And a less Merry Christmas to one in particular

Just at the moment, the milk of human kindness is not flowing through my veins. Or perhaps I mean the milk of feline kindness. IdiotCat is Not My Favourite Cat at the moment.

Over Christmas we went to visit GrannyBear, and LocalFriend kindly came in to feed and cuddle IdiotCat. He appears to have been mostly well-behaved and delighted to see LocalFriend when she came.

For the past two nights, we have visited GrandmaBear and GrandadBear in The North. Two nights is generally enough for IdiotCat to cope on his own, with full water and food bowls. Naturally, he's always delighted to see us come home, but doesn't otherwise appear to suffer any ill-effects from being temporarily abandoned. The trauma of the building work appears to have rendered this no longer true.

We arrived home today to find the house utterly reeking of cat wee.

IdiotCat had not only relieved himself in his favourite corner, behind the living room door, but all the way along the edge of the door. Some of it was still nauseatingly damp, and some of it was dry, stale and acrid. Hooray.

Which is how it came to pass that I dispatched BigBear and LittleBear upstairs to build a hydraulic robot arm, while I took the door off its hinges, lifted the carpet; prised carpet staples out of the floor and took a stanley knife to the underlay to remove a section of it. I then got down on hands and knees and scrubbed the (reeking) floorboards with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. And then I washed and rinsed, and washed and rinsed, and washed and rinsed the (reeking) underlay. And finally, despairingly, I washed, rinsed, scrubbed, vinegared, washed, rinsed, scrubbed and vinegared the (reeking) carpet.

To survive the night, without IdiotCat marauding into our bedrooms and keeping us awake, I have (temporarily) re-hung the door, replaced the underlay with old towels, and semi re-fitted the carpet. It certainly looks considerably fluffier and cleaner and fresher than it did before. However, I am now sitting, watching television and sniffing the suspicious waft of stale cat urine that I am convinced is still emanating from the carpet nearby.

Merry Bloody Christmas.

Merry Christmas one and all

I hope that everyone has had a lovely Christmas, whether spent with friends, with family or alone. I hope that you've all found peace and joy in whichever way works for you. I hope your Christmas has not been besmirched by arguments or tears, by disappointments or strife.

I did, as I generally do, send Christmas cards, and some of you who are both friends and readers will perhaps have received one (I'm a bit scattergun some years, and my ability to engage with posting schedules is poor). I considered not sending cards, not because of any particular Grinch-like tendency, but because I was specifically asked not to. Not, I hasten to add, because any of my nearest and dearest particularly dislike my hand-drawn cards, but because one of my friends made the request that instead of spending money on cards and stamps, we might make a donation to charity. and she had a very, very, very good reason for making that request. She has spent a large chunk of December in isolation in hospital, having her immune system entirely destroyed before having her own stem cells re-infused to try to give her a new immune system back again. You could read it in her own words rather better here:

My Positive Living blog.

Unsurprisingly, Lorna's raising money for the charity looking for a cure for, and providing support to sufferers of, the cancer that's attacking her body - Myeloma UK.

And that got me thinking about another friend, who spent last Christmas in hospital, being operated on for lung cancer. She's now part of the #facethefear campaign being run by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, and is raising money and awareness for them.

Sarah's story is here.

I thought about my friend with myotonic dystrophy, who is never without a smile, and a helping hand for others, despite her own never-ending hospital appointments.

I thought about the son-in-law of another friend, who is unable to eat or speak as ALS takes hold of his body, and yet he gives his time and effort to raising money for the ALS Hope Foundation.

I thought about my friend who continues to live with the terrible after-effects of a car accident quarter of a century ago, but who is one of the most loving and giving women that I know.

And slowly, I went through in my own mind the friends and family I have who are facing battles. I thought about Alzheimers, about cancer, about depression, about injury, about bereavement.

And amongst all of that, I remembered, because I rarely forget, Alan Kurdi. Maybe his name, and his image, are already lost in the mists of time to you, but they aren't to me. His death on a beach in the Mediterranean still haunts me, and I still give money every month to Médecins Sans Frontières.

I thought about the dispossessed, the scared, the lonely. Those fleeing for their lives in desperate hope of a better life. Those living on the streets because they have nowhere else to go. 

I really know how to find the happy thoughts at Christmas.

But then I thought about what the point of Christmas really is, about giving, and sharing and loving.

I thought about people, like the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue, who don't stop giving their time and effort no matter what day of the year it is. I thought about the huge outpouring of donations Lorna has received, in part because she has given so much of her time and love to others, and they're now giving back. I thought about Sarah's determination to complete walking marathons and ultra-marathons to raise money for cancer research. I thought about my aunt, who always gives us charity gifts for Christmas (pigs this year). I thought about my cousin, who's quit his well-paid executive job to work for a charity dear to his heart. I thought about my LittleBear, willingly embracing the idea of putting a tasty treat in a box every day through Advent to take to the food bank. I thought about all the people who give their time, and love, and effort to run a huge football club for children like LittleBear, for no reason other than because the children want to play football. I thought about all the ways in which the people I know do try to make the world a better place.

It's Boxing Day. You've sent cards, you've given presents, you've imbibed wine, you're wondering if there's room for just one more chocolate. Maybe you're eyeing up the sales and wondering about a bargain. Maybe you're tightening the purse strings and wishing you hadn't spent so much. I won't judge, either way. But don't forget Lorna, or Sarah, or the volunteers all around the world trying to give all year, and not just at Christmas. If you can, help someone else. Help myeloma or lung cancer or myotonic dystrophy or ALS research. Help the homeless. Help the victims of the tsunami. Help. It's Christmas.

Here endeth the lesson.

Lurching from triumph to disaster

I had thought that I would be posting some more splendid updates about the progress on our building site, and in theory I could be, as the ceiling and walls are now fully insulated; the first fit of wiring has gone in; the exterior cladding is almost complete along one wall; the roof is nearly complete (only awaiting lead flashing); the internal plasterboarding is all fitted and today the new floor is being poured.

But...

When I got home on Friday I found another poo-present from the cat, there were no windows, and the diligent all-weather builders had got a bit carried away and almost completely boxed in the planned storage area designated to be the "loft" above the downstairs bathroom. I hadn't been expecting them to start work on that yet, and had not imagined that my half-conversation in broken English on Wednesday about what the plans were would result in them misinterpreting my flapping hands and building a hopelessly wrong construction.

Filled with exhaustion, sadness and anger I wrote a rather long, and somewhat ranting, email to MrsBuilder. To my enormous relief she replied almost immediately, essentially saying, "they shouldn't have done that, we'll put it right." For once I was not left fretting day-and-night over the weekend that I'd over-reacted; or that my builders would walk off in a huff; or that I'd be told it was all my fault and I'd have to live with the mistake; or any of the other permutations that my brain was warming up to panic about.

Unfortunately she also let me know that there'd been an "incident" with the lorry bring the windows, and they were delayed. That was it, no further information about the nature of the incident, or the length of delay. Phew, for a moment there it was looking as though I wouldn't have anything to spend the weekend worrying about, but at the last minute something was pulled out of the hat.

Which brings us neatly to the start of the week, at which point we discovered that the lorry had crashed. On the plus side, the driver wasn't injured. On the minus side, the windows were. They have to be made again from scratch. The factory closes for two weeks over Christmas. The windows and doors are now due on site at the start of February.

February.

Only another six or seven weeks of living in a building site.

I know that it will be lovely when it's finished, and that many years of a solidly built, well-planned extension will make a month and a half delay pale into insignificance, but it's not exactly the Christmas present I was hoping for.

Minor triumphs

Currently my life feels sufficiently out of control, that I am prepared to celebrate even the most minor victory. To put things in perspective, even my builders are now making fun of my incoherence and inability to make decisions. I had to send an email apologising for my deranged witterings over the weekend. (This was because I had realised that my impression that the roof had been put on at a different, lower height, was simply wrong. It's exactly where it used to be. So asking them why it was lower just made me look like the Crazy Lady.)

However, back to the minor triumphs...

Last Thursday, and again on Monday, BigBear and I went out. We went Out-out, for our respective Christmas dinners. LittleBear had babysitters both nights. Babysitters who had to tuck him up in bed and say goodnight. LittleBear did not have a sobbing meltdown. LittleBear was happy, and went peacefully to sleep, without upset. What was the secret of our success? I think I can put it down to two things...

1. I involved LittleBear in the process of discussing and choosing who he would like to babysit for him. He was absolutely clear that it needed to be someone who could cuddle him if necessary, which translates to it needing to be a "Mummy", who is capable of Mummy-cuddles should the need arise. We now have a short-list of four Mummies who are deemed The Right Sort of Mummy. Fortunately all four of them have expressed a willingness to trade babysitting duties, so I'm vaguely hopeful that we may be able to set up some kind of bartering-for-favours system, allowing BigBear and I to go out more than once a year.

2. Bribery. I promised LittleBear a packet of MatchAttax cards if he was good for each babysitter. First thing he's said to me in the morning when he's bounced into bed has been, "I was good Mummy, can I have MatchAttax cards?"

Our second minor triumph is that the cat has defecated in his litter tray. I have never been so happy to see cat poo in my life. Clearly valerian root and vetiver have a profound effect upon a sense of feline wellbeing, as he is now happy to sprawl in his usual spot on the sofa, legs wafting in the air, belly exposed, with apparently not a care in the world.

Just at the moment, I'm taking my victories where I find them.

A trying weekend

There's something about the first term of the school year that seems peculiarly, and unjustly, exhausting. Is it because the children are thrown into a new routine and worn out by it? Is it because they've just had the long summer holiday and have got out of the habit of getting up and concentrating five days a week? Or is it just because it's cold and dark and we all feel tired and miserable?

Whatever the reason, this weekend has been particularly emotionally draining. For all of us. LittleBear even calmly and happily accepted that it was time for an early bed tonight as he was too tired. This has happened perhaps twice in his entire life. I am planning to do much the same.

Friday was a slightly atypical variation on our normal Friday. A normal Friday involves bringing LittleBear and BestFriend home, getting them both into their football gear, feeding them biscuits and taking them to football training. Getting a small boy into football gear is not dissimilar to how I imagine it would be to try and get a squid into a onesie designed for a goat. Full length, skin-tight lycra underclothes, shin pads with velcro straps, long socks that snag on the velcro and (insult of insults) lace-up boots. Getting two small boys into football gear is about four times as hard as getting one small boy into football gear, due to the tendency of small boys to get sidetracked and start slapping each other with their socks, or trying to juggle with their underpants.

This Friday I'd rashly volunteered to take three small boys to football training. Knowing my own limitations however, I had declared that I would pick the other two up from their homes, leaving their own mothers to undertake the squid-wrestling. I did manage to get them all there, and back again, and only one of them got injured, and only one of them left his coat behind. Look, I never said I was good at this childcare stuff, OK?

Because it's that time of year, the football club then had a party almost straight after training, whilst I had volunteered to babysit for the Piglet family. No Piglets were injured or lost their coats, so my skills were clearly improving through the day. I did, however, have to abandon BigBear and LittleBear at the football club party; both looking somewhat shell-shocked and as though they'd rather be anywhere else. LittleBear still bears all the hallmarks of his younger years, and doesn't cope well with arriving at a party that's both loud and already in progress. And BigBear doesn't really like parties at all. So there they stood, hand-in-hand at the edge of the hall, my lost bears.

Apparently, however, LittleBear did enjoy himself, ate pizza, met Father Christmas and was given chocolate, so all was well.

Meanwhile, I didn't return from my babysitting duties till sometime after midnight, filled with rage at the swines who'd closed the road home (and with myself for having forgotten that they were doing this, despite the fact that they have done so nights for the past year or more).  So I stayed awake wittering at BigBear for rather too long, so neither of us got enough sleep, and before we knew it, the diligent all-weather builders were hard at work hammering the roof. Not that that mattered overly much, as we had to be out of the house by 9 o'clock for LittleBear's football match.

As per the rules of the FA, the score or result of an under-7 match may not be publicised, because it is strictly friendly and non-competitive. So I will draw a discrete veil over the event and say only that every time the opposition scored, my little boy wilted into tears, and on at least two occasions I broke with convention and ran round the pitch to give him a cuddle. He's only seven after all. And by 11 o'clock he was a very, very tired seven, who was adamant that he hadn't enjoyed playing at all.

I have spent a large portion of the weekend feeling desperately sad about how easily his confidence is bruised, and how easily he turned from my confident little torpedo, shredding a defence to canon a ball into the top corner into a hesitant, nervous defender, hanging back, dropping off the ball, shying away from the tackle. As always I find myself wondering how I can help him build his resilience. How I can persuade him that winning or losing a game is not a judgement on his worth as a person. How I can convince him to keep picking himself and trying again if things don't go his way first time. And then I remember he's only seven, and it's asking a lot of him.

A morning of exhaustion and heartbreak set us up perfectly for going to a spy-mission themed birthday party in the afternoon. It may not come as much of a surprise that my LittleBear spent three-quarters of the party sat on my lap doing a word search while his little friends undertook the spy mission. He was too scared to want to join in. Fortunately(?) two of the other little friends were in similar state, so he wasn't plagued with the self-doubt of being the only child who didn't want to join in. And, by his own admission, he enjoyed the party. Funny little soul.

Today, which could have been restful, was punctuated instead by the screaming of a huge circular saw in the building site, as the diligent all-weather builders sliced up massive quantities of insulation to fit into the new roof. They elected to do this because it was going to be "quieter for us" than hammering the roof to put the rest of the slates up. They have a funny idea of quiet. But they are utter perfectionists and have done a beautiful job of fitting the insulation to my peculiar-shaped roof. So there's that.

BigBear was tired. I was tired. LittleBear was tired. IdiotCat was probably tired. He was certainly stressed, as the moment the rest of the bear family had finished breakfast and disappeared upstairs together, he voided his bowels on the carpet. It really improved the day. Again. He even chose a different patch to the one he'd just peed on and I'd already cleaned earlier in the morning.

One of the few high points of the weekend had been that our Beloved Burnley had finally won a match, so I installed my two bears on the sofa, watching Match of the Day, while I ripped out a vanity wash-basin upstairs (that has the eccentric outflow pipe). Before having any breakfast. Because tiredness had led to poor decision making.

Then we all shouted at each other a bit. Had I mentioned we were tired? And I was hungry. Hungry and tired is always a winning combination. Eventually, we had some food inside us, and I took LittleBear off to the garden centre to acquire a small tree for Christmas. We generally have a large tree, but inconveniently someone's pulled down the room we usually put our tree in.

Eventually, after two garden centres and a trip to see Father Christmas, we were home with the tree, and a bottle of cat-calming herbal spray, that we all hate the smell of. So we had a jolly time, with the windows open trying to clear the stench of valerian root and swapping affectionate comments like,

"Why does nobody let me make any suggestions?"

"I don't even like baubles"

"Do you have to put that there?"

There were two verified instances of tears while decorating the tree, because that's what Christmas is all about.

Eventually it was bedtime, and all was well.

The cat is calm and snoring, apparently enjoying the valerian root more than the rest of us did. There is a box of lego on the chair beside me, that LittleBear received from Father Christmas at the garden centre, that he would like me to wrap up so he can have it under the tree for Christmas. The lights are twinkling on the tree, and there are three little penguins hung on it in a row. I made them six years ago, one for each of us, and every year we hang them side-by-side on the tree. This year, LittleBear wanted them facing the door so they could welcome people into the room. So those are the three thoughts I shall take to bed with me. Not the yelling, not the tears, not the aching muscles, not the dust and the dirt and the soiled carpet, not the anxiety and insecurity of my boy and me. I will take to bed the thoughts of the loving, considerate, compassionate little boy who melts my heart.

Roofs come and go

The adventures in re-building the extension continue apace. For a brief, dizzying period we had absolutely no roof at all over the extension. And since that included having no roof on top of the old, completely non-water-tight, flat roof that still covers part of the kitchen and the bathroom, and since that flat roof houses sizeable quantities of mains wiring for lights, there was a liberal application of tarpaulins. And there were high winds. And lashing rain. Which was fun.

Fortunately, the tarpaulins remained in situ over the leaky flat roof, and the rain remained on the outside of the tarpaulins, and hence the bathroom.

Unfortunately, the tarpaulins made loud, dramatic, flapping noises which scared IdiotCat. A lot. So, despite the presence of a litter tray, and despite the cat's evident ability to use said litter tray, we have returned to a time of receiving deposits on the carpet. Mostly fluid deposits. Poor old puss. And now, despite our best efforts to clean the favoured corner of carpet, and replace the noxious vapours with the delicate smell of synthetic carpet shampoo, there is a corner of the room that clearly smells just right to the IdiotCat, and he keeps using it.

You see my wits?

You see where the end of my wits are?

I'm well beyond that point now.

Meanwhile, it's beginning to look as though I was so traumatized by the disappearance of the roof that I didn't take a proper picture of it.

A view of the neighbour's garden

So here we have the beginnings of a new wall, featuring distinct evidence of the absence of a roof.

But, fear not! There was a flitch plate on the way. And it arrived, along with more strong wind and lashing rain. Despite the distinctly adverse weather conditions, the all-weather builders clambered around on the roof, chiselling out a hole in the wall into which to embed the flitch plate, and then proceeded to build a completely new roof. Substantially lower than the old roof. Which is odd.

New vs Old

The first thing that might strike the eagle-eyed among you is that shifting the roof line down was an eminently sensible thing to do... because the old roof line actually cut across the window sill of one of the upstairs windows. I'm pretty sure you won't find that as a design feature in many architecture books.

It's still not clear why the roof has moved down as much as it has. I did ask the all-weather builders why it was different, and discovered another endearing feature of the house that I hadn't known before - the old ridge beam of the roof had not been down the middle of the extension, so the two sides had had asymmetric slopes. So they've mounted the new ridge beam (flitch plate!) down the centre of the extension, just for the fun and symmetry of it.

One of my colleagues helpfully suggested that perhaps the roof was at the new height because the roof beams come in particular sizes/angles, so it had to be made like that to fit a standard size. At which point I had to explain to him that every single piece of timber is being cut to size and fitted by hand on site. None of this is off-the-shelf building.

So we're left with a little bit of a mystery. I have no doubt that there's a good reason, as the lovely builders haven't yet done anything without a good reason, it's just I don't know what it is yet. I'd like to know, because six inches lost from the height of the room makes a big difference. You can do a lot with six inches. It's enough for an entire extra shelf of books. I don't want to have lost book shelf space for no good reason.

Meanwhile the windows and doors are due to arrive in a week's time, and the all-weather, weekend-working builders are due to spend the weekend putting slates on the roof, which is Awfully Exciting.

I'm fondly hoping that as the room returns to being a place that doesn't make alarming and unpredictable noises, IdiotCat will stop making alarming and unpredictable deposits. I suspect I hope in vain...

Christmas-induced rage

It may be the case that I'm simply still so sleep-deprived that my anger levels are considerably elevated, or it may be that attempting to shop in LocalTown is akin to doing battle with the demon spawn of Hades.

I think it's the latter, though evidence suggests the former is in with a good shout.

I took the opportunity today to make a foray into LocalTown to attempt to purchase some of the things that are just too hard to buy online. I don't do this often, and I've now re-discovered why.

Was it because the electronic signs on the way into town informed me that all the carparks were full? It was not. I parked in my Cunning and Secret Place and therefore only paid £3 instead of the £7.80 it would have cost me had I parked in the carparks that were already full.

Was it because, in addition to all the people doing their Christmas shopping, LocalTown was still swarming with tourists, most of whom only appear to have the loosest grasp of the difference between roads and pavements? It was not. I've lived here for twenty-four years, and tourists are a bit like seagulls - annoying, noisy, and prone to eating all the ice-cream, but generally avoidable.

Was it because, once inside the shops, it was almost impossible to move without being kneecapped by someone's shopping bags, or elbowed in the face by someone reaching for the extra-special gift pack of novelty chocolate-flavoured gin on the highest shelf? It was not. My years of practice with seagulls tourists has ensured I'm good at dodging and weaving.

Was it because I was overwhelmed by the oppressive heat, the incessant, invasive, nerve-jangling music and the psychosis-inducing flashing lights? It was not. Though I confess to retreating to the ladies toilets in John Lewis and finding myself simply staying, sat upon my throne, enjoying the glorious peace and quiet of having a tiny cubicle all to myself.

Was it because I felt horrified by the sheer consumerist excess of people spending and spending and spending, when indubitably many of them probably couldn't really afford to? Yes. Yes, that was part of it, but not all.

Was it because I gazed around the shops and saw stretching before me, as far as the eye could see, acres of products that nobody wants or needs or will ever use, but that someone will buy as a present anyway? Yes. Now we're getting there.

The shops are filled with shiny gew-gaws and flim-flam. Knick-knacks and ornaments. "Amusing" mugs and plates and glasses. Novelty games that entertain no-one. Novelty clothes that suit no-one. Novelty foods that appeal to no-one. Slick, glossy, shiny accessories for the home that will sit, gathering dust at the back of a cupboard, or spend eternity stoically failing to decompose in a land-fill site.

And I hated it. I hated the pointless waste of the finite resources this planet possesses. Yes, Christmas is a lovely time; a time of giving; a time of sharing; a time of family, and of love, and of compassion. But it could be all of those things without raping the earth to give gifts to your friends and family that they don't want or need or like. I don't care what people spend, I don't care how much, or how, or where they spend it. It's not my money. But I do care about the pointless, hopeless, obscene waste of buying stuff for the sake of it.

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon now. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's both those things. If however, you are amongst the small group of people with whom I do exchange presents at Christmas, I beg of you, please don't buy me a sparkly tinsel reindeer that shits chocolate drops. In return I promise not to buy you a tie with a Brussels sprout motif that plays an off-key version of "Jingle Bells". We'll all be happier that way.

Scientifically-proven rage

4am

The edge of Storm Diana battering the house.

The wind moaning against the windows sounding like a child keening. My ears alert to the faintest murmur from my son.

The creaking of the roof joists like a child's footsteps across the bedroom floor. My hands sweaty and my heart thudding as I wait for the door to our room to be opened by a sleepless child.

The flapping and rattling of the tarpaulins outside. Wondering if there's any point looking outside to see whether everything is safe.

The muffled tearing and snagging sound of a cat scratching a carpet. I nearly go downstairs to deal with the defecating beast, but decide it can wait.

BigBear turns to me, "sorry if I woke you."

He hadn't. Or perhaps he had. Or perhaps we'd both been woken by the same noises outside. Either way, I was awake before he went to the bathroom.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm now lying awake worrying about how much the building work is costing."

It didn't.

Earlier in the evening, when it was actually reasonable to be awake, BigBear had shown me a brief report on the effects of sleep deprivation on anger. Apparently, cutting someone's sleep from 7 hours per night down to 4.5 hours per night for only two nights increases anger. I am willing to provide corroborating evidence that this is true.

BigBear's comment filled me with rage. Disproportionate, unreasonable rage. In the cold light of day, it's hard to say quite why. Being worried about the cost of a very expensive building project is fiscally responsible. Communicating with your spouse when you're worried is a fundamental part of a good marriage. Lying awake in the night is something that should evoke empathy and sympathy, not anger. And yet there I lay, feeling unjustifiably aggrieved. Aggrieved that I am desperately short of time, and sleep, and energy, but that the one thing we are blessed with is enough money, and yet now I'm supposed to be worrying about that as well? Feeling as though BigBear's worries somehow negated mine, or perhaps were a criticism of mine. My nebulous anxiety was being diminished by his much more rational concern. Because it's all about me. Especially in the middle of the night.

And then I got over it.

But I was still awake.

And still awake after that.

And then awake some more.

I tried relaxing one muscle at a time. I tried focussing on simply counting to ten as I breathed, clearing my mind of all extraneous thoughts. I tried taking myself off to a "happy place" in my mind, but it turns out there isn't one at the moment.

If we'd had a spare room, I would have retreated to it to read a boring book and nod off. But the spare room is now the "store everything that used to be in the extension" room, and doesn't have a bed. Or even enough spare floor to curl up on. I considered trundling downstairs to the sofa, but then remembered I would be yowled at by IdiotCat, not to mention have to suffer Storm Diana whistling through the not-exactly-airtight temporary door.

By the time 7am rolled round, not only was I tired, worried, tearful and stressed, I was also very, very bored. So, naturally, the first thing I did was go downstairs and check that IdiotCat had not made any further deposits. To my surprise, he hadn't. Though evidence of the scratching, shredding noises in the night was apparent in the pile of carpet-fluff that lay heaped around the doorway. Feeling marginally improved after not cleaning up excrement, I made BigBear a cup of tea to say sorry for being cross in the night. Even though he hadn't known I was cross. Sorry BigBear.

I told you communicating with your spouse was an important part of a good marriage didn't I? Blog posts and unsolicited cups of tea count as communication. Really they do.

Things I nearly said

I nearly wrote a post about all the good things that are beginning to happen on our building site. After a week of inactivity due to the steels that were delivered not being quite right, things have picked up pace.

I nearly wrote about the beautiful steel structure that's held into massive concrete foundation pads with nice big bolts.

I nearly wrote about the new damp-proof membrane we have, and the first course of block work marking out the new walls.

I nearly wrote about the newly drawn structural engineering plans that approve the use of queen trusses, and the omission of purlins with the addition of a flitch plate* that will all come together to provide the high, vaulted ceiling that we want.

I nearly wrote about building control signing off the structure as being to drawing, allowing all further work to continue.

But this morning, I stepped out of the shower to find a small boy thundering upstairs....

"Mummy? I like the cat even less** now."

"Oh dear. What's he done now?"

"He's poo-ed on the carpet this time."

Oh hooray. It's a good thing I bought a box of latex gloves for wearing when cleaning out his litter tray. Much easier to pick up poo when wearing a glove that can simply be thrown away. And to add insult to injury the IdiotCat had used his litter tray to wee in during the night. I do feel sorry for my poor puss, as he is clearly very anxious and very upset about the building work, but I have no idea what I can actually do to make his life easier.

When added to the insanity-inducing insomnia that has plagued me in the small hours of the night for the past three nights, poo-on-the-floor was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had already been awake since 4:30, dropping off briefly around 6:00, only to be woken by LittleBear at 6:15 when he laid claim to a nightmare.

So, despite all the Good Things that are happening, all I really want to do is sit down and cry, and hope that the howling winds outside don't lift the roof slates off tonight. It won't matter after tonight, since tomorrow the slates are being deliberately taken off so the entire roof can be rebuilt, queen trusses, flitch plate and all.

And now, as the evening progresses, I can feel my anxiety increasing, not only as I become more tired, but as bedtime approaches and I start to fear lying awake worrying about the roof, and the floor, and the walls, and the windows, and the cat, and the poo, and the carpet, and, and, and, and....

I'm worrying about worrying.

I'm fretting about not sleeping in a way that will lead directly to not sleeping.

And just like having no ideas about how to soothe the cat's fears away, I have no ideas about how to soothe my own fears away. How to stop myself worrying about sleep, or indeed how to stop my mind whirring manically for hours if I do wake up. I tried every meditation trick I have up my sleeve last night, to no avail. Probably because meditation doesn't come easily to me, I haven't tried it in a few years and I'm a bit rubbish at it. Maybe I should practise a bit more. I do keep telling LittleBear that you only become good at something by practising. Perish the thought that I take my own advice...


* I have developed something of an obsession with the term "flitch plate" so I shall indubitably write about it properly at some point. Who wouldn't want to say "flitch" as often as possible? Flitch. Flitch. Flitch.

** The current dislike of IdiotCat is not so much a dislike of IdiotCat himself, as his behaviour. Along the lines of loving the sinner but hating the sin. It is the wee-ing on the carpet which has led to the statements of dislike.

My life is made of football

When I'm not stressing about the destruction of the house, or whether I've remembered to send LittleBear to school in odd socks, or wearing pyjamas, or with cakes, or whether it's this week or next that I have to go to a meeting about SATs, my life is largely made of football.

This comes in many sizes and shapes.

BigBear has always been a Proper Football Fan, and he managed to harness my innate competitive streak to get me co-opted into watching the Beautiful Game. This means that my weekends have been preoccupied with football matches and results for over a decade.

LittleBear, being alarmingly like his mother, also has a disturbingly competitive streak, and once exposed to sport as a small boy, has been inseparable from all competitive sports. He will quite happily (if allowed) sit and watch cricket, rugby, darts, snooker, F1, but above all football. LittleBear also spends, as far as I can tell, every single break-time at school playing football. When the garden is not strewn with various disassembled sections of house, he will cajole me into it to play football with him come rain or shine. And now, to truly rejoice his little heart, he plays for the local under-7s team. Naturally, this also involves training sessions.

Which is how it came to pass that I rushed him home from school on Friday, wrestled him into his football kit, drove to the next village over... and spent an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Which is also how it came to pass that not long after 9 o'clock this morning we were cycling through the village while everyone else seemed to still be sensibly tucked up warm indoors... so I could spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

This was followed with a detour to a cafe to fill up my insulated mug with coffee, buy a chocolate cake for LittleBear and ride over to the other side of the village for an under-7s match... where I got to spend an hour standing around in the freezing cold watching LittleBear play football.

Fear not, kind readers, my day of football was still not complete. LittleBear had a splendid time, and won the "Player of the Week" trophy, and once home we needed to undertake a thorough post-match analysis, re-enacting corner-kicks, shots on goal and defensive manoeuvres with some Playmobil penguins.

But still my day had time for more football. The three of us headed down to the village football club to watch the proper grown-up team play. This time I got to sit in the freezing cold, watching someone other than LittleBear play football. And for an hour it was great fun, with plenty of chances to point out to LittleBear what the players were doing and why. LocalTeam were 3-0 up and then one of the opposition players went down. And stayed down. And didn't move. And didn't move. And various managers and physios ran onto the pitch, and ran off again. And a stretcher was brought on, but still the player stayed down.

Nobody tried to put him on the stretcher.

Over the tannoy, the announcer asked if there was a doctor in the ground.

All the players left the pitch.

The player on the ground was draped in as many coats and blankets as they could find.

At last, the match was officially abandoned as the club waited for an ambulance to arrive, with the injured player apparently having suffered a serious back injury*. It was a sobering moment, and a stark reminder, possibly LittleBear's first, that football is only a game, and that there are things that matter so much more than winning and losing.


* I am relieved to report that the following was tweeted this evening, by the opposition team, "Good news from the hospital, Player has had X-rays on his spine and pelvis; thankfully no break in either."

Definitely a cat-astrophe

The IdiotCat has managed to avoid walking in any more concrete, which is indubitably a Good Thing. The IdiotCat is, however, deeply suspicious of the entire building site now, and despite the lovely builders best and most determined efforts to ensure he always has a route out, he has decided that he doesn't like it, and that he would rather attempt to dig holes in the carpet and wee in the living room. This is indubitably a Bad Thing. (Not dissimilar to Mog's Bad Thing, for any aficionado's of Judith Kerr's work).

I have now had to clear up more of the IdiotCat's Bad Things than I ever had to clear up after LittleBear when he was moving out of nappies and into Big Boy Pants. And nobody built LittleBear his own special ramp so he could safely climb over a freshly poured set of concrete foundations to get to the toilet either.

And this is why I was late to work this morning after shampooing the carpet (again) and we now have a litter tray in the living room. Yay.

Meanwhile, I turned into my normal self last week and lay awake inhabiting the hamster wheel of my mind, wondering about as many different permutations of roof construction and ceiling-shape as I could think of, entirely pointlessly, and with no reference to any facts whatsoever. Ill-informed, exhaustion-fuelled speculation is always the best way to spend the nights. After a few days (and nights) of this, I decided that since I'd actually employed a competent, professional, friendly building firm, it would perhaps make more sense to furnish myself with some facts by asking questions instead of imagining what might be happening.

Fighting my own tiny battle against the stigma of mental ill-health, I sent an email confessing to MrsBuilder (who is also in charge of all their admin) that I suffer from anxiety and that it was getting on top of me, and that even though my anxiety issues aren't technically their problem, I'd really quite like to know some more of the details of what's planned for the structure of the roof. And then I spent several hours feeling even more anxious about having made a complete arse of myself. MrsBuilder, happily, didn't see it that way. Or, if she did, she was very diplomatic about it, as she immediately made an appointment to come round with MrBuilder and go through everything together, and assured me that I only ever had to ask if there was anything I wanted to know.

I'm so pleased I employed this company. As BigBear put it, they have empathy.

Having a meeting with Mr and MrsBuilder did provide me with plenty of facts, which has eased the sense of "Aaaaaghhhhh, I don't know what's going on." It hasn't done much to help with the sense of impending doom as I discovered they're going to have to remove the entire extension roof and rebuild it from scratch. Perhaps the volume of timber in the garden should have given it away.

And just when we thought we'd found all the most entertaining parts of the former construction, more came to light.

Do you remember the welded beam?

Top quality "welding"

It turns out that the blackened marks that I'd rashly assumed to be evidence of welding are soft. And sticky. Even those of you who are unfamiliar with welding are probably more-or-less aware that welds are rarely soft. Or sticky. So, yes, it does look as though that fish plate* is holding the two beams together with mastic.

Fortunately the new steel work that will replace the not-welded, not-bolted, not-set-in-foundations steel work arrived on Tuesday, ready to be fitted yesterday and today.

Unfortunately the new steel work hadn't been made right, so has had to go back. I'm currently working on the basis that since the house hasn't fallen down in the past twenty-five years, it's not likely to choose the next few days to do so merely because I now know that it's only staying up through pixie-dust and unicorn tears.

Stress? What stress?


* Another of my new discoveries, along with king trusses, queen trusses and purlins is that the slab of metal used to weld two beams together is a fish plate. Though if it's not actually welded, maybe it's not a fish plate?

Almost a cat-astrophe

Today has been a day of good news and bad news. 

The good news is that Building Control were happy with our three lovely holes, and the three lovely holes are now (mostly) full of lovely concrete.

The less good news is that IdiotCat is an idiot, and after the concrete was poured, it was then pawed, and now we have a small cat with grey, crusty feet*.

The good news is that the first bit of construction has started, and we now actually have a stretch of wall that, unlike its predecessor, is joined to the rest of the house.

A real wall!

The bad news is that we've found a(nother) spot of comedy building technique. The main ridge beam running along the ridge-line of the extension roof has a large crack/break through the middle of it. And, rather like the amusingly-joined steel beams, this has been, well, amusingly joined.

This really is the main ridge beam

The main ridge beam has had two random off-cuts of wood slapped either side of it, and screwed in. Because a few woodscrews is almost as good as a beam, isn't it?

The good news is that the garden has a large heap of new timber waiting to be used to rebuild the roof.

Timber and blockwork ready for use

So, it feels as though the rate of calamitous-discovery-making has slowed down, and the rate of Good Things Being Built has increased. And aside from the cat getting his paws where he shouldn't, the Good Things Being Built are going well. And it's only been going on for a week so far.

* For those concerned about animal welfare, I should point out that BigBear is devoted to IdiotCat and has helped him clean most of the concrete off again, and IdiotCat is now perfectly happy, curled up in his favourite place - a heap of BigBear's clothes.

Causes for joy and despair

The destruction continues apace, with the house now being deficient to the tune of two roofs, three walls, four windows and a door. It has, however, acquired three Very Large Holes. These will be for pouring concrete into as footings for the new steelwork, assuming the buildings inspectors who were coming today are happy with the holes. At nearly a metre cubed each, I can't see how anybody wouldn't be happy with them really. If you're going to have a hole... make sure it's a big one. Or three big ones, which must be three times as good.

Before it finally disappears forever, I do have another little visual treat for you, however. I present for your delectation the manner in which the lean-to extension is joined to the flat-roof extension:

Construction at its finest

Please don't spend too long staring at that image, looking for the cross-bonding of bricks, or the anchor bolts, or indeed anything at all. There is literally nothing, not even silicone sealant, in the gap between the two buildings. They are simply built "quite close" to each other. Not even that close.

On the plus side, we have discovered that the pitched roof is actually attached to the main body of the house with something more than glue and good wishes. Not much more, but something more.

A bolt, a bolt, my kingdom for a bolt!

In fact there are at least four M6 bolts holding the first set of roof timbers to the wall. Which is four more bolts than appear to have been used to hold anything else together. This genuinely made me almost giddy with excitement. You have to take your pleasures where you can.

Meanwhile, the nature of my mind is such that I have been awake since 4:30 this morning fretting about the roof trusses, and their location, and appearance, and size and whether they will have to span what was going to be an open, vaulted ceiling and completely change how the room was intended to look, or whether there's an alternative structure, or whether we should revert to having a "normal" flat ceiling in the revamped extension to avoid having exposed (not very beautiful) trusses. You'd be surprised by how many hours I can spend worrying about roof trusses.

And then this morning, MrBuilder arrived on site, as well as the Diligent Weekend Builders. So I asked MrBuilder if we had to have the trusses visible, and now I know all about king trusses and queen trusses and purlins, and he knows what we want, and it's all fine, we almost certainly don't need to have exposed trusses, and what was I worrying about anyway? But never fear, I'm sure there'll be another thing I can lie awake worrying about soon.

The horror, the horror...

In a slightly surprising (to me) turn of events, the builders arrived at eight o'clock on Saturday morning to continue ripping the house apart, and appear to have every intention of doing the same on Sunday. Nobody can say they're not going for it. Today was, however, punctuated with pauses for them to stare and shake their heads, and on occasions to point and laugh. For those with minimal experience of building work... pointing and laughing is never a good sign.

I was chatting to a friend outside school the other day, and commented on the fact that the ceiling had been taken down. To my surprise she said, "Well I hope they're putting it back up again." I realised at that point that perhaps I had not outlined the full scope of what was happening to the house. In short, about a third of the downstairs area is being completely demolished, new foundations, floors, walls, doors and windows put in. Oh, and they might have to take the roof off and put it back on again as well.

To get your eye in, here's a picture from before they started, and the end of today...

 

 

Empty and ready for action

The only really notable thing about the above photograph is the abominable tongue-and-groove sloping ceiling that I've spent nineteen years hating.

At least the ceiling's gone.

Not only has the ceiling vanished, so has a section of the wall at the end, not to mention one of the roofs, and a large concrete lintel. I only regret that the wall to the right of the patio doors had gone before I had a chance to take a photograph of how it was joined to the side wall. Which is to say, it wasn't. There was a thick bead of silicone sealant approximately bridging the gap. It was possible to rock the entire wall backwards and forwards by hand. The draughts that used to plague that room are making more and more sense all the time.

This wholesale ripping out of the former lean-to roof, as well as the former flat-roof that's out of shot round the corner at the end of the room to the left, has allowed a thorough inspection of the structure of the third roof. Which is beginning to fall into the category of "things I'd rather I didn't know about".

Let us take exhibit A, the steel sub-structure. There are three uprights along the right-hand wall, spanned along their tops by a long beam. Well, sort of. There isn't one long beam, there are two which are kind of welded together in the middle. Kind of.

Can you see the welds? Me neither

Attached to this structure is the wooden frame of the walls. Well, when I say attached...

I wonder what these bolt holes are for?

Each upright is equipped with splendid big bolt holes (highlighted above, for your convenience) for the very purpose of attaching wooden frames to the steel. And yet, our entire timber frame is attached to the steels with glue. Or perhaps silicone sealant. Hard to say. Perhaps it's the slime trail from an alien slug. At the moment, anything's possible.

Now that we've established that the steel frame is not exactly structurally sound, we could move on to consider the roof itself. Which is held up on the steel frame. Here we go, here's one of the main roof beams, resting on the wall. (Unlike the lean-to roof, mentioned previously, the main roof beams do rest on the walls.)

Problem? What problem?

I admit, amongst the profusion of random pieces of timber, you may be struggling to work out what's going on. To help you out, I've marked on the next photo just how much of the main roof beam is actually resting on anything.

Oh, that problem!

And just in case we hadn't found enough things to laugh at, once the ceiling and roof of the lean-to had come out, we discovered a new item to point and laugh at.

The original external wall of the house

Here we are, looking at what was originally the external wall of the house. There seems to be something grey and white and black running across the back wall. What can it be?

Secret surprise

Why, yes! It is a waste-water pipe. It turns out to be the waste pipe from a washbasin upstairs. It runs under the floorboards, springs out of the back wall (formerly hidden above the lean-to roof) traverses the house and exits out of the side wall and down into the drain. And it's held together with gaffer tape. That well known plumbing sealant. Which means this job just got a little bit bigger and will now involve asking the builders to do some additional work upstairs to decommission this particular pipe. Yay.

At least it's not boring round here at the moment. What was that Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times...

A new adventure

So... this is currently happening in the Bear household:

Which is to say, we have finally faced up to the realities of the terrifying incompetence of the previous owner, and are having a large section of the house Properly Dealt With. We have, or perhaps used to have, an extension. It is hard to describe without the aid of diagrams quite the nature of the extension, and I do know how you all love diagrams. Sadly, I can't quite be bothered to draw diagrams for you tonight, so I shall try and paint a word picture instead.

Our house is moderately old, built ninety years ago, originally without indoor plumbing. Sometime in the reasonably-distant past, a solidly-built, flat-roofed, single-storey extension was added, containing a bathroom. Some time later, some half-wit added a lean-to extension up against the side of this first extension. The second extension, being a lean-to, had a sloping roof. Despite the rather ad hoc, and temporary, nature of this extension, it still struck the next owner, Mr Bodge-It, as a good idea to put a large pitched roof over the whole lot. So we have two roofs on our extension(s). Which is nice.

Over the years, the lean-to part of the extension has gradually become colder, and draughtier, and damper, and generally less pleasant to be in. So we now have a lovely firm of builders here, essentially ripping it down and starting again. Not least because in their first exploratory dig they discovered that the lean-to didn't actually have foundations, and the steels that were "supporting" the roof were gradually slumping and sinking, as could perhaps have been predicted given we live in the fens, and there was nothing but mud beneath them.

Failing to find foundations

Now that the builders have started work properly, they are enjoying the same experience that every workman I have engaged goes through. They are discovering the handiwork of Mr Bodge-It. Personally, I've almost lost the ability to be surprised by the things that he did to the house. I smiled happily when the gas man wanted to take photographs of the old gas fire installation to send to his professional trade magazine, on the grounds he'd never seen anything so awful. I carefully removed the green/yellow wiring used for a live supply to an outdoor light. I gently shrug when I open the central doors of the fitted wardrobe and find a chimney inside it, and no actual cupboard space.

I find a certain frisson of entertainment to watching the reactions of professional tradesmen when they investigate our house. I got home yesterday to be confronted by Mr Builder, asking me, "Do you know what was holding the roof onto the walls?"

It came as little surprise to me to be told that the answer was "almost nothing." In fact, Mr Builder wafted something that looked like a particulary long and thin Viennetta*. It was in fact silicone sealant, and Mr Builder was so astounded by it that he wanted to take it home to show his wife. That's quite some silicone.

Today, sadly, I was home after they'd finished work, which did not prevent me getting a certain vicarious thrill from the things that they'd discovered during the day. I may, occasionally, be a little old-fashioned. A little bit tied to tradition. But there are times when I can't help but feel that sticking with the "traditions" of building regulations and basic mechanical engineering principles is a good idea. Take, for example, the tedious habit of only burying mains wiring in a wall in perpendicular lines. Wires should run up-down or left-right. That's just how it is. I can only imagine how much fun Mr Electrician had finding and digging out this cable run:

An unorthodox approach to mains wiring

Meanwhile, the ceilings have come down, to reveal the structure of the lean-to roof. Again, call me old-fashioned, but I generally find that if I want to span from one wall to another with a roof beam, the ideal way to do it is to rest the beam on top of the wall. That way all the lovely forces of gravity are transferred into the wall directly. An alternative method, I suppose, if you were more of a free-thinking artist, would be to screw the beams end on into the top of the walls, ensuring the full weight of the roof is taken on a handful of screws.

Can't think why the roof is sagging, can you?

The best bit about all this is we've only just got to the end of the second day. Imagine how much more there still is to discover! What fun!

On a more serious note, every one of these horrors that is found utterly vindicates our decision to Get It Done Properly. The extension wasn't just "a bit draughty", it was heading into the downright dangerous territory, and we are Doing The Right Thing in starting almost from scratch rather than applying another layer of bodge on top. I may not be quite so jolly as the windows, doors, walls and roofs come down and November bleeds into December. Now, where's that hot-water bottle...?

* Viennetta is a peculiarly English variation on ice-cream, once considered the height of sophistication. 

Being brave

Here we are, crawling to the end of half-term, wondering if it's now time for a holiday to recover from this one. More or less the same story as every holiday with LittleBear. Holidays with a small child are never quite as relaxing as holidays without a small child used to be. Which is not to say that they're not fun, they just involve considerably less sleep, less sitting around watching the world go by and definitely less reading a book with a nice glass of something in front of me.

This particular holiday was slightly talismanic for me - I have been increasingly feeling as though my world is getting smaller, my horizons narrower. I have found reasons and excuses not to travel. I have felt thwarted and trapped by my own inability to lift my head up and face the world. So I promised myself I would start with a small step. I would go to Zurich, where my friends live, where I've been before, where I know I can cope. And I didn't just promise myself, I looked two of my good friends in the eye when I said it, and they made me promise to stick with it, to not let life defeat me. And in my head, I built this trip up to be Something Important. It was to be the first step in travelling to more far flung destinations. If I couldn't do this, then there would be no hope for me.

Nothing like piling the pressure on myself is there?

Which is obviously how I came to be sat on GrannyBear's sofa the night before we flew crying that it was all too hard, and too scary and I couldn't do it. BigBear even offered to let me bottle out if that was what I wanted. I hadn't told him about my inner promises though, or that this trip represented something bigger to me than just visiting friends in Zurich. (I expect him to mind-read. For some reason he thinks this is unreasonable).

However, to cut to the chase, we went, everything was fine, and we had a lovely time. But since I'm not, generally, prone to writing the kind of blog posts that paint my life as some kind of Instagrammable perfection, I thought I'd share some of the odder aspects with you instead...

Like the fact that my awesome planning saw us renting an apartment in a relatively central location. Just off a road called Langstrasse. And while it's not exactly the Reeperbahn, it is very definitely the red light district, and party district, and drugs district. Both prostitution and cannabis are legal in Zurich. Let me introduce you to the bar on the ground floor of our building.

Ideal for children

And perhaps we should all pause to ask ourselves what kind of an apartment needs individual red lights above the bedroom doors?

Anyone worried?

I was distinctly relieved that the only question that LittleBear asked was "Why is that shop called 'Acid'?" pointing to a shop with the characteristic smiley face in the window. That and asking why the bakery along the road needed to be open 24 hours a day. We decided not to explain the concept of the munchies. The bakery, however, proved to be a great blessing, allowing me to pop out every morning for fresh baked goods only a minute from our front door. And thus it was that we discovered that LittleBear has a passion for shoggi gipfeli. Those of you who are not already familiar with this confection may be tempted to Google it and determine that it is a chocolate croissant. But you would only know half the story, for a shoggi gipfeli from the "Happy Bakery" is nothing so ordinary sounding as a chocolate croissant. I cannot really do it justice other than by showing you my small boy attempting to tackle one.

Nearly as big as his own head

Despite our insalubrious surroundings, we explored Zurich, mastered the tram system (even went to the tram museum) and introduced LittleBear to a variety of food stuffs that weren't all cheese or chocolate. A lot of them were cheese or chocolate, but they came in different formats, such as raclette and rosti, chocolate meringue and ruby chocolate. He also ate sourdough and bacon and coffee ice-cream, not to mention tackling gruyere and emmental, which are considerably cheesier than red leicester. To be honest, I was more impressed that we managed to go out for dinner with a vegetarian, a coeliac and someone with lactose intolerance and find things they could all eat. LittleBear has almost ceased to be the hardest person to find food for.

I will leave you with what I think should be the cover for a rap album. Taken under a tram.

What will it take?

My LittleBear loves football. He really, really loves football. He watches Match of the Day religiously on Sunday mornings. He collects Match Attax cards. He plays football at every possible break time at school. He coerces me and BigBear into playing football in the garden whenever he can, come rain or shine. He has been as happy as a pig in poo at being able to train with the local Under-7s team. Even the fact that the team is already full and that this is "only" training, pending a new team being formed at Christmas, is not enough to stop him being overjoyed at being able to play.

So he was very pleased with himself that the U7 coach sent me a message earlier this week, asking if LittleBear would like to come to an extra mid-week training session for "some of my boys". There's nothing he enjoys quite as much as someone showing signs of thinking he's good at football.

Wednesday evening rolled around, and I duly girded my loins and braved the horrific rush-hour traffic to battle our way to the other side of town for said extra training. As we got closer, LittleBear got quieter. As we pulled into the carpark he started asking where we had to go, and whether this was the right place, and how did I know. I assured him that Coach has told me where to go, and that we'd just ask someone the way to the football pitch. LittleBear's feet dragged and he didn't want to hold my hand to cross the carpark.

"What if it's not this way?"

"It's fine... look, it says Reception there, so we'll go in there, and there'll be a front desk and someone who knows everything and it'll be fine."

"But it's a school, and it's not our school, and we're not just allowed to walk in."

"It's a sports hall. Like the sports hall at LocalSchool, where we go for parties and things. Everyone's allowed in, and you ask where to go inside."

And, fortunately, Mummy was right, and (admittedly not actually at the front desk, but nearby) we found a nice young man in a polo shirt with a sports centre logo on it, and we asked him the way, and he pointed it out to us, and there we were, beside an astroturf pitch, at the edge of which was gathered a gaggle of other six and seven year olds, waiting for a hockey match to end. So far so good.

Not a sign of any six or seven year olds that we actually knew. Or our coach, A. LittleBear buried his face in my legs and wanted to be cuddled. I crouched down to talk to him, and he simply clambered onto my bent legs to sit on a lap that was barely there.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" I whispered.

"I'm worried."

"What are you worried about? Are you worried we're in the wrong place? Or that we're not supposed to be here? Or that we're going to get told off?"

"The last one..."

So I resorted to one of my new tactics, used because I'm not very good at approaching people either. And I had a child sitting on a non-existent lap who was making it hard to move. In a slightly-louder-than-was-completely-necessary voice, that I hoped would invite eavesdropping, I said, "Don't worry LittleBear, we'll wait here until A arrives, and then you can join in."

My stratagem worked. The burly man in charge of the gaggle of boys approached me, "Are you with A? He's stuck in traffic and he'll be late. He's a rubbish driver, he's always late."

Slightly reassured, we were able to return to a vertical orientation and I began to get some blood back in my legs again.

The hockey match drew to a close, the girls left the pitch, and the gaggle ran onto the pitch, accompanied by BurlyMan. He beckoned for LittleBear to follow his gaggle, and I turned to give my boy a grin and a pat on the back as he trotted off. Instead I met a tear-streaked little face as my poppet stood irresolutely by the gate, shaking his head and clutching his hands together.

"I don't want to. I don't know anyone."

"It's OK my lovely, I'm not going to make you do anything. If you don't want to join in, that's OK. We can wait for A, and then you can join in if that's what you'd prefer. This is supposed to be fun, but if you don't want to, it's OK."

"I don't want to."

What else could I do? I have no intention of trying to force him to do something that clearly triggers terrible distress. And nor do I want to break his love of football.  So we stood for a few more minutes, having some extra cuddles, the tears mostly drying.

"I think I know that boy," LittleBear murmured, peering out of our cuddle and over my shoulder, back along the path leading to the pitch.

Finally, one of the other boys from our under-7 team arrived. Still no sign of A, but that suddenly didn't seem to matter, as we walked LittleBear and ThatBoy over to the gaggle and they joined in without a backward glance. A did eventually arrive, with another two boys, and in the resulting 7-aside match, LittleBear scored a goal, and became the subject of an argument between BurlyMan and A over who would get to sign him to their team.

As we drove home, an exhausted voice piped up from the back seat, "I had a really good time today Mummy."

I am trying to use this as an opportunity to help LittleBear learn that being worried doesn't have to be a reason to give up; that sometimes we can all be afraid but we can overcome our fear and do something fantastic once we've got past it; that he should try to remember this day, to remember that he was scared, but he persisted, and he had a really good time.

I'm not sure that he really understood or believed me. I'm not sure that my words are ever going to be enough to overcome his innate anxiety. I'm not sure I have any right to be surprised, as I see my own carefully-masked feelings in his open and raw experiences of life.

Everyday sexism #3

This is getting to be a habit.

Maybe I'm having a midlife-crisis. Maybe all this rage I'm feeling is normal. Maybe I've just had forty-four years of living with sexist rubbish and I've finally reached breaking point. But, reached breaking point I have. I am occasionally lying awake, seething about the world I find myself living in. That can't be right.

Recently the daughter of one of my colleagues set off for her first term at university, leaving my colleague and his wife with an empty nest (their eldest, a son, already being in his final year at university). Wife is a bit of a worrier, which position I have a great deal of sympathy with, and I rashly expressed the opinion that I felt she would probably worry more about Daughter leaving home than she had done about Son.

"Why would she worry more about Daughter?" I was asked. "Isn't that sexist of you?"

I let go with both barrels. I reminded my (all male) colleagues that they didn't have the faintest inkling of an idea of what it's like to be a young woman, let alone a young woman away from home for the first time, faced with large numbers of (probably inebriated) young men. In fact, I leapt up and drew a line down the white board and presented them with Jackson Katz's challenge,

What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted?

Unsurprisingly, and in keeping with the young men who were originally asked this question, they had no ready answers. And I then began to enumerate the ways that I, and other women, avoid being assaulted on a daily basis. The ways in which avoiding being assaulted is something we actively and regularly think about. I pointed out that one of my friends, in our quiet little village, was not going to come to the pub with me because she was too afraid to walk down the unlit lane from her house on her own. I cycled to her house and we walked together. At the end of the evening I took a small tour of the village to escort first her, and then another friend home, before cycling home myself.

Yes, we are afraid to walk home alone at night. And no, this is not right.

This experience was followed swiftly by reading about a thought-experiment proposed on Twitter: if you are a woman, how would your behaviour change if men had a 9pm curfew?

There were two tragedies in the responses to this:

The first was the pitiful nature of the ways in which women's lives would change. We would go out running after dark. We would go for more walks. We would feel safe putting headphones on after dark. We would do our grocery shopping in the evenings when it's quieter at the shops. We would go to the cinema without worrying what time the film finished and whether the carpark was properly lit. Tiny freedoms that most men simply wouldn't think twice about. Tiny freedoms that in fact it turns out many men don't think about, and didn't realise women were living without.

The second tragedy was the number of angry men replying about the outrage of threatening men with a curfew, and that women were just being hysterical by being afraid, and that a generalised fear of men was just as bad as racism. Seriously. Women are afraid to go out at night, and the retort is to ascribe our behaviour to an ancient Greek idea of our uterus being so out of control that it wanders around our body causing widespread derangement. Way to go angry men. Missing the point quite spectacularly, and decrying even the the faintest inkling of a suggestion of a thought of playing with the hypothetical idea of any restrictions to male freedoms, while attacking women whose lives and freedoms are already restricted every single day.

And finally, I was reminded by this thought experiment of my own school days, when in our early teens, we had Personal and Health Education lessons (or whatever they were called then) at my terribly nice, all-girls, private school. We were told all about periods, and sex, and drugs (but not rock 'n' roll). We were given rape alarms. We were told how to hold our keys so the blade pointed between our knuckles, ready to gouge the eyes of any attacker. We were told how to make sure we didn't look appealing enough to rape. We were told how, if attacked from behind, to scrape a heel down the attacker's shin and grind it into his foot bones. We were told never to cry "Rape!" or "Help!" if we were being attacked, but instead to yell "Fire!" because the world of self-interest we were being raised in could not be expected to respond to attacks upon our person, but would rouse itself if there were a wider threat.

And over the past few days, as these memories have flooded back, I have been asking myself how my teachers could live with having to teach impressionable teenage girls how not to get raped? Why were they not marching through the streets demanding equality? Why were they not breaking down the doors of the nearby boys' school to demand the boys were taught how not to rape? Why were they not teaching us to burn society down and start again*? How could they be complicit in making us believe that rape was our fault if we didn't avoid it? Where was their outrage? Where was their fire? Where was their fury?

Maybe it was in the same place as mine, simmering along, with no outlet. I am filled with rage, with fire, with fury, and yet it is an impotent rage, because the truth is - what can I change? How can I defeat the sense of entitlement that some men have over women and their bodies? What can I honestly do? Maybe all I can do is issue a call to arms, shamelessly stolen from the film 'Network',

 All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!' So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!...You've got to say, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! 

* I fear the answer to this may lie in two places. Firstly, undoubtedly our teachers were teaching us as they had themselves been taught. They too had been raised to assume that it was up to women to avoid rape. And no doubt they wanted to keep us safe from harm. The second reason may have more to do with the demographic of the school. I cannot imagine the plethora of Establishment barristers, doctors and bankers represented amongst the parents being delighted to have their daughters turned into societal fire-starters. You may think I malign them, but this was a school at which I was branded a communist for supporting the Liberal Party, so it was not a place where breaking free of the shackles of a conservative society was encouraged. I'm delighted to say that many of my friends have grown up to be perfectly normal members of society.