Author: Alison

Daughter 3 is hoping, in the future, to pursue her dream of going to an American university on a football scholarship. But you don’t like flying, I say to her. Have you thought about that? 

Partner and I are talking about it. I hope that it’s not my fault that she doesn’t like flying, I tell him. (Because I am of the opinion that every plane I go on is going to fall out of the sky). I have been really careful to hide my fear from her, I continue. She says she doesn’t like the confined space. Partner looks at me. You don’t think that’s got something to do with that time you left her locked in the car went inside, cooked the dinner and only when you were serving it up did you notice she wasn’t there, he questions. Or that other time when you left her in the car and only realised she hadn’t come in when she poked her head through the cat flap. Or it could be that time…ok, ok, I say crossly. Isn’t it just the parents’ role to feel constantly guilty for psychologically scarring their kids for life, I say, in an attempt to vindicate myself, but they then have to find their own path through? Yes, he replies, but isn’t it also the parents’ job to help them through the obstacles and not to put them there in the first place. 

I had a bad feeling about this morning, when daughter 4 took off her shoes for the orthopedic consultant, only to reveal, in addition to an extra bone and dreadful pronation, two large holes in her tights, with her pink socks bursting through.

From this point it was difficult to concentrate on anything he was saying, but the upshot seemed to be further insoles, built up shoes and if all else fails, plaster.

We were ushered to the splint room, where I administered more apologies for holed tights. We need her shoes, the orthotics lady told us, you can drop them in later if you like. No, I thought, I don’t like. This is my fourth visit to the hospital in as many weeks and we don’t live next door. We’ll manage, I said stoically, throwing daughter 4 a ‘don’t argue’ look. In fact, her look was more one of surprise. How? Orthotics lady and daughter 4 chorused. We’ll sort it, I said, as I bundled a bewildered daughter 4, shoeless, out of the room.

Outside the hospital the remains of the American storm Snowzilla was raging. Why can’t our storms have cool names like that and not Frank and Gertrude. I googled it once and discovered that the name for H is my ex’s name. I read the description of criteria for naming a storm: To be given a name, a storm must ….have the potential to cause either medium or high impact. Yes, I thought to myself.

Back to the slight logistical problem of driving rain, high winds, no shoes and a walk to the car. Wait here, I tell daughter 4, I’ll bring the car to you. Except in my haste to battle Snowzilla, I forget to pay for the ticket. I get to the barrier, cars backing up behind me. It tells me my free time has expired. I need to pay at a machine. I get out the car to explain to the four cars behind. They back up for me. I am faced with a dilemma, I can’t leave the car park, but there are no free spaces to park and the ticket machine is outside of the car park. I spot a disabled space and grab it. The lady in the space next door gives me a look. I run past shouting through the howling wind: I’m having a bad day, as she pulls her disabled child out of the back seat – I feel bad.

I pay for my ticket, screech out of the disabled bay and the car park to rescue daughter 4. It is lucky she is not yet a teenager – standing in a packed hospital entrance lobby for ten minutes with holed tights and pink socks would have killed her. I block the ambulance entrance to piggyback her to the car.

On the way to school she is trying to work out the least embarrassing way to reach her trainers. They are on the second floor, she moans, and I will have to walk into a classroom full of people in my tights. Holed tights, I correct her, just to remind her that this morning isn’t going well because of her tights.

With daughter 4 safely piggybacked into school, I am able to reflect on the morning. It is only now that it dawns on me that I am back at the hospital on Friday to see that charming consultant about my shoulders and I could have safely delivered the shoes. I think I am just hard wired for a challenge.

Daughter 1 has stepped her healthy delights up a gear. She has found a recipe for granola bars on You Tube and led me to believe that they are healthy. She brought partner and I some of the mixture to try, as we sat and watched tv last night. It was delicious. Are you sure that’s healthy, I asked, rather surprised that it tasted so good. In my experience, anything that is really healthy tastes pretty awful, once you step back and see it for what it really is and not with rose tinted diet glasses on. I quite happily ate quinoa for weeks before our summer holiday last year, telling myself and everyone else how good it tasted. But once we hit Spain, I was eating double the amount of chorizo to make up for the assault of blandness my taste buds had endured.

They are healthy, daughter 1 replied assuredly, they’ve got almonds in. I asked for some more mixture. Partner wanted more too – it just tasted so good. I’d better make a second batch, she said, as she watched the gooey substance disappear into us at a rate of knots.

Daughter 1 went to bed. Don’t eat any granola bars mum, she said, as she disappeared upstairs, I’ve counted them, I know what you’re like. Partner went to bed. I was left alone downstairs. I found myself looking for the granola bars. She had hidden them in Tupperware, but I spotted them and they were now cut into neat little bars. There was one irregular shaped one, it was mine!

Daughter 1 comes down for breakfast. You know those granola bars mum…I was thinking about it and they aren’t really healthy at all, because of the honey and the brown sugar, the desiccated coconut and the golden syrup that’s in them.

I sigh. Back to the quinoa and rose tinted glasses.

“Have you heard about the dyslexic blogging group? They can only get a following by having sex in a car park”

……………………………………………………………….

Partner is going deaf. I basically want my Facebook page to be a blogging site, I’m telling him. Silence. I look up from the computer. Partner has turned the grey of our whites’ wash. A dogging site? He thinks he is repeating, with the voice of someone who thought they knew you, but is now having doubts.

I consult daughter 2 about Facebook etiquette and rules. Do I ask face time friend to become MY friend, I enquire. Sure, why not, daughter 2 replies, nonchalantly. Well, I go on, I don’t want her thinking it’s weird, or worse still seeing me as someone to share her problems with. Daughter 2 looks at me in complete disbelief, its not like that mum, she sighs.

I know they aren’t real friends, but a friend request still makes me feel happy. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m easily pleased. Back in November I saw a specialist about shoulder problems. I have had the problems a year and a half and am getting to the end of my tether. In the first week of January, when I was feeling particularly fat and frumpy, I finally received a copy of the specialist’s report to my GP. It read, ‘your patient, presenting as a slender and muscular 45 year old’… ‘Slender’ and ‘muscular’…words I can only dream about being called at my age. I was in a dreamlike state, I was on cloud nine, I was in heaven. What did the report say about your shoulders? Partner interrupted my moment of ecstasy. Oh, I have absolutely no idea, I replied.

Yes, too easily pleased.

Every Friday morning, partner personal trains myself and client: lady of the house, in her garage. Most garages are so full of lawnmowers, bike helmets, scooters and pogo sticks that training would be impossible. However, this is an almost empty double garage and doubles up perfectly well as a studio.

This morning we arrive to find builders have moved in to our training space. Don’t worry, lady of the house says, we can use the sitting room. Partner is wondering how this is going to pan out. The sitting room is straight from Homes and Gardens. It is modern, pristine and beautiful and not at all like the garage. We take off our shoes. I am glad I have worn my pink t shirt – I match the cushions beautifully, which is important in this sitting room, as everything matches everything else beautifully.

Partner adapts effortlessly to the new space: asking me to run down the length of the sitting room and perform two punches on the pad at the end. The floor is under heated, highly polished oak. I slide into the pad, narrowly missing the wine fridge. Partner is looking worried.

The workout continues and I’m starting to sweat. I don’t want to drip on the oak. I move to the cooler, more easily washable marble kitchen floor to perform my burpees.

I admire lady of the house’s lights, to distract from my sweat. They create a pretty, holographic glow. We could be in a nightclub, I quip. Lady of the house gives me a disapproving look. A posh nightclub, I try recover the situation, like Stringfellows.

Partner senses that it’s time for a change of mood and a new exercise. He pulls out two dining room chairs. But I’m on a roll. I straddle one of them Madonna ‘Like a Virgin’ style – but I’m clearly not. I start singing. Partner is now starting to sweat. Ok, let’s do the plank, he says in a last ditch attempt at salvaging a rapidly deteriorating situation. And now onto your backs for reverse bridge – his finale. ‘Touched for the very first time’ – I start humming. I can’t help myself, as I thrust my hips towards the beautiful vaulted ceiling.

Lady of the house looks at partner and I wearily, and as she pushes the dining room chairs safely back under the table she sighs, I’ll never feel quite the same about my sitting room ever again…

Number 1 friend and I are discussing her son 1 and my daughter 3″s parents’ evenings, that both took place last night. He’s actually doing really well, she said with complete amazement. Apparently he’s really bright, works hard and is a pleasure to teach. I can’t understand it, she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Daughter 2 asked daughter 3 how parents’ evening had gone – brilliantly, she said, without a hint of irony. I butted in, erm what about the bit about you being constantly distracted, talking too much and that you could push yourself more, I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

Daughter 2 is incredulous that daughter 3 is allowed to drop all languages at GCSE, whilst her school won’t allow it. I’m even more dyslexic in French, she moans.

She asks me to read the blog to her. No, I say, you read it to me, it’s good for you. She reads a couple of sentences and that is enough. My artistic integrity is compromised, subtleties are lost, words are left out. I can’t bear it any longer. Pass it over here, I say.

I recount the incident, guiltily, to number 1 friend, who was in complete sympathy. I do the same, she said, it just becomes unbearable listening to them. We look at each other and laugh. All things considered, I think our kids are doing pretty well.

Yesterday, I went for lunch at big sister’s house. Our house is screaming for mercy under the sheer weight and amount of bodies we are squeezing into it at any one time (it’s lucky face time friends don’t take up any space, real friends are a logistical nightmare: can I have a real friend to sleepover please Mum. Yes dear, of course, if they don’t mind sleeping on your sister’s head). Conversely, big sister lives in a big house, situated on a gated road. I arrived at the gate in my old and very tired Previa, which is also screaming for mercy – cracked windscreen, only one of the sliding doors in operation (we carry a large screwdriver for situations when friends don’t know and we forget to tell them about the door), air con broken and oh the mess, so I don’t really blame the gate for not wanting to let me in. It’s on a slope. I put the handbrake on. The car slides back. Add it to the list! I have a problem – I need to get out of the car to access the intercom so that big sister can let me in. I sit and contemplate how refugees must feel at border crossings.

I ring big sister on my shiny new phone – the one thing that feels dependable right now. Big sister comes flying out of her driveway, brandishing the buzzer, looking rather harassed and wearing, what seemed to be strange attire for lunch. She apologises for her appearance: Pilates, maintenance man, shower, undressed, she gabbles. I wondered whether she is having an affair with the maintenance man.

I notice a large juicer on the granite top, filled with something green. Kale, she tells me proudly and lettuce, sweetened with lemon juice. But lemon juice isn’t sweet, I point out. Defensively, she whips out her January edition of Good Housekeeping, and apple, she points at the recipe victoriously. Oh god, is that massacred kermit frog concoction in that blender my lunch, I ask. No, she said, I had an accident – my glass broke, but I drank it anyway. She showed me the glass with a hole in the side. A Dartington crystal glass, she said incredulously. But, she continued, I knew that you or maintenance man would find me if I swallowed a piece. Maintenance man, I correct her, because I would have been stuck on the other side of the gate – the side that doesn’t drink smoothies from crystal glasses.