Tag: children

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The Sock Fairy

nataliegist

Thank goodness that in addition to Father Christmas and his elves taking the cumbersome task of present acquisition, wrapping and delivery off my hands, that I also have my House Fairy Team. This morning they were able to flutter about looking for school cardigans at the last minute because although they had been washed, The Sock Fairy had not put them into Childerbeast Number Two and Three’s drawers.  Tut, tut.

If you don’t have a resident House Fairy Team, I strongly recommend that you get one immediately for 2019. They cost nothing and really make life so much easier for everyone – usually the female in the house in particular (Human in Charge).  As we all know, more often than not, it is still deemed the female’s job to shoulder the majority of these tasks, paid or unpaid employment, full or part time – the statistics are widely and publicly available if you’d like to argue the toss with me.  I think you can mix and match your requirements, but if I run through the main team for you.

  1. The Monitor Fairy.  No, not like the lizard.  S/he (for no one has ever seen a House Fairy) is essentially in charge.  Not a very glamorous title, and not a very glamorous job either.   S/he has a number of tasks, but in summary:
  • Clothing and bedding.  S/he is expected to know not only precisely what items of clothing are in everyone’s wardrobe, but also their whereabouts at any given moment in time, their status in the wash cycle, and crucially, when the owner of that item of clothing is likely to want it to grace their person, but before they have actually communicated that wish which usually only happens at the point of dressing.   This excludes all items belonging to the Human in Charge – they’re fairies, not wizards.
  • Food.  S/he is to take a note of all of the foods that the Humans (and any animals) residing in the House like and dislike.  They are to ensure that there is an endless supply of those foodstuffs into the House in order that no Human in the house (excepting the Human in Charge) is left to the mercy of The Fridge Troll (see below).  It is also vital that there is a number of nutritious and balanced snacks available at any one time.  It is essential that these are available so that the Human In Charge can list them to the other Humans in the house who announce their hunger for the sole purpose of them being listed and subsequently roundly and repeatedly spurned, even if they were a favoured item previously. 
  • Cleanliness.  It is The Monitor Fairy who instructs The Cleaning Fairy to chisel the toothpaste off the bathroom sink and sandblast the kitchen floor.
  • Diaries – social and unsocial.  Every single Human’s movements, social and work-related are to be noted so that there is not a diary clash.  It is also vital to ensure that the points above re clothing and food can be seemlessly dovetailed to encompass the movements of everyone in the house (Human in Charge exclusion applies).  If there is a diary clash then it is to be noted that as a first solution, if the Human in Charge is one of those involved in the diary clash, then whatever they had planned (work, career, wee on own) has to be ditched first so as to cause the least disruption.  If the Human in Charge is not the cause of the diary clash, then simply cloning of self is all that is required to resolve the issue – see Hogwarts.

Also in the House Fairy Team are the following:

  • The Sock Fairy.  As I am sure you all know, The Sock Fairy is the one who creates all odd socks and let widely known, also puts all of the clean underwear away.  So when someone shouts “I’ve got no pants” in an accusatory tone five minutes before you’ve got to leave the house in the morning, you can take comfort in knowing that it isn’t you that they’re blaming for the shoddy service, but the most wayward and undisciplined member of the House Fairy Team. 
  • The Toy Fairy. S/he knows the location of all toys.  And when I say all toys, I mean toys and playthings that have been completely ignored for months, even years, but suddenly and inexplicably become the best thing sliced bread and need to be located.  This is usually when The Tidy Up Fairy is trying to sneak them out of the house to a charity shop.
  • The Tidy Up Fairy.  Not to be confused with the Cleaning Fairy, who actually cleans once s/he can get to the floor after the Tidy Up Fairy has worked their magic.  If you get nothing else get a Tidy Up Fairy.  They spend all day every day picking up toys, pieces of paper, drawings and other bits of general debris and putting them into small piles around the house.  They are so focused on their task that they go into one room with the express intention of helping The Toy Fairy but then get distracted by something that needs tidying up and then wonder why they came into that room in the first place.  They are constantly concerned that this means something more serious is happening to them rather than they have too many things going on.

Being a House Fairy is not an easy task.  There are always baddies working against the House Fairy Team, and the most notable of these are The Fridge Troll and The Toothpaste Terror. 

  • The Fridge Troll.  S/he (for no one has ever seen a Fridge Troll) sneaks into your fridge and eats all of the food.  One minute it is full, then next it is not.  This can cause such distress to one of the Humans that they feel the need to shout, immediately, whilst their head is still in the fridge and they themselves are hanging off the fridge door and leaning into it that “there’s nothing in the fridge.”  Again, this has a tone which suggests that this parlous state of affairs is All. Your. Fault.  Of course it is not, it is The Fridge Troll and their evil works.
  • The Toothpaste Terror.  Rather like Pan’s Shadow, this Creature of Darkness flits into the bathroom and layers toothpaste onto the basin in such a manner that it hardens in seconds and then, just so you know they’ve been, they spit the remainder all over the mirror. This needs particular monitoring just after the basin and mirror has been cleaned as that is the time when the bathroom is at its most vulnerable.

Before taking a team on, please also consider that most days it will look as if the House Fairy Team have been doing absolutely nothing all day.  On occasion you may well wonder why you are convinced that you can hear the tiny, high-pitched sound of fairy snoring at nine o’clock in the evening if so little has been achieved.  Please do remember that they are to all intents and purposes, invisible and their task is quite literally, thankless.  Except one day, just one day, maybe they will hear someone mutter something that will keep their heart warm when their magic starts to fade: “Mummy, sometimes when I can’t get to sleep, I put my nose into the pillow because it smells of you. It makes me feel better and then I can go to sleep.”

Happy New Year. 

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Judge Me By My Size, Do You?

nataliegist

 

 

milky way galaxy during nighttime
Photo by Hristo Fidanov on Pexels.com

The best stories are always those where there is a battle between good and evil; the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, Frodo and Sauron, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, those of you who love Marmite vs those of us who hate it…… You may recall that just over a year ago I wrote a blog about being involved with a potential building project of a new pre-school. I say potential because at the time of writing nothing was certain. For those who don’t recall it was a blog written about three days before we were scheduled to knock the old building down expressing my extreme anxiety as to the consequences, if, for want of a better phrase, we fucked it up. The two important points to bear in mind were: 1. We had to build it into the Summer holidays so we could open for the new term, and 2. We had one pot of money that had taken ten years to save, and that was it, down to the last penny.  And in that blog I said that I would let you know how our story came to an end; it was a titanic battle.

As many of you who volunteer or work for charities know, we needed cash. And lots of it. You’ll be relieved to hear that we weren’t three days away from the start date when I was writing and still wondering where we were going to find the money. However, I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to thank every single person who ever donated anything towards the project because without them we would never have got to it even being a possibility. Previous trustees had been scrimping and saving for almost ten years to try and gather a pot of money together to prepare for the day that the building came down, either because it was knocked down deliberately, or by a reasonably strong gust of wind.

As the gust of wind option became more likely the need for the cash became more pressing. Thankfully we had a committee member who had the perfect skill-set of knowing precisely how to wring money out of people combined with an ability to boss about those of us who didn’t. And to keep it up, consistently, for about four years. It is impossible to express to you just how hard it was to raise that money. And once raised, how incredibly careful we had to be to make sure that money was enough.

Whilst we were getting the money together, because we are not completely stupid (which may surprise most of you), it had also occurred to us that we needed the legal right to actually go ahead with the build. Apparently planning authorities and landowners get a bit sniffy if you just start building on their property.  This is where my complete and utter inability to organise a fundraiser did not matter (“Natalie you look as comfortable with that bunting as [three year old son] looks when I give him a pen”). However, my  skill to work my way through the varying departments at the local authority until I got to speak to the correct person to give us that permission did matter. I exchanged the contract, I believe, with around an hour to spare before an army of volunteers turned up to empty the building before it was to be knocked down and the site cleared the next day. Nothing like taking it to the wire.

The committee also had a number of very detailed conversations late into the night about the minutiae of the building. A long list of all of the things that would be necessary in order for it to function as a pre-school, together with the associated cost of those items and the difference between essential and desirable. My colleagues and I now know far more about toilets than frankly, we ever wanted.  Consequently we have also given more consideration and had more open conversation than we would have ever wished to regarding the dimensions of the human bottom.  Nevertheless, if you need a lavatorial expert, I know just the woman, so please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Taking the old building down and the new one going up was where committee member number four came in. We had employed a company to supply and construct the building but once it was plastered we were going to need some other people come in. Committee member number four knew (and presumably still does) an inordinate number of people with diggers and trailers, those big metal fences, drills, chain saws, and lots of other manly equipment and power tools. A selection of eager husbands, fathers and I think some people who just fancied joining in turned up the next day and took great delight in dismantling the old building and chucking it into skips. Committee member number four took five days annual leave to work on the project. And that excludes evenings and weekends.

This is not forgetting other committee members, and the Manager in particular, who were doing boring and unsexy but extremely necessary administrative stuff and things like sanding handrails for hours on end, digging holes and spending a thrilling evening on their hands and knees putting nails into the floor so the carpet could be laid.  All to ensure that we finished. On time. And on budget.  Ready for the new term.

Perhaps when you are surrounded by people who are all working towards the same goal, even if you differ at points as to how to get there, the thing that binds you together is that you all do want to get there.  Although there was a web of red tape involved which was exceedingly challenging to navigate, we didn’t feel that we were up against the wrong side.  It was realizing that some people are wandering through life with entirely and exclusively their own interests at heart that did.  One of our volunteers was working on the building one evening after being at work all day and looking forward to their dinner at eleven pm when their partner telephoned as they had come home to discover that they had been burgled. The plasterer walked off site the reasons for which we will never know and in doing so risked everything everyone had worked for, and five people’s jobs. Orcs? Death Eaters?  I think so. By contrast a local builder found us four plasterers who were in the building the next morning to try and catch up the time. A local farmer who grows and sells sunflowers for charity had heard about the project and gave us a donation.  Rebel Alliance?  Gryffindors?  Yup.

And us? The committee as was? What happened to us?  We are still around, but not putting our hands up for any charitable building projects any time soon.  Any number of people could have done what we did.  And we could not have done it without everyone who had gone before us, and everyone who stood with us at the time.  We just happened to be the people who were in the right place at the right time.  And we knew it.  Although some days it felt very much like the wrong place and the wrong time.  But it is my view that the anything worth having in life, something worth truly having, is something that you have to fight for – love, respect, friendship.  Do you remember that scene in Star Wars when Yoda lifts the X-Wing out of the swamp using The Force? If you don’t (unconscionable but possible) look it up on YouTube.  Luke Skywalker stands amazed and can only just manage to say “I don’t believe it.”. Yoda turns to him and in his distinctive, ominous and slightly squeaky voice, utters the immortal words: “That. Is. Why. You Failed.” We were a group of people for whom failure was not an option. We knew that together we had the ability to pull it off.  But only together.  Which I think by my own assessment, makes us all Yoda. Yikes.

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English Water Torture

nataliegist

swimming underwater diving person
Photo by Roman Pohorecki on Pexels.com

Every month I am relieved of nearly sixty pounds.   Depending on the number of children that they have, other parents who go to the same leisure centre as me are also relieved of upwards of twenty pounds a month per child.  For this I and they get the exceedingly dubious pleasure of escorting their Chillderbeasts to their swimming lessons each and every week.

I have been taking my Childerbeasts swimming since they were tiny, with me actually having to go into the pool with them at that time because four month old babies going swimming themselves is apparently not recommended  For those of you who remain blissfully unaware, getting ready to take a baby swimming is another job in itself before you even get near the pool if you are a woman (see The Thigh’s the Limit if you are in any doubt as to what I am referring).  I was usually sweating and stressed out before I even got to the front door.

Now when you take your children swimming when they are very small, it is a double-edged sword.  You are getting them used to the water so they will never remember they were frightened when they start actual lessons, if they ever were; tick.  The water is usually freezing cold; cross.  And causes their little lips to go blue; cross.  So you leap about even more enthusiastically to try and warm them up; tick.  But when you eventually give in and get out they throw a tantrum and kick their little legs up and down because they were having a lovely time; cross.  But they are also now starving; cross.  And their swim nappy needs some attention; cross.  Then you have to stand sopping wet and rather cold whilst you dry an upset and wriggly child.  Once they are dry, the changing rooms are usually so disgusting that you don’t want your child to touch anything, let alone put their hands in their mouths and everything, absolutely everything has a pointy edge just asking for a head to be bumped on it .  We all know how much children listen to being told not to do things, so the only thing to do is to put your dry clothes on your cold and wet body, pick up your child, and leave.  Remember, you are paying for this.

When they get bigger, it’s a whole new circle of hell.  First, assuming that you have got into the changing rooms past the ridiculous turnstiles (who would infiltrate the local leisure centre?  Who?) you have to get the recalcitrant child into their swimming attire.  That’s like trying to nail jelly to the wall.  Then, in spite of you having asked them before they got undressed if they needed to go, and they catageorically denied it, they need a wee.  So they take it all off again.  In the festering and disgusting pit that is the changing room toilet.  It is never any different in any leisure centre I have ever been in.  Why is the person who uses the loo before you in a swimming pool changing room utterly incapable of a) getting their urine into the toilet b) getting the toilet paper into the toilet and c) flushing it?  It’s not difficult.  I assume that they do it at home.  Once I had to report a used tampon on the floor of said toilet to a very distressed looking member of staff.  I had not specified what horror they were likely to find because I could not bring myself to utter the words, so utterly incredulous was I that someone would be so monstrous.  I had merely suggested that the toilet might need some attention and that was sufficient to strike the fear of God into them.  After somehow controlling an almost uncontrollable desire to disinfect everything,  you note that the changing rooms now seem to be at a temperature that is hotter than the surface of the sun, and the swimming hat has yet to go on.

For reasons not even known to myself, last year, I volunteered to go swimming with the school.  I picked up a top tip from one of the children for putting on a swimming hat during that time and I pass it onto you.  The adult holds the hat open.  Hold it firmly and face the open part towards the child.  The child, with hair up if necessary, then runs full pelt and head-first at the open hat.  In one swift movement, as the child’s head goes into the hat, the adult releases the hat, steps to one side and the child has to either stop running or hit the wall.  Either way, they are now wearing a swimming hat.

Just when you thought you were ready to advance on the pool,  you have to tackle the damned goggles.  Goggles are viewed by children like food; what was acceptable last week, or even the day before, could cause great offence this week. So the goggles fitted and did not let the water in last week.  Today is quite the opposite.  The goggles are re-adjusted and put on.  You then gratefully release your child into the care of their swimming teacher for twenty five minutes or until they decide they need another wee, whichever comes first.

You make you way to the viewing area where, in spite of the cacophony, you will note that your child is listening, that’s right, I said listening, to their teacher. And not only are they listening, they are showing all of the signs of doing as they have been asked.  As you sit there, gently perspiring, sporting your shoe covers and the unpleasant feeling of damp around your ankles from the bottom of your jeans getting wet, you think of all of the places you’d rather be; a yacht, a beach, the dentist…and you remember that you’re actually paying for this.

At the end of the lesson, you collect your child and join the queue for the showers.  Now, builders of leisure centres, I want to talk to you so listen up.  In my extensive experience, it is generally mothers who take their children swimming.  Now we could get into a very long and detailed discussion as to why mothers generally take their children swimming, which I am more than happy to do.  But we both know that it ain’t going to change anytime soon.  When our children are small they come into the changing rooms with us.  Trust me, we do not enjoy the experience; we accompany our children because we are their mothers and that is our job.   So what you could do is provide more showers.  They’re not that expensive and it sure as hell would make a difference to us.  Thank you for your attention.

When you eventually get your child into the shower, you then have the very thorny issue of getting the little bugger out.  You will stand there telling them to rub the shampoo in.  You will insist that they put their head under the stream rather than standing with their bum poking in the water and their head poking out.  You will, in very clipped tones, invite them to stop filling their swimming hat with water.  Every week you will eventually make a plea to their better nature and point out that there are other children still waiting so could they please speed up.  Eventually, you bring the big guns out and tell them that if they don’t get out of the shower you will cancel computer time/not let them have some chocolate/never feed them again.

They won’t dry their legs before they put their pants on.  You will ask.  You will ask every week.  You’re wasting your breath.  Every other mother in the changing area knows it because they were standing in the shower with you when their child was also filling up their swimming hat with water instead of having a wash.  They won’t dry their hair off either because what would a Childerbeast have to complain about if it wasn’t for wet hair dripping down their back?  Oh that’s right – they’re hungry again.  Eventually, in a timespan that feels geological, you leave.  Safe in the knowledge that you will go through the very same ordeal in precisely seven day’s time.

In some years from now you will be on that beach.  Slathered in factor fifty you will look up from your book to see your Childerbeast sploshing about in the sea.  Before you sat down you assessed the distance between your sunlounger and the sea and you already know that the distance is such that if you had to run to get there, you could.  The distance is now one hundred metres rather than one hundred millimetres.  So for now you can watch them from where you are.  They will marvel at the fish they can see whilst snorkelling.  They will shout “Mummy, look at me” as they leap in for the millionth time.  You may even hire a boat or go on a trip which involves everyone throwing themselves overboard and swimming to the beach for a visit to a local taverna.  And as you sip on your cool drink, you will lean back, sigh and think to yourself “I have most certainly, most definitely, and without a shadow of a doubt, paid for this”

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Good Hair Day

nataliegist

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I hope that you have all had a great couple of weeks of being fabulous and gorgeous.  I know I have.  I can’t tell you how wonderful and brilliant and not forgetting incredibly talented I have been.  And if it were possible to be even more alluring than I already am (pretty difficult, I know) I have also been to the hairdressers.

A woman’s relationship with their hairdresser is a mystery to most heterosexual men – they don’t seem to understand two things.  The first is how having their hair done is a recreational activity for a woman.  And the second is why it takes so very long.

The second one is easier to explain so I shall take that first.  Look boys, we generally have a lot more hair than you, even if it is just longer, and it therefore takes a lot more time to deal with.  We tend to have more complicated cuts, colours and blow drying which tends to increase with age. Whereas boys tend to have less hair and less interesting things done to it – if you ever were attentive towards your hair, then that is more likely to decrease with age.   I have a lot of hair even for a woman.  And when I say a lot of hair, a lot of hairdressers have not really believed me until they have witnessed it for themselves.  I am now familiar with the crestfallen look on the poor trainee’s face when they are presented with my barnet and told that it is their task to put the colour on it.

The first one is more difficult – the recreational aspect.  You know when you go to buy a new pair of shoes and you go into the shop with your old, grotty pair on your feet and you feel ashamed that you’ve been walking around with such awful shoes on that up until that point you didn’t think were that bad?  Then, after talking yourself out of the sparkly high heels (it’s not as if you go anywhere to wear them now) you leave the shop with a new pair of shoes that do not look as if they have been chewed and you feel like you’re dancing on air?  Well that’s how I feel when I go to the hairdressers.  Or to be more specific, that’s how I feel when I leave the hairdressers.  When I arrive, I usually look like the wreck of the Hesper.  A few hours later I leave looking like I imagine the Hesper did when she first began to founder (they’re hairdressers, not Hogwarts), but nevertheless a miraculous improvement on what fell through the door first thing.

Every woman reading this will be familiar with arriving at the hairdressers.  After what feels like two hours of shouting at someone to put their shoes on, and searching for a lost cardigan, we are all welcomed warmly by the receptionist or our stylist.  Our coat is taken and we are offered a drink.  As it is probably the first opportunity that we have had to have a drink, we gladly accept.  We are shown to a chair and given some magazines.  Man of the House goes to a barbers where if you are five minutes late they not only disapprove and make their disapproval known to you, they refuse to do your hair, make you re-book and send you away with a flea in your ear.  Probably an actual flea if the cleanliness of their salon is anything to go by.  Meanwhile, I am being sat in front of an exceedingly unflattering mirror.  Then my hairdresser wafts into the room, places both hands on the back of the chair and asks me “what are we doing with your hair today, Natalie?”

Every single time I say “Whatever you like as long as it’s not awful.”  I then gesture to the mangled creature that resides on my head.  It has an entire life of its own.  Over the years I have tried to curl it, straighten it, get it to go a particular way, stay up in a style, stay in a clip even, and it won’t.  So I no longer bother. I would say that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but my hairdresser can.  My hairdresser rifles through my hair and then talks a lot of numbers at a trainee standing next to her which I am given to understand relates to the colour.  I am put in a gown and a towel, then some plastic around my neck and the poor trainee takes a deep breath and sets to work.  It would be difficult to describe how stunning I look with a colour on my hair and crocodile clips helping it stick up in every direction, but I am sure that you can all picture it.

Across town, if Man of the House has managed to beg an appointment, probably on his hands and knees, his hair cut is almost done.  Which is just as well because if he needed the loo he is probably risking dysentery given that they never ever clean the toilet there. His barber starts huffing on a mirror and rubbing it with his sleeve to try and create a space so he can show him the back.  Man of the House steadfastly refuses – he doesn’t need a reminder of what once was.

As he’s paying with one note, and possibly having the door slammed behind him as he leaves, I am just settling into reading ‘Cosmopolitan’ for the first time since the last time I was there. As usual it’s full of adverts of impossibly thin women holding handbags that look as if they might snap their twig-like arms and wearing sunglasses that really could do with a nose to sit on.  Oh, and lots of articles about impossible sex lives.  Nothing like filling our young girls’ heads with ridiculous notions of what they can expect from being a grown woman in 2018.  As I flick through on the one hand thinking “This is an outrage, these women haven’t eaten properly for years” and on the other “oooooohhhh, nice shoes…..” the trainee is still painting colour on.  And then s/he puts me under a heater that looks like it ought to be on the Starship Enterprise.  I imagine Hollywood stars whom the tabloids would describe as “age-defying” being sat under these with a head full of foils.  I am then taken over to the basins and the colour is washed out and I am given a lovely head massage.  On one occasion, the lady at the basin next to me was so relaxed that she fell asleep and started snoring.  When she snorted herself awake, someone appeared at her side with a cup of tea.

My hair cut takes another hour.  Yes, an hour.  But in that time my hairdresser updates me on her love life and tells me how lovely the colour looks on my hair.  She makes my hair look beautiful.  And as she gets a mirror to show me the back of my head without the need to clean it first, I confirm that the colour does indeed look lovely, I have lots of hair, and there is no way I will be able to make it look that nice myself.  I then look in the unflattering mirror and ask if there is anything that she can do with my face.  She always laughs as if I am joking.

I hand over many more notes than Man of the House did.  My coat is held for me as I put it on, the door is held open for me with wishes for a lovely rest of the day, and I leave.  Straight back into the real world.  And as usual I’m on a tight schedule. I have three children to pick up from school and three swimming kits to get ready before that as well as a load of washing to get out of the machine and on the airer and another one in.  Did I mention that everyone will also be starving hungry the minute they emerge from school?  The Childerbeasts hand me their coats, their school bags and then run off.  Laden, I follow them.

And that’s why women like the hairdressers.

 

 

Photograph courtesy of hansbenn on Pixabay

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Visions of Loveliness

nataliegist

 

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My new found radiance (see Complex blog from last week if this has passed you by) has taken something of a knock due to me getting a cold this week.  I fear that my shower mousse is not up to the task it has been presented with.  There is no need to rush off searching for your violins, I don’t want any sympathy.  You’ve probably all had it too if you live in England.  And if you haven’t, you no doubt will over the Easter holidays.  Just to warn you, it’s a three day headache where at one point you will lie down on the sofa and wonder if it would hurt less just to cut your head off.  And a nose like a tap that is so bad that you will end up just stuffing a tissue up each nostril.  Once that is all over you will end up with a cough that lasts for about two weeks. A really irritating tickly raspy cough.  Today is the first day that I have felt normal.

We all know that what you really need when you’re not feeling your best is a child around you.  Not just to look after, but for an encouraging word or two, to get you through the day.  Those of you who have children, work with them, or have spent any time with them whatsoever, will be aware that their tact, diplomacy and sense of embarrassment are entirely lacking.  I have three of these living with me in my house.  Each and every day there is a new and exciting opportunity for a derogatory personal remark or observation to be thrown in my direction. And I am around lots of others children, so the possibilities for a well (or even poorly) timed put down are both numerous and endless.

Earlier on in the week, not at my most erudite, I had prized myself out of bed and forced myself into the shower in the hope that it would make me feel vaguely human.  Before you all put your violins down and start hunting for the Febreze, that is not to say that that is the only shower I have had – I have one every morning without fail.  It didn’t really work as I still felt awful but lying in bed and expecting to be looked after was not a runner.  As I was getting dressed my daughter was chatting to me and asked me, entirely innocently, just as you would ask why birds have feathers or why the Earth revolves around the Sun, why I have so many wrinkles.  I was a little surprised to have this brought to my attention.  I have some wrinkles (or “expression lines” as my pot of moisturiser advises).  I hadn’t thought that I have so many that they are worthy of comment.  Just the number that would roughly indicate my age should one wish to examine my face in detail.  Pressing on, she then went onto ask me why my teeth are yellow.  Again, I have never considered that my teeth were those of an old crone, never having smoked and had my first filling aged twenty seven.  They are all my own.  I brush them twice a day.  My dentist seems happy enough.  They’re teeth.  What more is there to say?  I was beginning to feel a little got at.  As I sat down on the bed to slather on another layer of moisturiser, I also considered a second brush of my teeth and maybe gargling with bleach.  Imagine my delight when my tummy was patted by a little hand and I was then cuddled by my daughter who said: “it’s okay, Mummy.  I don’t mind that you have lots of wrinkles.  I still think you’re beautiful with them and I still love you.”

I was telling a friend about this charming incident, as she had telephoned me to cancel a lunch date; she too had been struck down by this cold and she sounded like Barry White.  Being sensitive, I mentioned this to her and she claimed that she also looked like him, but I suspect that she was exaggerating.  On taking her son to school that morning my friend had also managed to get herself up and dressed and into the car.  When he joined her in the passenger seat he took one look at her and with a panicked expression said “oh, you haven’t got any make-up on.” After a few minutes of concern, he then decided that it would be all right to be taxied to the school door as my friend had assured him that she had no plans to exit the vehicle at any point.  No one would see her.  No one would know that she was his mother.

Not wishing to be left out, the previous week her daughter had commented on how awful she looked.  How lovely.  Who doesn’t need to hear these things?  When my friend brought it up with her daughter later on that evening, realising that she may have hurt her mother’s feelings, her daughter said “Oh I didn’t mean all of you.  Not all of you. Just your face!”  Well, why didn’t she say so in the first place?  That’s so much nicer isn’t it?

I have decided that I am going to send these three children on a holiday over Easter.  They are going to the UN Security Council.  And they are going to tell them what to do to sort out what is happening in Syria. Then maybe instead of worrying about everyone’s sensibilities, agendas, who has armed who, and who did what, all of the supposed adults in that group will collectively agree that, whoever did it,  killing children is a war crime.  And it must stop.  Now.  And that they will, they will, find a peaceful solution.

 

 

 

 

Photograph diogenes_3

 

 

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Let It Go

nataliegist

Elsa-Pink-Hair-Color-frozen-37178051-334-595

At nine thirty on Monday morning, fifty four extremely excited nine, ten and eleven year olds boarded a coach. They barely acknowledged the group of parents waiting by the roadside to wave them off, chatting madly about what they were going to get up to, the games that they had brought for the journey, the sweets that they would be sharing, who would be sleeping where….Once on the coach we could see arms gesticulating and heads bobbing……

The fifty four children were off to North Wales for five days of outdoor adventure. This involves gorge scrambling, rock climbing, kayaking, bush craft, and as far as I can tell, cake testing.

The group of watching parents could be split broadly into two groups: those of whom had done this before, and those of whom had not. Those of us in the latter group were a little tearful and trying not very convincingly not to show it. We weren’t really talking to anyone else, and weren’t very interested in talking to anyone else. Arms were folded, heads and eyes were down, except to try and catch a glimpse of our child once seated. Those in the former group were talking animatedly with each other, thrilled at the prospect of five days without someone eating the entire contents of the fridge and already in eager anticipation of reaching the bottom of the washing basket. Arms were waving, heads were up, eyes bright.

The parents were passed and the children were followed only slightly less enthusiastically, by five teachers and a school governor. I say slightly less enthusiastically because last year I mentioned to the Head that she could perhaps find better ways of spending five days of her life than with fifty or so children not wanting to wash; she disagreed with me. And as she jigged up and down she confessed to “absolutely loving it.” When she bounced past me this year, it seemed that her enthusiasm was undiminished. One teacher practically skipped onto the coach at the prospect of being covered in mud for a week. Another, who is not given to public displays of emotion, looked the closest that I have ever seen to happy in the face of a holiday which may involve his safety rope being held by a child he made stay in from play. The governor has sacrificed five days of annual leave to go and spend it plastered to a rock face in the rain. This leaves me to wonder; what on earth is wrong with these people?

I have read two articles recently; one about the government needing more teachers and the other about Ofsted saying that people are leaving the profession in droves. It occurred to me, just on reading these two, short articles that perhaps it would be a good idea if the government and Ofsted talked to each other to see if they could work out what the problem is. Although they could find out what the problem is by asking any teacher, or the friend or relative of any teacher. I am both the friend and relative of several teachers, and as I have currently have the floor, I shall say what I think it is.

I believe that there are two problems with encouraging and keeping teachers in the profession; money and trust.  I have a friend who is in her first year of teaching and she is doing sixty hours a week at the moment. I have a relative who is in her twelfth year of teaching and she is doing sixty hours a week at the moment. There is a pattern here and it’s not related to their pay packets, which I shall come onto shortly. So there’s not enough money to pay them more? Not that I think they do it for the massively impressive pay check, but I have just one suggestion, and this is off the top of my head. My relative was observed teaching by her boss last week. Nothing wrong with that occasionally. There was a second observer in the room, to observe the observer. Let’s get rid of that observer. The one making sure that the person observing the observer is observing the observee correctly? That would be a start. Happy to help with looking to see where other savings could be made as well if that would be useful.

The second one is trust. The lack of trust for teachers makes my blood boil. There seems to be no other profession like it. People don’t query their dentist or their solicitor. Although I bet doctors get really annoyed with patients googling their symptoms.  With teachers it seems to be a free for all. It is born out the same cretinous mentality that thinks it is necessary to have an observer observing the observer. It is the idea that people teach because it’s an easy job and they get holidays ‘off’. What a load of crap. We’ve already established that the money’s rubbish.  People teach because they love it. And on days that they don’t love it because of all of the bullshit that they have to deal with, they still want to.

As I type, my son is probably dangling from a rope off the side of a cliff, a rope most likely held by one of his teachers. It will not surprise you to know that my son and his two sisters are the three most precious people in the world to me.* Yet I allowed my son to go.  I stood there, told him that I would be waiting for him on Friday and blew him a kiss as the coach left.  I did it because I am his mother and it is my job to raise him to be strong enough to leave me one day.  The only reason I could do it when he is so young is because all of the time that he is away I trust in my heart of hearts that his teachers will catch him if he falls.  Given that everything else that they have tried so far isn’t working, isn’t it time that the government did the same?

If you would like to raise your concerns for the cuts to school budgets in your area go to http://www.schoolcuts.org.uk

*The reason that I can count beyond three is because I had a maths teacher who sat and told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t thick and I could do maths. And the only reason I am writing this now is because I had an English teacher who wrote in a report that my dedication to English never waivers – it hasn’t, it didn’t, and now I am old enough not to know that I can’t care what people think if I write.