Horsing Around

Moving to a (what I like to call) “Disneyland” development where all the houses are pretty much the same apart from the odd bit of white render, had a simple appeal to us this year. Having spent the last few years in a Kent weatherboard cottage where we may as well have been sleeping in a shed, we were determined that until we could afford to buy our own cottage and update it properly, we could only really trust a landlord to maintain a house that was, well, easy to maintain. Without going into too much detail, our previous and now late landlord was, how can I put it, a tight bastard and we admittedly were naïve. So the crisp clean lines of a purpose built cul-de-sac and a good chance of paying less than £500 a month to heat it made it an easy decision. And I must say, I love it here. We’re two Disney-blocks away from open fields and just a few Disney-blocks away from the local shops and playground. The neighbours are friendly but keep to themselves and despite being far from the picture of the rural village we came from, it’s much, much quieter.

That was until a few nights ago when we awoke to the sound of hooves on our front driveway. Yes, hooves. Being very suddenly awake, I uttered something incomprehensible in my loud, jerky walrus voice to Ed who was already at the curtains, twitching away. We heard a neighbour below telling someone how she’d seen around 10 horses walking around and she was going to call the police. After mentally going through all the openings in the house where any troublemakers associated with these equines might be able to get in and being confident we’d locked everything between us, we went to sleep confidently, if a little perplexed. The next morning Noah and I walked to the swings (a good half hour away) but our four legged rebels beat us to it. Clearly worn out from their night of mischief, they lay around on each other like a gang of delinquents drunk on cider. With no one in sight, let alone someone watching over these dead beats, I rushed Noah through his little recreation routine and scurried home.

I can only assume that these would-be-dogfood-by-now animals must belong to the gypsies, about a mile away. And who can blame them for at least feebly attempting to escape. But why do I immediately feel sorry for them, that they’ve obviously been sold as slaves into a life of crime and malice? Am I being narrow to assume all gypsies are bad? Well I’d be lying if I said, even with my limited exposure to them, I had anything positive to reflect on. No, only badly behaved cliquey children passing through my primary school and then two very sinister canal-boat gypsies living below our riverside flat whom we later found out were on the child protection register and only vanished once one of them murdered the other. So not a great experience on my part, but they can’t be all bad can they? Well I have to say, until I do have some contact with them, it’s going to be hard to change my mind. And I don’t get the impression that they’re concerned enough about their public image to invite the locals over for a barbeque. And why should they? Maybe I have just met the bad apples, but unfortunately it’s going to take a lot of experiences with good apples for me to feel remotely comfortable with them living nearby. Despite considering myself to be pretty open-minded and non-judgemental, I am indeed a gypsist. 

Money Troubles

Charles Dickens wrote about a character, Mr Micawber, who said:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six pence, result misery.”

Well, to be honest when aren’t there troubles with money? These past few years, however have been the most troublesome. Not because we’ve been any poorer than before, but probably because Ed and I have decided to actually deal with our money related issues rather than just cross our fingers and hope that everything will be fine. This has been a constant battle (usually around once a month, just before getting paid) but I’m convinced each time we look at our spending, blame each other, blame ourselves, shout, cry and then vow to sell Alfie into the doggy sex trade we get a little bit further towards feeling ‘on top’ (a feeling which our bi-curious labradoodle is rather unfamiliar with and thus rules the last money making suggestion out). This time it was at London Bridge station where Noah and I were coming home from a delightful weekend in the city with my sister, with seconds to spare I was hurriedly buying my ticket at one of those wretched machines. Card not authorised. Try again. Card not authorised. Extremely helpful sister’s boyfriend steps in and in a flash we’re running to the train which needless to say, we missed. The stress and embarrassment of it all made this particular money-trouble-facing episode all the more painful. There was no excuse this time, we’d lost track, spent too much and hoped for the best at the end of the month.

You see, after a rather stormy patch in our lives which left us jobless for a good nine months (in which time I fell pregnant, therefore leaving Ed as the sole breadwinner) we had accumulated rather a lot of debt. Rather naively and probably just being proud we didn’t get ask for any help from friends or family, nor did we claim any benefits or tax breaks. The only person we sought help from was our not so friendly bank manager and his little credit card minions. Long story short: lesson learned, thank goodness we only got that deep and thank goodness we’re on our way through. So, three years on we’re paying more trying to pay off our past than we are in rent. Now, far from moaning I really mean to paint a picture of someone who is genuinely happy to have faced some rather large issues in my life which I have to say, without the fear of not having enough money, may never have showed their ugly little heads. The trust and communication between Ed and me is better than ever and I know now that these (and plenty of other) dreadful things have only proven to push us closer together. Although I’m sure there are millions of people out there with the same fears at the end of the month, particularly in this financial climate, I’m just not so sure how many others are determined enough to allow themselves to go deep into those dark places of fear and come through the other side. All I can say is that I genuinely count myself lucky to have those few people around me who encouraged me to go through those times of pain and deal with the issues that come up along the way.

So, after looking at debt consolidation loans, bankruptcy and everything in between we came to a solution that is far, far simpler – spend less. Easy to say, yes but relatively easy to do. So long as you’re truly facing the reality of the situation, I’m sure in most cases you can look at everything that is coming in and THEN look at what needs to come out, ie. what do I have left to spend rather than what is necessary for me to spend. Now Ed and I are by no means in complete control of this but we’re trying and we’re being ruthless. Each time we look at it we have a greater understanding of priorities and the reality of those things we are actually able to afford. We are now stricter than ever on our budgets and take as much joint responsibility for each part of it as possible to avoid either of us hiding under the blanket of denial and then blaming the other for any over spend. I know, it sounds like hell, a formula for a relationship that might come out of some heartless self help guide to marital functionality. But this has truly brought us even closer, learning to truly trust each other in every part of our lives as I can assure you, if you can do it with money, you can do it with anything!

The result of all of this process in my life is that I’m learning to juggle looking after my toddler during the day, working at a local guesthouse in the evenings, cooking delicious (and I wont settle for anything less than delicious!) meals on a budget, making homemade Christmas decorations and gifts that are genuinely better and cheaper than anything you could buy (otherwise what’s the point, right!?) and all the while being completely together with Ed in everything we spend, cutting back on anything that goes stale and unnecessary in our lives and successfully (she says) living within our means. This is the greatest sense of achievement and satisfaction I could ever think of, the simplicity of 20 pounds in and nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence out – absolute bliss.

My Anticlimax Halloween

Having been brought up under a religious regime where Halloween simply did not exist, I was rather looking forward to joining in the festivities for the first time this year with Noah. As a child, the 31^st of March mainly consisted of opening the door to classmates and friends empty handed but armed with a well rehearsed ‘holier than thou’ speech explaining my family’s abstinence. Not forgetting the guilt ridden ‘it’s up to you’ kind of parental guidance when I’d be invited to a (perish the thought) Halloween party. It was simple, apple bobbing made Jesus sad.

            Determined to have a slightly more light hearted approach, Noah and I carved pumpkin faces, made pumpkin pies, went to a party dressed as a skeleton (where Noah made up for the sweets I lost out on in one great sugar rush) and even stocked the cupboard full of goodies for the trick or treaters. All the above was pretty fun, but not the forbidden fruit I’d played it up to in my head. My pumpkin faces were wasted on my Ashford neighbours whose front door are usually adorned with bin bags and empty bottles (not on bin day I might add rather snobbishly), my mini pumpkin pies (complete with spooky black icing figures) were lost in the pile of sausage rolls and crisps at the party, Noahs suit (although there never was a cuter chubbier skeleton) will join my wedding dress in the ‘worn only once’ cupboard, and the trick or treaters? Well, opening the door with a smile was my first mistake. As for my “wow!” and “ooh!” comments about their outfits, I should have known they’d fall on deaf ears. These children simply hold out their plastic bags whilst their mother hovers in the background playing on her phone. In the sweets go, and off they go, then Noah finally makes it to the door just in time to shut it. Bath time, nigh’ nigh’ Noah, Interview with the Vampire on the TV (boring) and Halloween is over. What was all the fuss about? I think I will direct my creative juices elsewhere next year, probably Christmas. It’s much more my scene, more food, more alcohol, more presents and no doubt it’ll make Jesus much happier.

Bananas, apples and greasy hair.

Me: “Do you want a banana or an apple Noah?”

Noah: “Yeah!”

Me: “No darling, banana OR apple?”

Noah: “Yeah!”

Me: “No, choose: banana OR apple?”

Noah: “nana!”

Me: “Great! Yes. A banana it is then!”

(Little pause as I proudly prepare the banana)

Noah: “Apple?”

Now I’m sure there’ll be a number of posts that will start with a quote from my 18 month old. There is no doubt that my life has a lot more laughter in it since he started communicating. I love watching him discover the world completely unadulterated. This morning’s breakfast selection process got me thinking though, why am I so indecisive? Now I wouldn’t go around ‘owning’ that label in a hurry. Deep down, I know I can and have made some very big, very important decisions in my life. With those big decisions somehow, I seem to be able to tap into a deeper more trusting side of my heart that knows it’ll be alright in the end. I find it easy to look back at my life and entertain the idea that maybe someone out there is looking out for me and maybe I can take a big step and all will work out in the end.

            There was, however something in Noah’s indecision about which fruit to eat that I could relate to. The small decisions are the ones that catch me out. It seems silly to allow my heart to take over in decisions about bananas and apples, or which clothes to wear or whether to wash my hair this morning or this evening. It is in these moments that my most controlling, OCD instincts take over. What if I eat an apple and the banana goes brown tomorrow? What if I wear my best sweater dress today and it’s not washed in time for my coffee date at the end of the week and I end up wearing the same thing I wore last time I saw that friend? What if I wash my hair this morning and it’s not at it’s best tomorrow for work? Or worse, what if I do need to go out today after all and have to unleash my greasy hair upon the public?! It’s exhausting! And surely these are the decisions that matter the least, why do they take up most of my daily worrying time? I’m sure I worried less when I fell pregnant whilst Ed and I were both unemployed, trying to sell a flat in a recession and going through the biggest emotional rollercoaster of our lives. If all things worked themselves out in time for Noah to enter this world (well most things anyway!), maybe, just maybe that brown banana will still be edible tomorrow. Or maybe it really just doesn’t matter, maybe going with my heart on even the smallest of things isn’t such a bad idea after all, it’s clearly worked in the past, maybe it really does know something I don’t.

And to start...

Just to introduce and explain myself. I feel like I'm at the start of my life now and what better time to begin a blog? As I begin my journey, with a husband, an 18 month old son and a neurotic labradoodle along for the ride, I can't help feeling it's going to be a crazy one. My life so far has been full of surprises and certainly out of the box. I've seen friends and family come and go for the most genuine and most silly of reasons, I’ve seen myself in bizarre places around the world and with people I’d never expect, all whilst I try to embrace this most beautiful and challenging thing we call life.

If I were to write a novel about the events of the past three or four years in particular, there is no doubt it would make a good read, however the most important thing to me is how those things have helped shape me. This readers, is why I have chosen to blog, as much for my own curiosity as anything else. I long to see those challenges from my past (and no doubt life will be adding to them along the way) show their heads in every part of my life from now on.  I suppose that taking life as it comes and learning to see the beauty, irony and opportunity in each moment is precisely where I’m at, and if that means a few giggles and points to ponder over for those reading, why not share that? 
So, let’s begin…