Things I wish I had been taught at school

I know, I know, we shouldn't carry bitterness as it only eats us up - but, as much as I loved my mixed education school with all my heart, they really fucked up circa 1986/7... 

At the end of first year (year 7 for you English folk) little envelopes went round, inviting those folk who were fabulous at French and LATIN (WTF is good at that??) third languages. Pupils could choose between German, Greek or, as obviously was much needed in Belfast in the 80s - Russian. Only a madman chose Russian or at a push Greek, so the majority went for German. Then there were some kids who weren't up to scratch at languages but were still in the top stream of classes, who had 4 gaping periods to fill while the rest of the class learnt their third language. Subsequently all the boys in this sub group got 4 periods of art. Amazing. Us girls? Extra Home Economics. How sexist is that? So while the boys enjoyed screen printing, watercolour painting and pottery - we learnt how to make a good home; sewing; knitting (I'll give them, I enjoyed it) and ironing...

I'm still stewing about this. Because, below dear reader, are the things we SHOULD have been taught in those 4 periods:

1. Periods. Yes, yes, by that stage the majority of us had started menstruating - but that isn't the point. We should at a much younger age - with the boys - have had classes explaining that 50% of the population bleed once a month. The more we normalise this, the less women have to carry some bizarre inbuilt shame about the whole event. I had only learnt about periods by finding a jolly silver book in my Mum's drawers - sponsored by Johnson and Johnson - where pretty girls in colourful jeans all looked to be getting on just splendidly with life while being 'on.' The drawings depicting where one put a tampon almost caused me to have a seizure - (that fits where??) and there was no mention of horrific cramps, nausea, painful breasts, tempers that would start a riot. I had no idea that a period lasted for 5 days until I got my first. I also remember my acute embarrassment when Jeremy H discreetly tried to give me back my blue Tampax holder in form room - after I left it his brother's car, getting a lift home after a party when I was 15. I denied it was mine. Jeremy looked at me, puzzled as he knew it could only be mine (Jezza had no sisters). I denied all knowledge of it despite my mates going - it is yours CM. He binned it. My handy - won't crush your tampax - little holder was gone. All because I was too ashamed to admit I had periods. The more both sexes know and understand about the curse, the less it becomes one.

2. Money management. Granted, I was pretty good at this - never taking out a student loan and always working every summer during uni to provide for myself for the rest of the year. But then came my 20s in London and the gloves were off... 'Santa Bob' (as I called my bank manager) provided any loan you wanted - but they eventually came at a price. I took out my first mortgage, alone in my 20s. I had no idea what I was doing - but thankfully had a great financial advisor that a flatmate rec'd. What if I had known how to negotiate buying a property rather than simply telling the estate agent 'but I want it so much.' By my next property I played the game - looking at other properties on their list and acting like I had only the vaguest interest of buying my house; knocking the sellers right down... Imagine, if we had been taught all this at school? What a mortgage is; repayments; how to save; taxes; being a freelancer etc etc... 

3. The eternal juggle. Deep down I think I started this here blog because I had no idea how to juggle motherhood and work. NO fecker ever said to me : you might be getting a 2:1 hun but it aint gonna make a pic of difference when you have kids. I had no idea just how hard that was. Particularly being a freelance presenter, as I was back in the day. Friends in the most stable of jobs (something I have never ever had in all my life) still had to cut back working days, organise childcare, work into the night to make up for leaving early as their kid had a doctor's appointment/was sick at school/ school's endless inset days etc. etc. No one ever told me this. No one said: it is going to be the hardest challenge of your life trying to make a living at what you want to do and raise two children. I mean, every day the school sent letters about: quizzes, lunches; trips; harvests; plays; needing jazzy jars and tombola gifts; volunteering at the Xmas/summer fair; the PTA; choosing governors; teacher leaving gifts; plus all the parties/play dates/Halloweens/easters etc. It was a full time job running your kids' social diaries let alone your own.

I read back on my early blog and have no idea how I got through it. The one thing I do know, is: it was a SHOCK. Whilst there is some acknowledgement that men have a role to play in all this parenthood malarky - there was ONE man on my daily school run. One. Society still expects the buck to stop with women.  They are racing around half mad with these exhausting expectations of somehow looking great, working like demons, raising angels and keeping a pristine house. It is madness. Don't even get me started on the second mortgage one needs to afford childcare. I very deliberately left 4 years between by kids because I had just got a dream job on a soap when my son was 2 and I wasn't about to suddenly get pregnant whilst trying to get my head around a new career. Plus, I never would have coped with 2 under 4 at home. I would have gone completely insane with loneliness. I need people.

I will be forever grateful to that soap and all the folk I worked with there as they honestly were my sanity and salvation in the years I felt like a single mother. But my god I was exhausted. Pretty much all of my earnings went on childcare. I paid for the privilege of being utterly spent. Something has to change. Women need warned. I may add, that not every woman wants kids of course - but I wish I had known a little bit more about JUST how violently my life would change before I had a kid. It wouldn't have deterred me - but the whole process would have been less of a mindfuck. 

4. Menopause. YUP. Another shock. For most women I know they work out they are menopausal because they think they are losing their minds. I'm not going to post the 40 or is it 50 something symptoms that can come with 'the change' but it is safe to say I do not know a single women - not one - who isn't struggling in some way because of it. At the very least there is the tiredness; the heat; the mood swings and often, the clawing grasping anxiety that threatens to overwhelm. So it is really good then that we can spend 5 days waiting on the phone and finally speak to a 25 year old male GP who has had 45 mins training in the meno - and will offer insane solutions. Or we can get bloods taken (not good as hormones - those little buggers - change daily) and pay £££ to go privately to try and get the holy grail: testosterone (which once got is a MALE one because there is no female testosterone available in this country, only in Australia!). Oh and what creator made women menopausal as their daughters are becoming teens? That combo is really winning. Throw in aging parents and well, why not give us more to cope with Lord? Do we take HRT or not? Does it increase the likelihood of cancer? Why is our hair thinning and friends talk of skin tags? Why is it nigh on impossible to shift a pound but the minute we eye up a piece of cheesecake we put on 3 pounds overnight? Why are our shoulders wider? What is this apron belly? And most of all WHY did I not know any of this?

5. Empty nesting is the hardest of all.  The week my son turned 18 I was a weepy mess. Husband kept looking at me like I had finally lost my marbles - but it was June, almost summer and I knew that after which, he would be off. Seeing Stevie Nicks play Landslide didn't help the matter one jot. (Dare you to listen and not cry). Technically my nest is not empty for 5 more years as I still have Sproglette here - but still, I miss my son. He's living his best life in Manchester and relishing freedom and a big city to live in - and I'm thrilled he is happy, but there is a little ember of sadness. 

We spend our lives as mothers building our whole worlds around our kids and then - they go. My good friend Marina used to tell me that her favourite night of the whole year was Xmas eve as her kids were under her roof again. Now both of her children are married, one with a child of his own and I asked her how she got through this transition? She replied: I have no idea, I think I still am dealing with it. Even Madonna admitted she wept and wept when her daughter left home - because nothing prepares you for the letting go. It seems like 5 minutes ago you were standing on lego pieces, doing the nit check and struggling through the witching hour of bath time/ dinner/bedtime and then collapsing on the sofa, struggling to stay awake through an episode of The Wire. This summer in Cornwall, my mate B said to me - this feels like an ending - as both our sons were heading off to Uni. Neither of us were ready for it.

Of course, they have to cut the apron ties - and no one wants a Norman Bates situation - but I find myself on a Mon/Tues and Wed when my daughter and husband are out at her football from 4-9 (I KNOW) staring into the abyss. Cuddling up to the dog and expecting conversation. Wondering how I went from NEVER having a moment to wee in peace to suddenly oceans of time on my hands. Why do more folk not talk about this transition? The moment that you drop them off at their stiflingly hot halls and walk out the door, thinking: but he only knows how to boil pasta - how will he survive? Husband seems to have adapted to this whole new way of life as a family of 3 with ease. I'm very close to my eldest - perhaps because we had 4.5 years as a wee team when he was little. Perhaps because he gets me in a way that belies his 18 years. I may have less laundry to do, one kid less to nag about the room cleaning, less food to buy - but I feel 'less' in some way - like a part of me is missing. 

6. Mindfulness. I kid ye not. Mental health wasn't even a twinkle in the postman's eye when I grew up. No one avoided going to school (if you did, you missed out on everything - whereas these days kids have phones - they don't need to physically be in school to know all the goss); children were still caned in my day. In fact my P6 teacher (we were 9/10 years old in that class) bumped into me in Zara in Belfast about 12 years ago and enquired after a boy who had been her class with me. She was still haunted by him being 'slippered' by the headmaster in the corridor as she had told the head that he was difficult to handle. (The kid had lost his mother only 5 years before and clearly was still traumatised). When I spoke to the said boy - he hadn't forgotten either - it had rightly stayed with him too. (Slippering is what is says on the tin - being beaten with a slipper. Hard.).

Listening to Jamie Dornan (an alumni from my school) on the 'How to Fail' podcast - he mentioned that he didn't fear fancy photographers and celebs when he was modelling as a direct result of being encouraged to fear the masters in big black gowns at his school. He refused. 'They are just people,' he said. My school encouraged fear: fear of detentions, fear of teachers, fear most of all - of failure. As Jamie mentions, it was getting kids ready to be doctors, lawyers, civil servants. Creatives less so. Thankfully I hid up the attic rooms of the art department with teachers who later came to my wedding - who 'got' me. But there was no place for emotional needs, or an idea that the creative fields were fulfilling. When I explained at my career's meeting that I wanted to be a journalist or writer - I was told to do Psychology at Glasgow Uni. I fecked that off and went to London to a Poly that became a Uni - with folk like Charlie Brooker two years above me. Thank god I did. But my school didn't encourage this. They didn't encourage an idea that success lay anywhere outside of what you earned. Jobs = status. Obviously it was 80s/early 90s and so no-one gave a jot about pastoral care - and the very notion that teens could struggle. As their brains develop, and bodies rage with hormones, they have to negotiate working out who they are, their place in the world, friendships, sometimes difficult home lives and all the while get straight As and avoid a detention? In what world is that acceptable? 

Imagine how brilliant it would have been if those two periods could have been about our own emotional wellbeing? About conflict and resolution; toxic relationships; boundaries; developing a sense of self? I know that now kids get PSHE - but creating emotional resilience will set you up better for life than just learning about safe sex... 

I won't go down the rabbit hole of how I believe the entire education system needs an overhaul and how most kids do not fit into a 'one size fits all' type of learning. I wonder in the AI world, what will become the most useful skills for one to have - and what will be obsolete? Of course I cannot blame my school for much of the above - it was of it's time; in the 80s girls didn't play football and even when I was in primary school boys wrote 'lists' of the prettiest girls in the class to the ugliest. This was deemed acceptable. I have a diary entry aged 9 where I come third at swimming but get dropped to bottom of M's list because I answered him back in class. I'm genuinely gutted by this. It saddens me that we girls were taught to compete against each other under the male gaze... 

So - what do you wish you had been taught at school? I'd like to add plumbing skills, how to put up a shelf/picture and build flat pack furniture. Or is that just me? 

The sweet spot

It's not often I tap the boards around these parts but today I am here... This post, well it's not really for anyone - in fact, it's just for me. 

Today Sproglet turned 18. 

It's a day I almost could never imagine. When I started this blog, when he wasn't even 2, I was in the trenches of Motherhood. Those long long days where between 7 am and 7 pm, I was chief cook, cleaner, entertainer, leader, wiper, talker, bather and everything in between. The days felt so long and lonely at times I wasn't quite sure how to cope. How to fill the hours keeping a toddler amused, educated, stimulated. The days when you never seem to have one fat second to yourself. Even toilet trips are a duo event. Oh to wee alone you think as your child brings you toys while you try to work out how you're going to insert a tampon without horrifying them. 

Those years felt looooooooong. I suffered from PND about a year after he was born. I raged, god I raged at how no one had ever told me JUST how difficult it was to essentially single parent (husband worked crazy hours) and survive. I felt at time trapped  - not by my son, because I loved the very bones of him - but by the expectation that motherhood would fulfil every last drop of me. I felt such aching guilt that it didn't. That I missed who I was, before my life was overwhelmed with routine and Iggle Piggle. 

Then all of a sudden he was 3, then 4 and my god that was just wonderful. Chats, movies, play parks, all became that bit more accessible. His sister was born and then I was back in the trenches again. I had tasted freedom, but that was out of reach for a few more years.

Cut to summer 2014. I'd just left my job, determined to become a writer and a more available mother. I took my kids to York and out for the day to do all kinds of fun tourist stuff. Sproglet was 7, Sproglette 3. It was brilliant. In that moment, in the Railway Museum, I felt wildly alive. Everyone wasn't going to piss their pants. We all could eat in a restaurant without having a tantrum. It was enlightening. A turning point.

Then came the sweet spot. 

Oh the Halloween parties I threw. Stuff of legend, even if it's only my legend. I became a master of stocking fillers. There were a blur of playdates and endless kids' parties - barely a weekend passed without going AND DROPPING OFF kids at some event or other. Sports - SO MUCH football. Holidays and visits to mates and fishing in the stream and building dens and movie nights and lockdown and it all went by in a flash. It is like once kids hit school, life is on fast forward. 

Until one day you wake up and read your diaries about turning 18, in the Crescent bar in Belfast... And you stumble downstairs and sing in a croaky voice, thick with emotion 'Happy birthday' to your ADULT son. And you go to hug him and he seems more interested in hugging the dog. And your eyes well up and you think - did I do it all well enough? Did I give you the tools to be happy in yourself? To know that you are enough and you don't need great grades or top jobs or material success to make me love you? That the best thing you can do for yourself is be kind to yourself and that voice in your head - make sure it sounds just like your best mate talking to you... Did I give you self confidence and the ability to understand people? Did I encourage you to have a curiosity for the world, for people, for life? 

Motherhood felt so difficult to negotiate. The delicate balance of being oneself but at the same time, putting the needs of someone else well before my own. I'm so glad that I took some time out when they were both small, to be there until they were 2. That as much as it has been a fecking nightmare finding work that complimented motherhood (perhaps the biggest challenge I ever faced) - I got there pretty early - in 2014. So I've been lucky enough to be on the school pick up and be around when they trudge through the door on an afternoon. 

If spring is the baby years am I in the winter of motherhood? The time when I must hibernate my owns needs and wants for him and let him be... Stand back and watch to see how he gets on, without parental stabilisers? 

It is bittersweet. If I look at a photo of his chubby 91st sentile face, all huge peepers and chunky legs, I feel this ache - can almost smell the milky sweetness of his head, as I would lay him down in his cot. Now I come downstairs to see enormous ridiculously expensive trainers at the foot of the stairs and I breathe a sigh of relief - he's home after a night out. All is ok with the world. 

It goes by in a heartbeat. I used to hear that phrase all the time. It never felt like a heartbeat - the long nights of feeding in the first 12 weeks; the potty training - my own Vietnam - and the endless endless homework helping/jazzy jar making/football kit washing... 

But it's true. I raised a child to adulthood. Now it's over to him. 

Thanks Sproglet because the truth is you taught me far more than I could ever have taught you. Happy 18th. 

The world is yours.... 

What I'm into...

Crikey Jan is a long old month innit? Coupled with bleak weather, the old D word that everyone is doing or at least everyone SAYS they are doing and husband's birthday (who has a birthday in January? It's selfish isn't it? Especially after all that Xmas malarkey) it is enough to send one over the edge. 

I feel like it has been a January Monday FOREVAH. So I thought I'd list the things that are giving me life this month. Plus a couple of things that aren't. 

1. Candles. 

You can never have too many can you? I have never ever been given a candle (bar a Yankee one once) and felt saddened. That little flicker, the warmth, the scent - it makes one happier. I always have one burning on my desk to keep my metaphorical creative flame lit, (or spluttering most of the time). This is my latest purchase. To myself. I know I know, it's a bit fancy for a self gift. But hey, it's Jan and I'm not drinking or eating anything fun so I need SOMETHING godammit. How pretty is it? Plus with my John Lewis discount (Sproglet can never ever leave his job at Waitrose) it was almost a steal. Grab one here. 

2. Cold water. 

However bleak, it is my fav time of year to immerse oneself in cold water. First time ever of swimming through shards of glass-like ice the other week. Man in front of me got out with a bloodied chin. Still smiling of course, because nothing makes one smile more than one degree... My weekly swims are SO cold, you don't actually feel anything. Like an epidural. All over. But, in order to get that weekly high more often - although admittedly not as much fun - I'm getting in my new ice bath. Another John Lewis purchase but you can get them all over. My cousin and his wife are getting into the joys of cold water and had purchased one that they swore by. Whilst not quite as in nature as a lake swim - or in fact a swim at all, more of a dunk - it is still exhilarating. I cannot wait to get in later tonight and will curse spring when temps get above 10 degrees. My personal fav is 7-8 degrees. Biting and brilliant. The high is amaze. Promise. Get involved. 

3.  Hot water. 

It is bloody lovely isn't it, wallowing in hot water? NOT - I repeat - NOT straight after the above. Or risk coming out in serious hives or something more dangerous. (As an aside always let yourself warm up naturally after being in cold water under 10 degrees... ). Anyway, for Xmas I got my husband to buy me a recommended bath oil. When it came, the size of the bottle was SO tiny - for £28 - 28!!!! I was livid. They are taking the piss I thought. Until I poured half a cap full into my bath and then -shazam! Instant heaven. I bow down to the creators of such blissful stuff. It smells like angels and butter clouds of lavender silk wrapped up in a comfy cashmere bow of loveliness... Don't take my word for it - but you will never look back. 

4. Films 

I'm sorry I missed The Traitors boat - so I have no idea how good it is. I must get on and watch it, but Married at First Sight Australia is back soon and I can only cope with one trash show at a time, sorry. 

January is always great flicks time, with all the awards contenders out. Sorry but not sorry - I could only do 15 minutes of Saltburn - and that was after 4 double gins. What a crock of bollocks that was. Emperor's new clothes. Undoubtedly some great lines - but do we have to watch very deliberately provocative scenes meant to create buzz and water cooler fodder (or rather social media memes) - to justify a feature? I mean when you stoop to a bloke licking a bath plug for residual cum, one wonders what the point of the whole thing is? Titillation?  Shock factor? Or something rich poshos do - a world I am not privy to... 

Or maybe I'm old. If you are a Jacob Elordi fan then much better to watch the sublime Priscilla - Sofia Coppola's latest. A gorgeous director - one of my favourites - it is fascinating as it is beautiful. Elvis comes across as a bit of twat... Also, I loved The Holdovers. Sentimental yes. Predictable, maybe. But laugh out loud funny and I adored being back in the 70s... Next up All of us Strangers. I would watch Andrew Scott paint a wall and still find it amazing. Go support your local cinema, while we still have them. Not a Vue though - because they are toilet even if they have reclining seats. Oh and shout out to Next Goal Wins which I watched on New Years Eve with my daughter. It was wonderful. I'm so into feel good these days. I may even re-watch Dawson's Creek. The world is crazy - we need all the joy we can get. 

5. Bedding. 

Well it is winter. We need all the blankets. If you want a throw - McNutts. Google it. A place in Donegal that I have sadly only been to once. But its throws are magic. Duvet cover wise, I always struggle. I know, John Lewis blah blah - but everything feels samey and then I chanced upon these guys: Secret Linen Store.  My god, they had me with a stripe. I love a stripe. (As an aside, I had wardrobes built in, just before Xmas. (Sadly 3 handsome men in my bedroom as I lay downstairs with a bedridden with a lurgy as they hammered away).  I now have a dressing table nook, a desk nook, pretty lights covered with THE most perfect lampshades in front of tongue and groove panelling. (Issy Granger - BLISS). The sheer ORDER of my closet is thrilling. I had had my pants in B and Q plastic drawers for 7 years... Anyway, I digress. Secret Linen Store - not so secret I assume - but has the softest duvet covers known to man. Invest. Going to bed - already exciting because it is winter and we need that wintering rest - is even more exciting. My exact bedding:

What I'm NOT into:

Abstinence. Looking at bottles of alcohol calling me and realising that we aren't friends. I smile and walk on by. Trying to avoid carbs. Carbs are so MUCH FUN. Bread is amazing. AMAZING. But I can't have it. 

Driving in the dark. I am challenged as far as driving is concerned at the best of times. But on a dark foggy night - it is grim...

Ageing skin. Why do women think they have to look younger? WHO started this idea? What fuckwit said - men can grow old gracefully - but women, yeah they can't grow old. Ever. Sorry. Now, I'm totally down for any woman to do whatever they want with their bodies and faces - whatever makes ya happy and all - but I just wonder where it all began? What person is laughing their way to bank having said 'lets make it that women have to always look 25 and a size 10.' It's ridiculous. 

Having to make plans. I am wintering people. Call me again in March. 

Etiquette. And for those that do call me - a lesson: it is polite and empathetic to ask someone how they are rather than rant about yourself for 20 minutes before hanging up. Ranting is always allowed, just remember to enquire how the other person does. Life does not revolve around you, despite you thinking so. 

Menopause. Sweet Jesus but I cannot remember anything. A convo with my closest buddies (all the same age) is a start/stop/where were we/oh yes! I was saying/did I not say/why was I telling you that - where we all give up and spend the rest of the evening trying to remember the word we forgot.... The RAGE. I am RAGING. FOR. NO. GOOD. REASON. Then I am sad. Sad for no reason. All in the same 5 minutes. The brain fog is the worst. Debilitating. I was in a writers room for first two weeks of Jan and at one point asked my mate: am I thick? I felt wildly stupid. Because trains of thought just ... kind of run out of... yes... where was I again?

See you in Spring! CM XX

2023 in a nutshell

As someone who kept (tragic) diaries from the age of 8 - 28, I cannot let a whole year go by without reflecting on it somewhat. 2023 may have been my most successful year of work but I fear it perhaps lacked the glitter of 2022. That year I graduated as a counsellor, had a magical holiday in Greece and got to work with fab people on a fun (if extraordinarily difficult to write) show. It was manic - with not a weekend off between April- July - but all those hours of counselling folk (100 in order to graduate) and frantic essay writing was undeniably worth it - and I felt like the whole 4.5 years had been one long therapy session. I miss college still - a moment where every week I got asked: 'how are you?' and I really had to answer... no waffling: 'not bad thanks' but a real look at the gnarly stuff going on in my head...

So 2023, the world on fire and I turned 50. I always remember Dawn French (who I was lucky enough to see this year - thanks Sam) saying that she was delighted to get to 60, as many of her friends hadn't. It is a privilege to age. With the loss of my step-sister at 60 (which feels so young) I thought fuck it - and had a party... Bar a dodgy lamp short circuiting the electrics the minute the hog was put on to roast and it being the most sweltering of summer nights, it was perfect. My actual b'day was spent in Boscastle, visiting a witches museum and having to eat outside the wonderful Rockstore restaurant so our dog could join us. It was April and we froze our asses off - but at least my favourite hairy beast was by my side. 

50 aint bad, bar the dreaded M word - wombless, I have no idea if I am pre/mid/post - but it sure keeps my husband on his toes... It's a bit of a rollercoaster. To offset the fact that if I so much as sniff a piece of beloved shortbread I put on 3kgs - I've taken to going to brutal reformer pilates and it is a miracle. That, dog walking and my weekly cold swims keep me sane... 

I'm grateful for my health - although a vicious lurgy wiped me out before Xmas and reminded me that we winter for a reason.... 4 trips up north, two weddings and a bar mitzvah coupled with a new job counselling in a 'challenging' school one day a week was all too much. Next year I will hibernate from Halloween until March... 

The new job has made me realise how totally screwed our education system is - don't for a second tell me that a homeless child bouncing between hotels getting a C in a GCSE is the same as privately educated, tutored to within an inch of their lives kid, getting an A. Why is the whole schooling system based on exams - a certain method of learning - in the first place? AsI painted my picket fence black (yes we look like the goths of the lane) I listened to a brilliant podcast with Louis Theroux talking to his cousin Justin Theroux - and they discussed their wildly different upbringings on either side of the pond. Louis - privately educated at Westminster, Oxford and then the world of investigative journalism. Justin admitted had he grown up in England he would have disappeared between the cracks - academia not his forte. He went to a local college and discovered a passion for acting. Arguably the more successful of the two - Justin knew that the UK education system wouldn't have worked in his favour; he attended the Buxton school in Massachusetts - where the grading system is based on report conferences - not exams...  I digress... It is just the UNFAIRNESS of the cards folk can be dealt with early in life and how hard it is to climb out of the poverty trap - even in 2023 - astounds me. Until the education system changes - a more fair playing field - I don't see how things will improve for the less privileged children....

What have learnt this year? To accept loss. Or try to... My family circle grows smaller. My friendship one too. It is difficult watching one's parents age and deteriorate. Time races by. People, behaviours, thoughts - no longer serve us and life moves on...  A great lunch in York with my friend Chris gave me much food for thought: are we only real in the consciousness of others - he suggested. Having stopped worrying about anything as he approaches 70, I could take a few pages from his book... I stress over the small things too much - I need to let go and trust the universe a bit more. Hippy that I am at heart....

So I'm putting up some pics to remind me of this year and glorious moments: the freezing swims, Kings of Leon in er... Wrexham; Amsterdam for one night only (think that's all we can take at 50); watching a dear friend be the most beautiful bride; Sicily and Sproglette managing to break a $400 table(!!!); hen dos and high teas; 50th gigs (V I'm looking at you) rainy dog walks; uni visits; the campest/most pink wedding (with THE best curry - the broccoli YUM ) I have ever been to by a country mile; Fischers and La Fromagerie on Xmas EVE and all the lovely moments I have been lucky enough to share with friends and family. It's my own personal photo diary if you will... 

Here's to 2024 - may it be kind to us all. Nothing but peace and love. CM x

20 to 50 in a heartbeat

                                             Cost per wear: about 2p over the 30 years....

On the verge of summer 1993. I'm living - somewhat improbably - in Devonshire Mews West, London W1.  (Opposite Babs Windsor no less - who I will later meet while working at Enders - a total diamond). My rent? A mere £30 a week. I'm attending Westminster Uni where I'm training to become a broadcast journalist. The course is amazing; being a poor student in London less so. Yet somehow, I've bought Vogue magazine, where there is a spread on Michael Hutchence and Helena Christensen, at his house in France - where they shoot each other with water guns and play table tennis. It all looks idyllic. He was of course a huge crush of mine (and I'd be lucky enough to score free tickets on the day of his Town and Country club gig in Leeds later that summer - to see INXS) and Helena epitomised the cool girl that I would never, ever, be. In the captions to the article (pic below) it said that she shopped at Portobello market and so inspired, off I went, with the hope of finding a vintage white dress, to wear that summer. 

I found the one above for a mere £20 and loved it. Wearing it was the first time anyone looked at me in the street or complimented me. It was the summer that felt ripe with possibility - my 20s lay ahead... No longer an awkward teen, but, I dared to hope, becoming a woman... Filled with hopes and ambition and energy and doubt and fear and all the things we are aged 20.

Almost 30 years have passed since that summer and I'm days away from turning 50. I cannot believe that fact is true, even as type. In many ways I am still that 20 year old - less ambitious, less doubt, less fear but hopefully still with that energy. It would be remiss of me not to reflect on all that has happened - but I am completely grateful that all of it did - because it got me to here. Without sounding like some awful hashtag or trite life phrase hung in a kitchen - I have never been happier - or rather, been as content. Shit that mattered doesn't matter so much. Fitting in, being accepted, being valued for things that ultimately are not who I am. For any 20 year old I have no advice - how can I - I'm not in their shoes - except one thing: run at life. Enjoy every fucking second because in a heartbeat it can be taken from you. 

The 20 year old that I was: I thought all my problems would be gone in an instant if only I could become a TV presenter - perhaps with a side order of fame. Well, I did manage to be a presenter for about ten years and THANK GOD I was never famous. If there is one thing to ruin someone with a fragile sense of self - that would have been it. The presenting was wildly fun - not like having a real job whatsoever (a dating show where I took teens on dates to Paris first class Eurostar/ interviewing Leo DiCaprio and Will Smith/attending Julian McDonald fashion shows with the Spice Girls or handing them a stolen pirate VHS tape of their Spiceworld movie with News Bunny at Heathrow on a rainy Halloween night 1997/Paris Fashion week/live studio audience at 11pm at night to keep me on my toes/backstage at V festival - or was it Reading - pretending to be in Robbie Williams' band). But there was a price to be paid for it, as when I had my son, trying to combine work and motherhood became the holy grail - and in fact why I began this here blog.

So what did I learn? Well nothing beats a cup of tea with a digestive biscuit and butter, that is for sure... (And yes with butter. Try it. You'll thank me later). The thing is, I'm still learning - I hope I always will be, so I'm not sure that I have any secret inside knowledge to life - no more than anyone else who is lucky enough to live to 50 doesn't have... Perhaps my best discovery is that life isn't all about those winning goals, the big celebration moments - but in fact all the little incidental bits in between: the first cuppa of a day, red wine by a fire, a wet rainy walk with a dog who is still delighted to be out there in the elements, a great hug, a comfy cinema seat and a hot coffee, clean PJs, a perfect old fashioned, laughing until you cry with oldest buddies. I try to find one of those moments in every day. 

Funnily enough, I hoked out all my painstakingly kept diaries (from age 8-28) for something I am writing at the moment and was amazed at what I read. Those that had wronged me, I realised were just finding their way too; a first love affair was anything other than the blissful romantic ideal that I had remembered - and was in fact one long lesson in what not to do... As an aside, for every boy that had to endure one of my many, many letters (god, it seemed all I did was write frigging letters) I apologise. All those emotions of mine just had to get on paper... They still do. The other thing I've realised, is that there is no term of love for friendships - and yet, they are the great unsung relationships of our lives. I've been a good, if challenging friend - as my own hang ups meant I need/needed to feel prioritised and valued, perhaps in a way that others don't. I think I've finally realised that people not calling me back immediately - isn't a sign that I don't matter. Yes, it took me a degree in counselling and 50 years to get there... 

A friend came to visit last September having not seen me for quite a few years and she said I was calmer than she had ever known me. Thank god eh? I feel very lucky that I met my husband and had my children - even all the young kid years where I was working full time at Enders, writing 13 Babble articles a month and on my knees. The key to life I feel is balance - colouring in that old life wheel and realising that you've got each bit covered and none compromising the other. I work from home, I get to write every day, I get to counsel teens and give back something that would have benefitted me enormously when I was that teen. I get to jump in cold water and be fully in nature and that keeps me sane. Another dear friend asked me: 'you make your own Xmas wreaths and get in cold swampy lakes for fun - who the fuck are you?' As that is a picture far removed from my hedonistic 24 year old swinging from the Met bar days...  I don't miss that girl. I was looking for things to fulfil me that I was never going to find there, no matter the glitter, no matter the excitement, no matter the glamour. 

I still get excited by the thought of a cocktail. (Preferably at a hotel bar).  By a gathering. By parties. I still think anything is possible, no matter my age. I don't have regrets (except not going to see U2 that summer of '93 with my school buddies in a limo), because every mistake I hope - in time - I have learnt from. You learn nothing from successes bar one thing: that hard work is what it takes to get there. I've had several careers and instead of seeing that as some kind of failure - I see that now as a success. I wanted so desperately to become that TV presenter and I got there: replete with chauffeur driven cars to work, makeup and wardrobe and studio lights. It was fun, as long as presenting can be for women (until the work dries up). I'm happier where I am now. I'm saddened by cancel culture and the way I am more afraid in this era of insane correctness, to speak out than I was in the 90s... We are all too quick to judge and if we could all just listen that bit more or try and understand others - realising that division is pointless, we'd all be in a better place. The other day I drove into my local garage, and a guy was crossing deliberately slowly so I just drove on in. He shouted abuse at me and ignoring him, I parked up, got petrol and duly paid. I looked out to see that he had walked back and was in fact photographing my license plate. I went after him and he shouted that the Highway code had changed and that he had right of way. He was apoplectic with rage, gunning to fight, so I took a breath and replied: 'thank you so much for telling me, I'm truly sorry, I had no idea. I am grateful you took the time to tell me.' Well he had no clue what to do with that. He stood stock still, stunned. I was being sincere too. He was utterly thrown. Try it - back down, agree, understand, see their side - and wham, life isn't the row everyone expects or perhaps wants.

So what for my future? Who knows... What I have also realised is how little of anything, we control - much as we would want to. Money might make life easier and buy better health care (sadly) - but it doesn't keep us safe. I hope I make it to 60. I hope I'm still curious about people, still getting in lakes and that my dog is somehow alive forever... My 50th will be spent getting in the sea, cake of some sort, a wonderful seafood meal in The Rockstore in Cornwall and er... visiting the biggest Witches and Magic museum in the world. I may get a tarot reading to see what is in store, but in truth, I don't want to know...  May it be as glorious, as fun and as loving as the past 30 years have been. 

Maybe, I'll still be wearing my Portobello market dress... 

 

The M word/Mental heath and She Said.

 1. Whoever created woman, really was a misogynist. Why on earth would they decide to give us teenagers, ageing parents and the menopause all at once? I mean, WTF? I worship at the altar of HRT as without it I would be more cray cray than I already am. It is like PMT on steroids. I'm FURIOUS - like, ready to kill because the dog has wandered upstairs and onto our bed, leaving a trail of muddy little paw prints everywhere. The kids haven't tidied their rooms and why WHY have I more laundry to do? Where does it come from? And why does no sock match EVER? Then, in a heartbeat, I just am so teary. Ready to burst into floods just because there are no cookies left in the tin. All I wanted was a cup of tea and that last chocolate chocolate chip. Husband says it is like walking a tightrope living with me. He has been googling menopause symptoms. I think I can get away with anything at the moment - because I just scream - IT'S THE GODDAMN MENOPAUSE at him loudly. Rationally, obviously. My hair is thinner, my face starting to droop, I am so TIRED all the time. More paranoid than a spy, I slink around the house, desperate to just go to bed and sleep forever like some middle aged sleeping beauty who doesn't ever want to be disturbed by any handsome prince. I rang a friend in tears on Sunday and discovered she too had gone to bed as she hated everyone and everyone hated her. She said at least there she wasn't fighting with anyone. I had my womb out in 2016 - I have no periods, so I have no freaking idea if I am peri-menopusal, in the thick of it - or like my mate E - who was told by her doctors that she had gone through it... unknowingly. So this not knowing where the hell I am menopause wise keeps me on my toes. I also forget everything. Who even am I? A few months back I wept as I couldn't find the car keys. I had bundled them up in a T shirt to take upstairs to the laundry basket... Why? Who knows. I am talking and I forget words. What is that stuff to clean your teeth with - tooth thread? Oh yes - floss! Floss! How did I forget that? Because the menopause is the gift that keeps on giving. Just when you think you have your symptoms licked - along comes a new one. Sigh. 

2. Last week, I did something I never like doing as a freelancer. I turned down work. The lovely universe was looking out for me as a chance encounter in a pub in my little market town, one Xmas eve, led to the events of last week. I was offered the chance to be in a writer's room (I love them even if they are terrifying) but I happened to know (due to the Xmas eve encounter with people who I have never seen again) that the head writer (who I had never met) was best friends with the only person I would never work with again. And they were likely to be in that room. Literally the only person in TV bar Kelvin MacKenzie that I would rather eat my eyeballs than have to be in a room with for 5 days. So I turned down the opportunity. Because, my sanity is worth more to me than any cash. The older I get the more I realise - work with those you like hanging around with. Creative life is difficult at the best of times, so be as kind to yourself as possible. I felt nothing but relief at saying no and thanking my lucky stars I had made the connection and not turned up in the room to be faced by the toxic fresh hell of that person. Who knows, they may have changed - and it would have been ok - but I take no chances. This year I've been so lucky with all those I have worked with - it has been my most favourit-ist year yet work wise. Gawd bless those who have been my creative team mates... My new rule in life - it is too short to be unhappy. It is too stressful in and of itself. So don't add to it if you can. You don't want to go to that Xmas party but you think you should? SAY NO. Tell them you are washing your hair, or the dog or whatever. No more to people pleasing. I spent decades saying yes to things that I didn't want to do for fear of upsetting people. Now, NO is my new word. Well, if I remember it... (see above). 

3. Last night I snuck off to the movies alone to avoid the football. Despite being DESPERATE to see Bones and All - husband miraculously wants to see it too, so I decided to go for 'She Said' the story of Jodi Cantor and Meghan Twohey - two brave New York Times journalists who wrote an article detailing Harvey Weinstein's decades long history of alleged abuse against women. The story that launched the #Metoo movement and brought about the horrific rapist's downfall. It's watchable, upsetting, if no longer shocking (we all know the stories now as the article led to many more women coming forward) and yet... 

I noticed at the start that this is a 'Plan B' production - which is owned by Brad Pitt. In it Gwyneth Paltrow is mentioned many times and held up as one of the women who came forward first about Harvey. Paltrow and Pitt are on great terms - she recently interviewed him on her Goop website. But what of Angelina Jolie's bravery in coming forward at the same time? Omitted here. The whole film gave more than whiff of Hollywood patting itself on the back for making a film about the article, when in fact the majority of Hollywood - Pitt included - knew exactly what Harvey was doing and yet stood by... As long as they got the parts and the Oscar buzz - who cared, right? I found it hard to stomach in parts. What of all those who enabled Weinstein? Who continue to enable predators? On a slight tangent - I guess it's ok that a woman is banged up for her connections to Epstein while all those who flew on his Lolita Express just go about their business... If anyone fancies on joining the dots of why fancy lawyers are representing Epstein victims - and ultimately deciding who is to blame for what happened - all the while Maxwell's little black book has mysteriously vanished - and no man has yet been held accountable for what happened to these women - take a little look at House Inhabit on Instagram. I no longer buy into  the narrative the media want us to know on stories such as this - when the real story is so much more shocking.... 

PS Random stuff, I know. It's the MENOPAUSE ok???? 

Success?

There is a famous saying: good girls keep diaries - bad girls don't have time. 

Not so, according to the diaries I managed to fill in the late 90s. I've been reading over them for something I am working on and 97 - 99, when I'm a budding reporter/presenter, is spent in a blur of filming, parties, launches, cocktails and stumbling out of the Met Bar at 4am when the lights came on - like a cooler version of the Shane Park school discos where the bright lights illuminating your dodgy neon leggings and even dodgier frosted lipstick, were a sign of - get the hell home now.  

Reading my antics, let alone living them, is exhausting. I am so busy STRIVING for attention and acceptance and well, love - that I barely have time to eat. I tell myself, shamefully, that if I am famous, if I get that glorious next job, if I rise up the ranks to dizzying heights (not sure what these precisely are) then I will be happy. It is goalpost after goalpost. Rarely do I stop to saviour the moments of triumph (blagging my way into and then backstage at Stella McCartney's first ever Chloe fashion show; lying my way into a Bond Premiere and getting a one to one with Bond himself; surviving attending a human autopsy with a Brit party induced hangover). Also, are these REALLY moments of triumph? Or just moments where I convinced myself that at long last I was 'enough.' I am certain that validation is waiting at the end of a camera, or in the arms of some fly-by-night director, or a morose comedian.  What I never realised is that I had to give it to myself first... 

Of course we live in a capitalist society where success is valued in monetary gains and status symbols - but at heart we are hunter/gatherers, desperate to belong to a tribe, needing to be amongst nature. We adapt  behaviours to compete - when we don't even realise who we really are competing against. Or what for. 

I listened to an amazing podcast at the weekend: 'Feel Better Live More,' where Dr Rangan Chatterjee chats to physician and author Gabor Mate. (I'm a fan). They discussed former rugby union player Jonny Wilkinson - who dreamed of playing for England, in a world cup and scoring the winning point... This was his ultimate goal. Then - it only went and bloody happened. In the World Cup final in 2003 he kicked the winning drop goal in the last minute of the game. According to a story he told, before the ball had even dropped to the ground, he started to feel low. The following morning he could hardly get up out of bed and then sank into a deep depression. He had a goal - it gave him purpose in life - but at the ripe old age of 24 he'd achieved his dream - so what then? Jim Carrey wishes everyone could be rich and famous to see just how it doesn't make one happy... When you fail and have to get up or when you are trying endlessly to get to a point in the distance and then suddenly, miraculously it appears - who are you then? Society says you are rich/famous/gorgeous/successful - so why do you feel like an imposter or if you take your foot of the pedal your house of cards will all come tumbling down?

Michael Jackson woke up one night (I know I know, he's persona non grata these days but hear me out) and he had a banging tune in his head. Rather than go back to sleep or just write it down, he got up and went into his recording studio, desperate to record it. At 7am in rolled his studio engineer wondering why on earth Jacko wasn't getting his beauty sleep.  Jacko tells him he has been up most of the night laying this tune that was in his head. Surely they could have recorded the song that morning muses the engineer? Jackson turns to him and replies: 'No, because if I'd gone back to sleep, God would have given that tune to Prince.' 

In the podcast Dr Chatterjee talks about a time when his book was coming out and he got a phone call to tell him that it had done well. Exceedingly so. He took the news, thought 'oh ok,' and then went about his day. He admits that previously, news like this would have given him a high as his ego would have been royally massaged. But, he's done a heck of a lot of work on himself and he doesn't need success (book sales, fans etc.) to validate who he is.  He discussed believing in his work, regardless of how others viewed it. The moment we look to outside sources to give us validation, we lose our own sense of power. 

Another quick story: I listened to another podcast, where the writer of 'Call Me By your Name (SUCH a beautiful book) Andre Aciman was talking about his newest novel. The interviewer was commenting how Call Me By Your Name was huge and even moreso because of the Oscar-winning film adaptation. She wondered how all this interest and attention had affected him? Aciman said that whilst yes, it was lovely that the film had brought him a whole host of new readers, that they will disappear, the attention will vanish and then his core readers will remain. He didn't pay much heed to the glitter, the noise, the sudden interest, because he didn't need it nor desire it. He was just happy, sitting in his little office in New York, writing as he always did, enjoying the journey. It struck me just how assured he is; how happy in his own skin and how joyful he finds writing, regardless of how his books are received. 

Life is fucking short - I have witnessed this on several occasions over the past few years, when I've lost people I dearly loved, who died young. Why spend what time we have here, striving for something that only will temporarily boost our egos? What a horrific waste of time... 

I look back at those painfully detailed, raw and exposing diaries and feel compassion for my younger self. I was looking in all the wrong places. Now I get my kicks from the most mundane of activities. A dog walk yesterday led me to pass by a small library of books hidden within a little nest of bushes near the end of my lane. One book jumped out at me to read: 'The unexpected joy of the ordinary.' I picked it up because I've learnt (as the film 'Soul' so beautifully depicts) that it is the very minutiae of a daily life that makes it so thrilling: the perfect cup of tea in the morning, a robin landing outside a window; a hug from a friend; the chatter of my kids over dinner; a glass of red as the fire roars. Over the past few years I have very deliberately carved out a very simple life for myself; living on the edge of town, with a little stream babbling in my garden; venturing into cold waters every week and walking my dog through fields and forests every day. I've studied and graduated not only to counsel teenagers but more importantly to counsel myself. People keep asking - will you now be a counsellor? Or a writer? Can't I be both? It is surprising how similar both jobs are... 

Speaking of jobs - why does there have to be competition? Another thing Jonny Wilkinson said is that winning the cup meant he no longer played rugby for the joy of the game. Isn't that a shame? When does an activity you have loved become a ball ache - a means to simply make money? I've written diaries since I was a child, blogs as I got older, scripts for a living. I will never not write - regardless what it is for. Does it even have to be for something? My son has just done his GCSEs and I told him simply to pick A levels he would enjoy. That's it. If you don't enjoy what you are doing - studying/job/life - then why the hell are you doing it and who exactly for? 

Which brings me back to all that success I was busy networking for and hustling to get back in my stardust days. I think my nights on the town brought me one job in the end. I lied to myself that I was busy trying to get the glory and get my face on screen because I was 'good at my job.' Which maybe I was... But really it was to be seen, to be heard, to be wanted. It was all just ego.  All that comparison with others - it is only ever going to bring misery. A good friend of mine in the arts, rang recently - upset that her particular artistic endeavours were not being received with as much applause as some other people's. I told her that it was all just noise and fluff and instagram bollocks. I reminded her that she would still have to make dinner that night. Take the bins out. Iron school uniforms etc. That really all that 'success' is just bullshit. In the grand scheme of things, whatever you put out, however it received isn't really the point. What is one person's trash is another's treasure and art is subjective; we all respond to a painting in a completely different way. If you are doing it to be on best seller lists or to get awards - then what does that say about your needs and how fragile they are? What if they fail? Or perhaps worse - what if they succeed? Then where will you be? Trumping yourself I guess.... 

This year I had some bad news about a work thing in January. I walked up the hill, in the rain, through the muddy fields and wept. The next day, I felt completely normal again. Back at the wheel. In August I had some amazing news and I smiled to myself, told my husband and then got on with making dinner. The highs these days aren't so high and the lows aren't so low. That locus of evaluation is more internal. I don't need to feed my ego. Thank god. 

I only wish my 24 year old self could have discovered the above much sooner. I would've saved myself a fortune in lipstick and heels. 

Still, I got there in the end. 

Now I just need to burn these bloody diaries so my kids never get their mitts on them.