Operation Greenhouse

I'm having a retro moment - it's all in my head of course - where I might add, the best sensations live. It's Saturday night, I've come in from the cold which has come to whoop our asses from the east; The Beast from the East to be exact and it ain't in a partying mood.   Bitterly cold winds from Siberia are menacingly whistling around the damp streets of West Hamstead; We're lucky to have made it home at all.   Hair still wettish from the swimming pool - where The Lish has turned a watery corner and is now able to jump into the pool without aid (Hooray!) -  we open the door to a roasty toasty home.  I stop to check I am actually at the right address.  Then I hear it: a supremely self-pitying sound of a sniffle.  The Silverback is unwell everybody.  Call an ambulance!  Call the BBC!  Get the editor of The Times to hold the front page!  And when he isn't well he turns into the polar opposite of his usual Tundra temperature-loving self.  No, tonight you can happily sit in a G-string and vest in any room of the house such is the average current inside temperature.  Under no other circumstances would I ever be allowed to have a house warm enough to grow pineapples in.  But hey, I am not complaining.  I'm in heaven.  It's shitty, dark and damp outside and I'm sitting tapping this drivel out in my shorts.

Adding to the lusciousness of it all is The Lish herself, come to join us in the humid tropics. Not one to waste the hot occasion, The Silverback has put on a load of washing which is now steaming in the heat. Since he isn't well - did I say? The Silverback is ill, he is too weak to fight his TV corner so Lish Losh gets to watch old school cartoons (Frosty The Snowman....how ironic!) while Sausage Fingers languishes on the couch as if just having awoken from a coma.  And all of a sudden, I'm transported to my own childhood when Saturdays were all about sitting around together each sort of doing our own thing but united in silent comfort and familiarity.

Many a weekend I have sat in my jim jams watching Tom & Jerry while mum ironed in the glow of the lights shooting out of the TV.  I didn't know it then but those evenings, it turns out, are some of the happiest days of my life!!  And tonight for 5 minutes - I'm transported back there. It feels nice.

I guess, in the simplest way, the best things in life really are (almost) free (electricity and gas bill aside).

Make January stop please!

My god January is dragging isn't it?  I don't remember it being quite as drab last year but then I don't remember what I did this morning.  I think everyone is aware of how utterly loathesome this month has been so far with its shitty sideways rain and pus coloured sky.  What is the point of this month? I ask you?  Mind you, people are trying their best. Just today the management (of the place where I work) sent an email round announcing lunch would be on them until payday - that's 3 days away and it may not seem like much but it is better than a kick in the teeth no?.  We are to collect a five pound voucher from HR for each day whenever the fancy takes us.  I guess watching staff slowly wither away on a diet of toast and baked beans was too much.  This is in a company that provides free bread...so actually it would appear people are down to a budget of 23p per day; the price of a single portion sized tin.  Jesus!  Could it BE any more depressing? 

Well yes it could.  People continue to starve in Africa, others are being blown up in the Middle East and Asia and the number of homeless in Piccadilly alone has very visibly risen since last year.  Christ only knows what other suffering is going on.  So you know, it's worth still being aware of all the things we do have on our half of the hemisphere.  And be grateful.

I do have to keep going back to the value of the simple pleasure.  This evening for example I managed to get just the right measure of olive oil and lemon juice for a vinaigrette that I found so delicious I didn't bother with the salad - just simply mopped it up with a metre of bread (so the diet is coming along gloriously).  I also managed to hold a crow position (nightly yoga practice) for the longest time to date and higher than ever before.  The aim being to eventually be able to push up into a hand stand...sure...For those of you who don't know what a crow pose looks like - well it's looks like this:

And when you get really good, it can transition to this:

Until eventually you can get really cocky and do stuff like this:

 

Me?  I'm about here:

which is still better that sitting around eating pizza right?

On the subject of doing ok - I've managed to keep the weekly swimming ritual going since announcing I would be stepping the parenting up.   I am proud to say that The Lish has come a long way since that first Saturday where she practically severed my arms with her vice-like grip.  Now she doesn't want me anywhere near her (as long as she has her noodle and two floats) but this is progress indeed.  This week I'll be teaching her to put her head under water.  Wish me luck. 

Another wonderful side benefit of the whole swimming - active thing is - well actually two things are: 1. This whole thing of conquering fears etc...has caused a massive step change in Lish's overall levels of confidence which was at a cripplingly low level (hereditary I'm told...her father, yes The Silverback - if you can believe it - was the same) and 2. I'm just having so much fun with her and creating lasting memories. Even if I do have to consciously avoid thinking about the amount of child piss I'm wading through. 

See, I really don't think I ever did anything with my poor over worked mum (outside of watching telly) but to be fair she was always too tired to do anything at the weekend and I do totally understand.  Besides I can't miss what I never had and so I don't.  She gave me so much more in other ways.

So now, Lishy looks forward to our Saturday swimming mornings at Swiss Cottage and it's great too for me to know that I am relied on to make this happen.  It's nice to be wanted so obviously.

Even if it does involve other children's urine.

Push to activate

So this is what responsible parenting feels like.  I took the Lish swimming today - well I say swimming, it was more flapping on a foam float.  See she doesn't know how to swim and isn't too keen on water generally (my fault entirely for relying on DVDs and TV too much).  But I decided that 2012 was the year to undo the damage of infant sloth.  I've been selfish.  In my pursuit of a "quiet" or "easy" life I shamefully allowed Lish Losh to notch up hours and hours of TV.  But it occurred to me recently, especially when school called to say she could do with extra coaching to get her reading up to scratch that I was in fact raising a "hoodie".  It's ironic because reading and writing are the other two passions of my life (after yoga) and actually truth be told reading and creative writing were my first loves and my best friends growing up an only child in a single parent family.  I'm making myself sound so cool right now it hurts to be me.  Her dad too (not the only child weirdo thing).  He's more of a book geek.

In the same way Jimi Hendrix's son is tone deaf I guess kids don't always inherit the bits you like about yourself.

Luckily punk music came along and saved me from myself and a life of total exclusion though I will admit to absolutely loving my own company still.  Lishy I doubt will be that lucky.  First off "music" and its related "scenes" have been replaced by reality TV and the cult of "celebrity". I can't allow Lishy to fall into that "something for nothing" culture. 

So it was swimming today and there will be skating next week.  I'll make an upright citizen of her yet.  That's two things, the very thought of which used to send her into a catatonic rage but now she can't get enough of.

This has also mobilised my mind too.  I get up with a purpose on a Saturday - none of this faffing around in a towelling robe until midday followed by aimless high street commercialism (the sales don't count; Sales are sensible).

As for Sunday - well now that's a different matter.

I don't need to win, I just need to place

In stark contrast with the last couple of years where I have seemingly had nothing better to do than update my blog over Chrimbo and New Year's Eve, this year, I guess I had something better to do (either that or I'm clearly handling having nothing better to do ...better).  Which is good. Really good.  And another sign that I've been making good decisions lately.  Can that be true?  Time will tell I suppose.

And so we wave goodbye (or more likely give the finger to) 2011.  Personally I did very well last year- all things considered.  I managed to stay employed the whole year, I even won an award for it and if the dire forecasts about 2012 are to be believed - and they are truly vile - going by the past year's formula, I could be looking at my best year ever.  So roll on 2012.

This is the year I make director and if not, then I'll take the fork in the road and cut down to less time in the orifice and more time 'on the mat' and with The Lish.  All or nothing.  Make or break year. No (more) time to waste - think I achieved that goal in my 30s.  Anyhow, these are my professional goals for what they are worth.

In the meantime, life goes on. As it always does whether you like it or not.

On a personal level, I'm setting a very straightforward goal.  Aside from love and world peace I'll be laying groundwork for a future that does not involve weekly trips to the headmistress.  Let me explain.  It has become evident that I have a very headstrong daughter who will avoid anything that requires anything but the most minimal effort and even then, it's a struggle.  So this year will deliver a little motivational injection of self-drive (even if I have to administer it with a taser gun).  The Lish will shortly start weekly swimming , gymnastics and ice skating lessons in a bid to reverse the effects of 5 years of Nickleodeon.

By the same token, I'm also hoping to nurture a creative gene in The Silverback.  I got him a Ukelele for Christmas - cruel I know for someone with such large sausage fingers and so little natural rhythm.  Still, if Sid Vicious could do it.....you have to start somewhere.  Unbelievably he does seem to have fallen under its plinky plonky spell though that could be down to sheer post Christmas boredom.

Ok, enough cogitation for now - I have places to force people to go.

Happy New Year Y'all!

Food Glorious Food!

So I chose the holiday season or as I prefer to call it, Christmas - to go on a calorie controlled diet. I started out strong, very strong in fact mainly because I had miscalculated my weight in kilos leading the online programme to categorise me as 'marginally obese' and setting me up with the corresponding daily calorie limit - LIMIT being the operative word. Of course what ensued was an uncontrollable obsession with food and hunger.   I lived for legitimate sustenance times.  Bedtime couldn't come fast enough because the sooner I was asleep - well the sooner breakfast would come.  And so on all the live long day.  Until, one day, I just didn't feel as hungry.  Ah, I was beginning to see how this whole diet thing worked.  Then came the lethargy, then the short fuses, then the temptations.

It was by pure chance that I met an Italian fellow at a friend's art show who explained that if he (at 6 ft 4 inches) weighed 94 kilos I (at 5 ft 1) could not possibly weight 155 kilos and that on that basis, I was probably not eating enough which would explain the whole feeling hungry all the time.  Rocket science.  Needless to say the man saved my life.  I promptly updated my profile - ready to make up for lost Kcals - only to find it gave me the exact same calorie limit.  Hello Stupid!

I've since been told these websites will all basically just recommend the average daily recommendations to everyone - regardless...which I think is a bit fresh really because if I (and I'm really only looking to lose 5-10 lbs) was delirious with hunger, imagine a proper ten tonne Tessie.  It strikes me as terribly dangerous No?

Anyway none of it mattered in the end because within 2 weeks from starting this weight loss lunacy, the office, friends and client Chrismas lunches/dinners began - which was not so much a slippery slope as a gullet avalanche with me standing at the bottom of the hill, mouth wide open. 

Yesterday was the last of those binges at my delicious South African mate's house who is partial to a little tipple of white wine and doesn't like to drink alone (aside from alchys - who does?)

So it's back to celeriac soup and Yoga.  Actually, I can't live without Yoga and the last few days of not being able to do it have left me feeling a bit shyte - hey! there are worse things I could be addicted to.

I'm aiming to not touch the sauce now until Christmas Day and even then  I might get all anal about it.  I can be like that when I really want to - ask any of my old friends, it's probably the one thing they hate about me (she says deludedly). 

Actually, it's very possible I may not drink until New Year's Eve...and then again I may hit the bottle in the next half hour.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Even flow

Oh my Christ! Christmas crept up on me this year.  Woefully unprepared as I am - I do feel that it will be a great Christmas all things said and done.  What a year it's been my delightful supportive friends.  This time last year I was pretty much in the depths of despair wondering whether I had bitten off more than I could chew in what was then my new job.  Crippled by the push-pull of work-parenting and unclear really on what it was I wanted from life now that I'd managed to drag my family back over the Atlantic to London.  Things with The Silverback were as you might expect them to be when you find yourself adrift in the sea of guilt and resentment.

Today - a full year later (you need to take a deep even breath here....and exhale) Oh it's like the difference between night and day.  To say it is much improved would be to do the evolution of it all a great injustice.  To put it in moronically simple terms:  Happy has come home. 

A combination of even flow, persistence, resistance, reluctant maturity, massive amounts of yoga and - hell yeah - a truck load of karma and luck has brought me to this place of content.  Jesus, I don't think I've ever known calm that has felt this sustainable. But it did take hitting Rock Bottom first. 

It's the only way, I guess, for someone as famously (among my circle) fickle as me will ever commit to long term decision making.  Wow - could it be that at 40 I've finally overcome the crippling case of arrested development that has plagued my adult life so far?  Could be my friends, could very well be.

Back to where I once belonged

I had my office Christmas party on Friday at the Paramount bar in Centre Point (the heart of London)  - this is the view that greets you when you step out of the lift:



Pretty spectacular eh? The night started on a literal high and ended on an emotional one as I was singled out for an award - the first and only award I've ever been given in the whole of my working life.  That to me is the best validation I could ever ask for and proof positive that I am in good shape professionally.  What a nice feeling after a decade of floundering and 5 years of what I can only describe as career wilderness - albeit self inflicted.

The last time I really felt like I was in control was 2002.  I had just turned 31, was doing really well at work but in retrospect not so good in my head.  I made a now or never decision to go travelling.  Travelling at once released me from the career stupor I was falling into and at the same time eventually derailed me.  I checked out of conventional society and for a while had no intention of returning to it.  Then of course I met my husband and the rest is, well the rest is a tale of the unexpected.

And since then, I've never made a secret of the fact that I have found life a little bit of a struggle until quite recently if I'm perfectly honest.  I'm not sure when the 'a-ha!' moment actually happened, I just know that I reached a point where I decided to restrict making decisions for anyone other than myself and all of a sudden I found my stride again.  My mojo.  Don't get me wrong, I get bored every now and again, forget to live in the moment, forget to be deliriously grateful for everything I have, but those moments are fleeting these days.  Thank god.  And I'm sure the Silverback, if he is reading this will no doubt be catching flies in his mouth, incredulous at the hypocrisy as he recalls with complete clarity how I pretty much lost the plot over a cordial juice stain on the wooden work surface in the kitchen... people with stride and mojo can still be neat freaks no?

Don't get me wrong, I'm still occasionally crippled by the drudgery of some days - the utter monotony of the same old routine but I do fairly quickly snap out of it with thoughts of how much worse it would all be if I didn't live in the relative sanctuary of tedium. I do not want drama - that much I do know.  I still harbour many dreams and I send out cosmic orders all the time to have these fulfilled - before you go thinking I've had liposuction of the senses or something.

No so, unlike many of the past few years, as I stare at the horizon into 2012, I look forward with anticipation at how much more I will achieve next year.  It's been a long time coming.