Quetzalcoatl

I just had my haircut at 7:30pm on a Monday evening in the salon opposite me. That's the first time I've been out in the evening for 6 months. 6 months. It's flown by and it doesn't feel that long. I even missed her a bit. Silly me. Anyway, it was amazing. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Oscar, for cuddling Olive back to sleep when she woke up. I'm feeling like a new lady. This post, I'm harking back to the old days of being pregnant. It's been a while coming and my friend, Antonia, asked me to write something about this when we discussed it as she was pregnant at the same time and we spoke about how people felt like they had to right to discuss all your birth details with you even if they're a stranger. It's lovely chatting away to people (I'd chat to anyone) but I've never had anything like it when I was pregnant. Random people would say all sorts of things to me. It was such a bizarre thing. Last summer, when I was pregnant (that was a subo...

The last time I wrote a review on here, it was sunny and I was sitting in the garden with a bowling ball bump in the way. Currently, Oscar has taken Olive to see her Nana and I'm resting, writing, and waiting for the bath to run. An hour of luxury. This book, The Testaments (sequel to The Handmaid's Tale ), has genuinely been the most excited I've been about a book since the third Harry Potter . I taught The Handmaid's Tale to my sixth form class last year and I loved it. All the symbolism; all the historical context. I wish my class the best of luck as they sit their exams this summer...the 7 of you know who you are...university is just around the corner and I know you'll be amazing. Whilst we were studying it, I took them to a convent round the corner to see how religious groups exist in today's world. We met a 80 year old nun, someone who I would associate with Aunt Lydia (cunning, persuasive, yet charming and, now, after this second read: an unexpecting o...

This post has been a long time coming. To be completely honest, I lost my briefcase (with my laptop in it) and we found it up in the loft when bundling more outgrown baby clothes up there. This is what I wrote on Instagram when we welcomed Olive a month after being in a bubble with her: "I’ve been quiet for a while because I’ve been in a magical baby bubble with my new little family. We have been falling in love a little more each day with our baby girl, Olive Grace Jean Smith. It’s overwhelmingly incredible to be able to go on this journey and we feel lucky to be parents to such a beautiful girl. Thank you for coming into the world, little Olive: we already love your big feet, your big dark eyes, your button nose, your little squeals just before you drop into a deep sleep, your happy milk face, your second poo just as Daddy puts a clean nappy on, your tiny finger nails, your softness after a bath, your slightly furry shoulders, and your long legs. A girl!" I...

So, the first week of September, 2019. The first week of school and the first week of my first Maternity Leave begins.  The below suggestions are all about the baby books that I have loved and ones that I'm yet to ponder over: 1. The post natal workshop with @beccyhands and @candidmidwife was the best thing I have been to all pregnancy. Made me realise how important it is to look after me after birth. Thank you ladies and thank you for the gift of your incredible book. 2. Gift from @lilyhitch89 by @theunmumsymum (currently reading) and I hope it’ll make me feel ok to be a weird mum. 3. Our hypnobirthing journey with @londonhypnobirthing and the book by @theyesmummum has changed the way I think and am informed about birth. All new mums need this. 4. My first book that Oscar got us when we were first pregnant. Very special times have led to this point and this very special book by @mother_of_daughters is honest, chronologically satisfying and really comforting. ...

Moonrise by Sarah Crossan This is my first verse novel. For someone who loves poetry, I leapt into this and whizzed through it. 24 hours and my first affair with the verse novel was over. It was wonderful. As we decided to teach it to our Year 9s this year, I’ve unfortunately been contemplating how I’d teach it as I read through it. Even though I’ll be on maternity leave and won’t be teaching it this year, I still can’t help but think about how I’d teach it. So...I’ve read it differently.  I’ve read it in the eyes of a teacher rather than me. It’s almost impossible to turn that off. I now can’t read any dystopian fiction as I’ll automatically compare it to Handmaid’s Tale or 1984 like we have to for the exam. It’s quite frustrating. Maybe that goes one day. I’ll even read a newspaper and think which articles I could use for certain classes. Text and words are everywhere and that’s what I like to bring into class - new writing to enhance previous study. Anyway, back to Mo...

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones This one is for you, Emma ( @Comment_Ed ). I can’t help but compare this to To Kill a Mockingbird . Rather than ending the book on an innocent black man being sentenced for a crime he didn’t commit, this novel starts with it (a rape in both cases). Rather than the novel being about how white people live in their southern town, it’s about how black people live in their southern town. Rather than the black man being shot and dying before he got a chance of parole, it is about a man black man being set free. Not only does it show how America still judges people, and how the justice system may still be unjust, but it does show how it’s changing (albeit gradually) due to freedom being given. Structurally, the mirroring of character narratives is clever where the dramatic irony is that the reader can create their own version of events by knowing all the points of view. It’s intimate through the epistolary section at the beginning. We feel li...

The House on the Strand by  Daphne Du Maurier Ahhh...back into my old comfy shoes of Du Maurier's writing. Her patchwork quilted hills of Cornwall are like my comfort blanket. This book came into my hands through speaking to Dr Laura Varnam on Instagram ( @lauravarnam ). I saw she was a lecturer and writing a book on Du Maurier. Ever since I read Rebecca (I picked it up at Woolton Hill Church Fete about 10 years ago) I fell in love with her gothic writing. I guess I fell for it because I had recently gone through a break up and in a new relationship as an adult. I was starting to understand about how living in the shadow of a previous partner can be soul destroying and ghostly. The older we get, the more past we have to live with.  The House on the Strand was set in a very typical Cornish backdrop for Du Maurier novel. I spent every summer in the Cornish fishing towns of Portloe, Mevagissey and more, as my Grandparents moved there when I was 4 or 5. I have a comfor...