the struggle to grow up

Watching your children struggle with learning how to navigate and integrate lifes' lessons is particularly heart wrenching. The words that tunmble out of my mouth at times seem clumsy and ineffective and being an adult, trying to explain or synthesis succintly into small consumable chunks, all of lifes' contradictions, unknowns and exponential possibilities confuses me and is daunting at times, especially with a weeping child to hand.

B1s issues of coming to terms with the reality of who her Dad is and not who she thought he was and wanted him to be really rip at the seams of my heart. Its agony watching her dreams crumble and her reality being forced to shift to account for the father she now experiences. For her, the stripping bare of the father figure; his limitations and inadequacies exposed, his apparent lack of ability to understand and empathsise and his inability to change behaviour that hurts her is making her grow up in a hurry.

Knowing I can do nothing really sucks. Talking, writing, engaging him is impossible. He lacks basic comprehension and empathy and is unable to change. He cannot commit, cannot make good on promises, cannot even remember what words he has said. His borderline personality disorder, which leaves him only half a person, one I was able to finally leave behind and make sense of, is now his oldest daughters turn to navigate.

Im just glad that I really understand , really know, the things about his behaviour and attitude she says hurt, frustrate and confuse her. He was my teacher about this disorder, now I am hers. Hopefully she can come through this next life phase with only a small wound. I have no doubt that he will blame me for her 'disillusionment', her perceptions and her experiences. I will be seen as the parent who is alienating his children from him; he is apparently completely unaware that his behaviour towards them and his conversations with them have real consequences. They are no longer little kids who can be manipulated and bought off with a piece of cake nor can their opinions be disregarded.

a free lunch with Team Friend

nothing quite like them. I prefer to think its not because im a tight wad or cheap or anything but the politely referred to 'catered' or 'lunch/dinner provided' has a way of bringing people together in a spirit thats unmatched. Its a freedom to revert to the somewhat irresponsible, unite as a group, feel a part of Team Friend. Thats why I really love weddings. The ultimate in TeamFriend, a party of oneness like no other. But the 'free meals' Ive been invited to lately have been for the ritual passing over into the 'shit, I really am officially in the no longer a groovy young thing realm and staying there may be a little embarrassing' camp.

Somehow, with the passing of years we have morphed into 'middle class, middle aged comfortables with kids' and after time apart when we we all get together we relive our misspent youth (some more than others) and wonder how 25 years has passed so quickly. These cliches of time inadvertantly arise, get dissected and declared 'how true' and the comfortable conversation of people who have been around each other for so long moves seamlessly along. We are doing this more and more, the amazed declarations of the passing of time.

I love these occasions, and as I get older these old friendships from high school and university have come to mean so much and catching up with families of these friends; the parents, siblings and grandparents gives us all an opportunity to remember those parts of our lives we shared together. The trouble we got into and the accidents we had, life events like death and divorce get discussed and all are viewed with the rose coloured spectacles of time and drinking too much wine together. Then we sing a silly song, candles get blown, cake cut and shared, cheers are called. Its all good fun and life affirming. Im looking forward to another 12 months of the passing into 40 of those around me and I have to say Im looking forward to mine.

Haiku Friday

loves' many faces.
manifestations unfold.
thank you. I love you.

5 years ago, today

I sent The Bloke an email. Four weeks later we actually met (i was in Fiji for work and he was still living in California)He still has the piece of coral I found on the beach and brought back. I still have the memory of his reply email, he was beside himself excited as a fortune teller had declared the 20th September 2004 as his most auspicious day for HIS LIFETIME!!! Im hoping he wasn't just spinning me a great pick up line. The bestest bit about anniversary thingies is you get to go out without the kiddlets and they cant complain, well they do but they dont complain so loudly.

A Splendid Torch

My heart sang when I first met the Bloke, he had this pinned in the bathroom on the wall, one of my favourite pieces of writing of all times. I knew immediately i really was onto a good thing.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

Complicated

Fathers Day. On the outside its a straight forward idea. Have dad, will travel. I dont remember my real Dad, he left for war and came back a broken man, left us and died before i could track him down. Poor bugger, he was my age when he died. Apparently i have two half sisters out there Ive never met.

I grew up with my great uncle, he was my 'Dad' but he passed away at 90 a few years back. My ex step-dad (?!)is still around, we see each other a few times a year but a close relationship its not. Fathers Day is a complicated wrangle of memories, not sures, ex hubands, kids and 'who does what' and now with the bean its a fine balance between making a fuss of 'his' Dad and the girls Dad being so far away. Im usually glad when the day has passed. I found this pic of my Dad on the Australin War Memorial website a few months back. I was pretty pleased to find three as i had previously only 1 photo of him. I love this one coz its so cheesy. He's on the right. The Blokes had breakfast in bed and is now finishing some building work. Normal? Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers out there, whatever form you may take! Im spending Fathers Day doing some online searching for my Dads story and some possible clues to finding some more family members.

the frugal widower

lying in bed this morning, sore throat and body aching, my mind was bouncing around its interior walls and slamming into all sorts of two bit memories, ideas, emotions. One of them was momentarily epiphaneous (is that a word? it is now), not life altering in any way but a small triumph of recognition, organisation and management.

I just need to reorganise the stuff under the kitchen sink and the laundry

This triumph in processing was in response to me wondering why cleaning here, in this house, is such an effort for me and requires a minor degree in logistics.

Im embarrassed to say its only taken 3 years to get to this point, but i just prefer to believe that Im a chilled, relaxed and easy going person and Im not really that thick. So the idea that Im very thick went bouncing around my head for a while and I ended up settling on the notion that it wasnt thickness on my behalf so much as gentle accomodation to living in a widowers home, accomodation to someone elses systems, that had just got stuck there. Hadnt evolved. No. New. System. Also, im not that enamoured with cleaning so dealing with the occasional frustration that is organising the cleaning gear wasnt rating highly on my radar.

Shacking up with a widower is not an easy gig and shacking up with a frugal widower at their place is an exercise in patience, love and a lot of introspection. When the Bloke and I decided to live together we went through the process of deciding where to live. my place? your place? sell both and buy somewhere completely new? My two bedroom unrenovated 1920 bungalow with a trashed backyard readied for an unrealised extension on a quarter acre block or his five bedroom masterpiece on two acres of landscaped heaven? Not surprisingly, we ended up at his place. To his credit, he was prepared to give it all up and come live at mine if thats what i really wanted (that fabulous idea was me having a hard time letting go of my independence and control).

Where is this heading? To the point that when i moved in here, there was still a lot of stuff around of the Blokes late wife. And i tiptoed around it for a while until i almost imploded.

Being green and frugal means using stuff up, not throwing useful things away, keeping things that you dont use for a rainy day. Throw widower with new girlfriend into that sentence and you've got a problem. While we were dating I hung on for a while, thinking that over time he would get around to dealing with the 'small stuff'...time passed and passed and so I had to initiated that conversation. Sounds easy enough but its realy hard to do "excuse me i have an issue with all this stuff around thats nither mine nor yours and is contributing to me not feeling very at home here and would you please just go around the house and throw away all the last reamining bits and memories that you have of your late wife coz I dont like them" Thats how it felt to me, like i was asking him to finish his memories with a toss-out bag of her personal pieces. So i did wait a long time to ask him but theres only so many times you can open the bathroom cupboard and not get confronted by the very pesonal feminine things one finds in womens' bathroom cupboards. I felt pretty strange at the idea of just tossing them myself coz they werent mine but they were in my cupboard, or is it really her cupboard? It was a confusing time. Actually, in all honesty I didnt really initiate a converstion and ask him in an adult way. I just lost it!


But we did talk about it. The dear Bloke had left them there coz he's a green frugal bloke who thought that I might like to use them up, why throw away a perfectly good almost new hairbrush? perfume that was just purchased? boxes of henna, clips, belts, hats, earrings, pads, face creams? He was pretty embarrassed in reflection that he hadnt really thought it through from my perspective and was very remorseful about putting me in such a situation. To cut a very long story short, he dealt with all the obvious personal bits. What is still left to do is to reclaim the space under the kitchen sink and the laundry cupboard. Spaces and bits that dont 'belong' to anyone but were fundamentally hers in choice, use and placement of stuff (the Bloke didnt clean or cook before I arrived). I need to confront the bottle of fabric softener, the dried up Gumption with the old fabric scrap and the dilly bits of doily that soften their blows and organise stuff in a way that makes sense to me (i do do more cleaning than him - he'd debate that but i reckon wiping down sinks with your hand doesnt count as cleaning the sink!) When a relationship ends wth death and not divorce, no one comes with a trailer to take all their own stuff away.. Moving into another womans physical space, shacking up with a widower, doesnt come with a manual.

a bit a me 'n' a bit a you

Blogging is a great way to connect, but it can be a little one sided at times. One writes about whats on the mind, whats important and at the end of that there lies some hope that you get some dialogue going, some feedback, some input. A conversation of sorts. As much as we all may say we do it for ourselves, it wouldnt be public if we didnt want some exchange.

Sometimes i feel like im talking to myself, other times i feel part of some delicious secret squirrel business; only we know whats going on. Sometimes Ive really wanted to know more about everyone out there but have failed to work it out. Sometimes asking questions is the only way to do it but the two way bit here online is such an organic thing and if it feels forced, its gonna flop. Thats the tricky part about blogging, that even if youre not blogging out of 'obligation';for others, sometimes you want to write but through lack of processing time it just doesnt make it to readable. Sometimes Im just so overwhelmed, awash with so many things all whizzing around that I cannot make a straight line out of a tangle of thoughts. Sometime insecurity sets in and you think oh crap, that was shit. how embarrassing, then you go oh well...and keep going, keep posting because it really is a means to ones own end, whatever that may be. I have been blogging way longer than I ever thought i would. Its magic and i keep meaning to read more, do some research into the social contructs around blogging coz i need some language for my motivations and the emotions attached to belonging to such a community. Is it really all about having a voice, being heard?

So i have a request for all you who read Taurus Rising, can you answer me a question please. It is this. If you think back to the past year or so and look at your own habits and choices, what would you say has been one of the most, or a few of the most significant things you have changed about the way you live, on any level, that you feel really pleased with, accomplished or proud. Oh, and why do you blog? I think i just need to find out a bit more about you.

chicken lady

Over the last few weeks Ive spent a bit of time thinking about Simons pre-selection for the Greens and his 'green' credentials. As a political scientist by my original training, I have always harboured my own secret political ambitions but was always held back by a belief that I never owned the required traits to be successful due to lack of flair with spin-doctoring and thinking on the hop. Im not an actor at heart and need approval too much to put myself in the firing line.

On the other hand, Simon is a born politician, I do believe he has found his calling. He's an actor at heart, loves an audience and has an incredible green network and an amazing history of green activism and volunteering. When we met we realised that we actually had a previous and unrecognised-at-the-time encounter with each other that was auspicious, significant, meaningful and green. I was the mum of two caught on camera outside my local stupor-market, signing the Greenpeace petition to ban GE feed stock in Australias biggest chicken processing company and he was the larger than life chicken pawing the ground and pecking around me in a very broody manner. I recalled thinking that this guy had the 'chicken thing'; the scratching, the tilt of the head, the feather fluffing, down pat...this guy was goood.

A Green beginning and Green love in action! Pretty sexy huh?

Work Life balance

its a bit outta whack me thinks. I had thought we were getting pretty good at this but the last few days Ive been a bit crabby, snappy and just a tad cranky. Ive shut up emotional shop. Bunkered in. Overall, all is good, but something is rotten in my home state. No routine due to lots of work travel, kids needing me more when i get home (well as soon as i present through the back door actually), more travel next week (hello Newcastle and Melbourne!) and feeling worn out.

I feel just so busy getting everything done in a day - market shopping dash before work, writing, editing, teaching, exercising, home, washing, kids, bedtime, dinner. blah blah blah. Divergent things which have no obvious fluid connection. Brain in one mode then another, then another. Not alot of leftover time to feed the parents. Im ready to crash when i walk through the door. Snap. How do you fix this...more me time? more us time? More family time? Both? All? Im in bed with a laptop with a sign on the door 'do not disturb' I discovered why it was so quiet when i went to steal the laptop from a sleeping B1. Si had stuck it on. But now im drowning in the guilt trip. How can i be so unavailable yet he's giving even me more?

Crap. Sometimes lifes tricky.

the borderline parent

i read years ago that if you think that trying to make a relationship you want to be in is difficult, then try having an effective relationship with someone you dont want to have any relationship with but have to because you are co-parenting children. Now thats hard work. So true.

Having the house to myself over the last few days has been so wonderful; relaxing, peaceful and very replenishing. I needed it, its why my posts have been so indulgent. I have been looking to the aesthetic in my environment to bring happiness. It worked, warmth and light are very beneficial in generating a happier disposition. So, if co-parenting after seperation is difficult, co-parenting even from a distance, with someone with a personality disorder is something i wouldn't wish on anyone. I found out on the weekend that i had sent my girls up to a father who had changed not only his place of residence without telling me but also all of his telephone numbers. Apparently its beeen this way for months. The sheer irresponsibility of this behaviour is staggering, not to mention disrespectful, arrogant and just plain stupid. What was he thinking? maybe not much... does he do this just to piss me off or can he really be that careless? So what do i do? I say nothing. Experience has taught me to wait until the children are home before i confront him about issues. He takes it out on them, ranting about their terrible mother who is single handedly responsible for his current miserable state.

To top it off, the huge promises of fun he'd made the girls these holidays (yet again) but backed up with the 'facts'..'yes were going, great huh? so exciting, we have bought tickets already...' poof!

It breaks my heart to see the girls time and time again believe in their father and then have his actions and words strip that misplaced trust right back to nothing, well, back to the raw truth of his condition.

Watching your children experience having their faith and love twisted and broken over and over again it so difficult and then they protect him, taking the full brunt of the experience on themselves. He consistently makes them empty promises and for me its become a very fine line between preparing them for dissapointment and potentially generating negative feelings towards him and making him out always to be the bad guy, incompetent. I tend to just make a brief comment about preparing themselves for something going 'wrong' and then move the conversation on.

So, its happened yet again. They've gone to visit and their hopes and dreams about this time with him, which were fed by his promises, have now become yet again, conditional and his outright lies to them have been exposed. Its breaking my heart (hmm, i think Ive said that before). Im hoping that a miracle will occour and he will get his act together before their time is up and make it happen. For them. Show them that he can make a mistake and correct it.
I think Im dreaming...

turned tables

i was kind of expecting it to happen. maybe not this early and maybe without such intensity. we had THAT conversation. The one from my past which is so intensely linked to mothering and meaning and self and now i see clearly is linked to parenting and meaning and self. Simon had been a bit mopey and a bit aloof for about a week and despite asking him about his withdrawn behaviour nothing of note was forthcoming, until 'the blow up' and out it came
whoosh
words and emotions describing and evoking all the feelings which surround the hidden work of mothering, but they didnt come from me. They came from him.

cant get anything done
need you to do more around the house
feel like im doing it all
i'm just going around and around in circles
cant get anything done
i feel really isolated
you get to go to work and have stimulation and creativity
need you to do more around the house
cant get anything done
i feel frustrated and stuck

wow. It kind of threw me.

identical words and emotions to the ones i had for years, the downside to being a stay home parent. The thankless nature of it all ( the housework bit ). We both acknowledge the joys of it but the drudgery of another load of washing and the running around and cleaning up after everyone. What made this conversation really interesting for me was the unbridled reaction i had to first hearing his feelings. "Im doing all i can, jesus you want me to do more!" and "i felt like that for years, its just what its like, comes with the territory, tough, suck it up buddy, you get more from me than i ever got. I come home from work and take the boy, play with him, give him a bath, often cooking dinner after I have put him to bed! and YOU WANT ME TO DO MORE!!!"

Needless to say i said none of this. Coz underneath it all i really DO understand how isolating, draining, thankless it is and how you just need a little more support to keep doing it in a positive frame of mind; to be able to parent with love. So i was so pleased to be able to give him a hug and say "i know, i do understand and I will do more". It was really hard to do this without the defensive self justification coming out, telling him what i already do and how dare he ask for extra flesh.

But, i just knew for the sake of the relationship and basically, to just act like a grown up, i had to draw on my experiences, my empathy if i wanted a positive outcome. I had to do for him what i had always wanted done for me but never ever got when i was with my ex husband. So ive been working like a maniac for the last few days, steam cleaning rugs and couches, cleaning bathrooms and bedrooms and making sure i make the bed every morning before work.

Yesterday when i was leaving with the boy on a market adventure, he said he was lucky to have me. I felt the same. When its good, its so good but you really do have to work at it. Having had one relationship go arse up, im not about to let it happen to another.

much ado about [milk]

i gave a presentation last night, i think i can call it that?? picture a moment where speed dating met a Powerpoint presentation. It was a Pecha Kucha style evening. Each invited speaker had 15 slides to present, 15 seconds per slide, each with auto transition (so no cheating possible) on the topic of Milk. It was the third in a series of 15x15 events hosted by Mulloway Studio and speakers came from all disciplines; an art historian, an events organiser, an actor, an installation artist, a philosopher, an interpretive artist, an architecht, a nanotehcnologist, me and even a milk protein scholar, all gathered together in the vast concrete space that is k2-02; the South Australian School of Art Gallery. Sounds good in theory right?

Somehow I managed to pack an overview of animal welfare, environmental and health consequences of our addiction to cows milk into 3 minutes 45 seconds and still came out somewhat comprehensible. I segued my way from bovine mastitis to nursing caries to greenhouse gasses to breastfeeding rates to maternity leave and around to plastic waste, across to salma hayek and back to unethical dairy farming practices, commercialisation and globalisation at a whirlwind rate. Im thinking that the designer audience probably werent quite expecting what i delivered, especially the tale about 'choco-loco fresh cow colostrum with added organic russian keffir grains'. I mean seriously, how first world greedy, unethical, indulgent and totally OTT is that?

However the take home message for the evening was definitely a questioning about how much dairy we consume, its impact and our complex and compromised relationship we have with the white stuff. It was a good night. Not a reference in sight (that nearly killed me as Im sooo well trained) and Im thinking that I might just take up the practice to have a glass of wine with crackers and cheese before every conference presentation; it certainly lubricated the 'have more fun' vibe, something every dental epidemiology conference can do with!

what mummy guilt looks like (this morning)

Im one month back at work and trying out this 'new to me' experiment that is 'The Bread Winner' (well, the go somewhere and actually do some work bread winner. Simon does earn bread, but its passive,; otherwise known as Capitalist Bastard in in my undergraduate lingo. Im think im doing pretty well, it is only 3 days a week after all. The hardest part is not getting up early, its not the school drop offs on the way to work, its not the work either. Its the getting home and not behaving like a paternalistic, chauvinistic 'what have you done with your day' bitch. Its really interesting and frustrating, and challenging and confronting being on this side of the fence after having grazed the pastures of the stay home mum off and on for a few years. The things i have issues with shock me; i mean when did i start to get all judgemental and prescriptive about having dinner ready, toys tidied and bathrooms clean? Its weird how expectations change. I know how time consuming babies are and if Im honest, i think if spent as much time as Si does on the floor playing with the bean, instead of concerning myself with the keeping a tidy house...maybe Im feeling resentful? Im not actually at the point of not wanting to go to work and be at home looking after the bean instead, hell no. I think its just this new way of doing things is confronting my habits, an old record i never knew i had is still playing away in the background. Im shocked at this archaic, quiet inner rustle of judgement that i didnt know i had, that works its way through my reason, about how it should be.

I think the stress of finishing my dissertation has finally come home to roost, Im in that final stage of getting it ready. Im turning inward, wanting to get cranky, and controlling and am not behaving in a very inclusive manner. Its all so internally intense. Im working hard to not let it loose on anyone. Im struggling to keep my congitive process in charge of my bear brain and to just continue to talk and negotiate our way through the quagmire that is responsibility.

So in our house, mummy guilt this weekend looks like bananna and maple waffles and Yahtzee.

a long lunch

We used to belong to our local SLOW food convivium. It was full of locals with a passion for growing food, eating food, talking about food and making wine. Definitely in principle my kind of group. So why did we stop participating? I think life got busy and as it was a group that simon and his late wife belonged to before i came on the scene, possibly without my 100% enthusiasm it got too hard, Ive never really asked him his thoughts on why it fizzled out. Many in the group were retired and I felt that i just didnt have that much in common with everyone to make it an easy get together; particularly with the 'other' woman and the 'younger' woman mantle that i felt i was carrying. Those early days were hard. Forging ahead with a open face and measured words, head first into everyone elses expectations of just who this woman replacing their dceased friend could be. I spent months of our early relationship searching online for some support. No peers of mine had ever been divorced let alone started a relationship with a widow. So i think all the stress of being in the 'old group fishbowl' coupled with my own new divorce, two young kids and a career just kickstarting, plus being newly in love, we didnt have time for a full day of slow food !

One thing i did however take away from these gatherings was the concept of the Long Lunch. Its a great idea and one i think thats a fantastic focus for a meal with friends. The idea is to get everyone to bring a food contribution to share. The rules are that whatever you bring, the ingredients used must be local, seasonal and made in its entireity by each guest. You can distribute the responsibilities; some bring drinks, some do bread, some bring savoury, some do sweet, some do appetisers/canapes/whatever word you want to use for those really nice nibbles that you just want to stand next to for a little while longer than is socially acceptable (or is that just me? - (memories of the lemon and olive oil draped homemade warm haloumi wafting past). Its a neat way to bring the ideas of SLOW sustainable eating to the fore and possibly to share these concepts, in hopefully a really inclusive way or at leats a tasty way, with others who may not be so interested in the principles of sustainable living. Just dont stress out the guests too much.

So, I bet you can guess the bloggy lunch basics...

Now I have a dilemma

Geez, I should have known better than to have a giveaway. There are so many varied responses about which giveaways interested people, i just want to make you ALL winners and end the drought for some! I'm so happy to 'meet' some more readers and I do hope to hear from you more often; its the reward for writing. Building community in any way is such a great thing and its so nice to know who is reading your blog. So thanks for stepping up to the challenge, we all have our reasons for privacy so I really appreciate it.

And for all of you who I 'know well' through Blogville, thanks for giving me just a little more insight into who you are and all your kind and generous affirmations (sounds a bit like an awards acceptance speech -eek). Im really looking to forward to posting/ making/ gathering/ hosting and Im excited to know which it will be. I will do the usual trick of names, paper and hats and let you know next week, enough time just in case some more 'lurkers' want to come out to play!

Please

oh dear...

i have discovered Facebook.

blogging blues

blogging when you're pissed off and totally angry is really friggin' hard. Im having a mega bad week, day 7 but who's counting, right? im soo miss grumpy pants and blowing off my own socks but i havent managed to resolve anything. we (me and the as yet unmentioned other half of miss grumpys problem) have made no space and no time. i hate that and totally when we have relatives over and really need to be in a good space for their pleasure and comfort but we have had no time or space to get into a better head space together so were going through the 'pretending everything is ok but everyone knows somethings off rigmarole' (maybe they cant but it feels that way). i cant remember the last time i was in a funk for this long - its totally stubborness related. i think im playing the 'im not gonna do all the emotional relationship work around here so im not gonna be the one to start the conversation, you have to start it' game. its killing me. im sleep deprived from baby, breastfeeding, parenting two others, menstruating and ships cook and i dont want to add 'emotional manager of the relationship' to my list. Fuck. I'd better do something about 'it' before we go on holidays! i just refuse to believe that men cannot start conversations of this kind and refuse to pretend that the catalytic blowup didnt happen. Im wanting a conversation but refusing to start it. just how juvenile is that ? ugh.

do i even like pizza that much?

50 hours later... nearly done... *flat on my back at the oesteopath*
my husband informed me last week that a dome is the hardest structure to build. Well, bloody hell, thanks for telling me NOW! Had a cursing kind of day, the weather was hot and very unforgiving, my mortar was going off , brick halves weren't fitting and needed cutting, cutting wasn't working , kept ending up with shards (damn those inferior seconds!) and finally a brick dropped from the dome and landed on my foot. Im now sporting a large purple egg.

my mum has been coming up twice a week to look after the boy so we can both work, me on Thing 2 and Si on the studio and cleaning up the garden for summer before we leave. she's brought the washing in, bathed the boy, cooked dinner, played and talked and replenished me with tea and lemonade. Its funny, over the last 5 years i have been very short with my mother, finding her ways irritating; so vague, flighty self obsessed and uncertain. Not in a narcissistic way, just a bumbling way but i get angry at her apparent incompetence " what is it your thesis is about again?" but today she cried about her lack of relationship with 'her son', my brother and i really felt for her. he can be so nice to her and at other times so cruel. her tears were a catalyst to my empathic senses and reignited my compassion for her, which of late has been lacking. it's a tough gig being a mum and i resolved to cut her some more slack, drop the expectations and try and accept her for who she is, not who i want her to be. i think some more gratitude and some meaningful friendship might be in order.

what colour the render; ochre, sand or something outrageous?

*addendum* in answer to my own question - yes, definitely! the idea of sliding a two ft lamb, coriander and yoghurt pide pizza, or will it be pumpkin, feta, spinach and red onion, out for the first time is giving me co-nip-shuns!

Wimmin @ the movies

the first tuesday of every month i go with a bunch of wonderful 'wimmins' to dinner and the movies. my invite to join this group took a while; its a select group. Their partners, all men, do their own movie night every second tuesday and Si has been going along to these nights for years. They're his bunch of blokes. So when i came along, i posed quite a dilemma to the group. Some wanted to invite me straight away but others felt confronted by my presence; its a pretty tight knit group who have been friends for twenty something years. I think they wanted to see just how long this relationship would last at the beginning. Possibly some felt like they were being disloyal by inviting me in so readily. I knew i was being excluded and many a hurt and angry tear had been shed on my part.

Its hard for everyone dealing with those who have been widowed when they repartner, especially if the time passed has not been long; its hard for the new partner and hard on the friends. There's no guide book either to help you all out. You just have to bumble along and do the bst you can. In coming along i would be taking the seat occupied for years by their dear friend who is no longer present. after 2 years i was invited along. I'd felt so deliberately left out, not accepted for being myself, not given a chance. My initial response was the revert to the child, to say 'no thanks, you took too long' but i figured that was not the most mature approach. So i said i'd love to and went along with my heart in my throat to that first movie night knowing we all had crossed a bridge, knowing that if it wasnt for the loss of their friend i wouldnt be sitting there. It was a hard night.

That was a year ago. its gotten easier, much easier. i have really grown to love these women. They're warm and funny and inspite of a generation gap,we actually have a whole heap in common. So we tracked of to see Brideshead Revisited last night and for two hours i sat and immersed myself in upper class English neurosis and alcoholism and remembered my very own decadent, delicious and very romantic Evelyn Waugh week in St Andrews, Scotland with a handome and mannered and very experienced lordy-schmordy- something-or-other and identified with the seduction of irresponsible priviledge.