Thoughts from a long bedtime at the end of the week. 

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Kath

It’s Sunday evening. The boys are late to bed tonight. Naps in the car on the way back from our church weekend away have ensured we are listening to CBeebies radio whilst they try and sleep and I am drinking wine already hoping that soon they can drift off so I can raid the chocolate supply I bought earlier from Asda. (CBeebies radio at this time of evening feels like some kind of weird hypnosis with voices inbetween programmes telling us in soporific voices to close our eyes and go to sleep. So far I’m the only person it seems to be working on…)

It’s been an interestingly up and down week in our life. The first week back after half term. Thankfully routines worked again for our stability and sanity in the first half of the week. 

Thursday afternoon is my worst point at the moment. We’ve run out of energy post the weekend and beginning of the week and I’m full of weary tiredness with no energy for the boys. This week was no exception. By the end of Thursday I was grumpy and sad. 

Drumming helped cure the misery for a bit and the arrival of Mum and Dad to help out on Friday was a welcome relief. Good friends listening to our story and feeding us curry on Friday night provided another excellent start to the weekend.  

We’ve noticed this week that we feel in a catch 22 situation, in desperate need of community but too exhausted to make the inroads into community that we need to. We have felt isolated and alone, bar some excellent friends and our Godfamily whose consistent support is a lifeline in these times. We sat and poured out our heart to our friends on Friday night and then prayed. With our tiny, fingernails barely holding on, faith we prayed for miracles on our church weekend away. 

It’s been a year since our last church closed and there is still deep grief over lots of aspects of that closure. In the end I think it was the right decision that we ended but there was much pain in that ending. Our new church feels like an amazing fit, God keeps showing up to reassure me, restore me and remind me of reality each week and I’ve been able to be useful there already. However, it’s not been been easy to feel more connected as a couple and a family. Husbandface has been so unable to come along recently and we have such small windows to reach out to others. 

I was a little worried about the weekend away and hoping for God to show up. Thankfully prayers were answered. Me and the boys had a beautiful day there on Saturday, we loved hanging around outside all day, I loved the chance to chat to more people in a deeper way whilst the boys bounced on inflatables. I enjoyed rambling a bit about God and parenting helping out at a seminar in the blazing sun. The boys made new friends and we drove home happy and refreshed. Today husbandface managed to come out with us and had good chats with someone in a similar situation. We felt cared for and part of community life again. Tendrils of hope have swung into view.      
The road ahead is still fairly relentless but it was lovely to sit a while in some shade, drink refreshing water and feel able to keep on going. 

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Friday round up

Posted on June 2, 2017 by Kath
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Harrods, just around the corner from where we are staying 🙂

Here we are, back to the routine of end of the week blogging. Phew.

We have spent the last week enjoying London with the American family of husbandface. It has been a wonderful break from the norms of life, from routine and from the exhaustion that had set in. It has been brilliant to hang out together and share the craziness of life. It hasn’t been perfect, the boys have struggled a bit away from home and husbandface has struggled with wanting to do more than he can manage. Despite all that we have had lots of fun and I’ve really valued other people taking the boys away at intervals, the presence of my lovely parents for a day, meeting for coffee with someone in a similar situation and hanging out with a couple of excellent friends throughout the week. It’s been a week that has felt spacious and light.

We really haven’t done many of the ‘London’ things which Maisy seems to fit into one day in the classic ‘Maisy goes to London’ book. We didn’t do the Zoo, the Aquarium, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace or even the new Lego shop. We managed one day out in the centre on the South Bank and the Duck Tour but that was enough for our highly stimulated boys. It was good to get a sense of having seen lots of London but then to retreat to our little corner of Knightsbridge and Hyde Park. We did wander briefly through the Natural History Museum and this morning the excellent Americans took the boys to the Science Museum. I think that’s probably enough tourist things for a week. Slow and steady works for us all right now. This afternoon we plan on boating on the Serpentine and maybe more ice cream.

We have all loved having Hyde Park on our doorstep. It has provided the chance for son1 to scoot in non hilly places, the benefits of lots of green space and the lovely Diana Memorial Fountain to splash in. I’ve enjoyed running through the park on various mornings and glimpsing the horse guard parade from a distance as I’ve pounded around the paths.

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The later half of the week has brought the beginning of 30 Days of Wild. All through June we are blogging about our month of getting out into the outdoors more over on our motorhoming adventure blog. Here’s a taste of our first day.

Today marked the beginning of our adventures with #30daysofwild. We are currently staying the week in London with friends who are family. I thought this lovely location might be a slight damper on our search for wild but with Hyde Park on our doorstep it’s been good to think about searching for urban wild.

This morning we headed to the Diana Memorial Fountain, a beautiful park within the park with a rushing circular fountain for people to paddle in. It does a pretty good imitation of a mountain stream with multi levels and textures under foot. The boys loved it, apart from the times Son2 thought that maybe he was getting too wet. Anyway, it was wonderful to get barefoot in the capital, feel cool cool water on our legs and soft green grass beneath our feet.

Tomorrow we head home, back to reality and routine. I think I’m ready to plunge into the next two months of life before heading out on our road trip adventure.

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Dear friend, so you’re about to become a Mum…

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Kath

Dear lovely one. 

Wow. You are about to become a Mum. That reality you’ve ached for over so many years. A Mum. Responsible for a tiny life, her hand in yours. 

I wish I could prepare you for what is about to happen. There really is no way. For the wonder, the joy, the insanity, the pain, the sleep deprivation, the life changes, the anger, the frustration and the love.  Oh the love. 

Like an explosion your world as you’ve known it for years is about to get ripped apart. It’s ok to feel shock, it’s ok to feel overwhelmed. It’s ok to feel like you’re coping really well and were born to do this. It’s ok to feel anger like you’ve never known. It’s ok to burn inside with love for this tiny person who has invaded your world. It’s ok to want to throw her in the bin (metaphorically that is… If you find yourself actually walking towards the bin maybe call a friend eh.). It’s ok to be utterly undone and it’s ok to soar on the wonder of love. It’s ok to cry deep into the middle of the night and wonder why on earth you thought this would be a good idea. It’s ok to moan about how hard it all is. It’s ok to find it fun and delightful. It’s ok to feel smug about getting to hang out in parks all day in the sunny sun. It’s ok to get mind numbingly bored and it’s ok to be lonely. It’s ok to feel and feel some more. 

You may find yourself feeling all of those things over 5 minutes of time. That’s ok too. This world of being a Mum is the most insane rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. You are not alone. You are not alone. You may feel alone but you are not. Your village is around you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t fear finding it hard because you are finally getting what you’ve always wanted. It’s ok to get all you have desired and find it enormously overwhelming. And it’s ok when you love it too.  It’s ok to say you love it and not worry too much about your old self who struggled with people who were loving it at times. 

The world will want to throw advice at you. Go with what fits with your values as a person and ditch the rest. People parent differently and it’s ok to do it differently from your best friends. It’ll be a fine art to learn those tricky conversations around how you manage sleep and eating and all the rest of the things people think they have the answers to but it’ll be worth it. You’ll all appreciate each other more. Find a couple of people who do things the same way and know you aren’t alone, but enjoy the different approaches people have. Parenting is way too full of silly tribes around the ‘right’ method. Go with your gut, try some stuff out and it’ll work out in the end. 

I know your circumstances are entirely different from mine, I know there will be challenges and joys that I will never have faced or will have to face. I know we are all so uniquely and wonderfully different but I’m betting there is a lot of overlap in the universal woah of becoming a parent for the first time, however that has happened.

The reality is there is nothing I can say to prepare you. This is one path you’ll step onto alone but as you step you’ll realise that there are hundreds and thousands out there who’ve also taken that first step and who have survived the madness. Whatever is on the other side of this door you are about to open you are loved, you are loved, you are loved and you can love out of that love.

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News and a New Blog

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Kath

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Music playing: The Be Good Tanya’s- The Collection.
Drink of choice: Caffeinated tea.
Background ambience: Sunny sunshine, breeze blowing through the window.

I feel like it should be time for one of those update posts that this blog seems to have become all about over the last few months. This time last week I sat and wrote about writing. Then I did some, not for this blog, for another blog. But more of all that in a moment.

Firstly, what’s the state of our team?

It’s been an interesting week. And by interesting I mean overly shouty and exhausting. By Friday afternoon I was to be found asleep on a sofa in our spare room with son2 shouting outside the door for Mummy whilst the amazing Daddy explained that he might have broken the Mummy and maybe they should go and read books for a while. After some of my less good parenting moments came back to me through son1’s mouth (‘how many times do I have to tell you to listen Mummy?’) we all needed the welcome break of a Saturday away. I took the boys to visit my wonderful friends Anna and Johnny. We bumbled around a country park with their girls, son2 overcame his fear of Johnny and became obsessed with him. No-one shouted and all in all it was a wonderful break in the general theme of grumpy grump that is lurking around our house at the moment.

The less said about Sunday the better I think. Husbandface has had a particularly bad weekend coming off drugs and letting the realisation of being signed off work until September sink in. We are all bored of the situation and the boys are beginning to ask heartbreaking questions about why Daddy is sick and will they catch it etc. Ugh. Thankfully right now the sun is shinning, the endorphins are flowing today and we will have a break from this relentless norm next week, when we got to London for a holiday with amazing family. Phew.

Stuff we actually like doing

All week we’ve also been preparing to launch our new blog all about our motorhome adventure in the summer and life as a family exploring more of the great outdoors. I’ve been loving writing some initial posts for it. I’ve realised I’ve felt more and more limited in what I want to write about on this blog, I hope that changes soon but I feel restricted in my writing. I want to write about faith and the changes going on in my head but I also fear starting to do that. I don’t really want a vast audience for this little corner of the internet, I don’t want a platform for these thoughts, I don’t want the vast swell of opinions that seem to come to people when they start getting a bigger audience for thoughts of faith and how this God thing works out in life. I feel fairly similarly when it comes to writing about parenting. I have yet to figure out how to write well about our life without it becoming or seeming to be a judgement about how others do stuff. In both christianity and parenting there are so many tribes and so many conflicting ideas that I feel paralysed when it comes to writing about my experiences of both. I’m probably overthinking these things but it feel much simpler to write about motorhomes and nature.

Anyway. Without further ado- here’s the real point of this blog post- head over to this page and discover our new blog. There will probably be lots of cross over posts as we write about things and it’ll be that blog I post our adventures taking part in the 30 days of wild challenge organised by The Wildlife Trusts. You can even follow us on twitter. 

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Taking up the writing challenge

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Kath

This morning I read a tweet that spoke straight to my soul. Simple helpful advice on writing. It said this:

“I’m going on the record as still believing in blogging, if for no other reason than improving your writing. Forget platform; log some hours” Sharon Hodde Miller

Which is kind of what I’d been thinking about last night when I made myself sit down and write. I really want to write more but I am pretty lazy. I like the dream rather than the reality. The reality is that it is good to log the hours of writing, blogging has always made me try and write better. Honestly, right now, I don’t want a platform. The glare of social media scares me but I do want to hone this craft. Blogging is a good thing. So here we go again, another one of my annual I realise writing is something I need to do and this space is a good place to do it in.

So here’s my offering today, tales of my run this morning. Brought to you with the backdrop of Harry Styles new album.

Wednesday morning.

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From the track I run down. Sadly the sky today was grey.

I slip my feet into running shoes, tie up the laces, stretch out my calf muscles and open the back door. Today is the day of my long run. It’s Wednesday, the boys are out at nursery, I have no worries about being quick and back home before they overwhelm the husbandface with noise and shouts of mine, mine, mine. I walk up the steps, click the button marked run on my fitbit, check the phone and once up out on the path I hit start on the mapmyrun app. The first kilometre is hard going. Straight away the pavement goes up and I try and find my running pace. I like that the first part of the run is up hill, it gives my lungs space to hurt and then find their rhythm again. It seems to help with the rest of the hills. I pause in my thoughts and turn to my childhood holidays where mountains played an integral part. Maybe I think exercise should always start with up because it is deeply ingrained in the fibre of my being. I miss mountains. I miss mountains. Anyway, focus on what is in front of me, not what I can’t have.

Up and up I go, the road gently leading me up and up to the top of the bowl of green we live on. I push forward and breathe with relief as my feet find the dirt track which curls around to the edge of Brighton and beyond. Undulating up and down over 2k there and 2k back again. I run on, my thoughts wandering all over the place, I stare at the lush crazy different shades of green all around and marvel at the changes that have occurred since the winter. My legs feel good, my arms move up and down, up and down, my lungs protest at the muggy air, breathing deep feels hard but I move on. Down the hill and past the turn off if I was going to do a 3k route. Up the hill again and past the cow fields to the end of the track, hitting the lamppost at the end junction I turn around and jog back down the hill. Here I know it will get harder. My feet move me past the turn off again and back up the hill. I hit 4k and know it is a hard slog up this hill. I stare at the ground and think of metaphors for life. Just keep going this next step, don’t look at the vast hill in front of me. Keep going. Keep going. This is all you have. This next step. One Direction burst into my ears and I move my arms to the rhythm of ‘Drag me Down’. It seems to help. I breathe deep and deeper and hit the brow feeling glad as my legs continue to dance along. Past some dogs, thankfully on leads, and around the corner to the last stretch. Beyond the 5k mark.

I wonder how I’ll manage to do that all over again, as I have to in the 10k I will run at the beginning of July. I push the thought to the back of my mind and remember that running events always feel different. Lots of bodies together running makes it easier to keep going. There’s another metaphor there somewhere but I’m too lazy to unpack it right now. I breathe. I run. I still find this road strange having run it in the dark so often this past winter. Now the woods are less creepy and I can see the undulating pavement easier. The house with all the junk outside it still makes me run a little faster though. Some kind of adrenaline rush courses through my body, I feel good, I feel so good. Ed Sheeran in my ears helps me pick up the pace and my legs still feel like they could do more. Time for the last bit down the steep hill and around the corner to home.

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