Category: parenthood

Recent reads: January

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A fluffy black cat lies on a sofa, looking ill-used
As it happens, I have been yelling, if not ‘Touch not the cat!’, ‘Not her face!’ and ‘Not her tail!’, and ‘Don’t pull her fur!’, quite a bit of late…

Mostly non-fiction so far this year. The exception is:

Touch Not The Cat (Mary Stewart), which I read for my romantic suspense book club. We started it last year: I’d been keeping myself to the two chapters per week for scheduled discussion up until the second week of January, when I gave in and finished it off. Having read a fair few Stewarts for this group – and not the Arthurian ones – I was rather surprised by the ESP element (this isn’t a spoiler; it’s introduced very early on) but it worked rather well. I wasn’t so convinced by the parallel 1835 timeline. Usually I read Stewart romances for the armchair travel; this was more armchair nostalgia, as the bulk of the action is set in the region where I grew up. It was equally enjoyable: Stewart is always good for an evocative description or several.

Permanent, Faithful, Stable: Christian same-sex partnerships (Jeffrey John) has been  on the shelf for ages, and I felt both that I really should have read it and that I was fed up with it being there making me feel guilty. A quick read – and it is one – sorted that out. I think it’s probably the most succinct summary of the theological debate around same-sex relationships that I’ve read and would recommend it on that basis, though I did have a few quibbles. (Specifically: I did not feel that the author engaged adequately with the argument that marriage is a human institution and replicates human, patriarchal, systems of exploitation. More generally, I have been bearing a grudge to the tune of the most biphobic remark I’ve ever heard from the platform at a supposedly LGBTQ affirming event. The scene in The Real World where Colette walks out of the LGBTX West Country meeting? Not terribly far from real life.)

This was a fairly old edition, and events, in the form of thousands of actual same-sex marriages, have overtaken it. The arguments still feel very familiar, though.

The Queer Parent: everything you need to know from Gay to Ze (Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley) – very much the book I needed to read, squaring as it did the vicious circle where I’ve been feeling increasingly adrift from my bi identity but very conscious that as parenthood goes I haven’t had to deal with any problems that are not common to all. In a weird way, it was most affirming to read an interview with a bi couple who said that they were finding it hard to reconnect with the queer community. But it was interesting (and often humbling) to read about the experiences and decisions that I haven’t even had to think about, from surrogacy to IVF to doing the whole thing as a trans person.

The Road Less Traveled (M. Scott Peck) – was a wild ride. It’s one of those books whose existence I’ve been vaguely aware of for a long time, but could have told you nothing about beyond ‘er, self help?’ Then I read bell hooks’ All About Love last year and was intrigued by Peck’s definition of love which hooks quotes:

the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth

And I think that probably was the most useful part of the book. To summarise the rest of it: life is suffering, because life is change and change inevitably involves suffering; we have the choice as to how we engage with that. It was extremely readable – short chapters, and with most of them the promise of a mystery worked through, which is what I always enjoy about case studies (really I should just go and read more Oliver Sacks). I did feel that it rather lost its way when it got more heavily into the spiritual side of things. And there were a few ‘yikes!’ moments where it became less possible than usual to forget that this was published in 1978.

So it’s going back to Oxfam and I’m keeping All About Love. I’m not sure that I entirely adopt that definition, but it’s still better than a lot that I’ve seen.

A meeting of the Lac Scene Coven

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A relief map of Switzerland

I’m feeling quite a lot better today. Well enough, in fact, to face with equanimity the prospect of not being entirely well for quite a long time yet. I suppose it makes sense: the first few days, you couldn’t do much more than flop on the sofa even if you wanted to; after that, you have to put significant effort into not doing very much.

To be clear, my operation went well, my wounds seem to be healing, and I’m no longer blown up like a balloon. Everything is as it should be. I am coming to terms with the surgeon’s advice not to do any heavy lifting (i.e. more than 5kg – about a third of the weight of a toddler) for the next four to six months, which came as something of a shock, not having been mentioned before the day of the operation. I am coming to understand that in a few more days I will be feeling fine and having to put significant effort into remembering not to lift anything heavier than 5kg.

In the meantime, I’m playing with the idea of convalescence.

And the last few years have shown us that society does not place any value on recovery time, and so I will need to be aware of external and internal pressure to get better, now, and resist it.

Not for the first time, either. When I caught Covid for the first time in 2022, it took me ages to get better. I didn’t get long Covid, but it was several months before I could go for a walk without needing a lie-down afterwards. It was some time in that spring that I plugged convalescence into an anagram generator, and got back, among other delightful possibilities, lac coven scene. (This is yet another technique I have borrowed from the ever-excellent Havi, who has in fact just been writing about it.)

Back then, it sounded vaguely Arthurian to me, and I decided that I rather liked the idea of going to sleep under a hill until the country needed me. Now, having read the whole Chalet School series one and a half times through in the last eighteen months, it is clearly an exhortation to take a rest cure in a female-dominated environment in Switzerland, to prioritise my health, and to take the time I need to get better.

Lest anyone was in any doubt, I cannot literally go to Switzerland at this moment. It would take a lot of money that I have earmarked for other things and effort that I could better use on recovery. This does not matter. Never going to Switzerland did not stop Elinor M. Brent-Dyer from setting well over half the books there. She travelled via Baedeker instead.

I also don’t have the option of doing nothing any more. I have a toddler. This is where the coven comes in. My mother has been staying this week and has helped me work out a number of strategies (purchase of a little set of plastic steps to facilitate access to highchair; getting down on the floor with the child as an alternative to picking her up… ) More generally, I am just going to have to get used to the idea of getting people to do things for me. It takes a village. Or at least a coven.

I began my virtual stay in Switzerland yesterday, before I’d even remembered about my lac coven scene, by watching Alpine Train at Christmas. Most of my friends who have seen this programme report an immediate desire to take the Bernina Express, but I am too tired to plan train adventures, and just enjoyed watching the snowy mountains go by (and got depressed about the receding glaciers).

What else might I do, in pursuit of not-doing? I could get Switzerland’s Amazing Railways down from the shelf and become very interested in spiral tunnels. I could re-read or re-watch On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (nothing like watching James Bond be energetic when you’re not feeling particularly so yourself). I have got stuck on A Chalet Girl from Kenya but, now I can eat fatty foods again, rather fancy something involving ‘featherbeds of whipped cream’, and, indeed, most of the Chalet School diet. But I do find myself moved to revisit whichever Sadlers Wells book it is where Ella has a term at finishing school. I could find more slow travel videos – mountain railways, or steamers on the Alpine lakes (we saw the New Year in watching the P. S. Waverley sailing up the Clyde). Either way, a retreat to the sofa seems indicated. I shall rejoin the coven at the lac scene. See you all later.

December Reflections 18: silver

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A card of stud earrings in various shapes and designs, including lizards, fruit, ammonites, gems,

I’ve been wearing stud earrings much more lately (used to go for dangly ones, but they just aren’t practical with little grabby hands around). Mostly gold-coloured ones, but I’ve picked up a few silver ones – the ammonites and the lizards were new this year.

I got an extra pair of ear piercings, too. It’s quite fun to experiment with different combinations – though what I’m wearing at the moment is more of a ‘first thing that came to hand’ and only one pair is strictly a pair. The trouble with studs is that I keep losing the backs.

December Reflections 13: biggest lesson of 2024

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A full cup of coffee. A toddler's plastic beaker is visible in the background.

Capacity. There are only so many hours in a day, even when it’s not a scarce-seven-hours St Lucy’s day.

There is only so much work that I can fit into three days, only so much voluntary admin that I can fit into a toddler’s nap. And then I have to switch off, put the laptop away. No more pressing on until the task is finished. I can’t get away with that any more. I can’t afford the egotistical luxury of being the go-to person any more: I have to direct inquiries elsewhere, ask for help, leave things undone.

I still have a lot to learn about this.

December Reflections 6: biggest surprise of 2024

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Deep blue sky, deep blue sea, and a line of lights across the horizon, with one pointing up higher than the rest

How easy the return to work was. Transition back to work was fine, my brain switched gears beautifully, working part time is challenging but helps me keep a sense of proportion, and the infant has taken to nursery better than I ever dared hope.

(Portsmouth skyline not really relevant, unless you want to talk about the Isle of Wight catamaran as a liminal space or something like that.)

A new departure: The Book Bus Espace Libre

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Posters in art nouveau typefaces say: The Book Bus Pop-up gallery Sunday -Thursday 10h00-16h00 Espace Libre The bookshop will be back on Friday. In the meantime the bus is still full of stories. Come and see!

This summer I rather unexpectedly found myself coordinating and curating an exhibition. This is a first for me, and I’m rather pleased with the result.

Ventnor Fringe was on. I was going to be there. So was 3267, in the guise of the Book Bus. So far, so normal. I’d missed last year, the baby being just too tiny, and was looking forward to returning to my summer arts hit.

Ventnor Fringe has been getting bigger every year, in terms of both space and time, and this year it was going to be ten days long. It was only going to be reasonably practicable to make the bookshop happen for four days of that, and the preferred distribution of those four days was both Fridays and both Saturdays. Which left a five-day gap in the middle. Perhaps we could have some sort of an exhibition to fill it…

Such was the situation as described to me in mid-June, and to my delight the creative bit of my brain, which has been in and out and mostly out for the past two years, immediately rushed in. Various other people were having ideas too. Brilliant! My brain was coming up with a grand overarching idea to pull it all together:

This bus is usually a bookshop. So what do you get if you take the books out of a bookshop? And what if that space is something that has seen a lot in its time?

A title appeared. Espace Libre. Free Space. Maybe Espace Livre? No, trying too hard. Let it speak for itself. This is just another way to express what I’ve been trying to do with Book Bus Stories, assuming I ever finish the thing. If I had finished the thing it would make an exhibition in itself. But it could make a little part of one, maybe…

I angled for the job of coordinating it all – perhaps a trifle ambitious, trying to do it all from the mainland and with a baby clinging to my legs, but I wasn’t going to let that worry me – and the rest of the gang were extremely happy to let me do it.

So off I went. I selected (extremely select) quotations from my father’s accounts of how he got the bus this side of the Channel in the first place. I polished up three of my own Book Bus Stories to make a small display – and commit myself to finishing the rest of the damn things in time for next year. I spent quite a lot of money on boards and various forms of adhesive. I bought chain and cable ties in the DIY bit of our wonderful local department store, and if the assistant thought it was in any way weird she didn’t let on. I printed out everything I’d written. I posted the whole lot to Ventnor. And I chased and chased and chased the other contributors, and/or my family members who had undertaken to organise the other contributors for me.

Then I got to the Isle of Wight and spent a frantic couple of evenings sticking photos and cards to boards, or, in one case, making holes in a board with a corkscrew and attaching books with string, chain, and cable ties, while the baby was in bed. And we moved the whole lot onto the bus on Sunday morning.

In short, I had a lovely time.

This was a combination of the kind of project and people organising I do in my day job, and the kind of creative work I do in my free time, and it was the first time since I’d gone on maternity leave that I’d got my teeth into either of them in a big way. My brain had come back, and, since I’d been a bit worried that it had dissolved and dribbled out of my ears some time between COVID and quickening, this was incredibly exciting. I can do this kind of thing. Not only is this reassuring in the context of my return to work next week, it’s also encouraging to think that I might be able to return to some of the three or four books I have been attempting to write on and off since 2021.

I’m not going to have a huge amount more free time in which to use reclaimed creative powers. I get a couple of train journeys and a couple of lunch hours every week, and all the fruit trees need pruning. I will aim to get something done. I hope to post here more frequently, too. We’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, here’s a look at The Book Bus: Espace Libre.

The posters from the top of the post have been stuck to the windows either side of the rear entrance of a 1930s Paris bus
Board with photos of Paris buses in service and in preservation, with a description of how Robert E Jowitt brought Paris bus 3267 to England
Black and white photos by Robert E Jowitt showing people and public transport across Europe in 1960s and 1970s
Books (Giovanni's Room, The Seven Storey Mountain, This Is Paris, Nine Coaches Waiting, and Seven Ages of Paris) have been attached to a board with string and chain
Short stories by Kathleen Jowitt inspired by Paris buses have been printed out and stuck to a display board
Colour photos by Daphne Carter showing shops in Ventnor in the 1990s
Black and white photos by Ann Putterill entitled The Child in the City showing scenes in London

Back on the metaphorical bike

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A sock in the process of being darned in a weave of white, green and terracotta, held up in front of a TV screen showing a cycle race on a white road

As you might have guessed, I haven’t been writing much recently. At first I didn’t have the brain. I’ll write more about that, some time, maybe. Then I didn’t have the time. Still don’t, often. I get about ten minutes at the computer at a time before people start howling. If this post turns out very short, you’ll know why.

Instead, I’ve been exercising my creativity in more three-dimensional forms. I’ve been going for projects that I can pick up and put down again without their unravelling completely, and at the moment I’m tackling my mending pile and posting about it on Instagram under the #MendMarch hashtag. The picture on this post shows a mend on top of a mend; the new one features a long white stripe in between cypress green and terracotta, in honour of the Strade Bianche which you might just be able to make out on the TV in the background.

But I did manage to put together a list of the five best cycling novels for Shepherd. I think I’ve remarked before that there aren’t very many to choose from, and I suspect everybody puts The Rider at the top. No shame in that. It’s a brilliant book.

As for the literal bike, I’ve been out once on my faithful red town bike to go to an ultrasound appointment that didn’t happen (long story) and had a few goes on the cargo bike, which may or may not be being recalled (boring story). It’s all a bit of a waiting game, really, but we’ll get there in the end.

December Reflections 18: I said goodbye to…

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A blue fountain pen with the lid on, a closed notebook, and part of a magazine showing Judith Kerr with the original Mog

… my identity as a writer, for the moment at least.

My other best decision of 2023 was turning down my first ever book contract. I meant to write about that – first about getting it, then about turning it down – but I never managed it. Not longhand (can’t get to a flat surface), not touch typing (very rarely have both hands free), not dictating (distracts and confuses the baby). Any solution I find works for a week or so and then fails. All I’m managing is these tiny little blogs, typed with one hand on my phone

More to the point, I just don’t want to. The urge to write (fiction, long form non-fiction, poetry) has been patchy over the last couple of years, and non-existent over the last few months. I could force it, but why? Only recently have I found myself thinking myself back into a character’s head (what would Julian make of war memorials, anyway?), and I’m not in any position to do anything about it. There’s time. It’ll come back when it wants to come back.

In the meantime I’m refusing to beat myself up for not being Superwoman. A friend told me about seeing a documentary about Judith Kerr in which the great author said, very matter-of-factly, ‘Of course I couldn’t do any writing while the children were small.’ So there we go. If stepping back is good enough for her then it’s most definitely good enough for me.

I’m hoping it’s au revoir rather than goodbye. But, the way things stand at the moment, I’m honestly much less bothered than I’d have predicted two years ago.

December Reflections 17: a slice of real life

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Cork yoga block very much scratched on the top front edge, on an equally scratched sheet of brown corrugated cardboard, with an edge of pink tablecloth visible underneath

I do try to be honest about my life on here, while also doing my best to respect the privacy of my nearest and dearest, and also assuming that nobody wants to see, for example, the nappy bucket. (Though the reusable nappies, which get about half of the use, are rather jolly, it’s true. Nevertheless.)

Anyway, under these layers of cat proofing is a rather lovely Victorian inlaid wood table, and that’s real life around here. Gorgeous stuff, if only you could see it.