Motherload

Yesterday I took the children to Tate Britain for a Family Day. They had given over some five of the rooms to art activities for children: a cardboard city, costumes imprinted with famous artworks which children could use to act out playlets, a musical section with amplified instruments, and a room filled with building blocks. The place was mayhem. The cafe was manned by just one server, and the queue was round the block. In a side room, parties of buggies, babies and toddlers were camped out. The scene resembled a refugee camp. On the opposite wall was a series of Gilbert and George tapestries. They looked like vast pencil sketches, and featured the two men sauntering through Constable country. Printed in capitals along the bottom was a message which, paraphrased, reads: 'Art is a way of contemplating life, love and nature, and makes things better for Gilbert and George'. It was a lovely tease: is Art only for the initiated? Is there always a risk of solipsism in the art

What the hell just happened? Oh I know, it was Half Term. Somehow I quite often seem to blog about holidays when they are about to be over, when I am at an ebb so low you can see the the mid-Atlantic ridge of my soul. What is it about these energy-sapping, will-defying, hope-unplugging weeks? On paper I was good to go. My military precision planning had ensured: food supplies in the house a diary neatly stocked with things to do a weekend at my mother's (always a good way to use up several days, while knowing that there will be a soothing caress and a gin at the end of each one — did my mother bargain on having to mother me until her mid-seventies?) playdates library cinema cultural exploration shopping a sleepover special time with each child menus planned for the week a night out pour la mère packed lunch goodies and I was even able to do a bit of teaching and dance.  What a domestic goddess, I hear you cry, cheering me on in my maternal triumph. Hmmm

My beautiful daughter has always sucked her thumb. She found out how to do it just days after her inordinately long birthing ordeal, and fastened herself to a tiny triangular comforter, christened Flossie by her father. This creature has travelled all over the world, greying and fraying on her way. She has been lost for months at a time on several occasions. Flossie has become so central to the mental health of this family that when we moved back to the UK from Australia, and Flossie was not to be found, we returned feeling as though a part of ourselves had been left behind. We were triumphant when she emerged serene and intact, six months later, from an old handbag, which had been co-opted by my daughter. We were complete. Recently my daughter has been teased at school (not in a bullying way, just out of thoughtlessness) because she cannot quite say her 's' clearly. We have never really noticed it, but once the thoughtless boy had drawn it to our attention, it quickly assu