Due to the events in Manchester on Monday night, I will be taking a break from blogging this week.
It doesn’t feel right to talk about my tinylife when tiny lives have been lost in a city that was my home, once.
I will be back next week.
Wishing you a peaceful day.
I’m hanging out the laundry. Of course.
It’s lovely, once Spring comes, to be able to hang it outside. The smell of laundry dried outside is right up there with the smell of your child’s should
er or grass after a May shower.
I have photographs of nappies (for the five minutes that we used disposable nappies), strung out on the bottom lines. I knew I was too tired to remember it myself.
We have two lines. A high one, for trousers and sheets, and a low one, for the kid’s clothes and socks.
But this morning I noticed a change. The oldest’s trousers and tops are big enough for the top row.
It’s both bitter and sweet: good to know that we are further away from nappies and broken nights, sadness that those cloistered days of babyhood are over.
‘I don’t think I can do the interview tomorrow. I’m really not feeling up to it.’
I could have sworn that I only said this to Moira once. But apparently I told her so many times that I wasn’t able to do the interview that she’d spoken to her mentor about it. He had messaged her, asking if I’d been in touch yet, to say I just couldn’t, wasn’t in a place to, hadn’t got the necessary oomph for…
Of course I had. Right up until the day.
I knew Moira would be a brilliant interviewer. I knew we would talk about things that I’m not ashamed of, but don’t talk about often. I knew it would be cleansing, but a particular sort of tiring.
I am so happy with the result. Can’t wait for the next episode, Moira!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MexrSFolntQ
The tuna steaks were a bit over done.
I don’t eat tuna anyway, but I was on a fast day, so hadn’t even been responsible. It’s not like Mr HB. Slap dash is how we refer to my cooking, not his.
But as I scrubbed out the tuna pan, I remembered. He’d come to help me bring in the laundry. The smell of tuna had filled the house once we returned. It was why I put th
e clean clothes into the hall, not the kitchen.
I’m keeping this memory as proof. It’s not that I am not good at cooking, or couldn’t be, if I wasn’t doing 100 other things at the same time. If the actual labour doesn’t distract me, the emotional labour does.
This isn’t a ‘women’s’ thing. If you are distracted, then the tuna will be over done.
Stella Hervey Birrell 