30 things that make me happy

Daily writing prompt
List 30 things that make you happy.

In no particular order

  1. Our son, who makes me laugh every day.
  2. Our little family.
  3. Kubo, our new dog. In a week he’s already changed how we act as a family, I’m getting out for a walk with him twice a day most days.
  4. Reading, I read two books on Saturday and finished off a third on Sunday.
  5. Leeloo, she is adjusting to having the dog in the house. I love that she sleeps under the covers with me.
  6. Our bed, it’s a Sleeping Duck mattress and frame. We brought a harder side mattress for the husband and a softer side for me. With cotton sheets and an electric blanket, it’s my favourite place to be.
  7. A long, hot bath. Preferably with a book.
  8. Coffee, (was higher up, but thought the better of it)
  9. House plants.
  10. The days beginning to draw out, as we inch towards Spring.
  11. Being able to get washing on the line when it’s not raining.
  12. Candles, nightlights.
  13. The Thermomix, it’s a T31. It was so expensive, I named it Nellie. As an aside, with a lifetime guarantee, I ain’t buying a new fangled one with a chip, so stop emailing me.
  14. My coven *twirls moustaches*
  15. Food in the pantry and a roof over our head.
  16. Open windows and a breeze blowing through the house.
  17. Dinner with family and / or friends.
  18. Laughing till my sides hurt.
  19. Stationery. I have too much, but still like perusing.
  20. Haberdashery shops, UK version – patterns, buttons, sewing supplies, fabric rolls.
  21. Libraries. We must protect them at all costs.
  22. Halloween Decorations.
  23. Going out for breakfast.
  24. The kitchen clean, all the dishes away before we go to bed at night.
  25. Squidging my toes into sand.
  26. The feeling you get when you’ve exercised, hard.
  27. 475 days alcohol free.
  28. Elephants.
  29. Edna Mode.
  30. Honeydew Green or Matcha green tea in the morning; black tea in the afternoon, Assam, Earl Grey, French Earl Grey – I don’t mind.
Picture of a white coffee mug on a rustic table. There's an open journal with text over, saying 'May your coffee always be served with love'.

On Writing

Hello, have another random thought dump. unedited, foibles, mixed tenses and all x

I’ve written for as long as I can remember. Mum on her last visit from the UK to Australia brought out some poetry I’d written at infant and junior school. I’ll dig it out and share it for you, it’s very cute.

I journal most mornings, I aim for 5 out of 7 days a week. Some journal entries I keep. Others, I burn.

I carry a pad and pen around with me. If I’ve got a bag, I’m also likely to have another pad and my diary with me, just in case.

I buy new notepads, notebooks, pens in volume – trying to get all the feelings out my head into words. It’s noisy up there. And messy. Convinced each time, that this new fresh set of blank pages will help.

Reader, it doesn’t.

I’ve written myself out of holes, written myself into corners. I still love the smell of fresh note paper. Inhaling the smell of the glue as I open a notebook for the first time.

I’ve been converting One Last Hundred Chances into a screenplay. The formatting is completely different to how I’ve written before, but as I pull out the descriptions and rely on the words to tell the story, the images dance behind my eyes.

When I get to Gildredge Park in the book, I remember the times we went there as children.

The hills we’d roll down over and over. Endless picnics with one set of grandparents, it was also close to where Mum worked, so we’d meet her there for lunch sometimes. We’d walk around the mini-art gallery if it got too hot, go and visit exhibitions on rainy Sunday afternoons. I can still smell the parquet floors, sadly the original building left to the town is now being left to ruin after being sold off. With the collection moved to a building next to the concrete monstrosity that is the Congress Theatre.

[An aside, Art Garfunkel played at the Congress in 2003. During sound check, he complained about the acoustics, and was told to wait until the crowd came in. He still wasn’t happy when he started the show. His fury made the local paper, because you’d think he’d know what he was talking about].

[Another aside, if you brought a package holiday to Eastbourne during the summer, it would include coach travel down from where you live, (bunging up the sea front for us locals as you were unloaded), a weeks’ bed and board and a theatre package. Total pot-luck as depending on what week you arrived, would dictate what you would see at the theatres (plural, it had three, all of which would put on a pantomime each Christmas, the aforementioned Congress, Devonshire Park and Royal Hippodrome. Eastbourne also had 5 or 6 cinemas at one point too. I digress).

Sometimes it would be a repertory group on tour, other times it’d be previews for the West End. Other times, it’d be a full-on touring production of a musical direct from the West End. Mum and I watched Copacabana, several Sondheim’s, a couple of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s and most memorably, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Nicholas Parsons was the narrator, Jonathan Wilkes was Frank. All the Transylvanians were the ushers, guiding people to their seats with their torches (euphemism). The lights went down to a packed house, elderly ladies with handbags on their knees. They were happy to be seeing Nicholas Parsons, but a bit bemused that a lot of the the audience were dressed in scrubs with pearls and rubber gloves, or in hot pants and lingerie. If you’ve seen it live, you know how it goes:

  • Brad – b@stard
  • Janet – b!tch
  • Water pistols, rice, newspapers, doing the Time Warp, the whole shebang

Lights up at the interval, half the audience had left.]

I remember visiting the park after the huge storm in 1987, seeing the trees that had been skittled in the winds. Trees we’d sat under and against, trees we counted to 100 while leaning on their trunks.

I remember climbing around and along the walls of the park, a gang of kids, best friends for the day and for as long as we played. Walking through the shades of the trees to the playground, hearing the thwack of tennis balls on hard, grey, asphalt courts that burned your feet when you ran over them. Looking at the robins, squirrels and quietly enjoying carefully curated gardens and walkways, with secret benches under arbours.

The hot day that instead of an ice cream, I convinced Nanny to buy me a bottle of Perrier, as I knew I’d like it. I’d seen how enthusiastically people were drinking it on the adverts. I felt so grown-up and sophisticated when I drank it. I remember the acerbic taste, but valiantly finishing the green bottle. If it’s any consolation; I still don’t like it, but love other sparkling water.

I remember the poodles I saw at one gate, like Matryoshka dolls, matching tartan jackets on a cold day. They ended up in the book. I think I will always get asked how much of it is autobiographical. I think I will always reply, the Eastbourne bits. Here’s the fishpond for you, at the top of Gildredge Park. It’s smaller than I remembered.

A picture of the fishpond at Gildredge Park in Eastbourne. It looks like autumn, as the leaves are starting to turn on the trees. It also looks smaller than I remember.

Photo credit

One day, instead of walking from home to the train station to get to college in Lewes, I spent the day in the park instead. I knew I simply couldn’t get to college. At the time, I didn’t know if I was depressed, anxious or what; but Mum kicked me out the house and told me to get going. I played truant a lot from school and college, I’d just have to leave, not knowing what else to do. I know now, it’s classic ADHD overwhelm.

That day, I stopped at the station, and brought a new note pad from WH Smiths. I walked up to the park. At a guess, it was winter 1993.

That was the day I saw the poodles.

I sat on a picnic bench and started writing in my fresh new notebook. I remember my hands were cold, as every so often I’d need to sit on them to warm them up.

I remembered that day while I was on a course last week. I don’t know why it came into my head; during a break, in amongst the scribbled flowers, alphabets and doodles, I was again sitting at the bench, missing college. As clear as it is I’m typing this now. I remembered that when all else failed me, I brought a book and wrote it out. It’s what I’ve turned to time and again, that to order my brain, I can’t just rely on thinking things through. As I said, it’s noisy up there.

I had a little moment in a blue stone basement in Ballarat for the teenager I was. I’ve been referred to a psychiatrist so I can be prescribed medication for ADHD. She’s in Sydney, but there are no practices here with room to take me and I need another layer of support above what I’m already doing.

I’m 48 years old, I’m only just learning that I can’t do all the things. Or if I do the things, I pay a cost somewhere else. If I push too hard; I’ll be in bed by 7pm, or for most of the weekend. If I do too much, I won’t feel able to meet with my friends and family.

If I pace myself, make sure I rest, eat well, avoid social media and the news, I can do some of the things.

If I leave the house 9-5 for five days like I did last week, I will need a day or so to recuperate afterwards. I pre-planned this, but on my leave days Monday and Wednesday (ANZAC Day on Tuesday), I slept more instead of doing the things I thought I’d be able to do.

I guess what I’m saying is, when I need to stop, slow down and reconcile what is going on, I write. Sometimes those thoughts filed away will arrive in a book, written 30 years later.

What is on my bedside table?

As of today, here is what I’ve read from the prompts for this year’s The 52 Book Club. I’m enjoying this challenge as it’s as flexible as you need to be; some people in the Facebook group have completed it already, others have barely started.

To avoid buying books, I’m trying to choose from titles on my shelves already, (including the kindle). If I get stuck, then borrowing from the library first; while keeping my fingers crossed for a second-hand version; or using an audible credit, before buying a new book.

Which works ok, until you listen to a book and can’t imagine living without it in your house. See Bono and Chloé Hayden; even Jean Rhys has made me re-read Jane Eyre again on the kindle, and I’ve decided I now need a physical copy of Jane at home.

I’m also trying to fit my Book Club book selections into the prompts where I can, Mrs Benson’s Beetle as an example. Managing to borrow a copy from the library – triple tick / Venn diagram crossover!

Here are the books I can firmly say meet the prompts and I’ve finished.

On the pile to read, selected from prompts, but not got to them:

Some additional books I’ve read, but I haven’t looked if they fit the prompts yet:

  • Various and multitudinal audio versions of Agatha Christie. I’m not going to link them (as you can find them easily enough), I’ve read most if not all of her books at some point. I said to Mum the other day, I ought to go on Mastermind about them. And Then There Were None, The Body in the Library, At Bertram’s Hotel, Cat Among the Pigeons, The Hollow, Death in the Clouds, Death on the Nile, Evil Under The Sun, Dead Man’s Folly.
  • ADHD 2.0, Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey – this is such a good book to explain ADHD, I’ve brought it and sent it on to others.

On the way over the past 6ish weeks of reading almost daily, I’ve reminded myself how great it is, laughing and crying along with the story. I’ve cut down on doom-scrolling, I’ve also got to the gym at least twice each week, sinus infection notwithstanding.

My favourites so far;

  • Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. Was NOT ready for this book. I love Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters and have had A Fine Balance on my shelf for ages. It was beautiful, brutal and broke my heart. It also reinforced how much I love reading books about India. I’ve no idea where that has came from, but it’s a continent I return to time and again through books.
  • Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Save Your Life. I love how de Botton writes at the best of times, this was the most glorious of times. de Botton shares vignettes from Marcel Proust’s life, with excerpts from letters and books, ‘How to choose a good doctor, ‘How to enjoy a holiday’ each chapter is grouped into topics and is delightful. It couldn’t have been written by someone who didn’t love and intimately know their subject. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

Ministry of Sounds

Another in my series of living with ADHD, and not really realising it. Link for part one, Returning to Self and link for part two, I’ll Tumble 4 Ya. This one is a hot mess of sounds, time awareness and bruises.

I remember driving out of Doncaster Shopping Town, our son was still in his car seat with a five point harness, so not very old. He was cross, he was ratty, he was over shopping, people, lights and noise and his general demeanour in turn had set me off. I was sat at the traffic lights, also ratty, also over people, lights and noise so I did what I do to cope.

I put on some music really loud.

Our son started crying louder. I turned it up so I couldn’t hear him.

3.2km later (I’ve just looked it up), I had to pull into a garage at the roundabout, I was also now crying. I stopped the car in a parking bay and got into the backseat next to him. I undid his car seat and we sat with each other. Me apologising for putting the music on and upsetting him more.

In my late teens and early twenties I discovered clubbing. I went out to dance. From 9pm to 1am, two or three nights a week, I was on the floor. I didn’t care if I was the only one dancing, unusual for me not being worried about being up and visible. The music and the clubs I went to were a safe haven. The music pounding in my chest, took all thoughts away from me.

The bouncers knew me by name, I’d go clubbing with P and later E. Whoever I was with, it meant we’d be pulled out of the queue and fast-tracked in. The taxi company P and I used would also send a car out quicker to us at the end of the night, because they knew we were only 8 minutes up the road from the club and were sober. A quick turnaround and an easy job.

Every so often you get a song that lifts everyone and is the song of the season. If you’re lucky, its a great tune and will stay on the DJs radar, this is a song I listen to almost daily and I still love.

Bonus points if you knew what it was going to be before the link opened up 😉

It was a total floor-filler, the entire dancefloor wafting around in the middle of the song, waiting for the beat to drop and then we’d all go crazy. That song is my everything. It’s my starting ritual. It’s my mood changer when the world has gone to hell in a hand basket (hence the daily play). It’s my pep talk. I honestly can’t tell you how much I love it.

I’m going to do a playlist on Spotify, watch this space.

Rarely, I can also use it for a burst to get me through and give me one spare spoon for the day. If I do use it for that, I know I will need to get to bed earlier and sleep later as I’ll be useless in the morning. Life-style-tip, having batch-cooked and running a pantry saves me; because when I’m totally fried, it is very rare that we as a family won’t have something to grab and go for lunch or to nuke when we’re home in the evening for dinner.

Saltwater came out just as my heyday of clubbing in Eastbourne was coming to an end. In those days, we didn’t have the Spotify, so would you believe, I never knew what it was bluddy called! In a pub in deepest Wiltshire, I was behind the bar, on a walk around collecting glasses, the DJ put it on so he could have a pee-break. Crossing the dance floor, I asked him ‘What is this called?’ From the next morning, first via Napster.

Around the same time; we worked it out it was within the same month, the husband walked across a dancefloor in a pub in Townsville to ask the same question. About as far away from Wiltshire you can get. He still loves it too.

I was in Coles supermarket in the town we used to live in before we moved to Regional Victoria. I got to the tills and freaked out, leaving my shopping behind. I took our son and just bolted to the car. I thought I was having a panic attack, or extreme anxiety. Nope, I was again overstimulated, overwhelmed and overambitious about what I needed to get done.

The husband and I were both working full time, our wee man was in nursery full time. However, I wasn’t being paid for nearly six months of the year as the child care rebate cap (subsidising care for working parents), mostly being that around each January if you work full time you will hit the ceiling of what is paid to the centre. Leaving you to pay everything. Which means, my entire take-home wages went on fees from January through the end of June. I’d get a tax rebate at the end of the financial year, we’d pay some off what we’d had to put on the credit card. Wash and repeat for six years.

The husband was trying to keep it all together at his work, heading into the city from our suburb, getting up and onto a train before our son was awake. Our son was also picking up every single bug going, if he woke up poorly, I would be the one that had to stay home. When my six months trial period came up, the aforementioned eejit said ‘I don’t know if you’re suitable, you’ve not been in for a full week since you started.’ I had hysterics, took advice and offered to extend my trial period out for another six months to show that I was. There is more I could say here, but we’re going to leave it for now.

Being employed for over six months did mean I was able to access the EAP, (Employee Assistance Program). The Monday after the Coles trip the weekend before, I called the EAP from a meeting room. I said that I was having problems with my son. Reader, I wasn’t, I was in full flight mode and just pegged it out of Coles because my body told me too. My clearest memory was carrying him out like a surfboard when I shot out of Coles, I had put all my focus on us leaving. At the meeting, I was met with someone armed and ready to give me parenting advice. Not to talk me through having a meltdown myself, which is what happened.

From there I did get some regular counselling, but that eejit? I had to work late to go to appointments, even if they were over my lunch break. Did I mention disdain and disregard is something to look forward to working through with ADHD too?

You have permission to rest.
You are not responsible for fixing everything that is broken. You do not have to try and make everyone happy. For now, take time for you. It's time to replenish.

Learning to rest and recuperate is the hardest lesson I’m learning.

Writing about what I’ve been like my whole life, has taken me back to through time and place really clearly. I know we’re all struggling with time as a concept since 2019, it really has become more nebulous the world over. But that is what it is like for me, all the time. No pun intended. Whenever I’m going ‘home’, that is basically where I’m sleeping tonight. If I’m your guest wing, that’s home.

My sense of place and time is truly up the wahoo. If I say ‘A few weeks ago’, that could mean anything from about 2010 onwards. I’ll say ‘You remember!’ to the husband, and he’ll give me a blank look. I then have to go on a breadcrumb trail through people, places and things to get to where my brain is, leading him on a journey that I’ve just leapt to in my head.

My brain also fires off so quickly, I can forget what I’m doing, while I’m doing it. You know when you get up to go into the kitchen and forget why you’re there? That is me, daily. I live by lists, lists of lists, post-it notes, notes in my phone, a pad by my bed for when I wake up at 2am remembering something. I carry a note pad in my pocket at work so if I’m away from my desk I can pull it out. I can be found standing staring into space, pad and pen in hand, as by the time I’ve got them ready – I’ve forgotten what I’ve meant to remember. It is also my superpower though, as I can read a room and organise the shizzle out of anything because of what I’ve learned to do to organise myself.

I also didn’t realise until the past few weeks unconsciously since I’ve been in the workforce and flying a desk, I’ve set my day up by constantly drinking gallons of tea and water. Which means, I have to get up and away from my desk for a break. That was another 2am revelation that made me sit bolt up right in bed.

As I’m not aware of what is around me, I will walk into things. Fall over things. Drop things. I crash into people in the city, and not just because they walk so fricking slowly either. I am covered in bruises from walking into my desk; walking into walls or worktops; either opening the car door onto myself, or shutting the door onto my leg as my brain hasn’t yet got my leg in the car, before on autopilot it’s told me to shut the door.

If something is not in front of me, it does not exist. I love my bibelots as Georgie calls them, but if I have too many things around me, I get a bit lost. It’s great though, because I know when we go through the boxes of things in the garage over Easter, I’m going to see lots of things I’ve forgotten I had. As soon as I see it, I’ll remember. But seriously, the amount of

This has gone on a bit long so I’m going to leave you with a shining moment of ADHD glory. Every so often when I’m overstimulated and fretting about things, I will need ‘order and method’. Aside from buying a new notebook (the possibilities of them are endless. I can go into hyperdrive and go through the house on a purge and donate heaps of things to charity.

I used to live in a town with a fantastic second-hand bookshop. I’d take bags of books in, rummage around and come home with bags of different books #Bliss. One day I saw a book and thought excitedly, ‘I’ve not read that in ages!’ On the bus on the way home reviewing my bountiful haul, I opened the book up and saw my name in it.

Fluffy cat looking at his human

What movies or TV series have you watched more than five times?

This was the writing prompt when I logged into WordPress tonight to blog more on the ADHD thing. Couldn’t resist this so, buckle up. Noting, this is in no particular order, does not include TV, or books. And is not exhaustive…

Fluffy cat looking at his human
The late great Chief Brody, named for the character in Jaws.
  • Some Like It Hot
  • Jaws
  • Groundhog Day
  • Trading Places
  • Dragnet
  • Ghostbusters
  • The Godfather
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  • Local Hero
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • Amadeus
  • Pale Rider
  • Kind Hearts and Coronets
  • Passport to Pimlico
  • The Lavender Hill Mob
  • The Lady Killers
  • Catch Me If You Can
  • You’ve Got Mail
  • That Thing You Do
  • Apollo 13
  • Amelie
  • Die Hard
  • Nikita
  • The Terminator
  • T2
  • Alien
  • Aliens
  • The Matrix
  • Se7en
  • The Abyss
  • Shaun of the Dead
  • Hot Fuzz
  • Sleepless in Seattle
  • A League of Their Own
  • The Money Pit (Tom Hanks version)
  • Elf
  • The Usual Suspects
  • Arrival
  • Interstellar
  • Inception
  • The Godfather Part II
  • Back to the Future
  • Trainspotting
  • Pans Labyrinth
  • Heat
  • LA Confidential
  • The Sting
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • Field of Dreams
  • Cop Land
  • Goodfellas
  • Corrina, Corrina
  • The Shawshank Redemption
  • The Bridge on the River Kwai
  • A Bridge Too Far
  • Gladiator
  • Band of Brothers
  • Saving Private Ryan
  • Cast Away
  • Toy Story – 1, 2 and 3
  • The Forsyte Saga (2002 version)
  • The Madness of King George
  • V for Vendetta
  • The Green Mile
  • Forrest Gump
  • The Philadelphia Story
  • Wizard of Oz
  • Meet Me in St. Louis
  • Easter Parade
  • Mary Poppins
  • A Star is Born, Judy and Gaga versions
  • It’s a Wonderful Life
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
  • Rear Window
  • High Noon
  • Yankee Doodle Dandy (if only for this bit)
  • Fight Club
  • Galaxy Quest
  • The Phantom of The Opera
  • Braveheart
  • Mutiny on the Bounty (Anthony Hopkins / Mel Gibson version)
  • 84 Charing Cross Road
  • 12 Angry Men
  • To Kill a Mocking Bird
  • The General
  • Star Wars IV
  • Star Wars V
  • Star Wars VI
  • Rogue One
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (including marathoning it three times now)
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
  • Jurassic Park
  • Pulp Fiction
  • Good Will Hunting
  • The Piano
  • Top Gun
  • Rain Man
  • Beaches
  • Mad Max: Fury Road

Returning to self

This is the first in a series of blog posts about my recent ADHD diagnosis. I wrote most of it in one sitting, and kind of reached a natural pause (more like screeching to a halt), but here I am concentrating on school.

When you don’t fit in, other people’s social norms become layered on top of you. By reacting to their behaviour towards you, you stop doing (or curtail) what makes you, you. As Oh says in Home, “The true is, among Boov, I do not fit in, I fit out.”

Becoming homogenised into ‘acceptable’ is hard work. It is draining, soul destroying, and it breaks you. The moment you either blurt out something that you want to share; or if your outside of school / work / social group hobbies are a bit different to everyone else – life gets harder again. The layers of pain, shame and bewilderment take ages to scour off, if you can.

I didn’t want Barbies, I wanted the electronic Battleship. I didn’t really know what to do with the dolls, but I changed their clothes along with everyone else. At home, I loved building houses from Lego, would fully furnish them with itty bitty furniture. I also oved reading, but they were the wrong books.

I lived inside Swallows & Amazons, being handed the first one to read when I was 7 years old and had exhausted all the books at my grandparents. We lived there for nearly a year while our house was being renovated, as I moved up to Junior School. Over that year, my reading increased from ‘Oooooh!’ to voracious.

Instead of playing in the playground all the books other children had read, or recreated from what was watched on TV the night before, I wanted to be Captain Nancy Blackett. I tried to explain the plots of the books to my friends at school but was met with blank faces. Excluded from the group while they played keeping house. I tried to play Swallows & Amazons with my younger brother, but he’d not read them, and wasn’t interested in boats.

From memory, I only managed to persuade him to play this with me once, we were on holiday in Great Gransden, an old tree had fallen down at the back of one of the fields on the campsite. In my head it was my boat, I borrowed three of the poles from the windbreak and rowed all over the lake. Our Dad took a photo of us, my brother sat before one of the poles stuffed into the tree as a mast, I’m wielding the other two poles like oars, my face split from ear to ear in a grin.

(I’d still love to learn to sail. I’ll put that on the list for next year, I’ve got enough on my list for this year).

I was happy enough though, because I had John, Susan, Titty, Roger, the Swallows, and Peggy and Nancy from the Amazon to keep me company. In my mind I sailed from one side of the lake to the other, built campfires, boiled a kettle for tea, and had picnics of bread and marmalade.

This sailing knowledge came in useful one day, when we had an incursion with actors putting on a play, when one of them asked what the zig-zagging against the wind to sail was called, I blurted out ‘Tacking’ before anyone else.

Excluded from the group, know-it-all.                               

The girls played different games, guessing our favourite colours, what colour our bedrooms were painted, our middle names. By calling letters out, we’d move forward on a paving stone until we got to the other side of a courtyard to win. I didn’t have many letters in my name, and they were surprisingly easy to not be called out. Over and over again, I’d be last, laughed at. So I started adding in middle names to move forward.

‘That’s not right, you’re a liar!’

Excluded from the group.

Or when Uptown Girl was massive, friends of mine sang the song in the playground. Excitedly, having grown up on Billy Joel, I asked them to sing other songs of his. They were all right there in my head, my parents had them on LP, with cassettes for the car, then days of days, slowly brought all his albums on CDs to play. But I was met with blank faces again, because why would they want to sing anything from The Stranger or Glass Houses? They only knew a couple of songs from An Innocent Man.

Excluded from the group again, weirdo.

To this day, I hold swathes of song lyrics in my head. I can sing musicals from memory, It would drive my brother mad when I’d listen to songs on the radio, taping the top 40 onto cassette to listen to through the week, by Tuesday I’d have all the songs ready to sing along to. ‘How do you learn them so quickly?’ Particularly in the days of the Music Factory of Stock, Aitken, and Waterman, sometimes I’d only need to hear the song once or twice and it was there.

I also used to be able to hear a song and play it back on the recorder and sight-read music and play it accurately and consistently. Now, I don’t think I can even read music off the page. One day we had a performance at school, I wore a pink jumpsuit, (Hey, it was the 80s! I loved it though, it buttoned up like a shirt), not knowing I needed to be in uniform. Instead, I was shoved into the changing rooms and told to swapped clothes with Joelle. I stood in her school dress, crimson with embarrassment and tried to concentrate on playing.

When I got to Senior school, my recorder playing, (both the normal or descant, and the larger tenor version), was expected to be converted to clarinet. I was excited to learn this new instrument, but when it arrived, I hated the feel of the reed against my lip. I wanted to carry on noodling around with the recorder, but there wasn’t a place for that either in lessons or in the orchestra. So, I stopped playing altogether. Poor Mum and Dad, they would have heard all sorts of music from my bedroom, for it to stop completely.

Sweet Valley High books were all the rage by the time I got to Senior school. I didn’t particularly like them, but needing to fit in, I read them. I could read a book in a day and retain the basic, formulaic plots. Being able to talk about them meant I did fit in, but the waiting list at the library was long and we didn’t have much money to buy them. So, I stole them. Walking out of WH Smiths with bags of them. In a fit of overwhelm one day, I threw my entire bedroom contents over the banister and down the stairs.

I can remember Dad asking, ‘Where did she get the money to buy these?’ None of us wanting to address the elephant in the room. I didn’t have the money. But what I wanted or needed to fit in, I would take.

I hate this about myself.

I know now after doing more research into ADHD, impulse control is a massive indicator. The list of things I stole in my teens and early twenties is wide, varied and long. I’m not excusing my behaviour. I’m trying to understand it.

I’d be asked to do something, by the time I’d got to where I needed to do the thing, I’d have forgotten about the thing.

If I have no interest in something, I’d rather not do it. At all.

See barefoot bowls, no thank you. I don’t know if this is a legacy of being bullied because of my feet, or a legacy of being an absolute klutz with any type of ball.

Or going to see Cats when I wanted to see Starlight Express? I’m not going on the excursion at all, even though I respect democracy and we all voted on it; I know would make it miserable for everyone else.

This was really hard to manage at school. I wanted to study the period of history from the Tudors to Victorians, instead of Modern World History at GCSE, because I’d done the 20th Century to death and was bored of it. But as there were only 8 of us who wanted to study it, the school couldn’t put it on as an elective exam.

Simple solution. I didn’t study, at all. I relied on my prior knowledge to scrape a C when I was predicted an A, pissing the teacher off good and proper.

I would question teachers, ask them things over and over to explain something that didn’t make sense. Trigonometry and percentages are a closed book. I can do percentages only if I look up on google how to do them, every time. My maths teacher would explain things the same way over and over, I didn’t understand how he explained it. But he wouldn’t change the lesson so I could understand it. Instead, he shouted and humiliated me for not getting it, when everyone else did.

When I was taught how to teach swimming, I was taught that I would need to show some people how to do the strokes, I would have to describe how to do the strokes and I would have to assist some people to do the strokes. Some people need a mixture of all three to learn something new.

I was in trouble a lot for being disruptive and talkative in class, I’d do the work set for an hour in 15 minutes, ask for more to do but not be given anything. I would make a lesson last an hour, my speed and ability to absorb information slowing down. There’s nothing like a once-labelled gifted child being struck into inaction with perfection paralysis, or unable to start something altogether, because as we progressed through school we couldn’t learn at our own speed.

At times, I would be put on ‘report’ where I’d have to carry a card around with me. The teachers would initial the card, but only if I’d behaved, in their lesson. If I handed my homework in, I’d get another initial, but I’d forget to do my homework.

Sometimes I’d also forget the card, and the length of being on report would be extended out. Or I’d leave the card in a pocket in my uniform, it would get washed, and it would be extended out again. I’d go into detention to do my homework, then lie to my parents to say I’d missed the bus home.

I struggled to fit in. I’d work out the current trend, hop on it, it would change, I’d be excluded again. I was bullied for my height, my feet, my hair being short. For swimming, for not dancing; for laughing too loud; for being too loud; for when I was having fun playing; it was the wrong kind of fun. I liked the wrong kind of music.

I was bullied for having zero spatial awareness with any ball sports at school. Be that field events from athletics, tennis, hockey or netball. In netball, I was parked at Goal Defence as I was so tall, I would just stand there and block everything. One game I mishandled the ball, dislocated and broke a finger. The teacher watched me pull it back into place (not recommended) but didn’t send me to the medical room. Particularly frustrating as two minutes after it happened, someone got the ball bounced off the ground into their tummy, burst into tears and was despatched to the medical room. Maybe it’s because I didn’t cry, I just looked down and thought ‘That’s an interesting angle.’ After hours at emergency waiting for an x-ray, I had it taped to another finger for weeks. Going into school with it swollen and purple the next day. Dad was furious.

I was a preternaturally gifted swimmer, there’s more on that coming in another blog post, but because I was so good, the teachers expected it to cross over to other sports. Not for me it doesn’t. I’m so clumsy I’m still covered in bruises, and it was at the GP suggestion to assist with my brother and I’s coordination issues, we went swimming in the first place.

I have no poker face to hide my emotions, my face will tell you what I’m thinking, even if my mouth doesn’t. There is nothing like the look of disdain across my fizzog for something I do not want to do. I can’t fake it for politeness. Let it be known, I do try, but then I spiral into anxiety. Which presents as a short temper, which if I can’t wind down, ramps up to aggression, or paralysis. Fight, flight, freeze – or disruption, disenchantment, disconnect and defiance.

A month off for good behaviour

Muji pen held in left hand over a blank page in a notebook. There is a vase of dried flower and a coffee cup on the wooden table too.
Right pen, wrong hand.

As I wound up last year’s newsletters, (sign up here). I let you all know I was taking a month off. Partly as I was travelling to the UK with our son, but also because I needed to time away to think about what I want to do. Last year was huge.

I spent time on the plane contemplating my navel. Listening to audiobooks and podcasts, working through exercises I’d saved up for the 14 hour flight from Australia to Dubai, (and back). This thinking and journaling, along with the counselling and therapy I’ve been in, means I am feeling closer to who I am at my core and more sure of who I am than ever before.

Look out world, I’ve clicked over to 48 and am out of effs to give.

me

Mind you, what this looks like on the other side of the trip and settling back into ‘normal’ life remains to be seen. All I know is since I landed back in Australia with Mr A, my head has cleared from all the worry, preparation and logistics of the trip. I’ve said to a couple of people this week, it feels like I’m standing in a field of opportunity.

I continue to take my alcohol sobriety and recovery seriously. I’ve worked so hard on it, this week I bid farewell to my specific alcohol counsellor, but I will continue with my therapy sessions. After my family, recovery will always be my main focus, so you can expect random #SoberLiving posts on here and on the ‘gram.

I still want to finish (as yet untitled) next book; but after meeting up with a friend in the UK who also writes, I know my main writing priority is to complete the screenplay for One Last Hundred Chances. I was talking with Emily (yes another one), I said to her, that even if the screenplay changes, I owe it to the survivors who shared their stories with me that they are honoured appropriately.

I’ve also been thinking about an ADHD parenting blog. So many people are living with this neurodiverse superpower in their families. We’re also seeing more people being diagnosed as adults, finding an explanation for their life idiosyncrasies. My testing starts on Monday, 6 February. It’s a very new idea, I’m not sure what the blog looks like; if it’s an offshoot of eegrant.com as a sister site, or vertical embedded into it. I’ll work it out.

Lastly, I’ve joined a reading challenge that I want to complete this year, 52 books in 52 weeks. There are prompts online for you to choose from, I’m going to do a round up the last week of each month of what I’ve read or listened to.

What I’ve learned by giving myself room, is that when my head is not full of ‘stuff’ and I am free to wander around in there, the ‘stuff’ that comes out, is pretty good and worth something to others. Also, getting off my phone? Well, the hours that open up in the day are amazing, (no sh!t sherlock). I’ll post more about the trip another time, this was to let you know about what I’ve been up to and where we’re at.

Picture credit: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.

Dymocks Reading Challenge – 09

Long ago, my brother gave me a £10 book token for a birthday present. I chose the biggest book I could find, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. My copy has been on my bookshelves for over 20 years. It has moved house with me more times than I can care to remember, including emigrating with me from the UK to Australia, but I was determined that I would read it ‘one day.’

This reading challenge has been good for me as I’ve been reading more over the past six months, even if I’ve not been blogging as much as I wanted to. (Life, the universe and everything), I’m easing myself back in with this post.

With A Suitable Boy, I also had the pleasure of Sagar Arya reading it to me. At over 68 hours long, it took me a month to listen to it, (and that was on 1.2x speed, (more later). It’s one of the longest books ever published in a single volume at 1488 pages. But it was worth it.

When I was listening at home and not doing anything else, I’d pick up the book and read along with him. The audiobook came with me on walks, drives, shopping, train trips into and out of Melbourne. Now I’ve finished it, I feel a bit lost.

I’m no longer hanging out with Lata and the Mehra family; watching Lata fall in love with Kabir, whom she can’t marry as he’s Muslim. Lata is a modern woman, studying at university and wanting to forge her own path in life in the new India, fresh from Partition in 1951, Kabir stimulates her mind and their sweet tender romance is passionate and chaste at the same time.

I’m not visiting with the Kapoor’s, watching Maan fall in love with courtesan Saeeda Bai. I’m also not thinking in rhyming couplets like the Chatterji’s, or travelling on old steam trains and drinking Nimbu Panis.

The book is set over 18 months, and follows the intricacies all lives follow. How one decision today will have a ripple effect across the rest of your life, whether you realise it at the time or not. On the cover of my copy it says, ‘Make time for it, it will stay with you for the rest of your life’. I’m cross with myself I’ve not read it before now, but there you go. I thought I would be a long time ago, but still never picked it up.

I do like big sweeping novels, epics and sagas. Anna Karenina was a good read last year, with Maggie Gyllenhaal reading it to me before I dove into the book. Possession is a firm favourite, also on the pile of books for the challenge. Jilly Cooper too, the Rutshire novels with Rupert Campbell-Black and his cronies are anything but lightweight.

A Suitable Boy, Anna Karenina, Possession, Rivals, Swallows and Amazons, Mapp and Lucia, these (and so many others) books are with me. I’m very lucky that I retain great swathes of text; sometimes from endless re-reads, sometimes because when my ADHD spins me into hyperfocus, it’s in there forever.

Listening to podcasts and audiobooks, I increase the speed to between 1.2- 1.5x speed. It is a tip I was given ages ago, (thank you Val!) because I both read and speak quickly; if I speed up what I’m listening to, I comprehend it easier as my processing speed is higher. Go figure.

A bit like speed reading I guess, which isn’t recommended for reading for pleasure. Although I pack books away quickly, I do go back or re-read things I’m loving slowly, and in turn listen to some parts and podcasts at 1x speed. I love words and relish in them, which is why I re-read Possession every winter. You have to slow down and wallow in it, like a hot bath.

Dymocks Reading Challenge – 06

This past weekend I finished three Arthur Ransome books, Winter Holiday, Pigeon Post and We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea. These three books are some of my favourites in the series, closely followed by Secret Water, (but we’re not there yet). This is the first of three posts, it was way too long for one blog, about Winter Holiday.

I know I’m slightly out of order. If there are any other Arthur Ransome pedants who find this, I decided to skip Coot Club, and to read that back-to-back with The Big Six, to enjoy the Norfolk Broads in one hit.

Winter Holiday introduces us to a sister and brother, known as the ‘Ds’. Dorothea and Dick Callum have been sent to stay at Dixon’s Farm for the last bit of their holidays before going back to school, as their parents have gone to Egypt to ‘dig up remains’. The Walkers (crew of the Swallow) are at Holly Howe before being despatched to their schools for the new term. Mother, ‘left just yesterday’ as their Father’s ship is stationed relatively close-by at Malta. Mother has taken the youngest child, Bridget to meet him as, “Father’s never really seen Bridget since she was a person.”

The Swallows and Amazons (SAs) see the Ds as they row to Wild Cat Island on the D’s first morning at Dixon’s Farm. The Ds are, in turn, by the lake watching the six of them in the Beckfoot rowing boat. The SAs are practicing Morse code and Semaphore, they’ve taken up signalling with a view to an ‘Arctic Expedition’. But it’s not cold enough yet for the lake to freeze, and the holidays are nearly over.

That night the Ds head up to an old barn for an observatory, so Dick can look at stars. Dick loves geometry, takes daily readings on the barometer at home (he’s frustrated that he didn’t bring his pocket one with him), and is learning about astronomy from a new book, he chose the old barn for his observatory for its ‘horizons’. He’s often is so deep in thought, he can’t hear his sister when she talks to him, “Well, you ought to hang out a notice when you’re not there.”

Dorothea is calm and clear headed, but also full of stories. A bit like Titty, although Dot is full of romance and wonder; whereas Titty is a product of her Australian mother, Naval Officer father’s more stoic upbringing. We never meet the D’s parents in any of the five books they’re in, although they write to the children and seem quite happy when they get swept up and along for adventure with the SAs and also the Coot Club children. The Ds are the fulcrum point, bridging the Norfolk Broads and Lakes children and books together.

Dick is affectionately known as ‘Professor’ in the books. He is often deep in thought, and sees things the other children miss; for example, in Winter Holiday he notices that a car has driven past with snow chains on, but hasn’t come back along the road. The other children don’t make fun of him polishing his glasses when he’s got something to say, but is too shy to interrupt; or when he writes down birds he’s seen in the ever-present notebook that is in his pocket. [Typing that made me realise that none of the children are made fun of. Although there are pointed jibes from sibling to sibling, it’s never malicious, as an example, John saying to Roger “I don’t believe you’re ever full.” You feel like you’re watching family dynamics and vernacular, it’s a running joke that Roger is always hungry.]

While watching the stars from the barn, the Ds are able to see Holly Howe farm windows. With lanterns and torches, the children signal to each other. The crew of the Swallow answer in Morse code. The Ds (not knowing Morse) decide that of course they can’t communicate – Morse, Mortian, Martians. In the morning, the ‘Martians’, now including the Amazons, all march over to meet the Ds. On the way, Nancy and Peggy run across a tarn that has a thin layer of ice over it, but it’s not bearing yet, so they go into the cold water up to their ankles.

When they all meet at the barn, the Martians are disappointed the Ds aren’t in trouble, as they thought they were signalling they were in distress. Introductions are made, the Ds are asked to join them for the day by the SAs. They all head down the hill to Dixon’s Farm to get the D’s rations for the day. Mrs Dixon laughs and tells them they’ve “Not made too long a time of it” in meeting the Swallows and Amazons, and packs the Ds off with a picnic.

The Ds are told about the Arctic Expedition and shown the ‘igloo’, which is a stone hut they’re covering in snow, and told about the planned trip to the Arctic to the North Pole, which is at the head of the lake they’re on. Although the end of the holidays is just around the corner, they’re all hopeful to get some skating on the tarn, even if they won’t be able skate on the lake. Nancy and Peggy dry out shoes and stockings by the fire in the igloo.

Over the next couple of days, the Ds are taught both types of signalling, Morse and Semaphore. The SAs decide it would be rather beastly to leave them out of things, even if they’re not sure about Dot’s pigtails. Then the ice freezes the tarn. At their first skating practice, the SAs see that both the Ds have been ice skating on an indoor rink near their father’s university all winter and skate well. This clinches the friendship, Nancy says she’ll keep teaching them signalling if they can teach everyone how to skate. During a skating and signalling practice, Captain Nancy writes down the ABCs of semaphore for Dick in his notebook. She also tells him when the expedition is due to start, she’ll run a flag up the pole at Beckfoot, so they know when to leave to head north on the lake. This he also makes a note of on a page in his notebook.

Just as the holidays are drawing to a close, with the lake finally showing signs of freezing, Nancy goes down with the mumps. Because the other children have been ‘fairly stewing’ inside the igloo with her, none of them can go back to school. The certificates telling the school they’ve not been in close contact with anyone sick, can’t be signed, (sound familiar?). They have to stay in quarantine, which gives them a whole month more of skating and practice for their expedition.

Nancy is filled with glee, Mrs Blackett is worried they’re all going to come down with it, Peggy is despatched to stay with the Swallows at Holly Howe. For a few days, they do the best they can without Nancy. Bur after skating and signalling practice, then ensuring the igloo is covered with snow, they run out of ideas of what to do. Eventually, they all pile over to Beckfoot to ask Nancy what they should be doing, using semaphore in the garden so they don’t get too close and get sick:

Captain Nancy gives instructions

The circle over Nancy’s face says, ‘It would be unfair to draw Nancy’s pumpkin face’. I love Dick in the bottom right hand corner, looking up the alphabet in his notebook while Peggy is signalling. Roger is on the right, standing closer to the steps; John is at the back; Dorothea is writing the letters signalled by Nancy in one of her exercise books she uses for writing her novels, leaning on the sundial; with Titty far left; then lastly, Susan is in between John and Peggy. Got to love how the boys are all in shorts, in the middle of winter. I also like the nod to Captain Flint’s relationship with them all, showing his telescope in the ground floor window.

Nancy’s arms windmill letters, she’s full of ideas for hiking up the mountains, crossing ‘Alaska and Greenland’, making Wild Cat Island Spitzbergen, to keep up with their training. While signalling, she’s pulled away from the window, Mrs Blackett tells them all off, reminds them why they should be on the other side of the lake, and sends Nancy back to bed.

The next day on their first trip to ‘Greenland’ the children are taking it turns pulling a sledge as ‘dogs’, all hopping on the sledge to slide down hills. While the youngest four are exploring, Dick saves a cragfast sheep by walking along the ledge it’s got stuck on, the other three using the Alpine rope as a lifeline. I love this exchange:

“Half a minute,” he called again. “I’ve got to sit down. Let out some more rope.”

“Is anything wrong?” That was Titty’s voice.

“No. But the rock leans out, so you’ll have to let the rope out a lot and then jerk it around. Don’t start jerking just for a minute. I’ve got to get sitting down.”

“Why?” called Dorothea. “You’re not giddy?”

“No,” said Dick. “Centre of Gravity. If I try to get past standing up, my Centre of Gravity will get pushed too far out by the cliff.”

Overhead, on the top of the rock, Titty and Dorothea and Roger looked at each other.

“I suppose he’s all right?” said Titty.

“Quite,” said Dorothea, “so long as he talks like that.”

Winter Holiday, p.143

Mr Dixon makes the Ds a sledge to say thank you, giving the expedition two sledges. Nancy smuggles the houseboat key out via a tobacco tin sent with the doctor. The book continues with Captain Flint’s iced-in houseboat becoming the Fram; which is soon decorated with polar bear fleeces (sheepskins) arctic fox pelts (rabbit skin) that they sew into mittens and hats as it gets colder and colder.

Captain Flint comes back from overseas when he hears about the lake freezing over, he joins with them all on the expedition and helps Nancy with North Pole preparations. On a day when the Ds have to leave early to prepare a sail for their sledge, Captain Flint tells the Swallows and Peggy that Nancy is due to be let loose tomorrow and will run up a flag at Beckfoot. Depending on what colour it is, depends on whether she’s allowed by the doctor to come to the houseboat for a conference and planning for their final push to the Pole.

The next day, a flag is run up the Beckfoot pole. As Mrs Dixon is getting ready to go to the market, the Ds are running late when they see the flag. They head off with their provisions for the day. They also take the sail for the sledge they’ve finally got ready with the help of Mr Dixon, but not had a chance to practice with. The others are only at the houseboat, but have pulled their sleds around the other side of it, to discourage other people from climbing aboard. The Ds miss the smoke from the fire that was only lit as they hurried past houseboat bay, thinking they’re behind everyone else.

From there on in, it’s a rush to the finish of the book and the North Pole, complete with a storm blowing snow and wind along the ice. The Ds hoist their sail and are blown straight down the lake like a pea in a peashooter. Despite the expedition being split, with search parties, and the Walkers and Peggy skating the length of the lake at night, they all arrive at the Pole safely, but at different times. They find a fire ready to light and provisions ready to eat. In the morning, the miscommunication is explained about the flag, it’s agreed that they had a proper expedition instead of the planned coordinated effort, and all’s well.

There’s never much more than implied danger and the odd scuffed elbow in Ransome’s books, Nancy is the ring-leader, she’s strong-willed and obstinate. But all the children are self-sufficient characters, and from Winter Holiday onwards, the characters move around each other, with each of them holding their own, bringing their own strengths forward when needed.


I’m loving re-reading the entire series of Swallows and Amazons, although I don’t recommend a twelve book series to count as one selection for the challenge! The pile of books by my bed are staring at me and is not diminishing very fast at all. I’m taking a couple of books with me when we go away this weekend, but next week I’ll read Secret Water and try to convey why I love it so.

Dymocks Reading Challenge – 08

This past weekend I finished three Arthur Ransome books, Winter Holiday, Pigeon Post and We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea. These three books are some of my favourites in the series, closely followed by Secret Water, (but we’re not there yet). This is the third of three posts, it was way too long for one blog, about We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea.

It is one of the last books in the series I was able to buy, as even in the UK the more obscure books weren’t easy to find. It is also the only book that scared me, the usual mild peril ramped up to a stormy sea crossing.

It’s the book with the shortest time frame of just six days, and focuses entirely on the Walker children. Commander Walker after years of being away overseas, has been stationed at Shotley and is travelling home. Mother and the five children have all arrived to greet him, they’re not sure when he’s going to arrive, as it depends on his overland connections across Europe. All they know is, he’s arriving by steamer for the last leg.

They’re all staying at Alma Cottage at Pin Mill with Miss Powell while they wait for Daddy to arrive. The book opens with the oldest four who have borrowed a rowing dinghy before supper, pootling about in and amongst other boats and buoys. They’re watching a Gaff Cutter called Goblin coming into moor, but due to the ebbing tide, Jim Brading misses his buoy with his boathook. Jim throws a rope to John who ties it with a bowline knot and makes fast.

Jim’s impressed with John, who has also offered to come aboard to help him stow the sails and make the Goblin neat and tidy. Before long the other three have also come aboard and have helped tidy up. Mother comes over in another rowing boat to call them in for supper. They all invite him to join them for the meal when they discover he’s sailed from Dover that morning, on his own, and hasn’t even eaten breakfast.

Miss Powell sees their new friend and laughs, as she’d made omelette and soup for their supper, which is what Jim and his uncle would order from her when they would come into Goblin’s home port. Exhausted, Jim falls asleep at the table, after which they all agree he’s become a friend. When they’re eating, he offers to take the four oldest out on the Goblin from the next morning for a couple of days, while they wait for their father to come home. He says there is a lot of sailing they can do in and around the Harwich estuary.

Mother tells them she’ll think about it overnight. The next day, after sounding out people who have known Jim Brading for years, she agrees to let them go on the conditions that they do not go past Beach End Buoy and out to sea; that they phone her each night so if she gets a telegram from Daddy, she can call them home straight away, and that they have to be home by Saturday.

Bridget is upset that again she’s missing out on adventures as she’s “..been trying to grow up as fast as I can”. Mother tells her she’s missing out too, and she needs someone to look after her.

The next morning, children are aboard the Goblin, Mother and Bridget arrive in a rowing boat with stores and to see them off. In the interim, they’ve been practicing raising and lowering the sails. They’ve swept decks, coiled ropes and Susan has stowed away all their clothes, blankets etc. She now puts all the food that Mother has brought away too.

Jim shows Mother the chart of where they’ll be sailing. Showing them Beach End Buoy and promising again they’re not going to sail past it. Mother compliments him on a nice tidy ship, Susan is happy and proud of the hard work she’s done.

Off they sail, they phone to say goodnight when they’ve moored up. The next morning they set sail, but are just floating with the tide as the weather is changing, there’s no wind and they can hear fog out at sea. Only when do they nearly reach Beach End Buoy, they realise how far they’ve drifted. Jim starts the engine, but realises he used more fuel than he thought when it chugs to a stop. He drops his anchor just off Felixstowe, jumps into the Goblins’ dinghy, Imp, and rows away to get some petrol.

The fog comes down around them, sounds are muffled and they don’t notice that the tide has come back in again. Only when the anchor makes a funny noise do they realise the tide is twice as deep now it’s fully in. Not only is the Goblin is being pulled along, they don’t know where they are. John tries to let more chain out, but the little ship is now moving so quickly, the chain pours out and both anchor and chain are lost.

They try to get another anchor out, but it doesn’t hold either. Still in the fog, they can’t see anything, but the water right beside the boat. Only when they hear a clang close to them, they realise they’ve been moving with the tide again and they drift out past Beach End Buoy.

They’re drifting in and around shipping lanes, around shoals (sand banks under the water), completely on their own and in a thick fog. Another buoy appears close to the Goblin, and this little picture gave me nightmares about buoys for ages:

Fending off with the mop

I don’t know why buoys give me the heebie-jeebies quite so much, but hey, I had nightmares over Miss Marple too.

John makes a decision to hoist the sails, he knows the only way to keep them safe is to keep Goblin safe. He checks the chart and chooses a course, about South East, that will take them safely out away from the shoals. He heads out, trying to keep in as straight a line as possible so when they turn around, they’ve got a fairly straight course to get back to Felixstowe.

The wind picks up, with waves of water coming into the cockpit as they’re being buffeted about. Titty and Susan are seasick, Roger frantically pumps the water out the boat, Susan is worried the further they go away, that no-one knows where they are and wants John to turn around. John gets angry, he knows he can’t navigate back in as he doesn’t know where they are in the fog, if they try to turn around, they could get swept onto a sandbank and Goblin would break up.

The fog lifts, but then it starts to get dark. Susan is now frantic with worry, particularly when they’re nearly mown down by a steamer. Her seasickness has calmed down, but when they try to turn around; instead of the wind coming from behind them and blowing them along easily, they have to tack into the wind. Turning around to sail into the wind, Susan gets even sicker, she knows she won’t cope if they try to turn around. Miserably Susan agrees for them to carry on, but John also now needs to reef the sails (make them smaller, so they’re easier to manage). Jim showed them how it was done, but he’s not done it before. Susan starts to steer, John puts a lifeline around his waist and nearly gets swept overboard.

When John gets back to the cockpit, the Goblin is much easier to handle. Titty and Roger who were below decks and being buffeted when they’d turned around wonder what is going on. Susan beginning to feel better, and heads down into the cockpit to make them cocoa. As if this isn’t enough to be going on with, they also rescue a half-drowned kitten they call Sinbad.

Susan is the only reason any of the children’s adventures go ahead, she’s the one the parents and other natives trust to ensure bed on time, fed on time and to keep them all safe. This book is the complete counterpoint to this, by showing her vulnerable; being scared and seasick is an awful combination. Arthur Ransome put Susan through the wringer in this story, she has to accept what is happening and make the best of it. She has no control over what is happening at all.

All night they sail, realising that when it gets light, they can work out where they are and ask for help. John falls asleep, Susan steers, Titty and Roger come up on deck when they’ve had breakfast. Sailing ships are heading towards them, they recognise the flags as Dutch and in amazement, realise they’ve sailed right across the North Sea to Holland.

Needing to call for help, they signal for a Pilot to take them into the closest port. John plays the part of ships boy, the other three hide in the cabin and try to make grown-up noises by singing shanties and stamping their feet.

As they head into Flushing, Pilot steering while John is standing on the cabin roof. A steamer is getting ready to set sail, John sees Daddy leaning over the barrier looking into the port. As the Pilot is navigating them into a berth, he bangs on the cabin roof to call the ‘Capten’ up on deck. He realises that the four children sailed themselves over in the gale and fog and is praising them. John tells the others that he saw Daddy, that they’ve missed him. Another boat comes chugging along, Daddy did a a pier-head jump and got a boat to take him out to the Goblin. Susan sees him and bursts into tears.

He and the Pilot piece together the bare bones of the story, the Pilot refuses to take any money for guiding them into the port. He also will give them a chart of the North Sea from Holland for their return journey, agreeing that they could pretty much turn around and sail back out again as the weather is good.

Daddy takes them all for something to eat, John falls asleep at the table. He gets the whole story about everything that has happened. He writes out a telegram to tell Mother what is happening, including that they’ve found a kitten, but he sends it via a colleague in the UK so she doesn’t worry to hear that they’re all in Flushing. He also tells John that “We’ll make a seaman out of you yet my son.” John chokes up with pride and relief.

They buy supplies for the return trip, filling up the petrol tank and paraffin for the lights. The Pilot arrives at the Goblin to give them the chart, telling everyone that these are the children came over the North Sea by themselves.

Daddy sails them all home, he’s been travelling overland and has been sleeping for two weeks, he doesn’t mind sailing overnight to get them home as soon as possible. He sits in the cockpit with his cigar glinting red in the darkness, singing shanties quietly, then louder. Waking up, the children listen to him and realise he can’t be angry as he wouldn’t be singing. They head back off to sleep again.

The next morning, they’re heading in towards Pin Mill, when they see a man rowing towards them with what looks like a turban on. It’s Jim who’s discharged himself from hospital, also frantic with worry. He nearly falls overboard climbing up from the Imp into the Goblin. When customs arrive to clear them to enter port, they tell Commander Walker they’d been expecting him to arrive. They also explain that everyone heard about Jim in his haste to catch the bus, was actually run over by it and has a concussion.

Daddy confirms with Jim that Mother doesn’t know they’ve been missing. When they’re pulling up at the Goblin’s buoy, Mother rows out to meet them with Bridget. She is angry that they broke a promise to her to get back in time, Roger tries to explain they’ve been in Holland, Mother thinks it’s one of his jokes. Bridget points out the kitten, a hand comes out the hatch to catch Sinbad. Mother’s jaw drops in surprise, just like Titty’s when she realises it’s her husband Ted.

The crew of the Goblin tidying up after their voyage watch Daddy row Mother to shore to call Jim’s relatives, on the way back he tells her what happened.