Word of the Week: Festive

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It’s been a bit of a challenging week this week. I’ve still had loads to organise to get to a position where I feel like I’m ready for the craziness of December. On top of that we’ve had lots going on to take us out of the house – what with the rugby in Cardiff last weekend and playdates for Arthur, governors and trustees meetings and chats about possible avenues for researching my next novel, and getting things together for a whistle-stop trip to London this weekend, it’s all been a bit hectic! And then on top of THAT Arthur’s been a bit under the weather – nothing serious (don’t worry mum), but enough that he’s been a bit grumpy and we’ve had three nights now of even more broken sleep than usual.

But in between all of that, the over-riding feeling for me this week is that it’s beginning to look an awful lot like Christmas. And I can’t help but begin to get a teensy bit excited.

Arthur’s music group has been becoming increasingly festive over the past couple of weeks, with yummy Christmas spices, a serious dose of tinsel and yesterday an introduction to decorating the tree!

The tree’s up in Brixham harbour too, waiting patiently for the big Christmas illuminations switch on this weekend. I’m a bit gutted we’re going to miss it actually – there’s going to be a lantern parade and fireworks and everything – but my lovely Barcelona friends are over in London for one weekend only.

An advantage of not being at home this weekend is that it’s meant we’ve had to get very efficient with our own preparations and our tree actually went up yesterday! More on that in another post though…

I’ve got Arthur’s advent calendar all sorted too, ready for when we get home on the evening of the 1st of December. I loved putting all the little treats in their pockets (and am happy to say they all fitted!). I can’t wait to see what he makes of it all.

He’s already enjoyed some Christmas crafting – discovering glitter for the first time as we created the artwork for his Christmas cards.

My crafting is underway too, though I can’t give too much away about that without spoiling peoples’ surprises! I will say though that the little project I did yesterday might be my favourite ‘make’ yet, and I’m already looking forward to blogging about it in January.

So all in all a pretty festive week, and the start of what I think is going to be a very special festive season now that Arthur is old enough to have a bit more of a sense of what’s going on. I have a feeling his mind might be blown by the sparkle and spectacle of the decorations in London. And on that note I’d better get a move on – we have a train to catch!

Gratitude

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Another character development exercise, this time exploring the relationship my female protagonist had with her mother during her teenage years. She is fifteen when this scene takes place, sometime in the autumn after another long, heady summer staying with her grandparents by the sea.

***

“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to be thankful for this!”

As soon as the words left my mouth I was ashamed, but at the same time a thrill bubbled up deep inside of me. I couldn’t help myself.

“I mean, it’s no kind of life is it? You and Dad – you barely see each other. And you couldn’t give a stuff about me.”

I willed her to speak but she just stood there, quiet now. She’d goaded me to this, nagging and nagging. And now she wouldn’t even answer me. My heart raced in my chest as my mind churned through all of the most hurtful things it could think of that might provoke a response. Something stopped me though – I still wasn’t brave enough to say them out loud.

When she did finally speak her tone was low and measured.

“Your father and I have done everything for you. Everything.”

I’d heard this so many times.

“But did I ask you to? Did I?”

“We only want the best for you, Catherine. We’ve tried and tried to do what’s best for you.”

There was a new note in her voice, and with something close to disgust I realised she was almost pleading with me.

“Well maybe you should just try harder. Maybe you could even try listening to me. I don’t want this, any of it. The world is changing, mum. It’s going to leave you behind. And you might be happy with that but I’m not – I’ll never be.”

I wanted to shake her, to force her to understand what I was trying to say. And then, just for a second, I wanted her to hold me, to hear her say that everything was going to be ok.

The next time she spoke though it was with the special air of venom she reserved for my aunt.

“You sound just like her, do you know that? I knew it was a mistake letting you and Joseph spend so much time together. They’ll poison your mind, the lot of them.”

“It’s got nothing to do with him!”

The heat rose in my cheeks as I thought of Joe. Sweet, angry, confused Joe. It was true he’d opened my eyes to what was out there, but I refused to believe for a second that was a bad thing.

“You’ve got no idea what she’s like, not really. She’ll have completely brainwashed him. No son of hers could grow up to just be happy. There always has to be drama, she never could just be grateful for what she’s got.”

She stood up and smoothed down her apron, forcing me to take a step backwards as she moved into my space.

“In fact you’re more like her than I’d ever realised.”

She swept out of the room then, her head held high, leaving me trembling with rage even as the tears began to prick behind my eyes.

I never had understood why she hated her sister so much, but in that moment something clicked. Mum was afraid of her. Everything she’d done, all of the decisions she’d made: they were the polar opposite of my parents’ safe, boring existence, the very things that could bring it crashing down.

And now my mother was afraid of me, and I had absolutely no idea how that was supposed to make me feel.

***

Thank you to Sara at Mum Turned Mom for inspiring this post with her prompt: ‘thankful’.

A little bit of time travel

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As I’m muddling though with the research stage of novel number three, and characters and plot begin to swim into focus, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the scenes set forty-odd years ago are going to be both the easiest and the hardest to get right.

Easy because the young lovers I am portraying are so vivid in my mind. Every time I stop and think about them more aspects of their personalities and relationship become clear, and I have some very detailed character profiles shaping up.

But hard because the world they live in isn’t this one – and isn’t one I’ve ever experienced first hand. I know there’s nothing unique in that: plenty of novelists set their stories in times and places much more distant than 1970s Brixham. And I know I’m not writing a factual piece – I don’t need to get every little detail spot on. But I still want it to be authentic, to have the air of travelling back in time.

One discovery I’ve made this week is going to help with that. As part of a general organising spree I found a box full of letters from my past – not quite as far back as the period in which the novel is set, I think the earliest ones date from the late 80s. But still reading them through served as a valuable reminder not only of what it really feels like to be a teenager, but also the very different way in which people communicated in a world before the internet. I’m looking forward to creating snippets of my characters’ correspondence, to seeing how their relationship develops when they’re apart as well as when they’re together.

I’m also looking forward to finding a bit more out about my town. I’ve been extending my internet research this week, searching for pictures and stories from the Brixham of 1973 to 1982 (or thereabouts). Actually much of what I’ve found so far suggests that an awful lot has actually stayed the same, though I’m sure were I to ask someone who has lived through the changes they would be able to give me a far more accurate impression of the time I’m travelling to.

So that’s my next step, really: to find some people who knew Brixham in the 70s and pick their brains. If you’re reading this and you think you might be able to help then please get in touch! You can comment below, or email me on sophieblovett@gmail.com. I can’t wait to find out what I might discover…

The lost art of letter writing

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I had several very late nights last week. Not just because I was on a mission to get myself organised before the craziness of Christmas sets in, but because of what I found in the process.

I have always been a bit (a lot) of a hoarder. This is generally something I chastise myself for – resulting as it does in me being surrounded by piles and piles of stuff that I have no idea what to do with. But this week, as I sat on the floor surrounded by these pieces of paper dating back twenty five years and more, I was very glad that I find it so hard to throw anything away.

There were letters from friends I have not seen for many years, and from those who I still count amongst my very best. From boys I was once in love with, or who were once in love with me. From my brothers, who it is hard to believe were ever so little, and from older family members who it is hard to believe are not around any more.

They were written on pages torn from files, on embossed notecards, on the backs of envelopes, on handmade paper, and collectively they transported me back to a very different time. A time before email. A time before text messages. A time before Facebook. Or WhatsApp. Or Twitter.

There are so many ways I keep in touch with people now – and probably if there weren’t I would find it hard to keep in touch with as many people as I do. But there is something incredibly touching about those fading and dog-eared pieces of paper, about the effort of writing out a message by hand, of finding a stamp and an envelope and a postbox.

Very few of the letters contained anything of much import. And yet in their banalities and ramblings they said more than a carefully considered few lines on a special occasion ever could. And often, hidden in the clutter of the everyday, there were flashes of the souls of those who wrote, of what I meant to them – and them to me.

I often look back on my later childhood and teenage years with feelings of sadness and regret. I struggled with depression and anxiety – the degree to which came across starkly in the tortured diaries I also discovered. But my memories of that – blurred themselves by my reluctance to fully transport myself back to the waves of misery I felt at the time – have clearly clouded the reality of the very good times I had in between, and the very, very good friends I had around me. How they put up with me I’ll never know; I fear my demons made me incredibly selfish at times.

As well as this quiet self-reflection, this archive from my past got me thinking about something else too. Letters are going to be very important in my third novel. It was a letter from that world, a particularly significant one, which was initially going to form the basis of this post. But that was before I found my stash. And what those letters have reminded me is how different communication was in life before the internet.

I’m looking forward to reading and rereading the letters that were sent to me so many years ago as I continue to unpick the lives of my main characters. So much of their friendship – and their love story – will unfold as they put pen to paper. The waiting for their letters to be read and answered, the delicious anticipation when an envelope addressed with familiar handwriting falls through the door, the peeling open of that envelope and becoming immersed in that contents for a few precious moments: all that will need to find its way into my novel.

And I think also it needs to find its way back into my life. I have so many friends and family who are not as geographically close as I would like them to be, and whilst the internet has brought with it the wonderful ability to keep up with what they’re doing with their days it will never replace the simplicity or the complexity of a letter.

So whilst I’m not normally one for new year’s resolutions, I can feel one simmering here – one that will mean that pile of letters from my past may still have the chance to grow.

Thank you to Sara over at Mum Turned Mom for inspiring this post with her prompt: a letter…

Silent Sunday: 23rd November 2014

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Word of the Week: Organised

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I’ve been getting organised on so many levels this week, sorting out a whole bunch of things I’ve been meaning to do for ages – it’s been properly exhausting! I’d built up an epic to do list (mainly in my head) over the past few months of novel-writing, and with that in a bit of a natural lull and Christmas and Arthur’s birthday fast approaching it was time to tackle it.

It started last Saturday with an afternoon in Totnes for Christmas shopping and a long-overdue haircut. I don’t actually think I’d been to the hairdresser since Arthur was born – and my hair went from this:

To this:

Not bad huh? And infinitely more manageable…

The Christmas shopping was pretty successful, though generally rather than getting gifts I was looking for materials… I decided a while ago that I really wanted to try to make most of my presents this year, and though it seems like a bit of a crazy idea I haven’t been able to shake it. So we were trawling charity shops and craft shops and haberdashers for bits and pieces I thought I might be able to use. We did come across one thing we absolutely had to have – I’m making Arthur a doll for Christmas and we came across this gorgeous vintage pram in Oxfam:

You may remember that he rather likes prams, and I imagine this one will be used to push all sorts of things around!

By Monday I had a list of present ideas, a bunch of crafty bits and bobs, and various other things I still had to get online. With the help of Ebay and Etsy (and a little bit of Amazon) that proved to be fairly easy to solve, but there was a bigger issue looming, one which I just couldn’t ignore any longer: the mess.

When we moved into our house it needed top to toe renovation, and the work was finally finished (well, almost) about a week before Arthur was born. We did a reasonable job of getting ourselves sorted, but there were still bags and boxes I hadn’t really touched since the move and Arthur’s arrival obviously added a whole other layer of stuff. Two rooms were really suffering: our bedroom, which the three of us have basically shared since Arthur was born and which was full of piles of his clothes despite him having a perfectly good room of his own, and my study – this is where all the untouched piles had ended up, because after all I only need my desk and computer to write, right?

But suddenly I had a whole host of fairly ambitious craft projects to tackle. I needed somewhere to put my materials where they weren’t going to get sucked into the mess, and I am going to have to set my sewing machine up somewhere.

So I’ve blitzed this room. I’ve thrown out and filed and rehomed and I now actually feel like there’s room to breathe in here. In the process I’ve come across all sorts of interesting things. A whole stack of notebooks for example, from diaries full of teenage angst to teaching planning to gloriously empty pages waiting to be filled. I’d thought I’d lost them all somewhere along the way, so I was very pleased to see them.

There were other things too, piles of papers that I’m very glad I hadn’t just thrown away as hiding in between what looked like rubbish were letters and cards from old friends that I’d forgotten even existed (the letters, not the friends). All safely stashed away now, but not before I reread them all. There have been some very late nights this week…

And of course then there was Arthur’s room. This wasn’t so essential on a practical level, but there were too many things niggling away at me that really needed tackling at some point that I figured I’d just get it done whilst I was feeling efficient.

So I’ve been through all the piles of clothes that I haven’t streamlined since before Easter, putting away two big bags that don’t fit him any more and tidying the rest into his room. I moved some of his toys up that had spilled into the lounge too – in particular his Ikea circus tent which is now a gorgeous little reading nook with cushions and bears and lots of stories. As I was doing all this, the unfinished family trees on the walls were taunting me, so I finally got round to finding some photos to put in them.

Arthur loves them, especially at night when he says goodnight to everyone as part of his bedtime routine. He’s definitely very ready to be spending a bit more time in his room. I’m sure he’ll still come in with us for part of the night, and his play will of course continue to spill out to wherever I am, but there’s something very lovely about him having his own special place too.

And in the midst of all of this I somehow managed to snatch some time to start organising my ideas for my next novel too. It involved coffee, and a beautiful notebook. Bliss.

So all in all an extremely productive and organised week! Now I’d best get on with making those presents…

Why we cannot afford to get complacent about our right to breastfeed our babies

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A storm erupted on social media yesterday which reminded me that we still have a long way to go before society fully accepts that it is perfectly normal and natural for babies to be fed from a woman’s breasts.

As I’m writing this, my toddler is nursing in the sling. It’s easy to get complacent in my own little corner of the universe – to forget that there are still many people who would look on what I’m doing as disgusting. Sure there are reminders now and again. The woman called a ‘slut’ by an elderly couple for breastfeeding her child in a coffee shop in London. The nursing mother subjected to abuse by teenagers on a local bus route. But it’s relatively easy to dismiss these as little pockets of ignorance – important to stand up against, yes, but situations that arose in the heat of the moment.

And then yesterday it emerged that a popular ‘family friendly’ cafe in leafy Surrey had decided it was appropriate to display this sign on their front door:

I, like many others, was gobsmacked. I mean – what were they thinking? A woman’s right to breastfeed her child – and indeed that child’s right to be nourished and nurtured – is entrenched in law. It is illegal in this country to tell a woman she cannot breastfeed her child, or indeed to discriminate against her in any way for that reason.

But here is an established business telling its clientele, openly and publicly, that they have the right to tell breastfeeding mothers to feed in the toilet.

This is wrong on so many levels. There is the fundamental idiocy of suggesting that it is in any way appropriate for a baby to eat in the place where people defecate. I have yet to find anyone who has expressed this as well as the poet Hollie McNish, so I’m just going to leave this here:

There is the thinly veiled implication that well-behaved dogs are more welcome than breastfeeding mothers and their babies, the mind-bending logistics of a group of mums taking it in turns to leave their friends and their coffee and cake at the table and take their baby and the thoughtfully provided chair into the disabled toilet. Or perhaps the whole group is expected to relocate, coffee and cake and all.

All of this aside though, there is a psychology at play here which is insidious and dangerous, and that is where for me the biggest problem lies.

I’m not too worried about me. I hope I’d have the guts to tell the cafe where to stick their sign. I know my rights, and I’m confident enough in the many benefits to me and my child of continuing our breastfeeding relationship that I wouldn’t be put off by such an impolite notice.

But what of those who are less confident? What of the mum in the early stages of breastfeeding her child who is self-conscious and embarrassed? What if she decides that this precious social time with her friends is so important that maybe she’ll just take a bottle to feed her baby when she goes out? What of her dwindling supply, her feelings of failure and resignation to not being able to follow through on her desire to breastfeed? What of her child, missing out on the many benefits that nursing can bring?

Not forgetting the rest of the cafe’s clientele. Like with many forms of discrimination, there are the people whose discomfort at being in the company of a breastfeeding mother simmers just below the surface. Seeing an official sign like this normalises their attitude, perhaps increasing their confidence in expressing their inappropriate views in another situation.

The cafe has claimed that there was a misunderstanding. Using the oldest excuse for bigotry in the book, the cafe owner has claimed that having breastfed her own children how could she possibly be discriminating against breastfeeding mothers. But there is nothing I can find in that sign that is ambiguous: she claims she has the right to ask breastfeeding mothers to feed in the toilet. And that is unequivocally wrong.

The cafe’s ratings on various online sites have plummeted after people expressed their disgust at their gall. The prospect of a nurse-in protest was clearly not one the owner wanted to face, and I understand the sign has now been taken down.

This is ultimately a good thing. But it took five weeks for this story to be picked up by social media – that’s a long time for something so damaging to be in the public sphere.

So whilst this particular tale of discrimination might have something approaching a happy ending, it is clear to me that this is not a time for us to be complacent. Not at all.

This much I know

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Today I did something I’ve dreamt of often but never actually managed to achieve before: I sat in a coffee shop and worked on my novel.

We were on our way back from Arthur’s drama class, and after dipping into a couple of charity shops in the ongoing hunt for bits and pieces for Christmas crafting I thought we were just going to head home. But then Arthur fell asleep. And all the thoughts about character and plot that have been swirling around over the past couple of weeks rose up in my mind, determined to be heard. And I thought really, given that we were just outside one of my favourite spots for coffee in Brixham which is due to close forever in its current incarnation at the end of this week, it’d be rude not to stop and listen.

Over the course of two steaming hot lattes I scribbled furiously in my notebook whilst Arthur dozed in the sling, blissfully unaware. And after a couple of weeks where I’ve done lots of reading and thinking but not very much writing I was thrilled to discover that there’s actually rather a lot I know about my novel.

I don’t want to give too much away yet, but the two main characters are definitely beginning to take shape. And the peripheral ones are padding out too. And the locations are becoming clearer. And the plot is beginning to make sense. There’s still a way to go, but I definitely know more than I thought.

What I’m not sure about yet is how it’s all going to be structured. I guess in a way that’s a decision that can wait, but there are some choices I will need to make before I start writing. Like whose voice we’re going to hear. I know the narrative needs to be split between the present and the past, but I’m not sure whether we want to see things from just one character’s perspective or whether another point of view will help to tell the story. I also know that time will not be linear in this novel. But the arc the narrative will follow is not yet clear.

I’m going to continue to read and think – and write too – as I continue to work all this out. The little bits of character exploration I’ve done so far – like this scene from the past and this letter from closer to the present – have been enormously helpful. I possibly need to start mapping things out a bit too, to begin to get a stronger sense of the bigger picture.

Because however much I know so far, there are certainly still an awful lot of pages in that notebook waiting to be filled…

Why I love wearing my toddler

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I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages. I got distracted during International Babywearing Week and a few irritating encounters meant I ended up writing about the things not to say to a babywearing mama. But actually my experience of wearing my ever-growing baby is an overwhelmingly positive one, and as Arthur approaches his second birthday that’s what I want to focus on.

So without any further ado, here are the reasons why I absolutely love wearing my toddler:

1) It gives us both some company

I don’t drive, which means that getting anywhere tends to involve lots of walking and often also the bus. This would mean that Arthur would be spending an awful lot of time in a pram, which to me would seem a rather lonely option for both of us!

With Arthur in the sling, he’s up on my level. He sees the things I see, and we can talk about them. When I bump into friends he’s right in the middle of the conversation – not waiting for me to finish whilst he looks at our knees.

I love that he’s included in my world, and that I get to have him there as a little companion. Even with a parent-facing pram I think that closeness would be very hard to achieve.

2) It keeps him safe

Now I’m not saying that prams aren’t safe, but there have been lots of situations when I’ve been glad that Arthur’s up where I can really keep an eye on him.

In crowds for example, especially if there are smokers about. Or in heavy traffic: less of an issue in Devon, but on the London streets I become very conscious that a pram would put him at exhaust level. On our country walks dogs are more often the issue – we’ve had a few close calls when he’s enthusiastically run up to embrace them, but it’s nice to know I can whisk him up if I need to.

I know if he’s too hot or too cold, if he’s frightened or sad. Ultimately there can’t really be anywhere safer for my little boy than cuddled up next to me.

3) It keeps me strong

There is no denying that walking around with a 15kg weight strapped to you feels like a pretty good workout after a couple of hours. My carrier distributes the weight evenly so I very rarely have an aching back, but my core and my legs are definitely working harder.

With wearing a toddler, it becomes even more important to have a well designed carrier. I love my Connecta for it’s combination of support and ease of use, whilst other toddler-wearing friends swear by the more traditional Mei Tais or woven wraps. There are a whole range of slings and carriers designed for toddlers and even pre-schoolers on the market – something I had no idea about before I entered the wonderful world of babywearing, and something well worth investigating if you’re keen to keep on wearing your baby for longer.

4) It makes nap time a breeze

I realise this will be a little controversial for some people, but Arthur has almost all of his naps in the sling. He can sleep elsewhere – but he sleeps longer and deeper if I’m wearing him.

He still has two decent naps a day, and that time is invaluable for me to get writing done – all the more so because I’m forced to stay reasonably still rather than getting on with chores around the house!

And if we’re out and about it means he’ll sleep when he’s tired – no rushing home to get him into his cot. He’s even happy to begin his night’s sleep on me if we’re out in the evenings, and there have been a couple of times recently when I’ve managed to transfer him from sling to bed, via nappy change and pyjamas, without him waking up.

5) It’s an instant tantrum soother

Arthur hasn’t really hit full on tantrum mode yet, but on the odd occasions when it looks like it might be approaching there is nothing more effective than holding him close in the sling. He might struggle a bit at first, but actually invariably cuddles are what he really wants and wearing him for a while will help him calm down and get back on top of those troublesome toddler emotions.

6) It’s made it so much easier to continue breastfeeding

If I’m honest, I’m not sure I’d still be breastfeeding Arthur as regularly as I am – if at all – if it weren’t for babywearing. I’m fully aware of all of the benefits of extended breastfeeding, but if I had to stop what I was doing every time he wanted a feed I reckon I would have started to think about weaning a while ago.

But the Connecta is brilliant for breastfeeding – comfortable, and utterly discreet. I don’t even think twice about feeding Arthur when he needs it, and he certainly seems to be pretty happy about that.

7) It’s a closeness that daddy can enjoy too

I know that I’m tremendously lucky to get to spend all of this time with this incredible little person, especially since a lot of that time is spent holding him close and benefitting from the magical little person cuddles. But I am also very glad that the fact Arthur loves to be worn means that my husband can also share in that wonderful closeness – often when we’re out and about at the weekends it’s Leigh who wears the baby, and it’s clear how much he and Arthur gain from that.

8) It gives us freedom

The first (and only) couple of times I took Arthur out in the pram I felt terribly self-conscious. I guess you must get used to it, but I just didn’t seem cut out for lugging this contraption around. There was one day, one of my first trips out after Leigh had gone back to work, when I walked into town with the intention of picking up a couple of bits, maybe grabbing a coffee. But the shop I wanted to go into had steps I’d never noticed before. And the coffee shop was busy – I really didn’t fancy negotiating my way around the chairs. So I gave up and went home, resigned to not really going out much again.

But then we started babywearing, and we’ve never looked back. Whether it’s country walks or escalators, crowded pavements or steps down to a beach, music festivals or art galleries, it’s just so much easier with a sling.

And now that Arthur wants to spend at least half of his time when we’re out and about running around that’s even more true. I’m really not sure how people manage to keep one hand on the empty pram whilst chasing after the toddler. I know I couldn’t!

But with the sling it’s easy. If I need to get a move on, or we’re near a busy road, or he’s tired – then there’s somewhere for Arthur to go. But when he wants to explore then I can clip the sling around my waist or slip it into my rucksack and I’m hands free again – ready for that all-important toddler chasing.

So there you have it. I could go on, but I’m sure it’s pretty clear by now: I really, really love wearing my toddler.

I’d love to hear about your experiences too if you’re a toddler-wearing mama – please share them in the comments below, and if you have any questions then I’ll do my best to answer them.

Silent Sunday: 16th November 2014

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on a journey of (re)discovery in a brave new world.