AN AUSTERITY CHRISTMAS GREETING.... or A CHEAPSKATE'S CARD

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

This year I am not sending cards.  It's partly lack of money, partly lack of time and partly the consciousness that the value in them is the keeping in touch, not the card itself - which often ends up in the bin unless you're a sad *** like me who keeps her favourite cards and has done for several years.

So, here it is.  You will have received an email from me with a link to this blog and I am going to attempt not to create one of those rather annoying Christmas greetings within which people either go on about how wonderful their children are, or else what an absolutely disasterous year they have had.  We have had neither.  My children are not angels (I was going to dress them in angel costumes and take photos of them and make my own cards, but they rebelled); they're not brilliant intellectually but bright enough (Isabella is bright but her character flaws make up for it); and often I don't even find them that cute (with the exception of Edward, apart from when I'm trying to change his nappy or get him dressed when he shows the same sort of temper as his sister).  But they are my children and never cease to amaze me in many ways so I'm afraid you will get told some anecdotes about them.  And yes, I love them to bits. 

We've had no major disasters: just an ordinary, mostly enjoyable year.  Of course really it started, for us, with Edward being born on New Year's Eve.  From the first David and I were completely smitten with him.  Now at nearly a year old his character is showing more and more and the happy baby is rapidly becoming a happy nearly-toddler.  He's done all the things he's meant to have done: grown, got some teeth, rolled over, sat up, crawled, climbed the stairs, started pushing things around, clapping, waving and made lots of noise: including singing sort of noises when you put music on.  He's a delight to have around and we're convinced he's going to become a complete pickle: he's got Alex's happy nature (or what was a happy nature when he was younger) and some of Bella's spark and charm, and definitely a mind of his own.

Despite the fact that I know how babies normally grow and develop and that I've seen it at close quarters with the two older children, it still amazes me how much he has changed in a year.  We're just waiting for him to walk and talk now!

Isabella is still gorgeous and bright and sparky - and difficult.  Or at least 'a character'.  I adore her but of the three of them she can probably make me the most angry.  She's doing well at school but has now decided she wants to learn the trombone.  Unfortunately I can just see her playing it.... I think probably she'll have to start with a cornet - I need to check with my friend Caroline, who is a French Horn player.  In the meantime however Bella has started gymnastics, which she enjoys, having worked out how to climb up inside our door frames, over the banisters, etc. etc.  She's been doing forward rolls for ages - long before Alex could.  However she loves dancing as well and frequently closes herself in the sitting room/piano room with a CD on (very often the piano backing track to my 'Songs and Arias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries') practicing for 'shows': so I think come January she may be off to dancing on a Monday evening in Brampton rather than gymnastics on a Tuesday in Carlisle.  The dancing will give me a longer break without her and mean that Edward can come home and move around instead of being stuck in a buggy or a car seat for several hours.

Alex is now in Year 3: a Junior rather than an 'Infant'.  He's a bit inclined to be sensitive, though I try not to say so too often and especially not in his hearing.  He's not very keen on homework and we have major battles trying to get him to concentrate unless he's being allowed to draw or to make lego models, but generally he seems to enjoy school and he has an enquiring mind and a thoughtful approach to things, and can sometimes seem quite responsible and mature for a 7-year-old: he got elected to the school council this year.  David takes him to athletics on a Tuesday and he then goes to Tag Rugby on a Sunday, and he chose of his own volition to go to Book Club on a Thursday.  Like his mother he's a bad loser but not a naturally good sportsperson, so the athletics and rugby are improving his running no end.  He's also started hill-walking and has been up some fairly high ones with Scotland Grandad.  It would be great if his team were not last at Sports Day next year.... I still have such a clear picture in my mind's eye from his first year at school, when everybody had left the playground at the end of Sports Day.  A small, disconsolate figure was still sitting all alone on the ground, upset that Blue Team had lost so badly and taking quite a disproportionate amount of blame for it himself.

Out of the older two, he surprised us as being the more put out when Edward was born: with Bella's attention-loving nature we thought she'd be the one feeling more left out, but it was Alex.  However once he realised that he could make the Baby laugh and that the Baby actually rather likes him, he warmed to him and he is now an excellent older brother.  In fact they both adore Edward, which isn't hard as he's so cute.

David continues to do madly long runs: this year he did the Lakeland 50 for the third year in a row (and the third year it has been put on).  It was boiling hot weather and people were being sick and collapsing around him, so he was dead chuffed that he completed it and his time was reasonable.  Later in the year he did the Kielder Marathon - the one the guy cheated in.  For someone for whom a normal training run at the weekend is 20 miles, you'd think it would have been easy, but it's a really gruelling course.  I think he did it in about 5 hours which was really good - and that was without cheating by getting on a bus.  Next year his aim at the moment is the Hadrian's Wall run, which is 65 miles.  He uses the Hadrian's Wall path for a lot of his training - to Walton Crags or Twice Brewed, for example, the latter being about 20 miles, so at least he'll be familiar with some of the territory.  He's also talking about doing the Dalesman.

The responsibility for mortgage payments and the like has fallen on him more and more as I've gone from having a redundancy payment and income support, to Maternity Allowance, to zero.... he's actually made us budget really well which is something I'm not used to doing, and as a result we will actually have some money to buy the children christmas presents!  But it does mean we've had to carefully think about whether we go away anywhere or not and we don't randomly pop down to Off the Wall for coffee and cake just because we feel like it.  Having said that, it means that going out to eat has become far more of a treat and something that I think we all appreciate more.  He continues to be a great Dad to the children, even if they do drive him as potty as they drive me at times.  I had never seen him cross until we had children (or perhaps until we had Bella....).  And I have to say that despite the untidiness and the odd row about the state of the house (we rarely, if ever, row about anything else), I think I perhaps appreciate him more now than I used to: perhaps because of our role-reversal.  How can you resist someone who tells you, as you're about to go out to sing, that you look about 35, anyway?

And as for me?  Well, I'm trying to write and sing and so forth... I applied for a couple of surveying jobs which weren't my particular area of expertise and at least I got interviewed even though I didn't get them and I'm not sure how much I wanted them.  I'm enjoying doing what I'm doing: I just wish it made more money but I'm also optimistic that eventually it will.  Anyone who reads this blog regularly will have followed my progress and hopes and will know how much I (mostly) enjoy being at home with Edward, and watching him develop.  In fact when I started writing this I only remembered with a jolt that I also turned 50 this year!  The year I turned 40 I was very much focussed on myself: this year, whilst I wanted to have a huge party and celebrate my half century in some memorable fashion, the fact that we could only afford a small party didn't really matter (though I did get some fab presents and had a lovely day with a lot of babies round for tea and cake): and I think the fact that I'd sort of forgotten that I had a big birthday this year says it all.  What's been really important to me is my family, including my new baby (I cannot believe that I went back to work full time when the others were 6 months old: what did I miss?!) and my music and writing.  And there aren't many people who actually get the chance to follow their dream, so I'm going to make sure I make the most of it while I can.

Here's to 2012 being an even happier year.  Merry Christmas to All - and to All, a Good Night!