Mummy on the Edge May/ June 2015

Now, I have time on my hands and writing on my mind.

Time to hover over Midi-Me’s shoulder when she’s supposed to be doing homework and make sure she’s not on sodding Minecraft. Time to keep the house clean (er… maybe not). Time to drive her to Chuck in Hatch End for a cheeky, midweek burger. Time to ponder over birthday riddles meted out to overworked Singaporean children. And time to unblock my own creativity.

As new and odd as this feeling is to me, it must be equally weird for Midi-Me. She has lived her entire sentient life, from the age she was in that picture, knowing that her mum is a Sign and Sign teacher. We constantly bump into my past students at restaurants and at Tesco’s and every end of term she helps me munch through the chocolate gifts and reads my cards out loud exclaiming “Aw! That’s so nice!” while adding another piece of evidence to her mental Mummy is a saint dossier. She softens my furrowed brow when I’m thinking about how many places I have left to fill for next term and chops vegetables for fried rice when I bark into the kitchen that I “HAVE to get this booking email out tonight!!!”

Now however, flowers, chocolates, wine, champagne, scarves, sunflower pots, notebooks, key chains and MORE chocolates cover every surface. And a massive load of cards, emails and facebook posts, each message vying with the next for heartfelt gratitude and tear-inducing farewells. “Thank you so much for helping me communicate with my child, we love you and will never forget you. Good luck with your writing.” I am handing over the reins of Sing and Sign, the business I have run (by the seat of my pants) for 12 years.

This was not just a business but a way of life for me and my Midi-Me. It supported me during single motherhood and enabled me to make drop-offs and pick-ups and hang around for after school shenanigans. It enabled me to remain independent, and gave me something important to wake up for, a purpose that felt like I was doing good in the world. I met thousands of lovely parents who came back again and again with their thousands of gorgeous children along the way. They all put up with my crazy days and my bonkers ways; my badly made tea and terrible jokes. Their patience never faltered when I was late; when I had forgotten integral items of kit, and whole verses of songs (that I had sung daily for years); and when I had to pause the class for five minutes until I could stop my laughing fit seemingly, brought on by nothing at all (well, the latest was when the editor of this magazine had cold coffee poured accurately and without spillage into her shoes by someone else’s toddler). And these parents and their babies kept me laughing and laughing through the years. They were my therapy and I sometimes felt that I should have been paying them, not the other way round!

If you are reading this, thinking, Oh no, this all sounds like the warm, fuzzy, hilarious non-scary baby class for me, did I miss out? Rest assured. Sing and Sign continues in Harrow and Bushey, Ricky and all over the country. I looked far and wide to find a suitably multi-talented, experienced, loving and mildly bonkers replacement for me… and found the marvellous Shell Clohessy (shell@singandsign.co.uk) who has thankfully agreed to take up the mantle.

So now, it is entirely conceivable that I will spend all my free time eating nachos and watching Real Housewives instead of indulging in more high minded pursuits. And Midi-Me will discover who her mother really is. However we will both be busy very soon. This August, Midi-Me will acquire a step-dad (gasp! -I will have to think of a suitable sobriquet for him; no doubt he will pop up in future blogposts.) And I will acquire two step-daughters. Just call us the modern-day Brady Bunch. So there’s cake to choose and dresses to buy (- although Midi-Me will probably want to wear a polo shirt). But there’s time for it ALL now. Phew! And time to write about it too!

For those of you whose kids are sitting the 11+ this year and have not done any prep, I’m going to sum up my non-expert advice and recommendations for a couple of good books. Find me at www.facebook.com/angelina.melwani or at www.mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com or on twitter at @appleina

Families Magazine March April 2015

Angelina Melwani and Midi-Me March futher into 2015...

March is when I shake off the fatigue and stress of January and February. January is consistently stressful because it always entails planning Midi-Me's birthday celebrations whilst simoultaneously ransacking my handbags and drawers for all my business receipts and doing my accounts in time for the tax return deadline. The self-inflicted fatigue was largely caused by the effort it took to conceal from Midi-Me the fact that I was watching Celebrity Big Brother every day. (I know. But I just couldn't help it this time.)

The birthday came and went without major incident (by “without incident” I mean specifically without my having a personal breakdown). Midi-Me is the queen of our household, so naturally she had 3 birthdays. Friday was all about The Fahmleee: Twofer pizza from Pizza Hut, halved baked potatoes with sour cream artfully plonked on top and chicken legs in the oven. My super duper niece made a Ferrero Rocher inspired cake; Bob was therefore my uncle.

Saturday was the day of Billy Elliot and what I will henceforth refer to as “Coatcushiongate”. I had cannily bought the tickets to the show (that she had desperately wanted to see for about a year) when they were on offer at Christmas with getinolondontheatre.co.uk (worth bookmarking that site for offers). Here's the thing: both Midi-Me and I are properly short and we were sitting behind a couple of averagely tall members of a hen party, dressed in pink hen party sashes and carrying special hen party gift bags and with their hair in hen party up-dos that added about 2 inches to their already not inconsiderable height. Midi-Me therefore folded up her fleece coat and sat on it and I folded up my very lightweight feather filled coat and gave it to her for extra comfort. We adjusted ourselves accordingly (-Midi-Me became the height of an averagely short grown-up whilst I remained the height of a ten year old boy) and had a natter in the few minutes remaining before the start of the show, trying to zone out from all the chatter around us. In between all this however, we became aware of an intentionally loud voice behind us:

“Now look, that girl's not that little... When she was standing she was nearly as tall as her mother!... Well, some people are just SELFISH, aren't they?”

I realised the voice was talking about me! And Midi-Me! We turned around. “How very DARE you??” I didn't say.  Fumbling around, avoiding our stare was a mum sitting next to her daughter, a few years younger than mine.

“If there is a problem, or your daughter can't see, you can ask directly. We don't want to block anyone's view.” Midi-Me sank herself down in her seat a bit more.

“Thank you” said the lady

“You are very welcome.” I replied, more than a little sanctimoniously, I'm afraid. 

Unnecessary conflict averted, we went on to enjoy Billy Elliot which was excellent.

The next day, more celebration! I took her schoolmates to see “Into the woods” which I am still singing in my head two weeks later, substituting the word “woods” for any room or vehicle or item  of clothing I happen to be stepping into – take that as a warning if you haven't seen it already. We followed that with dinner at TGI Friday's.  The kids' food was okay but those of us adults who eschewed meat for Tex Mex found a plate of Ew in front of us.  Mine looked and tasted like an old slipper. Such fun.

Check out the guide on page ___ for birthday party ideas. I wish I had.

***

Guess what? One of my talented Sing and Sign mummies is a professional actress a West End musical! Heather Craney is in Made in Dagenham with Gemma Arterton and she says every woman should go see it, especially if they have children. It is on until 11^th April at the Adelphi theatre on the Strand. Go see it and let's chat about it on my new page on facebook...

Like Angelina Melwani on facebook to have me squatting on your newsfeed (look for a black and white picture of my dodgy fringe!) Angelina teaches Sing and Sign baby signing classes. More info at www.singandsign.co.uk.

Mummy on the Edge Jan Feb 2015

Angelina anticipates teen angst and she and Midi-Me enjoy a girly jaunt to Bath.

Gulp. I don't know how it happened. One minute I was floating on the operating table happily aware of Candy Statton singing Never Knew Love Like This Before on Heart FM as they pulled Tiny-Me out; the next, I'm sitting on the sofa under a blanket with Midi-Me watching Jobs, the movie about the volatile Apple entrepreneur, (rated 15). She is turning 13 this month (well the movie is educational, innit) and I am experiencing anxiety about the speed of time. 

Am I old enough to be the mother of a 13 year old? I'm only about 17 years old in my head. So far, the highly-strung hysteria I have been bracing myself for has thankfully remained non-existent. And that's lucky because there's no time or space for a drama tween here. She knows where the shed is.  Sure, I have single-handedly brought her up to be polite, musical, and generally lovely. Sure, she's never had a tantrum - a fact I go on about to my Sing and Sign parents ALL THE TIME to demonstrate the fact that baby signing makes kids less frustrated because they are able to communicate their needs from an early age. But I have to face facts: no one really knows what Kevin-and-Perry-themed disaster MAY lie ahead.

Whatever and if ever it comes up, we will deal with it. We who? Me and the ever-helpful Huffpost Parenting, of course. Even though I'm not a subscriber myself, I can be sure that something prescriptive will pop up on my facebook feed before I know I need it. Yesterday it was 10 things to say to your 13 year old today.  I clicked on it and surprisingly, “Go and tidy your flippin' room!” wasn't on the list. Nor was, “You know where the shed is!”  NATURALLY, I NEVER shout but am patient, loving, nurturing, kind and anything else you imagine I should be. And I signed with her when she was a baby. And I always apologise if I'm unreasonably grumpy. Which I NATURALLY, NEVER am. 

And I take her on trips sometimes, just the two of us. We don't make them that often but the best trips involve at least two hours in the car and getting a bit lost on the way. Which you might think isn't that easy since one can use the smartphone to Ask the Google, but I can assure you through personal experience, that it IS possible. Specifically, when there's no GPS signal available; all you can see for miles is grass and a couple of cows; and you find that the only map available is a small, tattered book left in the rear seat pocket by the person you bought the car from 8 years ago.

The last such trip we took was to Bath. Midi-Me and I stayed in a charming B&B that was a fifteen minute walk into town and had to change rooms when we found that the ceiling was about to cave in, but the owners very kindly moved us to their holiday cottage which was actually lovely, if rather cobwebby. Things have a way of working themselves out. 

It's easy to make the mistake of trying to see and do it all. And we did. Three museums in one day is a bit much, really and we were rather Jane Austened out (a bit like what happened in Stratford with Shakespeare a couple of years ago). We walked and walked and I didn't fuss when Midi-Me stopped to take artistic photos on the way, seemingly of EVERYTHING. Including one of a bridge with her hand wrapped around it, like a lego model. And pictures of me looking wistfully out over water and in front of Georgian buildings. Very creative. We even found a Geo-Cache which is a box of “treasures” left in a hiding place for the next person to discover. Exciting! You are supposed to take something and leave something. Unfortunately all I had on me to spare in my pocket was a used tissue and a 20-pence piece. So we took a balloon and left the coin. The highlight of the trip was swimming in the open air at the Cross Bath, fed by the only natural hot water spring in the country, sourced by the Romans! We were the only people there, and it was wonderful. Bath was the perfect  girly jaunt for a mummy on the edge and her nearly 13 year old daughter.

Discover how to do Bath in 3 days at mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com. Twitter:appleina

Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth.  www.singandsign.com.

Science Fun in Town!

RECOMMENDED EVENT TODAY: 

If your kid is into science (or you want them to be) take 'em today (Sunday) to the Imperial Festival at Imperial College London (next to Science Museum - South Ken tube)http://www.imperial.ac.uk/be-inspired/festival/whats-on/ Here are some terrible pictures that don't convey any of the greatness and variety of the event that is suitable for ALL ages. I took Midi-Me yesterday as an end of exam treat (yes, I know but I didn't force her she really wanted to go, honestly) and it was full of inspiration from their clever students on every facet of science and technology study and lots of hands on opportunity. The not very good pics are a guy playing a laser harp, and a VERY charismatic student in her second undergrad year who is trying to encourage girls into Physics, wants to be the female Brian Cox and has her own blog: http://meriameberboucha.blogspot.co.uk/ And old cars. There was SO MUCH to see and do and learn, we barely skimmed the surface but will def go back next year. It's indoors and outdoors - Oh and there are lots of food stalls so you can have lunch and ice cream there too.

Please click here to see the pics as I don't have time to upload them to this page right now and my phone has collapsed.

Theatre review: Behind The Beautiful Forevers

I'm sitting down to write this and the Bollywood song “Om Shanti Om” has just floated unbidden, into my head. I've only ever heard it at a couple of Indian weddings and in the play I'm about to write about. Amazing, the power of music and the way it worms its way into the brain and links itself with emotions, places, experiences (eeugh, I'm shuddering- that expression will never be the same since the story of the tapeworm in the brain came out last week).

So subject of the day. Slums. And the new play at the National Theatre, Behind the Beautiful Forevers on till April 12^th starring some familiar TV faces (including Meera Syal and the guy that plays Sanjeev Bhaskar's dad in The Kumars). Which is about slums.

Mini-Me has always wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire and I haven't let her, yet. As I remember, it depicts a dark and violent world that I felt I wanted to shelter her from in her childhood. Now she has grown up into Midi-Me however, I think it might be time.

A few years ago we watched a documentary series on TV on the slums of Mumbai. One of the episodes was about recycling and how they find a use for absolutely EVERYTHING. Indelibly etched in my memory are images of men, women and children, walking through streets, slum alleys, train stations and over vast mountains of noxious rubbish, salvaging any trace of material that could be collected and sold. Nothing goes to waste. From the tiniest bit of plastic on a piece of wire to the littlest sliver of foil from a chocolate wrapper. Everything is meticulously collected, separated, amassed into piles and broken down, melted or re-formed into usable elements. Even things which over here, in the UK are un-recyclable, they find a use for, over there. I think witnessing this, albeit on TV and not in real life, did something to my mind because I still think about it a lot and it made me more conscious of what I use, re-use and recycle.

One day, I had this brain wave and wondered why they don't mine old land-fill sites here for materials which have been thrown away for decades and which we now need – like copper. (Did you know there is a shortage of copper?) I Asked The Google and found out that, of course, they are already doing it. I also think they should bring some of those street experts over here to advise on what can be done with the vast amounts of “rubbish” we currently send to landfill every year. I'm not sure those are the highly-skilled migrants the government wants to encourage but they should be... Anyway, as usual I digress

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is set in the Annawadi slum of Mumbai. It's near the airport (depicted very well- I won't spoil it by saying how,) and populated by people from all over India; Hindu, Muslim and Christian living side by side. The play opens with the arresting scene of a trash-filled wasteland, quickly cleared, followed by one of these “sorters”, separating and weighing the day's collections. It is a respectable, lucrative job within the slum, one carried out with purpose and which supports an entire family, almost allowing them to advance one step closer to a “beautiful forever”. As the story unfolds, we meet people with other jobs and roles within the slum society and start to understand the hierarchy that exists, in terms of affluence and influence; both are inextricably linked. We come face to face with the outcomes, often shockingly tragic, that befall some of those who aspire to greater things. And we discover an achingly unfair, kafkaesque system – if you can call it a system – within-which justice is sought (often futilely) and thwarted (often successfully) by parties equally desperate.

And the above paragraph cannot do the play justice. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil it for you if you are going to see it. I really found it was worth watching and there were so many more issues and intricacies that you are made to confront in doing so. What's more, it is based on real interviews with slum-dwellers. Everything that happens is something recounted to Katherine Boo, writer of the original book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Watch an interview with her here:

I think it is a great play to take your kids to (some disturbing and violent scenes notwithstanding,) if they are 11 years or over. Midi-me was moved by it and I think, for all the documentaries I make her sit and watch with me, it is another thing entirely for her - as a young person with so much to learn about the inequalities and painful need on the planet that we inhabit - to be entangled with the characters in this web-like world for three hours. I left the theatre paradoxically both depressed and uplifted with a renewed sense of gratefulness at my place in the world and a desire to use my relatively privileged life for something more meaningful than watching Real Housewives. And also with the Bollywood song “Om Shanti Om” wriggling through in my head.  

Behind the Beautiful Forevers 

On till 12th April at The Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre, Southbank. 

Angelina and Midi-Me share their favourite fast, local eats.

Mummy on the Edge, Families NW Mag, November 2014

What's for dinner? 

This is a question that makes my blood curdle and contorts my face into the rictus of panic sported only by non-sensible people that do not shop and plan meals accordingly. So, when asked this question by the ever-cheerful Midi-Me as she clambers, damp-fringed into the car carrying her weighty bag, flute and any number of other scholastic accoutrements, I provide a one word answer, which is not “Nandos” as she hopes but “Worms”. She finds this “really annoying, Mummy!” (-and that makes me say it more, because in our house I not only vacillate between the roles of Mother and Father but also - to ensure she experiences family life in full - torturous sibling.) Or sometimes I scrunch up my eyes and attempt to conjure a quick mental inventory of the contents of the fridge. On occasion, this might summon an image of 3 packets of reduced-to-19p spring onions currently of indeterminate culinary viability that I picked up in little local Tesco whilst buying ingredients at 8pm the night before Midi-Me's home economics lesson (the previous week.) And it is on these occasions, especially at this time of the year when I am zig-zagging between three fairs and four concerts and five parties and two sponsored somethings and about twenty four classes when I can justify something that does not involve actual cooking by me. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

Turban Street Cafe in Streatfield Road, Kenton is currently my favourite stop off on a weekday evening on the way back from singing lessons serving fab, trad street food. We order a Kati Roll: a buttery, hankerchief-thin flatbread, cooked before your eyes, then stuffed with meat or veg or paneer and salad and sauces and rolled up for £4.95. If you are vegetarian, rest assured they have separate cooking surfaces. Sit, watch and... scoff. Mmm.

Hombres Mexican Kitchen  on Imperial Drive in Harrow serves the best sweet potato fries I have EVER HAD. Super crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and real tasty treat. They serve freshly prepared burritos and tacos. Not wanting to miss out on trying something weird, I ordered jackfruit as a vegetarian filling option (alongside pork and chicken, - I'm no longer a virtuous vegetarian). Surprisingly delicious! They also do a kids meal including drink for £3.45 and host themed kids parties.

Both Cafe and Kitchen are decorated in a cool, street-vibey way, play funky music and serve healthy, fun and fast street food. Therefore no need for me to deliver emergency CPR to spring onions. Yay! Merry Christmas to you.

Discover and share more yummy and cheap eats at mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com.

Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. www.singandsign.com.