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

August 2009

Nursery landmark

Beanie started nursery at the local primary school last week. She already goes to private nursery one day a week - but somehow we both knew this marked a turning point. On the day in question, I woke at 5am and moped around the flat remembering how much I disliked my own experiences of primary school. But, of course, that kind of retrospective never makes things better, so I rang a friend. Several cups of coffee at the Edinburgh Filmhouse later, things weren't looking so bad. The sun was shining and we went on to the Princes Street Gardens - not looking at their best with all the tram work nearby - but it was a chance to eat icecream and chat, while our children played on the climbing frames. By then it was nearly midday and we could put off the evil hour no longer. We all walked down to the school together. My stomach was rumbling - but not with hunger.

As we arrived, we discovered it might have been easier to enter Fort Knox. A good sign - a nursery should be well-defended. But by the time I figured out how to get in, we were nearly late. Cue undignified huffing, pushing and panting as I squeezed the Tank (our double buggy) through the final set of gates. After they let us in, we met Beanie's key worker and hung up Beanie's fleece on the peg someone had labelled with her name. Beanie looked around, saw the other parents had all left and assumed a distant expression that seemed to indicate she wanted me gone too, in case I embarrassed her. I knelt down to her level, put my arms around her and whispered into her shoulder (it was meant to be into her ear, but I was so nervous I missed her ear and spoke to her shoulder) and said: "Good luck." She dropped the mask of adult competence for a moment, turned away from the bucket she was filling with sand, and said: "Don't worry, Mummy. It'll be alright." I got to my feet and left, so nobody would see I was crying.

Posted 30 August 2009 12:26 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

"How the cat purred and how the witch grinned"

Let me start by confessing that I was not expecting to enjoy Room on the Broom at the Pleasance anything like as much as I did. Being a grown-up and everything, I thought my only fun would be from watching my daughter's delight at this musical stage adaptation of the Julia Donaldson classic. How wrong could I be? I was bellowing with laughter all the way through this production from Tall Stories. It was a treat, from start to finish. Tall Stories are the same people who made hit show The Gruffalo a few years back. You might have seen it on DVD. Based on our experiences today, I'd be surprised if Room on the Broom doesn't enjoy similar success. Beanie's face lit up with delight when she recognised the characters from one of her best-loved stories. Together with the rest of a packed house, adults and children alike, I too couldn't hide my pleasure in a witty, fast-paced production. Somehow, it pulled off the feat of staying true to the fairytale spirit of the original book, complete with witch, dragon and flying broomstick. While making it work on stage. The show used puppets for the dog, bird and frog, a device which, if I'd heard about it beforehand, might have made me sceptical. Somehow, though, it worked. The show has a few differences to the book - there's comic bickering between the witch and her cat that doesn't feature in the book and the witch is even more scatterbrained on stage. The dragon is, inexplicably, Welsh. But it all rang true and author Julia Donaldson, who was in the audience at today's show, looked like she approved. She kindly signed copies of her books afterwards in the Pleasance Tipi. 'That looks well-thumbed,' she said kindly, preparing to autograph our copy of Room on the Broom. Then she posed for photos outside the Tipi with cast members and the 'truly magnificent broom' that they had just magicked up from the witch's cauldron half an hour previously. Beanie gazed in wonder at the actors playing the witch, cat and other characters and went over to say hello. They were lovely to her and she insisted on sticking around, watching them pose for photos on the broom, until I suggested it was time to go home. "No, Mummy," she said. "No, Mummy. I don't want to go home. I want to stay." "Come on, we've got to go now. Look, everyone else is going home," I said.

"Mummy, no. I'm staying. I want to see them go home on the broom."

Room on the Broom, Pleasance, Edinburgh, 2.30pm, daily, until 31 August. Tel: 0131 556 6550

Posted 26 August 2009 19:32 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Books Edinburgh Festival Fun

Art of Blogging

Spoke on the Art of Blogging at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Wednesday afternoon. The event sold out. People laughed at my jokes. Nobody heckled. Phew.

I spent the night before pacing round the flat, drinking endless cups of tea and inflicting my speech on anyone prepared to listen. Even one-year-old daughter Button was not spared on the importance of having a niche for your blog. The day itself dawned. I felt sick. So decided to invest in getting my normally frizzy hair trimmed, blow-dried and straightened. That always helps give a bit of extra confidence.

After lunch Granny turned up to babysit, though before she got in the door she warned me she wouldn't listen to another speech read-through. I got dressed, after deciding on my new Levi jeans, jollied up by a jacket and smart shoes, and used up the last of my best Chanel foundation in honour of the occasion. As I headed out, the girls both looked heartily glad to see the back of Mummy, probably fed up with me reciting statistics at them about something called Technorati. But they both waved and blew kisses as I disappeared down the stairs.

I walked up the hill, terrified it would start to rain and all the hair straightening would be in vain. Then, as the tented village of the Book Festival in Charlotte Square Gardens came into view, my terror turned to excitement. I love the Book Festival - it's better than Christmas. Husband Va-vay and I made our way to the Authors' Yurt, which is actually more like a series of interconnecting yurts, decked out with Moorish rugs, divans and throws. I would have liked to stay there for ever. Staff gave us our passes, tickets and a goody bag with a free notebook. Best-selling fantasy writer Neil Gaiman arrived at the same time as me, for his event. Reassuring to see that he too looked nervous.

Lovely local crime writer Lin Anderson chaired the Art of Blogging event and I was lucky to have Caroline Dunford, another Edinburgh writer, as my co-panellist. I was meant to do a similar event last year, but since Button was only two weeks old and I hadn't even got out of my nightie and dressing gown at that stage, I reluctantly had to cry off. Good to be back in the saddle.

Posted 21 August 2009 09:35 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Blogging Books

Edinburgh nights

Some people say the original spirit of the Edinburgh Fringe has gone; that raw young comedians like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, who got their first breaks at Edinburgh, would never nowadays be 'discovered' here. Others point out that we Edinburgh residents either a) take the annual August carnival in our city horribly for granted, unmoved by having the world's biggest arts festival here on our doorsteps or, b) get annoyed at the thespy types who invade our home city, taking over local cafes and bars, smoking and shoving leaflets into our hands at every turn, all while taking themselves much too seriously. Some say all that fun, innovation and excitement from when the Fringe started in the immediate post-war years has shrivelled under the dullness of corporate spreadsheets.

But I'm not so sure. I'm looking at the picture I was lucky enough to acquire on Friday evening. In it a crescent moon is glowing above the spires of St Stephen's Church. Next to it twinkles a star. Bernie O'Donnell - a local artist, friend and neighbour - tells me that Jupiter appeared above St Stephen's Church back in the winter of 2002, when she first began painting this picture. The moon and star are what you notice first, but if you look again more carefully, it is possible also to make out Georgian tenement buildings, standing four stories high, underneath the planet of Jupiter. Their contours softened by the light from a sinking sun. Acrylic paint has made them a beacon of smudgy warmth. For months, I pushed my daughter home from nursery along these same streets in the tank-like buggy, blind in one eye following complications with the birth of my second child. We had some good times - like when daughter shouted out "moon", or, at other times, "star". But sometimes, if daughter was tired at the end of a long day, like most two-year-olds, she didn't bother talking, she just wailed. And there were many times when I felt like joining her. Perhaps that's why I like this picture so much - its serenity allows you to forget the pavement-level struggles.

Further down the picture, the deep blue of the Edinburgh sky mellows into turquoise, and then into yellow, as it touches the black hulk of St Stephen's, where a troupe of actors has again taken up residence this year. Bernie's love of Edinburgh shines through in this picture, as it does in so much of her work. It is people like Bernie, you see, who keep the original spirit of the Fringe alive. On Friday evening she held a private view of her Fringe exhibition - in her own home. "Hello Helen," she said, when she saw me looking through a box of pictures in the room that normally serves as her sitting room. "Lovely to see you. I see you've found something you like. Tell me, have I already given you a picture for the girls?" She picked up the print and put it into my hands. "For the children".

Exhibition by Bernie O'Donnell, 48 Cumberland Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6RG. Runs until 5 September. From 12 till 5pm (not Sunday).