A Bad Day and a Tiny Miracle

I thought that having Ivy home from Uni and Taylor on the long summer between the end of A levels and the start of Uni would make my life easier with a lot more fun thrown in. It hasn't really turned out that way so far. My work load has increased along with my stress levels. I keep trying to tell them both that this is a really important summer for them - for Ivy it is the springboard to the rest of her life and for Taylor it should be about having new experiences and preparing for Uni life so that when she leaves home, she can hit the ground running. It worries me that they both seem so unmotivated - happy to roll out of bed at 10am and do nothing much.

Having Ivy back to live means that we really need to make the best use of the space we have. I was getting seriously fed up of our front room being cluttered with things Ivy had brought back with her and had yet to unpack and the instruments that had been used for the Junk to Funk Jazz Concert still in disarray. Every time I walked past it depressed me a little bit more. I can only ask so many times before I feel like a nag so I spent the morning sorting it myself as best I could. Some of the rubbish that Ivy had brought back with her from her Uni accommodation was fit only for the bin. She could have saved a lot of trouble by throwing it away when she moved out rather than bringing it all home.

I got a small amount of help from Taylor but she quickly settled down to play the piano, oblivious of the large pile of drum bags that really needed storing away in the loft.

My girls can be wonderful - willing helpers, fantastic company - and I love that. But sometimes I feel like I have to beg them to lift a finger and when they do it is with reluctance bordering on resentment. As today was definitely shaping up to be the latter of these two scenarios, I decided to tackle the drum bags on my own.

Big mistake.

The drum bags, when all stacked one inside the other like russian dolls, are quite substantial and wider than the loft hatch. I was halfway up the loft ladder trying to stuff this huge object through a too small hole. My arms and neck were aching and I was far too intent on succeeding to concern myself with the fact that I was very precariously balanced on the ladder. It was inevitable really. I lost my balance, toppled backwards off the ladder and fell with the massive bag on top of me. Our loft hatch is inside our family bathroom. The bath tub was behind me to catch me and cushion my fall slightly. The bump to my head was the hardest, the bumps and bruises on other parts of my body were relatively minor. I got off quite lightly all things considered. Before I had time to realise how shaken I was, I was back up that ladder showing the drum bags who really was boss. I shut the loft hatch and tried to forget the incident had ever happened. The tender lump on my skull was not going to let me.

That afternoon, I had an appointment at our local Community Centre to Give Blood. It has been years since I donated blood and I was looking forward to doing something good that would help others. I was reluctant to leave my two little ones with Ivy and Taylor because of the dark mood of unco-operation that was still hanging in the air, so I took them with me. Little Addy insisted on taking a tiny toy seahorse with her and I didn't have the energy to persuade her otherwise. We walked to the Community Centre that was opposite the Care Home where my daughter Charis was doing work experience. I thought it would be lovely to walk back home with Charis after I had given my pint of A+ and she had finished for the day.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare but the Community Centre was dark and locked.

I felt such an idiot for not checking. There was another Community Centre across town and I hadn't even considered that I might have been heading blindly for the wrong one.

I thought that I might just have enough time, if I hurried, to make it to the other Community Centre in time for my appointment. I set off purposefully in approximately the right direction. Had I known exactly where I was going I might have made it but my route was somewhat convoluted. I was also struggling with the 'hurry' part of the equation, trying to push my son in the pushchair with my daughter riding the buggy board on the back - difficult at the best of times but with the catalogue of minor injuries I had sustained earlier from my accident it was beyond difficult. Time was running out.

I started to feel almost cheerful as I arrived in a part of town that I knew well. I didn't know the exact location of the Community Centre but  the road I was headed for was not far and even better, slightly downhill. I would be a few minutes late but it was still doable.

This was the moment when Addy suddenly realised she had dropped her tiny toy seahorse.

She was distraught. I tried to spin a tale of the seahorse on a fantastic adventure making new friends and having a wonderful time but she wasn't buying it. She howled and countered "He can't do that - he's got no legs".


There was only one solution. Retrace our footsteps and try and find the limbless troublemaker.

The toy seahorse was a grubby orange colour, not dissimilar in size and hue to a cigarette butt. I lost count of the times that the discarded remains of someone's nicotine habit offered a glimmer of false hope. Eventually, Addy had a change of heart, resigned herself to the fact that the seahorse was lost forever and asked to go home.

We turned around and headed back

I was now 20 minutes late for my appointment but it was only a little bit out of the way to drop by the Community Centre. As we approached, I could see the the NHS vans parked outside. Although I wasn't able to Give Blood, I was glad to have the chance to apologise for missing my appointment and the lovely man offered me a cup of tea because he could see how frazzled I was.

As we set off for home, my heart felt a little lighter knowing that next month I will have the chance to donate again and this time, I will know the right place to come.

What happened next completely astonished me. On the pathway just ahead was something small and orange. I honestly could not believe my eyes. The tiny toy seahorse  was sitting right there as if it had been waiting for us. I am prepared to accept that it was only my imagination that saw a little glint in its tiny seahorse eye.

GCSE Survival Tips

I was so pleased to see my daughter heading off to school this morning to face her English Literature GCSE exam with a smile.

I am praying that the questions will be what she is expecting and that she will return with her smile still in place.

One GCSE survival tip must be to start the day with a good breakfast. Charis made sure of this by leaving an impossible to ignore instruction on the cake tin containing the "DON'T PANIG" cake that I made for her to help combat the pre-exam stress she was suffering (survival tip #2 - keep your sense of humour and relax)

Don't Panig

I have always suspected that my daughter, Charis, has her feet firmly on the Autistic Spectrum - not least because she is incapable of touching her own nose with her eyes closed. It has not gone unnoticed by others but she has never had a formal diagnosis. She is extremely bright and learns to deal with the things that she finds challenging.

Charis excels academically and has high expectations placed on her across the syllabus. She is hard working and methodical and finds most subjects easy. There is an exception. English Literature.

There are some aspects of English Literature that can be tackled with her usual approach. She regularly scores 10/10 on the exam question that asks you to analyse a passage from the study text. However, her overall score is seriously compromised by the scores she achieves on the other questions, in particular when asked to comment on unseen poetry.

Poetry is a mystery to Charis. When asked about the mood of the poem and how it makes you feel - she is completely lost. It doesn't make her feel anything. It is simply a string of words put together in a less than logical configuration.

Charis has her English Literature GCSE tomorrow.

As usual she is putting everything she has into doing well but her inability to 'get it' was starting to drive her to distraction.

I have done my best to help her - including speed reading "Of Mice and Men" so we could have detailed discussions about the characters and themes of the book. We looked at past papers and I tried to give her clues to help her decipher poetic code. I have every confidence that she will do well but it doesn't hurt to remind her of the safety net of resits.

My final offering to help with exam stress was to make her a DON'T PANIC cake. Staying calm is the most powerful strategy at her disposal.

Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a hurry. When I selected the embossing letters to imprint my message on the top of the cake, I picked up the G instead of the C (they looked virtually identical to me). My message read DON'T PANIG.

It was possibly the best mistake I've ever made. It made Charis laugh and relax. I hope in some small way that will help her deal with the task she has ahead.

The Birds my True Love Sent to Me

It has been a busy run up to Christmas as it always is. Add to this the fact that one of my fillings fell out (requiring urgent treatment if I was to stand any chance of indulging in the seasonal fare on offer), the usual sprinkling of illness and general 'run down-ness' that has become synonymous with this time of year and the inevitably stressful completion date for my eldest daughter's house purchase - it is a wonder I have survived unscathed.

Yesterday, as I did battle with other shoppers trying ineffectively to steer overladen shopping trolleys around my local Morrisons, I was not only trying to purchase everything I needed for arguably the most important dinner of the year, I also had a shopping list of cleaning products for my daughter who was beavering away with her sleeves rolled up and marigolds on to make her new house gleam. Rather than being stressed by it all, I found myself walking up and down the aisles with a big smile on my face. I may not have managed to buy everything I needed but I have a grown up home owner daughter and a tooth with a brand new filling that will put to the test with all the lovely treats did find their way into my trolley. If we could all just stop coughing, everything would be perfect.

One of the things that has helped keep everything (relatively) stress free has been my Xmas knitting project in which I have attempted to make one of each of the birds that feature in the Xmas classic, The Twelve Days of Christmas. I never imagined I would find knitting so relaxing and I have really enjoyed seeing my little creations taking shape. Here are the (slightly malformed!) birds my true love sent to me with a Santa thrown in for good measure!

Kalms - a review

It's always the same. On the morning of my appointment with the hairdresser, my hair will fall in soft curls around my face with not a split end in sight whereas in the weeks previously it will have been a frazzled haystack.

Likewise when I agreed to review Kalms lozenges. The lozenges were sent with a press release about the importance of sleep so I erronously assumed that they were part of the Kalms sleep promoting family of products.  Despite having suffered on and off with insomnia of varying degrees of severity for years, since having what I thought was a simple and natural solution in my hand, the problem of getting to sleep completely failed to raise it's head. (Waking up was another matter altogether!)

I now realise that the Kalms lozenges are marketed as a natural stress relieving aid to be taken any time of the day, but it was too late. I had already decided to hand the review over to my ever willing mum to see if it might offer her any relief from her long term sleep issues.

Before I report her findings, I would just like to paint a quick picture of my mum's susceptibility.

As a young woman she was hypnotised by a stage hypnotist with little more than a click of the fingers and staggered around the stage, grasping her throat and pleading for water believing that she was in a scorchingly hot desert. After two minutes of talking to a man of the cloth she found religion (then promptly lost it again). She reads the Sun and believes every article is the absolute truth.

My mum is not a questioning sort of person. She is very naive and innocent but she is honest. This is an extract from her "Sleep Diary" that she kept for the purpose of the Kalms review after sucking on a lozenge at bedtime.

... although I didn't have a perfect night's sleep I can honestly say I slept for longer periods and feel a lot brighter this morning than usual


... I have started dreaming for the first time in ages.


... I had the best night's sleep I have had in ages.


... I have to admit to yet another good night's sleep.

The Kalms lozenges do not claim to be a cure for insomnia but clearly for my mum, they were having some effect. It may be that the lemon balm, which is widely used in the Mediterranean as a soothing herb, was relaxing her just enough to overcome her anxiety about sleepless nights. It may be that my mum really is so susceptible to suggestion that giving her a piece of the cardboard packaging to chew on and telling her it would make her sleep would be enough!

The lozenges are pleasant tasting, contain no artificial colours or flavours, are suitable for vegetarians and might just help relieve stress. They can't hurt so I think they have to be worth a try. I am certainly going to be keeping a packet in my medicine cabinet for those moments when I need all the help I can get. I hope they remain there gathering dust for a very long time!

Kalms Lozenges RRP £2.99 for 18

Also available: Kalms Sleep and Kalms Night One-a-Night traditional herbal remedies to help you get a good night's sleep.