Author Archives: Old Mum

Warrior Not Worrier! Subscriber request

Posted in All Coping posts by

Thanks Andrea from Co Antrim! You asked how we can break the eternal worry/stress/more worried cycle, hope this helps.

It will end….

Being locked into a deep worry is a horror. Too many times Old Mum has wasted entire weekends worrying about something that might happen on a Monday or got herself into such a cotter over impending doom that she suffers far more by worrying than she ever would just tackling it head on, sword aloft.

So now, I face it. I face it when it is just a hint that it might happen and hasn’t developed into a full blown deep crisis of agonising. I face it as soon as it pops its ugly head into my life and even if I can’t solve it there and then, do something to make me feel I am on top of it. Even if it’s just making a list of the best way to tackle it or googling for other opinions, it is an attack not an acquiesence. Oh, and allow yourself 20 minutes fretting time and then call a halt to it. Set a timer if you can’t trust yourself.

Worrying is our way of trying to prepare for every possible outcome. We’ll imagine every twist and turn, take false leads and crooked paths, go bounding over rocky terrain of our own making and still end up face down in a bog. For trying to work out all the awful things that might come about doesn’t actually solve the problem in the slightest. Just leaves us exhausted – and lost. And boggy.

This can go on forever frankly. The worst bit is that we know all the worrying is pointless and harmful and it only makes us worry even more – about the effects of all the worrying. It’s bonkers..

I still worry far far too much BUT age and experience means I have watched the journey from original worry through to its natural end so many many times over that I have learned a bit about cutting off and minimising the damage.

I love comforting phrases, life messages – the things you see written over scenes of tropical islands on posters in corporate offices. They are best when delivered in person from someone you believe in though. Those people are the true sages in life. People for whom life seems to run on an even keel. Logic tells us they face no fewer problems than the rest of us so it’s obviously how they cope with them that sets them apart.

This is why I love CBT and Dr Jim White (!) (See ‘Emergency’). A key mantra can pull us up by our socks, long enough for a quick re-boot and fresh perspective. One of the most helpful phrases I ever heard was when I was holed up in a bar in torrential rain at the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki, New Zealand. So torrential even us, a giddy pack of overexcited backpackers, realised we would simply have to sit it out. Hours passed and there wasn’t much to do except talk.

Ah Dave. Tall, blonde, tanned, sweet and a childrens’ social worker from somewhere in the Home Counties. This was, at it happens, one of my last adventures on a two year trip of such magnificence I still ache to be back most days.

Anyway. I had a deep worry. I’d fallen out with a friend, exhausted a final attempt at renewing my visa and was very low on funds. Which way to turn next…. every choice I could make seemed wrapped up in doom.

Wise Dave. This is what he said: “Even the biggest problem you can ever have will, come to an end. It will be solved, somehow.”

What you must NOT do, while waiting for that end (and for goodness sake, if you can hasten it, then please do so. Call that person, face that bully, phone that bank, report that horrible noisy neighbour) is let the act of worrying weaken your resilience and strength for next time. The longer the fretting goes on the bigger the chunk it takes out of your self worth and belief that you are a good, fine person who just happens to have some things you need to deal with.

Please. Be a Warrior, not a Worrier.

Thanks to Lars_Nissen for main image

Don’t get your knickers in a stitch!

Posted in All Crafty Posts by

There are not many things worse than labouring long into the night over a complicated new pattern and realising it will never work. For whatever reason:

1: You missed out an entire section and it has no arms.

2: You’ve tugged it over his hips as hard as you can and it isn’t budging. (Do not fall into the trap of telling yourself that blocking will instantly add several inches round the waist. It won’t. Especially when you’ve been using acrylic not wool. That little episode of mine caused some merriment at the knit group, I can tell you.)

3: You simply cannot face even one more attempt at that hideously complicated quadruple bobble stitch – or the voice of that Youtube lady who has been trying to help you, on a loop, for the last 40 minutes.

Well here’s the thing. It is a phrase my co knitters use a lot. Knitting is supposed to be fun and when it is not, stop. Start unravelling (literally) those weeks of work and end up a sobbing broken mess surrounded by a wall of tangled up wool? NO! I have yet to fail at a project and not find another use for it. Here is my latest failure/success:

(I take heart from the fact that esteemed Knitter to the Gods, Lucy, who methodically and neatly produces exquisite items mainly from the “do not attempt unless you are a supreme expert” rated patterns, also put this aside half way.)

This is the pattern. Disclaimer: Many have succeeded where I have failed and there is nothing wrong with it. It is a very well written and lovely thing. This is one of several charts:

If you can read these things you’ll see that is one hell of a lot of stranding and since I had already re done the body after realising I had missed the chart for the front of the whale entirely – I found it didn’t fit Albie anyway.

So, as I often do, I turned it into a cushion! Not only is it useful, but you can’t outgrow a cushion.

There are lots of other times I’ve given up when the end didn’t justify the means (wasn’t having fun). My worst habit is making something much smaller than it’s meant to be and hopig no one will notice. I regret this and know now that the best thing is to leave it aside for as long as it takes to care about it once again.

A good example is this shawl. I crocheted in literally hundreds of miniature glass beds and bled from the brain over its complexity.

Gave up, wrapped it and told the recipient their Xmas present was in fact, a scarf.

Everyone’s happy. (Don’t look too closely at that picture. Some of the holes are not actually part of the pattern.)

 

Make do and extreme mend

Posted in All Mean Green Posts by

I cannot look at ANYTHING without calculating it’s potential for re-use – whether that’s old rags in ditches (see Nifty, thrifty and proud to pick things out of ditches and Gutter Hunting Finds in the sidebar) or an outgrown T shirt or even the button on that same outgrown T shirt. It’s in my blood.

Yes, half way through an impossible darn with fraying edges collapsing in on the sides as I sew, I do question this urge. I often wonder at times if it would be rather easier just to buy a new mower instead of sending out pleas on facebook for advice and then searching the internet for hours looking for obscure tools and trying to fix it myself. But actually it’s always interesting, I always learn something and I get great pleasure from keeping anything out of landfill that really needn’t be in there in the first place.

And then there is the saving money bit. Always of great interest to Old Mum. So this is a quick report on some of my most recent projects. Proving the journey is the best part of the whole process…

Rips in trousers.

Part of the brilliance of being a maker and mender is always being on the look out for free stuff. Some time ago I was in a material shop looking for scraps (known as fat quarters and used for quilting etc I discovered) and, as I like to do, loudly commented on the extreme price of a small pile of fabric squares to the nearest person to me. (No, not the shop assistant I do have some sensitivity). Conversation ensued as it so often does, and it turned out this nearest person had 6 bin bags of old scraps to get rid of. It took three bike journeys to collect them and get them all home but oh goodness, I am getting all tingly just remembering the magical moment when I opened those plain black bags.

They were sample books. From extraordinarily upmarket suppliers. Gold silk squares and exquisite linen florals flooded the floor. Laura Ashley, Liberty and Sanderson….everything from heavy brocades to the lightest chiffon. I just sat there stroking them in a dizzy daze of delight. Anyway, there were so many that I have had fabric in every possible shade for every eventuality ever since: Scraps for cushions, applique, fancy dress costumes, rag rugging – and, coming back to what I am writing about here, patching.

There are two approaches to patching:

1: Exquisite invisble darning, an art form, where you try to make the patch melt seamlessly into the existing item of clothing so the rip essentially disappears.

2: Grabbing a vaguely similar scrap of material or one in complete contrast and bunging it in as best you can with lots of stitching to keep it in place for as long as possible. (My approach).

But I have saved so many clothes this way. And even when the patch has worn away over the first bit that wore away, I refuse to give up. Trousers become shorts and when they are too short for public decency, they go into the scraps bags and start life all over again as patches themselves! And even then the story is not over! No no! The scraps from the scraps can be…COMPOSTED!! I often dig up a potato and find a beautiful shimmer of gold thread hanging from its roots….

Lovely things you can’t bear to be without.

One thing I do struggle with is cutting into existing items in perfect condition. (The too-small T shirts I mentioned are a good example). Mostly we hand them down to recipients we know will wear them and love them as much as we have, but when you have a serious emotional attachment to them, it’s hard to let go.

So I usually don’t. A good example of this was some lovely pyjamas with toadstools on them. Also Albie’s first attempt at needlework – just stitches on fabric (left pic) and risking obscurity in a old box forever  through lack of a practical use. I waited until the pyjamas had been both outgrown AND started to fray then simply combined the two into a cushion. (That’s a priceless piece of hand woven fabric from the scraps bags on the back.)

Big Things

Nothing is quite as satisfying as fixing a Really Big Thing instead of calling a plumber/electrician and spending a lot of money. And having them not turn up when they say they will. Etc. I’ve done quite a bit of this. Dug ponds (using a large pre formed pond liner we got for free. My friend had to collect it from a house 8 miles away and cycle back wearing it on his back  – he did look exactly like a giant turtle cycling through the city centre), wired broken ceiling lights, glued back things that fall off furniture etc etc.  I am still haunted by the time the washing machine broke and the engineer literally flicked the drainage hose with his little finger and charged a £55 call out fee. I got a very warm glow when my friend told me recently how she’d actually fixed a broken door on hers with a few Youtube videos and a screwdriver.

But as I said, it’s the journey that makes these projects so satisfying, so I will end with the briefest tale of my recent mower woes:

It kept cutting out. I realised that my habit of yanking the cable forcefully whenever it got caught on trees/garden benches/rocks may have been a contributing factor. This is bad news. A mower, unlike a giant pond, is not able to be transported to a mower shop, should I be able to find one, on a bike and previous experience has taught me that the most likely news is that it’s a “sealed unit” and they “can’t do anything anyway”. Then you have to buy a whole new one – hassle, hassle, hassle – and somehow dispose of the old one which likely has nothing wrong with it apart from a pulled wire somewhere.

Luckily mine had some kind of screw holding the control box on the handle together. I tried every allen key, knife, spoon, rocks – anything I could find to undo it – but they were a weird star shape and nothing worked. I emailed the manufacturer and thy told me on no account to touch it.

So I turned to a local Stuff for Sale Facebook group because I have found that this is by far the quickest way to get an answer to almost anything you can think of. Tip: Make your question funny or self deprecating. People are scrolling through other people’s tat often because they are bored. They feel compelled to help out if you offer some small entertainment to break up the monotony.

Such an interesting half hour was spent, as I sat back while people (men, mainly bikers or builders) joined in from all corners of Yorkshire debating the best tool amongst themselves: “It’s a T30 you dork, wouldn’t want to send my Harley over to your workshop if you’re only using the T29s!” Occasionally I idly checked out the odd profile pic and one or two of my helpers were very pleasing to look at, so I thanked them particularly profusely and asked the odd idiotic question to see if anything might come of it… (it didn’t).

Anyway I learned all about a fascinating new tool called a Torque, which I had never heard of before, and not only that, but the exact size I needed to buy and best place to get it – while greatly enjoying the whole process.

In the end I bought an entire set of Torques, with all the Ts, for under a fiver and then asked a friend to sort it all out while I took the dog out.

The mower now works.

Where my lovely child go?

Posted in All Children Posts by

I was having a bit of an edit here and there and looking at all the sweet photos of my chubby, biddable easy to manage tiny boy when Old Mum’s memory banks fired up and found this old thing that I wrote when Albie was 5 and had just moved into his own room. Now he is 10, I am having all the same feelings again. I really do hope this isn’t going to be a five yearly event with surges of painful nostalgia from now until I pop my clogs.

(Though I am sure when he is 15 I will hardly see him anyway and when he’s 40… well Old Mum needs to be a little realistic on longevity here…!)

How can simply turning five have such a huge impact on my boy! Am struggling this week with his surge of independence. No longer does a little hand seek out mine as we walk down the street – now he’s just a dot on the horizon, hunting out the next adventure.

There have been some factors. I finally finished his bedroom and he dived under his new London Underground duvet without a backwards glance. Now I wake to hear him reading books to himself from the gaping chasm of the landing. Three days ago I was still waking to a warm snuggly body next to me, a tickle on the nose and: “Hey Mummy, did you know what I actually dreamed about last night…?”

Last week he was still looking up at the older children’s assault course section with misty eyed longing. Yesterday he charged right up to the top and stood cheering himself before hurtling down to the ground.

Cuddles have halved and those I do get generally turn into wrestling matches.

I am sure these milestones will happen over and over again until he is a man. I have to learn that my place is moving now, away from the centre of his universe to a few paces behind him as he dances into his life.

But it is hard. So hard.

Albie loves to look at old photos of himself with me and I take great care to tell him he is just as sweet now, as he was when he was two. But oh goodness… being able to swoosh a little bundle into the air at the very first hint of a frown and switch his mood to complete joy in less than a second is something I miss very much. Now when the storm clouds threaten, there are careful negotiations and talks about “feelings and consequences” and if we can settle on a basic agreement of terms, it’s a good result.

This helped me then and helps me now (but still makes me very sad):

Dog among the squirrels

Posted in All Dog Blogs by

squiz

The park squirrels have dropped their guard and become rather too confident in recent years…

A funny thing happened in the park today…. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and probably shouldn’t have.

I’ve taken to heading off round the corner from my son’s school after dropping him off, to run the dog in the refuge of the cool green cover of our lovely park. I have connections to this place. I have spent a huge amount of energy in getting it a new pond and helping to keep it safe. I pick congealing crisp packets out of its shrubs and lug old mudguards out of flower beds.  I walk round it with a faintly proprietorial air and it feels like home.

But what I like most, as a new dog owner, is the realisation that you can chat to absolutely anyone who has something on the end of a lead. This is usually a dog although once, memorably, I came across someone attempting to take a ferret for a walk but that is another story.

Etiquette dictates that you must start the interaction with a positive comment about their animal though sometimes a skyward glance and wry smile will suffice if your dog is currently bent double, forcing out a large and revolting poo at the entrance to the toddlers’ play area. From there the owner will either answer politely but in a brisk fashion and march off to continue their walk (ref: poo or perhaps they have quickly calculated that their elderly beagle will not benefit in any way from the demonic dog at your side which is already trying to leap on its head and flip it over) or you will have a perfectly lovely conversation and both dogs will behave in a socially acceptable way at least until they have reached each other’s rear ends.

A lovely moment with new dog friends in the park

There is one area where a few forest paths converge and you will often get a clump of dog owners all meeting by accident in this one spot. You can slip into the conversation here so easily it is quite exhilarating – I know of no other social situation where this can possibly occur – as long as you follow protocol of course and say a variety of nice things to at least a few of the dogs milling around your feet.

It was while approaching one such glorious unscheduled coming-together of random owners last week that I suddenly noticed a rather different atmosphere from the normal bonhomie. The women (it is almost always women. You do get men in the park of course but they are there to walk the dog, only walk the dog. They set off with a job to do and they are doing that job, thank you) were looking conspiratorial and supportive. Gathered much more closely together than normal. They looked like something was up and needing to be sorted out.

It was a few seconds before I followed their gaze to one woman in particular. She looked worried. My eyes travelled downwards and settled on an ancient-looking retriever at the end of the lead. It looked proud and very wary. It had a large dead squirrel in its mouth.

Various women now began pulling treats from various concealed locations on their bodies. Out came bone shaped biscuits from pockets and lumps of chicken from sleeves – one even reached down her shirt and produced a dried up lump of black pudding in a triumphant flourish and waved it hopefully under the dog’s nose.

“Thanks everyone but he won’t drop it,” said the retriever’s owner resignedly. “He’s that proud of himself. God knows how he caught it. Never seen him run so fast. Can’t normally get him to shift off his bed.”

The retriever sensed new hope in the air and lost a little of the worry from his eyes as treats were tucked back into clothing and the women shifted their attention safely away from his prize.

“I’m sure it didn’t suffer…” I contributed cheerfully. “It was probably very old.”

“Oh I don’t care about the squirrel,” replied the owner. “I’ve got to walk back home down the High Street. We’ll be traumatising children. Their mums will shout at us. What the hell am I going to do?”

This was our cue to do what women always do and leap in with comforting words and Plans. I suggested tying a scarf over the whole dog head and squirrel package to cover up the offending scene, while someone else suggested she call a cab.

We settled on a cover story in the end that both owner and retriever were happy with: when challenged, she would explain that they had simply come across the decaying corpse of an already dead squirrel in the bushes and the dog was carrying it home in order for them to dispose of it in a safe and hygenic way. Of course he hadn’t caught it himself! Have you seen his greying beard and arthritic joints? In his dreams!

And dream it certainly was as I watched them walk slowly away. Not for the owner, doing her best to look like anyone else off for a normal, jaunty everyday walk with a dog who just happened to have a large dead squirrel bouncing mournfully from either side of its jaw.

Dog however was very much enjoying the moment.  I watched him stagger along, bowed under the weight of his glorious prize, large shaggy tail wagging aloft like a plume of triumphant heraldic feathers – until both were finally through the trees and out of sight.

Emergency!

Posted in All Coping posts by

There are times when you just do not know where to turn or what on earth to do next. Women, in particular, who seem happiest planning each second of the day to make it as productive as possible, can fall especially hard when something goes wrong and then before it has been sorted out in usual efficient fashion, another thing topples, bringing down a load of other stuff with it on the way.

By this point you will no longer have enough energy left to be able to look at things realistically or rationally. Nor will you be able to hear your inner voice, which has stored away memories of how you coped last time things fell apart and actually has some useful advice for you, which you are in no state to listen to. You will have the blinkers on and can only see disaster ahead.

In my extensive experience of coping with calamity (and calamity can refer to quite small problems if they happen at times of stress or if we are already low) over the years, I have looked for solutions/answers/advice from everywhere I could think of. I have had counselling, quizzed friends for hours, read self help books for ever, and now that we have fingertip answers, found myself demanding answers to impossible questions from the internet at any time of day or night:

“Panicking about tomorrow”, “Why does he hate me?” “Am I an awful person?” “How long before I feel better?”

(“NOOOOOO” was a particularly ill-thought out classic, but actually got some pretty interesting results….)

Anyway. It’s all horrible and if you are going to get any sleep, there are a couple of pointers I can give you which might just stop the screeching doom-laden ghastliness of the current horrible moment, at least long enough for you to regain some perspective and turn an ear to that poor inner voice politely trying to have a quick consolling word with you.

1: Stop, Look, Listen.

CBT is without doubt, the best solution for amost everyone but it is hard work, a long term investment and hard to get hold of. I suggest training yourself. This bloke is perfect: Dr Jim White. Try and get onto one of his six week online courses, they’re free, local mental health places might refer you. Buy his book maybe, I don’t know. But he has brilliant emergency strategies. With massive apologies to Dr Jim, using every ounce of Old Mum’s limited powers of recall, here is what I do with: Stop, Look, Listen.

Stop. Just stop that turmoil in your head for one minute.

Look at something nearby. Your hand, a robin on a tree, that wonky picture.

Listen. Really listen. Try to hear something far away then something near.

Nope. Not going to sort anything out in the long term. But it’s a way to stop the racing train and that can be enough time to regain control and look at things just a little more sensibly for right now.

101 Poems That Could Save Your Life: An Anthology of Emotional First Aid - Kindle edition by Goodwin, Daisy. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.2: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dipped into this book. It has something on every crisis situation you can imagine and while most carry some message of hope, some are just downright sad which actually I find useful when in the throes of my own misery. It’s a bit like when you are dripping wet in a rainstorm and a pillock flying past in a car sends an arc of mud over your ankles. At that point you can almost find it funny.

Which is one of the best ways ever to give yourself that precious few seconds to re set and adjust the blinkers a little.

That way you might let a little bit of light in too…

Can we give it back?

Posted in All Dog Blogs by

See all blogs about dogs here

1 One of the very worst moments, the very worst, was when we found the new puppy had laid a fresh wet poo in the chewed remains of a treasured crocheted glove. Which a friend had made for me.

(There are numerous other terrible wool-related disasters I may relate at another date.)

Actually I’m now remembering many more moments. The time the chair slowly keeled over onto the floor when it’s middle support had been gnawed away and simply couldn’t hold on any longer.

Or how she would patiently wait until her newly washed bedding had literally just come off the line before jumping into the laundry basket and weeing straight into the middle of it.

Or the time she dug a hole under a very unstable newly planted shrub and we found it upended the next morning, waving it’s last broken roots forlornly at the sky…

I think that’s when we turned to each other and asked the awful question: “Would it be absolutely the worst thing in the world to return a rescue puppy who has travelled thousands of miles”…. we warmed to our theme…..”desperately hoping for a new life with kind and caring owners who would overlook the complete destruction of their lives and home in a patient and understanding way?”

We decided it would be. Googled: “How long is a puppy awful for?” and asked everyone we knew how they coped. Obvously the only ones with anything useful to say were those with new puppies because established owners had long forgotten the hellish early days and could only offer very unhelpful statements ranging from: “Oh enjoy those first months they are so precious…”, to the frankly impossible: “We never had any problems with Rover, he was amazing from the start,” (then Rover is a Japanese Robot Dog my friend and not actually real.)

It. Is. Just. Like. Having. A. New. Baby. Only you can’t put nappies on a puppy. (No, you really can’t). And you get maternity leave to cope with the fact they need you every second of the day. (Well puppy doesn’t really need you. Actually she is at her happiest when left to destroy a room in peace, by herself, to thoroughly annihilate the irresistible knitting project you foolishly left within her surprisingly extensive reach.)

So here is some emergency Old Mum Wisdom for the horror of the first few days:

1: Clear away ANYTHING you value/might poison the puppy. (Nothing is off limits and they will ingest the most hideously dangerous stuff with great gusto should you leave it lying around. Don’t limit this to items above ground. Oh no. For days puppy was obsesed with one particular tiny corner of the garden, to the point of trying to sneak out at night to get to it. One unguarded millisecond and she was in: digging like a thing possessed in a spray of soils, she found her prize and gobbled it up in a panic as she saw us racing to the scene. A dollop of almost fully decayed cat poo. I know. And what an interesting contrast between the two species; cat neatly digs deep hole and disposes of waste considerately and hygienically. Dog pushes out dollops of ghastly stinking mess wherever it pleases. Usually by the back door or under your child’s football).

2: The ONLY way to get them off something they want to destroy, once it is in their razor sharp grip, is to offer something even better while squeaking in an excitable high voice about how exciting it is and how clever they are (even if you are completely furious with them).

3: Use the same ridiculous voice when they poo anywhere that is vaguely in the right direction of the garden and don’t bother with trails of puppy pads, towels, wet wipes, all your household linens – because they will bound over them and poo in the gap inbetween on the hardest-to-clean part of your floor/best rug.

4: Puppy cage. Controversial. You only need to start typing: P.U.P and C.A.G….and a million desperate voices will rise up from the internet on forums across the world, wailing about the guilt they feel, the cruelty, how can it be right to lock your darling in a cage (I will desist from reminding them where the chicken they just ate spent its days…sorry…) and yes, I was one of those voices.

Get a cage. A big one. With a nice bed * and toys etc. It took three days of guilt-ridden hell with a devastated puppy whimpering like a tortured maiden in a dungeon, before she sucked it up and decided she liked it quite a lot. (You leave the door open in the day time.) As an added bonus it’s the perfect place to hide from the established household cat, should you be unlucky enough to have that particular additional hassle to overcome… Even Scarface Claw (ours) respects cages….

5: Remember this, and I promise you this is true: it will get better pretty quickly and if you have a child, you will cope because you’ve done it all before. Dogs, thank the Lord, grow up a thousand times more quickly however and they are sort of sweet to have around as a pup. Very occasionally. And only when they are fast asleep.

2

∗Bloody dog beds. She chewed through three. I sewed them up as she tore them apart. Over and Over again. Trying to stuff saliva-sodden wadding into shredded fabric is a thankless and, I finally realised, pointless task. She now has an old blanket and Albie’s old Scout uniform fleece in there. It is perfect.

Travels with my dog

Posted in All Dog Blogs by

See all Dog Blogs here

We are not currently motorised as Alan Bennett would say. And never will be.

It’s wrong to drive a car. Really wrong. And I do believe from absolutely years of being part of the highest levels of research, discussion and debate and learning from experts on all sides – that most people probably believe this too. Deep down.

Right now I need full disclosure, Old Mum does so hate hypocrisy. I have travelled in friends’ cars – it’s rare but does happen – and benefit from the services of long haul trucks that bring my south african cucumbers to the Morrisons near my home. And I’ve booked taxis when we just couldn’t put our cancer-ridden cat through a long bumpy trip to the vet in a bike trailer.

Then I should mention the ultimate sin of being a delighted passenger on numerous free long-haul flights – mostly in First Class – when Old Mum was a feted travel editor and had no eco conscience to speak of.

But I have never owned or driven a car and this is pretty big. I know of only two other people who do not drive (or get driven by their husbands, which is the same). One because they are medically unable and the other who, like me, cannot live with themselves if they do.

After so many years of presenting unarguable facts to everyone from MPs and education leaders through to my own dear friends, I know every single defence a driver can give to justify themselves – if they even feel the need to do so, for sadly, we are not at the stage yet where people feel shame over belting out vast clouds of CO2 into a word on the brink of environmental disaster, so they can spend an hour in a far flung shopping centre choosing a new cushion cover.

I have to drive to get to work/school/elderly parent in a care home etc etc

I challenge them to think of a single car journey they could not have done in a different way or simply not done at all.

This usually leads to all kinds of new extensions of the central theme so to cut through it all, I might add: “If you broke your leg tomorrow morning, how would you make those same essential journeys?”

The usual answer here is rely on a partner to drive you everywhere. Remove that and people are genuinely stumped.

As the car took over our lives so the world adapted around it. Train stations disappeared, bus routes dwindled away, cavernous concrete retail hellholes surrounded by acres of carparks replaced the corner shop (which kept communities alive and mental health intact.)

And this is the essence of the problem. Having a car means you do not have to find other creative ways to get around. Because almost everyone drives, public transport is hideously difficult to negotiate and criminally expensive. If you have no need for a bike, sadly you will probably not use it. Though you probably have one in the shed…

Conversely, if people did start to give up their cars, overnight the buses and trains would fill up and become incredibly cheap and very easy to use. Cycle lanes would spring up everywhere for safe, joyous journeys on car-free roads.

People would talk to each other again, freed from the steel bubbles blocking them from their communities outside.

They would get fit. They would be happy. This would save the NHS billions of pounds they could then spend on sick babies instead of fat people.

Anyway, because the world has shaped itself round having a car, it is a brave and dificult thing to manage without one. It was hard enough when I was on my own, adding a child to the mix just ramped up the challenges.

Then along came a dog.

Is this even possible I asked myself…..

I spent days and days learning how to make a video so I could show how it’s done so rather than write any more on this now, please watch it. (I am learning how to make videos remember!)