So this is Christmas...

So this is Christmas
And what have we done?
Another year over
A new one just begun

Five years ago I was facing my first Christmas Eve & Christmas morning without my little girl. It was her dad's turn to have her. As a fully fledged member of Adulthood, there was no real problem with this although I wasn't relishing the thought of spending the beginning of the yuletide festivities at home with my cats - that was a life statement I was ready to make!

And there he was. My knight in shining armour. He suggested he stay over on Christmas Eve and head off to his mum's Christmas dinner the next day. I hadn't asked him to. I hadn't even dropped subtle hints, ready to get annoyed at him if he didn't pick up on them. We'd only been seeing each other a matter of weeks (about 6 by my calculation) so I was still trying to dish out the 'crazy' in very small portions, if at all!

Fast-forward a few years and he stepped up in a far more important way. Despite having done it before, it would seem that giving birth for a second time - to our enormous son - was a task for which I was ill-equipped. And without him right by my side I would still be there now trying to deliver an 18 month old!

But that little gesture five years ago - that act of kindness - is what he is all about. He hides it well under the façade of being a grumpy bugger most of the time. Bah Humbug and all that. But when something matters, large or small, he knows.

Merry Christmas, I love you.

The Human Body is an Amazing Thing, but...

The human body is an amazing thing.

However, you'd think it would be able to distinguish between a human embryo and a cold virus. As I am writing this from the discomfort and inconvenience of my cold-filled pregnant body, I can confirm that this is not the case.

I am grateful that my body has placed my immune system on 'standby', so as not to reject the tiny person growing inside me. I just wish that didn't mean that, along with all of the other changes and challenges my first trimester body has been dealing with, it has to also deal with a migraine-turned 2 day headache-turned sword swallowers sore throat-turned snot fest.

As if the first trimester weren't bad enough... We all know how pregnancy takes its toll. Obviously the most drastic changes come between not being pregnant and being pregnant. But aside from the physical, there are plenty of psychological hurdles to overcome too.

Firstly, there's the overwhelming excitement that comes with finding out you're pregnant. This very quickly becomes overshadowed by what could easily be described as parenthood. What if there's something 'wrong' with the baby? What if I miscarry? What if there's more than one?!

And no-one can answer these questions until the 'dating' scan at around 12 weeks pregnant!

As if THAT little lot weren't enough to add to the sleepless nights (already facilitated by the hormone-induced need to pee each individual teaspoon of fluid consumed and the hormone-induced aching joints), there's the anxiety over whether anyone has noticed that you're looking tubby/tired/tormented/ecstatic and whether, in turn, you've made the right decision NOT to tell anyone til you've had the all-clear.

You see, the hardest part of all is having no-one to share it with other than daddy-to-be. And we all now that, no matter how great he might be, no-one's quite like your mum/best mate/sis-in-law when it comes to having a good whinge!

Thankfully, tomorrow marks the beginning of the second trimester for me and Sprout. I expect to wake up devoid of lurgy and feeling bright and glowing. At least, that's what my pregnancy app suggested would happen...soon.

A blog's a funny thing...

It starts off as a thought, an idea, an aspiration

Quickly it becomes a project, an outlet, an escape

Quicker still, a responsibility, a weight, a burden

Rather than freeing, it has become a prison

Rather than inspiring, it conspires

No longer harnessing creativity but harbouring impotence

Finally, it becomes what it is:

I am NOT your slave!

This morning I was awoken by the BabyBoy so I fed him in bed. Then I got up. And it went rapidly downhill from there.

My daughter was dithering when faced with the insurmountable task of getting herself 'uniformed'. Apparently the required items hadn't miraculously appeared before her while she lingered in the middle of her room scratching her head. So I helped her sort it out. "Not that ball of trousers, they were the ones you stepped out of yesterday that, if I remember correctly, were soggy round the ankles from this joyous weather" (or words to that effect!

Having quickly ascertained that the clean washing would hold the key, I trotted downstairs (with my extremely achey back - no idea why when I'd just got up unless I have started night-time dead-lifting again). Oh good - both over-laden baskets of clean washing were easy to locate having remained in the same place at the bottom of the stairs for the last three days (amazing how no-one else in the family can SEE them). I trudged no. 1 upstairs, followed closely by no. 2. Sifted, sorted, folded, as I went, and found the necessary garments. Job 1 done, daughter clothed.

Now to rustle-up brekkie and a packed lunch - simple. I enter the dining room to be greeted by last night's dinner plates, leftovers and crumb-strewn table. Nice. I clear all that I can carry, juggling it towards the kitchen where, lo and behold, there is nowhere to abandon my unscheduled delivery. Last night's dinner preparations come screaming back to me - dirty chopping boards, vegetable off-cuts, used tin foil. Yummy. Lucky me. The thought flashes across my brain - I'll just load the dishwasher with it all and the kitchen will look more culinary arena than war-torn cityscape. But wait, the gift that keeps on giving has one last little joy to reveal. No-one has even managed to empty the clean things from the dishwasher.

This is the kitchen equivalent of a cul de sac. Nowhere left to go. So I plump for the only option at my disposal. I clear an area the size of a postage stamp by lobbing any rubbish (I don't care which bin it should have gone it, Mr Council Refuse Collector, it's all gone in the 'general' bin - up yours!), piling dirty utensils, crockery and cutlery on top of other dirty utensils, crockery and cutlery and proceed to the brekkie and lunch making. Breakfast is easy really - grab a bowl, balance in one hand whilst tipping cereal into it, follow with milk, seek clean spoon (remember, there are plenty in the dishwasher even if the drawer is empty) serve to half-cleared table. Make lunch. I think that's Job 2 done!

Crap. It's Friday. PE kit day. Back up the stairs to find tracksuit (for some reason this has been placed in two different parts of the bedroom (!), t-shirt, trainers...well, we had to have the customary discussion first as to why someone's 'fashion' trainers are not appropriate for school PE. But it wouldn't be Friday without covering our friendly familiar ground now would it?! We'll call the school bag, Job 3, done.

COFFEE BREAK

By that, I mean I made time to put the coffee machine on (tiptoeing all the while through the kitchen detritus) and washed up my cup. Drinking it would actually happen as an ongoing coffee phase rather than a break as such.

With my daughter's hair done (plait-ponytail combo today, if you're interested) she was safely an d swiftly shoved (with love) into the car to be dropped at school. Great - I'll pop BabyBoy into the snug, take my cooling coffee in there and park my rear end on the sofa. Seems fair considering... Of course, that is exactly what I did. The End.*



*Having cleared the dirty plates, cups, glasses and rubbish from every possible surface, seat and portion of floor which was not concealed under the toy-carpet... The toys can bugger off - they can wait 'til later - I have a bathroom to scrub today, a kitchen to retrieve, dinner to cook and a nervous breakdown to fit in first $|

Friday's Film Feast - Number 1.

Friday's Film Festival

Not quite as simple as it sounds, I assure you. Every Friday (hopefully!) I plan on choosing a film from my modest collection of DVDs but there will be nothing so straightforward as a review/summary/synopsis/critique. I plan on drawing inspiration from it - either a direct experience or memory associated with watching said film or perhaps something less direct... We'll see how it goes!
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This week's film...could easily be dismissed as a slushy rom-com. But hear me out.

I have a huge problem with online dating and computer match-making. On the one hand, it makes sense: logical, thorough, efficient. Everything that appeals to my scientific brain. In pursuit of the right career, the best-performing car, a good builder, why not use a computer system which matches your 'wanted' criteria with 'offered' criteria and advise of the results? Brilliant.

Why can't we apply the same process to meeting the right person? We just can't! How many people end up with someone who would actually fit their 'wanted' criteria? How many people go on dates with the perfect 'on-paper' partner and find that there is a chasm between them? It is as if we're hoping that, by process of elimination, we will eventually sift through the world's population until we are finally left with that one person who is The One! Only 7 billion to get through - easy.

I suppose it could work. But in reality, the head has no place in matters of the heart. That's the whole point. That's why we fall for people we meet at University, at work, through mutual friends, bumping into them in Starbucks every lunchtime... For me, there has to be an element of romance to it all. It doesn't have to be the Disney fairytale - all sweeping off feet etc... That almost never happens. But just sometimes you get the feeling you were meant to meet that special someone.

Serendipity. "...the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it."

Exactly my point. Everyone knows that when you are actually looking for something, you won't find it. Stop looking and you're bound to fall over it! To me, I think it means that it's written in the stars (feel free to puke at this point but there is a little science in my sloppiness!) The word 'seren' means 'stars' in more than just the Welsh language. Not got much to say about the 'dipity'.

Watch the film. It's a lovely story. And it somehow eases the blow when you really thought it was going to work out with someone and, for whatever reason, it didn't. Maybe that's just because it wasn't the right time. Maybe it will happen, but not yet. Perhaps what happened was exactly what was meant to be - you were supposed to be friends and nothing more. They were supposed to play a 'bit part' rather than a 'recurring character'. Some people may not play the role in our lives that we had expected, predicted or desired. That's no bad thing. It should give hope that 'things' will work out in the end. Somehow. Even when they seem to be going wrong, perhaps they're taking you one step closer to 'right'.

Buy it on Amazon for £6 - Can't argue!

Happy Friday! Have a good weekend Ponderers.
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A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words...

Sarah Grimwood (c) Taken 27/07/2008 @ 16:21

They say a picture speaks a thousand words...so welcome  to Thursday's Thousand Words!

I figured it would get boring if I just rambled away all the time so Thursdays are now photo days. Not entirely word-free, you understand.

So why this pic, you ask? Hmm... First of all, I took this photo. Secondly, I am extremely proud of it. To a proper photographer there are undoubtedly countless flaws but as a hapless amateur I have the advantage of being able to simply revel in my simple-minded appreciation of it.

One of my favourite things about this picture is all the things it doesn't tell you. Things you wouldn't even guess.

• This was taken in the UK, despite the tropical sky in the background.
• Nope, not Devon or some renowned beauty spot but Wythenshawe (Manchester).
• And I didn't visit the nearest botanical gardens where dahlias like these are tended by horticultural manicurists every five minutes
• These belong to my best friend's Mumsy who grows them on her allotment.

See, told you you'd never guess.
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Wednesdays, I Love Wales?

Yes, there is a question mark.

I spent the first 27 years of my life living in England (well, except for the travelling overseas I did whilst at Uni but for argument's sake...) I considered myself British and lived in a lovely little bubble whereby I believed all Brits thought of themselves as British and that frictions between the individual countries which make up our 'Isles' were non-existent. (Except, perhaps, between the English and Scottish which was based purely on an unpleasant experience whilst in Paris when the World Cup (1998) was on and the Scots had invaded the City of Light to inflict mean-ness on a young English girl - more about this in a Travelling Tuesday post to follow soon...)

Anyway, 8 years ago (can it really have been that long?!) I found myself separated and in need of cheap (free!) childcare for my little girl so circumstance found me moving from the Motherland to Wales (to lean on Mum & Not-da-mama). No big deal...I loved visiting them in Wales and had spent many a weekend in enjoying the mountainous terrain and monstrous weather.

I managed to find a teeny-tiny house right at the bottom of a mountain which was nothing special at all...and I loved it. Spectacular views, whatever the weather. Exhilarating driving up and over the mountains wherever I wanted to go. Starrier skies than I can remember seeing before or since. Being snowed in (something I would never have believed genuinely possible before). Enjoying every show the local brass band had to offer. Adopting the word 'cwtch' - a favourite with my daughter. I was falling in love with this place.

As the years passed however, that love has faltered. Died, perhaps. It became painfully clear that there are some very nasty Anti-English currents running through Wales' green Valleys and they, amongst other things, have taken their toll on my sunny outlook. I find myself disenchanted. Not just because of this animosity (which, by the way, is bound to reach its annual peak in the coming weeks with the Six Nations Rugby now underway - great!) It should also be pointed out that I haven't had much luck with the local men either. That makes it sound as though I've tried to mount any Welsh farmer within a thirty mile radius which, despite a few alcohol-fuelled weekends in Cardiff, I am almost certain I have never done. Not that I can claim enormous success with English (or French) men. If I had, I wouldn't have been moving to Wales post-divorce. But still, I'd managed to have my heart broken by Wales' answer to Charlie Sheen, swiftly followed by a love that was promised and yet (with hindsight) most definitely unrequited (in any real way).

So, why not move? (Or perhaps the Welsh reading this will be urging me to bugger off if I don't like it!) Well, I would have. Only, while I was busy finding the wrong Welshmen, my ex-husband and father of my lovely daughter had gone and found the right Welshwoman. Relocation would have had to have been a team effort and that just wasn't something I could have proposed! Stuck. Trapped. Perfect conditions for resentment to set in and grow...and I think it has laid down some fairly firm roots.

So, why not just be miserable about Wales and bitch about it every chance I get? Call me a glutton for punishment but I somehow ended up getting involved with Welshie III and, who knew, it would seem this is third time lucky. Four and a half years later and we are going strong. And I don't want to hate my man's homeland. And as if that weren't enough, I am now the proud joint-owner of a beautiful half-Welsh baby boy. Not to mention that my daughter has lived here since she was 18 months old. My parents live here full-time now. My brother and his family have followed.

Here's what I propose.

I'm going to endeavour to force myself to fall back in love with this nation. Is it even possible? I don't believe we can force ourselves to fall in love with a person. In fact, that song about "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" angers me greatly! But perhaps we can nurture a little seed of affection for the country we live in... Maybe all I need is to find that seed.

Where love is concerned, I am certain it is the little things that count. So, I think I'll start there. I'm going to make an effort to notice the little things again and, who knows, maybe we'll be in love before the year's out.

My First Limerick

There once was a girl born in Hackney
Near Bow Bells - a genuine cockney!
Every day she would look
In the ladybird book
Just to torment her lovely John Oakey!

Klose Enkounters of the KiKiKind

"K has a doctor's appointment so she'll be in a little later this morning. Once she's here she'll show you the ropes."

And so I sat my 20 year-old butt down and waited...That was both the bane and bliss of temping - not too much expected of you but often frustrating when you can't seem to find anything to pass the time because you're 'just a temp'.

Eventually K arrived. Smart, organised, younger than I'd thought she'd be. We danced the usual jig of getting to know each other whilst at the same time working through the basics – phone system, toilets, tea-making facilities, what the point of our office was...

It turned out she was also 20 (although she had a grown-up job and wasn't a student on summer holidays) but then she mentioned her husband and daughter! How could she have a husband (teehee!) Sounded far too grown-up! There was no chance we'd have anything in common then - apart from our age, we were lifetime's apart! I'd not long returned from a year abroad as part of my language degree (more of this another time) so was full of the joys of la liberté and she was settled down (and, yes, a proper grown-up - all I could keep thinking!)

I couldn't tell you now what it was that clicked but there we were no more than an hour in each other's company, working for a seemingly very strict council GM (who was no doubt working on something important in the adjacent office) and across the hall from a grump of an accounts clerk when something must have just clicked.

All I can liken it to is 'love at first sight' (without the sex).

We were in stitches - the type of genuine uncontrollable laughter that is both agonising and ecstatic all at once. I wonder, if we really thought long and hard about it, whether either of us could remember what lead us so quickly to falling for each other the way we did (still in an utterly asexual way, you understand).

Fast-forward 15 years and she's still my soulmate - always there, usually doing something juvenile that only I would find hilarious (we are truly hilarious).

How do we end up with people in our lives - in whichever capacity - who just seem to fit? Divine intervention? Fate? Serendipity?

Reckon if K and I pondered this over a few Raspberripolitans we could come up with the answers...might forget the question though.

An EPIC Party, summer 2008 (c) Sarah Grimwood 2013