When did you get so tall?

When did you get so tall, love?
Your shoulders are now broad
Your limbs so long and lithe, love
Your stance so self assured

What happened to your hands, love?
The dimples are all gone
Their span is close to mine, love
Your fingers lean and strong

Your little button nose, love
Your waterfall of hair
The colour of your eyes, love
Your skin so clear and fair

I heard you laugh last night love
The future came to me
That laugh will bring you love, love
So warm, alive and free

I once carried you within, love
Curled tightly like a ball
Where have those years all gone love?
When did you get so tall?

When Your Sense of Style Reaches Crisis Point

Have you ever found you don't know what you're wearing?
And can't believe you've stepped out in the street
Looking like you're totally past caring
With your daughter's Crocs placed firmly on your feet.

Have you ever got in just after the school run
And deposited your coat inside the hall
To find out that you forgot to put your bra on
And the top you're wearing is a size too small?

When you work from home do you feel motivated

I really *must* stop doing this!

To dress like you've a meeting to go to?
Or do you wear the jeans that you've always hated
With a bleach stain where you once cleaned out the loo

Have you ever left the house in such a hurry
That you've just put on what's closest to the door
Even if it is a jumper stained with curry
Or a coat that has spent ten days on the floor

Have you ever spent the whole day in your gym kit
After just one hour spent on exercise
Pushing trolleys around Waitrose isn't keep fit
But those leggings really do hold in our thighs!

Have you ever thought where did that young girl go to?
Have you ever thought where is my sense of style?
Have you ever thought thank christ that pressure's over
And allowed yourself a great big massive smile?

I know I'm not the only one who's out there
Whose fashion sense has taken such a blow
But I think I've reach the point where I do not care
There are times when it is fine to just let go!

Good Grief?

Facebook often gets criticised (deservedly) for being a place where people post mindless, thoughtless, ill-advised and sometimes downright offensive images and opinions.  It's also a place where I have seen some of the most poignant, beautiful, humane, heart-warming and heart-breaking posts.

A post that struck a chord with me recently was written by a friend that began "Today, I outlived my Dad at the age of 42".  This is a point that I will also reach in the next couple of years and reading his words made me reflect on the nature of the grieving that we go through - or perhaps more specifically that I have gone through. 

So here you have it:  Some Stuff I've Learned About Grief

• It can smash you across the face and leave you struggling for breath
• It can fill you with an energy that will enable you to perform feats of superhuman strength.  Anyone who has seen a man act as pallbearer to his wife or a child follow the coffin of their parent will know what that strength looks like
• It will cause you to run from town centres in tears with nothing but sobs to offer the strangers who stop to ask you what has happened
• It can also cause you to take incredibly large risks that will make you look back at those times and want to protect the person that you were
• You end up finding milestones or markers that you hadn't expected - for me this includes when my son reached the age of my youngest brother when our dad died.  Or when I reached the age of my mother when she was widowed.  It has helped me to empathise more with how things must have been for her and thank my lucky stars for all I currently have.
• The person who has died will crop up in all sorts of places.  I thought the registrar at our wedding was going to insist on a seance, so adamant was she that I needed to recall precisely the job my dead father had before he became terminally ill despite the fact that I had a living, breathing mother in the very next room.  Hopefully that kind of 'awkward' moment will become a thing of the past soon with #mothersonmarriagecerts (read here for more).
• It can send shock waves through families that ripple on for decades and for some the waves never recede
• The people who put up with all of the tears, snot, puffy-eyes, irrational fears, panicking and maudlin moments are keepers
• We know it happens to us all in the end, but it doesn't make it any easier

But it is not all bad.  It can't be all bad.

The experience of loved ones dying and the continual process of grief reminds us that our life can be short.  It helps us to try to remember the things that are important, to put things in perspective or to notice moments of beauty and joy and remember them.

And so I sit here; 26 years to the day that my dad died and whilst I am sad, I am happy for the life that he and my mum gave me, and the life that I now have.  If grief has taught me one thing, it is that life is good.


Footnote:
If you want a more scientific view on grief, you might like to take a look at the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle.  I've come across it twice in my life - once when studying for a psychology A-level (when it came in very bloody handy for helping me understand what the hell was going on) and secondly during an exercise discussing change in teams in a corporate setting (less useful). You can read more here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

The Panto

If you're a lover of colourful language
If you're in awe of the double entendre
If you're mad about men wearing make-up
And you're wild about waving a wand

Then you need a seat at the panto
Where the sexiest woman's a man
Where the lead boy is often a lady
But be careful if you take your gran....

Every other line is innuendo
Every innocent item is rude
Cream horns and big baps are now filthy
Stick it in dear, we love when it's lewd!

The best lines belong to the animals
The best legs belong to the dame
And there's always an actor who makes you think
"What a minute - is that whatsisname?"

There'll be singing and shouting a plenty
Costume changes and a set piece or two
And if there's only one thing you remember
When you see the bad guy, you must BOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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This poem was is dedicated to the Corn Exchange Newbury, and in particular the cast of Dick Whittington - panto at its best! 

A Christmas Warning

Merry Christmas everyone!

At Christmas, enter my house at your peril
The rooms are all bomb sites, the children are feral

New guests arrive as the last are departing
Our brains are in a funk, and everyone's farting

Days pass in a haze, we slump and we list
We're fed up of Twister and being half-pissed

Last week we were lively, fresh faced and perky
Now our skin's gone to pot, and our insides are turkey

The mere thought of port makes me want to heave
I won't touch a drop, til at least New Year's Eve

Why Christmas Cards Matter

It was always Aunty Janet who was first.  Sometimes her card would arrive at the end of November; spaced out letters carefully indicating our address.  That award has now been passed on to Aunty Margaret - 1st of December her card popped through the door, beginning what is one of my favourite traditions: the sending of the Christmas cards.

Ah - the mark of the left-hander

Card writing is more fraught for us left-handers - pens must be chosen carefully or else our thoughtful missives become streaked with the mark of those born 'cack-handed' - but I truly enjoy those couple of hours that I spend thinking of each person as I write out their card.  Remembering their children's names; the laughs we have had; how our lives have changed since the last time that we saw each other.

There are those that think Christmas cards are a waste of time, those who think they are a waste of money and those who (like my uncle) are extremely vexed if the card contains no more than a "Merry Christmas".  As he so succinctly puts it "why bother to send a card all the way to Australia if you're not prepared to bloody well write something proper in it?".

My father-in-law pens a couple of sentences to each of the grandchildren in their Christmas and birthday cards which convey an entire story related to the picture on the front of the card.  His handwriting is expressive and lyrical and what he writes makes me so happy for the children that I am doubly glad I am married to his son - those cards go in the box marked 'keep forever'.

Only one person I know writes like this..

We all want to make our mark in the world and one of the easiest ways to do it is by putting pen to paper.  To show someone we've thought of them, to take the time out to do so.  Using a groovy font on an email is no substitute for the individual loop of your letters, no replacement for the joy that is your glad tidings written on something that is real.

Hmmmm - 'arty'

One of the cards that arrived for me today made me squeal with excitement as I could tell it was Laura from the envelope.  There is absolutely no mistaking her handwriting and it reminded me of all those teenage years that we spent scrawling Prince lyrics on her bedroom walls and trying to pose 'artfully' with unlit cigarettes hanging out of our mouths (whilst we were rebellious - we weren't stupid enough to smoke when her dad was home....).  I think of the teenagers that we were and the women we have become and I am so happy that we are still in touch.

These flecks of ink on envelopes have the power to move me before I've even looked at the contents and I know I'm not the only one.  We end as we begin with Aunty Janet; it is her funeral and amongst the flowers is a piece of writing that I will never forget: a square of paper decorated with flowers that reads "Your cards were always first."

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What every woman wants for Christmas

Darling, don't buy me a Dyson
When you're out Christmas shopping this year
There's something else I've got my eyes on
But it seems that my hints are not clear

Sweetie, do not buy me saucepans
I don't care how special they are
And I would think twice, if you think it is nice
To buy anything that's "for the car"

Lover, do not buy me lingerie
That is tacky, or lacking in taste
Yes to knickers of silk, or a similar ilk
But not with holes "strategically placed"

Wubsy, if you buy me weighing scales
You may find them wrapped round your head
I don't want to measure the impact of food pleasure
So I'd like something special instead

Something that is unique and fabulous
Something to take my breath away
Something that is killer, as my stocking filler
To give me the best Christmas Day

But don't expect me just to tell you
What I want, or to which shop you should go
If you want the surprise to light up in my eyes
I expect you to simply just know.