50things2dob4iam50 - #1 The One Day Event

So here I go - the start of my 50 things to do before I hit 50 - and I am straight in there with one of the biggest: the one day event*.
It must be one of the biggest indulgences ever and also one of the scariest.
I mean - what if?
What if I fall off? What if I break my leg/arm/neck? That really is going to cause a problem. Who will look after the kids/dogs/house?
Dear Charlie tells me to stop being so negative after I confess to him my worries as I drive him to the station at 5:45am. And then he tells me something else. He says he is proud of me.  He's full of admiration that I am doing something I love even though it could be dangerous. He says I shouldn't worry about it being indulgent because if I do then his relatively new found passion for cycling is also indulgent and dangerous.
"Life is too short to stop doing the things we love just because we may get hurt or injured doing it! If we did that we'd land up doing nothing!"
I get his point.
But I still worry.
Probably not helped by reading about someone who was out riding and had a very bad fall. And it was not clever watching all those YouTube clips of people falling off their horses while doing cross country...
So in a few hours I am going to start my odyssey, my personal quest in the year running up to my 50th birthday with a one day event.
I am scared.
But I am also excited.
I am going to challenge myself to go further than I ever dared to and if I fall off...

*A one day event is a horse riding challenge whereby a rider competes across three riding disciplines: dressage, show jumping and cross country.
Dressage is a bit like ballet but for horses and shows how well a horse and rider can work together. It is judged on the bearing, demeanour, discipline and elegance that the partnership brings to arena. The test consists of a sequence of movements to test the suppleness and obedience of the horse.
Then there is the show jumping bit which is a test of agility, precision and control of both horse and rider over a course of show jumps.Finally there is a cross country section where Horse and rider must negotiate a course of solid obstacles within a certain time limit. This part of the one day event is designed to test the fitness, technique and  all round ability of both horse and rider.

Moving matters: When is the right time to buy a house?

Soon to be on the market...

I am just about NOT raiding the biscuit box, I think I may have a lower lip tremble and I have this sort of pricking feeling behind my eyes.
I AM being VERY brave.
My offer for a new home has been turned down virtually flat and needless to say I am feeling pretty cut up about it.
The thing is though, as I was told by a very knowledgeable Estate Agent friend (he sells houses I could never afford in a million years in London): "The only way to buy a house is to sell a house first."
I got turned down flat despite going £30,000 over the asking price because my house is yet to go on the market.
"To be honest," said the local estate agent big wig, "you are just not in a position to proceed and in my great experience you may not get an offer on your house for  six months even if it was on the market today."
Personally I was rather affronted at that - seemingly implying that I had obviously got my home on the market for way too much and that I would land up being very silly when trying to sell. In fact I got the feeling he didn't think I was serious about the property or indeed that I was a buyer worth his time and effort.
Can I blame him? There is no evidence whatsoever that I am serious. My home hasn't even made it to Rightmove let alone OnTheMarket or indeed the local papers.
Yet I am selling. Honest - even though I am not desperately happy about it (but that's another story).
The national estate agents have been selected to market and sell our home and we've signed on the dotted line, the photographs have been taken, the description has been written, the lawyers have been engaged and I have just been e-mailed the floor plans.
My home will be there for all and sundry to see by Wednesday.
And yet without having it under offer  I feel that no one is ever going to think I am deadly serious about buying.
So the thing is, do I wait until I have sold my property then look? Or do I carry on in the hope that  everything will fit like a jigsaw?
Cash is king - as they say but did you know only 38% have been sold cash in the past quarter of the year and it does not look to increase according to statistics by Nationwide. So that means that 62% of home buyers are just like me....
That is of course unless I sell my home first then I too will be that most vaunted of buyers, the estate Agent's dream - a cash buyer...
Wonder how I will be treated then? Wonder if that will be the right time to buy?

Bringing up Boys - The Art of Being Ill

Bog Boy
Being very ill indeed

The art of being ill is hard one.

• You must not be SO ill that you cannot take advantage of it nor must you be to not ill enough that you have to go into school anyway.
• You will need to be just sick enough to get at least two days off as one day off is no good as your Mum will think you are just trying get out of a spelling test or a maths exam or basically something you don't want to do particularly; like English.
• Throwing up is a good one as you have to be off school for at least 24 hours for that but you must get the timings right, if you throw up at night you'll only get the one day off but if you throw up in the way to school you might be able to squeeze two days off as technically you will have to clear the morning of the day after tomorrow as well before you can go back.
• A good dose of chicken pox can be great - only as long as you get it mildly - but make sure your Mum has had it first as she's no good at pandering to your every whim if she's laid up as well. 
• Remember Calpol is your friend - reduces feverishness and that really spaced out feeling fast and allows you to play Minecraft uninterrupted all day but still won't really knock a nail on the head of a persistent virus so that when Mum takes your temperature the next morning it's raised too high for you to go back to school just yet...
• Don't forget to get picky with your food (preferably don't eat at all to begin with) refuse all our favourites with a sigh and say things like: "I'm just not  hungry Mum' "I can't Mum it hurts when I swallow." And allow her a small moment of triumph when she tempts you to eat with a Belgian Chocolate Choux bun*
• Get practising with your cough a good flemmy coughing noise will keep her just off balance enough to give you the benefit of the doubt - possibly allowing you an extra convalescence day at home.
• A really good  idea is to wake early and trip your way to Mum's room saying you really don't feel very well. She'll be too sleepy to argue the point and  more than likely allow you in for a cuddle. If you are too old for a cuddle in bed with Mum you can always sit on her bed and shiver. She will be so concerned that she'll jump out of bed, insist that you get in and keep warm while she gets up to fetch you a lovely cup of tea.
• Waking up in the middle of the night to say you've thrown up, feel really ill or have a headache is  another good way to make the point however, don't do this too much or you will rapidly lose her sympathy as she gets more and more tired and you'll not be able to get that extra day of convalescence.
• Keep buttering her up with the want smile or the demands for a cuddle and always say thank you for everything she does and technically you could get a whole week off - and that might mean you manage to miss a spelling test, maths exam and the dreaded English
• WARNING: Don't milk it too much or else Mum won't be as amenable to letting you stay home the next time. 

I have been ill enough to be off school for three days and have missed my spelling test, piano lesson and double English

Have a happy illness

Bog Boy 

(Aged nearly nine)

*Top Tip: Show a great deal of reluctance to eat this or indeed any treat as you are sure to get  another to tempt your appetite back

Being Mum

My Boy and Whippet

It's been twelve years - twelve years today to be exact.
The ultimate Mother's day.
I remember vividly what I was doing at this exact time all those years ago.
Feeling completely and utterly lost.
I had had a long birth - three days and after an emergency cesarean and all the excitement of  finally holding my baby boy, introducing him to the rest of the family, I was suddenly left alone.
I stared out into the far night from the third floor hospital window searching down onto the car park, trying to make out where my husband and Mum were, desperately wanting them come back and not leave me alone in this place. I wanted to go home now.
My brain was not functioning and thinking about what had happened was far beyond me.
My baby boy was not even in the room to remind me of my very changed circumstances; he was in the nursery under the watchful gaze of the midwives so that I could get some rest.
But I couldn't rest.
And I couldn't stop the tears from falling either.
I was just too exhausted.
I wanted my mum.
It didn't occur to me at all that I was a mum as well.
I went from being me to being more than just me, but my brain took a while to adjust.
(It still does from time to time.)
It was sometime early in the morning the following day (though to be honest all the days and nights had melded together and I had no idea 'when' anything was) that The Boy was wheeled into me for a feed. I can't say my heart leapt.
I was mildly curious.
I think I was also disappointed.
I expected there to be this sudden rush of love at the mere sight of him and this magical transference of knowledge allowing me to know what it was I was expected to be doing - no such luck in either case.
I think I panicked a bit about that, then dismissed this mother love thing that everyone had ranted on about as just tosh. I had felt no rushing feeling of love when I saw him. I was just devoid of anything.
However, that is not something you should admit to, so I didn't. I made what I thought were all the right noises. I did as I was told. I smiled and held him as directed. But I felt untouched by his presence.
However, my curiosity grew in spite of myself, my tentativeness with him lessened as he lay in my arms heavy with sleep.
I relaxed.
He was small and wrinkly and really rather skinny and long and sort of squashed looking. His skin was loose but so soft. His shock of dark hair surprising and he smelled good.
He was so real.
I lay that night in my bed with him just resting beside me. In utter silence; and I just watched. I didn't talk to him. I just lay there curiously assessing him.
You see there is this thing called mother love, it is very real but it can as easily take you unawares as much as it rushes straight at you.
For me it was all unawares
The slow burn of passion had started, I just didn't know it.
It grew on me.
Entwined itself about my heart.
Indelibly stained my whole life.
I was a mum and nothing in the whole of my life would ever be the same again...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOY!

The Wickedest Whippet returns: the case of the wandering walnuts and other bits of thievery.

The Wickedest Whippet - Butter wouldn't melt...

Life has been uncomfortable of late - literally.
I seem to have a walnut problem - in that walnut shells are to be found all over the house. Squirrelled away in corners, under cushions, on chairs, under chairs and sometimes even blatantly on the carpets; basically wherever I go barefoot I usually land up hopping about in absolute agony.
It's worse than Lego - believe me!
And it's getting downright dangerous.
I love walnuts, so we have a lot of them in the house - especially at Christmastime. I pile them in a big round basket available to anyone in passing. I say anyone, I actually need to be specific here.
Anyone that is HUMAN.

Check out the walnut detritus!

I am not fond of anything other than humans eating walnuts - I don't like the idea of mice, rats or even squirrels having free rein inside my home; so you can imagine my consternation when I started to find the shells all over the place.
It started fairly innocuously, the odd shell here, the bit of husk there; so I moved the basket on top of the display cabinet by the stairs to be out of reach of small human hands - suspecting that the prime culprits were the boys.
But the shells kept appearing and then it started to get worse. I'd clear  it all up and then the next day there would be even more shells all over the place.
I got the rat man in...
But.
There were no rats.
I put mice traps down (and only managed to catch one in the drinks cupboard - but that's another story).
I double checked all the windows to see it it were squirrels coming int o the house, I religiously patrolled the outside of the house for rat activity and spent hours just listening at the dead of night just in case I could hear the fiends.
I even began to worry if it were me - eating walnuts in my sleep.
So I decided to lay a trap using my old camera.
And this is what I found.....

The Wickedest Whippet returns...!!!

Are you there Mojo?

Hey Jet! is that my MoJo?

Are you there Mojo?
Have I got it back?
It's been nearly two years now since I started to lose it and for the past year I almost totally forgot that it ever existed.
I only blogged twice.
In a whole year!
Of course I didn't quite have total writer's block, I still wrote.
But not for fun.
Not just free writing for the hell of it.
Why did it happen?
Still not quite sure.
Did I just get bored? I don't think so; I just couldn't write. All these words and images and sentences got stuck in my head and they couldn't or wouldn't come out. The just repeated themselves over and over and became like sticky mud that I couldn't wade through. I attempted to write - I hate attempting anything. I wanted to do!
I tried so hard but then it all fell apart - a bit like me.
The harder I tried, the more ridiculous the words sounded as they splashed on the page.

Higgledy piggledy 

splish! splosh! splash!

They didn't make much sense and then I got angry and frustrated and I thought:

Give it a break.

Give it a rest.

Slow down.

And then life whizzed by and I thought about it, and thought about it, and then slowly started to  write again.

Not for me but for others hoping, praying and crossing my fingers that by doing so I would find my voice again.

It's a bit rusty.

Not sure how it sounds.

But willing to write again  however it sounds is good enough for me!

And we shall talk horses....

Hamlet

It's difficult not to be shocked when you first see her - that's if you recognise her at all.


I didn't.


My gaze slid past her as I searched and all I registered about the patient on the bed was how small and bald he was, and how very red and beaky was his nose.


Then it dawned on me that that was my friend.


Luckily for me her eyes were closed and I was able to compose myself before announcing my arrival.   
I felt such a fool. But what was I expecting?


Whenever I had seen her in the past, she was always poised, always in control. I only got to see what she wanted me to see. I always had to tell her when I was coming over to visit and she would always be ready.


It's one of the things I admired - being a person who is so often totally out of control and desperately disorganised.


Now, lying in the bed more incapacitated than ever and totally at the mercy of the system, I had to adjust my expectations fast, think on my feet and realise that the only thing I could do was to treat her as normal with no idea what her normal was any more.


I have only ever known my friend with cancer. She had it before I knew her and when I first met her she didn't tell me. It was 18 months before I found out and I suspect if she had been able to hide it for longer she would have done.


Here, for the first time in ages, at the stables where we all met she wasn't the cancer victim -  rather like the rest of us, just a woman who was  proverbially girding her loins to mount up and ride a horse once again.

It was the golden Autumn of 2012 and Hoof, the British Equestrian Federation’s (BEF) Olympic and Paralympic legacy campaign, had just launched its "Take Back the Reins" programme  to encourage  people like us to get back in the saddle (or driving seat or whatever was the case).

There were six of us, a couple like me who had ridden as kids but had lapsed due to life taking us in different directions and those who had started but not got any further. Whatever the reason we turned up at Newton Hall Equestrian Centre in Suffolk because we wanted to ride again. Perhaps we were trying to prove we could do it before it was too late. Perhaps we were indulging ourselves. We got more than we bargained.

What we found was that for a couple of hours a week we didn't just learn to ride - we found we could time travel - we could be who we once were: kids again with no thought other than to ride. Horse-mad teenagers but with possibly less conviction that we were invincible and a greater appreciation for the art of falling off. 

When you ride a horse you can only really think about what you are doing, you cannot go off into a daydream for the effort to stay on, especially initially, takes up every living second. When you ride you have to be in the here and now. No other thought can intrude; not if you wish to do it right and we all so desperately wanted that. So, goodbye money worries, goodbye work concerns, goodbye demanding family, goodbye cancer!

To be honest those first few weeks were terrifying as we all got to grips with it. My friend was a revelation she was born to it - she made it seem so easy. While I struggled to sit deeper and go with my horse, to keep my hands still and and to smooth my transitions, she tackled far more advanced fair. It was if this was what she was meant to do, quite literally why she had been born.

Just the other day, when she was clearly very poorly (on her last ride as it turned out) she was playing about with leg yields while I still struggled to ask for a clean transition to canter. But here's the thing about my friend, even though clearly she was far more advanced than I, she never lorded it over me or indeed any of the others, never became impatient with us in the lessons when she had to sit  and wait for us to get it together, never got cross  when I lost it and refused to do more than walk or trot, she was so genuinely pleased to see me progress.

To be honest we all were pleased when someone suddenly got it but without her I don't think we would have been confident enough to say so out loud to each other. She encouraged us to share our triumphs and to make little of our failures in the knowledge that next week we'd be better. She exuded positivity in the best way imaginable and it was wonderful.

So there I am in the hospital, beeps and bleeps and coughs and snorts and does she even know who I am? For having been knocked back by cancer again and again, she is here in the Stroke Unit, her left side totally gone and the prognosis is shit. 

So I say to her: "What a bugger!"  and could she: "Please help me because I am so very stupid - do you know who I am?"

I get a thumbs up.

She knows.

So I blather away about Hamlet her favourite equine and how he's just dropped a rider and playing up quite dreadfully. How he's obviously feeling a lot better now he's back in work. And would she like a picture and I'll do that tomorrow.

The magazines I've bought  are totally useless, she can't read them and the damage done by the stroke is far more than I imagined. The only other thing I have in my handbag is a small bottle Cow Shed's Cow Pat - which thankfully doesn't smell of cow pat. I ask if she'd like me to massage her feet I think I get a consent and so I massage her feet and they go from cold to warm, from dry to smooth. I think she likes it but it's difficult to tell.

I say I'll have to go but I'll be back with some photos of the horses and I do go back every other day during half term week bringing photographs and massaging her hands and feet and I chatter and as the days progress she gets better and starts to make her presence felt in no uncertain terms. I begin to understand her new way of talking and negotiate with doctors and nurses to get what she wants.

And then I am away for a week with work and family and she 's there at the back of my mind and the next thing I know she's in St Elizabeths Hospice. I visit and it's not good. She knows me and not knows me but she looks a hundred times better.

But I am uncertain.

And then I go back on Saturday morning and there she is - my friend. She's talking so much better and she seems so alive, positively buzzing. I tell her about the stables and the horses and how I am worried about going to Warwickshire for the British Horse Society Riding Schools Competition. I can just about get half marks for the ridden test, I can jump a clear round but not desperately elegantly and as far as knowing any horse lore forget it. I say I can't go; it is a ridiculous indulgence. She says do it! Have fun! Don't worry so much and that she can help me learn for the test. She makes me feel good about it all and then she asks me to take her to her niece's wedding at the end of May. We'll buy hats and look glamorous and we're going to have a spa day and paint our nails.

She has beautiful hands. Long tapering fingers. Strong hands. Hands that can talk to a horse and hold him in check, that give him confidence, that can make him dance. 

She says I'll have to be with her at the wedding reception: "And we shall talk horses..."

I leave  and feel so happy promising to be back on Monday morning.

"I'll get a movie of Hamlet and all the horses, would you like that?" I say. She gives me the thumbs up and although I am at the stables on Sunday morning I never get round to it. I'm helping with the course building for the jumping competition, waiting for an opportunity, I have my eldest wanting to go home. I'm late and I'm disorganised as usual. I console myself with the thought that I can always drop by the stables in the morning after getting the boys to school and take the photographs and movies then. It will probably be better.

That evening I get a call. 

At some point in the afternoon of March 1 2015 my friend dies.

"....and we shall talk horses..." echoes in my mind.

Fatigue, exhaustion, chronic tiredness - am I ill or is this how we all live?

I am exhausted, in fact, I am always exhausted. Is this just a function of being a Mum or could there actually be a problem?
I took this imponderable question my local GP and the answer I got back was to go and get some CBT and why don't I try anti depressants.
I did point out that I wasn't depressed. I was feeling - apart for being knackered - quite fine thank you and had no negative thoughts whatsoever.
It didn't wash.
I pushed.
I was allowed to have some blood tests but they came back within the normal bandwidth. I asked for them to be checked again  - maybe look at hormone levels etc?
This time there was a slight depletion in my cortisol levels - nothing to worry about but we'd like you to go see a specialist.
In London.
And in fact it turns out that  there really could be a problem, a minor one I am sure...
Has anyone else had it?

Feeling knackered?

NetParanoia.com - fear of the net and being a parent

So you have kids. Do you let them play in the playground at school? Do they get hurt there? Fall over? Fall out with their mates? Get teased? Possibly bullied?
Being at school and playing in the playground and learning how to deal with all that that entails is part of growing up and we wouldn't want to stop that - would we?
But are we as free and easy about it on the net?
Judging by the headlines the net is a far scarier, and more deadly place, for kids to be than in the school playground, than at home...
But statistically speaking children are more likely to be harmed at home and by their parents on a physical, emotional and mental basis than they are ever likely to be anywhere else - the net included! These were the points raised at a brilliant lecture I went to last night: NetParanoia.com The Great Internet Paranoia Swindle with Euan Semple: an internet guru you could say.
He was not advocating that parents should negate their responsibilities and that everything and everyone on the net was a benign force with only the best intentions at heart; but what he was saying was that we, as parents, should be learning about the internet and using it ourselves the better to understand the opportunities it can give, they way it works so we can understand the threats, and how we can all benefit, not just as families but as a community.
Just because our children can turn on a smart phone and switch on a computer, without having to look at a manual, does not mean they are experts at working the web or indeed how to behave online. That  would be like saying that just because they can walk and talk means they know how to behave full stop - they, like all of us, have to learn.
The talk, and discussion after, jumped about a bit covering topics such as how freely should I let my children play on the internet to how do I deal with horrific and indeed sexual images on the net? How do I help my children with  on-line bullying? And what about the glare from computers? How do I deal with a child who keeps playing with computers way into the night...
The simple answer was this: be a parent and do what you always do.
If you don't want them playing the computer way into the night don't have the computer in the bedroom; if you are worried about your kids never going outside; tell them to go outside. On-line bullying is the same as bullying full stop and deal with it as you would if it was happening in the playground.
Dealing with  horrific and sexual images on the net is just the same as if  you came across them in a magazine or newspaper. Some will say they are more accessible on-line but  take a look around you  and you will probably find that  the local news on the radio is just as graphic. My kids certainly know all about Operation Yew Tree and what happened to the two girls who were hung from a tree in Pakistan as it was on the radio news on their way to school.
Most of the time they tune out: "News is boring!" Sometimes I am put on the spot and I have to explain the best I can.
We should not be fearful of the internet or indeed fearful for our children - it is an amazing place where we can learn and share and just because we are told: "Muuum! You are SO old!" does not mean that we should not learn and share too.
The use of the internet has freed me to earn money as a journalist from home; I have connected with a community that has stopped me going barking mad, I have met people  on-line who are amazing, kind, collaborative, witty, wise and I have learnt so much!
Long may it continue for me and my family!

Are you the parent of a cyberbully?

Come on hands up  do you really know what your kids are saying online? Can you honestly say you know what they are doing? What they are posting? Do you even know if your kid's online or not?
I didn't know my eldest was online.
I didn't know he was on Instagram.
I didn't know he'd got himself into a situation - one that was rapidly becoming toxic.
For heck's sake he's only 10!
I thought I was being so clever. I thought I had it all under control. I had given him an iPod what, two years ago... I had it so that it was essentially registered to me and anything he added to it would always show up on my account and on my iPad.
I had the usual buying apps without asking, sneaking face time with Granny  at 10pm on a school night, playing games when he should have been doing homework/sleeping/getting ready for school but I had not had him actually on-line for real.
But things change...
At the end of last term The Boy's two best mates left the school and while I was concerned I knew he'd be fine. He gets on with everyone.
What I had not expected was that he'd start to try too hard in an effort to fit in and be accepted. So last week  they were all off on a day trip and during the bus journey there the kid persuaded him to join Instagram. Of course he was flattered and everyone gave him their tags and he started to follow them all. He watched what they did and tried to join in. But he doesn't  really know the etiquette and made a classic blunder.
He tagged a whole load of kids when he uploaded a photo of himself with his fingers pointing like a gun at his head. He didn't realise he should have pout a witty one liner caption on the photo or that he possibly should not have tagged all and sundry.
The first response was why did you tag me, then there was another why, then a child said the photo was the most cringeworthy photo they had ever seen, the next was about perhaps The Boy wanted to kill them, there were a whole load more who kept asking why were they tagged. There were a lot of blank/angry/puzzled emoticons and The Boy was overwhelmed and did not understand. He said he came in peas and got a more grief for poor spelling.
Basically the situation started to go toxic and The Boy brooded. Kept  stealing looks at the comments trying to figure out what he had done wrong. And it was when he stole the iPod on evening that I caught him and found out what was going on. Found out that I had had no idea that he was online.
I don't think the kids he was online to really understood that they were taking things out of proportion or how much hurt they cased. It was a kind of pack mentality - but we know that it has to start somewhere. And for me this is a wake up call.
If half the parents realised what their kids were saying and doing online I very much doubt that half the children would be allowed.
I told the school to watch my son; I have taken him off Instagram until he can handle it. I am never going to get complacent again...
My approach now is three pronged.
School - when they talk about Cyberbullying and what you should do to make yourself safe online I suggested that they also talk about how to behave online.
The Boy - I am going to organise for him to be taught (along with me and his father) how to use Instgram/Twitter etc and how to behave online and what to do when faced with problems such as this, how to report bad behaviour and also how to minimise damage caused.
Parents - I am going to ask that worst question in the world that any parent can be asked: Is your Child a Cyberbully? Are they or could they be part of a pack that sends another child over the edge? Do you know what your children are saying/doing online? And the biggest of all: if you don't know why not!!!!!