A Design For Life

Today I have a guest post by my friend, one-time co-conspirator on school matters, and über-talented interior designer Judith Harrop.

Judith is a working mum, running her interior design business from her studio/showroom in Gomersal, West Yorkshire. In this piece, Judith explains what drives her, the challenges of being a mumpreneur, and how she looks to embrace social media to promote herself.

More about Judith’s interior design services can be found at:

http://www.judithharrop-interiordesign.co.uk

Over to Judith…

I’ve been an interior and furniture designer for over 25 years. I’ve been published in national magazines, I‘ve worked for peers of the realm and a retired British Ambassador, not that anyone would know.

As my business grew through word of mouth I enjoyed new projects, fulfilled my clients’ briefs and moved on to the next, always low key, under the radar and with quiet English reserve.

Cloakroom designed by Judith

Life changed when I was pregnant in 2003 as I suffered from the most debilitating morning (anathema if ever there was one) sickness, business slid and after the birth of my daughter I made a conscious decision to take some time out and be a stay at home Mum. Good decision, as I was poorly prepared for the brain scrambling hormones and the desperate sleep deprivation I was to experience in that first year. My hat comes off to those women who, either from choice or need, go straight back to work after maternity  leave. How do they function?

As time went on though, whilst enjoying the proximity to my delightful firstborn, I craved the fulfilment of work.  I became a kitchen table business, Amy grinning up at me from the confines of her playpen whilst I beavered away at design drawings on the computer.

I had been fortunate enough to pick up work from architect and developer contacts, who were blissfully unaware that their latest project was being created by a dishevelled woman, still in her pjs, creating autocad drawings and researching parquet flooring whilst preparing endless ice cube trays of pureed carrot and sweet potato.

Judith Harrop Studio and Showroom

Shuffling business around my daughter’s needs, I became concerned about how I was to reestablish myself as a residential designer. Premises were becoming necessary for my growing resource library, and the need to have a ‘professional’ image became more important. I found myself a lovely studio in a big old building which was home to other related businesses. I moved in. Rustic brick and beams suited my style and within a short time I had a working studio/showroom which I would be proud to invite my clients to.

Back down to earth, I needed to find new sources of work to increase my client base.

My previous approach to business had been ‘build it and they will come’ but if you build it and don’t tell anyone about it, they’re really not going to come are they? My problem was that my whole psyche told me not to promote myself, my mother’s words ringing in my ears “stop showing off”. In our house raising one’s head above the parapet was an offence, anything that smacked of attention seeking was, well, just not acceptable.

So there I was with my little devil of doubt sat on one shoulder and my need to promote my business on the other.

Then, as it is in life, a curious thing happened. My local council decided in its wisdom that (to cut a very long and rambling story short) my daughter’s primary school (OFSTED Outstanding) should be closed.  Before I knew it under the subtle (?) supervision of one particular school governor [editor's note: she means me - HUN] I was leading a parental revolt, talking to the local press, standing up and speaking in the town hall and was even interviewed for our local BBC radio news.

Funnily enough the world did not come crashing down around my ears and I didn’t receive sacks full of hate mail. The parents were a force that was listened to. Collaborating with governors, press and local councillors, we made a difference and our school is still here. I am proud of this.

Showpiece kitchen featured in ITV's Touch of Frost

So, I had found my voice, the school experience brought me new confidence and I knew I had something to say about my passion for my business. I began to explore marketing techniques (without feeling it was a shameful thing to do). I had equated marketing and selling with some kind of seedy practice undertaken by those who can’t get work. (I’m sure Coca Cola see it like that!) I began to understand what I thought I knew already, that building business is about building relationships but it’s ok to tell people what you do and what you can offer, because quite often they’re interested to know.

So just spare a thought for the small businesses that use Twitter and Facebook and blog to promote themselves, they’re just letting you know they exist. The seasoned bloggerati out there are sceptical and rightly so, but I for one intend to find my little place in cyberspace and share my skills and my news and my knowledge and if it brings me one new client, well, fantastic. And if it doesn’t, well, I’ll still enjoy the experience, and hopefully I’ll have made more than a few friends along the way.

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Thank you, Judith.

Another editor’s note: I’ve known Judith for around three years now and I can say, with hand on heart, she is one of the most conscientious and compassionate people I’ve ever met; a woman of seemingly infinite drive and tenacity. I would recommend her to anyone in a heartbeat.

If you or anyone you know has need of interior design services visit:

http://www.judithharrop-interiordesign.co.uk

…where you will find full contact details.

Disclaimer: I received no payment for this post.

Shattered

“You bought her what?

He flinches as the words ricochet around the entrance hall. This went in an ugly direction fast, he thinks.

“All her friends have them,” he calls through to the kitchen. He waits for the reply, but instead there is the familiar toxic silence punctuated by tinkling glasses. He takes a deep breath.

“I said-“

“I HEARD what you SAID.”

Very ugly, very fast.

He walks into the kitchen and instinctively ducks to avoid the thrown wine glass.

“YOU NEVER LISTEN!” she cries.

He stares at the shattered glass. This can go on no longer, he thinks.

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This week’s prompt is in bold. Click the badge above to read other entries in the 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups.

Skull Sunday

What’s this? Another meme type thing the likes of which I swore I’d never partake in? Well this may be my first and last contribution, but I like the idea of it.

Skull Saturday (yes, I’m a day late) is the invention of Kaisa at kaisalarkas.com and is basically er…pictures of stuff with skulls on them. So here we go:

My favourite t-shirt, and one which gets toddlers running for their mums when they see it, even though I don’t even LIKE Motorhead that much.

Visit Kaisa’s website for more fun, fashion and Finnish frolics.

A literary classic (aged 30)

There is something rather gratifying about passing things on to your children, things from when you were young. We get a self-congratulatory tingle when we find our kids listening to one of our Human League albums, or watching the box set of Back to the Future. Yeah, we think, we had great taste and, by god, it’s stood the test of time.

It’s no different with books. This week I am in the position to pass on a literary classic from my adolescent years to my oldest son, a book which is celebrating a milestone.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend is 30 years old this year. I read it circa 1984, a couple of years after its publication, by borrowing it from the library. I actually remember renewing the lend so I could re-read it. I found it hilarious yet sad, farcical yet easy to relate to.

Throughout the diary, Adrian Mole describes what it’s like to be an adolescent. He is aware he’s not a child anymore, but frustratingly, he’s also aware he’s not an adult. He craves intellectual maturity to set himself above his peers. He has a girl to impress (the perfect yet precocious Pandora Braithwaite), and parents who are too busy bickering with each other to notice him. If that’s not enough there are the typical teenage boy issues: those magazines, one’s *ahem* physical attributes, the urge to write bloody poetry…

Thirty years on the book is still as funny and genuinely warm as I remember it. Flicking to random entries left me with a huge grin on my face. At a time when it seems the majority of teen and young adult fiction is devoted to gothic, emotionally overwrought vampires, Adrian Mole is all the more refreshing.

I think it’s the kind of book my son will like. And so, it passes on.

What books from your formative years would you bequeath to your children? If not books, what music or films do you think worthy of passing down the generations?

Metrophobia – a critique

Metrophobia. A fear of underground trains? No, a fear of poetry. This is a genuine affliction, contracted (as with many phobias) at a young age, often in dour classrooms while being forced to read dour verse by dour teachers.

The author of It Falls (he calls himself, faux mysteriously, Him Up North) has no such fear, nor does he baulk at the idea of aversion therapy for his readers. With carefully controlled cadence and rhythmic rhymes, he regales his audience with his plucky amateurism and (some might say necessarily) over-simplistic stanzas.

He’s almost a poet but doesn’t yet know it.

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This week, the 100 Word Challenge for “Grown Ups” was to write a critique of one of the previous week’s entries. Keep up, it’s quite simple really. The thing is, I don’t feel qualified to critique someone else’s efforts. Not on this level, where there are constraints imposed on the creative process both in word count and other obligatory parameters. It would be like casting a critical eye over a sculptor given a block of marble and a metal nail file to work with, only to be told to sculpt a puddle.

So instead I had an out of body experience (with a little help from an out of date Pot Noodle) and wrote about my own work, It Falls. Do you think my alter ego got it right?

Please remember to visit Julia’s site and read the other contributions this week.

No! Shit!! Sherlock…?

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS

It takes a lot to make me watch TV drama. It has to be exciting but cerebral, well written but engaging, stylish but with substance. The past three Sunday nights have contained a televisual treat, a little new year nugget of brilliance in the shape of Sherlock on BBC1.

Last Sunday was the finale of the series. It promised much: a showdown between Sherlock and his nemesis, Moriarty. The episode title itself (The Reichenbach Fall) alluded to a finite conclusion, it being a reference to Conan Doyle’s story The Final Problem, in which his Sherlock falls to his death.

What was delivered in the TV film was, by turns, dizzying and smart and breathtaking. It’s fair to say the first 70 minutes or so were a prologue to the shocking end. Moriarty commits audacious crimes, is acquitted, then proceeds to destroy Holmes using the sharpest weapon at his disposal: the media. The denoument has Sherlock forced into jumping to his death from the roof of St. Bart’s hospital. John Watson, his assistant, sees him do it and so do we, the viewers.

Or do we? Cut to the end: Watson stood at a grave marked Sherlock Holmes. As he walks away, the camera reveals Sherlock, very much alive, stood out of sight. Roll end credits.

This is what is known in television as a “What the Fuck?” moment. Or if it isn’t called that, it should be.

So what happened? Theories have abounded on the worldwide web since those credits rolled. This is what we see (or think we see) in the final scenes:

• Sherlock and Moriarty face off on the roof of St. Bart’s.
• Moriarty tells Sherlock he must jump off the building to save his friends from being shot by hired killers.
• Moriarty shoots himself in the head, thus denying the possibility of the killers being called off.
• Watson arrives below St. Bart’s to see Sherlock stood on the roof ledge.
• Sherlock instructs Watson not to approach but to stay back and keep his eyes on the roof.
• Sherlock is seen to jump from the building, flailing his arms as he falls.
• Watson runs towards the building but is knocked over by a cyclist. When he gets up he is groggy and disorientated.
• He tries to get to his friend who is lying, covered in blood, in the street, but members of the public and doctors on the scene hold him back.

Everything happens quickly, the scenes are sharply cut, but the only conclusion I can reach (as others have) is that although we see Sherlock Holmes jump from the building, it is NOT Sherlock Holmes who we see on the pavement. Take a look at this still I grabbed. I have inverted it to see the face clearer.

The face is almost a mixture of Holmes and Moriarty. I suspect this is actually Moriarty, his corpse thrown from the roof. By who? We don’t see Sherlock do it. An accomplice maybe? But what about the mass of blood-soaked hair? There is a hint earlier in the episode that Moriarty, or someone working for him, passes himself off as Holmes when the two children are abducted. Could Moriarty have had about him a prosthesis to give him an appearance of Sherlock? Before he shoots himself, Moriarty says, “you [Sherlock] are me…”

The idea of a Sherlock Holmes “mask” or “skin” is in intriguing one. From the beginning of this episode I thought Moriarty had a feel of Hannibal Lecter about him (and I tweeted as much during the broadcast). In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter escapes custody by using the face of a security guard as a mask.

Keeping this in mind, and thinking tangentially (Sherlock would be so proud of me; okay probably not), I looked up St. Bartholomew (the saint who gives his name to the hospital). He was martyred, some legends have it, by being flayed ie having his skin removed. In Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement he is depicted holding his own skin in his hands. Is St. Bart’s a clue?

So if the body on the pavement is Moriarty, what becomes of Sherlock? He definitely jumps. He is shown falling to the ground. But we only see “a body” hit the pavement. By the time that body is lying on the concrete, there is a vehicle next to the drop zone:

Yep, it’s a flat bed truck with big padded bags of possibly hospital laundry on it. Could this truck have provided Sherlock with a soft landing? Of course, there are flaws in this logic. We see Sherlock fall in his overcoat. The body on the ground has the overcoat on. Argh!!

There’s so much more I’m sure I’m missing. Sherlock’s forensic scientist associate Molly could be involved. Sherlock tells her he needs her, and Jim Moriarty was Molly’s boyfriend in the first ever episode. As much as I love the theory that Molly grew a clone of Sherlock on the side of a rat (thanks Jo Beaufoix) I can’t see it myself. But as this series has shown, no plot twist is too far fetched.

We also have the possibility of Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, having a role in this finale. Mycroft confesses to Watson that he gave Moriarty information about Sherlock in return for information about Moriarty’s dealings, and shows remorse for doing so but can’t bring himself to say so to his brother personally. Does Mycroft pull strings to make up for selling out his brother?

I. WANT. TO. KNOW!!!

And so we are left hanging by a thread, waiting for the next series and hopefully an explanation. If series 3 episode 1 starts with John Watson in the shower and it’s all been a dream, I’ll be rather miffed. Until then, we fans will keep bashing the theories around.

If you’re a Sherlock fan, what is your theory? Can you help me plug some gaps in my frankly well-ventilated ideas? You don’t have to be right, just write!

Disagree!

I want you to disagree with me. I want you to wholeheartedly take an opposite view. If I say black, you say white. If I say bark, you say bite. If I say shark you say, “hey man, Jaws was never my scene, and I don’t like Star Wars”.

Do this for me not because I’m asking you to, but because I want you to say what you think and feel.

The 14th January saw my 2nd blogoversary (thank you, thank you, very proud, etc) and in the past two years I’ve been blown  away by the feedback I have received for my writing. The majority of the comments are congratulatory at my style and in agreement with my opinions. Comments to the contrary are few and far between. When they have come I’ve always published them; I’ve never censored an opposing view.

I say this and do this because I believe that to be what a blog is for. My site doesn’t exist to reinforce a personality cult. I appreciate my posts (as with so many of yours too) exist in a blogosphere within a blogosphere, and the audience comes from a relatively narrow blogging gene pool. I also appreciate the blogging communities in which I exist are populated by generous, magnanimous folk who would rather say nothing than disagree or dissent.

Is that entirely healthy?

This question presented itself to me this weekend when I put my foot in my mouth, and then, as is so often the case, tried to remedy it by shoving it further and further down my gullet. I’ll spare you the details, but something I said led me to losing an online follower. They didn’t like what they read and decided they didn’t want to read more. Fair enough. What I said was, to someone who doesn’t know me, uncharacteristic and offensive. I would do the same.

Then, an interesting twist. The former follower wrote a blog post about it. They named no names, nor did they detail what had been said. It was merely “I saw something I didn’t like, and it’s not funny, so there…” followed by a bunch of comments fully agreeing with the blogger’s argument, even though it had been made in the abstract and was devoid of context. I read it a few times, and came to the conclusion this was little more than an attempt at personal reinforcement of a decision. I felt the person was unsure of the courage of their convictions, and had run (with remarkable haste) to the arms of their blog audience for some positive affirmation.

I considered leaving a comment myself, to be the one dissenting voice the post needed, but I’ve been around social media long enough to spot when a terrier has a stick it won’t let go of. An online spat would have been akin to being chased by said terrier on a treadmill while wearing treacle-soled shoes. Thanks, but no thanks.

Instead, I choose to turn this experience into my own affirmation: I will never use this blog to trawl for nodding dogs. I will never use this blog as a safety net underneath the highwire of my viewpoint. I will continue to ask you for your opinions and I will welcome them all. And if you think I deserve to hit the deck, say so.

I should add, none of this applies to readers who genuinely don’t like Star Wars. Every man has his limit…

Letting the cat out of the bag

The long-suffering current Mrs. Up North (you can call her HER) is a lunchtime supervisor at a primary school. There are always tales to tell, with recurring themes along the lines of insane packed lunch items, playground crimes and punishments, and the cleaning up of all manner of substances. Sometimes however, there’s a nugget in the silt.

Today she told me of a little girl, only 5 years old, who couldn’t contain her excitement as she and her family had moved from a flat to a “proper house”. There was even a lady, she said, who came round to the house to make sure everything was okay [we assume this is rented accommodation and the lady in question is the landlord]. However this causes a problem.

The little girl’s family brought their pet cat with them from their old flat to their new house despite being told pets are not allowed. She continued, with growing concern in her voice…

“The lady is coming round tonight, so we have to put the cat out before she comes! But,” she went on, “our cat uses the back door. What if the lady uses the back door?!”

Tonight, even I’m on pins hoping the cat stays away and doesn’t choose the moment the “lady” leaves to scoot back inside. I hope the girl’s parents remember to hide the food dish and litter tray too.

I love the way children perceive problems such as this. As for Her Up North, little confidences like this make her love her job more and more.

It falls

Too fast, too fast, I look on aghast

The bird she plummets to her last.

Her cry is heard, her shimmer seen

Headlong into the aquamarine

Her body hits, is twisted, bent

Shockwave rolls after the event

The gracious freedom born in flight

Is lost forever and without a fight

Could it have been different, if one had acted?

The outcome not a body impacted?

No. For when an aeroplane stalls

It falls, it falls, it falls, it falls

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You know, one of these days I’ll write a nursery rhyme. This week’s 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups, presided over by Julia at Julia’s Place, is to incorporate the five words shown in bold above. I thought the words befitted a poem, but wanted to avoid an avalanche of alliteration. And so this work was brought to you by the letter A and a glass of malt whisky. As Behan said, I’m a drinker with a writing problem.

Please read the other entries by clicking on the badge below.

Muddy puddles? You ain’t seen nothing yet…

Some of my best blog ideas come from that collective consciousness known as Twitter. The planet’s favourite micro-blog was positively vibrating this morning with reaction to a news story about television and it’s role in the chipping away, nope, worse, the very desecration, of childhood innocence.

Who is to blame for this trend to toward the dark side? Peppa Pig.

The Daily Telegraph ran the story, culled from comments on Mumsnet, that parents were concerned their children’s behaviour had taken a downward slide because they were copying Peppa and her brother George’s naughty antics.

Setting aside for a moment the theory that this is The Torygraph doing what it does best – subtly hinting at subversive elements threatening the fabric of middle England – let’s look at the comments it quotes.

One father complained his 4-year old son had taken to splashing in muddle (sic) puddles on the way to school, imitating Peppa’s favourite past-time.

“My daughter keeps saying ‘No’ and ‘Yuk’ in a really high and mighty way, just like Peppa does, and generally answering back when I ask her to do something.”

“The more I see, the more alarmed I am by the choice of behaviour put into this ‘cartoon’”

(I like the last one for putting ‘cartoon’ in inverted commas. Nice touch. What would you call it, love? Satanic indoctrination?)

The article even quotes a psychologist, Dr. Aric Sigman, who has previously published a book on the adverse effects of television, and who, as luck would have it, has another book due out in a few days about how we spoil our kids.

Down with this sort of thing...?

Allow me, dear reader, to add some…perspective.

My children watched Peppa Pig and Noddy and Horrid Henry and Dennis the Menace and Rugrats. They enjoyed them for what they were: funny stories. Nowadays, their TV habits have evolved like so much else (sleeping patterns, number of syllables used in a typical conversation).

The blonde boy’s television diet is rich on brash American teen comedy, where every child was born a precocious wise ass and in which every adult exists purely as a stooge. This is annoying, gratingly so. I wish ill of no child, but these US brats deserve their comeuppance, perhaps with an adulthood in daytime soaps and eventual obscurity.

The older boy is another story. He has graduated (on a pretty steep grading curve, it has to be said) to The Simpsons to Family Guy to Little Britain. The latter is pretty well know for its erm…earthy humour. If you’ve never seen Family Guy, it’s hard to do it justice in mere words, and snippets won’t offer the necessary context. You wouldn’t bung the dvd on if the bishop came round for tea. Let’s leave it at that.

Am I concerned? No. I watched The Young Ones and Comic Strip at 12 years old, and, on a 4-channel TV service, that was pretty spicy stuff.

Am I a bad parent? Not my call, but I think not. I know my kids and I consider it investing them with a sense of humour, something which defines us as individuals.

So do I have a message to the mums and dads of feisty Fifi and wilful William? I have three.

• Cartoons are another form of story-telling, and if you plonk your children in front of them they will react to them. You should be more worried if they don’t.
• There is nothing in a pre-schooler’s cartoon which cannot be discussed or explained within your own context. So why not do that instead of taking it for granted the little ones will be able to assimilate what they see all by themselves?
• Don’t blame the medium when your little darling turns his or her nose up at your polenta.

Because in ten years it could be worse. Much worse…