Many a woman in England….

I’ve been experimenting with natural mathods of contraception this month…I say experimenting because I didn’t do it properly with charts and thermometers I just counted the days from the begining of my cycle. I did the count at a point when I really wanted to have sex and was not at home……

I’ve been waking up in the mornings feeling sick, my breasts are tender……

I’m quite excited really. although we had decided not to have more children as there are adventures we would like to have that we feel would be difficult with an additional child. In many ways I’d like to have a child with someone else and co-parent….but I’m not sure I know anyone who’d like to share a child with me….

Childcare and pedantry

In the Guardian last weekend an ‘interfering’ sister had written in to complain that her sister was saving money by leaving her kids with their grandparents and therefore avoiding childcare costs. The sister was unsure what to do as she felt her parents were being taken advantage of. The winning response stated that childcare costs could be reclaimed through tax credits and that 80% of childcare costs can be reclaimed in this way. This is a common misconception and its NOT TRUE. At least not for most of us. The reality is that you can reclaim 80% of childcare costs if you earn less than £13,000. Most of us receive no help at all.

 

And childcare is expensive- its like a second mortgage. My nursery fees were about £600 per month. This was considered cheap- especially by my London friends. When I had my son I resolved never to moan about childcare costs and I’ve tried to stick to that but it annoys me that there is a perception that the government is helping with costs.

 

The expense of childcare makes it difficult for people in lower paid (but not poverty level) jobs to make sensible decisions regarding work and chidcare; with woman often having to compromise their careers or standards.

 

I would also like to point out that I arrange my life in such away that I can afford childcare and do not think the government should help me. However I do think that misconceptions about childcare help to hide the real situation for many families.

 

And whilst I’m in a pedantic mood the following website is a test of your vocabulary. For every question you get right they donate rice to starving people.

 

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

 

However they define pedantic* as ‘bookish’, which is incorrect. As a pedant I feel the need to point this out. Although even dictionaries sometimes fail to meet my pedantic standards; I once got very annoyed with the pocket OED as a word in the preface wasn’t then defined in the dictionary.

 

 

* Pedantic: person who is excessively concerned with minor detail or with displaying technical knowledge.

But you are my dad!

So in Coronation Street Audrey has just contacted Gails dad and told him he has a 50 year old daughter. People in my office find this incrediably unlikely but it reminded my of a story from my family.

My mum doesn’t know her father and on the approach of her 50th birthday decided she’d like to contact him. She knew who he was and everything and so got in touch. He reponded…but I’m not your father; didn’t your mother tell you?’ No being the obvious answer!

Anyway the story is that my grandmother was a nurse in a hospital where she met my grandfather who was in hospital for a hernia operation. After he was out they started courting and went away to a seaside cottage used by the nurses…there something happended and my grandmother became pregnant with twins! As to the something- it was the first time for both of them and he says ‘I wouldn’t call it sex- with the operation and everything’ . Anyway after my nana got pregnant he did the decent thing and married her and they had sex. Once he started having sex he thought well- if this is it then that wasn’t! The twins were born early as is the way with twins. Doubts filled his mind.

He asked my grandmother for a blood test to determine paternity. She said no- how could you not trust me? Arguments and violence ensued and he eventually moved out leaving her with 6 month old twins. He did the decent thing and kept his reasons for leaving to himself…in the small village where they lived he was outcast for abandoning his children and young wife. Nobody would have him and he was alone for 40 years before finding love again.

My mother had a DNA test which showed that he was actually her father and they began a sort of friendship. My grandmother maintains that all men are bastards; although she did remarry.

Druids

My son had a friend to play at the weekend. We went to the local museum for medieval day. it was great; its the first time he’s had a friend from school to play. He was really excited and I was a little nervous. I felt sure I could cope with the child but I do find the requirement to be ‘other peoples parents’ quite taxing. I worry that somehow I’m not going to pass myself of as an effective human being; that I won’t seem ‘normal’ enough.

 

The mum came and dropped off her son. I asked her what she was doing that afternoon. Well she said I’m a druid and we have a big ceremony today for Beltane. I have a large part to play so I can concentrate on that without *****’. I had no idea how to respond.

And to think- I was worried she would think I was bit of a hippy. I’ve never met a druid before.

Dead Bodies

I went to an exhibition of dead bodies at the weekend….It was called Body Works and was in Manchester. 

The dead bodies were a bit disappointing they had undergone Plastination(*) which was very impressive technically but ment that they didn’t look real- they looked plastic.I obviously wasn’t expecting rotting flesh and maggots but I expected them to look slightly more fleshy.  I’ve seen a dead body once before- it was on a fun run, I somehow got lost  and a drowned man was pulled out of the river- he was all bloated and weird…. The lack of rotting flesh aside the exhibition was fascinating…I realised I have very little idea about anatomy and it was really interesting to see how the bodies all fitted together. It was also interesting to see what happened when people had a stroke etc. There was so much information that I couldn’t take it all in and have bought the book to read at home.

The positioning of the bodies was also interesting- it was more than a museum exhibition; more like art with the bodies placed in positions of people who are doing things (playing tennis, swimming etc). Some were placed to be reminiscent of artistic works (for example one was dissecting another) . It was quite stunning and grotesquely fascinating.

As well as the information about bodies there was a second stream of information; about previous attitudes to death and bodies so there was pictures of body theatre’s (dissection theatre’s) and a discussion of the symbolism around those. The exhibition was very popular so it wasn’t really possible to go out and back in which was a shame as I wanted to take it all in.

A subsection of the exhibition looked at human development- which was basically fetuses. I was amazed by how quickly a collection of cells turns into a human shape. I was also amazed by how damn predictable people were…I saw several approach the 24 week one and say..oh this is the legal limit for abortion….and seem shocked. the basic argument seems to be…but it looks so cute- it must be wrong. It did look like a baby but a have a feeling there is more to the argument than cuteness.

The exhibition was in Manchester, my dad really wanted to see it as he has just done an MA in death studies and is thinking of becoming a grief councillor. He lives in Bath and we went up to my mums house in Manchester to see it. Its really weird having both of them together. They get on so well its like two old friends with soo much to catch up on. I tend to feel like I’m disappearing…

(*)Plastination is the process of extracting all bodily fluids and soluble fat from specimens and replacing them with vacuum forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastometers, such as rubber, silicon and epoxy. The specimen is then cured with light, heat or certain gases, which give it rigidity and permanence.

Previous attempts to change…

I’ve rejected alcoholism as the most obvious way of dealing with the boredom that invades my life…So I’m looking for something else….I’ll start by reviewing things I’ve tried so far:

1) Change my job. I tried this 2 years ago; I quit my teaching job and went to a big firm to do public sector audit. There was a challenging career path, competition, excitement, more money. I lasted 2 weeks! So what went wrong…I really really hated it- the challenges weren’t challenges I cared about; the people were dicks and I had to drive miles and miles each day. I came home every day for 2 weeks in tears. I missed my teaching; I like the organization and the people I work with. I care about what I do. I phoned my boss and asked for my job back. Within a week I was back at my desk planning courses. Changing jobs seems like a good idea but I can’t think of a job that has advantages over the one I have. Mainly other jobs look like more work for less money; I need more than that to make it seem worthwhile.

2) Having more people around. One of the problems with raising children is that once you come home your kind of stuck in the house….me, husband, housework… So a year ago I got a lodger; the theory was that having somebody else around would help us to create grown up time as they wouldn’t be exhausted from the evening rush and we wouldn’t all ready know everything that had ever happened to them. This worked really well for a bit…then our schedules changed and we always seemed to be on top of each other.  We gave him his notice and he refused to move out; when he eventually did go it was a great relief!

 

3) Studying. this is the most obvious- I’d like something more to think about. I started an open university course about 9 months ago. I picked an MA in online and distance learning. I mainly chose this because my employer agreed to pay for it. The first unit was called The E-learning Professional. God was it dull….it dealt with things such as ‘what is a professional’. It was also quite easy- in my opinion not really post graduate standard as I found I could knock of an assignment (around 2,000 words) in a day with no prior reading and still get 65%. It wasn’t really challenging. I just had this guilt that I should be doing it…I finished the unit and was SO GLAD. So if its going to be studying it needs to be interesting!

 

The next step is to make a list of things that inspire me! 

Amazing coincidence of syncrinization…

Yesterday I learnt something interesting about myself….when I do things randomly I repeat patterns.

Yesterday went to the Tate Modern in London. I went to a meeting- it finished early I thought I’ll go and see a few paintings… As always when I go to the Tate they were between exhibitions in the Turbine hall…as always I was overwhelmed by the scale etc I aimless went to the third floor…took a left and found myself in the USB Openings gallery..I wondered around a bit before being grabbed by something. A Kandinsky…I love Kandinsky prob my favourite artist. Next I saw a Pollock- this was really interesting as I’ve never seen one before. I’ve seen postcards and Pollockesq works but not an actual Pollock. I’ve always thought he was a bit…crap. But seeing the real thing was different- I thought there is something here. I even read the little plaque and learnt about fractuals…and I could see what they ment there was a pattern to his work.

I saw a Rothoko, then a Monet..as I looked at the Monet I was amazed by how different that was from the calendars etc, how much more depth of feeling and how it was a picture of a day as much of Lilliies. The calenders etc tend to show the lillies much more distinctly and so lose some of the rest. I was getting a bit of a feeling of Deja vue at this point…

Then I went into the Rothoko room and was stunned- it took my breath away it was so deep and dark and brooding…I want to lie on the floor and brood…Obviously I didn’t I thought it might upset the Japenese tourists…

Anyway I read the sign outside the Rothoko room, how it had originally been painted for a restaurant but hadn’t really been suitable…and I realised that this was more than deja vue. I had actually been to the same gallery, been grabbed my the same paintings and thought the same thoughts before…

Apart from the Pollock. I hadn’t seen that. 

Would it help to be an alcoholic?

Last week I drank every day…not a huge amount just a glass or two of wine. This week I’ve stopped as I worry about becoming an alcoholic. I think my parents are alcoholic- they drink over 20 bottles of wine a week between them, open a bottle as soon as they get in in the evening and the thought of spending an evening with them alcohol free….tricky.

 

Anyway…why drink? Because I’m bored. I never expected life to be so dull….to be so old, so fat, so married…To go to work, come home, cook, watch TV. And drinking; drinking makes it seem more fun; it creates some kind of barrier between chores and the rest. Some sort of illusion that I’m having fun. Also it helps me to cross over the sexual membrane (see American Pergatorio by John Heskill) ….so it isn’t just an illusion…it is more fun!

 

I’ve just read a book that  described exactly how I feel; in fact there is millions of them that describe women lost in the daily minutia of everyday life….the idea that of all the wonder and beauty in the world I chose this..

The books tend to advise leaving the husband, and often becoming a lesbian. However I don’t think it’d help in my case; I love my partner desperately and he’s the best thing about my life. He makes the dull fun; the unmanageable manageable.I need to break out of the routine to do something different…but, but I still need to get my son to bed, take him to school, cook the dinner etc. And I don’t want to!! 

So would becoming an alcoholic help? I’m not sure but I’ve got a bad feeling that I might not really enjoy the challenges that it would create for me to overcome.

What kind of sister?

In the ongoing saga of my brothers relationship breakdown I’ve found myself wondering what sort of sister am I? Do I pledge my loyality to the family relationship to the girlfriend as a woman….

My brother and the girlfriend lived around 2 miles from my parents home in a northern city, he had a good job, she had a baby, he was happy, she was miserable. Her mum lives around 250 miles away in the southwest in a little wooden house on the edge of a river….The girlfriend asks the brother to move down there and give their baby a different life. He agrees- he wants them all to be happy. They rent out their home and move next door to the mother-in-law; and conviently next door to the grandmother-in-law. My brother gets a new job- the girlfriend is still miserable. She ends the relationship and moves back to northern city leaving him heartbroken, without his baby, living in between his ex inlaws. On top of the heartbrake of the relationship ending he feels she took him 250 miles to dump him.  

She now wants her equity from the family home and arguments break out about how much this is; he desperately wants to keep the house as he feels he’s lost everything else. So as his sister I can see that she shouldn’t have the equity; legally he put the cash in and now gets the house. However as the other sort of sister I feel great sympathy for her- she was the homemaker;looked after the child and spent any money she had on food, nappies etc. So should she now lose out?

As the argument drags on it looks more likely that lawyers will be involved and the discussion is ended- they get any cash available!

Would you have sex for £20,000?

This scenerio pops up all the time in films..often with amusing consequences….however in the ongoing saga of my brothers relationship break down this happended for real…

My brothers girlfriend dumped him; took the child and left him all alone…(ahhh..). The relationship breakdown came around 2 years after they poured everything they had (and everything the family had) into buying their first home. The girlfriend was expecting to get half the equity that had built up in the house (she estimated this at £20,000). He said no; he’d paid the mortgage; put more deposit in etc. Plus he’d lose the house if he had to give her £20,000. Legally he’s right she paid a fifth of the deposit and so gets a fifth of the equity…morally I think she may have a point…

Anyway she invites him up to the house, plies him with drink and seduces him….they spend a stormy night together…in the morning he thinks they may get back together….she whispers in his ear….so about the money….. He doesn’t give in and she immedietely stops talking to him…

So the question is, would you, could you sleep with somebody for money…or advantage? What if you’ve slept with them for love before? What if they’re cute?