Back to normality, but what is normal?

I realise I haven't blogged much over the past few months. I'm not really sure why this is. Perhaps living in the UK feels a little un-noteworthy - a little prosaic - after the exotic challenges presented by living upside down on the other side of the world where Christmas is in midsummer and July is a little chilly, or in a place where you are woken at 5am to the crackling sound of the Muezzin wailing the Call to Prayer as it splinters through the morning air. Is living here just too 'ordinary' to write about?

Of course the answer is it's far from normal here, since in truth at this point I really don't know what 'normal' is - what is 'normal'?

I still send the windscreen wipers hurtling across the windscreen every time I click on my indicators when out driving (did the same thing in Australia for three years - they drive on the same side but for some reasons the wipers and indicators are reversed). I still - after spending the first year in Australia asking for 'cash back' instead of 'cash out', find myself momentarily struck dumb when using my card at a check-out - which is it? 

I no longer need to ask for a flat white when out for a coffee, a white coffee is understood, or simpler still a black coffee with some milk please. And like the first few months in Oz , I'm back to trying to decipher school notes (of which there are, sigh, sooo many) - what on earth is a Tombola? Or a Jarbola for that matter? I remember receiving a school note from our school in Helena Valley, and having to pull my friend aside and ask - what is a sausage sizzle? What is footy tipping? What is a sports carnival - some sort of parade or funfair?

I'm having to unlearn and relearn the little codes and rules which apply in this part of the country, not least that the strong arm of the law is never far from reach. For example, DH was caught speeding and was forced to go on a half day training course or face penalty points on his license. It was his first offence, you'd think a fine would suffice. He was most vexed although in fairness hasn't been caught speeding since so perhaps it works... And when my daughter missed quite a few days from school during her first two months - a combination of no car for a while (and missed buses), several orthodontic appointments and my ignorance in reporting said absences properly, I was summoned to the school for an interview to 'get to the bottom of it' despite my protests that nothing was wrong. I half expected them to follow it up with an inspection of my house and a monitoring of my parenting skills! (perhaps they still will!) And my rental invoice each month arrives with a big 'DEMAND' written at the top and I can't help but feel that I'm in trouble, even though I'm not quite sure why. Most unpleasant. Can't imagine how fearful life is on benefits here..

One thing that strikes me about here is the sense that everything is at is should be, with little room for enterprise or opportunity. This may be to do with my location, but I don't feel I can carve out my niche here, as I felt in Australia or the UAE. In those countries the concept of 'chancing your arm' is alive and well and opportunities abound if only you're open to them. In the UAE I walked into an English teaching job following a very relaxed chat with the school manager and got my own magazine column with little more than this blog attached to an email. Likewise, in the bush I secured plenty of work with the local Shire magazine simply by asking.

And there were plenty of other opportunities which I simply didn't take out of fear or laziness.

Here it feels a little strangled, as if it's all been decided and the only thing for someone like me to do is volunteer at a local charity shop or stack shelves overnight in Tesco. Neither are particularly appealing.

Perhaps I'm being a little negative there, perhaps...

On the plus side, the house we're renting is lovely - I was adamant that a move to the English countryside necessitated a house made of stone with wisteria on the front and that's exactly what we got. Rents are criminally high here but we have quite a gem considering we'd be paying roughly the same for something on an estate closer to town. With this many children it is our preference to be away from prying eyes and listening ears, this family is LOUD.

Tragically the house is on the HS2 death row, meaning it is set for demolition in future to make way for a highly controversial high speed rail link between Birmingham and London, a development which will carve up some of the most stunning countryside in the UK, taking many stately homes and listed buildings with it.

This I find most upsetting since we've mentally laid claim to this house now (although in reality couldn't hope to afford to buy it in real life) and I may have to declare squatters rights and chain myself to the gate should the demolition team ever show up.

The village school is but a short walk away and the children love it although are at times perplexed by the introduction of religion into it, not least because the schools here are secular.

They attended a ceremony in the local church before Christmas and my eight-year-old, highly annoyed by the whole thing commented -

" There was a nun on the stage!"
"Really? Was she nice?"
"It was a 'he' - he was wearing a dress!"

Ah...a priest on an altar then...Sister Margaret Mary from the Sacred Heart School would shudder in her grave at the little heathens I'm raising...good...

School performances and why I was once an accidental pushy mum...

(An edited version of this column appeared in Good Taste Magazine, Dubai, in April 2015)

A text pinged up on my phone the other day. It was from my brother in Dublin.

“AM SO BORED,” it read. Twenty minutes later another one: “AM HERE INSTEAD OF WATCHING RUGBY, NO JUSTICE!” Ten minutes later: “TEN YR OLD MURDERING A SONG FROM CATS!”

These increasingly hysterical updates were the result of an afternoon  in a concert hall where his daughter's school was performing in a musical.

He's not a heartless man, and dotes on his daughter, but let's be honest there are times when kids' performances can be trying.

I know this intimately; with five children I've sat through countless performances, some good, some mediocre and some so bad you want to stick pins in your eyes - or clean the oven - anything but sit there for a moment longer. It's not necessarily my own children I object to watching (although there have been moments), after all I'm contractually obliged to clasp my hands and beam with pride when they're on stage.

However, I do object to having to watch someone else's little Freddy spend five minutes scraping out Greensleeves on the violin - creating a sound not dissimilar to a cat giving birth – when it's clear he's only ever had two lessons, leaving you wanting to yell 'Why the violin Freddy, WHY?' before running from the auditorium with your hands over your ears.

Two of my children were in a production of Aladdin a few weeks ago. It wasn't bad, honestly, but at  over an epic hour and a half long, it was a hard slog.

Forty minutes into the performance my husband, who rarely makes it to these events, was alarmed to discover we weren't even half way through. “Can't we just sneak out now and come back at the end?” he whispered hopefully. “Don't be ridiculous!” I hissed,  “even if I wanted to leave - which I do - I couldn't, this lot would lynch us!”

Looking around at the sea of iPads and camcorders (including one particularly enthusiastic parent who had set up a tripod) I realised I was in an hostile environment. A sharp-faced women threw me a withering look before turning back to watch the performance through her iPad.

I wondered briefly what these people did with all this footage - I mean, did they watch it again, and if so, how often? - then suddenly recalled a dinner party I once attended where the host, having cleared away the dessert dishes, herded everyone into the living room to show us 20 minutes of her son's swimming gala. What was most bizarre about it was the fact he didn't win anything, and since the camera was trained solely on him, we didn't find out who did.

But I could be accused of being a pushy mum myself, albeit unwittingly. Several years ago my daughter entered a talent show at school and despite the fact she has the voice of an angel, insisted she wanted to do Irish dancing (even though she's only ever had one class and was asked to leave after pushing the teacher from behind - to be fair she was only three, but I was keen for her to start her dancing career).

I tried my best to talk her out of it – she has two left feet – but to no avail. To make matters worse, she refused to allow me to teach her any steps (stubborn isn't the word!) so what she was planning to do on stage was a bit of a mystery to me.

On the day of the talent show I slid anonymously in to the back seat of the auditorium, hoping it would be over soon, and quietly smiled and applauded through several dozen performances before it was her turn.

As she approached the stage, a quick discussion ensued between her and the pianist culminating in my being summoned to come forward to help find a suitable piece of music.

Red-faced I was forced to make my way down to the stage and hum an Irish reel while the pianist tried her best to repeat it on the piano. Finally I was released to return to my seat, all eyes on me while the audience – having been subjected to this little display of pushy-mumism – expected a performance of Riverdance proportions.

The piano struck up the reel and my daughter, arms rigid by her sides, thundered around on the stage like a baby elephant, feet going in all directions, making up all the steps as she went along. The performance was both terrible and courageous at the same time and I watched with a mixture of horror and admiration at her unflinching self-confidence.

At the final note she promptly stopped, bowed and confidently strode off the stage to a rather confused applause. Clapping with relief that it was over I glanced about me, certain someone was composing a text at that very moment: “SAVE ME FROM TALENT SHOWS!” *

So what's the moral of today's diatribe? I think the word is tolerance. If you tolerate my clod-hopping dancer I'll tolerate your cat-murdering violinist – I'll even applaud – but if you invite me over for dinner, please, no home videos. 

*Unsurprisingly, she didn't win, or achieve a placement in the competition. Also unsurprisingly, she sang at the next talent show. And yes, she did win!