As I said last week, it’s time for a midlife lately catch-up because we haven’t had one since April although of course you know what’s been going on. And so I’ve had a look through my camera roll at the pictures we snap here and there and it’s telling – because you don’t take them when times aren’t good do you? And if I were creating a piece of art there would probably be something really symbolic that I could do with what we have and a lot of black paint in the middle. Let’s not try that now though, instead I’ll do it my way, with words.
Midlife Lately – the twists and turns
You may remember that we spent the week before mum-in-law died over in Newcastle. We’d driven straight there from Manchester Airport after flying home from Croatia because we had a lot to do and my birthday fell in the middle so we book-ended it with two weekends of dance. In our minds it was the launch of the heady summer months that I, in particular, look forward to so much. The first weekend started at midday with an event at The Cluny, Newcastle’s renowned music spot where people like the Arctic Monkeys and Ed Sheeran did some of their first ever gigs. We had a great time there with Brutus Gold and then hotfooted it over to North Shields for a Boujie Wonderland event at the Fish Quay’s Salt Market. Then it was back into town for 6pm because Trevor Nelson was DJing, he was superb and given the health problems he’s having now, we were lucky to see him. I’m sure those of us who love him are fervently wishing him the best and speediest of recoveries.
I had a bit of a dilemma about what to wear because the first two events were seriously disco and yet Trevor Nelson’s of course would be far cooler. However I don’t often have a chance to wear my favourite jumpsuit so out it came – and Geordies being as joyful about glamour as they always are, fully embraced it at the Trevor event and so I felt fine.
I don’t have a single photo from the following weekend which is annoying but also the sign of a good time. This is what I was wearing though and it’s become my summer going out number because it gleams in the sunshine. As always I’ve sized down to a small so that it fits properly and isn’t baggy, I was a bit worried about it losing its lustre but I’ve hand-washed it a few times now and it’s absolutely fine.
We went to the Dayfever festival in Newcastle – the event that Vicky McClure founded as an afternoon dance session but which is now being expanded into full days during the summer. It was almost comically awful. They’d interspersed the dancing with various acts such as an a capella singalong. Unfortunately it was all done from the main stage which meant that nobody joined in and the two poor women who were trying to lead it were just flustered until they admitted defeat. You can see the thought behind it with all of the work that Vicky does with dementia choirs but it doesn’t translate to a big crowd who are there to dance. The day was chilly, the DJs were disinterested and so we left early and moved onto another little dance bar that we hadn’t been to for a few years. And there we managed to salvage the evening, the DJ was so good that we stayed until they closed at 3am. This is the beauty of Newcastle, there’s always something great, just around the corner.
On the bank holiday Monday the heatwave that had been covering the rest of the country finally rolled into the north. It was time for us to drive home because we were swapping with the youngest who had the wedding of a university friend to attend in Newcastle the following weekend. The interim week was half term for him and he had his final dissertation for his PGCE to complete so he’d decided to sequester himself in the flat until his friends arrived on Friday to start the celebrations. As we were literally going to drive past each other, we decided to meet halfway for a catch-up because we’d been away for so long.
Kirkby Stephen was the obvious place and it gave me the chance to go into the hotel where my mum and dad had their wartime wedding reception in 1945. I don’t think it’s changed much inside and there was almost a collision of the generations. Do you know what I mean by those quantum moments when you stand somewhere and can put one hand into the past, stretching way back to before you were born and yet with the other, you’re reaching forward into the future as your family’s genes head towards chapters that will, at some point, no longer be yours?
We headed home to pick up Ted and take him out for a walk on the shore with fish and chips (for us, not him, although you wouldn’t think it by his face).
You know how good that first burst of proper sunshine is in May when you can feel the summer stretching out before you? We stayed to watch the sun set over the Lakeland hills…
… and I took this selfie so that it would pop up in my camera roll memories in the winter and remind me just how simply perfect life can feel.
And the very next day we got the phone call telling us that Mum-in-law had died.
That was on the Tuesday, on the Thursday I had to go down to London. I’m surprised now that I didn’t cancel but you just go into coping mode for a while don’t you? Unusually for me I wore black which must have been instinctive.
I’ve had this dress since 1998 when I bought it in New York – and the sandals are my most worn this summer because they’re so comfortable, now down to £23 in the sale but almost sold out.
What else is there from that fractured time? The comfort of our boys arriving one by one at Newcastle station. This is the first time that I’ve felt the soft power that comes with having a grown-up family of your own. They were so supportive of their dad and everything he was going through. For me it was such a relief to be able to share the caring load for a day or two.
We’d just got back home here after the funeral and all the sorting out that had to be done. Every year on the solstice we go out for a walk or a run at 10.30pm to watch the year turn as the sun sets on the longest day. I always take a photo because in winter it feels impossible that the sun was still shining at that time. It usually oozes midsummer euphoria but I can see that we weren’t feeling it this year.
We bumped into some neighbours on the canal who were doing the same thing. When they heard our news they sat down with us on a bench and chatted – it was comforting being with older people who know what it’s like to lose the last parent. In fact he was the consultant anaesthetist who raced to the hospital when I told him my dad had had the accident that led to his death. I know he did everything he could to help in the operating theatre which gives peace to an event that otherwise wasn’t peaceful. They’re neighbours who have a special place in my heart.
And for a while after this my camera roll is empty. I caught up with friends at the weekends while Mal was working on the roof. I went over to Nicky’s for a barbecue on her birthday and watched her in her grandma role. You’ll remember her son Toby, our middle one’s best friend, getting married three years ago at the tender age of 22. Well they now have a little daughter who is eighteen months old and full of character. Both Nicky and I were flummoxed by the arrival of a girl at first, having known nothing other than boys, but Nicky’s getting there now.
Of course it means our lives are currently on different paths. She is very home-based with her growing and settling family around her whereas we’re away a lot and our boys’ worlds are expanding too. And this is what happens to friendships in midlife isn’t it? I find a lot of them are diverging – which doesn’t mean lessening – but they’re not as parallel as they were.
Midlife Lately – The Boys
So let’s talk about the boys. We’ve hardly seen the eldest because he’s been away so much this year. He spent a fortnight living and working in Dubai, getting to know his girlfriend’s parents who live there and his company also has an office out there. He was back briefly and then headed off to the US to oversee the Adidas campaign for the FIFA World Cup. He’s been having the time of his life, travelling between cities, going to matches, meeting and working with the global players that Adidas sponsors, which of course includes some of the biggest footballing names in the world.
To our particular (and perhaps more low-scale) delight, he was sitting right behind our beloved Dan Burn from Newcastle United as he went on for England in the semi-final (not that it did much good. Wasn’t that sad?).
I so often wish I could go back to the eight year-old sports mad boy that he was and just whisper in his ear that this is what he’d be doing. I could write a whole series of posts on the places he’s been, the people he’s met and the opportunities he’s had over the last few weeks. I often worry about the long, long hours that he works but his company told him that this was his reward for the dedication they’ve seen over the last few years. It’s good to know that they see it.
The middle one has settled back in very quickly after his year away. He’s working at our local garden centre while going through the selection process for what could (fingers and everything else crossed) be a good career. I’m sure you’ve read about the graduate jobs disaster in the news, it’s just so hard for them at the moment and I suspect quite a few of you are living with the fallout from it too. For us, the good thing is that he’s back at home happily. I worried that it would be a huge anticlimax after a year of living in Spain but I’ve realised that fundamentally he’s a home bird.
I remember a few years ago finding myself sitting next to a reader called Jan on a flight to Turkey (are you still here Jan, I wonder?). Our boys were mid-teens then but her daughters were older and she told me that just a couple of days earlier, her 20-something had said she couldn’t bear to be left at home so could she come along with her mum and dad. She described her as a ‘cleaver’ which I didn’t quite understand at the time – but I do now.
Anyway I’m quite happy to have a son who cleaves and spends time with us so contentedly… although I can see that Mal’s opinion on that will differ!
Last week the youngest completed his PGCE so he is now a qualified teacher heading into his ECT years. You’ll remember that he’s done in-school training which involves four days a week in the classroom and then one day at a teacher training centre. For his first term he was based at a very well-run school in an upmarket area and then he transferred to a really tough school on the edge of Blackpool for the last two.
Like his brother, he’s decided to stay local for now and so when it came to interview stage for his first proper teaching post, he had the choice of two schools. One is a highly sought-after school in a beautiful part of Cumbria that parents move heaven and earth to get their children into. The other is the most challenging school in our local city. Which has he chosen? Yep, you’ve guessed it, the challenging one.
He’s found that he really enjoys working with the children from problematic backgrounds because he feels he can make a difference. And this school has a young and determined new headteacher that he really clicked with so it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. There weren’t enough hours for him to teach languages full-time so he’s now a teacher of French, Spanish, Art and PE. As with his biggest brother, if I could have told him at the age of eight that it’s what he would be doing, it would have ticked off every one of his favourite subjects.
I’m pleased he’s picking up art again. I remember a few of you saying he should have chosen that direction when he was torn between that and languages after doing so well in his Art A Level, despite having to complete his ‘beauty in unexpected places ‘ project during lockdown (he was delightedly wrapping his work up here because his school had bought these canvases for permanent display). However I’m hoping that this new twist in his path perhaps proves the old Scottish saying that ‘what’s meant for you, won’t go by you’.
I’m still a bit surprised that he’s teaching, I’d always imagined him using his languages and analytical brain at somewhere like GCHQ but, as he said to me recently, it’s a good job he didn’t follow that path because most of it has gone over to AI now.
We’d already left for Newcastle when he headed out for his post-grad celebration dinner last Friday but I’d begged him to get a nice photo in his dinner suit. This is what I got in return. And the mess and the trainers show you the reality of my life now they’re both at home again!
And I’m going to leave it there for today because there’s more circularity about him being at home again. Do you remember in the infant days when your children constantly infected you with bugs they brought home from school? Well it’s happening again. His whole school was sick in the run-up to the end of term last week… and so was he. And on Saturday morning so was I. I’ve been stuck on the sofa with Covid this week and of course Mal came down with it too. It isn’t the best time to be in our twelfth floor eyrie because the lifts are being replaced and so one of us has to go all the way down and back up again when provisions are needed. Life’s has its ups and downs for all of us doesn’t it and its giving us a bit of a kicking this summer – but it won’t knock us down.
So let’s have part two of our catch-up next week. Stay well and happy until then.
