Snow

Fizzy likes action shots. Despite appearances, she is merely taking a dive in the snow for photographic purposes.It's worse today.
The snow, I mean. Snowing quite hard. Snow days for all.
We are keeping inside (apart from Fizzy), there's milk, bread products and something for dinner later (might be tuna!). Phil's walking weekend in Yorkshire was cancelled. For which we had cancelled our annual Bird Day festivities. We seem to have got used to cancelling everything.

Phone case and other stuff

I bought a new phone some months ago. I have never taken the plastic off the screen because it needed a case. I have been known to drop my phone! But everytime I looked at it, the little piece of plastic mocked me.
No more will it taunt me! I got my finger out, and here is the fruit of my labour.Acrylic felt, embellished with roving, lace, net, angelina and yarn (cos it's not wool!). We're just waiting for the big girls to get home so they can tell me where they tidied the heat gun to, and then I can finish off those ends.
The back
A detail shot
And another!
I like this as much as I've liked anything for ages, which I guess is a good sign.

Some people hit the ground running after the Christmas holidays, but I just hit the ground this time. I think my low point came at Sixth Form Open Evening on Tuesday, but, to be fair, Phil went for a job interview at 2pm and I hadn't heard from him by gone 6. (He left at 1, the interview started at 2.) Who interviews at 6pm? I figured he'd either had an accident or left me (frame of mind might need a bit of a boost!), like you do. I dragged everyone back to school for the fun, and he called just as we got there at 6.30. After upsetting one of Penny's friend's mothers, inadvertantly (she caught me on the hop, phone in hand, confusion in brain, stress levels through the roof) because she's American and it was Tuesday and I wasn't bothered (face? look? you know the drill), we had a speech ordeal, which Penny wasn't allowed in the hall to hear. What was the point of that, I wonder. I'm not going into Sixth Form! V boring man, forgotten most of it. On the way out I was cornered by another of Penny's friend's mothers, whom I know because she has a lovely son with Down's. He's a cracker. She wanted to tell me all about this meeting she'd had about Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT), but she made the mistake of assuming I knew all about it, which I didn't. So I said I was sorry, but I didn't understand. 'Why not?' she raged. 'We need more SaLT!!' 'Do we?' I blundered, 'We have all that we need'. 'Well good for you!' she yelled as she started to storm off. Anyway, I calmed her down a bit and tried to get her to explain and it turns out she'd had a meeting with the education department (I guess) and someone had agreed to more SaLT because, as she said 'some of us parents don't want to have to put our children in special school in order to get it!'
Well, I have smarted about this ever since. Mostly because I don't think I deserved it. But I have realised a few things. Firstly, she was incredibly angry with me because I chose special school for my child, and for some reason that seems to spin her out, like we have been disloyal or something. We agonised for years about where to send Lexie, and I do mean agonised. And in a way, we still do. Did we do the right thing? I wonder on a regular basis. Particularly after my MiL was going on about how she is 'too clever' for special school on Saturday. So far, I have only met children I don't know who go to mainstream school, and they have consistently been shy and withdrawn (which isn't a given for Down's, Lexie certainly isn't backwards in coming forwards). I would be so interested to come across the ones I used to know who moved from special to mainstream school, just to see if they've changed at all. I think that would help me a lot (not that I have any intention of moving her, regardless of the outcome).
Then I thought about all the things that made us choose special school in the first place. Battledown, where she went for 3 years, was started as a specialist centre for...wait for it......SaLT! One of my last duties as a governor was to agree funding for a third therapist. This woman's child is 2, just the right age for there, but she would rather send him to a nursery attached to a mainstream primary school and then bitch about there not being a SaL therapist! At Bettridge they have a SaL therapist, and, as they do in Battledown, they communicate with the classrooms so each day is filled with SaLT without the children even noticing. At Bettridge, we can see our community consultant so we don't have to take our child out of school for most of the day. Hearing and vision people come into the school. There are at least 2 physiotherapists who come in every week, and if I had any doubts about what they do they were dispelled when Lexie's phoned me up to tell me that her new boots meant her orthotic inserts were wrong and needed replacing, she got me an appointment, and was even there when we turned up to explain to the orthotist. There are also 2 dedicated music therapists. None of this would happen in mainstream school.
I have given this subject a lot of thought and at the end I decided that Lexie has Down syndrome. It isn't going to go away, or get better. Yes, she is coming on and really is quite clever, but, and it's a massive but, she's clever for her. We can see how far she's come. Drop her in a top infants class and she would drown. Put her in Reception, and she'd drown. Very quickly. We chose special school for her because it's where she needs to be. Her friends have SEN too. Her friends will always have SEN. However lovely and charming she is, no 'normal' teenager will want to be best mates. So it's better to face that now and give her what she needs not what will make me feel better about myself. Yes, she will have to live in the 'real world' when she leaves school, but that won't be the same 'real world' that 'normal' school-leavers live in, no matter how much we love her. Her friends will always have learning disabilities.
And it's the same for this woman's little boy. He's a lovely lad, but he isn't going to be Professor of Difficult Sums at Sheffield University. He might be a trolley boy at Tescos. I don't mean to be nasty, it's realistic. Lexie'll probably be inside stacking the fruit.
In a way, she's helped me realise that we have chosen the right place for Lexie and I shouldn't worry about it anymore. I'm still annoyed with her for her attitude - that in some way Phil and I have let the side down by not making all our lives almost intolerably difficult (most of all Lexie's!). We fought for Battledown to stay open so that children like her's could have SaLT - as much of it as they need. It's a bit like having a lovely cake shop in town. It's been there for 20 years and makes the most delicious cakes. This woman wants a cake, but she wants to buy it from the greengrocer, and he doesn't sell cakes. So, instead of going to the cake shop, she decides to get angry and shout until someone gets her a cake. I'd prefer to go to the cake shop myself.

Getting on with it

Well, after all yesterday's hilarity I figured it was time to get back to business, of sorts. If I want to feel better then I really and truly have only myself to rely on. I am now the proud owner of two teenagers and a little person with learning disability, so I can't rely on them for any sensible help in that quarter. Except for Lexie of course. I was sorting something out this morning in the washing room (utility) and I could hear her shouting 'Penny! You hit me!' That's likely! (Penny tapped her on the head with a plastic plate, like you do.) She keeps us on our toes. She had to be physically prevented from making a snow angel on Monday morning as we waited for the taxi. Yes, she made one later. After school. And then got changed.
New year, new look, I thought. This is what my banner sample looked like after I had ironed itIt's by way of being a book cover. I wanted to try making a book without a harder cover and kind of firm it up afterwards. The pages are actually less pink than they look, though I suppose they could do with a bit more darker paint on them. I guess I knew it was all wrong, which is why I put it aside and didn't do any writing in it. This was done late-ish last year, so maybe I'll have another go at it. I liked the felt though.
Here's an ethical pickle. I have been thinking that I should embrace further the ideal of Use What You Have (there's a good flickr group for it, too) on account of world and personal circumstances. Or, is it my civic duty to continue to patronise independent retailers on account of they might go under. And then where will we get supplies from when we finally get some money? I was so pleased to realise I have a nice little group of places that I like to do business with, and can get pretty much everything I want (still struggling with fabrics) that it worries me that their businesses might fail. It was horrid when the craft shop I worked in closed. Apart from the fact that I had no nice little job anymore. I used to think, Oh yes, that's in the back room by the... and then wonder where on earth I might get whatever it was I needed. So then I had the brilliant idea of making stuff to sell. Gosh, that's such a brilliant idea! No-one has any money! And it will soon be next to impossible to sell anything to the US and I have never met anyone in this country who wanted to buy anything handmade. (I know they do exist, but they are thin on the ground I fear.) What people want is for stuff to be super-cheap or else it isn't 'worth' it. So then I thought, I'll open a little shop on Folksy, that looks like fun. I could only find one person who had actually sold anything at all. So I still have the dilemma. To make stuff, or not? Do I buy stuff, or not? When I think about it, if I go to Bee Crafty and spend forty quid, surely that's better than my terrible White Company habit. Or will they do what Liberty did and close their regional branches? Oh no, the worry!
Am I the only one finding Masterchef suddenly very, very annoying?

A New Year's joke

This was only marginally more hilarious than it would have been on Christmas Eve.

Yesterday evening, Phil came home from work with a folded paper in his hand.

I kissed him Hello, and, feeling happy that he was home, thinking about the meal I was preparing, and concentrating more on getting Penny to tell him about her mark in her music exam, I asked

"What have you got there, Dear? Your cards?" (secure, of course, in the knowledge that it was no such thing. The place where he works having work on for the forseeable)

"Yes" he replied.

Not quite done with Christmas

Well, who'd have thought it? Bettridge is closed (as from right this second - 12.30). Apparently the taxi will bring her home and it's a sub station power cut so all will be all right tomorrow. We'll see. Ironic really, as we spent all the getting ready time this morning listening to the radio trying to work out if school would be closed! On account of the inch of snow. Anyway. That's the afternoon dealt with. I hate the first day of term, so I shan't be sorry to have her back early.
So here is a hastily taken snap of my Christmas mantlepiece, because I shall be sad to take that down tomorrow. Maybe next year I'll do the shelf edge I planned (any one, doesn't matter!).I always get a bit low (heck, no!!!) when we take the lights down. I think it's really bad planning. Everything is so bleak. No-one has any money. Everyone's given everything up (not me!). Wouldn't a few pretty lights really help??!!
This year, however, we do have something to take our minds off it.
I'm a bit ashamed to say that this is what we've been doingIf that means nothing to you, then I guess you're lucky. Or not. I don't know. It's a drum kit from Guitar Hero World Tour. It's the most fun you can have with your children. (Yes, we have the guitar, and a mic as well.) Our embarrassment factor has gone up tenfold! Yay.

Forgot to say that child R (the girls' cousin, in receipt of handmade paper dog tag necklace pictured below), loathed her gift. I don't think loathe is too strong a word. If I could think of a stronger one, I'd use it, cos that would sum up better her distaste and displeasure. Couldn't bring her 16 year old self to say a word. Not one. Not even a casual 'Oh thanks' and move on. Shame. Had I realised she'd hate it that much I'd have kept it.

New Year's Eve

This is Lexie feeding Rudolf and his friends on Christmas Eve.Penny's boyfriend's family gave the children Reindeer Food for a little fun gift. I think the reindeer liked it as it was all gone when I looked!
And in the as yet ungiven Christmas gift section, here is the dogtag necklace Penny and I made for her cousin R who lives in the frozen north (Blackpool, nearly). We hope she likes it, as we do, but we fear that she probably won't. According to my SiL (her aunt), the child doesn't wear make-up or jewellery, or listen to music. She's 16!! We don't see them very often, the last time being the sad occasion of Great Grandma's funeral just before last Christmas, so there wasn't much opportunity to get to know her a whole lot better then either. (Incidentally, Lexie often talks about Grandma Blake, bless her.) My MiL protests that R does wear the bits of jewellery she gives her, so I am hoping that she'll at least accept it in the spirit in which it is meant. And it was a whole lot more bother than buying some rubbish she doesn't want either.
We took our inspiration from Altered Paper Jewelry, but kind of went our own way. Okay. I give in. Penny made the hearts tag and I made the rest. (All right, yes, she helped me with the origami. I got stuck at step 11.) We could get into this kind of thing big time, I think. It feels a bit like a something for nothing kind of thing to do. Which is one heck of a joke when you consider what I have spent on papercrafts materials in the last couple of years! At any rate, I don't have to rush out and buy anything else! For a while.
Well. Another year draws to a close. I have a horrid head cold, and a fridge full of fancy party food from M&S. Best of all, I don't have guests coming! We like to party with the girls on New Year's Eve. If Phil can master Guitar Hero we might even have a laugh (he gets a bit cross with himself. It is hard, though!). Just waiting for Penny to get home (she's gone to www light with T and his family. That's 'w' as little kids say it (w for worm) - not doubleyoo. We were baffled for ages until we went along the flyover at the end of the M32, passing the dread blue and yellow shed on our right, and Lexie shouted, 'look, it's www light' and the penny dropped! But we still have no idea why!) and then I'll get out my smoked salmon treats.
Whether you have smoked salmon treats from M&S or not, I hope you have a lovely evening, and a happy, healthy and hopeful new year. Thank you for reading and sharing. I shall raise my glass to you later. Cheers!

Christmas thoughts

Phil and I have been married for 16 years now. I realised that we have spent more Christmases together than I was ever aware of spending at home as a child (the first few being, naturally, unremembered, and the rest kind of merging together). But we still think of our Christmases in relation to how our own families chose to celebrate. As I lay in bed last night, thinking of the loaded cupboards and fridge and whathaveyou, I realised that, to my mother, Christmas was an unnecessary and rather tedious expense. It has occurred to me of late that she always hated cooking (which explains why she embraced ready meals so thoroughly), so Christmas Day was one big chore. Except that, instead of enfolding her turkey in a tinfoil tent and abandoning it to its fate like Delia, she would set the timer and go and baste it every 20 minutes, whether we were opening presents or not. I wonder now if she did it deliberately. Of course she did. No-one else's turkey was basted quite so thouroughly as ours! Her 'treat' shopping consisted of a box of chocolate covered nuts from M&S (I think there were 3 kinds), and some nuts in shells. Oh, and drink. Always the drink. After all, you can begin boozing at 10 on Christmas Day quite legitimately. Eight o'clock if you consider whisky in your tea 'drinking'.
We love Christmas. I suppose it helps that the religious significance isn't lost on us. We got married at Christmastime. Two of our three children were born at Christmastime, too. So it's always a special time for us, on top of everything else. I love the decorations, the music (this year my most favourite is the Pretenders 2000 Miles ('Why can't she sing, Mummy?' - 'It's Chrissie Hynde - she doesn't need to, she's just fabulous!'). I love the films (The Holly and The Ivy is my favourite, but they don't show that anymore - black and white!), the 'nostalgia', but I'm not nostalgic in the way I think I am. After all, the Christmases I had as a child only had magic because my childish spirit put it there myself, because I believed in the magic of Christmas.
When I was a child, the gifts were always much better than you'd asked for (unless it was the Sindy horse, which I never, ever got). You'd ask for a Raleigh bicycle and would be given a very grown up ladies shopper bicycle, with plaid shopping container on the back. Any woman would have been thrilled. Unfortunately, it wasn't a child's bike. My ingratitude was never, ever forgotten, or forgiven. Now I am a grown-up, I understand, to a degree, the desire to trade up as it were on one's children's Christmas dreams. Except that we mustn't. Because kids don't ask for an i-Pod Shuffle because they are too sweet to ask for the Nano. The Shuffle is what they actually want. (And neither of my big girls has any kind of i-Pod for Christmas, I hasten to add!) I really, really wanted a traditional Raleigh bike. A girl's bike. Maybe with a basket on the front. Certainly with a bell. I wanted to be able to jump off and throw it down on the grass as I rushed to another adventure. There simply wasn't time to put down the stand (what was it? a motorcycle??). Everyone else had gone. To be fair, nobody else even wanted to come in the first place - too embarrassed! I also understand other things that were lost on me in my youth. The lavishness of the gifts was most likely directly proportional to the amount of guilt felt about the rest of the year. My father was always generous - but not with his time. He was always at work (or elsewhere, I guess). He didn't love me or my sister particularly. Neither of us cut the mustard (well, we were girls, after all!). And although we were girls, we weren't dainty and pink. Failures all round. (And not alone among children of high-achievers - we lack ambition. Mostly because we understand what that costs.) But at Christmas! Let's show everyone that everything is all right!
These days I would make everything if I could, but I admit to getting a little excited when we've bought the children something we know they will like. I don't think they'd get the same feeling about something home-made, bless them. But Penny has been making cuffs as gifts for her friends (not her boyfriend - he has something boughten!), and here they areall her own work - well, I put the cord on. I think she had run out of steam by that time, and we did have to make button loops at the same time. I think they're fab.
And here is Lexie with her Minnie Mouse toy. She wishes you a very Happy Christmas, and a Happy New Year. I hope that all our kids have a super day, that we don't buy them the wrong thing, or begrudge them a chocolate treat. I hope that they all look back on their childhood Christmases and remember their mums were all there opening presents and having fun, not slaving in the kitchen. And that, if we made them something, it was good, and they loved it.Happy Christmas xx