On Being A Two Vehicle Household

My husband has recently become the proud owner of a helicopter. “What do you need a helicopter for?” I hear you ask. Perhaps for a speedy jaunt to Goodwood or a flying visit to London?

Well no. This particular helicopter is a surveillance device. At least that’s Chris’s dream. Having a credit at the Sussex Model Centre in Worthing, and having seen an advert containing a model helicopter, Chris decided to purchase one.

The first contender was small and ‘difficult to fly’. “How hard can it be?” said Chris. Famous last words. The battery charged and the wires connected, the helicopter was poised for takeoff. And poised it remained. Nothing happened.

“Faulty” Chris proclaimed and returned it to the shop. “Oh that’s no good for flying outside.” said Bob, the helicopter expert. “Try this one, and don’t try to fly it before you’ve had a lesson with me.”

Ah, you can see what’s coming, can’t you? Yes, unable to wait the few days until his lesson, Chris proceeded to assemble the new machine and get it to ‘hover’ over the kitchen table.

Buoyed up by his initial success, he took his new toy with him when we left for supper with friends. “They’ve got a nice big lawn. Perfect for takeoff.” was his justification.

And so we found ourselves spectators at the maiden voyage of the new helicopter. We women were gossiping and not paying much attention, while the men concentrated intently on the serious stuff.

Gears in place, throttle at the ready, Chris cautiously maneuvered the controls and the helicopter started to lift. Hovering inches above the grass, it then took a nosedive and plunged its rotor blades into said lawn. Oops.

Continuing to engage the throttle, the helicopter began to smoke. Then before our very eyes, it burst into flames. Finally dropping the controls, Chris lunged towards the fiery ball and yanked the nose cover off. Taking his life in his hands (or at least his hands in his hands) he pulled out the battery and disconnected the wires.

Phew, the acrid stench of burning plastic filled the evening air as Chris proceeded to give various explanations (excuses) as to why the helicopter had malfunctioned. Banished to the car boot (the helicopter not Chris) we sat down to supper.

Not one to be easily put off, Chris was back at the model shop the following Tuesday. Bob took a long close look at the offending machine and pronounced that he’d never seen that before. 

Have you experienced my husband’s persuasive arguments? So you’ll not be surprised to hear that the helicopter was fully repaired and upgraded - free of charge. 

However, on calling to report the tip top condition of the helicopter, Bob told Chris in no uncertain terms: “No, you cannot have it, and you are not to fly it without some instruction from me.”  

So I think that Petworth is safe for a little longer from any miniature surveillance craft. Can you imagine it: 

Taking off from a roof-top garden, a remote control helicopter, with a USB camera attached, careers into an open top car driving down New Street. The driver, startled by the additional load, swerves into Allans’ Menswear’s shop window. The driver and car come to a halt, buried beneath an enormous pile of pants and socks.

How does Chris get out of that one?

I’ll keep you posted.

Laura x    

The Power Of Now

Do you remember me telling you about the book I’ve been reading? The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Well I finished it this week and, as often happens when I complete a book of this nature, my brain settles down as I assimilate what I’ve learnt.

Having found the whole experience quite hard going, I returned to the book I’d read prior to Eckhart - A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson. This lovely book was recommended to me by my equally lovely friend Hannah. Thank you.

Now, I have read that we are drawn to texts that reinforce our view of the world. Sounds kind of obvious doesn’t it? But on reflection perhaps it’s just another way we promote Eckhart’s separate Ego identity. You remember - the one that keeps us focused on illusion and therefore in pain.

Well I don’t care. A Return To Love is a beautiful book that makes me feel great and, yes, reinforces a lot of my own personal experiences. Hooray!

This book is an interpretation of a 1970’s book - A Course In Miracles. From the little I’ve read (it’s my next read) it’s a non-traditional interpretation of the Christian texts. Marianne Williamson is engaging as a translator of this interpretation because she is so human. As  is often the case, authors who have written books like this have gotten there the hard way. And we all like to feel that if they can do it, we can too.

I read the way I do most things in life - in a hurry and without paying enough attention. I pick up what I think are the relevant bits and then move on to something new. Yes, very like the way I live my life. So it is unusual for me to reread a book so soon after it’s first outing, and I am enjoying the experience.

I only started it again this morning but already I feel as if I’m both reading it anew and making sense of its meaning. What has helped enormously was just having finished old Eckhart. 

A Return To Love has exactly the same message as The Power Of Now: Love is the only reality; everything else is an illusion; we are not separated from anyone; now is all we have; surrender to who we really are and we will relinquish all pain. 

Nice.

Ah yes, but like the horse riding, it’s all very well in theory. More and more I see my life as a constant stream of little struggles (all played out to a soundtrack of niggling demons and accompanied by a permanently churning stomach), interspersed with moments of harmony and beauty when I let go and just focus on the now.

And I’d call that progress! I’ve sure come a long way from the days when I was completely unconscious of the havoc I wreaked wherever I went. Let me tell you about my Bathtub Epiphany: (I’ll try to be brief)

Last April, about a fortnight after my son had called me to break off contact, I went to see a Journeys Therapist (look it up: The Journey by Brandon Bays). This is an intense therapeutic process that lasted three and a half hours for me and was very cathartic.

As with other therapies of this kind, I arrived at a state similar to when I meditate and the therapist guided me through various visualisations. At the time I felt like a bit of a fraud. It was hard to be in that state and be talked to, very distracting. However, my visualisations were corkers and included Elvis and my five year old self in matching jumpsuits (go figure).

A week later Chris took me off to Baillifscourt Hotel in Climping. What a heavenly place. Only twenty minutes down the road and it feels like paradise. My first indulgence was a long deep bath.

As I lay in the bath and reflected on my therapy session, I started to look back over my life. During the therapy I had gone back to when I was five. I remembered the curious, creative, joyful child I’d been and wondered where she’d gone.

And then I realised that she hadn’t gone anywhere. When I started to run through the major events in my life I could see that I’d continued to launch myself headlong into life regardless of the consequences.

Now at the time I was desperately trying to rid myself finally of the crippling guilt I felt over my son, that had dogged me for a decade. So I had been pondering the concept that everything we experience we choose for ourselves. It’s a question of actions and consequences. 

Well, as I lay in the bath and considered this concept in relation to my quick appraisal of my life so far - I started to laugh. I mean I howled. As I matched this idea of me being the creator of my life through the choices I’d made, to the images running through my head as if on a silver screen, I laughed until I cried.

Contrary to my 45 years of conviction that I’d been a victim of my circumstances and the cruelty of others, I realised that in fact I had been the director in every drama - just by making my choices.

Sounds simple aye? We choose and we deal with the consequences - nothing more, nothing less. So we can be unaware of our role in our personal drama or we can choose consciously.

Simples. 

Then I considered that even if my choices had been thus far unconscious, I must have made them for a reason. And having come to the understanding that everything I do is with a pleasurable outcome in mind, then I must have wanted to be in all the dramas I’d chosen.

Wow.

That one wiped the smile off my face. But not for long. I had another good laugh at myself when I absorbed that one. Imagine - all the crap I’ve lived through and I chose it all for myself.

Too funny.

Which, in a somewhat convoluted way, brings me back to the original point:

We are all making choices, starting with how we choose to perceive life. If we want to live in peace then we can make conscious choices out of love. If we want to continue our struggle, we can remain convinced that the fear and the pain that we feel is real and carry on like ants.

The choice is ours.

Amen x   

Let's Talk About Sex Baby...

I've had relations with girls from many nations
I've made passes at women of all classes
And just because you're gay I won't turn you away
If you stick around I'm sure that we can find
some common ground

CHORUS:
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me

A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star
Belgrade
He said that some things are really best left
unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open

Sexuality - Young and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me

Sexuality - Don't threaten me with misery
Sexuality - I demand equality

I'm sure that everybody knows how much my body
hates me
It lets me down most every time and makes me rash
and hasty
I feel a total jerk before your naked body of
work

I'm getting weighed down with all this
information
Safe sex doesn't mean no sex it just means use
your imagination
Stop playing with yourselves in hard currency
hotels
I look like Robert De Niro
I drive a Mitsubishi Zero

Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and free
Sexuality - Your laws do not apply to me
Sexuality - Come eat and drink and sleep with me
Sexuality - We can be what we want to be

Sexuality by Billy Bragg

Allow me to be frank, as Westlife once said. I want to talk about sex. 


Now I am a great  believer in being able to talk about anything. The trick is to say it in the right way within the context of any given person and situation. And saying it with Love. This is the really  important bit. If we speak from the heart and with compassion and understanding (of our own motives as well as the recipient of what we have to say) then we can say anything.


Ah, but I must qualify that. A brilliant therapist of mine once explained to me that "We are only ever 50% of any relationship. We have no control over the other person." This was a hard lesson to learn and one that was reinforced by Byron Katie in her book called "Turn It Around". In it she talks about other people's business not being ours. I've tried to practice this for the last year and it really saves a lot of time and effort.


I digress. Sex. Great! I think sex is brilliant. It's a biological imperative - no, it's the biological imperative. Our sexual energy is our life force - literally. If we don't have sex we die out, simple as that. As mammals we're not designed to be monogamous. The idea is to enhance our gene pool and make our offspring strong and healthy and likely to carry our DNA forward. Simple. Men really cannot help being 'promiscuous' & being attracted to younger women. Sorry ladies but it's true.


But sex is so much more than that. It's fun! It's joyful, it can transcend verbal communication and take us to places we could never have imagined. Sex is just about the best fun people can have - not forgetting ourselves: "Sex is like a game of Bridge. If you don't have a good partner you'd better have a good hand."


Now I love the naked body. I've hated my own for many years but have finally come to appreciate it for the adaptable, resourceful, resilient vehicle that it is - perfect for experiencing life on this planet and a tapestry of my life lived. I must say I like my body a whole lot more having accepted this.


I studied the Nude during my degree - both theoretically and practically. I studied the naked form in all its many interpretations and I also modelled from life, women mostly - more satisfying to recreate in 3D.That doesn't mean that I'm happy naked, it just means that I can appreciate the beauty in others. 


So back to sex! Love it. I wish that I'd known what the youth of today know. Yes they're overexposed to too much negative imagery - just as with music and films. But so what? Surely the life-creating act of sex ranks higher in importance than gratuitous violence and power struggles?


Now I like Porn. It was something I came to rather late in life. Prior to Porn I managed on erotic literature and my imagination. Well imagination's something you still need when enjoying Pornography.


What an awful moniker. I believe that it was the Victorians who invented this umbrella term for everything erotic or sexual. Wealthy old men amassing collections of mythical beasts, fertility symbols and fine art for titillation. I can understand why, they needed to have a justifiable outlet for their forbidden instincts. Bloody awful if you ask me. 


Did you know that in Roman times attitudes to sex were much freer? Their houses depicted scenes of sexual acts and they were regarded as fun. They did not regard privacy as important because they didn't feel that they had anything to hide. The only issue they had was with oral sex. The Romans regarded the mouth as sacred because it was the vehicle for speech. No matter, they had slaves to do their bidding.


So 'Porn': It has a bad press and rightly so. Where does it belong in our modern day society? Well I know that a lot of porn is degrading to women and all about power and control - that turns me right off. But we've found some good stuff over the years - movies that are entertaining and erotic and above all fun. I'll tell you about a few:


Ben Dover aka Steve Perry. He doesn't make porn movies now - he's a serious documentary film maker, and so he should be - a very talented man. The premise of all of our Ben Dover movies is him and a couple of mates, either through requests or through a creative use of the truth, seeking out horny girls and persuading them to have a shag. Now I know that's sounding as bad as the movies I've just criticised but bear with me. 


Ben Dover is pure Carry On, total seaside humour. These girls have an absolute ball. They're young and horny and unsatisfied with the quality of sex on offer in the UK, and Ben provides a brilliant education in good, fun sex. These young women are empowered by their experience. Ben and the boys adore women - all shapes and sizes - and they let it show. They are truly in awe of women and recognise how in thrall men are to us. Nice! I wish I'd had this education when I was their age - it would have saved a lot of time.


Another British seaside humour exponent is the lovely Anna Span. Just a young girl herself, she creates movies where the viewpoint is very female and very fun. The story lines are funny and the actors are very accessible. Well done Anna!


We have a number of Joy Bear movies. Some are along the lines of Ben but with the delightfully funny and humble Steve Hooper (trained as a lawyer until he came across porn). But, better than that - Joy Bear do some classics. My very favourite is "The Opening of Misty Beethoven". It is an X rated, modern interpretation of Pygmalion set in Rome, Paris and New York. The dialogue is brilliant as are the sets and costumes - I love it.


So what about your own sex life? I believe that sex between consenting adults in private is their own business. I mean any kind of consensual sex. We're here on this earth to experience as much as possible and that includes any kind of 'perversions'. Me I prefer to operate within my accepted paradigm, which includes respect and affection and a willingness to relate to another person. But then we all operate within our individual paradigms.


And therein lies the problem. We are all such a mass of influences and addictions that we cloud the whole act of sex in confusion. Sex is liberating, sex is great exercise, sex is bonding and fulfilling. What's not to like about sex?


Falling in love, first with my son and then with my husband, were pretty Peak Experiences. But I have the privilege of having had a few transcendental sexual experiences. When we 'make love', with strangers as well as loved ones, we open the channel to a higher power. No wonder the Victorians were so afraid of it!


I'm not sure how well I've championed good sex. Have you seen 'Meet The Fockers'? I love Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman's performances in this film. The characters are ageing hippies. Streisand is a Sex Therapist who talks openly about sex and has no qualms about trying to free up whoever she meets. That's me, that is! At least I'd like it to be.


And I think a 45 year old woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, is a good place to be to enjoy good sex. And what fun to live in a world with Cougars and Toy Boys - just the idea!


So, sex is primal, sex is intimate, even with strangers. It's all about bodily functions and unpredictable outcomes. Rather like the rest of life then. Laughter is key to good sex too,I think. It's great for relaxation and for getting you in the mood. I confess I have a tendency to laugh during sex - it's just so much fun! Distracting for those who haven't known me well though.


So why don't you plan a little private space and time & get reacquainted with everything that is good about sex? It's as much about giving attention to someone, sharing yourself. It's not all about the penetrative act. Spending time together, distracted by the matter in hand so to speak, is a great way to let everything go and concentrate on the present moment.


Emotional Intelligence is apparently worth developing too. By that they mean the ability to use your intuition and your imagination to boost your pleasure. "A Filthy Mind is a Joy Forever" as a card I sent to Chris so aptly proclaims.


Sex is fundamentally about trust, isn't it? What is our partner's agenda? Where do they see this leading? All questions that meet with some concern unless you're in a very honest relationship. Well I say again - 'It's none of my business what other people think". Just look after your own agenda and try to be honest about it. As with every interaction between people, it's better to focus on the other person, rather than thinking about your own needs. But that doesn't mean you can't be explicit about your own pleasure. It's all about communication!


Sex is a beautiful, life enhancing act and should be enjoyed by as many as possible. 


Isn't that right Billy?


Enjoy! x

Montana Bound, or are we?

Early last summer Chris and I first spoke about the possibility of moving to Montana. Why Montana? Many reasons, including its beauty and space and horses and down to earth people and new experiences.

We did a lot of preparation: We found a house, opened bank accounts, researched new business ventures, prepared Therapy for sale.

And then we changed our minds.

Well, circumstances altered our plans. Having closed our unprofitable shoe shop, Chris looked at the company and decided that, now we are back to one shop, we need to consolidate.

“Consolidate”. There’s a lot of consolidation going on right now - the economy being what it is at the moment.

I feel about consolidation the way I feel about domestic chores. As my mousemat reads:

“I understand the concept of cooking & cleaning, just not as they apply to me.”

So Chris has looked at the current situation and said: “We can’t go to Montana yet. We need to establish our business now we’re back to one shop. Once we have proved its value, we can reconsider.”

I listened to his logical, sensible words ... and threw a tantrum!

Two weeks on from Chris’s cogent argument for delay and I still feel like a little girl who hasn’t got her way. I had plans! I’ve made decisions relating to our imminent departure and now I have to undo them. We told everyone we were going and now we’ve got to backtrack. The dreamy house that we’d found will have to be forgotten. The future we had mapped out has faded in the morning mists. How disappointing!

But this whole situation has taught me a valuable lesson. As one of my favourite quotes states: “I’ll put it down to experience. That’s what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Brilliant, however hard to swallow.

But this is my question: Why was I finding it so hard when Chris seemed to have readjusted to a different future so easily?

My Theory:

I’m wading through a well known book right now. It’s called ‘The Power Of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle. Have you read it? It’s very famous and created a huge stir when it was first published twelve years ago. 

Let me see if I can summarise what I’ve read so far: 

People are unhappy because they identify with their mind/ego. The constant duality of daily life - pleasure/pain; love/hate; joy/sorrow - are merely the mind’s way of controlling us. If we can understand that our true being is something greater than the mind’s creation, we can give up suffering and live peaceful, fulfilling lives.

The way to do this is to be aware of our thoughts and, most importantly, to stay in the present moment. Being in the Now is key to this process. Now is all there actually is. Linear time is a manmade construct. Past and future are the mind’s way of controlling us and causing us pain.

When we focus on the present moment, we are living in real time. When we carry pain from the past or feel fear for the future, we are creating an illusory life for ourselves. How can the past hurt us? It no longer exists. How can we fear the future? It is only in our imaginations.

So, a bit like consolidating - I understand the concept, but the more I try to put it into practice, the more my demons raise their ugly heads. Now Eckhart would say that this is my mind fighting against annihilation. Well it sure feels like World War Three in my brain a lot of the time!

To be honest I was shocked to discover just how controlled by my mind I am. Why couldn’t I be more like Chris - relaxed about events and going with the flow? Why did I feel like I’d lost something when I hadn’t actually had anything to lose? What was the lesson here?

In a weird (and not uncommon for me) twist, when I asked myself that question, the answer related right back to my book:

I wasn’t living in the Now.

I’d been so busy planning my future and making choices based on what I imagined I would be doing, that I’d forgotten to focus on what was happening right now.

But while Chris had been planning our future, he was still present enough to react to whatever situation was developing each moment.

So I still dream of being a Cowgirl, while trying to focus on what I’m doing right now. Because if I want to fulfill my dreams and live a peaceful life, then it won’t happen with me holding onto the past or living in a future that doesn’t yet exist.

And as Chris and Pa Walton are wont to say: “Plannin’s not doin’.”  

New Beginnings

"Keep a green bough in the heart and the singing birds will come." 
Chinese proverb.


How appropriate on this sunny Easter Sunday. The birds are indeed tweeting like mad. Unlike me, who is finding Tweeting a little strenuous. I don't really want to tell everyone what colour my knickers are, so I restrict myself to quotes I find inspiring. Not quite Piers Morgan then!


Ah but I have the luxury of listening to the real birds sing. 


The Swallows returned for the summer yesterday. We were sitting in the afternoon sun on our roof terrace and I noticed two small birds wheeling overhead. Squinting to get a clear view of their tail feathers, I deduced that they were House Martins, too pessimistic to imagine that they might be the real thing.

They landed on a nearby arial and we were able to study them at leisure: White breast, black face, blue black body and those distinctive, and hard to discern, elongated tail feathers. A Swallow!

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see them. They perched on the arial and proclaimed their arrival at the top of their voices. The sound - a series of short peeps followed by a noise similar to a Geiger Counter detecting radiation. I wondered if the location aided their communication - truly 21st Century Swallows making the most of technology.

Chris, never one to miss an opportunity to impart wisdom, used the Swallows' arrival to educate a young friend of ours, here for a prolonged visit from Texas. 

"Did you know that Swallows spend 99% of their time on the wing?" he asked.

"They eat, sleep and mate on the wing, settling only to raise their chicks. Because of this, Swallows only have stumps for feet." 

All of this said with great authority and absorbed conscientiously by our young friend.

The following day I was studying the Swallows as they came and went from their perch on the nearby arial. They looked secure enough - they certainly have excellent balance to be able to perch on wire on stumps. I couldn't resist my wifely fixation with facts - I had to Google it.

Sure enough, the truth is somewhere in between. Swallows have weak legs & feet, able only to grip thin wire and twigs.

How disappointing to have my Doubting Thomas persona proved right. The image of poor Swallows balancing carefully on stumps is now forever etched in my imagination - much preferable to the truth!

A lesson then, but in what? Perception? Enjoying the Now? Never letting the truth get in the way of a good story?! 

My Husband

Living with my husband is akin to living with a whole household of characters. As I’ve mentioned, Chris is twenty years my senior. I have always maintained that this is just as well - because I couldn’t keep up with him if we were the same age.

Chris is fond of saying (he’s fond of many sayings, as you’ll hear) “We have a chronological age and a biological age.” This is generally his justification for being 64 and behaving like a teenager, or even a toddler.

And good for him. He explained to me when we first came to Petworth that he was making the most of his older years: “I’m old enough now to get away with all sorts of things, and too old to change if people don’t like it.” A brilliant excuse for doing exactly as he pleases!

And for years I cringed in my nice, well behaved, well brought up mind, as he talked to everyone, flirted with beautiful girls and told outrageous stories to all that would listen. 

Then in a moment of clarity I realised that no one was taking offence and that I was the only one worrying over any possible repercussions. I accepted that Chris is my husband but I’m not responsible for his behaviour. So I decided to go along for the ride and just enjoy him, as everyone else did. 

At least I try.

Groucho Marks once said: “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” That’s Chris. His over exaggeration is legendary, accompanied always by fluidly expressive face pulling,  the most extraordinary sound effects and a stream of ‘Chrisisms’.

“I swear to Rudy” - taken from Bill Crosby and used to emphasise every ‘true’ story.

“Plannin’s not doin” - this one is courtesy of Pa Walton and is wheeled out a lot when talking to his teenage son.

“To assume makes an ass out of u and me” - borrowed from an inspirational boss.

“It’s all a ghastly nightmare!” This is accompanied by heavy banging on the table with both fists and whirring noises as he mimes cutlery flying. It’s from a Billy Connolly story - a source of many of Chris’s favourite sayings.

“Will you let me finish!” Said frequently as I interrupt his monologues. I’m going to put this on his headstone: “Will you let me finish...” on the front, then on the back: “Oh, you did.”

I confess to being almost pathologically obsessed with ensuring Chris’s stories are factual.   Something I am not proud of and a habit which interrupts Chris’s flow every time. Imagine:

Chris: “So we were in Montana in November” (me: “October”) and there must have been 200 horses (me: “50”) and the Crow Indian Chief Harold (me: “Henry”)...

You get the picture. I seem driven to correct him every time. I think it’s a woman thing and also a wife thing. Whatever it is, it’s bloody annoying and that’s just my feelings on the subject. 

My husband is one of life’s performers, a tour de force who does as he pleases and is happy to take the consequences. In Petworth you’ll see him striding round town wearing his Stetson hat and talking to everyone he meets. Not for him any thought of intruding or offending. We’re here to relate to each other and that is what he does.

He has no concern for how he may be perceived by others. He is who he is and completely unapologetic about it. And so he should be. At 45 I feel like a younger sibling trailing in the wake of my older, more confident brother, marvelling at his bravery and his impressive cheek.

For all I am a thinker, Chris puts me to shame by just doing it. He reacts to what he finds - offering help, giving his opinion, dealing practically with a crisis - where many of us would pause long enough to talk ourselves out of contributing.

So whilst I often berate him gently for his outrageous behaviour and larger than life persona - still being the fearful ‘good girl’ at heart - I admire him. He is a good man, not afraid to stand up and be counted.

And as he so often says (accompanied by big eyes and a lopsided grin) “You wouldn’t have me any other way”.

And he’s right. 

A Mother Apart

I am a mother living apart from my child. My son is in his twenty fourth year - not so unusual then. But I have lived apart from my son for ten years.

How does that happen? What takes place that is so traumatic as to lead to a mother giving up her son?

Not so much a trauma, at least not of the earth shattering, instantaneous kind. More the sort that creeps up, inveigles - layer upon layer of life, weighing me down, rubbing me out.

I was twenty when I fell pregnant. What an odd expression, as if a careless trip could find me with child. Well I not so much fell as jumped. My future husband thought it a good idea, for reasons best left unsaid. And I said "Why not?", which was my answer to most questions, and which has gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years.

Half way through my degree, I saw nothing strange in pausing to start a family. I had nothing to lose - no job, no house, no money - a perfect time to become a mother. And it was perfect. As our son grew up, my husband took on the role of carer, combining it with his painting. I went out to work and became the breadwinner. Unusual then but it worked for us.

I realise now that I’ve been overcompensating for my absence since  Max was young. My career as a fashion buyer took me away from home for six months of the year and the remainder was spent working long hours. I tried to cram all my mothering into the free time I had and made up the deficit with long-distance phone calls and presents from abroad.

By the time Max was 14, I was divorced, unemployed, recovering from depression, up to my eyes in debt and wondering if life was worth continuing. If you’re a parent I’m sure you can imagine the guilt. I’d put Max through so much and felt I’d let him down badly as a mother.

Living in Edinburgh with no prospect of work (believe me I tried), I took a job in London. How could I take Max with me? What did I have to offer? I had nowhere to live, the prospect of a new job working long hours. In Edinburgh he had a family home, an ever present father, friends, a familiar school. The choice seemed obvious.

So I travelled home every weekend, determined that my son wouldn’t accuse me of not being there. And I tortured myself with guilt while he grew up and we grew apart.

By the time we moved to Petworth I had a home to offer Max, but it wasn’t his home, wasn’t his family. It was too late. We continued our long distance relationship, intense and co-dependent, each of us trying to compensate for the distance between us. Oh I know we love each other and that we have an indelible connection - we both know that. 

But now we have no contact - his choice, and one that I respect. What else can I do? I practice “letting go with love” day in day out, with not a day going by that I don’t wish it had been different.

I fully accept that I made my choices. I understand that every action has a consequence, no more, no less. I try to manage the crippling guilt that has dogged me for the last decade, and I live as a mother apart from her child.

I am honest about my situation. I tell those who ask (however mortifying) that we are not in touch. What else can I do? This is who I am. However successful I may have been in my career, whatever adventures I have enjoyed, I did not put my son first. I wasn’t capable of it - whatever the reasons.

And so I try to be a decent person now, knowing that I cannot change the past, I can only learn from it. Once a mother, always a mother.