Keir Royale

For the first time ever, we managed two nights with the grandparents without breaking anything.

There was one near miss, but that was me. I opened the oven and the door fell off. Apparently the screw had been loose for a while, so my clumsiness merely prompted my Dad to fix it.

No tins of paint were splashed across the floor.
No irreplaceable glass heirlooms were shattered into tiny shards of history.
Not one cereal bowl was chipped - I fed them in plastic ones just to be on the safe side.

I even managed to get them up into the hills for a family walk.

This took a combination of bribery (chocolate) and threats (early bedtime) but they went.
And despite getting soaked, and I mean soaked in a way that only being stuck near the top of the exposed hills of the Malverns with thick, black clouds all around can soak you, they enjoyed themselves. As I knew they would.

And there was Hay.

Mike was supposed to be coming too, so I’d booked two tickets for two children’s events, thinking they could go to one each, with one of us accompanying them.

But Mike had to work, and it was just me and them. So I sent them in on their own, saving a bit of cash and giving them the chance to feel grown-up.

This meant they got to see -

- a hilarious stand-up kids’ comedian, whose jokes I’ve now heard many times
- extracts from Cressida Cowell’s latest Dragonese book (due out at Christmas, so Ben tells me)
- the inside of a weird, white, recumbent giant, into which they disappeared for nearly an hour and where they were somehow persuaded to write a poem (Ben) and a story (Hannah).

I, on the other hand, got to see -

- the insides of two different cafes
- the outside of a recumbent giant
- tantalising schedules of author talks, which I’d have been interested to hear, but which the two small people would never have sat through without disrupting everyone else’s enjoyment

It wasn’t the plan, but a trois is a little different from a quatre.

I consequently felt a little disappointed with Hay. It’s much smaller than I’d expected, about as big as one of those GLC festivals that were always being held on the South Bank in the dying days of Ken’s old job.

But there was no live music (not in the daytime anyhow) and no sense of ad hoc literary gatherings popping up as we strolled about.

Perhaps, just like when I arrived at university expecting to sit up all night discussing philosophy and ethics, but found that the men there, like they were back at home, just wanted to get into my knickers, my expectations were unreasonably high.

It was very well organised, not over-crowded, and everything seemed to be starting on time. But I had the impression of an event that knows its market and is content with just that.

I was only there for a few hours over a couple of days, and my attention was mostly fixed on keeping the kids fed, watered, entertained and within sight. But I was expecting more of a buzz and a sense of exciting things happening in little corners that you might miss if you don’t heft your backpack onto your shoulders and trudge across the mud to have a butchers.

It’s always fascinating to sit and watch people though, and I got to do a lot more of that than usual.

And chez les grandparents, Hannah revealed her Grandpa’s place in her heart when she said she wanted to go downstairs before bed because,

“I want Grandpa to give me a midnight kiss.”

(She meant a bedtime kiss - but I prefer her version)

Well, I don’t like to have to mention him again, but Johnnie’s got a bit of a thing going at Hay.

I mean Hay-on-Wye (of course darling, didn’t you realise it’s that time of year when you just have to be marvellous in tents?) where all Mr Boden’s children have gathered in spotty wellies and stripey towelling tops to meet writers and take part in creative workshops.

I hope I don’t sound critical in any way, as I’m not. I was there with my children, and they met Cressida Cowell, learned to speak Dragonese, and wrote (Ben, voluntarily too) a poem about a giant, and (Hannah) a story about a giantess.

As instructed by two strange men camped out inside a white giant’s pink fluffy brain, they used pseudonyms, as a way of turning the whole literary fame thing on its head.

Perhaps I need to take a leaf out of their book, and reveal to you that I’m not really who I pretend to be, but someone else entirely. Someone much more interesting.

Anyhow, I’m not at home and am sharing this computer with two avid Spider Solitaire fans, so I have to get off before I’ve had time to come up with a decent ending.

Sorry.

Yet again, the dire warnings of a Bank Holiday Washout have revealed the media’s outrageous South East bias. Either that or the wind changed.

We awoke this morning to blue skies and sunshine, a little windy it’s true, the fluffy clouds not resting for a moment and the leaves on the trees rustling loudly enough to scare the guinea pigs scurrying into hiding; but no rain, and no gales.

It’s often like this.

Britain is forecast a scorcher of a weekend and Devon gets drenched.
The country is warned of apocalyptic downpours and we end up packing our beach gear – with windbreaks, this is England after all.

I was all for heading to the Hoe to meet Gypsy Moth 1V this afternoon, but no. The kids wanted to return to WW2 for a skirmish at Crownhill Fort.

There’s only so much re-enactment I can take in one weekend, so Mike took the kids to grapple with Sten guns and I stayed at home to pack for tomorrow’s trip to Hay-on-Wye… and to get a bit of uninterrupted surfing.

And I find there are more ways to skin a cat than I’d thought.

Brit Blog, Blog Log, Blog Dog (I made that last one up, then googled it, and found it exists!), you name it, there’s another way to spend your time keeping track of yet more messages.

I’ve been doing this blogging lark since March, and one online forum is proving time-consuming enough. If I were active in all the others – Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Blog Hog (I made that up too, and found it exists) – I wouldn’t ever do anything to blog about.

I’d have to draw on my many years of experience in this world, dredge up lost memories and present them as today’s events.

So you’d be reading about my out-every-night-of-the-week life in London, or my working-all-hours-of-the-day-and-night life in Jersey.

And I’d be wondering why I’m actually spending so many evenings in with Grissom and a glass of Pinot Grigio.

Cheers!

From folk music to Kalashnikovs… well, not really Kalashnikovs, but second world war rifles and Sten guns.

Today was re-enactment day at Crownhill Fort, when questionable men in ill-fitting uniforms cavort with guns and grenades for the delectation of the milling throng.

And we were among that throng.

I learned a few things, which I’m not sure I needed to know.
For instance…

The rifles used at the start of WW2 were the same ones they were using at the end of WW1. Such dilitary progress would be unheard of now, when a six year old PC (like mine) is considered ancient junk and will doubtless command no re-sale value when I eventually get around to replacing it.

The development of the Sten Gun was a big advance, as it could clear a room more quickly than Simon Cowell, but without the thoughtless violence.

Allied soldiers used to dig a hole big enough to hide in when they knew German tanks were approaching, then when the tank passed by they’d leap out and drop a cluster of grenades into the back of the tank. They were awarded badges for each tank they took out.

One re-enacter told us how his uncle had died, aged 21, when he was a gunner on a British plane. He was hit by German anti-aircraft fire over Hamburg, by American guns stolen from American planes that had been shot down over, yes, you guessed it, Hamburg.

We went to Hamburg last year to visit some relatives. It’s a very wealthy city, lots to do, lovely waterways and canals, great train service, admirable recycling facilities, plenty of bicycle lanes that allow primary school kids to cycle to school on their own - cars have to give way to bikes BY LAW.

But I digress.

Crownhill Fort is always a good way to spend a couple of hours, and we even managed a pinic without being rained on, a welcome bonus on a bank holiday weekend.

Now it’s chucking it down. Some friends have invited us to join them for a day in Cornwall where they’re camping - in heavy rain and high winds.
I think we may be checking out the cinema listings tomorrow.

Even the guinea pigs are looking bedraggled.

The house is now ringing with the sound of Jolly Wassailing and unseasonal cheer.
The Kaiser Chiefs have been ousted and Busted is busted.

As always, it’s my fault.

Last night I went out, with my son, just the two of us, for his first ever gig.

“How old were you when you first went to a gig Mummy?” he asks, expecting to beat me by a few years.

“Oh, about eighteen,” I reply.

“And I’m only eight.”
He is triumphant, and manages to keep his excitement mostly contained, except for the occasional eruption of squeals and leaps around the room.

His sister has a ten minute crying fit after tea because she’s not coming.
“I explained Hannah, you’re too young to cope with such a late night. When you’re eight you can come out for a special evening with Mummy.”

“Waaaaahhhh!” says she.

And the gig? Not what you might expect, and certainly not one of his favourite bands, but a folk legend who happens to be related to us and is performing in town, with his family.

Waterson Carthy didn’t have a good day of travelling. After all, it was the Friday before a bank holiday weekend which is also the start of half term, and they were heading south-west.

They were arriving from all over, as they play with other musicians as well as en famille.

Eliza was stuck on a train while the air conditioning was fixed just outside Bristol, Norma encountered three car crashes and a burning coach on her way down the motorways from Yorkshire, delaying her for so long that she arrived half way through the concert, and Martin was forced to stop for coffee on the A303.

The show was a sell-out, packed with many bearded gentlemen clutching pints of beer, a few kids a bit older than Ben, and a surprising number of young people.
But then Eliza commands a cool crossover audience as well as the diehard folk fans of her parents’ generation.

Ben was fascinated with Martin’s guitar playing, if a little disappointed at his technique,
“He has to look at the strings Mummy, that’s not very good.”

I did point out that he wasn’t strumming, but plucking complicated tunes which involve using his left hand as much as his right; but looking at your instrument is apparently the sign of an amateur in Ben’s World of Guitar Proficiency.

His night out has enthused him though, and all morning he’s been practising the two tunes and five chords that form the sum of his guitar expertise.

He was very taken with Eliza’s voice, and enjoyed counting how many violin bows she got through in the course of an evening.
He has a piece of advice for her on violin technique too,

“She shouldn’t press so hard, should she? Then her bows would last longer.”

I can see a career in music criticism beckoning - although they’re going to have to start their concerts a little earlier if they want to keep his attention to the end.

By 10pm he was flagging, and today he’s been lying in bed in between bouts of guitar practising, complaining that he’s tired. He’s even said I may have to video Dr Who tonight so he can go to bed at 7.30pm and watch it in the morning.

I’m not convinced this “holier than thou” approach will last the day.

When Mike read the paper this morning, he expressed relief that I’m a non-smoker.

“Just imagine what he’d have been like if you’d smoked,” he said.

He’s referring to our son. Ben has much better self-control these days, and can happily sit still in class for long enough not to annoy his teacher.

But there was a time when…

- he threw a pot of paint onto the floor, the lid came off, and dark red paint splattered all over the carpet in my father’s new house

- on that same visit, he threw a breakfast bowl onto the tiled kitchen floor. It shattered, and on ordering a replacement I discovered that my father buys breakfast bowls that cost more than our entire crockery set.

Now when we visit he gets plastic plates.

- every tea-time was a cue for a fifteen minute tantrum, generally involving the throwing of furniture into the middle of the kitchen - and not by me, although I often felt like it.

- in the early days after his sister’s arrival he once made eight attempts on her life in one day.

These included:-

1) throwing a wooden train at her head from the other side of the sitting room (he’s since received a certificate from school for “good catching” so his ball skills are still accurate)

2) slapping her across the head as I was feeding her, knowing I couldn’t easily discipline him with a baby clamped to my breast

3) aiming a quick kick at her side while I was changing her nappy (on the floor, as advised in all the manuals) then following that up with a karate leap onto her stomach

4) eating fish fingers with one hand and casually slapping her across the face with the other as I was (again) feeding her

5) stroking her gently on the arm, and quickly, before I could react, changing the stroking into vicous scratching. He then greeted her howls with a triumphant “Baby crying Mummy!”

The two of them are now great friends and love to be reminded just how cross Ben was when Hannah came into his life.

This morning though, they were both slow and uncooperative about getting ready for school, and as the shouting and the chaos permeated Mike’s intimate and exclusive relationship with the newspaper, he happened upon the relevant article and mused about how things might have been worse.

But that’s only if the research proves to be accurate.
It may not stand up to all the other research that’s bound to follow, and subsequent research may prove the exact opposite, leading to a mass take-up of smoking among expectant mothers with a slightly energetic family member.

On just a short flick through Google I came up with a few more smoking/ADHD related theories.

For instance -

Children with ADHD may take up smoking to self-medicate. Apparently nicotine can act a little like Ritalin, in that it’s a stimulant and helps people to concentrate for longer.
No, it makes no sense to me either.

Or, exposure to passive smoking can lead to ADHD symptoms. This, apparently, is because passive smoking can make kids snore, which reduces the quality of their sleep, which causes ADHD-type symptoms which may actually be due to chronic tiredness rather than ADHD.

So - smoking can cause ADHD and ADHD can lead to smoking.

Are there no two random words that scientists can’t link together to come up with a finding that has us all panicking and wishing we could turn back time?

There is one thing I can be thankful for though,

The researchers found no relationships between alcohol during pregnancy and ADHD

Thank the Lord.

If the Daily Mail had its way – and let’s hope to god it doesn’t, says someone who doesn’t believe in any kind of deity – I wouldn’t be allowed to explain to my children that…
“You don’t have to be a man and a woman to get married. Two women or two men can have a ceremony which isn’t exactly a marriage but which is legally pretty much the same thing.”

“What’s legally?” they chorus. But you get my drift.

In yesterday’s Mail - Mike brought a copy into the house, God forgive him - there was the following headline –

The schools where pupils aged four learn about gay lifestyle

No, dear reader, they are not teaching pre-schoolers about cottaging or where to find the strongest condoms. They are explaining to primary school children that not everyone lives in heterosexual bliss with a dog, two cats and 1.8 children.
(I was surprised to find that the average number of children spawned by couples in the UK has gone down from 2.4 to 1.8, but there you go. At least I’m now above average in something.)

What teachers are doing is talking to pupils about life options, trying to combat playground bullying, and probably, as I’m doing, fighting a losing battle against “gay” being a common but rather vague term of abuse.

My son told me recently that some bigger boys had called him and his friend gay because they were seen in an embrace that could have been hugging or could have been play-fighting.
And he says he replied –
“I’m gay but he isn’t.”

How sweet - defending the honour of his friend. And when I asked if he knew what gay meant, he did. Sort of.
As much as can be expected in a boy who’s still young enough to think his parents have had sex twice because they have two children.

The Daily Mail would have our teachers condemn any kind of lifestyle that doesn’t fit the newpaper’s carefully constructed impression of its average reader – a misogynist, xenophobic, militantly home-owning, celebrity-watching, Richard Littlejohn fan who’s married to a childhood sweetheart and keeps all philandering behaviour successfully secret.

And my partner keeps bringing the rag into the house and nodding his head sagely while reading it – mainly over the health and safety scare stories the Mail loves to trot out about conkers being banned from schools and children not being allowed to run in the playground.

Children have perfectly valid questions about marriage, love and being gay, long before they’re eleven, so primary school is surely the right place to start explaining that different people live different lives and should be allowed to do so in peace.

The use of the word “gay” as a general all-purpose insult seems to crop up once they reach Juniors, aged 7, as do many of the less acceptable in front of Granny swear words. So it’s a good time to start disussing this kind of language and what it means.

Some of the books the Mail says are being used in primary schools “to familiarise them with gay and lesbian relationships” sound hilarious – like the one about Cinderella being a bloke, or the fairy tale prince who rejects three princesses before falling in love with one of their brothers, and my favourite, one about two male penguins falling in love at a New York zoo.

This last one’s presumably based on true life…

Central Park zoo in Manhattan had a famous pair of gay chinstrap penguins named Roy and Silo, who were inseparable for more than six years. They entwined their necks, vocalised to each other, had sex and, at one time, for want of an egg, tried to incubate a rock in their nest. Later, the pair hatched a donated chick, named Tango, but sadly the couple separated in 2005. Silo has since found love with a female penguin named Scrappy, while Roy remains single.

Sounds like a great idea for a sequel to Happy Feet.

Musical taste is a funny thing, and children’s musical tastes are, well, maybe not funny. Perhaps weird and wonderful is more apt.

There’s Hannah: if she’s not rockin’ all over the world with Status Quo, she’s feeling the love tonight with Elton John on her Disney Classics CD.

She got a CD/radio from Santa last Christmas, and for weeks the only CD she had to play on it was called Santa’s Greetings and it involved much ho-ho-ho-ing and a few schmaltzy songs with her name inserted by mysterious digital means.

I threw a few newspaper freebie CDs her way (which is how she developed a taste for Quo) but by the time it was her birthday I was climbing the walls, so when parents of party invitees asked what she’d like, CDs were one of my suggestions.

Now she’s awash with Pop Party Hits, Disney Classics and Hits from the Sixties (that last one courtesy of my mother).

Ben’s first love was McFly, closely followed by Busted. Now he seems to be going through a Kaiser Chiefs phase, with Plain White T’s a close second.

It makes me look back with fondness on those long gone car journeys enlivened with songs like Wheels on the Bus, If You’re Happy and You Know it and Three Little Monkeys, when all the actions meant I had my hands waving in the air more than on the wheel.

I did once hit the car in front, but this was more to do with arguments over eating sandwiches before biscuits than acting out Tumble Tots songs.
Hannah still remembers it as the Thunderbirds moment, as when the car went bang, a vintage (and therefore metal) Thunderbirds 2 came whooshing off the back shelf of the car onto her head.
Still, the seatbelts worked, and it was only a shunt.

Now, if it’s not a story tape, it’s an argument over music.
When Mike pitches in we sometimes have to listen to Gary Moore. Even Disney Classics are preferable, although it’s a close call.

The one CD we can all agree on, on a good day, is a three-pack called Hello Children Everywhere.
It has archive tracks like Jake the Peg, The Runaway Train, Big Rock Candy Mountain, I’ve Lost My Mummy, Lily the Pink, Ernie, Tie me Kangaroo Down, My Boomerang won’t come Back…
You name a song that Ed Stewpot played on Junior Choice on a Saturday morning, and it’s there.

Except for that little kid saying Hello Darling on a jingle they used ad infinitum.

I wonder what happened to him?

It’s happened.
I sort of expected it, even though it only really occurred to me when I was watching a documentary about it.

Ben has already asked,
“Mummy, what colour is my hair?”

And when I ask why he wants to know he says,
“The big boys at school say it’s ginger, but I thought it was strawberry blond.”

I know kids get teased for having ginger hair, but I thought it would just be a bit of benevolent joshing among friends, along the lines of,
“You’ve got ginger hair.”
“So? You’ve got brown hair.”
“Shall we play spies?”
“OK”

But today, at the park, I watch as he trudges back to me looking disconsolate.
I ask if he’s alright and he says,
“Not really.”
“Why?” I ask, assuming it’s because he hasn’t any friends with him and his sister has – as always - teamed up with a new pal within thirty seconds of arriving.

“They were teasing me about my hair.”
“Really? Who were? What were they saying?”
“Things like - keep away, don’t touch me, I’m allergic to ginger.”
“Who said that?” I stand up, ready to pounce, and he points to some eleven and twelve year olds bouncing high up on the ropes of the witch’s hat.

My poor little boy. His hair is beautiful. When the sun shines it glints with a thousand different shades from platinum blond to deep auburn. He has highlights you’d pay megabucks for, and hairdressers always say how lovely and thick it is.

His sister, on the other hand, has thin, mousey-coloured hair that hangs in lank, stringy, seaweed fronds just minutes after it’s been brushed.
But I bet in a few years he’s going to wish he had his sister’s nondescript hair.

I’m not sure what to say, whether to underplay it with a breezy nonchalance or to sympathise, thereby accentuating the seriousness of it. I decide to ask how he feels.
“Are you cross about it, or upset?”
“Upset.”

How do I tell him those kids are a bunch of mean, insecure low-lifes who aren’t worth as much as his little toe, without seeming like a total cow?

“Just ignore them, they’re being mean because they’re in a big gang and they don’t know you.”

He hangs about me for a while, then goes off again.
I remember feeling worried about walking past the Big Boys when I was little, and I didn’t have the hair to worry about.

For half an hour or so, all is well.
Then he comes back again, asking to go home.

“Had enough?” I ask.
“They’ve been mean to me again. They called me a freak.”
“A freak?”
“Why are my eyebrows and eyelashes so much lighter than my hair?”

I forgot to mention his long, to-die-for eyelashes, even paler than his Scottish, cream with a hint of blue, skin; and his almost invisibly fair eyebrows.

“Do you want me to go and tell them how horrid they’re being?”
“No-o!” he insists.

I restrain myself and hug him. He’s going to have to deal with more of this as he grows older; kids don’t get kinder as they get bigger.

If only he could swap with his sister. She’d have what she wants – long, luscious, shiny hair that grows thickly to her bottom and swings from side to side in heavy Rapunzel plaits; and he could just have hair.

It doesn’t help that he likes to keep his hair long, surfer-style, as it doesn’t match the number one skinhead look favoured by the well-hard Plymouth playground posse.

We go home via the corner shop, where I buy them some sweets to perk him up.

An hour later as he bounces off the walls laughing hysterically and doing the “funny show”, I wish I hadn’t.

I’ve just had a coat cull. That’s coat, not goat.

The reduction in numbers of Billy Goats Gruff has been going on further north, and has led to a lot more controversy than my own small fight against clutter in the cupboard under the stairs.

I wouldn’t say the coats are “destructive and dangerous pests” but they do seem to breed, and they definitely make life in the mornings a little harder.

When you try to pick one coat, two or three more leap out shouting “no, wear me, me, me, not that one, me!”
Well not any more.

I’ve managed to persuade Hannah to part with three, and Ben’s agreed there are two which no longer fit him. As Hannah has refused to countenance wearing them,
“They’re boys’ coats Mummy” they’re in the e-bay pile, fresh from the Boden days with plenty of wear left in them.

Time was when Hannah had no choice but to wear Ben’s cast-offs.
She used to go out in blue babygros, blue hats, blue trousers and boy style Doodles featuring sailing boats rather than flowers.

“What a lovely baby boy,” people would say. I gave up correcting them as it didn’t bother me and she was too young to know. Then when she got older, she inherited Ben’s pink phase, so that suited her fine.

Now though, there’s no persuading her. And as my mother is liberal with charity shop coats from the finer reaches of Surrey’s stockbroker belt, I can indulge her whims.

But it’s not just the children who hoard coats like there’s a war coming.
I found five bobbly fleeces that Mike hasn’t worn for years.

I shall wash them and leave them in a pile for him to decide whether they should go to –
a) e-bay (I don’t see anyone wanting to buy them)
b) charity shop (a more likely option)
c) back into the coat cupboard (the most likely option of all)

We are a family of hoarders.
Well, Mike calls it collecting, but I don’t like to dignify it with that term.
He amasses things that are small, unnecessary and irritating when you step on them.

I merely find it hard to part with things that have been useful, well-loved, and are still redolent with memories. Call it nostalgic retention. Not as uncomfortable as the water kind, but more space hungry.

I fear Hannah has caught both Mike’s collecting gene and my nostalgia one. I bought her a new pair of flip-flops today, and tried to take away her old ones – black and grimy with half the sequins dropping off, and now a size too small.

“No I want to keep them Mummy, so I can remember how small I was.”
How small she was, last year, when she was five instead of six.

I pity whoever she decides to shack up with in the years to come.