When I Was 5 I Ran Away From School

When I was 5 I ran away from school. Mrs Roberts told the class to get their maths books out. I hate maths, I thought.

“Mrs Roberts is a poo!” I muttered to myself. The boy next to me looked shocked.

“I’m telling on you!” he exclaimed, and went to stand at the end of a long queue of children waiting to speak to Mrs Roberts. I surveyed the length of the line, and thought;

By the time he gets to the front of that line I could be out of here.

I ran to the classroom door and out to the cloakroom. No time to button it – I put the hood of my coat over my head and my coat flew out behind me like Batman’s cape. I was already clutching my school bag which smelt of Penguin chocolate biscuits. I ran out of the portacabin classroom, down the steps, across the playground and towards the school gates. I’m not sure at what point I realised the classroom assistant was chasing me. She was an older lady with permed hair, an A-line skirt and sensible shoes. I was headed for home. I raced out of the school gates and along the pavement towards where the corner of the road became a slight cul-de-sac. As the crow flies the quickest way home would be to cut straight across the road and the classroom assistant was hot on my heels. But I was not allowed to cross the road on my own without a grownup. I lived only 5 minutes from school and it was possible to get home without crossing any roads. So I opted to run around the long way, along to the end of the cul-de-sac, keeping to the pavements.

She caught me.

She put me over her shoulder and I kicked and screamed all the way back to class. I saw children in classrooms stare through windows at me. Back in the classroom Mrs Roberts gently asked me if I wanted to join the class doing maths, or go into the book corner and read books. I went into the book corner and read books and did colouring-in for the rest of the day. Result.

At the end of the day Mrs Roberts and my mum talked about me in hushed voices. I kept on colouring in.

Tomorrow my eldest daughter starts school for the very first time. I’m very proud and a little sad. She looks so smart in her uniform. Like all mothers I can’t believe how my baby has grown. She has seemed more excited than anxious. The other day I quietly asked her if there’s anything she wants to ask me about starting school.

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “My new water bottle that you bought me for school: I don’t think I can take the lid off by myself, to re-fill it.” I smiled and we went in to the kitchen to practice opening the water bottle together.

I’ve told her an abbreviated version of my running away from school story. She thinks it’s hilarious. I’ve made it clear that running away from school, without a grown-up is Extremely Dangerous and Very Naughty Indeed.

On Holiday

My feet: in Eastbourne... (happy days).

So I'm not on holiday yet but I'm doing lots of work for my clients so that I can take a short holiday at the end of the month. Sadly this means my poor little Narrowboat Wife blog gets a little neglected.

Until then, I will be appearing in the following (virtual) places:

Boatshed Grand Union - a blog about all things canal and boaty.

Canal Voyagers - a blog about places to visit on the canals and lovely things to see and do while on a hotel boat.

Boatshed Essex - The only way is Boatshed Essex - a blog about boating and sailing in Essex.

NCBA - The National Community Boating Association; find out about community boating on the canals and more.

Become a Mumpreneur - tips and business advice for mums juggling it all (mums like me!)

www.peggymelmoth.com - my own business blog about freelance writing, social media, business blogging and so on.

What have I been up to?

That's a good question. I keep forgetting to write about my Real Life on the blog.

We are on the move again and have just moored up near a station yesterday which is leafy and lovely. Also good for The Doctor to commute to London. We've got a bike trailer last week which I've started to use to take the girls to nursery: "Faster mummy, faster!" It's great on the roads but hard going in the squelchy mud on the towpath.

I'm still learning to drive once a week, and am about to begin the dull activity of learning for my theory test. A while ago I made a Pinterest board I will pass my driving test. In the last week I have managed to do my years accounts, and start my tax return. I have finally come off the antidepressants which was really tough as I went through some depressing withdrawal symptoms, (depression, paranoia, despair, anger, teethgrinding, anxiety dreams, and disassociation) yaay! It's been 20 days since my last pill and I'm starting to feel happier.

I keep making notes to create my first e-course which is about making a wish, putting it out there in the universe and seeing what happens. At the weekend we went to a four year old's birthday party on a farm; took a trip to the boatyard, emptied the toilet tank and filled up the water tank. Our friends came for the boat journey and I drank lots of wine and our four kids ran up and down the boat having a great time!

So, I'm doing ok with focussing on my goals as all of the above helps me aim towards This Years Dreams.  I have worked towards; increasing brand awareness and sales for my clients using social media, passing my driving test, blogging, having fun with the kids, cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and spent time with friends.

What about you? Can you condense everything you've done this week into a few words?!

20 Minutes to Change Your Life

At the beginning of April I read about this lovely idea on The Alexander Residence blog. You set a timer for 20 minutes and write down 100 things you want to do, be achieve, feel, places to go, people to see and more… Read how to do it here:  20 Minutes to ChangeYour Life. It only takes a minute to read.

Random acts of kindness were one of Penny’s goals.

“And sharing the good stuff…hope someone else finds this as helpful as I did.”

I commented on her post, I am definitely gonna do this! And then didn’t get around to it. Then I got an email yesterday saying someone else had commented on her post and it reminded me. I found I had twenty minutes to spare and let myself write in a stream of consciousness sort of way.

The first thing I wrote was, Write a book, write lots of books. Drive. Pass test. Then there was a list of friends and family to visit. More writing ideas. Be myself. Feel content. Stop being afraid or anxious. Go to Italy again: India again. Visit Dad in Capetown. Be myself (came up twice!) Paint apicture. Go away for a weekend with my best friend. Take up yoga. Cook family meals. Have more time! Be less complicated, more simple, relaxed and beautiful. Simplicity. Stare out to sea more often. Be quiet in nature. Go quietly to the woods. Draw pictures. Paint watercolours outside with my children… it goes on.

Although I’d already made my Best Year Yet Plan  I loved this because it was so quick. It reiterated to me some of the things that are most important to my inner self, when the chaos of daily life stops clouding my dreams.

So just do it! 20 minutes; have a go. It was fun!

Big thanks to Penny for sharing. Pass it on.

If you missed #BlogCampUK don’t miss this review!*

It was a beautiful morning, the sun shone onto the canal water as I ran down the muddy towpath late for my train. Clare from The VeggieExperience picked me up from the station looking very relaxed, and wearing big sun glasses. She’s not worried that I’m late because she overslept anyway.

“Oh no, I’ve forgotten to wear my sunglasses and now you look much cooler than me!” I said. She laughed and said it was more about needing them for driving than looking cool. We picked up the lovely and pregnant MrsC and talked about other bloggers all the way to Birmingham; who’d be there, who we’ve met before, who we’ve read and who’s ‘famous’ in the ‘blogosphere’.

Then after getting our badges pinned on at the door I lost my travel buddies and entered the light and airy conservatory room alone. It was buzzing with bloggers and coffee and at first I was too scared to talk to anyone. But then I spoke to Nickie who writes at Iamtypecast and found my friends again and began to mingle, eat pastries and feel better.

At the first session Muireann from Bangs and a Bun was confident and stylish without being intimidating. She gave us some inspiring tips on creating your own strong brand identity, visual style, ethos and tone. She says keep it fresh and experiment and stay open to new avenues and ideas.

For session 2 I chose Creating Videos with Ian Moulster and we could hear everyone next door at the How to be a Snark session laughing out loud. The video session was a straightforward techy tutorial in Windows Live Movie Maker, but I was surprised at how easy it seemed. I felt so enthusiastic about making a little movie that I have already filmed some clips of our boat travelling through locks at the weekend. (Perhaps my degree in animation will be of use to me after all…) Did you know Flickr video hosting is better quality than YouTube and it has a rotating tool?

Lunch was a lovely selection of sandwiches and fruit. I felt shy again and so found it difficult to circulate but did chat to the lovely Louise from mygorgousboys and got some techy tips from Mark at CorpulentCapers. I was happy to meet up with HelloitsGemma again and had been looking forward to meeting Penny from The Alexander Residence in Real Life. We had lots to talk about and enjoyed the next session with SusannahConway, photographer, author and aunt. She was charismatic and full of good ideas. I scribbled furiously in my notebook as she told us how she creates and runs personal development e-courses as a full time job. It was so motivating that the very next day I began brain storming ideas to write my own e-course.

Thank goodness Session 4 was focussed on the whole new Google follow versus no-follow rules relating to sponsored content because I do not understand it. Sold links must be ‘no follow’. If you don’t do this you will lose your page rank. I don’t want to be invisible! I thought desperately. “It’s changed SEO forever!” somebody cried. I am slightly less confused about it all now but it seems that I must either go back and manually correct all of the links on my blog, ever, or go self-hosted and get a widget that does that for me.

The final session of the day was a Q&A with a panel of PR professionals. PR companies are happy to be approached by bloggers, so long as the bloggers are not simply blaggers out to get free stuff.

The size of this conference was just right. Big enough to have a buzz going on but small enough to find someone if there’s someone you are hoping to meet. I had a fantastic day and might have hugged Sally Whittle for organising it, had she not officially asked everyone not to hug her. I found every session valuable and the cakes were amazing. Did I not mention the cake?

BlogCamp is organised by Sally and the Tots100. an index of parenting blogs designed to help you find good blogs and to celebrate the most influential and engaging blogs in the UK.

 

Disclosure: I received free coffee, sandwiches, and cake. I attended five fabulous and informative sessions for free, but I paid Clare towards the petrol. My opinions are my own. If you are reading this, O’ omnipresent Google, please don’t make me invisible. 

*Ok, so my review may be no better or worse than anyone else’s, but I was attempting an attention grabbing headline – did it work?!

Be Your Own Wish Friend.

Image credit: Paul Appleton

My four year old daughter has little wish friends: They make her wishes come true. There are at least sixteen of them, and more appear all the time. One is “bigger than the sun” and one is “smaller than a thread worm egg”.

Last week I decided to become my own little wish friend and make my wishes come true. I got a book from the library that claimed if I spent three hours answering ten key questions I could create a plan for my best year yet.  I’d say it took me more like three evenings, but that could be because I’m very wordy and wrote a lot when I was creating my master plan. (I also drank a little bit of red wine while I was making it.)  If you were reading in January you may notice that this completely contradicts my earlier post: the best goal is no goal.

2012

BEST YEAR YET PLAN

Top Ten Goals

F

Finish writing book and synopsis. Find agent and publisher.

Have one article a week published by the end of the year.

Increase brand awareness and sales for my clients using social media.

Pass my driving test.

Improve relationship, feel closer together.

Create regular ‘me’ time for reading and blogging.

Make time to have fun with my daughters.

Take more care of my health.

Keep the boat tidier and cleaner.

Show my best friends and family that I care.

The back cover says, “You have a career that’s tailor made for you, your relationships are happy, your finances are under control and you have enough time to do the things you love.”

Can a book do all this for me? Can I do it for myself? Do I need to recruit some more little wish friends? Stay tuned and watch me have my Best Year Yet!

If you had just one wish for your best year yet what would it be?

Where is This Relationship Going?

I mean the relationship with my blog! 

I was surprised that Do You Like Roses and Castles? was quite popular. I had it in my notebook for a while as something funny that my daughter had said, and then realised it could be a blog post. It made me realise a post doesn't have to be a long clever pretty piece of writing, it can just be a snippet or a moment in time... I’ve got to take the pressure off myself! When I look back at my old posts I am very proud of them, I can see now that was good writing. But I think that when I started this blog I was driven by a terrible loneliness and discontentment; my blog allowed me to connect with the world and share the highs and lows of my narrowboat existence. 

These days I do not have the same urgency to jot down the intimate details of my daily life, I guess because I'm happier just living it. I could wake up and write about the glistening water and the serenity of the swans but it’s less cathartic than moaning about the distance to the launderette or the price of a new gearbox. 

So, where will my blog take me next?

Life is Beautiful

It’s 9am. I’ve just walked half an hour to nursery and then cycled back thinking about the things that I’ve got to do today. The engine’s broken down (again) so the marine engineer may be coming, if he can. Because we can’t move the boat to the water point I’ll first fetch a barrel of water for the tank. I’m going to do the laundry, the dishes and take the recycling today, as well as doing a day’s work at home. As I cycle down the towpath thinking of how the day is packed with chores I notice the brilliant blue sky framed through the old canal bridge; the painted boats beyond, showing all the colours of my watery village; the sunlight glinting on the water and the swans gliding by. I remember what my blog was all about in the beginning: that Life is difficult: but beautiful.  That sums it up really.

I put the bike on the front deck and roll the 40 litre aquaroll to the water point. Then I pull the full barrrel back down the muddy towpath and lean it against the side of the boat; still on its side. My neighbour opposite lives on a Dutch barge and works on boats. He is in a small rowing boat heading a few boats down to another boat this morning. He smiles,

“Morning!”

“Is that you commuting?” I grin. He laughs.

“I used to have another boat: a work boat. But this does me fine really: I can’t fit a welder in it though.”

As he rows away I turn just in time to see that our boat has shifted out slightly and my water barrel is falling into the Cut!

“Nooo!” I wail, as I leap urgently back onto the towpath and grab the handle. It’s heavy and sinking. I wrestle with the cap and undo it in time to begin pouring the freshly collected drinking water into the Cut. I struggle to hold the weight of it, the boat begins drifting back towards me jamming the barrel between the boat and the bank. The concrete edge of the towpath is digging into my knees. I manage to pour enough water out of it so that it is light enough to heave out.  With relief I lift it onto the front deck and begin to pour the half a barrel that’s left through a funnel into the water tank.

My neighbour is returning, rowing back the other way.

“That’s one way to fill the water tank,” he says. Luckily he did not see my embarrassing incident.

“We’ve broken down,” I explain.

“I know one guy,” he says, as he rows on up the Cut. “When it rains the rain water from his roof goes straight into his water tank!”

When you’ve broken down water is even more precious than it usually is. I’m gutted that my entire water expedition has resulted in a mere 20 litre top-up. I need to start my day now; turn on the geny and washing machine, get a coffee and get to work on my computer.

The sky is impossibly blue and the sunshine glistens on the water. It’s 10am. The geny’s on; the laundry’s on; and I’ve finally written an honest blog post about the real life of a narrowboat wife. Life is difficult, but beautiful!