Imitations

I went to the supermarket looking for Greaseproof Paper.  Bog standard requirement for festive season baking.

First off it was impossible to find at my local overpriced supermarket.  Usually there's one aisle that has things like paper plates, napkins, bin bags, food wrap and baking paper.  Often accompanied by detergent and cleaning cloths.  Not in our local.  Oh no.  All the paper plates, dishwashing liquid and other household bits and bobs were together, but could I find Greaseproof?  Could I hec.

Finally I found a human to ask, and was pleasantly to find that she was a) knowledgeable b) helpful and c) chirpy and pleasant.  Unusual.  In the supermarket.  In that supermarket.  She led me back from whence I had come, to an aisle marked, among other things, 'lunchwraps'.  Never heard of them...

I scanned the shelves but could only find 'Imitation' Greaseproof Paper.  How the hell can you imitate Greaseproof Paper?  I think I could give it a shot; lie down flat and cover myself with butter.  No, seriously, how the bloody hell can you imitate Greaseproof Paper?  Surely the paper is either greaseproof, or it's not.

And what's the point anyway?  Where's the fun in it?  I can kind of see the fun in making imitation Strawberry flavour, for example.  I don't see the point, but I do see the fun in working out how many gazillions of different noxious chemicals it takes to reproduce the flavour you can find easily in a naturally occurring, rather delicious in its natural form, thank-you-very-much, fruit.  But Greaseproof Paper? Really?  I mean, it's already man made, for heaven's sake.

I am seasonally befuzzled.

And unimpressed.  The stuff is thin and crappy and I'm sure it'll stick to the sweets I've wrapped in it.

For You

by writing in pen
I hoped that somehow
I'd reach
the part of my heart that reaches
the part of your heart that reaches
mine
Perhaps if I ever saw you
pen in hand too
doodling
I'd learn your map
But your doodles are your eyes
and I find them
hard
to read
like those bibles the church folk have
with translucent pages
full of tiny print
Precious words on paper that tears
so easily
Words you have to strain to read
let alone comprehend
let alone believe
But I believe in my pen
I believe in my heart
reading yours
through unexpected faith
in words and pictures

NRM 14/12/11

Re: Femininity in NZ

I wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the SST on Sunday 27th November.  The published title was 'In Defence of Femininity'.

It was also republished on Stuff.co.nz under the unfortunate title 'Are NZ Women Slobs'.  This was their title, not mine, and was not what the article was really about.

Many people who read the article in the Sunday Star Times took it in the way it was meant.  Others took a slightly different inference from it and took great offence.

It has been said that in my article I suggested that domestic violence against women was their own fault for not being more feminine. And that if women wore dresses and high heels more often this would not happen.

This was not what I wrote at all.  Nor is it what I think.

I talked to a cross-section of people around the country; many think that femininity is about MORE than what we wear, but they can't quite say what they think it might be. Perhaps it's our attitude as women, perhaps 'how we carry ourselves', people said. Traits such as compassion, empathy, understanding and creativity were mentioned too.

I feel that femininity is about how I embrace all that it means to be a woman.  Women and men are different, and our differences are something to be celebrated, not ignored. There was a general opinion that a lot of Kiwi women are 'blokey' - not simply in the way they dress, but how they behave.   There is a sense that women are attempting to deny our differences and be like men.

Women are generally more nurturing and empathetic, we tend to communicate verbally better than men. We are usually the primary carers of our children.  We are passionate and expressive.  

We have horrific issues with domestic violence, depression and suicide here in New Zealand.  As John Kirwan says on the TV ads for the Ministry of Health depression helpline, "hardening up is not what you need to do."  Social problems begin with how we raise our children and how we operate as families and thus as a society.  In New Zealand there is a general tendency to be seen to be 'tough'.  Mucking in,  digging deep and ‘getting on with it’ are Kiwi traits.  But every human being is also vulnerable, experiences sadness, disappointment, frustration.  The ability to feel and express this side is, I think, a more feminine trait. 

To be wholly in touch with who we are as people, and to be truly strong, I think it is vital that we embrace our vulnerability, that we allow our children, male and female, to express their sadnesses, their confusion, to talk about how they feel. It is vital that as a society we value connection to our emotional sides as a strength, and not a weakness.  It's vital to teach this to our girls and boys as they grow up, encouraging it in school and throughout their lives.

On this level boys get the bum deal.  Even more than women they are expected to 'get on with it', not to cry, not to express or emote.  If we feel we are not listened to, not heard, not understood, what is the result?  Anger and misery.  Violence and depression.  I’m not suggesting that repressed emotion is the sole cause of violence and depression, but I do believe that it is a significant contributing factor.

I believe that as women, we owe it to ourselves and others to embrace and own our femininity and hold it up as strong. We need to value our intrinsic nature, and hold onto it as something to be admired and valued. We need our society to value what women have to offer, our differences from men. If we don’t value our gifts first, but deny and ignore them, what chance that anyone else will?  

Long Hand

Long hand.

I am returning to writing in it. Today I decided to pick up my pen again.  To write long hand.

Long hand is the long, slow way.  The long way round.  Travel for the sake of travel.  Journeying for enjoyment.  Taking time.  The long hand of the clock moves slowest, but marks the greatest measure of time.  So long hand can be the long way to the purest, most reasoned, most considered, most deeply felt words.

Writing long hand forces us to take care of the journey, to take our time, to look at the view, to slow down.

This morning I noticed how untidy my writing was and realised that I was trying to write long hand as fast as I am used to typing.  Impossible!  So writing long hand takes on new meaning.  As I write with a pen I'm thinking about the way I'm forming my letters and words.  Thinking about ink pens and calligraphy.  Perhaps, in a time when most of us clack away on our keyboards, long hand will return to the revered art form it once was.

For years I kept a specially bound plain page notebook into which I carefully copied the poems I'd written that I felt merited keeping for history - to show my children and grandchildren.  A fresh page for each poem, carefully lettered in real old-fashioned ink.  To me I suppose it was a way of honouring my own words, or the words that had honoured me by appearing in that particular order, organisation, understanding.  The long way.

I think our words, poems in particular, arrive via the long way round, even though sometimes they seem to appear as if by magic.  They have travelled, brewed.  A loved one does not appear magically in 'arrivals' at the airport!  Sometimes we write the journey, sometimes it's a long and arduous one we are keen to discard - how quickly do we leap in the shower after a long haul flight.  At other times it's all about the journey and it is this that we show to our reader, rather than the arrival itself.

However words arrive, they have journeyed, the long way round, to be here.

Giving our words, or the words of others, the honour of being written in long hand is, I think, an art form that will not be lost or forgotten, but rediscovered, studied and cherished.

When I grow up, I want to be a scribe.

(c) Naomi Madelin 2011


For more on writing, see my blog post here

All We Need is Just a Lot of Patience

What is patience?


The ability to wait for a bus without giving up and going home.


The skill of walking slowing with a toddler and being amazed, with her, at every stick, stone and flower.


Telephoning a friend and listening to his troubles, when he never returned your last call and forgot your birthday.


Patience can be small and easy, or deep and difficult.


A dictionary definition says it is "The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset."


Look it up on Wikipedia and the explanation includes:


"Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties."


Sometimes don't you just hate Patience?!  I think of myself as quite a patient person, and then I read this and feel ashamed for even thinking that!  Damn you Patience, for making me feel bad about myself...


Patience is sometimes easier over a distance.  If the friend or family member you had an argument with is overseas, it might be easier to wait for their postcard, or their call, with distance you are able to cool off, see things as they really are, forgive.


But equally distance can try your patience.  Your partner's away and all you want is a word of tenderness, a hug... You don't want to wait.  A text comes, or a phone message, and you're forced to interpret its true meaning.  You feel annoyed, angry, frustrated.  Argh - patience, where are you?!


Wikipedia also says that "Patience is the level of endurance one's character can take before negativity...."    Antonyms include hastiness and impetuousness.



How often have we hastily judged another, rather than waiting patiently to see how a situation plays out, or to allow them to explain themselves better, or to give ourselves time to step into their shoes and see the situation from their perspective?  


How often have we impetuously tooted our horn at another driver, snapped at our partner or done something selfish as a result of impatience?


Guilty.


If we sow seeds in our garden we wait, we water, we watch.  We don't dig it up the next day and stamp on it, or pour kerosene on it and set it alight because it didn't grow.


Things that require our patience often require our nurturing too. Be it a big idea, saving for a holiday, or a relationship.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”  Rilke

"A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains."  Dutch Proverb

"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice." George Jackson (1941 - 1971)

"Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind."  Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Top That : Party Nightmares

Leading up to my daughter's 4th birthday I became obsessed with strawberries.

She likes 'Strawberry Shortcake', and I thought that would be a good theme.  There are, after all, limited birthdays for which fun parties will be required.  Soon enough she'll just want me to take her and her best friend to concert (bring back Take That, I say), or have 'the girls' over for greasy pizza, a horror film and a sleepover.  God forbid.

I scoured the internet for the right 'Strawberry Shortcake' themed party ware at a reasonable price, and plunged into every '$2' shop I passed to see what fruity goodies may lurk there.

What games to play?  Treasure hunt, buns-on-strings, musical chairs, pass-the-parcel, pin the hat on Strawberry Shortcake. How many games should there be?  What the prizes?  And what the food?  Oh, the organisation....

A week before The Day we went to the 4th birthday party of one of our daughter's small friends.  The house was decorated with unusual streamers, brought over from Europe. The party table was adorned with party poppers, small gifts, all sorts of party naughties to eat and featured a stylish red cupcake stand.  The guests were all lovely - even the children!  Pieces de resistance were the handmade necklaces the hostess had done for all the little girl guests - being the mother of a boy she had relished this foray into girliness.

It was a lovely party and the children - girls and boys nicely balanced, I thought, had a whale of a time.

Now, I thought I was verging on appearing like a competitive party mum with all my strawberriness.  For by now pink strawberry shaped biscuits, strawberry shaped shortbread and strawberry shortcakes (a bit like scones but sweeter) lurked in my freezer in readiness, with homemade 'cheesymite' sticks and vanilla cupcakes each waiting to be iced and topped with a berry-shaped sweetie. A box in the cupboard was full of hand-made strawberry shaped chocolate lollipops I'd made, and a jar stuffed with every strawberry shaped sweet I'd come across over the past two months.  My Mum, bless her doting grandmotherliness, had even sent from the UK some wonderful ice lolly moulds in the shape of strawberrries, where the handles were the wee green stick part of the fruit. Ingenious.

Or perhaps overkill?

Anyway, after this other party, which we attended as a family, my dear husband looked at me and in sincere consternation said "What hand made things have we got at our party?  Is it going to be as good?"

I laughed, then looked hard at him and realised he was deadly serious.  "It's not about being the best," I reminded him, "It's about Daisy having a good time on her birthday."

That night we sat and cut out strawberry shapes from concertina'd tissue paper, and strung them on strings for streamers.  He seemed happy.  Then went into the kitchen to hand make some marshmallow, just in case...

Finally we got to bed and fell into a fitful sleep.  In the early hours I woke from a terrible nightmare.  It's the day of our daughter's party.  As requested, James (the husb) is helping me out and not just standing drinking beer with the other dads.  "Pass the parcel time," he calls, corralling myriad children and sitting them in a circle.  My heart leaps.  I haven't prepared the parcel.  Small gifts are lying unwrapped in a drawer somewhere while wrapping paper is gathering dust on the top of the wardrobe. Anyone who has ever made a pass-the-parcel knows that these dastardly things take three times longer than you think to put together.  There is no way I can do it in time.  DISASTER.

Next morning, as we laughed about my nightmare, I realised it was time to stop obsessing over strawberries, after all I had more strawberry themed party gifts, prizes and what not than twenty children ought to require - and I certainly hadn't invited twenty.  Thank goodness I had maintained a little sense at least.

Trouble was, I hadn't quite designed the birthday cake yet. I had this Strawberry Shortcake doll I was thinking of putting into the middle of a bowl-shaped cake to make one of those 'doll with a big flouncy skirt' type of cakes.  But everything just seemed so overwhelmingly, well, pinky.

I had another doll I'd scored for $1 from an auction site.  Strawberry Shortcake on a skateboard... That night, James and I sat and worked out how to cut a large marble cake into the right shapes to make a skate park.  Then I dyed my my home-made moulding icing just the right shade of pinky grey for the concrete, rolled and stuck it onto the cake while James graffiti'd 'Happy Birthday' with food colouring, and tagged it with the names of all the children who were coming.  Rock on.

The moral of my tale? Well, there isn't one. The party was gorgeous, if the children didn't totally appreciate it, all the adults certainly did.  They wondered at all the strawberry-themed home made food, the pretty cupcakes (adorning the same red cupcake stand I'd got my friend to bring along!), the red, white and pink balloons and strawberry shaped streamers.  When I brought out the strawberry ice lollies I felt parents hearts sink.  Dads at the barbeque marvelled at James' home made burger patties.  I think the birthday cake (which the children loved because, well, it was cake) was the absolute killer though.  It was for me.  Especially since for some reason I failed to take a really good picture of it.

Ah well, there's always next year.

Thoughts on Women Returning to Work after children: PART 1

I've spoken to women who worry about whether they will be taken seriously as they return to work- or who, already back working, feel they aren't.  There's a sense that colleagues will or do think that now they are a mum, they won't have their eye on the ball.  Yes, with many of us motherhood comes first.  What's really more important - the life of a small child or that a report is presented 100% perfectly?

But my thought is - how much did you consider how seriously you were taken BEFORE you had children.  Having children is a wake up call in many ways.  If it's making you think about how seriously you're taken at work, and in other environments that matter to you - great.

It might even be worth sitting down and thinking back, and having a reality check.  Perhaps things were brilliant back then before you got up the duff, but maybe they weren't.

Now is the time to not only regain yourself, but reposition yourself exactly where you should have always been.

Jumping on Castles

When we had a new washing machine delivered I kept the box.  Perfect for a new playhouse for the misses 20 months and 3-and-a-very-important-¾.

I didn’t want a playhouse advertising a manufacturer of white goods though, so that night when the misses were snug in their beds I set to work dismantling the thing and turning it inside out.  Not as simple a job as I’d imagined, when I discovered that the cardboard wasn’t that of a regular supermarket box (funnily enough) but high-grade reinforced triple layer cardboard. 

Following the job of dismantling, it became swiftly apparent that my trusty glue gun wasn’t going to do the job of sticking all this high-grade box stock back together. Some kind of industrial strength hot rubber glue type of thing was required. Which I didn’t have at 9.30 on a Saturday night.  Thank god for extra-wide clear packing tape. It might not be beautiful but it’s certainly effective.

A couple of hours later we had a tall house with a pitched roof, with skylight (the manufacturer’s input, not mine – a happy chance), tall arched doors and a round window. 

When miss 3 ¾ saw it the next morning she gasped “It’s a PALACE”.  Instant payback for my two hours’ labour!

It was the day of our mid-winter party and while the husband got the bbq going (New Zealand mid-winter can be quite nice, on a good day) I sorted out the house, removing precious and delicate toys from the playroom and giving the Palace pride of place in the girls’ bedroom.

It was an hour or so into the party when a little boy came up to me to report that ‘someone is jumping on the wendy house’.  I rushed to the scene to find at least two little boys hurling themselves at my Palace. It was looking decidedly less 'palace' like and more 'ruined castle'.  One door was off and the whole structure was on its side in a sorry, squashed-looking state.

“Out!” I ordered, “Everyone out, now, no one plays in here any more.” I didn’t even take the time to identify who was doing the jumping or who the ringleader might be.  Two hours I spent, with loving care...

I hope I’m bringing my girls up to respect others’ property – whatever it may be.  I believe I am.  ‘Boys will be boys’ gives a child, an adolescent or an adult male an excuse for ignorance.  Of course children make mistakes – it’s all part of the learning process. But there is a high proportion of parents who allow their male children to behave in a destructive, disruptive way, unfettered, unchecked and undisciplined, because, they say, “Boys will be boys.”  Boys will also be wife beaters, child abusers, brawlers, depressives and suicides.  Much more so, in this country especially, than girls.

Doing something about this negative trend begins when they are born.  Letting them know that they are expected to be sensitive – with regard to the belongings of others, the feelings of others, and consequently with regard to themselves.  Teaching our children these things contributes to their sense of belonging, of community and of connection.  It’s the foundation of strength and a sense of self.  If we don’t allow them this, we’re jumping on their own castles before they’ve even been built.

Chain Reaction

Wow. It's amazing how a little dabble into the real world has rings emanating out and back again.  After effectively retreating from the world for three years while focussing wholeheartedly on motherhood, then becoming overwhelmed by a desperate need to reconnect with myself, I'm appreciating elements of 'normal' life in a whole new way.

I've undertaken a path of coaching to guide me through this process of change and transition.  I've been reassured that there isn't a mother out there who doesn't feel she's lost herself in some way.  The question is - who do we hope to find? Perhaps the answer is to put hope aside and just look and see who pops up. By drilling down to our core values, skills, true desires, we could be surprised by who we've slyly turned into.

My husband suggested I network furiously in the hopes of securing a good acting job - though it's something I have wanted, it's not for me now.  Dashing out at the crack of dawn to get to hair and make-up, the prospect of long hours, during which someone else does all the caring for my two young children - it just doesn't appeal at this moment in my life.

As mothers we lose ourselves, and many of us are filled with a huge need to find ourselves again.  But being open to the fact that we have changed and that the destination may be a surprise, or even a shock, is as important as embarking on the journey.

Recipe: Spring Cleaning for Coffee-Lovers

This is fool-proof.  Or perhaps only for fools...

You will need

-  One stovetop espresso (For a medium-sized kitchen, a jug serving around 4 people should do the trick)

- A supply or your favourite blend of coffee (a fairly expensive one, freshly ground, has the best all-round effect)

- Two to four hours

Method

Remove the filter plate - we won't be needing that baby for this recipe.

Prime jug with water and coffee, screw shut.

Ensure persons and animals abiding in your house have exited the area and stay well away.

Pop the pot on the stove, turn on the heat and leave the room.  Go to the other end of the house, or into the garden and get stuck into something.  Forget about that coffee pot - it's all good, it really is.

When you hear a sudden loud noise rather like a cat hissing ferociously, only somewhat more alarming,  return immediately to the kitchen. You'll know the recipe has done its work.  There will be no getting away from the fact.  Trust me.

If you've done things right you'll find that a genuine Stovetop Espresso Explosion has occurred, resulting in a blast zone of coffee that will cover an enclosed kitchen fairly extensively. For an open plan kitchen, like mine, you'll have a good hit to the kitchen area with extended blast reaching your living and dining areas.  In my house the open kitchen sits slap bang between a living area and a dining area.  I was fortunate enough to have coffee blast reaching from the fireplace at one end to the French doors at the other.

Ensure you now SWITCH OFF the heat under the coffee pot.

Stand back and take in the majesty of the explosion.  Note the beautifully even dispersal of ground coffee across ceiling, walls, lamps, floors and soft furnishings.

The great thing about this recipe is that it's not just liquid coffee covering the interior of your room(s), it's coffee grains too, and they will have found their way into every nook and cranny.  And you have the added bonus of a wonderful coffee aroma throughout your home, which will last for days.

Now you have absolutely no choice but to get stuck into that pesky Spring cleaning job you put off two years ago.

DO NOT attack soft furnishings with a damp cloth.   Run a bucket of warm soapy water, and clean any white or light coloured painted surfaces first, in particular walls and ceilings - unless you've been longing for the coffee splattered look, of course.  (Let's hope my landlady has been, since I didn't clean the ceiling for two hours....)  When the coffee has dried, vacuum carpets, soft furnishings etc, then wipe as necessary.


It may feel counter-intuitive, but feel free (once the pot is cool), to disassemble, clean and re-prime your espresso pot.  This time please ensure that you INSERT THE FILTER PLATE.  Since you're in the room cleaning, there's no danger you'll forget the pot.  And by the time the coffee's ready - boy are you going to need it.

ENJOY!

Fearing the fear and doing it anyway

I had this plan, this dream really, that when I turned 40 I'd throw a great party somewhere with a stage, and I'd surprise everyone by singing at my own do, with a live band.

Thing is, I'm terrified of singing in public.  No, that's not the right way to describe it.  It's not terror, it's more that much as I want to do it, much as I know I have a decent voice and what not, my body refuses to allow sound to escape when there are people watching.  My throat constricts, my heart - for all it feels like - stops in my chest and the best I can manage is a strangled squeak.  Caught singing in the shower in a backpackers years ago a travelling companion even marvelled at my voice.  'Amazing' was, I think, the word she used.  A little bragging required here to boost my flagging confidence.

I kept my little dream a secret for some time, frightened to utter it, frightened that if I did I might somehow commit to actually doing it.  Plan A was to find myself a musician or two and make a wee group.  At the time the dream was festering, we lived out in the countryside and had a small baby plus toddler, and I couldn't work out how I could find good people to gather about me to make it come true. Given the husband plays the old guitar a little, I finally suggested it to him.  Plan B.  I'll sing, I told him, and you play the guitar.  Hmmm.

I may not have mentioned yet, though undoubtedly I'll do so again, that my husband rather likes the sound of his own voice, and somewhat adores it when other people listen.  And if he can find an excuse to show off in some way - he'll take it.  Bless him.  Curse him.

"I know," he says, when I reveal my little plan, "I'll go on stage first and start singing with the guitar, and you come on afterwards."

"Er, no," say I, "I'm the one doing the singing - you're just playing the guitar,"

"No, no," he says, "I'll be like the warm up act and then you come on and wow everyone."

"Hmm, no," say I again, "That's you stealing the limelight actually...."

Exit Plan B.

Then a few months later I found that the proverbial cat had been thrown among the proverbial pigeons of our marriage and frankly dealing with that, amidst selling our home of eight plus years, moving house and re-locating two small children into new day care arrangements plus two needy cats, was more than I could get my spinning head around.

I have, however, found a singing teacher a stone's throw from our new rented home.  Hooray!  With a little folk club hidden neatly away in the neighbourhood a new plan is brewing.  I've had a few lessons, done not-enough practice in between.  This teacher is making me readdress the entire way I sing!  While it's intellectually stimulating and really quite fascinating (who knew that the larynx flips forward and backwards and that you can consciously close off the nasal cavity using your soft palette?) it's hard bloody work.  Meanwhile I've taken a part in a play, which is frankly more necessary.  Singing solo is all very well but it's, well, solo, solitary, a tad lonely even.  New reality, new location, old friends far away = need for group activity to keep insanity at bay.

So here I am, just over 40 and the singing dream still waiting, waiting.  Maybe through this play I might meet some musicians.  Maybe maybe.  I know... I really do - this will always be a 'waiting maybe' if I don't take the bull by the horns.  I'll sort it, I really really will.  Once this play is over...

How feminine are we?

I've been conducting some research on how feminine people think New Zealand women are.

Have your say!  Take a moment to consider these short questions and pop your answers in to a comment on this blog.  Oh, and if you're enjoying my posts, click on the left to follow me!

I'll post a link to the article when it's published (you might even be quoted!!!)

1/ What do you think femininity is, or encompasses?

2/ On a scale of 1 - 10 (where 10 is very feminine), how would you rate NZ women?

3/ What do you think influences our femininity?

4/ On a scale of 1 - 10 (where 10 is very strong), do you think femininity is seen as a strong or weak trait in NZ?

5/ Do you think it's important for women to be feminine? Why?

6/ On a scale of 1 -10 (where 10 is equal, or very feminine), how do Kiwi women rate in relation to European women for femininity?

7/ Can you think of any good, feminine, Kiwi role models? (if so - tell me who they are!!!)

Community Parenting - I stuck my oar in.

It was pretty busy the play park yesterday, my children always opt to swing first, but since all swings were busy, we headed for the slides and tunnels, then the see-saw, then we moseyed over to wait our turn on a swing.  Pretty soon a baby swing was made available for my littlest.  Miss Nearly 4 wanted a 'big kids swing' so she waited. I'd already noticed that one child had been on the swing for ages.  His parents seemed to have no sense that others were waiting.

Another baby swing came free and as a mother approached it with her small son, another adult rushed past, grabbed the swing, yelled across the park to her friend, who brought a little girl over and plonked her in it.  UNBELEIVABLE!  The usurped mother and I exchanged incredulous looks, but nothing was said.  Aha!  These were, it seemed the parents of the endlessly swinging boy...

As the father appeared I pointed out, politely, that two little girls (there was now a queue) had been waiting a long time for a swing and that it was perhaps time to move his son along.  A minute or two later I reiterated, a little more directly, that it was time for his son to give up a swing.  The child on the next swing nobly volunteered his - even though he'd been on for about half the time - sweet chap.  One girl now swinging, one waiting.  The father was talking to his son, who did not wish to leave his swing, gently trying to get him off the swing.  It went on and on.  My patience waned.  'Just get the child off the swing man', I thought.  "Come on, time's up," I said.  Clearly we were going to be kept waiting until the stubborn child chose to get off.  So.... did I cross the line....?

I went up to the father and son, said "Come on dude, time's up" and lifted the child off the swing.  "Yes, but not forcing it," said the father.  'Actually,' I wanted to say, 'yes, sometimes forcing it. Who's in charge here.  You or your small son?'   Instead I said something about teaching children to share.  And he walked away.

Was I right, or wrong?  Did I cross the line?

Working a haiku or senryu

I had one of those moments in the early hours when a poem comes to you and you dither between sleep and the desire to capture the poem - to reach in the dark for your pencil and notepad and scribble it down.  I didn't.  But I managed to repeat it enough to myself in my half-sleeping state to have a vague recollection of it come morning.


Of course the precise vocabulary, the exact word distribution, left with the darkness and left me work to do.


Lying there somewhat fitfully I had made a conscious effort to release my thoughts and all tension from my head. At which point I realised just how much tension I was holding, and that was the moment at which the haiku arrived.


It was something along the lines of:


dense night
finally my thoughts
release me


But this doesn't quite do it for me.  I tried:

disordered night

at last my thoughts

release me

And had these words on hand: 

torpid, impervious, scattered, shattered, kinetic,  unbalanced, wavering, unquiet, unsteady, disordered

Still the poem wasn't saying what I felt.

these early hours

unsteady thoughts

at last release me

No, still not right.  How about re-ordering the lines?

unsteady mind

these early hours

at last release me

No, it wasn't the hours that released me, the sense was very much of thoughts bouncing about in my head and keeping me a awake.  Sometimes I think I try to say too much in a haiku senryu - I try to cover too much time when all I should be focussing on is one tiny moment.  I closed my eyes and put myself mentally back in bed, to the moment before I let my thoughts go...

in my head a cricket

singing singing singing

this early morning

Now that's a poem I'm happy with.

On Haiku

I love writing haiku.  Moments exploded into a nutshell is how I see them.  Like the hint of the song of a rare bird, the tiniest taste of something exquisite that fires a million thoughts.  Sometimes a haiku appears just like that - fully formed and ready to go.  Other times haiku morph and merge and turn into something unexpected, or with a change of line breaks the meaning is amplified.

I took the ferry today, to the city - it's a good place and time to find haiku.

I wonder which works best?

1/

leaving thoughts -
on the ferry our flag
twisted around the pole

2/

leaving thoughts on the ferry
our flag twisted
around the pole

Chapter 2 DIDAKOI DREAMING : Part 1

The next two days were lost in a blur of jet lag and sleep.  Somewhere amongst it all was a vague recognition that things were not as they should have been in the weather department.  The sun was high in the sky on the first morning when I rose in our city centre hotel and threw open the doors to the balcony to be met by a chill breeze and the sight of an empty swimming pool.

“I thought it was supposed to be hot here.”  I moaned to a groggy James.

“Ergly og gog,” he replied, so I shut myself in the bathroom for a long, hot, shower.

Things continued in this vein for several days, both with the bad weather and the incoherent comments.  It transpired that Auckland was experiencing a ‘bad summer’, that the sun was in hiding and that our jet lag wasn’t going to be over any time soon.  While James slept late, I suffered from nausea and a persistent sense of dizziness – as though everything was spinning in the wrong direction, which I supposed it was.  Like the water in the hotel’s luxurious bath that James and I watched being sucked down the plug hole the wrong way, I deduced that the tides in our seventy-percent water bodies must be on the turn – not the most scientific of theories but one that appealed even to the more scientifically-oriented James.

When we’d caught up on enough sleep that we felt it was safe to drive, we piled our weighty belongings into tinny hire car.  We were headed for the West Coast and the little settlement of Karekare, there to lodge with James’s sister in the house she had been building from the shell of a barn for the past four years.  It took a little while to leave the city and I was sure there hadn’t been so much traffic the last time I’d been in Auckland, although the congestion was nothing compared to London streets, or the streets of other major cities and towns I had visited around the world for that matter.  Nonetheless, traffic was the mark of the city and the general feeling I’d had that I didn’t want to live in Auckland grew stronger.  Eventually we left the single-storey sprawl of suburbia behind us and threaded our way west through the bush.  Karekare lies forty kilometres west of Auckland city over the often-misty, bush-clad Waitakere Ranges, which steal your breath at every turn.   Wildly winding roads steer a magical tour up and down between trees, ferns and falls oozing with green.  The forest is much like that which amazed me when I walked through Abel Tasman National Park – dinosaurs would not be out of place.  Although the Waitakere Ranges are a Forest Park this does not preclude habitation, and modern homes flash steel and glass through gaps in the canopy, while up dank and enticing tree-tunnels, homely wooden shacks and hand-built follies hide.  Five hundred metres at their peak, the Ranges cut the west coast off from the city of Auckland in a most satisfactory manner and afford frequent broad views of the central business district and Waitemata Harbour to the east.    With every bend we turned, the lump in my throat, that hadn’t really left since the arrivals lounge, grew.   Each revealed more wonders, the glorious green never ending.  By the time we descended toward the ocean and Karekare after forty minutes or so of driving, I was choked with emotion.  A few tears wound their way down my overwhelmed face as the sea hove into view. The ‘village’ has no shops, not even a post box, and most homes are invisible, nestled cosily among the trees.  From the road steep driveways and endless steps wind their secret way up the hillside to heavenly abodes.  All around black volcanic cliffs thrust from red earth, towering over beach and bush, dwarfing humankind and putting us firmly in our place.  Bush clings wherever it can, and valleys and ravines thrive with flora and fauna.  In December, Pohutakawa trees flame with crimson blossoms and Toetoe, a native grass similar to Pampas, ripples in the wind.  Behind is the ever-present music of the fierce West Wind Drift crashing and scouring black rock and pounding dark sand.  Part of me was desperate to explore this unusual fairytale, but with the car rammed with our things and fatigue overwhelming us again, we headed straight to Jacqui’s place to unload, eat and sleep.

Next morning I woke early and immediately felt the need for a walk. James was sound asleep in our cushion-bed on Jacqui’s bare chipboard floor.  I dressed quietly, took my fountain pen and writing pad and slipped out.  My intention was to walk to the beach, but en route I was waylaid by a sign to a waterfall; a high cascade that I had seen from the road the day before.  I turned right off the steep tarmac-ed lane and trod my way carefully down the earth path.  Within seconds I was transformed into Eve discovering Paradise.  Could everything that I was seeing and hearing be real?  The variety of plant life, the overhead canopy and thriving under-layers, the song of exotic birds and dance of light on leaves was too, too perfect.  Surely this was a botanical garden meticulously planted by someone with a passion for detail?  When the path opened beneath the shelter of huge, twisted and spreading trees that backed a rocky beach where a green pool lapped at the bottom of the plunging falls, I laughed.  A bench and table beckoned at the water’s edge - the place, the moment, seemed made just for me.   The landscape of Karekare is dramatic and extreme, as is the sea, but as I sat absorbing the atmosphere I felt Mother Nature protecting me, nestling me between her ample bosoms, delivering her gift in the simplest and purest of forms.  I was supremely content just to sit.  To think.  To breathe.  A mother and her ducklings scratched fearlessly around my feet and all was right with the world.   I don’t believe you’ve seen New Zealand until you’ve experienced Karekare.  But then, you can say that about so many places in New Zealand, and that was exactly why I was here.

Chapter 1 DISCOVERY: Part 9

Our copious bags picked from the conveyor, we bundled our trolleys in a daze to  immigration, only to be faced with a long queue; a confused and slow-moving posse it would take an age to process.  We dutifully stood in line, perched wearily on our luggage wondering whether our friend Bridget would be waiting in the lounge to meet us.

Looking about, James spied a shorter queue, but this one was marked ‘Residents Only.’

“Hang on,” he exclaimed “Aren’t we Residents?”

I dragged myself from my trolley stupor and looked up.

“Hmm?”  James pointed. I looked.  “Oh!” I agreed, “Maybe… Wow!” 

I was suddenly awake, thrilled at the thought that I might already be classed as a New Zealander.  Fatigue melted away as, leaving me in charge of the copious luggage, James ducked under the ropes and approached an airport employee.  His huge smile told me all I needed to know and we wheeled our belongings merrily over, casting superior looks at the line of tourists behind us.  The desk clerk cheerily took our passports.

“Welcome to New Zealand,” she said in that familiar tone that I recalled from my first trip - as though we were old friends longed for, or the plumber finally come to fix the ever-dripping tap.  James and I looked at each other and smiled deep smiles, smiles that started in our bones and welled up in our eyes.  It was right that we should be here. New Zealand was where we were meant to be.  We were satisfied.  

Without ado we whizzed through “Nothing to Declare” and out into the hall and the warm embrace of a grinning Bridget.  In the temperate New Zealand evening the lump in my throat turned to tears that trickled down the sides of my nose.  I knew exactly why I was crying – I was home again.  The three years since I’d left through this very building suddenly seemed like a dream.  All that had mattered and all that had filled my thoughts was New Zealand.  And it was the land itself that made me feel this way; the earth under my feet, the vitality of the raw landscape, the tangible energy of life here.  I was dimly aware that I was expecting a lot from my new country, that it, and I, had a lot to live up to, but I was too tired to let that worry me.  Right now I just wanted a strong drink and a comfortable bed.  We had done it.  We had moved to New Zealand.  But the reality wouldn’t sink in for a long time yet.

Chapter 1 DISCOVERY: Part 8

The weeks that followed were filled with nervous energy.  As soon as I heard the mail drop into the lobby three floors below, I’d run down the stairs, hoping against hope for an envelope with “New Zealand Immigration Service” stamped on the front.  The days were spent chasing up bits of missing paperwork required for sale of the flat; though we had a buyer the process was proving to be protracted and painful.  I made lists of what we would and wouldn’t take with us and took my little silver Vespa on trips to bits of London I thought I ought to see before I left.

A month later James and I were worried. We’d been promised a letter from New Zealand House within two weeks letting us know what was happening and who our case officer was:  Nothing had arrived.  Ever since we’d moved into my Lambeth flat our post had been being stolen at various points in the delivery system, something that we’d been unable to resolve with the post office in spite of James’s tireless efforts.  Now we were convinced that our promised letter had been pilfered.  Telephoning was an option, but a friend had cautioned us that the immigration service did not appreciate phone calls, and that to call would be to risk having our application put to the bottom of the pile.  So we bit our nails and waited.

Then one Saturday morning in October as we lazed in bed after our customary Friday night out clubbing we heard the post drop in the lobby.  Neither James nor I are morning people, especially after a party, but hope had our adrenaline pumping and he leapt out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and galloped down the stairs.  Something had to arrive sooner or later, why not today?  The way he was singing as he raced back up told me there was news.  He threw an envelope down baring the NZIS logo and I took a sharp intake of breath before tearing it open, heart in mouth.

“We are writing with regard to your application for residence which was accepted for consideration on 21 August, 2002.” I read, “We are pleased to inform you that your application for a residence visa for New Zealand has been approved in principle.”  

There was a tangible silence while we took it in.  I read it again, skimming quickly through the rest of the letter that outlined the fees we needed to pay and the money we should deposit into a New Zealand bank account – things we were already prepared for.


“Oh my god.”  I hardly dared smile.

“What does it mean though?  Is that it?  Are we in?” asked James, not wanting to be let down when he discovered he’d been fooled.  We read it through again, slowly and carefully, just to be sure.  There were no loopholes, nothing unexpected.  We stared at each other for a moment, smiles daring to creep up our cheeks,


“We’ve got it!” we exclaimed breathlessly; hugging hard and bouncing up and down on the bed.

“As long as we can get this bloody flat sale through.”  I added as a gloom-filled caveat.

But we couldn’t believe it.  It had only been two months since I’d taken the paperwork in; they were efficient, these Kiwis.  I immediately liked them even more.


From that point on I became solely focussed on our move and the new life I was going to have in New Zealand.  I made more lists, got quotes from shipping agents and hounded my solicitor and the council about the desperately slow flat sale.  New Zealand House provided us with all the information we needed and I set up an account with a New Zealand bank, ready to receive the money from the flat when it was finally sold.  Nothing was going to stop me getting to New Zealand now and I wanted to be there for Christmas.


When my solicitor called two weeks later to say that finally everything was in place to exchange and complete the sale, I couldn’t feel relieved.  Not yet.  The British system is such that until you ‘exchange’, usually just a few weeks from your moving date at most, nothing has been signed by either party, no money has changed hands and either side can pull out at any time.  We didn’t dare book flights to New Zealand, just in case.  Then, on a blustery November day, the shipping agents arrived to help us pack and wrap the furniture in heavy brown paper.  We were moving out - exactly six months to the day since we’d agreed on the sale.  Countless trips up and down the wide stairs of our old Victorian building later and the removal van pulled away into the night.  I slung my leg over the seat of James’s scooter and pressed myself into his back.

“Okay.”  I said simply, and as we moved off down damp, dark London streets.  I didn’t give the house so much as a backwards glance.

Motherhood: Example - Thursday 16th June 2011

Hello Readers,

I thought I'd start to add a little to my blog. Break up the book posts (though they'll still be coming).


I've just got my two children settled into a new daycare for a few days a week.  The idea being that I can, at last, focus on my writing.  Ah, the best laid plans.  Here's how Thursday (supposedly a work day for me) went... 


Thursday 16th June

3 ½ has a bad cough/cold.  17-months has it too.  They should be going to daycare so that I, mother, can get stuck into my new, soon-to-be-burgeoning, writing career. They are going nowhere.

Cat 1, the girl cat, pees on 3 ½’s bed.  Again. We moved a month ago and this delicate-natured feline is having issues.  I shouldn’t risk washing the sheets since the washing machine is on the blink and last night flooded the laundry.  No option – I stick it on a short cold wash and cross my fingers. I ‘Google’ the cat pee issue and discover she might be ill, so I should ring the vet.

I wonder what I should feed the girls for lunch? Quick rummage in the ‘fridge comes up trumps with some wraps and various things I can put inside.

After breakfast (washing machine not leaking so far) I stick the girls in their playroom (it feels damp, mental note to buy another oil heater and a dehumidifier) while I sort out the house.

In the girl’s bedroom Cat 2 is coming through window I’ve opened to let the cat pee smell out.  Something disgusting is running out of his rear end.  I think.  It's hard to tell since it’s all over his lower back, tail and what not and is dripping everywhere.  Oh GOD. I grab paper towels and mop him – he yowls.  There’s a nasty wound on his back. Oh GOD.

Girls are whining.  I find a DVD and some crackers and ensconce them in the living room while I ring the vet.  Washing machine looking good.

I wonder what we could have for dinner.  And are there any muffins or anything about for afternoon teas later on?  The fruit bowl is quite full – good.

I can take the cats to the vet in a couple of hours. Make an instant coffee. Grab children and dress them.  3 ½ thinks every moment of the day is a game and is currently refusing to dress herself.  Take a deep breath.  Not working.  Take another deep breath.  Wonder whether to take up smoking again.  Banish the thought.  Tell 3 ½ I don’t believe she’s able to put her top on.  Bingo.  In about 6 minutes she has most of her clothes on (provided I watch her prove she can do it) while I manage to dress 17 months.  Get teeth and hair done.  17-months has a tantrum (she’s good at these). 3 ½ cottons on and whines for cuddles.  Phone rings. I take deep breaths.  Shit – I should have locked the cat flap.

Oozing cat is in the garden – I go out slowly and gently and manage to get him in before he scarpers.  Actually he feels rather limp and un-scarperish. He’s a lot lighter than usual.  Think.  Hmmm.  Been sleeping a lot these past few days…. Off his food… I put the guilt on a shelf somewhere and concentrate of finding sticky tape to keep the cat flap shut (yes, it has a lock – and the cats know how to use it!).

Washing machine is on spin and no signs of flooding.  Phew.

Right – get myself ready; brush through hair, basic 5-minute makeup job, find shoes.  I guess I should cook some muffins or a cake sometime soon.  I wonder what we could have for dinner today, and then have leftovers for tomorrow. Is husband in or out for dinner tomorrow?  Must check diary. 17-month is crawling around saying ‘poo poo’ (not yet walking, but the child can TALK). Damn it, now I am in a rush to make the vets on time.  Speedy nappy change, 3 ½ quickly on the loo, everyone’s hands washed, grab bags, Argh – shoes for children.  3 ½ wants gumboots, I am not about to argue.  17-months screams and kicks when I try to put her soft little shoes on.  I ‘d skip it but it’s a chilly day.  I pull different shoes out of a box and hold one of each up.  She emphatically points to the new pair – tantrum over.  Shoe preoccupation at 17 months?  God help me.  Right, dump everyone in the car.  Back in for the cats.  He’s really, really limp.  More guilt to shelve.  She’s not - little minx, I have to tip her travelling cage upright to get her into it. Phone rings, I ignore it.

Speed to the vet (well, actually I stick fastidiously within the speed limit in built-up areas, today I am at 50ks on the nose the whole way).  Cats in cages times two up the steps and dumped. Run back to the car and children times two up the steps and in.  When WILL this child learn to walk?  Oh yes, the vet door is a ‘pull’ and not a ‘push’, damnit.

While 3 ½  fiddles with all the things in the vet’s surgery and 17-months crawls around the floor picking up germs, the vet informs me that Cat1 may have a urinary tract infection or may be suffering from anxiety – cures for which can include dosing with Prozac. I’m wondering whether she might like to share her prescription…  The vet needs a urine sample (from the cat, not me) but Cat1 has just recently emptied her bladder onto 3 ½ ’s bed, so will need to stay at the vets until she produces.

Cat 2 has an infected cat bite that’s apparently about a week old, if not more, and all that goo flooding out of him this morning was a burst abcess. The guilt falls off the shelf and I explain to the vet how much we love our cats, that I only de-flead them yesterday, a process that included combing them and paying them not inconsiderable attention, that the children love them, that I feel terrible for not noticing a fetid wound on my darling moggy’s back.  After listening to my complaints for a while he assures me that under all his fur the abcess was easy to miss and states that he thinks none the worse of me.  Bless him.  Then he shows me the hole in my cat’s back, that is still oozing, and gives it a squeeze for my benefit.  He recoils slightly when a bubble of yellow pus squoozes up through the flesh.  My stomach relocates to my throat.

One cat down we meander home through the gloomy streets.  Find old cloth for oozing cat to sleep on.  Find lunch for two children and me.  Nothing yellow.  Field an unfeasible number of phone calls.  I go DAYS without a call - why today? Then it’s back into the car to run some errands I’d promised to run that I can’t get out of. I’m trusting that the two small ones will sleep in the car and thus do some getting better, which was the idea when I kept them out of daycare.  17-months has about a 30-minute nap. 3 ½ doesn’t so much as doze. Them’s the breaks. 

In the interests of not banging on more than is pertinent, I’ll sign off for right here. I think you get the picture. Yes, I did succumb to yelling at at least one child at least one. Yes, that did result in more guilt – and cuddles, and apologies, and everyone agreeing that we are all human and mummy sometimes gets a bit stressed.

My tip for the day?  (This is not a cheese-free zone):  Don’t even try to pretend to your children that life is a bed of thornless roses – just help them to understand that prickles mend, that you can learn better ways to lie down, and that the smell of the roses makes it all worthwhile.