Mothers; Know your limits...

I love to cook for my kids.  It's part of my internal template of 'being a good mother'; scratch cook where I can, and always have home-made cookies or cake in a tupperware container on the counter-top.  What can I say?  I blame my own mother for being the ultimate domestic goddess.  Well, that and the fact that living with two children with allergies means that many pre-made and processed foods are - literally - off the menu.

So, in a moment of madness, I actually kept the chicken carcass from yesterday's (shop-bought) roast chicken, thinking, 'Ooh - I can make stock with that!  We can have chicken noodle soup, and... chicken noodle soup, and... some other stuff I can't think of right now.'  Then, I realised I couldn't remember how to make chicken stock, so looked up a recipe.

I reached the part where it said 'simmer the bones over a low heat for up to 3 hours' and was suddenly assaulted by the memory of the smell of our kitchen 9 years ago, when I was making chicken stock whilst weaning Boy #1 and following the lovely Annabel Karmel's advice to the letter.  Most of her recipes were wonderful.  Chicken stock, however, proved a bridge too far.  The house stank, I stank, the streets outside were tumble-weed central. I swear the whole neighbourhood was on lock-down because of that ruddy stock.

You know what?  I think I forgot that very simple recipe - the chicken bones, cold water, a few veg, a bit of salt & pepper - for good reason.

I will do many things for my children, but it seems that here is one that I won't.  Life is too short to make my own chicken stock.

And I never much liked chicken noodle soup, anyway...


What is your parenting limit?

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Onwards and Upwards

I've struggled a bit so far this year.

The Russian Winter seemed longer than ever before, mainly because it WAS longer; it started in October and left it's white dandruff on the ground until mid-April.  (And yes, that, right there - that use of the word 'dandruff' for what I would formerly have called 'snow'-  is a pretty good representation of my disillusionment with a season that in previous years I was enchanted by).  The days seemed darker and shorter, and the evenings longer and lonelier than in the previous years we've spent here.  Again, there is good reason for that; the powers that be insisted on continuing their practice of ignoring Summertime - meaning that the sun didn't rise here until nearly 10am in December and we were 4 hours ahead of the UK between October and March rather than 3 - and Husband spent most of the working week abroad.  He has done since last summer, actually.

Throw in what seemed like perpetually grey weather, a bad back that prevented me from doing the one thing that took me into the great outdoors in previous winters - cross country skiing -and being hit by flu, colds, and children's ailments, and the time between January and May has dragged somewhat.  'Swimming through treacle' is a more than apt expression for how I've felt, if I'm honest.

I've been questioning what I'm for.

A close relative, not so long ago, struggled to come up with anything positive to say about my role in life, and whilst I know that that is because they don't see my day-to-day slog but rather the end result - a family that is happy, nurtured, and wearing clean underwear - it stung.  A lot.  I know that I work hard - but not much of what I do is visible to those who live so far away.  And yes, of course I can hold up my hand and shout 'Look! Look at all the stuff I do, the writing, the blogging, the copy editing, the novel!' but all that's still just so much... fluff... to that person, and frankly, I don't want to.  Why should I?  I don't ask them to justify their career choices or to give me a line by line account of their working day, of the meetings they have, the invoices that result, the bottom line profits which their efforts increase.

But I know why this is getting to me, really.  My inner Judge - the woman who measures herself on results, profits and let's face it, bottom-line contributions, and who I thought I had sent packing after two years of counselling when I stopped working outside the home turns out, 5 years on, to have just been on a long sabbatical.  She's got in touch again, high-heels, working wardrobe and all, and is texting and emailing my subconscious.

'How's that blogging thing going?' she asks  (I can almost imagine her making those really annoying apostrophe signs in the air when she says the word; 'blogging').  'Making any money from it yet?  Are you making a difference? No?  Never mind...  What about the copy-editing?  Getting anywhere with that?  Oh well, bits and pieces are fine, aren't they...?  And there's always the novel.  Isn't there?'  Well, yes, I reply.  Except, I've reached a place that I'm reliably informed many writers do when, approximately 2/3 of the way through their book they get the wobbles, look at what they've written and think 'Well, this is just so much shit...'

But.  Summer is here.  The days are longer, the sun is (mostly) shining, the school run is now by bike rather than huddled in the car, shivering in snow pants and layers of duvet coats, and the summer holidays are on the horizon. It's hard to stay depressed when the sun blazes down and there's a nightingale singing it's heart out in the back garden.

And as far as the book is concerned, I have a plan.  It may be shit, but bearing in mind my subconscious is untrustworthy enough to resurrect the Judge - a part of my personality I thought I had moved on from - I think I will ignore what it's telling me, get some objective advice from others, and just get on with finishing the novel.

So.  Onwards and upwards it is...

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BritMums Live! Hello...

Nearly 6 months ago I told Husband that come hell or high water, I was going to BritMums Live! this year.  I've been to two out of the three conferences that they've held so far and I can't tell you how miserable I felt in June 2012 watching all the buzz about it beforehand and knowing that I wouldn't be there.

Well, guess what?  It's coming up in less than 6 weeks time.  How did that happen? All of a sudden I need to start thinking about logistics and - gulp - planning what to wear.  Obviously, the first - who will collect the Boys from school, will my Husband even be in the country to do so, how can I ensure the washing machine doesn't languish completely unloved and unused for the entire 4 days of my absence, etc - is the most important piece of the puzzle.  That second thing - the what to wear thing - that I mentioned? I was just joking.  Not worried about it - AT ALL.  (Or rather, I'm not if my attempt to shift a couple of kilos that have magically appeared since the end of last year works, anyway.  Come on, 6 weeks.  Shouldn't be that hard, should it?  In fact, I probably only need to start next week.  Someone has to shift that chocolate stockpile in the cupboard before I begin - it might as well be me...)

Anyway, here's my BritMums Live! hello  (Check here to join the linky yourself).  Just in case, you know, you want to say hi at the event...

Name: Clare  (not my real name - so don't be surprised if you have to use it twice.  And no, don't ask me why I started this anonymity lark, I've forgotten, it was so long ago...)

Blog: The Potty Diaries

Twitter ID: @thepottydiaries

Height: 5ft 7

Hair: Short-ish brown.  Never as flippy-out at the bottom as I would like.

Eyes: Brown

Is this your first blogging conference?  No, my 3rd

Are you attending both days?  Try and stop me.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?  Catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and being able to do so without worrying about rushing off to release the babysitter.  And maybe even having a drink or two...

What are you wearing?  Ask me closer to the time - no idea right now.  

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?  I really want to make use of the fantastic opportunities to focus on writing.  (Currently my first attempt at a novel,  'The Great Work' - not it's real title - is taking up a lot of my time)

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows:  I recently turned down the opportunity to live in a Mediterranean country.  And - bonus fact - I just discovered that I can't spell Mediterranean without using spell check.

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Making the best of it...

Welcome to Snot Central.

The Boys and I are all recovering from fierce colds - again.

It drains you of enthusiasm, having a cold.  It particularly drains you of enthusiasm when one son appears in your bedroom at 3am crying from head pain due to backed up catarrh in his sinuses.  Throw a Husband travelling out of the country into the mix, along with wide-scale closures of the roads into the centre of Moscow (ruling out an easy drive to the only English-speaking clinic that you know will be open on what is actually a bank holiday) so that the tanks and hgv's showing off military hardware have an easy run for their parade down to and through Red Square, and you have a rather less cheerful Victory Day - today's holiday - than might otherwise have been the case in Potski Mansions.

We certainly didn't manage to make good our plan to go downtown to watch the parade on Tverskaya, much to Boy #2's disappointment.

But - this being Russia - Putin's brag-fest wasn't only visible on the ground.  All this plane obsessed boy - the one not suffering from head pains due to his cold - had to do...

was to go outside, and look up...

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'No Big Important Truth to Share'

You think you have nothing to say.  You think that you're all blogged out.  You wonder if you'll ever hit 'publish' again - and then you stumble across a post like this, from Tanis Miller, where she perfectly expresses how wrung out on the writing front I have felt for the last week or so.

'I have no big important truth to share' she writes.  God, I remember the early days of my blog when I had big important truths to share.  When my observations on the world - or at least, my observations on MY world - were fighting for space on the keyboard, when I always had something to say and was full of confidence that someone out there would find it interesting.  It was finding the time to write the posts down that was the problem, back then.

Nowadays with both my sons in school all day, I have the time - ostensibly, at least.  But all of a sudden the sense of urgency has departed, and I seem to have less to say.  Why is that?  Perhaps it's because the helter-skelter topsy-turvy ride that is being the parent of babies and pre-schoolers is behind me now.  Perhaps it's because I'm guarding my children's future memories more closely.  It could be that I'm guarding my own privacy more carefully these days - which is ironic, because actually there are more people out there who can now put a face to the name 'Potty Mummy' than there ever have been before.

Then of course, I could blame Kindle - for sucking up my evenings and making great books so ridiculously easily available, or The Great Work (aka my novel) which is taking up more of my time and headspace than it has ever done.  Frankly by the time I hit my traditional blogging sweetspot (after 9.30pm when the Boys are in bed, the washing up is sorted and the house is tidy), the absolute last thing I want to do is sit down at the laptop and start being witty / creative / outraged / wise / whimsical / probably none of the above when I've already written, re-read, edited and questioned the value of a thousand words plucked from thin air earlier in the afternoon.

But here I am, blogging anyway.  Because, who says blogging has to be about big important truths all the time?  Sometimes it's just about reminding yourself that you have a life away from the daily grind, as I did today when I ventured into downtown Moscow to take photos of preparations for Victory Day, of Muscovites enjoying the long-overdue sunshine, and of landmarks showing themselves to their best advantage in the hard-edged Russian summer sun.

A big important truth - and I do have some, fighting to be released into the ether once I figure out how best to share them - is great, from time to time.  But so, sometimes, is just blogging for the sake of feeling the words flow.

Or not.

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Snapshot; If you're of a nervous, tree-loving disposition...

... look away, now.

This is not a beautiful photograph.  It is not even a very good photograph; it was snapped from the window of a moving car on my mobile phone last weekend, when we traveled outside Moscow for 24 hours or so.  I've cropped it, messed about with it, changed the brightness and contrast a little.  It still looks awful - mainly because it is.

Russia is home to part of the largest forest in the world, did you know that?  The Taiga (fans of David Attenborough will know this already) girdles much of the northern hemisphere and in Russia it stretches across 8 time zones, from Karelia in the west to the Pacific ocean in the east.  It's made up of spruce, birch, pine and larch trees, and it's vast.  Forget the Amazon rainforest - THIS is where you'll find the real lungs of the world.  If you watch tv in Russia many of the local programmes seem to consist of cops and robbers endlessly hunting each other through interminable stretches of forest and there's a reason for that; much of the countryside outside the cities is swallowed up by trees, far more so than in tamed and manicured western Europe. I feel sorry for the producers of these tv programmes - there simply aren't that many alternatives to the quiet gloom of the woods to film in.

Because there's so much of it, many of the locals appear to treat the forest with contempt.  Whilst most Russians purport to love nature, there's no getting away from the fact that on our trips outside Moscow we've grown used to seeing clearings filled with rubbish, and picnic tables surrounded by debris such as empty beer cans, plastic bags and god knows what else.  But this weekend, we saw something else. We were struck dumb by what I could only describe as the wanton destruction of huge areas of the forest.  Acres on acres of land appeared to have been clear-cut, the timber piled up in heaps like giant matchsticks.

There may well be some kind of plan in place that I know nothing about.  I really hope that there is.  But right now, thinking back on the devastation we saw, I am mainly reminded of what my younger son said as we drove past these mutliple wastelands.

"I think these were battlefields, mummy."

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Just. Plain. Wrong...

When your male neighbour, who walks their dog past your house everyday, asks at a crowded social event "So, have you hung curtains upstairs yet?"

When you get back from your your holiday to find that your cleaner, searching for something to do, has tidied up your children's clothes drawers and managed to mix up all their clothes in the process.

When you get back from holiday to find that your cleaner has also tidied up your drawers.

Including THAT drawer.

When said cleaner - who admits to another income stream as a masseuse and who once turned up to clean a friends' house missing her front teeth, which she said she had lost in a work-related accident - offers to give you a massage when you're suffering from the 'flu.

And it's only a couple of weeks after she cleaned out THAT drawer.

Small boys, in tights.  I mean, in deepest winter, maybe, but at the end of April?  Come on, Russians.  It was +14degC and bright sunshine out there today...

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