Quick! It's not raining! Let's run to the farm...
...pick strawberries and gooseberries...
...and make it back home again!
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Dodge the clouds
Quick! It's not raining! Let's run to the farm...
...pick strawberries and gooseberries...
...and make it back home again!
Saturday, 30 June 2012
The Hollow Crown
Nine o'clock comes, and I am sat in front of the TV with my eyelids stapled to my forehead. I am not missing one micro-second of this Beeb action.
Yes, it's Richard II, and the start of The Hollow Crown. I expect not to be disappointed otherwise there will be hell to pay in this household. I will be in a foul grump all Sunday.
Thank goodness then, that it delivered. My children were spared the torment of thwarted mama. Because I loved Goold's version of Richard II. So much indeed that I had to stay up well past pumpkin-transforming midnight to watch Derek Jacobi look wistful as he watched his former screen self play a much shoutier Richard than the delightful Ben Whishaw.
Didn't Ben make a splendid job of it? I loved his interpretation of Richard. Fey, droopy, androgenous, with a touch of the psycho-nuts. Focusing on his precarious mental state, together with the soft reflective way of delivering some of those lines, talking more to himself than anyone else, he perfectly chimed his Richard with the self-referencing times we live in.
The focus on Richard's self-absorption was wonderfully helped by that close up camera, so a big tick for exploiting the resources of the small screen. The close ups engaged me a lot, actually. The closer the audience came to Richard's eyes, the shiftier and less attractive he became, and the less his character seemed able to hold up to our intensive scrutiny. It was a treatment that brought out an aspect of him in the play: that he is nothing of real depth. He is a glittery crown, propped up by shine, bolstered by show, ceremony and gloriously luxurious verse. Knock them all down and he is an inadequate child-king promoted beyond his capabilities.
That is the other characteristic I loved about the Whishaw portrayal. The childishness of Richard. I tried not to glance at Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. Honestly, when Richard knows he must yield the crown, it was like watching the puffin incident all over again, swinging an exaggerated course between defiance to submission. I want Mr Puffin, he is MINE. Alright then, you have Mr Puffin. TAKE IT and I HATE YOU.
But unlike the gritlets, Wishaw didn't yell until his face turned purple. Not at all. He put on a drama queen of a show and, as Jacobi later suggested, delivered it with not too much self-pity. Instead, he had Richard clinging to that belief in his divinely appointed role; and by focusing on his rightful place in this hierarchy he allowed the audience to consider not the man alone but the consequences of severing a God-given order. The play itself provides for this with Henry's rule starting off with plots and suspicions and fears.
Possibly my only gripe with the presentation was when Richard is shot through with crossbows in his dungeon-cave. He is so evidently Christ that my toes curled a bit. Although it is true to say I could not know how else it would have ended for him, given the way Goold had brought his passage to this point. Maybe it was the crescendo of the heavenly choir when the arrows went in. For my taste, just a touch too overplayed.
Anyway, as for the rest of the performance, David Suchet was excellent and I wish I could know him for more than Poirot. Captain Picard was excellent also, playing a character from history - John of Gaunt - who is increasingly fascinating me for his political actions. Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke matched Richard's languid poses by delivering a Bolingbroke that was authoritative, calm, and paced; I loved that moment when an expression of realisation passed his face as Richard is led away in defeat, and Bolingbroke understands then the extent of his rise against Richard's decline.
Cinematically, I don't want to complain about a bit of it. It was beautiful to look at. The framing, editing and focus were spot on: the shots of the impending joust, the long views of castles and water, Richard flailing about in the sea edge, all beautiful and perfect, with lovely set colours and costumes; the staff clearly had a great time working on them. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger particularly loved the costuming for the Welsh, what with the dead rats strapped to their heads, so we can all expect to see some remodelling of those round here for the Arseface sisters as their next choice of weekend clothing for Cardiff.
Well, you don't come here for up-to-the-minute television reviews, that's for sure. I last watched live television in 2004. So I'll say the gritlets watched too, and stayed completely engaged throughout, so thank you Beeb for providing our education today.
Yes, it's Richard II, and the start of The Hollow Crown. I expect not to be disappointed otherwise there will be hell to pay in this household. I will be in a foul grump all Sunday.
Thank goodness then, that it delivered. My children were spared the torment of thwarted mama. Because I loved Goold's version of Richard II. So much indeed that I had to stay up well past pumpkin-transforming midnight to watch Derek Jacobi look wistful as he watched his former screen self play a much shoutier Richard than the delightful Ben Whishaw.
Didn't Ben make a splendid job of it? I loved his interpretation of Richard. Fey, droopy, androgenous, with a touch of the psycho-nuts. Focusing on his precarious mental state, together with the soft reflective way of delivering some of those lines, talking more to himself than anyone else, he perfectly chimed his Richard with the self-referencing times we live in.
The focus on Richard's self-absorption was wonderfully helped by that close up camera, so a big tick for exploiting the resources of the small screen. The close ups engaged me a lot, actually. The closer the audience came to Richard's eyes, the shiftier and less attractive he became, and the less his character seemed able to hold up to our intensive scrutiny. It was a treatment that brought out an aspect of him in the play: that he is nothing of real depth. He is a glittery crown, propped up by shine, bolstered by show, ceremony and gloriously luxurious verse. Knock them all down and he is an inadequate child-king promoted beyond his capabilities.
That is the other characteristic I loved about the Whishaw portrayal. The childishness of Richard. I tried not to glance at Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. Honestly, when Richard knows he must yield the crown, it was like watching the puffin incident all over again, swinging an exaggerated course between defiance to submission. I want Mr Puffin, he is MINE. Alright then, you have Mr Puffin. TAKE IT and I HATE YOU.
But unlike the gritlets, Wishaw didn't yell until his face turned purple. Not at all. He put on a drama queen of a show and, as Jacobi later suggested, delivered it with not too much self-pity. Instead, he had Richard clinging to that belief in his divinely appointed role; and by focusing on his rightful place in this hierarchy he allowed the audience to consider not the man alone but the consequences of severing a God-given order. The play itself provides for this with Henry's rule starting off with plots and suspicions and fears.
Possibly my only gripe with the presentation was when Richard is shot through with crossbows in his dungeon-cave. He is so evidently Christ that my toes curled a bit. Although it is true to say I could not know how else it would have ended for him, given the way Goold had brought his passage to this point. Maybe it was the crescendo of the heavenly choir when the arrows went in. For my taste, just a touch too overplayed.
Anyway, as for the rest of the performance, David Suchet was excellent and I wish I could know him for more than Poirot. Captain Picard was excellent also, playing a character from history - John of Gaunt - who is increasingly fascinating me for his political actions. Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke matched Richard's languid poses by delivering a Bolingbroke that was authoritative, calm, and paced; I loved that moment when an expression of realisation passed his face as Richard is led away in defeat, and Bolingbroke understands then the extent of his rise against Richard's decline.
Cinematically, I don't want to complain about a bit of it. It was beautiful to look at. The framing, editing and focus were spot on: the shots of the impending joust, the long views of castles and water, Richard flailing about in the sea edge, all beautiful and perfect, with lovely set colours and costumes; the staff clearly had a great time working on them. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger particularly loved the costuming for the Welsh, what with the dead rats strapped to their heads, so we can all expect to see some remodelling of those round here for the Arseface sisters as their next choice of weekend clothing for Cardiff.
Well, you don't come here for up-to-the-minute television reviews, that's for sure. I last watched live television in 2004. So I'll say the gritlets watched too, and stayed completely engaged throughout, so thank you Beeb for providing our education today.
Friday, 29 June 2012
Film night
I tell the children, I have been wrestling with my soul over Family Fun Film Night.
Should it be the four hundredth screening of Ice Age? Hmm. Or, children, should it be Henry V (The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (Dir. Laurence Olivier, 1944)?
I say it's a tough one, this call between what the children want (slumpish Friday night entertainment) and what mama wants (a dedication to her children's life-long erudition).
But you saw it coming, didn't you? The gritlets lose. Of course they do. I claim the final tip on the balance is The Hollow Crown starting tomorrow night on BBC2. I've already marked it as a must-watch and made Dig come home from Hong Kong early so he could make the incalcitrant TV behave. And I have tickets for the gritlets at the Globe to see Henry V on stage. I say that tilts my decision, too. Then I promise to compensate for the loss of Ice Age by my usual helpful injection of Co-op pancakes.
But to their credit (and my amazement) the mini grits stay the course with Olivier. I would like to claim it was not the Co-op pancakes but my 'One-hour introduction to Henry V' performed dramatically at the tea table before pressing play on the video recorder.
(Have I read it? No. Of course I haven't. But sometimes that ex-English teachery job comes in handy.)
Should it be the four hundredth screening of Ice Age? Hmm. Or, children, should it be Henry V (The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (Dir. Laurence Olivier, 1944)?
I say it's a tough one, this call between what the children want (slumpish Friday night entertainment) and what mama wants (a dedication to her children's life-long erudition).
But you saw it coming, didn't you? The gritlets lose. Of course they do. I claim the final tip on the balance is The Hollow Crown starting tomorrow night on BBC2. I've already marked it as a must-watch and made Dig come home from Hong Kong early so he could make the incalcitrant TV behave. And I have tickets for the gritlets at the Globe to see Henry V on stage. I say that tilts my decision, too. Then I promise to compensate for the loss of Ice Age by my usual helpful injection of Co-op pancakes.
But to their credit (and my amazement) the mini grits stay the course with Olivier. I would like to claim it was not the Co-op pancakes but my 'One-hour introduction to Henry V' performed dramatically at the tea table before pressing play on the video recorder.
(Have I read it? No. Of course I haven't. But sometimes that ex-English teachery job comes in handy.)
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Evening walk
Dig is here before he changes his passports and heads off to Brazil for his pimping job. This is okay by me. It is good to have a co-parent to help out. He gives the little grits a lecture about pie charts, makes the television work, and hands me back a camera that now takes pictures.
Yippee! Here then, the wildlife walk through the SSSI, ancient woodland and lowland heath. We saw no adders, but we did see the fantastic hole in the ground, the one the local folk - against all evidence - defiantly call Dick Turpin's Cave. (Only works if Dick Turpin was a gnome, travelling 200 miles out of his way to find an obscure hole in the ground in the middle of a wood.)
Yippee! Here then, the wildlife walk through the SSSI, ancient woodland and lowland heath. We saw no adders, but we did see the fantastic hole in the ground, the one the local folk - against all evidence - defiantly call Dick Turpin's Cave. (Only works if Dick Turpin was a gnome, travelling 200 miles out of his way to find an obscure hole in the ground in the middle of a wood.)
(Yes, that last shot is Dick Turpin's Cave. Don't all rush to it, that's my advice.)
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Doing it for ourselves
The gritlets attend an art lesson. One of those lessons home educators will recognise. Someone in our local home ed group has a skill they can share, they tell everyone about it, they hire a hall, and invite the kids along.
The older the children are, the easier it is for the home educating parent unit to push off and do the shopping.
So that is what I do. I sign up Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to C's art, take them to the local community hall, leave them with the other eight kids, then I drive off. When I pick them up, they show me circles and spirals and boast about the things a pencil can do, then they say the session was good, C is fun and she does interesting things.
Yah boo sucks to the naysayers. Home education offers individual routes into experience, teaches children how to take control of their own learning, values the family input, draws on so many skills from so many different people, and actively uses the community facilities that are here. Really, it provides an educational model for the mainstream. It shouldn't be the exception.
But I believe the educational landscape in this country will change. It's inevitable. The Victorian factory model this country still employs - where you lock up kids, dress the girls like boys, and render pupils in black-and-white service uniforms while dividing them up into pass/fail - show that schools are fundamentally about social control rather than freedom to learn.
The fact that successive governments try to control various aspects of this system, seek to intimidate and covertly threaten teachers, then impose on parents a hierarchy of sanctioned knowledge from ever-earlier ages, using moral threats and fears of exclusion, these are all indicators to me that the structure is already feeling vulnerable. Good.
You can't stop learning. Whether it takes place down the high street, in the village hall, in a field or a front room. People out here are already taking learning away from the school setting and offering it widely. The options to take up an education entirely suited to the individual are all around us.
And if the naysayers bleat exams and certification, then that too is under erosion. When the universities are experimenting with accreditation, we can say it's only a matter of time before the breakdown of your Victorian system begins.
The older the children are, the easier it is for the home educating parent unit to push off and do the shopping.
So that is what I do. I sign up Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to C's art, take them to the local community hall, leave them with the other eight kids, then I drive off. When I pick them up, they show me circles and spirals and boast about the things a pencil can do, then they say the session was good, C is fun and she does interesting things.
Yah boo sucks to the naysayers. Home education offers individual routes into experience, teaches children how to take control of their own learning, values the family input, draws on so many skills from so many different people, and actively uses the community facilities that are here. Really, it provides an educational model for the mainstream. It shouldn't be the exception.
But I believe the educational landscape in this country will change. It's inevitable. The Victorian factory model this country still employs - where you lock up kids, dress the girls like boys, and render pupils in black-and-white service uniforms while dividing them up into pass/fail - show that schools are fundamentally about social control rather than freedom to learn.
The fact that successive governments try to control various aspects of this system, seek to intimidate and covertly threaten teachers, then impose on parents a hierarchy of sanctioned knowledge from ever-earlier ages, using moral threats and fears of exclusion, these are all indicators to me that the structure is already feeling vulnerable. Good.
You can't stop learning. Whether it takes place down the high street, in the village hall, in a field or a front room. People out here are already taking learning away from the school setting and offering it widely. The options to take up an education entirely suited to the individual are all around us.
And if the naysayers bleat exams and certification, then that too is under erosion. When the universities are experimenting with accreditation, we can say it's only a matter of time before the breakdown of your Victorian system begins.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Early start
Look at me go! Awake by 5am! By 6.30am I have put on a cycle of laundry, tidied up the kitchen, laid out breakfast for the griblets, sent three email messages about rockwatching, drama and art, and picked up Dig from the airport.
Howzat!
(Please be impressed. Because by 9am I am home again and, thanks to the caffeine, have become one of the living dead, unable to live and unable to die, staring fixedly out the window wearing a glazed expression, possibly dribbling slightly. I stay like that until I topple sideways at 9pm when someone covers me up with an old coat.)
Howzat!
(Please be impressed. Because by 9am I am home again and, thanks to the caffeine, have become one of the living dead, unable to live and unable to die, staring fixedly out the window wearing a glazed expression, possibly dribbling slightly. I stay like that until I topple sideways at 9pm when someone covers me up with an old coat.)
Monday, 25 June 2012
Count this a good day
Not a good start to the week. We have several outings cancelled. One, the weather has turned the site into a bog. Two, the speaker is having a nervous breakdown. Three, the geologist fell over and is now propped up on two crutches. Not only me then, having a run of bad luck.
On the upside, I have taken a telephone call from the National Trust. They have apologised to me. Me! Well, it was as close to an apology as I was going to get, although it didn't actually contain the words I'm sorry. But the spirit and the tone were definitely there! Can you hear them, in the words I can offer an explanation which I know will not suffice but may go towards explaining how this situation does not normally occur.
Okay, but I'm considering this a bit of a success. Normally they show no understanding or tolerance, they just tell me off, take my ball off me, and kick me out their houses. (It's alright. I get my own back. I creep round the back of their estates and wee in their hedges.)
But thanks to that, I shall say that today was a success. I have to find something. I am in absolute agony with my skin, resemble a burns victim, and have begun to think deeply uncharitable thoughts about comfortable fat people who can drink beer and eat bread.
On the upside, I have taken a telephone call from the National Trust. They have apologised to me. Me! Well, it was as close to an apology as I was going to get, although it didn't actually contain the words I'm sorry. But the spirit and the tone were definitely there! Can you hear them, in the words I can offer an explanation which I know will not suffice but may go towards explaining how this situation does not normally occur.
Okay, but I'm considering this a bit of a success. Normally they show no understanding or tolerance, they just tell me off, take my ball off me, and kick me out their houses. (It's alright. I get my own back. I creep round the back of their estates and wee in their hedges.)
But thanks to that, I shall say that today was a success. I have to find something. I am in absolute agony with my skin, resemble a burns victim, and have begun to think deeply uncharitable thoughts about comfortable fat people who can drink beer and eat bread.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Glory in the detail
As I see it, the benefit of a daily blog is that I can post the most monumental heap of trivia, yet I still feel satisfied that I am meeting that responsibility I have, of telling you about home education.
For it is exactly this. Education - life - is a routine of finding out. From all of the possibilities, options and choices, we discover what the day can be, what the learning can be, where we can go, what we can see, and how many points can you score on the dolphin tail flip game (4,560 if you are Shark).
Life and learning are now so intertwined for us in our ordinary day, threading through home, house, streets, shops, fields, woods, and the car park outside John Lewis, that I wonder if I can separate them, ever.
I don't think we're alone. The outings made by this family are much the same, sometimes tamer, as thousands of trips and visits taken by home educators on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. The books we strip from the library shelves are from the same wide range. The groups we join are of a crowd. And the experiences we have - doubt, anxiety, loud bravado, quiet confidence, miseries and joys - are much of the same patterns too. I'd even guess that for some of us, the worksheets we stare at guiltily - before deciding to bake cake and recatalogue the limestone rock collection (yes, we all have one of those too) - are each pulled down from the same online education resource banks.
I know, to some, this choice must look like a life lived haphazardly, without rigour, discipline, or accountability. But from my point of view, standing in this mountain of ordinary everyday opportunity, pursuits for any direction, it's like being in a truly educational/living experience.
Out of this detail is one day thrown something that seems such a small, unremarkable moment, that you barely observe it passing. You can never know what's significant, or where the learning will come from. But that insignificant moment can grow to a large part of a child's interest; it may form their single-minded passion; then it will inspire them, put them into new, challenging contexts, change their social identity, cause them to rework their former ideas and assumptions, bring out strengths in their character, and give them the humility and awareness to confidently declare an ambition: sounding simple and clear as a bell, it is a route you know your child must take, regardless of all. One day, I'm going to make my living selling vacuum cleaners. That's it. No matter how bizarre. You know the route they discovered is theirs.
I think these thoughts as I drive to collect Shark from her weekend of woodland adventures. The skies have blasted this house with storms, gales, and rains, so I only wonder what bedraggled heap I will find when I locate her, sodden in a layby. Yes. Her gear is soaked and wild hair sparks round her face. Across her wind-pinched cheek is a smudge of tribal earth. She waves at me, smiles, heaves her stuff in the car, and falls into the passenger seat as if discovering for the first time what a cushion can do for one's rear. Then she says camping in the wind, storm and rain is fantastic. Just, fantastic.
For it is exactly this. Education - life - is a routine of finding out. From all of the possibilities, options and choices, we discover what the day can be, what the learning can be, where we can go, what we can see, and how many points can you score on the dolphin tail flip game (4,560 if you are Shark).
Life and learning are now so intertwined for us in our ordinary day, threading through home, house, streets, shops, fields, woods, and the car park outside John Lewis, that I wonder if I can separate them, ever.
I don't think we're alone. The outings made by this family are much the same, sometimes tamer, as thousands of trips and visits taken by home educators on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. The books we strip from the library shelves are from the same wide range. The groups we join are of a crowd. And the experiences we have - doubt, anxiety, loud bravado, quiet confidence, miseries and joys - are much of the same patterns too. I'd even guess that for some of us, the worksheets we stare at guiltily - before deciding to bake cake and recatalogue the limestone rock collection (yes, we all have one of those too) - are each pulled down from the same online education resource banks.
I know, to some, this choice must look like a life lived haphazardly, without rigour, discipline, or accountability. But from my point of view, standing in this mountain of ordinary everyday opportunity, pursuits for any direction, it's like being in a truly educational/living experience.
Out of this detail is one day thrown something that seems such a small, unremarkable moment, that you barely observe it passing. You can never know what's significant, or where the learning will come from. But that insignificant moment can grow to a large part of a child's interest; it may form their single-minded passion; then it will inspire them, put them into new, challenging contexts, change their social identity, cause them to rework their former ideas and assumptions, bring out strengths in their character, and give them the humility and awareness to confidently declare an ambition: sounding simple and clear as a bell, it is a route you know your child must take, regardless of all. One day, I'm going to make my living selling vacuum cleaners. That's it. No matter how bizarre. You know the route they discovered is theirs.
I think these thoughts as I drive to collect Shark from her weekend of woodland adventures. The skies have blasted this house with storms, gales, and rains, so I only wonder what bedraggled heap I will find when I locate her, sodden in a layby. Yes. Her gear is soaked and wild hair sparks round her face. Across her wind-pinched cheek is a smudge of tribal earth. She waves at me, smiles, heaves her stuff in the car, and falls into the passenger seat as if discovering for the first time what a cushion can do for one's rear. Then she says camping in the wind, storm and rain is fantastic. Just, fantastic.
Saturday, 23 June 2012
I did think about running around the house, naked
I strongly recommend the Woodcraft Folk to all home educators. Yes, it might involve driving a distance to your local group, plus a traffic jam through Dunstable, but believe me, it is entirely worth it.
I can come over all liberal, celebrate how there are no pointless brown uniforms, no stupid oaths of fealty to God, Queen or Country (yay for the Republican side of the brain), and no spinster Brown Owl to judge the state of your knots for your Weaver's Badge, but the truth of the WF's attraction for me is utterly straightforward. They take a kid off me at short notice, dump her in a wood, and let her get on with the co-operative, team-building challenges she must surely face if she is to ever get out of a difficult situation alive.
One of these challenges is to find your own food. I quite fancy the idea that all mini meat-eating Woodies will have to learn how to track, catch, kill, gut, skin and cook a rabbit (there would be a lot more vegetarians by Sunday night), but to their credit the WF are much more pragmatic even than this. They muster the kids into groups, bung them thirty quid, and drive them to Sainsbury's. The groups must then organise themselves to buy, cook and feed their clan for the entire weekend. If the group decides to blow the thirty quid in Cadbury's Creme Eggs, so be it. They'll trade Creme Eggs for cucumbers come morning (so the theory goes).
Shark is thrilled by this whole idea of dinner autonomy, which makes me wonder what restrictions she thinks she lives under round here (I suppose they do camp fire, while I do setting the tea towel on fire), but I am hugely grateful to the woodies for dreaming up this type of scheme and putting it into practice.
While Shark is doing that, I locate a Saturday morning wildlife group for my remaining children. This particular group has been remarkably coy about its location, activities and costs, so I hope they are up to something like hunt sabotage, or keying the cars of nest thieves and shoving shit through the letterboxes of bird poisoners. Anyhow, I find them, and they are doing no such thing. It is pond dipping (again).
But I am delighted to report that for the first time in what feels like a century I spend a large part of the day with no children to look after at all, no-one to watch over my actions, no-one grass me up to Social Services, and no-one to blab what I do down the Co-op. I'm not telling you, either.
I can come over all liberal, celebrate how there are no pointless brown uniforms, no stupid oaths of fealty to God, Queen or Country (yay for the Republican side of the brain), and no spinster Brown Owl to judge the state of your knots for your Weaver's Badge, but the truth of the WF's attraction for me is utterly straightforward. They take a kid off me at short notice, dump her in a wood, and let her get on with the co-operative, team-building challenges she must surely face if she is to ever get out of a difficult situation alive.
One of these challenges is to find your own food. I quite fancy the idea that all mini meat-eating Woodies will have to learn how to track, catch, kill, gut, skin and cook a rabbit (there would be a lot more vegetarians by Sunday night), but to their credit the WF are much more pragmatic even than this. They muster the kids into groups, bung them thirty quid, and drive them to Sainsbury's. The groups must then organise themselves to buy, cook and feed their clan for the entire weekend. If the group decides to blow the thirty quid in Cadbury's Creme Eggs, so be it. They'll trade Creme Eggs for cucumbers come morning (so the theory goes).
Shark is thrilled by this whole idea of dinner autonomy, which makes me wonder what restrictions she thinks she lives under round here (I suppose they do camp fire, while I do setting the tea towel on fire), but I am hugely grateful to the woodies for dreaming up this type of scheme and putting it into practice.
While Shark is doing that, I locate a Saturday morning wildlife group for my remaining children. This particular group has been remarkably coy about its location, activities and costs, so I hope they are up to something like hunt sabotage, or keying the cars of nest thieves and shoving shit through the letterboxes of bird poisoners. Anyhow, I find them, and they are doing no such thing. It is pond dipping (again).
But I am delighted to report that for the first time in what feels like a century I spend a large part of the day with no children to look after at all, no-one to watch over my actions, no-one grass me up to Social Services, and no-one to blab what I do down the Co-op. I'm not telling you, either.
Friday, 22 June 2012
City of Caves
I cannot make my camera take pictures, as cameras are supposed to do. No matter what I try, it claims it cannot remember anything more, then says it must go and lie down as it is tired.
I loudly press all its buttons, jiggle its brain, give it a good talking to, and slap it about a bit.
Nothing. So I have no pictures from the City of Caves attraction for you. Squirrel says I cannot photograph underground anyway. I beg to differ. This is Nott'm, city of ambition and enterprise. They can turn dark into light if they wish.
The City of Caves attraction is quite good; better than I was expecting after the sales talk from the desk (there are caves... you can't go down all the caves... the caves are private... well, we have a couple of caves... um, they are just caves, really). But the attraction is much more than that! The information on the walkie-talkie audio is dramatically and engagingly presented, and the caves are dressed up a bit to represent various historical periods. I enjoyed it. Although I became confused about where to stand and walk, which irritated the children, given there is only one way I could actually go.
This is our education, not just being on holiday, even if it looks like it. So here is the output. Squirrel said it was very good and she particularly liked the pebbles; Tiger declared she learned so many things she could not say exactly what; and Shark said, How many hours till five o'clock?
Sadly, we have to leave Nott'm and all the caves, private, or otherwise paid-for at attraction rates, because Shark is camping this weekend with the WF, in the wood at Thetford.
I loudly press all its buttons, jiggle its brain, give it a good talking to, and slap it about a bit.
Nothing. So I have no pictures from the City of Caves attraction for you. Squirrel says I cannot photograph underground anyway. I beg to differ. This is Nott'm, city of ambition and enterprise. They can turn dark into light if they wish.
The City of Caves attraction is quite good; better than I was expecting after the sales talk from the desk (there are caves... you can't go down all the caves... the caves are private... well, we have a couple of caves... um, they are just caves, really). But the attraction is much more than that! The information on the walkie-talkie audio is dramatically and engagingly presented, and the caves are dressed up a bit to represent various historical periods. I enjoyed it. Although I became confused about where to stand and walk, which irritated the children, given there is only one way I could actually go.
This is our education, not just being on holiday, even if it looks like it. So here is the output. Squirrel said it was very good and she particularly liked the pebbles; Tiger declared she learned so many things she could not say exactly what; and Shark said, How many hours till five o'clock?
Sadly, we have to leave Nott'm and all the caves, private, or otherwise paid-for at attraction rates, because Shark is camping this weekend with the WF, in the wood at Thetford.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Hello, Nott'm!
Ah, Nottingham! Place of my 1960s childhood, fragile growth, and miserable school confinement!
Once the proud dwelling of Saxon Lord Snot; home to a fine Norman Castle; late battleground of Richard I and evil brother John; and the defiant site where the English Civil War began. What a heroic past you have!
Now you wear your twenty-first century triple glories as English city of gun crime, drug-dealing, and anti-social binge drinking. I am told I can see your city centre unveiled regularly on late night shock cop TV, but I spare your modesties. I have never looked.
Dear Nott'm, I am your exiled daughter! Gone to the fragrant shires I am, and never, in all likelihood, will return to dwell with you again. I know, for I see you today, maybe the first time in twenty years, and you are too big and urban and scary and the newspapers proclaim last night's murder behind the Pizza Express.
Although yes, despite your changes, you stay the same. It is a comfort to see your lions once more, looking as grim and menacing as they ever did. Which is a feat, considering they have King Tut-style manes. But I look at them fondly; they are a meeting place for ghosts.
But we are not here for me to reminisce before I die from an attack of the tortoise balloons.
No. I have maintained that our visit here to Nott'm is an educational undertaking for geological and geographical purposes. We are to stroke a sandstone escarpment, find contours on a map, and provide an excuse for me to deliver my interesting lectures on settlement, land use, communication patterns and physical environment.
Thus I have promised myself. I will not tour Nott'm excitedly pointing out the car window breathlessly exclaiming This is the park my mum took me to! and This is the hedge I was sick in after Goose Fair! although I do lapse a bit into burbling that, now and again. But the children egg me on to do so, something terrible, strangely on each occasion I begin to outline the Burgess urban land use model.
And in truth it is hard to stop. In the city centre, those Victorian buildings are every bit as impressive now as I recall years ago, except for the ones that have been knocked down for redevelopment, obviously. The Broadmarsh centre still lives on, as tacky and desolate as before. The Council House in the market square, that grandly conjured building, a show-off of a place, recklessly declaring the ever-lasting might and power of the Corporation, still stands! And the library where I wrote my fantastically erudite A-level essays! Not closed down! Hurrah for the people of Nottingham!
Okay, enough of that, otherwise the sandstone rock will be unexplored and Burgess sat alone forlorn.
The little grits eagerly tour the castle. (Where my mum took me!)
Delight at the secret tunnels. (Mortimer's Hole!)
Marvel at the world-famous Robin Hood statue. (My first story books!)
Admire the Trip cut into the rock! (Bad teenage angsty stage.)
And walk right past the doors in the walls. (Don't anyone ever tell me they are store rooms.)
Then, almost overwhelmed with excitement, I drive my little grits ceremoniously past my old school. (Knocked down, eliminated from all records, name removed from memory, gone; existing only in my scars.)
Once the proud dwelling of Saxon Lord Snot; home to a fine Norman Castle; late battleground of Richard I and evil brother John; and the defiant site where the English Civil War began. What a heroic past you have!
Now you wear your twenty-first century triple glories as English city of gun crime, drug-dealing, and anti-social binge drinking. I am told I can see your city centre unveiled regularly on late night shock cop TV, but I spare your modesties. I have never looked.
Dear Nott'm, I am your exiled daughter! Gone to the fragrant shires I am, and never, in all likelihood, will return to dwell with you again. I know, for I see you today, maybe the first time in twenty years, and you are too big and urban and scary and the newspapers proclaim last night's murder behind the Pizza Express.
Although yes, despite your changes, you stay the same. It is a comfort to see your lions once more, looking as grim and menacing as they ever did. Which is a feat, considering they have King Tut-style manes. But I look at them fondly; they are a meeting place for ghosts.
But we are not here for me to reminisce before I die from an attack of the tortoise balloons.
No. I have maintained that our visit here to Nott'm is an educational undertaking for geological and geographical purposes. We are to stroke a sandstone escarpment, find contours on a map, and provide an excuse for me to deliver my interesting lectures on settlement, land use, communication patterns and physical environment.
Thus I have promised myself. I will not tour Nott'm excitedly pointing out the car window breathlessly exclaiming This is the park my mum took me to! and This is the hedge I was sick in after Goose Fair! although I do lapse a bit into burbling that, now and again. But the children egg me on to do so, something terrible, strangely on each occasion I begin to outline the Burgess urban land use model.
And in truth it is hard to stop. In the city centre, those Victorian buildings are every bit as impressive now as I recall years ago, except for the ones that have been knocked down for redevelopment, obviously. The Broadmarsh centre still lives on, as tacky and desolate as before. The Council House in the market square, that grandly conjured building, a show-off of a place, recklessly declaring the ever-lasting might and power of the Corporation, still stands! And the library where I wrote my fantastically erudite A-level essays! Not closed down! Hurrah for the people of Nottingham!
Okay, enough of that, otherwise the sandstone rock will be unexplored and Burgess sat alone forlorn.
The little grits eagerly tour the castle. (Where my mum took me!)
Delight at the secret tunnels. (Mortimer's Hole!)
Marvel at the world-famous Robin Hood statue. (My first story books!)
Admire the Trip cut into the rock! (Bad teenage angsty stage.)
And walk right past the doors in the walls. (Don't anyone ever tell me they are store rooms.)
Then, almost overwhelmed with excitement, I drive my little grits ceremoniously past my old school. (Knocked down, eliminated from all records, name removed from memory, gone; existing only in my scars.)
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Wednesday
Today brings the sort of circumstance that can be brought to a conclusion only by standing in the middle of a wood picking a fight with a telephone answering machine.
It is the evening that I have booked in company with the National Trust.
As agreed by them and me, and at a cost they have already swiped out my bank account, I have driven here across the country (losing my sense of direction only once or twice), sacrificed my dinner of non-allergenic potatoes, and rearranged our forthcoming trip to Nottingham in order to deliver the little grits for a booked 7pm walk-and-talk about estate management, parkland history, and the beauty of the beech woods which make up the grand and glorious Ashridge Estate.
I have booked, and they haven't. I suspect something has gone wrong about five minutes before the walk is due to start. No-one else has turned up. It could be the vile weather and a preferable evening's entertainment of sex and violence on the TV, but I suspect the National Trust simply pitched it wrong with the words come and see our new fence.
We have booked, of course, because I am a home educating smarty pants who has made it her cause to get out the house everyday on a mission of outdoors exploration. And I have grandly proclaimed that this term we will look at the social and botanical history of gardens (large and small), from which I will not be thwarted.
Seven o'clock, and for sure it has gone bellyup. We are the only people except for a snogging couple of teenagers and a man in an anorak suspiciously walking his dog round in circles. None of them look to me like the sort of warden I would trust to provide me with a reliable guide to managing estate woodland. I clench my fists. I want a green National Trust waxed jacket, wellington boots and a credible expression of authority.
Five minutes past seven and I am stabbing at signs and photographing them in evidence for the prosecution.
Ten past seven and I am pacing about the visitor centre, muttering dark curses at the shuttered windows, feeling like an anti-social hoodie who would now be entirely justified in kicking the ruddy door down thanks to being alienated once more by the National Trust who clearly hate me and have it in for me.
Quarter past seven and I'm snap-snappy-snapping into my mobile phone at a woman on an answering machine. Bizarrely, (because I am English), I then apologise for being cross. The machine pings me off and I really, really hope I delivered those words I'm sorry I'm cross in a perfect tone of passive-aggressive.
Twenty past seven I have done with the effing and blinding.
Determined not to waste the journey, I march the little grits on a pleasant evening stroll round Ashridge. I make up the history of the parkland for myself, then add my own appropriate punishment by way of a story about a little National Trust ranger called Goggles who becomes lost in the wood, loses all his clothes, and has his bits nibbled by wolves.
It is the evening that I have booked in company with the National Trust.
As agreed by them and me, and at a cost they have already swiped out my bank account, I have driven here across the country (losing my sense of direction only once or twice), sacrificed my dinner of non-allergenic potatoes, and rearranged our forthcoming trip to Nottingham in order to deliver the little grits for a booked 7pm walk-and-talk about estate management, parkland history, and the beauty of the beech woods which make up the grand and glorious Ashridge Estate.
I have booked, and they haven't. I suspect something has gone wrong about five minutes before the walk is due to start. No-one else has turned up. It could be the vile weather and a preferable evening's entertainment of sex and violence on the TV, but I suspect the National Trust simply pitched it wrong with the words come and see our new fence.
We have booked, of course, because I am a home educating smarty pants who has made it her cause to get out the house everyday on a mission of outdoors exploration. And I have grandly proclaimed that this term we will look at the social and botanical history of gardens (large and small), from which I will not be thwarted.
Seven o'clock, and for sure it has gone bellyup. We are the only people except for a snogging couple of teenagers and a man in an anorak suspiciously walking his dog round in circles. None of them look to me like the sort of warden I would trust to provide me with a reliable guide to managing estate woodland. I clench my fists. I want a green National Trust waxed jacket, wellington boots and a credible expression of authority.
Five minutes past seven and I am stabbing at signs and photographing them in evidence for the prosecution.
Ten past seven and I am pacing about the visitor centre, muttering dark curses at the shuttered windows, feeling like an anti-social hoodie who would now be entirely justified in kicking the ruddy door down thanks to being alienated once more by the National Trust who clearly hate me and have it in for me.
Quarter past seven and I'm snap-snappy-snapping into my mobile phone at a woman on an answering machine. Bizarrely, (because I am English), I then apologise for being cross. The machine pings me off and I really, really hope I delivered those words I'm sorry I'm cross in a perfect tone of passive-aggressive.
Twenty past seven I have done with the effing and blinding.
Determined not to waste the journey, I march the little grits on a pleasant evening stroll round Ashridge. I make up the history of the parkland for myself, then add my own appropriate punishment by way of a story about a little National Trust ranger called Goggles who becomes lost in the wood, loses all his clothes, and has his bits nibbled by wolves.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Tuesday
I promise this is the last time I write about the facie horribilis, or the tortoise face of balloon doom.
If I go down that route - creating an online cross-referenced catalogue of what I ate, what I touched, how many antihistamines I can swallow, and the allergen potential of benzoic acid when combined with acetyl salicylic acid - then the lovely gritsday blog would cease to become a wondrous and ever-changing daily source of delight and educational inspiration. It would become a mind-numbing catalogue of medical misery of interest only to other dietary obsessives.
I would be seriously bored by that shit, as any sane person would be, and I need to hang on to sanity.
I have been down this road before, anyhow, and recognise some of the indicators. When I turned overnight into a hippy vegan (1986), hanging around with a lot of organic tie died dread heads, I quickly became bored out of my skull. Lengthy meetings, painfully sat cross-legged, conducted cooperatively over earthenware pitchers of hand-picked chamomile tea, always went the same way: Do bees feel the painful trauma and despairing emptiness of loss when their unique stored sustenance is cruelly stolen from them? Discuss.
I quickly realised that half an hour of that was enough to turn me into a pig-chomping meat-eater again unless I speedily worked out a personal route for myself and stopped attending the happy sharing hippy ring.
So it is with the the tortoise face of balloon doom. I am ditching most of Doctor Internet's advice and resigning myself to a lengthy period of self-experimentation and self-study, the details of which I will not share unless I chance upon the elixir of life, the fountain of eternal youth, or the philosopher's stone. Then you can be sure I will share the answer with you, by bottling it and flogging it for a reasonable price.
Now, in other (educationalish) news, it is Tuesday, which means Shark attends the Woodcraft Folk, a group which she adores.
(I shall have to watch her, and if she picks out a tie-died skirt with bells hanging off it as the key to a lovely summer outfit, I shall whisk her off and join her up to the Pig Fancier's Union.)
If I go down that route - creating an online cross-referenced catalogue of what I ate, what I touched, how many antihistamines I can swallow, and the allergen potential of benzoic acid when combined with acetyl salicylic acid - then the lovely gritsday blog would cease to become a wondrous and ever-changing daily source of delight and educational inspiration. It would become a mind-numbing catalogue of medical misery of interest only to other dietary obsessives.
I would be seriously bored by that shit, as any sane person would be, and I need to hang on to sanity.
I have been down this road before, anyhow, and recognise some of the indicators. When I turned overnight into a hippy vegan (1986), hanging around with a lot of organic tie died dread heads, I quickly became bored out of my skull. Lengthy meetings, painfully sat cross-legged, conducted cooperatively over earthenware pitchers of hand-picked chamomile tea, always went the same way: Do bees feel the painful trauma and despairing emptiness of loss when their unique stored sustenance is cruelly stolen from them? Discuss.
I quickly realised that half an hour of that was enough to turn me into a pig-chomping meat-eater again unless I speedily worked out a personal route for myself and stopped attending the happy sharing hippy ring.
So it is with the the tortoise face of balloon doom. I am ditching most of Doctor Internet's advice and resigning myself to a lengthy period of self-experimentation and self-study, the details of which I will not share unless I chance upon the elixir of life, the fountain of eternal youth, or the philosopher's stone. Then you can be sure I will share the answer with you, by bottling it and flogging it for a reasonable price.
Now, in other (educationalish) news, it is Tuesday, which means Shark attends the Woodcraft Folk, a group which she adores.
(I shall have to watch her, and if she picks out a tie-died skirt with bells hanging off it as the key to a lovely summer outfit, I shall whisk her off and join her up to the Pig Fancier's Union.)
Monday, 18 June 2012
Monday
Yes, I have been neglecting matters of not much immediate concern, like education, children, and creating my multi-million dollar business from hand-crafted, wrap-around, pig-skin notebooks.
But I have an excuse. I have been busy, scrutinising every website in Planet Internet concerning balloon faces, swollen eyelids, and how to resolve peeling facial skin by sticking my face in a chlorine bath.
I am still wrestling with the allergy/intolerance/whoknowot. I look frightful for most of the day, and probably the night as well, only that's okay, because no-one has to wake up to the hideous sight next to them. My face looks like a dessicated tortoise slept in it. My dainty morning beauty routine consists of a hammer, chisel, a vat of Vaseline, twenty-two pots of Sudocrem and a pneumatic drill.
And another thing. It is painful. Spiritually as well as practically, involving a depressed state of mind, an unenergetic disposition, and a need to stop everything just to check out another 23,000 pages on whether olive oil could possibly be the guilty allergen. Please no no no no no no.
I have now cut out all alcohol, wheat, dairy, most foodstuffs, and am coming closer to a bread and water diet without the bread. This is not a sustainable situation, even I can see that, so back I go to Doctor Internet who will probably prescribe the solution of thrashing myself nightly with stinging nettles while standing in a bucket of water. Soon that will seem like it's worth a try.
Well, of course I believe there are positive things to be found in every situation, even miserable medical ones!
Okay, I can't actually think of any right now. Give me a moment.
How about, this experience is bringing families closer together, because when I walk down the street, toddlers run fleeing to their mother's arms seeking comfort and reassurance thanks to the approaching alien balloon tortoise monster disguising themselves behind a pair of dark glasses and a muffler.
My own children of course are unaffected by the horror, mostly because having a withered head does not significantly impact on my ability to pour a pack of dried pasta into a saucepan and open a tin of tomatoes.
But it is not all misery in the day. I have found an excellent sub-aqua group for Shark, and I am very happy with it indeed. I handed over a wodge of cash with a cracked smile, so that's indicative of how good this club is. Kid-friendly, well-equipped, brilliantly organised and the chief of the squad never batted an eyelid when I asked if he could just move out the way so I could stick my face in his pool.
But I have an excuse. I have been busy, scrutinising every website in Planet Internet concerning balloon faces, swollen eyelids, and how to resolve peeling facial skin by sticking my face in a chlorine bath.
I am still wrestling with the allergy/intolerance/whoknowot. I look frightful for most of the day, and probably the night as well, only that's okay, because no-one has to wake up to the hideous sight next to them. My face looks like a dessicated tortoise slept in it. My dainty morning beauty routine consists of a hammer, chisel, a vat of Vaseline, twenty-two pots of Sudocrem and a pneumatic drill.
And another thing. It is painful. Spiritually as well as practically, involving a depressed state of mind, an unenergetic disposition, and a need to stop everything just to check out another 23,000 pages on whether olive oil could possibly be the guilty allergen. Please no no no no no no.
I have now cut out all alcohol, wheat, dairy, most foodstuffs, and am coming closer to a bread and water diet without the bread. This is not a sustainable situation, even I can see that, so back I go to Doctor Internet who will probably prescribe the solution of thrashing myself nightly with stinging nettles while standing in a bucket of water. Soon that will seem like it's worth a try.
Well, of course I believe there are positive things to be found in every situation, even miserable medical ones!
Okay, I can't actually think of any right now. Give me a moment.
How about, this experience is bringing families closer together, because when I walk down the street, toddlers run fleeing to their mother's arms seeking comfort and reassurance thanks to the approaching alien balloon tortoise monster disguising themselves behind a pair of dark glasses and a muffler.
My own children of course are unaffected by the horror, mostly because having a withered head does not significantly impact on my ability to pour a pack of dried pasta into a saucepan and open a tin of tomatoes.
But it is not all misery in the day. I have found an excellent sub-aqua group for Shark, and I am very happy with it indeed. I handed over a wodge of cash with a cracked smile, so that's indicative of how good this club is. Kid-friendly, well-equipped, brilliantly organised and the chief of the squad never batted an eyelid when I asked if he could just move out the way so I could stick my face in his pool.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Saturday, 16 June 2012
At the time of living, did you consider yourself learning?
Have you ever been stopped by people in the street holding questionnaires?
I couldn't do that job. I would have to pull the right facial expression. Not desperate, like my day's pay or my career in street vox pop depends on you, stopping to answer. Not uptight, nor aggressive, not pleading. And my body language! Not ambushing you in your stride; not holding my clipboard like a cudgel to your face; and not unassuming either, like I'm inviting all-comers to vent their anger issues and grind me into the gutter.
And what type of person stops at the sight of a clipboard? I would worry about that. It's a self-selecting audience. Would the emotionally unstable seize the opportunity? I'm so glad you stopped me for a chat about your fifty per cent reduction on replacement windows. Does it show? How my husband walked out on me this morning? For that ugly uptight bitch! I'm so glad I can talk to you about it.
You see? Nothing can be right about the questionnaire process. Nothing. Not even when it's done for a bank of academic research rather than the sale of replacement windows.
Friday, 15 June 2012
lalaladumdedum
It's summer! I can tell! Yes, by the hail, gales, and how I'm wearing my Snuggee thermal knicker set. But I also know it's summer because it's music festival time!
I wrap up the little grits cosy and warm for the English summer at maybe 10 degrees below freezing; I take a blankie, pull up my hood, and we sit ourselves happily down for free, to enjoy our local waterside music fest.
I wrap up the little grits cosy and warm for the English summer at maybe 10 degrees below freezing; I take a blankie, pull up my hood, and we sit ourselves happily down for free, to enjoy our local waterside music fest.
JoingritinasingalongawiththelovelylalalalalaSerpentyne.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Wild life
Wow, these are hives of activity, aren't they? Wildlife clubs for kids.
Sure to be one near you. RSPB, Wildlife Watch, woods or country park. Pack your summer diary with events from this lot; manage three a day if you're minded.
Good ones burst with rangers who have a glint in their eye for the wonders of the wild. They can tell the difference between a stoat and a stuffed frog and don't nervously clutch the Surgical Hand Spray should Tinkertop glance upon a dead leaf.
The brilliant ones boast practical rangers and can wrangle an elderly birder, botanist, or geologist to walk alongside a bunch of whooping kids, communicating an ancient love of their ancient stuff as they go.
And the totally fantastic ones do everything with my kids, so I don't have to but can pretend I do.
Take today. I drive Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a wildlife club which could provide me with perfect cover should I want it. They make it easy for me to appear like an impressively involved parent, when in reality I have done nothing more than escort the offspring to a well-organised kiddy wildlife club, dumped them with the wizened elders, then quietly sloped off for a cup of gin.
Except I don't slope off for the gin. I am still too dim to have actually developed my exit strategy, unlike all the other canny mamas. While other parents make their escape, I walk round in the drizzle for two hours with the little grits, the geologist, and the big kiddy club.
I console myself. I don't have anywhere else to go, and no-one to go with. But I'm sure this evening walk with the kid's group makes me a top-drawer mama, also somehow morally virtuous. Albeit one steaming gently with drizzle, and wondering how useful is that knowledge about soil sampling with a twizzle stick.
It's all admirable. And, secretly, I enjoyed the walk in the woods. It was pitched about my age-12 level. But I'm sure I never had such a thing as a wildlife club when I grew up. No wise rangers, no sand experts, no stuffed teaching stoat.
Possibly there were such clubs, but my parents couldn't be arsed (likely), or there was simply no need for them. The default assumption in my loosely-hanging 1960s primary school days was that we kids would spend all our valuable evenings and weekends kicking up outdoors, experientially teaching ourselves what we needed to know while we grubbed around in mud, hopefully not with the neighbourhood moggy as experiment A.
Adults left us alone. They knew by instinct the dubious activities that might come under the name of playing, and they didn't want to see them. They wanted us as far away from human sight as possible - falling short of actual abandonment - because they knew playing would make any sensible adult recoil in shock and horror. They were possibly my best years ever.
So while I feel undoubtedly virtuous, top-drawer mama material, joining in with the busy wildlife club, traipsing round the woods with a pack of kids, learning about sand and soil, a little bit of me also wants to feel confident that I can do as my own mother did. Tip the kids out of doors, lost and gone, then three hours later yell the adventurers back home, simply by sounding out that one magic word. Dinner.
Sure to be one near you. RSPB, Wildlife Watch, woods or country park. Pack your summer diary with events from this lot; manage three a day if you're minded.
Good ones burst with rangers who have a glint in their eye for the wonders of the wild. They can tell the difference between a stoat and a stuffed frog and don't nervously clutch the Surgical Hand Spray should Tinkertop glance upon a dead leaf.
The brilliant ones boast practical rangers and can wrangle an elderly birder, botanist, or geologist to walk alongside a bunch of whooping kids, communicating an ancient love of their ancient stuff as they go.
And the totally fantastic ones do everything with my kids, so I don't have to but can pretend I do.
Take today. I drive Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a wildlife club which could provide me with perfect cover should I want it. They make it easy for me to appear like an impressively involved parent, when in reality I have done nothing more than escort the offspring to a well-organised kiddy wildlife club, dumped them with the wizened elders, then quietly sloped off for a cup of gin.
Except I don't slope off for the gin. I am still too dim to have actually developed my exit strategy, unlike all the other canny mamas. While other parents make their escape, I walk round in the drizzle for two hours with the little grits, the geologist, and the big kiddy club.
I console myself. I don't have anywhere else to go, and no-one to go with. But I'm sure this evening walk with the kid's group makes me a top-drawer mama, also somehow morally virtuous. Albeit one steaming gently with drizzle, and wondering how useful is that knowledge about soil sampling with a twizzle stick.
It's all admirable. And, secretly, I enjoyed the walk in the woods. It was pitched about my age-12 level. But I'm sure I never had such a thing as a wildlife club when I grew up. No wise rangers, no sand experts, no stuffed teaching stoat.
Possibly there were such clubs, but my parents couldn't be arsed (likely), or there was simply no need for them. The default assumption in my loosely-hanging 1960s primary school days was that we kids would spend all our valuable evenings and weekends kicking up outdoors, experientially teaching ourselves what we needed to know while we grubbed around in mud, hopefully not with the neighbourhood moggy as experiment A.
Adults left us alone. They knew by instinct the dubious activities that might come under the name of playing, and they didn't want to see them. They wanted us as far away from human sight as possible - falling short of actual abandonment - because they knew playing would make any sensible adult recoil in shock and horror. They were possibly my best years ever.
So while I feel undoubtedly virtuous, top-drawer mama material, joining in with the busy wildlife club, traipsing round the woods with a pack of kids, learning about sand and soil, a little bit of me also wants to feel confident that I can do as my own mother did. Tip the kids out of doors, lost and gone, then three hours later yell the adventurers back home, simply by sounding out that one magic word. Dinner.
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
What would you do?
We join a local home-school group on an outing to Stratford-on-Avon.
I wasn't particularly looking for a spot of alternative provision, but you have to believe me, this was timely.
We were watching I, Claudius on Youtube (I can pretend it's Latin studies), just hours after I'd checked the prices for Julius Caesar by the RSC. Then an invitation pinged at me.
Do you want to come to Stratford? Includes Falstaff Experience; town walk with Shakespeare; workshop at the RSC; evening performance of Julius Caesar. Spare seats on the coach.
What would you do? Some home educators wouldn't go within a mile of this offer, no matter how seductive it was, even if delivery was with naked bodies and tumbling clowns. I know other home educators who would leap at the chance.
For those happy readers in a state of blissful ignorance who don't know what fuss could possibly be made about here, it's in the words, alternative provision.
Alternative provision is an education guided by the requirements of the local authority. The kids might not go into school every day, and they might receive an education off-site, but they'll probably be signed in somewhere to follow the National Curriculum or take a bag of GCSEs. The kids must be assessed and monitored (and maybe the parents, too) so the effectiveness of the scheme can be measured. Join up to an alternative provision model, and you receive certain cost benefits, but there are costs on your freedom, too.
Whatever your opinions, it's undeniable that alternative provision works for some children, especially if the daily, grinding uniform of school short-fuses their brains. Alternative provision also works for some parents who need a structured, supported, recognisable route; better one that can be provided within a framework that doesn't bludgeon them to death with all the heavy-duty structures of a conventional school.
Anyway, me and the little grits tagged along - eyes, ears, minds open - and it was a good day. Stratford is a charming come-hither town, is it not? The Falstaff Experience was fun; the RSC drama workshop was outstanding, and the evening production, superb. The setting of Julius Caesar in Nigeria is a bull's eye for the director. The setting and casting chime perfectly with the themes of the play. I recommend it.
Of course the day trip made me consider again the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative provision model for us. I always wonder, Would a flexischool system work for me and the little grits?
On the plus side, by signing them up to such a scheme for their GCSE years, I could duck out from the weight of a lonely and heavy sense of responsibility. On the minus side, I'd be taking on other, more widely accountable responsibilities in an agenda set ultimately by someone else. And I'd have to manoeuvre Shark, Squirrel and Tiger into attending sessions and lessons they might not want to do. Could I shoehorn that into my philosophy? Tricky.
I don't have any answers for us right now, although I probably know intuitively what our answer would be.
What about yours? Would you say yes to alternative provision?
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Naming Day
Squirrel declares today her Naming Day. This day is a bit like the joker in the pack.
In this household you can suddenly declare Today is My Naming Day! Then the entire household must run around making you a sudden focus of attention; organising presents, creating cakes, blowing up the balloon from the science kit, and generally making up a great fuss.
Don't begin the Naming Day joker, that's my advice.
I never took anyone's advice about anything, which might account for a few of my life problems. But I began the Naming Day because I have triplets, so have put myself beyond advice, except from the other outnumbered parents who are in the same boat as me.
Well, obviously, triplets share the same birthday, which pisses them off. To make sure each child knew for sure they were special, unique, and treasured as an individual rather than one part of a three-part set, I began the Naming Day.
It has been the bane of my life ever since. It is usually declared in the most awkward of times, allows for very little planning or preparation, and involves much running about trying to please everyone.
The consolation for me is that each child can pull it only once a year.
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