Look for hope in the small things

It’s been such a long time since I wrote. For you.

I have time on my hands now, something I’ve always wished for more of so that I could write. But I realise it wasn’t lack of time that was stopping me at all.

What is it, then? Fear of discomfort, the blank page. What if what I write is not good? What if it upsets someone? What if it’s too good? What if I can’t ignore any longer the little voice in my head that says ‘you were born to write a book’?

Why does it say that to me, that little voice, from time to time? What do I have to say that’s more important than what anyone else has already said? How can I write as beautifully as those writers I admire?

Is it any of these? Is it all of them?

If you ask me to write something for you, I will. I will help you write a CV, a covering letter, a complaint. I will edit documents; keeping words that count and cutting ones that don’t. I will write you poems that rhyme and ones that won’t. I will draft your birth announcements, your its-not-you-its-mes, your vows, your eulogies.

In my career, for other people I have written headlines, captions, columns, horoscopes, public health campaigns, travel guides, tender documents, blogs, leaflets, press releases, programmes, brochures, adverts, social media campaigns, website copy, case studies, strategies, FAQS, how-to guides, policies, newsletters, emails for incompetent bosses.

But I will do almost anything to avoid writing for me. The intimidating blank document and the blinking cursor on my own computer, the fresh page of a journal and a new pen, oh how they taunt me.

Even this blog began with the idea of writing for other people. How we all make life more complicated than it really needs to be. What should be obvious, that we ignore, and causes us grief? Do not touch the lobsters. I will write that for you.

Every uncertain day just now I walk my dog on the beach. She runs and digs and sniffs and splashes, and I look for broken bits of pottery and glass, nuggets of treasure among the broken shells.

And on the way back we wind through the nature reserve. She looks for squirrels and listens for rustling. I look for signs of spring and listen for goldfinches and magpies.

On a sunny morning, I spotted a shard of sea glass with a pretty flower design. I stooped to pick it up and slid it straight in my pocket to carry on throwing the ball for my dog.

After we left the beach, she dropped her ball in the undergrowth on the nature reserve and, as I crouched down to fetch it, I noticed the sweetest patch of forget-me-nots in the shade of the trees.

These are my favourite flowers. Tiny and perfect. A reminder that there is real reward in looking carefully for joy in the places you might miss.

Days like those are quickly followed by heavy leaden ones right now, where I can rouse myself to nothing. Not crochet or cleaning, and certainly not writing. I feel repelled from the keyboard as if we were magnets set against one another, wishing that something would snap us back together the way we belonged, but not knowing how.

On a day like that I slipped on my coat to go out with the dog with my head full of storm clouds that just wouldn’t pass.

In the pocket I felt the ridged sea glass in my fingers, and pulled it out to look at the flower once again.

Turning it over in my hand, I noticed there was writing on the other side. Someone had painted these words in tiny script:

‘Look for hope in the small things’

It’s been such a long time since I wrote.

For me.

Five things I learned in Veganuary

In just a few hours my meat-free month will be up. A challenge I set myself out of curiosity, both about whether I could keep to it for a month, and what I would learn on the way.

Keeping to it was much easier than I expected. It was a piece of cake – egg and dairy free of course.

And what I have learned? Quite a lot, as it happens.

1. I can quite happily exist without meat in my diet

I didn’t miss meat a bit. Not one jot. Over the last few years I’ve been eating less and less meat so it didn’t come as a great surprise that I had no cravings for chicken, or ham or bacon. But I do love a nice medium rare steak. In fact, sometimes I actually crave it, so I did expect to have a raw, animal urge for red meat now and then. That never happened.

At the beginning of the month I made the decision not to bother with any meat replacements like Fake Bacon or Quorn or Linda McCartney’s Bangers. ARF. I did have some tofu just out of curiosity, but I wanted this challenge to be about learning about other types of food, not about trying to recreate all my usual meals with squashed up bean curd (yum).

I did miss cheese a little. Melted on pizza, particularly. And fluffy scrambled eggs with butter on a Sunday morning. But hey, I also miss watching The Raccoons on a Saturday morning, Fry’s Five Centres and my pre-pregnancy tits. Life goes on, eh?

2. I now crave fruit and vegetables.

Yes, really. A big plate of rocket with balsamic vinegar. Sliced apples dipped into peanut butter. Ripe avocado on crusty bread with lemon and black pepper. Aubergines roasted until they’re soft and smoky. Red cabbage steamed in cider vinegar. Pears and blackberries with chia seeds sprinkled on top.

All of these things are truly delicious on their own, they don’t need to be nestled up to chicken or beef, or served beside ice cream (and definitely not both). I feel like my palate has been given a cold shower and my tastebuds slapped awake. I’m much more aware of the textures, tastes and colours of everything I eat.

3. Having fewer choices makes life easier

This particularly applies to things like biscuits, sweets and alcohol. I’m not saying there’s not a world of options out there for vegans – that’s just not true. It’s easier than ever to be vegan, with the internet for research, and mainstream shops stocking Free From ranges as standard.

But when you walk down the biscuit or confectionery aisle of a supermarket as a vegan, it’s safe to say at least 75% of it is no longer for you. And for someone like me, who would happily scoff almost any biscuit, sweet or chocolate product on the market, this is no bad thing.

I think my tastes have changed. After a month of dark chocolate, the thought of Dairy Milk actually makes me want to gag and that is not a sentence I ever thought I would type!

The reduced options for sweet treats also works in your favour if you’re trying to be healthier or lose weight. If you go to a café, there might not be a vegan option, and if there is, chances are it might be fairly virtuous. When you know you can’t have those massive meringues smooshed together with cream then that’s it, temptation is out of your way.

4. People are fucking weird (and also awesome)

They really are. I was not anticipating my personal choice would be so freakin’ offensive to so many people! What is that about?

I had a full house on the ‘what to say to vegans’ bingo card at least once:

•  Why don’t you eat eggs?
• Why don’t you eat honey?
• Humans are meant to eat meat.
• Hitler was a vegetarian.
• Are those shoes leather?
• Health food shops are expensive.
• You need meat for nutrients.
• Plants have feelings too.

I now understand that some people feel uncomfortable when you change. It makes them feel bad about their choices, so they try to make you feel bad about yours.

Other people have been hugely encouraging, tagging me in recipe ideas on social media and recommending cafes and restaurants that do vegan dishes.

When I first considered trying veganism I dismissed the idea because I might ‘put people out’ if I visited them and they had to cook for me, or even make a cup of tea. That is one of the lamest reasons for not doing something I ever heard, but it is a valid concern – so this month I have always offered to bring my own food if I’m invited round to someone’s house (and I can also drink my tea black).

But really, it’s not that hard to be prepared for a visit from a vegan. Bourbon biscuits are 70p for a massive packet, and anyone can rustle up a bowl of pasta with some tomatoes and a clove of garlic.

5. Vegan cheese is shit.

For real. It tastes like sick. All of it. Rotten.

So, what now? Will I be a full-time vegan? Probably not. I’ve proved to myself that I can stick to anything I put my mind to, and I’ve found lots of new dishes and flavours that I really enjoy.

I think I will stick with this plant-based diet 90% of the time. I’ll keep the oat milk and dairy-free spread. I doubt I’ll eat bacon or ham again anytime soon, and I’m not really interested in chicken.

But I don’t think I could ever give up that steak once a month. And a little bit of cheese every now and then. Cheese that doesn’t taste like sick.

Morrissey I’m not, but I’m making my choices mindfully and that’s what life is all about.

Mindfulness, and a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs on hot buttery toast…

Top vegan discoveries

• Vego – lush wholenut chocolate
• Oatly – the best non-dairy milk IMHO. Great in hot drinks or on cereal
• Graze cocoa and vanilla flapjack – like chocolate rice krispie cake
• Co-yo – coconut yoghurt alternative, great with granola or fruit
• Engevita – nutritional yeast flakes, delicious to add flavour to dishes
• Booja Booja ice cream and chocolate truffles – total luxury treat
• Caponata– Sicilian aubergine stew (my favourite new recipe), great on ciabatta

‘All they did wrong was touch a knee’

This blog has been going for some time now and I am sure you’ll be as surprised as I was when it dawned on me that I’ve not gone fully postal with a Feminist Rant (TM).

So strap yourselves in. Here it comes.

I didn’t expect I’d be moved to break the dam on this particularly subject because of something a woman had said, but it would seem the world is full of surprises.

Imma come right out and say it. Catherine Deneuve what the actual fuck is wrong with you?

Of all the things you could put pen to paper to write about, of all the things you could use your influence to change, you choose to defend a man’s ‘freedom to bother’ women?

Is your own self-worth so tied up in the imagined male gaze that you can’t bear the idea a man might ever look at you as an equal and not a sex object?

Have you ever considered, and I mean properly sat down and thought it through, what it might feel like to turn up to work every day and be subjected not just to casual flirting by a man you find unattractive, or even insistent sexual innuendo, but actual hands-on sexual assault? To depend on the money coming from that job so much that you felt you couldn’t speak up in case you lost your income?

I’m guessing that you haven’t, otherwise you surely wouldn’t have written that open letter with your friends and colleagues, undermining the progress of the #metoo movement and everything it stands for.

Most of you come from positions of relative privilege – singers, actors, artists, journalists, doctors. No cleaners, nurses, secretaries, bus drivers, hotel workers.

You write: ‘A woman can, in the same day, lead a professional team and enjoy being the sexual object of a man, without being a ‘slut’, nor a cheap accomplice of the patriarchy. She can insure that her salary is equal to a man’s but not feel forever traumatised by a frotteur in the Metro,’

HOW GOOD OF YOU TO MANSPLAIN THAT FOR US.

I think what you’re trying to say is, to paraphrase that well-known feminist poet Ludacris, you can be A LADY IN THE STREET and still be A FREAK IN THE BED.

But, you also seem to be undermining even that little shitnugget by implying that if a woman happens to like sex they also nullify their rights to only want to be touched sexually:

a) when it suits them

b) by someone they want to touch them

c) in a place (both on their body and in terms of location) of their choosing

‘COME ON MESDAMES’, you and you pals are saying. ‘Men might actually lose their jobs because one time, ages ago, like in the 60s before sexual assault was actually bad, they put their hand on a woman’s knee. Do we actually want that to happen?’

Answer is Cath, no, probably we don’t.

But you know what else we don’t want to happen? (And this is by no means an exhaustive list and in no particular order):

• Rape.
• Creepy weirdos thinking it’s totally okay to say ‘smile’ to you in the street.
• Squeezing of our arses or tits on the tube or indeed LE METRO.
• Asking us out on a date more than once or twice after we’ve politely declined.
• Eye-rolling at utterance of any vaguely feminist statement
• Any phrase of the nature ‘you can’t say anything to ’em these days’
• Ditto ‘are you on your period?
• Systemic abuse of power by people with penises over people with vaginas

That should do for now.

It is fucking exhausting being a woman. Even those of us lucky enough to live in countries where we are free from brutal patriarchal regimes or sexual violence have enough to battle through every day – casual sexism, unequal pay, emotional labour, childbirth, burden of care, menstruation – without having to negotiate your internalised misogyny too.

If you like it when a man looks at you in a bar and then looks away, and then looks back, and then comes over and casually rests his hand on your knee, and then strokes your thigh and then says ‘I like your dress but I think it would look better on my bedroom floor’ then fucking good for you. I think you might need to widen your social circle but you know, whatever floats your boat.

That doesn’t mean that if the same guy were to approach me that there’s something wrong with me if I’m a little bit sick in my mouth and then kick him in the cojones and tip his Campari all over his slip-ons.

You do you, Catherine, but don’t EVER tell me where my limits should be.

You and your pals warn that we’re turning this #metoo thing into a witch hunt, but actually, it’s you who are doing that.

The ‘witches’ who have been hunted throughout history are never the people with the power. Never the men or the women who, like you, are in control.

The witches are always the people on the fringes. The outsiders. The women who are unusual, who are ‘other’.

And until you know what that feels like then you have no right to tell us we’re in the wrong.

A taste of summer

There are few joys in life as sweet as picking a perfectly ripe strawberry. Summer treasure hidden among the leaves and the straw, bursting brightly with sweetness.

They are, without doubt, my favourite thing to eat. 

We grew them in our garden when I was a child. Rows and rows of luscious plants, heavy with sweet berries all summer long. In May, when the pale flowers began to appear, my dad would carefully stake out the end of each row with a piece of wood, just taller than the plants, from which to hang the net that would protect the growing fruit from beady-eyed blackbirds.

 It was my job to crawl under and free the birds when they found a way into the patch. They’d flap their wings against the dark green net, chittering with fright, until I could find a way to unhook their wings and release them.

When the berries were ripe, my sister and I would spend what seemed like hours crouched down among the dust and the dark green leaves, seeking out the red riches. We collected the berries in a colander – to make it easier to rinse the dust off – but so many didn’t even make it to the sink. We ate handfuls straight from the plant, tasting the warm sunshine and the summer rain.

 I would have them for every meal if I could, but if the weather was just right we’d end up with so many berries that even I would have to admit defeat and we’d take them to neighbours, chapping on their doors with our red-stained hands and handing them over with grins on our freckled faces.  

 The smell from the strawberry patch seemed other worldly to me. Warm and lush, earthy and alive. Nature at its most vivid – those precious bright red gems, bursting with beauty and taste among the green leaves. But the perfect strawberry is only ever hours away from rotting into pungent disappointment. If there is no joy as sweet as finding a perfectly ripe strawberry, there is no sadness as sour as discovering one that has started to decay.

Summers spent collecting our heart-shaped harvest made me a master at spotting the tastiest fruit. If the berries are too dark and the seeds are rough, they will be bitter. If the berry is red but the top is white, it will taste sour. Too big, and it will be watery. Too small and it will taste too sweet. The perfect strawberry is medium, bright red and shiny, with vivid green seeds, smooth to the touch.

I’m 37 now. My dad still grows strawberries in the same garden. Each year, when I take a bite out of the first fruit of the season I know exactly how Proust felt when he tasted that petite madeleine.

It has been 20 years since I left home, but the only thing that has changed is that is there’s another generation of children now to free the blackbirds from the net.

‘The only person I really believe in is me.’ Debbie Harry.

When I was very little, my hair was very fair. On holidays abroad, it got me lots of attention. ”Ah, biondi bambina!” the Italian waiters would say as they patted my head. 

I freakin’ love a bit of attention. Don’t know if you’ve noticed. 

Over the years, my white blonde turned to what you might say was ash blonde. Mousy. Non-descript. 

At 17 I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m a blonde, I tell you! A blonde! They have more fun! I AM FUN! 

So I got some highlights. And so began 20 years (and counting) of fannying about with my hair colour.

At 22 I dyed it a horrid yellow and tried to wash it out with fairy liquid. At 25 I went brunette (I can confirm blondes don’t necessarily have more fun). I have been every shade and permutation in between. 

A few years ago I tried to grow all my colour out and accept what Mother Nature gave me. I caved after six months and started the journey to full-on bleach blonde.  

This journey co-incided with some pretty big changes elsewhere in my life. I lost weight and got fit. I changed careers. I started to get to know myself properly. I felt alive. I wanted to stand out. I wanted to look like Debbie Harry. 

Who doesn’t want to look like Debbie Harry?

The thing is though, I’m not her. And although it was fun to give it a go for a year or so, I think it’s time to take the wise advice of my 17-year-old niece:

‘Just do you fam.’

I couldn’t resist giving it my best shot to be Debbie just before I do, though. 

(My favourite photo of Debbie, taken on a Polaroid by Andy Warhol.)

The greatest story ever told

It was the summer of 1991 and I was 11 years old. Primary school was over. No more being kept in at playtime because someone wiped a bogey on the back of someone else’s chair. No more sitting around waiting for the art and music teachers to come to you with their mysterious jangling and rustling cardboard boxes of light relief.

Our ties and shirts signed, we said our weird half goodbyes in the familiar yet mysterious shadow of the huge school that would soon be ours, knowing we’d see each other almost every day of the holidays anyway, if the pocket money was forthcoming and the weather was good.

Just six blissful weeks stood between me and my friends and the gaping maw of High School, ready to swallow us up and sweep us through its narrow corridors full of spotty six-footers who looked for all the world like real, actual men and not boys we should be at school with.

What would we do with our holidays? Read Smash Hits and learn the words to Things That Make You Go Hmm. Do the dance moves to the Shoop Shoop Song. Go to the park and get rope burns from the flying fox. Buy frozen Kwenchy Cups and Lemonade Dip Dabs. Ride our bikes to the end of the street and try to make itching powder from rosehips. Eat rhubarb and sugar and play kerby.

We immersed ourselves in our favourite childhood pastimes for just one more summer. But we were also ready to move on. And that’s how we found ourselves in a matinee show at the Playhouse cinema without our parents for the first time ever.

Then, as now, I struggle to sit still or be quiet for two hours. I have a dreadful memory for films – just hours after watching one I usually struggle to recount the plot. But I remember every minute of that very first time I watched Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. The torture scenes! The witch! The old man who had his eyes gouged out! What WAS this fresh medieval hell?

We might have been just 11 and 12 but even then we knew that this was not Costner’s finest moment. He couldn’t even be bothered to try an English accent. But we didn’t care. Here was Alan Rickman giving the (pre-Snape) performance of his life as the eye-rolling, exasperated but kind of amazing Sheriff of Nottingham! Here was floppy-haired Christian Slater being all angry and sad and doing a shite job of his English accent but hey, at least he tried!

My nose randomly started bleeding halfway through, an occupational hazard for pre-teen girls. ‘Do you have tissues?’ I hissed to my friends along the row, their wide eyes locked on the screen. ‘No, we are small girls, we don’t carry anything useful’ they seemed to say. So I took off my sock (which had reindeer on it because novelty socks are OKAY when you are 11) and used it to stem the flow because I couldn’t bear to leave the cinema for one second.

I’ve written about my love for this film before, here, when Alan Rickman died. With two decades of hindsight clearly I can see the film is shonky AF, but I will defend it to the hilt because it stirred in me feelings of socialism and fairness:

‘I’ve seen knights in armor panic at the first hint of battle. And I’ve seen the lowliest, unarmed squire pull a spear from his own body, to defend a dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright. It’s defined by one’s actions.’

And feminism:

‘Men speak conveniently of love when it serves their purpose and, when it doesn’t, as a a burden to them.’

It also, er, stirred some other feelings. Okay, so we knew the story. We knew Robin would get together with Maid Marian. We were, frankly, NOT BOTHERED about that because WE DON’T EVEN LIKE BOYS OKAY?!

So what, then, was this weird feeling we were getting when Robin and Marian exchanged those cute looks and she asked him to take a bath? And when she gave him the jewelled knife?

Why were we on the verge of tears when he rushed in to save her from the wicked Sheriff? When they fell to their knees and he took her face in his hands why did we feel like this was the most amazing thing that had ever happened or would ever happen again?

Why did we feel like we were going to burst with joy (but also a little bit sad it wasn’t happening to us) when she said ‘You came for me? You’re alive!’ and he replied ‘I would die for you’. Why was our skin tingling when Bryan Adams started giving it the old ‘WALK THE WIRE FOR YOU’ with the F minor chord?

I saw the film another four times that summer, in between getting my braces tightened (what a catch) and getting a brand new school uniform (still won’t wear navy 26 years later).

Everything I Do (I Do It For You) went on to be No. 1 for so very long that everyone lost their tiny minds and started ripping out their car stereos and stabbing their eyes. I would concede to just roll mine, but I was secretly thrilled each time I heard it because it reminded me of that feeling I had in my heart – yes I had established I did actually have one – that first day I saw the film, when I realised that one day, maybe, someone would feel about me the way Robin felt about Marian.

By August, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince were banging out their ‘new definition of summer madness’ but frankly all their pool party, BBQ and basketball court chat was not really chiming with our experiences of a damp Perth summer with the occasional game of tennis at Darnhall and a picnic on the North Inch.

And frankly, it was just embarrassing to sing along to ‘y’all reminisce about the days growing up and the first person you kissed’ when you still had a flat chest (that wouldn’t actually change to be fair) and struggled to even speak to A BOY.

Little did we know how quickly *that* would change.

Twenty six summers later, I can still recite the movie script word for word. I still hate the torture scenes. I still love Alan Rickman’s black hair. And I still clap like a loon when Sean Connery appears at the end (spoiler alert).

But, most of all, my heart still feels fit to burst when Robin and Marian stumble towards each other and they hold each others’ faces. She does that weird cry-wheeping noise and he just looks at her lips. That is all there is to life folks. That is All. There. Is.

Love wins.

 

Running, but not running away

I run in the forest.

I run because I hate it. I hate the cold air that hits me as I step outside. I hate the feeling when I lift my feet and start moving. I hate that my lungs hurt as they fill and empty, I hate the stitch, I hate the tightness in my legs on the way out, and the heaviness on the way back. I hate the half of my mind that says ‘just stop now, you’ve done enough, you’re no use at this anyway’ and I hate having to push the other half to fight back and say ‘fuck you’.

I listen to music, because I cannot bear to hear my breathing – it reminds me how hard my body finds the job I am asking it to do. I see the trees swaying in the wind, and the swifts swooping over the sand dunes. I feel the stones shift beneath my feet and I smell the pine trees piled up by the side of the path. But I only hear music.

When I have run 5km (or 6km, or 7km, but never more) I stop immediately. I take out my earphones and stand completely still. Now I hear the branches creak and rustle, and the blackbirds sing. I listen to the distant waves, and the gravel crunch under my running shoes.  Now I can listen to my breathing, and I stay still until it returns to normal.

I feel more alive in those moments than in almost any other. I am in love with the feeling of relief and exhilaration that comes from pushing myself to do something I find so difficult.

It is these two minutes that drive me to come back to the forest to run again and again.

In all other aspects of my life, I turn away from discomfort. I’ve been doing it for so long I’ve become blind to the excuses I make to myself when I don’t want to do something difficult or frightening.

This makes it hard for me to see how I can change.

So I started with running.

Little by little, my addiction to the visceral joy that follows those 30 minutes of discomfort is beginning to send ripples throughout the rest of my life.

When I am busy, tired, cold and hungry, stepping out of the door to run is an act of sheer willpower. Now I can see that truly being myself will take exactly the same determination.

I am running, but I am not running away.

 

A story about women, beginning with Boy Scouts

This blog is inspired by the wonderful Lynsey over at Junction 29. 

In 1992 I didn’t know what a feminist was, but I was about to become one.

One Friday, our Girl Guide company paid a visit to the local Scout Troop in a sort of Trefoil Trading Places. It was wonderful fun. The scout hut was fit to burst with the sound of laughing and shouting, we played what seemed to this 12-year-old Guide like very dangerous games and ran around breathlessly in the freezing twilight.

I quit Guides that same evening. I was going to become a Scout.

The Scouting Association had opened its doors to girls the year before, but it was still optional for Troops and the word hadn’t yet spread as far as Perth. My well-meaning parents tried to dissuade me from asking the Scout Leader if I could join because ‘it might put him in an awkward position’.

I think that is the first time in my life that I felt the rising indignation – now all too familiar to me – that surfaces when I realise something has been placed out of my reach because I am female.

Within a week I’d set up a meeting with the leader – the wonderful Chris Kirk – and he  wholeheartedly and warmly welcomed me and some of my friends to become members of the 10th Perth Scout Troop.

I adored being a Scout. Everyone was treated exactly the same and it felt amazing. No one made a fuss about girls joining – not the boys, not the leaders. Heavy lifting, cooking, pitching tents, lighting fires, writing pantomimes, digging latrines – this was work for all of us and it felt like we could achieve anything together.

 

I hold on to that feeling now whenever I feel frustrated with the glacial pace of mankind’s progress to equality and feel like lashing out at men. There is nothing to be gained from the type of feminism that turns on men (apart from those who deserve it like, y’know, the leader of the free world) because we absolutely and completely need them in order to achieve equality. And for the continuation of our species, obvs.

I was humbled and delighted to be named in Lynsey’s list of badass women in her International Women’s Day blog, especially because she said that I ‘wave the feminist flag without hating on men’.

That is as important to me as feminism itself. Having said that, today is all about women so, just as Lynsey has done, I have come up with a list of women who inspire me every day.

MY MUM – Shelagh Barclay

Let’s kick off with the woman who brought me into the world. She is smart, warm-hearted, patient, kind and full of love. She has never said a mean thing to me – or to anyone – in all of my days on this earth. This is something I aspire to do (but never achieve). She is supportive but gave me freedom and independence to be everything I am today. Most of all, she is happy – and that is the most important thing to strive for and she set me a wonderful example. Thanks Mama.

MY SISTER – Susan Buchanan

95% of the time she is a total pain in the ass. I’m kidding! It’s about 75%. Without her I would not have learned anything about conflict resolution, negotiation or compromise. Nor would I have known the fierce and weird love that exists between siblings – you can want to punch them but you sure as hell ain’t gonna let nobody else punch them. When I was a new mum she talked me through a panic many a time and is always there for me and my kids. She is also a brave and determined stroke survivor who kicks ass.

SISTAS IN GENERAL

I have a big family. I would be here all day if I named all the inspirational women in it but my aunts, my cousin, my cousin in law, my mother in law, my sister in law and my six nieces have each taught me lessons about what it is to be a woman, to follow dreams, to work hard, to deal with heartbreak and loss and, overall, to be fiercely loyal and solid as rocks.

My friends, too, are fucking amazing. I’m actually welling up just thinking about them all. Wow. This is such a fun and positive thing to do folks, you should try it!

Without the support of my friends I would struggle to get dressed in the morning, never mind navigate the world of motherhood, work and dream-chasing. These gals are OWNING IT – nurses, risk managers, occupational therapists, broadcast journalists, social workers, home-makers, doctors, teachers, lawyers. One with kids, ones without. Ones with husbands, ones with wives, ones with cats….every single one of them is amazing.

This has gone on longer than a Paltrow Oscar speech so, quickly, here is a handful of other kick-ass broads I love.

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Supreme Court Justice. She has faced down prejudice all of her days, both personally and on behalf of others. When asked how many women she considered was enough to have on the Supreme Court, she answered ‘Nine. When there are nine. There’s been nine men and no one’s ever raised any questions about that.’ BOOM.

Malala Yousafzai – activist, Nobel prize laureate

Shot by the Taliban because she wanted an education. Tireless, fearless, erudite and basically completely inspiring. In a world of Kardashians, Malala is a sparkling diamond to tell your daughters (and sons) all about. She hit the nail squarely on the head when she said ‘Extremists have shown what frightens them most. A girl with a book.’  Never stop reading, sistas!

Caitlan Moran – Journalist, writer. Tina Fey – comedian, writer. Amy Poehler – comedian, writer. Mindy Kaling – writer, actor. All of these women are funny. We need funny women. Nothing can puncture the over-inflated patriarchy like sharp satire, sarcasm and creative swearing.

My next two come from a little bit closer to home.

Holly Scanlan – Writer and hairstylist Holly is the author of the wonderful GIGI BOBS HER HAIR blog. Her writing is powerful and comes right from her heart. Her way with words is poetic and beautiful. She is totally cool and wonderfully stylish. She also has a huge heart and is doing a fantastic job of raising her daughter – another feminist and activist at the tender age of 10. Holly strives to improve herself and is constantly learning. She has a real lust for life that’s totally infectious. She also bobs my hair and I love her for that!

Professor Dame Sue Black – a true local hero. Named today as one of 2017’s Outstanding Women of Scotland, Prof Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist, director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) and co-director of the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science, both based at the University of Dundee. OWNING IT.

Even more badass, if that’s even possible, is that she’s patron of the massively positive Dundee Women in Science festival – the only one of its kind IN THE ACTUAL WORLD. Celebrating the achievements of women in STEM and encouraging young girls to follow a career in traditionally male-dominated industries.

I have been lucky enough to spend time with Sue on several occasions. She is witty, warm, engaging and supportive. She also tells my husband he’s punching above his weight so I have an extra reason to think she’s pretty damn awesome.

Finally….I couldn’t write a blog about inspiring women without mentioning my daughter. Martha Luna. She is 10 and she is THE BEST. As you might know from the blog I wrote when she turned 10, she is an epic little broad who wears a zillion colours and patterns and couldn’t give a sparkly unicorn what anyone thinks. She is unassuming and serene, but she has changed my life and she will change others, of that I am certain.

‘I alone cannot change the world but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples’ – Mother Theresa.

 

I’d love to know who inspires you. Please share.

Let’s lift each other up, today and every day.

x

 

 

In praise of the mixtape

‘The making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.’
Rob Gordon, High Fidelity.

Hours of planning and execution. Running orders chosen and rejected. Song titles squeezed into tiny lines in your neatest handwriting. With a little help from Dylan, Aretha and REO Speedwagon, you’re going to get that message across.

There is no finer gift to give or receive than a mixtape. A time capsule, a love letter, a way to express feelings that you simply cannot put into words.

From cassettes to CDs to playlists, compilations given to me by others are among my most treasured possessions. Each one is like a secret doorway back to a time and place, shorthand to help your heart remember the feelings you had when you first played it.

Songs recorded off the radio for your friends, hand hovering over the pause button to deftly make a move as soon as the DJ drew breath. In-jokes and secret crushes alluded to, the rush to be the first to discover a new cool band and share it with each other.

Then came the boys. Standard practice – put a handful of songs on there to show off your musical taste. Stick on some songs you don’t actually like but that make you look cool. Pepper these with a few tunes that illustrate the way you feel. Hope your crush can work out which is which. Decide on the best order to put them in. Write the songs and artists in your best handwriting. Think up a witty title – ‘Now that’s what I call Music Camp 1995!’ or something equally mortifying – and hand it over.

In return, you receive just one side of a tape. Seven or eight songs. This half-arsed offering mirrors precisely the effort your crush is putting into the relationship and, within weeks, you have been unceremoniously dumped. By a typewritten letter. Signed yours sincerely.

Yes, that actually happened to me.

It’s true what they say, the course of true mixtaping never does run smooth. There are so many lessons to learn. If you’re a girl, you have carefully chosen some songs because their lyrics express how you feel. You think it’s obvious. You hope he gets the message. I mean, how could he miss it?

He’s listening to your tape. He thinks Wilson Phillips is an odd choice. He’s not mad about this Rod Stewart tune, but he likes that you’ve ended with The Clash. He replies with what he believes are the most seminal tunes from the 90s. You are left unpicking Happy Mondays’ coked up lyrics, desperately looking for hidden meanings. Wait. Here’s Oasis. HE WANTS TO TALK TONIGHT?!! Hallelujah!

In mixtaping as in life, I have always chosen to wear my heart on my sleeve. I like Chas and Dave and I don’t care who knows it! I like YOU and I don’t care who knows it! I go in early with the mixtape. I go in early with my feelings.

The problem with this – also in mixtaping as in life – is that not everyone feels the same.

I made a mixtape for my first proper boyfriend and it stepped right off into the deep end. Among VERY OBVIOUS I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU choices, I also chucked in a track from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert because, well, life. He was a Ibiza Classics kinda guy so this was a bold move, I’ll admit.

This is me! the compilation shouted. You’ll be beguiled by how cute I am! You’ll be touched by how thoughtfully I have segwayed Beatles into Oasis and impressed by how deftly I have recorded some of these most recent tracks off the radio without including any chat from Zoe Ball!

He didn’t seem bowled over when I handed over my gift. That’s okay, I thought. He’ll love it when he listens to it. He’ll love me! But it was never mentioned again and eventually I forgot about it.

Months later, he was having a party and playing some heavy house he’d recorded off the radio (this was the 90s, before iTunes and Spotify for you millennials sniggering at the back). Suddenly, the dance music stopped, and firing out of the speakers came the final seconds of I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine. His mates looked at him like he’d just burst out of the closet wearing sparkly pink tap shoes, and he hurriedly switched it off.

I was confused for a moment. And then I realised he had recorded Pete fucking Tong over my lovingly created compilation.

Now there was a crack in my heart, but it took a good five years until he broke it completely.

In a plot development worthy of High Fidelity itself, the man who mended that broken heart was, and still is, the King of the Compilation. Right from the start he made me the most beautifully crafted mixtapes. Deep cuts and artists that I’d never heard of but that he knew I would like, mixed with just the right amount of showing off, a tiny touch of meaningful lyrics and a crafty dose of which is which to keep me guessing.

I have a collection of compilations now, something approaching a boxset of Springsteen proportions. Each one is a slice of our life together, with sleeve notes providing a hefty dose of nostalgia, like a relationship scrapbook.

It’s easy to say that the art of the mixtape is lost now that we no longer need to record our masterpieces in real time with a twin tape deck. High speed dubbing has been replaced by Spotify playlists but the sentiment of baring a little bit of your soul remains untouched. Teenagers are sharing their creations with hope and trepidation just the same.

We might mourn analogue anthologies but, to me, even computer-generated playlists are a sweet side-effect of digital development. They’ve got the algorithm of my heart down to a tee and I like to think there’s a little robot out there, creating that weekly compilation just for me.

Oh. And here’s one I made just for you.

Wear your heart on your sleeve every day.

x

Bigly changes ahead. Huge.

Tomorrow everything changes. The universe is still expanding, yet it feels like humanity is shrinking.

As a dangerous and delusional sex pest is sworn in as leader of the free world, it’s hard to feel positive about the weekend, never mind the next four years.

Eight years ago I was pregnant and full of hope as I watched Obama’s inauguration. Sure-footed steps of progress had been made and it seemed like the world was going to be a better place for my daughter and unborn son. It was not unreasonable to think that the world’s most powerful country had really turned the corner.

And yet here we are. And, in the UK, our own government is poised to reverse decades of growth towards globalisation in favour of selfish and misguided protectionism.

Elsewhere in the world millions of people are homeless, displaced because of futile and horrific  acts of war, because of governments’ abdication of responsibility for the welfare of their citizens, because of systemic failure to value justice and fairness over economies and power.

There is, to use the technical term, a metric fuck tonne of shit to wade through.

But wade through it we must.

My niece is 17 and wants to be an interpreter at the European Parliament. With Brexit looming, she feels as if her choices have been snatched away.

Fuck that. There will be a way to make it happen, whatever those at Whitehall and in the White House are doing to drag us backwards in time.

Fuck that (and fuck them) should be our mantra whenever we face sexism, racism, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.

They might be the government, left or right, who make a lot of shitty decisions.

They might be your teacher, who tries to tell you what you are or are not capable of.

They might be toy producers, who think boys like guns and girls like dolls.

They might be your boss, who overlooks you for promotion because you have a vagina.

They might be a woman on the bus who makes rude remarks to someone wearing a hijab.

They might be some troll on Twitter who says the gender wage gap is ‘not a thing’.

They might be Donald Trump, who has the nuclear codes but still can’t get a Springsteen tribute band to play at his party.

This is not a call to embrace nihilism or even cynicism – quite the opposite.

We need to choose hope over fear.

I appreciate that I write this from a position of relative privilege. I am not living in poverty, or war, or oppression. But those of us who have the freedom from those things must try to effect change, however small, in order to help both ourselves and those who don’t.

Go to the protests and marches. Question everything. Always vote. Challenge shitty behaviour wherever you hear or see it. Donate, if you can.

But, more importantly, don’t let the bad stuff skew your view of the world. Horrible things are happening, and it’s a worry. But good things are also happening. All the time. Huge things. Beautiful. (See what I did there?)

Book groups are happening in pubs. People are tackling marathons to raise money for charities. Nine out of ten people would still run after you with your credit card if you dropped it in the street. Facebook groups exist to reunite small children with lost toys.

I had lunch with my little boy today and he told me about the book he was reading in school and the poem he is learning for Burns’ Day. He pointed out all the right angles he could see from the window and he wondered, on a scale of 1-10, just how spicy his spicy crisps were.

He mentioned that Donald Trump will become President tomorrow. He knows Trump is stupid and dangerous. But all he really wants to know is ‘does this mean we can’t go to Disney World next year?’

We could decide not to go to Disney World because Trump is a monster and we want to avoid the USA out of principle. We could decide not to go because Disney World is a corporate creation that encourages mindless consumerism and Walt Disney was also, allegedly, a fascist.

Or, we could go because Disney World is wonderful. It exists to entertain and delight. It is colourful and clean and bright. The sun shines on your face all day and there are fireworks at night. There’s candy and people smiling on every corner.

There is magic, if you simply believe in it.