Eight

A was eight at the weekend.

"So grown up!"

"How time flies!"

"Enjoy them before the teenage years...!"

It has gone fast these eight years, a whirlwind of nappies, of weaning, of teething and pre-school dramas. Her first day at big school, learning to skip, to clap her hands, to ride a bike and to swim a length. Her personality is shining through strongly now, a caring and sensitive child with a habit of day dreaming and distraction. A sweet natured child who is fearful of pain. A kind child, alert to others feelings and those less fortunate than herself. A giggly child, a snotty child, a happy child and a child with the longest-ever-wobbly tooth because she is so frightened of them falling out.

My trusting A. Now you're eight you will start to remember more and more of your life, your achievements, your highlights and low times. I feel enormously privileged to be part of your journey and look forward to making some memories together.

Happy birthday sweet girl.

Indian visa

I sat down today knowing it would take a while. But over five hours, I was not expecting.

The countdown to India is actually pootling along quite nicely, despite the rain and red tape, it was only 58 more sleeps to go when we last looked at the calender. We are all starting to talk about the trip a little more, A is imagining the elephants, P can't wait to sleep on a boat in the back waters of Kerala and he is looking forward to having some cookery lessons and trying yoga with the kids. I am anticipating being somewhere totally foreign, where everything is just a little, or maniacally, different to how we know it. I am looking forward to the first smells, the heat, the spices, the towns and cities as well as the rural, national parks where we can pretend to be real life Mowgli's, riding elephants into the jungle. Indiaaaaaah.

Before any journey, there is always the small matter of organisation. The visas are horribly expensive and time consuming to fill in, the five-times photo copied birth certificates, bankers draft (what's that?), letters to the High Commission giving permission for our daughters to come with us. A whole load of unnecessary administration.

"Bet you wish you were staying here now!" the post office guy laughed, when he'd just delivered the information that postal orders didn't come in the amount I was wanting.

I did actually want to cry a little bit, knowing that the visa process was prolonged a little more, meaning a trip to the bank for a bankers draft.

"Absolutely not!" I replied laughing with him at the absurdity of my day, "it will be worth every effort and every penny saved for this trip."

Because we have saved long and hard for this journey. The hall remains unpainted with bare plaster showing since 2010, the kitchen tiles are a lurid green which don't seem too obnoxious any more, the fence and windows are rotten and falling down, the garden is wild and the carpets are stained with cat sick patches. But to us, time and money spent on travelling, tops everything. Even if it does take a whole day to apply for the visas.

I want to fly away

I had one of those moments yesterday. The one where you turn up the radio really loud and shout at the top of your voice because the words resonate with your life. I expect a number of people did it yesterday, the song being on Radio 2.

I used to love Lenny. He reminds me of university and sitting in my room of bare breeze blocks turning the tapes on my broken, yellow tape recorder -  naff even by '90's standards.  I am laughing at his video now and the oh-so-very-deep lyrics.

I wish that I could fly 
Into the sky 
So very high 
Just like a dragonfly 

I'd fly above the trees 
Over the seas in all degrees 
To anywhere I please 

Oh I want to get away 
I want to fly away 
Yeah yeah yeah 

Oh I want to get away 
I want to fly away 
Yeah yeah yeah 

Let's go and see the stars 
The milky way or even Mars 
Where it could just be ours 

Let's fade into the sun 
Let your spirit fly 
Where we are one 
Just for a little fun 
Oh oh oh yeah ! 

I want to get away 
I want to fly away 
Yeah yeah yeah 

Dry January

It's quite ironic that my dry January has been pretty goddamn wet, soaking in fact. No alcohol for 31 days is in fact a lie as I fell off the wagon last weekend for father-in-laws birthday and a little soiree with him the night before. I don't feel bad that I'd cheated, 29 days of not drinking is immense in my world.

Do I feel better for it?

I have to say the first 2 weeks were difficult, the weekends a bore and my head so stuffed with sinus pain that I didn't notice the benefits of no red wine. The habit of having a glass of wine while cooking dinner and discussing our days was annoying to break because I like doing that - I felt cross with dry January for a while. But this week has been good, I have genuinely forgotten wine-o-clock and have slept deeply and soundly which has only been punctuated with vivid dreams and the cat being sick.

I am looking forward to tonight, steak and red wine and chats about the week. Dare say my head will be slightly hurty tomorrow and my sleep fitful. I am hoping dry January has killed the regularity of the wine in my life, saving it only for the weekends. That a good day doesn't need to be celebrated with booze neither a bad day commiserated.

So cheers all, I swore I wouldn't, but see you in dry January next year!

Behind the shed

Occasionally there is a break in the weather, a day of no rain when it is possible to venture outside. I have one child who would prefer never to see the outside, addicted to pressing buttons and staring at a screen if I let her. The other, A, who's world of make-believe is complicated and intricate, simply extends into the outside room when the weather is nice. But they have both discovered a den, an outside hidey-hole which has them amused for hours. Not metaphorically, literally hours.

"Muuuuuuum, can we go behind the shed?" pleaded A as I collected her from school, her cheeks slightly red from the stuffy classroom and the gaps in her teeth prominent as she smiles.

It's drizzly, cold and nearly dark.

They throw their bags down, race upstairs, change into jeans and fleeces, pull on their wellies, grab a hobnob and run up to the shed and are gone until I call them back down. They are wet, dirty and flushed with the outdoors when they return.

"What do you do up behind the shed?" I query as I undress them trying to avoid mud on the newly hoovered floor.

"There are sticks, and some holes and sometimes we have to hide from people and we made a cake and put it in the oven....and we EVEN found an orange juice carton!"

In a world of computers, gender specific toys, inappropriately dressed dolls and heinously expensive boxes of plastic crap, they seem more alive when they have amused themselves behind the shed. Wow, that makes my heart sing. Metaphorically, not literally of course.