Saturday 18th December: The miracle before Christmas

It’s Saturday morning a week before Christmas, it’s snowing hard and my £150 tickets to see Paul McCartney at the Hammersmith Apollo tonight still haven’t arrived. I look them up on the UPS tracking system and discover to my horror that they are at the depot in Croydon due for delivery on Monday. Great. I speak to UPS. They’re afraid there’s nothing they can do: adverse weather conditions and sorry, no, they can’t put in a call to the depot in Croydon, even a request to put in a call to the depot in Croydon wouldn’t go through for 24 hours, at least, which, of course, will be too late for me and my tickets.

I ring Getmein.com, the division of TicketMaster who sold me the tickets. No, they’re afraid there’s nothing they can do either. They can’t provide proof of purchase; they don’t know the ticket ID or seat number so they can’t provide evidence I could show on the doors tonight. They are sorry but due to blah, blah, blah, it’s beyond their control. Blah.

I very nearly give up but then I have an idea. We don’t live very far from Croydon, maybe I could drive there now through the snow and persuade them to find the tickets for me? They’re there somewhere. I google UPS Croydon and find an address on an industrial estate and an 0208 telephone number. I ring it. Eventually a girl answers and I explain my predicament. I beg. I imagine her sitting in a freezing cold desolate Portacabin on the outskirts of Croydon. I promise to bring her hot chocolate and mince pies, anything.

She says she’d love to help but there are hundreds of packets and parcels, it will be like looking for a needle in the proverbial. I give her the ID number. She says she will try and that she’ll phone me back regardless. And do you know what? About an hour later, just when I’m stepping out of the shower, she actually does! She rings back! She’s found my tickets and she’s put them on a van! I thank her profusely. I realise how very, very much I wanted to go to the concert tonight and that I had been holding back the disappointment, trying to convince myself it didn’t really matter. And now I’m actually going to go! So I cry. “Don’t cry!” Says the mortified UPS employee on the other end of the phone. “Now you’re freaking me out!”

When he arrives about an hour later, through the snow and ice and gales, I give the UPS man a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates for the girl back at the office (I put her name on it). And later, at the concert, as I stand about ten feet away from Paul McCartney himself and witness him singing Yesterday and Hey Jude and Let It Be and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and Blackbird and The Long and Winding Road and Get Back and all my other very favourite songs in the whole world, the best pop music ever written, by one of the best singer-songwriters ever, himself, in the flesh, in front of me. I silently thank that girl in the UPS Portacabin in Croydon.

I’m not a religious person, in fact I’m an atheist, but seeing Paul McCartney in the flesh - I reckon it’s the nearest thing to a religious experience I’m ever going to have. And getting that ticket just in time today, you could say that was a Christmas miracle, if you were religious.

Thursday 16th December: The ghost of Christmas parking

It’s ten days before Christmas and I need to find the wrapping paper I bought the other day to start wrapping presents. I know I left it in the car. But where’s the car? I scour the street cursing Husband for parking it somewhere strange, and then I remember: I parked it last night when I came back from a playdate with Youngest. There were no spaces left because the Catholic school on our road was having their nativity play. A woman gestured that I should wind my window down. “No room at the inn!” She shouted, or words to that effect: nowhere to park on our road. “But I live here!” I protested, as if that would make any difference.

I had to reverse back out on to the main road, which was a rather hairy operation to say the least, and go round the other way and I’d been triumphant to discover an empty space after all, right up at the other end of the road near the Common. “Stupid woman!” I said to Youngest. “There’s space right here in this stable!” Then, after we parked and got out and tramped all the way down to our house, there was another space right outside the front door. But I didn’t bother to move the car again because it was cold, and it was late, and dark.

So where was that? I tramp up and down the road looking. It was up here…near the Common…very near to that Disabled Bay there…. Oh dear. I think the car has been towed. Sure enough, when I ring the car pound, they say they have it. Somehow I will have to get out to darkest, deepest Colliers Wood and collect it. And pay the fine. £200. Happy Christmas.

My dear friend and neighbour takes me in her car. After she drops me off I have to sign multiple paperwork. And pay the fine. Not £200 as it states on the website, but £250 with the parking ticket added on as well. I can hardly look at the man. I know it’s not his fault and I’m not a violent person, truly I’m not, but I’d really like to punch him in the face right now.

He tells me to wait and then to come through the side door to the car park when he gets there on the other side. I don’t wait, I just walk through the door and march straight up to my car. I get in and slam the door. He’s trying to tell me something but I ignore him and drive up to the gates. It’s my tiny victory over the system. I won’t have anything more to do with him. I won't speak to him. I want to be out of here. I want to be gone. This is not happening.

But the gates don’t open and the man just stands there looking at me with his arms folded. Reluctantly, I wind down my window. “You have to sign this.” He says.

“I’m not signing anything else.” I say. “You have my £250 and now I have my car back and I want to leave.”

“You have to sign this waver saying that we haven’t damaged your car.” He says.

“I’m not signing that.” I say. “I don’t know yet if you've damaged it or not.”

“Well, you need to take a look,” he says, quite reasonably. So I have to get out of the car and walk around it and pretend to look when really I can't see anything because I'm blinded by rage.

It seems fine, that is, no more beaten up and scratched than it was before. I sign and the electric gates slowly slide apart. I rev the engine far more than necessary and then, finally, I’m free to go home and start wrapping the presents.

Two o'clock in the morning

It’s two o’ clock in the morning and four of us are awake: Husband, Eldest, Youngest and me. Our neighbours are having a party.

Earlier, lying in our own bed, in our own bedroom, at 11.30 on Saturday night, the music was so loud it was like actually being at the party ourselves: both the wall and bed were shaking (no wise cracks please) from the thumping base in the living room on the other side of the wall.

It’s someone’s birthday. We know this because they were singing Happy Birthday. And they really like Blur. We know this because they were joining in with the chorus for Song 2 turning up the volume on the ‘yoo hoos’.

I say ‘we’ but husband did - very annoyingly - manage to fall asleep. He’s a lark you see, while I’m an owl, or perhaps a dormouse would be a more accurate description. Either way there’s no way I could sleep through that racket so I made up a bed up in the office at the back of the house, dragging a heavy mattress and bedding across the landing.

I shut all doors to rooms with adjoining walls to the house next door and lay on the floor in the dark; except it wasn't dark because it turns out that electronic equipment has lots of flashing lights. So I lay on the floor watching the flicker of tiny green lights and listening to the hum of computer and slightly more muffled thump of base.

Surely I won’t be able to get to sleep like this? It’s all in the mind, I think, and try to convince myself that I'm actually at a party (through choice), I’m really, really tired and I’ve just sloped off to find this lovely bed to sleep in all by myself... Not so hard, it’s what I really do feel like doing at parties a lot of the time.

And it must have worked because before I know it I’m waking to the sound of even louder base, which means I must have been asleep, for a short while at least. But now I can hear something else…a creaking door and footsteps. It’s Youngest coming downstairs from his room. And then Husband bursts in.

“So that's where you are! This is ridiculous!” He says, “Both Youngest and Eldest are awake now.” (I’m paraphrasing - obviously he doesn’t actually refer to his own children like this). “It’s two in the morning and Eldest says he hasn’t been to sleep at all yet.”

To prove the point Eldest comes in to recount the entire playlist. It includes The Clash and Arctic Monkey’s. So at least they have good taste. Husband says he’s going to complain, which just goes to show how bad it is because usually Husband would rather die than complain (unlike me). So here we both are, fully clothed, shaking with rage and ringing the next-door bell in the middle of the night.

They do eventually turn the music down, a bit, but not before arguing with us that it really wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just managed to warn us about the party first - which they hadn't. I point out that, although courteous, forewarning us would make no actual difference to the inconvenience. But they don’t seem to understand this, perhaps because they’re drunk.

Eventually, after listening to a lot of car door slamming and taxi engine ticking, we settle down again to try and get some sleep. But Youngest refuses to go back to his own bed and spends the rest of the night thrashing around in ours digging his feet into my kidneys.

The school hall

The primary school hall. To what has this Victorian room borne witness? Two world wars, votes for women, the election of the first Labour government with its pledge of free universal education for all, thousands of children passing through en route to great, or more likely average, things and now, on a Friday evening, the genitalia on Arthur Smith’s comedy pants.

Rewind to the Friday morning and the very same room is thronged with eager faces waiting for proceedings to begin. The children? Actually I was thinking of the parents who regularly fill the place to capacity to watch children presenting work they’ve been doing in class that week. Evidently not something the Victorian architects anticipated.

I’ve been coming here every Friday morning at ten for years. At first I invariably sat at the back along with one or two other stay-at-home mums, sometimes even with a stay-at-home dad (or should that be freelance?). Now it’s standing room only if you don’t get there quickly enough.

While this perfectly demonstrates how the school has changed over the years and the heartening way in which so many parents now take an active role in their children’s progress, there’s also something a bit unnerving about it as a frenzy of waving and blowing kisses kicks off between offspring and parents.

What about the children whose parents never come? What about those whose parents work five days a week or haven’t the inclination? And are the parents who do come here to share in the success of all pupils or just celebrate that of their own?

Sometimes it’s a troubling atmosphere, undoubtedly one of celebration but also of competition. The school is keen to reward good work and behaviour in the form of certificates presented to two children from every class each week but as there are 30 children in most classes it means that 28 children are not rewarded. To address this rewards are evenly distributed over time so that everybody gets one in the end, in which case isn’t it all a bit meaningless? Tricky.

Michael Rosen has written that the current fashion in education for constantly rewarding the few with stickers and certificates and medals effectively means punishing the many. I’m not sure I agree; but sometimes, in assemblies in particular, I see what he means especially when it comes to praising projects (projects are one of my pet hates).

Having been to so many assemblies over the years I’ve also got to know the national curriculum rather well. If there was something a bit Groundhog Day for me about watching reception recite the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, in unison and with actions, again last week God know how the teachers must feel.

But it was charming and the faces of those children’s parents, craning their necks to see from the back (and the audience does mostly consist of parents of younger children), was a sight to behold: all wide smiles and glistening eyes. Of course I was - am - a doting parent myself: I’ve even re-scheduled a day out next week because it clashes with the afternoon carol service at the local church. I wouldn’t miss that for the world. As I’ve already blogged, there won’t be many more primary school carol concerts for me …

In the evening a crowd turned up again to cram the same school hall with much the same enthusiasm, this time for the PTA comedy night. Quite a contrast: the wide-eyed innocence of the morning’s proceedings set against the expletive-ridden filth of the evening.

Much of the audience was the same but instead of a model of a World War 2 prisoner of war camp held aloft or the story of The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff to regale us, we cried with laughter as a grown man pulled his trousers down (the evening was so much more that that and very funny).

Both events were entertaining and just go to show what a multifaceted lot we south London parents are.

Time and tide wait for no man

Children have a way of cutting you down to size. There was the time Youngest said, “Mummy! Your boobs look really droopy when you do that!” as I lent out over the bath to wash his hair. Or when Middle One told me how much he loved his “beautiful” nursery teacher, Elaine, and I stupidly asked, “so do you think Mummy is beautiful too?” “Of course not.” He replied.

So I wasn’t particularly surprised when Eldest pondered out loud at the dinner table one evening last week that he had absolutely no idea what I was going do with myself once Youngest left primary school. “Quite soon you’re going to have no life at all, Mummy,” he said, hitting that particular nail on the head with a crash. Thank you darling. The thought had occurred.

At the moment the primary school is punctuation in my otherwise free-form life. It provides a start and end to my working day; my closest coterie of friends from its seemingly endless stream of lively, intelligent mummies (and daddies) and a rolling itinerary of events, from more prosaic Friday morning assemblies and afternoon teas, to glamorous Friday and Saturday night discos, parties and quizzes, the most memorable of which was the PTA Stars in Their Eyes evening, one of the best nights out I’ve ever had. (Which isn't saying much but should in no way detract from how good it was).

Indeed, as Eldest made his remark I was just sallying out of the house to the Christmas shopping evening and, as a Class Rep, I’m currently selling tickets for the forthcoming comedy night (hosted by local celebrity Arthur Smith, don't you know).

So, although it may be a bit soon to start panicking, (Youngest still has the best part of three years to run) Eldest is right, of course: I am aware that a deadline of sorts is looming even if it is still a little way off. Perhaps deadline is the wrong word...watershed? I was even more aware of it after I went to see Clocks, a film that was showing continuously until recently (it’s just finished) at the Glass Cube Gallery off Piccadilly.

Clocks is a film lasting 24 hours consisting a series of very cleverly cut clips from hundreds of movies that happen to reference time, either visually or verbally, running exactly to real time itself so that it too is a clock, of sorts. It’s very, very clever, I might even say, brilliant. Not only are the clips wonderfully edited to make a beautiful whole: a piece of moving art, but the continuous, minute by minute reference to time and the passing of time with endless clocks and watches and alarms, creates a sort of profound shared experience. It's a commentary on the transient nature of life (no less!) and its meaning seemed to build as it went on.

When I saw it, it was lunchtime so, inevitably, there were hundreds of clips involving lunch and eating. Among many other things, it made me think about how much time is spent preparing and eating food, especially a mother’s time.

Paradoxically, I didn’t have much time to stay and watch it because I needed to eat and get back to school to collect Youngest at 3.15. I hope to be able to see more of it again one day. Perhaps when Youngest leaves primary school and I have more time on my hands.

P.S. It's not an accident that lots of words are in bold. Did you get it? Husband didn't.

Gouging out her kidney with a spoon.

“She would happily gouge out her own kidney with a spoon if I needed it,” said a friend of mine in the playground. She was talking about her mother. I know how she feels. A mother’s love knows no bounds, is at times almost overwhelming and this week, more than most, I’ve had reason to reflect upon it.

Remembrance day was spent on a Year 4 school trip to the Imperial War Museum where we stopped in still and silent contemplation at eleven o’clock to hear a lone bugler play. Gently, I tucked my arm around Youngest as he sat next to me on the bench feeling his fragile little frame leaning against me. The very thought of war, its pity and its pain, causing harm to one of my own sons…

I will always remember reading Birdsong in the days immediately after Middle One was born, twelve years ago this week. We were still living almost entirely in the bedroom, cocooned away together from the world in those precious first few days. I would breastfeed and read at the same time: milk flowing out as the words flowed in.

I fed him for hours on end to ensure that bond between us - or so I hoped - and as I did so, I read and read. That particular book broke my heart: all those young men, boys still many of them, wrenched away from their own mothers, dying, muddy and alone, in agony. In the heightened emotional state of new motherhood I gripped my boy baby to me with tears of rage and fear: no one would ever hurt my child, not this one, not any of them. But of course, from time to time, little things do hurt them, at least emotionally, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

There is no world war (thank God) and nothing vaguely approaching the scale of a war for us, but the sad truth is that no mother can protect her child from little pains in life, what Shakespeare memorably calls the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’ These will always find their mark and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Eldest, miserable at school because he’s separated from his friends by the new GCSE timetabling; Middle One anxious about yet another test; Youngest upset because he’s demoted back down to the bottom swimming group at school and, “all the girls laugh at me.” I haven’t the power to avert these petty struggles and injustices, little things that will inevitably allay them from time to time but will quickly heal. Still, they loom large in a mother’s mind at four o’clock in the morning when she lies awake staring at the ceiling.

Someone once told me that a mother is only ever as happy as her least happy child. It’s so true.

Banana bread

Eldest loves banana bread but he doesn’t like bananas. Youngest and Middle one don’t like either. Eldest loves risotto. Youngest and Middle one can’t stand risotto. Eldest and Youngest love sausages. Middle One says he hates sausages but he used to love them. Eldest doesn’t like pasta but he will eat lasagna. They all despise baked beans and neither Youngest nor Middle One will eat lamb anymore because ‘it’s cruel to eat a baby animal’. You get the picture. Mealtimes can be a fraught affair to say the least and thinking of something interesting and nutritious they will all enjoy isn’t easy.

“Not this again!” Are words every mother dreads as the little darlings approach the dinner table, especially when you’ve slaved over a hot stove for an hour and a half while they watched the Simpsons, or bickered, or played on the X Box, and they seem be uttered more frequent nowadays than they used to be. But I stick to my guns. We all eat together at about 6.30 or 7 when husband gets home (unless they have a friend over for tea) and we eat the same thing, in theory. Sometimes, I think the easiest thing would be to have a roast dinner every night because at least they all love that (as long as it’s not lamb).

But perhaps I should take heart because I recall a hovering and anxious mother informing me, as she dropped her child at our house for tea, that her son would only eat ‘breaded products’. It took me a while to cotton on: she meant fish fingers, or chicken nuggets, both with chips, and nothing else. And I remember another child informing me, as I served him fish pie with peas, “I don’t eat peas, man.” I don’t know what was more annoying, the fact that he refused his peas or calling me “man.” (Actually, I do.) Then there was the child who burst into tears every time I accidentally gave him juice instead of water, even when he'd reached Year 6. All of which just goes to show that however annoying ones own children are at the dinner table it’s never as annoying as other people’s.

The other great advantage of feeding the children the same meal as us is that it saves on the cooking and the eating, otherwise there’s always the danger that I might find myself eating twice: fish fingers are just so hard to resist aren’t they? A friend of mine once put her children’s delicious leftovers in the dog's bowl to stop herself from eating them, again. But then, ten minutes later and after a large glass of wine, she took them out and ate them anyway.