You say zucchini, I say courgette

You had to be pretty far away from any kind of media, phone device or Brits to have let the Jubilee Weekend pass you by. The torrent of facebook status' alone would have alerted you to various opinions on the occasion, the need for the occasion, hatred for the occasion, national pride in the occasion, debates around the whole existence of the British Monarchy and of course the weather. Despite living in a part of the world where summer tends to be 6-8months long and cold is now somewhere around 20degrees, I did feel incredibly sorry and sad that the festivities ended up taking place in torrential rain and freezing temperatures - something most people would claim to be pretty typical and others would say provided an opportunity to show the infamous stoicism of the British.

I wouldn't really class myself as monarchist OR a republican on a normal day. I know the Royal family costs the taxpayer a lot, but I in turn believe that they do a lot of diplomatic good, both home and abroad; that it's important for dignitaries across the world to be invited to events hosted by a senior Royal, that the triad of William, Catherine and Harry have brought a certain sex appeal to an otherwise staid tradition, that the children in hospitals, the old ladies running bakeries and all sorts of other "normal" people in between feel included and special thanks to a visit from this family.

But it's funny what moving abroad suddenly does for your patriotism. We are holding a Jubilee Party (albeit next weekend rather than the one just gone, as our guests of honour are doing a charity cycle ride and we just can't celebrate the Queen without our LA queens), complete with bunting, Union Flags, cups and paper plates adorned, I'll be baking up a storm and the only drinks on offer will be tea, Pimms and G&T's. A right old mixture of Americans and Brits have been invited - a loose fancy dress (come "British") has been taken up with gusto and all of a sudden I seem to be a monarchist!

Except for me, and for a fair few of the Brits I know here, this isn't about celebrating the Queen being queen for sixty years. It's about feeling part of something, somewhere, a unique event not many countries will have the opportunity to commemorate anymore. And in America, the country that has never had a Royal family, it feels poignant to stand up and say "I am British". A friend posted on my facebook wall a while ago "you seem determined to ignore the fact that you don't live in the UK anymore and are doing anything you can to pretend that you do??" The winking emoticon belying a comedic touch but I jumped on the defensive somewhat - because, yes, I do feel it's important to remain who I am, to talk about my country with my children and my friends, because frankly at the moment it feels like it's all I have. I am happily embracing many aspects of Californian life but I am and will always be (so long as I live abroad) an ex-pat. I am part Welsh part English, married to an Englishman born in Stirling, with a surname that describes a small but beautiful area north of Fort William. I moved around a lot as a child - we didn't settle in the UK until I was 8, and have consequently had itchy feet ever since. My earliest memories are living in Nigeria and I'm desperate to return to Malawi, where Paul and I lived and worked for a bit before we were married; I have even been humbled by a Malawian politician saying I now have Africa in my soul. I certainly didn't anticipate wanting to hold onto my Britishness as much as I have, but give me a break - it's only been 3.5months!


So the Jubilee celebrations, while kitsch and fun for some, a (somewhat inevitably and not without a whiff of bah-humbuggery) reason to be politically angry for others, have been emotional for me. The sight of my flag, the conglomeration of three of the countries that make up my little family and our United Kingdom, makes me proud - not least because I have a brother serving in a war waged by the politicians not the Royals, representing and fighting for my country, my people. I'm not interested in getting into a debate about whether we ought to still have a monarchy or not, but I am glad of the opportunity to explain to my children where they are from in a way I wouldn't have done if I'd been at home.


We will always say pavement instead of sidewalk, put pants in the their proper place (underneath our trousers) and eat courgettes rather than zucchini...actually, I take that last one back. We've definitely assimilated zucchini into our phonetics already, as I'm sure we have welcomed Americanisms in many other nuanced ways. But for one weekend, it was good to have random people congratulate us in the street when they heard our accents, purely because of where we were from. So maybe our Jubilee Celebration will be a Thoroughly British Piss Up With Cake instead.

Motherhood Guilt No.1

Maggie took her first bottle of formula last night; it's been a few weeks of steadily worse nights, feeding every 2-3 hours, late evening feed creeping forward earlier and earlier and in the last few days my supply has gone into overdrive due to the insane amounts of feeding she's doing - tethered, I am. A dairy cow reincarnated, pandering to the whims of a frankly massive baby who doesn't exactly need any more podge. But then that's the point of on-demand parenting, you're too lazy to get into routines so you let the little buggers lead you wherever they please.

weeeeeeeeeeean meeeeeee

So, we have started weaning. I must stress I mean the British version of weaning - getting her onto solid foods. The Americans have all looked shocked that I've "already" started taking her off the boob. Madam has decided she doesn't like mushed up baby food, only grown up food in big chunks that she can pulverise in her squishy little hands. And while she's getting the hang grandually of actually digesting some of this food, it's not going to fill her up anytime soon. The sleep deprivation is too much so she is now getting a bottle of formula at bedtime in the hope it'll fill up her tummy a bit better than I what I can produce after a full day running on empty.

This is, well, timely considering the cover of Time Magazine a few weeks ago. For anyone living in a hole (or not currently embroiled in the breast.v.bottle debate), a feature was made about extended breastfeeding where this was the opening gambit image:

Cue Guardian journalists hurriedly hashing out jumbled up articles, debate flaring across the pages of mumsnet and friends on facebook superimposing each other's faces on the woman above (that was quite funny, I enjoyed it).

Off the back of a certan Guardian journalist writing aforementioned mismatched article, my closest mum-friends and I discussed our views on breast .v. bottle. Which are essentially the same - none of us are pro one and anti the other. We all believe there just ought to be access to all the information on both choices for all women, then all women should be supported no matter what path they decide. Three of us have chosen to breastfeed and are all currently breastfeeding, one of whom is into what in the UK is counted as extended breastfeeding her 14month old. The fourth chose to formula feed both her children from birth.

I exclusively breast fed Ethan until he was about 5 months old, when I introduced a dreamfeed of formula for similar reason for introducing it to Maggie. I remember clear as day sobbing over him while he gulped it happily down, feeling wracked with guilt and feelings of failure. Last night I just begged it to work. But the feelings of failure still simmer underneath.

I found it relatively easy getting breastfeeding going and have seen other struggle and suffer in order to breastfeed, to triumph after months of excruciating pain or to despair at their perceived failure at one of the great pinacles of early motherhood. So how come, compared to all these women, I dared to be so self indulgent as to weep over choosing to give my son one bottle of formula a day? Thankfully I've realised how ridiculous this is and this time am just praying to the formula gods that eventually this will make Maggie sleep longer again.

In the UK, I was often congradulated at breastfeeding Ethan until he was 9months. We stopped because he just suddenly refused - we were down to just one feed a day by that point and one morning he just pushed me away. And that was that. In the UK extended breastfeeding is counted as beyond 6months - I was aiming for 6months and was glad I'd managed to go a bit beyond it.

In LA almost every mother I know with a child under 18months is still breastfeeding. I don't know if some of them are supplementing with formula, but even the British mums here are thinking nothing of whipping it out for their darlings reaching and going beyond their first birthday. The fact that I'm surprised by this surprises me! Me - the homebirthing, anti-routine, on-demand parenting, breastfeeding, home-cooked-food weaning, wannabe-hippy mother is almost shocked that most mums I know in California are, by British definition, extended breastfeeders.

I'm not sure if I'm just very easily influenced - hmm, no, I know I'm very easily influenced. That or I have a big red button in my brain that gets pushed by evil gremlins every time something appears that might make me feel guilty about my ineptness as a mother. But this time I'm trying to bypass it, I am using the opportunity of living in a community that doesn't think breastfeeding beyond 6months is weird but also appreciating that I have a more than viable alternative. If I honestly believe formula is a completely fine option for one of my closest friends, how hypocritical of me to feel ashamed at giving it to my own babies.

I enjoy breastfeeding, I believe in the health benefits for my babies and me, it is free and easy. But my choice to mix feed is just as valid as any other. And the person who needs to accept that most is me.

Settling In?

I got a lovely comment on my last blog post yesterday from another blogger (not someone I know in real life - amazing!) whose blog I've been avidly following and reading for quite a while - in fact the only blog I follow written by someone I've never met! AliBlahBlah, thanks very much - you provided me with the inspiration to start this weird transatlantic/kinda motherhood/waffle-a-lot blog and now the kick up the arse I needed to write something for the first time since April - APRIL!!! It's nearly sodding June!!

One excuse I have is beavering away creating the programme for my theatre company's latest show - Henry V...

On the assumption that the lovely AliBlahBlah is my only non-real life follower, I won't bore you with the details of Theatre Delicatessen - if you're a friend of mine on facebook you're probably doing the usual eye rolling at the number of status updates begging you to spread the viral marketing campaign word and buy tickets to the show. I've been spending the limited computer hours I get (inbetween the sleep training of a certain Little Loy who has decided every bedtime and naptime shall start with an hour or more of screaming tears) doing one of the few jobs that can be achieved from the other side of the world. The programme is done and looks beautiful, even if I do say so myself - but has left me feeling even further away as opposed to closer to the show, the company and my professional (often personal) family. But do buy tickets if you're in London - it's directed by Roland who is one of the most exquisite directors of my all contemporaries, and stars some Theatre Delicatessen stalwarts who are incredible actors it has been my greatest fortune to work with.

Theatre Delicatessen

The other reason for absence has been the visit of the parents to the new house - and bearing in mind my mum is probably the biggest reader of my blog, it seemed a bit counter productive to write about what we've been up to when she's been seeing it for herself.

We moved and welcomed the arrival of our stuff off the boat a few days before Mum and Dad got here, and in a way that was perfect - they were present right at the start of us really beginning our lives in LA (you can't help but feel in limbo land when living in a glorified hotel room wih only a few clothes and photos to resemble home), so they now feel very much a part of it.

We managed a glorious mix of running round seeing sights and sounds of LA - was amazing to get out of Santa Monica for a bit, I REALLY need to learn to drive - and just chilling out and living our lives here. It does feel more like we're living a life here - I'm still thinking ahead to when we go home but it helps that Paul and the Little Loys seem really settled. But a part of me doesn't want to feel utterly settled, I want to go home - maybe not right now but eventually. My first impressions have improved since that particular post but I still can't see me falling in love with city - this weird mixture of chillaxation, yoga and granola eating with the frenetic and frantic need to be doing everything all the time, rushing around in cars that fill up massive roads, everyone living in their fast paced little bubble.

So I continue to feel like there is one foot still planted in the UK, spiritually by the side of my colleagues and friends as they open the first show in our most ambitious space yet, but feeling like I no longer have the right to say "our" company, "our" space because I left everything that is mine. The foot in California is gratefully padded however by a growing close network of people we can now start to call friends. So maybe a balance is starting to be achieved. We plod along, just the same.

Brothers and Sisters

Funny how people with the same parents can look totally alike. I mean, it's obvious when you think about it, but if I had a pound for every time people said how alike Maggie and Ethan were....Here are my identical children:

And if I had a pound for everytime people said my brother and I looked alike:

There is almost the same age gap between Edward and I as there is between my two. We apparently couldn't get enough of each other at their age either. Long years of a particular type of sadomasochistic love endured that only siblings understand: Edward spent inordinate amounts of time being dressed up in women's clothes, being covered in nail polish and makeup, gamely learning terrible dance routines, jumping off ever higher steps happily assured I would always catch him (took about seven years before he remembered this particular game always ended with me moving out of the way just as he launched himself off the top stair). My parents really did have him to be my playmate.

Then hormones kicked in and for six years my grandparents refused to have us to stay at the same time because we fought so much. We would scream, slam doors, hit, punch and kick, get into arguments for the sake of it and generally make my parents wish they could give us both up for adoption.

The turning point came when I was seventeen and he was fourteen. We went on holiday that Christmas to Jamaica, staying a beautiful house with a few of my parents' friends. Somehow we started drinking and smoking together sneakily behind the grown ups' backs; I don't think we ever got particularly twatted, but the rebel aspect of it slowly started to reforge our bond.

My gap year was a bit of a fraught time for all concerned but by the time I packed up my bags ready for an independant life at university, we were not just friends again, but allies, confidantes, conspirators, siblings. A weird role reversal had taken place wherein although I was technically the eldest, he was the one who tended to look out for and look after me.

This week both Maggie and I were parted from our brothers in ways completely new for us. Since she started actually paying any attention to him, Maggie suddenly had her first full day without Ethan. I'm not sure she particularly noticed but she did save her biggest "take my face over" smile for when we picked him from nursery.

And my brother flew to Afghanistan for his first tour with the Army. We are literally on exactly the opposite sides of the world from each other. I have never been so physically far from Edward and it feels like a limb has gone with him, there is a massive hole in my heart pumping with worry and love. Any political or moral views I have about war, particularly this, the war of my generation, are completely irrelevant now my brother is fighting in it. I don't want to have a debate about whether it is right or wrong, whether or not Tony Blair was a lapdog of Bush's; all I know is my brother is out there somewhere in the eternal desert doing what he believes is right, doing a job I would never, ever have the courage or temerity to do, making a difference in his own way.

We always joke that we only had a second baby so Ethan would have someone to entertain him so we could sit back and drink gin. But I hope in Maggie we've given him more than that - someone who's soul, life, history, memories are so entwined in his own that they don't just look the same on the outside, they breathe the same air. Even on opposite sides of the world.

Love you bro. xx

Mother of Two

The radio silence has in all honesty been to avoid depressing posts like "it is the same temperature here as it is in England" and "Be Careful What You Wish For (our new apartment sucks)" but also because I am frankly bloody knackered being a mum of two. Oh for those first few months when I told everyone how much easier it was having Maggie than when I had Ethan - because I've been through the worst which is feeling like a bomb has gone off in your life and realising that actually you have NO life, added with hormones, parenting manuals etc etc etc etc etc. Yes, it logistically more challenging but I "am really enjoying having a baby".

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Of course this was when Paul was working from home, so always available if I needed him and Ethan was in nursery 3 mornings a week - 3 blissful mornings when I would lie around having skin to skin with my daughter, who didn't rise before 9:30am. Where I had my mum-friends round the corner, other friends over regularly, the occasional weekend at my mum's. Now we are far from home and it's only just kicking in for one small member of the Loy household, so I'm contending with not just the 4month sleep regression and accompanying growth spurt, being in essentially a foreign land, spending on average 8-10 hours a day on my own with two small children and the corresponding feelings of inadequacy and loss of my personality, but also a three year old who has had a bomb thrown into his life and finally realising he has no life.

He has left behind everyone and everything, parks that he knew, coffee shops where the owners knew his name and favourite cake, nursery which while could have been improved from our perspective and took him ages to settle into was still somewhere familiar, with friends he learnt songs and numbers with. It's probably compounded by us moving apartments to be closer to Paul's work while we find our own place to live, on top of 4 seperate immunisations to get him ready for pre-school, but Ethan's struggled somewhat this week. When asked by a friend today what he liked most in the park, his response was "People!" Clearly the sole socialisation with Mummy, Daddy and Baby Maggie is starting to bore him.

So, we're on operation "let's all be nice and gentle with each other"...no more naughty steps, instead we're getting a jar and some marbles and whenever he is good he gets a marble, when the jar is filled up he gets a present. I'm learning how to give him longer to respond to me and he is learning to (bloody well) respond. We're getting more cuddles and kisses than ever and working out which parks are the friendliest and give the best chance of a run around with nice children. It is exhausting! Who knew it would be so tiring to be nice to your own children?!

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it won't be more than a mere shimmer until we have our own place, Ethan has a nursery to go to and there is some sort of idea of normality in our lives again. In the meantime we learn to be patient, and no matter how much baby weight I want to lose I will not be giving up alcohol anytime soon.

At least in the middle of it all are a boy and girl who make each other giggle like nothing else, he is gentle with her and she saves her best smiles for him, who entertain each other for long enough for me to grab a cup of tea and a shower, he gives her his tightest cuddles and she endures his rough handling with a grin. THIS is why I had two children.

Even if it does mean they are so in love with each other that I invariably have them both screaming blue murder at the same time. Oh the joys of being a mother of two...

First Impressions

We're nearly three weeks into our move to Los Angeles, we've seen a bit, met a few people, done one or two sights and buggered about doing not very much inbetween. The major thing I've found about LA is that, more than any other city I've been to, it is so vastly different from one area to another, from one street to another. Ok, so Hampstead is very different to Brixton, but it changes subtley from north to south across the river, and even though London has basically existed since the dawn of time compared to LA, and has the architecture to prove it, it all still feels underneath like the same city. Maybe that's just because I know it so well, but I think the same of Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, New York, Chicago, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague...

And NONE of the touristy photos you see of LA are accurate. At all. Santa Monica looks like boutiques when in fact it's massive roads then suddenly one pedestrianised street with much the same shops as Oxford Circus, and the beach is ten times wider and longer than any photos would have you believe.

Then there's Venice - which one second is million dollar homes and the next clear gangland territory, a weird mix of uber trendy and crack-selling corners, like setting The Wire in Shoreditch.

Last week, the midgets and I went downtown to scope out some disused buildings with a view to eventually attempt TD style work in the city of celluloid (oooh they're not going to know what's hit them!); my two are pretty used to being dragged around derelict building sites.

When you type "downtown LA" in Google, you come up with images like this

I don't know what kind of photoshopping was done on this but it wasn't the same downtown I was in. Maybe it was if you looked 180degrees up.

Downtown LA is odd - now I get down and dirty with the best of them, having grown up in Lagos, frequenting pubs in Holloway, going to school in Kentish Town, walking through St Paul's late at night, living in Streatham - but I was shocked at the state of most of the downtown populace. Maybe it's just indicative of the poor system of care in the US, because there is a major difference between the homeless and drunks of London (be clear, they are often two very different groups of people) and the plethora of people who ought to be being looked after in some kind of welfare institue in LA.

Just as the buildings alternate huge empty caverns epitomising the destruction of the American Dream and the collapse of the Global Economy, with high rise, glass fronted, trendy loft converted mega-bucks-towers, the people walking the streets of downtown LA are in expensive suits or rags. I don't often admit to being shocked, and lord knows Ethan has grown up in an area where a woman walks around with hundreds of heavy chains and padlocks round her neck, another in her seventies dresses up like a five year old raiding a drag queen's dressing up box and make up kit, and a lot of people with severe disabilities, predominantly learning or mental, are going about their daily lives with carers. But even he started to look a bit worried by the sheer number of people who looked like they desperately needed more help than a few quarters for a hostel, or a warmer jumper for the night or just a can of lager to keep their alcohol levels consistent.

Ten minutes drive up the freeway (which is MENTAL - they really do look like this)

is Echo Park. It is St Andrews in Bristol crossed with San Francisco crossed with Camden Town on a good day. Young and trendy with rough edges, second hand bookshops with adjoining cafes in which sit teenagers drawing on giant canvasses wearing peace sign glasses, a creative writing centre for children run by sci-fi fanatical volunteers, a farmers market held in a crumbling car park where $20 will buy you two weeks worth of food rather than 2mins, and a total jumble of houses perched on rocks and nestled into the hills which cause roller-coaster like roads throughout the area.

Then back to the wide streets and plazas hosting expensive yoga studios behind their grotty frontage of West LA. I'll save our adventures of Sunday brunches in Beverly Hills for another blog...

Playing with food

This is dinner the other night:

I'd walked 25minutes to the nearest Wholefoods in Brentwood, just to check out how organic posh nosh compares here to home and to bring back some treats for dinner. While the veg and fruit was EXTORTIONATE I managed to get 1lb of chicken for $4 (are American pounds different to our pounds cos that seems like a bloody bargain compared to the organic, grass fed, massaged and foot-rubbed chicken in sainsbos - put that in Jamie Oliver's pipe and smoke it). Of course I obliterated the saving by hitting the salad bar with its plethora of quinoa, edamame and sesame salads, wild rice, pecans and cranberry salads, chopped celery, red cabbage, carrots and feta cheese salads, crunchy broccoli covered in honey, tabbouleh, vine leaves, falafel - a veritable wet dream of a dinner for a vegetarian, real-nappy-using, meditating, sun-salutating, world saving yoga bunny. Which I am in my head but not in real life.

Home I come with my triumphs, good wholesome treats that taste amazing and make you feel worthy too, brilliant.

Paul has a stomach bug and requests nothing more exciting than the carton of plain chicken broth I'd bought with the intention of poaching aforementioned bargain chicken thighs (the man has the consitution of an elderly panda). Ethan loudly protests at eating anything other than a ham sandwich and apple (I talked him into adding dried banana bits to his plate). So we all sat down to totally different food and I got to scoff wholefoods lushness on my own for a few more days. Maggie will also reap the benefits.

Speaking of which, while waiting for Paul to pick me up from wholefoods (long gone are the days of scourning him for car overuse), a woman came dashing out asking if I was a "Nursing Mom" and pointing at Maggie (sleeping beautifully in the sling - see, there is a touch of hippy earth mother I'm still managing to live up to somewhere inbetween a triple espresso in the morning and a massive glass of wine the second my angels' heads hit their pillows). My erudite response "you mean breastfeeding?" resulted in a sigh and proferred free tea bag. Er...thanks. Apparently it increases milk production. Which I do NOT need. But was interesting because it added to something I've learnt about Californians and breast feeding this week.

They. Love. It.

For anyone who thinks the NHS pushes breast feeding a bit militantly - you should be here. Despite the fact that most hospitals have a c-section rate of 45%+ mainly down to ELCS because obstretricians just suggest it rather than any medical reason, that midwives aren't even called midwives, they are "midwife nurses" because woe betide they might be able to push women-led care in labour, that women are given on average 1hour to dilate 1cm and should you dare to frustrate the ticking watches you are swooped to theatre so the hospital can claim 10000x more money from your insurance company, and a whole other long list of anti-natural birth crap (disclaimer: according to Naomi Wolf at least), once a woman has actually GIVEN birth, she is encouraged to breastfeed so strongly to the point that if she is unable to rather than formula, the baby is often given someone else's breastmilk. Kid you not.

After starting this post protesting about my lack of hippy credentials, I should probably admit that I am a massive homebirthing-women-led-no-drugs-avoid-major-abdominal-surgery-keep-away-from-doctors labour. I mean, each to their own (in all honesty just give birth wherever you feel safest, will at least take some of the overwhelming fear and anxiety away), but personally I could never choose to go to a hospital unless it was medically neccessary for any reason, particularly for a non-medical process. My tuppence. But even I reckon the milk a nursing mother of a 14month old is probably not that suitable for a 14minute old baby. Hmmm, says she who sticks her fingers in her ears at the slightest mention that alcohol may go into the breastmilk.

Off my soapboax and back to my gojo berries, granola and organic fat free soy yoghurt breakfast.....namaste.

LA LA Limbo Land

28hours into our new life in Santa Monica and it feels...odd. We're staying in a corporate temporary accommodation apartment, further out than we were intially told we'd be, but we spent our first evening wandering round, getting the obligatory starbucks coffee. This morning headed straight to the beach, which Baywatch made famous. It was gloriously deserted, with a few tai chi-ers, a couple walking along the frothy surf, flip flops in hand, and a woman doing weird dances holding crystal balls in her hands. Perhaps trying to recreate "dance magic dance" from the Labyrinth. Within half an hour more people had gathered but the beach is so flipping BIG it would take hundreds before it felt even vaguely busy! After finally convincing Ethan to walk with his truck rather than slowly push it on his hands and knees for another few hours, we meandered down the pier before Paul left us to pop in at work where we'd meet him later.

So far, so typical holiday. Except it isn't a holiday. We've moved here, lock, stock and barrel (apart from a box of stuff sitting in my parents' loft), with the full intention of moving home again albeit it not for a few years. That's a bloody long holiday. I suppose because we're staying in a huge apartment and not a hotel it already feels like a non-holiday. But it doesn't feel permanent either. Even when I was left to my own devices for a few hours, Maggie asleep in the sling, Ethan asleep in the buggy, and I picked up a local bus map, had a wander round areas I'd been told about - I found myself heading like a homing pigeon to the British pub to get a cup of tea but more subconsciously, to talk to someone with an English accent. Already. I think I had my mum's words ringing through my ears - despite having had to make a new home every few years as she trailed my dad around the world, when we moved to London it took nine days before she spoke to anyone outside the family. Thanks to Americans being ultra friendly and me having the huge attraction of an adorable baby attached to me, I was never going to face the same problem, but I don't feel like I'm staying here for any length of time.

But I don't feel like I'm going home either. That limbo between staying and going. It's probably also all tied into this beng the first time in my adult life when I'll be completely and utterly financially dependant on someone else. I can't work on my visa, which will be fine initially, what with having a newborn in tow, but even when I wasn't working in London I still always had my child benefit and tax credits coming in, and always saved a bit from when I did get work so I had "my" money to spend occasionally. Not that I don't think the work I do running our home, bringing up our children, looking after our finances, planning our time off isn't more than worth the money Paul brings in from working, but it is a definate feeling of lack of control which adds to the limbo feeling.

Back at the apartment this afternoon, having been totally bombarded by the sheer range of stuff available in the supermarket and coming away with some courgettes, ecover detergent and several bottles of wine, Ethan sat at the table to "read his paper" while I made his dinner. Funny little fish, always knows how to make me feel like I'm home....

Provincial town gossip

 

This is probably terribly patronising of me, big old city girl living it up in a crazy world surrounded by crazy people, talking about the life in the local village of my folks in deepest darkest Sussex. But provincial town gossip takes some beating....Turns out this little town is a veritable cauldron of violence.

My mum went for an eyelash tint today and, trying to find some sort of conversation while having her eyes glued together, started asking her beautician about the suspected arson attacks. Well, there have been ten, TEN! Even for someone from southwest London that's a lot! first a portaloo (cue my dad, upon hearing this story, exclaiming "the naughtiest thing I've ever done with a portaloo...." enough, father, enough), then someone's garden shed and all sorts of buildings, animals and probably grandmothers in between. The police suspect the local crazy who walks around in a dressing gown and lives in one of the grandest houses in town albeit without electricity or heating, who has taken in a few "vagrants" who have since set his grand old home on fire. Then there's the assault that's turned into a rape accusation, then the beautician exclaimed "and did you hear about the woman whose fingers were bitten off?"

Yup, some dear old biddie leafleting for the local dogs trust thought it best to really make sure her junk mail made it through the door of an unsuspecting parishioner by thrusting her fingers right through the letterbox, whereupon they were savaged by the dog inside, probably a jack russell (horrid little rabid things). One finger was ripped from its knuckle, the other later amputated. Lovely.

Beats listening to the Archers.

Ah, provinciality, the backbone of Britain. What exactly is the Lalaland equivalent?

The bonds of Motherhood

Its 10:42pm and the baby is snoring beside me, the toddler is finally asleep next door where his grandparents are babysitting while we spend our last few days in the UK before flying to the land of the free. I should be sleeping too, god knows how many times aforementioned baby will have me up in the night feeding, whining, grunting or copying her dad's snoring. Who's not here, so she'll be copying them from memory, but at least I won't have the usual surround sound effect. Yes, i should definately be sleeping.

Not looking through old photos of Ethan and the friends he's known from birth, not searching for big old farmhouses that can accommodate 4 rugby loving dads, 5 raucous children, 4 babies of various shapes, ages and sizes but all with impressive lung capacity, and 4 women who while they know each other thanks to the sheer coincidence of having unprotected sex around the same time, are more than the mum of their parts.

We are reaching the end of an era, us Streatham mums. Via a resurrected thread on mumsnet almost four years ago, I made friend with a group of women all due their babies over the same six months or so as me. Seven of us remain close and four of us have particularly shared in our triumphs, trials and tribulations, tears and tantrums - and those of our families. These women have seen me desperately sad, desperately struggling but utterly happy, utterly triumphant and also very drunk (let's not mention the chucking up all over the RML house, or at least pretend it's adorable because I'm the youngest!).

I've struggled with this weird thing called motherhood, this label put upon me that now defines me in a way that nothing else does, but through it all these women have been there to share in that to. To me they just happen to be mums, who have plied me with bacon and alcohol, birthed my son's best friends and my daughter's first friends, who have become my friends, my lifeline. Here's to you, my Streatham mums, and to the next part of our lives scattered across the globe.