The hopes of a lioness - Day 24

24th December 2018 (Christmas Eve)

24 is the number of karats (k) in pure gold (the gold content is as close to 100% as is possible).
If you split the content of the metal into parts all 24 parts are gold, whereas 9k gold objects are
9/24 ratio of gold to other metals. Gold is very soft and hence it is usually mixed with copper or
silver to add strength so that it can be used for jewelry or intricate objects. 24K gold is used
in electronics and medical devices such as those used for children suffering from ear infections who
are fitted with gold tympanostomy tubes that are known to improve aeration of the middle ear.

Today I am going with my mother and a friend to the panto (oh yes we are) - I hope we all enjoy it. It seems a suitably festive thing to do on Christmas Eve. Then I must drive back to London and I am greatly looking forward to having supper with my goddaughter and her family - to me the Christmas period is about love and sharing.

The Christmas Eve post, a piece of pure gold writing shining with love, is by Tamasin Sutton. She is an HR consultant, currently based in the North East of England. She specialises in supporting technology businesses. He company is TSHR Limited. She is an effective, pragmatic and experienced professional who is qualified in the use of various psychometric tools, as well as being an NVQ assessor with the PTTLS qualification. She co-founded Connecting HR Northeast in 2017 and works hard to bring together and develop the capabilities of the HR profession and the people within it - she is a Facilitator with Developing People Globally (DPG) supporting and assessing those studying for the CIPD Level 5 qualifications.

Tamasin is active on social media - you can follow her on Twitter (her handle is @TamasinS). To relax, Tamasin enjoys travelling, but she is happy to unwind with a gin and a chat. She is supportive within her wider community and is a school governor  for  primary school. However, as you will read, the most vital part of her life is being a devoted and passionate mother.

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This is my 3rd year of contributing to the Advent blogs, and the 3rd year I have indulged in being vulnerable to whoever reads these words. 

It's like therapy, something I dread, yet I feel strangely at peace when I have purged.

This time last year I was desperate to get out of hospital with my newborn little girl, and 4 days ago, she turned 1. When I reflect on this year, I feel overwhelmed. It has been unbelievably hard in so many ways. Motherhood is hard. I'm not a natural, not one of those earth mother types who gush about the joys of maternity leave and every day they spend with their precious mini me. But I have found my way, through sleep deprivation, difficulty breastfeeding, struggling to continue working and sometimes receiving lacklustre support of my choices. It's been hard. I think I lost myself, and I'm not back yet, despite my first KIT day being when she was 3 weeks old.  It's sometimes frowned upon to be so honest about the impact that childbirth and becoming a mother can have. I spent 40 years being, well, selfish. I could do as I pleased and enjoyed the flexibility that being child free afforded me. I didn't always fully empathise with the struggles that other carers had, but boy do I get it now. 

I feel my identity is a little blurred around the edges. I see it not just through my own eyes, but through the eyes of people close to me. Who am I and what do I want to be? I'm at odd's and in some distant way my heart aches for the life I used to have and I realise that I am trying to mourn. But my heart would break immeasurably if I couldn't see my beautiful daughter's smile, if I couldn't hold her and keep putting her unicorn furry hat back on even though she relentlessly removes it..... She gives me hope.

And I have dark thoughts. Consuming ones where my daughter comes to harm. What the hell is wrong with me?! It terrifies me. I cry, get distressed, have to distract myself. What's normal?

I cry. More than I've ever cried before. I feel more deeply than I've ever felt before. I get scared when before I didn't bat an eyelid. It all comes back to her, and for her I am the lioness. 

My hope for her is that she will always feel loved and be happy. 

As she enters her second year I look forward to the high fives as she takes more than 3 steps on her own (and then quickly wish that she wasn't growing up so fast or moving so independently!!), starts to entertain us with her chatter and keeps growing into the cheeky spirited girl I see every day. 

I hope that she adapts as we make our way back towards London in January, 2 years after moving away. What a different life we now have, but what hope there is for adventure, fun and most of all, making memories.

LOL - it's New Year - Day 38

Day 38 (Sunday 7th January 2018)

38 years ago on 7th January 1980, Indira Gandhi was voted back into power in India,
with a landslide majority. Despite her surname she is not related to Mahatma Gandhi,
but is part of the Nehru political dynasty. She was Prime Minister from January 1966 to
March 1977 and then again from the start of 1980 until her assassination in October 1984.
She was one of the earliest female heads of government - only preceded by Sirimavo Bandaranaike
the Prime Minister of Ceylon, who was elected in July 1960.

Today Is it me or are the days speeding up? It is Sunday already. Our decorations are down and the house feels strangely empty.

Today's post is by Angela Mortimer, the Founder and Director of one of Europe’s most successful recruitment consultancies, Angela Mortimer Plc.  Established in 1976, the company currently employs people in offices across London, New York, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, Lyon, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Hong Kong and provides people for clients around the globe.  Angela Mortimer has developed the careers of more than 200,000 individuals, mainly female, since its foundation. Angela believes passionately in the need to encourage everyone especially women, to achieve their maximum potential.  She seeks to inspire  confidence and positive thinking by sharing insights developed over 40 years through training, public speaking and her blogs. You can follow her on Twitter (her handle is @AngelaMortime3 - but she is less active than many due to time constraints).

For a number of years Angela was a visiting lecturer on the Mountbatten programme in New York and supported graduates in finding placements after their Internship.  Angela has made numerous appearances on television, radio and in the press, including documentaries about The British at Work on the BBC, Women in the Workplace, which was aired on television and radio, and on on the unique nature of the company she owns. Angela is a patron and founder sponsor of the National Youth Ballet with an involvement motivated by the desire to foster the themes of women, youth and excellence, and, for several years, Angela worked with the International Centre for Prison Studies counselling prison governors.

For over 12 years Angela served on both the Confederation of British Industries SME Council and The London Council of the Confederation of British Industry.  In 2009 Angela was the winner of The First Women Awards for Business Services in association with Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets and supported by the CBI, and, in July 2003, Angela won the European Women of Achievement Awards in the Entrepreneur section. More recently, Angela was recognised by the Staffing Industry Analysts as one of the top 50 in their Global Power 100 – Women in Staffing list.

Her post is NOT to do with business but it is a lovely read.

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I’m a self-admitted crybaby.  When I was pregnant I would regularly dissolve into tears at the sound of the little girl asking her mother as she washed the dishes ‘what makes your hands so soft?”  It’s embarrassing but the truth and it happened more than once with the same Fairy Liquid advert and was witnessed by astonished friends so couldn’t be denied.

Don't get me wrong – I can be strong when needed as is proven frequently in the office and on the golf course.  I can manage threats, disappointment and fear with a measure of equanimity but I have this low threshold of crying when touched by nostalgia and when touched by the kindness of another toward me.

An example comes to mind of an extraordinary kindness shown me some thirty odd years ago when my time was stretched thinly between home, office and two children under the age of 5. 

At that period in my life I was busy practicing being Superwoman.  I could manage everything in 24 hours that an organized energetic modern woman had expected of her – make lots of money, be trim and sleek after a 6 a.m. swim in the open air pool and spring effortlessly into my spiky shoes and designer suit ready to slay clients with my expertise and easy charm.   I disappointed no one – that was simply not my game.

I left my housekeeper a note that day – we had been entertaining and had run out of standard groceries and all the stuff that a family gets through at the end of a big week end – asking for a lot of basic shopping to be done.  My Housekeeper was more a wife to me.  She was Portuguese, long married and did not have a bank account of her own when she joined me.  In her family it was not considered appropriate or respectful for a wife to be this independent.  I persuaded her to open one so I could provide her with a float for my shopping.  This was a good system though her husband remained unaware of it for some time – easier that way.

At the end of my twelve-hour day I returned to the house to find a phenomenal number of soft white bread rolls were in the kitchen.  There must have been a hundred of them.  What on earth are they doing here I wanted to know.  ‘Well you asked me to get them but I’m sorry, there aren’t 100 rolls, there are only 80 because though I drove all over town I could not find any more – the bakers and supermarkets were out of stock – I cleaned them out’!   And then she burst into tears because she had failed me.  I was still mystified as to how she can have thought I wanted them till she showed me my note.  There in black and white was my writing and clearly listed was ‘loo rolls’ looking like ‘100 rolls’.

Well that was when I started to laugh till I cried.  I laughed at my clumsy failure to communicate with my lovely helper who was challenged in her second language to understand my written slang and I cried because she was so upset to have failed me with the shortfall.    And then we both laughed and cried together and that was a very good cry indeed and a happy one.  We stayed together for 25 years as a very good team and never forgot that day – a classic in miscommunication.

And that made me reflect on the astonishing range of opportunity we have to fail to communicate effectively with others unless we are meticulous in our spoken and written words.  A serious thought and a useful one to hold in mind as we enter this special time in the year when overloaded with nostalgia in every advertisement we see for a perfectly unattainable perfect Christmas and New Year, emotions might more readily be tipped from positive to sad. 

And now - if you want a really good happy cry, go see Paddington Two but take a box of tissues – no spoiler – you might need them, I did!  Happy New Year.