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... .

Peace every day...

peaceful reflections of town

It's been too long without photos...

Right now life has been full of family stuff... time taken up over the past weeks with aunts and uncles who have been over visiting. Somehow it always sends my head into a spin, it fills up until it's about to burst, I stop being able to think logically and because you can't please everyone I end up pleasing noone.
Somehow it's all too easy to fall short of the expectations other people have of you, aswell as keeping up with the important bits in our lives - the kids and R and all the related activities and evening classes.

Seems that even when we're too tired or the brain is too full to think, there is still a capacity to feel and life has been full of feelings...

childhood feelings and adult feelings, and hundreds of different feelings, all mixed up together... till it's hard to say how you feel, because you just feel.... and to untangle them all sometimes seems almost pointless, because they change so often, and maybe just to go with the flow... focus on what can be done, and hope they untangle on their own, is all we can do...

So often food and meals have helped... even the good old cup of tea comes to the rescue.... an answer to many things... offerings of food and drink, time and company, are healing I guess....

so I'm off to shop and cook in anticipation of family visitors tomorrow...
and to search out peace in the every day...

Testosterone and stardust

He was cute, flirtatious, fun and had the most gorgeous blue eyes.... a passing encounter that lifted the day, made me walk taller and lighter, and couldn't help but make me smile... even now....

It's good when something / someone makes the world sparkle...

And so onwards to home...

and preadolescent emotional outbursts creating havoc, which send me to calm down, and try to find a reason, some explanation, for the erratic, illogical workings, of an eleven year old boy's brain...

Steve Biddulph tells me that somewhere between the ages of eleven and thirteen, testosterone levels will increase by over eight hundred percent. This results in sudden growth, and as a consequence the nervous system has to almost rewire itself.
Whats more, this reorganisation of the brain makes boys dopey and disorganised for many months and parents have to act as a substitute brain for a while.

He says far more than this - and all the time I'm nodding in agreement with virtually every word...

In fact he sounds about spot on... although I fear we may have a whole lot more to come... but perhaps I'll be so used to it by then I'll relax and it'll just wash over me...
Steve reassures me that by his mid twenties things settle down....! so we have a long time to enjoy this hormonal roller coaster....

A cunning little hormone - powerful and seductive... should come with a public health warning...
at work in two very different ways ~ in one still grappling with it, yet to be tamed, and channelled, understood and calmed, and in another, working at it's very best...
bringing magical stardust to the world....

It survived...

Shamefully it has taken until today for us all to go on a family bike ride since S passed her cycling proficiency before the Summer - there were so many things we wanted and planned to do - and only ever achieved a fraction of them...

However, we landed up for an icecream at the beach we were at the other day...and just for fun searched to see what, if anything, remained of our art work...

seems not only has it survived the tide and sea, but someone else has found it and progressed it... the children loved it - I loved it... time for another photo - though only my phone with me to take it...

and time to add more ourselves...

aswell as starting a race to the sea in stones...R told me the tide was coming in - in fact it was on it's way out and we couldn't work fast enough to catch it without us all joining in....

interesting people's reactions - we had been putting stones in place for a while when a toddler came and took one from higher up. The lady with him was so apologetic, making him put it back and almost telling him off... we were only playing - a game almost - it wasn't important - yet somehow like a sandcastle, this line of stones had taken on an importance beyond what it was...

I wonder how long it will stay, will anyone add to it, will I see it grow or will it just return to the sea and the beach...

Don't tell me....

Please don't tell me that I grieve too much
And I won't tell you that you grieve too much
Please don't tell me that I grieve too little
And I won't tell you that you grieve too little
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong place
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong place
Please don't tell me that I grieve at the wrong time
And I won't tell you that you grieve at the wrong time
Please don't tell me that I grieve in the wrong way
And I won't tell you that you grieve in the wrong way

I may get it wrong
I will get it wrong
I have got it wrong
But please please don't tell me.

by Michael Rosen (adapted)

Some days, some times, not necessarily grief related, I just want to shout this from the rooftops...
things happen, we all have things, some of them in the past, some going on now, that we deal with, daily, or don't deal with.
Things we try to forget, try to put aside, to live life for today ~ in the moment.
We all try our best, and struggle... in so many areas of life.
We all get it wrong, but do we always need to be told...?

We do all get it wrong... but NO, we don't need to be told - chances are we already know.... or if not we'll work it out soon enough without needing someone to point it out...

Half term, holidays, yet more dentists, still there's jobs to do...

if life could go on hold.. but it can't it won't...

and then I think - perhaps it should, perhaps it can.. perhaps I can make it... perhaps I am so caught up with what needs, and should, and has to happen...
all I would do if the kids were at school - but they're not - and that maybe we should just forget everything that's sitting there and go out and have fun... do something, anything... how many people wish they could live by the beach.. could just pop down to the ocean when they feel like it?

How easily I can slip into a mind set of doing what needs to be done and being all the things I promised myself I wouldn't be when I got older - and I have to shake myself and remember why I had said I didn't want to be like that when I was a Mum - why I wanted to stay spontaneous and fun, and sod the things that can and will wait - while I enjoy the holidays - remember what it really felt like to be on the FIRST day of the holiday... it's their's why not make it mine too?
Getting to a point where I can have the same free time as them on their holidays has taken much thought and effort and now finally I can choose to live it if I want to...

so, snatched moments from today as we headed out...

And so the day progressed...

The morning was off to a brilliant start.... the sky was beautiful and the world was glowing...

I spent the morning at work and then made my way back home.
Time for a cup of tea and contemplate what to do with the rest of the afternoon until I had to collect the children... It felt unusually relaxed and peaceful for a weekday... it being Tuesday...

so I was thinking "what do I usually do on Tuesdays?" I don't usually have time to come home and drink tea...
I usually go to Yoga straight from work...
which was when I remembered that this week I had cancelled Yoga because of my son's Harvest Festival... which started at 2pm...
and the time at that exact moment was...2pm...

Ok so I'd miss most of it, but at least I could still be there to collect him at the end...

I arrive and as usual there is nowhere to park, so I leave the car at daughter's school and take the path round the back to appear less blatant about it... get to the church, say hello to the head teacher from the junior school and sit in a seat just at the back...
Just as I sit down everyone else starts to stand up...and I've missed it...

There was a moment of realisation that I could only see quite small boys...
and then I was wondering...as I registered that in fact they were ALL small boys...there were NO bigger ones...and the people I knew who were there all have at least one child in the junior school... but R is now in senior school... we left this behind last year...

Yes, I had both just made it to, and missed, the wrong Harvest Festival, and missed Yoga... much to the general amusement of my friends who were at the right Harvest festival....and very keen to point out the fact!!

there was nothing for it but to go out for tea and wait until it was time to collect S from school...

and hope my brain made it's way home from wherever I left it that morning... presumably lost looking at the sky!

Relief

Initial appearances can be deceptive...
and sometimes we are granted a lucky escape..
today was one of those times -

I thought I wanted it after the interview... till later that night when questions started to arise from information not disclosed until half way through the interview....
and questions have continued to surface like bubbles during the week, while I waited to hear - they said they were interviewing in odd lunch hours...

there were sufficient question marks for me to be concerned about what I would say if I was actually offered the job...

Call me old fashioned but I was brought up to think, and experience would lead me to believe, that it is only courteous to let applicants know by telephone if they have been successful or not...

so I took a mental step back when I found an e mail tonight telling me they had offered it to someone else - apparently a standard e mail in which they had even got my name wrong...

the equivalent I guess of being dumped by text...

rejection is never easy... but that aside, my inner feeling is one of relief... and of a whole heap of positives...

how come charities that deal with people, look after people, communicate and promote and aim to facillitate communication... are so bad at it...? Last time I found this out I was in the middle of working for one, and was hurt terribly in the process...

An interesting and worthwhile avenue to explore...however, inner feelings have to be listened to....
I've never been rejected by a prospective employer before...
which is strange for me...
my heart wasn't in it totally...
but failure doesn't come easy...
so relief wasn't the feeling I expected..

odd how things work out....

in essence the day is good...

One day, every four weeks or so, it is predictable that I would be kinder to myself and to anyone who wanders, either by intent or by chance into my world, if I just stayed huddled inside, preferably under the duvet with a good book or a good film and a constant supply of hot drinks and something warm to cuddle...

On this particular day.... it is possibly not the wisest thing to sandwich a job interview, for a job I have now decided I really would like, and would I think, find challenging and rewarding, inbetween two other exciting and productive meetings, which in itself requires a degree of mental dexterity which is lacking today more than most....

However, should I choose to focus on the upside of the meetings, which were exciting,
and that S has her photo in the local paper for her swimming at the weekend, albeit with the wrong name under it,
and that we now appear to have what I assume are tits in our box - I only saw a tail earlier, but it made me stupidly happy to think they would make a home in our box..

I would see that the day is actually quite good....

it doesn't earn me any money, and has generated lots more work in the process.... but given the fact there was little I could have done to organise things differently, it is possibly an appropriate time for that quite irritating phrase "Que Sera Sera"

* I thought it an odd time to see birds go into the box - it would seem they were only popping in and out...perhaps they check their home out for next year in advance...I'm hoping anyway :) *

Just thoughts...

Several things combined today, and initially but not solely, prompted by a beautiful e mail from one of my best friends who I haven't talked to or seen for some time, left me thinking how
a little kindness, or even just niceness,
and a little communication
can drastically change one's perspective on life...

It really isn't the big things at all...

Indulgence

Anticipation only made the desire stronger... however, my patience was rewarded and I eventually made it to town to find the boots were still there...
but not before I had spotted some other, higher, all black, leather boots that called out and asked to be bought - they are perhaps, though I'm sure I can work on it, a little impractical, but sometimes desire deserves to be indulged, and has to override practicality... a girl deserves at least one pair of 'kinky boots' in her wardrobe that make her walk taller, even if they are bad for your feet!

In fact, starved of shopping for some time now, though I haven't either missed it or had the impulsive urge to, until this week that is, I quickly found my stride... it proved to be a day where most things I tried on both fitted and looked good... and as thats a combination that doesn't often happen, it made perfect sense to take advantage of it.

Some winter shoes, a couple of jumpers and a few tops later, together with both pairs of boots, I made it back to the car just in time to collect S from school - all in all, a good day's work :)

These are the boots that sparked off this trip.... and the photo above is the rather wonderful box they came in....exquisitely packaged... AND they were reduced in the sale....

Right here, right now...

Excited, anxious, nervous, anticipating, buzzing butterflies... 5 words for today... well 5 words right now....
Five words - something Pip made me conscious of... thanks :)

should be rewriting my cv....

want to go to town in case the boots I saw have been sold and I miss out....

R is away playing football today - returns tonight, I hope he had fun, hope he was a part of a team... yesterday he played and the team didn't work - it was a two man team of nine players... I was disheartened, he wasn't. He has so many lovely qualities, and loyalty and understanding are just two of them...

The skip has just arrived, can't wait to get clearing big time...

Back to jewellery class tonight...

Too much going on - life is full again...

I like life being full, I hate asking people for references....
and I really don't enjoy it when it spills over to writing out application forms at gone midnight...
coffee is keeping my numb brain in slow motion, but at least some motion.... Those boots are stupidly becoming more and more important the later it gets...!

A day in pictures...

Today our last ever guests left and we are breathing - not learning to, or trying to, it just happened - the air feels lighter and it's as if we've moved into a new house - the card was a thank you card from them - a lovely way to end this chapter.
Thank yous are relatively rare, which makes it extra special

this lily comes out in the same place every year, all alone, the only break in the overgrown hedge, and every year I miss photographing it because it's hedge cutting time and they get to it before I do...



A familiar scene that tells me I'm nearly home...reassuring, and always beautiful.

It's blowing an absolute hoolie outside and it would seem fair to assume that we have said goodbye to summer and are welcoming winter... first conkers are around and it's almost time for log fires...
The school term is well underway and the nightly struggle to get through three or four homeworks is becoming a part of life. Tonight's music theory was testing for all of us...and brought back long hidden memories - I'd forgotten how hard I found music...

Evenings are filled with football, dancing, night classes, meetings or other after school activities, despite our best efforts to keep them to a minimum...

So, when I have had time for me, I've been busy buying flowers for and spending time with friends, fiddling and getting more familiar with flickr, playing with the new office software for our mac...and my newest distraction...facebook, which is strangely compelling...

It's not that interesting, unless you're me of course... it's just life finding some kind of rhythm after all the change

" In wild places light illuminates beauty"

clouds on the way home

Forces at work, serendipity or something else....the silver lining, the balance of nature...
the right person with the right words, not often I grant you.... but sometimes...
the right book at the right time...

after a day like today which has centered around disappointing test results from the hospital - (not mine), and a whole host of feelings, emotions, criticisms, judgements, fear and pain being unleashed in my direction,
"Beauty ~ the invisible embrace" by John O'Donohue was exactly what I needed to be reading.

To read about beauty in such a way is to rekindle something within me, to reignite and strengthen a belief in the beauty that is around me at all times, and in the beauty, tenderness, care and kindness, that remains hidden from view...

in short, it made me feel so much better

thanks to Paul for the book recommendation