Keir Royale

We decided they both deserved a treat - Hannah for her ballet exam and Ben for unaccountably receiving a certificate after his first week back at school, which congratulates him on being kind, helpful, hard-working and setting a good example for the Y3 children joining his class.

After checking with his teacher that he was, indeed, the intended recipient, we thought we ought to reinforce the positive feedback.

So MIke’s just been to see McFly with him.

Ben came home saying -

“That was the best treat I’ve ever had.”

Mike had done half his crossword. But I think he had the best of the deal.

Next month, I get to watch Jade, Sasha, Yasmin and Cloe (sic) funking it up on stage. Hannah’s treat will be my nemesis - Bratz in Concert.

And for weeks after enduring it, Hannah will still be strutting about like a pole dancer. And I’ll be kicking myself for leaving it so late to book that there were no seats left for Joseph, and I had to think of an alternative.

At least these shows never make it as far as Jersey.

A small miracle has happened in our house. The children can read music.

I’ve often sat down at the piano with them in an attempt to interest them in Doe a deer or Z-cars, but while Hannah happily picked up the first few notes of Maria’s singing lesson, Ben remained resolutely uninterested.

After a year of learning guitar though, he wants to add piano to his repertoire -

“Not with you Mummy, with a proper teacher.”

It’s true my expertise ends somewhere around grade four, but he knows how to hurt a person.

I managed to find someone young, cheap, and not fixated on exams, and both Ben and Hannah started on the same day.
Just twenty minutes each, always leave them wanting more.

Two lessons down the line, and Ben is enthusiastically trying to play his piece - When the Saints Go Marching In - two-handed and at the speed of the Flight of the Bumble Bee.

When I point out that it’s not meant to go that fast, and ask why he’s playing it that fast, he replies -

“Because I want to.”
Shades of Billie Piper aged fourteen.

I gave up piano lessons when forced to practise, and - as predicted by parents and grandparents - have since regretted my decision. So I’m playing it gently.

I, too, was enthusiastic at first, so I shall be watching out for signs that it’s becoming wearisome.

A weekend away has inspired Hannah, as her fourteen year old cousin “can do it like this Mummy.”
And she proceeds to run her fingers up and down the keyboard, tickling the keys into an approximation of an enraged and slightly drunk Bela Bartok.

It’s great when older cousins provide positive role models.
Saves Mike and me a job.

Er, well, we seem to be moving to Jersey.
Old Jersey, not the new kind.

Back to The Rock for me…

Onward and upward to a new home, jurisdiction and culture for Mike, Ben and Hannah.

That powerpoint must have done the trick!

So now we have to sell the mansion in Plymouth to buy a studio apartment (aka bedsit) in Jersey.

I exaggerate, we don’t have a mansion, but we may well end up in a bedsit.

Still, I’m sure the beaches will be ample compensation.

“Oh no-o!”

That was my first reaction when I saw I’d been tagged, as I’m not feeling up to creative thought.

But then I realised, being tagged means I don’t have to think of anything to blog about.
My subject has been given to me on a plate - so thanks Jen, and here goes…

Total number of books

No idea. Walls full of them. Hundreds at least.
But I do know I can track my age and interests as I look through them.

There are all the English degree tomes, like the Complete Works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and Pope and Keats.

Then there are the post-uni explosion of easy-to-read novels and tough feminist tracts like Man Made Language, The Female Eunuch, Stand We at Last and Woman on the Edge of Time.

Then we move through an enthusiastic few years of keeping up with all the latest and feted authors, from Alice Walker to Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison.

This was followed by the fallow breast-feeding years, when my taste in literature turned to Ben Elton, Minette Walters and yes, even Ian Rankin.

Now the children are older and suck slightly less life-force from my brain, I alternate… a few quick pot boilers interspersed with the odd worthy tome.

Last Book Read

Well I can proudly say Hospital, by Toby Litt, which was very long and often a little perplexing. But brilliant and enjoyable, in a “What’s he getting at?” kind of a way.
I’m now onto A Year in the Merde, which is rather more lowbrow.

Last book bought

Oh dear, I can’t remember much further back than the latest offerings I bought for Ben - one of the Swallows and Amazons series I think.
I did buy Hospital, but A Year in the Merde is Mike’s.

I bought The Accidental (Ali Smith) a few months ago.
I tend to have a stack of books not yet tackled, so I don’t buy them very often.

Five Meaningful Books

I read and loved all the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Island of Adventure series, Five Find Outers, etc. You get the picture. I was an Enid Blyton fan, and loved her so much I ate the corners of all the pages as I was reading.
I read them voariciously and without thought.
Perhaps my mother should have encouraged a wider selection of reading material, but I guess if I was happy, quiet and usefully engaged, that was enough for her.

I loved all Noel Streatfield’s books too, especially the Gemma ones, as I wanted to be Julie Andrews and anything that helped feed this fantasy was OK by me.

As a Channel Islander, albeit from the “other island” I loved G B Edwards’ The Book of Ebenezer Le Page.
It’s a wonderful warm, affectionate, long-winded story of a Guernseyman, his friends and family, his woes and his feuds.
It starts when horse-drawn carriages were the quickest mode of transport, and ends at the time of the moon landings.
Read it, it’s brilliant.

And I have to mention Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, which my flatmates and I sat reading of an evening when we should have been out on the town.
We’d all be in the sitting room, chuckling as we read.
He wrote them as a series so the cliffhangers are compelling. They were very much “of their time”, and always remind me of a specific time in my life.

Good grief, this is beginning to feel like Desert Island Books… only one more to go.

I think I’ll have to go with J D Salinger, who wrote so little but who may have been busy toiling away in his self-imposed exile all these years.
I look forward to reading more from him, if he allows it to be published.
He’s nothing short of genius.

And now over to - Stay at Home Dad; Super Mommy and SUB; and Linda.

Feel free to ignore me if you like, I’m used to it.