One of those mornings when I must explore the time dimensions of Einstein, considering I have to put Shark on a train at Luton airport, place Tiger on a windsurfing lake outside Bedford, and erect a modest craft stall in a small town north of Milton Keynes. All within fifteen minutes of each other.
I do what any normal mother of triplets does when she must have a practical bash at time travel. After all, what did Einstein have but a load of letters and some numbers? I have a beaten up old diesel van and a willpower fashioned from experience with late twentieth century steel.
I fill up on rocket fuel, hold the earth steady, put two fingers up to the normal laws of physics and give Squirrel very specific instructions about what to do with my red velvet curtain.
Together we do it all, but really it is only thanks to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger doing exactly what they are told within a one-second horizon that we do it at all.
But the morning almost finishes me off. The puffyupandfalloffyitis is so very chronic today, probably akin to leprosy, that I not only resemble a hideous withered gnome, I am also in pain. Squirrel suggests for the rest of Saturday I hang a bell round my neck to warn those approaching that I look like a woman half done in. That is a helpful suggestion and I might take it up. Were I not for the fact that I must spend the rest of the day standing behind my craft stall, selling beautiful hand-made leather fetish collecting books.
Here, amuse yourselves similarly with other tales of time travel.
Showing posts with label worn out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worn out. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Saturday, 18 May 2013
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.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Somethingwillturnup!
In other weekend news of achievement, I have lost my job.
Perhaps more accurately, we have considered the options (none), deliberated over the future of this particular employment (none), then scraped a few papers off the floor and handed it all back.
It is inevitable. We have reached the point of this working relationship which resembles corpses embracing. The job has lost all sparkle and become nothing more than a thankless shovelling of shit for a publisher with whom the dispute is now the number of unpaid invoices as well as the number of unset books.
So, maybe a job not strictly lost. Apart from the income. That could be a problem. But there are more important things than money. (Holds head high.) Nevermind, lookonthebrightside, somethingwillturnup, etc. etc.
I am sad in a way, because in general I support the publisher's job, together with the blind dedication, peculiar interests, and unreadable output of the scribbling academics.
But I now know there are brutal sides to this academic scribbling business. Disputes with publishers apart, there are authors who have shown me how capable they are of making the process of their own book production a long-drawn out, horrible, painful, torture.
I'm not picking on anyone (okay, yes I am, but not saying who). All I will say is that there is a brand of academic very focused on empire building, where tomes are significant, and people not so much. Indeed, the weightier the tomes, the better they can be used to bash in the faces of their colleagues and competitors.
My part in their path to glory is tiny and invisible. Copyeditor, typesetter, designer, layout artist, proofreader, document dogsbody. (You only know it when something goes wrong or you spot the spelling mistake.)
And which literate academic author thinks this is a skills set they do not already have? They have spellcheckers! They have Word on their computers! They have ideas about layout and design! What is the point of a dinosaur's job like mine, except to impede them, slow up their book, and raise unnecessary queries over their referencing?
So in my experience, even if the publisher recognises they need someone to blame (which is where typesetters can come in handy), the academic sees us as someone of no significance whatsoever, and treats us accordingly. With very little courtesy or pleasantry, and no recognition that someone needed to have an eye for the look of words on a page, or gave (unpaid) hours to make their crap fit perfectly to the exact number of pages the publisher can afford to print without making a crushing loss. In five years I have been thanked by an author just once.
But I am kind! I bear in mind that these academics might have dug themselves into a shrunken mental wormhole from which they cannot now escape. Over 25 years they have invested more than they can lose. They must remain where they are, protecting their corner, eating away at their own tails, chewing away at their increasingly remote ideas.
Then I can be happy if they stay there. No longer will I have to put up with the arrogance, bleating, blame games and streams of muddled corrections.
Now, this may be my final entry on work-related matters, unless I am taken to court, or come up with a fantastic money-making scheme. So I depart the work label with as much dignity as I can scrape, and not name the publisher, the worst offending authors, and you can never say I mentioned the sodding linguists.
Perhaps more accurately, we have considered the options (none), deliberated over the future of this particular employment (none), then scraped a few papers off the floor and handed it all back.
It is inevitable. We have reached the point of this working relationship which resembles corpses embracing. The job has lost all sparkle and become nothing more than a thankless shovelling of shit for a publisher with whom the dispute is now the number of unpaid invoices as well as the number of unset books.
So, maybe a job not strictly lost. Apart from the income. That could be a problem. But there are more important things than money. (Holds head high.) Nevermind, lookonthebrightside, somethingwillturnup, etc. etc.
I am sad in a way, because in general I support the publisher's job, together with the blind dedication, peculiar interests, and unreadable output of the scribbling academics.
But I now know there are brutal sides to this academic scribbling business. Disputes with publishers apart, there are authors who have shown me how capable they are of making the process of their own book production a long-drawn out, horrible, painful, torture.
I'm not picking on anyone (okay, yes I am, but not saying who). All I will say is that there is a brand of academic very focused on empire building, where tomes are significant, and people not so much. Indeed, the weightier the tomes, the better they can be used to bash in the faces of their colleagues and competitors.
My part in their path to glory is tiny and invisible. Copyeditor, typesetter, designer, layout artist, proofreader, document dogsbody. (You only know it when something goes wrong or you spot the spelling mistake.)
And which literate academic author thinks this is a skills set they do not already have? They have spellcheckers! They have Word on their computers! They have ideas about layout and design! What is the point of a dinosaur's job like mine, except to impede them, slow up their book, and raise unnecessary queries over their referencing?
So in my experience, even if the publisher recognises they need someone to blame (which is where typesetters can come in handy), the academic sees us as someone of no significance whatsoever, and treats us accordingly. With very little courtesy or pleasantry, and no recognition that someone needed to have an eye for the look of words on a page, or gave (unpaid) hours to make their crap fit perfectly to the exact number of pages the publisher can afford to print without making a crushing loss. In five years I have been thanked by an author just once.
But I am kind! I bear in mind that these academics might have dug themselves into a shrunken mental wormhole from which they cannot now escape. Over 25 years they have invested more than they can lose. They must remain where they are, protecting their corner, eating away at their own tails, chewing away at their increasingly remote ideas.
Then I can be happy if they stay there. No longer will I have to put up with the arrogance, bleating, blame games and streams of muddled corrections.
Now, this may be my final entry on work-related matters, unless I am taken to court, or come up with a fantastic money-making scheme. So I depart the work label with as much dignity as I can scrape, and not name the publisher, the worst offending authors, and you can never say I mentioned the sodding linguists.
Monday, 4 October 2010
That was Monday
One of the issues triplet children bring with them at birth - alongside three mouths to feed, three pairs of lungs to serenade you at 3 am and thirty fingers to poke in your eyeballs - is the need to compete.
This dagger of sibling rivalry has a special edge to it when you have three children of the same development age; each simultaneously needful for your time, attention and body parts. Each is also equally determined that the other two won't get there first. Shovels may be involved. You can reason with none of them because they're all aged two. Anyway, you are busy coping with two broken arms and a broken heart.
You are madly in love with your determined tormentors, which makes it worse. You would throw yourself under a bus if you thought that would spare one shadow of a wound from reaching their tender, fragile skin.
Give it long enough and you just want to throw yourself under a bus. There is no end in sight.
As they grow older, praise becomes downright dangerous, and the sword double edged. 'That is delightful!' you might say as you study the drawing of an upside down bat. Foolish mother. To adult minds that is supportive praise doled out in turn as you progress round the household activities. But to the ears of the other listeners, that of course means everybody else who draws a bat is rubbish. They are inadequate and inferior. This is proof you never loved them, will never love them. They better tell you now that they hate you. You might offer a cuddle in retaliation for that, because you have nothing else in your armoury but devotion, but it serves no purpose whatsoever. Apart from providing the briefest of pauses for someone to spit on the knife before driving it home in your already shattered heart.
None of which is particularly relevant to my thinking today, except after nearly eleven years of living with the most beautiful and deadly triplets on this earth, I know where it comes from, my need to make sure I lay my head to the pillow each night knowing I having achieved, and it was positive. I may drop dead in my sleep, so this could be the last thought I have. Better make it weighty.
Here it is. We all achieve, everyday, in our unique ways. Me, I breathed in and out.
This dagger of sibling rivalry has a special edge to it when you have three children of the same development age; each simultaneously needful for your time, attention and body parts. Each is also equally determined that the other two won't get there first. Shovels may be involved. You can reason with none of them because they're all aged two. Anyway, you are busy coping with two broken arms and a broken heart.
You are madly in love with your determined tormentors, which makes it worse. You would throw yourself under a bus if you thought that would spare one shadow of a wound from reaching their tender, fragile skin.
Give it long enough and you just want to throw yourself under a bus. There is no end in sight.
As they grow older, praise becomes downright dangerous, and the sword double edged. 'That is delightful!' you might say as you study the drawing of an upside down bat. Foolish mother. To adult minds that is supportive praise doled out in turn as you progress round the household activities. But to the ears of the other listeners, that of course means everybody else who draws a bat is rubbish. They are inadequate and inferior. This is proof you never loved them, will never love them. They better tell you now that they hate you. You might offer a cuddle in retaliation for that, because you have nothing else in your armoury but devotion, but it serves no purpose whatsoever. Apart from providing the briefest of pauses for someone to spit on the knife before driving it home in your already shattered heart.
None of which is particularly relevant to my thinking today, except after nearly eleven years of living with the most beautiful and deadly triplets on this earth, I know where it comes from, my need to make sure I lay my head to the pillow each night knowing I having achieved, and it was positive. I may drop dead in my sleep, so this could be the last thought I have. Better make it weighty.
Here it is. We all achieve, everyday, in our unique ways. Me, I breathed in and out.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Relocation
Isn't one of the worst things about moving location - all starry eyed and looking forward to fantastic family jungle fun - is what happens when one of your kids doesn't share your wonder and sense of adventure?
And aren't children shy about letting you know what they think of the delightful new experiences you enthusiastically lined up for them! Don't they just meekly present themselves like cute, big-eyed, soulful bush babies, silently yearning for some little hug which will soon pay attention to all their fears!
Well Tiger doesn't do any of that crap, obviously. Tiger lets us know exactly what she thinks about the museums, galleries, theatres, islands, butterflies and poxy beach.
She is conducting a kind of daily low-level terrorist assault. Some days are worse than others; maybe she bottled up the resentment she had yesterday and shook it up this morning before slicing off the bottle top with a machete. Then she got out of bed.
Now, I'm not sure what to do about this ongoing issue. Some days I can ignore it, and have my head screamed off. Other days I can try and attend to it and come within a whisper of a nervous breakdown. On any day I can try and drone on, reassuring Tiger about anything and everything. Or I can simply get cross and snap. That's quicker, but the result is painful and I may well come away without my scalp.
Ultimately I feel my hands are tied. There is a line, and it's non-negotiable. Tiger, we are not all going home just because you want to and just because you're making things pretty miserable for the rest of your worn out family. We have contracts, leases, employments, commitments. And I cannot post you home because the spoilsports at the Post Office don't allow it. Believe me Tiger, all last week I was eyeing up boxes and packing tape.
Anyway, I would like to say that today I took Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to the Hong Kong Space Museum. I did not. I took Shark and Squirrel. Tiger created her own demonstration of exploding star in the front room and there was no way I could safely get the hydrogen gases back in the nucleus in time to catch the ferry.
If you have relocated children across continents, and they did not fly away buoyant with enthusiasm, then I would really like to know what you did to help.
Because right now I am at a total loss.
And aren't children shy about letting you know what they think of the delightful new experiences you enthusiastically lined up for them! Don't they just meekly present themselves like cute, big-eyed, soulful bush babies, silently yearning for some little hug which will soon pay attention to all their fears!
Well Tiger doesn't do any of that crap, obviously. Tiger lets us know exactly what she thinks about the museums, galleries, theatres, islands, butterflies and poxy beach.
She is conducting a kind of daily low-level terrorist assault. Some days are worse than others; maybe she bottled up the resentment she had yesterday and shook it up this morning before slicing off the bottle top with a machete. Then she got out of bed.
Now, I'm not sure what to do about this ongoing issue. Some days I can ignore it, and have my head screamed off. Other days I can try and attend to it and come within a whisper of a nervous breakdown. On any day I can try and drone on, reassuring Tiger about anything and everything. Or I can simply get cross and snap. That's quicker, but the result is painful and I may well come away without my scalp.
Ultimately I feel my hands are tied. There is a line, and it's non-negotiable. Tiger, we are not all going home just because you want to and just because you're making things pretty miserable for the rest of your worn out family. We have contracts, leases, employments, commitments. And I cannot post you home because the spoilsports at the Post Office don't allow it. Believe me Tiger, all last week I was eyeing up boxes and packing tape.
Anyway, I would like to say that today I took Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to the Hong Kong Space Museum. I did not. I took Shark and Squirrel. Tiger created her own demonstration of exploding star in the front room and there was no way I could safely get the hydrogen gases back in the nucleus in time to catch the ferry.
If you have relocated children across continents, and they did not fly away buoyant with enthusiasm, then I would really like to know what you did to help.
Because right now I am at a total loss.
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Happy families
We walk the family trail on Lamma Island. That's the family trail. For families.
The family trail is straightforward. It's a walk along a concrete path, from one side of the island to the other. Journey it, and you pass the jungly trees and busy beach, before climbing the spines of the dragon mountains. Over the top, you're down into the green valley sloping to the shores, where you can stop at the seafood restaurant before catching the boat back home.
Walking on concrete paths through vegetation is something I do quite easily in England. But I do it badly in Hong Kong. Here, as I melt in heat and humidity, it becomes more an unseemly demonstration of red-faced sweating English stagger. It's all the more humiliating when being overtaken on the mountain stride by young, tanned, Italian dolce vita girls, swinging cute pink purses, Jimmy Choo shopping bags, and an athletic companion called Enrico.
I can only sigh, and know that those days of youthful mountain seeking are over for me. I'm not an independent woman about life, making her own decisions about her destinies. Not anymore. I'm a mutually supportive partner in a happy family. And since I have not suitor, tanned Italian skin, firm backside, nor a pair of Jimmy Choos, I can only cling, scrabbling, to what is left me: the happy family life. The sort of happy family life which can be yours indeed, for nothing, on the family trail of Lamma Island.
That's the family, by the way, who all split up even before we got out of the house. The family that took two hours to prise Tiger out of her bedroom and only succeeded with the lure of a pack of digestive biscuits and the promise of a green ice cream.
The same family, who, on exiting the house, hears one of their clan announce she is off in the other direction towards the Chinese pavilion past Fisherman's Village, where she is going to explore her new island autonomy and read her fairy trash in peace and quiet.
We'll just go on without you Squirrel! Dragging Tiger behind us, constantly moaning and groaning about leaves. No, don't you worry about us, just go off and enjoy yourself!
And then the happy family members all decide to seek separate routes, as far as possible away from each other up the dragon spine, probably because Grit is taking far too long, glowing and staggering, staggering and glowing, red faced under her Seahouses sunhat, huffing and puffing fit to bust.
What with the Tiger daughter now legging it up the hill to get the thing over and done with as quickly as possible, Dig cantering along behind her, Shark strung out between us all and Grit up the rear, you can bet by the top none of us were actually talking to each other, bound only in the mutual thinking that we would like to give the rest of the family a damn good kicking. When I am overtaken in the brilliant sunshine by the braless beauties plus the fortunate Enrico, and my sense of our happy family is complete.
Maybe we should really bond together and get a dog.
The family trail is straightforward. It's a walk along a concrete path, from one side of the island to the other. Journey it, and you pass the jungly trees and busy beach, before climbing the spines of the dragon mountains. Over the top, you're down into the green valley sloping to the shores, where you can stop at the seafood restaurant before catching the boat back home.
Walking on concrete paths through vegetation is something I do quite easily in England. But I do it badly in Hong Kong. Here, as I melt in heat and humidity, it becomes more an unseemly demonstration of red-faced sweating English stagger. It's all the more humiliating when being overtaken on the mountain stride by young, tanned, Italian dolce vita girls, swinging cute pink purses, Jimmy Choo shopping bags, and an athletic companion called Enrico.
I can only sigh, and know that those days of youthful mountain seeking are over for me. I'm not an independent woman about life, making her own decisions about her destinies. Not anymore. I'm a mutually supportive partner in a happy family. And since I have not suitor, tanned Italian skin, firm backside, nor a pair of Jimmy Choos, I can only cling, scrabbling, to what is left me: the happy family life. The sort of happy family life which can be yours indeed, for nothing, on the family trail of Lamma Island.
That's the family, by the way, who all split up even before we got out of the house. The family that took two hours to prise Tiger out of her bedroom and only succeeded with the lure of a pack of digestive biscuits and the promise of a green ice cream.
The same family, who, on exiting the house, hears one of their clan announce she is off in the other direction towards the Chinese pavilion past Fisherman's Village, where she is going to explore her new island autonomy and read her fairy trash in peace and quiet.
We'll just go on without you Squirrel! Dragging Tiger behind us, constantly moaning and groaning about leaves. No, don't you worry about us, just go off and enjoy yourself!
And then the happy family members all decide to seek separate routes, as far as possible away from each other up the dragon spine, probably because Grit is taking far too long, glowing and staggering, staggering and glowing, red faced under her Seahouses sunhat, huffing and puffing fit to bust.
What with the Tiger daughter now legging it up the hill to get the thing over and done with as quickly as possible, Dig cantering along behind her, Shark strung out between us all and Grit up the rear, you can bet by the top none of us were actually talking to each other, bound only in the mutual thinking that we would like to give the rest of the family a damn good kicking. When I am overtaken in the brilliant sunshine by the braless beauties plus the fortunate Enrico, and my sense of our happy family is complete.
Maybe we should really bond together and get a dog.
Monday, 3 May 2010
I'm on this path, and I'm going in that direction
Walking with the rock watchers again, starting from West Wycombe, across Bledlow Ridge, through Hearnton Wood and down to Bradenham cricket green.
Are you with me?
If you're using Grit's directional skills, forget it. I might say left when I mean right, and point down that hill when I go up it. Follow my walking directions into the wilderness beyonder and after two hours lost, crawling eye-level with thicket, you wish you were dead. The only way out from here is to amputate your own leg and eat your own shoes. On the plus side, you can write a book about the trauma, then get on Midweek with Libby Purves.
Grateful I am then, to trudge behind the trail of rock watchers; those people who know what they're doing, where they're going, and what rocks to catch and eye-spy along the way.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger dance along at the tipping point of the ridge. I want to remember them like this. Wind twisted hair, pinked cheeks and wet wellies. Not like this early morning, blasting the house apart, exploding every brick and bit of mortar: snarls for war cries and fingernails for spear tips. Watch out! That's how girls play.
Sometimes they overwhelm me, these children, with this life. Right now it has sadnesses and an emptiness so great you would never fill a desert with it all. I could be lost and wandering there for years looking for a way out.
But it is a beautiful, cloud bashing blustery day, with an icy edge. The wind belting up those Chiltern hills comes like a cold slap to the face.
Just right. I need that, to bring me to my senses. I need to remember to head in forward direction only, even if it is the wrong way. It's better than nothing. It might help me not to fall out of bed to despair at states and loss I can't control. Not to dwell on unfulfilled promises, bruised hearts and fearful futures. OK, that stuff happens. There's other stuff too. Like this direction, straight ahead. Keeping going, wherever it's toward, let's find beautiful moments along the way, something worthwhile, those moments, worth holding onto.
Are you with me?
If you're using Grit's directional skills, forget it. I might say left when I mean right, and point down that hill when I go up it. Follow my walking directions into the wilderness beyonder and after two hours lost, crawling eye-level with thicket, you wish you were dead. The only way out from here is to amputate your own leg and eat your own shoes. On the plus side, you can write a book about the trauma, then get on Midweek with Libby Purves.
Grateful I am then, to trudge behind the trail of rock watchers; those people who know what they're doing, where they're going, and what rocks to catch and eye-spy along the way.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger dance along at the tipping point of the ridge. I want to remember them like this. Wind twisted hair, pinked cheeks and wet wellies. Not like this early morning, blasting the house apart, exploding every brick and bit of mortar: snarls for war cries and fingernails for spear tips. Watch out! That's how girls play.
Sometimes they overwhelm me, these children, with this life. Right now it has sadnesses and an emptiness so great you would never fill a desert with it all. I could be lost and wandering there for years looking for a way out.
But it is a beautiful, cloud bashing blustery day, with an icy edge. The wind belting up those Chiltern hills comes like a cold slap to the face.
Just right. I need that, to bring me to my senses. I need to remember to head in forward direction only, even if it is the wrong way. It's better than nothing. It might help me not to fall out of bed to despair at states and loss I can't control. Not to dwell on unfulfilled promises, bruised hearts and fearful futures. OK, that stuff happens. There's other stuff too. Like this direction, straight ahead. Keeping going, wherever it's toward, let's find beautiful moments along the way, something worthwhile, those moments, worth holding onto.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Tell me something worse
An unremarkable day. The sort of unremarkable day that wanders past my eyeballs and never utters a word. Perhaps this day hates me. Perhaps it is cruelly indifferent to my need to achieve something, anything, by the death toll of midnight. Perhaps it hasn't yet realised that if I do not create something positive in all the horror, the horror, I may hail the next bus to Beachy Head.
Well, thanks to its unremarkable passing, I shall get my own back on the day. I shall mark its irredeemable pointlessness; the day when I did nothing much, except be dull and pointless and unremarkable.
So this is what we did.
Grit: The lynch pin of the family. Without her holding everything together, everything is lost. Sadly, the lynch pin wanders about the house, glum and aimless, sometimes taking the furniture with her. This is called tidying up. Pointless.
Dig: Sits at computer and complains. Sits at computer and complains. Sits at computer and complains. Oh hang on, is it Monday? He normally does that Mondays. And Tuesdays. Wednesdays as well, come to think of it. Thursdays he might stand up and complain, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sits at computer and complains.
Tiger: Decides to construct cart for toy wooden horse. Surrounds self with essentials: cardboard, scissors, paper, straws, more cardboard, bamboo skewers, wheels, cut up cardboard, horse. Sets about task happily for ten minutes.
Meets design problem. Axle not long enough to connect wheels under cart. Design solution plan A? Ask mummy to do it. Mummy is strapped to furniture. Design solution plan B? Howl, long, waaahhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaahhhh type howling.
Everyone ignores her. Admittedly, mummy Grit may have set the precedent for sitting on the floor surrounded by cut up cardboard and other craft crap, howling, while resembling a bloated frog filled with snotty tears. After ten minutes, Daddy Dig comes in and makes everything alright. Strange, he never did that with me.
Squirrel: Living on Planet Squirrel. Makes fairy costumes from leaves and feathers and tiny silver scales. Sometimes hums. Everyone stops to say coooo and ahhh and lovely.
Shark: Roams about looking for trouble. Makes jellyfish out of chicken wire for papier mache project. Abandons it in bathroom. Makes fairy costume and declares fairies are evil. Wanders off to glower at stuff. Eats loaf of bread. Eyes Squirrel. Wanders about some more, sometimes wearing coat and scowling. Last seen in front room holding head of a koala.
That is what we all did.
Now, I do not want to know what you achieved today if it involves stuff like painting the kitchen, re-roofing the house with one arm tied behind your back, discovering the elixir of life with an old toothbrush and a bottle of lighter fuel, or simply saving the planet and everyone in it.
Go on, make me feel better. Tell me the most pointless moment you had today.
Well, thanks to its unremarkable passing, I shall get my own back on the day. I shall mark its irredeemable pointlessness; the day when I did nothing much, except be dull and pointless and unremarkable.
So this is what we did.
Grit: The lynch pin of the family. Without her holding everything together, everything is lost. Sadly, the lynch pin wanders about the house, glum and aimless, sometimes taking the furniture with her. This is called tidying up. Pointless.
Dig: Sits at computer and complains. Sits at computer and complains. Sits at computer and complains. Oh hang on, is it Monday? He normally does that Mondays. And Tuesdays. Wednesdays as well, come to think of it. Thursdays he might stand up and complain, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday, sits at computer and complains.
Tiger: Decides to construct cart for toy wooden horse. Surrounds self with essentials: cardboard, scissors, paper, straws, more cardboard, bamboo skewers, wheels, cut up cardboard, horse. Sets about task happily for ten minutes.
Meets design problem. Axle not long enough to connect wheels under cart. Design solution plan A? Ask mummy to do it. Mummy is strapped to furniture. Design solution plan B? Howl, long, waaahhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaahhhh type howling.
Everyone ignores her. Admittedly, mummy Grit may have set the precedent for sitting on the floor surrounded by cut up cardboard and other craft crap, howling, while resembling a bloated frog filled with snotty tears. After ten minutes, Daddy Dig comes in and makes everything alright. Strange, he never did that with me.
Squirrel: Living on Planet Squirrel. Makes fairy costumes from leaves and feathers and tiny silver scales. Sometimes hums. Everyone stops to say coooo and ahhh and lovely.
Shark: Roams about looking for trouble. Makes jellyfish out of chicken wire for papier mache project. Abandons it in bathroom. Makes fairy costume and declares fairies are evil. Wanders off to glower at stuff. Eats loaf of bread. Eyes Squirrel. Wanders about some more, sometimes wearing coat and scowling. Last seen in front room holding head of a koala.
That is what we all did.
Now, I do not want to know what you achieved today if it involves stuff like painting the kitchen, re-roofing the house with one arm tied behind your back, discovering the elixir of life with an old toothbrush and a bottle of lighter fuel, or simply saving the planet and everyone in it.
Go on, make me feel better. Tell me the most pointless moment you had today.
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Feeling defeated? Me?
Fuck 'em. Yeah. OK, I know. Drunk blogging might not be a good idea. But it's therapeutic. And Grit's been on the cooking sherry since 4.15pm. Now she has more than a bra to get off her chest.
It all started because, believe it or not, Tuesday 19th January was Big Day.
The Big Day has more drama than Coronation Street. More intensity than Russell Crowe's forehead. More passion than a Mills and Boon romance set in Arthritis ward B with Doctor Smith behind the curtain.
Because Tuesday 19th January was the place to be in this year-long run up to the next step: the Committee Stage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. Whoopee. The Bill that changes a fundamental right about who has the final say in your choice of education for your kids.
The one that says the consequence of non-compliance with the state on allowing them to licence you, subject you to their approval of your power supply, and demand you submit your annual plans for further inspection, is a School Attendance Order.
Now the blasphemy and cooking sherry start to make horrible sense, don't they?
Let's call them coping strategies.
Because I am an average done-no-harm home educating parent who chose off-template parenting and weird lifestyle. Like the freedom to visit the seaside out of school holiday time. For that, I am one of the poor sods about to be blitzed by a government order to be inspected for overcrowding, monitored for lesson plans next July, and faced with a local authority official, asking me in steady tones if I am aware that the government now has a legal right of entry to my home on a 2-week notice.
Of course if I refuse this type of support, I must have something to hide. Like our privacy, Shark's freedoms, 14 gallons of cooking sherry and the amusing way I tie the kids to the radiators and mock them with goats.
So console me. Round here, January 19th was Big Day. I was anticipating it. For weeks.
And I couldn't get Parliament TV to work. Not live. Not on archive. I have tried to watch the footage of this committee, several times. Everytime I go to the site, the router suffers an apoplectic fit, freezes, and refuses to do anything unless someone consoles it with some soothing button twiddling. I daren't go to the site now, or even link to it.
You might be grateful about that.
But I still believe that the committee stage of a Bill is a real information stage, where you can hear many voices arguing over points in a much more helpful way than from the big Balls Wall bashing the boxes.
You could go over to Gill's place instead. There you can see extracts. At some stage I will see the whole lot, and then no-one can stop me having a proper fingerjabfingerjab.
Go on, go over and see. Then at least you can make up your mind that you were right all along not to give a toss.
It all started because, believe it or not, Tuesday 19th January was Big Day.
The Big Day has more drama than Coronation Street. More intensity than Russell Crowe's forehead. More passion than a Mills and Boon romance set in Arthritis ward B with Doctor Smith behind the curtain.
Because Tuesday 19th January was the place to be in this year-long run up to the next step: the Committee Stage of the Children, Schools and Families Bill. Whoopee. The Bill that changes a fundamental right about who has the final say in your choice of education for your kids.
The one that says the consequence of non-compliance with the state on allowing them to licence you, subject you to their approval of your power supply, and demand you submit your annual plans for further inspection, is a School Attendance Order.
Now the blasphemy and cooking sherry start to make horrible sense, don't they?
Let's call them coping strategies.
Because I am an average done-no-harm home educating parent who chose off-template parenting and weird lifestyle. Like the freedom to visit the seaside out of school holiday time. For that, I am one of the poor sods about to be blitzed by a government order to be inspected for overcrowding, monitored for lesson plans next July, and faced with a local authority official, asking me in steady tones if I am aware that the government now has a legal right of entry to my home on a 2-week notice.
Of course if I refuse this type of support, I must have something to hide. Like our privacy, Shark's freedoms, 14 gallons of cooking sherry and the amusing way I tie the kids to the radiators and mock them with goats.
So console me. Round here, January 19th was Big Day. I was anticipating it. For weeks.
And I couldn't get Parliament TV to work. Not live. Not on archive. I have tried to watch the footage of this committee, several times. Everytime I go to the site, the router suffers an apoplectic fit, freezes, and refuses to do anything unless someone consoles it with some soothing button twiddling. I daren't go to the site now, or even link to it.
You might be grateful about that.
But I still believe that the committee stage of a Bill is a real information stage, where you can hear many voices arguing over points in a much more helpful way than from the big Balls Wall bashing the boxes.
You could go over to Gill's place instead. There you can see extracts. At some stage I will see the whole lot, and then no-one can stop me having a proper fingerjabfingerjab.
Go on, go over and see. Then at least you can make up your mind that you were right all along not to give a toss.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Like going into a butcher's and asking the customers to go vegan
I should follow Tiger's lead. Because we all sit down to supper, and we pursue a conversation about something pointless, like syrup.
And suddenly up shoots Tiger, with urgencies, and imperatives, and important things to think and do, and books to read and no time to waste, and she shouts I'm leaving before this conversation gets any more stupid!
I admire her. That's what I should do. But I don't.
I go back into these online worlds to preach to the non-converted, where no-one gives a rat's arse about home education, and less than a fig about changes to UK educational law, and I post stuff like this:
My strength and my weakness is that I am an active participant in the education of my three children.
By 'active' I mean I take on as much of the everyday education of my daughters as I can. So my children don't go to school. I use services, other professionals, support and help where I feel I need. By this mixed method, I believe that my three daughters, all aged nine, have a fantastic, creative and mind-opening primary education.
It is an education my children lead, and it is built around them. It develops their interests, their expressions and their thirst for knowledges in all different areas. In any random week of the year we might visit an art gallery, join an educational party for a museum workshop, spend the day in a craft project run by a local community group, read a novel together, join a geology walking group, and attend external lessons in languages and sports. It's a wonderful mix; it's a renaissance education; it's an education that draws the best of everyone, and uses the people, experts and professionals in our community to the full.
It's also my weakness.
This government does not trust me to provide this education. And it wants you, other parents, not to trust me either.
Last year, this government spread the news that children who were educated outside of mainstream education were 'hidden'. 'Everyone knows', they said, 'that these children are vulnerable, abused, forced to marry, exploited...' Because they were told this, many people unquestioningly replied, 'yes, we know'.
This laid the groundwork for a fundamental shift in education law. Tomorrow, the Children, Schools and Families Bill has a second reading before parliament. In it, I can be denied my choice to provide the education I have built for my children. The local authority will be given the power to say I am officially untrustworthy; that I cannot prove I am providing a rich education; that my children will be better off, safer, in a school that can monitor them and provide them with a state sanctioned education that is provided for everyone. No choice. No individual education. No personal freedom. It would not matter that my children might be lost in this system, or that they might hate it, find it restrictive, narrow, alien. They would get the same as everyone else and that would be FAIR.
But it won't be me, my family, and my children alone who are punished for being different, for finding different off-template solutions to our problems. The state power held in this bill will limit you, too, whatever educational choice you make. Because it passes the ultimate decision about the education of your child to the hands of the state.
Why doesn't this government trust me? Why doesn't this government trust you? Why does it want to licence my education? Inspect my home? Interrogate my children?
I think this government would simply like to better control everything that we all do.
I don't know why they want to control. Perhaps it is good for business. Perhaps from more control, accurate statistics can be passed over to large-scale enterprises about service provision, shopping habits, our 'lifestyle needs', our basic choices, so that all these areas can become controlled, managed, ordered, and monitored too. Where is the trust in a community then?
Yet they want you to think this is all such a good thing. Of course you can't trust people to make educational decisions for their children! Of course we can't trust YOU. The government might say, 'to show what a good job we are doing, here is the proof! Percentage points on GCSE passes; levels of attainment targets; the number of boxes ticked that your child can achieve in all areas in comparison to any other child!'
I sometimes feel helpless in the face of this controlling, centralising, and mistrustful approach. And I feel if we are passive, if we say nothing, then the state will roll further and further into our homes; into our lives; into our decision-making; into our choices; into the very relationship we build with our children, because ultimately, the state will say to the child, you cannot trust your parent to know what's best for you.
I am involved in education, so maybe I can be discounted, because maybe most people out there trust the government to do that job; maybe people need to have that trust in order to function. I don't know.
But please be aware that changes in any education law potentially affect you. Please find out about them.
Finally, because I cannot sit back and do nothing, say nothing, there is a petition here with the words:
'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to uphold that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child, to not undermine parents legitimately fulfilling their fundamental duties, and to assume that the best interests of their child is the basic concern of parents unless there is specific evidence to the contrary'
Please sign it.
Please Grit, next time, just take the Tiger route.
And suddenly up shoots Tiger, with urgencies, and imperatives, and important things to think and do, and books to read and no time to waste, and she shouts I'm leaving before this conversation gets any more stupid!
I admire her. That's what I should do. But I don't.
I go back into these online worlds to preach to the non-converted, where no-one gives a rat's arse about home education, and less than a fig about changes to UK educational law, and I post stuff like this:
My strength and my weakness is that I am an active participant in the education of my three children.
By 'active' I mean I take on as much of the everyday education of my daughters as I can. So my children don't go to school. I use services, other professionals, support and help where I feel I need. By this mixed method, I believe that my three daughters, all aged nine, have a fantastic, creative and mind-opening primary education.
It is an education my children lead, and it is built around them. It develops their interests, their expressions and their thirst for knowledges in all different areas. In any random week of the year we might visit an art gallery, join an educational party for a museum workshop, spend the day in a craft project run by a local community group, read a novel together, join a geology walking group, and attend external lessons in languages and sports. It's a wonderful mix; it's a renaissance education; it's an education that draws the best of everyone, and uses the people, experts and professionals in our community to the full.
It's also my weakness.
This government does not trust me to provide this education. And it wants you, other parents, not to trust me either.
Last year, this government spread the news that children who were educated outside of mainstream education were 'hidden'. 'Everyone knows', they said, 'that these children are vulnerable, abused, forced to marry, exploited...' Because they were told this, many people unquestioningly replied, 'yes, we know'.
This laid the groundwork for a fundamental shift in education law. Tomorrow, the Children, Schools and Families Bill has a second reading before parliament. In it, I can be denied my choice to provide the education I have built for my children. The local authority will be given the power to say I am officially untrustworthy; that I cannot prove I am providing a rich education; that my children will be better off, safer, in a school that can monitor them and provide them with a state sanctioned education that is provided for everyone. No choice. No individual education. No personal freedom. It would not matter that my children might be lost in this system, or that they might hate it, find it restrictive, narrow, alien. They would get the same as everyone else and that would be FAIR.
But it won't be me, my family, and my children alone who are punished for being different, for finding different off-template solutions to our problems. The state power held in this bill will limit you, too, whatever educational choice you make. Because it passes the ultimate decision about the education of your child to the hands of the state.
Why doesn't this government trust me? Why doesn't this government trust you? Why does it want to licence my education? Inspect my home? Interrogate my children?
I think this government would simply like to better control everything that we all do.
I don't know why they want to control. Perhaps it is good for business. Perhaps from more control, accurate statistics can be passed over to large-scale enterprises about service provision, shopping habits, our 'lifestyle needs', our basic choices, so that all these areas can become controlled, managed, ordered, and monitored too. Where is the trust in a community then?
Yet they want you to think this is all such a good thing. Of course you can't trust people to make educational decisions for their children! Of course we can't trust YOU. The government might say, 'to show what a good job we are doing, here is the proof! Percentage points on GCSE passes; levels of attainment targets; the number of boxes ticked that your child can achieve in all areas in comparison to any other child!'
I sometimes feel helpless in the face of this controlling, centralising, and mistrustful approach. And I feel if we are passive, if we say nothing, then the state will roll further and further into our homes; into our lives; into our decision-making; into our choices; into the very relationship we build with our children, because ultimately, the state will say to the child, you cannot trust your parent to know what's best for you.
I am involved in education, so maybe I can be discounted, because maybe most people out there trust the government to do that job; maybe people need to have that trust in order to function. I don't know.
But please be aware that changes in any education law potentially affect you. Please find out about them.
Finally, because I cannot sit back and do nothing, say nothing, there is a petition here with the words:
'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to uphold that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their child, to not undermine parents legitimately fulfilling their fundamental duties, and to assume that the best interests of their child is the basic concern of parents unless there is specific evidence to the contrary'
Please sign it.
Please Grit, next time, just take the Tiger route.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
I should lighten up and play Twister, naked
Sometimes I tire.
I get so low down that there seems no way out. You can say it's my fault, and I should learn to point the gun away from my own feet.
I chose a lifestyle that took on a stupid amount of responsibility. Home educating kids who pot-boil themselves with their own competitive triplet issues is only the start. Having an absent husband doesn't help. The falling-down house with mice, broken boilers, exploding taps, it's like mould on a rancid cup cake. It's like someone says, that's your treat, so enjoy it.
But I can't do otherwise. I live through the choices I make. Like, these kids are my responsibility. I can't hand them over to someone else. Believe me, I've tried. Once we nearly got a babysitter.
Ultimately, I take responsibility for Shark, Tiger, and Squirrel. In all areas. Educationally, what the state offers around me is just not good enough. We can do better. But having made this choice, I have become ferocious in defending it. Now, it's a case of Don't cross me. Tell me I'm not just like you, with your mother loyalty and terrifying dedication. And I bet you have snarling teeth and hackles when it comes to protecting your offspring.
But I tire of having to do that defending job. That's the job where I try to hold back the stuff that I think will damage the lifestyle we've chosen, and the way we've decided to raise our kids; the choices we've made; the investment we've placed in it all; the aspirations we still have - even if I know we are quite capable of destroying those aspirations ourselves with our own stupidities, and because I cannot aim that gun anywhere else than at my own feet.
So I do that defending job by handing in the petition of evil to the MP of pointlessness; by grappling with the ton of statements, actions, reactions from Ofsted, local authorities, other home educating voices; by reading background notes from the DCSF, from Badman and Balls. And I am grateful to others who've presented ideas for me, who provide clear explanations, who are calm, when I want to rip up my clothes and tear out my hair.
Because sometimes, because of the work of others, I can stop thinking for a while about defending my choice. And I can take the kids to the science workshop, and I can enjoy watching this lovely mixed age, mixed-kid group, all work together to make ideas, build connections, and simply have fun.
Then I can come home to make lunch, and fuss about Tiger who these days will eat only beige. And we can sit down on the sofa together and have a cuddle, and I don't have to man the barricades or nail flags to the roof, I can just smell my daughter's hair, and know that this is the best I can do, and the way I've chosen to live is the best I can make.
I get so low down that there seems no way out. You can say it's my fault, and I should learn to point the gun away from my own feet.
I chose a lifestyle that took on a stupid amount of responsibility. Home educating kids who pot-boil themselves with their own competitive triplet issues is only the start. Having an absent husband doesn't help. The falling-down house with mice, broken boilers, exploding taps, it's like mould on a rancid cup cake. It's like someone says, that's your treat, so enjoy it.
But I can't do otherwise. I live through the choices I make. Like, these kids are my responsibility. I can't hand them over to someone else. Believe me, I've tried. Once we nearly got a babysitter.
Ultimately, I take responsibility for Shark, Tiger, and Squirrel. In all areas. Educationally, what the state offers around me is just not good enough. We can do better. But having made this choice, I have become ferocious in defending it. Now, it's a case of Don't cross me. Tell me I'm not just like you, with your mother loyalty and terrifying dedication. And I bet you have snarling teeth and hackles when it comes to protecting your offspring.
But I tire of having to do that defending job. That's the job where I try to hold back the stuff that I think will damage the lifestyle we've chosen, and the way we've decided to raise our kids; the choices we've made; the investment we've placed in it all; the aspirations we still have - even if I know we are quite capable of destroying those aspirations ourselves with our own stupidities, and because I cannot aim that gun anywhere else than at my own feet.
So I do that defending job by handing in the petition of evil to the MP of pointlessness; by grappling with the ton of statements, actions, reactions from Ofsted, local authorities, other home educating voices; by reading background notes from the DCSF, from Badman and Balls. And I am grateful to others who've presented ideas for me, who provide clear explanations, who are calm, when I want to rip up my clothes and tear out my hair.
Because sometimes, because of the work of others, I can stop thinking for a while about defending my choice. And I can take the kids to the science workshop, and I can enjoy watching this lovely mixed age, mixed-kid group, all work together to make ideas, build connections, and simply have fun.
Then I can come home to make lunch, and fuss about Tiger who these days will eat only beige. And we can sit down on the sofa together and have a cuddle, and I don't have to man the barricades or nail flags to the roof, I can just smell my daughter's hair, and know that this is the best I can do, and the way I've chosen to live is the best I can make.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
That's the third person today who says...
... Oh dear! What can we do?
And my answer's the same.
If you don't like the sound of it, tell someone. Write to your MP.
If you want to sign the petition, do so.
Use your blog.
Print off this leaflet and stick it up on your local library notice board.
Read around, and get informed.
Do I sound tired? I'm tired. I need a break.
And my answer's the same.
If you don't like the sound of it, tell someone. Write to your MP.
If you want to sign the petition, do so.
Use your blog.
Print off this leaflet and stick it up on your local library notice board.
Read around, and get informed.
Do I sound tired? I'm tired. I need a break.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Isn't life amazing with a timetable?
You see? Now I am officially in control of time. I can order about minutes and hours. I have a command centre. I am queen of timetable.
Today I command that we achieve. And not just wearing shoes, like yesterday.
Today is different. Today I can say we are going to Shenley Woods at 11am to learn about forest management techniques in ancient woodland. And then we are leaving at 1.30pm prompt, arriving at the Museum of St Albans felt workshop 2.24pm. Where we will make felt.
And I'm sure Shark, Squirrel and Tiger achieve with this structure too. Or they would have done, had they stuck to my timetable. Just don't ask. This is an ongoing process, and I'm building one day at a time.
But look here. At the woods.
We can achieve knowledge about how to kill pigeons with a Harris Hawk. And we learn that Harris Hawks are native to South America. I didn't know that. Did you know that? Knowledge is achievement, isn't it? Make me feel good and say yes.
Then we learn about the history of charcoal burning, the coppicing of woodland, the banking and ditching of animal enclosures and how many pigs you can release in medieval woods before they're taken off to the compound and you're fined.
Oh, and how to make a wood kazoo with a rubber band and some gratifyingly dangerous tools.
Come 2pm, we're learning to travel at exactly 50mph down the M1 monitored by the speed and distance cameras while learning Spanish with Michel Thomas on the in-car CD player. I'm beginning to like this sense of order.
And then there is felt making! How relaxing is that?
I don't want to be that woman who makes timetables, who controls things, and who says I'll read one chapter to you and no more, but right now, when the front room, taps, life, are all spinning away uncontrollably, and that husband is just about to step back on that plane to go east, then a timetable is a good structure to have.
And who knows, if it works, I could say goodbye to all the other control issues I have. Like bladder, mouth, memory, flab, mice, and bath plug.
Today I command that we achieve. And not just wearing shoes, like yesterday.
Today is different. Today I can say we are going to Shenley Woods at 11am to learn about forest management techniques in ancient woodland. And then we are leaving at 1.30pm prompt, arriving at the Museum of St Albans felt workshop 2.24pm. Where we will make felt.
And I'm sure Shark, Squirrel and Tiger achieve with this structure too. Or they would have done, had they stuck to my timetable. Just don't ask. This is an ongoing process, and I'm building one day at a time.
But look here. At the woods.
We can achieve knowledge about how to kill pigeons with a Harris Hawk. And we learn that Harris Hawks are native to South America. I didn't know that. Did you know that? Knowledge is achievement, isn't it? Make me feel good and say yes.
Then we learn about the history of charcoal burning, the coppicing of woodland, the banking and ditching of animal enclosures and how many pigs you can release in medieval woods before they're taken off to the compound and you're fined.
Oh, and how to make a wood kazoo with a rubber band and some gratifyingly dangerous tools.
Come 2pm, we're learning to travel at exactly 50mph down the M1 monitored by the speed and distance cameras while learning Spanish with Michel Thomas on the in-car CD player. I'm beginning to like this sense of order.
And then there is felt making! How relaxing is that?
I don't want to be that woman who makes timetables, who controls things, and who says I'll read one chapter to you and no more, but right now, when the front room, taps, life, are all spinning away uncontrollably, and that husband is just about to step back on that plane to go east, then a timetable is a good structure to have.
And who knows, if it works, I could say goodbye to all the other control issues I have. Like bladder, mouth, memory, flab, mice, and bath plug.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
November now has a timetable
Grit is worn out, fed up, and mangled flat.
My solution at the end of the day is to create a large timetable for the week ahead and pin it up where everyone can see it every morning and I remember what I do.
In my timetable is listed lessons for children, group activities, things for everyone to do, and a free day on which they sort themselves out.
You can hear the rustling of the autonomous crowd as they shake their heads in despair. The fact that I have actually timetabled a day of autonomy is not in the spirit of things at all.
I can say the sound of that distant collective sigh is far better than the rasping of Grit's broken fingers drawn down her own despairing face.
On the plus side, Dig has flown back and mended the tap.
My solution at the end of the day is to create a large timetable for the week ahead and pin it up where everyone can see it every morning and I remember what I do.
In my timetable is listed lessons for children, group activities, things for everyone to do, and a free day on which they sort themselves out.
You can hear the rustling of the autonomous crowd as they shake their heads in despair. The fact that I have actually timetabled a day of autonomy is not in the spirit of things at all.
I can say the sound of that distant collective sigh is far better than the rasping of Grit's broken fingers drawn down her own despairing face.
On the plus side, Dig has flown back and mended the tap.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Another reason why I don't give in
Thanks to the Anglo Saxons, we've read Beowulf Red Fox Classics edition and The Hobbit second time through; made solemn progression to the Franks Casket; dipped into a dozen and more books about the years after the Romans and before the Normans; enjoyed ordinary days at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village once, twice, every year; jumped on the Secklow mound in Milton Keynes; and silently wept for the loss of that crumbling old house in Northumberland close to the sandswept shores of Lindisfarne.
It all makes sense anyhow, visiting Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Here Shark, Squirrel and Tiger take part in an archaeological dig, meet King Raedwald, tour the burial mounds with a guide who is dramatist, historian, storyteller, then drink hot chocolate before setting out for home.
It sounds unlikely, given this holiday lifestyle, that I can say this year has been draining and damaging. But it has been so. Not because of the sheer hard 24/7 work of it, nor the shouty, sulking, opinionated children, nor the bizarre communities of people we meet, nor for our falling down house, nor the absent husband now supping beer somewhere in Kowloon. The damage has come from constant insinuations, a steady dripdripdrip of negative press reports, a government's sneering suspicions, wondering why as home educators we deserve to be hated. The origin is the DCSF and the Badman review, and I have resented the hours I have spent there, fretting, because those hours are more precious spent elsewhere.
We have met the state half way in our choices for education; we have been supportive of local projects that explore options for children and parents; we have sought to build good relationships. By this, we thought we could look forward to a time when families can choose some school, part school, no school, un school. Throughout, we believe that education is more important than difference, and that there are as many ways of education as there are children. We extended trust, and as parents we expected to be trusted in turn.
Badman betrayed us and all of that. And if it were not for the strength and gladness of ordinary people we meet daily in our gadabout life, people like Bryan the archaeologist who bursts into warm laughter, and shakes my hand firmly on finding that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are home educated, declaring from the heart That's the best way to live! If it were not for those people who make up our everyday world, by now I probably would have buckled under the weight.
It all makes sense anyhow, visiting Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. Here Shark, Squirrel and Tiger take part in an archaeological dig, meet King Raedwald, tour the burial mounds with a guide who is dramatist, historian, storyteller, then drink hot chocolate before setting out for home.
It sounds unlikely, given this holiday lifestyle, that I can say this year has been draining and damaging. But it has been so. Not because of the sheer hard 24/7 work of it, nor the shouty, sulking, opinionated children, nor the bizarre communities of people we meet, nor for our falling down house, nor the absent husband now supping beer somewhere in Kowloon. The damage has come from constant insinuations, a steady dripdripdrip of negative press reports, a government's sneering suspicions, wondering why as home educators we deserve to be hated. The origin is the DCSF and the Badman review, and I have resented the hours I have spent there, fretting, because those hours are more precious spent elsewhere.
We have met the state half way in our choices for education; we have been supportive of local projects that explore options for children and parents; we have sought to build good relationships. By this, we thought we could look forward to a time when families can choose some school, part school, no school, un school. Throughout, we believe that education is more important than difference, and that there are as many ways of education as there are children. We extended trust, and as parents we expected to be trusted in turn.
Badman betrayed us and all of that. And if it were not for the strength and gladness of ordinary people we meet daily in our gadabout life, people like Bryan the archaeologist who bursts into warm laughter, and shakes my hand firmly on finding that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are home educated, declaring from the heart That's the best way to live! If it were not for those people who make up our everyday world, by now I probably would have buckled under the weight.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
The only reason for the past few days
My centre stage. Peaseblossom Tiger and Woodland fairy Shark. Attendants to Queen Titania. Sworn enemies to Puck, mischievous sprite. A wonderful performance in the woods (and the rain).
Take a bow, children. I would travel all this road, and more.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
We were on a roll for mostly happiness and delight this summer
But now that the bicycle thief has wheeled off with our treasures in the night, there is pretty much a grey wet blanket of despair flopping over this house right now.
Part of me simply shrugs my shoulders about the theft of Tiger's bike, because hey, it's summer, kids are out and about, her bike was a beat up old wreck suitable for museum display, and I wouldn't mind a White Bicycle Plan round here, so I can hardly shake my fist at the local bicycle entrepreneur.
But then there are those welling tears and the heaving sobs from my little girl. Those little crystal droplets rolling down her pink cheeks do not signal her forgiveness and understanding, and if I could grab that bicycle thief by the scruff of the neck, show him what torture he's wrought and then give him a good sharp kick on his saddlesore behind, I would do that. I would call it revenge, and probably be fined, but that's how I feel on behalf of Tiger.
Fortunately for us all, the sun comes out and I take Tiger, Squirrel and Shark to the weekly Wednesday summer playdate in the woods. Here the hammocks, nets, swings and weaving stuff are all scattered about and the kids scamper off. Tiger would like me to take photographs of her on the swing. I say that this week I would but I have left my camera behind. I really hope I have done that, and I haven't left it carelessly thrown on the passenger seat of the car, where a casual thief with a chunk of rock might pass by on this sunny afternoon, and simply help himself.
Part of me simply shrugs my shoulders about the theft of Tiger's bike, because hey, it's summer, kids are out and about, her bike was a beat up old wreck suitable for museum display, and I wouldn't mind a White Bicycle Plan round here, so I can hardly shake my fist at the local bicycle entrepreneur.
But then there are those welling tears and the heaving sobs from my little girl. Those little crystal droplets rolling down her pink cheeks do not signal her forgiveness and understanding, and if I could grab that bicycle thief by the scruff of the neck, show him what torture he's wrought and then give him a good sharp kick on his saddlesore behind, I would do that. I would call it revenge, and probably be fined, but that's how I feel on behalf of Tiger.
Fortunately for us all, the sun comes out and I take Tiger, Squirrel and Shark to the weekly Wednesday summer playdate in the woods. Here the hammocks, nets, swings and weaving stuff are all scattered about and the kids scamper off. Tiger would like me to take photographs of her on the swing. I say that this week I would but I have left my camera behind. I really hope I have done that, and I haven't left it carelessly thrown on the passenger seat of the car, where a casual thief with a chunk of rock might pass by on this sunny afternoon, and simply help himself.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
At least this has stopped the damn den building
The next obsession sweeping this house is here.
Consequently I am sweeping the floor of paper cuttlefish, squid, killer whales and fried eggs.
This is all thanks to the origami workshop I coerce Shark and Tiger to attend down the library at the last minute today as a distraction from the damn den dwelling.
I shall be glad when these holiday activities are over and we can get back to normal.
Consequently I am sweeping the floor of paper cuttlefish, squid, killer whales and fried eggs.
This is all thanks to the origami workshop I coerce Shark and Tiger to attend down the library at the last minute today as a distraction from the damn den dwelling.
I shall be glad when these holiday activities are over and we can get back to normal.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
I will find peace in the woods. Take the noose off me first.
Hobbling, bent double, and limp armed with hammer fatigue. Also, driven mad with constant demands for den building.
Every item of junk from house now strewn over garden. Includes ten-year old sun umbrella found behind hedge, pressed into service as new den roof.
I may sue Interaction for mental pain and psychological abuse, unleashed on Monday.
But I am Grit. I remain determined not to die. And it is Wednesday, and Wednesday means fun in the woods. Rain is pissing down. Never mind.
Hunting down the woodland playworker we find him stringing up netting between trees.
Tiger attacks that while I lie on the cool woodland floor and groan.
Next, swinging on a rope. Her, not me.
I complete a course of woodland therapy by basket weaving a furry woollen fish and hanging it in the trees where I can watch it gently swim through the air.
Every item of junk from house now strewn over garden. Includes ten-year old sun umbrella found behind hedge, pressed into service as new den roof.
I may sue Interaction for mental pain and psychological abuse, unleashed on Monday.
But I am Grit. I remain determined not to die. And it is Wednesday, and Wednesday means fun in the woods. Rain is pissing down. Never mind.
Hunting down the woodland playworker we find him stringing up netting between trees.
Tiger attacks that while I lie on the cool woodland floor and groan.
Next, swinging on a rope. Her, not me.
I complete a course of woodland therapy by basket weaving a furry woollen fish and hanging it in the trees where I can watch it gently swim through the air.
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