food glorious food...

In an attempt to encourage and enable the children to cook for themselves we have been letting R and S take turns at cooking tea each day this week.
We have gradually progressed over the past year or so and now they use kettles and toasters and sharp knives independently ... and to date we have escaped anything major happening...

I will never forget my first 'serious' boyfriend had never cooked anything until he bought his own flat....
I decided then it was a 'must have' skill for any children of mine to acquire...

They have always watched and helped where they can, but the extra time we have had this week, before they start back at school on Monday, has meant more time to play and let them experiment.
It's been messy - but creative... and they have been keen to learn.
The results have been delicious too.

They have also got cross with one another, when, after spending all that time and effort cooking, the other one can't be bothered to come to the table on time....

nothing quite like a taste of your own medicine ;-)

Stained glass candle holder S made for her nativity

The phones have started to buzz with new year messages from friends we can't be with...
I don't 'do' new year usually for various reasons , but this year we will be out at a friends party... the theme is Bond...
and it would appear that James has a new girl - Miss Midnight, who will be getting ready shortly... :)


I liked this, one of those round robin texts, but I liked it...

2008 is at the door...

Remember life is short,

break the rules,

forgive quickly,

kiss slowly,

love truly,

laugh uncontrollably,

and never regret anything that made you smile...

So to everyone who stops by this way...

I wish you all the very best for the New Year...x

new links

New links - mouse and Random acts of reality... partly sentimental - partly keep me in touch with what I feel is important in my life too...
reality, raw and in your face...
that is what I LOVED about A&E - it was real, no pretences, life as it happened, in all it's various forms with all it's grit and grime...
people came, as they were, noone had time to pretend, no time to become anyone else... no time to be institutionalised...
noone really wanted to be there... for any longer than needed anyway...
it was a real privilege to be working in that environment...
a glimpse into the world as it is... where we are...

and thats why I want to say thank you for these blogs...

keeping life real...

Taking time as it comes...

After a family filled Christmas, the opportunity to spend an evening down at the rugby club for one of our good friends Birthdays was welcome, it was lovely to just spend time with people we haven't seen in a while and to have a night out where the children could come too.

An easy evening...

Now we're back home, with music on while R carries on painting a commission that's been waiting for a chance for him to carry on working on it - it's peaceful sitting watching him.

It's been a long while since we just spent an evening drinking, listening to music with R painting alongside me...and chatting...

it's easy to lose time, and a luxury to just let time go...

a gift...

apt that we should be listening to the Beatles too ~ transporting me back to student flats, long evenings and the dawn of first light...

they are singing.... "and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make... "
I wonder...

Hanging on to peace...

At what point is it safe to look back and wonder if we have escaped unscathed? Perhaps it's the moment after we have confidently said it's all gone alright so far!.... Best not speak too soon - there is always, and will always, be room to put ones foot in it...

The peace found at Midnight mass has stayed - strange how peace can descend in a church filled to overflowing, despite all the noise and chaos, and yet there is a still, quiet voice, that speaks personally, and so that being a part of it and yet not, observing from somewhere else, yet being in the present... it speaks to my heart... that peace stays... and with it there is harmony, for a while..

but it's not long before late nights take their toll, and safety mechanisms fail, and peace, and good will seem to lose value and vanish... like the genie in the lamp... the wishes gone...

it is never an easy time and it never gets any easier...
I am aware of, and see others around struggling too.

And on a personal level I do wonder how this magical season, this season of hope will ever really change us...


how hard is it just to be kind?
how hard is it to forgive?
how hard is it to accept and embrace our humaness in others?

Perhaps is it simply all too hard...?

But I honestly can't let myself believe that at all....

Christmas Eve...

Christmas eve....a magical day as a child I seem to remember, and I am reminded of it by my children we played at being Santa's elves delivering to all ends of the island today.

Snippets from our day...

After a couple of false starts we finally made it out of the house to start our deliveries...

My chief elf, obviously bogged down with the responsibility of the task allocated to him, put us all behind by muddling the presents up, so parcels were delivered to the wrong people and had to be retrieved and then redelivered...... I'm certain Santa never has that problem even with all that alcohol on board...

Despite our best efforts we didn't manage to avoid the last minute dash to the chemist to restock on cold and flu remedies, and to find birthday cards for the 26th, but the Salvation Army band playing in the high street made it feel very festive, even in the rush..

The plan is that the kids are hopefully staying up so we can all go to midnight mass... but then we all know about best laid plans...

I'm still looking for the buzz of festive spirit which usually arrives around this time, but it seems to be very elusive this year.... as are cohesive sentences that fit together... hence the snippets...

so really I just wanted to say to those who pop by here

Happy Christmas and a peaceful time to everyone.. xx

Choosing one's own way...

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way"

Viktor Frankl

It was one of those odd moments - I had just picked up a book and was reading these words as I idly clicked through my bookmarked blogs...

to read the same words - or some of them at least - on Pip's blog...

Synchronicity, a moment when timing collides, like crossing paths with someone after you've only just met...

when pieces of a jigsaw suddenly fit together...
a message at just the right time...

until half an hour ago I hadn't even heard of Viktor Frankl...

now I've met him twice in a short space of time and his words are etched into my brain...

love it :)

This almost had a photo....

I had so much planned for today...guess thats never the best start...
So little has actually been achieved, but we do seem to have run around for hours in the car, spent a chunk of the day at my parents which was important, persuaded the dentist to give us an emergency apointment for S who was in pain and reluctantly purchased a few items in town for Christmas and Birthdays coming up all too imminently.

Finally, and despite not wanting to go, I ventured back to town where S was supposed to be joining others for Carol singing....but being late we thought we would catch up with them at the first stop. No great surprises that after an hour of loitering on the street corner outside one of our hotels we decided to call it a day and came home... we had no mobile contact numbers, and as S said, I should have gone to the original meeting place, but as we were running late I honestly thought I was being sensible...

The list is still almost as long as it was this morning and I am ready for bed...

The stars and moon were beautiful tonight...

I almost took a photo as we waited for the others to arrive...

street lights and Christmas lights tell stories of the lives behind the house doors...

My daughter told me she would always be with me in my heart and in my head... how does she get that at such a young age?
Am thinking that all those who ever touch our hearts and souls stay with us, both in our hearts, and in our heads... a beautiful thought...

My son fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow... guess thats what you get when you live each waking moment with such energy... he always has...

I missed my friend's daughter on morning television and only realised this evening...

Most of the time I think I'm doing a rubbish job at being a parent... but I try, and somehow thats what my kids seem to see...and I am truly grateful for that...

I never got back to any exercise - today was the day - so am still feeling flabby and lard like...

Am fading fast - the sofa and fire and wine lull me into a soporific state where climbing the stairs is almost too much effort... and I have work tomorrow morning.. early....

Vulnerable...

Even the strongest man is only human...
even my rock who is R...
it made me feel so very vulnerable...
when the pain and sickness that is migraine hit earlier...
and persisted...and persisted...despite all my nursing, and care, and the depths of the medicine cabinet....
and I realised what, or who, I took for granted..
always there...
adding a certain 'je ne sais qoi' to family life...
a certain 'joie de vivre'...
part of the mix...an essential, ingredient
I know I try not to...
but when someone is always there you do get used to them always being there..

today a vital component of this family unit was missing...
and I couldn't sort it
couldn't fix it...
and I tried...
so hard...
but I couldn't...

so, minus children
we graced the 'doctors on call' service with our company,
who in turn made us comfortable in A&E for the best part of four hours..
while they stopped the pain and the sickness...

and diagnosed something else while we were there... love the incidental findings... not...
will have to embrace them tomorrow...

quite possibly the very best doctor I have ever come across though - and I have come across quite a few...
calm, informative, logical, reassuring, obviously competent, friendly, efficient... the list could go on...
just a shame he is a locum and not permanent.

finally we are at home, finding stable ground again... am feeling less vulnerable now...
less scared,
am relieved...

but the truth is
we're only really strong when we're all together...
and we're all much more vulnerable than we think - every one of us.

There were times today I was really, really scared - part imagination, part reality fed the fear...
things I've seen and things I've experienced.
a little knowledge - or a lot - isn't always helpful...

seeing those we think of as strong, suddenly weak, shakes our foundations...
made me think - sometimes it's good to be shaken and disturbed ~
to remember why we need each other in the mix...

Thursday thoughts...

Returning from Town with a new haircut....and the promise that next year I'll do something wild and whacky just to surprise my wonderful hairdresser... am pondering what...

It is a beautiful crisp, cold, clear day, the sand is swept into dunes along the wall, in soft, clean, golden mounds as if it belongs there, not that it has been swept up, swirled around and dumped there from treacherous storms the other evening...

I love that about nature - somehow it always seems to settle and find a new normal....
No doubt someone will be along to move it back where it came from at some point - the dunes are now on the wrong side of the wall... !

Still beautiful...

What I was thinking about though were the birds as I watched them - all along the shoreline. Graceful, wild and free, so much of their beauty tied in with their free spirit...

free spirits, love and beauty... a story about a caged bird somewhere in my memory...
and how much of life is about letting go and the balance between loving and embracing the freedom of spirit, whilst trying to keep hold of it in some tangible way at the same time... and what a difficult, virtually impossible, balance that is...

Prepared for the school disco... since early this morning...
S has just returned, flushed and smiling, happy, a brilliant time had by the sounds of it...
but what of the boy who asked her out... the little darling... ! he's got excellent taste, I give him that... :)
am feeling more than a bit territiorial...
she is beautiful, and anyone would be a fool not to want to go out with her - to spend time having fun with her... can't think of anything more wonderful in the whole world....
but she's my baby, and she's my girl...

so I am relieved that at least for now, she said no, well actually she couldn't make up her mind - it's a genetic problem that one...

she is safely tucked up in bed, as is her brother who has become firmly attached to his mobile since his disco...

Can't work out why I would feel differently about him to her - she certainly knows her mind enough to not be messed around...

however, I am hoping this means we can now spend some time before boys have to enter into the equation, and stir up hormones and feelings more than they already are...

my prayer tonight... x

sky reflections in silver feet

imperfect etched silver feet....
smaller, yet in direct proportion to their feet sizes at the moment...
a footballer, and a dancer...

impossible to polish, impossible to photograph...
scratched already and that's before they get to the engravers...
I loved the reflections in them... the ceiling reflections weren't great, or the ones of me trying to stay out of the reflection as I took the photo, but I liked this one of the sky ...

there is something lovely about working on something so personal and it's been fun getting to know my children's feet again in detail...
would have loved to be able to cast them properly...
so many lumps and bumps yet they feel so smooth...
unique and so very, very, different from each other...

Just love the thought of all the adventures those little feet have had, and are going to have, as they grow...

Thanks for the medicine Mouse...

So many things I should be doing... what with Christmas round the corner and family birthdays, and the wood for the cupboard doors I am making having just been delivered...

instead, courtesy of recently discovered mousie's, direction to impacted nurse and a free ebook, I have been laughing out loud...

hospital humour... truly good for the soul... much needed laughter...

In some ways like a squirrel gathering nuts...

another item for advent - a calendar...

being needed and being wanted....

I was looking at a photo of the two children when they were perhaps two and three, cuddly and chubby sitting in their pyjamas on the kitchen floor, hair ruffled by sleep, big eyes and soft warm skin asking to be picked up and kissed....
and they would have been happy for that until they wriggled away.

R is off sick again today... this bug is virulent... he wants to be here, needs to be here .. and wants to be close ... just like he did when he was small...
work outside the home wasn't feasible at all then because I was needed here...

needed and wanted....
and I wonder how we know we've done a good job - how on earth do you tell? My Dad always says you can only ever do your best... but what if your best isn't good enough..or it's slightly off course... best intentions and all that, but got it wrong...?
and then we have a friend whose Mum had said that the biggest thing you can give your children is your time...while they want it...and I think perhaps thats true.


being needed and being wanted... those two things that make us feel valued...
perhaps thats the real fear of letting go of them as they grow up - that they aren't going to need us or want us any more...
I'm guessing that they possibly won't always need us...
but I hope I'm always wanted.

Perhaps not being needed or wanted is a fear within all of us, regardless of children,
perhaps being needed and being wanted are in themselves needs... and as we let go in one area we search to fill the gap that is left...

a juggling act of needing and wanting - of getting our fix of feeling worthwhile, of being cared for and loved - all things that have to be given freely and that can't be forced or manipulated...

but that start by us caring and loving and giving and trusting, and hoping that our best is in fact good enough - because it has to be... it's all we have...

just ponderings as I look for somewhere else to hang this photo so we actually get to see it more often.

practicing for later...

Thanks for the link to this poem Jayne .
I have looked for it for a while and hadn't found it.

Hope you don't mind me borrowing it... :) x

WARNING
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Fridays...

After school on fridays we head home for half an hour and then S and I make our way out to swimming.
Now swimming isn't one of my most favourite activities, although I have found the monotony of swimming lengths alone, in a calm pool quite peaceful and meditative in the past, but generally it's not my cup of tea... lots of things put me off the whole experience, but I know it's important that the children learn how to swim well, and so we go.

I watch for a while and I know I should be a more dedicated parent, but it is possibly the longest predictable half an hour of the week... unless there is someone to talk to, or I can lose myself in a book...
then after we've done the whole shower, dried, dressed and hair sorted routine which takes another half an hour minimum!, we travel onwards to dancing and more hanging around until three hours later we end up back at home.
The whole evening is, at best, tediously drawn out...

It's fair to say I'm not at my best on a friday evening.

However, this friday I watched S for a bit, and then sat watching the other parents taking an avid interest in their childrens swimming lesson - they were either enjoying it, or being far more gracious about it than I am - and I became aware, that in the not too distant future, when we no longer do this, it'll be a part of life I'll miss.

This part of life that I don't really enjoy...
even this is special, and should be treasured...
this time, is time we can't get back,
these things add up to the whole picture,
and perhaps even the things that aren't as enjoyable in life are still worth appreciating for what they are...

It gave me a slightly different perspective anyway...

so we'll see if next week is any the easier for those thoughts...

4.20pm today....

on the way home from school... S took this photo - we went to see if our pebble footprints were still there.. no surprises that they had been washed away.
We also went to clear our heads in the space between day and evening, after school and before homework, to break the intensity and take five...

the sky is rarely less than spectacular no matter when you look at it... one of those amazing mysteries that keeps us pondering.... light and dark, reflections and moods... full of beauty and expression... the unknown...
no wonder it enticed man to want to explore it searching for what lay beyond... and to dream...

and then, literally just behind us, in a totally different, contrasting scene, the moon was already up!




By the time we had arrived back home the scene had changed, the light had dimmed and we carried on with our evening activities... just a memory, bar the photos.... fleeting.... it would be sad, if it wasn't for the promise that the dawn will bring with it yet more beauty....
am pleased we stopped to absorb...

Keeping out of mischief...

There has to be more to life than working - that is until I find myself in a job doing the things I love again, things that matter to me...
so aside from work I've been keeping myself out of mischief...

nearly all the Christmas cards are made and soon I'll feel kindly enough towards them again to consider writing them... for years I have promised myself I'l be more organised and maybe even write properly to some people I never get around to writing to....

not sure how far resources will stretch to presents this year - we're also looking at R junior having seven teeth out under general anaesthetic before Christmas which makes me feel incredibly responsible, scared and stony broke in anticipation (orthodontic work has to be done privately and is costly, but makes long term sense as it's functional and not cosmetic ) ....
I'm not liking the number of times I am tempted to blog about dentists... must mean they have far more of a presence in my life than I'd like...

we've been busy collecting corks from friends and restaurants for a cork board which is about a third of the way finished and looking good,

there's been more playing on the beach time - at the weekend we took the children down and made long lines of footprints across the beach in pebbles... which got me thinking about words and how words find you at the right times sometime... books and poems that speak to one person at a particular time... I remember how much comfort my Mum got from the footprints verse years ago and likewise there are words that mean lots to me and doubtless everyone has things that mean something to them...
what makes us race through somebooks and yet others can drag on for ever...?
lately I've been racing, absorbing words and thoughts and feelings...

the garden is calling as is the ironing pile... and domestic chores wait patiently... far too much like work really...

Nature's lace...

treasure at the edge of the path...

The wonder of nature has always amazed me, such detail and intricacy, and as long as noone tramples it, it will only get more beautiful and fragile... .