Keir Royale

It’s very strange to feel so removed from my children’s school.

In our last life, I used to be a governor, a PTA committee member, and a once-a-week-for-an-hour-of-mayhem parent helper.

Here, I’ve met their teachers twice, have exchanged barely a sentence with them, and keep forgetting one of their names.

I can only remember it when I think of Peter Rabbit.
The elusive name is Mcgregor.

But what I do know is that Ben rates his teacher. In fact he rates him so highly, that we’ve moved lights out forward an hour.

This is because Top Teacher told his class that they should all be asleep by 8pm if they want to be in a fit state for learning the next day.

How long have I been banging on about bedtimes being important?
Only nine years.

OK, so for the first few years my attempt at communication may have been through controlled crying rather than actual conversation, but I was trying to hammer the same point into reluctant little brains.

It worked to a limited degree on a good day.

Until the advent of Top Teacher, Hannah would cede control between 7.15 and 7.30, while Ben would pursue reading, manipulating plastic soldiers and listening at doors until 9pm.

Not any more.

These days I’m downstairs with the evening stretching ahead of me by 8.05pm.
I’d forgotten what’s on telly that early.

Not a lot, I’ve re-discovered.

Especially now we’re living in The Land that Digital TV Forgot.

But at least it means that the moment when they reach the age of going to bed later than us, when they’re awake and up and downstairs all evening may have been put back by a year or so.

So thanks very much Mr… what was your name? Something to do with Jemima Puddleduck wasn’t it?

The verdicts are coming in, down here in what used to be called “Britain’s South Sea Island” back in the glory days of nineteen-sixties tourism.

Ben continues to remain determinedly upbeat, using the word “brilliant” whenever his new school is mentioned.

He also says -

“It’s old fashioned, but I like it.”
“They’re strict, but I like it.”
“I like my tie, can I wear it out to dinner?”

And his bemusement at having to say Grace before cramming sandwiches into his mouth at lunchtime has disappeared as he gets used to the new regime.

Hannah though, is more circumspect. When asked how her day was, she generally replies,

“Between good and bad.”

But she does now have half a best friend, and definitely wants to return for a second bash at ballet and swimming.

As for me, I have to get used to a new relationship with the children.

When I get home they are desperate to tell me everything both at once, and then argue with each other over whose turn it is to speak to me.

But then last Sunday when Ben came downstairs to find me in the kitchen he asked -

“How come you’re still here?”

“It’s Sunday,” I replied.

“Oh yeah,” he said, turning back to his Nintendo DS.

Well, they’ve had their first day at their new school.

This morning could have gone badly awry. It involved: -

- shirts with buttons
- ties - which in Ben’s case was not on a bit of elastic
- itchy jumpers
- plastic bags instead of PE bags.

But they got dressed without a word of protest, and disappeared into their classrooms with no more than a hint of panic flitting across their eyes.

And now I hear from Mike that Hannah said of her day -

“I had butterflies at first, but then the butterflies started smiling.”

It may be some time before the far-off island of adventure comes up with a broadband connection for the little white (temporary) house in the country.

Until then, I am at the mercy of a work-based IT network that doesn’t like to encourage any meaningful contact with the outside world.

So the first few weeks of January may pass by in a haze of real-life trauma, unmediated by digital interpretation.

A bientot!