Waterlogged

Rather aptly, a few weeks ago, I started reading Tales from the Ark to my son at bedtime. It turned out to be a fictional prelude to the floods that have beset our little British isle. Thanks to the Old Testament, the phenomenon of flooding still has biblical overtones (for some residents of Henley-on-Thames more so than others). Nowadays, rather than hunkering down in our wooden ark, we take a more combative approach with sandbags, barriers and pumps. As the Atlantic storms buffet our shores, it has become a contest: the human species versus the global weather system.

Living in Henley-on-Thames, I know a few friends and family who have watched the river break its banks and consume their gardens and homes with inexorable ease. Tales abound of heroic rescues, good deeds by neighbours, travel chaos and the evacuation of dogs (and even llamas) from waterlogged ground. Only today a friend told me how her husband had saved someone's new kitchen from watery oblivion by helping to divert some of the flood water in the village of Shiplake. It was celebratory cups of coffee all round!

For all the disruption and misery, however, there remains something oddly compelling about a landscape transformed into a waterscape. Our local bookseller, Jonkers, recently coined a new name for our aqueous town: Henley-in-Thames. Here are a few pictures of the flood, post Noah, circa 2014:

The famous Regatta course expands widthwise

The agonies of interior design

This past week I thought I had a bad case of PMT. Turns out it was IDT (interior-design tension). I can accomplish most tasks in life with a modicum of organisation and some hard graft, but there is something about home-decorating that ties me up in knots. Nothing like a wallpaper dilemma to keep me awake half the night. So why is it that I can write a 140,000 word novel, but the thought of re-decorating my lounge fills me with trepidation? 

The completed extension project, with dog crate! 
(see suppliers below)

I spend hours (or even weeks) agonising over the precise shade of paint: a shade too dark and the room might appear smaller; a shade too light and it feels like a wishy-washy compromise. I know my Farrow and Ball colour chart like my 10-year old daughter can recite times-tables. Pigeon? Too dark, too London. French Gray, Blue Gray, Elephant's Breath? Being literary minded, I can cope with the names better than the actual colours.

The options don't end there. Apparently I could team up Pigeon on a feature wall with Blue Gray on my supporting walls. And that's just the foundation. After that, we are talking furnishings, lighting, accents and even the colour of the skirting boards. These days we can't just resort to Brilliant White for our woodwork. The F&B website advises us to soften the contrast between walls and wood with different kinds of white so the confines of the room disappear. (That was the fruit of yet another feverish hour spent sweating over interior design sites.)

Stormy weather in Henley

In the beginning there was a UKIP town councillor and he had dominion over the good people of Henley-on-Thames. The name of this councillor was David Silvester and it came to pass that David had a message for his people. So he wrote to his local newspaper, the Henley Standard:

"Sir - Since the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, the nation has been beset by serious storms and floods... Is this just 'global warming' or is there something more serious at work?"

Biblical floods in Henley?

And that letter, linking the recent flooding in the Thames Valley to God's apparent wrath over same-sex marriage, was enough to unleash another storm. But behind the headlines this week about Silvester's folly, there was a quieter story about a community pulling together and the power of grassroots activism. 

It all started last Friday, when Emma Vanstone, a manager at BT Global Services, posted a message on Facebook. She alerted her friends, including the BBC Radio Berkshire presenter Andrew Peach, to Silvester's letter in the Standard. "Try not to spit out your coffee," she told us, before describing how Silvester had drawn "a biblical link between our recent foul weather, and the rights of our gay brethren to marry". 

Once we were cute...

When my daughter was little, people used to stop us in the airport and say, "Aw, how cute!" I would glow with pride, as if I was the first mother ever to have a cute child. Then it was my son's turn. I still remember the holiday when he started to garner all the attention, after my daughter tipped over from chubby toddler into gawky school-age child. Now, no one stops us anymore. Our collective 'cute' factor is pretty much zilch.

There are, however, consolations. Scoring zero on the cute scale means that my hand luggage no longer contains an impressive, Mary Poppins-style inventory of nappies, baby wipes, calpol, healthy snacks, toys, books and a fresh set of clothes (for everyone). These days it's just an ipad and a packet of sweets.

And when the kids go back to school at the beginning of term, I actually miss their company. There's a good reason why small children are cute: they are also HIGH maintenance. As scientist Konrad Lorenz argued in the 1940s, infantile features, such as big eyes and chubby cheeks, are designed to trigger a nurturing instinct in adults. These days my children may not be so adorable, but they can self-entertain during the holidays. 

Just look at those little faces!

It's the same with puppies. If my new Labrador hadn't looked so damn cute while he was weeing all over the kitchen floor and chewing up school shoes, we would have given up on him long ago. He's big and brawny now, but a lot easier to look after.

Happy new year!

I hope that you all had a very happy Christmas and I wish you a wonderful New Year! Thank you for reading my blog posts over the past year. I really appreciate your support and all of your insightful comments. I am especially grateful to all of you who have subscribed to the blog and receive my posts on email.






Here are a few highlights from 2013!

Prehistoric parenting
Bath-etic tragedy
How Jeremy Irons saved us
Time travelling
Pink wellies and cigarettes
Puppy love
The ghosts of Stationers' Hall


I thought you might also like to know that my novel, A Sister for Margot, is currently on SALE at 99p / 99 cents until the 31 December. Perfect for anyone who received a kindle or ipad for Christmas! The book is a historical romance with a twist and has been climbing up the UK bestseller charts on Amazon this week. Click here for information on the book.


Thank you once again and I look forward to hearing more comments from you in 2014!

Emma Clark Lam.

Beauty, truth and the third alien

Hermaphrodite Mum

Three kids and a single mum

Middle Child came back from school a while ago and told me he had some important news. He had won a starring role in his school nativity play! That's great, I said. Joseph? One of the three kings? "Third alien," he said. Right. How many aliens are there? "Five," he said. Well, that's just brilliant! Of course he will always be my little star, even if his big break only amounted to three lines (one of which was said in unison with the other four aliens).

The third alien makes his debut
© Oleksandr Melnyk | Dreamstime.com

It was a fabulous school production nonetheless! Watching all those little people singing their hearts out never fails to make my eyes water. My favourite bit was when MC's best friend Laura (fourth alien) whipped up her costume in a frenzy of excitement and flashed her Peppa Pig pants at the audience.