Mothers' Day 2016

This is I the last photo I have of me with my mother,  at my sister's wedding in July 2003.  I think she is smiling as we are watching Kate aged 3 who was bridesmaid that day.

It's nearly 12 years since my mother Sadie died now and I still miss her terribly.  On Mothers' Day when friends are making a fuss of their mothers, I am jealous and so sad we lost her so young.  The first year after her death I recall crying in Morrison's when I saw the display of cards and it hit that for the first time I wouldn't be buying one.

I've just discovered that I had already written in June 2013 the post I'd planned about her while lying in bed this morning.  I'm finding that about the blog recently as I've written a few repeat posts - the snowdrops at Ness Gardens in my last post for instance.  And I notice that in my five year line-a-day diary, which is now on its second year, that this week's entries are almost identical to the same week last year.  These repetitions and routines are comforting and familiar but sometimes lull us into a false sense of security.  I feel the need to shake myself awake and remind myself that things do change and the loss of those we love is inevitable. This line from 'Stop all the Clocks' by W.H Auden comes to mind:

 'I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.'

I think it's the directness of the line which makes it so powerful.

On this Mothers' Day, I'm going to stop fussing about the usual stuff.  I won't fill my day with chores, as I often do, or get lost in lesson preparation and getting ahead for the week.  I'm going to spend the day giving my full attention to my husband and daughter who are now beginning to emerge this morning, so I'll finish here.

I love this photograph of us celebrating Mum's 70th birthday with Dad, Kate aged 2 and her cousin Alice

Dickens versus Insomnia

Life is stressful in our house at present. Work stress for both husband and me; GCSEs for Kate.  And uncertainty about next year's plans too. Kate has to choose A levels and a new school for September and there are decisions to be made for all of us.  As a result there is a fair amount of grumpiness and, for me, sleep problems as I tend to wake at night and worry about things.  I've written about my battle with insomnia before and my attempts to deal with it have had limited success.  I'm now bored with the Mindfulness book audio tracks I used for a while to help reduce stress.  It does work in helping me switch off, but it sometimes seems such a waste of time lying there thinking about 'just this breath in and this breath out' when there are more interesting things to do. ( I kind of feel the same about 'relaxation' in yoga)

So I have a new weapon. I recently discovered audio books, thanks to Christina who has blogged about her love of 'reading' this way.  After a few technical hitches I succeeded in downloading to my phone Dickens' 'David Copperfield' for 99p, choosing this mainly because of price: if I didn't like the audio book experience, I wouldn't have wasted much money.

One of the problems with my insomnia is that it affects everyone else.  If I get up and go downstairs, it's cold and it disturbs my husband; the Kindle 'Nook', my birthday present last year, which is designed for reading in bed, actually emits quite a bright light which disturbs my husband and my neck gets sore after a while.  Listening to my phone with headphones is less annoying for him. (Although not when I fail to put the headphones in properly, as I did last night, waking him up with a blast of DC!) And I can stay cosy and warm, lying down fully relaxed with my eyes closed as I listen.

So I'm loving listening to 'David Copperfield', a classic I never quite got round to. It's narrated by someone called Peter Batchelor whose voice is fairly inoffensive although he attempts a squeaky voice to convey David as a child which is a bit annoying. So, instead of visualising nightmare work scenarios or rerunning things in my head at 3am, I'm picturing Aunt Betsy riding her pony trap through Canterbury or Uriah Heap rubbing his hands, or Mr Micawber telling David of his latest financial problems.  Brilliant.  I don't sleep any more, but at least I am relaxing and,

after a hour or sometimes two, I go back to sleep.  It's 32 hours long. I have 23 left so it was well worth the 99p.  And plenty more Dickens to go.  And then I might start on Hardy.

Half-term Holiday Catch Up

Half term is nearly over and my plans for the week thwarted by  a nasty cold virus which has wiped me out for the last few days.  So the outings we'd planned were cancelled and chores remain unfinished. Still, at least there was time to relax, read and watch a bit of television.  I even summoned up enough energy to clean the oven yesterday.

Kate and I had one day out earlier in the week.  We went to Ness Gardens to see the snowdrops.  I've blogged about this before but make no apologies.  I love snowdrops as for me they signal the end of winter. They are so fragile and delicate yet seem to survive frost, wind and rain to appear in the bleakest months of the year.  As a child I always loved finding the snowdrops in the same neglected corner of the back garden. We picked some and put them in jars on the windowsills but they didn't last long and are better enjoyed where they grow.  And later, dad planted a whole host of them in the front garden where they are probably flowering right now with none of us there to see them.  We don't have any in our own garden - you're supposed to buy and plant them nowish after they finish flowering and I've never got round to it.  Must make an effort this year.

We also found some brave primroses tempted out early by the mildish winter.  I bet they regretted it as it was freezing on Monday: as you can see above I am fully wrapped up in sheepskin.

And there were some other winter flowers on show.  I'm no gardening expert but I think the pink one is a camellia and the other is a hellebores.  Correct me if I'm wrong.  I'm not so concerned about names and varieties but I do love a garden visit and Kate indulged me in return for lunch before returning to her history coursework preparation. A lovely day out.  And if the rains hold off today, perhaps we'll manage another half term outing.

The Year in Books: Binge Reading

I'm not sure the Year in Books link up is still there but I wanted to write a books post to share what I've been reading recently.  I've written before about 'The History of the Rain' by Niall Williams, a book I read last summer and then reread right away - I read it quickly as I was desperate to know what happened to the narrator so there was a lot I didn't fully grasp first time as it kind of meanders, back and forward in time and there are so many references to other books.  It's been hard to find something to match it since.

I read and admired 'A God in Ruins' by Kate Atkinson, which also jumps back and forward in time. But I found it a bit disappointing after all the hype and preferred her book 'Life after Life'.  It was obviously very well researched and I should have been interested with all the detailed descriptions of what it was like to be a fighter pilot.  But it felt like homework, improving reading, at times rather than the escapism I like my reading to provide.  'A Place Called Winter' by Patrick Gale, who I usually love, didn't grab me either.  All that bleak landscape and hard work.

I enjoyed 'Number 11' by Jonathan Coe, for its humour and portrayal of modern Britain, particularly the chapters which make fun of celebrity game shows, but, again, it lost pace towards the end.  I also read a book 'One by One in the Darkness' by a writer called  Deirdre Madden who was born and brought up near me in Northern Ireland.  She'd obviously drawn from her own experiences of growing up in the 70s and it was interesting to read about the Troubles from a different perspective.

Last week I indulged in a bit of binge reading, having found one of those elusive books that absorbs me so much I don't want to put it down.  It was passed on to me by a friend who has excellent taste. It's 'The Girl in the Red Coat', a first novel by Kate Hamer.  Reading it reminded me a little of 'Room' by Emma Donoghue as it's about the abduction of a child. Some of the chapters are narrated by the 8 year old child, the others by her mother.  Even though it was a very busy week at work, I ignored marking, housework, family and lost sleep until I got to the end within a couple of days.  Highly recommended and better than the other recent thriller books with 'Girl' in the title (The Girl on the Train' didn't appeal me much.)

Highly recommended.  Now I just need to find another to match it.  Any ideas out there?

Celtic and Other Connections

If you read Christina's Colourful Life, you'll know where I was at the weekend.  We went to Glasgow to the Celtic Collections music festival.  My husband goes every year and this time I managed to join him, escaping from school early on Friday afternoon. I enjoyed the concert, but what I enjoyed just as much was meeting Christina who lives in Glasgow. Even though I suggested the meet up, I was a bit uncertain.  Would it be awkward? Would we have anything to say to each other in real life?  Well the answer is, yes we did - she was friendly and chatty and I felt like I'd known her for ages.  Before the concert we met her in a pub on George Square, a former bank which was very impressive.  We recognised each other straight away - she was wearing the blue duffle coat she'd made herself and blogged about.  So we talked about our families and books and work and all sorts really.  I already knew a lot about her as I've been reading her post regularly for a couple of years.  Then we went and had a meal in the fish restaurant we always go to when in Glasgow, Gandolphi Fish, and chatted some more.  I'm convinced now of the value of blogging - you can actually make friends online.  No time to write more now - need to get ready for work.

Mockingbird v Mockingjay

I've tried and failed to persuade my daughter to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.  She did start but it was a bit slow for her.  I suppose that bit at the beginning about the history of the Finch family is off-putting for some.  She likes more action and particularly enjoyed the 'Divergent' series by Veronica Roth.  It, like The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins, is set in a dystopian future society and features a strong female character who takes on evil tyrants and corrupt leaders.  There's always a love interest but this doesn't distract the heroine too much from her quest to conquer evil. Both books have spawned a series of films, hugely popular with teenage girls.

Last night, as a reward for surviving a week of back-to-back mock examinations, I took Kate to see the latest of these films based on The Hunger Games, Mockingjay; Part 2.  Usually I avoid these films and she goes with friends but no one was around so I went along, expecting to fall asleep as I am prone to do on a Friday evening.  I dozed a bit at first but then woke up mainly because it was an incredibly violent and frightening film.  I had to cover my eyes in the part where Katniss Everdene (the 'mockingjay', a teenage girl who, like James Bond, seems to have an uncanny ability to survive every attempt to kill her) and her companions are attacked by zombie-like creatures in an underground tunnel. And this is certified 12A?  I certainly wouldn't be happy taking a 12 year old to this.  Sometimes I think they get these certificates wrong - the, Guardian review of the film also makes this point.  I'm worried about showing Zefferelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' to my Year 10 group because it has a 15 certificate, presumably because at one point we see Romeo's bare bottom.  This is hardly going to upset 14-15 year olds, but I bet some of the younger teenagers who watched Mockingjay Part 2 were traumatised by it: I certainly was!

There has been much discussion in the press about whether Katniss is a good role model for young women.  In general, I think she is: she is independent, strong and has a clear sense of justice.  She doubts herself but goes ahead with what she has to do anyway. But I felt the final scene of the film with Katniss cradling a baby while Peeta, the more sensitive of her two suitors,  plays with a toddler in a sunlit meadow was a bit disappointing and ultimately unconvincing. Why wasn't she leading the new regime instead of the army commander who was chosen instead? And what happened to Gale, her other love interest?

Despite the violence, these are good books for teenage girls.  Certainly better than the Virginia Andrews 'Flowers in the Attic' books they used to read when I started to teach.  But I'd still be happier if they were reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

Look to the future now..it's only just begun

These words from Slade's 1973 Christmas song, which is played endlessly every year, always catch my attention. So I'm going to take Noddy Holder's advice and will 'look to the future'.  This doesn't mean that I'll totally stop writing nostalgic posts about memories like my last one; I'm just going to live for now and leave behind things that hold me back or haven't worked for me. This is what is going:

1. Attempting to live a minimalist/waste free lifestyle
Inspired by Claire from Just a little Less, I have tried in the last two years to change my lifestyle and buy only what I need.  This has not worked and causes stress at home because I haven't been able to convince the rest of the household to do the same.  I tried: bought my husband a copy of Stuffocation: Living more with Less for his birthday.  He hasn't read it: I have.  And he continues to buy endless gadgets, cycling gear, musical instruments..  I am now learning to accept this rather than getting annoyed.  And I enjoy shopping for clothes with my daughter (for the first couple of hours anyway) so I'm not going to feel guilty about treating myself to the occasional frivolous purchase.

2. Extreme decluttering
Bought the Marie Kondo book 'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up' and tried her method (Do you need/love this item?  If not bin it!)   I gave a really warm comfy, good quality Celtic Collection grey wool cardigan to the charity shop.  More fool me, as I want it now.  Our house is still relatively untidy.  This doesn't matter much.

3. Excessive Worry about Work
I've been working a lot more this year and have surprised myself as I've coped well, not getting as stressed as I have done in the past. It's getting older I reckon: I don't worry so much about what others think about me.

And looking to the future...  

Well I'm going to do the conventional New Year thing and improve my fitness.  I've been inspired by another self-help book, a Christmas present from my sister who has recently discovered yoga and has an inspirational teacher, Nicola Jane Hobbs.  She has just published this book - it features my sister's friend Carol, who is my age, as one of the success stories. (Regular readers of this blog may note that I've said before I'm giving up self-help books.  This one is different - I didn't buy it myself..)

 I've let my exercise habit slip since the summer when I was hitting my activity goal every day according to my Polar Loop monitor.  Davina Fit in 15 minutes hasn't been working for me recently as my knees aren't up to the jumping involved. The Yoga Gym is a good alternative and combined with regular dog-walking should help me feel better and maintain flexibility.  I'll track my progress on here.

Happy New Year to you all!