The Bosching Machine

Dear Bosch

You say you offer a superior wash

But must you announce the laundry's end

With an ear-splitting noise that's bound to send


A person racing across the kitchen

To turn you off, and I am itching

To find your bleep and rip it out

"TURN OFF THE MACHINE!!" is the family shout


It would be cheaper to use you at night

But then you'd beep, which means I might

Take a hammer to your door

And spill your workings across the floor



At every wash I'd lain in wait

To stop the sound that I so hate

Until I found, oh joy of joys!

This clip of how to kill your noise....

The Tandem

Ten minutes after this photo was taken
I wasn't smiling quite so much.....

"Let's ride a tandem" my husband said
Planting a seed inside my head
Of a romantic gesture, built for two
"I'll ride up front, and chauffeur you"

I thought it was a marvelous treat
Until ten minutes spent in the seat
Revealed that the tandem we had on loan
Had a back seat that was made of stone

And whilst the pace was easy to keep
My nether regions fell straight to sleep
"Please can we stop" I found myself sobbing
My legs were fine but my noony was throbbing!

We dismounted: and this feels hard to explain
But along with standing like John Wayne
Came a pins & needles fizzing sensation
That made me lose my concentration

Back on the bike and I can vouch
I said something a lot stronger than "ouch"
It felt like a brick was beneath my smalls
I held in a scream and wished I had balls

The man at the bike shop said "How was your ride?"
As I hobbled, wobbled and staggered inside
"My bits really hurt" I said with a choke
"I see why", he replied, "that seat's meant for a bloke!"

Bush Issues

You know how it is 
When you want to go for a swim
You look down below....
and the bush needs a trim

You think to yourself
Would this look ok?
If I tucked it all in ...
Or would hair start to stray

With each movement I made
To get into the pool
If I put on some board shorts
Do you think I could fool

The hirsute swimmer's friend

Other swimmers in thinking
I was a surf chick?
If I had a quick shave
There's a risk I might nick
That delicate skin
And come out in a rash
And I'd rather have hair
Than spots round my gash

If pull down the front
Do you think it might hide 
My topiary? But if I go down the slide....
It will ride up and show I'm too busy relaxing
Than to spend my time plucking and shaving and waxing

And then I see blokes
With their big hairy guts
All covered in pubes from their throats to their nuts
Who don't need to be shaved
Yet when it comes to my bits
They must be so carefully managed 
And it's....

Very unfair and a little bit weird
That my foof must be covered
But not a man's beard!

The filter gets clogged
With the hair from their backs
The pool would be cleaner
If men all got waxed!

Stiletto Shoes

Stiletto shoes
You're the footwear I'd choose

These will be going back in the box then......

If my car was driven by a chauffeur
Or I never had to leave my sofa

If I never had the school run to do...
Oh how I'd cherish a pretty shoe
And on those rare occasions when
I try to put on heels again


You make my ankles painfully twist
And fail to hold me up when pissed
I've decided it's probably better that
I stick to shoes that are sturdy and flat

Push

"Push through your bottom" the midwife said
As I lay panting on the bed
"Push, push, push! I can feel the head!"
"SO CAN I!" was my reply...


"Now push, now wait....
no more pushing until you completely dilate."


"Now push, then pant in measured spurts
And I know Mrs Kent your vagina hurts
You should listen to me, I am wiser and older
Must you bite your husband on the shoulder?"

"Push, push, push, just one more try!"
There was a rip, and a slip, and a baby's cry
A girl, a daughter!
A hug, and then
"I am never doing that again."

I Need a Wife

I need a wife
Someone to organise my life 
To sort out bills 
Do the shopping too 
To clean the wee from around the loo..  

Someone who remembers when term ends 
When homework's due 
Someone who sends.. 
Completed forms and makes dates to play
Who never forgets an inset day 

Someone to manage groups and clubs 
Gymnastics, swimming, judo, cubs 
Washing, drying, washing again 
Darks and delicates, whites and then... 
Someone who can quickly find the one sock that got left behind 

Someone to stem the tide of mess 
Sew on badges, hem a dress 
Hoover the house, get filing done 
Speak to the bank, make homework "fun" 

I look around my house and see
It's chaos if you're married to me
The kids' shoes are missing, disorder is rife 
I just have to face it I need a wife!

I Don't Want To Talk About It

A couple of months ago my daughter brought home a road safety DVD, the aim of which is to help parents teach their children to safely cross the road.  It says that most children are not safe to cross a road unaccompanied until they are ten years of age.  

A few weeks after that I receive a letter to inform me that my daughter's PSHE lessons will include a cartoon depiction of sexual intercourse - I just hope it's not between Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse - Mickey will go nuts!  Joking aside I can't help but wonder how a child considered not old enough to cross the road is seen as old enough to watch a depiction of the technicalities of sex - it doesn't seem to make sense.  

I'm not a prude, or naive.  Both children know precisely how they were born - even if my son does insist on referring to it as when babies are 'laid' (I blame the fact that we keep chickens) -  we told them the truth on that one as soon as they asked.  The children know that conception (most of the time) requires a man and a woman and a 'cuddle' but beyond that they haven't pressed to find out more and so I feel a bit sad that the decision to discuss this is being made by someone else.  Now, we could opt out of our daughter seeing the video but I think it is probably better for her to watch it rather than have it described to her by a fellow class mate with a vivid imagination, or one who's suffering from the shock of realising that her mum and dad do that thing, or one who might see it as great sport to make something up ("yeah - the man puts willy in the lady's belly-button!").

There's loads of very useful stuff too - explanations of puberty, body changes, hormones, emotions  - all things that will be here sooner than we'd like and it would be wrong to pretend it's not going to happen, but sex?  Do we really need to cover that right now?  In the context of our daughter's life so far, it's (hopefully) at least another lifetime away for her and her peer group, even if as parents we joke that we hope it's at least another twenty...

Maybe I am getting too het up about what is, after all, just a 'fact of life', maybe our daughter will do little more than express utter disgust or mild hilarity.  Maybe she already knows....  This being uncharted territory for us as a family, perhaps this worry comes from not having talked about it before.  My own experience was (if my memory serves me right) being shown a video of childbirth at school which did a great job of making all the children say "I'm never, ever having sex!!" and being given a book called 'Woman's Experience of Sex' by Sheila Kitzinger by my mum which became quite a talking point for me and my friends.  With a more mature mind I can appreciate its frank, even-handed explanation and illustrations of post-birth vaginas, masturbation and sexuality but at the time it served mostly as a tool to amuse and repulse me and my pre-teen friends.  I am forever thankful that its pictures were black and white, there were a lot of them *shudders*.

One friend has, very kindly, provided me with perhaps a more suitable book to help support the conversations that we're going to have to have - a nice practical one with not too many pictures that give you nightmares.  I'm sure it will be fine, I'm sure I'll discover that our daughter knows more than we think but if I'm honest, I don't really want to talk about it.

Photo Credit: www.sxc.hu

Soundtrack: I Don't Want to Talk About it - Everything But The Girl (you could have Crazy Horse or Rod Stewart but I'm picking this one :) )

Hey Boy, Hey Girl

I came across the campaign Pink Stinks the other day (www.pinkstinks.org.uk) - it targets "the products, media and marketing that prescribe heavily stereotyped and limiting roles to young girls" and I'm with it.

I'm quite sick of seeing everything from Kinder Eggs to Lego being separated out via the use of packaging into ones that are 'for boys' and 'for girls'.  Since when did a chocolate egg containing a crap plastic toy become gender specific and since when did it matter whether you were a boy or a girl to make something out of bricks?

I'm lucky that within my daughter's peer group many of her friends have mothers with interesting careers - she sees that it's equally possible for a woman to be a scientist as it is to be a sculptor, social worker, 'person in IT' (come on, even when I did it the kids didn't have a clue what my actual job was!) or teacher.  It feels essential to me that she knows all of these options, and more, are within reach.

And then, in amongst this rejoicing that my daughter sees a world of possibility is a never ending parade of Disney Princesses, feminised Nerf guns, and even entire shops with aisles that are dedicated to 'boys toys' and 'girls toys'.  For her, this results in a conflict between the role models in her life and what companies want her to believe she should like for the benefit of their bottom line.  She's smart enough to know the purpose of the advertising but I would be naive to think that it doesn't influence her, or to fail to recognise views and opinions on what boys and girls 'should' like hasn't influenced every generation before hers.

At this early stage in her life I'm fortunate in that the images she has access to can be managed to a certain extent.  We can make sure she doesn't see Rhianna with her tits or arse hanging out at an awards ceremony (again) when we're using the internet together.  We can stop Page 3 coming into the house.  We can give her positive choices that help her her value herself for who she is, and her achievements, rather how she looks.  But it's far, far harder when it comes to the question of toys and attitudes that tell our girls they should want princess figures and pedicures and our boys they should like diggers and guns.  

But it's not just a question of 'telling' the children that the advertisers are wrong.  Oh no, it's got to be balanced with not being too vitriolic in my opinion of toy princesses with big plastic tits and come hither expressions.  For her to make a choice, her own choice, I need to tone down the face that looks like I've just picked up a dog poo when we walk through The Entertainer.  But until they get shot of the pink packaging, that's going to be hard to do...



Soundtrack: Hey Boy Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers

Slave to the Rhythm

When I was in my twenties and living in Reading, every Monday to Friday was taken up with going to work, going to the gym and going out in the evening.  Saturdays were for shopping and going to the pub, and Sundays were for lie-ins and pints of Guinness once the hangover had disappeared.

This remained largely unchanged until Mr K and I moved to a village where going shopping requires either a car journey, playing 'bus roulette' with the six that run each day or a £50 round trip in a taxi, and 'going to the pub' is quite literally that - you go to the pub, the only one in the village.  Sundays remained intact - winner!  The rhythm of our lives was set by where we had to be (work) and where we wanted to be (pub).

Then our daughter was born which introduced us to a new rhythm dictated mostly by her need to feed.  A perfect bundle of limbs and lovely smelling skin that took our self-indulgent Saturday nights out and Sunday lie-ins and drop-kicked them out of the window.  Our lives no longer had the easy vibe of mellow soul music, they had all the shrieking and parping of avant-garde jazz.  She didn't do the best job of turning us mad with sleep deprivation though, as a couple of years later we decided to do it all over again.  Enter the boy-wonder: bed-leaper and early-riser.

As a couple who both worked full-time, our children went to nursery full-time.  Nursery opening hours became our clocking-in system and caused us to have panic attacks if we were on the motorway at 5.45pm, as a minute past 6.00pm and you WOULD GET FINED!!  Perhaps more terrifying was the thought of being given a telling off by the manager which would leave you feeling like A. a bad parent and B. a corporate slave.  Wrong on point A, probably quite right on point B. 

Then our daughter started school which threw a ginormous spanner in the works.  Nursery and normal work hours were the same, but school?  What do you mean it ends at 3.15pm?!  We cleared that hurdle, found a way and as of last September, found ourselves again in the happy place of both children in the same place at the same time.  Bliss.  All seemed to be going swimmingly until, well swimming actually.  I thought all the after school activities were aligned, I thought I had very cleverly gamed the system making sure I only ever needed to be in one place at one time.  Until this afternoon, until my lovely girl proudly told me that she was being moved up a level in swimming which means a change of day and time.  A day and time that doesn't fit in with her brother's lesson.  Life and swimming lessons; laughing their arses off at me and creating a frantic scrabble in my brain to try to make all the clubs, appointments and non-uniform days fit together with having a job, running a house and the million other commitments it seems like we have.  

Oh well, we'll figure it out I thought.  It's only one change and perhaps by next week our son will have magically leaped several levels in swimming so they'll be on the same day again.  And then tonight I found the letter in our son's book bag (come on - who actually checks book bags when the kids get home from school?  You must always check on a Sunday night - or Bank Holiday Monday in this instance - always!) telling me that he has a new club after school.  And it clashes with swimming.....

Soundtrack: Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones

Wee Rule

After signing up to do the Moonwalk with a group of girls in the village, I received a pack which went into a huge amount of detail on how to keep yourself safe from the rest of the human race (which was slightly alarming, I was hoping for something a little more "yay! go you!" than "avoid quiet pathways...lined with bushes where someone could be hiding") provided lots of encouragement to spend money on branded kit, and contained a plan on how to get yourself to the required level of fitness to walk a marathon in the middle of London, in the middle of the night.  

What it didn't cover was something so crucially important that it was the first question that was raised when we got together to discuss the training - where are you supposed to wee?  You may laugh, mock even, but when you're being encouraged to be out walking for four hours at a time, whilst drinking enough water to remain 'well hydrated', it's likely nature will come calling.

Thing is, the rules for weeing as a girl or woman changes as you age, so which one was going to be right?  

Ages 3-5: Outdoor weeing is facilitated by a red-faced parent trying frantically to brace themselves to adequately support your weight whilst trying not to let your wee go all over their shoes.  Indoor weeing involves being shouted at by your parent not to "lock the door, touch the seat, or 'that blue bin'" and to "make sure you wipe your bum!"

Ages 6-10: Attempts at weeing outdoors 'like a boy' will most certainly result in hilarity and wet shoes.  Attempts at squatting range from the successful 'shake-off' to managing to wet your knickers, legs, skirt and shoes.  Indoor weeing becomes a no brainer.

Ages 11-15: You wouldn't be caught dead weeing outside.  Hold it in and pray no-one makes you laugh.  Indoor weeing may begin to require a friend to go with you so you can have a chat (yes gents *this* is where that comes from!).

Ages 16-21: Depending on location, situation and beverages available you may be found disgracing yourself by weeing in a shop doorway / on a train station concourse / on the toilet floor.  This may also be accompanied by wild laughter / manic crying / the encouragement of your friends.

This is lovely, but where's the sign for the toilets?

22 - onwards:  Hopefully you have enough control of both your behaviour and bladder that the art of weeing does not occupy too much of your mind beyond being a natural bodily function.  Unless you're at a festival, in which case you have the opportunity to develop the thighs of a skiier thanks to the position you must assume to avoid coming into contact with anything inside a portaloo.  To avoid this experience, I did once try a 'She-Wee' - what an evil little piece of origami it was.  I wee-d on my hands, and decided to return to the 'downhill skier' pose.  Far better to feel pain shoot down your thighs than wee run down your jeans.

Then you have children, and the whole bloody circus starts again as your life revolves around someone else's pee and poop when all you wish for is the opportunity to go to the toilet in peace. Just once.  Pleeeease.

But back to those rules, well luckily we are training in the countryside which does offer relative seclusion and privacy, so should nature decide that it cannot be ignored we can re-visit the struggle and hilarity of our childhood, just with the added complication of lycra and a different centre of gravity.  This works out great for our training walks but I just don't know how well that's going to go down on a London pavement - better check the rules...

Soundtrack:  Wee Rule - Wee Papa Girl Rappers

It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way That You Do It

Well there I was in Waitrose today, enjoying the general ambience and still feeling slightly bemused by the introduction of a coffee machine at the front of the store that means grown men and women walk round with 'sippy cups' whilst they do their shopping, causing them to clumsily steer their trolley one-handed and end up with an empty cup with nowhere to put it by the time they're half-way through their shop, when I was stopped in my tracks.

On the newspaper stand, was a front page that showed a woman wearing just a pair of knickers with her arm across her breasts.  Err, what?  Isn't John Lewis a bastion of lovely things and being 'never knowingly undersold'?  Had Waitrose left the partnership and been sold to a petrol station chain?  Were they about to start stocking 'Nuts' and 'Zoo' amongst the houmous and Cath Kidston homeware?  No to all of the above, it was in fact The Sun, a paper that staunchly defends the basic human right of every man, woman and child to see a pair of women's breasts every day.

I paused for a moment to consider what to do.  Part of me quite fancied gathering up the papers in my arms and dumping them in the bin (wouldn't have been able to do that, too many coffee cups in it), part of me wanted to immediately tweet my anger (ooh, digital foot stamping, how very 'now'!) but then I thought actually I might just ask if I could talk to the manager to see what he or she thought.  I asked at the counter and a manager was duly summonsed up who brought another colleague with her; we took a walk to the display and stood in front of it together.

Turns out that the image in question is to promote a campaign that The Sun have signed up to with the charity 'Coppafeel', founded by a woman whose breast cancer has spread and become inoperable. Coppafeel aims to encourage more women to check their breasts regularly, thereby increasing early detection rates and saving lives.  Early detection would have prevented their founder from finding herself in the position she is today. I am well on board with the charity, its message should have greater exposure but the cynic in me can't help but feel that The Sun are using this as a means to justify their continued use of a full page image of a half-naked women to shift newspapers.  And now they can put one on the front cover because, you see, it's about raising awareness of breast cancer.  So that makes it alright, doesn't it?

Except it doesn't.  Because in the course of the conversation between me and the two Waitrose partners (don't you love that they're all partners?), they described how they had been disconcerted when their papers arrived that morning as they do not stock magazines with those kind of images on the front - they know it's not what their customers want.  They noted how the papers were displayed at child-height and we wondered quite how 'sexy Page 3 lady' was a vehicle for reaching out to women and encouraging them to check their breasts.  It was billed as 'Page 3 vs Breast Cancer' - are they going to use their bare breasts to take cancer on?  Are we going to be treated every 'Check 'Em Tuesday'  to a picture of the breasts that Sun readers would most like to check?  It just didn't sit well.  

Turning our back on Page 3 - thank you Waitrose x

"Is there anything you can do?" I asked.  "Well", the manager said, "I can't take them down, because they pay to be on our display, and we have to honour that contract.  But what I can do, is turn them over."  She took both of the stacks on the display and turned them over so the back pages faced out rather than the front.  We couldn't stop David Dinsmore's crusade to keep breasts on the breakfast table but one polite request from me, and some thoughtfulness on the part of the Waitrose staff had taken the tits away from the till.  

There are ways and means of getting your message across; as I found today a quiet word was more effective than shouting the odds or throwing papers in the bin.  So if the team at The Sun really does support the Coppafeel campaign, really does care about the lives and bodies of its readers that are affected by breast cancer, really does want to make a positive difference, then I hope they find a different way to do it.


Soundtrack: Ain't What You Do - Fun Boy Three & Bananarama
  

Some Things Will Never Change

This morning we were onto a winner.  Time spent preparing last night meant that book bags, PE bags and laptop bags were neatly lined in the hall.  I KNEW where my keys were, which is as rare an occurrence for me as seeing a shooting star, and the children's school uniforms were all clean and ready.  

I sailed through traffic on the way to my meeting, singing along loudly to the radio and revelling in the freedom of finally being let out of the Christmas-shaped cage that was becoming less and less appealing as the school holidays went on (I love watching Elf, eating until I am full from stomach to throat, playing games and drinking port in the middle of the day as much as the next person but seriously, we were all in need of some personal space).  I got to my destination early, caught up with some great friends and colleagues and managed to leave with them the box of festive Fox's biscuits that I had been itching to get out of the kitchen cupboard for fear of tearing them open and adding an inch to my waistline in one sitting.

The children went straight to a friend's house after school which meant there was no demented rush to get back in time and there was peace and quiet in the house when I got home.  Bliss.  I packed the kids' swimming kits, put the bags in the back of my car (oh how prepared, how very organised!), sauntered over to my friend's house to pick up the children, had a nice chat and then actually enjoyed the drive to the pool as the children were, for once, not trying to throttle each other over who sat in which seat.  'I can do this!  I really can do this!' I thought to myself as I led the children to get changed.  And then I realised in all of my blissed out 'I'm so organised' state I had forgotten two things:

1. Velcro is not your friend.  Especially when it comes to your children's school shoes coming into contact with your tights.  Massive ladder, no spare tights and I end up rocking the 'middle aged punk' look.  In a bad way.

2. A swimming hat and a pair of goggles is not enough clothing for the swimming pool - I had forgotten my daughters costume. 

As there was no time to drive all the way home and back again, and you can't (like in PE) do swimming 'in your vest and pants', I let the lovely lady at the swimming pool enjoy watching me vainly search through the contents of two swimming bags on my hands and knees in my snagged tights before giving in and allowing her to sell me a new one.  My daughter was very pleased and I was put back in my rightful place: one of disarray, general confusion and cocking things up.  Ah well, there's always next year....



 Soundtrack: The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby and the Range

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Here's a little follow up to my last post supporting the #nomorePage3 campaign.

I asked a member of each of the main parties in Newbury if they'd sign the petition requesting that David Dinsmore, Editor of The Sun reconsider the content of Page 3 and this is what happened:

Labour: I contacted Richard Garvie who texted me within 30 minutes to say that he'd signed the petition - whoop!

Conservative: I got in touch with Richard Benyon, MP who replied with a rather lovely letter (below).  Great that he agrees with the aims of the campaign, but I think he has misunderstood what it's asking MP's to do.  We're not asking you to legislate Richard, just show your support! (pretty please). 

Liberal Democrat: I emailed Judith Bunting who I'm yet to hear from...come on lady!

Three messages, two replies and only a few minutes work on my part to promote the hard graft of a few people who are really putting themselves out there to try to take the tits off the tea-tables in our local café and soft play.  So if you've got a few minutes to spare, drop a line to your local MP and give these girls a hand!

We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off

I have never written to my (or in fact any) MP before.  But I just have.  Well, when I say 'written to' I have in fact requested via Twitter that he sign a letter to David Dinsmore; Editor of The Sun newspaper to put an end to the Page 3 'feature' of a woman with her breasts on display.

We don't buy The Sun (or borrow, steal or read it on the sly in case you're wondering) but my mum and dad used to when I was growing up.  This meant that the female role models available to me as a child included Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi.  It is almost comical that at a time when a woman was running the country my curious young mind was getting a picture of a pair of baps with my breakfast as an example of what it meant to be a woman.

Of course my parents didn't open the paper at Page 3 and make me look at the picture of 'Suki, aged 19 and a 32D' but I did pick up and read everything I could get my hands on and it would be wrong for me to say that the daily image of a half-naked woman didn't in some way inform my views on (and issues with) my own body-image and what men like and look for in women.  It's not just a 'harmless bit of fun'.

So for that reason, and for the reason that it's outdated, irrelevant and not the reason that many people buy The Sun I've asked Richard Benyon to sign the letter here: http://nomorepage3.org/letter-to-the-editor-signed-by-mps/ 

Lucy Holmes - Campaign Founder
and chief t-shirt rocker!

And how about you?  Would you like to reduce the potential for your sons, daughters, nieces and nephews to have a picture of a pair of teenage breasts stuck in front of them at your local newsagents or softplay?  Or perhaps you'd just like to reduce the likelihood of having to explain to them why it exists when they do :)  If so, you can head on over here http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

You can learn more about the No More Page 3 campaign and admire or buy their rather
fetching 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' style t-shirts - here: http://nomorepage3.org/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soundtrack: We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off by Jermaine Jackson

I Get So Emotional

I took the children to see The Croods at the cinema yesterday.  A visual spectacular with a plot line that involves a cave-family realising that they have must change or die because 'the end is coming'.  Volcanoes erupt, the land parts, mountains shake and their cave is decimated.  We crunch through popcorn and I am wistful for the days of my youth where going to the cinema was about queuing outside the 'ABC' in a state of near hysteria at getting to see the latest film but I am grateful that the seats today are massive and nobody smokes or throws Mint Imperials at the back of your head.  

And then towards the end 'Mr Crood' is separated from his family and his daughter starts crying, and so do I.  For goodness sake!  I am crying at a children's film.  Not heaving sobs of heartache you must understand but more than a couple of tears slid their way down my face at the sight of the cave-girl's massive tear-filled eyes and trembling bottom lip.  This was not a one off either - since having the children there aren't many programmes, songs or news stories that don't set me off.  That's why mums always have a tissue up their sleeve, not for bogey-noses, but in case a baby smiles at them or a dog whimpers or a song that contains a piano comes on the radio.

You might think that I shouldn't be so emotional but it's programmed in.  From having a parent's-eye-view of terrible two's and wild boys, to remembering my own teenage angst (and really, really hoping that my children somehow magically skip that) to the wonder of reproductive hormones I'm inclined to believe we're designed to be emotional from the minute we shout our way indignantly into the world.  Having children aside there has been enough activity to keep things interesting for years and when it all gets too much, I am thankful to have found my 'fix' in running.  Magical stuff.    

And then I'm talking to a friend who utters the words 'peri-menopausal'.  I'm wondering if this is a new type of Nando's flavour but no, she tells me it is the time before you are 'pre-menopausal' which is before the menopause after which you become 'post menopausal'.  I think the life-span of a man is generally taken to be as Morrissey so succinctly put it in Cemetary Gates; 'they were born and then they lived and then they died'.  Quite why women's lives are being sliced into ever tinier sections to be labelled and treated I don't know.  The cynic in me says it's because the drug companies would like to find new reasons to sell us gallons of evening primrose and anti-ageing pills when we all know that a glass of wine and good company has a significantly greater impact on your mood.  Or maybe they are really run by mega-hippies that want to help us all 'chill-out man' as we reach middle-age.

I don't know, so until the point that I am peri, piri, pingy, poingy or whatever it is that I am to be labelled I shall carry on crying at kids films, and if all the terrible things that my friend described really are on the way, I'm going to need a new pair of running shoes.

IT's Different for Girls

IT and Proud!

I am watching a webcast designed to discuss and promote the role of women in IT featuring contributions from female business owners and senior execs.  They are going to share their success stories and advise us on how to encourage more girls to consider a career in the sector.  So far, so inspiring.  Until four minutes in one of the panel says 'being a woman in IT is hard because we have to manage so many things, like doing the shopping."  LIKE DOING THE SHOPPING?!  One small sentence for a woman, one giant negative stereotype for womankind.

The rest of the webcast was useful but I bet there were people that switched off at that point.  Possibly it was an indicator of her domestic set up and probably she didn't intend it to sound the way it did but it made my heart sink.  Of all the challenges that I have seen and experienced as a woman working in the IT industry, 'doing the shopping' doesn't even make the list.  

The actual challenges I've experienced sit in two camps:

Encounters with cavemen:
Such as the newly appointed sales director who said on my first meeting with him to discuss my career: "If I was a customer and you came into my office, I'd think you were a secretary".  

Such as the finance manager who when I told him I didn't want to buy a car on finance thought he could change my mind by saying: "But even housewives can get finance".

Such as the Regional Director who said to my manager "How can you concentrate with that in the office?" and winked.

Encounters with uninformed people:
Like the pupils I met at a careers day who were asked to guess what job I did. They guessed 'a secretary, or a nurse, or veterinary assistant, or a shop assistant, or a primary school teacher'.  I wouldn't mind but for the fact that they had a description of what my job involved.  Their guesses were based on what jobs they thought women generally do.

People in the first camp seem to subscribe strongly to the 'Pub Landlord' view of suitable careers for women and are unlikely to be swayed.  I decided not to work for the first person, I didn't buy from the second person, and the third; well I was twenty at the time and not really sure what to do about it so I ignored him.  Hopefully they will wake up when their daughters are earning more than them.

The second issue is closer to my heart and I think we can do something about it.  If we can encourage more girls to consider IT and let them see that coding is cool and if coding's not their thing that there are hundreds of other interesting jobs in sales, marketing, finance, training and support then we might start to see the tide change.  Yes some of the job descriptions are a bit nebulous (made up even), and a lot of the jobs are not as socially useful or important as other professions and trades, but there are children who may miss out on life-transforming opportunities because they have a narrow view of the world of work.

So how to make sure that the next wave of girls joining the workplace know there is a place for them in IT?  If you are a woman in IT and you love what you do, please lend your voice to encourage more girls to join in, whether it's a careers event at your old school, supporting something like DigiGirlz, joining one of the Women in IT social networks or checking out the work of the pioneering Little Miss Geek.  Talk, tweet, network and blog about it, tell people you're IT and Proud.  Let's start inspiring and sod the shopping!

Soundtrack: It's Different for Girls by Joe Jackson

What a Girl Wants, What a Girl Needs

Not school-run suitable

Through a website that I quite like having a browse for shopping tip-offs; Avenue57, I came across Easy Living magazine's 'School Runway' - where mums can upload photos of themselves in outfits that they wear for the school run in order to look like they sail through motherhood without a hair out of place - and I was amazed.  Whilst a few of the women were wearing normal clothes, most of the women were wearing proper 'outfits', complete with statement handbags, improbable heels and designer cloaks, jumpsuits, and corsets.  I am willing to bet that they had dressed up especially and made their nannies hide out of shot because I'm not buying that these are 'normal' pictures.  Mild irritation aside that these ladies looked impossibly glamourous at 8am, and that I have a far more limited budget than them, my argument is this:

When you do the school run, unless you are driving, or even better - you have a chauffeur, it is simply not possible to do it in the kind of clothes that you wear in your imagination.  I would love to spend my days wearing beautifully tailored trousers, gossamer-fine knitwear and chic shoes.  In the summer this would be swapped for flirty tea dresses, strappy sandals and some Jackie-O sunglasses, and if I really wanted to go to town perhaps I would wear a dramatic gown and stunning heels and tip up sipping a cocktail.  But no, this would not work because what you actually need is the following:

• A hood.  Because it will in all likelihood rain whilst you are walking to / from school and it is not possible to carry an umbrella and try to stay in control of two six-year-olds who would like you to carry their PE kits, lunch boxes and book bags while they pretend to be horses.

• Flat shoes.  If at some point you need to run away from the rain / after a child / to school because you're late (again), you will fare better in flats.  As a lifelong lover of heels I have compromised with cowboy boots but it still feels like a betrayal.

• Massive pockets or a bag that it's ok to get trashed.  Even if you don't carry much in the way of 'stuff', your child will be guaranteed to give you at least one thing to take care of as soon as they reach you on the school playground.  It will probably be wet, or sticky, or chewed, or all three.  Chuck it in your handbag and pray it doesn't stick to your phone...  And if you are going to the park on the way home then you must be prepared to leave your bag on wet grass or some unspecified goo that you didn't see when putting it down to push your child on the swing.  Pray that it is Diet Coke and not cat 'musk'.

Yee-ha: Yes.  Wow-wee: No

There are some mums who carry the above off really well, teaming a retro parka with skinny jeans and biker boots or who are still young enough to look indie with a tour t-shirt, a pair of black drainpipes and battered Converse.  For me though, there are times when I get back after dropping my daughter off and think "what the hell have I just left the house in?!"  As it is often a combination of skinny combat/cargo trousers, aforementioned cowboy boots, an ancient hoody, and a quilted jacket (with a hood - let's not forget the hood) because it's too cold for anything else and it might rain, I feel like my clothes are shouting 'tally-ho!', 'yee-ha!', 'respec' and 'run for cover!' all at the same time.  I am wearing what I need in order to be practical, not what I want.

That said, there are times when I manage to park the car back home and walk to collect my daughter after a day in the office where I have worn clothes that I enjoy and that don't making me look like I've run through a fancy dress shop.   This fixes the 'look' issue but walking half a mile in heels takes much longer than in flats and when it's combined with wearing your favourite Hobbs number and living in a village it does make you feel slightly conspicuous as you trip-trap your way down a street on which there are no offices.  It does also offer many opportunities to go over on your ankle which takes you back to being 14 and practising to walk in high-heels.  

Now this is a bit more like it!

So as I am about to embark on going back to work properly, and this may become a more regular occurrence, and I'm not about to start wear trainers with tights, I've decided there's only one thing for it. I'm getting a chauffeur.  Bring on the gown!

Soundtrack: What a Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera

I Can't Get No Sleep

One of my friends had a beautiful baby girl a few weeks ago and recently posted the following on her Facebook page:

 

 

It made me remember how you don't appreciate just how brilliant sleep is until you are deprived of it over an extended period of time.  For us, it was brought home very suddenly and forcefully when our daughter was born and of all the things that we thought we were prepared for, going without sleep wasn't one of them .  The change from being able to make up for getting in at 3am by staying in bed until 2pm to being woken every two hours to then stay up feeding for an hour is pretty challenging and more than a little mood-altering.  I am not ashamed to admit there were more than a couple of dark moments mixed in with the joy of our new arrival.

I was counselled by friends and relatives to 'sleep when the baby sleeps' and, of course, completely ignored it because I was going to 'carry on as normal'.  I scheduled myself silly but when it got to the point that I got lost on the way back from a hospital appointment (in the village where our daughter was born of all places) and had to call my husband to direct me home I knew that I had to listen to what these smart ladies (and my body) were saying.

Sometimes we need a reminder that there are times our body needs to rest for very good reason.  Times when we should switch off the phone, the pc, the outside world.  My reminder was in the form of going round in circles in Wallingford for twenty minutes feeling like I had lost the plot.  For other friends it was crying in the supermarket, being reminded by a bus driver that they needed to take their baby with them when they got off the bus and for some ticking 'those' boxes on the questionnaire you fill out at your six week check-up with the midwife. 

But this is 'Reasons to be Cheerful' and so I will end with another, happier, reminder.  It was the joy of waking up after a delicious two hour nap that was gifted to me by my friend Nimisha when my daughter was about two months old.  She arrived with a box full of home made Indian sweets rich in sugar and condensed milk to recharge my depleted energy levels then joined forces with my mother-in-law to send me to bed while they looked after the baby.  It was exactly what I needed and absolutely priceless. 

So if you're wondering what to give a new parent for Christmas, give them the best gift of all - some sleep :)

Soundtrack: Insomnia by Faithless

What will I be?

(c) Brute Labs
http://www.brutelabs.org/girl=boy.html

On the way to a soft-play venue today (terrible weather = trip to a building made of tin filled with more scramble nets and obstacles than the finale of the Krypton Factor) the children were having a discussion with their cousins about what boys and girls are able to do.  After 5 minutes on the merits, strengths, and abilities of girls and boys (including "girls can do sport if they are as strong as a boy" and "I'm never getting married!"), it was agreed that actually they can do the same things be it football, work, raising children, or the type of vehicle they fly/sail/drive.  With the children's ages ranging between four and seven-years-old, I was impressed that they had raised a topic, debated it openly (and forcefully at times) then come to an agreement.  

Given it was a discussion between two girls and two boys, I was especially delighted that they came to the conclusion that they did.  And then I remembered that children have an in-built sense of justice and fairness.  Whether it's a board game, handing out sweets, portion-size at dinner time, or discussing who could be an astronaut; they each want to be treated the same and see it is only fair that others are too.  What open-minded, smart, fantastic little people they are - I hope they carry this into their adult lives.

I am hopeful for this generation; they are the children for whom no stigma is attached to families where both parents pursue fulfilling careers, where mum has the more demanding / important job, or where dad stays at home to support mum's career.  Whatever our opinions about family arrangements and career decisions that are different to our own, these children see them as normal.  And in this I see that my son knows he can be an engineer, a teacher, a builder, a developer or a stay-at-home dad.  And I see that my daughter knows she can be an engineer, a teacher, a builder, a developer or a stay-at-home mum.  They can be anything, equally.  Except as it stands today, some 'grown ups' have decided that girls cannot grow up to be a Bishop in the Church of England.  I think they could learn a thing or two from these kids.   

----------------------------------------------------------------

Soundtrack: Que Sera Sera - Doris Day

Scouting for Girls

Mean stitching technique
courtesy of Brownie training!

At the age of 16, a friend and I boarded a train to a nearby village to go to a party.  So preoccupied had we been with securing cans of Special Brew and menthol cigarettes (sophisticated or what?), we didn't give a second thought to how, or indeed if, we were going to get home.  There was always the prospect of a friend's floor, or in the worst case; calling my mate's dad to come and collect us.

I will spare you the full details of the evening but needless to say we ended up drunk, deserted by friends, and with no idea of where we were going to sleep.  After a brief discussion we agreed that calling home to ask for a lift was out of the question.  We had, of course, lied about where we were and 2am is never a good time to call your dad in a drunken stupor and announce you are in need of a lift home for the third time in a month.  Please.

We instead returned to the train station where we had earlier alighted and found it to be deserted and freezing.  As you can't 'plump up' a wooden bench, sleep was not forthcoming so we ended up in a dilapidated hut that offered a bit more shelter and set about building a fire.  The only problem was that we had nothing suitable to build a fire with, and as both of us came from families that were very light on the whole 'outdoors experience' we didn't have the nous to fashion something a la Bear Grylls.  Instead we tried to start a fire using the only thing we had that we thought was flammable: a box of Tampax.  To that we added some printed materials which we found near the hut.  In the dark we did not know what they were, under the light of our matches we saw they were a pictorial study in the anatomy of women and wished we had never touched them.

We discovered that night that tampons are not good fire-lighters and that you should never go scavenging for stuff to start a fire with if you don't have a torch lest you should encounter some 'specialist' magazines.  You live and learn......

So what's this got to do with anything?  Well, the point of it is that my daughter has recently joined the first group within the Scouting family; Beaver Scouts.  As a former Brownie (see If I had a Photograph of You for the proof) I didn't know what to expect.  One term in and she has already taken part in archery, a woodland exploration that involved leaping in a huge bog, following a line blindfolded and building a shelter, and - most recently - building a fire.  These are girls and boys between the age of 6 and 8 who, far from being cosseted and wrapped up in cotton wool are being given freedom, the opportunity to try new things, learn properly useful skills and succeed in all sorts of different areas.  Best of all they are having an absolute ball.

As a result I'm sold on it and wish that I'd had the chance to join the Scouts as a girl.  I'm not sure whether it would have stopped me from going to the party, but I sure as hell would have been able to light that fire........