An unexpected wedding dress

Christmas is over.  It was fun and exhausting.  On Christmas Day we hosted 12 people for lunch, including an overseas student friend of son G, and G's fiancee, my sister and her family, and our parents. 

On Boxing Day we made our annual trip to the nearby city where my parents live to celebrate Dad's birthday.  We joined half the city to walk around the lake in the local park.  It was very atmospheric - there was a faint mist through which we could see the lake in one direction, a sheet of silver, and in the other up the hill the park's stately home looking faintly sinister and gothic.  Everything was monochrome - black, grey, silver, and trailing white mist.

After lunch further friends and family joined us and after tea we played Mornington Crescent.  I 'won'.

On 27 December we went to husband R's family tea, when we commemorate his late Mum's birthday.  This time the games involved pulling names out of a bag and defining them in as few words as possible so other people could guess them. 

In between all of this, son G and his fiancee met friends and looked at where they might live once they're married.  Meanwhile daughter S felt sad because her fiance was with his grandparents and couldn't join us for Christmas.  She also felt sad because everything is changing.  But we've already talked about creating new traditions in the new families that will come into being after next August.  In some ways it will be a plus - the children will no longer have to endure rice pudding on Christmas Eve - a tradition I created after reading about it in a magazine article as something some European countries do.  They hide almonds in the rice pudding, and anyone who gets an almond receives a prize.  I thought it was a good idea because a milk pudding would be easy to digest before the richness of Christmas food, and also because it was fun to have the presents (usually little Christmas novelty chocolates from Thorntons, or, when they made them, Body Shop soap animals).  But although they put up with it for the sake of the prizes, the children have always disliked the actual rice pudding and asked for the smallest portions possible.  So this is a tradition they can discard.

Another tradition has been visiting the sales.  We've always done this in a somewhat desultory way, so haven't queued through the night for bargains, but nevertheless we like to see what's been discounted.  This time though, S also used the opportunity to go into the Oxfam shop and see if they'd had any additions to their second hand wedding dress rail.  They had, and one of them was lovely, and we bought it.  S was very pleased because it combined all the elements she'd hoped for in a wedding dress, whilst enabling us to make a donation to Oxfam.  She'd often said she wanted to buy her wedding dress from Oxfam because she felt it was more ethical, but she'd tried on dresses in other wedding shops to see what suited her and what she liked.  I had been shocked to find what poor quality material the 'new' dresses were - several had lace so harsh it actually brought S up in a rash.  But the Oxfam dress is made of lovely material - it will need some alterations to help it fit, but it's gorgeous.

And today I found my first 'mother of the bride/groom' outfit, at a sale price in a small shop that specialises in special occasions.

So we are inching further towards being ready for the big days.

Meanwhile, G's fiancee has taken delivery of her bridesmaids' dresses, which are charming.

Christmas has brought us the gifts of fun, and family time, and slightly unexpectedly some important clothes.

Letting go

This year the run up to Christmas has seemed much easier.  Even though we went away for the weekend at the beginning of December, thus cutting out some valuable preparation days, it has seemed less pressurised.

Why is this?

I think it's because the 'children' have been quietly completing some of the tasks I usually feel I need to do.  So daughter S helped me buy and bring home the Christmas tree last Saturday, and then decorated it, and I didn't need to do anything - with young children you still have to dig out the decorations and supervise the hanging of them.  When son G's fiancee arrived (she's staying with us for Christmas) he was mildly irritated when I checked if he'd offered her a cup of tea - of course he had, he's an adult in his mid-20s. 

Even though I still prepare a stocking for the children, and indeed this year have bought stocking gifts for their fiances, it's still felt less anxious than the years when I was frantically wrapping little gifts at 11.30pm on Christmas Eve.

The internet helps, because we could order various presents online.   

As I sit here, daughter S's fiance B has just brought us a slice of pizza, as we're ensconced in the study whilst they have a party with S's old school friends.  (It's actually the second party today - we had mulled wine and mince pies for neighbours and friends from 11am-1pm, and then S's friends arrived for their party.  It's finishing with a trip to the cinema.  This would not have been possible a few years ago because the double organisation would have defeated me.)

I'm enjoying this because it makes Christmas more fun.  I've always loved it but got quite stressed.  But I suppose a part of me feels strange that they no longer depend on me in the same way, and that in fact I can begin to depend on them to be involved, as adults, in all that family life requires. 

This time next year the Christmas cards will just be sent from two of us instead of four, and we will be negotiating with other families for time with the two newly married couples.  It will be different.  But letting go brings new pleasures, and no doubt this will continue as they begin to develop their own traditions, and involve us in them.

It's a Christmas of transition, but it's less difficult than I expected.

The best things this week: Finding a bizarre Fairtrade toy octopus as a present,  listening to wonderful John Rutter carols, and having all six of us (including the two fiances) together for the wekend
The worst thing this week:  We keep waking up at 3 o'clock in the morning for no reason and then it's difficult to get back to sleep

Joy

Daughter S and I visited a Victorian Christmas fair the Sunday before last, in a local market town.  We went on the train.  It was a cold, sunny day, and we ate roast chestnuts and bought Christmas tree decorations in the shape of tiny gingerbread men.

One of the attractions was a small old-fashioned 'ferris wheel', only large enough for young children.  One little boy was so excited that he was screaming with joy every time his chair went over the top of the wheel, waving his arms and legs, his face a picture of delight.

We enjoyed ourselves in a more sedate way, but it was a magical afternoon, which finished with a beautiful sunset, the bare trees silhouetted against flame coloured clouds.  On the train, the guard was wearing a contraption which blared out Christmas hits - it was bizarre but fun.

Last weekend we went in a family party to France - Husband R and me, Dad H, son G, sister T and her husband C, and friend B.  We stayed in a restaurant with rooms, taking up four of the five rooms, and pigged out on gourmet food.  On Saturday, some of us visited nearby Hazebrouck, once again on a train, but this time a double-decker train (the restaurant Le Buffet is literally opposite Isbergues Station). We met St Nicholas outside a cafe, who gave us delicious little cups of hot chocolate.

At the end of the visit, when we paid the bill, the proprietor's wife presented us with two bottles of wine, to enjoy when the family is together at Christmas.  Before going back through the Tunnel we walked on the beach at Calais, and saw the White Cliffs of Dover.

Now I'm back at work and have just finished a lengthy report about a piece of work which I've had to do in a very short space of time.  I feel exhausted, but it's done, and it's been an example of how a team can pull together and create something worthwhile.

The empty nest is getting closer - this time next year we can still visit the Christmas fair, or take a trip to France, but the family unit of 4 will be 2 - or sometimes  6. 

I'm relishing the joys of these times, a bit like the small boy on the ferris wheel, making the most of them.  And looking forward to new sources of joy when everything changes next year.

The best thing about the last week:  Hard to choose one, but probably travelling  upstairs for the first time on a French double decker train
The worst thing:  having to get up really early for work when I'm not a morning person

All stirred up

I had a bit of a moment in the middle of Saturday night.  I suddenly started panicking about daughter S's wedding. The venue's booked, and the music, but that's all.  I started worrying that because the wedding's in another town, and we hadn't yet booked a house for her to stay in before the wedding, there would be nowhere to stay.  And I worried that we hadn't yet booked the flowers, the photographer, the cars etc etc.  There are still nine months to go, but because it's in August when there are so many weddings I was afraid we'd left things too late.  So I went downstairs in the middle of the night and made a list in my wedding book.  Son G's wedding is at the front of the book, daughter S's at the back.

Of course, in the morning it all felt less scary.  When S returned from her weekend away I sat down with her and talked about how we needed to start booking the various wedding paraphernalia.  My personality is fairly that of a control freak, but on the other hand hers is one which tends to put things off.  I mentioned this to my husband, and he immediately said, 'Like me'.  So S and I discussed this trait, and then agreed that this week S would follow up some leads re the flowers, make up and hair, and I would look into wedding cars.  Then we went back to the house she shares with a friend, and sent an email to book the house where we'll base ourselves.  We also agreed to go dress shopping again on Saturday. And I felt better.  I also felt bad for putting pressure on her as she's had a virus and wasn't feeling very well, but once we've made the bookings, we can then have a less frenetic time until later next year.

Meanwhile, G's fiancee has been emailing the contact in the school where they're hoping to have their reception, so having had the initial discussions, I'm no longer needed.  That's good, although I had to ask G a few questions before he clarified that this was what had happened - I'd been worrying that we hadn't got back to the school with the final plans.

At the same time as I was feeling stirred up with stress, it was also 'stir up' Sunday, and I made two Christmas puddings.  Ever since early in my marriage I've made two - one for us, and one for my sister-in-law and her husband - this dates from the time when the pudding was my contribution to Christmas dinner at their house, in the years when we went to my husband's family.  It was soothing to mix up all the scented fruit and spices, and to stir it and make a wish.  I so wish for two wonderful weddings next year.  I also wish that as I grow older I can be measured in how I tackle planning - coordinating but not controlling, and working in partnership rather than dominating, so that my input to the evolving patterns of family life is helpful and not harsh.

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Advent Calendars

I bought the advent calendars today, and I realised that this is the last time I'll buy them for my children as part of this home.  Next year they'll be in their new homes, new family units starting out.

Advent calendars are such an important part of the run up to Christmas.  I remember when I was a child I had a little parchment house, with a night light inside, and the light shone through each window that was opened, a little square like coloured glass.  Later we had advent calendars with simple pictures - a trumpet, a hat, a robin, until on 24 December there would be a big picture of Father Christmas.

Of course, by the time G and S came along, advent calendars incorporated chocolates.  As they became aware of Fair Trade, we had to make sure their calendars contained chocolate that hadn't exploited anyone.  Often these also featured the Christian story, rather than Father Christmas, or fairies, or pop stars, and Jesus in his manger was the focal point of the picture.

But alongside this we also discovered Playmobil advent calendars - elaborate card scenes, with a tiny box for each day containing characters and animals to populate the scenes.  S still has several packed away ready for when she has children.  My favourite is Santa with his sleigh, in a snowy woodland.

Today I bought three Fairtrade calendars with chocolates, one for G and his fiancee and one for S's fiance. I also bought one beautiful, rather over the top German advent calendar, featuring Victorian children on a merry go round.  This is for S, who said she would like pictures rather than chocolates.

I do feel a bit sad, as it dawns on me that this Christmas will be the last one where this house can be described as G and S's home.  Even when they were at university, and G was in his first job living away, they still saw this as home.

Advent stays the same as a time to remember the mystery of God's incarnation, and it will always be special for that reason.  But this advent reminds me that the nature of our home is about to change, and I'm having to say another small goodbye to a sweet tradition, now that the children will finally be flying then nest.

In remembrance

Remembrance Day is always an important time of year.  I wanted to write this yesterday, on the actual anniversary, but had IT problems, so here it is one day late. 

Remembering began on Saturday afternoon, when I attended ‘Tea at the Blitz’ at a local church. 

We sat at long tables, and ate sandwiches and cake which had been arranged on dainty cake stands. 

We were entertained by brilliant amateurs dressed in Forties costumes, who performed monologues, and sang wartime songs. 

Most of those attending were older people.  Some were probably children during the Second World War, but if they are like my parents this means that in some ways it is even more vivid than an adult memory.  But some must have said goodbye to boyfriends and brothers, and never seen them again.  One was dressed in her Land Girl uniform. 

Each song began with a slightly unfamiliar introduction, but then as the singers launched into the chorus of ‘We’ll meet again’, or ‘There’ll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover’, the old voices swelled around the room in an almost unbearably poignant reminder of the past.  The lady opposite me began to cry, and I dared not look at daughter S next to me in case we joined in. 

Finally everyone sang ‘There’ll always be an England’, and it wasn’t jingoistic, it was about belonging. 

Afterwards we all agreed that it had been ‘very emotional’ and I wondered about the stories of each of the older people there, and what they had been thinking. 

S said it had brought home to her in a new way what it must have been like to live through a war, particularly as she now had a fiancé. 

Then on Sunday we had the two minute silence at church, and once again commemorated the dead in wars. 

At work yesterday the silence wasn’t marked, but I went and stood on the stairs for a couple of minutes. 

How do those long sad shadows touch someone in middle age who is contemplating an empty nest?  They are there in my parents’ memories, still immediate now but soon probably to live on only in my memory and my sister’s through the tales our parents told us.  They are there in the national psyche – books like The Great War and Modern Memory show how the First World War affected so much of our culture. They are there too maybe in a determination to carry on valuing the sacrifices made by those boys and young men who will not grow old as we grow old, and to live in a way that would make my great uncles proud, grateful that I have been spared the suffering of war. 

Wilfred Owen put it better than I ever could.

 

 

Wedding grace

Both my children are getting married next summer, within a week of each other.

There are various reasons the weddings are so close together, all legitimate, but when we first realised they would only be a week apart I felt quite stressed.

However, now the details are beginning to fall into place I'm getting quite excited.  I also realised early on that I would have to lay aside my control freak impulses and allow the children to get on with the organisation, as they clearly intended to do.

Daughter S's fiance B is extraordinarily focused and sensible, and has methodically sorted out pretty much everything to do with the venue, food etc on the wedding day.  There will also be a second reception later in the year, and that is also pretty much in place, thanks to the generosity of B's parents.

I have had more input to son G's arrangements so far, but this is only because his wedding reception is going to be in a school, and as he's at work during the week I've used my Fridays off to negotiate with the school - but very much according to G and K's wishes.

What I have found heart-warming, in the initial arrangements so far, has been the kindness of strangers.  S and B told me that at their formal and beautiful venue, the catering manager seemed thrilled to be involved, and promised all kinds of detailed support.  Apparently there are only a few weddings there a year, and she wanted to make sure it was really special for them.  I can't say more about where it is at this stage as S wants to keep it a surprise, but it is going to be very special.

At the school where G and K will have their reception, we have met the same kindness.  This will be a more informal wedding, and there have been various discussions about how the food will be provided, but where we've raised questions and asked to negotiate, the senior staff member and the catering manager have tried to be as flexible as possible, and have made a number of very generous concessions.  The school is a church school, and we attend the church it's linked with, so we're building on some close relationships. Even so I've been touched by how much everyone wants to help the young people I love with their special days.

I seem to have a mindset that is surprised by this unlooked for kindness - I don't know if it's because  I'm naturally cynical, but this kind of grace and generosity reminds me that so many people want to make a good contribution to the world.

I hope I reciprocate, and will try to be one of those people, as I go into the empty nest stage of my life.

The worst thing about this week: I didn't get home from work until 10 o'clock last night
The best thing about this week:  A friend has set up a business supplying bunting, so it looks like that aspect of the weddings is sorted 

Book club and community

It was my other book club yesterday.  I call it my other book club because it’s the second one I’ve set up, and I think of the first book club as my actual book club.

We meet in a local library, a slightly shabby but beautiful Art Deco building which is circular and was recently listed.  We sit in a little room to one side of the main atrium where the books are.  There are four sofas set in a square, with a coffee table in the middle, and to one side a staff kitchen which we’re allowed to use to make drinks.  The room leads into a small theatre, which is occasionally used for community productions.  All the rooms are labelled with beautiful wooden lettering – the room we’re in is Dressing Room. 

We meet at lunch time, and bring sandwiches which we eat before we have our discussion.  It’s a Friday lunch time, so only retired people or those who don’t work on Fridays attend.  I normally have Fridays off, and the other members who work also have flexible hours.  One is a mother of young children, but the other members are 50 or over.  We’re all women.

We always have books from the library’s book club list, which means they have always been published in the last couple of years, so haven’t had time to become classics.  The book club is named after the local church many of the members attend, but in spite of this I’ve been interested to note that several of the books we’ve read have featured lust and violence – more so than my other book club which isn’t named after a church, but after the road where all the members but one live. 

This month we had read The Casual Vacancy, by J. K.Rowling.  The book contains graphic descriptions of life in a disadvantaged community. We all felt that it was too harsh in its depiction of unpleasant characters.  One member felt that she had never met people as unpleasant as those in the book.  Others felt the book was realistic.  We all agreed that the story was well told, but that we didn’t like it and found it very bleak.  We discussed community, and F said that she didn’t think there were real communities any more in this country, not communities where if someone died, everyone else in the community was upset.  However, E said that the village where she lives does have many community activities, and there was a group of people who organised all sorts of events, people she knew she could go to if she wanted to know ‘the latest gossip’.

I thought about how I don’t necessarily know all the people who live in my suburb of this city, but I do belong to a number of communities.  They may not be traditional village communities, but the suburb is one, and the two book clubs are two more, and my church is another, and my colleagues are yet another.   They are all somewhere I belong, and within them there are people who look after each other, and rejoice and mourn with each other through the vicissitudes of life.  So even though it’s our habit to lament the loss of community in our modern, busy urban lives, maybe we can see that it still exists where there are people who join together to talk and create and care for each other.

The right place, the right time

I went to an Al Stewart concert the other night.  I thought in advance that it was likely to be women of a certain age but I was partly wrong.  It was men as well.  All of us baby boomers - if you saw us in the street you’d see respectable middle-aged (or a little older) people, a little bit overweight, arriving here from our respectable jobs, or our respectable retirement. 
 
And when Al appeared he was older too. 
 
Was there anyone in the audience who had been at his concert at Nottingham University in 1973?  Scattered hands raised throughout the audience, with a murmur of acknowledgment.  Forty years ago I was a sixth former, with a crush on D, who played Al Stewart songs at a concert in the boys’ common room. 

The songs bring back the smell of the orange flavoured tea I used to drink, and the floaty clothes we used to wear.  I find that part of building an empty nest is remembering vividly, now that I am so much older, how it felt to be young.  Feeling incredulity that the 1970s, which seemed such a buzzy, young time, are now my memory and that of the people I see around me, with our greying hair and our spreading bodies.  I see hints of who we were in a velvet coat here, a cascade of loose curls there, the jeans that even the grey-haired men are wearing.  It’s a long time since any of us lived in bedsitters or experienced those intense first loves, but Al Stewart’s voice is as bell-like as ever.

The Year of the Cat is almost unbearably poignant with its images of the freedom and love that the hippy dream promised.  By the time I was in my late teens that time was pretty much over and punk was coming, but we, the youngest of the baby-boomers, experienced its last days, clutching after them while we were still too young to take part fully.  

Time has passed, but the music, like a time machine, takes us straight back to the 1970s for this evening, and once again life is all ahead of us, and in the darkness we’re young again.

After the concert, I asked Al to sign the CD I’d bought, and told him I’d waited 40 years to see him in concert.  ‘Why?’ he asked, ‘I’m always over here’.

‘I was never in the right place at the right time,’ I replied.  ‘Are any of us?’ he said.

When autumn leaves start to fall...

I want to start recording what life feels like at the moment, because it's a time of transition.  My children have grown up, and are both about to get married.  It's a time when relatives are growing older and there's a shift in the balance of our relationships - I'm beginning to try out the role of carer, and feel the need to take responsibility for those on whom I always leaned, who always had responsibility for me.

So I want to capture some of this, and at the same time to record how I'm dealing with the changes, and the challenges, and the different responsibilities.

Today I'm thinking about autumn leaves.  On Friday I attended the funeral of a dear uncle.  Uncle E was in his 90s, and I hadn't seen him for some time, Yet as my mother said, there's now an Uncle E shaped space in the world.  At the funeral we committed him to God, and heard about a life well-lived.  But the poignancy of the RAF March Past played as we entered the chapel, and the finality I always feel as the coffin disappears, still left me feeling sad.

At the meal afterwards we listened to old Frank Sinatra songs, and Big Band favourites that Uncle E loved.  And yesterday I heard another version of the song 'Autumn Leaves' on Radio 3, during a  programme meditating on music and poetry of the fall of the year.
Life goes on, and life comes to an end.  And as I begin to build my empty nest I reflect on that.  It's sad, but it needn't lead to despair, because there is glory in the autumn leaves.