Mother's Day

Mothering Sunday, to give it its proper title, marks the halfway point of Lent. The halfway point of the slog through the days of denial, of sacrifice, of fasting. The day where the end draws into sight, the joys of Easter just over the hill. The day when you should visit your home parish, your mother church, and historically, for many young men and women away in domestic or farming service, your mother.
Of course, fewer people observe Lent each year and the original point of Mothering Sunday is lost in a sea of greetings cards, floral bumf, and internet offers. Just this week, the internet has suggested I should buy my mum flowers, clothes, wine, gig tickets, and cookies.
I would buy her a book. A book of social history, or food, or better still, a mix of both. A book she wouldn't have seen in her semi-regular trips to the shop, or advertised in Sainsbury's magazine. I would buy her a book I know she would love, the sort that she would take to bed, packet of crisps in one hand, book in the other. I would buy her something like the history of the playground I saw in Jarrolds on her birthday, that made my heart hurt with longing that I would never get to give it to her.
I would buy her a card and I would write how grateful I am, and how much I love her, and hope somehow that words would be enough. I would take it round, and all her cards from all her seven children would be lined up in a row on the windowsill, and she'd be nagging my dad to go and see his mother before it got any later, and tea would be prepared, and she would be content.
That is what I would do if I still had a mother.

But I don't. And I don't like today. Today hurts.

When your mother dies, you don't merely grieve for the person. The wonderful, hilarious, intelligent woman I grew up with, who was my guardian, my educator, sculptor of my life and my personality, my friend. How I grieve for her. Her phone number in my 'last called' contacts falls further and further down the list and will never come back up. Her things are still where she left them at home, but they don't move a few inches to the left or right, the way things do when they are in use. I still expect to see her when I go in my dad's garden. I call it my dad's now - it was always "mum's house". Although we have inherited the look of her, her voice and her image are now only in recordings. The smell of her lingers in her clothes, but it will never be replenished.

In a million tiny pinpricks and sledgehammers of pain, I grieve for Jo, a woman who happened to be my mum, who was hundreds of things to hundreds of people.

But I grieve for the loss of my mother, for the loss of a mother's love, for the loss of a mother's guidance. For the loss of the person who was there first, who recognised my presence before I had a brain, who felt my first fledgling movements, and who knew me best. For the loss of the stability and foundation you only have through good parenting, through good grounding. Many people are not lucky enough to experience this type of attachment, but I did. We did.

I feel at sea: lost and abandoned and young and frightened. The fear on a child's face when they lose their mother in a shop momentarily, only magnified. When I was little, I was plagued by nightmares, and I would pad up to my parents' room and try and wake my mum up to tell her. She would rarely manage to wake up - poor woman was shattered - so I would sit by her head, and snuggle in to her until I felt safe enough to go silently back to bed. And that is what I long to do, to go and snuggle up to her for a bit until I feel safe enough to go back into the world.

Five months tomorrow. I feel like it has been five years and five minutes. But what really bothers me is that this is for always. That she won't come back. I can't have her back. Maybe if I wait a really long time, and be a really good girl, maybe we will be back together. Maybe.

When Mum was dying, she said she didn't mind dying herself, but she minded terribly about how it would affect us. She knew what it would do to us. I didn't mind Mum dying too much in the end. It felt very natural for her to die. It felt very unnatural to try and prolong her life. There comes a point when it doesn't feel wrong anymore, much as when you are pregnant, there comes a point where you really want it to all be over. So many parallels between entering and leaving the world.

But this grief, this all consuming and powerful grief: that's something to mind. That's something to tear you apart. Particularly on Mother's Day.

My Chemical Menopause

I was diagnosed with endometriosis last August, after an ultrasound scan showed that my ovary and bowel were sticking together within. That's an...unpleasant mental image, but bear with me, it gets worse. I had a diagnostic laparoscopy in November to confirm the diagnosis, and my surgeon found various patches of endometriosis around my left ovary. He BURNED THEM OFF. After two uncomfortable weeks of healing, I ovulated on the right, and all was well. The following month, I ovulated on my left side and it quickly became apparent that if anything, the surgery had made it worse. And I did DESPAIR.
I returned to see my gynae a couple of weeks after that and explained that it seemed not to have worked. I have wanted my ovaries removed since my mum died. The combination of her Unusual Pathology Ovarian Cancer and my endometriosis rendering ovulation unbearable seemed to suggest that just being shot of them would be helpful. A preventative measure, if you will. But my gynae was unconvinced that the pain I've been having was caused by endometriosis.

Let me tell you of endometriosis. A uterus is lined with endometrium. This is what nourishes an embryo until the placenta develops, so it builds up every month and should no embryo appear, out it comes as a period. Yes ladies, that is your body complaining vigorously that it BUILT THIS NURSERY AND NOW THERE'S NO DAMN BABY. With endometriosis, the endometrium has gone walkabout. It's still lining the uterus, but it also pops up in strange places. It can go anywhere, even your lungs, although generally around your pelvis, and it comes back even when it's been cut or burned away. As it swells each month and then bleeds, it can get in the way of fertility, cause immense pain and bizarre periods. It's like a harmless cancer that nobody quite fathoms. Until you get it, and every ovulation has you screaming in agony, vomiting and crapping yourself for a week. I told you it gets worse. I would rather have ten massive babies than ovulate.

And so, my gynae had a plan. A plan to prove whether my pain was caused by endometriosis or...gulp...birth injury. To my bowel. Eeeesh. And to prove this, he would give me the gift of menopause.
I was...a bit surprised. A bit terrified. A lot terrified, actually. You see, to give a woman of 31 the menopause requires injections. Four-weekly, implanted and irreversible injections. No deciding eight days in to say fuck it, this is shit, and stop.  The injections are a drug called goserelin, more commonly known as Zoladex, which is usually used to help treat prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. Zoladex flattens your oestrogen and testosterone production by overstimulating production, so your brain thinks it doesn't need to make those hormones anymore. Your ovaries stop. You are menopausal. Woop.
Now, the nice thing about Zoladex is that it does wear off, so I wasn't facing menopause forever, just for six months to see if it fixed my abdo pain. And if it did, then hurrah. If not, on to more clinics and tests. So, I decided to give it a go.

This is my diary of The First Month of Going Through The Menopause Really Really Quickly, Long Before Biology Dictated I Should: 

Two Weeks Before
I don't know why I'm so scared. I'm getting exactly what I wanted - no ovarian use and HRT - but in a nice reversible way, so if it doesn't work, I've still got my innards and haven't had to have more surgery. But...the menopause. That's a scary thing, right? I'm going to turn into a flame-breathing, sexless dragon. My boobs will shrink and I'll get fat(ter) and I'll break all my bones. I'm not bothered about hot flushes, because it's FUCKING FREEZING, so it'll be nice to be warm. But I am worried about being a flame-breathing sexless dragon. I have already told the children I might be a bit cross for a few months. And poor Alex has no idea his booby is about to vanish - another side effect of being an old woman, biologically speaking. Also, I am slightly irritated to learn that I could still get pregnant despite having dead ovaries. I suppose having no sex drive ever again will be an adequate contraception *wails into wine bucket*

A Week Before
I wish I could talk to Mum about this. Mum would have loathed the very idea of it. She would have shrieked about how she'd suffered all her life, and hormones could give you cancer (the irony!), and you shouldn't mess around with these things. That was Mum's philosophy on reproduction - let it sort itself out. Part of the reason her cancer wasn't diagnosed for so long was because she ignored her ovarian symptoms as 'normal'. That's part of the reason I want to try this out. I don't want to ignore the symptoms of (potential) cancer. I don't want to live half the rest of my fertile life in pain, and the other half waiting for pain. It's just not right.

Still A Week Before
I saw a lovely GP today, who told me that I only really have to use Zoladex for a few months and if it doesn't help the pain, I can stop. That's a relief. She prescribed everything for me, including tasty HRT and now it's just a matter of waiting for the appointment. I am nervous. I have booked it to go in on Valentine's Day because nothing says I love you like being neutered.

The Day Before
Last night, I dreamt my mum told me that getting Zoladex would tear my life apart and I was being a twat getting it. So, thanks, subconscious ghost of Mum. I'm so anxious. But resigned. I'm dreading speed-weaning Alex, but he's infinitely less bothered about breastfeeding than his brothers were. I will miss feeding him. I've been pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to get pregnant for eight and a half years, and I will miss that part of my identity. I knew this day would come, of course, but not as a side effect of medication.

The Day Itself
I had it put in this morning. It's not a bothersome procedure. I was anticipating an ENORMOUS needle, but it's really not - just a scratch, then a slight pressure. It's in my stomach, just under my navel in my nice soft STRETCHMARKS. The implant is the size of a grain of rice, and it dissolves over time, so no need for painful removal. The nurse assured me I wouldn't start feeling anything for a while. She was wrong. Two and a half hours later, and the pain I associate most with the endometriosis set in, gnawing and clawing down my back and hip. It's now been four hours and I feel hot, dry-mouthed, sickly and like I'm about to have a massive period. Lord knows what tomorrow will bring.

Two Days On
Still got awful pain. It better bloody piss off soon. Otherwise, I've settled down a bit - hot flushes and headaches seem to alternate, but don't last long. I've still got the driest of mouths. I have no libido. Not even a little bit. I was expecting HAEMORRHAGIC FLOODING but I haven't bled either. I feel rather calm, really. I thought I would be furious. My breastmilk is more or less gone, much to Alex's sobbing distress last night, but he slept great last night regardless. Actually, so did I. I haven't slept well since I was pregnant with him, over two years ago now, and the last two nights I have slept like the Actual Dead. Who knew sleep could be influenced by oestrogen?

One Week Later
I have survived the first week. It's not helped my pain. I mean, the cyclical element has gone - my period would normally be due around now and I've had nothing related to that, but the general post-coital and random bursts of crippling pain are still there. I've had no bleeding at all, which I wasn't expecting. I haven't started HRT yet, because I'm a bit scared of the potential side effects, but I think I will soon. See, I feel alright, but I also feel entirely dead inside, and I feel like this is a bit...much to be honest. Chemical castration is all very well until it makes you feel like you're in a weird emotional void. And my skin is FUCKING AWFUL, so there's that. Hot flushes are intermittent and a bit like the build up to a fainting fit, which is EXCITING. I've had a lot of headaches though. I've decided to have two months of treatment total and, if there's no effect on the pain after that, then fuck it.

Eleven Days In
I started HRT yesterday in an effort to beat the migrainous headaches. It worked. It has also made me bleed. I grow weary of side effects. I know it's to be expected when you fuck with your reproductive system (as, my mother shakes her head from heaven) but I can't drink alcohol because I'll lose bone density, I still have to use contraception, and I'm still experiencing the same pain I went on the medication to try and fix. So. Yeah. And I'm spottier than I have ever been in my LIFE. I look LEPROUS.

Twenty Four Days Later
Right, so, the verdict after (almost) month one?
Obviously, it took a while to settle in. I started HRT, promptly BLED LIKE CARRIE AT PROM, and then felt awful because of the sudden anaemia. And then...normality. I feel...normal. I feel fucking GREAT. No pain, no nausea, no diarrhoea, no problems after eating dairy, no spots, no hot flushes. My mood is fine, I no longer feel dead inside. I feel a bit more aggressive, and I get cross occasionally, but I always HAVE been FURIOUS, so that's fine. The only real issue is headaches, but they're not too bad or too often. Also, dry skin, but that's nothing I can't manage. I cannot tell you the difference no pain has had on my life. I actually get stuff done. I don't spend four hours trying to wake up because I have such severe abdo and back pain. I haven't shit myself in weeks. I am going to continue treatment and hopefully it will continue to be alright. I still have minor symptoms. It still hurts after sex, but not in the prolonged and disabling way it did. This means I may have some birth injury as well as endometriosis. But taking my cycle away has been amazing thus far.

Of course, I can't stay on zoladex forever. Even in cancer patients, it's not licensed for long term use. I can stay on it for six months, which chimes in nicely with my next gynae appointment. HRT also has risks, namely of breast cancer and uterine cancer - the one I'm on is more typically used for women who have already had a hysterectomy. It would be ironic indeed if the medication I'm taking to stop my ovaries wrecking my life killed me with uterine cancer.
If it continues to work, the logical next step is an oopherectomy - having my ovaries out - which is usually done with a hysterectomy. And that scares the crap out of me, however little I want my reproductive organs. But that's a bridge to cross when I come to it.

It is Endometriosis Awareness Week. 10% of British women have endometriosis, and many of them will be fobbed off by their GP, told it's just 'women's problems', told that since they're not permanently anaemic, it's not a problem. Many of them will suffer unexplained infertility, and if they're among the group of women who have severe endometriosis with little pain, may not consider their own uterine tissue is choking their fallopian tubes. Some won't realise that their digestive and urinary issues might be caused by their uterus, particularly if they haven't had kids yet. My own GP only referred me to gynae because I insisted on it, otherwise I would still be struggling with two weeks of severe pain out of every four. It takes seven years, on average, to get diagnosed. I was incredibly lucky to be diagnosed within six months of first going to the GP, although I have been living with steadily worsening periods and pain since I was 15. I thought it was just normal. It's not, and you don't have to put up with it.

Rape and Sweden

Oh Farage, leading trumpet of disinformation, has told the nation via LBC that Sweden has the highest rate of rape cases in Europe. He's said this because President Idiot told the world that Sweden had suffered a terrorist atrocity...and it hadn't. There hasn't been a terrorist attack in Sweden since 2010, unless you count the attack on school children by young, white, male Nazi in 2015. But OBVIOUSLY, that doesn't count. THAT was the work of a lone gunman...

Sweden takes in a staggering amount of refugees, because Sweden's social model is based on fairness and generosity. And, Nazi terrorist attacks and other hate crimes aside, it works out fairly well. And that RANKLES. You see, it suits the right to have a common enemy and that common enemy at the moment is refugees. From David Cameron calling them 'swarms', to Teresa May stopping unaccompanied children coming here, to Donald Trump closing his borders to some Islamic countries apparently chosen by sticking a pin in a map of Africa and the Middle East. The rise of the right across Europe is a chilling reminder that all this has happened before, and can easily happen again. But that's not why I'm RANTING AWAY TODAY.

So, Sweden hasn't had a terrorist attack. Trump looks like even more of an addled idiot. How then to make Sweden look bad? Especially as it's one of the few genuinely left-wing countries in the world? I can picture the scene, Farage on the Trump Hotline promising he will sort it out on his widely watched TV show, shown every night on the single British channel. And that very night, on LBC with its listenership of 1.7% of the market share, Farage hold forth. THEY'RE ALL RAPISTS. THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

Now, in a sane world, Farage would be ignored and us lefties would have less ulcers. But for some reason, the media hangs on to his every word, waiting to either praise him or deride him. Like a little Enoch Powell, but without the Parlimentary seat or gravitas, his words have been repeated all over Twitter, to the disgust of Sweden. He cites this graph as proof:

So, it tells us that Sweden has a very high rape record rate, or at least it did in 2012. Remember that date, it becomes important in a minute. Now, the important question is "what does Sweden count as rape?"
The definition of rape is never simple - in UK law, for example, it has to be penetration with a penis or it's *just* sexual assault. They have just about got around to agreeing that unconscious people cannot consent. In contrast, this is the Swedish definition:

A person who by assault or other violence or by threat of a criminal act forces another person to have sexual intercourse or to undertake or endure another sexual act that, in view of the seriousness of the violation, is comparable to sexual intercourse [...] This also applies if a person engages with another person in sexual intercourse or in a sexual act which under the first paragraph is comparable to sexual intercourse by improperly exploiting that the person, due to unconsciousness, sleep, serious fear, intoxication or other drug influence, illness, physical injury or mental disturbance, or otherwise in view of the circumstances, is in a particularly vulnerable situation

This is a far broader definition than most countries. In Jamaica, where the second most rapes are reported, rape law broadly corresponds to the British tradition, but they don't recognise male-on-male rape because all sodomy is illegal. So, how come Sweden has such a high rape rate?
In Britain, between 5% and 25% of all rapes are actually reported. The rest are concealed, out of fear, out of shame, out of conviction that you will not be believed. Unless you are raped at knifepoint by a stranger on CCTV, there will always be an element of his word against yours, and your past sexual activity will be used against you. It is not easy to report a rape, whether you are male or female. It is not easy to be examined immediately after such a physical trauma. It is not easy to give a statement, to go to court, to defend your honour as well as your word, when you have done nothing wrong. About 85000 women are raped each year in Britain, and about 12000 men, out of a population of 64 million. The majority are not reported. Of those that are, the conviction rate is around 5.7%. About 2500 men were convicted of rape in 2014 in Britain.
Let us compare to Sweden. About 6700 rapes (in a population of 9.5 million) were reported in 2014, with around 190 convictions. But it's not the broad definition that makes Sweden appear more rapey - it's the culture. The culture of equality, the culture of believing victims and the culture of victims believing they will be helped. This is what is lacking in British policing culture - for all the claims that the raped will be believed, the trial of Ched Evans, to name just one, has demonstrated quite the fucking opposite.


But this isn't really about the rape statistics at all, let's be honest. It is the barefaced bloody cheek of Nigel Farage and Donald "pussy grabber" Trump pretending they give one solitary fuck about raped men and women. That graph is from 2012, before Syrian refugees had begun to come to Europe in anything like the number they do now. If Sweden has a rape 'problem', it long predates the refugee crisis. Rape is a serious crime, that tears the heart of its victims for years. It's a crime of power, used by men to subjugate and humiliate, to make sure their victims know that all they are for is sexual gratification. It's a crime committed by all races, by all faiths. It is not a refugee problem now any more than it was a Jewish problem in the 1930s. The threat of rape by invading forces as propaganda is hardly a new one:

           

Polish propaganda warning about the Russian army, and Italian propaganda warning about the French. Notice how the soldiers are both black, despite coming from predominantly white countries? The first one warns you to defend your women and girls, the second about your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter. Coz fuck knows, men don't care about rape unless it's happening to someone they love. 

Rape has long been weaponised. It has long been used as an incentive to fight. But we are not at war, whatever Farage and Trump think. At least, not yet.

Peppa Pig: A Dystopian Horror

It is Monday morning, and Daddy Pig has gone to visit Dr Brown Bear for his check up.
"Ah!" says Dr Brown Bear "Daddy Pig! How have you been?"
"Well" replies the overweight, voluble swine "I keep having headaches Dr Brown Bear and strange flashes"
"Flashes? What kind of flashes?"
"Oh ha ha ha ha" says Daddy Pig "Flashes where I think I'm not a pig" Ha ha ha ha"
Dr Brown Bear opens a drawer. He takes the pre-prepared syringe. He turns, slaps Daddy Pig on the shoulder and slips the needle into his porky shoulder. "Sounds like you're working too hard"
Daddy Pig's eyes go blank, his mirthful face empty for a moment. "Yes. Too hard. Goodbye" He walks out, mechanically.

Madame Gazelle also visit Dr Brown Bear. Her purpose is somewhat different. She is hoarse, angry, agitated.
"Madame Gazelle! What ever is the matter?"
"The children, Dr Brown Bear, their incessant chattering! The Bing Bong Song! I smell their blood pulsing through them and I yearn for a taste. One taste, Dr Brown Bear, one taste. Freddy Fox, he would never know, he wouldn't know".
Dr Brown Bear nods. They have been here before. He goes to the fridge and passes her a bag of blood. She drinks it in one gulp. The shakes subside, her voice becomes normal.
"Thank you, Dr Brown Bear"
He smiles and waves her out. She will be back in a month.

Miss Rabbit remembers. She doesn't tell the others, but she remembers. She was a career woman, the opposite of her sister, the fecund Mrs Rabbit. She could do anything and she did and that memory is what drives her through this charade. She was a person once. Her name was Rosa. She was going to marry Bert...Mr Bull...but they changed. They went to sleep people and they woke up animals.

Dr Hamster has been known to help Dr Brown Bear with keeping the others subdued in this bizarre experiment. She was a vet before and she's a vet now, and nobody notices the paradox of a pig owning a fish, a bird. She is paid well for her compliance, by whoever They are. She never sees them. She knows they are there, watching, thousands of them glued to their screens seeing what happens when different species share a common language and habitat. The experiment only really succeeds because of her, and Dr Brown Bear and sometimes the guilt drives her mad. And when it does, she goes to the mountain beauty spot, and she stares out and makes her peace. It is better in here than out there. It is safe.

Another Epic Sandwich

When you have small children, you go one of two ways. The way of virtue - batch cooking everything organically and lovingly from scratch, pulling it from the freezer at the drop of a hat, remembering the use of a slow cooker, always being prepared. Alternatively, there is the the way of fuck this shit - cooking the same six meals on rotation all month because fuck this shit. This is slightly complicated when you have an autistic child who will literally vomit if you try and make them eat something new that they distrust. So we eat pie, and we eat pasta with sauce, and we eat a roast and then a curry made of leftovers, and we eat pulled pork, and we eat egg and chips, and we eat pizza and mini-kievs. And there's nothing WRONG with any of this, but my god it gets DULL.

So here is my treat tea, which I make only for me, and only rarely coz it's FAT, but it breaks up the monotony and the kids have had their egg and chips, and Tom is cooking pasta and I am replete.It's a sandwich type meal, because there's nothing better for a one-person feast. It's just a sandwich! Who can begrudge a sandwich?

Soph's Delicious Fucking Sandwich

You will need:
Two fresh eggs. You can tell how fresh an egg is by reading the use by date and subtracting 21 days. This will give you the day it was packaged. Much easier than fucking about with glasses of water.
Two bread rolls. Not ciabatta, something a bit more sturdy. A standard burger bun will do.
Some smoked salmon. Cheap offcuts are fine.
Salad.
Hollandaise sauce. Don't make it yourself, but do buy Maille brand because it tastes nice.
Ketchup, if you're a pleb. I am a pleb.

Slice your buns in half. Layer some salad and salmon on the lower half of each.

Now, poach your eggs. I have never had the slightest bit of difficulty poaching eggs, but some people treat it like it's neurosurgery. Make sure your eggs are reasonably fresh. Break them into water that's fucking hot but not quite boiling. Don't touch or stir them. Don't let the water boil. They will set into a little cloud. Skim off the white crap that comes sprouting up - I have a skimmer that I use solely for this, although I'm sure it has some mysterious purpose in stock making. You can use a spoon if you lack a skimmer. Poached eggs don't take long, but will sit for ages in warmish water. I can't tell you when your eggs will be sufficiently poached - for that you must use your eyes. If this is really too difficult, separate your eggs and poach the yolk only. It's much easier to see when the yolk is set. If EVEN THIS is too much, fry the fucking things.

Drain your poached eggs on kitchen paper. This stops everything getting soggy because poached eggs are a bugger for hiding water in their fat, white folds.

Heat your hollandaise. You want a fat spoonful per bun. Maybe two. Don't let it boil, it just wants warming up.

Put a drained egg on each salad-and-salmon bun. Put the warmed hollandaise on top of the egg. Put the top of the bun on top of all this.

Serve with some salad on the side, because the yolk bursts and goes everywhere and you don't want to waste it. And some ketchup, if you're plebby. Eat it. Revel in it. You will need to wash your face and hands afterwards, so you probably don't want an audience.
***

I would show you a picture, but I ate it too quick.

Moisturiser

Content Warning: Death. Medical details. Cancer. Woe.


Your guts live inside a sort of bag in your abdomen. This bag is called the omentum, and the idea is to keep everything snug and safe, and together. If anything should rupture within your abdomen, through cancer, or infection, or ulceration, this bag has to be opened up, emptied and cleaned if you are to have any chance of survival. When Mum's bowel burst, that's what they did to save her. As you can imagine, sometimes you miss a bit, and this also happened to Mum. This tiny missed bit grew into an abscess right on her liver. The cancer had so convoluted Mum's insides that attempting to operate again would have been enormously complicated and probably hastened her end, thus being a massive waste of money and quality of life. So, instead, they decided to stick a drain in it.
They stuck it in one lunchtime. You cannot imagine the smell, the miasma it created. Just the tiniest drop of pus would stink out a whole sheet. It really upset Mum. She was a very clean person, obsessed with food hygiene and the fact that molecules that could be smelled could be inhaled. The intention was to remove the tube, but this was impossible because first the infection kept filling back up, and second it was in a tumour. So, the tube stayed in and she had a 600ml capacity bag strapped to her leg. When it first went on, it fit perfectly. By the time she died, it flapped around and didn't fit to her leg at all. It was a very visual reminder of how much weight she had lost and how quickly.
She was terribly distressed about the smell, and the next morning, I was wracking my brains about what I could do for her to make her feel less violated. I found some travel Molton Brown bath gels and I took them into hospital, and bought some flannels. She couldn't have a bath or a shower with the drain in, so she chose the one she liked best and I put it on a flannel for her to smell instead of the drain. She liked White Sandalwood the best.
I had a travel sized pot of the white sandalwood moisturiser at home, so I took it round once she was home, and I spent a long time putting it on her. I'm not sure whether it was because she was chronically dehydrated, or the liver failure, or the immobility, but her skin cracked really badly and she hated it. The moisturiser helped a little bit. I ended up buying her a massive canister of the stuff as a reward for being so brave. As an early Christmas present. As an attempt to make her smile.

And so I spent the rest of her life gently stroking her with moisturiser, trying to restore some life to her dying skin, trying to keep in contact with her because I was afraid. I recall me, Jess and Sooz ALL moisturising her at once on occasion. She loved to be touched. She had trained as a massage and aromatherapist when I was young, and she had such an art when she gave you a massage. Jess has the same gift, but I do not. But I tried. And I'm not usually very physical, but I wanted to do something.
But as time went on, her skin became unbearably fragile and painful. I hurt her by accident so many times, because I got the pressure wrong. She would snap sometimes; she wanted us with her but she wanted to be alone. She sat in the garden, covered in fleeces, reading magazines, chainsmoking, and we would sit by her and try to read too, but not really taking in the words. I would try to stroke away the sloughing of her skin, the chafing of her frustration - only very occasionally expressed - and try to make her feel normal again.
After a while, she lost the feeling in her skin. We could touch her properly again, although I don't know if she could feel it. Dad could move her more easily. Whenever I was with her, when she couldn't have a conversation, which was most of the time, I reflexively reached for the moisturiser. I brushed her hair. I did the same things I do for my babies when they are poorly. I tried to show her how much I love her.

And now I will never ever be able to smell white sandalwood moisturiser again without smelling the bag of toxicity hanging from my mother's leg. Without smelling the hint of cigarette smoke that surrounded her right up to 48hrs before she died. Without feeling the cracked skin under my hands, desperately trying to rehydrate her by willpower alone. Without recalling the desperate urge to somehow stave off her death.

Which is a shame, because it was my favourite too.

Me? Doing a Masters?

I think it's a fair shout to say I haven't had the best start to doing my MA.

I signed up on July 27th. On July 29th, my mum became critically ill. I debated whether to defer for a year. I debated whether to do it at all. The more I read about the course, the more I wanted to do it.

I've been interested in social history for ever. I've spent the last year working on family trees for me and my friends, and become intrigued by family structure particularly in rural areas. I've got a talent for creating narratives from primary evidence, for constructing strong arguments, for finding links that aren't immediate obvious and for holding vast stores of intricate genealogy in my head. Local history extends this into the landscape - who lived where? Why did they live there? What did they do? What did they earn? How were they linked? How does this compare to other areas? It's a natural step up from family research and it appeals to my soul.
Then there's my mum. Mum loved social history. She was fascinated by the rise of leisure time in the Victorian era, and the link to the railway network and how resorts were created to supply demand. Having experienced the stigma of being a single mother in the sticks, illegitimacy interested her. Coming from a big family, and having one herself, she read about other big families. She encouraged me. We would talk about history more than almost anything, monologuing at each other on the phone for hours. When I did the preliminary tests for getting on the MA, one of the questions was on the rise of Blackpool. Mum was a bubbling torrent of information on it when I told her. I am devastated that she's not here to talk to about it all anymore. She didn't want me to do the MA when I first discussed it with her, way back in June. She thought I should go directly into writing (my eventual aim) so she could read it. But I didn't feel qualified to write about it without a single history qualification to my name.

So, I decided to do it anyway. My start date was 1st October, by which point my mum was nearing her end. I worked hard but sparingly. It is terribly difficult to focus when the person you need most is dying. You think about little else. You worry. You want to be with them. You don't particularly want to be reading about tiny Highland communities in 1780. Or doing anything really. It's hard. But I did it.
Then she died. She died and I had a deadline. I postponed the deadline, but I still knew it was coming. Everything I had studied before fell to fog. And since she died, every time I read something she would have loved to know about, I feel a stab. It's not fair.

So I wrote my essay. I struggled a bit, just to get my thoughts in order (complicated by having a general anaesthetic a few days before) and then to write it, to use a whole new system of referencing, and to write about something I've not really done before. There is a lot of crossover between modern history and sociology, but they require different styles, and the essay was theoretical. I got it in. I got 63%, which is far more than I hoped for. It was not easy to write, but I found my style and voice much faster than I ever have before.

Now I'm looking to my next essay, getting to grips with the vast amount of potential literature on offer, and having to decide for myself what is and isn't relevant. Before I began this, some mansplaining dick told me that there was 'lots of reading' involved in an MA. I was pissed off because...well duh, but it's the quality of reading that counts. History perhaps generates the most written material of any subject, and some of it is diabolical quality, and some of it is absolutely essential, and some of it is absolutely essentially and like wading through treacle. And you have to decide what's good. I am currently sitting with no less than six relevant books, another two on the laptop to work through, countless potential journal articles that might be useful. I might only use one paragraph from each book, but I need to find it. Your undergrad is SPOON-FED to you in comparison to this.
And I daresay for those who go on to do a PhD, a masters is equally spoon-fed.

I love writing history. I love writing, full stop, but history is a particular pleasure. Telling the story of people who lived long ago, who never hoped to be historically relevant, who did nothing to immortalise themselves. That's a privilege. Finding their stories, hidden in the records, and understanding their context. That's my favourite thing. Reading ancient newspapers is much better for the soul than reading facebook. I don't know if I can actually making a living doing this - probably not, the world is awash with historians and you have to be pretty fucking ace to get published - but even if I can't, I will try. I will try for my mum. I will try for myself.