A new year begins

The other day I read an old post from when you had just turned three. I can't quite believe that are now six. Six whole years old. To me, you are the most brilliant, caring and wonderful six year old. You cherish everything and I never want that to stop. School, family, friends, home, learning, adventures, music and stories. 

Whilst I had a coffee the other day, you decided to read a book filled with paintings. Well, you looked at the pictures. You said that one picture you looked at made you think of somewhere really calm. Where the day goes slowly and no one needs to rush.Then you got to one which made you feel lonely, tired and empty. "It kind of makes me feel invisible Mummy." I could listen to your chatter for hours. Your six year old thoughts are so mesmerising to me.

There is a lot being written at the moment about kids being kids, toys being toys, and gender stereotypes being outlawed. I want to see us really letting kids be kids. I have an overwhelming desire for us all to stop intervening. You should pick your own toys, pink or blue, dinosaur or princess. I want, more than anything, to just let you be. Sometimes I want to shout out loud for people to give you some space. I don't because interaction with other people is important and, well, it would be rude! I am also very aware that my need for peace is not yours. It is just a very strong instinct in me. I am most relaxed when you have the space to exist at your own pace and in your own way. 

I want you to relish in a nature documentary as much as in an episode of Paw Patrol. To watch Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Sound of Music and Frozen. To visit art galleries and antique shops as well as toy shops and funfairs. I just want you to see, hear, smell and feel all that the world has to offer and not just a wrapped up, glitzy version of what grown-ups think is entertainment for you. It is a fine balance. I type this as we finish watching Minions together on a rainy day.

We spend the last day of 2016 in London together. A lot of people say that 2016 was a really bad year. There is a lot going on in the world right now and you'll learn about it soon enough. I just want you to always remember to not to be scared, to be proud, to care about people and to give everything to what you believe in. Gently change the world by giving everything that you can in your little corner and through positivity and hope. There isn't enough of that stuff and you, my little girl, are brimming with it. 

At six years old you mean the absolute world to me. I love every fibre of your being and can't bear the thought of you being disappointed or being scared and alone. But I do know that you will feel these things. It will shape you as a person, a brilliant and wonderful person. I will keep giving you as many experiences as I can. That is what I feel that my job is right now and I will never tire of your expectant little six year old face asking me, "where are we going to go next Mummy?" I can trace the outline of my heart and soul in your face. You embody all of my hopes and dreams and I just can't wait to see where you take them. 

Happy new year my darling little girl. Let's go and make some more memories.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice" - T. S. Elliot

Mums on the run!

Sometimes it feels like I am falling through life and some of the people I pass make contact and stick and others don't get close enough and fade back into memory. The ones that stick are my friends. The ones that, for whatever reason, have become the people I share my life with. The people I bump along with sharing good times, hard times, trying times and just time. I like making my friends happy and I try not to annoy them and I think those are the ingredients for friendships that can stand the test of time. Only time can prove or disprove that one.

So, in my eternal quest for happy friends and a happy me I planned to to take one of them to London for her birthday. As I have got older, and since we both had children, I have favoured experiences over gifts. There is something much more important about building memories with the people close to you than just buying them another scarf.

We got into London just before midday. We had a lovely sunny stroll from the underground to Bankside past St Paul's Cathedral. St Paul's is an iconic, religious symbol of London. To some it is synonomous with royal weddings, to me it's Mary Poppins.

Time for a coffee outside Tate Modern watching the world go by. At that moment in time the world consisted of a man with a microphone talking about writing, a man with a string loop on sticks making massive misshapen bubbles, a gold man posing as a statue and an American Dad failing to point out St Paul's across the river to his disinterested kids.

Next we wandered round the collections in Tate Modern. Some amazing works, some famous works and some which remained a mystery to our untrained eyes. Louisa had a couple of giggling fits at people earnestly searching for the meaning of an art installation that we thought was part of the building! Based in the former Bankside Power Station, the building itself  is an integral part of the whole experience. It's vast amazing spaces are a perfect backdrop to the subject matter.

We had lunch at The Swan Bar & Chophouse at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It was perfectly balanced. Informal but civilised. Light and airy with a warm atmosphere. Busy but sociable with a long sharing table which encouraged light interaction with other diners, but only if you wanted it.

After lunch, a boat trip down the Thames to Millbank, past the London Eye and Westminster, was the best way to travel to Tate Britain. We had a look around the public collection there, the Pre-Raphaelite works taking me, as always, back to age 17 and my sixth form art class. Sun streaming through the open window, the smell of linseed oil hanging in the air and where I first began to understand these amazing works and why the movement happened.

Then we had time for a glass of wine in the shady gardens of the gallery surrounded by trees and pink roses. 

We finished our day with Lowry at the Tate. The exhibition we'd built our day on. I'm not an art critic, or even close to it, but I have always loved Lowry. To fully understand that love you need to be aware of my weird longing for 'the industrial north'. Moors, valleys, mining towns, rows of terraced houses. The irreducible spirit of people and families juxtaposed against the cold, hard reality of industry and of bleak landscapes is real and beautiful to me. Lowry painted everyday life depicted against that immediate, imposing backdrop of heavy industry and captured poverty, pain, anguish, love and resilience in his work.

Why do I have this affinity with the north of England? It might be my love of the Brontes and their haunting descriptions of wild moors and harsh conditions, or my childhood memories of meandering canal holidays through rolling countryside interspersed with the industrial centres of northern cities or The Railway Children. A childhood favourite of mine which captures the essence of being a child perfectly....and is set in Yorkshire. Or, most likely, it is a combination of all these things. The exhibition was everything I hoped it would be and rounded our day off perfectly.

So that was our day. Another memory formed rather than another scarf on the scarf hook and, best of all, the Dads didn't kill the kids!

"The most important thing in life is family. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself"