New house

There is so much that I want to write about - but I've no time and no proper internet connection. I'm typing this in an internet cafe. My son and I have been camping at our new house for the last three days. We have no furniture except an air bed but we've loved it all the same. Yesterday evening we stood at the window and watched a deer grazing on our lawn. That happens quite often. The deer come down from the woods behind the house and occupy the lawn as though it is their own. I'm longing for the moment when I can take a photograph so you can see the house. In an hour's time the furniture van arrives. It could be quite a difficult afternoon! But at least something is happening.

So Thomas is your only child?

I haven't met many people in our new area yet but everyone I have met has asked that question. 'So Thomas is your only child?' Of course, it's a harmless question. I don't blame the people who ask. But then I've got to explain it - again and again and again. Of course, I could just say, 'Yes, he's my only child.' I've often done that over the last three years. But I've decided that I'm not going to do it any more. My husband and I have had very difficult conversations about this. He thinks I shouldn't tell people - or not immediately. He says that people find if very off putting to be told that kind of information when they've only just met someone. I, frankly, don't care. These are the circumstances of my life. That's what it is. People either get it or they don't. The truth is that if you've had a baby that has died then there are plenty of people out there who want to silence you. For me, it's distressing to realise that one of those people is my husband. But, of course, you can decide not to be silenced. And that's what I've decided now. I refuse to participate any further in the Great Lie that says that life is always lovely, and everyone is always happy, and every story has a happy ending. This might imply that I feel desperately miserable and bitter right now. I don't actually. I just want to see things as they are and I want to be surrounded by people who are trying to do the same.

Staying with my mother

There are so many things I want to write. And I can't write any of them really because I don't have an internet connection. At present I'm at my sister's borrowing her computer. It is still another couple of weeks at least until we'll move into our new house. Staying with my mother is quite an experience. She doesn't actually have chickens in her kitchen but it's that kind of set up. The place where she lives is a beautiful but semi-derelict farm house at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. Water pours through the roof when it rains and nothing works. For years my mother didn't have mains water or central heating and she didn't have a kitchen - just a sink, a table and one round pin socket. Things have improved recently but not that much. The whole thing is still like a really badly organised camping holiday. The whole house is covered in dog hair. When you take your clothes off at night you find dog hair down your bra. My mother can't see anything odd about any of this. On good days, I love sharing her life but there are times when I really have to struggle to keep my temper. The upside is that it's paradise for my son. He brings in buckets of mud from the garden and spreads them all over the kitchen floor and my mother says, 'Lovely dear, do you want some water to mix it with.'

Sons and daughters

We moved house. Currently we are not actually living anywhere. That is not as bad as it sounds except that everything I need is in a bag which is somewhere else ...... I'm typing this from an internet cafe. Today I heard someone repeat a saying which I had never heard before. It goes likes this: 'A son is a son until he takes a wife. A daughter is a daughter for all of her life.' That one hit me pretty hard. It's true, of course. A mother-daughter relationship is a special and unique relationship. I'm never going to have that and I'm lonely without it. I have my husband and my son but they're blokes and so there are some things that they just don't understand. But I'm defiant. Defiant. That's an important word for me right now. I want life, life, life. In spite of what has happened I want as much life as I can have. It won't end well. I'm running myself into the ground and I'll finish up ill. But until that moment comes I'm just enjoying the fact that I, at least, am alive.

Foxy the bike

Life should be absolutely terrible right now. It's four days until we leave this city. I'm packing all day, every day. It's physically exhausting and emotionally draining. Everyone I know is away on holiday - and even if they weren't I probably wouldn't see them. My husband is busy at work and says, 'It'll get done some how.' (I noticed that men say that often. It means, 'Some woman will do it.') So here I am alone in this half packed house. Whole swathes of my past have been carted away to the junk yard, and loads more will go. But the strange thing is that, on a minute by minute basis, I don't feel that bad. I don't really feel anything at all - but I don't mean that in a negative sense. I'm like somebody in a dream. Today I did have a moment when I lost my nerve. I should have taken my son's bike to the dump but I couldn't do it. My son has out grown the bike and it was always horrid anyway. My mother got it from a dump. It's black and orange - a combination of colours I particularly dislike. For some reason it has 'Foxy' painted on the cross bar so that's what we call it. My son and I have had some fun with Foxy. Last summer I taught him to ride without stabilisers and he's written miles and miles on that bike. And so when it came to taking Foxy to the junk market I couldn't do it ..... It's funny the odd things which tug at the heart strings, the bits of the past which refuse to be cut adrift.

Packing and crying

We are leaving Belgium in two weeks time. I first came here sixteen years ago. My husband has lived here for twenty years. We love our house here and Brussels is a wonderful city in so many ways. But we're going .... I know it's right. We badly need to start again and we can't do that here. At the moment I'm packing all day, every day. Our house is big and we are very untidy people. I'm taking car loads of stuff around to the charity shop. I know that this has to happen but it is so, so hard. Everything I touch is charged with some huge emotional significance - and I haven't even got to all that baby stuff in the attic yet. But the truth is that the life we used to have in this city came to an end three years ago ....... What we're leaving behind is the shape of a life, not a real life. I just can't think about what is happening. I can't. All I do is tell myself (and everyone else) that we'll come back often - even though I know that we probably won't. Since I got married seven years ago I lost my father and my brother (both of them refuse to speak to anyone in our family), then I lost my daughter, a good friend died of cancer, another is dying of it now, and I'm leaving a city that I love. But life is all about loss, I suppose. And the people who survive best in life are the people who are good at losing things. Well, let's hope practice makes perfect .....

The motherhood door slamming shut

I suppose every woman comes to a time when she realises that she isn't going to be a mother again. And probably every woman is sad at that time. No woman wants to let go of that part of herself. But for most woman the motherhood door eases shut slowly. Many women I know have two or three children and they know that, in reality, they won't have more. But they don't confront that fact, and they hold onto the baby clothes, and they continue to talk half-heartedly about having another child. And it's probably not until they reach the menopause that they'll really face up to the knowledge that motherhood is over. The problem for me is that the motherhood door has slammed shut suddenly. And also, unlike most women, I can't even comfort myself with the thought that, after all, I had my fair innings. Because I didn't. For me, motherhood was over before it had really got going. And now it's like I'm going through the menopause early. I've been trying to find some small upside in this and, on a good day, I can just about succeed. The upside is this: if you're in your mid fifties when you have to let go of motherhood then it's hard to start re-making your life at that time. I'm going to have to re-make my life now (aged 41) and I do still have time for that. I am still young enough to start a new life and I think I will find one to start. Except that just now I don't have the energy or confidence for it.