The joys of motherhood

In between feeds, I read to my babies. I like to read. It is the thing I do — I like to read more than I like to write or eat or sleep. Reading has been my go to method for getting through every-day life since I was bout three. My cutting-edge English teacher mother borrowed a book from the University of London library when I was two, which told her how to teach very young children to read. Mum made flashcards and pinned them up around the house: breadbin, door, shoes, floor, Dad. I read the TV pages. I read cartoons, like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird (she called them the ‘funny pages’). Since I read from such a young age, reading has seemed as necessary as breathing.

When I was twenty-three, my husband and I came home drunk from a party on a Friday and he said ‘shall we have a baby?’ and I said ‘go on then’ — and boom shakalaka, as they say.