Beloved - 20 years on

"Where words could be spoken that would close your ears shut. Where, if you were alone, feeling could overtake you and stick to you like a shadow. Out there where there were places in which things so bad had happened that when you went near them it would happen again."

It's 20 years since I read Beloved. I remember loving it then and that it made a huge impression on me. But what I remember are the sights, sounds and smells. Where it was set more than what it was about.

A couple of weeks ago I saw it again. It hit me hard, the memory of the book and I remembered feeling drained once I'd read it.

So I picked it up and started again. Twenty years on, knowing more about the world and less of a romantic. Less time to spare but not in a rush to finish.

It's the story of slavery and the experience of slaves. How impossible is to ever be free of it. How one mother kills her child rather than let it lead the life she lived and how that ghost - and many others - come back to haunt her.

It's a story full of pain and it's so much worse now I'm a mother, an aunt, a godmother. I'm hearing, feeling and responding to a completely different story than the one I read before. A story about the desire and drive to protect your children from pain, whatever the cost. 20 years ago I just read it. This week I feel I've lived and breathed every word.

It's stunningly beautiful and just brilliantly written and it carries you along at a sing-song pace - but makes your heart ache. It's packed with detail and full of character. It's a heart-breaking story that you hope ends in peace. Quiet, restful, let-out-a-huge-sigh peace. But when you finish it's impossible to get out of your head.

Phew.

So I'm going to continue this theme and go and find more books that made an impression on me 20 or 30 years ago and see how I like them now.  Next stop is a book my Grandad gave me as a teenager, To Sir with Love. If you do the same, let me know.

Beloved by Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Beloved

Thou shalt not covet thy daughter's doll

My daughter - my only daughter - was 1 this week.

Her carers at nursery have been telling me for the last month 'she wants a doll'. Apparently she is very maternal and screams when her dolls are taken away.

I thought she just liked cars and stress balls.

Anyway, if I was going to buy her a doll it was going to be special. So I got her a beautifully put together, quirky, completely delicious Moulin Roty ragdoll. Here she is:

AND NOW I WANT IT

But she’s 1 and you shouldn’t take toys from a baby.

But I think she really does prefer the stress ball.

 *puts doll in inside pocket of work coat and runs off*

Oh Shit! It's a girl!

"I'm having another baby and I'd just love it to be a boy!" I said.

I am already the proud owner of one well-balanced, non-climbing, sweet, attentive and 100% in-love-with-his-mummy boy. So for my second child, I'd like another please. Oh it's for practical reasons (I convinced myself). They'll be great friends and I won't have to buy new clothes and toys. A boy it is then. Sorted.

I didn't want to admit I was scared. That a girl would challenge my place as number one princess in this house of men. That she would question me, manipulate me, and worst of all, be much better dressed than me.

I'm a tomboy you see, a real Daddy's girl, much more at home drinking beer and watching sport than I am painting nails and decorating bedrooms. What could I possibly have to offer a girl? I can't teach her about fashion or wearing pink. I'd only embarrass her in front of her friends. She'd probably disown me as soon as she could talk.

And then I had one. Shit, it's a girl (and I said it aloud, to my husband and the midwife). But we haven't even got a name, I thought. And then I started to really think about it. A girl. What do I want her to be?

And I realised I wasn't scared, I was excited. I will bring her up to be brave. She'll be passionate, strong-willed, have a zest for life. I'll teach her to not to judge, treat everyone the same and never ever be bettered by men. This is my big chance, not just to be a supportive mum but also a great friend.

I'm still afraid of how she'll turn out and if she'll love me forever. I'm not afraid to admit that I still feel threatened by her very existence and I doubt I'm alone – am I?

But I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm addicted to her clothes and have embraced pink. I shower her with kisses. I even rented Beauty and the Beast. Because of all the Disney princesses, I want her to be Belle.

And I named her Eve, because she's my first lady.