Side-tracked

  This week isn't very productive for writing, though I've been busy in other areas.

   It's my Grandma's 90th birthday on Wednesday, which is an achievement by any standards. As we were told she was dying imminently in 1995, it's even more surprising.

  Grandma has always been one of life's enigmas and eccentrics, and there is no time to do her justice here.  But we are all anxious about Wednesday, as she  has a few mental health difficulties.  She has bipolar disorder. For her, this means that she has a good day, followed by a bad day, then a good day.  On bad days, she can be vicious, rude and always petulant.  On good days, she is much the same at first, then 'warms up' as the hours pass, eating almost non-stop.  She will stay up until after midnight, giddy and high-spirited. Wednesday should be a good day, but every so often, she misses a step, and confuses us all.  To compound matters, she suffers with senile dementia too. It's advancing slowly, but it's there.

  Her birthday is meant to be a good day, so we are all going out for a meal at lunch time.  A few of her Irish relatives (all nieces now her sisters and brother are gone) are flying over to join us, and I am taking the children out of school to be with us.  Later in the day, we will have an open afternoon at her house for friends and neighbours to drop in for cake, tea and chat.  She is well-liked locally; a colourful character who shows her charm and sparkle as often as her under-slip. 

  I foolishly offered to make the cake for the drop in afternoon.  My Mum then foolishly offered to help me out.  (Clearly age and wisdom aren't always related). We chose a three tier beast of a cake that looked simple, and I baked it. I was proud of it, until the icing stage, when it became clear that, rather like a Victorian home, there was not one straight line involved. Each cake leaned, and was lumpy, and bulged.

  We deviated from the decorations in the book, at first just a little, but each decision then changed the next one, until it looked nothing like the plan.  We used pink icing for the top two tiers - it's Grandma's favourite colour; the more grotesque and Barbie-ish the better.  My six-year old thought it looked pretty, too.  She and Grandma get on well. 

  Apart from the fact the cake was wonky and bumpy and amateurish, we had such a time icing it.  Anything that could go wrong, did, from a toddler with a Poo Incident that required a shower (and yes, I had to get in with him) to a packet of icing sugar exploding on the floor.  Luckily, my sense of humour was healthy that day, and I spent the whole day laughing.  Perhaps it was hysteria, but I prefer to think it was the resilient laughter of a mature woman. Mum says we are never doing such a big job again;  I think it's the most fun I've had in ages.

  Best of all, when we came back to the cake on Tuesday, and added ribbon to disguise its spare tyre, and edible glitter to make it look pretty, and a few curling streamers and a 90 on top, it didn't look half bad.  It wouldn't win any prizes, and I'd rather be writing, but I think Grandma will approve.  Now we just need to get it to her house in one piece, and for her to get up on her birthday to see it.  I think I'll leave that part of the process  to Mum and Dad, and get back to making myself a concrete deadline for the second draft of my book. I might as well spend my time on the thing I love.

The end is nigh 2

I'm getting quite excited, seeing the end of the second draft nearing.  I hope I'm not miscalculating, as I feel like getting my teeth into a couple of other projects for a while.  This last section needs far less major re-writing (I think), and more polishing and tightening, so it ought to be a quicker job than the start and middle. 
The tension in the story is definitely building; I can feel the pace change and my pulse is quickening, but I don't know if that's just me! I am looking forward, nervously, to exposing it to some criticism and seeing it through other people's eyes, though I think I will struggle with fear of failure AND with comments, however helpful.  But it will all help me to thicken my skin the way I need to.
Can hardly believe the end is in sight...for the second time. Although I have a few pages of my notebook full of policing questions to ask my next door neighbour next time I can collar him...

Nappy days

I suspect most family homes have certain obsessions in common.  Parenthood seems to trigger the eco-warrior within for lots of people - my husband's cardboard recycling pile is nearing its terminal height, at which point it will collapse, burying a small child or two.  Some parents become fixated on their child's educational success, and spend all their time berating schools and teachers for trying to give their child a rounded education in all sorts, when little Oliver can't yet spell 'independent'.

The weirdest thing, though, is how obsessed parents become with all things toilet related.  (Actually, judging by the shared giggles between my four-year old, and my thirty-three year old other half, perhaps this is something that the males of the species always enjoy obsessing over..?)  I've just hung up from a lovely phone conversation with my sister-in-law, filling me on how her gorgeous little three-month old is growing, and there was a part of the conversation relating to nappies that made the tears roll down my cheeks.  Ten years ago, she and I would have been revolted, and now it's a story for sharing.  How times change.

We've been trying to (unsuccessfully) potty train our youngest for a while now.  He often wears training pants, which he wets, then I change them, and he wets them again. It's an enjoyable game for all. Occasionally I have a fit of enthusiasm, and dig out the washable nappies, outraged by how many pull-ups he is still going through, and hoping that the sensation of wet cloth will upset him so much that he turns to me and says, Mummy, I'm really too grown up for these things now. How about a quick go on the toilet?

But none of this is working...yet.

Yesterday, my husband was trying to clean his boots, and pulled out of the cupboard something that looked like that plastic bag in which he keeps his brushes and tins. (He was in the army. He has a real shoe-cleaning kit. I use one of those cheat's sponges.  If I can be bothered).  Judging by the shout of horror when he opened it, he was none too pleased to find inside a pair of wet trousers, pants and socks. I don't think it helped matters that I couldn't even estimate how long they'd been in there, nor how they had got there.  Having sympathised with him about his terrible ordeal, I suggested he sling them straight into the washing machine, and get them clean.

"Nah," he said, "I'm doing my boots. I've tied them up again and put them in the utility sink for you."

Oh, joy.  Pleasing me is always top of his agenda.

I put them in the wash today, with the morning's collection of urine soaked pants and trousers, and found they weren't as bad as he had made out.  In fact, I vaguely remember the last time I put the socks on the little one, and it was only a few days ago.  As I hummed and pulled out wash powder, my gaze fell on the nappy bucket, and with a jolt of unease, I wondered if there were a wet or - worse - soiled pair of pants in there, too.  It seemed to me, through the fog of my memory, that I had once put something in there to await a suitable load, and that I didn't remember ever dealing with it.  I approached the bucket with caution, and lifted the lid.  Inside was one lonely cloth nappy, harbouring all sorts of unmentionables. It was hard to tell what colour it was meant to be, even.  (The answer is usually, unbleached white).   I didn't want to be in the same room as it.  By my best guess, it's been there more than three weeks.  It was the sort of situation no-one should have to deal with on her own.  So I phoned my Mum, veteran of washable nappies on three children.

"Don't be so squeamish.  Put some boiling water and powder on it now and let it soak a while, then put it on your hottest wash."
"I don't want to get that close!"
"For goodness' sake. It'll be fine. You've got gloves, haven't you?"

So that was that.  But I have a plan.  The evil nappy has  now been marinading in washing powder and water for most of the day, and I'm thinking what a lovely treat it will be if I leave it for my husband to deal with.

Monday mornings - love 'em!

All three children are occupied this morning, and this afternoon the little one should sleep after his playgroup session.  I have a full morning of cleaning planned, so that I can then spend the afternoon writing....now to get motivated and started on it! I love being back in routine, and I'm as refreshed, mentally and creatively, as I'd hoped....shame that I could fall asleep if I blink for too long........

Fun distractions for half term.

I've been pouring my creativity into decorating my six-year-old's room instead of writing. It's looking delicious, despite the touches of bubble-gum pink here and there. 

We've also had a couple of days away, visiting my sister and her brood of unruly children, who have rather spoilt the effect by growing up and becoming better behaved.  We side-tracked to visit my mother-in-law, who has had a vicious infection and was hospitalised for while.  Full marks for fulfilling family responsibilities (and having fun along the way)...but I was glad to discover I did have my notebook with me, after I thought I'd left it behind, as there were plenty of ideas swimming around during the long car journeys, and while out with my nephews and niece. 

There are a busy two or three days left before the children go back to school, and I'm not going to try to squeeze writing time into it, not least because it's very hard to concentrate while they are under my feet, which pushes so much else into the evenings.  But I think the break from focusing is having the desired effect of giving me thinking time, and enthusing me.

Switching focus for the week

It's been a busy week, but I've managed to stitch together a few more scenes and write a new one or two, though I'm afraid they may be no good at all.  Before we know it, it will be half term (next week) and it will be harder to get work done with my little angels around my ankles.

I'm thinking that I will use the week to catch new observations and ideas in my notebook, and begin mulling over the next big plot in my mind, and my current novel can then cook on its own for a week.  Hopefully then I'll return to it refreshed and ready to dive in with clear vision. Perhaps I can even do some reading (it's been a few weeks since I read a novel.  I find, as I always have, that reading absorbs all my time - once I begin a book, I read it compulsively until it's done, and that's not a good recipe for being an attentive mother or a productive writer).

Blackout

On Wednesday, I was having lunch, and told myself I would put the computer on at 1, and begin my writing.  At five to one, the power blew.  I was angrier than a bull at a dog.  It seemed so personal!

There had been an explosion at a local substation, and 30, 000 homes lost their power....so I can hardly count myself as special.  Frustrated, I stomped around grumpily for a while.  My husband, who thrives on crises of any magnitude, observed cheerfully that Roald Dahl wrote on yellow paper with a pencil.

The power cut lasted nearly twenty-four hours, and soon the inconvenience of trying to bath and wash up and medicate ill children overcame the annoyance of missing my writing time.  We have electric again now; it's a little hit and miss, as I think we've been on generators, and may still be, for all I know.  It gave me a few special moments, and a few ideas for stories.  After a while I realised it might have blown after I'd been writing for an hour.  Perhaps it was better timed than it seemed at first.

And tomorrow is another day.