The birdies in my hedgerows are twittering....
As readers of heatherdownunder will know, the idea of having a child whose birthday threatened to overshadow my own was not something I received with the equanimity one expects of a proper caring put-other's-first mother. However at the time I had not grasped the concept of "birthday week".
It is actually slightly longer than a week - more like 10 days, but there is more or less one every 2 days with Rosie, me, my mum, John (uncle flying) and Richard following hot on each other's heels. The result was ten days of complete entertainment. A blast in fact. The fact that there was a couple of specials in their this year (65 and 40) was the sherbert on the top, but I'm sure between us we can always ensure there is one of those...
It started with the "small family and friends party" which got out of hand and ended up being a bit of a do, in a pub, for 35 or so. It was a really happy occasion featuring large numbered balloons, iggle piggle, a trolleyed pensioner and lots of lovely people. My birthday evening was our second thwarted open mic session (they heard we were coming and obviously closed the joint), but still involved ritual humiliation (at the hands of the staff of Galllipoli on upper street).
Beyond fabulous was an impromptu Friday night out with the other Heather and Elise, wedged between the birthday parties, at a club dedicated to the 1940s - where everyone was dressed in the full regalia and the majority could lindy hop too. I gasped when I saw them - it truly felt like going back in time. The band played some of my all time favourite French songs and I was grinning from ear to ear when I rolled in at 2am. By the time we got to John's 40th in BoA I was significantly worse for wear and thought I would take weeks to recover..
However sunshine and birds twittering in the mornings, good sleep and good food plus a new found penchant for getting my garden into glorious shape has meant that I have bounced back pretty quickly. Almost a shame to go to work these days. Rosie and I would much rather sit on our bottoms in the paddling pool (hers is bare - shh call child protection)....
It's a gas...
Rosie is two today. And she is a complete gas. I'd characterise her as happy, vivacious, intelligent, fun, loving, independent and stubborn. I don't have the network to make comparisons these days, which is probably just as well, but the nursery tell us she is well ahead of the game and seems to be getting on top of numbers and counting, copies almost everything we say, is most definitely comprehensible and knows who she is.
That's "Wosie".
Was it really only a year ago that the Cremorne Mother's Group, together with awkward fathers, gathered for that first birthday party at Clontarf reserve? And two years since I sat on the bog with that gas and air? The more time goes by the more I look back in horror ... pregnancy, birth and the first year... I certainly made the best of it and for months at a time I was genuinely enjoying myself, but it never really felt like me - more something I was play-acting at. As time goes on, you grow into motherhood like a new skin which feels very weird to start with - and probably felt specially so to me because of the traumatic circumstances of her birth, and where I was living.
However, there is a huge (and welcome) difference between being glued to a wailing, crawling, incomprehensible bundle and spending time with a rushing, bold, nattering, nutter who, oh yes makes herself understood...
"Mickle; mummy; two-two, now?"
Dearest mummy (well perhaps not the first bit as daddy currently gets all the kisses), please may we go down the stairs (two twos) and watch Iggle piggle in the night garden.. now)
I knew I did languages for a reason....
Friends old and new...
Where friends are concerned, for years I was a stick in the mud. That's to say I knew who they were, they'd been around for ever, and there was no space for anyone new. It probably had to do with living a long way from where I worked and having ittle time for out of work activities.
Panic set in in Oz. With no work and no family, I had to find friends or go nuts. In the event I did both of course...
Striking up acquaintance with such an outgoing bunch was easy, but friendship is a different matter. It must be a bit like dating. How much do I reveal about myself? What points of reference can we find? Is this easy enough to keep going with? Can we have a laugh?
For me it takes at least a year of seeing someone relatively frequently as well as that element of clickability, to create something long-standing. I met lots of people in Sydney, who I liked immensely but there just wasn't enough time invested. Then there are the few (the ones who by the end I knew they would be) who have joined the ranks of "old friends" and whose e-mails or calls sometimes have me in tears because I know I won't see them for so long.
Returning here, I mix my time between old friends and yes a few new ones - met through jazz or through my neighbourly alley way. With old friends you can just relax. That's not to say it is always easy - you can fall out from time to time, go through cycles where your lives are more in synch (and you see eye to eye) than at others.
The downside is that because they know you so well, and perhaps don't see as much of you, they don't necessarily acknowledge changes. You can get stuck in their minds as the person they first met 10/15/20 years ago and that can be a bit galling. Only old friends can get you "hooked".
New ones open up new horizons and see a snapshot of you as you are now without knowledge of the experiences that made you that way. They can support you in the way you want your life to be right now, and encourage you in new discoveries... Without Marisol I would have a terrible work/life/baby balance Without Heather I would never have attended a burlesque taster class or be going to a party tonight.
My conclusion? Never write off the old ones because for a while your lives are out of synch, but equally don't close yourself off to the new ones. Who knows what you might learn. Perhaps, god forbid, that they see you exactly the same way the old ones do.. 
singing and food...
Last week was my mini-set at jazz. This means you have to pick three songs and sing them as if you were in a concert. We've been taking turns to do this over the last few weeks.
On the whole I was happier than I have ever been before with my voice. No longer entirely sweet, choir boy, head voice thing - but definitely something a little more bluesy and a little better supported from my ample stomach. I loved my songs and I enjoyed myself up there. I could see where I need to improve but did not disgrace myself. I was happy with that.
Rach kindly recorded me and the other Heather videoed me and she brought that over last night.
Who likes watching videos of themselves??!! In the past, it has been impossible to do it without flinching as if I were seeing a horror movie. I was surprised at how it was much less confronting than I expected - perhaps down to age and knowing/accepting oneself a little better. I was able to look at myself without too much flinching. It was a fascinating glimpse into how others must see me.
I saw my sister in my profile for a start! I also saw intelligent, self assured, a little forthright (the chin), good legs, hair not as bad as it used to be but oh my goodness that stomach! Since childbirth it now has mutated from over blown hourglass to large ball. How different would I look if I was carrying a couple of stone less?
I've been declaring my intention to whoever will listen to lose it before my 40th next year and since then stuffing my face as if I really believed the stuff about rising food costs and was afraid this was my last chance.
It struck me more than ever how central food is to my life. We had a very stressful week at work. My response? Two dinners, pastry all afternoon and a lifting of my self-imposed chocolate ban. My friends from jazz are coming over for dinner. How do I show them I'm so happy to see them? By cooking an enormous Moussaka fit for about triple the number expected. Food answers my showing love, feeling unloved, stress and overwhelm, excitement about life. It's a hobby, a compulsion, an interest, a passion, a crutch .. one of the most central things in my life.
How do you turn something like that around? I honestly don't know.
The easter bunny girl
Not being one who gives anything up for Lent, or does all the ashes and palms thing, Easter, unlike the frenzy of activity and anticipation which is Christmas, creeps up on me unawares.
This Easter, by accident rather than design, it's been a complete fun fest with lots of my favourite things to do all in one jammy sandwich. I've had a private singing lesson with someone who also saw me just before we moved to Australia and I was really happy to hear that my efforts to lose the sweet choir boy thing are paying off and she thinks my voice has changed massively.
On Friday Richard and i went for an Indian in Southall, which is something I've wanted to do for ages and a bit shameful we have not managed to do it before. We did rather underestimate the spice quotient - we didn't think to ask because normally find it's all pretty mild, but obviously not in the authentic places... Yesterday my new friend Heather, from my jazz singing class, organised for us to do a taster class for something else she does in her spare time - burlesque. There was no clothe removal (the residents of Barnes will breathe a sigh of relief) but lots of wiggles. It was a gas.
Today we saw some lovely rellies and laughed a lot. Rosie has not stopped eating all day.
Why can't christmas be as relaxed as this?
40s
It is the year of the 40ths. That's not me, but since I have kept lots of the same friends since school and university and have always been a year younger (in those days if your mother had taught you too much reading you started in the second class), it is an awful lot of my friends.
It's been fascinating to see how the celebrations have been so characteristic of each person. Whoever they are, they simply become even more that person when it comes to deciding how to mark this milestone.
So there was Sauce, who planned with precision her guests, the entertainment and ensured that she would be doing all the things she most loves doing (eating and talking a lot). There have been one or two who have struggled, wanting to ignore it, then perhaps given in to a last minute night out with a few close friends. Tnen there's John. I knew he'd pick a meal out somewhere and was trying and trying to convince him that some dancing would be nice, and maybe a band, and he has given in to hiring a room and is bringing along his ipod to plug into a sound system. Hurrah.
A few have gone for just girls, Debs is having a girly spa day at her house (Esher towers), Michelle an animal prints and fake fur party (very very her) and Trisha and Claire are getting us conventers together (no nuns, I think they have all gone upstairs by now)
Danny's started as a weekend away with friends, shared with her boyfriend Dez, whose birthday is around the same time. This quickly became 40+ people and I'm not quite sure where we are now, but I have a feeling drinking and being very North London will be involved, even if we are in the depths of Wales, so I am quite scared.
If one allows oneself to become a caricature of oneself to celebrate, then mine will be quite predictable. Big, loud, with music and food involved - oh and planned plenty of time in advance of course.
Getting older does scare you sometimes, especially when things are not all going exactly to plan, but one of the things which is best about gaining in years certainly these days, is that you start to have less to prove, have hopefully learnt who you are and why you are that way and have a little bit more of a choice about it. Best of all, you care far less about what people think. Did I ever care some people ask? Ooh how little you know! Hard to believe I would have entered a party of strangers with terror about what they were all thinking of me in the old days, or been afraid to eat a meal out by myself because of what it meant. But understanding more about all those excruciating bits underneath and where they come from allows lots of that to melt away, leaving more choices and less angst.
Being 40 to me, sounds like a very good age to celebrate life and being who one is. All together now "I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses. I etc etc etc " (Cage aux folles moment over, you can come back now)
Old habits....
I was wondering which of many of my new Aussie habits might stick.
I'm pretty smug on the food front. It would take few fingers to count the times in the last six months I have succumbed to anything pre-prepared or packed (aside from tomatoes and the obligatory pulses and beans - and I don't mean Heinz). We have very few takeaways - specially since we can't even eat Chicken Tikka from the local tandoori following Hugh's hairy chicken programme on the horrors of hock burn. Has it had an impact on my waistline? Oh yes, I've put on a stone.... It could be because having read shocking stats on how much food we in Britain waste I am assiduously eating the contents of the fridge every week... or perhaps more to do with the fact that I didn't really figure that Green and Black's, being so fair-trade and organic, would also be fattening.
But old habits die hard, and whilst my cooking and eating has improved, there has been an enormous volte-face on the clothes and more especially, the shoes....
You may recall the relief on being able to dress for comfort - in trackies and Birkies, and my waxing lyrical on the improvements to my back through wearing proper shoes I could actually walk in.
But oh dear, have you checked out LK Bennett recently? Rosie and I paid a most pricy visit there today (for me, although she was occupied with trying on the tallest heels she could find)....The most fantastic pair of brown leather biker boots with two inch heels (my christmas present from Richard achem), the yummiest pair of green suede stilettos, and some killer black shiny ones which I am sure will prove most versatile...
On the clothes front, well as a Trinny and Susannah aficionado I was interested to learn I was a Goblet, and that at www.littlewoodsdirect.co.uk I could not go wrong because it has a section for clothes for Goblets. So in spite of having put on a stone, in my new perfect-for-my-shape clothes, I'm quite fab my dears.
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