So, I didn't do the race. I was all set to and just about feeling prepared. But the weather forecast was horrible - cold and windy and cold some more. It was an hour and a half drive away and then a bus ride, probably, as we weren't supposed to park at the race start. That meant over three hours in the car for all of us and the children and my partner waiting around for at least another two. If they dropped me at the race venue and went to the local town for breakfast, they may not have been able to get back to pick me up, necessitating a bus ride back for me, rapidly chilling off in my kit. It just didn't seem to be the spring day out I'd imagined when I booked a place in December.
But, this has been my main running goal since the New Year and was to serve as an important bench-mark, and, hopefully, an encouragement on my road to the Swaledale Marathon.
We opted for a simple solution. I ran 13.1 miles from a little way from home to our local town, via the road over the moor from Swaledale to Wensleydale. It's a tough route. Over the moor is not a phrase to be read lightly. It's up-hill, a long way, about 300m of ascent. And it was cold. And snowy. I did it. The children and my partner were there to greet me and congratulate me and we all went and had breakfast in our favourite cafe.
Did it count? Count for what? Was it cheating? Cheating what? It makes me aware of how much I hand my sense of achievement over to others, how much I desire some kind of official "approval" or certification. I ran the distance. I loved the views. I was happy with my fitness and my time. That is enough. But still there is a shadow of failure, a sense of not having done it quite right: I didn't actually do the race. I find it difficult to keep up my running without set goals and running is very much part of how I view myself - a fact which I am uncomfortable examining. It's hard to look at, as is the question of why I run: To be healthy? To stay slim? To impress? Because I enjoy the freedom? Because I feel good afterwards? Because it is an amazing way to get out and about into the countryside, the outdoors? Because it is part of how I view myself and I'm not so sure who I am if I don't?
Good reasons, bad reasons? The truth is that sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. I'm not perfect and, like almost every other Western woman, I worry about my weight; I am also vain and competitive. But I do love running and I miss it when I'm actually prevented from doing it. Perhaps as I grow and mature (!) my reasons will purify or I will let go of this thing that has as much of a hold on me as I do on it. Or maybe I won't.

Reviewing the Twelve - Number six

For my birthday I got a book which I had asked  for: “Collins' Ultimate Navigation Manual”. I have not read it as much as would have liked and I set myself the goal of carrying out one exercise from the book per month. Somewhere out there is the idea that one day I might get the Summer Mountain Leader qualification and widen my tutoring business to outdoor education. In the short term my regular running territory has changed from pavement and park to isolated moor and it is necessary to be able to find my way safely about. Life has been so much busier than I anticipated and the imagined formal exercises have not yet surfaced at the top of my priority list but I have been out on a number of walks and runs for which I have needed to rely heavily on my map-reading skills. One early Monday morning on Brownsea Moor, ankle-deep in heather and snow I was trying to find a footpath across the desolate moon-scape of a lead-mining spoil-heaps.  I wasn’t sure I was on the right path. Then I was sure that I wasn’t on the right path. I became increasingly confused and anxious and could not make head-nor-tail of the features around me and convinced myself that I had taken a wrong turning earlier and was on completely different part of the moor. After a while I pieced together my map with what I could see and safely navigated my way back to my intended path, not all that far from where I was.  Reassured and happy that I was safe, I was left with the worry that I was still out half-an-hour after I should have been home with nearly another hour of running and hill-climbing ahead of me and my family at home may well start to consider me lost enough to be worth a call to mountain rescue. I got home, safe and tired, two-an-a-half hours after I had set out on a 75 minute run to find my partner confident that my map-reading skills and spare jacket had meant that I was in no danger. Not formal navigation practice from a book, but a far more valuable and enduring learning experience and a reminder that maybe I have been learning more than I realised all along!

Activities

One thing that we have been keen to change as a family is the sense of always rushing from one activity to another, hurrying out of the door five minutes later than I intended to join one of the busiest stretches of the M25 on our way to book group/swimming/climbing ...
Activities always sound so interesting, so educational, so sociable. They tick boxes for me as a home-edding mother, evidence (ammunition?) in those conversations that doubt my educational choices. But we feel run ragged; what the children really love is to be told that we have nothing planned, that their time is their own. They don't really want to be all that busy.
So we plan to slow down.
But I am afraid that they won't have friends or social opportunities. And so the activities are creeping back in, already!
My daughter is going to try the local dance class, as good a place to meet other girls as any, surely. My middle son has his first football practice on Sunday. My eldest plans to join the local amateur dramatics society - I just need to hunt down the youth contact who I have heard such good things of. And then there is church, and Pony Club, and horse-riding. Plus trying to find some "play-dates" and going for a walk with neighbours or extending and invite for tea and cake.
It scares me to not be busy, to not spend a lot of time with people. But it exhausts me. So we'll choose not to: we won't go to Pony Club just yet and we'll not try to fit in swimming too, or invite anyone next week. I'll cope with the nerves and anxiety and I'll make a note in my diary to review it at half-term (only six weeks away) and I'll choose to let my family begin to experience the space we've longed for.

12x12

I love new year resolutions. The turn of the year presents the opportunity for me to reflect on how I want to be different and to make attempts to become what I want to be. There is a danger of the resolution becoming the law, exerting a pressure to be fulfilled that becomes an end in itself and no longer produces the helpful encouragement to change I would like; They need to be viewed as prompts to remember how I want to live. I am a sucker for patterns and themes and so have chosen 12 this year, either to be done once or twelve times a month:

1) to host local neighbours to eat at the house once per month (dinner, lunch, poetry tea, just a cuppa and a slice of cake ...)
2) to run 12 times per month
3) to bake 12 items per month
4) to choose not to use the tumble drier 12 times per month
5) to take my son out for a coffee and a chat about his latest writing project once per month
6) to practice navigation skills once per month
7) to take the children on a day-out once per month
8) to complete one painting project per month
9) to sort out one area of my personal admin once per month
10) to finish one book per month
11) to do one thing towards developing my workas a Breastfeeding Counsellor once per month
12) to blog 12 times per month

Together they are a mixture that encourages me to live the way I want to live: none feel over-ambitious and yet there is a challenge there to stop dreaming about how I want to be and to be that way, consistently, month in, month out for a year and see where that takes me.

Paris and Thiepval

Another lesuirely start with time to paint, paddle and put varnish on toenails, another pretty town and its boulangerie, and we arrived at St Cyr de Morin. Once again we were parked right by a playground and this time the boulangerie was less than a minute away!
The next day was our trip to Paris. After fresh croissants and brioche, we were very excited to board our train and head for the big city. It was cold, cold, cold and our first port of call was a cafe. Actions and a friendly manner enabled me to procure a straw for my little girl to drink her lemonade with, and the correct word for next time. My eldest opted for the very English Earl Grey.

In a whistle-stop tour we saw Notre Dame,

the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, the Arc de Triomphe from a distance, picnicked by the Eiffel Tower and climbed the steps of Monmatre. After a quick stop for crepes we headed back to the Aire.

Next day we travelled through the heart of World War I territory. We visited the memorial to the lost of the Somme at Thiepval. The exhibition was just right for us as a family: plenty of information boards in English, displays and maps and a film for those of us who didn't want to read too much. There was a huge picture board of the faces of some of the men who disappeared in the Battle of the Somme and a computer data base with information about each man.My daughter used this to find soldiers with the same surname as her and then to find their photos. I grasped a whole new understanding of the nature of this war, played out in such a small area of the world. The place where this exhibition stood had  been in the centre of the action for the entire four years, passing back and forth and entirely devastated in the process.
We reached our last Aire, not far from Calais, where we were reunited with my best friend's brother and family and from where we departed for our ferry home. After a total of 1300 miles we delivered the motor-home to the hire company, marvelled at the tiny size and quiet engine of our car, and headed home!

Taking our time

So far, we had travelled quite a considerable distance each day, but by now we were deep in France and ready to take things a little slower and visit places along the way.
We stopped in Autun, which had amazing pastries but lousy coffee and gave us the opportunity to buy some Dijon mustard. We visited the church and admired the paintings and sculpture, had a look at Napoleon's school and went to the Roman Amphitheatre. We took it in turns to stand in the centre and address the crowd. The acoustics were astonishing!
We stopped again in a medieval fortified town and watched lizards in the sunshine for a while and then carried on to Flavingy, the walled village where "Chocolat" was filmed. Famous for it's aniseed balls and my son was very happy to purchase some.
From there it wasn't far to Laignes where pulled up in a grassy area by a river. The children paddled, lost- and found - their shoes in the mud and we settled down to our nightly game of "Angry Birds". This had  become one of the highlights of our trip: each night, after the children had washed up, we made tea, ate chocolate and played cards. "Angry Birds" was simple enough for all ages to enjoy, skillful enough to engage in, competitive enough to make us laugh and quick enough to enjoy a couple of rounds each night. It can be hard for young children (and grown-ups!) to lose a game and I was moved and impressed as my three showed increasing maturing, grace and humour in winning, losing and all the near misses. In particular, this was were my eldest shone, pursuing victory with passion, accepting set-back with aplomb and keeping us amused with his perfectly placed personality. Ten days and five people in a space no larger than my lounge could have been difficult and explosive but this holiday brought us all much closer together and Angry Birds made small contribution!

Religieuse

Nantua was one of the places where we were able to stroll into the town and buy croissants for breakfast. We were holidaying on a tight budget and there were a number of times I felt that maybe the children were missing out as we didn't pay for entrance anywhere. Perhaps we should have gone into the Uffizi?
But I began to realise that the whole experienceof the trip was of enormous value. I had many holidays abroad when I was young and it is the Boulangeries and Pattisieries which I remember: the exquisite cakes, pastries and cream buns.

As a child, I didn't like croissants or the crusty French baguettes but now I love them and it was a daily treat to have a pastry for breakfast and bread and cheese for lunch. We visted boulangeries across France, either where we were staying or as our first stop of the day. They won't have seen The Birth of Venus of Leonardo's Adoration of the Maji, but the children have experienced the beauty, fragrance and taste of French pastries, had the delight of choosing from the array on offer and many an opportunity to practice their "Bonjour" and "Merci". Now, as as adult, I would love to have more time to spend soaking up the art galleries and museums but the children were far happier that we arrived at our Aires in time for them to play in the playground. We chose our next overnight stop largely because of the description of an adventure playground in the woods. We found ourselves parked outside a closed Theme Park outside a small industrial town, the rides eerie and still, with woodland hiding a slide which the three children enjoyed for an hour, giving the adults time to read a few pages of a book over a beer.

Nantua

We left Annecy after lunch and drove not too far to Nantua. The huge scale of my map of France began to be apparent now. We had been lent a road atlas of France but had left it at home, confident that our van came equipped with maps. It did:one atlas of the whole of Europe. Some of the smaller roads weren't shown, some of the larger roads weren't numbered, quite a few villages were just not there. Even the lake at Nantua didn't make the cut! But it was there, and we found our Aire, and above is the view from the cab. I haven't really captured the huge height of the mountains beyond, they were in cloud when I started painting and the sun came out as I watched.
 Nanuta seemed like a town which had been left behind, once beautiful it has been forgotten as the "Autoroute of the Titans" skims through the mountains above.

It was faded and sad, but it did have a Lidl and we were able to fill our cupboards for the rest of the holiday for 16 Euros!
There was also a monument to those who had been deported in the Second World War; the area was stronghold of the French Resistance movement and the town had suffered harshly at the hands of the Nazis. A plaque recorded the names of around fifty Jewish children and their teachers who had also been taken away, I think to Auschwitz. A group of three siblings were the same age as my three children and we spent a few sober moments contemplating the devastating effects of the politics of a neighbouring country on this tucked away little town seventy years ago.

Annecy

When we left Lake Maggiore, I was beginning to feel a little bit under the weather. By the time we reached our night's stop in France I felt terrible. It was a long day, a long - and expensive - drive, including the Mont Blanc tunnel. We arrived in Annecy in gathering gloom and spent nearly an hour trying to find our way through in the rush hour. We eventually found our Aire, to which the guide has warned us to arrive early, and found it to be a small car park with 8 marked bays and 8 motor homes. Actually, 9. And us. We pulled up in the middle, alongside the other extra, and hoped for the best. Before long there was a knock at the door and a friendly, bi-lingual conversation resulted in us setting our alarm for 7am so that we could move out of the way for the man to set off for work. We decided to chance a walk by the lake, the rain having stopped. Just as we decided to turn around and head back, and it started again. Having to shelter in a doorway, sprint back to the motorhome and deal with five soaking people was more than I felt able to cope with. I was overwhelmed with tiredness and the prospect of drying out our only warm clothes and awash with a cold.
But, as is so often the case, life is better in a team. And while I lay down and felt rotten, my best friend soon had the children in their pyjamas, hot drinks made, a bag of wet clothes and a plan to visit the laundrette.
Next morning saw us buying gifts, following the map from the man in the wine shop to wash and dry our clothes and eating French pastries from our first boulangerie of the trip.
I won't remember Annecy for its sunny lakeside shore, but we had fun

and life is always full of colour!

Northern Italy

We had planned to go to Milan next, but after a day in Florence, felt that we had had the city experience. We headed north, guided only by our guide to the Italian Aires, and found a beautiful car park. The continent embraces camper vans and dotted around the countryside are Aires, not just picnic spots or service stations, but places where mobile homes are welcome to stay overnight, and most have facilities to fill up with clean water and get rid of the used water from the sink and to empty what is politely known as the "black water". We were parked by a fresh water tap, in front of a children's playground and across the road from this abbey.

In the morning we set out to the village in search of bread. We asked a villager who impressed on us the need to go to Angelo's, but our lack of Italian and his lack of English meant that we had no idea how to achieve this. We found a high-class delicatessan selling mostly dried meat whose proprietor also did not speak much English but had some visiting clients who did. From her we learned a little of the local area and the produce of the abbey and, more importantly, obtained directions to Angelo's.
Before leaving we explored the Abbey. The cloisters were a concert hall of bird-song and there was a small exhibition about the work of the monks. We had not entered Il Duomo on Sunday as there was a huge queue; we were the only visitors to this church and were touched by the emptiness and sense rare and private experience.
Angelo's took a little bit of finding (not surprising that my limited Italian had not stretched to understanding the directions) but was more than worth it. A little bakery tucked around the back of a farmhouse we left with fresh, hand-made foccacia and it felt a true Italian experience.
The Autostrada conducted us north to Lake Maggiore, where we chose to stay in a campsite in Bareno and were rewarded by a lakeside pitch no more than five metres from the lapping waves. Undetered by the grey skies and chill temperature, the rest of the party opted to paddle and even to brave swimming, if only long enough to win a 10 second bet! I chose to sit quietly by and paint.

Florence

Florence. Il Duomo. The size and grandeur of this enormous building took me by surprise. I've seen photos of it and I've spoken to people who have been to Florence but I had no concept of the sheer hugeness of the cathedral.

We got back on Tuesday evening from a fabulous road trip driving a campervan from Florence to Calais.Our first night was in a hotel just outside Luton airport, 5 of us in one room, and we have spent 10 nights in a space smaller than my living room and yet we have come home closer and more loving than we left.

The idea for this trip had come from my best friend's brother and we flew out with him, his wife and two children, went to the Italian supermarket with them and decided to stay on the same campsite as them for the first night. The two girls have a delightful and blossoming friendship, the just-about teenage boys are a little more wary of each other and are wildly different in character but are developing a relationship. My eleven year old is content to talk cars and football to both dad and son, and anyone else who'll join in! The children got muddy scrambling up the grass bank and the adults chatted over red wine and Tiramisu.
I took my art teacher's advice and tried a quick-sketch painting rather than a photograph. For me it captures not just the view but the feel of sitting on the grass, the sounds of the chidlren playing and the sense of the moment.

We spent Palm Sunday in Florence. We ambled around, ate ice-cream, crossed Ponte Vecchio, marveled at the living statues outside the Uffizi (our incomprehension of the English leaflet proffered us by Leonardo Da Vinci caused him to rummage deeper and offer us a German translation!), and admire the Cathedral. We paid 5 Euros to use the beautiful public toilets beside the Baptistry and were able to admire the model of the crane used to hoist the marble blocks to the top of the dome, ate our bread and cheese in the Piazza del Duomo and headed back on the bus to our mobile home begin the drive north.

Sunshine

The sun has been shining and it feels like summer. It's been a long term, a long winter and we are all very excited about going on holiday on Friday. We fly to Pisa and are driving a brand-new camper van home through Italy and France. When the idea first came up, in September, it seemed a little crazy, but here we are, less than 48 hours away from setting off. A much needed break, much needed fun time together, and perhaps, a line in the sand as life moves on from the old to the new.

Overload

I want to cry. My head hurts and I am fed up of being a person that regularly loses my purse and panics, even though I tell myself that I will just have to deal with it, and have someone else find it. Every time. And I’ve just told the children that I know it’s wrong to have my own issues and be taking it out on them but I am doing it anyway. I am tired of listening to my children’s feelings and trying to hold on to my own. We have been up to London today which was heaps of fun but I find travelling round London stressful with three little ones. Well, not so little really and much less likely to throw themselves headlong into the path of an oncoming Tube Train than a few years ago but I still can’t control the urge to insist they stand absolutely still and well back on the platform and to grab hold of their hands as the train approaches. I worry that they will skip into the road, walk headlong into a stranger or simply get swept away in the crowd. I am sure that I will give them a neurotic complex but I reckon I’m a pretty laid back mum about getting up on time, climbing trees and using adult scissors as toddlers so maybe I’ve got some slack. It gets hard to process the big stuff in the tumble-drier of day-to-day life and I am looking forward to some time out this weekend. In the meantime I will reflect on a fun day in Hamley’s, on the bus spotting McClaren sports cars and Classical Spectacular at the Albert Hall.

Titanic

It is 100 years since the tragic sinking of the Titanic.We took the trip to Godalming today to visit the exhibition in the town museum based around Jack Phillips, the ship's chief telegraphic officer. He was undoubtedly a brave man, staying at his post until the last, his final transmission cut off mid-way as the power cut out three minutes before the ship went down. I found the telegraphic transmissions sent and received by the Titanic especially moving - the simple descriptions of the increasingly desperate situation, the frantic responses of ships promising that all their boilers were at full steam, and the last few from the surrounding ships: nothing heard for half-an-hour, for two hours and then the Carpathia reporting that the Titanic has gone down with all hands.
The children all took a ticket from the reception desk, found "their" suitcase and dressed in character. My eldest loves the chance to look smart and enjoyed being William John Parker, ship's crew.

Middle son was also a crew member, although clearly not of such rank, and my little girl part of an upper class family's entourage. Their friend was a first class young master.

We stopped for a runabout and a tree-climb on the way home. Fridays are definitely fun!

Chelsea

A Day Out in London! It's a long time since we had one of those.
A London wide art installation.

Always a chance to be silly!

Meeting a Chelsea Pensioner.

Handling a musket - or was it a rifle? We all learned loads of history through a talk on the wars of the Nineteenth Century.

And more eggs!

Little Tryfan

I was scared witless. I don't think I've ever been as totally terrified in my life. It's not me in the picture, but it could be.
This is Little Tryfan, my second ever attempt at out-door climbing. Last year I had a couple of days at Harrison's Rocks: simple, roped climbs, one pitch, belayed from below, just like the rock wall only outdoors, in the sunshine. This year I was on Little Tryfan, a fairly easy (Moderate, a climbing standard whose scale ends at Extreme 10) but multi-pitch climb in the pouring rain.
Multi-pitch sounds innocuous, but what it really means is that when you have conquered your fears, struggled up the greasy rock, balanced on your toes with a sprained ankle in great walking boots - but you are beginning to understand the difference between these and rock-boots - you have to stand, alone, holding the life of someone else on the end of a rope, fifteen metres high on a ledge on the rock face, freezing and wet, contemplating the fact that you are about to have to do it again. And again.
I cried and I cursed, I hyper-ventilated and I panicked. And I put one foot above the other and I climbed. It was scary. And I did it.
Sometimes there isn't much choice; the moment of choice has been and gone and it is just a case of keeping going. Every step is a question of trust and I have to trust my choice. I have to trust my ankle to hold my weight. I have to trust the instructor who tells me I can do it. I have to trust my friend who holds the rope. I have to trust myself and find that I do have the resources to continue on this climb.

New Year

Swaledale is an amazing place to be: barren, beautiful, windswept and boggy. I have run on this moor almost everyday for the last two weeks. The first day I was slipping on ice but since then the bridle paths have become stream-beds and the ground a series of marshes and puddles. I have seen stunning sunrises and bowed my head into the howling wind and rain. I walked across the moor on Christmas Day, arriving half-an-hour late to church, wet and cold with mud spattered trousers into a congregation of locals in their festive best. I have walked up Calver Hill with my three children in cutting wind and stinging hail, to come home to hot baths and hot chocolate. I saw a barn owl yesterday, swooping over the heather, day-light hunting, its wings broad and sweeping. I have laughed and cried, played games, watched films and read my book. I am tired and rested, relaxed and still-humming. This year has been tumultous and up-ending, my foundational relationships have shifted, my life will never be the same again and my view of myself has been challenged, undone and is being rebuilt. I have hopes and dreams for 2012: I am scared, insecure and excited and in many ways I feel that I have a lot of growing up to do but it looks like being a good year.

New and Old

Old friends. Catching up with a special lady who has been there for me for eighteen years, with whom I have shared all the ups and downs of life as I have gone from newly-married, newly-qualified teacher and her as  single teacher, to us both mums of three. We chatted over mugs of tea and lit a bonfire in the garden for excited children to toast marshmallows before just having time to snuggle up on the sofa with my godson  and a favourite book. Connections. Roots. Love and support.
New challenges. North Downs Way under our belt, starting the South Downs Way. Happy dog romping in the fields, twelve rolling Hampshire miles, fresh air and warm late autumn sunshine, time out from busy life to talk and think deeply and to relax. New hope. New ideas. New future.

On Monday we set out on our sponsored Bike Ride:

Ready to go

First pit-stop

Resting on our way home

Still full of beans

Home and happy

Well done!

Over £100 raised!

We changed our route to remove the need to put five people and five bikes in the car so we cycled from home to Kingston, along the river, and then home again: 22 miles in total. I was impressed that I could cycle so far - it's a long time since I've regularly used a bike - and even more impressed that the children could! There was not one word of complaint and, in fact, they were pretty excited the whole way and we are aiming to cycle from home to Waterloo - around 30 miles along the river- in the spring.

The Bicycle Ride.

We get on our bikes, our feet on the pedals,

At the end of this ride there shall be no medals,

Just a nice happy feeling, and family glory,

(Unless we all die in an accident gory.)

Twenty-two miles on a bike! Golly Gosh!

Through mud that goes squish and though puddles that splosh,

Through fields of grass and paths all brown,

Out and in and out of town,

We go past locks, we go past houses,

We go past horses and, er, cow-ses,

All this for puppies, small and sweet,

And kittens with soft paws for feet,

For we’re sponsoring an Animal Home! (Mayhew,)

For cats and dogs and rabbits too!

At long, long last, we stop for lunch,

On chips and sarnies we happily munch,

Then back on the bikes and off we go!

(Starting, of course, a trifle slow.)

But our hearts are light as air,

Because, Great Scott, we’re half-way there!

We make light conversation, trying to ignore,

The noises coming from the floor,

Because our feet, beginning to ache,

ARE LOUDLY ASKING FOR A BREAK!

(Though they’re just being lazy, as we know,

We only started five minutes ago!)

After many, many hours

Of passing grass, and flowers, and flowers,

We get back home! Hip hip hooray!

What a fun, but tiring day!

We are so tired we all fall asleep,

There is no need for counting sheep!

Dr Who

Dr Who is a big character in my house. I lost interest when David Tennant regenerated, but my two son's have deepened and extended their passion, pored over many books, watched numerous clips on the internet and hold obscure conversations about particular episodes and the finer points of alien species. As his twelfth birthday is tomorrow, my son's present from grandma was tickets to the Dr Who Experience in London and we headed up into town today.

Despite the humid and sapping heat excitement levels were high and the exhibition lived up to all expectations. The interactive experience to begin with thrilled the children and caused just enough terror to bring them all close to my side but not enough to result in tears. The display brought exclamations of delight as we saw the costumes of all eleven Doctors, two TARDIS consoles, Daleks, Cybermen and Slytherines and more.

It was amazing to see my eldest so excited and passionate and I was reminded again of the need to engage with what interests my children, rather than trying to interest them in what I think is worthy; to enter into their worlds and to see life through their eyes.