Happy Birthday, Ava!

It is Ava's second birthday today. She loves her new corduroy mouse bag. She loves her new 'birthday books'. She loves it when people spontaneously break into renditions of 'Happy Birthday to you' whenever they see her. She loves it that I can't stop picking her up and nuzzling her head and kissing her all over and telling her she was the best surprise I've ever had. She has no idea what a birthday is but she knows it's good. And she slept right through the two and a half hours I was out recording the radio show. Phew.

Oops

Yesterday morning a producer from Radio 4 called me to ask me about the impact the new Sony Reader was having on people's perceptions about ebooks and e-reading. She was preparing for a show to be aired on Monday and wanted to know what kinds of questions they should be addressing. We had a forty minute conversation during which she asked me lots of questions, and I quite warmed to my pet topic. Eventually she asked whether I was free on Friday to speak on the show alongside an author I know. My heart sank. Friday is my day off, the day I look forward to each week, when I get to spend the entire day with my children. I told her I was really sorry, but I couldn't do it. She sounded really disappointed, said I was exactly the person they needed; she really liked the things I'd said; they'd send a cab to fetch me and I'd only be away a couple of hours; they'd pay me a small fee plus expenses. It did seem very irritating to have spent all that time briefing her on the background to the topic and then not to be able to go on and speak about it, especially if it meant a competing publisher would get the air time if I said 'no'. I hummed and hah-ed for a minute, then said I'd call her back. I called Paul and explained the situation to him. He sounded unduly unimpressed that I should even be considering it, but huffily agreed that he'd look after the children for a few hours while I went into town to do it. When I questioned why he sounded so grumpy, he said in what sounded a slightly martyrish fashion, "No, no, if that's what you want to do, it's fine...."
I fought the urge to get cross with him, and rang off, then fought the urge to feel stupidly guilty, then wondered whether I should say 'no' after all, it was only a stupid radio show, then called the producer back.
"I can do it", I said, "I've sorted everything out."
"Fantastic!" she said.
Later I walked through the front door at home to find Paul in the kitchen making supper as usual. His smile seemed a bit thin.
"Are you still huffy about me doing this Radio 4 thing on Friday?" I asked. "I guess I'm stopping you getting your 'me-time', and you won't be able to work now on Friday yourself... "
"No, it's not that," he said. "It was only that it's Ava's birthday on Friday and I don't think you even remembered."
I can't even begin to tell you how bad I felt.

Back to School

I've taken a couple of days off at the end of the school holidays to celebrate everyone's survival... No, not really, obv; mainly to conduct the annual school uniform audit ("Surely Eden can't really be fitting into these age 3 polo shirts anymore?" ..."And this dress is more St Trinian's in length than I deem entirely acceptable...." ..."But that's my FAVOURITE, Mum! OOOOOH PULLEEEEEEASE DON'T THROW IT AWAAAAY!!"), put everything through the wash, enter the local Clarks Back To School Scrum (a 20 minute wait to be served even with TWENTY ONE shop assistants on the floor; it's terrifying, I tell you), write names in everything (thank God for indelible fabric markers; think I'd develop a tick like the sergeant in Inspector Clueso if I had to sew them all in like my Mum used to!) and generally regain control of everything in time for the start of the new term. I kinda love the Back to School Season; there's a great sense of fresh hope, a new start, etc. And the first day back it's so cute, seeing all the kids rock up scrubbed clean, hair brushed, shoes shined, uniforms looking all smart. It doesn't last long but it's a good feeling. When I go back to work next week I think I'm going to try to treat it like a new term at school; see if I can inject everything I do with a new passion and enthusiasm. I can't promise to have polished my shoes though.

Water Babies

I've been near-obsessive about booking the kids into multiple Summer Activities to keep them busy while I return to the office for a few weeks and try not to spend too much time worrying about Paul's sanity. With all three kids at home full-time for four weeks without any help, this is a genuine concern. The theory is that keeping everyone busy distracts attention away from my absence (guilty, moi?), tires the kids out and gives Paul the comforting sensation of a routine in the absence of the usual one. This week, everyone has been up and out of the house before 8am each morning in order for Eden and Nath to attend a week long swimming course. By the end of the week, Nathan is a veritable water baby, but his limited attention span means that he is still too busy blowing bubbles to remember to kick his legs, or too busy grinning and waving at the spectators to remember to keep his head in the water. However, as usual, he gets away with this by being, well, stupidly cute. Eden, now nearly seven, has a near-hysterical outburst on the first day when she swallows too much water, but by Friday I am delighted to see her ducking down under the water and swimming along as if she were a fish in a previous life. At the same time, Cbeebies is strictly off limits for the week whilst wall-to-wall Olympics coverage takes precedence. Over supper on Friday evening Eden wonders aloud, "How am I going to decide now between being an international explorer, Rose in Dr Who or an Olympic swimmer when I grow up?"
"Hmmm. It's a tough one, that", I agree.

Brie belly

You may have noticed I've been a little quiet. It was remiss of me not to leave notice on the blog that we were taking a cheeky extended break from the hustle of every day life to dawdle about in the Dordogne for a bit. It's only taken a week and a half back in the country for my synapses to start firing again. Honest. At least, a colleague assured me yesterday, "Well, you sound like you know what you're talking about." Which was kind of her. So that'll have to do.
Apart from the rain and the ghost town of an office (the literati have all deserted for their holidays in Tuscany so what's the point of coming in?) it's not *so* bad being back. It has been particularly tough though, adjusting back to non-holiday fare. There's nothing like pain au chocolat, baguette, butter, jam and brie and two milky coffees for breakfast each day to get you feeling wonderfully lazy and set you up nicely for the baguette with lashings of brie and camembert (with frites on the side) and a glass of wine for lunch. Indeed, there are still half a dozen pain au chocolats and several hundred pounds of brie adorning my waist line, because, of course, 'exercise' on holiday with three children under six largely consists of flopping about in the river a bit and vicariously enjoying the fun they are having running around in lots of lots of extra space whilst you read extremely small snippets of a novel over and over again due to the fact that you are repeatedly being interrupted to buy icecreams. Sigh.
Brie Belly notwithstanding, what I am also wondering is whether there is such a thing as Brie Brain? The sensation is of oozy cheese filling the space between one's ears as opposed to grey matter, and it is commonly brought about by extended, lazy holidays in France. Symptoms include gazing into space dreaming of splashing in the river in the sunshine, a glazed look in the eye when anyone asks you about next year's budget and the inability to complete a sentence. Hope it goes away soon. My boss is back from his holidays shortly.

Run, baby, run!

My legs were aching all last weekend. The reason? I managed to get myself talked into running in the Mum's race at Eden's school sports day. It had been a week of highs and lows at work and I was having a tough time shaking a particularly difficult issue out of my mind. I wanted to be with Eden 100%, at her first school sports day, enjoying the moment. But the work problem wouldn't go away. Running as fast as I could along a 100m dash sounded like a good idea. It worked. For a few seconds I was ten years old again, free of all the crap, adult stuff that clogs up my mind most of the time, running through the sunshine and laughing and nearly wetting myself (the pelvic floor really isn't what it was - sorry, was that too much information?). And my mind was gloriously empty, just for those few seconds. I'd forgotten how much I used to *love* running. Something else interested me about the race. As we stood at the start line, I did wonder just for a second whether I could win it. And I quite liked the idea that I might! Some glimmer of the highly competitive ten year old me, the one who couldn't bear even second place, was resurfacing. I didn't win. But, unlike when I was ten, that really was OK. It's funny how your perspective changes as you grow older. Like, now, running 100m without falling over, getting cramp or actually wetting myself really felt like an achievement! However, this mature and somewhat wry sense of perspective was entirely lost to me watching Eden compete in her first 'serious' sports day race. I watched her jiggling about on the start line and willed her obvious nerves to dispel. As she shot off, her pigtails streaming, I found myself yelling, "Go, Eden! Ruuuuuuun! You can do it!" I wanted her to win, not because I wanted her to be the best, but because I knew how disappointed she would be if she didn't. She won her heat, and I was immeasurably proud. But when she came third in her final, and her tears began to flow, I wished I could take away her disappointment. I went to comfort her and she ran into my arms. And as I pulled away from our cuddle, she said to me in a slightly choked voice, "It doesn't matter that I didn't win, Mummy. Running that race has made me stronger for the next time. It's the taking part that counts, isn't it?" I knew she only half believed it, but I admired her assertion, her swift attempt to regain perspective in the face of disappointment, all the same.

Fabulous, darling!

At the end of last week, I went away on a 24 hour retreat for 'Women in Leadership'. At 6pm on Thursday night I found myself sitting on a hotel lawn, drinking white wine with eleven other women who all held senior positions across a range of industries. Basic introductions aside, we were all asked to explain a little bit about the reasons we had come on the course. Each of us had different challenges or issues that we wished to tackle in our working lives, quite a few of us were juggling kids, families with a busy working life, but there was one common thread: without exception, every single woman there said that she was really looking forward to just 24 hours to focus on herself, to take a break from the maelstrom of daily life, to think, to have some space to breathe and to reflect. It's a crazy old world we live in when 24 hours just for yourself is a rare luxury. Yet the energy and empathy that developed between this small group of women was phenomenal. We started off strangers but after 24 hours of extraordinary, open exchange and mutual encouragement, we all came away a little bit lighter and enormously energised, ready to tackle life, work, the universe! I say this a *lot* but I really do think women are simply the best (sorry, boys). So here's to the Twelve Fabulous Ladies!