Looks like the sale of the bungalow has fallen through.
Your prayers, please, for four sets of devastated people – my buyer, her buyer who is unable to proceed and is also really upset, the owner of the house I am so in love with who will be totally thrown by the news too, and me and my boy.
I knew it was going too well. Who am I, that things should go smoothly for me when they go awry for so many others.
All things work together for good – there must be some purpose, but at the moment God alone knows what that purpose it. I can only leave it in God’s hand and allow myself a time of tears and coffee and steeling myself to tell my vendor to put his beautiful little house back on the market, knowing too well that it will be snapped up immediately.

Would you believe it’s two and a third years since I left the Isle of Wight?
Yesterday was the trip I’d sort of been dreading. The trip to begin the task of emptying the loft. A must, now, as I’ve sold the bungalow and am hoping against hope that the mortgage company let me buy the little three-bedroom terrace I’ve set my heart on.

Brainwave – a ridiculously early start would get me there in time to go to church.

I parked on the church carpark, smiling somewhat to see the car in its old familiar spot. Just time for breakfast before the service started. So I had a lovely nostalgic wander through Cowes. If ever you’re there, try The Octopus’ Garden, a ’60s reconstruction with Beatles music playing and proper “frothy coffee” ’60s style. I’d been there a couple of times before when I lived on the Island and plan to go a couple of times more. I love it.

Return to the car. What’s that under the windscreen wiper? A piece of paper: “Sorry, this is a private car park and in use every day of the week, especially Sundays. Please do not mistake it for a public car park. However our morning service begins at 10.30 and we would love to welcome you to come and join us, in which case you’re welcome to park here”.

It was so lovely to be back. Everyone sadly looking so much older – but I was greeted with such love. And who should be preaching but Honorary Auntie Margaret! Of course, it wasn’t THAT much of a surprise, seeing as I’d rung her the day before to see if she’d be free for lunch.

Lunch with Margaret in a place new to both of us, but probably a place she’ll go back to – a little place beside the marina with a view of the boats and a seat in the sun, and plently of opportunity for indulgent catching up on news. It was a delight.

On to the bungalow – the bit I was dreading. But, I am delighted to say, no homesickness. It was interesting going round, remembering the rooms and what was in there, and going up in the loft. But no melancholy or tears. In fact it was far more fun than I’d feared, too, mainly because another good friend turned up at the door willing to help. Goodness, how I’d missed her! It was SUCH fun catching up.

Going up in the loft I was struck by how little stuff I could see up there. This was, however, not because there was less than I remembered. Quite the opposite. It was simply because the electricity had been switched off so there was no light. My friend was totally amused by the fact that the local tesco had only one suitable source of light on offer – a head torch! As it was, it proved perfect for the task, even if I did look a bit ridiculous. And now I have a car full of stuff, with nowhere to put it, and about a car-and-a-half of stuff still to collect (the perfect excuse for a visit and a half back to the Island within the next month or so).
The return ferry was really crowded and I found myself feeling uncustomarily seasick on the way back – a while since that has happened – but a good journey and a welcoming bed awaited me. And I really am All Wight, thank you for asking

I’d often wondered how long it would take and what sort of a journey it would be if I were to circumnavigate (or rather, circumsatnavigate) the M25. Anticlockwise, of course.. I mean, who in their right mind would want to go round it clockwise?
Well, now I know.

It’s all the boy’s fault. I wonder if he knows how much I love him and would do for him… or whether he thinks it is simply because it enabled me to have two weeks of peace without him. OK, so maybe he might be just a little bit right too.
Last week he went to Transmission, the Scripture Union holiday in Norfolk. He travelled there fairly independently by train, meeting up with another camper en route, but the end of the camp coincided, as these things are prone to do, with the day his Scout camp was due to begin. Alas. How could we manage to tranfer him thither, let alone do the swapping of bags of clothing – dirty from one camp, clean for another? There again, looking at how often he changed his clothing at camp, he could have just taken the same bag on to Scout camp!!! Yeugh!

And so it was that my friend from church and I set out in my trusty car to Norfolk on Friday morning.
Boy, was the traffic horrendous!

We stopped at Saffron Walden (high on my list of “places to go to again”) en route, and finally followed the little sketch map to find ourselves outside The Crown in Crown Street. It didn’t look quite like the overnight accommodation we’d been expecting – far from it. We’d paid in advance – could we find an excuse for not staying? We drove on, looking for somewhere to get a meal while we pondered what to do. Aha – further down the road was ANOTHER left turn, this time into Crown ROAD and what should we find but THE CROWN. Goodness, that was a relief. This was far more like it, a truly lovely place to stay. And we had to stay overnight because I had been informed, in no uncertain terms by the camp leader, that we MUST NOT arrive A MOMENT LATER than the end of camp. We had been informed, in equally uncertain terms, by the boy that we MUST NOT arrive A MOMENT EARLIER than the end of camp. And so it was at ten a.m. PRECISELY that we rolled up into the campsite and were greeted by a tired, grubby, handsome young man who had had the time of his life at once camp and was ready for a snooze in the car on his way to the next.

He’d grown, I’d swear. And his voice has broken just a tiny bit more.

SO we continued on our way back to the M25 and this time did the eastern and northern arcs, all the way round to Hemel Hemstead where we dropped him off, before completing our circuit home. I dropped my friend off at her house – a brief farewell as we were both ready for a cuppa, a sandwich and a sit down, and leapt back into the car to finish my journey home.

Nothing.

Car battery completely dead. Jump starting it worked for a second, but then cut out immediately. So my time with my friend was extended slightly as I tested out my new registration with Green Flag instead of RAC… new battery, as feared! So my fortnight without my young man cost me the cost of two camps, sixty pounds of petrol, an overnight stay in a hotel, and a brand new car battery!

Still, what better time for it to cut out, when I had a trip to the Isle of Wight the following day and a trip to France in a fortnight. I think I came off quite lightly, truth be told.

And I might add that I DO miss my son. I mean, I have to go now and make MY OWN cup of coffee!

for messing about on the… well… on the Basingstoke Canal.

Thank you all for your messages of love and support. At work I had to do a map of my support network as part of a training package (to train me to teach other people how to do the same sort of thing) and thought, as I fudged it, how nobody would quite believe the real thing if I were to put on there the people who offer me prayer and virtual hug support. You’re an amazing group of people!

It’s a rollercoaster at the moment… teenage stuff as all teenagers cope with, but fuelled by so much more. But the good days are good days indeed. And today was a good day. We skived church (I had a special service to go to this evening) and, once I’m managed to unearth him from the morass he calls bed, we hit the road for a day .. OK, a couple of hours… on the canal.

We’d been planning to visit the Basingstoke Canal Visitor Centre for ages, thinking that it looked a nice place to camp. It is indeed (though we didn’t camp today). There’s a cafe where they do some serious cheesy chips – mmmmmmm – and a walk along the towpath. That was the plan, a walk along the towpath. I spotted the sign for boat trips and thought how pleasant a ride on a canal barge would be, having grown up in the Midlands where a canal ride was a frequent treat, so we wandered across to look at the details.

What followed was an afternoon on the water.

They do cream teas on the canal boat trip. Mmmmmm tempting indeed. A bit expensive though, and you had to be able to round up a group of people to go. Pass.

They had some gorgeous rowing boats. Memories of my student days in Cardiff, rowing on Roath Park Lake, eating a picnic. Memories of a Shipmeet in Oxford punting on the river and eating strawberries. Oh lovely. What a perfect day for that, too, with the sun shining down on the canal water, shimmering through the trees. Quite a romantic plan for a Sunday afternoon, even when spent with one’s 14 year old son.

Wrong again.

A pedalo. Yes, a pedalo. An hour on the canal on a pedalo!

And it was brilliant fun They’re an interesting challenge to steer, and by the end of the hour my poorly knee was rather keen for us to return to dry land, and there was a sort of damp sensation around my feet, back and backside… but it was a delightful afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed being with the handsome young man my son is becoming.

I miss him when he’s taken over by this uncontrollable anger, and your prayers are requested for those times, and for the availability of a GOOD therapist to help him through them (no luck so far on that front – not that he’s really willing to accept any help yet). But when he’s calm and in control of his emotions, when we’re able to do nice things together and be at peace, those times are still fabulous times.

Next time can we have a cream tea on the barge?

Whatever possessed me to think I could do this on my own?
I have lost one son to hatred and anger – I miss him so much and love him so much and it tears my heart into tiny pieces, this loss.
And now I am losing another son. Same reasons. It’s like being stuck in a continuous loop. Anger. Hatred. Self-loathing combined with self-obsession. Your typical teenage rebellion but fuelled by much much more.
And I feel totally out of resources, totally alone, dreading losing him, yet feeling as though I have lost him already. I miss him, I love him, I can’t bear to go through this again.

What a return to the Wibsite. I’d been meaning to log on for ages but suddenly find myself needing a safe place and somehow this was it. Please pray for my mixed-up teen and my other mixed-up teen and their mixed-up mum who had foolishly thought things were on the up.

Tomorrow will test my Lenten discipline to the utmost. The Smudgelet and I have been invited out to dinner…. and the Smudgelet’s request has been granted by our indulgent hostess: banoffee pie for pudding! So not only will I have to forgo the banoffee pie, but I shall have a chance to focus my attention on how fortunate I am to have a piece of unadulterated fruit.

Seriously, though, I have never undertaken a Lenten discipline which has been so beneficial to my spiritual wellbeing… and probably my mental and emotional wellbeing too. This contentment thing really is working, God is granting me a real awareness of my blessings and I find myself naturally coveting far less. I even had a long talk about it with a colleague today. It’s easy to say the words, but I find myself truly experiencing a peace with my situation.

I need a bit more discipline, though – somehow I’ve got to get a service prepared for Sunday. I knew it was coming, but hadn’t really taken proper notice of the date…. YET AGAIN! Also it looks like I may have to go back to work later today as, after a day of archiving paperwork, I find myself unable to find the diary which I last saw on the desk where I was working. I have a horrible feeling I’ve archived it!!!

Now, what healthy thing can I make for tea that will take my mind off this desire for forbidden fruit?

I thought this might be a good place to focus on my Lenten discipline this year.

Giving up things: OK, so maybe my main reason for giving up sweet things for Lent is a selfish one. I mean, look at the shape of me! (It is a sad sad fact that, of the few people other than myself who will be reading this, most of them know what shape I am… otherwise I could maybe get by with making out that I am sylph-like in stature. As it is, it would have to be a pretty rotund sylph!). My doctor has bet me that I can’t lose some weight by the end of Lent, knowing that what I lack in willpower I make up for in competetiveness! But it is my lack of control over my willpower which concerns me and which makes this a good Lenten discipline for me. Losing weight will be a bonus – what I actually want to achieve is to strengthen my ability to resist temptation. It used to be far stronger – I have really let things slip. So this Lent I am practising self-control and doing so through sticking to my attempt to lose weight instead of giving up as soon as I get bored or disillusioned.

More important, and already more enriching, I am practising contentment. Not the unhealthy contentment which makes us idle and complacent, but the healthy contentment which appreciates all the good things I have and is grateful for each blessing rather than coveting more.

It was challenged this week by my not even getting an interview for a promotion at work, despite my pride telling me I was definitely well fitted to the job. There were aspects of the new post I longed for, and I must admit one further attraction was the pay rise that would go with it. I would still have enjoyed the fun side of the job, but with slightly extra responsibility and influence. I was gutted when I was informed that I wasn’t being shortlisted and it took great strength and determination to go in to work straight afterwards and commit myself fully to the tasks in hand without showing my utter disappointment and damaged pride (and, if I am honest, my resentment – I was fully prepared not to get the job, but hurt that I wasn’t even interviewed). But already I find that I am content – or at least more content than I might have been – and given the strength to realise that I am one in a million just to have a job I love, to live in a place I really enjoy living. I’d love to be able to afford a house, to reach the end of the month without watching every penny, but I have a lot of good things and my income, in comparison with the rest of the world, still puts me in the top 10% so how can I feel hard done by when each day takes me past at least one Big Issue seller? How can I feel hard done by when I have a job where I can take advantage of the sunshine and go for an hour’s walk in the most beautiful park with good company and marvel at the beauties of nature and the impending arrival of spring? DO I really want to abandon that in the quest for more material goods? SO while the timing may have seemed cruel, my pledge to focus on what I have rather than what I covet has helped me immensely in dealing with this disappointment (and to realise the damage that resentment and anger could cause) and in return this experience has helped me immensely with my Lenten discipline.

SO no, I won’t have a slice of cake, thank you very much

When I put my user name and password into the sign-in page of the wibsite, there was a little box to tick stating “remember me”. As I ticked it, I thought to myself that I hoped it did.

Silly reason for not having blogged for ages. I have been using the laptop instead of the PC and my homepage on the PC is my Wibsite admin page, which I have not yet even bookmarked on the laptop. Funny how a tiny reminder can make such a difference.

Hmmm… I hope there’s a box to tick: Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom…. and that the only password I need is the name of Jesus. (Having given up sweet things for Lent, I also find myself hoping there are cookies in Heaven!

Life has been busy, fun, challenging, and wonderful… with a few bits of “trying” in there. Work is great – all the natural niggles of close-team-working are irrelevent when put into comparison with the pleasure, good company and reward I get from my job.
Going there was a step of faith (guess who’s preaching on Abraham next Sunday!) but in doing so I have definitely found a vocation. Not being able to blog about work in any degree of detail beyond the excruciatingly vague is maybe another reason why I’ve not been around so much! That, and trying to put in as much overtime as possible to make it more likely that the month runs out before the bank balance does (a rare occurance indeed – but whoever said that vocations would be easy?)

There is a volcano in my toilet.
No, I have not got an upset tummy – nor has the Smudgelet – and we have not relocated to Pompeii. There’s not even a reason to call Dinorod. But there is a volcano in my toilet.

Building a volcano out of papier mache was a great idea. It was the Smudgelet’s half term homework. Funny how having your hands in a bucket full of mashed up newspaper and wallpaper paste can bring back such vivid memories of being in primary school nearly forty years ago – the smell and tactile sensation transported me back so vividly that I could even remember where I was situated in the classroom and who my classmates were at the time when we made our giant papier-mache island. But amongst the other things I remembered was what an eternity it seemed waiting for it to dry out so we could paint it.

The toilet is the warmest room in the flat. If the Smudgelet had told me at the BEGINNING of the holidays that he needed to build a papiermache volcano, it might have been ready in time, but rushing a volcano is no joke. The massive sodden mountain, smelling of wallpaper paste and looking like something you really don’t want to think about, is taking for ever to dry. Just like that island did all those years ago. Funny to think of this being a memory that the Smudgelet will recall when making things with his kids in years to come.

When….. if….. it does ever dry out, the plan is to stand a bottle of diet coke inside it and drop a mint in. Apparently it should be quite spectacular. Apparently there are some amazing videos of the same experiment on You-tube. I can’t bring myself to look. Two days (and nights) of shredding paper, soaking paper, mulching paper, modelling with paper, struggling to get the stodgy mess of gunge and black ink from under fingernails…. several weeks of negotiating a drying mountain in the loo…. all destroyed in a single burst of cocacola bubbles.

Although blogging has its limitations as a record of events, it’s quite useful to look back at some of my posts from the past as an emotional diary of pseudo-losing a son, the false bereavement without the closure of a funeral. And so, as I move into a new stage of that strange limbo-like state, it is helpful to muse on it here. Thank you for your patience in this moment of self-indulgence.

Last month my eldest son turned eighteen. A time of mixed emotions for any parent. The emphasis was intensified by my friend’s son turning eighteen at about the same time – a lad my son has never met and in all likelihood never will. It’s a joke really, the idea of turning from child to adult overnight, just like when the Smudgelet turned into a teenager on the night of his thirteenth birthday. But this coming of age was a strange one.

I sent no card, just a letter. Hours of standing in card shops searching for the right card was just too difficult. My son turns eighteen and I feel no desire to celebrate. No parties. No “first pint” (an odd thought for a teetotal-or-almosttotal mother). No “key of the door”. Not even a card.

The eighteenth birthday is significant in the prison setting as a child magically does become an adult overnight there. From the moment he turned eighteen he could be moved into the “adult estate”, as they call it, at any moment with just fifteen minutes’ notice and without even definitely knowing, as he climbs into the van after emptying his cell, where he is being moved to. So from the moment he turned eighteen, I had no idea whether he had moved or not… not until I was contacted by the Youth Offending Team to let me know.

From the moment he turned eighteen, I no longer had any automatic involvement in his life. I will no longer be invited to reviews unless he asks for me to be there. Probation will no longer keep me informed of how he’s doing or what’s happening with him unless he actively requests it. I can sit here and wait until he writes to me to tell me how to contact him. Maybe he’ll send a visiting order – who knows?

Eighteen. Maybe he wouldn’t have been coming home for Christmas anyway. I can certainly imagine he could have been causing me plenty of worry were he here. But at least I’d maybe know him. My son is becoming a man and I won’t even really know him.

Please remember all birth mothers whose children are adopted. I guess it must feel something like that for them too. A strange sort of limbo.