Letting go for the holidays

I’ve been living in a state of constant anxiety for months. Partly it’s the lack of long-term life plan, -short of publishing my interminable novel, and scraping together the debt to buy a holiday home in France. In the short-term, I’ve had the Easter break to think about, which gives me plenty to do, but the former means I often fail to enjoy the latter, while the latter means there’s not much time left to think about the former. It’s a no-win situation, which seems to sum up a lot about motherhood right now, having just returned from taking Ava rollerskating, only to get screamed at for not helping her well enough.

As Tom keeps telling me, it’s handy having me at home. If I was working, I’d be pissed off about not spending time with the kids, but, being home for the holidays reminds me why I wanted to go back to work in the first place. Keeping the kids off their devices sometimes feels like a full-time job in itself, and I long for the days when you could kick the kids outside to play in a muddy patch, some nails and a piece of wood. But in the absence of children their age living on the same street and somewhere secluded but safe to go, it feels as though they need constructive activities, or else they default to Minecraft. I both feel sad about this and cross at how much work (and often money) it takes keeping them occupied with something slightly more worthwhile.

These holidays, we’ve gone on outings to the Chatham Dockyard (my step-mum’s other half works there and got us free tickets), the Tower of London (as Tower Hamlets’ residents, we  get cheap tickets with our library cards, which makes it much more worthwhile than the 60 odd quid it would cost otherwise). We’ve been swimming at the local leisure centre – always more fun for them than for me due to its weird opening hours and never quite clean enough floors, but at least it has waves and an occasionally-open flume. And this week, I signed Ava up to a week’s worth of ice-skating at the local rink – we are lucky enough to have a wealth of things to do on our doorstep but more often than not, just getting the kids out of the house can be challenge enough.

Now, aged seven and ten, I’ve been much more inclined to insist that the kids go outside on their own, sending them out on their bikes to the park behind our house armed with penny sweets and a football, or running errands to the local shops, bribed with change and a journey that takes them across the road by way of the canal underpass. It feels time to let them go, even if it takes a bit of a shove to get them out the nest in the first place. It’s sad that there isn’t a gang of local kids and a den for them to meet up in, but this in London in a decade that feels defined by individualism, rather than society, fear rather than hope and for parents, scrutiny rather than trust, putting us all in a position where we feel damned if we do and damned if we don’t, whether it’s extra curricular activities or greater freedoms. So it’s often easier for them to meet their pals on a Minecraft server, which, when all is said and done, at least gives me a chance to get stuff done.

Letting them have their own way all the time would make feel like the ultimate crap mother, and even more redundant that I already do. So, I have made a concerted effort to get them out and about as best I can- which, most of the time means going with them. As always, simple tends to be best where kids of whatever ages are concerned – whether it’s meeting friends in the park near the village (several busy roads away, so still always accompanied) or trying out an activity further afield, I’m a big fan of making it as easy as possible on myself and them too – less is often more in my book.

By far the nicest day I spent with them was thanks to hoop.co.uk, which is a brilliant source of local activities, and far more comprehensive than anything else I’ve found elsewhere. Last week we went to a chocolate tasting event at Dalston Curve Gardens, a beautiful, if rustic garden cafe (with its very own muddy patch and bits of wood to play with for semi-feral children whose parents are trying to have a quiet coffee or cider, which offers charming – and free  – activities for children of a wide age range, and somewhere very pleasant for the parents to relax while they do it. Our kids made truffles and did blind chocolate tastings while I supped cider in the sun while a local dad ran a music group for people with disabilities, playing a gentle jam of perfectly listenable percussion improvisation, and creating as close to a sense of community as I’ve found all holiday.

It’s this community spirit that I find so often lacking in modern life in the capital. It’s very easy to spend life with kids feeling like a perpetual tourist, going places for the sake of it and trying out new experiences but never quite discovering life’s soul, which for me,  is perhaps embodied by a muddy patch and a group of kids who’ve known each other all their lives,  and who know exactly where to find one another.

My children enjoyed the muddy patch at Dalston Curve Gardens perhaps more so than any other activity we’ve done these holidays (though the day we spent at Chatham Dockyard, at its annual Festival of Steam and Transport, was very interesting and offered free rides, which left my head spinning much of the morning. And the sun shone gustily at the Tower of London while Ava gave her best guided tour, having already gone once this year with school.) It felt like a perfect moment of childhood that is so lacking in everything else we do for our children: free, unchaperoned, organic play. But I found myself wishing I didn’t have to be there, watching and taking pictures as I so often do, hoping to capture an essence of their childhood. I wished it was so nomal and commonplace there was no need for pictures, and the kids there were faces my children might know for a lifetime, and they had been simply mucking about for much more of their lives.

Never mind. One benefit of modern life is that they’ve spent much of the day online with Ronnie, the kid from down the road who they have known all their lives, even though he is on another continent this week. And I’m pretty sure they enjoyed that almost as much as (perhaps more than) seeing him in real life. But I am glad we’ve got trampolining to go to now, where, even though it’s a constructed activity rather than pure, unfettered play, at least they’ll burn off the energy from the rather unsuccessful gluten-free jam tarts that Ava and I attempted this afternoon – rather more mess and effort than edible.

Like many of the other things I’ve done with the kids this holiday, Ava was almost able to do most of it all by herself, which is, at least, a step in the right direction, and means at last I have more time to get my own life back on track.