Review: Jo Whiley: My World in Motion

This is a long overdue review of Jo Whiley's autobiography My World in Motion

It's long overdue because, bottom line, it didn't manage to excite me and it took me ages to finish it (I wouldn't write a book review without actually reading it you see). Now, I'm a seasoned music fan (I used to spend a large proportion of my dosh on records, then CDs and gigging). I was interested in finding out a bit more about Jo Whiley, and that's why I agreed to review the book.

However, there's the thing with autobiographies: They are mostly written by people who, to be fair, aren't fandoodletastic writers. I read because I enjoy a good read. A really good read. There's few autobiographies that I've profoundly enjoyed reading, Joe Simpson's Touching the Voidis one of them.

You can get my gist, can't you? I didn't particularly enjoy reading Jo Whiley's autobiography. It was mildly interesting, it's clear she's a lovely person and has had an exciting life, and what's more, she is a success story for managing to combine being a mum of four, a loving wife, and a very successful business woman. Her life is interesting, yes, but the bottom line is, I'd rather listen to the music she talks about than read her autobiography.

Of course, if you generally enjoy reading autobiographies, I'm sure this one will be for you. I don't want to put you off, I'm sure that for a celebrity autobiography, it's written superbly. It's just not for me.

Childcare vouchers: keep them or lose them?

Childcare is giving me sleepless day, er nights. Once again. This time it's nothing to do with me or Cubling, well, at least not directly, but the issue is all the more important.

The Labour government, in an attempt to encourage mums to work (and I won't go into the pros and cons of that, but check out Being a Mummy for some useful insights), introduced tax credits and childcare vouchers to ease the burden of childcare. There's also some half measure of free childcare which is rather useless and doesn't really ease the financial cost of having kids while also working.

Now, the government is proposing to phase out childcare vouchers. I take issue with this. While I understand the spirit of it, I still don't think it's a good idea as the proposal stands. Here's the problem: There is actually a significant gap in support for childcare costs. In the case of a two parent family, if one partner works and the other is in training or education that does not qualify for Educational Maintenance Allowance, the couple cannot claim for working parent tax credits. Both parents have to be in work to claim working parents tax credits. I am in such a situation, unable to claim the childcare element of working parents tax credits because my other half is in postgraduate education. So while only I can only take advantage of the tax relief through childcare vouchers (if two parents are employed, the advantage is doubled to 100 pounds a month), it is still so much better than nothing (i.e. the amount I can claim through the childcare element of working parentstax credit).

Childcare vouchers are therefore the only way of getting some tax relief on the soaring cost of childcare, childcare which in this country is heavily privatised. Just compare the cost: in some countries childcare is free, in others it may put you down between 100 and 200 quid. Here it's at least 600 full time. What do you do if you have to children under 5? Maybe there are people out there with an income that would leave some spare, but surely this is rare.

Granted, most training providers may have some support available. But many don't. So for instance, there's the mum who wants to do an NHS training, her partner is on a very low income but working full time, and the NHS does not provide any support at all to cover her childcare costs. She will not be able to undertake the training, thus limiting her chances of future employment and moving beyond the poverty line. Then there is a young parents who is offered a basic and non-certified course at a college, a course that may re-engage him/her with education and with time lead to him/her undertaking a course leading to a qualification. A parent who, as her/his situation is, is extremely unlikely to become economically active without this access course, but who wants to, and is offered an opportunity to gain new skills and over time, qualifications and the hope of employment. It won't happen because the college cannot offer childcare and without childcare, the parent can't take advantage of the course offered.

Childcare vouchers and childcare support for parents in training are two ways of enabling parents to have choices. I do believe that childcare vouchers for parents on high incomes, especially if they are in the higher rate tax bracket, are unnecessary. However for those on low and middle incomes, they are more often than not a lifeline.

What's more, the system of available support for childcare is complex and hard to understand. If a child tax credit form does my educated head in, and it takes me a full working day to research support options available to the woman who contacted me (and I have the advantage of being in exactly the same situation as her, so I had some considerable previous knowledge), how hard must it be for the many most in need of support for childcare costs.

Whatever the new proposal is going to be, I'd like to see a shift of focus to ensure those in need of childcare for any form of education, training and employment that is suitable for them to get adequate financial support, and that life choices and chances are not ever determined by the ability to afford childcare or to understand and complete tax credit forms.

PS: Polly Toynbee put it much better than me in the Comment is free section of the Guardian: "But to pay for their (the most deprived two year olds) care by abolishing childcare vouchers (...) would mean that not very well-off mothers would pay to alleviate the plight of toddlers of even worse-off mothers."

The day of lanterns

While this blog has been silent, we've been busy. To celebrate St Martin's Day in style, I'd brought lantern making equipment from Germany and last week saw us putting it together. What was meant to be fun ended in tears. The lantern was a bit difficult to make, and Cubling's fingers kept interfering at the wrong time at the wrong place. I was frustrated, so was she. Eventually, I gave in, let her cut into paper and make her own stuff (she used the scales of the mermaid to make a door and a door handle, which I was rather impressed with), and I finished off the lantern after her bedtime.

Next morning, her first sentence was "where's my Laterne?", and le voila, there it was, all done!
She was delighted, and I think she believed she had in fact made it herself. That's what counts, right?

Yesterday was the big day. Cubling's first Laternenumzug. We managed to just about sneak into the University Chapel before it all started, and luckily they were selling the right batteries and even the much needed light sticks - if only I'd known, I'd have saved myself a lot of worry and hassle. Cubling's eyes lit up with the little light. We met up with some of her little friends. Songs were sung, children read out the story of St Martin and Cubling was full of wonder of the interior of the chapel. As we left for the lantern parade in the "cloister" (it's not a real cloister), she broke into tears. It took me a while to realise why. She thought we were going home and no, didn't like this idea at all: "I want go Hause nicht!" It took some intense explaining that the parade was part of it and we were just going outside for the parade and no, we had no intention of going home just yet.

She carried the lantern as if it was a race, then found new uses for lanterns (they make good leaf holders) and finally found it much more interesting to run off. Posing for a picture? No chance.

The Umtrunk (wee dram) thereafter was busy and Cubling found some flipcharts she wanted to decorate. Malen! Laufen! (draw, run) were the battlecries of the evening. Just as well, it was so busy that by the time we got there all the food and drink was already finished. It didn't take her long to make some new friends and she loved it all so much that she was last to leave and even then only very reluctantly.

As we got home, she carried her lantern proudly, singing "Laterne, Laterne - Sonne, Mond und Sterne". It was the first time she'd sang this song, and it melted my heart. Of course she didn't part with her beloved mermaid lantern this morning either, showing it off to the childminder and the other girls.

I think we managed to make it into a successful day, one that she will hopefully remember.

Admittedly, I find the bicultural diary a bit demanding at this time of the year. Halloween, Bonfire Night, St Martin and Nikolaus all within five weeks of one another. Phew.

Wordless Wednesday: Late Autumn, Tollcross Park

Tonight was spent with photos - editing, selecting and creating Christmas presents. Very enjoyable, I'm still amazed at digital photography, especially now that I can combine my passion for SLRs with the doors that digital photography opens. No longer do I need a dark room (my childhood dream was to have one), all it takes is a laptop and some software, magic. So it's only right that I should share some photos tonight. All were taken at Tollcross Park last Sunday, a glorious last day of autumn. And today, at last, I feel ready for winter.

how much is enough?

At the weekend, a trashy glossy mag found my hands. There was a picture of a 3 year old celebrity toddler wearing high heels and having a wardrobe worth 2 million. Sorry, I don't recall if it was pound or dollar, and I don't care really because such minute details are beside the point. Thing is, I got fuming furious.

As I do when I see food being thrown into the bin. Not that I'm never guilty, just that I feel so flipping angry when I see people (including myself) doing it.

Excessive spending, excessive richness, excessive waste do my head in. In my world, there is no justification for the super rich. It annoys me unspeakably when people justify the amount of money some people earn, receive, inherit, or spend. To me, there's only so many resources going around and if someone has more than their share, there are people on the other side with less than their share. In the past, this had led to people calling me a communist. In times of the cold war, it was meant as the ultimate insult. But if that's what communism is about, well, fair enough, let me be one. Although I've never been comfortable with any label, political or not.

The image also reminded me of the intrinsic competitiveness that is in our human nature, which effectively leads to inequalities. Now I'm the last person to claim I'm not competitive. I believe we all are. Competitiveness can be a positive force, something that is all about striving for something better, progress and ultimately positive change. Yet we use it more often than not to aggravate the misery of others. As parents, we seem to automatically become competitive about our children. Who's got the most, the best for their child. The worry that comes with seeing a child do stuff that our own can't yet do. How bad I feel when I visit a house filled with toys. Not about not having them (because I know I don't want so many and neither does my child) but because I know that the other parents must think we're not giving our child the best start we could. Peer group pressure, competitiveness of keeping up with the Jones's. Or the worry that our explanation of our parenting priorities may in turn upset the parent who have transformed their home into a Toys R Us.

And yes I too fret over cute outfits and wish I had an excuse to buy them. In my case, there is no NEED to buy anything, yet I still DESIRE to buy stuff for my little girl. It seems in our parental nature. We want more. More. Ever more. Even if we've managed to disengage from buying ever more for ourselves, it all starts over even more viciously with our children. It's a daily struggle to resist the call for more, the desire to spend. I resent it when this competitiveness leads to mindless consumerism and, yes, greed .

Another mag that found my hand was the New Scientist. Not sure which edition, but it summarised how money shapes us. How, once we've got enough dosh to take care of food and shelter, we are happiest. How once we've got more than that, we become self-sufficient and disengage from human interaction, while if we have less than we need, we become more social because we need the help of those around us to make things work. Neither extreme makes us happy campers apparently. So if being poor and being rich make us unhappy, why do we live in a society where financial gluttonly is heralded and justified, excused with "s/he must work hard for it, s/he has so much responsibility and this has to be rewarded", the 25k rocking horse (thanks J for the example!) while people around the world, including the UK, go hungry, with 1 in 3 children in the UK growing up in poverty? The 25k rocking horse, the 2 million wardrobe of Tom Cruise's 3 year old daughter are wrong, and ultimately unnecessary.

At the same time as we can see from international comparison that those countries are more equal and fare better where the differences between the very rich and the very poor are least pronounced, where in fact a social Spirit Levelhas been achieved. Maybe my anger at greed, the very rich, the wastefulness of every day life, consumerism is well founded because all of this seems to be at the bottom of our society's ill.

I've been reading Not New Year blog with fascination over the past year - because of the very simple idea behind it, the attempt not to consume. It is more than an ecological statement. It is paying tribute to the limited nature of all our resources and the inequalities that our consumer society creates, the dependencies which, in the end, is likely to make us all suffer a rude awakening. I admire anyone who can make such a significant statement in their lives and not buy anything new for 6 out of 12 months. And they show us that it's possible, with conviction and real commitment, a commitment of action, not words.

A first step is of course to recognise our greed, our fascination with money and what money can buy us. The next step is to take stock of how much is enough: Do we really and truly need to consume the way we do? How can we consume less and in the process create a just society? Can we create general wealth by going with less (not without)? Is this possible to tweak our system or do we need to rethink it from scratch? Can we replace greed with compassion?

Above all, how can I make a small but significant start in my own life to waste less, buy less, give more to those who need (rather than desire) more? How can I free myself of the desire to have more when really and truly I have enough? Because at the end of the day, my gain is somebody else's loss.

Buttermilk Bean Soup

I'm cringing as I type the title. Some things can't be translated, they sound so very wrong.

A few weeks ago, when I was in a reminiscent mood, I remembered one of my favourite childhood dishes. As it happened to be a dish from the Rhineland I thought it would be a good idea to cook it and bring some sense of culinary biculturalism into our home. Not that eating a dish from the Rhineland would encourage Cubling to suddenly speak fluent German of course. But every little helps, and valuing the minority culture in small and different ways is something that is proven to aid bilingualism.

I'm not a great cook, never actually have cooked this dish and with the general evening rush, I'm hard pushed to try out something new. Today was the day though, the inauguration of buttermilk bean soup, Buttermilchbohnensuppe. I cooked it reminiscing about the person who cooked me this tasty and unusual dish. It was our landlady, who lived in the flat below us, bringing up her grandson, only 2 years younger than me. We were close. I played with the grandson, he was the brother I never had. They had money and he had lots of toys. Boys' toys, which I loved to play with. And his granny was born and bred in the Rhineland, unlike us blow-ins. She spoke in dialect. She was a strong woman with a hard hand, and yet with a childish sense of humour. In the summer, when the paddling pool was brought out, she filled it with the hose, trying to catch me on the balcony upstairs, giggling like mad at my futile attempts to hide from the ice cold water and a 65 year olds perfect aim.

Every Sunday, she had her family over for lunch (which is dinnertime in Germany). She would always send up the desert. Occasionally, she'd cook Rhinish specialties, and again, she would send a portion up for me to eat. I loved her food beyond words. Her apple pancake was divine, so were her deserts, cakes and, yes, you guessed it, buttermilk bean soup.

My parents stayed in the flat on her behest, she had asked us if we would stay for as long as she lived. She never increased the rent, my mum did her daily shopping, I cleaned the staircase for some pocket money. I walked her dog, we fed our food leftovers to him. She had parties we came to and we had parties she came to. We saw her every single day, had endless chats, and there is so much detail of her flat that I remember, the photo of her dead husband, the old fashioned furniture that I admired. My parents moved a year or so after she had passed away, after I'd already moved to Ireland/Scotland.

I remember I'd asked her to write down the recipie for buttermilk bean soup. She never did. Maybe she didn't have one. So, tonight, I made it up myself, with a little help from the internet:

Rhineland Buttermilk Bean Soup
boil 500g of poatoes, mash with milk and a very generous portion of butter
fry an onion (I'm not sure if the original has onion, but I like onion so there you go)
sautee 300g-500g of green beans
Add one cube of vegetable stock to the mashed potatoes, then the onions and 1l of buttermilk, enough so that they are quite runny. Add the beans.
After adding the buttermilk, don't boil the soup, only heat very gently because buttermilk curdles when boiled - the taste will be the same, but it won't look as good.

You may vary the quantities, I only guessed them. You can add a tub of cream if you like. Season to taste.

Enjoy, a very healthy, easy, cheap and nutritious soup. And vegetarian too!

Firelands

It was a long day. I can't believe how much we squeezed into it. To crown it, we decided to watch the bonfire night display in Glasgow Green tonight. Every year, for the past 30 years, Glasgow puts on a massive firework display, complete with fairground, food and merchandising, all in the city's most famous park, Glasgow Green. The Green has always been a place for the people, and it's great to see this tradition at least carry on into the annual event that is Guy Fawkes Day (incidentally, nobody calls it thus around here, maybe because the Scots wouldn't have minded so much if he had indeed blown up the Houses of Parliament? Who knows).

Cubling was excited. She wanted to go to "Firelands" as she called it. She loved crossing the bridge, commented on very many people and very little space. She delighted in the fairground rides and oh, the chips with cheese went down a real treat.

Then the fireworks started. What can I say? The photos I took of her show eyes filled with terror, with the neverending intonation of "I want go in my house, I like it not!" We managed to make her get through it with lots of reassurance, cuddles, suggestions of closing her eyes or looking another way, naming the colours of the fireworks. She did it, got through it at least without further tears, and the fairground rides definitely made her forget those very noisy, very bright, very funny (read: scary) fireworks.

But more than anything else, it was beautiful. There are days where I can't believe how lucky we are to live in this fabulous city. Today was one of them.

Five Rather Unrelated Things

First of all, thank you so much for your kind comments to my previous post. Some of your comments, and the blogs I read as a result, made me feel very humble and shed a few tears for your own losses, others full of hope. Above all, I was truly surprised how many of you shared their own story in the small space of the comment box. I truly appreciate this, it's not easy to be open about these things and it shows how many actually go through very similar experiences. And it strangely helps to know that. I'd mentioned in my previous post that talking to a mummy friend had made me much more positive, just sharing our very similar stories (same week count when we miscarried, same "age" of embryo, same difficulties after miscarriage of extremely irregular cycles and so on) made me feel more confident that all would be just fine. As an update, my GP (or her replacement as my GP was on holiday) thinks I'm a normal case of decreasing fertility post age 35 and therefore should wait another six months and not worry so much. And the fact that I got pregnant twice would indicate that most likely, I've still got it in me. So on the one hand, I'm pleased to hear this (even though I knew it anyway), on the other I'm not so pleased that no tests are being done (in case there is an underlying problem). Thermometer and ovulation sticks have arrived, watch it my dear eggs, I mean business and I'm gonna show you.

On a more sombre note, (which makes me wonder if this post is going to become really depressing because it's not exactly cheerful to talk about conception problems), there's a few causes that I would really ask everyone to take a very short but important action on.
A newly published report indicates that the recession is hitting the less affluent families in the UK very hard and that child poverty is on the rise in the UK. While the banks are getting bailed out, struggling families are being forgotten. You can take action to make sure that the Chancellor doesn't forget struggling families in his pre-budget report.

The Thinkuknow website (part of CEOP - Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency) have launched a call to promote a oneminute action for Madeleine McCann. The point of it is to never give up, and use social media for maybe achieving a breakthrough in her case, 2 1/2 years after her disappearance. It's very simple, watch the video, and pass it on - by email, on the social network of your choice (facebook, bebo etc), on twitter, your blog ... you name it. Literally, it will only take you a minute.


And to get even more sombre, on my way to an evening session at work, I got caught up in the traffic tailback caused by an accident. The accident must have happened around 5pm, I passed it at 5.20pm. The ambulance had been. I only saw the wreck of the car. My heart missed a beat. It's beyond my ken how the damage I saw could have come about on a busy and thus slow road. I wish I hadn't looked, the sight was horrific. And sometimes, it's impossible to see it as just another accident. I can't get rid of the mental image, the implication of what I saw hit very much home. This is the second major accident in only a month that I almost witnessed.

And fifthly, to lighten things up a bit, and even with a 5 theme, this is Cubling's favourite sentence:

I gross now, I go Schule!

(I'm big now, I go to school! usually accompanied by standing on top of something that makes her look taller. The school obsession hails from the fact that her best friend is at school since August and she dearly misses her at the childminder. When I explain to her that she has to be 5 to go to school, and I then ask how old she is, she will say she's 5...)

The End of Another Decade

Today I've had the rather disconcerting realisation that if I hadn't miscarried at the end of May, I'd have just 5 weeks of pregnancy left. I'd be massive now, probably hardly able to move if my previous pregnancy is anything to go by. Strangely, I'm glad that's not me right now. I'm sighing with relief, can't your hear it?

At the same time, I've been doing some soul searching. Now that I'm yet another year older (39 if you must know), there has to be consideration as to how long I'll keep the monthly rollercoaster of hope and fear at bay before it takes over. While I feel young for my age, I don't feel like 23 any more, and the prospect of pregnancy and the first year is not something I particularly look forward to, knowing fine well what hard work it is, how it affects my body, my mood and my ability to keep things together.

Yet it's not about absolutes, but let's say that there's a limit to how much longer I'm prepared to try for a sibling for Cubling. Having grown up as an only child, this is a hard prospect to face. I always desired a sibling, I tormented my parents with it, who had been told that another pregnancy would be life threatening for my mum. I knew that but being a child, I still pleaded for a sibling, for years. Yet I also know that not all siblings get on. And really, we are so very lucky to have the most energetic, most delightful little girl anyone could imagine. She has the energy for two, so much is clear. Of course, if I look at how she's besotted with her little cousin, there's no doubt that she'd love to be a big sister. She keeps asking me "I big sister now?" and is disappointed when I correct her that no, she's not a big sister, but a big cousin, which is a very nice thing to be too.

Tomorrow I will take action and explore what options in the line of medical help are available, knowing fine well that I'm not even half way down the line of having unsuccessfully tried for one year or even two. I've been told that at my age, referrals can be made earlier, and I'm not going to waste any time. Having reached the "months trying" count that is the longest so far, it seems the right time. I'm also clear that there's only so far I will go. Some fertility procedures are out of questions because I will not put my body under the stress they entail. Yet while I really don't enjoy the overly planned approach to conceiving, I'm now prepared to work just a little bit more towards it. If daily peeing on stick is the way forward, so be it, I'm not going to be precious about it.

It feels good to be taking some action, and I'm hopeful for tomorrow's appointment. It also felt good to chat to someone at the weekend who shared an extremely similar experience, and as ever, it's so reassuring to hear that all the stuff that worries me endlessly is in fact, well, nothing unusual. This too gives hope and a renewed positive outlook. So the end of this decade marks another departure for me, as did the end of the last.

If you would send me some baby dust anyway, sure it won't do any harm ;)

all about bilingualism

It's this time of the month again and apologies for the slight delay in letting everyone know about this month's carnival of raising bilingual children (and raising bilingual kids is a carnival indeed) - had a busy weekend what with Halloween carving and cooking/baking for our mummy friends' Halloween Party, the party itself, nephew staying for a sleepover and both Cubling and nephew generally running wild for delight of spending the weekend with one another.

So to keep you entertained until I find the time to pull together a post, check Bilingual For Fun out for an impressive carnival. If you want to keep updated on future carnivals, sign up for a newsletter or view the carnival schedule, including links to the previous carnivals. You can even sign up to host it in the future.

Here are our current favourite utterances:
What does that say? What's that for? Wha'? (re the latter: she used to say "I here" when called. Now she says wha'? Not exactly an improvement)
I backe backe Kuchen maken.
Look! It's a Leiter! (me: what???? There's no ladder anywhere to be seen!) In Englisch fence. Daddy say fence. Mummy say Leiter. (no, not quite, Leiter is ladder, and fence is Zaun, but I appreciate your ability to visually transpose objects by 90 degrees)
Big one - Kleine one
This is very very schwer/heiss!
Want mehr Milch!
Mummy lesen books, Daddy go weg. (her way of saying good night daddy, I love you)
Lass das bitte!!!!
Fish finger auf Grund geflogen. (fish finger fell on the ground - literally, flew to the ground. I can't help but imaging fish fingers with wings. And I don't think I've ever used the word "Grund" and have no idea where it came from)
I no want it, is crunchy (anything crunchy is BAD, and if it's not crunchy, it's crunchy because she doesn't want to eat it, however we have first grape eating success at 2 years 7 months, hurraym and grapes are crunchy, aren't they?)
Look! Erbse! (she's pointing at yet another collection of red berries on some bush... I'm running out of energy explaining that peas are green and grow in pods and not red and growing on trees)
Want pumpkin sehen. Kuerbis. (she likes her friendly pumpkin and regularly wants to check up on him - I don't think we can get rid of him just yet).

We're still loving songs. So much so that monolingual nephew can now also sing about 5 German songs perfectly.
Her imagination has taken off. Tonight, there was a big imaginary bin beside her bed. And she made us all go in there and put the lid back on. Not quite sure what that tells us.