Please Don't Mind the Gap

Up until four years ago, I think it is safe to say I was only ever friends with people my own age. The fuel of school and university friends can get you a long way in life, without needing to add any extra. I have had precious chapters where I have crossed paths with a wise, older ladies. Before having my boys, I lived in Northern Thailand for a year and I would have coffee every Sunday with two divorced American ladies in their sixties. They had found independence later in life and had chosen to use it helping kids on the Thai/Burma border, riding mopeds and learning to cook Pad Thai. I learnt so much from them. But I don't think I thought of them as friends. I wouldn't presume to be an equal to such brilliance.

Four years ago we moved to a small village in Surrey. Within days, three different people had knocked on our door with wine and invitations to the pub. My city friends would grimace at the thought of this - comfortable with anonymity and privacy. I was on the fence but now I'm firmly in the village garden and I'll tell you why. The beauty of village friends is they are all different ages but within five minutes of meeting them, that doesn't even register. I was in a literal village garden yesterday, at an annual drinks-fest organised by a gorgeous couple who are well into their retirement. As I stood amongst the phenomenal flower beds, (I was going to attempt to name some of the flowers but won't embarrass myself) I watched my four year old being taught darts by a ten year old, I watched my other half animatedly discussing Tonka toys with a 72 year old and I was learning about the pitfalls of thirteen year old sons from another neighbour.

There was no competition, no life comparison, no pressure - pure enjoyment of other people's stories and experiences. Incidentally, it isn't just age that varies in our village gang, the bank balances are pretty diverse too (us being the poor relations). Again, not a problem - everyone looks out for each other, enjoys the occasional Sunday walk, the odd night at the pub, and the joy that is waving to at least four friendly faces on the way to the local shop. These regular meet-ups have taught me a lot about friendship and have reminded me of Kahlil Gibran's lovely quote, "Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity." Towards the end of my thirties, it seemed a lot of people my age were willing to talk to you merely to gauge whether you were going to be of use to them in some way. I was probably guilty of that too but it is always a good thing to be reminded to look for our responsibilities to others rather than opportunities for ourselves.

I must admit that it isn't just older, wiser folk that we have the pleasure of living near. We are now officially in our forties and the young, fresh-faced thirty-somethings are moving in around us. The beauty of this is that I now have people to call on to ask about the best place to have a dance and people that know about rhododendrons. (Obviously, while also thinking about my responsibilities to them such as loaning out slow cookers and passing on garden toys as needed..) The upshot is, I want you to take a moment to consider: how many of your friends are from entirely different age groups to you? If the answer is not many, I urge you to tap into this unwrapped treasure. Join a new group, start one yourself or, if all else fails, come join our village. We're the ones with W.B Yeats' words over the entrance; "There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't met yet."

The Kids Can Do Hard Things

This year is my eighth year teaching kids who are out of school. I generally teach them by themselves, in their home and we tend to chat a lot in between the curriculum activities. They can be out of school due to disruptive behaviour or crippling anxiety or any form of inability to cope in a school environment - no two stories are the same and I consider it a real privilege to gain their confidence and trust over the months we work together.

While each student obviously has their own story, there are two patterns that have become too clear in the conversations I have had over the years and I wanted to share these general trends with you. Firstly, most of these kids feel that the reasons things didn't work out well for them are external; they feel it is someone else's fault. Secondly, most of these kids feel that the solution to their predicament is external; someone else is going to solve their current situation. The fault is out there and the answer is out there.

Recently, in the lead up to Key Stage 2 SATs, I have read many posts complaining about how much pressure the schools are putting on our eleven year olds. There is anger at the system - why are our kids being subjected to testing at all? There is resentment of individual schools or teachers - why are the kids being overloaded with past papers at the expense of creative learning experiences? There is concern about individual kids - how can it be acceptable that they are waking crying in fear of failure? There is criticism of the actual test papers - how can our kids be expected to pass tests that many adults are claiming to find impossible?

It got me thinking about where I stand in all of this.

In every conversation I've had with friends regarding any of the above complaints, I found myself commiserating and nodding along to the anger and resentment. It's hard not to see these points of view. However, I think we are doing our kids a real disservice by approaching their experience in this way. Yes, the system is uncomfortable. Yes, the kids are worked incredibly hard to learn grammar and maths. Yes, the tests are flipping challenging. But how much is our handling of all of this contributing to their negative experience?

Like it or not, these tests are here for the entire state-educated nation. We can hate them but the kids are still having to sit them. The popular approach has been to reassure kids that these tests aren't testing them, they are testing the school. They don't need to worry about them or work hard for them as the school are at fault for putting them in this horrible situation. Again, I took part in this rationale and can see its short term benefits. However, I have changed my tune. I realised that, in giving our kids these platitudes, we are planting the early seeds of what I'm now seeing in the teenagers who have fallen out of the system. We're effectively saying it is not their responsibility to work hard, it is the school's. Their teacher/school is at fault for requiring this of them. The fault is out there and the answer is out there.

My eleven year old has had to work incredibly hard this year but I am grateful for this. I want him to be a hard worker. I don't want him to ever think that it is anyone's responsibility other than his for him to work hard. I want him to understand that the consequences of not working hard will be his to own - he can't throw that blame to anyone else. By criticising the schools and cuddling them close, aren't we communicating that they should resent and blame people who expect them to work hard and need us to protect them from any such people? How will this work when they carry this through to Year Ten? To their first job? To their relationships?

I hear the shouts that they are just kids - I get it, I do. But I have seen these patterns spread from the early years and cause much bigger hurdles in the later years that I think it is really important that we really take our own stand on who we want our kids to be. Kids don't forget the times you have let them off the hook or criticised their teachers. These will be hurled back at you when you are trying to get them to stay focused at the start of Year 9. Surely we want them to grow up knowing that they have the power to forge their own paths and the responsibility for their own part in following them.

This is also my eighth year marking the SATs. I have to say that I was shocked when I first saw the level of grammar that these kids were expected to understand. This year, it has been a quiet pleasure to see how they are all rising to the occasion. This generation really know their stuff when it comes to reading and writing and that is such a powerful life tool. If you can write well then you can think well and that is surely a gift we'd like our kids to have. Admittedly, the tests are causing external havoc but the kids are quietly getting on and working hard and I am really proud of them. May they always know they can do hard things.

Permission Granted

Yes, it has been nineteen months since my last blog. Was that intentional? No. Am I going to spend longer than this sentence worrying about that? No.

This weekend I went to a Writing Workshop run by the glowing Liz Gilbert. For those of you unfamiliar with LG, she wrote Eat, Pray, Love about two lifetimes ago then wrote a bunch of other things including Big Magic and has been living and loving and inspiring women ever since. Married and divorced twice, recently bereaved of the love of her life (her female soulmate), asking the difficult questions, owning what she knows and acting accordingly, she is my hero. To say that I would leave my cosy little existence and follow her around the world if she asked is an understatement. I adore her.

So, this Saturday brought an auditorium of like-minded Liz junkies to London to hang off her every word. The love in that room was pulsing. On the way in, I found myself randomly offering to hold the coffee of the woman in front of me while she searched for her ticket in her enormous handbag. As I sat down in my seat, the girl next to me introduced herself immediately and there was connection. Connection everywhere - we all knew that we all loved Liz and that meant we all must love each other too. I could feel the nervous cynicism of the friend I'd brought with me slowly thawing. At that precise moment in time, the entire country was sat on the edge of their sofa waiting for Meghan Markle to arrive for her Prince but our focus was the door beside the stage and when it would open for our own beautiful American.

She appeared - all smiles and white teeth and comfy clothes. As is her neat, contained approach, she had divided the day into the six voices we all carry in our heads: Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity. We would be writing letters between these voices with the emphasis on listening to what each of them wanted to say when they weren't being interrupted. While every letter brought, by turns, tears, deep breaths, head shaking and stranger hugs, the most powerful for me was letter number three. This dealt with permission. Liz talked about tribal living and how we all have elders in our tribes who set the expectations. If we fall outside these expectations, we are out of the tribe so we follow the tribal script. These tribal elders could be your father, mother, spouse, friend, the Pope - anyone who lives in your head making you think you need their approval.

For the sake of ease, this ultimate authority was called 'Your Headteacher'. We were asked to write a letter to ourselves from 'Our Headteacher', giving us permission to do the things we really wanted to do. What followed was a handful of brave women standing to read out excerpts from their letters and the auditorium responded with a heartfelt, 'Permission granted!' Powerful stuff (and, ironically, rather tribal but we'll let that slip because of all the love in the room). One lady wrote, 'I give you permission to have another baby.' Another: 'I give you permission to not visit your mother on her birthday this year.' Another: 'I give you permission to stop inviting Barbara and Audrey to the group dinners because they NEVER INVITE US BACK'. Permission granted! You get the picture. Liz, in all her sweetness and badassery wrote, 'I give you permission to buy a tent, in whatever colour you like, and keep it in your car backseat for spontaneous camping trips.'

There were two interesting points about this exercise for me. Firstly, who is your tribal elder? Secondly, what would you do if you had the permission? I struggled with the first one and I think this is because I have accumulated so damn many over the years! Pretty much everyone who has presented with an ounce of confidence had me believing they were in charge. I'm am pleased to report I am getting MUCH better at policing this. The second one was simple. I would write. I would quit all jobs, any need for jobs, stop fannying about and bloody write. So I'm back. Not quite brave (or anywhere rich) enough to quit all my jobs but I'm writing. Permission has been granted.

Playing with Plot

This month I have been playing with fiction writing. Thought I'd share a little sample:

Running her finger over the ridges in her thumbnail, she took a deep breath. She smelt warm soil and her own high expectations. The small black tray in front of her had seemed so fragile in the garden centre one day ago but now it had grown in strength; filled with moist earth and the importance of her task.

One by one she gently shook the seeds from the small packet into her left hand and separated them using the creases in her palm as dividers. Six for this tray and six saved in case the first ones failed. She made sure the reserve seeds were safely returned into the paper sleeve with the lip folded over; holding the first six down with her thumb.

Using the wrong end of a pencil, she carefully swirled six deep holes in two neat rows spaced equally across the tray. One seed was dropped into each and covered over with soil and her whispered pleas. The clouds stretched away from the sun, casting a sudden brightness on her garden table as she steadily poured water from her measuring jug. With another deep breath, she welcomed this as a sign of good things ahead.

"Hi love."

Daniel's voice sounded very close, possibly already in the kitchen. Normally his key in the door gave her time to move from her day to their day.

"Hey, I was just tidying some old things out of the shed. How was your day? Did you make your meeting?"

"Good - yes, just!" Daniel crossed the patio to kiss his wife's cheek. "Didn't realise you knew where the shed was," he teased her gently. "Well, Gareth came to the meeting with exactly the arrogance we predicted and he managed to drop into the conversation that he'd been at Georgio's last night with Michael Kennedy. Damn fool."

In one motion she rose, kissed his forehead, slipped the seed packet under his newspaper and placed them both on top of the recycling box that sat on the edge of the patio. Their evening had begun; as sweetly and calmly as they always had. Although tonight she held the quiet potential inside her like a secret.

Pots in My Head

I recently received some thinly-veiled disapproval about how I am raising my son. Little Man had had a tough day at school which had culminated in his lunchbox emptying messily into his school bag. What followed was a tired, emotional, end of week meltdown. Someone observed this and thought best to recommend a book to me that lots of 'really great mums' rated about us lowering the bar on kids' expectations of themselves.

A few months previously, this eager soul had given me a book to read entitled, 'The Gifts of Imperfection'. I detect a pattern. This person has a theory on me and it is leaking out in book recommendations. Once I had emerged from the stages of indignation - How dare they? Who are they to judge? Their problem is... Hmm, what if they're right? - I boiled it down to a distinct possibility: I am a perfectionist and this is affecting my family.

I don't know about you but I have always struggled to tell the difference between perfectionism and PMT. Do I want things done my way? Yes. Do I experience extreme irritation when people don't do it my way? Probably for two out of every four weeks.. I thought I had dodged the pure perfectionist bullet because I *gasp* can go to bed sometimes without wiping the kitchen counters down. That makes me laid back, right? A perfectionist could never do that.

Except they could. Because there is always a damn spectrum involved. Just because I can be sloppy on the crumb front, I can never stop reviewing the pots in my head. That's where my quest for perfect is working around the clock. I have a pot for each child, a pot for me as a mum, a pot for my parents, a pot for me as a daughter, a pot for my partner, a pot for me as a partner, a pot for work, the list goes on.

When things are going well in a life category, that pot is full, but one mishap can empty a pot. Once a pot has emptied, all hands are on deck to put it right; if someone thinks I am doing a bad job as a mum, that pot is empty all of a sudden and needs extra super-mumming until it's full again. The genius of this is that there is no filter. Even if I couldn't give two hoots what a person thinks, if they don't think I'm doing a good job, the pot empties.

Naturally, this is a full time job. There are very few times in life when every pot is brimming - more often than not, there are a few that need replenishing at any one time. No wonder I'm exhausted! I wholeheartedly agree with the 'OK is good enough' philosophy in theory. In practice, however, 'be the best you can be' resonates more clearly in my head. Do I need to check how this is being interpreted by my son? Probably. Although, if we're honest, aren't we all bouncing between these two messages daily? Food for thought. If you need a reading list, you know where I am.

Decorate Your Waiting Room

Is there something you really want to do? You may not have told anyone or allowed yourself to dwell on it but is there something crouched inside you that you remember occasionally and your heart flip flops? It might be to live somewhere new, to start a business or a creative project, it may be an escape plan from a relationship or a job, it might be an entirely different life you really want or it might be finding the time to take that course in that skill you really want to have. Do you feel you are waiting for the right time to do it?

That's ok.

I have a lot of things I am waiting for; some are realistic, others are dreams. The time to devote to learning a water sport, the time to write more, the chance to move back to the coast, the opportunity to study again, the summer I will get to spend on Nantucket. These are all things I grew up just assuming I would get to do. Just because they were on my list. Recently, I got into a panic that I was so far from being the person this list paints the picture of. My journals and Pinterest account reflect this person but she is virtual - the real me is working hard to bring up a young family, working part time in education, keeping on top of laundry, weeding a small garden, making time for date nights, worrying that I'm doing all of this well enough.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am very grateful for my life. I am one of the luckiest people I know. I actually love weeding. My panic wasn't really about wanting a different life, mine was more of a realisation of how far I had drifted from the original plan. And that's ok too. But I then thought how important it is to check in with the 'stuff you really want to do' every so often. We watched a programme last night and the matriarch of a lovely family, having brought up her four children over fifty years, felt it was finally her time to do something for herself. She loved painting so she booked herself on a month long trip to Italy to paint. And it made me wonder about the balance of giving your all to the here and now - meeting the kids' needs and all that involves - and allowing yourself to chase those dreams. Does it have to be all one and then the other or can they co-exist?

Many articles that I read shout that today's women should absolutely chase their dreams. Girl power. We should find that magical way of being everything to our families but also book those weekends on yoga retreats or set up the easel once everyone is in bed and practise our watercolour. I have to be honest, I struggle with that! I am quite all or nothing so the thought of taking a break from potty training to spend a week learning to surf fills me with confusion. How can you do either of these well if you are part-timing it? I have no doubt some of you manage this and I applaud you (and am slightly intimidated  by you). So I was left thinking will I rejoin the tracks of my dreams only once the responsibility to pay the mortgage/service the car/bake for the cake sale/clear out the shed/mediate the siblings/descale the kettle has died down?

But then I read a beautiful novel (where on earth would I be without that sentence?!). Nina George wrote The Little Paris Bookshop in German, Simon Pare translated it and my friend at the library recommended it to me. She said it was the story of a man who had a great start to life but then, when things went wrong, he hid himself away, wasting time, until life pulled him back in at the last minute. Having read it, I would recommend it but I wouldn't describe it like that. Jean Perdu runs a floating bookshop on the Seine. An early love affair blows his life wide but when it finishes, he devotes himself to his bookshop, recognising that, 'it was a common misconception that book sellers looked after books. They looked after people.'

Now I think Jean Perdu still had things he wanted to do but the time wasn't right. His bookshop became a waiting room of sorts BUT he was not wasting time. He knew that there would be another heart-bursting chapter in his life but he also knew the time leading up to that chapter was crucial. It wasn't glamorous or eventful but it was rich in soul food. When asked how he sold books, he says, "Books are like people, and people are like books. I'll tell you how I go about it. I ask myself: Is he or she the main character in his or her life? What is her motive?.. Is she in the process of editing herself out of her story, because her husband, her career, or her children or her job are consuming her entire text?..I compile courses of treatment. I prepare a medicine made of letters." " A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy."

This man was waiting but he was fully living in the meantime. He was learning and reading and talking and listening and thinking and getting to know how people work. When his next adventure came, he was ready as a result. This made me see my panic in a whole new light. I know there are more adventures ahead but it's not their time. A mistake would be to see this time, the present, as a sign that I should adjust my future dreams. This time is preparing me for them. I'm not in a waiting room, I am in my own floating bookshop. Yes, for now we are moored but that means we can stock up on all the rich land experiences until it is time to sail again. And it's really ok to wait.

I have a hero. I call him Dad.

So I took May off as a sabbatical – and when I say sabbatical I mean my annual relentless slog of exam marking. But now I’m back and ready to celebrate my fabulous dad in honour of the approaching Fathers’ Day. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, my dad has always been a bit of a hero, not just for me but for a good number of my friends too so I thought I would write a Grateful Daughter’s Guide to the Fabulous Dad. Any dads, uncles or grandads of young girls reading this – take note, follow these rules and she will be writing tributes to you in years to come!

Number 1: My dad taught me the value of adventure. My internal memory blanket is bursting with big and small adventures woven into each other, all overlapping and messy but full of colour. He took us on endless walks with no destination (a real skill to get kids to do this!), he took us camping in the rain, he drove us across continents led by his own itinerary, he up sticks and moved us around the globe for four years and taught us how small and gorgeous the world is. He gave us the confidence to be adventurers ourselves which I will be eternally thankful for.

Number 2: My dad taught me the importance of taking an interest in everyone you meet and remembering what they tell you. I am still learning how to do this but my dad is a rock star at it. He can be in any room of people and he will be the one having the most interesting conversation as he will be taking a genuine interest in who they are and he will actually be listening to learn; not waiting for his turn to speak. The best bit is the remembering part – even now my dad will be talking about a friend he had back at school and he will suddenly break the story to say, “Yes I played rugby with him, he was really interested in bees – he would spend hours studying them.” If dad ever met that friend now, he would make him feel amazing to know someone had remembered that about him.

Number 3: My dad taught me that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing perfectly. This applies to staying up that extra hour until two in the morning to proofread your essay one final time and ensure it reads well to making sure every bauble is placed just right on the Christmas tree. It is a mind-set, a dedication to quality. DIY jobs were always an art in our house growing up; you don’t rush, you get your tools in line, you measure endlessly from every possible angle and you enjoy the task.

Number 4: My dad taught me that exercise is really important. He did this first by role -modelling; I can’t tell you the amount of people who have told how great my dad was at football, at rugby, at gymnastics. I remember hours spent pulling his damn golf bag around the course, hours spent on a football side-line and moments of awe as he back-flipped his way up our back garden when he thought no one was watching. He then spent hours driving me and brother to swimming practices and endless competitions. He still maintains that the best remedy to a bad day is a swim. And he is right.

Number 5: My dad taught me to take lots of photos and to write lots of things down. This is all part of valuing your family and your experiences – don’t do it to the exclusion of being in the moment but having those little forgotten moments recorded somewhere will mean so much one day.

Number 6: My dad taught me to notice what people do well and tell them. This is a great one and is all part of being curious rather than judgemental. He always told us that everyone does something well and it was important to notice that and let them know you spotted it. Admittedly this was hard when he was trying to get me to see the positives in the class bully who was making my life hell but it is a great life lesson in breaking down barriers and thinking the best. It is also easier than hating. He still does it today; when my two-year-old launched a ball across his garden and knocked pretty much all the petals off dad’s beloved roses, dad said “Wow, nice throw!” and meant it.

Number 7: My dad taught me to not follow the trends; to be my own decision maker. I admit I struggle with this but I love that it is there as a lodestar to call me back to what is important to me. I don’t remember us as a family ever doing anything because other people thought we ought to. In fact, together with mum, dad always made independent decisions for us and didn’t wait around to check the fallout. I really aspire to tune into what is important to my family regardless of what other families are up to.

Number 8: My dad taught me the importance of laughing at myself. I was a horribly sensitive child and would scream in fury when dad would tease me. I dread to think how serious I would be now if dad hadn’t lifted that seriousness occasionally and tickled me. Even now, if I have a bad experience at work and my instinct is to run off, cry in the loo and berate the world for being so cruel, I find it helpful to see the twinkle in dad’s eye and remember that I just need to get over myself sometimes.

Number 9: My dad taught me to put people before principles. It is all well and good having strongly-held morals and opinions in this life and my dad has as many as the next person. However, he has shown me time and again that you quietly put those principles on the shelf and walk towards a person in need if the situation calls for it. In this way, we let our experiences shape our principles rather than the other way around.

Number 10: My dad taught me that life is difficult but it is not bad. There will always be times that we cannot see through to the end of, when we hurt, hurt and hurt some more. But. Life is fundamentally good and we have an important role to play in keeping it that way. Roll with the punches and find the silver linings.

So, Daughter Daddys out there – what you are doing is making a huge difference! Daddy on!