So I’ll take you back to that summer night - and typically it was raining. We’d arrived at refuge, pretty nervous, well very nervous. Practically it was 6ish. We’d stopped for some sandwiches. In fact I’ve mentally stopped this beginning as this is such a boring start to the blog post! They weren’t even great sandwiches…
Let’s start again. So there we were bedraggled, just arrived at Refuge. I had my four year old and my 12 and 9 year old. There is a big foyer inside that’s painted a bright yellow and a big mural on the wall with words of hope. There is a big communal lounge we passed and through the doors down to the bottom of the corridor was our room. We were told we were sharing with a lady and a baby. I saw the pram and the coats and wondered what the owner looked like, prayed she was nice. I felt like it was the first day at school. The door to the kitchen was shut, and my flatmate was on the other side. It was tea time, I knew we all needed a drink and a snack. My four year old didn’t care if Mummy felt a little nervous to go in the kitchen, and the day had been quite taxing darling. I knew I couldn’t scurry round like a mouse forever and I did what any caring responsible mother would do. I asked my oldest girl to go in. Yes, I truly did. I had reached the limit. Jo skipped in, met my flatmate, got some cornflakes for her sister while I honestly was having a floods of tears moment. After I’d got it out of my system, big breathe and went in the kitchen.
It smelt lovely as my flatmate was cooking corned beef hash. It turned out she had had a big shock that afternoon as she was told she had this flat all to herself and then told a family of four were moving in. Now my flatmate has been in refuge before and knew the routine. She knew that things get stolen, “borrowed” and missed. Everything in the kitchen that was hers had got covered in post it notes with her name on. She didn’t know we were nice and was having massive anxiety fits that we would be nightmare roommates.
On of the effects that my ex had on my 9 yr old boy, and older girl was that they were incredibly well behaved. They were so polite that the staff at refuge felt they were too polite, unnaturally so. The school had flagged this some years earlier as a common trait of an abusive household is children who apologies a lot. As you can imagine, my flatmate breathed a sigh of relief. She began to feel confident that I would not try to steal her cigarettes and we were branded 'posh'. Apparently posh people don’t steal things, so she was happy.
*I should note, reader I don’t, steal things that is - she wasn’t wrong.
So for the first few days we have to wait inside for a covid test to clear. This means we only have what is available on the food donations shelf which are mostly tins and can't leave the flat. There’s some spam which my mum used to have in the war - she used to remind me constantly. Some new potatoes - who knew you could buy potatoes cooked and tinned! I have a little cream over and had brought with me some peas from the garden at the house as a little snack to eat. I think frying the potatoes to get a little colour, adding the spam, some of the peas, garlic and a little cream is actually a nice little meal. My friend owns a garden centre and has given me a herb planter - a little taste of home - some thyme finishes it. My children have never tried spam, but they are brave little troopers and pick away.
Now the thing I don’t like to admit is I may be a little posh. My children are equally a little bit posh. We try to hide it but it slips out. We stand out.
When you move to a refuge - they don’t have Aga’s in every flat. When you 4 year old points at the microwave and asks ‘what’s that’ I wince. My flatmate finds it odd and I explain very sheepishly that we have this ‘funny oven’ thats ‘always on’ and we don’t have a microwave. My 9 year old finds the microwave so clever, as at home we had an Aga.
I think our reputation sealed itself when My oldest girl came into the kitchen when my flatmate was washing up. I was putting two pizzas in the oven. My darling girl goes on to ask if we have any olive oil and mustard so she can make a dressing for the salad. My flatmate was so bemused. At that point I just gave up trying to be something I wasn’t. We didn’t fit in all through our stay but that’s ok. We began to find each others lives fascinating. The contrast was huge. For me, life had become pretty insular, suddenly meeting my flatmate and all these different women was so enlightening. ..and it continues to be so. I feel like chatting to everyone and asking them where they’re from and what they do… because it still feels novel now to be making so many new and lovely connections.
I have to pop off now as Louise from Preston would like a box of 10 assorted marshmallows and I may just have time before the school run. ..xx
Post Script - I had some strong (spiteful!) anonymous comments regarding this post. Can I clarify, of course, eating spam is perfectly normal. My children however found the concept of ham in a tin odd. They were very suspicious! My writing style is very tongue in cheek, of course it is the height of silliness to describe them as troopers because they have had to endure spam.
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