My Nitty Twenties

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to boycott our local chippy. It’s not like we’re regular patrons, but there comes a day (approximately once every month) when I cannot be arsed cooking or washing any plates. The thing is that the man in the chippy has got a problem with Tom’s hair, which is reasonably long and curly.

“Why do you make him have his hair so long?” He asked, the first time. I laughed but he was serious. “This is wrong, he is a boy, his hair should be short.”

That pissed me off, mildly, but I had forgotten about it by the time the next chip day came around. This time he decided to lay into Tom about it:

“You like having long hair, huh?” He asked him, as his wife wrapped our chips. “You tell your mother she must cut it.”

That’s it. No more chip days.

The majority of little boys round here do seem to have their heads shaved.

“Aargh! I mean, what is people’s problem?” I ranted to my friend, “It’s not as though he’s more prone to….

(nits.)”

I instantly regretted saying that. I have recounted before here the only time Tom has caught nits, the night before we were due to fly to Australia when he was a baby (the lice survived a rushed chemical treatment, four flights over 36 hours and possibly infected a load of Korean Air passengers who passed Tom round the plane because they thought he looked like an angel.)

Anyway, sure enough, just after finishing school for the summer, Tom appears to have caught nits. I was just combing out the last ‘chicken pock’ from his hair when I spotted something wriggling. I thought it might be a bug from our walk in the woods last night but closer inspection revealed a vile transparent thing full of fresh blood. It took a good load of squashing to kill as well (which was difficult to explain, having recently told Tom to never kill an ant on purpose.) I ended up being late for an excellent writing workshop run by the good people at Creative Tourist and spending the whole session scratching my head and worrying that my hair was visibly riddled. On the way home, I bought a fancy metal nit comb and some tea tree oil

Happily, I appear not to have been infected with the nits. (I am really hoping all the people who were at the workshop today don’t start emailing me complaining that they have them.) And an hour or so of intricate raking unearthed no more than the original lone louse on Tom.

“Why did they choose my head?” he asked, his head on my lap.

“Because you’ve got good hair.”

“Why didn’t they choose someone else with good hair?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mum… Why do they suck blood? If I was a head louse, I would eat apple crumble and drink orange juice. I would still live in people’s hair but I would do nice things like… ummm…  go to the art gallery or go swimming or go to Disney World. I would eat cucumber and drink milkshake. Errr… I would eat and drink everyfin really as long as it wasn’t blood because that’s horrible.”

And it is really.

Damn, he won’t be this innocent forever. The cherubic curls are staying for a bit, nits or no nits.

I challenge you to read this post and not start scratching your head. Especially if you were at the Cornerhouse this afternoon.

The boy and his (not particularly long) hair

Straight In at the Deep End

I wrote this post in my notebook in Turkey last month, because I didn’t think I’d be able to recapture the moment when I got home….

On the first day of our trip, Tom proved to be more confident than I realised when he jumped straight in the deep end of the swimming pool. He had his armbands on but I still went in after him. He was fine and we swam together for a bit. When we eventually climbed out, I could hear a loud crackling sound coming from my person. People were staring, it was a bit embarrassing. It took a long two or three minutes for me to realise that it was the last few sputters of my dying Blackberry. I’d tucked it down my bikini top for safekeeping. Even an afternoon pulled to pieces and laid out in the 30 degree heat wasn’t enough to bring it back to life. I am an idiot. Still, I felt a bit relieved. I didn’t really want to know every time I received an email or a Tweet or someone commented on a photograph that I had previously commented on in the strange world of Facebook.  The only thing I did miss was knowing the time; guesswork meant we missed breakfast the following morning. We headed straight into the next town, which was like Blackpool, only in the middle of the Turkish mountains. Think foam party discos and ‘Pork World’ (butchers) across the road from the mosque.

{“What’s that Mum?”

“A mosque.”

“Is that where the mosquitoes live?”}

Monday was market day, but there were no colourful spices or woven carpets, just a load of tat.

“Genuine fake!” yelled the watch seller from his stall, where everything was encrusted in diamante and covered in names like Rolex and Gucci.

“I don’t want a name, please just sell me a watch that tells the time.”

The watch seller smiled and pulled a tray out from beneath his stall.

“This I sell Turkish people.”

Plain black, three quid, perfect.

I’d been wanting to take Tom on an adventure since we arrived, but I didn’t want to drag him away from his beloved pool. Still, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could cope with listening to some on-repeat World Cup anthem about people losing their inhibitions in the street from the pool bar stereo. Imagine my relief when Tom came flip-flopping over to me after two days and said “Is this all we do then? Swim a bit, rest a bit, swim a bit, rest a bit?” Within an hour, I’d dug out the guidebook, packed a bag and we were off.

Now we’re in a valley accessible only by sea, (or a scramble down a sheer cliff.) There’s a beach, a hammock, some tents, a cafe, a few banana trees, some lovely people, some tortoises, some chickens and loads of butterflies. That’s it. It’s a bit like The Beach or Lost only without the sinister bits. Tom’s sleeping on a giant cushion beneath the shade of the grape vines, he’s tired out. He’s been running round pretending to be a pirate and looking for tortoises. He’s made friends from Istanbul, France, America and Australia. Last night, he was dancing on the beach and counting stars til way past his bedtime. This morning, he rescued a broken-legged cricket called Hoppy from our insect net.

All I can hear is the rhythmic roar and crash of the ocean. It’s one of those moments that no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to recreate how good it feels at the time. I want to laugh at my 22 year old self for genuinely believing that having my baby meant I would never travel again. Here he is, lying next to me. What a good view. No emails, no Facebook, no politics or rubbish. The hot sunshine will force us out of our tent in time for breakfast if the cockerel doesn’t wake us first. I’d even settle for not knowing the time.

Faffing About

Much faffing about has been done by me as I toy with the idea of closing this blog down altogether, giving it a less offensive (but frankly twee) name or starting completely from scratch. In the meantime I have missed writing about a diverse summer, involving a magnificent trip to Turkey, Glastonbury, the sad chasm between non-parent friends and myself, the beginning of The Book, a job offer that I had to decline (because I got offered an even better one) and a whole load of other stuff which would have probably made good blog fodder.

Summer is always a funny time because I found out I was pregnant on 7th July and I struggle to get past that milestone every year without looking back. Now it’s been five years and it feels like we’re officially up and running and I don’t really want to hark back to all that horrible stuff from the beginning. I used to gaze for ages at 2005 but now I am happy with a quick, cursory glance. It felt as though the name of this blog was something very negative, because it came from that horrible email I got, telling me to enjoy my shitty, snotty, vomitty twenties. The thing is, I suppose the whole point of the blog is that I did get that email and I am enjoying my shitty, snotty, vomitty twenties a lot, thank you very much. So really, it is a positive name.  And they are shitty sometimes, to be honest. And I have just over two years of them left, so maybe I should make the most of being able to write a blog about being in my twenties at all, be they shitty or not, while I can.

Tom is off school with chicken pox. Not a false-alarm, or an allergic reaction, or a heat rash, or a non-specific viral rash but the actual, genuine chicken pox. At last. It really isn’t as dramatic as I remember it being when I was a child. I used the calamine lotion once because it felt like my duty as a mother to douse him in it, but he hasn’t actually complained of itching. The smell of the calamine lotion transported me back to Mum’s grey plastic medicine basket. I remembered everything being calpol-sticky and there never being a plaster the right size for the wound in question. I don’t own a medicine box. Someone told me that bicarbonate of soda baths would fix the chicken pox quicker, so I went to Morrisons and bought four tubs. I kept asking for bicarbonate of sober. My bath has never looked so clean! And Tom’s spots have healed pretty fast too: I think it is time for me to send him back to school for his last week before summer. The living room is littered with remnants of his week off, like his Super Duper Computer (a piece of cardboard folded in half, with keys and a screen drawn on the inside to make it look like a laptop) and plates full of Soreen crumbs. Actually, we have pretty much lived off Soreen recently and a few weeks ago, I turned down a big promotional box of it because I don’t do reviews. Does that count as product placement? It is actually true. I might email the Soreen person again…

I wrote a blog post from paradise (the camp we found in Turkey) in my notebook, I’ll put it up here soon. Until then, here’s a couple of sunrises – one from Turkey and one from Glastonbury. Both felt really good to look at in real life.

In Praise of the Nannies

I don’t know how I would have gone about this whole becoming a mother business without my Mum. It’s almost five years since I lay on my bed and wept into the phone hysterically about how stupid I had been, while she calmly told me she’d support me whatever I decided to do. With a broken ankle, she rearranged my childhood bedroom to accommodate me, a load of crap and a cot. When I was in labour, I gripped her hand so tight that I caught her wincing at the the midwife and slipping off her rings because they had cut into her fingers (at the time, I confess that in some sort of warped way, I was pleased that someone else was experiencing pain that might come close to what I was going through.) In the early days, I’m not sure how Mum coped with getting up at 6am and driving to work: Surely she heard the hysterical midnight screaming of a baby who refused to breastfeed waiting while his mother stomped downstairs, slammed the kitchen door and prepared a bottle of formula.

Sometimes, I get emails from girls who are pregnant and don’t know what to do (I never advise them, just offer some comfort and tell them I know what an agonising decision it is.) The thing is, not everyone is as lucky as me and I don’t know if I could have done it without such a tolerant Mum. It works well because Tom loves going to stay with his Nanny as much as she loves having him. A couple of weekends ago, as I waved him off, I told him I’d miss him.

“Don’t worry Mum, Nanny will look after me and the gerbils will look after you.”

When I spent two days and nights partying at Eurocultured, a Manchester street festival, someone asked me where Tom was.

“Oh, he’s with his Nanny,” I said, realising afterwards that it probably sounded as though I could afford an au pair.

I am lucky because as well as Mum, I also get a lot of help from Tom’s Auntie J, a wonderful lady who I worked with when I was pregnant She ferried me and four car loads of my stuff back to Mum’s when I was seven months gone. Auntie J has made Tom a Man United fan (which bothered me at first but isn’t a bad idea I suppose, given the fact he doesn’t have a male role model and all his classmates seem to be little Reds). She was supposed to look after Tom while I went to work at Glastonbury this year. I couldn’t wait for my my lost week on Worthy Farm. Then my job there fell through. I became hell-bent on getting to Glasto, even considering selling things and paying megabucks for a VIP ticket. Then I stopped and asked myself what I was doing: going out of my way to spend a messy, muddy week away from my beautiful son. Silly me.

Auntie J and Tom walk through the tunnel at Old Trafford on his fourth birthday

It’s wonderful to have the Nannies. They certainly made the transition in to motherhood a lot smoother. Having a social life is important to maintain sanity when you become a parent, especially if you’re single, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all. I have started to look at child-friendly festivals I can take Tom along to this summer.

Auntie J was supposed to look after Tom this weekend, while I went to Parklife, another Manchester festival but I have come to my senses: I eBayed my ticket and booked myself and Tom on a very cheap flight to the sun. We’ll conveniently miss the dreaded Fathers’ Day card-making at nursery. Sadly, I can’t afford to bring the Nanny along on holiday, but she is driving us to the airport and sitting on the house (and the gerbils) while we’re away.

Tom and his beloved Nanny

More Metamorphosis Metaphors

I never did get round to writing about our holiday at The Yurt Farm, but it was wonderful. I can’t recommend it enough to families looking to experience the great outdoors with a few home comforts.

Here’s the inside of our yurt…

… and Tom looking out across the valley…

It’s all very well being able to visit places like that, but it isn’t the same as living in the countryside. I keep thinking I should move to the out to the sticks, but I think it would be lonely if it was just the two of us. At the weekend, I took Tom in a taxi to Clifton Country Park. You go along a main road, past a grotty tattoo parlour and a shop that sells discount fireworks for New Year 2008 and down a cul-de-sac of three bed semis, then you’re in the countryside. There’s a really good play area, some horses and donkeys and a lake where we saw a deer taking a dip last summer. This time, we ventured into the woods. We came across the remains of the old colliery, which has meta sculptures of miners and is a bit eerie. We walked on and found open meadows, ponds, wild iris, a blue insect called Thomas and a caterpillar called Henry. The whole time you’re there, you can hear the rush of traffic on the motorway and regular trains roaring through towards town, but these only make you feel smug to have found a piece of countryside so close to the city.

After Clifton, my friend, Tom and I went to view a house with a garden. It was OK – the inside was a bit grotty and the kitchen felt like a dingy cupboard but I felt as though I ought to put up with that in order to get the space outside. There was even a brick built workshop (garage – nothing I do necessitates a workshop.) It had ivy creeping over the roof and, there were a pair of crutches and a painting of Maine Road inside. My friend and I both left feeling keen, but when we got home, I couldn’t get the industrial, scratchy carpets of the big house (as Tom was already calling it) out of my head. The final nail in the coffin for the big house was the realisation that it had no burglar alarm and the landlord wasn’t willing to fit one. Memories of crap student landlords came to the forefront of my mind. Our current landlord doesn’t do things by half. We’ll stay put for now and enjoy the occasional drive out to Clifton when we need a bit of the great outdoors – let’s face it, how many days in an English year are actual good enough for sitting in the garden anyway?

After those cocoons on the last post, here's Henry the caterpillar (and Thomas the pale blue bug.)

The Same as it Ever Was

Two years before I had Tom, I wanted to work in advertising and managed to get on the best course in the country. It had good contacts in London, but it wasn’t actually in London. It was in High Wycombe. I spent a lot of time in the breeze-block halls, where older students roamed the corridors sniffing out the faintest whiff of cannabis and cleaners tried to fine us for toothpaste splatters on the mirrors. It was like boarding school and the course felt a bit like being on The Apprentice. It wasn’t long before I started visiting Manchester for the weekend and not coming back for a fortnight. I had spent the previous year living in Manchester city centre. I often referred to that time as the best year of my life and my time in High Wycombe as my worst.

After my first year Down There, I couldn’t bring myself to go back again and stayed in Manchester. It wasn’t quite how I remembered it though.  People were spending more time studying and less time partying. I had gained a load of weight in High Wycombe and the dullness of the place seemed to have rubbed off on me. I never really recreated the Manchester I moved back for and a year later, I was pregnant.

So dingy were my memories of that place that I forgot that I did make a few really good friends when I lived there. We stayed in touch throughout the years  and I always said I’d go and visit.  I never forgot a text message I received from one of them when I was in hospital after having Tom: “Well done, you created life! Congratulations and I hope we get to meet him one day.”

So, on Friday evening, after collecting Tom from school and hopping on the brilliantly quick Pendolino, I found myself dragging him and his robot suitcase through leafy North London. “This is a peaceful street,” he said, “Whose house are we having a sleepover at?”

“My friends who I knew before you arrived on the scene.” I said.

“Who was my Mummy before that?” asked Tom.

“What do you mean?”

“Who was my Mummy before I arrived on your scene?”

My answer jolted me from reality for a second.

“Well, you didn’t exist.”

Moments like that raise all sorts of baffling questions about whether children hang around in the ether, waiting for their cue. It’s true what people say about it feeling like they have always been there. Similarly, as I stayed up late talking to my old friends, it felt like we had never been apart.

We had a brilliant weekend, spending Saturday afternoon at the wonderful Butterfly Explorers exhibition at the Natural History Museum then lounging around in the Hyde Park sunshine. Early evening, we met another friend for drinks in Camden, but Tom wasn’t allowed in the pub and we had to stand on the street outside. It didn’t matter though – he had made a big impression on everyone and was great company. In the past, I have been to London on my own to party, but this time was different. The older Tom gets, the more of a joy he is to share with friends.

Funny that in the worst year of my life, I met such good people. I ran away and never looked back, wanting desperately to recreate the best year of my life.  Then along came Tom. That first year in Manchester was a lot of fun, but if I had to name the best year of my life now, this one would come pretty close.

The butterfly hatchery at the Natural History Museum

The Political Post

I have thought carefully about writing a political post here but this is a blog about the realities of single parenting  and politics are intrinsically linked to those realities.

I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, but a couple of weeks ago, I read this article by J. K. Rowling. Every time I voice to my mother my fears that I might never own a home or pay off my debt, she tells me to think of Rowling.

“She was a single mum,” she says, “She wrote those books in a cafe with her baby in a buggy at her side.”

I would be lying if I said that I was raised in poverty. I am certainly not from a wealthy family but I know that there are lone parents far worse off than me. For as long as I have been able to vote, I have been Liberal. I’m disillusioned about the Iraq war and the national debt, but I am pretty sure those things would have happened whoever was in charge. I almost voted Liberal again this time, but I began to think about how things have changed under Labour for millions of single parent families like mine. Rowling might be inconceivably loaded now, but she hasn’t forgotten how things used to be and she won’t vote Tory.

Despite popular opinion, just over half of lone parents work (according to Rowling, 56.3 per cent.) I have mentored on projects to help single parents on to the career ladder and it isn’t easy, but one of the things that makes it possible is the Childcare Tax Credit system. Then there’s Sure Start (both were introduced by the current government.)

I probably wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but Sure Start played a massive part in keeping me going through the surreality of being a new mother. When breastfeeding turned out not to be serene and easy but an exhausting battle, I was able to sit in a comfortable armchair and speak to an expert who totally understood. I sat in that same chair and spoke to wonderful counsellor too (yes, I needed counselling.) When I needed to get out of the house, I took Tom to play sessions and creches, we could even borrow toys from the Toy Library. The Sure Start centre is a place where all the confusing,  separate agencies that help with the different dilemmas of early parenthood are almagamated and easily accessible.

The Tory Government want to financially reward couples who are married (although I can’t see how £150 a year is sufficient incentive to make people flog the dead horse that is a loveless marriage.) Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all meet our life partners, marry them and live happily ever after? If it was that simple, surely we’d all be doing it. The fact is that things often aren’t perfect and marriage tax breaks would only reward the lucky. As Gordon Brown puts it in this unusually passionate speech, “Good fortune must help more than just those who are fortunate.”

David Cameron has spoken many times of ‘broken Britain.’ The vilification of lone parents (as Rowling points out, more often mothers than fathers) is nothing new. It would be naive of anyone to think that there aren’t single parents who live completely off benefits, but they do not represent us all. Many of us want to be employed, to do the best for our children and ourselves. We are only able to do it with help though, because we play the role of two parents: not just financially but practically and emotionally.

The Conservatives may think that Britain is broken and in many ways it is but for working single parents, the system is robust. It ain’t broke and I won’t be trying to fix it.

(Now I can go back to dreaming about a seven-figure book deal. Maybe I should read a Harry Potter book.)

My Spotty Twenties

I always knew that the inevitable chicken pox would come at the most inconvenient time. I booked our weekend holiday to The Yurt Farm months ago, after being mesmerised by the broadsheet buzz about ‘glamping’. The great outdoors but with room to stand up and a wood-burning stove? Perfect. I’d managed to persuade a few carloads of friends to pile in and make it more affordable and we all began counting down the weeks. When the volcanic ash loomed over Britain and nobody could fly, I felt relieved that our holiday didn’t involve a plane. Then Tom got chicken pox, or at least that’s what the doctor said. There were other children in our party and the owners of the site had a baby – it looked as though the holiday was off. I tried to explain to Tom what it meant to be contagious….

“What if my chicken pox aren’t catching chicken pox, what if they’re safe ones?” he asked, as I threw tea together in the kitchen. I was chopping an onion and a tear trickled down Tom’s cheek. “Ooh, I think I’m crying,” he said, “but don’t worry, it’s not a sad cry, it’s an onion cry.”

After tea, I chucked the dishes in the sink and looked out of the window. Everything’s blooming in our tiny yard, which in a way makes me feel more claustrophobic than if I had just left it to be bare concrete. The little cherry blossom tree I bought for Tom’s 3rd birthday is spreading out all over and I think its roots might crack open the plastic pot before long. Sometimes I wish Tom had a bit more space to run around and I had really been looking forward to taking him to the countryside to do that. Of all the weeks of all the months of all the years for him to get chicken pox. I caught myself starting to cry and swallowed it back but Tom doesn’t miss a trick.

“Oh no Mum, have you caught my tears from before? Don’t worry, they’re not sad tears, only onion ones.”

At bedtime, I lined up the Calpol, Piriton and calamine lotion. Tom didn’t wake in the night though. I held my breath as I rolled up his pyjamas in the morning but the rash was just the same. He was fine, but I could’t take him to school and I had to work. At one point I was having to entertain Tom and move around the house to accommodate a gas engineer. He thought it was hilarious that Tom was playing his drums while I shouted out emails as I typed to avoid making mistakes. “You’ll be rocking over that laptop by the end of the week!” laughed the engineer, who was a bit too jovial for my liking.

After three days at home and no development on the rash front, I’d had enough. A different GP confirmed that Tom’s rash was ‘non-specific, possibly an allergy to something’ and gave us the nod to go on holiday. (In the doctor’s, an old note on Tom’s medical record glared out at me from the computer screen: “‘Radioactive snot,” says Mum’.)

We went on the holiday (it was brilliant) but that’s a blog post in itself, which I’ll write soon. Tom’s ‘chicken pox’ never materialised, meaning they will eventually arrive just in time for something very important.

School Lotto

Sorry for being fickle, but I’m back. I did finish telling our story and most of it’s good, but there are still bad bits. I need to write about them because I know it helps my readers and to be totally honest, it helps me.

This morning, I heard the Thomas the Tank Engine theme tune on the telly and it filled me with dread. That’s because, on a school morning, if we don’t leave the house by the time Thomas finishes, we’re late. It’s not the same tune as it was when we were young, it’s a load of posh kids singing “They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight, shunting bricks and hauling freight -” and they usually pipe up when I’m rushing around with a toothbrush in my mouth, trying to convince a stubborn Tom that his trousers are on back to front and mopping his nose with last night’s pyjamas.

It’s the Easter holidays and we haven’t had to think about school for a whole week. I almost forgot it existed. When I heard Thomas this morning though, I was reminded that school very much does exist. Tomorrow, we find out which, if any, primary school Tom has been allocated. It’s like I wrote exactly one year ago when I found out Tom hadn’t got into the nursery school I chose for him: I never expected this to be my realm.  I didn’t realise there were such enormous differences in the amount of funding and quality of education. Tom’s current school is too far away and far from brilliant. We’ve got the amazing, impenetrable one on the doorstep but sadly I still haven’t found out the secret of getting in there. It’s a real wrench every morning trekking miles in the opposite direction, seeing the lucky few walking to the top notch school around the corner. The best I can hope for is that Tom will get in the second best school I have applied for. Truthfully though, I want us to move. Most of our friends live across town in an area that’s just better for children with much more going on. If Tom doesn’t get in the second best school, then I’ll take it that my old friend Fate is telling us to pack up and move. The only trouble with that is that I can only get a one bedroomed flat for what I pay for a house here. Perhaps space would be a sacrifice worth making if I could guarantee Tom a place in a really good school, but the only way of finding out is moving there and then applying. Children’s Services told me that the worst case scenario would be Tom not receiving a school place until his fifth birthday and even then, it being miles from where we live: If Tom does get allocated the second best school, moving could be a big mistake. I keep dreaming about all of my teeth falling out, which is apparently about fear of losing control.

Doesn’t everyone want the best start in life for their child? I definitely don’t think Tom is more important than any other child, but it breaks my heart to know that he could be having an ‘outstanding’ education and instead he is getting one that’s ‘satisfactory’. It’s so difficult and it’s harder when you have to deal with decisions that affect someone’s future entirely alone. I can understand why people rent properties near good schools, or have their children baptised when they’re not even Christians, or even (almost) why some people pay for private education.

Last year, the decision about Tom’s school place came on an email from a  robot in the early hours of the morning. So here I am, wide awake, the Thomas the Tank Engine Theme Tune on repeat in my mind…

*After I clicked ‘post’, I spotted my Blackberry blinking out of the corner of my eye. He’s in the second best school, so it looks like we’ll be staying put for the time being. Seeing as how I have really missed this blog, we might as well stay here for a bit too.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Thanks to the readers who donated to Bloggers for Haiti. We have now reached eight times the original target to send one Shelterbox out to the survivors of the earthquake -  it would be brilliant if we make that ten. It will take a very long time to fix Haiti, so if you haven’t already donated, please click here.

Tom continues to say really cute things. Take last week: I told him about Haiti in the most basic way possible. The following day, he was watching telly while I made the tea. He insists he’s too old for Cbeebies now and has learnt how to turn over to CBBC. It’s mainly a lot of precocious kids on there but there’s also Newsround and that’s what was on when I walked in the front room.

“Are these the people whose houses fell down?” he pointed at a report from Haiti.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Oh. They can’t eat breakfast or colour in or eat tea or play with their toys. Can we send them our house please?”

I know it’s twee but he really does make me proud. I thought of this the other day as I stood in a long queue in Primark, listening to the unfeasible amount of screaming babies wriggling in their buggies. I remember shopping there when I was pregnant. I couldn’t afford many good maternity clothes so I had one pair of jeans with a stretchy waistband and used to buy big baggy tops in Primark. I remember walking through there, a load of tops draped over my arms, listening to those wailing kids. I caught sight of myself in a mirror, all pale under the fake yellow light. Huge, bloated, a constant frown on my face. What the hell am I doing? I thought. This is all I’ve got to look forward to.

Yesterday, I found an old notebook. It had notes in it that I wrote when I was pregnant. I don ‘t even remember writing that stuff, I can’t believe how distraught I was. From now on, I’ll just be mopping up baby sick and watching daytime TV. I wrote. One of my friends confessed recently that she was worried about me when I was pregnant because I was the ‘least child-friendly’ person she knew.

Tonight, Tom said “You’re my favourite family person Mum.”

“Thanks. You’re mine.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re ace and I grew you in my tummy.”

“Did you choose me?”

“No. I didn’t choose you and I’m glad you’re such a good boy because I didn’t know you would be and I was frightened.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t think I’d be good at being a Mum.”

“You are really good at being a Mum though!”

“Thanks.”

“You’re my zero family person.”

“Zero?”

“Yeah. Zero comes before one. You’re my best.”

I know I’ve said it before, but it’s loads better than I thought it would be.

Writing about all this soppy love stuff seems like an appropriate time to mention a reading I am doing next month in Preston. Novelist Jenn Ashworth has asked me to read at Word Soup, alongside Joe Stretch, whose take on love is far from soppy. I used to knock about Preston when I was a teenager, so that’ll be strange. Look here…