Motherhood And Mrs Gamston

I first became a mother in May 1980. I remember it well, because it was after a three-day labour, which as you women will know, is not unusual for a first baby. May 24th 1980, the day my life changed forever.

I held this amazing little scrap of humanity in my arms and experienced a tidal wave of emotion which was like God saying, “Now you know how much I love you.” I guess it’s moments like this one that prevent me from becoming an atheist, though I do have sympathies in that direction, I have to admit. I certainly have no belief whatsoever in a hell-fire and damnation deity, and this might prove to be my eternal undoing, who kmows?

I remember saying to my husband as I lay exhausted on the delivery bed, “They say you forget how painful labour is, but believe me, I NEVER WILL!” He wisely chose not to comment. You do though, forget, it’s strange, I read somewhere that there is a bio-chemical reason for this forgetting, which is anomalous, because usually one is programmed to remember pain in order to avoid repeating the experience. Evolurion will out, I guess.

Two more daughters arrived in due course, all three equally and uniquely loved. I vastly enjoyed growing them up. I thought of the process as one of having lit the blue touch paper, then standing back to watch the fireworks. And sometimes there were.

Ray and I have been reprising some of the highlights as we marry off the spinsters in our midst. Hannah, last Friday, Kate in a few week’s time …

‘Hedgehog land’, Kate’s paper round, Hannah”s Kick-boxing, Jen’s perpetual inability to ride a bike – and the wealth of embarrassing stories ( though not for me) that will be brought out for the grandchildren in due course, but which I can’t write here, because there would be repercussions …

I am not a perfect mother, I would feel I had failed if I’d tried to be, I used to worry, perhaps I will again, from time to time, that I’d been too lax, or too strict… .

I watched in amazement and admiration, as one mother of my acquaintaince, Mrs Hilda Gamston, who had RUlLES, check off her kids’ tv-watching on a tick-list. They were allowed one soap each, and each chose a different one, so had to shepherded in and out of the sitting-room. I doubt it lasted, but bully for her for trying.

I don’t think we had rules as such. We just had values. ‘This is how we do it in this family, we are kind and respectful to one another and to others.’ That was about it, really. One daughter skivved off a games lesson once, and got found out. Floods of tears followed her father just saying, “I’m very disappointed.” That was all.

I skivved off school at every opportunity, which seemed the most appropriate response to it, so I kept quiet on this one.

Mother-Of-The-Bride! You wait ten years then two come along at once … What fun, for me, at least,whose only obligation was to turn up and look happy. No problem there. Darren, Kate’s intended made sure my glass was never empty, and I breezed through the day in a cheerful if slightly inebriated haze of affability. You can tell by looking at me, I’m having a wonderful time.

One of the unforseen consequences of having three daughters, is that you end up with three sons of whom you were spared the expense and anxiety of raising. I have to hand it to my girls, they chose well: I’d have expected nothing less. I had to cross my fingers a couple of times along the way, grimly determined to love ’em no matter what, but it all turned out well in the end.

Then there are the granchildren! Well, what poppets! And the delightful prospect of more to come (One due two days after Kate’s wedding, which adds an extra layer of excitement to the proceedings,) I had better stop there ,because if I start on the grandchildren, you’ll be here all day.

Photo Challenge

Pursuit Of Happiness

I wrote down as one of my goals today, to write on the Pursuit of Happiness, and as I’m at the stage in goal-setting where the goals are pursued whether they make me happy or not – i.e. Day One – I’d better get started.

Naturally, I have nothing original to say, but as this is no hindrance to any other of the blogs around, I’m not going to let THAT get me down.

(Two paragraphs … Well, it’s a start.)

This all stems of course from my Resilience Training, which is now in Week 6. We are doing TLC’s which in the context of my RT means, Therapuetic Lifestyle Choices. Groan. I eat too much, I don’t get enough sleep, exercise is horrid, and I spend too much time doing untherapuetic things like … Sitting on my big fat sofa watching highly unsuitable television. I do have some fun too, but it does rather feel as though I shouldn’t …

“Seriously, Mary,” I nag, (And you know me, I NEVER nag.) “You have to make some changes if you want to live to be 106 in order to get every last penny back that you invested in The Prudential.”

The above is a long story, and I strongly suspect only I find it interesting, so moving on… .

There’s an App for it, says Clay Cook, the prof delivering this course, so I went to look, and there IS. I have been tinkering with it all day, and I am now checking on every one of my goings-on in order to decide whether or not I derive any benefit from them. It might sound very selfish to ask of the World, “Are you making me happy?” But as happiness is derived as much by giving as getting, or more so, it can work out to everyone’s benefit. Besides, if I’m pissed, everybody gets it. Not good.

Actually, apart from a slight ‘not being in the moment, moment’ when I thought something unpleasant about a woman who drove discourteously in my direction, and advising her to be more considerate in future, I haven’t done too badly today.

Nothing dramatic. No adrenaline rushes or mighty acts of mercy, just this:

Took clothes to a charity shop
Made a conscious act of forgiveness
Cleared out some junk
Bought a Big Issue
Ate a fruit salad instead of a bar of chocolate
Did my exercises the physio gave me for my back
Weighed in on Wii Fit
Spent some time in silence after doing the church flowers
Offered to help a friend out on Sunday
Played with my granddaughters
Had a glass of wine with my lunch
And finally…
Sat in the garden with the flowers, trees and birds and
Blogged.

Not a single moment of unhappiness.

Result!

Poor Need Not Apply

My landlady died in January. This came as a huge surprise, not least to her, because everyone, including she, thought her indestructible. Mrs Jane Brooks. I knew her not-so-well, because she didn’t let casual people like me get very close, but she was a jolly good sort. There are not many people it would be at all appropriate to label so these days, but Jane was one of them. I feel slightly guilty, calling her , ‘Jane’ because she never allowed it, and I was always, firmly, politely, MRS FRANCIS. In capitals, like Terry Pratchett’s Death character, because Jane was no shrinking violet.

I called her after her first operation for a brain tumour last Spring. ‘I’M STILL HERE, DEAR!’ She trumpeted, and I was glad.

Do you know ANYONE who watches ‘Ready Steady Cook!’ and then makes the dishes? Mrs Brooks did. She was, as it happens, a jolly good cook, along with being a jolly good sort. Once upon a time Mrs B was a midwife and District Nurse in the less salubrious suburbs of Gloucester. “I COULD TELL YOU A FEW THINGS DEAR! Give her her due, she never did. What happened in the birthing room, stayed in the birthing room.

She was very old-fashioned, and I loved her for it. After her husband died, she came to play in Assembly (Collective Worship you have to call it now. Funny, the less like worship it became, the more you had to say it.). All my kids would be able to belt out the old hymns at weddings and funerals, thanks to Mrs Brooks. And many other beautiful works besides.

In an act of utter vendetta, she was sacked as Music Director at her beloved Parish Church, in Ledbury, where she led one of the few real Choirs (besides the cathedral of course) left in the county. I knew it, but never spoke of it. Mrs Brooks would not have wanted me too, she carried her emotions very close to her chest.

Church people can be very cruel.

It would never have been appropriate to tell Jane how fond I was of her, and how I admired her courage, especially as death approached. I’m doing it now for no other reason than that it’s true.

I wasn’t going to write about Mrs B, but she came to mind because there are men in, replacing the windows, and the cottage echoes to hammering, sawing and -worse – the builders’ radio. Mike and Brian, are good guys, hard-working and conscientious. Mrs Brooks would never be doing with new windows. She held her pennies in like-vein to her emotions, though she wasn’t mean. We pay way under market-rate for our home even now.

That’s going to change, and I’m not complaining. There’s a lot of work needs doing to weather-proof the house, and it’ll have to be paid for. But it did start us thinking we ought to be looking around in case the lovely Mr Brooks (Jane’s step-son) decides that at 75, he’s too old for landlording.

What a shock! Pokey little hen-houses ‘For Seniors’ (I’m NOT a bloody ‘Senior’! Call me a Senior and you’ll regret it!) which would make cat-swinging laughable, ARE available if you want to pay £550 pcm for them. Computer designed too – which means you can have French Windows that give you three feet of vista before a 10 ft high brick wall! No wonder they don’t sell.

Don’t worry about me, I’ll manage, and well, but, I was thinking, as I looked at pages of over-priced apartments, how do people on low incomes, or worse, none, ever get housed? There’s the high rent for starters, rising ahead of wages, for sure, then the month-and-half deposit, PLUs estate agents’ fees, and then the fee to have you ‘checked’ … What a bloody cheek! £75 for accessing information about ME that I never agreed anyone could hold in the first place! More on this later, I feel.

‘NO DSS’ appeared on every single letting advertisement. Which means the unemployed, no matter what their circumstances, needn’t bother to apply. A whole swathe of society indiscriminately discriminated against… .

I wonder why this is even legal. I do not wish to be the tenant of anyone so mean-spirited. But. I doubt I’ll have any choice.

Good old Mrs B. You didn’t ask for references, and didn’t do a credit check, and I’m certain we’ll get our deposit back when we have to leave. We thought you’d live for ever, Jane, and we sure wish you had!