Next-door’s back fence has blown down and because the house is empty the council haven’t been around to fix it, despite me telling them.

With the fence down I can see more of the path that runs through the estate and more of the people on it. Dog walkers throwing sticks, some failing to pick up their poo. Old boys, off like clockwork each morning to pick up their newspaper, teens trundling in packs, like they’ve all the time in the world and mums, dashing kids to school.

It’s not like I stand there all day, curtain-twitching, mostly I’m stood there washing up, the dishwasher having died a death.

I was standing doing the washing up when I saw her. A young mum, early 20’s, thin coat despite the arctic winds. Standing with a pram, she had the baby, about eight months old, in her arms.

The baby was screaming, the mum jiggling her on her hip, trying to soothe her tears, then offering her a bottle, then more jiggling. Even from my kitchen, I could see the mum looked tired, proper worn thin from lack of sleep.

I stood watching, washing up, remembering my own fractious babies, those teething years, when some days it seemed like nothing I did worked.

Before I’d checked myself I was out the back door shouting over the fence.

          ‘You alright love?’ concern in my voice.

The mum looked around, not able to see me so I shouted again, waving this time.

          ‘She won’t settle in her pram,’ she called back, hoisting the baby onto her hip in a movement so familiar it made my own hip ache for the weight of a little one.

‘Ooh cheeky wee monkey,’ I called back, waving at the baby.

The baby paused its crying to stare at the mad woman gurning over the fence, the mum encouraging her to wave back.

‘You’re doing a great job,’ I shouted back to the mum, ‘now be a good girl for your mum and get into your pram.’

Both mum and baby looked a little stunned.

We chatted a little more about the trials of sleepless nights and grizzly babies, about how cold it was but at least it had stopped raining.

‘Hang on in there,’ I shouted as she managed to fold the wriggling baby back into the pram. ‘You’re doing grand!’  Going back into my dishes, I remembered the rigid force of a little one refusing to sit in a buggy or pram.

I worried afterwards. What did that poor mum think, some mad woman shouting words of encouragement over the fence?

God, I hope she didn’t think I was judging, or spying on her, or just being generally nosey.

It’s just that she looked so cold and so fed up, and she was being so patient with the baby, and you know what it’s like when the babies crying and you’ve done everything you can think of.  We could all do with a little cheering.

If I‘d known her maybe I’d have invited her in for a cup of tea, but even typing that it sounds a bit mad, doesn’t it?

I worried about it for days, hoping my rallying from the sidelines hadn’t been misinterpreted. I wondered about keeping an eye out for her while I was washing up, ready to run back out and shout over the fence that I wasn’t judging, but I figured that might make me look more like a nutter.

In the end, I saw her in the park when I was walking the dog. Shyly I approached, explaining who I was, and apologising if she thought I’d spoken out of turn.

Turning the baby to wave at me she laughed, saying it was fine. The baby had settled after that, and she’d managed to get home just as she fell asleep.

Relieved, I carried on with my day, but it made me think that we don’t get to encourage each other much, do we? We don’t get to say to other women, ‘You’re doing a grand job, hang on in there.

So, with International Women’s Day on the horizon let me be the one to say it,

‘You are doing fab! Honestly, life is not always easy and you are doing just grand.’

I’m back in the kitchen with the washing up.

Is it me or do you think people are hurrying past my fence a bit faster, – do you think the word has got around?