Oh The Pleasure Of Christmas Shopping.

Wish me luck, I'm off to do the 'big shop' tomorrow - with the other half. We've managed to squeeze in one day between now and Christmas when he can get a day's holiday and I can be away from home for the whole school day!

Time was, when we could leave the girls with my parents and make a long day of it, with a sit down lunch at the Guildhall in Worcester, maybe even afternoon tea, and a stroll into the Cathedral to calm our pre-Christmas nerves. But now that's not an option, and we have school hours to contend with too.

So tomorrow we will do the Leicester dash. Leicester being the other half's native city, he likes to make an annual pilgrimage to the city centre in search of the Christmas presents. What this actually means is a couple of hours in the car, finding one or two gifts, spending longer in the cheap electronics shop - hold me back - then rushing back down the M1.

And of course what that really means is that after tomorrow, I'll still have a list as long as your arm of other people to buy for, but the other half will think that the Christmas Shopping 'has been done' and will have mentally 'ticked it off'.

Never mind, I do quite like the chance to spend the day together, and although we probably won't get much done, at least I can have a real browse around and hopefully make notes about what to buy on other days, when I'll go off on my own.

Part of my problem is that I don't like to start the Christmas hype too early. What that ends up meaning is that I have to get everything done in a very short space of time and too often a spanner comes winging over curtesy of a sick child who needs a couple of days off school, at exactly the time I'd planned to do the critical shopping trips.

The other small problem is that for some reason, lots of our friends decided to have children around this time, so I end up having to think of birthday and Christmas presents at the same time. It's hard enough shopping for your own offspring, let alone other people's - who you probably haven't seen for a year and have no idea what they're into, or what they already have. This year I've decided to be kind to myself and ditch the guilt. They'll all get a gift voucher.

So that's it, I'm just going to dig out the present list from last year and fill up the hip flask. It helps to be prepared.

On Winter And Falling On Ice.

Do you love winter? Are you a snow worshipper? Well I'm feeling a bit undecided at the moment. Until last night I'd have had no hesitation in saying that I love snow, there's nothing quite like sinking down into a few inches of fresh deep snow, the crunching noise it makes and the the potential for snowball fights in the garden.

Winter Wonderland? Photo by Dan

But that was before yesterday, or yesterday afternoon to be precise. You see although we've had a bit of snow here, we haven't got the drifts which are covering so much of the rest of the country - what we do have however, is ice - compacted, shiny, rock hard and as lethal as you can imagine - ICE.

I went out to meet a daughter from school yesterday and managed to go from vertical to horizontal in a split second. I was lucky, nothing broken, although how I'm not sure. What I do know is that I now have  a huge swelling on one hip, with the promise of a bruise from hell to come out in a day or two.

Now I can just about start to laugh about it. After all, I'm still in one piece, not laid up in hospital in plaster. But I'm an ordinary middle-aged woman, fit enough to get around without a stick. How on earth are the poor old dears who inhabit most of the town supposed to get about?

I've been listening to so much whining on the radio about keeping the roads clear - of course it's important and annoying when things grind to a halt, and yes, people in Scandinavia manage to cope with far more difficult conditions than this every year, but my point is simply this; why doesn't the council attempt to clear the pavements?

Forgive me if I'm beginning to sound like my - or your - mother, but I don't remember it being this bad when I was younger. I lived in Yorkshire for ten years and I don't think I missed one day's work, despite enormous amounts of snow. Now I feel practically housebound because I know that thirty feet from the house I have the option to ice-skate along the pavements or take my life in my hands and join the cars on  the road.

I think the biggest problem is the fact that we haven't had enough snow. We've had just enough to compact and freeze over to form a nightmarish glassy surface, but not sufficient to give us any kind of grip. If we'd had a few more inches, at least we'd have had that reassuring crunch to get our wellies into.

So, do I still love snow? Well yes, I guess I still do, I just wish we could have it in a decent quantity and that as soon as we've had our fun, the sun would come out and melt it all away. Wishful thinking? Of course, but I think from now on I'm always going to look at it from a slightly different perspective and consider what it means for those who're not as fleet of foot as they once were.

In Search Of Midsomer Murders

Have I told you about one of my little hobbies? I scour charity shops for detective fiction titles. It all started a few years ago, when my sister-in-law gave us a handful of Brother Cadfael novels. She'd been picking them up in her local charity shops and having finished with them, passed them on to us, as she knew we'd enjoyed watching the series on TV with Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael.

Well that was the beginning of a little hobby that has given me oodles of pleasure ever since. You see, after we 'd read the books she gave us, we were so hooked on Ellis Peters, that we wanted to read the rest.

Now obviously the easiest thing would be to pop online and order them from Amazon, but somehow that would be just too simple. There's a thrill in the chase that you don't get when you order online - thank goodness, - but for some reason, with detective fiction, I prefer to hunt them down myself. Oh and of course it's not a bad way of saving money and doing good all at the same time.

So I decided to carry on searching for them in the local charity shops, and thus the hobby was born.

Now the great thing about popular detective fiction, is that they sell in huge numbers, and people seem quite happy to give them away when they've read them. This means that the average High Street charity shop is more than likely to have a good selection to choose from.

But just picking up any old book isn't what I was after. No, instead I chose an author, or a series of books and set about collecting the whole lot. (I suspect there are total aficionados out there, who'll collect them in the chronological order of publication, but I'm not that restrictive).

So I started with the Brother Cadfael novels, which wasn't too difficult to complete. Then I moved on to the Inspector Morse books by Colin Dexter. These were even easier to find, but such a good read that I didn't mind at all. I've never had the heart to give them away again because even though I can pretty much remember 'who did it' in all the stories, they'll still reward a re-reading.

After that I had a go at finding the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. These weren't too difficult to find either and I'm so glad I did buy them, because you'd be amazed how different the written stories are to most of the versions you see on TV. I'd never really bothered with Agatha Christie until then, but I'm a bit of a convert now.

Of course there was the year that I went after all of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels. Well that was a good year. His books, more than any of the others, I feel are much better read that watched. The TV series, despite the undoubted talents of John Hannah and the delicious Ken Stott, simple don't do justice to the stories that Rankin created. If you haven't already read them - is there anyone? - pop down to Oxfam this afternoon and get started.

I did see someone selling the entire Rebus collection on eBay one day, and it would have been cheaper than buying them second hand in the shops, but do you know, I just felt like that would be cheating, and it would definitely have spoilt the fun, so I kept on with my little jaunts into town until I finally completed the set. I can't tell you the emotions I felt when I discovered the very last one that I was missing, suffice to say it was a mix of elation at completing the series and sadness at the thought that I'd have to find a new author to collect.

Looking back, I do think it might have been a better idea to collect them all before reading them, or at least collecting them in order, so I could read them in order, but that would be like giving me a box of chocolates and asking me to keep them a year before I could eat them - just impossible.

I had a bit of a break after Rebus, but then back in the summer I decided I'd read Caroline Graham's Inspector Barnaby books - the ones that inspired the TV series, Midsomer Murders. I've always enjoyed the combination of whodunnit and black humour in the TV programmes and thought I might like the books. But my word, what a pain it is finding them. There's no shortage of charity shops in our local town to look in, but it's taking me an age to find any of her books. I had to resort to the library a couple of months ago, just to have a read, but even there, they're rarer than rubies.

And then on Saturday afternoon when I had a stroll into town with no great plan, just in need of a change of scene for an hour or two, what should I discover in the last charity shop visit of the day? You guessed it, not one, but two Inspector Barnaby books; Faithful Unto Death and The Killings At Badger's Drift. I snapped them up and came home as happy as Larry.

I happen to think there are few greater pleasures than being tucked up in a nice warm bed on a cold winter's night, with a good detective crime book, and here I am now, with two to keep me going for a few days while the snow keeps us indoors - such luck.

Of course I haven't got the whole series yet, so I'll no doubt be out and about again before long, searching for the missing volumes, but that's all part of the fun. If by any chance you're sitting on a few Caroline Graham books that you don't want any longer, please take pity on me and others like me, and take them to your charity shop - they'll find a good home.

Advantages Of Seasonal Clients

I don't suppose I'm the only person who's business follows, what shall we say, a rather on and off pattern. It's one of the things that you just have to get used to when you work for yourself. Sometimes there's barely a free hour in the day and then suddenly nobody wants anything at all and you're sitting pretty waiting for the phone to ring.

OK, I know that I should be actively pursuing more business, not sitting here writing this or (as I was earlier today) sorting out the coat cupboard - not pleasant, I can tell you - why do the particularly big spiders always take up residence around or worse, in, my wellies?

Anyway, I digress, the thing is, at this time of the year, if I'm really honest, I quite like not being too busy. I think that in a way I tend to encourage my clients not to give me anything major to do until the New Year. I don't exactly come out with "Hey December is a rubbish time to do x", but I might subtly leave them with that impression.

The thing is that since leaving the big corporate jungle, I've come to thoroughly enjoy the pre-Christmas build up. Now that I don't have to do all my Christmas shopping at weekends, with countless thousand other poor harassed shoppers, I'd be a bit resentful if I had to do it again. I like being able to potter around the shops during school hours, having a cup of tea or a spot of lunch, without having to fight for a free table in the teashop. I don't even have to do it all in one day - I can take my time, go to different towns - generally enjoy myself.

And then of course there's the question of hibernation. Once upon a time I wore skirts, 10 denier tights,and silky blouses to work. Now that's OK in the middle of summer, but quite frankly, once the clocks go back, I'm into jeans, wooly socks - sometimes several pairs - and enough layers of jumpers to look like the Michelin man.

I'm sure I must have dormouse genes, because as the temperature outside drops, my urge to roll up somewhere warm and sleep, gets stronger and stronger. That's something you can just about get away with when you work at home, but it's nigh on impossible surrounded by your colleagues in a large open-plan office.

So when I get new clients, I do tend to look for the ones with more seasonal patterns of demand. That way, it's much easier to know when I'm likely to be rushed off my feet and when I can expect to be left alone. And do you know? All things considered, I think that works well for me.

It's Not Too Late - Honest!

I think I may have mentioned a few times already that one of my heros is Barbara Sher (I Love Barbara Sher) - OK so I might get a bit boring on the subject, but I don't care, she's had a big impact on my thinking over the last months and I'm still re-reading her books and finding lots more that helps me. So I'm happy to sing her praises in case even one other person finds help from her work as I have done.

Anyway, while I'm here still waiting for the Brené Brown books to arrive from The Book Depository, I've taken the time to read again one of Barbara's books that really speaks directly to those of us who're forty plus. It's called 'It's only too late if you don't start now - How to create your second life after forty'.

Now as you'll probably guess from the title of this blog, I'm at that stage in life when things can get complicated. Like oh so many other people - men and women - I've reached a point where the things I felt I knew for certain have suddenly or gradually crumbled. I've started asking myself questions about the future that I would never have had the courage to think about only a few years ago.

But it's sometimes a scary place to be. Deciding that the career path you dedicated thirty years of your life to, has not only lost it's sparkle, but now increasingly feels like a fraud, is not a comfortable place to be.

Knowing that something has to change in order to feel at peace with ourselves is only the first step. We have to find out for ourselves what will give us satisfaction and pleasure so that we can take the mid-life crisis and turn it into the launch pad into a new life. For some it might be easy, if you've always really known what you should be doing, always understood your special gifts and known what direction you should be going in, even though circumstances may have forced you to go a different way until now, then at least you're part of the way down the track towards getting your second life in order.

But in my experience, we're not all that lucky. Some of us reach this stage in life so demoralised and discouraged, that it takes a lot of hard work, soul searching and not a few tears, before we uncover from inside ourselves the essence of what will make us happy.

What I love about Barbara's book is the way she takes you by the hand and walks you through steps and exercises that gently fold back the layers until you get a glimpse of the things that start to give you hope, make you tingle with excitement and ultimately give you the desire to take action towards building your second life.

This is a great book to read if you need a compassionate 'friend' to tell you it's going to be OK - sometimes we need that, especially as we don't all have real friends with whom we can share our mid-life fears. I read it first about a year ago and took various pieces of advice from it, but since then, as is the way with a mid-life crisis, I've been changing. It really does feel like a big emotional journey and today I'm not in the same place I was even a few weeks ago - so I was relieved to find that reading 'It's only too late...' again this week has given me new insights.

So thanks again Barbara. I'm sure this won't be the last  time I read through, or indeed bore everyone with my hero worship!

Trust, Gratitude, Inspiration - Thank You Brené Brown

Do you ever get the feeling that something important, something maybe even life changing has happened to you? I'm not really thinking about the obviously life-changing events, like giving birth, or winning the lottery. No, what I mean is the feeling you get from time to time when you hear something that resonates with you and discover that you're not alone? Or when you read something and suddenly it's like a light going on in your brain and something that hadn't made sense to you before is now clear as day.

Well this week, amid migraines, work and the rest of it, I think I've had one of those transformational moments.

It started when I followed up a post on a blog I like to read from Gretchen Rubin's wonderful Happiness Project Blog. You can go to the particular post if you click here. Half way through, Emily McKhann mentions Brené Brown. Now I'd never heard of Brené before, but the comments about living courageously and imperfectly resonated so loud with me and my mid-life journey, that I had to take a look.

I'm so glad that I did. I've now discovered Brené's website, her books and her blog and I have a really warm sensation that I've found a new piece to add to my life jigsaw puzzle.

Now I think it's going to be quite a challenge, I've been listening to read-along podcasts, without the books - (they're on order!), which is kind of interesting in itself, but I still know that it's going to be worthwhile. I believe I've taken another important step this week.

One of the things Brené does on her blog is to ask her readers to answer three questions - 1) Who are you trusting today, 2) What are you grateful for today and 3) What is inspiring you today.

So today, I have to say I'm trusting myself, because although I know I need lots of support and I respect all the people close to me who're there for me, ultimately I have to make this journey myself and trust myself to find the right path.

I'm enormously grateful to the internet, because without it, I'd never have found people like Brené. I'd never have had that moment of connection and realised that I'm not alone.

And I'm inspired by Brené, because she wasn't afraid - well actually I think she was afraid, but she did it anyway - to tell her story so that the rest of us could take heart, learn and move forward.

I do hope that if you're thinking about life in a similar way right now, you'll have a look at her website and see for yourself if her thoughts are helpful to you too.

See Brené talking here.

A Post Migraine Post.

Today is wonderful, ecstatic, brilliant. As I write, I'm trembling, I feel shaky and I'm excited. Why? Have I won the Lottery, have I landed a mega contract, have I discovered the elixir of eternal life? No, nothing like that, I feel amazing today, simply because the migraine I had yesterday has lifted, the sheer miserableness of Wednesday has gone, is past and the all pervading helplessness has drifted away.

If you ever experience migraines, you'll know what I mean. You'll also probably be familiar with the post migraine ecstasy too. I'm sure the scientists out there will tell us that it's hormonal or chemically induced, frankly I don't care how it happens, I can only say that when this shakiness starts I know the worst is over and I'm going to feel like living again. It's like a giant light shining at the end of the tunnel, showing you that there will be days when you're not wanting to bash your head against a wall.

Migraine has been a part of my life since I was about ten years old. I remember walking along a corridor in my school one day, carrying my 'cello. There were double doors at the end of the corridor but in the time I took to get to the doors, I lost half my vision and managed to bash the 'cello into the closed door that I simply hadn't seen. It seems funny now, but there's not much to laugh about where migraines are concerned.

As an adult, I've been very lucky. The really bad migraines have been mercifully few and far between, but I still live in fear of the next one, knowing just how debilitating they are. But whilst they don't often hit me in their full blown power, I do have fairly frequent periods of what I think of as migraine-brain. That's how I describe the days when your mouth and brain can't seem to connect, when what you want to say, just doesn't make it to your lips.

Often these days are also characterised by an inability to read or write. Do you get that experience? You know how it is, you look at the page but the words don't flow, it's as if you've never learned to read and you're not sure what's supposed to happen - what are those randomly collected words trying to tell you? As for writing, this is usually the way I most quickly recognise the onset of migraine-brain - I'll be trying to write something down, anything, a shopping list, a note for school, a piece of copywriting for work, anything, but what actually hits the page is a barely legible scribble. Spelling? Don't even think about it, just getting some of the correct letters down, not necessarily in the right order is an achievement.

Working through real migraines is nigh on impossible, but migraine-brain days sometimes just have to be endured. One of the good things about working for yourself is that you don't have so much trouble adjusting your day to accommodate migraine-brain. When I can't read or write, I try and do filing or simple tasks instead. At least I don't have to sit at a desk in full view of an open-plan office and fake being productive.

But today is OK, I'm back on top - long may it last and OMG what a relief!