The big fat gypsy bike

Its has been nagging away at me that I haven't written my blog in two months but I felt like I had nothing memorable to say - life was just being life. My flat sale completed so my constant state of anxiety waned, we had a gorgeous holiday in Egypt where Isla blew me away with her fearlessness of camels, jellyfish and falafel. I had an offer accepted on what I hope will be our new home which Isla already refers to as our duck pond house because of its idyllic position overlooking a, yep you guessed it, duck pond. And work has slowed down to a bearable jog rather than a Usain Bolt sprint. So life is good, but it felt pretty ordinary until today when I had time to stop and appreciate that you don't need to be doing anything special for life to feel incredibly special.

Normally at the weekend I try to pack it to the rafters with plans and we are off and out visiting friends and family as soon as the last spoonful of CrunchyNut Cornflakes is down the gullet. But today there were no plans (albeit not through lack of trying), so we had a beautiful sunny unplanned day stretching out before us.

We took the big fat gypsy bike down to the park ("its a hill mummy, hold on, hold on! I want Daddy!") and did a circuit of the playground stopping off at the sandpit, swings and zipwire before ice cream. When I bought the bike at Christmas, I was so excited by the thought of Isla's face when she unwrapped the pink monstrosity which only Katie Price and 3 yr olds could covet, I didn't stop to think that I would actually have to be seen in public with it. To retain some shred of dignity I jokingly referred to it as the big fat gypsy bike to friends, not realising that 3yr olds have no sense of irony (or knowledge of the Channel 4 series) and the next thing I know she's asking anyone who'll listen what they think of her big fat gypsy bike. I think that's what is known as an own goal.

I had contemplated getting a taxi back up the hill as there was no way the gypsy bike, laden down with its tassles, padded purple saddle, and the entire Monkey family on the back seat was going to make it up with Isla peddling. (Yes, you read it right, it does come complete with a dolly seat and furry handbag on the front, I kid you not). But our kids amaze us every day and true to form, she astounded me as she huffed and puffed her way determindley up Quarry Hill.

When we got home, the Monkeys were let out of their seat and lined up in a row. She crouched down to talk to them, "did you have a lovely day out, did you? Good." Before going off to sort out the hose to fill up the paddling pool. She yanked the hose across the garden, saying "I'll hold the hose while you put the tap on." When did my litte girl get so grown up?

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out together in the back garden, Isla stripped down to her birthday suit and sandals, revelling in her uninhibited freedom. We happily ate our lunch in the sunshine, dug up weeds with our matching pink gardening gloves and lined up dozens of garden snails for a race. Everytime one would start making some headway, Isla would put him back to the start, they must have been getting very frustrated if they had some place to go! After we read some stories we lay on the blanket for a snooze and i put another blanket over her to protect her from the sun. She lifted it over our heads, and as the sun shone through and we looked into each others eyes, giggling in our make-shift camp, I wanted to capture that moment forever. Our kodak moment when nothing could be more perfect.

After bath time, Isla tucked monkey up in his new bed (an empty Ariel tablet box we have stuffed with straw) and whispered "shh mummy, he is sleeping" before putting the box carefully by her bedside. Her little arms squeezed tightly round my neck as if they were hugging my heart. She blew me a kiss and said, "love you mummy". 

Tomorrow we will be returning to the frenetic pace of life, where everything has to slot into place to avoid a domino effect of chaos. But that's ok, because its days like those which make us appreciate days like these.

A mother's love

Today I saw two incidents that abruptly brought home to me how precious life is. I had taken Isla up to London to meet some friends for lunch and decided to take a walk back along the Southbank before heading home. We were watching some impressive street dancers when I noticed a woman and child sitting against the wall. She was looking pretty dishevelled with matted hair and blotchy skin, a small battered suitcase on one side and a half drunk bottle of Becks on the other. The boy looked about five and was obediently standing by his mother while she looked blankly on. He looked well cared for but I thought how sad it was that while all these tourists were walking past, spoiling their children with treats and trips on the London Eye, they were in their own bubble, a million miles from the wealth surrounding them.

We queued for the London Eye and I spent the next 30 mins fealing queasy and asking Isla for the hundredth time not to lean against the glass to her increasing irritation. Even though rationally you know the glass isn't going to give way with the weight of a 3yr old, the thought of her plunging to the ground made me feel physically sick.

We headed back to Waterloo and down the steps by the National Theatre. At the bottom was an ambulance and a woman being treated by paramedics lying in a pool of blood, her head cracked open. I rushed Isla past and went into the food market where a woman sitting at our table told me the girl had tripped and fallen down the stone steps. She was a young woman on a day out, she hadn't been wearing silly shoes or drinking and she was alone. Was she someone's mother, someone's daughter? As the paramedics lifted her stretcher into the ambulance I thought how awful it would be for her mother to get that call and hoped that she would soon be by her side and she was going to be ok. How terrifyingly quickly our lives can change irreperably.

As we walked back to the station, I made Isla hold my hand even though we were in the pedestrianised area and felt terrified by the fact that try as we might, we can never fully protect our children. And there ahead of me was the same woman and child I'd seen earlier. She was rocking and laughing hysterically. At first I thought she must be laughing with someone but it was just her and the child. Next to her was an empty bottle of wine and he was eating a strawberry ice cream cone. He wasn't in the least bit disturbed by her behaviour, like it was the most normal thing in the world. He just carried on licking his ice cream while she cackled away. And, as I looked around me, not a single passer-by seemed to notice them.

Who knows what may have happened to bring them to this state.  I wanted someone to protect him and make sure he was ok and, in some stupid middle-class way, took comfort from the fact that she had bought him an ice cream as if that suggested things couldn't be so bad.  But what kind of a life is it for a small child to stand as his mother's protector while all around him the roles are reversed? It feels so wrong and yet the bond between mother and child is so unbreakably strong, I suspect there is nowhere that he'd rather be than loyally by her side.

I think of them now while I'm home and warm, my little girl tucked up in her bed, and hope that they aren't sleeping on the streets and his life doesn't have the inevitability that today's brief glimpse implied. At moments like this, it always makes me appreciate how lucky I am with my lot, but invariably we get sucked back in to our own lives and all too soon take what we've got for granted. So the next time that I snap at Isla, or moan about my work, or wish I had just that little bit more money, I hope I remember today and thank my lucky stars we've got it so good.