The Hillbillies

Life is mad.

We are probably known amongst our friends as "The Hillbillies".

I always remember shortly after having baby number five, being left alone at home with baby number five only, whilst Hubby went supermarket shopping with the other four. Or something equally exciting. The exact details elude me. I seized the moment, baby asleep, and slumped in front of the TV. It was before the days of Sky in the Lomax household and so daytime tele was uninspiring and dated at best, so it was no surprise when The Waltons made their appearance. Nonetheless it did give rise to a chuckle on my part.

For many we were at that point the "Hillbillies" amongst our little social set. As my own mother had so pointedly said at the time of my pregnancy announcement "Nobody has five children nowadays Sally"......

So when child number seven, eight, nine and ten arrived last July by way of foster children it was possibly unsurprising that many more of our friends started to steer clear. Invitations stopped - fear perhaps that this phenomenon was possibly catching and that by inviting us to parties they might too end up with ten children. And of course, there is possibly the fear that they might actually get a visit of twelve guests should they invite Hubby and me round for a cuppa. And believe me dear friends you would probably NOT want that. Some of our charges do not always have the sunniest of dispositions, putting it mildly...Visits from relatives and friends almost completely stopped - understandably, as the noise levels in our house do now reach unbelievable decibel heights. And sanity? Well THAT went out of the window long ago.

The weight fell off though. I took the pills from the doc, but to be honest, given the number that I forgot to take due to ridiculous schedules, sleepless nights and tantrum ridden children to deal with, I am not really sure that they have been fully responsible. What is possibly more relevant is the lack of time to actually eat properly and the extra running up and down our stairs.

The latest four children are in fact a sibling group, the eldest being 7 and the youngest a baby of just 1. (She was four months on arrival...) We already had one foster child in place with us, a little boy of seven who is severely developmentally delayed and doesn't speak. Actually, we had two other foster children in place for a few weeks, as, in their wisdom Social Services had arranged for the placement of "the four" on the day that the eldest foster child was leaving us. They didn't anticipate however that "eldest foster child" wasn't happy with his future plans and had got himself an advocate... who said that "he was NOT to leave the Lomaxes until a suitable alternative arrangement had been found." He was happy with us and, although he wanted to move on to live in independent accommodation it would not be until he was happy with the proposed plans.

It was a busy summer...

Eldest foster child finally left us mid September, leaving us with just the five and it was at this point that I was offered the opportunity to act in a theatre tour in December and a bit of January.

"Do it" said Eldest Daughter. "Where there's a will..."

"We'll manage" said Hubby.

Now luckily, I already had a saint of a cleaner in place by this time. I say saint because I am not quite sure how she can come in here as often as she does with a smile on her face and still have a smile on her face when she leaves. The mess that she encounters from our lot, the constant overturning of a day's good work sometimes only a matter of hours from her last visit must be demoralising, but still she continues to smile. And not only does she smile and clean, but it just so happened that prior to having her own little girl 18 months ago, she had worked with children "in care" who were SO challenging that they had had to be moved on to some form of institutional housing. So that is how the perfect babysitter arrived. Probably the only person in the world at the particular time in question, who would be mad and capable enough to help us out, happened to land in our lap via the cleaning agency.

And so it was, we did manage. For a couple of months I did it all. Ten children and a professional acting tour.

Not something that I can repeat too often of course in the current situation...

Which is why dear friends my writing has come to almost a complete standstill of late.

The future?

We know not... there are talks of possible adoption plans for the children afoot. The courts will decide all that in due course. Until then they will stay with us until more permanent arrangements have been made for them. Meanwhile the baby and the two year old are becoming more attached to us by the day. The baby especially has had us as her parents from four months old and really sees us as the significant people in her life. It is going to be very hard on all of us when they are moved on.

I suggested to Hubby that we adopt the baby ourselves.

He looked at me as if I had gone completely mental.

Social Services then asked us if we would consider adopting the eldest of the four - because of course to have three aged 4 and under adopted together is a more likely adoption scenario and would make their job more doable. But adopting a reluctant seven year old who is fully aware of where she has come from is not something that many would take on easily.

So then it was my turn to look at the social worker as if she had gone mental.

And in the meantime we live day to day in our little haze, juggling from one moment to the next.

But thankfully we do have babysitters and very useful older children who babysit, so we do still try to accept invitations with enough notice. But not at Christmas and Easter and other major bank holidays.......

And when out, we can still make ourselves look quite respectable, for Hillbillies.

Obese

I first heard the word "obese" from a doctor when I was fourteen, nearly fifteen.

At the time I was not as skinny as some of my age, but I was certainly not fat. I wore size twelve and, as a modest and respectable type, did as my mother told me and wore things slightly big. Too tight was considered tarty...

I was a teenager of course in the post Twiggy era. It was the late seventies. The "perfect" figure was some sort of straight up and down gamine type look. Boobs were definitely out, hips considered pure fat and waists were the bit in the middle of your body with no defined shape. Size twelve was big. Fourteen huge. Sixteen? Unspeakable. A size reserved only for grannies and spinster schoolteachers.

The sizes were different too. A twelve then was more or less what a ten would be now. I know this because as an incurable hoarder I still have clothes going way back and can see the difference in sizes.

So, when I went to the doctor, aged 14 and a 1970's size 12, but convinced that I was "fat" due to my "bust" as we called it then, no-one batted an eyelid, when (without weighing me) he handed me a booklet on " How to deal with obesity".

Except me.

"I'm not obese," I yelled to my mother! And of course, I seriously wasn't. I weighed under 9 stone with a small waist and a bust size that matched my hip size. Doctors knew best though then and so my already low fat diet became even lower fat. Everything was "fattening" in our house. My mother is the only person I know who considered grapefruit to be fattening. We never had biscuits. Crisps were only for parties and cakes for birthdays, Christmas and Easter. Unless we had visitors of course and then there was no end to my mother's culinary brilliance in the cake and pudding department. It was a mortal sin though to eat anything remotely fattening when visitors weren't present.

I remember the new strict regime lasting a few days and then, my Dad, who never publicly disagreed with my mother about our welfare, invited my mother and I to meet him for lunch. I remember he took us to very trendy looking wine cellar brasserie type restaurant and told me to order some food.

"I'm on a diet". I protested. "Well, you've not eaten much for the last few days, so now have a bit of a blow out" he said. On reflection, it was I believe my Dad's was of saying that I really didn't need to lose weight. That is a nice memory.

Unfortunately though, the magazines of the day, the straight up and down models, the seventies and early 80's film stars all seriously influenced our generation for the next decade or so. It was such a strange era in which to grow up. Those who went ten years before us had flower power, mini skirts, glam rock and hippy fun. We had tweed skirts and high necked frilly blouses. There was a very brief interlude in about 1978 when tiered skirts and a little bit of girly prettiness and even "ra ra" skirts came in. But that was shortly followed by punk, grunge and for the less adventurous of us, "The Lady Di" look.

And the need to be thin.

Thin was pure beauty. We didn't even give it the nicer title of slim. We all wanted to be THIN.

I look back on photos, and other than my ridiculous calves which have always been the bane of my life, I was thin. But I thought I wasn't. And the sad thing is that according to weight charts then I wasn't. Aged 22 after a heavy university year I decided that I was by now seriously overweight and so, in the summer holidays I went to Weightwatchers, I remember that, fully clothed and in the evening... I had crept up to a MASSIVE 10 stone 2lbs. God........ how did I sleep at night with all those extra pounds on my body? At Weightwatchers they told me that I should have been 8 Stone 11 lb as an absolute maximum, based on my height and age and so I had to lose 19 pounds.

I followed that diet religiously. I did everything that it asked for to the point that when I accidentally tasted a cup of tea with sugar in it I went nearly mental with worry. And I got my self down to 8 stone 13 lb, in the evening, fully clothed. But I could not shift the final 2 lb, and so was not considered a success story by Weightwatchers and as such not by me either.I managed to keep most of the weight off for the next ten years however, despite three pregnancies, never weighing more than 11 stone even at 9 months pregnant. I then got myself a gold medal status at Weightwatchers between baby number one and two and after baby number two by finally managing to meet their criteria for being "THIN". I was so happy about it and never once noticed that I was looking seriously gaunt in the process... I thought I looked great.

But then....it went downhill. After baby number three I got chicken pox shortly after giving birth. We all got it, including my then ten day old baby. (The one who later became "Sensible" in my writings.) She and I recovered together in her isolation ward in hospital whilst the others all recovered at home.....but that's another story.

It was after that though that I really did put on weight. A doctor I visited when in my mid thirties offered me a skipping rope. As a mother of then four children aged 8 and under I felt a little cross that he didn't acknowledge that I was actually quite active. Well, very really.

A few years later still I was finally diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, but not before my weight had crept up to a little over a shocking 12 stone. And that is where it is now. During this time of course I have tried EVERY diet that was ever invented: Some sensible. Some less. Cabbage soup, Atkins, the Hay diet and many variations on the same theme, Weightwatchers, Tesco Online Diets, Unislim, Rosemary Conley, Slimming World. I even bought some of that ridiculously expensive wacky tea and many may more. I can name most periods of my life by the diet that I was following at the time. Most recently I have been chewing the "Chew Chew" diet. Yes, well ...

Of course the biggest irony in all this is that I currently still wear a size 12. Sizes being so much more generous than they were a few years ago have allowed extra pounds to arrive without the extra sizes. I have of course variously been size 14 and 16 over the years, but in recent years, my daughters have put me straight and put me into less baggy smaller sized clothes. and so now I wear a twelve again. Much of the time.

But ... when I went to the Doctor about something unrelated in January he just "popped" me the scales. (It's a funny term "pop". Do you think that they teach Doctors that at medical school?) Ummmm he said. That's crept up a bit. ("Yes, I've been telling you that for years" I wanted to say...) "It really is quite dangerous of course," he said. "You are in the obese category."

Such an emotive word. The very word "Obese" brings up images to mind of people who make my figure look more akin to Twiggy herself. It is not a word I associate with a size 12. Even a 2010 size 12. And I have muscles too. I'm not flabby I thought. Well ... apart from the baby tummy, and my horrible calves, and I have had five babies all together. Surely that allows for SOME flexibility on the scales. AND I have got an underactive thyroid... (See think bubble above my head and doctor on the other side of the desk.)

"What you need to do", he said "is to cut down on your portion sizes. Eat less fat. More vegetables and fruit. And if that doesn't work, come back and we'll give you some diet pills."

I smiled weakly. Inside I wanted to scream at him...

I went home and ate for Britain that day...

But, for the next few months I tried to be sensible, to chew my food, to exercise and to just eat properly. I have lost a few pounds but it really wasn't shifting enough. And to be honest, the ingrained "thin thing" is always there in my mind. Of course I am not looking to be 9 stone. I would look haggard, but I do seriously need to lose some. Well, quite a lot actually.

So. I went back this week and accepted the Docs fab diet pills. Medical pills are the only thing that I haven't actually tried yet. It's another trick of course. Eating fat with them makes you so seriously uncomfortable that what you do is train your body not to eat any excessive amounts, ever again hopefully.

So wish me luck ...

And if you ever need a diet book writing...

Let me know.

It's all down to "Feng Shui"

It's all down to "Feng Shui" I said to Hubby.

"Oh right" he said. With Hubby of course there is actually a continual subtext. As a sort of "nearly a proper actor, maybe someone will spot me one day" type I have over the years done quite a few workshops where you improvise the subtext of what the character is really saying. I always find those exercises quite easy myself. I just think of Hubby's subtext moments and "hey presto" we have a result.

Of course, the subtext on this particular occasion was...." Yet another HBS*. Smile sweetly and agree. She'll move onto something else quite soon."

"We need to change the front door colour" I said.

"Oh" he said. Subtext "What is she going to suggest now"?

"I've been reading up on it." I went on. "It faces west and a little bit to the south, which means that gold or white would be a good colour. Probably white. I don't fancy gold."

At that the subtext moments stopped.

"You can't change the colour of the front door" he protested.

I looked at him. He was serious. And of course, he was right. We live in a Georgian house which is grade II listed. The "You must have a BLACK front door" has been engraved into the "What you are allowed and what you are not allowed to do with your house" book in the Forest of Dean council offices. And of course, added to that, it has always been black for over 200 years. Or currently a slightly off black greyish in need of a paint version of black. But black. Definitely black.

I knew that I'd lost that one. The front door had to stay as it was however "un feng shui".

"The thing is" I went on "is that our house is a bit of a Feng Shui nightmare.

It's not pronounced "Schwee" Mum. It's Schway. Feng "Schway" said Sensible. "Oh, right" I said. It's a nuisance being older sometimes. I get all sorts of things wrong. I like to call Gok Wan for instance Gok "warn" as in "arm", but apparently that is wrong too. It is perhaps a right of passage though to pronounce things wrongly. My mother is a expert at it. Everyone takes delight in her "pittzzas" for example with her emphasis on the double "T" and she is of an age where she either doesn't hear or doesn't really care. Probably the latter. She has always called them pittzas. She likes to call them pittzas and even though the rest of the world calls them pizzas, she will continue to call them pittzas. Good for her. And when I get to the purple hat age, I too will relish being able to call things what I like and be too "deaf" to hear people correcting me. But right now, while I'm in the middle bit of life still I suppose I still have to try to conform.

"OK then" I said. Feng "Shway" nightmare.

And, according to the experts, it is.

You see, the front door faces the back door, which to all intents and purposes is sort of another front door, it being a double sided house, which means that the money comes into one side and out of the other, which it certainly does for us. And then the staircase is in the right place for one door, but in completely the wrong place for the other. In other words it is directly opposite the back door, or the other front door, which apparently means that the "chi" goes straight upstairs, leaving the downstairs devoid of all the good stuff.

Then there is the question of the doors themselves. The ideal is that you use one door for almost all of your outgoings and incomings. Well ... that's great if you are one person with one job and nothing too complicated to manage. Try a family of nine residents, all with different missions, all with different reasons for entering and leaving the house, all at different ages and not one, or even two, but three very used doors. Some of the family catch buses from the front of the house, some get into cars, using the side door. Some just go and play in the garden, using the back/ other front door and some walk to places using any of the doors available.

Oh dear...

"Oh for goodness sake Mum. People were burnt at the stake for believing in such stuff not so long ago" said ESOS. "It's all mumbo jumbo."

"O.K. then clever clogs", said I. "So why, since living in this house has all the money literally come in through the front door and disappeared out of the back, when before we lived here we were reasonably comfortable, for a little while at least?"

Meanwhile Sensible came back into the room.

"Mum? Why is your necklace hanging from the ceiling?"

"It's a "crystal" I explained, to divert the energies. It will help the fact that at the moment they are all going from front to back, up the stairs and in my lady's chamber and stuff."

"It looked nicer round your neck." She said.

"Yes, well I am going to order a proper one for the purpose, but I thought that it would do for now."

"I think it looks fine." Said Hubby. Subtext: "She really has gone completely mental this time. Best not say too much. Just wait for the men with the straight jackets to arrive."

"Well, what we really need is a round table there" I said.

So, today I got our white metal round garden table and plonked it in the middle of the hall. And I decided that I could actually put conservatory type furniture into that bit of the hall and make a feature of the fact that it opens onto the garden. In essence I would in fact make no pretence of the fact that I would be directly copying, with limited resources, my lovely friends in Effingham, who have a tailor made very posh and stunningly beautiful new garden room in their house.

Gymnast arrived home. I explained my plan for my "sort of" garden room. "Oh, awesome" she said. "It'll look cool." One vote at least.

"Mum, why is the garden table in the middle of the hall?" said Tinkerbell Mushroom. "It's Feng Shui" I said.

"Feng What?"

I got one of those "Mum has really lost it this time" looks. And then "Oh...What's for dinner?"

True to form, Hubby said nothing derogatory. He just smiled and said. "Yes. Feng Shui." Subtext: "Silly old bat. Where are those men with the straight jackets?"

To which of course, my subtext was: "Wait and see. Just because not every person in China is a multi millionaire doesn't mean that Feng Shui is a load of baloney. You never know just WHAT might be around the corner..."

*Hair Brained Scheme

Tonight

"You're not going to like this," said Hubby. "How about tonight?"

"NO!!" I said.

It was one word, with serious feeling. And then I put the phone down.

Hubby called again. I ignored it.

And again,

And again.

Still I ignored it....

How could they do that I thought? At the risk of being seriously prima donnarish, as opposed to just a bit, this was MY night. Eleven years after having got an Equity card I was finally getting an agent to come and watch me act. Anyone involved in the luvvy arty stuff will know that this is no mean feat. It takes a lot to get an agent to take you seriously, and even more to get one to travel as far as Cheltenham - a hundred miles from the big smoke - to come and watch you.

But they were coming. Tonight. Now.

I had had nothing else planned for the day. I was simply going to do a very simple dinner to leave for everyone and take it easy. It was my first night of my play and I was to say the least, nervous.

Hubby on the other hand had taken a call from Social Services. They were desperate. They had to place someone forthwith, now. It was another asylum seeker and it turned out that he was in fact a thirteen year old, in need of a home.

Hubby rang again.

"Fine. I'll do the room." I yelled down the phone.

I rang the social worker to find out a little more about the boy in question, including his name. I then rang the person that he was currently with to find out a little more.

It seems that she was aware that this boy was to be placed with us three days before.

But ...... no-one had remembered to call us, the people who they were planning to place him with for the next two and a half years. Nor had anyone remembered to to a "pre placement visit."

Unfortunately his emergency 28 day placement had now run out and he therefore needed to be placed in a home by the end of the day or else the social worker would turn into a pumpkin or something.

"Why didn't you just say no?" I eventually asked Hubby.

"Well I did effectively. I said that it might prove difficult."

"No." I remonstrated. "You said that it 'might prove difficult.' That means, in translation, that you will go back to 'Mrs Awkward', ask her, and then give an answer. If the answer is YES, then 'Mrs Awkward' has consented. If the answer is NO, then clearly she has acted awkwardly, and has put her foot down. Either way I look like a class one bitch with no feeling."

Hubby agreed to pick up the new incumbent on his way home from work. I left for the theatre feeling cross and a little upset that I had to leave Tinks and Gymnast waiting for our new arrival with no other adult in the house. I pleaded with ESOS.

"Would you mind just watching tele with them until Dad gets home?"

"Oh Mum".

"Please?"

Grudgingly he relented and went to watch his beloved (not) 'Hannah Montana.' "Have you any idea how much I HATE, and I mean HATE this programme?" he complained loudly.

As I drove into Cheltenham, I saw Hubby's car driving past me in the other direction. I called him.

"Why are you just leaving Cheltenham? I need you to be at home with Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast!"

"It must have been some bloke that looked like me." He said. "Wasn't me."

.........The flowers left at the stage door were very nice.

And the new boy is very sweet..................

But next time..................it would be very nice to have at least twenty four hours notice please Mr Social Worker.........................

Time Out

It was a day off.

I had arranged to go out with the girls in London.

The "girls" of course, are also in their mid forties and are in fact my friends from school. I have known them over thirty years and to me we all look and act in exactly the same way as we did thirty years ago.

Especially the "look" bit.

Sensible had a Duke of Edinburgh bronze medal training day in Gloucester. Amongst other things they had to cook their own lunch. So I dropped she and her friend off en route with their walking gear and lunch ingredients and went on to park the car, so that I could get the coach from Gloucester to London. This cost a stunningly low £11 for the return journey, including a mobile phone message with my ticket details.

"What if I lose my phone though" I'd said to Hubby.

"When have you ever lost your mobile phone." He said

"Well what if it runs out of charge?"

In the end, on his suggestion, I had texted the number to Hubby's phone, so that "just in case the worst happened" and I was left stranded in London without my phone I could grab a complete stranger on the bus, take their phone number and get Hubby to text them my ticket details ....................

Quite what that would have made me look like is debatable, and it's probably even more debatable as to what it would have made Hubby look like...

I got to Victoria Coach Station at 12.00 on the dot and tried to look for the bus stop. I mean of course the sort of bus that takes you around town, as opposed to one that goes from one town to bigger town. I must be getting a bit blind in my old age though, because try as I might I managed to walk to Victoria train station, a few streets away, before I found a suitable stop with the right number buses attached.

So, I got my ticket and waited in the queue.

Which is when the mayhem began.

It seemed from the phone call that I received that ED needed some help sorting out a problem, fairly urgently. This was fine. Except... I was in London and Hubby was out at a kickboxing class on the other side of Gloucester. The other problem was that due to standing in a busy London street with buses and cars going past at twenty to the dozen, I couldn't understand a word that ED was actually saying to me except that whatever the problem was, it was URGENT with a capital U.

"Text me" I shouted down the phone.

And then, when that apparently hadn't been heard at the other end.... "TEXT ME" in an even louder voice.

I started to get "looks..."

So I smiled at the onlookers....

The bar that my friend Jane had chosen was ... interesting. I hadn't been able to find it to start with and so had phoned my other friend Debbie, not having Jane's mobile number. Debbie was still on her train. "I think it's right at the bottom of the street." She said, "just by the tube station." If you can't find it, come up to meet me at Charing Cross."

I eventually found it. From the outside it looked like a Cordon Negro bottle, and on the inside it looked like um ... a Cordon Negro bottle.

I texted Debbie.

"I've found it. I think that it must be one of Jane's haunts from her journo days. Think Cordon Negro."

I was desperate for the "ladies" but still needed to continue texting Hubby, about Gloucestershire logistics. He was due out of his kickboxing class any second and so could take over at the Gloucestershire end, but it all needed quick action once he was back in circulation so to speak.

"Whoops. Sorry..." said the woman who walked in on me in the loo.

I shrieked, closed the door quickly and recovered my modesty. How did that happen?

I found a nice table though, in a relatively lighter area of the bar.

A waitress of about 150 came up to me.

"You can't sit there." She said. "It's reserved."

I looked to see how and where it said that it was reserved. There was no evidence of it., but being in a compliant mood, I moved.

"You can sit here if you want." She said, showing me a very dark area of the room.

At that moment my friends arrived.

"This table's a bit dark isn't it?" said Debbie.

I explained that I had tried to sit on the one on the other side of the room. "Oh I know said Jane. "I tried too, but that waitress over there said that it was reserved. I couldn't see any sign though. She's very old. I think that she probably worked here when I used to come here twenty years ago."

"Aahh" I said, "so who did you interview in here then?" Feeling pleased with myself that I had "guessed" correctly.

Oh no-one, she said. "I just used to meet friends here."

Hubby called. The lack of reception down in the cellar meant that I needed to go upstairs to take the call. Hubby had though taken charge at the Gloucestershire end. "It's all sorted." He said. "So just enjoy yourself."

We had a brilliant afternoon.

My friend Debbie treated me to a lovely lunch in a very nice Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. We could see each other in there too, which was a plus. On the downside, we weren't relying on nice dim candlelight to hide away the wrinkles of the last twenty years. Candle lit cellar bars do have some advantages.

It was over all too soon sadly.

Back at Victoria Coach station I went to where the buses looked as if they were departing. The only thing was that I was unable to see how to get into the departure lounge. There seemed to be buses in the way, which were being sprayed with water.

I looked around desperately for a door, and in the end decided that a bit of cold water wouldn't hurt, so walked through the shower.

It was very wet. I was... a little soaked.

I asked a man where I could find the bus for Gloucestershire.

"Over the road Madam. This is the arrivals area."

So that was why they were washing the coaches.... on their way IN to the bus station......

Ping, went the phone. Message from Hubby, with the ticket details...... thank you Hubby.

Ensconced on my coach finally with a nice cup of tea, I immersed myself in my book. It's good to have journeys every so often....

Just before I got off at Gloucester I thought that I would use the coach "facilities", before my drive home.

And then ................. the door swung open on me as we turned the corner ............and for a second time that day I had been "seen" in a somewhat uncompromising position. I walked back to my seat, averting all eyes..... and immersed myself in my book, once more.

I finally got home. Sensible was back home from her rugged training day.

"Was it good?" I asked.

"Yes." She said. "The only thing is. You know the tinned tomatoes that I took to cook?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well. They weren't tomatoes. It was a tin of custard.."

"Oh," I said. "Not so good on pasta then?"

We Lomax women have a way of doing things.........