Blog to Book - Fashionably Late
I am writing Fashionably Late, an irreverent guide to having children later in life. Did you become a mother over 35? If so, and you'd like to tell me your story please contact me at mail@motheratlarge.com.
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Books
Paddington's Birthday
Any Edinburgh residents among you might be interested to know The Children's Bookshop is celebrating Paddington Bear's 50th birthday in the shop tomorrow. I am told there will be discounts on all Paddington books and free marmalade sandwiches available all day (bearing that in mind, we'll be taking some of these with us). There is also to be a colouring competition, the winner of which will receive a free copy of the brand new Paddington: My Book of Marmalade. written by 83-year-old author Michael Bond. If you get the chance, why not pop along and help celebrate a milestone in the life of a bear who must be Britain's best-loved illegal immigrant.
Appearing at Edinburgh Book Festival
All confirmed for my appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Friday, August 15 from 2pm to 3.30pm. An advance copy of the brochure arrived by post this morning. Here is the blurb about the event:
Books, Blogging and the Internet
How can writers best use the internet to produce and promote their work? Ex-Sunday Times journalist Helen Fowler, who secured her first book deal after publishers stumbled on her popular blog (you're reading it now) guides you through social networking, turning blogs into books and the benefits of an online presence.
Tickets (£12, £10 concession) go on sale to the public from 20 June and the brochure is available from tomorrow, 12 June. Please come along if you're in the vicinity.
Like a dog, like a dog, like a dog.... the Kipper quiz
Like many families before us, we have become huge fans of the best-selling Kipper books by Mick Inkpen (by the way, here is good biography of Inkpen, who is also pictured below). This started me thinking - we all know people in real life who are a bit like the characters of Tiger, Kipper, Pig and his cousin Arnold. Have you ever wondered which character you're most like? Here's a little quiz to help you work out who you most ressemble. 
1. An overnight camping trip to Big Hill is suggested. It is your first night in a tent. You are the one who:
a) insisted on bringing toys from home
b) had the idea for the trip. But got scared and went home early
c) said little, but gritted it out until morning
d) stayed at home.
2. It is your birthday. You decide to celebrate by:
a) making a cake and inviting friends round. Co-ordinating the two events proves harder than anticipated.
b) asking for the latest, fanciest gadget. Which you find impossible to make work.
c) adding a new pet to your already extensive menagerie.
d) feeding the ducks.
3. Somebody gives you a pair of rollerblades. You respond by:
a) trying hard to master this new skill. With mixed results.
b) boasting to anyone who'll listen about how fantastic you are at rollerblading. Before falling into a bush.
c) practising, practising, practising. Until you get really good.
d) watching your older cousin and learning from his example
4. Your attitude towards your toys is to:
a) love, cherish and respect them. Life wouldn't be the same without old friends around.
b) put them in a rocket and fire them at the moon.
c) love them, but appraise them shrewdly.
d) who needs toys when you've got a cardboard box?
5. You are working on a project requiring great ingenuity. Something goes wrong. You respond by:
a) feeling a bit thrown but persevering in finding a solution
b) moaning and complaining amid great melodrama
c) your projects don't go wrong, you spend so much time beforehand preparing.
d) taking time out, then pulling off a piece of lateral thinking
6. You have done yourself a minor injury. You respond by:
a) applying a sticking plaster and moving on
b) insisting on sticking plaster, ointment, sling, painkillers and emergency trip to hospital. And, of course, moaning.
c) being grateful you were wearing safety kit that prevented the injury being any worse
d) sucking your thumb
7. You have made an error of judgement. Do you:
a) acknowledge your mistake, feel embarrassed and apologise
b) bluster and pretend it wasn't your fault
c) arrange an inventive win-win compromise that minimises the impact of your mistake.
d) approach someone else for advice
8. You are going for a day at the beach. Would you:
a) immediately start building a sandcastle
b) insist on setting up an elaborate base camp. With inappropriate kit
c) stun your friends by revealing hitherto unsuspected skills as a water skier
d) stand on your head. Perfectly.
9. As a friend you are mostly:
a) Popular with everyone. You are prepared to take the rough with the smooth and see good in most people, even the annoying ones.
b) Sometimes demanding and grandiose, but good-hearted and lovable.
c) A bit of an enigma. Not aloof, but you like to keep some distance between yourself and others.
d) Unobtrusive and loyal.
How you scored:
Mostly a) - you are Kipper. Popular and well-loved, hard-working and down-to-earth, you are able to see the cheery side of life, even amid disaster. Everyone wants to be your friend. Everyone wants to be you. Tell us your secret, please Kipper?
Mostly b) - you are Tiger. Sorry, but are you just a teeny bit full of your own importance? Come on, admit it! No? Not just a little bit? And you're not really as competent as you make out, are you? Don't worry, all your friends still love you. They know what a good sort you are underneath all that bluster. And you are often the one who comes up with the idea for adventures. Life wouldn't be as much fun without you around. Perhaps, though, you might try to rein in that grandiosity? A simpler life can often be more satisfying than pursuing complex ambitions.
Mostly c) - you are Pig. Savvy and secretive, you are the dark horse of the group. Although supportive to those around you, you tend to prefer to operate on your own, away from group restrictions. You have a highly developed sense of self-reliance and your tenacity allows you to succeed where others might give up. Few people understand you well and you are often lonely. You might consider trusting others a little bit more.
Mostly d) - you are Arnold. What a sweetie you are! And how did you learn to stand on your head so well? We wish we could do that too! The ducks cheer when they see you heading over to their pond.
The only advice we could offer would be to have more faith in your own judgement. You don't need to rely on Pig for everything.
With thanks to these good people, who sent us a stack of Kipper books.
While on the subject of children's books, Edinburgh residents among you may be interested to hear that The Children's Bookshop at Holy Corner, Bruntsfield, will be holding a weekly story-telling session every Tuesday at 10.30am from 3 June for the under-fives. The bookshop has a great range of books - with a well-chosen selection for grown-ups too - and a lovely atmosphere. It also runs regular author events for children and adults (you can sign up to an email subscription on their website informing you about upcoming readings). So do pay a visit if you haven't already.
Mystery of the Meme
I've been tagged by Vanessa of Fidra - (now that sounds like a book title if ever I heard one) - in something called a book meme.
The rules are:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.
Birthing from Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz.
"The burst of energy that accompanies the onset of labour allows for last minute 'nesting'. Use this opportunity to take care of any unfinished business before settling into your birth place and the state-of-mindlessness sometimes referred to as 'Labourland'. In America, the image of women in labour lying down in a narrow bed, waiting and watching the monitor has become part of our idea of birth."
My brain isn't working well this morning - that 'state-of-mindlessness' thing kicking in already. I need to have a think about who I'll tag. Update follows later.
Book Festival Update
Edinburgh International Book Festival UPDATE
I'll be speaking on the subject of Books and the Internet at the EIBF on Friday August 15 at 2pm. The organisers have kindly agreed to give me a date that won't clash with my husband's 40th birthday - also mid-August. I don't want to over-promise: anything I know about Books and the Internet is what I've learnt from swapping notes with readers of this blog and other friends I've made on-line. But I'm working hard to pack as much information into the workshop as possible.
Edinburgh Book Festival appearance
Nicola Morgan, head of the Society of Authors in Scotland, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival have asked me to do a writer's workshop at the festival in August on blogging, social networking and books. Wonderful news, but I did feel honour-bound to point out that following the collapse of The Friday Project I don't currently have a book contract. I didn't want them to take me under false pretences. Were they sure they still wanted me? Not a problem, said the organisers. They already knew all about my publisher going bust (very sorry, sure something good would come of it) and could I please talk a bit to the audience about my experiences with The Friday Project? Well, fine. I can do that. Only other snag is that I'm due to give birth just six weeks earlier. But my friend Vanessa has offered to look after the baby in the refreshment tent while I do the workshop. So looks like we're in business. Anyone in Edinburgh in August, do please come along if you get the chance. I'll do my best to make it informative and fun.
Activities Blogging Books Fashionably Late - the book Out and about
This writing life
In the end, it was my two-year-old daughter who best summed up this week's crisis at my publisher. "Book!" cried Beanie, clasping a copy of Catherine Rayner's Augustus and His Smile in her hand and advancing towards me, waving the desired item in the air. "Book!" she cried again, hoping I would read the story of Augustus' search for his missing smile to her. "Book! Book! Book!" Poor Beanie. Her father Va-vay and I were both too preoccupied to read to her. "Book!" she insisted. "No, Beanie, darling, not right now," I said. "Mummy and daddy are worried about something. We'll do the book later." I sighed. I put my head in my hands. Even Va-vay sighed. Va-vay never normally sighs. Self-pity, not his thing. He turned to me. "She's right, isn't she. Beanie's right. That's what all this is about. A book." 
He means my book. Not the one about Augustus, lovely though he is. A few days ago I discovered that my publisher has officially gone bust, owing hundreds of thousands to all sorts of people. This is potentially a disaster for me, as it leaves me with a half-finished book (on later motherhood) and no-one to publish it. Three months before I'm due to have a baby. I keep waking at 4am in panic, unable to get back to sleep for worrying about how to recoup the time I've invested in writing. Thinking about the money I could have earnt if I hadn't been working on Fashionably Late. Embarrassed about all the women I've interviewed, women who have been so generous in sharing their stories and time with me, recounting deeply personal experiences of relationships, pregnancy and childbirth. They're expecting to see a book result from it all and I'm afraid I'm going to let them down. And when the 4am demons strike, I'm also mortified that the entire episode reflects badly on me and my judgement. The only glimmer of hope is that I've been assured that another publisher wants to buy my book. And is in the process of issuing a contract. Mean time, let's just say, Augustus isn't the only one round here who's lost his smile.
Labour of love
I am reading accounts of women giving birth the way I used to eat cashew nuts - unable to stop myself and always wanting more. Ina May Gaskin, Sheila Kitzinger, Kate Mosse, Lesley Regan, Zita West, Janet Balaskas
- their books form tower blocks next to my bed. I look forwards to bed
time the way I used to enjoy Friday nights after a long week at work.
It's my chance to read about how other women coped with pregnancy and
childbirth. This would be fine, were it not for the fact that I cannot
persuade my husband Va-vay to share my enthusiasm for these books.
Don't get me wrong, Va-vay could not be more supportive of my pregnancy
- in a practical, solution-oriented sense. He does lots of shopping,
cooking, cleaning, laundry and childcare. When Beanie woke last night
at 2.30am it was Va-vay who got up and searched for Calpol, then sat
with her until she fell back to sleep. At about 5am. It was Va-vay who
got her up two hours later, got her to nursery, took out the rubbish
and went to work.
In fairness to him, all that activity doesn't leave much time for
reading. But last week I did mention to him that since he's my birth
partner it would be nice if he could read up on labour. At the time he
became rather huffy. Accused me of accusing him of being
'unsupportive."
"No, Va-vay, that's not what I meant," I protested. "I'd just like us
both to be involved in the labour. For us both to know what's going on.
So you understand the emotional side too."
"I know all about emotions, living with you," he said.
I dropped the subject.
Then on Sunday I bought a book on potty training for Beanie and left it
in the bathroom - home to the potty training action. Later that evening
Va-vay came out of the bathroom, quite jubilant, and started quoting
facts from the book at me.
"Do you know what 'lifting' is?" he asked me.
"Errr, no. Why?"
"It's the practice of putting children on the potty last thing at night. Very controversial."
"Right. Well, thank you for letting me know that."
"If you want me to read any of those books on childbirth just leave
them in the bathroom too and I'll take a look at them," he said with a
jaunty air. No doubt he plans to quote salient facts back at me. He is
just not taking this seriously. My private bits are risking mutilation.
There will be pain, blood and gore - however well it goes. I don't want
Ina May and Sheila left in the bathroom - it feels disrespectful.
Bring on our birth preparation workshops. Then I will have him
discussing feelings. In a group. With people he doesn't know. Ah,
vengeance.
Spiritual midwifery
My copy of Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin arrived yesterday from the Book Depository
after the pregnant wife of one of Va-vay's colleagues recommended it to
me last week. Many readers of this blog may already know of Ina May Gaskin,
(I have to confess I didn't) but for those who don't, she is a
'self-taught' lay midwife who has helped pioneer ideas we nowadays take
for granted in modern obstetrics, like fathers being present at births,
the usefulness of breathing techniques, and an end to routine
episiotomies. She was one of the first people to present pregnancy,
childbirth and breastfeeding from a spiritual perspective and is known as "the mother of authentic midwifery". I stayed up
till 2.30am last night reading Spritual Midwifery,
literally unable to put it down, fascinated by stories of women giving
birth at home in a hippy commune in 1970s Tennessee known as The Farm. Although the photos of beautiful, long-haired Madonnas and bearded husbands date the book to a vanished era, the book has a universality and timelessness that makes it as relevant today as ever. Inspirational and
uplifting.
Spooky
I have made up my mind about one thing. My baby will not be having a supernatural birth. Trawling through Amazon, I came across Supernatural Childbirth. It promises 'a practical and realistic look at God's promises for conception, pregnancy and delivery'. Supernatural Childbirth even includes a 'powerful teaching section on ex-planning [sic] the curse on Eve in the Garden of Eden.' As if labour isn't bad enough, who wants an exorcism to boot?
Call me a sissy, but Unassisted Childbirth isn't high on my list of preferences either. The blurb promises advice on giving birth without medical 'intervention', pointing out that women did exactly this for thousands of years. Curiously enough, the blurb doesn't mention that millions of women died in the process. You know, all that curse on Eve stuff that the supernatural crowd were going to remove. Am still aiming for a water birth at home - but if it doesn't work out that way, I'm not going to beat myself up with rolled-up copies of Unassisted Childbirth. As long as the baby is safe - surely that's all that matters?
And I'm certainly not planning on doing it alone. Please, no.
Afterthought
Friend at dinner on Friday: "Did you know that flats strong enough to take birthing pools command a premium in the Edinburgh property market? Estate agent particulars list them nowadays."
Birth Resource Centre
Anybody planning on giving birth in Edinburgh might be interested to know about the city's Birth Resource Centre. They have birth preparation days for couples, pre- and post-natal yogal classes, a library of useful pregnancy and birth books (I've got my eye on The Water Birth Book by Janet Balaskas) and a support group for home births. More importantly, their staff are warm and kind. And they rent birthing pools. Last time I was pregnant I dragged Va-vay along to NCT lessons - and we were lucky enough to meet a great crowd of people, almost all of whom we still meet up with regularly. Life would have been pretty dismal without the NCT crowd, who've provided company and good cheer over the past couple of years. I hope they don't mind me saying that. But Va-vay and I were slackers during the actual lessons - we kept skiving off for dinners out, thinking (correctly) we wouldn't have much chance to go out once the baby arrived. Va-vay is also incorrigibly private - and curled up with embarrassment at discussing pregnancy in front of people he didn't know at the time. Not my problem, really. It's more getting me to shut up that's my issue, especially when I get nervous. But, anyway, my knowledge of childbirth and labour positions is sketchy - though I have no-one to blame but myself. This time I'm going to try and learn up a bit more. Less skiving. More swotting.
Childbirth Friends Health Home birth New baby Out and about Pregnancy Water birth Books
A funny old year
Some highlights - and some not-so-good bits - from 2007:
January - back to work for first time since having Beanie. It's like returning from exile in a foreign country. Painful to be parted from her. In more ways than one. Am still breastfeeding so by mid-morning my boobs are so hard I have to squirt out milk by hand in the loo to relieve the pain. My co-workers all seem young, slim and trendy. They're a nice crowd, but I bet none of them have ever even seen the structural monstrosity that is a nursing bra. It's hard to be hip when you're lactating. Am struggling to lose post-pregnancy weight.
February - builders rip our flat apart to investigate for dry rot. Fitted carpets (laid only a year earlier) are taken up, architraves ripped off the window recesses.There isn't any rot, as it turns out, but in darker moments I sometimes think there might as well have been, with all the mess, upheaval and expense.
March - pregnant again, after only the first month of trying. It happens so easily, the pregnancy feels unreal from the outset. Va-vay and I - both exhausted from last year's onslaught - are ambivalent. An air of unbelievability hangs over the pregnancy's entire (short) duration. I'm not sick, tired or dizzy. At the time, this seems a good thing.
Start this blog, following a chance encounter with a writer at an Edinburgh City of Literature evening. Unsure where it will take me.
April - Beanie's first birthday and our second wedding anniversary. Beanie walking. Reluctantly, I wind down breastfeeding, thinking I should concentrate resources on the new baby.
May - start bleeding, losing bright red blood. When we go for a scan the next day, the monitor shows the baby has no heartbeat and probably died several weeks previously. People quote statistics at me, telling me 'how common' it is. Despite my earlier ambivalence about the pregnancy, am wretched at losing it. Feel a fool as well.
June - Va-vay goes on reproductive strike. He wants a break over the summer from trying for a child. I am now desperate for another baby. Everywhere I look I see prams, babies and smiling mothers. Despite the statistics, I can't imagine any of them ever having a miscarriage. I interrogate friends on whether they're pregnant, dreading them saying yes. It isn't healthy, but I can't help it.
July - Counselling helps me start to come to terms with the loss - and I manage to agree to wait before trying again.
August - Edinburgh International Book Festival. Hear Ian McEwan, Benedict Allen, Colin Thubron, Janice Galloway, Kate Mosse, Simon Armitage, Antonia Swinson, Esther Freud and Kitty Aldridge speak. This is fun. Realise I haven't enjoyed going out and about like this since before I was pregnant with Beanie.
September - Scott Pack of The Friday Project signs me up to write a handbook for women who become mums 'fashionably late'. Looks like this blogging business is going somewhere after all.
October - holiday in France. Happy days.
November - turn forty. The event I've been dreading all year. Worse in the anticipation than the deed. A slap-up lunch with Va-vay eases the pain. I felt like this when I turned thirty - now I can't understand what the fuss was about.
December - difficult start to the month, with what would have been my due date. But good news follows. Can't say too much at the moment, but will keep you posted in 2008.
Time and Tide
Apologies for the lack of recent postings. I've only just realised
it's been six days since I managed to blog. Six whole days. Shameful
contrast to the high watermark of summer, when I set myself a target of
daily postings.
I'd love to blame the downturn on Christmas and being too busy with
shopping and partying to blog. But the truth is I haven't been too well
and have hardly left the flat. I'm also finding I need to put any spare
time into writing my book.
I've been busy reading around the subject of motherhood when not looking after Beanie and working on the book.
Regular readers of this blog might remember I'm a huge fan of Kate Mosse's Becoming a Mother. I liked it so much, I re-read it over the weekend, just to enjoy that feeling of companionship and support again.
I've also been reading Susan Faludi's Backlash - The Undeclared War Against Women,
which has got me energised with anger. She dismisses the infertility
scare stories of recent years as having little or no basis in fact,
blaming them on widespread resentment at women's new-found freedom to
work and decide when (or if) they will have children.
Reading Backlash
reminded how fed up I am with some of the unflattering descriptions
used for women who
have babies after 35. Is it not about time the medical authorities
thought up something less insulting than 'senile primigravida' to
describe a
first-time mother over 35?
I'm also losing patience with hearing healthy, blooming women in their late thirties and early forties described as 'older'.
When are we going to wake up to the fact that women in their
thirties
(and older) are in their prime? These are some of our most
productive and creative years. Calling us 'old' is part of the same
attempt to stigmatise any woman who shows some choosiness about when
and how she has children that also leads to bogus infertility scares
and 'man shortage' stories.
I
don't think of myself as 'old' or even 'older' - and that's because,
looked at in
absolute terms, I'm not. I was older than the average first-time mum
(29) when I had my daughter (at 38). But that doesn't qualify me for the zimmer
frame and slippers quite yet.
Come to think of it, I don't even consider my
mother, an energetic 67-year-old, to be 'old'. Though
she has qualified for a bus pass that Beanie regularly filches from her
handbag.
What do you think is a good substitute for 'old' or 'older' to describe new mums or mums-to-be over 35?
Blogging Books Dilemmas Fashionably Late - the book Older mother Paradoxes Work at Home Mum
Family Ties
A friend said: "Read this book. It'll make you cry." She handed me a copy of it then wandered off to look at something else. On the cover was a young mother with lots of curly dark hair holding up a surprised-looking baby, dressed in a stripey baby-gro, against the background of a blue, blue sky. I stood there in the bookshop and started leafing through Someday and sure enough, in seconds I was blubbing, tears were spurting out my eyes at the story of a mother who dreams of what the future might hold for her beloved daughter. "Va-vay, could you lend me your handkerchief?" I asked. "No," he said. The hankie was already dirty, he explained. I didn't care. Insisted he hand it over. He capitulated.
I didn't cry because the little girl had a particularly grim future in store, just because it made me aware of the fragile hopes and dreams we mothers have for our children, that we project far into the future, many of them unspoken or unacknowledged. "I didn't think you'd cry that much," said my friend in astonishment, when she returned from teenage fiction. "I know," I said apologetically. "I'm sorry, it's just, I find this sort of thing very, well, emotional."
After I bought my copy, (well, I felt I had to after my snotty-nosed outburst) and returned home, I read Someday again a couple of times (it's a quick read, which is just as well, given its effect on me). And cried again both times.
The mother in the book dreams of how her daughter might live her life to the full, leaving home for the first time ('Someday you will look at this house and wonder how something that feels so big can look so small'), diving into a lake, running and singing, experiencing joy and sorrow, herself becoming first a mother, ('Someday I will watch you brushing your child's hair') then in time a grandmother. It closes with the mother looking far into the future, imagining her daughter in old age. In this imagined future, the daughter (whom we first saw as a baby) now has silver hair and we come full circle back to the present, when we see, sitting on a table in her home, a picture of her as a baby in the arms of her mother, who is narrating the story. It's how I felt on becoming a mother, as if I'd at last taken my place in the chain that links one generation of women to the next and to the one after that and the one after that, an invisible thread of love connecting all of us to each other, the thread sometimes taut with pressure, at other times slack. No longer a reproductive full stop. But part of a circle. As if I'd handed on the baton by having my own child. The perfect ending.
Fill your boots at Fidra Books
A quick reminder that Edinburgh's new, independent children's bookshop opens its doors for the first time this Saturday (10 November). You can find Fidra Books at 219 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh, just along the road from Holy Corner. Vanessa Robertson, the firm's director, is a staunch ally of this site and fellow blogger who deserves every success with the new shop. I'm chuffed to bits for her and telling everybody I know about the launch. Please go along and support the shop by buying some of her books. She's stocking more than a thousand titles, including the fifteen Fidra has published. Aside from Vanessa being a personal friend (I think she'd agree with that) we need shops like this to stop our high streets melting into a parade of identikit chains.
More personally, I can hardly wait until Beanie's old enough to enjoy browsing in Vanessa's shop. Some of my happiest childhood memories are visiting bookshops with my mother, and I want to do the same thing for my daughter. I come from a fairly modest background (despite what certain readers of the Edinburgh Evening News think) but my mother believed books were the best investment you could make and used to produce her James Thin account card for all sorts of children's books like Ballet Shoes, Tom's Midnight Garden and The Secret Garden. They opened the door into a new and enchanted world I never wanted to leave.
As Vanessa's written on her blog, many people have an emotional attachment to book shops possibly because they remember buying books there that have shaped their lives, ideas, aspirations, dreams, perceptions and imaginations. Buying on-line is never going to be the same for a small child as wandering around in a cornucopia of real books. Go on, if you get the chance, pay a trip to the new shop. Just don't expect to find any Katy Price pony books, though. Vanessa won't be stocking any. As she told The Scotsman, "We won't stock rubbish." Quite right too.
Read all about it
Great piece in the Edinburgh Evening News on my book, Fashionably Late, about being an older mum - Motherhood blog gives birth to book deal for city woman.
It was embarrassing when the paper's photographer arrived and Beanie led her
into the back bedroom, the only room I hadn't managed to tidy when I
heard the 'snapper' was coming, and where I'd dumped all the clean
laundry, two racks of still-damp clothes, Va-vay's computer books and
stuff for my tax return. But she didn't
seem to mind. Seemed almost reluctant to follow me back into the hall,
if you ask me.
As you can see, Beanie got to have her picture taken by the photographer. She was very patient while this happened, though I could see an inner battle going on. On the one hand, she wanted to stay put and enjoy the special attention and rare privilege of getting to play with the laptop, (of which, more later). On the other, she wanted to continue her rampage across the flat.
The clever photographer clinched it by waving Miffy the Rabbit (not featured) over her shoulder. As a result, you can see Beanie in the shot, dressed in the special jersey we bought her in France, clinging onto a piece of cottonwool. We're both pretending to gaze with interest at the aforementioned laptop. Can't be sure, but think they might have kindly airbrushed out the bags under my eyes. And some laughter lines. Normally my credentials as an older mother are more, err, in evidence. Beanie didn't need airbrushing, being beautiful as she is.
Va-vay said he was proud of us all when he saw the piece: me, Beanie and the laptop. Yes, the laptop. That's because he chose it for me. Va-vay views it with almost proprietary interest. Plus he treats computers like well-loved household pets. And vice versa. When I took a long time today to answer a question, he said: "You should have a little hourglass thing going round, that way I'd know you were thinking. Or had crashed." God forbid I ever need re-booting.
But I digress. Being a journalist myself, it was odd but not unpleasant not being the one asking questions. And it was lovely to see the piece. They even quoted parts of the blog next to the article. I was a bit bemused by some of the rather ill-informed comments people left on the on-line version but I had some kind emails from people. One woman got in touch to tell me she found the blog 'lovely and heartwarming'. Awww, shucks. Makes it all worthwhile. Now, as Beta Mum has said, I've got to hope the delivery of the book isn't as painful as actual childbirth.
Her boyfriend is a twat
Blogger Zoe McCarthy has just published the highly entertaining book, My Boyfriend is a Twat, loosely based on her blog of the same name. I would recommend it to all who have ever been puzzled by the inexplicable behaviour of the men in their lives - in other words, all of us. Zoe has taken some time out from her life in Belgium with the Twat to answer a few questions I put to her about her new book, published by The Friday Project, who will be publishing my own book if I ever get my act together and start writing it.
Helen: First of all, many congratulations on the book.
Zoe: Thank you. You obviously haven't read it.
H: Could you tell us what inspired you to write MBIAT – the book?
Z: It was an idea from Clare Christian at The Friday Project. Initially, she approached me about writing a book based on my blog. B O R I N G. So I said that I wasn't interested. Then Clare twisted my arm and held it tight with other suggestions, such as making the book into a manual and giving hints to other women how to deal with partners who are a twat. She even offered me an egg coddler so I said 'yes'. My arm still hurts though.
H: Will regular readers of your blog find lots of new material in the book?
Z: Definitely. Well, it's old material that happened before Quarsan (the twat in my life) and I met and therefore has never appeared on my blog. He's been a bit of a plonker all his life, if you ask me.
H: What was it like going from writing a blog to a book?
Z: Very, very difficult. As the book is about Quarsan, I had to sieve through almost four years' worth of posts, discarding those that weren't relevant and then re-writing those that were. I think I only cut and pasted two small parts of my blog - the rest has been entirely rewritten so as to be able to be read in book-form. I'm not all that sure that I succeeded - but then, I haven't read the book.
H: What do you like best about blogging?
Z: Being able to share with my regular readers the daft things that go on in my life. For some reason, people do come back to see what's going on - and many people have exceedingly good memories about the last time something happened. Such as the last time I got a black eye ....
I also love reading back as I have a memory like a sieve, so it's fun to see the things that have happened, my children's development over the past (almost) five years, and the antics that Quarsan gets up to.
H: Any thoughts about the Twat and parenting (the subject of M@L)? What's his worst crime been in the step-dad department?
The Twat and parenting should never, ever be in the same sentence. Having said that, I think that had he been given the chance, he would have made a great dad but he obviously forgot about getting on and having a family in favour of climbing mountains and travelling.
His worst crime in the step-dad department must be the fact that he takes sides with my children. That is a Bad Thing.
H: Are all female bloggers married to/living with men in IT who do behind-the-scenes tech stuff? Or does it just feel that way?
Z: I know quite a few single female bloggers, if that helps.
H: Like you, I too have a partner who detests mobile phones. 'An inferior technology' he says. Any tips on dealing with that one?
Z: Don't let him have one. Everybody comes round eventually, trust me.
H: Any suggestions for how to get a man to clear up in the kitchen after he's made a meal? The answer would be the Holy Grail of modern womanhood.....
Z: Oh, this is such a grey area. I have been battling this one for the six years we have been together. Standing over my partner and telling him to wipe all the surfaces doesn't work. The kitchen table is always covered in molasses from where Quarsan has been preparing his shisha pipe, the area next to the sink is covered in coffee stains and breadcrumbs - I think I'm trying to say that I really am at a loss.
H: How does Quarsan put up with all the abuse? Does he ever complain?
Z: Abuse? If you think my blog or my book is abusive then you should hear what I have to put up with, hence the 'Twattisms' - Quarsan's snide replies to me. But no, he never complains - I would never blog something about him that he wouldn't blog himself. There are things that Quarsan doesn't like to tell the world and they can be worked out from reading the book.
He loves the attention though, believe me.
H: Come on, admit it, you love him really, don't you? All this piss-taking is an English way of showing your affection for him, isn't it?
Z: Of course I love him - do you really think that I'd write a blog and then a book about somebody I didn't love?
I need to lie down.
H: On that note, I'd like to conclude by wishing you every success with the book. It's a great read – sharp, entertaining and pacey.
Z: Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to write up these questions. Good luck with your book!
Oops, let's do it again
Lynne Spears, mother of beleaguered pop princess Britney, is to write a book about 'her role as a showbiz family matriarch' Bit cheeky, when she and Britney weren't speaking to each other until recently. But hey, that's showbiz, or at least my limited experience of it.
Lynne's publisher specialises in Christian books, which could make it tricky when dealing with some aspects of Britney's life. But, more importantly, the news has made me wonder if I haven't missed a trick or two with Beanie's granny.
After all, if Lynne can turn out 'Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World' and there's a new publishing trend for Granny Memoirs, perhaps Beanie's granny could be prised away from her Sudoko and gently encouraged to write a book. Okay, we're not very glamorous or well-known but we could work round that, surely?
And, okay, there might be less rock 'n' roll here than in the Spears household (well, none at all) but I can see it now: "The Biscuit Memoirs: A Real Story of Confectionery and Crime in the Food Aisle at Waitrose."
There might be some shocking revelations: how Granny allows Beanie to play inside the dishwasher, in defiance of parental edicts on the subject. How she's trained Beanie to empty out the contents of every handbag within fifty paces. How the two of them have bonded over their dental problems - while Granny's new false teeth are giving her trouble, Beanie's new (real) incisors are having difficulty coming in. Oh, the possibilities are endless....
Sharing a Shell
7pm: Before putting Beanie to bed, I read to her about the adventures of Blob, Crab and Brush - "three friends, sharing a shell". She listens with her customary eager, almost rapt attention, while fingering the glittery pictures and pointing at the seagulls wheeling overhead. I close the book and lower Beanie gently into her cot.
"Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh."
She allows herself the briefest of pauses.
"Wwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh."
To our dismay, she throws Mr Bear overboard in fury. When she does this, we know we're in real trouble. For where Mr Bear goes, Beanie goes too. Or, at least, in this case, would like to go.
Va-vay and I exchange looks of horror.
"She's not normally like this," I say despairingly, telling him what he already knows.
"What do you suggest we do?" he asks, putting down his briefcase for the first time since he got through the door from work and looking, momentarily, defeated.
"Leave her for a bit? See if she settles?"
"Into what?"
A warning that would have them running for the air-raid shelters in seconds is 'what'. A sonic assault on our ear-drums that would have Health and Safety round in a trice if it happened in the workplace. Try as I might, I feel a familiar mixture of sorrow, love, sympathy - and irritation.
"Better go and change out of my work clothes," says Va-vay, in a tone of forced jollity that alerts me to how tired and strained he really is.
At Beanie HQ the bombs could be dropping any minute. National emergency. Briefly, I wonder what the neighbours must think.
Prepare supper while trying not to listen to daughter-turned-police-siren wailing.
Take it in turns to ask each other: "Is it wrong to leave her to cry like this?"
Abandon plan to 'let her settle'. Impulsively climb into Beanie's cot to help her sleep. She is delighted at this unusual turn of events. But refuses to settle. After her eyes close, admittedly against her will, I attempt to clamber out again, waking her in the process. Drat. Admit temporary defeat and regroup in kitchen, carrying through a triumphant and flushed Beanie in her sleep bag.
Administer milk, calpol and teething gel.
9pm: Grinning with delight, Beanie, propped up between her parents, settles down to watch Spooks. Shield her eyes from scenes of torture, shooting, kidnap and bubonic plague. It doesn't leave much left over. Beanie remains scarily indifferent throughout, except for shooting the odd delighted glance towards me and Va-vay.
"Are you a little scamp?" Va-vay asks her fondly.
10pm: Grumbling but no longer shrieking, even Beanie has to concede the time has come to sleep. With little more than a token protest, for even an 18-month-old has her pride to consider, she puts her thumb in her mouth, clutches Mr Bear to her and curls up on her front for some long-overdue kip.
Midnight: Did I mention sleep? Between now and 2am Va-vay and I try, in no particular order: leaving her magic lantern on for reassurance/rocking/cuddling her/reading to her/sitting by her cot/singing in a way that put me in mind of this.
She falls asleep again. When she wakes later, somewhere in the chaos of the night, we skip all the above steps and bring her into bed with us. She quietens immediately, and seems happy to be sharing with us. Or maybe it's the long night that has finally worn her out. Whatever it is, after a brief, but unedifying struggle between me and Va-vay over the duvet, we all - finally - drift off to sleep. As I fall into sleep, comfortably aware of the sound of her breathing next to me, I hear Va-vay's deep voice saying from the other side of the bed:
"Three friends, sharing a shell."
Nobody stirs. Peace, at last.
My husband is NOT a twat
An attractive, hard-bound copy of My Boyfriend is a Twat has just thudded through the letter box. The cover describes it as "a guide to recognising, dealing and living with an utter twat." Hope nobody is trying to tell me and Va-vay something. Might have to hide it before he gets home. Certainly must never allow it in the bathroom, where he does most of his reading, or he'll accuse me of leaving it there as a deliberate insult to him.
1.18pm - UPDATE - Va-vay has just emailed me. "Re: 'My husband is NOT a twat'. I should hope not!!" Oh dear. Am in disgrace.
All booked up
Midlifer has tagged me in a book meme. Here goes:
Number of books I own: Too many. Despite carting bag-loads to our local charity shop, (we've made up a new verb for this: 'to Bethanise') they reproduce when I'm not looking. Strangely, these days it's often the non-fiction books I keep, while bagging up the novels. I have a bit of a love/hate relationships with books: having grown up in a house full of books I feel uncomfortable without lots of them around, but then I start resenting the space they take up and craving minimalism. Fat chance of that. Our bookshelves are also home to myriad computer books, books with groovy titles like 'XML Primer Plus', 'Developing Windows-Based Applications', 'Red Hat Linux' and 'Designing with Web Standards'. I suspect one of the scary disemvowellers has been at them. 
Last book I read: Gents, by Warwick Collins (Friday Project) A subtle, almost poetic book whose lyrical tone belies its setting in a large public toilet in London. It tells the story of Ezekial Murphy, a West Indian immigrant, who after a long period of unemployment finds a job as a lavatory attendant. When the local council orders Ez and his co-workers to stop gay men - 'de reptiles' - from using the place for illicit 'cottaging', they do as they are told. But when takings fall, the three men find their jobs on the line, forcing a radical re-think. Sympathetic characters explore issues of sexuality, race and tolerance in a book that's by turns tough and tender. Sensory writing makes Gents attractively evocative of place and people. I didn't expect to be uplifted by a book set in a men's loo, but found Gents both refreshing and readable.
Last book bought:Shadow of the Silk Road, by Colin Thubron (Chatto & Windus) Bought signed copy after hearing Thubron speak at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. 'Hell, I could take Beanie across central Asia in a papoose,' I thought at the time. 'This guy makes it sound so easy.' Yeah, right. But this book encourages me to dream.
Five meaningful books:The New Contented Little Baby Book, by Gina Ford, the book that brought me back from the brink. Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons, I'm giggling now even thinking about Flora's battles to reform her relatives, the Starkadders. The History Boys, Alan Bennett - reminds me of a particular time in my own life. The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James - love, deception, betrayal - and Clear Waters Rising, A Mountain Walk Across Europe, Nicholas Crane - for the initial chapters set on the Franco-Spanish border, where I worked for a while as a teenager and later met my husband.
I'd like to tag Omega Mum and Beta Mum.
I've had a couple of awards recently. Thanks to Midlifer for 'Blogging Star', and to Omega Mum for 'You Make Me Smile'. 
I'd like to pass 'You Make Me Smile' on to (in no particular order) Beta Mum for her hilarious postings on family life and Iota for her funny and perceptive way of looking at life. 
The Blogging Star award goes to 21st Century Mummy, Guineapig Mum and Erica of Littlemummy and British Parent Bloggers.
Children's bookshop opens in Edinburgh
Like all right-thinking people, Va-vay and I love bookshops; maybe it's the thrill of knowing something I find there might change my life, the studious atmosphere, the smell of paper and ink, neat rows and shelves of books. We even went to one (Borders at 120 Charing Cross Road) on a first date together. So we're delighted that Vanessa from Fidra Books is opening a shop specialising in children's books here in Edinburgh, at 219 Brunstfield Place. The shop opens on Saturday 10 November and we can't wait to spend Saturdays there browsing and buying books.
Despite being a City of Literature and home to the annual International Book Festival, Edinburgh suffers from an acute shortage of bookshops, unless you count the many charity shops in Stockbridge that sell second-hand books. Last year's closure of the much-loved Ottakers' store in George Street has left a gap in the lives of book-lovers. So news that Vanessa is opening up her store couldn't be more welcome.
While we were in France we enjoyed visting a children's bookshop in Avignon, where I ended up spending far more money than I really intended on several books, including one about a little girl called Mouflette Papillon and one of the popular Babarpapa titles. Now I'm even more excited about the Fidra bookshop opening.
Fidra Books is an independent Edinburgh-based publisher that specialises in reprinting neglected children's classics by authors including Josephine Pullein-Thompson, Elinor Lyon, KM Peyton and Victoria Walker. Vanessa, a fellow Edinburgh blogger, will also be running her pub