Into how many parts can a Saturday split?

See the photographic evidence arraigned against me?

I upset everyone and take Tiger to her windsurfing club. We've been on the waiting list for two years. Two years! I'd completely forgotten about it. Then they call and tell me there's space, so bring her down if she's still interested.

You bet she is; Tiger has the sort of growling determination you might expect of an Olympic athlete driven to pursue victory and glory, except for Tiger's level it is more Can I stand on the board without falling in? and How much can I show my know-it-all sister that she does not have the world monopoly on water?

So yes, Saturday morning you can now find me at the windsurfing club, watching Tiger fiercely not fall in, and grip that mast like she might be holding on to the final sword of vengeance and justice.

But there is a problem. There always is, isn't there? Because of the stupid grip exerted from the local schooling institution on the Mondays-to-Fridays timetable, then any alternative child instruction in anything has to take place in evenings or weekends.

Frankly, my Saturdays are already chockabloc with dd activities.

Which means, for the forseeable future, I am going to have to lever off a couple of limbs to stay with Tiger here on her lake in Bedfordshire; I must deposit the other limbs with Shark in her lake in Bucks; and I can strew the remainder of my torso with Squirrel down at the quarry where the rockwatchers meet. My head I will leave on my own Saturday morning craft stall, where it can sell delightful leather-bound notebooks to all the passers by.

It's only a bit of water

Well, plague might stop the home ed meet.

But only if it's really bad.

Diving lesson 3

Here is my big shout out for the superb organisation that is Action Divers.

I loved them.

As a complete naive, non-diving parent (and the sort of carpet-slippers wussy who swims about trying not to get her hair wet), throwing my precious 11-year old daughter into the brutal surly ocean, wrapped only in a skin of neoprene and protected by an oxygen tank splattered with a death's head sticker, is a big thing.

Understandably, my starting fear has been, Will the ocean kill her?

My phobias have progressed through all water-related scenarios, well beyond simple drowning, to being decapitated by coral, eaten by mutant octopus, and facing naked protean underwater savagery from flesh-eating humanoids desperate to chew off her arms and legs, having escaped from their caves in The Descent.

Reader, in protecting my daughter from these terrors, Action Divers did not fail me.

For three days Shark has been safely scuba'd through hazards procedures, equipment handling, and proper watery skills. Each evening she has dutifully completed her homework. That meant confronting her woeful spelling, doing armed combat with a set of comprehension exercises, and preparing herself for a 9am start. (She probably was also taught how to handle aggressive octopus, wicked coral, and terrible creatures of the deep.)

I have rarely seen her with such determination and dedication.


And I must give a big whoop-de-doo to Simon in particular, who has been a perfect teacher for Shark; unfailingly patient, attentive, and communicating a love of the diving life which has led and inspired her. She has already pin-pointed the list of courses she wants and is now busy plotting her diving career. An eternal thank you.

(Or at least until she drops the idea of becoming a marine biologist and chooses life instead as a beach bum and bar fly.)


But for this experience - first-time child diver and annoying fussying mother - then yes, I totally recommend them.


If you are at the Hong Kong end, simply use Action Divers in Puerto Galera. The beaches are prettier than in Sai Kung and non-divers can amuse themselves by snorkeling without being hit in the head from a sampan.


Hmm. Now I've started thinking about it, maybe we should move out to the Philippines. Action Divers can take over Shark's Maths education as well. They need only represent every problem in terms of fish and coral and together we should crack it.

Diving lesson 1

I totally understand why Shark wants to learn how to dive.

It is a sport full of attractive men who strip down to their waists, show their chests, and stride about, dripping in slinky black wet suits.

I completely endorse her choice. I will support her all the way, drive her wherever she wants to go, and be by her side in all conditions, especially the tropical ones where they don't bother with the wet suits at all but just the trunks and I bet they are tiny.

Dig says most male divers are probably gay. I say I overheard the demi-god with the chest comment only this morning on his diving life, and his exact words were 'I chill out at the beach everyday and watch girls'. That doesn't sound like gay man talk to me, Dig.

Then he says he suspects they are closet gay.

Nonsense. It would show somewhere, like pink wetsuits and disco music and underwater whistles. I see none of that. Just a lot of lovely men striding about semi naked and wet.

It's a sport I'm going to get into, you can be sure about that.

Shark is foolishly oblivious to the attractions of diving. She is all fish this and fish that.

I say be quiet about the fish now, I need to see if I can perfect my chat up routine on the men at the dive school. I am a woman aged 51 with not much time left.

The start of another expensive new hobby

Do you girls know how many pairs of shoes I could have bought? Do you?

It's my day off matey

The instructor giggles nervously.

I say, in a slightly strained voice, It is all perfectly normal! My children often growl at each other like that!

Think yourself lucky. You've only got two-parts of a three-part set. The missing third is passed out on the sofa, lumps all over her throat, smashed on Tixylix.

The remaining twins I simply hand over, quickly sign the disclaimer, scribble my telephone number, tell him that everything will be fine, and leg it. If I can cope with competitive triplets, so can anyone!

I do not say, what we are about to do is engage in reckless and foolish behaviour, putting the arch-rivals, sisters in combat, Shark and Tiger, together on the same cold lake, at the same early start time, for the same fun activity, to be taught by the same lamb-to-the-slaughter instructor.

Thrusting together children who are currently head-to-head in opposition and telling them to play together nicely is madness. It may be potentially life-threatening, as any parent of fiercely competitive children will know.

Yet I am the eternally optimistic Grit!

I have already inhaled my lavender water, and chanted calmly that a half-mile of lake water is indeed big enough for both of them, and what damage can anyone seriously do with today's weapon of choice, aka a windsurfing board?

I reassure myself, too. Tiger will not crumble under a crisis of self-hatred when she observes how Shark springs on her board and sails effortlessly to the other side. Tiger will not aim her windsurfing board at Shark's head in a fury of revenge because Shark is ten seconds quicker to arrive at the pontoon thanks to the foolish competition set up by the naive paddlesports teacher. Tiger will simply not come home in a pot-boiling rage to kick the crap out of everyone because 'Shark is better at everything'. No. Tiger will only discover her own unique non-triplety talents with a flattened bit of plastic and a sail.

Shark, meanwhile, be will be the ideal non-competitive sibling. She will be sensitive, understanding, compassionate. She will not bring on watery apocalypse by means of smart-arsed comments, nor glide smirking by a sinking Tiger while showing off a range of acrobatic twirls on a perfectly balanced windsurfing platform. Perhaps Shark will also aim to diffuse awkward moments by modest, self-deprecating humour? Maybe Shark will judge the situation and obligingly pretend to fall in the filthy lake water, bobbing up covered in duck shit, whereupon both my adorable, cooperative children will laugh together, gaily.

It also will not thunderstorm, hail, snow, nor will there be any aggressive child-eating swans. There will be no low-flying airplanes crashing on nearby fields, and no out-of-control pedalo pushers tearing up the lake. No. It will simply be a lovely, fun, educational day out of doors learning new techniques with windsurfs!

How my optimism is well-founded!

When I arrive late afternoon to retrieve my lovely children, after a perfectly relaxing day in the company of one snoring Squirrel, the instructor tells me how the day has gone.

He says the specific instruction I made about never putting Shark and Tiger in fun competitive matches came in very handy. He saw the stare, nipped the duel in the bud, removed the weaponry, and separated the factions. He was also delighted to share with me how he thought up a solution of sending them sailing in opposite directions 'to collect swan feathers. Not from a live swan'. (Probably while he slipped back to the portacabin for a medicinal brandy.)

He adds that he felt the need to telephone only once for emergency back up advice on what to do when he has done the unforgivable, and that is to get confused about who is who, mixed up their names, praised one and not the other, when a scowl could be prelude to watery mayhem, lake flagellation and general duck slaughter. But, he adds, there was no answer on the telephone. Strange.

I say terribly sorry, but for some total oversight, today I simply forgot to switch it on.

The next generation won't go quietly

I'm not going to say, 'Those dolphins? They don't stand a chance'. That would sound like a world-weary oldster just giving in. I know that's exactly what some folks would like us all to do.

Shark's younger, and she's made of sterner stuff. Her message is clear. She says, Hong Kong, stop polluting the water.

I've lived with her for ten years. I know what a loud noise she can make. I've come to the quiet conclusion, it's probably better to do as she says.

Ferry journeys

We have days. I imaginatively call them On-island days and Off-island days.

On-island days are spent in similar ways. Arguing. Why can't we have pasta again for lunch? Is anything really really wrong about pushing a sister off a balcony, really? Who drew the prettiest dragon? Why are my dragons rubbish? How can you say that about these jeans? It's only a rip up one leg from ankle to waistband. I mean, look at you, mother. You hardly dress for success.

I look forward to the off-island days.

Off-island days, we catch a ferry. We go exploring. We travel in all directions. We go anywhere. Do anything. We might meet friends on Hong Kong Island or visit galleries and museums in Kowloon. We go walking, climb hills, and see green.

Sometimes, in the middle of our off-island day, we must run the gauntlet of soulless money junkies cramming the shopping malls. It's unavoidable. The malls are our quick cut-throughs to and from our destinations. But even the malls offer amusements. I can play games like counting the number of near misses between stiletto heels and escalator treads.

Whatever we do, an off-island day means we board the ferry out in the morning and back in the evening. It's always an experience I look forward to. Off-island mornings, I feel childishly excited, anticipating a voyage at sea, boarding the boat that takes us into the formless waters and the start of our adventures.


The ferry makes a great chuff chuff noise, and is big enough to reassure you that it won't sink, but it's small enough that you can look to the front and wonder how everyone would act, if the helmsman suddenly went berserk and steered us off to the Philippines.

By boat, on the deep sea, there's always a frisson of unpredictability, helped when Tiger leans to me after watching the white foam, and earnestly asks, What happens if there aren't enough life jackets for everyone?

Once I saw jellyfish; once a squadron of police boats circling a container platform; once the harbour safety boat buzzing around with danger, leakage, hazard, swimming in its wake; once a pirate sailing ship; once a Spanish galleon.

We all have, by now, our favourite seats on board, and yes, off-island days, we join the whole group of commuter type people who do that funny walk the moment the gates to the gangplank swing open and we all surge forward. The run that pretends to be a walk. The walk that's really a run. It adds to the anticipation. Will I get my favourite seat? The one with the uninterrupted view where I can easily slip into that reverie about the volcano exploding and then Hong Kong being consumed by a giant squid? Or will I have to sit scowling with my arms folded because someone's head is in the way, and last time it ruined the squid chomping denouement.

If we can get our favourite places (mine: outside, starboard to Hong Kong, fourth seat back, horizon, cool breeze, flick of sea spray) then for half an hour, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger shut up, and stare out to sea. I like this too. They become hypnotised by the waters and the waves. Sea monsters, maybe. Or shipwrecks swum around by mermaids, water horse, and skeleton fish.


When we reach Hong Kong island, the ferry journey ends, and our day begins again. We cross the sky way footbridge, to overlook the construction companies at work with diggers and scrapers, dumpers and fillers. They're moving Hong Kong Island closer to Kowloon, advancing the harbour with concrete, step by step, in ongoing projects of land reclamation.


We all know, it's not reclamation. It's stealing.

I console myself. This time in Hong Kong isn't all lost. Tiger runs to the pier gates at the end of our off-island day. She wants to secure the seat she needs. She waits, impatiently, for the ferry to arrive, the gates to open, and for her water journey to begin.

Tiger, this is your triumph

Tiger, I warned you I was flying two foot off the ground. And that I would tell the whole world.

Yes, Tiger, I'm proud of you.

There is a bit of a triplet brain that is very difficult to describe. Parents of triplets will know it. It is, how do you know who you are, when there are others who look just like you, staring back?

You might tell your difference by making different areas of personality to inhabit. You carve up identities, like you might carve up the last slice of pie.

She likes dance, so I can't like dance. I must like painting. She says she likes painting. Then I must like sewing. I don't like sewing. I'll say I do. Then I can be the sister who likes sewing.

I have noticed these forgeries, and I have wrung my hands over them, fretting about the wrongs you do to your who-you-are. I have worked to prise this bond apart. I have said, again and again, 'But it's OK to like the same things! At the same time!' (Yes, I know with the ice skating and horse riding, lessons together would break us, but I have an answer for that. Simply decide the order, one, two, three, and we pay the lessons, one, two, three.)

Tiger, you blasted this triplet grip apart. You declared that you wanted that windsurfing course, come hell or high water. Or both.

Dear daughter, you made it. You only feared that Shark would stare at you, mirror face accusing, reminding you that she is the water child. She with the monopoly on sails.

Shark does not do that. I said she would not. And this time I didn't even need to buy her complicity. (Well, only the cookery book, which doesn't count.) And what happens? Shark is delighted that she can share her watery world, with you, her twin/triplet sister.

Tiger, there is another reason why I'm proud of you.

This morning, you were suddenly caught by the terror of what you were about to do. This gigantic leap across your personality. Your sudden overboard jump into unknown water. Into a real lake. With fish. Who poo.

The horror froze you. For an hour. I thought you would refuse to go. Finally, I said that if you did not get into the car now then I must give your course to one of your triplet sisters. Because I paid already!

Your Oppositional Defiant Disorder kicked in, came running up and punched me in the face. Quick as a snap you bared your teeth, clawed the air, and leaped off that chair as if propelled by rocket fuel. Within thirty seconds you were sat in the car. The look on your face was unforgettable. More determined than I have ever seen you in my life.

And this, Tiger, makes me so very proud of you, daughter of mine.

Forty-seven different ways to die while pond dipping

Gawdhelpus. If yesterday wasn't bad enough, what with the killers that lie waiting for us down the local spoil heap, then I get another ear hole full of it today.

I take the kids off to a pond dipping session run by our local parks department. Normally I won't say a dickey bird against them, they are so lovely and kind and tolerant to the mad people.

But the leader turns up today without pots, without field guides, without pencils, papers, clipboards, or sense of audience.

We get a ten minute health and safety list of how dangerous we are about to become while holding a net on a stick.

Because did you know? You could trip over an old bicycle hidden in the reeds, or drown in a puddle, or be knocked unconscious, or be infested with rat wee, or swallow pond water without thinking, or be splashed in any number of ways into open wounds that are pouring with blood, or slip on mud, or fall over each other, or have someone's eye out and they would be blind and fall into the pond and be licked by rats and we would all DIE.

All this could indeed happen. But the twelve adults looking on would DO NOTHING because by then we have all decided to take up occupations as murderers and gone stalking people to kidnap and shove in car boots.

That could happen too.

Or we could bloody well get on with it, go pond dipping, then come home and order the field guides ourselves over the internet.

PS. We found a newt.

Someone asked me, What's your day like?

You asked for it.

7.00 Lie in bed cuddling bucket of coffee. Plot. Today, water. I have motive.

8.00 Yell GOOD MORNING LITTLE CAMPERS from vantage position on landing. Follow it by YOU HAVE 59 MINUTES TO GET OUT OF BED. Proceed to shower and dress me up like the lady I am. A £1 jumper from the Scope shop teamed with baggy M&S drawstring trousers c1977 with a hole in the crotch. They are so ME.

8.30 More coffee. Shout AT 9AM I POKE YOU WITH SKEWERS. But I am good mummy. I use only wood, never metal.

9.00 Hi everyone! Welcome to breakfast! This is your house, so just do as you please, like scatter cereal all over the table and cover your face in jam. Now while you're doing that, let me prop up this geography text book, show off pictures of the water cycle and read aloud this interesting text. Sometimes, when I think attention is wandering I shout WHAT IS PRECIPITATION followed by very good, good girl, lovely daughter, good good good. WHAT IS TRANSPIRATION etc. etc.

9.30 Say Are you all going? Where are you going? Come back to me at 11. I have a television set. Then do tedious things that I must do. Otherwise I must buy paper plates and wear one pair of knickers two weeks running. Hope to put knickers in correct bit of laundry equipment and not in dishwasher or kettle.

10.00 Wander into office. Regret that. Is foolish. The office is filled with times and dates and nuisance calls and work not done. Hear children screaming in distance. That is good. This is an opportunity to explore strategies for conflict resolution. To help that process we have rules pinned up at the back of a door. Somewhere.

11.00 Shout WHERE ARE YOU ALL. COME BACK. I HAVE A TELEVISION SET AND A CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE.

11.30 Put on the programme about river systems and flood management. I am very organised mummy. I recorded this at 4am! It looks like a GCSE course. Who cares?

12.00 Say Where are you going now? Are you going to play? Does anyone want to do maths? Please don't dig up the lawn again. Come back at 1 o'clock. I have lunch.

If small child foolishly short cuts through kitchen in pursuit of cut up fabric, shovels, tennis balls, pots of glitter, lure them, by crying, in pleading tone, Look at my lovely books about rivers! Do you remember the day I couldn't turn off the tap? Here is a picture of the Amazon! I have found a lovely website! Would you like to visit the sewage farm again? etc. etc. Sometimes this works, and a small child is lured by a seductive picture of a tap, then a ten minute discussion can be had about drainage systems, blocked pipes, Archimedes screw etc. etc.

1.00 Throw cheese rolls around table, while reading from a book about Handel. Because guess what kiddlywinks? To fit in with our watery theme today we're listening to the Water Music as we go out next in the car. Papa wants you to grow up to be accomplished young ladies who look like they know stuff. He says I am wrong and there is more to the world than Talking Heads c1989.

2.00 Arrive at Stanwick Lakes!


Yes! This is it! This is why I have made you suffer! Now go and bother water along with the other home ed kids for a couple of hours. They have a fantastic water play park. Here, through practical experiment and wet socks, you can learn about water transport, suspended particles, rocks, water energy, pumping, flow rates, flooding etc. etc.






No, don't tell me what you're up to, how many times you pushed Squirrel in, or how much of it you're putting in your pockets to take home. I'm off to talk about how hard this home ed life can be, over coffee with all the other lovely friendly ladies in the lovely warm visitor centre.

4.30 Depart the lakes with pictures, information about watery educational workshops, and results of discussion with very helpful education staff. Promise to organise workshop as soon as possible.

5.30 Drop Shark at after-school drama. We have had a tiring school day, learning about water. Squirrel and Tiger run to dig up the lawn to create irrigation channels for unicorn farmland.

6.00 Consider making artwork in form of water book. Consider this problem a lot while drinking tea and contemplating what a hard and terrible life is this home education business.

8.00 Indian takeaway for dinner. We should eat more of these. Apparently 72% of our meals should consist of them. Must try harder.

9.00 Kids push off to bath and hang around at the back of daddy Dig's head while he tries to watch a programme about the Royal Navy. Memo to self: Samuel Pepys is good for a laugh. We might do him next week.

10.00 Book reading stuff. Individual light turning off. Busy outdoor day. Plenty of active play. Kissy kissy nite nites etc. etc.

Tomorrow is French lesson. Over breakfast of croissants, pain au chocolat, read lovely bilingual books, abandon kids to websites and garden, go to gym, talk to other lovely home ed people, get back in time for after-school clubs etc. etc. Hard life.

Happy? With this approach to education? Oh yes we are. Smug bastard.

Now I regret the passing of Woolworths

Grit drags her gritlets off to St Albans today. They stay snug in the warm, dry, heated education room of Verulamium Museum, where they craft Roman villas out of shoe boxes.

Grit is thrown out into the cold pelting rain. Abandoned. Yet the rain beats on, nails studding the ground, hammering upon the uncovered head of the poor, sad, discarded Grit.

But! Grit has one brain cell remaining active after years of abuse by despair, confusion, social expectation and 85% strength chocolate, and she applies that brain cell to her problem called Facing two hours being soaked to the skin and Thinking what to do about it.

She determines upon bravely walking into town and buying an umbrella. First she seeks the path under the guidance of St Albans' superior pedestrian signage system.


Then she must walk across the park into town while her head slowly dissolves under a torrential deluge of acid rain.


Twenty minutes later, liquid in human form, she arrives in town. If only! If only Woolworths in St Albans were still open and sold umbrellas!


Millets, close by, cannily prop girly pink peep-through umbrellas against their shop doorway. I examine them, dripping. But far too posh (£12.99) for mean Grit.

No. Not the Millets golfing umbrella, either. Grit already looks like a wet twerp. We don't want to advertise the fact. And I will at some point be forced to hand over the new umbrella to one of the gritlets. Imagine what mayhem and eye wounds they can cause with a 6-metre wide golfing umbrella down your congested High Street at 11 am in the mornings.

The search must go on. Oxfam? No umbrellas there. Not even fairtrade ones. Cancer Research? Nope. Far too upmarket.

God knows what madness drives me into Monsoon unless it is to flaunt the new bedraggled water rat look, and have the staff watch me suspiciously while I leak puddles over their nice polished wooden floor.

By now, nearly an hour on, I am too far watery to care. Sloshing, I follow this bloke into a faceless shopping sluice.


I may never find my way out the twilight zone. But at least I carry my own water supply in my pockets.


Then! Wilkinsons! Nearly like Woolworths! And £2 buys a nearly functioning umbrella for the walk back through town and over the park!


Behold! My lovely, lovely new umbrella! Aloft, like my dignity, my chins and my chipper. At last, two hours on, I am happy. Satisfied. Delighted!

Even though by now it had quite stopped raining.