Get thee behind me, January.

It may be my birthday month, but January is my least favourite month of the year. It just doesn't do me well, and this year seems worse than most.

My birthday happens so soon after the New Year that there is barely time to draw breath before it arrive. It feels like the festivities and parties start in mid-December, continues on through Christmas, New Year and onto my birthday. Then, all of a sudden, reality kicks back in, and to top it all, I'm a year older. The weather and lack of daylight also play their part - it is no surprise that my best winters have been when we have had trips abroad to sunnier places in early January. It's not that anything bad happens, I just don't feel right.

I internalise a lot. This is partly out of habit; it's just something I do. I don't give the impression to those around me that anything is wrong. I'll still laugh and smile genuinely and seem fine for the most part. And the truth is, in part, that I am. But if were to have a emotional protective layer around me, I would say it wears so thin as to be transparent and doesn't offer much protection at this time of year. The word I'm looking for is fragile. Bits of me have felt like they are breaking off.

Things I would normally allow to wash over without a second thought become big issues. I don't know if I imagine slights, but I become hyper-aware of them in the things people say. I see bad things in them. And I believe them. You know that small nagging internal voice that tells you you're not good enough? For me, at times like this, it becomes louder and louder and louder until it's all I can hear. It kicks me when I'm down. It hates me. As a result, I start to hate myself. There have been times where I've been reduced to tears over it. Just typing that now and reading it back seems so ridiculous.

I get so cross with myself as a result. I have this big internal battle with myself - that nagging negative internal voice shouts down the bit that says "Well, actually, you're alright really and you know it". Deep down, I know that bit is there but I can't help myself - and the internal battle drains me of the ability to get on with the stuff I'm meant to be doing.

This year, it's come across in my tweets and I've found myself tweeting, much to my own horror, stuff I really shouldn't tweet, but I don't know why. Really, in the end, I lost patience with myself about all the whingey, whiney moany tweets. The folk of Twitter were, as ever, lovely but I didn't do it for that. So those went out the window. Not that I haven't felt different, I just didn't want to be that person.

Last week, I decided I didn't want to be like this any more. I am not going to pretend that I changed overnight but I had a light bulb moment, or maybe a couple of them. The first came when I realised that no-one else can except me can make me like myself.  The second came when I had a "Oh stuff it" moment when I had a sore back and booked a massage at half an hour's notice. It was brilliant but halfway through, I had an emotional release when I found myself, spontaneously and silently, crying for no reason at all. I know it can happen, but it surprised me. It made me realise that I must be kinder to myself; do a few things just for me, enjoy things for the hell of it. I wanted to go out there and then for lunch. I couldn't, so I went and bought myself a nice sandwich and took it home to enjoy with a little peace before the onslaught of the school run and its aftermath.

Just a small change in attitude seems to have made a big difference. I'm sure some will say that it's down to  the days beginning to get a bit longer and that does help a bit. But just that shift in my head - knowing that perhaps it's just this time of year, that I need to be kind to me, and listen more to the positive inner voice (I'm sounding like a crank here, but frankly I don't care) - is making me feel better. It's like a small twist in a kaleidoscope. What was disjointed and ugly has transformed into something colourful and beautiful. It's not perfect  - what is? - but the seeds of hope have been sown and I'm more at ease with myself. I will not, will not let my own head drag me down any more. I don't need to be so harsh on myself. I don't need to look for slights in what people say or do - real or imaginary, they do not matter and I can't allow myself to care.

Still, I won't be sorry to see the back of January. Only a week to go. Get thee behind me, January. I'll be glad when you've gone.

(PS If you've made an effort to make me smile when I've been down, cheer me up, or generally make me feel better during the last few weeks, then thank you. You know who you are.)

Today is the day...

... that I said good-bye to you for the last time. I didn't know that I would leave you, and Mum sat there with you, and that you'd be gone within 2 hours, forever. I knew it wasn't right but the prognosis was a few days and I had to come home to go to work.

Before I left, I made sure that someone was on their way to be with Mum for a while. After all, she hadn't planned to come and see you today but something made us come and see you. I called Carolyn and she made plans to come and see you straight away.

I left, fully expecting to be called back in a day or two. I was two-thirds of the way home when my phone rang with a voicemail message. I pulled into the next services and it was Mum asking me to ring her. She was very matter of fact when I spoke to her but she told me that you'd gone. Carolyn was still on her way - she never made it. I didn't know what to do. I rang my friend, just to talk to somebody and tell them. I drove the rest of the way home in a daze.

I knew it was coming.We'd known for a while that the end was nigh. I knew what Mum's wishes were in terms of your treatment. I knew it would happen. However, that last day was a shock. Even from the day before, the deterioration was visible. We didn't know what you did and didn't know anymore anyway. All I know is that you knew my voice, and the staff said that you were always brighter after I'd visited. That morning, when I said good-bye, I told you it was OK to go now. I just didn't think it would be so soon.

For a long time, I didn't really feel anything. We coped - over Christmas, with your funeral looming over the festive season, through the funeral on a clear but snowy day, when I cried but only a little bit. I started a new job in a dreamlike state a few days later. For months, I was not in a good place, with being away from home a lot and other issues in my life. I began to feel like I'd been abandoned, although I wasn't angry with you for that. How could I be? I was a mess emotionally for a good few months until I gave myself the proverbial kick to get on with life. It was what you would have wanted me to do, cliché that it is.

Since then, I have got married and had two children - your only grandchildren, although you have four beautiful step-grandchildren that you loved as your own. You would have been so proud. They would have loved you to bits and Missy Woo would have had you wrapped around your little finger. I think it was then that the loss of you really hit home to me. They are beginning to understand now that you're not around - Monkey asked me once why you always went away we went to stay at Mum's. It broke my heart that they thought you didn't want to see them. I had to explain that you were somewhere you couldn't come back from, although I think they might still think you are in Devon. Given the chance, you would still be there with them, playing with them, giving them sweets and taking them out on day trips.

Every now and then, like tonight whilst I am writing these words (and others in the past) the tears start to flow freely. It is when the emotion really overtakes me. I think too hard, that's the trouble.

Because you were the man, the constant in my life from birth. Having suffered a loss of a stillborn baby, you had no way of knowing if I would be born alive but I was and you chose my name. You raised me along with my sisters and worked long, long hours to pay the bills. You let me get on with living my life, to make choices and to make my own mistakes, from a fairly young age. You were there for me but you weren't critical - you just accepted what I did and supported me through it.

I graduated on your 51st birthday. You were so, so proud that day. No-one in our family had ever been to University. You looked fit to burst.

Ten years. Ten long years. In that time, my life has changed beyond recognition. I wonder if you ever thought I would become a mother. I wonder if you would be proud of the person I have now become, of the things I do, of my lifestyle. I suspect, knowing you, that you'd be mostly proud, but you wouldn't comment on the rest. You wouldn't see it as your place to do so.

Today is the day you went away, ten years ago. Fate and life has been cruel, meaning I can't have time to myself today, gathering my thoughts and memories of you. I need to mark this tenth anniversary in some way but I'm not sure quiet contemplation will be possible. Perhaps I should spend some of the day hugging my children and showing them that I love them. For the biggest tribute I can pay to you is to love them as much as you loved your own children, to raise them knowing they are loved, that they know it's OK to make mistakes, and to be the kind of parent that you were to me.

I miss you, Dad, but I am so proud of you, of the man you were as well as the Dad you were to me. You live on in our memories and in the people we became. And for that, I thank you.

Rest in Peace, Dad.

Brian Thomas Giles 10th July 1935 - 17th December 2000

Odd One Out

That's me, you see. If ever there were three words that summed up most of my life, those are the ones. Odd one out.

I have mentioned before that my sister taught me to read when I was 2 and I could read by the time I started school. This marked me out as the "clever one". I was the only one in the family to go to grammar school, having passed my eleven plus, so I went to a different school to my sisters. I was the first person that I know of in our extended family ever to go to University.

That's me in the centre.

When I went to university, I chose a course at a separate, and much smaller, college some 10 miles away from the main campus. We were considered the oddballs by the rest of the University - country bumpkins, in fact, because were the Agrics. And because I didn't come from a farming background, and made a final year choice that had only ever been chosen twice before, set me out as different again. I was definitely the odd one out. Imagine 3 overlapping circles in a Venn diagram; I was the tiny bit in the middle where all 3 overlapped and everyone moved around me but not with me.

And so it went on. I was the odd one out as I went into accountancy and then IT after graduation. It has meant I had little in common with the people I studied with and haven't really kept up much contact, apart from a couple that I speak to occasionally. I've been odd one out in jobs by virtue of having to do a long distance commute - like to London from the Hampshire coast  - and therefore being "not from round here". That does have its benefits as you rarely bump into work colleagues outside work.

I even became an odd one out when I became a mother. I wouldn't change my kids for the world but there aren't many mums with children their age in their 40s. Monkey was born when I was 40 and Missy Woo when I was 41. Some of the mums of Monkey's classmates are more than 20 years younger than me. Most of the mums I know online too are in their 30s and a few in their 20s. And to top it all, 11 years ago this week, I moved to Lancashire from Buckinghamshire, so I am in exile and therefore a peculiarity to both the locals here and people from my hometown. My accent gives me away to both, unmissably southern with a few flattened vowels.

Being the odd one out is a recurring theme but I am undecided about how I feel about it. I made my choices, and I'm happy with them. I can hardly change a lot of them so I may as well get on with it, but I choose not to regret anyway. But suddenly, a comment - innocent and not intended to be hurtful  - will remind me that I am the odd one out and I feel like the the outsider looking in.

I've thought about this many times. Some of the things that mark me out as different just are - I can't change them because they are a part of me, of who I am, and makes me distinctive, perhaps memorable. Some of them are however related to conscious choices and I wonder if there is something within me that likes to set my own path in life, that likes to be a bit different sometimes and not to follow the norm - even though it is not wildly unconventional. I've hardly run off with a circus, have I?

But then, there is the part of me that wants to belong, that feels left out sometimes, and that doesn't know how to feel like I belong; if indeed, there is anything to be done. I'm guessing you would never know this if you met me as I hide it well. People say I appear confident and outgoing. I will join in but deep down, something within me is saying "Do you really belong here? Do these people really need you muscling in on their fun? Are they all mentally rolling their eyes at me?"

Getting involved with things has helped that sense of being left out. Becoming an NCT member has been so good, for me personally anyway. Most of the active members in our branch have moved to a new area and are lacking the support mechanism offered by close friends and family. They have provided the support network for me over the last 6 years, I've volunteered for them most of that time, and until Missy Woo started school, I felt like I belonged somewhere, and has rooted me to the community where I now live. However, we have little need of that support now that Missy Woo is at school. School itself is beginning to fill the void that will be left, but at the same time, I am conscious of taking on too much and getting involved with both at the same time.

So that's me, the odd one out. It is a part of my identity that has seeped through my life right from childhood, that has weaved itself into the story of my life. A lot of the time I love it, but sometimes I hate it and just want to be part of the gang.

First the lasts and last the firsts..

Regular readers of this blog will know that Missy Woo, my little girl, is due to start school in September. That's, like, next month, right?!

Over the last few weeks, we've had a few lasts occur. First, I had my final "Frantic Friday" where I dashed from school run to coffee morning to lunch to music group to school and thence to swimming lessons. That's one last I won't be sad to see the back of! On the same day, Missy Woo went to her last music group. She'd been going since she was a baby with Monkey who went from 7 months. I was sad, because I'd been going with one or both of them for nearly 5 years. It felt like the end of an era and we said goodbye to Sue, the lady that runs the groups brilliantly.

Soon after, came two lasts that I will not miss, not one bit. First, the last ever nursery bill. I love the nursery that they have attended but not the cost. We paid to use a year-round nursery when I was still working and by the time I took redundancy last April, it was really too late to change. Monkey was a few months off starting school and Missy Woo loves the place so much that I know she would have had serious words with me if I'd moved her. Anyway, no more. I've paid my last bill and now we are free of that expense.

Next, I had my last nursery/school run. One day a week, I had to take Missy Woo to nursery and Monkey to school. I did it that way round to force me to get out early as Monkey had to be there for 9am but my back up was I would take Monkey to school first. I'm proud to say I never had to and Monkey was never late but oh boy, the stress. Nursery is 3 miles away in one direction and school 1.5 miles in the other, so nearly 5 miles apart. Such mornings could be interesting, if shouting at children to do as they are told to brush teeth/put coats on/get in car seats counts as interesting.

Then, on Friday, another last. Missy Woo's last ever party at nursery. The leavers' party. There was a magician, played party games and ate party food. Missy Woo had a ball and I got a child-free morning for nowt, being as Monkey was on a holiday football course.

During the morning, I suddenly noticed the date. 6th August. Realisation hit me like a slap in the face. In precisely one month, Missy Woo would be having her first day at school. Well, actually, it's a morning. Her first full day will be two weeks later but that is when she starts and we, as a family, will mark the occasion.

Between now and then, we have a couple more lasts, like last day at nursery. However, the lasts aren't what it is all about; after the lasts, come the firsts. Once she's started at school, the firsts will come thick and fast throughout the first term and the rest of the academic year.

Ready for school

I know lots of mums get sad about this point in their child's life, particularly their youngest, and I'm sure I will feel strange as things change. Nursery has been part of our family for over 3 years, the carers have been fab and the children have had a ball there. But, for now, I'm choosing to look at it in the same way that Missy Woo is - with big excitement for the new phase in her life. She wants to go to school with her big brother, be in class with the same teachers as Monkey had last year, make new friends - and play with a few old ones. She loves the uniform, she has school shoes, and a Hannah Montana bag for school that she adores (see right for Madame modelling some A/W 2010 trends). When she went in for a settling in afternoon, she told me to go as soon as I got in the classroom!

So, as the cliche goes, as one door closes, another opens. She doesn't realise it but my funny, clever little Missy Woo has the world at her feet and I know she will meet the challenge of school with relish - she will sail through those lasts and onto the firsts without batting an eyelid. I know what lies ahead for her and I am excited for her.

That just leaves me to sort out what I'm going to do next with my life. Easy!

The Gallery - Emotions

This week's post is on the theme of Emotions but is a combination of Tara's Gallery and Josie's Writing Workshop on Sleep is for the Weak. Visit them both if you can. There are lots of great blogs just waiting to be discovered!

This is going to be difficult as the picture I've chosen evokes a lot of emotions in me. It's of me and my dear departed Dad. Sorry about the quality of the picture; I've had to scan it in as it was taken before digital cameras really came along.

This is the last picture I have of you, Dad. I keep it in my bedroom in a frame. Mum hates it - she prefers to remember you as you were before you became ill. I have plenty of those pictures. A whole lifetime's worth. This one is precious, to me anyway.


When I look at this picture, I feel a strong mixture of emotions. Sometimes, they overwhelm me. They are doing right now, in fact. There are tears in my eyes as I type these words.


I feel happiness because in this picture, we are not only just both smiling, we are laughing. We're probably not laughing at the same thing but it is a shared moment, on Christmas Day. For all the happy times you gave us, for the times where you had us helpless with laughter at one of your "misguided tours" around Devon or Somerset.


I feel sadness because we won't get to share such moments again. You left us close to Christmas in 2000, and this picture being taken at Christmas serves to remind me of that. It's bittersweet. That the last few months and years of your life, you didn't really understand what was happening to you, and in the month and years before that, you did know and were probably very scared but never showed it.


I feel pride that you were my Dad, that you became a Dad in all but name to my two half-sisters and brought us all up the same, that you gave them a life they wouldn't have had otherwise and that they chose you to give them away at their respective weddings, not their biological father. Of the many, many hours that you put in at work to earn a living enough to pay all the bills with 4 daughters to support. I also feel humbled that you took on so much, so young, and that you came through it - and a lot more - with Mum.


I feel gratitude that, because of all the support you gave me in early life, I was able to do all the things I have achieved thus far. You never stopped me doing anything, you never pushed me into things I didn't want to do. I made my own way, and you let me make my own mistakes. That, in itself, was a fantastic education, in life itself.


I feel devastation that you never got to meet my children, your only actual grandchildren. You were a great granddad to my sisters' children; you would have been just as fabulous a granddad to mine and they would have adored you - and make no mistake about it, Missy Woo would have you wrapped around her little finger. She is Carolyn all over again - even their birthdays are a day apart, just 5 days before your own. A little while ago, they started asking questions about you and I wanted to cry.


I feel anger that you have left us here, but when I think about it, it's not anger with you but with myself, for not making the most of our time together. I know you wouldn't begrudge me one minute of time away from you though and that, if you could have understood, you would have supported my move to Lancashire in the last 18 months of your life.


I feel pain. It will be ten years this Christmas, Dad, and it doesn't get any easier sometimes. The pain never goes completely. You just learn to control it so that you feel its full force less often. Today, Dad, I'm feeling it as sharply as the day you died. I still remember stopping at Stafford services and ringing Mum and her telling me that you'd gone, just an hour and a half after I left you having said goodbye for the last time. I remember it like it was yesterday. That you are now free of the physical body that failed you, that your "spirit, flying high, is soaring free" as we had written in the book of remembrance, gives me some comfort.


When all's said and done, I will always miss you, but your influence on me will never leave.

Brian Thomas Giles. 10th July 1935-17th December 2000. RIP.