That’s what Friends are for

Friendships multiply joys and divide griefs.

Proverbs

Aside

Today it’s Girl’s Day Out to celebrate Margaret’s birthday – which was actually in November, but we’ve been busy. Joy has organised it and is driving. We are hoping Joy is going to be bright eyed and bushytailed. Lately she has been a bit down – like so many of us at this time of year – but she also has an invalid husband to care for -so the three of us decided to give her a session with our local, excellent, beautician and masseuse. Fingers crossed it’s done the trick. Yesterday the sun came out and I really felt there was a light at the end of the tunnel - not just an oncoming train:)

CORRECTION

BECAUSE I DID A DRAFT OF THE STEPHEN FRY AND HUGH LAURIE VIDEO LAST TUESDAY THAT IS WHERE IT HAS PUBLISHED IT INSTEAD OF IMMEDIATELY BELOW THE ARTICLE. JUST SCROLL DOWN AND IT IS BENEATH THE SUN FLOWER.

Back to a Quiet Life

Story contd.

I settled down to being a housewife and Mummy, and life was very pleasant. Our garden backed onto the garden of a large house owned by a National Hunt Jockey. He got into conversation, when I met him on the train, before baby was born, and we discovered we lived in close proximity. He was great fun and a real charmer and when our families got together I was delighted that William also liked him. Before long he had made a gate in the fence to save us all a long, twenty minute walk to reach each other’s houses. Through him we were introduced to the racing fraternity and our social life stepped up a notch.

Then there were the two girls with babies that the health visitor had introduced me to - we had become a strong trio and saw each other almost every day. We even went on holiday with one of the couples. Vanessa, my old nursing friend and her husband, would come over to visit and Maddie, my sister and husband would drive over from Caterham. Throughout this time, Maddie had kept in touch with Liam – Jamie’s brother, and knew that Jamie was living in Cheshire. Odd that we had recently left Cheshire. She has always been good at keeping tabs on people, so called in on Jamie and his wife and child. As she was being served tea – which she always drinks black, the little girl asked,

‘Mummy why does Daddy’s girl friend not take milk and sugar?’

She was told this wasn’t Daddy’s girl friend but Daddy’s girl friend’s sister.

All of this was related to me by Maddie and not for the first time I wished she wouldn’t be such a ‘meddlesome Mattie’. I didn’t want reminders of Jamie and the hopes and dreams I’d had, especially when I was trying to come to terms with my life as it now was.

All in all I was reasonably content until William told me he was applying for another job, and if he was offered it we would have to move. I couldn’t believe it. It was déjà vu all over again. In Altrincham just when I had become embroiled in the SAP, the local theatre group, and we had a circle of friends, it was up sticks and off we went down south. I know I was probably being selfish and not seeing the bigger picture. I just don’t like change –especially when we seemed to be reasonably content. But this was the time when the wife was a kept woman and the husband was the bread winner so his job took precedence. I just wasn’t convinced it was vital for his job to be changed and for us to move house to another county.

There were tears – not just mine – the girls got quite emotional. We knew it would never be the same again and being at home all day with a small child was quite a lonely occupation. I felt better when I found I was pregnant again. We wanted at least two children and this would make the gap two years and three months between them, so maybe it would be better to have a larger house and a better salary. William was offered the job; I put on a brave face and threw myself into looking for a nice house. It was a long way to travel so we scoured the Daily Telegraph and I found something interesting. Good enough for us to make the trip to look at it.

Getting back in shape

Story contd.

My new son soon got bored with staring at his new Mum and just wanted to nod off so I put him back in his cot. What now? I was too excited to sleep so I wrote to everybody I knew, to tell them the news. As the morning wore on I was taken with baby to join about eight other mothers and babies in the maternity ward. I quickly bonded with a tall lanky girl whose amazing feat had been to increase her weight by no more than the weight of the baby and could have concealed her pregnancy right up to the birth had she wished.

We noticed that all of us would have alternate days when we would be on top of the world one day and down in the depths the next. If one of the babies needed to be examined, the staff would remove all the babies from the ward, so that instead of one mother being upset and worried, we all were.

I became inundated with bouquets of flowers from friends and family and the nurses piled them round my bed like a flowery bower. This was embarrassing so I asked Sister to spread them round the ward. It was lovely getting the flowers but I now had dozens of thank you letters to write. I was very upset when I received a bunch of red and white flowers from the Aunts. What were they thinking of? In my nursing days, red and white flowers on a ward meant a death – I suppose associated with blood and bandages. I begged Sister to get rid of them and she said she wasn’t superstitious and she would be happy to have them for her room. Phew!
We had always, in my training, removed all flowers from the ward at night as they were supposed to suck the oxygen from the air; I still don’t know if there is any truth in this.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly and baby was putting on weight so after a few days I was told I could go home. I asked William to bring my black and white tweed suit - expecting to be able to get into it - but not a chance. The nurses told me it would be eighteen months before I got my shape back but they were wrong. One of the best ways to get back in shape is breast –feeding ; you can actually feel the pull on your uterus as the baby sucks (particularly when you have cat- gut stitches like I had.).

The other slimming factor was the benign, happy Pat had become a stressed, nervous wreck who fretted when baby cried and prodded him when he was asleep to make sure he was OK. I had a bad case of post natal depression - which wasn’t recognised in those days and made me feel even worse. I wondered if I was going mad.

The health visitor came one day and, realising I was in a nervous state, told me to put all the ornaments away and not worry about house-work. That wasn’t a problem – I had an excellent daily help and probably if I had had more to do I would have had less time to fret. Her kindness reduced me to tears; it was a relief to have someone who seemed to understand how I was feeling. She introduced me to two mothers with babies (boys) around the same age, who lived close by, and that saved my bacon. Every night, after the six pm feed (when breast milk is at its weakest) my son would yell his head off – sometimes till midnight and it was driving me demented. When he was four months old the girls finally persuaded me to have a night off: I left William in charge and we went to the pictures to see ‘High Society‘with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. For the first time since the birth I laughed and had fun. Back home William said our son had slept soundly all night and from then on things improved. Baby thrived and I got back in shape physically and mentally. God bless those girls; our trio of friendship survives to this day and I still have the LP of the film music.

William and I had decided we would not name our children after anyone we knew. Years later I realised I had given both boys Scottish names with the same initial as MTL. Make of that what you will.
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