All for charity

I decided to inflict a few days of ordinary home ed / life stuff on planet earth.

Let's face it, the planet is already weighed down with so much crap, it will barely notice another bucketful.

(Although if this week's postings do tip the balance - sending us spinning into collision with the sun - then I apologise in advance.)

Shark took part in a swimathon last week organised by the Rotary Club.

We were late entrants, so we only discovered the rules after we arrived. Apparently, our team had one hour to swim as many lengths as possible. We also discovered we could have six members in our swimathon team.

Six! Our home ed team had two swimmers. At the last minute, two other children joined in. (Apparently they were not home ed, they said they just didn't want to swim with their own teams.)

Then we discovered one of our new entrants was asthmatic, and the other couldn't swim. We discovered this half way up the pool, when, on his turn, he sank.

As the home ed team (back to two members again) completed its 6 lengths, we noticed how the school teams were ridiculously competitive, boasting 1,298 and 1,301!

We thought that at next year's swimathon, we could easily show the world a thing or two about how home ed can organise itself. So, next year, I am joining in. I am going into training, and I'm going to do it in fancy dress. (I cannot be bothered to collect sponsors or anything. Just give a load of spare cash to some charity or other and I'll dress up anyway.)

(Proves that home ed children are just as good at joining in, if not better.)

Swimming soaked my brain

ALRIGHT THEN. DAMN. I ADMIT IT.

Hong Kong sometimes does stuff better than England.

dammitdammitdammit. England, why oh why did you do this to me? What did you do with your swimming pools? You crapped on your outdoor lido heritage, then ripped up all the fun pools for miles around and bashed them all into institutional, attainment targeted, no-fun rectangles, made for tedious machine-drilled school swimming lessons!

But you should take a lesson from the Kowloon Park Public Swimming Pool. This place is something. Imagine two indoor pools for lane swimming, add professional dive pool, plus three large, super curvy outdoor leisure pools; the outdoor pools on three split levels, with paddling, shallows, water walks, islands, sitting areas and columns and waterfalls and everything. Except slides. Big fail on the water slides. But super clean changing rooms, open designs, great facilities and four of us get in for less than a fiver.

Even misery grit goes swimming. THAT'S HOW GOOD IT IS.

And another thing

That's a strange idea about kids educated from home: they're unlikely to take part in activities if the parental interest doesn't lie there.

Eh? That doesn't work, does it? Take sports.

The gym, I like. The kids think I'm crazy. But I'm not interested in ballet and Squirrel did three years of the torture. I have no particular interest in sailing either, but Shark loves it. And Tiger! Great snorty horse creatures are the stuff of my nightmares! Tiger, she loves them. In England, she regularly and happily sits on a horse, while I sit in the car and happily test the chocolaty bits of digestives.

I don't think I'm alone. I think there are thousands of educating parents out there - school-choosing or otherwise - who encourage their kids in one sport or another while themselves disguising active loathing.

Each week they probably suffer miserably by the sides of rugby pitches, or feel excluded and marginalised at dance classes, or desperately try to weasel out from any parental involvement of school sports days. We still turn out, cheer on, and face up to it all.

But what choice do the children have, especially if it's a school-bound sport?

Of the alternative educating parents I know, one common bond we have is our shared experience of horrible times with sports at school. It makes us all the more determined that our kids should choose for themselves what sports to do, and that their choice should be enjoyment and involvement.

When I was a kid I loved swimming. The swimming pool was one of the first places I went to independently; I can recall the thrill of catching a bus there alone for the first time; every week I imagined myself in training for a triumph great and glorious, even though I was a terrible swimmer and a competitive no-hoper. It didn't matter to me. I adored it all.

Then I attended a school where swimming was a compulsory part of the curriculum. Within a year I was terrified of it. As the hour approached, so did the panic attacks, sweating, shaking, stammering. It was nothing but fear and humiliation. With water. Everything that I'd loved about it, I hated. When it finished, I didn't go swimming again until I was aged 32. That's what school did for my passion.

School did that for all sports. Hockey nearly killed me. Athletics, I loathed. Netball, I dreaded. Tennis, it left largely unscathed, because the PE teacher told us we would never do much, so we may as well use it as an excuse to run about in the sunshine. I could probably pick up tennis again today.

But the worst of all was ice skating. I hated ice skating. With a hard hatred that could slice ice better than hot skates. The six ice skating lessons in 1974 were the only lessons at school from which I played truant. So catch me now, Mrs Watson.


The whole miserable experience has made me sure that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger shouldn't go through that route. But that they should choose their sports, follow their enjoyment, and engage to their comfort and ability levels. Today, we visit the ice rink. Shark wants lessons when we arrive home in England. Tiger and Squirrel already reached the level of their satisfaction.

I don't need to suffer. Ice skating is no pain to me. The kids can do any sport they want, regardless of whether I like it or not. Anyway, Starbucks does a decent coffee, and it's just round the corner from the ice rink.

Warning: unplanned life ahead

In Recommendation 1 of the recently published Badman review of home education, we read this:

At the time of registration parents/carers/guardians must provide a clear statement of their educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes for the child over the following twelve months.

Guidance should be issued to support parents in this task with an opportunity to meet local authority officers to discuss the planned approach to home education and develop the plan before it is finalised. The plan should be finalised within eight weeks of first registration.

Hello Mr Badman and Mr Balls. When I taught in an actual school with penned up human beings who clawed at the windows on sunny days, desperate to run outside, play, be alive, I doggedly stuck to the lesson plan that I had so carefully prepared, and it was of this type of reproduced crap.

Teacher led introduction of new topic how language varies (15 mins): 1. according to context and purpose [for example, choice of vocabulary in more formal situations] 2. between standard and dialect forms [for example, in drama, the effect of using standard or dialect forms] 3. between spoken and written forms [for example, the differences between transcribed speech, direct speech and reported speech]. With support, children conduct brainstorming session (15 mins) to create wall display on types of talk. Teacher led wrap up session (15 mins) on what we have learned about types of talk in preparation for written exercise in lesson 2.

I knew this would tick boxes should OFSTED drop from the skies, dribbling with the forthcoming pleasure that if I didn't deliver some goods pretty quickly they could point the finger of fate in my direction and denounce me as a BAD BAD TEACHER. So basically I protected my job, fed the kids garbage and became little more than a dead delivery vessel for prescribed knowledge sanctioned, regulated and inspected by the government.

Making teachers perform pointless exercises is nothing more than making them count number plates to keep them busy. Shoving it in front of parents is an attempt to make teaching sound professional, because we hope it will confuse the average How's-Joe-doing parent. And for the kids? Sorry - educational consumers - it is a load of arsetwaddle acting as a facile replacement for real-world experience and real-world interaction and nothing more than containment.

But now I home educate, we can kick this shite into the long grass - and then go jump up and down on where it landed.

Out here in home education land we may discuss language use in real-life contexts with real-life human beings because we are part of this society, community and city. And we can do that when and where we want because it has arisen as part of being alive.

So you can shove your vacuous planning. Today the weather is superb. I take Shark, Squirrel and Tiger swimming at the outdoor lido. And hey! THAT WASN'T EVEN PLANNED.

But do you know what the local council plans to do with this wonderful lido and community resource?

Close it down and sell it to a developer so they can meet the government's new homes targets and build another housing estate.

We are told this is a better future than the one we sought.

Grit's guide to home ed (1) Lessons

Holidays are crap, aren't they? I spend every day with my head in my hands because in holiday time there is no timetable and we aren't doing anything.

Then it's January and everyone's back at work. Lessons start again. French. Gym. Trampoline. And I spend every day with my head in my hands complaining we're doing too much. Now our lives are structured with lessons. And aren't I missing the whole point of home education? That we have the right to loll about on the sofa all day? We don't need lessons. Or timetables. We can kiss goodbye to routine. Watch daytime TV. Wear fairy outfits, no knickers and wellington boots. Go for a pee without having to put up our hands. Or getting off the sofa. Yeah. We should be able to do what the hell we like.

And I support that view, really. This is one of the freedoms of the UK. Every home educator directs their educational choice and right now we don't have to follow a curriculum, use timetables or sit in lessons if we feel those things get in the way of an education.

But if we want lessons, they're all around us. Your local sports centre, library, museum, they're touting for your custom. If you have the energy, you can organise a fine week of workshops, a month of lessons, a bunch of outings, visits, meet-ups, make your own plans, hire specialists and tutors, organise groups. Then there isn't even time to scratch your own backside.

And this is a problem with home ed. Should we do lessons? Or lolling? Some weeks it would be easier to fly to the moon than get that balance right.

Well here is the first in an occasional series of Grit's guide to the home ed minefield for the uninitiated. For those of you with enough mental stability to send your offspring to school and thus have the leisure to sit at home reading this stuff while you wait for the manicurist.

There are seven forms of home ed lessons. Really. I've thought of that many.

1. Reading aloud from a book over breakfast while the class has its mouth stuffed full of Cheerios and can't argue.

We do one of those lessons three or four times a week. Today it is how the heart pumps. I don't know why I am driven to discuss body parts at meal times. I just am. Tomorrow I might read aloud the Wikipedia entry on Babylon, so we can go to the British Museum.

These are very good lessons. The ones you do because you want to. I bet the autonomous crowd are clapping now.

2. Lessons you have paid for. So you are bloody well going if you have to hobble there on stumps.

These are good lessons. Dance, Swimming, French, Drama. Stuff like that. Grit likes these lessons and pays for quite a few. I can escort Shark, Squirrel and Tiger on an educational pretext to lessons that sound good if we are stopped by the truancy patrol; dump them for an hour then mooch around Sainsbury's fantasising about the nutritional benefits of Nutella. My only regret is that I cannot find lessons in Ancient Greek. If I could this would be excellent because it would really piss off the we-home-educate-because-our-son/daughter-is-academically-gifted brigade.

3. The crappy boring worksheets, CGP books, National Curriculum books, structured courses, stuff like that.

These are the lessons of Grit's super ego. She would like to do these. I could swiftly slot Shark, Squirrel and Tiger into school knowing they only have to remember to put up their hands before they pee.

On the downside, a pre-packaged curriculum is expensive and boring. To do maths you may have to believe in God. And they require coherence, discipline, organisation, a quiet approach to study, and family unity. We're stuffed.

4. The zeitgeisty stuff like computer-based lessons because everyone's learning online now.

Even I got out my credit card for Education City. Then there is Starfall and the BBC. No shortage. But this approach can be psychologically damaging. You may even become schizophrenic. You spend all morning directing kids to the computer and all afternoon trying to get them off it. Confusing. In Grit's experience, best avoided because one computer between three is not enough and the egg-timer solution doesn't work. So potentially a very expensive approach indeed.

5. Lessons organised from within the home ed community. How trendy and New Age is that?

We all have areas of knowledge, right? Like playing chess, making puppets, telling stories, flower arranging. So it is sensible to share that knowledge. Co-operatively. Together. Let's hold hands.

This would be great if it worked. In reality it means bringing together a disparate bunch of home edders who have nothing in common apart from the fact they home educate. Some may actively hate each other and spend their time conducting guerrilla warfare behind the wiggly eyes at the craft session. But let's lay that aside shall we ladies? We can all be passionate about flower arranging in Sumatra if we try.

6. One-off lessons, workshops, talks, lectures delivered by educational staff at places like museums, parks, galleries, posh houses, aquariums, mines.

Hit and miss. If the leader thinks they are talking to the public then they speak eloquently, knowledgeably, wisely and with good humour and grace. If they think they are dealing with children they have strange ideas about what it is important for the kids to know, like National Curriculum Attainment Target Level 3 Point 5 instead of What did the Anglo Saxons use to wipe their bottoms?

If the education officer expects to deal with a school group they may also make bizarre demands, like put up hands before speaking. This leads to the situation where all the home ed kids put up their hands while simultaneously shouting out the answers. Anyway, Grit likes these types of events and thinks they are the best, mostly because she can look at a fish or a posh house or an Anglo-Saxon brooch for a cut-price student entrance fee.

7. This last type of lesson is brilliant, and free. It is called other people. Including YOU.

We shuffle our carcases off the sofa to get down to the Co-op. There's Doreen at the till. She will not huff and puff and shoot disapproving glances at me because Squirrel has her shoes on the wrong way round again. She will help us count out the change from mama's beer and then wait patiently while we count it out again and argue. She will even smile and wave a till receipt at us to prove she is right. There, you see. Doreen teaches life skills and maths.

Then there's the hobo on the town bench. He has something to teach us too. We have to get past him while he is hurling abuse at a can of Bulmer's. He sets off all the whywhywhy questions. Mama delivers her treatise on society and politics all the way home.

There's the old lady at the charity shop, so we get to talk to her about economics, regional development, charitable status and arthritis. And the young man who stops us on the street to sell us a pizza. We collar him for meteorology and whether you can add pineapple to the thin and crispy.

Then there's the young mother with the toddler, the librarian, the bank teller, the thirty-something woman who draws in her mouth, stares and tuts because it is inadequates like me who make our schools fail; then the truanting teenager, the road sweeper and the single childless twenty-something who strides past us in heels and flicks Shark into the gutter. You're all teachers of something. So do it wisely.

Now, with a week filled with lessons like this, please don't think that I am sitting here with my head in my hands thinking, of all things, there is nothing to do.

Clearly, not every lesson looks like this.

Why home educate? (4) Sport

We get to watch. We get to watch when Shark steps with singular determination to the sailing dingy; when Squirrel twirls, and with that face she thinks a serious ballerina should have; we get to watch how Tiger's eyes light up when she clings to a horse, and we even get to bite our knuckles and pray they don't all fall in, fall over, or fall off.

Every week throughout their lives we see some new and wonderful physical ability. From standing up to chew on the table edge, to falling off the climbing frame in the playground and not dying, swimming for the first time, cycling without pink princess wheels, then archery, abseiling, skiing. This month alone I've watched gym, trampoline, tennis, ice skating, kayaking. And the best of it is I can be right there when it happens. I can seek out any type of lesson that's wanted, we can choose the places and times to go, the instructors we like; and I can look at my little faces delighted and excited as a sudden new skill is found and disbelieved and found again.

Today I watch Tiger at the ice rink. Months ago she clung to the sides, her legs taking off without her. Then I watched tentative toe work, stretching out to the first leg's distance; then the sudden forward movement, one foot in front of the other, and then shooting straight across the ice with that face, that mixture of pure delight, curiosity, strength, ambition, shock, like Where did this come from?

Today I watch while Tiger jumps, really, jumps from the ice, with thin metal blades strapped to the bottom of her feet, and she jumps, up in the air and there is a breath of a gap between the ice and her blades and then down she comes back onto that ice and she stays upright! She actually stays upright! And her face is amazed and inside I scream wildly and declare that is the most stupendous and amazing moment and it will stay in my heart forever. Because now there's no stopping her. And next she'll be twirling and gliding and spinning and doublebackflipping on that ice. And as that vision grips me along with a terrible fear that makes me want to strap her into a helmet and body armour, I am gaping in awe, and I feel privileged and honoured, and with that triumphant fraction of a gap between the ice and her blades, have watched her grow up with a huge bound in confidence and self.

And I am not saying that any parent of a schooled child feels none of these things. Oh no. What I am saying is that home ed gives us all here at the Pile the time in which Tiger and her sisters can experiment, explore, choose and pursue whatever sport they need. I am there not only to set it up for a Tuesday or Saturday morning and then complain about it, but to see it working through and watch those moments of glory when Tiger does not fall flat on her backside for the third time in a row.

If it were only this. Because the local school provides numeracy and literacy hours, but not the thrilling diversity of sailing hours or trampoline hours. And their lack would put me in a mother's role of making up the deficit, probably with emergencies like swimming in the event of a canal or a drunken student party, ten years from now. But I couldn't cram our ambitious range of sports into those leftover weekends and holidays without Tiger giving up on me at 10.30 on a Saturday morning and shouting Mother! Leave me alone! Enough exercise already! Jam doughnuts next!

But most importantly, if Shark, Squirrel and Tiger went daily to school, I simply wouldn't have the imperative that home ed provides. In the land of home ed, the buck stops here. I look to no-one else to come knocking to provide a sports education for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. I look to theirs and mine own judgements and Dig's overdraft. The knowledge of this responsibility gives me a huge kick up the rear end; it impels me to go out and find these sports and activities, plead for rates or special treatment, and get them all organised, scheduled and done. And I wonder would I do this if my kids all went to school? Because there on a Monday, Shark might come down and shout Muuuum! Have you washed my gym kit? If I don't have it, Miss makes me sit out.

Or worse, she might follow it with, On second thoughts mum, can I miss gym today?

The A421 is a very fine road

Memo to Grit. Please look at the ruddy map before setting out with Shark, Tiger and Squirrel for the swimming pool with the wave machine. Or simply power up the Satnav and, along with the woggles, costumes, shampoo, conditioner, hairbrushes, towels and bags, take it with you.

Either of these two procedures will prevent you standing at the side of the road somewhere off the A421, in tears, possibly needing a respirator, calling Dig on the mobile to navigate the last ten minutes past the A5134. Otherwise, Grit, if you keep going on like this, you are going to have a breakdown.

And incidentally, do not yell at the children who have all got out of the car to take swinging punches at each other, that we are all going home now, right NOW. This is a pointless threat which no-one will take seriously, because everyone knows that after you've invested over an hour trying to find the swimming pool with the wave machine, the last thing that you are going to do, is GIVE UP.

And on reaching the swimming pool with the wave machine, when Doreen on reception says that it is lucky it took an hour an a half to get here and now it is the off-peak time, so everyone gets in half-price, remember that you need to be more like Doreen. Smile. And think that every cloud has a silver lining.

In the nick of time

We are invited to a birthday party. This is great, because it is a pool party, and we haven't been swimming for ages, so I can tick socialisation and swimming, all in one go.

Going to the pool party which starts at 6.45 actually means forgetting all about it while pottering in the garden, losing track of time because the clock doesn't work, then realising at 6.20 that we are going to a pool party and it starts in 25 minutes.

Now comes the horror that is the realisation that we have no cards or presents, nor have prepared swimming gear. Worse, I have not fed the children since midday. Since they are now wading knee-deep in satsuma peel and have picked out the centre of the loaf again leaving the crust behind like a sloughed off skin, I deduce they are starving and need immediate carbohydrate. Without that, we will not get through the next hour without a major triplet tantrum. That three-way explosion, of course, will be perfectly timed to blast the pool apart just as everyone else is singing Happy Birthday to the happy children for whom the adoring mamma and pappa just paid a wheelbarrow load of cash to hire out a swimming pool, lifeguards and inflatable submarine.

There is only one solution. Run around the house with hands clamped to head shouting Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!

When that is done, jump in car, covered in soil and smelling of courgette fertilizer, and rocket on two wheels straight to Tesco while simultaneously shouting instructions to Dig about where the swimming costumes were last seen, last week in a pile somewhere over there. At Tesco, run through the present aisle, grab two gift bags and stuff them with sparkling glitter pens and drawing paper then run off to the Green and Black's chocolate department. I may be in an hour of need, but there is no way we are sinking to dog chocolate.

At the checkout, rip tags off goods and write happy birthday messages while checkout woman narrows eyes and stares. Hand over large quantities of cash. This is one problem solved by throwing money at it.

Drive home, screech to a halt outside the door, shout at children to get in, throw packet of fruit scones at them and drive off. Drive back to shout at Dig, who is still standing at the side of the road and who didn't get in quick enough. Shout. Drive off while Dig has one foot out of door and say it is all his fault because he should know what the time is and I told him there was a pool party on Wednesday and he should bloody well remember these things because I am covered in soil.

Arrive at pool party 10 minutes after start. Shoo children about, order Dig around and look at water. Need drink, large gin and tonic would do except there is no bar and glass is not allowed. Observe we are the only people I can see who are wandering about with presents in gift bags and lock presents in a locker. Then slump on bench, pick fight with swimming pool attendant over air humidity, take a deep breath, and relax.

There. Another successful arrival, which counts in the Grit book as better late than never.

Naked men or Bali?

I spend the afternoon wishing I was swimming. This has to be a pretty bad afternoon, even by my standards. In fact, it is so bad that by 5pm I am reminding myself about the actual benefits of sitting in someone else's bathwater. That would be, I reason, far better than waiting five hours for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to come out of the pool so we can all go home.

Waiting, in this instance, means the horrible realisation five minutes after arriving at the pool viewing area, that I have forgotten to bring a book. There is nothing to do. I tell myself, in wilful self-delusion, that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are unlikely to spend more than an hour in the pool, so I could amuse myself by making idle conversation with a stranger about whether they sell crisps here, and then pacing up and down.

After twenty minutes doing that, I then spend the next four hours in the dense and humid atmosphere of the 'Beachside cafe'. After two hours, and with no sign of Shark, Squirrel or Tiger, who presumably have taken themselves off to the bit of the pool called 'beach oasis' or something similar, I give in and go up to the coffee bar and inquire about the coffee. Is it freshly ground? I ask. Nikki, who stands behind the till with half-closed eyes and a vacant expression on her face that looks like her brain was removed for disposal last Wednesday, barely flickers a glance to register my question before shifting her chewing gum over to the other cheek, swallowing, and replying dreamily, Nah. Instant.

By 4pm, my face looks like Nikki's and, like her, I make my own amusement. I imagine that in the middle distance, probably some way between the water slide and the plastic palm tree, there may be a concealed entrance to a mythical male changing room where naked men travel backwards in time to refresh themselves Roman style in a plunge pool. From the little I have read of physics, time holes emerging from the fabric of the universe should be a possible occurrence and may indeed be happening in a swimming pool near you. But only if you keep watching. The space behind the plastic palm seems as good a place as any for this to occur and anyway, the fantasy keeps me quiet, stops me accosting complete strangers for chatting purposes, and knocks 30 minutes off the waiting time. Until a wet woggle hits me at the side of the face and Squirrel emerges. Are you coming out? I ask eagerly, jumping up. No she shouts, and then, look after my woggle. That's the only sign of Squirrel for another 45 minutes, so I go back to staring at the plastic palm, and wishing.

Of course I should have been wiser. Before setting out to take Shark, Squirrel and Tiger for their PE lesson (let's call it that, and not 'Fooling About at the Leisure Pool'), I should have checked exactly what is so special about this place, and why everyone from around here jumps in cars to travel to it. I see immediately on entry. Compared to the local sluice we frequent, where on a good day you may avoid the poo, but on a bad day will be enveloped by floating snot, this is a palace.

For a start, the woman on Swimming Pool Reception wears a smart polyester blouse, doesn't have nicotine stained fingers or bleached hair and doesn't, as she glances up to clock us coming, stop mid-flow in a stream of effing-and-blinding to take a sharp breath inwards, and then start off again. This place is definitely upmarket. Not only does it have Doreen in a polyester blouse and the Beachside Cafe, it also has a water slide, plastic palm trees, fake rain, a pool with Jacuzzis and rivers built in, and a wave machine. This last item has to be one of the most intriguing things to have entered Grit's meagre world since she saw the panther on Monday and conjured up a naked Roman athlete at 3.30.

Oh girl of the shires, I can imagine you say, do you not know of wave machines? We have them everywhere in our upmarket cities, possibly even in Sainsbury's. But it is the first time I have ever seen one, and despite myself, I find I'm agreeing with Shark, Squirrel and Tiger on the way home, Yes, the waves are amazing! They've kept Shark, Squirrel and Tiger in delirious excitement and in the pool for nigh on five hours. The staff set the machine going every 30 minutes. Then you can grab a surfboard and pretend you're off the coast of Bali.

Next time, given the choice of a five-hour wait alongside Nikki in the Beachside Cafe, with the sadly dwindling hope of finding naked men fresh from the plunge pool, I may just choose to go swimming with Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, and be in Bali.

Duty done

Thank God. Tiger, Squirrel and Shark have reached the age of eight, as of February. This means I am no longer forced to get in the swimming pool.

I have suffered these watery lessons for years. Private lessons and - the horror - leisure swim, have been the only way outside the comfort zones of school swims and understanding clubs, that I could get my three noisy unschooled kids in the pool together. Home education requires self-sacrifice indeed.

But with the ticking of the clock on the midnight hour, 24 February, Tiger, Squirrel and Shark were deemed by the local council to be sensible and able enough to swim without an adult in close attendance. And hopefully too without an ambulance or another letter of apology to the swimming pool.

In anticipation of the great-8 event, last September I cancelled the swimming lessons. In December I boldly put myself forward and promised, 'I am never going swimming ever again'. Come February Grit whoops for joy and in March we fanfare the proud event by invading John Lewis to buy swim costumes. Then off we go swimming. And Grit does not get in.

Now, I can sit in the viewing area. The first time I do that, I want to jump up and down with happiness, like I knew how to play football and may have scored a goal, or learned how to fly and saved the world. I have done it. Ordeal by public chlorine. Four years worth. I should get a tattoo, get drunk, be rubber-stamped from the council, swear in a public ceremony, mark this rite of passage with howls and whoops, dance naked round the pool, anything, watching the three of them, Tiger, Squirrel and Shark, clamber into the pool and shove each other about and know that I do not need to be there.

I sit smug, watching Tiger, Squirrel and Shark splash each other, pretend to find pearls and chase dolphins. At four o'clock, the swimming club comes in, with mummies who have schooled duties, and who tell their Justines and Damiens to swim 25 metres for Level 2 or else. I sit there free and pleased with myself and consider my duty done. Unlike the swimming club mummies, I have my Home Ed Duty Swim Award.

And then Tiger comes in her pink sequined costume with goggles that need adult wisdom and a quick repair. She looks at me with big reproachful eyes and whispers 'I like it when you come in. You do good twirls. It is more fun. Please mummy, next time will you get in?'

Fun? Oh dear. Now here's a new dilemma.

The horror, the horror

What a choice of bloggery today.

Should it be the letter from the police about the state of the car (again)? Here we are, 9.30am, and the letter arrives. At first I think it must be the summons, but no, it's the letter which reads:

'a car park attendant, local warden or police staff recently noticed you had left some belongings on view in your car ... anything on display in the car does present an opportunity for car thieves ...'

Feeling picked on, Grit goes to the car to peer in, hoping to see the gold bullion she's accidentally left lying around the back shelf, or the Gucci handbag and diamond necklace casually thrown on the front passenger seat. But no. She discovers a Squirrel coat which is so filthy it's trying to burrow out of the back window, and three folders with the contents spilling out across the floor - quite clearly three 7-year olds French lesson a La Tete, and not a couple of CDs holding the names, addresses and bank details of five million people. And then, this, in the open glove compartment:


I'm going to address myself to all professional car thieves now. Can you see the empty rice cake packet in the middle there? That's the blue bit of plastic which I am saving so I can put it into a recycling bin. I know it's quite valuable. Organic Kallo, no less. So I'll move that immediately. Or perhaps you can make out the sandwiches? They're the brown square things that we took with us last Wednesday. One day I'll get round to putting those on the bird table, so don't steal those. And then there's the banana skin, hanging out of the ensemble like, well, I daren't say. Supply your own simile.

Perhaps the viewer to this lot assumed I am carrying around the latest spot of modern art, maybe a little something by Tracey Emin. Either that or they have a bunch of letters to send out and the poor sod whose name is Grit is on their database, flagged, thanks to the frequent calls to the police station because we live in Smalltown, the recent car accident and the way I am probably video-taped while standing in the queue at the Post Office complaining about the surveillance society.

If not that blog then, how about Shark, Squirrel and Tiger disappearing into the garden to collect mud, seconds after mummy Grit, at 3.50pm, said something like 'Let's go to John Lewis in ten minutes'. And then it started to pour with rain, great bucketfuls of the stuff. Forty minutes later I am dragging in a soaked Shark covered in mud, a smelly Squirrel and an over jubilant Tiger with very pink cheeks, the sort of pink that says 'I will probably catch my death from this, and it will be all your fault'.

Perhaps I shouldn't blog about these things at all, but about the atmospheric squeal that Squirrel's growing lungs are now capable of. This squeal is so encompassing I bet you heard it this afternoon, late tea-time. Soon it will be the stuff of legend. It will be 'Where were you when Squirrel screamed?' Just a bit longer, I guarantee, and she will have this squeal fine-tuned to pitch perfection and we will be calling in the glaziers and apologising in the Sunday newspapers while dabbing at ourselves with hankies.

Of course I could simply blog about the shopping trip into John Lewis to buy swimming costumes. I fully accept I've brought this on myself. The very thought drove me to it: the shaming glances other mums will throw me, pretending not to, when they see my 8-year old Shark emerge from the changing rooms in her polka dot bikini, suitable for age 6 - and which I have twice tried to lose by hiding in the cupboard under the stairs, claiming it has been eaten by the swimming pool fairies. I have been forced to smile at her delight when yesterday she rediscovered this wardrobe malfunction and then had to express great enthusiasm for her lightbulb moment that 'now we are 8, you don't have to join us in the pool and I can wear my favourite bikini!'

Because of the late hour - John Lewis closes at 6pm - I am forced to take everybody. This is something I have learned not to do. I can coax one child in and out of the car and I can hold hands with her to make sure she walks in the same direction as me, usually under the pretence of mother's love not wanting her to get run over or knocked into the course of an oncoming bus. But three I cannot do. Even though I am very determined, and have no personal dignity any more, so will do whatever it takes, publicly, including sing and pretend to be a bat (I have done both, and more) to get everyone's attention to follow me, follow me in this direction, now, now, now, I still have only two hands. This is a serious shortcoming. It is more of a disadvantage when all three, the same age, are fighting for hands, space, jostling at pavement edges, pushing and yelling. So scarred is Dig that he now refuses even to cross the road outside the house with all three of them to get to the tennis courts opposite. Worse, he says, because their goal is within sight and a sister must not get there first. Competition, to the death, if necessary.

But today I've promised swimming costumes in preparation for next week, and this is the only opportunity I can see. And we're late, thanks to the attractions of mud.

My first problem is the sheer noisy weight of us as we enter John Lewis. I cannot say any of my children are shy, retiring types - except when you stand in front of them and ask if they are enjoying their home education: then they will stare in horror at you and turn bright red, acting as if they never saw outside the front room before today - usually they are noisy, spilling out beings, locked inside their triplet bubble and continuing their loud impenetrable chatchatchat as if invisible to the outside world.

I try to warn them. I say, look, can you see how everyone is staring? First, you all look the same; people are confused, and will watch you. Second, you are very loud, and often have screamed in public; people may know you. Third, we are taking up the entire aisle now, so please can we walk single file and keep a little quieter?

None of these work. In the swimming costume department Shark sees a sales assistant and whispers, loudly, 'Shop assistant! Smile!' All three suddenly stand bolt upright in a line and put on a display I guess they might like to think indicates 'we are innocent'. I can only wince; I may have something to do with this after all. For the last two years I have taught them to try and look normal when we, school age kids in school time, see the community police officer coming towards us on his rounds.

But of course now it is too late. We have attracted the attentions of a smiling shop assistant who continues to smile even when Tiger declares very loudly that she 'isn't wearing that' in a tone as if offered a dead toad, then Shark brings down a line of hangers and costumes with over zealous arm movements. Shark clearly takes after Grit who manages to bang her head on the projecting arm of a clothes display, moves back and bumps into Squirrel who is foolish enough to stand behind her looking in another direction. In fact the whole expedition is fast becoming a Laurel and Hardy routine without the fun.

In amongst the mayhem I cannot help but feel we now have the one-to-one attentions of the sales assistant like a local police force, sent there to guard the stock, probably because the mother has brought in these kids as a front so she can half-inch the pop socks. I try and throw her off by getting everyone in the changing rooms, which are far too small, so two disgorge out to wander unsupervised through the rails. At this point, the chipper assistant attaches herself to Tiger and is trying to contain her with an 'indulge' routine - one which I've tried myself - treating her like some teenage shopaholic, crooning 'What do you think of the pink? It's very you'. My 8-year old Tiger is lapping it up and probably expecting this sort of treatment every Saturday from now on.

At closing time we emerge, arguing, from the shopping centre. Squirrel says she is happy with last year's pink bikini and I'm praying it fits. Tiger is swinging a new pink costume with sequins, looking a bit too Mae West and for which I blame the sales assistant. And Shark has a replacement bikini, in blue. For Shark, there is no other colour.

There is only one advantage to this, and that is that I can count the swimming ordeal mostly done. Until we get to the pool.

Self

Today is a day when I discover why I'm finding it so difficult to live with Elizabeth Hurley. She's hopeless as an au pair. But she's a personable character. She teaches us a bit of French and she cooks a few fruit tarts.

Well, this is what happens today. And it's nothing more than the smallest of moments.

This term, there's no swimming lessons for Grit and all the little junior Grits. The self-sacrifice required was tipping me over the edge. First the routine of dragging myself through someone else's bathwater every Wednesday morning. And then being broke, thanks to tennis lessons. And then there's the trauma of getting everyone in and out the car without a fight breaking out over a woggle. Plus the chances of Tiger making it through the lesson without going bonkers at Fish is zero. When we get home there's nothing to eat but raw potatoes. And as Shark, Squirrel and Tiger can swim some required meters, for the moment I've decided my self-sacrifice in this direction is complete.

So this term I decided we swim when we want to. Or rather, since I cannot take three children aged under eight into the pool, I can take two in when I want to, or I can palm one onto Elizabeth Hurley and I don't go swimming at all. In fact, there are lots of possibilities opening up now I don't feel I have to go.

But Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are not aged eight yet. So today Shark goes swimming with Hurley and I take Squirrel round Ikea. Tiger stays at home, where I hope she is not snarling at Dig. Tiger has taken against Elizabeth Hurley, which I'm sympathising with, but we have told her it is bad grace to chant 'If she's going I'm not going!' even if I say that myself. But Tiger, I say, I try not to chant it in front of the person I'm referring to.

Anyway, I enjoy a quiet hour with Squirrel in Ikea. We spend nearly £20 on a pot to hold tomato sauce and some other essential items I forget right now, all because Ikea don't have the embroidered lampshade at £3.50 we came in here for.

Then it's lunch, and I have yet to cook it, so me and Squirrel go back to the swimming pool to collect Shark and Hurley. We wait for Shark and Hurley. And we wait. And we wait some more. And some more. Then we wait a bit longer, even though Grit has gone striding in to the changing rooms (twice) shouting 'Depeche-toi!' and some other choice words which I hope neither Shark nor Hurley can properly understand. I have a very hungry Squirrel in the car. At home there is a hungry Dig, uncertain what to do about lunch for us all, and a very, very, hungry Tiger, who does not do well on hunger pangs. And then there's a famished Grit. Shark, struggling out of the changing room with towels, woggle, bikini, and goggles on her head, says she is hungry too, and asks what is for lunch.

Well, I say to Shark, I will have to make something quick when we get home. We just have to wait for Elizabeth Hurley to blow-dry her hair. And we wait some more.

Then I wonder why Elizabeth Hurley isn't gnawing at the swimming pool floor tiles in desperation like the rest of us. Ah, of course. She's taken a large packet of digestives to the poolside. And scoffed them.

Ermintrude goes swimming

It is Wednesday. Usually that means misery because it is swimming day. But not today. Because Ermintrude is here. I can feel a gloat the size of the Midlands spreading over me right now.

I say, innocently, 'Dear Ermintrude, would you like to go swimming today with the children?' I tell her that going swimming would be a lovely cultural experience to have in la belle Angleterre. Indeed, going swimming is a perfect opportunity to learn a lot of useful English. In the reception to the leisure centre you would overhear the staff talk to each other and you would learn conversational phrases like 'F*** off. I'm not f***ing doing the extra f***ing shift.' Then in the changing rooms you would overhear useful idiomatic expressions like 'Where's the f***ing cossy?' Then there are the notices to read all about swimming in someone else's bathwater. You would even benefit from some sociolinguistic material. Listen to Fish instruct the children. She says 'R-i-i-i-i-ght' in a very drawn out way, which really means, 'Are you being bolshy again because if you are I'm going to ignore you'.

I think at this point Ermintrude was trying to tell me that she would rather stab herself in the head than go swimming, but unfortunately I could not understand Ermintrude's English, and my limited French seemed to fail me totally. So I said 'That's settled then', and bundled Ermintrude and her swimming costume in the car with Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.

I cannot tell you whether Ermintrude enjoyed the experience. All I can say is that tonight she has been on the phone to her parents for 50 minutes and has checked the timetable of the trains back to Francois in London three times now. Perhaps I could find out what she really thinks when I ask her to go swimming again next week.

Not anything

Grit is not in a good mood.

Scheduling is not my strong point. I am not an organiser. I sometimes say things like 'Yes! Book us in for the sofa-making workshop on Tuesday!' Then 20 minutes later I am saying 'I don't think we are doing anything on Tuesday. Put us down for four tickets to see the childrens version of that 3-hour monologue on cannibalism'. Then when I get home I see that every Tuesday for the last two years we go to French club.

Anyway, today we have ended up in no places doing nothing.* And this time, it is not all the fault of my dreadful organisation.

We start off with the not art and play. I like art and play. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger disappear to fight over who gets to play with Am in the garden. Then I get to have tip-top quality chat time with Jol and Michelle and Bee and all the nice home ed ladies who do not run off and hide when they see me like some do. But today we did not go to art and play because we had not horseriding and not swimming.

Next, we did not go swimming. We already missed our lesson on Wednesday but Fish always says 'Never mind! Just call the desk and tell me what time you want on Friday!' Fish is a very nice swimming teacher and not at all bossy, like I've read they can be.

So I call this morning. Unfortunately I do not speak to the nice Fish. I speak to the awkward Jelly. Jelly says Fish is not there. Jelly will not take a message for Fish. Jelly will not give me Fish's mobile number which I already have but cannot find. Jelly will not give me Fish's home number even though Fish has already given it to me and I cannot find that either. Four phone calls later and I have still not got hold of Fish but just keep getting the awkward Jelly. By then it is time to go to horseriding so I have to give up swimming. I say to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, 'Never mind, at least there's horseriding.' Not.

We all get in the car to go to the stables. We are late. This is partly because Glastonbury, the visiting gardener, has come to pull the ivy away from the flues and gutters and decide it is all the neighbour's fault because it is their ivy, and it is partly the fault of Squirrel, who says she wants to wear her new denim skirt with the loveheart pockets and I say you cannot get on a horse with your skirt with the loveheart pockets unless you sit sidesaddle. So this negotiation over denim skirts and leggings delays us by 10 minutes.

When we arrive at the stables the lady is not in a good mood with us. We are late and she says she cannot extend our time because she has to cook lunch, so there. Now at this point I might just be able to start some negotiation, but then Squirrel, Shark and Tiger see a dog.

Squirrel, Shark and Tiger are terrified of dogs. They are even terrified of mongrel Lucy, the stable dog, who is aged 17, blind in one eye and disabled in one back leg. Lucy doesn't really walk but spins round because of her dodgy leg. Actually the spinning bit is a little scary, but you can tell by the way Lucy's fur is coming out that she is a very old dog and not likely to do any savaging of any creature in the near, medium or long term.

As soon as Squirrel, Shark and Tiger see Lucy the one-eyed, three-legged mongrel dog, they start to scream. I mean really scream. Tiger climbs up my back in her terror shouting 'Mummy help me! Mummy help me!' She gets to my head and knocks off my glasses onto the stable floor. Squirrel is hanging on my arm and knocks my shoulder bag to the floor, spilling all the contents out. Shark is clinging onto the only available leg I have because the other is buckling under the weight of Tiger. The whole unbalanced weight of our bodily edifice is pulling me over, and I will go because of the weight of Tiger. It is only with the application of my elbows to Tiger that I stop myself from falling over and crushing Squirrel.

Now this would be funny if I were not at the centre of it, and if the stable lady were not watching this performance with her arms crossed, wearing a very impatient expression indeed. Lucy is doing her spin-walk manouevre as fast as she can to hide under the table. She will probably crawl off to die and that's another black mark against Grit and all the little junior Grits.

It's not surprising that the stable lady isn't really in the mood to negotiate, the lesson ends before it begins and we all go in ignominy home. On the way home in the car I try to tutor Shark, Squirrel and Tiger in some tactics of how to behave with people when you want something from them. I tell them a good tactic is not to scream in front of them or kill their dog.

We have had a very not day. And I am not in a good mood.

*Since I am a person who has to achieve something everyday in order to survive the suicidal tendencies, I can say that the only saving moment of the day is the fact that we did go to Maureen's Discount Shop and bought three pairs of plimsolls. Maureen did not look happy at the sight of Shark, Squirrel and Tiger running about the shop and jumping up like spring lambs, but some things I just have to ignore.

Swimming again

We're ten minutes late. I've brought the old towel by accident which has a big hole in the side, and frayed edges. I wish I'd remember and just throw it out. And I still haven't replaced my worn-out flip flops so my feet have to touch the slimy tiles. I must be pulling a face that makes it look like I have an affliction.

Then when I finally get in the pool it's occupied by a man shaped like a pencil and a woman shaped like a blob of melted fudge. They spend quite a bit of time going through a routine that looks to me like it should have a triple X rating, and I rather wish they'd stop. I hope the children don't see, and spend some time swimming up and down in front of Pencil and Fudge so I can act as a curtain. It probably encourages Pencil and Fudge. They probably think they have a willing audience. At that thought I get upset, pull a very disapproving face, and consider getting the lifeguard who sits on top of the ladder to give them a ticking off. Then I reckon I will be accused of being fattist, thinnist, or prudist, and probably prosecuted under an Act of Incitement.

I reason, as I swim up and down, being a curtain, pulling an even uglier face than before, that if I was prosecuted I might be banned from the pool as an undesirable. Things are brightening up. I wonder about interesting ways I might get banned and be unable to bring Tiger, Shark, and Squirrel to swimming lessons. Ever again. I could drink vodka in the pool from a bottle I've shoved down my cleavage, if I had one. I could shout rude words, randomly, at the woggles. I would splash people and laugh.

Actually, I don't have to stare at Pencil and Fudge for too long. When the lesson's over, the girls decide they'd like to get out the pool early. Tiger's looking queasy and I wonder aloud to Shark and Squirrel that she might be sick. This was an error. If we stayed, and Shark was really sick, we might be banned then.

Astonishingly, there's no fuss in the cubicles. Foolishly I've told them about the bait in the car, in the form of three cherry cakes. That's enough to inspire everyone to get dressed quickly and get through the door. But Shark twists her ankle on the way out and limps through the exit. I wonder if we could be eligible for being banned on the basis of an acquired disability.

But no. The problem is, in the swimming pool we attend, virtually anything goes. Next week, Pencil and Fudge will still be there, indescribable horrors will be floating on the surface, and if it's term end, someone will be spitting, screaming, or taking a quiet wee. How I hate it all. I think if I parade up and down naked holding a placard that simply shouts 'BAN ME!' they'd still let me in and congratulate themselves on their policy of inclusion. Damn.

Wednesday

Shark doesn't make swimming any easier. We're late out of the house today because of a towel.

Shark can't use a dark blue towel, apparently. It has to be a light blue towel. Oh dear. Tiger's picked up the light blue towel and got in the car with it. Shark goes bonkers.

After ten minutes I abandon Shark in the house while I fetch petrol. When I get back she's sitting on the stairs clutching the dark blue towel. It has threads hanging off it where she's bitten it. And it has a strange shape. It looks suspiciously like she's strangled it. I get her in the car. Tiger, seeing her arrive, and probably fearing that Shark's about to draw blood, jettisons the light blue towel out the car door as we set off, somewhat complicating the towel negotiations later at the swimming pool.

We miss twenty minutes of the swimming lesson. Fish, our swimming teacher, who is probably one of the kindest women on the planet, runs the lesson on for us, so the girls don't miss so much. Shark, who's cheered up enormously once she's in the water, looks like she's over the towel incident, and I'm thinking I could just manage to get through the day.

But then we have the towel trauma all over again in the cubicle. Shark locks herself in. She doesn't smash the cubicle up this time, so we're making progress, but she refuses to get dressed. I point out that she might have to walk to the car in her swimming costume and that the temperature outside now is minus 3. She says she doesn't care. After 30 minutes I say I don't care either right now and go off to wait in the car.

It takes 50 minutes to get Shark out of the cubicle. She sat and waited until she drip-dried so she didn't have to touch the dark blue towel. It's thrown out the cubicle anyway, and it's lying, bitten, strangled and beaten, in a puddle of swimming pool water.

So I can add this to my weekly list of things to remember and do: don't cross Shark on Wednesdays, and hide the light blue towel.

It is Wednesday

9.15 am. It is swimming. I think I am going to have a breakdown.

4.00pm. Everything was as predicted. I am developing a stammer.

6pm. If you are concerned, I can only refer you to the diary entry for the 11th January.

11.00pm. I am going to bed to weep.

Organised misery

I've organised swimming lessons. I must be mad. I hate swimming lessons. The children love them. They were very sad when we suspended them to go to Aus. I opened a bottle of champagne.

First it will be that I can't find the swimming costumes. When I find them, I'll remember that Shark needs a new one because hers is too small, or Squirrel's seam has come apart, or Tiger's managed to get some horrible-looking stain on hers so she looks like a chemical hazard in need of bleach.

When we leave, everyone will be arguing because I haven't got the goggles. I say goggles are their responsibility. They say I always have them. I say I only always have them because children are always losing them. Of course I have to take the goggles away. Anyway, it's guaranteed I haven't got the goggles, and neither have the children.

Then it's the towels. The only one I can find will be frayed at the edge, or have a strange scissor-made hole somewhere that I bet fits a unicorn's head, or it'll be an over-washed grey towel with paint on that I promised myself I would cut up as cleaning cloths, and then immediately put back on the towel shelf.

When we get to the baths it's the hair. All the children have very long hair because they claim it hurts when it's cut. This is impossible and I tell them so. Of course I won't sound convincing because I never go to the hairdressers either. Not again. Not after the fire incident. So I have to threaten swimming caps, which is even worse than having hair put up in a ponytail. Then they'll let me wrap up hair in ponytails, grumbling. By this time we will be a guaranteed ten minutes late because I won't have found a car parking space and we'll have parked miles away. We of course won't be able to leave the house ten minutes earlier because I'll be looking for the swimming costumes.

Then it will be the 20 pence coin I need for the locker where we store all our clothes. I won't have a 20 pence coin, so I'll have to carry all our belongings to the poolside and desposit them under the sign that reads 'Please do not deposit your belongings at the poolside. Please use the lockers provided.' I would use the lockers provided if I had a 20 pence coin. If I use the lockers without a 20 pence coin, someone will steal my shoes.

By then the children are in the pool and Shark will have an argument with Fish, our swimming teacher. Fish knows the warning signs now, and she'll back off. She had to close the pool the time the argument went too far. Shark had already been carried out, as stiff as an ironing board; she'd then locked herself in a cubicle and taken to smashing it up. It took 30 minutes to get her out. We had to send a letter of apology.

If we manage the last fifteen minutes of the lesson without being sent out or carried out we have time for a leisure swim. I hate leisure swim. The children jump on me and force me to twirl them by holding them out and spinning them round. I don't mind one twirl each but ten twirls each makes me feel sick. Then I'll want to go home. I'll have to bribe them to get out. And we have to do the shower. I hate the shower. Everytime I'm in it I shudder at the memory of the time I had to clean up the poo. It was everywhere, and it wasn't even my baby. The mother had legged it. That's the sort of place we go swimming in.

Then it's back home, where Dig has been in charge of preparing lunch. By then the children will be famished. If we're lucky, Dig will have made us baked potatoes. If we're unlucky, he'll have forgotten to turn the oven on. Last time we discovered those delicious raw feasts it was 2.04. The chippy closes at 2.00.

And so it goes on. The lingering smell of chlorine and the horrible itchiness of it. The horrible slimy tiles in the toilets and the cramped changing room where I can barely turn round to stare at someone's chewing gum on the back of the door. And then most of all I hate the sight of me in a swimming costume. I try not to look. I've organised our first swimming lesson of the term for next Wednesday. Perhaps I can be ill.