It's why I love him

I was always fascinated by language. Even before I was taught any French or German at school, I used to spend my weekends at my grandparents' house analysing his Scots (Did he just ask me to pit ma jaiket in the press? WTF is a press???) and her idiosyncratic idioms (Jesus wept and tore his waistcoat... or was she actually saying Jesus wept and Tories' waistcoat? - well it was the late 70s, so how was I to be sure if she was discussing Maggie Thatcher or damage to clothing?... I was never really sure Jesus had a waistcoat but I was also too shy to inquire, given my heathen upbringing... It did occur to me occasionally to actually ask my grandparents what exactly they were talking about, but he'd have told me to haud ma tongue and she'd have rolled her eyes and muttered something odd about my arse being in parsley, so instead of asking, I sat in my own wee bilingual Scots/English world trying to make some sense of it all. I religiously learned all my Gramps's odd words for everything, though of course, I never used them. I learned at a very young age that young ladies from Newton Mearns (in the 70s) weren't allowed to say dug or semmit.

So when I found my first husband, a native French and German speaker, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. I forgot that just because you grow up speaking other languages, you are not necessarily interested in languages. When he got a programming job in the dictionary company where I worked not long after we married, I was more than disappointed to realise he had no interest in the linguistic side of his job whatsoever. To him, language was simply a communication tool. And when the kids came along, he'd no idea how to make them bilingual, despite his own mother speaking to him in German when he was growing up. I was the one who read up on bilingualism and spoke to the kids in French to ensure they were fluent, albeit with my flaws and accent. Anyway, at least I got to speak French at home for the next thirteen years, so that made up for it for a while.

Then one day a real language nerd dropped out of the sky and into my world. Someone (I still don't know who, though I thank them from the bottom of my heart) decided the best person for me to share with after an office reshuffle was the great Dane (as we affectionately referred to him behind his back)! He was the kind of language nerd who lists 'Danish, English, German, Esperanto, Georgian, Russian, Czech, Basque, Swabian, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Dutch, Nynorsk, Swedish, Sanskrit, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, Yiddish and Scots' under languages he speaks on his facebook page. Of course he hasn't broken Scots up into Doric, Orkney and the likes and he hasn't mentioned things he only knows a wee bit of such as Old Norse, Icelandic, Ancient Greek, Latin and Mandarin Chinese, etc. He never ceases to amaze me when he picks something up in an exotic supermarket and can actually read text printed in Hindi out loud... or at least that's what he claims he's doing... maybe he's just making it up to impress me! Hmmm, that never occurred to me before! He lives and breathes language. When we watch programmes like Trapped, he actually pauses it to explain genitive forms of peoples' names to me and we both giggle in excitement when we understand bits from other Scandinavian languages we know better. We close our eyes and see how much we can follow without the subtitles. Our winter Saturday nights are invariably spent watching something foreign together - I'm not sure we've ever watched a movie or series in English!

And now he's gone and bought all the translations of the Gruffalo for us to analyse together in bed at night. I can see the winter stretch out before us as we look at every nuance of the words for an owl, or the woods or even the boring old definite articles. I know that isn't probably most people's idea of fun in the bedroom... but maybe we just both found the right person at last, or perhaps just the only person that could put up with each of us. (And it isn't the only fun we have - we're not that old or sad yet!)

I guess I'm just in a rather pensive mood today as I am celebrating ten years and a day since I moved into his flat. Ten years ago today I woke up to the first day of a new life. Did I make the right decision back then? Yes, I made the perfect choice, for me, anyway!

Siblings

There's nothing quite as acerbic as a smaller sibling!

Anna bounced down wearing this T-shirt earlier. Amaia read it slowly, shook her head and stated: I'm not sure why you're wearing that because you don't, you wake up moany!

Black and White

Today Thomas and Amaia went out rollerblading together. Amaia is just learning so wanted me to take photos. Afterwards, as I was uploading them to my computer, she crawled up onto the bed to watch. I decided to edit one to black and white for fun. The original was fairly bland and colourless, I thought... But kids have a great way of putting you in your place:

'Oh that's nice, mummy! Are you just making it black and white because you're more used to that because that's how photos looked back in your day?'

A well-needed break

I should probably get round to blogging my holiday (in instalments, for posterity) at some point before it is next summer, but I'm just drowning in work at the moment - both work work and running the family work, of course.

We went over to Denmark at the beginning of July. I had no real awareness of my mental state before I left for my holiday. I had been working hard trying to copy-edit a full book which was quite technical, I had been overwhelmed by the double life you have to lead in June when you are supposed to attend numerous school music and sporting events while working full-time, on top of dealing with your kids stressing about exams, teacher changes, new subjects and all the rest. In addition, there was the Brexit referendum, and I've already touched on how that was making me feel in my blog posts of that week. But I had not actually taken a minute to analyze me - there is no 'me-time' in a life with five kids and a job, not really.

So up we got at 5-30am one day at the beginning of July and off we went for a train, a bus and then a plane from Edinburgh airport - a boring old Easy Jet to Copenhagen. I spied it across the tarmac with no obvious feelings either way - I've been on way too many planes to get excited... We went through boarding and walked across to the stairs. I hadn't been away from home since July of 2014. I hadn't left Scotland once since the Summer of Independence. As I reached the top and stepped into the aircraft, in an almost lightning-bolt moment, I became acutely aware for the very first time just how stressed I had been since the Indyref back in September 2014, with the very fears that had led me to vote Yes back then being realized in the Brexit vote of this June. I had always assumed that if we didn't gain our independence in Europe back then, England would drag us out of Europe endangering my family's very right to exist, together in the same country. I had always assumed the newspapers' desire for survival would lead them to print whatever of Farage's fantasies it took to stay afloat in a dying market and I had been proven horrendously right. Here I was suddenly facing the real possibility that my husband would not be allowed it stay in Scotland, when at the same time I would no longer be allowed to move elsewhere. My worst nightmare had come true. In an instant, as my first foot landed inside the aircraft a feeling of overwhelming relief hit me - for the first time since 18-9-14, I was escaping the madness that is the UK. I was leaving behind the worries and stresses of the politics of home and quite frankly at that moment, I never ever wanted to return. I hadn't realized how much I needed to leave until I did. I felt a euphoric lightness of mind and spirit as the plane taxied down that runway taking me away from all that stresses me, for however short a time. And to be honest, I am still not sure how they managed to get me on to the return flight three weeks later.

Breast feeding

In the ten years I spent breastfeeding my five, I never once had to sit on a toilet but I spent a lot of time rehearsing in my head what I'd say if someone complained and getting ready to fight my corner, which thankfully I never needed to do (maybe I just looked too ready for a fight to be taken on), but if it's still happening to you - watch this.

My kids know me well

I think my other half once referred to me as a bit of a militant atheist... I like to think of myself as a happy one, rather than a militant one, but I'm not going to quibble over an adjective! My kids know I don't do God, but I hardly go on about it incessantly...

So today we went swimming and from swimming I had to rush off to Asda for some curry ingredients and back home by six in time for Thomas to cook. After swimming the kids had a snack each but were still ranting about being starving and were less than pleased when I took the turn-off for the supermarket. I thought I could buy some time if I let each of them spend a 20p piece in the sweetie vending machine on the way in so gave Léon three 20ps and sent them off. When I came out Léon and Anna were sitting on a bench quietly waiting, sooking on a gobstopper each. Amaia though had never had one before so bounced proudly up to me and announced 'Léon bought me a sweetie, mummy. I think you'd like them, they're called God-stoppers!'

Lol.

Renaissance art, anyone?

So we somehow got onto the subject of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the other day...

Amaia announced excitedly: Oh, I know what they are called!!
Charlotte: Yeah?
Amaia: Well there's Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and em, em, em...
Charlotte: Come on, there's a pattern, you can do it...
Amaia (that lightbulb moment!): Oh yeah, I know, it's Stracciatella, isn't it?!!!!

Well, she knew it was something to do with Italy - I can understand confusing Michelangelo with stracciatella... almost.

Brexit - no, thank you

I should probably write something about Brexit but I haven't a clue where to start and it depends on my mood whether you get 1) an angry post full of four letter expletives at how the Westminster parliament is treating EU families who have settled here decades ago and built their lives around a given that they are prepared to take away, 2) a resigned mood where I wonder what the point of anything is and hide under my duvet sobbing, 3) a freedom-fighter one where I dig out all my old Yes Scotland stuff and this time fight to the death for my very survival, or even 4) an adventurous 'let's sell the house, pack up all the kids and disappear to mainland Europe while we still can' fuck-the-world one. I have been fluctuating daily between all these alternatives since I awoke to find the duped, the desperate and the racists had snatched my children's futures from them.

My kids are the result of a family tradition of international intermarrying. Both my husbands had parents of mixed European origin - Thomas is half Danish, half German, his predecessor was half French, half German and yet someone has decided for my kids that they won't be able to carry that tradition on. Wandering round Europe freely and falling in love is no longer allowed! And my heart breaks when I think of how small their world is becoming. I am angry as their international universities risk becoming parochial because of the whims of some ill-informed bigots in another country. I scream at the computer (I've stopped watching TV - it's not good for my mental health) when I hear people wanting to stop others from coming to work here, without ever realizing they are also stopping their own kids from being able to go there and work. I am one of those European kids (ok I was one of them in the 80s and 90s) - I have lived in France, and Germany and Italy. I have studied internationally, I have married internationally and it has enriched my life considerably.

Two years ago I fought passionately for Scotland to become independent for exactly this reason. I could see how narrow and insular the popular press was turning England and I shared that dream described so eloquently last week in the EU parliament by Alyn Smith: I wanted a Scotland that was internationalist, co-operative, ecological, fair, & European. I could see this referendum would be called at Farage's whim and I could see Out was a very real possibility. I wanted my children to grow up in a society where we care about the weakest in society, where we celebrate each other's differences and love what makes each other special. I could see that the separatist movement in Scotland was aiming for an inclusive state, within Europe based on our perception of the Scandinavian model. I'm married to a Scandy man so I could see the merits of a society where women can actually afford to work, childcare works and isn't a few hours in the middle of a working day, and kids are paid to go to university because an educated population benefits all. England's introduction of tuition fees and privatising of their NHS filled me with horror - it was going in all the wrong directions for me. I shared that left of centre ideal for Scotland the the SNP, the Greens and the Socialists amongst others were offering us and I still do. Imagining 62% of us could vote to stay in the EU and seeing us pulled out underlines what we've been saying all along. Last election we voted for a left-wing government, the Tories got just one MP from Scotland, but still we have a Tory government. Now we have voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, so if they drag us out then there is no point in ever voting here because 5 million people can never be heard over 60. We might as well stay home forever more on polling day. There is no point in politics in this union and therefore, there is no point for me in this union. So I guess I have my answer... I have no option but to go for solution three and if that fails number four will need to be put into action, somehow. Otherwise I won't have fought hard enough for the future my kids deserve.

Eight-year-old political analysis

So there I was lying in the bath minding my own business this morning when Anna burst in. Obviously Daddy being interviewed on Danish TV about Scottish politics this morning had got her to thinking!

Anna: See how David Cameron voted us out of Europe?
Me: No, Anna, Cameron voted Remain, that's why he's resigned. It was the rest of England that voted out.
Anna: Yeah, but Scotland voted to stay?
Me: Yes.
Anna: So if England leaves and Scotland stays that can only really happen if the two countries break up and Scotland gets independence.
Me: It looks like it.
Anna: So then Cameron will have been the cause of Scottish independence for having the referendum on Europe?
Me: Yes.
Anna: Ooooooops, lol!

Farage, Boris and now this bunch?

Marine le Pen shared on social media: « Victoire de la liberté ! Comme je le demande depuis des années, il faut maintenant le même référendum en France et dans les pays de l'UE. »

Geert Wilders tweeted: Hurrah for the British! Now it is our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum! #ByeByeEU

Matteo Salvini tweeted: Evviva il coraggio dei liberi cittadini!
Cuore, testa e orgoglio battono bugie, minacce e ricatti. GRAZIE UK, ora tocca a noi. #Brexit

Norbert Hofer looked on excitedly: #Brexit UK VOTES TO LEAVE! Wir werden erst in den nächsten Tagen die volle Tragweite dieser Entscheidung erkennen.
Beatrix von Storch: All I want to say: THANK! YOU!! #NigelFarage For #Brexit and #Independenceday

Donald Trump tweeted: Getting ready to open the magnificent Turnberry in Scotland. What a great day, especially when added to the brave & brilliant vote.


Is this really who you want to get into bed with, England?

I am so out of here. Bring it on, Nicola.

Married to an immigrant

I've never thought of myself as being married to an immigrant. I don't think I have ever even thought about the word immigrant in his context but given the gutter press has been trying to tie that label around his neck for the best part of the last couple of years, I thought I would give my reaction to it. 

Thomas is a Dane. But even that is more complex than it seems on the surface as Thomas's dad is a German, or was a German who is now a naturalised Dane (who happens to live in Italy!), and his mum is an Italian-dwelling Dane. He was born in Denmark as a German citizen and became a Dane later in his childhood though he has been a native Dane all his life, until fourteen years ago when he decided to become a Scottish Dane or a Danish Scot. I don't think of him as an immigrant to the UK. Nor do I think of him as a Danish ex-pat. I think of him as a fellow European. He is simply a mix of European nationalities, just as my kids and our kids are.

In truth, I have in fact been married to an immigrant for the best part of the last 25 years, because my ex-husband was also a foreign EU citizen. So some of my kids are 25% French/25%German and 50% Scottish, their siblings are 25% Danish/25%German and 50% Scottish. Every day we sit down to eat as a family and a mix of languages goes round the dining table. When family visits more languages are added and that is the reality of our life. We shuffle backwards and forwards and round and round between European destinations that are simply an extension of family and an extension of home. Our family speaks in a mix of languages, uses a mix of currencies and lives in a variety of countries but we are one – a family. I still have nieces in France, I have in-laws in Italy, I have nieces and nephews in Denmark...etc etc

My earliest memories are of a fascination with the different and the exotic. I would listen to languages I didn't know or understand, I would look at the people arriving from far-off continents in wonder and imagine their life stories, desperate to befriend them. I started school at a time before there were many immigrants in the suburbs of Glasgow. When the first Pakistani child joined my class around the age of eight, I was drawn to him. I wanted to know all about his life, where he was from, what he ate – he represented a world waiting to be discovered and I was avid to learn.

We never went abroad when I was a child so I was thirteen before I left these shores. I can still remember thirteen year old me mounting the steps of the hovercraft on Ramsgate beach in the summer of 1981. I felt like an astronaut on a trip to the moon. As everyone else discussed their mundane holiday plans around me and shouted at their squabbling kids, I sat with tears in my eyes as I achieved the first step in my life's ambition. I was going to go to mainland Europe. We stopped at a very basic café in France and ordered plain lettuce with vinaigrette (by accident!) and as my parents and brother moaned about it, I sat analysing the presentation, the taste, the newness, the wonder of lettuce in vinaigrette! I'm not sure any of them ever fully understood my obsession with Europe and the world, maybe I was just always the oddball of the family, but I was a happy oddball.

As a student I moved to Italy, then France, then Germany. I was never going to be confined to Scotland. I always assumed even at a young age that I would probably retire to France.

Nor was I ever going to marry a Scottish boy and stay here. I was always going to fill my house with the exotic, the new, the colourful. Not to disappoint, I even did it twice! Even I didn't see that coming! I once overheard Marcel's mates discussing me. They were mid-teens and he was explaining my first husband had been French and my second Danish – 'Did your mum just, like, shag her way round Europe, then?' they laughed - you've got to love the bluntness of teenagers. No, I didn't but I had a love affair with Europe and I am still having it today.

And for that reason, tomorrow fills me with a depth of dread and despair that I cannot even put into words. All the hatred and lies printed on a daily basis about these immigrants, in an attempt to stoke hatred, to split 'them' and 'us' fills me with anger and at the same time crushes me to the point I can't open a newspaper any more. I know the EU needs to evolve and could do with a bit of tweaking from the inside but leave it? I never imagined in my wildest dreams, until about three or four years ago that that possibility would be raised in my lifetime, or in my kids'. To me there is no them or us, there is just all of us.

To me voting to leave would be denying my kids' right to exist – every one of them exists because people like Thomas and people like André were free to come here and work. Because I was free to go there and work.

Tomorrow they cannot vote to legitimize the lives they already lead. Tomorrow it doesn't matter that Thomas and I have spent seven years bringing money into the country through the international company we set up. It doesn't matter that his children are UK citizens, he can't vote for their future. And what information does he have about his or our life thereafter? None. Unless you are related to an EU citizen, it may have escaped your notice but there is no information about what happens after a brexit vote. There is nothing official, just silence. There are a lot of 'oh of course they can't throw you out', 'oh of course you'll still be allowed your healthcare, schooling, bank account, child benefit...' but there is no information at all and I suspect that is because good old Boris's actual plan is let's wait and see. Let's wait and see if the other EU countries start repatriating the UK immigrants, let's wait and see if they start making the UK immigrants take out hefty insurance policies for healthcare, let's see if they bar them from benefits, let's see if France decides to play tough to keep their internal politics and the possibility of Marine le Pen at bay by making an example of the UK and then let's decide. Do you fancy living in that limbo? Do you like the idea of settling down somewhere and starting a family and then having someone change the rules of the game 14 years down the line? Can you imagine that?

So I don't need to say what I'm voting tomorrow but I can say that the rug has been pulled from under my feet, the wind taken from my sails and I will never fully recover from this blow, whatever the outcome I waken up to on Friday. I will never feel fully safe again.

Eight years and two months later

Retaking (more or less) a photo after a passage of time can be very sweet. Here are Anna and Thomas, first in April 08, then in June 16...

Steak and ducklings!

(Overheard after school today...)

Charlotte: What did you have for lunch today, Amaia? 

Amaia: Duckling

Charlotte: Duckling???

Amaia: Yeah, we got pieces of steak with ducklings on top!

Charlotte: Dumplings maybe? 

Amaia: Could be!

I thought for a moment the school lunch hall had gone all cordon bleu on us!

Scary stuff

I'll just leave this with you! Gulp!

(Have a look at the gallery on this page too)

Political indoctrination, maybe?

Sometimes, usually in fact, life with five kids is fairly harmonious... very occasionally though, little tiffs can occur... tonight was one of those nights. Léon and Anna got into a fight about who could throw a basketball further (as you do!) They were out on the street so I didn't hear it all but I heard Léon winding, and I heard Anna shrieking as if she was being tortured (which of course meant only her pride was being hurt, as that is much worse to Anna than anything else!) As they both stormed back into the garden Anna was shouting at Léon about cheating and other things, Léon was grinning calmly (something which winds Anna up much more than any anger or aggression would!) Anna shrieked and shrieked and cried and grumped as Léon waited patiently to get a word in and when she'd finally run out of steam, Léon floored me with the following calmly-spoken comment: Anna enough! Would you please talk to me like I'm your brother... you're standing there screaming at me like I'm... I dunno... David Cameron or something!

I, of course, reacted in the only way you can to such a classic line - I ran for a pen and post-it note!

Broooooom

About two years ago I bought a sprig of broom in a pot - it was literally one stalk and cost about £1-49. I planted it in front of my front door and did nothing special or encouraging. It likes it there, it really likes it! In fact for some reason it has developed a life of its own. It looks a bit like a 170cm tall blond afro half way up my path. You can't help but love it, it's so vigorous. And it smells great too!

Ten years

Apparently it is ten years ago today that I joined blogger. I have
more kids now, a different job, a different home and a different husband! I've lost people close to me and gained new friends. I've definitely acquired a few grey hairs and numerous wrinkles, but what wisdom?

I must read through my posts and see how those ten years have changed my life. 

Chancer

I'm beginning to suspect my daughter has inherited her parents' love of school PE!

The conversation in the car went like this:
Amaia: See on Monday, mummy? Can you write a letter for me to take to school saying I don't need to do PE?
Me: Why is that? Have you hurt something?
Amaia: Well... I do have a rather itchy midgie bite on my ankle at the moment!
Aye, right!

Over breakfast in the garden

Anna: You know those wishing wells, mum, where you throw in money and make a wish?
Me: Yes - like the one we saw at Edinburgh zoo last month?
Anna: Yes! I always wish for our family's circumstances to improve - you know so we could go on a nice holiday or buy a new seven-seater so we could all go on day trips..., but it never seems to work.
Amaia (completely matter-of-fact): Naaah, they definitely don't work.. cos I always wish for you to be a bit less moany! 

*spits breakfast across the table* - sibling love - it gets you every time!

"To have it all"

As I was getting dressed this morning I could hear my wee-est three discussing whether or not they 'had it all'. Having just returned from the kitchen, I had missed their definition of 'having it all' so I listened in from the next room to see what they meant.

Anna: Well, it's definitely not me or Amaia. We don't have it all.
Amaia: What about Charlotte. Oh no she's missing one.
Léon: Marcel then?
Anna: Hardly!
Amaia: It's Léon! Léon has it all. Oh no, he doesn't because of us two.

And so it went on... In then end I had to ask. It turns out that they believe the ultimate prize in life would have been to have both an older and a younger sibling of each gender! So Marcel is ruled out as they are all younger, Charlotte has no big sister, Léon is missing a little brother, as is Anna and Amaia is in the same boat as Marcel. So none of them 'has it all', after all.

It's a sweet measure of life's perfection, though!

May the fourth be with you!

So it's so-called Star Wars day, and even more than any other year Léon is fit to burst with excitement. He's refusing to do all homework and is wandering around humming the tune. Since the latest offering the girls are also getting in on the act, chatting excitedly about all things Star Wars... and although it is nice to hear such enthusiasm from these young and innocent souls, I find myself being short-tempered and snapping at them. But it's not Star Wars' fault. I want to snap at them to leave me in peace today, to think of my beautiful friend Sheina, who I still miss and whose birthday we'd have been celebrating had she not died four years ago at just 45. But the kids were just tiny then and they don't remember a lot about that time, so I'll stick on my smile, and watch Star Wars though my thoughts will be elsewhere.

I was worried there, for a moment

Conversation overheard between my wee girls: Anna: What's your dream job, Amaia? Amaia: emmm nun! (I panic that my atheistic tendencies aren't rubbing off and plan a full assault... when I hear the clarification.) Anna: You can't choose none, you have to choose something! Amaia: Ok then, I'll be a waitress! PHEW! wink emoticon

Bilingualism

One day last weekend Anna came out with this and it got me to thinking: I wonder what it must be like to have only Scottish relatives... everyone in your house would speak the same language all the time... weeeeeird! 

 All of my children have heard a minimum of two languages every day of their lives, the first few years it was English and French, latterly English and Danish: and with a succession of visitors adding German, Italian, Norwegian, Georgian, and Polish amongst others to the dinner table (and that's without even mentioning Scots). TV, of course has added Swedish, Icelandic and Spanish to that as well. I'm not sure I remember the last time I watched anything in English on the TV. 

 I guess the main point is that they fully understand two languages each and also understand many bits of others. You can't sit at the table for years without picking it up. So they have a feel for what multilingual normality is. They are completely unfazed if they don't fully understand everything being said around them because they know there are so many different languages in play at any time. 

 It reminded me of an eye-opener years ago. I was sitting in my garden with a French friend and her kids. We were speaking French, our kids were speaking a mixture. A neighbour's child (a ten year old) who had been doing French at school asked to play so I invited her in. My friend shouted some instructions over to her kids and the neighbour looked really puzzled. "Why is she speaking like that?" she asked. I explained that she was French so although her kids were bilingual as they lived in Scotland, she spoke to them in French, even if they usually replied in English (a bog-standard bilingual child's way of communicating with their foreign parent). The child replied "But she's speaking it really fast!" I relayed that French is spoken much faster in reality than what they learn at school but still she couldn't understand how the kids all understood it without a second thought. Eventually she explained to me that although she had learned some French at school: Il fait beau, je vais bien, la pomme est rouge, etc, she hadn't understood that it was in fact a full language that people used to communicate! She had been brought up in such a monolingual atmosphere that she thought English was the only language people used to communicate and that the little phrases she'd learnt in French were of no more everyday use than memorised poems or mathematical formulae. She had never heard people actually communicating in another language. I think I was as gobsmacked by her lack of linguistic experience as she was by our nonchalant mixed communication. 

 I find people are often taken aback by the real way bilingual households communicate - that is to say, the foreign parent speaking their language and the kids who've grown up somewhere else replying in that language. Of course, when in the other country the kids can switch to that language but generally when you live bilingually, everyone speaks their strongest language at the table. I remember being bemused by this the first time I visited my first husband's parents (he was French with a German mother). She spoke only in German, he replied just as fast in French. Had I not been studying both, I'd have been completely lost. At first I figured they were weird and unique but as every one of my kids has since followed the same pattern, unprompted over the years, and Thomas too speaks to his German father mostly in Danish, I realized it is simply human nature. 

 I do fondly remember a night last year when I spent the evening with Thomas and Peter (his father). We were discussing Greek politics and the ideas of Yanis Varoufakis, quite vociferously, for a few hours and it was only when I was lying in bed later that night I found myself smiling at the realization that I had spoken only in English, Thomas only in Danish and Peter only in German that night and yet all of us had fully understood the conversation. I wish I'd recorded it to show just how much fun these kinds of households are!

Cats

I grew up with cats. First, there was the grumpy, chunky one with the odd name 'Snoopy' (we were kids!). Then there was the skinnier, more placid lapcat 'Muffin'  (named by a friend of the family who stepped into our squabble over what to call him, with the simple statement 'He's kinda muffin-coloured, isn't he?') So from 1981-1996 I was around cats a lot of the time. Although the cat stayed with my parents when I left home as a teenager, I was his holiday babysitter. I haven't had one of my own since, originally for the simple reason that with family abroad, I was away too many times a year to bother with the holiday cover, but latterly more because I've lived on a bus route since 2007. I figure with a double-decker passing every ten minutes, 19 hours a day, it'd have to be a very street-wise cat not to end up dead meat and I don't fancy having to scrape the kids' dearly-beloved off the road once a year. Hence the succession of (safely-caged) hamsters...

However, I always sort of figured I'd spend my old age, once the kids had flown the nest as some kind of crazy cat woman - perhaps a bit like Mrs McTats in one of the kids' favourite books.

As early as fifteen years ago, I started to notice Persian cats were starting to make me a wee bit wheezy, but normal moggies were fine... then a few weeks ago Charlotte and I visited a friend with a cat. Lots had told me she'd been having sneezing fits every time she was around her friend Hannah's cat, and sure enough, as soon as Siobhan's cat wandered in Charlotte's nose started to run. I was fine though and even let the cat sit on my knee for a few minutes. On the way home, however, I started to feel as if my airways were literally clogged with fur and I started to wheeze. By the time I got home I was in a much worse state than Lots and it took antihistamines and three blasts of an asthma inhaler to make me comfortable enough to get to bed and fully 24 hours to get back to normal. So I've monitored it since and it seems I have indeed developed an allergy to ordinary cats of the type I used to live with. My doctor has now advised me to try having coffee with my friend who owns a golden retriever as she suspects that fur is my trigger. 

Am I really going to have to end up a crazy old woman with a house full of these?

Children really make you laugh

Overheard on a car trip:
Léon: ...then I'll pretend to be a serial killer...
Anna: what? 
Léon: it's someone who steals your breakfast before killing people!

Big man, little girl

It's funny. When you have nearly 13 years between your kids, you wonder what, if any, relationship they'll have growing up. But one thing that has always been obvious between my oldest and youngest is the sheer pleasure they derive from each other. Marcel has a greater need to return to the nest more often than most teenagers who've left home, because he feels he too has some sort of parental responsibility for his youngest siblings. And Amaia is absolutely thrilled every time he walks through the door. She loves her Monday school news to be something about her ever-so-exotic brother who lives in Edinburgh. She drops him nonchalantly into conversation when classmates are often still sharing a room with their less-interesting siblings.

I'm not sure who looks more pleased here. Marcel because of Amaia's obvious pride in hanging off his arm, or Amaia for having such a big and exciting brother she can boast about to the other p1s.

Sweet misunderstandings

One of the p1 teachers at Amaia's school left over the Easter break to take up a new job at the primary school on Millport. Amaia is quite upset about it but was trying to see the positives for the teacher herself last night. I had to smile when she explained 'Poor Mrs Cameron used to have to drive very far to work in our school but now she's going to Millport, she'll have so much more time with her own kids because she says she's going to be going to work every day on a fairy*!'

What a sweet image that conjures up!

* This misunderstanding may in part have arisen from the teacher's Australian accent!

No cake today

Scanning some old photos last year, I came across this one, taken on 5/4/86. I remember it vividly because Derek and I had thought it a great joke to buy him an age 4 and an age 3 card, so he could wear 43, his age that day... as you can see though, he had the last laugh!

So today he'd probably have been wearing 37, I guess. But he isn't and there will be no birthday cake, or tomato soup for that matter. The only thing we'll have today, like every other year since we lost him, are more memories to add to that ever-growing list of things he missed out on. Memories both good and bad. Last time, I started to list those memories, but I don't know that that helps, so I'll just get through the day quietly, as I do every year.

Just appalled

Charlotte has been doing some past listening papers for her Nat 5 Spanish exam. She then goes on the SQA webpage to check the marking schemes to see how she's done. 

Yesterday she turned up in the dining room completely appalled: You shouldn't go on the marking grid for Spanish, mum! she warned... I just did a passage on how modern technology and the Internet can be bad for kids' development and you'll never believe what it said in the marking grid!! It said you got a mark for mentioning that as a result of being online, kids are reading less books!!! Can you imagine - you get a point for saying less books - books are countable!!! And she wandered off, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. She's my girl, and she knows me well!

Following in her brother's footsteps...

although in a more westerly direction...

Back when Marcel was in fourth year at high school, he was chosen as one of the forty pupils in his year (of 250 kids) to be given the opportunity to take part in the India World Challenge. The kids spent a year fund-raising before flying to India where their time was split between trekking through the Himalayas, through a natural tiger reserve and working on a project to bring water to a mountain village that had no water supply. Although the digging and carrying in the heat was hard work, getting to see how these simple people lived and getting to help them changed Marcel forever and he came back an older, more mature and incredibly caring young man. He will always remember the gratitude in those villagers eyes and in the warm hugs of their children. So when Charlotte got the opportunity to apply last month for the equivalent experience, this time in Nicaragua, she jumped at it and hoped that her determination would show through her more reserved character. I hoped too that the school would see beyond her shyness and pick her as one of just forty kids once again. Many pages were written as an application explaining what she thought she could bring to the expedition and then the waiting game began. Today (I'm hoping the fact that it is April Fool's Day is meaningless!) it was a very smiley girl who jumped into my car at home time, despite the torrential rain and freezing temperatures. I wasn't expecting her to have heard back yet, but she proudly pulled a letter from  her pocket offering her the chance to follow in her brother's footsteps, helping those whose lives are a bit different to her own. I hope she comes back as humbled and inspired by it all next summer as her brother did two years ago! I'm proud to see both her caring nature and her wanderlust rewarded with this opportunity.

I've never been a fan!

Amaia has been a great sleeper since she was about one. I can honestly say I can't remember the last time she (or for that matter, any of the others) turned up in our bed. She's a content wee soul without a worry in the world... that was until someone decided to teach her about religion!!! This morning around 5am, she turned up in our room scared witless and squeezed in between us. Happily, she calmed down and went back to sleep and given how small she is, we didn't bother to bump her back into her own bed. By this morning, I had completely forgotten to get the reason behind it all out of her and off she went to school. Over dinner, I suddenly remembered what had happened so asked what had got her so scared.
"I had this horrible dream someone was doing that thing to me that they did to Jesus!" 
"What? You dreamt someone was crucifying you?" 
"That's it!"
Poor baby.

Celebrating the lack of celebration

Today, in some parallel universe, I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary! Even writing that down seems insane as I don't feel old enough to be celebrating twenty-five years of marriage, but then again, that was probably a great part of the problem. I am not old enough to be...

By 1991 I had been seeing my boyfriend for six years. Six whole years! We had travelled Europe together, lived in our own little flats in France together and studied together. When you are 23 years old, six years is a sizeable chunk of your past, and it's an even greater part of the past you have memories of. Any doubts I might have had before my big day were quashed by the knowledge that I had invested so much of my past in that relationship, that it would be madness to start again. After all, hadn't my own parents married even younger, hadn't my mum been 23 when I was born? And my husband-to-be was 27 so we were a fine age... I loved speaking French, I loved France and French culture so I'd have been mad to turn away the opportunity of being married to someone I could speak French to all day and all night. I was even getting an exotic name in the package. It was perfect... except it wasn't. I think more than anything I was in love with an idea but my greatest mistake of youth was that in looking backwards, I forgot to look forwards. Yes, six years was a large investment, but the sixty I had ahead of me should have set alarm bells ringing. I just didn't have the life experience to hear them.

Of course, if I could talk to 23-year-old me I could not advise against it because the children I got from that marriage make up half of my life today, but let's just say that if my own kids suggest marrying at 23, I will be first in the queue to suggest living together for another six years first!

If my marriage was underwhelming and lonely, my divorce was spectacular in its bitterness and has, by today, reached a point I would never have chosen to go to myself. So today I will celebrate thoroughly the fact that I now live with my best friend, a man chosen when I'd reached the right level of maturity to commit my life to someone, and with my large blended family and I will not regret that other universe for one second in time.

Naked schooling?

Fed up with always having to wear her dreary uniform, Amaia sweetly asked this morning: 'When's the next dress if you please day, mum?' 
Isn't it amusing how slipping up on just two letters can change the meaning so much?! Lol.

Big birthday bash?

Here's a photo of my parents' wedding, 51 years ago. On the right of the picture is my dad's dad (William Buchanan) and my mum's mum (Jean Stirling). They would both have turned 100 years old this weekend, had they still been alive. That would have been quite a party! Maybe we should throw them one in their absence, or at least bake them a cake.

Something that is important to me

Given my husband has worked here paying taxes for 14 years and his kids have UK citizenship, I am beyond appalled (though not surprised) that he can't have a say in his own future and that of his family. Thanks David Cameron for dumping EU citizens out of the Brexit vote.

Self deprivation

With Pancake Day on Tuesday, and Fastelavn last Sunday, I think Amaia has being hearing a little about Lent over the past week from various sources. Though not from us, as we don't observe Lent, I suspect she's been hearing about the concept of depriving yourself of something up till Easter.

Today she came in from school and announced 'I've decided not to eat chocolate till Easter'. When we inquired why, the answer was simply 'Because'. Fair enough, we left her to it. An hour after school, however, she asked if she could have a drink and a chocolate biscuit. Anyone who knows Amaia knows this was presented as 'Can I just have one last bar and then I'll give up chocolate'! Half way through a caramel Rocky, she reconsidered... 'Maybe I'll give up crisps instead.' Of course later again, walking past the crisp box she reconsidered that too! Finally over dinner, she came up with a real gem. 'I've thought about giving up chocolate or crisps, but I just like them too much, so I have finally decided what I'm giving up for Easter'. I figured she was cunningly going to come up with something she's not fond of such as cold meat or maybe sandwiches, but no she stunned us with. 'I don't like being cold, so I'm going to give up cold weather till Easter!' Good luck with that one in Scotland, pet!

Potential Oscar candidate?

Driving to school today, Anna came out with a very sweet attempt at emotional blackmail!

Anna: We had PE yesterday, mum.
Me: Was it fun?
Anna: (Sighing dramatically) Well, I really struggled, not like the others...
Me: Why do you think that was?
Anna: I think it had to do with sugar... their blood sugar.
Me: (concerned) What?
Anna: Well, Tuesday was Pancake Day mum, so they'd all had pancakes. We forgot to make some this year!

What's your name?

Charlotte has been going by the surname Buchanan since she was about twelve but without her (absent) biological father's consent she couldn't change it legally till she turned 16 last month. Needless to say, when that date came, it was her top priority to finally get a passport and bank account that matched everything else that she had already managed to change over the years.

The younger kids have obviously overheard bits of conversations about 'I'm 16 now', 'I'm old enough to change my name' etc. So with the absolute clarity of a six year old, Amaia got it into her head that you had to change your name at 16! One day over dinner, I heard Amaia ask Charlotte (who, of course, she has only ever known as Charlotte Buchanan) if she had thought about a new name for herself. She suggested Sophie, then Holly (the two most common names in her class). Charlotte decided to have some fun with it and told her she was going to change it to Baby-Magic Buchanan. (When I was pregnant with Lots, Marcel was two years old and had insisted two things throughout my pregnancy - 1) that she'd be a girl (I didn't know what I was having) and 2) that she'd be named Baby-Magic!) I couldn't guarantee the gender but there was never any way she was going to be Baby-Magic. When she turned up and we named her Charlotte, Marcel cried for two days solid. I even asked if he wanted to choose between the final two names on our list: Charlotte and Élodie. Nope, he still wouldn't talk to me, feeling I'd betrayed him!

So the surname changing came and went without Amaia noticing any change in Charlotte's name... but it is still leading to some rather odd questions and conversations. Tonight I was lying in the bath minding my own business when Amaia burst in: 'Mummy, see when granny was six? What was her name?' 
Me: 'She was called Ann, even when she was six'
Amaia: 'So did she change it back then?'

This is starting to get surreal!

Sibling love

I had a very sweet conversation with Anna yesterday. She's eight now and becoming aware of boys. She came in and announced: I think one of the boys in my class likes me. He keeps following me about and talking to me, yuck!

Me: Do you not like boys, then?

Anna: Well, I don't like him! He's boring and just not very clever. When I grow up the only kind of boys I will be interested in will be nice, clever, good-looking, kind boys... just like Marcel!

Awwwwwh!

My caring little fraudster

I was at the optician today with my mum. She and the kids go every January for new specs. Every other year I join them for new reading glasses but as an adult (as opposed to an under-16 or over 65), I only get a free sight test every second year, so I don't bother paying for one unless I feel my prescription has changed noticeably. While mum was having her eyes tested, I played around with the glasses, deciding what I'd buy if I won the lottery (which I don't play) at the weekend. My prescription feels ok, but my glasses are loose and annoying and constantly falling on the ground when I bend over. To be honest, they're driving me batty at the moment... So, I found a lovely blue pair, tried them and felt how nice and tight they were, then put them back. When I picked Léon up from school I was recounting my afternoon to him. 'Would you really like them mum?' he asked. I told them it was fine, I could live with my current ones. But he's a sweet boy, so he suggested 'They always do two for the price of one in that shop so instead of me getting a spare pair, or sunglasses this year, I'll pretend I want the blue ones (even if they are meant for ladies!) and order them as my spares, then when we get home, I'll give them to you! They'll never know!' I can see one wee flaw, given they'd make up both sets of his glasses the same - he needs +5.00, as he's really long-sighted, but my reading glasses are sitting around +1.50. I'm not sure his kind-hearted, if fraudulent little escapade is really going to help either of us! But he has a good heart, the wee soul.

A missed opportunity, a regret

When I divorced my first husband, my biggest regret was losing his family. Old-fashioned, more rural and from an earlier generation, there was to be no modern 'staying in touch with the ex-inlaws' as enjoyed by everyone else I knew who'd divorced. Of course, the children continued to visit them all for the first six years but I no longer existed. I was a non-person - she who should not be mentioned! Nevertheless, I sent my ex-mother-in-law a photo of the kids every year on her birthday and although it was never acknowledged, my kids reported back that it had appeared on her wall. Over the years I found my brother-in-law, his wife and my three nieces again and I now talk to them often. I've watched over the years as each of my nieces has added two more children to the family. It was easy to talk to them as they were online. My old mother-in-law was in her 70s and had never used a computer so we never spoke again. I told my niece, her granddaughter, about my life and she spent afternoons telling my old mother-in-law about me, showing her photos of my kids and so on. I always hoped that one day I'd see her again. But time was not on my side and when my brother-in-law texted me at 2am last Saturday, that opportunity slipped away, forever. I know why she felt she had to side with him, even although there never needed to be sides between her and us, but I hope she also knew we still loved her. From my niece's accounts of her meetings with her, I believe she did.

Fusion cuisine

I spied this in Asda the other night while I was shopping for culinary items to celebrate what the kids fondly refer to as 'the night daddy talks to a haggis'.

I love the inclusive way Scots are open to adapting their national dish to move with the times!

Creamola Foam

Growing up, I loved Creamola Foam. We went to visit my gran on Friday evenings and the first thing we'd do was check what flavour she had in stock each week. A minimum of one was a requirement, two was a luxury! In the early days I remember only lemon and raspberry, but orange became a favourite once we discovered it. I never really took to the 'cola' variety though. The last evidence I have for its existence is a photo from a 1990 camping trip with my ex husband, and two of my uni friends.

It made me smile when I came across this ebay entry the other day. I wish I'd stocked up back then!

Birthday dinner

Like all six-year-olds-to-be Amaia had fixed plans and ideas for her birthday. For about ten months she'd been telling me which kids she wanted to invite round for cake, and her gift ideas came in around Xmas. But unlike most children her age, she seems to have quite grown-up tastes too. When asked what she'd like for dinner on her birthday we didn't get a request for a trip to the local Mcdonalds for Happy Meal, or even a Pizza Express offering. She wasn't content with a homemade kiddie favourite such as mac and cheese or burger and chips. Nope, she asked for rabbit stuffed with pancetta, rosemary, sage, wild fennel and garlic, rubbed with olive oil and oven baked in white wine!!! It's a meal she's only had once before when she was four at her grandparents' Italian friends' house in Tuscany, but it definitely impressed her. Fortunately, we managed to track down two bunnies in Makro and we managed to get the recipe from Enzo and Franco. So when it was served up on Monday evening she was very impressed. So impressed in fact, she told us that she'd have one of the rabbits and the rest of us (including granny) could share the other!

Marcel

On the Sunday before uni began, I drove my eighteen year old son to Edinburgh to move into university halls. He was upbeat and excited but also a little apprehensive and quiet for him. He would never have admitted it at the time but mums know their boys. Once he'd checked in, he got his key and went to his third floor room. He dumped his stuff and sat down. Thomas and I asked if we could have a wee look in the kitchen too. That was the first time his mask dropped. The usually enthusiastic boy dragged his feet and took about ten minutes to pluck up the courage to walk to the other side of the flat and enter the kitchen. Of course, he was psyching himself up for a possible encounter with an unknown flatmate or two for the first time - a daunting prospect even without mum and stepdad in tow! I remember it well from my own student halls days in Germany and Italy. You dart into your room and sit silently trying to find the courage to visit the communal areas! But he did it. We walked into the kitchen and sitting there was one other boy, about the same age. He was motionless and reserved at the breakfast bar. His shoulder-length was hair tied back and he lifted his eyes but not his head as he nodded silently to us. We left the two shy and quiet boys behind without a chat.

That was four months ago.

On Saturday, not Sunday this time, Marcel decided it was time to go home. As we drove into his street in the dark, our tiny four seater bursting at the seams with food and washing, he jumped out and shouted into the darkness 'Tony, my bro!' I hadn't seen anyone in the street but he'd noticed a figure in the darkness. A young man came running towards Marcel, hand outstretched, before grabbing him in a bearhug. He talked ten to the dozen in a vaguely American-sounding accent about his holiday 'back home in Macau', his hair loose and wild as he gesticulated excitedly. He laughed about their new flatmate who'd moved in since he returned three days earlier and his OCD (and more than welcome) cleaning habits! He helped us empty my car and three trips up and down the stairs later, I felt it was time to leave as the boys discussed getting a pizza for dinner. I struggled to recognize the quiet motionless boy from the breakfast bar in September and my quiet son and they spoke warmly, sparkling with the exuberance of youth. Both Marcel and his flatmate Anton had visibly transformed and grown up since their first meeting. I suddenly wished I was that age again, just for a moment. They looked so full of life, and it was truly beautiful to see. I wish I could have caught that moment on film, rather than just in my head. It's a special time in life.

Suddenly Charles Aznavour sprang to mind - Il faut boire jusqu'à l'ivresse, sa jeunesse!