An ordinary couple’s extraordinary day

Today is an exciting day. Not historic or memorable but thrilling nonetheless. I am still unfathomably sad I won't be sitting in the Abbey's pews tomorrow but I am beside myself The Wedding is upon us.

I read an interesting article yesterday in The Times by Tom Bradby, the only journalist granted a television interview with the engaged Prince and Princess-to-be and among the privileged to be invited tomorrow. He has a friendship with Prince William, developed over the course of a decade as a royal correspondent.

He insists he is not in William's inner circle but as far as journalists go, he's as close as they get. (Incidentally Bradby's wife Claudia - who will also be in attendance tomorrow - worked with Kate Middleton at Jigsaw).   

Round babies, square books

On the weekend I read an email from one of my closest girlfriends that made my heart sink. The message was short but filled me with dread. She is due to give birth in a few weeks and wanted to know my thoughts on Gina Ford's Contented Little Baby book and asked for other book suggestions. I sat down to write a reply and was unable to look away from the screen for the next hour. I wrote, deleted, rewrote and deleted. And this was to one of my dearest friends.

Baby books are dangerous terrain. I have a love hate relationship with them and my heart still beats a little faster every time I pick one up. I bought quite a few books during my pregnancy – my mantra was knowledge is power - and read them all at least once before my due date. I felt prepared in the only way I could. That is, not at all.

The business of blogging

It's only been a bit over a fortnight but I am having an inordinate amount of fun writing this blog. After 20 months with my brain semi-idle it's beyond satisfying to have somewhere to channel the commotion inside my head. I've been writing for months but sharing what I write feels different. Much more fun. 

I've been writing more than I envisaged when I pressed publish on that first post. Some of my apprehension about starting a blog was that I didn't know what I'd talk about. But since I started posting, I haven't been able to stop. This brain had been dormant a little too long.

Holidays

I do not have a paying job. I am a stay at home mum who tries very hard to stay out of the home for as much of the day as possible. Partly that's because we live in a comfortable but very tiny flat, but also because I feel very cooped in when I stay inside anywhere too long. But that's not the point.

What I'm getting at is when you don't have a job with working hours going on holidays is quite different. I contemplated this last week. I was very excited to be jetting off but I felt slightly remiss that this trip didn't conjure the same thrill of escape that a break from work once did. This is probably because in my current line of work, the office (as in my daughter) travels with me. So, I was thrilled for the adventure and for time with my family but I wasn't anticipating the traditional holiday trappings. Fun? Absolutely. Relaxing? Not so much.

Bonjour

My hat is currently dipped to Peter Mayle who wrote the bestseller A Year in Provence. It became clear today that to inhabit this district of France for an entire year and live to write the tale is quite a feat. I've barely been here 24 hours and very nearly didn't survive. If we'd travelled on the A50 any further I'm certain this story – however dull – would remain untold.

Three-quarters' of a bottle of local Rose later - shared with my equally shaken husband - my heart beat is almost back to normal. Thank god the wine is, as promised, heavenly. Though I suspect we'd have drunk it regardless.

We've had one of those days where travelling beyond one's neighbourhood seems categorically irrational. I wondered often today how tourism ever began, let alone flourished. To be fair, we were due a day like this. Our week in Barcelona was so smooth sailing that we really should have seen this coming. But of course we didn't.

Hola

Tempting as it is to pretend otherwise, I'll admit my life is not normally as alluring as it is right now. I am writing to you from the rooftop terrace of a divine café in Barcelona. I could not envisage a more idyllic spot to be typing. I'm not a travel writer so I won't detail the city's sights but I will let you in on a couple of things I've learned these past few days.

1. Travelling with a baby has copious benefits

Who would have thought? Now naturally those benefits do not include sleeping in, dancing til dawn or even eating a meal uninterrupted. But travelling with a baby has afforded us some advantages. It began at the airport. Front of queue for security screening, express boarding and first pick of seats (we were on a certain budget carrier). At our hotel, the receptionist arranged a bigger room and throughout our days wondering this remarkable town, we have kind Spanish people bending over backwards to help us with the pram. Which brings me to the most fabulous point of enfant in tow. Having a pram.

Eve and Adam

After showing my husband this his initial remark was that he really liked that it was devoid of negative connotations towards men. Even said in jest, this surprised me. Partly because I wasn't aware he considered me a vocal lead in the dissemination of anti-male sentiment, but also because I didn't write it with men in mind. I wrote it about women.

But my husband was not the only one to consider its meaning for men. A wise American reader* commented that he liked my post but disagreed with the assumption that men are not capable of the same conversational depth as women.

A Royal snub

It may be because I'm slightly demented or irrationally optimistic but whichever it is I am genuinely disappointed that I'm not going to Kate and Will's wedding. And when I say genuinely disappointed I mean that I actually feel disappointment. Real disappointment. Like I might if someone I counted as a reasonably close friend didn't invite me to celebrate their nuptials. Now, naturally I'm not offended. Neither Kate or Will know who I am, and actually I wouldn't even feel offended if a friend didn't invite me to their big day as I appreciate that the numbers game with any wedding is fraught.


No, it's not offence I'm feeling. I am disappointed, and a little surprised, because somewhere in this crazy head of mine, I had this idea that I'd be in attendance at Prince Will's wedding. I'm not quite sure why that is, but since it transpired that my name was absent from the Middleton/Windsor guest list, I realised I really did believe I'd be there. And that begs the question. Demented or optimistic?

I think it started with my birth date. You see my mum and Princess Diana were in labour with me and William together. Well, actually they were worlds apart but they were together in the sense of giving birth at the same time. My mum recalls the midwife in Lismore Base Hospital telling her and the other labouring mothers they were in good company. Lady Di was sharing their fate.

One fine night

On Sunday I had the kind of evening that reminded me how positively brilliant being female can be. A group of my closest girlfriends here came over for a very casual dinner. It was always going to be a bit special because two of the girls, who lived here the year before, were in town from Sydney and Amsterdam, respectively. They arrived before seven and we sat chatting between enormous helpings of food, until almost midnight. If it weren't for flights, real life and Monday morning looming, the conversation could have flowed unabated until today.

We dissected topics from body image, grief, clothes, new relationships, old relationships, marriage, work, blogs, discrimination, babies, food and just about everything else in between. But the thing is, and this is where my gratitude for being female springs, those things weren't just mentioned. They were talked about meaningfully. Not in a contrived sense, but in an effortless, sincere and funny sense. I love that five girls, living five different realities, can deliberate and share the tragic, the delicate, the intimate and the completely benign, alongside considerable laughter and the occasional tear, without drawing breath. And, best of all, can walk away from the table feeling slightly less burdened by their nuisances du jour. At least I did, and I suspect the others did too. As the adage goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. For me, that represents the real joy of being female. Or maybe that's the real joy of having good friends. In either case, it was a lovely night.

One less delicate subject we considered was the start of a blog. Specifically, this one. Having spent much of my time here bemoaning my far-too-short writing career, combined with the fact I love to write and I write all the time, it was kindly pointed out that not blogging was a bit ridiculous. My only response as to why I wasn't doing so already was fear. And frankly, when verbalised that didn't seem overly persuasive. So, it was decided that I would blog some of what I bash away on the keyboard, starting now.