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

How the caretaker almost lost his life

As of 21:30 last night, I had been abandoned. Daughter tucked up in bed, baby boy fast asleep in his buggy downstairs and DaddyBear had turned in for the night. This could be construed as the perfect opportunity for some Me-time. But it wasn't.

Apart from a severe allergy to going to bed so early that you can still taste your dessert, I was nominated (!) to stay up just until BabyBear awoke for his next change/feed. No point turning in before that - he'd be awake in an hour at most.

Well, to cut a long story short, that's how it got to 1am before my head hit the pillow. And not because he finally woke up, because I gave up waiting! Lucky I did as he didn't wake 'til 5am!

So, a very tired me went to bed grumpy only to be woken by DaddyBear when his alarm went off, again when he slammed the shower door, again when he dropped a coat hanger onto our wooden bedroom floor...you get the picture. This meant that BabyBear also awoke and the day began waaaaay too early.

Despite the extra preparation time, we still ended up in a rush to get to school slightly late. Bugger. This meant I grabbed the car seat (and now sleeping contents!) and heaved it all the way to the main school entrance in order to sign my daughter in as 'late'.

I would say I reached the brink of insanity when the Late Book asked for my "Reason for Lateness". It seemed a stupid question. Why does anyone arrive at their destination 3 minutes later than intended? Which of the contributory factors from my erghy morning did they want to hear about? The pooey leaky nappy? The last minute feed as we should have been out the door? The tractors/learner drivers/old folk who dawdle their way in front of us for as much of our journey as they can manage? I plumped for the most succinct response I could muster on 4 hours sleep: Life!

Following my pithy answer and successful delivery of my sprog to her educational establishment, I was just beginning my decent into the pool of peaceful accomplishment. Enter said caretaker. He'd locked the gate I needed to use to reduce my trudge back to the car by about half. Grrrr. Then mumbled in the opposite direction about how I'm not allowed to park in that car park anyway.

I always feel honestly is the very best policy. So I opted to advise this crap weasel that I didn't care a jot. Rather than detect the warning signs all around him - my barely-open eyes, grey complexion and straining muscles - he took his life is his own hands and dared to 'passive-aggressive' me! "I'll remember that".

Oh really Mr Caretaker! Grrr. Fume. Growl. So many things rushing through my mind, desperately looking for a way out through my mouth and into the playground. If I hadn't been carrying a car seat full off baby, his life came close to ending via the means at my disposal - death by bike rack/school gate/flower pot!

I took the high road and walked away, leaving him in perfect health. But I can't promise he'll survive another run in like that.

Erm...

I sit here. Boyfriend out of the way. Baby sleeping soundly. Pretty Woman for background company. Laptop in front of me (iPad & mobile adjacent).
I am literate. Highly-opinionated. Articulate by nature. A true lover of language and expression.
And I find myself on mute. Nothing to say. Or rather, no specific subject in mind. Why is this?
I can only surmise that it is, in fact, caused by having too many things to say. Having just (9.5 weeks ago but I'm sure I can get away with 'just' for a little while longer) had a baby, I have spent the best part of a year with a brain made of holes held loosely together by disorganised nonsense and baby-related bunkem. Now the fog has lifted and I can't hone in on ONE sensible thread as there is a myriad thoughts which, once forming an orderly queue, awaiting their moment of glorious expression, now like toddlers - one enormous, undiscernible rabble (covered in dribble).
One can only hope this will pass as the knot untangles and the threads return to coherent thoughts & opinions.
Watch this space...my next blog could be about cucumbers, jet engines or the state of modern telephone directories.
Interesting times ahead.

Silence is golden?

I'm not impressed. It's fair to say that I am usually an advocate of modern technology, of advancements which render our lives that bit easier/more fun/more efficient.
Take, for example, the iPad. Amazing invention which no-one actually needs and yet everyone wants. But what really impresses is the strange turn of events which follows the acquisition of said technological wonder. It becomes instantly indispensable. "How did we ever live without it?"
Do not mistake me - being able to watch TV/listen to music/look-up a recipe/engage via the current plethora of social media from the comfort of your own sofa/kitchen/loo is a privilege which should be made available to all. Very handy. And instantly indispensable.
However, I have a gripe. Typing on a touchscreen is a soulless experience. There is something missing. It just feels wrong somehow. And then it dawns on me. There is no satisfying 'tap tap' from the keyboard. The little clicks that mark your constant progress across the page. The comforting sound that harks back to the days of typewriters, ribbons and manual carriage returns "ding". Yes, "keyboard sounds" are available on all modern devices nowadays but their synthetic plinks and plonks are worse than this enforced and soulless silence.
So, as I 'type' away on my iPad, occasionally making my own taps each time I catch my fingernails on the screen, it dawns on me that there is, in fact, one single advantage to this muffled prose - my sleeping baby remains just that, asleep.

Distance

I wonder whether we are supposed to think of distance in the same way as we consider age - just a number. If we are, then the number is a mere 5355 miles. Nothing really. Except it is so much more than a number.
It's really not just the inconvenience. Well, having said that, I could have done with him being here when I came home to no electricity. When I realised there were far too many lightbulbs that need replacing. When I noticed the over-flowing bins. When I couldn't be bothered sorting the dirty washing. When I felt chilly curled up on the sofa.
It isn't even the fact that I'm on my own. I quite enjoy my own company (if I do say so myself). I can manage to concoct my own dinner. Do the shopping. Watch some TV. Scout for films. Chat to friends & family. Avoid housework (at all costs).

I miss him.

Not in a pathetic way. He's my buddy. My bear. My true love. And today is only Day One. From tomorrow he moves even further away - 11412 miles! And there are 13 more days to go...