A bad day for little Grits

Mummy Grit, with her fragile ego and hormones, has been sorely damaged over the last 24 hours, as any reader of this daily news blog will know.

In fact she is so damaged by yesterday's incident that Mummy Grit has issued a statement to the little grits. The statement reads:

'I am not home educating ever again. That's it. I've had enough.'

The first reaction, obviously, that this statement begs for, is for Tiger, Shark and Squirrel to come grovelling, daintily weeping their apologies, preferably on bent knees and with handkerchiefs and not wiping their noses on their tee-shirts and dresses, and that they do a genuine bit of meekness and say 'I'm sorry we won't do it again whatever it was'. An extra big grovel, of course, is required from Squirrel for her 2,000 repetitions of the 'I don't care about you!' proclamation delivered at full pelt yesterday in the High Street.

But I am sad to report that today, things have steadily fallen to an ugly state of affairs.

This morning, Dig, ambassador for gritlets, passed Grit on the stairs and Grit passed him the message that unless a Squirrel apology at least was heard by 11 o'clock then she would withdraw all educating services forthwith and a state of misery would exist between us.

Sadly, I have to report to you, readers of Grit's day, that no such apology has been forthcoming. Consequently, mummy Grit is now in a sulky hole from which it is impossible to move without significant loss of pride. Either that, or she has to do some pretty fancy footwork tomorrow to make it appear that she actually wins the moral high ground over an 8-year old and can continue home educating in the manner of going to museums and doing what she likes - and yet appears to have reprimanded Squirrel in the process. It is these things I am fighting for. Face, pride, moral authority over an 8-year old, and having a good time. I am certain that I will prevail.

And so today Dig has been forced to take over the home educating duties while a sad, sulky mummy Grit returns to work in the office next door.*

Now we can say that this is a bad, bad day for the little grits. Because the only model of school Dig knows is a 1950s boys boarding school in the north-east of England. So he does exactly that. (Bar the naked swimming obviously, because we haven't got a swimming pool.)

First, he sets the early rising alarms and shouts that breakfast will be cleared at 8.30 and lessons begin at 9.00. At 9.05, he stands by a blackboard in the schoolroom and gives everyone a moral assembly. At 9.30, he writes today's date on the blackboard and underlines it. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger dutifully write this in their new exercise books. At 9.40, Dig begins to conjugate verbs and writes those up in chalk. And down they get copied in three exercise books.

By midday I can only hope the little grits are reflecting on their form of apology to mummy. It is only a matter of time, dear reader. Only a matter of time.

Either that, or I will have to feign the broken leg again.

* The book Grit is setting uses the following example, which has cheered her up a bit:

'I exist with one dog. I call Jim. I love dog. Each day I all take Jim go park stroll. It whole body all be black colour only. Exist nose be white'.

Which just goes to show there is, indeed, a calling for TEFL teachers.