My chosen profession...

My work at the moment is crazy-busy. I think I mentioned it. I am working on this uber project that is just, well, manic. So it did get me thinking about why on earth I chose this profession. I work for a massive company, I advise people on how to do stuff with employees. I try to keep the company from being taken to court basically. It's niche. It's challenging. I like it, been doing it for years. But really - how did I get here?

If I were to choose - I have always fancied being a florist. What a lovely thing to be surrounded by flowers. To spend time making up bouquets for brides or pretty arrangements. This appeals to me. But then there must be a lot of early starts, flower markets at dawn, quite pressing deadlines (wedding at 3pm) and what happens when the flowers starts to droop or die? That would just make me sad.

Then I think: book shop. Just like 'The Shop Around the Corner' in 'You've Got Mail'. Kathleen Kelly's little slice of wonderful childhood nostalgia...'Ballet Shoes' by Noel Streatfield anyone? I am quite attached to books - being surrounded by them would suit me fine. I would make it all white-washed loveliness and indulge every one of my childhood memories...it would drip with sentimentality.

I do think its slightly odd how things turn out. You know when you are a child and people ask you what you want to be when you are grown up? I don't think I ever would have said '...well, I would like to be part of a corporate giant and spend my time advising people how to do stuff all day'. Yet I do love my job and what it gives me. So I am not complaining. But for those who do manage to combine the pleasure of books and flowers in their day and get paid for it - I have a little, tiny bit of envy for them!

Better now...

One very happy and tired girl asleep upstairs. Homemade cakes. Nine candles. Family and Godfather for tea. Cricket in the garden. One chilled out Mummy now...

Boo's day...

In some areas of life I have mental strength. I am consistently strict with my kids about manners, bedtime and saying 'please and thank you'. I have the bizarre resolve to tidy my house over and over and over again, despite the fact I am the only one who seems to care. In my job I may repeatedly explain the relevance of 'vicarious liability' (that one's for you Natasha!) to corporate executives and manage to make it sound interesting. If there is a pair of shoes I really want, I will 'think think think' about them like Winnie the Pooh on his thinking spot until there is nothing left to do but purchase them...

There have been times in the past, in darker days, when I have had the strength to think myself happy. My friend P and I used to say we circled the 'black hole' in those darker days (I am talking newborn babies and zero sleep) and peered just over the edge into the abyss, only to find the resolve to turn and walk away rather than to leap in. So that black hole became just a little, much less significant dot behind me.

But there are other areas where the strength vanishes and I turn to mush. My husband has the capacity to turn me to mush for lots of other reasons... But the key thing for upsetting the cart is the happiness (or unhappiness) of the Boos. If they are not happy, frankly life just doesn't work for me. This is hardly new news; most mothers would say the same about their respective Boos.

But these past weeks the mush-making capacity has come to the forefront. Not in a dramatic, life-threatening way; just in a peripheral, 'be aware' sort of way. My daughter is away and the anxiety of being away from home affected Boo in a way that made her completely not herself.

So today I get my girl back...

Today is her 9th birthday. But she is not here! I sit here this morning, but not with an excited birthday wake-up of tousled, morning hair and hastily unwrapped presents! She returns later from being away for the first time in her little life and can I just say: Oh Dear God, how much I have missed her! To have my Boo not at home on her birthday...well it's like my universe is out of kilter.

So I will this afternoon welcome home my darling, vibrant, funny, beautiful 9 year old daughter on her birthday and delight in getting my girl back...her old happy self.

What to wear?

Oh, what to wear? How to decide each day? What makes good style? When growing up, I would spend long summer holidays in Denmark. When shopping there I'd see that the children's clothes were quirky, unusual; fundamentally different to the ones at home. My Mum would always say '...don't you want to be a bit different to everyone else?' Back then I would agree, embracing the difference, but then we would get home and I would feel mildly ashamed of my unusual clothes, I could not carry it off. I just wanted to fit in and be like everyone else. Of course, I grew up and realised that being different is not a bad thing and clothes are a way to project yourself, depending on your mood.

Somehow that echo of my Mum's advice sounds out now and permeates the way I shop and choose clothes. For me, being different is very much tied up in my personal style. Yet I broadly conform to the standard 'uniforms' of my Mummy and Work lifestyles. But I am always looking for the little quirks that change an outfit from standard to non-standard.

That eye for detail makes me hanker after certain things...soft, muted cotton scarves, red shoes, the 'right' blue denim, a statement coat, the perfect belt, the just-so floral print...whatever it might be! I am constantly scanning for key items in any shop, like a magpie looking for shiny baubles.

It's so in-built in me that I do struggle to understand when women say they are not interested in clothes. I want to say 'why on earth not?' There is just so much to love, so much to desire, such a heady happiness of 'getting it right'. But I do wonder, is that just me? Am I the distinct minority to be saddled with this strange impulse to think about, covet and aquire clothes, shoes and handbags? It's not even necessarily fashion - although I love that too; it's just clothes...dressing up...creating outfits. I make it sound as if I am a complete clothes horse; really not, I am in my PJs by 9pm most nights. Nevertheless I still love clothes. I don't think I am alone in this litle obsession...but you never know...

The red post...

Today is the biggest tug of the imaginary umbilical - my daughter has gone away for a few days with her school. Eeek. After a teary (on her behalf and very nearly mine) farewell this morning, I am left a little lost with my temporarily smaller family.

So to distraction...I am struck that my blog is all white, cream and duck egg blue...I feel the need for some colour, so this should be a triumphantly red post! Embrace the colour.

Edward Hooper's 'Room in New York'...

Lovely, shiny home-baking...this is what I have for my cupcakes, although mine is sensible black. I so wish I had gone with a colour...

I must distract myself with other things...like clearing out my larder...

A favourite, the poppy.  I knew a family who had four girls and they called them Poppy, Scarlet, Carmen and Ruby. Love those red names...

Red shiny handbag...

Florence from the band 'Florence and the Machine'. My children say I look like her...perhaps not in this pose...

A big, red lipsticked 'mwah' to all those lovely comments you have given me in recent posts...

I would like to take tea here...

Oh and aren't these red shoes just a thing of beauty?

I have no choice to take heed of that war-time advice for the next few days until she is back:

Things of beauty...

Saturday afternoon. Drizzly day. Trying to get sorted (again!). My husband is cooking up a storm in the kitchen for tonight, when we have people for dinner. After a delightful ten hours of sleep last night I feel better today; more balanced. I was awoken by tractors ploughing the fields around our house and now they look like the soil has been sieved as if it were flour. So, some things of beauty...

Robin Wright-Penn, I think, is just beautiful and natural. In one of her films, 'Breaking and Entering', she has also the most lovely laid-back easy, linen wardrobe. She absolutely masters the 'stylish mother' look in that film. If ever I have a day where I think what to wear? I track back to that look; classic, easy, not too 'done'.

White-washed doorway...

Astley Clarke ring...

We are hosting a dinner party tonight...I'll of course be sporting a ruffled number just like this...err, or maybe not. My guests might think me a tad overdressed.

This is a photo of my table...lily of the valley from the garden. Even though I think it will just be a chilled-out dinner, I can't help making a pretty table...

When it boils down to it...

As one Boo will be away from tomorrow, we will spend Sunday with just my son. He needs to learn to ride his new bike...which will involve alot of running along beside him as he peddles, supporting him until it's time to let go...how apt. Can't help feeling this is a lesson I need to learn this weekend.

I think this wedding dress is wonderful - fretwork lace...by Braedon Photography.

'St Ives' by Ben Nicholson. I really like this Cornish scene.

Cupcake fairies...

Do you recall that scene in 'Titanic' where the ship-maker chap eases himself onto the lifeboat, even though it's reserved for women and children, and his face is just a picture of shame? On a magnificiently smaller level I had my own 'walk of shame' this week. Picture this: my children's school; a requirement to bring undecorated cupcakes, to be iced as part of a special visit, from a well-known British TV programme. I had not had time to make my cupcakes. By the time I had remembered to even get said cupcakes, Waitrose (lovely grocers) was shut. Cupcakes were purchased from the local corner shop which stocks every imaginable item on its packed shelves as long as it's the long-life version. Cupcakes could have walked out on their own considering the amount of preservatives they had in them.

Whilst I was hoping to drop off cupcakes at school in secrecy, I instead ran straight into wife of another well-known British TV 'star' whose son is in my daughter's class. This mother is a cupcake master. Her cupcakes (nestled sweetly in gingham wrappers in a Nigella cake tin) were the talk of the school at the summer fair. In one glance she heralded in me that spine-tingling motherly shame of having brought shop-bought cupcakes. Why oh why did I not make my own? Why did I not (even better) enlist the help of my Mum, who is another cupcake extraordinaire to make some for me?

Why is it that these little things have that way of making me feel - like I could have done better? Hmm sensing a theme here - see previous post! Another mother commiserated and said '...yes, but you are working...' as if that excused my lapse. The thing is, even if I weren't working I may still have forgotten this crucial activity.

So to all you wonderful cupcake makers out there (there is atleast one I know of here) - next time I have a need like this...can I please enlist your help? Maybe we could get some shipped in? I'm sure they travel well...I think I need a lifeboat ;-)