Eight

What are we doing with our schools in the city? Leaving this heart at Jen's kids' school I feel like I'm looking at a prison. All this 8m high green fencing. Everywhere. It's so oppressive. Made worse, for sure, at night with everything also padlocked. And my kids' school is just the same. Big high fences on top of a big high brick wall. 

Are we trying to keep them in or trying to keep them out? 

Surely there are other ways of keeping our children safe at school? 

Enjoyed talking to our wonderful social worker friends tonight. They are my heroes. They do such an amazing job with extremely challenging people and in very difficult circumstances often. 

Heard from him how his work with kids in primary schools is going. Very exciting to hear that professionals from the borough's mental health team are intervening in troubled kids lives at this crucial cross over time of year 6. 

We all hear on Monday what new schools our intrepid year 6s will go to. Think Jen's, like ours, is quite a safe bet - we've both chosen our nearest school. But at least with ours the catchment area is so tiny that it is possible Mr M won't get in. Tra la. Poor boy was crying tonight as he contemplated that possibility. He just can't imagine going anywhere else, mostly because he has no idea where any other school is and thinks he'll get lost on the way. Bless 

Maybe a little orange heart will bring some cheer to the Monday morning school run? In preparation for the hard decisions that lie ahead for families who don't get their first choice. 

Seven

Moral of the story tonight: don't leave the heart when it's dark - the photos are crap.

I know this. I knew it when I went out. I knew it when I was home after school pick up and could have gone to do it in the light.

But I  p  r  o  c  r  a  s  t  i  n  a  t  e  d.

I am quite good at that. I realise that the leaving of the blooming thing is the hardest bit for me. I don't know why. I have suspected it for a while. In the Chatsworth Road stars advent projects I've always enjoyed going with someone else. I realise that is because I can then just pretend I'm some sort of side kick. Not a crazy lady leaving hearts on random trees.

To make matters worse I leave this heart with a heavy heart of my own after an unpleasant encounter on my doorstep. One of these guys selling overly expensive cleaning products door to door arrived. I was in the middle of something and felt annoyed for being disturbed so I said 'thanks but no thanks'. He just wouldn't take no for an answer, and started saying that it was always 'no' when he called at this house, that my husband never bought anything either, that I had no idea how hard it was trying to make a living. I have to say even though I wasn't on my own in the house I found his aggression quite intimidating.

I have, in the past, bought stuff, thinking it's a bit of a Big Issue type thing with people working hard to earn a wage, so I felt pretty crap - for being shouted at and for being mean.

But I never really know what the score is with them. I googled it. I find Tim Dowling of the Guardian has endured worse. And loads of people ranting about it in various forums. I have yet to find anything from any 'official' source, but there were one or two suggestions that these guys can even be working in gangs, and maybe coercing youngsters into doing it. I wish I had the balls to grab the ID of these guys and really check it out in front of them. Mind you who knows what may have happened. He was shirty enough as it was.

Ho hum. Rach has decided to follow suit with Naomi and arranged some random acts of generosity for Lent. I like the idea but I'm not very good at generous. Certainly tonight I didn't feel very generous.

Six

On the occasion of my eldest's entry into teenage-hood it felt only right to leave a heart in her favourite colour at Homerton Hospital where 13 years ago today she came into the world. 

Her grandmother (my mum) also arrived in our world on this day.  76 years ago. I think her mum (whom Esta is named for) had her in a maternity home. Somewhere between a care home and an hotel by all accounts. Kay Esther Styles went in for at least a week to have her baby, her second of four girls, sometime in late February 1939. I remember her saying how wonderful it was to be cooked for, to be made to lie in bed and to escape the family melee. Sounds like a nightmare to me. 

The Homerton only kept me in overnight (and that was only under duress) as Esta had pooed in the uterus. But there was a builder and building site outside my door and no one brought me tea in bed.

I feel very grateful to have a good hospital on the doorstep, though I have friends who have not felt well served by it. Our NHS seems to be on such shaky ground. It still feels like an amazing institution but who is caring for it long term? Seems to me that the Tories are just continuing the long slow sell out that Tony Blair begun.

Five

February seems full of birthdays for our family. Lots of family and friends are celebrating now. Including little Hattie, a full 9 years and 364 days younger than my daughter.

I had mixed feelings as I arrived at her 3rd birthday party. I would see a couple of friends - parents of her small buddies - because I remember now, parents don't leave 3 year olds on their own at birthday parties. Not if they want to get invited next time. That was good. I also remembered the angst I sometimes felt having parents hanging about at the party and feeling like you had to entertain them too. And the angst of having many very young children in the house all at once with their own happiness/unhappiness being displayed in countless ways. And the angst of having my own 3 year old literally not wanting to come down to say hello to guests because she was so overwhelmed. All that is behind me now and that felt good.

But there was still a little nagging sadness.  A longing for those days. When we threw glitter around the room, mashed the cocktail sausages into the floor, oohed and aahed at the terribly cute kids, washed it all down with more beers than was probably decent, and felt completely at one with the world once everyone had gone home.

It also threw up the awkward truth that although we have a record of A1 parties from previous years I have been beaten by forces beyond my control and find myself on the eve of my daughters 13th birthday without a party planned and not a single friend invited.

Said nearly 13 year old occupied herself happily, with her buddy of nearly 10 years, face painting any of the toddlers they could persuade. And when they (quite quickly) ran out of willing victims they occupied themselves happily painting themselves. Maybe that could count as her birthday party? I didn't have to look after any of the 3 year olds, didn't have to entertain the adults, was given a glass of cava and didn't even have to clear up. Bargain.  

So, the heart today rightly found a place on Hattie's gold front door. 

Four

Lovely to see new trees planted at the fab school which is Millfields Community School. Apparently they came from the Olympic Park. It's meant slippery mud all over the already lethal playground and a bit of a headache for the Headteacher for some mysterious reason (no doubt connected with the rather complicated playground refurbishment) but really fabulous to have some trees at long last. 

I wanted to add a star to their branches, but was worried that kids might try to pull it off and wreak the tree in the process, so I abstained. The fence near the one original tree and play boat had to make do. The things I've left around the school don't tend to last long. Darren is too efficient a school keeper! Oh well, for a while it toned nicely with the wonderful flower mural (thanks to ArtBash's Linda).

(Practical note: Was really enjoying the fact I didn't have to weave in ends after making the hearts as it's my absolutely worst bit of crocheting - and I'm rubbish at it - but it's difficult to tie them on cleanly with their ends poking out. Darn it - may have to weave in and finish off properly after all.)

Three

Oh the wild open space of Blakey Ridge - just miles and miles of sky and moor. Makes you feel like you're on top of the world. I wasn't sure how I felt trying to 'add' something to the beauty. I liked leaving this bright heart there. But did I ruin the view? It's a different thing to leaving little crafty loveliness in the city. It made me think differently about why I am doing this. Made me want to notice more of my surroundings, cherish the moment a bit more, think about my insignificance in the big picture. 

Just a short walk today - a three miler at most I guess. Despite the sun it was very windy and blooming cold. Very welcome victuals at the rather lovely Lion Inn. It was snowing when we came out again. Time to leave unless you want to get stuck there.  

 

Two

 "Oh this walk! I love this walk!" exclaims the middle one as we leave the train station and head on a well worn path up through forest in the valley.

This is the joy of returning year after year to the same spot. It feels good to be able to engender this in my children. A love of walking, a love of the English countryside, a sense of family traditions. 

We first chose this walk when they were young enough to be carried. Not too far to walk for little legs and not to far to have to carry them if needs be. It also meant we got to enjoy the steam train out of Pickering for a short journey, to match their attention span and our purses. So, we return once more to that 'Harry Potter' station, though glimpses of Levisham in the films masquerading as Hogsmeade are rather fleeting.

We extended the walk today. For a bit of light relief. And because a new walk from the previous day had taken us just short of where we normally break for lunch on Levisham Moor. It seemed fun to 'join them up' if only because we could. 

But it was a bit nippy, and the fun at Skelton Tower less protracted than we have made it in previous years. I had to start running to keep warm, something I have often found myself doing on these stretches of moorland over the myriad visits I have made. Wild abandoned runs after having babies, after friends dying, after other milestones that life has thrown up. Brought on by an almost primeval sense of being at one with nature, of the space and what it can make a tiny, insignificant human feel like, of the wide-ness and wild-ness of our wonderful world and our incredible place in it. My kids never see me run. When it happens on the moors they look at me as though I've lost it. But it always feels as though I've found it.

One

I thought I might not blog about it this year. After all I finally got the hang of Instagram and posting a pic might be all that I needed. I've even discovered the delights of Diptic and can create bananas montages. (Is marvelling at smartphone technology reserved for those who grew up thinking the rotary dialling version was pretty cool?)  But then I opened up the dormant pages from last year and the year before and found I liked to read what I had been musing about, where I had been, what I had seen there.

The joys and mysteries of Blogger mean I am followed by a single loyal sister (having not figured out how to make it easy to do), but even if I don't figure out how to make it a bit more accessible I think I may still write. A bit. Maybe not every day. After all the thinking, reflecting, the spiritual wondering is partly the point. All of the point. Suddenly out on the Yorkshire moors leaving hearts this week one picture, however snazzy, didn't seem enough. Not the same as leaving a little bit of brightness and crafty loveliness in the midst of urban grit. And if I'm not beautifying places, what am I doing? Creating a moment to think about life and love and God. Every day. For Lent.