Hairstyling - or borderline child cruelty...

Week 52 of Tara's Gallery. It doesn't seem two minutes, etc, etc. This week the theme is Hair and I am so looking forward to seeing the bad hairstyles on offer from my fellow bloggers.

In 2008, I was recovering from breast cancer treatment and my hair was growing back slowly. For a pictorial demonstration of the loss and the regrowth, pop to this previous Gallery post. It was good to have it back, don't get me wrong, but I missed my long locks and straightening my pixie crop with mini-straighteners just didn't cut the mustard. What could I do? How could I sate my lust for rampant hairstyling?

It was then that my eyes fell upon 4 year old O. A boy with lucious curly locks, tousled and bouncy. AND RIPE FOR THE STRAIGHTENING!

He was pliant and still as I impressed upon him the need not to move as I brandished the scorching GHDs. He went from this:



to this, in a matter of minutes:



I know he looks sad - but it was a transient sadness. I do have a beaming photo - look!



Yes, it was wrong, but these were desperate times. Now I've got my own wild curly mane (chemo can make your hair come back curly) and my straightening days are long behind me. It takes far to long to even achieve a wavy kink out of the new hair. But O is safe too - I think at the ripe old age of six, he would tell me in no uncertain terms to PUT THE STRAIGHTENERS DOWN, MUMMY!

The Gallery - Expressions

It's Tara's Gallery once more and this week the demand is 'Expressions'. My entry is created via a marvellous iPhone app called Pocket Booth. I was introduced by Laura on a boozy night out in the Fighting Cock (we're so sophisticated). It recreates the photobooth photo strips of old. I love this app - it is so pleasingly retro.

My boy has an alarmingly rubbery face for one so cherubic. I often wonder whether a Lee Evan-esque career awaits him...

Ninjas - The Gallery

It's Gallery time again. The theme is Children - I can't wait to see the photographs submitted.

I've picked these two ninjas. The curly boy is O and the lovely girl is Laura from Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy's 6yo. We were camping in the Lakes and the children were ninjaing wildly by the side of a beautiful lake...

The Gallery - Mother Nature. The slither...

It's time again for Tara's Gallery.

The theme is Mother Nature and there are a wealth of posts over there with some wonderful photographs. Pop on over there for a glimpse or two...

I've picked this beautiful specimen, who currently resides at Tropical World in Leeds. I imagine he will divide the Gallery gang - not everyone loves a slithery sort...








I have a vivid memory of one particular day at infant school. The teacher told us we were going to have a very special visitor. Imagine the frisson of excitement and dread that ran through the class when it was revealed that the special visitor was a man. A man with a snake!

I can recall the fear I felt as I stood there in the hall with my classmates. The snake was huge and was coiled around his owner, his tongue flickering lazily in and out. We were asked if we wanted to come and touch the snake and most of us said no as we were convinced it would be slimy and cold. I don't remember how the next bit came about, but suddenly I was stood next to the snake man and stroking the warm, dry scales of the beautiful snake and feeling utterly brave, fearless and in love. When I got home, dad got me a book on snake care down from the loft (no idea why he had it). I read this book over and over again. I must have been the only six year old in Yorkshire who knew how to milk a snake for its venom.

Ever since that landmark snake-touching day, I have been fascinated with snakes and can stand for hours watching their slightly sinister eyes and sinuous movements. I had to be physically dragged from the reptile house at Tropical World the last time we were there. I believe that M and O may both have indulged in some epic eye-rolling.

Black and white - spot the difference...

This one's for the Gallery over at Tara's. I've had a little rummage and there are some amazing photographs this week. In fact, they are really fantastic every week! Please pop over and have a look...



Spot the difference between these two little boys. One of them is my son, the other is his dad. Loads of people say that O is a little mini-Mel, but here I see that he really is his daddy's son...







There is the same cheeky glint in the eye. The wayward hair sprouts perkily on both of them and they are both sporting glorious knitwear. How things run through the generations.

M is going through some tough stuff at work at the moment. He's weighed down with cares and worry and is very quiet and introspective. When I look at his baby picture, I see the boy he once was and I see the gleam in his eyes and the happiness in his smile and I long more than anything for the light and life to return to them.

 Meanwhile, we'll get through as best we can...

Show me the funny - O's comedy thang

It's Gallery time again over at Sticky Fingers and this week Tara's asking us to tickle her funny bone and spread the laughter throughout the internet. So without further ado, here's my funny, gurning, daft little O doing his comedy thang...

Wearing Great Gran's comedy teeth

The Egyptian

Mother and...gurn

Still smiling after throwing up in the maze and taking half an hour to find our way out...

Even his socks are funny...

Back to school - The Gallery

This is for the wonderful Tara Cain's Gallery. Please pop along and have a look at the treasures posted this week.

Two pictures. Thirty years apart. Two four year old children on the start of an educational journey.

This is me aged four in 1979. I loved school - loved the reading and the writing stories and playing with my friends. I didn't like being teased - that used to make me cry and retreat into my shell - a shell I still struggle to come out of on occasion. But I was a happy child and loved learning.

Education for me has been an up and down experience. A bright, top of the class girl for most of it until I reached GCSEs and A-Levels. Then I messed about, didn't try and carried that on until my degree, when I didn't get my 2:1. It was a colossal wake-up call and when I did my Masters, I really gave it my all and did myself proud. I don't think I'm done with education, but the thought of studying again brings me out in a cold sweat. Never say never though...

I look at the little girl in this picture and I can remember the picture being taken. I loved that dress with the embroidered flowers on. Mum must have picked it especially. I look at her eyes - my eyes - and think where life has taken that little girl that was once me. It has been so hard since breast cancer, but I think life's still good. I wouldn't have picked this path I've found myself on, but I'm trying to kick my heels and dance the rumba once in a while as I trundle along it.

And what about this little man, pictured at the same age in 2008? (Love that Geoff Boycott side-smile). What does life hold for him? He's happy and enthusiastic and enjoying being a big boy of six at the moment. He's been through a lot in his short life already - when this Reception picture was taken he'd been through a very tough time. It's hard for a three and four year old to see Mummy bald and poorly and sobbing as she fights to beat breast cancer. But he's come though all that with the help and support of my wonderful M and my family and friends and is cheerful, kind and cheeky.

I look at this picture and I see the promise of my boy. I want so much for him, but most of all I want him to be happy and healthy and surrounded by love. Just like he is now.

I want more than anything to see the man he will become. When I'm laid in bed at night, thinking the bad thoughts, that is the thing that grips my heart with fear the most. The possibility that I might not make it to see him grow up. This is the reason for my blog. Just in case I don't make it, I hope the things that are written here will help.

*This post took on a life of its own - was not supposed to be this maudlin. I can only apologise!

Memories - Oasis and ice cream drinks...

Oh, something was needed to kickstart a slacker-blogger out of inertia. Thank goodness for Sticky Fingers' weekly photo Gallery from the lovely Tara. It's now Week 23 and the theme for this week is A Memory. Beautiful. So simple and yet so challenging. I've had a difficult couple of months and still trying to find my feet again, but things seem to be on the up. I was driving home from work on Monday and thinking about my poor barren blog when the light went on and my 'memory' was there. I couldn't wait to get back home and post - it's been weeks since I felt like that.

So - the memory. The photo is of (from left to right) Track, me, Wee and M, on 4 August 1996, up at Loch Lomond watching Oasis in concert. The photo is old and a bit blurry as I was holding the camera and M looks a bit distracted, but the joy of that weekend all floods back for me when I see it.

A wonderful two days, filled with friendship, drinking (but not too much as poor Wee was recovering from salmonella) and the joy of seeing Oasis live and lairy and full of Mancunian swagger. We danced and sang ourselves hoarse, I swooned at Liam's ape-like charms and we marvelled at the amazing fireworks at the end of the concert. Sod Knebworth - this was where it was at...

But the trip up to Scotland wasn't just about the Oasis concert, although that was the main reason for going. My mum's side of the family used to live not far away from Loch Lomond up in Gourock and I'd spent happy summer holidays up there staying with the family at my great-grandad's house.


They were such happy holidays. Great Grandad was gruff and old, funny and sarcastic and often a bit scary, but how I loved visiting him and playing in his garden where the wild raspberrries grew.  The last time we were leaving after another holiday, I remember waving goodbye to him through the car back window and suddenly my gran was crying and saying "I'll not see my dad again" and I felt a grip of terror. Such a vivid memory - it is as clear as a bell. She was right too - he died in July 1981.

So, a pilgrimage to Gourock seemed like the right thing to do whilst we were up there in 1996 and so on the Saturday before the concert, M & I drove through Port Glasgow, through Greenock and along to Gourock, following the River Clyde all the way.

Memory - such a powerful thing. In all my life I have never felt the rush of buried memories returning like I did as we drove through the main road through Gourock. It had been 16 years since I'd been there and the torrent of emotion and remembrance took my breath away. It was visceral and strange, but somehow exhilarating at the same time. I have never experienced anything remotely like it since.

Mum and Dad used to take me and my little sister for ice cream drinks when we were up visiting Great Grandad in the summer. I never had such luxurious delights at home and the glamour and magical taste of fizzy lemonade mixed with vanilla ice cream was something to be savoured (come on, it was the late seventies - times were hard!).

So when M and I were in Skipton with O last week on our wet caravan week in the Dales, I was delighted to see that the cafe we had picked for much needed refreshments served ice cream sodas. Hurray - ice cream drinks! It was O's first time.

The look on his face in this picture is priceless and I can feel the passing down of a special tradition has begun. The memory of the fabulous ice cream drink of my childhood is something shared and special and I can confirm that the Skipton 2010 is just as good as the Gourock 1979 vintage...

Introducing Sno Hey Noods Fansant Hey... The Gallery

Or to give her full title, Sno Hey Noods Fansant Hey Meanchod Sackad Hey. She is a cuddly polar bear and was once called Snowy and once had pure white fluffy fur. Now she is grey and ruffled and has the most bizarre name ever given to a bear...

Motherhood - The Gallery

This week, I didn't think I was going to do The Gallery - I'm doing this so late, I'm almost wondering why I'm posting. The theme is Motherhood - emotive, precious and guaranteed to whirl up a maelstrom of emotions. I looked through the photo archives - there are so many photographs of my boy, but not so many of my boy and me. I remember sobbing on Friend from Way Back's shoulder a few years ago as I lamented the lack of photographs of me and O in his babyhood. I was too tired, too fraught, too caught in the headlights to want to be in photographs when he was tiny. And now I wish I'd just said 'sod it' and poked my weary face into the pictures a little more.

Two little boys...

Another week, another Gallery! This week the theme is friendship. I'd mentioned my friendships a few posts back, so thought I'd take a different tack with this one. O has a friend, a best friend whom he's known since he was weeks old. They met, along with their mums at post-natal group and have grown to the ripe old age of nearly six together. Although they are chalk and cheese, they are close as close can be and W is a special person in O's life. Here are some pictures of this fabulous twosome...


These boys are so small they can't even sit up! O is the chubby cheeked one on the left.

A thank you from one dazed and slightly overwhelmed blogger...

I wrote the most personal blog post yesterday and posted it to Tara's Gallery over at Sticky Fingers. I received some wonderful comments, both here on my blog and on Twitter and Facebook. I was going to reply to all the comments one by one, but I am just overwhelmed by the kind and frankly tear-inducing things that have been said and thought I should respond more fully.

Self portrait - the hardcore version... The Gallery Week 12

This is my entry for Tara @ Sticky Fingers' Gallery Week 12. It's been a tough one for me but I am so glad I did it. I am sure there will be some fantastic entries this week. Please go and have a look at the other entries, as the Gallery is always full to bursting with wonderful photography.

May 2006. This first photo is a bit of a cheat, as I did not take this picture myself. But this was me, with my finger looking like it's stuck up my nose and my hair shiny, long and lustrous. I'm allowed to say that, as by November 2007, I'd been diagnosed with Grade 3 breast cancer and facing chemotherapy. The consultant who broke the dreadful news actually said, "Oh, your beautiful hair". I didn't think that the loss of my hair would be so hard to bear, but it really was.

A Granny's joy - Gallery Week 7

It's Gallery time again over at Tara's Sticky Fingers - and this week the theme is joy. I am sure there are going to be some cracking posts submitted - I can't wait to get reading. The Gallery is one of my favourite bits of the blogosphere - there is so much going on there!

Tentacles of doom - Gallery Week 6

Tara @ Sticky Fingers has given us a tough Gallery assignment this week. The theme is UGLYand I was really struggling to think of a photograph to fit the brief. Most of the photographs I've taken since O was born have been of O and my friends' beautiful children and the great places we've all visited together, so no joy was to be had in the archives. I didn't want to put a photo of me looking grim up as it would look as if I was touting for 'no - you are beyootiful' comments. However, I would welcome these if you feel like sending them.