All Fingers and Thumbs

Day 57 - 09:55am, 26 February 2019

I struggle to get going this morning. A couple of late nights and my brain and body have gone to mush. So I tell myself I only have to make it until lunchtime. Between Bodybalance and the online grocery shop arriving, I will have a lie down. Of course, I don't, but it's enough to keep me going in the meantime.

We walk home from school. Little Miss is expressing her annoyance at not getting her own way through interpretative dance and over-exaggerated stomping down the road. Despite this, with the sun streaming on our backs, I am having one of those all is well moments, especially as I see the kids' interacting. Her oldest brother is trying to cheer her up. He puts his hand on her back and gives it a rub. I don't know why I should be surprised, given his height, but I realise that at nearly 12-years' old, they are the size of adult hands. He is growing up.

I rub her ego by offering to teach her to knit once she gets back from her gymnastics tonight. Suddenly, I am back in favour. Little Miss becomes my shadow until I get the needles and wool out. Her eagerness exceeds her abilities, as you would expect, but after five minutes of, "where do I put the needle/the wool/my hands?" her keenness has evaporated. She puts down the knitting and floats off to do the next thing. This may take some time.

Things Hardly Seen

Day 56 - 07:37am, 25 February 2019

On the hottest winter day on record, there are definite signs of spring on the riverbank. There are little buds of green starting to unfurl on some of the trees, but you have to look hard to see them. If you'd skimmed your eyes passed as you would normally, then the new growth would have remained hidden, crowded out by all the brown that surrounds them. But then I wonder how much of the water I will actually be able to see when all the trees have leaves on them and open.

And talking of things you cannot see, nearly two months in and I am finally rewarded with a train crossing the bridge while I am there and so in time for me to take my photo. It is just a little two-carriage train and from its lack of speed, it is obviously about to pull into the station. No matter, I'll take it, a big tick on the checklist.

Reading the Label

Day 55 - 3:27pm, Sunday 24th February

I read a social media post which questions whether or not it's a good thing to label special needs kids. It gets me thinking about Little Master's diagnosis. I've never really thought of it as a label. It's such a loaded word, but it shouldn't be. It should be neutral, and the fact that it isn't says more about us as a society and our inability to accept people and love them as they are than it does about the word itself.

In the same way that an axe is a tool which can be used for good (building a shelter) or bad (killing people), diagnosis is a tool and it is what we do with that tool and how we use it that is important. If we see labels as a limitation, as a means simply to point out areas of difficulties or worse still we use it as a mask where we see the label and not the person, then labeling a child with a diagnosis is a bad thing. But it doesn't have to be, and I suspect for most, it is not a closing door, but an opening one.

For me, diagnosis was a positive, a way in. It brought with it strategies and professional support, a way to open up my own limited understanding of what I could do to help him and hopefully has made me a better mother to him because of it.

Is he more than his diagnosis? Absolutely! Labels are there to guide you, they are not the final word: a jam jar label will let you know what kind of jam is inside, but it won't tell you how it will taste, you're only really going to know that when you put it in your mouth and experience it for yourself. And knowing his diagnosis, doesn't tell me who he is, it just helps me get to know him a little bit better.

Only Human After All

Day 54 - 10:19, 23 February 2019

Little Mister loses his mobile on the way home. It's his first phone and he's had less than two months. PANIC!!!! For someone who is the epitome of calm, Mr Rock Steady, everyone says so, he goes to pieces pretty quickly. I am less worried. It is locked and in all honesty is nowhere near the latest model. I can't see anyone going out of their way to steal it, so I expect it will turn up sooner or later. But as his desperation increases, I begin to wonder at what point I will be able to get him home, if we don't find it. By this stage, he is practically on his hand and knees searching through the long grass to find it.

We find it eventually, and it must be pretty close to the point where he discovered he didn't have it. It is a red phone case sticking out of the green grass. It's actually quite hard to miss. He sees the phone and runs to it, lovingly scooping it into his hands, like a grateful father being reunited with his missing child. He is still visibly shaking, sweaty and close to tears as he types his pass code in. He tries to play it cool, but now we know he's human after all.

Feeling the Cold

Day 53 - 08:15am, 22 February 2019

Hubby has passed his cold back to me. I say passed back, because it was me who gave it to him in the first place. This time, it's more of a serial blaster of a cold than my usual choked up version, full of sinus and sore head. My eyes are watering too. I find it hard to concentrate, I feel like I am wading through treacle. And for now, for once, I am not going to fight it . . . Early to bed.

Splitting Up the Day

Day 52 - 5:11pm, 21 February 2019

It was cutting it a bit fine this morning for getting into work on time, so no photo am. Instead, I take my picture on the way home. Luckily, the days are beginning to draw out and now I have the option of taking my daily photograph on the way home. It's refreshing to hear the water rushing over the stones after a long day. Like pressing a reset button, the water clears the stresses of the day away and I go home feeling refreshed. A clear split from work to home.

The instructor at Bodybalance has mixed up the tracks again. Nobody seems to like this release much. She warns that it's going to be a tough one but it'll be worth it. We get to the final track, which she tells us is all about the hamstrings. But turns out it's not just about the hamstrings, but about establishing a baseline as to how far we can go in the splits. I'm impressed with how far I go, although I do wonder how I will recover from my attempt at the box splits. I say attempt, because the floor is still some way beneath me, but it's going to be fun trying to get closer to reaching it in the weeks ahead, and I look forward to surprising Little Miss with it, once I do.

Keeping Our Heads Above Water

Day 51 - 09:23am, 20 February 2019

I guess I just assumed that the primary school years would be relatively straightforward, a welcome interlude between the sleepless nights of the early years and the turbulent times generated by the teenage brain deleting synapses and forging their self-identity; and, for the most part, they have been fairly smooth sailing, but sometimes a storm comes upon us, and catches me unprepared.

Today was one of those days. Little Master is due to go swimming with the Cubs on Friday and it turns out it's not a recreational swim, but swimming races - breaststroke, front crawl and backstroke. The trouble is that Little Master's only style is doggy paddle. He can swim: it just isn't pretty. My instinct is to say no. I want him safe and I am not sure that going swimming is the way to keep him and others so.

I admit it. I begin to panic. I imagine him in his most distracted, unfocused state. I see him jumping in, getting out of his depth, getting drawn into frivolity, and then unable to keep his head above water. Not so much scenario analysis as serial panic.

I consult with hubby, telling him my fears and then some. He is relaxed, thinks all will be good. As ever, hubby is sensible and measured, pointing out all the times when Little Master has got it right in the water, but acknowledges my fears and where they spring from. This just makes it worse. I want him to laugh in my face, make me believe that I am being completely unreasonable. We agree to leave responding to the email invite for a while, while we decide the best way to proceed.

I return next door and brood. When I next go through, I say sorry to hubby. He takes it that I am sorry for making such a fuss, whereas what I actually meant was that I was sorry for disturbing him when he was studying. We hug and he tells me it's okay, it is just me being a mother tiger protecting her cub, so why then do I feel less tiger and more scaredy cat?

Standing at the Foot of the Rainbow

The rainbow has long been a symbol of hope. The fact that there is not a pot of gold at the end of it has never stopped me from scanning the horizon to try to pinpoint exactly where every rainbow I have ever seen ends (or is that begins?) You want it to be magical. Perhaps, because you can only see one if the sun is behind you and the rain is in front. So a rainbow's magic is in reminding us that even when the rest of what we see is grey and we're not aware of the sun, a brighter future is all ready there, even if only in outline.

I'd like to think that our lives are one big rainbow, incorporating good and bad, dark and light, melding together the various character strands that shape the roles we perform in our daily lives; a symbol of hope. Sometimes, however, the edges appear a little frayed or overstretched, that's where "thrums" comes in. It's a word I first came across at university, starring as the fictional village setting of J M Barrie's kailyard fiction, thrums being the loose ends of thread in the loom.

It's a word that resonates for me. Life gets messy. There are lots of loose ends. Sometimes, things, people and even the stories we tell ourselves can get in the way of who we were meant to be and the life we thought we were supposed to lead. We can't see the beautiful rainbow our lives are weaving, because we are so tied up and consumed by fretting over the individual thrums that are closest at hand. But it is the ends of the rainbows that have the most potential. Its the place from which we start to weave our own rainbows.

In recent years, in my own life, I have been overwhelmed by the threads and unable to see the rainbow, let alone feel I was living it. This year I a going to make a conscious choice to weave my own rainbow and live the strands, rather than try to resist them.

Day one - 10.30am, 1 January 2019

A Personal Challenge for 2019

One part of doing this will be to take a photograph of the same spot on the Water of Leith every day for a whole year and use this as a moment of daily reflection, which I will share here. I hope that in seeing the seasons come and go, acknowledging the minute changes that occur almost imperceptibly from day to day, it will help me to step back and appreciate the full ridiculous beauty of my life.

So today, while the family either dozed or lived vicariously through Youtube, I took my first trip down to take the slimmer's equivalent of a before photo. It's a short walk; the quiet of our street, quieter still because it is the New Year, followed by the steady burble of traffic on the main road. And yet here on that self same busy thoroughfare is the Water of Leith, where turned one way you are in the heart of nature (albeit framed in the photo by the canal and railway bridge), turn around and it is a busy city street. 

Such is our life. It holds so much. Stillness and chaos in every moment. Until tomorrow, then . . .

Let There be Light!!!

Day 50 - 10:06am, 19 February 2019

As I walk down the road today, there are workmen upgrading the street lights in the Crescent to fit the new LED bulbs. As I get closer, I see that they have already been to the Drive to the left. It seems that they are re-purposing the existing columns. so only the lantern and hoods of the old street lamps are being removed and they are being replaced with what looks like an LED flat cap, or bunnet, as we say in Scotland. Apparently, according to the council website, all it takes is 15 minutes per light to bring us into the energy-efficiency age.

As I see this, I wish I had paid more attention to the streetlights last night so that I will be able to compare the lights tonight, assuming they maintain that tempo and move into the Road by evening. Coming back from the Water of Leith, I am trying to determine whether or not the lamps have already been changed on the main road, but it's not that easy to tell in the daylight. The LED caps appear thinner but not dramatically enough so as to draw attention to them.

The council website explains that the new light will be whiter and clearer and that they have chosen a neutral white light, to be like moonlight. Streets will feel safer, the street lamps will be less damaging to the environment and the new lanterns are cheaper to run and maintain. All well and good, but it wouldn't be Scotland,  however, if we couldn't shoehorn in a dig about the Scottish weather - so listed under benefits, we are advised that the new lamps "are ideal for Scotland's climate as LEDs work better in cooler temperatures." A real appeal to the Scot's heart!

The Spy Who Cracks Me Up

Day 49 - 08:18am, 18 February 2019

Family movie time, and we have just finished watching the third Johnny English film which came out on DVD today. I can't remember the last time we all laughed so hard. On Little Miss' request we watch scene 11 over, in which see Johnny English runs amok in central London with a virtual reality headset on, oblivious to the chaos that he is causing. I am not one for physical comedy, but there is something both ridiculous and lovable about the spy who gets it so wrong and yet, in the end, always gets it right.

When the kids go to bed, we watch the recording of the final programme in the latest Cold Feet series. It's a different sort of comedy. Like an old friend returning that knows the absurdity of life, but  whose gentle humour allows them to steer a way through the inevitable ups and downs, and in doing so makes you believe that with the good friends alongside you, you can get through absolutely anything. So while raucous laughter clears the cobwebs away, the best medicine is almost always laughing with those who know and love you best.

When a Tree Falls

Day 48 - 3:35pm, 17 February 2019

Weather-wise, it is a day of two halves. The first half is grey and wet; the afternoon is bright and summery, albeit with a little wind chill thrown in. I take the two youngest to the park and leave them to play while I aim to finish off a poem that has been neglected since the beginning of the year.

I re-write the first three lines before I am interrupted. The first request is that I take a photo. I put my pen carefully on top of the notebook to make sure I don't lose any of the pages. I take the photo and sit down, once again putting pen to paper. The second request, take another photo. Once again, I take the photo, I try once again on the poem. Next, Little Miss wants my help to navigate from one section to the next on the climbing frame. I stand back and try to talk her through it, where to place her foot, how to swing her bum round . . . she panics. So I physically manhandle her into the correct position and she slides over. 

I give up on the poem and put the notebook away, and watch her do it a second time as if she had done it every day of her life for the past seven years. She is delighted, hugs me and begins to play with her brother again. Take a photo they demand as they stand side-by-side on the two swings. 

I try to remember back to when I was a child. There were lots of photos, but I don't remember expecting to have my every move recorded. Its as if something only has any worth if it is photographed or filmed, ready to be shared with the world. It's the modern-day equivalent of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Except it is now, if a child does something during the day and no one is around to film it, has it really occurred?

Putting It All Together

Day 47 - 1:09pm, Saturday 16 February

Much of Saturday afternoon and evening are lost to desk building and the preparations for it. I am not a natural when it comes to following DIY booklet instructions. I find the pictures ambiguous and confusing. And I am never quite sure which way round a piece should be. I think this time round it will be difficult. This is the second desk of the same design that I have put together. Surely, it will be relatively straight forward second time round.

But no, it is not. Hubby is choked with the cold and looks awful (in the nicest possible way) but keeps offering to intervene. I say no, determined to finish the job I started. Eventually, I give in and ask for help. It turns out that it is not me at fault, nor even the instructions, but the desk. Hubby fixes it by shaving an extra bit off the back panel. I resume operations, my frustration growing to the point that I am delighted to break away to take the kiddies the bed. I read Little Master his Pokemon story and then read a whole chapter of Harry Potter to Little Miss. I never succeeded in getting her big brothers to like Harry Potter so I am rather enjoying the opportunity to re-read the first book to her now, thirty odd years since I first read it.

When I go downstairs, the desk is all but finished. It took me about five hours to get the desk half made. It's taken hubby half an hour or so to finish the rest. Teamwork!

You are Worthy

Day 46 - 08:26am, 15 February 2019

Running very late for work today. Thankfully I catch a bus straight away, and the combination of it being a Friday and the kids being off school means I make it into the office only five minutes late. I have a list of tasks that I want to get through, and by the end of the day, I have got through a lot, but not necessarily what I wanted to. I take my laptop home. Ostensibly, with all good intentions of doing what I couldn't do during the day, but I know the likelihood is that when I grab it on the way out the door on Monday morning, it will have lain where I left it, undisturbed for the entire weekend.

Before, this thought would have depressed me. I would have taken it as a signal of just how out of control my world is. Can't get it together at work, can't get it together at home. Every day is more chaotic than the last. But it's not. The kids are loved, fed and watered; they make it to school on time 99 times out of 100. Can we improve? Yes, undoubtedly. But for now, we just hang on and try to change one little thing at a time. And this weekend, the thing I will change is the desire to beat myself up when real life asserts itself, as I am sure it will. Instead, I will just be gracious, with me and with my life, because both are worthy.  

Can't Buy Me Love

08:13am, 14 February 2019

You know Valentine's Day is approaching because you can hardly get into supermarkets for fear of tripping over bucket upon bucket of red roses. And today, it is here. One of those odd days in the calendar that can cause delight and despair in equal measure, depending on your circumstances and how you feel about them. 

For some it's a way of expressing their feelings for another, either for the first time or on cue, once a year. Saying things that may otherwise go unknown, unsaid or taken for granted. For others, it's a kowtowing to consumerism and the need to show in public another's worth to you by buying them expensive gifts or at least over-priced knick-knacks. This is the side that worries me most because as the Beatles knew, can't buy me love and it certainly won't save the planet. The days and weeks after Valentine's must surely signal another layer of plastic debris accumulated, haunting our planet, long after the earthly recipient and sender have turned to dust. 

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with stopping to reflect once a year. Christians have a whole liturgical calendar of reflection points to get them through the year. I just think we need to be more accountable in how we celebrate it. 

Little Miss has made her 'boyfriend' a "Ballen times" card - a rainbow-coloured heart which I take a photo of and text to his mum because it is the February break and they will not see each other at school. There is an innocence in this that is endearing. "So cute!" comes the reply. 

That's what I want my love to be - for it to be rainbow-coloured (inclusive), simple in form (a genuine point of connection, not an all singing and dancing show designed to turn eyes on me) and heart-felt (an outpouring of agape love, through which my soul resonates and rejoices with yours). And, in this spirit, Happy Valentine's everyone!

Spring? Whenever.

Day 44 - 09:05am, 13 February 2019

Each day, I scan the trees on the riverbank in the hope of seeing buds. Or perhaps, more accurately, the hope that there will be something new to report in the photo. But there is not. The trees are as bare as they were yesterday, a week ago, a month ago and on the 1st January. 

I realise I don't actually know when I should expect to see the trees budding! I have experienced the changing seasons in Edinburgh for over 40 years, but other than knowing it will happen in Springtime, I am none the wiser as to when 'Spring' should be. The bushes in my garden have been in bud for at least the past week and so I guess I naively assumed that the trees would be close behind, given our proximity. 

So when I look up the first day of Spring online, I am surprised at just how late Spring is - 1 March from a meteorological perspective and 20 or 21 March from an astronomical perspective. I like the fact that there are two dates to choose from. I also like the fact that the trees care nothing for our calculations but are able to see, feel and calculate time for themselves. Maybe they should be the final arbiters of when the new season springs.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Day 43 - 09:06am, 12 February 2019

Little Miss has been dropped off at her holidays dance club and the boys are at their tae kwon-do course, hoping to grade for new belts tomorrow. It is the first time in a long time that I have been in the house alone for any length of time. While I have been fantasising about transforming the house in the hour before my own Bodybalance class, the truth is I mainly enjoy the quiet and leave the tidying up until after I am home from class.

Class is difficult. Even though my asthma is improving, as soon as I exercise, I am back to performing my best impression of a panting dog on a hot day. Thankfully, the class is quiet and I am hiding in the very back row, in the very back corner. So I think I just about get away with it. 

I find my asthma humbling. It's very easy to take our bodies for granted, to expect them to show up and operate at full capacity, just because that's what they did yesterday. Yet, when my asthma is playing up - and I am conscious that my choice of words "playing up" is indicative of my arrogance in this respect, as if the asthma is somehow acting out of turn, how dare it! - that all the gains of accumulated classes over the past two years are gone overnight. Back to square one. Barely able to lift my hands over my head without needing to reach for my inhaler.

But I am lucky. I know my setbacks are temporary. There are those that live with asthma day in and day out; those who cannot hope for a return to good health but must adapt to and live with their bodies as they are. And each and every one of those bodies is no less worthy or deserving of respect than my own.

Starling Effort

Day 42 - 07:58am, 11 February 2019

The photos do not do justice to the flow of the water, which - unsurprisingly - is in constant flow. Today, it is competing with the sound of birdsong, which I was struck by from the moment I opened the front door. Spring is approaching. I wish I knew more about identifying bird song, but my knowledge does not extend beyond wood pigeons and owls. However, having listened to a bird song app, I am pretty sure now that there was a starling in the neighbour's hedge this morning, calling across the road. But it was too well-hidden for me to identify it by sight. 

I wonder what he was saying. I write "he" because according to Wikipedia, the males sing constantly as the breeding season approaches in the hope of enticing a female to their nest. Older birds are said to have a greater song repertoire, which helps them to get their gal earlier and then to have greater reproductive success than younger males. Females also appear to rate those with more complex songs more highly. So maybe my little dude was ramping up for Valentine's, vocally strutting its stuff in the hope of finding a mate. 

While Wikipedia also reports that starlings are both monogamous and polygamous, the truth seems to be that only males mate for a second time, despite there being less chance of success on the second occasion. Another snippet is that the male prettifies the nest with greenery and flowers to woo his partner, who then dismantles this when she moves in. I like the idea that the male goes to all that effort, to which the female goes, beautiful hunny, now let's get this nest ready for nesting. 

All of this raises more questions than it answers. Are male starlings either always monogamous or always polygamous? Or, do they flip between the two states depending on whether or not they think they will get away with it? Can a pretty female starling turn heads and do other females actively try to lure males from their first to the second nest? Does female number one know of female number two? Or, does she wake up in the morning and think where's old Jimbo gone? Does female number two know or care that she was second choice? If both females reproduce, does the male split his time between both nests? And how would we ever know? Lots of questions for another day.

Connecting Across the Globe

Day 41 - 14:54pm, 10th February 2019

I wake up after 10am with my hubby telling off the kids for making so much noise that they will wake me. I feel rotten - the sinus is back, my ear is throbbing and my peak flow has almost halved. A quiet day ensues.

There are two high points to the day. The first is after I take the picture and go on toward the supermarket to pick up more cold and flu tablets. Playing on the grassy patch at the end of the road are two grey squirrels. One is close enough to the fence that if it were not there, I would be able to reach out and touch it. The squirrel holds its nerve until I am almost past it, then scurries back to the safety of a tree. Somehow these brief encounters with nature take me out of myself and make me feel better, if only temporarily in the case of this infernal cold.

The next is Martin Clunes' TV series on American islands. I catch it by chance. He is exploring Hawaii. This is where we honeymooned nearly 15 years ago and I can still taste the freshly-harvested pineapple and smell the sulfur as if it were yesterday. He then visits Alaska. The thing that resonates is that both set of islanders have not just a healthy respect for nature, but almost a reverence for it. The mother from Hawaii talks of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire, as both creating and destroying. And a pastor in Alaska, who has come from mainland America, speaks of city dwellers as having lost the connection with nature. But not here, he uses fishing as a medium to connect with the Alaskans and finds their conversations easily and naturally switch from fishing matters to spiritual ones.

Lying in bed, ready for sleep, I try to read a book on Qigong for women. I cannot keep my eyes open, but the last thing I read is how we and nature are all connected, and I go to sleep happy.

For the Love of 20p!

Day 40 - 15: 29pm, 9 February 2019

With no acro dance to amuse her in the morning, I bring Little Miss with me to the shops in the afternoon in the hope of her getting some fresh air. I know it isn't going to go well when she produces 20p from her pocket and says she wants to buy something. She heads hopefully for the toy aisle. When she realises the fruitlessness of her endeavour, she asks to look in the sweets aisle. In the sweets aisle she has a choice of five sweets that are 20p or less. I probably would have stretched to the extra 5p needed to buy one of the sweets on the upper shelves but she wants candy sushi - £3 - and a pizza made of sweets. I hold my ground, thinking it will be a valuable lesson.

Five minutes later, we leave empty-handed. I give her the opportunity to bail, but she is determined to spend her 20p and so we head to the old Fruitmarket. She wants to go to Poundland, even when I tell her the clue is in the name, but she is not to be dissuaded. However, we head to Home Bargains first so that I can pick up Little Master's pasta pouches. We de-tour to the sweets aisle and this time we find only one sweet that is 20p or less. It looks suitably chemical for her to be enthralled by it. She pays for it and adds it to her bag. 

She still wants to visit Poundland: it is a new shop and it has replaced Poundworld, her favourite shop. She trips around, happy because she has the sweet in her bag. Heading for home, I explain we need to take a little detour so I can take a photo. First off she is curious, "Do you have to take a photo every Saturday?" but once I explain I go every day, she loses interest and pleads to walk home on her own while I go take a picture. Not a chance. I allow her to open her sweet instead, which keeps her happy until we go home. Her blue tongue is all the reward she needs at this point.

In Need of Distraction

Day 39 - 07:45am, 8 February 2019

It's Friday. Everyone loves a Friday, one step away from the weekend. You can't see it from the photo but it is very wet. I get soaked on the way to the bus stop. Wearing jeans on a dreich day was not a good choice. They begin to dry out on the bus, only for me to be soaked through at the other end as I walk the last stretch to work. I arrive at the office looking bedraggled. Thank goodness for the Friday bacon roll run. (Though for a change, I am having sausage.) There is something very heartening about a warm breakfast on a cold, wet day.

At lunchtime I seek distraction at the shops. Flying Tiger never fails to disappoint. And then I find a pair of trousers in New Look to wear tomorrow night (turns out they don't fit, or at least, they don't fit comfortably; it's amazing what you can fit into if you breathe in, the problem is breathing out and eating.) On the way back, I discover an anime shop in the Waverley Mall - this would be Little Master's idea of heaven. A quick circuit of the shop confirms it, but also that if I let him loose in here, I would have to work another job to pay for it. For the time being, he'll just have to seek distraction elsewhere.

Room to Grow

Day 38 - 07:26am, 7 February 2019

I am starting work early today and am running late. Thankfully, the traffic lights are in my favour and so I manage to take a snap before the bus makes it through the lights and halts at the bus stop. It is dark but not pitch black when I get on. Half-an-hour later, as I get off, it is daylight.

Now, that's the sort of transformation I like. If only everything could turn around this quickly. We'd all be superhuman. Overweight? No problem, half an hour later, you'd find clothes to fit you on the sale rail. Feeling blue? Half an hour later, you'd be cartwheeling rainbows across the sky. But cartwheeling rainbows aside, what would be the fun in that? No room to grow, no room to explore issues and find out things for yourself. Maybe things are a lot better as is.

So Near and Yet so Far

Day 37 - 9:19am, 6 February 2019

I take my picture on the way back from school drop off. I think the most exciting thing I am going to see is the dead pigeon up a side street on the way there. It is the first dead pigeon I have ever seen; it is lying on its back, its claws up in the air looking very much as if they are still hooked tightly around a now non-existent twig. I wonder if someone will have to pick it up or if it will simply be left for a fox to take care of.  

Having taken my first photo, I begin to switch off my phone, just as three ducks land on the water. I hastily re-awaken my phone to take another photo. They are the first examples of wildlife I can claim to have seen in the river since starting my year-long project. Of course, they are not willing to hang around for long and so even with the zoom on, it is hard to make them out. Again, I shut my phone down and am about to put it in my pocket when a train goes over the bridge. By the time I put my password in to reawaken it, switch to camera and take the photo, the train is gone.

We'll leave that first for another day. 

Progress Report

Day 36 - 12:53pm, 5 February 2018

Tuesday is a busy day - there's nursery, school, home for lunch, return to school for class trip to the woods, Little Mister's orthodontist appointment (with pouring rain thrown in for good measure), home, take Little Miss to the leisure centre (another soaking) and home to make tea. Thankfully, I am spared a third soaking as Little Mister is keen to collect his sister from gymnastics.

The orthodontist is pleased with progress and fits a thicker wire to his top teeth to move things along. She hopes to do the same with the bottom teeth at the next appointment. His teeth are already better aligned than mine. Last week, the dentist took x-rays at my check up and explained to me that my squinty roots and tipped molars were as a result of my own orthodontic visits as a child when, as she put it, orthodontics were in their infancy.

Little Miss is also making progress, enthusiastically explaining her latest gymnastics move to me - a kickover. This begins in a bridge position, from where she lifts one leg high in the air, before bringing both legs over her head in a controlled split to end up in a standing position. A bridge I can handle, even perhaps straightening one leg into the air, but beyond that I have no hope. My seven-year-old has overtaken me. That's progress for you.

Blue Screening

Day 35 - 6:52pm, 4 February 2019

I think most of the ice on the Water of Leith has now melted. I say "think" deliberately, because by the time I make my way there after work it is too dark to see anything. Even the camera on the iPhone is not up to the job, and so the image - if you can call it that - comes out decidedly blue. It seems appropriate, however, having already had more than one blue screen of death on my laptop today. 

If you've never had one, a sad face announces that your PC has run into problems and needs to restart. It then claims to be collecting error info and promises to restart when it has done so. In my experience, it never does. You have to manually intervene. And perhaps I too should be pressing the reset button: my head has not been in the game for days.

  

Putting a Brave Face On

Day 34 - 2:10pm, 3 February 2019

It is the penultimate programme in the SAS:Who Dares Wins series and the staff are doing their best to break the recruits, mentally and physically, while at the same time saying, "Harness that fear and use it to your advantage." Walking over a canyon on a ladder and swimming under the ice are just two of the challenges. (You wouldn't catch me doing either - there are some things worth fearing.)

The biggest challenge, however, appears to be fighting their own demons. Every recruit has a different story to tell, a reason to invoke the "if you have been affected by any of the issues" message as the credits roll. From having suffered a broken neck to being bullied at school, having mental health issues, nearly drowning as a child, losing a spouse. But I guess that's what TV is all about. It isn't going to be great programming if the contestants all had perfect childhoods and unremarkable adulthoods. These are all driven people with something to prove to themselves and to others too.

We watch the show after the kids go to bed and when it finishes, there is a programme on about Odysseus, which retraces his journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. I half watch until I catch the narrator saying to find out who he is, Odysseus must first be broken. So, it appears there is nothing new under the sun. Instead of the ten weeks the journey should take, it takes him ten years to complete his quest to get home to his wife and son. That is an awful lot of breaking - think how long a series of SAS: Who Dares Wins would need to be to cover all that.

Frozen

Day 33 - 9:51am, Saturday 2nd February

Little Mister is off camping with the Scouts at lunchtime. He is to be away for 24 hours - but you might think it was a week, the amount of clothes I have given him - just in case. Character building, hubby says. Little Mister is unphased by it all, more interested in trying to squeeze in that last game of Fortnite before the wild calls him and he goes into digital detox. Hubby, bless him, has agreed to go as a parent helper this afternoon in my place. I have been wheezing for almost a week, with a cold has been flitting around my body looking for a hook up; thankfully, it has never gone much beyond a first date, but I wish it would take no for an answer and move on.

When he leaves, Little Miss and I accompany Little Master to taekwon-do. Little Miss sees the swans huddled in the centre of Craiglockhart pond, which is otherwise frozen solid, and feels sorry for them. Little Master on the other hand is desperately excited that it is frozen and wants to go down to it. I do not let him, and distract him by the promise of snowball fights on the way home. So, they leave the Leisure Centre with a spring in their step and run on ahead of me, trying to find the last untouched patches of snow to scoop up and plant on one another. He comes off better than Little Miss.

Nearly home, both of them stop at the canal to admire it in its full frozen glory. Again, the ice sirens call to Little Master. I talk to him about the dangers of walking on frozen water and lure him back with the promise of an untouched back garden, awaiting their pillaging. Five minutes of churning is enough to clear the garden of its snowball potential and we carry on.

When Little Master also goes off on a play date, Little Miss seizes the opportunity to watch a film. Taking advantage of the fact that she doesn't first need to reach a consensus with her brothers, she chooses Frozen. We cuddle in, wrapped in blankets and watch. It seems apt.

Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits

Day 32 - 8:18am, Friday 1 February

Every now and then, as the calendar turns a page, I remember back to my childhood days and the need to say "Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits" as the first spoken words of the month. Whether or not it ever brought me luck as it was supposed to is hard to say, because my luckiness levels didn't seem to alter depending upon whether or not I conformed to the superstition. Usually I forgot, then kicked myself shortly after, when I realised that the moment and the opportunity were lost for another month. So it seems unlikely that even then if I had had a particular run of luck or bad luck struck that I would remember back to whether or not I had name-checked our furry friends on the first of the month.

Maybe the fault lies with me for not making a note of it or recording my good luck in some manner. After all, as the old business adage goes: "What you measure, gets done/managed." So what would have happened had I tracked my luck? Would I start looking for and finding good luck in the rabbit months and then looking for and finding bad luck in the animal-free months? Would I actually alter my luck or just my perception of it? Would it help me see what was already there but had been slipping by unnoticed or would the act of measuring it somehow generate more?

Today's good luck was the snow. Following what was forecast to be the coldest night of the year so far, the Water of Leith is a patchwork of ice and the canal is completely frozen over, but no snow. The kids try to scrape enough frost together to make snowballs, but they are largely disappointed. Then, we leave the church hall after Cubs to be surprised by snow. Best of all, it's the pretty kind - large flakes that gracefully dance their way down to the ground in slow motion. And it's lying, our luck has changed.