Somersaults on a washing line

 Viollanda, my ex-mother-in law of 20 years, was nearly 90 when she passed away some weeks ago. 

What a woman. She had 12 children, ten of whom survived. As a girl she hid in a hen coup while soldiers rounded up the men of the village and set fire to them in the church - at least I think this is what I understood her telling me, as we communicated in broken Greek and Albanian. She had no formal education and an arranged marriage to boot, but possessed boundless love, wit and determination, surviving a very difficult domestic life and incredible poverty, for decades. And she loved me like a daughter, even after I left my ex-husband. 

I am so fortunate to have known and been close to her. I have many wonderful memories (and photos and film footage) of her: singing and cooking, holding my hand and talk-talk-talking, pretending to be a servant rushing to make her husband’s coffee, screaming with delight next to me in the car when I drove through Sarandë on the wrong side of the road after getting it fixed. (The gear pedal came off in the Albanian mountains close the border with Greece following a mammoth drive from Bristol to Venice and then a ferry journey to Igoumenitsa, one summer.) 

A few nights before she died, I dreamt about her: she was in her raggedy nightie and undergarments, doing somersaults on the washing line that hangs off the balcony outside their flat. I was begging her to climb back in, so afraid for her. But she was laughing and spinning and, as ever, displaying her strength and resilience. 

She had been bed-bound for over a year and I think she came to me in this dream to tell me that she would soon be set free. I think perhaps also to send me love and strength, and perhaps remind me of the qualities we have in common - which I now think were perhaps the source of our special connection, which all the family were so generous in acknowledging when I called them after the funeral. It turns out she’d asked to speak to me the evening I dreamt about her, but the family didn’t realise how soon the end would come.

Viollanda would always give me a bar of soap for the journey back to England or Greece, after our visits to Albania. She didn’t have much else to give. Sometimes a plastic bottle filled with honey, or a bunch of mountain chai.

My eldest son went to Albania for the funeral with his dad. Met cousins he barely knew existed, in the rite of passage of a lifetime; it’s not every day a matriarch like his yaya passes away. 

I gave him a bar of Bronley’s best, that they put in the casket with her, for her final journey. Lily of the Valley. I so wish I could have gone to the funeral with them.

Images of perfection

 As a wise (and also totes gorgeous) man once said, ‘if you climb up a small hill, you’ll be able to see where the path is leading’. 

I’ve been offered a job I think I’m going to accept. It’s a job with lovely people where I know I can have impact but it is literally half the salary of my last job and I can’t really afford to take it. But my self esteem needs employment and I need something I can do standing on my head (or thereabouts - I’ll have plenty to learn), given the family stuff I need to traverse over the coming months. 

I feel so much guilt at having not been able to thrust myself into something bigger, and better paid, but I guess sometimes we have to appreciate the small hills and see where the shorter walks take us.  The same wise man suggested  that even if my perfect job came along right now, I might not be in the right place in my life to do it anyway. 

Which made me wonder what my perfect job would be. Simulating company, achievable targets, a place that will simulate my creativity whilst using my strategic head, a place where I can make a tangible difference, hybrid working and not too much travel, somewhere I’ll learn and share my skills and expertise. Not feel stressed. Earn enough to keep the balls in the air and have an occasional holiday. Ideallly four days a week, not five, so that I can use and develop my side hustles too,. The new job ticks a fair few of those boxes. I mean, if it were on a Greek island that would also be quite cool but one has to realistic. And I don’t believe perfection exists. Or do I????

I started to think about the things that can be perfect. I’d invite you to consider this for a few moments. The pleasure of a really nice cup of tea. Or sunshine on your face. To dry yourself using the perfect towel: absorbent, light but snuggly, not too big, but big enough to make you feel small and cute, ideally in a nice colour that flatters your complexion. A smiling exchange that fills your heart - boom! 

In some places, it seems perfection can exist. 

This took me to consider some things that I have no expectations of, in the perfection department. I came up with pecan nuts as a low hanging example. Or handbags. I  gave up on that search a long time ago. 

I started to consider why I have walked away from some things in my life that have felt so nearly perfect (I think the not-perfect bit simply mattered too much) but decided not to go there right now and invite my pheonix to take a nap in some tucked away location while I held my face to the sun. 

In other news, a woman stopped me in the swimming pool today, and asked who devised my exercises for me. This made me feel very good because the answer is ME! My working assumption was that I honestly looked like a bit of a plonker trying to run up and down the pool, doing leg kicks and body twists.  

We chatted for a bit and she talked about her neck pain, and some other stuff (quite a bit of other stuff) and I gave her some energy holds there and then by the steps. She said I made her day. And she made mine. A vignette of female connection, support and mutual warmth. 

As moments in time go, pretty perfect!

Load-bearing backs and DVLA extras

 When I took my penultimate driving test (there were a few) I found myself wondering if the DVLA was in the habit of paying extras to create a bit of additional complexity for wannabe drivers to navigate. I kid you not, anything you can put on wheels sailed past me on the housing estate I was traversing including a kid on a pogo stick, a space hopper and someone in a mobility vehicle giving at least three close friends and an out-sized speaker a lift. If you’re wondering why I failed the test it was not on account of that lot. No, the examiner had to use the emergency brakes when I failed to stop at a zebra crossing for a woman who, I maintain to this day, was quite clearly not going to have taken both feet off the pavement before I nipped past. 

Anyway. I do sometimes wonder if they’ve lined up the most challenging customers for me at the reablement centre when I go in on Friday afternoons to give massage. You would not believe the things I’ve had to navigate because I can hardly believe it myself. 

Last week, a lovely woman with no end of complexities - I can’t list them all because I didn’t have space on my form to get them down as she reeled them off - but she  was in constant pain, didn’t respond to painkillers, couldn’t feel her fingers or toes, had had heart attacks, stomach this and that. And severe halitosis to boot. I mean, it made my menopausal niggles seem almost irrelevant.  She was also so lucid and intelligent. I suppose I mention this because people who are in pain so often shrink inside themselves. She talked about how hard it is, living with invisible ailments when inside you’re screaming. People offer more love and compassion when they can see what you’re dealing with. 

Needless to say, I don’t think the massage I gave was particularly effective. It wasn’t the first time that I felt the service I was offering was that of a listening ear and a bit of kindness. 

We started sharing stories. Dementia came up. You know why I can’t say too much on that subject. Turns out her husband had it. We managed at giggle at that being one condition she’d managed to avoid. We went into a bit more detail. Turns out he’d also had one leg. I forget why. She described how she used to carry him around on her back. To get him upstairs. In and out of the car. She mentioned this in passing. I was thinking WTAF? She said it was easier than the faff of getting him in and out of his wheelchair. Sometimes the wheelchair didn’t go places they needed to. I had an unhelpful image of them visiting a beach on a Greek island. I mean, wow. That’s a whole new level of ‘for better and worse’. And now he has passed. And she’s dealing with so much. 

I don’t have a cleverly-composed rounding-up comment. I’ve been thinking about burdens we all carry. Especially as women. I’m trying to get a job, keep the balls in the air, single parent (pretty much, or ‘double-parent’ as some of my friends call it), manage the emotional distress that comes with the complex illness of a parent, and keep track of how much cheese is in the fridge. (We perpetually run out of bread, milk and toilet paper.) I still experience, to some degree, the metaphorical load of my ex-partner. But the literal load? No words. 

I suppose one thing I can add is this: massage does, if only temporarily, lighten this load. Helps one to let go. 

A surprise expedition

For some months now I’ve been visiting a local reablement centre, offering guests there free massage on Friday afternoons. This, in my capacity as a trainee practitioner. 

Guests are people who have left hospital but are not yet ready to return home; usually (but not exclusively) because of mobility issues; often because their homes need some adjustment in order for them to go back; and although I’m not given much of a back story I can piece together from the things I’m told while I work, that there is often a bunch of intersecting additional complexities influencing what happens next. The guests tend towards the older end of the spectrum and some have dementia which I find particularly poignant, for reasons that readers who know some of my own back story will understand. 

There is so much I could say about what I’ve witnessed and learnt. In fact I’m basing the client study assignment I need to complete on this setting. 

The power of touch impacts so greatly on both parties involved in a massage; as a practitioner it is something akin to supporting a client in recreating pathways to remembering who they are. I’ve learnt about layers of sensation that start outside the body; about how compressed these can be, and how the application of even the gentlest of pressures can be transforming in unsticking them. 

But when your clients are clothed, and seated, and in pain, and sometimes in a day room rather than their own space, finding an entry point to offer some relief is a whole different ball game to when you have someone in their underwear and draped on your massage table at home. 

Notwithstanding, I’ve been amazed at the potential for fostering connection. How ready people are to receive what you can offer and find pockets of peace in the space you create with them. (I should also note the potential for abuse this creates, especially when so many people have moved into what I think of as ‘patient mode’)

I’ve had to navigate leg braces, neck braces, broken limbs and a zillion other less visible conditions. Bodies that are curled over, others that feel like a jumble of broken coat hangers under your hands. I do what I can to breathe and press some warmth and movement into the gaps between them.  Some people respond by telling me about their lives. Others close their eyes and melt into the movement and sensation. Most have in common - apart from their desire to get home - a desire for company and connection. Some I know have not received touch like this for a very long time. I know I’m lucky to have friends and my sons to give me hugs when I need connection myself. Imagine not being able to lift your arms to receive one? Or walk to see a friendly face?

Last week I did my first laughter yoga session at the centre. I was a bit apprehensive because I usually incorporate breathing and gentle stretches into my sessions. And I knew a couple of the guests are very deaf and would need to go with the flow when we were miming having a drink from the jug of joy. How would guests with dementia respond? (No-one is obliged to take part, I should make clear.)

The benefits of laughter yoga are multiple. Fostering connection between people and supporting wellbeing, releasing happy hormones, lowering blood pressure and supporting relaxation - it can literally help you live longer. And you can fake it till you make it. Your body doesn’t need to know why you’re laughing, it’s enough that you are. 

We started in a circle. Did some gentle breathing and then some deeper breaths with loud exhales: AhhhhhhhHaHaHaHaHa.  Rewarded ourselves with a piece of imaginary fruit from the basket I’d brought with me. Even got cheeky and chucked a few grapes around. It’s hard not to join in and laugh. 

I took us off to a desert island. We breathed deep, enjoying the sunshine on our faces. Splashed around in the imaginary shallows. An imaginary monkey threw a coconut on my head. We rested on the warm sand, enjoying feeling the imaginary sand under our feet. Unpacked a picnic. And then it was time to go. 

‘Do you want to good news or the bad news?’ I asked? Mixed views. ‘We’ve got to row ourselves home!’ I explained. ‘Does anyone know how to row?’

A guest with dementia who’d been observing the proceedings, more than joining in piped up. ‘I used to scull on the river when I was a girl!’

‘Brilliant!’ I said. ‘We’re in your hands. Bring us home, Molly!’ (Not her real name.) 

I started to count and she started to row. Gradually the others joined in. Gently, curiously, until we got into our stride and managed to get our strokes in time. It wasn’t easy. There was a lot to navigate, including broken bones. But we laughed. Out loud. All the way to the shore. 

Bicycles, newcomers and spokes in wheels

 Sometimes, your guts just know that something is going to hit the proverbial whatsit, no matter what you do. 

I spent the school summer holidays decorating the house and sorting stuff out. I was looking for work, but it was really nice to be at home with the boys as I’ve worked through most school holidays. 

I love de-cluttering. It frees my mind.

In the back shed-thing I had two broken bicycles. And a cat litter tray. And a garden chair. 

Bicycles are, quite frankly, the bane of my bloody life. Alongside the perpetual drag of cooking for two meat-eating sons who don’t like (mostly) to eat the same things as me, or each other. To which I have more than once alluded. 

Trust me, even before these two were broken, they were impossible to get out of that bloody shed-thing. At least not without yanking an arm off the chair, putting your foot in the litter tray or grazing your leg on some chain or other while pulling both bicycles out together - perpetually locked, as they were, in some suspended animation akin to two locusts having their last ever, desperate shag. 

(The shed-thing is like an overhang with a door but my pedantism means I can’t leave it at ‘shed’.) 

So I decided to get them fixed up and sold. I needed some cash, the space and if we ended up with one bike fixed and unsold, that would be ok. 

You would probably not be interested to know that the two working bikes of our household live chained to the roots of the front hedge and in the cupboard under the stairs, respectively, and holy crap it’s a palaver dragging either of them out. My household possessions end up littering the street. What DO people in small terraces with little space, do??

Anyway. I got one bike fixed up. Parts plus labour were minimal but it still clearly came to more than I was likely to get for flogging it. Still, I put it online, dropped the price twice after responding to some irritating queries and then forgot about it. 

Until a couple of days ago, when someone with a very short name, and, I suspected, newly arrived in the UK, contacted me to ask if he could buy it. Obviously I said yes. But our attempts to exchange messages that resulted in him actually turning up when he said he would, failed. And I didn’t have a bike rack for my car or I’d have offered to try and get it to him. 

So I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t over-enthusiastic when he said he’d be round to get it yesterday evening. I might have been more enthusiastic if I hadn’t just had a wonderful massage from one of my student friends which had left me feeling a) dazed and b) wrapped in a single duvet cover covered in pictures of animals in primary colours. I wanted a bath but instead I went and put on a couple of thermal tops and prepared to wait. 

Half an hour later, he called again - to check that the bicycle was ‘ok’. I said yes, that I’d ridden it around my massage couch that very morning, having brought it in from the shed-thing.  I’m afraid I started to sound a bit impatient and asked quite snappily if he was definitely coming. He said yes, but that he had two buses to catch. If things had been different I would have offered to go and get him, but I felt a bit wary and decided to trust my guts. (Wow - a first!) Plus I’d got into an awkward conversation about how tall he was, as I wasn’t sure if he’d taken on board that it was a bike my youngest had grown out of.

Eventually he arrived and we had a bit of a barter about the price. Which, I explained, I didn’t want to drop because as things stood, I was going to make a grand profit of £5 on it. I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t present my best self during this exchange. 

Then we got to the bit where he leaves the house (out, into the cold dark night) with the bicycle, and I pocket the cash and go and get warm in the bath. Except actually I’d already started sweating in my thermals, running up two flights of stairs to find £5 in change. 

And would you bloody believe it, as I moved the bike down the front steps, the back bloody wheel came off. 

Jesus and all the angels and saints. My not best self became additionally flustered and very apologetic. Tried to work out how to get the wheel back on. Tried calling the guy who fixed it. Left him a very desperate and blamey-sounding voice message. Told the buyer that I’d drive him home to make up for it. Waved him towards the car. Yelled up the stairs to tell the boys what was going on. We got in. 

It was cold. Very cold. And frosty. At this point I realised the car had iced up. So I leant down between his feet to get the empty sparkling water bottle from where I’d thrown it that morning. He jumped. I explained that I was going back inside the house to get hot water. He looked at me in a way I can’t quite describe. But it was quite dark. 

If you’re wondering if I had engaged with my better self during this last twenty minutes, the answer would not be in the affirmative. I de-iced the car. Turned on the lights and as I was pulling out, the guy who’d fixed the bike called back. Offered to come round and re-set the wheel. Tempted as I was to end what already felt like the longest evening of my life, I said yes. With gratitude, just FYI. 

We went back into the house. Awks in the extreme. 

Bike fixer arrived. Sorted the wheel - although it looked a bit touch and go for a minute - and did some showy stuff with the gears to demonstrate that the bicycle  was definitely, totally, good to go. Thank ****.

He left. The buyer looked happy enough but we’d both established by this point that conversation was not going to be our strong suit. Although he did try to barter me down again. You know what, I think he might have been playing with me. But I was stuck in grumpy. Especially when he asked if he’d be allowed to carry people on the rear rack. 

I pointed him in the direction of town. Wished him very well. Collapsed on the sofa and phoned both kids to ask them to bring me down some of their Christmas chocolate stash. 

Seriously??? This. For a fiver. 

Muted by a timetable

My phoenix is temporarily quietened by a beautiful new chart that I have stuck to my bedroom door so that I can’t miss it. It’s aim - to give me a programme for success. Or survival. Or a bit of both. This incredible week-plan life-tool sits within a framework of nearly arranged boxes of lush colour (or it will when I’ve worked out how to clean my magenta printer head. For now it is at least legible and pastel-based).

My mantra for 2025 is ‘I’m sticking to the programme’. When I spiral or start to overthink, that is what I’m going to tell myself. It emulates a working day, frontloads my gratitude journal and exercise and builds in time for creativity and spiritual stimulation. And time to cook a good meal for the boys each day. I know, right?! Wow! (I’m also working on an AI-supported food plan and if that comes off I will literally have nothing left to ask of the universe. Well, apart from a husband, a family home with a kitchen diner in the Welsh mountains and a new wardrobe.) (Oh, and some roller skates.)

The cynical among you may like to know that I listened to a podcast interview with a Buddhist monk who was asked, at the end, for one practical tip to give listeners that would bring positive change to their lives. I felt very smug when he said ‘ create a day plan that brings positive intention and energy to the forefront’. 

There was also this AI thing going round before NYE which invited you to write a vivid description of  your wildest dreams. Put it into AI. Ask AI to write a ‘ day in the life of’ extract for someone living these dreams. Then ask AI for the actions you need to take to make it all come true. Ok, so my ‘day in the life of’ did read like a page from a fairly crappy novel, but the list? Only a whisker away from WHAT I ALREADY HAD ON MY BEDROOM DOOR!!! HA!

A year of significance lies ahead and the first half is going to be particularly busy. So I’m keeping my sights fixed on that six month point of transition, without overthinking or sweating the detail. 

The chart came off the back of a revision timetable I created for my youngest. That the eldest then wanted a version of. They have GCSEs and A levels respectively this summer. And I have exams too - I’m developing another wellbeing side hussle to sit alongside the laughter yoga. 

Alongside this going on, I have to get back into gainful employment, having ended a maternity cover contract last summer, and then having my autumnal job search derailed by the news that my mum has only six months to live. 

That was back in October. And having done a lot of crying and mourning already, I realise that I can’t sit on my need to earn a living any longer. And I can’t let the exam balls fall. Hence the programme. And the hope. And the lush colours. 

Note: I am in the process of creating a vision board, which I’ll use to decorate around the sides of the timetable. I heard that visual images impact on the brain in a different way to words and numbers, and help you notice and reinforce positive imagery around you. I also have a magnificent 3D pink glittery, shiny seed-come-clitoris that I made in an artist friend’s ‘in residence workshop’ before Christmas. That is hanging in my bathroom and which I hope will spore in the steam.

Note: if you read this, please don’t bandy the news about my mum around, as she doesn’t really know. Or maybe she does. I don’t know. 

On being in water

I was wondering where I am. I use ‘was’, because ‘am’ would convey a false sense of consistency: the tidal surges of menopause hormones mean that some days all I do is wonder and other days I’m working so hard at staying afloat that I’m barely conscious. Such is being a woman. Like me. I can only imagine your raging envy. 

Anyway. The ‘where?’. Figurative, not literal. 

Tho I am often taken aback by time, space and where I seem to have landed in it. ‘Was that only/really yesterday/last week/nearly six months ago?’ I find myself questioning. 

I think the process of applying for jobs (which I have been - well, a very select few) and the way you have to imagine yourself actually in them, can emphasise this sense of movement, impermanence and change. And yet I observe synchronicities - I started some part-time work for a charity a week to the day after I left my last job. (Which was at a workplace I entered the day my youngest started school. Doing a job that a woman I worked with in the job before that found for me.)

And I have been visiting places: my ex-mother in law in Albania (a final farewell), skiing in Austria with the boys (an ambition accomplished), regularish trips to Dorset… and other trips here and there, more of which, perhaps, another time.  

No, my question as to my whereabouts has been more in the sense of ‘post-caravan, what’s next?’. I like to have a sense of where in the universe I am, and where I’m headed. 

Back in the summer, I realised I had emerged from the dusty, quiet interior of my caravan, and was sitting up top, seeing where the pony took me. Wow, I had really needed that long rest from the workplace that I took. 

What I hadn’t had, however, was the bolt of lightning/cymbal-clashing/really cool electric doorbell-type moment of realisation as to what I was going to do next, that I’d expected. In fact, I realised I quite missed doing what I had been, before I stopped: being the boss, sorting stuff out, making shit happen, being creative now and then, being with people, having a team. Ok, so I also quite fancied some hard physical labour, such as picking grapes in the south of France, rather than sit at a desk all day, but not taking full-time work in order to maintain some kind of work-life balance feels like something of a compromise in this department. 

Which I did, when a job fell into my lap at the end of last year, and I’m starting a new job, similar to the last one but less full on, in the next couple of weeks. Fixed term for one year - perfect. I’m excited :) (I’m also glossing over the genuine freefall I experienced at the end of last year when I realised just how much I needed to earn in order to make ends meet and the stomach-clenching fear and self-doubt I fell into. Briefly.)

So where is this headed? Me, wondering where I was/am. Needing to know. Because that’s the kind of girl I am.

I’ve come across various prompts for reflection. ‘Imagine yourself on a hilltop, what can you see?’

More often than not, I find myself eyeballing my unblinking Phoenix, when I enter this space. I’m not sure if that’s helpful or not. I find being sure tricky these days. Is that wisdom? Or hormones?

Anyway, there I was, preparing myself for some yoga mat time. Thinking that since *stuff* constantly interrupts me when I’m sat there and trying NOT to think, perhaps I’ll have one of my ‘paradigm shift’ moments BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO. I was sitting on my bed, amidst the small pile of stuff I was getting together for my next weekend away. And it came to me. Unbidden. I’m in the sea! 

Hmmm. I immediately started to (again, not literally) flail around. Scary, deep waters. Nope, that’s no good. I switched the backdrop: still, Aegean blue. That’s more like it. 

I observed that I was in control. 

Then I noticed an island, not too far away. And I knew, in the same way that I knew my Phoenix was perched in one of the pine trees thereof, that at some point my Skylark is going to land in those trees. (My Skylark - for those of you who don’t know, and why would you? -  being the full evolution of my gypsy caravan.)

So, I think I’m going to be ok. I mean, as long as there’s a well and internet and I’m not returning to, or leaving, the world as Noah. Or Nelly. Ooooof!!! The Skylark! Arghhhh! See what I did there, without even trying? (If you’re not a child of the seventies I don’t expect you to know what I’m on about, just know that I’m not losing my shit (completely).)

And all that, notwithstanding, my tussle of the moment is this: how quickly the waves and the undercurrents change! Who really is in control? And why does my Phoenix keep deserting me? 

To be continued…