Flick the Switch

I am very reluctant to turn the heating on.
In my head, summer is only just over, so no way am I going to cave in and turn it on.

However, back in reality, it was still firmly dark at half past six this morning.
It's grey. It's miserable. The washing is hanging up on drying racks in the bathroom nowadays (the sun's angle is so now low that the back garden sees only a sliver of it on a good day) and unfortunately stays damp and starts to smell a bit funny after a couple of days. Not good.

Sitting at my computer in the front room, I'm a bit chilly and have goose-pimples on my arms.
Sometimes I wrap myself in a big lambswool shawl, but that looks a bit mad, especially as I can be seen clearly from the pavement. The room itself is south facing and gets whatever light there is. The days are long gone when I had to move my laptop and books into the north facing dining room to stop overheating and sit with the french windows open for the breeze - it's dark and gloomy in there today.

So I guess I'm going to go and turn it on and let everything heat up a bit.

It's admitting that summer's gone.
But there you go.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Went to visit my old friend's grave today. I haven't been back since she was buried fifteen months ago. I was pleased to see that there was a lovely headstone, engraved with a kingfisher (her favourite bird, the sight of which once persuaded her in the depths of despair away from the river), a loving dedication and the full text of Mary Elizabeth Frye's poem 'Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep....'

The sun was shining, a gentle wind was blowing small clouds across the sky.

I am not ashamed to say I did just that.

R.I.P. my dearest friend....

Ouch! Why Sometimes We Should Ask Questions....

I have just returned from the dentist, having had a small filling replaced. The side of my mouth is numb: it was my choice to have an injection, not having the highest pain threshold in the world - the dentist thought that the discomfort of the injection would probably be greater than that of the drilling, but it wasn't really uncomfortable at all.

Over the years I have had a variegated relationship with the dental profession.
I had a feeling that the dental treatment I had in my youth was largely unneccessary, and this was indeed confirmed when I asked some questions a year or so ago. Puzzled by the fact that my own children's teeth were filling-free, and that when I was young my access to sweet stuff and fizzy drinks was even more restricted than theirs, I wondered aloud why I had a mouth full of ugly amalgam fillings when as a child/teenager I was regularly seen by our dentist.

Apparently - my very honest lady dental sugeon tod me - it's all to do with how dentists were paid in the sixties and seventies - they received money for work done: a tooth left unfilled was lost revenue, so my probably sound teeth were drilled into to get them cash.
If I spent a lot of time thinking about this I could get really mad: I have been exploited for money - not exactly maimed, but needlessly 'treated', filled with mercury.
I don't have (except for my incisors) one unfilled tooth in my head and, of course, fillings don't last for ever so I am a docile cash-cow that is obliged to drop in for 'milking' every so often.
The Husband's mouth is an even more extreme case: at least my fillings are discrete and I can floss around them. He has what I believe was referred to as the 'Australian trench' method of filling, whereby adjacent teeth were drilled and a slab of filling laid between the two, with no attempt to conform it to the individual tooth. He too, like me, has to go to the surgery regularly to have crumbly bits shored up and replaced. Thank goodness for the National Health Service!
My M-i-L's teeth are, and always have been I believe, in pretty poor condition, but for some strange reason she has opted to have her treatment done privately. I'm not sure if it's a good idea - she has spent hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds over the past few years on extensive treatment that doesn't seem to have benefitted her one bit. But of course, a private patient is another, far more bountiful, sort of cash-cow. Tell them they'll need some complicated stuff done and they'll mildly cough up.

A colleague of the Husband's, who had not been to the dentist for a few years needed, to re-register with the NHS to get treatment for an aching tooth. He decided in the interim to go private because of the discomfort, and was told that he needed the tooth extracting, a post inserted into the jaw and a porcelain cap fitted for £600. Coincidently, he found himself, almost immediately after, registered with an NHS practice and (horrified) popped along for a second opinion. He emerged from his 20 minute appointment having had a clean, descale and a small filling. He was charged £46.

Order Returns

I am feeling a great deal more cheerful now. Yesterday (Monday) was a far less stressful day, despite the Bright-Eyed Boy forgetting his packed lunch, panicking, and me having to drive over to the school to drop it off. I made Daughter #3's orthodontist appointment as soon as they were open and that left the rest of the day to devote to academic progress. I did a few symbolic things: Hoovered the floor in the 'study' (the parakeet and the children tend to make a mess), damp-dusted the desk, tidied away the loose papers into box files, put on some Julian Bream classical guitar music, made a good strong pot of espresso and sat down to work. And my! Did it feel good!
The weather was appalling: totally grey with continuous fine rain. The garden looks like a tropical rain forest, like looking into a green box - the vine has gone crazy (no sign of grapes whatsoever) drip, drip, dripping rain onto the patio furniture that we have used maybe twice this 'summer'.

Inside I felt snug and smug, and ready to write.
I spent all day on my thesis - until the B-E-B came home at half four - then spent another half-hour listening to a programme on the life and forthcoming beatification of John Henry Newman.

By dinner time yesterday evening I was calm and restored to my more usual sanguine frame of mind.
All that had been needed to restore order - it seemed - was some time for myself.
It's NOT selfish, because everyone else around me benefits. I even managed to cook dinner without too much dark muttering and wished the Husband a good training session at the gym when he departed at 8pm (not to return until 10!).
And today is more of the same. I feel the wrinkles being ironed out of my soul by the rhythm of work: for me calmness and mental wellbeing comes from gentle routine. I often think that I would be suited to a life in holy orders, except I'm not sure that I would like living in close proximity with strangers. Maybe an anchoress? But then I would miss company occasionally - even now I sometimes have to trot of into town to grab a latte and read in a coffee shop - I don't require interaction, I would be truly annoyed if someone tried to engage me in conversation - just the presence of other human beings.
Maybe a cenobitic order, where the residents spend much of the day alone in contemplation or work but then come together to dine?
But I am wandering . I need my family as much as they seem to need me. The last really bad dream I had was asort of inner locution which asked 'when do you know that your children have truly grown up?' The answer that came - and thinking of it even now I can feel tears welling up - was 'when the last soft toy is packed away'. Fortunately the B-E-B's room is decorated and draped with an assortment of toy monkeys, and even Daughter #3 still has two of her cuddly dog collection on her shelf (under the glowering gazes of 'Slipknot' and 'Bullet for My Valentine'), and one 'Ugly Doll' (ChukkaNukka, I believe) to cuddle in bed! Thank goodness!

Over-ridden!

Well, the children are back at school, and the Bright-Eyed Boy has made the existential leap from junior to senior school with only the most minor of hiccups (slight panic over the PE kit, forgotten pack-up boxes or exercise books). We sit back feeling slightly smug.
I am trying very hard to get back into full academic mode after a summer of generally slacking off and reading pulp-fiction (see another of my blogs more books than sense) and not doing much in the way of intellectual stimulation. It's actually proving rather difficult, as I seem to have lost the thread of my thesis and spend some time scratching my head wondering what precisely I am trying to prove, and how am I going to go about it. I keep postponing getting really pitched in, convincing myself that a trip to the library is required (not really!), that a trip to town is neccessary (not at all!!), that I need to start a new blog (which I have and it's called I wish I was a better Catholic....hardly neccessary but something I felt I've wanted - nay, needed to do to prod my wilting faith). Even this post is by way of procrastination and deferral, convincing myself that it helps limber up the writing facility - which, actually, it does.
I'v got a couple of weeks to put down a couple of thousand words, so I'm feeling fairly optimistic about meeting the deadline, except I've noticed that stuff keeps getting in the way.
Daughter #3's fixed-brace has been fitted and has been the source of much discomfort to her. Not only that but the wires keep coming out of the little bracketty things and try as we might, the Husband and I just can't see to get them back in. In the two weeks that the damn things have been fitted, she has been back twice for minor repairs, which neccessitates her taking time out of school to walk to the orthodontist and back again. This week I can't factor it in as (ironically) I have to go to the dentist for a filling, which obviously carves a slice out of the working day.
The weekends seem to be a continuous stream of activity: the B-E Boy has football practice on Saturday mornings and Daughter #3 often goes rowing. It's the back end of the regatta season so two weeks on the trot, there are regattas to factor in, plus a foorball match for the Boy (if he gets picked, which sadly, is becoming less and less often, much to his upset). Daughter #2 has decided that she will entertain no other baby-sitter for the Bouncing Bubba, so I had to watch him on Friday afternoon while she popped to the doc's, and again on Saturday night when she and the Son-In-Law went out to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. They all arrived chez nous rather early, just as we were just starting tea. Daughter #1 had just turned up from London (via Leeds) and was keen to discuss her ever-more complicated life. We'd only just got back from a tiring day getting soaked on the banks of the River Aire.
Unfortunately, the B-B decided to start grizzling as soon as his parents trotted off, so I was sitting there feeling totally frazzled, nursing him as he squirmed and moaned, and trying to converse matters of the heart (not simple) over a crescendo of 'mummymummymummydaddymummmy' and wondering whether I'd ever get any peace.

Somehow - and it may have been the extra glass of red wine - I woke up the next day feeling very, very sorry for myself indeed. I'd spent much of the previous week encouraging, servicing and minding....and the prospect for Sunday was pretty much more of the same: ensuring homework is done, laundry, feeding kids, keeping an eye on amorous teenagers....
And do you know, I'd had enough!
The National Antiquarian Bookfair had been at the racecourse from Friday 12 noon to Saturday 5pm. I'd been really keen to go - I love old books and a colleague of mine had told me it was a good opportunity to see some outstanding stuff: the postcard advert had been on my desk a while. But what with the child-minding and regatta attendance, I never got the chance. It felt so unfair - I'd been bending over backwards to accommodate other people and felt I'd been trampled underfoot without so much as a thought - the one thing I had wanted to do, for myself, - a once a year opportunity - had come and gone. I lapsed into self-pitying tears and wailed that I felt like some sort of facilitation-bot. the Husband sprang out of bed in consternation and said that if he'd known, he would have taken the girl to the regatta and I could have gone to the fair. But, as I pointed out to him, that would have made me look like a prize twat. It's a sad fact that not only do you have to do the parenting bit, but you're supposed to look like you're enjoying it too!
I just feel somewhat down at the moment. I work as hard as I can on this thesis (present half-hour excepted) and it brings in as much money (thanks to my funding) as a pretty well-paid part-time job. I also do most of the laundry, washing and cooking (because I'm here on site, so to speak, and it would be curmudgeonly not to) and act as chief child-co-ordinator, motivator, and PA. But what I do seems to counted as 'just what Mum does' and can be interrupted ad libitem to bring in lost jumpers, arrange dental appointments, taxi and baby-sit. Not only that, but any notion of time-out is never rears its head.
The Husband has embarked on a training schedule to prepare him once again for the indoor rowing championships (fair enough), but that means many weekday evenings he is absent. If he's not at the gym, he's quite often away on site visits and home late.

I think the Husband was quite shocked, although he knows that I am a reluctant parent and don't thrive on a pure diet of parenting duties. He's far better at kenosis than I am, but then he's only had to deal with the childhood of two of the children. I spent the rest of the day feeling quite wretched, upset, distant and a bit mad. I don't deal well with stress. The only effect it had was the Husband was walking on eggshells, making eyes at the children and mouthing words like 'Your Mum's a bit upset', without saying why exactly that was the case. So now the children think that I'm some sort of nutter that gets wound up and tearful over nothing.
No, it's not nothing! I feel like I am being ridden over rough-shod and the riders are looking behind at my mangled psyche tell each other that Mother's not looking too good! I wonder why?

Ouch! The Difficulty of Trusting

I've been suffering from exhaustion since our return from holiday, as has the Husband. So much so that we'd been wondering if we'd picked up some sort of virus that has made us incapable of staying awake much later than nine pm! Probably not though: I think in fact that wonderful as our vacation was, it was in no way restful, and that we succumbed to the temptation to fit too much in. So the price for that is a bone-deep weariness that refuses to budge.

It's been (and promises to continue being) a weird sort of week. Daughter #3 has had two of the four teeth removed in preparation for the application of the 'train-track' braces that will allegedly correct her rather eccentric dentition. She doesn't look like she has an 'overcrowded' mouth, but we are assured by the orthodontist that a few years down the line, if uncorrected, she will suffer from more teeth than mouth. But he would say that, wouldn't he? It's in his financial interests that children come to him to have their teeth straightened and aligned. Although he seems a reasonable and honest practitioner, every child under his care represents a big fat pay-check from the National Health Service (even more so, if we'd gone to him under his private incarnation). And there seems to be an element of fashion involved: almost every child in my daughter's year appears to sport a mouthful of metal. Braces were around when I was a young teenager, and indeed I wore them for a couple of years, but they were the sort fitted to a plate by our family dentist, rather than as the result of a drawn-out referral process.

So yesterday I had to sit and watch my child be...well....mutilated in the questionable quest for regularity. And it was horrible (though she was uncomplainingly and unflinchingly brave - bless her!) to see two perfectly white and healthy teeth being levered out of her jaw.....and the same will happen again this coming Friday. My toes were curling inside my shoes: it seemed so....wrong, and I seriously questioned why we were putting her through this ordeal.

But sometimes you have to defer to someone who knows better than you, even if you can't see the immediate need. If you put yourself in the hands of experts, you have to trust that they have gained expertise that is superior to your gut-feeling, or else there is no point in committing yourself to their care.

A similar situation has arisen with the Husband's sat-nav, which has me rolling my eyes. He decided that it would be a good idea to buy one as he often has to negotiate his way to distant offices and sites and is, by his own admission, not the best navigator, particularly when driving.

So a sat-nav seemed like a sensible option, and was bought, and installed. We decided to try it out on our way to the airport, but as soon as it gave my Husband an unexpected direction (turning off the motorway too soon), he had me looking at the road-map questioning the route it was taking us on. I told him what I thought was going on (two sides of a triangle rather than one) and he decided to press on until he thought he should turn off. And lo and behold! By remaining on what the Husband thought was the correct route we ran into road-works (that the sat-nav 'knew' about throught its live update facility) that lengthened our journey by more time than if we'd obediently trusted that sat-nav was right.

Have faith. Sometimes we aren't the experts we imagine we are!

Back Home

I'm sitting in the living room looking out at rain of monsoon proportions, beating against the windows.

It seems scarcely believable that at this time last week we were sitting in a taverna on the slopes of Mount Ipsarion on the Aegean island of Thassos, dining on the local Greek specialities ('fried pies', feta-stuffed courgette flowers, and cheesy garlicy mushrooms), looking across the shimmering, sun-blasted, rocky hillside. We did try to walk the path up the mountain, but the sun was just far too hot and before long sweat was literally pouring down our backs. Unwilling to risk either sun or heat-stroke we returned to the jeep, and took a joyous and breezy downhill ride back to our apartment where we splashed gratefully into the clear sea, not 50m from our front door.

So once again the family summer holiday recedes into the rolodex of memory, leaving a miscellany of impressions, sensations and atmospheres.

We had an absolutely wonderful time - probably the most enjoyable holiday yet. We'd booked it independently in the January of this year, the Husband diligently researching suitable apartments on the island and finding a gem on the outskirts of the main town Limenas.

We arrived via a flight from Manchester to Kavala, a taxi-ride to the port of Keramoti, and a 35 minute ferry-ride across the narrow strait to the pine-clad island that rises straight out of the sea to the summit of Ipsarion some 1800m high. Our landlord was waiting for us and carried us and our bags to our holiday home. We were more than impressed. The property was newish, immaculately clean, air-conditioned (essential) with a balcony that overlooked the sea.

Having settled in and unpacked we made our weary way into town, but as we'd been up since 3am that morning, we scarcely managed to make it further than a proximate vine-covered taverna, where we gratefully sat and watched the sun going down whilst drinking a big glass of ice-cold Mythos beer.

I'd actually forgotten how huge the portions of food generally are in Greece, so we somewhat overestimated what we'd be able to manage to eat and started to struggle mid-main course. We were exhausted too, and stumbled early to our beds along a little beachside path that passed a tiny chapel (St Basil's?) where the oil-lamps burned all night in front of the icons. Its door remained unlocked at all times too, and the faithful could help themselves to candles to light under the 'candle canopy' in the front porch. The unselfconscious piety of the Greek people is moving - it was a source of wonder to me when we once stayed on another Greek island that the many little roadside shrines twinkled in the darkness, the elderly women who tended them (and it seemed to be only women) ensuring that the icon-lamps were kindled at dusk.

It would be pointless recounting our every activity during the week. We spent time on lovely beaches and in tiny coves, sitting in the shade in a bar on the old trireme harbour eating homemade bread and dips, driving up into the mountains (in the rackety old open top 4-wheel drive that we'd hired from a most accommodating and genial local company), exploring churches, monasteries, villages and the many neglected ancient ruins that lay strewn carelessly along the roadsides. We ate (and ate and ate), sometimes breakfasting on yoghurt and honey on the balcony, sometimes paddling down to the very local taverna for strong coffee and hard-boiled eggs, at other times exploring the menus and wine-lists until we'd reached total satiation. The food is so very cheap that even our most expensive meal (which came with complementary watermelon and coffee) complete with beer, wine, soft drinks and water, came in at half the price of an average meal in Sardinia.

We had forgotten how much we loved Greece. We love Greece, and when we returned home it was with a real sense of nostalgia for the holiday week, an aching longing to return and enjoy this vibrant and generous country.

But now I'm looking out on a rainy, tangled, green garden and wishing instead it was an olive tree studded shoreline against a turquoise sea....