This Woman's Work

My husband is the best, most amazing man in the whole entire world. I knew this anyway, but let me explain why.

A few months ago; Kate Bush announced that she was doing a series of concerts.  I would like to say that I have been waiting 35 years for this but I was 4 in 1979 and I hadn't heard of Kate Bush until I was about 8 and I didn't like "Running up that Hill". I may not have been 8, my encyclopedic knowledge of her back catalogue is no longer at the very forefront of my mind.

Many of my friends who I hadn't spoken to in years messaged me on Facebook. Even people I have only met recently posted the link.  My obsession is more well known than I believed.  Or perhaps,more worryingly, I look like the kind of person who would be a Kate Bush fan.

So, the day arrives. I have already given up hope.I am at work.  At 9 o clock I look at my watch. I pace the room. I tell my year 13s what is the matter.  I play them a clip. They are still none the wiser.  I sigh and return to Chaucer.

The next day is Saturday. The weekend of mothering Sunday.  There is a huge box from Thorntons delivered.  Neither of us have mentioned the tickets.  I can't help but feel a building anticipation about my Mother's day gift.  The tension is too great to bear.  The one amazing surprise present my husband has managed and I have to spoil it. I had to know.  "No," he says. "I'm sorry. I had 3 browsers open, the tickets sold out in 15 minutes." I understand, of course.I head back downstairs. But less than 5 minutes later he is confessing, he did it. He got me tickets. The single most important event of my life. After my wedding, and the birth of our children. He is the most remarkable man.  And he tried to do it just for me.

The first track I heard of Kate Bush that had resonance for me was "The Sensual World". On the strength of the track I bought the album; on vinyl, the 12" picture of her in black and white striking on the cover.  At the time,I wasn't aware that the lyrics were based on Molly Bloom 's rapture from the end of Ulysses, but the lyrics were compelling. "He loosened it so if it slipped between my breasts, he'd rescue it"  I had never heard anything so erotic,it was beautiful.

My boyfriend lent me the greatest hits album and from then on I was hooked.  Throughout sixth form I trawled second hand record shops and record fairs to collect all the 7" singles, the blue Russian flexi disc of "Babooshka" and a marbled cassette of "Hounds of Love".

I seem to remember that Take That were famous at the time. I  hadn't heard anything by them and I was experimenting with skinny black jeans, lace tops and back combed hair (still purple though) at the time.  I later wore lots of stripey trousers and army style boots, (but definitely not Dr. Martens - everyone had them). Somehow Kate Bush remained consistent with all these other passions.  "Wuthering Heights" was gothic enough to fit in with "Severina" and "Temple of Love",  "The handsome Cabin boy" followed a folk tradition that The Levellers and The Tansads would have understood.

And she was on her own.  For other girls like me who were on their own, hanging around with groups of boys. I couldn't follow a crowd of other girls screaming at Take That, and the subjects of her songs challenged standard topics - narratives of poisoning, gay lovers, dressing as a rocket,dancing with Hitler and very rarely falling in love .  Many of her women were strong and independent and she seemed strong and independent too, she produced her own music and dictated her own terms.

As someone said on tv the other night, after the rave reviews of the first night, I think it was the former drummer of the Sex Pistols, she wasn't part of a movement, she had a fan base all of her own.  I felt special being a fan.  I was part of something bigger - I went to a convention and it was slightly scarier than a Morrissey gig. No one else was a fan.  Actually that's not quite true, everyone was a fan of something by Kate Bush.  But they weren't a fan.  Not like me.  Eventually I did meet some fans but after a few bizarre encounters I has to break off contact with most of them.

Oh, and she played the piano.  You don't need even a band when you play the piano.  As proved later by Tori Amos, but that's a whole new blog.  I had been learning the piano for ten years and knew I would never  be a pop star.  I was too snobby to be a "keyboard" player, based on my experience of 80s two finger moochers at the back of the group.  But I could be an artist. Or artiste. Or performer, or any of those things Kate Bush was.

She was a positive role model for a teenager, the independent woman I wanted to be.  She even had children late and so we ended up almost as contemporaries.  I will try and fit in a blog before I go, but I may be too busy being excited.

The eye of the storm

I wrote a song once called "Katy the hurricane".  Bit of oversharing really; I wrote songs, I called it "Katy" because of a girl I was in awe of called Katy who I thought my boyfriend might prefer, but mostly because I had just been reading Cixous. I couldn't believe I had never noticed before that hurricanes and natural disasters tended to be named after women.

I won't share the whole song with you, I couldn't cope with the awkward silence and feet shuffling that usually results from one of my songs/poems/readings, but the gist was that she was "turning/turning the whole world upside down...buildings and institutions come tumbling down" I'm squirming a bit just writing that actually, a bit like reading my teenage diary. I really admire Caitlin Moran for writing "How to be a woman" (Read it now...right now, if you haven't already..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Woman-Caitlin-Moran-ebook/dp/B0052CK5PQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407682461&sr=1-2&keywords=caitlin+moran+books). I couldn't possibly be so reflective or use my young life to provide any insight into the state of the world.

Anyway, back to the point - I will explain the reason for my disjointed train of thought shortly. I'm not sure what bothers me about the practice of using female names,and I don't think it's done any more, it could be the accusation of random destruction, the repeated association of femininity with nature as opposed to the more civilised masculine/culture link, or perhaps it's that the power granted femininity is only "natural" or innate. What's caused is caused by accident.

All of which brings me to my distracted mind. Bertha, or whatever the tropical storm is called has caused very strong winds and rain making the children bubble over like cherry Pepsi max and so I am here, a generic soft play warehouse,with the car packed full of a tent, sleeping bags and gas stove, seriously impeding my fuel efficiency.

I once made one of my friends come to one of these places, she doesn't have any children and I don't suppose she'd go to one again.  It was purely for my own sanity that I invited her.  Parenting law dictates that you can, if alone,strike up conversation with another lone parent, as long as you are in one of the more middle class areas. And not a father, fathers must remain unmolested by their own and other children and adults, this is signified by a broadsheet newspaper raised in front of the face, a tablet; held up rather than rested on the table, or in emergencies,a phone.  A new development I have only noticed today us headphones.  This obscures screams and the usual panicked reaction to a cry of "mummy!" Before you realise it's not for you and lapse back into concentration.

So instead of reading a book, as I used to, I am typing on my new Kindle for the first time.it's nor easy.  See?

I've been waiting all year for this.

Six weeks!  It's that time of year again!  What all teachers have been waiting for...

I've planned to go camping on Sunday.  According to BBC weather; the only forecast I trust; there is "yellow rain" alert on the day I intend to go and it will rain for the rest of the week.  Don't get me wrong, much of my camping life has been spent in the rain, most of it was in the Lake District; I once walked the Pennine Way, taking 19 days and it rained on every single day.  Bar one. But the idea of putting the tent up in the rain, battling the remnants of a former hurricane, seems to be setting myself for failure.  We will see.

So far the holiday has been delightful.  I have successfully vacuumed one floor properly for the first time in three weeks in a post- marking blitz but strangely I feel like I am working harder then before.  All I want is a cup of coffee, watching "Homes Under the Hammer" with everyone back at work.  However, now Depressed Aggressive Neurotic husband is working from home I can't see that ever happening again.

I miss my Tuesday lunch time, my one day off - it's like my pub night.  I haven't yet done enough work and I am so anxious about it that I haven't yet summoned up the courage to check my email.  Any of my emails.  There could be a whole load of unspent Pizza Express vouchers in there.  Not quite sure when the relaxation begins.

Once again I have only myself to blame.  What's wrong with me?  I worked 5 days a week, Dan worked 3 before July.  I did all the bedtimes, packed lunches and dinners, now it's the "holidays" and I am still doing all the bedtimes, all the dinners and, oh yes, the packed lunches!  How are all these cheerful people so happy about not making cream cheese sandwiches, chopping up carrot sticks and wrapping oat biscuits in foil?  We seem to be picknicking (Not sure about that verb...) every day.  And these picnics seem more difficult than your standard packed lunch.  (Actually, that is mostly my fault.  I want salad which is more fiddly.)  We have crisps.  Crisps! And biscuits.  And for some reason, we have plates.  All of which creates more washing up and substantially more work.

I am rubbish at this.  I should probably go back to work.

Why striking is hitting me where it hurts

Today I am striking.  I am not going into school and I am sitting at home, writing this and contemplating catching up on my marking.

According to the NUT; these are the reasons we are striking;

• Excessive workload and bureaucracy
• Performance related pay
• Unfair pension changes
• http://www.teachers.org.uk/campaigns/protect-teachers

I love my job.  I love my school. I love (most of) the children I teach and I am absolutely committed to getting them the grades that they deserve.  The issues about which I am striking are preventing me from doing my job. The job I love.  Anecdotally, many teachers at my school have told me that today they are striking when they didn't last time because they have so much work to catch up on. No, really.  The irony is not lost.

Do we have too much work?  I am part time and am seriously contemplating reducing my hours next year so I have time to do my job.  Each additional class I take on involves not only the 4 hours a week, but the 4 hours or so preparation time for those lessons, the additional 4 hours or so marking, an additional parents' evening, another set of reports and so on.  At the moment I can just about get my own children in bed by about 8 pm, after which I return downstairs to wash up, make sandwiches, clean the kitchen and settle down to work at about 9 pm.  I work on the evenings I work, the evenings on the days before I work, holidays, Sundays and a few Saturdays and Fridays.  I can usually finish by midnight.  That's not so bad.  But my children are getting older and Max only finishes cubs at 8:30; what do I do then?  

I'm part time btw.  I mentioned that.  

Does this excessive workload mean that we don't do a good job?  Not really, because each one of those hours, those books, to us represents an individual student.  At half midnight, when we have just 3 books left to mark, having put the scruffiest one to the bottom of the pile, then the most hard-working one, then one-most-likely-to-be-absent; we can't bear the look on the face of little Leonie who asks plaintively; "Why haven't you marked my book Miss?"  Anyway, so much of what we do depends on giving the students the opportunity to respond to our marking and set themselves targets based on that, that marking is often only the start of the lesson planning.  So tonight it's a 1am finish.  

So what about Performance Related Pay?  Should we get paid for what we do?  What we achieve for the students?  What they achieve for us?  What about my friend Linda?  Every year she took the bottom set, we offered to swap, she didn't have to do it, but she was good with them.  Almost all demotivated boys, or girls that could hardly string a sentence together.  The option subjects couldn't cope. They were a health and safety risk for science.  Mitchell would have been banned from PE after the javelin incident.  The German teacher would refuse to teach Shayne after the "sandwich" incident.  But they had to do English, and on the days when they weren't in some kind of  Pupil Referral Unit, anger management course or bricklaying day at college, Linda dragged each of them through persuasive letter writing in some kind of vocational course; before they were forbidden; so each of these boys left school with something, a real life qualification or GCSE grade G.

Would Linda pass her Performance Management?  Before Callum threatened his sister with a kitchen knife, he was targeted a C grade based on his year 6 SATS level.  That target stands.  That's what most of his peer group would get, if they weren't in care.  So who wants to teach that group now?  

And when they fail Linda, put her on capability and get her out quick, because she's a bit expensive, you could get a young, inexperienced teacher in to teach that group at half the price.  And when that teacher goes off long term sick with stress, you can always get a non-qualified teacher in on instructor's rates because you can't afford a proper teacher and that group, well they're not worth it are they?  

And breathe.  

I love my job. I want to do it well. I love being a parent. I would quite like the time to do that well, too.  I want my children to matter as much to their teachers as my students matter to me.  And since some of them are your children, or soon likely to be, I hope you understand the reason why I am striking.  

It's all my fault

Dan is slightly less depressed, aggressive and neurotic.  He has left work.  The consequences of this include me becoming increasingly more depressed, anxious and neurotic.

To celebrate, he went out drinking last weekend.  All last weekend.  From Friday night to Monday morning.  And although he has been slightly home this weekend, there is a fairly similar pattern of behaviour.

I cancelled our celebration dinner on Sunday night after I came home after swimming on Sunday morning with the three children who hadn't seen him since Friday afternoon to find him (I thought) having a bath and a coffee to sober up.  I was wrong, he was merely brushing his teeth before going back to the pub for the rest of the afternoon.

I am incredibly cross, I am so cross I nearly rang my mother-in-law.  I have no idea what good that would have done, he hasn't done what she has said since 1982.  I had a bit of a whinge to my latte friends in the week and they all said the same thing; don't put up with it, don't know how you stand it, my (insert status here) wouldn't get away with that.

I really do not know what that means.  I don't know what my alternative is, I don't deal with conflict well and have never had much success with arguing in general.  And I have realised it is all my fault.I have cause this entire situation and I suspect I am not the only one.

This is because I, like many women, cope.  We get on with it.  We manage.  Husband tells you he's left his job?  You cope.  Life-threatening illness?  Move on.  Run out of money on the 10th of the month?  Feed a family of 5 on a £10 Sainsbury's voucher you earned from a survey website.  My husband is a competent, sensible, intelligent man and is perfectly capable of managing the family in the event of my death but he doesn't need to.  I have encouraged and supported that ... well that lack of support.

How did it happen?  I didn't mean it to, I am not sure how I got here and I am not sure how to get out of it.  What would he do if I just didn't come back from the pub on a Friday night instead of being back at ten prompt to pay the babysitter and do the ironing?  He will never know.  It will never happen.  He can stay out all day because he knows our children will be dressed, fed, delivered to ballet, parties, school.  Their home work will be supervised and their lunch will be made.  Their sheets will be clean, their beds will be made, their school uniform will be ironed, named and in their drawer ready.  For that matter, so will his.

I'm too competent.  I am brilliant.  I am supermum.  It's all my fault.

Verity Lambert may be my new hero.

It's bad enough a grown man being still obsessed with Doctor Who.  But a grown woman?  I'm not the only one.  I'm not really obsessed.  I can't quite work out why it's almost ok, whereas I would mercilessly mock my male friends for their Star Wars / Star Trek interest.  (I spent long enough with my male cousins and male best friends to develop a working knowledge which secured my ability to date as many geeks as I liked - and I did like.)

So I have spent a week watching Doctor Who warm up programmes, all in preparation for "The Day of the Doctor" tomorrow - 50 years of a television programme for goodness sake, although as I am always telling my students; that is a very high proportion of the history of the medium.

I think Dr. Who had an acceptable appeal to women even before the "eye candy" days of David Tennant (or for me- Christopher Eccleston.)  Having watched a particularly well-done drama- last night, brilliantly acted by Filch from the Harry Potter films - David Bradley "An Adventure in Space and Time", I was very drawn to Verity Lambert who became a very young and very female producer of the new Doctor Who programme.  Maybe it was her influence, or Waris Hussein or Peter Bryant that developed the character as a maverick with a strong political message but that slightly rebelled against authority and the status quo.

There may never be a female doctor, I don't know if I would welcome it or not.  The predominantly female companions have been presented as strong, wife-like in some cases and perhaps unfortunately, increasingly glamorous.  They may have been screaming banshees (Peri)  from time to time, and occasionally wore far too few clothes for any decent feminist to approve of (Leela) but there were some powerful companions. I got Sophie Aldred's autograph.  She inspired me.  Lately they have even been quite heroic themselves. Donna and Clara have pretty much saved the Doctor.  At least the old ones never snogged the Doctor though. And in some cases it would have been down right inappropriate.  The more recent Doctors have been closer to their companions' ages, it's been less disturbing but it creates a different dynamic.

Now the Doctor seems to need his companions to give him some humanity or to teach and educate him.  It is a partnership of almost equals.  The burden of being a Time-Lord is not an easy one and seems to come with few of the benefits of a super hero.  And just recently River Song has brought a powerful breath of fresh air; someone who knows more than the Doctor; turns up, calls everyone sweetie, is strong, sexy and (hooray) older.  The new Doctor is not threatening to his female companions or audience in the same way that he is not threatening to pale teenage boys.  He is not strong and heroic, he runs away.  And thinks. About science.  Captain Jack loves him.  And as I am just watching (right now!) my other heroine Caitlin Moran claim that Russell T. Davies was partly responsible for the legalisation of gay marriage. A girl can trust him when she's alone in the TARDIS.

I am partially refusing to feel guilty about being so excited about tomorrow.  Well done Doctor Who.  I think you may have made it ok for women to like sci-fi and even feminists may find some very positive role models in a programme suitable for young girls.

There is a light.

Last night, a woman died.  A lovely, lovely woman who has two young children at primary school with my children.

The playground after school was a sombre affair.  Standing, waiting, I watched as mother after mother approached a friend and gently touched her arm.  I watched as the mother smiled a hello then within a minute her hand would be snatched to her open mouth and her eyes filled with tears.  And all of us, all of us then wrapped our children up in our arms and buried our wet cheeks into their shoulders so that they would see our smiles by the time we put them down.

The closest friends wept openly or wore sunglasses but the rest of us who were passing acquaintances, or like me, had had a few lively nights out hid our emotions, not wishing to seem like hangers on.  It leaves all of us terrified by our mortality, wondering how on earth our husbands would get our children to school, or brush their hair.  Do any of them know what time swimming lessons are?  Or ballet?  Would they eat fruit again?

Dan and I hugged for an hour when we got home.  However bad our life seems now we have another day together, with our children tomorrow.  We are the luckiest people in the world.

Good night.  Sleep tight.