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...