One

FIVE days early

FOUR weeks, FOUR zombies...

THREE holidays

TWO brothers

ONE YEAR OLD!

School's Out

30th July 2010

The story behind the picture:
BB, almost 3, last day of crèche, macaroons for the teachers, proud, blue sky, holidays, 5 whole weeks to fill, big school in September, little boy, so grown up

The Awkward Conversation

I have been in my boss's office (door closed, tone emotional veering on heated) for close to an hour when it happens.

I start to cry.

Unthinkable, mortifyingly embarrassing, but there it is. I am upset.

I am planning to leave, and he knows it now. We have discussed the whys and the hows and the "what ifs" and we are both feeling a little emotionally drained.

And as the tears start to spill over, I am suddenly struck by the bemusing side of it all: give or take a few words, any nonplussed eavesdropper would think we were talking marital break-up, not career move.

"There have been things wrong here from the start..." I proffer at one point.

"Yes, I know, but no-one's perfect!" he counters, rather needily.

"You've tried to stifle me!" I protest.

"No, no, that's unfair. Look, we've been through some hard times. Times are hard now!"

Then, when the accusations have reached a certain pitch, the tone softens, and we are both riddled with regrets.

"It's not your fault, it's not my fault," I soothe, "I've changed, that's all. My aspirations have changed."

"I know that. Don't forget, I know you so well, Shirley. It's been seven years..."

"I just feel it's time to move on. There's nothing you can really say or do to make me stay. It's my decision."

"And I respect that. I'll do everything possible to help you."

And lastly, the ultimate cliché: the "we'll always be friends" line.

"I hope we'll still a lot of each other, even after you move on..."

"Oh, of course! I hope so too."

Yes, it was funny, and sad, too.

I'm not leaving tomorrow, but the cards are on the table, and I have a few potential options.

It's been one of those cases in which months of reflection have resulted in a single, clear and obvious choice: I need a new job (within the Firm, all being well).

And what I don't mention to my boss, as I sniff and wipe my nose, is that Something had to change. I got to the point in my life where, well, to put it bluntly, it was "them or me."

Personal fulfilment: the starting block from which relaxed Mum and loving Wife can sprint off, each morning, when the gun fires...

Ghost Writer

I just finished yet another book by Kate Long: "Queen Mum".
As with all her others (her most famous one being, I think, "The Bad Mother's Handbook"), I consumed it greedily in less than three days.

I love Kate Long. I love her books so much that I accidentally ordered the American edition of a book of hers I already have (the British version has a different title), so thrilled was I at the thought that there was another work of hers out there that I'd yet to read.

She writes the kind of easy, stylish, thoughtful and people-based novels I wish with all my being that I had written myself.
I hold her books dreamily, stroke their covers in between paragraphs (forcing myself to slow down, lest the pleasure be consumed too quickly...) and imagine it is my name, not hers, in embossed lettering.

When will I put all the stories in my head to paper? When will the words and characters flow as elegantly and as compellingly as hers do?

What an achievement, to write like that. Try as I might to draw a line under all this fantasizing and embrace more corporate ambitions, I still can't help but believe that there is no greater accomplishment than this: put your name to two-hundred readable pages... slide the little volume off the shelf... stroke its cover and know it's all yours.

The Curious Incident of the Mouse in the Daytime

I wander into our kitchen on an uneventful Saturday afternoon, and there's a mouse in there.

A picture-book mouse, just sitting there, rather snootily, if I have to choose an adverb.
I gasp - inhale - clutch my chest, as one does when in shock.
I think: "yes, I know I said I wanted to live in the country... but this is not the country. This is no place for a mouse. If I was in the country, then of course I would expect to see a mouse, and be entirely calm. But here, I do not expect to see mice in my kitchen, so that is why I am not calm" (this is how we justify our silly fears, I know: the rather shameful chasm between the person I imagine myself to be, and the person I am).

Then I flash back to our house in England: I am a kid or a young teen - I can't remember which - and there's a huge rat in our kitchen. After he has gone to inspect and confirm the rat sighting, my Dad (a grown man!) runs back into the living room, visibly scared and uttering a four-word expletive. While he panics, Mum goes off to calmly deal with the rodent.

So what to do?
Survival instinct for non-murderous yet non-rodent-loving urban vegetarians: I throw a big plastic bowl over the mouse, thus rendering it captive.

Then I rush out of the back door, sprint over to our neighbour's back door and yell "there's a mouse in my kitchen!!"
As you may have gathered if you are a regular reader of this humble blog, I am not on hugely friendly terms with my neighbours. I guess you might say "we put up with each other." As people who share a communal garden must.
And yet - and yet - today I am weak-kneed with gratitude: I HAVE neighbours and they are kind enough to be at home!
They come at once to help - three of them: two scared females and one wonderously virile male carrying an A3 size hardback tome that he will use as Utensile B in my grand mouse-evacuation plan.

The mouse is moved, in its plastic prison, out of my kitchen, out of my house and across the road. Us three females, and a wide-eyed BB, trail behind my male neighbour, like a gaggle of groupies.

The mouse is deposited on a patch of grass, scuttles free, glances up to take stock.
As one, the cortege of females plus child takes a step backwards.

Then, as the mouse (who is admittedly fairly cute when not inside property I own) sniffs and scampers on its new patch of turf, the neighbours and I laugh and chat and make fun of each other, sitting along the low wall opposite our house.
We are soon joined my Grumpy Old Man and Wife, who are never slow to pick up on a whiff of drama.

For a few minutes, we are friendly, chatty, relaxed, connected.
And I'm so happy to have neighbours.

Summer

French Connection

... And, as if purchasing my first mobile phone after all these years of "abstinence" wasn't enough... yesterday I actually managed (all alone, with no help from anyone) to connect up our new landline phone.
The one that - shamefully - has been sitting in its box, untouched, since December 2009*.



Man, this has been one major week for telecommunications.


* Not strictly true: I did make an attempt to connect it sometime last spring... but aborted the mission sometime around 1 a.m. when the Freebox and the phone line just refused to hook up.
The phone only narrowly escaped a grizzly end at the bottom of the bin lorry then, let me tell you.

I Want to Break Free?

For the third time in a week, I flicked on the car radio and the sweet yet resolute mantra "I want to break freeeeee!" hit me head-on.
Seriously. Twice in the same week might be considered a coincidence... but surely three times qualifies as a divine message?? God... or Freddy Mercury... or my own subconscious?
Somebody is trying to tell me something.


The thing is, I DO want to break free.
But I'm not sure from what. Or why. Or where to go.
Does this ever happen to you?
The niggling feeling that you're just muddling along, happy enough, but perhaps not as happy as you could be?
And even as I write these self-indulgent lines, the Optimist in me is smiling wryly and thinking "you just need (another) holiday", and the Realist in me is frowning and cautioning: "You know that 99% of the inhabitants of this planet are not as lucky as you are."

But is it not OK to wonder sometimes? To ask yourself where you want to go from here, ideally... I mean, given that we do have the luxury of a slim catalogue of choices (I say "slim" because, you know, we have two kids and a mortgage and a fairly well-sharpened sense of responsibility... so that eliminates certain alternative lifestyles).

A few things have happened lately to prise open the Question box (the one in my head, I mean).

- Some very close friends moved house yesterday. We used to see them all the time: now they have joined the already swollen ranks of "friends we love but don't see very often".
They are the second ones to leave Toulouse in a year. So I wonder about places to live, and what counts most: culture, climate, family, friends, career prospects?

- We have been house hunting. We started off in the country, dreaming of simplicity and harmony... and the more we looked, the more we saw isolation and - dare I even think it? - boredom.
Then we started looking in town... and we saw Suburbia (and accompanying wave of panic).

- I am officially trying to change jobs. I thought about sleeping through the child-rearing years in a pressureless, mind-numbing job, and decided against it. I thought about handing in my resignation and trying to go it alone... then I opted for "change from the inside."

- Ingrid wrote about a couple she met who have opted to live on a boat. As I read this, the Dreamer in me started doing cartwheels (I absolutely love to hear about people who opt out of conventional society and live differently: it's my thing)... while the Cynic taunted: "You would go crazy within three days, and you know it!"

So I suppose I'm just sitting here pondering all this, and wondering what do it with it.
Live in the present and live every second to its full potential: that's my credo. But I need to see the big picture too.
I just have the sense that - for now - the colours are all mixed up, and the canvas is a little bare.

In the meantime, the work-in-progress that is life continues... and I remind myself that true contentment lies in the present moment.
Boredom - many would say - is happiness: better to be submerged with questions than consumed with worry, right?

Date Night

So, FH and I have devised an original new way of dating.

He goes to the cinema on Friday night. I stay home and babysit.
I go to the cinema on Saturday night. He stays home and babysits.

Sunday afternoon, if we're lucky enough to get a conversation slot, we exchange a few words about the film we both saw.
It's date night stretched over three days... with two kids factored in :-)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ladies and gentlemen: sit comfortably and be prepared for a shock.
Tomorrow, I will do something I never imagined I would do.
I will force myself to cross the threshold of one of those horrible, negative-vibe infested stores that have sprung up like ugly wild mushrooms these past few years, and I will purchase...
a mobile phone.


What has happened? I hear you cry.
Well, let's summarise.
In the case of "Western Consumerist Society versus Shirley B.", it would appear that Western Consumerist Society has won.
But let it be known that Shirley B. did not go down without a fight.

For years, even as friends, family, pensioners, kids and the rest of the human race began swarming like flies towards the cow-pat of telecommunications, I resisted.
I stood tall, principled and defiant: I firmy and utterly believed (believe) that mobile phones are unnecessary. Unnecessary, over-used and one of the main culprits behind the decline in common courtesy. They render their slaves child-like and incapable of those two un-glamourous skills I vaue so greatly: Forward Planning and Organisation.
Their use at the wheel makes me froth at the mouth.
Their ubiquitous presence, the drug-like power they seem to assert on their poor, addicted owners, who caress and stroke and gaze at them at every opportunity - even in the company of others - makes me cringe.

But you know all that.
Let's move on to the more interesting part: why I have conceded defeat.
Well, ladies and gentleman, despite all my misgivings (nay, disgust), it has over the past few weeks become apparent to me that I can no longer aspire to play a full role in society without possessing - moi aussi - one of these vicious little objects.
We phoneless are being gradually pushed out of existence: gone are the handy payphones on every corner... gone are the people who know how to fix a meeting 3 days in advance, and stick to it.
I have finally had my fill: sick and tired of pitching up at the allotted place and time, only to find that the person I've come to meet has changed the place, or the time, or whatever... but hasn't been able to get in touch to tell me.
And yes, folks, the pendulum has swung so far that these missed meetings are now actually considered to be MY FAULT. My fault, because I don't possess a mobile, of course.
People - all people - even nice people, even professional people - do not plan anymore.
We live in a spur-of-the-moment, wait-and-see-if-something-better-comes-along kind of society... in which it is vital to be able to receive text messages.

So here I go.
Faced with the serious threat of becoming friend-less and forgotten, I have opted to take the plunge.
And yes, I do know what's going to happen.
Us latter day converts are - laughably, ridiculously - condemned to be the most addicted of all.
We are the born-again Christians of the mobile revolution!
I doubt that me and my new communication tool will ever be separated.

So budge up and make some room for me on that bandwaggon.

Anyone want my number??

Photo taken August 2007

Girl Talk

Three harrassed mums - I am one of them - drop their gaggle of kids off at creche.
It's already too hot: the day has barely begun, and we're already tired. And hot (did I mention that it's hot? It's hot).
It doesn't seem physically possible, and yet, we are managing to be both lethargic AND rushed at the same time.

We know we're running late for work. We exchange a couple of quips about how we're always pitching up to our respective jobs late.
We exchange wry reflections on the bizarre atmosphere in offices, pre-July 14th. The emptiness, the disconcerting feeling that you've absent-mindedly wandered into work on a Sunday.
The inability to concentrate on anything other than holiday plans.
The pardox of tomorrow's public holiday (a break from work: a full day entertaining overheated kids).

Three mums laugh and empathise, leaning against the car bonnet.
They will now be much later for work than is reasonable.

But their day will be so much brighter.

Hot and Bothered

It was too hot to carry the camera around, it was too hot to take photos, it was too hot to do anything other than jump into a large expanse of cool-ish water. And drink rosé.

If you'd like a glimpse of what I did last weekend, you'll have to pop over here.

It sure was nice to swim in open water with old and new friends, though.

An Englishwoman in France

Here's a snapshot of the baffling interactions that mark the daily life of a young Englishwoman in the south of France:

At the shoe/belt/bag repair shop at Leclerc. Have come in to pick up my new leather belt. Had left it there an hour earlier with gruff yet smart middle-aged Frenchman, who was supposed to fix a thin leather strap onto the belt, to make it stay in place.

Me (being shown the belt): "Ah, great. Looks good. How much do I owe you?"

Him: "14 euros 90, I'm afraid. That's the set price."

Me: "Wow - that's a lot. I mean, it's just a tiny piece of leather."

Him: "I know. That's the set price, see. But let's say 7 euros."

Me (confused but smart enough not to let a good deal go): "Great, thank you!"

Him (smiles flirtatiously).

Me (hands over money, smiles flirtatiously).

Me: "Au revoir, Monsieur!"

Him: "Au revoir, Madame!"

End of transaction.
Net value of flirtatious smile = 7 euros 90

Choices

"It's all about choices," my Dad used to say.
It was one of those annoying 'answers to everything' that used to irritate me like mad at 15, make me smile at 20... and today, at the grand old age of 32, makes me nod wisely.

Today, I no longer have the privilege of hearing him utter these ubiquitous words, but were he around, I would happily endure them one more time.
Luckily, though, I am an excellent pupil, so I have now learned to say them to myself (a shadow of the mentor hovering benevolently somewhere close...).

We get to points in our life when the choices seem more critical, more laden with consequences, than others.
Have kids? Have another kid? Move? Marry? Quit the city? Opt out? Opt in?
(no implied order, here, of course... It's just about timing, and taking one path rather than another).

Now, I can choose to sit tight in the job I've got - "comfort zone" personified: zero challenge but a nice reassuring dollop of stability... - or I can choose to move on.
I can pick up the phone, overcome my natural reserve, sell myself. Networking.
As the days slip by, the results far exceed my expectations, and I realise that I can do it.
The flutter of excitement: the call of change, the certainty that if change occurs, it will because I made it happen, and only because I made it happen.

I never thought of myself as an "ambitious" person. As though the very term "ambitious" was tinged with capitalist greed... or connotations of being a less than devoted mother.
"Of COURSE you're an ambitious person!" exclaims my boss, when I boldly tell him of my plans.
"You are not content to sit tight: you have goals, you like to push yourself, tu es très volontaire..."

I am?
Yes, perhaps I am.
The comfort zone is familiar and friendly and they let you out at 5 pm.
The rest is unknown.
But the really important thing to remember, of course, is that we DO have choices: about who to marry, where to live, how to live, where to work.
And the very fact that our lives are determined by Choice is the most immense of privileges, the greatest gift we could hope for.

Bedtime Story

I've just spent an hour stroking and cuddling and cajoling LB to sleep.
For the past few weeks, this long drawn out bedtime has been an almost nightly occurrence.
Maybe it's just one of those innumerable and vague "stages" that some babies go through.
Or maybe it's just him.

As LB's personality starts to emerge and take form - giving us little glimpses of the future boy, the future man he will one day become - I realise that he is a loving, affectionate child who enjoys nothing more than the company of others.
Whereas BB would be content to curl up and sleep with the briefest of "goodnights", his brother needs a long hug... caressing fingers on the soft pink skin of his belly... eye contact.

It takes a while for the penny to drop: these two boys are not one and the same. They came from the same mould, but a child is so much more than the sum total of his genes.
What's good for one is not good for the other.
We must adapt: struggle through the tiredness and the preconceived ideas to tune in to this little person who has come to live with us, trying to show us who he is.

A few nights ago, I told myself We have to teach him to fall asleep by himself. All this cuddling up together and extra time... We have to be firmer.

Tonight, I've spent an hour lying silently next to my almost naked baby, simply looking into each other's eyes - smiling, sometimes kissing fingers - as the light faded, night crept in and the fan whirred above us.
Some time later, I noticed that he had fallen to sleep.

And I looked at his little contented face and for the first time I thought: Maybe I don't have to teach him anything. Maybe he's the one who has to teach me.

Hired Help

Some fine folks have been over to visit...



And it's been so hot that half of the family no longer requires clothing.
Which saves on washing and outfit-planning.

And now that this hot, fuzzy, family interlude is over, it's back to reality with some hard choices for Professional Maman (She who must emerge unscathed from the domestic and maternal trials of each weekend... to be re-born sleek, confident and business-like each Monday morning. Preferably with no yoghurt stains on her skirt). But more about that later...