Quick! Don't Call the Midwife! Bring me a Tissue instead!

Jenny and her bike on a mission to deliver babies and perfect her fifties hairstyle.

So the second season of 'Call the Midwife' is back on TV this week and last night I actually managed to convince my husband (not a fan of period dramas or televised birth scenes) to watch an episode. Good thing I did too, because I needed someone to comfort me while I wept openly at the end of the hour long drama, in which 3 women gave birth and midwives yet again proved themselves to be members of the most amazing profession in the world.
Apart from other professions that save lives (firemen, ambulance drivers, A&E doctors and at certain times of extreme stress, hostage negotiators or social workers), is there a profession any more noble than midwifery? Midwives are there in a mother's hour of most desperate need to offer support and usher new life into this world. And in 'Call the Midwife,' they do all of the above while also riding a bicycle through the busy streets of London's East End in the 1950s and wearing a cute nurse's cap. I can't stand the sight of blood or the idea of witnessing an actual birth and even I want to be a midwife after watching the show.

Based on the memoirs of a 'real-life midwife,' Jennifer Worth, 'Call the Midwife' is produced by Neal Street Productions for BBC Drama and it never fails to amaze me with its production values. The detail in the period costumes and 1950s sets is fantastic. The storytelling is also very good, with the show examining not just the emerging postwar NHS neonatal healthcare and developments in obstetrics but also other social issues of the 1950s such as marriage, poverty, pediatrics and the role of women among the docks of the East End of London. Every episode seems realistic, (probably as a result of being based on a real person's memoirs), good things happen but so do bad things. People die, get sick and even sometimes the babies are born with problems. But then people also fall in love, marry and get on with living their lives despite the difficult circumstances they find themselves in. The show can of course be a bit overly sentimental. Hey, its no 'The Wire' or 'The Killing.' But it's about childbirth and lets, be honest, who wants to take a harsh cynical view of midwives. We love midwives remember? After all, at once point, we all came into contact with one at the hour of our own birth.

Anyway, back to the show. The Christmas Special episode had me bawling so much I had to take a break halfway through to make a cup of tea and get a tissue. The story of the special shown on Christmas Day centered not only on birth, but also on the themes of poverty and social care. An old lady found wandering the streets is taken in by the midwives and the nuns that run the local hospital. As she is cared for, her tragic past is slowly revealed. In her youth (around 1906) she was widowed and unable to care for both herself and her five children, she was admitted to the workhouse and her children removed from her care. Due to disease and neglect in the workhouse, all her children died one by one. The saddest scene of the episode was when Jenny, the main character of the show, takes the old lady to the mass pauper's grave that her children are buried in to try to give her some closure to her grief. It was really heart-wrenching stuff and perhaps a bit too upsetting for Christmas Day, but it pleased me none the less, as I feel that it is the stories of people like Jenny and the old lady that are rarely told in TV and film. Everyday people with small but never the less important lives.

Of course, even the happy stories in the series make me cry. All the babies being born in each episode and the mothers looking so happy, sends me right over the edge and will have me scooting across the living room to grab a tissue. Where is my self control?! I guess I find being sad sometimes a bit cathartic. My husband thinks the whole thing is rather ridiculous, but even he was moved when watching the latest episode. I doubt I can get him to watch it next week however (he shows only a marginal interest in midwifery and childbirth understandably), so I have my box of tissues ready and the kettle set up in case I need a break for emotional relief and an emergency cup of tea.

Cynthia, Jenny and Trixie: Midwives in trench-coats.

Stopping by the City on a Snowy Evening....

Snowy Balham Common at dusk

It's snowing! Yes, we British are obsessed with the weather. It is a constant topic of conversation, the BBC frequently has alarmist weather reports popping up on its news website and any kind of weather, be it hot or cold, is guaranteed to cause a halt to public transport across the UK.

During the summer, even the slightest bit of sunshine results in hundreds of Londoners rushing out in to parks across the city, stripping down to their underwear and baking themselves frantically like hot-dogs in the sun. And snow (!) causes the same reaction (albeit with more clothes on and less heat). Londoners pack on as much fashionable winter-wear as they can find and set about trying to competitively build snowmen on commons and in back gardens throughout the Greater London area.

Maybe, we are so excitable when it comes to the weather because we are an island nation with such changeable weather conditions or maybe we love hot sun and cold snow, because so much of the year we are treated to grey skies and rain. But, whatever the reason for our national obsession with weather, we don't intend to let this chance to have fun in the snow pass us by. And of course, the wintry weather presents an extraordinarily good opportunity to take photos. I was snapping with my camera all weekend, fingers frozen and face stuck to the viewfinder in the cold.

The snow has caused some trouble to my commute to work however. True to my nature (that of an obsessive list-maker), I have made some lists of what is good and bad about snow:

Snow falls even on the tiniest of places 

The reasons why I love Snow:

• It is fluffy and light 
• Snow falling and then lying on the ground dampens and muffles the sounds of the city. The streets become calm and a hush descends over London.
• It inspires wonder in children and adults alike – two of my students from India who had never seen snow before until last week, were so excited they were actually jumping up and down in the Uni office like kids.
• Snow looks beautiful in Regent’s Park and the green parakeets that reside in the park, stand out in  brilliant tropical green against the snowy whiteness, when they perch on trees and clean their feathers.
• Snow makes all the trees look like they have been draped with soft white lace.
• Snow means a lot more cute videos of kids/dogs/cats/people playing in the snow on Youtube.
• It meant this week, I got to see a white cat padding about in the white snow. A beautiful and weird illusion for the eye.
• It means that websites publish funny things to do in the snow: http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2013/01/18/13-ways-to-appreciate-the-snow/
• It is the perfect excuse for mulled cider! Yay!
• It means I have to wear my green and white polka dot wellies to work. He he.

An inventive snowman in Sainsbury's car park

The reasons why I dislike Snow:

• It screws up my commute to work even though I spend most of my journey UNDERGROUND where it DOES NOT SNOW. Last Friday it took me 2 hours to get to work and 2 hours to get home. That is four hours to travel approximately 22 miles. I could have crawled the journey quicker.
• It makes my flat cold. And my flat is always cold in winter. I spent a lot of my time at home in bed….with three layers of clothes on.
• Snow in London turns into a muddy slush in around a day.
• The above mentioned muddy slush turns into ice when it freezes overnight and it’s impossible to walk on.
• Driving is risky. Unless the council has gritted the streets. 
• London Councils often run out of grit.
• Snow does not automatically equal a Snow Day (day off work due to difficult weather) unless you work for a school or live out in the middle of nowhere. The rest of us have to battle to work and read about other people enjoying the snow on the internet. 
• The British media goes ape with panic over weather reports. Declaring 'Red' weather warnings to freak everyone out (including my husband - an extreme weather-obsessive himself).
• Snow meant I could not get the transport to see a show called Fuerzebruta (http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/fuerzabruta) at the Roundhouse in Camden this weekend….and they won’t refund my tickets! Grrrr! My husband and I compensated with a lovely snowy walk in the wooded area of our local park while pretending we were in Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’

The Staves

Lately I have been addicted to listening to The Staves. They are an acoustic folk trio of sisters from Watford in the UK.They seem to be having more success in the US, than England weirdly, but I like them and just downloaded their album this month. It makes great commuting music; nice and relaxing! Perfect as a distraction from a crowded tube train full of harassed commuters invading your personal space.

The Song of the Un-experienced Runner

I am awake. I should be in bed. I have to get up at 6am tomorrow and I know I will be tired and that it will be extremely difficult...because....I started my new fitness regime today! Yes! That is right! 4 years after I gave my husband a book on physical fitness written by the British Army (the 'Official British Army Fitness Guide' to be exact - it can be found here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-British-Army-Fitness-Guide/dp/085265118X) he actually looked at it and figured out that it might actually have some useful tips in it on getting fit. My husband is actually in quite good shape, but after several years of a sedentary job, I am not. Plus, I like fat...and sugar....and salt. All the things that are bad for you basically. Salami, chocolate, butter, cheese, custard, cookies, burgers, cakes...and anything with custard really. Actually, if given the freedom to eat whatever I want, nine times out of ten, I would chose custard.

So you can imagine my shock, my horror, my speechless surprise when I climbed the stairs at Marylebone tube station last week and found that I was too out of breath to even find my Oyster card and make my way through the ticket gates without worried looks from the Transport for London staff. 'You okay miss?' asked one ticket inspector, as I wheezed past him. I had no answer for him, just a weary smile to reassure him, that no, this was not my asthma. It was couch-potato-eating-too-much-cream-at-Christmas-laziness that had led to the complete inability to climb 3 flights of stairs in one go, without a long and lengthy coffee break in between each 5 or so steps.

So something needs to be done. I can't very well keel over from a custard-induced-lack-of-exercise-death at the age of 35, leaving my husband bereft of company in our badly heated flat in London. Hence, I checked the British Army Fitness Guide for what they recommend for the terminally lazy people of this world. Very nicely, the author, Sam Murphy, referred to poor souls like me as 'sedentary' rather than lazy and recommended a 1 month course of different exercises. At the end of the book (and after 9 months) apparently I should be fit enough to try out for the Territorial Army, which may come in handy if there is ever a zombie apocalypse or London is invaded by aliens. My regime for today was:

Run for 1 minute
Walk for 3 minutes

Do the above five times in a row.

Which is harder than it sounds. Remember I am quite unfit. And not exactly confident in skin tight leggings in the streets of London. And...it is freezing! The air entering my lungs is not only moving around faster than it normally would as I am breathing so hard, but it is also freakishly cold because the weather in the UK has suddenly got a lot more wintry in the last four days (apparently our cold spell comes from wind from Russia. Gee thanks Russia!)

Well, I did it and now I feel pretty good. Of course, I need music to run to, simply because I actually find running really boring. If I could read a book and run at the same time I would. Failing that, the ipod makes the experience a bit more cinematic. I can imagine I am famous athlete while listening to Chariots of Fire or I am fleeing an oncoming army hoard of angry and hairy Vikings (The Gladiator Soundtrack). Currently my favourite tune to run to is 'Run, Boy, Run' by Woodkid (as seen in the below video), it does what it says on the tin...gets you running...

I may not enjoy running that much (especially on the concrete of the urban jungle that is London) but I do admire those who do run and simply for the fun of it. In that spirit, I want to share one my favourite poems:


The Song of the Ungirt Runners

We swing ungirded hips,
And lightened are our eyes,
The rain is on our lips,
We do not run for prize.
We know not whom we trust
Nor whitherward we fare,
But we run because we must
Through the great wide air.

The waters of the seas
Are troubled as by storm.
The tempest strips the trees
And does not leave them warm.
Does the tearing tempest pause?
Do the tree-tops ask it why?
So we run without a cause
'Neath the big bare sky.

The rain is on our lips,
We do not run for prize.
But the storm the water whips
And the wave howls to the skies.
The winds arise and strike it
And scatter it like sand,
And we run because we like it
Through the broad bright land.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

Unfortunately, although the imagery of this poem is glorious, I will have to be satisfied with my own little song for the moment - the Un-experienced Runner, until I have a pastoral landscape to run through. Or when Wandsworth Common dries out after being so waterlogged by the monumental amount of rain we had this Christmas. Until then, I will run, because I need to, through the uneven concrete slabs of South London's pavements and come home...to some nice warm custard.

Twas the Night before Christmas.....

....and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for the local population that were...well...panic buying.

You see I can see the local supermarket from my living room window as a sit on the floor, wrapping presents, listening to Classic FM and sipping coffee (I am a woman, so naturally I multitask). I can see the people of Balham piled into their cars (ranging from the small city cars to the huge range-rover that is so favoured by some well-off people in South London) desperately queuing to get into Waitrose. It is mayhem. People honking, turning their cars into strange angles, yelling at each other and even on occasion driving up on to the pavement out of frustrated desperation. God knows what kind of battle will be going on inside!

Let's imagine that shall we? Brussel Sprouts are flying through the air, mince pies are being crushed under foot, a woman is clutching a slice of Stilton and weeping with relief and two mothers with toddlers on their hips are arm-wrestling for the last tub of brandy butter.

Ridiculous! I hear you say? Not so! I have actually seen two old ladies fight over the last tub of brandy butter in Marks and Spencer a couple of years ago. What is ironic about this situation is that brandy butter is extraordinarily easy to make. It is basically brandy, butter and sugar. I remember when I was at university, making it myself and then, without a care for the dangers of heart disease, eating it straight out of the tub for several hours each day.

I also have first hand knowledge of what it is like to work in food retail during Christmas. For around a year, I worked at a delicatessen serving cheese and slicing salami. When Christmas came, we would open early in the morning and customers would be lined up in a queue to get in, that would stretch down the whole street. When the doors opened there would be a mad rush for Stilton and Cheddar cheese. And invariably we would run out of food as the day wore on. 'What?!' one woman once shrieked at me, 'There is no more Cropwell Stilton?! But what shall I serve on Boxing Day?! Our Christmas will be ruined!' 

Of course no one's Christmas is ruined, even if they don't have the gloriously yummy Stilton to eat on Boxing Day, just perhaps lighter in calories. 

As I write this, the horn honking outside has reached a crescendo at the appearance of a large John Lewis delivery van stuck on the street. Yes, the Christmas traffic has reached crisis point. The driver revs his engines and honks his horn impatiently, like his display of motoring frustration will make any difference to the Christmas-food-obsessed shoppers who have backed up the traffic for a mile in either direction. My husband is laughing so hard at all the honking (schadenfreude), that he has actually ended up knocking his knee on the coffee table in our living room. 'Merry Bloody Christmas!' yells an irate man out of his car window. Tensions are bubbling over and tempers are high. After all, those Pigs in Blankets aren't going to cook themselves!

And the most strange thing is that I know in around 4 hours time the area is going to be deathly silent, the roads will be empty and when my husband and I sleepily stumble to Midnight Mass at 11.30pm, the only people out will be a few drunk revelers and some church-goers. The people of Balham will be snug in their houses, watching TV, trying to get their kids to go to sleep, putting out a snack for Santa or tucked up in bed - all of them with a fridge full of food.

So without trying to sound trite, let's remember what Christmas is all about. Yes, in part it is about stuffing your face with food and unwrapping presents, but it is also about giving gifts to others and spending some quality time with those people who put up with you when no one else will. ie. your family. And...it is also about the celebration of the birth of a little baby and the joy of his parents. Now if that is not worth celebrating, I don't know what is!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just when I think I have seen it all...

Along comes dogs. Dogs who can drive. And the crazy humans teaching them. Click on the link below to see our canine friends in mini coopers driving around like they had evolved to do it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20614593

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Especially to my family in the US!
I am currently wondering if I can celebrate Thanksgiving as an Anglo-American without....a turkey! Or any form of roasted fowl. I have some cold pizza in the fridge which might make a good meal if re-heated in the microwave, but somehow I don't think it will be keeping in with the usual family tradition.
My husband and I just got back from Japan last night after a 13 hour flight and we are currently suffering from a 10 hour-time-difference jetlag, so roasting meat is not a high priority. About 10 hours ago, my bed looked so good and sleep came so easily, but at around 4am this morning, our eyes snapped open and I was the most alert I had ever been for the middle night ever! I could have recited poetry on command, done some serious mental maths and written an 3,000 word essay before the sun had even risen - I was that awake.

So we went to Japan, for 3 weeks....and I am not kidding...I seriously feel as if my whole outlook on life has completely changed. But, before I start writing about the most awesome trip...ever...let me recap on what exactly Thanksgiving has been to me the last 30 years.

I grew up in London, the child of American parents. We weren't actual citizens of the UK until I was much older, so for all intensive purposes we were pretty American for my early years. We celebrated Halloween more than anyone else at my school. When I was little, people didn't 'trick or treat' much in the UK, so my mum would dress up with me in our flat and basically just give me sweets and carve pumpkins and then try to scare my dad when he came home from work. It was great fun. I loved roasting the pumpkin seeds in the oven and sucking all the salt off them later.
And of course, we celebrated Independence Day (4th July) and Thanksgiving each year. Thanksgiving was always a big deal. My mum would buy a huge turkey, our cat would go crazy over the smell of cooking bird for around 4 hours and we always ended the meal with a pumpkin pie. I loved every minute of it and always gorged myself on turkey, gravy, caramalised onions, cranberry sauce, corn bread and wild rice pilaf. My dad would teach me how to draw a turkey by tracing around my hand on paper and we sometimes even made pilgrim hats and Native American Indian headbands complete with fringed bright coloured paper feathers. Of course, this is all before I had any idea about the human rights abuses the Native American Indians suffered at the hands of the pilgrim settlers, but hey! It was my time of innocence.
We often used to invite our close British family friends to Thanksgiving and sometimes there were as many as 12 or 15 people in our small flat. We pushed tables together and all sat squeezed in on mis-matched chairs. I loved sitting at the table and watching everyone eat and talk loudly. It was nice to have so many people in our lives and to watch them all enjoy themselves while eating a huge meal that my parents and I had spent hours preparing was, heart-warming.

And of course being British as well as American means I get to have a big British Christmas as well! Throughout my childhood, my mum used to cook strange things for Christmas as less than a month before she had been roasting turkey for Thanksgiving and so wanted to eat other dishes for Christmas day, but after a few years we developed a tradition of going to visit some family friends (who were English) for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. We would engage in a never-ending orgy of eating and drinking traditional British seasonal food. Which led to me probably being the only American child to develop a taste for Christmas pudding and brandy butter. So you could say that I got the best of both culinary worlds.

Then I grew up and experienced the awkward joy that is the 'Work Christmas Party.' In fact this year I have a ridiculous number of Christmas parties to attend at my workplace (due to the fact that my students are also organising events). I believe the total number is 10 parties/dinners. I will be well and truly sick of turkey and bacon-wrapped-cocktail-sausages by Christmas Day. Plus there is, of course, all the Christmas family events as well. Due to the complicated nature of my family on my husband's side, I will be attending 3 separate Christmas family gatherings, possibly even 4. But hey, I am fan of celebrations and this year I attended my first Hanukkah lunch and I would probably even celebrate Diwali if someone invited me to! Just maybe go easy on the turkey.

As the years have gone by I have begun travelling on the path to starting my own family. I married an Englishman and we incorporated him and his mother (also English) into our American Thanksgiving festivities. My parents, after living in the UK for more than 20 years, are now very Anglicised and take great pleasure in celebrating British holidays and cultural events. The last few Thanksgivings we have had have been smaller and I had the disconcertingly melancholy feeling of leaving my parents' house at the end of Thanksgiving. I have in the passing years grown up and become another guest. Instead of waving goodbye to friends at the end of the day, I now kiss my parents and leave to go to my own home with husband. So in fact, we seem less American now than when we moved to London all those years ago and I have had to adjust my identity from American to British, child to adult and daughter to wife.

However, this will be nothing compared to the adjustment I will have to make come January 2013, when I will have to transform from turkey-eating-party-goer to dieting-hard-working-exercise-freak. How else will I lose all those pounds I gained from eating so much turkey!
Ah well...