Fundraising.

Yesterday was an odd day. I heard some brilliant news that I'll pass on when the plans have come to fruition as I'm very superstitious and I don't want to jinx anything; I once told everyone about a fab new job that fell through at the last minute. And then I spoke to my parents and found that the tumour on my Dad's bowel has responded well to treatment but that he now has metastatic liver cancer. That means that the cancer has spread and, whilst the lesions are very small and he says his oncologist is very positive, I cannot find much to be hopeful about on any of the reputable websites.

Unlike my mother, my dad has never suffered from ill-health before and it's like seeing something strong and enduring like Nelson's Column melt in the rain like sugar cubes. I don't quite know how to cope and there seems to be absolutely nothing I can do to help.

I can't do nothing though so I'm thinking of having a a sponsored stitch-in at my local coffee shop. I thought I'd ask them if they'd mind me sitting with my crochet and embroidery one Saturday. I wouldn't bother their customers, I'd just have a bucket in front of me and I'd collect for Macmillan. Maybe some of my friends could drop by and say hello now and again but it would be a solo effort. I'm busy coming up to Christmas but I'm free on Saturday 18th December. Do you think this is too close to Christmas or do you think that people will be in a giving mood? I was in there last weekend and reckoned there were fifty people in their at a time so even if only a proportion of people donated I could collect a fair amount over a full day.

Any thoughts?

Lost in Translation.

It was my nephew's nineteenth birthday last week and he's soon to join me in God's Own Country when he starts University in York next month. I've promised him the birthday present of a trip to the shops for mugs, bowl, signs that say "Keep Off!" and anything else he finds he needs in Halls. I'm looking forward to going over for the day and taking him out to lunch; I may even attempt to be a cool aunt, a role I've never really managed as I've always been practical aunt.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm incapable of being cool aunt, I was born sensible! In any case, my youngest sister is his cool aunt (she wanted to get him a games console) and my brother is undoubtedly cool uncle and gave him a bottle of good aftershave and a fantastic card his beautiful Spanish partner had made. It's this card I want to show you. Some of the subtleties of the English language have been lost to her since their return to Andalusia a few years ago!

My Twin

My family used to be seen as a bit odd. My adoptive father was a widower with three small children when he met my single-mother mother and they married and had a baby. I grew up with adoptive brother and sisters and a half sister in a town where there was only one child of a "broken home" in my entire school. It didn't make me feel bad; I valued our unusual set-up.

There were some disadvantages. I don't look like my siblings and that can be surprisingly difficult when trying to work out where you belong. The journey back to Ireland in the summers was always wonderful as the ferry from Holyhead was always filled with people who had the same dark hair, blue eyes and milky skin as I have and I'd spend weeks in a country full of people who think the same way I do.

A few years ago, just south of Dublin, I had the interesting experience of being in a pub waiting for a funeral to start next door (in a church, not a pub, don't be thinking this is some tale of Paddywhackery) and seeing a group of women walk in who looked so like me it was uncanny. I heaved a sigh of relief and homecoming and turned to my Mammy to comment on it when I realised my cousin Paddy was with them and these were his sisters who I've never really known very well as they were always away when we visited. After years of looking nothing like my family (except the aforementioned Mammy, talk about "Send in the Clones")this was an amazing feeling and despite the sad occasion it was a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by my "kin".

"This is all very well," I hear you say, "but where is the promised twin?" Hold your horses, I'm getting there...

During those trips to Ireland we would often stop and visit my Mammy's cousin and family and I would be expected to pal around with my second cousin J and her younger brother B- who is tragically no longer with us. CousinJ is a year older than me and I was hopelessly intimidated by her and her big city glamour but we met as adults after nearly twenty years and there was an instant recognition. After we'd admitted our mutual intimidation (she thought I was the sophisticated English girl) we realised we looked alike and thought alike, and forged a relationship much closer than you'd expect from girls with a relationship no closer than a shared great-grandparent.

She lives in England now though we don't see each other as often as we'd like thanks to my precarious financial situation. I can talk to her about things I can't share with my sisters and she understands me instantly. She makes me laugh and provided my favourite quote for the Overheard Exhibition. She understands my issues with food and I was delighted to be able to steer her away from Lighter Life and toward Beyond Chocolate. She and her husband are a dreadful influence on me at family parties and it's their fault that I've now made two speeches whilst a little drunk. Take away the difference in our accents and you'd have difficulty telling us apart when we speak, save she says "Grand" and I say "Fantastic". I have no hesitation in saying that I love her dearly and plan to retire to her spare room from whence I will emerge to join her in a double-act that leaves her husband breathless and laughing that,
"You two are so alike".

We are, and I love it!

Beyond Chocolate- After

Things I have realised since "doing" Beyond Chocolate.

1. Food is not a substitute for sleep, an extra jumper, asthma drugs, company, approval, love or anything else. If I tune in to what I really need I sometimes find it is food but just as often I need a nap, or a blanket or to just get myself out of the house for a while, not to distract myself from hunger (that's diet talk my friend) but because that's what I really need.

2. When I can't stop thinking about a food there's no point in eating other things as substitutes; a low-fat chocolate drink is not a substitute for a piece of chocolate melting in your mouth and will not satisfy me. And I won't stop at the drink, I'll keep eating and drinking because I'm not satisfied. I want the chocolate, or cheese, or pasta, or mango, or big plate of vegetables. Oh, and the diet club leader who advised me to have a chocolate bubble-bath when I fancied chocolate was deluded.

Which brings me to...

3. Diet Club leaders do not know my body. The leader who told me that "steroids do not make you put weight on, eating makes you put weight on" has obviously never coped with prednisolone side-effects; the leader who told me to "feed a cold" hadn't understood the proverbs; the leader who boasted she'd lost weight whilst on an all-inclusive holiday but failed to mention the dysentery, who asked if we'd rather have "sod-it" night or another pound off a month was, quite frankly, dealing with an eating disorder. I will not apologise for using butter instead of low-cal spread and for eating a Mars Bar after a massive asthma attack.

4. My ex's issues with sex are nothing to do with me. When he told me I was,
"Too fat to fancy" (or worse) he was trying to hide any number of problems that he has and behaviours of which he is ashamed. Nothing, certainly not my weight, excuses the way he treated me. I will not allow him to blame me.

5. I do not have to finish every bit of food on my plate. Finishing every bite will not benefit the starving of China; it will not shorten the years of rationing this country went through; it will not make my dad love me more.

6. I did not fail at diets, diets failed me. The entire diet industry is not designed to benefit womankind; it's designed to make money. I am no longer prepared to be part of it.

7. Comparing myself to my sisters or other slim women is ridiculous. I am an attractive, sexy woman. Yes, I would like to be slimmer but I do not need to wait until I am slimmer to have nice clothes and to value my looks.

8. I need to value myself more.
I need to look after my body; I need to feed it wholesome, tasty, satisfying food (and some fun junk!), rest it, move it and tend to it with the right asthma and eczema drugs.
I need to remember that there are people who love me and value me for my many qualities and that the ways I was treated by the ex, his friends and his family should not, and will not, overwhelm that.

9. Sorting out my relationship with food has been far more valuable and lasting than all those times I lost all that weight.

Getting Organised.

In my professional life I can be extremely well organised. When I had my own class and classroom I used to set up all the resources for all the groups in all the lessons in individual baskets so that I could just hand over a basket and the children would have everything (right down to pencils)that they needed. At home things have never been the same. I dream of organisation; I dream of a Martha Stewart style life where I have everything I need and know just where to find it.

My friend MrsB shares my dreams for her own life and has recently invested in a lot of Really Useful Boxes. This is only a fraction of them.

I couldn't do this as I don't have a garage to keep them in but, inspired by life with The Girl I am trying to organise my life more effectively.

At present I am trying two main techniques:

1. Put like things together.
All makeup in the drawer by the mirror, all light bulbs and batteries and candles in the sideboard, all scarves hanging from the mirror, all spare bedding (in sets) in vacuum bags in the wardrobe.

2. Get rid of duplicates.
I noticed my parents have three knife sharpeners; a (very) old one that must have been my grandmother's, one from the 80's and a new swanky one. Now I'm not suggesting the get rid of the old one- it has too many memories attached to it- but why have they kept one that is inefficient, ugly and of no emotional value? Get rid of it!

I'm off now to sort a few more things in my bedroom but will return to this subject. In the meantime I will leave you with a cautionary tale...

There was once a woman who could never remember where she'd put her tweezers as she didn't have a proper place to put them. Often she would have to take her pennies to the shop and buy a new set. One day a good fairy came to live with her and helped her to get organised so she started to collect them all into one place.

She probably hasn't finished yet...

Ruby Wedding

So, as you know, it was my parents' Ruby Wedding Anniversary and they had a party. As my Mum kept telling everyone the flowers for the evening cost more than the entire wedding forty years ago. It was held at the village hall at a neighbouring village where we held the receptions for two of my sisters' weddings. We had the same caterers as we'd had at my wedding which was great as I got to eat the canapes without anyone wanting to photograph me. The dinner was ham, potatoes (absolutely delicious Jersey Royals), coleslaw and other salads which made my cousin and I laugh as there hasn't been an Irish celebration since the dawn of time that hasn't involved a ham.

I drank far too much red wine and had a great time talking to the aforementioned cousin (of whom, more later) I also had to have the same conversation with all the family friends who haven't seen me since my wedding. It goes something like this...

Friend- "How are you?" with head cocked to one side and a concerned tone, emphasis on the word "you" and a squeeze of the arm.
Me- "I'm really well." Bright smile, slowly nodding head.

After dinner there were speeches, a friend who'd been at the wedding, then my dad, then my younger sister who was the only one of my siblings not at the original wedding. Unfortunately Younger Sister broke down and it all got a bit mawkish so I said a few quick words. All I can say is Thank God for Supply Teaching as I had nothing prepared and had to make it up as I went along. We finished by my brother (the family entertainer and clown) singing us a Spanish Gypsy song (he lives in Andalusia) and making everyone laugh.

Then a fabulous jazz trio played songs like Pennies From Heaven and we danced and drank and laughed. It was lovely. My hangover was not...

The Walnut Tree.

One of my early memories is the day the man came to chop down our walnut tree. I was three or four and I remember standing on the back doorstep with my fingers in my ears to block out the sound of the chain saw and watching it fall.

In the following weeks we played in the felled branches, climbing on them (trying to avoid the rotten ones that had necessitated its removal) and throwing sheets over them to make tents and dens. The branches were removed and burned on the sitting room fire that winter and we were left with a tree stump in the middle of the lawn like something from a fairy story.

And then a funny thing happened. The stump started to sprout new branches and a mini tree appeared. They were so near the ground that they provided living green caves to hide in and play in. By the time I was a teenager there was one that was such a perfect hideaway that I spent most of a summer under there reading and listening to Radio 1.

When my nephews came along the branches were big enough to climb and they gave the different perches names. The Armchair, The Motorbike. Now they're teaching their younger sister where to find the footholds and my youngest niece is waiting for the day she'll be big enough to climb up.

On Sunday night I hung jam jars full of votive candles from the branches and we ate beneath it. When the heavens opened the broad leaves protected us from the rain for a long time though I will admit that after the first inch of rain (seriously there were two inches that night) we were wet through to the skin and decided to retreat to the kitchen.

This year we seem to have a bumper crop of walnuts but it will probably be the last one for some time as the tree has now got so big that it's blocking light from a large part of the garden and it's time for some of the larger branches to come down. It feels like we're embarking on another episode, part of the cycle of growth, of birth and death.

Ruby Wedding Present.

I wanted to stitch something special for my parents' Ruby Wedding but didn't want anything sloppy or cute; they're not the kind of people who'd appreciate Me to You Bears or the like. They've lived in the same small Cotswold town for their entire married life and the whole family is obsessed by maps so I've created an embroidered map for them. I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product but don't worry I've got someone on to it and will post it when it arrives.

I gave them the present on Saturday and it went down really well. Everyone was interested and complimentary and one friend has asked me to create one for her. She wants a map of Amalfi to give to her husband as they honeymooned there ten years ago.

Total Wardrobe Freakout!

So parents are having a big Ruby Wedding Party next week. They're basically having the wedding reception they didn't have back in 1970 as they already had four children under ten between them when they met and the whole wedding industry was in its infancy back then. Dad was a widower and Mammy an "unwed mother" (gasp!) and they found each other and lived happily ever after or at least as much as you can in the real world. All five of their children (they had one together 18 months after the wedding) will be there including the brother who is flying in from Andulusia and the sister who is flying in from California. I'm hugely excited not least by the fact that they're having the same caterers we had for my wedding and I'll get to really enjoy the canapes without having to pose for photos the whole time.

However...
I don't know what to wear. I have body image issues at the best of times (English size 18-22) and find formal wear stressful but when in the company of my sisters the situation reaches crisis point. My sisters are slim. And beautiful. My youngest sister was briefly a model. She's six-foot, a size 8 and has that enviable ability to look effortlessly elegant, poised and gorgeous. Next to her I look, dumpy and scruffy and slightly chaotic.

I went into Monsoon yesterday and tried on some dresses. Oh my good lord...sack of potatoes anyone?

Then my lovely friend BermudaGirl lent me her party dress

It's beautiful and I got myself a shrug in the Monsoon sale so I won't have to show my hated upper-arms (and the tattoo my dad still doesn't know about,and a BARGAIN pair of bronze shoes from ebay (£3.98 including postage) and then I tried it on. I can't get the flippin' zip to do up. I'm hope, hope, hoping it's just I'm at the wrong angle and someone else will be able to do it for me and will be taking it to MrsB's with me later.

But, just in case, I've also ordered a dress from ebay...

It's plain but will look great with some retro accessories(polka-dot shoes, a red-velvet rose in my hair, scarlet lipstick) and I love the full skirt.

What do you think?

A Letter to my Enemy

Dear Cancer,
Well that seems wrong doesn’t it? Saying “dear” to a group of cells, a group of cells that are growing uncontrollably and attacking the person who carries them, a person I love, but how else do you start a letter? I was raised to be polite and well-mannered, to treat all with respect and consideration; the person you’re attacking taught me that. So, even though I want to scream at you to leave him; even though I want to wail and pull at my hair with anguish; even though I want to cry to the gods to spare him I am acting in a way that he would understand and of which he would approve. I am being civilised, I am keeping calm and carrying on.

I’m not saying I haven’t cried; when I first took the phone call that broke the illusion of parental immortality and invulnerability I cried stormily (if quietly) for a few minutes whilst a friend looked on helplessly but then I wiped my eyes, blew my nose and got on with life. This is meant to be the time that you tell your loved-ones all they mean to you; relationships are meant to be thrown into relief and the unsaid is meant to be expressed but that is not who we are. We are a very English family.

Now, it may seem strange to say we are very English when you know that my mother and I are Irish but we are outnumbered and our Celtic passion and stormy emotions have always been strange to the rest of my blended family. They do not do emotion. They laugh a lot but they do not cry in public. They share jokes, meals, stories, bottles of wine but they do not share feelings. So, when I consider telling my dad how much he means to me, how grateful and proud I am he adopted me, how his love and care has shaped me, how I want to make him proud of me, I hesitate. I know that I would only embarrass him if I tried to express my love.

And so cancer, I ask you to go; respond to the chemotherapy and the radiation and leave him. Let him live for more years and let me go on showing my love in ways he finds comfortable. Let me buy him another pint or two in our local; let me share a train journey with him; let me listen to Bob Dylan with him (even though that nasal drone grates on me); most of all let me make him proud by making a success of my life.

Yours Sincerely,
Dorothy