Things people tell you before you have a baby that you think couldn't possibly be true, but actually are.

Five days to go, readers.  We have never worked so hard for anything.  Well, perhaps university finals and having a baby, but, you know.  Details, details.  We cannot WAIT.  On with Clare's post....




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Sleep deprivation will mess with your brain. You will be one of those women. I recently argued with Andy over the fact that I was INSISTENT that I had bought a big bag of porridge oats, and they couldn't have just disappeared. They were found in the salad drawer of the fridge three days later. 


However, your idea of a good night's sleep becomes dramatically different from pre-baby times. Anything longer than a cumulative total of five hours throughout the night and you are bouncing off the walls, whilst other mums look at you bleary eyed and jealous.


You will talk about poo more than you could imagine possible. You will talk about it with your husband when he gets home from work (you may even phone him to announce the arrival of a particularly long awaited one), you will talk about it with friends in restaurants. Its colour and texture will be of utmost interest. Coming from the woman who previously denied that she even had bodily functions, this is some turn around.


On this subject, you genuinely will not care who sees your ginny-gina (yes, that's what I just called 'it', what?) whilst in labour. I know. You think you will be one of those people who still finds it mortifying, even whilst in labour. Believe me, I was that person. when it came to it, I didn't care. At all. I had people shining torches in places I have never even seen myself. There are way too many other things going on to worry about that. Like pushing a baby out.


You will cry. A lot. You will cry for many reasons, including; the cat knocking over the bottle of expressed milk that took you nearly an hour to get; finding porridge oats in your salad drawer; your baby waking for the sixth time in one night; rushing to leave the house with a screaming baby who woke six times the previous night, dropping your car-key on the floor, breaking said key, meaning you can't leave the house after all; looking in a window and seeing a fat woman with sick in her hair, and realising that it's not a window, but actually a mirror; discovering that starbucks have run out of soya milk and won't have any more until tomorrow. This is not an exhaustive list, and can be added to at any time. 


Leaving the house really *does* take half an hour. 


Sometimes  Often when getting dressed in the morning, comfort trumps looking good. 


You will leave the house with sick in your hair. More than once.


Breast-feeding is HARD-WORK. It hurts, it is time consuming and tying, and it often feels like your body does not belong to you. You will most likely get blocked-ducts, mastitis (infected blocked ducts, oh yes), thrush, and cracked nipples. All in the first three weeks. After that it gets marginally less painful. I'm told by six months it's 'easy'. I'll let you know on that one. Also? You either stay in your house for the first 6 months of your baby's life, or you get your boobs out in public. Neither seems to be that great an option, but I'm going on the second.


You know that thing where they say you will love your baby more than anything else in the world, and that you would do anything for them? That your heart will actually hurt a little bit when you hear them cry, and that when they smile it's like little bursts of magic rainbow dust that negate everything I've just whinged about above? All true. 100% true.

Pen Do's and Dont's

Welcome to the afternoon post, readers!  Anna K here.  It's high time for a drivel post, I feel...that's what you asked for, and my, that it what you shall get.  This is a post that's in three very great parts:  Mahj's wedding, body image and the Pen Do.

Get a cup of tea, it's a long 'un. 

Mahj's Wedding

Both pictures of Mahj's wedding by the talented Andy Wardle.  Just breathtaking. 

I know I speak for so many of us when I say we've been waiting far too long to see Mahj's wedding in all its glory.  We've seen Mahj's Any Other Photo, and we have read about her experience of walking down the aisle, one of the biggest crying-fests we've ever featured on the blog (still remember Aisling calling me up in floods "Waaaa", she said, "she said she kissed him like he had just returned from WAR").  What we never got though, was the detail of the whole day, start to finish. 

It's been a long long wait but I'm thrilled to announce that the first part of Mahj's wedding report is up on Florence Finds for all to see, at 1pm today.  I'm thrilled that Rebecca gets to feature the wedding story of someone who has remained steadfastly loyal, full of integrity and inspires us all.  Mahj, we salute you.       

Readers, go and read about Mahj's wedding day.  Lose yourself in the photographs, the colour, the movement, the emotion.  If you haven't passed out from how slayingly beautiful and in love she is, drop her a comment on Florence Finds.  Congratualtions, Mahj and Martin.     

Like he just returned FROM WAR, people.  Sniff. 

Body Image

Last week, the lovely Annabel, she of the hugely popular wedding blog Love My Dress, asked me to write a guest post.  This week on the blog Annabel is hosting a "Laid Bare" week focusing on body image, with a whole range of beautiful posts and interesting topics for discussion.

"YES!"  I thought.  "This'll be easy and it's exactly the sort of thing our readers would adore!" 

Famous last words.  Oh my, was it tough.  I didn't want to write about body image issues I've had.  We've all had them and it's so hard to write something which doesn't end up in sounding like a lament about your ill-proportioned body when, you know, there are famines going on.

So I wrote something a bit different, something that I think all ten-year-old girls (and boys too) should read.  Something that would hit home, that would make the battle with beauty that little bit easier.  Something that should be in the school toilets of every school in the country if I do say so myself.  It would have helped me, anyway.  Let me know what you think, readers.

The Pen Do   

So a while back, Penny, she of Bad Penny Says, and commenter extraordinaire, had the madcap idea to invite a bunch of us to Leeds for the weekend.  "Of course!" we all said and then proceeded to email each other non-stop for four months discussing what we were going to wear, and other crucial things.  I appreciate that in this photo it looks like we colour co-ordinated, but we actually didn't.  That's just how in tune we all are, it seems. 

Gorgeous, non?  L-R yours truly, Penny, Rebecca, Kirsty, Gemma, Bex, Amy, Laura, Lucy 

The thing about meeting people online is; I'm an old pro.  After some dating disasters I met my husband online.  I've also met three of the most brilliant people in my whole life online.  So when it comes to meeting people off the Internet, The Fear is never really there for me.  When you read people's blogs, you get a sense of what you think of as their authentic voice.  And sometimes, when you meet them, the difference between what you thought they would be and what they are is, to put it simply, quite staggering.  

Not with these women.  

They are EXACTLY as they write.  I could tell you about  what happened on the weekend, but Penny's is funnier and I worry it will turn into a "you needed to be there because  the unicorns jumping through Penny's ears (earrings) were REALLY GREAT"  So what I propose to do is tell you why I love each of these women, the highlights of the time I spent with them, and why the world is a better place with them in it.   And why you should read their blogs.  

Penny
We met Penny in a dark bar on the Friday night and were going to bust in doing a Backstreet Boys routine because we knew we'd never be cool enough for her friends, so thought we'd go for the opposite, be the anti-cool.  Penny is so kind, and so funny, and has an imagination to rival the greatest of children's novelists. We know she can write, Bad Penny Says makes for fantastic reading, and some of our readers' favourite posts were written by her fair hand.  And hell can she sing.  Her warm-up track at karaoke was a sodding power ballad.  Even though she and Sam (the one she married) inform me that it wasn't technically a power ballad, IT WAS.  As soon as she opened her mouth, none of us wanted to get up and sing, because who could follow that, hmmm?  But luckily Penny does not judge.  She's cool, yes.  But more importantly she's warm, and empathetic, and the kind of friend you would call on in any emergency.  Especially one that needed pipecleaners.      

 Kirsty and Pensky, prior to brunch on the Saturday.  This was prior to caffene, and they still look this good.

Kirsty
I'd met Kirsty before, at Any Other Party, and had a bit of a fangirl spasm, but it appeared that Kirsty had forgiven my "you've got amaaaazing cheekbones oh hi my name's Anna" indiscretion.  Kirsty has a massively dry humour, and can recount a story with such a straight face that you can't see for the tears of laughter and you can't breathe and she'll keep going, relentlessly.  We sang Bon Jovi together and No Doubt's Don't Speak (the latter is harder than it looks, people) - it was a special moment.  Look out for our album, coming soon, with a picture of Smidgen on the cover.  Kirsty mixes her Scots gallows humour with a laugh where she throws her head back.  It's brilliant, and unexpected.  Nothing shocks her, either - this is an invaluable quality, especially when you are asking inappropriate questions over pancakes.  Kirsty writes A Safe Mooring and if you don't read it, you should.  

Bex
Bex was a bit of an enigma to me before I talked to her properly this weekend.  I knew she loved green, I knew you all went ten kinds of nuts for her detail-filled wedding post, I knew she blogged prolifically over at The Olive Dragonfly.  I also knew she was Scottish, and a dentist, and so i'd always read her writing with a Scottish accent (not a Braveheart accent, thanks Kirsty).  Point 1: her accent isn't that strong.  Point 2: SHE SHOULD BE BOTTLED.  I have never in all my days met anyone so positive, so filled with joy, so effusive, so genuinely happy to be alive.  It's infectious.  My favourite Bex memory - there are two vying for the top spot - going mad singing Pink at karaoke, and upon entering a vintage clothes shop, diving headfirst into a suitcase filled with silk scarves, and emerging with one in exactly the right shade of green, and waving it aloft victoriously.

Also, all these pictures if the Pen Do are Bex's.  We all laughed at her ubiquitous camera, but it was there to document, and by golly, document it did.  I took none as I was trolleyed from two white wine spritzers (rock on, hardcore Anna K!).  Thank you Bex, for allowing me to show these pictures.

 The lovely Gemma, and a sneak peek of Kendra (my leopard-print number).  Say in an Aussie accent "Isn't she a BEAUT?"  Gemma, not Kendra.

Gemma
Gemma is who you'd call at 3am to post bail.  That's the best way I can think of to put it.  Yes, she can make me laugh until I'm choking, yes she has a story for everything, yes she constructed a bow out of Amy's tresses using just a pipe cleaner, kirby grips (sorry "a bajillion bobby pins") and NO HAIRSPRAY, yes she has an almost sickening sense of style, expect you aren't jealous because she mocks herself enough to negate the raging envy you feel at her looking good in EVERYTHING she tries on.  But the thing about Gemma is she has so much conviction and faith in the people around her, you simply can't doubt yourself because she ALWAYS has your back.  That's an amazing thing to experience.  She wields a devastatingly extensive vocabulary and we spent most of the weekend making up Susan Lewis protagonists who simply don't know how beautiful they are - with their aquiline noses and their flashing eyes.        

The most beautiful Penny, Gemma and Bex, looking like they were up to something

Rebecca
I liked Rebecca the second I met her in 2010, and I've liked her ever since.  There's no preamble, there's no bull, she's smart, grounded and you know she'd never let you down.  As you'd expect from the brains behind Florence Finds everything she wore looked stylish but accessible, and yes, the lady rocked the pink trew.  Before we met up with her, we all spent half an hour hyperventilating with fear that she might expect us to look Friday Frock O'Clock-worthy, but she "was having too much fun to remember to take photos".  Cue massive sigh of relief.  I love that Rebecca is so unapologetically her - there's an integrity and an authenticity there that is rare - but she doesn't take herself too seriously.  That's a good mix.  She couples this with an inane sense of humour and an infectious laugh and an ability to solve any of your problems effortlessly.  She has drive, and talent, and her blog will go from strength to strength - make sure you're along for the ride.     

Laura
I may have to quote Penny's Sam here.  Laura's humour is "dry as f**k".  She has an answer to everything that steals your imagination and still, somehow, remains so down-to-earth it's incongruous.  Laura has enviable legs, and had us all in fits of hysteria with her storytelling.  We also met her husband Bedford, and although we knew it already, because no-one grins like this for someone anything less, they are perfect together.  Laura is also the only person I have ever met who unashamedly got excited when she realised "Daniel" by Elton John was on the karaoke machine.  Laura writes at Parliament of Owls and you should read what she writes because it will make tea come out of your nose.   

Some of the six best legs at the Pen Do, right here.  What were you singing?  What lyric is that?  Enlighten me!  Laura is busting serious moves.

Amy
Amy is pure statuesque Amazon goddess.  Seriously.  Gemma and I spent about twenty minutes just staring at her bone structure and her symmetrical face (it's not a myth, people).  In retrospect, Amy may have found that awkward...er, sorry Amy.  She also has the most beautiful long blonde tresses that you kind of want to touch but then realise that following the staring incident, that might be weird.  Amy was the only one amongst us planning a wedding and so was the victim of many probing questions which she fielded like a pro (oh man is she going to look beautiful on the day).  Amy welds and makes phenomenal head pieces and has the most matter-of-fact way of telling a story that you don't realise you're crying laughing.   

The stunning Lucy Stendall, who I look like I'm interrogating 

Lucy

L to the Sten, what can I say?  We've talked before about how much we love Lucy, she's one of the original G.I.A.T cadre, and she takes the most beautiful photographs that tell a story (Gemma's quote "I can lose myself for hours in Lucy's website")  Yep, been there.  Take a look at Lucy Stendall Photography to see what I mean.  Lucy makes life better because she finds beauty in everything she sees, and she describes what's in her head so vividly, with such eloquence, that it's there, in front of your eyes too.  That's compelling.  She looks pure class, and then comes out with a dirty joke and the most startling laugh that never fails to surprise and delight.  I love her.     

And finally, it would be remiss to not include the picture that makes me laugh the most:

Pen Do Plus Sam.

Thank you ladies.  I am inspired, affirmed and my sides hurt.  I would do it all again in a second.   

What's in a name?

Six days to go until The Great Any Other Relaunch, readers! Get excited. Get very excited...and come back at 1pm for a tip-off and some Pen Do gossip...

Susie recently wrote a piece for us that got you all talking. It was beautifully written, completely honest, and, it transpired, summed up how many of you felt about your engagement and wedding photographs, and the wedding industry as a whole.


Well today, Susie is back with another post that I know is going to speak to so many of you. It's something that both Aisling and I have written about in the past, and something that gets right into the feminism/patriarchal system versus tradition argument, and has caused many of us to stop and think. And that's the important thing - as long as you've really thought about it, and made a conscious decision, you can rest easy with that decision.


Susie, over to you...


Picture the scene: I’m sitting at my desk in my new flat, all wrapped up in a cosy dressing gown, trying to get some real jobs done but instead constantly getting distracted by the wedmin beast flaring its nostrils and waggling its horns and basically dancing naked around me till I give in to its evil demands (yeah...worst excuse ever for not working). Then I come across my electives application form sitting in a pile, all ready to be sent off with the obligatory underexposed passport-sized photos. I see that under “name” I’ve written a little explanation about how, come the summer, I’ll actually have a different name to my current one and pretty please can you sort out my badge so it reflects this, *insert coy smile and coquettish giggle here*? And then out of nowhere, I start to really think about this whole name-changing malarkey. Something I’ve somehow managed to completely neglect in amongst my other hugely important life decisions (like, hmm, ivory or cream roses? and should the flower girls have blue or ivory or even sparkly sashes? and what kind of unique font best represents us as a couple??).

So I start to think, really think about it, and properly this time. Am I really sure about this? Do I want to lose my surname forever? All my friends and cousins who have married so far have changed their names, and to be honest I don’t know any married couples with different surnames. So why would I even think of keeping mine? Well, because I can, I suppose. This is such a huge decision, and it’s one that I seem to have made utterly nonchalantly, without giving it the thought it deserves. Suddenly I’m entertaining the thought of keeping my name.

I think one reason I’m sad to leave my name behind is because I’m scared it will die out. It’s not a common name, and I’ve never met anyone else who spells it the same way as we do - and now I’m the last one. I hate the thought that our name will just die out, that there won’t be any more little girls and boys running around with my surname, that tangible link back to the past generations. But much more than that, my surname is mine. It’s how people have thought of me, and how I have thought of myself, for my whole life. It’s who I am, my inner self made solid and physical by simply writing down two words - and now all of that has to change? No way, I said to myself. No way am I losing my identity.

But I do want us to be a united family. I want to have the same surname as my hoped-for children (and despite my I-pushed-them-out-I-get-to-name-them argument, the fiance is pretty dead set against them having my surname). I want people to be able to talk about us as “The Smiths”, not “Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones”. Is that ridiculous? Probably. But is it genuinely how I feel, and therefore please don’t mock me for it? Yes.

As a Christian too, I do somewhat controversially believe that the husband should be the head of the family, and this seems like a step in the right direction for living out that belief. Add to that my fiance’s thoughts on the matter, and the fact that double-barrelling really isn't an option for us, and you get a pretty convincing argument for a change of name. Simple. But it’s all so unfair, really. There’s this unspoken assumption that I should be happy to lose my identity, while he loses nothing. And that makes my inner feminist absolutely hopping mad - all this talk of progress and we women still have so far to go. Even as I read what I’ve written back to myself, I find myself silently outraged that men expect us to change, but somehow it's hilarious to suggest that it could go the other way around.

Even so, I think there’s a real and dangerous risk of politicalising something which actually is a deeply personal decision. Yes, I count myself as a feminist, and therefore I applaud and celebrate the fact that we have a choice about these things - but that should be a real and true choice. Pressurising people into keeping their own names because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do as a feminist is just as backward and repressive as not being allowed to keep them in the first place. But equally, someone who does choose to keep their name isn’t necessarily a raging feminist either - not everything is a political statement. In an ideal world there would be no pressure either way, but the truth is, whatever I choose to do there is sacrifice involved. Not the same kind of sacrifice each way, but still none the less a loss.

In the end I left the form how it was and didn’t change my mind. If people ask me, it’s for a thousand little reasons, but honestly? Most people don’t ask. I’m sad to let my old name go, but I’m excited to start making a new shared identity together. I feel happy in my decision, and I feel like I’ve finally given it the thought it deserves. But I’d love to hear from everyone else - what decisions did you make, and how did you get there?

On being a step-mother

Readers! It is now exactly seven days to the relaunch. Seven! Get ready to be bowled over because we have some seriously good posts, and some seriously big changes that we just cant wait to share with you. it is so exciting even Emilia just let out a little yelp of excitement. Or it could have been wind. Whatever.

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We recently posted Vivienne's piece about being the 'second wife' (or 'last wife' as I prefer to be known), and how it can sometimes be difficult to get past the fact that this is not the first time your significant other has been through the process. There can be lots of little nagging reminders that at some point, he (or she) had another life, with someone else, and that is hard. 

I'll tell you what must be even harder though? Having two huge great reminders in the form of two small children. And on top of that, there must be huge pressure to not only make a good impression on, and bond with, people who very often don't *want* to like you, just out of principle, but also to intelligently and carefully weave yourselves into their lives, whilst negotiating the tricky politics of merging families. 

Helen writes really honestly about how bloody difficult it is, and after reading this I just wanted to applaud her for her bravery in admitting that 'hey, this is not easy, and certainly not ideal, but i love him so I *will* make this work'. A true AOW woman.

When I met D he had (very) recently separated from his first wife – and he had two small children (who lived with his ex). This was far from the fairytale scenario I had imagined for myself, but I knew very early on that he was the one for me, ‘baggage’ and all.

We had been together for about a year before I met the children – with the feelings about the separation still very raw, D wanted to be careful not to cause anyone undue upset, so I had a year to build myself up to the big introduction.

The thing is, I had no experience of children – and I mean none. At that time there were no nephews or nieces on the scene, I had no younger siblings or cousins, no friends with children and, to be totally honest I was a little bit scared of children. I had no idea how to act with them – while other people seemed to have an innate knowledge of how to make a child laugh, how to comfort them, how to talk to them, how to engage with them, I was scared stiff and had absolutely no idea of just how to *be* with them.

People said to me ‘don’t talk down to them’ (really? but they’re five and two-and-a-half – I can’t exactly ask them what they think of the global economy!) and ‘treat them like little adults’ and ‘just be natural and wait for them to come to you’. I now realise that this was all sage advice, but none of it felt like any help whatsoever and none of it was any comfort to me.

Looking back now, I find it bizarre that I was scared (proper butterflies, sweaty palms nervous) about meeting these two little people, but that is really the way it was. Our first meeting was not a roaring success – there was no sudden enlightenment and miraculous discovery of all the right things to say/do and the right way to be with them and I shed a fair few tears after our first meeting in disappointment at my complete inadequacy in the child-magnetism department.

I can’t say it got hugely easier.

As I got to know them better, some of the things fell into place but a barrel load of other issues were raised – how to act with them in front of their doting grandparents/uncles/ friends of the family who had known them all their lives and had a much stronger connection with them than me. How to discipline them (should I even attempt it?), especially in front of other people. What to say if strangers mistakenly thought I was their mother.

We soon started to have them come to stay with us (at my house) every other weekend. I tried really hard to embrace it, but before too long I started to dread the weekends of their visits – when they came to stay I found that I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep or a weekend lie-in, I couldn’t go shopping, I couldn’t visit friends, I couldn’t watch tv (unless it was cartoons or kids’ tv), there were too many interruptions to read a book, and there was no point even in doing household chores as there would be more cleaning up to do at the end of the weekend. I felt like a prisoner in my own home. D would say to me on a Thursday “great, it’s nearly the weekend!” and I would just feel a heavy sinking feeling – I couldn’t look on weekends with the kids as “real” weekends. (I realise that all of this sounds horribly, horribly selfish, especially to anybody who has children of their own, but I was finding it extremely hard to adjust to a situation that I hadn’t (really) been prepared for.)

I found it difficult living in an adult environment for 85% of the time and then suddenly having my world (and house) turned upside down in a whirl of kids’ toys, mess and noise - and then, *just* as I was starting to get used to it and relax a little, they’d be gone again.

Just to throw an extra element into the mix, D told me fairly early on that he didn’t think he could cope with having any more children - much as he loves his kids, he didn’t find fatherhood came naturally to him, either. Now, although I hadn’t always dreamt of having children, I did always assume that at some point I would have a family – and to have that taken away was quite a shock. I was (and still am) certain that D is more important to me than having children, but feelings are not logic-driven and it’s not as straightforward as being able to say “I know he is more important to me than having children, therefore I will feel no regret or sadness about it”. I suspect that deep in the recesses of my mind this has not made my relationship with his children any easier, but I really hope that it doesn’t colour the way I am with them.

Weekend Wonderings

This week, I was told I can come off my medication, and that was the best news I'd had all year.  No more rat poison!  And news like that deserves the world's best brownies. 


These are the brownies I turn to in times of crisis, triumph, love and loss.  They are a comfort and a joy.  They remind me of why eating is good, of why sometimes, excess is the right thing to do.


They are so good.  I have won over sworn enemies with these brownies.  They are my secret.  Until now.  


Happy weekend, readers.   

Recipe (and image) from BBC Good Food, I've adapted it slightly through years of practice....


Ingredients:


185g unsalted butter
185g best dark chocolate (70%,folks)
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
100g  good-quality white chocolate (again, don't skimp)
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar


In the original  recipe, the instructions are much, much more detailed.  If you're new to brownies, follow them.  If you're an old hand, follow my steps:


Melt together butter and  best dark chocolate in a medium bowl.  Leave the melted mixture to cool to room temperature.  Try not to eat it - it will put you in a diabetic coma.


While you wait for the chocolate to cool, position a shelf in the middle of your oven and turn the oven on to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Line a shallow 20cm square tin with baking parchment. 


Sieve plain flour and cocoa powder over a medium bowl.


Chop the white chocolate into small pieces on a board.


Mix eggs and golden caster sugar together with an electric mixer on maximum speed, until the mixture looks thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is, so don't lose heart. 


Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, then gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Do this slowly so you don't knock out the air.  


Hold the sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and re-sift the cocoa and flour mixture. Gently fold in this powder. The mixture will look dry and dusty at first, and then become gungy and fudgy.  Finally, stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks until they're dotted throughout. 


Spend five minutes licking the beater.  This is a key step.


Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it. 


Bake for 25 minutes.  When the buzzer goes, open the oven, pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it's not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin. Take out of the oven.


THE HARD BIT


Leave the whole thing in the tin until completely cold.  You will not want to, but you must because otherwise it will fall apart, like mine did here. Slide out.  Cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into four squares and finally into triangles. They do (allegedly) keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks and in the freezer for up to a month, but if you can do that, we can never be friends.  

Any Other Photo {Bethan and John}

This photo makes me grin. Very very much. If you've ever wondered what a wedding  photographer chooses as their favourite wedding photo, you can rest assured, it's one of joy.  Love, support, family, friends, joy.  Lighting and composition and filtering and other photography phenomena are mentioned not once.  


Happy Friday, readers.  Go call someone in your family and tell them you love them.  


Over to Bethan:  

Photo taken by Bethan's sister, her other half at Haywood Jones Photography 

I have this picture framed and on my wall. 

The reason I love this photo so much is that to me it sums up the spirit of our wedding day. Me and my hubby, newly hitched, hitting the road for the start of a new adventure in our Morris Minor. 

Me and my fella love a good road trip, and have spend many hours/days/months tootling about the UK and beyond in a variety of old cars and vans. As I write this, we have an old VW camper on the drive just waiting for a bit of life to be breathed into it so we can head off on the next chapter.

Even after being engaged to John for 10 years before we actually got hitched, getting married felt like a whole new thing, something special and new. 

The biggest reason I think this photo sums up our day so beautifully is that all of our nearest and dearest are smiling. All our friends and family, the happy faces in the photo, waving us off, wishing us well and sending with us their love. 

You can tackle just about anything in life if you know you have love and support behind you, and I am forever grateful to have the amazing husband, family and friends that I do. 

Life would be pretty sucky without you lot.

Ask Anna and Ant: Housework

Happy Thursday, readers, and welcome to another Ask Anna and Ant, the advice column that cuts through all the bull and tells you how it really is (with a bit of nice).  When this letter dropped into my inbox, I knew Mr K would be all over it. Division of household chores is a big issue for so many couples.  I'm lucky - Mr K cleans and irons, I do the washing and the food.  I  do clean, but I need persuading.  Forceful persuasion.  I'm not a natural.  I used to be a fecking nightmare to live with.  And so, Tearing Her Hair Out, many of us will feel your pain.  

Readers, give us your thoughts:  

 6 February 2012

Dear Anna and Ant,

I have a problem which is driving me mad. Please help.

I'm engaged to the man of my dreams. We have our wedding booked for April next year. We met through work and were friends first and it developed into something more...I'm lucky because we're absolute soul mates. He really is the best. He makes me feel amazing and he loves me so much. We have a wonderful time together and we share similar values on everything. Everything except running our home...


We moved in together two years ago and I soon realised that he doesn't see the need for housework and chores to be carried out on a regular basis. I'm no clean freak but I like to have our house tidy and in order. He would far rather let dishes stack up and do them at the last minute. He will not hoover unless I ask him to. He will not voluntarily clean the bathroom or toilet. If he cooks he leaves mess on the hob and grease in the oven and pans.  He'll leave it there until he needs to cook next time.


This has got worse over the time we live together. I believe he doesn't see things that need doing but at the same time his attitude towards me over it has got worse. I have to ask him more than once. He rolls his eyes about it. I'm not a nag but this is turning me in to one!


Also when I do the housework, he doesn't thank me or even acknowledge it.


This is where I need your help. What do I do about this? He's making me feel guilty for asking him to do housework, but we're both in full-time jobs and I can't do all the chores on my own. Friends have suggested hiring a cleaner to remove the need to do it but I still worry that this won't solve the problem. What about when we have children and there are nappies to change, toys to put away, bottles to sterilise?


AAAAAH! It is driving me mad. What should I do?

Yours,

Tearing Her Hair Out, of Berkshire.

Anna AND Ant’s advice

We actually agree on this answer.  But the conversation that got us there will tell you more than a nicely scripted paragraph ever will:

Ant: That Ask Anna and Ant you sent me is really easy.

Anna: No it’s not. 

Ant: Yes it is.  She just needs to talk to him and tell him to do the cleaning.

Anna: She’s already done that.  It hasn’t worked. 

Ant: She hasn’t done it properly, then.  Either she’s asked him in a faffy way and he hasn’t understood how important it is to her, or she has been incredibly clear and he is still refusing to do it, in which case their relationship is impossible and won’t work.

Anna: I would hardly say a dispute over cleaning makes a relationship, one which is leading to marriage, impossible. 

Ant: It’s like you love Ryan Gosling, but your love is impossible. 

Anna:  It’s nothing like that!

Ant: It’s simple.  She needs to set out her parameters  and expectations - what she wants him to do, how often, and how important it is to her.  Has she told him clearly that helping out with the cleaning is really, fundamentally important to her, and that dude, I’m not your maid?  He needs to show appreciation for the housework she is doing, recognise her efforts, but also participate.  This needs to be discussed in a calm and logical way.  If after that, he is still refusing to help, it shows that he’s unwilling to compromise.  That doesn't bode well for a marriage and she should get out now.

Anna: I don’t think marriages fail on cleaning issues.  If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I’d say that some people are just really naturally bad at cleaning, and he may not realise that his laziness is inconsiderate.  I agree they haven’t communicated properly.  She needs to tell him that him not helping is making her upset, and ask him how they can resolve this.  He needs to recognise there's a problem, and that her getting upset isn't just female hysteria, there's a genuine reason behind it.  The bit that concerns me is the bit about him rolling his eyes and making her feel like a "nag".  That is not, under any circumstances, okay.  That shows a phenomenal lack of respect.

Ant:  If she’s feeling not listened-to now, and like a nag for what is a reasonable request, what’s it going to be in five, ten, fifteen years time?  If all the responsibility remains on her, there's no way they'll be able to successfully raise a family.    

Anna: A further issue is, what if it’s perfect in every way other than this?  It’s easy to advise someone to “get out now”, but she’s marrying the guy, she loves him, she said they’re soulmates, you don’t just leave someone when you’re having communication issues for feeling hard done by.  You work on them.  If he was, at his core, genuinely uncommunicative and selfish, she’d have picked up on it in other areas.  Is this issue restricted to housework, or is it symptomatic of a wider problem?


Next steps, Tearing Her Hair Out:


- talk to him, calmly and logically  Set your parameters.  What do you expect him to contribute, and why?


- he needs to recognise and appreciate your efforts around the house, and participate.


- if this isn't working, ask yourself whether he acts like this in other situations.  You deserve someone who'll listen to you and understand your worries,and who is willing to make changes in his behaviour for you. This is not unreasonable, Tearing.    


Good luck! 

Anna and Ant x     

Real Married: Redefining Wife

There's not much to say to introduce this, except stand on my office chair, punch the air and go "Hell Yes!".  Esme segues effortlessly from losing weight for her wedding to re-defining what "wife" means, and THAT is why I love her column, her brain, and why I'm so glad she's writing for us.  Take it away, Esme:   

I am a newly-wed. I’m newly-wed in every sense: my wedding was just four months ago, my ring is still shiny and obviously a different colour to my engagement ring, saying ‘husband’ gives me that ridiculous grin, I’m struggling through getting my name changed on everything, we haven’t even thought about our wedding photo-album, we’re still sporting our honeymoon tans (in that we’re as pale as we were on the last day of two weeks in the sun) and – in the spirit of being honest – we can’t keep our hands off each other.

But am I a wife yet? I love it when Tom calls me ‘wifey’ (it’s the compliment to ‘hubby’, don’t you know?), but whenever asks how I’m enjoying being a wife, something jars. I think it’s got to be the negative association, right? I mean, being a wife means cleaning, cooking, your career coming second, popping out babies and fixing your hair before your husband comes home from his big important job in the city, ‘but don’t try and explain it to me, darling, I won’t understand. Another gin and tonic?’. That’s never going to be my life because my husband believes in equality (he’s proud to call himself a feminist) and our marriage is going to be about making decisions that are the best for our family, not because society tells us to make them.

What do I call myself, then? I’m married and I’m Mrs W (although I don’t think I’m ever going to like receiving post addressed to Mr and Mrs Tom Wilks. Er, hello? I took his surname, not his first name!), and I’m more than happy to be called a newly-wed.

So, does this mean that I’m not ready to be a wife? You could argue that’s the case, but I would say that it’s no bad thing that I haven’t got everything perfect in our marriage – we’re still learning, still growing closer and becoming better partners to each other. One thing’s for sure – I don’t want to be a wife until that word means being one half of a mutually supportive couple, doing the same things I did before I came a Mrs but with the knowledge that I have someone right next to me on every stage of the journey pushing to be the best person I can be.

Let’s redefine the word wife. We can proudly declare that we’re happily married, in a world where you ‘ball and chain’ and ‘trouble and strife’ are considered appropriate synonyms for wife.

On becoming a mother {2 months in}

Being a parent is all consuming. People tell you it's going to be, but you never quite believe it. Maybe you  believe it, but you can't actually comprehend it. Nothing I say now will prepare you for it, because until you're living it, you will never be able to understand the sheer joy, and yet utter terror that parenthood brings with it.

I'd mentally prepared myself for the dirty nappies, and the screaming (of which there are far less of both than I'd expected. Bonus). I'd not prepared myself for how I would love Emmi way beyond what I knew I could feel. How I would never not be thinking about her. And how I live in a constant state of anxiety, tinged with guilt.

There are so many decisions to make as a parent. So many wrong turnings to take. Every choice you make feels like a defining moment, one that will affect the rest of your child's life.The pressure, readers, the pressure. And the internet is no help whatsoever. In fact, it is the exact opposite of help. Motherhood on the internet seems to have no grey areas. It is black or white. You either give formula to your baby, or think it is the juice of satan. You either let your baby cry themselves to sleep to develop independence, or you pride yourself on never leaving your baby alone for a second, and co-sleeping until they're 3. Half of the mothers you meet will tell you that their baby is so much happier for being on a routine, and the other half see 'routine' as a dirty word and think it's a form of child abuse to wake a sleeping baby. It's a minefield I tell you. 

It's such an emotive subject, and people feel the need to defend their choices so vehemently that it becomes polarised. You must choose a side and stick with it. The need to defend their choice leads people to aggressively denounce all other options as harmful for your baby, and likely to cause them to grow up obese, stupid, and socially inept. This is not something you want hanging over your head. 

So for the first two months of her life, I tied myself up in knots worrying that I was doing the wrong thing. That my choices were somehow going to damage her. I looked to the internet for advice, but each new bit of information contradicted the last. I would make a decision to try one way, and then I'd end up reading something that would tell me it was harming my baby, and I'd veer to the other side. And worse, I then convinced myself that by not just sticking with one thing, I was making a mess of things. And in a way I was. I was making a mess of me. I was stressed, upset, and felt like I was failing. Every day I'd try something new, and I felt like I was on a downward spiral, not knowing how to look after my baby who was doing so damned well, despite my failings.


And then, when I felt at my lowest, I turned a corner. I stopped looking at the internet. I put my books away. and I just did what came naturally to me. I did what works for me and Emmi, not what the books said I should do. I've found that somewhere down the middle of the line works for us. We have a rough routine, but if it doesn't work out, we don't get stressed. I let her cry for five minutes sometimes, when I know she doesn't need anything, and yet I let her fall asleep on my chest sometimes because I know she won't do that for much longer. It works for us.


Being a mum is bloody hard work, and it doesn't all come naturally, but sometimes you just have to trust in yourself and your baby. You'll probably work it out. And she's not obese or stupid yet, so I'm pretty sure I'm doing ok. 

I tell you, it's lucky she is so damned cute, or I'd not have made it through. 

*Beautiful photo, as always, by Chloe Lodge (boy does it pay being good friends with a talented photographer...)*

The Books That Made Me Me - Katielase

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this intro.  Readers, you know Katielase.  She comments often, and has all sorts of perceptive things to say.  She also likes books.  Rather a lot.  These are the books that made her who she is.  You can tell a lot about a person by what they read, and this list is Katielase all over; it's a brilliant read; insightful, funny, poignant.  You can buy everything she recommends in the AOW Book Store.  

Over to you, Ms Even-More-Of-A-Bookworm-Than-Us:   

Since I was old enough to understand stories I have loved stories. There is audio evidence of me quoting a Thomas the Tank Engine book from memory at the age of 2, complete with unsuccessful attempt to say the words viaduct and surprised. Since I was old enough to read I have been unstoppable. Voracious. Insatiable. I cannot recall a single day in my life that I didn't read a book, even if it was just one page before falling into bed. Books have been with me through everything I have achieved in my life, everything I have failed at, every challenge I have faced and every joy I have experienced. Every fear, every sorrow, every loss. Every hope and every dream I have ever had was hoped and dreamt and lived to a backdrop of stories.

So the books that made me me? In a way it is all of them. Every single book I have ever read. I love them all, even the rubbish ones. All the stories, the characters, the poetry, the escapism, the laughs, the tears. They are my closest friends, my never-failing support network, the loves of my life*. To work out which books made me, me, I have to identify what I think I am, and what books have meant to that person. I'm not sure I know who or what I am, but I know that to me books mean comfort, escape, love, adventure, dreams, philosophy and thought. These are the books that somehow changed or influenced me. 

Shopper from The Literary Gift Company

The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. All children should be able to climb trees believing that there might be new exciting worlds at the top, and hot buttered crumpets when they get down. I think it's in the human rights agreement somewhere. Simply magical, and definitely instrumental in my lifelong love of both reading and crumpets. 

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis. A book that for me defines escapism, escaping a world of fear and war, for a world of adventure and magic, friendship, and love, and hope. Where you fight for what you believe in and find you are stronger and braver than you thought you were. This was the first time I realised that books could be powerfully emotional and testing. I will recollect my entire life my feelings on reading Aslan's sacrifice. It was dark and violent and the crowing delighted rejoicing of evil in the pain and lowering of another made me feel physically sick. It still does actually**. I'm not sure I even cried, but I felt things I had never felt before. My heart cracked.

A Horse Called Wonder, by Joanna Campbell, not a life-changing book for most, but the first book I ever sat down and read, cover to cover, without looking up once (that wasn't a picture book, obvs). The first time I learnt how you can read a story almost like a film inside your head, and live the triumphs and disasters of the characters as they become your closest friends for an hour, or five, or ten. The first time I experienced the kind of absorption into a fictional world where you lose all track of time or reality, where you look up and suddenly realise you've been reading for 4 hours straight, someone has been calling your name for the past 5 minutes and you're absolutely desperate for the loo, and you don't care about any of that because you're two chapters from the end and you just cannot stop now. 

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. When you are young you don't know much about injustice, maybe you have a sense of things being wrong in the world but sometimes it takes a story to show you how wrong the world can be. This book showed me that outside of the make-believe worlds of dragons and lions and witches, there was horror and injustice and prejudice in the real world, and that if you see it you have to fight it. 

A Winter Solstice, by Rosamunde Pilcher. My comfort book. Not literary or profound but I read this when life is difficult, when I feel like going forward is too hard, when I am plagued by doubts and fears and assailed by panic, I read this book, because while it is not deeply poetic or thought-provoking, or challenging, it reminds me that life can be wonderful, even whilst it is being really painful and awful. It makes me feel joy, not ecstatic or transient but deep and comfortable joy, the kind you get when you know you are home. 

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Does this need explanation? I don't think I could ever get tired of reading P&P, there is unending comfort in the pattern, the play of it all, the involvement in the story and the way that every time it happens I am still awash with delight at the end. It was the first 'grown up' book I ever read, and against a backdrop of Sweet Valley High, it stood out a mile, I stopped wanting to be blonde and perfect and started wanting to be smart and funny. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. If you read this book as a teenager, or indeed ever, and you don't fall hopelessly in love with Mr Rochester then you have some explaining to do. Seriously. The romance of it, people. It makes my heart beat faster. This book taught me a lot about what love is, or can be (I picked up the rest from Disney's Beauty and the Beast... love is giving someone a library, no?) 

The Shack, by William P Young. I only read this book only last year and I think everyone, regardless of their religious or non-relgious beliefs should read it. It brought home to me what my confused agnostic tendencies were saying, which was if there is a God, they would not care about religious doctrine, they would care about love and hope and friendship and joy, they would cry with us when we are in pain, and they would hurt deep inside when we hurt one another. It's also just a miraculously moving story of a man recovering from the most appalling trauma, it is a story of human courage and human belief. 

A Grief Observed, by CS Lewis. I love CS Lewis, he's already featured on this list twice and arguably I could also have included here The Problem of Pain and Surprised by Joy, but I sense that I am already going to have written the longest BTMMM post in history so I won't. I read A Grief Observed after my Gramary died, and for that reason it was the most influential. Along with many of his works it deals with the challenge of believing in something essentially good when everything around you seems painful and tragic, when you've lost someone you love and you want to rage at the world for taking them from you. Above all it showed me that faith isn't necessarily the easy option, that belief isn't, and shouldn't ever be, passive.  

Horrible Science: Blood, Bones and Body Bits, by Nick Arnold. I wanted to include at least one book that inspired the other love of my life, science. It's kind of hard to pinpoint, but I remember being utterly fascinated with the human body and how things works, and this book was certainly one of the first things to give me that. The whole series is just brilliant. 

The Sunne in Splendor, by Sharon Penman. This is the first book G ever leant me, back when we were only online friends, he recommended it and since I was a poor and impoverished student he went one step further and very kindly posted me his copy. It was nothing but friendship then, but it lead to more chatting, more discussion, a lot more book lending, getting to know one another and, ultimately, falling in love. It is also an excellent book and got me into good historical fiction (about the only way I can learn history is if it's woven around a story). 

Lost in a Good Book, by Jasper Fforde. Book lovers, if you haven't read the Thursday Next series, do so now. Right now. This isn't the first one (you want The Eyre Affair, go on... get it now, come back and finish this when you're done... are you back? Okay...), this is the first one where Thursday really enters the Book World and it's just brilliant. A hilarious satirical homage on one hand, but on the other just an ode to the utter joy of books. This book represents everything I love about fiction. I just adore the idea behind it, largely because I hope it's all real and one day I can actually go into the Book World (and um.. marry Mr Darcy...) 

Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks. I have to admit, I didn't love Birdsong, and Charlotte Grey just pissed me off. This though, is fantastic. For me it is the best thing Faulks has ever written. It explores the boundaries of madness and humanity, it makes you wonder, makes you think and it makes you ask uncomfortable questions of yourself and the human race. It really changed my perspective on a lot of things, on mental illness, treatment and what makes us human. 

Glittering Images, by Susan Howatch. I read this when I was in my teens, quite young really for what is definitely an adult book.  It  is about how we as adults deal with our flaws, how we hide them behind a public facade, and how they can destroy us and those around us if we don't face and acknowledge them. It is hard to say how much any one book changes your life when you read as much as I have always done, but I spent my teenage years facing up to my own problems with panic and anxiety and this book was instrumental in helping me feel that it was a process I could get through, because it shows that everyone is flawed and that it is brave to confront those flaws in yourself. It won't be easy and you will need support but you will be the better for doing it, and I was, and I am. 

So there you go. I'm probably going to think of another 10 books I should have included the minute I send this, but I think, for now, it will do. I will end on this thought, from The Well of Lost Plots, another Jasper Fforde book, which sums up why I think reading is so magical, because every story is different to each person that reads it. 

"Reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colours of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more" 

*Um, sorry about that G. You're second, if it helps. 

**When the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film came out, I sat down on the floor, behind the seat in front, pulled a woolly hat right down over my face and ears, pressed my fingers tightly in my ears and closed my eyes until my Mum told me it was over (I was 18 years old at the time, I'm fairly sure other cinema-goers thought I was on day release).