November was up and down, but mainly down.

We saw some lovely old friends who came for a visit who we hadn’t seen in a long time. We took impromptu road trips to look at houses. We planned a birthday party and Christmas presents and all sorts of things.

We are still struggling with some really tough behaviour overall from my older daughter, but it comes and goes and we are slowly attempting to navigate it and figure it out. I have had a few insane parenting moments myself, losing my temper and threatening to throw away ALL of her jumpers for example, or shouting at her down the street that she was being a MASSIVE TWAT (not my finest hour). I have recently installed my very own star chart reward system whereby I give myself a gold star for every time I stay calm and regulated in the face of angry irrational screaming and yelling from the tween, and when I fill it up I am treating myself to a massage.

However living in a house where you get constantly screamed at and blamed relentlessly for flushing the toilet incorrectly, or moving her new lip liner even if you haven’t touched it, or failing to help her understand her maths homework, or buying the wrong damn snacks all the time is exhausting. And it grinds you down fairly quickly when it’s every day, all the time, which it feels like it is at the moment. I’m told that “relationship gestures” are the best way to regulate trauma in these cases, but no amount of texting “I love you”, buying her flowers, buying tickets to football matches, buying new jumpers or clothing, or sourcing her favourite biscuits seem to help.

Sometimes the little one parrots my words back to me and it always makes me laugh when you realise there are certain phrases you clearly say a lot. The other day she shouted at me “MUMMY YOU HAVE TO BE PATIENT! I CAN’T DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF!”

The little one turned 6 and we had a really great party and she was inundated with presents! Annoyingly 90% of them were pink and unicorn themed which feels like a massive step backwards for feminism, but nevermind….

While falling happily asleep after the party she told me “Mama my favourite part was getting all those presents. And my favourite part was playing with all my friends. And my favourite part was dancing and playing games with V. And my favourite part was making the cake. And eating the cake. And my favourite part was my party bag. And my favourite part was….”

It was very sweet and wholesome!

I also had to dig out all my party frocks and realised with great dismay that I can’t fit into most of them… A colleague and I went to a black tie event in London to find out if we had won an award or not – and we bloody well did!

We had a fantastic night out at a swanky hotel with a 3-course dinner and champagne and won a silver award for Best Online Distance Learning Course! I was so flipping chuffed and happy that we were there to win it in person! Plenty of wine was drunk and happy photos were taken and we rolled home VERY late. It’s the most hungover I’ve been in ages!

Meanwhile at work the strike ballot closed towards the end of November and it was an overwhelming vote to strike. 81% turnout to the vote and an 83% voted yes to strike action. It is the first time in our charity’s history that we have ever had a strike vote like this, (over 80 years) and a sad recognition of how bad things have gotten for staff. I’ve written about the cost of living before, and am personally feeling the pinch in our food shopping budgets, getting EXTREMELY annoyed everytime the child loses yet another bloody school jumper, and trying to ensure that the highly expensive Christmas wish lists are being met. But all that aside, I am extremely lucky that we can still meet our mortgage payments, put food on the table, and replace the odd lost jumper (albeit via the secondhand shop!).

Many of my colleagues are in full time employment and having to access food banks to make ends meet, unable to turn their heating on, and some are facing eviction as they can’t pay their rent. A lot of them have taken on second jobs to make ends meet as they care so deeply about our organisation and it’s cause. It is desperately sad that a charity with a core mandate of ending poverty has allowed staff salaries to slide so low that they cannot live sustainably with a minimal quallity of life.

Our strike dates have been announced and we are desperately hoping that our senior leardership team will get back into negotiations with the union and resolve it before a strike becomes necessary.

I managed a night out for dinner with friends, which was very nice, and we chugged our way through an increasingly cold, wet, grey month.

A very dear friend and work colleague passed away very suddenly and without warning at the end of November. She was extremely fit and healthy, and only 49, with 2 lovely teenage boys and her whole life ahead of her. She went for a park run, collapsed and had a massive aneurysm in her brain. And suddenly she was gone from our lives, just like that. It was an utter tragedy. I am hoping to attend her funeral in December to say goodbye.

Going into winter this year feels a lot harder and more depressing than usual, as I am not feeling terribly chirpy these days. Things are relentlessly hard at home, money is tight, we are about to go on strike, inequality is everywhere, poverty is everywhere, everything I do is always wrong (according to my oldest daughter), and it’s cold and wet and dark. It’s very hard to find reasons to be cheerful at the moment so I might just choose to be miserable for a while instead and hope that 2024 shows signs of improvement.