Keir Royale

When they first mention it, you think “what a lovely way of getting used to public speaking”, then you start wondering what your child is revealing about life at home. I’m talking News Time. My daughter has just started sharing her weekend activities with her Year One classmates.

 “So what did you tell everyone today?” I ask after school, partly as a way to talk about her day, and partly to check she chose one of the healthy outdoor activities we inflicted on her and her brother, rather than the Saturday morning they spent slumped in front of TMI.

 “I said I played in my room.”
 “All weekend?”
 “No, but you’re only allowed to say one thing.”
 “But we went for a walk on the beach, you rode your bikes in the park….”
 “I can’t say everything I did Mummy. Anyway, Ciera said she’d been to the park so I couldn’t say that as well could I?”

 So, do I plan such a punishing programme of activities each weekend that she has no choice but to share her tales of abseiling down Brent Tor, walking the entire length of the South West coastal path or pony trekking across Exmoor?

No, that way madness lies. Instead I resolve not to ask her what she said, so I can relax in ignorance of the impression her teacher gets of family life Chez Keir.

Then I start to “help out in the classroom” for an hour on a Monday morning, the very day they sit in a circle and tell each other their news.

I sit quietly and endure her telling the class:
“We dipped marshmallows in melted chocolate…” I smile, shrug my shoulders, and she continues, “… because Daddy gave them to Mummy for Valentine’s Day.”

The teacher says “Ah!” and my reputation as a mother who feeds her children squishy sugar dipped in melted sugar is saved by the once a year nature of the occasion.

“We went hashing and my mummy dropped me into the river.”

This had nothing to do with dodgy cakes and everything to do with running, following a trail which traverses streams and hedges with no thought for the state of a runner’s trainers, and carrying her over a particularly muddy river bank. But does her teacher know that? And even if she does, it still makes me sound like an adrenalin-junkie who drags her children across inhospitable terrain for fun without a thought  for their safety.

 But this was the worst of all:

“We went to Toys R Us. Ben got a gun and I got a Bratz doll, called Chloe. Her feet come off, she’s really cool.”

Their gran had sent them some money, what could I do?

Time for a comprehensive programme of punishing outdoor activities…

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