Yet another blogging mummy

For those with children or for those who just live on planet Earth, you know that the subsequent lyric finishing the title is that the cold never bothered her anyway. I wish I was as resilient, independent, strong, beautifully proportioned and stylish as that Elsa chick, but then again, she never had a toddler. You think you're stressed now Elsa?  So "here I lie, and here I disintegrate. Let the screaming rage on...I've now become immune to it anyway." Is how I think the lyrics would probably go if Elsa had a kid and sang about that. Let me tell you about yesterday.  Background: My husband has gone back to the UK to sort out some stuff and obtain a work visa before moving back here semi permanently. Pickle has had ups and downs. But the downs have become more difficult for me to navigate, as I have had a taste of what it's like to be a single parent. We prepared her of course, I did everything right, or so I thought; I bought a globe and an airplane, I showed her ...

Well, we did it. We decided we were going to do it, and we did it. How, with a 3 year old, you ask? People have undertaken much more heroic and brave adventures than this, and with many more and younger children, dogs, chickens and suitcases than ours. Packing up our house in England and moving to Canada was the last thing I thought and said I'd ever do. But there were reasons - there they were, all shining at me from the table, and I couldn't argue with a single one.  So we decided, one month before leaving for a holiday in Canada, that we would be extending our holiday into an immigration. Or is it emmigration? I never remember.  Who knows. Who cares? We're in Canada! We are living with my elderly but fantastically wonderful parents. I've never in my life met two such dynamic, loving, caring, interesting, welcoming people. Barring my mum telling us the same thing two or three times in the same conversation and calling me by my sister's or my dad's name once or...

Autumnal musings The pumpkins are ripe, shiny orange jewels lie in amongst muddy fields, the smell of bonfires creeps into nostrils, and crunchy, delicious looking leaves wait to be trodden on throughout the countrysides. This season, where crisp cautious sunshine doesn't warm your bones as it did in summertime, where long stomps are chilly and satisfying and end in great talks over a cider or a cozy hot chocolate curled up in front of a log burning stove. The season with the best colours nature can offer (according to me). It is also a season of new beginnings for me.  I have to be honest, I have found this blog post particularly tricky to write. The last post I wrote, I quickly deleted, for fear that the person of whom I was writing would exact some kind of retribution and I would be blacklisted from the teaching profession forever. Taking the post down was done out of fear, but also at the wise advice of some of my very close friends who care about my future and my reputation. I...

Did you ever really taste your boiled eggs  before having kids? After probably the two most challenging years of my life (although that's only up until now, mind you!) today I had a day off. Off work, off stress, off being a mummy. 10 precious hours of just..being...me. This summer, granted, I have had two days a week completely free, but mostly during that time I am rushing around trying to clean, cook, organise, sell, plan, and by 2 pm I feel exhausted, empty and unproductive, which leads to me lying down guiltily and fitfully for the next few hours until it's time to pick up Pickle again.  But last night, my superhero husband spent two hours cleaning the house, so that this morning after I had shipped Pickle off to nursery, I could come home to a clean house. Let me explain...a clean house to me, means that all the toys are shoved in more or less the same place rather than strewn lavishly and with wild glee in every conceivable space in the house, the potty, playdough bags,...

  The part-time trap The funny thing is, without us having babies, the human race would go extinct pretty damn quickly. And the planet would be overrun with rats and wasps and cockroaches. So why is it that our society makes it so hard, almost prohibitive, for women have children? I feel like I have been punished for having a child, and I am continuing to pay the price.  When I got pregnant, I really wasn't thinking about my career. I naively believed that I would waltz back into my role as a class teacher after my maternity leave had ended. What I couldn't have been prepared for was the scrabbling, panicked uphill struggle I faced trying to secure part time work when I went back. It was as if the governors and my head teacher saw me coming from afar, and as I approached, holding a newborn baby, they meticulously laid out an all but impossible obstacle course for me to navigate. No, they said, after months of waiting for their reply. There are no part time jobs here for you. B...

I am sitting at my desk on a warm but rainy morning, having just dropped my daughter at nursery. It is the first day I have had to myself without any pressures of childcare or work for a very, very long time. Too long, in fact. In my gratitude diary today (yes, I do that now) I have written "I am simply grateful to have time. But I am so, so tired."  Having a day off without recharging for so long doesn't mean, I discovered, that I bounced out of bed at 6 am, eyes shining with anticipation, and whizzed around like a mad Mary Poppins cleaning and sorting after running a 10k, or that I have boundless amounts of energy that will culminate in creative, life changing outcomes by the end of today. Quite the opposite. As I heaved myself reluctantly out of bed this morning following a night of constant wakeups as a result of a wailing little bean who was too hot to sleep, I felt surprisingly depressed. Even as I did my yoga just before I sat down to write this, I could feel that ...

                                                                                                                                                                      "Relentless"                                                                                   ...