Here's a thing...

Did you know that taking high level Vitamin B suppliments can turn your breastmilk green?
You live and learn!

Go here now!

This is amazing. Real women on the net - not porno ones!
The shape of a mother

More thoughts on FGM

Female circumcision – FGM – How do you feel?

The answer to this question is always one of shock and horror and quite right too.

BUT

I once read in interview with a woman who had been circumcised in Africa who then went on the live in America. She said that whilst her mutilation had been performed by people carrying her away at night against her will, there were female mutilations everywhere in our western society that we accept.

Just think about the boob-job. Plenty of humour there? Big Bouncy boobs…Huge Jubblies…no harm done…tits out for the lads????

Women work hard and save up for boob-jobs. The desire them, they think it will solve all of their insecurity issues. They willingly go under the knife to have their mutilations carried out.

Gabriele Palmer, in her book The Politics of Breastfeeding, noted that sexualising and mutilation of the breast is comparable to Chinese foot-binding where a girl’s feet were broken and folded over on themselves. This was to insure that the girl’s feet did not grow more than 3 inches. The comparison can be drawn; sacrificing the primary function of the body part, feet – walking, breasts – feeding baby, for the sake of sexualising them to a male ideal. This is the reason why women making the decision to breast or bottle feed their babies is a feminist issue.

Female mutilation, or even the mutilation of the idea of function (e.g. a mother who ‘chooses’ to bottle feed her baby because she feels it is far too sexual to breastfeed) is prevalent everywhere. It is very easy for people in one culture to be horrified at another’s practices.

BUT we have a responsibility to stop female mutilation in all its forms. There is no sliding scale; FGM, boob-jobs, ‘designer vaginas’, even a culture that sees bottle feeding as normal, are all there to stop women being whole people who just as they are, just as they are meant to be.

WHY? Because we are too threatening to men otherwise; we have too much power if we were not subjugated. We could have sex with other men and the paternity of the children would not be certain.

Some pictures

Here are my lovely family.
We are all smiling because we are about to go on holiday!

On a personal note...

Why oh why don't my children sleep? Why do they need feeding back to sleep every half an hour? I don't mind doing it and I know that I am giving them love, reassurance and a nice full tummy of mummy milk but why do they take it in turns to wake up all night?. Some nights I spend my whole time going up and down the corridor.

Osiris is now in his own bed after 3 years of being in with me. He really likes having his own space and he loves his new bookcase but he wants me to sleep in there with him. Solomon is in my bed so all night I am going between the two. Most of the time when I wake up to someone crying I don't know which bed I'm in. I quite often sleep-walk to the other room.

We went to Rob's folk's today. I accedently got myself backed into a conversation where a chap was saying "So having children ruins your dreams" I didn't think I had said that but had been having a moan. I said "It depends what your dreams are" In a rather pathetic attempt to back out of whatever I had said before.
I realised that I must have sounded like I resented my children - I don't of course, but it worries me that I might sound like I do.
Well...that spiraled me back into the 'I'm a bad mother' thing and for the rest of the day I felt unable to do anything and was very blue.
I guess what it boils down to - sadly - is I didn't want to say the truth "If you think I'm miserable now, you should have seen me before I had children!"

I'm still feeling sad hours after the conversation. Why?

Who thought this was a good idea?

Sented Tampons!!!!!
I mean...Sented Tampons???
Who thought of this?
Does anyone want to use them?
WHY?

They are a bad idea for two reasons:

1. The vagina is a very sensitive place. Any chemicals in there could mess up the ph and do something terrible.
2. We women don't need advertisers to make us paranoid about something else. It's inside you - what's the point in smelling of flowers there? How can your insides be too smelly? Is your liver too smelly? Your spleen?

And who is smelling your tampons anyway? I thought they were meant to go down the toilet. Are there Tampon Police that I have been unaware of?

PMT and PND and other famale maladies

We woman are a strange and complicated breed are we not? We have BITS and PIECES that stop working or make us go mad once a month or after we have babies.

The word hysteria means madness brought about by a wandering womb. The ancient Greeks used to believe the womb would pop up to see the brain and infect it with some weird illness that make women mad – hysterical.

In our ‘more enlightened’ age we still have the idea of Special Female Problems. Pre-menstrual Tension and Post-natal Depression are cited for the reason of many women’s breakdowns. It’s a bit like a man’s ‘mid-life crisis’, only they have them once in a life time and we have them once a month!

I’m starting to believe that PMT and PND are not real; myths, lies and diversions.

Sure, it is true that the hormones in our bodies change; we are in a state of constant flux (like the moon, like the seasons) but are these hormones the simple explanation for the terrible mental tortures some women endure or just even monthly grumpiness?

Just as the trees (deciduas ones anyway) drop their leaves every autumn I believe we women check our moods and our lives every now and then – usually brought about by our cycles. We say “I don’t feel very happy at the moment, I wonder why that is? I’m a bit grumpy” How many of us can then isolate the problems and make them go away – like leaves?

Not many; there is the underlying sexism in our society that runs so deeply we can’t get rid of it.

So….when a woman snaps at her male college for making an off colour joke she apologises and says she has PMT or maybe she is fed-up of office humour and the bile that she swallows down for three weeks of the month makes it to her lips for once. Did the hormones make her angry? No the man did, the hormones made her say what she felt.

So….a mother has got a new baby, a month later she is sobbing over the washing up and she says “I must have Post-natal Depression, I’m crying for no reason. I feel really down, I’m not bonding with my baby” Well…what about this for a reason; She’s left her job to have this baby and now she realises she is a house wife. She has made an awful lot of sacrifices and Hubby seems to have made none. All the help and visitors seem to have petered out after the first week. She wanted to breastfeed but her nipples are all cracked and bleeding, the midwife says she wasn’t making enough milk and she is scared she is going to starve her baby. Now she is bottle-feeding and somehow it doesn’t feel like she’s doing it anymore and she’s failed. Her friends have dwindled to the few who have children and they only talk about their babies and always seem to have an opinion on her mothering skills. She is tired because the baby won’t sleep. Life seems to be all crying, pooh filled nappies and daytime TV. Everybody else seems to be coping…why isn’t she?

She MUST have Post-Natal Depression!

I’ve listened to a lot of women’s stories who say they suffered from PND and (apart from one exception) they all seem to fit the pattern above. Isn’t this a problem with the way society deals with mothers and babies and not down to the woman’s hormonal problem?

It’s nice and easy to say “That woman is depressed, it must be down to her,” Hang on - most women experience depression in some form…It must be a WOMAN thing. No, No nothing to do with the way we are treated and made to feel…It’s our wandering wombs every time!

Big Green Countdown - 1 week to go

Oh Yes! This time next week I will be sitting in my tent feeling the wonderful glow of the first night of the festival.

Back on line!

YES I am back on line - Phew!
The pre-holiday money-flow promblems have kicked in and we were cut off for a little while, annoyingly! TV, phone and internet were all down.
Rob and I have been cleaning our house in a frenzy so if anyone wants to come and visit, now is the time! It's SO clean round here!
Now I'm going to go and catch up with all the blogs I haven't read for a week.

Female circumcision

I would like to blog about female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM); it is something I have been putting off for a while.

Some people don’t know about FGM and even when it is explained to them they still think it can’t possibly be done now and here.

Let me tell you what it is. It is removal of the outer or inner labia and clitoris or all of it. The wound is stitched up to leave a hole, sometimes only kept open by a straw, for the urine and menstrual blood to pass through. There are varying degrees of mutilation; some requiring one stitch, some that stitch all the way. The most important thing, it seems, it to get rid of the clitoris – the only organ which has no other function than to create pleasure during the sexual act.

This is usually done to a child before she hits puberty, but not always. It is usually done against her will or she has been coerced into it by her family, but not always. It is usually done to comply with an idea of tradition or culture, but not always.

When a woman who has been circumcised marries, in some cultures, it is traditional that the man is given a knife to ‘open her up’ on their wedding night.

FGM causes terrible suffering whilst the wound is initially healing, when the woman urinates, when she has her period, when she is ‘opened up’ and her husband then penetrates an open wound, and in childbirth. There are risks of bleeding to death whilst it’s being done. All sorts of things collect inside the women that should be allowed to get outside. In Alice Walker’s book Possessing The Secret Of Joy she talks about a certain smell that FGM causes because there is a place that can never be washed.

There is no cover-up as to why it happens. People are quite happy to say that it is to stop young girls sleeping around before they are married. It ensures nobody can ‘get in’ before their husbands. It is to make sure that they do not enjoy sex and therefore have it with every man they fancy.

The people who perform FGM are usually other woman using no anaesthetic, in an un-sterile environment, using a sharp ‘something’ which can sometimes be a shard of glass or tin.

Obviously I am making generalisations. In Victorian England the white male Doctor would perform the operation on a girl, usually if she had been found ‘touching’ herself.

In some places in the world there are no ‘whole’ women and there is a myth that if you talk to a man your clitoris will swell up like a penis or that it dangles down like one. The clitoris is considered ‘dirty’ and the whole vagina a place for dirt to collect.

Ok that’s what it is….you probably all knew about that anyway didn’t you?

I’ll blog about how I feel about it another time but just to keep me happy…how do you feel?

How does that make you feel? Right now there are little girls that are being dragged from their beds and being hideously mutilated in their most sensitive areas ‘for their own good’ and their mothers are letting it happen, wanting it to happen, asking for it to happen.

Big Green Countdown...2 weeks!

I'm running arounf my house in a state of panic because the Big Green is only two weeks away!
I have soooooooooooooo much to do. My mobile phone has stopped working and I really need that. I wrote a list of stuff I have to buy and it totaly outstrips the income we have between now and then. I hope I don't have to cut back on the amount of money I'm taking.

My Landlady is comeing to visit next Tuesday. This has induced a state of panic that has gone so way off the scale I appear clam. For those of you who do not know; in our last house the owner was a total bitch who eventually threw us out. It all got really nasty and I hate any conflict. I lived in a flat on my own before that and I was always having Bad Stuff happen there. I had big stones thrown at my window; my neigbour threatened to kill my cats; baliffs tried to break the door down; the council sent someone round to block up my cat flap...so when it comes to house stuff I hide in a wardrobe and let Rob deal with it all.
Anyone up for a visit next Tuesday????? I need to Not Be Here!

In my head I am at the big green....reality just has to catch up.
I've just been looking at the Big Green website and the timetable of events for kids has been released. There is Yoga and Meditation for kids, clown school and a big party on Sunday. WooHoo

New things in my house

1.Clean stuff - We sent Osiris off to his Gran's house for the afternoon and Rob and I cleaned untill downstairs shone! ;) This makes me very happy. It is slighly worrying that it took 2 people all afternoon to clean a living room and kitchen. Mind you, one of us had to look after the baby.

2. Shiney new big green gathering pram (see above) It is rather magnificant but being the silly bugger that I am I assembled it in my front room and now it won't get out of the door, let alone the house! I think you could probably get three kids in this at a push.

3. Baby who has discovered his pooh and is trying to eat it. Oh well - it happens to everybody at some point. Freud would have something to say about it but you know what a dickwad he was.

4. Christmas! Yes strangley - in the middle of the hottest July since the big bang - Osiris has discovered his Santa outfit and is parading about asking us what we want for christmas. He must be boiling but he won't take it off. I think this must be due to him only having five hours sleep in the last day - or it may be the trauma of seeing his home clean for the first time in 2 years.

Ohhh....my head!

I must remember that I an not a young thing anymore.

I went out on Friday night – again!. Now I don’t want anybody thinking I’m the kind of gal that goes out once a week leaving my wee babies with their dad. BUT I have been out twice in two weeks for the first time since I was pregnant with Solomon.

The trouble is that my body id that of an overtired mother who doesn’t drink at all but my brain thinks I’m a student who used to drink 10 pints. Result; very sore head. OW OW OW.

That’ll bloody learn me!

In other news…I am really sorry about the appalling spelling mistakes in this blog. I was sick the day they did spelling in school! I’m currently studying grammar and spelling and the like on a Tuesday. We can only hope that something takes and my awful writing style improves.

Something that quite surprised me today, in a conversation with irgxana, was how feminist this blog could appear. Irgxana – a man – was quite surprised and “scared” by my little rants. I guess he had forgotten what a big feminist I am. I’m not going to apologise but please speak out if you disagree – I’d love a bit of lively debate!

What is the right age to have your children?

Babies.

You MUST have them at the 'right' age. Everybody seems to have an opinion exsactly what that age is. Every time a mother in her 40s', 50s' or (god forbid!) her 60s' has a baby, especially if it is concived by using IVF, the press have a feild day and even Radio Four go a bit loopy.
This is a topic that everyone feels that they have a right to comment on; from colomists to taxi drivers it's ok to say "too young, too old, too irrisponsible"

Hmmm - didn't hear much of that when Rod Steward had his baby recently.

Ok - here's a new idea: The right age is when the woman bloody well feels like it!

Books you have to read...2

Womens History of the world
By Rosalind Miles

Chuck all your history books in the bin. This is a exsamination of the presumed roles of women through the ages. What did Damsels in castles really do? Did they even exsist? What were women up to when their huspands rode off the crudades? From the Stoneage to the modern day this book makes us question who's been writing the history we have taught and what was their agenda? Recomended for all feminists!

New man/Old man - HA!

Whilst watching Richard and Judy today I was astounded to hear that in America men are going through a 'change' they are calling the Manasance. (Renasance - Manasance; see what they've done???) Apparently, spured on by the film Superman, men are deciding that they have had enough of being kind and sensitive and want to get back in touch with the 'caveman' and become all macho and brave. For some reason the exsamples they used were all about domestic chores. Real men don't do the washing up, real men don't vaccum the floor etc.

Well wooppie fucking do dah!

I have yet to see any evidance that there were 'New Men' in the first place.
The 'New Man' was dremt up in the late eightys' when women were clawing their way to equality in the work place (at great cost to their homelives, mothering and other indications that they were not phedo-men) well we all know that they didn't spot the glass celing. So there's all these blokes saying "Men that want to supress you, to own you, no we're not those kind of men...we are a different kind of men altogether...we are New Men"
What they were thinking is "Oh shit the girls have noticed what we're up to. Quick lads - look the other way, whistle, say it wasn't us and we still might get a shag"

Then in the '90's we - the women- seemed to loose our grip on the benefits we had fought so hard to gain. Lap danceing strip clubs became cool, 'lad mags' were ok and the 'laddette' was born. (Ladddette - a woman who drinks and goes out to pubs, sleeps with who she likes, usually a bit loud and crude. These qualities belong to men so she couldn't possibly be expressing herslef -she must be trying to be a man; a lad)
'New Man' seemed to be any man who didn't sleep around, who treated 'his' girlfriend like a human - lucky old us!

SO...lots of guys saying they are fed up of being New Men is a bit like Jamie Oliver saying he's fed up of trying not to be a cockney wanker - sorry mate, didn't notice much difference.

Old Men are cunts - an oxymoron, I know - and we don't want them around.

AND ANOTHER BLOODY THING...this idea that cavemen banged their women over the head and dragged them off to their caves is a load of old bollocks. There is a whole heap of archeological evidance to show that most stoneage societies were matriarchal and matrelinial where wmen and men worked together doing different but equaly valued work. Modern day interpratations of artifacts are woefuly polluted with the sexist thinking that we are used to.
My favorite exsample of this is a 'counting stick' that was dated to very early stoneage. It had 28 marks on it and is the earliest exsample of numerical record keeping. 'What could it be for?' The male archeologists wondered. They decided it MUST be for counting the times for hunting or something...mummble mummle...but hunting nevertheless.
UNTILL a female archologist said "28 marks...who would REALLY need to know when 28 days' have past? Oh yeah, a woman counting her menstual cycle...that makes much more sence"
There is still some debate over it's 'true' purpose...but what do you think is more likely?

Anyway bollocks to men who think being a man is all about how shit they are to women. Let's measure the worth of a man by what a great father and partner they are...and if they do the washing up!

Can you belive he was this small?

This is solomon only a few hours old
Got a lot better looking with age hasn't he?

Hathor the Cow Goddess

For more of this wonderful woman's work go to http://
thecowgoddess.com/

IRGxana's blog address

http://my.opera.com/IrGXaNa/blog/
for some geeky stuff and amazing animations and general 'my brother' style stuff

Stonehenge midsummer

Oh Polly...She's so lovley. Osiris thinks she is amazing

Here is the wonderful place itself

I am carrying Solomon and behind me is Osiris on Rob's head

Books you have to read...1

ALICE WALKER
Possessing the secret of joy

All of Alice walker's books are amazing but this is the kind of book that will change your life. Trust me, it really will!

Why formula is bad...

'Nightmare' baby formula advice for parents
KATE FOSTER AND ARTHUR MACMILLAN
FORMULA milk should only be made with scalding-hot water and never
stored in the fridge, according to controversial new guidelines
aimed at reducing the food-poisoning risk to babies.

The advice has been issued by food standards watchdogs amid mounting
concern that formula milk is being contaminated with salmonella and
other potentially deadly bacteria.

But Scotland on Sunday can reveal that at least two major makers of
formula milk have delayed changing their own instructions because
they fear parents and babies could be scalded. And the guidance has
been condemned as "impractical" by many midwives and parents'
groups.

Many parents make up a day's worth of formula milk, often using
tepid water from a kettle. The milk is then kept in the fridge and
warmed up when needed.

But while this is undoubtedly convenient, a panel of experts from
the European Food Safety Authority have concluded it is potentially
risky. They believe babies could be at risk of infection from
salmonella and Enterobacter sakazakii micro-organisms, if milk feeds
are made in advance and stored.

Although infections from formula milk are rare, the Food Standards
Agency has now issued new guidance on preparation, which states
that:

• Feeds should be made using boiled water that has cooled to no less
than 70°C;

• Each feed should be made fresh because storing made-up formula
milk could increase the chance of a baby becoming ill;

• Parents should keep water they have just boiled in a sealed flask,
ready to make up fresh formula milk.

Sue MacDonald, education and research manager for the Royal College
of Midwives, said: "The big thing that has changed is that you
cannot store milk in the fridge any more.

"A lot of mums have no choice but to leave their baby with a
childminder or a nursery, so what are they going to do? It will
become a nightmare for mums."

MacDonald also complained that the RCM had not been made directly
aware of the new guidance.

She said: "We only learned of these changes recently when we looked
at the Food Standards Agency website. Better communication from the
government would not go amiss.

"We will pass this information on to new mums, but the risk of
contamination is tiny compared to the importance of ensuring
sterilised bottles and maintaining good hygiene by washing hands."

Rosie Dodds, policy research officer for the National Childbirth
Trust, said: "It is worrying for parents to find out that [formula]
powder is not sterile. We should emphasise that the risk is very
low, but it can affect babies with a poor immune system."

A spokeswoman for La Leche League, a mother support group that
espouses breastfeeding, said: "When a mother drops her child at
nursery, who will be ensuring that the bottles are sterile? And if
flasks are being used to store boiled water, who will make sure that
they are sterilised?"

Making a completely fresh, seven-ounce feed is unlikely to take less
than 10 minutes - a long time for any parent with a screaming infant
in the early hours of the morning.

That's how long it takes boiled water to cool to drinking
temperature if the bottle is placed in cold water.

Despite the proven health benefits for both mother and child,
Scotland has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe: 63%
during the first months of life compared with 98% in Sweden. Only
24% of Scottish mothers are still breastfeeding at six months.

Direct advertising of formula milk was banned in 1995 in an attempt
to encourage more women to breastfeed.

However, the formula milk market has continued to grow in the UK and
is worth almost £160m a year - an increase of more than 25% since
2000.

Liz Spiers, who is embroiled in a legal wrangle with formula milk
manufacturers, put her daughter Amy straight on to bottles when she
was born nine years ago.

Despite being born healthy, Amy was infected with Enterobacter
sakazakii, which led to meningitis, and she was left badly brain-
damaged.

Spiers, from Stranraer, who blames baby formula for the infection,
said: "I made up the bottles as instructed by the midwife and left
them in the fridge.

"Amy was only a few days old when she became ill. She was sleepless,
whimpering and sick and we took her back to hospital. They diagnosed
the infection and she was put on antibiotics.

"She was left with severe brain damage. She can't walk or talk. I
believe the infection came from the milk. Warnings should be put on
the tins. Parents need to know the risks."

However, both Heinz and SMA said they had not updated their
labelling because of the new requirement to boil water above 70°C.

Jane Tomlinson, a spokeswoman for SMA, said: "We are in talks with
the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency about the
implications of these guidelines.

"The suggestion that only water about 70°C is used is of concern to
us. We want to clarify these matters before we make any changes."

A spokesman for Heinz, which makes Farley's formula milk, said: "We
are taking a responsible approach to these guidelines as we are
concerned about the use of water hotter than 70°C. There is a risk
of scalding if milk is being made up at that temperature.

"We have shared our concerns with the Department of Health and will
not be changing our packaging until an independent risk assessment
is carried out."

Becoming more like God(dess)

It is a powerful thing that drives motherhood; not one for the fainthearted.

Every day I battle with the overwhelming feeling that I am failing at bringing up my children. Everyday I feel as if this fragile shell of normality is going to splinter and all the worms of my true self will slither through.
I have people around me who tell me that I'm a 'wonderful' mother and that I worry too much. I want to belive them and I nod and smile and say thanks but I KNOW they do not see the TRUTH. If I am 'wonderful' or even coping then why did my baby go flying down the stairs? Why can't I go through a day without shouting and loosing my temper at Osiris? Why can't I even clean my house?

I mean...most people can keep a house clean, can't they? How do they do it? Can anyone tell me?

I want to hide, to curl up, to shrug off the responsibility. I want to be alone....EXCEPT for the small voise that keeps me going.

The Image of The Mother is not of a perfect woman but of the one who kisses you when you are hurt, who makes the monsters go away with her smell, who suckles you with sweet fresh milk. This I can do. Every now and then I have to remember that I am a women who has transended into the second stage of her being - motherhood. I am not the first or the last to feel this overwhlming fear.

I can hear my babies cry in the middle of a multidtude - just like those sea birds returning to thier nests amongst a thousand of their kind. I can soothe them and love them and feed them with my body.

The Mother Goddess walks with me every day; she walks inside of me keeping me strong. She has many names but I whisper 'Hathor' when I am in need.

So
On this night when I am afraid that my mothering is not good enough, when I am scared of my power over two little souls...Hathor I ask you to fill me with your blue healing light and guide me to a calmer place. I ask you to walk in my body and remind me that I am not alone with these feelings. Give me the strength to be calm. Let me feel The Mother's arms around me as I hold my children.
Blessed Be
x

baby went down the stairs

I am a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD mother. What can I say? Spent all morning in causualty being 'watched' with a pertner who didn't want to be there because he'd been up all night playing computer games and he didn't even think baby was hurt even though he'd just fallen down 13 steps.
Lots of doctors asking "so how did he fall down the stairs?" and I honestly can say I don't know. All i can remember is his little pink body bumping down the stairs and hitting every one. The only plus is that since I am such a slob all of our dirty clothes were in a pile at the bottom and provided a nice soft landing.
So I'm expecting a visit from my Health Visitor who said to me last week "You'll have to watch that one - he'll be off before you know it" about my crawling 6 month-old. Well, she was right and now I feel like shit. Every time I close my eyes I can see him falling and falling and tumbleing and...oh god!
I feel sick to my stomach. I'm so scared I am a shit mum that I feel like I need someone to suppervise me with my baby. I feel scared to be alone with them. Sadly R has been on another computer marathon and only came to bed at 5am and that's after having 2 hours sleep the day before. So I'm not anticipating much help from him today!
The whole day is looming and I feel alone again.

The baby is fine by the way.

Why more kids = less work

I found this one out last night...well to be honest I found it out last year at the Big Green but I think the truth is only just sinking in.

Last night I went to a party held by some really random 'olds' (although I realise I was one of the olds compared to some of the teenagers there) and there were quite a lot of kids of a variaty of ages. After spinning out about where Osiris he finaly gave me the slip and disappered. It took me half an hour to realise he was gone and not with Polly. I searched for him and eventualy found him playing in a den with all the other party kids. I thought 'ok...let's see how long he is fine without me'. The answer is all bloody night! He had a girl of ten running to the kitchen to get him milk and cake and two older boys builing a better den to his design.
I kind of knew that we are meant to live in tribes but it's only when you see the behavour of children in a tribal setting that you understand how silly living our isolated living styles are. At the Big Green last year Osiris was going through his biteing phase but some of the older children told him off when he did it and that carried much more weight than me and the bloody naughty step.

So to conclude...burn the houses down, smash the roads up, build mud huts in a circle, cook together in a big pot and dance in the moonlight letting the children all run wild in a pack.....I think i might go and howl at the moon now.

The big green is only a few weeks away - I may never come back!

Avebury and the Son and Sun

Isn't he lovley?

Inside and out

Lots of thigs have happened both inside and out of my house.

On the outside something very sad has happened. One of the Peer Supporters from the breastfeeding support group I help run has decided to leave. It's a very strange group and I have never experienced a time when people are happy and this is not even the first person who has left over this issue but this time it is someone who's help to new mums is really valuble. The group is going to be a harder one to run without her knowlage and expertise. Whatever happened I knew I could count on her back up when dealing with a difficult situation. It makes me a little nervous to go back to the group next week. Oh well...I will miss her. I hope I manage to keep in contact with her now she will not be at the group.

Inside my house I have been on the mission 'clean washing' which involves burning up £10 of electricty in having the tumble dryer and washing machine on all day. There is the usual chaos of shouting at kids, shouting at R, trying to do some cleaning. Polly is in Gloucester tonight but I just couldn't get out to see her. Hopefully I will see her tomorrow.

I had a thought whilst reading other peoples' blogs...The internet is an interesting dicotamy. I have tapped into a rich seam of feminist thoughts but in the same place as I can find rape porn. It's all a bit obvoius. The internet; bad or good: discuss. yadda yadda yadda. But I am glad that in this medium that is only advanced so that more porn can be accessed there are women finding thier voices. But are we all shouting into a void, preaching to the choir and other bad metaphores?

As a footnote; the annoying man-next-door was annoying once more, going on about the fence and patronisingly saying "you understand don't you?" argh I'd like to be really rude to him or punch him but there you go...we must all live in hormony, even in darkest Tredworth.

Been out; done it; great!

What I really needed was to get drunk and ramble with some mates and I have done it. WITHOUT children. Arh, the luxuary.

Going out?

Yes I am thanks. I'm bloody going bloody out and no one can stop me. I've been pumping milk like a mad woman all morning so that I can go out tonight and have a drink with a few friends. This is a futlie attempt at proving to myself I have friends. Last night I left the house and walked the streets of tredworth feeling like shit realiseing there was not a single person I could have gone to see. I feel so alone at the moment. Alone and yet surrounded by peole who need me sooooooooooooo much.
Osiris, is going through a funny phase at the moment. He keeps going on about boobies. "oh i want some boobies, i would like some feeds i want your yummy milk" ALL BLOODY DAY. He's not even asking for it proplerly, he's singing the words just as the enter his head. He keeps coming up to me and pretending to feed or trying to get my tits out. Even as I write now he is singing a song "i love your boobies"
It be really getting on me nerves.
Anyway night out tonight hooray. I may never come home.

Two adverts that drive me crazy

MOST adverts drive me nuts but there are two out there at the moment that make me so insanly cross I have no words to express how VERY VERY CROSS I am!

The first one is for Volvic water. It involves a load of cave men carrying something heavy. One of them stops for a rest, opens a bottle of volvic and stares at the lid. He has a moment of inspiration and next we see him chipping at a huge rock to make it round. He chops down a tree, inserts it into the hole in the middle and volia....he has invented...the wheel? No it's a pole for a scataly clad cave woman to dance around. He'd invented misogyny. That's how it was...apparently.

Shall I go into a rant about this? Hell, why not? Volvic are part of the evil coca-cola empire so why should I be at all suprised that they have stooped this low? Who are they aiming this advert at anyway? Not women surely; why alinate 52% of your buying market? It just dosesn't make sense. Perhaps we woman are aspiring to BE the cave woman flinging herself around that pole. Yeah we want to be full of volcanicity sure!
Besides the appalling sexisam of this advert it also sets my teeth on edge because of the totaly unrealistic depiction of stone age man. GRRR!

Advert number two who's makers will endure misery and tourture if I had anything to do with it: Bloody Venus Divine bloody leg shaver.
"Every woman has a goddess inside of her. Every woman is powerful, funny, strong, talented. Reveal your goddess within. Reveal your true radiance"
WHAT? BY SHAVING YOUR LEGS SO THE MEN DON'T THINK YOU'RE A LESBIAN?
Yes every woman has got a goddess within her but I'm damn sure she doesn't have smooth as silk legs. Yet another thing telling us that we can be wonderful, wonderful means lots of men want to fuck us. Wonderful means being totaly defined by the male gaze. Wonderful means making other woman jealous of the extrodanry lenghths you have gone to to conform to some random patriarchal ideal of beauty...then you will be a goddess; when you can make men go stiff at the sight of you...oh, not you, you've got hairy legs, you hairy old minger no one wants to fuck you.

A sad footnote to all this is that the Dove 'Campain for real beauty' which has been desperatly trying to make us all feel a bit better about lumps and bumps HAS DONE NOTHING FOR THEIR SALES. That's right; us women don't want to look like those quite nice looking normal people, we want to be that airbrushed unattainable model.

What are we doing to ourselves? What are we doing to our daughters? It's the main reason why this sexist bullshit still works. I tell you it was (and still is) the women of the village who hold the pubesant girl down and cut away her vagina with a bit of tin AND it was the woman, the mothers and grandmothers, who broke the girl child's feet so they would fit into tiny slippers.

Women are not ultimatly to blame but let's open our eyes and see that the patriarcal bullshit system of undermining our self-worth is just an emperor with no clothes on; he needs us to keep up the illusion.

Happy Litha!

We went to Stonehenge on the 20th of June. Me, the big R and our two offspring (aged 3 and 6 months). I MUST BE MAD! Well actualy it was just what I needed. I managed to persade a few family members and a friend from the breastfeeding group to come along. To my ultimate joy I found out that we would be graced with the divine presance of Polly and her new girlfriend (giggle!).

I must tangent a bit to say I am a little bit jealous of Polly. Wonderfully happy for her but a little jealous all the same. When I decided that I fanceyed girls and I was having none of that boy stuff it was like shouting into a void. It made a differnce to me but not to the world. Living in Gloucester is not ideal for coming out as the whole town is either hetro or screaming queens. There is no disernable lesbian presance except a few girls in their bedrooms deciding they are gay. So when Polly goes down that route she is greeted with a gay scean and a girl who wants her....LUCKY damn it. I even tried to gay it up at uni' but again to no noticable affect; perhaps I am unlovable; perhaps the universe had the plan for my children to be concived. It's all way ahead of me anyway.

SO Litha; happy happy night of music and a little puff on a spliff and watching polly glow like her inner fire had been lit for the first time. It rained, it was a bit worrying for the kids, the sun was obscured by clouds and my friend crashed her car on the way home but on the whole I feel totaly revitalised by the whole experience.

It's easy to forget who I am but when I plug myself into a night like that then I reaise I am that girl who makes the music and belives in the goodness of the human soul.

I placed my hands on the stones and they smiled inside of me, deep inside touching the heart of my faith. I knew SHE had not forgoten me, my Goddess, my Divine Protecter. When I was in hospital wandering the lonley landings I endind up in the chapel to be greeted by the image of the Goddess with her son. Sure, they call her Mary but I know her from an older time. She is within and she is without. As a woman I become her and yet she sustains me. I called her name as I went under the anasthetic and she called my name to bring me back.

What we did on that HOLY DAY? We got rained on and saw some bloody big stones!