To Pete

You’re 18. That means in the eyes of the law, you are a man. You can go to war, be tried as an adult if you commit a crime, do your own thing (within reason), etc Where did the past 18 years go? It went so fast. Too fast. It seems like only yesterday you were born, a fine 9 pounder memorably summed up by the Scottish nurse on duty – ‘ahh you are the one who gave birth not to a boy but to a man’. And what a beautiful man you have become. Even now with the occasional teenage grunts and seeming inability to recognise a mess, one grin from you and my heart melts. I enjoy your company and in the past few years when it has just been you and me, your presence just sitting silently on the sofa makes me feel complete. The years to come hold so much. Ups and downs, to be sure. I am not fooling myself into thinking that there will be no struggles, but as always you should know that I am 100% committed to getting through those struggles with you and you growing stronger in the process.

You have never made me feel like you were lacking anything in your childhood and I hope I have managed to be the mum I wanted to be to you – supportive and loving and giving you the grounding to be able to have confidence in your abilities. It would have been so easy for you to have felt sorry for yourself with the hand you were dealt but never have you played the victim. I worry whether there are issues you keep to yourself. I hope not. Everyone who encounters you loves you and that makes me so proud.

Next year you will encounter a whole new range of experiences, make new friends and really start to grow up. I want you to know that now it is in effect over, your childhood has been a real gift to me and that through all the ups and downs of the last 18 years, I am so proud of you. Your beautiful eyes. Your infectious smile. Your sense of humour. I am your Number One Fan (well maybe tied with Kate) and always will be.

We’ve had our tense moments as mother and son especially recently with you growing into a man but ALWAYS AND FOREVER you are my baby boy .

twenty ten

Long time since I posted. Two months have passed. Christmas has been and gone. The country has ground to a halt after a few days of snow.

A friend commented that I didn't include a lot of the big things that have happened on here. Its tricky deciding whether this should be a baring of the soul. By its very nature you know that anything you put down here is up for public consumption and censure. I have avoided including the very personal or references to individuals. But does that make this an insubstantial record.

2009 a year of ups and downs. Sudden death which threw me for a long time. Proud moments as my first born graduated. Departures. Brief returns. It was all there. But alongside it was the realisation that the same person I became when I was on my own with Kate and Pete was still there. That Kate and Pete will always be the most important things in my life. They shore up everything I do. I am so proud of their intellect, their wit, their independence. And I made new friends. Reawakened old passions.

This week a gesture by someone I have never actually met touched me and made me feel very special. With very little knowledge of me, he deemed me worthy of generosity that added to my camera portfolio.

I wonder why the person who should be by my side never seems to see me as a person worth making effort and sacrifice for.

D Day (or thank you Bella)

I finally did the deed and went to have my molar out at the dentist. In a moment of clarity I cancelled the initial appointment to have an impression for a replacement tooth (cant bring myself to say false) as with Christmas approaching couldn't justify spending £200 on something I still didn't know was necessary. To ensure I didn't do a runner like last time took Bella along as my Dumbo feather. Knowing someone would be in the waiting room, would be enough to stop me bottling it. But more importantly it would stop me feeling alone - the fear was enough without adding self pity to the cocktail.

So I drove round to Bella's feeling remarkably chipper which confused my 'carer' somewhat as she was expecting a blubbering wreck. Instead we joked, mocked and made our way to the torture scene. And even as we took our place in the waiting room I had none of the bubbling feelings of loss of control as last time. In fact I did feel slightly ashamed as a 40 something man with special needs (never sure what the current PC allowed term is - that probably isn't it) who genuinely needed a carer sat beside me clutching an A4 piece of paper at the top of which was written his name, Simon then a picture of a clock showing 11.15 and a picture of a tooth and scraper (maybe unnecessary). He was obviously terrified which manifested itself in loud animal whimpers.

Anyway soon my turn so all human empathy evaporated and it was back to me, me, me. My petite Italian (not eastern European at all as I had thought previously) looked suitably concerned - probably wondering if she was going to put up with this middle aged cry baby again. I assured her I would behave and in true dentist style she insisted on asking questions that required more than yes or no answers while sticking a huge needle into my gum. I would like to say that I don't know what I was worrying about and hardly noticed as the tooth slid out but it was as bad as I had feared. Not painful granted but feeling someone seemingly try and push your tooth through your jaw and out the top of my head is not a feeling I think I will ever shrug off as one of those things. Admittedly not quite a scene from Saw but unpleasant nevertheless. All the while I am trying not to gag on my saliva while big Disney tears bounce off my cheeks.

Soon enough the bloody tooth is lying in the stainless steel kidney bowl while my mouth is packed with gauze. I grunt some form of thanks and walk with slightly wobbling legs into the waiting room and nod towards the door at my carer now turned chauffeur. Putting her sketch book away and bidding farewell to her new friends in the waiting room, Bella skipped out beside me hardly able to believe her luck that I would be confined to being a grunting mute all the way home.

And that is that. Even after the anaesthetic wore off, there was little to no pain. I have spent the whole weekend terrified of it getting infected or developing the innocent sounding but allegedly agonising dry socket syndrome so have been rinsing with corsodyl for England. Most importantly the gap is not noticeable at all - unless I decide to grin like a chimp.

Thanks, Bella

Camden Market

A day in Camden Town is one of my favourite ways to spend the day. A catacomb of shops and smells and characters and food stalls. Even better on a sunny October day. Gothic, Vintage, Tribal, Punk and any item that may be categorized as Alternative...you'll find it there.... A buffet of international cuisines.

We wander endlessly through piles of multi-coloured and multi-feathered hats, trunks and battered leather luggage that will soon become coffee tables, records, cds, winding racks of

outlandish faux fur... leather jackets to Hello Kitty sweatshirts to summer dresses, a myriad of shops selling everything in a really colourful, deliciously smelling, and crowded way. The novelty factor probably comes into play but I love spending time in London. I love the tube.

I love the cacophony of different languages that greet you everywhere. It feels like a real cosmopolitan city. And as if one market was not enough, as the november sun disappeared in the early evening we wandered to Portobello as they packed

away. The day was finished off with dinner at one of my favourite restaurants – the Grand Bazaar just off Bond Street. A tardis of a restaurant whose exterior belies the Aladdin’s Cave of lamp-lit Moroccan delicacies within.

Its a roller coaster

The last ten days - literally and metaphorically. Starting with my birthday which I think will go down in the annals as my worst one ever. Having started the week with a nagging toothache I had made an appointment on none other than my birthday. What was I thinking? She took one look at the offending tooth, took an x ray and pronounced it beyond help - well on the NHS at least. I had one option of seeing the specialist to see if it would respond to root canal treatment. And as luck (?) would have it he had an appointment free that afternoon. So another forty minutes sitting in the waiting room to be told the same thing - I could spend upwards of £500 but there would be no guarantee. So nearly an hour and a half later I emerged feeling consumed by self-pity only to find a parking ticket slapped on my windscreen. Yes I had managed to find the only bit of the road that was for permit holders only while everywhere else had two hours. It was the proverbial last straw and I sobbed like a good 'un.

But there were good times to come - two days later Peter and I drove up to meet Kate and Jimmy at Alton Towers and had a perfect day. Blue skies. No queues. Junk food and fast rides galore. Kate came home with us for the weekend and it was nice to have her home again if only briefly. And with Pete taking time off work, lunch at Las Iguanas and a horror film made for quality family bonding time.

But the spectre of the dentist could not be put off for long. And this Friday the extraction was nigh. Ensuring I was legally parked this time, I stocked up on ibuprofen and told myself the phobia was all in my head. So far so good. No magazines in the waiting room due to swine flu (wtf?!) so nothing to do but dwell on what lay ahead. One by one the four other people disappeared into the various consulting rooms, emerging with cheery smiles. And still my name wasn't called. And I could feel the self pitying tears welling up. And then I was on my own in the waiting room so there was no social obstacle to me blubbing. Dabbing in ladylike fashion at my eyes was not stemming the flow so by the time I went in, it was a full blown tsunami. The tiny pretty perfectly toothed Romanian dentist looked at me curiously 'Oh why are you crying?'. Oh I don't know maybe because you are about to rip a tooth from my head and leave me destined to be single forever, looking like a toothless Jeremy Kyle reject. (I should point out here that I know this is totally irrational). Upshot being she decided I was not in a good place to have a tooth out - quite when she thinks I may arrive at that place, god knows. So again I drove home peering through a veil of tears feeling totally alone. I needed someone. Someone to hold my hand. Someone to gently push me in the right direction. Someone to take over the decision process. Put simply I was tired of being responsible for everything - including me.

And that feeling of woe threatened to hang around until the saviour arrived in the shape of Bella who despite suffering the effects of a monumental hangover took me out to breakfast at the Castle where with Ellen and Pete we laughed and joked and mocked Bella's sufferings. And the self-pity receded as quickly as it arrived.

true friendship

I have always trotted out the same phrase that I make friends easier with men than women but the last two weekends have opened my eyes up to that not quite being the case. I think on one level men seem to get me more quickly than the majority of women I meet and socially it has always been easier to be in a male dominated environment than female - ironic given that I went to an all girls school. But I now realise that although I may not have hordes of female friends and be the Girl Most Other Girls Want To Be Friends With, the female friends I do have are very special and certainly without them the last year would have been a lot tougher. My midweek glasses of wine with Ros punctuate the long working week perfectly and we seem to be able to cover a myriad of topics every time. A lunch with Bella was funny and chat filled. And I am lucky enough that the photography club has thrown up not just people with the same hobby but a new friend who is as unpc and coarse as me - and brilliant at producing those communications which result in a coffee down the nose moment at work. Then a brunch with Hannah who I havent worked with for nearly two years but who is always so pleased to see me and me her. Next month should see a gathering of the Beccy High Crew - the five of us covering every statistic for our generation - divorces, marriages, single parenthood, high fliers, cruisers (me!). But no matter the interval between meets, we revert back to the five school girls messing about in the common room.

I am lucky to have some very good girl friends. Not forgetting my best friend.....

I love where I live

What a difference three months makes – back in July I was about to disappear into a slough of self-pity. The lows were definitely starting to win over the highs. This weekend sitting quietly for a few moments I suddenly realised I had a feeling I hadn’t felt for a long time – contentment. I have rediscovered my love of photography. After a weekend of the Arts Festival in Bradford-on-Avon, I was struck by how lucky I feel to live here. It is a lovely town with lovely people. Ironic given that my contentment with where I lived was flung in my face a year ago as if it somehow it made me a dullard with no sense of adventure. That said the accuser has spent the last 12 months away doing absolutely nothing that would come under the heading wild explorer preferring to while away their days in the haunts they grew up in.

I have joined the local photography club and as clichéd as it sounds it was enough to jolt me out of feeling lost. The first night I went though I sat outside for ten minutes summoning up the courage to go in. They are a good crowd. It was good for me to regain my sense of self again. And boy have I given my camera some hammer as a result. Downside – I am now toying with getting a new one as certain limitations on the Fuji frustrate me. Birthday coming up so maybe I will treat myself….

The arts festival was a great weekend. Sun shone from morning til late afternoon. I helped out with me new camera buddies with a Group exhibition and a competition. Snapping away in between. The theme of four seasons was most dramatically captured by the snow scene created in the library carpark – made all the more dramatic by the sun shining down on the fake snow while the kids played.

A perfect weekend. So inspired was I that when I got home I cleaned the house – may need to rein this in.