Commuter Blues

Perhaps there is something wrong with me that I am unable to ignore the hideous and disgusting habits of my fellow commuters. But once something catches the corner of my eye, I can't seem to leave it alone, even as I feel my blood pressure rising. There is a thirty-something man who has that quite wiry textured, curly short hair and seems to have a compulsion to gently stroke one of the curls at his temple between finger and thumb as he reads his book. For some reason this habit prevents me from reading mine. Now, really, I can see that he should be allowed to persist with this habit if he wants to, and perhaps he has no idea even that he is doing it. But, if I am unlucky enough to be sitting next to him, this gentle stroking (excessively gentle, actually) turns my stomach and has the effect on me of making me want to point out to him what he is doing, and ask him if he realises he can probably get treatment for his possible obsessive compulsive neurotic behaviour. Resisting this urge to give advice, while he carries on doing it, makes me want to actually scream. Perhaps it is I who needs the treatment.

Apart from the noisy schoolchildren and the intrusive sounds of other people's music, sometimes there are people who are, quite simply, utterly revolting. This morning, a middle-aged woman in a tweed suit and flip-flops (I know, I thought it was a very odd combination too) examined what she had just picked out of her ear, idly rolling it between her fingers for AGES, as with her other hand she scrolled her touch screen phone, before flicking whatever it was she cared not where. She then proceeded to get something from her nose and do the same. Presumably she thought she was being discreet, as she continued in this vein until, much to my relief, someone came and sat beside her blocking my view. I was then delighted to note that the someone who sat beside her was a woman who has irritated me in the past by loudly flicking the pages of her newspaper into my territory as she decides which one she actually wants to read.

Good, I thought. Let these two vile people irritate and disgust the hell out of each other.

It is always with relief that I stand by the doors ready to get out at my station. This morning, it was with more relief than usual. As I waited, I happened to glance into first class and suddenly understood why people would pay more to be allowed to travel that way. A smart man in a dapper suit sat, alone and uninterrupted, reading the paper quietly. He glanced up and smiled at me. I smiled back, while entertaining a small fantasy in which he would say, 'Do you by any chance work in the world of publishing? Because if you do, would you like to come and work for me?' and I would say 'As it happens, I do, and I would.' Naturally, I would omit to tell him about my present job as assistant picture editor and one half of the editorial team at an extremely old-fashioned publishers which actually makes calendars.....oh, and postcards.

Disturbia in Suburbia

A couple of weeks ago, I was in my local park walking the dog after work on a tranquil sunny evening. Or at least it was tranquil until I came across some guy out with his family, disturbing the peace by throwing water bombs against the closed aluminium shutter of the park cafe. He was having fun and entertaining his daughter who was about four. The water bombs were making a hell of a racket as they hit the aluminium, and when some of the water sprayed some old geezer who was sitting nearby having a quiet fag, he told the bloke 'That's enough!'

Water-bomb-man was incredulous and started saying how it was only an effing water bomb, not doing anyone any harm etc.

Old Geezer: You've just splashed me with water.
WaterBombMan: F**ing hell! It's only water *swear *swear
Old Geezer: Well, that's enough now, I'm soaked.

WaterBombMan (whose name I shall now change to Psycho) suddenly took on an insane expression and rapidly strode over to the OldGeezer, swearing and making threats- "come here after dark and say that!" - all still in front of his child and another older girl who may also have been his daughter, as well as an older girl who may have been their mother and was surely his girlfriend. Both those children had started to look rather frightened, but this man was far from being able to notice or care about such things. This man wanted to start a fight with the OldGeezer. He was probably in his early to mid twenties, wearing ridiculous over-sized leisure-wear that may have been something to do with American baseball.

I thought (briefly) about asking him whether he was aware he was scaring his children, but thought better of it. He was actually starting to scare me now, even as I walked hurriedly away with the dog. He carried on shouting and riding around on an undersized bike. He rode past me very fast, shouting something about f**ing rednecks and f**ing dogs. Luckily I was wearing dark glasses and so was able to carry on walking as if I'd assumed he couldn't possibly be talking to me.

I hope for their sake those weren't his children, but it sends a chill right through me to think that they had anything to do with such a clearly unhinged and aggressive individual.

Later that week I saw the mother and the two girls in a green car.

The follow week JP was hit by a flying egg from a passing green car when he was on his way home from a run one evening. At least he thought it was a green car. I couldn't help thinking...water-bomb throwers are possibly quite partial to chucking the odd egg out of their windows to entertain themselves and their passengers. Mmm...perhaps I'm just being paranoid.

Is it me, or are there more furious psychopaths out there than there used to be?

Mother's Pride

I cannot help but want to announce to the world, or at least the two or three people who read this blog, that SurfGirl, soon-to-be-6thFormGirl again, has excelled herself and gone and got an A Star Grade IN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HER GCSE EXAMS !!!!
Yes, you did read that right - A stars all round. I think that may mean she got between 97% and 100% in all the exams she took! Well, blow me down with a feather, I'm sorry to keep repeating it but how can one possibly do that? Even in subjects she didn't like? Is it me, or is that rather unusual?

She is a clever girl I know, but I have to say she has also worked hard all her life and she thoroughly deserves the grades she got.

SOMETHING ELSE I'M DELIGHTED ABOUT:
The person who is the most proud and boasty about this fantastic achievement is UniGirl, who cried with pride as we heard the news and immediately rang everyone she knew to brag about her sister. This generosity of spirit in the face of her little sister getting even better grades than she did (pretty sure hers were five A stars and five As), is something which delights me just as much as the results themselves. UniGirl (a right little clever-clogs herself, actually) understands that SurfGirl has always been playing catch-up with her intelligent and wonderful older sister, just because she happened to be born second. SurfGirl has even been known to imagine that her achievements would mean less to us all because UniGirl will always have got there first - but let me assure you my SurfGirl, my 6thFormGirl, my A*Girl, if you are reading this, that is all a load of old BOLLOCKS! You are BOTH fabulous daughters, balanced, loving, kind, caring girls with great attitudes and wonderful, generous spirits and I am the proudest woman in the world to call myself your mother!

An encounter with Harry Enfield in Polzeath

The picture on my home page is of my daughter and my step-daughter a few years ago in wonderful Polzeath, in Cornwall. As a family, we are in love with this place and the thought of not going in the summer is actually depressing. Luckily, this year we managed it, even though we hadn't planned to go and, as always I felt choked as we arrived, with that incredulous feeling one has after setting off at 3am and finally getting there, that we are really, really here, and we're allowed to stay here for, in this case, a whole week. After the first couple of days I feel restored, as if my batteries have been recharged.

I am thinking of changing 6thFormGirl's name to SurfGirl, which is maybe what I should have called her in the first place. Now that we are back in our beloved Polzeath, I am reminded of her passion for the place and, not least, the surfing. In any case, she hasn't actually started the 6th Form yet and doesn't do so until September, so until then, SurfGirl it is.

SurfGirl has her own surfboard, which she bought with her own birthday money last year. It has a green design and is easy to spot in amongst the garish blue and yellow hire boards. She has always notched up the hours in the water and often stays in , riding those waves, until her lips are blue. Not that I'm an expert or anything but she does look very elegant on her board, and I love sitting on the cliffs above with my binoculars, looking out for that green board. The first day when the waves are good, SurfGirl and her friend stayed in for something like four hours. After watching from the cliffs, JP and I snuck off for some garlic prawns and sticky toffee pudding at the nearby Salt Water Bistro, as you do, and when we got back to the holiday abode, were pleased to see the girls had returned safely, their boards and wetsuits lying outside and the front door unlocked. It was so quiet we wondered if they had so exhausted themselves that they had gone to sleep. After a while I decided to go and check they were actually in and found surfGirl's friend who reported that SurfGirl had gone for a coffee - she met someone.
Me: What sort of someone? Who has she met?
SurfGirl's Friend: Oh, just some surf person...
Oh my god, my daughter has just gone off with a complete stranger! JP said not to worry, it's probably that boy we saw her talking to out at sea sitting on their boards.
Well, yes. That may well be - but who is it? Is it some crazed 26 year old, tattooed, bearded, drink-driving, drug-crazed lunatic? Or is it a boy her own age? And in any case what about her friend? And for the next half hour, until she returned, I alternated between silent panic and self-calming attempts to tell myself - this is normal, she is 16, she's gone out for coffee - BIG DEAL! When she got in:
Me: Oh good, you haven't been kidnapped. Who did you meet that you went for coffee with?
SurfGirl: Oh, just a person I met surfing.
Me: What's his name?
SurfGirl: Tom
Me: Is he nice? (!)
SurfGirl: Yes.
Me: Well, who is he? How old is he?
SurfGirl: 15.
Me: oh, good. So, not some dodgy man then, trying to give you a ride in his car.
SurfGirl (looking at me as though I was quite mad): No Mum, don't worry.

And of course, I shouldn't worry. Because SurfGirl is trustworthy and probably quite a good judge of character. Will this maternal compulsion to protect my offspring from any harm whatsoever ever diminish? Because of course, this is all to do with nature, innit? As soon as we give birth we become responsible for keeping a whole other human alive and safe and out of harm's way... Daunting, eh?

And now to my encounter with Harry Enfield...

Actually, an encounter is probably pushing it, but lovely, smiley-faced, twinkly blue-eyed Harry Enfield was there, running down the coastal path steps behind me and I had to get out of his way and so of course he had to thank me and...well anyway, perhaps it can be counted as a small encounter? or even a brief encounter? There is always someone there we've all heard of... Last year it was Nigella Lawson, who was wafting down to the beach with an enormous hat and an even bigger entourage. She didn't look like she was on holiday though, more as if she was doing some kind of windswept photoshoot. She didn't have that relaxed, weathered look that everyone gets in this magical place, she was simply too glamorous for Polzeath. And then of course, there's Hugh Grant, he seems to be there most years, dining and playing charades in the Atlantic Hotel, which has sadly been turned into time-share flats now, and has been spotted body boarding on an old wooden board, without a wetsuit. Last year someone said they saw Colin Firth...

When I recognise someone famous on holiday, I have to fight a compulsion to talk to them, telling myself they are on holiday and probably don't want to be disturbed and interrupted by people they don't know, but who think they know them. I have to remind myself that just because I have recognised them, it doesn't necessarily mean they will recognise me, seeing as I've never been on the telly and am not actually famous for anything. I suspect most of the sorts of people on holiday in Polzeath are English enough and polite enough not to disturb Harry and by now, he's probably wondering why no one has recognised him!

Questionable Habits

Since my hesitant plunge into the world of full-time work, I undergo a daily mini-commute consisting of a 15-minute train journey. I realise that to some of you 15 minutes sounds like an indulgent luxury, but to me it’s 15 minutes of being sneezed on, coughed at, barged past by little boys with cricket bats sticking out of their bags and generally irritated by the fact that people these days seem to treat trains as their own personal office spaces, or kitchens. Sometimes I am able to let it all glide over me and I sit there in wry amusement, as I am forced to eavesdrop on people’s extremely dull conversations about the most mundane things all to the background accompaniment of the tap, tap, tapping of laptop buttons and urgent-sounding text messaging.

Sometimes I sit back, watch the scenery go by, relax and enjoy a good old nosy listen. Other times, I am simply affronted by the sheer arrogance of the man that can sit down opposite someone who is quietly reading a book, and proceed to have a very protracted, boring and exceedingly loud conversation, while sitting two feet away from the quiet, minding-their-own-business-and-reading person. At least the unfortunate soul on the other end of the phone has a choice – they can hang up. But we, the poor prisoners of the 8.04 to Charing Cross, have to endure whatever our fellow commuter throws at us. And after all, we’re only trying to get to bloody work.

I've been commuting to work on the train for ten months now, and already I realise I have become a creature of habit. I've learned as I've gone along that if you travel at the same time as thousands of school children, it pays to be careful which part of the train you get on. And I've also learned that other commuters have their travelling habits too. The rowdy little school boys, some with alarmingly high-pitched voices, who spend their journey screwing the free newspapers into balls and throwing them at each other, and have absolutely no awareness of other people, tend to travel in the middle and last few carriages. The quieter teenagers (probably quiet as they are not fully awake yet) travel nearer the front of the train and sometimes have the sort of conversations that indicate that they, too, are unaware of the other people on the train.

And it's not just all the kids who are in their own private train-world. There's Gerry, or is it Terry, (he once wore some kind of conference pass with his name on) who likes to sit in exactly the same window seat every day and will hover on other seats until his seat looks like it might become free. As soon as the other person's buttocks begin to rise out of the seat Gerry/Terry will mow anyone down who tries to get there before him. If you happen to be the unfortunate person sitting opposite this special seat Terry/Gerry will think nothing of barging your knees out of the way with his, flapping his newspaper open noisily and spreading it out so it invades the tiny space you thought you could call your own, all the while avoiding eye contact at all costs. There is the smiling woman on the platform, who for ages I assumed was smiling at me but turns out to have some kind of permanent smiling disorder. And the ginger woman on my way home, who has to stand at the same door of the same carriage, in order to get out near the station stairs and exit without being mown down by hoards of excitable children going home...actually that's not a bad ploy and one I've taken up myself recently.

So, yes, I admit it. I have formed certain commuting habits and most of them spring from wishing to avoid other people's habits. I've been keeping my eye on the other commuters, studying the politics and etiquette, or lack of it, but until now it hadn't occured to me that I, too, might be under scrutiny.

Following a weekend where 6thFormGirl had been to her first actual music festival to see, among others, Bob Dylan play live - she’s 16 for god’s sake, and I’m 45 and I’ve never seen Bob Dylan- (though I have seen BB King, Amy Winehouse and Dr John, though obviously not all at the same time) she set off on Monday morning for the start of her work experience week at a top law firm. Well, we actually set off together as she needed to get the same train as me for the start of her journey.

6FG: Mum, why do you cross the road here, instead of at the zebra crossing near the station?
Me: Er... I don't know. Um..I just do.
6FG: It means you have to cross more roads. (Not actually true, but never mind)
Me: I just like crossing here.
6FG: Mmm...

Looking like an elegant and very young little lawyer, wearing the dress and shoes we shopped for, her unruly long, curly hair tied in a neat bun, carrying a jacket and a neat handbag that UniGirl had lent her, 6thFormGirl got off after one stop to change trains. As my train pulled away I saw her utterly dignified figure standing on the platform and my heart curled at the edges. How did we get here? My actual child was not really still a child. Oh my God, she was off to London in probably quite uncomfortable shoes, feet held together with plasters, with a Google map I’d printed off at work marking her route from station to office door. Would she find it? Would the trains run smoothly? Would she get there on time?

Yes, yes and yes. She was fine. And, eventually, later than anyone else in the family, she came home positively aglow with satisfaction.

She'd had a great day. She'd read important sounding documents, been treated to a two-hour lunch in Pizza Express and promised a day in court later in the week. The relief at having got through the day without mishap was shining through.

When we arrive at the station on the second day I carry on walking to the further end of the platform as I usually do, away from the noisy school boys. 6thFormGirl raises an eyebrow.

6FG: Nice spot you've got here, Mum.

Dysfunctional household?

Our house is held together with araldite.

I am keeping an eye on some chicken bits that are roasting while JP is out on a run. The reason I need to keep my eye on it is not to make sure it doesn’t burn but to make sure it actually continues to cook. Because we have one of those ovens that switch off at random intervals throughout the cooking process. You know, the ones, don’t you? The ones that silently turn themselves off half an hour before your chicken is due out of the oven, or five minutes after you’ve put it in. The beauty of it is its unpredictability. So you can never moan that cooking is boring. And, as luck would have it, we also have a matching hob – it has four rings of assorted sizes but only three work and we’ve been managing fine on three rings for about eight months...not that I’m counting or anything. But now the oven has joined its malfunctioning mate and that really does make providing meals for a family of six or seven, or more if you count the odd boyfriend, more of a challenge.

Yesterday JP came downstairs with the door, the entire door, of the tumble drier in his hand muttering about Araldite – I swear our house is held together with the stuff. Apparently the hinge is broken so we can’t use it as it’s bound to fall off on someone’s foot, and they’re quite heavy those tumble drier doors. The shelves in the door of the fridge are held together with a combination of screws and araldite or similar and the drawers of the freezer have to be seen to be believed. Honestly, I’m not kidding. The ones that we can actually open have bloody great chunks ripped out of the plastic where we’ve pulled too hard, given the amount of ice surrounding them, and pieces of the drawers have simply torn off in our hands. Talk about a dysfunctional household – the boiler switches itself on and off whenever it feels the urge, and anyway if you switch the hot water on, the radiators roar into life as if you had requested that the central heating is fired up; the kitchen sink has a crack in it which has been there since we moved in six years ago. UniGirl’s bed is broken and needs a strong bit of string – see, what am I saying? What the hell am I saying? Needs a strong piece of string? That can’t be normal can it, to react like that when one’s offspring’s bedsprings have sprung? There is a large crack in the hall ceiling, which happens to be directly under the bath, only two out of seven of our downlights in the kitchen work at any one time otherwise the fuses blow, the vacuum cleaner switches off just as randomly as the oven and the boiler, and for God’s sake don’t even get me started on the state of the shower – Is this what they mean by a dysfunctional household?

Two days later.....

On the other hand, I have some rather wonderful things to say about our household. The beauty of living with teenagers is that they can actually do things, really useful things - like walking dogs, emptying dishwashers, popping to the local shops for bread and milk, washing up and.... cooking. Oh, the cooking that occasionally occurs really is the business. To have a gorgeous meal prepared for you on a week night, after a hard day’s work, by willing, capable and competent people you’ve brought into the world (though not necessarily for that purpose)...well, it really is a treat.

Last night after I got home from work, for instance, 6thFormGirl and I had to go shopping for some proper smart clothes for her to wear for work experience next week at a top London law firm. (her usual fabulous style is as tad boho.) I was hot, hungry, tired, and a bit stressed about our dear dog Virginia Woof, who is suffering from itchy skin and for whom we’ve tried so many tactics and remedies, all of them less than satisfactory. It took two hours to find an ensemble, which may or may not be suitable, but is elegant and smart and she looks exquisite in it. When we got home we were knackered and hungry and we found a sight to gladden the eyes and heart. Lovely UniGirl was installed in the kitchen, cheerily grating ginger and squeezing limes for her salmon in filo pastry recipe.

After initial start-of-evening-greetings all round, JP and I had some time on our own to chat and watch the news while this culinary delight was being prepared. Bliss. 6thFormGirl had been out to buy the extra salmon needed to feed us all, and UniGirl’s boyfriend Welsh dashed out at the last minute to buy sweet chilli dip from the local takeaway. By the time we were called to the table, the kids had laid it and there were six perfect filo parcels and green beans arranged on a platter in the middle of the table. God, they are feeding us better than we feed them! (though obviously not nearly as often) The point is, this was a voluntary act of UniGirl’s and there was co-operation involved, from darling JP doing the week's shopping in the first place to all the other contributions, and there was good will, and appreciation all round. Afterwards, as has happily become the custom, the ones who didn’t cook and prepare supper did the clearing up. There was no one person who did everything. Although, a special thanks goes to UniGirl for the delicious dinner.

I did feel quite awful though about the fact that, inevitably, the oven was up to its tricks again.
UniGirl: Mum, the oven's just turned off.
Me: Oh, yes, it does that now.
UniGirl: Does it? Oh.
Me: JP! The oven's gone off again, can you do your trick?
UniGirl: It's ok! It's come back on! Oh, no it's gone off again...
JP: Have you tried twisting the knob all the way round and then back again?
UniGirl: It's fine now. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on it.

I am sitting in the kitchen now, having done something to the knobs with knives and WD40, wondering how long our chicken's going to take tonight...

Why the blog?

Mummy-wise, things haven't gone too badly.....

I was a Montessori teacher for seven years before I embarked on the motherhood thing and, luckily for us all, those years taught me so much and influenced the way I did things with my daughters. I became passionate about giving children a good life, treating them with respect, (more about that later....), allowing them their dignity, appreciating who they are, preparing them for.... well, everything! My fantastic boss at that time (she is now my BF and godmother to UniGirl and 6thFormGirl) inspired me with her own passion on the same subject, and we still talk about it all...

And I also wanted a good relationship with my children, for my sake as well as theirs.

So what I'm saying is, aspects of Montessori have been so useful, and so important to me, and have made things so much easier than they might have been, I thought I'd like to share them. Who knows how things would have been had I not had the Montessori influence? Would it have entered my head, for instance, that it might not be a good idea to smack children? That shouting and smacking children gives them a very strange message about how we should all behave towards each other...

I'm not some kind of world authority on the subject, or any subject come to that...but some of this might actually turn out to be useful.

Isn't it great when your offspring know more than you do about stuff and they teach you things? Very helpful with the old interwebs...
I said to UniGirl, 'should I really sign my post like this, or is that a bit naff?' (Think old fashioned word like 'naff'' puts me firmly in my age group.) UniGirl said 'No, it's fine. That's exactly what people do Mum.'

The desire to start this blog came from some conversations during a day trip to see my family. I was going to go on my own, but my eldest daughter (UniGirl, 19) is back home from her first year at uni and, much to my delight, she decided to come with me to visit my two brothers and their gorgeous families.They have got seven children between them - Wonderful mayhem, though not all the children were there, only five of them....

One of my sisters-in-law straight away got into conversation with UniGirl about Virginia Woolf and Dickens and Shakespeare...
Both brothers are younger than me and I was the first of us to have children, so all the grown-ups were marvelling at how UniGirl and my other daughter (6thFormGirl, 16) had grown up and were such a delight....

UniGirl to 4 year old cousin: Have you ever seen a real zebra? At the zoo?
Cuzz: No. Can we go to the zoo next time you come over?
UniGirl: that would be fun.
Cuzz: can you drive us there?
UniGirl: I haven't got a car
Cuzz: Oh....You're not a proper grown-up.