dress for less

Top: River Island (£6.99), Shorts: carboot sale (Hollister brand) (£3), Tights (stole from my mother!)

TOTAL £9.99

Nature vs nurture

So this is 'Sweetpea' who started the great debate around here of Nature vs Nurture.  You see I accidentally 'saved' Sweetpea from a cat.  Now until after the event I didn't consciously decide to shoo said cat away from her but it happened, it just kind of came out that I began flapping and shooing and cat ran away and 'Sweetpea' sat against a wall looking a little bedraggled and lost.  Sweetpea I realised was a fledgling/juvenile Wood Pigeon (someone may correct me on this if you please).

Now for the debate, do I leave a shocked and injured bird and pretty much guarantee kitty comes back for round 2 or do I give her a chance to recuperate?....

Before you're thinking leave her to go back to her nest/parents/tree I might add I did scan the area and in an open urban environment could see nowhere to safely place her.  

Part of me wished I had just left well alone but as I said I didn't really mean to intervene in the first place!

I carefully popped her in a box and covered it as best as possible and took her home.

Google searches entailed ranging from 'what do wood pigeons eat' to handing over wildlife to various animal charities. (In case you ever find yourself in a pigeon dilemma I'd really recommend these guys http://www.pigeonrescue.co.uk/  Invaluable and to the point advice!  Particularly not rushing solids and making up a glucose solution)

So lets cut to the chase, Sweetpea sat in my bathroom for a couple of days, in truth I was shocked she even survived the night, more from the shock of being man handled by lil ol me than all the other events of the day!  She feasted on warmed peas (hence her nickname) and pooped lots!!  We built her a makeshift shelter out of an old kids bunkbed frame left behind the shed just to be sure she'd last outside over night. As I was hanging washing about 3 days after finding her I got the sudden urge to release her.

And just like that as quickly as this dull scruffy little bird had entered my life she flew up and was gone... I wasn't happy or sad just pleased she seemed healthy and I hadn't unintentionally killed her with kindness! 

I cant really use the saying 'if you love someone set them free' because in all blunt reality Sweetpea is only a bird, a pest to some, vermin even?  But to me she represented chance and destiny - living the life we were born to as opposed to caging her for life if I kept her too long and in which case she may have imprinted on me.

This was all a week ago and as I run out this morning to grab the washing off the line because I sensed rain I feel something watching me.  A little wood pigeon, not quite grown, sits on the fence.  "Hi Sweetpea" I say as I unpeg the clothes and try not to make too much eye contact with her (another good bit of advice, pigeons find this rather threatening apparently).  As I go inside I hear her fly off and I smile ;) 

Fears

We are all afraid of something right? Personally I'm not too keen on clowns or people on stilts.  I used to be petrified of spiders as a child.  Murky muddy water too, I saw a film when I was a girl of images of deep dark murky water with children down in the deep, haunting and bloated.  Just thinking about it freaks me out still.  It didn't help that my brother was petrified of water full stop and was a terrible swimmer.  My dad one day took us to an open air swimming pool, I must have been about 9 or 10... he thought it would be fine and fun to push us out on these cool floating board type devices... thing is my brother fell off while we were in the deep end and in his frantic panicked state desperately clung to what he could...ME!  He was choking and clawing at me and pulling me under, he was heavier than me despite being the younger sibling and I remember swallowing so much water and feeling totally helpless.  I was fine of course just shaken and embarrassed from what I recall.  However I always saw drowning as a creepy way to go!   But today I faced my fears....

Yep I went kayaking in a reservoir, and it was great!  I didn't want the kids to know that I have a fear of deep dark waters so I just sucked it in, mind over matter and manned up!

And you know what, I capsized...

And you know what, I was fine...

A little shaky and pride a little bruised but it happened and life goes on...

Now excuse me while I go put my little friend outside ;)

Sunday snapshots

4 hours and counting

Facebook, where everyone 'knows your business'  yet few actually really 'know your business '.

So I've been alone for MONTHS now. Baby is nearly 9 months old and I've been feeling like there hasn't been any defining point where I've shouted from the rooftops "help, I'm lonely and isolated with 4 kids, I'm tired, financially unstable and can't cope!!!" Ok I'm exaggerating but some days a lot of it's true!  Yet we all feel the need to grin and bear it.  In fact not many people even know I'm 'single'.  Hate that word.  Not because I hate being single, but if we declare we are single does that mean we want not to be single?...

I mean I'm definitely not looking to unsingle myself! Not now or any point soon!

So this morning, tired and harassed having been up breastfeeding for the best part of the night and having no one to talk to at 6 o clock this morning I decided to declare myself single.  To come out of the online closet so to speak.  To stand up and be counted.

I'm talking about Facebook.  Where 'friends' are few and far between and really our friends list consists mostly of work acquaintances and people we knew when we were about 12...

So it's been 4 hours my timeline reports.  Since I edited my Facebook status...

not one comment...

no inbox message...

not even a like?!

Tell you what though, my ears are sure as hell burning...  ;)

Now what?

So it dawned on me I'm going to be 31 on Wednesday...so that makes me in my thirties....yep, not just turned 30 actually in them, as in swimming in a grown up sensible capable decade....oh help!!
Single, 4 kids, no job at present, still sleeping on the sofa in a council flat with no central heating.  Still jumping into wild ideas about where we're gonna move to, or what I'm going to study next, which job will fit round them and allow me to have it all! Yeah right like that would ever exist!
Am I a failure? Some days I feel like one, other days I look at the kids and think wow, they're great, they are healthy, mostly polite (teenager the exception, but hey that's kind of the law), seem happy enough.....

I don't know, am I supposed to be married with a mortgage and savings and a couple holidays a year....

For now I'll just keep smiling on the outside and if anyone asks I'll say I'm 29, gives me at least another year to sort my act out :)

On being only human

Seasons change and I now sit here with an almost 6 month old, an ex partner that wants to erase the 'ex'part like it never was and a big fat question mark over my future plans. I visited my dad today, sat on an allotment in the middle of London in the hot sun surrounded by birds and bees and on the radio the song playing was OB LA DI, OB LA DA....

....And I smile because life really does go on (if you're lucky)

I think it's time to write my blog as me as all the advice about 'just be yourself' kinda put me off doing it as I just haven't been myself and didn't want to come across as too positive being newly seperated with four kids, plus I'm really not sure if the seperated bit was a permanent or not part of my life.Wow I'm waffling now! Sorry!

How do we choose what is right for us and those around us? How do we weigh up the pros and cons? Do we ever know what's around the corner?.... Wish I could ask Desmond and Molly Jones ;)