A different story...

A few days ago I received an email about Mother’s Day that took me back twelve years to when James was born.


Like many first-time eager-beaver parents-to-be, Adrian and I went to NCT classes. We did quizzes about pain relief, stifled giggles as we watched breasts being constructed out of bits of ribbon and beading and practiced panting. We discussed water births, pondered the perfect aromatherapy oils with which to welcome our baby into the world and drew up birth plans with stern invectives against nasty drugs and rotten old doctors intervening. And I’m sure that, for many people, that works just fine and dandy. Not for us.

It went pear-shaped. Pear is probably the wrong word as I simply don’t have child-bearing hips and James, it transpired, was one gargantuan baby (12lbs 8oz). It was an equation which, frankly, was never going to balance. To cut a 14-hour story short, he got wedged, we both got into difficulties and I ended up being hurtled into surgery. I remember clearly being annoyed that the surgeons wouldn’t let me watch my own C-section. Adrian, meanwhile, turned several shades of green. I had transfusions; James had a ridge round his head but, by heck, we were alive and, really, that was all that mattered.

But I do wonder. What if? We lived in a very remote place back then. If I hadn’t been in hospital? Would the air ambulance have got to me in time? Would we be alive today?

And then, this email. From AMREF, the African Medical and Research Foundation, asking if I could help raise awareness of the 280,000 mothers who die each year in pregnancy and childbirth in Africa because they lack basic medical care. What does that mean? We’re not even talking about mothers like me, who needed rapid surgical intervention, but hale healthy normal women who died from lack of basic midwifery and hygiene. I ponder charity requests very carefully but this one chimed and friends in Africa said that, yes, AMREF do great work. So I asked them to tell me more – and they sent me a matchbox. Yup, a matchbox. In it were the items needed to deliver a baby safely. 

• A piece of plastic sheeting to lay on the floor.

• A sliver of soap and cotton wool for hygiene.

• A piece of string to tie the umbilical cord.

• A razor blade to cut the cord.

• Matches to sterilise the blade.

That’s it. That and a trained birth attendant.  The keys to saving a mother’s life and that of her child. All it might take to turn a potential tragedy into a happy ending.


I’m not going to pontificate. If you are interested, check out their website 
It's not just about seeking donations.  It's about spreading awareness and they’re running a campaign at the moment called Status of Africa - linking in with Facebook and other social media. You choose a mother or midwife with whom to share your Facebook status for five days – twice a day the app will update your status to show theirs. By lending your status, you can let your followers know what it’s like to be a mother in Africa.

So, this Mother’s Day, I’m going to be grateful for being a mother. I'm going to be grateful for being alive and for my strapping very much alive twelve-year old. I’m going to be grateful to the midwives and nurses and doctors and surgeons who helped me and my baby. And I’m going to be finding out what it’s like to be a mother in Africa.  What it's like giving birth without all those people on hand...but hopefully with trained midwives and a matchbox of hope.

Close shaves and near misses

Growing up can be tough. When I think back to my childhood it’s as though there was a big river running through it. The Styx maybe? There was Before Dad Died and After Dad Died - and I was a different child on each river bank.

This has been a tough holiday for James in many ways. Lyme Disease and our sojourn in hospital made him realise that we can’t always take good health for granted and that many children are in real life-threatening situations; that serious pain is not a grazed knee.

Then we had the Riphay Scuffle where we saw our lives flash before our eyes as a car hurtled past, snagging a line of fencing and a heavy stake came flying within a few feet of us. We were okay but someone further down the hill had to be air-lifted to hospital.  Tragically that evening two young lads died on their way home from the Scuffle as they lost control of their car. James hates driving past the spot where they came off the road and I had to explain that sometimes awful things do happen but that we can’t let them control our lives. So we do occasionally drive that way and pass the huge swathe of tributes – and say a silent prayer for the boys and their families.

A few days back, Adrian and a friend of ours took James to the cricket in Taunton. On the way back they got a flat tyre and had to pull over to change it. A car slowed down and the next thing a truck ploughed straight into it. By a miracle nobody was seriously hurt (though we heard later that the lad in the first car has whiplash) but James was horribly shaken.

‘It all happened in slow motion,’ he said as he sobbed into my shoulder. ‘I thought they were dead.’

He has, I think, crossed his own river. Coming close to death and danger changes you. He seems more contemplative, more grown up maybe. It’s strange too that this summer is the one that straddles the divide between junior and senior school. In a few weeks time, he will be at ‘big’ school, boarding for the odd night here and there, doing his own thing. He can’t wait. He’s desperate to move up, to move on. I’m thrilled but also can’t help but feel a little pensive.

So, it hasn’t been a carefree summer so far. But, in the scheme of things, we’re so lucky. We’ve come close but the cup has passed by. I do often wonder how on earth parents handle really serious illness, accidents or, perish the thought, the death of a child? I’ve recently been reading Simon’s Choice by Charlotte Castle, an author I met on Authonomy. The book looks at exactly that question – what happens when you are told that your child’s illness is terminal. I’m going to be posting an interview I did with Charlotte quite soon – so do watch out for that.

Sorry, this is a rather maudlin post. To end on a brighter note, we are so looking forward to our holiday in Northumberland. I think we could all do with a little light relief.

btw, I have recently given an interview myself - to the website Authors on Show.  It's about my career in journalism and writing - and my hopes for my teen fiction.  You can read it here

Not the best week in the world

Why is it that things always go pear at precisely the worst possible time? It sometimes feels as if there’s someone up there thinking, way hay, she’s going to be on her own for a week so what can we throw at her?


Adrian was off to the US to check out the breweries of Vermont – by bus. Well it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
‘Hey, you’ll have a lovely peaceful week without me,’ he said at the breakfast table, clearly expecting a flurry of denial.
‘Good point,’ said James. Poor Adrian headed off with his rucksack, looking forlorn.

That evening James gave me a funny look (as in a very funny look).
‘James, stop pulling faces. You’ll get stuck.’
‘I can’t shut my eye,’ he said gurning like a gargoyle.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake.’ I packed him off to bed.

But the next morning he really did look decidedly uneven.

‘Um, I think we’ll just drop by the surgery,’ I said, trying not to sound alarmed.  If he hadn't been eleven, I'd have sworn it was Bell's palsy.
‘I think it's Bell’s palsy,’ said the GP.
‘But he’s only eleven.’
She agreed it was rare and had a chat with the hospital who said we’d better go in ‘to be on the safe side’.

Now that would be fine except, ahem, who was going to look after the soul puppy? My usual stalwarts were all away and of course, Adrian was by now going entirely the wrong way on the interstate out of Boston, so we took him with us.
‘Hey look, it’s gone foggy, isn’t that great? The pup will be fine in the car.’

We barrelled along in thick fog, praying there were no kamikaze sheep around.
‘Mum, he’s been sick,’ said James.
‘Okay, that’s okay,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘I brought towels and baby wipes. Let’s get him sorted.’
We pulled in, wiped, sluiced and veered out back into the fog.
A mile down the road. ‘He’s been sick again.’

At that precise moment the mobile rang. Could we get to the hospital ASAP for a CT scan? Umm, yes, no problem. Providing, of course, the puppy stopped throwing up and we didn’t plunge headlong into a ditch.

‘Look on the bright side, Mum,’ said James, as the pup hurled up for the fourth time. ‘He wasn’t quite as sick as last time. He’s probably running out of stuff to sick up.’
‘Exactly! It could be much worse. Just think - he could have diarrhoea.’

We spent the next two days at the hospital, making mercy dashes to the car, praying it stayed overcast and gloomy.  The tests showed nothing nasty. It was, said the consultant with a rueful shrug, ‘just a virus probably.’
Would it get better?
‘In 80 percent of cases, yes.’

We didn’t talk about the other 20 percent. The temptation to descend into gloom tugged at me but two days at a children’s assessment centre puts everything into perspective. Watching children being wheeled to surgery or seeing parents hunched over babies lying still and stuffed full of tubes, really does make you grateful for small mercies.
‘Hey Mum, it could be worse,’ said James with a lop-sided smile.
‘Yes, my darling,’ I said hugging him tight. ‘It really could.’
'And the puppy has stopped throwing up too.'
We looked at one another.  'Uh oh.  Return journey coming up.'

But the pup was all spewed out.  So basically we’ve spent the last week curled up on the sofa – me, James, the Soul Puppy and even (on occasions) Asbo Jack. We’ve watched movies and eaten tortilla chips by the bucketload and generally slobbed. Work has had to go hang.

Poor Adrian has been in a frenzy, as you’d imagine – 3000 miles away and without a phone that worked (I did try to warn him). But yesterday he returned (laden with maple syrup, jelly beans and dodgy T-shirts) and James seems a little better. I meanwhile am totally shattered. 

Diary of a Desperate DUPLO donating woman (OK, this is weird)

I thought Disney was surreal enough (what with pin-swapping and grown people wandering round in mouse ears) but life back home is turning a little odd too.
I returned to find I was double-booked for two funerals yesterday. Given one was in London and one was twenty minutes away, there wasn’t too much decision-making involved. Clifford was our old neighbour back when we lived up on the weird windswept moor (for any readers who go back a long way with me you might remember him as the flirtatious old dog who used to growl, ‘they don’t call it SExmoor for nothing’ accompanied by a lascivious leer and a finger tickling down your backbone and coming to rest, cupping your arse. For all that I was very fond of Cliff and even fonder of his long-suffering (if redoubtable) wife. So we headed across the moor back into our old life.
‘We don’t want to be too early,’ worried Adrian. Mainly worried, I hasten to add, because he didn’t want to bump into a certain ex-friend. It all went wrong when the chap had an affair, news got out – to his wife eventually – and the ex-friend blamed Adrian (very unfairly as it happens). But anyhow… So we dawdled, and went past our old place and eventually……
‘Oh shit. Think it might be busy.’

The entire hill was jam-packed with 4x4s and quad bikes and tractors. Sure enough, it was standing room only in the church. The average age was about 70 and, as we waited for the cortege, there was a small concerto for hearing aid (high-pitched squeaks and squeals) followed by a couple of deep sigh farts. It was a great funeral (if you can say that). Cliff was a hunting man (fox, stag, otter, mink, women) and we were only surprised that the church wasn’t packed with hounds. As it was the service ended with a rousing rendition of a local hunting song.

We slid out before the hunting horns got going and hurtled back home. I flung Adrian out of the car and carried on to town to get a chest x-ray (nothing horrid – at least I hope not – doctor just scared of litigation so covering all eventualities. Seriously hope those aren’t famous last words). Stalk into X-ray clad head to toe in black and the chap behind reception seems a bit bemused.
‘Are you clergy?’
Do I look like a vicar in high heels, slim black trousers and a coat with three-quarter sleeves? Is the make-up and earrings a bit of a giveaway?
‘No. I’ve been to a funeral.’
‘Ah. I wondered. Concentrates the mind, doesn’t it?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘He he, don’t worry. I’ll give you a good x-ray and if you’ve got lung cancer I won’t tell you. No point making a bad day worse.’
‘Er, thank you.’ I think.

So I sit in M&S drinking decaf and gazing gloomily at my trolley waiting until it’s time to pick up James from school. He’s fed up as they got thrashed playing cricket.
‘I got one run.’
‘Oh dear. That’s rubbish, isn’t it?’
Frown and hurt look. ‘I was the third highest scoring batsman.’
‘That’s great!’
‘Oh don’t patronise me.’
Really, you can’t win.
Anyhow, home James and a flurry of the usual when an email pings in.

Would I like a set of LEGO DUPLO?
Hmm, not really. My son is ten and, last time I looked, DUPLO was for toddlers. Now had it been the Battlestar….
‘Well, you could give them away to your readers.’

What is going ON with this blogging lark? First I get flown to Florida, now I’m being offered free LEGO. I said no, the chap from LEGO said, aw, go on….your readers will love it. So, in the spirit of wild generosity, I present Diary of a Desperate DUPLO Donating Woman. It’s got a ring, don’t you think?

Here’s the juice. LEGO are offering two sets of DUPLO. Each set comprises two boxes: one’s a funky Zoo type playset and the other one is a groovy police set (so the nice policemen can arrest the penguins or vice versa). If you’d like one bung a comment below and, come the end of the weekend, I’ll get Asbo to put out the magic paw and pick two wildly random winners. Sadly, you have to be in the UK for this and LEGO do ask that you visit their blog and report on how the sets went down with your children…..but hey, no hardship really?
Click here to see the sets…. http://legoduplo.dbmblogs.co.uk/

And watch this space. Today DUPLO, who knows what might happen tomorrow….Spa week at Champneys? Laptops? Plasma TVs? Surreal. Just surreal.

All out of sorts

Oh dear. All out of sorts today. Sobbed over the breakfast bagel. Grizzled into my coffee (not the usual decaf so this blog may speed up over the next few minutes and become unintelligible). Crying and low because I’m off on an all-expenses paid trip to Florida? Eh? Well, no. Crying and low because as I waved my boy off to school I could see him grapple with his emotions and bite back his own tears. He couldn’t wave because his arm was in a sling.
Why is it that something always happens just when you’re set to go away somewhere?
Yesterday I should have been packing but it was the last rugby match of the season and a tournament to boot. James loves rugby and is a hugely physical player. He tackles tough and hard and so often ends up at the bottom of a pile of boys. Boys who are getting bigger and heavier with bigger and heavier feet.

As a brief aside I’m getting really concerned about boys’ feet. A classmate of James’ has size 8s (he’s only nine years old). Having a chance conversation with the man in Clarks the other day he said that a sixteen year old came in with size sixteen feet. It’s getting a bit scary really.

But anyhow…..back to the rugby. Third game. Tough match. James took the legs of some massive child and thudded to the ground. Barrel of boys jumped on top. Eventually clambered out and came off limping with a line of stud marks across his thigh. But it was his hand that really hurt. St John’s Ambulance said take him to casualty so we shot off down the motorway and played tag with the various A&E departments. Went to Tiverton (‘it’s further but will be less crowded than Taunton’). Waited ages. Needed X-ray but not open after 4pm on Sundays. They put him in plaster and dispatched us to Taunton. Back up the motorway. Waited ages. They took off the plaster. Examined him again. He needed an X-ray (really?). X-ray inconclusive. Plastered him again and told us we needed to see the fracture specialist. In Tiverton.

Poor lad is distraught. While he had been quite sanguine about my going away when feeling well and with several cricket matches to look forward to, the prospect of my leaving when he was bandaged up and in pain was quite different. He sobbed. Came into bed with me and I sat and stroked his forehead. And felt like a heel. As I’ve said before, I never consider myself the archetypal maternal type but I love my boy to bits. So fiercely that it hurts and never more than when he hurts. It’s a cliché but I really would take on his pain and, while pretty cowardly in the main, would give up my life in a second if it meant he survived.
‘Get a grip,’ said Adrian, ever the pragmatist. ‘He’s hurt his thumb. You’re acting like he’d been given a week to live. At least he wasn’t stretchered off like that other boy, with his neck in a cast.’ True. More to the point, he wasn’t taken off with blood pouring from his mouth and a wobbling front tooth, like his team mate. Ever since I knocked out a tooth at a nightclub (don’t ask), I go cold at the thought of teeth flying. (I know, I know, this sounds like Hermione in Harry Potter - 'we could die or, even worse, be expelled' bit.)

But I live to worry and, having been ridiculed out of concern about his (possibly fractured) thumb, my ever-inventive mind turned elsewhere.
‘Mexican swine fever,’ I said, forlornly. ‘I’m flying to the US.’
‘Florida,’ said Adrian. ‘Not Mexico.’
‘Gulf of Mexico. Close enough. I could catch it and bring it back and infect the whole of Exmoor.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Go and pack.’
Half an hour later I came down wailing again.
‘For God’s sake. What now?’
‘Nothing fits. Nothing goes with anything else. It’s a disaster.’
He bit his lip and I could see him mentally counting to ten.
‘I don’t think I should go.’
‘What? Because the boy has hurt his thumb; because of swine fever or because you feel fat in what passes for your summer wardrobe? Honestly?’
Honestly? I’m tempted to be flippant for the sake of a cheap laugh but truthfully I will miss my little boy. I had been feeling like a fraud about this trip as I don’t think of myself as a ‘mummy blogger’ but hey, maybe I am after all.

PS – will miss Adrian as well, of course….(hi darling! Know he reads this from time to time). Pic is of my two boys whittling (how right and proper is that?)