Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

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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Festival

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 publishing business from the new shop, a bit like Persephone Press does in London.

Vanessa's promised that when Fashionably Late, the book I'm writing about becoming a mum later in life, comes out, she'll have me round to her shop to do a reading for new mums and mums-to-be. I'm still at the stage of roughing out my chapter headings, but that's an incentive to keep me on track if ever I heard one.

Long before that, I'm looking forwards to the shop's launch on 10 November, when the doors open for business and Vanessa will be giving away lots of Maisie Mouse gifts to the first customers over the threshold. There will also be the chance for children to meet some of their favourite characters from books in real life.

Oh, and that's Christmas sorted then.

Posted 12 October 2007 14:28 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Blogging Books Edinburgh Festival Fun Out and about

Grand finale

Beanie's playgroup reconvenes later this month in our local church, now that the Polish theatre group performing there has packed up its lorry of props, grease paint and other kit and headed south like swallows.

Come snack time this autumn, when the toddlers are feasting on slices of banana, bread sticks and raisins, it'll be nice to think the church was home for a while in this year's Fringe to a troupe of actors who saw the snack area as their performance space. The buggy park was their box office; playtime their showtime.

Judging by their press board, the group had a good season; they won lots of awards in the local and national press, and played to packed houses. Their being here in the neighbourhood lent a touch of glamour to these all-too familiar streets and made me proud to have them here.

So proud, in fact, I didn't even mind (well, not that much) when they stood outside on the streets smoking roll-up cigarettes and looking blank when I asked (politely!) if they could let me get the buggy past. They looked so young, in their uniform black jeans and jumpers. Ah me!

All the other actors, comedians, authors, musicians and film-makers who have made Edinburgh such a fun place to be in August have also packed up for another year. Last night marked the finale to the Edinburgh International Festival, with the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert (pictured) that Va-vay and I were lucky enough to be able to watch from our sitting-room window.

There are lots of good things about the end of the Festival. Easier to get a table in cafes. Freedom to walk through town without reluctantly accepting a dozen cards for shows I have no intention of seeing. No feeling bad that performers put their heart into this event, and yet so many Fringe shows attract an audience not much out of single figures. Fewer posters of needy, identikit comedians.

But when I saw workmen dismantling the marquees for the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square I couldn't help but suffer a small pang of loss.

The Book Festival was fantastic; I travelled back to fourteenth century England when Simon Armitage spoke about his translation of Gawain, wished I had half the talent of Kitty Aldridge and Esther Freud, who spoke together about their new novels, felt I learn more in an hour at a wonderful creative writing class by Kate Mosse and Greg Mosse than I've done in a term at other classes and was scared stiff by Ian McEwan in conversation with Ian Rankin (so much so that afterwards I sprinted across the rain-logged lawn to locate Beanie and be sure she was still safe).

I delved into the hidden world of obstetrics at a talk from Janice Galloway and Alan Warner, imagined myself travelling the silk road with Colin Thubron and braved Arctic ice with Benedict Allen. Closer to home, I was entertained by Antonia Swinson's uplifting stories of life on her Edinburgh allotment. It's been inspiring and magical by equal turn. So while it's good to have playgroup back, I'll see it with different eyes after this summer.

Posted 03 September 2007 12:47 | Number of comments: 3 | Comments

Books Edinburgh Festival Out and about Playgroup

Becoming a Mother

Enjoyed hearing Kate Mosse, the author, that is, not the supermodel, speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival earlier this week. Mosse wrote the excellent Becoming a Mother at the start of her writing career, before becoming an international best-seller with her novel Labyrinth. Becoming a Mother is a wonderful book, deceptively simple yet powerful, that helped launch Mosse's fiction writing. And it's helped me immensely too, lifting the guilt and grief I've been struggling with since a miscarriage in May.

Reading Becoming a Mother, I'm reminded of that famous line from Alan Bennett in The History Boys, about how we read books to find that hand stretching out through the darkness to take ours. Bennett's referring to the joy and relief of finding a kindred spirit on the written page, meeting someone who's experienced the same feelings as ourselves when we thought we were alone in them.

Unlike most of the many books I've read on pregnancy and childcare this book doesn't judge any of the ordinary women who feature in it. Instead it tells their stories, starting from the decision to try for a baby through to the early days caring for a newborn. Without preaching or pedantry. Not once does she lay claim to being an expert. Not once does she lay down the law.

Mosse manages to get inside women's heads, and gives voice to many of the conflicting emotions we feel. She understands the rollercoaster of ovulation kits and pregnancy tests, the obsessive weeing on sticks, the running to the loo to check for bleeding every twenty minutes.

On the subject of miscarriage, Mosse quotes one woman unlucky enough to suffer this experience saying:

"I know it is better to lose an abnormal baby - but the loss coincides with the ambivalent feelings you have at the start of the pregnancy. Half-feeling it was a bad idea - even if the pregnancy was planned - just makes you feel guilt when you do miscarry."

That's exactly how I felt when I had a miscarriage in May and I blamed myself for having felt daunted by the prospect of looking after two babies, both of them under two. I thought the new baby must have sensed my ambivalence and thought better of joining us, but couldn't admit this to anyone. Somehow reading that other women have felt the same way has helped me see it's ridiculous to torment myself like this.

Posted 24 August 2007 22:18 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Books Edinburgh Festival Guilt Miscarriage

Bad mother

It's a tricky business, being a mum and an individual. This morning I did something bold and daring, something few mums dare to do - I did something for myself. It wasn't easy, but I persevered, despite all my torment and guilt.

My first crime: taking the phone from my daughter so I could make the necessary calls.

An attempt to placate Beanie by offering her the TV remote control fails.

She simply gives me a look that said: "I'm no fool, you know. I see straight through you. I know you're trying to fob me off with some silly pretend phone."

I feel crushed, though no words have been said.

I remember how only an hour or so earlier she kicked her legs in delight when I fetched her out of her cot and beamed her best smile at me, how she laughed and smiled so readily at me when I played peek-a-boo from behind the shower curtain, how she tried to feed me some of her breakfast, even though I had my own toast and marmalade.

But I really, really need the phone to book some tickets for a couple of Festival events this evening.

I make the call and all hell starts to break loose. Not only have I stolen Beanie's favourite toy, but (my second crime) I am ignoring her and I think she might have also sensed my longer-term objective (third crime) of planning an evening out on my own while her dad babysits.

At first I hope she might settle down after a few minutes. Fat chance.

An attempt to buy on-line doesn't work any better and the computer freezes as I go to click 'submit'. By now tears are rolling down Beanie's face, and I feel like the worst mother in the world as I fight my own rising hysteria.

The guilt's almost unbearable and I force myself to remember how when I was pregnant I was so sick with nausea and joint pain I managed to go out roughly four times in the entire nine months. One of those occasions was an ill-fated trip to the Edinburgh Tattoo, which ended in me throwing up outside the Castle under the wary gaze of a soldier armed with a machine gun.

Someone once told me: 'The healthy mother takes time for herself'. Why can't I believe that's true?

Intermittent shrieking has intensified into one long wail, punctuated only with heart-wrending pauses to draw breath. Only ten minutes have passed, but it feels like eternity.

The computer creaks back to life. 'Your order is confirmed' flashes up on screen. Just as this happens a human being speaks to me on the phone. At least, I think it's a human being, though Beanie's screaming so hard it's difficult to be sure.

Then my brain clears and at last I know what to do. I pick up my daughter, cuddle her close to me and listen to her heaving sobs subside.

Will my guilt lend an extra piquancy to the festival events? Or will I sit there kicking myself for being so selfish? Who knows. She's sleeping now, as I write this. When she wakes up I'll give her my undivided attention - all afternoon.

Posted 22 August 2007 13:28 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Angst Books Childcare Daughter Edinburgh Festival Guilt Out and about

The way to a girl's heart

The Bean remains in the smash-and-grab phase of her infancy, an uncompromising stage in which she displays no inhibitions whatsoever about seizing other people's belongings, but hangs onto her own with grim determination. Since I'd like her to grow up with at least a few friends, we're working on those social skills, and so while browsing in the signing tent at the Edinburgh International Book Festival yesterday (oh, okay, I admit it, hanging around to sneak glances at Richard Dawkins who was there signing copies of his latest book The God Delusion), I found this lovely book by Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo, called Sharing a Shell.

I've bought Sharing a Shell in the hope it will help teach Beanie about sharing and friendship, since the book is a gentle parable (of sorts) about how we relate to other people, but now I'm wondering if we can learn that sort of thing from a book, whether in fact these are life lessons we have to figure out for ourselves. But I'm such a believer in books' abilities to have transformational effects on our lives I couldn't resist purchasing a copy.

Watching our sixteen-month-old children playing last week in a walled garden at an Edinburgh art gallery, and laughing kindly at my attempts to rein in Beanie's exuberant behaviour, a friend commented to me that children really learn mostly by example, while telling them what to do achieves little. When I look back at my own childhood, that's certainly true, and I think (though others may disagree) that children are acutely sensitive to parental hypocrisy (saying one thing, doing another). Oh dear, in that case I'd better behave myself then and set a good example to my daughter of sharing and friendship.

Still, I don't think Sharing a Shell will prove a bad purchase, if only because, as the cover rightly publicises, it has "Glitter on every page". Now only rarely, very rarely, can that be a bad thing, and Beanie absolutely loves it. Indeed she was so enthralled with her new acquisition yesterday afternoon that she spent about ten uninterrupted minutes fingering the glitter with rapt attention, pausing only to scream at me in indignation when the book fell out of her buggy.

Posted 20 August 2007 11:18 | Number of comments: 15 | Comments

Daughter Etiquette Friends Books Edinburgh Festival Out and about

No escape

I accidentally plunged into the world of obstetrics again yesterday, in what was meant to be a break from hard-core mothering, during a lunchtime talk at the tented International Book Festival from writers Janice Galloway and Alan Warner on their launch of a not-for-profit publisher in Edinburgh called Long Lunch Press. Galloway and Warner set up Long Lunch with Arts Council funding to ensure an audience for unusual writing they believe deserves to reach the public but that wouldn't attract a commercial publisher.

Hearing this, I was sorely tempted to put my hand up and recommend blogs for the purpose of reaching readers but managed to refrain. However Vanessa at Fidra Books has plenty to say on the subject of not-for-profit publishing in this forthright and shrewd account of why she doesn't think publishing that sneers at profit makes any sense - and why instead of producing unread pamphlets Long Lunch should be promoting their work here on the net.

In keeping with the theme of unusual subject matter, Galloway read to us from Rosengarten, her prose-poem discussing the obstetric tools of child birth. It was the difficulty of finding a publisher prepared to accept this decidedly difficult account of childbirth that prompted Galloway to set up her new publishing venture.

When Galloway told her audience there was to be a reading about obstetrics, I must admit I thought what the many commercial publishers who turned it down obviously did too. And after the reading one couple got up and left, the woman white-faced.

But now I've had to time to get used to the idea, I rather like Rosengarten, which sheds light on a closed world. Stick with me here while I quote from the book, I was initially shocked too, but it's worth persevering.

"This is the business of life

with death, two balances in

precise relation. This is the

business of drawing air and

of drowning fluids, of

slickness and dry compression. Of making

two from one, of nerves

and channels, down and

muscle and veins. Of dark

to light, a business carried

out under the broil of

woollen covers, a business

of touch and steel and

random happenstance

There is bleeding of course.

And splitting and aweful surrender."

For their research, Galloway and her co-author studied obstetric implements, mainly forceps, through the ages, hunting through cases at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, the Edinburgh College of Surgeons and the Hunterian Museum . Their conclusion? "Raking about... showed how little over centuries the basic designs of the implements have changed."

Maybe the implements themselves remain unchanged, but one aspect of obstetrics that could usefully change is the continuing secrecy and embarrassment about the process of childbirth. Perhaps women do deserve to hear more about what childbirth is really like, and it would be worth overcoming our natural squeamishness for that to happen. Our ante-natal classes were great for making friends, but I learnt little that was useful about the actual birth, then spent months afterwards in shock.

Then again, if someone had presented me with a copy of Rosengarten in pregnancy, would I have wanted to know? Nowadays, of course, I'm fascinated by anyone prepared to talk frankly about childbirth, even if it happens unexpectedly.

Posted 19 August 2007 12:41 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Breastfeeding Health Pregnancy Blogging Childbirth Festival Books Dilemmas

Blog Fest

Guineapigmum, Erica from Littlemummy and I all met for a successful coffee and chat yesterday at one of my favourite childhood haunts, Victor Hugo's delicatessen, after Guineapigmum noticed a jokey comment here about setting up a Blog Fest to run alongside the several other festivals in Edinburgh in August and suggested we meet up.

Erica and I already know each other; we have children almost the same age, and have enjoyed meeting up a couple of times in the Botanic Gardens to chat about blogging and the delights (or challenges) of looking after our toddlers. Guineapigmum and I have swapped comments on each others' sites, but yesterday was the first time we met in person, and I'm glad to say we all had a good time chatting about the important things in life - like being mums, our children and blogging - before taking the younger children over to the swing park together.

It was great to meet up in person, encourage each other, swap tips and find out how we all make time to write postings while working and looking after families (I'm writing this as Beanie has her mid-morning nap, and the sound of her coughing means I'll have to end soon). Many thanks to Guineapigmum for taking the initiative to suggest it.

Yesterday made us all think it'd be great to get more of us bloggers together more frequently. Who knows? Perhaps in time we'll have a proper blog fest - and get to meet in person lots of lovely fellow bloggers from around the country! Keep an eye out for details of future get-togethers.

Posted 10 August 2007 10:57 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Edinburgh Festival Blogging Friends

It's Showtime

Continuing my occasional series of Edinburgh Festival updates, that I plan to run on Mother at Large throughout August, this rather forbidding Edinburgh church normally serves as home to Beanie's weekly playgroup, but has thrown out the babies to make temporary space for a Polish theatre group. Somewhere along the way it's also had a make-over for the Fringe, as these chalked sign posts show you. So instead of the usual melee of mums, buggies and babies milling around outside, earnest and unsmiling Polish thesps hang out, soaking up the ambience and having a quick fag. I haven't quite got my head around how the babies' snack area morphed into Theatre 2. But this is Edinburgh in August, after all....

Posted 08 August 2007 19:33 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Edinburgh Out and about Festival

Tony Blair - the Musical

Ever wondered how an ex-prime minister fills his time after leaving office? Well, seems he does like many aspiring comedians across the country and heads up here to the Edinburgh Fringe to tread the boards, make a (new) career for himself and enjoy the city's revelry. Oh, and, of course, get back in touch with that musical side that he didn't have time to indulge while he was busy being our premier. Except when he had that get-together with his mate Bill on sax. Tony Blair - the Musical, written by James Lark, is one of the hot tickets at this year's Fringe, (cast members pictured left). It's got an afternoon slot at the Gilded Balloon and sounds like so much fun I'm tempted to play hookie from work one day if I can get a ticket to it. Failing that, I might treat myself to this CD of the show produced by web-to-print specialists The Friday Project.

Posted 08 August 2007 12:17 | Number of comments: 4 | Comments

Edinburgh Fun Festival

Fringe benefits

Here's another picture from our weekend out and about enjoying the Edinburgh festival; with The Bean in the foreground on my shoulders. I'll be running pictures most days throughout the various Edinburgh festivals to give you an idea of how much fun the city can be come showtime in August, when it becomes home to the world's largest arts festival.

One of the nicest things about being a parent in Edinburgh at this time of the year is the super-abundance of street theatre to entertain and divert children. On Saturday Beanie and I enjoyed watching a group of about twenty youngsters enact a graceful Oriental dance in Princes Street Gardens, under the stony gaze of Sir Walter Scott. The dance involved some clever stuff with red fans, that made a sound like gun shots as the dancers unfurled them.

Someone from the dance group gave Beanie a show flyer they'd found time to craft into an origami bird. I hate to be a cliche, but because all of this is so new and amazing to her, I find myself enjoying these seemingly simple events with a new appreciation and delight. That said, Beanie wasn't sufficiently overawed by the beauty of her origami bird to desist from chewing the poor creature's head off. But that could have been a sign of her appreciation. It's not always easy to interpret these things.

Later, up in the High Street, she enjoyed sitting on my shoulders to watch a unicyclist, the entire length of his back tattooed with feathery wings, entertain the crowds. Her dad took this picture of her, and has patiently explained to me about three times already this morning how to re-size it for the web. I think I've got it now.

Posted 07 August 2007 11:11 | Number of comments: 9 | Comments

Activities Edinburgh Fun Out and about Festival

Fringe Fun

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has begun. Withnail-esque types in trailing overcoats have overrun the city, declaiming on street corners and entertaining us all with their madness. One flat in our street has turned into an art gallery, and the nearby church where Beanie normally goes to playgroup has evicted the babies to make way for a troupe of heavily-bespectacled Polish aesthetes, some of whom look like the living incarnations of Jean-Paul Sartre. It's not quite the Parisian Left Bank, but the city's great fun in August.

We got very excited when we heard the Tblisi Marionette State Theatre was doing a daily show nearby - perfect for the Bean! Though it was performed in Russian with simultaneous English translation. Potentially quite hard-core for the under-fives. But even we flinched at the story content: a re-enactment of the Battle of Stalingrad.

We did take The Bean to her first ever live performance on Saturday, The Greatest Bubble Show on Earth, running at the Carlton Hotel, North Bridge, at 12 midday until 27 August. The Amazing Bubble Man made big bubbles with people inside, a foggy moon bubble, helium-filled and edible bubbles. He illuminated, sculpted and kissed bubbles. One man's love affair with... the bubble. It lasted 45 minutes, long enough to feel we got our money's worth, but not so long that the hordes of small children there got bored.

Strolling up the High Street, the epicentre of the month-long event, Beanie and I also met The Selfish Crocodile (pictured) who actually seemed like quite a friendly fellow when we bumped into him, we had a quick chat with an adventurous pigeon that wanted to drive a bus, and watched a knight in chainmail from Sword in the Stone clank past. Ooh, I love Edinburgh in August.

Posted 06 August 2007 16:45 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Edinburgh Fun Out and about Festival

Mother at Large

Welcome to this site. It's based on my personal experiences of becoming a mother a little later in life. If, like me, you waited a while to have children you're in good company. More and more of us are waiting until our late 30s or even 40s to become parents. Some might even say we're fashionably late.

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About me

Mother at Large dreams of crossing the Pyrenees with her young daughter. For now, getting to playgroup takes all her energy. To find out more read her full profile.