DAUGHTER DAY

Thursday is a 'daughter day': she's not at nursery so we do something together.  Last week it was Fun at Splatz at Haltwhistle (which I can highly recommend to anyone with young children): this week she wanted to stay at home so after dropping Son at school we went to cast my votes in the Elections, went to Jacobites for a drink and a chocolate brownie (their new premises are great - far more spacious than the old ones - I think the teenager driving a car into the other building did them a favour in a strange way) and then to buy her a new toothbrush and to the greengrocers for aubergines.

Aren't aubergines beautiful?  I'm not mad on them to eat, other than in moussaka, which was what I needed them for, but I love their smooth, shiny purple skins.  They don't look like vegetables at all but like something coloured in with dark purple wax crayon.

So while I cooked Daughter did lots of painting, colouring and jigsaws and we were both happy.  After fetching Son from school we went to Houghton Garden Centre.  I hate taking my children shopping.  I feel I have to do it but I hate myself for nagging at them constantly not to touch things, to come when called, not to drop food on the floor in cafes...  I wish they would just behave perfectly.  I remember being at motorway services several years ago, driving back to Bristol from Scotland, and getting mad with Son because he was refusing to eat his tea.  In the end I walked away from the table, him following crying loudly and insisting he was going to eat his meal: only to receive glares from a French family sitting nearby whose four (yes, FOUR) children were all behaving perfectly.  Ever feel like a complete failure as a mother?

Fit Husband ran home from work again today whilst I did nothing exercise-wise, but I'm running tomorrow morning.  I needed to print off my C.V. as one of the fathers at school asked if I'd like to be part of a team bidding for some work in Jersey to do with listed buildings (wouldn't I just!) and I also needed to practice my duet for tomorrow: I keep forgetting my cues.  I can't understand how I had learnt it perfectly a couple of months ago for Carlisle Music Festival and now am distinctly dodgy.  Somewhat worrying as I want to impress with my performances tomorrow and Saturday!

I haven't really written much about my singing in this blog so far: I think because maybe it matters too much; the emotions singing engenders in me are perhaps somewhat too intimate.  The voice itself is such a very personal instrument, being after all part of one's own body and, if it doesn't sound too exaggerated, soul.  Singing is a way I can express myself and when I don't feel I have sung well enough, the failure feels worse than, say, not doing very well in an exam which one knows one should have done well in.  Perhaps that's at the root of why I gave up completely for 20 or 25 years, instead of perservering, even though now I wish I had perservered.

I'm increasingly optimistic that work will turn up in some way or another soon, and that it will be home-based and hours to suit me: I have to grasp opportunities which come along but can also influence fate by my choices.  We're convinced that we've had a virtual rabbit's foot (or guardian angel) since living in Cumbria, which is looking after us.

Meanwhile it is lovely to have the extra time at home with the children and I fully intend to make the most of it.  Despite nagging at them I am generally so much more relaxed than when I was working four days a week and trying to fit in 5 loads of washing and all the other housework on day 5.  And they are gorgeous, bright children.