One of my most touching memories of September 11th, 2001 was a conversation I had with my next door neighbour at the time. Her daughter had gone into labour that day, and the baby was not doing well. Her eyes were red from crying, a mixture of shock at the state of the World – the world that baby V had come into (and may have soon gone out of again). Very fortunately, baby V was a stubborn child and soon showed everyone just how robust she was. Today is a mixed anniversary for that family, I’m sure.

Happy 2nd birthday, little V.

A group of six of mums and six babies, a couple of them could crawl by then, mine was the youngest so remained where you put him. It did mean I had to be more vigilant over the others crawling over his head, however.

A normal Tuesday in every respect. One of the mums got a call on her mobile while we were there. It was her other half telling her to switch on the telly. It was then we saw the first harrowing pictures of an airplane being flown into one of the World Trade Centre towers.

At that point, it was thought it had been a horrific accident, until the second plane hit and the reports of the hijackings started to come in. We watched the events unfold in horrid fascination. I remember walking home from the bus stop, phoning my mother to tell her the news.

I’ll never forget the media circus that followed. The nights of waking up in a sweat convinced London was next, or that a terrorist would spread smallpox and I’d have to watch my baby die. The feeling that the end was well and truly nigh. The fake Nostradamus predictions that circled the internet. The poignant articles in Salon from a woman who’s husband had died in one of those towers and her harrowing experiences of trying to get his remains (in lots of boxes over time).

I make no apology for making “yet another” September 11th entry on the net. I feel today is not a day for the politics of what has been done in its name. Today is a day for remembering the thousands of individual people who died two years ago, and the people they left behind.

Today was Father’s Day. I didn’t send mine a card.

No, I’m not evil or vindictive (at least not in that) – he passed away just under seven years ago. I never really knew what to get him on Father’s Day. Always ended up getting him something pretty useless as there was nothing he really needed or wanted. It’s not that he had everything, just that “things” weren’t really important to him.

There’s no grave for me to visit. Probably just as well as I’d only end up feeling guilty that I didn’t visit it or if it was overgrown. His ashes are spread over the waters of a bay somewhere in Wales (there’s a funny story about that, basically involving the fact that my mum forgot waves flowed back towards the shore…) so no visiting opportunities there, but that’s okay.

It’s hard to explain, but I saw his body shortly after he died, and I can categorically say that by that point he wasn’t really there any more, it wasn’t him. Whatever “essence” that made him Daddy had left – the phrase “dearly departed” makes more sense to me – because that’s exactly it… they’re departed.

So. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. You haven’t missed much – I’d have only got you a crappy card and maybe a bottle of plonk from the nearest offy…

It’s funny how in periods of extreme stress most people seem to have one particular recurring theme in their dreams, it may be dreams about falling, about losing someone they love, or walking down the high street stark naked.

Me, I’ve always had a good memory for my dreams so maybe I’m more aware of these patterns than most, or it’s just most people don’t talk about their bizzare dream lives. My repeat dream is a classic: the sitting of an exam where you haven’t studied and don’t know any of the answers. I think the reason this particular dream is embedded in my psyche is because it’s actually happened to me in real life too.

I won’t tell you what my degree subject was (it just has too much potential for mirth) but it was soon pretty clear that I had no interest in the subject anymore by the time I’d reached university level. I did particularly appallingly in my first year exams and if I’d have had any sense I’d have switched courses to something that did interest me – only it never occurred to me that it was possible.

I did try to work hard and generally succeeded except I never really caught up in understanding the basics taught in the first year which was always going to be a disadvantage. In the third year, I got a grip and worked really hard, but then the easter holiday before my finals, my granddad got sick and I wasn’t allowed to see him in hospital. It was clear he was dying and he didn’t want me to see him like that. Sitting at home while my parents visited and trying to study… the text books could have been written in Greek (and no, it wasn’t Greek that I was supposed to be studying).

Then shortly after the term started I came down with some mystery virus (probably stress related) that completely wiped me out. For some reason (probably a case of write this prescription then she’ll feel like we know what we’re doing), the doctor prescribed me antibiotics (because we all know how effective antibiotics are against viruses… NOT). This was when I found out I was violently allergic to erythromyacin as well as penicillin… let’s just say it was not a good time.

So there I was, sitting in my finals, staring at exam papers and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to answer the questions.

Of course, I took a doctor’s note to my tutors but despite getting good marks in my dissertation and final year project, they preferred to compare my performance in the previous two years work before deciding not to change my grade, which I suppose was fair enough. I still scraped through with an honours degree. It’s just a good job that I value the life experience of going to university far more than the bit of paper they give you at the end.

I’ve finally got around to sorting out the paperwork cemetery that is our filing cabinet; by doing a bit at a time each lunchtime, I’m gradually working my way through the files and feeding all the unwanted stuff (like an instruction manual for the toaster – why did I keep this?! Did I think someday I’d forget how to use it?) to the rubbish bin.

The file of the moment is the “Guarantees and Receipts” section which is overflowing with receipts for items which run out of guarantee years ago but have never got chucked out. My favourite find so far has been a receipt dated 1/12/00 for a Tefal pressure cooker.

Not very exciting, you might think, but it brought back something I’d forgotten about – the experience of buying it. At the time I was about 4 months pregnant, I’d quit work early (mainly because I could – I obviously knew it was to be my last few months of freedom *grin*) and was living the life of leisure. Mum had emailed me some of her favourite recipes and a couple required a pressure cooker, so out I trotted one morning to Allders to acquire one.

Rather foolishly I’d decided to skip breakfast that morning and treat myself to a McDonalds breakfast while I was out, stopping off at the Allders’ basement kitchenware department on the way. It was quite a cold day so I was wrapped up warm and so hopelessly overdressed for the well heated store and I really was feeling very hungry by the time I’d chosen the pressure cooker I preferred.

The sales assistant on duty was also the Tefal rep, so she took great delight in opening the box to “check everything was in there” and tell me in great detail all the features my new purchase had. I just wanted to sign the slip and get out of there. Eventually she swiped my credit card and passed me a pen.

I moved over, then suddenly got a flash of spots before my eyes (the sort you get if you stand up too quickly when you’re not feeling too well). I paused for a couple of seconds thinking they’d clear, then I realised they weren’t going to. I remember trying to tell her that I didn’t feel well then the next thing I knew I was on the floor with 2 panicked looking assistants looking down at me (where the other one had come from, I’m not sure). Oh cool, I thought, I’ve fainted. Never done that before!

Rather sheepishly, I told them I was pregnant (I wasn’t showing at the time) and that’s why I had fainted and that I was fine. They refused to let me out of the store until the company nurse had been to take a look at me and she took *ages* to arrive. Then she wanted to order me a taxi. Bear in mind that I lived 5 minutes walk away from the shop at the time and with the road system the taxi would have taken much longer to get me back. Took even longer to persuade her to let me leave on foot though. By the time I left I was flushed with a mixture of overheating, pregnancy hormones and mortification.

I couldn’t face going inside Allders again until well after Akra Jr was born.

Oh, I thought about framing the receipt, but eventually consigned it to the bin with the rest.

Isn’t it strange how songs trigger memories so effectively? Hearing an old song on the radio can bring into sharp focus a conversation (word for word, emotions felt, a gesture the other person made), a particular smell or event that’s long been forgotten.

I was lying in bed this morning, enjoying a very rare lie-in thanks to Akra Jr who decided to sleep in over an hour to 7.30am today for no apparent reason. In between worrying that he’d actually died in the night, craning to hear him breathing over the baby monitor and wondering if I should go in and check on him, I was half listening to Heart. Then “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain filters into my consciousness and immediately I was transported into the kitchen in our old flat (metaphorically speaking of course, unfortunately I haven’t discovered a space/time rift in my bedroom).

I’d decided to paint the kitchen while Akra was away on business and had chosen a warm terracota to slap on. I had the radio on continually and as it was a largish room and they tend to have quite a restrictive playlist, that song must have come around about 3 times every hour. By the end of the first coat of wall one, I knew all the words of the song and had begun to panic about the colour I’d chosen. The warm terracota I’d envisaged was actually bright orange. ARGH!

As a veteran of 2 previously painted rooms (hallway – pale yellow, lounge – supposedly a green/white but looked more blue/white on the walls. It was my “everything has to be a bright cheery colour” phase) I knew that first coat wasn’t actually representative of the final colour so I persevered. Worst case scenario was that I magnolia it to death the following week if necessary.

I pretty much overdosed on the song that week and was very glad when I’d finally finished the painting. Painting projects always seem a good idea at the time, but take five times as long as you’d expect. Oh, and no, the colour wasn’t as orange the second coat. Was a teensy bit darker than I had planned though, but couldn’t be arsed to magnolia it.

Isn’t it strange how much writing you can do when you’re supposed to be doing your tax return instead?

Last Friday, I promised to talk about my last moving experience. This is a long-winded tale of woe, so I’ve left it to today when I have more time to put fingers to keyboard.

It should have been a quick and easy move. We were in a two bedroom flat that was being bought by a cash buyer (a chinese gentleman wanted a base close to his new business in town as it was a long commute for him) and we were moving into an empty three bed house (the previous owners had moved to Kenya a year before, and had been letting the house since then). Probably one of the shortest chains in history and with me being newly pregnant at the time, this was A Good Thing[tm] as there’s no WAY we could have fitted baby paraphernalia into our flat even though it was quite spacious.

Somehow, however, it dragged on for months. I started to grow suspicious that all the legal documents were being transported by foot from London to the owner’s house in Kenya and the estate agents were less than chatty to each other. Dragging information out of them was like… well… dragging something that doesn’t want to be dragged. It was so difficult there is no appropriate analogy.

Eventually though, moving day did arrive. That was a huge relief as by that time I was 6 months pregnant. We’d had everything packed professionally the day before so everything (technically) should progress smoothly.

So there we were, watching all the removal men do the hard work of hauling everything to the lorry – even better as being pregnant meant that I didn’t even have to lift a thing except for bump and make the occasional cuppa for the workers. Anyway, our buyer shows up. Why he chose that morning to get in the way and make us feel harried, I don’t know. I think he was checking up on us to make sure we were actually leaving. He demanded to be shown a grand tour again (while managing to get in the way of just about everyone) so that he knew how the boiler worked (this button switches it off… this switches it on… thermostat is over there – how hard can it be?!) and other info that all should have been asked in the months running up the move.

As like most moves, all things were finally packed into the lorry, lorry drove off towards the new house, and Akra and I went to go pick up the keys.

Slight problem. The estate agent hadn’t been authorised by the solicitor to release the keys to us yet. Puzzled we phoned up the solicitor only to find that a crucial document hadn’t arrived at her office in the morning as it should have done. Would we mind going to get lunch somewhere and she would sort it all out for us. Obediently we turn into All Bar One for food and drinkies (well, Akra got drinkies… I was pregnant remember – had to rely on the caffeine high from a glass of coke instead).

A few hours later it became apparent that the document was not going to turn up (that damn pedestrian walking from Kenya had probably run out of energy in France or something…) so the battle of the solicitors commenced. The upshot was that our solicitor told their solicitor that if we weren’t given immediate occupancy that she would put us up in the best hotel in Croydon and send them the bill. We got the keys.

Drew up outside our house-to-be and met up with the very bored and pissed off removal men who started unloading the lorry. Almost had a strike on my hands when they realised they had to carry the electric piano upstairs (a Roland – my pride and joy, even if I hardly ever play it these days). Come on guys! It’s not a real piano – it’s lighter than the damn bed you just hauled upstairs, what is your problem?! Solved it by being extra nice and apologetic, and virtually drowned them in tea.

Next mini-crisis: the kitchen. In order to fit our stuff in the kitchen we had to rip out a badly made breakfast bar and remove the dishwasher and washing machine the previous tenants had left behind. So there we were, technically not yet owning the place, smashing up fixtures and fittings. Then Akra called in some help (thanks Dathi) to move the dishwasher and washing machine which were both broken and their doors jammed. They managed to move the washing machine out to the garage without much difficulty, then attempted to move the dishwasher. For some reason, it was a real struggle, and they couldn’t work out why until they tried to tip it on its side to move it. A flood of water came cascading out of the thing (now fortunately on the pavement outside the back door) – it had been mid-cycle when it broke, and rather than getting it fixed they left it full of water and crockery instead. Nice. Thanks.

Once the removal men had left us to our fate, we had time to survey the damage. The bathroom (not in any great state when we were looking around initially) was a shambles. The sink was grey whereas the rest of the suite was a particularly vile pink – I can only assume that at some point the sink was smashed and no attempt to match the replacement in properly had been made. The cistern lid was smashed beyond repair – something heavy dropped on it in the last few days before moving? Grimy junk (some of which was impossible to identify and needed rubber gloves to remove) had been left in the fitted cupboards in two of the bedrooms, there were bizarre unidentified electric switches all around the place and Akra still couldn’t work out how to turn the hot water on.

It took two days to work out that the switch for the hot water instead of being near the hot water tank cupboard upstairs, was a small switch marked “large/small” just above the cooker in the kitchen (how logical – why didn’t we think of that?!) and it was another day after that before we legally owned the place.

Now is it any wonder I hate moving?!