Jam Making for Beginners: Road Trip.

Jam Making for Beginners: Road Trip.: It was time for our summer holiday. Were we going to a lovely sunny resort, flying off on a jet plane? No, we were going to Scarborough to s...

Road Trip.

It was time for our summer holiday. Were we going to a lovely sunny resort, flying off on a jet plane? No, we were going to Scarborough to see one of my favourite people, or peoples. From Devon seaside to Yorkshire seaside.

I’ve been to Scarborough often, and I took Xavier when he was a baby. We got the train then; the whole journey took 7 hours in total. Xavier and I were a bit crazy by the time we arrived and the entire train staff needed to be engaged to help with the ridiculous amount of stuff I’d packed. So this time I decided that I would drive; there was no way that Xavier would sit still on a train anymore.

According to an internet route planner it would take about six and a half hours to drive there. Who in their right mind would do that with a 2 ½ yr old? Well no one ever accuses me of being in her right mind. At first I thought I would stop off on the way and stay overnight, but when I looked into it, it would mean staying in a hotel attached to a motorway services somewhere like Tamworth and that didn’t sound like fun. After a bit of soul searching I decided to just do it all in one go. Our first proper road trip.

I was more worried about Xavier than I was doing the driving. It didn’t seem fair for him to be sat in a car seat for that long. My mother suggested (insisted) we get him a DVD to attach to the headrest. I’m not a huge fan of encouraging my child to watch TV but he loves it, (remember Girls of the Playboy Mansion), so as it would be just the two of us I though this indulgence would be best all round. After a bit of coercion from my mother.

And at least I haven’t got him a mobile phone or a games consol yet.

I packed up. It took me about 3 days and I ended up with most of my house in the car. Actually it was almost like moving house. I had every eventuality covered for Xav. His clothes (all of them), his toys (most of them), food, chair, travel cot, pushchair, books, everything I could fit in went in.

And despite having printed out the route I also put the address in the Sat Nav.

A word about Sat Navs. I don’t trust them. When I lived in London me and my girlfriends booked a cab to go to a party and the driver insisted on using his Sat NAv. It a Porn-star voice and despite my friends’ vociferous objections he followed her breathy instructions to the letter. Porn Sat Nav woman took us to a council estate in Tottenham, which clearly wasn’t our destination. And if you remember when I took mum on the Orient Express mine took me to a roundabout instead of the train station. But I decided to use it with my route planner as back up.

 My Sat Nav has school teacher voice, not porn, if you ignore her, even if you know she’s wrong you expect her to give you a detention. However the good news was that according to my Sat Nav the journey would only take 5 ½ hours which was an hour less than the planner.

So with a car full of all our belongings, a very happy child watching a DVD, and my school teacher Sat Nav directing us we set off on our holiday. Almost immediately school teacher woman got a bit ticked off with me because we have this new bridge (I think it’s been there for more than 5yrs), and the Sat Nav thinks you’re driving into the river; then I had to stop for petrol which annoyed my woman no end. So much so that when we set off after that she kept telling me to turn round, and when I looked it said we had only ten minutes left of our journey. Seeing as we’d only been going for ten minutes I think she’d given up and tried to go home. So I had to stop again to reset her. Then we set off yet again.

It wasn’t until I joined the motorway that I realised my passenger wing mirror was in. Either I hadn’t noticed and set off like that (surely not), or it had been knocked in when I stopped for petrol. It made motorway driving was dangerous as I couldn’t see to my left. So I pulled off to the first services to sort it. Sat nav woman didn’t like that either. Honestly did she need to be so stern? I’ve never felt so chastised in my life.

Anyway, after three stops before we’d even driven for an hour we were properly on our way. We stopped off for lunch after a couple of hours. The motorway service place was packed. Frighteningly so. We queued for over half an hour to get something to eat. Xav spent the whole time trying to run off, and I had my huge handbag (no one can accuse me of travelling light) and him to juggle. It was a little stressful but we managed and were fed and ready to continue our journey.

This time there was no DVD as it was time for Xav to have a nap. So I put his story CD on (quite weird story about a magic porridge bowl and a greedy woman who manages to flood her entire village with porridge), which sent Xav to sleep but not me or my Sat nav friend.

Before I knew it we had reached the end of our motorway driving and were on an ‘A’ road toward York. We were nearly there. Xavier woke up and I thought I ought to warn my friend we were close so I pulled into a lay-by and called her. I also set up the DVD for the last leg of the journey.

Within an hour we were there. The Sat Nav actually got us to the door this time.

As you know I often fell a bit pleased with myself when I do something that I never really thought I would but in just over five hours, (not counting stoppages), I had driven from Devon to Scarborough which was pretty good. My boy had been a dream passenger and not complained once. It all worked out brilliantly.

My friend and her two daughters greeted us excitedly. Then they all looked at the car.

‘How long are you staying Auntie Faith?’ one of the girls asked. My friend looked a little scared.

‘Yeah because it looks like you might be moving in,’ the other added before I could reply.

Self-sufficient single mum

I like to think of myself as pretty self-sufficient. I’ve shared my domestic ambitions with you already although we’re all still waiting for my first jar of home made jam. But being a single mum means that I can’t just swan about the kitchen in my heels, and little frilly apron with perfect hair. No, I also need to do practical jobs too.

I don’t believe in gender stereotypes (not that I’m going to admit to anyway), but in my last relationship my ex would do anything practical. He would get very masculine about certain jobs, and of course I would play the helpless princess, which I happened to be very good at. We did have a wobble when our new flat needed painting and he expected me to help, so after an hour I developed an allergy to paint, and hung up my paintbrush.

However now, the house, the car, the shopping and everything else in my life I am solely in charge of.  And until Xavier is old enough (when can a child cook me dinner and make me coffee?), I will continue to do so. I even have to deal with spiders and I’m so terrified of them that I look at them, and ask them nicely to leave. They generally do so actually.

I think I have adjusted to this role quite well. I have a tool box, and my own screwdrivers, (I know he difference between a Phillips head and a flat), and so on. I built furniture, I painted furniture, (funny how I am no longer allergic), I put up pictures almost straight, and although I don’t yet own a drill I harbour ambitions of not only owning one but knowing how to use it. I am also wondering if Vivienne Westwood designs a tool belt.

Since having Xavier I have done many things that I thought I never would and things that in the past I would have pretended I couldn’t; but the thing about being a single mum is that you have to get on with it, and when you (I) want to be dramatic about it there is no one but an unsympathetic child to listen to you. So instead of moaning (oh I love a good moan), I get on with it. Or more accurately I do get on with it but I moan a lot afterwards.

This week I had a lot of tasks to do. In fact so many that I’m wasn’t sure there would be any energy left to complain afterwards.

The pushchair had a squeaky wheel; no problem I got out my DW40 and fixed it. I built a house for Xavier. OK, so it was a playhouse for the garden but it needed lots of screwdrivering and I got calluses and a broken nail as a result. But I was ever so pleased with myself when Xav went in it and it didn’t fall down.  I also cleaned out the shed, and organised for a friend to take the rubbish to the tip (but only because my car wasn’t big enough).

I painted a vintage child’s chair a lovely bright blue for Xavier’s room, (something I’d been meaning to do for ages), and bought some wire wool so I could rub down an old metal trunk ready for painting.  

And with every task I completed the more smug I became. See how (nearly) self-sufficient I was.

But my work was not done. Oh no. I had to do stuff with the car. We’re going on a long journey next week so I needed to fill up the screen wash, check the tyre pressure, and clean it inside and out. No problem for someone as capable as me.

I filled up the screen wash, easy. I cleaned the inside, easy. But then I needed to take it to the carwash. I’m a tiny bit scared of car washes. Not quite on the same scale as escalators or spiders but I have a slight fear of getting stuck in one with those vicious looking brush things blocking out the light and crushing me to death. I could have used a jet wash but they look like hard work so I took a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet.

I bought my ticket from the garage and proceeded. I can’t really remember the last time I’d been in a carwash but I put my fears aside and when the display told me to move forward I did. When it told me to stop I did. Then the vicious washing began. I took many deep breaths, it was soon over. Then it told me to move forward, I did. Then it told me to stop, I did.

There seemed to be a few more things going on and then the brushes lifted, but the display was still on STOP. So I sat there. I turned up the radio, I decicded  the carwash was doing an invisible drying thing or something.  I wondered if it would wax my car. Would the wheels be nice and shiny? After a while I saw a man staring at me. He came over and I put down the window, worried that he might get injured in the scary carwash.

‘Have you broken down?’ He asked.

‘I’m in a carwash.’

‘I know but it’s washed your car,’ he laughed.

‘Yes it has but it says ‘stop’ so I stopped.’ He laughed at me again, not unkindly, and said he’d seen me sitting here for ages and was a bit concerned. Apparently (he explained very slowly), once your car was washed that was it. The invisible magic I was expecting didn’t exist.

I thanked him for his help, feeling less smug, less self-sufficient and much more like an idiot. I drove off, resolving to find another garage to check my tyres in once I’d recovered from the humiliation. And next time I’ll use the jet wash. It might take more work but I’m never going in a car wash again.

Treat them mean, keep them keen

Babies and small children can be fascinating. They can also be highly irritating but let’s save that for a later date. For now let’s just say that I think watching their characters develop can be endlessly enjoyable if you pay close attention. I believe that Xavier began developing his character pretty much from day one and what a character it  is.

I remember when he was tiny and we were trying to encourage him to crawl (why? Why? Why?), and I would put his toys at the opposite side of the play blanket to him. Instead of moving he would pick the blanket up and pull the toys to him. This ‘lazy’ trend has continued, for example to feeding. He’ll eat one spoonful all by himself before giving the spoon to me and opening his mouth. And of course I told you about ‘flamingo foot’ last week.

There are many similarities between me and my boy, he’s definitely his mother’s son, but again I’m saving that for a later blog, because today I want to concentrate on the differences between us. Or to be specific the one glaring difference.

It seems that my son is cool.

I’m not totally un-cool I don’t think, I hope I’m not anyway, and I wouldn’t say that I’m a complete people pleaser but growing up it was important to me to fit in (my mother reminds me of this constantly). Therefore although I wasn’t unpopular I was more of a follower than a leader. Now I think I’m pretty much my own person, and I have quite a strong personality but I’m still following. Only this time I’m following my child.

My son, at the grand old age of two and a half is definitely a leader. He has mastered the skill I would love to have; he doesn’t seem to care what other people think or what they’re doing. He treats other children with a kind of aloofness that I can only dream of.

At nursery he walks in and children stop what they’re doing to see what Xavier will do. He surveys the room, and takes his time before deciding which toy to play with, and when he does some of the other children come back to life and join him. They all greet him with a chorus of ‘Xavier’s’ and he looks at them calmly before deciding whether he has time to say ‘hello.’ (Often he does not).

When he wakes up from his afternoon nap he’s normally in a terrible mood. At home I try to bribe him into cheering up with food, or CBeebies, or whatever, and at nursery the other children try to cheer him up by bringing him toys. And Xavier swats them all away like flies, but still they persevere. He has already mastered the art of treating them mean and keeping them keen.

Not that he’s mean, I’m not saying that he’s going to turn into a bully, (actually he definitely won’t turn into a bully) but he seems to have mastered this disinterest in other children which they can’t get enough of. I was worried that he didn’t play with anyone but he does apparently, but only if they’re doing something he likes the look of. And if anyone wants to join him in playing he lets them, on his terms of course. And he has a particular friend he likes to get up to mischief with. However sometimes he just looks at people as if they were invisible, and this has made my child popular already, (he gets invited to far more parties than I do).

He’s especially popular with the little ladies. There are quite a number that talk about him at home according to their parents, and they flock around him at nursery too. I have a friend who has a girl his age who we’ve hung out with from since the children were tiny. She always wanted to engage with him but he would ignore her, giving her his brilliant ‘you’re invisible’ look (I wish I could bottle that look, I’d make a fortune), anyway, when they were both about one she tried to kiss him. He put his hand up and pushed her face away (a move that he uses still to this day). This just made her want to kiss him more and as her mother and I laughed at the exchange she kept trying. Finally, she managed to catch Xavier in a weak movement and she licked his face. He burst into tears.

You see I marvel at his coolness because I certainly don’t possess it with the opposite sex. Especially if I find them attractive (luckily doesn’t happen often). Instead of treating them as if they didn’t exist, I usually drink too much, flirt really badly and then throw myself at them. If I’m being especially classy I might also fall over.  Oh my God, I’m the grown up version of the face licker. 

I think I need to lie down.

Before I go for said lie down, I don’t want you to think my child is cold. He’s very affectionate (when he wants to be), he smiles and laughs a lot and he does have friends that he sometimes will even play with. He still won’t let them kiss him if he can help it. He’s like it with adults too I guess. He can shower me with cuddles but at times he even pushes me away. Of course it only makes me, as his mum, even more keen too.

I went to pick him up from nursery yesterday. The children flocked round to tell me that Xavier had been playing football. He would kick the ball then stop and look at everyone expecting a round of applause. Although he’s hardly David Beckham they all obliged. He does this a lot, apparently.

Before we went his lovely nursery lady stopped me.

‘He gave me lots of cuddles today,’ she said. See my boy isn’t cold at all.

‘Oh how lovely,’ I said, as I picked my little boy up ready to tell him what a good boy he was.

‘The thing is that he only did it when I told him off.’

Yes, it seems that my son is not only cooler than me but he’s smarter than me too.

Sun, sea, sand & sunburn?

I moved back to North Devon just before Xavier was born. As much as I loved London there were a few logistical issues with me there on my own with a baby. Firstly it would be doubtful that I could afford a flat big enough for myself, my baby, his pram and my shoes. Secondly, I would never go out because I couldn’t afford a babysitter. And also I have a phobia of escalators so there was no way I could cope with the pushchair on the tube, and I didn’t want to wear a sling. So, there were many reasons for my move back to North Devon, and not least because I needed my mummy.

Two and a half years on I am now beginning to settle in. I seem to have decided that my son will have this idyllic Enid Blyton-esque childhood; countryside, lashings of ginger beer, and of course the beach.

Undoubtedly one of the best things about North Devon is the selection of lovely beaches with their nice surf; although one of the worst is the weather. I quickly learnt that the minute the sun comes out we pack up the car and head to the beach.

That in itself is no mean feat; especially on my own. One hot Saturday I got us both ready. We headed for the beach. I had to carry a bag which held our beach blanket, buckets and spades, swimming stuff, towels, wetsuit, picnic lunch, sunscreen, nappies, wipes and probably the kitchen sink, as well as Xavier’s bodyboard. He of course would walk nicely beside me down the long steps to the beach. Except he wouldn’t.

When Xavier doesn’t want to walk he has developed the ‘Flamingo foot.’ He lifts one of his feet and holds it up. When he first did this with my mother she nearly took him to A&E as she assumed something was very wrong. The first time he did it with me I knew exactly what he was up to and we had a bit of a stand off. It turns out my child is as stubborn as his mother, as he held that foot up for ages. Of course, I caved in first.

So, off I struggled, wishing that there was such a thing as a beach Sherpa (is there? If there is please get in touch), trying and failing to coax my child to save me from injury by walking. We arrived on the sand, totally exhausted, and suddenly ‘Flamingo Foot’ is no more as Xavier ran off and dived into the nearest rock pool, fully clothed. Luckily my kitchen sink bag did contain a change of clothes.

I dragged him out of the rock pool to put his swimming stuff on (better late than never), and reapplied his sunscreen. He ran back to the rock pool with his toys settling down for the duration. I lay out the blanket and although it was a sunny day there was quite a strong wind so I had to collect rocks to stop it blowing away. I thought back to when going to the beach was relaxing; I would read a book or doze off. Oh those days were long gone.

Now, I was a lifeguard, rock collector, suntan lotion applier, the sandcastle builder, (and of course Xav looked disdainfully at my efforts and carried on eating seaweed despite me taking sandcastle building very seriously) and feeder. I gave him his lunch, before realising I hadn’t  brought anything for me.

I looked on enviously at the perfect families that surrounded me with their full picnic baskets and more than one adult to carry things, as I nibbled on raisins and organic crisp-like snacks that tasted of air.

After our lunch ( Xav’s lunch), I poured him into his wetsuit and headed down to the surf with him and the bodyboard. He decided once again not to walk as he sat on the bodyboard and expected me to pull him. And it was a long way to the sea. Once there, Xav dragged me straight into the waves. He loved it, and his shrieks of laughter made me forget my tiredness, my hunger and my lack of wetsuit.

In my swimsuit (which to be honest was more suited to the South of France and a bit too skimpy for a windy beach in North Devon) I jumped into the waves with him, and it was a little tiny bit cold. We stayed in for what seemed like hours, me shivering as I held on tightly to my fearless child, before unable to endure more I dragged my child and his bodyboard back to the beach. Xav was kicking and screaming and I knew exactly how he felt.

After a bit more playing in the rock pool I repacked our big bag, got Xavier dried, and changed ready to go home for tea. He was tired now so I had no chance of making him walk. Like a worn out pack horse I lugged everything back to the car and home.

Later that night, after I’d put Xavier to bed, I showered wearily thinking about wine. As I dried off I wondered why my back was agony but when I looked in the mirror I saw the reason. It was angrily red; there had been no sunscreen on my back. A two and a half year old wasn’t going to apply it for me after all. Another thing I hadn't thought about. I tried to contort myself to rub some aftersun on, before giving up and just heading for the wine to numb all my aches and pain.

My trip to the beach might sound like a bit of a nightmare, and actually in many ways it was. I ached from all the carrying, I was still recovering from standing for hours in the sea and it was going to take about three weeks to get rid of the sand which was everywhere. On top of that I was hungry, and sunburnt. But Xavier had such a lovely time that I knew I would do it over and over again (British weather permitting). I am just hoping, that like everything else, I’ll get better and better at it. Otherwise I’m moving back to the city.

Jam Making for Beginners: Toddler Group Survival Guide

Jam Making for Beginners: Toddler Group Survival Guide: "Motherhood, parenthood, is a battlefield and I am usually on the losing side. But there’s one place where it literally is a battlefield; tod..."

Toddler Group Survival Guide

Motherhood, parenthood, is a battlefield and I am usually on the losing side. But there’s one place where it literally is a battlefield; toddler group.

When Xavier was tiny and we went to baby groups it was great. He would either sleep, or sit in a ball pit or play on a mat while I looked on, drinking coffee and gossiping with friends. But then something happened. My baby was no longer a baby, we graduated to toddler group and those words imbue fear and have me quaking in my nice shoes.

So, to be brief, why should a room full of toddlers be scary? Not just because toddlers are scary, not just because of the noise levels, but it helps to have studied Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ before venturing inside.

One Toddler group I went to was particularly terrifying. Not only were there a number of thuggish toddlers (they made the Mitchell brothers look soft), but some of the parents were particularly good at not noticing. I didn’t expect these little girls and boys to be well behaved. Goodness knows mine isn’t. He went through a phase of relentless hair pulling. He was like the slickest hair puller ever, managing to pull hair where there didn’t even seem to be any. But the point was that if he did it before I could stop him, I would tell him off. And I was mortified at him making another child cry.

Typical Toddler group: a child was pushed from the top of a slide while the mother watched; a couple of little boys had a full on fist fight over a train and a gentle voice piped up, ‘don’t do that, that’s not very nice,’ from the sidelines, whilst not actually parting the fighters; one boy threw things at my friend’s little girl, while his mother wasn’t watching, and she managed not to watch for nearly the whole two hours;  a bigger girl came up to Xavier and deliberately shoved him sending him flying. I heard myself saying, ‘why did you do that?’ to her, and her mother came over, picked her child up and shot me a filthy look, as if I was the devil. Of course I apologised profusely.

Interestingly, there was a sign up at this group saying ‘No stilettos or spurs to be worn.’ I had accidentally worn stilettos, but at the time I wondered what parent would wear spurs to a toddler group; in hindsight they could have come in handy.

Back to the point, toddlers are toddlers and are learning, testing boundaries; they don’t understand sharing (actually thinking about it I’m not sure I do either), but of course they aren’t inherently bad. I’m hardly the poster girl for the perfect mum but when it comes to teaching my child right from wrong I have tried to do it from the word go.

Now we go to a less hazardous toddler group. There is no need for a sign banning spurs that’s for sure. Here my child happily plays while I drink coffee and gossip with my lovely friends.  The problem is that although it is still noisy and there are incidents, it’s kind of made me put my ‘Art of War’ to one side, in favour of an extra cup of coffee and a chocolate digestive.

Last week we went there as usual. I was wearing a black and white striped dress; Xavier was in his new red and white striped Ralph Lauren polo shirt. This place has a craft area with a little sink. Xavier loves the sink but doesn’t really seem interested in the craft. Anyway, I kept a bit of an eye on him and when he went off to the craft area I dashed off after him. He was just standing at the sink trying to turn the taps on, but I took him back into the main room where I could see him. However, he kept going back and I kept getting him and to be honest, I was getting a little fed up.

‘Don’t worry, drink your coffee for five minutes,’ my friend said. So I did and started to talk about something or other when I heard a mother call for me to come. I bolted over, (wearing wedge heels); worried and feeling like the worst mother for leaving him alone for two minutes. Then I saw what he’d done.

He stood at the sink, covered, head to toe in red paint that he had managed to get from a sponge. It was in his hair, on his face, all over his top, even in his mouth. Oh and on the walls and floor. I grabbed him and started the clean up; the mother who had called me helped. We cleaned the wall, got the worst off him, (it was on his feet for goodness sake), and sponged down his clothes. By now the red paint had also transferred itself to my dress. I finally carried him back round the corner, having severely learnt my lesson. Sometimes coffee just isn’t meant to be drunk and Ralph Lauren isn’t meant to be worn.

‘Look,’ I said, to my friend.

‘Oh if I’d known he was wearing Ralph Lauren I’d never had told you to leave him,’ she replied. I laughed at the absurd sight we both made.

We got home. I put Xav in the bath. It took a few days before the red was completely gone from his tummy. And as for the clothes, well the red and white polo shirt is now red, white and a bit of pink and my black and white striped dress has met the same fate. I’ve learnt my lesson; I will never leave him even for a minute, and I might not attend the thuggish toddler group anymore, but the battlefield will follow me wherever I go.