Back to school...for all of us.

autumncozy.tumblr.com

And suddenly, that’s it.  Summer has ended.  On Sunday  I was lying out in the garden, lolling on the lawn, dog at side, book in hand.  Today, abruptly, it’s autumn.  My fingers are feeling the chill as I type.  Yes, already.   And it’s back to school.   For all of us. 

Autumn used to be my favourite season when I was young.  I loved the fresh sparky energy of September; it was inexorably linked with new starts.  Call me weird but I enjoyed the start of each school year – new books, new shoes, new pencil case. The feeling that you could wipe clean the slate and make things good.  Maybe.  Now?  Not so much.  I have shifted allegiance to spring.  If you’re interested in seasonal living, check out The Natural Year.  J

Meanwhile James is heading back to school.  I think, to be honest, he’s relieved.  And, once again, I have to extend some grateful thanks to Tesco Clothing for getting him kitted out.  Actually, the whole clothing thing is a bit of a headache right now.  Last Christmas he was shorter than I.  Somewhere around March I suddenly realised I was eyeballing him and now he’s overtaken not just me but Adrian and is lurking somewhere over the six foot mark.  Nothing fits.  NOTHING. 

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ he said stoically, trousers flapping around his calves, straining to do up the buttons on his shirt.   I got him a gym membership over the summer and he now has more muscles than is right and holy for a nearly 15 year old.  Plus he beats me hands (and legs)-down on the cross-trainer.

‘No,’ I said.  ‘Just no.’ 

And, in the nick of time, the nice PR for Tesco sent us an online voucher and so we’re stocked with trousers and shirts.   They’ve upped their game too – the trousers have been a bit thin in the past but this time they are pretty solid. Impressive.   I hadn’t realised Tesco also do branded stuff online so we managed to nab him some Nike sports shorts and, what the hell, a pretty snazzy T-shirt too. 

I was reading something the other day about how one shouldn’t buy school clothes from supermarkets but, for the love of God, when your child is growing like a weed (and you’re not made of cash) who, honestly, has the choice?  This kit is fit for purpose – does what it says on the label, and it looks and wears just as well as other, more expensive, brands.   In fact, having bought kit from both Tesco and M&S in the past, truly I can’t tell the difference. 

Anyhow.  I’m grateful that he’s going back to school not looking like an out-take from Oliver.  Except…damnit!  Clean forgot to get his blazer cleaned and haven’t a clue where his shoes are and, and… 

 I too am making a bit of a fresh start.  Tomorrow, I’m heading off to Grayshott Spa for a week’s Health Regime.  Not pampering stuff this time (sadly it’s all abdominal massages and castor oil packs rather than sybaritic loveliness) but what the heck.   I’ve been sliding a bit lately – the odd bottle of wine here, the odd bottle of Kummel there.  Time to get a grip.  J 

Tesco saves my school bacon...

Can I quietly scream? Will you mind? Nothing major; just a small strangled ‘aaaghhhhhh’.  Three small words, six meagre syllables that drive me demented. School freaking uniform.  

Get that hair on the left...

The return to school is looming into view and I keep gazing gloomily at the list.  Okay, so I get why schools feel the need to do the uniform thingy. I get that it’s all about ‘TEAM US’ (that’s ‘us’ as in ‘we’, not US as in the USA). I get the argument that it’s a leveler – that it stops arsey little brats coming in and doing the whole ‘I’m wearing Abercrombie/Superdry/Jack Wills/Versace/whatever and you, poor trailer trash scumbag, are wearing ‘George by Asda’ one-upmanship malarkey.  I get that it makes it easier to find and apportion blame when they torch a car or barge past people onto the bus or whatever.  I get it although, to be honest, I’m not entirely convinced.  But, hey, it is what it is and so on and so forth but, but, but…

…really, why do they have to make it so…arcane?  Why can’t they just say – ‘Look, chuck ‘em in grey trousers/skirts; white shirts; grey jumpers and let’s call it a day, guys.’?  Yeah?  No.

It’s always got to be the ‘right kind’ of grey.  The navy jumper has to have the blasted logo on it, doesn’t it?  And then…I shouldn’t have started, should I? Get this… For the last two years (years 7 and 8) James’ school hasn’t prescribed a blazer.  There was some kind of weird optional coat that they all point-blank refused to wear (didn’t remotely blame them, it was seriously minging), so he ended up getting on the school bus each day, even in the depths of winter, even in driving rain, wearing just a skimpy jersey. Mad.  This year (to compensate maybe?) it appears they require TWO blazers. One for everyday wear and one for ‘smart stuff’.  What smart stuff?  Come to think of it, let’s not think about it cos it’s bound to involve more cash.  Oh just…aaaghhh. 

And they’ve changed the sports kit – again.  WHY?  What was wrong with the old one? They’re a school, for heaven’s sake, not a football club. 

It could be worse – some boy we used to know had to wear flipping lederhosen to school – in London.  And again, I ask you…why?  Character-building? 

I suppose nothing has really changed.  When I was at school – in an uber-strict state grammar, we had to wear freaking tartan skirts (yup, kilts - feel free to laugh) and a particular blue open-necked shirt that could only be bought from one particular shop in, of all places, Twickenham. I can remember the look of horror on my poor mother’s face even now as she scanned the seemingly endless list. A boater?  A BOATER?  Thank feck I didn’t get one – only two girls wore them on the first day and they both managed to slide them quietly into a ditch by 9am.

Anyhow. Thank heavens for the kind PRs at Tesco Back to School who must have been reading my anguished mind as they sent an email asking if I’d like some school kit for James.  Er…YESSSS!  For freak’s sake, send it over and send it over fast.  Before my credit card reports me to CreditLine for severe emotional abuse. So they did, bless them.

Tesco Back to School gear...

I used to buy James’ school stuff (the generic trousers and shirts and all – the bits that don’t have to have badges and stripes and logos) from Marks and Spencer but, really, these are every bit as good (if not better actually - cos, I don't know about you but strikes me Marks ain't what it used to be - the last few pairs of pants I've had have just sort of collapsed - and, no, they weren't put under any particular strain) and a fair bit cheaper.  I thought he might go all teenage sniffy on me over the shoes (which are a SERIOUS bargain).  

The last couple of years he has refused to go the usual Clark’s children’s route and has resolutely bought from the men’s department.  But, to my total surprise, he deemed the lace-ups ‘fine’.  The coat met with a curl of the lip but that was just fine and dandy as I simply nabbed it for myself.  Socks, pants, trousers, shirts and really nice bright red polo shirts all met with teenage approval – the polo shirts so much that he’s already wearing them – yeah, by choice, in the holidays, in public.  And at least these won’t fall apart the way the rip-off Ralph Lauren ones from Turkey did. 

So. Seriously. Take a look.  And thank you, Tesco.  And…School...just don’t talk to me, alright? 

Adrian is sitting on my head

Back to school.  Back to reality. Back to my new classroom. 

Backtrack to the barmy days of summer (okay, poetic license).  Susie and I were lugging kettlebells on the grass by the river (watched by ducks, laughed at by small children, copied by Stalkerish Stretching Man) and I was lamenting my parlous finances (again).

‘You…need…to….see….Helen…’ Susie gasped.

‘He…len?’ I gasped back.

‘Yup.  Is…feng…shui…’

Eh? But we launched into a brutal series of cleans and so I had to wait until we went down on the grass for floorwork to find out more.  Turned out Helen was a feng shui wotnot (Master? Mistress?) and had ‘sorted’ out Susie’s house and, lo and behold, Susie had got herself a pretty stunning high-powered new job before you could say "bagua".  

‘I don’t want a high-powered job,’ I said, slugging the kettlebell over my head while scissor-kicking my legs feebly.  ‘I just want some straightforward money.  Living on freebies is all very good but it’s…limiting.’

‘Helen will sort it,' said Susie firmly. 'I’ll bring her over tomorrow.’

Tomorrow?? You think it’s bad getting your house ready for viewing by potential buyers? Pah! Let's face it, your average house buyer isn’t going to suck his or her teeth and go, ‘Gawd, crap energy flow’ or ‘Will you take a look at that cutting chi?’  I’ve learned enough about this stuff to know we had ‘issues’, to put it kindly.  Once again I’d managed to fall head over heels for a house that was, shall we say, challenged, not only in its structure and underpinning but also in its wealth corner.  But hey, what can you do?  It’s not like you can shove your dirty chi under the beds and disguise your pathetic tai-chi by grinding coffee beans, is it?  

She walked around, sighing softly.  In a dispirited sort of way.  I trailed behind, heels dragging, like a child that knows it’s going to get told off.  And I did what every naughty child does – shifted the blame. 

‘I’ve told Adrian again and again about the clutter in that room,’ I pre-empted. She gave me a beady look. then looked at my office. 

‘Oh dear.’   

The three of us sighed in unison. My office was too big, too cold (no kidding), had too many doors and way too much frenetic energy.  When Helen found out that Adrian’s office sat directly above mine, she shook her head.

‘He’s sitting on my head, isn’t he?’ I said mournfully.

She nodded. 

‘Well?’ said Adrian, after they’d gone and we were sitting at the kitchen table having a post-mortem. 

‘Well,’ I said, prodding a chocolate biscuit.  ‘Seems I can’t work cos you’re squatting on my head.’

‘Okay. And what do we do about that?’  You have to hand it to him. How many men would react like that?

‘Umm…well apparently I need to move my office into the guest room.’

'And this will bring in some work?' he said. Hopefully. 

'Apparently.  Allegedly. Whatever,' I said.

'Let's do it.' 

So the next day we dismantled the guest room and moved it downstairs into my ex-office which, frankly, does look a bit weird, like we’re getting ready to install Uncle Fred (if we had one) and a bedlift.  

And here I am - up in the guest bedroom - feeling…curiously light-headed.  

The cruel scent of Autumn - and free stuff! Yes, free stuff.

The cruel scent of Autumn is in the air.  No, not roast chestnuts and woodsmoke but smelly socks, fetid trainers and singed ironing.  There’s a week left of the summer holidays and really I should be Getting Things In Order. Once again (see posts around this time for the last however many years I’ve been writing this fecking blog) the boy has gone feral and unpleasant (only this time with raging hormones to add to the unsavoury mix). 

Twitter fuels my guilt. It seems like the whole world (apart from the sexbots, men, life coaches and carpet fitters) is sewing in uniform labels and booking itself into Clarks for shoe fittings.  It’s worrying about projects and colour-coordinating stationery.  Actually, even the sexbots are getting out their irons.  I, meanwhile, am wandering around Amazon getting dejected as I realise I now have more books out of print than in print.  L

‘We have to do something,’ I told James firmly over breakfast.  When I say 'breakfast' please don't for one moment imagine some cosy Waltons scene around the large farmhouse kitchen table. I was yelling from bed while he was scarfing a cinnamon Danish on the stairs. 
‘Get dressed and, once I finish this chapter of Lilith, we’ll attack your room.’

Aside: the book is by George MacDonald. Have wanted to read it for years and finally found it had been reprinted. Unfortunately the publisher turns out to be totally illiterate so you have to fill in the meaning on your own a fair bit.  Let me just read you this from the back cover blurb, to gain a flavour (so to speak):

“She then meats (sic) and falls in love with a young man who is already engaged.”  Er, right.

When I read this to Adrian he laughed, in a smutty schoolboyish sort of way and went off muttering, ‘Meat as a verb eh’…  Hmm. If you don’t get that, all I can say is good and that you probably didn’t share a flat with a bunch of Northern lads at university.

Anyhow.  I got up.  Sighed sadly at my shorts and T-shirt from the beach forlornly abandoned at the end of the bed and jumped swiftly into jeans, two jumpers, thick socks and UGG boots.  Yup it’s autumn alright.  The August thing is just a smokescreen.

‘Right, we’re getting Neolithic on your room, mate,’ I said.  James looked worried.

‘Yes, that IS way worse than Medieval, if you were wondering.  Do you KNOW when the Neolithic was?’

He shook his head sulkily and I rolled my eyes. ‘You’ve got a current affairs quiz when you go back to school; this is fecking ridiculous.’
His eyes brightened.  ‘But Neolithic isn’t current, is it?’

‘Er, good point. Okay, how many goals did Arsenal let in?’
‘Eight!!!!’
‘Ha!!! Losers!’  We fist-bumped and heard the distant sound of a man banging his head rhythmically on a desk. 

Well, we threw the entire room up in the air and then tossed things into various mounds and then he sprayed and dusted until I started sneezing so loudly I nearly didn’t hear the postman who delivered a HUGE parcel.

Uniform?  Uniform!  Oh yes. Thank you, gods.  Or rather thank you, Tesco.  Once again, bless ‘em, they’ve come up trumps. Trousers, shirts, t-shirts, Top Gear pencil case and assorted stationery.  If there’s chocolate in there, I’m going to spontaneously orgasm….but no.  Sadly (or perhaps fortunately, given the postman was still lingering around the door) not.  There’s even a nifty notebook that says:

At which point I got quite excited (no, not THAT excited) and thought someone had finally figured it out but no, you (or presumably your child) are/is supposedly supposed to come up with the plan your/his/herself. Which is a Tall Order.   And then that reminded me of something and someone else, but I’ll save that for another day…

Anyhow. Tesco. Good for school uniform.  Saved my bacon anyhow.  Now I only have to sort out the shoes (and I’m sure we could just cut a hole in the front so the old ones fit) and invest in the new tracksuit (this school is getting a bit FA on us, frankly, we’ll have new home and away kits each season at this rate).  Which reminds me...Arsenal again...remember *that* away kit? Vomit.

Oh, and because I’m all heart (and because they offered it), I could nab you a new school uniform for your child too (or, hey, for you, if that kinda thing rocks your boat)… I’ve got a £15 e-voucher to spend online for the Back to School range…and, let me tell you, you’d probably kit out a family of ten for that… So, just leave a comment (and please make sure I can get hold of you – if you don’t have a blog leave an email or, hey, your postal address and where you leave your spare key…). I’ll close my eyes and stab the screen (making sure I get it that way round) to pick a winner by the weekend. 

Back to school

Oh weirdness incarnate. Two days into the new term and it feels as if the whole axis of my world has shifted. James has moved up to senior school and has started boarding (he’ll do one or two nights a week). In reality, he’s only moved down the road to the big school and is still surrounded by all his old friends. Yet the shift is seismic. He has been desperate to start school all through the holiday and has slid into his new life like an eel sliding into a pool. Not a pause, not a jitter, not a backward glance.

He loves boarding; wants to be there more; wants to immerse himself in this new, more independent life. And I should be glad, I am glad. It’s what I have always wanted – my boy to be his own person; to be free; to fly. But he is changing, it’s inevitable – and I can feel the ties loosening. He phoned me from his dorm room just before lights out and sounded totally different. I could hear his friends in the background, laughing that he was phoning home, that he was saying goodnight to his mother. Bless his soul – I hadn’t asked him to, he didn’t have to - but he did. I could hear the split in his voice – the pretended nonchalance, the little boy sliding away. I am fading into the background. Still loved, still needed, just not so much, not in such a central way. It's right, it's proper but by heck it's unsettling.

It struck me that this is a new start for me as much as for him. For the last twelve years I have not been my own person in any way. I have been Mother – a role, to be honest, I wasn’t ever sure I would fulfil. I’ve never been natural mother material, never felt particularly maternal – I can appreciate babies in an aesthetic way but keep my arms firmly pinned by my sides when they’re around. While loving James was the easiest thing in the entire world, packing away my own needs and desires was harder. To say my career has slid in the last decade is an understatement. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Time flies so fast and it never occurred to me to go down the nanny route. So I scrabbled and made do and had to turn down work that conflicted with mothering (the kiss of death in journalism). And so, here I am, sitting at my desk thinking "now what?"

I can feel, so strongly, that it’s time for a change, for a shift. I need a new start, a new pencil case, a new pair of shiny Clarks T-bar shoes. There’s that whiff of autumn in the air which, for me, is always a kickstart to the psyche. I need to get back in touch with who I am when I’m not being ‘James’ mum’.  I can feel it, like a song whistled quietly into the wind, but can't hear it clearly yet.

I hope, I really hope, that my teenage fiction works out. I love sinking into that wild, hopelessly romantic, endlessly exciting world. And teens seem to adore the book - their enthusiasm and puzzled fury that it's not published is so dear.  I just hope I can find an editor who feels the same way. If not, then I will need to discover something else. All suggestions very welcome...

Thank you, Liz Jones

Back to school. Eventually the interminable summer holidays ended and James returned for his last year at primary school. Trousers too long and baggy, hair amazingly neat after the wild mop of summer. New bag, new pencil-case, new school shoes, new (well, new to him) blazer.
Of course the sun came out and laughed at us. It always does.
I’ll miss summer: the lie-ins, louche time-keeping followed by late nights to hit looming deadlines; sitting by the river watching the boys bodyboarding down the Barle while we sip Moscow Mules; dashing off to the beach at the faintest hint of sun. But I also love September, that crisp new start.
New Year doesn’t really do it for me but Autumn ticks all the boxes for a fresh beginning. And it does feel like that, this year, it really does.

As regular readers know, it’s been a tough year, following on ten tough years, if I’m honest. When mum died in December, I plunged into yet another depression and the world felt very bleak indeed. If I’m brutally honest, there were days when there just didn’t seem any point to anything and only the thought of my little family kept me going.

But now it feels as if I’m slowly, cautiously, emerging from the sludge. My detox has segued into healthy eating (rather than binge retoxing) and I’m planning to get back to aerobics, fitball and circuit training. I’ve been playing squash again and, while I’m hopelessly unfit, it’s huge fun. I’m going to get sociable and have friends round again (I’ve neglected them for far too long). Above all, I’m going to get everything in perspective and be grateful for everything I’ve got.

Two events really rammed the message home in the last week. Firstly a good friend told me she was going into hospital for what would be a life-saving operation. If she didn’t have it, she would be dead by the end of October. Now that really does concentrate the mind.
Secondly, and I barely like to put the two people on the same page, let alone paragraph, I recorded Woman’s Hour in a head-to-head with the Daily Mail writer Liz Jones. To cut a long and exceedingly boring story short, I had written about LJ in the Telegraph in response to her columns in which she kept running down Exmoor. Apparently we’re a bloodthirsty lot; our farmers are negligent; our men are toothless and decrepit; our teenagers are feral; our pubs are crap and the people who work in the local Co-op all have special needs. I suggested that maybe this wasn’t the most tactful way to ease oneself into rural life. Liz objected, implying she was singlehandedly supporting our local economy with her expensive lifestyle and we should be damn grateful. So we went on Radio 4 to debate how best to make the shift from city to country.

It was supposed to go out live but the producer said that, having spoken to Liz Jones the day before, they would have to pre-record as Jones was seemingly incapable of keeping calm and holding a rational conversation when it came to me.
Sure enough a large part of the recording was unusable as Liz just ranted and poor Jane Garvey could not stop her for love nor money. Most of it was just silly, such as asking why, if I cared about Exmoor, I didn’t employ twelve full-time builders (er, because I can’t afford to). But one point was really interesting.
‘I’m the best thing that’s happened to you in ten years, aren’t I Jane?’ she spat.
At the time I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t have replied, even had she given me the opportunity.
But it made me think. What IS the best thing that’s happened to me in the past ten years? My son, James, is the obvious first answer. Followed by moving to Dulverton. Followed by meeting and becoming friends with some fabulous people. Yes, I suppose I should include Asbo Jack and the mad, crazy, still half-finished Bonkers House. And the fact that I still love my husband to pieces and have a hugely happy marriage (even if he does bore for Britain on the joys of beer).

And, at that point, I felt sorry for Liz Jones, I really did. Poor little rich girl who says she has spent £400,000 on clothes, who has a drop-dead gorgeous farmhouse (albeit NOT on the moor where she claims it is) and feels the need to preface every household and item of clothing with a designer name. I suppose she thought that going on Woman’s Hour was the pinnacle of my career but, to be honest, I work to live rather than live to work. My career is certainly low-key nowadays but that’s the way I rather like it. I’ve done the newspapers and the glossy mags, I’ve sat at fashion shows and been flown first-class and interviewed rock stars. I’ve been on TV and radio. It was fun at the time, it was a hoot but it was just a job (albeit a very privileged one). Would I want to do it now? No, I wouldn’t, because it would mean being away from my home and my family.

She doesn’t have that. I know you will say it’s her own fault; that if she stopped writing about everyone she meets and didn’t dismiss everyone who isn’t gorgeous and rich and young and vegan, then she could probably find happiness (and even a man) relatively easily. But I still think it’s sad.

So, back at the Bonkers House, I’m counting my blessings on this lovely autumn day. Would I change my life for all Liz’s trappings of wealth? Would I want to see my face plastered over the dailies? No, not in a month of Sundays. Would I even want to be that thin (had to think about that one for a moment but, um, well, not if it meant cosmetic surgery and a vegan diet). She’s certainly not the best thing that’s happened to me but she has reminded me very forcefully of what the best things really are.

So, for that, thank you Liz.