Ma and the destruction of her cave

It is a miracle of nature, the power of rejuvenation amazes us; the spring after snow: the leaves growing on bare branches: a chick hatching from a stone-like egg.
When a child starts to talk he forms his first sounds, one of them is “Mama”. A baby of a few months will cry out for Mama even through he does not know that is the name of his mother. He names her; we have brought it into our language. Mother, mammal, mammary gland, mammon. mom, maternal.
The great Mother Goddess has a very old name; Ma. This is older than culture, this is older than language, this is the mewing cry of a hungry baby. Ma feeds her children with her huge breasts full of milk, she bares her children in her belly and holds them to her on her wide hips.
There were a stone-age people who lived not far from me that knew of Ma and her dark secrets of birth. One of the most sacred mysteries is the ability of the vulva to heal after being torn open in childbirth. Ma opens her body to let her child out, and then she heals. Destruction, reconstruction, evolution, change; this is the mystery of Ma.
They built a burial mound to house their dead; it was in the shape of a woman’s body with a huge belly for her children to return into. In between the truncated legs there stood an opening to the tomb. When a body was to enter they tore it open to let them in, and then carefully rebuilt the wall. This was a symbolic representation of birth, or not so symbolic if you believe the real live earth to be Ma’s body.
Birth is often called a miracle but perhaps people concentrate on the wrong end. Yes, there is a baby, a new life, fantastically amazing…but look at where it came from, how it came into this world. Through the most amazing part of any human; the stretching, healing vulva.
There is no such thing as a baby on its own. There is ALWAYS somebody looking after it. There MUST be somebody looking after it or else it would die. A baby is not a miracle on its own. Ma must be there.

Top vulva pics

Vulva origami

Here's a costume for the Gloucester carnaval

Sheena-na-gig

Do they love us? Do they hate us?

Looking at any porn mag, lad’s mag or even newspaper I find myself asking this question.

At first glance there seems to be a legion of beautiful woman who seem powerful, photographed, earning money. They stare right out at the camera, confidently even though they have little on. Wow, it must be great to look like that and be that confident. It’s like some kind of goddess worship, all this womanhood on display, all these women, on every page pouting and strutting like they own the world. Even the captions are worshipful “we bow at Mandy’s alter”, “A fine example of womanhood”…

Then I start to read the joke page and all the jokes are about how STUPID women are, they can’t drive cars, they have enormous vaginas, they are thick (especially blonde ones)….

For a long time as a child I didn’t get it. I called it “We love them but we hate them”.

The NUTS advert seems to show this contradiction very nicely…

“Women, don’t expect any help on a Tuesday…If you’re NUTS about woman, cars and gadgets….”

Hang on, if you were NUTS about women why would you abandon them to read a stupid magazine…ABOUT women????

Oh sorry, they only love the right kind of woman.

What has this got to do with vulvas on Vulva liberation week? Well, I think society has a huge problem with them in a ‘love them/hate them’ way. You have to pay a lot on a cable box to see one, you can’t see one unless it is ‘proper’ porn. They are shaved and smooth, bleached and dry. If you are showing your vulva to someone it seems as if you have to do a certain face, screw it up, stick tongue out and look as you can’t help being so dirty.

So if they are so keen to see them why do men pull a face like they smell something bad whenever they are hairy, belong to woman who has children or is over 20?

Only the right kind of vulva.

Porn…vulvas, vulvas everywhere and not a hair in sight. Not one that looks like mine, or yours, or yours, I’ll be bound!

Vulva Tag

I’m very excited about it being Vulva Liberation Week. I think we should have one every year. Thanks to Maia for the tag.

1. If your vulva got dressed, what would it wear?

A pair of stout walking boots, Tie dye leggings, a rainbow jumper that is colourful but also VERY sensible for cold weather. It would stand about laughing at the other vulvas that did not dress appropriately for this weather and are wearing high heels and stockings. Now they are huddling together with hyperthermia.

2. If your vulva could talk, what would it say? (in two words)
I heal

3. What's special about your vulva?
I have never hated it. I have always been curious about it and loved it for its wonderful talent…you see, there’s a place where, if you rub it….well….you know what I mean!

Also, what other part of your body can go through the trauma of childbirth and then be fine a few months later (more blogging on that another day)

4. What two words would you use to describe your vulva?
Mine. Changeable.

5. When did you get your first period? What was it like?
I only have one thing to say on this matter….Dr.Whites Sanitary belt. Why? Why? Why? If I had had thin discrete things like we have nowadays I’m sure it would not have been the ‘curse’ it was

6. What does a vulva smell like?
Olives

7. What does a vulva look like?
Like a vulva?????

8. If your vulva could choose a name for you, what would it choose?

Oi!You!

I tag Sparkle* and Oestre Bunny

and greengurll

Vaginitis

What is it? Well, according to lots of medical things I’ve been looking at it is an inflamed vagina.

Actually what these sites are describing mostly seems to be an allergic reaction to soap, perfumes and most of all condoms. Other accounts seem to mean thrush or other treatable aliments.

The term ‘Vaginitis’ seems to be a blanket diagnosis for all things wrong with the vagina including things that have a name, e.g. thrush, allergies.

When I was growing up this word was banded about as something different. It was a physical thing that happened for ‘no reason’ where the vagina would ‘close up’ and so making sex impossible. As a young girl discovering this thing between my legs, this sounded terrifying. Your vagina closed up? You had no control over it? It was just another of those weird body things women have that they cannot control with their conscious mind.

It was as if having a vulva meant you had to read the manual or it would do something terrible to you. It bled every month (or not, irregular periods…another mystery) and what actually lurked ‘up there’…well, who knew? Doctors did apparently and some other women, but not all of them. It was like a cave to be explored by some intrepid male adventurer (not the owner though, that would be filthy) and he would report back, letting you know if it was normal or not. I asked a doctor if I was normal ‘down there’ the first time I had a smear test. I had no idea.

So…Vaginitis…Another unpredictable thing that these terrible vulvas were likely to do without any warning. I had heard many reports from men and women that when it came down to the act of sex the woman’s bits just ‘closed up’ and made penetration impossible.

Now I am in my thirties and I look back at the misinformation we were given (and gave each other) as girls, I wonder how I made it here.

Vaginitis; maybe she just didn’t want to have sex. Maybe her words said ‘yes’ but her body knew her true mind and shouted ‘no’. Maybe she just squeezed her legs shut as tightly as possible and then when he opened them, she squeezed her muscles in her cunt tightly and then she could say some mysterious force stopped them; it wasn’t her, oh no, she’s not frigid.

If we are able to shut out men how are we raped so often?

Vaginitis - I now pronounce you a null and void diagnosis. If it’s thrush then treat it. If it’s allergies then stop using the scented tampons. If it’s condoms then go get some with no lubricant. I’ve had enough of being made to feel this part of me is separate and uncontrollable.

I love my cunt as I love my earlobes…it’s my body and I can feel if it’s ok or not, I don’t need a doctor to tell me.

Moaning

A woman was kicked off a plane for breastfeeding this week; I am getting a bit sick of the anti-child nature of society.

Yesterday I took my two into town to do a bit of Christmas shopping and I was subjected to a barrage of abuse. Some people tutted, some swore at me, some actually told me off and why? Well, either I was letting my child run around or I was telling him off for running around. One old lady tutted because he was in her way so I gently took his arm and tried to pull him in a bit. She then said “Don’t hurt him” to me as if I was beating him over the head. I can’t win.

Readers may have noticed that I am starting to feel a little bit beaten down by events this week and on an average night of 5 hours sleep (interrupted for feeds, of course) I am starting to feel like I really need a break.

No break coming.

It’s not Rob, he’s offered loads to take the kids, it’s Solomon; if he can’t see me he sets to wailing and then to crying and then to a really distressed cry and starts hyperventilating.

Is it me? Is it my kids? In a week where I managed to carry the plague and struck down an entire breastfeeding support group I’m starting to feel as if I need to lie low for a while. Osiris has now developed a fear of the toilet flushing because one overflowed on him the other day and has started wetting himself rather than risk it happening again. He also lives in terror of the plug monster that makes the horrible gurgle and tries to suck you down.

I’m just having a moan.

Loosing the will to live

Now I’ve gone and given a good friend a horrible tummy bug that really upset her baby. I may hide under the bed clothes and never come out again as I’ve managed to upset loads of people this week.

Oh God. I’ve got that horrible pit-of-my-stomach feeling of guilt.

Sometimes I’m really pleased that I’ve made new friends with children and then I blow it by being selfish and stupid. Sorry J.

A case of foot in mouth

Or perhaps anger in type in inappropriate places.

Clare, I’m very sorry for getting all riled up on your blog comments. I am going to keep off your comments so don’t feel as if you have to abandon your blog. I realise that you blog for different reasons then I do. I use this as a means to vent my spleen whilst yours is about quiet reflection.

I shouldn’t have started ranting at your commenters and insulting them, maybe I should have just blogged about it here instead and then I wouldn’t have polluted your peaceful place. Sorry.

My baby is a star!

Well…almost.

A few months ago we did a bit of filming for a new teaching DVD called Baby Led Weaning which involved Solomon crawling around on the floor and selecting food from a bowl. We are big fans of BLW in our house as it means no more mushy baby food EVER! (Thanks to Clare and Maia for their information sharing when I was about to try it.)

The DVD is out now and not only does Solomon appear but there is rather an alarming amount of footage of me too. I’m very scruffy from the back…and the side…and the front…oh…

Also you can’t see my beard. Maybe it was freshly plucked that day.

Some links

Just a few things.
Mad Sheila Musings great post about being called a Rad Fem
Threadbared which has me laughing as I am a reformed knitter (I still do crochet but it's a hard habit to kick - I'm hooked!) and have many patten books like these in my collection.
Stick it which is starting to make me think about buying some ink for my printer and some sticky paper....hmmm....

ok, I'm a tarot card

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I get this card all the time when I do a reading. I use the Tarot of the cat people and I really love this deck.

Asking for it

The other night Rob spotted a poster in a pub in Cheltenham saying

“When you’re out, don’t put it about”

This was basically aimed at women to stop flirting ‘for their own good’. Rob was confused; he said “Why don’t they just do a poster saying ‘Men – don’t be a bastard, don’t rape women’” (This is one of the reasons I am with him; he sees through the bullshit)

So, yet another campaign to protect women aiming their message at the wrong person. It is not only ineffective but also enforces the image that women are the ones that cause themselves to be raped. Having a poster with the message that ‘slutty girls get what they ask for’ in a pub full of drunken men is downright irresponsible.

At what meeting did this idea come up? Who were the people designing this poster? What is the next step for this campaign – “women – don’t leave home at night and you won’t get hurt”?

Where is the perpetrators of these crimes? We only see the victim. It’s always about women’s safety, not male violence. Women are the ones who have to be responsible for their behaviour, not men. Would it even make any difference? If we all sat genteelly sipping our cocktails in a full evening gown, our eyes cast down demurely, only speaking when spoken to…would it make any difference to male violence. I think not.

And what is the ‘it’ in ‘put it about’? ‘It’ is our bodies? Our sexuality? By standing in a certain way or wearing certain clothes we are NOT saying ‘rape me’.

This is all covering old ground for us feminists but the rest of the world still wants to make it solely the woman’s fault if something happens to her. It couldn’t possibly be the fault of the man…she was asking for it…wasn’t she?

Great ideas going on over at Touchingly Naive

I will be joining Maia in Vulva Liberation Week starting 19^th November…will you?

I suppose this will mean running around my house with no clothes on…no change there then!

Mammoth post of book doom!

I am a bit obsessive and have kept a list of everything I have read since I was 15. I have been meaning to go through the list and pick out a few that I’d recommend but I have ended up doing this MAMMOTH list. I’m sure that nobody is really that interested but it’s taken me three days to do this so I’m going to post it anyway. I know that I have missed out loads of really great books. It might be because I have not read them yet. I’ve obviously not listed the hundreds and hundreds of terrible books I have read and the few mediocre ones get left off too. This is the cream of my reading experience as it were. So…here goes…

Classics

Anne Bronte – The tenant of Wildfell Hall

Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte – Wuthering heights

Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’urbervilles

Rudyard Kipling – Kim

Katherine Mansfield – Bliss and other stories

Herman Melville – Moby Dick

John Steinbeck – The grapes of wrath

- Of mice and men

Evelyn Waugh – Vile bodies

Oscar Wilde - The importance of being Earnest

- The picture of Dorian Grey

Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Richard Adams – Shardik

- Watership Down

- Girl in a swing

Douglas Adams – Anything by him

Margaret Atwood – The handmaid’s tale

Marion Zimmer Bradley – The mists of Avalon

Pat Cadigan – Mind players

Suzy Mckee Charnas – Walk to the end of the world

- Motherlines

Philip K, Dick – Anything by him

Brian Froud – Faeries

- Good faeries/Bad faeries

Neil Gaiman – Anything by him

Frank Herbert – Dune books

William Horwood – Duncton Wood

Aldous Huxley - Brave new world

George Orwell – 1984

- Animal Farm

Marge Piecy – Woman on the edge of time

Terry Prattchett – Anything by him

Michael Marshall Smith - Spares

Kirt Vonnegut – Anything by him

John Wyndham – The Chrysalides

Children’s

Laurence Anholt – Eco wolf and the three pigs

Fanny Billingsley – The Folk Keeper

Raymond Briggs – Fungus the bogyman

Judy Corballs – The wrestling Princess

Penelope Farmer – Charlotte sometimes

Shannon Hale – The goose girl

Eva Ibbotson – Which witch?

Diana Wyne Jones – Fire and hemlock

Rudyard Kipling – Just so stories

- The jungle book

Edward Lear – Complete Nonsense

Ursula k. LeGuin – Earthsea books

C.S. Lewis – The Narnia books

A.A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh

- The house on Pooh Corner

Tony Robinson – Tales from Fat Tulip’s garden

Dodie Smith – The starlight barking

- I capture the castle

Sue Townsend – All Adrian Mole books

Jacqueline Wilson – Anything by her

Thinkin’ too much about stuff

Leonard Cohen – Beautiful losers

- The favourite game

Richard Bach – Illusions

- Johnathan Livington Seagull

Women and women’s lives

Kate Atkinson – Behind the scenes at the museum

Dorothy Bryant – Confessions of Madame Psyche

Angela Carter – Anything by her

Wendy Caster – The lesbian sex book

Nick Cave – And the ass saw the angel

Jung Chang – Wild swans

Jenny Diski – Happily ever after

Jennifer Donnelly – A gathering light

Roddy Doyle – The woman who walked into doors

Carol Ann Duffy – The world’s wife

Nell Dunn – Up the junction

Helen Eisenbach – Lesbianism made easy

Jeffery Eugenides – Virgin Suicides

- Middlesex

Fanny Flagg – Welcome to the world Baby Girl

Marilyn French – The women’s room

Mary Gaitskill – Two girls, fat and thin

Fiona Giles – Fresh milk

Germaine Greer – The female eunuch

- The whole woman

Walter Greenwood – Love on the dole

Radcliff Hall – The well of loneliness

Barbara Harford & Sarah Hopkins – Greenham Common, Women at the wire

Evelyn Haythore – on Earth to make the numbers up

Cynthia Heimel – If you can’t live without me then why aren’t you dead yet?

- If you leave can I come too?

- Sex tips for girls

Zoe Heller – Notes on a scandal

Jamie Hewlett - Tank Girl

Andrea Levy – Small Island

Marina Lewycka – A short history of tractors in Ukrainian

Jenny Lombard – How to stay single forever

Jay Mcinerney – Story of my life

Martha Millar – Skin to skin

Isabel Miller – Patience and Sarah

Jill Miller – Happy as a dead cat

Jane Mills – Woman words

Fidelis Morgan – Wicked

Toni Morrison – Beloved

Inga Muscia – Cunt

Sena Jeter Naslund – Ahab’s wife

The Penguin book of lesbian short stories

Sylvia Plath – The bell jar

Rebecca Reisert – Ophelia’s revenge

- The third witch

Jean Rhys – Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean P. Sasson – Princess

Peter Sheridan – Big fat love

Clare Short – Dear Clare, this is what women think of page 3

Lionel Shriver – We need to talk about Kevin

Sue Townsend – Anything by her

Rose Tremain – Sacred country

Sarah Waters – Anything by her

Fay Weldon – Anything by her

Virginia Woolf – Anything by her

Naomi Wolf – The beauty myth

- Misconceptions

Alice Walker – Anything by her

Rebecca Wells – Divine secrets of the YA-YA sisterhood

Antonia White – Frost in May

Jeanette Winterson – Anything by her

Helen Zahavi - Dirty weekend

General Fiction

Martin Amis – Time’s arrow

Iain Banks – The wasp factory

- Whit

Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Catch trap

Anthony Burgess – A clockwork orange

Susanna Clarke – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Paulo Coelho – Veronika decides to die

Roddy Doyle – Paddy Clarke Ha ha ha

Ben Elton – Anything by him

Jasper Fford – Anything by him

Jonathan Safan Foer – Everything is illuminated

Ken Follett – The pillars of the Earth

Jostein Gaarder – Sophie’s world

William Golding – The Inheritors

Mark Haddon – The curious incident of the dog in the night time

Daniel Keyes – Flowers for Algernon

Elizabeth Knox – The vintner’s luck

David Leavitt – The lost language of cranesYann Martel – The life of Pi

Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love in the time of cholera

Daphne Du Maurier – The Scapegoat

Martin Millar – Anything by him

Audrey Niffenegger – The time traveller’s wife

Joseph O’Conner – Star of the sea

D.B.C Pierre – Vernon God Little

Erich Maria Remarque – All quiet on the Western Front

J.D. Salinger – The catcher in the rye

Gilbert Shelton – Fabulous furry Freak Brothers

Alexander Stewart – The war zone

Patrick Suskind – Perfume

William Wharton - Birdy

Political

Attila the Stockbroker – The rising sons of ranting verse

Pete Loveday – Anything by him

Gabrielle Palmer – The politics of breastfeeding

Horror

Poppy Z. Brite – Exquisite corpse

Mike Carey – The devil you know

Richard Matheson – I am legend

Anne Rice – Interview with a vampire

- The witching hour

Science

Nick Arnold – All Horrible science books

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy – Mother Nature

Oliver Sacks – The man who mistook his wife for a hat

New Scientist – Does anything eat wasps?

History

Terry Deary – All Horrible History books

Rosalind Miles - Women’s history of the world

Joyce Tyldesley – Hetchepsut the female pharaoh

Magic

Patrick Jasper Lee- We borrow the Earth

Starhawk – The Spiral dance

Rea Beth – Hedge witch

What have I started?

I am currently trying to compile a list of books I would recommend. I am now on page tree and wishing I hadn’t started this! It’s all getting a bit out of hand. Once I have done it and posted it here I promise never to go on about books again (much!).

Lillybye

This is for IRGXana and Jane and all the old school goths who are suddenly taking notice of what's in the charts these days.

Sisters, I need your help

I am torn.

I am wracked with indecision.

My heart says one thing and my head says another.

Do I pluck out my chiny hairs or not?

Don’t laugh, I really really need some feminist help.

I know that I am hairy being and will not be defined by my looks. I have hairy armpits, legs and ‘lady garden’ and will not shave for no one. I am fat and happy; I have totally got over all the bullshit patriarchy has piled onto me to make me feel ashamed about myself.

…but…

…but…

If I don’t pluck my chin hairs I will have a full beard.

I don’t want to do it any more but I fear the looks and the judgement and the just-in-the-dark-places-of-my-mind knowledge of what a women should look like. I don’t know why.

HELP.

Empowering naked moments

I was having a little chat with Maia today about birth and being naked and later in the day a thought came to me…Empowerment and nakedness can go together.

Porn, lad mags and all the unpleasantness that involves naked women being viewed is NOT empowering. Swinging around a pole is NOT empowering. Being judged on your looks and dimensions like a prize pig is NOT empowering. Using your body and it’s exposure to get what you (think you) want is NOT empowering.

Lying in a river of blood having just pushed a baby out, panting and exhilarated, naked and laughing, looking into the loving eyes of your partner; that IS empowering.

Snuggling naked in bed, keeping warm on a cold morning, feeling comfortable and safe with my loved ones; that IS empowering.

Being safe enough in my house to walk around without any clothes on, knowing it is normal in our house, that nakedness does not equal sex IS empowering.

Getting naked with a newborn baby and feeling that skin to skin, feeling the oxcytocin course through our bodies and a little nuzzling mouth looking for a nipple, knowing that without the flesh on flesh this baby would not be prompted to feed; this IS empowering.

Being safe in our skins, knowing the power of touch and love (not sex), bodies close together; this empowers all of us in my family.

Things I’m loving at the moment

• Writing this blog and reading loads of others. I love all the groovy people I have discovered since blogging.
• Lilly Allen – can’t enough of her chavtatic sound
• Having my Big Green Gathering Fleece in the pram to keep children warm – it was worth every penny of the £40 I paid for it.
• Tea bread – I’ve never made it before…YUM!
• Great friends and great family
• Looking forward to Christmas – I think it’s going to be nice this year. I nearly had a nervous breakdown last year what with having a tiny new baby. The kids are going to love it. Before that, Solomon is going to be 1, I can’t quite believe it!
• Solomon is walking. He’s only doing a little bit of toddling and he only does it when nobody is looking but it’s happening…honest!
• Getting time to do a bit more home cooking. Well, I say ‘getting time’; rather I have discovered that I can cook a full meal with Solomon in a sling on my back. Tonight we had Moroccan chicken with spiced couscous. Only Solomon and I ate it, Rob wouldn’t touch it and Osiris held out for noodles…But I’m trying to give them healthy food. Goddamn it, they just won’t eat it! Yesterday I made sausage and bean ragout; Rob loved it, Solomon ate it and Osiris made me wash all the sauce off the sausages before dipping them in ketchup.
• Breastfeeding groups – I’m going to rather a lot at the moment (apart from today when I waited for a bus with room for a buggy on for 90 minutes before going home. 9…yes 9 buses went by but not one of them had buggy space. BASTARDS)

Which famous feminist are you?

Oh, how exciting, I'm Virginia Woolf
Thanks to Maia for the link.

Look at the monkey look at the monkey!

If you scroll right to the bottom of this blog you can see my new monkey friend, Munamuna, who will leap from twig to twig at a click of your mouse. You can also feed him bananas. Have fun little purple monkey!

V is for…

The other day I was having a chat with someone who is 10 years younger than me. (I’m not sure this is a factor in what I am about to relate, but it may be.) She was admiring my picture with my two fingers up to patriarchy. I mentioned something about bow fingers and the French and long bows and all that and she told me that I was wrong and that was not the reason that two fingers were an insulting sign. She told me that it was V for Vagina and that was why it was rude.

First of all; no, she’s wrong.

Second; V for Victory, V for Velvet, V for Velocity, V for Veloceraptor, V for Vermouth….since when has the letter V been obscene in itself? V for Very nice to meet you.

Thirdly; a vagina is a very nice thing to have and to hold! I am a great fan of defending the word CUNT and reclaiming it as much as possible (only not in front of the children, I’ll go into the politics of language when he is older than 3) we need to reclaim all the words so that the vagina is not seen as the most dirty thing you can think of. A vagina is soft and tender and amazing, yet strong enough to birth a baby then heal.

Nar nar nar patriarchy, you haven’t got one and you are just jealous

Erika tradition no longer practiced

Some things change when you have kids and this is one of them:

I did this every year for a long time until I became a Mama.

Brew up a pot of mushroom tea. Down huge cups with friends. Set out to see the fireworks that Gloucester city council pay a lot of money to put on. Sneak round the back so not paying to see fireworks. Come up on mushroom tea whilst firework display is in full swing. Go “oh arh ohh ahahahaha” for a while. Shout “Bang” a lot. Fireworks over, stumble around the backs of the river Severn still shouting “BANG”. Trip out in a bar/someone’s house/countryside area.

I can hear the firework display now and I really miss my trippy times. I wonder when I will get to do it again…if ever?

I’ve found the Tredworth Faerieland

Today my boys and I went for a walk to our local park. We live in a ‘deprived’ inner city area were the local park is a site for needles, dog pooh and rape; not usually a very nice place. Recently the council have been putting a lot of money into the area to try and renovate it. They have succeeded to some degree as the new play area is enclosed and has so far not been covered in dog pooh and graffiti and the other day I even saw a man walking around picking up rubbish holding a bin bag. He may be paid by the council or a good Tredworthian…who knows, but there is defiantly a difference and I haven’t seen a needle since the summer.

In the countryside it is easy to feel the nature sprits all around you, all you have to do is sit quietly and listen to the birdsong, the rustling leaves and suddenly you know you are in a scared space.

In the city the grey concrete and straight lines get me down. Where is the magic here? Where are the signs of the turning of the wheel? Well, today I found it.

On a piece of grass covered in dog pooh, by a path strewn with rubbish, there were mushrooms, bloody hundreds of them. I nearly didn’t see them but then I realised we were surrounded by them, maybe thousands. They had pushed their heads up through the urban ground and were proudly standing defiant. I pointed them out to my boys who were suitably impressed. They were the most beautiful mottled browns and reds, the loveliest things in this city. I stared at them and knew that I was able to feel the power of the earth here, even in the grey places. I swear I hear a pixie laugh.

So…there it is, Faerieland in Tredworth…who would have thought it?

The attack of the killer thrush

Argh! We are all stricken down with the nasties in our house. All this week Osiris has been very ill with thrush in his little mouth. He refuses to take the medicine and will only have that ‘orrible pink children’s stuff. He has refused to stop going to school which is blummin’ ironic given that he will be faking illness to get off school in a few years time as opposed to faking wellness so that he can go. The local doctors has been total unable to give me a reasonably timed appointment (I have a baby and a toddler and they want me to sit in the waiting room for two hours) so today I am going to try to get them all to hospital. I shall stage a sit-in until the out-of-hour Doc type person at least agrees it might be something to do with them (as opposed to the health visitor who gave me a leaflet about dental access). Quite honestly I am really frustrated with it all. He is not ill enough to keep home but not really well enough to carry on our everyday hectic life. Not to mention my poor aching boobs which are also the victim of that horrid yeasty thing.

So…ouch, oh, arh…feeling of being a bad mother…owy breastfeed….guilt horror….frustration anger…ow ouch another breastfeed….

Welcome to my life!