Kids eh…

We took Hannah to the Junior School today to meet her new teacher.  Ethan came along too.

We met not only Hannah’s teacher we met her new Head Teacher too.  He’d given a presentation to all of the parents outlining expectations of children and parents etc.

This next bit you need to know for context.  The Junior School Head is a slim male.  The Infant School Head is a larger, shorter lady.  Ethan and Hannah are both currently attending the Infant School.

When we got back home I was chatting to Dave about the afternoon and Ethan was half listening.  I said “I thought the Head was….” and Ethan finished with “…fat!”

I was actually talking about the Junior Head and went on to use words like “switched on, engaged, interested” but Ethan’s word was funnier.

Using a camera

We went to watch the school concert today, along with half of Brentwood.

Hundreds were crowded into a small school hall to watch some 230 infant school pupils performing.

Naturally the room was full of cameras and video cameras and the woman in front of us was one of those with a camera.

It was difficult to see the “action” and many people were using digital cameras on an upwardly extended arm to capture the action.

The lady in front of us was vertically challenged and tried to use the raised digital camera technique.  The only problem was that she had a tall chap sitting in front of her.

Every time she clicked the shutter the camera focused on the item just in front of the lens.  She must have ended up with 15 pictures of a brightly lit man’s head.  The head was so close to the camera flash that it reflected loads of light, fooling the camera into believing the shot was exposed, meaning that the rest of the shot (containing children) was too dimly lit.

I wanted to take the camera from her and explain the problem, because she just wasn’t learning.

Stranger danger

Early yesterday morning I drove past the local school and saw a lone schoolgirl running along the pavement, clearly upset.

I pulled over and spoke to her.  She was running late.  She’d been to a swimming club and something had happened so that she was late.

I offered to give her a lift wherever she needed to go and she accepted.

Gradually she stopped crying and I discovered she was on her way home.  It was the first time she had ever done this journey on her own.

I had assumed she didn’t live far from the school but as she gave me directions to her house I realised the journey we were on was over a mile.

I was surprised that a girl of just seven or eight was expected to walk over a mile after swimming, and before school, on her own.

As we got closer to her house I realised that, whilst I think I did the right thing, she might get into trouble for accepting a lift from a stranger.

When I told my husband later in the day he told me how he’d handle the situation: hand your phone to the child and let them phone their parents and, if required, you can talk to the parents too.  Wish I’d thought of that.

Couldn’t sleep

Dave was due back from Belgium last night.  He’d left on Tuesday and I hadn’t heard from him.

I started thinking that maybe he’d had an accident.  It’s unusual for him not to call while he’s away.

I didn’t really think he’d accident, but he might have done.  I ran through what would have happened if he had had an accident.

Well surely the company would have phoned me.

Except that the HR department are useless and probably mislaid my number.

And would anyone know if he’d had an accident on the way there or would they have assumed he just hadn’t made it because he was sick.

And if he had had an accident then surely the police would have found something with contact details.

Unless it was a major car wreck with fire or in which debris is scattered far and wide.

I started to wonder what time would be a reasonable time to start worrying.

I then realised I had probably already started worrying.

So I tried to persuade myself that all of these thoughts were just hypothetical and everything was OK really.

Lord Roberts's Message to the Troops

I have inherited a book that belonged to my grandfather, William Sadler.

I never knew my grandfather but he served in the first world war and the book is called The Daily Portion Testament. I'm guessing it was issued to troops to give them comfort and to help preserve faith.

This is inside the front cover:

Lord Roberts's Message to the Troops

25th Aug 1914
I ask you to put your trust in God. He will watch over you and strengthen you.
You will find in this little Book guidance when you are in health, comfort when you are in sickness, and strength when you are in adversity.
Roberts.

The message inside the front cover is not overly legible which is not surprising, as if it was Lord Roberts that wrote the message by hand, he was 81 at the time. He died later that year, in November, aged 82.

I wonder if the same time, thought and effort goes into the spiritual welfare of today's troops.

The poncy world of marketing

I received indirect feedback today.  It wasn’t positive.

I’m overly aggressive.

On a good day this means passionate and assertive.  It means fighting for the right course of action and having the courage of my convictions.

On a bad day it means raising my voice and/or swearing and arguing or consistently persisting with an opposing or unpopular point of view.

This is not new news and frankly if I found it easy to change, I probably would.

When I’m stressed I bite my tongue less and I speak out more.  I am stressed right now to the point where tears are not far away for most of my days.  I can’t pinpoint one specific thing that’s causing the stress as I think there are a number of factors but I know it has an impact on my behaviour.

I don’t want sympathy, frankly it doesn’t help and is more likely to push me over the edge.  I just wanted to let people, anyone, maybe nobody, know that this feedback has had an effect.

Instead of being more vocal than normal because of the stress, I now just feel utterly depressed.  I really don’t want to go into work tomorrow or any day.

I know that’s selfish because people are losing their jobs, but I'm not appreciated and I just feel some people would rather I just wasn’t there at all.

So what am I doing about it?  Eating too much, drinking too much and finding excuses not to exercise.  Shouting at my husband and shouting at the children.  Great.

Invasion of privacy

I had an inkling that my doc would refer me to see a specialist so I sorted out my healthcare arrangements.  Not very complicated just arranging to be covered in my own right rather than being a dependant on my husband’s policy.

Doc did refer me so I phoned PPP to get authority to make appt with specialist.

I went through the usual verification of name, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, height in centimetres when I was three, the number of times in the last month I’ve had sex, the number of lightbulbs in my house, the name of my first pet and my pornstar name etc.  And then the conversation turned to the reason for the call.

I was calling from work because all of my membership details were in a work e-mail that I’d only recently received and it hadn’t been followed up by anything in the post.

I was comfortable with explaining that I’d been to the doctor and I had a referral.  I was also comfortable with providing the specialist’s name and the hospital in which he works.  It was when I was asked to describe symptoms that I declined and we arranged that I’d call back when I had more privacy.

I don’t believe it’s the business of anyone at work to know about any medical condition.  I could launch into a diatribe about medical case management but that might have to wait until I’m forced to go through the process.

Summer fruit muffins

This one’s for Tim, after he used the banana and chocolate muffin recipe to make blueberry muffins, and it didn’t quite work.

• 280g plain flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 110g sugar
• 1 egg
• 240ml milk
• 90ml corn oil
• 140g summer fruit (any berries, either alone or in combination: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, cherries etc.), fresh or frozen (don’t thaw frozen berries); larger berries should be coarsely chopped.

1. Pre-heat fan oven to 160 degrees
2. In a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, salt.  Stir in sugar.
3. In another bowl, beat egg and stir in milk and oil.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry.  Stir until just combined, folding in berries at the end using 2-3 gentle strokes to avoid crushing fruit.
5. Spoon mixture into muffin cases and then bake for 20 mins or when tops are lightly browned and spring back when pressed gently.  If frozen fruit was used then add 4-5 minutes to the cooking time.

Sweet

Ethan and Hannah were trying to find something that their dad would like for Father’s Day.

When their dad didn’t have many suggestions then he was presented with a variety of ideas like books, videos (bless Hannah for not thinking DVD), iPod, etc. 

And then Ethan said “What about a book about Grandad?” and Hannah explained.

“Ethan thought Mummy could write a book about Grandad to help you remember him.”

My dad died just over a year ago.  Ethan is such a sweet and caring little boy and his Grandad’s death has obviously affected him.

*Wobbly bottom lip.*

Local elections

We had four parties contesting the local elections and they all had very different ways of trying to get my vote.

Labour did nothing.

Conservatives but boards up everywhere around the town saying “Vote for change. Vote Conservative.”

Lib-Dems put their blurb through the letterbox and knocked on the door for a chat to discuss issues uppermost in my mind.

BNP bought advertising space on a hoarding near the town centre. This was mysteriously papered over “by accident” and then somehow got redone. Not sure I really know exactly what went on.

Who do you think got my vote?

I could blog about Euro elections but frankly there were about 15 candidates and I didn’t know who 80% of them were.

I cannot accept your refusal

To those who might be receiving refusal letters in such a tough labour market – you may want to adopt this approach.

I stumbled across this today.

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,
Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I
regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me
an assistant professor position in your department.
This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually
large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field
of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.
Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at
this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor
in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.
Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.
Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

Road rage

I took the children to a local country park yesterday for an organised treasure hunt.

As we left in the car a lorry was manouvering and blocking our exit.  We waited until he stopped and then I waited again.

The driver had stopped in such a way that the only way we could get around his vehicle was to drive on the wrong side of the road. 

Where this occurs and there’s great visibility of oncoming traffic this would be fine, but it was right near a junction.  Traffic on an A road could pull into the road I was on without either driver having visibility of the other.

The lorry driver indicated I should pull round his vehicle.  I didn’t because I was always taught to check myself before taking anyone else’s word for the safety of a situation.  In this case I couldn’t, so I got out of the car.

I didn’t meet with a particularly co-operative or polite response when I asked the driver if he could park the lorry elsewhere.  I explained why it was dangerous for him to park there and he explained that was why he had waved me around his vehicle.

All very well except his next move was to get out of his cab and walk over to a roadside cafe.  Any other park goers would experience the same problem.

I had no choice and risked driving around his vehicle.  I encountered two vehicles pulling off the fast A road.  Luckily a collision was avoided, but it was definitely not safe.

I was furious but didn’t know what to do.  So I seethed all the way home.

Out of the blue

I met Alice when I was first pregnant.  She and I went to the same ante natal classes.

I discovered that Alice sometimes struggled to get to or from the classes because she didn’t drive.  I offered to help by going to and from the classes via Alice’s house.

As the ante natal class due dates approached the group had started to meet socially.  As babies arrived the group was a mixture of bumps and babies.

Alice wasn’t as lucky as the rest of us.  She had a midwife visit just before her due date and the midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat.  Alice had to give birth to her dead baby.

That is such a tragic and terrible thing to happen to anyone and, in general the group didn’t know how to respond.  I was probably closest to Alice because of the car sharing but I didn’t know what to do either.

I imagined that the last person she would want to see was someone who was still pregnant with a healthy child.

I can’t remember exactly how I kept in touch but I did.  We did talk about her loss and how she was feeling.  I remember broaching the subject of meeting the other mums.  I was honest and said we had hesitated to invite her along because we didn’t want to get it wrong, but I made sure she knew that when, or if, she was ready to meet us she would be very welcome.

We did meet a few times but we didn’t have much in common.  We drifted and became people that send Christmas cards.  Until yesterday.

We hadn’t spoken for years, but yesterday she called, out of the blue.

Perhaps I should have asked why she called, but I didn’t, so we just started talking in a very stilted fashion through lack of familiarity.

She’s become a grandmother (her first child, a daughter, has started her family) but has also suffered terribly with cancer.  I got the feeling she just wanted to talk to someone, anyone.  So we talked.  I listened and shared.

Today, out of the blue, a bouquet of flowers arrived from Alice.  Whilst this is lovely and kind and sweet, I don’t understand it.

The trigger

I looked at our kitchen on Saturday morning and hated it.  There are a thousand things that irritate me about it but the one thing that hit me in the face on Saturday was just how grubby it looked.

It wasn’t the kind of grubby that a bit of cleaning could fix, although there was a bit of that (particularly cobwebs and dust).  It was mainly the paintwork which had just deteriorated over time.

Somehow damp has made its way into some plaster on one wall which gave it a crazed effect akin to a paint crackle effect.  Added to this there was a small gap between the coving and the wall.  Every time anyone walked around in the bathroom above the gap released plaster dust over the kitchen work surface.  This meant that no sooner had the kitchen surfaces been cleaned they would need cleaning again.  It also meant that food couldn’t be stored there.

Also, and this is something I’ve not seen in anyone else’s kitchen, whenever I’ve peeled vegetables the walls have been sprayed with the juice from the potato, carrot or whatever.  I haven’t noticed this when it happened but, over time, this has made the wall look grubby, and it’s impossible to clean.

And then, of course, we have had children since the kitchen was last painted and there are grubby finger marks everywhere.

Something needed to be done.

Unplanned exposure

On Sunday both children had been invited to a swimming pool party.

This was a party in a public swimming pool and my presence was required in the pool.

After lots of splashing around, the swimming part of the party was over and everyone headed towards the changing rooms to get changed.

I’d worn a dress that day, new but not expensive, and as I popped the dress back on I hit a problem: the zip broke.

The zip ran up the side of the dress from hip to underarm and it wasn’t broken just a little bit, it was broken completely.

I didn’t have a jacket or cardigan and I had just one safety pin.

In Who wants to be a Millionaire style, I phoned a friend.

Mel, still in her swimming costume, came and found me.  She may have laughed a bit, but she quickly sprang into action to help me.

We acquired two more safety pins which, although not a neat solution, served to cover most of my embarrassment.  When Mel had dressed we nipped out to her car where she leant me a lovely cardigan that complimented the dress perfectly.

We eventually caught up with the rest of the partygoers and I think I got away with it, just.

The dress is going back.  The question is refund, or replacement?

Brand strength

I had a doctor appointment this morning at 8:30.

I turned up at 8:25 and after using the patient self check-in via a mounted PC screen, I took a seat.

My doctor is wonderful and the surgery is very well run.  I don’t enjoy a visit to the doctor but because my doctor is so lovely and because the surgery is efficient, the process is not as awkward as it could be.

Whenever I’ve made appointments for myself or the children we’ve never had to wait more than five minutes past our appointment time.  How many people can say the same about their doctor?

At 8:40 I frowned.  8:30 is the first appointment of the day so I assumed that there must have been an emergency patient squeezed in ahead of me, especially as I had heard my doctor’s voice over the tannoy calling someone else’s name.

At 8:50 I started to think the surgery was squeezing in too many emergency patients and I became fidgety.

At 9:00 I wondered if I’d written down the wrong appointment time.  Maybe my appointment was 9:00.

At 9:10 I checked my diary and decided I couldn’t possibly have written down the wrong time.

At 9:15 I went to the reception and explained that I wasn’t used to waiting and I asked her to check my appointment time.

My appointment was 8:30.  It transpired that, for some reason, the patient check-in hadn’t worked.

My previous experience with the brand “My Doctor” was so strong that it took me 45 minutes to doubt the brand and, before doubting the brand, I doubted myself.

I think that’s amazing.