Ends peacefully

Kids slept outside in the rain. I locked the door on them at 10pm and said No Way was I leaving a warm bed at 2am just because they were banging on the back door howling.

By the morning their bivouac looked like this.

Three people slept in there. Three! Well, until 1am, when I am told that a slug woke up Fizz by making sucking sounds, at which point they decided to decamp to the little wooden house at the bottom of the garden. On the minus side they get spiders, but on the plus side, it's dry.

By the way, just in case Social Services are inquiring, I didn't force the children to sleep outside. You can blame a natural madness of childhood, which my grown up rationalities simply fail to curb. Reasonings like The forecast is for it to chuck down have no impact when you have a fantasy of perfection in your mind.

But from then on, I did have things my way. I imposed a three-line whip to join the Buddhists and all their chums in the field for their multi-faith peace festival. It manages to be both anarchic but culturally affirming; fringe but mainstream; bizarre yet normal. The sort of thing that could happen if you let the Pagans take over Thought for Today.

For me, the event is as essential as sleeping in the garden under a wet plastic sheet. My year turns about such moments as these.

Big Buddha

Huzzah! Last day for Travelling Aunty in Hong Kong!

Today we must show her Buddhism! We are escorting her to the mighty tourist attraction that is the Tian Tan Buddha, affectionately known as Big Buddha.

This has to be on everyone's tourist itinerary of Hong Kong, doesn't it? Of course it does. Lantau must offer you something apart from the airport. And when you're fed up with Buddha you can shop at the fantastic themed retail experience that is Ngong Ping village!

The Chinese have this sort of thing organised. Big buses to get you there, large coach parks, directional signs, plenty of dining opportunities, toilets for the disabled.

But la famille Grit is not here simply to take part in the great tourist enterprise! No! Any reader knows that Grit is a half-hearted follower of the Buddhist business. She can even manage a bit of mumbled chanting in exchange for a free dinner.

So you can take it that our tour today also means we can actively demonstrate our Buddhist virtues of zeal, charity, morality, patience, meditation and wisdom. The Travelling Aunty can enjoy them as well, whether she wants to or not.

(She can call it home education, religious studies.)

First we show zeal. I set Shark on shovelling the reluctant aunty out of bed at 9am. Then we can push her on the ferry, force her on the underground to Tung Chung, and prop her up on the Number 2 bus, bumping its way round the hills in Lantau. For it is here the Chinese proudly display the world's biggest bronze Buddha sat outside on a hill, facing north! (V. important.)

To experience the momentous meeting with Buddha close up, Travelling Aunty must then walk up the hill.

We immediately have problems with the hill. Apparently the Travelling Aunty has a blister which she says got worse when I made her wear flippers.

I say a blister is no problem. Stop groaning. (More zeal, double tick). After all, the Chinese have provided steps! Lots of them. Like a runway. (Choose the correct side to ascend! Right side up! Left side down! Do not get these instructions confused if you do not want the tourist guard to beat you with the baton.)

But then Travelling Aunty With The Blister says she must rest half-way up because she is Clapped Out. She attempts to cling to the railings. After waiting a considerate moment I send Squirrel back down to force her to get a move on. Given the length of time she has spent hanging over the railings gasping, I think I show a great deal of patience, so I'm ticking it on my path to nirvana. And morality. I am sure it is in there too.

Because, sadly, we are against a time limit on our visit to Buddha. We must attend to the Buddha, walk round him anti-clockwise (or clockwise, I forget), look under his seat to visit his display, say a venerating ooh at his ancient relic (v. v. v. tiny slither of bone, possibly from middle finger), and then get to the restaurant by 4.00pm before they close up and the cook goes home. Here we can gaze upon the lovely vegetarian dinner! (Tick meditate.)

That is from Dig. He bought the full dinner set for six people by accident. If you are likewise visiting Big Buddha, be warned! You do not have to buy the full meal set! You do not have to buy the snack set! You do not have to buy any food at all! You can just visit Big Buddha!

The Chinese craftily position the Buy Your Ticket booths at the foot of the steps to Buddha, so in Dig's confusion (not getting to bed until 2am thanks to flight from Philippines) he persuades himself we must acquire curious forms of entry ticket, so buys a full set dinner for six.

Now on that score we have achieved wisdom (tick). And I will say how very kind it is for Dig to provide us all with dinner (tick charity).

Thus, having mostly achieved the objectives for nirvana, we walk briskly about the Buddha, make all the right noises, do not fall out with any security guards, and enjoy a fantastic vegetarian dinner for six!

I think we do it all in the right order. We save the gift shops till last. The directional signs are very good and the entire complex is unmistakably what industrial-scale Chinese tourism is all about.

Now here are the variety of rubbish photographs taken on the day. You'll have to bear in mind that we were here for business! We couldn't hang about to compose shots, or frame anything! Just enjoy all the heads-in-the-way, the over-exposure, and the tilted statues.









PS. I only deliver it to the Buddhists because I know they can take it. And they are unlikely to retaliate by punching me in the face, kneecapping, bombing, or any other non-nirvana-inducing means of retribution. (And I love 'em.)

By this means, we count the years

Here the day is furnished properly with Buddhists; we all slouch idle, nodding agreement to words of wisdom while grass tickles our legs. And, apart from a small amount of Tiger whining about the criminal air, which is moving, all is right with the world.




That's unusual, isn't it? You don't often get peace and pleasure on Grit's Day.

The Buddhists have form in bringing harmony to Grit, as you can see from the histories. I may tie myself up in those folding robes yet.

Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!

Late back home, thanks to a shindig with the Buddhists.

They keep us up all hours with their party people lifestyle. Once you get in the door at the local temple, you could be happily lost for days. And they make a mean spring roll. Squirrel deftly handed twelve of them into her fairy bag without anyone noticing, which should give you an insight into how she came by her moniker.

By nine pm, Tiger was dropping near to bits, it being the excitement of her name year, while Shark was all for going into town to see if she could pick up a couple of dolphins and boogie all night.

We've been celebrating Setsuban at the local temple.

You can say we celebrate this alongside the Buddhists because we are smug home educating types who like to involve ourselves in the rich society we live in, if you're kind. If you're unkind, you can say it's because the Buddhists give the fat Grit a free dinner in exchange for a bit of chanting. It's true she mixes up the ooohaas and the dooodahs, but no-one minds. Everyone's happy with the Buddhists. They're all filled with smiles, and that alone is one big, big reason to go during this year of Britain in Gloom.

Anyway, after the chanting, all the stuff about marching with Bruce Kent is read out, and I feel transported back into a student union bar somewhere up north. Then they turn out all the lights, just like at a student rag, and all the birth Tigers pelt us with beans and sweeties. Some of those Tigers had a pretty good aim, even in the dark, and I'm glad I wore my glasses.

Dinnertime, I sat by someone who spoke no sense at all but spoke it so winningly and happily that I didn't care. Sometimes he was speaking Japanese and sometimes he just talked about boxes and where you could be oriented if you stood near one, upside down and inside out.

And that just about expresses it. I understood about ten percent, I enjoyed one hundred per cent, and the kids spent two hours discussing the merits of Buddhism vs Christianity. Success. Both in a smug bastardy sort of way and a smiley human sort of way as well.

Home school mother brainwashes with religion

The kids say, this is just a phase mama's going through, what with the hairy legs, tie dyes, dreads, and Buddhist stuff.

Because look today, where mama dragged everyone again.


That's right. Peace Pagoda, Milton Keynes.

Well, kids, the line between abusing you and educating you just got blurred, so today I am torturing you with religion. And not just a little bit of religion, a lot. So next week read in the newspapers how Mama is a CRAZOID RELIGIOUS HOME EDUCATING ZEALOT.

And while I beat you, I will say This is for your own good, Squirrel, Tiger and Shark. You will thank me later.

Because today at the Peace Pagoda is the annual Multifaith and Multicultural Celebration. And right here are speeches from Muslim, Hindi, Jewish, Pagan, Atheist and Christian community leaders. Hey, they even get Bruce Kent up to the microphone. So let's kill several birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking, and you call this your annual assembly.

Well that's your home ed. Now what they do with religion in mainstream schools these days? I'm out of date there, so if anyone can tell me, please do.

Because my only contact with school religion is completely and overwhelmingly half-heartedly Christian with overtones of slightly mad.

Sometime after the Norman invasion I attended a primary school where one morning in assembly the headteacher broke the news that we grubby kneed, snotty nosed latchkey kids had sinned at the moment of our birth so that was it, kaput. Your parents may love you, but let's face it, you're doomed. The only way back to goodness, nice things, clean knees and everyone else loving you was by being good. Good meant doing exactly what you were told. Now stand up, close your eyes, put your hands together and we say the Lord's Prayer, and you will say it five times until you get it right. And that was a sort of education, but probably not the one they hoped for.

The next contact I had with religion was a grammar school, time warped into the eighteenth century. They did assembly and hymn singing. Probably about eighteen months spread over five years of pain. The time was wasted on Grit, who spent her assembly hours trying to work out Plan A) Run away to Brazil and Plan B) Starve herself to glorious perfection because she'd worked out she was just the Wrong Sort to be saved by Jesus.

And that was it. We had Christianity, and we had nothing else. Heck, I even worked in schools as a fully grown willing adult and they still had no religion I can recall. Maybe it was just too contentious.

So several times a year I do this non-coercive round up of the religions, beliefs, aspirations and interpretations in the expectation that one day, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger will be free and choose for themselves, nothing, anything, something.


Including, should they wish, Flying Spaghetti Monster.

When this day ended, I drank heavily

First we went to the Buddhist temple to say Happy Birthday Buddha. Don't count me as a Buddhist. I cannot chant and I hit spiders with shoes.


And I have no idea what this says. Probably Do not photograph this sign.

Then we rolled down hills. Strangely, Shark can only roll sideways.


We sniffed the blossom and I resolved to stop relying on this phone camera, because there is a limit to the quality of these photos. It's convenient though, in case I have to photograph our smashed up car again.


Then Shark, Squirrel and Tiger made daisy chains. I thank any deity available for the fact that their fingers are big enough to take on that duty.

And on the way back to the car, we hang a wish on the wishing tree. I have no idea what Squirrel is wishing for.


And finally the moment I have dreaded.

We leave Tiger at the stables for her boarding week. I feel so sad she isn't climbing straight back in this car to smack one sister round the face and kick the back of my seat. And I feel so glad that finally she feels ready to stay away from us all, and is so excited about cuddling her favourite horse, Daisy.



I hope Daisy knows how fortunate she is.

Day of action, not words.

9.00 Breakfast. Deflect argument about packet of Cheerios.
10.00 Get Squirrel sorted at the lake for a soaking in a canoe.
10.30 Home to say goodbye to Oo.
11.00 Have a quiet cry.
11.45 Deflect argument about a bat.
12.00 Pick up Squirrel from a canoe, get over to see a man and his eagles in a field. Find out about buzzards, kestrels, owls and sharp beaks.


1.00 Deflect argument about a piece of tissue paper.
1.15 Throw bread rolls at everyone while making a telephone booking for Tiger to attend an art workshop next Monday.
2.00 Arrive at the drop-in session at the art gallery to 'develop ideas about place and the community' and not muck about with printing ink. Or have a fight at the sink over who gets the tap first.


4.00 Buy things in Waitrose! With three kids! And leave with DIGNITY! HAHAHAHA! I did it! I DID IT!
4.50 Deflect argument about windscreen.
6.00 Cook food.
6.45 Deflect argument about glue.
8.00 Arrive at Buddhist temple to listen to the chanting. Try and guard against Squirrel, Shark and Tiger making an unseemly grab for the candles which are carried to be floated away on the lake after dark.


10.00 Arrive home. Deflect argument about snow leopard. Get everyone into bed.

I list these events here because on some days any one of these actions would be an achievement so great I would want to climb up the back of the old sofa in the attic room and shout it all out to the neighbours from the advantage point of the dormer windows. I probably do, when a bit unhinged and Dig can't reach my ankles quick enough.

And on those overwhelming days when I can barely crawl, or when pressing the button on the dishwasher is a step too far, I can look back at this bloggy record day and be grateful. Because not only can I think that when the wind is travelling in the right direction, I can do it, I can also hope that no August 6 is ever going to be as bad as the one that went before.

Multifaith celebration

In the Grit and Dig household, we are not religious. For that we use the knuckle-biting faith, which is to say as little as possible and hope for the best. When it comes to actual involvement in war and peace, Mummy Grit wags her finger and sermonises with wise statements that she finds in fortune cookies, like From little seeds grow big trees, a catch-all parable which she has been using to spiritually guide her brood for the last eight years.

In general educational terms, for all needs religious, we get down the What I Believe book, find out about Ganesha, go and look at a mosque, drag the Gritlets off to meet sulky nuns and monks with moths, read parables from the Junior Book of Bible Stories, light candles and incense of various colours and odours, and borrow stuff from the library, like the Qur'an. Mostly that last one I admit to impress the librarian.

I think this is the right thing to do, when you are not religious. It is to bite your knuckles. Then talk about everything religious and faith-based, what elements these belief systems share, what they contribute to society, and what help individuals might get from them. And let's face it, I have even considered finding a god somewhere myself when I am in a dark, lonely place and wondering if I should take up religion or crack cocaine. In the end it probably won't matter, because whatever I do, I expect I shall be proved wrong. Someone will be keeping a book somewhere, and the day of judgement will come and I shall be kicked out of a comfy cloud position for all eternity and blasted into some dark and miserable stinking hole with no water supply like our cellar bathroom.

But we hope by this all-round religion method that our children grow up tolerant and aware and wise, and able to understand the various states that motivate people to do what they do, and reach for what they take, bomb or book. Right now though, while Tiger is screaming the house down because a sister said what she wanted to and that's not fair, and then Squirrel gets told off for being lippy and Shark tries to slap me round the face because I give in to a hormonal fit of the giggles, well that elevated and wise position seems a little hard to reach. But in the cause of teaching tolerance there's a lot of daily knuckle biting we do in the hope that it will all come right in the end.

Well today I am handing over the teaching of religion, belief and motivation to the Buddhists, because it is the annual multicultural celebration at the Peace Pagoda. I like the Buddhists, I really do. It's not only because they give me a cup of tea and a free curry once a year, it's also because round here they are so laid back and tolerant of just about anything. Even the sight of Shark, Squirrel and Tiger rolling about in a field trying to claw each other's faces off because someone touched the daisy chain and said it was theirs when it so clearly wasn't and is someone going to pay for that mistake. Even when that screaming wrestling bout is happening right in the middle of the celebration of peace, one of those Buddhist monks will turn round and give us all a big, big smile, and I think if he can achieve that calm smile in the middle of this chaos, just shave my head and pass the orange robes to me right now.

So today we go to the festival and I tell Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to remember that it is all about sharing cultures and being tolerant and not hitting your sister or calling her a fat cow. OK I made up that last bit about sisters, but not about the fat cow because I note that terminology is creeping around now in our front room. And I'm sure it is nothing to do with mummy Grit getting cut up last week on the A5 roundabout en route to a French lesson, it is just the dreadful way our society is disintegrating in respect and manners.

But today it will all be OK, because this festival is very easy. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger listen patiently and nicely to all the speeches, and it is the easiest lesson in tolerance and understanding and sharing things, even your free curry with mamma, that I could possibly have put in front of the Gritlets all year. We get wisdoms to take home like From little seeds grow big trees, from all the major religious groups. We get speeches from the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Pagans and then round it off with a Celtic blessing. They miss out the Pastafarians and Flying Spaghetti Monster but I think it would be hard to bring in a group all the way from Kansas. But I bet the Buddhists are so laid back that they would not ban them or say 'way too silly'. They'd let them in and help hand out free tee-shirts.

And the day is splendid, and tolerant, and lovely, and sharing, especially the curry, which I get several plates of, and Squirrel gets to go back into the tea tent eight times and swipe the sweeties and share them out between her sisters before I end up apologising and ticking her off before flippantly suggesting that next time she stuffs the sweeties in her socks. Then I see with horror half an hour later the little madam is back in the tent stuffing Chupa Chups down her boots.

When we've all been tolerant and sharing with each other long enough, the Buddhists give us apples and send us home. And I do believe that the knuckle-biting method of faith will work in the end, because I am sure something has rubbed off. We get no screaming, fat cows or fisticuffs for a whole three hours, fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds, or until a fight breaks out over a DVD of dinosaurs.

Then Mummy Grit separates the warring factions, wags her finger and shouts about how we have been so tolerant and nice to each other all day long and what benefits came from it, like free curries and Chupa Chups, and then I ask everyone to remember this, above all things, and it is From little seeds grow big trees.

Is this normal?

If I were left alone long enough and could make up the events my life, I would go ahead full steam. 'Today I am kidnapped by aliens disguised as albatrosses and they lock me in a cell with an android who says the only way to escape is to feed sardines to the twenty-eight penguins on guard duty who will turn into mice'.

Today's actual events sound a bit like that. And that saying of San's keeps coming back to me. Is this normal?

Today's home ed outing is a visit to a working Benedictine Abbey. I haven't arranged this; it's thanks to a local organiser and, although Grit is not religious, we think the Gritlets should learn about tolerance and respect, so they can be tolerant and respectful just like mamma.

Naturally, we are late setting off, for which I blame everybody else. The abbey is a 40 minute drive. I even think I know where it is. But there are 30 minutes before the time when a monk is going to talk. Typically, I have no petrol in car. All of these things will not matter, I think. I might know where the abbey is, and we will just have enough petrol to find it. I will buy petrol there. Such is the nature of hope. I forget that I do not actually know where the abbey is. Or that abbeys do not sell petrol.

Twenty minutes later we are lost. The abbey is not where I would like it to be. Mr and Mrs Taylor say it is their house, and it is private land, so clear off. The Sat nav has no power in it, and I cannot charge it up in the car because last year someone stole the charger. It is not a good time to recall that monks shut themselves away in the countryside for years.

Off we go again. I have to go in a direction. The petrol gauge says now definitely there is no petrol in the car. I estimate we have 20 miles. I tell Shark, Squirrel and Tiger who are all complaining about dinner, that I am ditching the monks and aiming for a petrol station. I ignore the groaning and ask, What is the alternative? Is it to drive until we stop, on an English one-track lane with grass growing in the middle, surrounded by fields and hedges, in the middle of nowhere, then stay there forever and probably die from starvation because we are looking for a monk? Would you like that? Would you? Or would you like to fill your faces with flapjacks on a petrol station forecourt? You choose.

When Grit has been instructed to point the car in the direction of flapjacks, she does so with renewed hope. She creeps along, turning here and there, trying not to put her foot on the accelerator. We crawl through a little village where there is no petrol and suddenly we pass a wobbly road sign. Bell Lane. Bell Lane! That is it! I am sure that is it! I have Bell Lane written down on my scribbled instructions from midnight when I did my thorough preparation for this trip. The abbey is down there! I swing the car around, suddenly confident that if I get stuck in the abbey with a hungry Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, the monks will get their prayers for petrol answered pretty fast.

We arrive at the end of a tiny twisting lane. We see another car ahead, parked in front of a locked 5-bar gate. It is Dee! Yippee! A face I recognise! We are saved! This is the right place! I was lost and now I am found! Right now I could jump out of the car and dance, even though we are in the middle of nowhere with a locked gate and no petrol. Dee says she has been punching numbers in the box to open the gate and nothing has happened. She has rung the organiser of the trip who is not answering. She has tried pushing at the gate and it doesn't open. Grit tries all the same, like it is all going to happen, because miracles happen, like you find an abbey when you were looking for a petrol station. After five minutes of trying to break in, a cross-looking man arrives on a tractor and asks what we are doing trying to break into his property. We say we are looking for monks.

When the farmer has cleared us off his property and given us instructions on how to get to the abbey, we crawl back up the tiny twisting lane. At the top of the lane Shark announces, 'There is the sign I read on the way in!' Even in the midst of this despair there is joy, because this is reading in action! Shark can read! Grit asks what does the sign read. Sharks answers, No entrance to Abbey.

Well the abbey is right next door to the turning that we took; there is the organiser, flapping her arms on the grass verge, shouting Car park back down lane turn left! Grit turns the car round again and heads off down another lane. We park the car, with only one small bump to an indicator lamp, which is OK because it is not ours, and then I repark the car somewhere else sharpish, and we walk back to where the organiser was standing. Only the organiser has now disappeared, along with Dee. How do we get in? thinks Grit. Grit and Gritlets wander about some outhouses. No-one to be seen. Grit considers climbing in through a window in search of monks and then sees a little wooden door set back in a wall. Of course! she thinks. This is a door! So I bang on it. No answer. I bang again. And again.

I am about to shoo everyone away when suddenly door opens and a nun appears. Nuns? Nuns? Do monks and nuns live together then? This is confusing. Grit is overwhelmed and would like to sob. Forty minutes late, no petrol and no monks. No wonder people arrive at Church doors in despair and weeping.

Grit gabbles to the nun that she is here on an educational outing and please let this be a place where there are monks because she has no petrol and the organiser has vanished into thin air. Well at this, the nun gets snippy. She looks down her nose at Grit, which is pretty good for a nun who has the physical stature of a five-year old, then the nun doesn't let Grit finish asking about the monks but sharply says she will look at the diary; turns on her heel and walks away, leaving Grit standing at door shouting. Grit is in turmoil. Not only has she just caused a nun to break her 25-year vow of silence, now I feel a sudden urge to make smart comments and start shouting rude names. But you cannot shout at nuns. You cannot call them names. Or get cross because they just cut you dead and disappear down corridors.

The nun reappears and curtly says the monks are through the arch. Round the corner, turn right, you cannot miss them. Then shuts the door. Grit is a pissed off Grit now and vows never to be a nun ever ever ever, not even if she is paid a million pounds. However the instructions are true.

Grit and the Gritlets find all the home ed group and two monks, one of whom is elderly and looking about to fall over, and the other who is an ex-headteacher monk getting cross. Apparently someone asked him a question which he says is asking him to justify his existence. He sounds pretty snippy to me too and I wonder what the question was. Do you really believe in God? Are you a secret Buddhist? Apparently it is neither of these, it is Do you vote? Politics and religion, there you go, two subjects you should never discuss. I guess if I had asked Can you get away with wearing yellow underpants? that would've been OK.

Even though we have missed the talk and all but the last question, we get a tour of the abbey. We get to peer in through the nun's garden to their back windows before the ex-headteacher monk gets out his pet moth to show the kids. Then I'm thinking Can it get more bizarre than this? Here we are looking at a monk's pet moth miles from anywhere and I have been told off by a nun already and wondered what underpants monks wear. Can home ed get more surreal?

Now at the final bit of the tour the ex-headteacher monk leads us all into the chapel and asks everyone to shut up and put bits of the furniture back. And for a few quiet minutes I sit there praying for petrol, even though I do not believe in God, but probably might start now for a petrol station. And just as I am thinking about this great void between knowing and unknowing, faith and reason, hope and despair, the door opens and the Jesus Army arrives.

So today, this is where you can find Grit.

'Today I have been trespassing twice, committed an act of vandalism in a car park, run out of petrol at an abbey, am kidnapped by the Jesus Army, locked in a chapel with three starving kids, a politics home ed group and an ex-headteacher monk who has a pet moth. And the only escape is back through a priory full of snippy metre-high nuns.'

Setsuban

It is 6 o'clock in the winter evening. And here we are, blundering about the dark, bitten by the wind, veering by the trees in the creeping wood, and sliding down a hill looking for a Japanese bean throwing festival.

Dig says it is unlikely, a wet cold night in the middle of nowhere, near a lake. In fact he says this more than once since parking the car in the dogger's layby on the curving lane into the wood, where there is already a Vauxhall parked, engine running, steaming inside, and six empty beer bottles lined up behind the boot.

I say 'Pah! It's here! Somewhere! We just have to find it! I read it in the parks listings! And it's not even April 1st!'

Clenching my teeth and wrapping the woollen blanket I've brought just a little tighter around my shoulders I shout 'Have faith!' to the wind and slide over the grassy field into the darkness, following the disappearing footsteps of Shark, Squirrel and Tiger; catching my bearings with the lapping waves of the emerging lake and the laughing quack quack quack as a duck peddles off the lake at speed.

After five minutes we stumble onto the path by the lake and Grit eye-spies a Japanese family staring up into the black starless sky. Ha! Success! Looking for beans! Grit is jubilant. 'Of course it's around here somewhere' I cry, 'if this lovely young couple have dragged a toddler out in this weather with ne'er a hint of concern about Social Services or the police! Have faith!'

And what does Grit find? That the young Japanese family have no idea where the bean throwing festival is and have been wandering around looking for it for half an hour. 'There!' shouts Grit, truimphant. 'Of course it's here! Somewhere. We've just got to look for it. Let faith be our guide!'

And there, sure enough, shining out of the field in the darkness, are the headlights of a Toyota Corolla. And look! Fifty-odd more cars in a car park outside the Buddhist temple! 'And what did I tell you?' I declare to Dig. 'I told you to follow that Nissan!' Oh, you of little faith, Dig. We've parked in the wrong car park! We've parked in the one over the hill! And we've had to come through the dark, dark wood where bears growl and strangers prowl, and now look! We could have driven to the front door, parked next to the gong banger and been in without getting our feet wet! Foolish, unbelieving Dig!

Once inside, Grit's faith redoubles, in bucketfulls, when she finds the Buddhists are all lovely again, smiling at the red-nosed Squirrel, Tiger and Shark and making everyone sit cross-legged at low tables and providing hot soup, cold sandwiches and sweet cake, even though no-one was expecting it and only had to do a little chanting to get it.



Good spirit in! Bad spirit out!

Ermintrude

It's 10 o'clock in the morning and Dig says that the au pair is arriving on the train at 10.30, so get down to the station and pick her up, because he needs to get his trousers on. I say I'm not changing our day's plans, so there. It's a full day ahead for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, what with the free curry and the music festival, so the au pair will just have to join in.

Actually, I've been up since 8, trying to make us look presentable. I've put out the rubbish, swept the schoolroom floor, changed a spare bed, done the washing up, redistributed the laundry and ejected a penguin and two dolphins from the kitchen. I found a dinosaur and a zebra under my chopping table. Squirrel's taken to stuffing her cuddly toys under there in the mistaken idea that she has found a new squirrelling hole.

This is not a new squirrelling hole, I tell her. This is a deeply irritating place to stuff them, so stop it. For a start, they don't fit, and when you've squeezed them under there, they squeeze themselves out again and I trip over them. And when they do come out they are covered in fluff and bits of chopped onion and celery because they are under my chopping table. Now make them disappear and do not stuff them, like last time, behind the curtains/ under the computer table/ down the sofa/ behind the bookcase/ in the oven/ in the place where I keep the big bowls/ in the fridge. Believe me, I will find them.

Well, by the time I do pick up the au pair, all I know, apart from the fact that she speaks French, is her name. It is a very pretty name. Like the au pair. She is also very pretty. Now Grit is a mature lady and not at all threatened by having a very pretty au pair in the house with a very pretty name, all suddenly dropped out of the sky on her by a husband who is barely here and when he is here, spends his life wrapped round his computer. No, I am not at all threatened. I will give the new au pair the blog name Ermintrude to do her justice. I'm sure you'll agree Ermintrude is a very pretty name.

The first thing we are booked for today is a hippy festival in one of our local parks. This happens every year, and the Buddhists mastermind it. The Buddhists make sure everyone is nice to each other. There is a bit of chanting and speeches, and afterwards we get a plate of curry and a cup of tea. We are definitely going. I can teach the children about how to be nice to each other. And the curry and cup of tea are free.

This is Ermintrude's first introduction to us. After picking her up, we all clamber in the car to get off to the Buddhists. Shark and Tiger start fighting and slapping and howling as usual. Squirrel is worried about missing the curry and keeps asking 'have we missed the curry?' I tell her to be quiet about that because the free curry is not the only reason why we are going. We are going because the Buddhists are nice and we might get some ideas from that. I have to shout this bit so I can be heard above the screaming and crying.

By the time we get out the car, Shark and Tiger have been given a very big talking to about being nice to each other all day long. And, after the Toddington incident, I have confiscated all the picnic baskets. Squirrel leaps out the car and starts running up the hill towards the Buddhists shouting 'Hurry mummy! We'll miss the curry!' I have to follow with my eyebrows raised like I do not know what she could possibly be talking about.

I sit Ermintrude down on the picnic blanket. I think with all that blonde hair and fair skin she possibly looks a bit peaky, so point her in the direction of the sun. Because my nose always catches the sun first and goes bright red, I make sure I slather on a lot of nose sunscreen. I apologise, Ermintrude, for forgetting to offer you sunscreen for your nose.

When we've all done a bit of chanting and had the free curry, we can leg it over to the next festival happening in another part of town. This is brilliant. It's a proper music festival with proper bands and it's free. We're there in fifteen minutes flat and immediately get down to the stage where we see The Hat cavorting about, dancing with lots of people just like I would expect The Hat to do. I get Ermintrude to take Squirrel and Shark off to do some serious jumping about while Tiger refuses to join in because she has seen a dog somewhere, so I have to stay out of the fun and dance on my own. I look at Ermintrude and think she's a little bit thin. I make a mental note to put four large packs of Green and Black's in her room. I am sure they will be a lovely welcome present.

By the time we get back home it's 7 in the evening. The children are all exhausted and shouty. Squirrel has a big weep. Shark has a big shout. Tiger growls and slams a few doors. Dig makes himself scarce. I suggest to Ermintrude that she might try out her 'I like children' skills. With six weeks au pairing to go for the Grit family, Ermintrude looks like she's wondering what she's let herself in for. And as I keep my eye on everyone, I'm wondering as well, what we've all let ourselves in for.