happy

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Island Blog – Two Sparrows

I love my work. I’ve said this before, I know, I know, but I am happy to say it again. The energy required, the energy generated, both are like two sides of a something that has two sides, which, pretty much defines all of us. Our bright talents can go dark, but that is all about personal management, a noticing, the ability to uprise road blocks should one be careening, and our inherent goodness, because we all have that. It is slightly off-pissing that we need to keep a hold on the wonky planks of our personal attics, to ensure that the ‘cobwebs’ don’t become thixotropic, dense. cauterising. Oh, we who are honest, know that place, and there’s a choice thing there. Actually, it’s mostly an ‘oh bugger’ because what we inherently know, regardless of parental influence, is that we don’t want to harm, that we are listening, noticing, learning.

No idea why I went there. Perhaps it is because on my journey to work I meet eejits who are, very possibly wonderful people but who don’t feel the need to wave a thank you as I skid off into the briars and sludge in order that they, in pristine big-ass vehicles with one wife and possibly one dog, slide by. I’m happy with the slide, and I always wave first, but when another living, breathing, vulnerable human makes no eye contact, proffers no acknowledgement of my skid into the briars, I confess I do ‘miff’. Momentarily. It wonders me. Is this how life is for them in wherever they come from? What I do know is that it isn’t a warm community, like a remote island, wherein we all recognise the need for each other. And that is sad.

Today, as the cafe filled with soup orders, dogs, children, bikers, walkers, holiday folk with a hunger for delicious scones and fantabulous cakes, coffees, herbal teas and a welcome that seems to bring everyone together, there was just me, behind pots and bowls and a sort of lull. I heard a sparrow cheep, insistent, and recognised it immediately (the benefit of a mostly silent island life) as a young one shouting at dad. It’s usually dad. Mum has had enough. She is not there for the endless ‘feed-me’ demandings. I emerged from the pots, nobody else there and followed the sound. As I passed by the tables, conversation flowed, nobody else caught this, to discover two sparrows inside the door, on the stairs, baby shouting, dad (I imagined, exhausted, with a ‘what now?’ in his voice}. I slowly rose the stairs, the door behind them, the birds, thankfully open. I gentled ‘ off you go, you guys’ as if they could understand me. Eventually they did.

Inside the busy, the curriculum of any work, the random, the sparrow, will fly in and will think you. Some will notice and respond. Many will not. I want to notice everything, everyone, all of this life, the random, the awkward, whilst learning the ability to accommodate, even to whisper a freedom. For me, there is nothing else.

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Island Blog – Happy to Wash Up

Work today was wonderful. I spent many hours washing up, and I loved it. This task, the behemoth of cups and plates and tea infusers and cutlery and so much more, was my empire. It was my bag, to a large degree. I chose this task. I am, after all, the granny in the mix. Here, behind the dishwasher racks, the queen in charge of two deep sinks, the one in control of the water mix, I am calm as Yoda. When asked to step out of that safety, I felt a frisson of fear. It isn’t that I have a single problem about stepping out. You can put me behind a microphone, on stage, and before hundreds, and I will talk, sing, engage, easy. But this is different. It thinks me.

This bag is not mine. The young couple who have begun their own beginning in this beach cafe are my leaders. Perhaps there’s a thing in that. Years ago I ran a hotel, many guests, many dinners, many dishes, much baking, but I am not that woman now. That was another time, and that time has taken from me a load of skills and even more confidence. I am happy washing up. And that thinks me too. No, two and a half, if not three.

I remember, and clearly, the moment I decided to risk myself out there again. It was helped through observations of others at my time of life who appeared to accept their end game. I want to shout and yell and dance in the face of that. A wee walk a day. A visit now and then with a friend. A load of hours wishing the (very busy) kids will call, the grandchildren too; the hardly knowing who anyone looks like – it’s been, what months, since…….

I think the fight for the me in me is vital. I know it, hence my search for work, for c……connectivity, competence, confidence, connection, there’ll be others. I know that to collapse into the olding is an inevitable slide. I may be sliding, but, if I am, it will not never be because I let my old wrinkly self become my focus. Oh, no. My focus is out there, where life lives on and, btw, everyone needs a granny and someone who is more than happy to wash up.

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Island Blog – Twenty Twenty Thrive

And so, here we are, landed in a new year, onto an empty canvas, into a story yet to be written. What will you make of it, I wonder? Some of us feel ‘meh’ about the whole thing, some have made a plan of action, resolutions, even, although it is a truth that most of the latter are set too high and dissolve around February 1st. So how might we approach this new land, begin our own new story?

We have talked much on this, here beneath an African sun, and, although ideas are manifold as stars, each one is apposite to that person’s development and growth. To become more healthy is to initiate a plan of action, perhaps to walk each day, perhaps to run, a ghastly idea to me. I could run to save someone or to catch a bus, but all that bounce and jiggle is not a thing I would ever choose to undertake. However, I respect and admire those who do. But if this plan doesn’t get begun, it only serves to bring a person down so that they berate themselves enough to give up on what seemed like a wonderful idea. We are so good at self-flagellation.

Personal growth – now there’s a good one. It could mean noticing everything and everyone: could mean searching out the work of someone who has studied the subject, spoken on it, made it reachable. For me, one who is always hungry for learning, I listen to what others say, how they feel about what they say, and I ask questions. To keep a mind off moans and grumbles and selfies, it’s essential to feed that mind, no matter how old that mind might be.

Connectivity is another option, more of it and among those who uplift and encourage. There is enough gloom and doom out there already. What the world needs is more bright thinkers, those who, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of their fears, choose to see the world as a place of of hope, beauty and opportunity. When I hear moans, I can feel the irritation rise in me. When I hear ‘Well, what can anyone do?’ I want to say ‘A whole lot,’ because each one of us has that power, if we so choose. We can’t change everything, but we sure can change something, and that something is actually ‘someone.’ The self.

Achievements, personal achievements are listable for all of us. They don’t have to be huge. Why do we plant seeds in Spring? Because we can, because we love beauty and that blaze of colour. Why do we smile at each other in passing? Do we, smile at each in passing, or is that ‘self’ so caught up in minutiae, that we just don’t bother? To decide to smile at everyone. A good plan. To pick up litter instead of judging whoever dropped it. Another good plan. To allow someone else the parking space we were heading for. Excellent. A real achievement. And there are many more ways to make a difference whilst moving towards our goal of independent choice, of control over self.

Jimmy Hendrix said ‘ When the power of love is greater than the love of power, our world will find peace.’ I may have misquoted him, but you get the gist. And it begins with one person, one with a resolution that is free to us all. We can all thrive this year, by setting goals or plans or resolutions which connect us to each other, which take our self-centred thoughts up into the sky, to blow away in the winds.

Let’s do this. And a very happy new year to you all.

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Island Blog – Ordinary Life

There’s still a lot of waggle and shiver going on here. Shrubs slewed sideways, drunk on the gale, tree limbs felled by it. It wonders me, that felling thing. Obviously the fallen were already showing an inner weakness, unseen by me, or anyone else, for that matter, but known by the tree. The limbs fall higgle piggle, downing others who, or is it whom, were probably astonished at the invasion of their space, and who(m) were not ready to fall off their perches quite then. There are always innocent victims. The shrubs, well, they had to go. When you are already stemmed up to three feets, you don’t lookd good at all, collapsed like a load of young vicarious hopefuls at a hen night, blooms bashed, squashed. I am so glad I never had a hen night. The thought of one of those sads me. Just to think that any about-to-be ‘bride’ is already missing her freedom makes no sense to me at all.

I went today for lunch with a wonderful friend. It is the last week of this fabulous cafe being open for the so-called summer. I love my friends, our meets and chats and laughs. From our ordinary lives, we lift into an hour or two of random, when anything can happen and everything can be said. And then, we part, and return to our own ordinary lives but with our thoughts changed, shifted, eased, recognised. A powerful time. We all have troubles, but in the talking of them, in the sharing, even in the not sharing, just that connectivity is dynamic and changing. I come home along a road (track) that dips and dives, the sides deep enough to sink a mini, watching a waspish sun-god pushing (I can see it) against cloud bullies, his light diamonds sparkling on the surface of an incoming tide, all salt and salmon hope. And I am home.

I walk beneath shiver trees, gold and red, or what’s left of all that spectacular. We never enjoy the autumn colours as others do in places where the gales have no room to flex their full span, nor expand their blow. Our leaves are stripped quickquick here. It thinks me a bit. We have trees here. At least we saw a bit of autumn colour. I have been to islands where no trees can grow, and not far from here. And I am thankful for the glimpse of such beauty. The sky is a wild grey bonkers, clouds shifting sideways, wind pitching like a bowler. Kids barrel noisy home from school. Folk walk by. Ordinary life.

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Island Blog – Lightening and Just Me, Just You

Same sound as Lightning, but with an E. It seems that just one E makes all the difference to the meaning of a word, spoken, that is. Written, all is clear. How confusing is that! When we write a text message, this can mean that, and ‘that’ can blow your pants off. We must be so careful with words. One message, meant to explain an inner drift, shift, split or maybe just inviting understanding, can send someone into a swirl of inner doubt, into childhood, when who I thought I was, wasn’t, pretty much. It thinks me.

I play with words, with wordage all the time, but I am canny, cautious, and still make mistakes. We all do, and, as we observe A. N Other living out their lives as best they bloody well can, who feel the ok enough to tell us about what they did with this, or him, or them, we might think before we text back, if we feel a judgement coming on. That damn judgement, that speaks in the voice of a long gone parent, grandparent, teacher. That is our own thing, and thus irrelevant. I always want to bring in an elephant here, I can see it, the mahout, turbaned and brown as a nut, and grinning through betel teeth, the elephant pondorous and on a steady trajectory, but that, also is irrelevant, for now.

How we did this or that, demands questioning. So many do not, question, and so the pattern continues patterning. Until someone stops it, just like that, in a lightning strike. Where does that intelligence come from, being as it is a newborn in their lives, in any life? It seems that, if we are open for change, asking for it because we are tired, so tired of living in a loop, meeting ourselves over and over and with no change in sight, and someone will just shout. SHOUT. And, as in a lightning strike, something falls.

Today I went to visit dear friends and we talked (or I did) for ages over tea and a beautiful dog and a view across forever, had the mist allowed. There was a lightening. I have known these two for a very long time, met them here and there, now and again, and yet, today, I was there with them, in their home and I felt so connected, so happy. We talked of dementia, of caring, of the village, of our beloved island, of bees, of woods, of trees, of the times we remembered dancing in the village hall. A lightening. I drove home in a different set of thinks.

Although I have always known my place is here, my people are here, over past times, I have felt isolated, of my own doing. I look for both lightning and lightening, but it was dark. I made it dark. And, in the dark, for all its shadows and demons, an essential part of the damn process of recovery is birthing from any number of wotwots. Not one single one of us would choose to go through it again, but we have learned to believe than light exists, and more, that we are needed in that light show. Just on our own, limping, awkward, with our own broken hearts, just us, just me, just you.

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Island Blog – Happy Days

Well, now I can say that I have had an MRI scan, instead of just hearing about others being pushed into a tube, ear plugs and defenders attached, and with much encouragement to remain completely still for half an hour, at the very least. I don’t ever recall being completely still for that long, in my whole life. The knowledge that, to move at all will require a re-scan, is enough to have my toes twitching. My face was pressed into a face-size hole (not my face size, however) and my breasts too, although they didn’t share the face space but, instead, were ‘placed’ in other holes, also not my size. It seems that other women are way better endowed than I. Hey ho. The MRI Controller, a delightful smiling nurse in dark scrubs and with a beautiful face and smile, said things like, Don’t Worry, Think Happy Thoughts and DON’T MOVE. She also said that, when the silver stuff begins to pump up my arm and into my chest, I will feel it like a frozen worm slinking up my veins. Oh, yum!

Pre the scan, I had to answer a load of questions. Do I have any metal piercings? Am I wearing any make-up which, nowadays, has metal in its mix, or can do? Do I have tattoos, allergies, diabetes? have I ever had eye surgery? Do I have any metal crowns? What, like the Queen? No, she chuckled. Teeth. Do you weight over over 20 stone? Oh, ah, no. Tick No to all of the beforeness. And off we go, no, me go, in the delightfully attractive hospital gown/marquee, with the opening at the front. I remained still, ignored my toe twitch and took myself up, up and away into the sky where I met fairies and cherubs and angels and a lot of space. Radio Something blasted tunes into my ears whilst the scanner chugged and beeped and roared and then did a rather attractive staccato thing. The sounds kept on changing, kept me entertained until the frozen worm began its journey. I didn’t even twitch but kept up with the fairies and cherubs, flying high above all of it, the scanner, the cancer, the reality of where I lay, my arms down by my sides, breathing in and breathing out, my body calm and still. There was no flipping way I was going to threaten the success of this scan so I didn’t, something to do with my stoic parents, or something, someone. You don’t fail, that’s it, thats the thing, that is that. So, mostly, we didn’t. (not sure it helped, that attitude in life. Failing, as we all know, is just another step towards success. I digress)

Home now, home now, jiggetty jig (Pigling Bland, for those who never read Enid B) and in a very lowtothegroundnoisyfastwonderfulclassicsportscar. Lying down, I was, which was ok until I clocked that he, the driver, was also lying down. I watched the sky mostly, as the road swirled by, loops and curls and dips and rises and all the while hoping he wasn’t doing any of that sky watching stuff as huge lorries, massive SUVs and even the ordinary saloon, big with family and dog, passed us by from at least a 5 foot elevation. No matter. We zoomed like a focussed insect, overtaking (super fast) holding the road, taking corners as I would never take them, aka, no gear changes, and with an excellent driver, arrived back home in no cafuffle at all. He did ask me. Were you scared? And I could honestly answer No. I told him this. I am old. He says Elderly, arf. I want adventures, still, fun for sure. I may be scared about cancer and scans and lungs and breasts and oldness But, and that But is important, I do not want to turn back, fold, become less of that which my spirit still is. We have tunes on, me and my Lotus Elise driver son. He is cooking salmon, prepping a salad, I am writing this.

Happy Days.

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Island Blog – The House is Singing

The noise is spectacular! Five roofers gadding about, a mile high and as if the land beneath their feet was as flat as the tundra. They have performed this task before, methinks, so confidently do they work as a team. The first day there was a lot of hammering and poking through the thatch with long poles to establish contact with the beams. Building a structure a short way above the existing roof, a skeleton of struts to hold the Harvey tiles in place whilst still allowing for air flow so the thatch doesn’t sweat is something else to watch. The men work quickly but not quietly, chatting to each other in some African language no, shouting, even if they are just a couple of feet apart. They sound as if they are here in the room with us and yet they are balancing like monkeys, effortlessly and high overhead. To work with concentration down below is something that requires patience, concentration and the odd yell out of the window asking them to please talk quietly. This, it seems, is impossible. Their natural voices are loud, and it might take an operation to change that. I notice it’s the same among the black men and women wherever they are, shopping, working, shovelling, tidying litter or sharing an office space. These people are naturally ebullient, ready to smile, always polite, always ready to share a greeting, more than ready to laugh. A far cry, indeed, from the UK where all of us are strangers to each other, heads down, avoiding eye contact, barely able to disturb the air with a wave, let alone cut it with a sentence, and as for smiling, well, there aren’t many of them around on crowded streets or inside cars, a bus, a train. It’s as if life is happy here and unhappy back home. I don’t refer to the island folk, nor the Celts, nor a lot of other folk of whom I have little experience, but mainly in the cities and towns. It’s as if they, the ones with heads down, no smiles, empty of greetings, are living in a quiet desperation (not my words) and that makes me very sad. I digress.

It rains. I have never experienced this much rain in Africa and nor has anyone else. However much Africa needs rain, the roofers do not. Add to that the regular load shedding and there is a problem, Ma’am. No power. I see that, I reply, you will need to fire up your generator. He grins and shrugs and fires up his generator. In the times of a drowning deluge, the men run for cover but in gentle rain, the work continues and I watch in trepidation as they skid across the tiles, the sky a mackerel of clouds above them. A tile falls to the ground with a crash. These tiles are long, about 4 ft, and lined with something like aluminium making them heavy. I shudder as the guillotine hits the deck, thankful I had not just walked outside at that very moment. But no man falls, of course not. They have done this job for years and, besides, men don’t fall, or so they believe. Almost 3 days later, the roof is almost completed and having watched the craftsmanship of its creation and elevation, I am very impressed. Now we will have no leaks through the thatch. Now the house looks sharp and proud and the garden looks like a war zone. Offcuts of woods, bits of thatch, bits of tiles, power tools and no-power tools, all scattered across the grass, poor grass, and just as it was gaining new life thanks to all the rain.

Yesterday I sat here at the kitchen table working away on my laptop when a shower of thatch landed on my head. It was a shock and then it was funny. I walked carefully, like I was top of the deportment class, to the bathroom mirror and there it was, a neat round birds nest on top of my head. I do admit, as the holding poles stabbed through the thatch, to a frisson of fear at the thought of a beam collapsing down or a holding pole or a whole man crushing me to a splodge, and I did have to move around the house to avoid more birds nests, but all has gone smoothly. Beyond a lot of clearing up, sweeping and dusting and coughing and spitting, we have all survived the process. And, today, as the sun shines merrily and the generators gurgle and chunter with life giving power, it will be finished, completed and done. All the rubble, the offcuts, the tools and the men will be cleared away, allowing us to put the garden furniture back into place and to enjoy an evening, a braai perhaps, a shared sundowner, laughter and conversation beneath what promises to be a starry starry night. You hear that? I will say. The house, she’s singing. And she will be.

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Island Blog – Depth, Mining and Tomorrow

On days or at times when I am less happy with my ‘freedom’ I usually avoid writing here. In moments of truculence I disturb that thought, winkle it about with a pointy finger, snarl at it. Why must I always be upbeat about flipping everything? Answer. Nobody wants to hear doom and gloom, well do they? Everyone has more than enough of that within the walls of their own insider life. Well, don’t they? Yes, I have to concede, even as I feel hapless and my arms flop like limp seaweed to my sides. But (and I have plenty of buts) what about being real, about being balanced? In other words, the rough and the smooth, the bitter and the sweet, the death and the life of everything. If everything passes, then surely those readers out there will know that a doom day is just a day, or a time, or a week, and that, once it passes, the sun will out and out once again. And this is true. But there is a lonely in keeping quiet about the times when I feel like a bottom feeder without gills. watching from my depths, the wiggling legs of the surface swimmers, knowing they can laugh without drowning, smile without grimace, breathe good clean air.

At such times I know I choose this bottom feeding thing, not that I’m feeding, obviously. I am a woman, not a fish and I have sunken down here below the laughing others out of choice. I have attached the weights. I know it even as it rolls my eyes, if I could entertain such a thing down here among the octopus and other hideous creatures with gill breath and the roar of forever in my ears, the pressure skinning me even thinner. I am mining. I am searching for treasure deep deep down among my own oceanic rocks, for something, for anything that just might look like an answer. I have always done this, I remind myself and, yes, myself snorts because she has the unpleasant (at times) task of being beside me, even through dreams, the latter enough to send the strongest woman running for safe harbour. You have, she concedes. Childhood was exhausting btw and don’t get me started on adolescence. I say nothing, because if I did we would both drown down here. My eyes are wide for answers, my mind focussed, my fingers raw and bleeding but determined. Answers are here somewhere, I know it.

Diving deep into the sea of psyche is not for many, not for most. We want to find answers at the surface. Few have the courage to sink, to dive into the roar, to mine the rocks. Down there is scary, the predators are lit up like a firework display and they have serious teeth. They don’t want to be recognised or identified and they definitely don’t want to be understood or broken down into their component parts. They are centuries old. They are formed from childhood abuse or neglect. They are the physical result of all ‘crimes’ that happened, in the perception of a mind. They may not be absolute truth but they feel very real. Memory is a fickle friend. Our memories are seen only through the lens of our own perception. But the feeling creates the bottom feeders and those creatures swim forever in our minds. Most days we can ignore them. Many days we cannot. Hence my dive. I want the damn things excoriated and the only one who can do that is me. But before I do this excoriation thingy, I need to see them, recognise and name them, or neither, and let them go. Only then can I deal with the now of Now.

This is why I am down here. However, I need to breathe like everyone else, and tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow always is. And, even down here, the sun will out.

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Island Blog – Just For Today

I can do anything just for today. I can think what I like, just for today. Today is all I have in truth and tomorrow never comes anyway. Everyone knows that. So how will I inhabit this day? What will I decide to do or think? How remarkable it is that I can choose these, no matter what ‘luck’ does or doesn’t come my way. Inevitably, there will be moments that happy or smile me, and moments that seek to trip me up, to send my frocks a flying. Feeding the birds holds both. I am happy and smiley to feed them even as I absorb a cloudful of rain and feel quite whisked about by the horizontal blasts of a damp wind flipping my hems. Chopping wood smiles me and I like the comforting crack of axe success as the big log splits in two. Lifting the log basket tells me my stomach muscles are in good working order and I am thankful for that.

Radio Two plays me happy encouraging tunes but the news is pretty dire. I choose not to let it bother me. There would be little point in bothering, anyway, as there is diddly squat I or anyone else can do about it. However, there will be an opportunity for me to do something for someone else, to lift their spirits. All around me, faces are doing their best to smile out but I see the worry in their eyes. I don’t know what disappointment they may be dealing with, what despair has taken root in their hearts and minds, but I can offer a welcoming smile. Smiles pass through windows after all, saying a great deal without words. I am looking out as they are looking in and we can share that moment, that distant connection. Just for today I will think of someone to call and then I will dial their number. Even if they don’t answer, I can leave a cheerful message of upliftment.

Just for today I will do 2 things I don’t want to do. One of them might just be hoovering. Or it might not. I know that Henry is lonely in the cupboard under the stairs and it’s dark in there and this knowledge alone might spur me into hoover action. Might. I make no promises. After all, there are other things I don’t want to do such as wiping out a kitchen cupboard or digging up the dahlias for a winter dry out. It’s a bog out there, slimy and heavy and I will need to be quick-quick in order to catch a dryish moment between showers. I could do my exercises, which aren’t mine at all, to be honest. Someone else designed them and mostly I ignore them as much as possible. It seems such a waste of time, stretching and bending and rotating my shoulders, but I hear it’s good for me at my age to keep supple. Or, I could sort out the mound of legal paperwork that comes when someone dies, something I have managed to ignore for quite some time. The thing about doing something I don’t want to do is the feeling of personal success once the task is completed. I will focus on that, turn up the tunes and get the heck on with it.

When my mind strays to the gloomy, I will notice and take action. I have become quite good at noticing and taking action. This is something to do with a refusal to allow misery in. I have let misery in oftentimes during my life and I can tell you, it is a most unwelcome guest. It doesn’t come alone either. Misery brings self-pity, despair and loss of self-control. Well who on this goodly earth wants any of those lurking about inside their head? Not me for sure. Although I cannot control what happens to me, I can always control myself and my attitude. Sometimes I get frustrated when a person refuses to see that no matter what happens to them they can choose their reaction to it. But, I remind myself, I only understood it when I found I was seeing mud instead of stars through the bars of my life, and, besides, all of us learn new truths at different times. It is not for me to preach but only to uplift and encourage.

Just for today I will follow a programme. I will waste no time in moithering. I will be decisive and prompt in whatever I undertake. I will not moan, grumble or show irritation, no matter what goes wrong. I will be happy all the way through the day. I will decide to take time for myself even though this is rather irrelevant nowadays because all time is my own. There are no distractions, no calls to arms, no interruptions beyond the tring-a-ling of my telephone. However, there is much to be said for 30 minutes reflection and rest. I would have killed for 30 minutes reflection and rest not so long ago, after all. If I stop whatever I am doing to spend 30 minutes somewhere peaceful, such as on a wander into the fairy woods, my thinking will change as I stand in marvelment beneath the bows and branches. So much bigger than me. So much older and wiser. So much to say without words. Look at us, they whisper. Aren’t we majestic? Then I will bring that majesty home with me and it will filter through the house, lifting, uplifting, freshening the air. It may take me the afternoon to dry out, but I will have achieved much more than dripping skirts and the onset of trench foot. I will have made myself get up and out and into what is solid and strong, loyal, beautiful and ever-changing, qualities I want for myself.

I know that some folk think that when things go wrong, they are doomed, either momentarily, or forever, and that my way of being, of thinking, is just nonsense. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am deluded, mad, even. But if I have learned anything of value in my life it is that to focus on what isn’t, what cannot be and what isn’t there, is just plain depressing. Looking instead at today, just today, and deciding that I will see whatever happens as an opportunity and not a stumbling block (poor little me), tells me I have complete control, not over the events but over myself and my attitude. And that feels just fine.

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Island Blog – Birthday Hallelujah

This day my wild son Ruari turns 40. Nobody, especially he himself, ever imagined he would make it thus far. He was bent on self-destruction from the get-go. Risks were normal for him. Frying bacon at the big hot Aga at 4 am, stark naked, aged 2, and balanced precariously on a chair I had no idea he could even shift, never mind climb on to. He was making us a surprise breakfast. He would think nothing of setting fire to anything that took his fancy, or climbing onto the highest roof and, once, shinning up a lamppost in the centre of Edinburgh after a boozy dinner, all the way to the top, like a monkey. My eyes rarely stopped rolling around him and my heart was always in a state of turmoil, because whatever came next never entered the heads of anyone else. It was too dangerous, after all, but not for him.

Now look at him! Shortlisted for Entrepreneur of the Year Uk, married to a beautiful, feisty and very tall Viking and with two lovely wee daughters; launching a global business that innovates and supports any who choose to leave alcohol behind and thus to become fitter, happier, healthier. Check out OneYearNoBeer to see for yourselves. I am so very proud of him and not just because of what he has achieved, but of how he has turned his whole life around; how, through walking his own talk, he has generated a huge following of all ages who were lost once, and are no more. There is no greater leadership. Experiential wisdom cannot be bought, nor learned like a script. We do not follow a talker. We follow one who is leading by example.

I wish him another 40 years. Who can say where his lunatic road will lead? I am happy to say he is considerably less reckless these days although I know that light in his eyes, the one that twinkles like the North Star, the one that tells me he is still the wild child and always will be. Delivering a child so unique and impossible, so fast and so enterprising may sound like the most wonderful thing, but it had its consequences. I was never not worried about what he was up to, or planning to be up to, and he was baby number 4. But, despite all the eruptions and chaos he brought to bear, that fabulous face, that gloriously cheeky grin could, and still does, melt my mother heart. I could see, as could his dad, the extraordinary talents he was born with and we both wrung our hands as we agonised about the chances he had of living to this age. We knew that, given the right protection and the right guides, this child would rise to stardom, hopefully feeling happy and proud of who he is. We just had to wait and see, like all parents of a genius.

I honour him. I also honour the beautiful, feisty, very tall Viking, for without her, he may well have spiralled off into the stratosphere. She through love and support has helped him to grow into himself. I don’t know if he likes himself now. I don’t know many of us who do like ourselves. But I can feel a peace around him these days, a confidence born from his own self belief, one no longer rooting from the naysayers, the bullies, the neglectful teachers, the cruel bosses. He is becoming his best self.

I know his dad would have been so happy for this day. He would have growled out a happy birthday song and he would have told this crazy boy how very proud he is of him. As am I.