Back On The Chain Gang

I never thought I would say this, but I had forgotten how much relentless hard graft is involved in raising babies and small children.
When I had three children under two-and-a-half, I lost count of the times some bright-eyed, well-groomed mum with self-sustaining older children would tell me to ‘enjoy’ these early years, since they were over so quickly.
Invariably, I would force a crazed smile and think ‘How can you say that? This feels like a life-sentence of hard labour.’ I even had the clothes, hair and make-up appropriate for the whole chain-gang existence. I could just about cope, but someone telling me that I should be enjoying it all, just made me feel worse. Like many parents, I had to suspend belief in everything that was rational and self-evident, and give myself up to the blind faith that things would somehow turn out alright, alternating with periods of self-flagellation when they didn’t.
Who needs religion when you can have parenthood?
Fast-forward six years, and although I still have the mental scars from those early years, the loosening of the shackles has been so gradual, that I never realised quite how much freedom H and I have gained. That is, until the travelling circus of my brother and his young family came to town.
Of course, the baby was adorable, and the two year old twins were a delight, but there really wasn’t one minute of the visit when we weren’t ‘doing something’ for one of them. Between the wiping, rattling, rocking, soothing, helping them dress, not helping them dress, and negotiating over which plate to use, there was hardly time to have a decent glass of wine or three. Luckily the weather was good, so we managed to keep all six children entertained with trips to the playground, and copious use of a paddling pool in the garden.
Now that they have gone home, the lawn looks like the final days of Glastonbury, and the house is spookily quiet. Games which involved shrieking and chasing ‘monsters’ up and down the stairs have been replaced once again by games which involve lying silently on the sofa and chasing monsters across a screen. Bathtime has reverted from an hour long water-based theme park back to something more closely resembling a sheep dip. And once again, I no longer have to wipe anyone else’s bottom but my own.
I am sitting here with a glass of soft, smooth, black-cherry tasting Stoneleigh Marlborough Pinot Noir (Ocado £8.49) and thinking with utter relief how far we have all moved on. The only down side I can see is that a single Smartie is no longer considered a suitable reward for good behaviour.
Even the kids, who loved playing with their little cousins, have gone strangely quiet on the subject of wanting me to have another baby. Maybe now that they too have realised what incredibly hard work babies and small children can be, they will finally stop bullying me and my shrivelled ovaries.

The Italian Job

In my opinion, when it comes to indulgence, Italy seems to have hit the jackpot – great food, great wine, and great weather.

When I was nineteen, I spent a summer there, selling books door-to-door. I paid for my own flight, and spent three months travelling around Italy selling books that I couldn’t read, and ‘speaking Italian’ by adding ‘i’ onto all the French words I knew. Bizarrely, it seemed to work, and although the job was something of a slog (the pay was commission-only) it was great fun, especially as I was with a group of other young people of different European nationalities – including French, Spanish and Dutch.

To my young parochial eyes, Italian boys looked well-groomed and sophisticated as they whizzed about on Vespas, or drank strong coffee in pavement cafés. They were so much more glamorous than the boys I knew at home, who hung around outside the chip shop, with a meat pie and a can of Tizer.

In Italy, I learnt how wonderful it feels when someone says you are beautiful - even if the gorgeous preening youth is actually looking over your shoulder at his own reflection.

When I think back to that summer, I am astounded at my own youthful optimism. I had never been away from home on my own before, and I remember my mother really didn’t want me to go. She was convinced I would be sold into the white slave trade, and threatened to hide my passport. I did a lot of foot-stamping, snorting with derision, and rolling my eyes, like a mad horse. I even had the temerity to suggest that she had read too many Jackie Collins bonkbusters (doubly unfair, since ‘sneaking a peek’ inside the one she had read was the only sex education I had ever received). More like a cheeky mare than a mad horse, then.

All this reminiscing is because H and I are off to another Wine Dinner tonight, and all the wines are from Italy – what a treat! Of course, the food is Italian too, but I think I would be happy just drinking the wines, and opening a tin of Heinz spaghetti.

I am mortified to say that over twenty years after battling with my mum about my trip to Italy, my daughter and I regularly re-enact the eye-rolling scene, as she tries to break free of her own parental shackles. It is one of the many cruel twists of fate involved in becoming a parent that the role of my mother is played, with startling accuracy, by me.