Lucy Fur Leaps!

LucyFurLeaps Has Moved

2011-06-23T03:57:00.000-07:00

Here is my new permanent address: www.lucyfurleaps.com

Do join me!

Love xxx

Leaping...

2011-06-21T09:13:00.001-07:00

Summer Solstice, the end of the beginning....and the last post here...I am leaping across to www.lucyfurleaps.com full time...I do hope you will join me. It's been a hard decision to call time on my blogspot, where I have been so comfortable and met so many great people who have been kind enough to read my posts.

Big Wheel Keeps on Turning
Love, love, love
xxx

Wordless Wednesday: The Wheels On The Bus

2011-06-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

Makeover Week

2011-06-06T03:25:00.000-07:00

I am having a long overdue makeover week. Everything is looking a bit tired and fusty and needs sorting out, chucking out or freshening up. The tiredest and most fustiest looking article is yours truly...so it is time for some beauty sleep, healthy eating and an image overhaul of some kind.
Love xxx

Photographic

2011-06-04T15:08:00.000-07:00

My camera has finally given up after five and a half years of stalwart service. It was the last Christmas present I was given by my Mum, so I am sorry to let it go but it has been wonderful, and I have taken thousands of photos with it.
In that time technology has moved on in leaps and bounds and for my 40th birthday last year I was very lucky to receive a Flip camera. I have been experimenting with, and will have some proper time to investigate and learn to use it properly now, including its capacity to take stills.

Saturday

2011-06-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

6.30am Woken by Sam, breakfast of bowl of shreddies and juice (him) toast and marmalade and black coffee (me),Mary Poppins dvd and a read of yesterday's Guardian, empty and load washing machine and hang out washing, tidy computer desk and clean dining room table and hoover dining room.
8.45 Organise birthday present for friend, phonecall, bath me and Sam, get dressed, pack bag, find library books and dvds, dash to football.
9.30 Football - Sam has suddenly found his stride and turned into a fast runner and a good kicker
10.15 A trip to the 'Numbers' caff for chocolate milkshake (him) black coffee (me) and a copy of the Peppa Pig magazine (him) and Guardian for me.
10.45 Shopping, fill car up with petrol (wince at price) return home, make picnic lunch and put shopping away.
11.30 Collect niece, drive to local shopping centre, visit library to return Sam's books and dvds and he selects new ones. Eat lunch in the park and have races and play hide and seek.
1.30 Take niece clothes shopping for her birthday present and take Sam to the toy shop for bubbles, balloons and replacement whoopee cushion.
3.00 Return to car, Drop niece home, Sam falls asleep, get home and leave him asleep while I sit on the front step with coffee and shortbread biscuits and read the Guardian Weekend magazine.
4.30 Sam wakes up, put on 'Bolt' dvd from the library for him to watch, race Lightning Macqueen cars and then go outside and play catch, try out my new hula hoop, water the garden including veg patch, then pour water on our bare feet and make foot prints on the patio.
7.00 Get washing in, cook tea, listen to Craig Charles on 6Music, dance with Sam to Gil Scott Heron, get him ready for bed, read stories.
9.00 Feel tired and grumpy, feel blessed.

All We Ever Wanted (Was Everything)

2011-04-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a challenging week for all kinds of reasons. So I was glad to see the beautiful golden-washed moon this evening. All these things shall pass...

I am very greedy and want everything- mostly I want what is not possible and once again travel the circle of wishing in vain, feeling disappointed, frustrated, sad, blaming myself, realising it isn't my fault, accepting what is, letting go...

What I want most is for Sam to be happy and for us to have a home, a family life and a support network. We have some of of this...we do not have some of this...

I am playing the long game.

Love and a Bauhaus tune
xxx

Cybele - the orginal Mother

2011-04-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

What you might not know about 'Mothers' / Mother's Day' is that, like other seasonal family celebrations it has its roots in Christianity - actually it doesn't - it's roots are far older than that.

Orginally it was the Roman festival of Hilaria, a celebration of the Goddess Cybele, which may explain April Fools Day...? I kid you not....

The Christian Church appropriated this Pagan festival, as they did with so many others... Easter (Eostre), Christmas, Candlemas etc etc...

Christians, up until the early part of the twentieth century would gather at their 'Mother' church on 'Mothering Sunday' to acknowledge the Virgin Mary and celebrate the Church in general, on the fourth sunday of Lent.

So, if like me, as a single mother, with no mother to make a fuss of, and noone to make a fuss of you, you feel a bit narked by yet another occasion where you feel you don't fit into the stereotype... of the family who brings gifts of flowers and treats and takes Mummy out for a nice lunch... and you don't have a husband or partner to cook you that breakfast in bed or buy you some jewellery...

Don't worry! It's another mirage offered up by advertising that, for the most part, doesn't exist, and it's a bad idea to try and live up to it. That's when I start to feel sorry for myself, and I hate that...

When Sam can make me a card, that will be great. He gave me a daisy the other day- and told me he loved me- what more could I ask for from my son?

There are plenty of us who are doing our best on our own to provide for our kids and be good mums. There are mothers today who are working, or looking after sick and disabled kids, who are struggling with debts, who are homeless, who may have noone to acknowledge they are doing a fine job.

To all of them I salute you - HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

My garden is full of wild violets, apparently sacred to Cybele...Goddess Mother of Mothers...

Love, Love, Love
xxx

Six Years Ago Today

2011-04-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

What an April Fool I felt as my Dad drove me and the few possessions that hadn't been put in storage back to London. Heartbroken and leaving my home, work, friends and life as well as my failed marriage and my dreams in Bristol, a city I had taken to my heart and did not expect to leave.

Six years later I am about to finish my degree in creative writing and journalism, just about to get my first poem in print, and accepted to do an MA next year. I got to spend precious time with my Mum before she died. I made a radio series on shoes for Resonance FM. I got to hang out with my best friend again.

Most importantly I had Sam and became a mother. I got to be me on my own terms, and I am back living near, if not quite in my beloved Smoke.

I have made some great new friends, stayed in contact with some old ones and gradually forgiven myself for what happened, let go and moved on.

Sam and I spent this afternoon hanging out together in London and having fun...long may it continue...

Love, Love, Love xxx

Calling Time

2011-03-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

Things are moving very fast at the moment, so I have little time to blog.
I am not sure how much longer I will be 'here' at my old faithful blogspot.
Maybe I will stay here but it is more likely this chapter is coming to an end and I will be moving all of LucyFurLeaps writing ops elsewhere...

Love, Love, Love

Get in

2011-03-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

Two weeks since my last post. This is a marker. I am mid-way through my final semester and running around like a headless chicken, trying to keep up and get ahead at the same time.

I am also scheduling in early nights, leaving the washing up til the next day, and the veg patch hasn't even been dug over...I know when I've overdone it and at that point I stop- and sometimes I even manage to not overdo it in the first place.

At the end of this semester I will then complete all the assignments from the last semester which I was too poorly to submit. When everyone else has finished and is getting pissed and breathing sighs of relief I will be starting a new/old batch of work.

Mildly frustrating but at least this way I hope to have a chance of decent marks so it will be worth it. At Christmas I was too poorly to work. At the moment I am ok but still getting very tired sometimes.

The hard work is bearing fruit.

I am a published writer and a poet.

This is the beginning of something new and good.

Head down until I get all the work done and pass my degree.

Love, Love, Love xxx

Happy Birthday Mum

2011-02-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

My Mum would have been 63 today. My sister and I went and did some nice things that she liked to do, to remember her in a way she would hopefully appreciate. Spending too much on make up at the Christian Dior counter in Harvey Nichols was one such thing, and today was the first time we had been back there since she died in 2006. And oddly, the Christian Dior counter had vanished! So no memorial lippy-trying-on...
Thirty years ago today I gave Mum "Woman" by John Lennon on 7" vinyl for her birthday...
"I'm forever in your debt...I love you"
Love, love, love xxx

Rent a Gob

2011-02-08T01:43:00.000-08:00

I think my writing is about to change again.
I have been writing elliptically and that has been a good and useful process.
Now for some bile and purging and self indulgence.
Maybe on here and maybe not.
I am not going to keep my mouth shut anymore.
It's time to be gobby.

Knitbone at Imbolc

2011-01-31T13:27:00.000-08:00

The cast is off
This snake has shed its skin
And won’t be charmed back in

If a plaster cast could be a metaphor
For the past, I will remember
How rigidly it bound me

I cast a spell banishing
Then
Casting on, knitting
Now
Blasting off

Feeding Sam - a story about breastfeeding.

2011-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

This is a slightly edited version of a piece originally written in 2009, when Sam was two, and published in my local NCT branch newsletter. I am posting it here now after a conversation on Twitter about extended breastfeeding, in the hope that it may be of help to anyone who might be in a similar position. And also to highlight the reality of extended breastfeeding.

I breastfed Sam about half an hour after he was born, finally, 15 days late, by emergency caesarean section, weighing in at 8lbs and 2oz. He latched on straight away and had a good feed for about half an hour. Great!
I’d always planned to exclusively breastfeed Sam for the first six months, and then continue to breast feed him whilst introducing solids until he was at least a year old. I read up on breastfeeding and attended a birth preparation course with Sam’s dad, which included an evening devoted to the art of breastfeeding.

The next two days, however, were not so great. He was constantly hungry and I was constantly trying to feed him while I was in the post-natal ward at the hospital. I asked to see a breastfeeding counsellor, explaining to the midwives that I wanted to exclusively breastfeed because I have a history of severe eczema, asthma, hayfever and oral allergy syndrome and wanted to do anything possible to give Sam the best chance of avoiding of all the above. I did not see a breastfeeding counsellor, apparently no one was available for the whole two days and I kept being advised to give my baby formula.

Only one member of staff at the hospital told me very sympathetically to “keep at it... your milk will take a bit longer to come in because of the caesarean and the blood loss but it will. You’ll have a few difficult days but it will come good.” This advice, which seemed like a great kindness at the time, kept me going.
By the time I left I asked them for some bottles of ready-mixed formula to take with me. Sam was screaming hungry and I had had no sleep for two days and very little rest at all.
I gave Sam 40ml late that night and he immediately looked happier and went to sleep. I devised my own strategy with the help of a book. I decided I would keep a record of all the feeds and made a chart. It was exhausting and for a few days excruciatingly painful…sore and bleeding nipples! This made me a bit braver about trying different positions and taking him off the breast and trying to get him to latch on properly.

Sam was colicky and screamed and cried a lot for the first three weeks. On the advice of my sister I introduced a dropper of Infacol before each feed and this seemed to help. At the same time I stopped the tiny bit of top-up of formula he was having each night and took him to see a cranio-sacral practitioner, who made some subtle but vital adjustments - he had got very squashed up in my womb. Sam slept peacefully as soon as he came home from the first appointment, the colic symptoms eased and I noticed a huge difference in him. He was much happier and able to move his head and arms more freely.

After six weeks I had a postnatal check up and the midwife told me I had now successfully established breastfeeding.
I didn’t tell her I could pluck my eyebrows whilst feeding Sam. Now that is multitasking. By this point I was starting to recover from the caesarean and was off walking everywhere, visiting friends and family and trying to get to meet some new mums and a friend I had made at antenatal classes.

I fed Sam wherever I went: outside cafes; by the river; in the park; at friends’ and family’s homes; even outside Tate Modern! I don’t remember ever having to deal with complaints or too much staring but I did wear a big smock for the first few months and was fairly discreet.

At four months Sam was introduced to baby rice, after demanding to be breastfed
every two hours and eyeing up everyone else’s food. It was the right time. I introduced a new pureed fruit or vegetable every few days and then started to combine them and broaden his diet. He has a good appetite and eats well and, even now, as a two year old will eat most of what is offered to him, although he does ask for ice cream and chocolate for breakfast, he settles for fruit and toast.

I gradually dropped one breastfeed at a time until last July, 2008; I dropped his morning feed which meant we were down to one breastfeed a day, at bedtime.
We were both happy with this but other people found the fact that I was still feeding Sam myself rather strange and even distasteful. So I stopped talking about it. I even had friends who were concerned that I might be “psychologically damaging” Sam by continuing to breastfeed him past a year. They thought it was “strange” that I would have a conversation with him about stopping breastfeeding.

Amongst some friends and family I have found the subject of extended breastfeeding to be the biggest taboo I have ever negotiated. This has been somewhat of a shock to me as I found breastfeeding Sam to be one of the best and most brilliant experiences I have ever had- and what could be more natural? I am well aware after my own initial struggle that breastfeeding is very hard to establish for many people and is not automatic- it is a skill, an art. I feel very lucky to have been able to do it for as long as I did. It is great to have choices and everyone must do what they feel is right for them and works well in their own circumstance.

I do not have an opinion on this except that if you want to do it then give it a go! Get as much information and support as you can.
Eat loads, drink loads of water and talk to people who’ve done it. Phone the NCT breastfeeding counselling line- I did and the woman I spoke to was fantastic. If you don’t like it, can’t get the hang of it, can’t do it for some reason or you decide it just isn’t right for you - then stop. Formula is not evil. That tiny top up worked wonders for me and Sam when I was recovering from the caesarean and establishing my milk supply. He wouldn’t look at a bottle later on even though I was expressing milk and freezing it in the hope that someone else could feed him for once!

Sam was two on the 13th May this year, and I decided we were ready to stop. I went to a local La Leche League meeting to get some advice and support on the best way to do it. They were lovely. I recommend getting in touch with them if you are breastfeeding and need support. I only wish I had known there was a local group before I was about to stop. I got home from the meeting and that evening began to feed Sam as usual, thinking we would stop in the following weeks after I had handed in all my university assignments.

Sam had other ideas. After two minutes of feeding he stopped and said “Finished Mummy. Want dummy.” I couldn’t quite take it in but gradually worked out that he
didn’t want me to feed him anymore and wanted a dummy like another boy at nursery. He’s never had a dummy and it seemed a bit silly to start with one then so I said “No. You’re a big boy now. You don’t need a dummy.” He had always been breastfed to sleep (yes, I know everyone says this is a bad idea but it worked for me…) so it took him a little while to settle. But the next night he went to sleep without a feed, no problems. He’s never asked for “Na na” and that’s it. All done- and, so far, no allergies, asthma and just a tiny smidge of eczema when tired and teething. Now I just have to stop him from frisbeeing his dinner off the table and on to the floor – but that’s another story.

Manipura One

2011-01-25T15:32:00.001-08:00

The art of stopping
Choosing a response
To this moment exactly
Harnessing energy
To create a city
Of repose
In my soul

For One Shot Wednesday at the One Stop Poetry site

Mea Culpa In A Hair Shirt

2011-01-25T03:19:00.000-08:00

I've been hesitant to say it in case I crash again but I've been feeling better for two whole weeks now. And I haven't felt this consistently well since the end of August last year.

A trip back to the doctors last week saw him pleased with my progress and he doesn't want to see me unless I get poorly again. He has advised me to 'grade my activity' i.e. slowly build back up to my normal level of activity.

Ha ha- Dad goes to India at the weekend, my cast comes off on Monday, the same day I start back at university, and I have nothing else in place to give me any extra help with Sam...so it looks like I will be hurling myself back in the deep end...or will I?

The silver lining of this extreme fatigue and constant bouts of flu-type illness-yes, really, there is a silver lining- is that I have had a chance to stop and consider my priorities and also realise that I am very lucky to have all the support and opportunities that I do.

I lifted the lid on some more baggage that I have been hefting around and regularly bashing myself over the head with (think smashing your brain in regularly with a bag containing a bowling ball). I have now started to forgive myself for some stuff which I have not been able to even really think about until now. But it's taken years to understand that what left my world in tatters and my heart completely broken was not all my fault, and I am not a failure because of it.

The past is always a bad bet for dwelling in and on...it leads to a brick wall...I have blamed myself entirely. I've lived "Mea Culpa" in a hair shirt and it's time to give myself a break.

So I have and I am. And life is much better and moving on as a result.

Now I am in a strange limbo where I am hoping that I am one of the lucky people that are diagnosed with post viral fatigue syndrome and get well quickly. Only time will tell.

I have been writing my own personal "New rules for living manual" and making some changes. Less than a week til the plaster cast comes off and I can get going again but slow and steady wins the race...

Love, Love, Love xxx

In The International Year Of The Forest - Help Save OURS

2011-01-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

In the International Year of The Forest -tagline: "Celebrating Forests For People", the coalition government wants to sell off ALL of our publicly owned forest to the highest bidder.

In October last year I pledged to join the campaign against this proposed wholesale sell-off of OUR forests in England, currently run by The Forestry Commission.

Until now I have been unable to make good on my pledge due to being poorly. Unlike the Liberal Democrats and their travesty over university fees, I don't intend to break it, so now I am feeling better I have spent a couple of hours this morning getting up to speed with what has been happening.

The campaign is to save our forests is hotting up now as the consutation process begins in February. The 38degrees petition is now at a whopping 172,000 signatures and on Twitter people are trying to see how fast they can get it to 180,000 signatures. If you have yet to sign it you can do so here.

There are now a few excellent campaign web sites where you can see where your nearest forest is up for sale, not IF as they are ALL going to be sold. You can also see which MP to write to, and you can do that here.

The Sunday Telegraph's front page leads with a letter from leading figures and celebrities backing the campaign to save our forests.

You can also write to your MP and ask them to support Caroline Lucas’ Early Day Motion to amend the Public Bodies Bill removing the threat of sale to forests.

The nearest forest to me is about an hour's drive away, Alice Holt Forest in Hampshire. I went there on a rainy sunday, way back in November last year, when I knew the forests were under threat.

I took my 18-year-old niece and my 3-year-old son and despite the cold, wet day we had a great time, tramping through the woods. It is not completely free now because unless you were to cycle, impossible in my case, you have to use the pay and display car park. However it was worth it- great play areas, a cycle-hire and lots of activity packs and information. The forest is used for all kinds of activities from mums and babies groups to education for kids and is a great asset to the local and wider community for theses reasons as well as the obvious.

I will be going back in the spring with Sam, who ran around shouting "this is a magic place" and before if campaigning for its survival deems it necessary which I am sure it will.

I have found myself tweeting and retweeting and sharing endless links about the cutbacks on Facebook, feeling politically impotent. But we are not- now is the time to get active- and fight back constructively and creatively.

From Roger Deakin's book Wildwood:

" When Auden wrote, 'A culture is no better than its woods', he knew that, having carelessly lost more of their woods than any other country in Europe, the British generally take a correspondingly greater interest in what trees and woods they still have left."

Damned right we do....

18th Birthday Present

2011-01-19T04:45:00.001-08:00

I’m past trying to remember where
In Petticoat Lane I found you
I wonder if people go there still
To buy leather jackets as we did
When it was a rite of passage
Like buying your first pair of DMs
Back then I rode pillion
And needed protective clothing
Not just for posing at gigs in
Although I painted your back
With arcane symbols
So cool and mysterious in 1988
And forgot about that fact
Even when I wore you recently
After breaking my wrist and required
Something waterproof that would fit
Over the green cast on my right arm
For a mystical tour of South London
Where the forgotten chaosphere
Was noted and commented upon

This is my first poem for One Shot Wednesday at the One Stop Poetry site

Past Bye

2011-01-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Gave
Up
Stopped
Stood
Still
Took
Stock

Weighed
Anchor
Pastures
New
Greener
Over
Here

Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot

2011-01-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

Moab is My Washpot lives up to the many superlative review quotes that grace its cover because it is scintillatingly written, grips you by the lapels in its need to be read, and charms and confounds- in other words it is an honest reflection of its polymath and quintessentially English author.

I’ve been meaning to read this book since it came out in 1997 and thought of it again recently, whilst studying a module at university on forms of biography and autobiography.

If you don’t know who Stephen Fry is which cliché have you been living on? Go here and find out more. I was going to attempt to briefly sum up his career but have now thought better of it. When it comes to Fry’s writing how can a review possibly begin to do justice to the way he writes?

The book is warm, witty, entertaining, honest, playful etc ad infinitum- you simply have to go and read it. Fry tosses off more clever and breathtakingly beautiful metaphors, analogies, and generally wondrous, lyrical writing in the course of 400-odd pages than, I am sure, some successful writers manage to squeeze out in an entire career:
“Sex without smiling is as sickly and base as vodka and tonic without ice.”

A few pages in I put the book down and took a moment over one such fine device and thought: “It’s not fair”, but as the story he so brutally and honestly tells of his early years, even when you seemingly have it all, it does not necessarily make for a happy existence:
“After one of those squealing, juddering, stomach-dropping false starts with which trains so tactlessly articulate human emotion...”

There were passages, where he resorts to quoting greek or some greek tragedy or other arcane intellectual thinking where he lost me but never for long and never completely. I feel slightly more knowedgable, healthily challenged and therefore was able to indulge such opaqueness- after all, who can know everything- apart from seemingly Mr Fry himself?

It’s a lovely, shocking, touching and at times heartrending, as well as laugh-out-loud funny book. And at the end of it I ordered Fry’s new autobiography, The Fry Chronicles.

Read it and weep with joy, sadness, laughter and wonder.

Grounding

2011-01-05T04:18:00.000-08:00

Finally with a sigh of relief
Body connects with the earth
Roots shoot into the soil
Looking for sustenance
And providing stability
Limitation necessary
For growth and creation
Bearing fruit is only possible
When you stand still
“Grow where you are planted”
Someone said
I remember my feet
And hold on to my head

2010 was the year I...

2010-12-31T16:19:00.000-08:00

walked up and slid down a snow-covered Glastonbury Tor
learned that the tombola is not my friend
saw the Empire State building through a blizzard as I walked down 5th Avenue, from the Guggenheim to Tiffany's; a snow-covered Central Park on my right.
celebrated Sam's 3rd birthday
grew a flippin' awesome vegetable patch

holidayed in a static caravan
threw herbs on a massive Lammas bonfire
got straight A's
turned 40 and had a blast in Brighton with all the people who I love best
was tired like nothing I've ever experienced
started playing the ukulele
laughed in the face of adversity
realised I am tough as old boots
gave thanks
taught Sam to say "we don't like David Cameron"
decided that it's time to forgive myself
met some more amazing people who I would like to know better
Love, Love, Love xxx

I can't be arsed...

2010-12-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

...to trawl through it anymore....
I am enjoying my quiet evening in front of truly shite tv
About to make my second cocktail
With Anodea Judith's excellent book on chakras next me, Wheels of Life
Thinking about the coming year and...
that's about it really.

And- about to write a poem or two.

Once this wrist is out of plaster I will get going on the uke again.

I've started painting again too. For the first time proper since Sam was born.

I realised this year that I am pretty good at a few things - and so if they increase my happiness ratio I'm going to get on and do them.

I was always told what I couldn't do and shouldn't do when I was growing up- it's a hard thing to break out of, and very late but I have worked very hard over the last decade to reclaim myself and my creativity, and I won't let it go for anything.

Love xxx

Ten Years Ago

2010-12-31T14:43:00.000-08:00

I was 29.
Had stencilled 'happy 2000' on the front window of the small cottage I lived in, in Bristol, with my fiance, now ex-husband.
Was wearing a black suedette stetson, fishnet top and long black full skirt, all covered in sparkles, sort of disco-goth-cowgirl...
Had lots of people round for pre-party drinks
Went to a party and DJ'd in a very drunken state
Had to be escorted home to bed in the early hours

It feels like it happened a million years ago on another planet

Thank gawd I don't have to do it again.

*Time for another champagne cocktail*

Some good bits from 2000-2010

2010-12-31T14:20:00.000-08:00

Sam
My best friend Mel
Being with my mum before she died
My radio show
Starting painting again and working at Studio Upstairs
Writing
Poetry
Reiki
Disovering Mindfulness
Glastonbury Tor
Glastonbury Winter solstice 2005
Starhawk
Singing
Marian Green telling me to "Be determined" I've lived it since 2002
Getting divorced and surviving heartbreak (just)
Being an undegraduate.
My dad
The Goddess
Learning to drive
Gardening
Roger Butterworth telling me "The Universe is a friendly place"
Psychogeography
My ukulele

...and many other things but these spring to mind first.
Love xxx

Close to the Edge

2010-12-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm finishing this year by writing, celebrating and reflecting on what was good, bad and indifferent about the last decade.
I want to off-load the bad stuff I'm still hauling around and leave it here, at the end of 2010.
This is an experimental blog post that I am going to write over the next few hours- it might end up being several posts. It might make little sense, will definitely be self-indulgent and influenced by alcohol, and there is a chance that I will read it back tomoorow and delete it.
A little step into the unknown then, a tiny riskette...

*now soaking a sugar cube in angosturas bitters in preparation for making a champagne cocktail*

Of course I may give up on all of this nonsense sooner rather than later as I am typing with one hand after sustaining a broken left wrist a couple of days ago.

*the champagne cocktail is lovely, if not quite cold enough*

The difference between ages 30 and 40 is greater than the difference between ages 20 and 30.

Everything becomes settled and fixed....and if it is not for you, then it feels as if you are swimming in a different current to others...close to the edge- well someone has to be.

I think that I have always feigned not caring what people think, or maybe I was very self-centred and un-self-aware.

Now I feel old enough to grow old-er disgracefully- I was kidding myself there would be another way, and punishing myself when I didn't fit into the 'square' hole... time to let go of that.

It's not easy being green- but it's a damed sight easier than trying to be something I'm not.

Here endeth the first ramble...
Love xxx

broken blogging

2010-12-31T05:06:00.000-08:00

so i will be starting a new year and a new decade with a broken wrist. there is no interesting story to tell about the breakage. sam and i had gone to see my best friend and her boyfriend and were walking in richmond park, when i slipped on leaves as we walked down a hill.

i followed my friend's r.i.c.e advice -ice, compress, elevate (can't remember what the 'r' is for) and they drove us home and helped me put sam to bed. the next day it was swollen and painful and 'not right', the ensuing trip to casualty and x-rays confirmed a fractured distal radius, needing a plaster cast for at least 4 weeks. and of course, no driving and me to ask "how do i lift sam, put sam's night-time nappy on and give baths etc...?"
luckily my friend can come and help me tonight so that dad's new year plans aren't scuppered, and very luckily he is prepared to change some of his plans so i have help with sam.
i have had some lovely offers of remote help from friends via facebook and lots of good wishes which are truly appreciated. but the fact is i am totally reliant on my wonderful best friend and my dad. i am blessed to have them indeed.
my modest plans for new year's eve looked to be over...how do i make a champagne cocktail when i am not sure i can open the bottle? how do i blog with a broken wrist?
so, broken blogging is possible, if you will pardon the lapse in correct capitalisation and punctuation. and if blogging is possible, then so are cocktails!

I wil be on my own , writing, reflecting and letting go of the last decade this evening.
Love, Love, Love xxx

Parenting the F*** It way

2010-12-28T01:45:00.000-08:00

I feel better this morning. Lighter, happier, more optimistic. And I really think it is because I dared to write honestly, if briefly, about the struggles I have with my internal, critical and perfectionist, dialogue.

What I am learning to say is "F*** IT" and I am reading a marvellous book, F*** it: The ultimate spiritual way, by John C Parkin, which is helping.
Part Barefoot Doctor, part common sense, part punk rock, it contains possibly the best parenting 'advice' I have read in a long time. Also, it is the closest to my own views on parenting, which is very reassuring.

What Parkin outlines in the section on parenting is the fear parents have of their children, which reflexively you may argue against, but it is worth being open-minded about what he has to say, and it made a lot of sense to me:

"And the whole of society will support a disciplinarian approach to parenting. This is because everyone has this fear in them of what children might do."

"So it's time (for you at least) to say F*** It to this fear. And this is why:
The less you try to control your kids, the more they will take care of themselves.
The less you discipline them, the better (generally)they'll behave....
When you get out of the way of children they pass through things very quickly:
A child left alone will soon stop shouting and be quiet again.
A child left alone will soon stop stropping and be happy again.
A child left alone will soon stop racing around the restaurant and come and eat again...
And when I say 'alone' here, I do-of course-mean left without you trying to control them rather than literally 'alone'....

If you take this course of less effort and intervention you will invariably get some shit from other people. You'll get some looks in restaurants and in shops. And it's up to you where you decide that 'it's just their shit' and where they have a point (i.e. it must be darn disurbing here in the Savoy to have children leaping from table to table dressed as Spider-man.)

And if you're thinking, 'Yeah, sure, sounds great in theory, but I'm sure it's a nightmare in practice,' listen to this: in the end, as parents, we don't 'know', we only sense. And our sense as parents all along has been to let our children be."

This is not a full quote, just a flavour of what Parkin is saying, so if you are interested in this I would recommend reading the whole section, which is only a few pages long. My faltering self confidence means that I do struggle with allowing Sam his freedom in restaurants etc because I worry too much about other people thinking I am a bad parent. This is something I have written about here in the past but I know really that I am a good parent.

So I say F*** IT to the dirty looks from now on. Sam is not malicious, going out to cause harm with intent. Just exuberant and needing some management! It's a horrible office-speak-ism but I suppose this all boils down to something that could be called 'Light-touch' parenting.

I have many other parenting books but a couple which have been particularly uselful at times and which I may write about in another post:

Buddhism for Mothers: A calm approach to caring for yourself and your children, by Sarah Napthali

Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Myla and John Kabat-Zinn

I read twenty parenting books when I was pregnant, probably because I am a bibliophile and I am sure because I had just lost my mum and don't have any close, older female family wisdom to draw on. To be realistic though, if Mum was still around I am sure we would clash daily over how I am bringing Sam up- even though- contrary to what some people might think, I am far from radical. My main aim is to be supportive and loving.

There are two things I have done so far as a parent which others seem to have found controversial: I never left him to cry as a baby; I breastfed him til he was two.
I actually had friends ask me if I thought breastfeeding him that long would psychologically damage him! Check out what the World Health Organisation has to say on the length of time they recommend to breastfeed a child. I have no axe to grind or judgement to make about either of these very personal decisions- it worked for me and Sam and he stopped of his own accord a few days after his second birthday, just as I had decided I felt it was time to change our bedtime routine, which was the only time I still fed him.

These two issues are two of the biggest taboos I have ever encountered. Forget sex and drugs- if you want to be subversive these days just try and have an open conversation about extended breast feeding!

In fact wherever I have left Sam to make a decision he has done it himself at the right time for him and I have had no problems. The only time I took advice from someone who allegedly knew better was when Sam's nursery insisted he be potty trained in time for his move to pre-school. This has been a nightmare, simply because he was not ready. We are moving through it very slowly and I have now taken any pressue off him and am leaving things up to him wherever I can.

I hope that I am always respectful of other people's parenting choices. I try very hard not to push my views on other parents. We all do things differently and each child is unique and we know as mothers, as parents, what is right for them, and for us as a family.

Love, Love, Love
...and F*** IT!

If at first you don't succeed...

2010-12-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

"...Be bolder..." I read the other day.
It's very wearing, having to refute all the bad shit in your head, when it decides to pop up. The voice that tells you you are a failure, worthless, useless; it's too late for you to succeed; whatever made you think you could?

Then it takes some energy to turn all of these negative statements around. And it's not good for writing- it leaves you (me) feeling paralysed, unable to write, scared to express all of this negativity for fear of sounding self-pitying, which I'm not.

So, "Be bolder". I like the sentiment- just working out how I can I maximise my boldness in the coming year, which I will be seeing in with a night of champagne cocktails and (possibly drunken) blogging.

For we are indeed in the strange limbo between Christmas and New Year...a time of reflection and random eating.

This decade of 'noughties' has been full of rites of passage for me: marriage; death; divorce; birth; rebirth...and lessons hard-learned.

I am looking forward to saying goodbye to the last ten years. This chapter is ready to end.

Love, Love, Love xxx

The Meadow

2010-12-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

The meadow is quiet
Not even the hum of a bee
The meadow is still
No breath of breeze
The meadow is a place for you and me
A place in dreams for us to be
I describe it for you as you go to sleep
It is green and warm, the grass is long
We can make daisy chains
Lie still, watch clouds change shape
And wonder where the birds are flying to
You ask me how we get there:
“Close your eyes and imagine....”
I hold your hand and stroke your hair
I close my eyes and imagine....
You laugh and say:
“Mummy, you’re funny.”

Mother Night

2010-12-20T03:41:00.000-08:00

I am de-cluttering and preparing for what promises to be the most auspicious Winter Solstice that any of us may experience in this lifetime. A full moon and total lunar eclipse take place tomorrow as well as the solstice. This is the time of year to focus on intentions for the new year to come. Sowing seeds of new thoughts, behaviours, projects, resolutions. A time to be positive, fill your heart and mind with light, with prayers for friends and family and for the world. To give thanks and dream BIG!

This is when the Goddess gives birth to the God- so a time of rebirth and new beginnings for all, the return of the light.
Love, Love, Love xxx

Stopping and resting

2010-12-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

Stopping university and getting some rest has paid dividends. I have had a couple of days where I have been able to function fairly normally. I saw someone on Twitter describe having M.E as "having flu, a hangover and being burned from the inside all at the same time." I have been spared the burning but recognise the flu plus hangover description. It is horrible.

I find myself in the position of dreading something as simple as going to get some shopping. I mete out the precious energy it will take: get in the car and drive to x; park the car and walk to x; get shopping; pay for shopping; take bags back to car; get in car and drive home etc...it feels ridiculous. I have taken for granted (as we all do) my vitality and ability to get so much done in a day - too much. This all has to change.

I have no idea how I have been doing all that I have been doing. Studying as a full time undergraduate and being a full-time single parent is enough to make your head spin!

At the moment I am looking at ways to facilitate my recovery and make sure that I stay as well as possible so that I can be a fully-engaged mum to Sam and finish my degree. At the moment I am on for a first but whether this will remain possible I don't know and if not I will have to let it go. I can only do my best.

My best friend and her boyfriend have been absolutely fantastic. They've taken Sam swimming the last two saturdays and took him to help buy their Christmas tree last saturday as well. This has made a big difference to me, not having to do a whole weekend on my own and giving me a break.

It meant that on sunday I could drive us to the park, have a good walk and play a bit of football with Sam, and then meet some old friends in a nearby pub for lunch. I was exhausted by the end of the day but not so obliterated that I lost all sense of reason which is what has been happening.

There are so many things to fight for but the fight I must win is learning to stop and rest and get better. And then choose which battles...

Love, Love, Love xxx

Et In Arcadia Ego- Not

2010-12-15T01:32:00.000-08:00

I've not been well enough to go to any of the student protests against fees but have been there in spirit.
With police tactics as they are I couldn't now risk it even if I was well enough because there is only me to fetch Sam from preschool and what if I was kettled until 11.30pm at night as a group of demonstrators on Westminster Bridge were last thursday?
I walked past Top Shop yesterday, wondering how many student discounts they are clocking up at the moment. They certainly won't be getting any business from me from now on. I am boycotting all of Philip Green's Arcadia stores. This is not a hardship anyway, Top Shop has lost its edge, it's clothes are bland and overpriced in my opinion.
I don't shop at any of his other stores and only go into BHS to use the toilets, the same reason I only ever enter McDonald's...If you want to know the reasons behind the boycott, why Polly Toynbee was carried out of the Oxford Circus 'flagship' store a couple of weeks ago, and why the windows of said store were smashed last week see the UKUNCUT page.
This coalition government make Thatcher look like Mother Theresa...they are ripping up the social fabric of society. The Big Society 'Dave' goes on about is a load of crap...this is Divide and Rule tactics along the lines of "why should tax payers pay for someone's university education"? By that argument why should tax payers pay for someone else's child to be able to afford to travel to FE College...EMA; housing benefit, sports coordinators in schools. NHS waiting lists were almost nil under Labour- they are already creeping up under ConDem..."whey should the average tax payer pay for....?" The argument goes... IVF (already disappearing from the NHS), care homes? Children's centres...? Check out the localities bill...watch this ConDem government- this is where it's going.
A university education benefits the whole of society, economically, culturally and socially. That is what a progressive tax system pays for. The more money you earn, the more tax you pay. Except the Tories don't like that do they?
I've also heard a lot of people, and mostly the generation above me of 60+ say "they want to put the working class back in its box" and I agree with that sentiment.

This is not a cogent argument- this is just thoughts and opinions that have been simmering away.

Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now

2010-12-07T01:22:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished reading Meg Rosoff's 'How I Live Now' which was her first novel and has won all kinds of prizes.

Rosoff creates a story filled with magic, although it is not really described in the usual fairytale terms. This makes it real and believeable. She somehow captures the atmosphere of a place without being explicit. I am not sure how she does this and this is part of the appeal and mystery of her writing.

The book is going to be made into a film and I will be interested to see if it can do justice to the relationships between the children, especially between Daisy, who tells the story, and her cousin Edmund.

Rosoff combines all kinds of challenging subject matter, not least the atrocities of a possible future war, with a taboo-challenging relationship.

There is a dystopian, unflinching quality to it that made me think of The Road a couple of times, and I wonder if her writing style has a similarity to Cormac McCarthy's? Just a thought that might be worth exploring further.

Rosoff's structure reflects the war being played out and consolidates the plot very successfully.

I am sure that had I read this book when I was 14 it would have changed my life.
I know it is going to change my writing.

Sestina – Waking up on Easter Sunday with you

2010-12-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

Waking up on Easter Sunday with you
Shouting “Get me out of bed please Mummy”
And wishing today could be different:
Celebration; extended family
Since mum has gone things continue to change
What would she think about you and me?

Conventional life does not fit with me
But I try to fit in because of you
Perhaps this is something I need to change
Happy child comes from a happy mummy
I can’t create a perfect family
Time to celebrate being different

With confidence in being different
I continue to be the hard-won me
Operate as a joyful family
Then I can stop feeling like I’ve failed you
Because I am not a yummy mummy
I am a real person trying to change

I have to own up to what I can’t change
No point in wishing things were different
Being a mummy, losing a mummy
The beginning of the making of me
If I can be me, then you can be you
A new definition of family

Easter Sunday meant seeing family
The last year has seen another big change
A wider ripple of the loss that affects you
Sad, not bad, unknowable, different
Like a strong current, this ripple drags me
Under for a moment, struggling mummy

I hear “Can you play with me now Mummy?”
Easter, the rebirth of my family
Let go of the past, look forward for me
Another opportunity for change
Welcome the future: better; different
The garden holds chocolate eggs for you

I can only be me, the best Mummy
I can be for you. We are family,
Embracing change, daring to be different.

This is one of a series of sestinas I wrote earlier this year. It was written after a very unhappy Easter and marked another big change. I assumed that I would always be surrounded by family at 'those' times of the year. In fact Sam and I spent most of it alone. I found this intensely difficult and upsetting, as I am finding things at the moment. But it will pass, as does everything...and maybe a poem will get written too.

Silence

2010-12-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

I find myself in the peculiar position of having to make the effort to stop and do nothing, to rest and just be.
I am hopeless at this but it is a skill I must now master because it will help to make me well and able to 'do' again.
This is all relative of course-as a single parent I still have to 'do' stuff all the time.
But apart from that I have to relax and rest.
My amazing Dad has Sam for a couple of days while I stay at my best friend's for a proper rest and some peace and quiet away from everything.
The house is eerily and soothingly silent.
I haven't looked outside yet today. I have managed to get up, eat something, drink a cup of tea and now write this.
Yesterday I had a meeting at university to work out how I manage my workload until I (hopefully) start to feel better and get used to managing this M.E thing.
I feel hopeful that I will be better and will be able to get on with life but am aware I've been shown a red card and I need to make some permanent adjustments to stay well.
I've been looking at dietary changes- I'm quite good about what I eat- I have to be as I have significant food allergies. But I do love to eat cake and drink lots of strong, black coffee. I've cut down on both recently but now they have to go altogther, along with the daily glass of red wine with dinner.
I've a long history of experience of chronic illness to draw on and so am looking at this as a positive thing as it means I have some idea of how to treat myself to get better.
I generally manage to pack more into one day than some people pack into a week and then still beat myself up that I am not doing enough, not good enough.
This is the key thing that I have to change.
So now I am going to go and make another cup of tea and watch a film and that's it.
Even a climb up and down the stairs is tiring.
Love, Love, Love xxx

Writing about M.E

2010-11-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

The terrible puns continue- please indulge me for now...

In my four-ish years of blogging I have written about shoes, poetry, planting a vegetable garden, eczema, bees, sleep, being a single parent and all manner of other subjects, and why not? My life has always been reflected in my writing so my interests and experiences collide to a greater of lesser extent.

Writing has been my major focus, apart from Sam, since starting at university. I have always written and used this as a way of sorting through feelings, thoughts and dilemmas. So I shall carry this on and write about what is happening in my life now and what will happen following my diagnosis.

I managed to get in the car with Sam on Friday and drive down to Bristol to stay with friends, as had been planned for ages. It was either that and stay at home on my own with Sam again for another weekend, and we both needed a break, some fun, and I need some support at the moment.

And we have got what we needed this weekend. My old friends from Bristol, where I lived years ago, have been wonderful. Taking Sam out to see the SS Great Britain yesterday which he LOVED, and today to help friends pick out a dog and then to a pub for a lunch.

This has given me a chance to rest, think and just 'be' and have some space.

I am up and down, one minute emotional and full of fear and blaming myself. The next minute thinking positively and pragmatically.

I expect this seesaw-ing of feelings and moods to continue for a little while and, as I am only human, I am going to let those feelings out as they come, and then let them go and get back to looking forward.

There are lifestyle changes to be made and priorities to be considered.

This is an opportunity to make positive changes. As my good friend Kat says," You are the captain of your ship" and I think I know whiich way I am going to steer it.

But for now I am in dry dock, getting repairs, and looking at maps.

Love, Love, Love
xxx

All about M.E

2010-11-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

I have just been diagnosed with post viral fatigue syndrome, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis or M.E.

I am in shock really and trying to do everything possible to put stuff in place to give myself a break and take the pressure off. I haven't been well since September and the diagnosis and signing off from the doc yesterday was a relief as well as a shock.

So, how as a single parent without much of a support network (although where it exists it is wonderful and so appreciated) and half-way through my final year of my degree I have to ask myself- how do I get through this?

Day by day and one step at a time. Sam is my priority and there is no doubt that me being poorly over the last couple of months has affected him. I need to stay well to make sure he is ok.

This is just some thoughts really- not a well thought out blog post. I hope that with rest and some more lifestyle changes and a good look at my priorities I will be able to get better and stay better. The last few years have been some of my healthiest so this is a quite a blow.

I want to be able to take Sam swimming again and have enough energy to go out on my bike and dig my veg patch. Can't do any of these just at the moment.

Love, Love , Love xxx

Kitchen, Kip and Kids

2010-11-18T00:55:00.001-08:00

Day four in the house without a kitchen. Day four of a total of three weeks and there are four plasterers getting to work for a second day on the concrete box that was our kitchen. It will be worth it but at the moment we are living higgledy-piggledy out of a chaotic dining room and feasting on a range of microwaveable food. It’s an adventure...

Respite from this came when I stayed at my best friend’s house the other night. We went out for dinner and to see a film for her birthday- meat platter at Bodeans followed by The Social Network and half a bag of jelly babies...and then a taxi back to hers and a hot water bottle encased in a fluffy pig cover, a dark room, silence and sleep...blessed, uninterrupted sleep for nearly seven hours.

The sleep deprivation for me continues apace. Not every night but most I am woken up by a small person requiring a nappy change or reassurance that the monsters in his room won’t get him. This is all fine in theory but I seem to be lurching from one bout of exhaustion and fluey illness to the next. Add in the workload of the final year of my degree, visiting prospective schools for Sam for next year, and now no kitchen and I am really struggling.

The bus journey home from my friend’s house yesterday morning was full of kids on their way to school. Normally I have my head firmly in a book or newspaper, and this was no different yesterday, but then I could hear the sound of ‘Automatic’ by the Pointer Sisters drifting up towards the end of the bus where I sat. Looking down the bus, trying to work out where it was coming from, I spied two boys aged about 12, sharing a set of headphones and actually singing along to this eighties classic...Aw! ...quite innocently enjoying a good tune, no gangsta rap in sight. The kids (of today) are alright.

I try and go out once every few weeks for a grown up night out, by myself to a gig or poetry reading, or for dinner and a film with friends. Although I have too much studying and not enough hours in the day to get it all done, on top of chronic sleep deprivation and the normal extra stuff that comes with being a single parent, a night out is pretty important. Add in a good night’s sleep and it really is better than going clubbing used to be...oh yes, categorically, no contest.

The fluffy pig left a deep impression on me- not literally- that would have to be the other way round-and I found myself in Boots yesterday afternoon buying a fluffy hot water bottle cover. I am converted...a fluffy warm lump at the end of the bed to warm my toes on as I go to sleep is blissful. I wish it could be a cat but allergy prevents this- at least I am guaranteed it won’t suddenly decide to go elsewhere.

The work is the work - Save Our Forests

2010-10-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

"...Being discovered is not the work...

the work is the work.

Ever and ever.

Promise..."

The above is a quote from the poem " Advice to The Outsider" from The Dangerous Old Woman by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Dr Estes is probably best known as the author of the life-changing Women Who Run With The Wolves.

It is a poem asking us to be tenacious "like the blessed yew tree" and "remember your treasure" becuase we never know when it will be needed and "when our gifts will be discovered".

This is about honing skills and being focussed on the work we are called to do, to do it to the best of our ability- not to worry about what anyone else thinks- to be true to our own path.

I came across this poem on facebook and added a comment to the burgeoning number of comments already left by women expressing their thanks for this wisdom:

"The work is the work- thank you- in the UK they are threatening to sell off our national forests to private developers- the fight against this is now part of my work..."

They, the coalition government, want to sell off a large proportion of Forestry Commission land to private investors. Caroline Spelman from DEFRA will be making an announcement outlining the exact nature of these plans shortly. Apparently there will be no sell-off in Wales or Scotland- so it's us English who stand to lose...

After the stories in the press at the weekend there is now a 20,000 signature and counting petition (which you can sign here)an ever-growing group on facebook (which you can join here) and now...silence, while people wait and think of how best to protest and campaign against this.

I am still unable to articulate properly how deeply I feel about this- almost tongue-tied. IT CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN. For so many reasons, including most importantly the environmental repercussions.This is OUR forest to keep. NOT theirs to sell. How dare they?!

This is about our natural habitat, our natural heritage, our freedom to roam, our future generation's right to have all of this...there are other deeper reasons which I will attempt to write about when I am able to...but anyone who knows about the deep green woods, who cares about dreams, who understands myths, who thinks about a nation's psyche...its freedom...its soul will wonder what will happen if our trees are cut down, the land is turned over for property development...golf courses...centre parc style holiday resorts...

"The work is the work"

My work is to be Sam's mum, finish my degree, keep writing and now to do something to stop our ancient forests from being sold off.

A quote from Women Who Run With The Wolves:

"There is much afoot at any given time that can make a shambles of spirit and soul by attempting to destroy intent, or by pressuring one to forget the important questions: Questions such as, not only what are the pragmatics of a situation, but also "where is the soul in this matter?" One proceeds in life, gains ground, reverses injustice, and stands against the winds, through strength of spirit."

Standing against the winds like that old yew tree...full of treasure.

LOVE
xxx

Threads for weaving

2010-10-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

Persuading you to put on trousers this morning, even though you didn't really believe "surfers wear them at this time of the year too, y'know..."

Day 4 of feeling so poorly I can't do anything except tap and click on my lap top and read.

So thankful my Dad has been around to help with Sam.

Starting to feel inspired to write now that my brain has had a chance to rest and think because the whirling dervish who normally transports it has had final warning from her body that she needs to rest and get well.

Still buzzing.

Furious at the Comprehensive spending review and feeling more and more lucky instead of desperate about my current situation, and trying not to fear the future.

Disappointed that I am not performing poetry tonight as planned.

Needing some community, as ever.

Wondering if I can still plant bulbs in the front garden now there has been a thick frost?

Loving the Plum Village web site : "Breathe, you are online"

Looking for peace.

Striving to be a good mum.

Living in the moment and practising mindfulness.

Thinking about the Tor.

Wishing I was better with words.

Leaving the bags at the gate and running up the hill feeling free.

The veil is thin...Let Go

Love, Love, Love xxx

Are You Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

2010-10-06T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Richmond. I have been reading Virginia Woolf's a Sketch of the Past, from the book Moments of Being, a collection of her auobiographical writings. This is the second time I have tried to read Woolf, and as it is one of the set texts for a module I'm studying as part of my degree, I knew this time I would have to persevere. But until the last few days I have been looking at it as a mountain to climb- one that I was hopeful of appreciating the view, once I reached the top.

I've just drafted a review of this piece of writing, which does not come near to doing it justice. I never got 'it' before, with Virginia Woolf, never watched that film with Nicole Kidman, gave up reading Mrs Dalloway after three attempts. Decided it wasn't for me.

I will find the tiniest reason to go to Richmond as it is. I lived there for several years as a child and it is overlaid with memories which stretch right up to last week when I had a stroll along the river and visited Ham House gardens for the first time in over 30 years.

My reason for going yesterday was ostensibly to sit and read Woolf 'in situ'. Just an excuse really but I've known for ages that she started the Hogarth Press there with her husband Leonard, where TS Eliot's The Wasteland was first published. She lived there from 1915 to 1924. So I went and stood outside Hogarth House and tried to imagine it without the brutalist architecture nearby, and to tried to guess which route Woolf would have favoured to get to the river or the Green.

Her writing, once you get into the clause-ridden and heavily punctuated sentences (which become quite addictive to read after a while) is astonishing in its clarity and depth. The intensity with which she evokes her childhood in all its facets is unlike anything I've encountered before. Powerful stuff and deeply moving. I will definitely read more.

Worth the climb.

Writer's Block?

2010-10-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I haven't been writing. I have been extraordinarily busy but that hasn't stopped me before. I've been thinking about writing a lot but not doing it.
I'm not short of ideas - quite the opposite. The two months since my last post have been crazy - full of new experiences, weekends away, celebrations and fun. Maybe I have been overwhelmed with it all. Maybe that is the answer.
I have been trying to get back to my daily practise of writing poetry and some kind of prose, jotting ideas down in my notebooks, and scrawling on anything resembling paper when inspiration strikes.
The final year of my degree has begun, and after the election in May, I am feeling very keenly that I have to make it count. Things are going to get very tough over the next few years, especially for single parents. My support network is limited and I am still 'homeless-at-home', living with my Dad. I have a renewed awareness of how lucky I am to have his support.
Writing is the way. I am convinced of it. How much blogging I am going to do this year is a mystery. But the block, if there was one, has gone. I am back and I am writing.

Love xxx

A Meditation on Sleep

2010-08-11T04:50:00.000-07:00

Sleep is a precious commodity these days, especially since Sam went into a bed and is no longer content to lie in his cot until I lift him out. A little voice pipes up outside my bedroom door, "Mummy I want to go downstairs" at approximately 5.45 every morning.

I don't mind, I love being woken up by this amazing little person but sometimes I am so tired and grumpy that it is quite a struggle to deal with such a ball of energy so early in the day.

Part of the deal of being single parent means I get to do this every day without respite. Very very occasionally my Dad will get up with Sam and let me lie in but this amounts to a few times every year. I do get to stay at other people's houses or even once in a while in a B&B or hotel, so I really can't complain. I am very lucky.

There are times when it is hard to catch up and sleep deprivation kicks in and recently I have been going out of my mind with tiredness. Any parent will tell you what this is like- and there is nothing like it.

My tutor suggested getting an alarm clock and gradually setting it later and later to train Sam into getting up at 7am, and I am going to give this a try. I tend to think that this is a phase that will change as the seasons do but there is no harm in helping him along a little bit. After all he's going to be waking up to an alarm clock soon enough, more's the pity. Makes me think of the t-shirt I saw with the slogun: "Alarm clocks kill dreams". I am very much a 'slow and steady wins the race' sort of person about this kind of stuff.

Last Friday, after a night at the cinema seeing Inception (I could have drifted off half way through the overly-complex plot but stopped myself), I stood outside the car park which was closed at midnight and swore at the top of my lungs out of pure tiredness and frustration...I blame the overly-long Hollywood blockbuster!

So, by arrangement with my Dad, this morning I got to lie in and he took Sam to nursery. I got to sleep in my own bed until mid morning, only disturbed by the next door neighbour choosing this morning, of all mornings, to mow his lawn.

A good night's sleep these days feels thirst-quenching. I feel rehydrated. I can see better, concentrate and be more focused and productive. I am more patient and happier. Not quite such a cantankerous old bag as usual.

Of course, this wonderful state of affairs is about to slide away but all in a good cause. Preparations for my 40th birthday are being made and I am very excited.

Strangely, and unusally, I have been having some sleepless nights because of nightmares as well as Sam's early starts. No doubt these have compounded the sleep depriavtion symptoms. I think it might be adrenalin. There is so much to look forward to in the next couple of weeks that the anticipation is keeping me awake!

Love is a Verb

2010-08-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

I spent one day at the Goddess Conference in Glastonbury. This year the theme was the Goddess as Lover. I returned, as ever, from that place with plenty of food for thought.

The two quotes below are from the article Love, Self and Sacrifice by Stephen Howard MD:

"To care for one’s self is to care for one’s capacity to encounter, to connect, and to love. The impoverished self can love only poorly, while genuine love flows from the nurtured self. When I am tending to myself and not being sacrificial, I can choose to give. Then my giving is an act of generosity and love, springing from a full heart."

"Love is customarily thought of as a feeling. But feelings are in the area of emotion, and if we relate to someone only emotionally then we relate as partial persons. Loving is an act, an act of the whole person, of the self, encountering and connecting and committing.
When we speak of encounter, of love and spirit, many of us speak of God. It can only be the self, the fully experiencing person, which connects with such a God. If God’s primary manifestation in the world is love, then for the self which is full and nurtured love indeed is boundless. The limits of nurturing and of our own spiritual capacities can be exhausted; love itself is inexhaustible."

Lammas

2010-07-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from a couple of days in Glastonbury, my centre of the universe. It always shakes everything up and makes me look unflinchingly at myself and what's going on in my world.

This time was, as ever, the same but different. It was even more different than usual. Changes are coming and this is the time I begin to consider which seeds to sow next. What is finished, what is beginning, what is ongoing... of course this comes from the turning year.

Lammas is the season for looking back and giving thanks for the harvest. Of acknowledging that which is ending and looking towards the seasons approaching and the possibilities for the future.

Next week will be four years since my Mum died. I mention this here but I do not intend to write any more about it. I have told the story of my Mum's death and Sam's birth many times and now it is time to lay that story to rest.

And give thanks for what is.

Love xxx

In one month...

2010-07-16T01:53:00.000-07:00

I will be 40.

I like being my age, and the idea of being 40. I like pottering in the garden, writing poems, baking with Sam.

I like our new habit of football club, "Mini Dribblers", on saturday mornings, followed by a trip to the "Numbers" cafe, armed with magazine for Sam and newspaper for me.

I got my results from university yesterday and scored straight 'A's in all my creative writing modules. Not bad for an old-school drop out. And a full-time single parent.

I have started compiling poems for submission to competitions and publications. It would be great to get something published.

My life is possibly the most challenging and the most satisfying it's ever been.

Love, Love, Love
xxx

My 100th Post as LucyFurLeaps

2010-07-14T03:18:00.000-07:00

I am thinking I should make this count but really I wanted to have a quick ramble. I am starting to get back to some writing again. Following a few weeks of manic listmaking and doing, a wonderful week's holiday in Devon with Sam and my best friend, and needing a break after the intense meltdown-producing end of last semester at university.

I have still got plenty to keep me busy- obviously full-time single motherhood is top of the list. Also the garden, see my Roar!Earth Blog for more on that, and the general re-organising and de-cluttering of the house.

I am trying to find time to get my bike serviced and go swimming but haven't quite managed it yet...

Poetry is still my main concern.

Politics is creeping in too, after the inevitable let-down of the ConDem coalition. I am choosing what I read and when I read it carefully because it is so depressing and worrying. But I am keeping informed and wondering where to start 'acting'.

I am going to join a political party. I am fairly sure which one it will be but it is conditional. More writing on this when I have done the deed.

The Ingredients of a sword

2010-07-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

A spoon

Playdoh

Cricket bat

Bubble mixture

Tin foil

String

Wrapping paper

("We don’t need socks")

A paper plate

A paper bowl

As instructed by Sam

A Slight Blow of My Own Trumpet.

2010-07-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

June has only gone and turned into July! I have written bits and bobs but nothing substantial for a while. In truth I haven't stopped in other ways. I have been catching up with the huge list of tasks around the house which have been waiting for me to finish university for this year. I've spent time with Sam and been on holiday to Devon for a week. I've been trying to keep track of my burgeoning vegetable patch (see the Roar! Earth blog for more). I've read a few books and entered a couple of competitions.

But, if you'll pardon the vulgarity, I'm going to have a slight parp on my own trumpet here, because on Monday I got my Independent Creative Writing assignment back from uni, marked by my tutor Rachel Cusk, and I got 80%. She has called me " a marvellous poet" amongst other very postive comments.

I am so relieved to have got a first for this latest collection of my poems, among them six sestinas. I worked very hard on them and they mean a lot to me. What it really means though, is that I have to keep going.

This is just the beginning.
Leaping! xxx

The Journey- Home from Home

2010-06-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

"That's a good idea isn't it Mum - just five more minutes."

2010-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

I looked down and realised that I was holding a wooden spoon in one hand and a small pretend jar of branston pickle in the other. Whilst dancing frenetically to 'Magnificent Seven' by The Clash, on a pirate ship made of sofa cushions, in my living room. After throwing a small cuddly giraffe called Gerald to Sam. The giraffe kept falling into the 'petrol' and had to be rescued over and over again by helicopter and given lots of very gentle hugs and kisses. And then hurled back into the 'petrol'...
This is a very small excerpt of what is happily indicative of a normal day with my boy. I am so pleased to be back as a full-time Mummy. It is wonderful to let go and have fun, without an eye on the clock, or a frontal cortex wondering how many words I have still to write or books to read before tomorrow.
We spent a rainy afternoon in the park, and then went to the local cafe, Sam, happy with a chocolate milkshake and a copy of the latest CBeebies magazine, me just happy. Both with hair wet and ringlety after the rain. Came back home, cut up paper and glued it on to paper plates to make masks.
Then it was time to dance, which is where this began.

Sowing and Growing

2010-05-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

I've now completed two years of my degree. The last assignment of this semester was handed in last week. I am hoping I have done enough to get the marks I need to continue on my quest for a 2:1. I will find out my grades in due course, and this week will be able to send off the last application form for funding.

I spent a whole afternoon trying to work out what I was supposed to do with one funding form. In the end I put it down and went out and forgot about it for a while. I felt like my brain was about to explode. This applying for funding each year amounts to approximately two of the worst days of my year...intensely frustrating, ridiculous and scream-inducing. I write this, however, with the caveat that I am truly grateful that this funding has existed. I think that, following the recent election, this will all change out of recognition pretty damn quick. Fingers crossed the funding all goes through and I can complete this year.

In the meantime I now have a boisterous three-year-old, who is every inch the little boy, and such good fun. Hilarious, loving, wild and bright. Also a little monkey who has tested my patience to its limit recently. Having a break from uni will help restore the peace - I have been sleep-deprived for the last six weeks, since Sam decided it was time to leap (funny that) kamikaze style out of his cot. So the transition to a 'big-boy-bed' has been made but there have been lots of very early mornings. Trying to study and complete assignments after battling to get Sam to bed, and then never getting more than 5 hours sleep has been tough. But I've done it!
Hooray!
I just looked at my blog this time last year, here.

And that is still representative of how I feel.

I have been dying to get all of the uni work out of the way, even though I have enjoyed doing most of it, so that I can get on and just write. And read the piles of books sitting in my bedroom in very cliched leaning-tower-of-Pisa-like ways.
I have started with Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", which I've had for about a year. It is so good I keep thinking to myself throughout the day "just five minutes of reading..." but of course it's impossible to do that with Sam, although I manage a flick through the paper for half an hour every morning.
I read The Road for one of my creative writing modules this semester and am still haunted by it, I won't and don't want to see the film. I am rubbish with horror, and it is horrific. I have read that it is very respectful to the book, and I love Viggo Mortensen, but I don't see how it could possibly do it justice. I recommend it to anyone but it is not an easy read.
I am still mainly concerned with writing poetry. If this is the vein I continue to plough and be excited by then I may end up doing an MA in Poetry...but let's see. I have to get through the degree first.

Since finishing uni I have been hard at work in the vegetable patch, as I have been in every spare minute I have had in the last few months. Yes, I have a veg patch! I started work on it last year and the blog I began to record its progress will soon be blooming again: http://www.roarearth.blogspot.com It seems to be the perfect antidote to and also fuel for writing-and so I can relate to Murakami's thoughts on the way his running has affected his writing.
I have also sent off a poem to a competition- I am intending to do this as much as possible over the summer. I've also entered a piece of visual art into a competition. More about this in another post. I had something that fitted the brief. I have written elsewhere about how I always thought I was a visual artist- well, I am- but I am more wordsmith than that. The piece I have submitted is a mixture, maybe, of the two.

I can't stop and I don't want to. I am busier and more creative than I have ever been.

I am also trying to dig myself out of a hole. I need to get qualified so I can earn decent money so that I can give Sam the things he needs. So I can take care of us.

I have taught Sam to say "We don't like David Cameron". I shall say no more for now but this may change as the travesty unfolds...

Love, Love, Love xxx

May Bank Holiday

2010-05-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

A cold, grey rainy day so far. But that's ok. Croissants have been devoured and the end of another viewing of Toy Story approaches. Then it will be tidy up, hoover the crumbs and make a pirate ship time. I am hoping the rain will hold off so we can get out for a walk in the park later but if not I am going to get the finger paints out.

I have got so much uni work to do that if I think about it I panic. Sam is now in a big bed (terrible timing but exciting too!) so bedtimes have been a bit unpredictable and mornings have been very early...5.30-6am...He is doing really well with making this transition but I am exhausted, which has made studying, and even finding time to study very hard. Last week, for the first time in ages, my skin flared very badly. I am not entirely sure why, it is imposible to ever know for sure. The lack of sleep, prolonged stress with too many competing priorities, emotional upheaval of late, and too much reliance on sugar and caffeine have definitely not helped. This is also birch pollen time so that has been a factor too.

It seems to be calming down now, and fingers crossed, will improve back to its normal state. It's been a mighty reminder of what it used to be like, and how bad that is- very bad indeeed. Severe eczema/rosacea flare is like having someone rub fibre glass into your face and eyes and then liberally dowse it with itching powder. Plus it looks awful and immediately makes me want to dive under the duvet. I used to have to steel myself against looks and comments when it was at its worst. What is it that makes some people think it's ok to walk up to you and say "What's wrong with your face?" ?

You have to make a choice about how to deal with it- whether you are going to let it rule/ruin your life. I never have although it's had a major impact in the past, and it has been very hard to cope with at times. Other people in my life have found it hard to deal with too. I don't talk about it too much these days because I don't want to be defined by it but I do help other people where I can who are going through it, or watching members of their family struggle with it.

Sam and I went out with a single parents group last week for the first time. It was such a relief to have company on a sunday, and Sam had a great time ten pin bowling. We will meet up with them again and it is going to make a big difference to both of us. When families are doing stuff together at weekends is when I tend to feel most lost and isolated, and obviously that is true for other single parent families. It was great to meet other people in the same boat and do something fun together.

I am in the midst of writing twelve sestinas for one of my creative writing assignments. These are a reflection on my situation, my thoughts and feelings on motherhood and what is happening in my life. Some of these are intensely personal but if I am pleased with them, I am going to self-publish them in a small run and send them off to publishers. Worth a go innit....

Love, Love, Love
xxx

Note to Self

2010-04-19T01:26:00.000-07:00

Time is not linear. The clock goes round and round and we are always in a different place in our lives when it stops at midday or midnight. Even if we are in the same job, same bed, same relationship. Plenty of people live on past successes, live in past dreams, hopes and fears, or continually worry about what might happen next. I know I have been guilty of this. But I try to live in the present moment because that is the point where change is possible, where dreams and hopes can be realised. Where we can be ourselves.

I've had a big shake up in the last few weeks, a reminder of how much things do change. I spent most of Easter on my own with Sam which I found very difficult. It has made me face up to the changes that continue to happen in the way my family works, as a result of the wider ripples caused by Mum dying.

I crashed and feel like I have been in mourning again. Now though, Sam and I are free to celebrate and make our own meaning for these times (Buddha is now inextricably part of Easter, along with the Bunny). Family are around but in different ways. Mums are glue. My family came unstuck but we are gradually finding new ways of being.

Whenever the past pops up I find myself in the dangerous position of comparing myself to what could or, part of me feels, should have been. I end up feeling like a failure and questioning my abilities as a parent. I need to let go of this once and for all.

I've been weighing all of this up in the last week, which really has been an emotional rollercoaster.

But one thing is for sure. I am a good mum to Sam, not perfect but doing my best. I don't have a big plan for Sam apart from to teach him how to look after himself, care about himself and be tolerant, loving and compassionate towards others. I want him to have the confidence to be himself and have a go at whatever it is he is interested in, in the knowledge that I will be there to encourage him and support him.

He is happy, healthy, funny, polite, considerate, articulate and affectionate. To be sure he is also a mischievous two-year-old who will sometimes push my boundaries til I pull my hair out but that is normal.

As I head towards 40 I realise that more than anything else I crave peace and contentment. I seem to get that by being with my son and my friends, by writing poetry and by gardening.

I am in a mess with studying and have a mountain of work to do. I am not sure I will get it all done but I am now about to get on with it.

I have been re-reading passages of 'Buddhism for Mothers' and it is infintely quoteable. Here's one:

"Real love provides space and freedom for our friends and family to be themselves."

That is what I am trying to do for Sam - provide him with the space to find out who he is and let him enjoy being himself.

And I need to do it for me as well.

Love, Love, Love xxx

Stop! Carry On

2010-04-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

I am on Easter hols from uni and although I am still up to my ears in work I have made myself stop and take a break from it. I'm still writing poetry. It's impossible to stop doing that, even if it's one line or an idea for a poem.

Tiles on a shop front, Grays Inn Road, London

It has been a relief and a worry to stop. I have no idea how I will find the time to complete all my assignments and get the marks I need but somehow it must be done! My brain needed a breather and I needed to think about other things like planning activities with Sam, paperwork, the garden, and of course some Spring cleaning.

It's been good to stop and reflect on where I am and think about where I want to be next. But not too much. From today I am back on with the studying as well as everything else. I've tried to write about the past this week but I keep deleting what I write. It's fuel for poetry these days. It is done.

Poetry is a great medium for opening up a Pandora's Box of feelings, ideas, insights, observations and taboos, and continues to challenge and inspire me every day.

Love, Love, Love xxx

Less than a minute

2010-03-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

How on Earth, in writing can I catch
A walk at lunchtime,
Where in less than a minute I observe
The changing sky, the cold air in my throat,
The grey, damp, paving stones,
My reflection in the windows of the County Court,
Kids wandering past and hearing their talk,
As I hear a pounding drum beat via my ipod,
And think about poetry again and how much I like
The word metonym but I can’t quite remember
What it means,
And how glad I am I made my class and
I must remember to buy that envelope?
The light goes green.
I go.

Beautiful Blogger

2010-02-22T23:56:00.000-08:00

A Huge and Heratfelt THANK YOU to Lyn who writes the excellent and inspiring TWO GHOSTS, for honoring me with the Beautiful Blogger Award!

Here's what I have to do when I accept the award: 1. Thank and link to the person who gave me the award...Thank you Lyn- I really appreciate you passing this on to me and I love Two Ghosts!
2. Pass Award on to 7 bloggers I've recently discovered, (more or less), and whom I think are fantastic!! Here goes:

Lupus In Flight

Echoing Out Loud

Sparks in Electrical jelly

Casimira

A Cuban In London

On Music, Maths and Moggies

Poet's Window

3. Contact Bloggers to let them know to pick up Award.

4. State 7 things about myself:

1.I was in a band called Primordia and released three cds on the World Serpent label, which are very rare and seem to be collectors' items these days.

2.I used to love DJing (I'm more of a selector- am crap at mixing!) and ran a club night and put bands on in Stoke Newington for a bit in the late 80s.

3.In 1993 I lived next door to Tommy Steele in a squat.

4. I am a qualified reiki practitioner and an aromatherapy nut.

5. I have a wonky left eye.

6. I studied art history with the Open University.

7. I am allergic to almost everything but live in hope and homeopathy.

Love, Love, Love xxx

Unwanted

2010-02-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning on the way to swimming
You stop to look at a Saturday-night-left-behind-on-the-fence-coat.
A girl’s coat with the breast-pocket ripped off and a heart-size hole torn out.
Left behind in the rain, ruined, unwanted.
I think: “I hope she’s ok.”

LucyFurLeaps Gets Peripatetic

2010-02-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

I said last week that this blog might metamorphasise but instead it seems to have gone through some sort of asexual reproduction and has reproduced a version of itself on Wordpress.

This is not a mirror image but a blog devoted to my exploration and connection with the world of poetry. I will be posting there regularly and hoping to gain some sort of idea of the shape of things in Poetry-land.
I will still continue to post here with poems and other writing as usual.

I would be grateful if you could take a peek at the new blog. Let me know what you think!

From Glastonbury to Richmond...there are more developments a-foot...

Love xxx

Developing a Teflon Attitude

2010-02-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

Time crept ahead
While you continued
Under the assumption
That it was like an insect in amber.

Unchanging, until
The fly buzzed in your ear
Remember where it came from?
It’s full of shit. It always was.

Swat it

New eggs have been laid
Your geography is changed
New maps
And movements.

Writing

2010-02-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

I have just looked at all the different options for modules that I can study next year, the last year of my degree. I've made a decision about which ones to take and already I have a couple of ideas for the Creative Writing Special Study. I've said it before and I'll say it again...the more I write, the more I want to write. It is excruciating actually doing it but worth it when it goes well.

As I move through this degree I can see the patterns and obsessions in my writing and there is plenty there to keep me going for as long as I care to continue. My only hope is that I can do justice to it and other people will relate to it.

In the summer this grub of a blog may metamorphasise, grow wings and travel...

Watch this (un)space.

Brighid

2010-02-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

Here she comes
A river of red
Here she comes
A rush to the head
Here she comes
From her winter bed
Here she comes
Back from the dead

The sap is rising
A new fire in the hearth
Heartsong
Forging a new direction
Greening of the earth

Blessed Brighid

Fashion Killers #1

2010-02-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

Fake Missoni in the shops yet again in
Nasty shades of coral
Oompa-Loompa fake tan slapped all over the local babes
Tangerine nightmare
Low slung, muffin-top, pineapple-head
Blank-sneer
Ugg

Getting the bus home

2010-02-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

Desperate people mill around the doors of the bus
Heads down, shuffling determinedly
Like zombies

Upstairs, dust settling after schoolkids fling a freebie paper
All over the top deck
Pages flap

Recent-piss-stained boots stumble past my seat
Afternoon on the lager, fag-scorched voice
On the phone

I scribble surreptitiously, hopefully, ready to back down
from any unwanted attention
While I write

Bloggers for Haiti

2010-01-18T05:30:00.000-08:00

I am in the midst of finishing assignments but really wanted to post something here about English Mum setting up a JustGiving page for sending Shelterboxes to Haiti. A great idea and one to be promoted wherever possible.

Love xxx

Syd Barrett's Documented Acid Trip

2010-01-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

Unravelling in great threads:
William Blake in a sharp suit
Turning into fungus,
Marvelling at thumbs.
Sepia
Polkadots, microdots
Cloudy coffee,
White and running,
Touch a leaf and
Count the rings.
What will be left of the web
On the hillside?

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyxNPz9-ks&NR=1

What is it about Glastonbury?

2010-01-14T05:09:00.000-08:00

Everytime I visit something 'pings' in my brain and takes me off on a new creative, exploratory journey.

Looking East,

Low cloud,

Snow and ice,

Persephone still asleep

For now.

Waiting to float on the air.

Fully-Charged (Note to Self)

2010-01-04T02:00:00.001-08:00

This is the way to start the first monday of the new year. I have finally had more than six hours of broken sleep...I went to bed at 9pm last night. And woke up at 6.30am..that's the most sleep I've had in one night since I had 'flu in October. Honest Guv'. And what a difference it has made...

I have been studying every night over the holidays, trying to make headway into putting together the three portfolios of creative writing that I have to hand in this month for assessment. The only time I have had to do it has been after Sam is in bed, after I've completed the usual round of 'Tidy Up Time' chores. So my brain has become increasingly fried and then of course I have had a couple of nights of socialising and staying up late, and no chance of a lie-in to recover.
Yesterday my niece was babysitting for Sam, giving me a chance to print out drafts and make revisions and complete some editing exercises but I was so tired, and Sam was needing his mummy, and I reached breaking point.

So I ditched the writing last night, and was in bed at 9pm. Miranda Sawyer's column in the Observer magazine yesterday seemed particularly prescient:
"And what I realised after that is there isn't much that can't be solved by eating a proper tea and going to bed early."
This is after she had been to see a therapist a few years ago, after what she refers to as "regular doses of The Fear", who had given her some much needed lifestyle advice i.e. eat well, don't drink as much, go to bed before midnight. I can completely relate to this. And in recent years, especially since becoming a mum, have sworn by regular meals, proper sleep and more moderate drinking.

I woke up feeling energised and sparkly this morning, for the first time in ages. So my only New Year's Resolution is to have an early night more often.

Not very Rock n Roll...but as I am turning 40 this year, who cares...!

2009 was the year I...

2010-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Moved on and let go
Passed my driving test
Became a grade A student
Celebrated my son's 2nd birthday
Dyed my hair green
Climbed the Tor again
Went to a workshop and took a writing course with Starhawk
Made some wonderful new friends
Had a great holiday
Took Sam to the Balloon Fiesta
Dug the garden
Was obsessed with apples
Became even more interested in homeopathy
Got serious about writing poems
Looked on the bright side
Celebrated my best friend's 40th birthday
Had one of the most romantic moments of my life

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Love, Love, Love
xxx

Recipe for Turkish Delight

2009-12-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

Bones of a horse
Interstitial time
Synovial fluid
Roses

It’s horrible

for Marty, Mel and Jo

Today

2009-12-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

I’ve just finished the final ‘Tidy up Time’ for today. Not to my usual standard. I normally try and put everything back in some kind of order; put all the pieces of the various games and puzzles back in the right boxes; clear the sofas of paper airplanes, drawings, wooden spoons, crumbs etc. But tonight was more the equivalent of a trolley dash and dump in the corner of the living room.

I’ve had a great day with Sam. Today we floated to Bristol in the red and blue stripey hot air balloon; drove in the blue and silver car; played golf, football and tennis. We built and zoomed rockets and decorated Christmas trees, had a tea party and went to see the oak trees down the road. I watched Sam 'rollerblade' across the bathroom after his bath.

Bookended as ever with music, he pulled some fantastic guitar poses with his tennis racket this morning to ‘Pump It Up’ by Elvis Costello. And tonight was demanding to hear ‘Surf Safari’ by the Beach Boys. Not bad for a quiet day where we barely left the house.

Sam’s imagination and creativity seem to be coming on in leaps and bounds and I am trying to encourage it as much as possible but it’s hard to keep up with him sometimes. Last night he insisted that he had to sleep with the ‘surfboard’ he was playing with in the bath aka Granddad’s nail brush. A friend of mine very wisely said to me after I had Sam to “choose your battles”, so I decided not to fight this one. I did go and remove it once he was asleep though…

The lurgy which I’ve been ignoring all day has finally hit me and it feels like someone is treading glass into my throat. I still managed to do singing and ballet dancing to Christmas carols, read three stories and sing Sam’s bedtime song twice but I am now officially done. Now is the hour to load up on manuka honey, hot lemon and ginger with a nip of calvados, and head for bed.

I am very, very happy.

Oulipo!

2009-12-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or the workshop of potential literature was founded in 1960, and is a loose gathering of (mainly) french speaking writers. They are interested in creating works using constrained writing techniques.

I've tried two Oulipo-style writing exercises and both have pushed my writing in new directions. One produced a new character and the other a new perspective on an old obsession.

For more information go here:

http://www.oulipo.net/

http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Black Box Recorder

2009-11-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

Black box recorder,
I can’t carry you around with me anymore-
you are too heavy.
The weight of you is dragging me down.
It is time to put you in a safe place
where I can access you from time to time,
when I need to.

I phone up the self storage company
and I pay for a small unit.
I order a cab to take us there.
I have a padlock and a key which I take out of my pocket.
I fill out the paperwork and sign my name,
Then I am shown where to go.
I open the door,
It is a silver cell: safe, dry, not too warm or cold.
Your lights blink...

Black box recorder,
Don’t worry, I’ll be back-
you will continue to record my successes and struggles.
You are treasure and wisdom as well.

Then I say goodbye,
I shut the door and click the lock,
I put the key in my purse,
I leave.
I am cleared for takeoff-
The future is light.

This is a poem I wrote a year ago. It marked a big change in my life at a time when I was having bereavement counselling and learning to leave the past behind. It also marked a point where my writing changed. I can't say exactly why but maybe it just became more honest. I would happily pull this to pieces now and re-write it but I am putting it here in its original finished form for posterity. A lot has happened since I wrote this and I have much to be thankful for. At the time my tutor said it was as if I had walked away from disaster unscathed. I think it is more accurate to say I survived, gained some valuable insights and then moved on.

Anything is possible.

Fabric

2009-11-09T13:30:00.000-08:00

Burrowing under the duvet with a teddy tucked under one arm, your cold feet on my legs.

First cup of coffee.

Your surprised smile as “Rock Around the Clock” hits the car stereo half way round Tolworth Roundabout.

Feeling torn as I leave you at nursery,

Feeling relieved to know I can leave you there and you will be fine.

A quiet hour to dye my hair green and get organised. Blessed indeed.

A woman at the door selling organic compost, who remembered my mum, was surprised to see me, shocked to hear of her death three years ago. Still remembered ,Mum, still remembered.

A crazed half hour of trying to print out poems and get out of the door: lots of swearing.

Hellos and How are yous from friends after an intensive one to one playful weekend with my beloved 2 year old son ends.

Mistaken for being in my twenties by a fellow student – she could not believe I am 39.

Two drafts of poems I am happy to read aloud. The promised land.

Each day a shimmer and a change in the fabric. Weft and warp.

Trees

2009-10-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

"When you hug a tree, a tree never refuses. You can rely on a tree. It is dependable. Every time you want to see it, every time you need its shade, it is there for you."

from "A Pebble for Your Pocket" by Thich Nhat Hanh

2009-10-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Trigger:-
Mousetrap
Scrabble
Day unravelled
Dot Dot Dot

Fuse burning
Dynamite
Explosion
Under water
Tidal wave of
Emotion
Rage
Crashing through the kitchen
All Hope washed away

Not a game of
Risk
Not a game of
Life

Awareness regained
Dragged to the surface all
Puffy and waterlogged
Two hugs, one kiss of life
Be here, now
Keep going.

"Catch a wave you'll be sitting on top of the world"

2009-10-19T00:35:00.001-07:00

I am having a massive surge of creativity, new ideas and new understanding at the moment which is like being caught on a wave and taken on a journey.

I wish I had more time to explore all this and do it justice. I feel like I am either letting the wave take me, or flailing around in the water, or desperately trying to keep up but only able to doggy-paddle frantically.

I am making more choices about how I use my time and more decisions about which direction to go in.

I need to be more disciplined. I know of old that I am inclined to try and keep up until I burn out; get distracted by what someone else is doing or dither until the moment has passed me by.

As the end of October approaches it is time to think hard about which steps to take on the path and at what point I need to stand still and let some of it pass me by.

Tortoise not hare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtBZSIrmgiU

Frank O'Hara: Why I Am Not a Painter

2009-10-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Last thursday was National Poetry Day. Anyone who has happened upon this blog will have read some of my poetry and I continue to write poetry on a daily basis. I am also studying a poetry module "Poetry Now" at uni.

I sat in the cafe of a local garden centre last week doing some homework, reading Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney poems. I flicked though the vast anthology which is the core text for this module and a poem by Frank O'Hara called "Why I Am Not a Painter", which you can read here, caught my eye. It resonated strongly with me - it explains what I cannot. Why I am not a painter.

I have always painted and stopped and started again. It was my earliest wish to be a fine artist. I did a lot of painting in the couple of years before my marriage broke up, and for nearly a year after. When I fell pregnant with Sam I stopped. I have daubed and dabbled a bit since but not had much time. But I have always found time to write. And the more I write the more I write. I am more poet than painter but a bit painter too and that seems, finally, to sit very well with me.

Out of sight

2009-10-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

It stretches in all directions and
I am in the middle again
But digging deep

The crossroads has buried treasure
And this time I am staying here
To find it, finally.

Then I will know which path to take
Home.

Transition

2009-09-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

From Apple to hemlock via sycamore
Letting go
Letting go

Holiest fruit, classical poison, helicopter seed
Letting go
Letting go

Through the labyrinth, I catch the breeze and fall
Letting go
Letting go

And with love, I hold on to me

Discombobulated to Re-combobulated

2009-09-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve been fighting a cold for a week now, which is silly. I should have given in and gone back to bed last Friday, or yesterday, or today, while Sam was at nursery, but instead I have carried on. It’s not something to be proud of – and is a habit I have been consciously changing. Trying to find that balance between knowing I am ok to keep going (and most of the time I don’t have a choice as a a single parent) and taking the opportunity to rest and sleep and take care of myself before my body gives me a big ‘You didn’t listen’ signal.
As I’ve said previously it’s been a good, very busy, summer, and I am now trying to tick off my To Do list before I go back to the intense experience of university. I’m not complaining- it’s mostly good stuff: clearing the patch of garden I am going to grow vegetables in next year; writing; planning activities for Sam and doing research for the work which will at some point turn into a book when it and I are ready.
As I planted bulbs in the garden yesterday afternoon I realised that the garden looks messy. Windblown and overgrown, flowers are drying and going brown on the stem. Leaves strewn across the grass along with windfallen apples and pears. And the ever-growing heaps of bindweed, brambles, ivy and other garden detritus which are piling up as I continue with my mission to clear the space at the end of the garden. My mum would have said: “It’s gone over.” It is bloated and worn out and brittle and dry and tired. The pots are still full of petunias and trailing lobelia and everything is still green and bright but it’s coming to an end and ready for change.
A bit like me then! I feel messy and out of shape and ready to break free and have a change of space. So, from today I am going to detox and get ready for university. It’s all going to be different again this year.

August to Autumn

2009-09-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

It is dark and rainy. Hello Autumn. I felt it when I woke up last Friday- like the end of Mary Poppins, when the wind changes and she leaves again. Season of mists and mellow all that.... season of getting back to work more likely. I can't believe I am going back to uni at the end of this month. I am already stocking the freezer with batches of home-made soup and pasta sauce, and trying to sort out clutter. I am eternally trying to sort out clutter but getting more brutal with it now. I've just sold Sam's playpen on ebay and and got rid of a pushchair and bag of clothes to charity but there is tonnes more to sort out. Paperwork has to be filed and 'actioned' and more re-organising must be done before the end of September.

photo of apples taken at Glastonbury, 'The Isle of Apples', at Lammas time

The garden is starting to look different - I had a scary thought today as I was hacking away at brambles and ivy: "I could do the whole garden, not just the end"...I hate having these thoughts. I have had a quiet word with my over-ambitious self and made it clear that sorting out the end of the garden to grow vegetables is quite enough to be dealing with, apart from everything else - see the Roar! Earth blog for more on this. I also want to plant a bee-friendly front garden. I drive myself mad with all these ideas but it does keep life interesting.

Being able to drive has made such a difference to everything. I've been driving for five months now. When I passed my test I decided to drive as much as possible until I felt really confident and now, after this summer, I am ready to get back to walking and cycling as much as I can. I knew it would have an effect on my fitness levels but I swam four lengths when I took Sam swimming the other day, and my arms were aching. Time to get moving.

I am very thankful for this summer- it's been the best one I've had for years. I've caught up with old friends, made new ones, and Sam and I have been able to go out and have lots of adventures and new experiences. I feel very lucky.

Soon it will be time to batten down the hatches and get my head back into study mode. I am just starting to look forward to it. I was hoping to get cracking on a book this summer but I've been doing too much to put the time in. Instead it's been about poetry. It always has been. I can't remember not writing poetry- I wrote tonnes of song lyrics as well when I was in bands, especially Primordia. I'm enjoying it more than ever and the first year of uni has definitely taught me how to shape and edit my poems. Let's see what happens this year.

Turning, turning, turning...

Love xxx

In 1988

2009-08-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to go and see a gig: Christian Death
But we did not
We got drunk and amorous instead
Caught up in an illicit thrill
We were exes now
I lay down on summer rain-drenched grass
On top of your jacket
I wore your old dress shirt
But we did not
It was too dark and rainy
We had a romantic adventure
But the next day I was your ex
And I had to leave
Knowing that your new girlfriend was on her way
And it was over
Not beginning

Balloons, Bristol, Buddies, Blogs and Bliss

2009-08-14T06:06:00.001-07:00

It's all about the B's at the moment. Sam and I spent nearly ten days in Bristol, staying with various friends, house-sitting while other friends were on holiday, attending birthday parties and having a completely brilliant time at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta.

So now I have done a proper long drive in my car, with Sam and the aid of Tom Tom. I drove all over Bristol, in and out of the city and its environs, and out into the countryside. For a place I had lived in for several years I felt like I was getting to know it all over again via road, rather than public transport, bike and on foot.

I re-connected the geography of the city which I love so much, re-connected with my great friends there, and re-connected with lots of memories-transforming once painful territory into blessings and bliss.

I have moved on. I am moving on.

Sam had an amazing time, getting to know my friends and their children, expanding his experience and horizons exponentially, changing his views and opinions and deepening his obsession with hot air balloons.

We saw four hot air balloons ascending over the city as we drove back from friends to where we were staying, balloons rising above Bristol after the weekend-long Harbour Festival, which we had completely side-stepped, in favour of my friend's daughter's third birthday party, and the Amnesty International Fete at Goldeney Hall gardens. Sam was awe-struck by those four balloons. "Just wait for the balloon fiesta!" I told him. On Friday morning I got up at 5am, dressed Sam and bundled him into the car with a beaker of juice and some toast and we went on a tour around Bristol for the next hour, waiting for the morning ascent of balloons. Suddenly there they were! Floating above us, drifting up into the sky, glorious and colourful. We drove backwards and forwards until there seemd to be hundreds of balloons of all shapes, sizes and hues disappearing into the distance.

On the saturday I spent time at my friends' Paul and Kat's allotment, digging up onions, chatting with and gaining inspiration from Kat, while Paul looked after Sam and their gorgeous daughter Maya. Later we all headed off to Ashton Court for the Balloon Fiesta. The weather was perfect and we saw 66 balloons ascend and then waited for the Night Glow and fireworks. Sam rode on a merry-go-round with Kat and Paul and Maya. It is the latest night he has had so far. It was quite a mission getting through crowds of a quarter of a million people and managing to keep him from running off. He absolutely loved it and I think he thought he would be doing the same the next night!

Now Lammas has passed, the season is moving on again and my summer holiday is fast disappearing. I feel refreshed and ready to put everything in place for the next year at university. But before I do that I am about to embark on a new, big project. I am going to dig over the end of the garden, which has been neglected for years and turn it into a vegetable patch. It doesn't sound like much maybe, but it is a big space which is feet deep in brambles. I have no idea what I am doing but I am going to give it a go. If you would like to know more or follow my progress please see my new blog Roar! Earth

Love Love Love

xxx

And, if you are wondering about the new photo on the title of the page, it is the top of Glastonbury Tor, looking East. Heaven.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut & Feet

2009-07-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Below is a piece of writing as part of a creative writing portfolio assignment for my degree. This is a commentary on Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. It was supposed to be 250 words but is over 300. It was supposed to focus on a particular writing technique of Vonnegut's but in facet this reads more like a piece of critical analysis illustrated with quotes from the anti-surrealist philosopher Georges Bataille's essay "The Big Toe".

This piece of writing can not begin to do justice to Vonnegut's book. It took him 23 years to write it and anyone who has read it will understand that such a densely woven, exquisitely constructed, deeply moving and thought-provoking work cannot possibly be explained or illuminated in this manner.

But... I can talk about feet.

Kurt Vonnegut used the image of feet in Slaughterhouse 5 to signify corporeality amidst the time travel, alien abduction and mundanity of conventional American life. A signal to the reader that there is an inescapable truth being offered: here is humanity; here is the reality of war.
This meta-fictional Pilgrim’s Progress must also have its own barefoot Billy Pilgrim.
The anti-surrealist philosopher Georges Batailles, writing in his 1929 essay “The Big Toe”, described the big toe as “hideously cadaverous”, and said:
“One can imagine that a toe, always more or less damaged and humiliating, is psychologically analogous to the brutal fall of man- in other words, to death.”
Early on in the book the first mention of feet comes at a point when Billy is writing to the press about the Tralfamadorians view of death and the phrase “So it goes”, which he says whenever he hears of someone’s death. Directly after this Vonnegut describes Billy’s feet:
“His bare feet were blue and ivory.”
This concrete image is repeated when Billy is back in World War Two, and captured by the Germans:
“Billy found the afternoon stingingly exciting. There was so much to see – dragon’s teeth, killing machines, corpses with bare feet that were blue and ivory. So it goes.” Immediately the reader is reminded of Billy’s feet being the same as the corpses, and of his being there and of his experiences, and the affect they had on him.
Before his initial capture Billy is close to death and hallucinating:
“He was wearing dry, warm, white sweatsocks, and he was skating on a ballroom floor.”His feet are covered –he is no longer confronted by his own mortality. In Bataille’s view: “Man’s secret horror of his foot is one of the explanations for the tendency to conceal its length and form as much as possible.”

Where does the time go?

2009-07-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

I've just looked here and I haven't posted anything since the beginning of June! This is a brief catch up before I start posting again in earnest...in other words, this is a ramble.

Since my last post I have finished uni for the year, handed in all assignments and received most of the marks back- just waiting on one now. I did well- firsts in all but one which was marked at 2:1. I worked hard so I am glad it paid off.

Trying to find a metaphor or analogy to describe my experience of going to back to study is impossible.But it has been some of these: brilliant; bemusing; frustrating; challenging; a juggle; a culture shock; and made me feel very old at first!

I think next year will present me with a different set of challenges as well as the continued juggle with Sam and trying to find time to squeeze everything in. But I do feel like I've settled back in to the swing of academic life. I am hoping I won't have so many personal events e.g getting divorced (!) to deal with at the same time and can just concentrate on studying.

Sam and I had a lovely week away in Devon in June, on the borders of Cornwall near Bude, with my best friend, going to the seaside, visiting the Gnome Reserve (more about that in another post) and generally relaxing and chilling out.

We celebrated the solstice with a BarBQ and pink champagne in the midst of the beautiful and peaceful woody area we were staying in. With a view overlooking a hillside meadow and trees, a zillion stars in the sky and bats flitting about.

Unfortunately whilst staying at our lovely little holiday home, The Triangle House, or more properly "The Hives" I had a big flare up of hayfever, asthma and eczema. It was going to happen sometime and being suddenly surrounded by nature, and with visiting the ponies round the corner a couple of times, it decided to happen then.

Which was a bit of a pain but with the help of some blessed rest, some homeopathic remedies, reiki, eyedrops and a couple of antihistamines, and plenty of sea air, I recovered and my skin is almost back to normal now.
I've currently got a chest infection so have been taking it easy but haven't needed to resort to antibiotics or increase the medication I take for asthma so, with a bit more rest I am getting better.

Enough of the catalogue of illness! The fact is I am healthier(and happier) than I have been for years, and long may it continue.

I have been going to see some art in London and will blog about what I've seen later.

I have also been gardening and am looking forward to doing some more of this as well.

I haven't been writing- maybe I needed a break from it. In the last week I have been getting back to it, doing some research and reading and a lot of thinking.

The solstice has been and gone, a big marker in the year, and for all those who follow the seasons and such, as we head up to Lammas I find I am heading towards another crossroads... Love, Love, Love xxx

Summer View

2009-06-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

A triumphant midday sun in throat chakra sky
Over the steady stream
Specks and motes of dust float by
Weeping willow dips a leafy twig.

Above the heads of smoking students
Dances a damsel fly
A joyous din of children spin
In summer uniform nearby.

The epitome of ‘Flaming June'
Gazing at the blazing sun
I can’t resist a write about it
Now the season‘s near mid-run

It's just a thought - and a thought can be changed.

2009-05-27T06:19:00.001-07:00

Take all the knowledge

And let it all go

Look for new patterns

Go with the flow

Eye of the Storm

2009-05-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of assignment fever- the last ones for this year, and then I have completed my first year of university. Phew! And...where did that go? So, it will be a bit quiet round here until the beginning of June- unless the muse strikes.

There are a lot of changes happening for me at the moment and I think, once the dust has settled, they will all be good changes. Moving things forward again.

The summer holiday will give me a chance to get on with my own research and writing, about which I have had to be very disciplined and put to one side since starting my degree.

I am excited about the next phase.

The wheel is turning again. And at the moment it is a steering wheel.

Sunday afternoon

2009-05-03T15:22:00.001-07:00

In the garden
We span round and round
Until so dizzy
We fell to the ground
Only to get up and point at the moon.

When it disappeared behind the clouds
You up-ended a broom
Swept them all away with a brush upside down
And cheered and pointed again at the moon
Then we went inside for tea.

Here is the year

2009-05-01T12:14:00.001-07:00

At the end of this fair day

The first of the merry month of May

The plans are sown

There is work to be done

The greenest time of the year has begun

As the fire burns bright what will you see?

You'd better get busy, blessed bee.

Rainbow Magical Material

2009-04-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

Rainbow magical material

We like to sit under you

And watch the sun shine through

You're rainbow magical material

Of red and green and blue

Pink, purple and orange too

Oh rainbow magical material

You really are

Our very favourite thing

To do

The City Reflects; Somerset House

2009-04-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

This water

Erupts

Springs like new life

Is forced out of the ground

Amidst the static, stately square

Liquid converses

In a place of focussed thought and peace

Away from the flow of frenetic energy outside

The movement is the counterpoint

Nature breaks through

Bursting bubbles on the surface.

Happy Mothers Day

2009-03-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

Motherhood is The Big One. For me anyway. I wanted it to change my life, I knew it would but I had no idea what it would mean in reality. Does any woman? I woke up the morning after having Sam, on a Monday morning, after a weekend of labour culminating in a caesarean, in a different world, in another dimension. The weight of the responsibility just starting to dawn on me, the lightness of the joy still enveloping me.

I lost my Mum at about the time I fell pregnant and so her life and death and my pregnancy and Sam’s birth were and are irrevocably tied.

Ultimately the ‘weight’ has set me free. It is both the hardest and easiest job on earth. I hope that one of the things I achieve as a mum is for Sam to know who he is and to have confidence in himself. To love himself. I believe the best way to do this is to teach by example and so I have had to face up to some home truths and to take better care of myself. I have started to place more value on myself and the things I do.

The idea of weight and lightness came into focus when I read Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being recently for uni : “The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfilment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.”

Sam is my responsibility- I don’t think of him as a burden. But this resonated with me. Being a single mum is about taking the responsibility on both shoulders.

I miss my Mum now, almost three years later and I talk to her every day. Mums are human and not perfect but there is no one like your mum and you will never know this or how much they know about you, truly, until they are gone. And it is irreplaceable.

One of my oldest and bestest friends wrote “You are the mother” on the card she sent me after Sam was born. It has become my mantra.

So to all mothers I say:

You are The Mother. Rock On.

And for all mothers-to-be:

I salute you.

Talk about a blast from the past!

2009-03-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

Just saw this!?

http://www.discogs.com/Primordia-A-Mental-Aid-Project/release/1599928

I don't even have one!

This is the first 'release' by Lucy and Dog, on cassette, made-at-home, all hand-printed and hand-stuck-on labels etc...and made in 1989. BUT -this cassette says Primordia, so possibly a second 'edition'?!

It is so long ago I can't remember.

The band became Primordia after Lucy and Dog. Then we signed to the World Serpent label.

I wonder where this person got it from? I might ask.

Shoes

2009-03-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have just updated my other blog: http://www.theshoeshow.blogspot.com/ for the first time in about two and a half years. I feel really good about this. The end of The Shoe Show coincided with a very difficult time for me personally and I was sad I couldn't make the second series. Now life has moved on and I am so glad I was able to make that show. It changed my life and is a big part of the reason I am now at university.

The shoe must go on! (Thanks to Amelia for gorgeous shoe photo)

March

2009-03-08T06:13:00.001-07:00

The trees shudder,
March roars in like a lion,
I shiver in the garden,
My son bounds joyfully in the wind.

Leaping!

2009-02-21T07:19:00.001-08:00

Suddenly my writing seemed to leap forward this week. I have been writing every day and taking the writing exercises, given to us at uni, seriously and it is pushing my writing into new and uncharted territory. VERY exciting! The horizon has opened up and there is now a huge vista brim full of new stuff to work on.
Not a lot of time to work on it at the moment but I am stockpiling notes and ideas.
And as this happens I feel more and more myself. More and more solid, rooted feet and head in the sky.

Sam ran around the garden earlier, shouting: " Sunny morning! Sunny morning! Bounce! Bounce!"

Love xxx