spring warmth returns and then I suddenly realise that I am no longer bracing myself.

Of course, It's a classic case of the grass being greener. My Godmother lived in the Caribbean for many years and she once said that the thing she missed most about home was the change of the season. I suppose she had a point. The year in England plods on and it is easy to work out where you've got to just be looking at the trees. At some point in each season the weather does what is expected of it - although rarely for the whole three months. And that brings some rhythm to our lives, some structure. So, now it's winter and it's snowing. And it is rather pretty- in a cold kind of way.

EXPOSURE

2010-12-22T09:19:00.001Z

It was my Book Group's Christmas get together last night. Notwithstanding the Arctic temperatures, we battled our way to my local pub where a roaring fire warmed our cockles. High heels and sparkly tops were, in the main, cast out in favour of woolly cardigans and sensible shoes and there wasn't a paper hat to be had but we had a lovely time.

As the evening wore on the conversation turned, as it inevitably would do in such company, to books. Specifically, my book. Someone enquired after its health and so I informed them that it was in tip top condition and probably, barring some careful proof reading, was finished.

You can guess what happened next. It was like when your car starts to slid on the ice. You feel it go, there's nothing you can do about it and you just have to bow to the inevitable and wait until it comes to a stop of its own accord. The skid started gently enough - a few harmless questions about the plot, how and when I had written it, some discussion about real authors.

But then the momentum took hold of my figurative skid. Someone suggested reading it as a book group book.

This was not entirely unforeseen. Indeed, in my brighter moments, I had toyed with the idea myself. But now that someone other than me had suggested it and there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm for the idea, my car was spinning down a hill towards a selection of imaginary primary school children and a very deep river.

OK. Enough of the skid analogy but you get the idea. Not great at talking about myself at the best of time, and with the full attention of the group focussed on me, I floundered until I was ably rescued by a friend who has known me for a very long time and could see my difficulty.

The worst of it, though, is that I know this is a really good idea. My book group is a discerning, well read and open minded bunch of women who almost exactly match the audience that I was aiming at. It makes perfect sense for them to read and critique my book as we have done with so many others over the years.

But I'm not sure I'm brave enough. It would be like opening up my chest and putting my heart and soul on a platter for the world to poke at. And yet I have done this before. For the first nine months or so of my blog, I tapped away in private telling only a very small number of people how to access it. And now people are reading it all over the world.

I know I should do it. It was a genuine offer, kindly made and I should put my fears to one side and accept. And I might yet. But just at the moment it feels like the scariest thing that anyone has ever asked me to do.

MRS WEASLEY'S CLOCK

2010-12-18T15:27:00.001Z

I know what I want for Christmas. It's one of those clocks that Mrs Weasley has in the Harry Potter books. You know the one. It tells her the whereabouts of all her family at any given moment and she is happiest when each person's little clock hand points to home.

Call me fickle - it's no worse than I call myself. A few years back, when I was besieged by small children, I would have done almost anything for them all to be out. The constant irritation of a toddler hanging off various body parts is enough to tip you over the edge. I longed for a time when they could go off without me. But now that that time is here it seems to have lost its shine.

I think it's the snow that's making me come over all Mrs Weasley. My son is in Bradford, one daughter in Ilkley, one in Harrogate and one, perish the thought, on a tour of World War I cemeteries in Belgium. And that would be fine but I have this really strong feeling that they should all be inside where it's warm and safe and nothing can hurt them. I fret that they will get stuck somewhere cold. I'm particularly worried about the coaches being able to make their way home through the snow that is falling as I type. I got snowed in somewhere once. I had a ball but it's not so much fun being the one stuck at home, waiting, powerless.

When my mum used to worry about me it was irritating. I couldn't understand why she got herself into such a flap over the simplest arrangement. I suspect I'm worse because, in this age of 24 hour communication, my expectations are far higher than hers were. I went inter-railing for a month, sent a handful of postcards and telephoned once or twice. My eldest has been gone a couple of days and has texted every day.

I know it's a mother's job to worry but I never thought that I would. I assumed, not being a worrier by nature, that I would breeze through parenthood, taking it all in my stride. And I'm not exactly pacing the floor or anything. I just have this underlying feeling that everything is just not quite right and that it won't be right until they are all safe with each little clock hand pointing firmly at "Home".

I wonder if you can get one of those clocks on Amazon?

LET'S START AT THE VERY BEGINNING.....

2010-12-15T14:20:00.000Z

"Charlotte flicked the switch and the tree burst into life. Tiny jewels of light shone through the branches and looked so tantalizingly pretty that she was almost tempted to pluck one from the greenery and wear it in her hair.

The tree was a riot of colour. She had toyed briefly with the idea of a theme. The shops had been full of delicate decorations all grouped in accordance with their predominant colour. Wicker baskets overflowed with purple baubles, strings of golden pearls or silver icicles all arranged so that even the least discerning customer could plump for a selection that had half a chance of looking sophisticated and elegant in situ.

Charlotte had wandered about the displays trying to decide which colour would look best but in the end had been unable to resist the childish draw of a few of each. The resulting tree was hardly chic but it summed up Charlotte and her view on life very nicely.

She sat back on her heels and gave her handiwork a final admiring glance. Her hopes and dreams for the first Christmas in her flat were all caught up with the tinsel and the trinkets. Years of shared kitchens, stolen food and other people’s takeaway cartons could be swept away – a necessary part of growing up but now forgotten. Charlotte had great plans for her three rooms, four if you counted the hallway.

She stood up and span round on her heel. Even she was surprised by the level of mess. Shopping bags from that day’s expedition to find the perfect shoes spewed their contents out over the sofa. The packaging from her tights and the new mascara that she had treated herself with were on the coffee table with a lipstick stained wine glass and several discarded coffee cups. Clothes were draped over every surface. Smiling to herself at the disparity between her dream and the reality, Charlotte picked her way across the wooden floor to unhook her bag from the back of the chair. She checked its contents, ensuring that she had everything she needed for her night on the town.

As if awoken by the movement, her phone began to trill loudly and made her jump. Assuming that the call would be to confirm arrangements for the evening ahead, she extracted it from her bag and was about to answer it when she noticed the name on the screen. ‘James calling.’ Her heart plummeted. Not now. Not when she was about to go out. Decisively she rejected the call. James would still be there tomorrow.

A horn hooted in the street below and, grabbing her jacket from underneath a glossy magazine, Charlotte took a final look at her tree and then left the flat, pulling the door to behind her."

Would you read on? Let me know.

MY IMAGINARY CHRISTMAS

2010-12-13T21:46:00.000Z

Funny time of year, Christmas. Back in July, when I thought about the festive season briefly from the comfort of my sun bed, I pictured myself in my kitchen surrounded by tins full of baked delights. I knew that I would have a freezer full of tasty morsels for those drop in guests. Each Christmas card would be inscribed with a personal message and the details of the past year in the Clark household. Each gift would be chosen with great care and wrapped in exquisite paper and adorned with coordinating ribbon.

Fast forward five months and here we are again with the dream and the reality clashing noisily. The cake is done but as yet the tins are all empty. There is nothing in the freezer barring frozen peas and some frosty ice cream. The cards have gone but with a typed insert. The presents were carefully chosen but are wrapped in paper from WHSmiths because I just couldn't find quite what I wanted elsewhere. In short, Christmas is in danger of becoming just another trial to be endured and overcome. Again.

I blame the OXO advert. I have a big family and so apparently Christmas should be one long game of charades with an endless stream of food and festive drink appearing effortlessly from my kitchen. After we have hand fashioned our Christmas cards we should be making tasteful decorations out of dried oranges and cinnamon sticks. We should decorate our perfectly shaped Christmas tree whilst singing carols and drinking mulled wine.

The thing people most often say to me when I say I have four children is that Christmas must be fun in our house. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. By the time we get to the end of term the children are all exhausted. Add to that the almost unbearable sense of excitement and anticipation that swamps them and all that remains is to light the blue touch paper and stand well back. It's all I can do to keep a lid on the bubbling cauldron of chaos. I certainly don't have the energy for board games and endless truffle making.

When you're in the thick of the festive season, it's hard to see the wood for the trees. All I want to do is to deliver a Christmas that everyone enjoys and remembers fondly. But what do I have to do to achieve that? Stay calm and don't shout. Don't stress about the stuff that really doesn't matter and relax. Because at the end of the day, there's no right or wrong way to do Christmas. It's never going to be like the Waltons because this is real life. There are bound to be arguments and bits that don't run as smoothly as I'd like but there's no point getting in a steam about it because sure as Rudolf has a red nose that way disappointment lies.

The Christmas that I dreamt of in July and the one that I manage to cobble together in December are, without doubt, two very different beasts. What I have to remember is that it's only one day, that the children will have a nice time no matter what and that it's my Christmas too so I owe it to myself to make it fun for me as well. So I'll take a deep breath, write myself a new list and smile.

FICTIONAL UPSET

2010-12-11T14:51:00.000Z

Our bedtime story over the last few weeks has been 'Barkbelly', a charming tale about a wooden boy and his quest to find where he fits into the world (Barkbelly). Like all good bedtime stories, it has been a pleasure for both the child and the reader. It is beautifully written with vivid descriptions and fabulous imagery which brings the story to life with very little effort and it has totally captivated the children when we snuggle down at bedtime to read.

The reason for mentioning it is not only to recommend it to anyone who might be looking for books for youngsters although I would encourage anyone to pick it up. The aspect that has caught my interest is the effect that it has had on my children.

Having been adopted by a caring family as a baby, Barkbelly runs away because he fears that he has done a dreadful thing and is frightened of the consequences. At this point in the story, my children, who had been enjoying it very much, suddenly didn't want to read any more. My youngest in particular was upset by the idea of the boy having to leave all that was familiar and safe. Such was their concern that I almost had to tell them that I thought it unlikely that Barkbelly had done the dreadful thing and reassure them that all would be well. But I didn't.

Having run away, Barkbelly has a series of amazing adventures until he hits upon the idea of trying to find his birth family and then, by piecing together various clues, he finally found his mother the night before last. Last night we settled down to read about the grand reunion, ominously placed more than a few chapters from the end. The child introduced himself to his mother only to be greeted with indifference. He has a father and brothers and sisters but no one is in the slightest bit interested in him or his story. They are polite but unaffected.

Again, my children did not want to read on. They did not want to think about Barkbelly being rejected by his mother. We had a chat about why they felt like this. And they, like me, want a happy ending. They struggled to understand firstly that the boy had left his loving home and then that his birth mother does not appear to be bothered about having him back and because that was too difficult an idea for them to process, their first reaction was to stop reading. Of course, their curiosity about how the story turns out will override this discomfort and we will read to, what I trust will be a happy ending.

I did wonder, however, whether I should stop. They did not like how the book was making them feel and I, as their mother could fix that and make everything OK just by putting it down and reading something else. But, the book is aimed at their age group and I concluded that it was better to expose them to things outside their comfort zone, albeit gently through fiction, than keep everything rosy in their world.

I understand their feelings. We all want home to be a happy, safe and comforting place and I hope that theirs is. But in the same way that the older two read Jacqueline Wilson, eventually they need to know that not everyone is as lucky as they are. Interestingly, the older two had none of these qualms when their dad read them the book. The difference between children who attend full time nursery verses those who are at home full time might make a blog for another day.

In the meantime, we will empathise with Barkbelly tonight and hope that in the end he too finds where he feels happy and safe and loved.

WANTING TO BE LIKED

2010-12-08T09:58:00.001Z

I have to give relationship counselling to my children, particularly the girls, on a fairly regular basis. I don't mean with the opposite sex, although there has been a little bit of that. No, what needs constant help is managing their relationships with their friends.

It's hard being a girl. I remember it all too well. You never quite knew where you stood. Your best friend could become someone else's best friend in the blink of an eye. All it took was an invitation out to tea and suddenly the person you thought was your closest ally was off giggling with someone else at playtime. I distinctly recall discovering that I had been ditched in favour of another when the desk next to mine was empty after we came in from break. So cruel.

And now all my girls are in that same position. They get let down, left out and hurt constantly and I'm sure do their fair share of the same to others. And with texts and facebook in the mix it is so much harder. The shame and embarrassment that goes with being ditched is played out on the world wide web for all to see. I think it is even more challenging for them to deal with than it was for me when I was a child.

Ultimately, it all hails from the same human failing - the need to be liked. I assume it's the same for boys, but I know that girls crave approval from our peers. We want to be the popular one in school, the one that everyone wants a piece of. We are desperate for our friendships to be strong and secure so that they can withstand the ravages of attack from third parties. We want to show our individuality without being mocked or if the mocking is inevitable have enough courage to stick to our guns.

And so I try to help my girls to steer a course through, pointing out how things might appear from another's point of view and trying not to take sides when all I want to do is to protect my babies from the hurt that I had to learn to deal with.

The funny thing is, that need to be liked never really goes away. Even now as I stand in the playground, often on my own for fear of interrupting other people's conversations, I fret. We all judge each other by what we wear, what we hear, what we say. The look that you inadvertently give and which is misinterpreted. The friendly smile that you do not see until it is too late to reciprocate.

In the end I can advise my children without too much difficulty because it's all so very familiar. I think that I'm a grown up but deep down, just like them, I don't want to be judged. I just want to be liked.

STRUGGLES WITH MY CONSCIENCE

2010-12-04T10:50:00.000Z

You want the best for your children. They lie there in your arms but a few hours old and you promise them the world, that you will move heaven and earth to make sure that they are happy. But can you deliver? When push comes to shove, what do you do when what would make your child happy doesn't accord with what you want?

We have a storm brewing in our house. I can see it hanging dark and heavy on the periphery of my world. So far it has sent a few rain showers to spoil the sunshine but I can see that that is only the precursor for what is to come.

As you may have gathered my children like to perform and I have encouraged that. I was the same when I was young so I can understand what drives them and I think it's good for their self discipline, sense of team and inner confidence to be on a stage with a group of people who are all relying on them. My eldest is particularly driven by the smell of greasepaint and the roar of the crowd. She adores acting, dancing, singing, playing - anything that puts her on a stage.

And here comes the conflict. She bounded in from rehearsal for the drama class Christmas show, full of excitement, her eyes shining.

"Guess what we're doing for the Spring Show?!"

My heart is already sinking. She is currently in rehearsal for three shows due to hit the stage in December, February and March.

"I don't know Sweetie. What?" I enquire, smiling weakly. You see, I have already decided that, come what may, she won't be auditioning.

"It's 'Billy Elliot'! My favourite show ever. And it's dancing as well as singing. How fantastic is that!" And then she's off, pirouetting around the sitting room, already in the glare of the spotlights in her imagination.

But we can't do another show. She will have done five this academic year before we even get to Easter. As I've said before, the children do lots of extra curricular stuff and that's fine but rehearsals take up endless evenings on top and precious family time at weekends which means that it's hard to find time to do things together. For example, we do not have a block of time this year when all six of us are in to put up the Christmas tree together.

So I struggle with my conscience, what I want and she wants in direct opposition. I can't even use her school work as an excuse. I received an email from her head of year telling me that she was one of only seven children in her year group to get "Exceeding expectations" in every subject on her report. I am certain she could do the show and still cope.

But what about the rest of us? We have been in constant rehearsals since the end of September. I cannot remember the last time we had a Sunday together as a family. My husband and I rarely go out together as we are always collecting from some hall or other late into the night. Everyone's lives are compromised by her drive to perform. And yet, I promised that I would do everything I could for her when she was a baby. Perhaps that should include ensuring that we have a harmonious home life and time for everyone else to draw breath?

The row will come as soon as the audition notices go up. I will have to stand firm. She will look at me with tears in those big brown eyes and plead and every part of my heart will long to say yes. But my head, for the sake of the rest of us, will have to say no.

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

2010-12-01T12:23:00.000Z

So it's finally December and we have snow to boot. There was the usual scramble over the Advent calendars this morning and then 'The Best Christmas Album Ever' with our cornflakes. In all the excitement I forgot to blow out the Advent candle and so we seem to have skipped the 2nd and are on to the 3rd already. The great Christmas countdown has begun.

Now that December has arrived, I am allowing myself to think about the big day and its ramifications. Until now, Christmas has been this huge, black shadow lurking unmentioned behind the door. Suddenly, it has stepped out into the light and can be ignored no longer.

Of course I am not totally unprepared. The cake, puddings and mincemeat are made, I have picked up one or two stocking fillers for the children and I have some cards but there's a long way to go. And there is a month until the big day. Or so you might think. Actually, Christmas falls on the 25th, as I suspect you know, so that's 24 days. The older children's schools closes on the 17th so no chance of surreptitious shopping or wrapping after then. By the time you discount weekends ( jam packed with rehearsals, gym competitions, shows, carol concerts and other festive fun) then we're down to twelve days. School is closed for training and or snow for the rest of the week. Ten days.

So now I'm starting to panic. Within those ten days, assuming no illness or yet more snow, I have an essential hair appointment ( if you could see me you wouldn't question this), dentist and optician appointments. Not sure how they all fell now, so close to Christmas, but there you have it. No doubt when they went in the diary I though I'd be curling ribbons and messing about with fairy lights by then. Then there's the nativity at school and a coffee date with someone that I rarely see and am reluctant to rearrange. Three days. Then I have some work to do and a chapter on Tradition and Dissent in Poetry to get under my belt for a tutorial next week. Two days.

Pass the Rescue Remedy. The thought of what has to be achieved in such a short amount of time is causing some minor hyperventilation.

But of course it will all happen. Somehow it always does. There's the internet for shopping if I could only decide what to buy. I have evenings to write cards and I'm sure we can steal a couple of hours back from the children's weekend commitments to buy a tree trim the house. If I can get to the supermarket, not that big an ask, then I can cook in advance and freeze and if I off load the children on my parents for an hour or so I can wrap. All I need is a comprehensive list and to hold my nerve and all will be well.

Right now, as I look out at the snow and see my available time floating away with the snowflakes, it seems almost insurmountable but as long as we have a turkey ( already ordered) and something to open on the big day I'm sure it will be fine. Gulp!

I MUSTN'T GRUMBLE

2010-11-29T14:08:00.000Z

I'm conscious that it has been a few days since my last posting and that always makes me feel slightly unsettled. I worry on two fronts. Firstly, if I let too long drift by between postings then I will have to break the agreement that I have with myself to blog regularly. Until this year I kept a diary, scribbling pertinent facts and feelings down each day in a long line of A5 notebooks. However, after much soul searching, I decided that I really didn't have time for both that and this and so I dropped the handwritten diary in favour of my blog. So if I drop this one as well...You see what I'm saying.

Secondly, I do seem to have regular readers and I fret that if they log on once too often with nothing new to read then they will find something else to fill their time. Simple vanity really but it's as good a motivator as any.

My difficulty this weekend, as is often the case, has been thinking of a subject to write about. This was not because life has been quiet. Far from it. The last two weeks have been particularly busy in what is a fairly packed programme in any event. No, the problem this weekend has been a question of attitude more than anything else. My attitude to be specific.

I tend to think that a blog should truly represent the thoughts of the writer and whilst I have toyed with writing as an alter ego, fundamentally what is on these pages is just me, soul bared for all to see. But this tends to clash with my other strongly held belief that no one wants to read about someone else's gripes. There is nothing entertaining in listening to someone complain about what is fundamentally a blessed life. A soul in torment might perhaps appeal to a particularly empathetic reader. Likewise, genuine despair is worthy of column inches. But just being a bit hacked off? Not really.

Only a really close friend can sit and listen to a liturgy of grumbles and be genuinely sympathetic. No one else really cares. And they are right. The chances are they have their own irritations which may well be worse. We all have to deal with the day to day difficulties of life with varying degrees of success. My view is that there is nothing amiss with having a little moan at your own predicaments but I do try to do it with a smattering of gentle humour so that people can empathise and reciprocate with a little moan of their own. That way we can all understand that the vicissitudes of life throw spanners into everyone's works.

And so to that end, I have kept my counsel this weekend, although I do own up to bleating a little bit on facebook. If I can't manage to tweak the nose of adversity and raise a wry smile at the situation then it's really not worthy of note here. I suspect this week will be less demanding than the previous two and really in comparison to a great many others, I have nothing to moan about. And so I won't.

THE MANUSCRIPT

2010-11-25T13:30:00.000Z

There's a stack of paper on my usually clear desk. It stands about a centimetre high and is printed with two pages on each sheet of A4. However, instead of leaping to file it somewhere as I might normally do, I keeping gazing at it fondly, even stroking it as I pass by.

It's my manuscript of course. The culmination of almost a year of tapping away before the milkman arrives. And I am surprised by how many words I have managed to string together. I have checked the counter on the page at regular intervals to encourage myself but I could only ever see my work a page at a time. Now that it's all there in a pile, all those words, I'm quite taken aback by it.

I didn't know it was finished when I typed what has turned out to be the last line so it was a bit anticlimactic . I had a new twist in the tale which I had opened up in the previous chapter and I was preparing to continue along that vein. Then one day, having cleared the decks to tackle another few pages, I opened the document, read the last few lines of the previous chapter and decided that it was complete. What happened next in the story was for the reader to fathom. It was the strangest feeling. I just knew it was done.

And so I left it for a week or so, thinking about where I'd stopped writing and whether I'd made a mistake, whether the reader really did want it spelling out for them. Eventually, though, I decided that they did not. After all I could go on for ever with the twisting, turning lives of my characters. It had to reach a conclusion at some point.

Of course the manuscript is not finished. It needs my erratic spelling checking, I need to identify words which the spell checker has ignored but which are clearly wrong and I need to see if I think it's any good. I have no idea when I will get round to that. I have enough trouble keeping up with the reading that I have to do as it is, let alone make time for a critical appraisal of a whole extra book.

So I'll put it in a folder and get to it when I can. Maybe after Christmas or when my course finished for the summer. In the meantime, I am now a novelist (albeit an unpublished one)! My ambition was to write a novel and that I have done. And I'm pleased.

WHEN THE CHILDREN ARE SICK

2010-11-23T10:47:00.000Z

I have sick children this week. It's hardly surprising as the first bug of the winter seems to be knocking people down like skittles in Ilkley and statistically my odds of staying clear are not great. I'm on day seven with one returned to school today and one lying on the sofa looking wan.

Looking after sick people does not come naturally to me. I know I'm their mother and everything but my beside manner is appalling. When I was a kid we didn't do ill. I was brought up to believe that if you were not on top form you put up and shut up. Only if you were actually at death's door should you mention it and then you were packed off to bed with warm squash, Junior Disprin and a little bell to ring in case you needed assistance.

As a result of either this attitude or my general hardiness, I only recall two periods of proper illness in my life so far. Glandular fever after some ill advised, but very enjoyable snogging when I was 16 and flu which became pleurisy whilst living in damp student digs when I was 20.

So when my children struggle down to breakfast with some imagined ill, duvet wrapped round them and faces long, my first reaction tends to be irritation. Days off school mean that my plans go awry and, selfishly, I am generally reluctant to give things up and try to salvage what I can.

As with all mothers I am a pretty good judge of the seriousness of the ailment. It generally depends on which child is complaining. Some of them are hardier than others. We go through a check list of questions. With the high school kids I ask whether what ails them is bad enough to justify a day off and all the catching up that that entails or whether they could battle on knowing that I am around should they need to be airlifted home. They generally go. With the little ones there is usually some party in the offing which prompts miraculous recovery when mentioned.

If that doesn't work then I generally stomp about for a bit whilst I come to terms with my lost day. They are children after all and they are bound to get ill from time to time. What I can't bear is the moping. If you're ill then that's fine but I really don't need an Oscar winning performance. Just do it quietly with the minimum amount of fuss.

Now I'm resigned to it. I would imagine that I will be stuck in for at least another two days, always assuming that the others don't succumb. And that's OK. I can beetle about with toast, glasses of lucozade and Calpol until they have recovered. Each time they catch something they build up more immunities which has to be a good thing and it gives me chance to work on my Florence Nightingale act which, to be honest, isn't going to win me any awards any time soon.

THE DANCE SHOW

2010-11-21T08:33:00.001Z

When I was two and a half my mum took me to dance class. There was a little dance school in the Cheshire village where we lived run by a formidable Madame. She must have been at least a hundred years old, or so it seemed to someone of my tender years. She wore long black skirts and carried a stick with a brass knob that she banged on the floor to beat time.

So when my eldest was a similar age I rang the dance school here in Ilkley. A friendly chap answered the phone. "Can she take direction?" he asked. I had no idea but it seems that she could because she's still going to class eleven years later, as are all her siblings. Between them they spend about ten hours a week at dance school (http://mwsd.info/default.aspx). It's a real home from home for us.

Every two years, the school puts on a show in the King's Hall, the spectacular Victorian theatre in Ilkley. The first time we were involved my eldest was three. She skipped onto stage dressed as a ladybird or liquorice all-sort or some such costume chosen to delight and for a minute or so her class pointed their toes and pirouetted to the resounding approval of the audience.

Fast forward to this weekend when the biennial dance show hit the town again. Now all four children were taking part in various numbers across various disciplines with multitudinous costume changes. There are around 350 children involved across six performances with over 700 individual costumes. It is run with military precision, each child receiving clear instructions as to where they should be, when and with what.

Whilst the Principal coordinates matters back stage, her husband zooms around the venue with a clipboard and a microphone. He knows the name of every child and generally some entertaining fact about their mother. He greets everyone with a cheery welcome as they enter the vast building, often somewhat awestruck by what they are about to do. He marshals his army of mother helpers who spray unruly hair into styles suitable for ballerinas and apply stage make up to little cheeks. No one ever raises their voice, except perhaps an exasperated mother at their own child. The pervading sense of calm excitement cascades from the top downwards and you rarely see a nervous looking child.

And then the lights drop and the show begins. Class after class hits the stage, each child donning a fantastic costume. The numbers are choreographed so that every dancer, no matter what their natural talent, gets a turn at the front of the stage. The show flies by with a traditional ballet in the first half and more upbeat routines to familiar hits in the second. Very rarely does anyone forget their dance and any mistakes are covered ably by the older members of the cast who assist the younger ones through every aspect of the show, from entertaining them whilst they wait their turn, to dancing on the edges of the stage just in case someone should have a momentary lapse of memory.

Of all the events my children take part in it is my far my favourite. And I cry every time. I cry tears of pride for my own children and for the fact that they are part of such an incredible venture. I cry for the triumph that each dancer feels as they stand on stage smiling and collecting their applause. I cry for the fact that there are so many teenagers involved who choose to spend their spare time dancing when they could so easily have given up. I cry for the inevitable group for whom it is the last show before they venture off to university. But mostly I cry for all the hard work by the Principal and her husband for whom this incredible spectacle is the culmination of months of planning and practising. And I am grateful, more grateful than they will ever know.

PUSHY PARENTS

2010-11-18T09:48:00.000Z

I was having a discussion yesterday about what constituted a pushy parent. We seemed unable to agree on a definition although it was clearly disparaging as everyone was keen to defend themselves against the charge.

My idea of what constitutes a pushy parent was formed when I was quite young. Or at least, I had a pretty clear idea of what a pushy parent was not. I just had to look round the tea table for a couple of role models. My parents encouraged, cajoled and supported but never pushed. They afforded us opportunities in life, but as long as we gave it a proper shot and didn't give up as soon as the going got tough, they never made us do things. I could see around me the parents of friends who got terribly aerated at Sports' Day and seemed disproportionately nervous as we waited to do a music exam but my parents just wanted me to do well.

I suppose some aspects of pushiness might be no bad thing. The list of sports players at the top of their game with their parents always in camera shot is long. Would those children have achieved their adult success without their dad taking control of the coaching? Who knows? Child starlets with pushy parents, however, seem to fair less well long term.

The other aspect of pushiness that I identified as a child is the parent who brags about their child's achievements. There is nothing wrong with a bit of pride for your off spring amongst friends, as my facebook page will pay testament to. What is more difficult for me are parents who have to relate everything back to the achievements of their children. As the conversation ambles about touching on various subjects, you can see them almost bursting with their need to bring matters round to their child and how wonderful they are without even feigned interest in anyone else's.

This was something my parents never did, much to the disgust of my brother and me. So concerned were they about not appearing pushy, that they totally failed to ever even mention our successes, let alone kill the fatted calf.

I think ultimately whether someone is a pushy parent depends upon their attitude. Doing lots of extra curricular activities wouldn't constitute pushy unless the child was begging for it to stop. If the child enjoys what they do then I see no harm. After all, having accomplishments is something that people have strived for ever since leisure time was conceived.

However, living through your child and boasting unrestrainedly about what they have done suggests a lack of self worth on the part of the parent and in time may lead to similar feelings in the child who feels pressure to keep up with the parent's aspirations for them.

I don't consider myself a pushy parent - does anybody? I am rightly proud of my children and will continue to encourage them down their chosen paths. And if, from time to time, my pride bubbles over and I share that with friends then you can see it as a backlash against my upbringing rather than a need to compare my child with anyone else's. After all, we are all just doing the best job we can.

ANGER MANAGEMENT

2010-11-15T13:35:00.000Z

It can't possibly be good for me to be this cross the whole time.

Actually, it's not the whole time. I'm quite calm at the moment and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why that might be. It's 11.47. It's silent in my house and I have finished my morning's chores.

Rewind three hours or so and it was a very different story. I was so angry that I wouldn't have trusted me with scissors. I screamed and shouted and stormed my way around the house like some demonic dervish. And it's not for effect. Just at the moment, the feelings that I am subjecting my family to are pure and unadulterated rage.

I know why of course. I am tidy and organised and able to plan ahead with military zeal. My children are not. Of course they aren't. They're children. They are on this earth to have fun and worry about number one and my role, amongst other things, is to facilitate that.

But there are only so many times that you can iron clothes that end up on the floor, tidy a room that is a mess minutes later and cook food only to be asked for more before the first lot has hit the sides without feeling an enormous lack of self worth. My job, or what I see as my job, is completely pointless. I sort stuff. They trash it. After a while it can get you down.

It's not just the futile repetition of tasks either. There is the futile repetition of questions too.

Me: Have you done homework?
Child: Yes.
Me: (Some time later.) Have you done your homework?
Child: You already asked me that.
Me: Sorry. Just checking. Well, have you?
Child: Yes.
Next day.
Child: Why is there no ink in the printer?
Me: Why do you need the printer? I thought you'd done your homework.

Is it any wonder that I get cross?

It's all my fault, of course. I make my own life infeasibly difficult. I demand perfection from myself and that inevitably has to impact on those I live with. I watch as my hard work is snatched away from me by someone who doesn't care that the jigsaw pieces are in the wrong boxes or the cushions are all over the floor. But I do care. I care passionately and at the moment the conflict between my priorities and those of my children is causing me stress.

I need to find a way of managing it. There's not much point hoping that things will change. They are children and I am me. But with the children's commitments building to a terrifying crescendo and Christmas just around the corner if I don't find some equilibrium soon I will start to scare myself, let alone the kids.

It's just a phase. It, like all the others, will pass. In due course my focus will shift and they will try harder and calm will be restored. Until then I will continue to have no voice and I will buy some rescue remedy which makes not a jot of difference but is a welcome placebo. After all, which is more important? Me having order and control or my kids being happy? It's a no brainer really.

FRIENDS VIRTUAL OR REAL?

2010-11-12T21:56:00.000Z

I've had a virtual week. I don't mean literally. Of course my week has been real and grounded in the physical world. I mean that for the first time in ages all my contact with my friends has been via the internet.

It's not like I have been a recluse. I have spoken to real people. I had a tutorial at one point and there were flesh and blood students there. I went to my cake class and a meeting about choir and a Jamie Oliver party and I spoke to my boss on the phone several times. But all the time that I have spent just talking to friends has been online.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. To be fair it's quite unusual. Generally I make the effort to invite people here for coffee during the course of the week but this week it just didn't happen and at the risk of hugely offending the people that I generally see, I am fine on my own.

Is this a bad thing? Should I allow my online relationships to take priority over actual face to face time? I think the answer to that is probably no. Online is stuff is fun. It involves a wider variety of people than you would ever get all in one room in the real world. Flirting, arguing, inane chitter chatter. It's all scarily easy online and I don't tend to have those kinds of conversations elsewhere. My real encounters are generally with one person at a time so there's not much banter and I almost never talk to men vocally because there just aren't any in my world.

But, as someone online pointed out recently, who really knows what is going on? It is much easier to be something that you're not if you can't see the whites of your friend's eyes. Happy, sad, angry, tickled - it's all the same online. A careful selection of words and you can give whatever impression you fancy.

I must hasten to add that what you see in any aspect of my life is pretty much what you get. I wear my heart on my sleeve for all to make of as they will. But what worries me is that I do have a tendency to solitude and it would be frighteningly easy for me to spend my entire time beetling around my house and relying on facebook and Open University forums for any social interaction.

I'm aware that I'm walking a very thin line and in danger of upsetting friends both real and virtual alike but, honestly, I need them all. Between them they provide me with support, entertainment and stimulation. Does it really matter whether they do this over a cup of coffee or by a one line posting in a chat room? I imagine that as long as I maintain as healthier balance as I can between them all I can't go far wrong. However, if you think I have fallen off your radar please give me a little nudge. It wasn't intentional.

HOME-GROWN BABYSITTERS

2010-11-11T15:01:00.000Z

My eldest will be fourteen this week. Now, I'm not about to say that I can't believe it or wonder where the years have all flown to. I have slogged through every minute of those fourteen years since I first assumed parental responsibility and my life was changed forever.

What does seem to have come round quite quickly though is the concept that my child has now reached the acceptable age for babysitting. I don't know if there is a legal age before which you leave children to their own devices. If there is then I have certainly flaunted it, having been nipping out during the day without all the children in tow for quite some time. But certainly in my neck of the woods, when a child hits fourteen they are suddenly and miraculously endowed with enough common sense to be responsible for other children.

Our own non family babysitter was fourteen when she first came and looked after my four, although half of them were generally in bed asleep by the time she arrived. At the time I thought she was terribly grown up in comparison to my own little angels, the eldest of whom was then nine.

Now that my daughter has reached a similar stage, she suddenly seems rather young for all that responsibility. Would she know what to do if her charges won't stay in bed or cry for their mum or someone comes to the door or the house sets on fire? Well, actually, she would probably just ring me and I would nip round and sort it out for her but you take my point.

She has been counting down the days until she can offer her services both to us and to our friends. She has been eyeing up likely candidates amongst her siblings' peer groups for a while. She is ready to make posters and advertise her services to the world. I am slightly more circumspect. I see a number of hiccups with her plan.

Firstly her own scant availability. What with rehearsals, shows, parties and sleepovers there aren't so many windows in her calendar. Then she has to coordinate with my requirements. Obviously, having trained her for this important task for her entire life, I get first shout when a babysitting requirement arises.

Then there are the practicalities. Will she be able to cope with a late night? Will I be able to cope with the following day? Will I have to be available when she is babysitting in case of disaster? Will I have to wait up until she gets home? How will she get home? The list of troublesome questions goes on and on.

Until her dance card starts filling up, I shall monopolize her services myself. She and her sister can share the responsibility of guarding their siblings as they sleep. My husband and I have long dreamed of the day when we could pop out to our local for a quick drink or a bite to eat on a whim without having to book the babysitter weeks in advance. However, I had failed to realise that by the time the big day came, we would either be too busy ferrying children or too exhausted to make actually going out feasible. I can't imagine that my new found freedom is actually going to make a huge amount of difference. Ah well. Perhaps when they've all left home?

PARENTING AND WHAT THEY DIDN'T TELL ME

2010-11-09T16:32:00.000Z

I've always wanted children. It was up there in my childhood dreams with a fairy tale wedding and a never ending supply of midget gems. I don't know whether it was something that I ever truly thought about or it just became part of my life expectations by osmosis. I sometimes wonder whether the only people who really think about whether to have children are the ones who decide not to.

Anyway, along they came according to plan. Four little pink bundles with squidgy faces and perfect finger nails. It's hard when they're babies, especially the first. You have no real idea what they want. You work your way down a check list until you can make an informed guess about the reason for their distress. Everyone has an opinion on what you are doing and shares it with you whether their view is welcome or not.

Then it gets harder. The baby starts to sleep, which is a blessing but then it starts to move of its own accord, which is not. Next, they learn to talk. This might seem like it should make things less difficult but actually results in your child expressing their own ideas about how things should be which generally run counter to your own.

At the moment it's really hard. My younger two are pushing at my authority. Each instruction is tested to destruction. Nothing is taken at face value. For every order there is a counter order. I hear myself bickering with my six year old about whether he should put his socks on or not and my heart sinks. In frustration I shout. It doesn't get them to do as I say. It doesn't even make me feel better. It just makes me throat hurt.

The elder two are jogging along quite nicely but they are on the edge of the dark lands where there be dragons. Make up and short skirts and high heels that make them appear as if they are looking for things that they can't possibly understand. Illicit alcohol at parties that they attend. Talk of weed in the park. Constant requests to do things that I consider unsuitable because 'everyone else is going'. It's all new and scary.

I feel like I am being pushed round a ghost train ride with a blindfold on. Some things leap out at me and make me jump. Other dangers lurk in the darkness as I stumble past, unaware even of their existence.

The combination of the challenging younger two and the adventuring older two is exhausting and terrifying in equal measure. The rebellious little ones rob me of the resources that I need to deal with the obstacles facing the big ones and I am left spinning, hoping that soon we will have a period of consolidation so that I can catch my breath and check for holes in my sails before the storms blow up again.

When I had my little babies I had no idea how difficult being a parent really was. If I had known, would I have gone ahead with quite such scant consideration for the future? Of course I would, as would most of us for otherwise the human race would be no more. I just have to keep doing the best that I can as each day passes and hope it's enough.

JAMIE OLIVER - MY HERO

2010-11-07T21:13:00.000Z

Feeding the family continues to trouble me. The same old meals churned out week after week boring not only me to shop for and cook but the poor family to eat.

So imagine my delight when I stumbled across a new programme with chirpy Jamie Oliver taking me through menus in real time. I like Jamie Oliver. Yes, he did get a little bit over exposed in the early days but what he was doing was new and exciting and everyone wanted a piece of him. Having been brought up with the precision of Delia, Jamie, with his slugs here and his handfuls there, was like a breath of fresh air. I never really bought into his whole lifestyle thing. I live in Ilkley. We don't even have a decent deli let alone fresh food markets but simple food made with quality ingredients made sense to me.

Since then I have watched Jamie's career with interest. I admire his passion. He never seems to relax and opt for the easy path through life. He believes in real food strongly and he is prepared to put his head above the parapet and try to make a difference to the nation's eating habits even though there is nothing really in it for him personally.

So back to Thirty Minute Meals. I watched with interest as I cooked whatever mundane meal I had planned for that night. Jamie buzzed around his kitchen creating two or three dishes that all looked delicious. I can do that - I thought. So I hotfooted it to Smith's and bought a copy of the book ( at knock down pre Christmas price ) and spent a happy evening flicking through and choosing menus that I fancied and that there was an outside chance of the children eating.

Then I had a brain wave. Instead of spending all Sunday afternoon slaving over roast meat and all the trimmings, I could do a Thirty Minute Meal instead. Genius.

I went to the shops to buy the ingredients. Phew. All those herbs don't come cheap. Then I set to. The book gives the recipes in the order that you should cook them in order to create the meal in the time scale. The planner in me insists that I cook like that anyway but it was refreshing to have the thinking done for me. I followed the plan. The meal took me a little over thirty minutes but I felt obliged to substitute his pudding for something containing apples as we have them in abundance.

The results were delicious. The only problem was that I had forgotten that one child was eating out and two were rehearsing until after I had gone out to sing so we didn't get to eat it together. I haven't looked in the bin to see how much of my meal ended up there but I was happy.

So well done Jamie. You have managed to get me to try something new because you made it look achievable without too much effort on my part. May your ideas and enthusiasm continue to infect me for years to come.

IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING

2010-11-03T12:22:00.001Z

"In the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep, you lie awake and think about...." Well, just about anything really.

It's 4.55. I know this because the beside clock projects the time in red numbers on to the ceiling above my head. My eyesight's not fantastic so I have to squint a bit to make the shapes discernible but there was no mistake. Not yet 5.00 ' clock.

Now I'm an early bird as a general rule. I go to sleep at 10.30 every night and so I'm generally awake and ready to face the day by 6.15. And that's fine. It suits me. But even I draw the line at getting up before 5 so I decided to close my eyes and go back to sleep.

Nothing doing. Ten minutes later I peer at the red blur and realise that I haven't, as I'd hoped, dropped back to sleep and that I am now properly awake. This gives me three options.
1. Read my book utilizing small torch which nestles in my bedside cabinet precisely for occasions such as this. But I don't really fancy that.
2. Get up and go and do something useful. This involves sneaking like a thief past my son's bedroom door and the chances of my getting to the stairs without him hearing me and bouncing out of bed are almost nil.
3. Lie there.

I plump for option three and spin subjects round my brain whilst I choose how to use this unexpected time. I start with my book and how I am going to get to where I need to be without contorting my characters. But that makes me want to get to my laptop so I settle for blog topics instead. A few random ideas float round my head but nothing that grabs me. I move on. Eldest daughter's birthday next week. Need to confirm her present with her and order it. Party invites are not yet out. I shudder as I think of the gargantuan sleepover she has planned.

I change direction quickly although my heart is pumping a little faster. I skip through the diary entries for the rest of the week and suddenly think of something that I had almost forgotten. The adrenalin makes my skin tingle and then feel slightly clammy.

What else? I need to make my Christmas Cake and get it coated. It has to be ready for class next week. When will that fit in? Those pumpkins are going to go bad if I don't roast them and do something with them today. The wind will have brought all the apples down. I must bag them up and offer them around.

Faraday on my course next. It's quite a long chapter. That's OK. I like my course. Need to make time for my blog though and my book. I squint at the ceiling. 5.35. Only seven weeks to Christmas.

Oops. I really didn't mean to let myself go there but there I went and now I am in full blown panic and I have to get up. I can't just lie here when there's Christmas to organise. I don't know what I thought I was going to achieve at that time but the rising fear means that I can no longer stay still. I creep along the landing and head downstairs taking small son, who calls out as I pass his door, with me.

It's ridiculous. I know it is but somehow in the wee small hours of the morning everything suddenly looks insurmountable. I will get through it all. You always do somehow don't you? No need to fret. What's the worse that can happen? Why didn't I think of that at 4.55?

CONFUSING HALLOWE'EN

2010-10-31T15:58:00.000Z

Hallowe'en confuses me. There are lots of things about it that I just don't understand. Mainly, what happened to the traditional English Hallowe'en of my childhood? No knocking on doors - that was for Mischief Night a few days later. Dressing up involved sheets and black sugar paper and activities revolved around apples. Simple, harmless, cheap pleasures. Lovely.

Then when my children started at the local Church of England primary school I was confused again. I discovered that some Christians had a huge issue with it as a celebration. This was entirely new to me and took me completely by surprise. No hint of Hallowe'en would be tolerated at school and instead the children were asked to dress in bright colours and attend a Light Party. No one ever really managed to explain to me what was wrong with what I had always understood to be a Celtic festival to mark the end of summer. Perhaps that was connected with the celebration moving away from apples and towards terrifying latex masks. I don't know. It confused me.

Then adults and Hallowe'en. What's that all about? As far as I knew it was something for children but apparently I'm wrong. As I walked my children round to parties last year I was the only one not dressed up. Party hosts entering into the spirit I can understand. But dressing up just because it's Hallowe'en is not really for me.

Three of my four children have been invited out tonight which has delighted them as they will be able to go trick or treating, an activity that is banned here. I banned it when the big ones were small. There were no children where we live and I didn't think my neighbours, who we didn't know, deserved to have my children, who they didn't know, begging for sweets at their front door. Different if you live in a neighbourhood with lots of children but we don't so that was that.

But trick or treating they go and come home with mountains of sweets. We don't do sweets here either. I know. I sound like a real killjoy and they do have sweets sometimes but not by the bucket load and not regularly. So instead of being a treat, they devour sweets from their stash every day until they are all gone. Not really a treat anymore.

Last year, horribly aware that I was fast becoming the Scrooge of All Hallows I did think about joining in, maybe even having a party. But as the date approached and the supermarket filled with orange and purple plastic I just couldn't do it. I think it's because what was an ancient tradition has been hijacked and turned into an excuse to make money. If I were to have a party I would like it to be like those of my childhood and the children would go home feeling terribly robbed.

I'm sure I'm missing out by not participating and one year I may surprise the children by arranging a giant do with spiders webs and glow in the dark skeletons. And then again...

MY BATTLE FOR TAKE THAT TICKETS

2010-10-30T07:26:00.000+01:00

I had an idea earlier in the week. Take That announced a tour and I decided that it would be a lovely treat if I took my two big girls together with my first ever friend and her daughter, who also happens to be my god-daughter. I rang my friend and she agreed that such a trip would be fun and as it was my idea I volunteered to get the tickets.

I did my research. The tickets would go on sale at 9.00 on Friday. I checked out the approved ticket agencies, made sure I could remember my ticketmaster password and waited.

I like Take That. I always have done. Not in a mad, passionate, fan kind of way. I was 24 when they formed so a bit old for all that. But I liked the fact that they didn't take themselves too seriously and Gary Barlow writes a jolly good tune.

Friday dawned and I was up with the lark, unable to sleep for that feeling of excited anticipation that you get before a holiday. I got myself showered and dressed and was ready at my computer and logged into ticketmaster at 8.55. I watched the clock tick round not daring to nip to another page in case I missed my moment. 9 'o clock. I went to the appropriate performance, clicked 5 tickets....and it crashed.

This wasn't entirely surprising. The gigs were well advertised and almost every woman in the land seemed to want tickets. I persevered. I loaded, it crashed, I refreshed, it crashed. I sat there, with two computers refreshing pages, for four hours. I despaired as messages popped up on facebook telling my who had been successful in their quest. I tried other approved sites with no success. I kept at it.

But it was half term. My husband had a day off and we had planned a family trip to Harewood House. So I turned off the computers and went out. I reasoned that if I couldn't get on to the site then neither could anyone else. At Harewood I had ticketmaster on speed dial but with no luck. All the talk in the adventure playground was of tickets and tips as to how to get them. Most people seemed to have theirs already.

Home again and my campaign began with renewed vigour. The congestion had lifted a little but whilst I could get tantalizingly close, the page would crash at the crucial moment. And then, finally, after thousands of attempts I got as far as putting my credit card details in. The on screen timer counted down and my hands shook as I typed, terrified that it would crash before I could get my details in accurately or that I would run out of time.

And then suddenly, there it was. A message confirmation. Five tickets for Take That were finally mine. I'm sure they could hear the whoop of delight in Manchester.

The whole experience reminded my of something that I had forgotten about myself - my sheer, bloody minded, determination to get something if I want it enough. It wasn't even that I was so bothered about the actual tickets. The world would not have ended if I hadn't got them. It was more that I would not be beaten and give up when I had invested so much time in the fight. It's not a quality that I have had to use for years but I see it regularly in one of my children. I know that it's slightly ridiculous that I am reminded of my determination in the context of something so trivial but I'm glad that it's still there, lurking deep. You never know when it might come in handy.

HORMONAL HELL

2010-10-26T19:46:00.000+01:00

Hormones. Who'd have 'em?

If you're a bloke reading this then you can either go and check some sporting results instead or read on, smug in the knowledge that you will never have to experience first hand the affliction that is female hormone swings.

So there I am merrily getting on with my life. I'm busy. I'm happy and, apart from shouting at the kids occasionally I'm reasonably even tempered. Life is sweet.

It starts with the need for chocolate. Not a little "I fancy a bit of chocolate if there's any in the cupboard" kind of need but a "If I don't get chocolate in the next thirty seconds I may be forced to tear the arms off anyone that gets in the way of my pursuit for it" kind of way. It's a tell tale and fairly consistent sign of a rush of hormones but I regularly fail to spot it and recognise it for what it is. I indulge myself with something sweet and continue with my life.

Next I get a bit cross. This is nothing unusual. As already confessed, I am wont to shout at the children if they don't do as they're asked. Again, no alarm bells ring. Then I explode for no easily identifiable reason. The girls metaphorically dive for cover, exchange knowing glances at each other and try to steer their brother, who can't yet spot the warning signs, from impending disaster with frantic hand and facial gestures that they think I can't see.

Now, it's starting to register. I have not turned over night into a confectionery guzzling ogre. Well, I have as it goes but there is a rational explanation. Hormones.

Sometimes the prevailing mood is not anger but melancholy. Suddenly life is all too difficult. I don't have the energy to shout and I slink off into dark corners and feel self indulgently sorry for myself. And again, despite the fairly consistent effect on me for the greater part of my life, my hormone wobble always takes me by surprise. I feel hard done to and uncherished despite knowing neither to be the case.

I imagine that it could be challenging living with a woman who is a martyr to her hormones. But just consider for a moment what it must be like to be the woman. One day you're skipping along, happy as Larry and the next. Kaboom. Straight into a brick wall of unexplained emotion.

They come. They go. It passes. We move on. But if I had been in charge of blowing life into that spare rib, I think I would have given greater thought to precisely how the side effects of a reproductive system that most off us only use a handful of times in a lifetime might impact on the human race's daily lives.

Now, where's that Terry's Chocolate Orange?

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY AND MY REDISCOVERED BRAIN

2010-10-24T07:20:00.000+01:00

I am buzzing. As you know, I have just embarked on a degree course and yesterday it was the first Day School of the academic year. With my timetable printed off and my bag packed, I headed off for Leeds Met with a sense of nervous anticipation, not quite knowing what to expect. I found my way to the lecture theatre - no mean feat - and then sat as a desk at the front. The room was full of eager faces from all walks of life and I listened to and participated in all the sessions with great gusto, fully immersing myself in everything that the day had to offer.

I came away brimming with enthusiasm for my course, for the Arts, for life really. Last night, I sought out alternative modules that I might like to take as I make my slow but steady progress towards a BA (Hons), in subjects that I never previously had any interest in but suddenly seem fascinated by.

But my underlying feeling as I dip my toe in the clear, bright waters of academia is relief. For a while back there I did wonder what had become of me and how my future could possibly offer me anything cerebral.

I had always loved knowledge and learning. I was recently rather affectionately called a 'girly swot' and it was a fair description of my days in full time education. My the time I qualified, I was somewhat jaded by formal learning but the mammoth task of becoming proficient in my chosen discipline stood before me like Mount Eiger and on I went, collecting knowledge and squirrelling it away.

And then I had my children. Four pregnancies in seven years left my memory a laughable shadow of what it had been. My powers of concentration dwindled to nothing so that even sitting through a film to the end became a challenge. But most frightening of all I had no interest in anything outside the confines of my busy family home.

To start with this was fine. I barely had the energy to stand up straight, let alone consider the state of my cerebellum. But as the years rolled on I began to fear that my thirst for knowledge was gone forever and that felt like a huge and unanticipated sacrifice. Perhaps, I, like Faustus, had made an exchange, albeit unwittingly in my case? My brain for my children.

And then, out of the blue it reappeared. It started in small measures. Reading more than just the book club novel in a month, tentatively doing a little legal work, scribbling in my blog. And now a degree.

I should have been more patient, had more faith. My need to know had not gone anywhere, it was just taking a back seat whilst I focussed on other, more important tasks. And now I feel like I have to make up for lost time. I am sure that my enthusiasm must be palpable and I'm sorry if it's irritating. I'm sure it will wear off a little as I progress. But for now I am just so delighted that what I believe to be a major part of my psyche is still there, that you will have to forgive me the old, self indulgent skip down the corridors of learning whilst I regain my composure!