Singleparenthood sucks without friends and neighbours

It has been an eventful week, like a hamster in a wheel I am spinning like mad and getting nowhere fast. I think I may have to adopt the ostrich pose and return to bed for a morning nap, which, although in some circles that may appear decadent to me it feels a trifle pathetic at 9.30 in the morning. I know its a steep learning curve, learning to do it all alone but frankly I think this journey could do with a few rest stops and the odd comfortable bench on which to sit and catch my breathe before I slog onwards on my journing to independance and being a single mother, whilst attempting to retain my sense of humour and sanity at the same time.

The week started with middle having a tummy ache, being off his food ( unheard of) and complaining of feeling sore and tired. I practise the onwards and upwards method of family nursing ie if you arent actually throwing up, are confined to the toilet or have a broken limb then off to school with you. By the time he came home again he was feeling a little rough still but I sent him off to bed with a hot water bottel and a couple of pain killers, Tuesday I had a message from school to come and fetch him as he was vraiment mal au vent, the French being renowned for their hyperchrondria I suspected nothing much but arrived at school to find him sitting on the wall hardly able to stand up and an fashionable shade of stone grey. We drove straight to the Doctors , who was of course closed for lunch and sat and sat until my patient decided actually he was feeling a lot better and a little light bed rest would do the trick. You can see where this is going can't you ? Wednesday we trotted off to the Doctor who took one look at him, poked him a bit then frowned , do you think its appendisitus he asked me, oh yep I replied but had rather hope you'd tell me it was indigestion. People die of appendisitus don't they said youngest. I could see the tears welling up in his brothers eyes. Nobody panic !!

So there we were, a rush back home to deposit youngest with kind neighbours, a dash to hospital ( if you can call a 30 minute drive a dash) a worrying short time in the waiting room in emergency and a quick diagnosis confirmed by blood and urine tests and a lot of poking patient in the groin. Several hours later, the surgeon having been alerted to the fact that tonight he may need to pop in tout suite to do an emergency apendectomy so it might be a good idea to not get involved in anything he didnt mind dropping at short notice, having settled frightened 13 year old into his bed I staggered home arriving at midnight where kind neighbour was dozing at the kitchen table having lit fires in the woodburners and fed and watered youngest who was fast asleep. Dawn came with a phone call to ask how fast I could be back at the hospital so poor youngest was woken deposited with my amazing standby support team and I shot off to arrive just in time to have to wait whilst middle was washed shaved, in the sort of places 13 year old boys really do not want female nurses to shave them, and doped up ready for surgery.

When they took him away on his bed, leaving me in a suddenly empty room, you have no idea how weird a hospital room looks minus a bed plonked in the middle, they told me he'd be back by midday. I sat and twiddled my fingers I phoned his father to leave an urgent message, I phoned his sister to reassure her and I waited. Five oclock he wasseventually rolled through the door still very dopey, his bodies reluctance to wake up from the anesthetic was the cause of the delay, and a very nasty shade of putty. Another midnight journey home in the fog and then back the follwing day to collect him and bring him home less than 24 hours after surgery.

Home safe and well with daily visits from a nurse still sore but getting better by the day and me ? If ti wasnt for kindness and caring of good friends and neighbours I am not sure how I would have mananged it alone, except I would have had to for ,as my almost X husband used to tell me, tough if you can't cope you don't have an option, which I think sums up single parenthood ina nutshell.

Today is my first day alone for a long time. The children are all back at thier respective edifaces of educational the friends who were helping me do the bathroom floor have finished and left and are off doing thier own things and despite being busy glazing ceramics, entertaining puppy dog and making large textured beads from porcelain there is an emptiness that no amount of cupbpoard cleaning and other domestic chores seems to dispel. To be fair I think having Adele playing on the computer in the background may not be the best choice of uplifting mood music but its more than that. I know its been seven months now, the pain has gone but there rests an emptiness that no amount of letting go and building our own lives will shift as yet. I know I do not want him back I know I will never trust him again but I miss his friendship just the brief silly conversations we had about the kids about life. I miss him being an active part of the kids lives and mine. It is very strange knowing if I text him or email him he probably won't answer and that he shows no interest in what his children are doing with thier lives. Since I have no idea where he lives, and any post comes back as not known at this address for the only contact address I have for him he has become a sort of a phantom in our lives.

The weekend was busy busy busy, we ,me and the boys, stomped off in the rain to an exhibition on Japan, youngest for Sushi, eldest son for Manga, me for the serenity and beauty of the fabrics and gardens. The boys were persauded to join in a demonstration of a hybrid judo karate type sport using Kodachi, short foam training swords. Eldest son who is shy and at that age when anything public is fraught weith potential humiliation was a reluctant combatant youngest leapt at te chance. After beating all 4 of the trainers into a sweat the two brothers were pitted against each other and would have spent the entire day happily bashing each other ceremoniously about the body with the swords if hunger hadn't set in.Luckily for my limited budget the only club is 2 hours drive from us but it seems a great way to get rid of pent up emotion and I shall put Kodachi swords on thier christmas lists for certain ! Supper was at a friends with superb homemade pizza and since it was walking distance a rare adult night for me where I could enjoy a glass of wine and sit outside in the dark with my hosts watching the stars after the boys had made their excuses and gone home to bed ( which on my somewhat tipsy return turned out to be a euphemism for playing computer games together).

Sunday rose in glorious sunshine with no sign of promised storms and we headed seawards to pick mussels climb rocks and play on the beach at Gwen Zegal where we sat in a cave and ate out picnic lunch sheltering from gale force winds and vertical rain , the promised storms apparently having only been waiting for our arrival before they showed up too.

Gwen Zegal has ancient poles stuck in water trees which have been over the centuries uprooted by the locals striped of thier branches then re rooted in the seabed where, presumably, they are anchored by rocks, today small boats moar on them but in Napoleans time the deminutive dictator used to tie traitors to them at low tide and leave them there to drown as the waters rose, ah those were the days ! There is also a cave with pillars inside which once had iron gates to the roof in which he kept prisoners, sometimes the cave floods to the top sometimes only waist deep either way not a pleasant place to await your death. I'm not sure Bonaparte was an awfully nice man but there you go.I suspect when he sent the message « Not tonight Josphoine » she may well have breathed a sigh of relief !!

Anyway enough rambling and prevarication back to work for me, I have a kiln to fill and a cake to make and peanut cookies to bake for two hungry boys, so forgive my vague air of melancholy it is an indulgence that comes and goes and forgive the erratic spelling my computer is having a french day and refuses to recognise English let alone correct spelling. I will as ever pick myself up and dust myself off and start all over again !!

ps the photo is of Gwen Zegal taken this weekend before the storms set in.

What a swell party that was !

This year I decided I was going to have a birthday party I love giving parties love any excuse for celebration but over the years I had given up celebrating, my father died the year of my 21^st, my inlaws had a flaming row at the dinner table on my 40th and on my 50^th it rained so hard you could have sailed boats down the street so I decided that if this was my new life I'd start it with a bang. I didn't want presents I didn't want speaches I just wanted fun and a celebration of life and being alive despite everything that had happenned.

Hand made Invitaions went out people from far and wide came, my long lost « aunt » from Australia came back especailly from Italy to be there and we cooked up a storm. We erected a gazebo in the garden of a startling turqoise blue, I slow roasted a marinated joint of pork the cheapest and biggest I could find for five hours in the oven until it melted from the bone, we had fresh salads galore from the vegetable patch, a bulgar wheat salad, potato salad from the potager, 15 bagettes from the boulangerie, heaps of garlic bread, and people bought thier own contributions as well, a fantastic beetroot salad, an amazing tuna and pineapple salad with homemade mayonaise and copious apple tartsI in the best french tradition. I made a variation of Eton mess with raspeberries from the garden and my own recipe of ginger tiramisu for desserts. Add to that barbacued sausages and chicken wings ,slaved over by a kind friend who is a whizz at barbacues, carefully hoarded pink sparkling wine bought from a cut price store and a bucket load of pimms and everything went with a swing.

I'd asked for no presents I just wanted friends to come and mark the day with me but they arrived anyway with flowers, plants and wine and an eldery nieghbour presented me with a great big box full of his freshly dug potatoes.

Everybody mixed well, after several drinks the Bretons sang songs and tried to persuade eldest that she should come to the races with them so that could fix her up with a handsome young jockey. I found out things I had never known about these people who had been friends and neighbours for 7 years , not the least being that one of them who is very timid and quiet was in fact a champion jockey until he had a fall and had to retire. Eldest made a speach in three langauges, English French and Turkish someone made one in Breton. Everyone laughed and joked, ate adn drank, children roared around the place like wild animals and the dogs and cats hid.

The sun shone. Everyone pitched in everyone had fun and I didn't even have to do the tidying up for a change. And at the tale end of the day when the first stars were desperate to come out and I had ousted our younger neighbours by gving them a bottle of rose to take home we sat as a family in the garden and opened a bottle of champagne that I had been saving too long for a special occassion that until that moment had never come . We sat ,we chilled and we drank ,toasted the future and friends and family and patted ouselves on the back for a god fete achieved at minumum cost and fuss . Then there was nudging and whispering and fidgetting from the kids and they dissappeared in a flurry to re appear again with a cardboard box hand decorated by youngest.

That was when I discovered another Breton tradition that I had never come accross before ...the birthday box. Each of my friends had without prompting donated a gift of money with a little note each with words of friendship and love and once opened the box contained an dazzling assortment of cash and cheques and the demand that it must be spent on a frippery for me and me alone, not a new mattress not food or to pay off bills or school fees but a gift for me from them.

There are no words to describe how touched I felt how valued and loved it made me feel so what am I going to buy ? I have always wanted an eternity ring but ,for what turned out to be startling obvious reasons my husband never got around to buying me one and now if he had it would have been a hollow reminder of his betrayal so I am glad he didn't.

I think then I shall buy a friendship a ring so that every time I look at it I will remember that I have friends who care and love me no matter what and that despite everything that has happened in my world over the past few years love can be found in the most unexpected places. And to remind me that life can begin again at 53. So happy birthday to me and I thank God that I am blessed with friendship and love from those who really matter.

ps the illustration is by JayMc phillips a contemporary artist whose very witty bio and more of his work can be found at his website here

More awesome things

Some days are good some are bad some you hope never to have to relive again. Take this week I received a wonderfully packed parcel of dainty lace and pretty buttons and ribbons from a total stranger over on Marigold Jam blog as part of ED's French village life blog swap. it was a great way to end my week. I'd show you but my Epson hates my Toshiba so no pictures today until my electronic equipment kisses and makes up.

This week has had a few serendipitous things happen. They make up for a lot. I do not care that some days the rottenness and unfairness of life seems to blot out the sun or that I feel as if I may drown from the exhaustion of trying to maintain an even keel for the children and make sure some sort of routine and normality is established now that their world has blown apart. I can even deal with having to keep composed and not giving it away when dragging the kids to the orthodentiste this week we got stuck at an interception and I realized the car cutting slowly across my path was being driven by my not quite husbands mistress and that middle in the from seat recognised her too. When the world weighs heavy on your shoulders there is little choice than to go on so as my father in law used to say "shit happens deal with it". So today all is well and despite the discovery that computer has bitten the dust in a rather dramatic way ( who would think a large black and white Tom Cat landing from a great height onto an open computer screen could smash it ( laptop not cat, cat happily continued to settle down on it regardless of what he had done) I am pleased to have survived another week, even if the laptop hasn't and even although we lost all electrical power to the house on Saturday because of the dodgy writing upstairs..

Sundays are for us the hardest day. Sunday was a family day even when Daddy sometimes stayed in bed until midday it was still a day for a family roast and always a pudding and as much happiness as we could wring out of it. The kids miss that anchor in their week and when it is just the four of us it isn't the same so we make new routines to fill the gap. So today we did something different, we went to a vide grenier in the next village, watched a parade of ancient tractors, bought a ridiculously cheap rhubarb plant and planted it in the fruit garden, dug up some new potatoes for dinner, made small crepes and ate them warm for tea and found a wonderful wooden treasure box for youngest to keep his stone collection in.

Awesome things come in many shapes and sizes, a man at a craft fayre I did last night gave youngest two beautiful semi precious stones for his collection, another stall holder from French Ghiana talked to him for almost an hour about the country's fauna and flora and showed him photographs and told tales of his life there, someone whom I had never met came and introduced herself as having bought several of my pieces over the internet and was pleased to meet me in person and an old friend who I haven't seen for years arrived out of the blue stayed to lunch and gave me kind words of wisdom and support. The world is a good place in which Awesome things happen , such awesome things worth isn't dictated by monetary value diamonds may be a girls best friend but somehow I doubt it. it is for me the little surprises and delights that mean the most. Not, in case the fates are listening , that I wouldn't say thank you to the odd diamond 0f course or even just enough to replace the broken computer and have the upstairs rewired before I blow us all up!

The Art of concentrating on the Awesome as opposed to the Awful

I want to say firstly an enormous and loud thank you to all you who commented on my blog and offered me such support. at a time when I really need it. I am by nature a very private person naturally averse to exposoing my linen, dirty or otherwise, for public inspection I needed to let out some of my confusion and hurt . I had to say out loud what had happenned in order to make it real I had had enough of keeping things hidden, of lies little and big ones and of making excuses. It took a great deal of courage to put on paper what had happenned,, I felt I would be judged as a poor wife because my husband had left, me for someone else so it came as a shock to find instead total strangers were there to hold my hand when I most needed it. That was indeed awesome.

It has been a hard week for all of us, a young friend with small kids has been diagnosed as Bipolar to say she isnt coping with her life and motherhood is too inadequite a phrase, her house her yard the kids and the numerous animals are uncared for and undernourished, She is faling apart and tearing her family apart with her. We have all been trying to keep her small family safe and afloat a task that is tricky and exhasuitng but when the person who is suffering won't admit or recognise they have a problem there is little else you can do but apply a bandaid as a temporay measure and pray help is on its way. The good news is she is now getting help has recognised her problem and is making efforts to deal with it. It will take time and al our support to get her through this with minimal damage.

Sometimes no matter how caring you are you need to step back before other peoples problems engulfed you, you need to take time to breathe and concentrate on yourself and your family. So yesterday we went to the beach with some friends for some badly needed timeout and the day was Awesome, youngest collected oysters and mussels growing wildon the rocks and we cooked them on the beach barbacue, we swam and slept in the sun and drank in the beauty of nature and revelled in the incredible luck we had to be there with peole who loved us and whom we loved. On the way home stopped at a dairy farm for milkshakes and icecream all made at the farm with thier own milk. At home we adults sat in the failing light and drank wine and talked about projects for the future and what we wanted to do next day.

Over the years I have spent hours searching in books and on the internet for some explanation and help as to why my efforts to make our life happy did nto seem to be working, It wasnt until the last year as his black moods became blacker and longer that I realised , with the help of my Doctor that he was a depressive and that no matter how much I tried nothing I eve did would be good enough. To quote my GP and a psychologist somethng in his head had gone click. I persuaded him to go to see our Doctor, he took his medication for a few days then stopped, he wasnt sick he said he was depressed he was unhappy, I wasnt attractive he didint love me anymore no there was no one else all the usual clap trap al the usual lies and petty betrayals.

Anyway when in the end he left after I decided the children and I couldnt carry on living on a knife edge anymore and here I am alone with my kids and there he is not alone with his new love and life goes on. One of the sites I fell upon by chance during my desperate travels through the internet in search of help was the Ted Talks . It was a serendiptic happenstance that I will always be grateful for and the talks on there are often enlightening often helpful often funny. The one that has perhaps helped me the most and resonated in baby steps of my new life as a single mother and soon to be divorcee is this one....http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html .

read it and see if any of it resounds with you and let me know. And if it does pass the message around to anyone who isnt too wrapped up in thier own lives and remind them Life is Awesome, live it.

Goodbye from him..

Last month I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary, well Ok I didn't celebrate it as there seemed little point when my one true love and best friend of 28 years had found his one true love and new bestus friend and dumped me and our now rather distressed and bewildered children in her favour . Ah well there is nothing quite like being traded in for a new model and being told you are not attractive to make you realize how someone feels about you. honestly some people will do anything to avoid spending money on thier wives. I say wife but I am not sure what I am anymore , I live now in a limboland of non status, Im still his wife but she is" his new partner " which leaves me sort of without a label. I have become the other woman.It is a very bizzarre feeling. I do not even know where he is.

After the divorce I have to return to my maiden name by French law if I ask the judge to very nicely ask my almost ex husband to give me permisison to keep his name and he agrees I can. I think I have had enough humiliation to last me a lifetime so I shall just revert to my own name.

So here I am kids to comfort and build a new life for, a smile plastered on my face and dreams and future plans that we made together smashed under foot . I am not even sure anymore if I was ever loved at all. After so many lies being placed upon lies I have no idea what the truth was if there was in fact any truth there at all, if he ever really loved me at all.

And that I think is perhaps the greatest betrayal, leaving me for always in doubt that I was ever loved at all. It is a pain I would not wish on my worst enemy. But there you have it life as they assure me goes on.

Reasons to be Grateful.....

Despite T S Elliots views on April , it is February which is , I am certain, by far the cruellest month. The days are dire, damp and dreer, the worlds spirits droop and the black dog stalks snapping at the heels of those who may be stumbling in the darkness of the bleak mid winter.

So then, short of hibernation which I must admit seems at times rather a fetching option , what can one do to defend ones self against the slings and arrows of whatever it is and the whatsit of adversity? Something must be done and whilst the devil may make work for idle hands February isnt the best time of year to get out and keep those hands busy in the garden , so some sort of more sedentary activity is needed to keep those happy nuerons sparked and perk up all those bits of us that may be flagging .

I never was one to cheerfully roll my sleeves up and make Lemonade when life gave me lemons ( Lemon merignue pie or Morrocan tagine possibly but not lemonade) far more likely to want to cut them up and watch the bubbles rise as they bounce into a glass of icy Bomaby Gin and Tonic. Despite Brian extolling us to " always look on the bright side of life" , I find trying to persaude someone who has fallen into a pit of despair to always look on the bright side in times of distress rather a futile idea vaguelly on a par with telling a man who has just lost a foot that it was a jolly good thing he hadn't bought those new boots then. To be honest there isnt a lot one can do for anothers despair except offer support and love their help must come from within themselves which makes it all the more harder for those who desperatley want to help them. All you can do is remember that like the measles black moods can be terribly contagious and one must take steps to protect ones self so that we do not all end up in the same pit together.

So despite or possibly because of, Julie Andrews cajolling me from my childhood to think of roses and mittens (or was it whiskers on kittens ? ) I have evolved my way of keeping my spirits up when all aroudn are drowning in thiers. My protection against the black dog and my safety net agaainst what my mother used to describe as falling into a treacle well, is my list of things to be grateful for. Everyday when I wake up I take a minute to think of at least three things that make my life worth living. Actually since I am blessed with three wonderful children that one isnt hard but we easily forget all that we have that is good and concentrate on the nasty bits. So during the long winter months and dark days I try, if I catch my heart sinking , to look at the world as if it is new and to register in my minds eye all the wonderful and marvelious things I have around me.

Here then is todays list of reasons to be cheerful, the beauty and warmth of winter sunshine through the car window, old and weather beaten archetecture, bananas, Edith Piaf, Mimosa with its acid yellow balls of sunshine on a bleak day,the smell of orchids and lillies in the supermarket, being woken at night by a cat that wants to be stroked and then curls up and purrs on my hip as I sleep, Bachs rescue rememdy and Bergamot oil, Thai crab cakes and sweet Chilli sauce, home made ice cream and my boys to make it with, the stark outlines of the freshly pruned trees against the winter sky, the inviting chocolate coloured soil of my freshly dug potager, smiles form strangers, massed flocks of starlings trying out their winged acrobatics as the evening falls and the love, prayers and support of friends and strangers at times of need.

So many things in life to be grateful for then if only we looked. Not very eloquently or well put ( or spelt for that matter but one of my other reasons to be cheerful is the fact that for some time my spell check refuses to read my blo so I am free to misspell and miss type to my hearts content and I can blame that) Neil Pasricha does it better ie he explains better about the Awesomeness of life not why I can't spell, and if you have spare time you'd rather the devil didn't fill I advise you to watch his video via the link above.

Just remember that blessings, like pennys from heaven, mount up if you take the time to store them and treasure them.

So there you go some of my reasons to be cheerful ...now what are yours ?