Parked outside my front door is my little yellow baby: Marmite.
She’s a 2001 Fiat Seicento Schumacher. She has a 1.1l engine which produces 53bhp, and a power-to-weight ratio of 0.0667 PS/kg. Because she’s a Schumi, she has an Abarth bodykit, a low-geared gearbox, and extra special graphics. She also has a number: 0870, which means she was the 870th Schumi (of 3000) to be built.
I love my little car. I passed my driving test in her, had my first accident in her, and paid for my first set of new tires to go on her. She’s been to Devon, to Lincolnshire, to Kent. In the summer she’s coming to France. She’s been driven in the rain, the sun, and the snow, although the latter didn’t end well and resulted in a £500 repair charge. I’ve spent more on repairs for her in the last year than I paid for her, but she’s worth every penny.
She’s a quirky little thing. If you drive above 70mph (75 indicated) you have to turn the heating and the fan right up to get as much heat off the engine as possible. When I was learning to drive I got very good at hillstarts without a handbrake, because hers didn’t work at all, even though we adjusted it and replaced the cable and replaced all the other parts. She often needs jump-starting, although less so now that she’s had a new battery. She’s currently off the road waiting for a head gasket and cooling system replacement; I miss her so much it hurts.
Italian cars are cars you fall in love with. They breathe passion and fire and excitement. (Marmite also breathes steam on a regular basis, but that’s another story.) Yes, Joe’s boring Vauxhall Astra has done 200,000 miles, and it’s comfortable, and it’s good for cruising down the motorway, and it’s not made of tin foil, but it doesn’t stir your soul in the way my little Fiat does. Nothing beats driving down the Fosse Way at 60mph, feeling like you’re doing 90, hurtling round corners and keeping your foot to the floor for the whole journey.
Marmite will sit outside my front door for a few more weeks until she has her new parts, and I’ll continue to miss her badly. In a few weeks, when she’s fixed, we’ll pootle down the Fosse Way again, and all will be right with the world.
Joe’s mum has taken David out for the day today: the perfect opportunity for a photo project I’ve been meaning to do for ages but can’t because of a small child who is fascinated by dangerous things.
That’s right, I played with fire. (My mother would have a heart attack if she knew.) To be fair, I did it in the fireplace, at a safe distance, with long matches. And it was for art. That excuses everything, right?
Photos of me are about as rare as hens’ teeth: there’s a reason I prefer to be behind the camera! But this is me, right here.
I still don’t know exactly who I am. My Facebook page defines me as “a sling-wearing, BLWing, breastfeeding, lactivist mama of a little monster”, and it’s right, I think. I mean, David hasn’t been in the buggy since I got the new sling (and I’m perfectly happy that way!). We do baby-led weaning: at least, we started with purees and moved on to BLWing when he refused the spoon, and now he’s just eating. I’m breastfeeding, yes, and I love it, but I’m not sure exactly why I’m motivated to shout from the rooftops about it. I’m a lactivist, because, well, I want other people to have decent breastfeeding support that I didn’t have, to not think that formula is the norm, for babies to have the best start they could possibly have. (Time to add, maybe, that I don’t think formula is the root of all evil. It’s not. It’s not that formula is inferior, it’s that breastfeeding should be seen as normal by society, and better supported, and then maybe more women will do it. That’s a whole other post…) The little monster part? Well, that’s one of the few things that’s blindingly obvious.
I’ve only just, fifteen months into this game, got up the courage to be the mum I am, to parent the way that feels right. In the first few weeks and months I was blinded by other people’s advice, we muddled through, and the guidelines were king: mostly because David was ahead of all the targets and I felt like a good parent because of it. As soon as my instincts actually kicked in, nothing I was doing felt right any more, and I felt as though I had to do something. I started cuddling David to sleep rather than trying to make him self-settle. I swapped the front-facing buggy for the rear-facing one, and then started wearing him in the sling again. The breastfeeding was at his request, and I’m glad it’s an opportunity I took: I just wish I’d had the confidence and the support to do it fifteen months earlier.
I still don’t know for sure that this is the right way to do things, the mum I am, but I feel that it is. We’ll wait and see how it develops, how much longer he’ll want to breastfeed, how much longer he’ll want to be in the sling before he wants to walk. I hope I have as much time like this as possible. It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done, and it’s who I am, I think. That’s all I need to know.
Incidentally, here’s David’s contribution to the Gallery. I thought it was pretty good for a fifteen-month-old’s effort!
