So it happened this way… on the self same day that I had the phone call telling me that dad was critically ill in hospital and I drove over to East Surrey like a lunatic to see him – on that day, on my return, I had received an email from an agent saying she was interested in seeing my manuscript. What a strange, extreme conflict of emotions I was thrown into then! I hardly knew how I felt, except I did feel somehow guilty that I felt happy and excited about that, when I felt that I ought to be feeling really sad and worried about dad. Which I did of course, too. How do you reconcile two quite opposite states of emotion? I don’t think I allowed myself to really start getting excited or happy about it until today. Anyway, today I went up to Clapham and met the agent for lunch, and talked books, and children’s books, and my books, and all things Owen – and I feel very keyed up and eager to start really tackling my manuscript again – lots of work to do, lots of ideas, need to get cracking on it asap and get those ideas into shape before they all melt away… it’s going to be hard work but I’m so up for it now. That first manuscript has been sitting around waiting for this moment, and I know I can make it even better than it is already. Bring it on!

In Owen world, lest I forget the wee man (heaven forbid – and he’d never allow that to happen!) What a little terror he was today when I picked him up from nursery! I swear they are teaching him how to be mean to mummy. They are always telling me how wonderfully well-behaved he is, and yet the minute we are out of the door he’s screaming and yelling at me for something or other, and he can be really nasty when he wants to be! After such a lovely day, this evening has been horrid, I felt completely dreadful because he was so badly behaved and I ended up yelling at him. And then mum took him off the minute we got in and played the nice cop to my nasty cop, and that made me feel even worse. Why do I have to be the bad cop always? I want to be the good cop, but it never works out that way. But someone has to set the boundaries. And he still keeps asking me if I’m happy. He was in a lovely mood this morning, really cheeky and cheerful – but after nursery he always seems to be full of anger and aggression. This is not good. I don’t know if this is a normal thing, maybe it is. Maybe I should ask a few other mums their experiences of post-nursery behaviour.

Ah, I’m tired now. It’s early but I’m going to have to call it a day. Well, hopefully after a good long sleep, little man will have recovered his equanimity.

I never watch TV, but I admit to having watched a bit more than usual over the last week or so. I did originally have plans to watch a DVD but the DVD player has broken down, in solidarity with the boiler and the washing machine. Oh, and the doorbell.

I have drunk far too much wine, and eaten a lot of peanuts, whilst watching the completely dreadful Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. I am, however, happy(ish), with this state of affairs. I didn’t want to go out. I’m not in a particularly celebratory mood, surprisingly. I’m tired, and relieved in a way that I am forced to stay in by the fact that mum has a party to go to. I’m happy, too, that she has gone out to a party. Last year she stayed in while I went out and drank far too much. And she had to cancel lots of things before Christmas because first Owen got ill so couldn’t go to nursery, and then of course I was going up to visit dad in hospital quite a bit. So at least she’ll have a good old knees up tonight!

Oh dear, the fireworks have started already. Someone’s clock must be a bit wrong, it’s only 10.30.

I promise I won’t be freaked out. Or maybe I will. I always was a bit freaked out when you chatted up waitresses who were younger than me!

The days before dad’s death I don’t want to revisit. The days after were also pretty awful, but then at least there were no mad dashings, no sudden hopes that he would recover, no awful messages telling me of yet another indignity or deterioration. I was there, when he died, holding his hand. I hope against hope that that helped him, if he was in any way aware of what was happening – I pray to god that he was not, but if he was then I hope that he felt my hand and knew it was me, and that that was a comfort.

The two days after the death were the worst, for me, I think. I can’t even begin to describe the black pit that opened up on Friday 23rd December. My friend Kelly came round and we just slumped on the sofa, with Owen between us, and watched kid’s movies. And that was about all I could do. My anxiety had shot sky high, and I couldn’t sleep, and could barely eat. On Saturday, Christmas Eve, I still felt pretty much that way. Auntie Val came over that day. My stress levels were going through the roof, but later that day I managed to achieve a sort of calm acceptance that dad just wasn’t there anymore, and whatever happened did not matter to him, he was at peace, oblivious, in oblivion.

Christmas Day was okay in the morning when I had to cook the dinner, but then I only managed to eat about five mouthfuls of it before nearly having a whitey and after that just lay on the sofa and didn’t really do anything at all. I even went upstairs and slept for a bit. It was only the family, me, mum, Rob and Em and Owen, but even that was just a bit too much socialising and I found it really hard. I lost the plot a bit with mum in the evening and stomped upstairs in a huff, and later I wrote my letter to dad which I posted in the previous post, to be read at the funeral. And it was really hard to write, I cried a lot, but I think it got a lot of emotion out of me that I’d been bottling up over the last few days, and actually from that moment on started to feel better.

Boxing Day was easier and we started to actually talk about dad, and the funeral and etc. etc. Kay came over too, and brought some of the presents that her and dad had got for Owen and everyone. I started to feel calmer. I even said sorry to mum for being a stroppy old cow yesterday.

I’ve never had to deal with this kind of grief before. Nor has Rob. It’s weird, but I think we are dealing with it in totally different ways. I do think there’s a gender difference. I’m much happier talking openly about it, Rob seems reluctant to do that. He wasn’t keen on writing a tribute to dad for the funeral and certainly would not have wanted it read out, whereas I felt it was something that I just had to do (and was therefore utterly distraught when told I could NOT read my letter myself).

But then I’ve always worn my bleeding heart out there on my sleeve, dripping all over everything. As a performer I sing vitriolic eulogies about ex-boyfriends to total strangers. All my hang ups, my faults and failings and idiocies and selfishnesses – all there, for the world to see. I don’t care if I can’t sing like Whitney or play like Hendrix. I’ll get up and tell you how I feel through song. I did at dad’s wake, I played him my song that I wrote for him and I’m glad I did, I think it went down okay but even if it hadn’t it was the act of doing it that mattered, not how perfect my voice was (which it wasn’t) or how faultless my finger-picking was (which it wasn’t). I’m sure no one noticed that I fluffed a couple of chords. Oh, maybe one person… Dad was no doubt sitting on his cloud up there, saying, ‘Yeah yeah, it was okay but you really fluffed that E flat diminished up – get a grip, girl!’

Big Granddad and Owen having a giggle together

25 December 2011. I’ve never had to write a sadder letter, on Christmas Day or any other.

Dear Dad.

If you were here now , I think I know what you’d say. You’d tell us all to bugger off and do something less bloody miserable. But you’d be secretly pleased that you were the centre of attention, of course! I am trying very hard to not be bloody miserable, honestly I am, dad, but it’s really hard. I miss you. I can’t get my head around the fact that you are not here on this earth, and that you aren’t going to come over and see us anymore, make Owen giggle and tell bad jokes about everything under the sun. So I’ll make this short, so we can get on and do something less miserable.

I will always look back on my childhood years as idyllic. Our family life was very special. Although you and mum didn’t have much money, you made sure that we didn’t miss out on anything. I remember a lot of time spent out of doors – many, many wonderful camping trips and walks in the country. You always shared your own passions with me, nature, reading, music – especially music – I owe all these parts of myself to you. You showed me how to do things differently, to look at things differently, to work things out for myself. Sometimes that made my Maths teachers a little stressed, but if the answer was right then you had the last laugh!

In recent years, you became a doting granddad to Owen. He, I know, loves you and looks up to you in the same way that I did as a child. You will always be ‘Big Granddad’ to Owen. He is such a chip off the old Watkins block! He has your irrepressible spirit, a musical ear, an experimental approach to food and tells really, really silly jokes. I wish with all my heart that you could be here to watch him grow up. I will make sure that he knows his big granddad, always.

This letter doesn’t say even half of what I’d like it to. Maybe the thing I’m trying to say is just that I really love you. I hope you know that I always have and I always will.

I’m going to stop being miserable now and remember all the happy times.

Your loving daughter

Sam

x

I am not sure how I feel about this. Sad, yes – of course. And scared. Not particularly of death – I think that in a way death is the end of suffering, and the person who it happens to is finally released from pain. It’s pain that I’m scared of.  I hope to god that he can’t feel anything and isn’t aware of what’s being done to him, all the tubes, and blah blah blah. We (as in me, my brother and my brother’s wife) arrived at the hospital yesterday in a panic, after a text from Kay (dad’s second wife), to find things in full on emergency mode, doctors and nurses in green coats milling around, doctors performing CPR. It was truly terrifying. All those machines, the ferociously bright lights, the beeping, the waveforms that may or may not mean something awful… we relatives stood to one side like idiotic spare parts, not part of this particular medical drama, the lights were not on us. I’m not even really sure that we should have been there,  to be truthful – because those images are going to be very hard to erase from my brain now.

I went to see him today, and it was calm. Dad was peaceful – still critical, still on maximum dosages of most things, still being kept alive by drugs and machines (although they are reducing his oxygen a little) but peaceful. His eyes were closed, his face seemed more relaxed. No fierce lights or dispassionately efficient doctors. I talked to him a little, and felt happier. He’s a stubborn old fool, he has to make it. If anything, his sense of humour will bring him through.  Or the thought that he’s missing out on chatting up all these good-looking nurses…

No phone calls, no texts today. This can only be a good thing, don’t they say? No news is good news. I hope. Is this because we only feel compelled to inform people of the bad things that happen and not the good? But it’s the waiting, and every time the phone rings my heart contracts painfully. This is not going to go away overnight, either. It’s going to be a long haul. He’s a very very sick man right now. But he will make it, I feel sure. He’s not going to let go that easily.

Did I mention what dad has? He has pneumonia, caused by COPD, caused by smoking, which he finally gave up in 2007. But it was too late by then. His dad, my granddad, also had emphysema, caused by smoking. And I, too, was a smoker. Heavy smoker, for a while. I gave up in 2009, when I became pregnant. But did I leave it too late too? I don’t even want to think about that right now.

In my world, well I have been majorly busy this week, work is totally manic. I don’t have enough hours in the week to do what I need to do. But I am enjoying it, even though I know I’m not going to be able to meet some of the looming deadlines – it just aint possible. I can only do what I can do. At the moment it’s a lot of picture research and commissioning, which is fun but time-consuming. And it’s not for one book, it’s for three. So I am trying to just keep on top of it as much as I can, and not let it intrude too much into my non-work days although I do check my email and make sure everything is ticking along okay. But Owen really hates it when I go on the computer when he’s around, he immediately starts up with ‘Mummy, get OFF the computer NOW!’ or similar polite requests. So I have to keep it to a minimum, it’s not fair on him otherwise.

Yesterday after his hospital appointment I had to cycle back to the hospital to pick up his horrible yellow stuff etc. and on the way back I popped into the fabric shop and bought some beatiful sparkly blue fabric and ribbons etc. for his Halloween costume for nursery. He’s going to be a wizard (a good one, of course, like Gandalf!) and a velvet skirt that I’ve converted into a cloak. It looks totally brilliant! I now want to make him a pirate costume for his birthday party, which will be a joint one with Fred, and it is going to be pirate themed.  I spent an hour thereabouts sewing a sparkly ribbon trim on the cloak before realised I’d sewn it on back to front. Oh well, I don’t suppose he’ll notice!

Keep waking at 5am, with pounding headache and racing heart. Not nice. I’m generally fine once I’m up though – but I can lie in bed for ages feeling like that, waiting for the heart to calm down. Headache – not sure what that is about. Maybe the cold.  Why the hell hasn’t the human race managed to come up with an effective cure for the common cold yet?!

Me and Owen on the boat to Köyceğiz, Turkey.

Hmm, well it’s been a while and I don’t even know where to start. Things happen so fast in Owen-world. One minute he’s an over-grown foetus in nappies, next thing he’s saying ‘Please may I leave the table, mummy?’ and wiping his own nose.

So the summer is behind us, and it was a bit rubbish weather-wise but luckily we had a two-week sojourn in the sunshine in Dalyan, Turkey, which was so godamn beautiful I can’t even bear to think about it now, with the wind whistling through the eaves and rain dripping down the back of my neck… oh to be back by the pool… beer in one hand, lazily hoiking a dripping toddler out of the pool with the other. I was super-impressed with Turkey and especially the beautiful town of Dalyan. Would love to go back one day. Owen was the star attraction there, he got his hair ruffled more times than I can count and every restaurant we went to the waiters would just carry him off to give him a guided tour. It was weird at first, but after a while I felt more relaxed about it and actually felt that it was really nice that Owen was made so welcome everywhere we went. Not like in England. If you take a child to a restaurant in England, everyone looks at them as if to say, “Ewww, what IS that thing you’ve brought with you? Please don’t let it anywhere near ME.”

Owen loved it, had a great time, really got into swimming and by the end of the holiday he was like a fish out of water when he wasn’t in water if that makes any sense. He’s quite a sensitive little boy, cautious (perhaps overly) with anything new. He’s very confident with grown-ups, generally, but not so with children his own age, and that made it a bit difficult sometimes with Freddie, who is completely the opposite to Owen in character – very assured and confident and throws himself into everything without a second thought. Funny how their characters are already so clearly developing in different ways, I wonder how much of that is nature and how much is nurture?

Owen is really not so much a toddler and more a little boy now. His memory is excellent, amazingly so sometimes. He recalls things that happened only once, and quite some time ago. His language and communication is excellent too. You can have a conversation with him. He remembers and recites passages from his books. Dr. Seuss books are some of his favourites – Cat in the Hat obviously, but also Green Eggs and Ham and There’s a Wocket in My Pocket. He has some books about a zebra called Zigby, which he loves too. They are really good for building vocabulary I think, because they use more descriptive words than a lot of books aimed at his age group. He often just comes out with lines from books, sometimes in context (“No no no I do NOT like this game” if he’s not happy with the way something’s going, for example) and sometimes just out of the blue, (“Who took my fishing net?!”)

Owen has the most vivid imaginative life. He is constantly inventing little games, characters, scenarios. He pretends to be things. Some days he is a dog, some days a rabbit. At the moment he is mainly a snake. Sometimes he is a snake pretending to be a cat. The mind boggles. Yesterday in the bath, he was playing with marbles. He put them all in a boat. One of them was the boat driver. I asked him where the boat was going. “To the mud baths.” This astonished me. A. Because he remembered the fact that when we were in Turkey we got a boat to the mud baths; and B. Because he was actually asleep from just before we got to the mud baths to just after we had left, so he didn’t actually see the mud baths at all. I think that is a very interesting thing happening in his brain – a combination of memory and imagination, as well as perhaps showing a disappointment in not getting to see the mud baths. Connections are firing away ten to the dozen (or ten million to the dozen!) and it’s fascinating to see it happening – a human being growing, developing, getting bigger, doing more, understanding more, thinking more.

I love to just watch him play, see how he makes a toy sword into a hoover and makes all the hoover noises, even the noise as he turns it off, lowering the pitch. He makes his hands into pretend spiders, Sally and Cyril (they used to be glove puppet spiders but now he just makes do with his hands) and they have games and chatter away to each other. He doesn’t make his books into telegraph poles so much anymore, but anything and everything long and thin is prone to being made into a hoover. And since our Turkey holiday, he’s obsessed with air conditioning units, or anything that looks vaguely like an air conditioning  unit, or even things that don’t bear ANY resemblance that I can see to air conditioning units, but he obviously does. A pencil, waved frantically in the air, apparently is an air conditioning unit. Or a hairbrush,  or a fork, etc. etc. and so on.

Can I just also mention the P word? Potty training. We are deep in the throes of it, and it’s going very well. Just before holiday, I put him into pants. He was doing well with the wees and less well with the poos. In fact, he was a poo refuser for quite a while. But on holiday I had him running around with no pants on most days, and he did start to use the potty much more, as well as the toilet. And we even had a few number twos in the potty. Now we’ve been back about 3 weeks and he’s coming on in big leaps and bounds. He can even pull his pants and trousers down. It will be even better when he can pull them back up again!

There’s a wealth of things my little man can do now, that I just can’t write them all down in one post – the latest thing is jumping, he took ages to work out how to jump with both feet, but now he can do it he wants to jump everywhere. Walking isn’t good enough any more. And climbing – he is SO good at climbing! Probably the one thing he should have fear of, he has no fear of. But actually, climbing suits his careful personality. It’s not like football or something where you throw yourself at a ball. It’s more measured, more careful, you have to look down and up, and watch where you’re putting your hands and feet. So perhaps that’s why he loves it so much. I like climbing too.

I should go now, need to sleep. This weekend is party weekend (as in kids’ parties!) and I need all the energy I can muster to get through them!

Sometimes you spoil me

Charm and embroil me

Then I’m your audience

All smiles and applause

Sometimes your tears flow

Swiftly and sweetly

Your pain is mine then,

My pain is yours.

Love can be peaceful

Love can be madness

And your kind of madness

I cannot oppose.

So I’ll light up your lamp posts

So you can fly safely

Brush off the cobwebs

From your telegraph poles.

There is no meaning

No rhyme or reason

There is no mystery

No deep hidden truth.

To the big questions

You are the answer

Life is amazing

And you are the proof.

Life is amazing…

And you are the proof.

To Owen, from Mummy, July 2011.

x

Did this, did that. Started new job – well OLD job, actually! Working for my old publishing company now but from home, and part time which is really good. It’s a few more hours than my last job but pretty much double the money – double the stress too, I hasten to add! I’ve got a six month probation period so will review it after four months or so to see if its working out. I do have to go up to Cambridge to the office once every two weeks, which means getting up at about 5am, which is horrid, and not seeing Owen all day, not to get him up or put him to bed so I don’t see him at all which is even more horrid. But I need the work, and it’s good to be back doing publishing work – a proper job! I feel very strongly that I want to be working to provide for Owen. Not just for the money side of things, which is of course important, but more importantly, so that he gets a good example from me about work and how money comes into the household. I want him to see mummy working, not just getting money for nothing on benefits. I suppose it’s about my own pride too, and about having a profession that I’d proud to be part of, doing work making books or CDs etc. that I’m proud of. I like being a publishing power mummy! I just hope that it all works out. But one thing is for sure – I don’t want it to take over my life, I want a good life/work balance. If it starts eating into my time with Owen I will drop it, like a ton of bricks.

Owen is amazing. I am constantly amazed at him, what he does, what he says, every day more independent, funnier, more communication, more evidence of  a truly creative intelligence in that beautiful head of his. Have I written about his little scenarios that he thinks of, like the washing line wanting crunchy nut cornflakes for dinner? Or that his socks are sad (therefore he won’t wear them – actually it’s the monkeys on them that are sad apparently… and he won’t be told otherwise!) He’s got a molar coming through at the moment and it’s hurting him to eat. Plus he’s having restless nights, which I think is probably also the tooth. Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned but his dairy allergy is improving a lot – he’s having little bits of milk and cheese every day now and hasn’t had any reaction for ages, which is fantastic! Still allergic to egg though.

I’m feeling tired tonight. Working 8 hour days, even at home, is intense. I should have been putting price labels on stuff tonight because I’m doing a car boot sale on Sunday with a friend in Daphne. But I had to show someone the car (I’m selling it) and then Owen wouldn’t go to sleep so I brought him into my bed and just lay quietly with him while he fidgeted like the most fidgety squirrel in the entire world, kicked me in the head, pulled my hair, whacked me in the face, and generally just MOVED himself to sleep eventually… so I then put him to bed but by then I’d virtually drifted off myself (amazingly!) so it was very hard to motivate myself to do anything except drink a glass of wine. It’s actually half past ten now although according to the WordPress clock it’s half nine. Yawn. I’m not working tomorrow, thank goodness, so I’ve got Owen time tomorrow morning, and in the afternoon Owen’s in nursery so I’m going to PC World to get a printer. Owen kind of jumped on mine and now it kind of doesn’t work.

It’s funny but haven’t had any anxiety symptoms for a while now and haven’t even noticed until I just thought about it then! Feeling pretty relaxed about things generally, bar the odd cross moment I’ve had recently. Owen still has these mental moments when  he just loses it completely and it’s really hard to calm him down – I don’t seem to be able to do anything right. After nursery he’s worst and I thought it was because he was tired, but now I’m starting to wonder. And sometimes mum is totally maddening and I just want to move out and find somewhere for just me and Owen. But all in all things  are looking pretty okay right now.

Right I MUST sleep.

Maybe instead of having three blogs/diaries or whatever, each post should be divided into three. Or is that just a bit too formulaic, I wonder? Let’s have a go anyway.

1. ‘Did this, did that’- well that’s easy. Have been stupidly busy doing LOADs of stuff but the main thing is we have been camping with Daphne! Hurrah! Went to a very little festival-type-thing called Beltain at Butser Ancient Farm, Petersfield. Burning a wicker man and all that. Beltane is a pagan festival that celebrates the coming of spring – I thought that it involved lots of running around naked but thankfully it didn’t. We missed the burning of the wicker man, but I wasn’t too bothered – he looked rather too nice to be burned and I would have been a bit sad! We parked Daphne a couple of fields away, over the hill, and stayed the night (unofficially) and it was really quite comfy, Owen loved it although he did keep waking up and saying ‘camper van? camper van? Owen sleep in camper van?’

2. How do I feel? I was driving home today I started thinking about how time seems to be just kind of disappearing behind me, faster and faster, and I just don’t want to waste any more time on people and things that bring me down. I do have a problem keeping a positive outlook on things sometimes, I do still have depressed periods and the anxiety creeps back when I’m not expecting it… I need positive, happy people in my life. I try to be optimistic, and hate it when people steal my joy, look on the bad side of things, prophesise doom and gloom, overly criticise, or just are generally negative and miserable. Life is TOO SHORT!!!!

3. Owen world: Aaah, my boy has been both funny and terrible! He’s a proper terrible two, and we have installed a naughty step, mainly for throwing incidents. He throws things because he gets frustrated. It does seem to be working though. In fact, he put himself on it the other day! His conversational skills are getting better and better. He is perfectly capable of having a proper little conversation with me now. He says the funniest things. We shared a bath the other day and had the following conversation:

‘Mummy got willy?’

‘No, mummy not got willy. Boys have willies, girls don’t have willies. Mummy is a girl so she doesn’ t have a willy.’

‘Mummy not got willy.’

‘No darling, mummy not got willy.’

Pause.

‘Mummy got to buy willy!’