Planning ahead

Sat down with Shark and worked through a timetable to complete her IGCSE Physics.

I told her that most home ed kids take the exam after one year, so why does she need two? She said 2036 was her preferred exam year, so I was doing well if she sat it in 2015.

I probably agree. It is a subject that I am staring at in incomprehension, while simultaneously claiming cheerfully how you can effortlessly relate E=mc2 to one marble and an elastic band.

Well, I warned her. I am not letting her off the hook for 2015. I laid out my serious calendar and came over all pointy-finger and scowly frowny. Then I wrote down her assignment posting dates on it, in very black pen. By the time I had finished with my 2014-2015 at-a-glance it looked like Johannes Gutenberg had had a fit in a vat of printer's ink.

I know it is the opposite of what a good 'let-the-children-lead' type of home educating mama should do, but I have three kids of the same ages, and the last thing I want is for all of them to try sitting half a dozen different subjects at exactly the same time. Imagine the mess I'll make of those codes! It will all go hopelessly wrong. I will have Shark taking Squirrel's course on Fairy Puddings and Tiger traumatised by a Fish Exam.

I think Shark saw the wisdom in my organisational approach, even though she didn't look very happy. More, like the enterprise was already hopelessly doomed. In respect of that, I left our planning meeting as gently and as kindly as I could. I simply said that if she does not get Section 1 Topic 2 written up in best handwriting and sent off as per My Schedule, I would post off a sheet of blank paper with her name printed at the bottom in the blood I have extracted from her forearm.

But it is a tightrope walk, is it not, this passage betwixt what the home educated child wants to do (play pointless computer games all day long involving three talking horses and a wizard), and what the studious home educating mama thinks the children should do (take a measly clutch of ruddy exam courses to give them a bit of elbow room when they come to a college interview).

A right time for everything

Had a to-do list as long as both arms of a long-armed gibbon.

Crushed by my own ennui, I accomplished not one item from the list, all day long. Even though some items are urgent and I have had plenty, plenty of time.

Instead! I made a notebook inspired by 1920s jazz.

Small compensation, but I shall call it achievement.

All downhill from here

The ambulance did fine for me, that's all I'll say, without blasting my medical miseries from here to South Korea.

I will only narrate this lovely moment, as three medics stood by my bedside contemplating the consequences of a demolished Grit. They suggest one scenario from here is a hospital stay, so be prepared. I attempt to make light of it by quipping that looking after the house will be easy! I tidied up already!

There is a moment of shocked silence as everyone contemplates the train crash of my bedroom floor. I feebly add, 'I meant downstairs'.

(Not) earning my living

I can now reveal, I have strange and intense intuitions.

Yes! My abilities almost scare me with their uncanniness.

Okay, my perceptive powers lie in marketing, but I think this a benefit.

I could have been gifted with overwhelming foresight in plastic-elf making or something. Anyway, such are the sublime powers of marketing that I possess, I can soon expect all media types to beat a path to my door.

Such brilliance is my ability to advance my own talents, for example.

I can pick a weekend booking for my craft stall on what is not only the sunniest-sunshiny-summer's day that England has seen in 2000 years, but I am also able to unerringly select the last weekend of Wimbledon, when 100% of the craft-buying population of Britain is sat at the TV screen in anticipation of an historic sports event unfolding before their very watching eyes.

Sun, more sun, and a cheap Weekend Wimbledon multibuy offered by the Polish bottle shop on five litres of Pimm's, all combine in my horrible awareness about noon. All morning, I have had one customer. Whom I told to clear off.

I am not normally the Bernard Black of the craft market but I was already tetchy and she asked for it. Picking up my delightful knicker drawer quirkeries, hand crafted for privacy, offering a snort and a comment of the sort I have nothing to hide.

If you want to tell us everything, then you are not the type of person I want to meet and give me back my knicker book.

I think those were my words as I snatched my little keepsake whimsy out of her mangy claws. Followed by There is a jam stall over there. Why don't you go and buy strawberry jam? And when you spoon it straight out of the pot to eat, make sure you do it in public on a park bench and invite us all round to watch.

(Two sold all day, and they were to friends.)

Then I sent off the cheque

Realising that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are now aged 13, I am experiencing one of those moments, familiar to all home ed mamas and papas, that is the pendulum swing betwixt educational resignation and blind panic.

But I need to think about this next stage of our adventure in calm, clear, pragmatic terms. Because we all have options, right?

1. Go primitive and dangerous. Do no GCSE exams. Not one. See if the kids can wing it into college relying on their passion and enthusiasm.

Let's do it: Has great appeal. No exams is the entrance ticket for the weird and dangerous crowd, the ones who best challenge social norms, cut across your group-think, and who express their individuality in true, genuine style. Also appeals to my deep idle streak which I will claim is my educational philosophy.

Let's not risk it: Tiger, Squirrel and Shark utterly fail to get into college thanks to an interview technique based on slumping in a chair and saying Leave me alone! Why are you asking such difficult questions? Consequently, have to spend a year and two thousand pounds on intensive coaching in English, Maths, and anything else demanded by Mrs Stern Lips at the college interview.

2. Go autonomous. Follow a couple of IGCSE curriculums at home in indifferent, haphazard manner, basically finding an excuse to turn geography into cake, then stride cheerfully into an exam room as an external candidate and see what answers come to mind.

Let's do it: Suits our style. Would fit naturally into everyday life chez Grit. We could become freedom fighters for how exams ought to be. A snapshot of your natural wits, wisdoms and abilities, rather than the possessor of a very large memory copied from the bullet points.

Let's not risk it: Shark, Squirrel and Tiger fail to be tested by the miserly, constricted standards of the day and come out with a scattering of grades from U to E, then have to spend a year and two thousand pounds on intensive coaching in English, Maths etc.

3. Play a little bit normal. Hire IGCSE tutors online, take distant courses which give the appearance of accreditation, hope to build up a CV for each child that has a variety of recognisable and interesting stuff which helps them blag a way into college.

Let's do it: Sounds like an interesting way to spend a couple of years, and would involve both cake and an essay that someone else has set.

Let's not risk it: Sounds like hard work requiring an administrative role from me, which is a bad idea considering I haven't a clue what day it is. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger fail to have the staying power to manage more than a couple of half-finished courses and we all revert to cake and making unicorn money. I kiss goodbye to three thousand quid for the privilege. Spend a year and two thousand pounds on intensive coaching in English, Maths etc.

4. Play a lot normal. Insist on eight ICGSEs taken from home. Set up a timetable. Enforce it. Be rigorous and stern about deadlines, correct answers, marks, scores, feedback, etc.

Let's do it: No, I can't think of any reason why we would do this, unless I had a character-transforming brain injury, or I died and Shark, Squirrel and Tiger were gifted with a step mother who did it for me.

Let's not risk it: I would have to become a person I am not. The children would hate me, then rebel, steal cider, sleep on park benches, take drugs and become prostitutes.

5. Make it someone else's job. Send Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to school. I don't have to bother thinking about it, booking exam rooms, paying as external candidates, fretting about the right paper on the right day, reading mark schemes, or printing out sample exam papers. It's all someone else's job and I can blame the teachers if anyone comes out with a grade D.

Let's do it: I could spend all day conjuring my leather-bound works of poetic brilliance until I am taken up by Vivienne Westwood accessories and my business empire is assured.

Let's not risk it: Shark, Squirrel and Tiger won't get up in the morning. Vivienne Westwood drops dead without ever clapping eyes on my notebooks.


Verdict: Looking at Shark, Squirrel and Tiger in detail, assessing their character types and the triplet dimension which is, frankly, getting in the way here, I'm choosing Route 3. At least until next month, when I have another crisis.

The day is shot, busted, irretrievable

Dig has left for South America. No, he did not depart in haste with a suitcase full of cash and an armful of blond.

Not that I saw, anyhow. Apparently it is work. Even if the work instructions seem to include 'bring swimming costume'. He says this is how business is conducted from Brazil. Much better than Russia, where you get a minder and two days of hassle over your visa, or these days, India, where now you get an overnight flight in lieu of a hotel room.

Well, the problems of international business travel for middle-aged men is not really what this post is about.

It is about what happens to the woman left behind to face the kids.

I am doing my duty. I am serving as an emotional punch bag for Shark, Squirrel, and Tiger. Abuse of parents by kids is something we never seem to hear about, is it?

Anyway, I have not raised my voice once in this experience, although keeping my mouth shut while on the receiving end of an emotional roller-coaster wreckage of pre-teen triplet girls whose daddy has left them is akin to driving through all circles of hell singing The Sun Has Got His Hat On.

Under these circumstances I am permitted a glass of whiskey at noon.

This delightful brown fluid is focusing my mind on vengeful matters. I have decided. Kids, when I am aged 92 and have less control over my bladder than I do now, I'm coming round to your slick apartment and I'm peeing on your velveteen sofa. And that's just for starters.

Meanwhile, here's a calming picture of something that both reminds me who I am and calms me down. Granite.

More horse related woe

Here it is. The daughter thief. Snatching fresh victims! Whinnying with mockery to trample on my pain. What torture this is to me. The daughter thief has won! It eats all my money, steals all my daughters, disdains my cares and leaves hoof prints on my soul.

You, you dreaded horse - how I resent your charms and secret powers - you have now stolen away not one of my daughters but two of my cherished daughters! Can the pain end here!

Tiger, her heart was stolen so long ago. I, foolish parent, in a moment of weakness, hoisted the four-year old girl children over the saddle edge 'to get a better view'.

Oh stupid, unwise folly filled parent! I had no better view of the future! I did not forsee that horse will seize this moment, capture the youthful spirit and never return her to my mortal concerns! From then on, it has been, on Tiger's lips, all horsehorsehorse!

Tiger, I have wrestled with my heart. I have had no choice but to watch you slip to worldofhorse. There is no guard I can raise against it.

But Squirrel! Noooooo! One week living with the stables, while mama vainly seeks to justify this on the basis of some educational mishmashery nonsense, now she is taken too!




It is all woe to me now. WOEOWOWOWOEOEOEOW.

These, to my eyes, now become instruments of torture...


And this, the power I have left to resist.


Oh fishies, be friends to me! I have but one daughter left! Do not let my fin-turned daughter Shark be lured from your watery grip!

Making the long, bleak freefall into Christmas

Are we running up to Christmas yet? Are we hurtling towards that happy point when the chest freezer with wings tips me back into England? If we are, that means I have a to-do list as long as both my arms, extending from UK to HK.

Christmas is becoming a multi-dimensional unsolvable problem looming larger with every passing minute. Soon I will be lying in my Hong Kong bed at night wild eyed and staring rigid in terror at the imaginings of what is shortly to pass. It will be like The Pit and the Pendulum retold with tinsel, a plastic Christmas tree and a vat of cooking sherry.

I am anticipating the worst. By 3am, the outlook will look very bleak indeed.

For a start, we will arrive back into a freezing snow-bound Britain and be unable to reach home for days. I am convinced of this, thanks to the many news photos I have seen in HK of dead vehicles and abandoned motorists littering the highways.

When we finally arrive home, having eaten nothing for days but snow and sparrows, we will discover our neighbour changed the locks to the shared front doors. On smashing our way in, we will discover the court summons. Along with the bust water pipe and non-functioning heating.

This is the one bright star in my anticipations of potential disaster. I am sure an engineer will be delighted to call and maintain our boiler, given there is less than 48 hours to go before the total closure of Britain.

But I will already be occupied. Within the first hour of arrival, Tiger will bundle me in the attic and demand that I emerge with last year's plastic Christmas tree that she can tastefully decorate with shuttlecocks and toilet rolls in the fine tradition of family fun. I will have not slept for 36 hours. On being thrust into the darkened eaves I will promptly curl up and fall asleep. If I am lucky, everyone will forget about me and leave me there. If I am unlucky, I will be dragged out amid demands for more tinsel and more toilet rolls. This will take place at 2am UK time because that is 10am HK, and a perfect time to start a craft activity before lunch.

Of course the time difference will work to my advantage. By 4am UK, I will be hitting Tesco to stock up on baking potatoes. Once I am inside an actual supermarket, I am almost certain to be overwhelmed at the availability of a packet of Dorset cereal at under the cost of a fiver and begin to softly cry. I can only hope the security staff will comfort me.

When the actual festivity of Christmas day is over - the cold day to come with no presents, no heating, and a bent tree festooned in toilet paper - I will be faced with the problem of stealing/hiring a working vehicle. Of course I have not overlooked the fact that the present non-working gritmobile (no tax, no MOT) is at the bottom of the garden locked in an ice sheet.

With time running out before a return to HK, I have then to fit in the drive east looking for the other family member in a village in the middle of nowhere. (Actually, I am looking forward to that bit.)

I haven't even raised the problems of the slight hurdle of arriving back in Britain dressed in flip flops and a pink cotton frock, the complete absence of presents for three eager people, and the worry I am already facing in trying to wrestle Tiger back on the plane for HK just as she has settled comfortably into her familiar homely surroundings.

While I contemplate all of this, grit's day might become a place to store more blurred photos, random jottings, and disconnected thoughts.

Like we have lost a library book which has sent HK central library into a tail spin, and I boiled a gecko alive in the kettle. By accident.

Apologies if you come here for anything.