Family Affairs

I love Monday mornings, (any time after 9am that is, when the 7 year old who today is deeply stressed because his bicycle helmet has ruined his hairstyle, has finally gone to school). It is then that I can do one of my most favourite things in the world. I meet up with my very good friends to do an 8 mile walk around the local park. We have done this walk during term time, every Monday morning for the last 5 years and it is a real “feed the soul” moment, providing laughter, advice, tears, changing seasons, different light, trees, coffee, exercise, sky, support, real real friendship…it doesn’t get any better than that. Throughout my trauma, I don’t think I’d have got through it without these particular friends.

Today I was with my friend who’s view of life I probably respect more than anybody else’s in the world and we were talking about “stuff” as usual. Her son is currently traumatised because for some reason he’s got it into his head that he is a “test-tube baby”. “I know I am”, he keeps saying to her, “because all my friends are”. He was also puzzled as to “at what point do you have to take the baby out of the test-tube?”.