Keir Royale

If I knew how to add sound to this blog I would, then you could suffer like I have.

Ben has learned to play CHOPSTICKS on the piano.

Note - having looked for this on YouTube, I gather it’s called Chopsticks No. 111. Anyhow, it’s the one which starts on the two black notes, not the one which starts on the F and G next to each other.

He didn’t learn it from me, but from a babysitter who came round last weekend.

“Look what the girls from next door taught me,” he said excitedly, the morning after our rare night out.

And as I listened I cursed the day, all those years ago, when I thought -

“Hm, I’m pregnant, time to buy a piano.”

I did try to discourage him from playing it to his piano teacher, but far from pooh-poohing his new tune, she taught him the rest of it.

So now it goes on for twice as long.

Still, I suppose it is a rite of passage, and not such a disruptive one as arriving home from a teenaged party, late, drunk and dishevelled.

I will wear a face of admiration and patience until he graduates onto another irritating tune - Fur Elise perhaps? Or Gymnopedie?

I love YouTube.
Perhaps I have very average interests, but I’ve always managed to find everything I’ve ever looked for on it, and how many services can you say that about?

I saw something on Facebook the other day which brought home to me the difference in attitude between mothers with full time, out-in-the-world jobs and mothers who (mostly) look after their children.

One status update read -

“I’m really fed up that half term is over”

Another read -

“Thank god half term is finally over”

I expect you can guess which comment came from whom.

I have every sympathy with the second, as after nine days of overpriced day trips, enduring friends round to play and mediating a million ear-splitting arguments over nothing, I was happy to get up early and see them off to school.

But soon I will be one of those parents who doesn’t see enough of their children, and I’ll probably have more sympathy with the first comment.

I voiced some of my concerns to the children the other day, along the lines of -

“I hope we’re doing the right thing, I’m worried about all the organising, the changes, whether or not we’ll be happy…”

Hannah replied -

“It’s not something to worry about Mummy, it’s something to be excited about.”

There speaks the unbridled optimism of my little “sossidge“.

Ben has just taken one huge step outside the box, the box he habitually shuns in favour of his own sweet way.

When the rest of us turned our clocks, watches, phones and computers back by one hour at the weekend, he decided to put his watch one hour forward.

So now, when I say -

“Lunchtime, come downstairs please.”

He replies -

“You’re late. It’s three o clock.”

And when I say -

“Do you really have to wake me up at 7.30 on a Sunday morning?”

He replies -

“It’s half past nine.”

It’s even worse than the six months I spent recalculating every time I looked at my watch, when it stubbornly remained on French time despite all my efforts to press the right buttons.

When I last lived in Jersey there was an annual story about double summer time - some people said the island should adopt it, to give us longer evenings.

Others felt this would be like going back to the time of the German Occupation, when it was imposed on islanders by the occupying forces.

And if Jersey went ahead, what about the other Channel Islands? They don’t all follow suit when it comes to such matters.

I seem to remember one of the main arguments for not going it alone was the disruption to TV schedules. They’d all be up the creek, and we’d have to wait until nearly bedtime to watch Eastenders.

Ben seems to have eschewed Double Summer Time in favour of Double Winter Time, thus losing even more daylight evening hours, and setting up a whole new TV timetabling nightmare.

When will Hider in the House be on?
How will he ensure he doesn’t miss Raven?

I think I’ve just come up with the most effective way to get him to fall into line -

“Raven? Of course you can’t watch it. By your calculations it’s going to be on after your bedtime.”

One hundred years upon this earth - that’s something to consider.

I’ve just been to a hundredth birthday party.

It wasn’t raucous, debauched or loud. It was at lunchtime, and most people left at a suitable time for the celebrant to have an afternoon nap.

But first, there was a short speech.

“You probably want to ask me what is the secret of my long life. Well my answer is - don’t bother. My advice is to stop around 90.”

And with that, the champagne was sipped in a silent moment of contemplation before some young relative (we’re talking under 80) lightened the mood with a jolly quip.

More and more of us are living longer, and generally we assume this is a Good Thing for the older people, if not for the poor buggers who are working longer to pay for all their pensions.

But is it?

What must it be like to see all your contemporaries shuffle off to a better place while you rely more and more heavily on the kindness of relatives, strangers and medical science?

My daughter asked me at tea-time what I would wish for if I only had one wish, and if that wish couldn’t allow me lots more wishes. This caveat is because her brother always wishes for a wishing machine.

So I said, without hesitation,

“That my children should live long, healthy, happy lives.”

She smiled at me in pity, so I asked her what she would wish.

“To be rich, of course.”

For the young, happiness and health are assumed to be a given. Not so for the centenarians.

I’ve been talking to Ben about when he can go to the park with a friend, without me.

It’s not far, and my argument about the busy road he’d have to cross has just been obliterated by the local council’s thoughtful installation of traffic calming measures and two zebra crossings.

So I’ve resorted to throwing scenarios at him…

“What would you do if some bigger boys started yelling at you, like those horrid ten-year olds who swore at you when we were there last time?”

“I’d walk away and ignore them,” he says, sensibly repeating my own advice.

“What if they ran after you and your friend, shouting at you?”

“We’d run away.”

I’m floundering now. He’s a fast runner, so I add some thoughts about finding the nearest mother with small children and standing near her.

Then I remember another incident, which upset him at the time.

“And what if they teased you, like they did in Central Park. Wouldn’t you be upset?”

Pause while he thinks about it. But his thinking face turns into a puzzled face.

“What did they say in Central Park?” he asks me.

I realise my error immediately.
He’s forgotten all about it.

While it left me anxious about the years of ginger-tinged misery he’d face at secondary school, for Ben the incident soon dissolved into a mist of insignificant and forgotten moments.

But he’s still looking at me quizzically. I have to come up with something that won’t remind him of how mean people can be.

“They just… they said you had funny eyebrows,” I improvise, not wanting to alert him to the possibility that his hair colour may be a source of future difficulties.

“What’s wrong with my eyebrows?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I answer quickly, “they’re just unusally fair.”

“Well I don’t even notice the colour of people’s eyebrows,” he says, perplexed that anyone should notice the colour of his.

And then we return to the more practical matters of pushing bikes across roads rather than riding them, and ensuring a prompt return home at the appointed time.

I guess I’ll now have to find another parent willing to try this experiment which used to be a regular part of life - unaccompanied visits to the park.

I’ve received another tagging.
Manicmama, not content with knowing what’s on my desktop, now wants to know what my ultimate life would be.

I will be (mostly) honest.

Q1. Where would you live?

A big old granite Jersey farmhouse, set around a courtyard containing a circular apple crusher overflowing with trailing geranium. It would have a large garden, a gardener, a tennis court and swimming pool, and good weather all summer.
It would be in the countryside, but near the beach, and also near a bus route so I don’t have to ferry the children around all the time once they’re old enough to read a bus timetable… next year hopefully.

On the other hand, maybe I should go for a castle, a Napoleonic fort, or even a French chateau?

Q2. What would your job be (or if unrealistic) what would you do all day?

I would earn enough through writing, not to have to do any other paid work.
I would work five half days a week, term-time only, and would spend the rest of the time fetching the children, cycling, swimming, surfing, and drinking coffee at Big Vern’s.

Q3. Who would you spend your time with? Doing what…

I’d spend time with my family, with visiting friends, and with fascinating people met during the course of my work.
I’d have long, leisurely, fruits de mer lunches, go for walks along the cliff paths and in the French countryside, and I’d travel for six weeks every summer with the family in a massive Wild Thornberrys type RV.

Q4. What kind of holidays/vacations would you take?

Ski-ing, regular visits to France, maybe a cruise if I got really tired with all my taxing tasks.
Or perhaps I’d just stay put.

Q5. What luxury items would you own?

A very fast, vintage sports car with a soft top and no space for the children.
And maybe a boat, if I could find someone to pilot it.

Q6. What charities would you support or represent?

Alzheimers Disease Association.

Here are the rules;
1. Answer the questions as realistically or unrealistically as you want.
2. Copy the rules into your meme post or link to the rules here.
3. Linkback to the person who tagged you.
4. Tag 5 others.

I’ve been tagged by manicmama to reveal my desktop to all and sundry.

Well here it is, complete with all the unnecessary icons that my computer keeps telling me to get shot of.

Do I really want a computer that tries to tell me what to do?
No, that’s why I ignore all its best advice.

The children are having fun in Cornwall, and I think Hannah is waving, although she claims she’s trying not to be photographed. I rather like the bare legs and wellies look, which she tends to shun these days, now she’s six.

And a big thank you to MotheratLarge, for this -

It’s made me smile.

And I’d like to pass it on to my USA alter ego - Beta Mom and to Iota - both of whom make me smile.

I’m working hard on a PR campaign.

“Look,” I say to Ben, pointing out a badly photocopied page from yet another school prospectus, “in Year 6 you get to spend a week in France…”

“Hm,” says the child who’s spent nearly every holiday and half term break for the past year in France.

“..you’d be going with your friends,” I persist, “sounds like fun doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he replies, in a tone reminiscent of his father when Lincoln City are on a losing streak, “if I’ve even got any friends by then,”

He’s only in Year 4.
Does he really think that after two years at his new school, he’ll have no friends?

What does that say about his self-confidence/enthusiasm for new experiences/zest for life?

In a seemingly unrelated, but entirely relevant incident - stay with me here - we are on our way home from an abortive attempt to get to swimming lessons.

Abortive because the traffic jam on the A38 was so bad I gave up.
We’d already missed Hannah’s lesson, and the rows of cars parked on the Devon Expressway meant Ben’s class was looking just as hopeless.

When we got home, Ben grassed me up -

“Mummy swore twice today,” he told his father, who obviously never swears in front of the children. Not even when the computer reveals its malicious nature by turning against him.

“You’re allowed to swear when you’ve been stuck in a traffic jam for an hour,” replies Mike, in an uncharacteristically supportive moment.

I wasn’t even swearing at the traffic. I was swearing at a former colleague from Radio Devon, whose traffic news had put the snaking queue of A38 traffic fourth in the running order of motoring snarl-ups.

Fourth?

It reached from the Tamar Bridge back past the Manadon roundabout.
That’s at least four miles.
And who knows how much further its tentacles reached at the peak of rush hour madness.

In short, I was not happy on the way home from our hour-long trip to the A38 sliproad and back, and I made my feelings clear to my sitting-duck former colleague.

The children were listening, as always.

“Why were you so rude to that person on the phone?” asks Ben.

“I know him,” I explain, “I used to work with him at Radio Devon.”

“I wish you still worked there,” he says.

“Why?” I ask, assuming it’s so I could have bought him a Nintendo DS, an IPod, a laptop, another weekend at Bedruthan Steps, or any one of the many things I’ve vetoed on the grounds of expense.

But no.
His reply runs counter to his public reaction to our impending move.

“Because then we wouldn’t be moving to Jersey.”

Silence while I think about what to say.

“Don’t you want to go to Jersey?”

“We-ell, I am quite excited about it…”

He doesn’t say -

but I’ll lose all my friends, the only home I remember, everything and everyone I know, my entire life, the universe and everything

So I choose to hear only the “excited” comment.

“It will be exciting,” I try to reassure him, “and I’m sure you’ll soon make some friends.”

But I feel my PR campaign has hit a granite wall.

Are they both pretending to be positive to save us worrying? Surely they’re too young to bother with all that subterfuge.

Surely…

In our house we don’t do it much but we do talk about it - a lot.

“Mummy, can a woman make a baby on her own?” asks my five year-old daughter.

“No, she needs sperm from a man to make the baby grow inside her.”

“How does the sperm get into the woman?”

To read the rest of this article, see The Bad Mothers Club.

You may remember this.

I knew it wouldn’t last, but just a few weeks later I’m faced with this.

Not only is it nearly as messy as it was before I attacked it with an exocet missile, but he’s also set up a den under the pinball machine, in which he sleeps.

If you look very carefully you can see a foot lying on top of the duvet.

Here’s a close-up.

When I explained to a visiting estate agent why there was a duvet, pillow, bedside lamp and book piled up in the corner of the room, he said -

“Perhaps he’s training to be a commando?”

I put this to Ben and he replied -

“No, a spy.”

I have informed Ben that his nights of curling up on a floorspace too small to house a guinea pig humanely will be coming to an abrupt end when potential buyers start descending. Assuming they do, which in this market is debatable.

I will have to brace myself for complaints that I’m ruining his chances of ever being a SpyKid.