Fact versus fiction: Real life is always more mental...

Hurrah, today's the day. A Merry Little Christmas is finally published. Some books have easy births and some more traumatic ones. This one, my friends, as you've probably gathered from my other posts on the subject has had a particularly traumatic birth as this time last year when I was writing it (or supposed to be, I was in fact getting bugger all writing done) my lovely mil was dying of leukaemia and had just moved in with us. A Merry Little Christmas being very much a book about families, some of that experience has inevitably found it's way into the book. In fact, when no 4 read the blurb, she wanted to know if it was about us. You'll no doubt be relieved to know that, no it isn't about us, because the truth is however much I make things up, real life is way more mental then anything I could put on the page. And to demonstrate I'd show you a snippet from the book about the craziness of life in Cat's household. (Cat if you have read Last Christmas is a mother of four, and has a mother with alzheimer's who becomes seriously ill in the course of the new book).

Cat and her husband Noel have just come back from visiting Cat's mother, and this is the scene which they encounter when they get home...

Having established there was no more they could do for Louise, and encountering Alfie in the corridor with a bunch of flowers heading her way, Cat and Noel headed home, where they found World War III raging, as Paige had accidentally ‘borrowed’ Mel’s straighteners, and Mel was letting her have it in no uncertain terms. Meanwhile Ruby was wailing because she’d caught her finger in the mousetrap, and James was teasing her that there was a rat living under the stairs. It took a while to quieten Ruby’s wails, and get James to apologise to her, and Paige to Mel, but eventually things calmed down. Mel meanwhile had disappeared grumpily into her bedroom, so Cat gave it ten minutes before deciding to risk a chat. It was unlike Mel to be so mean to Paige. She usually reserved her fury for Cat and Noel. 

In my real world, this was the kind of thing that was happening on a near daily basis, last year...


Rosemarie had been suffering badly from constipation, so the district nurse came out to give her an enema. The moment she arrived, the engineers arrived to set up Rosemarie's emergency alarm . Just as they left, and long after the nurse had gone, and before a carer was due to arrive there was a  yelp from the front room and the inevitable was occurring...

A little while later I had to go out to an appointment. As I came out, I realised I'd missed an urgent an important call from school. I spent the next half an hour unsuccessfully trying to reach the teacher, and was feeling fairly stressed by the time I got to school. While I was standing in the playground, a kind friend pointed out that I didn't in fact, need to be there, as no 4 had an after school club.

I dashed back home to discover Rosemarie needed the loo. We could still just about manage to get her there, but she had difficulty standing and her feet kept slipping on the floor. She was also rather large, so managing her alone was pretty tricky. I'd just got her sat on the loo, when the doorbell rang and one of children came home and our decorator announced he was packing up for the evening. Said child was desperate for the loo, so I shooed her upstairs, and sent the decorator discreetly away. Ten minutes later, when I had got her sat down a new carer arrived. At that point all hell broke loose as there was an almighty yell from the back garden. No 2 had been holding the guinea pig when it jumped out of her hands and got lost in the garden. No 3 ran round to the neighbour's to see if it had gone next door, and was wailing loudly when said neighbour was out.

Ignoring the carer and mil I was trying to calm two hysterical children down, when I looked at my watch and realised now I really did have to go and fetch no 4...

As luck would have it, the GP turned out to be hiding under a nearby bush, so amazingly is still with us, but needless to say that night I was a gibbering wreck.

I have tried to put some of that chaos into Cat's life,but I don't really think I could throw as much as her as happened to me, because quite frankly I don't think anyone would believe it!

But like I say, A Merry Little Christmas isn't all about me and my family, but it is about friendship,family, marriage, motherhood and more besides. If you are kind enough to pick it up, I do hope you enjoy it!

And if you're a fan of Christmas stories, may I point you to the very lovely Carole Matthews, Milly Johnson and Scarlett Bailey who also have Christmas books out today? It's a privilege and a pleasure to be in their illustrious company!

And if you missed it last week, I did this on google hangout. Isn't the interweb marvellous?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8V5tFPt08k

And me talking about A Merry Little Christmas!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYbtxhBGikE&feature=youtu.be

And lo...

... it came to pass that they all vomited eventually.

Actually, that's not quite true. The bug confined itself mainly to the young and old, but just to make life really interesting it operated on a Just When You Thought It Was All Over No It's Not approach. So it was that, having delayed a trip up north to spend time with my family because it got mil, five minutes before we were about to leave it got no 1. After a heavy night involving rather too much port and red wine then was good for me (what can I say? Christmas was rather stressful to say the least), I woke up on Sunday feeling like death warmed up. Despite Spouse's ridicules, I don't think the resulting day spent collapsed on the sofa was entirely due to alchohol. To make my cup of happiness complete, we were woken at 4am Sunday night to the dulcet sounds of no 2 succumbing to the bug. So far, it doesn't seem to have got Spouse, but I reckon there's still time.

Things I have subsequently learnt about this particular variation on the winter vomiting bug...

1) it has a two day incubation period
2) it is just possible to avoid throwing up if you have enough will power, stay in bed and keep your eyes shut for a very long time. The result is you spend two days feeling like crap instead of one. So maybe it isn't worth it...
3) given that we have probably given it to every member of my rather large family who are now dispersed the length and breadth of the nation, it's probably soon coming to a town near you...

Sorry about that.

Hoping your Christmas was somewhat less eventful then ours, and wishing anyone decent enough to have come by the blog and read my witterings, whether you've joined in the chatter or not a very Happy New Year. Life in our household has held a bit too much excitement of late, so I wish you, as I wished Spouse last night, an uninteresting 2009. Interesting times are overrated I think...

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time...

...or not.

The most stressful Christmas I ever spent was six years ago, when no 4 was hospitalised with asthma the week before, and only came out about two days before the day itself. At the same time Spouse was down and out with tonsilitis, so unable to share hospitalbythebedsitting duties (our local children's ward seems to think that parents of patients only ever have one child). I was allowed out of prison for a couple of hours to finish my Christmas shopping, and I remember a hideous experience of standing in M&S heart so firmly in mouth I thought I might actually be sick from the stress, and just frantically grabbing anything I could without even looking at it, just so I had something to wrap up for people. I call it bulimic shopping. Don't try it at home.

We had six people for lunch that year, including aged mil and fil. Fil was very very poorly at the time (in fact he died six weeks later), and sil and I had hysterical conversations in the kitchen over the turkey about whether in fact he would make it through the day. He did hang on in there, choosing to depart on no4's birthday instead, which I suppose was marginally better...

Ever since then (I hadn't even bought vegetables, so bil and sil provided them already peeled on the day), I have refused point blank to stress about Christmas. As far as I am concerned, it is a day to be spent with loved ones, anything else is a bonus.

It's just as well I have adopted this approach, as this year, I can feel a sense of deja vu coming on.

Last week I went round to see mil to find her sitting on the floor where she'd fallen, going to answer the phone to me. She's ok, but coming on top of a dizzy fit she had the other week, this has prompted a trip to our saintly GP (the model for Ben in Pastures New if you're interested) who wryly reassured me he will be working over the festive season. Hmm...

On Sunday no 3 came in looking pale and wan and then spent the day throwing up. We were going out to sing Christmas Carols in our local pub, but decided not to risk passing the bug to mil. No3 is now recovering, but no 4 has taken her place. and mil is coming to us today, so she may get a Christmas present she wasn't expecting after all.

I was planning some last minute shopping today, but will have to defer till tomorrow when Spouse will be here. I've just realised we've run out of vegetables and are about to run out of washing powder (which in view of the vomiting is NOT good news), so I may well be putting in a repeat performance of last Christmas and experience trolley rage in Sainsbury's tomorrow. Oh joy.

I've also just taken the turkey out of the freezer and realised it needs 48 hours to defrost...

On the other hand we might get all the vomiting out of the way by tomorrow, my credit card could do with a rest, and I could always provide Christmas dinner instead of lunch, and unless I'm sitting in A&E I should get to see David Tennant on Christmas Day.

Whatever happens. I ... AM... NOT... GOING... TOO.... STRESS....


....MUCH

Holly-olly-daze

I have I realise been a tad quiet of late. This is mainly because the school holidays started ridiculously early this year, as the school nos 2&3 go to decided most inconveniently they had to close six days early so they could get some building work done. (Yes I did say six days, and don't get me started on how annoying that is when they wouldn't let me have one piddling day's holiday last year to go to France, the one and only time I've ever asked for it). This was more then a tad inconvenient as not only do I have a novel to write by the end of October (gulp) I also had rather a lot of other work on. Thankfully a mum chum was in a similar position and we spent a few days swapping children in order that we both got a shot at working. Interestingly, for the first time EVER, I have discovered that so long as they all have a friend to play, my lot are now old enough that I can actually get some work done when they are in the house. Unfortunately that doesn't extend to writing which requires too much mental headspace, and I tend to find when the offspring are about they occupy all my mental headspace, so the two things clash a bit.

Which is why this week I've packed them all off to Stagecoach for a week's drama, singing and dancing. Who knows, one of them might turn out to be the next Keira Knightley. (Although given that no 1 is currently learning guitar, no 2 wants to learn the drums, no 3 is after playing the sax no 4 though undecided knows she wants to make NOISE, and there's a new rock school down the road, I think it's more likely they'll become The Williams Quartet. Hopefully more Corrslike then Nolans...)

Alot of mums I know complain about the holidays, as they don't know what to do with bored kids. This is one advantage of having four, because generally mine always have someone to play with. But the main reason I never complain is that it is SO BLOODY LOVELY not having to take them to school, and even better not having to take them to all their after school activities.

I have been utterly knackered since about January, and was beginning to think there was something seriously wrong with me. Not that I'm a hypochondriac or anything but anaemia, diabetes, cancer all went through my mind. Since the kids have stopped school, I feel like a new person. I am energetic. I am relaxed. I actually have time to do things. I've belatedly realised that this is because during term time I lose 2 hours a day to the school run, plus another 2-3 to hawking children from one activity to the next. So at the moment I'm 5 hours a day up on the deal and I don't have to go anywhere.

Thanks to all the exhaustion my bold plans to get a triathlon under my belt have come to nothing (again) and for the first time since I've started swimming properly I've missed a month's worth of training sessions. In fact, I've barely done anything since the Race for Life. I was getting a tad paranoid about this thinking I might go back to being a complete slouch in the pool, so when I finally got to swim last night I was more then a little nervous. I wasn't helped by the fact that I got in the pool, got going before everyone else in my lane, but turned out to be the slowest person there, so I was holding them all up so much that Lovely Trainer shoved me to the back (haven't had that humiliation for a while). But by the end of the session I'd caught up, and managed 66 lengths without too much difficulty. Not quite as fast or far as I swam a month ago, but considering everything not too bad at all...

So all things being equal I am planning to enjoy the rest of the summer, though I do have to stop blogging now to get on with writing a book (slightly inconveniently I have been trying to recall Christmas at the sunniest part of the year), and hope that when the sprogs eventually go back in September some of my newfound energy might last me until, ooh, at least October...