Yes, science lessons look like this

In home ed land, I sometimes experience those days that I can't really fault. But I'm not allowed to kiss strangers in public places, so I'll show my gratitude by blasting it out, toot-toot, on the blog.

Home ed is a wonderful, varied land to live in. I don't see kids humiliating, bullying, or threatening each other; I don't see slavish following of teaching methodology taking precedence over personal interaction; I don't see adults demonstrating their power over kids, nor spending their hours working out sanctions, punishments, exclusions and threats.

I see learning taking place naturally, socially, with friends. I see tolerance, support, a helpful spirit of inquiry, fun, and protein folding.


I see a group of 15 kids make double helix bonds from carrot sticks, peas, raisins, marshmallows and blueberries, then follow it up by making a copy using ideas about transcription and translation of DNA.






All the time in the workshop, I keep whispering to Tiger, But how do you know what to do? She looks at me suspiciously, maybe I'm pretending to have the intellectual range of a medieval peasant, then answers, I listened.

As a mother, I'm grateful. I don't have to spend all my days doing the work of an institution: forcing three individuals into uniforms; worrying about what they're doing and who they're meeting in worlds far away from mine; yelling about getting out the house in time, the same time, everyday; complaining about each item the school requires; enforcing rules I never made. I can enjoy freedoms and choices; I can join in, enjoy the process of learning, unpicking, making, asking; I can talk and laugh with like-minded people, then answer Yes! Let's eat cake.


Some days, they are just so lovely, they make sense of all the rest.

But still, so great is this heart today, better watch out, stranger in public place.

Home educators missing out social skills?

Of course, the answer's NO! Home ed kids don't miss out social skills. Just think about the social skills Child A (aged 11) has employed today.

1. Got herself out of bed, dressed appropriately, and made ready to go.

While mother is slopping in pyjamas with dribble on the bosom? Falling out the shower 10 minutes before she is due out the house? So what? She is an artist. Call it the start of her new public installation work: The Artist in Motion. Smelly & Dishevelled.

2. Bought breakfast en route to the public transport for all family members.

Okay. The mother-artist on duty doesn't actually provide breakfast. Well, what's the point? Squirrel has stitched up a good deal with our cake-woman street-seller for daily freshly-baked pastries. Still warm! And Hong Kong food culture is snack-based.

3. Checked the transport card is suitable for travel.

Yes, this is Squirrel's job! Don't look at me. I'm not doing it. I bung her fifty dollars to buy the top-up from the old woman in the booth. (Rats! I've forgotten my card! Surely Squirrel can deal with the guard on duty at the turnstiles, then slip me hers to get me through to the ferry?)

4. Seated the family on city transport.

Where are we going? Can someone remind me? Squirrel, sort it out. Go and ask that man to move. Look, today I am wearing matching socks. Consider that my triumph.

5. Purchased lunch from 7Eleven.

Just be quiet, you creepy lunch-box police types. This overpriced cheese sandwich is not a statement on modern motherhood. Hong Kong food culture is SNACK BASED. Now Squirrel, don't forget to ask the cashier for straws. And are they going to stock raisin bread again? Ask the assistant for me, there's a good girl.

6. Provided the details for the group meet-up at the right time, in the right place, at the right sports venue.

Thank goodness Squirrel is firmly in charge. She can recall which group of people we are meeting in which place today. Different from yesterday. And tomorrow. (My confusions are understandable, surely.)

7. Acquired the correct-sized sports gear from the attendant. Joined in appropriately with the mixed-age, mixed-ability sports group for ice skating session.

Squirrel, get it sorted with the young men behind the desk regarding the gear. And don't ask me again. NO WAY am I strapping thin metal blades to my feet and trying to stand upright on a sheet of ice. If you need me, I'll be in Starbucks with the rest of the hangers on, aka the parents.

8. Assisted, supported, and encouraged the junior in the group who is convinced she will fall over.

Ahhh. My girls are kind and caring. (Truly.)

9. Agreed time to exit the sports venue.

Twelve kids today to negotiate on a time? Blimey, that was quick. But must your mother leave Starbucks? The seat is so cosy and warm! The hot chocolate is delicious!

10. Made a selection of 12 cup cakes at fancy cake shop.

Squirrel, here is MATHS. Cake choices are as follows. 12x22; 3x54; 1x350; 2x140+3x22. You must feed 12 people. You have two minutes to decide. Order from the cake-shop woman and tell me how much cash to hand over.

11. Located group at meet-up venue for impromptu birthday gathering!

Honestly, if someone doesn't find the way out of this shopping centre, eternity will finish and I will still be wandering around the blasted back of Versace. Thank goodness! Squirrel's asked the woman at the concierge desk.

12. Behaved appropriately for birthday gathering.

What? You mean no screaming? Shouting? Pushing? Or grabbing at the chocolate cake with scrabbling claws fiercely yelling GERROFFTHATONEISMINE. (For which I humbly apologise.)


13. Completed same in reverse; i.e. managed transport home, coordinated mother, organised all payments, negotiated purchasing of supper (not from 7Eleven).

Social skills? You can call them responsibility, resourcefulness, self sufficiency, care for others, sympathy for mother (okay, maybe pity), and dealing respectfully with a lot of people in a lot of jobs in real-world situations.

Now please excuse me. I have to go back to drinking lager, dribbling down my vest, watching Sky TV, and burping.

Time for the thank yous

Of course I'm changing my tune! Hong Kong is amazing. And I am grateful for having had the opportunity to experience life here.

Especially Sham Shui Po, one of my favourite places on earth.


The geeks know this Chinese district of Hong Kong for the computer centre. Leave them in there. Come out on the streets with me. Messy, noisy, dirty, overcrowded, with rat warning notices everywhere. I love it.

If you are a dedicated crafter, maker or doer, it is nirvana, and you will never want to leave.

There are shops here like Lewis's wardrobe. Pass by each doorway, cluttered with buckets of beads, and you will wind your way into a labyrinth of buckle, button, trim, zip, sparkle, ribbon, sequin, decorative metal, and thread.

The only lion and witch you will encounter are inside your own head, struggling for control of your purse, because $4 for a bag of yellow sequins is a bargain, but since you already spent $200 on novelty buttons, maybe it is time to go home.

Forget it. Down the road you can acquire more trim, fastenings, and cloth.


Here, amongst the fabric merchants, you will pass the fashion designer, searching out the composition you'll be wearing in Spring 2013.

For the dolly dressers crawling at snail's pace behind you, it is all an Aladdin's cave. Should she choose the pink sparkle or the purple sparkle? (At HK$10 a yard, I know that never again will I be able to pay Hobbycraft prices without a shop-floor brawl.)


I will miss all Sham Shui Po, and the street sights it offers.


Yes, that's grandma, pushing a few crates up the main road. To help her out, the family have strapped some nylon cord round her body and attached a few crates at her rear, too.

It tells me there's a different work ethic here in Hong Kong from Essex! Here the Chinese don't expect benefits at all. Just carry on working until they fall over.

I think grandma is worth another view; she came back round the block again in the 10 minutes I stood there, waiting for Squirrel to choose between silver or not-quite silver thread.


And the cafe culture.

I will miss Starbucks and Ditta egging me on, that much is true. I will also miss watching the trade of the street-cookers. Here's one of my favourite restaurants. It occupies half a road in Sham Shui Po and is always busy with street-eaters perched at rickety plastic tables. To pass down the street, pedestrians must first be submerged in the noise of Cantonese and the clip of chopsticks against large plastic dinner bowls of soup, rice, noodles and tofu with green peppers in sticky sweet black oyster sauce.

As you tread a careful path, feel the pavement clinging to your feet with chicken fat, be careful of the gas flames roaring and hissing and the clouds of hot steam rising from wide, bubbling woks. You can smell the burning peanut oil, hear the cleavers chop on worn wooden boards, and hope that the entire structure, leaning thirty degrees to the left, doesn't collapse on top of you as you push your way out.


After watching the meat cleaver come down on the chicken head, Tony's hired burger van just isn't going to be the same.

Thank you, Sham Shui Po. You occupy a special place in my heart.

Moving out

I have to clear out the house and manage this transition in a way that minimises the screaming, tears, sorrows and partings.

So my first question is, How much crap can we store in drawers? (Lots.)

Squirrel is by far the worst hoarder. She keeps everything, from torn-up ferry tickets to clothes that don't fit her, to unfinished items of craft sporting one wiggly eye.

I say to her, What are you going to do with your rock collection? Without a beat she answers, Take it home.

So that's no problem. Transporting (illegally, probably) the rocks and minerals of Hong Kong back to the shires where we already store the contents of Cornwall and the possessions of a Suffolk beach.

I jolly everyone along with a first stab. (Tiger refuses to join in.) We tip out a few drawers and compose scrapbooks, with my aim to produce a ton of cut-up paper for the recycling bin and a neat record to fit into a suitcase.


Honestly, this process of packing up and moving out is going to be hard work. I shall have to keep this record if only to figure out how to do it.

Taking comfort in geology? Weirdo.

Shhh - don't tell anyone, but I have ways of living in Hong Kong.

(I will miss.)

Yes, I know I said I hated the damn place. Shut up. But those other voices are right. There are worse places to be.

And I have suffered here! That always counts for something in a human, right? Emotionally, the last two years have been blasted hard work.

So I have had to look for, and find, consolation. That has come not in the Hong Kong shopping malls (although Starbucks and I Scream have helped), but in its impressive and majestic mountains, seashores, and rocks.

Even then my consolation has not been complete: I have imagined the heaving waters as Tiger's homesick sorrows, and the beach rocks her tears, picked up and pelted at me in fury.

So I am not about to admit I have found my immediate land and sea scapes my full spiritual comfort. These mountains, they are not home. They are hard work to climb, and sometimes the sea swell makes me queasy.

But I would say, looking over the experiences of the last two years, that I have grown a certain love for living on a two hundred million year island in the sea, where my thoughts are surrounded by beaten-up old volcanoes. I can trace with my finger their inside veins. I can see their broken surface, pricked with sparkle. I can see proof that solid can melt. I can watch great surges of waters from sky and ocean. And I can think about permanence and transition, the passing of minutes and millenia, and how all things change and stay the same.

We each get our kicks somewhere, right?

Today, while I come to terms with new realities and all the instabilities and insecurities of our future living arrangements, I make the kids and Dig take a walk against the sea and rocks.

Where I can quietly watch the rocks and pretend to everyone how we come here only for a Sunday stroll along the shoreline.

Ahh. That's better.

And just as well that Tiger is in charge of the route-finding to the tip of Ma Shi Chau.

The gap

I wake up all peaceful as normal, tra-la-la, am sipping coffee as normal, humdy-dum, then suddenly I have the most shocking experience of the last twelve months (not sex).

The moment when I realise it. We are leaving Hong Kong. No, I mean, really leaving Hong Kong. Packing-objects-into-boxes. Deciding, item by item, what is important and what is not; what is worth the journey and what can stay in the landfill. That type of leaving.

With the sudden shock that is the gap between intellectually looking at monthly planning sheets a long way away, and the horrible dawning that the clothes are in the laundry, the books lie open, the cupboards are filled, nothing is sorted, and we're gone in just one month.

And we means me, Shark, Squirrel and Tiger.

There ensues an uncomfortable conversation. Along with this knowledge, how our time is up, how packing is a priority, how I do that alone, how I manage three children leaving Hong Kong, comes the reality that I knew all along, how Dig must keep to an entirely different schedule.

While me and the children unpack our things in England, Dig must return to his old ways of globe wandering. He will stay a while in Hong Kong, visit Brazil, pop back to Blighty, then jump back out to Asia. Colombia, he is yet considering.

I tell myself I can deal with this way of living, because I have done so before. I have a script for it. It is not called packing up, changing places, or living apart. It is called staying on, earning a wage, and supporting a family.

Fun with adenosine triphosphate

Squirrel, Shark, and Tiger are following Ellen McHenry's course, Cells.

I recommend it.

Specifically, I recommend someone else's mother leading Ellen McHenry's course, Cells.


I recommend someone else's mother also organising my kids on the chapters, running the weekly meetup, setting out the games, jigging the brood along, playing the videos, and shouting Twist the ATP synthase! While I drink tea and eat biscuits.

Basically, with Cells, someone else's mother is a lot more fun.

Yes, of course I would like to prove how I am capable of leading Cells with my own children. The truth is, I can't.

I would give up after two weeks. The words are hard. I would never find the sellotape to stick the board game together. The kids would ignore me because I would fail to understand some crucial point. Then I would lose interest and speak gibberish. I would try and disguise my yawning lack of enthusiasm by coming over all pompous and teachery. Squirrel, fuelled by anger and resentment, would mount a rebellion, offering dolly clothes for her supporters. Eventually I would be knocked out by the combined forces of my own failure and ennui, before concluding that me sitting alone in my room in shame is a better activity for everyone.

Worse would happen. I would hide Cells in a cupboard. I would tell myself it was a mouse nest. Then I couldn't ever disturb it! I might see baby mice! I wouldn't haven't the heart to kill them. The only solution is never open the cupboard door again.

What is the alternative? Open the cupboard door to see a curling course on cells? The one I abandoned after week 2? No! This would reveal my failure! Guilt would gnaw at my soul. Cells would have been a great course. If only I had run it. Squirrel could have been a top scientist in cell research. If only I could have been bothered. Dig paid for it. See how I squandered his cash. I could have spent it on a handbag. And there were no mice.

But I recommend Cells. It is a great course of games, play, videos and fun. Just make sure it comes with your friendly local home ed group, a great bunch of kids, and someone else's mum to stick the ATP synthase machine together.



Thanks, Chris!

Grit, Minister for Grit School, in Grit Land

People of England, I have decided something important.

I shall become Minister for Grit School.

Yes! It is time. I am called to power. Soon, I shall wield swords of truth and righteousness and gallop about in proper shining armour.

I am led to this destiny by your own Nick Gibb. (Minister for Schools, if you forgot.) He is my mentor and, by his brief appearance in Hong Kong this week, has taught me much.

The lessons I take from Nick (I think I can call him that) are as follows:

1. Know your job.
Obviously, if someone comes to Grit's house and says Hey Grit! You are a great Minister for Grit School! Can you promote British schools abroad? I would do a proper job. I would answer, British schooling system? It is THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

It has to be, right? It's a free-flowing system that means people like home educators can decide when to join in, and when to piss off. Okay, it could do with some tweaks, but basically it lets us all muddle along together to produce reasonably open-minded kids who are doctors, lawyers, artists, and office managers! How cool is that? Schools and parents in partnership!

What I wouldn't say, EVER, if I was a proper minister, is that British schools are CRAP. Nor that we are falling behind; being 'out educated'; or that we must follow Chinese schools for our business and economics lessons to get us proper jobs in finance.

I know how you can yell these things in England, sure! You have to! You have an electorate to hoodwink. But I would not say these things overseas! Especially not while under the banner of the British Council, cultural wing of the Foreign Office, whose job it is to big up British education and entice those rich foreign students back to the needy shores of Blighty!

So I would be better than Nick. I would be polite, visit the schools, eat the nibbles (without spitting out the peanut husks), and I would say 'Britain and Hong Kong? We are ONE.' (With all due respect to China, obviously).

2. Learn some facts.
Of course I wasn't invited to Nick's reception last night! The British Council don't let in people like scrubby-grubby Grit to touch the cloth of your most important Ministers! I merely hear about the shindig!

But Nick still teaches me wisdom. He teaches me to make sure, as Minister, you know all the facts and figures. This means I would not sit like a goldfish without oxygen while a member of the team leaps in to cover my ignorance about student numbers in higher education. Honestly! We don't want the Redwood and Welsh national anthem scenario all over again, do we?

3. Show some cleavage.
As I see it, the problem with Ministers for Schools generally is that they do not exude enough sexual suggestion.

I would rectify that. I would put on some sexy heels, pull the skirt up a bit, show a little cleavage, walk a bit wobbly, and go all giggly on the arm of my counterpart, the Hong Kong Minister for Schools. I think the evening would go a little better after that. Just my suggestion.

4. Listen.
I can see how any minister could be star struck by the size of Hong Kong's exam results.

But if they could start listening to the way Hong Kong schools reforms are going, they might, instead of bleating on and on about scores, tables, testing, accountability, show more careful attention, and develop an ear for some tentative ideas about the need for creativity now swilling about in Hong Kong educational circles.

Any listening minister might then understand how the Hong Konkers are aware that their system is generally perceived to be all rote-learning and miserable; maybe even how they might be seeking to do something about it. Perhaps Hong Kong education officials are a mite stung by the criticism that Hong Kong kids have enormous grades but zero personality? (And that observation comes from Singaporeans, for goodness sake!)

5. Say thank you.
So, in the unlikely circumstance that I have put up a crap performance, dissed British schools, banged on and on about how crap we are in the exam tables, ignored the damage limitation that has gone into overdrive, and pissed everyone off. What would I do?

I would quietly acknowledge a few shortcomings, and I would be grateful. I might even say thank you. I wouldn't call for heads to roll. I wouldn't blame everyone else. I wouldn't strut around like a self-important tosser.

6. Raise my profile.
This is a lesson I'm taking from all Ministers, everywhere.

I would be really, really, disappointed if I came all the way to Hong Kong and no journalist gave a toss! Even The Telegraph can't be arsed!

I would want all you people in England to be at home admiring me, and maybe even talking about me as a successor to my boss!

Surely I must acquire some column inches somewhere with my education programme! Surely I can do something positive for that?

I know! I shall run my first press conference! As Grit, Minister for Grit School in Grit Land!

But first I must finish off the Jack Daniels, call the British school system a load of crap run by a bunch of ponces, say that all poxy teachers should be accountable to parents (when really I mean the government), then fall down the stairs by accident-on-purpose to qualify for a free helicopter ride round the harbour.


PS. If you want newspaper and student views of the UK and HK Higher Education systems, go here and here. The SCMP couldn't be arsed.

(It should not be)

I apologise to all those back home in the shires, yearning for the caress of summer.

Today I took the children strawberry picking.

Yes! Hong Kong grows strawberries. In February. When the temperatures never freeze, the sun does not scorchio, and the humidity balances for a gentle day, neither too wet nor too dry.



In my defence, I can say it was not by my instigation. The local home ed group made me go. And the strawberry farm made me pay Hong Kong prices.

Nope.

We're not going anywhere today. Nowhere at all. We stay put. I shall not clear away the piles of trash, not complete basic projects, not attend to all matters relating to personal hygiene, and not achieve anything, by way of um, anything.

I'm not expecting much of the children, either, except the usual breathing, eating, sleeping.

I don't excuse myself. It is down time. It is very positive. It is what we home educators can declare an amount of, when we like.

Out of doing not much, except footling about, staring out of the window, gazing and wondering, will come bright and shiny things. You see if it doesn't.

Tidy up day

Isn't this how visitors impact your house?

Trash. Everywhere.

I don't know about you, but no clearing up is done while there are visitors. None at all. Only an emergency sweep of one forearm across half the sofa, sweeping away kid trash. The esteemed guest can then park their backside for five minutes and drain a cup of coffee, before being marched out the house to express eternal wonder at the tourist facilities. In our case, a Hong Kong street vendor squatting by a pile of Chinese cabbage. Whatever. Visitors = I stare at our three-week routine of dump stuff and run. Dump more stuff, and run. Dump and run. Dump and run.

But now the visitor has gone!

I start the day with vigor and enthusiasm. Today! Things will be done!

I survey the landscape of this Grit household. Folded mountains of pamphlets, leaflets and newspapers appearing inexplicably overnight, lakes of plastic food-wrap swirling by the front door, never draining to the ocean of the recycling bin, and forests of clothing which have grown in heaps, I note mainly at foot of stairs and mostly composted from Squirrel's gear.

I declare proudly, it is tidy up day!

Shark tuts, Squirrel puts her hands over her ears, and Tiger is downright rude. I am just glad she doesn't yet know the four-letter word.

I am undaunted.

I say to Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, pick up your precious stuff. Now. The typhoon of the vacuum cleaner is due imminently.

You can guess the kid response. Clutch hair, gasp, scream, bear expression of terror, adopt body contortions of torture victims straight off a violation of human rights card. I ignore them all. I am used to it.

Children, it may come to pass that my enthusiasm will end in an earthquake of fury at a blocked vacuum hose within about 15 minutes. And yes, when I reach exhaustion, one black eye thanks to a broom pole and one collapsed lung courtesy of Cif fumes, I may grab hold of anything left over, including the kitchen cat if we had one, and shovel it into plastic sacks to dump it by the bins, BUT.

I must go through with it.

En route I simply note Law of Kids + Tidying up: it is easier for any kid to spend three hours in emotional suffering, beating themselves senseless and rending their clothing, than it is to spend three seconds picking up a half-finished unicorn moulded from bottle-tops.

It is time. I merely go to find the vacuum cleaner in a stately, majestic sort of way. Like a sailing ship in full wind across the Pacific/front room floor, stepping over writhing kids, sure of my course, and steady as I go.

Only I can't find the vacuum cleaner.

Where is it? It is not in the office. It is not in the toilet (now disused thanks to the landlord cutting off the water supply). It is not behind the curtain.

The vacuum cleaner isn't anywhere!

Which leads to the following conversation with the beloved, which I hope you do not have in your household on tidy up day.

Grit: Have you seen the vacuum cleaner?
Dig: What?
Grit: Have you seen the vacuum cleaner?
Dig: What?
[repeat this for about five minutes]
Dig: The one with the brushes?
Grit: What?
Dig: Has it got brushes?
Grit: We've only got one vacuum cleaner. Does it have brushes?
Dig: I don't know.
Grit: I want the vacuum cleaner.
Dig: Where is it?

Reader, I shall draw tidy up day to a conclusion now.

If you have reached this point and found it a profound disappointment, be reassured. So did I.

And if you find the vacuum cleaner, please let me know where the f***ing thing is.

Final day of the visit

Travelling Aunty leaves Hong Kong today, bound for Northumberland.

It sets her off into sorrowful remembrance. Or maybe trepidation. Her facial expression looks remarkably the same when she contrasts the memory of sunshine temperatures in the Philippines with the expectation of snow-locked moors of Northumberland and a central heating system that doesn't work properly.

Tiger is beside herself with envy. Aunty Dee is going home. To England. This fact prompts Tiger to spend a morning growling and muttering at her computer screen, vengefully stabbing the keyboard. Going home can't come soon enough, and she's now counting the days to our own departure in March.

Squirrel watches packing proceedings with her detached air. These events are all happening out of her control. Later she'll be upset and slam doors. That will mark the loss of a precious aunty who can actually knit and seems to enjoy watching dolly fashion shows. But for now, Squirrel quietly assists in the to-ing and fro-ing to the post office, sending the holiday cards back to an office in Prudhoe. Everyone agrees the postal system can sometimes defy time. Magically the cards can arrive at work desks quicker than the person who sent them.

Shark is sparked into a fury of action in the kitchen. She wanted Aunty Dee to squeeze in one last cultural experience of Hong Kong. A journey by sampan. But the only sampan experience we can organise in time is the crossing between Hong Kong Island and the South of Lamma Island. That means crossing the East Lamma Shipping Channel. This route is the passage of the heaviest container vessels in the world, and one of the busiest sea ways in Asia, active every day of the week. A sampan is like a miniature rowing boat. Dig explains the usual terms of travel insurance and remarks how there isn't time to enjoy a hospital experience, so Shark is asked to cook cake instead.

She does that vigorously, bashing flour and beating eggs, clattering about the kitchen and warding off incomers, until she has created chocolate mousse, cinnamon biscuits, spicy cake and bread dough which we don't have time to cook. The time for departure is upon us, so our Travelling Aunty is hurriedly fed cake with a squashed mousse top and bundled out the door with her unfinished Sudoko puzzles and a flurry of farewells. Dig accompanies her to the airport, just to ensure she catches the right plane to the right place.

I put the house back to the pre-visiting order, wrapping laundry and rearranging furniture. Shark looks glumly at her uncooked bread dough, Squirrel sorrowfully slinks up to her room, and Tiger beams. Next month I'll be packing up our bedrolls, too.

Big Buddha

Huzzah! Last day for Travelling Aunty in Hong Kong!

Today we must show her Buddhism! We are escorting her to the mighty tourist attraction that is the Tian Tan Buddha, affectionately known as Big Buddha.

This has to be on everyone's tourist itinerary of Hong Kong, doesn't it? Of course it does. Lantau must offer you something apart from the airport. And when you're fed up with Buddha you can shop at the fantastic themed retail experience that is Ngong Ping village!

The Chinese have this sort of thing organised. Big buses to get you there, large coach parks, directional signs, plenty of dining opportunities, toilets for the disabled.

But la famille Grit is not here simply to take part in the great tourist enterprise! No! Any reader knows that Grit is a half-hearted follower of the Buddhist business. She can even manage a bit of mumbled chanting in exchange for a free dinner.

So you can take it that our tour today also means we can actively demonstrate our Buddhist virtues of zeal, charity, morality, patience, meditation and wisdom. The Travelling Aunty can enjoy them as well, whether she wants to or not.

(She can call it home education, religious studies.)

First we show zeal. I set Shark on shovelling the reluctant aunty out of bed at 9am. Then we can push her on the ferry, force her on the underground to Tung Chung, and prop her up on the Number 2 bus, bumping its way round the hills in Lantau. For it is here the Chinese proudly display the world's biggest bronze Buddha sat outside on a hill, facing north! (V. important.)

To experience the momentous meeting with Buddha close up, Travelling Aunty must then walk up the hill.

We immediately have problems with the hill. Apparently the Travelling Aunty has a blister which she says got worse when I made her wear flippers.

I say a blister is no problem. Stop groaning. (More zeal, double tick). After all, the Chinese have provided steps! Lots of them. Like a runway. (Choose the correct side to ascend! Right side up! Left side down! Do not get these instructions confused if you do not want the tourist guard to beat you with the baton.)

But then Travelling Aunty With The Blister says she must rest half-way up because she is Clapped Out. She attempts to cling to the railings. After waiting a considerate moment I send Squirrel back down to force her to get a move on. Given the length of time she has spent hanging over the railings gasping, I think I show a great deal of patience, so I'm ticking it on my path to nirvana. And morality. I am sure it is in there too.

Because, sadly, we are against a time limit on our visit to Buddha. We must attend to the Buddha, walk round him anti-clockwise (or clockwise, I forget), look under his seat to visit his display, say a venerating ooh at his ancient relic (v. v. v. tiny slither of bone, possibly from middle finger), and then get to the restaurant by 4.00pm before they close up and the cook goes home. Here we can gaze upon the lovely vegetarian dinner! (Tick meditate.)

That is from Dig. He bought the full dinner set for six people by accident. If you are likewise visiting Big Buddha, be warned! You do not have to buy the full meal set! You do not have to buy the snack set! You do not have to buy any food at all! You can just visit Big Buddha!

The Chinese craftily position the Buy Your Ticket booths at the foot of the steps to Buddha, so in Dig's confusion (not getting to bed until 2am thanks to flight from Philippines) he persuades himself we must acquire curious forms of entry ticket, so buys a full set dinner for six.

Now on that score we have achieved wisdom (tick). And I will say how very kind it is for Dig to provide us all with dinner (tick charity).

Thus, having mostly achieved the objectives for nirvana, we walk briskly about the Buddha, make all the right noises, do not fall out with any security guards, and enjoy a fantastic vegetarian dinner for six!

I think we do it all in the right order. We save the gift shops till last. The directional signs are very good and the entire complex is unmistakably what industrial-scale Chinese tourism is all about.

Now here are the variety of rubbish photographs taken on the day. You'll have to bear in mind that we were here for business! We couldn't hang about to compose shots, or frame anything! Just enjoy all the heads-in-the-way, the over-exposure, and the tilted statues.









PS. I only deliver it to the Buddhists because I know they can take it. And they are unlikely to retaliate by punching me in the face, kneecapping, bombing, or any other non-nirvana-inducing means of retribution. (And I love 'em.)

I shall live there in other life

We have to leave Mindoro Island in the Philippines.

To do that, first they must prise my fingers from the door frame, then smother me with chloroform to knock me out, so I can be carried on board the departing boat without the kicking and screaming.

Take that as a recommendation of these beautiful, delicious islands for tourism. The Philippine people deserve to receive your attention and the many denominations of your tourist coin.

It is a crying shame they have had years of colonial exploitation (thanks, sixteenth century Spain), the bombing of Manila (say hello to the USA) and the brutality of occupation (we don't hold any grudges against the Japanese round here).

Okay, so Britain was no guardian angel (occupied them for two years). It's another of those histories we don't teach to school kids.

Well, if we're going to find out about it, let's put on a good face for it: the BBC/Lonely Planet suggests the British occupation actually 'assisted the Philippine movement for independence'. Indeed. Something they didn't realise for another couple of hundred years, and then they had Marcos.

Me, I loved the place. Even though the brawl with the customs officer over the shells which he tried to extract from my clammy clenched fists was undignified.

I still leave in love, thinking how life is too short for all the lives I would like to lead.

Diving lesson 3

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

I loved them.

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

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

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

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

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

I have rarely seen her with such determination and dedication.


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

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


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


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


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

Diving lesson 2

Shark is occupied in her diving education for the entire day. Text book, talk, videos, wet suits, and sloshing about in sea water accompanied by manly men and oxygen tanks, busy twiddling dials and scouring the reef for puffer fish.


I cannot do the same, more's the pity.

Listening to the barbed comments delivered to me at the breakfast table, I think that daughters number 2 and 3 are becoming a little resentful about the attention that Shark is enjoying. And probably they are irked at how mama seems to have abandoned family loyalty in favour of peering into the sea to catch hopeful sight of grown men gearing up. (Yes, of course I am learning the lingo; how else can I establish my credibility?) Squirrel not very politely reminds me, over the toast, that I am married. You children have a lot to learn, that is for sure.

Well, I give in to my miniature morality custodians. Really, I have not much choice. The Philippines has slapped me about something rotten, so I am not much of an eyeful. I have sun burn on one shoulder, carry a headache the size of Manila, limp on a left leg eaten by mosquito, and the rooms at the Portofino Hotel come with the wrong sort of mould, so my eyeballs have swollen up like a couple of watermelons.

Then Aunty Dee says she must buy a post card, and Tiger says unless she sees something interesting she will never travel anywhere again. So there is nothing else for it. I must dutifully occupy my custodian daughters 2 and 3 in a day of constructive and improving education. While Shark is having fun, I conduct a geology lesson,


become a cooperative tour guide for the local town,


describe Philippine cuisine from the contents of the local grocery store,


go oooh and ahhh with the marine biology,


and equip everyone for an afternoon's snorkel.


By bedtime I am chastened and promise to behave myself.

(But I keep my fingers crossed behind my back when they make me promise not to strip down to what looks like my underwear again and run about the beach pretending to be Bo Derek.)

Diving lesson 1

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

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

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

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

Then he says he suspects they are closet gay.

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

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

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

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

Dig's day

Took family to Philippines. Hired car and driver to detour to Taal Volcano. Boat transferred to Puerto Galera as requested.

Priorities: contact Sweden before 10pm HK time. Arrange contract with Brazil.

See? That would be it, if this was dig's day. If it was grit's day, it would be,

Cebu Pacific Airlines? Do they seriously think selling you life insurance for the duration of the flight helps you feel confident?

And the way the crew demand that you all sing? Something should be done to stop it. Enforced choirs of Gloria Gaynor at 20,000 feet is not 'happy food for the soul'. But at least they didn't make us clap and cheer when the pilot landed, like they did on the flight with Air Portugal. As if it was important to mark the day he got it right.

I thought the transport horror had finished until we got in the car, where the driver said 'My daddy, he is in heaven', laughed like a wild man, and plunged us down the side of the volcano while the windscreen was totally obscured with a swinging painting of Christ. I spent the rest of the journey trying to figure out which side of the road this country drives on.

But I have to say, this boat business works well. I'm not sure about the wisdom of splattering 'God bless our trip' in front of the steering wheel. And I don't understand how the driver can see anything when he sits at the back wearing sunglasses with his feet up, but Dig says that man up front in the tee-shirt is lookout, so they probably have hand signals.

Then we arrive and I have to say, the Philippines? It's like paradise. So what is the matter with Kid A? Why is she so bloody miserable? Is it necessary that within two hours I am held hostage by some sodding tomato sauce? There was nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't have weakened like Dig, with an emergency cheese pizza.

And Kid B forgot her swimming costume. Typical. How many times did I say it's a beach holiday?

Kid C is a paragon of virtue of course, considering this trip is mainly for her. All the obvious delight is doing no good for sisterly love.

Aunty Dee? Same as ever. You can take the girl out of Morpeth but you can't take Morpeth out of the girl. She claims 'Mindoro Island is just like Northumberland. But with more sun'.

I shall leave the day's diary here, but I will end on dig's day, with

She wants photos of the boat to Mindoro Island. I don't know why. I mean, it's not like they're providing an income stream.