What I wanted most as a child

Written for the Post40Bloggers blog prompt Number 82

Something you desperately wanted when you were a child

When I was younger I was terrible at PE. I mean terrible. I had no balance, I was slow; running seemed so easy for everyone else, they made it look simple and fun, they didn't get left behind or fall over and graze their knees. But from about the age that 'Sports' Day' became a huge memory in  my childhood (aged about 9 maybe?) PE day became a day of horror.

I would try all manner of feeble excuses to not take part, faking coughs, sprained ankles, headaches. I would take an age to get changed, volunteer for anything that needed doing that didn't involve actual sport. Fetching the basket balls, handing out and collecting the tabards, setting out the cones...

But Sports' Day itself was a nightmare. Even back in the 70s schools tried to be inclusive, but I didn't qualify to be in any 'proper' races, mine was the ignominy of the 'special' races, full of fat children, wheezing breathless asthma sufferers, and wobbly weak kids, kids like me. And even in these races I did not surge to victory, we stumbled and gasped our way down the 100 yard track like unenthusiastic hamsters, passing the finishing line with the simple joy that it was all over for another year. Nearby the rest of the school waited watching, I imagined them hating us all for being so pathetic.

I didn't join in running games in the playground, I was dreadful at catching a ball. When I turned 12 I briefly enjoyed cross country running, mainly as we all departed at various times, spaced out, there was no way to see how badly you were doing (until arriving back last after the showers were finished and everyone was already in Maths) and you could jog/stumble along the paths in the woodland as slowly as you liked, with no one judging you.(except the aforementioned maths teacher!)

I dabbled with throwing the javelin at age 13 and no one was killed, so I'll take that as a success, but despite my height and long arms I didn't seem to have the strength to fling the javelin very far.

As soon as I was in the sixth form I eschewed sport altogether. Finally I had the power to control my own free time at school and I chose chess. Again I was with the nerds and the geeks, but I was used to it by now, they were my people.

So where is this post going? with its whining and self pity? Well at age 34 I was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (Hereditary Motor and Sensory Neuropathy) and suddenly it all made sense! The weakness, the bad balance, the stumble, the tripping due to foot drop. I wasn't dreadful at sport! I was not bad at all considering I was disabled!

So this post is a reminder to myself. What I desperately wanted as a child was to fit in, to be sporty, to be one of the runners, to be a winner on sports day. But I'd have settled for knowing why, knowing why I was last.

Ranting and Pissed off about poor PR and lack of Coffee

Copyright: czany / 123RF Stock Photo

It’s been a while since I’ve had a good old pointless rant on the blog, but last night tipped me over the edge into being a pissed off tattooed mummy so today you have this little gem to read.

A while ago I received an invite to a sampling evening at Costa Coffee, lots of people, maybe all card holders, were invited too and I initially ignored it as it would be a rush to make it after work, but then after a reminder invite I thought ‘what the hell, might as well, a few nice snacks, some tasty coffee, might cheer up a drab Wednesday night’ so I duly sent my RSVP

Fast forward to yesterday, the Wednesday in question. Due to some bad planning I ended up working at a different site to normal, and to make matters worse had a meeting at a third location! I decided to walk to the meeting to save parking costs and as the parking is hard to come by any way, so I walked half an hour down a steep hill to my meeting. After work I realised I now had to walk up a steep hill for 30 minutes in the dark, carrying a laptop and other bags and to top it all it was now pouring with rain.

I arrived back at the car looking like a drowned rat, fed up, aching (that much walking when you have motor and sensory neuropathy is just stupid! Idiot) and now half an hour later than planned, and an hour’s drive from home and the Costa event. I thought about not going, but maybe it would be I needed, after such a miserable walk, and I’d dry out on the drive.

I arrived at the Costa Coffee shop at about 7.10pm, I saw no sign of anything Christmassy, staff were mooching about, hardly any customers…I panicked, was it the wrong Wednesday? I checked my invite and the Costa twitter feed, nope it was tonight. As I walked to the counter I was overtaken by another woman..she was deep in conversation by the time I arrived and what it boiled down to was that the staff had no clue whatsoever about the promotion! They said the manager was away on a course and no one had told them anything, they made excuses but didn’t apologise. The lady asked if there were any samples at all “no, not really” they replied. She looked annoyed, unsurprisingly as she seemed to have brought a friend (we were promised extra club card points for bringing a friend) I stood listening, incredulous, and then, almost in tears, I left. Seriously pissed off.

But my fun evening didn’t end there, I realised my petrol light had come on in the car so went to the garage to fill up, a car on the forecourt had broken down and was being pushed into a parking place by the owners, the garage attendant was telling them they couldn’t leave the car there and they were arguing. As I was paying for my fuel they were still messing about, when the garage lady ran into the kiosk shouting ‘call security!! They are threatening to jump start the car, right over the main tanks, they won’t be told!!’ Wowser, maybe my night could get worse, maybe I’d be blown up!

As you will see, I wasn’t. I paid and scarpered, arriving home over an hour late, pissed off, wet, hungry, achy, tired and cold. Only cheap wine and twitter (and a cheeky young man threatening to send *ahem* personal DMs to me) cheered me up.

This morning my hips are so painful I can hardly walk.
So, moan over…how was your day?

What is a birth plan and do you need one?

When you are pregnant you may find people suggest you write a ‘birth plan’. This will list all your wants, your desires and plans for your perfect birth. It may list ‘no drugs’ or ‘water birth’, it may specify ‘husband to be present through out’ or ‘don’t let my mother in!’. Your wishes and desires from the extremely medical ‘I do not with for an epidural’ or ‘I do not want an episiotomy’ to the weird and wonderful ‘I would prefer only blue towels if my baby is a boy’, will be written out and probably discussed with your midwife or healthcare provider. Your midwife will probably have input and suggestions too, mine pointed out things I’d added that were irrelevant as they were not done in the UK any way (I grabbed a birth plan template online and as we know, the ‘net is American!) and then finally the master plan is complete. You can rest easy knowing all is prepared…..

I was lucky, I followed my birth plan, nothing went wrong, nothing deviated from my plan, hubby was pleased as he found that when he was asked (as I was, but I was shouting just get the f*cking baby out!) whether a student could come and witness the birth of our daughter, he could confidently say ‘No, we did specify no students on the birth plan’ he was happy with what I wanted as was able to act on my behalf when all I could do was grunt or swear. ( I had a water birth if you are interested, with a tens machine to start with, before the water! And then gas and air as my only pain relief! Go me!! Haha)

But not all women are so lucky, maybe you asked for a ‘natural birth’ but when the pain kicked in you knew you wanted an epidural, maybe you’d longed for a vaginal birth in a dimly lit room to music, but ended up with a caesarean in a brightly lit theatre (operating theatre obviously – unless you’re a real show off) well don’t despair…

I like to compare the birth plan to a journey plan. If you take a trip you check the map, you look at the best routes, if the journey is long you may plan stops at service stations, or decide to take your own sandwiches. You may write down the major road and towns you will pass through, and then you set off! But oh no! traffic is terrible, you need to divert as the motorway is blocked! The dog weed on the sandwiches so you need an unscheduled stop at a Burger King, and then you realise you pass near a lovely castle and make a detour to see it. At the end of the journey you arrive.

The birth plan and the journey plan are the same, they are a plan, not a blueprint, a plan, a hope for what you would like to happen, it maybe the journey (or the birth ) is different to the plan, maybe worse due to long delays or better due to the detour to look at a view but the end of the journey is reached and you have a baby…..(did I get muddled some where there?)

Don’t feel bad that the M4 was closed at junction 12, or that the birthing pool was in use by another mum, it just happens, plans change. The important thing is you planned and then you got where you needed to go, by the most appropriate method available.

Did you have a birth plan? Did you stick to it? Would you have one again? (I know I would)

NHS Choices have a Birthplan template - Click here to see it, and answer the questions. It creates a printable form. It's long, but there are lots of things to consider!

Maternity network have a nice natural birthplan here.

Do we need a silence?

Every year, once a year, we have silence, quiet, hush.
We say it is to remember the dead, the lost, the harmed.
Some say it glorifies war, horror, pain.
Some say it is boring, useless, unimportant.

Today the sky is filled with clouds, rain, tears
and again we will stand, sit, wait
for the two minutes, the 120 seconds, the pause;
and find a gap in our busy lives, our work, our family
a time we can remember, think, consider

but will we?

In a short 2 minutes what will you do?

Youch! I just made a terrible mistake

I bought some fruit this morning on the way to work, hoping to improve my diet (of which the main food group consumed is beer) and as I'm lazy I bought one of those little pots of ready prepared yummy fruits - melon, pineapple, etc all the good stuff you never buy because you can't eat a whole one before it goes off (or that may be just me, keen to return to the beer) and it was reduced to 99p so all is good - it's expensive but not that bad I feel ridiculous all day over it (in M&S they are £3.99 how crazy is that? I could buy a pineapple, a melon and some grapes and only eat a 1/4 of each and throw the rest in the compost and STILL save money!) any how the youch bit is........I stored it in the work fridge, didn't let it warm to room temp before lunch and now have to chomp on ICE COLD pieces of pineapple - note to self - buy some Sensodyne toothpaste

even stopping to type all this has not given it the warmth it needs, healthy diet and agonising teeth, here I come