Bridport and Baby Blues

My Goodreads Giveaway

I wrote a long rambling post for the blog today about parenting, love and life, following on from a spectacularly low point on the school run this morning, that started with yelling in the traffic jam and ended up with daughter and I both in tears. But, if I’m tired of thinking about my failings as a parent then I’m sure you’re tired of reading about them. So I’m going to talk writing instead.

I finally listed a Giveaway on Goodreads this week to win a paper copy of Baby Blues and Wedding Shoes. It’s open to all the countries I can ship to easily from Amazon, so if you fancy reading it, or just like a chance at a freebie, do pop over to Goodreads and sign up, and tell your friends! 🙂

Continuing on a writing theme, I spotted a couple of my Baby Blues bookmarks in a stand at the library today in what turned out to be a rack of leaflets on the Bridport Prize. For those who don’t know, the Bridport Prize is one of the most well-known short story (plus flash fiction and poetry) competitions in the UK, with a first prize of £5000. I think about entering every year, but I haven’t written anything shorter than 100,000 words in years. If you have, and fancy your chances, the closing date is 31st May 2014. (I can’t put any more details at present because the website doesn’t seem to be working, but this is the link).

Brittle Star Competition

Next to the Bridport flyer was another writing competition with a March 2014 closing date, again for short stories and poetry. This is the Brittle Star inaugural poetry and short fiction competition closing on 12th March 2014. The prizes are much more modest (£250 per genre) but all winners will be published in Brittle Star and invited to a launch and prize giving event in London (a great chance for networking!)

Incidentally, if you want to keep up to date with UK writing competitions, I recommend visiting (and following) the Sally Jenkins – Writer blog. Sally Jenkins’ frequently lists details of writing competitions both big and small as well as lots of hints and tips and great resources. I learned about the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition from her and, if I hadn’t, I might never have finished Dragon Wraiths. I’m very grateful!

Getting Ready in the Morning: Mummy vs Daddy

Breakfast Chaos

This is an average morning in the Martin household:

Mummy

6.15am – daughter comes in and asks if she can read (she has one star left on her Groclock)

6.20am – daughter starts singing loudly in her room

6.25am – daughter turns on bathroom light and I wait for the shout of “Mummy, I’m finished!”

6.30am – daughter calls for a bum wipe

6.45am – husband’s alarm goes off – he rolls over and silences it then goes back to sleep

6.45am – daughter runs in asking if it’s time to go downstairs because Daddy’s alarm has gone off

7.00am – tire of waiting for Daddy to get up or daughter to read quietly in her room. Get up (even though kids’ ‘sun’ doesn’t come up until 7.15am)

7.05am – let dog out

7.10am – put porridge in the microwave and boil kettle, unstack dishwasher and tidy kitchen

7.15am – put breakfast on table for first child, turn off radio and put Cbeebies on the iPad for an easy life, after getting distracted checking email and messages for five minutes. Dispense biscuits for dog

7.20am – son comes downstairs, crying about something, saying his nappy has leaked, or standing in middle of kitchen, half naked, demanding pants. Pour him cereal and put him in front of iPad

7.21am – realise haven’t heard shower. Yell up to see if husband is awake

7.22am – son needs a wee. Take him to the bathroom

7.25am – remember dog (who has been bouncing at the window for twenty minutes to come in). Let her in and wipe her paws

7.27am – remember porridge in microwave and put on for extra three minutes

7.30am – take breakfast and coffee up to husband in attempt to get him out of bed and into the shower

7.38am – send children up to get dressed, try to eat breakfast, run up to turn on bedroom lights and sort out clothing dispute

7.41am – get dressed into yesterday’s crumpled clothes, open blinds in daughter’s room, open blinds in son’s room, make beds, turn off lights, pick up pyjamas, sort out dirty clothes left in a heap the night before, lay out pants and socks for husband who is now running late

7.45am – cajole children into getting dressed instead of playing. Remind husband not to spend all day in the shower

7.46am – eat cold porridge and drink cold tea

Brushing Teeth on the Run

7.50am – brush teeth and get toothbrushes for kids

7.55am – realise son can’t get dressed because there are no clean clothes in his drawers. Locate laundry pile, take upstairs, sort and put away

8am – kiss husband goodbye

8.05am – make sure kids have eaten breakfast and are dressed

8.10am – brush daughter’s hair and endure screams, get frustrated at trying to plait it, put it in a pony tail on the third attempt

8.15am – remember haven’t made packed lunch for son, quickly make a cheese sandwich

8.20am – fill up school water bottles, yell at kids for not putting their shoes on, run round saying “we’re late, we’re late”

8.25am – get children in car with promises of program on the iPad. Remember haven’t brushed teeth, run back in house for toothbrushes. Brush teeth in the car

8.28am – realise car windscreen is frozen, run back in house for warm water, curse when throw water all over car seat by accident. Wipe car seat, sit in wet patch

8.30am – finally leave the house. Drive for ten minutes listening to Octonauts for the fifteenth time

8.40am – get to town and look for parking space

8.45am – park and get scooters out, wrestle children into hats, coats and gloves, grab school bags, trot after scooting children to school saying “we’re late, we’re late”, pick up at least one child with grazed knee and wet clothes. Promise plasters

8.50am – remove daughter’s coat, deposit water bottle, show and tell item, signed forms, homework diary, make sure daughter has signed the register, write encouraging ‘star’ for daughter’s board, leave her with teaching assistant, usher son out of the building past all the other parents and children, shoulder spare scooter

8.55am – get son scooting back to car, while saying “we’re late, we’re late”

9.05am – drive son to preschool, park on the mud, step in dog poo, forget lunch box, run back to car

9.10am – get son in slippers, take off coat, find a spare peg for his bag, find his name on the register table, put packed lunch in kitchen, find his mimi, give son to keyworker, crying and saying he’ll miss me, run round to make silly faces at the window

9.12am – stride back to car, drive to end of road to turn car around, navigate out past the twenty other cars. Turn radio on. Breathe.

9.15am – get home, put dishwasher on, turn off rest of the lights, put on laundry, put wet towels on the radiator, turn on tumble dryer, tell the dog we’ll go out later, make cup of tea

9.30am – start work

Daddy

6.45am – alarm goes off. Silence it. Go back to sleep

7.20am – wife calls up the stairs to see if I’m up. Say yes. Go back to sleep.

7.30am – wife brings porridge and coffee. Eat porridge and coffee.

7.40am – get in shower. Stand under hot water for ten minutes. Shave. Brush teeth.

7.50am – get dressed in clothes laid out on bed. Put on ironed shirt. Go downstairs. Kiss everyone goodbye

8.00am – leave house. Sit in running car while the windscreen defrosts.

8.05am – drive to work listening to the radio

8.30am – start work

Lessons In How To Be A Bad Parent

In McDonalds

I just spent a wonderful evening catching up with a good friend (who, thankfully, sees parenting as challenging as I do and isn’t afraid to admit it) while our kids played beautifully together upstairs. If only all evenings could be spent thus.

I was telling her of my new low this week, when I bribed my child to eat some fish finger in McDonalds (he refuses to eat anything but chips and beans, certainly no meat or fish) and it made me think of all the things I never thought I’d find myself saying as a parent (and that have probably secured a special ring of parenting hell just for me).

These are a few I can remember:

To my child in McDonalds: “Just eat one piece of fish finger and then you can have your chips”
Too frequently, and in the hearing of other parents: “Please just finish your chips and beans, and then you can have your cookie”
“Please, can you just watch TV, I’m too tired to take you outside”
“Yes you can watch another programme, but it’ll mean no bedtime stories”
“Can we watch Ben & Holly? I’m bored of Octonauts”
In response to a scream: “Unless you’re bleeding I’m not interested”
After daughter practised counting to 100, out loud, ALL DAY: “Can you stop counting now and play Candy Crush instead?”
To a chatterbox child: “Would you like your mimi?” (Dummy/Pacifier)
To an overly affectionate child: “I don’t want a cuddle right now but I’m sure Kara (the dog) does”
“I don’t think a third satsuma/yoghurt/fruit pot is a good idea, would you like a cookie?”
“I’m too tired to go to the park and it’s cold, would you like to go shopping?”
“Why don’t you watch TV on the iPad; we’ll do your homework tomorrow”

I’m sure there are hundreds of others, and that doesn’t include all the things I swore I’d never ever say, no matter how tired and cranky I got (shut up / go away / serves you right / FFS / don’t you dare / you’re doing my head in and so on.)

Sigh. At least I can make other people feel better about their parenting! Don’t you just love being a mum?

Sunday Ramble

Designing Party Invites

It’s been a long, long weekend. Both my daughter’s teachers came out on Friday to say she’d been subdued during class (even though I told them when I dropped her off that she has a cold. They’re hot on attendance and so have to take the consequences!) and my son’s nursery key worker said he burst into tears fifteen minutes after I dropped him off (which isn’t like him).

We’ve all got this head cold that seems to have tiredness and grumpiness as by-products. I feel like I’ve done nothing but nag at the children and tell them off all weekend, which in turn leads to endless Mummy guilt and feelings of general despair that I’m scarring them for life with my constant snapping and snarling.

It certainly hasn’t been the weekend for trying to organise a child’s birthday party (I feel sorry for the other mum I’m planning the party with!) Still, I managed to get the invitations printed (although not written as I ran out of envelopes), the disco booked and we agreed on a village hall and booked it. Baby steps, little milestones. I have to say, I hate organising children’s parties. The child in question gets so hyped up and excited, “is it tomorrow, is it tomorrow?” and there are so many details to manage. Not to mention the idea of having 40 kids in a hall. That’s why the disco: trying to entertain eight children in our house last year showed us that we are not children’s entertainers! 🙂

My answer to everything this evening

I’m trying to think what else we did this weekend but it’s a bit of a blur. We went to see my father-in-law, who has just come back from a trip to New Zealand. He brought a newspaper back from the town I lived in while I was there – Dunedin – and it made me homesick. Even though I had the ups and downs of a turbulent romance during my months there, they still figure as some of the happiest moments of my life. There was a real sense of community amongst the ex-pats and I was happy to be included in it. I haven’t often felt part of a community, and it’s a lovely feeling.

Today was a bit about survival. It was too cold to contemplate going for our usual swim, and the kids ended up fending for themselves. Or fighting, mostly. The adults aren’t the only ones cranky with this cold. The children seemed to spend the day yelling, “It’s Mine!” and “I’m Telling!” until I wanted to run out into the street and scream. (The neighbours wouldn’t blink if I did – I quite often lock myself in the utility room and scream myself hoarse. Should I admit that?)

My daughter also keeps getting stabbing pains in her head, which we hope are just the headaches we’re also getting from the virus, but it does add to the general worry. I’m afraid I’m the kind of parent that will either ignore something completely or over-react and want to rush the child to A&E. Poor hubbie has to try and figure out the right response between the two.

All in all I’m glad it’s Sunday and we’re all back to school / work / nursery tomorrow. How do you survive a weekend with tired, ill, cranky kids? I’ve decided a large glass of wine is the answer…

I Want to be a Dog

I want to be a dog

Today I envied my dog. She spent most of a rainy morning curled up in her bed or laid out on the sofa. The kids fed her biscuits and she even got her walk when hubbie got home. But mostly she slept, unmolested and alone.

I envied her because I am sick. Again. I’m not even sure I actually got over the last cold; they seem to have merged into one long month of misery.

After getting up and putting two bowls of dry cereal on the sofa and Cbeebies on the TV I crawled back to bed and tried to stay there. It lasted until hubbie left for work, when the calls of “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” came up the stairs.

When that failed, the thunderous sound of approaching children thumped up the stairs in time with my headache, followed by voices too loud and too high, and hugs too short and demanding.

I got up, showered and struggled downstairs, only for them to disappear off to play happily by themselves for half an hour. Kids! It’s been like that all day. Like vultures circling a dying animal, the children seem to know when I’m at my weakest and dive in with claw and beak. They squabbled and fought, over toys, over me. They were mean to each other, provoking tantrums left and right. Such a change from my gold star Mummy day yesterday.

The worst part? Apart from opening my Class Act manuscript and realising it’s a pile of poo? The worst part is they go back to school/nursery tomorrow. My first day alone in nearly three weeks and I’m sick. Not even sure how I’ll manage the school run. Sigh. Never mind. As always in the blog universe, there are plenty of other Mummies sharing my pain. My favourite two posts from today are these:

Vanilla Housewife Lethargic Mama

Scary Mommy Finding Me

Enjoy.

Papier Mache and Puddles

Papier Mache Craft

We were stuck home today, as the car is in the garage, so I decided to introduce the kids to the concept of papier-mache. I must be mad!

Actually it’s a great craft for kids, involving all their favourite things – tearing paper, getting sticky, making a mess and creating something.

I researched making the paste and found a great website called DLTK’s Crafts for Kids, which had lots of hints and tips. I opted for the cooked papier-mache paste, adding salt (which apparently helps prevent mould) and cinnamon (to improve the smell).

So my ‘recipe’ was 1 part flour to 5 parts water (although mine was probably closer to 4 parts water, as my saucepan was too small) with a bit of salt and cinnamon. Bring to the boil and simmer for three minutes. I had to whisk it to make it smooth and it went pretty solid in the tray as we used it, but still worked fine.

Making papier-mache balloons

When I did papier-mache as a child I always used long strips of newspaper, so that’s what I had the kids doing. But then I saw on another website called firstpalette, (where we went because of their penguin idea), the idea of using squares of paper and actually that would have been much easier.

The firstpalette website also suggested using different colours so you can distinguish between layers. The best I could do was separate coloured strips of newspaper from the plain text and, again, that worked quite well.

I’ve hung the papered balloons in the playroom, which has no heat source when the sun goes down, so I suspect it might take a week for them to dry. So much for painting them tomorrow! This might be a craft for the summer rather than the winter. I have to say, though, the kids did brilliantly. I patched up the holes where the balloons were still visible, while the children were in the bath, but they’d done a great job of getting the paper flat and in a criss-crossed pattern.

Braving the wind

In the afternoon I dragged them out to walk the dog, against strong protest, particularly from my daughter. We almost failed at the first hurdle when I realised hubbie had left my son’s boots and waterproof in a wet puddle in the garage from their walk yesterday. Luckily I had my daughter’s old waterproof and boots so, with two little ones dressed head to toe in pink, we ventured out into the gales and up the hill.

They had a great time, wading through puddles and getting stuck in the mud. Even though the wind was strong enough to blow us over, and it was pretty chilly, they didn’t complain at all. Maybe our dream of taking them up Snowdon this summer might not be completely foolish.

I take a gold star for me, too, because I dread taking the kids out in bad weather, in case I end up having to carry one of them home. I love hiking but I’m not a huge fan of wind (I find the constant buffering more irritating than rain, snow or heat) so it took effort to be seen to be enjoying every minute of our walk.

In fact I take a few gold stars for today, with the craft and the games and the healthy food and for getting through four loads of washing and some ironing. I lose a few, too, for getting a bit shouty towards tea-time, but that’s just restoring balance to the world. All in all it was a nice way to spend our penultimate day of the holidays. I’m still looking forward to them going back to school, though!

The Voices Talk to Me

The reason I ignore the voices

Back when I lived in Manchester, in a house of seven working professionals, we used to go to the local pub quiz on a Sunday evening. I’m utterly rubbish at general knowledge and was there to make up the numbers, although I did answer the odd random question like “When was the Salvation Army formed?” (not that I know why I knew it, or can bring the answer to mind now.)

We started out calling ourselves The Dolphin Friendly Tuna Fish Sandwiches but that was too much of a mouthful so we changed our team name to The Voices, in honour of one of our housemates’ favourite t-shirts which said, “You’re just jealous because the voices talk to me.”

What’s the reason for this rambling recollection? Right now, the voices are definitely talking to me. My head seems to be full of them. So much so that I wrote the following, at 5am this morning.

It’s part truth, part fiction, as much of what gets written at that time in the morning is. Particularly after a night of waking every hour stressing over something read just before bedtime. But it is a little window into my pre-morning psyche. Scary.

The voices have been chattering and pontificating in my head like a room full of inebriated dinner guests. I hate the voices, I wish they’d bugger off home and leave me in silence. I know they are what push me to write, to try and make sense of the noise, but they also drive me crazy.

One voice has spent the last twelve hours saying “I don’t want to live anymore.” It gets shouted down with drunken cries of “Nonsense, you’re just saying that for effect, for attention” and “Think of your beautiful family, you can’t leave them behind.”

Another charming soul has been regurgitating an article I read at bedtime, via the Kristen Lamb blog post on bullying, about how we can be affected by the experiences of our grandparents. I don’t pretend to understand the science, but the loudmouthed git in the corner is delighting in repeating all the bits about how stress in childhood causes children to grow up to be bad parents. So I’m continuing the cycle of generations of parents specialising in towering indifference and vicious temper. Lovely. As if I needed any more reasons to feel guilty.

The debating voices should allow for reason, but they don’t. There are so many of them there’s no perspective. Like my own experience, as a child and an adult, of trying to have an opinion that I can’t quite articulate and being laughed at or talked down to by my family and friends. If I don’t know how to be heard in my own head, what hope have I got in the world?

I want the voices all to finish their drinks and sod off before the lone voice that thinks permanent silent might be preferable stops trying to be taken seriously and takes action.

That’s as much as I wrote, before a small child climbed into bed and I had to put down my phone. Cuddling a sleepy son, his toy dog and plastic snowman, gives perspective in a way that the voices in my head never can. There’s something grounding about a small boy farting and then giggling in the darkness. And, now I’ve bought the kids some super-soft tiger onesies, they’re like giant teddy bears. (They’re also driving us nuts and we can’t wait til they go back to school, but that’s normal, right?)

Mummy and Daughter Day

Felt animals with buttons

Today I got to spend time just with my daughter, as the nursery opens earlier than school (thank goodness!) Normally one-on-one time with my daughter doesn’t go so well, because we are quite similar and therefore fall out pretty easily. But today we seemed to be on the same page.

It might have helped that we started with shopping, after I finally returned a faulty Christmas gift. She got to pick out ideas for her birthday present, buy an electric blue skirt in the sale and then choose a new dress for her party. I even managed to stay in River Island for fifteen minutes without once saying “I wish they’d turn that damn music down!” (Although I might have mentioned how much nicer it was in H&M, where the music was set to ‘ambient’ rather than ‘Friday Night Disco’.)

Using a magazine for ideas

We failed to find shoes mutually acceptable party shoes in her size, but I did relent on the tiger onesie, even though they only had size 4-5 left and she’ll outgrow it in weeks. That was largely because I wanted to get one for my son! They have tails and ears and are sooooo soft. (I want one!)

After that we tried to go to a soft play centre, which turned out to be closed, so ended up in McD for a promised treat. I’d agreed to have a kids’ meal too, so I could get my son a toy as well, and the lovely lady went through and let us choose which toy. I have to confess, much as I hate to like a huge conglomerate like McD, they offer lovely service, and games and colouring to entertain energetic children while tired parents drink nice coffee and surf the free WiFi.

Magazine weaving

This afternoon has been all about craft and learning to sew and weave, as we worked our way through my daughter’s magazine of ideas. I think she’d be better off learning from my mum, who is a whizz at sewing and knitting, and I dearly wish hubbie’s mum was still with us, as she was an extremely talented dressmaker by all accounts. Still, I have the rudiments I learned in Home Ec classes, and we managed to sew buttons on our owl and butterfly without too much bloodshed.

The woven magazine basket was a clever idea, even if it’s probably held together more with sticky tape than skill. At last something to use up all the half-read magazines in the drawer! The craft would have continued, but all my energy and patience was depleted, so now we’re sitting together on the sofa while she learns phonics on one ipad and I write this on the other.

It’s been an encouraging day. My daughter is wonderful, caring and kind, but also bossy, demanding and thoughtless. We fight more than we are friends and I often worry what our relationship will be like as she grows older. I don’t have many close friends or family members and I long for the kind of mother-daughter relationship where we can shop and have a giggle together. Today we came a tentative step closer.

Back Again

Big Ben

Good morning and Happy New Year! I hope you all had lovely celebrations last night.

I saw in the new year as I’m sure many mothers of small children did: sleeping on the sofa from 9pm until 11.45pm, waking up for a glass of Baileys and a mince pie, watching the spectacular fireworks on the TV, then crawling in to bed.

Our daughter came in an hour or two later, after having a nightmare and, because it’s been a hectic week, I let her spend the night with us.

It seems appropriate that I spent the first few hours of 2014 in the position I suspect I will occupy all year: jammed between husband, children and my need to write. I lay awake thinking about what I really wanted to be doing – apart from trying to sleep in a space the size of a park bench – and I knew I wanted to be writing.

I have spent the last few days cleaning and being a (grumpy) parent. Tiredness and PMT have guaranteed the grumpy bit. It wasn’t really the best time to have extra children in the house, but my daughter was missing her friends so I duly invited some over. I tried to stay out of their way and do cleaning, which mostly worked. It’s wonderful to have a clean and tidy house, miraculous even, considering she had two friends for a four-hour playdate, almost immediately followed by another friend for a sleepover, and the rest of his family the next day for lunch. The phrase “Shovelling snow while it’s still snowing” springs to mind.

The ten-minute firework display is amazing

And now the new year is here. The house is clean (for now), the friends have departed, and it’s time to figure out what I want to do with the time I get in the week to ‘work’. Will that be housework or will it be writing? I suspect that, without the driving force of the daily blog and Two-Hundred Steps Home, it will be even more of a constant juggling act between want and need, duty and desire.

Last year, the blog and Claire became my duty, with a daily deadline to fulfil. That made it much easier to ignore the housework (and the family!) This year I won’t have that excuse. It will be interesting to see if I am strong enough to keep writing anyway.

So it seemed important to get up this morning and write. Even this little blog post is enough to keep the fires burning, I hope. I’m not sure what I’ll blog about. Looking at my most visited posts of 2013, it looks like book reviews and articles about self-publishing (with a little bit of kids’ craft thrown in) are what attract visitors. Not the writing and parenting posts that fill up 90% of this blog! So maybe a few more reviews and a bit less whinging. We’ll see.

What resolutions and plans do you have for 2014? How will you make them happen? I’m thinking some hard and fast commitments, written down, will help. So, I will publish two more books this year. And I will (try to) continue to blog daily, but without killing myself or neglecting my family (too much). There, it’s said. No going back now!

Back to blogging and HAPPY NEW YEAR! (thearticle17.wordpress.com)
Why I Started This Blog (writingtherandom.wordpress.com)
Hi! Remember me? (dreamsonpapyrus.wordpress.com)
Accepting Realities & Lessons Learnt (Not) Writing Blog Articles (harnessingyourpotential.wordpress.com)

Wishing you a Contented Christmas: 2013 365 #359

Meeting the man

This morning I left the house to walk the dog just as the skies cleared, after days of stormy weather. It felt like a fresh start: like the feeling I get after I’ve been crying for hours feeling terrible and I stop, breathe, and give myself a break. When I look around and say it’s fine and, despite some puddles and other damage, the storm might never have been.

I spent last night having a long conversation with my hubbie and stepdad about parenting, depression, anxiety and life in general. It came after reading two interesting posts: The first was a viral one on WordPress about marriage not being for you but for others. It included these words:

[M]arriage isn’t for yourself,you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married

The second post, which I discovered via Annie Cardi’s blog, discussed forgiving Past You for not being as good as Present You. Two quotes stood out in the article:

Past You may not be as awesome as Present You, but Past You worked really hard to get to Present You, too.

And

The world does enough beating us up, […] We don’t need to do the beating up ourselves. Inside your head should be a safe space to make mistakes, to grow and change and learn, to find acceptance, forgiveness, and kindness.

As often happens, all these sources of inspirational thought combined in my mind to give me the ghost of a feeling. The feeling that’s been echoing around my head is one of grace; of being kind to yourself and looking out rather than in.

Christmas all wrapped up

I’ve spent much of this year, and longer, beating myself up for all the people I’m not, for all the things I haven’t achieved, for not becoming a better parent, a better person, despite wanting to be. But you know what? The excuses become a thing in themselves.

If I feel bad then that’s okay because I’m taking responsibility for my own actions. But what if there’s a better way? What if you can forgive Past You for the things that didn’t happen because, quite frankly, Past You was doing her best under difficult circumstances.

What if taking responsibility is over rated and we just have to stop thinking about it at all so much? What if the past were erased and we had to start fresh from today, with the saviour’s birth?

I listened to Mary J Blige on the radio, on Sunday, discussing how her Faith saved her, and I envied her. What do you do without Faith or Belief? Who do you turn to to tell you there’s a grand plan, and you’re doing fine and, besides, all is forgiven in the end?

My husband is my rock, he says all those things, but I don’t always believe. What if I decided to have faith in him, in us? What if I got up every day knowing I was going to do my best, even if my best on that day involved a lot of shouting and some tears? But instead of failing as a parent, as a human being, I was just being one in the best way I knew how? What if I could learn to celebrate the successes, not dwell on the failures?

I feel a new blogging theme coming on. I may take January off from the internet, to recover and recoup. But from February I might try to make this blog a place for positivity. Not glossing over the bad stuff, because too many people do that. But if my best positive note for a day is “no one died”, well then at least it might make people smile, and that’s good too.

So a very contented Festive Season to you all, whatever this time of year means to you. I hope you enjoy your family day, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. It will be what it will be and then it will be Boxing Day (in the UK at least). Let’s acknowledge the moments and move on. Christmas is about children so let’s learn to live like them. In the now, with much laughter.

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Below is the next installment in my novel Two-Hundred Steps Home: written in daily posts since 1st January as part of my 2013 365 Challenge. Read about the challenge here.You can catch up by downloading the free ebook volumes on the right hand side of the blog:

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Claire looked around the table at the eclectic group of people and couldn’t help smiling. Their good humoured banter and jibing was infectious as they discussed their first aid course. While they chatted she tried to work out who was who.

Timothy sat opposite her, at the head of the table; every inch the lord of the manor or the patriarchal leader. To his left sat Gemma, the chef. She looked like a school matron, as if her mission was to make sure the world was well fed and received plenty of hugs.

Next to her sat Louise, the site manager. They’d met before dinner and Claire found she liked her, although she was more used to working for men. Louise had explained that she lived off-site with her husband and two small children. Claire wondered how she managed to juggle it all.

Next to Louisa sat the only other older gentleman there; he was the gardener apparently and had been working in the grounds all day, rather than attending the first aid course. She thought his name was Giles or Geoff, but as he hadn’t said two words during the meal, she wasn’t entirely sure.

On the other side of the table sat the younger members of the staff. They were the entertainment during the meal, and Claire was fascinated, trying to fathom the different relations between them. The three in charge of activities – Jess, Eddie and Ryan – seemed to have some sort of love triangle going on, while the youngest member of staff sat wide-eyed and silent. Fresh out of school, it was her responsibility to keep the house clean and do the laundry. Claire thought she possibly had the hardest job of all.

As she assessed the people around the table, who were all tucking into the delicious lasagne and homemade cake, Claire wondered why she was paying them so much attention. Was she trying to imagine herself as part of the group? Could she?

I’m not really a team player – Carl told me that often enough.

But for all their jibing and barbed jokes, these people were not Polly, Molly and Sally. There didn’t seem to be any face: what you saw was what you got. Claire found it both refreshing and intriguing.

A hush fell over the table and she realised everyone was looking at her expectantly. “I’m sorry, I was miles away!” She felt the blood rushing into her cheeks.

Timothy laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’re a lot to take in, the first time you meet us.” He turned to Louise, who it seemed had asked her a question.

“I only wondered if you could imagine joining us here? We open next week, so we’re keen to have the staff finalised.” She seemed to realise how much she was putting Claire on the spot, and gave an apologetic smile. “But of course you need time to decide.”

Claire felt wrong-footed. Was the job just hers for the asking? With no interview or credentials. “But you don’t know anything about me,” she blurted out, and winced as everyone laughed.

“Ah but we do.” Timothy’s voice cut through the laughter and he frowned slightly at Eddie, who was still sniggering. “Maggie sent us a link to your blog. We’ve all read about your exploits, both here in the UK and in New Zealand. We are most impressed. Climbing mountains, white water rafting, surfing and sailing: you are more than qualified.”

“But I don’t know how to do any of those things.” Claire’s voice was more of a wail and she fought the urge to cry. Now everyone watched her as if she were a bomb about to explode. The young girl to her left gave her a sympathetic smile and Claire felt foolish. If a mere child fresh out of school could come and get stuck in, then what was holding her back?

“Don’t worry, lass, none of the kids will know how to do it either, so they’ll just be impressed you know more than them.”

Claire looked towards Eddie as he spoke and envied the confidence of youth. He had an edge about him, though, that suggested he’d seen as much of the world as she had, and possibly more.

Dinner continued without further incident. Claire sipped at her beer and enjoyed the sense of good will. During it all, something nagged at the back of her mind. An ache, a twinge, that tugged at her and wouldn’t let go. Conor. She tried to picture him here, amongst the motley staff, and knew he would be instantly at home.

That’s assuming he ever speaks to me again.

Claire looked out the window at the setting sun. The room Timothy had shown her to perched high in the attic. It wasn’t very big, but the view was enormous, stretching across the parkland to the sea. He’d explained that the staff rooms were all in the attic, with tiny en-suites. It was only a step away from hostelling, but it felt good to close the door and know the space was all hers.

She lay back on the bed, and her view diminished to a blue rectangle of sky visible through the skylight window. She imagined lying in the dark looking up at the stars. There would be no light pollution out here.

Slowly, as she absorbed the details of the room, Claire realised she was already viewing it as hers. Despite avoiding any kind of definite answer at dinner, she had gone as far as to say that her contract finished in a fortnight. A proper answer would need to be given before that, but she didn’t feel ready. Saying yes to Timothy felt like saying goodbye to Conor.

Reaching for her phone, Claire sat staring at the black screen that still refused to produce a message from him. She inhaled deeply.

“Sod it.”

Swiping the screen, she tapped out a message and hit send before she could change her mind. She looked at the words and wondered if they would be enough.