Not guilty

I cruised past another of those articles on parenting the other day. You find them all over the blogosphere. Doing the best for your children. It means: keep regular bedtimes, be vigilant with schoolwork, be consistent in discipline, remember your status as role model, ensure wipe-clean kitchen surfaces at all times.

I wondered, am I meant to feel guilty that I don't do this stuff?

I don't feel in the least bit guilty. Not about ignoring the kids, letting them choose their own bedtimes, leaving the juniors home alone while I visit the gym, spending an hour trying on clothes, having a cathartic bout of the hissy fits, negotiating the day's activities, lying around in bed until 10am, sending Shark shopping for dinner because I am too busy rearranging books on a shelf and, yesterday, swapping one of their car seats for a bottle of beer.

Indeed, I feel so non-guilty about these pleasurable activities, that I shall probably do more of them all at the first opportunity.

And this type of day. More of these, please.

Shark, Squirrel and Tiger all get out of bed before I do. I hear them rattling around on the breakfast hunt, invading cupboards, scavenging in the bread basket. I stay in bed and read the newspaper with coffee mug number three. I'll go shopping later. The kids will chomp their way through the apple basket and wander off into the garden to play. It's a normal school day, but we're not doing school. Do I feel guilty yet? Nope.

Later, when I look for the kids, the garden's empty, but I find something else. Scratched channels in the soil filled with coloured paints and clays. I amuse myself with an idea about how someone trapped under the earth is trying to get out, and carving messages to us from the other side of the soil. The kids will probably tell me different tales. I'm happy to call that a creative education, made up as we go along.



Anyway, I don't feel guilty that it's nearly lunchtime and I haven't yet seen any of my offspring.

We have a bell outside that I ring. I taught the kids that when they hear the sound of the bell, come back; it means food is ready. I don't feel guilty about that, no. Or the frozen pizza that's heading their way for lunch.

I take them to play with a bunch of home educating kids at Stanwick Lakes after lunch. Tiger's too miserable, wandering around alone and sulky, but if anyone would like me to feel guilty about keeping her away from the regular hours of regular school, then nah, I won't.

She perks up a bit when I offer to drive her over to the local lake to muck about on a windsurf. It's the after-school paddle club, but she's the only child there. I guess the others are busy with exams or exhausted after finishing their SATs. On that score, I don't feel guilty either. Maybe a little pleased that we don't spend endless sunny days with worksheets.


Today I tried hard to think of something that merited parenting guilt. I really did. But I couldn't. Not one thing.

Suspicious...

What is this strange happening? Every message I post to Freecycle simply disappears into the intersphere, never seen again!

This is very odd. Everything was working last month when I got rid of three bags of craft fabric. But now, I have sent six messages from three different email accounts and nothing. I have had to hold a one-hour international Skype call to Dig in the Asian subcontinent to tell him the urgent news that I cannot get rid of the toddler car seats to Joan who lives six streets away and has a friend with twins.

I am beginning to suspect things. Like, the National Trust may have a hand in this conspiracy. Is it they who are steadily removing all evidence that I ever lived in England? Is it they who 'lost' my details from their database, who removed my name from the electoral roll, and who are now up to their trickery with my little home on Freecycle?

If so, the moderator might be in on it. He promptly responded to my message of concern with the suggestion that I screen grab the automatic message maker box and send him a copy.

I'm sorry? What is he saying? Perhaps he is trying to tip me over the edge into a complete phobic reaction and nervous breakdown. Then he and the National Trust can make me disappear from all records FOREVER!

Well, I shall subvert the subverters! I am sure to be passing your house soon. Who wants a bag of Megablocks, an inflatable swimming pool with only a few leaks, two vacuum cleaners that nearly suck, five child car seats, a box of plastic play food, a bag of dressing up clothes, a drawing board, three fuel cans, a duff Epson printer, and a beat up old piano?

HA, NATIONAL TRUST! I HAVE THE INTERNET.

Mon Day

The sort of day which carelessly throws out poor quality fare to me, and I give it back superior disdain.

Quite frankly, I say, Day can do better than this. I have not come this far to be disappointed by unsatisfactory nourishment. If Day does not address its failings and offer better, then I may have to deliver to it my Stern Talk.

This is the type of dog's dinner that Day provides. As you can see, quantity, no quality.

1. A moth infestation. Location uncertain, but in my boudoir, and close enough to my bed that I spend the first fifteen minutes of my alive time with a cup of French roast stupidly wondering about the flapping wildlife over my head.

Flapping wildlife is not a normal start to the day. Reflecting on that, I then seriously alarm myself with horrible imaginings that involve a part-chewed Betty Jackson. There is only one solution. Hit the furniture with shoes to stop them all having babies.

I am on to Doctor Internet before breakfast, begging for help in the event of cloth-moth invasion. Doctor Internet is disappointing. Nay, he is rubbish. One of his ideas is get in a colony of moth-eating wasps. I think my sanctuary has been invaded enough, thank you very much.

2. The children all distract me from my great purpose of scrutinising the wardrobe with a stiletto. They bicker, pointlessly, about pointless things. Like raspberries. We haven't got any raspberries. Pencils. We have 200 of those (mostly on the floor). And pasta, when I am not cooking pasta and, by the time they have finished, have no intention of cooking pasta ever again. I retaliate by becoming shouty and obnoxious and sulky and passive aggressive while hitting a chest of drawers with a pair of loafers, and it is not even lunchtime.

3. Depart house in a froth of outrage. Take up residence in garage. Start throwing away stuff in a burst of satisfying spite. If only I could eject moths and children and all conflict! Basically I am unable to handle any of those unless I am winning.

Actually, 'throwing away stuff' is a bit far. I pile up stuff so that the resultant heap looks temptingly like a bonfire. When I am discovered, the froth has subsided a bit and become self-pity and martyrdom, so I claim this is for everyone else's benefit not mine and that I am clearing out the garage so it can become a craftroom from which I will not benefit.

4. After lunch, take resentful, awkward children to park to meet lovely friends. Observe how everyone else's home educated children are socially well-balanced, delightfully happy and playful. Mine are sulky, awkward, and refuse to talk to anyone. Every fifteen minutes one of them appears at my side demanding to go home. No. We are staying. Home is a pit of moths, a stew of bicker, and now, thanks to my efforts, a pile of junk in the yard. We are staying here, in the park, where we may all be miserable but the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the grass is green.


Hmph. On consideration I think I'd better quit while I'm ahead and not explain what Day did next when it handed round the cheese and tomato pasties.

Bat aware

Bats have had an image change, haven't they? These days I readily hand over solid cash to oooh and arrhh at close-up photos of their cute, pug noses and funny-furry ears. A few years ago I'm sure I was running about fields screaming how the agents of the devils were going to nest in my hair.

Maybe I dramatise, and I was only nervous of their swoopy droppy turny flight, but legged it indoors, just in case.

But this shows how far I've come! Not only do I now go out of my way to find the little creatures, I would readily cuddle one, and offer it my house for a cosy roost!

I should never have worried about them crashing into my face, for example. They are far better at avoiding large objects than I am. I think the car insurance people know what I am talking about there. Bats are also supreme agents when it comes to catching their dinners. Mid-flight they can scoop up tasty morsels and flip them into their mouths! I have the dinner dribble down the front of my Per Una white top to testify to my inadequacies in that department, and that happens when I am sitting down.

I think it is all proof that bats are supreme in their abilities; by comparison I am a great hairy, crashing-about lumbery object, covered in tomato sauce.

My conversion and admiration for the agile bat is entirely thanks to other people, mostly those groups of well-connected Bat PR Agencies, working tirelessly up and down the country to educate the ignorants, and I count myself among that group.

People like the North Bucks Bat Group. They lead a talk and walk round Stowe Landscape Gardens. This time (unlike the night we went on the moth walk), I do not drench me and the gritlets in 100% Deet. No. I want to invite the midges to hover about my head! I want batty to swoop down low over my face and demonstrate his fantastic turning abilities, the like of which Clarkson can only fantasize about!

More importantly, I now know better than to disappoint Bat Leader. (I distinctly recall Moth Man wondering why there didn't seem to be any moths that evening.)

You should not do anything to upset Bat Leaders. They are a bit scary, actually. They police the public perception and understanding of our little furry flying friends with single-focused, totally dedicated, commitment. They will readily educate you, and sharply admonish you for any unwise action.

Like, one member of the group (not me this time!) brings their own super-strength torch! Foolish person. Bat Leader snaps, That torch is too bright! Which means you should be ashamed of yourself. To scan ornamental lakes in fields after dark you need a torch capable of low light output. See? I told you they were dedicated.

So, it is time to take the children bat walking. I have learned: bats do not need to worry about their no claims bonus; being bitten by midges is a small price to pay for a close encounter with batty; it is worth ingratiating yourself with Bat Leader for a welcoming smile, and leave the searchlight at home.

Slow day

'Slow down' says Dig. I peer at him on Skype and say, 'Not bloody likely'.

England will slip out my grasp in only three months. And my eyes are greedy for green. Do you know how many greens you have here, in every hedgerow, every field and every tree? You have purply-greens and yellowy-greens and greeny-greens and-

'I worry' says Dig. What about, I'm not sure. Burning his income at 2000C, possibly. Or thrashing about the countryside in the ever reliable gritmobile? Or never a day at home to sort out the rotting cellar like I promised, almost certainly.

I can't help it. I am a driven woman. Once it was despair but now it is time. I want to throw myself at this beautiful country and experience what a wonderful place it is. Too soon I will have to stare at the departing end of a village vehicle and the $78 price label stuck on a packet of cereal. While I am here I want to see and feel chalk hills and moors and woods and jiggedy-jaggedy coastlines and five-bar gates and pink banded snail shells and wavy wobbly mouse-tail grass and-

'What are you doing today?' asks Dig. Well, I can set his mind at rest there. Today I had planned a walk round College Lake because they have a Discovery Day and I want to discover things, but the children all wanted to Stay Put in the garden and repair a unicorn's allotment.

So that is what they did. They mended fences and drew up a peace treaty called The Treaty of Spark's Allotment. They're very proud of it. I went outside to see what all the quiet was about, and saw Squirrel sat in a hole under the tree while her sisters towered over her. For a moment I thought things had gone badly wrong and maybe they were burying her, but apparently it was all going fantastically well and she was defining the territory by bum prints. It was generally agreed this was a good idea if you are uncertain about where an allotment's borders should be.

Of course I had to leave them to it. Negotiating the politics of territory has to count for something in a young girl's education.

But I couldn't stay at home staring at the cellar and wondering how I'm going to hoist an old soggy chest back up the stairs. I just couldn't. I had to creep out. So in the evening I took the kids to Milton Keynes Museum for their wonderful story evening, with a teller from Word in Edgeways sharing some fantastic tales in the chapel.

There. Dig, you win, sort of. And I drove at 30 all the way.

Cheated by nightingale

Time is running out if I am to be seduced by nightingale. I've been hunting one for a week, and know that by June, the fickle creatures will escape my clutches, and depart our English summer. Then that will be that; my desires wasted for another year.

I don't know when they'll go. I bet it will involve a moment of unstoppable, wing-waving impulse. Drunk on night-time song, they'll suddenly jump up and fly away, as quick as they can, gone from Suffolk and Norfolk to where else I can't catch them.

But who knows where they go? Inconstant, flighty, unreliable, I bet those faithless little creatures will take themselves just where they please, with each passing fancy, somewhere south, or east, up with the wind, down with the clouds.

Maybe the cheating little rogues fly away to consort with skylarks. Maybe they serenade the suburbs of evening Nice. Maybe they pass hot nights in the scrublands of southern Spain. Lured by the kissing lips of the blue Mediterranean sea on the rugged shores of Africa, they'll no doubt be off again, skimming round the coast and landing, holiday mood, in Guinea-Bissau, to cavort in tree tops, and fool around in the fingertips of the bushes that tickle the edges of the mangrove swamps.

That's a long way from England, you faithless rascals. The thought might send me mad, all over again, that I have to wait another year to track you down.

Once, they found one. They put technological investigators close on its trail and followed the cheating creature to its other feathered nest.

Well, you should be here, you flighty piece. With me, in Bradfield Woods. So determined am I, to imagine that you're here, I think you are, for one good half hour.

We all stop on the path, hold our breaths and listen. We exchange glances. We hear a song that doesn't have any endings, and no beginnings either. The notes start knock-knock-knock, but tumble up and down in snatched phrases. The phrases are all bound by silences. I can't detect a repeat, a common trill, or a routine rise and fall. No one can predict what's coming next, or whether you'll fall high, or low. It's like you're trialling the overture, without ever completing the opera.


So, tempter and miscreant, I'm telling myself that I caught the sound of you, but you failed me on the symphony. You still have a lot to live up to.

But be warned. You should never wrong a woman. If you do, know that I shall find pleasure when you're gone with the next warm wind. I shall hug myself and tell myself that really, after all, you were nothing special. A summer promise, never delivered, that's all.

Then I shall tell everyone what I know. That if I really did catch a sight of you, I would find you nothing more than what you are. Nothing of a looker, that's for sure, you plain, brown, elusive little bird.

Nightingale hunt

Blame Michael McCarthy. He started it. I read that and thought, I want ecstasy in a wood.

There's only one problem. We don't live within the nightingale line. I can't leave the kids asleep at midnight to pop to the local wood and be enraptured: just me, Mr Nightingale, and Hosanna Glory Be. No, if I want to be spirited away by Mr Nightingale, I have to travel to his patch, and take the kids with me.

Shark is dead keen, egging on this latest enthusiasm, but Tiger stands fast. She says No. Definitely No. She won't do midnight in a wood.

I look to the balance of power, Squirrel. I mention casually, in an off-hand manner, that when things swing my way I usually celebrate with a delicious bar of Green and Blacks.

Unfortunately, things are not swinging my way. Squirrel says, after some thought, and a few menacing glances from Tiger, that she's not doing a mummy-guided tour in a dark wood. For good measure she adds, not after last time.

Nonsense! She thinks it will involve getting lost, crashing into things, falling into a ditch, and being pissed on by badgers. It was not like that at Ashridge, was it? Except we did get lost, yes, I panicked a bit in the dark and fell in a ditch. Apart from that, it was fine.

Well, Squirrel wins. She says it's a guided tour with someone who knows what they're doing and where they're going. And daylight, not midnight, otherwise No Deal.

Which is why we're here. Getting up at dawn to go nightingale hunting at Minsmere with a proper guide. There are a few curdling curses from Tiger on leaving her warm, cosy bed, but I have become inured to those, and the death threats.

Here we all are then, this happy band of dawn-time nightingale thrill seekers led by our guide Anya and trailed by a slightly sulky Tiger.


And off we go. We look at a lot of bush tops and listen to a lot of birds.


But no nightingale. But then! Anya says, one lives here. Here!


This is very frustrating. But Hark! HARK. I may be entering RAPTURE.

Anya says, Don't confuse them with warblers. That is a warbler, Grit. You can hear a nightingale has a rounder sound. Then Anya says, Oh dear. Mr Nightingale's not singing this morning. How unusual. Never mind. You can hear them anytime. Just pop back. After dark is usually a good time.

I might turn ugly.

I have driven 150 miles, got up early, have engaged in a grudge match with Tiger, and am facing frustration of religious orgiastic passion in a wood thanks to a cheating little bastard of a piss-boring brown bird. I am considering invoicing Michael McCarthy for anguish to the soul.

Of course I have to console myself. No one else will sodding well do it. I tell myself, early rising might not have led to miracle, but on the other hand, I learn just how much I can achieve in a day by falling out of bed at 5am.

To wit, a run round Leiston Abbey, three hours in the Long Shop Museum, a late afternoon walk through breezy Dunwich Heath as a last gasp for the little sods, then back to a caravan in a field for a takeaway curry.








I bet Michael McCarthy never achieves so much.

Sutton Hoo to Rendlesham Forest

By Squirrel's request, Sutton Hoo. Here I am shocked to learn that we are no longer trusted with the national treasures.


We have been kicked off the National Trust database. Possibly as a result of my working-class family background.

Or maybe they've never forgiven my other crimes. Setting off the burglar alarm by over-enthusiastic pencil waving. Attending the eighteenth century garden picnic with a Tesco value salad. Or what about that Nationally Untrusting Old Lady who confiscated my ball? I was aged 43 for heaven's sake. Perhaps it was after we were invited to leave that upper-class boudoir when Shark looked at a mirror.

Humph. It was one tacky, tasteless place anyhow. And I'm not telling them about the amount of pee we've left on their coastlines. Whatever. They kicked us out. I feel deeply rejected from England, after I tried so hard to get in. I have sympathies with Al-Fayed.

I hide my indignation and ingratiate myself with the ladies behind the desk. I sniff, sorrowfully, and get them to ring up the Big Chief to ask why we are no longer wanted as part of the nation when I know for sure that Dig cannot be bothered to cancel the direct debit.

One of them says there-there, and confides that the NT changed their database and may have lost our details. Well, that is another fine example of irresponsible custodianship, so let's hope all our bank details disappeared into the intersphere, and were not left on the 6.15 out of Paddington.

Anyway, now I have that off my chest, we proceed with the day. We grace the National Trust with our enjoyment of their exhibition, take their guided tour, and approve how they laid out the dead body of the last ejected member.



They kick us out prompt at 5pm, so we take our favours to Rendlesham Forest instead, where I hope to find Grendel. He's not there, and neither is his mum, but the Forestry Commission have made a fantastic UFO-themed playspace, which the gritlets heartily recommend.




Yes, we shall join the National Trust again. Or try to. I am sure it was an accident.

And a coincidence that I have also been ejected from the Electoral Roll, ostensibly for my omission of being in Hong Kong when the paperwork came round.

No, don't suggest it. It cannot possibly be that the National Trust is the secret power running a puppet government and ejecting all undesirables.

That would be as ludicrous as suggesting we can at any time be visited by aliens.

Museums little and museums big

Aren't local museums BRILLIANT? I love them. Here is Saxmundham Museum, closed all winter, open again in April, when the weather perks up and it's not so chilly.


Dorothy won't mind opening up. She can pop in at the Post Office on the way. Peter has remembered to drop off the front door key, which is admirable, that's the spirit, did you know he's had all that trouble with the neighbours?

Yes, here it is, Saxmundham Museum. Apologies are in order because Ivy can't find the Museum trails for the kiddies, and they were ever so organised only yesterday! Have a postcard instead. Have you seen our street? We've got a street at the back. It's a proper one, with things for sale in the windows. It's not only York who can do this, you know! We can do just the same, if not better, because our Henry helped fit it.


And Wilfrid Pickles! Did you know he'd come to Saxmundham, 1957, with Mabel? Broadcast from the Market Hall! Here are some stones from Buxlow Church, 1301, once known as Knodishall-cum-Buxlow.


Then don't forget to look at our agriculture display with our Land Army girl. And there are corn dollies. Don't you think Janet does some lovely ones?


She does so many, we don't know where to put them!


And the fellow hiding out in the prisoner's cell? He'll tell you a local tale. He'll tell you how he dallied with the dyer's wife. When the dyer found out, he was furious. He took that young fellow and threw him in a vat of blue dye, whereupon he came out blue from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. You would have thought the foolish fellow would have stayed away from the dyer, but no. A few days later he goes back again under cover of darkness begging to be made his normal colour. Then the dyer punches him, and says if he comes again, he can do him purple or green.

Really, is there any reason not to make a bee-line straight for Saxmundham Museum? It's open every weekday morning, and Saturdays too, unless there's a crisis like the year someone stole the strawberrys.

Altogether on a different scale, and just as brilliant, is Orford Castle with the Orford Museum located inside.


All I shall say here is that the English Heritage and museum staff are fantastically helpful, and it's such a quiet visit that I deduce something wonderful is happening in the audio guide too.

Parent who doesn't give a toss bunks off with kids

I'm told the upper primary SATs start this week. If you are a school-choosing parent in England and Wales, you will know what that means.

The school has been badgering you for months to do the supplementary teaching-at-home every spare minute of the day. And don't forget to put on the overnight audio CD for sleep learning. It can make the crucial difference to your child's grade performance!

What schools don't say, but is writ between every line and implicit in every breath, is the judgement that if you don't comply with the SATs exams, you must be a parent who doesn't care. And what can be worse than that! Off to exile you go, social leper.

Mothers are particularly programmed to feel this pain, pressured to give in to guilt, kicked that little bit harder to enforce the at-home spelling bee, and encouraged to supervise each other at the school gate with sneaky reference to how much better Tinkertop is performing now play is rationed to one quarter-hour every Friday, but only after homework.

Yet the school probably never explains the real intent. How the grades gathered by the kids can feed into the amount of money they have next year, and this is the real economic imperative underlying exams performance.

Suggesting it is hard cash, and not Tinkertop's ability with sums that is actually driving your pain with the SATs is the sort of socially unforgivable brutal honesty which has got me where I am today. Unemployable in school and totally committed to actual learning.

Well, no news there, then.

Better to say that I take the kids to the RSPB Fowlmere nature reserve. While the cuckoo calls, we follow the inviting, wandering trail about the reed beds, over the board walks, through the wetlands and woodlands, while all the time enjoying the early May sunshine.

Finding new ways to spend Dig's money every day!

Pass the day by throwing Dig's money down telephone lines to book his little grits onto various educational endeavours. Bat walks, architecture talks, theatre trips, sheep-farm visit, four nights in a field.

I say I know it all mounts up cost-wise, but these are essential experiences for a well-rounded education.

I suppose I should feel guilty. After all, times is hard. And he is working tirelessly in Hong Kong to earn a crust while I indulge my passions freely in geography, history, art, and running about the countryside bothering trees. Of course I try and make him feel better about it all. I claim it is not for me. It is for the children. I do everything only for them!

Well, husband, funding these ambitions just went up a notch. Shark found the gardening books.



While I was busy at the kitchen table with a calculator and a phone, trying to keep within the educational budget, Shark took a shovel to the earth and said with great enthusiasm, Look at my plan!

I say, I expect daddy will be pleased you are showing an interest in garden design. It can be a very expensive hobby if you have resolved yourself upon waterlilies, fish, fountains, an orchard of fruit trees, a Gothic arch, and 23 acres of a country estate.

Nevertheless, I used to love gardening myself, so I want to encourage her. I offer to take her to the garden centre and see how far she can get with a modest budget and a small Victorian garden. I shall call that an education as well, and shave off an outing elsewhere.

I suppose, at this point, it is a duty upon me to feel generally bad; no doubt someone would like me to feel so. Being a dependent woman and all, not earning her own income, squittering the husband's hard earnings on transitory aspirations. Everyone knows that I tell him it's the kids, when really I am just encouraging them in all the areas where I'd like free reign to spend his money.

Okay then, I'll feel bad about my cake mixing bowl. It seems to have upended itself in Shark's mud pile. Yes, I'll feel bad about that, because now having seen it make a mould for a pond, I shall be cautious when making my own cakes to feed the masses.

Maybe it would be better to buy those French Fancies from Waitrose instead.

Your country needs you

Do the wonders of this land never end? Here is another British pastime that is totally, totally brilliant. The way that your men dress up in frock coats and armours, then take to the fields.


They do it not because they want to make sociopolitical statements about male oppression, or campaign on a fashion label called Men Can Wear Skirts Too. No, they just like dressing up in fancy clothes and pretending to hit each other, and sometimes really hitting each other.


It's those period reenactors. Today we're seeing them at Milton Keynes Museum, a local museum that you can add to Grit's Highly Recommended Local Museum List, alongside Dunwich and Andover. (Here are telephones! And a railway office!) But today we head for the Jacobite Rebellion and an odd assortment of Plantagenets, probably soon to bash each other about at the Battle of Bosworth Field.


These people are utterly brilliant. They prove that in England the sun never sets on the independently odd.


Yes, I know I am of the converted. My head has already been turned. I feel the importance of dressing up in eighteenth century replica stockings. I appreciate how vital it is to the national pysche that Derek runs about in woollen worsted. I understand the lure of shiny armour. These are our contentious national stories, dammit! They are a practical reinvention of our narratives!

As such, it is a national duty to take part. So I think you should all find out where these people are running about next, come down to the field, and support them. I can tell you, it's better for the brain than a hundred school history lessons.