The hair on my chinny chin chin

This morning was surprisingly lovely, so I took my cereal and tea outside. As I stepped into the sunshine I felt the cool breeze through my hair; the hair on my chin and lip that is.

How did it come to this? I don’t remember leaving my twenties, let alone entering my thirties, but here I am at 45 with a hairy face. That’s not the whole story either, I have grey hair on my head and a scrawny neck reminiscent of a cockerel’s thingy, (no, not that thingy). I have skin which stays where it’s pushed and doesn’t anymore bounce back like a pea off a drum. My skeleton no longer allows me to make certain movements and I have muscles which resent being used for anything other than a slow walk from the kitchen to a well upholstered chair. And I never, ever, try a quick darting run these days - I’ll wet my pants.

The hair thing though is the straw to break my aching back. It may have been hip for Frida Kahlo to have a fine dark moustache, but she was arty and interesting, she could paint. You can’t pull off a lady moustache if you aren’t cool. Not if you have to do the school run with other mums who are immaculately dressed and well groomed, then, go to your office, where in the canteen you ‘shoot the breeze’ with young people who see your hairy face but don’t mention it. At least when I am with other 40 Somethings it’s out there, our shared open secret.

What’s terrifying is that I have very clear memories from my teenage years, of my own Mother standing in front of a mirror with a pair of tweezers, plucking individual hairs from her chin and lip. This is one of those things you do not want to see a parent do, it is on ‘the list’. This is a long list which includes: parent trying to climb into underwear, parents having sex, parent drunk, parent dancing, parent having a bath, parent being anywhere near when you are with friends/boyfriend. I promised myself then never to put my children through such nightmares, and I vowed never to have hair on my face, but I was young and foolish, I didn’t understand.

As for the hair, I have tried and failed with cover up and cream and powder of various types, I’m allergic to it all, so I have large swellings on my face as well as the hair. There are other options of course, you can wax or dye it. I tend to avoid this because of my allergic skin, but I was tempted recently when my friend Red gave me a free sample of bleachy-dye stuff. Before I could set about my face though, she rang to tell me to stop, because she had developed an unpleasant five o’ clock shadow soon after using it. You can go for the laser treatment, but I’m just plain scared of that, or you could try the Asian woman in town. She sets about you with some very taught string gripped between some seriously strong teeth and sure hands; she then grates away at your face. This looks like something I could withstand, but it’s in a public place, bang slap in the middle of the indoor shopping Mall. Now, you can be as sure as the hair of my chinny chin chin that every person in this small town, with whom I have ever passed the time of day, will walk right past me mid de-hairing – and they will know!

I think that generally I am coping, though not accepting, the negative trend in which my body is engaged. I wear scarves around my tired neck, I dye my hair so often that I really don’t know how grey I actually am. I try to help the small amount of skin I allow to be visible by drinking lots of water (well it works for Madonna), and my movements at all times are carefully managed. In everything I do I am deliberate and with everything I proceed with caution. But, short of wearing a mask I am not sure what to do with the hairy face. Mind you, I did spot a pair of tweezers in the first aid box in the bathroom yesterday; maybe I’ll try just one or two hairs tonight, whilst nobody is looking.

'Til we have built Jerusalem

OK the big day – no not the wedding, the voting. It is worth pausing to think that on this day, at least 35% of those with the vote in this country wont bother to vote; probably the most important statistic so far in the campaign.

I was going to vote Scottish National Party, because I agree with so much of what they say, but apparently they have no one standing in West Kent. I was going to vote ‘intelligently’ as Peter Hain had asked me to but I couldn’t find an intelligent party on the ballot form either. Tragically for this country the BNP were on the ballot, but I only agree with one of their policies, that is to ‘bring our boys home!” innit – but what with all the racism and small minded hatred of the rest of their rhetoric it didn’t balance out well, a bit like voting for Hitler because he made the trains run on time.

Now when I lived in London I voted Labour from the ages of 18 to 32 and only once in that time did I see a Labour victory, and that of course was not real Labour but New Labour – like Labour but without any of the, well, policies, philosophy, decency….Anyway, when New Labour swept to power in 1997 it was quite a shock for our local Labour candidate, because he, like many others was just supposed to be a name on a ballot paper – but there he stood bleary eyed in the early hours of that Friday morning as MP for Finchley. But this is just to illustrate that I have, once, felt like my vote mattered.

Things out here in Tunbridge Wells are much clearer, I know my vote is worthless, here blue is the colour and keeping it is the game – you only have to take a five minute drive around this well heeled town to place it firmly in its natural context the Conservative party. The only reason that the Royal Wells is aware of a recession at all is that Fenwick and Hoopers have both had sales this year! The majority for the Conservative MP is 10,000 and Labour comes in third behind the Liberal Democrats. So for me, today, I knew that unless every other Labour voter in this neck of the woods voted tactically (i.e. for the Liberal Democrats) then my vote was essentially pointless. This is somewhat a disheartening realisation to come to, given that about 100 years ago women were throwing themselves under horses and starving themselves to near death, to get for me the opportunity to vote at all.

If the election was won on size and number of posters, UKIP would have the win in the bag round here. Their signs are massive and pink and argue for keeping the pound, which, don’t tell them, we still have. And have UKIP and their new kind of madness, replaced all the Monster Raving Loony types,where have all the Yogic Flying candidates gone? These people are a vital part of the democratic process for goodness sake.

As I entered the United Reformed (why did it need reforming?) Church Hall, to put my cross on the form, I was still debating whether to vote Labour or Liberal Democrat. I was overcome in the booth itself with a sudden and violent urge to vote UKIP just for the hell of it. However, I eventually placed a cross next to Gary Heather (Labour), a nice young man from Islington (yes, really). It was partly muscle memory that led my hand to that box and partly the knowledge that before Gordon Brown became known (mostly thanks to the media and Blairites) as the demonic, one eyed Scottish, can’t smile properly, should have been voted in, Prime Minister, he was a chancellor whose tax credits, the EMA and various other bits and pieces of money have helped to keep my family and small business afloat for the last eight years. Truthfully, without it we would be living with my parents and out of options.

So there you go, I voted. I wish I felt better about doing it – but I know that it was the lesser of two evils in the end; not the kind of thing you should really be looking for in a government. Anyway, if the rest of Europe goes the same way as Greece,then it won’t matter who is in government because it will be the riot police who will be making most of the important policy decisions.

No More Sitting On The Old School Bench

Mike will be at the junior school in September and with him go any hopes of attending another assembly. So yesterday, I saw him in the last school assembly I will ever have to go to.
I have been attending these school and nursery events for 15 years and I felt a mixture of emotions: happiness, utter joy, more happiness, mixed with relief and happiness. If that sounds mean, well perhaps you have been to a better class of assembly than I have, but mine have been mostly dull, life draining hours of boredom. Occasionally something accidentally amusing or interesting has lifted the mood, but only occasionally.

Yesterday's assembly,- which as anyone with a child knows is said: a ssem ber lee -contained all the usual stuff you learn to expect in these things, from confused children, to anxious teachers and the inevitable cock-ups.

Actually I’m not being totally fair I do enjoy some elements – especially the entrance of the Reception classes. Is there anything more wonderful than watching scores of tiny boys and girls, swamped in their two sizes too big school uniforms, wandering aimlessly about the hall wondering where all these grown ups have come from. Once seated, they play with their hair, pick noses, scratch bums and wave unselfconsciously at friends and family and strangers. These half asleep, half smiling wee things don’t realise that they have just totally upstaged the Year 2 class whose assembly this is.

One of the first rules of a good assembly is that electrical equipment must always be available and should either be broken or impossible to operate. True to form, the microphone used by the Year 2 children yesterday augmented their words not one bit, leaving parents and children straining to hear past the first couple of words: 'this term we ha.......’ Over the years however, one learns to guess what they're saying, and it's not that difficult, because the over-worked teachers generally go with the show them the work we have done in class format.

Apparently Mike's class has been doing opposites, and after each child had said a few incomprehensible words about opposites into the broken mic, they each held up a letter to spell that word. OP ITE! declared the letters dutifully held aloft by the class, inevitably the second P and O and the S's were round the wrong way upside down or under the foot of some daydreaming six year old; they never learn, the teachers that is.

At last there was a break from the torturous routine of whispering and showing stuff we had already seen at parents evening, for the children to sing a song. Up they all stood and the back row clambered on benches, so that they could be seen. Within seconds of the very tall child in the middle of the line losing his footing the domino effect had taken out the whole of the back row on the right hand side. Mike, standing safely on the left hand side enjoyed this as much as I and the rest of the audience did. This is the sort of thing you can usually only wish for; but now and again those kids come up trumps. Nobody was hurt, and so on with the show!

The children waited for their music cue and boy it came. The hi-fi system was set at the highest volume so that when the CD was set in motion, the first couple of notes were so loud the older children began to scream and the reception children were left stunned and startled like rabbits in headlights. It was too much to ask surely, I was getting a great last show.

They sang Our God is a great big God, which is a real belt it out number. At home we sing it as: our dog is a great big dog, but Mike kept his mind on the job and sang the correct version. He is mostly religious at the moment, but the cult of atheism will have him too, eventually. After this it was back to the monotony of whispering and holding up stuff. On and relentlessly on it went, with more straining to hear anything followed by something held aloft - a wolf made out of clay, an example of paper weaving, a camel and palm tree sketch - and each parent smiling and nodding reassurance at their own child, whilst suppressing a growing concern that compared to the other children their child was good at nothing.

Eventually it is all over, the class teacher can relax the contorted smile which has been in place since the start of the chaos, and her Year 2 class now speak loudly and clearly so that we can all hear them for the first time this morning. The new head teacher is perfect, she does no more than offer quick congratulations to the children and after another hearty round of applause we are all let off the hook. The old head teacher was sincere but long winded and left parents twitching to get away. His desire to keep the momentum going always reminded me of my Mother’s descriptions of attending our nursery nativity plays. Plays so short that the children would do two or three shows at a time to make up the 20 minutes. My Mother said that it took all her strength not to shout NO! as the keen young nursery leader asked the audience: “Would you like to see that again?!”

Mike bounces over full of pride and we decide that it was the best assembly ever, and not only was his spoken line the best, but his clay wolf would win prizes; after one more great big cuddle he bounces off happily to class and I can head to work.

When our older children put on assemblies at the inner city London schools they attended, you could count the parents in attendance on one hand. Out here in this well-heeled rural town, you have to get to an assembly 15 minutes early to avoid the crush of Mums and Dads and Grandparents. If it’s a nativity or summer show don’t bother showing up without a ticket and don’t ask for more than two. I do care that my children are happy at school, and now and again I like to cheer them on in their shepherds outfits at a nativity, or weep with them as they come 5th in the sack race or clap along during their rendition of ‘All the single ladies” at the yearly talent show. But in between these occasions I will be regularly pressured to help in the class, to help on a day trip, to help with reading, to help making cakes and then to help selling them at the spring fair, and on it goes – even the grandparents find a day set aside for their attendance. But I don’t need to participate in the whole process for my children to be OK, do I? Surely I am the person who they should see when they come home and want to forget about school, and school is somewhere where they should be happy, make friends and if they are lucky learn a little something too.

Wake up and smell the roses

I am handwriting this blog and Craig is typing it up. He is my right-hand man, and left-hand man actually. The only thing he hasn't had to do for me recently is wipe my bum - although he may have done that too - a lot of May and June is a total blank.

A day in the life of me, well they vary - but today I am up and writing - so lets take a day like today, because it's more interesting than the horizontal type days. These include lots of laying down and Radio 4, where the bad drama is funnier than the "comedy" - oh, the "Now Show" - laugh, I nearly did... Today, however I am vertical and I can look forward to a day of caffeine-free fun, with eye exercises (yes really) and pills. I am up at about 9a.m. then into the front room for my morning cuddle from Mikey - who bounces about like a Tigger and generally cheers me up. Then a cup of decaf tea with skimmed milk or, as I prefer to call it, tea-coloured water. Then high-fibre cereal with more skimmed milk (not milk) and a gluten-free, dairy-free, taste-free raisin slice. Next, my exercises. I sit down for these and with the position I have to take and the two stone I have put on whilst lying down for six weeks and retaining a v.healthy appetite, I look like a buddha but with all the wisdom of a lump of coal. These eye exercises are designed to re-educate brain and eye to recognise the difference between my movement and movement outwith my body. Not the sort of thing you would imagine you would have to go back to school for, but there you go - what do I know? If you wave at me I try to move with you these days. My exercises make me look like an idiot and I am reminded of that bloke with learning difficulties who was in a documentary which was probably called "The Mentally Handicapped - why are they all so stupid?" as it was broadcast in the early Eighties. Anyway, this one bloke spent his day quite happily staring at a small piece of wood tied to a piece of string which he dangled in front of his face. 2 exercises require me to do similar using my thumb in the place of wood. Inevitably by 10a.m. I am feeling dizzy, or is it wobbly, or maybe off-balance, or just weirdy deirdy doo. I don't have the language for it - but the medical profession will insist on me offering more than "I feel fucking awful all the fucking time, so stop moving".

At this point I have 2 options, rest or "do stuff". On a vertical day I choose doing stuff - it's not very scientific - but I am much less convinced by science than I used to be and steadily working my way towards blind faith - get lost Dawkins, hello Jesus! Doing stuff is always good for my mental health and bad for my physical health. So even though I know that, I am somehow always surprised and upset when I find myself vertigo'ed up by the end of the day.

This vertical day is the best (touch wood, touch wood, cross arms, legs, fingers, breasts) day I've had since last Thursday when a number of things happened - a too physical massage, hayfever, my first visitors proper for months. It could be that one, some, or all of these factors made the dizzy's return - I wish I knew - but I don't which makes this whole rehabilitation thing a wee bit like guess-work and so once again I turn to blind faith. Which is why I have to believe the words of Dr Surenthiran, my guru, and his caffeine-free, chocolate-free, dairy-free, citrus-free, fun-free diet, his brain and eye exercises which make me look and feel ridiculous, not to say faint, and the tiny white 10mg pill called something beginning with N which doesn't seem to do anything but must be doing something in a magical way which I don't understand.

So that's it, a vertical day, pretty good, so far. No doubt I will play one game too many with the kids and have one too many conversations with more than one person and be horizontal by the end of the day. I am an impatient patient and generally a very bad patient - but, slowly, very slowly, with the help of blind faith, Craig and the kids, family and friends, I am learning to slow down and smell the flowers.

Let it Snow...

Dear Marianne,

On Monday the snow lay thick and flossy on the ground, we woke knowing something was different. I held up Anna and Mike so that they could look out of the hallway window at the top of the stairs. They were excited to the point of hysteria and ran to every window, just to check that the snow was really there. Becky was delighted to read on her school’s website that the building was closed except for those who “needed to be in”. I didn’t suggest that might be her. Half way through the morning she received a text to say that a classmate had died unexpectedly at the weekend. Later she went out with friends and they consoled each other and had a snowball fight in the middle of their shock.

The last time we had snow like this was April when we went to the cricket pitch on the common to “say goodbye” to uncle Mike and play a game of cricket in his honour. Mike had died suddenly of something in his lung. He was a hippy type of fellow and lived up a mountain in California in a log cabin he built with his wife Linda. He didn’t want a funeral, or any fuss really, so his wife and friends scattered his ashes around his beloved meadow on top of his mountain; they drank Budweiser and smoked joints all night.

Half way across the world, we took the kids to the place he had seen his only cricket match, he loved cricket, although his only contact with the game was through the world service, which delivered giggly British schoolboy commentary all the way up there in the woods. We were thrown by the arrival of snow on a mid April morning, and the fact that we couldn’t find our cricket stuff, but determined to see our plan through, we put a badminton set in the boot of the car and headed off to the common. When we got there we made a snowman, threw snowballs, played a game of snow badminton and toasted Mike with Budweiser and Coke.

This snowy Monday I should have been at a funeral, but the “weather event” stopped me even contemplating getting in to my car and heading north. I am still in that dizzy world of disbelief about the death of this old family friend, she was too young and it was unexpectedly sudden. So I think that if she turned up at the door right now, I would be less surprised than I am to find that she is not here at all.

She was like the big sister you can’t have for real - she was kind, she listened to all my teenage angst nonsense, she was fun and encouraging and a constant feature of my teenage years. She was my real big sisters best friend and my big brother’s girl friend.

Later we would meet as adults, and share stories of life after all that stuff, but she is very firmly there in my childhood memories. Small moments, such as when she lent me her new, cool wellies, and wasn’t cross when I messed them up, or the time she came to say goodnight to me and in my sleep I swore at her and she laughed, or the time she bought me a proper grown up present: white musk talc in a shiny black ball the size of my hand, which you twisted to open; it looked so cool, it smelled lovely and it was so sophisticated.

I didn’t get to her funeral, but with all the kids off school, we played in the snow, baked cakes, read stories, cooked a roast and toasted Sally with a ropey wine we found in the fridge. I think it was a fine way to say goodbye.

do the hustle

Dear Marianne,

One very hot June afternoon when I was about seven, my Mum stood on the start line for the Gossops Green Primary School Sports Day Mother's race. On either side of her stood other nervous Mothers hoping they wouldn't fall over, bump into each other, win the race or in any other way embarrass their children and scar them for life.

"On your marks, get set, go!" Twenty or so huge lumbering bodies headed towards us, as we sat confined to our class pens. I can still remember the ground shaking and the sound of forty middle aged thighs thundering down on to the dried, cracked, sun baked "field"; it was a sight you never really forget. My Mother in her tight, knee length blue dress with round cut neck and white trimming, looked great, and importantly, she didn't win, fall over, or bump into anyone else; she didn't even lose. The problem was she didn't start the race at all, she simply stood very still watched the other Mother's hare off down the hill, then put on her stilettos and walked calmly to the side of the painted white track.

In her defense - and it is hard to defend such a cruel and callous act - she was rather bullied in to the race by her colleagues, yes my Mother not only didn't run that day, she also taught at my school. The teachers who had organised the day knew that if they could get one Mother on to the start line others would follow, and others did reluctantly join my Mother, obviously feeling for her situation. I guess she then reasoned that she had done her bit and didn't need to humiliate herself by actually running the race. What she hadn't reasoned was that I would suffer from this act of tyranny and betrayal for years to come.

Since then I have been a Mother at a number of Sports Days and have always refused to take part in this summer madness. I really believe that adults should never run, unless it is a)for a bus or b)one is wearing body tight lycra, racing around a proper track in front of 40,000 screaming fans and there is a very good chance one will win an Olympic medal. There are no other times when running as an adult is acceptable behaviour, the "other times" always end in humiliation...

So when I turned up for yet another Sports Day, this time at Anna's Infant school last week, I knew what I wouldn't be doing, at least I thought I did. I hadn't banked on the guilt trip served on me by my "friends" who all chose to sign up for the Mother's Race. This meant that I was the only Mother in the group who wasn't running, or to put another way, the way Anna was looking at me, I was the only Mother who didn't love her daughter enough to run 50 metres with a bean bag on a bat. So against all my natural inclinations, against my gut instincts and most importantly in direct violation of the vow I made to myself after that painful day over thirty years ago, I stood with other foolish women at the start line, red bat in hand yellow bean bag sat on top stupid grin on my face.

Just before the school bell rang to signal the start of the race, some dummy mummys - I think that's the term - from the BMW 4x4/morning cappuccino at Carluccio's/swim in the salt pool at the spa/subscription to LA Fitness (never goes)/blonde streaks compulsory, crew, got hold of our group for a quick chat. They told us that at the Junior School, the parents' races were really competitive with warm ups and stretches and serious racing - we all laughed and tutted and said "how silly". Then dingaling! and we were off, my group and I laughed, we ran slowly, I pushed other people, cheated, managed to avoid getting taken out by the huge Dutch lady falling heavily in front of me, and generally made it slowly to the other end, remembering to smile at Anna and concentrating only on not taking it too seriously.

Meanwhile the pack of dummy mummys had engaged their 4 wheel drive and set off at a hell of a speed, ears pricked back, Fat Face and Jigsaw linen jackets flying in the wind, Crocs and Ugg boots barely touching the ground. They came first second and third, collected their stickers, feigned surprise at their achievement and headed off to hit the Pimms. The rest of us sheepishly made our way to the our children to apologise for our lack of sporting prowess and try and convince them and us it is the taking part that counts.

When my mate Red got home and told her husband about the outrageous behaviour of our "sisters", he said: "you were hustled" love. I think he was right, we was done. I just wish that having been compelled to stand at the start line, I had remembered the hustle my Mum had employed all those years ago, I think I get it now.

Rx

tooth hurty

Dear Marianne,

I've been very worried about Mike's teeth. He is four and already two of his teeth have gone rotten, another two are on the way, one of them is a front tooth. Mike is my fifth child and they have all had their share of bad for you sweets, chocolate and fizzy drinks - but none of them have lost their milk teeth and although the older ones have fillings this is a rare thing. So what's going on with Mike?
Well, apparently nothing I can do anything about. I took him back to the dentist that had kind of told me off about his, then, one bad tooth. I shuffled in waiting to be branded a bad mother, even though I had been brushing Mike's teeth to within an inch of their life and had banned apple juice and sweets since our last visit.

However, the dentist told me not to worry, that there was nothing I could do, that the second teeth would be fine and that the health of the milk teeth seems to depend on the physical make-up of the child. If I wanted an analogy, he said, then imagine a person who smokes 40 cigarettes a day and lives to a ripe old age and next door someone who has smoked rarely but dies early of lung cancer. I didn't want an analogy, certainly not that one thanks; I was so thrown by this I thought I might have my first ever cigarette there and then.

After the condescending smiles, the sighs, the inappropriate analogies and Winnie the Pooh stickers, I was ready to leave, but Michael wasn't. He had brought Ollie Dog along to the dentist (Ollie dog is named after a friends dog - which is barely alive, despite living on a diet more rich in vitamins, minerals etc. than his owners get - don't tell her I told you, but his food comes with rice and peas...)and Ollie hadn't had his teeth checked yet. So, having already be transformed into an over-indulgent Mother, my fate was sealed by my request for Ollie Dog to sit in the chair and have his turn. To his credit, the big, burly dentist obliged and gave Ollie's teeth the once over with mirror and sharp pointy thing - Michael looked on enthralled and very pleased - Ollie got a sticker on his head and we left.

Outside, I was so relieved, that I could have danced in the street, yes Mike's teeth are falling out, but it's not my fault - I am still a good Mother. Hurrah! We went to town for chocolate cake and coke, well we were celebrating weren't we...



Rx