Baby Blues

Having babies is the in thing at the moment. Even Charlie Brooker is doing it, waxing lyrical in uncharacteristically chirpy tones about the joys of parenthood. Looking on my Facebook newsfeed yesterday I found four consecutive posts related to babies: two well-selected pictures of smiling offspring intending to induce “awwwws” a-plenty from 400-odd potential viewing acquaintances, one of a 12-week scan in what is now standard “Breaking News!” style, and a post about the pros and cons of reusable nappies. Further down yet more posts proudly announced the various achievements and milestones reached by more assorted prodigious sprogs (“Alicia rolled onto her front today!” “Sebastian slept through the whole night!”) and my latest friend to successfully breed confirmed mummy and baby were safely at home after a week in hospital. Everyone, it seems, is at it. Except me.

My mooch to work further verifies this: hoards of huge, glowing women seem to be constantly walking past me, taunting me with their fecundity. All around me the world seems to be saying “Oh! You haven’t done this yet? You mean you’re not having a baby? No?” and the unspoken implication is that you are not quite a whole, complete woman. How can you be, after all, if you have not yet accomplished that most crucial of female roles and reproduced.

I am happy for all my friends with children, and hope all goes well for the many who are pregnant. I am unashamedly partial to cutesy baby pictures, and excited about births-to-come. But what I and surely many other women find very difficult is the interference and constant pushing on the subject of my own fertility. What, exactly, does it have to do with anyone else? A married woman aged thirty, I seem to be constantly and unintentionally giving others cause to make unwelcome comments on the topic. To give one example, a recent post about being ill elicited not one but two posts implying this must be morning sickness (winking smiley face). So I was left still ill and now also an implied failure to my gender and God-given purpose on earth as well. Another post about my year looking potentially interesting (because, as I was later to tell people, I had a possible trip to India coming up and an application to the Camden Fringe awaiting approval) drew similar remarks. Worst of all a light-hearted announcement that I was not drinking resulted in one public and two private messages asking me outright if I were pregnant. On being told no, one somewhat tersely reminded me that my biological clock was ticking, and that I couldn’t wait forever.

Thses comments were, of course, all light-hearted and from people I know (with the exception of one, from a Christian friend who told me that to keep refraiing from having children was a grave sin as it was against God's plan, which begs the question, why is God telling HIM and not me?!), so I want to make it clear before I go on that this isn't a swipe at any particular individuals, but rather at a bizarre societal norm that makes such comments the obvious response to certain pieces of information when the original poster is young and married. I know I am capable of committing the same offence myself in reply to a friend once, so I'm not gazing down from my moral highground. But taking the comments in isolation, I'm almost stunned by their insensitivity, not to say the downright nosiness, which are bad enough when asked with anticipatory candour by relatives, but simply intrusive from others bar the closest of friends.

For a start, if I'd wanted the world to know of a forthcoming life-changing event I wouldn't have posted some sort of cryptic Facebook status, keeping everyone guessing, but would have announced it outright – the preferred method these days, as I mentioned above, is, I believe, to put one’s scan on the status alongside some jokey remark about putting on weight and staying off the booze. If I haven’t done this then chances are a.) I am not pregnant or b.) I don’t want you to know yet, not least because another societal norm dictates that I don't do so for twelve weeks. (I also think this is daft, as it is often precisely those twelve weeks where you need a bit of support and understanding, but that's a discussion for another day.) Prodding me for information is, for want of a better word, rude, and potentially unintentionally but deeply hurtful. Pregnancy is a massive deal, with all sorts of mental and physical health implications as well as economic considerations before you even get to the minor inconvenience of actually having to raise a person at the end of it all. It’s a massive decision, and a complicated matter. People should consider before prying that there could be any number of reasons for my not effortlessly following the example of my contemporaries. I might not want to, for a start, and that is up to me and my husband, and not something on which others should be speculating. Many decide that they do not want children at all for an abundance of reasons, be it career, money, or simply the fact that they are quite content with things the way they are, and they live perfectly fulfilled lives in spite – perhaps even because – of this decision, without any regrets or lamenting the limitations of the “biological clock”. More painfully, though, many women desperately long for a child but, for whatever reason, are not able to have one; there could be some awful genetic reason to choose to remain childless (a friend of mine has Huntingon’s in their family, and does not want to risk passing this on); I could, for all my cheerfully pestering friends know, have been trying for ages, but to no avail; there might be health reasons that complicate matters – there are certain common drugs – anti-depressants, for example – upon which you are advised not to conceive. If any of these apply, then pressure from even the most well-meaning of friends is distinctly unhelpful. It is also worth remembering that an estimated one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage – cheekily teasing someone about an impending new arrival could be deeply painful if, unbeknownst to you, they’ve recently lost that very thing.

And finally, even if none of the above applies, it does seem incongruous to be effectively asking someone about their sexual habits. By asking if someone is pregnant you are ultimately asking “so, are you having lots of unprotected sex?” There is no other context in which most normal people would dream of asking such a question! And, conversely, as long as the answer to the “maybe baby?” question continues to be “no” you are basically questioning my breeding abilities, which, I’m sure you’ll agree is more than a little impolite. I can't think of another area so personal that invites such conjecture: you wouldn't speculate over someone's health or income on a public forum, or indeed ask them about it privately unless you were very sure of what you were asking and they were a very close friend. So why is it that the female body seems to be public property?

Interestingly it is often my childless friends who make this inadvertent faux pas – my pregnant and parent friends are perhaps all too aware of the problems and pitfalls involved. One of my dearest friends has a beautiful baby who I hope to meet very soon (they live in Italy), and she has been the model of discretion, saying only that she hopes that what happened to her will one day happen to me. I hope so too, but in the meantime, to misquote Embrace, my fruitfulness is none of your business.

Finally a folk post

I've not been very faithful to my blog tagline of "Football and Folk Music" recently. I'm a great fan of the lovely Jim Moray, and in particular his beautiful arrangement of the song below. It does, however, like many folk songs, have a pretty daft, implausible story, and as such is perhaps quite a good example to explain British folk music to my students So, here are the lyrics below, with a few brief comments.

One morn for recreation I walked by the seaside,
Oh the sun was a gently rising bedecked in all his pride,
I beheld a lovely maiden standing by her cottage door,
Oh her cheeks were like roses, was sweet Jenny of the moor.

I am always wary of folk songs involving fair maidens, particularly if they are a-walking or a-doing anything in the Merry Month of May, and I am wary of young male and female protagonists appearing int he same song, as this is usually a sure-fire sign that the song will end with their violent and untimely deaths. Also, our narrator chap is not being entirely honest here, as we'll find out later,

I said, “My pretty fair maid, why so early do you rise?”
“To take the sweet air whilst the lark soars in the sky.
And it's here I love to wander where the breakers do roar,
A-gathering of seaweed,” said sweet Jenny of the moor.

So, our fair maid is the kind of woman who apparently spends her days wandering around collecting seaweed. I wonder if I would have had more amorous encounters if I'd tried this.

So we both sat down together by some pleasant shady side,
I said, “With your consent I will make you my bride,
For of wealth I have plenty brought from a foreign shore,
I'd be proud to win the heart of sweet Jenny of the moor.”

This happens in folk songs, the immediate and somewhat unlikely, rash proposal of marriage.

“I have a true love of my own, though long he's been from me,
It is true I'll be to him while he is on the sea,
For his vows were fondly spoken as he parted from my door,
And I'll wait till his return,” said sweet Jenny of the moor.

I assume here that our Jenny is just being polite. To be honest "I've got a bloke already" would come a poor second as a reason not to marry, after "I've only just met you and you're clearly a bit weird.

“If your true love was a sailor pray tell to me his name.”
“His name was Dennis Ryan and from Newry town he came.
And with laurels I'll entwine him when he returns to shore
And we'll join our hands in wedlock bands,” said sweet Jenny of the moor.

Lucky old Dennis.

“If Dennis was your true love I knew him right well,
Whilst fighting in battle by an angry ball he fell;
So behold your true love's token, which around his neck he wore.”
And she fell and fainted in my arms, did Jenny of the moor.

This is just mean. If I was our Jenny I'd get shot of him. But...

“Oh since you've proved so faithful, my true love,” I cried,
“Now behold it's Dennis Ryan, he is standing at your side.
So come let us be united and live happy evermore,
And the bells shall ring out merrily for Jenny of the Moor.”

This sort of thing is OK in folk songs, but in real life Dennis deserves a good kick in the bollocks for a.) having so little faith in our Jenny that he felt the need to test her in the first place (though given his behaviour if I were Jenny I think I'd have an affair) b.) being arrogant enough to think his plan is foolproof because OF COURSE he's so irresistible that Jenny would fall instantly in love with him, and the fact that she managed to restrain herself is proof of her fidelity c.) pretending the love of her life was dead (not normal behaviour for a husband-to-be, surely?) and d.) generally being a git

If you think that's daft, though, check this out for elaborate courting: for future reference, going to a pub together and having the "I love you", "I love you too" conversation is far simpler. But at least nobody dies.

One of the things I enjoy most is a trip to a nice restaurant. I appreciate so much having the money to do it these days, and the sometimes overwhelming choice on offer. Things have certainly moved on since my childhood, when a trip to the Harvester was considered a treat (have YOU been to a Harvester before?) garlic bread was considered exotic and an espresso or other such foreign beverage after your meal was positively decadent.

I have only very gradually dipped my toe into the more upmarket restaurant experience. My first date with my now-husband was at Pizza Hut, and post-pub-crawl spot of choice with Northern Soulmate Pete is still ICCO. Over the years I have branched out a little, eating in the likes of Archipelago (an “experience”, i.e. "expensive gimmick" frequented, apparently, by Prince Harry and his chums) and a very expensive Seine Dinner Cruise, where the main course was pan-fried duck breast with popcorn. I have travelled around the world, eating everything from dim sum to durian to parts of a chicken I don’t even want to mention.
Duck with "popped corn". Yes. Really.

Last week we were in a restaurant overlooking the Thames, making use of what seemed like a pretty good offer: £28 for a 3-course meal and a bottle of wine in what turns out to be the worst sort of restaurant: that middle-of-the-road restaurant in a perceived high-class area, with a high opinion of itself but no Michelin stars or anything to back it up – the kind of restaurant that serves your meal with “jus” rather than “gravy”, where the staff look at you as though you’ve defecated on their grandmothers if you ask for ketchup with your – ahem – “skin-on” fries (made presumably from potatoes they couldn’t be bothered to peel.)

Upon arriving and presenting our deal voucher we were immediately treated with the contempt we deserved and shooed to our table. Next to us, the waitress was presenting huge menus to the each guest one at a time with an elaborate flourish while we sat and twiddled our thumbs. After a while she came and unceremoniously deposited an A5-size bit of card to each of us, as if hoping nobody had seen: our menu consisted of two choices per course: Meat or Not Meat. We ordered two gin and tonics and were told curtly this was not part of the deal. We know, we said, but we would like them nonetheless. We assured him we would pay for them, and he studied us closely, clearly not confident that we were telling the truth, before shrugging and disappearing. When he returned he took our wine “order”, informing us that we could only have “house” wine on our deal, and regarding us with positive contempt when we smiled enthusiastically and said that was fine.

This restaurant was, it turns out, one of those places where you are not trusted to pour your own wine. Following the ridiculous pretence of “tasting” the wine the bottle is placed tantalizingly close to our table, but not quite close enough for us to retrieve it without presumably committing some terrible etiquette faux pas, and consequently we spend much of the meal gazing into empty glasses whilst the staff attend to the more up-market clientele on the next table.

When the food eventually arrived my starter was the wrong one – an impressive feat given they had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right without even listening to my order. Upon pointing out the mistake, the waitress looked at me as though I was being damned inconsiderate: first I pay them money upfront for the service, then I have the audacity to want to choose my meal! I tried to placate her, saying it looked lovely and I didn’t mind swapping, but she whisked the plate away, waiting until my husband had quietly finished his soup before returning with a plate of melon and two paltry slices of parma harm rolled up on the edge of the plate.

Another trait of this type of restaurant is the portion sizes. Served on huge plates presumably to create some sort of illusion that you are being fed a human adult’s rather than a doll’s meal, you need a magnifying glass to identify what you’re eating. The potato looks like it has been cut out using a biscuit cutter, and the fish presumably suffered from the marine life equivalent of growth hormone deficiency. Still hungry, I ordered the cheeseboard, which was not a board so much as a saucer, the content of which was underwhelming: a piece of cheddar, a sliver of generic blue cheese, and some brie which had just come out of the fridge and tasted (if one can be generous enough to attribute taste to it at all) of rubber.

I would perhaps be less cynical about it had I not shivered throughout, having been sat next to an open door at 8.30pm. I did ask if this could be closed, but my request was immediately snubbed on the basis that “somebody might want to go through it.” So the door remained open. They didn’t.

We left cold and not quite full. Next time I’m in ICCO I will truly savour and appreciate my Four Cheese pizza.