Finding Roots - a strangely sentimental pondering

I have been pondering of late what, in these times of travel and dispersed family, it mean to have 'roots'. In the not so distant past, the majority of families stayed together in the area in which they were born due to practicality and economics. Transport was not as freely available and the concept of upping sticks and moving to a different part of the county, let alone country, was an alien one. Families stayed tight knit, living in the same streets in the same towns and the sense of community thrived. Neighbourhood kids could play out in the streets because they were with their siblings, cousins, second cousins and extended family. So has our desire to stretch our wings and fly the nest to distant places taken away that sense of community, and also our sense of 'home'? 


Who among us can say where we are 'from'?  It is a question I am often asked yet find hard to answer. My grandfather was a first generation 'immigrant' from Armenia, who married (eloped none the less - oh the scandal!) my Grannie who was from Yorkshire. They lived out the early part of their marriage in London before moving to Hertfordshire. So, Armenia and Yorkshire so far make up my heritage. Then my dad's side; his father was Bolton through and through and his entire family were of 'that' generation of close family, Aunts, Uncles, cousins all living in one small part of the town. Unlike many from his peer group he married outside of the community, bringing an Irish thread into the mix. A complex mix of history, traditions, races and religions. This is not unlike many, if not most of my generation. It makes for an interesting background, yet it brings to question, where are my roots? 


Well I was born in Hertfordshire yet spent many of my early years in and out of Bolton. I lost the accent but gained a lifelong support of the mighty Bolton Wanderers. Do I feel rooted in Bolton? Not particularly although the sight of the Reebok Stadium shimmering in the sun as you drive down the slip road of the M61 always brings a tear to my eye (yes, seriously!!)

Do I feel my roots are Armenian? Not really - I have the tell tale eyebrows (should be 'eyebrow'?) and skin that tans in the blink of an eye to mark that part of my heritage. I have an affinity to all foods Middle Eastern and a weakness for the stuffed vine leaves and baklava of my childhood but I don't feel 'Armenian'. I spent the vast majority of my formative years in and around Watford yet I feel absolutely no desire to go back there, and absolutely no sense of belonging there. So where are my roots? Is it a case of wherever you lay your hat? Because that seems wrong, roots and belonging should be about more than bricks and mortar, it should be about history, memories, knowledge and above all love for a place and all that it is about. 

After travelling all over the UK, spending 5 years working as a Sales rep with a territory that covered Newquay to Newcastle and from Carlisle to Cumbria I honestly began to wonder if my roots were going to become entangled in the prefabricated foundations of the Travelodge chain - to wonder if I was destined to never settle down and call a place home - for good. And I wondered if my relentless driving up and down the motorway network of Britain had taken away my ability to settle  - if it was so entrenched in my being to move from one place to the next. I couldnt ever find a place I wanted to stay, everything felt temporary as I moved from Hertfordshire, to Hampshire, to Surrey, to Oxford, to Lincoln. I dont know what exactly I was looking for, I suppose on reflection a place I could call 'home' and ultimately a place where I wanted to settle down and have a family. It was evident that moving county to county every 3 years was not only expensive but not the actions of a sane person. 

And so the decision came in 2006 to try out Somerset. I can't say I had high expectations, I was most likely planning to spend a couple of years with itchy feet before moving on. But something stuck. Something grabbed me by the ankle and planted my feet firmly in the fertile soil and before I knew it I grew roots. They were tentative at first, but as the months turned into years I found more and more that I loved about the place. I grew to know people, I formed bonds, I started to make memories and eventually babies. And now these babies are growing up in a place where they will have roots, where they are already growing branching out their fledgling roots. And I hope that they will have happy memories of growing up here, memories of the beautiful open views, the stunning scenery, the laid back lifestyle. And I hope that they will feel an affinity to the place forever, and even when they inevitably move away for work, or university, love or experience. I hope they will feel drawn back and that whenever they pass Stonehenge on the A303 and drive towards Somerset, they will feel that they are coming home. 

Working Mums. Are We Expecting Too Much?

I am a working mum. I want to work and I need to work. I want to work because for me, being a stay at home mum isn't enough. I need to work as we have financial commitments that were taken on pre-children, as many people do. That 'being a mum isn't enough' isn't a derogatory comment to SAHM's - far from it. I am immensely jealous of any mum that finds being at home satisfying enough - who is able to provide enough mental stimulation and activity for  a pre-schooler without going stir crazy. I can't. I openly admit that I have limited patience and being at home all day everyday does not give me enough. I tried it, with both my children I took a full 9 months maternity leave. The first 6 months were necessary - 6 months of hormonal highs and lows and sleep deprivation passed in something of a haze. The other 3 months were harder. I tried baking, card making, crafting, gardening, toddler groups and activity classes - anything to feel 'fulfilled'. I found myself mopping floors multiple times a day, obsessing over the symetrical arrangement of my cutlery drawer and washing my skirting boards. For the love of God - who DOES that! It was at this point I knew, just knew that I would be a better mum if I were at work at least some of the time.

Perhaps this is because I came into parenting as an older mum, having had 15+ years of career behind me. I missed the banter of the office, the pressure, the stress and the sense of achievement. Of course my children gave me some of that - don't take it that I am some soulless person with no maternal ability, but they couldn't give me everything I needed. I just knew that I would be a better mum if I wasn't with them 24/7. That I would cherish the time I spent with them, knowing that my life wasn't just an endless cycle of nappies, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, discussing the merits of baby led weaning and playing Peekaboo. So I looked at returning to work only to find that in reality it was not nearly as simple as it seemed in theory.


Firstly, there was the issue of finding a job in recession struck Britain. Then there was the surprising harder issue of finding a job in recession struck Britain that was viable with the costs and time constraints of childcare. My husband has a very full time job with unpredictable hours and travel. This means he can not be relied upon at all to assist with childcare. Like many mums, childcare became something that was solely my responsibility to source and make fit around MY working hours. I searched for 3 long months for a job that fit. I would find something perfect for my skills then discover the hours simply wouldn't work. Childminders wouldn't start before 7.30am. Living in a rural area all jobs require travelling so an 8am start simply wasn't viable. Neither was a 7pm finish, or working weekends. Then there was the issue of cost. With two children under two, a minimum wage job wouldn't even make a dent in the cost of childcare. So I was seeking the impossible it seemed. Skilled work on a decent wage with part time hours and a degree of flexibility. 


Finally after countless applications, I found the job that was perfect. That should have been an end to it, but this is where my post really starts. To put both children in childcare for 24 hours a week costs more than I earn. My older daughter will get funding the term after she turns 3 but that is a long way off and I don't want to be at home until then. Firstly because I simply can not afford to and secondly because 3 years off the career ladder will make my skills rusty and leave a massive hole in my CV - work would be even harder find. 


Thankfully, good old mum agreed to help out and have the girls 2 out of the 4 days I work. If this were not the case I simply wouldn't be able to. As my husbands wage is above the threshold we get no help with costs via the Tax Credits system. Now I realise that on paper, this looks as though I have nothing to complain about - that am whining unfairly despite being in a higher threshold of earners. Its not that I expect to be given hand outs - far from it. My point is that the UK has by far the highest childcare costs in Europe and a tiered system that benefits those on low incomes and forces higher earners out of work. I'm not talking about Senior Executives here, those on 6 figure salaries who can afford live in nannies. I'm talking about middle earners - those with mortgages and earnings just above the Tax Credit cut off. I am skilled and experienced and by my going to work I become another tax payer, and my taxes help to pay for lower income parents to put their children in daycare and go to work. Yet I am all but prohibited from doing this. Think of the number of potential UK tax paying women who could and would work if it were viable for them to do so. Who could and would stay in work until retirement age, working longer hours as their children grew up. By pricing these women out of work when their children are at pre school age, you forfeit their long term earnings and tax paying potential.  The system in other European countries caps the cost of childcare, making it an even playing field for ALL working men and women. I think it would be prudent for the UK to employ a similar system.


I take this quote from an article in The Independent February 2012

Number crunching: Why a universal system makes economic sense

Parents in the UK face the highest childcare costs in Europe, spending, on average, a third of their income on fees. So is there a better solution?

If it provided universal childcare for pre-school-age children, the Government could make more than £20,000 for every mother returning to full-time work after one year of maternity leave, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research. The think tank suggests that, once you take off the childcare costs, the Treasury could still take back £20,050 in taxes over a four-year period.

By getting more parents working, and improving the productivity of children through teaching them from an earlier age, experts argue that subsidised childcare can boost government coffers. Funding universal childcare for all one- to four-year-olds would result in a net profit for the Government of £40bn over a 65-year period, according to a report in 2003 by the Social Market Foundation, Daycare Trust and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The proportion of income spent by British parents is three times that paid by French families and more than four times that spent by parents in Denmark and Sweden.

Some 33 per cent of under-threes are in formal childcare in the UK – lower than Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark.

This argues that by supporting higher income working mothers in returning to work with subsidised childcare, would return a viable profit for the Government. 


I know there is an argument that having children is a choice, and if it is a choice a parent can not afford they shouldn't do it. I have read countless responses on blogs and articles stating that women should 'just stay at home if they chose to have children' yet I don't see that argument ever pointed at fathers. Why invest training and education on women if our careers are going to be cut short as soon as we decide to have a family. It's not about wanting 'it all' it's about finding an economic balance both for the individual, the family and the country.


Here are some articles relating to the concerns:



http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2034266/Childcare-costs-parents-working-prices-rise-twice-fast-wages.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/childcare-in-britain-parents-paying-an-unsustainable-price-for-care-7440948.html

Social Networking and Personal Beliefs. Can they sit comfortably together?-

I have been finding my place on certain social networks a little uncomfortable of late. Facebook has without any doubt become a massive part of my, and many of my peers, social interactions. It is the place I go to discuss trivial issues, to laugh with friends and to share highs and lows of the week. As a working mum I get little time to go out and socialise so often discussions via these sites becomes a little like a night in the pub - chatting and passing banter with friends who are likewise stuck at home with small children. Honestly I have no idea what I would do with myself of an evening if it were not for Facebook, Twitter, G+ and the like. They are lifelines in a pretty lonely world when my children are asleep and the husband is working late. So those are all positives. I have made new friends, acquaintances and a few enemies but all in all it replicates real life in many ways.


However, as social networking replaces socialising in the lives of many it makes me question what is and is not appropriate discussion topics, or is it a case of anything goes? I remember by ex Mother in Law telling me that religion and politics and any 'extremist' views were not subjects to be discussed at a dinner party. (Although men were allowed to discuss politics after dinner with their port and cigars. Honesty I don't have enough rolly eyes for this and let me tell you she alone could provide and entire blog entry of epic proportion) But I am drifting off track. She is correct in so far as in polite social situations some subjects are off limits. Facebook doesn't appear to comply to these social 'standards'. It is a place where it appears anything is acceptable, any view, opinion, foul language, sexually explicit detail is acceptable under the proviso that it is accompanied by a clear "if you don't like what I'm saying, delete me." I suppose this is something that you can't do at a dinner party (although I have been to many when I truly wish there had been an option to 'unfriend and block')


My difficulty is that there are people on my social networks that I truly like - people I wouldn't dream of deleting yet I find the repetition of their strong views on subjects close to their hearts somewhat grating. And I suppose we are on the whole ALL guilty of using social media as a billboard for our beliefs and life views, but SHOULD we? Would we stand in a pub with our friends every night of the week and repeatedly push our strong opinions on our friends? I use several examples (at the risk of offending, but hopefully simply sparking debate): Firstly one of my own, something I did across all my social media - with good intent but which with hindsight may have been misguided. Following my closest friend losing her baby at full term, I felt utterly impotent. Completely unable to do anything to take away her pain, ease her suffering or share what she was going through. Over the year since she has lost her daughter she has fought to raise awareness of stillbirth, lobbying MP's, fundraising for SANDS and Tommys, marathon running and organising other charity events - all of it very visibly on her social networks. In absolute support of her I re-posted links to articles about stillbirth, asked my online friends to read these heartbreaking reports and statistics. Was I wrong to do that? Is it wrong to raise awareness via social media for something you feel this passionately about? I ask myself would I have stood in a pub 3 nights of the week and discuss the UK's appalling stillbirth statistics over a drink. The answer is no. I may have confided in people quietly, one to one, over a coffee but I wouldn't have stood in a group of 20 or 30 or more people whose personal experience of such a topic was unknown to me and made them all listen. This is effectively what I did by posting articles on my news feed. Does the argument "If they don't like it they can delete me" stand up? Not really. I didn't want anyone to delete me. I wanted them to take notice, to be as shocked and stunned and angry as I was and to take action. But of course they wouldn't. They couldn't. Because they weren't me - they hadn't had this terrible thing happen to a dear friend. They weren't raw and hurting from the cruelty and unfairness that something so devastating had happened to someone so close. They could sympathise, but not get angry. 


So that brings me to my next example (the one that will likely lose me friends and alienate people). Breastfeeding. Inevitable being that I have a large number of mum friends on my networking sites. All of them are amazing, supportive and hilarious (see - I'm softening them up so they won't hate me as much!) Many of them are passionate about breastfeeding, angry about the way formula is promoted, angry that support, information and help is not available to so many new mums. They are single-minded in their desire to help new mums and improve breastfeeding rates.  They react the way I reacted to Stillbirth. They post links, information, statistics and photo's. Now I truly have no objection to the majority of this but sometimes it crosses a line. Sometimes it goes too far and makes those that didn't or couldn't breastfeed simply feel, well, pretty shit really. Its not nice to see every time you log onto your PC that the "choices" you made when feeding your child were the wrong ones (even if 'choice' had been taken away from you). Its not nice to be told that the first nutrition your infant had was "no substitute" or to find out long after the event and far too late that perhaps you DID have a choice. So we go back to the point, would I stand in a pub with a group of friends and have them tell me I was wrong, that my children had been given a rubbish start in life, that I should have done things differently. Probably. I would probably have had the debate or discussion once. Would I stand by and have it brought up every time I went to the pub, sometimes 5 nights of the week? Most certainly not. Yet I totally understand the passion and desire to make things better and to raise awareness. My question is, is social networking among friends whose situations you don't fully understand the place to do it?


Another example. I am an animal lover, a vegetarian, someone who is passionate about the ethics of where our food comes from and that it is sourced in a moral, ethical and environmentally viable way. Animal cruelty of any kind hurts and upsets me to my very soul. However, do I wish to see graphic photographs of animal abuse or homeless and starving animals when I log onto my PC? Of course I don't, yet I understand the emotion that drives a person to post such pictures. They simply want others to feel the same as they are. To get angry and feel motivated to make changes to the world. Is it wrong to do that? Of course it's not wrong to feel like that, it's very human, but do I want to see it? Not really. Would the same person that posts these images whip out a file of photos or beaten and abused dogs and place them all over the table in the bar? No. No sane person would, however passionate they were to the cause. 


So is it that it is easier to air your personal beliefs from behind a screen than face to face? Or that reaching a wider audience fulfils our need to be empowered to make change? It's easier to say things without seeing a response, without seeing people get upset, bored or angry. It makes us feel good to promote our causes and beliefs and to feel as though we have a voice - however small. And if it does make a difference, and makes the world a better place, perhaps upsetting some of the people, some of the time makes it worth while. 


It is very clear from the recent Kony 2012 viral video that social networking has completely changed the way we can bring about awareness - but is awareness without change worth the status its written on?

On Writing

All my life I have wanted nothing more than to write. While other children my age were out on their bikes, playing Donkey Kong or on their Sinclair Spectrum or fighting with their siblings I was in my bedroom, sprawled on the floor with a notepad and a pen, creating stories in my head and scribbling them down on paper. I was a pony mad youngster and made my daydreams come alive on the ruled pad before me. I visualised my perfect pony and formed him into something solid beneath my pen. From his flowing black mane to the tips of his polished ebony hooves he was as real as I was. I was there as he galloped across wild Scottish moors, I felt the spray as we passed the white water of rivers leaping with salmon. The memory of that pony is as clear in mind as if I had seen hundreds of photos. Yet he never really existed. I could immerse myself so completely in worlds of my own creation, far more vividly than watching anything on television. 


These short stories became longer, more elaborate and increasingly ambitious as in my created world I was winning at Hickstead or the Horse of The Year Show before typing the words 'The End'. At the age of 13 I submitted my first 'novel' to a publisher. I spent weeks poring over my dads antiquated typewriter; you remember, the ones with the ink tape and fiddly roll of correction tape?  I laboriously typed away, copying from my handwritten scrawl in double line spacing. The publishers sent me a lovely letter, my first rejection but it was very kindly worded, saying how much they had enjoyed my 'story' and that I shouldn't give up on writing. I suppose I took that message to heart. 


The old typewriter eventually gave out on me; overworked by my dogged determination to complete my second novel. I could just about type with two hands by this stage, although in my rush to hammer out the overflowing words of my teenage imagination the final copy was riddled with errors. More correction fluid, more paper. I kept entire forests in circulation over those years. 


Finally my dad invested in a small word processor - positively archaic by today's standards but a sheer delight to me. It had a screen I could edit on and the ability to save to a floppy disk before printing. By novel three, the subject matter was changing, horses and ponies taking a back seat to boys, unrequited love and darkness. Over one hundred A4 pages of teen angst are still in a box under my bed to this day. The writing is appalling, yet I am proud of my tenacity to complete another novel. It has a start, a middle and an end, characterisation and a plot. And to be fair I have read a number of published works that don't!


As I got into my later teens, exams arrived as did boys, parties and alcohol. The influx of words and thoughts never stopped but for a while my inclination to put them down on paper did.  The only writing I did during this time was the religious detailing of my innermost thoughts in my diaries - mostly shamefully embarrassing confessions and hormonal mood swings. 


Over the years since then I have collected half stories, passages, synopsis' for novels either on disk, hard drive or scrawled on backs of envelopes. I have completed three more novels in a variety of genre. I have nurtured and thrown my heart and soul into these stories only to send off the first three chapters and a synopsis in a soulless manilla envelope, knowing they will land on an agents desk along with 20,000 others. I would trawl the Writers Handbook, looking for an agent who sounded open to new authors. Each time a rejection letter would come back I would feel the bitter disappointment. Utter rejection, for there is no other word for it. I swore I would keep going until I had enough rejection letters to wallpaper the toilet in my first house. I think I nearly got there too. 


Despite abject disappointment the words, phrases, ideas and thoughts have never stopped coming. When I am out walking anything can spark a thought, which leads to an idea which charts an entire story. Something as inconsequential as the shape of a tree on the horizon can spark a 'what if' in my mind. When I smell something beautiful like honeysuckle on a warm summer evening I think of how I would convert the smell into words. How I would describe the residual taste of toothpaste or the feel of a grazed knee. For a long time I would carry a notebook with me everywhere to get these words committed to paper before I forgot, or the influx of new words took over. 


Part of me wants to keep going, to keep trying to get published. Part of me thinks enough is enough. For now, this blogging seems to be providing me with an outlet for some of the words. Anything else? We'll see. 

An excuse to post pictures of Alexander Skarsgard

I feel it is time to practise with some of the features and settings available on blogger. I am a self confessed technophobe so even such things as posting links and photo's will require some practice. So what better excuse than this to publish a post with pictures and links to my fantasy man!

Well that was easy!! Although I think I need a little more practice ;) 


I was an addicted to HBO's True Blood before it even aired in the UK. Whilst on holiday in Cuba in 2008 I was 8 weeks pregnant and suffering from the worst morning sickness and pregnancy exhaustion which meant I was retired to our room early evening. And so I discovered True Blood on the hotels HBO Channel. With 3 episodes under my belt before we flew home I couldnt wait for it to start in the UK. So admittedly in that 1st season Eric didnt really catch my eye, in fairness his character had quite a small role. But whilst missing my True Blood fix when Season One came off air, I then discovered Generation Kill, the Lady Gaga Paparazzi video - and from there my 36 year old self developed a crush more suited to a 14 year old. Thats OK - I'm not ashamed to admit it! If I had a pencil case I would without doubt be writing Alex's name on it in Tippex - and fantasising about what our children would look like (OK - so maybe I already do that ;)

And now he's gone global, this year alone gracing us with his talents in Melancholia, Straw Dogs and Battleship. So far I haven't tired of his 6' 5 self ;)

So that is that - a brief interlude in my rantings and musings.

Normal business will resume with the next post!