It is with a heavy heart we regret to inform you…

Monday 23^rd March 2020. 

This was supposed to be a good year, this was going to be the roaring ’

20s, things were going to go well, money was going to be made, goals achieved, limits smashed.

WTF happened.

Today was the first day of home-schooling. Erbie’s school is providing an amazing service, lessons were as his regular timetable and came through online with a  teacher offering feedback to questions. 

First thing, Erbie looked up a Hama bead tutorial and proceeded to make a cartoon skeleton called Sans from Underworld in tiny plastic beads which I ironed into a solid image for him whilst he cleaned his teeth.

When Alexa’s timer told him: ‘Time to get to school’, instead of reaching for his coat and running out of the door he ran up and down the stairs twenty times.

I spent a stressful hour checking finances, should we take a mortgage holiday, is it a possibility we might be able to freeze credit card payments, how much left to come in. The GR has literally had all of his work in the creative industry cancelled for the unforeseeable future.

I had good intentions, yoga, meditation, make my own toasted granola, soda bread, carrot soup, set the table up for a jigsaw, get crafty, many, many good plans. The reality was sitting in my inside out jumper braless without a comb through my hair, top lip peeling from dehydration – strange how drinking copious amounts of wine doesn’t hydrate one. Wine belly too snug in my PJs. STRESSSSSSSSSED.

And breathe.

I went to bed to work, I post cheery things on social media about the natural world, it was not flowing. Sometimes finding an image first helps, baby birds, hedgehogs, bees, we’ve been slowly killing them and now we are dying too. 

TheGR starts drinking at 10am, the day may end well, or it may not. 

Chaffinches, hedgehogs, bees, flowers, nests, brambles. 

My thoughts wander to the allotment. Will I be able to vist? Will it be total lockdown soon? Why did someone strim the whole bramble hedge that abutted one side of the entrance, what were they thinking - a mass of wildlife habitat wiped out in one fell swoop, nesting birds, visiting bees, hungry foxes, sheltering hedgehogs, to look neater? 

Today I should have been on my gardening course at Capel Manor in Regent’s Park, the course I signed up for as a sanity treat. Just as Spring hits and the weather soil warms up, things begin to flourish and grow. Who will water all of our seedlings carefully pricked out and potted on in the poly tunnel. 

3.30pm Erbie’s home school day ends, there have only been a few tears, none from the grown ups. I go to my allotment with a flask of tea. The usually bustling high street is as empty as a month of Sunday in the 1970s. I social distance every time someone comes past in the opposite direction, sometimes walking in the road to do this, it’s okay there is hardly any traffic. A solitary bus goes past with a driver and one passenger.

Debbie’s sister cancelled her wedding in April and had a quick registry one at the weekend instead, 5 people max, no family went! They tried to live stream it but couldn’t get it to work. Debbie is a nurse, she’s just gone back to work, we joke about timing and how her old ICU training will come in handy. I have learnt that ICU stands for Intensive Care Unit very recently. Katherine, a doctor, jokes that as she doesn’t have ICU training she will be on palliative home care – only neither of them is really joking.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, it could be lots of mums last one.

Several WhatsApp groups are sending the same memes, jokes, videos of people trying to laugh through the pain, some of them are funny, they get shared everywhere, I’ve seen the same guy voting to self isolate without his family shared on 8 different groups.

2020 is cancelled,  loo roll is worth it’s weight in gold, dogs are exhausted.

Watching the news is stressful, none of my friends are sleeping properly, everyone is drinking too much tea, wine, gin, anything. 

I sit in the sunshine at the allotment and drink tea. I water my seedlings. 

Hope.

I walk back past the closed up shops, the bike shop, travel agent, pub, shoe shop, coffee shop, ‘It is with a heavy heart’, I read again and again handwritten or typed, on every shop door, a lump rises in my throat.’ 

First Day Back

I have to put on the clodhoppers, enormous steel toe capped boots which were part of the required kit. No one on the gardening course enjoys putting on their boots, mine are particularly ungainly, gurt, great, black, moon-shaped things, suitably caked in mud. 

The boots do not compliment my outfit, skinny black jeans, and a smart black coat with a lapel full of diamante beetle and poppy brooches. I pull on a woolly hat and get out of the door. It’s commuter time, so there is no point trying to get on a bus, they are all steamed-up and standing-room only, whizzing past all the bus stops to deposit everyone at the tube station.

I set off, my bunioned toes screaming at me, pick up the pace girl, if you’re going to walk it, you might as well walk it. An efficient looking lady with a purple rucksack in one hand and purple bag in the other, wearing trainers is coming up on my left. I stop to contemplate crossing over to walk through the woods, but decide against it. 

I pick up my pace again, catching up wit the purple lady.

‘How dare you be faster than me.’ She says, as I pass her.

‘I was contemplating walking through the woods but decided not to.’ I offer.

‘I could tell you were a walker by the boots.’ She says.

‘I’m gardening today!’ I say

‘Oh lovely, have a good day’, she responds

‘You too!’

Now I have to keep up my pace! I consider slowing down and actually walking with the purple lady. 

The tube is crowded, no seats, I feel safe in my boots, no block –heel or man foot is getting anywhere near my toes in these.

I squeeze out of the train at Camden and walk again, straight up Parkway, through Regent’s Park, squelch, squish, squelch, squish, through the muddy grass besides the new children’s playground still being constructed. A sign informs that it will be opening in Autumn 2019. It’s January 2020 now, it will probably be open in time for the Summer…

Everyone on my course is lovely, we all greet and ask how various different Christmas and New Years were, the tutor arrives and the lesson begins.

Himalayan Poppy Seedlings in the poly tunnel

We all started out as individuals, each having applied for our own reasons, nobody knowing anyone else, (apart from the two sisters). Now, after a term we have become a cohesive group. There are 21 of us. Some complain about the disorganisation, some about the facilities but we are unanimous in our respect and affection for our tutor. 

At lunchtime a group of us go to the café near the open air theatre in the Park. Someone has brought banoffee pie from home to share. We get student discount for our coffees. 

I leave early to get to my annual check-up at UCH Macmillan Centre, which entails walking to the other side of the park, the side we used to live next to, it all feels beautifully familiar, I spot a patch of snowdrops and yellow aconite under the great plane tree by the railings. Ah, there’s the wiggly hazel and the two fountains - still not working!

Winter Aconite - Regent's Park

I go out of my way slightly to buy The Belle Mere a cake. She is 80 today, after my appointment, I am to go straight there and meet Erbie and TheGR. 

I text TheGR to remind him to take the candles.

‘Four Candles‘ he responds.

Fork Handles’ I reply

The Macmillan Centre

Rotating door.

Reception.

Stairs.

Lift.

Fourth floor waiting room.

I'm handed a survey.  How was your doctor?

I haven’t seen the doctor yet, so give back the pen and say I’ll fill it on my way out. 

The floor in this building is amazing. 

Waiting Room Floor - Macmillan Centre, London

The suspended mobile type, sculpture type, thing above the reception desk in the entrance foyer is also amazing. The staff are all amazing. It is the one place I really don’t mind feeling imposter syndrome. 

I’m seen by my doctor remarkably quickly, which is unusual, as previously I’ve had to wait an hour or more. The survey perhaps – box ticked.

I sit in a room with my young lady doctor, she has an unpronounceable name, which my grasp of is improving with each visit. I express my fears, I am reassured, she suggests blood tests anyway. 

Survey. Tick boxes.

Basement for bloods.

Take a ticket – number 31. 

Number 22 flashes up. 

I try not to take in the other people seated around me. To my right, An elderly gentleman is being spoken to by a young lady, about a clinical trial. 

A mother and son sit to my left. 

They go in, she exchanges politeness with the elderly gentleman, whom is Irish.

 ‘Nice cup of tea‘… she says

‘More like a nice pint of Guinness.’ he says. They laugh.

A dad and daughter come out and walk up the stairs, she is really thin and has very short haircut. 

Number 31.

‘Do you have your letter? 

You will always need your hospital number’. 

‘Put it in your phone’. The phlebotomist says as she hands me a piece of paper with it on. 

‘I’m going to look away, because I’m squeamish’ I say.

’Don’t worry‘ 

‘We are all squeamish when it comes to it. It’s fine doing it to other people but if it’s yourself it’s a different story.’ she says.

People taking blood tend to say ‘sharp prick’ or ‘small scratch’ when they are about to take blood.

My phlebotomist says neither. I count to 10, and again; and again. 

‘Hold this here for me,’ 

I place a finger on the cotton-wool over the puncture in my arm as she adds tape to keep it in place. 

‘Thank-you very much’ I say, 

I’m not sure why I’m thanking her, but that’s okay, it’s good to be polite, even if it is to someone whose just stuck a needle in you.

‘I didn’t feel a thing, thank you very much, good bye’. I say over my shoulder

Back walking in the big, heavy boots, they weigh a lot, I consider jumping on a tube to get me to The Belle Mere’s faster, but choose the bus which takes me more or less all the way there - much less walking .

I text TheGR

‘All hunky-dory, see you soon’.

‘Party!’ he replies.

I arrive to an atmosphere that could be cut with a knife, the plan to have take-away curry seems to have changed. The Belle Mere is wandering around with a plate with 3 trout on it. TheGR and Erbie are sat on the sofa facing forward concentrating very hard on the television. 

I go into the kitchen with The Belle Mere and listen as she describes her day.

I go to say hello to the boys and give them kisses.

TheGR and I make a joke about the huge bag of ice we have leftover from Christmas Day. TheBelleMere shouts at TheGR thinking, mistakenly we are laughing about the fish. 

TheGR leaves. 

I explain that we were not talking about the fish to The Belle Mere.

I take my hat and coat off and pour myself a glass, then get on with cooking supper, it will be trout.

TheGR calls, I placate him. TheGR returns, TheBelleMere apologises, we eat. 

We light the candles on the cake, sing Happy Birthday and presents are opened. We have a game of Charades, it is a little like pulling teeth. Everyone smiles.

‘I really need to get Erbie home for a bath and bed, as it’s his first day back to school tomorrow’.  I proffer.

It’s good to be polite.

Eventually we arrive at home.

I take off the boots.

Thank fuck!

Olafur Eliasson : In Real Life

Tate Modern

It could be our thing, I consider saying to Erbie.

Erbie could say: ‘My mother and I go to an exhibition once a month and then have an apple juice afterwards’. 

When he grows up, he could say : ‘I am going to meet my mother at the Royal Academy or the Tate or the National’. 

I could tell him: ‘Did you know the National is where Stubb’s picture of Whistlejacket is – the horse painting, where you said your first word?’

I have these thoughts but the reality never quite pans out - in real life.

Love lock, Millennium Bridge 

In real life, the only way I got Erbie to the exhibition at the Tate today was by offering to pay him an hourly rate - the first and last time I will do this. The only slot I could book was the 10am one, as the show is coming to an end this week and it’s fully booked. I only wanted to take Erbie as I’d heard it was quite fun for kids. There is a fog tunnel and several light installations, plus I’d booked a ticket for myself already. Erbie, as a child was free. Only it meant we needed to leave at 9am. 9am to an 11 year old boy, on Christmas holiday is too early, hence the bribe.

St Pauls, London

We sped walked across the millennium bridge, me dragging Erbie, because, of course we were already late for our 10am slot. I couldn’t find where to enter the actual exhibition. We started on the correct level but on the wrong side of the bridge. Words were said. ‘Help me’ being some of them, and I got to explain the meaning of the phrase ‘blood from a stone’.

Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

We went through the foggy tunnel, it changes colour whilst you are inside, from bright white, to yellow to pink, you really can't see anything and it is dream like, the colours surrounding you evoke different emotions. 

There was also a really cool blacked-out room that only revealed it's contents when an ultra-violet light flashed on then off, freezing splashes of water in a fountain, so that it looked like a solid sculptured object that changed shape with each reveal.

One room had a mirrored ceiling and a semi circular tube in black that became round in the reflection. Erbie suggested we lay on the floor. ‘I won’t be able to get back up again’, I only half joked.

Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

Interactive Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

We look at books in the gift shop and buy TheGR a pencil. 

I can feel myself getting annoyed, Erbie is trying to eek out time, yet I had to drag him out in the first place. We get the tube back. I see a poster for a dating app. with interests hashtags. The models look like children to me. At least it is hopefully a move in the right direction from Tinder. 

New dating app

On the way home I say to Erbie: ‘I was going to say, going to exhibitions together once a month could be our thing, when you’re older and have left home we could meet up...’ 

but I cannot finish. His HSP won’t allow him to go there. 

‘Stop, stop, I don’t like it. I don’t want to talk about the future. ’ he blurts out

I tentatively ask why he doesn't like to talk about the future. ‘Because it makes me think.’ he says and burrows himself deep within his coat pulling his hood so that his face is hidden. 

When we get home I let it be known that the next time I visit the Tate it will be alone.

I take myself off to another room to write this and feel my equilibrium return. After about 40 minutes Erbie asks me to give him a hug. I go and give him a hug and he apologises, I apologise too, for many things, although neither of us are really sure exactly what for, in real life. 

Christmas Time, Too Much Wine

I am Christmas toxic. Utterly stuffed with meat, dairy, sugar and gluten.

Turkey
There have been turkey curries, turkey wraps, turkey pitta pockets, turkey sandwiches. All delicious, and as I haven't eaten turkey for 5 years, a novelty.

Chocolate
There have been two chocolate oranges, each before noon. The only fruit I’ve eaten was with nut, coated in chocolate and labelled Dairy Milk. Maltezers, Raffello, Lindt, Ferrero Rocher of course. Usually I'm a one square of 80% cocoa girl. Not this Christmas. Those ones are languishing in the back of the larder.

Bread and Cheese
So much bread and cheese, gooey gorgonzola with toasted sour dough and a beautiful antique glass full of port, a whole baked camembert dribbled in honey with sage, an unctuous taste temptation devoured in one sitting with crispy baguette and a nice Sablet from the Rhone.

Coca-cola cooked ham, pickled onions, chutneys and pork pies. Crisps, many crisps. Pavlovas and chocolate Yule logs - all delightful.

Bar Christmas dinner (roast turkey, spouts and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, red cabbage and apple, bread sauce), the only vegetables I've eaten were fried in butter and presented as bubble and squeak. I resorted to juicing the carrots lining the vegetable drawer yesterday with a thumb of ginger but I couldn't feel any semblance of detoxification. To be fair, I did follow it with a tumbler full of Baileys.

I’ve even been drinking coca-cola which would never normally pass my lips. My waistline has seriously expanded, my chin has erupted and my bones ache when I get out of bed in the morning. All this and yet I persist and I’m enjoying it. Is this masochism by food?

Of course I have plans to change everything back to goodness in 2020. Go plant-based, practice yoga, start swimming, exercise some self-care, all the usual malarkey.

I am worried. I can feel a small lump on the right side of my throat. Having had my thyroid removed in 2017 I'm still going for check ups. Why would there be a lump there? Where would it manifest from? Could it be a rogue lymph node. How does the disease even get in your lymph nodes. Ironically, I know drinking alcohol and eating sugar, stressing out and not taking any me-time are exactly the opposite of what I should be doing.

I had a mini epiphany yesterday while taking the time to ask myself why I felt a certain way when people said untoward things to me. It was that ‘I deserve to be here too’. I hope it's not too late.

And seriously woman, get a hold of yourself, there are people starving out there, as well as seahorses holding onto cotton buds in our polluted oceans.

Photographer Justin Hofman's image of a seahorse swimming with a discarded cotton swab illustrates the issues of pollution in our oceans. ... Seahorses ride the ocean currents by grasping floating objects with their tails.

Christmas Baubles 2019

Well it wouldn’t be a W1mum Christmas without posting my annual bauble finds.

I have my eye on this beauty from the RHS (that’s the Royal Horticultural Society) darling.
A greenhouse for the tree. Love it.

RHS Greehouse Decoration £13.00

Erbie, however has made his choice for this year. A blue glass hammerhead shark wearing a Santa hat. I cannot argue, it is his choice, who knows what goes on in a child’s head! From Paperchase where tree decs range from turtles to fortune cookies, so just had to share a couple of others which we might get.

Hammerhead Shark Tree Decoration - Paperchase - £8 

Game controller tree decoration - Paperchase

Paperchase

Are you feeling Christmassy yet?

I might crack open the Baileys later...

Skiathos Island

Many moons ago, long before Erbie was even a chink of an idea in our hedonistic minds, TheGR and I used to fly off, out-of-season, last-minute, to places we had not been before. We had a penchant or the Greek islands and one of which was Skiathos. One of the Sporades chain of islands nestled in the turquoise Aegean. 

Twenty years ago, Skiathos was an undiscovered gem, tired around the edges with half-built hotels, tumble down houses and dirt tracks leading from it’s one main artery road to empty beaches. 

Pine forest backed beaches edge Skiathos

We discovered hidden places such as the Kastro monastery, only reachable on foot. Most of the island was easy to navigate with a bus link from top to bottom - quieter Koukanaries to Skiathos Town next to the airport.

We walked through pine forests to find beautiful vistas of the twinkling sea. I encountered my first Praying Mantis and Swallowtail butterfly and discovered clumps of bee orchid growing in the spring, I easily fell in love with Skiathos.

This beach or that beach?

A small Greek roadside shrine next to a camping sign

Koukanaries itself has beautiful beaches backed by pine and olive groves, clear, clear Aegean blue waters and soft sand, with plenty of interesting bits of driftwood and tiny shells.

Above the beach was a derelict hotel, rooms facing out over a beautiful view to Alonnisos. We’d walk past the empty rooms and giant pots of overgrown geraniums to stand to admire the views.

The Aegean glimpsed through the olive trees in Koukanaries 

One day, we said, we will come back and make it into our film studio. At that time there were plenty of unused half built hotels, owned by the Greek government these had sprung up in the 70s tourist influx and then found themselves derelict in the 90s.

View from Skiathos Town

The narrow cobbled paths in the town led to pastry shops, the laundry, an open air cinema, and traditional Greek clubs such as Kentavros. Skiathos boasts a famous Greek writer called Alexandros Papadiamantis, I read his short stories and visited the museum and art shop.

The Blue House in town

The open air cinema is still there.

As is Kentavros!

We made friends on the island, ‘come back in July or August,’ they said - ‘this is not the real Skiathos’, but funds mainly, made us only visit off-season. But visit we did, year after year, exploring the nearby islands of Tsougria, Skopelos and Alonnisos.

Greek basil matching the shutters in Skiathos Town

When we got older and started earning a bit more money, we splashed out and went in July. Oh my! Another Skiathos opened up to us, a whole street, in-fact. Club street, down by the airport a gyrating, pulsing, booming throng of pretty young things dancing and drinking the night away. One evening a minor earthquake struck, everyone ran outside briefly and then returned to the dance floor as soon as it had passed.

One of the hillside bars in Skiathos Town

Bars on the hill overlooking the Bourtzi, and the harbour were open late into the night. Locals didn’t seem to need sleep, going from clubs at night to bar jobs in the morning, sobering up on Greek coffee and iced water. No one ate breakfast. A constant stream of tourists came and went, July and August were relentless. We loved it.

Skiathos Town

During the day we would walk to the end of the Bourtzi and dive into the sea, or laze on the beaches at the end of a stunning walk through the pines, swimming every day, getting freckles and tan lines with the energy of youth on our side to shower and go out all night again.

Pine forest walk to Mandraki beach

In October, the tiny tavernas on the beach front were filled with old men playing backgammon and drinking tiny cups of thick dark coffee, the windows ran with condensation, shut up to the cold, clear blue skies outside.

Siesta time in town, everyone is home for lunch.

It rains, a lot, in the winter, once you know this, you can spot the drainage channels running down the centre of all the pathways in town. The rain waters gush down the hill to join the sea.

Gullies in the paths for heavy off-season rains.

Most of the bar staff on the island came from elsewhere in Greece to work the Summer season, the Greek guy who took the money on the bus was from Camden in London. ‘Number 53, Skiathos Town’ he’d sing out in a his authentic accent, and we would jump off for a night on the tiles.

The path through the trees to our disused hotel is now paved.

The beach below the hotel was our secret place, or so we believed, not a sunbed in sight, although we did once see a naked old man wandering past whilst we sunbathed.

Our friend Fortis would come drinking with us after his shift, we’d drink shots of of tequila gold with slices of cinnamon sprinkled orange (‘the Greek way’), and smoke Marlboro Red as if they were going out of fashion. Each new year we went back Fortis would joke about how many years TheGR and I had been together, putting up his fingers he'd chant: ‘5 miserable years’, ‘6 miserable years’...

The Greek flag proudly flying on a townhouse

And now, with Erbie ‘22 miserable years’ later, we decided to go back.

Erbie and TheGR exploring the back streets in town.

Boy, some money has been poured into that little gem. Our disused and derelict ‘film studio’ is now a five-star hotel, the scrappy bits of land in front of each room turned into individual suites with plunge pools.

The derelict spaces once inhabited by rough sleepers are now bijou hotel rooms.

Plunge pools in front of the hotel suites.

No need to meander through the pines to the beach now, there is a beach buggy to take you, oh and it's gated, probably soon to be only for the paying guests. 

Personalised airport transfer anyone?

A swathe of land had been cleared and private villas with pools plopped into the landscape, new pines and olive trees have been planted, probably at huge cost, some of the pines already dying, their evergreen needles turning copper. 

Private villas with pools overlooking the Aegean.

Our ‘secret’ beach is now covered to it’s last inch in the thickest, plushest cushioned sunbeds I’ve seen.

Could a humble sunbed be plusher?

Ashtray and beach cocktail menu darling.

Twenty years ago the only salad available was Greek, now there is plenty of choice.

Salad menu...

In town we found an old Italian friend, now a grandad, running a restaurant with his Greek wife’s family. The food was amazing and the views are still to die for.

Our friend Lorenzo’s new restaurant overlooking The Bourtzi.

Skiathos is now a luxury destination and well-know after the filming of Mamma Mia (I’ve still not seen it - and didn’t realise) The prices have sky-rocketed, no longer a cheap getaway this hidden gem will always have a place in our hearts and is still if not more beautiful.

View through the trees in Skiathos Town

Here is Erbie sitting on the steps of the pathway we climbed twenty years ago, before he was born. Once just a track to a derelict building this is now a paved walkway to a luxury hotel.

Another life.

I’ve had my head in the sand for a few years and sadly not the soft Greek sand of Skiathos.

Columbia Road Flower Market