Keir Royale

I spent much of this afternoon as a refugee from an evacuated building, seeking a computer terminal on which to ply my trade.

I found one, and it was actually a lot faster than the one I normally use.

But in the process of wandering the streets of St Helier, wondering where I’d be likely to find a spare terminal, I started musing about business continuity - not something I’d ever considered, or even heard of, before starting this job.

And now I discover there’s an entire institute devoted to it.

There wasn’t much of it in evidence this afternoon - not in an organised way.
The difficulty was that we all thought we’d be shut out for about an hour, and as it was just before 1pm when the crisis hit, we all went off for lunch.
As instructed by the police.

But then when we returned to see the blue and white tape still fluttering in the substantial breeze, we found they were about to blow up a backpack.
Then they had to conduct a dogged search of the entire nine storey building.

And that took another hour or so.

There’s only so long you can spend in town, not spending money. So I decided to seek out an alternative office.

I wasn’t the only one who found refuge in a nearby government building, gratefully entering my name and password in an attempt to return to the normal working day, cursing the fact that the bits of paper littering my desk were not safely sheltering in my handbag.

But what of the majority of the 300 or so people sent out into the warm sun of St Helier?

I’m led to believe one resourceful department found their own form of business continuity in the nearby Adelphi.

While I spotted one employee returned to the office laden with suspicious looking bags. And I don’t mean they looked like they contained explosives. Not from the labels anyhow.

If I’d known in advance I could have booked a hair appointment, or half a day off, or I could have belatedly joined the National Postgraduate Committee’s attempt to Keep Wednesday Afternoons Free.

As it was, I formulated my own, small, Business Continuity plan.

And then I went home.

It was a week before Glastonbury weekend, and we still found ourselves packing up a damp tent in the gaps between heavy showers.

It certainly doesn’t seem like a year has passed since we last risked Dartmoor under canvas.
Loyal, long term readers will remember previous shots of dripping Gazebos and leaking cagoules.

This year the rain was less persistent, but just as wet when it did come.

I speak, of course, of the annual TVH3 Hash Camp at the River Dart Park.

The organisers are pitiless.
The weekend involved orienteering (in the rain) a communal BBQ (not in the rain) and small pockets here and there set aside for sitting around drinking tea/coffee/beer/wine with friends while the children disappeared into the green yonder in a yowling gang.

But even the very smallest people did not escape the wet ‘n active theme of the weekend.

There was a kids’ hash on Sunday morning, in which the resilient youngsters followed a trail across streams (”Never use a bridge when a stream will do” being the Hashers’ number one rule) down slippery wet steps and into a murky lake to get their just rewards, courtesy of Haribo.

As he chewed enthusiastically, Ben shivered and commented -

“Why do I always end up frozen after a hash weekend?”

A fair question, and one that I can only answer with words like Dartmoor, precipitation, masochistic and mad.

It was a little harder to get there this year, what with the English Channel getting in the way, and the journey involved late arrivals and early departures.

But despite the occasional downpour, it was (in the children’s words) BRILLIANT!

And not only did the girls win the tug of war (with a little help from me), but I also managed a quick foray into Ashburton for a bit of impromptu bag purchasing.

It’s for work, you understand, but it does have lots of pockets and secret compartments.
And it fits into the box on the back of my scooter.

Well worth another wet weekend in Devon.

The last time Blog Fodder hitched a ride he looked like this.

He now has less hair, and, one would have thought, more sense.

But no.

He’s just hitched 6 lifts to get from Norwich to the East Midlands. And who was his companion on this epic journey through the flatlands?

An old mate from his travelling days?

Me?

His trusty, tatty, much-loved backpack?

No.

His son and mine.

Ben. Who’s 9 years old.

So today, both our children have experienced a “first”.

Hannah cantered for the first time.
And Ben stuck his thumb out in the middle of nowhere, with his Dad, because Norwich is too deep in the back end of nowhere to provide a one-way car hire service after lunchtime on a Saturday.

I should know.

I spent 2 hours on the phone trying to arrange one.
I did manage to speak to a few people in the call centres of most of the major hire care firms, but not one of them could arrange a car to be at Norwich airport after midday on a Saturday.

So they hitched.

And I couldn’t even monitor their journey through regular phone calls, as Blog Fodder’s technical skills do not extend to making a Jersey mobile work in England.

“I did everything they told me to, but it just wouldn’t work,” he explained, at 10.30pm when he eventually called to say they were safe.

“Is Ben OK?” I enquired, sort of expecting the answer I got.

“Yes, he loved it. He had his thumb out. We met some great people, it restored my faith in human nature. One bloke offered to come and take us all the way if we were stuck for more than an hour.”

I suppose that was a better option than calling Social Services.

So when they return, triumphant after their male-bonding weekend, Hannah and I will have to listen to tales of the road without snorting with derision.

At least we got to see Dr Who.

I mentioned this book the other week, and now I’ve had a chance to flick through it.

It features a lot of child-focused travelling experiences, some of which I’m mighty glad were not mine.

Like the plane trip suffered by Holly Korbey with two kids and the Baby Cheeses.

The unasked for visit to Atlanta imposed on Julia Litton and her family.

Or the vomit-laden journey to a nearby mountain endured by Sally Bjornsen.

Or the overnight train trip featuring four premature babies, two sisters and a breast pump, which Susan Wolter Nettell volunteered herself for.

In comparison, a mere ferry journey across the Channel to face French people and peche a pied was small fry.

I’m quite looking forward to trying out the Road Trip idea that Donna Gephart enjoyed with her pre-teen son.

But I’m pretty sure I’ll never manage Sarah Davies’ Mile High Motherhood trip - partly because my children are already children and not babies, but mostly because I would never have attempted it in a million years.
No, make that two million.

Anyhow - Car Seat may give you some ideas, or it may confirm your existing prejudices.

Perhaps you, like me, would not contemplate flying your own light aircraft across America alone but for your small baby.
And yes, I mean alone.
No other adult on board to tend to your small baby’s needs, just you, your breasts and your auto-pilot.

I feel a little faint just thinking about it.

We were brought up short by our son the other day.

We were in the middle of an argument.
Not a particularly serious one, but one of those tired, irritable bickering kinds of arguments you get into sometimes.

Well we do anyhow.

I can’t even remember what started it, but I do know we were batting to and fro, mithering about who it was that had misinterpreted the other’s tone first.

A little along the lines of…

“You deliberately chose to take offence when I didn’t mean it that way at all.”

“You accused me of snapping at you first.”

“No I didn’t.”

etc etc

yada yada yada

While we were offering this unedifying display of how not to behave, Ben was sitting on a kitchen chair between us, his head twisting from one to the other as if he were watching Wimbledon.
With interest, but with obvious amusement.

A little like those stalwarts on Henman Hill must have felt when Tim got to the semi-finals yet again.

And then, in a short gap when we were both pausing for breath, he said -

“You two are worse than me and Hannah.”

We had to laugh. He was right. And he’s learned his lesson well.

I’m forever saying to him, “Can you just accept what I’m saying without arguing all the time?”

His answer, if he weren’t too sensible to give it when he can see I’m about to get Really Cross, would be,

“Like you and Daddy, you mean?”

One day he won’t worry about tipping me over into Really Cross mode, and he will say it anyway.

Will I shout at him, or will I laugh out loud?

“Quarrelling is like cutting water with a sword.”

Chinese Proverb

Before we moved, Ben said -

“I’ll make just the same mess in Jersey.”

And Hannah said –

“I thought I’d live in Plymouth all my life and now I’m being cut out of it.”

Well, both are partly right.

Ben is still messy and disorganised, and Hannah no longer lives in Plymouth.

But…

Ben spends so much tme outdoors he has little time to make a mess in his bedroom. Which is much easier on the eye.

And in five months we’ve already been back to Devon once, we are heading back again for half term, and will probably go again to repeat our annual weekend camping deluge of last year.

So not quite cut out.

But even though we’re not quite in another country, life is different here.

There are the cars for a start. The last time I lived here it was pretty bad. This time it’s so awful that I’ve bought myself a scooter to save commuting time and parking charges.

I took my dirt-cheap, auction-bargain piece of Chinese jiggery-pokery to Bob’s for a box to keep my lippy in, and he told me it wasn’t roadworthy.

So now I’ve had to book it in for a service.
It’s only a couple of months old, and I bought it to save money, not to add itself to the long list of Things That are More Expensive Here.

And there are the houses.
We’re still renting.
As house prices slip in England, they continue on a relentless upward trajectory in Jersey.

So the ultimate question will be - is life in Jersey worth the drop in our standard of housing?

At the moment, the children would say YES.
I would say - the jury’s still out.
And Blog Fodder would say - a definite NO!!

He’s still adjusting. But he likes the auctions.
They’re e-bay without the irritating technology.

And now our limited storage space is cluttered with bits of old china, derelict TVs and vintage (non-working) phones that he says “were part of a job lot that might do for something.”

I’m wondering what they will “do for”.
Perhaps to make the mess Ben is no longer around to create?

When is it time for a hair-do?

When you can tuck your former fringe behind your ears?

When you have to wash your hair every single day just to make it look half-way decent?
(I apologise to all those people, primarily Americans in my experience, who always wash their hair every day, but I find the concept an alien and unnecessary one)

Or is it when a few amusing “oh aren’t I getting old, tra la” grey hairs mysteriously manage to hook up together to make an entire grey section of traitorous tresses, lurking above your not-yet-frozen-by-Botox face like a foretaste of the grim reaper?

Apologies for the Cold Comfort Farm moment, but it is a traumatic time when your hair starts to let you down after a lifetime of reliable, sometimes even honourable, service.

My time seems to have come.
I need a branchage.
But when can a FTWM snatch the time away from her Mummy-starved cherubs who spend all weekend trailing round after her, whining -
“Why do you have to work so much Mummy?”

Well it’s not that bad, but it is a problem.

I used to get my hair cut when they were at school.

Now I can either get it done on a Saturday, which is sacrosanct Time With the Children.

Or I can take a long lunch break from work, which means I have to stay late which means I don’t get home in time for the sacrosanct Tea With the Children.

So getting my hair cut (and the grey chunk zapped by dangerous chemicals) is the emotional equivalent of telling my children I neither care about them nor want to spend time with them.

Isn’t it?

If I can’t persuade a hairdresser to open after 8pm, when the children are in bed, I will either have to get Blog Fodder to do it, and I think you’ll agree he doesn’t look up to the job, or learn to love an increasingly straggly topping.

If I went for something like this -

I may get away with going just once a year.

Or if I chose this kind of statement -

I wouldn’t need to worry about the children as they’d never speak to me again.

It’s a conundrum wrapped inside a puzzle, masquerading as a “Why the hell don’t you just do it?” question.

Remember this picture?

They’ve struck again.

To be fair, since Blog Fodder’s last rant, which was actually about a different ferry company, HD Ferries have refunded our fare for the cancelled trip and given us a compensatory free trip. Which went well.

But today, amid seas of glass, an hour’s delay ensued.

No word of a why or how long, so I looked up my previous e-mails about the Easter cancellation, and found a phone number. Always difficult in a land where websites rule.

And someone called us back.

“Sorry, we’re running on low power and with another ferry in the harbour already, we didn’t want to risk coming in at the same time.”

Surely a simple thing to announce over the tannoy, to prevent families incarcerated in stationary cars from melting into hot and hopeless oblivion.

But it was obviously too difficult a task, and a ferry load of passengers were left in the dark - metaphorically rather than literally - for an hour before being allowed on board.

And was there a riot?
A confusion of car horns?
A merest toot of a beeper?

Nothing.

Just a ferry full of Brits waiting patiently, caps in hand.

Surely this would not happen in France without a few complaints?
Surely our American cousins would have risen up against shoddy communication strategies?
Surely we must be the quietest, meekest consumers in the world today.

We get the service we deserve, and if we don’t shout about it a bit more it’s not going to change.

Or we could just learn to swim a bit faster?

Technorati Profile

One of my pet hates is the use of the word “haitch” when what the speaker means is “aitch”.

Apologies to those of you who put an “aitch” at the front of the letter “aitch”, but you’re adding a letter that is patently not there.

And now Ben has started doing it.

“All my friends say it like that,” he explains.

“Well they’re wrong,” I say, “and you don’t have to copy them.”

“But I want to be like them.”

Oh dear. Nine years old and a peer-following sheep already.

He’s also started on about wanting a mobile phone, a telly in his room and a laptop of his own which his sister isn’t allowed to use.

Jersey is a more affluent place than Plymouth, and most of his classmates seem to have all these things. Unless they’re fibbing and Ben believes them.

But whether they’re pre-teen fantasists or have each got a multi-media centre in their bedroom, Ben’s having none of these things at the age of nine.

I can’t even imagine who he’d call on his mobile.
His friends?
They spend all the hours between school and tea-time out on their bikes.
They’d have to position themselves at two different ends of the school field in order not to hear each other without the aid of a phone.

His family?
Why would he need to phone us when we’re trying to train him to come home when he’s told to come home, rather than having the option of calling to ask if he can have “just another ten minutes”?

We do need more than one PC though.
Our laptop has just given up the ghost, and my plan is to get myself a spanking new piece of technology and leave the children to share this old dinosaur.
I bought it online while in the early stages of labour with Hannah, and she’s now 7, which in computer terms must make it a relic of a former age.

It freezes regularly and chunters away to itself, happily ignoring all the frantic keyboard commands that it should actually DO something.

But a laptop of his own, kept in his bedroom, is not on Ben’s cards.

We’re having to get used to being the poor relations of everyone we meet here, and I can see it’s going to prompt some increasingly heartfelt arguments between us and the children.

But pronouncing words correctly is free and easy: at least it was, when we were their main focus.

It’s inevitable that we will eventually drop down the pecking order in our children’s hierarchy of people to please.

I just thought we had a few more years yet.