Thoughts from the Stationmaster #4

A few years ago I worked in central London on a brand which had (has) lots of admirers, but the offices were basically a store-room beneath a boutique, and worse, underground with no natural light at all, unless we went to the ladies or ventured upstairs.  Travelling to work on the underground too, meant that after two years I began to feel like a mole.  I am now really grateful for and count myself lucky about simply being able to see the sky on my route in to work. Having missed it so much, it sets up my day and is definitely a reason to be cheerful.  These Thoughts from the Stationmaster also light up my mornings, and I love reading, collecting and sharing them.

I also generally get a seat on my usual line, which is no small thing, as it guarantees you a little bit of personal space!  This morning wedged onto a ridiculously busy commuter tube on an alternative route to avoid delays on my usual line, I literally had a man with a pretty impressive belly, squeeze himself into the overfull carriage, pressing his tummy against my back, and with his hand on the rail I felt like he was almost giving me a bear hug.  Every time I inched away, I ended up basically between the legs of the man perched on the seat ledge.  I wondered how this has happened in the last few decades - it has suddenly become totally normal to be as close to strangers as you are to your beloved.  So I took the advice in the Thought of the Day below and got off the train.  If you don't like something about your circumstances, you have to take responsibility for changing it, and I am all for change.

Enjoy.

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.  (Denis Waitley)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us (Harvey Stanley Hoskins)

All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them (Walt Disney)... (I'd like to add to this one - even if your dreams don't actually come true, the pursuit of your dreams makes you feel like you are taking charge of your life, and had you not pursued, you would never know what you could have achieved, or what you might have learnt along the way)

There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle (Albert Einstein).

This post is linked to a really lovely collection of posts every week called Reasons to be Cheerful, which I've been meaning to write and link to for a long time, but never gotten around to.  These thoughts of the day from the stationmaster make me cheerful every single morning when I see them, not just for the content, but for the fact that someone takes the time and the effort to write something that they hope will touch people on their daily commute.  I hope you like them too.  

What I Wore Wednesday - Two MEs and beach dreams

For one reason and another, I've struggled a bit with enjoying my blog over the last week, and also this never-ending winter means I am wearing an inordinate amount of black, which just doesn't photograph so well!  Just yesterday I checked the weather forecast on my phone, and was so thrilled to see 20' (and rain) that I laid out a dress to wear on the following day... the next morning the realisation dawned that I'd been checking the forecast for the South of France where hubby is working right now!  The reality today was nearer 11'.  Out came the black tights again!

So I've pulled out two pics that are more about the two MEs - this pic below was taken en route to a work do, where I was squeezed into this lime green Vivienne Westwood dress to match the product we were launching.  Nothing like a corset and volumes of netting in an underskirt to make you feel like a 40s gal!

Dress - Vivienne Westwood, Sandals - Stella McCartney

(here's the inspiration!)

I clearly do not have legs up to my armpits, or flame red locks, but the lime green number was sent over for a mannequin to wear at the launch, but the sample size was so tiny, it didn't even fit the dummy.  Given I am a tiny titch, it just about fit - with a lot of breathing in and corset-lacing! - however was probably a lot longer on me than it should have been.

This pic below is one of my favourite moments with Missy G, when we have a quiet moment each reading separately, but just happily near each other. 

Jumper, Comptoir des Cottoniers, and Jeans, Top Shop.

And to round off with What I WISH I Wore - to directly contradict what I wrote about here, I would just LOVE to be wrapped in a sarong on a beach, soaking up some sunshine, and then strap on some sky-high wedges to dance the night away, while my babies sleep safely.

Beyonce working it for H&M

This post is linked to:

  

Rambling

When I started writing this blog, I needed a space where I could pour my heart out over the emotional roller coaster that going back into full-time work that I loved, and hideous guilt over leaving my baby behind entailed.

I wanted to also have a space which was solely mine, and where I wasn't defined solely by virtue of being Missy G's mother - or Super-Tot as I called her back then. I needed to remind myself of the me-before, and to work out how to bring the me-then and the me-now together, rather than to choose one or another. It irked me when I was referred to only as Missy G's mum, in exactly the same way that I would hate to be defined just as Mr.G's wife.  I am extremely proud and happy to be both.

I used to think pre-kids that I would love to just sit on a beach all day, peppered perhaps by days being pampered, reading, living off of the interest from a lottery win or similar.  The reality however is that I don't play the lottery, so am unlikely to win, and that I would also probably go completely mad with boredom just sitting around all day.  I tortured myself for a long time when I went back to work over my choice to not be there constantly to watch my precious girl change and grow, and my subsequent decision to start a new job a year after Mini-G was born.  But I knew then and I know now that I would not be the best mother I could be if I were not to go out to work, to fulfil that other part of me.  There have been times when I think wistfully about attaining balance, but on the other hand feel that I couldn't work at the level I want to on 3 days a week.  If anyone wants to prove me wrong, I'm open to offers!

I also feel right now like my mental engines are revving up, and I want to do more, to move forward career wise.  Mental balance feels tantalisingly close - my brain is whirring on a work plane from the moment I walk out of the door, and when I am at home, I switch off from work entirely, and focus on being mummy - laying down the law or rolling around on the floor with Mini-G on top of me; reading stories, doling out cuddles and kisses galore, or teaching Missy G how to read and how to do headstands - we're pretty diverse around here.

When I started this blog, I needed to brain-dump and emotionally divest myself of the accumulation of little hurts, laughter, confusion, indecision, and a myriad other feelings, rather than allow them to swill around in my head before becoming a rush of white noise.  I've never been good at keeping up a diary, yet somehow this blog space works for me.

The good news is that I think that I am getting to a place - and I may already be here, but not yet quite able to believe it - where I don't feel guilty for that choice any more.  I also feel like I can start to reclaim the other parts of me that need feeding.  Like regular date-nights, reading more books, setting a date at least once a month to catch up over dinner with girlfriends for those who are in that space where they are ready to too (it's amazing what a wrench it can be leaving your little one for the first few times), and I've even finally gotten into some regular fitness, with squash lessons once a week - and my body is feeling good for being moved around!

This is a one of those rambling, musing posts, and makes me think about that fact that I've been asked why I would think that anyone else would be interested in my ramblings, which is actually a different question to asking why anyone does read my blog.  For the same reason hopefully that I also read others' - because something in the way they write captures me, interests me, I occasionally learn things, I occasionally laugh or get a lump in my throat.   There are a list of blogs over on the right hand sidebar, a fair few of which write regularly about the combination of life and parenting.  They are by no means an exhaustive list of those I read - sometimes sporadically, some more regularly - but it does make me feel less alone in this mission of trying to achieve balance, on this journey of being a mama and being more.

Thoughts from the Stationmaster #3

There is something really rather reassuring about coming back to a variation on the same theme every week, rather like a comforting routine.  Every week, thanks to Jaime over at The Olivers’ Madhouse, I start to think about what Magic Moment I want to highlight.  Usually, the loveliest moments are those which you couldn’t possibly capture, or for which I just don’t want to be behind a lens, observing, rather than living. 

Like yesterday, when as we walked back from church together, Missy G kept stopping to push her little face into the clouds of jasmine flowers and inhale their scent whenever we passed a garden where a gorgeous bush overflowed with those sweet white flowers.  Or after we came home from an afternoon at the fun fair, and Missy and I disappeared upstairs for an hour to wash our rained-on hair, as soon as Mini-G escaped from his Daddy’s clutches and powered up the stairs to find us, the smile on his face that lit him up from inside.  I could go on… And then there are those moments that fracture daily banalities, like a funny tube-driver, or the market trader who tosses you an apple for a smile.

So once again this week, I give you something that is my little Magic Moment every day when I schlep into my tube station on my way to work – Thoughts from the Stationmaster.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post is linked to the Magic Moments linky, and I missed joining in last week as I was on a work trip (have a look if you want to see some working mama style!). 

If you'd like to read past thoughts from my philosophical stationmaster, you can find the last post here and the first one here.

Have a lovely week!

Beauty in the city

Every morning when I check my emails, there is usually a post from one of my favourite blogs, Chookooloonks - the word is a Trinidadian term, and when I looked up the definition today on Izatrini.com (check it out for lots of definitions of brilliant Trini-isms, if you don't have a copy of our local dictionary, Cote ci Cote la) it perfectly said "Chookaloonks... pet name of your special someone".

The first thing I love about receiving my daily dose of her musings and photography is actually the words in my inbox subject title.  Sometimes, I may not even get around to reading the emails for days, but her strapline (and the title of her book) makes me smile every time I see it, and I have to say it is the perfect way to start your day:

"Wildly convinced you're uncommonly beautiful" 

Now, who doesn't want to read that first thing in the morning? When you're feeling all bleary-eyed, and still with a bird's nest of bed-hair, it has to be the loveliest start to your day.

Today she wrote about findng beauty in everyone here and it really is a lovely post.  I thought that I would write about finding beauty where we live.  Living in one of the biggest cities in the world, means I sometimes fall into the cycle of what the French call "metro/boulot/dodo" - "tube/work/sleep", and when the skies are grey and winter seems interminable, it can be easy to keep your head down, and rush through life.  Speeding through the mornings, racing out of the door, leaping through the closing doors of the tube, avoiding eye-contact with fellow commuters forced to stand as closely together as lovers, pounding the pavement into work, and then staring at a screen all day, before doing it all again in reverse; it can be too easy to forget to look for beauty.

One of my favourite things to do however, is just to look up.  There are so many incredible details in this city, and some of the easiest to catch are just from looking up from pounding the pavement and notice the tiny details, as well as the amazingly striking ones.  There may be turrets or statues, or a surprising place name.  It might be a flower that has managed to seed itself in-between roof tiles, somewhere up high, where only a bird could have dropped that accidental seedling.  My mother-in-law is fond of saying that "weeds are only flowers in the wrong place".

Even after having left Trinidad some 26 years ago, and having lived in London for around 18, I still look at the city through a tourist's eyes.  Heading away from Picadilly Circus, the grimey and manic over-branded heart of the West End, I always look forward to looking up at the diving statues placed up high over the galloping horses below.

 

 Some of the beautiful images below are by the photographer Keri Bevan, found over on Etsy (this is not a sponsored post btw).  The grand sweep of Regent Street, and the details in the architecture always take my breath away.

 

 I love the inner courtyard of the Wallace Collection, and the huge atrium of the Landmark Hotel.

 

 

Chinatown and Soho can be seedy and touristy, but again, there's no shortage of beauty if you seek it out.

 

 

The bright green and gold of Hammersmith Bridge gets Missy G shouting that we are "on the riviere!" every time we drive over it

 

 London is full of little villagey pockets, with houses in pallettes of icecream colours, and the colour always makes me feel happy. 

There is nothing that I would miss more than the moments of calm that all the green areas in the city give, and it is probably the contrast between the buzz and hum of city life, that lend extra peace to these spaces.

Springtime, when it finally comes, just bursts onto the streets with the gorgeous pink blossom, and it cheers up grey skies and monotonous rows of houses no end.

 

And then there are the quirky little slices of beauty - a Karma Kab Ambassador car, or even a lovely street name.

 

There are so many hidden gems dotted around pockets of the city...everyone has their favourite spaces.  Those above are just a few of my favourites - there's Borough Market; the view from the London Eye; a walk along the river; and watching where the weeping willow sweeps the water; the secret flower garden hidden in our local park, an oasis away from shrieking children; the little fairy people in the carved tree at the Princess Diana children's playground in Hyde Park; local market stalls with stacks of fruit and veg in a riot of colours; eating my favourite prawn curry on rice against the bright green ceramic plates we have at home; I could go on and on.  Where are your local favourite spots of beauty?  Even just thinking about where they are makes you realise how much there is around us.

 

But my absolute favourite everyday piece of beauty to gaze at my daughter's ridiculously long and thick eyelashes as they skim her cheeks when she sleeps, arms thrown out in abandon; my boy's straight back, as he pulls himself to stand, and totter around, before he turns to flash his smile at me. The crinkling up of the corners of my husband's eyes when he smiles at me.  I hope that you find some beauty around you today too.

 

 

 

If you'd like to vote for Mama and More in the Writer's category for the Brilliance in Blogging awards, please click here before Sunday 12th when voting closes.  Thank you!

What I Wore Wednesday - a work trip to Denmark

As I type I am on my way home from a 3-day work trip to Copenhagen for a conference. I met my colleagues at Heathrow on Bank Holiday Monday, seen off at the security gate in good old fashioned farewell style by MrG, Missy and Mini-G. We'd had a wonderful, if very hectic, family weekend, and it was hard to say goodbye, although the working-girl part of me was looking forward to being mentally stimulated and engaged with the contents of the conference.

Waving goodbye, I remembered being brought to airport as a child with my father when he was collecting his girlfriend (now wife). As he leant over the railings eagerly, my pre-adolescent self cringed while he waved two giant stuffed p each holding a sign that read "Karen, we love you!" How she did not sink into the floor when she came through the gates I will never know.

While I thankfully won't be met at the gate with waving Smurfs, I AM looking forward to heading straight into a car home, having missed seeing my babies for three nights.  I will see them in the morning.  The conference was good, we had some great team bonding over copious cocktails, and numerous bottles of red wine, which made up for the overly avant-garde food we ate at the ridiculously, and in my opinion, a bit too studiously cool restaurant we in. The food was so bonkers I've added pics in instead of my usual "what I wish I wore". In fact, if anyone can guess the dishes there's a prize in it for you! The only clues I'll give is that one is the vegetarian option.  No prizes for guessing which however!

So, below are the pictures of what I wore this week - pic in the garden taken by Missy G, my favourite little photographer (when I can prise her away from taking self-portraits of herself grimacing into the camera).  She's actually getting to be pretty good!

Dip-Dye Skirt from Top Shop, watch & bracelet, Pandora, Shoes, Carvela, Feathered crown which I did not wear to work (!) Monsoon Kids

Dress French Connection, shoes, Jimmy Choooooooo; cut-out top, Zara, biker trousers, Zara, mules, Steve Madden

Jacket, Boden (still very undecided!), Jeans, Fire Engine, Top, H&M

This was the view from my hotel room yesterday morning, over the canals as the sun lit up the water, before I was ensconced in a conference room for the next 6 hours.  At least it was warm enough afterwards, for us to all sit outside in a little cafe on a square, drinking rose and eating these rye-bread crisps.  Delicious!

Here are two dishes from the restaurant we ate in - I challenge anyone to guess the one on the left!

Voting is nearing it's end for the Brilliance in Blogging awards - voting closes this week.  In case I haven't mentioned it (bear with me, bear with me!) I would be very grateful if you could please vote for me over on the Brilliance in Blogging voting form - the Writers' category is q.7.  It takes less than a minute!


This post is linked again to two "What I Wore Wednesday" linkys..

The Pleated Poppy, which is really worth having a look at if you want to style-gawk, and also Transatlantic Blonde who has also been nominated in the BiBs for the Style category.

  and also Wardrobe Wednesday

A goodbye

After  Missy G turned two, we decided that we were ready to grow our little family and embarked on that journey towards baby-making. It is a crude way to put it, but as anyone who has "tried" to have a baby, after six months, keeping the romance in is not easy, and the very thought that you are actively "trying" is an obstacle in itself.

Knowing monthly cycles to the day, I hated even having that information - where was the girl who would blithely skip through the month and be caught short and surprised that 28 days had passed already? With girlfriends I compared the merits of temperature-taking and graph plotting versus peeing on fertility sticks; every month I felt hopeful and frustrated in equal measure, and then tried to shrug it off and not think about it too much, even though just by talking about it we were doing just the opposite. 

Eventually one month hope turned to delight, and we started looking towards a due date for near my birthday. I thought with relief of the yearly strategy meetings I'd miss while on leave with my baby, and MrG pulled out our list of names again.  We made plans, and we had dreams. 

Then one morning in the shower I felt a sickening lurch in my stomach as red swirled by my feet. I called the EPAU - Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit - immediately, and told MrG I didn't need company, sure that it would be a false alarm just like the first time had been when we'd had a scare with MissyG.

It wasn't a false alarm. And it wasn't alright. 

As the doctor shook his head gently, and the monitor showed just a black void, the tears began streaming down my face, and I could not believe that I had been so blasé to have gone there alone when MrG was perfectly willing to come along. I had so believed that our baby was real.

My marketing director at the time had had several miscarriages herself, and when she walked past my office later that morning and saw me sitting at my desk she ordered me home immediately, knowing better than me what I was about to go through. I had gone in, numb, but not yet in pain, unsure what to do with myself. The doctor had said that it should start over the next day or two.

I knew all the statistics - one in 7 recognised pregnancies end in miscarriage, and given that many happen before a woman even realises they are pregnant, 50% of pregnancies overall end in in spontaneous miscarriage. The fact that miscarriages are entirely commonplace, does not make it any easier, and only going through one brings that home. Few women I know ever elaborated on what they went through, and miscarriages are almost mentioned as a casual aside, just another statistic. Labour, childbirth, even death, are all commonplace, however when it happened it hit me like a truck emotionally and I spent two days crying at my powerlessness and loss, and the pain. No-one had ever mentioned the physical pain of your body evicting your baby from your womb. I lay in our bed, curled up in a ball, while MrG comforted me as much as he could and kept an air of jovial normality for Missy.

After a few days, those dreams and a life not-lived was officially over. 

Mr G and I had already been so blessed with Missy G, and I knew that what was meant to happen would be. A few weeks afterwards, we went to Trinidad, and home is always balm for my soul. I exhaled and felt comforted by the warmth, soothed by the very air and people who are so familiar and sorely missed, and supported by being with my wonderful little family.

Four months later, having dispensed with temperature-taking, although still with a cycle and date addiction, we had a big night out and I wondered why I had a 3-day hangover. The blue line revealed a new sliver of hope. We held our breaths and I was sick every day, twice a day, and then I kept my fingers crossed until the day our little man arrived.

The funny thing is, my whole life, it had never occurred to be that I would have a boy. I never had a preference and of course there was no way of knowing the sex of the baby I miscarried, but having had 3 sisters, and two nieces, when Mini-G arrived he was the first boy on my side of the family for a while. I suppose having had a girl first we just naturally expected another. Deep inside I knew that I needed to say goodbye to my vision of having two little girls. I adore Mini-G more than I thought possible, and I would never want a world that he was not in now that he is finally here. When he was born, Missy G cuddled him immediately on the hospital bed and declared that we were finally a proper family, and everytime he rests his little head on my shoulder I breathe him in with pure joy.  He made it to us. 

This is a post I've meant to write for a while to get closure. Miscarriages may be incredibly common, but loss is loss, and it's important to say goodbye.

So here it is. A goodbye. To the little one I never knew but dreamt of. You were real for a time.

Brights to chase away the blues - What I wore Wednesday

Have you ever felt low, and yet had to pull your shoulders back, take a deep breath and paste on a smile to make everything seem outwardly fine?  Show me a person who hasn't.  The strange thing is that for a short time, that pasted on smile can chase the blues away.  I've been living in hope for years that the same tactic with wearing bright clothes could work to chase away grey skies and at the very least lift my spirits and make facing snow in April and shivering in spring more bearable.

A beautiful christening service on Sunday saw everyone dressed up and full of love for the twin boys who were being christened.   Mini-G even paused from playing hide and seek between the pews, to listen, entranced, to exquisite violin playing during a pause in the service.  This dress is an old old favourite.

Dress from Monsoon, Burberry clutch

Otherwise, it was a peaceful, slouchy weekend, peppered by the odd magic moment, and I love it that there are so many of those when you have kids.  

  

Leather trimmed boucle jumper from French Connection, jeans from Bershka

And then back to a working week - bright colours ahoy to lift those spirits!

Blouse from French Connection, cardigan from Oliver Bonas, skirt from Twenty8Twelve, Shoes from Emma Hope

My sister and I were reminiscing last night about wearing crop tops, back in the days BC - before children.  We realised however that we weren't just lacking the flat tummies of our youth; the idea, no matter how fashionable is just a little... unseemly at this age and stage.  I saw this picture of Zoe Saldana recently, and while in a kind of way, and in another time, this is what I wish I could have worn, in another, no, I really don't.  The shoes however... oh yes, all day long!

I may not have abs like Zoe Saldana, but I have been nominated in the Writers category for the Brilliance in Blogging awards!  I would be so grateful if you could please vote for me over on the Brilliance in Blogging voting form - the Writers' category is q.7.  It's super-easy, takes less than a minute!


This post is linked to not one, but two "What I Wore Wednesday" linkys..

 

The Pleated Poppy, where you can see all manner of other linked up outfits, and also Transatlantic Blonde who has also been nominated in the BiBs for the Style category.
 

  and also Wardrobe Wednesday

Thoughts from the stationmaster

A couple of weeks ago - what, was it only last week?  How the time flies!  - I wrote a post called "Projecting Positivity" about the philosophical quotes that have been appearing in my tube station every morning.  Having chatted to the station-master, he proudly declared that they want to uplift their customers, and I love the idea that he takes such a proprietal approach to his Zone 2 station and the daily mass of traffic passing through, and stops to think about how to make our days better, even in a small way.

 

So here I am, continuing to collect the Thoughts of The Day to share with you here.  I will try to post them weekly - unless my morning philosopher is not on his shift, in which case perhaps a little extra introspection might be the ticket ...to ride (sorry, couldn't help it)

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

If you have a moment, and if you like what you read here on the blog generally; I can't lay claim to my stationmaster's forays into ancient and modern literature - then I would truly love it if you might consider voting for me in the Brilliance in Blogging Awards, where Mama and More is shortlisted in the Writers' category.  It takes only a minute, so if you fancy it, please click here and go to section 7)